"I know it, Jack," confessed Welton; "but what can I do? I can't pick up
any more timber at any price. I tell you, the game is played out. We're
old mossbacks; and our job is done."

"I have five hundred million feet of sugar pine in California. What do
you say to going in with me to manufacture?"

"The hell you have!" cried Welton, his jaw dropping. "I didn't know
that!"

"Neither does anybody else. I bought it twenty years ago, under a
corporation name. I was the whole corporation. Called myself the
Wolverine Company."

"You own the Wolverine property, do you?"

"Yes; ever hear of it?"

"I know where it is. I've been out there trying to get hold of
something, but you have the heart of it."

"Thought you were going to retire," Orde pointed out.

"The property's all right, but I've some sort of notion the title is
clouded."

"Why?"

"Can't seem to remember; but I must have come against some record
somewhere. Didn't pay extra much attention, because I wasn't interested