the bay shall be the parlour. When I can afford it, I shall build a
larger mill, employ more men, and build more houses. I shall
encourage tradesmen to set up in business in Sequoia, and to my city
I shall present a church and a schoolhouse. We shall have a volunteer
fire department, and if God is good, I shall, at a later date, get
out some long-length fir-timber and build a schooner to freight my
lumber to market. And she shall have three masts instead of two, and
carry half a million feet of lumber instead of two hundred thousand.
First, however, I must build a steam tugboat to tow my schooner in
and out over Humboldt Bar. And after that--ah, well! That is
sufficient for the present."




CHAPTER II


Thus did John Cardigan dream, and as he dreamed he worked. The city
of Sequoia was born with the Argonaut's six-room mansion of rough
redwood boards and a dozen three-room cabins with lean-to kitchens;
and the tradespeople came when John Cardigan, with something of the
largeness of his own redwood trees, gave them ground and lumber in
order to encourage the building of their enterprises. Also the dream
of the schoolhouse and the church came true, as did the steam tugboat
and the schooner with three masts. The mill was enlarged until it
could cut forty thousand feet on a twelve-hour shift, and a planer
and machines for making rustic siding and tongued-and-grooved
flooring and ceiling were installed. More ox-teams appeared upon the
skid-road, which was longer now; the cry of "Timber-r-r!" and the