le predilection for those of Scotch nativity
or ancestry.

Strikes or lockouts were unknown in Port Agnew--likewise saloons.
Unlike most sawmill towns of that period, Port Agnew had no street in
which children were forbidden to play or which mothers taught their
daughters to avoid. Once an I.W.W. organizer came to town, and upon
being ordered out and refusing to go, The Laird, then past fifty, had
ducked him in the Skookum until he changed his mind.

The Tyee Lumber Company owned and operated the local telephone company,
the butcher shop, the general store, the hotel, a motion-picture
theater, a town hall, the bank, and the electric-light-and-power plant,
and with the profits from these enterprises, Port Agnew had paved
streets, sidewalks lined with handsome electroliers, and a sewer
system. It was an admirable little sawmill town, and if the expenses
of maintaining it exceeded the income, The Laird met the deficit and
assumed all the worry, for he wanted his people to be happy and
prosperous beyond all others.

It pleased Hector McKaye to make an occasion of his abdication and
Donald's accession to the presidency of the Tyee Lumber Company. The
Dreamerie was not sufficiently large for his purpose, however, for he
planned to entertain all of his subjects at a dinner and make formal
announcement of the change. So he gave a barbecue in a grove of maples
on the edge of the town. His people received in silence the little
speech he made them, for they were loath to lose The Laird. They knew
him, while Donald they had not known for five years, and there were
many who feared that the East might have changed him. Consequently,
when his father called him up to the little platform from which he
spoke, they received the young laird in silence also.

"Folks--my own home folks," Donald began, "to-day I formally take up
the task that was ordained for me at birth. I am going to be very
happy doing for you and for myself. I shall never be the man my father
is; but if you will take me to your hearts and trust me as you have
trusted him, I'll never go back on you, for I expect to live and to
die in Port Agnew, and, while I live, I want to be happy with you. I
would have you say of me, when I am gone, that I was the worthy son
of a worthy sire." He paused and looked out over the eager, upturned
faces of the men, women, and children whose destinies he held in the
hollow of his hand. "My dear friends, there aren't going to be any
chang