The vidette. (Iuka, Tishomingo County, Miss.) 1912-1967, 1920-09-16
CHAPTER XIX.

Col. Seth Pennington was thoroughly
crushed. Look which way he would
the bedeviled old rascal could find no
loophole for escape
"You win, Cardigan" he muttered
desperately as he sat In his office after
Shirley had left him. you've had
more than shade in every round thus
far, and at the finish you've landed a
clean knockout. If had to fight any
man but you"
He sighed resignedly and pressed
the push-button on his desk. Sexton
entered. Sexton he said blantiy
and with "a slight culver in his voice,
my niece and have had a. disagree
ment. We have duarreled over young
Cardigan. She's going to marry him.
Now, our affairs are somewhat In
volved, and in order to straighten them
out we spun a coin to see whether she
should sell her stock in Laguna
Grande to me or whether I should sell
mine to her-and ] lost The book
valuation of the stock at the close Of
last years business, plus ten per cent
will determine the selling price, and
shall resign as president. You will,
In all probability, be retained to man
age the company until it is merged
with the Cardigan Redwood Lumber
company when, imagine, you will be
given ample notice to seek new Job
elsewhere. Call Miss Summers attor-
ney, Judge Moore, on the telephone
and ask him to come to the office at
nine o'clock tomorrow, when the pa
pers can be drawn up and signed.
That is ALL"
The Colonel did not return to his
home in Redwood boulevard that night.
He had no appetite for dinner and sat
| brooding ID his office until very late;
then he went to the Hotel Sequoia and
engaged a room. He did not possess
sufficient courage to face his niece
again.
At four o'clock the next day the
Colonel. his baggage, his automobile,
his chauffeur and the solemn butler,
James, boarded the passenger steamer
for San Francisco, and at four-thirty
| sailed out of Humboldt bay over the
laundering bar and on into the south.
The Colonel was still rich man, but
his dream of redwood empire had
faded. and once more he was taking
up the search for cheap timber
Whether he ever found it or not is
matter that does not concern us.
| At moment when young Henry
Poundstone's dream of legal opulence
was fading. when Mayor Poundstone's
hopes for domestic peace had been
shattered beyond repair, the while his
cheap political aspirations had been
equally devastated because of a GER
tain damnable document in the posses
sion of Bryce Cardigan, many events
of Importance were transpiring. On
the veranda of his old fashioned home
John Cardigan sat tapping the floor
with his stick and dreaming dreams
which for the first time in many years
were rose-tinted. Beside him Shirley
| sat, her glance bent musingly out
across the roofs of Sequoia and on to
the bay shore. where the smoke and
exhaust steam fioated up from two
sawmills her own and Bryce Cardi-
gan's. To her came at regularly spaced
| intervals the faint whining of the saws
| and the rumble of log trains crawling
out Of the log dumps; high over the
| piles Of bright, freshly sawn lumber
| she caught from time to time the flash
Of white spray as the great logs tossed
from the tricks HURLED down the
sISids and crashed into the bay. AT