Kindred of the Dust | Page 2

and, with the exception of those regions where good harbors had partially solved the problem of transportation, timber in Washington was very cheap. Consequently, since Hector McKaye was one of those hardy men who never hesitate to take that which no man denies them, he reached forth and acquired timber.
A strip of land a quarter of a mile wide and fronting the beach was barren of commercial timber. As grazing-land, Hector McKaye was enabled to file on a full section of this, and, with its acquisition, he owned the key to the outlet. While "proving up" his claim, he operated a general store for trading with the Indians and trappers, and at this he prospered. From time to time he purchased timber-claims from the trappers as fast as they "proved up," paying for these stumpage-prices varying from twenty-five to fifty cents per thousand.
On his frequent trips to the outer world, McKaye extolled the opportunities for acquiring good timber-claims down on the Skookum; he advertised them in letters and in discreet interviews with the editors of little newspapers in the sawmill towns on Puget Sound and Grays Harhor; he let it be known that an honest fellow could secure credit for a winter's provisions from him, and pay for it with pelts in the spring.
The influx of homesteaders increased--single men, for the most part, and poor--men who labored six months of the year elsewhere and lived the remaining six months in rude log huts on their claims down on the Skookum. And when the requirements of the homestead laws had been complied with and a patent to their quarter-section obtained from the Land Office in Washington, the homesteaders were ready to sell and move on to other and greener pastures. So they sold to the only possible purchaser, Hector McKaye, and departed, quite satisfied with a profit which they flattered themselves had been the result of their own prudence and foresight.
Thus, in the course of ten years, Hector McKaye' acquired ten thousand acres of splendid Douglas fir and white cedar. But he had not been successful in acquiring claims along the south bank of the Skookum. For some mysterious reason, he soon found claims on the north bank cheaper and easier to secure, albeit the timber showed no variance in quantity or quality. Discreet investigations brought to light the fact that he had a competitor--one Martin Darrow, who dwelt in St. Paul, Minnesota. To St. Paul, therefore, journeyed Hector McKaye, and sought an audience with Martin Darrow.
"I'm McKaye, from the Skookum River, Washington," he announced, without preamble.
"I've been expecting you, Mr. McKaye," Darrow replied. "Got a proposition to submit?"
"Naturally, or I wouldn't have come to St. Paul. I notice you have a weakness for the timber on the south bank of the Skookum. You've opposed me there half a dozen times and won. I have also observed that I have a free hand with claims north of the river. That's fair--and there's timber enough for two. Hereafter, I'll keep to my own side of the river."
"I see we're going to come to an understanding, Mr. McKaye. What will you give me to stick to my side of the river?"
"An outlet through the bight for your product when you commence manufacturing. I control the lower half-mile of the river and the only available mill-sites. I'll give you a mill-site if you'll pay half the expense of digging a new channel for the Skookum, and changing its course so it will emerge into the still, deep water under the lee of Tyee Head."
"We'll do business," said Martin Darrow--and they did, although it was many years after Hector McKaye had incorporated the Tyee Lumber Company and founded his town of Port Agnew before Darrow began operations.
True to his promise, McKaye deeded him a mill-and town-site, and he founded a settlement on the eastern edge of Port Agnew, but quite distinct from it, and called it Darrow, after himself. It was not a community that Hector McKaye approved of, for it was squalid and unsanitary, and its untidy, unpainted shacks of rough lumber harbored southern European labor, of which Hector McKaye would have none. In Darrow, also, there were three groggeries and a gambling-house, with the usual concomitant of women whose profession is the oldest and the saddest in the world.
Following his discovery of the Bight of Tyee, a quarter of a century passed. A man may prosper much in twenty-five years, and Hector McKaye, albeit American born, was bred of an acquisitive race. When his Gethsemane came upon him, he was rated the richest lumberman in the state of Washington; his twenty-thousand board-feet capacity per day sawmill had grown to five hundred thousand, his ten thousand acres to a hundred thousand. Two thousand persons looked to him and his enterprise for their bread and