Remained still the forty miles between Redding and
the Lake to be improved. As, however, navigation for light draught
vessels extended as far as that city, Orde here paid off his men. A
few days' work with a pile driver would fence the principal shoals
from the channel.
He stayed over night with his parents, and at once took the train
for Monrovia. There he made his way immediately to the little
office the new firm had rented. Newmark had just come down.
"Hullo, Joe," greeted Orde, his teeth flashing in contrast to the
tan of his face. "I'm done. Anything new since you wrote last?"
Newmark had acquired his articles of incorporation and sold his
stock. How many excursions, demonstrations, representations, and
arguments that implied, only one who has undertaken the floating of
a new and untried scheme can imagine. Perhaps his task had in it as
much of difficulty as Orde's taming of the river. Certainly he
carried it to as successful a conclusion. The bulk of the stock he
sold to the log-owners themselves; the rest he scattered here and
there and everywhere in small lots, as he was able. Some five
hundred and thousand dollar blocks even went to Chicago. His own
little fortune of twenty thousand he paid in for the shares that
represented his half of the majority retained by himself and Orde.
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