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Rh hole, Taylor uneasy. Face to face with his father's secretary he was impressed with a lack of sympathy for his new enthusiasm and he dreaded getting at the matter which had brought Rowe north.

Suddenly Rowe precipitated the subject: "I've been with your father over seven years, Taylor. I never saw him quite so worked up as he was over your last letter."

"I thought it must have interested him, sending you up here. " John shifted uneasily in his chair.

"Michigan pine is to him—not like red to a bull; like freedom to a Bolshevist, perhaps."

Taylor smiled. 'He's always lived in the past, with the pine, Rowe. I thought of that: that it might give him a chance to live in the future."

"Or to live in the present? That would be better. Your father can't have very many years left." Pause.

"When your letter came in, mentioning Michigan white pine in a big tract, he forgot his cane. He walked up and down the room without it—for the first time in years."

"That's fine!"

"He rushed me up here, not because he wouldn't take your word"—with a cautious glance at John, "but because he wants you to speed up the deal. He'll go in with you, if the values can be established; he wants camps operating this fall."

John started.

"Camps?"

"Surely. He knows he hasn't much time left. It's been his dream—to finish as he began: cutting Michigan pine; a dream without foundation until now."

Taylor shook his head.