This time Duke & Sons had the upper hand, thought Piet. The entrenched political landholders with their great swathes of coastal pine had suffered tremendous losses a year earlier when an epic wildfire strode out of New Hampshire and incinerated fifty miles of seacoast forest, eating deep miles inland until beneficent rain fell. Duke & Sons’ chief holdings were along the interior rivers, a long distance from the fire. Even before the ashes cooled men whose timber had been destroyed looked covetously on the Duke timberlands.
