he was never especially brilliant, but was seemingly content to
maintain a steady, dependable average in all things. He had his
mother's dark auburn hair, brown eyes, and fair white skin, and quite
early in life he gave promise of being as large and powerful a man as
his father.

Bryce's boyhood was much the same as that of other lads in Sequoia,
save that in the matter of toys and, later guns, fishing-rods, dogs,
and ponies he was a source of envy to his fellows. After his tenth
year his father placed him on the mill pay-roll, and on payday he was
wont to line up with the mill-crew to receive his modest stipend of
ten dollars for carrying in kindling to the cook in the mill kitchen
each day after school.

This otherwise needless arrangement was old Cardigan's way of
teaching his boy financial responsibility. All that he possessed he
had worked for, and he wanted his son to grow up with the business to
realize that he was a part of it with definite duties connected with
it developing upon him--duties which he must never shirk if he was to
retain the rich redwood heritage his father had been so eagerly
storing up for him.

When Bryce Cardigan was about fourteen years old there occurred an
important event in his life. In a commendable effort to increase his
income he had laid out a small vegetable garden in the rear of his
father's house, and here on a Saturday morning, while down on his
knees weeding carrots, he chanced to look up and discovered a young
lady gazing at him through the picket fence. She was a few years his
junior, and a stranger in Sequoia. Ensued the following conversation:
"Hello, little boy."