Kindred of the Dust

nd building castles in Spain-for his son Donald. Here he planned the acquisition of more timber and the installation of an electric-light plant to furnish light, heat, and power to his own town o

nd while the tide was still at the flood, they would scorn the services of the tug that went out to meet them and come ramping into the bight, all their white sails set and the glory of the sun upon them; as they swept past, far below The Laird, they would dip his hous

ton which discharged an ancient brass cannon mounted at the edge of the cliff. Whenever he saw one of his ships in

d, and discovered that, whether The Laird sat at his desk in the mi

eir hail an

the watch at their stations bent their gaze upon the house on the cliff. Long they waited b

glance met

must be unwell,

ster shook

ternoon he sent over word that he'd like to be excused. He's sick at hear

," the mate defended. "He'l

ng myself once-and Nan of the Sawdust Pile is not a

is a community somewhat difficult to locate, for the Bight of Tyee is not of sufficient importance as a harbor to have won consideration by the cartographers of the

shington, and, with the exception of those regions where good harbors had partially solved the problem of transportation, timber in Washington was very cheap

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 prospere

tised them in letters and in discreet interviews with the editors of little newspapers in the sawmill towns on Puget Sound and Grays Harho

. 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

he 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

um River, Washington," he a

. McKaye," Darrow replied. "

Skookum. You've opposed me there half a dozen times and won. I have also observed that I have a free hand with claim

standing, Mr. McKaye. What will you gi

iver and the only available mill-sites. I'll give you a mill-site if you'll pay half the expense of digging a new cha

many years after Hector McKaye had incorporated the Tyee Lumber Comp

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 Hecto

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 butt

AS BRED OF AN A

"The Laird of Tyee." Singularly enough, his character fitted this cognomen rather well. Reserved, proud, independent, and sensitive, thinking straight and talking straight, a man of brusque yet tender sentiment which was w

n several acres in extent, on the northern side and ideally situated two hundred feet below the crest, thus permitting the howling southeasters to blow over it, Hector McKaye, in the fulness of time, had built for himself a not very large two-story house of white stone n

sea through the logged-over lands, now checker-boarded into little green farms; of the rolling back country with its dark-green mantle of fir and white cedar,

aird was no longer a hero, although in the old days of the upward climb, when he had fiercely claimed her and supported her by the sweat of his brow, he had been something akin to a god. As for Elizabeth and Jane, his daughters, it must be recorded that both these young women had long since ceased to regard their father as anythin

d Jane apologized for their father and exhibited toward him an indulgent attitude, as is frequently the case with overeducated and supercultured young ladies who cannot recall a time when their slightest

h girls were perfunctory in their expressions of affection for their father, but wildly extravagant in them where their mother was concerned. Hector McKaye liked it

built. One day, while they still occupied their first home (in Port Agnew), a house with a mansard roof, two towers, jig-saw and scroll-work galore, and the

n insistence that the house should be "worthy of their station," and erected in a fashionable suburb of Seattle. Elizabeth and Jane aided and abetted her in clamoring for a Seattle home, although both were quick to note

hed their mother, all three moved briskly to the attack upon The Laird. When they had talked themselves out and awai

this architectural horror ever since. This time, I'm going to have my own way-and you've lived with me long enough to know that when I declare for a will of my own, I'll not be denied. Well I realize you and the girls have outgrown Port Agnew. There's naught here to interest you, and I would not have woman o' mine unhappy. So plan your