Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/154

 be hustled up here to cover our retreat and act as reinforcements, you see.”

“How far could we go in a straight line and not leave the woods?” asked Stanley, curiously.

“Way up into Canada, and then some,” returned Bub. “About two—thirds of Maine is wilderness land, you know.”

“Will it ever give out?”

“If they don’t follow the example set by our company it will,” he assured. “Our company cuts, so as to make a perpetual investment, taking so many feet a year and above a certain size. Of course we have to cut smaller stuff then they did in the old days, when one giant pine might in falling spoil what to-day would be a half a dozen rattling good trees. If they begin on Mt. Jim this winter it may take anywhere up to ten years to finish it, according to how Abner finds the timber to run. Then in twenty—five years more it will be good cutting again. But we won’t butcher any and everything the way some operators do. Take an individual and he figures he has but one chance at the woods and he intends to get—notice I say ‘get’ instead of ‘git’—his and let the next generation go without. Our company is in business to stay. A hundred years from now