Bat swung one trunk-like leg across the other.  His movement suggested an easing of mind and a measure of enjoyment.  He pointed at the window and nodded in its direction.

“Quite a place,” he said, in a tone and with a pride that had no relation to the other’s demands.  “Makes you feel man ain’t the bum sort of inseck in the scheme of things some highbrows ain’t happy not tellin’ you.  There’s folks who guess it’s Nature the proposition that matters.  It’s her does it all, an’ keeps on doin’ it all the time.  But Nature’s most like one mighty foolish, extravagant female.  That sort o’ woman who don’t care but to please the notion of the moment.  And when that’s done, goes right on to please the next.  Wal, anyway I guess she’s got her uses if it’s only to hand chances to the guy that’s lookin’ on.  Take a look right down there below,” he went on.  “That’s the truck the guy lookin’ on has sweppen up in Nature’s trail.  It’s taken most of fifteen years collectin’ it.  We’ve had to push that broom hard.  And now I guess you’re going to boost your weight behind it too.  There’s other things to collect, and that’s what we want from you.  You got nerve.  You got big muscle, and education, too.  Well, you’ll handle the biggest sweeper of us all.  Does it scare you?”

“Not a thing.”  Bull was smiling confidently.

Bat chuckled.  His eyes were sparkling as he ruthlessly masticated his tobacco.  This man pleased him mightily.

“That’s all right,” he said.  Then he went on after a silent moment while he gazed thoughtfully out of the window.  “It’s right here,” he exclaimed.  “Here’s a mill, a swell mill that don’t lack for a thing to make it well-nigh perfect.  I’ll tell you about it.  Its capacity.  Its present limit is six thousand tons dry weight groundwood pulp to the week.  That’s runnin’ full.  There’s a hundred and twenty grinders feeding a hundred and eighty sheetin’ machines.  And they’re figgered to use up fifty-five thousand horse power of the five hundred thousand we got harnessed on this great little old river that falls off the highlands.  That power is ours winter an’ summer.  It don’t matter a shuck the ‘freeze up.’  It’s there for us all the darn time.  Then we’ve forest limits to hand us the cordage for that output that could give us three times what we’re needing for a thousand years.  Labour?  We got it plenty.  And later, by closing in our system of foresting, I figger to cut out present costs on a sight bigger output.  The plans for all that are fixed in my head.  Then we come to the market for our stuff, an’ I guess that’s the syrup in the pie.  The world’s market’s waitin’ on us.  It’s ours before we start.  Why?  Our power don’t cost us one cent a unit.  We’re able to hand our folks a standard of living through the nature of things that leaves wages easy.  The river’s wide, and full, and it’s our own.  Then our sea passage to Europe’s just eighteen hundred miles instead of three thousand.  An’ these things mean our costs leave us cutting right under other folks, and Skandinavia beat.  There it is,” he cried, with a wide gesture of his knotted hands.  “It’s pie!”