Abner sat before his desk, examining a sheaf of tally sheets. They were not the tally sheets of his own lumber yard, but figures showing the amount of spruce and pine and birch and maple piled in numerous mill yards throughout the state. Abner owned this lumber. In the fall he had watched the price of lumber decline until he calculated it had reached a price from which it could only rise. Others had disagreed with him. Nevertheless, he had bought and bought and bought, intent upon one _coup_ which should make him indeed the power in the lumber industry of the country, which was his objective. He had used all available funds and then had carried his credit into the market, stretching it until it cried for mercy. Now he owned enough cut lumber to build a small city--and the price had continued to drop. That morning’s market prices continued the decline. Abner’s state of mind was not one to arouse envy. The sum of money he must lose if he sold at the market represented something more than the total of his possessions. Gibeon rated him as a millionaire. That he was in difficulties was a secret which he had been able to conceal for months--and being who he was, and having created the myth of Abner Fownes, he had been able to frown down inquisitive bank officials and creditors and to maintain a very presentable aspect of solvency. But Abner needed money. He needed it daily and weekly. Payrolls must be met; current overhead expenses must be taken care of. Notes coming due must be reduced where possible--and with all market conditions in chaos Abner had early seen there could be no hope of legitimate profit lifting him out of the trap into which he had lowered himself. His reasoning had been good, but he had not foreseen what labor would do. In his lumber camps through the winter of 1919-20 and the succeeding winter, he had paid woodsmen the unprecedented wage of seventy-five to eighty-five dollars a month. Some of his cutting he had jobbed, paying each individual crew eight dollars a thousand feet for cutting, hauling, and piling in the rollways. It had seemed a thing impossible that six months should see these same lumberjacks asking employment at thirty-five dollars, with prospects of a drop of five or six dollars more! With labor up, lumber must go up. It had dropped below cost; now the labor cost had dropped and he found himself holding the bag, and it was a very cumbersome bag indeed.