"
"Well, if Bill Henderson financed himself on that plan, why didn't we
think of using the same time-honoured plan for financing a road to
parallel Pennington's?"
John Cardigan sat up with a jerk. "By thunder!" he murmured. That was
as close as he ever came to uttering an oath. "By thunder!" he
repeated. "I never thought of that! But then," he added, "I'm not so
young as I used to be, and there are any number of ideas which would
have occurred to me twenty years ago but do not occur to me now."
"All right, John Cardigan. I forgive you. Now, then, continue to
listen: to the north of that great block of timber held by you and
Pennington lie the redwood holdings of the Trinidad Redwood Timber
Company."
"Never heard of them before."
"Well, timber away in there in back of beyond has never been well
advertised, because it is regarded as practically inaccessible. By
extending his logging-road and adding to his rolling-stock,
Pennington could make it accessible, but he will not. He figures on
buying all that back timber rather cheap when he gets around to it,
for the reason that the Trinidad Redwood Timber Company cannot
possibly mill its timber until a railroad connects its holdings with
the outside world. They can hold it until their corporation franchise
expires, and it will not increase sufficiently in value to pay
taxes.
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