The mill is rented to me.

The land is mine, and I can do everything but actually dispose of it.

But on top of that comes another twist: if I haven't developed the business within five years into double what it was at the peak of its best development, back goes everything into a trust fund, out of which I am to have a hundred dollars a month, nothing more.

That's what I'm out here for, Ba'tiste, to find out why, in spite of the fact that I've worked day and night now for a year and a half, in spite of the fact that I've gone out and struggled and fought for contracts, and even beaten down the barriers of dislike and distrust and suspicion to get business--why I can't get it! Something or some one is blocking me, and I'm going to find out what and who it is! I think I know one man--Thayer.

But there may be more.