"It amounts to this," said Forrest; "lumber has dropped to eight dollars a thousand and we’ve simply got to cut down expenses." He paused with his hands on the arms of his chair, his body slightly inclined forward, and looked at Philip with clear, stern eyes. "I am running the lightest possible force; I have dispensed with a bookkeeper and am doing his work nights. But here are still unpaid bills for machinery, saw-logs and towing; some weeks it even comes to a question of the wages of the men. I could, though, have met these demands better if I hadn’t been so handicapped. For instance, in the matter of the _Corona_. I made out the bills of lading; I relied on the funds at a certain time and gave promises of payment. And then found out you had received the checks and had them cashed, and put most of the money to personal use. It not only places me in a difficult position but weakens the credit, the standing of the mills." "I suppose so," said Kingsley, knocking the ashes carefully from his cigar. "I suppose so; I hadn’t looked at it in that way. But the _Enterprise_ will be here in a few days and her shipment ought to make things straight." "Temporarily, yes. But see here, why can’t you limit yourself to a salary? Say two hundred a month? If you could do this, and devote a definite time to work, I should know what to depend on, and we could pull through the year without calling on the Judge." "Two hundred a month?" repeated Philip, and laughed. "Yes. You know the Judge advised a regular salary." "You seem to forget I have practically a half interest in this property." "On the other hand, it is that I remember," answered Forrest dryly. "If the mills should go under it would bar me, of course, from another position of trust; but for you it would mean financial ruin." Kingsley smoked for a brief interval in silence. Then he said, "I don’t see the necessity of all this. There’s Stratton, now, talks differently. He thinks I have a sure thing; that another year or two will see the opening of a great lumber traffic with the Orient. He calls Puget Sound the Gateway of the Pacific. I wish you could hear him." "I have heard him," answered Forrest, again dryly. "But with me, his opinion doesn’t count for much. To hold my faith a man has got to do the things he talks about. And Stratton isn’t a man who works. In short, it’s a problem where he gets his money. My friend Bates, of the Customs Service, has been in Victoria a good deal; he knows something about Stratton’s family. His father, before he died, made a fortune in the fur trade, but his mother, who lived a rather smart life over there, spent it faster. Stratton is like her." "He has taken up his father’s business," said Kingsley warmly. "He is building a fine coasting schooner, now, to carry on an extensive trade, northward, with the Indians."