Then came a telegram from New York, driving temporarily from Jim’s mind the matter of freight-cars. It was a long telegram: German steamer _Dessau_ sunk 50,000 boxes pins aboard, bound Bremen to Argentine. Agents Argentine firms offer 70 cents on dock here. Have order 15,000 boxes if can ship ten days. Money on dock. Welliver fill order you cannot. Seventy cents for pins with the New York market at forty-four cents or thereabouts! A clean killing of nearly fifty-five hundred dollars! Jim snatched up Grierson’s report. It showed seven thousand boxes packed in the warehouse, and estimated twelve thousand boxes unpacked in the bins. He did not wait to weigh consequences or to offset difficulties. Accept order. Will ship 15,000 boxes pins ten days this date seventy cents New York. This message despatched, Jim rushed out into the mill in search of Beam; told him the fact. “How will we get them packed out?” he asked. “If you was to ask me serious,” said Beam, with a frown, “I’d say you couldn’t.” “We’ve got to. How many are we packing out a day?” “Close to a thousand boxes. These packers are the limit. They can’t get up speed.” “We’ve got to make some regular shipments. That means about fifteen thousand boxes to pack out in ten days. Put on a double force of packers.” “Where’ll I git ’em? We’re short now, and no place to go for more.” “Get boys, then,” said Jim. “And tell the men—any of them that are willing to work evenings—to come in and pack. We’ll run that packing-room twenty-four hours a day if we have to.” “You’re the boss,” said Beam, dubiously. Jim went in person to the freight department of the railroad. He made requisition for eight extra cars to be set in within ten days. “Can’t be done,” said the freight-agent. “We haven’t and won’t have the cars.” “You mean you have orders not to set in cars for us, don’t you? Well, Mister Freight-Agent, I’m going to have those cars. You see to it they’re set in or things’ll happen round here.” “You can’t bulldoze me,” said the man. “I know what I’m doin’. You’ll get what cars I set in, and no more. And if you talk too much maybe you won’t get any.” Jim glared at the man, half of a mind to haul him over the desk and argue with him physically, but thought better of it and slammed out of the office. He had to have those cars. It was equally clear the road would not give them to him. What then? To reach the office again Jim had to pass through the yard where dry lumber for turned stock was piled. There was, he noticed, a reasonable supply, but no heavy stock. More would have to be bought within the month, for his own sawmill had not yet been able to cut out for drying sufficient quantities to carry on operations. Drying, air-drying, requires time. Until his own boards could dry, lumber must be purchased. Thence came the idea. He hurried to the office and sent wires to Muskegon, to Traverse City, to Reed City, to the big lumber-mills of the section.