In his mind's eye he
could still see the red-ink figures on the profit-and-loss statement
Sinclair, his father's manager, had presented at the end of that
year.
The old man appeared to divine the trend of his son's thoughts. "Yes,
Bryce, that was a disastrous year," he declared. "The mere loss of
the logs was a severe blow, but in addition I had to pay out quite a
little money to settle with my customers. I was loaded up with low-
priced orders that year, although I didn't expect to make any money.
The orders were merely taken to keep the men employed. You
understand, Bryce! I had a good crew, the finest in the country; and
if I had shut down, my men would have scattered and--well, you know
how hard it is to get that kind of a crew together again. Besides, I
had never failed my boys before, and I couldn't bear the thought of
failing them then. Half the mills in the country were shut down at
the time, and there was a lot of distress among the unemployed. I
couldn't do it, Bryce."
Bryce nodded. "And when you lost the logs, you couldn't fill those
low-priced orders. Then the market commenced to jump and advanced
three dollars in three months--"
"Exactly, my son. And my customers began to crowd me to fill those
old orders. Praise be, my regular customers knew I wasn't the kind of
lumberman who tries to crawl out of filling low-priced orders after
the market has gone up.
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