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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rules of the Game, by Stewart Edward White
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Rules of the Game
+
+Author: Stewart Edward White
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #13194]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RULES OF THE GAME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Maria Khomenko and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to
+scorch his face and hands]
+
+
+
+
+THE RULES OF THE GAME
+
+BY
+
+STEWART EDWARD WHITE
+
+1910
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY LEJAREN A. HILLER
+
+
+
+
+1909, 1910, BY JAMES HORSBURGH, JR
+
+1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1910
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+
+_The geography in this novel may easily be recognized by one familiar
+with the country. For that reason it is necessary to state that the
+characters therein are in no manner to be confused with the people
+actually inhabiting and developing that locality. The Power Company
+promoted by Baker has absolutely nothing to do with any Power Company
+utilizing any streams: the delectable Plant never exercised his talents
+in Sierra North. The author must decline to acknowledge any
+identifications of the sort. Plant and Baker and all the rest are,
+however, only to a limited extent fictitious characters. What they did
+and what they stood for is absolutely true._
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to scorch his face
+and hands.
+
+The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stood to one side.
+
+"I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned.
+
+Bob found it two hours' journey down.
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Late one fall afternoon, in the year 1898, a train paused for a moment
+before crossing a bridge over a river. From it descended a heavy-set,
+elderly man. The train immediately proceeded on its way.
+
+The heavy-set man looked about him. The river and the bottom-land
+growths of willow and hardwood were hemmed in, as far as he could see,
+by low-wooded hills. Only the railroad bridge, the steep embankment of
+the right-of-way, and a small, painted, windowless structure next the
+water met his eye as the handiwork of man. The windowless structure was
+bleak, deserted and obviously locked by a strong padlock and hasp.
+Nevertheless, the man, throwing on his shoulder a canvas duffle-bag with
+handles, made his way down the steep railway embankment, across a plank
+over the ditch, and to the edge of the water. Here he dropped his bag
+heavily, and looked about him with an air of comical dismay.
+
+The man was probably close to sixty years of age, but florid and
+vigorous. His body was heavy and round; but so were his arms and legs.
+An otherwise absolutely unprepossessing face was rendered most
+attractive by a pair of twinkling, humorous blue eyes, set far apart.
+Iron-gray hair, with a tendency to curl upward at the ends, escaped from
+under his hat. His movements were slow and large and purposeful.
+
+He rattled the padlock on the boathouse, looked at his watch, and sat
+down on his duffle-bag. The wind blew strong up the river; the baring
+branches of the willows whipped loose their yellow leaves. A dull,
+leaden light stole up from the east as the afternoon sun lost its
+strength.
+
+By the end of ten minutes, however, the wind carried with it the creak
+of rowlocks. A moment later a light, flat duck-boat shot around the bend
+and drew up at the float.
+
+"Well, Orde, you confounded old scallywattamus," remarked the man on the
+duffle-bag, without moving, "is this your notion of meeting a train?"
+
+The oarsman moored his frail craft and stepped to the float. He was
+about ten years the other's junior, big of frame, tanned of skin, clear
+of eye, and also purposeful of movement.
+
+"This boathouse," he remarked incisively, "is the property of the Maple
+County Duck Club. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Get off this float."
+
+Then they clasped hands and looked at each other.
+
+"It's surely like old times to see you again, Welton," Orde broke the
+momentary silence. "It's been--let's see--fifteen years, hasn't it?
+How's Minnesota?"
+
+"Full of ducks," stated Welton emphatically, "and if you haven't
+anything but mud hens and hell divers here, I'm going to sue you for
+getting me here under false pretences. I want ducks."
+
+"Well, I'll get the keeper to shoot you some," replied Orde, soothingly,
+"or you can come out and see me kill 'em if you'll sit quiet and not
+rock the boat. Climb aboard. It's getting late."
+
+Welton threw aboard his duffle-bag, and, with a dexterity marvellous in
+one apparently so unwieldy, stepped in astern. Orde grinned.
+
+"Haven't forgotten how to ride a log, I reckon?" he commented.
+
+Welton exploded.
+
+"Look here, you little squirt!" he cried, "I'd have you know I'm riding
+logs yet. I don't suppose you'd know a log if you'd see one, you'
+soft-handed, degenerate, old riverhog, you! A golf ball's about your
+size!"
+
+"No," said Orde; "a fat old hippopotamus named Welton is about my
+size--as I'll show you when we land at the Marsh!"
+
+Welton grinned.
+
+"How's Mrs. Orde and the little boy?" he inquired.
+
+"Mrs. Orde is fine and dandy, and the 'little boy,' as you call him,
+graduated from college last June," Orde replied.
+
+"You don't say!" cried Welton, genuinely astounded. "Why, of course, he
+must have! Can he lick his dad?"
+
+"You bet he can--or could if his dad would give him a chance. Why, he's
+been captain of the football team for two years."
+
+"And football's the only game I'd come out of the woods to see," said
+Welton. "I must have seen him up at Minneapolis when his team licked the
+stuffing out of our boys; and I remember his name. But I never thought
+of him as little Bobby--because--well, because I always did remember him
+as little Bobby."
+
+"He's big Bobby, now, all right," said Orde, "and that's one reason I
+wanted to see you; why I asked you to run over from Chicago next time
+you came down. Of course, there _are_ ducks, too."
+
+"There'd better be!" said Welton grimly.
+
+"I want Bob to go into the lumber business, same as his dad was. This
+congressman game is all right, and I don't see how I can very well get
+out of it, even if I wanted to. But, Welton, I'm a Riverman, and I
+always will be. It's in my bones. I want Bob to grow up in the smell of
+the woods--same as his dad. I've always had that ambition for him. It
+was the one thing that made me hesitate longest about going to
+Washington. I looked forward to _Orde & Son_."
+
+He was resting on his oars, and the duck-boat drifted silently by the
+swaying brown reeds.
+
+
+Welton nodded.
+
+"I want you to take him and break him in. I'd rather have you than any
+one I know. You're the only one of the outsiders who stayed by the Big
+Jam," Orde continued. "Don't try to favour him--that's no favour. If he
+doesn't make good, fire him. Don't tell any of your people that he's the
+son of a friend. Let him stand on his own feet. If he's any good we'll
+work him into the old game. Just give him a job, and keep an eye on him
+for me, to see how well he does."
+
+"Jack, the job's his," said Welton. "But it won't do him much good,
+because it won't last long. We're cleaned up in Minnesota; and have only
+an odd two years on some odds and ends we picked up in Wisconsin just to
+keep us busy."
+
+"What are you going to do then?" asked Orde, quietly dipping his oars
+again.
+
+"I'm going to retire and enjoy life."
+
+Orde laughed quietly.
+
+"Yes, you are!" said he. "You'd have a high old time for a calendar
+month. Then you'd get uneasy. You'd build you a big house, which would
+keep you mad for six months more. Then you'd degenerate to buying
+subscription books, and wheezing around a club and going by the cocktail
+route. You'd look sweet retiring, now, wouldn't you?"
+
+Welton grinned back, a trifle ruefully.
+
+"You can no more retire than I can," Orde went on. "And as for enjoying
+life, I'll trade jobs with you in a minute, you ungrateful old idiot."
+
+"I know it, Jack," confessed Welton; "but what can I do? I can't pick up
+any more timber at any price. I tell you, the game is played out. We're
+old mossbacks; and our job is done."
+
+"I have five hundred million feet of sugar pine in California. What do
+you say to going in with me to manufacture?"
+
+"The hell you have!" cried Welton, his jaw dropping. "I didn't know
+that!"
+
+"Neither does anybody else. I bought it twenty years ago, under a
+corporation name. I was the whole corporation. Called myself the
+Wolverine Company."
+
+"You own the Wolverine property, do you?"
+
+"Yes; ever hear of it?"
+
+"I know where it is. I've been out there trying to get hold of
+something, but you have the heart of it."
+
+"Thought you were going to retire," Orde pointed out.
+
+"The property's all right, but I've some sort of notion the title is
+clouded."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Can't seem to remember; but I must have come against some record
+somewhere. Didn't pay extra much attention, because I wasn't interested
+in that piece. Something to do with fraudulent homesteading, wasn't it?"
+
+Orde dropped his oars across his lap to fill and light a pipe.
+
+"That title was deliberately clouded by an enemy to prevent my raising
+money at the time of the Big Jam, when I was pinched," said he. "Frank
+Taylor straightened it out for me. You can see him. As a matter of fact,
+most of that land I bought outright from the original homesteaders, and
+the rest from a bank. I was very particular. There's one 160 I wouldn't
+take on that account."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Welton, his jolly eyes twinkling. "Why
+the secrecy?"
+
+"I wanted a business for Bob when he should grow up," explained Orde;
+"but I didn't want any of this 'rich man's son' business. Nothing's
+worse for a boy than to feel that everything's cut and dried for him. He
+is to understand that he must go to work for somebody else, and stand
+strictly on his own feet, and make good on his own efforts. That's why I
+want you to break him in."
+
+"All right. And about this partnership?"
+
+"I want you to take charge. I can't leave Washington. We'll get down to
+details later. Bob can work for you there the same as here. By and by,
+we'll see whether to tell him or not."
+
+The twilight had fallen, and the shores of the river were lost in dusk.
+The surface of the water itself shone with an added luminosity,
+reflecting the sky. In the middle distance twinkled a light, beyond
+which in long stretches lay the sombre marshes.
+
+"That's the club," said Orde. "Now, if you disgrace me, you old duffer,
+I'll use you as a decoy!"
+
+A few moments later the two men, opening the door of the shooting-box,
+plunged into a murk of blue tobacco smoke. A half-dozen men greeted them
+boisterously. These were just about to draw lots for choice of blinds on
+the morrow. A savoury smell of roasting ducks came from the tiny kitchen
+where Weber--punter, keeper, duck-caller and cook--exercised the
+last-named function. Welton drew last choice, and was commiserated on
+his bad fortune. No one offered to give way to the guest, however. On
+this point the rules of the Club were inflexible.
+
+Luckily the weather changed. It turned cold; the wind blew a gale.
+Squalls of light snow swept the marshes. Men chattered and shivered, and
+blew on their wet fingers, but in from the great open lake came myriads
+of water-fowl, seeking shelter, and the sport was grand.
+
+"Well, old stick-in-the-mud," said Orde as, at the end of two days, the
+men thawed out in a smoking car, "ducks enough for you?"
+
+"Jack," said Welton solemnly, "there are no ducks in Minnesota. They've
+all come over here. I've had the time of my life. And about that other
+thing: as soon as our woods work is under way, I'll run out to
+California and look over the ground--see how easy it is to log that
+country. Then we can talk business. In the meantime, send Bob over to
+the Chicago office. I'll let Harvey break him in a little on the office
+work until I get back. When will he show up?"
+
+Orde grinned apologetically.
+
+"The kid has set his heart on coaching the team this fall, and he don't
+want to go to work until after the season," said he. "I'm just an old
+fool enough to tell him he could wait. I know he ought to be at it
+now--you and I were, long before his age; but----"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" interrupted Welton, his big body shaking all over with
+mirth. "You talk like a copy-book. I'm not a constituent, and you
+needn't run any bluffs on me. You're tickled to death with that boy, and
+you are hoping that team will lick the everlasting daylights out of
+Chicago, Thanksgiving; and you wouldn't miss the game or have Bob out of
+the coaching for the whole of California; and you know it. Send him
+along when you get ready."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Bob Orde, armed with a card of introduction to Fox, Welton's office
+partner, left home directly after Thanksgiving. He had heard much of
+Welton & Fox in the past, both from his father and his father's
+associates. The firm name meant to him big things in the past history of
+Michigan's industries, and big things in the vague, large life of the
+Northwest. Therefore, he was considerably surprised, on finding the
+firm's Adams Street offices, to observe their comparative
+insignificance.
+
+He made his way into a narrow entry, containing merely a high desk, a
+safe, some letter files, and two bookkeepers. Then, without challenge,
+he walked directly into a large apartment, furnished as simply, with
+another safe, a typewriter, several chairs, and a large roll-top desk.
+At the latter a man sprawled, reading a newspaper. Bob looked about for
+a further door closed on an inner private office, where the weighty
+business must be transacted. There was none. The tall, broad, lean young
+man hesitated, looking about him with a puzzled expression in his
+earnest young eyes. Could this be the heart and centre of those vast and
+far-reaching activities he had heard so much about?
+
+After a moment the man in the revolving chair looked up shrewdly over
+his paper. Bob felt himself the object of an instant's searching
+scrutiny from a pair of elderly steel-gray eyes.
+
+"Well?" said the man, briefly.
+
+"I am looking for Mr. Fox," explained Bob.
+
+"I am Fox."
+
+The young man moved forward his great frame with the easy,
+loose-jointed grace of the trained athlete. Without comment he handed
+his card of introduction to the seated man. The latter glanced at it,
+then back to the young fellow before him.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Orde," he unbent slightly. "I've been expecting
+you. If you're as good a man as your father, you'll succeed. If you're
+not as good a man as your father, you may get on--well enough. But
+you've got to be some good on your own account. We'll see." He raised
+his voice slightly. "Jim!" he called.
+
+One of the two bookkeepers appeared in the doorway.
+
+"This is young Mr. Orde," Fox told him. "You knew his father at Monrovia
+and Redding."
+
+The bookkeeper examined Bob dispassionately.
+
+"Harvey is our head man here," went on Fox. "He'll take charge of you."
+
+He swung his leg over the arm of his chair and resumed his newspaper.
+After a few moments he thrust the crumpled sheet into a huge waste
+basket and turned to his desk, where he speedily lost himself in a mass
+of letters and papers.
+
+Harvey disappeared. Bob stood for a moment, then took a seat by the
+window, where he could look out over the smoky city and catch a glimpse
+of the wintry lake beyond. As nothing further occurred for some time, he
+removed his overcoat, and gazed about him with interest on the framed
+photographs of logging scenes and camps that covered the walls. At the
+end of ten minutes Harvey returned from the small outer office. Harvey
+was, perhaps, fifty-five years of age, exceeding methodical, very
+competent.
+
+"Can you run a typewriter?" he inquired.
+
+"A little," said Bob.
+
+"Well, copy this, with a carbon duplicate."
+
+Bob took the paper Harvey extended to him. He found it to be a list,
+including hundreds of items. The first few lines were like this:
+
+Sec. 4    T, 6    N.R., 26  W  S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+     4       6          26     N.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+     4       6          26     S.W. 1/4 of S.W. 1/4
+     5       6          26     S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+     5       6          26     S.E. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+
+After an interminable sequence, another of the figures would change, or
+a single letter of the alphabet would shift. And so on, column after
+column. Bob had not the remotest notion of what it all meant, but he
+copied it and handed the result to Harvey. In a few moments Harvey
+returned.
+
+"Did you verify this?" he asked.
+
+"What?" Bob inquired.
+
+"Verify it, check it over, compare it," snapped Harvey, impatiently.
+
+Bob took the list, and with infinite pains which, nevertheless, could
+not prevent him from occasionally losing the place in the bewilderment
+of so many similar figures, he managed to discover that he had omitted
+three and miscopied two. He corrected these mistakes with ink and
+returned the list to Harvey. Harvey looked sourly at the ink marks, and
+gave the boy another list to copy.
+
+Bob found this task, which lasted until noon, fully as exhilarating as
+the other. When he returned his copies he ventured an inquiry.
+
+"What are these?" he asked.
+
+"Descriptions," snapped Harvey.
+
+In time he managed to reason out the fact that they were descriptions of
+land; that each item of the many hundreds meant a separate tract. Thus
+the first line of his first copy, translated, would have read as
+follows:
+
+"The southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section number four,
+township number six, north, range number twenty-six, west."
+
+--And that it represented forty acres of timber land. The stupendous
+nature of such holdings made him gasp, and he gasped again when he
+realized that each of his mistakes meant the misplacement on the map of
+enough for a good-sized farm. Nevertheless, as day succeeded day, and
+the lists had no end, the mistakes became more difficult to avoid. The
+S, W, E, and N keys on the typewriter bothered him, hypnotized him,
+forced him to strike fantastic combinations of their own. Once Harvey
+entered to point out to him an impossible N.S.
+
+Over his lists Harvey, the second bookkeeper, and Fox held long
+consultations. Then Bob leaned back in his office chair to examine for
+the hundredth time the framed photographs of logging crews, winter
+scenes in the forest, record loads of logs; and to speculate again on
+the maps, deer heads, and hunting trophies. At first they had appealed
+to his imagination. Now they had become too familiar. Out the window
+were the palls of smoke, gigantic buildings, crevasse-like streets, and
+swirling winds of Chicago.
+
+Occasionally men would drift in, inquiring for the heads of the firm.
+Then Fox would hang one leg over the arm of his swinging chair, light a
+cigar, and enter into desultory conversation. To Bob a great deal of
+time seemed thus to be wasted. He did not know that big deals were
+decided in apparently casual references to business.
+
+Other lists varied the monotony. After he had finished the tax lists he
+had to copy over every description a second time, with additional
+statistics opposite each, like this:
+
+S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4, T. 4 N.R., 17, W. Sec. 32,
+            W.P. 68, N. 16, H. 5.
+
+The last characters translated into: "White pine, 68,000 feet; Norway
+pine, 16,000 feet; hemlock, 5,000 feet," and that inventoried the
+standing timber on the special forty acres.
+
+And occasionally he tabulated for reference long statistics on how Camp
+14 fed its men for 32 cents a day apiece, while Camp 32 got it down to
+27 cents.
+
+That was all, absolutely all, except that occasionally they sent him
+out to do an errand, or let him copy a wordy contract with a great many
+_whereases_ and _wherefores_.
+
+Bob little realized that nine-tenths of this timber--all that wherein S
+P (sugar pine) took the place of W P--was in California, belonged to his
+own father, and would one day be his. For just at this time the
+principal labour of the office was in checking over the estimates on the
+Western tract.
+
+Bob did his best because he was a true sportsman, and he had entered the
+game, but he did not like it, and the slow, sleepy monotony of the
+office, with its trivial tasks which he did not understand, filled him
+with an immense and cloying languor. The firm seemed to be dying of the
+sleeping sickness. Nothing ever happened. They filed their interminable
+statistics, and consulted their interminable books, and marked squares
+off their interminable maps, and droned along their monotonous,
+unimportant life in the same manner day after day. Bob was used to
+out-of-doors, used to exercise, used to the animation of free human
+intercourse. He watched the clock in spite of himself. He made mistakes
+out of sheer weariness of spirit, and in the footing of the long columns
+of figures he could not summon to his assistance the slow, painstaking
+enthusiasm for accuracy which is the sole salvation of those who would
+get the answer. He was not that sort of chap.
+
+But he was not a quitter, either. This was life. He tried
+conscientiously to do his best in it. Other men did; so could he.
+
+The winter moved on somnolently. He knew he was not making a success.
+Harvey was inscrutable, taciturn, not to be approached. Fox seemed to
+have forgotten his official existence, although he was hearty enough in
+his morning greetings to the young man. The young bookkeeper, Archie,
+was more friendly, but even he was a being apart, alien, one of the
+strangely accurate machines for the putting down and docketing of these
+innumerable and unimportant figures. He would have liked to know and
+understand Bob, just as the latter would have liked to know and
+understand him, but they were separated by a wide gulf in which whirled
+the nothingnesses of training and temperament. However, Archie often
+pointed out mistakes to Bob before the sardonic Harvey discovered them.
+Harvey never said anything. He merely made a blue pencil mark in the
+margin, and handed the document back. But the weariness of his smile!
+
+One day Bob was sent to the bank. His business there was that of an
+errand boy. Discovering it to be sleeting, he returned for his overcoat.
+Harvey was standing rigid in the door of the inner office, talking to
+Fox.
+
+"He has an ingrained inaccuracy. He will never do for business," Bob
+caught.
+
+Archie looked at him pityingly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The winter wore away. Bob dragged himself out of bed every morning at
+half-past six, hurried through a breakfast, caught a car--and hoped that
+the bridge would be closed. Otherwise he would be late at the office,
+which would earn him Harvey's marked disapproval. Bob could not see that
+it mattered much whether he was late or not. Generally he had nothing
+whatever to do for an hour or so. At noon he ate disconsolately at a
+cheap saloon restaurant. At five he was free to go out among his own
+kind--with always the thought before him of the alarm clock the
+following morning.
+
+One day he sat by the window, his clean, square chin in his hand, his
+eyes lost in abstraction. As he looked, the winter murk parted
+noiselessly, as though the effect were prearranged; a blue sky shone
+through on a glint of bluer water; and, wonder of wonders, there through
+the grimy dirty roar of Adams Street a single, joyful robin note flew up
+to him.
+
+At once a great homesickness overpowered him. He could see plainly the
+half-sodden grass of the campus, the budding trees, the red "gym"
+building, and the crowd knocking up flies. In a little while the shot
+putters and jumpers would be out in their sweaters. Out at Regents'
+Field the runners were getting into shape. Bob could almost hear the
+creak of the rollers smoothing out the tennis courts; he could almost
+recognize the voices of the fellows perching about, smell the fragrant
+reek of their pipes, savour the sweet spring breeze. The library clock
+boomed four times, then clanged the hour. A rush of feet from all the
+recitation rooms followed as a sequence, the opening of doors, the
+murmur of voices, occasionally a shout. Over it sounded the sharp,
+half-petulant advice of the coaches and the little trainer to the
+athletes. It was getting dusk. The campus was emptying. Through the
+trees shone lights. And Bob looked up, as he had so often done before,
+to see the wonder of the great dome against the afterglow of sunset.
+
+Harvey was examining him with some curiosity.
+
+"Copied those camp reports?" he inquired.
+
+Bob glanced hastily at the clock. He had been dreaming over an hour.
+
+A little later Fox came in; and a little after that Harvey returned
+bringing in his hand the copies of the camp reports, but instead of
+taking them directly to Bob for correction, as had been his habit, he
+laid them before Fox. The latter picked them up and examined them. In a
+moment he dropped them on his desk.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded of Harvey, "that _seventeen_ only
+ran ten thousand? Why, it's preposterous! Saw it myself. It has a
+half-million on it, if there's a stick. Let's see Parsons's letter."
+
+While Harvey was gone, Fox read further in the copy.
+
+"See here, Harvey," he cried, "something's dead wrong. We never cut all
+this hemlock. Why, hemlock's 'way down."
+
+Harvey laid the original on the desk. After a second Fox's face cleared.
+
+"Why, this is all right. There were 480,000 on _seventeen_. And that
+hemlock seems to have got in the wrong column. You want to be a little
+more careful, Jim. Never knew that to happen before. Weren't out with
+the boys last night, were you?"
+
+But Harvey refused to respond to frivolity.
+
+"It's never happened before because I never let it happen before," he
+replied stiffly. "There have been mistakes like that, and worse, in
+almost every report we've filed. I've cut them out. Now, Mr. Fox, I
+don't have much to say, but I'd rather do a thing myself than do it over
+after somebody else. We've got a good deal to keep track of in this
+office, as you know, without having to go over everybody else's work
+too."
+
+"H'm," said Fox, thoughtfully. Then after a moment, "I'll see about it."
+
+Harvey went back to the outer office, and Fox turned at once to Bob.
+
+"Well, how is it?" he asked. "How did it happen?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Bob. "I'm trying, Mr. Fox. Don't think it isn't
+that. But it's new to me, and I can't seem to get the hang of it right
+away."
+
+"I see. How long you been here?"
+
+"A little over four months."
+
+Fox swung back in his chair leisurely.
+
+"You must see you're not fair to Harvey," he announced. "That man
+carries the details of four businesses in his head, he practically does
+the clerical work for them all, and he never seems to hurry. Also, he
+can put his hand without hesitation on any one of these documents," he
+waved his hand about the room. "I can't."
+
+He stopped to light the stub of a long-extinct cigar.
+
+"I can't make it hard for that sort of man. So I guess we'll have to
+take you out of the office. Still, I promised Welton to give you a good
+try-out. Then, too, I'm not satisfied in my own mind. I can see you are
+trying. Either you're a damn fool or this college education racket has
+had the same effect on you as on most other young cubs. If you're the
+son of your father, you can't be entirely a damn fool. If it's the
+college education, that will probably wear off in time. Anyhow, I think
+I'll take you up to the mill. You can try the office there. Collins is
+easy to get on with, and of course there isn't the same responsibility
+there."
+
+In the buffeting of humiliation Bob could not avoid a fleeting inner
+smile over this last remark. Responsibility! In this sleepy, quiet
+backwater of a tenth-floor office, full of infinite little statistics
+that led nowhere, that came to no conclusion except to be engulfed in
+dark files with hundreds of their own kind, aimless, useless, annoying
+as so many gadflies! Then he set his face for the further remarks.
+
+"Navigation will open this week," Fox's incisive tones went on, "and our
+hold-overs will be moved now. It will be busy there. We shall take the
+eight o'clock train to-night." He glanced sharply at Bob's lean, set
+face. "I assume you'll go?"
+
+Bob was remembering certain trying afternoons on the field when as
+captain, and later as coach, he had told some very high-spirited boys
+what he considered some wholesome truths. He was remembering the various
+ways in which they had taken his remarks.
+
+"Yes, sir," he replied.
+
+"Well, you can go home now and pack up," said Fox. "Jim!" he shot out in
+his penetrating voice; then to Harvey, "Make out Orde's check."
+
+Bob closed his desk, and went into the outer office to receive his
+check. Harvey handed it to him without comment, and at once turned back
+to his books. Bob stood irresolute a moment, then turned away without
+farewell.
+
+But Archie followed him into the hall.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry, old man," he whispered, furtively. "Did you get the
+G.B.?"
+
+"I'm going up to the mill office," replied Bob.
+
+"Oh!" the other commiserated him. Then with an effort to see the best
+side, "Still you could hardly expect to jump right into the head office
+at first. I didn't much think you could hold down a job here. You see
+there's too much doing here. Well, good-bye. Good luck to you, old man."
+
+There it was again, the insistence on the responsibility, the activity,
+the importance of that sleepy, stuffy little office with its two men at
+work, its leisure, its aimlessness. On his way to the car-line Bob
+stopped to look in at an open door. A dozen men were jumping truck loads
+of boxes here and there. Another man in a peaked cap and a silesia coat,
+with a pencil behind his ear and a manifold book sticking out of his
+pocket shouted orders, consulted a long list, marked boxes and scribbled
+in a shipping book. Dim in the background huge freight elevators rose
+and fell, burdened with the mass of indeterminate things. Truck horses,
+great as elephants, magnificently harnessed with brass ornaments, drew
+drays, big enough to carry a small house, to the loading platform where
+they were quickly laden and sent away. From an opened upper window came
+the busy click of many typewriters. Order in apparent confusion, immense
+activity at a white heat, great movement, the clanging of the wheels of
+commerce, the apparition and embodiment of restless industry--these
+appeared and vanished, darted in and out, were plain to be seen and were
+vague through the murk and gloom. Bob glanced up at the emblazoned sign.
+He read the firm's name of well-known wholesale grocers. As he crossed
+the bridge and proceeded out Lincoln Park Boulevard two figures rose to
+him and stood side by side. One was the shipping clerk in his peaked cap
+and silesia coat, hurried, busy, commanding, full of responsibility; the
+other was Harvey, with his round, black skull cap, his great, gold-bowed
+spectacles, entering minutely, painstakingly, deliberately, his neat
+little figures in a neat, large book.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The train stopped about noon at a small board town. Fox and Bob
+descended. The latter drew his lungs full of the sparkling clear air and
+felt inclined to shout. The thing that claimed his attention most
+strongly was the dull green band of the forest, thick and impenetrable
+to the south, fringing into ragged tamaracks on the east, opening into a
+charming vista of a narrowing bay to the west. Northward the land ran
+down to sandpits and beyond them tossed the vivid white and blue of the
+Lake. Then when his interest had detached itself from the predominant
+note of the imminent wilderness, predominant less from its physical
+size--for it lay in remote perspective--than from a certain indefinable
+and psychological right of priority, Bob's eye was at once drawn to the
+huge red-painted sawmill, with its very tall smokestacks, its row of
+water barrels along the ridge, its uncouth and separate conical sawdust
+burner, and its long lines of elevated tramways leading out into the
+lumber yard where was piled the white pine held over from the season
+before. As Bob looked, a great, black horse appeared on one of these
+aerial tramways, silhouetted against the sky. The beast moved
+accurately, his head held low against his chest, his feet lifted and
+planted with care. Behind him rumbled a whole train of little cars each
+laden with planks. On the foremost sat a man, his shoulders bowed,
+driving the horse. They proceeded slowly, leisurely, without haste,
+against the brightness of the sky. The spider supports below them seemed
+strangely inadequate to their mass, so that they appeared in an occult
+manner to maintain their elevation by some buoyancy of their own, some
+quality that sustained them not only in their distance above the earth
+but in a curious, decorative, extra-human world of their own. After a
+moment they disappeared behind the tall piles of lumber.
+
+Against the sky, now, the place of the elephantine black horse and the
+little tram cars and the man was taken by the masts of ships lying
+beyond. They rose straight and tall, their cordage like spider webs, in
+a succession of regular spaces until they were lost behind the mill.
+From the exhaust of the mill's engine a jet of white steam shot up
+sparkling. Close on its apparition sounded the exultant, high-keyed
+shriek of the saw. It ceased abruptly. Then Bob became conscious of a
+heavy _rud, thud_ of mill machinery.
+
+All this time he and Fox were walking along a narrow board walk,
+elevated two or three feet above the sawdust-strewn street. They passed
+the mill and entered the cool shade of the big lumber piles. Along their
+base lay half-melted snow. Soggy pools soaked the ground in the exposed
+places. Bob breathed deep of the clear air, keenly conscious of the
+freshness of it after the murky city. A sweet and delicate odour was
+abroad, an odour elusive yet pungent, an aroma of the open. The young
+man sniffed it eagerly, this essence of fresh sawdust, of new-cut pine,
+of sawlogs dripping from the water, of faint old reminiscence of cured
+lumber standing in the piles of the year before, and more fancifully of
+the balsam and spruce, the hemlock and pine of the distant forest.
+
+"Great!" he cried aloud, "I never knew anything like it! What a country
+to train in!"
+
+"All this lumber here is going to be sold within the next two months,"
+said Fox with the first approach to enthusiasm Bob had ever observed in
+him. "All of it. It's got to be carried down to the docks, and tallied
+there, and loaded in those vessels. The mill isn't much--too
+old-fashioned. We saw with 'circulars' instead of band-saws. Not like
+our Minnesota mills. We bought the plant as it stands. Still we turn
+out a pretty good cut every day, and it has to be run out and piled."
+
+They stepped abruptly, without transition, into the town. A double row
+of unpainted board shanties led straight to the water's edge. This row
+was punctuated by four buildings different from the rest--a huge
+rambling structure with a wide porch over which was suspended a large
+bell; a neatly painted smaller building labelled "Office"; a trim house
+surrounded by what would later be a garden; and a square-fronted store.
+The street between was soft and springy with sawdust and finely broken
+shingles. Various side streets started out bravely enough, but soon
+petered out into stump land. Along one of them were extensive stables.
+
+Bob followed his conductor in silence. After an interval they mounted
+short steps and entered the office.
+
+Here Bob found himself at once in a small entry railed off from the main
+room by a breast-high line of pickets strong enough to resist a
+battering-ram. A man he had seen walking across from the mill was
+talking rapidly through a tiny wicket, emphasizing some point on a
+soiled memorandum by the indication of a stubby forefinger. He was a
+short, active, blue-eyed man, very tanned. Bob looked at him with
+interest, for there was something about him the young man did not
+recognize, something he liked--a certain independent carriage of the
+head, a certain self-reliance in the set of his shoulders, a certain
+purposeful directness of his whole personality. When he caught sight of
+Fox he turned briskly, extending his hand.
+
+"How are you, Mr. Fox?" he greeted. "Just in?"
+
+"Hullo, Johnny," replied Fox, "how are things? I see you're busy."
+
+"Yes, we're busy," replied the man, "and we'll keep busy."
+
+"Everything going all right?"
+
+"Pretty good. Poor lot of men this year. A good many of the old men
+haven't showed up this year--some sort of pull-out to Oregon and
+California. I'm having a little trouble with them off and on."
+
+"I'll bet on you to stay on top," replied Fox easily. "I'll be over to
+see you pretty soon."
+
+The man nodded to the bookkeeper with whom he had been talking, and
+turned to go out. As he passed Bob, that young man was conscious of a
+keen, gimlet scrutiny from the blue eyes, a scrutiny instantaneous, but
+which seemed to penetrate his very flesh to the soul of him. He
+experienced a distinct physical shock as at the encountering of an
+elemental force.
+
+He came to himself to hear Fox saying:
+
+"That's Johnny Mason, our mill foreman. He has charge of all the sawing,
+and is a mighty good man. You'll see more of him."
+
+The speaker opened a gate in the picket railing and stepped inside.
+
+A long shelf desk, at which were high stools, backed up against the
+pickets; a big round stove occupied the centre; a safe crowded one
+corner. Blue print maps decorated the walls. Coarse rope matting edged
+with tin strips protected the floor. A single step down through a door
+led into a painted private office where could be seen a flat table desk.
+In the air hung a mingled odour of fresh pine, stale tobacco, and the
+closeness of books.
+
+Fox turned at once sharply to the left and entered into earnest
+conversation with a pale, hatchet-faced man of thirty-five, whom he
+addressed as "Collins." In a moment he turned, beckoning Bob forward.
+
+"Here's a youngster for you, Collins," said he, evidently continuing
+former remarks. "Young Mr. Orde. He's been in our home office awhile,
+but I brought him up to help you out. He can get busy on your tally
+sheets and time checks and tally boards, and sort of ease up the strain
+a little."
+
+"I can use him, right now," said Collins, nervously smoothing back a
+strand of his pale hair. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Orde. These 'jumpers' ...
+and that confounded mixed stuff from _seventeen_ ..." he trailed off, his
+eye glazing in the abstraction of some inner calculation, his long,
+nervous fingers reaching unconsciously toward the soiled memoranda left
+by Mason.
+
+"Well, I'll set you to work," he roused himself, when he perceived that
+the two were about to leave him. And almost before they had time to turn
+away he was busy at the papers, his pencil, beautifully pointed, running
+like lightning down the long columns, pausing at certain places as
+though by instinct, hovering the brief instant necessary to calculation,
+then racing on as though in pursuit of something elusive.
+
+As they turned away a slow, cool voice addressed them from behind the
+stove.
+
+"Hullo, bub!" it drawled.
+
+Fox's face lighted and he extended both hands.
+
+"Well, Tally!" he cried. "You old snoozer!"
+
+The man was upward of sixty years of age, but straight and active. His
+features were tanned a deep mahogany, and carved by the years and
+exposure into lines of capability and good humour. In contrast to this
+brown his sweeping white moustache and bushy eyebrows, blenched flaxen
+by the sun, showed strongly. His little blue eyes twinkled, and fine
+wrinkles at their corners helped the twinkles. His long figure was so
+heavily clothed as to be concealed from any surmise, except that it was
+gaunt and wiry. Hands gnarled, twisted, veined, brown, seemed less like
+flesh than like some skilful Japanese carving. On his head he wore a
+visored cap with an extraordinary high crown; on his back a rather dingy
+coat cut from a Mackinaw blanket; on his legs trousers that had been
+"stagged" off just below the knees, heavy German socks, and shoes nailed
+with sharp spikes at least three-quarters of an inch in length.
+
+"Thought you were up in the woods!" Fox was exclaiming. "Where's
+Fagan?"
+
+"He's walkin' white water," replied the old man.
+
+"Things going well?"
+
+"Damn poor," admitted Tally frankly. "That is to say, the Whitefish
+branch is off. There's trouble with the men. They're a mixed lot. Then
+there's old Meadows. He's assertin' his heaven-born rights some more.
+It's all right. We're on their backs. Other branches just about down."
+
+There followed a rapid exchange of which Bob could make little--talk of
+flood water, of "plugging" and "pulling," of "winging out," of "white
+water." It made no sense, and yet somehow it thrilled him, as at times
+the mere roll of Greek names used to arouse in his breast vague emotions
+of grandeur and the struggle of mighty forces.
+
+Still talking, the two men began slowly to move toward the inner office.
+Suddenly Fox seemed to remember his companion's existence.
+
+"By the way, Jim," he said, "I want you to know one of our new men,
+young Mr. Orde. You've worked for his father. This is Jim Tally, and
+he's one of the best rivermen, the best woodsman, the best boss of men
+old Michigan ever turned out. He walked logs before I was born."
+
+"Glad to know you, Mr. Orde," said Tally, quite unmoved.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The two left Bob to his own devices. The old riverman and the
+astonishingly thawed and rejuvenated Mr. Fox disappeared in the private
+office. Bob proffered a question to the busy Collins, discovered himself
+free until afternoon, and so went out through the office and into the
+clear open air.
+
+He headed at once across the wide sawdust area toward the mill and the
+lake. A great curiosity, a great interest filled him. After a moment he
+found himself walking between tall, leaning stacks of lumber, piled
+crosswise in such a manner that the sweet currents of air eddied through
+the interstices between the boards and in the narrow, alley-like spaces
+between the square and separate stacks. A coolness filled these streets,
+a coolness born of the shade in which they were cast, the freshness of
+still unmelted snow lying in patches, the quality of pine with its faint
+aromatic pitch smell and its suggestion of the forest. Bob wandered on
+slowly, his hands in his pockets. For the time being his more active
+interest was in abeyance, lulled by the subtle, elusive phantom of
+grandeur suggested in the aloofness of this narrow street fronted by its
+square, skeleton, windowless houses through which the wind rattled.
+After a little he glimpsed blue through the alleys between. Then a side
+street offered, full of sun. He turned down it a few feet, and found
+himself standing over an inlet of the lake.
+
+Then for the first time he realized that he had been walking on "made
+ground." The water chugged restlessly against the uneven ends of the
+lath-like slabs, thousands of them laid, side by side, down to and below
+the water's surface. They formed a substructure on which the sawdust
+had been heaped. Deep shadows darted from their shelter and withdrew,
+following the play of the little waves. The lower slabs were black with
+the wet, and from them, too, crept a spicy odour set free by the
+moisture. On a pile head sat an urchin fishing, with a long bamboo pole
+many sizes too large for him. As Bob watched, he jerked forth diminutive
+flat sunfish.
+
+"Good work!" called Bob in congratulation.
+
+The urchin looked up at the large, good-humoured man and grinned.
+
+Bob retraced his steps to the street on which he had started out. There
+he discovered a steep stairway, and by it mounted to the tramway above.
+Along this he wandered for what seemed to him an interminable distance,
+lost as in a maze among the streets and byways of this tenantless city.
+Once he stepped aside to give passage to the great horse, or one like
+him, and his train of little cars. The man driving nodded to him. Again
+he happened on two men unloading similar cars, and passing the boards
+down to other men below, who piled them skilfully, two end planks one
+way, and then the next tier the other, in regular alternation. They wore
+thick leather aprons, and square leather pieces strapped across the
+insides of their hands as a protection against splinters. These, like
+all other especial accoutrements, seemed to Bob somehow romantic, to be
+desired, infinitely picturesque. He passed on with the clear,
+yellow-white of the pine boards lingering back of his retina.
+
+But now suddenly his sauntering brought him to the water front. The
+tramway ended in a long platform running parallel to the edge of the
+docks below. There were many little cars, both in the process of
+unloading and awaiting their turn. The place swarmed with men, all
+busily engaged in handing the boards from one to another as buckets are
+passed at a fire. At each point where an unending stream of them passed
+over the side of each ship, stood a young man with a long, flexible
+rule. This he laid rapidly along the width of each board, and then as
+rapidly entered a mark in a note-book. The boards seemed to move fairly
+of their own volition, like a scutellate monster of many joints,
+crawling from the cars, across the dock, over the side of the ship and
+into the black hold where presumably it coiled. There were six ships;
+six, many-jointed monsters creeping to their appointed places under the
+urging of these their masters; six young men absorbed and busy at the
+tallying; six crews panoplied in leather guiding the monsters to their
+lairs. Here, too, the sun-warmed air arose sluggish with the aroma of
+pitch, of lumber, of tar from the ships' cordage, of the wetness of
+unpainted wood. Aloft in the rigging, clear against the sky, were
+sailors in contrast of peaceful, leisurely industry to those who toiled
+and hurried below. The masts swayed gently, describing an arc against
+the heavens. The sailors swung easily to the motion. From below came the
+quick dull sounds of planks thrown down, the grind of car wheels, the
+movement of feet, the varied, complex sound of men working together, the
+clapping of waters against the structure. It was confusing, confusing as
+the noise of many hammers. Yet two things seemed to steady it, to
+confine it, keep it in the bounds of order, to prevent it from usurping
+more than its meet and proper proportion. One was the tingling lake
+breeze singing through the rigging of the ship; the other was the idle
+and intermittent whistling of one of the sailors aloft. And suddenly, as
+though it had but just commenced, Bob again became aware of the saw
+shrieking in ecstasy as it plunged into a pine log.
+
+The sound came from the left, where at once he perceived the tall stacks
+showing above the lumber piles, and the plume of white steam glittering
+in the sun. In a moment the steam fell, and the shriek of the saw fell
+with it. He turned to follow the tramway, and in so doing almost bumped
+into Mason, the mill foreman.
+
+"They're hustling it in," said the latter. "That's right. Can't give me
+yard room any too soon. The drive'll be down next month. Plenty doing
+then. Damn those Dutchmen!"
+
+He spoke abstractedly, as though voicing his inner thoughts to himself,
+unconscious of his companion. Then he roused himself.
+
+"Going to the mill?" he asked. "Come on."
+
+They walked along the high, narrow platform overlooking the water front
+and the lading of the ships. Soon the trestles widened, the tracks
+diverging like the fingers of a hand on the broad front to the second
+story of the mill. Mason said something about seeing the whole of it,
+and led the way along a narrow, railed outside passage to the other end
+of the structure.
+
+There Bob's attention was at once caught by a great water enclosure of
+logs, lying still and sluggish in the manner of beasts resting. Rank
+after rank, tier after tier, in strange patterns they lay, brown and
+round, with the little strips of blue water showing between like a
+fantastic pattern. While Bob looked, a man ran out over them. He was
+dressed in short trousers, heavy socks, and spiked boots, and a faded
+blue shirt. The young man watched with interest, old memories of his
+early boyhood thronging back on him, before his people had moved from
+Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically, but with an accurate
+purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in dignified reminiscence of his
+tread, and slowly rolled over; the little logs bobbed frantically in a
+turmoil of white water, disappearing and reappearing again and again,
+sleek and wet as seals. To these the man paid no attention, but leaped
+easily on, pausing on the timbers heavy enough to support him, barely
+spurning those too small to sustain his weight. In a moment he stopped
+abruptly without the transitorial balancing Bob would have believed
+necessary, and went calmly to pushing mightily with a long pike-pole.
+The log on which he stood rolled under the pressure; the man quite
+mechanically kept pace with its rolling, treading it in correspondence
+now one way, now the other. In a few moments thus he had forced the mass
+of logs before him toward an inclined plane leading to the second story
+of the mill.
+
+Up this ran an endless chain armed with teeth. The man pushed one of the
+logs against the chain; the teeth bit; at once, shaking itself free of
+the water, without apparent effort, without haste, calmly and leisurely
+as befitted the dignity of its bulk, the great timber arose. The water
+dripped from it, the surface streamed, a cheerful _patter, patter_ of
+the falling drops made itself heard beneath the mill noises. In a moment
+the log disappeared beneath projecting eaves. Another was just behind
+it, and behind that yet another, and another, like great patient beasts
+rising from the coolness of a stream to follow a leader through the
+narrowness, of pasture bars. And in the booms, up the river, as far as
+the eye could see, were other logs awaiting their turn. And beyond them
+the forest trees, straight and tall and green, dreaming of the time when
+they should follow their brothers to the ships and go out into the
+world.
+
+Mason was looking up the river.
+
+"I've seen the time when she was piled thirty feet high there, and the
+freshet behind her. That was ten year back."
+
+"What?" asked Bob.
+
+"A jam!" explained Mason.
+
+He ducked his head below his shoulders and disappeared beneath the eaves
+of the mill. Bob followed.
+
+First it was dusky; then he saw the strip of bright yellow sunlight and
+the blue bay in the opening below the eaves; then he caught the glitter
+and whirr of the two huge saws, moving silently but with the deadly
+menace of great speed on their axes. Against the light in irregular
+succession, alternately blotting and clearing the foreground at the end
+of the mill, appeared the ends of the logs coming up the incline. For a
+moment they poised on the slant, then fell to the level, and glided
+forward to a broad platform where they were ravished from the chain and
+rolled into line.
+
+Bob's eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. He made out pulleys,
+belts, machinery, men. While he watched a black, crooked arm shot
+vigorously up from the floor, hurried a log to the embrace of two
+clamps, rolled it a little this way, a little that, hovered over it as
+though in doubt as to whether it was satisfactorily placed, then plunged
+to unknown depths as swiftly and silently as it had come. So abrupt and
+purposeful were its movements, so detached did it seem from control,
+that, just as when he was a youngster, Bob could not rid his mind of the
+notion that it was possessed of volition, that it led a mysterious life
+of its own down there in the shadows, that it was in the nature of an
+intelligent and agile beast trained to apply its powers independently.
+
+Bob remembered it as the "nigger," and looked about for the man standing
+by a lever.
+
+A momentary delay seemed to have occurred, owing to some obscure
+difficulty. The man at the lever straightened his back. Suddenly all
+that part of the floor seemed to start forward with extraordinary
+swiftness. The log rushed down on the circular saw. Instantly the wild,
+exultant shriek arose. The car went on, burying the saw, all but the
+very top, from which a stream of sawdust flew up and back. A long, clean
+slab fell to a succession of revolving rollers which carried it, passing
+it from one to the other, far into the body of the mill. The car shot
+back to its original position in front of the saw. The saw hummed an
+undersong of strong vibration. Again it ploughed its way the length of
+the timber. This time a plank with bark edges dropped on the rollers.
+And when the car had flown back to its starting point the "nigger" rose
+from obscurity to turn the log half way around.
+
+They picked their way gingerly on. Bob looked back. Against the light
+the two graceful, erect figures, immobile, but carried back and forth
+over thirty feet with lightning rapidity; the brute masses of the logs;
+the swift decisive forays of the "nigger," the unobtrusive figures of
+the other men handling the logs far in the background; and the bright,
+smooth, glittering, dangerous saws, clear-cut in outline by their very
+speed, humming in anticipation, or shrieking like demons as they
+bit--these seemed to him to swell in the dim light to the proportions of
+something gigantic, primeval--to become forces beyond the experience of
+to-day, typical of the tremendous power that must be invoked to subdue
+the equally tremendous power of the wilderness.
+
+He and Mason together examined the industriously working gang-saws, long
+steel blades with the up-and-down motion of cutting cord-wood. They
+passed the small trimming saws, where men push the boards between little
+round saws to trim their edges. Bob noticed how the sawdust was carried
+away automatically, and where the waste slabs went. They turned through
+a small side room, strangely silent by contrast to the rest, where the
+filer did his minute work. He was an old man, the filer, with
+steel-rimmed, round spectacles, and he held Bob some time explaining how
+important his position was.
+
+They emerged finally to the broad, open platform with the radiating
+tram-car tracks. Here Bob saw the finished boards trundled out on the
+moving rollers to be transferred to the cars.
+
+Mason left him. He made his way slowly back toward the office, noticing
+on the way the curious pairs of huge wheels beneath which were slung the
+heavy timbers or piles of boards for transportation at the level of the
+ground.
+
+At the edge of the lumber piles Bob looked back. The noises of industry
+were in his ears; the blur of industry before his eyes; the clean, sweet
+smell of pine in his nostrils. He saw clearly the row of ships and the
+many-jointed serpent of boards making its way to the hold, the sailors
+swinging aloft; the miles of ruminating brown logs, and the alert little
+man zigzagging across them; the shadow of the mill darkening the water,
+and the brown leviathan timbers rising dripping in regular succession
+from them; the whirr of the deadly circular saws, and the calm, erect
+men dominating the cars that darted back and forth; and finally the
+sparkling white steam spraying suddenly against the intense blue of the
+sky. Here was activity, business, industry, the clash of forces. He
+admired the quick, compact alertness of Johnny Mason; he joyed in the
+absorbed, interested activity of the brown young men with the scaler's
+rules; he envied a trifle the muscle-stretching, physical labour of the
+men with the leather aprons and hand-guards, piling the lumber. It was
+good to draw in deep breaths of this air, to smell deeply of he
+aromatic odours of the north.
+
+Suddenly the mill whistle began to blow. Beneath the noise he could hear
+the machinery beginning to run down. From all directions men came. They
+converged in the central alley, hundreds of them. In a moment Bob was
+caught up in their stream, and borne with them toward the
+weather-stained shanty town.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Bob followed this streaming multitude to the large structure that had
+earlier been pointed out to him as the boarding house. It was a
+commodious affair with a narrow verandah to which led steps picked out
+by the sharp caulks of the rivermen's boots. A round stove held the
+place of honour in the first room. Benches flanked the walls. At one end
+was a table-sink, and tin wash-basins, and roller towels. The men were
+splashing and blowing in the plunge-in-all-over fashion of their class.
+They emerged slicked down and fresh, their hair plastered wet to their
+foreheads. After a moment a fat and motherly woman made an announcement
+from a rear room. All trooped out.
+
+The dining room was precisely like those Bob remembered from
+recollections of the river camps of his childhood. There were the same
+long tables covered with red oilcloth, the same pine benches worn smooth
+and shiny, the same thick crockery, and the same huge receptacles
+steaming with hearty--and well-cooked--food. Nowhere does the man who
+labours with his hands fare better than in the average lumber camp.
+Forest operations have a largeness in conception and execution that
+leads away from the habit of the mean, small and foolish economics. At
+one side, and near the windows, stood a smaller table. The covering of
+this was turkey-red cloth with white pattern; it boasted a white-metal
+"caster"; and possessed real chairs. Here Bob took his seat, in company
+with Fox, Collins, Mason, Tally and the half-dozen active young fellows
+he had seen handling the scaling rules near the ships.
+
+At the men's tables the meal was consumed in a silence which Bob
+learned later came nearer being obligatory than a matter of choice.
+Conversation was discouraged by the good-natured fat woman, Mrs.
+Hallowell. Talk delayed; and when one had dishes to wash----
+
+The "boss's table" was more leisurely. Bob was introduced to the
+sealers. They proved to be, with one exception, young fellows of
+twenty-one or two, keen-eyed, brown-faced, alert and active. They
+impressed Bob as belonging to the clerk class, with something added by
+the outdoor, varied life. Indeed, later he discovered them to be sons of
+carpenters, mechanics and other higher-class, intelligent workingmen;
+boys who had gone through high school, and perhaps a little way into the
+business college; ambitious youngsters, each with a different idea in
+the back of his head. They had in common an air of capability, of
+complete adequacy for the task in life they had selected. The sixth
+sealer was much older and of the riverman type. He had evidently come up
+from the ranks.
+
+There was no general conversation. Talk confined itself strictly to
+shop. Bob, his imagination already stirred by the incidents of his
+stroll, listened eagerly. Fox was getting in touch with the whole
+situation.
+
+"The main drive is down," Tally told him, "but the Cedar Branch hasn't
+got to the river yet. What in blazes did you want to buy that little
+strip this late in the day for?"
+
+"Had to take it--on a deal," said Fox briefly. "Why? Is it hard driving?
+I've never been up there. Welton saw to all that."
+
+"It's hell. The pine's way up at the headwaters. You have to drive her
+the whole length of the stream, through a mixed hardwood and farm
+country. Lots of partridges and mossbacks, but no improvements. Not a dam
+the whole length of her. Case of hit the freshet water or get hung."
+
+"Well, we've done that kind of a job before."
+
+"Yes, _before_!" Tally retorted. "If I had a half-crew of good,
+old-fashioned white-water birlers, I'd rest easy. But we don't have no
+crews like we used to. The old bully boys have all moved out west--or
+died."
+
+"Getting old--like us," bantered Fox. "Why haven't you died off too,
+Jim?"
+
+"I'm never going to die," stated the old man, "I'm going to live to turn
+into a grindstone and wear out. But it's a fact. There's plenty left can
+ride a log all right, but they're a tough lot. It's too close here to
+Marion."
+
+"That _is_ too bad," condoled Fox, "especially as I remember so well
+what a soft-spoken, lamb-like little tin angel you used to be, Jim."
+
+Fox, who had quite dropped his old office self, winked at Bob. The
+latter felt encouraged to say:
+
+"I had a course in college on archaeology. Don't remember much about it,
+but one thing. When they managed to decipher the oldest known piece of
+hieroglyphics on an Assyrian brick, what do you suppose it turned out to
+be?"
+
+"Give it up, Brudder Bones," said Tally, dryly, "what was it?"
+
+Bob flushed at the old riverman's tone, but went on.
+
+"It was a letter from a man to his son away at school. In it he lamented
+the good old times when he was young, and gave it as his opinion that
+the world was going to the dogs."
+
+Tally grinned slowly; and the others burst into a shout of laughter.
+
+"All right, bub," said the riverman good-humouredly. "But that doesn't
+get me a new foreman." He turned to Fox. "Smith broke his leg; and I
+can't find a man to take charge. I can't go. The main drive's got to be
+sorted."
+
+"There ought to be plenty of good men," said Fox.
+
+"There are, but they're at work."
+
+"Dicky Darrell is over at Marion," spoke up one of the scalers.
+
+"Roaring Dick," said Tally sarcastically, "--but there's no denying
+he's a good man in the woods. But if he's at Marion, he's drunk; and if
+he's drunk, you can't do nothing with him."
+
+"I heard it three days ago," said the scaler.
+
+Tally ruminated. "Well," he concluded, "maybe he's about over with his
+bust. I'll run over this afternoon and see what I can do with him. If
+Tom Welton would only tear himself apart from California, we'd get on
+all right."
+
+A scraping back of benches and a tramp of feet announced the nearly
+simultaneous finishing of feeding at the men's tables. At the boss's
+table everyone seized an unabashed toothpick. Collins addressed Bob.
+
+"Mr. Fox and I have so much to go over this afternoon," said he, "that I
+don't believe I'll have time to show you. Just look around a little."
+
+On the porch outside Bob paused. After a moment he became aware of a
+figure at his elbow. He turned to see old Jim Tally bent over to light
+his pipe behind the mahogany of his curved hand.
+
+"Want to take in Marion, bub?" he enquired.
+
+"Sure!" cried Bob heartily, surprised at this mark of favour.
+
+"Come on then," said the old riverman, "the lightning express is gettin'
+anxious for us."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+They tramped to the station and boarded the single passenger car of the
+accommodation. There they selected a forward seat and waited patiently
+for the freight-handling to finish and for the leisurely puffing little
+engine to move on. An hour later they descended at Marion. The journey
+had been made in an almost absolute silence. Tally stared straight
+ahead, and sucked at his little pipe. To him, apparently, the journey
+was merely something to be endured; and he relapsed into that patient
+absent-mindedness developed among those who have to wait on forces that
+will not be hurried. Bob's remarks he answered in monosyllables. When
+the train pulled into the station, Tally immediately arose, as though
+released by a spring.
+
+Bob's impressions of Marion were of great mills and sawdust-burners
+along a wide river; of broad, sawdust-covered streets; of a single block
+of good, brick stores on a main thoroughfare which almost immediately
+petered out into the vilest and most ramshackle frame "joints"; of wide
+side streets flanked by small, painted houses in yards, some very neat
+indeed. Tally walked rapidly by the respectable business blocks, but
+pushed into the first of the unkempt frame saloons beyond. Bob followed
+close at his heels. He found himself in a cheap bar-room, its paint and
+varnish scarred and marred, its floor sawdust-covered, its centre
+occupied by a huge stove, its walls decorated by several pictures of the
+nude.
+
+Four men were playing cards at an old round table, hacked and bruised
+and blackened by time. One of them was the barkeeper, a burly individual
+with black hair plastered in a "lick" across his forehead. He pushed
+back his chair and ducked behind the bar, whence he greeted the
+newcomers. Tally proffered a question. The barkeeper relaxed from his
+professional attitude, and leaned both elbows on the bar. The two
+conversed for a moment; then Tally nodded briefly and went out. Bob
+followed.
+
+This performance was repeated down the length of the street. The
+stage-settings varied little; same oblong, painted rooms; same varnished
+bars down one side; same mirrors and bottles behind them; same
+sawdust-strewn floors; same pictures on the walls; same obscure, back
+rooms; same sleepy card games by the same burly but sodden type of men.
+This was the off season. Profits were now as slight as later they would
+be heavy. Tim talked with the barkeepers low-voiced, nodded and went
+out. Only when he had systematically worked both sides of the street did
+he say anything to his companion.
+
+"He's in town," said Tally; "but they don't know where."
+
+"Whither away?" asked Bob.
+
+"Across the river."
+
+They walked together down a side street to a long wooden bridge. This
+rested on wooden piers shaped upstream like the prow of a ram in order
+to withstand the battering of the logs. It was a very long bridge.
+Beneath it the swift current of the river slipped smoothly. The breadth
+of the stream was divided into many channels and pockets by means of
+brown poles. Some of these were partially filled with logs. A clear
+channel had been preserved up the middle. Men armed with long pike-poles
+were moving here and there over the booms and the logs themselves,
+pushing, pulling, shoving a big log into this pocket, another into that,
+gradually segregating the different brands belonging to the different
+owners of the mills below. From the quite considerable height of the
+bridge all this lay spread out mapwise up and down the perspective of
+the stream. The smooth, oily current of the river, leaden-hued and cold
+in the light of the early spring, hurried by on its way to the lake,
+swiftly, yet without the turmoil and fuss of lesser power. Downstream,
+as far as Bob could see, were the huge mills' with their flanking lumber
+yards, the masts of their lading ships, their black sawdust-burners, and
+above all the pure-white, triumphant banners of steam that shot straight
+up against the gray of the sky.
+
+Tally followed the direction of his gaze.
+
+"Modern work," he commented. "Band saws. No circulars there. Two hundred
+thousand a day"; with which cryptic utterance he resumed his walk.
+
+The opposite side of the river proved to be a smaller edition of the
+other. Into the first saloon Tally pushed.
+
+It resembled the others, except that no card game was in progress. The
+barkeeper, his feet elevated, read a pink paper behind the bar. A figure
+slept at the round table, its head in its arms. Tally walked over to
+shake this man by the shoulder.
+
+In a moment the sleeper raised his head. Bob saw a little, middle-aged
+man, not over five feet six in height, slenderly built, yet with broad,
+hanging shoulders. His head was an almost exact inverted pyramid, the
+base formed by a mop of red-brown hair, and the apex represented by a
+very pointed chin. Two level, oblong patches of hair made eyebrows. His
+face was white and nervous. A strong, hooked nose separated a pair of
+red-brown eyes, small and twinkling, like a chipmunk's. Just now they
+were bloodshot and vague.
+
+"Hullo, Dicky Darrell," said Tally.
+
+The man struggled to his feet, knocking over the chair, and laid both
+hands effusively on Tally's shoulders.
+
+"Jim!" he cried thickly. "Good ole Jim! Glad to see you! Hav' drink!"
+
+Tally nodded, and, to Bob's surprise, took his place at the bar.
+
+"Hav' 'nother!" cried Darrell. "God! I'm glad to see you! Nobody in
+town."
+
+"All right," agreed Tally pacifically; "but let's go across the river
+to Dugan's and get it."
+
+To this Darrell readily agreed. They left the saloon. Bob, following,
+noticed the peculiar truculence imparted to Darrell's appearance by the
+fact that in walking he always held his hands open and palms to the
+front. Suddenly Darrell became for the first time aware of his presence.
+The riverman whirled on him, and Bob became conscious of something as
+distinct as a physical shock as he met the impact of an electrical
+nervous energy. It passed, and he found himself half smiling down on
+this little, white-faced man with the matted hair and the bloodshot,
+chipmunk eyes.
+
+"Who'n hell's this!" demanded Darrell savagely.
+
+"Friend of mine," said Tally. "Come on."
+
+Darrell stared a moment longer. "All right," he said at last.
+
+All the way across the bridge Tally argued with his companion.
+
+"We've got to have a foreman on the Cedar Branch, Dick," he began, "and
+you're the fellow."
+
+To this Darrell offered a profane, emphatic and contemptuous negative.
+With consummate diplomacy Tally led his mind from sullen obstinacy to
+mere reluctance. At the corner of Main Street the three stopped.
+
+"But I don't want to go yet, Jim," pleaded Darrell, almost tearfully. "I
+ain't had all my 'time' yet."
+
+"Well," said Tally, "you've been polishing up the flames of hell for
+four days pretty steady. What more do you want?"
+
+"I ain't smashed no rig yet," objected Darrell.
+
+Tally looked puzzled.
+
+"Well, go ahead and smash your rig and get done with it," he said.
+
+"A' right," said Darrell cheerfully.
+
+He started off briskly, the others following. Down a side street his
+rather uncertain gait led them, to the wide-open door of a frame livery
+stable. The usual loungers in the usual tipped-back chairs greeted him.
+
+"Want m' rig," he demanded.
+
+A large and leisurely man in shirt sleeves lounged out from the office
+and looked him over dispassionately.
+
+"You've been drunk four days," said he, "have you the price?"
+
+"Bet y'," said Dick, cheerfully. He seated himself on the ground and
+pulled off his boot from which he extracted a pulpy mass of greenbacks.
+"Can't fool me!" he said cunningly. "Always save 'nuff for my rig!"
+
+He shoved the bills into the liveryman's hands. The latter straightened
+them out, counted them, thrust a portion into his pocket, and handed the
+rest back to Darrell.
+
+"There you are," said he. He shouted an order into the darkness of the
+stable.
+
+An interval ensued. The stableman and Tally waited imperturbably,
+without the faintest expression of interest in anything evident on their
+immobile countenances. Dicky Darrell rocked back and forth on his heels,
+a pleased smile on his face.
+
+After a few moments the stable boy led out a horse hitched to the most
+ramshackle and patched-up old side-bar buggy Bob had ever beheld.
+Darrell, after several vain attempts, managed to clamber aboard. He
+gathered up the reins, and, with exaggerated care, drove into the middle
+of the street.
+
+Then suddenly he rose to his feet, uttered an ear-piercing exultant
+yell, hurled the reins at the horse's head and began to beat the animal
+with his whip. The horse, startled, bounded forward. The buggy jerked.
+Darrell sat down violently, but was at once on his feet, plying the
+whip. The crazed man and the crazed horse disappeared up the street, the
+buggy careening from side to side, Darrell yelling at the top of his
+lungs. The stableman watched him out of sight.
+
+"Roaring Dick of the Woods!" said he thoughtfully at last. He thrust
+his hand in his pocket and took out the wad of greenbacks, contemplated
+them for a moment, and thrust them back. He caught Tally's eye. "Funny
+what different ideas men have of a time," said he.
+
+"Do this regular?" inquired Tally dryly.
+
+"Every year."
+
+Bob got his breath at last.
+
+"Why!" he cried. "What'll happen to him! He'll be killed sure!"
+
+"Not him!" stated the stableman emphatically. "Not Dicky Darrell! He'll
+smash up good, and will crawl out of the wreck, and he'll limp back here
+in just about one half-hour."
+
+"How about the horse and buggy?"
+
+"Oh, we'll catch the horse in a day or two--it's a spoiled colt,
+anyway--and we'll patch up the buggy if she's patchable. If not, we'll
+leave it. Usual programme."
+
+The stableman and Tally lit their pipes. Nobody seemed much interested
+now that the amusement was over. Bob owned a boyish desire to follow the
+wake of the cyclone, but in the presence of this imperturbability, he
+repressed his inclination.
+
+"Some day the damn fool will bust his head open," said the liveryman,
+after a ruminative pause.
+
+"I shouldn't think you'd rent him a horse," said Bob.
+
+"He pays," yawned the other.
+
+At the end of the half-hour the liveryman dove into his office for a
+coat, which he put on. This indicated that he contemplated exercising in
+the sun instead of sitting still in the shade.
+
+"Well, let's look him up," said he. "This may be the time he busts his
+fool head."
+
+"Hope not," was Tally's comment; "can't afford to lose a foreman."
+
+But near the outskirts of town they met Roaring Dick limping painfully
+down the middle of the road. His hat was gone and he was liberally
+plastered with the soft mud of early spring.
+
+Not one word would he vouchsafe, but looked at them all malevolently.
+His intoxication seemed to have evaporated with his good spirits. As
+answer to the liveryman's question as to the whereabouts of the smashed
+rig, he waved a comprehensive hand toward the suburbs. At insistence, he
+snapped back like an ugly dog.
+
+"Out there somewhere," he snarled. "Go find it! What the hell do I care
+where it is? It's mine, isn't it? I paid you for it, didn't I? Well, go
+find it! You can have it!"
+
+He tramped vigorously back toward the main street, a grotesque figure
+with his red-brown hair tumbled over his white, nervous countenance of
+the pointed chin, with his hooked nose, and his twinkling chipmunk eyes.
+
+"He'll hit the first saloon, if you don't watch out," Bob managed to
+whisper to Tally.
+
+But the latter shook his head. From long experience he knew the type.
+
+His reasoning was correct. Roaring Dick tramped doggedly down the length
+of the street to the little frame depot. There he slumped into one of
+the hard seats in the waiting-room, where he promptly slept. Tally sat
+down beside him and withdrew into himself. The twilight fell. After an
+apparently interminable interval a train rumbled in. Tally shook his
+companion. The latter awakened just long enough to stumble aboard the
+smoking car, where, his knees propped up, his chin on his breast, he
+relapsed into deep slumber.
+
+They arrived at the boarding house late in the evening. Mrs. Hallowell
+set out a cold supper, to which Bob was ready to do full justice. Ten
+minutes later he found himself in a tiny box of a bedroom, furnished
+barely. He pushed open the window and propped it up with a piece of
+kindling. The earth had fallen into a very narrow silhouette, and the
+star-filled heavens usurped all space, crowding the world down. Against
+the sky the outlines stood significant in what they suggested and
+concealed--slumbering roof-tops, the satiated mill glowing vaguely
+somewhere from her banked fires, the blackness and mass of silent lumber
+yards, the mysterious, hushing fingers of the ships' masts, and then low
+and vague, like a narrow strip of velvet dividing these men's affairs
+from the star-strewn infinite, the wilderness. As Bob leaned from the
+window the bigness of these things rushed into his office-starved spirit
+as air into a vacuum. The cold of the lake breeze entered his lungs. He
+drew a deep breath of it. For the first time in his short business
+experience he looked forward eagerly to the morrow.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Bob was awakened before daylight by the unholy shriek of a great
+whistle. He then realized that for some time he had been vaguely aware
+of kindling and stove sounds. The bare little room had become bitterly
+cold. A gray-blackness represented the world outside. He lighted his
+glass lamp and took a hasty, shivering sponge bath in the crockery
+basin. Then he felt better in the answering glow of his healthy,
+straight young body; and a few moments later was prepared to enjoy a
+fragrant, new-lit, somewhat smoky fire in the big stove outside his
+door. The bell rang. Men knocked ashes from their pipes and arose; other
+men stamped in from outside. The dining room was filled.
+
+Bob took his seat, nodding to the men. A slightly grumpy silence
+reigned. Collins and Fox had not yet appeared. Bob saw Roaring Dick at
+the other table, rather whiter than the day before, but carrying himself
+boldly in spite of his poor head. As he looked, Roaring Dick caught his
+eye. The riverman evidently did not recognize having seen the young
+stranger the day before; but Bob was again conscious of the quick impact
+of the man's personality, quite out of proportion to his diminutive
+height and slender build. At the end of ten minutes the men trooped out
+noisily. Shortly a second whistle blew. At the signal the mill awoke.
+The clang of machinery, beginning slowly, increased in tempo. The
+exultant shriek of the saws rose to heaven. Bob, peering forth into the
+young daylight, caught the silhouette of the elephantine tram horse,
+high in the air, bending his great shoulders to the starting of his
+little train of cars.
+
+Not knowing what else to do, Bob sauntered to the office. It was locked
+and dark. He returned to the boarding house, and sat down in the main
+room. The lamps became dimmer. Finally the chore boy put them out. Then
+at last Collins appeared, followed closely by Fox.
+
+"You didn't get up to eat with the men?" the bookkeeper asked Bob a
+trifle curiously. "You don't need to do that. We eat with Mrs. Hallowell
+at seven."
+
+At eight o'clock the little bookkeeper opened the office door and
+ushered Bob in to the scene of his duties.
+
+"You're to help me," said Collins concisely. "I have the books. Our
+other duties are to make out time checks for the men, to answer the
+correspondence in our province, to keep track of camp supplies, and to
+keep tab on shipments and the stock on hand and sawed each day. There's
+your desk. You'll find time blanks and everything there. The copying
+press is in the corner. Over here is the tally board," He led the way to
+a pine bulletin, perhaps four feet square, into which were screwed a
+hundred or more small brass screw hooks. From each depended a small pine
+tablet or tag inscribed with many figures. "Do you understand a tally
+board?" Collins asked.
+
+"No," replied Bob.
+
+"Well, these screw hooks are arranged just like a map of the lumber
+yards. Each hook represents one of the lumber piles--or rather the
+location of a lumber pile. The tags hanging from them represent the
+lumber piles themselves; see?"
+
+"Sure," said Bob. Now that he understood he could follow out on this
+strange map the blocks, streets and alleys of that silent, tenantless
+city.
+
+"On these tags," pursued Collins, "are figures. These figures show how
+much lumber is in each pile, and what kind it is, and of what quality.
+In that way we know just what we have and where it is. The sealers
+report to us every day just what has been shipped out, and what has been
+piled from the mill. From their reports we change the figures on the
+tags. I'm going to let you take care of that."
+
+Bob bestowed his long figure at the desk assigned him, and went to work.
+He was interested, for it was all new to him. Men were constantly in and
+out on all sorts of errands. Fox came to shake hands and wish him well;
+he was off on the ten o'clock train. Bob checked over a long invoice of
+camp supplies; manipulated the copying press; and, under Collins's
+instructions, made out time checks against the next pay day. The
+insistence of details kept him at the stretch until noon surprised him.
+
+After dinner and a breath of fresh air, he plunged again into his tasks.
+Now he had the scalers' noon reports to transfer to the tally board. He
+was intensely interested by the novelty of it all; but even this early
+he encountered his old difficulties in the matter of figures. He made no
+mistakes, but in order to correlate, remember and transfer correctly he
+was forced to an utterly disproportionate intensity of application. To
+the tally board he brought more absolute concentration and will-power
+than did Collins to all his manifold tasks. So evidently painstaking was
+he, that the little bookkeeper glanced at him sharply once or twice.
+However, he said nothing.
+
+When darkness approached the bookkeeper closed his ledger and came over
+to Bob's desk. In ten minutes he ran deftly over Bob's afternoon work;
+re-checking the supply invoices, verifying the time checks, comparing
+the tallies with the scalers' reports. So swiftly and accurately did he
+accomplish this, with so little hesitation and so assured a belief in
+his own correctness that the really taxing job seemed merely a bit of
+light mental gymnastics after the day's work.
+
+"Good!" he complimented Bob; "everything's correct."
+
+Bob nodded, a little gloomily. It might be correct; but he was very
+tired from the strain of it.
+
+"It'll come easier with practice," said Collins; "always difficult to do
+a new thing."
+
+The whistle blew. Bob went directly to his room and sat down on the
+edge of his bed. In spite of Collins's kindly meant reassurances, the
+iron of doubt had entered his soul. He had tried for four months, and
+was no nearer facility than when he started.
+
+"If a man hadn't learned better than that, I'd have called him a dub and
+told him to get off the squad," he said to himself, a little bitterly.
+He thought a moment. "I guess I'm tired. I must buck up. If Collins and
+Archie can do it, I can. It's all in the game. Of course, it takes time
+and training. Get in the game!"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+This was on Tuesday. During the rest of the week Bob worked hard. Even a
+skilled man would have been kept busy by the multitude of details that
+poured in on the little office. Poor Bob was far from skilled. He felt
+as awkward amid all these swift and accurate activities as he had when
+at sixteen it became necessary to force his overgrown frame into a
+crowded drawing room. He tried very hard, as he always did with
+everything. When Collins succinctly called his attention to a
+discrepancy in his figurings, he smiled his slow, winning, troubled
+smile, thrust the hair back from his clear eyes, and bent his lean
+athlete's frame again to the labour. He soon discovered that this work
+demanded speed as well as accuracy. "And I need a ten-acre lot to turn
+around in," he told himself half humorously. "I'm a regular ice-wagon."
+
+He now came to look back on his college triumphs with an exaggerated but
+wholesome reaction. His athletic prowess had given him great prominence
+in college circles. Girls had been flattered at his attention; his
+classmates had deferred to his skill and experience; his juniors had, in
+the manner of college boys, looked up to him as to a demi-god. Then for
+the few months of the football season the newspapers had made of him a
+national character. His picture appeared at least once a week; his
+opinions were recorded; his physical measurements carefully detailed.
+When he appeared on the streets and in hotel lobbies, people were apt to
+recognize him and whisper furtively to one another. Bob was naturally
+the most modest youth in the world, and he hated a "fuss" after the
+delightfully normal fashion of normal boys, but all this could not fail
+to have its subtle effect. He went out into the world without conceit,
+but confident of his ability to take his place with the best of them.
+
+His first experience showed him wholly second in natural qualifications,
+in ability to learn, and in training to men subordinate in the business
+world.
+
+"I'm just plain dub," he told himself. "I thought myself some pumpkins
+and got all swelled up inside because good' food and leisure and
+heredity gave me a husky build! Football! What good does that do me
+here? Four out of five of these rivermen are huskier than I am. Me a
+business man! Why I can't seem even to learn the first principles of the
+first job of the whole lot! I've _got_ to!" he admonished; himself
+grimly. "I _hate_ a fellow who doesn't make good!"' and with a very
+determined set to his handsome chin he hurled the whole force of his
+young energies at those elusive figures that somehow _would_ lie.
+
+The week slipped by in this struggle. It was much worse than in the
+Chicago office. There Bob was allowed all the time he thought he needed.
+Here one task followed close on the heels of another, without chance for
+a breathing space or room to take bearings. Bob had to do the best he
+could, commit the result to a merciful providence, and seize the next
+job by the throat.
+
+One morning he awoke with a jump to find it was seven o'clock. He had
+heard neither whistle, and must have overslept! Hastily he leaped into
+his clothes, and rushed out into the dining room. There he found the
+chore-boy leisurely feeding a just-lighted kitchen fire. To Bob's
+exclamation of astonishment he looked up.
+
+"Sunday," he grinned; "breakfus' at eight."
+
+The week had gone without Bob's having realized the fact.
+
+Mrs. Hallowell came in a moment later, smiling at the winning, handsome
+young man in her fat and good-humoured manner. Bob was seized with an
+inspiration.
+
+"Mrs. Hallowell," he said persuasively, "just let me rummage around for
+five minutes, will you?"
+
+"You that hungry?" she chuckled. "Law! I'll have breakfast in an hour."
+
+"It isn't that," said Bob; "but I want to get some air to-day. I'm not
+used to being in an office. I want to steal a hunk of bread, and a few
+of your good doughnuts and a slice of cheese for breakfast and lunch."
+
+"A cup of hot coffee would do you more good," objected Mrs. Hallowell.
+
+"Please," begged Bob, "and I won't disturb a thing."
+
+"Oh, land! Don't worry about that," said Mrs. Hallowell, "there's
+teamsters and such in here all times of the day and night. Help
+yourself."
+
+Five minutes later, Bob, swinging a riverman's canvas lunch bag, was
+walking rapidly up the River Trail. He did not know whither he was
+bound; but here at last was a travelled way. It was a brilliant blue and
+gold morning, the air crisp, the sun warm. The trail led him first
+across a stretch of stump-dotted wet land with pools and rounded rises,
+green new grass, and trickling streamlets of recently melted snow. Then
+came a fringe of scrub growth woven into an almost impenetrable
+tangle--oaks, poplars, willows, cedar, tamarack--and through it all an
+abattis of old slashing--with its rotting, fallen stumps, its network of
+tops, its soggy root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees. Along one of
+these strutted a partridge. It clucked at Bob, but refused to move
+faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spreading its fanlike tail.
+The River Trail here took to poles laid on rough horses. The poles were
+old and slippery, and none too large. Bob had to walk circumspectly to
+stay on them at all. Shortly, however, he stepped off into the higher
+country of the hardwoods. Here the spring had passed, scattering her
+fresh green. The tops of the trees were already in half-leaf; the lower
+branches just budding, so that it seemed the sowing must have been from
+above. Last year's leaves, softened and packed by the snow, covered the
+ground with an indescribably beautiful and noiseless carpet. Through it
+pushed the early blossoms of the hepatica. Grackles whistled clearly.
+Distant redwings gave their celebrated imitation of a great multitude.
+Bluebirds warbled on the wing. The busier chickadees and creepers
+searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional remarks. The sun
+slanted through the forest.
+
+Bob strode on vigorously. His consciousness received these things
+gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with a sense of physical joy
+and harmony with the world of out-of-doors than with an analysis of its
+components. At one point, however, he paused. The hardwoods had risen
+over a low hill. Now they opened to show a framed picture of the river,
+distant and below. In contrast to the modulated browns of the
+tree-trunks, the new green and lilac of the undergrowth and the far-off
+hills across the way, it showed like a patch of burnished blue steel.
+Logs floated across the vista, singly, in scattered groups, in masses.
+Again, the river was clear. While Bob watched, a man floated into view.
+He was standing bolt upright and at ease on a log so small that the
+water lapped over its top. From this distance Bob could but just make it
+out. The man leaned carelessly on his peavy. Across the vista he
+floated, graceful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to
+the mill.
+
+Bob gave a whistle of admiration, and walked on.
+
+"I wish some of our oarsmen could see that," he said to himself.
+"They're always guying the fellows that tip over their cranky little
+shells."
+
+He stopped short.
+
+"I couldn't do it," he cried aloud; "nor I couldn't learn to do it. I
+sure _am_ a dub!"
+
+He trudged on, his spirits again at the ebb. The brightness of the day
+had dimmed. Indeed, physically, a change had taken place. Over the sun
+banked clouds had drawn. With the disappearance of the sunlight a
+little breeze, before but a pleasant and wandering companion to the
+birds, became cold and draughty. The leaf carpet proved to be soggy; and
+as for the birds themselves, their whistles suddenly grew plaintive as
+though with the portent of late autumn.
+
+This sudden transformation, usual enough with every passing cloud in the
+childhood of the spring, reacted still further on Bob's spirits. He
+trudged doggedly on. After a time a gleam of water caught his attention
+to the left. He deserted the River Trail, descended a slope, pushed his
+way through a thicket of tamaracks growing out from wire grass and
+puddles, and found himself on the shores of a round lake.
+
+It was a small body of water, completely surrounded by tall, dead brown
+grasses. These were in turn fringed by melancholy tamaracks. The water
+was dark slate colour, and ruffled angrily by the breeze which here in
+the open developed some slight strength. It reminded Bob of a
+"bottomless" lake pointed out many years before to his childish
+credulity. A lonesome hell diver flipped down out of sight as Bob
+appeared.
+
+The wet ground swayed and bent alarmingly under his tread. A stub
+attracted him. He perched on the end of it, his feet suspended above the
+wet, and abandoned himself to reflection. The lonesome diver reappeared.
+The breeze rustled the dead grasses and the tamaracks until they seemed
+to be shivering in the cold.
+
+Bob was facing himself squarely. This was his first grapple with the
+world outside. To his direct American mind the problem was simplicity in
+the extreme. An idler is a contemptible being. A rich idler is almost
+beneath contempt. A man's life lies in activity. Activity, outside the
+artistic and professional, means the world of business. All teaching at
+home and through the homiletic magazines, fashionable at that period,
+pointed out but one road to success in this world--the beginning at the
+bottom, as Bob was doing; close application; accuracy; frugality;
+honesty; fair dealing. The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and
+imagination; but perhaps those qualities are so common in what some
+people are pleased to call our humdrum modern business life that they
+were taken for granted. If a young man could not succeed in this world,
+something was wrong with him. Can Bob be blamed that in this baffling
+and unsuspected incapacity he found a great humility of spirit? In his
+fashion he began to remember trifling significances which at the time
+had meant little to him. Thus, a girl had once told him, half seriously:
+
+"Yes, you're a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a nice, big,
+blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy."
+
+He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten. Now he caught at one
+word of it. That might explain it; he was just plain stupid! And stupid
+boys either played polo or drove fancy horses or ran yachts--or occupied
+ornamental--too ornamental--desks for an hour or so a day. Bob
+remembered how, as a small boy, he used to hold the ends of the reins
+under the delighted belief that he was driving his father's spirited
+pair.
+
+"I've outgrown holding the reins, thank you," he said aloud in disgust.
+At the sound of his voice the diver disappeared. Bob laughed and felt a
+trifle better.
+
+He reviewed himself dispassionately. He could not but admit that he had
+tried hard enough, and that he had courage. It was just a case of
+limitation. Bob, for the first time, bumped against the stone wall that
+hems us in on all sides--save toward the sky.
+
+He fell into a profound discouragement; a discouragement that somehow
+found its prototype in the mournful little lake with its leaden water,
+its cold breeze, its whispering, dried marsh grasses, its funereal
+tamaracks, and its lonesome diver.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+But Bob was no quitter. The next morning he tramped down to the office,
+animated by a new courage. Even stupid boys learn, he remembered. It
+takes longer, of course, and requires more application. But he was
+strong and determined. He remembered Fatty Hayes, who took four years to
+make the team--Fatty, who couldn't get a signal through his head until
+about time for the next play, and whose great body moved appreciable
+seconds after his brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the "scrub's"
+chopping block for trying out new men on! And yet he did make the team
+in his senior year. Bob acknowledged him a very good centre, not
+brilliant, but utterly sure and safe.
+
+Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day's work. It was a heavy
+day's work. The mill was just hitting its stride, the tall ships were
+being laden and sent away to the four winds, buyers the country over
+were finishing their contracts. Collins, his coat off, his sleeve
+protectors strapped closely about his thin arms, worked at an intense
+white heat. He wasted no second of time, nor did he permit discursive
+interruption. His manner to those who entered the office was civil but
+curt. Time was now the essence of the contract these men had with life.
+
+About ten o'clock he turned from a swift contemplation of the tally
+board.
+
+"Orde!" said he sharply.
+
+Bob disentangled himself from his chair.
+
+"Look there," said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and nervous finger at
+three of the tags he held in his hand.
+
+"There's three errors." He held out for inspection the original
+sealers' report which he had dug out of the files.
+
+Bob looked at the discrepant figures with amazement. He had checked the
+tags over twice, and both times the error had escaped his notice. His
+mind, self-hypnotized, had passed them over in the same old fashion. Yet
+he had taken especial pains with that list.
+
+"I happened, just happened, to check these back myself," Collins was
+saying rapidly. "If I hadn't, we'd have made that contract with Robinson
+on the basis of what these tags show. We haven't got that much seasoned
+uppers, nor anything like it. If you've made many more breaks like this,
+if we'd contracted with Robinson for what we haven't got or couldn't
+get, we'd be in a nice mess--and so would Robinson!"
+
+"I'm sorry," murmured Bob. "I'll try to do better."
+
+"Won't do," said Collins briefly. "You aren't big enough for the job. I
+can't get behind, checking over your work. This office is too rushed as
+it is. Can't fool with blundering stupidity."
+
+Bob flushed at the word.
+
+"I guess you'd better take your time," went on Collins. "You may be all
+right, for all I know, but I haven't got time to find out."
+
+He rang a bell twice, and snatched down the telephone receiver.
+
+"Hullo, yards, send up Tommy Gould to the office. I want him to help me.
+I don't give a damn for the scaling. You'll have to get along somehow.
+The five of you ought to hold that down. Send up Gould, anyhow." He
+slammed up the receiver, muttering something about incompetence. Bob for
+a moment had a strong impulse to retort, but his anger died. He saw that
+Collins was not for the moment thinking of him at all as a human being,
+as a personality--only as a piece of this great, swiftly moving machine,
+that would not run smoothly. The fact that he had come under Fox's
+convoy evidently meant nothing to the little bookkeeper, at least for
+the moment. Collins was entirely accustomed to hiring and discharging
+men. When transplanted to the frontier industries, even such automatic
+jobs as bookkeeping take on new duties and responsibilities.
