The little city of Wauchung straggled over and between and almost burrowed under a chain of sand-hills—shining yellow hills with tops entirely bald save for a spear of rank grass here and there or a dwarfed pine. Outside the mouth of the river was Lake Michigan; behind the little city were the pine forests of the Lower Peninsula. And the one interesting object of this whole region was a man—for houses and shops were commonplace, streets were ill-paved, the railroad was wanting in energy and capital, the inhabitants were mostly leveled down to the colourless monotony of the sand-hills—a man named Martin L. Higginson.
There was one imposing building of granite and red bricks on the business street—a glance showed the name of Higginson over the entrance. Two large mills stood by the river, surrounded by piles of lumber on the land, fronted by rafts of logs in the water, sending out their droning hum all day long (and frequently all night long); inside, men were bustling and pushing in the effort to keep up with the drive of work outside, the long runways were active with men and with moving lumber—and on each of the mills was the name Higginson. Two steamers lay at the Higginson wharves—lake carriers, both, of the Higginson line. A logging railroad ran back some twenty miles into the forest; it ran over Higginson land to Higginson land, to bring what logs the little river could not bring—for the Higginson property extended far to north, south and eastward. There was, in fact, one rich man in the little city—one man who had done what he could to keep the railroad busy, to keep the harbour dredged, to keep the streets in better condition, to make Wauchung a real city, awake, energetic, proud—one man who represented Wauchung to the outside world: Mr. Higginson.
An elderly gentleman he was, a man who had passed the fighting age, who would have stopped to rest any time these last six or eight years if the business had permitted it; but it had stood until recently that the one man in Wauchung who did not take his vacation every year was Mr. Higginson. As it often falls out, however, one of his severest misfortunes had brought its blessing. For five years and more he had looked for a man, for the man, whom he could trust to take up the burden that was beginning to weigh so heavily; and for five years he had failed. He liked young Crosman, the head clerk in the office; but Crosman, though welcome enough at the house as Mamie Higginson's regular caller, hardly showed administrative qualities—his limitations were marked. And so the search had gone on: he had tried them, young “men and middle-aged men”—and he had found that all of them wanted money, and none of them wanted work. And what he had to offer was work, little else—hard work, work for head and hands, much thinking of the business, little thinking of self: the spirit that would live for the business, that would take its pride in the quality of the Higginson work, that would strive, as he had striven, to make the name of Higginson a synonym for honest work, work done on time, work done a little better than the contract demanded. Where could he find a man like this?
And then, after five years, through a shipwreck of all occurrences, he had found him. He knew him at once, as he had thought he should. Looking down from the heights of character and accomplishments, on a world of little persons, foolish persons, earnest, weak persons, dishonest persons, pompous, empty persons—all the sorts that go to make up a man's world, and nearly all that he is likely to see, unfortunately, from the heights—looking out and down and all about, he had seen a young man's head and shoulders climbing up above the rabble. The young man had not yet climbed very high; but he was climbing, and that was enough. So Mr. Higginson had come to think more lightly of the rheumatism, the failing eyes, the many signs of age that had been brought sharply to his notice by that shock and exposure on the west coast.
At the time of this chapter, Mr. Higginson and Halloran were seated in the office—Halloran before his desk, Mr. Higginson beside it—looking at a typewritten letter or statement. Twenty-four hours earlier Mr. William H. Babcock, of G. Hyde Bigelow & Company, had taken the train for Chicago, leaving this document behind him; and now the time had come to answer it.
This was the culmination of a long series of letters and interviews. The beginning had been when this same Mr. Babcock had endeavoured to buy the Wauchung mills in the interest of Mr. Bigelow. It seemed that Mr. Bigelow was about to enter the lumber business. His genius for combination, for exploitation, was to be given a new direction. Kentucky Coal, New Freighters, Northwest Chicago, all his various interests were prospering, thanks to the name of Bigelow, and now the lumber business was to be vitalized, to be vivified. Just how it was to be done, or what was to be done, was not known; that secret was kept close in the Bigelow office. Each newspaper published its own version, to be believed or disbelieved at the discretion of the reader. All Mr. Higginson knew was that the Bigelow firm could never buy him out, that he had not spent his years in building up a business for the benefit of Mr. Bigelow. The business was his life, and he meant to keep it for himself and his family and his legitimate successors. So the first refusal had been a simple matter—a plain, emphatic no had sufficed.
Then for a time there had been silence; until one day Halloran learned that the Pewaukoe Lumber Company, twenty-odd miles up the shore, had succumbed to the blandishments of the low-voiced Mr. Babcock, and had sold out mills, standing timber and all. It had not been a prosperous company, thanks to the shiftless management of the children of the original owner; but there was no reason why it should not do well in good hands. There was no question now that, whatever he meant to do next, Mr. Bigelow had a footing in the lumber trade, and Halloran had been watching him closely.