Craig was making his way along the tote road in a buckboard, with a driver. The road bristled with rocks and was pitted with hollows; the fat horses dragged their feet at a slow walk. Craig was a big man, a bit paunchy, and he grunted while he was bounced. He wore his city hard hat as if he wished by his headgear to distinguish himself from the herd of woodsmen whom he bossed. Latisan overtook the toiling buckboard, and his stride was taking him past when Craig hailed. "Ride?" "No--thank you!" The negative was sharp. Privation and toil had put an edge on the young man's temper, and the temper was not amiable where Craig was concerned. "I've got some business to talk with you, Latisan." "If that's so I can listen while I walk alongside." But Craig ordered the driver to halt. Then the Comas director swung around and faced Latisan. "I'm putting it up to you again--will you and your father sell to the Comas?" "No, sir!" "What is it going to be--a fight to a finish?" "If you keep your hands off us saw-log fellows, Mr. Craig, there'll be no fight. We were here first, you know!" "That's got nothing to do with the present situation, Latisan. We've built a million-dollar paper mill on the Toban, and it's up to me to feed it with pulp stuff. We can't lug our plant off in a shawl strap if supply fails." "Nor can the folks who have built villages around the sawmills lug away their houses if the mills are closed." "Paper dominates in this valley nowadays, instead of lumber. Latisan, you're old-fashioned!" The young man, feeling his temper flame, lighted his pipe, avoiding too quick retort. "You stand to lose money in the lumber market, with conditions as they are," proceeded Craig, loftily counseling another man about his own business. The Comas director, intent on consolidation, had persistently failed to understand the loyalty, half romantic, which was actuating the old-line employers to protect faithful householders. "Let the workers move down the river to our model town." "And live in those beehives of yours, paying big rent, competing with the riffraff help you hire from employment agencies? We can't see it that way, Mr. Craig!" "Look here! I've got some news for you. I've just pulled five of the independents in with us--Gibson, Sprague, Tolman, Brinton, and Bodwell. The Comas now controls the timber market on the Toban. How about logs for your mills?" Craig believed he was hitting Latisan five solid jolts to the jaw when he named the recreant operators. However, the young man had heard rumors of what the bludgeoning methods of the Comas had accomplished; he surveyed Craig resolutely through the pipe smoke. He had come down from the Walpole tract that day in a spirit of new confidence which put away all weariness from him. He was armed with a powerful weapon. In his exultation, fired by youth's natural hankering to vaunt success in an undertaking where his elders had failed, he was willing to flourish the weapon.