+
+Bob, after a moment of irresolution, reached for his hat.
+
+"That will be all, then?" he asked.
+
+Collins came out of the abstraction into which he had fallen.
+
+"Oh--yes," he said. "Sorry, but of course we can't take chances on these
+things being right."
+
+"Of course not," said Bob steadily.
+
+"You just need more training," went on Collins with some vague idea of
+being kind to this helpless, attractive young fellow. "I learned under
+Harry Thorpe that results is all a man looks at in this business."
+
+"I guess that's right," said Bob. "Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Collins over his shoulder. Already he was lost in the
+rapid computations and calculations that filled his hours.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Bob left the office and tramped blindly out of town. His feet naturally
+led him to the River Trail. Where the path finally came out on the banks
+of the river, he sat down and delivered himself over to the gloomiest of
+reflections.
+
+He was aroused finally by a hearty greeting from behind him. He turned
+without haste, surprise or pleasure to examine the new comer.
+
+Bob saw surveying him a man well above sixty, heavy-bodied, burly, big,
+with a square face, heavy-jowled and homely, with deep blue eyes set far
+apart, and iron gray hair that curled at the ends. With the quick,
+instinctive sizing-up developed on the athletic field, Bob thought him
+coarse-fibred, jolly, a little obtuse, but strong--very strong with the
+strength of competent effectiveness. He was dressed in a slouch hat, a
+flannel shirt, a wrinkled old business suit and mud-splashed, laced
+half-boots.
+
+"Well, bub," said this man, "enjoying the scenery?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob with reserve. He was in no mood for casual conversation,
+but the stranger went on cheerfully.
+
+"Like it pretty well myself, hereabouts." He filled and lighted a pipe.
+"This is a good time of year for the woods; no mosquitos, pretty warm,
+mighty nice overhead. Can't say so much for underfoot." He lifted and
+surveyed one foot comically, and Bob noticed that his shoes were not
+armed with the riverman's long, sharpened spikes. "Pretty good hunting
+here in the fall, and fishing later. Not much now. Up here to look
+around a little?"
+
+"No, not quite," said Bob vaguely.
+
+"This ain't much of a pleasure resort, and a stranger's a pretty
+unusual thing," said the big man by way of half-apology for his
+curiosity. "Up buying, I suppose--or maybe selling?"
+
+Bob looked up with a beginning of resentment against this apparent
+intrusion on his private affairs. He met the good-humoured, jolly eyes.
+In spite of himself he half smiled.
+
+"Not that either," said he.
+
+"You aren't in the company's employ?" persisted the stranger with an
+undercurrent of huge delight in his tone, as though he were playing a
+game that he enjoyed.
+
+Bob threw back his head and laughed. It was a short laugh and a bitter
+one.
+
+"No," said he shortly, "--not now. I've just been fired."
+
+The big man promptly dropped down beside him on the log.
+
+"Don't say!" he cried; "what's the matter?"
+
+"The matter is that I'm no good," said Bob evenly, and without the
+slightest note of complaint.
+
+"Tell me about it," suggested the big man soberly after a moment. "I'm
+pretty close to Fox. Perhaps----."
+
+"It isn't a case of pull," Bob interrupted him pleasantly. "It's a case
+of total incompetence."
+
+"That's a rather large order for a husky boy like you," said the older
+man with a sudden return to his undertone of bantering jollity.
+
+"Well, I've filled it," said Bob. "That's the one job I've done good and
+plenty."
+
+"Haven't stolen the stove, have you?"
+
+"Might better. It couldn't be any hotter than Collins."
+
+The stranger chuckled.
+
+"He _is_ a peppery little cuss," was his comment. "What did you do to
+him?"
+
+Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be considered
+humorous. The stranger became grave.
+
+"That all?" he inquired.
+
+Bob's self-disgust overpowered him.
+
+"No," said he, "not by a long shot." In brief sentences he told of his
+whole experience since entering the business world. When he had
+finished, his companion puffed away for several moments in silence.
+
+"Well, what you going to do about it?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know," Bob confessed. "I've got to tell father I'm no good.
+That is the only thing I can see ahead to now. It will break him all up,
+and I don't blame him. Father is too good a man himself not to feel this
+sort of a thing."
+
+"I see," said the stranger. "Well, it may come out in the wash," he
+concluded vaguely after a moment. Bob stared out at the river, lost in
+the gloomy thoughts his last speech had evoked. The stranger improved
+the opportunity to look the young man over critically from head to foot.
+
+"I see you're a college man," said he, indicating Bob's fraternity pin.
+
+"Yes," replied the young man listlessly. "I went to the University."
+
+"That so!" said the stranger, "well, you're ahead of me. I never got
+even to graduate at the high school."
+
+"Am I?" said Bob.
+
+"What did you do at college?" inquired the big man.
+
+"Oh, usual classical course, Greek, Latin, Pol Ec.----"
+
+"I don't mean what you learned. What did you _do?_"
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"I don't believe I did a single earthly thing except play a little
+football," he confessed.
+
+"Oh, you played football, did you? That's a great game! I'd rather see a
+good game of football than a snake fight. Make the 'varsity?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where did you play?"
+
+"Halfback."
+
+"Pretty heavy for a 'half,' ain't you?"
+
+"Well--I train down a little--and I managed to get around."
+
+"Play all four years?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Like it?"
+
+Bob's eye lit up. "Yes!" he cried. Then his face fell. "Too much, I
+guess," he added sadly.
+
+For the first time the twinkle, in the stranger's eye found vocal
+expression. He chuckled. It was a good, jolly, subterranean chuckle from
+deep in his throat, and it shook all his round body to its foundations.
+
+"Who bossed you?" he asked, "--your captain, I mean. What sort of a
+fellow was he? Did you get along with him all right?"
+
+"Had to," Bob grinned wryly; "you see they happened to make me captain."
+
+"Oh, they happened to, did they? What is your name?"
+
+"Orde."
+
+The stranger gurgled again.
+
+"You're just out then. You must have captained those big scoring teams."
+
+"They were good teams. I was lucky," said Bob.
+
+"Didn't I see by the papers that you went back to coach last fall?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've been away and couldn't keep tab. How did you come out?"
+
+"Pretty well."
+
+"Win all your games?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's good. Thought you were going to have a hard row to hoe. Before I
+went away the papers said most of the old men had graduated, and the
+material was very poor. How did you work it?"
+
+"The material was all right," Bob returned, relaxing a trifle in the
+interest of this discussion. "It was only a little raw, and needed
+shaking into shape."
+
+"And you did the shaking."
+
+"I suppose so; but you see it didn't amount to much because I'd had a
+lot of experience in being captain."
+
+The stranger chuckled one of his jolly subterranean chuckles again. He
+arose to his feet.
+
+"Well, I've got to get along to town," said he.
+
+"I'll trot along, too," said Bob.
+
+They tramped back in silence by the River Trail. On the pole trail
+across the swamp the stranger walked with a graceful and assured ease in
+spite of his apparently unwieldy build. As the two entered one of the
+sawdust-covered streets, they were hailed by Jim Mason.
+
+"Why, Mr. Welton!" he cried, "when did you get in and where did you come
+from?"
+
+"Just now, Jim," Welton answered. "Dropped off at the tank, and walked
+down to see how the river work was coming on."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Toward dusk Welton entered the boarding house where Bob was sitting
+rather gloomily by the central stove. The big man plumped himself down
+into a protesting chair, and took off his slouch hat. Bob saw his low,
+square forehead with the peculiar hair, black and gray in streaks,
+curling at the ends.
+
+"Why don't you take a little trip with me up to the Cedar Branch?" he
+asked Bob without preamble. "No use your going home right now. Your
+family's in Washington; and will be for a month or so yet."
+
+Bob thought it over.
+
+"Believe I will," he decided at last.
+
+"Do so!" cried Welton heartily. "Might as well see a little of the life.
+Don't suppose you ever went on a drive with your dad when you were a
+kid?"
+
+"No," said Bob, "I used to go up to the booms with him--I remember them
+very well; but we moved up to Redding before I was old enough to get
+about much."
+
+Welton nodded his great head.
+
+"Good old days," he commented; "and let me tell you, your dad was one of
+the best of 'em. Jack Orde is a name you can scare fresh young rivermen
+with yet," he added with a laugh. "Well, pack your turkey to-night;
+we'll take the early train to-morrow."
+
+That evening Bob laid out what he intended to take with him, and was
+just about to stuff it into a pair of canvas bags when Tommy Gould, the
+youngest scaler, pushed open the door.
+
+"Hello!" he smiled engagingly; "where are you going? Been transferred
+from the office?"
+
+"On drive," said Bob, diplomatically ignoring the last question.
+
+Tommy sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until he was weak. Bob
+stared at him.
+
+"Is there anything funny?" he inquired at last.
+
+"Did you say on drive?" inquired Tommy feebly.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"With that?" Tommy pointed a wavering finger at the pile of duffle.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" inquired Bob, a trifle uncertainly.
+
+"Oh, _it's_ all right. Only wait till Roaring Dick sees it. I'd like to
+see his face."
+
+"Look here, Tommy," said Bob with decision, "this isn't fair. I've never
+been on drive before, and you know it. Now tell me what's wrong or I'll
+wring your fool neck."
+
+"You can't take all that stuff," Tommy explained, wiping his eyes. "Why,
+if everybody had all that mess, how do you suppose it would be carried?"
+
+"I've only got the barest necessities," objected Bob.
+
+"Spread out your pile," Tommy commanded. "There. Take those. Now forget
+the rest."
+
+Bob surveyed the single change of underwear and the extra socks with
+comical dismay. Next morning when he joined Welton he discovered that
+individual carrying a tooth brush in his vest pocket and a pair of
+woolen socks stuffed in his coat. These and a sweater were his only
+baggage. Bob's "turkey," modest as it was, seemed to represent effete
+luxury in comparison.
+
+"How long will this take?" he asked.
+
+"The drive? About three weeks," Welton told him. "You'd better stay and
+see it. It isn't much of a drive compared with the old days; but in a
+very few years there won't be any drives at all."
+
+They boarded a train which at the end of twenty minutes came to a stop.
+Bob and Welton descended. The train moved on, leaving them standing by
+the track.
+
+The remains of the forest, overgrown with scrub oak and popple thickets
+pushed down to the right of way. A road, deep with mud and water,
+beginning at this point, plunged into the wilderness. That was all.
+
+Welton thrust his hands in his pockets and splashed cheerfully into the
+ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little bag and followed. Somehow he
+had vaguely expected some sort of conveyance.
+
+"How far is it?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, ten or twelve miles," said Welton.
+
+Bob experienced a glow of gratitude to the blithe Tommy Gould. What
+would he have done with that baggage out here in this lonesome
+wilderness of unbroken barrens and mud?
+
+The day was beautiful, but the sun breaking through the skin of last
+night's freezing, softened the ground until the going was literally
+ankle-deep in slush. Welton, despite his weight, tramped along
+cheerfully in the apparently careless indifference of the skilled woods
+walker. Bob followed, but he used more energy. He was infinitely the
+older man's superior in muscle and endurance, yet he realized, with
+respect and admiration, that in a long or difficult day's tramp through
+the woods Welton would probably hold him, step for step.
+
+The road wound and changed direction entirely according to expedient. It
+was a "tote road" merely, cutting across these barrens by the directest
+possible route. Deep mire holes, roots of trees, an infrequent boulder,
+puddles and cruel ruts diversified the way. Occasional teeth-rattling
+stretches of "corduroy" led through a swamp.
+
+"I don't see how a team can haul a load over this!" Bob voiced his
+marvel, after a time.
+
+"It don't," said Welton. "The supplies are all hauled while the ground
+is frozen. A man goes by hand now."
+
+In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide and wallow.
+The going was trying on muscle and wind. To right and left stretched
+mazes of white popples and willows tangled with old berry vines and the
+abattis of the slashings. Water stood everywhere. To traverse that swamp
+a man would have to force his way by main strength through the thick
+growth, would have to balance on half-rotted trunks of trees, wade and
+stumble through pools of varying depths, crawl beneath or climb over all
+sorts of obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky new growths, and
+old tree trunks. If he had a gun in his hands, he would furthermore be
+compelled, through all the vicissitudes of making his way, to hold it
+always at the balance ready for the snap shot. For a ruffed grouse is
+wary, and flies like a bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost
+before the roar of its wings has aroused the echoes. Through that veil
+of branches a man must shoot quickly, instinctively, from any one of the
+many positions in which the chance of the moment may have caught him.
+Bob knew all about this sort of country, and his pulses quickened to the
+call of it.
+
+"Many partridge?" he asked.
+
+"Lots," replied Welton; "but the country's too confounded big to hunt
+them in. Like to hunt?"
+
+"Nothing better," said Bob.
+
+After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the hardwoods, full
+of warmth and light and new young green, and the voices of many
+creatures; with the soft, silent carpet of last autumn's brown, the tiny
+patches of melting snow, and the pools with dead leaves sunk in them and
+clear surfaces over which was mirrored the flight of birds.
+
+Welton puffed along steadily. He did not appear to talk much, and yet
+the sum of his information was considerable.
+
+"That road," he said, pointing to a dim track, "goes down to Thompson's.
+He's a settler. Lives on a little lake.
+
+"There's a deer," he remarked, "over in that thicket against the hill."
+
+Bob looked closely, but could see nothing until the animal bounded away,
+waving the white flag of its tail.
+
+"Settlers up here are a confounded nuisance," went on Welton after a
+while. "They're always hollering for what they call their 'rights.' That
+generally means they try to hang up our drive. The average mossback's a
+hard customer. I'd rather try to drive nails in a snowbank than tackle
+driving logs through a farm country. They never realize that we haven't
+got time to talk it all out for a few weeks. There's one old cuss now
+that's making us trouble about the water. Don't want to open up to give
+us a fair run through the sluices of his dam. Don't seem to realize that
+when we start to go out, we've got to go out in a _hurry_, spite o' hell
+and low water."
+
+He went on, in his good-natured, unexcited fashion, to inveigh against
+the obstinacy of any and all mossbacks. There was no bitterness in it,
+merely a marvel over an inexplicable, natural phenomenon.
+
+"Suppose you _didn't_ get all the logs out this year," asked Bob, at
+length. "Of course it would be a nuisance; but couldn't you get them
+next year?"
+
+"That's the trouble," Welton explained. "If you leave them over the
+summer, borers get into them, and they're about a total loss. No, my
+son, when you start to take out logs in this country, you've got to
+_take them out!_"
+
+"That's what I'm going in here for now," he explained, after a moment.
+"This Cedar Branch is an odd job we had to take over from another firm.
+It is an unimproved river, and difficult to drive, and just lined with
+mossbacks. The crew is a mixed bunch--some old men, some young toughs.
+They're a hard crowd, and one not like the men on the main drive. It
+really needs either Tally or me up here; but we can't get away for this
+little proposition. He's got Darrell in charge. Darrell's a good man on
+a big job. Then he feels his responsibility, keeps sober and drives his
+men well. But I'm scared he won't take this little drive serious. If he
+gets one drink in him, it's all off!"
+
+"I shouldn't think it would pay to put such a man in charge," said Bob,
+more as the most obvious remark than from any knowledge or conviction.
+
+"Wouldn't you?" Welton's eyes twinkled. "Well, son, after you've knocked
+around a while you'll find that every man is good for something
+somewhere. Only you can't put a square peg in a round hole."
+
+"How much longer will the high water last?" asked Bob.
+
+"Hard to say."
+
+"Well, I hope you get the logs out," Bob ventured.
+
+"Sure we'll get them out!" replied Welton confidently. "We'll get them
+out if we have to go spit in the creek!" With which remark the subject
+was considered closed.
+
+About four o'clock of the afternoon they came out on a low bluff
+overlooking a bottom land through which flowed a little stream
+twenty-five or thirty feet across.
+
+"That's the Cedar Branch," said Welton, "and I reckon that's one of the
+camps up where you see that smoke."
+
+They deserted the road and made their way through a fringe of thin brush
+to the smoke. Bob saw two big tents, a smouldering fire surrounded by
+high frames on which hung a few drying clothes, a rough table, and a
+cooking fire over which bubbled tremendous kettles and fifty-pound lard
+tins suspended from a rack. A man sat on a cracker box reading a
+fragment of newspaper. A boy of sixteen squatted by the fire.
+
+This man looked up and nodded, as Welton and his companion approached.
+
+"Where's the drive, doctor?" asked the lumberman.
+
+"This is the jam camp," replied the cook. "The jam's upstream a mile or
+so. Rear's back by Thompson's somewheres."
+
+"Is there a jam in the river?" asked Bob with interest. "I'd like to
+see it."
+
+"There's a dozen a day, probably," replied Welton; "but in this case he
+just means the head of the drive. We call that the 'jam.'"
+
+"I suppose Darrell's at the rear?" Welton asked the cook.
+
+"Yep," replied that individual, rising to peer into one of his cavernous
+cooking utensils.
+
+"Who's in charge here?"
+
+"Larsen"
+
+"H'm," said Welton. "Well," he added to himself, "he's slow, safe and
+sure, anyway."
+
+He led the way to one of the tents and pulled aside the flap. The ground
+inside was covered by a welter of tumbled blankets and clothes.
+
+"Nice tidy housekeeping," he grinned at Bob. He picked out two of the
+best blankets and took them outside where he hung them on a bush and
+beat them vigorously.
+
+"There," he concluded, "now they're ours."
+
+"What about the fellows who had 'em before?" inquired Bob.
+
+"They probably had about eight apiece; and if they hadn't they can bunk
+together."
+
+Bob walked to the edge of the stream. It was not very wide, yet at this
+point it carried from three to six or eight feet of water, according to
+the bottom. A few logs were stranded along shore. Two or three more
+floated by, the forerunners of the drive. Bob could see where the
+highest water had flung debris among the bushes, and by that he knew
+that the stream must be already dropping from its freshet.
+
+It was now late in the afternoon. The sun dipped behind a cold and
+austere hill-line. Against the sky showed a fringe of delicate popples,
+like spray frozen in the rise. The heavens near the horizon were a cold,
+pale yellow of unguessed lucent depths, that shaded above into an
+equally cold, pale green. Bob thrust his hands in his pockets and
+turned back to where the drying fire, its fuel replenished, was leaping
+across the gathering dusk.
+
+Immediately after, the driving crews came tramping in from upstream.
+They paid no attention to the newcomers, but dove first for the tent,
+then for the fire. There they began to pull off their lower garments,
+and Bob saw that most of them were drenched from the waist down. The
+drying racks were soon steaming with wet clothes.
+
+Welton fell into low conversation with an old man, straight and slender
+as a Norway pine, with blue eyes, flaxen hair, eyebrows and moustache.
+This was Larsen, in charge of the jam, honest, capable in his way, slow
+of speech, almost childlike of glance. After a few minutes Welton
+rejoined Bob.
+
+"He's a square peg, all right," he muttered, more to himself than to his
+companion. "He's a good riverman, but he's no river boss. Too
+easy-going. Well, all he has to do is to direct the work, luckily. If
+anything really goes wrong, Darrell would be down in two jumps."
+
+"Grub pile!" remarked the cook conversationally.
+
+The men seized the utensils from a heap of them, and began to fill their
+plates from the kettles on the table.
+
+"Come on, bub," said Welton, "dig in! It's a long time till breakfast!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The cook was early a foot next morning. Bob, restless with the
+uneasiness of the first night out of doors, saw the flicker of the fire
+against the tent canvas long before the first signs of daylight. In
+fact, the gray had but faintly lightened the velvet black of the night
+when the cook thrust his head inside the big sleeping tents to utter a
+wild yell of reveille.
+
+The men stirred sleepily, stretched, yawned, finally kicked aside their
+blankets. Bob stumbled into the outer air. The chill of early morning
+struck into his bones. Teeth chattering, he hurried to the river bank
+where he stripped and splashed his body with the bracing water. Then he
+rubbed down with the little towel Tommy Gould had allowed him. The
+reaction in this chill air was slow in coming--Bob soon learned that the
+early cold bath out of doors is a superstition--and he shivered from
+time to time as he propped up his little mirror against a stump. Then he
+shaved, anointing his face after the careful manner of college boys.
+This satisfactorily completed, he fished in his duffle bag to find his
+tooth brush and soap. His hair he arranged painstakingly with a pair of
+military brushes. He further manipulated a nail-brush vigorously, and
+ended with manicuring his nails. Then, clean, vigorous, fresh, but
+somewhat chilly, he packed away his toilet things and started for camp.
+
+Whereupon, for the first time, he became aware of one of the rivermen,
+pipe clenched between his teeth, watching him sardonically.
+
+Bob nodded, and made as though to pass.
+
+"Oh, bub!" said the older man.
+
+Bob stopped.
+
+"Say," drawled the riverman, "air you as much trouble to yourself
+_every_ day as this?"
+
+Bob laughed, and dove for camp. He found it practically deserted. The
+men had eaten breakfast and departed for work. Welton greeted him.
+
+"Well, bub," said he, "didn't know but we'd lost you. Feed your face,
+and we'll go upstream."
+
+Bob ate rapidly. After breakfast Welton struck into a well-trodden foot
+trail that led by a circuitous route up the river bottom, over points of
+land, around swamps. Occasionally it forked. Then, Welton explained, one
+fork was always a short cut across a bend, while the other followed
+accurately the extreme bank of the river. They took this latter and
+longest trail, always, in order more closely to examine the state of the
+drive. As they proceeded upstream they came upon more and more logs,
+some floating free, more stranded gently along the banks. After a time
+they encountered the first of the driving crew. This man was standing on
+an extreme point, leaning on his peavy, watching the timbers float past.
+Pretty soon several logs, held together by natural cohesion, floated to
+the bend, hesitated, swung slowly and stopped. Other logs, following,
+carromed gently against them and also came to rest.
+
+Immediately the riverman made a flying leap to the nearest. He hit it
+with a splash that threw the water high to either side, immediately
+caught his equilibrium, and set to work with his peavy. He seemed to
+know just where to bend his efforts. Two, then three, logs, disentangled
+from the mass, floated away. Finally, all moved slowly forward. The
+riverman intent on his work, was swept from view.
+
+"After he gets them to running free, he'll come ashore," said Welton, in
+answer to Bob's query. "Oh, just paddle ashore with his peavy. Then
+he'll come back up the trail. This bend is liable to jam, and so we have
+to keep a man here."
+
+They walked on and on, up the trail. Every once in a while they came
+upon other members of the jam crew, either watching, as was the first
+man, at some critical point, or working in twos and threes to keep the
+reluctant timbers always moving. At one place six or eight were picking
+away busily at a jam that had formed bristling quite across the river.
+Bob would have liked to stop to watch; but Welton's practised eye saw
+nothing to it.
+
+"They're down to the key log, now," he pronounced. "They'll have it out
+in a jiffy."
+
+Inside of two miles or so farther they left behind them the last member
+of the jam crew and came upon an outlying scout of the "rear." Then
+Welton began to take the shorter trails. At the end of another half-hour
+the two plumped into the full activity of the rear itself.
+
+Bob saw two crews of men, one on either bank, busily engaged in
+restoring to the current the logs stranded along the shore. In some
+cases this merely meant pushing them afloat by means of the peavies.
+Again, when the timbers had gone hard aground, they had to be rolled
+over and over until the deeper water caught them. In extreme cases, when
+evidently the freshet water had dropped away from them, leaving them
+high and dry, a number of men would clamp on the jaws of their peavies
+and carry the logs bodily to the water. In this active work the men were
+everywhere across the surface of the river. They pushed and heaved from
+the instability of the floating logs as easily as though they had
+possessed beneath their feet the advantages of solid land. When they
+wanted to go from one place to another across the clear water they had
+various methods of propelling themselves--either broad on, by rolling
+the log treadwise, or endways by paddling, or by jumping strongly on one
+end. The logs dipped and bobbed and rolled beneath them; the water
+flowed over their feet; but always they seemed to maintain their balance
+unconsciously, and to give their whole attention to the work in hand.
+They worked as far as possible from the decks of logs, but did not
+hesitate, when necessary, to plunge even waist-deep into the icy
+current. Behind them they left a clear river.
+
+Like most exhibitions of superlative skill, all this would have seemed
+to an uninitiated observer like Bob an easy task, were it not for the
+misfortunes of one youth. That boy was about half the time in the water.
+He could stand upright on a log very well as long as he tried to do
+nothing else. This partial skill undoubtedly had lured him to the drive.
+But as soon as he tried to work, he was in trouble. The log commenced to
+roll; he to struggle for his balance. It always ended with a mighty
+splash and a shout of joy from every one in sight, as the unfortunate
+youth soused in all over. Then, after many efforts, he dragged himself
+out, his garments heavy and dripping, and cautiously tried to gain the
+perpendicular. This ordinarily required several attempts, each of which
+meant another ducking as the treacherous log rolled at just the wrong
+instant. The boy was game, though, and kept at it earnestly in spite of
+repeated failure.
+
+Welton watched two repetitions of this performance.
+
+"Dick!" he roared across the tumult of sound.
+
+Roaring Dick, whose light, active figure had been seen everywhere across
+the logs, looked up, recognized Welton, and zigzagged skilfully ashore.
+He stamped the water from his shoes.
+
+"Why don't you fire that kid ashore?" demanded Welton. "Do you want to
+drown him? He's so cold now he don't know where's his feet?"
+
+Roaring Dick glanced carelessly at the boy. The latter had succeeded in
+gaining the shallows, where he was trying to roll over a stranded log.
+His hands were purple and swollen; his face puffed and blue; violent
+shivers shook him from head to foot; his teeth actually chattered when,
+for a moment, he relaxed his evident intention to stick it through
+without making a sign. All his movements were slow and awkward, and his
+dripping clothes clung tight to his body.
+
+"Oh, him!" said Roaring Dick in reply. "I didn't pay no more attention
+to him than to one of these yere hell divers. He ain't no _good_, so I
+clean overlooked him. Here, you!" he cried suddenly.
+
+The boy looked up, Bob saw him start convulsively, and knew that he had
+met the impact of that peculiar dynamic energy in Roaring Dick's nervous
+face. He clambered laboriously from the shallows, the water draining
+from the bottom of his "stagged" trousers.
+
+"Get to camp," snapped Dick. "You're laid off."
+
+"Why did you ever take such a man on in the first place?" asked Welton.
+
+"He was here when I come," replied Roaring Dick, indifferently, "and,
+anyway, he's bound he's goin to be a river-hog. You couldn't keep him
+out with a fly-screen."
+
+"How're things going?" inquired Welton.
+
+"All right," said Roaring Dick. "This ain't no drive to have things
+goin' wrong. A man could run a hand-organ, a quiltin' party and this
+drive all to once and never drop a stitch."
+
+"How about old Murdock's dam? Looks like he might make trouble."
+
+"Ain't got to old Murdock yet," said Roaring Dick. "When we do, we'll
+trim his whiskers to pattern. Don't you worry none about Murdock."
+
+"I don't," laughed Welton. "But, Dick, what are all these deadheads I
+see in the river? Our logs are all marked, aren't they?"
+
+"They's been some jobbing done way below our rollways," said Roaring
+Dick, "and the mossbacks have been taking 'em out long before our drive
+got this far. Them few deadheads we've picked up along the line;
+mossbacks left 'em stranded. They ain't very many."
+
+"I'll send up a marking hammer, and we'll brand them. Finders keepers."
+
+"Sure," said Roaring Dick.
+
+He nodded and ran out over the logs. The work leaped. Wherever he went
+the men took hold as though reanimated by an electric current.
+
+"Dick's a driver," said Welton, reflectively, "and he gets out the logs.
+But I'm scared he don't take this little job serious."
+
+He looked out over the animated scene for a moment in silence. Then he
+seemed suddenly to remember his companion.
+
+"Well, son," said he, "that's called 'sacking' the river. The rear crew
+is the place of honour, let me tell you. The old timers used to take a
+great pride in belonging to a crack rear on a big drive. When you get
+one side of the river working against the other, it's great fun. I've
+seen some fine races in my day."
+
+At this moment two men swung up the river trail, bending to the broad
+tump lines that crossed the tops of their heads. These tump lines
+supported rather bulky wooden boxes running the lengths of the men's
+backs. Arrived at the rear, they deposited their burdens. One set to
+building a fire; the other to unpacking from the boxes all the utensils
+and receptacles of a hearty meal. The food was contained in big lard
+tins. It was only necessary to re-heat it. In ten minutes the usual call
+of "grub pile" rang out across the river. The men came ashore. Each
+group of five or six built its little fire. The wind sucked aloft these
+innumerable tiny smokes, and scattered them in a thin mist through the
+trees.
+
+Welton stayed to watch the sacking until after three o'clock. Then he
+took up the river trail to the rear camp. This Bob found to be much like
+the other, but larger.
+
+"Ordinarily on drive we have a wanigan," said Welton. "A wanigan's a big
+scow. It carries the camp and supplies to follow the drive. Here we use
+teams; and it's some of a job, let me tell you! The roads are bad, and
+sometimes it's a long ways around. Hard sledding, isn't it Billy?" he
+inquired of the teamster, who was warming his hands by the fire.
+
+"Well, I always get there," the latter replied with some pride. "From
+the Little Fork here I only tipped over six times, all told."
+
+The cook, who had been listening near by, grunted.
+
+"Only time I wasn't with you, Billy," said he; "that's why you got the
+nerve to tell that!"
+
+"It's a fact!" insisted the driver.
+
+The young fellow who had been ordered off the river sat alone by the
+drying-fire. Now that he had warmed up and dried off, he was seen to be
+a rather good-looking boy, dark-skinned, black-eyed, with overhanging,
+thick, straight brows, like a line from temple to temple. These gave him
+either the sullen, biding look of an Indian or an air of set
+determination, as the observer pleased. Just now he contemplated the
+fire rather gloomily.
+
+Welton sat down on the same log with him.
+
+"Well, bub," said the old riverman good-naturedly, "so you thought you'd
+like to be a riverman?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the boy, with a certain sullen reserve.
+
+"Where did you think you learned to ride a log?"
+
+"I've been around a little at the booms."
+
+"I see. Well, it's a different proposition when you come to working on
+'em in fast water."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Where you from?"
+
+"Down Greenville way."
+
+"Farm?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Back to the farm now, eh?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Don't like the notion, eh?"
+
+"No!" cried the boy, with a flash of passion.
+
+"Still like to tackle the river?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, again encased in his sullen
+apathy.
+
+"If I send you back to-morrow, would you like to tackle it again?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" said the boy eagerly. "I didn't have any sort of a show when
+you saw me to-day! I can do a heap better than that. I was froze through
+and couldn't handle myself."
+
+Welton grinned.
+
+"What you so stuck on getting wet for?" he inquired.
+
+"I dunno," replied the boy vaguely. "I just like the woods."
+
+"Well, I got no notion of drownding you off in the first white water we
+come across," said Welton; "but I tell you what to do: you wait around
+here a few days, helping the cook or Billy there, and I'll take you down
+to the mill and put you on the booms where you can practise in still
+water with a pike-pole, and can go warm up in the engine room when you
+fall off. Suit you?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Thank you," said the boy quietly; but there was a warm glow
+in his eye.
+
+By now it was nearly dark.
+
+"Guess we'll bunk here to-night," Welton told Bob casually.
+
+Bob looked his dismay.
+
+"Why, I left everything down at the other camp," he cried, "even my
+tooth brush and hair brush!"
+
+Welton looked at him comically.
+
+"Me, too," said he. "We won't neither of us be near as much trouble to
+ourselves to-morrow, will we?"
+
+So he had overheard the riverman's remark that morning. Bob laughed.
+
+"That's right," approved Welton, "take it easy. Necessities is a great
+comfort, but you can do without even them."
+
+After supper all sprawled around a fire. Welton's big bulk extended in
+the acme of comfort. He puffed his pipe straight up toward the stars,
+and swore gently from time to time when the ashes dropped back into his
+eyes.
+
+"Now that's a good kid," he said, waving a pipe toward the other fire
+where the would-be riverman was helping wash the dishes. "He'll never
+be a first-class riverman, but he's a good kid."
+
+"Why won't he make a good riverman?" asked Bob.
+
+"Same reason you wouldn't," said Welton bluntly. "A good white water man
+has to start younger. Besides, what's the use? There won't be any
+rivermen ten year from now. Say, you," he raised his voice peremptorily,
+"what do you call yourself?"
+
+The boy looked up startled, saw that he was indicated, stammered, and
+caught his voice.
+
+"John Harvey, sir," he replied.
+
+"Son of old John who used to be on the Marquette back in the seventies?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I suppose so."
+
+"He ought to be a good kid: he comes of good stock," muttered Welton;
+"but he'll never be a riverman. No use trying to shove that shape peg in
+a round hole!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Near noon of the following day a man came upstream to report a jam
+beyond the powers of the outlying rivermen. Roaring Dick, after a short
+absence for examination, returned to call off the rear. All repaired to
+the scene of obstruction.
+
+Bob noticed the slack water a mile or so above the jam. The river was
+quite covered with logs pressed tight against each other by the force of
+the interrupted current, but still floating. A little farther along the
+increasing pressure had lifted some of them clear of the water. They
+upended slightly, or lay in hollows between the others. Still farther
+downstream the salient features of a jam multiplied. More timbers stuck
+out at angles from the surface; some were even lifted bodily. An abattis
+formed, menacing and formidable, against which even the mighty dynamics
+of the river pushed in vain. Then at last the little group arrived at
+the "breast" itself--a sullen and fearful tangle like a gigantic pile of
+jackstraws. Beneath it the diminished river boiled out angrily. By the
+very fact of its lessened volume Bob could guess at the pressure above.
+Immediately the rivermen ran out on this tangle, and, after a moment
+devoted to inspection, set to work with their peavies. Bob started to
+follow, but Welton held him back.
+
+"It's dangerous for a man not used to it. The jam may go out at any
+time, and when she goes, she goes sky-hooting."
+
+But in the event his precaution turned out useless. All day the men
+rolled logs into the current below the dam. The _click!_ clank! clank!
+of their peavies sounded like the valves of some great engine, so
+regular was the periodicity of their metallic recurrence. They made
+quite a hole in the breast; and several times the jam shrugged, creaked
+and settled, but always to a more solid look. Billy, the teamster,
+brought down his horses. By means of long blocks and tackle they set to
+yanking out logs from certain places specified by Roaring Dick. Still
+the jam proved obstinate.
+
+"I hate to do it," said Roaring Dick to Welton; "but it's a case of
+powder."
+
+"Tie into it," agreed Welton. "What's a few smashed logs compared to
+hanging the drive?"
+
+Dick nodded. He picked up a little canvas lunch bag from a stump where,
+earlier in the day, he had hung it, and from it extracted several sticks
+of giant powder, a length of fuse and several caps. These he prepared.
+Then he and Welton walked out over the jam, examining it carefully, and
+consulting together at length. Finally Roaring Dick placed his charge
+far down in the interstices, lit the fuse and walked calmly ashore. The
+men leisurely placed themselves out of harm's way. Welton joined Bob
+behind a big burned stub.
+
+"Will that start her sure?" asked Bob.
+
+"Depends on whether we guessed right on the key log," said Welton.
+
+A great roar shook the atmosphere. Straight up into the air spurted the
+cloud of the explosion. Through the white smoke Bob could see the flame
+and four or five big logs, like upleaping, dim giants. Then he dodged
+back from the rain of bark and splinters.
+
+The immediate effect on the jam was not apparent. It fell forward into
+the opening made by the explosion, and a light but perceptible movement
+ran through the waiting timbers up the river. But the men, running out
+immediately, soon made it evident that the desired result had been
+attained. Their efforts now seemed to gain definite effects. An
+uneasiness ran through the hitherto solid structure of the jam. Timbers
+changed position. Sometimes the whole river seemed to start forward a
+foot or so, but before the eye could catch the motion, it had again
+frozen to immobility.
+
+"That fetched the key logs, all right," said Welton, watching.
+
+Then all at once about half the breast of the jam fell forward into the
+stream. Bob uttered an involuntary cry. But the practised rivermen must
+have foreseen this, for none were caught. At once the other logs at the
+breast began to topple of their own accord into the stream. The splashes
+threw the water high like the explosions of shells, and the thundering
+of the falling and grinding timbers resembled the roar of artillery. The
+pattern of the river changed, at first almost imperceptibly, then more
+and more rapidly. The logs in the centre thrust forward, those on the
+wings hung back. Near the head of the jam the men worked like demons.
+Wherever the timbers caught or hesitated for a moment in their slow
+crushing forward, there a dozen men leaped savagely, to jerk, heave and
+pry with their heavy peavies. Continually under them the footing
+shifted; sullen logs menaced them with crushing or complete engulfment
+in their grinding mill. Seemingly they paid no attention to this, but
+gave all their energies to the work. In reality, whether from
+calculation or merely from the instinct that grows out of long
+experience, they must have pre-estimated every chance.
+
+"What bully team work!" cried Bob, stirred to enthusiasm.
+
+Now the motion quickened. The centre of the river rushed forward; the
+wings sucked in after from either side. A roar and battling of timbers,
+jets of spray, the smoke of waters filled the air. Quite coolly the
+rivermen made their way ashore, their peavies held like balancing poles
+across their bodies. Under their feet the logs heaved, sank, ground
+together, tossed above the hurrying under-mass, tumultuous as a
+close-packed drove of wild horses. The rivermen rode them easily. For an
+appreciable time one man perched on a stable timber watching keenly
+ahead. Then quite coolly he leaped, made a dozen rapid zigzag steps
+forward, and stopped. The log he had quitted dropped sullenly from
+sight, and two closed, grinding, where it had been. In twenty seconds
+every man was safely ashore.
+
+The river caught its speed. Hurried on by the pressure of water long
+dammed back, the logs tumbled forward. Rank after rank they swept past,
+while the rivermen, leaning on the shafts of their peavies, passed them
+in review.
+
+"That was luck," Welton's voice broke in on Bob's contemplation. "It's
+just getting dark. Couldn't have done it without the dynamite. It
+splinters up a little timber, but we save money, even at that."
+
+"Billy doesn't carry that with the other supplies, does he?" asked Bob.
+
+"Sure," said Welton; "rolls it up in the bedding, or something. Well,
+John Harvey, Junior," said he to that youth, "what do you think of it? A
+little different driving this white water than pushing logs with a pike
+pole down a slack-water river like the Green, hey?"
+
+"Yes, sir," the boy nodded out of his Indian stolidity.
+
+"You see now why a man has to start young to be a riverman," Welton told
+Bob, as they bent their steps toward camp. "Poor little John Harvey out
+on that jam when she broke would have stood about as much chance as a
+beetle at a woodpecker prayer meeting."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Two days later Welton returned to the mill. At his suggestion Bob stayed
+with the drive. He took his place quietly as a visitor, had the good
+sense to be unobtrusive, and so was tolerated by the men. That is to
+say, he sat at the camp fires practically unnoticed, and the rivermen
+talked as though he were not there. When he addressed any of them they
+answered him with entire good humour, but ordinarily they paid no more
+attention to him than they did to the trees and bushes that chanced to
+surround the camp.
+
+The drive moved forward slowly. Sometimes Billy packed up every day to
+set forth on one of his highly adventurous drives; again camp stayed for
+some time in the same place. Bob amused himself tramping up and down the
+river, reviewing the operations. Occasionally Roaring Dick, in his
+capacity of river boss, accompanied the young fellow. Why, Bob could not
+imagine, for the alert, self-contained little riverman trudged along in
+almost entire silence, his keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly on all
+there was to be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or comment, he answered
+by a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or the monosyllable was never
+sullen or hostile or contemptuous; merely indifferent. Bob learned to
+economize speech, and so got along well with his strange companion.
+
+By the end of the week the drive entered a cleared farm country. The
+cultivation was crude and the clearing partial. Low-wooded hills dotted
+with stumps of the old forest alternated with willow-grown bottom-lands
+and dense swamps. The farmers lived for the most part in slab or log
+houses earthed against the winter cold. Fences were of split rails laid
+"snake fashion." Ploughing had to be in and out between the blackened
+stumps on the tops of which were piled the loose rocks picked from the
+soil as the share turned them up. Long, unimproved roads wandered over
+the hills, following roughly the section lines, but perfectly willing to
+turn aside through some man's field in order to avoid a steep grade or
+soft going. These things the rivermen saw from their stream exactly as a
+trainman would see them from his right-of-way. The river was the
+highway, and rarely was it considered worth while to climb the low
+bluffs out of the bottom-land through which it flowed.
+
+In the long run it landed them in a town named Twin Falls. Here were a
+water-power dam and some small manufactories. Here, too, were saloons
+and other temptations for rivermen. Camp was made above town. In the
+evening the men, with but few exceptions, turned in to the sleeping tent
+at the usual hour. Bob was much surprised at this; but later he came to
+recognize it as part of a riverman's peculiar code. Until the drive
+should be down, he did not feel himself privileged to "blow off steam."
+Even the exceptions did not get so drunk they could not show up the
+following morning to take a share in sluicing the drive through the dam.
+
+All but Roaring Dick. The latter did not appear at all, and was reported
+"drunk a-plenty" by some one who had seen him early that morning.
+Evidently the river boss did not "take this drive serious." His absence
+seemed to make no difference. The sluicing went forward methodically.
+
+"He'll show up in a day or two," said the cook with entire indifference,
+when Bob inquired of him.
+
+That evening, however, four or five of the men disappeared, and did not
+return. Such was the effect of an evil example on the part of the
+foreman. Larsen took charge. In almost unbroken series the logs shot
+through the sluiceways into the river below, where they were received by
+the jam crew and started on the next stage of their long journey to the
+mills. In a day the dam was passed. One of the younger men rode the last
+log through the sluiceway, standing upright as it darted down the chute
+into the eddy below. The crowd of townspeople cheered. The boy waved his
+hat and birled the log until the spray flew.
+
+But hardly was camp pitched two miles below town when one of the jam
+crew came upstream to report a difficulty. Larsen at once made ready to
+accompany him down the river trail, and Bob, out of curiosity, went
+along, too.
+
+"It's mossbacks," the messenger explained, "and them deadheads we been
+carrying along. They've rigged up a little sawmill down there, where
+they're cutting what the farmers haul in to 'em. And then, besides,
+they've planted a bunch of piles right out in the middle of the stream
+and boomed in their side, and they're out there with pike-poles, nailin'
+onto every stick of deadhead that comes along."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Larsen. "I guess they got a right to them
+as long as we ain't marked them."
+
+"They can have their deadheads," agreed the riverman, "but their piles
+have jammed our drive and hung her."
+
+"We'll break the jam," said Larsen.
+
+Arrived at the scene of difficulty, Bob looked about him with great
+interest. The jam was apparently locked hard and fast against a clump of
+piles driven about in the centre of the stream. These had evidently been
+planted as the extreme outwork of a long shunting boom. Men working
+there could shunt into the sawmill enclosure that portion of the drive
+to which they could lay claim. The remainder could proceed down the open
+channel to the left. That was the theory. Unfortunately, this division
+of the river's width so congested matters that the whole drive had hung.
+
+The jam crew were at work, but even Bob's unpractised eye saw that their
+task was stupendous. Even should they succeed in loosening the breast,
+there could be no reason to suppose the performance would not have to be
+repeated over and over again as the close-ranked drive came against the
+obstacle.
+
+Larsen took one look, then made his way across to the other side and
+down to the mill. Bob followed. The little sawmill was going full blast
+under the handling of three men and a boy. Everything was done in the
+most primitive manner, by main strength, awkwardness, and old-fashioned
+tools.
+
+"Who's boss?" yelled Larsen against the clang of the mill.
+
+A slow, black-bearded man stepped forward.
+
+"What can I do for you?" he asked.
+
+"Our drive's hung up against your boom," yelled Larsen.
+
+The man raised his hand and the machinery was suddenly stilled.
+
+"So I perceive," said he.
+
+"Your boom-piles are drove too far out in the stream."
+
+"I don't know about that," objected the mossback.
+
+"I do," insisted Larsen. "Nobody on earth could keep from jamming, the
+way you got things fixed."
+
+"That's none of my business," said the man steadily.
+
+"Well, we'll have to take out that fur clump of piles to get our jam
+broke."
+
+"I don't know about that," repeated the man.
+
+Larsen apparently paid no attention to this last remark, but tramped
+back to the jam. There he ordered a couple of men out with axes, and
+others with tackle. But at that moment the three men and the boy
+appeared. They carried three shotguns and a rifle.
+
+"That's about enough of that," said the bearded man, quietly. "You let
+my property alone. I don't want any trouble with you men, but I'll blow
+hell out of the first man that touches those piles. I've had about
+enough of this riverhog monkey-work."
+
+He looked as though he meant business, as did his companions. When the
+rivermen drew back, he took his position atop the disputed clump of
+piles, his shotgun across his knees.
+
+The driving crew retreated ashore. Larsen was plainly uncertain.
+
+"I tell you, boys," said he, "I'll get back to town. You wait."
+
+"Guess I'll go along," suggested Bob, determined to miss no phase of
+this new species of warfare.
+
+"What you going to do?" he asked Larsen when they were once on the
+trail.
+
+"I don't know," confessed the older man, rubbing his cap. "I'm just
+goin' to see some lawyer, and then I'm goin' to telegraph the Company. I
+wish Darrell was in charge. I don't know what to do. You can't expect
+those boys to run a chance of gittin' a hole in 'em."
+
+"Do you believe they'd shoot?" asked Bob.
+
+"I believe so. It's a long chance, anyhow."
+
+But in Twin Falls they received scant sympathy and encouragement. The
+place was distinctly bucolic, and as such opposed instinctively to
+larger mills, big millmen, lumber, lumbermen and all pertaining
+thereunto. They tolerated the drive because, in the first place they had
+to; and in the second place there was some slight profit to be made. But
+the rough rivermen antagonized them, and they were never averse to
+seeing these buccaneers of the streams in difficulties. Then, too, by
+chance the country lawyers Larsen consulted happened to be attorneys for
+the little sawmill men. Larsen tried in his blundering way to express
+his feeling that "nobody had a right to hang our drive." His
+explanations were so involved and futile that, without thinking, Bob
+struck in.
+
+"Surely these men have no right to obstruct as they do. Isn't there some
+law against interfering with navigation?"
+
+"The stream is not navigable," returned the lawyer curtly.
+
+Bob's memory vouchsafed a confused recollection of something read
+sometime, somewhere.
+
+"Hasn't a stream been declared navigable when logs can be driven in
+it?" he asked.
+
+"Are you in charge of this drive?" the lawyer asked, turning on him
+sharply.
+
+"Why--no," confessed Bob.
+
+"Have you anything to do with this question?"
+
+"I don't believe I have."
+
+"Then I fail to see why I should answer your questions," said the
+lawyer, with finality. "As to your question," he went on to Larsen with
+equal coldness, "if you have any doubts as to Mr. Murdock's rights in
+the stream, you have the recourse of a suit at law to settle that point,
+and to determine the damages, if any."
+
+Bob found himself in the street with Larsen.
+
+"But they haven't got no right to stop our drive _dead_ that way,"
+expostulated the old man.
+
+Bob's temper was somewhat ruffled by his treatment at the hands of the
+lawyer.
+
+"Well, they've done it, whether they have the right to or not," he said
+shortly; "what next?"
+
+"I guess I'll telegraph Mr. Welton," said Larsen.
+
+He did so. The two returned to camp. The rivermen were loafing in camp
+awaiting Larsen's reappearance. The jam was as before. Larsen walked out
+on the logs. The boy, seated on the clump of piles, gave a shrill
+whistle. Immediately from the little mill appeared the brown-bearded man
+and his two companions. They picked their way across the jam to the
+piles, where they roosted, their weapons across their knees, until
+Larsen had returned to the other bank.
+
+"Well, Mr. Welton ought to be up in a couple of days, if he ain't up the
+main river somewheres," said Larsen.
+
+"Aren't you going to do anything in the meantime?" asked Bob.
+
+"What can I do?" countered Larsen.'
+
+The crew had nothing to say one way or the other, but watched with a
+cynical amusement the progress of affairs. They smoked, and spat, and
+squatted on their heels in the Indian taciturnity of their kind when for
+some reason they withhold their approval. That evening, however, Bob
+happened to be lying at the campfire next two of the older men. As
+usual, he smoked in unobtrusive silence, content to be ignored if only
+the men would act in their accustomed way, and not as before a stranger.
+
+"Wait; hell!" said one of the men to the other. "Times is certainly gone
+wrong! If they had anything like an oldtime river boss in charge, they'd
+come the Jack Orde on this lay-out."
+
+Bob pricked up his ears at this mention of his father's name.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+The riverman rolled over and examined him dispassionately for a few
+moments.
+
+"Jack Orde," he deigned to explain at last, "was a riverman. He was a
+good one. He used to run the drive in the Redding country. When he
+started to take out logs, he took 'em out, by God! I've heard him often:
+'Get your logs out first, and pay the damage afterward,' says he. He was
+a holy terror. They got the state troops out after him once. It came to
+be a sort of by-word. When you generally gouge, kick and sandbag a man
+into bein' real _good_, why we say you come the Jack Orde on him."
+
+"I see," said Bob, vastly amused at this sidelight on the family
+reputation. "What would you do here?"
+
+"I don't know," replied the riverman, "but I wouldn't lay around and
+wait."
+
+"Why don't some of you fellows go out there and storm the fort, if you
+feel that way?" asked Bob.
+
+"Why?" demanded the riverman, "I won't let any boss stump me; but why in
+hell should I go out and get my hide full of birdshot? If this outfit
+don't know enough to get its drive down, that ain't my fault."
+
+Bob had seen enough of the breed to recognize this as an eminently
+characteristic attitude.
+
+"Well," he remarked comfortably, "somebody'll be down from the mill
+soon."
+
+The riverman turned on him almost savagely.
+
+"Down soon!" he snorted. "So'll the water be 'down soon.' It's dropping
+every minute. That telegraft of yours won't even start out before
+to-morrow morning. Don't you fool yourself. That Twin Falls outfit is
+just too tickled to do us up. It'll be two days before anybody shows up,
+and then where are you at? Hell!" and the old riverman relapsed into a
+disgusted silence.
+
+Considerably perturbed, Bob hunted up Larsen.
+
+"Look here, Larsen," said he, "they tell me a delay here is likely to
+hang up this drive. Is that right?"
+
+The old man looked at his interlocutor, his brow wrinkled.
+
+"I wish Darrell was in charge," said he.
+
+"What would Darrell do that you can't do?" demanded Bob bluntly.
+
+"That's just it; I don't know," confessed Larsen.
+
+"Well, I'd get some weapons up town and drive that gang off," said Bob
+heatedly.
+
+"They'd have a posse down and jug the lot of us," Larsen pointed out,
+"before we could clear the river." He suddenly flared up. "I ain't no
+river boss, and I ain't paid as a river boss, and I never claimed to be
+one. Why in hell don't they keep their men in charge?"
+
+"You're working for the company, and you ought to do your best for
+them," said Bob.
+
+But Larsen had abruptly fallen into Scandinavian sulks. He muttered
+something under his breath, and quite deliberately arose and walked
+around to the other side of the fire.
+
+Twice during the night Bob arose from his blankets and walked down to
+the riverside. In the clear moonlight he could see one or the other of
+the millmen always on watch, his shotgun across his knees. Evidently
+they did not intend to be surprised by any night work. The young fellow
+returned very thoughtful to his blankets, where he lay staring up
+against the canvas of the tent.
+
+Next morning he was up early, and in close consultation with Billy the
+teamster. The latter listened attentively to what Bob had to say,
+nodding his head from time to time. Then the two disappeared in the
+direction of the wagon, where for a long interval they busied themselves
+at some mysterious operation.
+
+When they finally emerged from the bushes, Bob was carrying over his
+shoulder a ten-foot poplar sapling around the end of which was fastened
+a cylindrical bundle of considerable size. Bob paid no attention to the
+men about the fire, but bent his steps toward the river. Billy, however,
+said a few delighted words to the sprawling group. It arose with
+alacrity and followed the young man's lead.
+
+Arrived at the bank of the river, Bob swung his burden to the ground,
+knelt by it, and lit a match. The rivermen, gathering close, saw that
+the bundle around the end of the sapling consisted of a dozen rolls of
+giant powder from which dangled a short fuse. Bob touched his match to
+the split outer end of the fuse. It spluttered viciously. He arose with
+great deliberation, picked up his strange weapon, and advanced out over
+the logs.
+
+In the meantime the opposing army had gathered about the disputed clump
+of piles, to the full strength of its three shotguns and the single
+rifle. Bob paid absolutely no attention to them. When within a short
+distance he stopped and, quite oblivious to warnings and threats from
+the army, set himself to watching painstakingly the sputtering progress
+of the fire up the fuse, exactly as a small boy watches his giant
+cracker which he hopes to explode in mid-air. At what he considered the
+proper moment he straightened his powerful young body, and cast the
+sapling from him, javelin-wise.
+
+"Scat!" he shouted, and scrambled madly for cover.
+
+The army decamped in haste. Of its armament it lost near fifty per
+cent., for one shotgun and the rifle remained where they had fallen.
+Like Abou Ben Adam, Murdock led all the rest.
+
+Now Bob had hurled his weapon as hard as he knew how, and had scampered
+for safety without looking to see where it had fallen. As a matter of
+fact, by one of those very lucky accidents, that often attend a star in
+the ascendent, the sapling dove head on into a cavern in the jam above
+the clump of piles. The detonation of the twelve full sticks of giant
+powder was terrific. Half the river leaped into the air in a beautiful
+column of water and spray that seemed to hang motionless for appreciable
+moments. Dark fragments of timbers were hurled in all directions. When
+the row had died the clump of piles was seen to have disappeared. Bob's
+chance shot had actually cleared the river!
+
+The rivermen glanced at each other amazedly.
+
+"Did you _mean_ to place that charge, bub?" one asked.
+
+Bob was too good a field general not to welcome the gifts of chance.
+
+"Certainly," he snapped. "Now get out on that river, every mother's son
+of you. Get that drive going and keep it going. I've cleared the river
+for you; and if you'd any one of you had the nerve of my poor old fat
+sub-centre, you'd have done it for yourselves. Get busy! Hop!"
+
+The men jumped for their peavies. Bob raged up and down the bank. For
+the moment he had forgotten the husk of the situation, and saw it only
+in essential. Here was a squad to lick into shape, to fashion into a
+team. It mattered little that they wore spikes in their boots instead of
+cleats; that they sported little felt hats instead of head guards. The
+principle was the same. The team had gone to pieces in the face of a
+crisis; discipline was relaxed; grumblers were getting noisy. Bob
+plunged joyously head over ears in his task. By now he knew every man by
+name, and he addressed each personally. He had no idea of what was to be
+done to start this riverful of logs smoothly and surely on its way; he
+did not need to. Afloat on the river was technical knowledge enough, and
+to spare. Bob threw his men at the logs as he used to throw his backs at
+the opposing line. And they went. Even in the whole-souled, frantic
+absorption of the good coach he found time to wonder at the likeness of
+all men. These rivermen differed in no essential from the members of the
+squad. They responded to the same authority; they could be hurled as a
+unit against opposing obstacles.
+
+Bob felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and whirled to stare straight into
+the bloodshot eyes of Roaring Dick. The man was still drunk, but only
+with the lees of the debauch. He knew perfectly what he was about, but
+the bad whiskey still hummed through his head. Bob met the baleful glare
+from under his square brows, as the man teetered back and forth on his
+heels.
+
+"You got a hell of a nerve!" said Roaring Dick, thickly. "You talk like
+you was boss of this river."
+
+Bob looked back at him steadily for a full half-minute.
+
+"I am," said he at last.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Roaring Dick had not been brought up in the knowledge of protocols or
+ultimatums. Scarcely had Bob uttered the last words of his brief speech
+before he was hit twice in the face, good smashing blows that sent him
+staggering. The blows were followed by a savage rush. Roaring Dick was
+on his man with the quickness and ferocity of a wildcat. He hit, kicked,
+wrestled, even bit. Bob was whirled back by the very impetuosity of the
+attack. Before he could collect his wits he was badly punished and
+dazed. He tripped and Roaring Dick, with a bellow of satisfaction, began
+to kick at his body even before he reached the ground.
+
+But strangely enough this fall served to clear Bob's head. Thousands of
+times he had gone down just like this on the football field, and had
+then been called upon to struggle on with the ball as far as he was
+able. A slight hint of the accustomed will sometimes steady us in the
+most difficult positions. The mind, bumping aimlessly, falls into its
+groove, and instinctively shoots forward with tremendous velocity. Bob
+hit the ground, half turned on his shoulder, rolled over twice with the
+rapid, vigorous twist second-nature to a seasoned halfback, and bounded
+to his feet. He met Roaring Dick half way with a straight blow. It
+failed to stop, or even to shake the little riverman. The next instant
+the men were wrestling fiercely.
+
+Bob found himself surprisingly opposed. Beneath his loose, soft clothing
+the riverman seemed to be made of steel. Suddenly Bob was called upon to
+exert every ounce of strength in his body, and to summon all his
+acquired skill to prevent himself from being ignominiously overpowered.
+The ferocity of the rush, and the purposeful rapidity of Roaring Dick's
+attack, as well as the unexpected variety thereof, kept him fully
+occupied in defending himself. With the exception of the single blow
+delivered when he had regained his feet, he had been unable even to
+attempt aggression. It was as though he had touched a button to release
+an astonishing and bewildering erratic energy.
+
+Bob had done a great deal of boxing and considerable wrestling. During
+his boyhood and youth he had even become involved in several fisticuffs.
+They had always been with the boys or young men of his own ideas. Though
+conducted in anger they retained still a certain remnant of convention.
+No matter how much you wanted to "do" the other fellow, you tried to
+accomplish that result by hitting cleanly, or by wrestling him to a
+point where you could "punch his face in." The object was to hurt your
+opponent until he had had enough, until he was willing to quit, until he
+had been thoroughly impressed with the fact that he was punished. But
+this result was to be accomplished with the fists. If your opponent
+seized a club, or a stone, or tried to kick, that very act indicated his
+defeat. He had had enough, and that was one way of acknowledging your
+superiority. So strongly ingrained had this instinct of the
+fight-convention become that even now Bob unconsciously was playing
+according to the rules of the game.
+
+Roaring Dick, on the contrary, was out solely for results. He fought
+with every resource at his command. Bob was slow to realize this, slow
+to arouse himself beyond the point of calculated defence. His whole
+training on the field inclined him to keep cool and to play, whatever
+the game, from a reasoning standpoint. He was young, strong and
+practised; but he was not roused above the normal. And, as many rivermen
+had good reason to know, the normal man availed little against Roaring
+Dick's maniacal rushes.
+
+The men were close-locked, and tugging and straining for an advantage.
+Bob crouched lower and lower with a well-defined notion of getting a
+twist on his opponent. For an instant he partially freed one side. Like
+lightning Roaring Dick delivered a fierce straight kick at his groin.
+The blow missed its aim, but Bob felt the long, sharp spikes tearing the
+flesh of his thigh. Sheer surprise relaxed his muscles for the fraction
+of an instant. Roaring Dick lowered his head, rammed it into Bob's chin,
+and at the same time reached for the young man's gullet with both hands.
+Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of time. As they closed again
+Roaring Dick's right hand was free. Bob felt the riverman's thumb
+fumbling for his eyeball.
+
+"Why, he wants to cripple me, to kill me!" the young man cried to
+himself. So vivid was the astonishment of this revelation to his
+sportsman's soul that he believed he had said it aloud. This was no mere
+fight, it was a combat. In modern civilized conditions combats are
+notably few and far between. It is difficult for the average man to come
+to a realization that he must in any circumstances depend on himself for
+the preservation of his life. Even to the last moment the victim of the
+real melodrama that occasionally breaks out in the most unlikely places
+is likely to be more concerned with his outraged dignity than with his
+peril. That thumb, feeling eagerly for his eye-socket, woke Bob to a new
+world. A swift anger rushed over him like a hot wave.
+
+This man was trying to injure him. Either the kick or the gouge would
+have left him maimed for life. A sudden fierce desire to beat his
+opponent into the earth seized Bob. With a single effort he wrenched his
+arms free.
+
+Now this fact has been noted again and again: mere size has often little
+to do with a man's physical prowess. The list of anecdotes wherein the
+little fellow "puts it all over" the big bully is exceptionally long.
+Nor are more than a bare majority of the anecdotes baseless. In our own
+lumber woods a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound man with no other weapon
+than his two hands once nearly killed a two-hundred-pound blacksmith for
+pushing him off a bench. This phenomenon arises from the fact that the
+little man seems capable often of releasing at will a greater flood of
+dynamic energy than a big man. We express this by saying that it is the
+spirit that counts. As a matter of truth the big man may have as much
+courage as the little man. It is simply that he cannot, at will, tap as
+quickly the vast reservoir of nervous energy that lies beneath all human
+effort of any kind whatsoever. He cannot arouse himself as can the
+little man.
+
+It was for the foregoing reason that Roaring Dick had acquired his
+ascendancy. He possessed the temperament that fuses. When he fought, he
+fought with the ferocity and concentration of a wild beast. This
+concentration, this power of fusing to white heat all the powers of a
+man's being down to the uttermost, this instinctive ability to tap the
+extra-human stores of dynamics is what constitutes the temperament of
+genius, whether it be applied to invention, to artistic creation, to
+ruling, to finance, or merely to beating down personal opposition by
+beating in the opponent's face. Unfortunately for him, Bob Orde happened
+also to possess the temperament of genius. The two foul blows aroused
+him. All at once he became blind to everything but an unreasoning desire
+to hurt this man who had tried to hurt him. On the side of dynamics the
+combat suddenly equalized. It became a question merely of relative
+power, and Bob was the bigger man.
+
+Bob threw his man from him by main strength. Roaring Dick staggered
+back, only to carrom against a tree. A dozen swift, straight blows in
+the face drove him by the sheer force of them. He was smothered,
+overwhelmed, by the young man's superior size. Bob fell upon him
+savagely. In less than a minute the fight was over as far as Roaring
+Dick was concerned. Blinded, utterly winded, his whiskey-driven
+energies drained away, he fell like a log. Bob, still blazing, found
+himself without an opponent.
+
+He glared about him. The rivermen were gathered in a silent ring. Just
+beyond stood a side-bar buggy in which a burly, sodden red-faced man
+stood up the better to see. Bob recognized him as one of the saloon
+keepers at Twin Falls, and his white-hot brain jumped to the correct
+conclusion that Roaring Dick, driven by some vague conscience-stirring
+in regard to his work, had insisted on going down river; and that this
+dive-keeper, loth to lose a profitable customer in the dull season, had
+offered transportation in the hopeful probability that he could induce
+the riverman to return with him. Bob stooped, lifted his unconscious
+opponent, strode to the side-bar buggy and unceremoniously dumped his
+burden therein.
+
+"Now," said he roughly, "get out of here! When this man comes to, you
+tell him he's fired! He's not to show his face on this river again!"
+
+The saloon-keeper demurred, blustering slightly after the time-tried
+manner of his sort.
+
+"Look here, young fellow, you can't talk that way to me."
+
+"Can't I!" snapped Bob; "well, you turn around and get out of here."
+
+The man met full the blaze of the extra-normal powers not yet fallen
+below the barrier in the young fellow's personality. He gathered up the
+reins and drove away.
+
+Bob watched him out of sight, his chest rising and falling with the
+receding waves of his passion. He was a strange young figure with his
+torn garments, his tossed hair, the streak of blood beneath his eye, and
+the inner fading glow of his face. At last he drew a long, shuddering
+breath, and turned to the expectant and silent group of rivermen.
+
+"Boys," said he pleasantly, "I don't know one damn thing about
+river-driving, but I do know when a man's doing his best work. I shall
+expect you fellows to get in and rustle down those logs. Any man who
+thinks he's going to soldier on me is going to get fooled, and he's
+going to get his time handed out to him on the spot. As near as I can
+make out, unless we get an everlasting wiggle on us--every one of
+us--this drive'll hang up; and I'd just as soon hang it by laying off
+those who try to shirk as by letting you hang it by not working your
+best. So get busy. If anybody wants to quit, let 'em step up right now.
+Any remarks?" He looked from one to another.
+
+"Nary remark," said one man at last.
+
+"All right. Now get your backs into this. It's _team work_ that counts.
+You've each got your choice; either you can lie like the devil to hide
+the fact that you were a member of the Cedar Branch crew in 1899, or you
+can go away and brag about it. It's up to you. Get busy."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Two days later Welton swung from the train at Twin Falls. His red, jolly
+face was as quizzical as ever, but one who knew him might have noticed
+that his usual leisurely movements had quickened. He walked rapidly to
+the livery stable where he ordered a rig.
+
+"Where's the drive, Hank?" he asked the liveryman.
+
+"Search me!" was his reply; "somewhere down river. Old Murdock is up
+talkin' wild about damage suits, and there's evidently been one hell of
+a row, but I just got back myself from drivin' a drummer over to
+Watsonville."
+
+"Know if Darrell is in town?"
+
+"Oh, _he's_ in town; there ain't no manner of doubt as to that."
+
+"Drunk, eh?"
+
+"Spifflicated, pie-eyed, loaded, soshed," agreed the liveryman
+succinctly.
+
+Welton shook his head humorously and ruefully.
+
+"Say, Welton," demanded the liveryman with the easy familiarity of his
+class, "why in blazes do you put a plain drunk like that in charge?"
+
+"Darrell is a good man on a big job," said Welton; "you can't beat him,
+and you can't get him to take a drink. But it takes a big job to steady
+him."
+
+"Well, I'd fire him," stated Hank positively.
+
+"He's already fired," spoke up a hostler, "they laid him off two days
+ago when he went down drunk and tried to take charge."
+
+"Well, now," chuckled Welton, as he gathered up the reins, "who'd have
+thought old Larsen could scare up the spunk!"
+
+He drove down the river road. When he came to a point opposite Murdock's
+he drew up.
+
+"That wire said that Murdock had the river blocked," he mused, "but
+she's certainly flowing free enough now. The river's sacked clean now."
+
+His presence on the bank had attracted the attention of a man in the
+mill. After a long scrutiny, this individual launched a skiff and pulled
+across the stream.
+
+"I thought it was you," he cried as soon as he had stepped ashore.
+"Well, let me tell you I'm going to sue you for damages, big damages!"
+
+Welton looked him over quizzically, and the laughing lines deepened
+around the corners of his eyes.
+
+"Lay on, MacDuff," said he, "nobody's sued me yet this year, and it
+didn't seem natural."
+
+"And for assault with deadly weapons, and malicious destruction of
+property, and seizure and----"
+
+"You must have been talking to a country lawyer," interrupted Welton,
+with one of his subterranean chuckles. "Don't do it. They got nothing
+_but_ time, and you know what your copy book says about idle hands." He
+crossed one leg and leaned back as though for a comfortable chat. "No,
+you come and see me, Murdock, and state how much you've been damaged,
+and we'll see what we can do. Why, these little lawyers love to name
+things big. They'd call a sewing circle a riot if one of the members
+dropped a stitch."
+
+But Murdock was in deadly earnest.
+
+"Perhaps throwin' dynamite on the end of a pole, and mighty nigh killin'
+us, and just blowin' the whole river up in the air is your idea of
+somethin' little," he stormed; "well, you'll find it'll look big enough
+in court."
+
+"So that's what they did to clear the river," said Welton, more than
+half to himself. "Well, Murdock, suit yourself; you can see me or that
+intellectual giant of a lawyer of yours. You'll find me cheaper. So
+long."
+
+He drove on, chuckling.
+
+"I didn't think old Larsen had the spunk," he repeated after a time.
+"Guess I ought to have put him in charge in the beginning."
+
+He drove to a point where the erratic road turned inland. There he tied
+his horse to a tree and tramped on afoot. After a little he came in
+sight of the rear--and stopped.
+
+The men were working hard; a burst of hearty laughter saluted Welton's
+ears. He could hardly believe them. Nobody had heard this sullen crew of
+nondescript rivermen from everywhere exhibit the faintest symptoms of
+good-humour or interest before. Another burst of laughter came up the
+breeze. A dozen men ran out over the logs as though skylarking, inserted
+their peavies in a threatened lock, and pried it loose.
+
+"Pretty work," said the expert in Welton.
+
+He drew nearer through the low growth until he stood well within hearing
+and seeing distance. Then he stopped again.
+
+Bob Orde was walking up and down the bank talking to the men. They were
+laughing back at him. His manner was half fun, half earnest, part
+rueful, part impatient, wholly affectionate.
+
+"You, Jim," said he, "go out and get busy. You're loafing, you know you
+are; I don't give a damn what you're to do. Do something! Don't give an
+imitation of a cast-iron hero. No, I won't either tell you what to do. I
+don't know. But do it, even if you have to make it up out of your own
+head. Consider the festive water-beetle, and the ant and other
+industrious doodle-bugs. Get a wiggle on you, fellows. We'll never get
+out at this rate. If this drive gets hung up, I'm going to murder every
+last one of you. Come on now, all together; if I could walk out on those
+logs I'd build a fire under you; but you've got me tied to the bank and
+you know it, you big fat loafers, you!"
+
+"Keep your hair on, bub; we'll make it, all right"
+
+"Well, we'd just better make it," warned Bob. "Now I'm going down to the
+jam to see whether their alarm clock went off this morning.--Now, don't
+slumber!"
+
+After he had disappeared down the trail, Welton stepped into view.
+
+"Oh, Charley!" he called.
+
+One of the rivermen sprang ashore.
+
+"When did the rear leave Murdock's?" he asked without preliminary.
+
+"Thursday."
+
+"You've made good time."
+
+"Bet we have," replied Charley with pride.
+
+"Who's jam boss?"
+
+"Larsen."
+
+"Who's in charge of the river, then?" demanded Welton sharply.
+
+"Why, young Orde!" replied the riverman, surprised.
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"Since he blew up Murdock's piles."
+
+"Oh, he did that, did he? I suppose he fired Darrell, too?"
+
+"Sure. It was a peach of a scrap."
+
+"Scrap?"
+
+"Yep. That Orde boy is a wonder. He just _ruined_ Roaring Dick."
+
+"He did, did he?" commented Welton. "Well, so long."
+
+He followed Bob down the river trail. At the end of a half-mile he
+overtook the young fellow kneeling on a point gazing at a peeled stake
+planted at the edge of the river.
+
+"Wish I knew how long this water was going to hold out," he murmured, as
+he heard a man pause behind him. "She's dropped two inches by my patent
+self-adjusting gauge."
+
+"Young man," said Welton, "are you on the payrolls of this company?"
+
+Bob turned around, then instantly came to his feet.
+
+"Oh, you're here at last, Mr. Welton," he cried in tones of vast relief.
+
+"Answer my question, please."
+
+"What?" asked Bob with an expression of bewilderment.
+
+"Are you on the payrolls of this company?"
+
+"No, sir, of course not. You know that."
+
+"Then what are you doing in charge of this river?"
+
+"Why, don't you see--"
+
+"I see you've destroyed property and let us in for a big damage suit. I
+see you've discharged our employees without authority to do so. I see
+you're bossing my men and running my drive without the shadow of a
+right."
+
+"But something had to be done," expostulated Bob.
+
+"What do you know about river-driving?" broke in Welton. "Not a thing."
+
+"Men who told me did--"
+
+"A bunch of river-hogs," broke in Welton contemptuously. "It strikes me,
+young man, that you have the most colossal cheek I've ever heard of."
+
+But Bob faced him squarely.
+
+"Look here," he said decidedly, "I'm technically wrong, and I know it.
+But good men told me your measly old drive would hang if it stayed there
+two days longer; and I believed them, and I believe them yet. I don't
+claim to know anything about river-driving, but here your confounded
+drive is well on its way. I kicked that drunk off the river because he
+was no good. I took hold here to help you out of a hole, and you're
+out."
+
+"But," said Welton, carefully, "don't you see that you took chances on
+losing me a lot of property?"
+
+Bob looked up at him a moment wearily.
+
+"From my point of view I have nothing to regret," said he stiffly, and
+turned away.
+
+The humorous lines about Welton's eyes had been deepening throughout
+this interview.
+
+"That tops it off," said he. "First you get me into trouble; then you
+fire my head man; then you run off with my property; finally you tell me
+to go to hell! Son, you are a great man! Shake!"
+
+Bob whirled in surprise to search Welton's good-natured jolly face. The
+latter was smiling.
+
+"Shake," he repeated, relapsing, as was his habit when much in earnest,
+into his more careless speech; "you done just right. Son, remember
+this:--it's true--it ain't _doing_ things that makes a man so much as
+_deciding_ things."
+
+One of his great chuckles bubbled up.
+
+"It took some nerve to jump in the way you did; and some sand to handle
+the flea-bitten bunch of river-hogs----"
+
+"You're mistaken about them," Bob broke in earnestly. "They've been
+maligned. They're as good and willing a squad as I ever want to see----"
+
+"Oh, sure," laughed Welton; "they're a nice little job lot of tin
+angels. However, don't worry. You sure saved the day, for I believe we
+would have hung if we hadn't got over the riffles before this last drop
+of the water."
+
+He began to laugh, at first, gently, then more and more heartily, until
+Bob stared at him with considerable curiosity and inquiry. Welton caught
+his look.
+
+"I was just thinking of Harvey and Collins," he remarked enigmatically
+as he wiped his eyes. "Oh, Bobby, my son, you sure do please me. Only I
+was afraid for a minute it might be a flash in the pan and you weren't
+going to tell me to go to hell."
+
+They turned back toward the rear.
+
+"By the way," Welton remarked, "you made one bad break just now."
+
+"What was that?" asked Bob.
+
+"You told me you were not on the payrolls of this company. You are."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+For a year Bob worked hard at all sorts of jobs. He saw the woods work,
+the river work, the mill work. From the stump to the barges he followed
+the timbers. Being naturally of a good intelligence, he learned very
+fast how things were done, so that at the end of the time mentioned he
+had acquired a fair working knowledge of how affairs were accomplished
+in this business he had adopted. That does not mean he had become a
+capable lumberman. One of the strangest fallacies long prevalent in the
+public mind is that lumbering is always a sure road to wealth. The
+margin of profit seems very large. As a matter of fact, the industry is
+so swiftly conducted, on so large a scale, along such varied lines; the
+expenditures must be made so lavishly, and yet so carefully; the
+consequences of a niggardly policy are so quickly apparent in decreased
+efficiency, and yet the possible leaks are so many, quickly draining the
+most abundant resources, that few not brought up through a long
+apprenticeship avoid a loss. A great deal of money has been and is made
+in timber. A great deal has been lost, simply because, while the
+possibilities are alluring, the complexity of the numerous problems is
+unseen.
+
+At first Bob saw only the results. You went into the woods with a crew
+of men, felled trees, cut them into lengths, dragged them to the roads
+already prepared, piled them on sleighs, hauled them to the river, and
+stacked them there. In the spring you floated the logs to the mill where
+they were sawed into boards, laden into sailing vessels or steam barges,
+and taken to market. There was the whole process in a nutshell. Of
+course, there would be details and obstructions to cope with. But
+between the eighty thousand dollars or so worth of trees standing in the
+forest and the quarter-million dollars or so they represented at the
+market seemed space enough to allow for many reverses.
+
+As time went on, however, the young man came more justly to realize the
+minuteness of the bits comprising this complicated mosaic. From keeping
+men to the point of returning, in work, the worth of their wages; from
+so correlating and arranging that work that all might be busy and not
+some waiting for others; up through the anxieties of weather and the
+sullen or active opposition of natural forces, to the higher levels of
+competition and contracts, his awakened attention taught him that
+legitimate profits could attend only on vigilant and minute attention,
+on comprehensive knowledge of detail, on experience, and on natural
+gift. The feeding of men abundantly at a small price involved questions
+of buying, transportation and forethought, not to speak of concrete
+knowledge of how much such things should ideally be worth. Tools by the
+thousand were needed at certain places and at certain times. They must
+be cared for and accounted for. Horses, and their feed, equipment and
+care, made another not inconsiderable item both of expense and
+attention. And so with a thousand and one details which it would be
+superfluous to enumerate here. Each cost money, and some one's time.
+Relaxed attention might make each cost a few pennies more. What do a few
+pennies amount to? Two things: a lowering of the standard of efficiency,
+and, in the long run, many dollars. If incompetence, or inexperience
+should be added to relaxed attention, so that the various activities do
+not mortise exactly one with another, and the legitimate results to be
+expected from the pennies do not arrive, then the sum total is very apt
+to be failure. Where organized and settled industries, however
+complicated in detail, are in a manner played by score, these frontier
+activities are vast improvisations following only the general
+unchangeable laws of commerce.
+
+Therefore, Bob was very much surprised and not a little dismayed at
+what Mr. Welton had to say to him one evening early in the spring.
+
+It was in the "van" of Camp Thirty-nine. Over in the corner under the
+lamp the sealer and bookkeeper was epitomizing the results of his day.
+Welton and Bob sat close to the round stove in the middle, smoking their
+pipes. The three or four bunks belonging to Bob, the scaler, and the
+camp boss were dim in another corner; the shelves of goods for trade
+with the men occupied a third. A rude door and a pair of tiny windows
+communicated with the world outside. Flickers of light from the cracks
+in the stove played over the massive logs of the little building, over
+the rough floor and the weapons and snowshoes on the wall. Both Bob and
+Welton were dressed in flannel and kersey, with the heavy German socks
+and lumberman's rubbers on their feet. Their bright-checked Mackinaw
+jackets lay where they had been flung on the beds. Costume and
+surroundings both were a thousand miles from civilization; yet
+civilization was knocking at the door. Welton gave expression to this
+thought.
+
+"Two seasons more'll finish us, Bob," said he. "I've logged the Michigan
+woods for thirty-five years, but now I'm about done here."
+
+"Yes, I guess they're all about done," agreed Bob.
+
+"The big men have gone West; lots of the old lumber jacks are out there
+now. It's our turn. I suppose you know we've got timber in California?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob, with a wry grin, as he thought of the columns of
+"descriptions" he had copied; "I know that."
+
+"There's about half a billion feet of it. We'll begin to manufacture
+when we get through here. I'm going out next month, as soon as the snow
+is out of the mountains, to see about the plant and the general lay-out.
+I'm going to leave you in charge here."
+
+Bob almost dropped his pipe as his jaws fell apart.
+
+"Me!" he cried.
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"But I can't; I don't know enough! I'd make a mess of the whole
+business," Bob expostulated.
+
+"You've been around here for a year," said Welton, "and things are
+running all right. I want somebody to see that things move along, and
+you're the one. Are you going to refuse?"
+
+"No; I suppose I can't refuse," said Bob miserably, and fell silent.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+To Bob's father Welton expressed himself in somewhat different terms.
+The two men met at the Auditorium Annex, where they promptly adjourned
+to the Palm Room and a little table.
+
+"Now, Jack," the lumberman replied to his friend's expostulation, "I
+know just as well as you do that the kid isn't capable yet of handling a
+proposition on his own hook. It's just for that reason that I put him in
+charge."
+
+"And Welton isn't an Irish name, either," murmured Jack Orde.
+
+"What? Oh, I see. No; and that isn't an Irish bull, either. I put him in
+charge so he'd have to learn something. He's a good kid, and he'll take
+himself dead serious. He'll be deciding everything that comes up all for
+himself, and he'll lie awake nights doing it. And all the time things
+will be going on almost like he wasn't there!"
+
+Welton paused to chuckle in his hearty manner.
+
+"You see, I've brought that crew up in the business. Mason is as good a
+mill man as they make; and Tally's all right in the woods and on the
+river; and I reckon it would be difficult to take a nick out of Collins
+in office work."
+
+"In other words, Bob is to hold the ends of the reins while these other
+men drive," said his father, vastly amused. "That's more like it. I'd
+hate to bury a green man under too much responsibility."
+
+"No," denied Welton, "it isn't that exactly. Somebody's got to boss the
+rest of 'em. And Bob certainly is a wonder at getting the men to like
+him and to work for him. That's his strong point. He gets on with them,
+and he isn't afraid to tell 'em when he thinks they're 'sojering' on
+him. That makes me think: I wonder what kind of ornaments these waiters
+are supposed to be." He rapped sharply on the little table with his
+pocket-knife.
+
+"It's up to him," he went on, after the waiter had departed. "If he's
+too touchy to acknowledge his ignorance on different points that come
+up, and if he's too proud to ask questions when he's stumped, why, he's
+going to get in a lot of trouble. If he's willing to rely on his men for
+knowledge, and will just see that everybody keeps busy and sees that
+they bunch their hits, why, he'll get on well enough."
+
+"It takes a pretty wise head to make them bunch their hits," Orde
+pointed out, "and a heap of figuring."
+
+"It'll keep him mighty busy, even at best," acknowledged Welton, "and
+he's going to make some bad breaks. I know that."
+
+"Bad breaks cost money," Orde reminded him.
+
+"So does any education. Even at its worst this can't cost much money. He
+can't wreck things--the organization is too good--he'll just make 'em
+wobble a little. And this is a mighty small and incidental proposition,
+while this California lay-out is a big project. No, by my figuring Bob
+won't actually do much, but he'll lie awake nights to do a hell of a lot
+of deciding, and----."
+
+"Oh, I know," broke in Orde with a laugh; "you haven't changed an inch
+in twenty years--and 'it's not doing but deciding that makes a man,'" he
+quoted.
+
+"Well, isn't it?" demanded Welton insistently.
+
+"Of course," agreed Orde with another laugh. "I was just tickled to see
+you hadn't changed a hair. Now if you'd only moralize on square pegs in
+round holes, I'd hear again the birds singing in the elms by the dear
+old churchyard."
+
+Welton grinned, a trifle shamefacedly. Nevertheless he went on with the
+development of his philosophy.
+
+"Well," he asserted stoutly, "that's just what Bob was when I got there.
+He can't handle figures any better than I can, and Collins had been
+putting him through a course of sprouts." He paused and sipped at his
+glass. "Of course, if I wasn't absolutely certain of the men under him,
+it would be a fool proposition. Bob isn't the kind to get onto treachery
+or double-dealing very quick. He likes people too well. But as it is,
+he'll get a lot of training cheap."
+
+Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly between puffs at
+his cigar.
+
+"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California now?" he asked
+at length. "You'll be building your roads and flumes and railroad,
+getting your mill up, buying your machinery and all the rest of it. That
+ought to be good experience for him--to see the thing right from the
+beginning."
+
+"Bob is going to be a lumberman, and that isn't lumbering; it's
+construction. Once it's up, it will never have to be done again. The
+California timber will last out Bob's lifetime, and you know it. He'd
+better learn lumbering, which he'll do for the next fifty years, than to
+build a mill, which he'll never have to do again--unless it burns up,"
+he added as a half-humorous afterthought.
+
+"Correct," Orde agreed promptly to this. "You're a wonder. When I found
+a university with my ill-gotten gains, I'll give you a job as professor
+of--well, of Common Sense, by jiminy!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Bob managed to lose some money in his two years of apprenticeship. That
+is to say, the net income from the small operations under his charge was
+somewhat less than it would have been under Welton's supervision. Even
+at that, the balance sheet showed a profit. This was probably due more
+to the perfection of the organization than to any great ability on Bob's
+part. Nevertheless, he exercised a real control over the firm's
+destinies, and in one or two instances of sudden crisis threw its
+energies definitely into channels of his own choosing. Especially was
+this true in dealing with the riverman's arch-enemy, the mossback.
+
+The mossback follows the axe. When the timber is cut, naturally the land
+remains. Either the company must pay taxes on it, sell it, or allow it
+to revert to the state. It may be very good land, but it is encumbered
+with old slashing, probably much of it needs drainage, a stubborn
+second-growth of scrub oak or red willows has already usurped the soil,
+and above all it is isolated. Far from the cities, far from the
+railroad, far even from the crossroad's general store, it is further cut
+off by the necessity of traversing atrocious and--in the wet
+season--bottomless roads to even the nearest neighbour. Naturally, then,
+in seeking purchasers for this cut-over land, the Company must address
+itself to a certain limited class. For, if a man has money, he will buy
+him a cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in pennies
+and gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself to clearing the land. It
+follows that he is poverty-stricken, lives frugally and is very
+tenacious of what property rights he may be able to coax or wring from
+a hard wilderness. He dwells in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees no
+farther than the rail fence he has split out to surround his farm.
