o that the various activities do
not mortise exactly one with another, and the legitimate results to be
expected from the pennies do not arrive, then the sum total is very apt
to be failure. Where organized and settled industries, however
complicated in detail, are in a manner played by score, these frontier
activities are vast improvisations following only the general
unchangeable laws of commerce.

Therefore, Bob was very much surprised and not a little dismayed at
what Mr. Welton had to say to him one evening early in the spring.

It was in the "van" of Camp Thirty-nine. Over in the corner under the
lamp the sealer and bookkeeper was epitomizing the results of his day.
Welton and Bob sat close to the round stove in the middle, smoking their
pipes. The three or four bunks belonging to Bob, the scaler, and the
camp boss were dim in another corner; the shelves of goods for trade
with the men occupied a third. A rude door and a pair of tiny windows
communicated with the world outside. Flickers of light from the cracks
in the stove played over the massive logs of the little building, over
the rough floor and the weapons and snowshoes on the wall. Both Bob and
Welton were dressed in flannel and kersey, with the heavy German socks
and lumberman's rubbers on their feet. Their bright-checked Mackinaw
jackets lay where they had been flung on the beds. Costume and
surroundings both were a thousand miles from civilization; yet
civilization was knocking at the door. Welton gave expression to this
thought.

"Two seasons more'll finish us, Bob," said he. "I've logged the Michigan
woods for thirty-five years, but now I'm about done here."

"Yes, I guess they're all about done," agreed Bob.

"The big men have gone West; lots of the old lumber jacks are out there
now. It's our turn. I suppose you know we've got timber in California?"

"Yes," said Bob, with a wry grin, as he thought of the columns of
"descriptions" he had copied; "I know that."

"There's about half a billion feet of it. We'll begin to manufacture
when we get through here. I'm going out next month, as soon as the snow
is out of the mountains, to see about the plant and the general lay-out.
I'm going to leave you in charge here."

Bob almost dropped his pipe as his jaws fell apart.

"Me!" he cried.

"Yes, you."

"But I can't; I don't know enough! I'd make a mess of the whole
business," Bob expostulated.

"You've been around here for a year," said Welton, "