Nancy's cheeks flushed hotly. But she stifled her feelings. She was confident of herself, and despite the manner of the challenge, she knew the moment of her great opportunity had come.
With a quick movement she crossed her knees and leant forward. She smiled in response.
"Yet, it's easy," she said boldly, with bland retaliation. "The reports are not good. And the trouble stands out clear as daylight. I guess a big scale contour map is the key to it. We've 'hand-weeded' the Shagaunty Valley. It's picked bare to the bone. The folks have cleared the forests right away to the higher slopes of the river. We're moving farther and farther away from the river highway. Well, that's all right in its way. Ordinarily that would just mean our light railways are extending farther, and a few cents more are added to our transport costs. Owing to our concentration of organisation that wouldn't signify. No. It's Nature, it's the forest itself turning us down. And the map, and the reports show that. The camps are right out on the plateau surrounding the valley, which is unprotected from winter storms. The close, luxurious growth of the valley we have been accustomed to is gone. The standing cordage of lumber is no less, only in bulk, girth. The trees are mostly less than half the girth. The result? Why, they have to work farther out. Each camp cuts over four times the area. Instead of a proportion of, say, two trees in five, it's about one in, say, ten. It looks like a simple sum. I should say we've lumbered that valley at least one season too long."
The man's smile had passed. There was no longer derision in his keen eyes. He had invited this girl's talk for the sake of hearing it. Now he was caught in admiration of her clear perception.
"Do the reports bear out those facts?"
His question was sharp, and Nancy realised she had done well.
She shook her head.
"No. They do just the thing you'd expect them to do," she said. "They make every sort of excuse that couldn't possibly account for the drop. And avoid the real cause which their writers are perfectly aware of." She shrugged her pretty shoulders. "You wouldn't expect it otherwise. You want to remember those reports are written by bosses who're more interested in their own comfort than in the affairs of the Skandinavia."
"How?"
Again the girl's expressive shrug.