+
+Thus, while he possesses many of the sturdy pioneer virtues, he becomes
+by necessity the direct antithesis to the riverman. The purchase of a
+bit of harness, a vehicle, a necessary tool or implement is a matter of
+close economy, long figuring, and much work. Interest on the mortgage
+must be paid. And what can a backwoods farm produce worth money? And
+where can it find a market? Very little; and very far. A man must "play
+close to his chest" in order to accomplish that plain, primary, simple
+duty of making both ends meet. The extreme of this virtue means a
+defect, of course; it means narrowness of vision, conservatism that
+comes close to suspicion, illiberality. When these qualities meet the
+sometimes foolishly generous and lavish ideas of men trained in the
+reckless life of the river, almost inevitably are aroused suspicion on
+one side, contempt on the other and antagonism on both.
+
+This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But when, as often
+happens, the mossback's farm extends to the very river bank itself; when
+the legal rights of property clash with the vaguer but no less certain
+rights of custom, then there is room for endless bickering. When the
+river boss steps between his men and the backwoods farmer, he must, on
+the merits of the case and with due regard to the sort of man he has to
+deal with, decide at once whether he will persuade, argue, coerce, or
+fight. It may come to be a definite choice between present delay or a
+future lawsuit.
+
+This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon to make. He
+knew little about law, but he had a very good feeling for the human
+side. Whatever mistakes he made, the series of squabbles nourished his
+sense of loyalty to the company. His woods training was gradually
+bringing him to the lumberman's point of view; and the lumberman's point
+of view means, primarily, timber and loyalty.
+
+"By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first thought on
+entering a particularly imposing grove.
+
+Where another man would catch merely a general effect, his more
+practised eye would estimate heights, diameters, the growth of the
+limbs, the probable straightness of the grain. His eye almost
+unconsciously sought the possibilities of location--whether a road could
+be brought in easily, whether the grades could run right. A fine tree
+gave him the complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on analytical
+contemplation of any object. It meant timber, good or bad, as well as
+beauty.
+
+Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally of a partisan
+temperament. He played the game fairly, but he played it hard. Games
+imply rules, and any infraction of the rules is unfair and to be
+punished. Bob could not be expected to reflect that while rules are
+generally imposed by a third party on both contestants alike, in this
+game the rules with which he was acquainted had been made by his side;
+that perhaps the other fellow might have another set of rules. All he
+saw was that the antagonists were perpetrating a series of contemptible,
+petty, mean tricks or a succession of dastardly outrages. His loyalty
+and anger were both thoroughly aroused, and he plunged into his little
+fights with entire whole-heartedness. As his side of the question meant
+getting out the logs, the combination went far toward efficiency. When
+the drive was down in the spring, Bob looked back on his mossback
+campaign with a little grieved surprise that men could think it worth
+their self-respect to try to take such contemptible advantage of
+quibbles for the purpose of defeating what was certainly customary and
+fair, even if it might not be technically legal. What the mossbacks
+thought about it we can safely leave to the crossroad stores.
+
+In other respects Bob had the good sense to depend absolutely on his
+subordinates.
+
+"How long do you think it ought to take to cut the rest of Eight?" he
+would ask Tally.
+
+"About two weeks."
+
+Bob said nothing more, but next day he ruminated long in the snow-still
+forest at Eight, trying to apportion in his own mind the twelve days'
+work. If it did not go at a two weeks' gait, he speedily wanted to know
+why.
+
+When the sleighs failed to return up the ice road with expected
+regularity, Bob tramped down to the "banks" to see what the trouble was.
+When he returned, he remarked casually to Jim Tally:
+
+"I fired Powell off the job as foreman, and put in Downy."
+
+"Why?" asked Tally. "I put Powell in there because I thought he was an
+almighty good worker."
+
+"He is," said Bob; "too good. I found them a little short-handed down
+there, and getting discouraged. The sleighs were coming in on them
+faster than they could unload. The men couldn't see how they were going
+to catch up, so they'd slacked down a little, which made it worse.
+Powell had his jacket off and was working like the devil with a
+canthook. He does about the quickest and hardest yank with a canthook I
+ever saw," mused Bob.
+
+"Well?" demanded Tally.
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "I told him if that was the kind of a job he wanted, he
+could have it. And I told Downy to take charge. I don't pay a foreman's
+wages for canthook work; I hire him to keep the men busy, and he sure
+can't do it if he occupies his time and attention rolling logs."
+
+"He was doing his best to straighten things out," said Tally.
+
+"Well, I'm now paying him for his best," replied Bob, philosophically.
+
+But if it had been a question of how most quickly to skid the logs
+brought in by the sleighs, Bob would never have dreamed of questioning
+Powell's opinion, although he might later have demanded expert
+corroboration from Tally.
+
+The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in training, both
+physically and spiritually. He realized his mistakes, but they were now
+mistakes of judgment rather than of mechanical accuracy, and he did not
+worry over them once they were behind him.
+
+When Welton returned from California toward the close of the season, he
+found the young man buoyant and happy, deeply absorbed, well liked, and
+in a fair way to learn something about the business.
+
+Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed down. The
+remaining lumber in the yards was shipped out as rapidly as possible. By
+the end of September the work was over.
+
+Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while affairs were in
+preparation for the westward exodus.
+
+Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the Chicago offices.
+
+He entered the little outer office he had left so down-heartedly three
+years before. Harvey and his two assistants sat on the high stools in
+front of the shelf-like desk. The same pictures of record loads, large
+trees, mill crews and logging camps hung on the walls. The same
+atmosphere of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place. Through
+the half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg swung over the arm of
+his revolving chair, chatting in a leisurely fashion with some visitor.
+
+No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment staring at the three
+bent backs before him. He remembered the infinite details of the work he
+had left, the purchasings of innumerable little things, the regulation
+of outlays, the balancings of expenditures, the constantly shifting
+property values, the cost of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery,
+transportation, operation. And in addition he brought to mind the minute
+and vexatious mortgage and sale and rental business having to do with
+the old cut-over lands; the legal complications; the questions of
+arbitration and privilege. And beyond that his mind glimpsed dimly the
+extent of other interests, concerning which he knew little--investment
+interests, and silent interests in various manufacturing enterprises
+where the Company had occasionally invested a surplus by way of a flyer.
+In this quiet place all these things were correlated, compared,
+docketed, and filed away. In the brains of the four men before him all
+these infinite details were laid out in order. He knew that Harvey could
+answer specific questions as to any feature of any one of these
+activities. All the turmoil, the rush and roar of the river, the mills,
+the open lakes, the great wildernesses passed through this silent, dusty
+room. The problems that kept a dozen men busy in the solving came here
+also, together with a hundred others. Bob recalled his sight of the
+hurried, wholesale shipping clerk he had admired when, discouraged and
+discredited, he had left the office three years before. He had thought
+that individual busy, and had contrasted his activity with the
+somnolence of this office. Busy! Why, he, Bob, had over and over again
+been ten times as busy. At the thought he chuckled aloud. Harvey and his
+assistants turned to the sound.
+
+"Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!" cried the young man. "I'm certainly glad
+to see you. You're the only men I ever saw who could be really bang-up
+rushed and never show it."
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+On a wintry and blustering evening in the latter part of February, 1902,
+Welton and Bob boarded the Union Pacific train en route for California.
+They distributed their hand baggage, then promptly took their way
+forward to the buffet car, where they disposed themselves in the
+leather-and-wicker armchairs for a smoke. At this time of year the
+travel had fallen off somewhat in volume. The westward tourist rush had
+slackened, and the train was occupied only by those who had definite
+business in the Land of Promise, and by that class of wise ones who
+realize that an Eastern March and April are more to be avoided than the
+regulation winter months. The smoking car contained then but a
+half-dozen men.
+
+Welton and Bob took their places and lit their cigars. The train swayed
+gently along, its rattle muffled by the storm. Polished black squares
+represented the windows across which drifted hazy lights and ghostlike
+suggestions of snowflakes. Bob watched this ebony nothingness in great
+idleness of spirit. Presently one of the half-dozen men arose from his
+place, walked the length of the car, and dropped into the next chair.
+
+"You're Bob Orde, aren't you?" he remarked without preliminary.
+
+Bob looked up. He saw before him a very heavy-set young man, of medium
+height, possessed of a full moon of a face, and alert brown eyes.
+
+"I thought so," went on this young man in answer to Bob's assent. "I'm
+Baker of '93. You wouldn't know me; I was before your time. But I know
+you. Seen you play. Headed for the Sunshine and Flowers?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob.
+
+"Ever been there before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Great country! If you listen to all the come-on stuff you may be
+disappointed--at first."
+
+"How's that?" asked Bob, highly amused. "Isn't the place what it's
+cracked up to be?"
+
+"It's more," asserted Baker, "but not the same stuff. The climate's
+bully--best little old climate they've made, up to date--but it's got to
+rain once in a while; and the wind's got to blow; and all that. If you
+believe the Weather in the Old Home column, you'll be sore. In two years
+you'll be sore, anyway, whenever it does anything but stand 55 at night,
+72 at noon and shine like the spotlight on the illustrated songster. If
+a Californian sees a little white cloud about as big as a toy balloon
+down in the southeast corner he gets morose as a badger. If it starts to
+drizzle what you'd call a light fog he holes up. When it rains he
+hibernates like a bear, and the streets look like one of these populous
+and thriving Aztec metropoli you see down Sonora way. I guess every man
+is privileged to get just about so sore on the weather wherever he
+is--and does so."
+
+"You been out there long?" asked Bob.
+
+"Ever since I graduated," returned Baker promptly, "and I wouldn't live
+anywhere else. They're doing real things. Don't you run away with any
+notions of _dolce far nientes_ or tropical languor. This California gang
+is strictly on the job. The bunch seated under the spreading banana tree
+aren't waiting for the ripe fruit to drop in their mouths. That's in the
+First Reader and maybe somewhere down among the Black and Tans--"
+
+"Black and Tans?" interrupted Bob with a note of query.
+
+"Yep. Oilers--greasers--Mexicans--hidalgos of all kinds from here to the
+equator," explained Baker. "No, sir, that gang under the banana tree are
+either waiting there to sandbag the next tourist and sell him some real
+estate before he comes to, or else they're figuring on uprooting said
+piffling shrub and putting up an office building. Which part of the
+country are you going to?"
+
+"Near White Oaks," said Bob.
+
+"No abalone shells for yours, eh?" remarked Baker cryptically. He
+glanced at Welton. "Where's your timber located?" he asked.
+
+"Near Granite," replied Bob;--"why, how the devil did you know we were
+out for timber?"
+
+"'How did the Master Mind solve that problem?'" asked Baker. "Ah, that's
+my secret!"
+
+"No, that doesn't go," said Bob. "I insist on knowing; and what was that
+abalone shell remark?"
+
+"Abalone shells--tourists," capitulated Baker; "also Mexican drawn work,
+bead belts, burned leather, fake turquoise and ostrich eggs. Sabe?"
+
+"Sure. But why not a tourist?"
+
+"Tourist--in White Oaks!" cried Baker. "Son, White Oaks raises raisins
+and peaches and apricots and figs and such things in quantities to
+stagger you. It is a nice, well-built city, and well conducted, and full
+of real estate boards and chambers of commerce. But it is not framed up
+for tourists, and it knows it. Not at 100 degrees Fahrenheit 'most all
+summer, and a chill and solemn land fog 'most all winter."
+
+"Well, why timber?" demanded Bob.
+
+"My dear Watson," said Baker, indicating Mr. Welton, who grinned. "Does
+your side partner resemble a raisin raiser? Has he the ear marks of a
+gentle agriculturist? Would you describe him as a typical sheepman, or
+as a daring and resolute bee-keeper?"
+
+Bob shook his head, still unconvinced.
+
+"Well, if you will uncover my dark methods," sighed Baker. He leaned
+over and deftly abstracted from the breast pocket of Bob's coat a long,
+narrow document. "You see the top of this stuck out in plain sight. To
+the intelligent eye instructed beyond the second grade of our excellent
+school system the inscription cannot be mistaken." He held it around for
+Bob to see. In plain typing the document was endorsed as follows:
+
+"Granite County Timber Lands."
+
+"My methods are very subtle," said Baker, laughing. "I find it difficult
+to explain them. Come around sometime and I'll pick it out for you on
+the piano."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Bob in his turn.
+
+"Los Angeles, on business."
+
+"On business?--or just buying abalone shells?"
+
+"It takes a millionaire or an Iowa farmer to be a tourist," replied
+Baker.
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+"Supporting an extravagant wife, I tell Mrs. Baker. You want to get down
+that way. The town's a marvel. It's grown from thirty thousand to two
+hundred thousand in twenty years; it has enough real estate subdivisions
+to accommodate eight million; it has invented the come-on house built by
+the real estate agents to show how building is looking up at
+Lonesomehurst; it has two thousand kinds of architecture--all different;
+it has more good stuff and more fake stuff than any place on earth--it's
+a wonder. Come on down and I'll show you the high buildings."
+
+He chatted for a few moments, then rose abruptly and disappeared down
+the aisle toward the sleeping cars without the formality of a farewell.
+
+Welton had been listening amusedly, and puffing away at his cigar in
+silence.
+
+"Well," said he when Baker had gone. "How do you like your friend?"
+
+"He's certainly amusing," laughed Bob, "and mighty good company. That
+sort of a fellow is lots of fun. I've seen them many times coming back
+at initiation or Commencement. They are great heroes to the kids."
+
+"But not to any one else?" inquired Welton.
+
+"Well--that's about it," Bob hesitated. "They're awfully good fellows,
+and see the joke, and jolly things up; but they somehow don't amount to
+much."
+
+"Wouldn't think much of the scheme of trying Baker as woods foreman up
+in our timber, then?" suggested Welton.
+
+"Him? Lord, no!" said Bob, surprised.
+
+Welton threw back his head and laughed heartily, in great salvos.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "Oh, Bobby, I wish any old Native Son could be
+here to enjoy this joke with me. Ho! ho! ho! ho!"
+
+The coloured porter stuck his head in to see what this tremendous
+rolling noise might be, grinned sympathetically, and withdrew.
+
+"What's the matter with you!" cried Bob, exasperated. "Shut up, and be
+sensible."
+
+Welton wiped his eyes.
+
+"That, son, is Carleton P. Baker. Just say Carleton P. Baker to a
+Californian."
+
+"Well, I can't, for four days, anyway. Who is he?"
+
+"Didn't find out from him, for all his talk, did you?" said Welton
+shrewdly. "Well, Baker, as he told you, graduated from college in '93.
+He came to California with about two thousand dollars of capital and no
+experience. He had the sense to go in for water rights, and here he is!"
+
+"Marvellous!" cried Bob sarcastically. "But what is he now that he is
+here?"
+
+"Head of three of the biggest power projects in California," said Welton
+impressively, "and controller of more potential water power than any
+other man or corporation in the state."
+
+Welton enjoyed his joke hugely. After Bob had turned in, the big man
+parted the curtains to his berth.
+
+"Oh, Bob," he called guardedly.
+
+"What!" grunted the young man, half-asleep.
+
+"Who do you think we'd better get for woods foreman just _in case_
+Baker shouldn't take the job?"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+All next day the train puffed over the snow-blown plains. There was
+little in the prospect, save an inspiration to thankfulness that the
+cars were warm and comfortable. Bob and Welton spent the morning going
+over their plans for the new country. After lunch, which in the manner
+of trans-continental travellers they stretched over as long a period as
+possible, they again repaired to the smoking car. Baker hailed them
+jovially, waving a stubby forefinger at vacant seats.
+
+"Say, do Populists grow whiskers, or do whiskers make Populists?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Give it up," replied Welton promptly. "Why?"
+
+"Because if whiskers make Populists, I don't blame this state for going
+Pop. A fellow'd have to grow some kind of natural chest protector in
+self-defence. Look at that snow! And thirty dollars will take you out
+where there's none of it, and the soil's better, and you can see
+something around you besides fresh air. Why, any one of these poor
+pinhead farmers could come out our way, get twenty acres of irrigated
+land, and in five years--"
+
+"Hold on!" cried Bob, "you haven't by any chance some of that real
+estate for sale--or a sandbag?"
+
+Baker laughed.
+
+"Everybody gets that way," said he. "I'll bet the first five men you
+meet will fill you up on statistics."
+
+He knew the country well, and pointed out in turn the first low rises of
+the prairie swell, and the distant Rockies like a faint blue and white
+cloud close down along the horizon. Bob had never seen any real
+mountains before, and so was much interested. The train laboured up the
+grades, steep to the engine, but insignificant to the eye; it passed
+through the cañons to the broad central plateau. The country was broken
+and strange, with its wide, free sweeps, its sage brush, its stunted
+trees, but it was not mountainous as Bob had conceived mountains. Baker
+grinned at him.
+
+"Snowclad peaks not up to specifications?" he inquired. "Chromos much
+better? Mountain grandeur somewhat on the blink? Where'd you expect them
+to put a railroad--out where the scenery is? Never mind. Wait till you
+slide off 'Cape Horn' into California."
+
+The cold weather followed them to the top of the Sierras. Snow, dull
+clouds, mists and cold enveloped the train. Miles of snowsheds
+necessitated keeping the artificial light burning even at midday. Winter
+held them in its grip.
+
+Then one morning they rounded the bold corner of a high mountain. Far
+below them dropped away the lesser peaks, down a breathless descent. And
+from beneath, so distant as to draw over themselves a tender veil of
+pearl gray, flowed out foothills and green plains. The engine coughed,
+shut off the roar of her exhaust. The train glided silently forward.
+
+"Now come to the rear platform," Baker advised.
+
+They sat in the open air while the train rushed downward. From the great
+drifts they ran to the soft, melting snow, then to the mud and freshness
+of early spring. Small boys crowded early wild-flowers on them whenever
+they stopped at the small towns built on the red clay. The air became
+indescribably soft and balmy, full of a gentle caress. At the next
+station the children brought oranges. A little farther the foothill
+ranches began to show the brightness of flowers. The most dilapidated
+hovel was glorified by splendid sprays of red roses big as cabbages.
+Dooryards of the tiniest shacks blazed with red and yellow. Trees and
+plants new to Bob's experience and strangely and delightfully exotic in
+suggestion began to usurp the landscape. To the far Northerner, brought
+up in only a common-school knowledge of olive trees, palms, eucalyptus,
+oranges, banana trees, pomegranates and the ordinary semi-tropical
+fruits, there is something delightful and wonderful in the first sight
+of them living and flourishing in the open. When closer investigation
+reveals a whole series of which he probably does not remember ever to
+have heard, he feels indeed an explorer in a new and wonderful land.
+After a few months these things become old stories. They take their
+places in his cosmos as accustomed things. He is then at some pains to
+understand his visitor's extravagant interest and delight over loquats,
+chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds, guavas, the blooming of century
+plants, the fruits of chollas and the like. Baker pointed out some of
+these things to Bob.
+
+"Winter to summer in two jumps and a hop," said he. "The come-on stuff
+rings the bell in this respect, anyway. Smell the air: it's real air.
+'Listen to the mocking bird.'"
+
+"Seriously or figuratively?" asked Bob. "I mean, is that a real mocking
+bird?"
+
+"Surest thing you know," replied Baker as the train moved on, leaving
+the songster to his ecstasies. "They sing all night out here. Sounds
+fine when you haven't a grouch. Then you want to collect a brick and
+drive the darn fowl off the reservation."
+
+"I never saw one before outside a cage," said Bob.
+
+"There's lots of things you haven't seen that you're going to see, now
+you've got out to the Real Thing," said Baker. "Why, right in your own
+line: you don't know what big pine is. Wait till you see the woods out
+here. We've got the biggest trees, and the biggest mountains, and the
+biggest crops and the biggest--."
+
+"Liars," broke in Bob, laughing. "Don't forget them."
+
+"Yes, the biggest liars, too," agreed Baker. "A man's got to lie big out
+here to keep in practice so he can tell the plain truth without
+straining himself."
+
+Before they changed cars to the Valley line, Baker had a suggestion to
+make.
+
+"Look here," said he, "why _don't_ you come and look at the tall
+buildings? You can't do anything in the mountains yet, and when you get
+going you'll be too busy to see California. Come, make a pasear. Glad to
+show you the sights. Get reckless. Take a chance. Peruse carefully your
+copy of Rules for Rubes and try it on."
+
+"Go ahead," said Welton, unexpectedly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Bob went on to Los Angeles with the sprightly Baker. At first glance the
+city seemed to him like any other. Then, as he wandered its streets, the
+marvel and vigour and humour of the place seized on him.
+
+"Don't you suppose I see the joke?" complained Baker at the end of one
+of their long trolley rides. "Just get onto that house; it looks like a
+mission-style switch engine. And the one next to it, built to shed snow.
+Funny! sure it's funny. But you ain't talking to me! It's alive! Those
+fellows wanted something different from anybody else--so does everybody.
+After they'd used up the regular styles, they had to make 'em up out of
+the fresh air. But anyway, they weren't satisfied just to copy Si
+Golosh's idea of a Noah's Ark chicken coop."
+
+They stopped opposite very elaborate and impressive iron gates opening
+across a graded street. These gates were supported by a pair of stone
+towers crowned with tiles. A smaller pair of towers and gates guarded
+the concrete sidewalk. As a matter of fact, all these barriers enclosed
+nothing, for even in the remote possibility that the inquiring visitor
+should find them shut, an insignificant detour would circumvent their
+fenceless flanks.
+
+"Maudsley Court," Bob read sculptured on one of the towers.
+
+"That makes this particular subdivision mighty exclusive," grinned
+Baker. "Now if you were a homeseeker wouldn't you love to bring your
+dinner pail back to the cawstle every night?"
+
+Bob peered down the single street. It was graded, guttered and
+sidewalked. A small sentry box labelled "office," and inscribed with
+glowing eulogiums, occupied a strategic position near the gates. From
+this house Bob immediately became aware of close scrutiny by a man half
+concealed by the indoor dimness.
+
+"The spider," said Baker. "He's onto us big as a house. He can spot a
+yap at four hundred yards' range, and you bet they don't get much nearer
+than that alone."
+
+A huge sign shrieked of Maudsley Court. "Get a grin!" was its first
+advice.
+
+"They all try for a catchword--every one of 'em," explained Baker.
+"You'll see all kinds in the ads; some pretty good, most of 'em rotten."
+
+"They seem to have made a start, anyway," observed Bob, indicating a new
+cottage half way down the street. It was a super-artistic structure,
+exhibiting the ends of huge brown beams at all points. Baker laughed.
+
+"That's what it's intended to seem," said he. "That's the come-on house.
+It's built by the spider. It's stick-um for the flies. 'This is going to
+be a high-brow proposition,' says the intending purchaser; 'look at the
+beautiful house already up. I must join this young and thriving colony.'
+Hence this settled look."
+
+He waved his hand abroad. Dotted over the low, rounded hills of the
+charming landscapes were new and modern bungalows. They were spaced
+widely, and each was flanked by an advertising board and guarded by a
+pair of gates shutting their private thoroughfares from the country
+highways. Between them showed green the new crops.
+
+"Nine out of ten come-on houses," said Baker, "and all exclusive. If you
+can't afford iron gates, you can at least put up a pair of shingled
+pillars. It's the game."
+
+"Will these lots ever be sold?" asked Bob.
+
+"Out here, yes," replied Baker. "That's part of the joke. The methods
+are on the blink, but the goods insist on delivering themselves. Most of
+these fellows are just bunks or optimists. All hands are surprised when
+things turn out right. But if _all_ the lots are ever sold, Los Angeles
+will have a population of five million."
+
+They boarded an inward-bound trolley. Bob read the devices as they
+flashed past. "Hill-top Acres," he read near a street plastered against
+an apparently perpendicular hill. "Buy before the rise!" advised this
+man's rival at its foot. The true suburbs strung by in a panorama of
+strange little houses--imitation Swiss chalets jostling bastard Moorish,
+cobblestones elbowing plaster--a bewildering succession of forced
+effects. Baker caught Bob's expression.
+
+"These are workingmen's and small clerks' houses," he said quietly.
+"Pretty bad, eh? But they're trying. Remember what they lived in back
+East."
+
+Bob recalled the square, painted, ugly, featureless boxes built all
+after the same pattern of dreariness. He looked on this gay bewilderment
+of bad taste with more interest.
+
+"At least they're taking notice," said Baker, lighting his pipe. "And
+every fellow raises _some_ kind of posies."
+
+A few moments later they plunged into the vortex of the city and the
+smiling country, the far plains toward the sea, and the circle of the
+mountains were lost. Only remained overhead the blue of the California
+sky.
+
+Baker led the way toward a blaring basement restaurant.
+
+"I'm beginning to feel that I'll have to find some monkey-food
+somewhere, or cash in," said he.
+
+They found a table and sat down.
+
+"This is the place to see all the sights," proffered Baker, his broad
+face radiating satisfaction. "When they strike it rich on the desert,
+they hike right in here. That fat lady thug yonder is worth between
+three and four millions. Eight months ago she did washing at two bits a
+shirt while her husband drove a one-man prospect shaft. The other day
+she blew into the big jewelry store and wanted a thirty-thousand-dollar
+diamond necklace. The boss rolled over twice and wagged his tail. 'Yes,
+madam,' said he; 'what kind?' 'I dunno; just a thirty-thousand-dollar
+one.' That's all he could get out of her. 'But tell me how you want 'em
+set,' he begged. She looked bewildered. _'Oh, set 'em so they'll
+jingle,'_ says she."
+
+After the meal they walked down the principal streets, watching the
+crowd. It was a large crowd, as though at busy midday, and variously
+apparelled, from fur coat to straw hat. Each extreme of costume seemed
+justified, either by the balmy summer-night effect of the California
+open air, or by the hint of chill that crept from the distant mountains.
+Either aspect could be welcomed or ignored by a very slight effort of
+the will. Electric signs blazed everywhere. Bob was struck by the
+numbers of clairvoyants, palm readers, Hindu frauds, crazy cults, fake
+healers, Chinese doctors, and the like thus lavishly advertised. The
+class that elsewhere is pressed by necessity to the inexpensive
+dinginess of back streets, here blossomed forth in truly tropical
+luxuriance. Street vendors with all sorts of things, from mechanical
+toys to spot eradicators, spread their portable lay-outs at every
+corner. Vacant lots were crowded with spielers of all sorts--religious
+or political fanatics, vendors of cure-alls, of universal tools, of
+marvelous axle grease, of anything and everything to catch the idle
+dollar. Brilliantly lighted shops called the passer-by to contemplate
+the latest wavemotor, flying machine, door check, or what-not. Stock in
+these enterprises was for sale--and was being sold! Other sidewalk
+booths, like those ordinarily used as dispensaries of hot doughnuts and
+coffee, offered wild-cat mining shares, oil stock and real estate in
+some highly speculative suburb. Great stores of curios lay open to the
+tourist trade. Here one could buy sheepskin Indian moccasins made in
+Massachusetts, or abalone shells, or burnt-leather pillows, or a whole
+collection of photographic views so minute that they could all be packed
+in a single walnut shell. Next door were shops of Japanese and Chinese
+goods presided over by suave, sleepy-eyed Orientals, in wonderful
+brocade, wearing the close cap with the red coral button atop. Shooting
+galleries spit spitefully. Gasolene torches flared.
+
+Baker strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of
+his head. From time to time he cast an amused glance at his companion.
+
+"Come in here," he said abruptly.
+
+Bob found himself comfortably seated in a commodious open-air theatre,
+watching an excellent vaudeville performance. He enjoyed it thoroughly,
+for it was above the average. In fifteen minutes, however, the last
+soubrette disappeared in the wings to the accompaniment of a swirl of
+music. Her place was taken by a tall, facetious-looking, bald
+individual, clad in a loose frock coat. He held up his hand for silence.
+
+"Ladies 'n' gentlemen," he drawled, "we hope you have enjoyed
+yourselves. If you find a better show than this in any theatre in town,
+barring the Orpheum, come and tell us about it and we will see what we
+can do to brace ours up. I don't believe you can. This show will be
+repeated every afternoon and evening, with complete change of programme
+twice a week. Go away and tell your friends about the great free show
+down on Spring Street. Just tell them about it."
+
+Bob glanced startled at his companion. Baker was grinning.
+
+"This show has cost us up to date," went on the leisurely drawl, "just
+twenty-eight hundred dollars. Go and tell your friends that. _But_"--he
+suddenly straightened his figure and his voice became more
+incisive--"that is not enough. We have decided to give you something
+_real_ to talk about. We have decided to give every man, woman and child
+in this vast audience a first-night present of Two Silver Dollars!"
+
+Bob could feel an electric thrill run through the crowd, and every one
+sat up a little straighter in his chair.
+
+"Let me see," the orator went on, running his eye over the audience. He
+had resumed his quieter manner. "There are perhaps seven hundred people
+present. That would make fourteen hundred dollars. By the way, John,"
+he addressed some one briskly. "Close the gates and lock them. We don't
+want anybody in on this who didn't have interest enough in our show to
+come in the first place." He winked humorously at the crowd, and several
+laughed.
+
+"Pretty rotten, eh?" whispered Baker admiringly. "Fixed 'em so they
+won't bolt when the show's over and before he works off his dope."
+
+"These Two Silver Dollars, which I want you all to get, are in these
+hampers. Six little boys will distribute them. Come up, boys, and get
+each a hatful of dollars." The six solemnly marched up on the stage and
+busied themselves with the hampers. "While we are waiting," went on the
+orator, "I will seize the opportunity to present to you the world-famed
+discoverer of that wonderful anaesthetic, Oxodyne, Painless Porter."
+
+At the words a dapper little man in immaculately correct evening dress,
+and carrying a crush hat under his arm, stepped briskly from the wings.
+He was greeted by wild but presumably manufactured applause. He bowed
+rigidly from the hips, and at once began to speak in a high and nasal
+but extremely penetrating voice.
+
+"As far as advertising is concerned," he began without preamble, "it is
+entirely unnecessary that I give this show. There is no man, woman or
+child in this marvellous commonwealth of ours who is not familiar with
+the name of Painless Porter, whether from the daily papers, the
+advertising boards, the street cars, or the elegant red brougham in
+which I traverse your streets. My work for you is my best advertisement.
+It is unnecessary from that point of view that I spend this money for
+this show, or that this extra money should be distributed among you by
+my colleague, Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times."
+
+The tall man paused from his business with the hampers and the six boys
+to bow in acknowledgment.
+
+"No, ladies 'n' gentlemen, my purpose is higher. In the breast of each
+human being is implanted an instinctive fear of Pain. It sits on us like
+a nightmare, from the time we first come to consciousness of our
+surroundings. It is a curse of humanity, like drink, and he who can
+lighten that curse is as much of a philanthropist as George W. Childs or
+Andrew Carnegie. I want you to go away and talk about me. It don't
+matter what you say, just so you say something. You can call me quack,
+you may call me fakir, you may call me charlatan--but be sure to call me
+SOMETHING! Then slowly the news will spread abroad that Pain is
+banished, and I can smile in peace, knowing that my vast expenditures of
+time and money have not been in vain, and that I have been a benefit to
+humanity. Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times, will now
+attend to the distribution, after which I will pull a few teeth gratis
+in order to demonstrate to you the wonderful merits of Oxodyne."
+
+"A dentist!" gasped Bob.
+
+"Yup," said Baker. "Not much gasoline-torch-on-the-back-lot in his, is
+there?"
+
+Bob was hardly surprised, after much preamble and heightening of
+suspense, to find that the Two Silver Dollars turned out finally to be a
+pink ticket and a blue ticket, "good respectively at the luxurious
+offices for one dollar's worth of dental and medical attention FREE."
+
+Nor was he more than slightly astounded when the back drop rose to show
+the stage set glitteringly with nickel-mounted dentist chairs and their
+appurtenances, with shining glass, white linen, and with a chorus of
+fascinating damsels dressed as trained nurses and standing rigidly at
+attention. Then entered Painless himself, in snowy shirt-sleeves and
+serious professional preoccupation. Volunteers came up two by two.
+Painless explained obscurely the scientific principles on which the
+marvelous Oxodyne worked--by severing temporarily but entirely all
+communication between the nerves and the brain. Then much business with
+a very glittering syringe.
+
+"My lord," chuckled Baker, "if he fills that thing up, it'll drown
+her!"
+
+In an impressive silence Painless flourished the forceps, planted
+himself square in front of his patient, heaved a moment, and
+triumphantly held up in full view an undoubted tooth. The trained nurses
+offered rinses. After a moment the patient, a roughly dressed country
+woman, arose to her feet. She was smiling broadly, and said something,
+which the audience could not hear. Painless smiled indulgently.
+
+"Speak up so they can all hear you," he encouraged her.
+
+"Never hurt a bit," the woman stammered.
+
+Three more operations were conducted as expeditiously and as
+successfully. The audience was evidently impressed.
+
+"How does he do it?" whispered Bob.
+
+"Cappers," explained Baker briefly. "He only fakes pulling a tooth.
+Watch him next time and you'll see that he doesn't actually pull an
+ounce."
+
+"Suppose a real toothache comes up?"
+
+"I think that is one now. Watch him."
+
+A young ranchman was making his way up the steps that led to the stage.
+His skin was tanned by long exposure to the California sun, and his
+cheek rounded into an unmistakable swelling.
+
+"No fake about him," commented Baker.
+
+He seated himself in the chair. Painless examined his jaw carefully. He
+started back, both hands spread in expostulation.
+
+"My _dear_ friend!" he cried, "you can save that tooth! It would be a
+crime to pull that tooth! Come to my office at ten to-morrow morning and
+I will see what can be done." He turned to the audience and for ten
+minutes expounded the doctrine of modern dentistry as it stands for
+saving a tooth whenever possible. Incidentally he had much to say as to
+his skill in filling and bridge work and the marvellous painlessness
+thereof. The meeting broke up finally to the inspiring strains of a
+really good band. Bob and his friend, standing near the door, watched
+the audience file out. Some threw away their pink and blue tickets, but
+most stowed them carefully away.
+
+"And every one that goes to the 'luxurious offices' for the free
+dollar's worth will leave ten round iron ones," said Baker.
+
+After a moment the Painless One and the Wizard marched smartly out,
+serenely oblivious of the crowd. They stepped into a resplendent red
+brougham and were whisked rapidly away.
+
+"It pays to advertise," quoted Baker philosophically.
+
+They moved on up the street.
+
+"There's the inventor of the Unlimited Life," said Baker suddenly,
+indicating a slender figure approaching. "I haven't seen him in three
+years--not since he got into this graft, anyway."
+
+"Unlimited Life," echoed Bob, "what's that? A medicine?"
+
+"No. A cult. Hullo, Sunny!"
+
+The approaching figure swerved and stopped. Bob saw a very slender
+figure clad in a close-fitting, gray frock suit. To his surprise, from
+beneath the wide, black felt hat there peered at him the keenly nervous
+face of the more intelligent mulatto. The man's eyes were very bright
+and shrewd. His hair surrounded his face as an aureole of darkness, and
+swept low to his coat collar.
+
+"Mr. Baker," he said, simply, his eyes inscrutable.
+
+"Well, Sunny, this is my old friend Bob Orde. Bob, this is the
+world-famous Sunny Larue, apostle of the Unlimited Life of whom you've
+heard so much." He winked at Bob. "How's the Colony flourishing, Sunny?"
+
+"More and more our people are growing to see the light," said the
+mulatto in low, musical tones. "The mighty but simple principles of
+Azamud are coming into their own. The poor and lowly, the humble and
+oppressed are learning that in me is their salvation--." He went on in
+his beautiful voice explaining the Colony of the Unlimited Life,
+addressing always Bob directly and paying little attention to Baker, who
+stood aside, his hands in his pockets, a smile on his fat, good-natured
+face. It seemed that the Colony lived in tents in a cañon of the
+foothills. It paid Larue fifty dollars a head, and in return was
+supported for six months and instructed in the mysteries of the cult. It
+had its regimen. "At three we arise and break our fast, quite simply,
+with three or four dry prunes," breathed Larue, "and then, going forth
+to the high places for one hour, we hold steadfast the thought of Love."
+
+"Say, Sunny," broke in Baker, "how many you got rounded up now?"
+
+"There are at present twenty-one earnest proselytes."
+
+"At fifty a head--and you've got to feed and keep 'em somehow--even
+three dried prunes cost you something in the long run"--ruminated Baker.
+He turned briskly to the mulatto: "Sunny, on the dead, where does the
+graft come in?"
+
+The mulatto drew himself up in swift offence, scrutinized Bob closely
+for a moment, met Baker's grin. Abruptly his impressive manner dropped
+from him. He leaned toward them with a captivating flash of white teeth.
+
+"_You just leave that to me_," he murmured, and glided away into the
+crowd.
+
+Baker laughed and drew Bob's arm within his own.
+
+"Out of twenty of the faithful there's sure to be one or two with life
+savings stowed away in a sock, and Sunny's the boy to make them produce
+the sock."
+
+"What's his cult, anyway?" asked Bob. "I mean, what do they pretend to
+believe? I couldn't make out."
+
+"A nigger's idea of Buddhism," replied Baker briefly. "But you can get
+any brand of psychic damfoolishness you think you need in your business.
+They do it all, here, from going barefoot, eating nuts, swilling olive
+oil, rolling down hill, adoring the Limitless Whichness, and all the
+works. It is now," he concluded, looking at his watch, "about ten
+o'clock. We will finish the evening by dropping in on the Fuzzies."
+
+Together they boarded a street car, which shortly deposited them at an
+uptown corner. Large houses and spacious grounds indicated a district of
+some wealth. To one of these houses, brilliantly lighted, Baker directed
+his steps.
+
+"But I don't know these people, and I'm not properly dressed," objected
+Bob.
+
+"They know me. And as for dress, if you'd arrange to wear a chaste
+feather duster only, you'd make a hit."
+
+A roomful of people were buzzing like a hive. Most were in conventional
+evening dress. Here and there, however, Bob caught hints of masculine
+long hair, of feminine psyche knots, bandeaux and other extremely
+artistic but unusual departures. One man with his dinner jacket wore a
+soft linen shirt perforated by a Mexican drawn-work pattern beneath
+which glowed a bright red silk undergarment. Women's gowns on the
+flowing and Grecian order were not uncommon. These were usually coupled
+with the incongruity of parted hair brought low and madonna-wise over
+the ears. As the two entered, a very powerful blond man was just
+finishing the declamation of a French poem. He was addressing it
+directly at two women seated on a sofa.
+
+"_Un r-r-reve d'amour!_"
+
+He concluded with much passion and clasped hands.
+
+In the rustle ensuing after this effort, Baker led his friend down the
+room to a very fat woman upholstered in pink satin, to whom he
+introduced Bob. Mrs. Annis, for such proved to be her name, welcomed him
+effusively.
+
+"I've heard so much about you!" she cried vivaciously, to Bob's vast
+astonishment. She tapped him on the arm with her fan. "I'm going to make
+a confession to you; I know it may be foolish, but I do like music so
+much better than I do pictures."
+
+Bob, his brain whirling, muttered something.
+
+"But I'm going to confess to you again, I like artists so much better
+than I do musicians."
+
+A light dawned on Bob. "But I'm not an artist nor a musician," he
+blurted out.
+
+The pink-upholstered lady, starting back with an agility remarkable in
+one of her size, clasped her hands.
+
+"Don't _tell_ me you write!" she cried dramatically.
+
+"All right, I won't," protested poor Bob, "for I don't."
+
+A slow expression of bewilderment overspread Mrs. Annis's face, and she
+glanced toward Baker with an arched brow of interrogation.
+
+"I merely wanted Mr. Orde to meet you, Mrs. Annis," he said
+impressively, "and to feel that another time, when he is less exhausted
+by the strain of a long day, he may have the privilege of explaining to
+you the details of the great Psychic Movement he is inaugurating."
+
+Mrs. Annis smiled on him graciously. "I am home every Sunday to my
+_intimes_," she murmured. "I should be so pleased."
+
+Bob bowed mechanically.
+
+"You infernal idiot!" he ground out savagely to Baker, as they moved
+away. "What do you mean? I'll punch your fool head when I get you out of
+here!"
+
+But the plump young man merely smiled.
+
+Halfway down the room a group of attractive-looking young men hailed
+them.
+
+"Join in, Baker," said they. "Bring your friend along. We're just going
+to raid the commissary."
+
+But Baker shook his head.
+
+"I'm showing him life," he replied. "None but Fuzzies in his to-night!"
+
+He grasped Bob firmly by the arm and led him away.
+
+"That," he said, indicating a very pale young man, surrounded by women,
+"is Pickering, the celebrated submarine painter."
+
+"The what?" demanded Bob.
+
+"Submarine painter. He paints fish and green water and lobsters, and the
+bottom of the sea generally. He paints them on the skins of kind-faced
+little calves."
+
+"What does he do that for?"
+
+"He says it's the only surface that will express what he wants to. He
+has also invented a waterproof paint that he can use under water. He has
+a coral throne down on the bottom which he sits in, and paints as long
+as he can hold his breath."
+
+"Oh, he does!" said Bob.
+
+"Yes," said Baker.
+
+"But a man can't see three feet in front of his face under water!" cried
+Bob.
+
+"Pickering says he can. He paints submarinescapes, and knows all the
+fishes. He says fishes have individual expressions. He claims he can
+tell by a fish's expression whether he is polygamous or monogamous."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me anybody swallows that rot!" demanded Bob
+indignantly.
+
+"The women do--and a lot more I can't remember. The market for
+calf-skins with green swirls on them is booming. Also the women clubbed
+together and gave him money enough to build a house."
+
+Bob surveyed the little white-faced man with a strong expression of
+disgust.
+
+"The natural man never sits in chairs," the artist was expounding. "When
+humanity shall have come into its own we shall assume the graceful and
+hygienic postures of the oriental peoples. In society one must, to a
+certain extent, follow convention, but in my own house, the House
+Beautiful of my dreams, are no chairs. And even now a small group of the
+freer spirits are following my example. In time----"
+
+"If you don't take me away, I'll run in circles!" whispered Bob fiercely
+to his friend.
+
+They escaped into the open air.
+
+"Phew!" said Bob, straightening his long form. "Is that what you call
+the good society here?"
+
+"Good society is there," amended Baker. "That's the joke. There are lots
+of nice people in this little old town, people who lisp our language
+fluently. They are all mixed in with the Fuzzies."
+
+They decided to walk home. Bob marvelled at the impressive and
+substantial buildings, at the atrocious streets. He spoke of the
+beautiful method of illuminating one of the thoroughfares--by globes of
+light gracefully supported in clusters on branched arms either side the
+roadway.
+
+"They were originally bronze--and they went and painted them a mail-box
+green," commented Baker drily.
+
+At the hotel the night clerk, a young man, quietly dressed and with an
+engaging air, greeted them with just the right amount of cordiality as
+he handed them their keys. Bob paused to look about him.
+
+"This is a good hotel," he remarked.
+
+"It's one of the best-managed, the best-conducted, and the
+best-appointed hotels in the United States," said Baker with conviction.
+
+The next morning Bob bought all the papers and glanced through them with
+considerable wonder and amusement. They were decidedly metropolitan in
+size, and carried a tremendous amount of advertising. Early in his
+perusal he caught the personal bias of the news. Without distortion to
+the point of literal inaccuracy, nevertheless by skilful use of
+headlines and by manipulation of the point of view, all items were made
+to subserve a purpose. In local affairs the most vulgar nicknaming, the
+most savage irony, vituperation, scorn and contempt were poured out full
+measure on certain individuals unpopular with the papers. Such epithets
+as "lickspittle," "toad," "carcass blown with the putrefying gas of its
+own importance," were read in the body of narration.
+
+"These are the best-edited, most influential and powerful journals in
+the West," commented Baker. "They possess an influence inconceivable to
+an Easterner."
+
+The advertising columns were filled to bursting with advertisements of
+patent medicines, sex remedies, quack doctors, miraculous healers,
+clairvoyants, palm readers, "philanthropists" with something "free" to
+bestow, cleverly worded offers of abortion; with full-page prospectuses
+of mines; of mushroom industrial concerns having to do with wave motors,
+water motors, solar motors, patent couplers, improved telephones and the
+like, all of whose stock now stood at $1.10, but which on April 10th, at
+8.02 P.M., would go up to $1.15; with blaring, shrieking offers of real
+estate in this, that or the other addition, consisting, as Bob knew from
+yesterday, of farm acreage at front-foot figures. The proportion of this
+fake advertising was astounding. One in particular seemed incredible--a
+full page of the exponent of some Oriental method of healing and
+prophecy.
+
+"Of course, a full-page costs money," replied Baker. "But this is the
+place to get it." He pushed back his chair. "Well, what do you think of
+our fair young city?" he grinned.
+
+"It's got me going," admitted Bob.
+
+"Took me some time to find out where to get off at," said Baker. "When I
+found it out, I didn't dare tell anybody. They mob you here and string
+you up by your pigtail, if you try to hint that this isn't the one best
+bet on terrestrial habitations. They like their little place, and they
+believe in it a whole lot, and they're dead right about it! They'd stand
+right up on their hind legs and paw the atmosphere if anybody were to
+tell them what they really are, but it's a fact. Same joyous slambang,
+same line of sharps hanging on the outskirts, same row, racket, and joy
+in life, same struggle; yes, and by golly! the same big hopes and big
+enterprises and big optimism and big energies! Wouldn't you like to be
+helping them do it?"
+
+"What's the answer?" asked Bob, amused.
+
+"Well, for all its big buildings and its electric lights, and trolleys,
+and police and size, it's nothing more nor less than a frontier town."
+
+"A frontier town!" echoed Bob.
+
+"You think it over," said Baker.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+But if Bob imagined for one moment that he had acquired even a notion of
+California in his experiences and observations down the San Joaquin and
+in Los Angeles, the next few stages of his Sentimental Journey very soon
+undeceived him. Baker's business interests soon took him away. Bob,
+armed with letters of introduction from his friend, visited in turn such
+places as Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, Redlands and Pasadena. He
+could not but be struck by the absolute differences that existed, not
+only in the physical aspects but in the spirit and aims of the peoples.
+If these communities had been separated by thousands of miles of
+distance they could not have been more unlike.
+
+At one place he found the semi-tropical luxuriance of flowers and trees
+and fruits, the soft, warm sunshine, the tepid, langourous, musical
+nights, the mellow haze of romance over mountain and velvet hill and
+soft sea, the low-shaded cottages, the leisurely attractive people one
+associates with the story-book conception of California. The place was
+charming in its surroundings and in its graces of life, but it was a
+cheerful, happy, out-at-the-heels, raggedy little town, whose bright
+gardens adorned its abyssmal streets, whose beautiful mountains
+palliated the naiveté of its natural and atrocious roads. Bob mingled
+with its people with the pardonable amusement of a man fresh from the
+doing of big things. There seemed to be such long, grave and futile
+discussions over the undertaking of that which a more energetic
+community would do as a matter of course in the day's work. The
+liveryman from whom Bob hired his saddle horse proved to be a person of
+a leisurely and sardonic humour.
+
+"Their chief asset here is tourists," said he. "That's the leading
+industry. They can't see it, and they don't want to. They have just one
+road through the county. It's a bum one. You'd think it was a dozen, to
+hear them talk about the immense undertaking of making it halfway
+decent. Any other place would do these things they've been talking about
+for ten years just on the side, as part of the get-ready. Lucky they
+didn't have to do anything in the way of getting those mountains set
+proper, or there'd be a hole there yet."
+
+"Why don't you go East?" asked Bob.
+
+"I did once. Didn't like it."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you. Back East when you don't do nothing, you feel kind
+of guilty. Out here when you don't do nothing, _you don't give a damn!_"
+
+Nevertheless, Bob was very sorry when he had to leave this quiet and
+beautiful little town, with its happy, careless, charming people.
+
+Thence he went directly to a town built in a half-circle of the
+mountains. The sunshine here was warm and grateful, but when its rays
+were withdrawn a stinging chill crept down from the snow. No sitting out
+on the verandah after dinner, but often a most grateful fire in the
+Club's fireplace. The mornings were crisp and enlivening. And again by
+the middle of the day the soft California warmth laid the land under its
+spell.
+
+This was a place of orange-growers, young fellows from the East. Its
+University Club was large and prosperous. Its streets were wide. Flowers
+lined the curbs. There were few fences. The houses were in good taste.
+Even the telephone poles were painted green so as to be unobtrusive. Bob
+thought it one of the most attractive places he had ever seen, as indeed
+it should be, for it was built practically to order by people of
+intelligence.
+
+Thence he drove through miles and miles of orange groves, so large that
+the numerous workmen go about their work on bicycles. Even here in the
+country, the roadsides were planted with palms and other ornamental
+trees, and gay with flowers. Abruptly he came upon a squalid village of
+the old regime, with ugly frame houses, littered streets, sagging
+sidewalks foul with puddles, old tin cans, rubbish; populous with
+children and women in back-yard dressing sacks--a distressing reminder
+of the worst from the older-established countries. And again, at the end
+of the week, he most unexpectedly found himself seated on a country-club
+verandah, having a very good time, indeed, with some charming specimens
+of the idle rich. He talked polo, golf, tennis and horses; he dined at
+several most elaborate "cottages"; he rode forth on glossy, bang-tailed
+horses, perfectly appointed; he drove in marvellously conceived traps in
+company with most engaging damsels. When, finally, he reached Los
+Angeles again he carried with him, as standing for California, not even
+the heterogeneous but fairly coherent idea one usually gains of a single
+commonwealth, but an impression of many climes and many peoples.
+
+"Yes," said Baker, "and if you'd gone North to where I live, you'd have
+struck a different layout entirely."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+There remained in Bob's initial Southern California experience one more
+episode that brought him an acquaintance, apparently casual, but which
+later was to influence him.
+
+Of an afternoon he walked up Main Street idly and alone. The exhibit of
+a real estate office attracted him. Over the door, in place of a sign,
+hung a huge stretched canvas depicting not too rudely a wide
+country-side dotted with model farms of astounding prosperity. The
+window was filled with pumpkins, apples, oranges, sheaves of wheat,
+bottles full of soft fruits preserved in alcohol, and the like. As
+background was an oil painting in which the Lucky Lands occupied a
+spacious pervading foreground, while in clever perspectives the Coast
+Range, the foothills, and the other cities of the San Fernando Valley
+supplied a modest setting. This was usual enough.
+
+At the door stood a very alert man with glasses. He scrutinized closely
+every passerby. Occasionally he hailed one or the other, conversed
+earnestly a brief instant, and passed them inside. Gradually it dawned
+on Bob that this man was acting in the capacity of "barker"--that with
+quite admirable perspicacity and accuracy, he was engaged in selecting
+from the countless throngs the few possible purchasers for Lucky Lands.
+Curious to see what attraction was offered to induce this unanimity of
+acquiescence to the barker's invitation, the young man approached.
+
+"What's going on?" he asked.
+
+The barker appraised him with one sweeping glance.
+
+"Stereopticon lecture inside," he snapped, and turned his back.
+
+Bob made his way into a dimly lighted hall. At one end was a slightly
+elevated platform above which the white screen was suspended. More
+agricultural products supplied the decorations. The body of the hall was
+filled with folding chairs, about half of which were occupied. Perhaps a
+dozen attendants tiptoed here and there. A successful attempt was
+everywhere made to endow with high importance all the proceedings and
+appurtenances of the Lucky Land Co.
+
+Bob slipped into a chair. Immediately a small pasteboard ticket and a
+fountain pen were thrust into his hand.
+
+"Sign your name and address on this," the man whispered.
+
+Bob held it up, the better to see what it was.
+
+"All these tickets are placed in a hat," explained the man, "and one is
+drawn. The lucky ticket gets a free ride to Lucky on one of our weekly
+homeseekers' excursions. Others pay one fare for round trip."
+
+"I see," said Bob, signing, "and in return you get the names and
+addresses of every one here."
+
+He glanced up at his interlocutor with a quizzical expression that
+changed at once to one of puzzlement. Where had he seen the man before?
+He was, perhaps, fifty-five years old, tall and slender, slightly
+stooped, slightly awry. His lean gray face was deeply lined, his
+close-clipped moustache and hair were gray, and his eyes twinkled behind
+his glasses with a cold gray light. Something about these glasses struck
+faintly a chord of memory in Bob's experience, but he could not catch
+its modulations. The man, on his side, stared at Bob a trifle
+uncertainly. Then he held the card up to the dim light.
+
+"You are interested in Lucky Lands--Mr. John Smith, of Reno?" he asked,
+stooping low to be heard.
+
+"Sure!" grinned Bob.
+
+The man said nothing more, but glided away, and in a moment the flare of
+light on the screen announced that the lecture was to begin.
+
+The lecturer, was a glib, self-possessed youth, filled to the brim with
+statistics, with which he literally overwhelmed his auditors. His
+remarks were accompanied by a rapid-fire snapping of fingers to the time
+of which the operator changed his slides. A bewildering succession of
+coloured views flashed on the screen. They showed Lucky in all its
+glories--the blacksmith shop, the main street, the new hotel, the
+grocery, Brown's walnut ranch, the ditch, the Southern Pacific Depot,
+the Methodist Church and a hundred others. So quickly did they succeed
+each other that no one had time to reduce to the terms of experience the
+scenes depicted on these slides--for with the glamour of exaggerated
+colour, of unaccustomed presentation, and of skillful posing the most
+commonplace village street seems wonderful and attractive for the
+moment. The lecturer concluded by an alarming statement as to the
+rapidity with which this desirable ranching property was being snapped
+up. He urged early decisions as the only safe course; and, as usual with
+all real estate men, called attention to the contrast between the
+Riverside of twenty years ago and the Riverside of to-day.
+
+The daylight was then admitted.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," concluded the lecturer, still in his brisk,
+time-saving style, "the weekly excursion to Lucky will take place
+to-morrow. One fare both ways to homeseekers. Free carriages to the
+Lands. Grand free open-air lunch under the spreading sycamores and by
+the babbling brook. Train leaves at seven-thirty."
+
+In full sight of all he threw the packet of tickets into a hat and drew
+one.
+
+"Mr. John Smith, of Reno," he read. "Who is Mr. Smith?"
+
+"Here," said Bob.
+
+"Would you like to go to Lucky to-morrow?"
+
+"Sure," said Bob.
+
+One of the attendants immediately handed Bob a railroad ticket. The
+lecturer had already disappeared.
+
+To his surprise Bob found the street door locked.
+
+"This way," urged one of the salesmen. "You go out this way."
+
+He and the rest of the audience were passed out another door in the
+rear, where they were forced to go through the main offices of the
+Company. Here were stationed the gray man and all his younger
+assistants. Bob paused by the door. He could not but admire the acumen
+of the barker in selecting his men. The audience was made up of just the
+type of those who come to California with agricultural desires and a few
+hundred dollars--slow plodders from Eastern farms, Italians with savings
+and ambitions, half invalids--all the element that crowds the tourist
+sleepers day in and day out, the people who are filling the odd corners
+of the greater valleys. As these debouched into the glare of the outer
+offices, they hesitated, making up their slow minds which way to turn.
+In that instant or so the gray man, like a captain, assigned his
+salesmen. The latter were of all sorts--fat and joking, thin and very
+serious-minded, intense, enthusiastic, cold and haughty. The gray man
+sized up his prospective customers and to each assigned a salesman to
+suit. Bob had no means of guessing how accurate these estimates might
+be, but they were evidently made intelligently, with some system
+compounded of theory or experience. After a moment Bob became conscious
+that he himself was being sharply scrutinized by the gray man, and in
+return watched covertly. He saw the gray man shake his head slightly.
+Bob passed out the door unaccosted by any of the salesmen.
+
+At half-past seven the following morning he boarded the local train. In
+one car he found a score of "prospects" already seated, accompanied by
+half their number of the young men of the real estate office. The utmost
+jocularity and humour prevailed, except in one corner where a very
+earnest young man drove home the points of his argument with an
+impressive forefinger. Bob dropped unobtrusively into a seat, and
+prepared to enjoy his never-failing interest in the California landscape
+with its changing wonderful mountains; its alternations of sage brush
+and wide cultivation; its vineyards as far as the eye could distinguish
+the vines; its grainfields seeming to fill the whole cup of the valleys;
+its orchards wide as forests; and its desert stretches, bigger than them
+all, awaiting but the vivifying touch of water to burst into
+productiveness. He heard one of the salesmen expressing this.
+
+"'Water is King,'" he was saying, quoting thus the catchword of this
+particular concern. He was talking in a half-joking way, asking one or
+the other how many inches of rainfall could be expected per annum back
+where they came from.
+
+"Don't know, do you?" he answered himself. "Nobody pays any great and
+particular amount of attention to that--you get water enough, except in
+exceptional years. Out here it's different. Every one knows to the
+hundredth of an inch just how much rain has fallen, and how much ought
+to have fallen. It's vital. Water is King."
+
+He gathered close the attention of his auditors.
+
+"We have the water in California," he went on; "but it isn't always in
+the right place nor does it come at the right time. You can't grow crops
+in the high mountains where most of the precipitation occurs. But you
+can bring that water down to the plains. That's your answer:
+irrigation."
+
+He looked from one to the other. Several nodded.
+
+"But a man can't irrigate by himself. He can't build reservoirs, ditches
+all alone. That's where a concern like the Lucky Company makes good.
+We've brought the water to where you can use it. Under the influence of
+cultivation that apparently worthless land can produce--" he went on at
+great length detailing statistics of production. Even to Bob, who had no
+vital nor practical interest, it was all most novel and convincing.
+
+So absorbed did he become that he was somewhat startled when a man sat
+down beside him. He looked, up to meet the steel gray eyes and
+glittering glasses of the chief. Again there swept over him a sense of
+familiarity, the feeling that somewhere, at some time, he had met this
+man before. It passed almost as quickly as it came, but left him
+puzzled.
+
+"Of course your name is not Smith, nor do you come from Reno," said the
+man in gray abruptly. "I've seen you somewhere before, but I can't place
+you. Are you a newspaperman?"
+
+"I've been thinking the same of you," returned Bob. "No, I'm just plain
+tourist."
+
+"I don't imagine you're particularly interested in Lucky," said the gray
+man. "Why did you come?"
+
+"Just idleness and curiosity," replied Bob frankly.
+
+"Of course we try to get the most value in return for our expenditures
+on these excursions by taking men who are at least interested in the
+country," suggested the gray man.
+
+"By Jove, I never thought of that!" cried Bob. "Of course, I'd no
+business to take that free ticket. I'll pay you my fare."
+
+The gray man had been scrutinizing him intensely and keenly. At Bob's
+comically contrite expression, his own face cleared.
+
+"No, you misunderstand me," he replied in his crisp fashion. "We give
+these excursions as an advertisement of what we have. The more people to
+know about Lucky, the better our chances. We made an offer of which you
+have taken advantage. You're perfectly welcome, and I hope you'll enjoy
+yourself. Here, Selwyn," he called to one of the salesman, "this is
+Mr.--what did you say your name is?"
+
+"Orde," replied Bob.
+
+The gray man seemed for an almost imperceptible instant to stiffen in
+his seat. The gray eyes glazed over; the gray lined face froze.
+
+"Orde," he repeated harshly; "where from?"
+
+"Michigan," Bob replied.
+
+The gray man rose stiffly. "Well, Selwyn," said he, "this is Mr.
+Orde--of Michigan--and I want you to show him around."
+
+He moved down the aisle to take a seat, distant, but facing the two
+young men. Bob felt himself the object of a furtive but minute scrutiny
+which lasted until the train slowed down at the outskirts of Lucky.
+
+Selwyn proved to be an agreeable young man, keen-faced, clean-cut, full
+of energy and enthusiasm. He soon discovered that Bob did not
+contemplate going into ranching, and at once admitted that young man to
+his confidence.
+
+"You just nail a seat in that surrey over there, while I chase out my
+two 'prospects.' We sell on commission and I've got to rustle."
+
+They drove out of the sleepy little village on which had been grafted
+showy samples of the Company's progress. The day was beautiful with
+sunshine, with the mellow calls of meadow larks, with warmth and sweet
+odours. As the surrey took its zigzag way through the brush, as the
+quail paced away to right and left, as the delicate aroma of the sage
+rose to his nostrils, Bob began to be very glad he had come. Here and
+there the brush had been cleared, small shacks built, fences of wire
+strung, and the land ploughed over. At such places the surrey paused
+while Selwyn held forth to his two stolid "prospects" on how long these
+newcomers had been there and how well they were getting on. The country
+rose in a gradual slope to the slate-blue mountains. Ditches ran here
+and there. Everywhere were small square stakes painted white, indicating
+the boundaries of tracts yet unsold.
+
+They visited the reservoir, which looked to Bob uncommonly like a muddy
+duck pond, but whose value Selwyn soon made very clear. They wandered
+through the Chiquito ranch, whence came the exhibition fruit and other
+products, and which formed the basis of most Lucky arguments. The owner
+had taken many medals for his fruit, and had spent twenty-five years in
+making the Chiquito a model.
+
+"Any man can do likewise in this land of promise," said Selwyn.
+
+They ended finally in a beautiful little cañon among the foothills. It
+was grown thick with twisted, mottled sycamores just budding into leaf,
+with vines and greenery of the luxurious California varieties. Birds
+sang everywhere and a brook babbled and bubbled down a stony bed.
+
+Under the largest of the sycamores a tent had been pitched and a table
+spread. Affairs seemed to be in charge of a very competent countrywoman
+whose fuzzy horse and ramshackle buggy stood securely tethered below.
+The surries drove up and deposited their burdens. Bob took his place at
+table to be served with an abundant, hot and well-cooked meal.
+
+The ice had been broken. Everybody laughed and joked. Some of the men
+removed their coats in order to be more comfortable. The young salesmen
+had laboured successfully to bring these strangers to a feeling of
+partnership in at least the aims of the Company, of partisanship against
+the claims of other less-favoured valleys than Lucky. During a pause in
+the fun, one of the "prospects," an elderly, white-whiskered farmer of
+the more prosperous type, nodded toward the brook.
+
+"That sounds good," said he.
+
+"It's the supply for the Lucky Lands," replied Selwyn. "It ought to
+sound good."
+
+"There's mighty few flowing creeks in California this far out from the
+mountains," interposed another salesman. "You know out here, except in
+the rainy season, the rivers all flow bottom-up."
+
+They all guffawed at this ancient and mild joke. The old farmer wagged
+his head.
+
+"Water is King," said he solemnly, as though voicing an original and
+profound thought.
+
+A look of satisfaction overspread the countenance of the particular
+salesman who had the old farmer in charge. When you can get your
+"prospect" to adopt your catchword and enunciate it with conviction, he
+is yours!
+
+After the meal Bob, unnoticed, wandered off up the cañon. He had
+ascertained that the excursionists would not leave the spot for two
+hours yet, and he welcomed the chance for exercise. Accordingly he set
+himself to follow the creek, the one stream of pure and limpid water
+that did not flow bottom-up. At first this was easy enough, but after a
+while the cañon narrowed, and Bob found himself compelled to clamber
+over rocks and boulders, to push his way through thickets of brush and
+clinging vines, finally even to scale a precipitous and tangled side
+hill over which the stream fell in a series of waterfalls. Once past
+this obstruction, however, the country widened again. Bob stood in the
+bed of a broad, flat wash flanked by low hills. Before him, and still
+some miles distant, rose the mountains in which the stream found its
+source.
+
+Bob stood still for a moment, his hat in his hand, enjoying the tepid
+odours, the warm sun and the calls of innumerable birds. Then he became
+aware of a faint and intermittent throb--_put-put_ (pause) _put_
+(pause), _put-put-put!_
+
+"Gasoline engine," said he to himself.
+
+He tramped a few hundred yards up the dry wash, rounded a bend, and came
+to a small wooden shack from which emanated the sound of the gas
+explosions. A steady stream of water gushed from a pump operated by the
+gasoline engine. Above, the stream bed was dry. Here was the origin of
+the "beautiful mountain stream."
+
+Chair-tilted in front of the shack sat a man smoking a pipe. He looked
+up as Bob approached.
+
+"Hullo," said he; "show over?"
+
+He disappeared inside and shut off the gasoline engine. Immediately the
+flow ceased; the stream dried up as though scorched. Presently the man
+emerged, thrusting his hands into the armholes of an old coat. Shrugging
+the garment into place, he snapped shut the padlock on the door.
+
+"Come on," said he. "My rig's over behind that grease-wood. You're a
+new one, ain't ye?"
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"That horse is branded pretty thick," he said by way of diversion.
+
+The man chuckled.
+
+"Have to turn his skin other side out to get another one on," he agreed.
+
+They drove down an old dim road that avoided the difficulties of the
+cañon. At camp they found the surries just loading up. Bob took his
+place. Before the rigs started back, the gray man, catching sight of the
+pump man, drew him aside and said several things very vigorously. The
+pump man answered with some indignation, pointing finally to Bob.
+Instantly the gray man whirled to inspect the young fellow. Then he shot
+a last remark, turned and climbed grumpily into his vehicle.
+
+At the station Bob tried to draw Selwyn aside for a conversation.
+
+"I'll be with you when the train starts, old man," replied Selwyn, "but
+I've got to stick close to these prospects. There's a gang of knockers
+hanging around here always, just waiting for a chance to lip in."
+
+When the train started, however, Selwyn came back to drop into Bob's
+seat with a wearied sigh.
+
+"Gosh! I get sick of handing out dope to these yaps," said he. "I was
+afraid for a while it was going to blow. Looked like it."
+
+"What of it?" asked Bob.
+
+"When it blows up here, it'd lift the feathers off a chicken and the
+chicken off the earth," explained Selwyn. "I've seen more than one good
+prospect ruined by a bad day."
+
+"How'd you come out?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Got one. He handed over his first payment on the spot. Funny how these
+yahoos almost always bring their cash right with 'em. Other's no good. I
+get so I can spot that kind the first three words. They're always too
+blame enthusiastic about the country and the Company. Seems like they
+try to pay for their entertainment by jollying us along. Don't fool me
+any. When a man begins to object to things, you know he's thinking of
+buying."
+
+Bob listened to this wisdom with some amusement. "How'd you explain when
+the stream stopped?" he asked.
+
+"Why," said Selwyn, looking straight ahead, "didn't you hear Mr. Oldham?
+They turned the water into the Upper Ditch to irrigate the Foothill
+Tracts."
+
+Bob laughed. "You're not much of a liar, Selwyn," he said pleasantly.
+"Failure of gasoline would hit it nearer."
+
+"Oh, that's where you went," said Selwyn. "I ought to have kept my eye
+on you closer."
+
+He fell silent, and Bob eyed him speculatively. He liked the young
+fellow's clear, frank cast of countenance.
+
+"Look here, Selwyn," he broke out, "do you like this bunco game?"
+
+"I don't like the methods," replied Selwyn promptly; "but you are
+mistaken when you think it's a bunco game. The land is good; there's
+plenty of artesian water to be had; and we don't sell at a fancy price.
+We've located over eight hundred families up there at Lucky Lands, and
+three out of four are making good. The fourth simply hadn't the capital
+to hold out until returns came in. It's as good a small-ranch
+proposition as they could find. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be in
+it for a minute."
+
+"How about that stream?"
+
+"Nobody said the stream was a natural one. And the water exists, no
+matter where it comes from. You can't impress an Eastern farmer with a
+pump proposition: that's a matter of education. They come to see its
+value after they've tried it."
+
+"But your--".
+
+"I told you I didn't like the methods. I won't have anything to do with
+the dirty work, and Oldham knows it."
+
+"Why all the bluff, then?" asked Bob.
+
+"There are thousands of real estate firms in Los Angeles trying to sell
+millions of acres," said Selwyn, "and this is about the only concern
+that succeeds in colonizing on a large scale. Oldham developed this
+system, and it seems to work."
+
+"The law'll get him some day."
+
+"I think not," replied Selwyn. "You may find him close to the edge of
+the law, but he never steps over. He's a mighty bright business man, and
+he's made a heap of money."
+
+When nearing the Arcade depot, Oldham himself stepped forward.
+
+"Stopping in California long?" he asked, with some approach to
+geniality.
+
+"Permanently, I think," replied Bob.
+
+"You are going to manufacture your timber?"
+
+Bob looked up astonished.
+
+"You're the Orde interested in Granite County timber, aren't you?"
+
+"I'm employed by Welton, that's all," said Bob. "He owns the timber. But
+how did you know I am with Welton?" he asked.
+
+"With Welton!" echoed Oldham. "Oh, yes--well, I heard from Michigan
+business acquaintances you were with him. Welton's lands are in Granite
+County?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob.
+
+"Well," said Oldham vaguely, "I hope you have enjoyed your little
+outing." He turned away.
+
+"Now, how the deuce should anybody know about me, or that I am with
+Welton, or take the trouble to write about it?"
+
+He mulled over this for some time. For lack of a better reason, he
+ascribed to his former football prominence the fact that Oldham's
+Michigan correspondent had thought him worth mention. Yet that seemed
+absurdly inadequate.
+
+
+
+
+PART THREE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Two weeks later a light buckboard bearing Welton and Bob dashed in the
+early morning across the plains, wormed its way ingeniously through gaps
+in the foothills, and slowed to a walk as it felt the grades of the
+first long low slopes. The air was warm with the sun imprisoned in the
+pockets of the hills. High chaparral, scrub oaks, and scattered, unkempt
+digger pines threw their thicket up to the very right of way. It was in
+general dense, almost impenetrable, yet it had a way of breaking
+unexpectedly into spacious parks, into broad natural pastures, into
+bold, rocky points prophetic of the mountains yet to come. Every once in
+a while the road drew one side to pause at a cabin nestling among fruit
+trees, bowered beneath vines, bright with the most vivid of the commoner
+flowers. They were crazily picturesque with their rough stone chimneys,
+their roofs of shakes, their broad low verandahs, and their split-picket
+fences. On these verandahs sat patriarchal-looking men with sweeping
+white beards, who smoked pipes and gazed across with dim eyes toward the
+distant blue mountains. When Welton, casually and by the way, mentioned
+topographical names, Bob realized to what placid and contented
+retirement these men had turned, and who they were. Nugget Creek, Flour
+Gold, Bear Gulch--these spoke of the strong, red-shirted Argonauts of
+the El Dorado. Among these scarred but peaceful foothills had been
+played and applauded the great, wonderful, sordid, inspired drama of the
+early days, the traces of which had almost vanished from the land.
+
+Occasionally also the buckboard paused for water at a more pretentious
+place set in a natural opening. There a low, rambling, white ranch-house
+beneath trees was segregated by a picket fence enclosing blossoms like a
+basket. At a greater or lesser distance were corrals of all sizes
+arranged in a complicated pattern. They resembled a huge puzzle. The
+barns were large; a forge stood under an open shed indescribably
+littered with scrap iron and fragments of all sorts; saddles hung
+suspended by the horn or one stirrup; bright milk pails sunned bottom-up
+on fence posts; a dozen horses cropped in a small enclosed pasture or
+dozed beneath one or another of the magnificent and spreading live-oak
+trees. Children of all sizes and states of repair clambered to the fence
+tops or gazed solemnly between the rails. Sometimes women stood in the
+doorways to nod cheerfully at the travellers. They seemed to Bob a
+comely, healthy-looking lot, competent and good-natured. Beyond an
+occasional small field and an invariable kitchen garden there appeared
+to be no evidences of cultivation. Around the edges of the natural
+opening stretched immediately the open jungle of the chaparral or the
+park-like forests of oaks.
+
+"These are the typical mountain people of California," said Welton.
+"It's only taken us a few hours to come up this far, but we've struck
+among a different breed of cats. They're born, live and die in the
+hills, and they might as well be a thousand miles away as forty or
+fifty. As soon as the snow is out, they hike for the big mountains."
+
+"What do they do?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Cattle," replied Welton. "Nothing else."
+
+"I haven't seen any men."
+
+"No, and you won't, except the old ones. They've taken their cattle back
+to the summer ranges in the high mountains. By and by the women and kids
+will go into the summer camps with the horses."
+
+On a steep and narrow grade they encountered a girl of twenty riding a
+spirited pinto. She bestrode a cowboy's stock saddle on which was coiled
+the usual rope, wore a broad felt hat, and smiled at the two men quite
+frankly in spite of the fact that she wore no habit and had been
+compelled to arrange her light calico skirts as best she could. The
+pinto threw his head and snorted, dancing sideways at sight of the
+buckboard. So occupied was he with the strange vehicle that he paid
+scant attention to the edge of the road. Bob saw that the passage along
+the narrow outside strip was going to be precarious. He prepared to
+descend, but at that moment the girl faced her pony squarely at the edge
+of the road, dug her little heels into his flanks, and flicked him
+sharply with the _morale_ or elongated lash of the reins. Without
+hesitation the pony stepped off the grade, bunched his hoofs and slid
+down the precipitous slope. So steep was the hill that a man would have
+had to climb it on all fours.
+
+Bob gasped and rose to his feet. The pony, leaving a long furrow in the
+side of the mountain, caught himself on the narrow ledge of a cattle
+trail, turned to the left, and disappeared at a little fox trot.
+
+Bob looked at this companion. Welton laughed.
+
+"There's hardly a woman in the country that doesn't help round up stock.
+How'd you like to chase a cow full speed over this country, hey?"
+
+As they progressed, mounting slowly, but steadily, the character of the
+country changed. The cañons through which flowed the streams became
+deeper and more precipitous; the divides between them higher. At one
+point where the road emerged on a bold, clear point, Bob looked back to
+the shimmering plain, and was astonished to see how high they had
+climbed. To the eastward and only a few miles distant rose the dark mass
+of a pine-covered ridge, austere and solemn, the first rampart of the
+Sierras. Welton pointed to it with his whip.
+
+"There's our timber," said he simply.
+
+A little farther along the buckboard drew rein at the top of a long
+declivity that led down to a broad wooded valley. Among the trees Bob
+caught a glimpse of the roofs of scattered houses, and the gleam of a
+river. From the opposite edge of the valley rose the mountain-ridge,
+sheer and noble. The light of afternoon tinted it with lilac and purple.
+
+"That's the celebrated town of Sycamore Flats," said Welton. "Just at
+present we're the most important citizens. This fellow here's the first
+yellow pine on the road."
+
+Bob looked upon what he then considered a rather large tree. Later he
+changed his mind. The buckboard rattled down the grade, swung over a
+bridge, and so into the little town. Welton drew up at a low, broad
+structure set back from the street among some trees.
+
+"We'll tackle the mountain to-morrow," said he.
+
+Bob descended with a distinct feeling of pleasure at being able to use
+his legs again. He and Welton and the baggage and everything about the
+buckboard were powdered thick with the fine, white California dust. At
+every movement he shook loose a choking cloud. Welton's face was a dull
+gray, ludicrously streaked, and he suspected himself of being in the
+same predicament. A boy took the horses, and the travellers entered the
+picketed enclosure. Welton lifted up his great rumbling voice.
+
+"O Auntie Belle!" he roared.
+
+Within the dark depths of the house life stirred. In a moment a capable
+and motherly woman had taken them in charge. Amid a rapid-fire of
+greetings, solicitudes, jokes, questions, commands and admonitions Bob
+was dusted vigorously and led to ice-cold water and clean towels. Ten
+minutes later, much refreshed, he stood on the low verandah looking out
+with pleasure on the little there was to see. Eight dogs squatted
+themselves in front of him, ears slightly uplifted, in expectancy of
+something Bob could not guess. Probably the dogs could not guess either.
+Within the house two or three young girls were moving about, singing and
+clattering dishes in a delightfully promising manner. Down the winding
+hill, for Sycamore Flats proved after all to be built irregularly on a
+slope, he could make out several other scattered houses, each with its
+dooryard, and the larger structures of several stores. Over all loomed
+the dark mountain. The sun had just dropped below the ridge down which
+the road had led them, but still shone clear and golden as an overlay of
+colour laid against the sombre pines on the higher slopes.
+
+After an excellent chicken supper, Bob lit his pipe and wandered down
+the street. The larger structures, three in number, now turned out to be
+a store and two saloons. A dozen saddle horses dozed patiently. On the
+platform outside the store a dozen Indian women dressed in bright calico
+huddled beneath their shawls. After squatting thus in brute immobility
+for a half-hour, one of them would purchase a few pounds of flour or a
+half-pound of tea. Then she would take her place again with the others.
+At the end of another half-hour another, moved by some sudden and
+mysterious impulse, would in turn make her purchases. The interior of
+the store proved to be no different from the general country store
+anywhere. The proprietor was very busy and occupied and important and
+interested in selling a two-dollar bill of goods to a chance prospector,
+which was well, for this was the storekeeper's whole life, and he had in
+defence of his soul to make his occupations filling. Bob bought a cigar
+and went out.
+
+Next he looked in at one of the saloons. It was an ill-smelling, cheap
+box, whose sole ornaments were advertising lithographs. Four men played
+cards. They hardly glanced at the newcomer. Bob deciphered Forest
+Reserve badges on three of them.
+
+As he emerged from this joint, his eyes a trifle dazzled by the light,
+he made out drawn up next the elevated platform a buckboard containing a
+single man. As his pupils contracted he distinguished such details as a
+wiry, smart little team, a man so fat as almost to fill the seat, a
+moon-like, good-natured face, a vest open to disclose a vast white
+shirt, "Hullo!" the stranger rumbled in a great voice. "Any of my boys
+in there?"
+
+"Don't believe I know your boys," replied Bob pleasantly.
+
+The fat man heaved his bulk forward to peer at Bob.
+
+"Consarn your hide!" he roared with the utmost good humour; "stand out
+of the light so I can see your fool face. You lie like a hound!
+Everybody knows my boys!"
+
+There was no offence in the words.
+
+Bob laughed and obligingly stepped one side the lighted doorway.
+
+"A towerist!" wheezed the fat man. "Say, you're too early. Nothing doing
+in the mountains yet. Who sent you this early, anyway?"
+
+"No tourist; permanent inhabitant," said Bob. "I'm with Welton."
+
+"Timber, by God!" exploded the fat man. "Well, you and I are like to
+have friendly doings. Your road goes through us, and you got to toe the
+mark, young fellow, let me tell you! I'm a hell of a hard man to get on
+with!"
+
+"You look it," said Bob. "You own some timber?"
+
+The fat man exploded again.
+
+"Hell, no!" he roared. "Why, you don't even know me, do you? I'm Plant,
+Henry Plant. I'm Forest Supervisor."
+
+"My name's Orde," said Bob. "If you're after Forest Rangers, there's
+three in there."
+
+"The rascals!" cried Plant. He raised his voice to a bellow. "Oh, you
+Jim!"
+
+The door was darkened.
+
+"Say, Jim," said Plant. "They tell me there's a fire over Stone Creek
+way. Somebody's got to take a look at it. You and Joe better ride over
+in the morning and see what she looks like."
+
+The man stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "Oh, hell!" said he
+with deep feeling. "Ain't you got any of those suckers that _like_ to
+ride? I've had a headache for three days."
+
+"Yes, it's hard luck you got to do anything, ain't it," said Plant.
+"Well, I'll see if I can find old John, and if you don't hear from me,
+you got to go."
+
+The Supervisor gathered up his reins and was about to proceed when down
+through the fading twilight rode a singular figure. It was a thin, wiry,
+tall man, with a face like tanned leather, a clear, blue eye and a
+drooping white moustache. He wore a flopping old felt hat, a faded
+cotton shirt and an ancient pair of copper-riveted blue-jeans overalls
+tucked into a pair of cowboy's boots. A time-discoloured cartridge belt
+encircled his hips, supporting a holster from which protruded the shiny
+butt of an old-fashioned Colt's 45. But if the man was thus nondescript
+and shabby, his mount and its caparisons were magnificent. The horse was
+a glossy, clean-limbed sorrel with a quick, intelligent eye. The bridle
+was of braided rawhide, the broad spade-bit heavily inlaid with silver,
+the reins of braided and knotted rawhide. Across the animal's brow ran
+three plates of silver linked together. Below its ears were wide silver
+_conchas_. The saddle was carved elaborately, and likewise ornamented
+with silver. The whole outfit shone--new-polished and well kept.
+
+"Oh, you John!" called Plant.
+
+The old man moved his left hand slightly. The proud-stepping sorrel
+instantly turned to the left, and, on a signal Bob could not
+distinguish, stopped to statue-like immobility. Then Bob could see the
+Forest Ranger badge pinned to one strap of the old man's suspender.
+
+"John," said Plant, "they tell me there's a fire over at Stone Creek.
+Ride over and see what it amounts to."
+
+"All right," replied the Ranger. "What help do I get?"
+
+"Oh, you just ride over and see what it amounts to," repeated Plant.
+
+"I can't do nothing alone fighting fire."
+
+"Well I can't spare anybody now," said Plant, "and it may not amount to
+nothing. You go see."
+
+"All right," said John. "But if it does amount to something, it'll get
+an awful start on us."
+
+He rode away.
+
+"Old California John," said Plant to Bob with a slight laugh. "Crazy old
+fool." He raised his voice. "Oh, you Jim! John, he's going to ride over.
+You needn't go."
+
+Bob nodded a good night, and walked back up the street. At the store he
+found the sorrel horse standing untethered in the road. He stopped to
+examine more closely the very ornate outfit. California John came out
+carrying a grain sack half full of provisions. This he proceeded to tie
+on behind the saddle, paying no attention to the young man.
+
+"Well, Star, you got a long ways to go," muttered the old man.
+
+"You aren't going over those mountains to-night, are you?" cried Bob.
+
+The old man turned quite deliberately and inspected his questioner in a
+manner to imply that he had committed an indiscretion. But the answer
+was in a tone that implied he had not.
+
+"Certain sure," he replied. "The only way to handle a fire is to stick
+to it like death to a dead nigger."
+
+Bob returned to the hotel very thoughtful. There he found Mr. Welton
+seated comfortably on the verandah, his feet up and a cigar alight.
+
+"This is pretty good medicine," he called to Bob. "Get your feet up, you
+long-legged stork, and enjoy yourself. Been exploring?"
+
+"Listening to the band on the plaza," laughed Bob. He drew up a chair.
+At that moment the dim figure of California John jingled by. "I wouldn't
+like that old fellow's job. He's a ranger, and he's got to go and look
+up a forest fire."
+
+"Alone?" asked Welton. "Couldn't they scare up any more? Or are they
+over there already?"
+
+"There's three playing poker at the saloon. Looked to me like a fool
+way to do. He's just going to take a look and then come back and
+report."
+
+"Oh, they're heavy on reports!" said Welton. "Where is the fire; did you
+hear?"
+
+"Stone Creek--wherever that is."
+
+"Stone Creek!" yelled Welton, dropping the front legs of his chair to
+the verandah with a thump. "Why, our timber adjoins Stone Creek! You
+come with me!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Welton strode away into the darkness, followed closely by Bob. He made
+his way as rapidly as he could through the village to an attractive
+house at the farther outskirts. Here he turned through the picket gate,
+and thundered on the door.
+
+It was almost immediately opened by a meek-looking woman of thirty.
+
+"Plant in?" demanded Welton.
+
+The meek woman had no opportunity to reply.
+
+"Sure! Sure! Come in!" roared the Supervisor's great voice.
+
+They entered to find the fat man, his coat off, leaning luxuriously back
+in an office chair, his feet up on another, a cigar in his mouth. He
+waved a hospitable hand.
+
+"Sit down! Sit down!" he wheezed. "Glad to see you."
+
+"They tell me there's a fire over in the Stone Creek country," said
+Welton.
+
+"So it's reported," said Plant comfortably. "I've sent a man over
+already to investigate."
+
+"That timber adjoins ours," went on Welton. "Sending one ranger to
+investigate don't seem to help the old man a great deal."
+
+"Oh, it may not amount to much," disclaimed Plant vaguely.
+
+"But if it does amount to much, it'll be getting one devil of a start,"
+persisted Welton. "Why don't you send over enough men to give it a
+fight?"
+
+"Haven't got 'em," replied Plant briefly.
+
+"There's three playing poker now, down in the first saloon," broke in
+Bob.
+
+Plant looked at him coldly for ten seconds.
+
+"Those men are waiting to tally Wright's cattle," he condescended,
+naming one of the most powerful of the valley ranch kings.
+
+But Welton caught at Bob's statement.
+
+"All you need is one man to count cattle," he pointed out. "Can't you do
+that yourself, and send over your men?"
+
+"Are you trying to tell me my business, Mr. Welton?" asked the
+Supervisor formally.
+
+Welton laughed one of his inexpressible chuckles.
+
+"Lord love you, no!" he cried. "I have all I can handle. I'm merely
+trying to protect my own. Can't you hire some men, then?"
+
+"My appropriation won't stand it," said Plant, a gleam coming into his
+eye. "I simply haven't the money to pay them with." He paused
+significantly.
+
+"How much would it take?" inquired Welton.
+
+Plant cast his eyes to the ceiling.
