metropolis--as The Sequoia Sentinel always referred to San Francisco.
He was an expert fisherman, and the best shot with rifle or shot-gun
in the county; he delighted in sports and, greatly to the secret
delight of his father showed a profound interest in the latter's
business.

Throughout the happy years of Bryce's boyhood his father continued to
enlarge and improve his sawmill, to build more schooners, and to
acquire more redwood timber. Lands, the purchase of which by Cardigan
a decade before had caused his neighbours to impugn his judgment, now
developed strategical importance. As a result those lands necessary
to consolidate his own holdings came to him at his own price, while
his adverse holdings that blocked the logging operations of his
competitors went from him--also at his own price. In fact, all well-
laid plans matured satisfactorily with the exception of one, and
since it has a very definite bearing on the story, the necessity for
explaining it is paramount.

Contiguous to Cardigan's logging operations to the east and north of
Sequoia, and comparatively close in, lay a block of two thousand
acres of splendid timber, the natural, feasible, and inexpensive
outlet for which, when it should be logged, was the Valley of the
Giants. For thirty years John Cardigan had played a waiting game with
the owner of that timber, for the latter was as fully obsessed with
the belief that he was going to sell it to John Cardigan at a dollar
and a half per thousand feet stumpage as Cardigan was certain he was
going to buy it for a dollar a thousand--when he should be ready to
do so and not one second sooner. He calculated, as did the owner of
the timber, that the time to do business would be a year or two
before the last of Cardigan's timber in that section should be gone.