n lumber, aren't you?" he said, taking a strip of wood from
his pocket and handing it to the mill owner. "What would you call
this?"

"Cedar, sawn from a good log."

"That's so, red cedar. You know something about that material?"

"I ought to, considering how much of it I've cut." The lumber man held
up his right hand, from which the two middle fingers were missing.
"Lost those twenty years ago when I worked in my first, one-horse mill,
and I could show you a number of other scars."

"Very well," the American took out another strip. "The same stuff,
sir. How would you say it had been treated?"

The sawmiller carefully examined the piece of wood. "It's not French
polish, but I haven't seen varnish as good as this. Except that it's
clear and shows the grain, it's more like some rare old Japanese
lacquer."

"It is varnish. Try to scrape it with your knife."

The other failed to make a mark on it, and the American looked at him
with a smile.

"What would you think of it as a business proposition?"

"If not too dear, it ought to drive every other high-grade varnish off
the market. Do you make the stuff?"

"We're not ready to sell it yet; can't get hold of the raw material in
quantities, and we're not satisfied about the best flux. I'll give you
my card."

He did so, and it bore the address of a paint and varnish factory in
Connecticut, with the words, "Represented by Cyrus P. Harding," at the
bottom.

"Well," said the lumber man, "you seem to have got hold of a good
thing, Mr. Harding, but if you're not open to sell it, what has brought
you over here?"

"I'm looking round; we deal in all kinds of paints and miss no chance
of a trade. Then I'm going way up North-West. Is there anything doing
in my line there?"

"Not much," said the Hudson's Bay man. "You may sell a few kegs along
the railroad track, but as soon as you leave it you'll find no paint
required. The settlers use logs or shiplap and leave them in the raw.
The trip won't pay you."

"Anyhow, I'll see the country and find out something about the
coniferous gums."

"They're soft and resinous. Don't you get the material you make good
varnish of from the tropics?"

Harding laughed. "You people don't know your own resources. There's
most everything a white man needs right on this American continent, if
he'll take the trouble to look for it. Lumber changes some of its
properties with the location in which it grows, I guess. We hav