+
+"Of course, I couldn't tell, because I don't know how much of a fire it
+is, or how long it would take to corral it. But I'll tell you what I'll
+do: suppose you leave me a lump sum, and I'll look after such matters
+hereafter without having to bother you with them. Of course, when I have
+rangers available I'll use 'em; but any time you need protection, I can
+rush in enough men to handle the situation without having to wait for
+authorizations and all that. It might not take anything extra, of
+course."
+
+"How much do you suppose it would require to be sure we don't run
+short?" asked Welton.
+
+"Oh, a thousand dollars ought to last indefinitely," replied Plant.
+
+The two men stared at each other for a moment. Then Welton laughed.
+
+"I can hire a heap of men for a thousand dollars," said he, rising.
+"Goodnight."
+
+Plant rumbled something. The two went out, leaving the fat man chewing
+his cigar and scowling angrily after them.
+
+Once clear of the premises Welton laughed loudly.
+
+"Well, my son, that's your first shy at the government official, isn't
+it? They're not all as bad as that. At first I couldn't make out whether
+he was just fat and lazy. Now I know he's a grafter. He ought to get a
+nice neat 'For Sale' sign painted. Did you hear the nerve of him? Wanted
+a thousand dollars bribe to do his plain duty."
+
+"Oh, that was what he was driving at!" cried Bob.
+
+"Yes, Baby Blue-eyes, didn't you tumble to that? Well, I don't see a
+thousand in it whether he's for us or against us."
+
+"Was that the reason he didn't send over all his men to the fire?" asked
+Bob.
+
+"Partly. Principally because he wanted to help old Simeon Wright's men
+in with the cattle. Simeon probably has a ninety-nine year lease on his
+fat carcass--with the soul thrown in for a trading stamp. It don't take
+but one man to count cattle, but three extra cowboys comes mighty handy
+in the timber."
+
+"Would Wright bribe him, do you suppose?"
+
+Welton stopped short.
+
+"Let me tell you one thing about old Simeon, Bob," said he. "He owns
+more land than any other man in California. He got it all from the
+government. Eight sections on one of his ranches he took up under the
+Swamp Act by swearing he had been all over them in a boat. He had. The
+boat was drawn by eight mules. That's just a sample. You bet Simeon owns
+a Supervisor, if he thinks he needs one; and that's why the cattle
+business takes precedence over the fire business."
+
+"It's an outrage!" cried Bob. "We ought to report him for neglect of
+duty."
+
+Welton chuckled.
+
+"I didn't tell you this to get you mad, Bobby," he drawled with his
+indescribable air of good humour; "only to show you the situation. What
+difference does it make? As for reporting to Washington! Look here, I
+don't know what Plant's political backing is, but it must be 99.84 per
+cent. pure. Otherwise, how would a man as fat as that get a job of
+Forest Supervisor? Why, he can't ride a horse, and it's absurd to
+suppose he ever saw any of the Reserve he's in charge of."
+
+Welton bestirred himself to good purpose. Inside of two hours a
+half-dozen men, well-mounted and provisioned, bearing the usual tools of
+the fire-fighter, had ridden off into the growing brightness of the
+moon.
+
+"There," said the lumberman with satisfaction. "That isn't going to cost
+much, and we'll feel safe. Now let's turn in."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The next morning Bob was awakened to a cold dawn that became still more
+shivery when he had dressed and stepped outside. Even a hot breakfast
+helped little; and when the buckboard was brought around, he mounted to
+his seat without any great enthusiasm. The mountain rose dark and
+forbidding, high against the eastern sky, and a cold wind breathed down
+its defiles. When the wiry little ponies slowed to the first stretches
+of the tiresome climb, Bob was glad to walk alongside.
+
+Almost immediately the pines began. They were short and scrubby as yet,
+but beautiful in the velvet of their dark green needles. Bob glanced at
+them critically. They were perhaps eighty to a hundred feet high and
+from a foot to thirty inches in diameter.
+
+"Fair timber," he commented to his companion.
+
+Welton snorted. "Timber!" he cried. "That isn't timber; it's weeds.
+There's no _timber_ on this slope of the mountain."
+
+Slowly the ponies toiled up the steep grade, pausing often for breath.
+Among the pines grew many oaks, buckthorns, tall manzañitas and the
+like. As the valley dropped beneath, they came upon an occasional
+budding dogwood. Over the slopes of some of the hills spread a mantle of
+velvety vivid green, fair as the grass of a lawn, but indescribably soft
+and mobile. It lent those declivities on which it grew a spacious,
+well-kept, park appearance, on which Bob exclaimed with delight.
+
+But Welton would have none of it.
+
+"Bear clover," said he, "full of pitch as an old jack-pine. Burns like
+coal oil, and you can't hardly cut it with a hoe. Worst stuff to carry
+fire and to fight fire in you ever saw. Pick a piece and smell it."
+
+Bob broke off one of the tough, woody stems. A pungent odour exactly
+like that of extract of hamamelis met his nostrils. Then he realized
+that all the time he had been aware of this perfume faintly disengaging
+itself from the hills. In spite of Mr. Welton's disgust, Bob liked its
+clean, pungent suggestion.
+
+The road mounted always, following the contour of the mountains. Thus it
+alternately emerged and crept on around bold points, and bent back into
+the recesses of ravines. Clear, beautiful streams dashed and sang down
+the latter; from the former, often, Bob could look out over the valley
+from which they had mounted, across the foothills, to the distant,
+yellowing plains far on the horizon, lost finally in brown heat waves.
+Sycamore Flats lay almost directly below. Always it became smaller, and
+more and more like a coloured relief-map with tiny, Noah's-ark houses.
+The forest grew sturdily on the steep mountain. Bob's eyes were on a
+level with the tops of trees growing but a few hundred feet away. The
+horizon line was almost at eleven o'clock above him.
+
+"How'd you handle this kind of a proposition?" he inquired. "Looks to me
+like hard sledding."
+
+"This stuff is no good," said Welton. "These little, yellow pines ain't
+worth cutting. This is all Forest Reserve stuff."
+
+Bob glanced again down the aisles of what looked to him like a noble
+forest, but said nothing. He was learning, in this land of surprises, to
+keep his mouth shut.
+
+At the end of two hours Welton drew up beside a new water trough to
+water the ponies.
+
+"There," he remarked casually, "is the first sugar pine."
+
+Bob's eye followed the indication of his whip to the spreading, graceful
+arms of a free so far up the bed of the stream that he could make out
+only its top. The ponies, refreshed, resumed their methodical plodding.
+
+Insensibly, as they mounted, the season had changed. The oaks that, at
+the level of Sycamore Flats, had been in full leaf, here showed but the
+tender pinks and russets of the first foliage. The dogwoods were quite
+dormant. Rivulets of seepage and surface water trickled in the most
+unexpected places as though from snow recently melted.
+
+Of climbing there seemed no end. False skylines recurrently deceived Bob
+into a belief that the buckboard was about to surmount the top. Always
+the rise proved to be preliminary to another. The road dipped behind
+little spurs, climbed ravines, lost itself between deep cuts. Only
+rarely did the forest growths permit a view, and then only in glimpses
+between the tops of trees. In the valley and against the foothills now
+intervened the peaceful and calm blue atmosphere of distance.
+
+"I'd no idea from looking at it this mountain was so high," he told
+Welton.
+
+"You never do," said Welton. "They always fool you. We're pretty nigh
+the top now."
+
+Indeed, for a little space the forest had perforce to thin because of
+lack of footing. The slope became almost a precipice, ending in a bold
+comb above which once more could be glimpsed the tops of trees. Quite
+ingeniously the road discovered a cleft up which it laboured mightily,
+to land breathless after a heart-breaking pull. Just over the top Welton
+drew rein to breathe his horses--and to hear what Bob had to say about
+it.
+
+The buckboard stood at the head of a long, gentle slope descending,
+perhaps fifty feet, to a plateau; which, in turn, rose to another crest
+some miles distant. The level of this plateau, which comprised, perhaps,
+thirty thousand acres all told, supported a noble and unbroken forest.
+
+Mere statistics are singularly unavailing to convey even an idea of a
+California woodland at its best. We are not here dealing with the
+so-called "Big Trees," but with the ordinary--or extraordinary--pines
+and spruces. The forest is free from dense undergrowths; the individual
+trees are enormous, yet so symmetrical that the eye can realize their
+size only when it catches sight of some usual and accustomed object,
+such as men or horses or the buildings in which they live. Even then it
+is quite as likely that the measures will appear to have been struck
+small, as that the measured will show in their true grandeur of
+proportion. The eye refuses to be convinced off-hand that its education
+has been faulty.
+
+"Now," said Welton decidedly. "We may as well have it over with right
+now. How big is that young tree over there?"
+
+He pointed out a half-grown specimen of sugar pine.
+
+"About twenty inches in diameter," replied Bob promptly.
+
+Welton silently handed him a tape line. Bob descended.
+
+"Thirty-seven!" he cried with vast astonishment, when his measurements
+were taken and his computations made.
+
+"Now that one," commanded Welton, indicating a larger tree.
+
+Bob sized it up.
+
+"No fair looking at the other for comparison," warned the older man.
+
+"Forty," hesitated Bob, "and I don't believe it's that!" he added. "Four
+feet," he amended when he had measured.
+
+"Climb in," said Welton; "now you're in a proper frame of mind to listen
+to me with respect. The usual run of tree you see down through here is
+from five to eight feet in diameter. They are about all over two hundred
+feet tall, and some run close to three hundred."
+
+Bob sighed. "All right. Drive on. I'll get used to it in time." His face
+lighted up with a grin. "Say, wouldn't you like to see Roaring Dick
+trying to handle one of those logs with a peavie? As for driving a
+stream full of them! Oh, Lord! You'd have to send 'em down one at a
+time, fitted out with staterooms for the crew, a rudder and a gasoline
+engine!"
+
+The ponies jogged cheerfully along the winding road. Water ran
+everywhere, or stood in pools. Under the young spruces were the last
+snowbanks. Pushing up through the wet soil, already showed early
+snowplants, those strange, waxlike towers of crimson. After a time they
+came to a sidehill where the woods thinned. There still stood many
+trees, but as the buckboard approached, Bob could see that they were
+cedars, or spruce, or smaller specimens of the pines. Prone upon the
+ground, like naked giants, gleamed white and monstrous the peeled bodies
+of great trees. A litter of "slash," beaten down by the winter, cumbered
+the ground, and retained beneath its faded boughs soggy and melting
+drifts.
+
+"Had some 'fallers' in here last year," explained Welton briefly.
+"Thought we'd have some logs on hand when it came time to start up."
+
+"Wait a minute," requested Bob. He sprang lightly from the vehicle, and
+scrambled over to stand alongside the nearest of the fallen monsters. He
+could just see over it comfortably. "My good heavens!" said he soberly,
+resuming his seat. "How in blazes do you handle them?"
+
+Welton drove on a few paces, then pointed with his whip. A narrow trough
+made of small peeled logs laid parallel and pegged and mortised together
+at the ends, ran straight over the next hill.
+
+"That's a chute," he explained briefly. "We hitch a wire cable to the
+log and just naturally yank it over to the chute."
+
+"How yank it?" demanded Bob.
+
+"By a good, husky donkey engine. Then the chute poles are slushed, we
+hitch cables on four or five logs, and just tow them over the hill to
+the mill."
+
+Bob's enthusiasm, as always, was growing with the presentation of this
+new and mighty problem of engineering so succinctly presented. It
+sounded simple; but from his two years' experience he knew better. He
+was becoming accustomed to filling in the outlines of pure theory. At a
+glance he realized the importance of such things as adequate anchors for
+the donkey engines; of figuring on straight pulls, horse power and the
+breaking strain of steel cables; of arranging curves in such manner as
+to obviate ditching the logs, of selecting grades and routes in such
+wise as to avoid the lift of the stretched cable; and more dimly he
+guessed at other accidents, problems and necessities which only the
+emergency could fully disclose. All he said was:
+
+"So that's why you bark them all--so they'll slide. I wondered."
+
+But now the ponies, who had often made this same trip, pricked up their
+ears and accelerated their pace. In a moment they had rounded a hill and
+brought their masters into full view of the mill itself.
+
+The site was in a wide, natural clearing occupied originally by a green
+meadow perhaps a dozen acres in extent. From the borders of this park
+the forest had drawn back to a dark fringe. Now among the trees at the
+upper end gleamed the yellow of new, unpainted shanties. Square against
+the prospect was the mill, a huge structure, built of axe-hewn timbers,
+rough boards, and the hand-rived shingles known as shakes. Piece by
+piece the machinery had been hauled up the mountain road until enough
+had been assembled on the space provided for it by the axe men to begin
+sawing. Then, like some strange monster, it had eaten out for itself at
+once a space in the forest and the materials for its shell and for the
+construction of its lesser dependents, the shanties, the cook-houses,
+the offices and the shops. Welton pointed out with pride the various
+arrangements; here the flats and the trestles for the yards where the
+new-sawn lumber was to be stacked; there the dump for the sawdust and
+slabs; yonder the banking ground constructed of great logs laid close
+together, wherein the timber-logs would be deposited to await the saw.
+
+From the lower end of the yard a trestle supporting a V-shaped trough
+disappeared over the edge of a hill. Near its head a clear stream
+cascaded down the slope.
+
+"That's the flume," explained the lumberman. "Brought the stream around
+from the head of the meadow in a ditch. We'll flume the sawn lumber down
+the mountain. For the present we'll have to team it out to the railroad.
+Your friend Baker's figuring on an electric road to meet us, though, and
+I guess we'll fix it up with him inside a few years, anyway."
+
+"Where's Stone Creek from here?" asked Bob.
+
+"Over the farther ridge. The mountain drops off again there to Stone
+Creek three or four thousand feet."
+
+"We ought to hear from the fire, soon."
+
+"If we don't, we'll ride over that way and take a look down," replied
+Welton.
+
+They drove down the empty yards to a stable where already was
+established their old barn-boss of the Michigan woods. Four or five big
+freight wagons stood outside, and a score of powerful mules rolled and
+sunned themselves in the largest corral. Welton nodded toward several
+horses in another enclosure.
+
+"Pick your saddle horse, Bob," said he. "Straw boss has to ride in this
+country."
+
+"Make it the oldest, then," said Bob.
+
+At the cookhouse they were just in time for the noon meal. The long,
+narrow room, fresh with new wood, new tables and new benches in
+preparation for the crew to come, looked bare and empty with its handful
+of guests huddled at one end. These were the teamsters, the stablemen,
+the caretakers and a few early arrivals. The remainder of the crew was
+expected two days later.
+
+After lunch Bob wandered out into the dazzling sunlight. The sky was
+wonderfully blue, the trees softly green, the new boards and the tiny
+pile of sawdust vividly yellow. These primary colours made all the
+world. The air breathed crisp and bracing, with just a dash of cold in
+the nostrils that contrasted paradoxically with the warm balminess of
+the sunlight. It was as though these two opposed qualities, warmth and
+cold, were here held suspended in the same medium and at the same time.
+Birds flashed like spangles against the blue. Others sang and darted and
+scratched and chirped everywhere. Tiny chipmunks no bigger than
+half-grown rats scampered fearlessly about. What Bob took for larger
+chipmunks--the Douglas Squirrels--perched on the new fence posts. The
+world seemed alive--alive through its creatures, through the solemn,
+uplifting vitality of its forests, through the sprouting, budding spring
+growths just bursting into green, through the wine-draught of its very
+air, through the hurrying, busy preoccupied murmur of its streams. Bob
+breathed his lungs full again and again, and tingled from head to foot.
+
+"How high are we here?" he called to Welton.
+
+"About six thousand. Why? Getting short-winded?"
+
+"I could run ten miles," replied Bob. "Come on. I'm going to look at the
+stream."
+
+"Not at a run," protested Welton. "No, sir! At a nice, middle-aged,
+dignified, fat _walk_!"
+
+They sauntered down the length of the trestle, with its miniature steel
+tracks, to where the flume began. It proved to be a very solidly built
+V-trough, alongside which ran a footboard. Welton pointed to the
+telephone wire that paralleled it.
+
+"When we get going," said he, "we just turn the stream in here, clamp
+our sawn lumber into bundles of the right size, and 'let her went!'
+There'll be three stations along the line, connected by 'phone, to see
+that things go all right. That flume's six mile long."
+
+Bob strode to the gate, and after some heaving and hauling succeeded in
+throwing water into the flume.
+
+"I wanted to see her go," he explained.
+
+"Now if you want some real fun," said Welton, gazing after the foaming
+advance wave as it ripped its way down the chute. "You make you a sort
+of three-cornered boat just to fit the angle of the flume; and then you
+lie down in it and go to Sycamore Flats, in about six minutes more or
+less."
+
+"You mean to say that's done?" cried Bob.
+
+"Often. It only means knocking together a plank or so."
+
+"Doesn't the lumber ever jump the flume?"
+
+"Once in a great while."
+
+"Suppose the boat should do it?"
+
+"Then," said Welton drily, "it's probable you'd have to begin learning
+to tune a harp."
+
+"Not for mine," said Bob with fervour. "Any time I yearn for Sycamore
+Flats real hard, I'll go by hand."
+
+He shut off the water, and the two walked a little farther to a bold
+point that pressed itself beyond the trees.
+
+Below them the cliff dropped away so steeply that they looked out above
+the treetops as from the summit of a true precipice. Almost directly
+below them lay the wooded valley of Sycamore Flats, maplike, tiny. It
+was just possible to make out the roofs of houses, like gray dots. Roads
+showed as white filaments threading the irregular patches of green and
+brown. From beneath flowed the wide oak and brush-clad foothills, rising
+always with the apparent cup of the earth until almost at the height of
+the eye the shimmering, dim plains substituted their brown for the dark
+green of the hills. The country that yesterday had seemed mountainous,
+full of cañons, ridges and ranges, now showed gently undulating,
+flattened, like a carpet spread before the feet of the Sierras. To the
+north were tumbled, blue, pine-clad mountains as far as the eye could
+see, receding into the dimness of great distance. At one point, but so
+far away as to be distinguishable only by a slight effort of the
+imagination, hovered like soap-bubbles against an ethereal sky the forms
+of snow mountains. Welton pointed out the approximate position of
+Yosemite.
+
+They returned to camp where Welton showed the clean and painted little
+house built for Bob and himself. It was quite simply a row of rooms with
+a verandah in front of them all. But the interiors were furnished with
+matting for the floors, curtains to the windows, white iron bedsteads,
+running water and open fireplaces.
+
+"I'm sick of camping," said Welton. "This is our summer quarters for
+some time. I'm going to be comfortable."
+
+Bob sighed.
+
+"This is the bulliest place I ever saw!" he cried boyishly.
+
+"Well, you're going to have time enough to get used to it," said Welton
+drily.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The Stone Creek fire indeed proved not to amount to much, whereby sheer
+chance upheld Henry Plant. The following morning the fire fighters
+returned; leaving, however, two of their number to "guard the line"
+until the danger should be over. Welton explained to Bob that only the
+fact that Stone Creek bottom was at a low elevation, filled with brush
+and tarweed, and grown thick with young trees rendered the forest even
+inflammable at this time of year.
+
+"Anywhere else in this country at this time of year it wouldn't do any
+harm," he told Bob, "and Plant knew it couldn't get out of the basin. He
+didn't give a cuss how much it did there. But we've got some young stuff
+that would easy carry a top fire. Later in the season you may see some
+tall rustling on the fire lines."
+
+But before noon of that day a new complication arose. Up the road came a
+short, hairy man on a mule. His beard grew to his high cheek bones, his
+eyebrows bristled and jutted out over his black eyes, and a thick shock
+of hair pushed beneath the rim of his hat to meet the eyebrows. The hat
+was an old black slouch, misshapen, stained and dusty. His faded shirt
+opened to display a hairy throat and chest. As for the rest he was
+short-limbed, thick and powerful.
+
+This nondescript individual rode up to the verandah on which sat Welton
+and Bob, awaiting the lunch bell. He bowed gravely, and dismounted.
+
+"Dis ees Meestair Welton?" he inquired with a courtesy at strange
+variance with his uncouth appearance.
+
+Welton nodded.
+
+"I am Peter Lejeune," said the newcomer, announcing one of those hybrid
+names so common among the transplanted French and Basques of California.
+"I have de ship."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Welton rising and going forward to offer his hand. "Come
+up and sit down, Mr. Leejune."
+
+The hairy man "tied his mule to the ground" by dropping the end of the
+reins, and mounted the two steps to the verandah.
+
+"This is my assistant, Mr. Orde," said Welton. "How are the sheep coming
+on? Mr. Leejune," he told Bob, "rents the grazing in our timber."
+
+"Et is not coming," stated Lejeune with a studied calm. "Plant he
+riffuse permit to cross."
+
+"Permit to what?" asked Welton.
+
+"To cross hees fores', gov'ment fores'. I can' get in here widout cross
+gov'ment land. I got to get permit from Plant. Plant he riffuse."
+
+Welton rose, staring at his visitor.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he cried at last, "that a man hasn't got a
+right to get into his own land? That they can keep a man out of his own
+_land_?"
+
+"Da's right," nodded the Frenchman.
+
+"But you've been in here for ten years or so to my knowledge."
+
+Abruptly the sheepman's calm fell from him. He became wildly excited.
+His black eyes snapped, his hair bristled, he arose from his chair and
+gesticulated.
+
+"Every year I geev heem three ship! Three ship!" he repeated, thrusting
+three stubby fingers at Welton's face. "Three little ship! I stay all
+summer! He never say permit. Thees year he kip me out."
+
+"Give any reason?" asked Welton.
+
+"He say my ship feed over the line in gov'ment land."
+
+"Did they?"
+
+"Mebbe so, little bit. Mebbe not. Nobody show me line. Nobody pay no
+'tention. I feed thees range ten year."
+
+"Did you give him three sheep this year?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+Welton sighed.
+
+"I can't go down and tend to this," said he. "My foremen are here to be
+consulted, and the crews will begin to come in to-morrow. You'll have to
+go and see what's eating this tender Plant, Bob. Saddle up and ride down
+with Mr. Leejune."
+
+Bob took his first lesson in Western riding behind Lejeune and his
+stolid mule. He had ridden casually in the East, as had most young men
+of his way of life, but only enough to make a fair showing on a gentle
+and easy horse. His present mount was gentle and easy enough, but Bob
+was called upon to admire feats of which a Harlem goat might have been
+proud. Lejeune soon turned off the wagon road to make his way directly
+down the side of the mountain. Bob possessed his full share of personal
+courage, but in this unaccustomed skirting of precipices, hopping down
+ledges, and sliding down inclines too steep to afford a foothold he
+found himself leaning inward, sitting very light in the saddle, or
+holding his breath until a passage perilous was safely passed. In the
+next few years he had occasion to drop down the mountainside a great
+many times. After the first few trips he became so thoroughly accustomed
+that he often wondered how he had ever thought this scary riding. Now,
+however, he was so busily occupied that he was caught by surprise when
+Lejeune's mule turned off through a patch of breast-high manzañita and
+he found himself traversing the gentler slope at the foot of the
+mountain. Ten minutes later they entered Sycamore Flats.
+
+Then Bob had leisure to notice an astonishing change of temperature. At
+the mill the air had been almost cold--entirely so out of the direct
+rays of the sun. Here it was as hot as though from a furnace. Passing
+the store, Bob saw that the tall thermometer there stood at 96 degrees.
+The day was unseasonable, but later, in the August heats, Bob had often,
+to his sorrow, to test the difference between six thousand and two
+thousand feet of elevation. From a clear, crisp late-spring climate he
+would descend in two hours to a temperature of 105 degrees.
+
+Henry Plant was discovered sprawled out in an armchair beneath a
+spreading tree in the front yard. His coat was off and his vest
+unbuttoned to display a vast and billowing expanse of soiled white
+shirt. In his hand was a palm-leaf fan, at his elbow swung an _olla_,
+newspapers littered the ground or lay across his fat knees. When Bob and
+Lejeune entered, he merely nodded surlily, and went on with his reading.
+
+"Can I speak to you a moment on business?" asked Bob.
+
+By way of answer the fat man dropped his paper, and mopped his brow.
+
+"We've rented our sheep grazing to Mr. Lejeune, here, as I understand
+we've been doing for some years. He tells me you have refused him
+permission to cross the Forest Reserve with his flocks."
+
+"That's right," grunted Plant.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I believe, young man, granting permits is discretionary with the
+Supervisor," stated that individual.
+
+"I suppose so," agreed Bob. "But Mr. Lejeune has always had permission
+before. What reason do you assign for refusing it?"
+
+"Wilful trespass," wheezed Plant. "That's what, young man. His sheep
+grazed over our line. He's lucky that I don't have him up before the
+United States courts for damages as well."
+
+Lejeune started to speak, but Bob motioned him to silence.
+
+"I'm sure we could arrange for past damages, and guarantee against any
+future trespass," said he.
+
+"Well, I'm sure you can't," stated Plant positively. "Good day."
+
+But Bob was not willing to give up thus easily. He gave his best efforts
+either to arguing Plant into a better frame of mind, or to discovering
+some tangible reason for his sudden change of front in regard to the
+sheep.
+
+"It's no use," he told Lejeune, later, as they walked down the street
+together. "He's undoubtedly the right to refuse permits for cause; and
+technically he has cause if your sheep got over the line."
+
+"But what shall I do!" cried Lejeune. "My ship mus' have feed!"
+
+"You pasture them or feed them somewhere for a week or so, and I'll let
+you know," said Bob. "We'll get you on the land or see you through
+somewhere else."
+
+He mounted his horse stiffly and rode back up the street. Plant still
+sat in his armchair like a bloated spider. On catching sight of Bob,
+however, he heaved himself to his feet and waddled to the gate.
+
+"Here!" he called. Bob drew rein. "It has been reported to me that your
+firm has constructed a flume across 36, and a wagon road across 14, 22,
+28, and 32. Those are government sections. I suppose, of course, your
+firm has permits from Washington to build said improvements?"
+
+"Naturally," said Bob, who, however, knew nothing whatever of those
+details.
+
+"Well, I'll send a man up to examine them to-morrow," said Plant, and
+turned his back.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Bob took supper at Auntie Belle's, and rode up the mountain after dark.
+He did not attempt short cuts, but allowed his horse to follow the plain
+grade of the road. After a time the moon crept over the zenith, and at
+once the forest took on a fairylike strangeness, as though at the touch
+of night new worlds had taken the place of the vanished old. Somewhere
+near midnight, his body shivering with the mountain cold, his legs stiff
+and chafed from the long, unaccustomed riding, but his mind filled with
+the wonder and beauty of the mountain night, Bob drew rein beside the
+corrals. After turning in his horse, he walked through the bright
+moonlight to Welton's door, on which he hammered.
+
+"Hey!" called the lumberman from within.
+
+"It's I, Bob."
+
+Welton scratched a match.
+
+"Why in blazes didn't you come up in the morning?" he inquired.
+
+"I've found out another and perhaps important hole we're in."
+
+"Can we do anything to help ourselves out before morning?" demanded
+Welton. "No? Well, sleep tight! I'll see you at six."
+
+Next morning Welton rolled out, as good-humoured and deliberate as ever.
+
+"My boy," said he. "When you get to be as old as I am, you'll never stir
+up trouble at night unless you can fix it then. What is it?"
+
+Bob detailed his conversation with Plant.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that that old, fat _skunk_ had the nerve to
+tell you he was going to send a ranger to look at our permit?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Yes. That's what he said."
+
+"The miserable hound! Why I went to see him a year ago about crossing
+this strip with our road--we had to haul a lot of stuff in. He told me
+to go ahead and haul, and that he'd fix it up when the time came. Since
+then I've tackled him two or three times about it, but he's always told
+me to go ahead; that it was all right. So we went ahead. It's always
+been a matter of form, this crossing permit business. It's _meant_ to be
+a matter of form!"
+
+After breakfast Welton ordered his buckboard and, in company with Bob,
+drove down the mountain again. Plant was discovered directing the
+activities of several men, who were loading a light wagon with
+provisions and living utensils.
+
+"Moving up to our summer camp," one of them told Bob. "Getting too hot
+down here."
+
+Plant received them, his fat face expressionless, and led them into the
+stuffy little office.
+
+"Look here, Plant," said Welton, without a trace of irritation on his
+weatherbeaten, round countenance. "What's all this about seeing a permit
+to cross those government sections? You know very well I haven't any
+permit."
+
+"I have been informed by my men that you have constructed or caused to
+be constructed a water flume through section 36, and a road through
+sections 14, 22, 28 and 32. If this has been done without due
+authorization you are liable for trespass. Fine of not less than $200 or
+imprisonment for not less than twelve months--or both." He delivered
+this in a voice absolutely devoid of expression.
+
+"But you told me to go ahead, and that you'd attend to the details, and
+it would be all right," said Welton.
+
+"You must have misunderstood me," replied Plant blandly. "It is against
+my sworn duty to permit such occupation of public land without due
+conformity to law. It is within my discretion whether to report the
+trespass for legal action. I am willing to believe that you have acted
+in this matter without malicious intent. But the trespass must cease."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked Welton.
+
+"You must not use that road as a highway, nor the flume, and you must
+remove the flume within a reasonable time. Or else you may still get a
+permit."
+
+"How long would that take?" asked Welton. "Could it be done by wire?"
+
+Plant lifted a glazed and fishy eye to survey him.
+
+"You would be required to submit in writing specifications of the length
+and location of said road and flume. This must be accompanied by a
+topographical map and details of construction. I shall then send out
+field men to investigate, after which, endorsed with my approval, it
+goes for final decision to the Secretary of the Interior."
+
+"Good Lord, man!" cried Welton, aghast. "That would take all summer! And
+besides, I made out all that tomfoolery last summer. I supposed you must
+have unwound all that red tape long ago!"
+
+Plant for the first time looked his interlocutor square in the eye.
+
+"I find among my records no such application," he said deliberately.
+
+Welton stared at him a moment, then laughed.
+
+"All right, Mr. Plant, I'll see what's to be done," said he, and went
+out.
+
+In silence the two walked down the street until out of earshot. Then Bob
+broke out.
+
+"I'd like to punch his fat carcass!" he cried. "The old liar!"
+
+Welton laughed.
+
+"It all goes to show that a man's never too old to learn. He's got us
+plain enough just because this old man was too busy to wake up to the
+fact that these government grafters are so strong out here. Back our
+way when you needed a logging road, you just built it, and paid for the
+unavoidable damage, and that's all there was to it."
+
+"You take it cool," spluttered Bob.
+
+"No use taking it any other way," replied Welton. "But the situation is
+serious. We've got our plant in shape, and our supplies in, and our men
+engaged. It would be bad enough to shut down with all that expense. But
+the main trouble is, we're under contract to deliver our mill run to
+Marshall & Harding. We can't forfeit that contract and stay in
+business."
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" asked Bob.
+
+"Get on the wires to your father in Washington," replied Welton. "Lucky,
+your friend Baker's power project is only four miles away; we can use
+his 'phone."
+
+But at the edge of town they met Lejeune.
+
+"I got de ship in pasture," he told Bob. "But hees good for not more dan
+one wik."
+
+"Look here, Leejune," said Welton. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to look
+up another range for this summer. Of course, we'll pay any loss or
+damage in the matter. It looks impossible to do anything with Plant."
+
+The Frenchman threw up both hands and broke into voluble explanations.
+From them the listeners gathered more knowledge in regard to the sheep
+business than they could have learned by observation in a year. Briefly,
+it was necessary that the sheep have high-country feed, at once; the
+sheepmen apportioned the mountains among themselves, so that each had
+his understood range; it would now be impossible to find anywhere
+another range; only sometimes could one trade localities with another,
+but that must be arranged earlier in the season before the flocks are in
+the hills--in short, affairs were at a critical point, where Lejeune
+must have feed, and no other feed was to be had except that for which he
+had in all confidence contracted. Welton listened thoughtfully, his eyes
+between his horses.
+
+"Can you run those sheep in, at night, or somehow?"
+
+The Frenchman's eyes sparkled.
+
+"I run ship two year in Yosemite Park," he bragged. "No soldier fin'
+me."
+
+"That's no great shakes," said Welton drily, "from what I've seen of
+Park soldiers. If you can sneak these sheep across without getting
+caught, you do it."
+
+"I snik ship across all right," said Lejeune. "But I can' stop hees
+track. The ranger he know I cross all right."
+
+"What's the penalty?" asked Welton.
+
+"Mos'ly 'bout one hundred dollars," replied Lejeune promptly. "Mebbe
+five hundred."
+
+Welton sighed. "Is that the limit?" he asked. "Not more than five
+hundred?"
+
+"No. Dat all."
+
+"Well, it'll take a good half of the rent to get you in, if they soak us
+the limit; but you're up against it, and we'll stand back of you. If we
+agreed to give you that grazing, by God, _you'll get it_, as long as
+that land is ours."
+
+He nodded and drove on, while Lejeune, the true sheepman's delight in
+dodging the officers burning strong within his breast, turned his mule's
+head to the lower country.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The full situation, as far as the wires could tell it, was laid before
+Jack Orde in Washington. A detailed letter followed. Toward evening of
+that day the mill crews began to come in with the four and six-horse
+teams provided for their transportation. They were a dusty but hilarious
+lot. The teams drew up underneath the solitary sycamore tree that gave
+the place its name, and at once went into camp. Bob strolled down to
+look them over.
+
+They proved to be fresh-faced, strong farm boys, for the most part, with
+a fair sprinkling of older mountaineers, and quite a contingent of half
+and quarter-bred Indians. All these people worked on ranches or in the
+towns during the off season when the Sierras were buried under winter
+snows. Their skill at woodsmanship might be undoubted, but the
+intermittent character of their work precluded any development of
+individual type, like the rivermen and shanty boys of the vanished
+North. For a moment Bob experienced a twinge of regret that the old,
+hard, picturesque days of his Northern logging were indeed gone. Then
+the interest of this great new country with its surging life and its new
+problems gripped him hard. He left these decent, hard-working,
+self-respecting ranch boys, these quiet mountaineers, these stolid,
+inscrutable breeds to their flickering camp fire. Next morning the
+many-seated vehicles filled early and started up the road. But within a
+mile Welton and Bob in their buckboard came upon old California John
+square in the middle of the way. Star stood like a magnificent statue
+except that slowly over and over, with relish, he turned the wheel of
+the silver-mounted spade-bit under his tongue. As the ranger showed no
+indication of getting out of the way, Welton perforce came to a halt.
+
+"Road closed to trespass by the Wolverine Company," the ranger stated
+impassively.
+
+Welton whistled.
+
+"That mean I can't get to my own property?" he asked.
+
+"My orders are to close this road to the Wolverine Company."
+
+"Well, you've obeyed orders. Now get out the way. Tell your chief he can
+go ahead on a trespass suit."
+
+But the old man shook his head.
+
+"No, you don't understand," he repeated patiently. "My orders were to
+_close_ the road to the Company, not just to give notice."
+
+Without replying Welton picked up his reins and started his horses. The
+man seemed barely to shift his position, but from some concealment he
+produced a worn and shiny Colt's. This he laid across the horn of his
+saddle.
+
+"Stop," he commanded, and this time his voice had a bite to it.
+
+"Millions for defence," chuckled Welton, who recognized perfectly the
+tone, "and how much did you say for tribute?"
+
+"What say?" inquired the old man.
+
+"What sort of a hold-up is this? We certainly can't do this road any
+damage driving over it once. How much of an inducement does Plant want,
+anyway?"
+
+"This department is only doing its sworn duty," replied the old man. His
+blue eyes met Welton's steadily; not a line of his weatherbeaten face
+changed. For twenty seconds the lumberman tried to read his opponent's
+mind.
+
+"Well," he said at last. "You can tell your chief that if he thinks he
+can annoy and harass me into bribing him to be decent, he's left."
+
+By this time the dust and creek of the first heavily laden vehicle had
+laboured up to within a few hundred yards.
+
+"I have over a hundred men there," said Welton, "that I've hired to
+work for me at the top of that mountain. It's damn foolishness that
+anybody should stop their going there; and I'll bet they won't lose
+their jobs. My advice to you is to stand one side. You can't stop a
+hundred men alone."
+
+"Yes, I can," replied the old man calmly. "I'm not alone."
+
+"No?" said Welton, looking about him.
+
+"No; there's eighty million people behind that," said California John,
+touching lightly the shield of his Ranger badge. The simplicity of the
+act robbed it of all mock-heroics.
+
+Welton paused, a frown of perplexity between his brows. California John
+was watching him calmly.
+
+"Of course, the _public_ has a right to camp in all Forest
+Reserves--subject to reg'lation," he proffered.
+
+Welton caught at this.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"No, you got to turn back, and your Company's rigs have got to turn
+back," said California John. "But I sure ain't no orders to stop no
+campers."
+
+Welton nodded briefly; and, after some difficulty, succeeding in turning
+around, he drove back down the grade. After he had bunched the wagons he
+addressed the assembled men.
+
+"Boys," said he, "there's been some sort of a row with the Government,
+and they've closed this road to us temporarily. I guess you'll have to
+hoof it the rest of the way."
+
+This was no great and unaccustomed hardship, and no one objected.
+
+"How about our beds?" inquired some one.
+
+This presented a difficulty. No Western camp of any description--lumber,
+mining, railroad, cow--supplies the bedding for its men. Camp blankets
+as dealt out in our old-time Northern logging camp are unknown. Each man
+brings his own blankets, which he further augments with a pair of
+quilts, a pillow and a heavy canvas. All his clothing and personal
+belongings he tucks inside; the canvas he firmly lashes outside. Thus
+instead of his "turkey"--or duffle-bag--he speaks of his "bed roll,"
+and by that term means not only his sleeping equipment but often all his
+worldly goods.
+
+"Can't you unhitch your horses and pack them?" asked Bob.
+
+"Sure," cried several mountaineers at once.
+
+Welton chuckled.
+
+"That sounds like it," he approved; "and remember, boys, you're all
+innocent campers out to enjoy the wonders and beauties of nature."
+
+The men made short work of the job. In a twinkling the horses were
+unhitched from the vehicles. Six out of ten of these men were more or
+less practised at throwing packing hitches, for your Californian brought
+up in sight of mountains is often among them. Bob admired the dexterity
+with which some of the mountaineers improvised slings and drew tight the
+bulky and cumbersome packs. Within half an hour the long procession was
+under way, a hundred men and fifty horses. They filed past California
+John, who had drawn one side.
+
+"Camping, boys?" he asked the leader.
+
+The man nodded and passed on. California John sat at ease, his elbow on
+the pommel, his hand on his chin, his blue eyes staring vacantly at the
+silent procession filing before him. Star stood motionless, his head
+high, his small ears pricked forward. The light dust peculiar to the
+mountain soils of California, stirred by many feet, billowed and rolled
+upward through the pines. Long rays of sunlight cut through it like
+swords.
+
+"Now did you ever see such utter damn foolishness?" growled Welton.
+"Make that bunch walk all the way up that mountain! What on earth is the
+difference whether they walk or ride?"
+
+But Bob, examining closely the faded, old figure on the magnificent
+horse, felt his mind vaguely troubled by another notion. He could not
+seize the thought, but its influence was there. Somehow the irritation
+and exasperation had gone from the episode.
+
+"I know that sort of crazy old mossback," muttered Welton as he turned
+down the mountain. "Pin a tin star on them and they think they're as
+important as hell!"
+
+Bob looked back.
+
+"I don't know," he said vaguely. "I'm kind of for that old coon."
+
+The bend shut him out. After the buckboard had dipped into the horseshoe
+and out to the next point, they again looked back. The smoke of marching
+rose above the trees to eddy lazily up the mountain. California John, a
+tiny figure now, still sat patiently guarding the portals of an empty
+duty.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Bob and Welton left the buckboard at Sycamore Flats and rode up to the
+mill by a détour. There they plunged into active work. The labour of
+getting the new enterprise under way proved to be tremendous. A very
+competent woods foreman, named Post, was in charge of the actual
+logging, so Welton gave his undivided attention to the mill work. All
+day the huge peeled timbers slid and creaked along the greased slides,
+dragged mightily by a straining wire cable that snapped and swung
+dangerously. When they had reached the solid "bank" that slanted down
+toward the mill, the obstreperous "bull" donkey lowered its crest of
+white steam, coughed, and was still. A man threw over the first of these
+timbers a heavy rope, armed with a hook, that another man drove home
+with a blow of his sledge. The rope tightened. Over rolled the log, out
+from the greased slide, to come, finally, to rest among its fellows at
+the entrance to the mill.
+
+Thence it disappeared, moved always by steam-driven hooks, for these
+great logs could not be managed by hand implements. The sawyers, at
+their levers, controlled the various activities. When the time came the
+smooth, deadly steel ribbon of the modern bandsaws hummed hungrily into
+the great pines; the automatic roller hurried the new-sawn boards to the
+edgers; little cars piled high with them shot out from the cool dimness
+into the dazzling sunlight; men armed with heavy canvas or leather
+stacked them in the yards; and then----
+
+That was the trouble; and then, nothing!
+
+From this point they should have gone farther. Clamped in rectangular
+bundles, pushing the raging white water before their blunt noses, as
+strange craft they should have been flashing at regular intervals down
+the twisting, turning and plunging course of the flume. Arrived safely
+at the bottom, the eight-and twelve-horse teams should have taken them
+in charge, dragging them by the double wagon load to the waiting yards
+of Marshall & Harding. Nothing of the sort was happening. Welton did not
+dare go ahead with the water for fear of prejudicing his own case. The
+lumber accumulated. And, as the mill's capacity was great and that of
+the yards small, the accumulation soon threatened to become
+embarrassing.
+
+Bob acted as Welton's lieutenant. As the older lumberman was at first
+occupied in testing out his sawyers, and otherwise supervising the
+finished product, Bob was necessarily much in the woods. This suited him
+perfectly. Every morning at six he and the men tramped to the scene of
+operations. There a dozen crews scattered to as many tasks. Far in the
+van the fellers plied their implements. First of all they determined
+which way a tree could be made to fall, estimating long and carefully on
+the weight of limbs, the slant of the trunk, the slope of ground, all
+the elements having to do with the centre of gravity. This having been
+determined, the men next chopped notches of the right depth for the
+insertion of short boards to afford footholds high enough to enable them
+to nick the tree above the swell of the roots. Standing on these springy
+and uncertain boards, they began their real work, swinging their axes
+alternately, with untiring patience and incomparable accuracy. Slowly,
+very slowly, the "nick" grew, a mouth gaping ever wider in the brown
+tree. When it had gaped wide enough the men hopped down from their
+springboards, laid aside their axes, and betook themselves to the saw.
+And when, at last, the wedges inserted in the saw-crack started the
+mighty top, the men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stood
+to one side.
+
+[Illustration: The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and
+stood to one side]
+
+After the dust had subsided, and the last reverberations of that mighty
+crash had ceased to reëcho through the forest, the fellers stepped
+forward to examine their work. They took all things into consideration,
+such as old wind shakes, new decay, twist of grain and location of the
+limbs. Then they measured off the prostrate trunk into logs of twelve,
+fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty feet, according to the best
+expediency. The division points between logs they notched plainly, and,
+shouldering their axes and their sledge and their long, limber saw,
+pocketing their wedges and their bottle of coal oil, they moved on to
+where the next mighty pine had through all the centuries been awaiting
+their coming.
+
+Now arrived on the scene the "swampers" and cross-cut men, swarming over
+the prostrate tree like ants over a piece of sugar. Some of them cut off
+limbs; others, with axes and crowbars, began to pry away great slabs of
+bark; still others, with much precaution of shovel, wedge and axe
+against jamming, commenced the slow and laborious undertaking of sawing
+apart the logs.
+
+But most interesting and complicated of all were the further processes
+of handling the great logs after they had been peeled and sawed.
+
+The ends of steel cables were dragged by a horse to the prostrate tree,
+where they were made fast by means of chains and hooks. Then the puffing
+and snorting donkey engine near the chute tightened the cable. The log
+stirred, moved, plunged its great blunt nose forward, ploughing up the
+soil. Small trees and bushes it overrode. But sooner or later it
+collided head on, with a large tree, a stump, or a boulder. The cable
+strained. Men shouted or waved their arms in signal. The donkey engine
+ceased coughing. Then the horse pulled the end of the log free. Behind
+it was left a deep trough, a half cylinder scooped from the soil.
+
+At the chutes the logs were laid end to end, like a train of cars. A
+more powerful cable, endless, running to the mill and back again, here
+took up the burden. At a certain point it was broken by two great hooks.
+One of these, the one in advance, the men imbedded in the rear log of
+the train. The other was dragged behind. Away from the chutes ten feet
+the returning cable snapped through rude pulleys. The train of logs
+moved forward slowly and steadily, sliding on the greased ways.
+
+On the knoll the donkey engine coughed and snorted as it heaved the
+mighty timbers from the woods. The drag of the logs was sometimes
+heavier than the engine, so it had to be anchored by other cables to
+strong trees. Between these opposing forces--the inertia of the rooted
+and the fallen--it leaped and trembled. At its throttle, underneath a
+canopy knocked together of rough boards, the engineer stood, ready from
+one instant to another to shut off, speed up, or slow down, according to
+the demands of an ever-changing exigence. His was a nervous job, and he
+earned his repose.
+
+At the rear of the boiler a boy of eighteen toiled with an axe, chopping
+into appropriate lengths the dead wood brought in for fuel. Next year it
+would be possible to utilize old tops for this purpose, but now they
+were too green. Another boy, in charge of a solemn mule, tramped
+ceaselessly back and forth between the engine and a spring that had been
+dug out down the hill in a ravine. Before the end of that summer they
+had worn a trail so deep and hard and smooth that many seasons of snow
+failed to obliterate it even from the soft earth. On either side the
+mule were slung sacks of heavy canvas. At the spring the boy filled
+these by means of a pail. Returned to the engine, he replenished the
+boiler, draining the sacks from the bottom, cast a fleeting glance at
+the water gauge of the donkey engine, and hastened back to the spring.
+He had charge of three engines; and was busy.
+
+And back along the line of the chutes were other men to fill out this
+crew of many activities--old men to signal; young men to stand by with
+slush brush, axe, or bar when things did not go well; axe-men with
+teams laying accurately new chutes into new country yet untouched.
+
+Bob found plenty to keep him busy. Post, the woods foreman, was a good
+chute man. By long experience he had gained practical knowledge of the
+problems and accidents of this kind of work. To get the logs out from
+the beds in which they lay, across a rugged country, and into the mill
+was an engineering proposition of some moment. It is easy to get into
+difficulties from which hours of work will not extricate.
+
+But a man involved closely in the practical management of a saw log may
+conceivably possess scant leisure to correlate the scattered efforts of
+such divergent activities. The cross cutters and swampers may get ahead
+of the fellers and have to wait in idleness until the latter have
+knocked down a tree. Or the donkey may fall silent from lack of logs to
+haul; or the chute crews may smoke their pipes awaiting the donkey. Or,
+worst and unpardonable disgrace of all, the mill may ran out of logs!
+When that happens, the Old Fellow is usually pretty promptly on the
+scene.
+
+Now it is obvious that if somewhere on the works ten men are always
+waiting--even though the same ten men are not thus idle over once a
+week--the employer is paying for ten men too many. Bob found his best
+activity lay in seeing that this did not happen. He rode everywhere
+reviewing the work; and he kept it shaken together. Thus he made himself
+very useful, he gained rapidly a working knowledge of this new kind of
+logging, and, incidentally, he found his lines fallen in very pleasant
+places indeed.
+
+The forest never lost its marvel to him, but after he had to some extent
+become accustomed to the immense trees, he began to notice the smaller
+affairs of the woodland. The dogwoods and azaleas were beginning to come
+out; the waxy, crimson snow plants were up; the tiny green meadows near
+the heads of streams were enamelled with flowers; hundreds of species of
+birds sang and flashed and scratched and crept and soared. The smaller
+animals were everywhere. The sun at noon disengaged innumerable and
+subtle tepid odours of pine and blossom.
+
+One afternoon, a little less than a week subsequent to the beginning of
+work, Bob, riding home through the woods by a détour around a hill, came
+upon sheep. They were scattered all over the hill, cropping busily at
+the snowbush, moving ever slowly forward. A constant murmur arose, a
+murmur of a silent, quick, minute activity. Occasionally some mother
+among them lifted her voice. Bob sat his horse looking silently on the
+shifting grays. In ten seconds his sight blurred; he experienced a
+slight giddiness as though the substantial ground were shifting beneath
+him in masses, slowly, as in a dream. It gave him a curious feeling of
+instability. By an effort he focused his eyes; but almost immediately he
+caught himself growing fuzzy-minded again, exactly as though he had been
+gazing absently for a considerable period at a very bright light. He
+shook himself.
+
+"I don't wonder sheep herders go dotty," said he aloud.
+
+He looked about him, and for the first time became aware of a tow-headed
+youth above him on the hill. The youth leaned on a staff, and at his
+feet crouched two long-haired dogs. Bob turned his horse in that
+direction.
+
+When he had approached, he saw the boy to be about seventeen years old.
+His hair was very light, as were his eyebrows and eyelashes. Only a
+decided tinge of blue in his irises saved him from albinism. His lips
+were thick and loose, his nose flat, his expression vacant. In contrast,
+the two dogs, now seated on their haunches, their heads to one side,
+their ears cocked up, their eyes bright, looked to be the more
+intelligent animals.
+
+"Good evening," said Bob.
+
+The boy merely stared.
+
+"You in charge of the sheep?" inquired the young man presently.
+
+The boy grunted.
+
+"Where are you camped?" persisted Bob.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Where's your boss?"
+
+A faint gleam came into the sheep-herder's eyes. He raised his arm and
+pointed across through the woods.
+
+Bob reined his horse in the direction indicated. As he passed the last
+of the flock in that direction, he caught sight of another herder and
+two more dogs. This seemed to be a bearded man of better appearance than
+the boy; but he too leaned motionless on his long staff; he too gazed
+unblinking on the nibbling, restless, changing, imbecile sheep.
+
+As Bob looked, this man uttered a shrill, long-drawn whistle. Like
+arrows from bows the two dogs darted away, their ears flat, their bodies
+held low to the ground. The whistle was repeated by the youth.
+Immediately his dogs also glided forward. The noise of quick, sharp
+barkings was heard. At once the slow, shifting movement of the masses of
+gray ceased. The sound of murmurous, deep-toned bells, of bleating, of
+the movement of a multitude arose. The flock drew to a common centre; it
+flowed slowly forward. Here and there the dark bodies of the dogs
+darted, eager and intelligently busy. The two herders followed after,
+leaning on their long staffs. Over the hill passed the flock. Slowly the
+sounds of them merged into a murmur. It died. Only remained the fog of
+dust drifting through the trees, caught up by every passing current of
+air, light and impalpable as powder.
+
+Bob continued on his way, but had not proceeded more than a few hundred
+feet before he was overtaken by Lejeune.
+
+"You're the man I was looking for," said Bob. "I see you got your sheep
+in all right. Have any trouble?"
+
+The sheepman's teeth flashed.
+
+"Not'tall," he replied. "I snik in ver' easy up by Beeg Rock."
+
+At the mill, Bob, while luxuriously splashing the ice cold water on his
+face and throat, took time to call to Welton in the next room.
+
+"Saw your sheep man," he proffered. "He got in all right, sheep and
+all."
+
+Welton appeared in the doorway, mopping his round, red face with a
+towel.
+
+"Funny we haven't heard from Plant, then," said he. "That fat man must
+be keeping track of Leejune's where-abouts, or he's easier than I
+thought he was."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The week slipped by. Welton seemed to be completely immersed in the
+business of cutting lumber. In due time Orde senior had replied by wire,
+giving assurance that he would see to the matter of the crossing
+permits.
+
+"So _that's_ settled," quoth Welton. "You bet-you Jack Orde will make
+the red tape fly. It'll take a couple of weeks, I suppose--time for
+the mail to get there and back. Meantime, we'll get a cut ahead."
+
+But at the end of ten days came a letter from the congressman.
+
+"Don't know just what is the hitch," wrote Jack Orde. "It ought to be
+the simplest matter in the world, and so I told Russell in the Land
+Office to-day. They seem inclined to fall back on their technicalities,
+which is all rot, of course. The man wants to be annoying for some
+reason, but I'll take it higher at once. Have an appointment with the
+Chief this afternoon...."
+
+The next letter came by the following mail.
+
+"This seems to be a bad mess. I can't understand it, nor get to the
+bottom of it. On the face of the showing here we've just bulled ahead
+without any regard whatever for law or regulations. Of course, I showed
+your letter stating your agreement and talks with Plant, but the
+department has his specific denial that you ever approached him. They
+stand pat on that, and while they're very polite, they insist on a
+detailed investigation. I'm going to see the Secretary this morning."
+
+Close on the heels of this came a wire:
+
+"Plant submits reports of alleged sheep trespass committed this spring
+by your orders. Wire denial."
+
+"My Lord!" said Welton, as he took this. "That's why we never heard from
+that! Bobby, that was a fool move, certainly; but I couldn't turn
+Leejune down after I'd agreed to graze him."
+
+"How about these lumber contracts?" suggested Bob.
+
+"We've got to straighten this matter out," said Welton soberly.
+
+He returned a long telegram to Congressman Orde in Washington, and
+himself interviewed Plant. He made no headway whatever with the fat man,
+who refused to emerge beyond the hard technicalities of the situation.
+Welton made a journey to White Oaks, where he interviewed the
+Superintendent of the Forest Reserves. The latter proved to be a
+well-meaning, kindly, white-whiskered gentleman, named Smith, who
+listened sympathetically, agreed absolutely with the equities of the
+situation, promised to attend to the matter, and expressed himself as
+delighted always to have these things brought to his personal attention.
+On reaching the street, however, Welton made a bee-line for the bank
+through which he did most of his business.
+
+"Mr. Lee," he asked the president, "I want you to be frank with me. I am
+having certain dealings with the Forest Reserve, and I want to know how
+much I can depend on this man Smith."
+
+Lee crossed his white hands on his round stomach, and looked at Welton
+over his eyeglasses.
+
+"In what way?" he asked.
+
+"I've had a little trouble with one of his subordinates. I've just been
+around to state my case to Smith, and he agrees with my side of the
+affair and promises to call down his man. Can I rely on him? Does he
+mean what he says?"
+
+"He means what he says," replied the bank president, slowly, "and you
+can rely on him--until his subordinate gets a chance to talk to him."
+
+"H'm," ruminated Welton. "Chinless, eh? I wondered why he wore long
+white whiskers."
+
+As he walked up the street toward the hotel, where he would spend the
+night before undertaking the long drive back, somebody hailed him. He
+looked around to see a pair of beautiful driving horses, shying
+playfully against each other, coming to a stop at the curb. Their
+harness was the lightest that could be devised--no blinders, no
+breeching, slender, well-oiled straps; the rig they drew shone and
+twinkled with bright varnish, and seemed as delicate and light as
+thistledown. On the narrow seat sat a young man of thirty, covered with
+an old-fashioned linen duster, wearing the wide, gray felt hat of the
+country. He was a keen-faced, brown young man, with snapping black eyes.
+
+"Hullo, Welton," said he as he brought the team to a stand; "when did
+you get out of the hills?"
+
+"How are you, Mr. Harding?" Welton returned his greeting. "Just down for
+the day?"
+
+"How are things going up your way?"
+
+"First rate," replied Welton. "We're going ahead three bells and a
+jingle. Started to saw last week."
+
+"That's good," said Harding. "I haven't heard of one of your teams on
+the road, and I began to wonder. We've got to begin deliveries on our
+Los Angeles and San Pedro contracts by the first of August, and we're
+depending on you."
+
+"We'll be there," replied Welton with a laugh.
+
+The young man laughed back.
+
+"You'd better be, if you don't want us to come up and take your scalp,"
+said he, gathering his reins.
+
+"Guess I lay in some hair tonic so's to have a good one ready for you,"
+returned Welton, as Harding nodded his farewell.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Matters stood thus dependent on the efforts of Jack Orde, at Washington,
+when, one evening, Baker rode in to camp and dismounted before the low
+verandah of the sleeping quarters. Welton and Bob sat, chair-tilted,
+awaiting the supper gong.
+
+"Thrice hail, noble chiefs!" cried Baker, cautiously stretching out
+first one sturdy leg, then the other. "Against which post can I lean my
+trusty charger?"
+
+Baker was garbed to suit the rôle. His boots were very thick and very
+tall, and most bristly with hobnails; they laced with belt laces through
+forty-four calibre eyelets, and were strapped about the top with a broad
+piece of leather and two glittering buckles. Furthermore, his trousers
+were of khaki, his shirt of navy blue, his belt three inches broad, his
+neckerchief of red, and his hat both wide and high.
+
+In response to enthusiastic greetings, he struck a pose.
+
+"How do you like it?" he inquired. "Isn't this the candy make-up for the
+simple life--surveyor, hardy prospector, mountain climber, sturdy
+pedestrian? Ain't I the real young cover design for the Out-of-door
+number?"
+
+He accepted their congratulations with a lofty wave.
+
+"That's all right," said he; "but somebody take away this horse before I
+bite him. I'm sore on that horse. Joke! Snicker!"
+
+Bob delivered over the animal to the stableman who was approaching.
+
+"Come up to see the tall buildings?" he quoted Baker himself.
+
+"Not so," denied that young man. "My errand is philanthropic. I'm robin
+redbreast. Leaves for yours."
+
+"Pass that again," urged Bob; "I didn't get it."
+
+"I hear you people have locked horns with Henry Plant," said Baker.
+
+"Well, Plant's a little on the peck," amended Welton.
+
+"Leaves for yours," repeated the self-constituted robin redbreast.
+"Babes in the Woods!"
+
+Beyond this he would vouchsafe nothing until after supper when, cigars
+lighted, the three of them sprawled before the fireplace in quarters.
+
+"Now," he began, "you fellows are up against it good and plenty. You
+can't wish your lumber out, and that's the only feasible method unless
+you get a permit. Why in blazes did you make this break, anyway?"
+
+"What break?" asked Welton.
+
+Baker looked at him and smiled slowly.
+
+"You don't think I own a telephone line without knowing what little
+birdies light on the wires, do you?"
+
+"Does that damn operator leak?" inquired Welton placidly but with a
+narrowing of the eyes.
+
+"Not on your saccharine existence. If he did, he'd be out among the
+scenery in two jumps. But I'm different. That's my _business_."
+
+"Mighty poor business," put in Bob quietly.
+
+Baker turned full toward him.
+
+"Think so? You'll never get any cigars in the guessing contest unless
+you can scare up better ones than that. Let's get back to cases. How did
+you happen to make this break, anyway?"
+
+"Why," explained Welton, "it was simply a case of build a road and a
+flume down a worthless mountain-side. Back with us a man builds his road
+where he needs it, and pays for the unavoidable damage. My head was full
+of all sorts of details. I went and asked Plant about it, and he said
+all right, go ahead. I supposed that settled it, and that he must
+certainly have authority on his own job."
+
+Baker nodded several times.
+
+"Sure. I see the point. Just the same, he has you."
+
+"For the time being," amended Welton. "Bob's father, here, is
+congressman from our district in Michigan, and he'll fix the matter."
+
+Baker turned his face to the ceiling, blew a cloud of smoke toward it,
+and whistled. Then he looked down at Welton.
+
+"I suppose you know the real difficulty?" he asked.
+
+"One thousand dollars," replied Welton promptly--"to hire extra
+fire-fighters to protect my timber," he added ironically.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well!" the lumberman slapped his knee. "I won't be held up in any such
+barefaced fashion!"
+
+"And your congressman will pull you out. Now let me drop a few pearls of
+wisdom in the form of conundrums. Why does a fat man who can't ride a
+horse hold a job as Forest Supervisor in a mountain country?"
+
+"He's got a pull somewhere," replied Welton.
+
+"Bright boy! Go to the head. Why does a fat man who is hated by every
+mountain man, who grafts barefacedly, whose men are either loafers or
+discouraged, _hold_ his job?"
+
+"Same answer."
+
+Baker leaned forward, and his mocking face became grave.
+
+"That pull comes from the fact that old Gay is his first cousin, and
+that he seems to have some special drag with him."
+
+"The Republican chairman!" cried Welton.
+
+Baker leaned back.
+
+"About how much chance do you think Mr. Orde has of getting a hearing?
+Especially as all they have to do is to stand pat on the record. You'd
+better buy your extra fire-fighters."
+
+"That would be plain bribery," put in Bob from the bed.
+
+"Fie, fie! Naughty!" chided Baker. "Bribery! to protect one's timber
+against the ravages of the devouring element! Now look here," he resumed
+his sober tone and more considered speech; "what else can you do?"
+
+"Fight it," said Bob.
+
+"Fight what? Prefer charges against Plant? That's been done a dozen
+times. Such things never get beyond the clerks. There's a man in
+Washington now who has direct evidence of some of the worst frauds and
+biggest land steals ever perpetrated in the West. He's been there now
+four months, and he hasn't even _succeeded in getting a hearing_ yet. I
+tried bucking Plant, and it cost me first and last, in time, delay and
+money, nearly fifty thousand dollars. I'm offering you that expensive
+experience free, gratis, for nothing."
+
+"Make a plain statement of the facts public," said Bob. "Publish them.
+Arouse public sentiment."
+
+Baker looked cynical.
+
+"Such attacks are ascribed to soreheads," said he, "and public sentiment
+_isn't interested_. The average citizen wonders what all the fuss is
+about and why you don't get along with the officials, anyway, as long as
+they are fairly reasonable." He turned to Welton: "How much more of a
+delay can you stand without closing down?"
+
+"A month."
+
+"How soon must your deliveries begin?"
+
+"July first."
+
+"If you default this contract you can't meet your notes."
+
+"What notes?"
+
+"Don't do the baby blue-eyes. You can't start a show like this without
+borrowing. Furthermore, if you default this contract, you'll never get
+another, even if you do weather the storm."
+
+"That's true," said Welton.
+
+"Furthermore," insisted Baker, "Marshall and Harding will be
+considerably embarrassed to fill their contracts down below; and the
+building operations will go bump for lack of material, if they fail to
+make good. You can't stand or fall alone in this kind of a game."
+
+Welton said nothing, but puffed strongly on his cigar.
+
+"You're still doing the Sister Anne toward Washington," said Baker,
+pleasantly. "This came over the 'phone. I wired Mr. Orde in your name,
+asking what prospects there were for a speedy settlement. There's what
+he says!" He flipped a piece of scratch paper over to Welton.
+
+"Deadlock," read the latter slowly. "No immediate prospect. Will hasten
+matters through regular channels. Signed, Orde."
+
+"Mr. Orde is familiar with the whole situation?" asked Baker.
+
+"He is."
+
+"Well, there's what he thinks about it even there. You'd better see to
+that fire protection. It's going to be a dry year."
+
+"What's all your interest in this, anyway?" asked Bob.
+
+Baker did not answer, but looked inquiringly toward Welton.
+
+"Our interests are obviously his," said Welton. "We're the only two
+business propositions in this country. And if one of those two fail,
+how's the other to scratch along?"
+
+"Correct, as far as you go," said Baker, who had listened attentively.
+"Now, I'm no tight wad, and I'll give you another, gratis. It's strictly
+under your hats, though. If you fellows bust, how do you think I could
+raise money to do business up here at all? It would hoodoo the country."
+
+Silence fell on the three, while the fire leaped and fell and crackled.
+Welton's face showed still a trace of stubbornness. Suddenly Baker
+leaned forward, all his customary fresh spirits shining in his face.
+
+"Don't like to take his na'ty medicine?" said he. "Well, now, I'll tell
+you. I know Plant mighty well. He eats out of my hand. He just loves me
+as a father. If I should go to him and say; 'Plant, my agile sylph,
+these people are my friends. Give them their nice little permit and let
+them run away and play,' why, he'd do it in a minute." Baker rolled his
+eyes drolly at Welton. "Can this be the shadow of doubt! You disbelieve
+my power?" He leaned forward and tapped Welton's knee. His voice became
+grave: "I'll tell you what I'll do. _I'll bet you a thousand dollars I
+can get your permit for you!"_
+
+The two men looked steadily into each other's eyes.
+
+At last Welton drew a deep sigh.
+
+"I'll go you," said he.
+
+Baker laughed gleefully.
+
+"It's a cinch," said he. "Now, honest, don't you think so? Do you give
+up? Will you give me a check now?"
+
+"I'll give you a check, and you can hunt up a good stakeholder," said
+Welton. "Shall I make it out to Plant?" he inquired sarcastically.
+
+"Make the check out to me," said Baker. "I'll just let Plant hold the
+stakes and decide the bet."
+
+He rose.
+
+"Bring out the fiery, untamed steed!" he cried. "I must away!"
+
+"Not to-night?" cried Bob in astonishment.
+
+"Plant's in his upper camp," said Baker, "and it's only five miles by
+trail. There's still a moon."
+
+"But why this haste?"
+
+"Well," said Baker, spreading his sturdy legs apart and surveying first
+one and then the other. "To tell you the truth, our old friend Plant is
+getting hostile about these prods from Washington, and he intimated he'd
+better hear from me before midnight to-day."
+
+"You've already seen him!" cried Bob.
+
+But Baker merely grinned.
+
+As he stood by his horse preparing to mount, he remarked casually.
+
+"Just picked up a new man for my land business--name Oldham."
+
+"Never heard of him," said Welton.
+
+"He isn't the _Lucky Lands_ Oldham, is he?" asked Bob.
+
+"Same chicken," replied Baker; then, as Bob laughed, "Think he's phoney?
+Maybe he'll take watching--and maybe he won't. I'm a good little
+watcher. But I do know he's got 'em all running up the street with their
+hats in their hands when it comes to getting results."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Baker must have won his bet, for Welton never again saw his check for
+one thousand dollars, until it was returned to him cancelled. Nor did
+Baker himself return. He sent instead a note advising some one to go
+over to Plant's headquarters. Accordingly Bob saddled his horse, and
+followed the messenger back to the Supervisor's summer quarters.
+
+After an hour and a half of pleasant riding through the great forest,
+the trail dropped into a wagon road which soon led them to a fine, open
+meadow.
+
+"Where does the road go to in the other direction?" Bob asked his guide.
+
+"She 'jines onto your road up the mountain just by the top of the rise,"
+replied the ranger.
+
+"How did you get up here before we built that road?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Rode," answered the man briefly.
+
+"Pretty tough on Mr. Plant," Bob ventured.
+
+The man made no reply, but spat carefully into the tarweed. Bob
+chuckled to himself as the obvious humour of the situation came to him.
+Plant was evidently finding the disputed right of way a great
+convenience.
+
+The meadow stretched broad and fair to a distant fringe of aspens. On
+either side lay the open forest of spruce and pines, spacious, without
+undergrowth. Among the trees gleamed several new buildings and one or
+two old and weather-beaten structures. The sounds of busy saws and
+hammers rang down the forest aisles.
+
+Bob found the Supervisor sprawled comfortably in a rude, homemade chair
+watching the activities about him. To his surprise, he found there also
+Oldham, the real-estate promoter from Los Angeles. Two men were nailing
+shakes on a new shed. Two more were busily engaged in hewing and sawing,
+from a cross-section of a huge sugar pine, a set of three steps. Plant
+seemed to be greatly interested in this, as were still two other men
+squatting on their heels close by. All wore the badges of the Forest
+Reserves. Near at hand stood two more men holding their horses by the
+bridle. As Bob ceased his interchange with Oldham, he overhead one of
+these inquire:
+
+"All right. Now what do you want us to do?"
+
+"Get your names on the pay-roll and don't bother me," replied Plant.
+
+Plant caught sight of Bob, and, to that young man's surprise, waved him
+a jovial hand.
+
+"'Bout time you called on the old man!" he roared. "Tie your horse to
+the ground and come look at these steps. I bet there ain't another pair
+like 'em in the mountains!"
+
+Somewhat amused at this cordiality, Bob dismounted.
+
+Plant mentioned names by way of introduction.
+
+"Baker told me that you were with him, but not that you were on the
+mountain," said Bob. "Better come over and see us."
+
+"I'll try, but I'm rushed to get back," replied Oldham formally.
+
+"How's the work coming on?" asked Plant. "When you going to start
+fluming 'em down?"
+
+"As soon as we can get our permit," replied Bob.
+
+Plant chuckled.
+
+"Well, you did get in a hole there, didn't you? I guess you better go
+ahead. It'll take all summer to get the permit, and you don't want to
+lose a season, do you?"
+
+Astonished at the effrontery of the man, Bob could with difficulty
+control his expression.
+
+"We expect to start to-morrow or next day," he replied. "Just as soon
+as we can get our teams organized. Just scribble me a temporary permit,
+will you?" He offered a fountain pen and a blank leaf of his notebook.
+
+Plant hesitated, but finally wrote a few words.
+
+"You won't need it," he assured Bob. "I'll pass the word. But there you
+are."
+
+"Thanks," said Bob, folding away the paper. "You seem to be comfortably
+fixed here."
+
+Plant heaved his mighty body to its legs. His fat face beamed with
+pride.
+
+"My boy," he confided to Bob, laying a pudgy hand on the young man's
+shoulder, "this is the best camp in the mountains--without any
+exception."
+
+He insisted on showing Bob around. Of course, the young fellow,
+unaccustomed as yet to the difficulties of mountain transportation,
+could not quite appreciate to the full extent the value in forethought
+and labour of such things as glass windows, hanging lamps, enamelled
+table service, open fireplaces, and all the thousand and one
+conveniences--either improvised or transported mule-back--that Plant
+displayed. Nevertheless he found the place most comfortable and
+attractive.
+
+They caught a glimpse of skirts disappearing, but in spite of Plant's
+roar of "Minnie!" the woman failed to appear.
+
+"My niece," he explained.
+
+In spite of himself, Bob found that he was beginning to like the fat
+man. There could be no doubt that the Supervisor was a great rascal;
+neither could there be any doubt but that his personality was most
+attractive. He had a bull-like way of roaring out his jokes, his orders,
+or his expostulations; a smashing, dry humour; and, above all, an
+invariably confident and optimistic belief that everything was going
+well and according to everyone's desires. His manner, too, was hearty,
+his handclasp warm. He fairly radiated good-fellowship and good humour
+as he rolled about. Bob's animosity thawed in spite of his half-amused
+realization of what he ought to feel.
+
+When the tour of inspection had brought them again to the grove where
+the men were at work, they found two new arrivals.
+
+These were evidently brothers, as their square-cut features proclaimed.
+They squatted side by side on their heels. Two good horses with the
+heavy saddles and coiled ropes of the stockmen looked patiently over
+their shoulders. A mule, carrying a light pack, wandered at will in the
+background. The men wore straight-brimmed, wide felt hats, short
+jumpers, and overalls of blue denim, and cowboy boots armed with the
+long, blunt spurs of the craft. Their faces were stubby with a week's
+growth, but their blue eyes were wide apart and clear.
+
+"Hullo, Pollock," greeted Plant, as he dropped, blowing, into his chair.
+
+The men nodded briefly, never taking their steady gaze from Plant's
+face. After a due and deliberate pause, the elder spoke.
+
+"They's a thousand head of Wright's cattle been drove in on our ranges
+this year," said he.
+
+"I issued Wright permits for that number, Jim," replied Plant blandly.
+
+"But that's plumb crowdin' of our cattle off'n the range," protested the
+mountaineer.
+
+"No, it ain't," denied Plant. "That range will keep a thousand cattle
+more. I've had complete reports on it. I know what I'm doing."
+
+"It'll _keep_ them, all right," spoke up the younger, "which is saying
+they won't die. But they'll come out in the fall awful pore."
+
+"I'm using my judgment as to that," said Plant.
+
+"Yore judgment is pore," said the younger Pollock, bluntly. "You got to
+be a cattleman to know about them things."
+
+"Well, I know Simeon Wright don't put in cattle where he's going to
+lose on them," replied Plant. "If he's willing to risk it, I'll back his
+judgment."
+
+"Wright's a crowder," the older Pollock took up the argument quietly.
+"He owns fifty thousand head. Me and George, here, we have five hunderd.
+He just aims to summer his cattle, anyhow. When they come out in the
+fall, he will fat them up on alfalfa hay. Where is George and me and the
+Mortons and the Carrolls, and all the rest of the mountain folks going
+to get alfalfa hay? If our cattle come out pore in the fall, they ain't
+no good to us. The range is overstocked with a thousand more cattle on
+it. We're pore men, and Wright he owns half of Californy. He's got a
+million acres of his own without crowdin' in on us."
+
+"This is the public domain, for all the public----" began Plant,
+pompously, but George Pollock, the younger, cut in.
+
+"We've run this range afore you had any Forest Reserves, afore you came
+into this country, Henry Plant, and our fathers and our grandfathers!
+We've built up our business here, and we've built our ranches and we've
+made our reg'lations and lived up to 'em! We ain't going to be run off
+our range without knowin' why!"
+
+"Just because you've always hogged the public land is no reason why you
+should always continue to do so," said Plant cheerfully.
+
+"Who's the public? Simeon Wright? or the folks up and down the
+mountains, who lives in the country?"
+
+"You've got the same show as Wright or anybody else."
+
+"No, we ain't," interposed Jim Pollock, "for we're playin' a different
+game."
+
+"Well, what is it you want me to do, anyway?" demanded Plant. "The man
+has his permit. You can't expect me to tell him to get to hell out of
+there when he has a duly authorized permit, do you?"
+
+The Pollocks looked at each other.
+
+"No," hesitated Jim, at last. "But we're overstocked. Don't issue no
+such blanket permits next year. The range won't carry no more cattle
+than it always has."
+
+"Well, I'll have it investigated," promised Plant. "I'll send out a
+grazing man to look into the matter."
+
+He nodded a dismissal, and the two men, rising slowly to their feet,
+prepared to mount. They looked perplexed and dissatisfied, but at a
+loss. Plant watched them sardonically. Finally they swung into the
+saddle with the cowman's easy grace.
+
+"Well, good day," said Jim Pollock, after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Good day," returned Plant amusedly.
+
+They rode away down the forest aisles. The pack mule fell in behind
+them, ringing his tiny, sweet-toned bell, his long ears swinging at
+every step.
+
+Plant watched them out of sight.
+
+"Most unreasonable people in the world," he remarked to Bob and Oldham.
+"They never can be made to see sense. Between them and these confounded
+sheepmen--I'd like to get rid of the whole bunch, and deal only with
+_business_ men. Takes too much palaver to run this outfit. If they gave
+me fifty rangers, I couldn't more'n make a start." He was plainly out of
+humour.
+
+"How many rangers do you get?" asked Bob.
+
+"Twelve," snapped Plant.
+
+Bob saw eight of the twelve in sight, either idle or working on such
+matters as the steps hewed from the section of pine log. He said
+nothing, but smiled to himself.
+
+Shortly after he took his leave. Plant, his good humour entirely
+recovered, bellowed after him a dozen jokes and invitations.
+
+Down the road a quarter-mile, just before the trail turned off to the
+mill, Bob and his guide, who was riding down the mountain, passed a man
+on horseback. He rode a carved-leather saddle, without
+tapaderos.[Footnote: Stirrup hoods] A rawhide riata hung in its loop on
+the right-hand side of the horn. He wore a very stiff-brimmed hat
+encircled by a leather strap and buckle, a cotton shirt, and belted
+trousers tucked into high-heeled boots embroidered with varied patterns.
+He was a square-built but very wiry man, with a bold, aggressive,
+half-hostile glance, and rode very straight and easy after the manner of
+the plains cowboy. A pair of straight-shanked spurs jingled at his
+heels, and he wore a revolver.
+
+"Shelby," explained the guide, after this man had passed. "Simeon
+Wright's foreman with these cattle you been hearing about. He ain't
+never far off when there's something doing. Guess he's come to see about
+how's his fences."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Bob rode jubilantly into camp. The expedition had taken him all the
+afternoon, and it was dropping dusk when he had reached the mill.
+
+"We can get busy," he cried, waving the permit at Welton. "Here it is!"
+
+Welton smiled. "I knew that, my boy," he replied, "and we're already
+busy to the extent of being ready to turn her loose to-morrow morning.
+I've sent down a yard crew to the lower end of the flume; and I've
+started Max to rustling out the teams by 'phone."
+
+Next day the water was turned into the flume. Fifty men stood by.
+Rapidly the skilled workmen applied the clamps and binders that made of
+the boards a compact bundle to be given to the rushing current. Then
+they thrust it forward to the drag of the water. It gathered headway,
+rubbing gently against the flume, first on one side, then on the other.
+Its weight began to tell; it gathered momentum; it pushed ahead of its
+blunt nose a foaming white wave; it shot out of sight grandly, careening
+from side to side. The men cheered.
+
+"Well, we're off!" said Bob cheerfully.
+
+"Yes, we're off, thank God!" replied Welton.
+
+From that moment the affairs of the new enterprise went as well as could
+be expected. Of course, there were many rough edges to be smoothed off,
+but as the season progressed the community shaped itself. It was indeed
+a community, of many and diverse activities, much more complicated, Bob
+soon discovered, than any of the old Michigan logging camps. A great
+many of the men brought their families. These occupied separate
+shanties, of course. The presence of the women and children took away
+much of that feeling of impermanence associated with most pioneer
+activities. As without exception these women kept house, the company
+"van" speedily expanded to a company store. Where the "van" kept merely
+rough clothing, tobacco and patent medicines, the store soon answered
+demands for all sorts of household luxuries and necessities. Provisions,
+of course, were always in request. These one of the company's
+bookkeepers doled out.
+
+"Mr. Poole," the purchaser would often say to this man, "next time a
+wagon comes up from Sycamore Flats would you just as soon have them
+bring me up a few things? I want a washboard, and some shoes for Jimmy,
+and a double boiler; and there ought to be an express package for me
+from my sister."
+
+"Sure! I'll see to it," said Poole.
+
+This meant a great deal of trouble, first and last, what with the
+charges and all. Finally, Welton tired of it.
+
+"We've got to keep a store," he told Bob finally.
+
+With characteristic despatch he put the carpenters to work, and sent for
+lists of all that had been ordered from Sycamore Flats. A study of
+these, followed by a trip to White Oaks, resulted in the equipment of a
+store under charge of a man experienced in that sort of thing. As time
+went on, and the needs of such a community made themselves more evident,
+the store grew in importance. Its shelves accumulated dress goods, dry
+goods, clothing, hardware; its rafters dangled with tinware and kettles,
+with rope, harness, webbing; its bins overflowed with various
+food-stuffs unknown to the purveyor of a lumber camp's commissary, but
+in demand by the housewife; its one glass case shone temptingly with
+fancy stationery, dollar watches, and even cheap jewelry. There was
+candy for the children, gum for the bashful maiden, soda pop for the
+frivolous young. In short, there sprang to being in an astonishingly
+brief space of time a very creditable specimen of the country store. It
+was a business in itself, requiring all the services of a competent man
+for the buying, the selling, and the transportation. At the end of the
+year it showed a fair return on the investment.
+
+"Though we'd have to have it even at a dead loss," Welton pointed out,
+"to hold our community together. All we need is a few tufts of chin
+whiskers and some politics to be full-fledged gosh-darn mossbacks."
+
+The storekeeper, a very deliberate person, Merker by name, was much
+given to contemplation and pondering. He possessed a German pipe of
+porcelain, which he smoked when not actively pestered by customers. At
+such times he leaned his elbows on the counter, curved one hand about
+the porcelain bowl of his pipe, lost the other in the depths of his
+great seal-brown beard, and fell into staring reveries. When a customer
+entered he came back--with due deliberation--from about one thousand
+miles. He refused to accept more than one statement at a time, to
+consider more than one person at a time, or to do more than one thing at
+a time.
+
+"Gim'me five pounds of beans, two of sugar, and half a pound of tea!"
+demanded Mrs. Max.
+
+Merker deliberately laid aside his pipe, deliberately moved down the
+aisle behind his counter, deliberately filled his scoop, deliberately
+manipulated the scales. After the package was duly and neatly encased,
+labelled and deposited accurately in front of Mrs. Max, Merker looked
+her in the eye.
+
+"Five pounds of beans," said he, and paused for the next item.
+
+The moment the woman had departed, Merker resumed his pipe and his
+wide-eyed vacancy.
+
+Welton was immensely amused and tickled.
+
+"Seems to me he might keep a little busier," grumbled Bob.
+
+"I thought so, too, at first," replied the older man, "but his store is
+always neat, and he keeps up his stock. Furthermore, he never makes a
+mistake--there's no chance for it on his one-thing-at-a-time system."
+
+But it soon became evident that Merker's reveries did not mean vacancy
+of mind. At such times the Placid One figured on his stock. When he put
+in a list of goods required, there was little guess-work as to the
+quantities needed. Furthermore, he had other schemes. One evening he
+presented himself to Welton with a proposition. His waving brown hair
+was slicked back from his square, placid brow, his wide, cowlike eyes
+shone with the glow of the common or domestic fire, his brown beard was
+neat, and his holiday clothes were clean. At Welton's invitation he sat,
+but bolt upright at the edge of a chair.
+
+"After due investigation and deliberation," he stated, "I have come to
+the independent conclusion that we are overlooking a means of revenue."
+
+"As what?" asked Welton, amused by the man's deadly seriousness.
+
+"Hogs," stated Merker.
+
+He went on deliberately to explain the waste in camp garbage, the price
+of young pigs, the cost of their transportation, the average selling
+price of pork, the rate of weight increase per month, and the number
+possible to maintain. He further showed that, turned at large, they
+would require no care. Amused still at the man's earnestness, Welton
+tried to trip him up with questions. Merker had foreseen every
+contingency.
+
+"I'll turn it over to you. Draw the necessary money from the store
+account," Welton told him finally.
+
+Merker bowed solemnly and went out. In two weeks pigs appeared. They
+became a feature of the landscape, and those who experimented with
+gardens indulged in profanity, clubs and hog-proof fences. Returning
+home after dark, the wayfarer was apt to be startled to the edge of
+flight by the grunting upheaval of what had seemed a black shadow under
+the moon. Bob in especial acquired concentrated practice in horsemanship
+for the simple reason that his animal refused to dismiss his first
+hypothesis of bears.
+
+Nevertheless, at the end of the season Merker gravely presented a duly
+made out balance to the credit of hogs.
+
+Encouraged by the success of this venture, he next attempted chickens.
+But even his vacant-eyed figuring had neglected to take into
+consideration the abundance of such predatory beasts and birds as
+wildcats, coyotes, raccoons, owls and the swift hawks of the falcon
+family.
+
+"I had thought," he reported to the secretly amused Welton, "that even
+in feeding the finer sorts of garbage to hogs there might be an economic
+waste; hogs fatten well enough on the coarser grades, and chickens will
+eat the finer. In that I fell into error. The percentage of loss from
+noxious varmints more than equals the difference in the cost of eggs. I
+further find that the margin of profits on chickens is not large enough
+to warrant expenditures for traps, dogs and men sufficient for
+protection."
+
+"And how does the enterprise stand now?" asked Welton.
+
+"We are behind."
+
+"H'm. And what would you advise by way of retrenchment?"
+
+"I should advise closing out the business by killing the fowl," was
+Merker's opinion. "Crediting the account with the value of the chickens
+as food would bring us out with a loss of approximately ten dollars."
+
+"Fried chicken is hardly applicable as lumber camp provender," pointed
+out Welton. "So it's scarcely a legitimate asset."
+
+"I had considered that point," replied Merker, "and in my calculations I
+had valued the chickens at the price of beef."
+
+Welton gave it up.
+
+Another enterprise for which Merker was responsible was the utilization
+of the slabs and edgings in the construction of fruit trays and boxes.
+When he approached Welton on the subject, the lumberman was little
+inclined to be receptive to the idea.
+
+"That's all very well, Merker," said he, impatiently; "I don't doubt
+it's just as you say, and there's a lot of good tray and box material
+going to waste. So, too, I don't doubt there's lots of material for
+toothpicks and matches and wooden soldiers and shingles and all sorts of
+things in our slashings. The only trouble is that I'm trying to run a
+big lumber company. I haven't time for all that sort of little monkey
+business. There's too much detail involved in it."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Merker, and withdrew.
+
+About two weeks later, however, he reappeared, towing after him an
+elderly, bearded farmer and a bashful-looking, hulking youth.
+
+"This is Mr. Lee," said Merker, "and he wants to make arrangements with
+you to set up a little cleat and box-stuff mill, and use from your
+dump."
