cy stirred. This man's whole-hearted appreciation of another was
something rather fine in her simple philosophy. The last thing she had
contemplated in approaching the head of a rival enterprise was such talk
as this. But somehow it seemed to fit the man. Somehow as she noted the
squarely gazing eyes, and the power in every line of his features, she
realised that whatever lines he chose to talk on, nothing could change
the decision lying behind it all. She liked him all the better for that,
and found herself drawing comparison between him and Elas Peterman to
the latter's detriment.

"I like that," she cried impulsively. Then the colour rose in her cheeks
at the thought of her temerity. "I guess he's all you say. Maybe some
day I'll hear his side of things. I'd like to. You see--I felt I'd known
him years when he brought me in here. Maybe you won't understand what
that implies."

"I think I do."

Bull stood up from his chair and passed round his desk.

"Here, say, Miss McDonald," he went on, in his keen fashion. "You come
from Skandinavia. And I guess you come on a pretty stiff proposition.
It's going to be difficult for you to hand it me. Maybe you're young in
the game. Well, it doesn't matter a thing. Now we're going to start
right in talking that proposition, and I'm going to help you. But before
that starts I just want to say this. You, I guess, are going right back
on the _Myra_ and she sails to-morrow, sundown. That means you'll stay a
night in Sachigo--"

"I'm stopping on the vessel. It's all fixed."

Bull sat down at his desk.

"I'm kind of glad," he said, with a shade of relief. "It isn't that you
aren't welcome to all the old hospitality Sachigo can hand you. You're
just more than welcome. But Bat hasn't built his swell hotel yet," he
laughed. "And as for us here, why, we 'batch' it. There isn't a thing in
skirts around this place, only a Chink cook, a half-breed secretary, and
a clerk or two, and a bum sort of decrepit lumber-jack who does my
chores. So you see I'm--kind of relieved. Anyway you sleeping on the
_Myra_ makes it easy. Now there's a mighty big conceit to me, and it's
all for this mill in our country's wilderness. And I just can't let you
quit to-morrow night without showing you all it means. You've simply got
to see the thing that's going to make the whole world's groundwood trade
holler before we're through. You're my prisoner until you've seen the
things I'm going to show you. Is it any