month, and the number
possible to maintain. He further showed that, turned at large, they
would require no care. Amused still at the man's earnestness, Welton
tried to trip him up with questions. Merker had foreseen every
contingency.

"I'll turn it over to you. Draw the necessary money from the store
account," Welton told him finally.

Merker bowed solemnly and went out. In two weeks pigs appeared. They
became a feature of the landscape, and those who experimented with
gardens indulged in profanity, clubs and hog-proof fences. Returning
home after dark, the wayfarer was apt to be startled to the edge of
flight by the grunting upheaval of what had seemed a black shadow under
the moon. Bob in especial acquired concentrated practice in horsemanship
for the simple reason that his animal refused to dismiss his first
hypothesis of bears.

Nevertheless, at the end of the season Merker gravely presented a duly
made out balance to the credit of hogs.

Encouraged by the success of this venture, he next attempted chickens.
But even his vacant-eyed figuring had neglected to take into
consideration the abundance of such predatory beasts and birds as
wildcats, coyotes, raccoons, owls and the swift hawks of the falcon
family.

"I had thought," he reported to the secretly amused Welton, "that even
in feeding the finer sorts of garbage to hogs there might be an economic
waste; hogs fatten well enough on the coarser grades, and chickens will
eat the finer. In that I fell into error. The percentage of loss from
noxious varmints more than equals the difference in the cost of eggs. I
further find that the margin of profits on chickens is not large enough
to warrant expenditures for traps, dogs and men sufficient for
protection."

"And how does the enterprise stand now?" asked Welton.

"We are behind."

"H'm. And what would you advise by way of retrenchment?"

"I should advise closing out the business by killing the fowl," was
Merker's opinion. "Crediting the account with the value of the chickens
as food would bring us out with a loss of approximately ten dollars."

"Fried chicken is hardly applicable as lumber camp provender," pointed
out Welton. "So it's scarcely a legitimate asset."

"I had considered that point," replied Merker, "and in my calculations I
had valued the chickens at the price of beef."

Welton gave it up.

Another enterprise for which Merker was responsible was the utilization
of the slabs and edgings