Ambrose shook his head. "It wouldn't do me any real good," he said.
"It makes it worse after. It did last year. I couldn't bring a white
wife up here."

"Well, sir, it's a problem," said Peter with a weighty shake of the
head.

This serious, sentimental kind of talk was a strain on both partners.
Ambrose made haste to drop the subject.

"I believe I'll start the new warehouse to-morrow," he said. "I like
to work with logs. First, I must measure the ground and make a working
plan."

Peter was not sorry to be diverted. "Hadn't we better get lumber from
the 'Company' mill?" he suggested. "Looks like up to date somehow."

"A board shack looks rotten in the woods?" said Ambrose.

"You're so gol-durn artistic," said Peter quizzically.

Minot & Doane's store was a long log shack with a sod roof sprouting a
fine crop of weeds. The original shack had been added to on one side,
then on the other. There was a pleasing diversity of outline in the
main building and its wings. The whole crouched low on the ground as
though for warmth.

Three crooked little windows and three doors so low that a short man
had to duck his head under the lintels, faced the lake. The middle
door gave ingress to the store proper; the door on the right was the