+
+Mr. Lee, it turned out, had been sent up by an informal association of
+the fruit growers of the valley. Said informal association had been
+formed by Merker through the mails. The store-keeper had submitted such
+convincing figures that Lee had been dispatched to see about it. It
+looked cheaper in the long run to send up a spare harvesting engine, to
+buy a saw, and to cut up box and tray stuff than to purchase these
+necessities from the regular dealers. Would Mr. Welton negotiate? Mr.
+Welton did. Before long the millmen were regaled by the sight of a
+snorting little upright engine connected by a flapping, sagging belt to
+a small circular saw. Two men and two boys worked like beavers. The
+racket and confusion, shouts, profanity and general awkwardness were
+something tremendous. Nevertheless, the pile of stock grew, and every
+once in a while six-horse farm wagons from the valley would climb the
+mountain to take away box material enough to pack the fruit of a whole
+district. To Merker this was evidently a profound satisfaction. Often he
+would vary his usual between-customer reverie by walking out on his
+shaded verandah, where he would lean against an upright, nursing the
+bowl of his pipe, gazing across the sawdust to the diminutive and
+rackety box-plant in the distance.
+
+Welton, passing one day, laughed at him.
+
+"How about your economic waste, Merker?" he called. "Two good men could
+turn out three times the stuff all that gang does in about half the
+time."
+
+"There are no two good men for that job," replied Merker unmoved. His
+large, cowlike eyes roved across the yards. "Men grow in a generation;
+trees grow in ten," he resumed with unexpected directness. "I have
+calculated that of a great tree but 40 per cent. is used. All the rest
+is economic waste--slabs, edging, tops, stumps, sawdust." He sighed. "I
+couldn't get anybody to consider your toothpick and matches idea, nor
+the wooden soldiers, nor even the shingles," he ended.
+
+Welton stared.
+
+"You didn't quote me in the matter, did you?" he asked at length.
+
+"I did not take the matter as official. Would I have done better to have
+done so?"
+
+"Lord, no!" cried Welton fervently.
+
+"The sawdust ought to make something," continued Merker. "But I am
+unable to discover a practical use for it." He indicated the great
+yellow mound that each day increased.
+
+"Yes, I got to get a burner for it," said Welton, "it'll soon swamp us."
+
+"There might be power in it," mused Merker. "A big furnace, now----"
+
+"For heaven's sake, man, what for?" demanded Welton.
+
+"I don't know yet," answered the store-keeper.
+
+Merker amused and interested Welton, and in addition proved to be a
+valuable man for just his position. It tickled the burly lumberman, too,
+to stop for a moment in his rounds for the purpose of discussing with
+mock gravity any one of Marker's thousand ideas on economic waste,
+Welton discovered a huge entertainment in this. One day, however, he
+found Merker in earnest discussion with a mountain man, whom the
+store-keeper introduced as Ross Fletcher. Welton did not pay very much
+attention to this man and was about to pass on when his eye caught the
+gleam of a Forest Ranger's badge. Then he stopped short.
+
+"Merker!" he called sharply.
+
+The store-keeper looked up.
+
+"See here a minute. Now," said Welton, as he drew the other aside, "I
+want one thing distinctly understood. This Government gang don't go
+here. This is my property, and I won't have them loafing around. That's
+all there is to it. Now understand me; I mean business. If those fellows
+come in here, they must buy what they want and get out. They're a lazy,
+loafing, grafting crew, and I won't have them."
+
+Welton spoke earnestly and in a low tone, and his face was red. Bob,
+passing, drew rein in astonishment. Never, in his long experience with
+Welton, had he seen the older man plainly out of temper. Welton's usual
+habit in aggravating and contrary circumstances was to show a surface,
+at least, of the most leisurely good nature. So unprecedented was the
+present condition that Bob, after hesitating a moment, dismounted and
+approached.
+
+Merker was staring at his chief with wide and astonished eyes, and
+plucking nervously at his brown beard.
+
+"Why, that is Ross Fletcher," he gasped. "We were just talking about the
+economic waste in the forests. He is a good man. He isn't lazy. He--"
+
+"Economic waste hell!" exploded Welton. "I won't have that crew around
+here, and I won't have my employees confabbing with them. I don't care
+what you tell them, or how you fix it, but you keep them out of here.
+Understand? I hate the sight of one of those fellows worse than a
+poison-snake!"
+
+Merker glanced from Welton to the ranger and back again perplexed.
+
+"But--but--" he stammered. "I've known Ross Fletcher a long time. What
+can I say--"
+
+Welton cut in on him with contempt.
+
+"Well, you'd better say something, unless you want me to throw him off
+the place. This is no corner saloon for loafers."
+
+"I'll fix it," offered Bob, and without waiting for a reply, he walked
+over to where the mountaineer was leaning against the counter.
+
+"You're a Forest Ranger, I see," said Bob.
+
+"Yes," replied the man, straightening from his lounging position.
+
+"Well, from our bitter experiences as to the activities of a Forest
+Ranger we conclude that you must be very busy people--too busy to waste
+time on us."
+
+The man's face changed, but he evidently had not quite arrived at the
+drift of this.
+
+"I think you know what I mean," said Bob.
+
+A slow flush overspread the ranger's face. He looked the young man up
+and down deliberately. Bob moved the fraction of an inch nearer.
+
+"Meaning I'm not welcome here?" he demanded.
+
+"This place is for the transaction of business only. Can I have Merker
+get you anything?"
+
+Fletcher shot a glance half of bewilderment, half of anger, in the
+direction of the store-keeper. Then he nodded, not without a certain
+dignity, at Bob.
+
+"Thanks, no," he said, and walked out, his spurs jingling.
+
+"I guess he won't bother us again," said Bob, returning to Welton.
+
+The latter laughed, a trifle ashamed of his anger.
+
+"Those fellows give me the creeps," he said, "like cats do some people.
+Mossbacks don't know no better, but a Government grafter is a little
+more useless than a nigger on a sawlog."
+
+He went out. Bob turned to Merker.
+
+"Sorry for the row," he said briefly, for he liked the gentle, slow
+man. "But they're a bad lot. We've got to keep that crew at arm's length
+for our own protection."
+
+"Ross Fletcher is not that kind," protested Merker. "I've known him for
+years."
+
+"Well, he's got a nerve to come in here. I've seen him and his kind
+holding down too good a job next old Austin's bar."
+
+"Not Ross," protested Merker again. "He's a worker. He's just back now
+from the high mountains. Mr. Orde, if you've got a minute, sit down. I
+want to tell you about Ross."
+
+Willing to do what he could to soften Merker's natural feeling, Bob
+swung himself to the counter, and lit his pipe.
+
+"Ross Fletcher is a ranger because he loves it and believes in it," said
+Merker earnestly. "He knows things are going rotten now, but he hopes
+that by and by they'll go better. His district is in good shape. Why,
+let me tell you: last spring Ross was fighting fire all alone, and he
+went out for help and they docked him a day for being off the reserve!"
+
+"You don't say," commented Bob.
+
+"You don't believe it. Well, it's so. And they sent him in after sheep
+in the high mountains early, when the feed was froze, and wouldn't allow
+him pay for three sacks of barley for his animals. And Ross gets sixty
+dollars a month, and he spends about half of that for trail tools and
+fire tools that they won't give him. What do you think of that?"
+
+"Merker," said Bob kindly, "I think your man is either a damn liar or a
+damn fool. Why does he say he does all this?"
+
+"He likes the mountains. He--well, he just believes in it."
+
+"I see. Are there any more of these altruists? or is he the only bird of
+the species?"
+
+Merker caught the irony of Bob's tone.
+
+"They don't amount to much, in general," he admitted. "But there's a
+few--they keep the torch lit."
+
+"I supposed their job was more in the line of putting it out," observed
+Bob; then, catching Merker's look of slow bewilderment, he added: "So
+there are several."
+
+"Yes. There's good men among 'em. There's Ross, and Charley Morton, and
+Tom Carroll, and, of course, old California John."
+
+Bob's amused smile died slowly. Before his mental vision rose the
+picture of the old mountaineer, with his faded, ragged clothes, his
+beautiful outfit, his lean, kindly face, his steady blue eyes, guarding
+an empty trail for the sake of an empty duty. That man was no fool; and
+Bob knew it. The young fellow slid from the counter to the floor.
+
+"I'm glad you believe in your friend, Merker," said he "and I don't
+doubt he's a fine fellow; but we can't have rangers, good, bad, or
+indifferent, hanging around here. I hope you understand that?"
+
+Merker nodded, his wide eyes growing dreamy.
+
+"It's an economic waste," he sighed, "all this cross-purposes. Here's
+you a good man, and Ross a good man, and you cannot work in harmony
+because of little things. The Government and the private owner should
+conduct business together for the best utilization of all raw
+material--"
+
+"Merker," broke in Bob, with a kindly twinkle, "you're a Utopian."
+
+"Mr. Orde," returned Merker with entire respect, "you're a lumberman."
+
+With this interchange of epithets they parted.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The establishment of the store attracted a great many campers.
+California is the campers' state. Immediately after the close of the
+rainy season they set forth. The wayfarer along any of the country roads
+will everywhere meet them, either plodding leisurely through the
+charming landscape, or cheerfully gipsying it by the roadside. Some of
+the outfits are very elaborate, veritable houses on wheels, with doors
+and windows, stove pipes, steps that let down, unfolding devices so
+ingenious that when they are all deployed the happy owners are
+surrounded by complete convenience and luxury. The man drives his ark
+from beneath a canopy; the women and children occupy comfortably the
+living room of the house--whose sides, perchance, fold outward like
+wings when the breeze is cool and the dust not too thick. Carlo frisks
+joyously ahead and astern. Other parties start out quite as cheerfully
+with the delivery wagon, or the buckboard, or even--at a pinch--with the
+top buggy. For all alike the country-side is golden, the sun warm, the
+sky blue, the birds joyous, and the spring young in the land. The
+climate is positively guaranteed. It will not rain; it will shine; the
+stars will watch. Feed for the horses everywhere borders the roads. One
+can idle along the highways and the byways and the noways-at-all,
+utterly carefree, surrounded by wild and beautiful scenery. No wonder
+half the state turns nomadic in the spring.
+
+And then, as summer lays its heats--blessed by the fruit man, the
+irrigator, the farmer alike--over the great interior valleys, the people
+divide into two classes. One class, by far the larger, migrates to the
+Coast. There the trade winds blowing softly from the Pacific temper the
+semi-tropic sun; the Coast Ranges bar back the furnace-like heat of the
+interior; and the result is a summer climate even nearer
+perfection--though not so much advertised--than is that of winter. Here
+the populace stays in the big winter hotels at reduced rates, or rents
+itself cottages, or lives in one or the other of the unique tent cities.
+It is gregarious and noisy, and healthy and hearty, and full of
+phonographs and a desire to live in bathing suits. Another, and smaller
+contingent, turns to the Sierras.
+
+We have here nothing to do with those who attend the resorts such as
+Tahoe or Klamath; nor yet with that much smaller contingent of hardy and
+adventurous spirits who, with pack-mule and saddle, lose themselves in
+the wonderful labyrinth of granite and snow, of cañon and peak, of
+forest and stream that makes up the High Sierras. But rather let us
+confine ourselves to the great middle class, the class that has not the
+wealth nor the desire for resort hotels, nor the skill nor the equipment
+to explore a wilderness. These people hitch up the farm team, or the
+grocer's cart, or the family horse, pile in their bedding and their
+simple cooking utensils, whistle to the dog, and climb up out of the
+scorching inferno to the coolness of the pines.
+
+They have few but definite needs. They must have company, water, and the
+proximity of a store where they can buy things to eat. If there is
+fishing, so much the better. At any rate there is plenty of material for
+bonfires. And since other stores are practically unknown above the
+six-thousand-foot winter limit of habitability, it follows that each
+lumber-mill is a magnet that attracts its own community of these
+visitors to the out of doors.
+
+As early as the beginning of July the first outfit drifted in. Below the
+mill a half-mile there happened to be a small, round lake with meadows
+at the upper and lower ends. By the middle of the month two hundred
+people were camped there. Each constructed his abiding place according
+to his needs and ideas, and promptly erected a sign naming it. The
+names were facetiously intended. The community was out for a good time,
+and it had it. Phonographs, concertinas, and even a tiny transportable
+organ appeared. The men dressed in loose rough clothes; the women wore
+sun-bonnets; the girls inclined to bandana handkerchiefs, rough-rider
+skirts and leggings, cowboy hats caught up at the sides, fringed
+gauntlet gloves. They were a good-natured, kindly lot, and Bob liked
+nothing better than to stroll down to the Lake in the twilight. There he
+found the arrangements differing widely. The smaller ranchmen lived
+roughly, sleeping under the stars, perhaps, cooking over an open fire,
+eating from tinware. The larger ranchmen did things in better style.
+They brought rocking chairs, big tents, chinaware, camp stoves and
+Japanese servants to manipulate them. The women had flags and Chinese
+lanterns with which to decorate, hammocks in which to lounge, books to
+read, tables at which to sit, cots and mattresses on which to sleep. No
+difference in social status was made, however. The young people
+undertook their expeditions together: the older folks swapped yarns in
+the peaceful enjoyment of the forest. Bob found interest in all, for as
+yet the California ranchman has not lost in humdrum occupations the
+initiative that brought him to a new country nor the influences of the
+experience he has gained there. To his surprise several of the parties
+were composed entirely of girls. One, of four members, was made up of
+students from Berkeley, out for their summer vacation. Late in the
+summer these four damsels constructed a pack of their belongings, lashed
+it on a borrowed mule, and departed. They were gone for a week in the
+back country, and returned full of adventures over the detailing of
+which they laughed until they gasped.
+
+To Bob's astonishment none of the men seemed particularly wrought up
+over this escapade.
+
+"They're used to the mountains," he was assured, "and they'll get along
+all right with that old mule."
+
+"Does anybody live over there?" asked Bob.
+
+"No, it's just a wild country, but the trails is good."
+
+"Suppose they get into trouble?"
+
+"What trouble? And 'tain't likely they'd all get into trouble to once."
+
+"I should think they'd be scared."
+
+"Nothin' to be scared of," replied the man comfortably.
+
+Bob thought of the great, uninhabited mountains, the dark forests, the
+immense loneliness and isolation, the thousand subtle and psychic
+influences which the wilderness exerts over the untried soul. There
+might be nothing to be scared of, as the man said. Wild animals are
+harmless, the trails are good. But he could not imagine any of the girls
+with whom he had acquaintance pushing off thus joyous and unafraid into
+a wilderness three days beyond the farthest outpost. He had yet to
+understand the spirit, almost universal among the native-born
+Californians, that has been brought up so intimately with the large
+things of nature that the sublime is no longer the terrible. Perhaps
+this states it a little too pompously. They have learned that the mere
+absence of mankind is 'nothing to be scared of'; they have learned how
+to be independent and to take care of themselves. Consequently, as a
+matter of course, as one would ride in the park, they undertake
+expeditions into the Big Country.
+
+Many of these travellers, especially toward the close of the summer,
+complained bitterly of the scarcity of horse-feed. In the back country
+where the mountains were high and the wilderness unbroken, they depended
+for forage on the grasses of the mountain meadows. This year they
+reported that the cattle had eaten the forage down to the roots. Where
+usually had been abundance and pleasant camping, now were hard, close
+lawns, and cattle overrunning and defiling everything. Under the heavy
+labour of mountain travel the horses fell off rapidly in flesh and
+strength.
+
+"We're the public just as much as them cattlemen," declaimed one
+grizzled veteran waving his pipe. "I come to these mountains first in
+sixty-six, and the sheep was bad enough then, but you always had some
+horse meadows. Now they're just plumb overrunning the country. There's
+thousands and thousands of folks that come in camping, and about a dozen
+of these yere cattlemen. They got no right to hog the public land."
+
+With so much approval did this view meet that a delegation went to
+Plant's summer quarters to talk it over. The delegation returned
+somewhat red about the ears. Plant had politely but robustly told it
+that a supervisor was the best judge of how to run his own forest. This
+led to declamatory denunciation, after the American fashion, but without
+resulting in further activity. Resentment seemed to be about equally
+divided between Plant and the cattlemen as a class.
+
+This resentment as to the latter, however, soon changed to sympathy. In
+September the Pollock boys stopped overnight at the Lake Meadow on their
+way out. Their cattle, in charge of the dogs, they threw for the night
+into a rude corral of logs, built many years before for just that
+purpose. Their horses they fed with barley hay bought from Merker. Their
+camp they spread away from the others, near the spring. It was dark
+before they lit their fire. Visitors sauntering over found George and
+Jim Pollock on either side the haphazard blaze stolidly warming through
+flapjacks, and occasionally settling into a firmer position the huge
+coffee pot. The dust and sweat of driving cattle still lay thick on
+their faces. A boy of eighteen, plainly the son of one of the other two,
+was hanging up the saddles. The whole group appeared low-spirited and
+tired. The men responded to the visitors by a brief nod only. The latter
+there-upon sat down just inside the circle of lamplight and smoked in
+silence. Presently Jim arose stiffly, frying pan in hand.
+
+"It's done," he announced.
+
+They ate in silence, consuming great quantities of half-cooked
+flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee.
+When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes with
+the air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brown
+paper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a time George Pollock
+remarked:
+
+"We ain't washed up."
+
+The statement resulted in no immediate action. After a few moments more,
+however, the boy arose slowly, gathered the dishes clattering into a
+kettle, filled the latter with water, and set it in the fire. Jim and
+his brother, too, bestirred themselves, disappearing in the direction of
+the spring with a bar of mottled soap, an old towel, and a battered pan.
+They returned after a few moments, their faces shining, their hair
+wetted and sleeked down.
+
+"Plumb too lazy to wash up." George addressed the silent visitors by way
+of welcome.
+
+"Drove far?" asked an old ranchman.
+
+"Twin Peaks."
+
+"How's the feed?" came the inevitable cowman's question.
+
+"Pore, pore," replied the mountaineer. "Ain't never seen it so short. My
+cattle's pore."
+
+"Well, you're overstocked; that's what's the matter," spoke up some one
+boldly.
+
+George Pollock turned his face toward this voice.
+
+"Don't you suppose I know it?" he demanded. "There's a thousand head too
+many on my range alone. I've been crowded and pushed all summer, and I
+ain't got a beef steer fit to sell, right now. My cattle are so pore
+I'll have to winter 'em on foothill winter feed. And in the spring
+they'll be porer."
+
+"Well, why don't you all get together and reduce your stock?" persisted
+the questioner. "Then there'll be a show for somebody. I got three packs
+and two saddlers that ain't fatted up from a two weeks' trip in August.
+You got the country skinned; and that ain't no dream."
+
+George Pollock turned so fiercely that his listeners shrank.
+
+"Get together! Reduce our stock!" he snarled, shaken from the customary
+impassivity of the mountaineer, "It ain't us! We got the same number of
+cattle, all we mountain men, that our fathers had afore us! There ain't
+never been no trouble before. Sometimes we crowded a little, but we all
+know our people and we could fix things up, and so long as they let us
+be, we got along all right. It don't _pay_ us to overstock. What for do
+we keep cattle? To sell, don't we? And we can't sell 'em unless they're
+fat. Summer feed's all we got to fat 'em on. Winter feed's no good. You
+know that. We ain't going to crowd our range. You make me tired!"
+
+"What's the trouble then?"
+
+"Outsiders," snapped Pollock. "Folks that live on the plains and just
+push in to summer their cattle anyhow, and then fat 'em for the market
+on alfalfa hay. This ain't their country. Why don't they stick to their
+own?"
+
+"Can't you handle them? Who are they?"
+
+"It ain't they," replied George Pollock sullenly. "It's him. It's the
+richest man in California, with forty ranches and fifty thousand head of
+cattle and a railroad or two and God knows what else. But he'll come up
+here and take a pore man's living away from him for the sake of a few
+hundred dollars saved."
+
+"Old Simeon, hey?" remarked the ranchman thoughtfully.
+
+"Simeon Wright," said Pollock. "The same damn old robber. Forest
+Reserves!" he sneered bitterly. "For the use of the public! Hell! Who's
+the public? me and you and the other fellow? The public is Simeon
+Wright. What do you expect?"
+
+"Didn't Plant say he was going to look into the matter for next year?"
+Bob inquired from the other side the fire.
+
+"Plant! He's bought," returned Pollock contemptuously. "He's never seen
+the country, anyway; and he never will."
+
+He rose and kicked the fire together.
+
+"Good night!" he said shortly, and, retiring to the shadows, rolled
+himself in a blanket and turned his back on the visitors.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The season passed without further incidents of general interest. It was
+a busy season, as mountain seasons always are. Bob had opportunity to go
+nowhere; but in good truth he had no desire to do so. The surroundings
+immediate to the work were rich enough in interest. After the flurry
+caused by the delay in opening communication, affairs fell into their
+grooves. The days passed on wings. Almost before he knew it, the dogwood
+leaves had turned rose, the aspens yellow, and the pines, thinning in
+anticipation of the heavy snows, were dropping their russet needles
+everywhere. A light snow in September reminded the workers of the
+altitude. By the first of November the works were closed down. The
+donkey engines had been roughly housed in; the machinery protected; all
+things prepared against the heavy Sierra snows. Only the three
+caretakers were left to inhabit a warm corner. Throughout the winter
+these men would shovel away threatening weights of snow and see to the
+damage done by storms. In order to keep busy they might make shakes, or
+perhaps set themselves to trapping fur-bearing animals. They would use
+_skis_ to get about.
+
+For a month after coming down from the mountain, Bob stayed at Auntie
+Belle's. There were a number of things to attend to on the lower levels,
+such as anticipating repairs to flumes, roads and equipment,
+systematizing the yard arrangements, and the like. Here Bob came to know
+more of the countryside and its people.
+
+He found this lower, but still mountainous, country threaded by roads;
+rough roads, to be sure, but well enough graded. Along these roads were
+the ranch houses and spacious corrals of the mountain people. Far and
+wide through the wooded and brushy foothills roamed the cattle, seeking
+the forage of the winter range that a summer's absence in the high
+mountains had saved for them. Bob used often to "tie his horse to the
+ground" and enter for a chat with these people. Harbouring some vague
+notions of Southern "crackers," he was at first considerably surprised.
+The houses were in general well built and clean, even though primitive,
+and Bob had often occasion to notice excellent books and magazines.
+There were always plenty of children of all sizes. The young women were
+usually attractive and blooming. They insisted on hospitality; and Bob
+had the greatest difficulty in persuading them that he stood in no
+immediate need of nourishment. The men repaid cultivation. Their ideas
+were often faulty because of insufficient basis of knowledge: but, when
+untinged by prejudice, apt to be logical. Opinions were always positive,
+and always existent. No phenomenon, social or physical, could come into
+their ken without being mulled over and decided upon. In the field of
+their observations were no dead facts. Not much given to reception of
+contrary argument or idea they were always eager for new facts. Bob
+found himself often held in good-humoured tolerance as a youngster when
+he advanced his opinion; but listened to thirstily when he could detail
+actual experience or knowledge. The head of the house held patriarchal
+sway until the grown-up children were actually ready to leave the
+paternal roof for homes of their own. One and all loved the mountains,
+though incoherently, and perhaps without full consciousness of the fact.
+They were extremely tenacious of personal rights.
+
+Bob, being an engaging and open-hearted youth, soon gained favour. Among
+others he came to know the two Pollock families well. Jim Pollock, with
+his large brood, had arrived at a certain philosophical, though
+watchful, acceptance of life; but George, younger, recently married,
+and eagerly ambitious, chafed sorely. The Pollocks had been in the
+country for three generations. They inhabited two places on opposite
+sides of a cañon. These houses possessed the distinction of having the
+only two red-brick chimneys in the hills. They were low, comfortable,
+rambling, vine-clad.
+
+"We always run cattle in these hills," said George fiercely to Bob, "and
+got along all right. But these last three years it's been bad. Unless we
+can fat our cattle on the summer ranges in the high mountains, we can't
+do business. The grazing on these lower hills you just _got_ to save for
+winter. You can't raise no hay here. Since they begun to crowd us with
+old Wright's stock it's tur'ble. I ain't had a head of beef cattle
+fittin' to sell, bar a few old cows. And if I ain't got cattle to sell,
+where do I get money to live on? I always been out of debt; but this
+year I done put a mortgage on the place to get money to go on with."
+
+"We can always eat beef, George," said his wife with a little laugh,
+"and miner's lettuce. We ain't the first folks that has had hard
+times--and got over it."
+
+"Mebbe not," agreed George, glancing with furrowed brow at a tiny
+garment on which Mrs. George was sewing.
+
+Jim Pollock, smoking comfortably in his shirt sleeves before his fire,
+was not so worried. His youngest slept in his arms; two children played
+and tumbled on the floor; buxom Mrs. Pollock bustled here and there on
+household business; the older children sprawled over the table under the
+lamp reading; the oldest boy, with wrinkled brow, toiled through the
+instructions of a correspondence school course.
+
+"George always takes it hard," said Jim. "I've got six kids, and he'll
+have one--or at most two--mebbe. It's hard times all right, and a hard
+year. I had to mortgage, too. Lord love you, a mortgage ain't so bad as
+a porous plaster. It'll come off. One good year for beef will fix us. We
+ain't lost nothing but this year's sales. Our cattle are too pore for
+beef, but they're all in good enough shape. We ain't lost none. Next
+year'll be better."
+
+"What makes you think so?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well, Smith, he's superintendent at White Oaks, you know, he's
+favourable to us. I seed him myself. And even Plant, he's sent old
+California John back to look over what shape the ranges are in. There
+ain't no doubt as to which way he'll report. Old John is a cattleman,
+and he's square."
+
+One day Bob found himself belated after a fishing excursion to the upper
+end of the valley. As a matter of course he stopped over night with the
+first people whose ranch he came to. It was not much of a ranch and it's
+two-room house was of logs and shakes, but the owners were hospitable.
+Bob put his horse into a ramshackle shed, banked with earth against the
+winter cold. He had a good time all the evening.
+
+"I'm going to hike out before breakfast," said he before turning in, "so
+if you'll just show me where the lantern is, I won't bother you in the
+morning."
+
+"Lantern!" snorted the mountaineer. "You turn on the switch. It's just
+to the right of the door as you go in."
+
+So Bob encountered another of the curious anomalies not infrequent to
+the West. He entered a log stable in the remote backwoods and turned on
+a sixteen-candle-power electric globe! As he extended his rides among
+the low mountains of the First Rampart, he ran across many more places
+where electric light and even electric power were used in the rudest
+habitations.
+
+The explanation was very simple; these men had possessed small water
+rights which Baker had needed. As part of their compensation they
+received from Power House Number One what current they required for
+their own use.
+
+Thus reminded, Bob one Sunday visited Power House Number One. It proved
+to be a corrugated iron structure through which poured a great stream
+and from which went high-tension wires strung to mushroom-shaped
+insulators. It was filled with the clean and shining machinery of
+electricity. Bob rode up the flume to the reservoir, a great lake penned
+in cañon walls by a dam sixty feet high. The flume itself was of
+concrete, large enough to carry a rushing stream. He made the
+acquaintance of some of the men along the works. They tramped and rode
+back and forth along the right of way, occupied with their insulations,
+the height of their water, their watts and volts and amperes.
+Surroundings were a matter of indifference to them. Activity was of the
+same sort, whether in the city or in the wilderness. As influences--city
+or wilderness--it was all the same to them. They made their own
+influences--which in turn developed a special type of people--among the
+delicate and powerful mysteries of their craft. Down through the land
+they had laid the narrow, uniform strip of their peculiar activities;
+and on that strip they dwelt satisfied with a world of their own. Bob
+sat in a swinging chair talking in snatches to Hicks, between calls on
+the telephone. He listened to quick, sharp orders as to men and
+instruments, as to the management of water, the undertaking of repairs.
+These were couched in technical phrases and slang, for the most part. By
+means of the telephone Hicks seemed to keep in touch not only with the
+plants in his own district, but also with the activities in Power Houses
+Two, Three and Four, many miles away. Hicks had never once, in four
+years, been to the top of the first range. He had had no interest in
+doing so. Neither had he an interest in the foothill country to the
+west.
+
+"I'd kind of like to get back and kill a buck or so," he confessed; "but
+I haven't got the time."
+
+"It's a different country up where we are," urged Bob. "You wouldn't
+know it for the same state as this dry and brushy country. It has fine
+timber and green grass."
+
+"I suppose so," said Hicks indifferently. "But I haven't got the time."
+
+Bob rode away a trifle inclined to that peculiar form of smug pity a
+hotel visitor who has been in a place a week feels for yesterday's
+arrival. He knew the coolness of the great mountain.
+
+At this point an opening in the second growth of yellow pines permitted
+him a vista. He looked back. He had never been in this part of the
+country before. A little portion of Baldy, framed in a pine-clad cleft
+through the First Range, towered chill, rugged and marvellous in its
+granite and snow. For the first time Bob realized that even so
+immediately behind the scene of his summer's work were other higher,
+more wonderful countries. As he watched, the peak was lost in the
+blackness of one of those sudden storms that gather out of nothing about
+the great crests. The cloud spread like magic in all directions. The
+faint roll of thunder came down a wind, damp and cool, sucked from the
+high country.
+
+Bob rounded a bend in the road to overtake old California John, jingling
+placidly along on his beautiful sorrel. Though by no means friendly to
+any member of this branch of government service, Bob reined his animal.
+
+"Hullo," said he, overborne by an unexpected impulse.
+
+"Good day," responded the old man, with a friendly deepening of the
+kindly wrinkles about his blue eyes.
+
+"John," asked Bob, "were you ever in those big mountains there?"
+
+"Baldy?" said the Ranger. "Lord love you, yes. I have to cross Baldy
+'most every time I go to the back country. There's two good passes
+through Baldy."
+
+"Back country!" repeated Bob. "Are there any higher mountains than
+those?"
+
+Old California John chuckled.
+
+"Listen, son," said he. "There's the First Range, and then Stone Creek,
+and then Baldy. And on the other side of Baldy there's the cañon of the
+Joncal which is three thousand foot down. And then there's the Burro
+Mountains, which is half again as high as Baldy, and all the Burro
+country to Little Jackass. That's a plateau covered with lodge-pole pine
+and meadows and creeks and little lakes. It's a big plateau, and when
+you're a-ridin' it, you shore seem like bein' in a wide, flat country.
+And then there's the Green Mountain country; and you drop off five or
+six thousand foot into the box cañon of the north fork; and then you
+climb out again to Red Mountain; and after that is the Pinnacles. The
+Pinnacles is the Fourth Rampart. After them is South Meadow, and the
+Boneyard. Then you get to the Main Crest. And that's only if you go
+plumb due east. North and south there's all sorts of big country. Why,
+Baldy's only a sort of taster."
+
+Bob's satisfaction with himself collapsed. This land so briefly shadowed
+forth was penetrable only in summer: that he well knew. And all summer
+Bob was held to the great tasks of the forest. He hadn't the time!
+Wherein did he differ from Hicks? In nothing save that his right of way
+happened to be a trifle wider.
+
+"Have you been to all these places?" asked Bob.
+
+"Many times," replied California John. "From Stanislaus to the San
+Bernardino desert I've ridden."
+
+"How big a country is that?"
+
+"It's about four hundred mile long, and about eighty mile wide as the
+crow flies--a lot bigger as a man must ride."
+
+"All big mountains?"
+
+"Surely."
+
+"You must have been everywhere?"
+
+"No," said California John, "I never been to Jack Main's Cañon. It's too
+fur up, and I never could get time off to go in there."
+
+So this man, too, the ranger whose business it was to travel far and
+wide in the wild country, sighed for that which lay beyond his right of
+way! Suddenly Bob was filled with a desire to transcend all these
+activities, to travel on and over the different rights of way to which
+all the rest of the world was confined until he knew them all and what
+lay beyond them. The impulse was but momentary, and Bob laughed at
+himself as it passed.
+
+"Something hid beyond the ranges," he quoted softly to himself.
+
+Suddenly he looked up, and gathered his reins.
+
+"John," he said, "we're going to catch that storm."
+
+"Surely," replied the old man looking at him with surprise; "just found
+that out?"
+
+"Well, we'd better hurry."
+
+"What's the use? It'll catch us, anyhow. We're shore due to get wet."
+
+"Well, let's hunt a good tree."
+
+"No," said California John, "this is a thunder-storm, and trees is too
+scurce. You just keep ridin' along the open road. I've noticed that
+lightnin' don't hit twice in the same place mainly because the same
+place don't seem to be thar any more after the first time."
+
+The first big drops of the storm delayed fully five minutes. It did seem
+foolish to be jogging peacefully along at a foxtrot while the tempest
+gathered its power, but Bob realized the justice of his companion's
+remarks.
+
+When it did begin, however, it made up for lost time. The rain fell as
+though it had been turned out of a bucket. In an instant every runnel
+was full. The water even flowed in a thin sheet from the hard surface of
+the ground. The men were soaked.
+
+Then came the thunder in a burst of fury and noise. The lightning
+flashed almost continuously, not only down, but aslant, and even--Bob
+thought--_up_. The thunder roared and reverberated and reëchoed until
+the world was filled with its crashes. Bob's nerves were steady with
+youth and natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which
+assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of confusion.
+His horse snorted, pricking its ears backward and forward, dancing from
+side to side. The lightning seemed fairly to spring into being all
+about them, from the substance of the murk in which they rode.
+
+"Isn't this likely to hit us?" he yelled at California John.
+
+"Liable to," came back the old man's reply across the roar of the
+tempest.
+
+Bob looked about him uneasily. The ranger bent his head to the wind.
+Star, walking more rapidly, outpaced Bob's horse, until they were
+proceeding single file some ten feet apart.
+
+Suddenly the earth seemed to explode directly ahead. A blinding flare
+swept the ground, a hissing crackle was drowned in an overwhelming roar
+of thunder. Bob dodged, and his horse whirled. When he had mastered both
+his animal and himself he spurred back. California John had reined in
+his mount. Not twenty feet ahead of him the bolt had struck. California
+John glanced quizzically over his shoulder at the sky.
+
+"Old Man," he remarked, "you'll have to lower your sights a little, if
+you want to git me."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+At Christmas Bob took a brief trip East, returning to California about
+the middle of January. The remainder of the winter was spent in outside
+business, and in preparatory arrangements for the next season's work.
+The last of April he returned to the lower mountains.
+
+He found Sycamore Flats in a fever of excitement over the cattle
+question. After lighting his post-prandial pipe he sauntered down to
+chat with Martin, the lank and leisurely keeper of the livery,
+proprietor of the general store, and clearing house of both information
+and gossip.
+
+"It looks like this," Martin answered Bob's question. "You remember
+Plant sent back old California John to make a report on the grazing.
+John reported her over-stocked, of course; nobody could have done
+different. Plant kind of promised to fix things up; and the word got
+around pretty definite that the outside stock would be reduced."
+
+"Wasn't it?"
+
+"Not so you'd notice. When the permits was published for this summer,
+they read good for the same old number."
+
+"Then Wright's cattle will be in again this year."
+
+"That's the worst of it; they _are_ in. Shelby brought up a thousand
+head a week ago, and was going to push them right in over the snow. The
+feed's _just_ starting on the low meadows in back, and it hasn't woke up
+a mite in the higher meadows. You throw cattle in on that mushy, soft
+ground and new feed, and they tromp down and destroy more'n they eat. No
+mountain cattleman goes in till the feed's well started, never."
+
+"But what does Shelby do it for, then?"
+
+Martin spat accurately at a knothole.
+
+"Oh, he don't care. Those big men don't give a damn what kind of shape
+cattle is in, as long as they stay alive. Same with humans; only they
+ain't so particular about the staying alive part."
+
+"Couldn't anything be done to stop them?"
+
+"Plant could keep them out, but he won't. Jim and George Pollock, and
+Tom Carroll and some of the other boys put up such a kick, though, that
+they saw a great light. They ain't going in for a couple of weeks more."
+
+"That's all right, then," said Bob heartily.
+
+"Is it?" asked Martin.
+
+"Isn't it?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Well, some says not. Of course they couldn't be expected to drive all
+those cattle back to the plains, so they're just naturally spraddled out
+grazing over this lower country."
+
+"Why, what becomes of the winter feed?" cried Bob aghast, well aware
+that in these lower altitudes the season's growth was nearly finished
+and the ripening about to begin.
+
+"That's just it," said Martin; "where, oh, where?"
+
+"Can't anything be done?" repeated Bob, with some show of indignation.
+
+"What? This is all government land. The mountain boys ain't got any real
+exclusive rights there. It's public property. The regulations are pretty
+clear about preference being given to the small owner, and the local
+man; but that's up to Plant."
+
+"It'll come pretty hard on some of the boys, if they keep on eating off
+their winter feed and their summer feed too," hazarded Bob.
+
+"It'll drive 'em out of business," said Martin. "It'll do more; it'll
+close out settlement in this country. There ain't nothing doing _but_
+cattle, and if the small cattle business is closed up, the permanent
+settlement closes up too. There's only lumber and power and such left;
+and they don't mean settlement. That's what the Government is supposed
+to look out for."
+
+"Government!" said Bob with contempt.
+
+"Well, now, there's a few good ones, even at that," stated Martin
+argumentively. "There's old John, and Ross Fletcher, and one or two more
+that are on the square. It may be these little grafters have got theirs
+coming yet. Now and then an inspector comes along. He looks over the
+books old Hen Plant or the next fellow has fixed up; asks a few
+questions about trails and such; writes out a nice little recommend on
+his pocket typewriter, and moves on. And if there's a roar from some of
+these little fellows, why it gets lost. Some clerk nails it, and sends
+it to Mr. Inspector with a blue question mark on it; and Mr. Inspector
+passes it on to Mr. Supervisor for explanation; and Mr. Supervisor's
+strong holt is explanations. There you are! But it only needs one
+inspector _who inspects_ to knock over the whole apple-cart. Once get by
+your clerk to your chief, and you got it."
+
+Whether Martin made this prediction in a spirit of hope and a full
+knowledge, or whether his shot in the air merely chanced to hit the
+mark, it would be impossible to say. As a matter of fact within the
+month appeared Ashley Thorne, an inspector who inspected.
+
+By this time all the cattle, both of the plainsmen and the mountaineers,
+had gone back. The mill had commenced its season's operations. After the
+routine of work had been well established, Bob had descended to attend
+to certain grading of the lumber for a special sale of uppers. Thus he
+found himself on the scene.
+
+Ashley Thorne was driven in. He arrived late in the afternoon. Plant
+with his coat on, and a jovial expression illuminating his fat face,
+held out both hands in greeting as the vehicle came to a stop by
+Martin's barn. The Inspector leaped quickly to the ground. He was seen
+to be a man between thirty and forty, compactly built, alert in
+movement. He had a square face, aggressive gray eyes, and wore a small
+moustache clipped at the line of the lips.
+
+"Hullo! Hullo!" roared Plant in his biggest voice. "So here we are, hey!
+Kind of dry, hot travel, but we've got the remedy for that."
+
+"How are you?" said Thorne crisply; "are you Mr. Plant? Glad to meet
+you."
+
+"Leave your truck," said Plant. "I'll send some one after it. Come right
+along with me."
+
+"Thanks," said Thorne, "but I think I'll take a wash and clean up a bit,
+first."
+
+"That's all right," urged Plant. "We can fix you up."
+
+"Where is the hotel?" asked Thorne.
+
+"Hotel!" cried Plant, "ain't you going to stay with me?"
+
+"It is kind of you, and I appreciate it," said Thorne briefly, "but I
+never mix official business with social pleasure. This is an invariable
+rule and has no personal application, of course. After my official work
+is done and my report written, I shall be happy to avail myself of your
+hospitality."
+
+"Just as you say, of course," said Plant, quite good-humouredly. To him
+this was an extraordinarily shrewd, grand-stand play; and he approved of
+it.
+
+"I shall go to your office at nine to-morrow," Thorne advised him.
+"Please have your records ready."
+
+"Always ready," said Plant.
+
+Thorne was assigned a room at Auntie Belle's, washed away the dust of
+travel, and appeared promptly at table when the bell rang. He wore an
+ordinary business suit, a flannel shirt with white collar, and hung on
+the nail a wide felt hat. Nevertheless his general air was of an
+out-of-door man, competent and skilled in the open. His manner was
+self-contained and a trifle reserved, although he talked freely enough
+with Bob on a variety of subjects.
+
+After supper he retired to his room, the door of which, however, he left
+open. Any one passing down the narrow hallway could have seen him bent
+over a mass of papers on the table, his portable typewriter close at
+hand.
+
+The following morning, armed with a little hand satchel, he tramped down
+to Henry Plant's house. The Supervisor met him on the verandah.
+
+"Right on deck!" he roared jovially. "Come in! All ready for the
+doctor!"
+
+Thorne did not respond to this jocosity.
+
+"Good morning," he said formally, and that was all.
+
+Plant led the way into his office, thrust forward a chair, waved a
+comprehensive hand toward the filing cases, over the bill files, at the
+tabulated reports laid out on the desk.
+
+"Go to it," said he cheerfully. "Have a cigar! Everything's all ready."
+
+Thorne laid aside his broad hat, and at once with keen concentration
+attacked the tabulations. Plant sat back watching him. Occasionally the
+fat man yawned. When Thorne had digested the epitome of the financial
+end, he reached for the bundles of documents.
+
+"That's just receipts and requisitions," said Plant, "and such truck.
+It'll take you an hour to wade through that stuff."
+
+"Any objections to my doing so?" asked Thorne.
+
+"None," replied Plant drily.
+
+"Now rangers' reports," requested Thorne at the end of another busy
+period.
+
+"What, that flapdoodle?" cried Plant. "Nobody bothers much with that
+stuff! A man has to write the history of his life every time he gets a
+pail of water."
+
+"Do I understand your ranger reports are remiss?" insisted Thorne.
+
+"Lord, there they are. Wish you joy of them. Most of the boys have
+mighty vague ideas of spelling."
+
+At noon Thorne knocked off, announcing his return at one o'clock. Most
+inspectors would have finished an hour ago. At the gate he paused.
+
+"This place belong to you or the Government?" he asked.
+
+"To me," replied Plant. "Mighty good little joint for the mountains,
+ain't it?"
+
+"Why have you a United States Forest Ranger working on the fences then?"
+inquired Thorne crisply.
+
+Plant stared after his compact, alert figure. The fat man's lower jaw
+had dropped in astonishment. Nobody had ever dared question his right to
+use his own rangers as he damn well pleased! A slow resentment surged up
+within him. He would have been downright angry could he have been
+certain of this inspector's attitude. Thorne was cold and businesslike,
+but he had humorous wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Perhaps all
+this monkey business was one elaborate josh. If so it wouldn't do to
+fall into the trap by getting mad. That must be it. Plant chuckled a
+cavernous chuckle. Nevertheless he ordered his ranger to knock off fence
+mending for the present.
+
+By two o'clock Thorne pushed back his chair and stretched his arms over
+his head. Plant laughed.
+
+"That pretty near finishes what we have here," said he. "There really
+isn't much to it, after all. We've got things pretty well going.
+To-morrow I'll get one of the boys to ride out with you near here. If
+you want to take any trips back country, I'll scare up a pack."
+
+This was the usual and never-accepted offer.
+
+"I haven't time for that," said Thorne, "but I'll look at that bridge
+site to-morrow."
+
+"When must you go?"
+
+"In a couple of days."
+
+Plant's large countenance showed more than a trace of satisfaction.
+
+On leaving the Supervisor's headquarters, Thorne set off vigorously up
+the road. He felt cramped for exercise, and he was out for a tramp.
+Higher and higher he mounted on the road to the mill, until at last he
+stood on a point far above the valley. The creak and rattle of a wagon
+aroused him from his contemplation of the scene spread wide before him.
+He looked up to see a twelve-horse freight team ploughing toward him
+through a cloud of dust that arose dense and choking. To escape this
+dust Thorne deserted the road and struck directly up the side of the
+mountain. A series of petty allurements led him on. Yonder he caught a
+glimpse of tree fungus that interested him. He pushed and plunged
+through the manzañita until he had gained its level. Once there he
+concluded to examine a dying yellow pine farther up the hill. Then he
+thought to find a drink of water in the next hollow. Finally the way
+ahead seemed easier than the brush behind. He pushed on, and after a
+moment of breathless climbing reached the top of the ridge.
+
+Here Thorne had reached a lower spur of that range on which were located
+both the sawmill and Plant's summer quarters. He drew a deep breath and
+looked about him over the topography spread below. Then he examined with
+an expert's eye the wooded growths. His glance fell naturally to the
+ground.
+
+"Well, I'll be----" began Thorne, and stopped.
+
+Through the pine needles at his feet ran a shallow, narrow and
+meandering trough. A rod or so away was a similar trough. Thorne set
+about following their direction.
+
+They led him down a gentle slope, through a young growth of pines and
+cedars to a small meadow. The grass had been eaten short to the soil and
+trampled by many little hoofs. Thorne walked to the upper end of the
+meadow. Here he found old ashes. Satisfied with his discoveries, he
+glanced at the westering sun, and plunged directly down the side of the
+mountain.
+
+Near the edge of the village he came upon California John. The old man
+had turned Star into the corral, and was at this moment seated on a
+boulder, smoking his pipe, and polishing carefully the silver inlay of
+his Spanish spade-bit. Thorne stopped and examined him closely, coming
+finally to the worn brass ranger's badge pinned to the old man's
+suspenders. California John did not cease his occupation.
+
+"You're a ranger, I take it," said Thorne curtly.
+
+California John looked up deliberately.
+
+"You're an inspector, I take it," said he, after a moment.
+
+Thorne grinned appreciation under his close-clipped moustache. This was
+the first time he had relaxed his look of official concentration, and
+the effect was most boyish and pleasing. The illumination was but
+momentary, however.
+
+"There have been sheep camped at a little meadow on that ridge," he
+stated.
+
+"I know it," replied California John tranquilly.
+
+"You seem to know several things," retorted Thorne crisply, "but your
+information seems to stop short of the fact that you're supposed to keep
+sheep out of the Reserve."
+
+"Not when they have permission," said California John.
+
+"Permission!" echoed Thorne. "Sheep are absolutely prohibited by
+regulation. What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say. They had a permit."
+
+"Who gave it?"
+
+"Supervisor Plant, of course."
+
+"What for?"
+
+California John polished his bit carefully for some moments in silence.
+Then he laid it one side and deliberately faced about.
+
+"For ten dollars," said he coolly, looking Thorne in the eye.
+
+Thorne looked back at him steadily.
+
+"You'll swear to that?" he asked.
+
+"I sure will," said California John.
+
+"How long has this sort of thing gone on?"
+
+"Always," replied the ranger.
+
+"How long have you known about it?"
+
+"Always," said California John.
+
+"Why have you never said anything before?"
+
+"What for?" countered the old man. "I'd just get fired. There ain't no
+good in saying anything. He's my superior officer. They used to teach me
+in the army that I ain't got no call to criticize what my officer does.
+It's my job to obey orders the best I can."
+
+"Why do you tell me, then?"
+
+"You're my superior officer, too--and his."
+
+"So were all the other inspectors who have been here."
+
+"Them--hell!" said California John.
+
+Thorne returned to his hotel very thoughtful. It was falling dark, and
+the preliminary bell had rung for supper. Nevertheless he lit his lamp
+and clicked off a letter to a personal friend in the Land Office
+requesting the latter to forward all Plant's vouchers for the past two
+years. Then he hunted up Auntie Belle.
+
+"I thought I should tell you that I won't be leaving my room Wednesday,
+as I thought," said he. "My business will detain me longer."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Thorne curtly explained himself to Plant as detained on clerical
+business. While awaiting the vouchers from Washington, he busily
+gathered the gossip of the place. Naturally the cattle situation was one
+of the first phases to come to his attention. After listening to what
+was to be said, he despatched a messenger back into the mountains
+requesting the cattlemen to send a representative. Ordinarily he would
+have gone to the spot himself; but just now he preferred to remain
+nearer the centre of Plant's activities.
+
+Jim Pollock appeared in due course. He explained the state of affairs
+carefully and dispassionately. Thorne heard him to the end without
+comment.
+
+"If the feed is too scarce for the number of cattle, that fact should be
+officially ascertained," he said finally.
+
+"Davidson--California John--was sent back last fall to look into it. I
+didn't see his report, but John's a good cattleman himself, and there
+couldn't be no two opinions on the matter."
+
+Thorne had been shown no copy of such a report during his official
+inspection. He made a note of this.
+
+"Well," said he finally, "if on investigation I find the facts to be as
+you state them--and that I can determine only on receiving all the
+evidence on both sides--I can promise you relief for next season. The
+Land Office is just, when it is acquainted with the facts. I will ask
+you to make affidavits. I am obliged to you for your trouble in coming."
+
+Jim Pollock made his three-day ride back more cheered by these few and
+tentative words than by Superintendent Smith's effusive assurances, or
+Plant's promises. He so reported to his neighbours in the back ranges.
+
+Thorne established from California John the truth as to the suppressed
+reports.
+
+Some rumour of all this reached Henry Plant. Whatever his faults, the
+Supervisor was no coward. He had always bulled things through by sheer
+weight and courage. If he could outroar his opponent, he always
+considered the victory as his. Certainly the results were generally that
+way.
+
+On hearing of Thorne's activities, Plant drove down to see him. He puffed
+along the passageway to Thorne's room. The Inspector was pecking away at
+his portable typewriter and did not look up as the fat man entered.
+
+Plant surveyed the bent back for a moment.
+
+"Look here," he demanded, "I hear you're still investigating my
+district--as well as doing 'clerical work.'"
+
+"I am," snapped Thorne without turning his head.
+
+"Am I to consider myself under investigation?" demanded Plant
+truculently. To this direct question he, of course, expected a denial--a
+denial which he would proceed to demolish with threats and abuse.
+
+"You are," said Thorne, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper.
+
+Plant stared at him a moment; then went out. Next day he drove away on
+the stage, and was no more seen for several weeks.
+
+This did not trouble Thorne. He began to reach in all directions for
+evidence. At first there came to him only those like the Pollock boys
+who were openly at outs with Plant, and so had nothing to lose by
+antagonizing him further. Then, hesitating, appeared others. Many of
+these grievances Thorne found to be imaginary; but in several cases he
+was able to elicit definite affidavits as to graft and irregularity.
+Evidence of bribery was more difficult to obtain. Plant's easy-going
+ways had made him friends, and his facile suspension of gracing
+regulations--for a consideration--appealed strongly to self-interest.
+However, as always in such cases, enough had at some time felt
+themselves discriminated against to entertain resentment. Thorne took
+advantage of this both to get evidence, and to secure information that
+enabled him to frighten evidence out of others.
+
+The vouchers arrived from Washington. In them Plant's methods showed
+clearly. Thorne early learned that it had been the Supervisor's habit to
+obtain duplicate bills for everything--purchases, livery, hotels and the
+like. He had explained to the creditors that a copy would be necessary
+for filing, and of course the mountain people knew no better. Thus, by a
+trifling manipulation of dates, Plant had been able to collect twice
+over for his expenses.
+
+"There is the plumb limit," said Martin, while running over the vouchers
+he had given. He showed Thorne two bearing the same date. One read:
+
+"_To team and driver to Big Baldy post office, $4._"
+
+"That item's all right," said Martin; "I drove him there myself. But
+here's the joke."
+
+He handed the second bill to Thorne:
+
+"_To saddle horse Big Baldy to McClintock claim, $2._"
+
+"Why," said Martin, "when we got to Big Baldy he put his saddle on one
+of the driving horses and rode it about a mile over to McClintock's. I
+remember objecting on account of his being so heavy. Say," reflected the
+livery-man after a moment, "he's right out for the little stuff, ain't
+he? When his hand gets near a dollar, it cramps!"
+
+In the sheaf of vouchers Thorne ran across one item repeated several
+hundred times in the two years. It read:
+
+"_To M. Aiken, team, $3._"
+
+Inquiry disclosed the fact that "M. Aiken," was Minnie, Plant's niece.
+By the simple expedient of conveying to her title in his team and
+buckboard, the Supervisor was enabled to collect three dollars every
+time he drove anywhere.
+
+Thus the case grew, fortified by affidavits. Thorne found that Plant
+had been grafting between three and four thousand dollars a year.
+
+Of course the whole community soon came to know all about it. The taking
+of testimony and the giving of affidavits were matters for daily
+discussion. Thorne inspired faith, because he had faith himself.
+
+"I don't wonder you people have been hostile to the Forest Reserves,"
+said he. "You can't be blamed. But it is not the Office's fault. I've
+been in the Land Office a great many years, and they won't stand for
+this sort of thing a minute. I found very much the same sort of thing in
+one of the reserves in Oregon, only there was a gang operating there. I
+got eleven convictions, and a new deal all round. The Land Office is all
+right, when you get to it. You'll see us in a different light, after
+this is over."
+
+The mountaineers liked him. He showed them a new kink by which the lash
+rope of a pack could be jammed in the cinch-hook for convenience of the
+lone packer; he proved to be an excellent shot with the revolver; in his
+official work he had used and tested the methods of many wilderness
+travellers, and could discuss and demonstrate. Furthermore, he got
+results.
+
+Austin conducted a roadhouse on the way to the Power House Number One:
+this in addition to his saloon in Sycamore Flats. The roadhouse was, as
+a matter of fact, on government land, but Austin established the shadow
+of a claim under mineral regulations, and, by obstructionist tactics,
+had prevented all the red tape from being unwound. His mineral claim was
+flimsy; he knew it, and everybody else knew it. But until the case
+should be reported back, he remained where he was. It was up to Plant;
+and Plant had been lenient. Probably Austin could have told why.
+
+Thorne became cognizant of all this. He served Austin notice. Austin
+offered no comment, but sat tight. He knew by previous experience that
+the necessary reports, recommendations, endorsements and official orders
+would take anywhere from one to three months. By that time this
+inspector would have moved on--Austin knew the game. But three days
+later Thorne showed up early in the morning followed by a half-dozen
+interested rangers. In the most business-like fashion and despite the
+variegated objections of Austin and his disreputable satellites, Thorne
+and his men attached their ropes to the flimsy structure and literally
+pulled it to pieces from the saddle.
+
+"You have no right to use force!" cried Austin, who was well versed in
+the regulations.
+
+"I've saved my office a great deal of clerical work," Thorne snapped
+back at him. "Report me if you feel like it!"
+
+The débris remained where it had fallen. Austin did not venture
+again--at least while this energetic youth was on the scene.
+Nevertheless, after the first anger, even the saloon-keeper had in a way
+his good word to say.
+
+"If they's anythin' worse than a--of a--comes out in the next fifty
+year, he'll be it!" stormed Austin. "But, damn it," he added, "the
+little devil's worse'n a catamount for fight!"
+
+Thorne was little communicative, but after he and Bob became better
+acquainted the Inspector would tell something of his past inspections.
+All up and down the Sierras he had unearthed enough petty fraud and
+inefficiency to send a half-dozen men to jail and to break another
+half-dozen from the ranks.
+
+"And the Office has upheld me right along," said Thorne in answer to
+Bob's scepticism regarding government sincerity. "The Office is all
+right; don't make any mistake on that. It's just a question of getting
+at it. I admit the system is all wrong, where the complaints can't get
+direct to the chiefs; but that's what I'm here for. This Plant is one of
+the easiest cases I've tackled yet. I've got direct evidence six times
+over to put him over the road. He'll go behind the bars sure. As for the
+cattle situation, it's a crying disgrace and a shame. There's no earthly
+reason under the regulations why Simeon Wright should bring cattle in
+at all; and I'll see that next year he doesn't."
+
+At the end of two weeks Thorne had finished his work and departed. The
+mountain people with whom he had come in contact liked and trusted him
+in spite of his brusque and business-like manners. He could shoot, pack
+a horse, ride and follow trail, swing an axe as well as any of them. He
+knew what he was talking about. He was square. The mountain men
+"happened around"--such of them as were not in back with the cattle--to
+wish him farewell.
+
+"Good-bye, boys," said he. "You'll see me again. I'm glad to have had a
+chance to straighten things out a little. Don't lose faith in Uncle Sam.
+He'll do well by you when you attract his attention."
+
+Fully a week after his departure Plant returned and took his accustomed
+place in the community. He surveyed his old constituents with a slightly
+sardonic eye, but had little to say.
+
+About this time Bob moved up on the mountain. He breathed in a distinct
+pleasure over again finding himself among the pines, in the cool air,
+with the clean, aromatic woods-work. The Meadow Lake was completely
+surrounded by camps this year. Several canvas boats were on the lake.
+Bob even welcomed the raucous and confused notes of several phonographs
+going at full speed. After the heat and dust and brown of the lower
+hills, this high country was inexpressibly grateful.
+
+At headquarters he found Welton rolling about, jovial, good-natured,
+efficient as ever. With him was Baker.
+
+"Well," said Bob to the latter. "Where did you get by me? I didn't know
+you were here."
+
+"Oh, I blew in the other day. Didn't have time to stop below; and,
+besides, I was saving my strength for your partner here." He looked at
+Welton ruefully. "I thought I'd come up and get that water-rights matter
+all fixed up in a few minutes, and get back to supper. Nothing doing!"
+
+"This smooth-faced pirate," explained Welton, "offers to take our water
+if we'll pay him for doing it, as near as I can make out--that is, if
+we'll supply the machinery to do it with. In return he'll allow us the
+privilege of buying back what we are going to need for household
+purposes. I tell him this is too liberal. We cannot permit him to rob
+himself. Since he has known our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. Plant, he's
+falling into that gentleman's liberal views."
+
+Baker grinned at his accusor appreciatively, but at the mention of
+Plant's name Bob broke in.
+
+"Plant's landed," said he briefly. "They've got him. Prison bars for
+his."
+
+"What?" cried Welton and Baker in a breath.
+
+Bob explained; telling them of Thorne, his record, methods, and the
+definite evidence he had acquired. Long before he had finished both men
+relaxed from their more eager attention.
+
+"That all?" commented Baker. "From what you said I thought he was in the
+bastile!"
+
+"He will be shortly," said Bob. "They've got the evidence direct. It's
+an open-and-shut case."
+
+Baker merely grinned.
+
+"But Thorne's jugged them all up the range," persisted Bob. "He's
+convicted a whole lot of them--men who have been at it for years."
+
+"H'm," said Baker.
+
+"But how can they dodge it?" cried Bob. "They can't deny the evidence!
+The Department has upheld Thorne warmly."
+
+"Sure," said Baker.
+
+"Well," concluded Bob. "Do you mean to say that they'll have the nerve
+to pass over such direct evidence as that?"
+
+"Don't know anything about it," replied Baker briefly. "I only know
+results when I see them. These other little grafters that your man
+Thorne has bumped off probably haven't any drag."
+
+"Well, what does Plant amount to once he's exposed?" challenged Bob.
+
+"I haven't figured it out on the Scribner scale," admitted Baker, "but I
+know what happens when you try to bump him. Bet you a thousand dollars I
+do," he shot at Welton. "It isn't the wraith-like Plant you run up
+against; it's _interests_."
+
+"Well, I don't believe yet a great government will keep in a miserable,
+petty thief like Plant against the direct evidence of a man like
+Thorne!" stated Bob with some heat.
+
+"Listen," said Baker kindly. "That isn't the scrap. Thorne _vs._
+Plant--looks like easy money on Thorne, eh? Well, now, Plant has a drag
+with Chairman Gay; don't know what it is, but it's a good one, a
+peacherino. We know because we've trained some heavy guns on it
+ourselves, and it's stood the shock. All right. Now it's up to Chairman
+Gay to support his cousin. Then there's old Simeon Wright. Where would
+he get off at without Plant? He's going to do a little missionary work.
+Simeon owns Senator Barrow, and Senator Barrow is on the Ways and Means
+Committee, so lots of people love the Senator. And so on in all
+directions--I'm from Missouri. You got to show me. If it came to a mere
+choice of turning down Plant or Thorne, they'd turn down Plant, every
+time. But when it comes to a choice between Thorne and Gay, Thorne and
+Barrow, Thorne and Simeon Wright, Thorne and a dozen others that have
+their own Angel Children to protect, and won't protect your Angel Child
+unless you'll chuck a front for theirs--why Thorne is just lost in the
+crowd!"
+
+"I don't believe it," protested Bob. "It would be a scandal."
+
+"No, just politics," said Baker.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The sawmill lay on the direct trail to the back country. Every man
+headed for the big mountains by way of Sycamore Flats passed fairly
+through the settlement itself. So every cattleman out after provisions
+or stock salt, followed by his docile string of pack mules, paused to
+swap news and gossip with whoever happened for the moment to have
+leisure for such an exchange.
+
+The variety poured through this funnel of the mountains comprised all
+classes. Professional prospectors with their burros, ready alike for the
+desert or the most inaccessible crags, were followed by a troupe of
+college boys afoot leading one or two old mares as baggage
+transportation. The business-like, semi-military outfits of geological
+survey parties, the worn but substantial hunters' equipments, the
+marvellous and oftentimes ridiculous luxury affected by the wealthy
+camper, the makeshifts of the poorer ranchmen of the valley, out with
+their entire families and the farm stock for a "real good fish," all
+these were of never-failing interest to Bob. In fact, he soon discovered
+that the one absorbing topic--outside of bears, of course--was the
+discussion, the comparison and the appraising of the various items of
+camping equipment. He also found each man amusingly partisan for his
+own. There were schools advocating--heatedly--the merits respectively of
+the single or double cinch, of the Dutch oven or the reflector, of
+rawhide or canvas kyacks, of sleeping bags or blankets. Each man had
+invented some little kink of his own without which he could not possibly
+exist. Some of these kinks were very handy and deserved universal
+adoption, such as a small rubber tube with a flattened brass nozzle
+with which to encourage reluctant fires. Others expressed an individual
+idiosyncrasy only; as in the case of the man who carried clothes hooks
+to screw into the trees. A man's method of packing was also closely
+watched. Each had his own favourite hitch. The strong preponderance
+seemed to be in favour of the Diamond, both single and double, but many
+proved strongly addicted to the Lone Packer, or the Basco, or the
+Miners', or the Square, or even the generally despised Squaw, and would
+stoutly defend their choices, and give reasons therefore. Bob sometimes
+amused himself practising these hitches in miniature by means of a
+string, a bent nail, and two folded handkerchiefs as packs. After many
+trials, and many lapses of memory, he succeeded on all but the Double
+Diamond. Although apparently he followed every move, the result was
+never that beautiful all-over tightening at the last pull. He
+reluctantly concluded that on this point he must have instruction.
+
+Although rarely a day went by during the whole season that one or more
+parties did not pass through, or camp over night at the Meadow Lake, it
+was a fact that, after passing Baldy, these hundreds could scatter so
+far through the labyrinth of the Sierras that in a whole summer's
+journeying they were extremely unlikely to see each other--or indeed any
+one else, save when they stumbled on one of the established cow camps.
+The vastness of the California mountains cannot be conveyed to one who
+has not travelled them. Men have all summer pastured illegally thousands
+of head of sheep undiscovered, in spite of the fact that rangers and
+soldiers were out looking for them. One may journey diligently
+throughout the season, and cover but one corner of the three great maps
+that depict about one-half of them. If one wills he can, to all intents
+and purposes, become sole and undisputed master of kingdoms in extent.
+He can occupy beautiful valleys miles long, guarded by cliffs rising
+thousands of feet, threaded by fish-haunted streams, spangled with
+fair, flower-grown lawns, cool with groves of trees, neck high in rich
+feed. Unless by sheer chance, no one will disturb his solitude. Of
+course he must work for his kingdom. He must press on past the easy
+travel, past the wide cattle country of the middle elevations, into the
+splintered, frowning granite and snow, over the shoulders of the mighty
+peaks of the High Sierras. Nevertheless, the reward is sure for the
+hardy voyager.
+
+Most men, however, elect to spend their time in the easier middle
+ground. There the elevations run up to nine or ten thousand feet; the
+trails are fairly well defined and travelled; the streams are full of
+fish; meadows are in every moist pocket; the great box cañons and peaks
+of the spur ranges offer the grandeur of real mountain scenery.
+
+From these men, as they ended their journeys on the way out, came tales
+and rumours. There was no doubt whatever that the country had too many
+cattle in it. That was brought home to each and every man by the
+scarcity of horse feed on meadows where usually an abundance for
+everybody was to be expected. The cattle were thin and restless. It was
+unsafe to leave a camp unprotected; the half-wild animals trampled
+everything into the ground. The cattlemen, of whatever camp, appeared
+sullen and suspicious of every comer.
+
+"It's mighty close to a cattle war," said one old lean and leathery
+individual to Bob; "I know, for I been thar. Used to run cows in
+Montana. I hear everywhar talk about Wright's cattle dyin' in mighty
+funny ways. I know that's so, for I seen a slather of dead cows myself.
+Some of 'em fall off cliffs; some seem to have broke their legs. Some
+bogged down. Some look like to have just laid down and died."
+
+"Well, if they're weak from loss of feed, isn't that natural?" asked
+Bob.
+
+"Wall," said the old cowman, "in the first place, they're pore, but they
+ain't by no means weak. But the strange part is that these yere
+accidents always happens to Wright's cattle."
+
+He laughed and added:
+
+"The carcasses is always so chawed up by b'ar and coyote--or at least
+that's what they _say_ done it--that you can't sw'ar as to how they
+_did_ come to die. But I heard one funny thing. It was over at the
+Pollock boys' camp. Shelby, Wright's straw boss, come ridin' in pretty
+mad, and made a talk about how it's mighty cur'ous only Wright's cattle
+is dyin'.
+
+"'It shorely looks like the country is unhealthy for plains cattle,'
+says George Pollock; 'ours is brought up in the hills.'
+
+"'Well,' says Shelby, 'if I ever comes on one of these accidents
+a-happenin', I'll shore make some one hard to catch!'
+
+"'Some one's likely one of these times to make you almighty _easy_ to
+catch!' says George.
+
+"Now," concluded the old cattleman, "folks don't make them bluffs for
+the sake of talkin' at a mark--not in this country."
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of that prediction, the summer passed without any
+personal clash. The cattle came out from the mountains rather earlier
+than usual, gaunt, wiry, active. They were in fine shape, as far as
+health was concerned; but absolutely unfit, as they then stood, for
+beef. The Simeon Wright herds were first, thousands of them, in charge
+of many cowboys and dogs. The punchers were a reckless, joyous crew,
+skylarking in anticipation of the towns of the plains. They kissed their
+hands and waved their hats at all women, old and young, in the mill
+settlement; they played pranks on each other; they charged here and
+there on their wiry ponies, whirling to right and left, 'turning on a
+ten-cent piece,' throwing their animals from full speed to a stand,
+indulging in the cowboys' spectacular 'flash riding' for the sheer joy
+of it. The leading cattle, eager with that strange instinct that, even
+early in the fall, calls all ruminants from good mountain feed to the
+brown lower country, pressed forward, their necks outstretched, their
+eyes fixed on some distant vision. Their calls blended into an organ
+note. Occasionally they broke into a little trot. At such times the dogs
+ran forward, yelping, to turn them back into their appointed way. At an
+especially bad break to right or left one or more of the men would dash
+to the aid of the dogs, riding with a splendid recklessness through the
+timber, over fallen trees, ditches, rocks, boulders and precipitous
+hills. The dust rose chokingly. At the rear of the long procession
+plodded the old, the infirm, the cripples and the young calves. Three or
+four men rode compactly behind this rear guard, urging it to keep up.
+Their means of persuasion were varied. Quirts, ropes, rattles made of
+tin cans and pebbles, strong language were all used in turn and
+simultaneously. Long after the multitude had passed, the vast and
+composite voice of it reëchoed through the forest; the dust eddied and
+swirled among the trees.
+
+The mountain men's cattle, on the other hand, came out sullenly, in
+herds of a few hundred head. There was more barking of dogs; more
+scurrying to and fro of mounted men, for small bands are more difficult
+to drive than large ones. There were no songs, no boisterous high
+spirits, no flash riding. In contrast to the plains cowboys, even the
+herders' appearance was poor. They wore blue jeans overalls, short jeans
+jumpers, hats floppy and all but disintegrated by age and exposure to
+the elements. Wright's men, being nothing but cowboys, without other
+profession, ties or interests, gave more attention to details of
+professional equipment. Their wide hats were straight of brim and
+generally encircled by a leather or hair or snakeskin band; their shirts
+were loose; they wore handkerchiefs around their necks, and oiled
+leather "chaps" on their legs. Their distinguishing and especial mark,
+however, was their boots. These were made of soft leather, were
+elaborately stitched or embroidered in patterns, possessed exaggeratedly
+wide and long straps like a spaniel's ears, and were mounted on thin
+soles and very high heels. They were footwear such as no mountain man,
+nor indeed any man who might ever be required to go a mile afoot, would
+think of wearing. The little herds trudged down the mountains. While the
+plainsmen anticipated easy duty, the pleasures of the town, fenced
+cattle growing fat on alfalfa raised during the summer by irrigation,
+these sober-faced mountaineers looked forward to a winter range much
+depleted, a market closed against such wiry, active animals as they
+herded, and an impossibility of rounding into shape for sale any but a
+few old cows.
+
+"If it wasn't for this new shake-up," said Jim Pollock, "I'd shore be
+gettin' discouraged. But if they keep out Simeon Wright's cattle this
+spring, we'll be all right. It's cost us money, though."
+
+"A man with a wife and child can't afford to lose money," said George
+Pollock.
+
+Jim laughed.
+
+"You and your new kid!" he mocked. "No, I suppose he can't. Neither can
+a man with a wife and six children. But I reckon we'll be all right as
+long as there's a place to crawl under when it rains."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The autumn passed, and winter closed down. Plant continued his
+administration. For a month the countryside was on a tip-toe of
+expectation. It counted on no immediate results, but the "suspension
+pending investigation" was to take place within a few weeks. As far as
+surface indications were concerned nothing happened. Expectation was
+turned back on itself. Absolute confidence in Plant's removal and
+criminal conviction gave place to scepticism and doubt, finally to utter
+disbelief. And since Thorne had succeeded in arousing a real faith and
+enthusiasm, the reaction was by so much the stronger. Tolerance gave way
+to antagonism; distrust to bitterness; grievance to open hostility. The
+Forest Reserves were cursed as a vicious institution created for the
+benefit of the rich man, depriving the poor man of his rights and
+privileges, imposing on him regulations that were at once galling and
+senseless.
+
+The Forest Rangers suddenly found themselves openly unpopular.
+Heretofore a ranger had been tolerated by the mountaineers as either a
+good-for-nothing saloon loafer enjoying the fats of political
+perquisite; or as a species of inunderstandable fanatic to be looked
+down upon with good-humoured contempt. Now a ranger became a partisan of
+the opposing forces, and as such an enemy. Men ceased speaking to him,
+or greeted him with the curtest of nods. Plant's men were ostracized in
+every way, once they showed themselves obstinate in holding to their
+positions. Every man was urged to resign. Many did so. Others hung on
+because the job was too soft to lose. Some, like Ross Fletcher,
+California John, Tom Carroll, Charley Morton and a few others, moved on
+their accustomed way.
+
+One of the inspiring things in the later history of the great West is
+the faith and insight, the devotion and self-sacrifice of some of the
+rough mountain men in some few of the badly managed reserves to truths
+that were but slowly being recognized by even the better educated of the
+East. These men, year after year, without leadership, without
+encouragement, without the support and generally against the covered or
+open hostility of their neighbours, under most disheartening official
+conditions kept the torch alight. They had no wide theory of forestry to
+sustain their interest; they could certainly have little hope of
+promotion and advancement to a real career; their experience with a
+bureaucratic government could not arouse in their breasts any
+expectation of a broad, a liberal, or even an enlightened policy of
+conservation or use. They were set in opposition to their neighbours
+without receiving the support of the power that so placed them.
+Nevertheless, according to their knowledge they worked faithfully. Five
+times out of ten they had little either of supervision or instruction.
+Turned out in the mountains, like a bunch of stock, each was free to do
+as much or as little of whatever he pleased. Each improved his district
+according to his ideas or his interests. One cared most for building
+trails; another for chasing sheep trespassers; a third for construction
+of bridges, cabins and fences. All had occasionally to fight fires. Each
+was given the inestimable privilege of doing what he could. Everything
+he did had to be reported on enormous and complicated forms. If he made
+a mistake in any of these, he heard from it, and perhaps his pay was
+held up. This pay ran somewhere about sixty or seventy-five dollars a
+month, and he was required to supply his own horses and to feed them.
+Most rangers who were really interested in their profession spent some
+of this in buying tools with which to work.[A] The Government supplied
+next to nothing. In 1902 between the King's River and the Kaweah, an
+area of somewhere near a million acres, the complete inventory of
+fire-fighting tools consisted of two rakes made from fifty cents' worth
+of twenty-penny nails.
+
+But these negative discouragements were as nothing compared to the petty
+rebuffs and rulings that emanated from the Land Office itself.
+
+One spring Ross Fletcher, following specific orders, was sent out after
+twenty thousand trespassing sheep. It was early in the season. His
+instructions took him up into the frozen meadows, so he had to carry
+barley for his horses. He used three sacks and sent in a bill for one.
+Item refused. Feed was twenty dollars a thousand. Salary seventy-five
+dollars.
+
+One of Simeon Wright's foremen broke down government fences and fed out
+all the ranger horse feed. Tom Carroll wrote to Superintendent Smith;
+later to Washington. The authorities, however, refused to revoke the
+cattleman's licence. At Christmas time, when Carroll was in White Oaks
+the foreman and his two sons jeered at and insulted the ranger in regard
+to this matter until the latter lost his temper and thrashed all three,
+one after the other. For this he was severely reprimanded by Washington.
+
+Charley Morton was ordered to Yosemite to consult with the military
+officers there. He was instructed to do so in a certain number of days.
+To keep inside his time limit he had to hire a team. Item refused.
+
+California John fought fire alone for two days and a night, then had to
+go outside for help. Docked a day for going off the reserve.
+
+Why did these men prefer to endure neglect and open hostility to the
+favour of their neighbours and easier work? Bob, with a growing wonder
+and respect, tried to find out.
+
+He did not succeed. There certainly was no overwhelming love for the
+administration of Henry Plant; nor loyalty to the Land Office. Indeed
+for the latter, one and all entertained the deep contempt of the
+out-of-door man for the red-tape clerk.
+
+"What do you think is the latest," asked California John one day, "from
+them little squirts? I just got instructions that during of the fire
+season I must patrol the whole of my district every day!" The old man
+grinned. "I only got from here to Pumice Mountain! I wonder if those
+fellows ever saw a mountain? I suppose they laid off an inch on the map
+and let it go at that. Patrol every day!"
+
+"How long would it take you?" asked Bob.
+
+"By riding hard, about a week."
+
+Rather the loyalty seemed to be gropingly to the idea back of it all, to
+something broad and dim and beautiful which these rough, untutored men
+had drawn from their native mountains and which thus they rendered back.
+
+As Bob gradually came to understand more of the situation his curiosity
+grew. The lumberman's instinctive hostility to government control and
+interference had not in the slightest degree modified; but he had begun
+to differentiate this small, devoted band from the machinery of the
+Forest Reserves as they were then conducted. He was a little inclined to
+the fanatic theory; he knew by now that the laziness hypothesis would
+not apply to these.
+
+"What is there in it?" he asked. "You surely can't hope for a boost in
+salary; and certainly your bosses treat you badly."
+
+At first he received vague and evasive answers. They liked the work;
+they got along all right; it was a lot better than the cattle business
+just now, and so on. Then as it became evident that the young man was
+genuinely interested, California John gradually opened up. One strange
+and beautiful feature of American partisanship for an ideal is its
+shyness. It will work and endure, will wait and suffer, but it will not
+go forth to proselyte.
+
+"The way I kind of look at it is this," said the old man one evening.
+"I always did like these here mountains--and the big trees--and the
+rocks and water and the snow. Everywhere else the country belongs to
+some one: it's staked out. Up here it belongs to me, because I'm an
+American. This country belongs to all of us--the people--all of us. We
+most of us don't know we've got it, that's all. I kind of look at it
+this way: suppose I had a big pile of twenty-dollar gold pieces lying
+up, say in Siskiyou, that I didn't know nothing whatever about; and some
+fellow come along and took care of it for me and hung onto it even when
+I sent out word that anybody was welcome to anything I owned in
+Siskiyou--I not thinking I really owned anything there, you
+understand--why--well, you see, I sort of like to feel I'm one of those
+fellows!"
+
+"What good is there in hanging onto a lot of land that would be better
+developed?" asked Bob.
+
+But California John refused to be drawn into a discussion. He had his
+faith, but he would not argue about it. Sometime or other the people
+would come to that same faith. In the meantime there was no sense in
+tangling up with discussions.
+
+"They send us out some reading that tells about it," said California
+John. "I'll give you some."
+
+He was as good as his word. Bob carried away with him a dozen government
+publications of the sort that, he had always concluded, everybody
+received and nobody read. Interested, not in the subject matter of the
+pamphlets, but in their influence on these mountain men, he did read
+them. In this manner he became for the first time acquainted with the
+elementary principles of watersheds and water conservation. This was
+actually so. Nor did he differ in this respect from any other of the
+millions of well-educated youth of the country. In a vague way he knew
+that trees influence climate. He had always been too busy with trees to
+bother about climate.
+
+The general facts interested him, and appealed to his logical common
+sense. He saw for the first time, because for the first time it had been
+presented to his attention, the real use and reason for the forest
+reserves. Hitherto he had considered the whole institution as
+semi-hostile, at least as something in potential antagonism. Now he was
+willing fairly to recognize the wisdom of preserving some portion of the
+mountain cover. He had not really denied it; simply he hadn't considered
+it.
+
+Early in this conviction he made up to Ross Fletcher for his brusqueness
+in ordering the ranger off the mill property.
+
+"I just classed you with your gang, which was natural," said Bob.
+
+"I am one of my gang, of course," said Fletcher.
+
+"Do you consider yourself one of the same sort of dicky bird as Plant
+and that crew?" demanded Bob.
+
+"There ain't no humans all alike," replied the mountaineer.
+
+Although Bob was thus rebuffed in immediately getting inside of the
+man's loyalty to his service and his superiors, he was from that moment
+made to feel at his ease. Later, in a fuller intimacy, he was treated
+more frankly.
+
+Welton laughed openly at Bob's growing interest in these matters.
+
+"You're the first man I ever saw read any of those things," said he in
+regard to the government reports. "I once read one," he went on in
+delightful contradiction to his first statement. "It told how to cut
+timber. When you cut down a tree, you pile up the remains in a neat pile
+and put a little white picket fence around them. It would take a
+thousand men and cost enough to buy a whole new tract to do all the
+monkey business they want you to do. I've only been in the lumber
+business forty years! When a college boy can teach me, I'm willing to
+listen; but he can't teach me the A B C of the business."
+
+Bob laughed. "Well, I can't just see us taking time in a short season
+to back-track and pile up ornamental brush piles," he admitted.
+
+"Experimental farms, and experimental chickens, and experimental
+lumbering are all right for the gentleman farmer and the gentleman
+poultry fancier and the gentleman lumberman--if there are any. But when
+it comes to business----"
+
+Bob laughed. "Just the same," said he, "I'm beginning to see that it's a
+good thing to keep some of this timber standing; and the only way it can
+be done is through the Forest Reserves."
+
+"That's all right," agreed Welton. "Let'em reserve. I don't care. But
+they are a nuisance. They keep stepping on my toes. It's too good a
+chance to annoy and graft. It gives a hard lot of loafers too good a
+chance to make trouble."
+
+"They are a hard lot in general," agreed Bob, "but there's some good men
+among them, men I can't help but admire."
+
+Welton rolled his eyes drolly at the younger man.
+
+"Who?" he inquired.
+
+"Well, there's old California John."
+
+"There's three or four mossbacks in the lot that are honest," cut in
+Welton, "but it's because they're too damn thick-headed to be anything
+else. Don't get kiddish enough to do the picturesque mountaineer act,
+Bobby. I can dig you up four hundred of that stripe anywhere--and
+holding down just about as valuable jobs. Don't get too thick with that
+kind. In the city you'll find them holding open-air meetings. I suppose
+our friend Plant has been pinched?"
+
+"Not yet," grinned Bob, a trifle shamefacedly.
+
+"Don't get the reform bug, Bob," said Welton kindly, "That's all very
+well for those that like to amuse themselves, but we're busy."
+
+
+[Footnote A: The accounts of one man showed that for a long period he
+had so disbursed from his own pocket an average of thirty dollars a
+month. His salary was sixty dollars.]
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+The following spring found Plant still in command. No word had come from
+the silence of political darkness. His only concession to the state of
+affairs had been an acknowledgment under coercion that the cattle ranges
+had been overstocked, and that outside cattle would not be permitted to
+enter, at least for the coming season. This was just the concession to
+relieve the immediate pressure against him, and to give the Supervisor
+time to apply all his energies to details within the shades.
+
+Details were important, in spite of the absence of surface indications.
+Many considerations were marshalled. On one side were arrayed plain
+affidavits of fraud. In the lower ranks of the Land Office it was
+necessary to corrupt men, by one means or another. These lesser
+officials in the course of routine would come face to face with the
+damaging affidavits, and must be made to shut their eyes deliberately to
+what they know. The cases of the higher officials were different. They
+must know of the charges, of course, but matters must be so arranged
+that the evidence must never meet their eyes, and that they must adopt
+en bloc the findings of their subordinates. Bribery was here impossible;
+but influence could be brought to bear.
+
+Chairman Gay upheld his cousin, Henry Plant, because of the
+relationship. This implied a good word, and personal influence. After
+that Chairman Gay forgot the matter. But a great number of people were
+extremely anxious to please Chairman Gay. These exerted themselves. They
+came across evidence that would have caused Chairman Gay to throw his
+beloved cousin out neck and crop, but they swallowed it and asked for
+more simply because Gay possessed patronage, and it was not to their
+interest to bring disagreeable matters before the great man. Nor was the
+Land Office unlikely to listen to reason. A strong fight was at that
+time forward to transfer control of the Forest Reserves from a
+department busy in other lines to the Bureau of Forestry where it
+logically belonged. This transfer was violently opposed by those to whom
+the distribution of supervisorships, ranger appointments and the like
+seemed valuable. The Land Office adherents needed all the political
+backing they could procure; and the friends of Chairman Gay epitomized
+political backing. So the Land Office, too, was anxious to please the
+Chairman.
+
+At the same time Simeon Wright had bestirred himself. There seems to be
+no good and valid reason for owning a senator if you don't use him.
+Wright was too shrewd to think it worth while to own a senator from
+California. That was too obvious. Few knew how closely affiliated were
+the Wright and the Barrow interests. Wright dropped a hint to the
+dignified senator; the senator paid a casual call to an official high up
+in the Land Office. Senators would by their votes ultimately decide the
+question of transfer. The official agreed to keep an eye on the
+recommendations in this case.
+
+Thus somebody submerged beneath the Gay interests saw obscurely somebody
+equally submerged beneath the Wright and Barrow interests. In due course
+all Thorne's careful work was pigeonholed. An epitome of the charges was
+typed and submitted to the High Official. On the back of them had been
+written:
+
+"I find the charges not proved."
+
+This was signed by the very obscure clerk who had filed away the Thorne
+affidavits and who happened to be a friend of the man to whom in devious
+ways and through many mouths had come an expression of the Gay wishes.
+It was O.K.'d by a dozen others. The High Official added his O.K. to
+the others. Then he promptly forgot about it, as did every one else
+concerned, save the men most vitally interested.
+
+In due time Thorne, then in Los Angeles, received a brief communication
+from Stafford, the obscure clerk.
+
+"In regard to your charges against Supervisor H.M. Plant, the Department
+begs to advise you that, after examining carefully the evidence for the
+defence, it finds the charges not proven."
+
+Thorne stared at the paper incredulously, then he did something he had
+never permitted himself before; he wrote in expostulation to the Higher
+Official.
+
+"I cannot imagine what the man's defence could be," he wrote, in part,
+"but my evidence a mere denial could hardly controvert. The whole
+countryside knows the man is crooked; they know he was investigated;
+they are now awaiting with full confidence the punishment for
+well-understood peculation. I can hardly exaggerate the body blow to the
+Service such a decision would give. Nobody will believe in it again."
+
+On reading this the Higher Official called in one of his subordinates.
+
+"I have this from Thorne," said he. "What do you think of it?"
+
+The subordinate read it through.
+
+"I'll look it up," said he.
+
+"Do so and bring me the papers," advised the Higher Official.
