Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/343

Rh the lumber market will be busted flat. I suppose you'll resurrect the Lumber Trust and ignore the billions of feet left in the South and the thousands of billions out on the Coast. What about that, for instance?"

"There is timber—billions of feet. There was once in Michigan. Perhaps Mr. Taylor used to think there was enough here to last forever. Perhaps he had friends who moved into the southern pineries and who are junking their mills now and getting ready to move into the Pacific Coast States. The market may slump; everything is going to slump for a time; it's natural reaction—

"But the timber is going and in New England they're sawing box wood out of pine trees that stand in fields which were cultivated at the time of the Civil War. Your shoes, your clothes probably were shipped to Detroit in boxes made of that stuff. Why? Because it's grown on the ground and the manufacturers are tired of paying freight rates on material. Why, I can raise and sell white pine at Buffalo for less than the freight alone on Oregon fir and—"

"Oh, freight rates! A socialistic mess! They'll come down; and besides, you've just admitted that there is timber—timber in Canada and all sorts of places. Now let's quit this and get down to our proposition. Will you—"

Luke stirred and hitched himself nearly erect.

"Oh, shut up, Rowe! When you don't make a fool of yourself with your questions, this young woman does with her answers!"

A moment of silence while Luke glared at Rowe. To ridicule and curse had been habitual, but now there was something new in his face, a fresh bitterness, a disdain,