The time had come to look ahead. In another six months his college course would be completed; his playtime would be over; realities lay beyond--downright realities that surround a man, that show clear through him, that bear him down and under unless he be made of stronger stuff than they. Wits were needed, and judgment; the determination that goes against things, not with them. There would be no making up of cuts, out there in the world, no special examinations; a man must look higher than the faculty there. Mistakes would be hard to rectify, perhaps could never be rectified, where a man was already nearer thirty than twenty. He decided not to make that next call. BOOK -- PINE CHAPTER I--A Decision to Fight The little city of Wauchung straggled over and between and almost burrowed under a chain of sand-hills--shining yellow hills with tops entirely bald save for a spear of rank grass here and there or a dwarfed pine. Outside the mouth of the river was Lake Michigan; behind the little city were the pine forests of the Lower Peninsula. And the one interesting object of this whole region was a man--for houses and shops were commonplace, streets were ill-paved, the railroad was wanting in energy and capital, the inhabitants were mostly leveled down to the colourless monotony of the sand-hills--a man named Martin L. Higginson. [Illustration: 0018] There was one imposing building of granite and red bricks on the business street--a glance showed the name of Higginson over the entrance. Two large mills stood by the river, surrounded by piles of lumber on the land, fronted by rafts of logs in the water, sending out their droning hum all day long (and frequently all night long); inside, men were bustling and pushing in the effort to keep up with the drive of work outside, the long runways were active with men and with moving lumber--and on each of the mills was the name Higginson. Two steamers lay at the Higginson wharves--lake carriers, both, of the Higginson line. A logging railroad ran back some twenty miles into the forest; it ran over Higginson land to Higginson land, to bring what logs the little river could not bring--for the Higginson property extended far to north, south and eastward. There was, in fact, one rich man in the little city--one man who had done what he could to keep the railroad busy, to keep the harbour dredged, to keep the streets in better condition, to make Wauchung a real city, awake, energetic, proud--one man who represented Wauchung to the outside world: Mr. Higginson.