He kept two servants: a blooded team of horses drew the
successor to the original buckboard. Newmark owned a sail yacht of
five or six tons, in which, quite solitary, he took his only
pleasure. Both were considered men of substance and property, as
indeed they were. Only, they risked dollars to gain thousands. A
succession of bad years, a panic-contraction of money markets, any
one of a dozen possible, though not probable, contingencies would
render it difficult to meet the obligations which constantly came
due, and which Newmark kept busy devising ways and means of meeting.
If things went well--and it may be remarked that legitimately they
should--Newmark and Orde would some day be rated among the
millionaire firms. If things went ill, bankruptcy could not be
avoided. There was no middle ground. Nor were Orde and his partner
unique in this; practically every firm then developing or exploiting
the natural resources of the country found itself in the same case.
Immediately after the granting of the charter to drive the river the
partners had offered them an opportunity of acquiring about thirty
million feet of timber remaining from Morrison and Daly's original
holdings. That firm was very anxious to begin development on a
large scale of its Beeson Lake properties in the Saginaw waters.
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