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Rh rattled out of Pancake and took the ruts of the sand road that led straight north.

"Jim? Oh, he's lawyer for Chief Pontiac Power. You know about th' dam? No? Hell, they've got th' biggest dam in th' world right here in this county."

"No!"

"Well, th' biggest in Michigan—or this part of it anyhow," the youth qualified. "Chief Pontiac Power an' Light put it in ten years ago. They shoot juice clear down to them big towns like Saginaw and Flint. Jim, he runs things. Fine feller, Jim, an' he sure makes the dough."

Lucius had further praises for Harris, but John paid little attention. It was evident that unless he wanted continual loquaciousness in his ear it would be well to be chary with questions.

Beyond Pancake was nothing; literally nothing, no farms, no houses, no fences. The road was simply two deep ruts in the thin June grass sod and red brown moss, and wound on interminably across the monotonous Michigan pine barrens, or, as the natives call them, the plains. Here and there stood patches of jack pine, at times many acres in extent. Again it was oak, with some sizeable trees and much brush; in other places native poplar and balm of Gilead; birch and soft maple rose on ridges; in the distance was the blue-green of swamps. All about stood stumps, big stumps, close together, rotted by time and blackened by fire, ugly and desolate, but marking the places where within the generation mighty pine had reared their ragged plumes in dignified congregation. The same black that was on the stumps was on living trees, too; whole halves had been eaten from the butts of oak by creeping flames; smaller oaks, fire-killed, stood black and