+
+The Higher Official knew Thorne's work and approved it. The inspector
+was efficient, and throughout all his reforming of conditions in the
+West, the Department had upheld him. The Department liked efficiency,
+and where the private interests of its own grafters were not concerned,
+it gave good government.
+
+In due time the subordinate came back, but without the papers.
+
+"Stafford says he'll look them up, sir," said he. "He told me to tell
+you that the case was the one you were asking Senator Barrow about."
+
+"Ah!" said the Higher Official.
+
+He sat for some time in deep thought. Then he called through the open
+door to his stenographer.
+
+"_In re_ your's 21st," he dictated, "I repose every confidence in Mr.
+Stafford's judgment; and unless I should care to supersede him, it would
+hardly be proper for me to carry any matter over his head."
+
+Thorne immediately resigned, and shortly went into landlooking for a
+lumbering firm in Oregon. Chairman Gay wrote a letter advising Plant to
+"adopt a policy of conciliation toward the turbulent element."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Shortly after Bob's return in the early spring, George Pollock rode to
+Auntie Belle's in some disorder to say that the little girl, now about a
+year old, had been taken sick.
+
+"Jenny has a notion it's something catching," said he, "so she won't let
+Jim send Mary over. There's too many young-uns in that family to run any
+risks."
+
+"How does she seem?" called Auntie Belle from the bedroom where she was
+preparing for departure.
+
+"She's got a fever, and is restless, and won't eat," said George
+anxiously. "She looks awful sick to me."
+
+"They all do at that age," said Auntie Belle comfortably; "don't you
+worry a mite."
+
+Nevertheless Auntie Belle did not return that day, nor the next, nor the
+next. When finally she appeared, it was only to obtain certain supplies
+and clothes. These she caused to be brought out and laid down where she
+could get them. She would allow nobody to come near her.
+
+"It's scarlet fever," she said, "and Lord knows where the child got it.
+But we won't scatter it, so you-all stay away. I'll do what I can. I've
+been through it enough times, Lord knows."
+
+Three days later she appeared again, very quietly.
+
+"How's the baby?" asked Bob. "Better, I hope?"
+
+"The poor little thing is dead," said Auntie Belle shortly, "and I want
+you or somebody to ride down for the minister."
+
+The community attended the funeral in a body. It was held in the open
+air, under a white oak tree, for Auntie Belle, with unusual caution and
+knowledge for the mountains, refused to permit even a chance of
+spreading the contagion. The mother appeared dazed. She sat through the
+services without apparent consciousness of what was going on; she
+suffered herself to be led to the tiny enclosure where all the Pollocks
+of other generations had been buried; she allowed herself to be led away
+again. There was in the brief and pathetic ceremony no meaning and no
+pain for her. The father, on the other hand, seemed crushed. So broken
+was his figure that, after the services, Bob was impelled to lay his
+hand on the man's shoulder and mutter a few incoherent but encouraging
+words. The mountaineer looked up dully, but sharpened to comprehension
+and gratitude as his eyes met those of the tall, vigorous young man
+leaning over him.
+
+"I mean it," said Bob; "any time--any place."
+
+On the way back to Sycamore Flats Auntie Belle expressed her mind to the
+young man.
+
+"Nobody realizes how things are going with those Pollocks," said she.
+"George sold his spurs and that Cruces bit of his to get medicine. He
+wouldn't take anything from me. They're proud folks, and nobody'd have a
+chance to suspect anything. I tell you," said the good lady solemnly,
+"it don't matter where that child got the fever; it's Henry Plant, the
+old, fat scoundrel, that killed her just as plain as if he'd stuck a gun
+to her head. He has a good deal to answer for. There's lots of folks
+eating their own beef cattle right now; and that's ruinous. I suppose
+Washington ain't going to do anything. We might have known it. I don't
+suppose you heard anything outside about it?"
+
+"Only that Thorne had resigned."
+
+"That so!" Auntie Belle ruminated on this a moment. "Well, I'm right
+glad to hear it. I'd hate to think I was fooled on him. Reckon 'resign'
+means fired for daring to say anything about His High-and-mightiness?"
+she guessed.
+
+Bob shook his head. "Couldn't say," said he.
+
+The busy season was beginning. Every day laden teams crawled up the
+road bringing supplies for the summer work. Woodsmen came in twos, in
+threes, in bunches of a dozen or more. Bob was very busy arranging the
+distribution and forwarding, putting into shape the great machinery of
+handling, so that when, a few weeks later, the bundles of sawn lumber
+should begin to shoot down the flume, they would fall automatically into
+a systematic scheme of further transportation. He had done this twice
+before, and he knew all the steps of it, and exactly what would be
+required of him. Certain complications were likely to arise, requiring
+each their individual treatments, but as Bob's experience grew these
+were becoming fewer and of lesser importance. The creative necessity was
+steadily lessening as the work became more familiar. Often Bob found his
+eagerness sinking to a blank; his attention economizing itself to the
+bare needs of the occasion. He caught himself at times slipping away
+from the closest interest in what he had to do. His spirit, although he
+did not know it, was beginning once more to shake itself restlessly, to
+demand, as it had always demanded in the past from the time of his toy
+printing press in his earliest boyhood, fresh food for the creative
+instinct that was his. Bobby Orde, the child, had been thorough. No
+superficial knowledge of a subject sufficed. He had worked away at the
+mechanical difficulties of the cheap toy press after Johnny English, his
+partner in enterprise, had given up in disgust. By worrying the problem
+like a terrier, Bobby had shaken it into shape. Then when the commercial
+possibilities of job printing for parents had drawn Johnny back ablaze
+with enthusiasm, Bobby had, to his partner's amazement, lost completely
+all interest in printing presses. The subject had been exhausted; he had
+no desire for repetitions.
+
+So it had gone. One after another he had with the utmost fervour taken
+up photography, sailing, carpentry, metal working--a dozen and one
+occupations--only to drop them as suddenly. This restlessness of
+childhood came to be considered a defect in young manhood. It indicated
+instability of character. Only his mother, wiser in her quiet way, saw
+the thoroughness with which he ransacked each subject. Bobby would read
+and absorb a dozen technical books in a week, reaching eagerly for the
+vital principles of his subject. She alone realized, although but dimly,
+that the boy did not relinquish his subject until he had grasped those
+vital principles.
+
+"He's learning all the time," she ventured.
+
+"'Jack of all trades: master of none,'" quoted Orde doubtfully.
+
+The danger being recognized, little Bobby's teaching was carefully
+directed. He was not discouraged in his varied activities; but the
+bigger practical principles of American life were inculcated. These may
+be very briefly stated. An American must not idle; he must direct his
+energies toward success; success means making one's way in life; nine
+times out of ten, for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, that means the
+business world. To seize the business opportunity; to develop that
+opportunity through the business virtues of attention to detail,
+industry, economy, persistence, and enthusiasm--these represented the
+plain and manifest duty of every citizen who intended to "be somebody."
+
+Now Bob realized perfectly well that here he was more fortunate than
+most. A great many of his friends had to begin on small salaries in
+indoor positions of humdrum and mechanical duty. He had started on a
+congenial out-of-door occupation of great interest and picturesqueness,
+one suited to his abilities and promising a great future. Nevertheless,
+he had now been in the business five years. He was beginning to see
+through and around it. As yet he had not lost one iota of his enthusiasm
+for the game; but here and there, once in a while, some of the necessary
+delays and slow, long repetitions of entirely mechanical processes left
+him leisure to feel irked, to look above him, beyond the affairs that
+surrounded him. At such times the old blank, doped feeling fell across
+his mind. It had always been so definite a symptom in his childhood of
+that state wherein he simply could not drag himself to blow up the
+embers of his extinguished enthusiasm, that he recoiled from himself in
+alarm. He felt his whole stability of character on trial. If he could
+not "make good" here, what excuse could there be for him; what was there
+left for him save the profitless and honourless life of the dilettante
+and idler? He had caught on to a big business remarkably well, and it
+was worse than childish to lose his interest in the game even for the
+fraction of a second. Of course, it amounted to nothing but that. He
+never did his work better than that spring.
+
+A week after the burial of the Pollock baby, Mrs. Pollock was reported
+seriously ill. Bob rode up a number of times to inquire, and kept
+himself fully informed. The doctor came twice from White Oaks, but then
+ceased his visits. Bob did not know that such visits cost fifty dollars
+apiece. Mary, Jim's wife, shared the care of the sick woman with George.
+She was reported very weak, but getting on. The baby's death, together
+with the other anxieties of the last two years, had naturally pulled her
+down.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Before the gray dawn one Sunday morning Bob, happening to awaken, heard
+a strange, rumbling, distant sound to the west. His first thought was
+that the power dam had been opened and was discharging its waters, but
+as his senses came to him, he realized that this could not be so. He
+stretched himself idly. A mocking bird uttered a phrase outside. No
+dregs of drowsiness remained in him, so he dressed and walked out into
+the freshness of the new morning. Here the rumbling sound, which he had
+concluded had been an effect of his half-conscious imagination, came
+clearer to his ears. He listened for a moment, then walked rapidly to
+the Lone Pine Hill from whose slight elevation he could see abroad over
+the low mountains to the west. The gray light before sunrise was now
+strengthening every moment. By the time Bob had reached the summit of
+the knoll it had illuminated the world.
+
+A wandering suction of air toward the higher peaks brought with it the
+murmur of a multitude. Bob topped the hill and turned his eyes to the
+west. A great cloud of dust arose from among the chaparral and oaks,
+drifting slowly but certainly toward the Ranges. Bob could now make out
+the bawling, shouting, lowing of great herds on the march. In spite of
+pledges and promises, in spite of California John's reports, of Thorne's
+recommendations, of Plant's assurances, Simeon Wright's cattle were
+again coming in!
+
+Bob shook his head sadly, and his clear-cut young face was grave. No one
+knew better than himself what this must mean to the mountain people,
+for his late spring and early fall work had brought him much in contact
+with them. He walked thoughtfully down the hill.
+
+When just on the outskirts of the little village he was overtaken by
+George Pollock on horseback. The mountaineer was jogging along at a foot
+pace, his spurs jingling, his bridle hand high after the Western
+fashion. When he saw Bob he reined in, nodding a good morning. Bob
+noticed that he had strapped on a blanket and slicker, and wore his
+six-shooter.
+
+"You look as though you were going on a journey," remarked Bob.
+
+"Thinking of it," said Pollock. Bob glanced up quickly at the tone of
+his voice, which somehow grated unusually on the young man's ear, but
+the mountaineer's face was placid under the brim of his floppy old hat.
+"Might as well," continued the cattleman after a moment. "Nothin'
+special to keep me."
+
+"I'm glad Mrs. Pollock is better," ventured Bob.
+
+"She's dead," stated Pollock without emotion. "Died this morning about
+two o'clock."
+
+Bob cried out at the utterly unexpected shock of this statement. Pollock
+looked down on him as though from a great height.
+
+"I sort of expected it," he answered Bob's exclamation. "I reckon we
+won't talk of it. 'Spose you see that Wright's cattle is coming in
+again? I'm sorry on account of Jim and the other boys. It wipes me out,
+of course, but it don't matter as far as I'm concerned, because I'm
+going away, anyway."
+
+Bob laid his hand on the man's stirrup leather and walked alongside,
+thinking rapidly. He did not know how to take hold of the situation.
+
+"Where are you thinking of going?" he asked.
+
+Pollock looked down at him.
+
+"What's that to you?" he demanded roughly.
+
+"Why--nothing--I was simply interested," gasped Bob in astonishment.
+
+The mountaineer's eyes bored him through and through. Finally the man
+dropped his gaze.
+
+"I'll tell you," said he at last, "'cause you and Jim are the only
+square ones I know. I'm going to Mexico. I never been there. I'm going
+by Vermilion Valley, and Mono Pass. If they ask you, you can tell 'em
+different. I want you to do something for me."
+
+"Gladly," said Bob. "What is it?"
+
+"Just hold my horse for me," requested Pollock, dismounting. "He stands
+fine tied to the ground, but there's a few things he's plumb afraid of,
+and I don't want to take chances on his getting away. He goes plumb off
+the grade for freight teams; he can't stand the crack of their whips.
+Sounds like a gun to him, I reckon. He won't stand for shooting
+neither."
+
+While talking the mountaineer handed the end of his hair rope into Bob's
+keeping.
+
+"Hang on to him," he said, turning away.
+
+George Pollock sauntered easily down the street. At Supervisor Plant's
+front gate, he turned and passed within. Bob saw him walk rapidly up the
+front walk, and pound on Plant's bedroom door. This, as usual in the
+mountains, opened directly out on the verandah. With an exclamation Bob
+sprang forward, dropping the hair rope. He was in time to see the
+bedroom door snatched open from within, and Plant's huge figure,
+white-robed, appear in the doorway. The Supervisor was evidently angry.
+
+"What in hell do you want?" he demanded.
+
+"You," said the mountaineer.
+
+He dropped his hand quite deliberately to his holster, flipped the
+forty-five out to the level of his hip, and fired twice, without looking
+at the weapon. Plant's expression changed; turned blank. For an
+appreciable instant he tottered upright, then his knees gave out beneath
+him and he fell forward with a crash. George Pollock leaned over him.
+Apparently satisfied after a moment's inspection, the mountaineer
+straightened, dropped his weapon into the holster, and turned away.
+
+All this took place in so short a space of time that Bob had not moved
+five feet from the moment he guessed Pollock's intention to the end of
+the tragedy. As the first shot rang out, Bob turned and seized again the
+hair rope attached to Pollock's horse. His habit of rapid decision and
+cool judgment showed him in a flash that he was too late to interfere,
+and revealed to him what he must do.
+
+Pollock, looking neither to the right nor the left, took the rope Bob
+handed him and swung into the saddle. His calm had fallen from him. His
+eyes burned and his face worked. With a muffled cry of pain he struck
+spurs to his horse and disappeared.
+
+Considerably shaken, Bob stood still, considering what he must do. It
+was manifestly his duty to raise the alarm. If he did so, however, he
+would have to bear witness to what he knew; and this, for George
+Pollock's sake, he desired to avoid. He was the only one who could know
+positively and directly and immediately how Plant had died. The sound of
+the shots had not aroused the village. If they had been heard, no one
+would have paid any attention to them; the discharge of firearms was too
+common an occurrence to attract special notice. It was better to let the
+discovery come in the natural course of events.
+
+However, Bob was neither a coward nor a fool. He wanted to save George
+Pollock if he could, but he had no intention of abandoning another plain
+duty in the matter. Without the slightest hesitation he opened Plant's
+gate and walked to the verandah where the huge, unlovely hulk huddled in
+the doorway. There, with some loathing, he determined the fact that the
+man was indeed dead. Convinced as to this point, he returned to the
+street, and looked carefully up and down it. It was still quite
+deserted.
+
+His mind in a whirl of horror, pity, and an unconfessed, hidden
+satisfaction, he returned to Auntie Belle's. The customary daylight
+breakfast for the teamsters had been omitted on account of the Sabbath.
+A thin curl of smoke was just beginning to rise straight up from the
+kitchen stovepipe. Bob, his mouth suddenly dry and sticky, went around
+to the back porch, where a huge _olla_ hung always full of spring water.
+He rounded the corner to run plump against Oldham, tilted back in a
+chair smoking the butt of a cigar.
+
+In his agitation of mind, Bob had no stomach for casual conversation. By
+an effort he smoothed out his manner and collected his thoughts.
+
+"How are you, Mr. Oldham?" he greeted the older man; "when did you get
+in?"
+
+"About an hour ago," replied Oldham. His spare figure in the gray
+business suit did not stir from its lazy posture, nor did the expression
+of his thin sardonic face change, but somehow, after swallowing his
+drink, Bob decided to revise his first intention of escaping to his
+room.
+
+"An hour ago," he repeated, when the import of the words finally
+filtered through his mental turmoil. "You travelled up at night then?"
+
+"Yes. It's getting hot on the plains."
+
+"Got in just before daylight, then?"
+
+"Just before. I'd have made it sooner, but I had to work my way through
+the cattle."
+
+"Where's your team?"
+
+"I left it down at the Company's stables; thought you wouldn't mind."
+
+"Sure not," said Bob.
+
+The Company's stables were at the other end of the village. Oldham must
+have walked the length of the street. He had said it was before
+daylight; but the look of the man's eyes was quizzical and cold behind
+the glasses. Still, it was always quizzical and cold. Bob called himself
+a panicky fool. Just the same, he wished now he had looked for
+footprints in the dust of the street. While his brain was thus busy with
+swift conjecture and the weighing of probabilities, his tongue was
+making random conversation, and his vacant eye was taking in and
+reporting to his intelligence the most trivial things. Generally
+speaking, his intelligence did not catch the significance of what his
+eyes reported until after an appreciable interval. Thus he noted that
+Oldham had smoked his cigar down to a short butt. This unimportant fact
+meant nothing, until his belated mind told him that never before had he
+seen the man actually smoking. Oldham always held a cigar between his
+lips, but he contented himself with merely chewing it or rolling it
+about. And this was very early, before breakfast.
+
+"Never saw you smoke before," he remarked abruptly, as this bubble of
+irrelevant thought came to the surface.
+
+"No?" said Oldham, politely.
+
+"It would make me woozy all day to smoke before I ate," said Bob, his
+voice trailing away, as his inner ear once more took up its listening
+for the hubbub that must soon break.
+
+As the moments went by, the suspense of this waiting became almost
+unbearable. A small portion of him kept up its semblance of conversation
+with Oldham; another small portion of him made minute and careful notes
+of trivial things; all the rest of him, body and soul, was listening, in
+the hope that soon, very soon, a scream would break the suspense. From
+time to time he felt that Oldham was looking at him queerly, and he
+rallied his faculties to the task of seeming natural.
+
+"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the older man at last. "You're mighty
+pale. You want to watch out where you drink water around some of these
+places."
+
+Bob came to with a snap.
+
+"Didn't sleep well," said he, once more himself.
+
+"Well, that wouldn't trouble me," yawned Oldham; "if it hadn't been for
+cigars I'd have dropped asleep in this chair an hour ago. You said you
+couldn't smoke before breakfast; neither can I ordinarily. This isn't
+before breakfast for me, it's after supper; and I've smoked two just to
+keep awake."
+
+"Why keep awake?" asked Bob.
+
+"When I pass away, it'll be for all day. I want to eat first."
+
+There, at last, it had come! A man down the street shouted. There
+followed a pounding at doors, and then the murmur of exclamations,
+questions and replies.
+
+"It sounds like some excitement," yawned Oldham, bringing his chair down
+with a thump. "They haven't even rung the first bell yet; let's wander
+out and stretch our legs."
+
+He sauntered off the wide back porch toward the front of the house. Bob
+followed. When near the gate Bob's mind grasped the significance of one
+of the trivial details that his eyes had reported to it some moments
+before. He uttered an exclamation, and returned hurriedly to the back
+porch to verify his impressions. They had been correct. Oldham had
+stated definitely that he had arrived before daylight, that he had been
+sitting in his chair for over an hour; that during that time he had
+smoked two cigars through.
+
+_Neither on the broad porch, nor on the ground near it, nor in any
+possible receptacle were there any cigar ashes._
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+The hue and cry rose and died; the sheriff from the plains did his duty;
+but no trace of the murderer was found. Indeed, at the first it was not
+known positively who had done the deed; a dozen might have had motive
+for the act. Only by the process of elimination was the truth come at.
+No one could say which way the fugitive had gone. Jim Pollock, under
+pressure, admitted that his brother had stormed against the door, had
+told the awakened inmates that his wife was dead and that he was going
+away. Immediately on making this statement, he had clattered off. Jim
+steadfastly maintained that his brother had given no inkling of whither
+he fled. Simeon Wright's cattle, on their way to the high country, filed
+past. The cowboys listened to the news with interest, and a delight
+which they did not attempt to conceal. They denied having seen the
+fugitive. The sheriff questioned them perfunctorily. He knew the breed.
+George Pollock might have breakfasted with them for all that the denials
+assured him.
+
+There appeared shortly on the scene of action a United States marshal.
+The murder of a government official was serious. Against the criminal
+the power of the nation was deployed. Nevertheless, in the long run,
+George Pollock got clean away. Nobody saw him from that day--or nobody
+would acknowledge to have seen him.
+
+For awhile Bob expected at any moment to be summoned for his testimony.
+He was morally certain that Oldham had been an eye-witness to the
+tragedy. But as time went on, and no faintest indication manifested
+itself that he could have been connected with the matter, he concluded
+himself mistaken. Oldham could have had no motive in concealment, save
+that of the same sympathy Bob had felt for Pollock. But in that case,
+what more natural than that he should mention the matter privately to
+Bob? If, on the other hand, he had any desire to further the ends of the
+law, what should prevent him from speaking out publicly? In neither case
+was silence compatible with knowledge.
+
+But Bob knew positively the man had lied, when he stated that he had for
+over an hour been sitting in the chair on Auntie Belle's back porch. Why
+had he done so? Where had he been? Bob could not hazard even the wildest
+guess. Oldham's status with Baker was mysterious; his occasional
+business in these parts--it might well be that Oldham thought he had
+something to conceal from Bob. In that case, where had the elder man
+been, and what was he about during that fatal hour that Sunday morning?
+Bob was not conversant with the affairs of the Power Company, but he
+knew vaguely that Baker was always shrewdly reaching out for new rights
+and privileges, for fresh opportunities which the other fellow had not
+yet seen and which he had no desire that the other fellow should see
+until too late. It might be that Oldham was on some such errand. In the
+rush of beginning the season's work, the question gradually faded from
+Bob's thoughts.
+
+Forest Reserve matters locally went into the hands of a receiver. That
+is to say, the work of supervision fell to Plant's head-ranger, while
+Plant's office was overhauled and straightened out by a clerk sent on
+from Washington. Forest Reserve matters nationally, however, were on a
+different footing. The numerous members of Congress who desired to leave
+things as they were, the still more numerous officials of the interested
+departments, the swarming petty politicians dealing direct with small
+patronage--all these powerful interests were unable satisfactorily to
+answer one common-sense question; why is the management of our Forest
+Reserves left to a Land Office already busy, already doubted, when we
+have organized and equipped a Bureau of Forestry consisting of trained,
+enthusiastic and honest men? Reluctantly the transfer was made. The
+forestry men picked up the tangle that incompetent, perfunctory and
+often venal management had dropped.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+To most who heard of it this item of news was interesting, but not
+especially important; Bob could not see where it made much difference
+who held the reins three thousand miles away. To others it came as the
+unhoped-for, dreamed-of culmination of aspiration.
+
+California John got the news from Martin. The old man had come in from a
+long trip.
+
+"You got to take a brace now and be scientific," chaffed Martin. "You
+old mossback! Don't you dare fall any more trees without measuring out
+the centre of gravity; and don't you split any more wood unless you
+calculate first the probable direction of riving; and don't you let any
+doodle-bug get away without looking at his teeth."
+
+California John grinned slowly, but his eyes were shining.
+
+"And what's more, you old grafters'll get bounced, sure pop," continued
+Martin. "They won't want you. You don't wear spectacles, and you eat too
+many proteids in your beans."
+
+"You ain't heard who's going to be sent out for Supervisor?" asked old
+John.
+
+"They haven't found any one with thick enough glasses yet," retorted
+Martin.
+
+California John made some purchases, packed his mule, and climbed back
+up the mountain to the summer camp. Here he threw off his saddle and
+supplies, and entered the ranger cabin. A rusty stove was very hot. Atop
+bubbled a capacious kettle. California John removed the cover and peered
+in.
+
+"Chicken 'n' dumpling!" said he.
+
+He drew a broken-backed chair to the table and set to business. In ten
+minutes his plate contained nothing but chicken bones. He contemplated
+them with satisfaction.
+
+"I reckon that'll even up for that bacon performance," he remarked in
+reference to some past joke on himself.
+
+At dusk three men threw open the outside door and entered. They found
+California John smoking his pipe contemplatively before a clean table.
+
+"Now, you bowlegged old sidewinder," said Ross Fletcher, striding to the
+door, "we'll show you something you don't get up where you come from."
+
+"What is it?" asked California John with a mild curiosity.
+
+"Chicken," replied Fletcher.
+
+He peered into the kettle. Then he lit a match and peered again. He
+reached for a long iron spoon with which he fished up, one after
+another, several dumplings. Finally he swore softly.
+
+"What's the matter, Ross?" inquired California John.
+
+"You know what's the matter," retorted Ross shaking the spoon.
+
+California John arose and looked down into the kettle.
+
+"Thought you said you had chicken," he observed; "looks to me like
+dumplin' soup."
+
+"I did have chicken," replied the man. "Oh, you Miles!--Bob!--come here.
+This old wreck has gone and stole all our chicken."
+
+The boys popped in from the next room.
+
+"I never," expostulated California John, his eyes twinkling. "I never
+stole nothin'. I just came in and found a poor old hen bogged down in a
+mess of dough, so I rescued her."
+
+The other man said nothing for some time, but surveyed California John
+from head to toe and from toe to head again.
+
+"Square," said he at last.
+
+"Square," replied California John with equal gravity. They shook hands.
+
+While the newcomers ate supper, California John read laboriously his
+accumulated mail. After spelling through one document he uttered a
+hearty oath.
+
+"What is it?" asked Ross, suspending operations.
+
+"They've put me in as Supervisor to succeed Plant," replied California
+John, handing over the official document. "I ain't no supervisor."
+
+"I'd like to know why not," spoke up Miles indignantly. "You know these
+mountains better'n any man ever set foot in 'em."
+
+"I ain't got no education," replied California John.
+
+"Damn good thing," growled Ross.
+
+California John smoked with troubled brow.
+
+"What's the matter with you, anyhow?" demanded Ross impatiently, after a
+while; "ain't you satisfied?"
+
+"Oh, I'm satisfied well enough, but I kind of hate to leave the service;
+I like her."
+
+"Quit!" cried Ross.
+
+"No," denied California John, "but I'll get fired. First thing," he
+explained, "I'm going after Simeon Wright's grazing permits. He ain't no
+right in the mountains, and the ranges are overstocked. He can't trail
+in ten thousand head while I'm supposed to be boss, so it looks as
+though I wasn't going to be boss long after Simeon Wright comes in."
+
+"Oh, go slow," pleaded Ross; "take things a little easy at first, and
+then when you get going you can tackle the big things."
+
+"I ain't going to enforce any regulations they don't give me," stated
+California John, "and I'm going to try to enforce all they do. That's
+what I'm here for."
+
+"That means war with Wright," said Ross.
+
+"Then war it is," agreed California John comfortably.
+
+"You won't last ten minutes against Wright."
+
+"Reckon not," agreed old John, "reckon not; but I'll last long enough to
+make him take notice."
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+By end of summer California John was fairly on his road. He entered
+office at a time when the local public sentiment was almost unanimously
+against the system of Forest Reserves. The first thing he did was to
+discharge eight of the Plant rangers. These fell back on their rights,
+and California John, to his surprise, found that he could not thus
+control his own men. He wagged his head in his first discouragement. It
+was necessary to recommend to Washington that these men be removed; and
+California John knew well by experience what happened to such
+recommendations. Nevertheless he sat him down to his typewriter, and
+with one rigid forefinger, pecked out such a request. Having thus
+accomplished his duty in the matter, but without hope of results, he
+went about other things. Promptly within two weeks came the necessary
+authority. The eight ornamentals were removed.
+
+Somewhat encouraged, California John next undertook the sheep problem.
+That, under Plant, had been in the nature of a protected industry.
+California John and his delighted rangers plunged neck deep into a sheep
+war. They found themselves with a man's job on their hands. The
+sheepmen, by long immunity, had come to know the higher mountains
+intimately, and could hide themselves from any but the most
+conscientious search. When discovered, they submitted peacefully to
+being removed from the Reserve. At the boundaries the rangers' power
+ceased. The sheepmen simply waited outside the line. It was manifestly
+impossible to watch each separate flock all the time. As soon as
+surveillance was relaxed, over the line they slipped, again to fatten
+on prohibited feed until again discovered, and again removed. The
+rangers had no power of arrest; they could use only necessary force in
+ejecting the trespassers. It was possible to sue in the United States
+courts, but the process was slow and unsatisfactory, and the damages
+awarded the Government amounted to so little that the sheepmen
+cheerfully paid them as a sort of grazing tax. The point was, that they
+got the feed--either free or at a nominal cost--and the rangers were
+powerless to stop them.
+
+Over this problem California John puzzled a long time.
+
+"We ain't doing any good playing hide and coop," he told Ross; "it's
+just using up our time. We got to get at it different. I wish those
+regulations was worded just the least mite different!"
+
+He produced the worn Blue Book and his own instructions and thumbed them
+over for the hundredth time.
+
+"'Employ only necessary force,'" he muttered; "'remove them beyond the
+confines of the reserve.'" He bit savagely at his pipe. Suddenly his
+tension relaxed and his wonted shrewdly humorous expression returned to
+his brown and lean old face. "Ross," said he, "this is going to be plumb
+amusing. Do you guess we-all can track up with any sheep?"
+
+"Jim Hutchins's herders must have sneaked back over by Iron Mountain,"
+suggested Fletcher.
+
+"Jim Hutchins," mused California John; "where is he now? Know?"
+
+"I heard tell he was at Stockton."
+
+"Well, that's all right then. If Jim was around, he might start a
+shootin' row, and we don't want any of that."
+
+"Well, I don't know as I'm afraid of Jim Hutchins," said Ross Fletcher.
+
+"Neither am I, sonny," replied California John; "but this is a
+grand-stand play, and we got to bring her off without complications. You
+get the boys organized. We start to-morrow."
+
+"What you got up your sleeve?" asked Ross.
+
+"Never you mind."
+
+"Who's going to have charge of the office?"
+
+"Nobody," stated California John positively; "we tackle one thing to a
+time."
+
+Next day the six rangers under command of their supervisor disappeared
+in the wilderness. When they reached the trackless country of the
+granite and snow and the lost short-hair meadows, they began scouting.
+Sign of sheep they found in plenty, but no sheep. Signal smokes over
+distant ranges rose straight up, and died; but never could they discover
+where the fire had been burned. Sheepmen of the old type are the best of
+mountaineers, and their skill has been so often tested that they are as
+full of tricks as so many foxes. The fires they burned left no ash. The
+smokes they sent up warned all for two hundred miles.
+
+Nevertheless, by the end of three days young Tom Carroll and Charley
+Morton trailed down a band of three thousand head. They came upon the
+flock grazing peacefully over blind hillsides in the torment of
+splintered granite. The herders grinned, as the rangers came in sight.
+They had been "tagged" in this "game of hide and coop." As a matter of
+course they began to pack their camp on the two burros that grazed among
+the sheep; they ordered the dogs to round up the flock. For two weeks
+they had grazed unmolested, and they were perfectly satisfied to pay the
+inconvenience of a day's journey over to the Inyo line.
+
+"'llo boys," said their leader, flashing his teeth at them. "'Wan start
+now?"
+
+"These Jim Hutchins's sheep?" inquired Carroll.
+
+But at that question the Frenchman suddenly lost all his command of the
+English language.
+
+"They're Hutchins's all right," said Charley, who had ridden out to look
+at the brand painted black on the animals' flanks. "No go to-night," he
+told the attentive herder. "Camp here."
+
+He threw off his saddle. Tom Carroll rode away to find California John.
+
+The two together, with Ross Fletcher, whom they had stumbled upon
+accidentally, returned late the following afternoon. By sunrise next
+morning the flocks were under way for Inyo. The sheep strung out by the
+dogs went forward steadily like something molten; the sheepherders
+plodded along staff in hand; the rangers brought up the rear, riding.
+Thus they went for the marching portions of two days. Then at noon they
+topped the main crest at the broad Pass, and the sheer descents on the
+Inyo side lay before them. From beneath them flowed the plains of Owen's
+Valley, so far down that the white roads showed like gossamer threads,
+the ranches like tiny squares of green. Eight thousand feet almost
+straight down the precipice fell away. Across the valley rose the White
+Mountains and the Panamints, and beyond them dimly could be guessed
+Death Valley and the sombre Funeral Ranges. To the north was a lake with
+islands swimming in it, and above it empty craters looking from above
+like photographs of the topography of the moon; and beyond it tier after
+tier, as far as the eye could reach, the blue mountains of Nevada. A
+narrow gorge, standing fairly on end, led down from the Pass. Without
+hesitation, like a sluggishly moving, viscid brown fluid, the sheep
+flowed over the edge. The dogs, their flanking duties relieved by the
+walls of dark basalt on either hand, fell to the rear with their
+masters. The mountain-bred horses dropped calmly down the rough and
+precipitous trail.
+
+At the end of an hour the basalt gorge opened out to a wide steep slope
+of talus on which grew in clumps the first sage brush of the desert.
+Here California John called a halt. The line of the Reserve, unmarked as
+yet save by landmarks and rare rough "monuments" of loose stones, lay
+but just beyond.
+
+"This is as far as we go," he told the chief herder.
+
+The Frenchman flashed his teeth, and bowed with some courtesy. "Au
+revoi'," said he.
+
+"Hold on," repeated California John, "I said this is as far as we go.
+That means you, too; and your men."
+
+"But th' ship!" cried the chief herder.
+
+"My rangers will put them off the Reserve, according to regulation,"
+stated California John.
+
+The Frenchman stared at him.
+
+"W'at you do?" he gasped at last. "Where we go?"
+
+"I'm going to put you off the Reserve, too, but on the west side," said
+California John. The old man's figure straightened in his saddle, and
+his hand dropped to the worn and shiny butt of his weapon: "No; none of
+that! Take your hand off your gun! I got the right to use _necessary_
+force; and, by God, I'll do it!"
+
+The herder began a voluble discourse of mingled protestations and
+exposition. California John cut him short.
+
+"I know my instructions as well as you do," said he. "They tell me to
+put sheep and herders off the Reserve without using unnecessary force;
+but _there ain't nothing said about putting them off in the same
+place!_"
+
+Ross Fletcher rocked with joy in his saddle.
+
+"So that's what you had up your sleeve!" he fairly shouted. "Why, it's
+as simple as a b'ar trap!"
+
+California John pointed his gnarled forefinger at the herder.
+
+"Call your dogs!" he commanded sharply. "Call them in, and tie them! The
+first dog loose in camp will be shot. If you care for your dogs, tie
+them up. Now drop your gun on the ground. Tom, you take their
+shootin'-irons." He produced from his saddle bags several new pairs of
+hand-cuffs, which he surveyed with satisfaction, "This is business,"
+said he; "I bought these on my own hook. You bet I don't mean to have to
+shoot any of you fellows in the back; and I ain't going to sit up nights
+either. Snap 'em on, Charley. Now, Ross, you and Tom run those sheep
+over the line, and then follow us up."
+
+As the full meaning of the situation broke on the Frenchman's mind, he
+went frantic. By the time he and his herders should be released, the
+whole eighty-mile width of the Sierras would lie between him and his
+flocks. He would have to await his chance to slip by the rangers. In the
+three weeks or more that must elapse before he could get back, the
+flocks would inevitably be about destroyed. For it is a striking fact,
+and one on which California John had built his plan, that sheep left to
+their own devices soon perish. They scatter. The coyotes, bears and
+cougars gather to the feast. It would be most probable that the
+sheep-hating cattlemen of Inyo would enjoy mutton chops.
+
+California John collected his scattered forces, delegated two men to
+eject the captives; and went after more sheep. He separated thus three
+flocks from their herders. After that the sheep question was settled;
+government feed was too expensive.
+
+"That's off'n our minds," said he. "Now we'll tackle the next job."
+
+He went at it in his slow, painstaking way, and accomplished it. Never,
+if he could help it, did he depend on the mails when the case was within
+riding distance. He preferred to argue the matter out, face to face.
+
+"The Government _prefers_ friends," he told everybody, and then took his
+stand, in all good feeling, according as the other man proved
+reasonable. Some of the regulations were galling to the mountain
+traditions. He did not attempt to explain or defend them, but simply
+stated their provisions.
+
+"Now, I'm swore in to see that these are carried out," said he, "always,
+and if you ain't going to toe the mark, why, you see, it puts me in one
+hell of a hole, don't it? I ain't liking to be put in the position of
+fighting all my old neighbours, and I sure can't lie down on my job. It
+don't _really_ mean much to you, now does it, Link? and it helps me out
+a lot."
+
+"Well, I know you're square, John, and I'll do it," said the
+mountaineer reluctantly, "but I wouldn't do it for any other blank of a
+blank in creation!"
+
+Thus California John was able, by personality, to reduce much friction
+and settle many disputes. He could be uncompromising enough on occasion.
+
+Thus Win Spencer and Tom Hoyt had a violent quarrel over cattle
+allotments which they brought to California John for settlement. Each
+told a different story, so the evidence pointed clearly to neither
+party. California John listened in silence.
+
+"I won't take sides," said he; "settle it for yourselves. _I'd just as
+soon make enemies of both of you as of one_."
+
+Then in the middle of summer came the trial of it all. The Service sent
+notice that, beginning the following season, a grazing tax would be
+charged, and it requested the Supervisor to send in his estimate of
+grazing allotments. California John sat him down at his typewriter and
+made out the required list. Simeon Wright's name did not appear therein.
+In due time somebody wanted, officially, to know why not. California
+John told them, clearly, giving the reasons that the range was
+overstocked, and quoting the regulations as to preference being given to
+the small owner dwelling in or near the Forests. He did this just as a
+good carpenter might finish the under side of a drain; not that it would
+do any good, but for his own satisfaction.
+
+"We will now listen to the roar of the lion," he told Ross Fletcher,
+"after which I'll hand over my scalp to save 'em the trouble of
+sharpening up their knives."
+
+As a matter of fact the lion did roar, but no faintest echo reached the
+Sierras. For the first time Simeon Wright and the influence Simeon
+Wright could bring to bear failed of their accustomed effect at
+Washington. An honest, fearless, and single-minded Chief, backed by an
+enthusiastic Service, saw justice rather than expediency. California
+John received back his recommendation marked "Approved."
+
+The old man tore open the long official envelope, when he received it
+from Martin's hand, and carried it to the light, where he adjusted
+precisely his bowed spectacles, and, in his slow, methodical way,
+proceeded to investigate the contents. As he caught sight of the word
+and its initials his hand involuntarily closed to crush the papers, and
+his gaunt form straightened. In his mild blue eye sprang fire. He turned
+to Martin, his voice vibrant with an emotion carefully suppressed
+through the nine long years of his faithful service.
+
+"They've turned down Wright," said he, "and they've give us an
+appropriation. They've turned down old Wright! By God, we've got a man!"
+
+He strode from the store, his head high. As he went up the street a
+canvas sign over the empty storehouse attracted his attention. He pulled
+his bleached moustache a moment; then removed his floppy old hat, and
+entered.
+
+An old-fashioned exhorting evangelist was holding forth to three
+listless and inattentive sinners. A tired-looking woman sat at a
+miniature portable organ. At the close of the services California John
+wandered forward.
+
+"I'm plumb busted," said he frankly, "and that's the reason I couldn't
+chip in. I couldn't buy fleas for a dawg. I'm afraid you didn't win
+much."
+
+The preacher looked gloomily at a nickle and a ten-cent piece.
+
+"Dependin' on this sort of thing to get along?" asked California John.
+
+"Yes," said the preacher. The woman looked out of the window.
+
+California John said no more, but went out of the building and down the
+street to Austin's saloon.
+
+"Howdy, boys," he greeted the loungers and card players. "Saw off a
+minute. There's goin' to be a gospel meetin' right here a half-hour from
+now. I'm goin' to hold it and I'm goin' out now to rustle a
+congregation. At the close we'll take up a collection for the benefit
+of the church."
+
+At the end of the period mentioned he placed himself behind the bar and
+faced a roomful of grinning men.
+
+"This is serious, boys. Take off your hat, Bud. Wipe them snickers off'n
+your face. We're all sinners; and I reckon now's as good a time as any
+to realize the fact. I don't know much about the Bible; but I do recall
+enough to hold divine services for once, and I intend to have 'em
+respected."
+
+For fifteen minutes California John conducted his services according to
+his notion. Then he stated briefly his cause and took up his collection.
+
+"Nine-forty-five," said he thoughtfully, looking at the silver. He
+carefully extracted two nickels, and dumped the rest in his pocket. "I
+reckon I've earned a drink out of this," he stated; "any objections?"
+
+There were none; so California John bought his drink and departed.
+
+"That's all right," he told the astonished and grateful evangelist, "I
+had to do somethin' to blow off steam, or else go on a hell of a drunk.
+And it would have been plumb ruinous to do that. So you see, it's lucky
+I met you." The old man's twinkling and humorous blue eyes gazed
+quizzically at the uneasy evangelist, divided between gratitude and his
+notion that he ought to reprobate this attitude of mind. Then they
+softened. California John laid his hand on the preacher's shoulder.
+"Don't get discouraged," said he; "don't do it. The God of Justice still
+rules. I've just had some news that proves it."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+From this moment the old man held his head high, and went about the work
+with confidence. He built trails where trails had long been needed; he
+regulated the grazing; he fought fire so successfully that his burned
+area dropped that year from two per cent. to one-half of one per cent.;
+he adjusted minor cases of special use and privilege justly. Constantly
+he rode his district on the business of his beloved Forest. His
+beautiful sorrel, Star, with his silver-mounted caparisons, was a
+familiar figure on all the trails. When a man wanted his first Special
+Privilege, he wrote the Supervisor. The affair was quite apt to bungle.
+Then California John saw that man personally. After that there was no
+more trouble. The countryside dug up the rest of California John's name,
+and conferred on him the dignity of it. John had heard it scarcely at
+all for over thirty years. Now he rather liked the sound of "Supervisor
+Davidson." In the title and the simple dignities attaching thereunto he
+took the same gentle and innocent pride that he did in Star, and the
+silver-mounted bridle and the carved-leather saddle.
+
+But when evening came, and the end of the month, Supervisor Davidson
+always found himself in trouble. Then he sat down before his typewriter,
+on which he pecked methodically with the rigid forefinger of his right
+hand. Naturally slow of thought when confronted by blank paper, the
+mechanical limitations put him far behind in his reports and
+correspondence. Naturally awkward of phrase when deprived of his
+picturesque vernacular, he stumbled among phrases. The monthly reports
+were a nightmare to him. When at last they were finished, he breathed a
+deep sigh, and went out into his sugar pines and spruces.
+
+In August California John received his first inspector. At that time the
+Forest Service, new to the saddle, heir to the confusion left by the
+Land Office, knew neither its field nor its office men as well as it
+does now. Occasionally it made mistakes in those it sent out. Brent was
+one of them.
+
+Brent was of Teutonic extraction, brought up in Brookline, educated in
+the Yale Forestry School, and experienced in the offices of the Bureau
+of Forestry before it had had charge of the nation's estates. He
+possessed a methodical mind, a rather intolerant disposition, thick
+glasses, a very cold and precise manner, extreme personal neatness, and
+abysmal ignorance of the West. He disapproved of California John's
+rather slipshod dress, to start with; his ingrained reticence shrank
+from Davidson's informal cordiality; his orderly mind recoiled with
+horror from the jumble of the Supervisor's accounts and reports. As he
+knew nothing whatever of the Sierras, he was quite unable to appreciate
+the value of trails, of fenced meadows, of a countryside of peace--those
+things were so much a matter of course back East that he hardly noticed
+them one way or another. Brent's thoroughness burrowed deep into office
+failures. One by one he dragged them to the light and examined them
+through his near-sighted glasses. They were bad enough in all
+conscience; and Brent was not in the least malicious in the inferences
+he drew. Only he had no conception of judging the Man with the Time and
+the Place.
+
+He believed in military smartness, in discipline, in ordered activities.
+
+"It seems to me you give your rangers a great deal of freedom and
+latitude," said he one day.
+
+"Well," said California John, "strikes me that's the only way. With men
+like these you got to get their confidence."
+
+Brent peered at him.
+
+"H'm," said he sarcastically, "do you think you have done so?"
+
+California John flushed through his tan at the implication, but he
+replied nothing.
+
+This studied respect for his superior officer on the Supervisor's part
+encouraged Brent to deliver from time to time rather priggish little
+homilies on the way to run a Forest. California John listened, but with
+a sardonic smile concealed beneath his sun-bleached moustache. After a
+little, however, Brent became more inclined to bring home the personal
+application. Then California John grew restive.
+
+"In fact," Brent concluded his incisive remarks one day, "you run this
+place entirely too much along your own lines."
+
+California John leaned forward.
+
+"Is that an official report?" he asked.
+
+"What?" inquired Brent, puzzled.
+
+"That last remark. Because if it ain't you'd better put it in writing
+and make it official. Step right in and do it now!"
+
+Brent looked at him in slight bewilderment.
+
+"I'm willing to hear your talk," went on California John quietly. "Some
+of it's good talk, even if it ain't put out in no very good spirit; and
+I ain't kicking on criticism--that's what I'm here for, and what you're
+here for. But I ain't here for no _private_ remarks. If you've got
+anything to kick on, put it down and sign it and send it on. I'll stand
+for it, and explain it if I can; or take my medicine if I can't. But
+anything you ain't ready and willing to report on, I don't want to take
+from you private. _Sabe?_"
+
+Brent bowed coldly, turned his back and walked away without a word.
+California John looked after him.
+
+"Well, that wasn't no act of Solomon," he told himself; "but, anyway, I
+feel better."
+
+After Brent's departure it took California John two weeks to recover his
+equanimity and self-confidence. Then the importance of his work gripped
+him once more. He looked about him at the grazing, the policing, the
+fire-fighting, all the varied business of the reserves. In them all he
+knew was no graft, and no favouritism. The trails were being improved;
+the cabins built; the meadows for horse-feed fenced; the bridges built
+and repaired; the country patrolled by honest and enthusiastic men. He
+recalled the old days of Henry Plant's administration under the
+Land-Office--the graft, the supineness, the inefficiency, the confusion.
+
+"We're savin' the People's property, and keepin' it in good shape," he
+argued to himself, "and that's sure the main point. If we take care of
+things, we've done the main job. Let the other fellows do the heavy
+figgerin'. The city's full of cheap bookkeepers who can't do nothing
+else."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+But a month later, at the summer camp, California John had opportunity
+to greet a visitor whom he was delighted to see. One morning a very
+dusty man leaned from his saddle and unlatched the gate before
+headquarters. As he straightened again, he removed his broad hat and
+looked up into the cool pine shadows with an air of great refreshment.
+
+"Why, it's Ashley Thorne!" cried California John, leaping to his feet.
+
+"The same," replied Thorne, reaching out his hand.
+
+He dismounted, and Charley Morton, grinning a welcome, led his horse
+away to the pasture.
+
+"I sure am glad to see you!" said California John over and over again;
+"and where did you come from? I thought you were selling pine lands in
+Oregon."
+
+Thorne dropped into a chair with a sigh of contentment. "I was," said
+he, "and then they made the Transfer, so I came back."
+
+"You're in the Service again?" cried California John delighted.
+
+"Couldn't stay out now that things are in proper hands."
+
+"Good! I expect you're down here to haul me over the coals," California
+John chuckled.
+
+"Oh, just to look around," said Thorne, biting at his close-clipped,
+bristling moustache.
+
+Next morning they began to look around. California John was overjoyed at
+this chance to show a sympathetic and congenial man what he had done.
+
+"I got a trail 'way up Baldy now," he confided as they swung aboard.
+"It's a good trail too; and it makes a great fire lookout. We'll take a
+ride up there, if you have time before you go. Well, as I was telling
+you about that Cook cattle case--the old fellow says----"
+
+At the end of the Supervisor's long and interested dissertation on the
+Cook case, Thorne laughed gently.
+
+"Looks as if you had him," said he, "and I think the Chief will sustain
+you. You like this work, don't you?"
+
+"I sure just naturally love it," replied California John earnestly.
+"I've got the chance now to straighten things out. What I say goes. For
+upward of nine years I've been ridin' around seein' how things had ought
+to be done. And I couldn't get results nohow. Somebody always had a
+graft in it that spoiled the whole show. I could see how simple and easy
+it would be to straighten everythin' all out in good shape; but I
+couldn't do nothing."
+
+"Hard enough to hold your job," suggested Thorne.
+
+"That's it. And everybody in the country thought I was a damn fool. Only
+damn fools and lazy men took rangers' jobs those days. But I hung on
+because I believed in it. And now I got the best job in the bunch. In
+place of being looked down on as that old fool John, I'm Mr. Davidson,
+the Forest Supervisor."
+
+"It's a matter for pride," said Thorne non-committally.
+
+"It isn't that," denied the old man; "I'm not proud because I'm
+Supervisor. Lord love you, Henry Plant was Supervisor; and I never heard
+tell that any one was proud of him, not even himself. But I'm proud of
+being a _good_ supervisor. They ain't a sorehead near us now.
+Everybody's out for the Forest. I've made 'em understand that it's for
+them. They know the Service is square. And we ain't had fires to amount
+to nothing; nor trespass."
+
+"You've done good work," said Thorne soberly; "none better. No one could
+have done it but you. You have a right to be proud of it."
+
+"Then you'll be sending in a good report," said California John, solely
+by way of conversation. "I suspicion that last fellow gave me an awful
+roast."
+
+"I'm not an inspector," replied Thorne.
+
+"That so? You used to be before you resigned; so I thought sure you must
+be now. What's your job?"
+
+"I'll tell you when we have more time," said Thorne.
+
+For three days they rode together. The Supervisor was a very busy man.
+He had errands of all sorts to accomplish. Thorne simply went along.
+Everywhere he found good feeling, satisfactory conditions.
+
+At the end of the third day as the two men sat before the rough stone
+fireplace at headquarters, Thorne abruptly broke the long silence.
+
+"John," said he, "I've got a few things to say that are not going to be
+pleasant either for you or for me. Nevertheless, I am going to say them.
+In fact, I asked the Chief for the privilege rather than having you hear
+through the regular channels."
+
+California John had not in the least changed his position, yet all at
+once the man seemed to turn still and watchful.
+
+"Fire ahead," said he.
+
+"You asked me the other day what my job is. It is Supervisor of this
+district. They have appointed me in your place."
+
+"Oh, they have," said California John. He sat for some time, his eyes
+narrowing, looking straight ahead of him. "I'd like to know why!" he
+burst out at last. A dull red spot burned on each side his
+weather-beaten cheeks.
+
+"I--"
+
+"You had nothing to do with it," interrupted California John sharply; "I
+know that. But who did? Why did they do it? By God," he brought his fist
+down sharply, "I intend to get to the bottom of this! I've been in the
+Service since she started. I've served honest. No man can say I haven't
+done all my duty and been square. And that's been when every man-jack of
+them was getting his graft as reg'lar as his pay check. And since I've
+been Supervisor is the only time this Forest has ever been in any kind
+of shape, if I do say it myself. I've rounded her up. I've stopped the
+graft. I've fixed the 'soldiers.' I've got things in shape. They can't
+remove me without cause--I know that--and if they think I'm goin' to lie
+down and take it without a kick, they've got off the wrong foot good and
+plenty!"
+
+Thorne sat tight, nor offered a word of comment.
+
+"You've been an inspector," California John appealed to him. "You've
+been all over the country among the different reserves. Ain't mine up to
+the others?"
+
+"Things are in better shape here than in any of them," replied Thorne
+decisively; "your rangers have more _esprit de corps_, your neighbours
+are better disposed, your fires have a smaller percentage of acreage,
+your trails are better."
+
+"Well?" demanded California John.
+
+"Well," repeated Thorne leaning forward, "just this. What's the use of
+it all?"
+
+"Use?" repeated California John vaguely.
+
+"Yes. Of what you and all the rest of us are doing."
+
+"To save the public's property."
+
+"That's part of it; and that's the part you've been doing superlatively
+well. It's the old idea, that: the idea expressed by the old name--the
+Forest _Reserves_--to save, to set aside. It seemed the most important
+thing. The forests had so many eager enemies--unprincipled land-grabbers
+and lumbermen, sheep, fire. To beat these back required all our best
+efforts. It was all we could think of. We hadn't time to think of
+anything else. It was a full job."
+
+"You bet it was," commented the old man grimly.
+
+"Well, it's done. There will be attempts to go back to the old state of
+affairs, but they will grow feebler from year to year. Things will never
+slide back again. The people are awake."
+
+"Think so?" doubted California John.
+
+"I know it. Now comes the new idea. We no longer speak of Forest
+Reserves, but of National Forests. We've saved them; now what are we
+going to do with them? What would you think of a man who cleared a
+'forty', and pulled all the stumps, and then quit work?"
+
+"I never thought of that," said California John, "but what's that got to
+do with these confounded whelps----"
+
+"We are going to use these forests for the benefit of the people. We're
+going to cut the ripe trees and sell them to the lumber manufacturer;
+we're going to develop the water power; we're going to improve the
+grazing; we're going to study what we have here, so that by and by from
+our forests we will be getting the income the lumberman now gets, and
+will not be injuring the estate. Each Forest is going to be a big and
+complicated business, like railroading or wholesaling. Anybody can run
+Martin's store down at the Flats. It takes a trained man to oversee even
+a proposition like the Star at White Oaks."
+
+"Oh, I see what you're drivin' at," said California John, "but I've made
+good up to now; and until they try me out, they've no right to fire me.
+I'll defy 'em to find anythin' crooked!!!"
+
+"John, you're as straight as a string. But they have tried you out. Your
+office work has been away off."
+
+"Oh, that! What's those dinkey little reports and monkeydoodle business
+amount to, anyhow? You know perfectly well it's foolish to ask a ranger
+to fill out an eight-page blank every time he takes a ride. What does
+that amount to?"
+
+"Not very much," confessed Thorne. "But when things begin to hum around
+here there'll be a thousand times as much of the same sort of stuff, and
+it'll _all_ be important."
+
+"They'd better get me a clerk."
+
+"They would get you a clerk, several of them. But no man has a right to
+even boss a job he doesn't himself understand. What do you know about
+timber grading? estimating? mapping? What is your scientific
+training--?"
+
+"I've give my soul and boot-straps to this Service for nine years--at
+sixty and ninety a month," interrupted California John. "Part of that I
+spent for tools they was too stingy to give me. Now they kick me out."
+
+"Oh, no, they don't," said Thorne. "Not any! But you agree with me,
+don't you, that you couldn't hold down the job?"
+
+"I suppose so," snapped California John. "To hell with such a game. I
+think I'll go over Goldfield way."
+
+"No, you won't," said Thorne gently. "You'll stay here, in the Service."
+
+"What!" cried the old man rising to his feet; "stay here in the Service!
+And every mountain man to point me out as that old fool Davidson who got
+fired after workin' nine years like a damn ijit. You talk foolish!"
+
+Thorne arose too, and put one hand on the old man's shoulder.
+
+"And what about those nine years?" he asked gently. "Things looked
+pretty dark, didn't they? You didn't have enough to live on; and you got
+your salary docked without any reason or justice; and you had to stand
+one side while the other fellows did things dishonest and wrong; and it
+didn't look as though it was ever going to get better. Nine years is a
+long time. Why did you do it?"
+
+"I don't know," muttered California John.
+
+"It was just waiting for this time that is coming. In five years we'll
+have the people with us; we'll have Congress, and the money to do
+things; we'll have sawmills and water-power, and regulated grazing, and
+telephone lines, and comfortable quarters. We'll have a Service
+safeguarded by Civil Service, and a body of disciplined men, and
+officers as the Army and Navy have. It's coming; and it's coming soon.
+You've been nine years at the other thing--"
+
+"It's humiliating," insisted California John, "to do a job well and get
+fired."
+
+"You'll still have just the job you have now--only you'll be called a
+head-ranger."
+
+"My people won't see it that way."
+
+Ashley Thorne hesitated.
+
+"No, they won't," said he frankly at last. "I could argue on the other
+side; but they won't. They'll think you've dropped back a peg; and
+they'll say to each other--at least some of them will: 'Old Davidson bit
+off more than he could chew; and it serves him right for being a damn
+fool, anyway.' You've been content to play along misunderstood for nine
+years because you had faith. Has that faith deserted you?"
+
+California John looked down, and his erect shoulders shrunk forward a
+little.
+
+"Old friend," said Thorne, "it's a sacrifice. Are you going to stay and
+help me?"
+
+California John for a long time studied a crack in the floor. When he
+looked up his face was illuminated with his customary quizzical grin.
+
+"I've sure got it on Ross Fletcher," he drawled. "I done _told_ him I
+wasn't no supervisor, and he swore I was."
+
+
+
+
+PART FOUR
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+When next Bob was able to visit the Upper Camp, he found Thorne fully
+established. He rode in from the direction of Rock Creek, and so through
+the pasture and by the back way. In the tiny potato and garden patch
+behind the house he came upon a woman wielding a hoe.
+
+Her back was toward him, and a pink sunbonnet, freshly starched,
+concealed all her face. The long, straight lines of her gown fell about
+a vigorous and supple figure that swayed with every stroke of the hoe.
+Bob stopped and watched her. There was something refreshing in the
+eagerness with which she attacked the weeds, as though it were less a
+drudgery than a live interest which it was well to meet joyously. After
+a moment she walked a few steps to another row of tiny beans. Her
+movements had the perfect grace of muscular control; one melted, flowed,
+into the other. Bob's eye of the athlete noted and appreciated this
+fact. He wondered to which of the mountain clans this girl belonged.
+Vigorous and breezy as were the maidens of the hills, able to care for
+themselves, like the paladins of old, afoot or ahorse, they lacked this
+grace of movement. He stepped forward.
+
+"I beg pardon," said he.
+
+The girl turned, resting the heel of her hoe on the earth, and both
+hands on the end of its handle. Bob saw a dark, oval countenance, with
+very red cheeks, very black eyes and hair, and an engaging flash of
+teeth. The eyes looked at him as frankly as a boy's, and the flash of
+teeth made him unaffectedly welcome.
+
+"Is Mr. Thorne here?" asked Bob.
+
+"Why, no," replied the girl; "but I'm Mr. Thorne's sister. Won't I do?"
+
+She was leisurely laying aside her hoe, and drawing the fringed buckskin
+gauntlets from her hands. Bob stepped gallantly forward to relieve her
+of the implement.
+
+"Do?" he echoed. "Why, of course you'll do!"
+
+She stopped and looked him full in the face, with an air of great
+amusement.
+
+"Did you come to see Mr. Thorne on business?" she asked.
+
+"No," replied Bob; "just ran over to see him."
+
+She laughed quietly.
+
+"Then I'm afraid I won't do," she said, "for I must cook dinner. You
+see," she explained, "I'm Mr. Thorne's clerk, and if it were business, I
+might attend to it."
+
+Bob flushed to the ears. He was ordinarily a young man of sufficient
+self-possession, but this young woman's directness was disconcerting.
+She surveyed his embarrassment with approving eyes.
+
+"You might finish those beans," said she, offering the hoe. "Of course,
+you must stay to dinner, and I must go light the fire."
+
+Bob finished the beans, leaned the hoe up against the house, and went
+around to the front. There he stopped in astonishment.
+
+"Well, you have changed things!" he cried.
+
+The stuffy little shed kitchen was no longer occupied. A floor had been
+laid between the bases of four huge trees, and walls enclosing three
+sides to the height of about eight feet had been erected. The affair had
+no roof. Inside these three walls were the stove, the kitchen table, the
+shelves and utensils of cooking. Miss Thorne, her sunbonnet laid aside
+from her glossy black braids, moved swiftly and easily here and there in
+this charming stage-set of a kitchen. About ten feet in front of it, on
+the pine needles, stood the dining table, set with white.
+
+[Illustration: "I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned]
+
+The girl nodded brightly to Bob.
+
+"Finished?" she inquired. She pointed to the water pail: "There's a
+useful task for willing hands."
+
+Bob filled the pail, and set it brimming on the section of cedar log
+which seemed to be its appointed resting place.
+
+"Thank you," said the girl. Bob leaned against the tree and watched her
+as she moved here and there about the varied business of cooking. Every
+few minutes she would stop and look upward through the cool shadows of
+the trees, like a bird drinking. At times she burst into snatches of
+song, so brief as to be unrecognizable.
+
+"Do you like sticks in your food?" she asked Bob, as though suddenly
+remembering his presence, "and pine needles, and the husks of pine nuts,
+and other débris? because that's what the breezes and trees and naughty
+little squirrels are always raining down on me."
+
+"Why don't you have the men stretch you a canvas?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well," said the girl, stopping short, "I have considered it. I no more
+than you like unexpected twigs in my dough. But you see I do like
+shadows and sunlight and upper air and breezes in my food. And you can't
+have one without the other. Did you get all the weeds out?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob. "Look here; you ought not to have to do such work as
+that."
+
+"Do you think it will wear down my fragile strength?" she asked, looking
+at him good-humouredly. "Is it too much exercise for me?"
+
+"No--" hesitated Bob, "but--"
+
+"Why, bless you, I like to help the babies to grow big and green," said
+she. "One can't have the theatre or bridge up here; do leave us some of
+the simple pleasures."
+
+"Why did you want me to finish for you then?" demanded Bob shrewdly.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Young man," said she, "I could give you at least ten reasons," with
+which enigmatic remark she whipped her apron around her hand and whisked
+open the oven door, where were displayed rows of beautifully browned
+biscuits.
+
+"Nevertheless----" began Bob.
+
+"Nevertheless," she took him up, raising her face, slightly flushed by
+the heat, "all the men-folks are busy, and this one woman-folk is not
+harmed a bit by playing at being a farmer lassie."
+
+"One of the rangers could do it all in a couple of hours."
+
+"The rangers are in the employ of the United States Government, and this
+garden is mine," she stated evenly. "How could I take a Government
+employee to work on my property?"
+
+"But surely Mr. Thorne--"
+
+"Ashley, bless his dear old heart, takes beans for granted, as something
+that happens on well-regulated tables."
+
+She walked to the edge of the kitchen floor and looked up through the
+trees. "He ought to be along soon now. I hope so; my biscuits are just
+on the brown." She turned to Bob, her eyes dancing: "Now comes the
+exciting moment of the day, the great gamble! Will he come alone, or
+will he bring a half-dozen with him? I am always ready for the
+half-dozen, and as a consequence we live in a grand, ingenious debauch
+of warmed-ups and next-days. You don't know what good practice it is;
+nor what fun! I've often thought I could teach those cooks of Marc
+Antony's something--you remember, don't you, they used to keep six
+dinners going all at different stages of preparation because they never
+knew at what hour His High-and-mightiness might choose to dine. Or
+perhaps you don't know? Football men don't have to study, do they?"
+
+"What makes you think I'm a football man?" grinned Bob; "generally
+bovine expression?"
+
+"Not know the great Bob Orde!" cried the girl. "Why, not one of us but
+had your picture, generally in a nice gilt shrine, but _always_ with
+violets before it."
+
+But on this ground Bob was sure.
+
+"You have been reading a ten-cent magazine," he admonished her gravely.
+"It is unwise to take your knowledge of the customs in girls' colleges
+from such sources."
+
+From the depths of the forest eddied a cloud of dust. Miss Thorne
+appraised it carefully.
+
+"Warmed-overs to-night," she pronounced. "There's no more than two of
+them."
+
+The accuracy of her guess was almost immediately verified by the
+appearance of two riders. A moment later Thorne and California John
+dismounted at the hitching rail, some distance removed among the
+azaleas, and came up afoot. The younger man had dropped all his dry,
+official precision, his incisive abruptness, his reticence. Clad in the
+high, laced cruisers, the khaki and gray flannel, the broad, felt hat
+and gay neckerchief of what might be called the professional class of
+out-of-door man, his face glowing with health and enthusiasm, he seemed
+a different individual.
+
+"Hullo! Hullo!" he cried out a joyous greeting as he drew nearer; "I
+couldn't bring you much company to-day, Amy. But I see you've found
+some. How are you, Orde? I'm glad to see you."
+
+He and California John disappeared behind the shed, where the wash basin
+was; while Amy, with deftness, rearranged the table to accord with the
+numbers who would sit down to it.
+
+The meal in the open was most delightful; especially to Bob, after his
+long course of lumber-camp provender. The deep shadows shifted slowly
+across the forest floor. Sparkles of sunlight from unexpected quarters
+touched gently in turn each of the diners, or glittered back from glass
+or linen. Occasionally a wandering breeze lifted a corner of the
+tablecloth and let it fall, or scurried erratically across the table
+itself. Occasionally, too, a pine needle, a twig, a leaf would zigzag
+down through the air to fall in some one's coffee or glass or plate.
+Birds flashed across the open vault of this forest room--brilliant
+birds, like the Louisiana Tanager; sober little birds like the creepers
+and nuthatches. Circumspect and reserved whitecrowns and brush tohees
+scratched and hopped silently over the forest litter. Once a swift
+falcon, glancing like a shadowy death, slanted across the upper spaces.
+The food was excellent, and daintily served.
+
+"I am proud of my blue and white enamel-ware," Miss Thorne told Bob;
+"it's so much better than tin or this ugly gray. And that glass pitcher
+I got with coupons from the coffee packages."
+
+"You didn't get these with coupons?" said Bob, lifting one of the
+massive silver forks.
+
+"No," she admitted. "That is my one foolishness. All the rest does not
+matter, but I can't get along without my silver."
+
+"And a great nuisance it is to those who have to move as we move," put
+in Ashley Thorne.
+
+The forest officers took up their broken conversation. Bob found himself
+a silent but willing listener. He heard discussion of policies, business
+dealings, plans that widened the horizon of what the Forest had meant to
+him. In these discussions the girl took an active and intelligent part.
+Her opinion seemed to be accepted seriously by both the men, as one who
+had knowledge, and indeed, her grasp of details seemed as comprehensive
+as that of the men themselves.
+
+Finally Thorne pushed his chair back and began to fill his pipe.
+
+"Anybody here to-day?" he asked.
+
+The girl ran over rapidly a half-dozen names, sketching briefly the
+business they had brought. Then, one after the other, she told the
+answers she had made to them. This one had been given blanks, forms and
+instructions. That one had been told clearly that he was in the wrong,
+and must amend his ways. The other had been advised but tentatively, and
+informed that he must see the Supervisor personally. To each of these
+Thorne responded by a brief nod, puffing, meanwhile, on his pipe.
+
+"All right?" she asked, when she had finished.
+
+"All right but one," said he, removing his pipe at last. "I don't think
+it will be advisable to let Francotti have what he wants."
+
+"Pull the string, then!" cried the girl gaily.
+
+Thorne turned to California John in discussion of the Francotti affair.
+
+"What do you mean by 'pull the string'?" Bob took the occasion to
+inquire.
+
+"I settle a lot of these little matters that aren't worth bothering
+Ashley with," she explained, "but I tie a string to each of my
+decisions. I always make them 'subject to the Supervisor's approval.'
+Then if I do wrong, all I have to do is to write the man and tell him
+the Supervisor does not approve."
+
+"I shouldn't think you'd like that," said Bob.
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"Why, it sort of puts you in a hole, doesn't it? Lays all the blame on
+you."
+
+She laughed in frank amusement.
+
+"What of it?" she challenged.
+
+"Any letters?" Thorne asked abruptly. "Morton brought mail this morning,
+didn't he?"
+
+"Nothing wildly important--except that they're thinking of adopting a
+ranger uniform."
+
+"A uniform!" snorted California John, rearing his old head.
+
+"Oh, yes, I've heard of that," put in Thorne instantly. "It's to be a
+white pith helmet with a green silk scarf on it; red coat with gold
+lace, and white, English riding breeches with leather leggins. Don't you
+think old John would look sweet in that?" he asked Bob.
+
+But the old man refused to be drawn out.
+
+"Supervisors same; but with a gold pompon on top the helmet," he
+observed. "What _is_ the dang thing, anyway, Amy?" he asked.
+
+"Dark green whipcord, green buttons, gray hat, military cut."
+
+"Not bad," said Thorne.
+
+"About one fifty-mile ride and one fire would make that outfit look like
+a bunch of mildewed alfalfa. Blue jeans is about my sort of uniform,"
+observed John.
+
+"I don't believe we'd be supposed to wear it on range," suggested
+Thorne. "Only in town and official business." He turned to the girl
+again: "May have to go over Baldy to-morrow," said he, "so we'll run off
+those letters."
+
+She arose and saluted, military fashion. The two disappeared in the tiny
+box-office, whence presently came the sound of Thorne's voice in
+dictation.
+
+California John knocked the ashes from his pipe.
+
+"Get your apron on, sonny," said he.
+
+He tested the water on the stove and slammed out a commodious dish-pan.
+
+"Glasses first; then silver; and if you break anything, I'll bash in
+your fool head. There's going to be some style to this dishwashing. I
+used to slide 'em all in together and let her go. But that ain't the way
+here. She knows four aces and the jolly joker better than that. Glasses
+first."
+
+They washed and wiped the dishes, and laid them carefully away.
+
+"She's a little wonder," said California John, nodding at the office,
+"and there ain't none of the boys but helps all they can."
+
+Thorne called the old man by name, and he disappeared into the office. A
+moment later the girl emerged, smoothing back her hair with both hands.
+She stepped immediately to the little kitchen.
+
+"Thank you," said she. "That helps."
+
+"It was old John," disclaimed Bob. "I'm ashamed to say I should never
+have thought of it."
+
+The girl nodded carelessly.
+
+"Where did you learn stenography?" asked Bob.
+
+"Oh, I got that out of a ten-cent magazine too." She sat on a bench,
+looked up at the sky through the trees, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"You're tired," said Bob.
+
+"Not a bit," she denied. "But I don't often get a chance to just look
+up."
+
+"You seem to do the gardening, the cooking, the housework, the clerical
+work--you don't do the laundry, too, do you?" demanded Bob ironically.
+
+"You noticed those miserable khakis!" cried Amy with a gesture of
+dismay. "Ashley," she called, "change those khakis before you go out,"
+
+"Yes, mama," came back a mock childish voice.
+
+"What's your salary?" demanded Bob bluntly, nodding toward the office.
+
+"What?" she asked, as though puzzled.
+
+"Didn't you say you were the clerk?"
+
+"Oh, I see. I just help Ashley out. He could _never_ get through the
+field work and the office work both."
+
+"Doesn't the Service allow him a clerk?"
+
+"Not yet; but it will in time."
+
+"What is Mr. Thorne's salary?"
+
+"Well, really----"
+
+"Oh, I beg pardon," cried Bob flushing; "I just meant supervisors'
+salaries, of course. I wasn't prying, really. It's all a matter of
+public record, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course." The girl checked herself. "Well, it's eighteen hundred--and
+something for expenses."
+
+"Eighteen hundred!" cried Bob. "Do you mean to say that the _two_ of you
+give all your time for that! Why, we pay a good woods foreman pretty
+near that!"
+
+"And that's all you do pay him," said the girl quietly. "Money wage
+isn't the whole pay for any job that is worth doing."
+
+"Don't understand," said Bob briefly.
+
+"We belong to the Service," she stated with a little movement of pride.
+"Those tasks in life which give a high moneyed wage, generally give only
+that. Part of our compensation is that we belong to the Service; we are
+doing something for the whole people, not just for ourselves." She
+caught Bob's half-smile, more at her earnestness than at her sentiment,
+and took fire. "You needn't laugh!" she cried. "It's small now, but
+that's because it's the beginning, because we have the privilege of
+being the forerunners, the pioneers! The time will come when in this
+country there will be three great Services--the Army, the Navy, the
+Forest; and an officer in the one will be as much respected and looked
+up to as the others! Perhaps more! In the long times of peace, while
+they are occupied with their eternal Preparation, we shall be labouring
+at Accomplishment."
+
+She broke off abruptly.
+
+"If you don't want to get me started, don't be superior," she ended,
+half apologetic, half resentful.
+
+"But I do want to get you started," said Bob.
+
+"It's amusing, I don't doubt."
+
+"Not quite that: it's interesting, and I am no longer bewildered at the
+eighteen hundred a year--that is," he quoted a popular song, "'if there
+are any more at home like you.'"
+
+She looked at him humorously despairing.
+
+"That's just like an outsider. There are plenty who feel as I do, but
+they don't say so. Look at old California John, at Ross Fletcher, at a
+half-dozen others under your very nose. Have you ever stopped to think
+why they have so long been loyal? I don't suppose you have, for I doubt
+if they have. But you mark my words!"
+
+"All right, Field Marshal--or is it 'General'?" said Bob.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Just camp cook," she replied good-humouredly.
+
+The sun was slanting low through the tall, straight trunks of the trees.
+Amy Thorne arose, gathered a handful of kindling, and began to rattle
+the stove.
+
+"I am contemplating a real pudding," she said over her shoulder.
+
+Bob arose reluctantly.
+
+"I must be getting on," said he.
+
+They said farewell. At the hitching rail Thorne joined him.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not very hospitable," said the Supervisor, "but that
+mustn't discourage you from coming often. We'll be better organized in
+time."
+
+"It's mighty pleasant over here; I've enjoyed myself," said Bob,
+mounting.
+
+Thorne laid his hand on the young man's knee.
+
+"I wish we could induce you old-timers to come to our way of thinking,"
+said he pleasantly.
+
+"How's that?" asked Bob.
+
+"Your slash is in horrible shape."
+
+"Our slash!" repeated Bob in a surprised tone. "How?"
+
+"It's a regular fire-trap, the way you leave it tangled up. It wouldn't
+cost you much to pile the tops and leave the ground in good shape."
+
+"Why, it's just like any other slash!" protested Bob. "We're logging
+just as everybody always logs!"
+
+"That's just what I object to. And when you fell a tree or pull a log to
+the skids, I do wish we could induce you to pay a little attention to
+the young growth. It's a little more trouble, sometimes, to go around
+instead of through, but it's worth it to the forest."
+
+Bob's brows were bent on the Supervisor in puzzled surprise. Thorne
+laughed, and slapped the young man's horse on the flanks to start him.
+
+"You think it over!" he called.
+
+A half-hour's ride took Bob to the clearing where the logging crews had
+worked the year before. Here, although the hour was now late, he reined
+in his horse and looked. It was the first time he had ever really done
+so. Heretofore a slashing had been as much a part of the ordinary
+woodland landscape as the forest itself.
+
+He saw then the abattis of splintered old trunks, of lopped limbs, and
+entangled branches, piled up like jackstraws to the height of even six
+or eight feet from the ground; the unsightly mat of sodden old masses of
+pine needles and cedar fans; the hundreds of young saplings bent double
+by the weight of débris, broken square off, or twisted out of all chance
+of becoming straight trees in their age; the long, deep, ruthless
+furrows where the logs had been dragged through everything that could
+stand in their way; the few trees left standing, weak specimens,
+undesirable species, the culls of the forest, further scarred where the
+cruel steel cables had rasped or bitten them. He knew by experience the
+difficulty of making a way, even afoot, through this tangle. Now, under
+the influence of Thorne's suggestion, he saw them as great piles of so
+much fuel, laid as though by purpose for the time when the evil genius
+of the forest should desire to warm himself.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Bob was finally late for supper, which he ate hastily and without much
+appetite. After finishing the meal, he hunted up Welton. He found the
+lumberman tilted back in a wooden armchair, his feet comfortably
+elevated to the low rail about the stove, his pipe in mouth, his coat
+off, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. At the sight of his homely, jolly
+countenance, Bob experienced a pleasant sensation of slipping back from
+an environment slightly off-focus to the normal, accustomed and real.
+Nevertheless, at the first opportunity, he tested his new doubts by
+Welton's common sense.
+
+"I rode through our slash on 18," he remarked. "That's an awful mess."
+
+"Slashes are," replied Welton succinctly.
+
+"If the thing gets afire it will make a hot blaze."
+
+"Sure thing," agreed Welton. "But we've never had one go yet--at least,
+while we were working. There's men enough to corral anything like that."
+
+"But we've always worked in a wet country," Bob pointed out. "Here it's
+dry from April till October."
+
+"Have to take chances, then; and jump on a fire quick if it starts,"
+said Welton philosophically.
+
+"These forest men advise certain methods of obviating the danger," Bob
+suggested.
+
+"Pure theory," returned Welton. "The theory's a good one, too," he
+added. "That's where these college men are strong--only it isn't
+practical. They mean well enough, but they haven't the knowledge. When
+you look at anything broad enough, it looks easy. That's what busts so
+many people in the lumber business." He rolled out one of his jolly
+chuckles. "Lumber barons!" he chortled. "Oh, it's easy enough! Any
+mossback can make money lumbering! Here's your stumpage at a dollar a
+thousand, and there's your lumber at twenty! Simplest thing in the
+world. Just the same there are more failures in the lumber business than
+in any other I know anything about. Why is it?"
+
+"Economic waste," put in Merker, who was leaning across the counter.
+
+"Lack of experience," said Bob.
+
+"A little of both," admitted Welton; "but it's more because the business
+is made up of ten thousand little businesses. You have to conduct a
+cruising business, and a full-fledged real estate and mortgage business;
+you have to build houses and factories, make roads, build railroads; you
+have to do a livery trade, and be on the market for a thousand little
+things. Between the one dollar you pay for stumpage and the twenty
+dollars you get for lumber lies all these things. Along comes your
+hardware man and says, Here, why don't you put in my new kind of spark
+arrestor; think how little it costs; what's fifty dollars to a
+half-million-dollar business? The spark arrester's a good thing all
+right, so you put it in. And then there's maybe a chance to use a little
+paint and make the shanties look like something besides shanties; that
+don't cost much, either, to a half-million-dollar business. And so on
+through a thousand things. And by and by it's costing twenty dollars and
+one cent to get your lumber to market; and it's B-U-S-T, bust!"
+
+"That's economic waste," put in Merker.
+
+"Or lack of experience," added Bob.
+
+"No," said Welton, emphasizing his point with his pipe; _"it's not
+sticking to business!_ It's not stripping her down to the bare
+necessities! It's going in for frills! When you get to be as old as I
+am, you learn not to monkey with the band wagon."
+
+His round, red face relaxed into one of his good-humoured grins, and he
+relit his pipe.
+
+"That's the trouble with this forestry monkey business. It's all right
+to fool with, if you want fooling. So's fancy farming. But it don't pay.
+If you are playing, why, it's all right to experiment. If you ain't,
+why, it's a good plan to stick to the methods of lumbering. The present
+system of doing things has been worked out pretty thorough by a lot of
+pretty shrewd business men. And it _works!"_
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"Didn't know you could orate to that extent," he gibed. "Sic'em!"
+
+Welton grinned a trifle abashed. "You don't want to get me started,
+then," said he.
+
+"Oh, but I do!" Bob objected, for the second time that day.
+
+"Now this slashing business," went on the old lumberman in a more
+moderate tone. "When the millennium comes, it would be a fine thing to
+clear up the old slashings." He turned suddenly to Bob. "How long do you
+think it would take you with a crew of a dozen men to cut and pile the
+waste stuff in 18?" he inquired.
+
+Bob cast back the eye of his recollection to the hopeless tangle that
+cumbered the ground.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he ejaculated; "don't ask me!"
+
+"If you were running a business would you feel like stopping work and
+sending your men--whom you are feeding and paying--back there to pile up
+that old truck?"
+
+Bob's mind, trained to the eager hurry of the logging season, recoiled
+from this idea in dismay.
+
+"I should say not!" he cried. Then as a second thought he added: "But
+what they want is to pile the tops while the work is going on."
+
+"It takes just so much time to do so much work," stated Welton
+succinctly, "and it don't matter whether you do it all at once, or try
+to fool yourself by spraddling it out."
+
+He pulled strongly at his pipe.
+
+"Forest Reserves are all right enough," he acknowledged, "and maybe some
+day their theories will work out. But not now; not while taxes go on!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+One day, not over a week later, Bob working in the woods, noticed
+California John picking his way through the new slashing. This was a
+difficult matter, for the fresh-peeled logs and the debris of the tops
+afforded few openings for the passage of a horse. The old man made it,
+however, and finally emerged on solid ground, much in the fashion of one
+climbing a bank after an uncertain ford. He caught sight of Bob.
+
+"You fellows can change the face of the country beyant all belief,"
+announced the old man, pushing back his hat. "You're worse than snow
+that way. I ought to know this country pretty well, but when I get down
+into one of your pesky slashings, I'm lost for a way out!"
+
+Bob laughed, and exchanged a few commonplace remarks.
+
+"If you can get off, you better come over our way," said California
+John, as he gathered up his reins. "We're holding ranger
+examinations--something new. You got to tell what you know these days
+before you can work for Uncle Sam."
+
+"What do you have to know?" asked Bob.
+
+"Come over and find out."
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"I believe I will," he decided. "There's nothing to keep me here."
+
+Accordingly, early next morning he rode over to the Upper Camp. Outside,
+near the creek, he came upon the deserted evidences of a gathering of
+men. Bed rolls lay scattered under the trees, saddles had been thrown
+over fallen trunks, bags of provisions hung from saplings, cooking
+utensils flanked the smouldering remains of a fire which was, however,
+surrounded by a scraped circle of earth after the careful fashion of the
+mountains. Bob's eye, by now practised in the refinements of such
+matters, ran over the various accoutrements thus spread abroad. He
+estimated the number of their owners at about a score. The bedroll of
+the cowman, the "turkey" of the lumber jack, the quilts of the
+mountaineer, were all in evidence; as well as bedding plainly makeshift
+in character, belonging to those who must have come from a distance. A
+half-dozen horses dozed in an improvised fence-corner corral. As many
+more were tied to trees. Saddles, buckboards, two-wheeled carts, and
+even one top buggy represented the means of transportation.
+
+Bob rode on through the gate to headquarters.. This he found deserted,
+except for Amy Thorne. She was engaged in wiping the breakfast dishes,
+and she excitedly waved a towel at the young man as he rode up.
+
+"A godsend!" she cried. "I'm just dancing with impatience! They've been
+gone five minutes! Come help me finish!"
+
+Bob fastened his horse, rolled back his sleeves, and took hold with a
+will.
+
+"Where's your examining board, and your candidates?" he inquired. "I
+thought I was going to see an examination."
+
+"Up the Meadow Trail," panted the girl. "Don't stop to talk. Hurry!"
+
+They hurried, to such good purpose, that shortly they were clambering,
+rather breathless, up the steeps of the Meadow Trail. This led to a
+flat, upper shelf or bench in which, as the name implied, was situated a
+small meadow. At the upper end were grouped twenty-five men, closely
+gathered about some object.
+
+Amy and Bob plunged into the dew-heavy grasses. The men proved to be
+watching Thorne, who was engaged in tacking a small target on the stub
+of a dead sugar pine. This accomplished, he led the way back some
+seventy-five or eighty paces.
+
+"Three shots each," said he, consulting his note-book. "Off-hand.
+Hicks!"
+
+The man so named stepped forward to the designated mark, sighted his
+piece carefully, and fired.
+
+"Do I get each shot called?" he inquired; but Thorne shook his head.
+
+"You ought to know where your guns shoot," said he.
+
+After the third shot, the whole group went forward to examine the
+target. Thorne marked the results in his note-book, and called upon the
+next contestant.
+
+While the shooting went on, Bob had leisure to examine the men. They
+numbered, as he had guessed, about twenty. Three were plainly from the
+towns, for they wore thin shoes, white shirts, and clothes of a sort ill
+adapted to out-of-door work in the mountains. Two others, while more
+appropriately dressed in khakis and high boots, were as evidently
+foreign to the hills. Bob guessed them recent college graduates, perhaps
+even of some one of the forestry schools. In this he was correct. The
+rest were professional out-of-door men. Bob recognized two of his own
+woods-crew--good men they were, too. He nodded to them. A half-dozen
+lithe, slender youths, handsome and browned, drew apart by themselves.
+He remembered having noticed one of them as a particularly daring rider
+after Pollock's cattle the fall before; and guessed his companions to be
+of the same breed. Among the remainder, two picturesque, lean, slow and
+quizzical prospectors attracted his particular attention.
+
+Most of these men were well practised in the use of the rifle, but
+evidently not to exhibiting their skill in company. What seemed to Bob a
+rather _exaggerated_ earnestness oppressed them. The shooting, with two
+exceptions, was not good. Several, whom Bob strongly suspected had many
+a time brought down their deer on the run, even missed the target
+entirely! It was to be remarked that each contestant, though he might
+turn red beneath his tan, took the announcement of the result in
+silence.
+
+The two notable exceptions referred to were strangely contrasted. The
+elder was one of the prospectors. He was armed with an ancient 45-70
+Winchester, worn smooth and shiny by long carrying in a saddle holster.
+This arm was fitted with buckhorn sights of the old mountain type. When
+it exploded, its black powder blew forth a stunning detonation and
+volume of smoke. Nevertheless, of the three bullets, two were within the
+tiny black Thorne had seen fit to mark as bullseye, and the other
+clipped close to its edge. A murmur of admiration went up from the
+bystanders. Even eliminating the unaccountable nervousness that had
+thrown so many shots wild, it seemed improbable that any of the other
+contestants felt themselves qualified to equal this score.
