“I never bluff, Bill.  Remember, if I pull out for the San Hedrin, I’ll not abandon my logging-camps there to come back and log your timber.  One expensive move is enough for me.  Better take a dollar, Bill.  It’s a good, fair price, as the market on redwood timber is now, and you’ll be making an even hundred per cent, on your investment.  Remember, Bill, if I don’t buy your timber, you’ll never log it yourself and neither will anybody else.  You’ll be stuck with it for the next forty years—­and taxes aren’t getting any lower.  Besides, there’s a good deal of pine and fir in there, and you know what a forest fire will do to that.”

“I’ll hang on a little longer, I think.”

“I think so, too,” John Cardigan replied.  And that night, as was his wont, even though he realized that it was not possible for Bryce to gain a profound understanding of the business problems to which he was heir, John Cardigan discussed the Squaw Creek timber with his son, relating to him the details of his conversation with the owner.

“I suppose he thinks you’re bluffing,” Bryce commented.

“I’m not, Bryce.  I never bluff—­that is, I never permit a bluff of mine to be called, and don’t you ever do it, either.  Remember that, boy.  Any time you deliver a verdict, be sure you’re in such a position you won’t have to reverse yourself.  I’m going to finish logging in that district this fall, so if I’m to keep the mill running, I’ll have to establish my camps on the San Hedrin watershed right away.”

Bryce pondered.  “But isn’t it cheaper to give him his price on Squaw Creek timber than go logging in the San Hedrin and have to build twenty miles of logging railroad to get your logs to the mill?”

“It would be, son, if I had to build the railroad.  Fortunately, I do not.  I’ll just shoot the logs down the hillside to the San Hedrin River and drive them down the stream to a log-boom on tidewater.”

“But there isn’t enough water in the San Hedrin to float a redwood log, Dad.  I’ve fished there, and I know.”

“Quite true—­in the summer and fall.  But when the winter freshets come on and the snow begins to melt in the spring up in the Yola Bolas, where the San Hedrin has its source, we’ll have plenty of water for driving the river.  Once we get the logs down to tide-water, we’ll raft them and tow them up to the mill.  So you see, Bryce, we won’t be bothered with the expense of maintaining a logging railroad, as at present.”

Bryce looked at his father admiringly.  “I guess Dan Keyes is right, Dad,” he said.  “Dan says you’re crazy—­like a fox.  Now I know why you’ve been picking up claims in the San Hedrin watershed.”