I'm crawling over a hump now that would have been a lot easier if the
governor hadn't come to grief the way he did. He was going to put in
some money this fall. But I think I'll make it, anyway, though it will
keep me digging and figuring. I have a contract for delivery of a
million feet in September and another contract that I could take if I
could see my way clear to finance the thing. I could clean up thirty
thousand dollars net in two years if I had more cash to work on. As it
is, I have to go slow, or I'd go broke. I'm holding two limits by the
skin of my teeth. But I've got one good one practically for an annual
pittance. If I make delivery on my contract according to schedule it's
plain sailing. That about sizes up my prospects, Sis."

"You speak a language I don't understand," she smiled. "What does a
million feet mean? And what's a limit?"

"A limit is one square mile--six hundred and forty acres more or
less--of merchantable timber land," he explained. "We speak of timber as
scaling so many board feet. A board foot is one inch thick by twelve
inches square. Sound fir timber is worth around seven dollars per
thousand board feet in the log, got out of the woods, and boomed in the
water ready to tow to the mills. The first limit I got--from the
government--will scale around ten million feet. The other two are nearly
as good. But I got them from timber speculators, and it's costing me
pretty high. They're a good spec if I can hang on to them, though."

"It sounds big," she commented.

"It _is_ big," Charlie declared, "if I could go at it right. I've been
trying ever since I got wise to this timber business to make the
governor see what a chance there is in it. He was just getting properly