Page:Harold Titus--Timber.djvu/93

Rh ago?" turning to the editor, "and the water went down? We were short-handed and I left them banked. They're right at the mouth of this ravine. We can dog the maple and beech and birch to the hemlock and cedar and raft it to my mill. It will be very simple."

She looked again at Taylor.

"I'll make you that proposition: get the logs to my mill at the cost and twenty per cent and if you think I am going to trim you, you can hire somebody to watch. You can ship your logs by rail from the mill siding or I'll saw them; custom job—and you'd better let me saw them. There isn't any jack-works to get them from the pond to the track and your hardwood will begin deadheading in a hurry, so it ought to come out of the water as fast as it gets to the mill. Cars are hard to get right now and you might have to handle twice."

She turned to Bryant who had watched closely.

"I'll leave it to you, Humphrey, if that isn't fair enough for a salvage job. If he shipped to a mill it'd be anyway a forty-mile rail haul and I don't know as he could get it done that close. Besides it'd add to the cost to handle them again at the pond. I don't think it's practical to get them out with a cross-haul or swing boom and tackle."

Taylor's heart filled with relief, covering the rising suspicion that perhaps these two were conspiring to gouge him on this proposal. For the first time since he had looked into that jack-pot and beheld the trick gift which his father had thrust upon him, he saw hope ahead.

Humphrey Bryant was rubbing a hand vigorously over his beard and the smile which made his eyes so bright ran out into a chuckle.