He could not be calm and
detached and impersonal. For him there was too much at stake.
He left all the doors and windows wide and climbed the hill. If he
were to withstand the onslaught of these uncertainties, these
forebodings which pressed upon him with such damnable weight, he must
bestir himself. He must not sit down and brood. He knew that. It was
not with any particular enthusiasm that he came upon his crew at work,
that his eye marked the widening stump-dotted area where a year before
the cedars stood branch to branch, nor when he looked over the long
ricks of bolts waiting that swift plunge down the chute.
Bill Hayes gave a terse account of his stewardship during Hollister's
absence. So many cords of bolts cut and boomed and delivered to the
mill. Hollister's profits were accelerating, the fruit of an
insatiable market, of inflated prices. As he trudged down the hill, he
reflected upon that. He was glad in a way. If Doris could not or would
not live with him, he could make life easy for her and the boy. Money
would do that for them.
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