+
+"Good shooting," whispered Bob to Amy. "I doubt if I could make out that
+bullseye through sights."
+
+The other exception, whose turn came somewhat later, was one of the
+Easterners mentioned as a graduate of the forestry school. This young
+man, not over twenty-two years of age, was an attractive youngster, with
+refined features, and engaging dark-blue eyes. His arm was the then
+latest model, a 33-calibre high power, fitted with aperture sights. This
+he manipulated with great care, adjusting it again and again; and fired
+with such deliberation that some of the spectators moved impatiently.
+Nevertheless, the target, on examination, showed that he had duplicated
+the prospector's score. To be sure, the worst shot had not cut quite as
+close to the bull as had that of the older man, but on the other hand,
+those in the black were slightly nearer the centre. It was generally
+adjudged a good tie.
+
+"Well, youngster!" cried the prospector, heartily, "we're the cocks of
+the walk! If you can handle the other weep'n as well, I'll give you my
+hand for a good shot."
+
+The young man smiled shyly, but said nothing.
+
+The distance was now shortened to something under twenty paces, and a
+new target substituted for the old. The black in this was fully six
+inches in diameter.
+
+"Five shots with six-shooter," announced Thorne briefly.
+
+"A man should hit a dollar twice in five at that distance," muttered the
+prospector. Thorne caught the remark.
+
+"You hit that five out of five, and I'll forgive you," said he curtly.
+"Hicks, you begin."
+
+The contest went forward with varying success. Not over half of the men
+were practised with the smaller arm. Some very wild work was done. On
+the other hand, eight or ten performed very creditably, placing their
+bullets in or near the black. Indeed, two succeeded in hitting the
+bullseye four times out of five. Every man took the utmost pains with
+every shot.
+
+"Now, Ware," said Thorne, at last, "step up. You've got to make good
+that five out of five to win."
+
+The prospector stood forward, at the same time producing from an open
+holster blackened by time one of the long-barrelled single-action Colt's
+45's, so universally in use on the frontier. He glanced carelessly
+toward the mark, grinned back at the crowd, turned, and instantly began
+firing. He shot the five shots without appreciable sighting before each,
+as fast as his thumb could pull back the long-shanked hammer. The muzzle
+of the weapon rose and fell with a regularity positively mechanical, and
+the five shots had been delivered in half that number of seconds.
+
+"There's your five," said he, carelessly dropping his gun back into its
+holster.
+
+The five bullets were found to be scattered within the six-inch black.
+
+The concourse withdrew to give space for the next contestant. Silence
+fell as the man was taking his aim. Amy touched Bob's arm. He looked
+down. Her eyes were shining, and her cheeks red with excitement.
+
+"Doesn't it remind you of anything?" she whispered eagerly.
+
+"What?" he asked, not guessing her meaning.
+
+"This: all of it!" she waved her hand abroad at the fair oval meadow
+with its fringe of tall trees and the blue sky above it; at the
+close-gathered knot of spectators, and the single contestant advanced
+before them. He shook his head. "Wait," she breathed, laying her fingers
+across her lips.
+
+The contest wore along until it again came the turn of the younger man.
+He stepped to the front, unbuckled a covered holster of the sort never
+carried in the West, and produced one of those beautifully balanced,
+beautifully finished revolvers known as the Officer's Model. Taking the
+firm yet easy position of the practised target shot, he sighted with
+great deliberation, firing only when he considered his aim assured.
+Indeed, once he lowered his weapon until a puff of wind had passed. The
+five shots were found to be not only within the black, but grouped
+inside a three-inch diameter.
+
+"'_A Hubert! A Hubert_!'" breathed the girl in Bob's ear. "_In the
+clout_!"
+
+"I thought his name was Elliott," said Bob. "Is it Hubert?"
+
+The girl eyed him reproachfully, but said nothing.
+
+"You're a _good_ shot, youngster!" cried Ware, in the heartiest
+congratulation; "but if Mr. Thorne don't mind, I'd like to shoot off
+this tie. Down in our country we don't shoot quite that way, or at that
+kind of a mark. Will you take a try my way?"
+
+Amy leaned again toward Bob, her face aflame.
+
+"_'And now,'_" she shot at him, "'_I will crave your Grace's permission
+to plant such a mark as is used in the north country; and welcome every
+brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it_--'Don't dare tell me you don't
+remember!"
+
+"'_A man can but do his best_,'" Bob took up the tale. "Of course, I
+remember; you're right."
+
+"All right," Thorne was agreeing, "but make it short. We've got a lot to
+do."
+
+Ware selected another target--one intended for the six-shooters--that
+had not been used. This he tacked up in place of the one already
+disfigured by many shots. Then he paced off twelve yards.
+
+"That looks easier than the other," Thorne commented.
+
+"Mebbe," agreed Ware, non-committally, "but you may change your mind. As
+for that sort of monkey-work," he indicated the discarded target, "down
+our way we'd as soon shoot at a barn."
+
+The girl softly clapped her hands.
+
+"'_For his own part_,'" she quoted in a breath, and so rapidly that the
+words fairly tumbled over one another, "'_in the land where he was bred,
+men would as soon take for their mark King Arthur's round table, which
+held sixty knights around it. A child of seven might hit yonder target
+with a headless shaft_.' Oh, this is perfect."
+
+"Now," said Ware to young Elliott, "if you'll hit that mark in my
+fashion of shooting, you're all right."
+
+Bob turned to the girl, his eyes dancing with delight.
+
+"'--_he that hits yon mark at I-forget-how-many yards_,'" he declaimed,
+"'_I will call him an archer fit to bear bow before a king_'--or
+something to that effect; I'm afraid I'm not letter perfect."
+
+He laughed amusedly, and the girl laughed with him. "Just the same, I'm
+glad you remember," she told him.
+
+Ware had by now taken his place at the new mark he had established.
+
+"Fifteen shots," he announced. At the word his hand dropped to the butt
+of his gun, his right shoulder hunched forward, and with one lightning
+smooth motion the weapon glided from the holster. Hardly had it left the
+leather when it was exploded. The hammer had been cocked during the
+upward flip of the muzzle. The first discharge was followed immediately
+by the five others in a succession so rapid that Bob believed the man
+had substituted a self-cocking arm until he caught the rapid play of the
+marksman's thumb. The weapon was at no time raised above the level of
+the man's waist.
+
+"Hold on!" commanded Ware, as the bystanders started forward to examine
+the result of the shots. "Let's finish the string first."
+
+He had been deliberately pushing out the exploded cartridges one by one.
+Now he as deliberately reloaded. Taking a position somewhat to the left
+of the target, he folded his arms so that the revolver lay across his
+breast with its muzzle resting over his left elbow. Then he strode
+rapidly but evenly across the face of the target, discharging the five
+bullets as he walked.
+
+Again he reloaded. This time he stood with the revolver hanging in his
+right hand gazing intently for some moments at the target, measuring
+carefully with his eye its direction and height. He turned his back;
+and, flipping his gun over his left shoulder, fired without looking
+back.
+
+"The first ten ought to be in the black," announced Ware, "The last five
+ought to be somewheres on the paper. A fellow can't expect more than to
+generally wing a man over his shoulder."
+
+But on examination the black proved to hold but eight bullet holes. The
+other seven, however, all showed on the paper.
+
+"Comes of not wiping out the dirt once in a while when you're shooting
+black powder," said Ware philosophically.
+
+The crowd gazed upon him with admiration.
+
+"That's a remarkable group of shots to be literally _thrown_ out at that
+speed," muttered Thorne to Bob. "Why, you could cover them with your
+hat! Well, young man," he addressed Elliott, "step up!"
+
+But Elliott shook his head.
+
+"Couldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole," said he pleasantly. "Mr.
+Ware has given me a new idea of what can be done with a revolver. His
+work is especially good with that heavily charged arm. I wish he would
+give us a little exhibition of how close he can shoot with my gun. It's
+supposed to be a more accurate weapon."
+
+"No, thank you," spoke up Ware. "I couldn't hit a flock of feather
+pillers with your gun. You see, I shoot by _throw_, and I'm used to the
+balance of my gun."
+
+Thorne finished making some notes.
+
+"All right, boys," he said, snapping shut his book. "We'll go down to
+headquarters next."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+On the way down the narrow trail Bob found himself near the two men from
+his own camp. He chaffed them good-humouredly over their lack of skill
+in the contests, to which they replied in the same spirit.
+
+Arrived at camp, Thorne turned to face his followers, who gathered in a
+group to listen.
+
+"Let's have a little riding, boys," said he. "Bring out a horse or two
+and some saddles. Each man must saddle his horse, circle that tree down
+the road, return, unsaddle and throw up both hands to show he's done."
+
+Bob was amused to see how the aspect of the men changed at this
+announcement. The lithe young fellows, who had been looking pretty sober
+over the records they had made at shooting, brightened visibly and ran
+with some eagerness to fetch out their own horses and saddles. Some of
+the others were not so pleased, notably two of the young fellows from
+the valley towns. Still others remained stolidly indifferent to a trial
+in which they could not hope to compete with the professional riders,
+but in which neither would they fail.
+
+The results proved the accuracy of this reasoning. A new set of stars
+rose to the ascendant, while the heroes of the upper meadow dropped into
+obscurity. Most of the mountain men saddled expeditiously but soberly
+their strong and capable mountain horses, rode the required distance,
+and unsaddled deftly. It was part of their everyday life to be able to
+do such things well. The two town boys, and, to Bob's surprise, one of
+his lumberjacks, furnished the comic relief. They frightened the horses
+allotted them, to begin with; threw the saddles aboard in a mess which
+it was necessary to untangle; finally clambered on awkwardly and rode
+precariously amid the yells and laughter of the spectators.
+
+"How you expect to be a ranger, if you can't ride?" shouted some one at
+the lumberjack.
+
+"If horses don't plumb _detest_ me, I reckon I can learn!" retorted the
+shanty boy, stoutly. "This ain't my game!"
+
+But when young Pollock, whom Bob recognized as Jim's oldest, was called
+out, the situation was altered. He appeared leading a beautiful,
+half-broken bay, that snorted and planted its feet and danced away from
+the unaccustomed crowd. Nevertheless the lad, as impassive as an image,
+held him well in hand, awaiting Thorne's signal.
+
+"Go!" called the Supervisor, his eyes on his watch.
+
+The boy, still grasping the hackamore in his left hand, with his right
+threw the saddle blanket over the animal's back. Stooping again, he
+seized the heavy stock saddle by the horn, flipped it high in the air,
+and brought it across the horse with so skilful a jerk that not only did
+the skirts, the heavy stirrup and the horsehair cinch fall properly, but
+the cinch itself swung so far under the horse's belly that young Pollock
+was able to catch it deftly before it swung back. To thrust the broad
+latigo through the rings, jerk it tight, and fasten it securely was the
+work of an instant. With a yell to his horse the boy sprang into the
+saddle. The animal bounded forward, snorting and buck-plunging, his eye
+wild, his nostril wide. Flung with apparent carelessness in the saddle,
+the rider, his body swaying and bending and giving gracefully to every
+bound, waved his broad hat, uttering shrill _yips_ of encouragement and
+admonition to his mount. The horse straightened out and thundered swift
+as an arrow toward the tree that marked the turning point. With
+unslackened gait, with loosened rein, he swept fairly to the tree. It
+seemed to Bob that surely the lad must overshoot the mark by many yards.
+But at the last instant the rider swayed backward and sidewise; the
+horse set his feet, plunged mightily thrice, threw up a great cloud of
+dust, and was racing back almost before the spectators could adjust
+their eyes to the change of movement. Straight to the group horse and
+rider raced at top speed, until the more inexperienced instinctively
+ducked aside. But in time the horse sat back, slid and plunged ten feet
+in a spray of dust and pine needles, to come to a quivering halt. Even
+before that young Pollock had thrown himself from the saddle. Three
+jerks ripped that article of furniture from its place to the earth. The
+boy, with an engaging gleam of teeth, threw up both hands.
+
+It was flash-riding, of course; but flash-riding at its best. And how
+the boys enjoyed it! Now the little group of "buckeroos," heretofore
+rather shyly in the background, shone forth in full glory.
+
+"Now let's see how good you are at packing," said Thorne, when the last
+man had done his best or worst. "Jack," he told young Pollock, "you go
+up in the pasture and catch me up that old white pack mare. She's
+warranted to stand like a rock."
+
+While the boy was gone on this errand, Thorne rummaged the camp. Finally
+he laid out on the ground about a peck of loose potatoes, miscellaneous
+provisions, a kettle, frying-pan, coffee-pot, tin plates, cutlery, a
+single sack of barley, a pick and shovel, and a coil of rope.
+
+"That looks like a reasonable camp outfit," remarked Thorne. "Just throw
+one of those pack saddles on her," he told Jack Pollock, who led up the
+white mare. "Now you boys all retire; you mustn't have a chance to learn
+from the other fellow. Hicks, you stay. Now pack that stuff on that
+horse. I'll time you."
+
+Hicks looked about him.
+
+"Where's the kyacks?" he demanded. [Footnote: Kyacks--pack sacks slung
+either side the pack saddle.]
+
+"You don't get any kyacks," stated Thorne crisply.
+
+"Got to pack all that stuff without 'em?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+Hicks set methodically to work, gathering up the loose articles,
+thrusting them into sacks, lashing the sacks on the crossbuck saddle. At
+the end of a half-hour, he stepped back.
+
+"That might ride--for a while," said Thorne.
+
+"I never pack without kyacks," said Hicks.
+
+"So I see. Well, sit down and watch the rest of them. Ware!" Thorne
+shouted.
+
+The prospector disengaged himself from the sprawling and distant group.
+
+"Throw those things off, and empty out those bags," ordered Thorne.
+"Now, there's your camp outfit. Pack it, as fast as you can."
+
+Ware set to work, also deliberately, it seemed. He threw a sling, packed
+on his articles, and over it all drew the diamond hitch.
+
+"Reckon that'll travel," he observed, stepping back.
+
+"Good pack," commended Thorne briefly, as he glanced at his watch.
+"Eleven minutes."
+
+"Eleven minutes!" echoed Bob to California John, who sat near, "and the
+other man took thirty-five! Impossible! Ware didn't hurry any; he moved,
+if anything, slower than the other man."
+
+"He didn't make no moves twice," pointed out California John. "He knows
+how. This no-kyack business is going to puzzle plenty of those boys who
+can do good, ordinary packing."
+
+"It's near noon," Thorne was saying; "we haven't time for another of
+those duffers. I'll just call up your partner, Ware, and we'll knock off
+for dinner."
+
+The partner did as well, or even a little better, for the watch credited
+him with ten and one-half minutes, whereupon he chaffed Ware hugely.
+Then the pack horse was led to a patiently earned feed, while the little
+group of rangers, with Thorne, his sister and Bob, moved slowly toward
+headquarters.
+
+"That's all this morning, boys," he told the waiting group as they
+passed it. "This afternoon we'll double up a bit. The rest of you can
+all take a try at the packing, but at the same time we'll see who can
+cut down a tree quickest and best."
+
+"Stop and eat lunch with us," Amy was urging Bob. "It's only a cold
+one--not even tea. I didn't want to miss the show. So it's no bother."
+
+They all turned to and set the table under the open.
+
+"This is great fun," said Bob gratefully, as they sat down. "Good as a
+field day. When do you expect to begin your examinations? That's what
+these fellows are here for, isn't it?"
+
+He looked up to catch both Thorne and Amy looking on him with a
+comically hopeless air.
+
+"You don't mean to say!" cried Bob, a light breaking in on him. "--of
+course! I never thought----"
+
+"What do you suppose we would examine candidates for Forest Ranger
+in--higher mathematics?" demanded Amy.
+
+"Now that's practical--that's got some sense!" cried Bob
+enthusiastically.
+
+Thorne, with a whimsical smile, held up his finger for silence. Through
+the thin screen of azalea bushes that fringed this open-air dining room
+Bob saw two men approaching down the forest. They were evidently unaware
+of observation. With considerable circumspection they drew near and
+disappeared within the little tool house. Bob recognized the two
+lumberjacks from his own camp.
+
+"What are those fellows after?" he demanded indignantly.
+
+But Thorne again motioned for caution.
+
+"I suspect," said Thorne in a low voice. "Go on eating your lunch. We'll
+see."
+
+The men were inside the tool house for some time. When they reappeared,
+each carried an axe. They looked about them cautiously. No one was in
+sight. Then they thrust the axes underneath a log, and disappeared in
+the direction of their own camp.
+
+Thorne laughed aloud.
+
+"The old foxes!" said he. "I'll bet anything you please that we'll find
+the two best-balanced axes the Government owns under that log."
+
+Such proved to be the case. Furthermore, the implements had been ground
+to a razor edge.
+
+"When I mentioned tree cutting, I saw their eyes light up," said Thorne.
+"It's always interesting in a crowd of candidates like this to see every
+man cheer up when his specialty comes along." He chuckled. "Wait till I
+spring the written examinations on them. Then you'll see them droop."
+
+"What else is there?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well, I'll organize regular survey groups--compass-man, axe-man,
+rod-man, chain-men--and let them run lines; and I'll make them estimate
+timber, and make a sketch map or so. It's all practical."
+
+"I should think so!" cried Bob. "I wonder if I could pass it myself." He
+laughed. "I should hate to tackle tying those things on that horse--even
+after seeing those prospectors do it!"
+
+"Most of them will go a little slow. They're used to kyacks. But you'd
+have your specialty."
+
+"What would it be?" asked Amy curiously of Bob.
+
+The young man shook his head.
+
+"You haven't got some nice scrappy little job, have you?" he asked,
+"where I can tell people to hop high? That's about all I'm good for."
+
+"We might even have that," said Thorne, eyeing the young man's
+proportions.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Bob saw that afternoon the chopping contest. Thorne assigned to each a
+tree some eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, selecting those whose
+loss would aid rather than deplete the timber stand, and also, it must
+be confessed, those whose close proximity to others might make axe
+swinging awkward. About twenty feet from the base of each tree he placed
+upright in the earth a sharpened stake. This, he informed the axe-man,
+must be driven by the fall of the tree.
+
+As in the previous contests, three classes of performers quickly
+manifested themselves--the expert, the man of workmanlike skill, and the
+absolute duffer. The lumberjacks produced the implements they had that
+noon so carefully ground to an edge. It was beautiful to see them at
+work. To all appearance they struck easily, yet each stroke buried half
+the blade. The less experienced were inclined to put a great deal of
+swift power in the back swing, to throw too much strength into the
+beginning of the down stroke. The lumberjacks drew back quite
+deliberately, swung forward almost lazily. But the power constantly
+increased, until the axe met the wood in a mighty swish and whack. And
+each stroke fell in the gash of the one previous. Methodically they
+opened the "kerf," each face almost as smooth as though it had been
+sawn. At the finish they left the last fibres on one side or another,
+according as they wanted to twist the direction of the tree's fall. Then
+the trunk crashed down across the stake driven in the ground.
+
+The mountaineers, accustomed to the use of the axe in their backwoods
+work, did a workmanlike but not expert job on their respective trees.
+They felled their trees accurately over the mark, and their axe work was
+fairly clean, but it took them some time to finish the job.
+
+But some of the others made heavy weather. Young Elliott was the worst.
+It was soon evident that he had probably never had any but a possible
+and casual wood-pile axe in his hand before. The axe rarely hit twice in
+the same place; its edge had apparently no cutting power; the handle
+seemed to be animated with a most diabolical tendency to twist in
+mid-air. Bob, with the wisdom of the woods, withdrew to a safe distance.
+The others followed.
+
+Long after the others had finished, poor Elliott hacked away. He seemed
+to have no definite idea of possible system. All he seemed to be trying
+to do was to accomplish some kind of a hole in that tree. The chips he
+cut away were small and ragged; the gash in the side of the tree was
+long and irregular.
+
+"Looks like somethin' had set out to _chaw_ that tree down!" drawled a
+mountain man to his neighbour.
+
+But when the tree finally tottered and crashed to the ground it fairly
+centred the direction stake!
+
+The bystanders stared; then catching the expression of ludicrous
+astonishment on Elliott's face, broke into appreciative laughter.
+
+"I'm as much surprised as you are, boys," said Elliott, showing the
+palms of his hands, on which were two blisters.
+
+"The little cuss is game, anyhow," muttered California John to Thorne.
+
+"It was an awful job," confided the other; "but I marked him something
+on it because he stayed with it so well."
+
+Toward sunset Bob said farewell, expressing many regrets that he could
+not return on the morrow to see the rest of the examinations. He rode
+back through the forest, thoughtfully inclined. The first taste of the
+Western joy of mere existence was passing with him. He was beginning to
+look upon his life, and ask of it the why. To be sure, he could tell
+himself that his day's work was well done, and that this should suffice
+any man; that he was an integral part of the economic machine; that in
+comparison with the average young man of his age he had made his way
+with extraordinary success; that his responsibilities were sufficient to
+keep him busy and happy; that men depended on him--all the reasons that
+philosophy or acquiescence in the plan of life ultimately bring to a
+man. But these did not satisfy the uneasiness of his spirit. He was too
+young to settle down to a routine; he was too intellectually restless to
+be contented with reiterations, however varied, of that which he had
+seen through and around. It was the old defect--or glory--of his
+character; the quality that had caused him more anxiety, more
+self-reproach, more bitterness of soul than any other, the Rolling Stone
+spirit that--though now he could not see it--even if it gathered no moss
+of respectable achievement, might carry him far.
+
+So as he rode he peered into the scheme of things for the final
+satisfaction. In what did it lie? Not for him in mere activity, nor in
+the accomplishment of the world's work, no matter how variedly
+picturesque his particular share of it might be. He felt his interest
+ebbing, his spirit restless at its moorings. The days passed. He arose
+in the morning: and it was night! Four years ago he had come to
+California. It seemed but yesterday. The days were past, gone, used. Of
+it all what had he retained? The years had run like sea sands between
+his fingers, and not a grain of them remained in his grasp. A little
+money was there, a little knowledge, a little experience--but what
+toward the final satisfaction, the justification of a man's life? Bob
+was still too young, too individualistic to consider the doctrine of the
+day's work well done as the explanation and justification of all. The
+coming years would pass as quickly, leaving as little behind. Never so
+poignantly had he felt the insistence of the _carpe diem_. It was
+necessary that he find a reality, something he could winnow from the
+years as fine gold from sand, so that he could lay his hand on the
+treasure and say to his soul: "This much have I accomplished." Bob had
+learned well the American lesson: that the idler is to be scorned; that
+a true man must use his powers, must work; that he must _succeed_. Now
+he was taking the next step spiritually. How does a man really use his
+powers? What is success?
+
+Troubled by this spiritual unrest, the analysis of which, even the
+nature of which was still beyond him, he arrived at camp. The familiar
+objects fretted on his mood. For the moment all the grateful feeling of
+power over understanding and manipulating this complicated machinery of
+industry had left him. He saw only the wheel in which these activities
+turned, and himself bound to it. In this truly Buddhistic frame of mind
+he returned to his quarters.
+
+There, to his vague annoyance, he found Baker. Usually the liveliness of
+that able young citizen was welcome, but to-night it grated.
+
+"Well, Gentle Stranger," sang out the power man, "what jungle have you
+been lurking in? I laboured in about three and went all over the works
+looking for you."
+
+"I've been over watching the ranger examinations at their headquarters,"
+said Bob. "It's pretty good fun."
+
+Baker leaned forward.
+
+"Have you heard the latest dope?" he demanded.
+
+"What sort?"
+
+"They're trying to soak us, now. Want to charge us so much per horse
+power! Now _what_ do you think of that!"
+
+"Can't you pay it?" asked Bob.
+
+"Great guns! Why _should_ we pay it?" demanded Baker. "It's the public
+domain, isn't it? First they take away the settler's right to take up
+public land in his own state, and now they want to _charge_, actually
+_charge_ the public for what's its own."
+
+But Bob, a new light shining in his eyes, refused to become heated.
+
+"Well," he asked deliberately, "who _is_ the public, anyhow?"
+
+Baker stared at him, one chubby hand on each fat knee.
+
+"Why, everybody," said he; "the people who can make use of it. You and I
+and the other fellow."
+
+"Especially the other fellow," put in Bob drily.
+
+Baker chuckled.
+
+"It's like any business," said he. "First-come collect at the ticket
+office for his business foresight. But we'll try out this hold-up before
+we lie down and roll over."
+
+"Why shouldn't you pay?" demanded Bob again. "You get your value, don't
+you? The Forest Service protects your watershed, and that's where you
+get your water. Why shouldn't you pay for that service, just the same as
+you pay for a night watchman at your works?"
+
+"Watershed!" snorted Baker. "Rot! If every stick of timber was cleaned
+off these mountains, I'd get the water just the same."[A]
+
+"Baker," said Bob to this. "You go and take a long, long look at your
+bathroom sponge in action, and then come back and I'll talk to you."
+
+Baker contemplated his friend for a full ten seconds. Then his fat,
+pugnacious face wrinkled into a grin.
+
+"Stung on the ear by a wasp!" he cried, with a great shout of
+appreciation. "You merry, merry little josher! You had me going for
+about five minutes."
+
+Bob let it go at that.
+
+"I suppose you won't be able to pay over twenty per cent. this next
+year, then?" he inquired, with an amused expression.
+
+"Twenty per cent.!" cried Baker rolling his eyes up. "It's as much as I
+can do to dig up for improvements and bond interest and the preferred."
+
+"Not to mention the president's salary," amended Bob.
+
+"But I've got 'em where they live," went on Baker, complacently, without
+attention to this. "You don't catch Little Willie scattering shekels
+when he can just as well keep kopecks. They've left a little joker in
+the pack." He produced a paper-covered copy of the new regulations,
+later called the Use Book. "They've swiped about everything in sight for
+these pestiferous reserves, but they encourage the honest prospector.
+'Let us develop the mineral wealth,' says they. So these forests are
+still open for taking up under the mineral act. All you have to do is to
+make a 'discovery,' and stake out your claim; and there you are!"
+
+"All the mineral's been taken up long ago," Bob pointed out.
+
+"All the valuable mineral," corrected Baker. "But it's sufficient, so
+Erbe tells me, to discover a ledge. Ledges? Hell! They're easier to find
+than an old maid at a sewing circle! That's what the country is made
+of--ledges! You can dig one out every ten feet. Well, I've got people
+out finding ledges, and filing on them."
+
+"Can you do that?" asked Bob.
+
+"I am doing it."
+
+"I mean legally."
+
+"Oh, this bunch of prospectors files on the claims, and gets them
+patented. Then it's nobody's business what they do with their own
+property. So they just sell it to me."
+
+"That's colonizing," objected Bob. "You'll get nailed."
+
+"Not on your tintype, it isn't. I don't furnish a cent. They do it all
+on their own money. Oldham's got the whole matter in hand. When we get
+the deal through, we'll have about two hundred thousand acres all around
+the head-waters; and then these blood-sucking, red-tape, autocratic
+slobs can go to thunder."
+
+Baker leaned forward impressively.
+
+"Got to spring it all at once," said he, "otherwise there'll be
+outsiders in, thinking there's a strike been made--also they'll get
+inquisitive. It's a great chance. And, Orde, my son, there's a few
+claims up there that will assay about sixty thousand board feet to the
+acre. What do you think of it for a young and active lumberman? I'm
+going to talk it over with Welton. It's a grand little scheme. Wonder
+how that will hit our old friend, Thorne?"
+
+Bob rose yawning.
+
+"I'm tired. Going to turn in," said he. "Thorne isn't a bad sort."
+
+"He's one of these damn theorists, that's what he is," said Baker; "and
+he's got a little authority, and he's doing just as much as he can to
+unsettle business and hinder the legitimate development of the country."
+He relaxed his earnestness with another grin. "Stung again. That's two
+rises you got out of me," he remarked. "Say, Orde, don't get persuaded
+to turn ranger. I hear they've boosted their salaries to ninety a month.
+Must be a temptation!"
+
+
+[Footnote A: Extraordinary as it may seem to the modern reader, this
+sentiment--or this ignorance--was at that time sincerely entertained by
+men as influential, as powerful, and as closely interested in water
+power as Baker is here depicted.]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Bob arose rather early the following Sunday, snatched a hasty breakfast
+and departed. Baker had been in camp three days. All at once Bob had
+taken the young man in strong distaste. Baker amused him, commanded his
+admiration for undoubted executive ability and a force of character so
+dynamic as to be almost brutal. In a more social environment Bob would
+still have found him a mighty pleasant fellow, generous, open-hearted,
+and loyal to his personal friends. But just now his methods chafed on
+the sensitiveness of Bob's new unrest. Baker was worth probably a couple
+of million dollars, and controlled ten times that. He had now a fine
+house in Fremont, where he had chosen to live, a pretty wife, two
+attractive children and a wide circle of friends. Life was very good to
+him.
+
+And yet, in the perversity and the clairvoyance of his mood, Bob thought
+to see in Baker's life something of that same emptiness of final
+achievement he faced in his own. This was absurd, but the feeling of it
+persisted. Thorne, with his miserable eighteen hundred a year, and his
+glowing enthusiasm and quick interest seemed to him more worth while.
+Why? It was absurd; but this feeling, too, persisted.
+
+Bob was a healthy young fellow, a man of action rather than of
+introspection, but now the hereditary twist of his character drove him
+to attempt analysis. He arrived at nothing. Both Baker and Thorne seemed
+to stand on one ground--each was satisfied, neither felt that lack of
+the fulfilling content Bob was so keenly experiencing. But the streak of
+feminine divination Bob had inherited from his mother made him
+understand--or made him think to understand--that Baker's satisfaction
+was taken because he did not see, while Thorne was working with his eyes
+open and a full sense of values. This vague glimpse Bob gained only
+partially and at length. It rather opened to him new vistas of spiritual
+perplexity than offered to him any solution.
+
+He paced rapidly down the length of the lake--whereon the battered but
+efficient towing launch lay idle for Sunday--to the Lake Meadow. This
+was, as usual, surrounded by hundreds of campers of all classes. Bob was
+known to all of them, of course; and he, in turn, had at least such a
+nodding acquaintance with them that he could recognize any accretions to
+their members. Near the lower end of the meadow, beneath a group of a
+dozen noble firs, he caught sight of newcomers, and so strolled down
+that way to see what they could be like.
+
+He found pomp and circumstance. An enclosure had been roped off to
+exclude the stock grazing at large in the meadow. Three tents had been
+erected. They were made of a very light, shiny, expensive-looking
+material with fringes along the walls, flies overhead and stretched in
+front, sod cloths before the entrances. Three gaily painted wooden
+rocking chairs, an equally gaudy hammock, a table flanked with benches,
+a big cooking stove in the rear, canvas pockets hung from the trees--a
+dozen and one other conveniences and luxuries bespoke the occupants as
+well-to-do and determined to be comfortable. Two Japanese servants
+dressed all in white moved silently and mysteriously in the background,
+a final touch of incongruity in a rough country.
+
+Before Bob had moved on, two men stepped into view from the interior of
+one of the tents. They paced slowly to the gaudy rocking chairs and sat
+down. In their progress they exhibited that peculiar, careless but
+conscious deliberation of gait affected everywhere by those accustomed
+to appearing in public. In their seating of themselves, their producing
+of cigars, their puffings thereon, was the same studied ignoring of
+observation; a manner which, it must be acknowledged, becomes second
+nature to those forced to its adoption. It was a certain blown
+impressiveness, a significance in the smallest movements, a
+self-importance, in short, too large for the affairs of any private
+citizen. It is to be seen in those who sit in high places, in clergy,
+actors off the boards, magistrates, and people behind shop windows
+demonstrating things to street crowds. Bob's first thought was of
+amusement that this elaborate unconsciousness of his lone presence
+should be worth while; his second a realization that his presence or the
+presence of any one else had nothing to do with it. He wondered, as we
+all wonder at times, whether these men acted any differently when alone
+and in utter privacy, whether they brushed their teeth and bathed with
+all the dignity of the public man.
+
+The smaller, but evidently more important of these men, wore a complete
+camping costume. His hat was very wide and stiff of brim and had a woven
+band of horsehair; his neckerchief was very red and worn bib fashion in
+the way Bob had come to believe that no one ever wore a neckerchief save
+in Western plays and the illustrations of Western stories; his shirt was
+of thick blue flannel, thrown wide open at the throat; his belt was very
+wide and of carved leather; his breeches were of khaki, but bagged above
+and fitted close below the knee into the most marvellous laced boots,
+with leather flaps, belt lacings, and rows of hobnails with which to
+make tracks. Bob estimated these must weigh at least three pounds
+apiece. The man wore a little pointed beard and eyeglasses. About him
+Bob recognized a puzzling familiarity. He could not place it, however,
+but finally decided he must have carried over a recollection from a
+tailor's fashion plate of the Correct Thing for Camping.
+
+The other man was taller, heavier, but not near so impressive. His form
+was awkward, his face homely, his ears stuck out like wings, and his
+expression was that of the always-appreciated buffoon.
+
+Bob was about to pass on, when he noticed that he was not the only
+spectator of all this ease of manner. A dozen of the campers had
+gathered, and were staring across the ropes with quite frank and
+unabashed curiosity. More were coming from all directions. In a short
+time a crowd of several hundred had collected, and stood, evidently in
+expectation. Then, and only then, did the small man with the pointed
+beard seem to become aware of the presence of any one besides his
+companion. He leaned across to exchange a few words with the latter,
+after which he laid aside his hat, arose and advanced to the rope
+barrier on which he rested the tips of his fingers.
+
+"My friends," he began in a nasal but penetrating voice, that carried
+without effort to every hearer. "I am not a regularly ordained minister
+of the gospel. I find, however, that there is none such among us, so I
+have gathered you here together this morning to hear a few words
+appropriate to the day. It has pleased Providence to call me to a public
+position wherein my person has become well known to you all; but that is
+an accident of the great profession to which I have been called, and I
+bow my heart in humility with the least and most lowly. I am going to
+tell you about myself this morning, not because I consider myself of
+importance, but because it seems to me from my case a great lesson may
+be drawn."
+
+He paused to let his eye run over the concourse. Bob felt the gaze,
+impersonal, impassive, scrutinizing, cold, rest on him the barest
+appreciable flicker of a moment, and then pass on. He experienced a
+faint shock, as though his defences had been tapped against.
+
+"My father," went on the nasal voice, "came to this country in the
+'sixties. It was a new country in the hands of a lazy people. It needed
+development, so my father was happy felling the trees, damming the
+streams, building the roads, getting possession of the land. That was
+his job in life, and he did it well, because the country needed it. He
+didn't bother his head with why he was doing it; he just thought he was
+making money. As a matter of fact, he didn't make money; he died nearly
+bankrupt."
+
+The orator bowed his head for a moment.
+
+"I might have done the same thing. It's all legitimate business. But I
+couldn't. The country is being developed by its inhabitants: work of
+that kind couldn't satisfy me. Why, friends? _Because now it would be
+selfish work_. My father didn't know it, but the reason he was happy was
+because the work he was doing for himself was also work for other
+people. You can see that. He didn't know it, but he was helping develop
+the country. But it wouldn't have been quite so with me. The country is
+developed in that way. If I did that kind of work, I'd be working for
+myself and nobody else at all. That turns out all right for most people,
+because they don't see it: they do their duty as citizens and good
+business men and fathers and husbands, and that ends it. But I saw it. I
+felt I had to do a work that would support me in the world--but it must
+be a work that helped humanity too. That is why, friends, I am what I
+am. That a certain prominence is inevitable to my position is incidental
+rather than gratifying.
+
+"So, I think, the lesson to be drawn is that each of us should make his
+life help humanity, should conduct his business in such a way as to help
+humanity. Then he'll be happy."
+
+He stood for a moment, then turned away. The tall, ungainly man with the
+outstanding ears and the buffoon's face stepped forward and whispered
+eagerly in his ear. He listened gravely, but shook his head. The tall
+man whispered yet more vehemently, at great length. Finally the orator
+stepped back to his place.
+
+"We are here for a complete rest after exhausting labours," he stated.
+"We have looked forward for months to undisturbed repose amongst these
+giant pines. No thought of care was to intrude. But my colleague's great
+and tender heart has smitten him, and, I am ashamed to say against my
+first inclination, he urges me to a course which I'd have liked to
+avoid; but which, when he shows me the way, I realize is the only decent
+thing. We find ourselves in the midst of a community of some hundreds of
+people. It may be some of these people are suffering, far from medical
+or surgical help. If there are any such, and the case is really
+pressing, you understand, we will be willing, just for common humanity,
+to do our best to relieve them. And friends," the speaker stepped
+forward until his body touched the rope, and he was leaning
+confidentially forth, "it would be poor humanity that would cause you
+pain or give you inferior treatments. I am happy to say we came to this
+great virgin wilderness direct with our baggage from White Oaks where we
+had been giving a two weeks' course of treatments--mainly charitable. We
+have our instruments and our medicines with us in their packin' cases.
+If need arises--which I trust it will not--we will not hesitate to go to
+any trouble for you. It is against our principles to give anything but
+our best. You will suffer no pain. But it must be understood," he warned
+impressively. "This is just for you, our neighbours! We don't want this
+news spread to the lumber camps and over the countryside. We are here
+for a rest. But we cannot be true to our high calling and neglect the
+relieving of pain."
+
+The man bowed slightly, and rejoined his companion to whom he conversed
+low-voiced with absolute unconsciousness of the audience he had just
+been addressing so intimately. The latter hesitated, then slowly
+dispersed. Bob stood, his brows knit, trying to recall. There was
+something hauntingly familiar about the whole performance. Especially a
+strange nasal emphasis on the word "pain" struck sharply a chord in his
+recollection. He looked up in sudden enlightenment.
+
+"Painless Porter!" he cried aloud.
+
+The man looked up at the mention of his name.
+
+"That's my name," said he. "What can I do for you?"
+
+"I just remembered where I'd seen you," explained Bob.
+
+"I'm fairly well known."
+
+Bob approached eagerly. The discourse, hollow, insincere,
+half-blasphemous, a buncombe bit of advertising as it was, nevertheless
+contained the germ of an essential truth for which Bob had been
+searching. He wanted to know how, through what experience, the man had
+come to this insight.
+
+But his attempts at conversation met with a cold reception. Painless
+Porter was too old a bird ever to lower his guard. He met the youth on
+the high plane of professionalism, refused to utter other than the
+platitudinous counters demanded by the occasion. He held the young man
+at spear's length, and showed plainly by the ominous glitter of his eye
+that he did not intend to be trifled with.
+
+Then Baker's jolly voice broke in.
+
+"Well! well! well!" he cried. "If here aren't my old friends, Painless
+Porter and the Wiz! Simple life for yours, eh? Back to beans! What's the
+general outline of _this_ graft?"
+
+"We have come camping for a complete rest," stated Waller gravely, his
+comical face cast in lines of reprobation and warning.
+
+"Whatever it is, you'll get it," jibed Baker. "But I'll bet you a
+toothpick it isn't a rest. What's exhausted you fellows, anyway?
+Counting the easy money?"
+
+"Our professional labours have been very heavy lately," spoke up the
+painless one.
+
+"What's biting you fellows?" demanded Baker. "There's nobody here."
+
+Waller indicated Bob by a barely perceptible jerk of the head. Baker
+threw back his head and laughed.
+
+"Thought you knew him," said he. "You were all having such a love feast
+gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place--and
+most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on
+this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it.
+He's humanity with a capital H."
+
+Ten minutes later the four men, cigars alight, a bottle within reach,
+were sprawling about the interior of one of the larger tents. Bob was
+enjoying himself hugely. It was the first time he had ever been behind
+the scenes at this sort of game.
+
+"But that was a good talk, just the same," he interrupted a cynical bit
+of bragging.
+
+"Say, wasn't it!" cried Porter. "I got that out of a shoutin'
+evangelist. The minute I heard it I saw where it was hot stuff for my
+spiel. I'm that way: I got that kind of good eye. I'll be going along
+the street and some little thing'll happen that won't amount to nothin'
+at all really. Another man wouldn't think twice about it. But like a
+flash it comes to me how it would fit in to a spiel. It's like an artist
+that way finding things to put in a picture. You'd never spot a dago
+apple peddler as good for nothing but to work a little graft on mebbe;
+but an artist comes along and slaps him in a picture and he's the
+fanciest-looking dope in the art collection. That's me. I got some of my
+best spiels from the funniest places! That one this morning is a wonder,
+because it don't _listen_ like a spiel. I followed that evangelist yap
+around for a week getting his dope down fine. You got to get the
+language just right on these things, or they don't carry over."
+
+"Which one is it, Painful?" asked Baker.
+
+"You know; the make-your-work-a-good-to-humanity bluff."
+
+"And all about papa in the 'sixties?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"'And just don't you _dare_ tell the neighbours?'"
+
+"Correct."
+
+"The whole mountains will know all about it by to-morrow," Baker told
+Bob, "and they'll flock up here in droves. It's easy money."
+
+"Half these country yaps have bum teeth, anyway," said Porter.
+
+"And the rest of them think they're sick," stated Wizard Waller.
+
+"It beats a free show for results and expense," said Painless Porter.
+"All you got to have is the tents and the Japs and the
+Willie-off-the-yacht togs." He sighed. "There ought to be _some_
+advantages," he concluded, "to drag a man so far from the street
+lights."
+
+"Then this isn't much of a pleasure trip?" asked Bob with some
+amusement.
+
+"Pleasure, hell!" snorted Painless, helping himself to a drink. "Say,
+honest, how do you fellows that have business up here stick it out? It
+gives me the willies!"
+
+One of the Japanese peered into the tent and made a sign.
+
+Painless Porter dropped his voice.
+
+"A dope already," said he. He put on his air, and went out. As Bob and
+Baker crossed the enclosed space, they saw him in conversation with a
+gawky farm lad from the plains.
+
+"I shore do hate to trouble you, doctor," the boy was saying, "and hit
+Sunday, too. But I got a tooth back here--"
+
+Painless Porter was listening with an air of the deepest and gravest
+attention.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The charlatan had babbled; but without knowing it he had given Bob what
+he sought. He saw all the reasons for what had heretofore been obscure.
+
+Why had he been dissatisfied with business opportunities and successes
+beyond the hopes of most young men?
+
+How could he dare criticize the ultimate value of such successes without
+criticizing the life work of such men as Welton, as his own father?
+
+What right had he to condemn as insufficient nine-tenths of those in the
+industrial world; and yet what else but condemnation did his attitude of
+mind imply?
+
+All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like fog. Quite simply
+it all resolved itself. He was dissatisfied because this was not his
+work. The other honest and sincere men--such as his father and
+Welton--had been satisfied because this was their work. The old
+generation, the one that was passing, needed just that kind of service
+but the need too was passing. Bob belonged to the new generation. He saw
+that new things were to be demanded. The old order was changing. The
+modern young men of energy and force and strong ability had a different
+task from that which their fathers had accomplished. The wilderness was
+subdued; the pioneer work of industry was finished; the hard brute
+struggle to shape things to efficiency was over. It had been necessary
+to get things done. Now it was becoming necessary to perfect the means
+and methods of doing. Lumber must still be cut, streams must still be
+dammed, railroads must still be built; but now that the pioneers, the
+men of fire, had blazed the way others could follow. Methods were
+established. It was all a business, like the selling of groceries. The
+industrial rank and file could attend to details. The men who thought
+and struggled and carried the torch--they must go beyond what their
+fathers had accomplished.
+
+Now Bob understood Amy Thorne's pride in the Service. He saw the true
+basis of his feeling toward the Supervisor as opposed to his feeling
+toward Baker. Thorne was in the current. With his pitiful eighteen
+hundred a year he was nevertheless swimming strongly in new waters. His
+business went that little necessary step beyond. It not only earned him
+his living in the world, but it helped the race movement of his people.
+At present the living was small, just as at first the pioneer opening
+the country had wrested but a scanty livelihood from the stubborn
+wilderness; nevertheless, he could feel--whether he stopped to think it
+out or not--that his efforts had that coördination with the trend of
+humanity which makes subtly for satisfaction and happiness. Bob looked
+about the mill yard with an understanding eye. This work was necessary;
+but it was not his work.
+
+Something of this he tried to explain to his new friends at headquarters
+when next he found an opportunity to ride over. His explanations were
+not very lucid, for Bob was no great hand at analysis. To any other
+audience they might have been absolutely incoherent. But Thorne had long
+since reasoned all this out for himself; so he understood; while to
+California John the matter had always been one to take for granted. Bob
+leaned forward, his earnest, sun-browned young face flushed with the
+sincerity--and the embarrassment--of his exposition. Amy nodded from
+time to time, her eyes shining, her glance every few moments seeking in
+triumph that of her brother. California John smoked.
+
+Finally Bob put it squarely to Thorne.
+
+"So you'd like to join the Service," said Thorne slowly. "I suppose
+you've thought of the chance you're giving up? Welton will take you into
+partnership in time, of course."
+
+"I know. It seems foolish. Can't make it seem anything else," Bob
+admitted.
+
+"You'd have to take your chances," Thorne persisted. "I couldn't help
+you. A ranger's salary is ninety a month now, and find yourself and
+horses. Have you any private means?"
+
+"Not enough to say so."
+
+"There's another thing," Thorne went on. "This forestry of our
+government is destined to be a tremendous affair; but what we need more
+just now is better logging methods among the private loggers. It would
+count more than anything else if you'd stay just where you are and give
+us model operations in your own work."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know men like Mr. Welton as well as I do," said he;
+"I couldn't change his methods. That's absolutely out of the question.
+And," he went on with a sudden flash of loyalty to what the old-timers
+had meant, "I don't believe I'd want to."
+
+"Not want to!" cried Amy.
+
+"No," pursued Bob doggedly, "not unless he could see the point himself
+and of his own accord. He's done a great work in his time, and he's
+grown old at it. I wouldn't for anything in the world do anything to
+shake his faith in what he's done, even if he's doing it wrong now."
+
+"He and his kind have always slaughtered the forests shamefully!" broke
+in Amy with some heat.
+
+"They opened a new country for a new people," said Bob gently. "Perhaps
+they did it wastefully; perhaps not. I notice you've got to use lots of
+lubricating oil on a new machine. But there was nobody else to do it any
+different."
+
+"Then you'd let them go on wasting and destroying?" demanded Amy
+scornfully.
+
+"I don't know," hesitated Bob; "I haven't thought all this out. Perhaps
+I'm not very much on the think. It seems to me rather this way: We've
+got to have lumber, haven't we? And somebody has to cut it and supply
+it. Men like Mr. Welton are doing it, by the methods they've found
+effective. They are working for the Present; we of the new generation
+want to work for the Future. It's a fair division. Somebody's got to
+attend to them both."
+
+"Well, that's what I say!" cried Amy. "If they wouldn't waste and slash
+and leave good material in the woods--"
+
+Bob smiled whimsically.
+
+"A lumberman doesn't like to leave things in the woods," said he. "If
+somebody will pay for the tops and the needles, he'll sell them; if
+there's a market for cull lumber, he'll supply it; and if somebody will
+create a demand for knotholes, _he'll invent some way of getting them
+out_! You see I'm a lumberman myself."
+
+"Why don't you log with some reference to the future, then?" demanded
+Amy.
+
+"Because it doesn't pay," stated Bob deliberately.
+
+"Pay!" cried Amy.
+
+"Yes," said Bob mildly. "Why not? The lumberman fulfills a commercial
+function, like any one else; why shouldn't he be allowed freely a
+commercial reward? You can't lead a commercial class by ideals that
+absolutely conflict with commercial motives. If you want to introduce
+your ideals among lumbermen, you want to educate them; and in order to
+educate them you must fix it so your ideals don't actually spell _loss!_
+Rearrange the scheme of taxation, for one thing. Get your ideas of fire
+protection and conservation on a practical basis. It's all very well to
+talk about how nice it would be to chop up all the waste tops and pile
+them like cordwood, and to scrape together the twigs and needles and
+burn them. It would certainly be neat and effective. But can't you get
+some scheme that would be just as effective, but not so neat? It's the
+difference between a yacht and a lumber schooner. We can't expect
+everybody to turn right in and sacrifice themselves to be
+philanthropists because the spirit of the age tells them they ought to
+be. We've got to make it so easy to do things right that anybody at all
+decent will be ashamed not to. Then we've got to wait for the spirit of
+the people to grow to new things. It's coming, but it's not here yet."
+
+California John, who had listened with the closest attention, slapped
+his knee.
+
+"Good sense," said he.
+
+"But you can educate people, can't you?" asked Amy, a trifle subdued and
+puzzled by these practical considerations.
+
+"Some people can," agreed Thorne, speaking up, "and they're doing it.
+But Mr. Orde is right; it's only the spirit of the people that can bring
+about new things. We think we have leaders, but we have only
+interpreters. When the time is ripe to change things, then the spirit of
+the people rises to forbid old practices."
+
+"That's it," said Bob; "I just couldn't get at it. Well, the way I feel
+about it is that when all these new methods and principles have become
+well known, then we can call a halt with some authority. You can't
+condemn a man for doing his best, can you?"
+
+The girl, at a loss, flushed, and almost crying, looked at them all
+helplessly.
+
+"But----" she cried.
+
+"I believe it will all come about in time," said Thorne. "There's sure
+to come a time when it will not be too much off balance to _require_
+private firms to do things according to our methods. Then it will pay to
+log the government forests on an extensive scale; and private forests
+will have to come to our way of doing things."
+
+"What's the use of all our fights and strivings?" asked Amy; "what's the
+use of our preaching decent woods work if it can't be carried out?"
+
+"It's educational," explained Thorne. "It starts people thinking, so
+that when the time comes they'll be ready."
+
+"Furthermore," put in Bob, "it fixes it so these young fellows who will
+then be in charge of private operations will have no earthly excuse to
+look at it wrong, or do it wrong."
+
+"It will then be the difference between their acting according to
+general ideas or against them," agreed Thorne.
+
+"Never lick a pup for chasin' rabbits until yore ready to teach him to
+chase deer," put in California John.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Bob found it much more difficult to approach Welton. When he did, he had
+to contend with the older man's absolute disbelief in what he was
+saying. Welton sat down on a stump and considered Bob with a humorous
+twinkle.
+
+"Want to quit the lumber business!" he echoed Bob's first statement.
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't think I'm cut out for it."
+
+"No? Well, then, I never saw anybody that was. You don't happen to need
+no more money?"
+
+"Lord, no!"
+
+"Of course, you know you'll have pretty good prospects here----" stated
+Welton tentatively.
+
+"I understand that; but the work doesn't satisfy me, somehow: I'm
+through with it."
+
+"Getting restless," surmised Welton. "What you need is a vacation. I
+forgot we kept you at it pretty close all last winter. Take a couple
+weeks off and make a trip in back somewheres."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"It isn't that; I'm sorry. I'm just through with this. I couldn't keep
+on at it and do good work. I know that."
+
+"It's a vacation you need," insisted Welton chuckling, "--or else you're
+in love. Isn't that, is it?"
+
+"No," Bob laughed quite wholeheartedly. "It isn't that."
+
+"You haven't got a better job, have you?" Welton joked.
+
+Bob considered. "Yes; I believe I have," he said at last; "at least I'm
+hoping to get it."
+
+Welton looked at him closely; saw that he was in earnest.
+
+"What is it?" he asked curtly.
+
+Bob, suddenly smitten with a sense of the futility of trying to argue
+out his point of view here in the woods, drew back.
+
+"Can't tell just yet," said he.
+
+Welton climbed down from the stump; stood firmly for a moment, his
+sturdy legs apart; then moved forward down the trail.
+
+"I'll raise his ante, whatever it is," he said abruptly at length. "I
+don't believe in it, but I'll do it. I need you."
+
+"You've always treated me better than I ever deserved," said Bob
+earnestly, "and I'll stay all summer, or all next winter--until you feel
+that you do not need me longer; but I'm sure that I must go."
+
+For two days Welton disbelieved the reality of his intention. For two
+days further he clung to a notion that in some way Bob must be
+dissatisfied with something tangible in his treatment. Then, convinced
+at last, he took alarm, and dropped his facetious attitude.
+
+"Look here, Bob," said he, "this isn't quite fair, is it? This is a big
+piece of timber. It needs a man with a longer life in front of him than
+I can hope for. I wanted to be able to think that in a few years, when I
+get tired I could count on you for the heavy work. It's too big a
+business for an old man."
+
+"I'll stay with you until you find that young man," said Bob. "There are
+a good many, trained to the business, capable of handling this
+property."
+
+"But nobody like you, Bobby. I've brought you up to my methods. We've
+grown up together at this. You're just like a son to me." Welton's
+round, red face was puckered to a wistful and comically pathetic twist,
+as he looked across at the serious manly young fellow.
+
+Bob looked away. "That's just what makes it hard," he managed to say at
+last; "I'd like to go on with you. We've gotten on famously. But I
+can't. This isn't my work."
+
+Welton laboured in vain to induce him to change his mind. Several times
+he considered telling Bob the truth--that all this timber belonged
+really to Jack Orde, Bob's father, and that his, Welton's interest in it
+was merely that of the active partner in the industry. But this his
+friend had expressly forbidden. Welton ended by saying nothing about it.
+He resolved first to write Orde.
+
+"You might tell me what this new job is, though," he said at last, in
+apparent acquiescence.
+
+Bob hesitated. "You won't understand; and I won't be able to make you
+understand," he said. "I'm going to enter the Forest Service!"
+
+"What!" cried Welton, in blank astonishment. "What's that?"
+
+"I've about decided to take service as a ranger," stated Bob, his face
+flushing.
+
+From that moment all Welton's anxiety seemed to vanish. It became
+unbearably evident that he looked on all this as the romance of youth.
+Bob felt himself suddenly reduced, in the lumberman's eyes, to the
+status of the small boy who wants to be a cowboy, or a sailor, or an
+Indian fighter. Welton looked on him with an indulgent eye as on one who
+would soon get enough of it. The glamour--whatever it was--would soon
+wear off; and then Bob, his fling over, would return to sober, real
+business once more. All Welton's joviality returned. From time to time
+he would throw a facetious remark in Bob's direction, when, in the
+course of the day's work, he happened to pass.
+
+"It's sure going to be fine to wear a real tin star and be an officer!"
+
+Or:
+
+"Bob, it sure will seem scrumptious to ride out and boss the whole
+country--on ninety a month. Guess I'll join you."
+
+Or:
+
+"You going to make me sweep up my slashings, or will a rake do, Mr.
+Ranger?"
+
+To these feeble jests Bob always replied good-naturedly. He did not
+attempt to improve Welton's conception of his purposes. That must come
+with time. To his father, however, he wrote at great length; trying his
+best to explain the situation. Mr. Orde replied that a government
+position was always honourable; but confessed himself disappointed that
+his son had not more steadfastness of purpose. Welton received a reply
+to his own letter by the same mail.
+
+"I shouldn't tell him anything," it read. "Let him go be a ranger, or a
+cowboy, or anything else he wants. He's still young. I didn't get my
+start until I was thirty; and the business is big enough to wait for
+him. You keep pegging along, and when he gets enough, he'll come back.
+He's apparently got some notions of serving the public, and doing good
+in the world, and all that. We all get it at his age. By and by he'll
+find out that tending to his business honestly is about one man's job."
+
+So, without active opposition, and with only tacit disapproval, Bob made
+his change. Nor was he received at headquarters with any blare of
+trumpets.
+
+"I'll put you on as 'temporary' until the fall examinations," said
+Thorne, "and you can try it out. Rangering is hard work--all kinds of
+hard work. It isn't just riding around, you know. You'll have to make
+good. You can bunk up with Pollock at the upper cabin. Report to-morrow
+morning with him."
+
+Amy smiled at him brightly.
+
+"Don't let him scare you," said she. "He thinks it looks official to be
+an awful bear!"
+
+California John met him as he rode out the gate. He reached out his
+gnarled old hand.
+
+"Son, we'll get him to send us sometime to Jack Main's Cañon," said he.
+
+Bob, who had been feeling the least shade depressed, rode on, his head
+high. Before him lay the great mysterious country where had penetrated
+only the Pioneers! Another century would build therein the structures
+of its institutions. Now, like Jack Main's Cañon, the far country of new
+things was to be the field of his enterprise. In the future, when the
+new generations had come, these things would all be ordered and secure,
+would be systematized, their value conceded, their acceptance a matter
+of course. All problems would be regulated; all difficulties smoothed
+away; all opposition overcome. Then the officers and rangers of that
+peaceful and organized service, then the public--accepting such things
+as they accept all self-evident truths--would look back on these
+beginnings as men look back on romance. They would recall the time when,
+like knights errant, armed men rode abroad on horses through a
+wilderness, lying down under the stars, living hard, dwelling lowly in
+poverty, accomplishing with small means, striving mightily, combating
+the great elemental nature and the powers of darkness in men, enduring
+patiently, suffering contempt and misunderstanding and enmity in order
+that the inheritance of the people yet to come might be assured. He was
+one of them; he had the privilege. Suddenly his spirit felt freed. His
+old life receded swiftly. A new glory and uplift of soul swept him from
+his old moorings.
+
+
+
+
+PART FIVE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Next morning Bob was set to work with young Jack Pollock stringing
+barbed wire fence. He had never done this before. The spools of wire
+weighed on him heavily. A crowbar thrust through the core made them a
+sort of axle with which to carry it. Thus they walked forward, revolving
+the heavy spool with the greatest care while the strand of wire unwound
+behind them. Every once in a while a coil would kink, or buckle back, or
+strike as swiftly and as viciously as a snake. The sharp barbs caught at
+their clothing, and tore Bob's hands. Jack Pollock seemed familiar with
+the idiosyncrasies of the stuff, for he suffered little damage. Indeed,
+he even found leisure, as Bob soon discovered, to scrutinize his
+companion with a covert curiosity. In the eyes of the countryside, Bob
+had been "fired," and had been forced to take a job rangering. When the
+entangling strand had been laid along the ground by the newly planted
+cedar posts, it became necessary to stretch and fasten it. Here, too,
+young Jack proved himself a competent teacher. He showed Bob how to get
+a tremendous leverage with the curve on the back of an ordinary hammer
+by means of which the wire was held taut until the staples could be
+driven home. It was aggravating, nervous, painful work for one not
+accustomed to it. Bob's hands were soon cut and bleeding, no matter how
+gingerly he took hold of the treacherous wire. To all his comments,
+heated and otherwise, Jack Pollock opposed the mountaineer's determined
+inscrutability. He watched Bob's efforts always in silence until that
+young man had made all his mistakes. Then he spat carefully, and, with
+quiet patience, did it right.
+
+Bob's sense of humour was tickled. With all his education and his
+subsequent wide experience and training, he stood in the position of a
+very awkward subordinate to this mountain boy. The joke of it was that
+the matter was so entirely his own choice. In the normal relations of
+industry Bob would have been the boss of a hundred activities and twice
+that number of men; while Jack Pollock, at best, would be water-boy or
+fuel-purveyor to a donkey engine. Along in the middle of the morning
+young Elliott passed carrying a crowbar and a spade.
+
+"How'll you trade jobs?" he called.
+
+"What's yours?" asked Bob.
+
+"I'm going to make two cedar posts grow where none grew before," said
+Elliott.
+
+At noon they knocked off and went back to the ranger camp where they
+cooked their own meal. Most of the older rangers were afield. A
+half-dozen of the newcomers and probationers only were there. Elliott,
+Jack Pollock, two other young mountaineers, Ware and one of the youths
+from the valley towns had apparently passed the examinations and filled
+vacancies. All, with the exception of Elliott and this latter
+youth--Curtis by name--were old hands at taking care of themselves in
+the woods, so matters of their own accord fell into a rough system. Some
+built the fire, one mixed bread, others busied themselves with the rest
+of the provisions. Elliott rummaged about, and set the rough table with
+the battered service. Only Curtis, seated with his back against a tree,
+appeared too utterly exhausted or ignorant to take hold at anything.
+Indeed, he hardly spoke to his companions, ate hastily, and disappeared
+into his own quarters without offering to help wash the dishes.
+
+This task accomplished, the little group scattered to its afternoon
+work. In the necessity of stringing wire without cutting himself to
+ribbons, Bob forgot everything, even the flight of time.
+
+"I reckon it's about quittin' time," Jack observed to him at last.
+
+Bob looked up in surprise. The sun was indeed dropping low.
+
+"We must be about half done," he remarked, measuring the extent of the
+meadow with his eye.
+
+"Two more wires to string," Pollock reminded him.
+
+The mountaineer threw the grain sack of staples against the last post,
+tossed his hammer and the hatchet with them.
+
+"Hold on," said Bob. "You aren't going to leave them there?"
+
+"Shore," said Pollock. "We'll have to begin there to-morrow."
+
+But Bob's long training in handling large bodies of men with tools had
+developed in him an instinct of tool-orderliness.
+
+"Won't do," he stated with something of his old-time authority in his
+tones. "Suppose for some reason we shouldn't get back here to-morrow?
+That's the way such things get mislaid; and they're valuable."
+
+He picked up the hatchet and the axe. Grumbling something under his
+breath, Pollock shouldered the staples and thrust the hammer in his
+pocket.
+
+"It isn't as if these things were ours," said Bob, realizing that he had
+spoken in an unduly minatory tone.
+
+"That's right," agreed Jack more cheerfully.
+
+In addition to the new men, they found Ross Fletcher and Charley Morton
+at the camp. The evening meal was prepared cheerfully and roughly, eaten
+under a rather dim lamp. Pipes were lit, and they all began leisurely to
+clean up. The smoke hung low in the air. One by one the men dropped back
+into their rough, homemade chairs, or sprawled out on the floor. Some
+one lit the fire in the stone chimney, for the mountain air nipped
+shrewdly after the sun had set. A general relaxing after the day's work,
+a general cheerfulness, a general dry, chaffing wit took possession of
+them. Two played cribbage under the lamp. One wrote a letter. The rest
+gossiped of the affairs of the service. Only in the corner by himself
+young Curtis sat. As at noon, he had had nothing to say to any one, and
+had not attempted to offer assistance in the communal work. Bob
+concluded he must be tired from the unaccustomed labour of the day.
+Bob's own shoulders ached; and he was in pretty good shape, too.
+
+"What makes me mad," Ross Fletcher's voice suddenly clove the murmur,
+"is the things we have to do. I was breaking rock on a trail all day
+to-day. Think of that! Day labourer's work! State prison work!"
+
+Bob looked up in amazement, as did every one else.
+
+"When a man hires out to be a ranger," Ross went on, "he don't expect to
+be a carpenter, or a stone mason; he expects to be a _ranger_!"
+
+Immediately Charley Morton chimed in to the same purpose. Bob listened
+with a rising indignation. This sort of talk was old, but he had not
+expected to meet it here; it is the talk of incompetence against
+authority everywhere, of the sea lawyer, the lumberjack, the soldier,
+the spoiled subordinate in all walks of life. He had taken for granted a
+finer sort of loyalty here; especially from such men as Ross and Charley
+Morton. His face flushed, and he leaned forward to say something. Jack
+Pollock jogged his elbow fiercely.
+
+"Hush up!" the young mountaineer whispered; "cain't you see they're
+tryin' for a rise?"
+
+Bob laughed softly to himself, and relaxed. He should have been
+experienced enough, he told himself, to have recognized so obvious and
+usual a trick of all campers.
+
+But it was not for Bob, nor his like, that Ross was angling. In fact, he
+caught his bite almost immediately. For the first time that day Curtis
+woke up and displayed some interest.
+
+"That's what I say!" he cried.
+
+The older man turned to him.
+
+"What they been making you do to-day, son?" asked Ross.
+
+"I've been digging post holes up in those rocks," said Curtis
+indignantly.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me they put you at that?" demanded Ross; "why,
+they're supposed to get _Injins_, just cheap dollar-a-day Digger Injins,
+for that job. And they put you at it!"
+
+"Yes," said Curtis, "they did. I didn't hire out for any such work. My
+father's county clerk down below."
+
+"You don't say!" said Ross.
+
+"Yes, and my hands are all blistered and my back is lame, and----"
+
+But the expectant youngsters could hold in no longer. A roar of laughter
+cut the speaker short. Curtis stared, bewildered. Ross and Charley
+Morton were laughing harder than anybody else. He started to his feet.
+
+"Hold on, son," Ross commanded him, wiping his eyes. "Don't get hostile
+at a little joke. You'll get used to the work. Of course we all like to
+ride off in the mountains, and do cattle work, and figure on things, and
+do administrative work; and we none of us are stuck on construction." He
+looked around him at his audience, now quiet and attentive. "But we've
+got to have headquarters, and barns, and houses, and corrals and
+pastures. Once they're built, they're built and that ends it. But they
+got to be built. We're just in hard luck that we happen to be rangers
+right now. The Service can't hire carpenters for us very well, way up
+here; and _somebody's_ got to do it. It ain't as if we had to do it for
+a living, all the time. There's a variety. We get all kinds. Rangering's
+no snap, any more than any other job. One thing," he ended with a laugh,
+"we get a chance to do about everything."
+
+The valley youth had dropped sullenly back into the shadows, nor did he
+reply to this. After a little the men scattered to their quarters, for
+they were tired.
+
+Bob and Jack Pollock occupied together one of the older cabins, a rough
+little structure, built mainly of shakes. It contained two bunks, a
+rough table, and two stools constructed of tobacco boxes to which legs
+had been nailed. As the young men were preparing for bed, Bob remarked:
+
+"Fletcher got his rise, all right. Much obliged for your tip. I nearly
+bit. But he wasted his talk in my notion. That fellow is hopeless. Ross
+labours in vain if he tries to brace him up."
+
+"I reckon Ross knows that," replied Jack, "and I reckon too, he has
+mighty few hopes of bracin' up Curtis. I have a kind of notion Ross was
+just usin' that Curtis as a mark to talk at. What he was talkin' _to_
+was us."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The week's hard physical toil was unrelieved. After Bob and Jack Pollock
+had driven the last staple in the last strand of barbed wire, they
+turned their horses into the new pasture. The animals, overjoyed to get
+free of the picket ropes that had heretofore confined them, took long,
+satisfying rolls in the sandy corner, and then went eagerly to cropping
+at the green feed. Bob, leaning on the gate, with the rope still in his
+hand, experienced a glow of personal achievement greater than any he
+remembered to have felt since, as a small boy, he had unaided reasoned
+out the problem of clear impression on his toy printing press. He
+recognized this as illogical, for he had, in all modesty, achieved
+affairs of some importance. Nevertheless, the sight of his own animal
+enjoying its liberty in an enclosure created by his own two hands
+pleased him to the core. He grinned in appreciation of Elliott's
+humorous parody on the sentimental slogan of the schools--"to make two
+cedar posts grow where none grew before." There was, after all, a rather
+especial satisfaction in that principle.
+
+It next became necessary, he found, that the roof over the new office at
+headquarters should receive a stain that would protect it against the
+weather. He acquired a flat brush, a little seat with spikes in its
+supports, and a can of stain whose base seemed to be a very
+evil-smelling fish oil. Here all day long he clung, daubing on the
+stain. When one shingle was done, another awaited his attention, over
+and over, in unvarying monotony. It was the sort of job he had always
+loathed, but he stuck to it cheerfully, driving his brush deep in the
+cracks in order that no crevice might remain for the entrance of the
+insidious principle of decay. Casting about in his leisure there for the
+reason of his patience, he discovered it in just that; he was now at no
+task to be got through with, to be made way with; he was engaged in a
+job that was to be permanent. Unless he did it right, it would not be
+permanent.
+
+Below him the life of headquarters went on. He saw it all, and heard it
+all, for every scrap of conversation rose to him from within the office.
+He was amazed at the diversity of interests and the complexity of
+problems that came there for attention.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Thorne," said one of the rangers, "this Use Book says
+that a settler has a right to graze ten head of stock _actually in use_
+free of grazing charge. Now there's Brown up at the north end. He runs a
+little dairy business, and has about a hundred head of cattle up. He
+claims we ought not to charge him for ten head of them because they're
+all 'actually in use.' How about it?"
+
+Thorne explained that the exemption did not apply to commercial uses and
+that Brown must pay for all. He qualified the statement by saying that
+this was the latest interpretation of which he had heard.
+
+In like manner the policies in regard to a dozen little industries and
+interests were being patiently defined and determined--dairies, beef
+cattle, shake makers, bees, box and cleat men, free timber users, mining
+men, seekers for water concessions, those who desired rights of way,
+permits for posts, pastures, mill sites--all these proffered their
+requests and difficulties to the Supervisor. Sometimes they were
+answered on the spot. Oftener their remarks were listened to, their
+propositions taken under advisement. Then one or another of the rangers
+was summoned, given instructions. He packed his mule, saddled his horse,
+and rode away to be gone a greater or lesser period of time. Others were
+sent out to run lines about tracts, to define boundaries. Still others,
+like Ross Fletcher, pounded drill and rock, and exploded powder on the
+new trail that was to make more accessible the tremendous cañon of the
+river. The men who came and went rarely represented any but the smallest
+interests; yet somehow Bob felt their importance, and the importance of
+the little problems threshed out in the tiny, rough-finished office
+below him. These but foreshadowed the greater things to come. And these
+minute decisions shaped the policies and precedents of what would become
+mighty affairs. Whether Brown should be allowed to save his paltry three
+dollars and a half or not determined larger things. To Bob's half-mystic
+mood, up there under the mottled shadows, every tiny move of this game
+became portentous with fate. A return of the old exultation lifted him.
+He saw the shadows of these affairs cast dim and gigantic against the
+mists of the future. These men were big with the responsibility of a new
+thing. It behooved them all to act with circumspection, with due heed,
+with reverence----
+
+Bob applied his broad brush and the evil-smelling stain methodically and
+with minute care as to every tiny detail of the simple work. But his
+eyes were wide and unseeing, and all the inner forces of his soul were
+moving slowly and mightily. His personality had nothing to do with the
+matter. He painted; and affairs went on with him. His being held itself
+passive, in suspension, while the forces and experiences and influences
+of one phase of his life crystallized into their foreordained shapes
+deep within him. Yesterday he was this; now he was becoming that; and
+the two were as different beings. New doors of insight were silently
+swinging open on their hinges, old prejudices were closing, fresh
+convictions long snugly in the bud were unfolding like flowers. These
+things were not new. They had begun many years before when as a young
+boy he had stared wide-eyed, unseeing and uncomprehending, gazing down
+the sun-streaked, green, lucent depths of an aisle in the forest. Bob
+painted steadily on, moving his little seat nearer and nearer the
+eaves. When noon and night came, he hung up his utensils very carefully,
+washed up, and tramped to the rangers' camp, where he took his part in
+the daily tasks, assumed his share of the conversation, entered into the
+fun, and contributed his ideas toward the endless discussions. No one
+noticed that he was in any way different from his ordinary self. But it
+was as though some one outside of himself, in the outer circle of his
+being, carried on these necessary and customary things. He, drawn apart,
+watched by the shrine of his soul. He did nothing, either by thought or
+effort--merely watched, patient and rapt, while foreordained and mighty
+changes took place--
+
+He reached the edge of the roof; stood on the ladder to finish the last
+row of the riven shingles. Slowly his brush moved, finishing the cracks
+deep down so that the principle of decay might never enter. Inside the
+office Thorne sat dictating a letter to some applicant for privilege.
+The principle was new in its interpretation, and so Thorne was choosing
+his words with the greatest care. Swiftly before Bob's inner vision the
+prospect widened. Thorne became a prophet speaking down the years; the
+least of these men in a great new Service became the austere champions
+of something high and beautiful. For one moment Bob dwelt in a
+wonderful, breathless, vast, unreal country where heroic figures moved
+in the importance of all the unborn future, dim-seen, half-revealed. He
+drew his brush across the last shingle of all. Something seemed to
+click. Swiftly the gates shut, the strange country receded into infinite
+distance. With a rush like the sucking of water into a vacuum the
+everyday world drew close. Bob, his faculties once more in their
+accustomed seat, looked about him as one awakened. His hour was over.
+The change had taken place.
+
+Thorne was standing in the doorway with Amy, their dictation finished.
+
+"All done?" said he. "Well, you did a thorough job. It's the kind that
+will last."
+
+"I'm right on deck when it comes to painting things red," retorted Bob.
+"What next?"
+
+"Next," said Thorne, "I want you to help one of the boys split some
+cedar posts. We've got a corral or so to make."
+
+Bob descended slowly from the ladder, balancing the remainder of the red
+stain. Thorne looked at him curiously.
+
+"How do you like it as far as you've gone?" he permitted himself to ask.
+"This isn't quite up to the romantic idea of rangering, is it?"
+
+"Well," said Bob with conviction, "I suppose it may sound foolish; but I
+never was surer of anything in my life than that I've struck the right
+job."
+
+As he walked home that night, he looked back on the last few days with a
+curious bewilderment. It had all been so real; now apparently it meant
+nothing. Thorne was doing good work; these rangers were good men. But
+where had vanished all Bob's exaltation? where his feeling of the
+portent and influence and far-reaching significance of what these men
+were doing? He realized its importance; but the feeling of its
+fatefulness had utterly gone. Things with him were back on a work-a-day
+basis. He even laughed a little, good-humouredly, at himself. At the
+gate to the new pasture he once more stopped and looked at his horse. A
+deep content came over him.
+
+"I've sure struck the right job!" he repeated aloud with conviction.
+
+And this, could he have known it, was the outward and visible and only
+sign of the things spiritual that had been veiled.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+When Saturday evening came the men washed and shaved and put on clean
+garments. Bob, dog tired after a hard day, was more inclined to lie on
+his back.
+
+"Ain't you-all goin' over to-night?" asked Jack Pollock.
+
+"Over where?"
+
+"Why," explained the younger man, "always after supper Saturdays all the
+boys who are in camp go over to spend the evenin' at headquarters."
+
+Aggressively sleek and scrubbed, the little group marched down through
+the woods in the twilight. At headquarters Amy Thorne and her brother
+welcomed them and ushered them into the big room, with the stone
+fireplace. In this latter a fire of shake-bolts leaped and roared. The
+men crowded in, a trifle bashfully, found boxes and home-made chairs,
+and perched about talking occasionally in very low tones to the nearest
+neighbour. Amy sat in a rocking chair by the table lamp, sewing on
+something, paying little attention to the rangers, save to throw out an
+occasional random remark. Thorne had not yet entered. Finally Amy
+dropped the sewing in her lap.
+
+"You're all as solemn as a camp-meeting," she told them severely. "How
+many times must I tell you to smoke up and be agreeable? Here, Mr. Ware,
+set them a good example."
+
+She pushed a cigar box toward the older man. Bob saw it to be half full
+of the fine-flaked tobacco so much used in the West. Thus encouraged,
+Ware rolled himself a cigarette. Others followed suit. Still others
+produced and filled black old pipes. A formidable haze eddied through
+the apartment. Amy, still sewing, said, without looking up:
+
+"One of you boys go rummage the store room for the corn popper. The
+corn's in a corn-meal sack on the far shelf."
+
+Just then Thorne came in, bringing a draft of cold air with him.
+
+"Well," said he, "this is a pretty full house for this time of year."
+
+He walked directly to the rough, board shelf and from it took down a
+book.
+
+"This man Kipling will do again for to-night," he remarked. "He knows
+more about our kind of fellow than most. I've sent for one or two other
+things you ought to know, but just now I want to read you a story that
+may remind you of something you've run against yourself. We've a few
+wild, red-headed Irishmen ourselves in these hills."
+
+He walked briskly to the lamp, opened the volume, and at once began to
+read. Every once in a while he looked up from the book to explain a
+phrase in terms the men would understand, or to comment pithily on some
+similarity in their own experience. When he had finished, he looked
+about at them, challenging.
+
+"There; what did I tell you? Isn't that just about the way they hand it
+out to us here? And this story took place the other side of the world!
+It's quite wonderful when you stop to think about it, isn't it? Listen
+to this--"
+
+He pounced on another story. This led him to a second incursion on the
+meagre library. Bob did not recognize the practical, rather hard Thorne
+of everyday official life. The man was carried away by his eagerness to
+interpret the little East Indian to these comrade spirits of the West.
+The rangers listened with complete sympathy, every once in a while
+throwing in a comment or a criticism, never hesitating to interrupt when
+interruption seemed pertinent.
+
+Finally Amy, who had all this time been sewing away unmoved, a
+half-tender, half-amused smile curving her lips, laid down her work with
+an air of decision.
+
+"I'll call your attention," said she, "to the fact that I'm hungry. Shut
+up your book; I won't hear another word." She leaned across the table,
+and, in spite of Thorne's half-earnest protests, took possession of the
+volume.
+
+"Besides," she remarked, "look at poor Jack Pollock; he's been popping
+corn like a little machine, and he must be nearly roasted himself."
+
+Jack turned to her a face very red from the heat of the leaping pine
+fire.
+
+"That's right," he grinned, "but I got about a dishpan done."
+
+"You'll be in practice to fight fire," some one chaffed him.
+
+"Oh, he'll fight fire all right, if there's somethin' to eat the other
+side," drawled Charley Morton.
+
+"It's plenty," said Amy, referring to the quantity of popcorn.
+
+"Why," spoke up California John in an aggrieved and surprised tone,
+"ain't there nobody going to eat popcorn but me?"
+
+Amy disappeared only to return bearing a cake frosted with chocolate.
+The respect with which this was viewed proved that the men appreciated
+to the full what was represented by chocolate cake in this altitude of
+tiny stoves and scanty supplies. Again Amy dove into the store room.
+This time she bore back a huge enamel-ware pitcher which she set in the
+middle of the round table.
+
+"There!" she cried, her cheeks red with triumph.
+
+"What you got, Amy?" asked her brother.
+
+Ross Fletcher leaned forward to look.
+
+"Great guns!" he cried.
+
+The men jostled around, striving for a glimpse, half in joke, half in
+genuine curiosity.
+
+"Lemonade!" cried Ware.
+
+"None of your lime juice either," pronounced California John; "look at
+the genuine article floatin' around on top."
+
+They turned to Amy.
+
+"Where did you get them?" they demanded.
+
+But she shook her head, smiling, and declined to tell.
+
+They devoured the popcorn and the chocolate cake to the last crumb, and
+emptied the pitcher of genuine lemonade. Then they went home. It was all
+simple enough: cheap tobacco; reading aloud; a little rude chaffing;
+lemonade, cake and popcorn! Bob smiled to himself as he thought of the
+consternation a recital of these ingredients would carry to the
+sophisticated souls of most of his friends. Yet he had enjoyed the
+party, enjoyed it deeply and thoroughly. He came away from it glowing
+with good-fellowship.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+At these and similar occupations the latter days of June slipped by. Bob
+had little leisure, for the Service was undermanned for the work it must
+do. Curtis sooned resigned, to everybody's joy and relief.
+
+On only one occasion did Bob gain a chance to ride over to the scenes of
+his old activities. This was on a Sunday when, by a miracle, nothing
+unexpected came up to tie him to his duty. He had rather an
+unsatisfactory visit with Mr. Welton. It was cordial enough on both
+sides, for the men were genuinely fond of each other; but they had lost
+touch of each other's interests. Welton persisted in regarding Bob with
+a covert amusement, as an older man regards a younger who is having his
+fling, and will later settle down. Bob asked after the work, and was
+answered. Neither felt any real human interest in the questions nor
+their replies. A certain constraint held them, to Bob's very genuine
+regret. He rode back through the westering shadows vaguely uneasy in his
+mind.
+
+He and two of the new mountain men had been for two days cutting up some
+dead and down trees that encumbered the enclosure at headquarters. They
+cross-cut the trunks into handy lengths; bored holes in them with a
+two-inch augur; loaded the holes with blasting powder and a fuse, and
+touched them off. The powder split the logs into rough posts small
+enough to handle. These fragments they carried laboriously to the middle
+of the meadow, where they stacked them rack-fashion and on end. The idea
+was to combine business with pleasure by having a grand bonfire the
+night of the Fourth of July.
+
+For this day other preparations were forward. Amy promised a spread for
+everybody, if she could get a little help at the last moment. As many of
+the outlying rangers as could manage it would come in for the occasion.
+A shooting match, roping and chopping contests, and other sports were in
+contemplation.
+
+As the time drew near, various mysteries were plainly afoot. Men claimed
+their turns in riding down the mountain for the mail. They took with
+them pack horses. These they unpacked secretly and apart. Amy gave Bob
+to understand that this holiday, when the ranks were fullest and
+conditions ripe, went far as a substitute for Christmas among these men.
+
+Then at noon of July second Charley Morton dashed down the trail from
+the Upper Meadow, rode rapidly to Headquarters, flung himself from his
+horse, and dove into the office. After a moment he reappeared, followed
+by Thorne.
+
+"Saddle up, boys," said the latter. "Fire over beyond Baldy. Ride and
+gather in the men who are about here," he told Bob.
+
+Bob sprang on Charley Morton's horse and rode about instructing the
+workers to gather. When he returned, Thorne gave his instructions.
+
+"We're short-handed," he stated, "and it'll be hard to get help just at
+this time. Charley, you take Ware, Elliott and Carroll and see what it
+looks like. Start a fire line, and do the best you can. Orde, you and
+Pollock can get up some pack horses and follow later with grub,
+blankets, and so forth. I'll ride down the mountain to see what I can do
+about help. It may be I can catch somebody by phone at the Power House
+who can let the boys know at the north end. You say it's a big fire?"
+
+"I see quite a lot of smoke," said Charley.
+
+"Then the boys over Jackass way and by the Crossing ought to see it for
+themselves."
+
+The four men designated caught up their horses, saddled them, and
+mounted. Thorne handed them each a broad hoe, a rake and an axe. They
+rode off up the trail. Thorne mounted on his own horse.
+
+"Pack up and follow as fast as you can," he told the two who still
+remained.
+
+"What you want we should take?" asked Jack.
+
+"Amy will tell you. Get started early as you can. You'll have to follow
+their tracks."
+
+Amy took direction of them promptly. While they caught and saddled the
+pack horses, she was busy in the storeroom. They found laid out for them
+a few cooking utensils, a variety of provisions tied up in strong little
+sacks, several more hoes, axes and rakes, two mattocks, a half-dozen
+flat files, and as many big zinc canteens.
+
+"Now hurry!" she commanded them; "pack these, and then get some blankets
+from your camp, and some hobbles and picket ropes."
+
+With Bob's rather awkward help everything was made fast. By the time the
+two had packed the blankets and returned to headquarters on their way to
+the upper trail, they found Amy had changed her clothes, caught and
+saddled her own horse, tied on well-filled saddle bags, and stood
+awaiting them. She wore her broad hat looped back by the pine tree badge
+of the Service, a soft shirtwaist of gray flannel, a short divided skirt
+of khaki and high-laced boots. A red neckerchief matched her cheeks,
+which were glowing with excitement. Immediately they appeared, she swung
+aboard with the easy grace of one long accustomed to the saddle. Bob's
+lower jaw dropped in amazement.
+
+"You going?" he gasped, unable even yet to comprehend the everyday fact
+that so many gently nurtured Western girls are accustomed to those
+rough-and-ready bivouacs.
+
+"I wouldn't stay away for worlds!" she cried, turning her pony's head up
+the trail.
+
+Beyond the upper meadow this trail suddenly began to climb. It made its
+way by lacets in the dry earth, by scrambles in the rocks until, through
+the rapidly thinning ranks of the scrubby trees, Bob could look back
+over all the broad shelf of the mountain whereon grew the pines. It lay
+spread before him as a soft green carpet of tops, miles of it, wrinkling
+and billowing gently as here and there the conformation of the country
+changed. At some distance it dropped over an edge. Beyond that, very
+dimly, he realized the brown shimmer rising from the plain. Far to the
+right was a tenuous smoke, a suggestion of thinning in the forest, a
+flash of blue water. This, Bob knew, must be the mill and the lake.
+
+The trail shortly made its way over the shoulder of the ridge and
+emerged on the wide, gentle rounding of the crest. Here the trees were
+small, stunted and wind-blown. Huge curving sheets of unbroken granite
+lay like armour across the shoulder of the mountain. Decomposing granite
+shale crunched under the horses' hoofs. Here and there on it grew
+isolated tiny tufts of the hardy upland flowers. Above, the sky was
+deeply, intensely blue; bluer than Bob had ever seen a sky before. The
+air held in it a tang of wildness, as though it had breathed from great
+spaces.
+
+"I suppose this is the top of our ridge, isn't it?" Bob asked Jack
+Pollock.
