Produced by Al Haines
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1922
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
First Edition
The Challenge of the North
Oskar Hedin, head of the fur department of old John McNabb's big store,looked up from his scrutiny of the Russian sable coat spread upon atable before him, and encountered the twinkling eyes of old Johnhimself.
"It's a shame to keep this coat here—and that natural black fox piece,too. Who is there in Terrace City that's got thirty thousand dollarsto spend for a fur coat, or twenty thousand for a fox fur?"
Old John grinned. "Mrs. Orcutt bought one, didn't she?"
"Yes, but she bought it down in New York——"
"An' paid thirty-five thousand for a coat that runs half a dozen shadeslighter, an' is topped an' pointed to bring it up to the best it's got.Did I ever tell ye the story of Mrs. Orcutt's coat?"
"No."
"It goes back quite a ways—the left-handed love me an' Fred Orcutt hasfor one another. We speak neighborly on the street, an' for yearswe've played on opposite sides of a ball-a-hole foursome at the CountryClub, but either of us would sooner lose a hundred dollars than pay theother a golf ball.
"It come about in a business way, an' in a business way it's kept on.
Not a dollar of McNabb money passes through the hands of Orcutt's
Wolverine Bank—an' he could have had it all, an' he knows it.
"As ye know, I started out, a lad, with the Hudson's Bay Company, an'I'd got to be a factor when an old uncle of my mother's in Scotlan'died an' left me a matter of twenty thousand pounds sterling. When Igot the money I quit the Company an' drifted around a bit until finallyI bought up a big tract of Michigan pine. There wasn't any TerraceCity then. I located a sawmill here at the mouth of the river an' itwas known as McNabb's Landin'.
"D'ye see those docks? I built 'em, an' I've seen the time when theywas two steamers warped along each side of 'em, an' one acrost the end,an' a half a dozen more anchored in the harbor waitin' to haul McNabb'slumber. The van stood on this spot in the sawmill days, an' when itgot too small I built a wooden store. Folks began driftin' in. Theychanged the name from McNabb's Landin' to Terrace City, an' I turned amany a good dollar for buildin' sites.
"The second summer brought Fred Orcutt, an' I practically give him thebest lot of the whole outfit to build his bank on. The town outgrewthe wooden store an' I built this one, addin' the annex later, an' Iripped out the old dam an' put in a concrete dam an' a power plant thatfurnished light an' power for all Terrace City. Money was comin' infast an' I invested it here an' there—Michigan, an' Minnesota, an'Winconsin pine, an' the Lord knows what not. Then come the panic, an'I found out almost over night that I was land poor. I needed cash, orcredit at the bank, or I