Cleveland County herald., 1920-10-07
CHAPTER XIX.

Col. Seth Pennington was thoroughly crushed. Look which way he would the bedevled 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 a shade in every round thus far, and at the finish you've landed a clean knockout. If I had to fight any man but you"
 He sighed resignedly and pressed the push-button on his desk. Sexton entered. Sexton" he said bluntly and with slight quiver in his voice, my niece and I have had a disagree ment. We have quarreled 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 I lost. The book valuation of the stock at the close of last years business plus ten per cent VIII utttl iIlillC tilc SCIluS plICt, anu l 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, 1 imagine you will be given ample notice to seek a 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 breeding in 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 .nkece again. "
 At four o'clock the neY day the Colonel, his baggage, hiYhutomobile, his chauffeur and the solemn butler, James, boarded the passenger steamer for San Francisco. and at four-thirty sailed 't of Humboldt bay over the laundering bar and on into the south. The Colonel was still a rich man. but his dream of redwood empire had faded, and once more lie was taking up the search for cheap timber Whether he ever found it or not Is a matter that does not concern Us.
 At a 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 hecause of cer- tain damnab!e 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 hay shore. where the smoke and exhaust steam fioated up from two sawmlls-her own and Bryce Cardi- gans. 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 tho flash of white spray as The great logs tossed from the trucks hmtled down the ssids and crashed into the hay At the docks ef both mills vessels were loading. their tall sp;rs cutt'ng the stacks: fur down tho lNg T steam schooner loa1ed unrl her main deck was almosi flush with the water was