In this almost primeval region the large-handed fashion of primitive
transactions is still in vogue. Men traffic in timber and mineral
stakings on the word of other men. The coastal slopes and valleys are
dotted with timber claims which have been purchased by men and
corporations in Vancouver and New York and London and Paris and
Berlin, bought and traded "sight unseen" as small boys swap
jackknives. There flourishes in connection with this, on the Pacific
coast, the business of cruising timber, a vocation followed by hardy
men prepared to go anywhere, any time, in fair weather or foul.
Commission such a man to fare into such a place, cruise such and such
areas of timber land, described by metes and bounds. This resourceful
surveyor-explorer will disappear. In the fullness of weeks he will
return, bearded and travel-worn. He will place in your hands a report
containing an estimate of so many million feet of standing fir, cedar,
spruce, hemlock, with a description of the topography, an opinion on
the difficulty or ease of the logging chance.
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