Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/139

Rh almost models in some ways, we handle our fires better than lots of other states, but, much as we've done, we haven't scratched the possibilities or made more than a feeble step in meeting a necessary problem.

"Of course, it's a job for the state. Everything, location, soil, climate, circumstances, favored this forest or it never would have had a chance of proving out. It was the one place in ten thousand where one person had even a chance of success. Individuals can't do the job for the country. It will take the state—the big state—the federal government, not twenty or thirty little governments fussing inadequately with a problem that involves all of us.

"And it needs men who can think and will think; who are men of action and not afraid of action. Not a crowd whose virtues are mostly negative!"

"And how much longer," he asked, "will you have to carry on?"

She shook her head rather wearily. "That depends on markets, on demand. Three, four—maybe a half dozen years."

"But what about—Sim Burns?"

A shadow fell across her features.

"I don't know, Humphrey Bryant is the rock on which I've stood in trouble, He has worked for years to change the timber tax laws so that ventures like this will not be driven to the wall. He has worked—he is still working. Without him there would be no chance—

"Oh, for the present, anyhow, I'm at their mercy!" She said that rather desperately and rose abruptly as though the fact excited her. "But we'll try to keep on, we'll try to keep going—"