attention
and resource, he threw himself whole-souled into the accomplishment
of it. By the time he had bought the sixteen forties constituting the
section, searched out a dozen witnesses to the theft, and spent a week
with the Marquette expert in looking over the ground, he had fallen into
the swing of work again. His experience still ached; but dully.

Only now he possessed no interests outside of those in the new country;
no affections save the half-protecting, good-natured comradeship with
Wallace, the mutual self-reliant respect that subsisted between Tim
Shearer and himself, and the dumb, unreasoning dog-liking he shared with
Injin Charley. His eye became clearer and steadier; his methods more
simple and direct. The taciturnity of his mood redoubled in thickness.
He was less charitable to failure on the part of subordinates. And the
new firm on the Ossawinamakee prospered.

Chapter XXXV

Five years passed.

In that time Thorpe had succeeded in cutting a hundred million feet
of pine. The money received for this had all been turned back into the
Company's funds. From a single camp of twenty-five men with ten horses
and a short haul of half a mile, the concern had increased to six large,
well-equipped communities of eighty to a hundred men apiece, using
nearly two hundred horses, and hauling as far as eight or nine miles.

Near the port stood a mammoth sawmill capable of taking care of
twenty-two million feet a year, about which a lumber town had sprung up.
Lake schooners lay in a long row during the summer months, while busy
loaders passed the planks from one to the other into the deep holds.
Besides its original holding, the company had acquired about a hundred
and fifty million more, back near the headwaters of tributaries to the
Ossawinamakee. In the spring and early summer months, the drive was a
wonderful affair.

During the four years in which the Morrison & Daly Company shared
the stream with Thorpe, the two firms lived in complete amity and
understanding. Northrop had played his cards skillfully. The older
capitalists had withdrawn suit. Afterwards they kept scrupulously within
their rights, and saw to it that no more careless openings were left for
Thorpe's shrewdness. They were keen enough business men, but had made
the mistake, common enough to established power, of underrating the
strength of an apparently insignificant opponent. Once they understood
Thorpe's capacity, that young man had no