“I suppose I'll have to abandon logging in Township Nine and go back to the San Hedrin,” Bryce sighed resignedly.
“If you do, you'll go broke. You can't afford it. You're on the verge of insolvency this minute.”
“I suppose, since you decline to haul our logs, after the expiration of our present contract, and in view of the fact that we are not financially able to build our own logging railroad, that the wisest course my father and I could pursue would be to sell our timber in Township Nine to you. It adjoins your holdings in the same township”
“I had a notion the situation would begin to dawn upon you.” The Colonel was smiling now; his handsome face was gradually assuming the expression pontifical. “I'll give you a dollar a thousand feet stumpage for it.”
“On whose cruise?”
“Oh, my own cruisers will estimate it.”
“I'm afraid I can't accept that offer. We paid a dollar and a half for it, you know, and if we sold it to you at a dollar, the sale would not bring us sufficient money to take up our bonded indebtedness; we'd only have the San Hedrin timber and the Valley of the Giants left, and since we cannot log either of these at present, naturally we'd be out of business.”
“That's the way I figured it, my boy.”
“Well—we're not going out of business.”
“Pardon me for disagreeing with you. I think you are.”