So he took his shotgun to the swamp, and after a half hour's wait, succeeded in killing the hare.From that moment he was the hero of those ecstacized canines.They tangled about him everywhere.He hardly dared take a step for fear of crushing one of the open faces and expectant, pleading eyes looking up at him.It grew to be a nuisance.Wallace always claimed his trip was considerably shortened because he could not get away from his admirers.
Chapter XXXVI
Financially the Company was rated high, and yet was heavily in debt.This condition of affairs by no means constitutes an anomaly in the lumbering business.
The profits of the first five years had been immediately reinvested in the business.Thorpe, with the foresight that had originally led him into this new country, saw farther than the instant's gain.He intended to establish in a few years more a big plant which would be returning benefices in proportion not only to the capital originally invested, but also in ratio to the energy, time, and genius he had himself expended.It was not the affair of a moment.
It was not the affair of half-measures, of timidity.
Thorpe knew that he could play safely, cutting a few millions a year, expanding cautiously.By this method he would arrive, but only after a long period.
Or he could do as many other firms have done; start on borrowed money.
In the latter case he had only one thing to fear, and that was fire.Every cent, and many times over, of his obligations would be represented in the state of raw material.All he had to do was to cut it out by the very means which the yearly profits of his business would enable him to purchase.For the moment, he owed a great deal; without the shadow of a doubt mere industry would clear his debt, and leave him with substantial acquisitions created, practically, from nothing but his own abilities.The money obtained from his mortgages was a tool which he picked up an instant, used to fashion one of his own, and laid aside.
Every autumn the Company found itself suddenly in easy circumstances.
At any moment that Thorpe had chosen to be content with the progress made, he could have, so to speak, declared dividends with his partner.
Instead of undertaking more improvements, for part of which he borrowed some money, he could have divided the profits of the season's cut.But this he was not yet ready to do.
He had established five more camps, he had acquired over a hundred and fifty million more of timber lying contiguous to his own, he had built and equipped a modern high-efficiency mill, he had constructed a harbor break-water and the necessary booms, he had bought a tug, built a boarding-house.All this costs money.He wished now to construct a logging railroad.Then he promised himself and Wallace that they would be ready to commence paying operations.
The logging railroad was just then beginning to gain recognition.
A few miles of track, a locomotive, and a number of cars consisting uniquely of wheels and "bunks," or cross beams on which to chain the logs, and a fairly well-graded right-of-way comprised the outfit.Its use obviated the necessity of driving the river--always an expensive operation.Often, too, the decking at the skidways could be dispensed with; and the sleigh hauls, if not entirely superseded for the remote districts, were entirely so in the country for a half mile on either side of the track, and in any case were greatly shortened.There obtained, too, the additional advantage of being able to cut summer and winter alike.Thus, the plant once established, logging by railroad was not only easier but cheaper.Of late years it has come into almost universal use in big jobs and wherever the nature of the country will permit.The old-fashioned, picturesque ice-road sleigh-haul will last as long as north-woods lumbering,--even in the railroad districts,--but the locomotive now does the heavy work.
With the capital to be obtained from the following winter's product, Thorpe hoped to be able to establish a branch which should run from a point some two miles behind Camp One, to a "dump" a short distance above the mill.For this he had made all the estimates, and even the preliminary survey.He was therefore the more grievously disappointed, when Wallace Carpenter made it impossible for him to do so.
He was sitting in the mill-office one day about the middle of July.
Herrick, the engineer, had just been in.He could not keep the engine in order, although Thorpe knew that it could be done.
"I've sot up nights with her," said Herrick, "and she's no go.Ithink I can fix her when my head gets all right.I got headachy lately.And somehow that last lot of Babbit metal didn't seem to act just right."Thorpe looked out of the window, tapping his desk slowly with the end of a lead pencil.
"Collins," said he to the bookkeeper, without raising his voice or altering his position, "make out Herrick's time."The man stood there astonished.
"But I had hard luck, sir," he expostulated."She'll go all right now, I think."Thorpe turned and looked at him.
