“My ten-year contract has but one more year to run, and recently I tried to get Pennington to renew it. He was very nice and sociable, but—he named me a freight-rate, for a renewal of the contract for five years, of three dollars per thousand feet. That rate is prohibitive and puts us out of business.”
“Not necessarily,” Bryce returned evenly. “How about the State railroad commission? Hasn't it got something to say about rates?”
“Yes—on common carriers. But Pennington's load is a private logging-road; my contract will expire next year, and it is not incumbent upon Pennington to renew it. And one can't operate a sawmill without logs, you know.”
“Then,” said Bryce calmly, “we'll shut the mill down when the log-hauling contract expires, hold our timber as an investment, and live the simple life until we can sell it or a transcontinental road builds into Humboldt County and enables us to start up the mill again.”
John Cardigan shook his head. “I'm mortgaged to the last penny,” he confessed, “and Pennington has been buying Cardigan Redwood Lumber Company first-mortgage bonds until he is in control of the issue. He'll buy in the San Hedrin timber at the foreclosure sale, and in order to get it back and save something for you out of the wreckage, I'll have to make an unprofitable trade with him. I'll have to give him my timber adjoining his north of Sequoia, together with my Valley of the Giants, in return for the San Hedrin timber, to which he'll have a sheriff's deed. But the mill, all my old employees, with their numerous dependents—gone, with you left land-poor and without a dollar to pay your taxes. Smashed—like that!” And he drove his fist into the palm of his hand.
“Perhaps—but not without a fight,” Bryce answered, although he knew their plight was well-nigh hopeless. “I'll give that man Pennington a run for his money, or I'll know the reason.”
The telephone on the table beside him tinkled, and he took down the receiver and said “Hello!”
“Mercy!” came the clear, sweet voice of Shirley Sumner over the wire. “Do you feel as savage as all that, Mr. Cardigan?”
For the second time in his life the thrill that was akin to pain came to Bryce Cardigan. He laughed. “If I had known you were calling, Miss Sumner,” he said, “I shouldn't have growled so.”
“Well, you're forgiven—for several reasons, but principally for sending me that delicious blackberry pie. Of course, it discoloured my teeth temporarily, but I don't care. The pie was worth it, and you were awfully dear to think of sending it. Thank you so much.”