The Inverted Pyramid by Bertrand W. Sinclair

Late summer of 1920 pricked to utter collapse the prosperity balloon which had been deflating ever since the Armistice. Europe still stewed in the choice juices of local punitive expeditions, reparation snarls, gyrating exchange, so that North American commerce lagged by the way with heavy feet. Here and there industry somehow kept going. It couldn't stop altogether, even lacking foreign markets. Crops were sowed and reaped; people were fed; life went on. But capital ventured timidly. Wages fell, even though commodities seemed reluctant to cheapen. The stress came particularly hard on the Pacific Coast. The bottom dropped out of the lumber market. A thousand loggers walked the streets of Vancouver, hungry, bewildered, as soon as their savings gave out. Only here and there a few companies and individuals, fortunately situated, well-managed, or filled with bowels of compassion for their men, were enabled to continue. They could log cheaply. They were willing to risk a little loss rather than disband crews and let machinery rust; and they hoped for the upturn, the revival of "confidence," that talisman which commends itself to Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce.

Rod owned his timber. He neither leased, paid royalty, stumpage, nor interest on borrowed capital. It was choice timber, picked long ago when his forefathers had the cream of coastal forests to choose from. If a tree could be cut and sold at a profit by any one, he was the one. So long as he could operate without loss, he meant to keep on. He had to keep on, until the cost of production overtook the market price.