mas headquarters in New York, he said, not to ask for
odds or beg for favors, but to explain the situation and to demand that
Craig be required to confine himself to the tactics of square business
rivalry.

"And my course in engineering was a good investment; I can talk turkey
to them about our dams and the flowage rights. I don't believe they're
backing up Craig's piracy!"

Garry Latisan agreed fully with his son and expressed the wistful wish,
as he did regularly in their conferences, that he could be of more real
help.

"Your sympathy and your praise are help enough, father," Ward declared,
with enthusiasm. "We're sure of our cut; all I'm asking from the Comas
is gangway for our logs. There must be square men at the head of that
big corporation!"

CHAPTER TWO

In New York young Latisan plunged straight at his business.

The home office of the Comas Consolidated Company was in a towering
structure in the metropolis's financial district. On the translucent
glass of many doors there was a big C with two smaller C's nested. In
the north country everybody called the corporation The Three C's.

After a fashion, the sight of the portentous monogram made Ward feel
more at home. Up where he lived the letters were familiar. Those nested
C's stood for wide-flung ownership along the rivers of the north. The
monogram was daubed in blue paint on the ends of countless logs; it
marked the boxes and barrels and sacks of mountains of supplies along
the tote roads; it designated as the property of the Comas Company all
sorts of possessions from log camps down to the cant dog in the hands of
the humblest Polack toiler. Those nested C's were dominant, assertive,
and the folks of the north were awed by the everlasting reduplication
along the rivers and in the forests.

Ward, indignantly seeking justice, resolved not to be awed in the castle
of the giant. He presented himself at a gate and asked to see the
president. The president could not be seen except by appointment,
Latisan learned.

What was the caller's business? Latisan attempted to explain, but he
was halted by the declaration that all details in the timber country
were left to Rufus Craig, field manager!

When Ward insisted that his previous talks with Craig had only made
matters worse for all concerned, and when he pleaded for an opportunity
to talk with somebody--anybody--at headquarters, he finally won his way
to the presence of a sallow man who filmed his