t. I learned that from Mr.
Osbert, at the mills on the Shagaunty. Well, so long as the booms are
kept full, the camp bosses are satisfied. There's a limit below which
the girth of logs may not go. They watch that limit, and are careful not
to go below it. Well, our big output has been made up always, not by
the minimum logs, but the maximum to which we have been hitherto
accustomed. These boys know all about that; but they're satisfied with
such bulk as doesn't fall below the minimum. And when asked, suggest
fire, storm and sickness, anything rather than the real cause which
drops our output. They'll not willingly face the discomfort and added
work of opening a new territory. There's just one decision needed."

"What's that?"

The girl laughed. It was a low, pleasant, happy laugh. She felt glad.
Her chief was serious. He was in deadly earnest, and it represented her
revenge for his sarcasm.

"We've five other rivers running down to the lake. The Shagaunty isn't
even the largest. Well, these boys will have to be shaken out of their
dream. We ought to quit the Shagaunty right away and make a break for
fresh 'limits.' It's simple."

The man had no responsive smile. He shook his head.

"That's what it isn't, my dear," he said.

For the time the girl's beauty, her personality were quite forgotten.
Peterman was absorbed.

"It means the complete dislocation of our forest organisation," he went
on. "Here, I'll tell you something. We've done a very great thing in the
past. And it's been easy. Years ago we decided by concentration of all
our forest work on a limited area we could cut costs to the lowest. That
way we could jump in on the market cheaper than all the rest. Our forest
limits were the finest in Canada. We had standing stuff practically
inexhaustible, and of a size almost unheard of. What was the result?
Why, one by one we've absorbed competitors at our own price till the
Skandinavia stands head and shoulders above the world's groundwood
industry. That's all right. That's fine," he went on, after a pause.
"But like most easy trails, you're liable to keep on 'em longer than is
good for you. We haven't had to worry a thing up to now. You see, we'd
stifled competition, and we'd paid a steady thirty per cent dividend.
Which left our Board in an unholy state of dope. I've tried to wake 'em.
Oh, yes. I tried when that guy started up his outfit on Labrador. The
Sachigo outfit. Then he seemed to fade away, and I couldn