alleys
in the southern peninsula occupied entire attention. No one cared
to bother about property at so great a distance from home. As a
consequence, few as yet knew even the extent of the resources so far
north.

Thorpe, however, with the far-sightedness of the born pioneer, had
perceived that the exploitation of the upper country was an affair of a
few years only.

The forests of southern Michigan were vast, but not limitless, and they
had all passed into private ownership. The north, on the other hand,
would not prove as inaccessible as it now seemed, for the carrying
trade would some day realize that the entire waterway of the Great Lakes
offered an unrivalled outlet. With that elementary discovery would begin
a rush to the new country. Tiring of a profitless employment further
south he resolved to anticipate it, and by acquiring his holdings before
general attention should be turned that way, to obtain of the best.

He was without money, and practically without friends; while Government
and State lands cost respectively two dollars and a half and a dollar
and a quarter an acre, cash down. But he relied on the good sense of
capitalists to perceive, from the statistics which his explorations
would furnish, the wonderful advantage of logging a new country with the
chain of Great Lakes as shipping outlet at its very door. In return for
his information, he would expect a half interest in the enterprise. This
is the usual method of procedure adopted by landlookers everywhere.

We have said that the country was quite new to logging, but the
statement is not strictly accurate. Thorpe was by no means the first to
see the money in northern pine. Outside the big mill districts already
named, cuttings of considerable size were already under way, the logs
from which were usually sold to the mills of Marquette or Menominee.
Here and there along the best streams, men had already begun operations.

But they worked on a small scale and with an eye to the immediate
present only; bending their efforts to as large a cut as possible each
season rather than to the acquisition of holdings for future operations.
This they accomplished naively by purchasing one forty and cutting a
dozen. Thorpe's map showed often near the forks of an important stream a
section whose coloring indicated private possession. Legally the owners
had the right only to the pine included in the marked sections; but if
anyone had taken the trouble to visit the