“Not much! We can't afford it.”
The Colonel smiled benignantly. “My dear boy, my very dear young friend, listen to me. Your paternal ancestor is the only human being who has ever succeeded in making a perfect monkey of me. When I wanted to purchase from him a right of way through his absurd Valley of the Giants, in order that I might log my Squaw Creek timber, he refused me. And to add insult to injury, he spouted a lot of rot about his big trees, how much they meant to him, and the utter artistic horror of running a logging-train through the grove—particularly since he planned to bequeath it to Sequoia as a public park. He expects the city to grow up to it during the next twenty years.
“My boy, that was the first bad break your father made. His second break was his refusal to sell me a mill-site. He was the first man in this county, and he had been shrewd enough to hog all the water-front real estate and hold onto it. I remember he called himself a progressive citizen, and when I asked him why he was so assiduously blocking the wheels of progress, he replied that the railroad would build in from the south some day, but that when it did, its builders would have to be assured of terminal facilities on Humboldt Bay. 'By holding intact the spot where rail and water are bound to meet,' he told me, 'I insure the terminal on tidewater which the railroad must have before consenting to build. But if I sell it to Tom, Dick, and Harry, they will be certain to gouge the railroad when the latter tries to buy it from them. They may scare the railroad away.'”
“Naturally!” Bryce replied. “The average human being is a hog, and merciless when he has the upper hand. He figures that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. My father, on the contrary, has always planned for the future. He didn't want that railroad blocked by land-speculators and its building delayed. The country needed rail connection with the outside world, and moreover his San Hedrin timber isn't worth a hoot until that feeder to a transcontinental road shall be built to tap it.”
“But he sold Bill Henderson the mill-site on tidewater that he refused to sell me, and later I had to pay Henderson's heirs a whooping price for it. And I haven't half the land I need.”
“But he needed Henderson then. They had a deal on together. You must remember, Colonel, that while Bill Henderson held that Squaw Creek timber he later sold you, my father would never sell him a mill-site. Can't you see the sporting point of view involved? My father and Bill Henderson were good-natured rivals; for thirty years they had tried to outgame each other on that Squaw Creek timber. Henderson thought he could force my father to buy at a certain price, and my father thought he could force Henderson to sell at a lesser price; they were perfectly frank about it with each other and held no grudges. Of course, after you bought Henderson out, you foolishly took over his job of trying to outgame my father. That's why you bought Henderson out, isn't it? You had a vision of my father's paying you a nice profit on your investment, but he fooled you, and now you're peeved and won't play.”
Bryce hitched his chair farther toward the Colonel. “Why shouldn't my dad be nice to Bill Henderson after the feud ended?” he continued. “They could play the game together then, and they did. Colonel, why can't you be as sporty as Henderson and my father? They fought each other, but they fought fairly and in the open, and they never lost the respect and liking each had for the other.”
“I will not renew your logging contract. That is final, young man. No man can ride me with spurs and get away with it.”
“Oh, I knew that yesterday.”
“Then why have you called on me to-day, taking up my time on a dead issue?”