+
+The boy nodded.
+
+Suddenly the trail dipped sharp to the left into a narrow and shallow
+little ravine. The bed of this was carpeted by a narrow stringer of
+fresh grass and flowers, through which a tiny stream felt its hesitating
+way. This ravine widened and narrowed, turned and doubled. Here and
+there groups of cedars on a dry flat offered ideal shelter for a camp.
+Abruptly the stringer burst through a screen of azaleas to a round green
+meadow surrounded by the taller trees of the eastern slope of the
+mountain.
+
+In other circumstances Bob would have liked to stop for a better sight
+of this little gem of a meadow. It was ankle deep with new grasses,
+starred with flowers, bordered with pink and white azaleas. The air,
+prisoned in a pocket, warmed by the sun, perfumed heavily by the
+flowers, lay in the cup of the trees like a tepid bath. A hundred birds
+sang in June-tide ecstasy.
+
+But Jack Pollock, without pause, skirted this meadow, crossed the tiny
+silver creek that bubbled from it down the slope, and stolidly mounted a
+little knoll beyond. The trained pack horses swung along behind him,
+swaying gently from side to side that they might carry their packs
+comfortably and level. Bob turned involuntarily to glance at Amy. Their
+eyes met. She understood; and smiled at him brightly.
+
+Jack led the way to the top of the knoll and stopped.
+
+Here the edge of the mountain broke into a tiny outcropping spur that
+shook itself free from the pines. It constituted a natural lookout to
+the east. Bob drew rein so violently that even his well-trained mountain
+horse shook its head in protest.
+
+Before him, hushed with that tremendous calm of vast distances, lay the
+Sierras he had never seen, as though embalmed in the sunlight of a
+thousand afternoons. A tremendous, deep cañon plunged below him, blue
+with distance. It climbed again to his level eventually, but by that
+time it was ten miles away. And over against him, very remote, were pine
+ridges looking velvety and dark and ruffled and full of shadows, like
+the erect fur of a beast that has been alarmed. From them here and there
+projected granite domes. And beyond them bald ranges; and beyond them,
+splintered granite with snow in the crevices; and beyond this the dark
+and frowning Pinnacles; and still beyond, other mountains so distant, so
+ethereal, so delicately pink and rose and saffron that almost he
+expected they might at any moment dissolve into the vivid sky. And,
+strangely enough, though he realized the tremendous heights and depths
+of these peaks and cañons, the whole effect to Bob was as something
+spread out broad. The sky, the wonderful over-arching, very blue sky,
+was the most important thing in the universe. Compared to its
+infinitudes these mountains lay spread like a fair and wrinkled footrug
+to a horizon inconceivably remote and mysterious.
+
+Then his eye fell to the ridge opposite, across the blue cañon. From one
+point on it a straight column of smoke rolled upward, to mushroom out
+and hang motionless above the top of the ridge. Its base was shot by
+half-seen, half-guessed flaming streaks.
+
+Bob had vaguely expected to see a whole country-side ablaze. This
+single, slender column was almost absurd. It looked like a camp-fire,
+magnified to fit the setting, of course.
+
+"There's the fire, all right," said Jack. "We got to get across to it
+somehow. Trail ends here."
+
+"Why, that doesn't amount to much!" cried Bob.
+
+"Don't it?" said Jack. "Well, I'd call that some shakes of a fire
+myself. It's covered mighty nigh three hundred acres by now."
+
+"Three hundred acres! Better say ten."
+
+"You're wrong," said Jack; "I've rode all that country with cattle."
+
+"You'll find it fire enough, when you get there," put in Amy. "It's
+right in good timber, too."
+
+"All right," agreed Bob; "I'll believe anything--after this." He waved
+his hand abroad. "Jack," he called, as that young man led the way off
+the edge, "can you see where Jack Main's Cañon is from here?"
+
+"Jack Main's!" repeated young Pollock. "Why, if you was on the top of
+the farthest mountain in sight, you couldn't see any place you could see
+it from."
+
+"Good Lord!" said Bob.
+
+The way zigzagged down the slope of the mountain. As Jack had said,
+there was no trail, but the tracks left by the four rangers were plainly
+to be discerned. Bob, following the pack horses, had leisure to observe
+how skilfully this way had been picked out. Always it held to the easy
+footing, but always it was evident that if certain turns had not been
+made some distance back this easy footing would have lacked. At times
+the tracks led far to the left at nearly the same level until one, two
+or three little streams had been crossed. Then without apparent reason
+they turned directly down the backbone of a steep ridge exactly like a
+half-dozen others they had passed over. But later Bob saw that this
+ridge was the only one of the lot that dipped over gently to lower
+levels; all the rest broke off abruptly in precipitous rocks. Bob was a
+good woodsman, but this was his first experience in that mountaineering
+skill which noses its way by the "lay of the country."
+
+In the meantime they were steadily descending. The trees hemmed them
+closer. Thickets of willows and alders had to be crossed. Dimly through
+the tree-tops they seemed to see the sky darkening by degrees as they
+worked their way down. At first Bob thought it the lateness of the
+afternoon; then he concluded it must be the smoke of the fire; finally,
+through a clear opening, he saw this apparent darkening of the horizon
+was in reality the blue of the cañon wall opposite, rising as they
+descended. But, too, as they drew nearer, the heavy smoke of the
+conflagration began to spread over them. In time it usurped the heavens,
+and Bob had difficulty in believing that it could appear to any one
+anywhere as so simple a mushroom-head over a slender smoke column.
+
+By the time the horses stepped from the slope to the bed of the cañon,
+it was quite dark. Jack turned down stream.
+
+"We'll cut the trail to Burro Rock pretty quick," said he.
+
+Within five minutes of travel they did cut it; a narrow brown trough,
+trodden by the hoofs of many generations of cattlemen bound for the back
+country. Almost immediately it began to mount the slope.
+
+Now ahead, through the gathering twilight, lights began to show,
+sometimes scattered, sometimes grouped, like the camp-fires of an
+immense army. These were the stubs, stumps, down logs and the like left
+still blazing after all the more readily inflammable material had been
+burned away. As the little cavalcade laboured upward, stopping every few
+minutes to breathe the horses, these flickering lights defined
+themselves. In particular one tall dead yellow pine standing boldly
+prominent, afire to the top, alternately glowed and paled as the wind
+breathed or died. A smell of stale burning drifted down the damp night
+air. Pretty soon Jack Pollock halted for a moment to call back:
+
+"Here's their fire line!"
+
+Bob spurred forward. Just beyond Jack's horse the country lay blackened.
+The pine needles had burned down to the soil; the seedlings and younger
+trees had been withered away; the larger trees scorched; the fuel with
+which every forest is littered consumed in the fierceness of the
+conflagration. Here and there some stub or trunk still blazed and
+crackled, outposts of the army whose camp-fires seemed to dot the hills.
+
+The line of demarcation between the burned and the unburned areas seemed
+extraordinarily well defined. Bob looked closer and saw that this
+definition was due to a peculiar path, perhaps two yards wide. It looked
+as though some one had gone along there with a huge broom, sweeping as
+one would sweep a path in deep dust. Only in this case the broom must
+have been a powerful implement as well as one of wide reach. The brushed
+marks went not only through the carpet of pine needles, but through the
+tarweed, the snow brush, the manzañita. This was technically the fire
+line. At the sight of the positiveness with which it had checked the
+spread of the flames, Bob's spirits rose.
+
+"They seem to have stopped it here easy enough, already," he cried.
+
+"Being as how this is the windward side of the fire, and on a down
+slope, I should think they might," remarked Jack Pollock drily.
+
+Bob chuckled and glanced at the girl.
+
+"I'm finding out every day how little I know," said he; "at my age,
+too!"
+
+"The hard work is down wind," said Amy.
+
+"Of course."
+
+They entered the burned area, and climbed on up the hill. Though
+evidently here the ferocity of the conflagration had passed, it had left
+its rear guard behind. Fallen trees still blazed; standing trees flamed
+like torches--but all harmlessly within the magic circle drawn by the
+desperate quick work of the rangers. They threaded their way cautiously
+among these isolated fires, watching lest some dead giant should fall
+across their path. The ground smoked under their feet. Against the
+background of a faint and distant roaring, which now made itself
+evident, the immediate surroundings seemed very quiet. The individual
+cracklings of flames were an undertone. Only once in a while a dull
+heavy crash smote the air as some great tree gave up the unequal
+struggle.
+
+They passed as rapidly as they could through this stricken field. The
+night had fallen, but the forest was still bright, the trail still
+plain. They followed it for an hour until it had topped the lower ridge.
+
+Then far ahead, down through the dark trunks of trees, they saw,
+wavering, flickering, leaping and dying, a line of fire. In some places
+it was a dozen feet high; in others it sank to within a few inches of
+the ground--but nowhere could the eye discern an opening through it. A
+roar and a crackling filled the air. Sparks were shooting upward in the
+suction. A blast of heat rushed against Bob's cheek. All at once he
+realized that a forest fire was not a widespread general conflagration,
+like the burning of a city block. It was a line of battle, a ring of
+flame advancing steadily. All they had passed had been negligible. Here
+was the true enemy, now charging rapidly through the dry, inflammable
+low growth, now creeping stealthily in the needles and among the rocks;
+always making way, always gathering itself for one of its wild leaps
+which should lay an entire new province under its ravaging. Somewhere on
+the other side of that ring of fire were four men. They were trying to
+cut a lane over which the fire could not leap.
+
+Bob gazed at the wall of flame with some dismay.
+
+"How we going to get through?" he asked.
+
+"We got to find a rock outcrop somewheres up the ridge," explained Jack,
+"where there'll be a break in the fire."
+
+He turned up the side of the mountain again, leading the way. After a
+time they came to an outcrop of the sort described, which, with some
+difficulty and stumbling, they succeeded in crossing.
+
+Ahead, in the darkness, showed a tiny licking little fire, only a few
+inches high.
+
+"The fire has jumped!" cried Bob.
+
+"No, that's their backfire," Pollock corrected him.
+
+They found this to be true. The rangers had hastily hoed and raked out a
+narrow path. Over this a very small fire could not pass; but there could
+be no doubt that the larger conflagration would take the slight obstacle
+in its stride. Therefore the rangers had themselves ignited the small
+fire. This would eat away the fuel, and automatically widen the path.
+Between the main fire and the back fire were still several hundred yards
+of good, unburned country. To Bob's expression of surprise Amy added to
+the two principles of fire-fighting he had learned from Pollock.
+
+"It doesn't do to try to stop a fire anywhere and everywhere," said she.
+"A good man knows his country, and he takes advantage of it. This fire
+line probably runs along the line of natural defence."
+
+They followed it down the mountain for a long distance through the
+eddying smoke. The flames to their right shot up and died and crept. The
+shadows to their left--their own among the number--leaped and fell.
+After a while, down through the mists, they made out a small figure,
+very busy at something. When they approached, they found this to be
+Charley Morton. The fire had leaped the cleared path and was greedily
+eating in all directions through the short, pitchy growth of tarweed. It
+was as yet only a tiny leak, but once let it get started, the whole
+forest beyond the fire line would be ablaze. The ranger had started to
+cut around this a half-circle connected at both ends with the main fire
+line. With short, quick jabs of his hoe, he was tearing away at the
+tough tarweed.
+
+"Hullo!" said he without looking up. "You'll find camp on the bald ridge
+north the fire line. There's a little feed there."
+
+Having completed his defence, he straightened his back to look at them.
+His face was grimed a dingy black through which rivulets of sweat had
+made streaks.
+
+"Had it pretty hot all afternoon," he proffered. "Got the fire line
+done, though. How're those canteens--full? I'll trade you my empty one."
+He took a long draught. "That tastes good. Went dry about three o'clock,
+and haven't had a drop since."
+
+They left him there, leaning on the handle of his hoe. Jack Pollock
+seemed to know where the place described as the camp-site was located,
+for after various détours and false starts, he led them over the brow of
+a knoll to a tiny flat among the pine needles where they were greeted by
+whinnies from unseen animals. It was here very dark. Jack scraped
+together and lit some of the pine needles. By the flickering light they
+saw the four saddles dumped down in a heap.
+
+"There's a side hill over yander with a few bunches of grass and some of
+these blue lupins," said Jack. "It ain't much in the way of hoss-feed,
+but it'll have to do."
+
+He gathered fuel and soon had enough of a fire to furnish light.
+
+"It certainly does seem plumb foolish to be lightin' _more_ fires!" he
+remarked.
+
+In the meantime Amy had unsaddled her own horse and was busy unpacking
+one of the pack animals. Bob followed her example.
+
+"There," she said; "now here are the canteens, all full; and here's six
+lunches already tied together that I put up before we started. You can
+get them to the other boys. Take your tools and run along. I'll
+straighten up, and be ready for you when you can come back."
+
+"What if the fire gets over to you?" asked Bob.
+
+"I'll turn the horses loose and ride away," she said gaily.
+
+"It won't get clost to there," put in Jack. "This little ridge is rock
+all round it. That's why they put the camp here."
+
+"Where's water?" asked Amy.
+
+"I don't rightly remember," confessed Pollock. "I've only been in here
+once."
+
+"I'll find out in the morning. Good luck!"
+
+Jack handed Bob three of the canteens, a hoe and rake and one of the
+flat files.
+
+"What's this for?" asked Bob.
+
+"To keep the edge of your hoe sharp," replied Jack.
+
+They shouldered their implements and felt their way in the darkness over
+the tumbled rock outcrop. As they surmounted the shoulder of the hill,
+they saw once more flickering before them the fire line.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Charley Morton received the lunch with joy.
+
+"Ain't had time to get together grub since we came," said he, "and
+didn't know when I would."
+
+"What do you want us to do?" asked Bob.
+
+"The fire line's drawn right across from Granite Creek down there in the
+cañon over to a bald dome. We got her done an hour ago, and pretty well
+back-fired. All we got to do now is to keep her from crossing anywheres;
+and if she does cross, to corral her before she can get away from us."
+
+"I wish we could have got here sooner!" cried Bob, disappointed that the
+little adventure seemed to be flattening out.
+
+"So?" commented Charley drily. "Well, there's plenty yet. If she gets
+out in one single, lonesome place, this fire line of ours won't be worth
+a cent. She's inside now--if we can hold her there." He gazed
+contemplatively aloft at a big dead pine blazing merrily to its very
+top. Every once in a while a chunk of bark or a piece of limb came
+flaring down to hit the ground with a thump. "There's the trouble," said
+he. "What's to keep a spark or a coal from that old coon from falling or
+rolling on the wrong side of the line? If it happens when none of us are
+around, why the fire gets a start. And maybe a coal will roll down hill
+from somewhere; or a breeze come up and carry sparks. One spark over
+here," he stamped his foot on the brushed line, "and it's all to do over
+again. There's six of us," added the ranger, "and a hundred of these
+trees near the line. By rights there ought to be a man camped down near
+every one of them."
+
+"Give us our orders," repeated Bob.
+
+"The orders are to patrol the fire line," said Morton. "If you find the
+fire has broken across, corral it. If it gets too strong for you, shoot
+your six-shooter twice. Keep a-moving, but take it easy and save
+yourself for to-morrow. About two o'clock, or so, I'll shoot three
+times. Then you can come to camp and get a little sleep. You got to be
+in shape for to-morrow."
+
+"Why especially to-morrow?" asked Bob.
+
+"Fire dies in the cool of night; it comes up in the middle of the day,"
+explained Morton succinctly.
+
+Bob took to the right, while Jack went in the opposite direction. His
+way led down hill. He crossed a ravine, surmounted a little ridge. Now
+he was in the worse than total darkness of the almost extinct area.
+Embers and coals burned all over the side hill like so many evil winking
+eyes. Far ahead, down the mountain, the rising smoke glowed incandescent
+with the light of an invisible fire beneath, Bob, blinded by this glow,
+had great difficulty in making his way. Once he found that he had
+somehow crept out on the great bald roundness of a granite dome, and had
+to retrace his steps. Twice he lost his footing utterly, but fortunately
+fell but a short distance. At last he found himself in the V of a narrow
+ravine.
+
+All this time he had, with one exception, kept close track of the fire
+line. The exception was when he strayed out over the dome; but that was
+natural, for the dome had been adopted bodily as part of the system of
+defence. Everywhere the edge of the path proved to be black and dead. No
+living fire glowed within striking distance of the inflammable material
+on the hither side the path.
+
+But here, in the bottom of the ravine, a single coal had lodged, and had
+already started into flame the dry small brush. It had fallen originally
+from an oak fully a hundred feet away; and in some mysterious manner had
+found a path to this hidden pocket. The circumstances somewhat shook
+Bob's faith in the apparent safety of the country he had just traversed.
+
+However, there were the tiny flames, licking here and there,
+insignificant, but nevertheless dangerous. Bob carefully laid his
+canteens and the rake on a boulder, and set to work with his sharpened
+hoe. It looked to be a very easy task to dig out a path around this
+little fire.
+
+In the course of the miniature fight he learned considerable of the ways
+of fire. The brush proved unexpectedly difficult. It would not stand up
+to the force of his stroke, but bent away. The tarweed, especially, was
+stubborn under even the most vigorous wielding of his sharpened hoe.
+
+He made an initial mistake by starting to hoe out his path too near the
+blaze, forgetting that in the time necessary to complete his half-circle
+the flames would have spread. Discovering this, he abandoned his
+beginning and fell back twenty feet. This naturally considerably
+lengthened the line he would have to cut. When it was about half done,
+Bob discovered that he would have to hustle to prevent the fire breaking
+by him before he could complete his half-circle. It became a race. He
+worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to scorch his face and
+hands, so that it was with difficulty he could face his work.
+Irrelevantly enough there arose before his mind the image of Jack
+Pollock popping corn before the fireplace at headquarters. Continual
+wielding of the hoe tired a certain set of muscles to the aching point.
+His mouth became dry and sticky, but he could not spare time to hunt up
+his canteen. The thought flashed across his mind that the fire was
+probably breaking across elsewhere, just like this. The other men must
+be in the same fix. There were six of them. Suppose the fire should
+break across simultaneously in seven places? The little licking flames
+had at last, by dint of a malignant persistence, become a personal
+enemy. He fought them absorbedly, throwing his line farther and farther
+as the necessity arose, running to beat down with green brush the first
+feeble upstartings of the fire as it leaped here and there his barrier,
+keeping a vigilant eye on every part of his defences.
+
+"Well," drawled Charley Morton's voice behind him, "what you think
+you're doing?"
+
+"Corralling this fire, of course," Bob panted, dashing at a marauding
+little flame.
+
+"What for?" demanded Charley.
+
+Bob looked up in sheer amazement.
+
+"See that rock dike just up the hill behind you?" explained Morton.
+"Well, our fire line already runs up to that on both sides. Fire
+couldn't cross it. We expected this to burn."
+
+Bob suddenly felt a little nauseated and dizzy from the heat and
+violence of his exertions in this high altitude.
+
+"Here's your canteen," Morton went on easily. "Take a swig. Better save
+a little. Feel better? Let me give you a pointer: don't try to stop a
+fire going up hill. Take it on top or just over the top. It burns slower
+and it ain't so apt to jump."
+
+"I know; I forgot," said Bob, feeling a trifle foolish.
+
+"Never mind; you've learned something," said Morton comfortably. "Let's
+go down below. There's fresh fire there; and it may have jumped past
+Elliott."
+
+They scrambled down. Elliott and Ware were found to be working
+desperately in the face of the flames. The fire had not here jumped the
+line, but it was burning with great ferocity up to the very edge of it.
+If the rangers could for a half-hour prevent the heat from igniting the
+growths across the defence, the main fire would have consumed its fuel
+and died down to comparative safety. With faces averted, heads lowered,
+handkerchiefs over their mouths, they continually beat down the new
+little fires which as continually sprang into life again. Here the
+antagonists were face to face across the narrow line. The rangers could
+not give back an inch, for an inch of headway on the wrong side the path
+would convert a kindling little blaze to a real fire. They stood up to
+their work doggedly as best they might.
+
+With entire understanding of the situation Charley motioned Bob to the
+front.
+
+"We'll hold her for a minute," he shouted to the others. "Drop back and
+get a drink."
+
+They fell back to seize eagerly their canteens. Bob gripped his handful
+of green brush and set to work. For a minute he did not think it
+possible to face the terrible heat. His garments were literally drenched
+with sweat which immediately dried into steam. A fierce drain sucked at
+his strength. He could hardly breathe, and could see only with
+difficulty. After a moment Elliott and Ware, evidently somewhat
+refreshed, again took hold.
+
+How they stuck it out for that infernal half-hour Bob could not have
+told, but stick it out they did. The flames gradually died down; the
+heat grew less; the danger that the shrivelled brush on the wrong side
+the fire line would be ignited by sheer heat, vanished. The four men
+fell back. Their eyebrows and hair were singed; their skin blackened.
+Bob's face felt sore, and as though it had been stretched. He took a
+long pull at his canteen. For the moment he felt as though his energy
+had all been drained away.
+
+"Well, that was a good little scrap," observed Charley Morton
+cheerfully. "I certainly do wish it was always night when a man had to
+fight fire. In a hot sun it gets to be hard work."
+
+Elliott rolled his eyes, curiously white like a minstrel's in his
+blackened face, at Bob, but said nothing.
+
+"We'll leave Elliott here to watch this a few minutes, and go down the
+line," said Morton.
+
+Bob lifted his canteen, and, to his surprise, found it empty.
+
+"Why, I must have drunk a gallon!" he cried.
+
+"It's dry work," said Morton.
+
+They continued on down the fire line, pausing every once in a while to
+rake and scrape leisurely at the heavy bark beneath some blazing stub.
+The fierce, hard work was over. All along the fire line from the dome of
+granite over the ridge down to Granite Creek the fire had consumed all
+the light fuel on its own side the defence. No further danger was to be
+apprehended in the breaking across. But everywhere through the now
+darkening forest blazed the standing trees. A wind would fill the air
+with brands; and even in the present dead calm those near the line were
+a threat.
+
+The men traversed the fire line from end to end a half-dozen times. Bob
+became acquainted individually and minutely with each of the danger
+spots. The new temporary features of country took on, from the effects
+of vigilance and toil, the dignity of age and establishment. Anxiously
+he widened the path here, kicked back glowing brands there, tried to
+assure himself that in no possible manner could the seed of a new
+conflagration find germination. After a long time he heard three shots
+from up the mountain. This, he remarked, was a signal agreed upon. He
+shouldered his blackened implements and commenced a laborious ascent.
+
+Suddenly he discovered that he was very tired, and that his legs were
+weak and wobbly. Stubs and sticks protruded everywhere; stones rolled
+from under his feet. Once on a steep shale, he fell and rolled ten feet
+out of sheer weariness. In addition he was again very thirsty, and his
+canteen empty. A chill gray of dawn was abroad; the smell of stale
+burning hung in the air.
+
+By the time he had staggered into camp the daylight had come. He glanced
+about him wearily. Across a tiny ravine the horses dozed, tied each to a
+short picket rope. Bob was already enough of a mountaineer to notice
+that the feed was very scant. The camp itself had been made under a
+dozen big yellow pines. A bright little fire flickered. About it stood
+utensils from which the men were rather dispiritedly helping themselves.
+Bob saw that the long pine needles had been scraped together to make
+soft beds, over which the blankets had been spread. Amy herself, her
+cheeks red, her eyes bright, was passing around tin cups of strong
+coffee, and tin plates of food. Her horse, saddled and bridled, stood
+nearby.
+
+"Take a little of this," she urged Bob, "and then turn in."
+
+Bob muttered his thanks. After swallowing the coffee, however, he felt
+his energies reviving somewhat.
+
+"How did you leave things at the lower end?" Morton was asking him.
+
+"All out but two or three smouldering old stubs," replied Bob.
+"Everything's safe."
+
+"Nothing's safe," contradicted Morton. "By rights we ought to watch
+every minute. But we got to get some rest in a long fight. It's the cool
+of the morning and the fire burns low. Turn in and get all the sleep you
+can. May need you later."
+
+"I'm all in," acknowledged Bob, throwing back his blanket; "I'm willing
+to say so."
+
+"No more fire in mine," agreed young Elliott.
+
+The other men said nothing, but fell to their beds. Only Charley Morton
+rose a little stiffly to his feet.
+
+"Aren't you going to turn in too, Charley?" asked the girl quickly.
+
+"It's daylight now," explained the ranger, "and I can see to ride a
+horse. I reckon I'd better ride down the line."
+
+"I've thought of that," said Amy. "Of course, it wouldn't do to let the
+fire take care of itself. See; I have Pronto saddled. I'll look over the
+line, and if anything happens I'll wake you."
+
+"You must be about dead," said Charley. "You've been up all night fixing
+camp and cooking----"
+
+"Up all night!" repeated Amy scornfully. "How long do you think it
+takes me to make camp and cook a simple little breakfast?"
+
+"But the country's almighty rough riding."
+
+"On Pronto?"
+
+"He's a good mountain pony," agreed Charley Morton; "California John
+picked him out himself. All right. I do feel some tired."
+
+This was about six o'clock. The men had slept but a little over an hour
+when Amy scrambled over the rim of the dike and dropped from her horse.
+
+"Charley!" she cried, shaking the ranger by the shoulder; "I'm sorry.
+But there's fresh smoke about half-way down the mountain. There was
+nothing left to burn fresh inside the fire line, was there? I thought
+not."
+
+Twenty minutes later all six were frantically digging, hoeing, chopping,
+beating in a frenzy against the spread of the flames. In some manner the
+fire had jumped the line. It might have been that early in the fight a
+spark had lodged. As long as the darkness of night held down the
+temperature, this spark merely smouldered. When, however, the rays of
+the sun gathered heat, it had burst into flame.
+
+This sun made all the difference in the world. Where, in the cool of the
+night, the flames had crept slowly, now they leaped forward with a
+fierce crackling; green brush that would ordinarily have resisted for a
+long time, now sprang into fire at a touch. The conflagration spread
+from a single point in all directions, running swiftly, roaring in a
+sheet of fire, licking up all before it.
+
+The work was fierce in its intensity. Bob, in common with the others,
+had given up trying--or indeed caring--to protect himself. His clothes
+smoked, his face smarted and burned, his skin burned and blistered. He
+breathed the hot air in gasps. Strangely enough, he did not feel in the
+least tired.
+
+He did not need to be told what to do. The only possible defence was
+across a rock outcrop. To right and left of him the other men were
+working desperately to tear out the brush. He grubbed away trying to
+clear the pine needles and little bushes that would carry the fire
+through the rocks like so many powder fuses.
+
+He had no time to see how the others were getting on; he worked on
+faith. His own efforts were becoming successful. The fire, trying, one
+after another, various leads through the rocks, ran out of fuel and
+died. The infernal roaring furnace below, however, leaped ever to new
+trial.
+
+Then all at once Bob found himself temporarily out of the game. In
+trying to roll a boulder out of the way, he caught his hand. A sharp,
+lightning pain shot up his arm and into the middle of his chest. When he
+had succeeded in extricating himself, he found that his middle finger
+was squarely broken.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Bob stood still for a moment, looking at the injured member. Charley
+Morton touched him on the shoulder. When he looked up, the ranger
+motioned him back. Casting a look of regret at his half-completed
+defences, he obeyed. To his surprise he found the other four already
+gathered together. Evidently his being called off the work had nothing
+to do with his broken finger, as he had at first supposed.
+
+"Well, I guess we'll have to fall back," said Morton composedly. "It's
+got away from us."
+
+Without further comment he shouldered his implements and took his way up
+the hill. Bob handed his hoe and rake to Jack Pollock.
+
+"Carry 'em a minute," he explained. "I hurt my hand a little."
+
+As he walked along he bound the finger roughly to its neighbour, and on
+both tied a rude splint.
+
+"What's up?" he muttered to Jack, as he worked at this.
+
+"I reckon we must be goin' to start a fire line back of the next
+cross-bridge somewheres," Jack ventured his opinion.
+
+Bob stopped short.
+
+"Then we've abandoned the old one!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Complete," spoke up Ware, who overheard.
+
+"And all the work we've done there is useless?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"We've got it all to do over again from the beginning?"
+
+"Certain sure."
+
+Bob adjusted his mind to this new and rather overwhelming idea.
+
+"I saw Senator What's-his-name--from Montana--made a speech the other
+day," spoke up Elliott, "in which he attacked the Service because he
+said it was a refuge for consumptives and incompetents!"
+
+At this moment Amy rode up draped with canteens and balancing carefully
+a steaming pail of coffee. She was accompanied by another woman
+similarly provided.
+
+The newcomer was a decided-looking girl under thirty, with a full,
+strong figure, pronounced flaxen-blond hair, a clear though somewhat
+sunburned skin, blue eyes, and a flash of strong, white teeth. Bob had
+never seen her before, but he recognized her as a mountain woman. She
+rode a pinto, guided by a hackamore, and was attired quite simply in the
+universal broad felt hat and a serviceable blue calico gown. In spite of
+this she rode astride; and rode well. A throwing rope, or riata, hung in
+the sling at the right side of her saddle pommel; and it looked as
+though it had been used.
+
+"Where's Charley?" she asked promptly as she rode up. "Is that you? You
+look like a nigger. How you feeling? You just mind me, and don't you try
+to do too much. You don't get paid for overtime at this job."
+
+"Hullo, Lou," replied Charley Morton; "I thought it was about time you
+showed up."
+
+The woman nodded at the others.
+
+"Howdy, Mrs. Morton," answered Tom Carroll, Pollock and Ware. Bob and
+Elliott bowed.
+
+By now the fire had been left far in the rear. The crackling of flames
+had died in the distance; even the smoke cleared from the atmosphere.
+All the forest was peaceful and cool. The Douglas squirrels scampered
+and barked; the birds twittered and flashed or slanted in long flight
+through the trees; the sun shone soft; a cool breeze ruffled the
+feathery tips of the tarweed.
+
+At the top of the ridge Charley Morton called a halt.
+
+"This is pretty easy country," said he. "We'll run the line square down
+either side. Get busy."
+
+"Have a cup of coffee first," urged Amy.
+
+"Surely. Forgot that."
+
+They drank the coffee, finding it good, and tucked away the lunches Amy,
+with her unfailing forethought, had brought them.
+
+"Good-bye!" she called gaily; "I've got to get back to camp before the
+fire cuts me off. I won't see you again till the fire burns me out a way
+to get to you."
+
+"Take my horse, too," said Mrs. Morton, dismounting. "You don't need me
+in camp."
+
+Amy took the lead rein and rode away as a matter of course. She was
+quite alone to guard the horses and camp equipage on the little knoll
+while the fire spent its fury all around her. Everybody seemed to take
+the matter for granted; but Bob looked after her with mingled feelings
+of anxiety and astonishment. This Western breed of girl was still beyond
+his comprehension.
+
+The work was at once begun. In spite of the cruel throb of his injured
+hand, Bob found the labour pleasant by sheer force of contrast. The air
+was cool, the shade refreshing, the frantic necessity of struggle
+absent. He raked carefully his broad path among the pine needles, laying
+bare the brown earth; hoed and chopped in the tarweed and brush. Several
+times Charley Morton passed him. Each time the ranger paused for a
+moment to advise him.
+
+"You ought to throw your line farther back," he told Bob. "See that
+'dead-and-down' ahead? If you let that cross your fire line, it'll carry
+the fire sooner or later, sure; and if you curve your line too quick to
+go around it, the fire'll jump. You want to keep your eye out 'way
+ahead."
+
+Once Bob caught a glimpse of blue calico through the trees. As he came
+nearer, he was surprised to see Mrs. Morton working away stoutly with a
+hoe. Her skirts were turned back, her sleeves rolled up to display a
+white and plump forearm, the neck of her gown loosened to show a round
+and well-moulded neck. The strokes of her hoe were as vigorous as those
+of any of the men. In watching the strong, free movements of her body,
+Bob forgot for a moment what had been intruding itself on him with more
+and more insistance--the throb of his broken hand.
+
+In the course of an hour the fire line was well under way. But now wisps
+of smoke began to drift down the tree aisles. Birds shot past, at first
+by ones and twos, later in flocks. A deer that must have lain perdu to
+let them pass bounded across the ridge, his head high, his nostrils
+wide. The squirrels ran chattering down the trees, up others, leaped
+across the gaps, working always farther and farther to the north. The
+cool breeze carried with it puffs of hot air. Finally in distant
+openings could be discerned little busy, flickering flames. All at once
+the thought gripped Bob hard: the might of the fire was about to test
+the quality of his work!
+
+"There she comes!" gasped Charley Morton. "My Lord, how she's run
+to-day! We got to close the line to that stone dike."
+
+By one of the lightning transitions of motive with which these
+activities seemed to abound, the affair had become a very deadly earnest
+sort of race. It was simple. If the men could touch the dike before the
+fire, they won.
+
+The realization of this electrified even the weary spirits of the
+fire-fighters. They redoubled their efforts. The hoes, mattocks and axes
+rose and fell feverishly. Mrs. Morton, the perspiration matting her
+beautiful and shining hair across her forehead, laboured with the best.
+The fire, having gained the upward-rising slope, came at them with the
+speed of an enemy charging. Soon they were fairly choked by the dense
+clouds of smoke, fairly scorched by the waves of heat. Sweat poured from
+them in streams. Bob utterly forgot his wounded hand.
+
+And then, when they were within a scant fifty yards of the dike which
+was intended to be their right wing, the flames sprang with a roar to
+new life. Up the slope they galloped, whirled around the end of the fire
+line, and began eagerly to lick up the tarweed and needles of the
+ridge-top.
+
+Bob and Elliott uttered a simultaneous cry of dismay. The victory had
+seemed fairly in their grasp. Now all chance of it was snatched away.
+
+"Poor guess," said Charley Morton. The men, without other comment,
+shouldered their implements and set off on a dog-trot after their
+leader. The ranger merely fell back to the next natural barrier.
+
+"Now, let's see if we can't hold her, boys," said he.
+
+Twice again that day were these scenes reënacted. The same result
+obtained. Each time it seemed to Bob that he could do no more. His hand
+felt as big as a pillow, and his whole arm and shoulder ached. Besides
+this he was tired out. Amy had been cut off from them by the fire. In
+two days they had had but an hour's sleep. Water had long since given
+out on them. The sun beat hot and merciless, assisting its kinsman, the
+fire. Bob would, if left to himself, have given up the contest long
+since. It seemed ridiculous that this little handful of men should hope
+to arrest anything so mighty, so proud, so magnificent as this great
+conflagration. As well expect a colony of ants to stop a break in the
+levee. But Morton continued to fall back as though each defeat were a
+matter of course. He seemed unwearied, though beneath the smoke-black
+his eyes were hollow. Mrs. Morton did her part with the rest, strong as
+a man for all her feminine attraction, for all the soft lines of her
+figure.
+
+"I'll drop back far enough this time," Charley muttered to her, as they
+were thrown together in their last retreat. "Can't seem to get far
+enough back!"
+
+"There's too few of us to handle such a big fire," his wife replied.
+"You can't do it with six men."
+
+"Seven," amended Charley. "You're as good as any of us. Don't you
+worry, Lou. Even if we don't stop her--and I think we will--we're
+checking the run of her until we get help. We're doing well. There's
+only two old fire-fighters in the lot--you and me. All the rest is green
+hands. We're doing almighty well."
+
+Overhearing this Bob plucked up heart. These desperate stands were not
+then so wasted as he had thought them. At least the fire was checked at
+each defence--it was not permitted to run wild over the country.
+
+"We ought to get help before long," he said.
+
+"To-morrow, I figure," replied Charley Morton. "The boys are scattered
+wide, finishing odds and ends before coming in for the Fourth. It'll be
+about impossible to get hold of any of 'em except by accident. But
+they'll all come in for the Fourth."
+
+The next defence was successfully completed before the fire reached it.
+Bob felt a sudden rush of most extraordinary and vivifying emotion. A
+moment ago he had been ready to drop in his tracks, indifferent whether
+the fire burned him as he lay. Now he felt ready to go on forever. Bert
+Elliott found energy enough to throw his hat into the air, while Jack
+shook his fist at the advancing fire.
+
+"We fooled him that time!" cried Elliott.
+
+"Bet you!" growled Pollock.
+
+The other men and the woman stood leaning on the long handles of their
+implements staring at the advancing flames.
+
+Morton aroused himself with an effort.
+
+"Do your best boys," said he briefly. "There she comes. Another hour
+will tell whether we've stopped her. Then we've got to hold her.
+Scatter!"
+
+The day had passed without anybody's being aware of the fact. The cool
+of the evening was already falling, and the fierceness of the
+conflagration was falling in accord.
+
+They held the line until the flames had burned themselves out against
+it. Then they took up their weary patrol. Last night, when Bob was
+fresh, this part of fire-fighting had seemed the hardest kind of hard
+work. Now, crippled and weary as he was, in contrast to the day's
+greater labour, it had become comparatively easy. About eight o'clock
+Amy, having found a way through, appeared leading all the horses,
+saddled and packed.
+
+"You boys came a long way," she explained simply, "and I thought I'd
+bring over camp."
+
+She distributed food, and made trips down the fire line with coffee.
+
+In this manner the night passed. The line had been held. No one had
+slept. Sunrise found Bob and Jack Pollock far down the mountain. They
+were doggedly beating back some tiny flames. The camp was a thousand
+feet above, and their canteens had long been empty. Bob raised his weary
+eyes.
+
+Out on a rock inside the burned area, like a sentinel cast in bronze,
+stood a horseman. The light was behind him, so only his outline could be
+seen. For a minute he stood there quite motionless, looking. Then he
+moved forward, and another came up behind him on the rock. This one
+advanced, and a third took his place. One after the other, in single
+file, they came, glittering in the sun, their long rakes and hoes
+slanted over their shoulders like spears.
+
+"Look!" gasped Bob weakly.
+
+The two stood side by side spellbound. The tiny flames licked past them
+in the tarweed; they did not heed. The horsemen rode up, twenty strong.
+It seemed to Bob that they said things, and shouted. Certainly a
+half-dozen leaped spryly off their horses and in an instant had confined
+the escaping fire. Somebody took Bob's hoe from him. A cheery voice
+shouted in his ear:
+
+"Hop along! You're through. We're on the job. Go back to camp and take a
+sleep."
+
+He and Pollock turned up the mountain. Bob felt stupid. After he had
+gone a hundred feet, he realized he was thirsty, and wondered why he
+had not asked for a drink. Then it came to him that he might have
+borrowed a horse, but remembered thickly after a long time the
+impassable dikes between him and camp.
+
+"That's why I didn't," he said aloud.
+
+By this time it was too late to go back for the drink. He did not care.
+The excitement and responsibility had drained from him suddenly, leaving
+him a hollow shell.
+
+They dragged themselves up the dike.
+
+"I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!" said Pollock
+suddenly.
+
+They stumbled and staggered on. A twig sufficed to trip them. Pollock
+muttered between set teeth, over and over again, his unvarying
+complaint: "I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!"
+
+Finally, with a flicker of vitality, Bob's sense of humour cleared for
+an instant.
+
+"Not high enough," said he. "Make it two dollars, and maybe some angel
+will hand you out a glass."
+
+"That's all right," returned Pollock resentfully, "but I bet there's
+some down in that hollow; and I'm going to see!"
+
+"I wouldn't climb down there for a million drinks," said Bob; "I'll sit
+down and wait for you."
+
+Pollock climbed down, found his water, drank. He filled the canteen and
+staggered back up the steep climb.
+
+"Here you be," said he.
+
+Bob seized the canteen and drank deep. When he took breath, he said:
+
+"Thank you, Jack. That was an awful climb back."
+
+"That's all right," nodded Jack shortly.
+
+"Well, come on," said Bob.
+
+"The hell!" muttered Jack, and fell over sound asleep.
+
+An hour later Bob felt himself being shaken violently. He stirred and
+advanced a little way toward the light, then dropped back like a plummet
+into the abysses of sleep. Afterward he recalled a vague,
+half-conscious impression of being lifted on a horse. Possibly he
+managed to hang on; possibly he was held in the saddle--that he never
+knew.
+
+The next thing he seemed conscious of was the flicker of a camp-fire,
+and the soft feel of blankets. It was night, but how it came to be so he
+could not imagine. He was very stiff and sore and burned, and his hand
+was very painful. He moved it, and discovered, to his vast surprise,
+that it was bound tightly. When this bit of surgery had been performed
+he could not have told.
+
+He opened his eyes. Amy and Mrs. Morton were bending over cooking
+utensils. Five motionless forms reposed in blankets. Bob counted them
+carefully. After some moments it occurred to his dulled brain that the
+number represented his companions. Some one on horseback seemed to be
+arriving. A glitter of silver caught his eye. He recognized finally
+California John. Then he dozed off again. The sound of voices rumbled
+through the haze of his half-consciousness.
+
+"Fifty hours of steady fire-fighting with only an hour's sleep!" he
+caught Thorne's voice saying.
+
+Bob took this statement into himself. He computed painfully over and
+over. He could not make the figures. He counted the hours one after the
+other. Finally he saw.
+
+"Fifty hours for all but Pollock and me," he said suddenly; "forty for
+us."
+
+No one heard him. As a matter of fact, he had not spoken aloud; though
+he thought he had done so.
+
+"We found the two of them curled up together," he next heard Thorne say.
+"Orde was coiled around a sharp root--and didn't know it, and Pollock
+was on top of him. They were out in the full sun, and a procession of
+red ants was disappearing up Orde's pants leg and coming out at his
+collar. Fact!"
+
+"They're a good lot," admitted California John. "Best unbroke lot I ever
+saw."
+
+"We found Orde's finger broken and badly swelled. Heaven knows when he
+did it, but he never peeped. Morton says he noticed his hand done up in
+a handkerchief yesterday morning."
+
+Bob dozed again. From time to time he caught fragments--"Four
+fire-lines--think of it--only one old-timer in the lot--I'm proud of my
+boys----"
+
+He came next to full consciousness to hear Thorne saying:
+
+"Mrs. Morton fought fire with the best of them. That's the ranger spirit
+I like--when as of old the women and children----"
+
+"Don't praise me," broke in Mrs. Morton tartly. "I don't give a red cent
+for all your forests, and your pesky rangering. I've got no use for
+them. If Charley Morton would quit you and tend to his cattle, I'd be
+pleased. I didn't fight fire to help you, let me tell you."
+
+"What did you do it for?" asked Thorne, evidently amused.
+
+"I knew I couldn't get Charley Morton home and in bed and _resting_
+until that pesky fire was _out_; that's why!" shot back Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Morton," said Thorne composedly, "if you're ever fixed so
+sass will help you out, you'll find it a very valuable quality."
+
+Then Bob fell into a deep sleep.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+On returning to headquarters, as Bob was naturally somewhat
+incapacitated for manual work, he was given the fire patrol. This meant
+that every day he was required to ride to four several "lookouts" on the
+main ridge, from which points he could spy abroad carefully over vast
+stretches of mountainous country. One of these was near the meadow of
+the cold spring whence the three of them had first caught sight of the
+Granite Creek fire. Thence he turned sharp to the north along the ridge
+top. The trail led among great trees that dropped away to right and left
+on the slopes of the mountain. Through them he caught glimpses of the
+blue distance, or far-off glittering snow, or unexpected cañon depths.
+The riding was smooth, over undulating knolls. Every once in a while
+passing through a "_puerto suelo_," he looked on either side to tiny
+green meadows, from which streams were born. Occasionally he saw a deer,
+or more likely small bands of the wild mountain cattle that swung along
+before him, heads held high, eyes staring, nostrils expanded. Then Bob
+felt his pony's muscles stiffen beneath his thighs, and saw the animal's
+little ears prick first forward at the cattle, then back for his
+master's commands.
+
+After three miles of this he came out on a broad plateau formed by the
+joining of his ridge with that of the Baldy range. Here Granite Creek
+itself rose, and the stream that flowed by the mill. It was a country of
+wild, park-like vistas between small pines, with a floor of granite and
+shale. Over it frowned the steeps of Baldy, with its massive domes, its
+sheer precipices, and its scant tree-growth clinging to its sides.
+Against the sky it looked very rugged, very old, very formidable; and
+the sky, behind its yellowed age, was inconceivably blue.
+
+Sometimes Bob rode up into the pass. More often he tied his horse and
+took the steep rough trail afoot. The way was guarded by strange,
+distorted trees, and rocks carved into fantastic shapes. Some of them
+were piled high like temples. Others, round and squat, resembled the fat
+and obscene deities of Eastern religions. There were seals and elephants
+and crocodiles and allegorical monsters, some of them as tiny as the
+grotesque Japanese carvings, others as stupendous as Egypt. The trail
+led by them, among them, between them. At their feet clutched snowbush,
+ground juniper, the gnarled fingers of manzañita, like devotees. A
+foaming little stream crept and plunged over bare and splintered rocks.
+Twisted junipers and the dwarf pines of high elevations crouched like
+malignant gnomes amongst the boulders, or tossed their arms like witches
+on the crags. This bold and splintered range rose from the softness and
+mystery of the great pine woods on the lower ridge as a rock rises above
+cool water.
+
+The pass itself was not over fifty feet wide. Either side of it like
+portals were the high peaks. It lay like the notch of a rifle sight
+between them. Once having gained the tiny platform, Bob would sit down
+and look abroad over the wonderful Sierra.
+
+Never did he tire of this. At one eye-glance he could comprehend a
+summer's toilsome travel. To reach yonder snowy peak would consume the
+greater part of a week. Unlike the Swiss alps, which he had once
+visited, these mountains were not only high, but wide as well. They had
+the whole of blue space in which to lie. They were like the stars, for
+when Bob had convinced himself that his eye had settled on the farthest
+peak, then still farther, taking half-guessed iridescent form out of the
+blue, another shone.
+
+But his business was not with these distances. Almost below him, so
+precipitous is the easterly slope of Baldy, lay cañons, pine forests,
+lesser ridges, streams, the green of meadows. Patiently, piece by piece,
+he must go over all this, watching for that faint blue haze, that
+deepening of the atmosphere, that almost imagined pearliness against the
+distant hills which meant new fire.
+
+"Don't look for _smoke_," California John had told him. "When a fire
+gets big enough for smoke, you can't help but see it. It's the new fire
+you want to spot before it gets started. Then it's easy handled. And new
+fire's almighty easy to overlook. Sometimes it's as hard for a greenhorn
+to see as a deer. Look close!"
+
+So Bob, concentrating his attention, looked close. When he had satisfied
+himself, he turned square around.
+
+From this point of view he saw only pine forests. They covered the ridge
+below him like a soft green mantle thrown down in folds. They softened
+the more distant ranges. They billowed and eddied, and dropped into
+unguessed depths, and came bravely up to eyesight again far away. At
+last they seemed to change colour abruptly, and a brown haze overcast
+them through which glimmered a hint of yellow. This Bob knew was the
+plain, hot and brown under the July sun. It rose dimly through the mist
+to the height of his eye. Thus, even at eight thousand feet, Bob seemed
+to stand in the cup of the earth, beneath the cup of the sky.
+
+The other two lookouts were on the edge of the lower ridge. They gave an
+opportunity of examining various coves and valleys concealed by the
+shoulder of the ridge from the observer on Baldy. To reach them Bob rode
+across the plateau of the ridge, through the pine forests, past the
+mill.
+
+Here, if the afternoon was not too far advanced, he used to allow
+himself the luxury of a moment's chat with some of his old friends.
+Welton, coat off, his burly face perspiring and red, always greeted him
+jovially.
+
+"Spend all your salary this month?" he would ask. "Does the business
+keep you occupied?" And once or twice, seriously, "Bob, haven't you had
+enough of this confounded nonsense? You're getting too old to find any
+great fun riding around in this kid fashion pretending to do things.
+There's big business to be done in this country, and we need you boys to
+help. When I was a youngster I'd have jumped hard at half the chance
+that's offered you."
+
+But Bob never would answer seriously. He knew this to be his only chance
+of avoiding even a deeper misunderstanding between himself and this man
+whom he had learned to admire and love.
+
+Once he met Baker. That young man greeted him as gaily as ever, but into
+his manner had crept the shadow of a cold contempt. The stout youth's
+standards were his own, and rigid, as is often the case with people of
+his type. Bob felt himself suddenly and ruthlessly excluded from the
+ranks of those worthy of Baker's respect. A hard quality of character,
+hitherto unsuspected, stared from the fat young man's impudent blue
+eyes. Baker was perfectly polite, and suitably jocular; but he had not
+much time for Bob; and soon plunged into a deep discussion with Welton
+from which Bob was unmistakably excluded.
+
+On one occasion, too, he encountered Oldham riding down the trail from
+headquarters. The older man had nodded to him curtly. His eyes had
+gleamed through his glasses with an ill-concealed and frosty amusement,
+and his thin lips had straightened to a perceptible sneer. All at once
+Bob divined an enemy. He could not account for this, as he had never
+dealt with the man; and the accident of his discovering the gasoline
+pump on the Lucky Land Company's creeks could hardly be supposed to
+account for quite so malignant a triumph. Next time Bob saw Welton, he
+asked his old employer about it.
+
+"What have I ever done to Oldham?" he inquired. "Do you know?"
+
+"Oldham?" repeated Welton.
+
+"Baker's land agent."
+
+"Oh, yes. I never happened to run across him. Don't know him at all."
+
+Bob put down Oldham's manifest hatred to pettiness of disposition.
+
+Even from Merker, the philosophic storekeeper, Bob obtained scant
+comfort.
+
+"Men like you, with ability, youth, energy," said Merker, "producing
+nothing, just conserving, saving. Conditions should be such that the
+possibility of fire, of trespass, of all you fellows guard against,
+should be eliminated. Then you could supply steam, energy,
+accomplishment, instead of being merely the lubrication. It's an
+economic waste."
+
+Bob left the mill-yards half-depressed, half-amused. All his people had
+become alien. He opposed them in nothing, his work in no way interfered
+with their activities; yet, without his volition, and probably without
+their realization, he was already looked upon as one to be held at arms'
+length. It saddened Bob, as it does every right-thinking young man when
+he arrives at setting up his own standards of conduct and his own ways
+of life. He longed with a great longing, which at the same time he
+realized to be hopeless, to make these people feel as he felt. It gave
+him real pain to find that his way of life could never gain anything
+beyond disapproval or incomprehension. It took considerable fortitude to
+conclude that he now must build his own structure, unsupported. He was
+entering the loneliness of soul inseparable from complete manhood.
+
+After such disquieting contacts, the more uncomfortable in that they
+defied analysis, Bob rode out to the last lookout and gazed abroad over
+the land. The pineclad bluff fell away nearly four thousand feet. Below
+him the country lay spread like a relief map--valley, lesser ranges,
+foothills, far-off plain, the green of trees, the brown of grass and
+harvest, the blue of glimpsed water, the haze of heat and great
+distance, the thread-like gossamer of roads, the half-guessed shimmer of
+towns and cities in the mirage of summer, all the opulence of earth and
+the business of human activity. Millions dwelt in that haze, and beyond
+them, across the curve of the earth, hundreds of millions more, each
+actuated by its own selfishness or charity, by its own conception of the
+things nearest it. Not one in a multitude saw or cared beyond the
+immediate, nor bothered his head with what it all meant, or whether it
+meant anything. Bob, sitting on his motionless horse high up there in
+the world, elevated above it all, in an isolation of pines, close under
+his sky, bent his ear to the imagined faint humming of the spheres.
+Affairs went on. The machine fulfilled its function. All things had
+their place, the evil as well as the good, the waste as well as the
+building, balancing like the governor of an engine the opposition of
+forces. He saw, by the soft flooding of light, rather than by any flash
+of insight, that were the shortsightedness, the indifference, the
+ignorance, the crass selfishness to be eliminated before yet the world's
+work was done, the energies of men, running too easily, would outstrip
+the development of the Plan, as a machine "races" without its load. A
+humility came to him. His not to judge his fellows by the mere externals
+of their deeds. He could only act honestly according to what he saw, as
+he hoped others were doing.
+
+"Just so a man isn't _mean_, I don't know as I have any right to despise
+him," he summed it all up to his horse. "But," he added cheerfully,
+"that doesn't prevent my kicking him into the paths of righteousness if
+he tries to steal my watch."
+
+The sun dipped toward the heat haze of the plains. It was from a golden
+world that Bob turned at last to ride through the forest to the
+cheerfulness of his rude camp.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Bob took his examinations, passed successfully, and was at once
+appointed as ranger. Thorne had no intention of neglecting the young
+man's ability. After his arduous apprenticeship at all sorts of labour,
+Bob found himself specializing. This, he discovered, was becoming more
+and more the tendency in the personnel of the Service. Jack Pollock
+already was being sent far afield, looking into grazing conditions,
+reporting on the state of the range, the advisable number of cattle, the
+trespass cases. He had a natural aptitude for that sort of thing. Ware,
+on the other hand, developed into a mighty builder. Nothing pleased him
+more than to discover new ways through the country, to open them up, to
+blast and dig and construct his trails, to nose out bridge sites and on
+them to build spans hewn from the material at hand. He made himself a
+set of stencils and with them signed all the forks of the trails, so
+that a stranger could follow the routes. Always he painstakingly added
+the letters U.S.F.S. to indicate that these works had been done by his
+beloved Service. Charley Morton was the fire chief--though any and all
+took a hand at that when occasion arose. He could, as California John
+expressed it, run a fire out on a rocky point and lose it there better
+than any other man on the force. Ross Fletcher was the best policeman.
+He knew the mountains, their infinite labyrinths, better than any other;
+and he could guess the location of sheep where another might have
+searched all summer.
+
+Though each and every man was kept busy enough, and to spare, on all the
+varied business inseparable from the activities of a National Forest,
+nevertheless Thorne knew enough to avail himself of these especial gifts
+and likings. So, early in the summer he called in Bob and Elliott.
+
+"Now," he told them, "we have plenty of work to do, and you boys must
+buckle into it as you see fit. But this is what I want you to keep in
+the back of your mind: someday the National Forests are going to supply
+a great part of the timber in the country. It's too early yet. There's
+too much private timber standing, which can be cut without restriction.
+But when that is largely reduced, Uncle Sam will be going into the
+lumber business on a big scale. Even now we will be selling a few shake
+trees, and some small lots, and occasionally a bigger piece to some of
+the lumbermen who own adjoining timber. We've got to know what we have
+to sell. For instance, there's eighty acres in there surrounded by
+Welton's timber. When he comes to cut, it might pay us and him to sell
+the ripe trees off that eighty."
+
+"I doubt if he'd think it would pay," Bob interposed.
+
+"He might. I think the Chief will ease up a little on cutting
+restrictions before long. You've simply got to over-emphasize a matter
+at first to make it carry."
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"I mean--this is only my private opinion, you understand--that
+lumbering has been done so wastefully and badly that it has been
+necessary, merely as education, to go to the other extreme. We've
+insisted on chopping and piling the tops like cordwood, and cutting up
+the down trunks of trees, and generally 'parking' the forest simply to
+get the idea into people's heads. They'd never thought of such things
+before. I don't believe it's necessary to go to such extremes,
+practically; and I don't believe the Service will demand it when it
+comes actually to do business."
+
+Elliott and Bob looked at each other a little astonished.
+
+"Mind you, I don't talk this way outside; and I don't want you to do
+so," pursued Thorne. "But when you come right down to it, all that's
+necessary is to prevent fire from running--and, of course, to leave a
+few seed-trees. Yo' can keep fire from running just as well by piling
+the debris in isolated heaps, as by chopping it up and stacking it. And
+it's a lot cheaper."
+
+He leaned forward.
+
+"That's coming," he continued. "Now you, Elliott, have had as thorough a
+theoretical education as the schools can give you; and you, Orde, have
+had a lot of practical experience in logging. You ought to make a good
+pair. Here's a map of the Government holdings hereabouts. What I want is
+a working plan for every forty, together with a topographical
+description, an estimate of timber, and a plan for the easiest method of
+logging it. There's no hurry about it; you can do it when nothing else
+comes up to take you away. But do it thoroughly, and to the best of your
+judgment, so I can file your reports for future reference when they are
+needed."
+
+"Where do you want us to begin?" asked Bob.
+
+"Welton is the only big operator," Thorpe pointed out, "so you'd better
+look over the timber adjoining or surrounded by his. Then the basin and
+ranges above the Power Company are important. There's a fine body of
+timber there, but we must cut it with a more than usual attention to
+water supplies."
+
+This work Bob and Elliott found most congenial. They would start early
+in the morning, carrying with them their compass on its Jacob's-staff,
+their chain, their field notes, their maps and their axes. Arrived at
+the scene of operations, they unsaddled and picketed their horses. Then
+commenced a search for the "corner," established nearly fifty years
+before by the dead and gone surveyor, a copy of those field notes now
+guided them. This was no easy matter. The field notes described
+accurately the location, but in fifty years the character of a country
+may change. Great trees fall, new trees grow up, brush clothes an
+erstwhile bare hillside, fire denudes a slope, even the rocks and
+boulders shift their places under the coercion of frost or avalanche.
+The young men separated, shoulder deep in the high brakes and alders of
+a creek bottom, climbing tiny among great trees on the open slope of a
+distant hill, clambering busily among austere domes and pinnacles,
+fading in the cool green depths of the forest. Finally one would shout
+loudly. The other scrambled across.
+
+"Here we are," Bob said, pointing to the trunk of a huge yellow pine.
+
+On it showed a wrinkle in the bark, only just appreciable.
+
+"There's our line blaze," said Bob. "Let's see if we can find it in the
+notes." He opened his book. "'Small creek three links wide, course SW,'"
+he murmured. "'Sugar pine, 48 in. dia., on line, 48 links.' That's not
+it. 'Top of ridge 34 ch. 6 1. course NE.' Now we come to the down slope.
+Here we are! 'Yellow pine 20 in. dia., on line, 50 chains.' Twenty
+inches! Well, old fellow, you've grown some since! Let's see your
+compass, Elliott."
+
+Having thus cut the line, they established their course and went due
+north, spying sharply for the landmarks and old blazes as mentioned in
+the surveyor's field notes.
+
+When they had gone about the required distance, they began to look for
+the corner. After some search, Elliott called Bob's attention to a
+grown-over blaze.
+
+"I guess this is our witness tree," said he.
+
+Without a word Bob began to chop above and below the wrinkle in the
+bark. After ten minutes careful work, he laid aside a thick slab of
+wood. The inner surface of this was shiny with pitch. The space from
+which it had peeled was also coated with the smooth substance. This
+pitch had filmed over the old blaze, protecting it against the new wood
+and bark which had gradually grown over it. Thus, although the original
+blaze had been buried six inches in the living white pine wood,
+nevertheless the lettering was as clear and sharp as when it had been
+carved fifty years before. Furthermore, the same lettering, only
+reversed and in relief, showed on the thick slab that Bob had peeled
+away. So the tree had preserved the record in its heart.
+
+"Now let's see," said Bob. "This witness bears S 80 W. Let's find
+another."
+
+This proved to be no great matter. Sighting the given directions from
+the two, they converged on the corner. This was described by the old
+surveyor as: "Oak post, 4 in. dia., set in pile of rocks," etc. The pile
+of rocks was now represented by scattered stones; and the oak post had
+long since rotted. Bob, however, unearthed a fragment on which ran a
+single grooved mark. It was like those made by borers in dead limbs.
+Were it not for one circumstance, the searchers would not have been
+justified in assuming that it was anything else. But, as Bob pointed
+out, the passageways made by borers are never straight. The fact that
+this was so, established indisputably that it had been made by the
+surveyor's steel "scribe."
+
+Having thus located a corner, it was an easy matter to determine the
+position of a tract of land. At first hazy in its general configuration
+and extent, it took definition as the young men progressed with the
+accurate work of timber estimating. Before they had finished with it,
+they knew every little hollow, ridge, ravine, rock and tree in it. Out
+of the whole vast wilderness this one small patch had become thoroughly
+known.
+
+The work was the most pleasant of any Bob had ever undertaken. It
+demanded accuracy, good judgment, knowledge. It did not require feverish
+haste. The surroundings were wonderfully beautiful; and if the men
+paused in their work, as they often did, the spirit of the woods, which
+as always had drawn aside from the engrossments of human activity, came
+closer as with fluttering of wings. Sometimes, nervous and impatient
+from the busy, tiny clatter of facts and figures and guesses, from the
+restless shuttle-weaving of estimates and plans, Bob looked up suddenly
+into a deathless and eternal peace. Like the cool green refreshment of
+waters it closed over him. When he again came to the surface-world of
+his occupation, he was rested and slowed down to a respectable patience.
+
+Elliott was good company, interested in the work, well-bred,
+intelligent, eager to do his share--an ideal companion. He and Bob
+discussed many affairs during their rides to and from the work and
+during the interims of rest. As time went on, and the tracts to be
+estimated and plotted became more distant, they no longer attempted to
+return at night to Headquarters. Small meadows offered them resting
+places for the day or the week. They became expert in taking care of
+themselves so expeditiously that the process stole little time from
+their labours. On Saturday afternoon they rode to headquarters to
+report, and to spend Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Toward the end of the season they had worked well past the main ridge on
+which were situated Welton's operations and the Service Headquarters.
+Several deep cañons and rocky peaks, by Thorne's instructions, they
+skipped over as only remotely available as a timber supply. This brought
+them to the ample circle of a basin, well-timbered, wide, containing an
+unusual acreage of gently sloping or rolling table-land. Behind this
+rose the spurs of the Range. A half-hundred streams here had their
+origin. These converged finally in the Forks, which, leaping and
+plunging steadily downward from a height of over six thousand feet, was
+trapped and used again and again to turn the armatures of Baker's
+dynamos. After serving this purpose at six power houses strung down the
+contour line of its descent, the water was deflected into wide, deep
+ditches which forked and forked again until a whole plains province was
+rendered fertile and productive by irrigation.
+
+All this California John, who rode over to show them some corners,
+explained to them. They sat on the rim of the basin overlooking it as it
+lay below them like a green cup.
+
+"You can see the whole of her from here," said California John, "and
+that's why we use this for fire lookout. It saves a heap of riding, for
+let me tell you it's a long ways down this bluff. But you bet we keep a
+close watch on this Basin. It's the most valuable, as a watershed, of
+any we've got. This is about the only country we've managed to throw a
+fire-break around yet. It took a lot of time to do it, but it's worth
+while."
+
+"This is where the Power Company gets its power," remarked Bob.
+
+"Yes," replied California John, drily. "Which same company is putting up
+the fight of its life in Congress to keep from payin' anything at all
+for what it gets."
+
+They gave themselves to the task of descending into the Basin by a steep
+and rough trail. At the end of an hour, their horses stepped from the
+side of the hill to a broad, pleasant flat on which the tall trees grew
+larger than any Bob had seen on the ridge.
+
+"What magnificent timber!" he cried. "How does it happen this wasn't
+taken up long ago?"
+
+"Well," said California John, "a good share of it _is_ claimed by the
+Power Company; and unless you come up the way we did, you don't see it.
+From below, all this looks like part of the bald ridge. Even if a
+cruiser in the old days happened to look down on this, he wouldn't
+realize how good it was unless he came down to it--it's all just trees
+from above. And in those days there were lots of trees easier to come
+at."
+
+"It's great timber!" repeated Bob. "That 'sugar's' eight feet through if
+it's an inch!"
+
+"Nearer nine," said California John.
+
+"It'll be some years' work to estimate and plot all this," mused Bob.
+"If it's so important a watershed, what do they _want_ it plotted for?
+They'll never want to cut it."
+
+"There ain't so much of it left, as you'll see when you look at your
+map. The Power Company owns most. Anyway, government cutting won't hurt
+the watershed," stated California John.
+
+As they rode forward through the trees, a half-dozen deer jumped
+startled from a clump of low brush and sped away.
+
+"That's more deer than I've seen in a bunch since I left Michigan,"
+observed Bob.
+
+"Nobody ever gets into this place," explained California John. "There
+ain't been a fire here in years, and we don't none of us have any
+reason to ride down. She's too hard to get out of, and we can see her
+too well from the lookout. The rest of the country feels pretty much the
+same way."
+
+"How about sheep?" inquired Elliott.
+
+"They got to get in over some trail, if they get in at all," California
+John pointed out, "and we can circle the Basin."
+
+By now they were riding over a bed of springy pine needles through a
+magnificent open forest. Undergrowth absolutely lacked; even the soft
+green of the bear clover was absent. The straight columns of the trees
+rose grandly from a swept floor. Only where tiny streams trickled and
+sang through rocks and shallow courses, grew ferns and the huge leaves
+of the saxifrage. In this temple-like austerity dwelt a silence unusual
+to the Sierra forests. The lack of undergrowth and younger trees implied
+a scarcity of insects; and this condition meant an equal scarcity of
+birds. Only the creepers and the great pileated woodpeckers seemed to
+inhabit these truly cloistral shades. The breeze passed through branches
+too elevated to permit its whisperings to be heard. The very sound of
+the horses' hoofs was muffled in the thick carpet of pine needles.
+
+California John led them sharp to the right, however, and in a few
+moments they emerged to cheerful sunlight, alders, young pines among the
+old, a leaping flashing stream of some size, and multitudes of birds,
+squirrels, insects and butterflies.
+
+"There's a meadow, and a good camping place just up-stream," said he.
+"It's easy riding. You'd better spread your blankets there. Now, here's
+the corner to 34. We reëstablished it four years ago, so as to have
+_something_ to go by in this country. You can find your way about from
+there. That bold cliff of rock you see just through the trees there you
+can climb. From the top you can make out the lookout. If you're wanted
+at headquarters we'll hang out a signal. That will save a hard ride
+down. Let's see; how long you got grub for?"
+
+"I guess there's enough to last us ten days or so," replied Elliott.
+
+"Well, if you keep down this stream until you strike a big bald slide
+rock, you'll run into an old trail that takes you to the Flats. It's
+pretty old, and it ain't blazed, but you can make it out if you'll sort
+of keep track of the country. It ain't been used for years."
+
+California John, anxious to make a start at the hard climb, now said
+good-bye and started back. Bob and Elliott, their pack horse following,
+rode up the flat through which ran the river. They soon found the
+meadow. It proved to be a beautiful spot, surrounded by cedars, warm
+with the sun, bright with colour, alive with birds. A fringe of azaleas,
+cottonwoods and quaking asps screened it completely from all that lay
+outside its charmed circle. A cheerful blue sky spread its canopy
+overhead. Here Bob and Elliott turned loose their horses and made their
+camp. After lunch they lay on their backs and smoked. Through a notch in
+the trees showed a very white mountain against a very blue sky. The sun
+warmed them gratefully. Birds sang. Squirrels scampered. Their horses
+stood dozing, ears and head down-drooped, eyes half-closed, one hind leg
+tucked up.
+
+"Confound it!" cried Elliott suddenly, following his unspoken thought.
+"I feel like a bad little boy stealing jam! By night I'll be scared. If
+those woods over behind that screen aren't full of large, dignified gods
+that disapprove of me being so cheerful and contented and light-minded
+and frivolous, I miss my guess!"
+
+"Same here!" said Bob with, a short laugh. "Let's get busy."
+
+They started out that very afternoon from the corner California John had
+showed them. It took all that day and most of the following to define
+and blaze the boundaries of the first tract they intended to estimate.
+In the accomplishment of this they found nothing out of the ordinary;
+but when they began to move forward across the forty, they were soon
+brought to a halt by the unexpected.
+
+"Look here!" Bob shouted to his companion; "here's a brand new corner
+away off the line."
+
+Elliott came over. Bob showed him a stake set neatly in a pile of rocks.
+
+"It's not a very old one, either," said Bob. "Now what do you make of
+that?"
+
+Elliott had been spying about him.
+
+"There's another just like it over on the hill," said he. "I should call
+it the stakes of a mining claim. There ought to be a notice somewhere."
+
+They looked about and soon came across the notice in question. It was
+made out in the name of a man neither Bob nor Elliott had ever heard of
+before.
+
+"I suppose that's his ledge," remarked Elliott, kicking a little
+outcrop, "but it looks like mighty slim mining to me!"
+
+They proceeded with their estimating. In due time they came upon another
+mining claim, and then a third.
+
+"This is getting funny!" remarked Elliott. "Looks as though somebody
+expected to make a strike for fair. More timber than mineral here, I
+should say."
+
+"That's it!" cried Bob, slapping his leg; "I'd just about forgotten!
+This must be what Baker was talking about one evening over at camp. He
+had some scheme for getting some timber and water rights somewhere under
+the mineral act. I didn't pay so very much attention to it at the time,
+and it had slipped my mind. But this must be it!"
+
+"Do you mean to say that any man was going to take this beautiful timber
+away from us on that kind of a technicality?"
+
+"I believe that's just what he did."
+
+Two days later Elliott straightened his back after a squint through the
+compass sights to exclaim:
+
+"I wish we had a dog!"
+
+"Why?" laughed Bob. "Can't you eat your share?"
+
+"I've a feeling that somebody's hanging around these woods; I've had it
+ever since we got here. And just now while I was looking through the
+sights I thought I saw something--you know how the sights will
+concentrate your gaze."
+
+"It's these big woods," said Bob; "I've had the same hunch before.
+Besides, you can easily look for tracks along your line of sights."
+
+They did so, but found nothing.
+
+"But among these rocks a man needn't leave any tracks if he didn't want
+to," Elliott pointed out.
+
+"The bogy-man's after you," said Bob.
+
+Elliott laughed. Nevertheless, as the work progressed, from time to time
+he would freeze to an attitude of listening.
+
+"It's like feeling that there's somebody else in a dark room with you,"
+he told Bob.
+
+"You'll end by giving me the willy-willies, too," complained Bob. "I'm
+beginning to feel the same way. Quit it!"
+
+By the end of the week it became necessary to go to town after more
+supplies. Bob volunteered. He saddled his riding horse and the pack
+animal, and set forth. Following California John's directions he traced
+the length of the river through the basin to the bald rock where the old
+trail was said to begin. Here he anticipated some difficulty in picking
+up the trail, and more in following it. To his surprise he ran
+immediately into a well-defined path.
+
+"Why, this is as plain as a strip of carpet!" muttered
+
+Bob to himself. "If this is his idea of a dim trail, I'd like to see a
+good one!"
+
+He had not ridden far, however, before, in crossing a tiny trickle of
+water, he could not fail to notice a clear-cut, recent hoof print. The
+mark was that of a barefoot horse. Bob stared at it.
+
+"Now if I were real _good_," he reflected, "like old
+what-you-may-call-him--the Arabian Sherlock Holmes--I'd be able to tell
+whether this horse was loose and climbing for pasture, or carrying a
+rider, and if so, whether the rider had ever had his teeth filled.
+There's been a lot of travel on this trail, anyway. I wonder where it
+all went to?" He paused irresolutely. "It isn't more than two jumps back
+to the rock," he decided; "I'll just find out what direction they take
+anyway."
+
+Accordingly he retraced his steps to the bald rock, and commenced an
+examination of its circumference to determine where the trail led away.
+He found no such exit. Save from the direction of his own camp the way
+was closed either by precipitous sides or dense brush. The conclusion
+was unavoidable that those who had travelled the trail, had either ended
+their journeys at the bald rock or actually taken to the bed of the
+river.
+
+"Well," concluded Bob, "I'm enough of a sleuth to see that that barefoot
+horse had a rider and wasn't just looking pasture. No animal in its
+senses would hike uphill and then hike down again, or wade belly deep up
+a stream."
+
+Puzzling over this mystery, he again took his way down the trail. He
+found it easy to follow, for it had been considerably travelled. In some
+places the brush had been cut back to open easier passage. Examining
+these cuttings, Bob found their raw ends only slightly weathered. All
+this might have been done by the men who had staked the mineral claims,
+to be sure, but even then Bob found it difficult to reconcile all the
+facts. In the first place, the trail had indubitably been much used
+since the time the claims were staked. In the second place, if the
+prospector had wished to conceal anything, it should have been the fact
+of his going to the Basin at all, not his whereabouts after arriving
+there. In other words, if desiring to keep his presence secret, he would
+have blinded the _beginning_ of the trail rather than its end.
+
+He kept a sharp lookout. Near the entrance to the cañon he managed to
+discover another clear print of the barefoot horse, but headed the other
+way. Clearly the rider had returned. Bob had hunted deer enough to
+recognize that the track had been made within the last twenty-four
+hours.
+
+At Sycamore Flats he was treated to further surprises. Martin, of whom
+he bought his supplies, at first greeted him with customary joviality.
+
+"Hullo! hullo!" he cried; "quite a stranger! Out in camp, eh?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob, "they've got us working for a change."
+
+"Where you located?"
+
+"We're estimating timber up in the Basin," replied Bob.
+
+The silence that followed was so intense that Bob looked up from the bag
+he was tying. He met Martin's eyes fixed on him.
+
+"The Basin," repeated Martin slowly, at last. "Since when?"
+
+"About ten days."
+
+"We! Who's we?"
+
+"Elliott and I," answered Bob, surprised. "Why?"
+
+Martin's gaze shifted. He plainly hesitated for a next remark.
+
+"How'd you like it there?" he asked lamely, at length. "I thought none
+of you fellows ever went there."
+
+"Fine timber," answered Bob, cheerfully. "We don't usually. Somebody
+does though. California John told me that trail was old and out of use;
+but it's been used a lot. Who gets up there?"
+
+"The boys drive in some cattle occasionally," replied Martin, with an
+effort.
+
+Bob stared in surprise. He knew this was not so, and started to speak,
+but thought better of it. After he had left the store, he looked back.
+Martin was gazing after him, a frown between his brows.
+
+Before he left town a half-dozen of the mountain men had asked him, with
+an obvious attempt to make the question casual, how he liked the Basin,
+how long he thought his work would keep him there. Each, as he turned
+away, followed him with that long, speculative, brooding look. Always,
+heretofore, his relations with these mountain people had been easy,
+sympathetic and cordial. Now all at once, without reason, they held him
+at arm's length and regarded him with suspicious if not hostile eyes.
+
+Puzzling over this he rode back up the road past the Power House. Thence
+issued Oldham to hail him. He pulled up.
+
+"I hear you're estimating the timber in the Basin," said the gray man,
+with more appearance of disturbance than Bob had ever seen him display.
+
+Bob acknowledged the accuracy of his statement.
+
+"Indeed!" said Oldham, pulling at his clipped moustache, and after a
+little, "Indeed!" he repeated.
+
+So the news had run ahead of him. Bob began to think the news important,
+but for some reason at which he could not as yet guess. This conviction
+was strengthened by the fact that from the two mountain cabins he passed
+on his way to the beginning of the trail, men lounged out to talk with
+him, and in each case the question, craftily rendered casual, was put to
+him as to his business in the Basin. Before one of these cabins stood a
+sweating horse.
+
+"Look here," he demanded of the Carrolls, "why all this interest about
+our being in the Basin? Every man-jack asks me. What's the point?"
+
+Old man Carroll stroked his long beard.
+
+"Do they so?" he drawled comfortably. "Well, I reckon little things make
+news, as they say, when you're in a wild country. They ain't been no
+work done in the Basin for so long that we're all just nat'rally
+interested; that's all."
+
+He looked Bob tranquilly in the eye with the limpid gaze of innocence
+before which Bob's scrutiny fell abashed. For a while his suspicions of
+anything unusual were almost lulled; the countryside _was_ proverbially
+curious of anything out of the course of events. Then, from a point
+midway up the steep trail, he just happened to look back, and just
+happened through an extraordinary combination of openings to catch a
+glimpse of a rider on the trail. The man was far below. Bob watched a
+long time, his eye fixed on another opening. Nothing appeared. From
+somewhere in the cañon a coyote shrilled. Another answered him from up
+the mountain. A moment later Bob again saw the rider through the same
+opening as before, but this time descending.
+
+"A signal!" he exclaimed, in reference to the coyote howls.
+
+On arriving at the bare rock, he dismounted and hastily looked it over
+on all sides. Near the stream it had been splashed. A tiny eddy out of
+reach of the current still held mud in suspension.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+On his arrival at camp he found Elliott much interested over discoveries
+of his own. It seemed that the Easterner had spent the afternoon
+fishing. At one point, happening to look up, he caught sight of a man
+surveying him intently from a thicket. As he stared, the man drew back
+and disappeared.
+
+"I couldn't see him very plainly," said Elliott. "He had a beard and an
+old gray hat; but that doesn't mean much of course. When I got my nerve
+up, and had concluded to investigate, I could hardly find a trace of
+him. He must wear moccasins, I think."
+
+In return Bob detailed his own experiences. The two could make nothing
+of it all.
+
+"If we were down South I'd say 'moonshiners,'" said Elliott, "but the
+beautiful objection to that is, that we aren't!"
+
+"It's some mystery to do with the Basin," said Bob, "and the whole
+countryside is 'on'--except our boys. I don't believe California John
+knew a thing about it."
+
+"Didn't act so. Question: what possibly could everybody in the mountains
+be interested in that the Forest Service would object to?"
+
+"Lots of things," replied Bob promptly, "but I don't believe the
+mountains are unfriendly to us--as a unit. I know Martin isn't, and he
+was the first one I noticed as particularly worried."
+
+Elliott reflected.
+
+"If he's so friendly, perhaps he was a little uneasy about _us_," he
+suggested at length. "If somebody doesn't want the Forest Service in
+this neck of the woods--if that somebody is relying on the fact that we
+never come down in here farther than the lookout, why then it may not be
+very healthy here."
+
+"Hadn't thought of that," said Bob. "That looks cheerful. But what's the
+point? Nine-tenths of this timber is private property anyway. There's
+certainly no trespass--sheep, timber or otherwise--on the government
+land. What in blazes is the point?"
+
+"Give it up; but we'd better wear our guns."
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"I'd have a healthy show against a man who really wanted to get me with
+a gun. Presumably he'd be an expert, or he wouldn't be sent."
+
+It was agreed, however, "in view of the unsettled state of the country,"
+as Bob gravely characterized the situation, that the young men should
+stick together in their work.
+
+"There's no use taking chances, of course," Bob summed up, "but there's
+no sense in making fools of ourselves, either. Lord love you, I don't
+mind being _haunted_! They can spring as many mysterious apparitions as
+they please, so long as said apparitions don't take to heaving bricks.
+We'd look sweet and lovely, wouldn't we, to go back to headquarters and
+tell them we'd decided to come in because a bad man with whiskers who'd
+never been introduced came and looked at us out of the trees."
+
+In pursuance of this determination Bob and Elliott combined forces
+closely in their next day's work. That this was not a useless precaution
+early became apparent. As, momentarily separated by a few feet, they
+passed a dense thicket, Bob was startled by a low whistle. He looked up.
+Within fifty feet of him, but so far in the shadow as to be
+indistinguishable, a man peered at him. As he caught Bob's eyes he made
+a violent gesture whose purport Bob could not guess.
+
+"Did you whistle?" asked Elliott at his elbow. "What's up?"
+
+Bob pointed; but the man had vanished. Where he had stood they found the
+print of moccasins.
+
+Thrice during the day they were interrupted by this mysterious presence.
+On each occasion Bob saw him first. Always he gestured, but whether in
+warning or threat Bob could not tell. Each time be vanished as though
+the earth had swallowed him the instant Elliott turned at Bob's
+exclamation.
+
+"I believe he's crazy!" exclaimed Elliott impatiently.
+
+"I'd think so, too," replied Bob, "if it weren't for the way everybody
+acted down below. Do you suppose he's trying to warn us out or scare us
+off?"
+
+"I'm going to take a crack at him next time he shows up," threatened
+Elliott. "I'm getting sick of this."
+
+"No, you can't do that," warned Bob.
+
+"I'm going to tell him so anyway."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+For this experiment they had not long to await the opportunity.
+
+"Hi, there!" shouted Elliott at the place from which the mysterious
+apparition had disappeared; "I give you fair warning! Step out and
+declare yourself peaceably or accept the consequences. If you show
+yourself again after five minutes are up, I'll open fire!"
+
+The empty forest gave no sign. For an hour nothing happened. Then all at
+once, when Elliott was entangled in a tiny thicket close at Bob's elbow,
+the latter was startled by the appearance of the man not ten feet away.
+He leaped apparently from below a rounded rock, and now stood in full
+view of its crown. Bob had time only to catch cognizance of a blue eye
+and a long beard, to realize that the man was saying something rapidly
+and in a low voice, when Elliott's six-shooter exploded so near his ear
+as almost to deafen him. At the report the man toppled backward off the
+rock.
+
+"Good Lord! You've killed him!" cried Bob.
+
+"I did not; I fired straight up!" panted Elliott, dashing past him.
+"Quick! We'll catch him!"
+
+But catch him nor see him again they did not.
+
+Ten minutes later while working in a wide open stretch of forest, they
+were brought to a stand by the report of a rifle. At the same instant
+the shock of a bullet threw a shower of dead pine needles and humus over
+Elliott. Another and another followed, until six had thudded into the
+soft earth at the young man's feet. He stood quite motionless, and
+though he went a little pale, his coolness did not desert him. After the
+sixth shot silence fell abruptly. Elliott stood still for some moments,
+then moved forward a single step.
+
+"Guess the show's over," he remarked with a curt laugh. He stooped to
+examine the excavation the bullets had made. "Quaint cuss," he remarked
+a trifle bitterly. "Just wanted to show me how easy it would be. All
+right, my friend, I'm obliged to you. We'll quit the gun racket; but
+next time you show your pretty face I'll give you a run for it."
+
+"And get shot," interposed Bob.
+
+"If it's shoot, we'll get ours any minute. Say," went on the young man
+in absolutely conversational tones, "don't you see I'm mad?"
+
+Bob looked and saw.
+
+"Maybe you think shooting at me is one of my little niece's favourite
+summer-day stunts?" went on Elliott. "Well, uncle isn't used to it yet."
+
+His tone was quiet, but his eyes burned and the muscles around his mouth
+were white.
+
+"He's probably crazy, and he's armed," Bob pointed out. "For heaven's
+sake, go slow."
+
+"I'm going to paddle his pantalettes, if he commands a gatling," stated
+Elliott.
+
+But the mysterious visitor appeared no more that afternoon, and
+Elliott's resolutions had time to settle.
+
+That night the young men turned in rather earlier than usual, as they
+were very tired. Bob immediately dropped into a black sleep. So deep was
+his slumber that it seemed to him he had just dropped off, when he was
+awakened by a cool hand placed across his forehead. He opened his eyes
+quietly, without alarm, to look full into the waning moon sailing high
+above. His first drowsy motion was one of astonishment, for the luminary
+had not arisen when he had turned in. The camp fire had fallen to a few
+faintly glowing coals. These perceptions came to him so gently that he
+would probably have dropped asleep again had not the touch on his
+forehead been repeated. Then he started broad awake to find himself
+staring at a silhouetted man leaning over him.
+
+With a gesture of caution, the stranger motioned him to arise. Bob
+obeyed mechanically. The man bent toward him.
+
+"Put on your pants and sweater and come along," he whispered guardedly.
+
+Bob peered at him through the moonlight and recognized, vaguely, the man
+who had been so mysteriously pursuing them all day. He drew back.
+
+"For the Lord's sake do what I tell you!" whispered the man. "Here!"
+
+His hand sought the shadow of his side, and instantly gleamed with a
+weapon. Bob started back; but the man was holding the revolver's butt to
+him.
+
+"Now come on!" besought the stranger with a strange note of pleading.
+"Don't wake your pardner!"
+
+Yielding, with a pleasant thrill, to the adventure of the situation, and
+it must be confessed, to a strong curiosity, Bob hastily assumed his
+outer clothing. Then, with the muzzle of the revolver, he motioned the
+stranger to proceed.
+
+Stepping cautiously they gained the open forest beyond the screen of
+brush. Here the man led the way more rapidly. Bob followed close at his
+heels. They threaded the forest aisles without hesitation, crossed a
+deep ravine where the man paused to drink, and began to clamber the
+precipitous and rocky sides of Baldy.
+
+"That'll do for that!" growled Bob suddenly.
+
+The man looked around as though for information.
+
+"You needn't go so fast. Keep about three feet in front of me. And when
+we strike your gang, you keep close to me. _Sabe_?"
+
+"I'm alone," expostulated the man.
+
+Nevertheless he slackened pace.
+
+After five minutes' climb they entered a narrow ravine gashed almost
+perpendicularly in the side of the mountain. At this point, however, it
+flattened for perhaps fifty paces, so that there existed a tiny
+foothold. It was concealed from every point, and nevertheless, directly
+to the west, Bob, pausing for breath, looked out over California
+slumbering in the moon. On this ledge flowed a tiny stream, and over it
+grew a score of cedar and fir trees. A fire smouldered near an open
+camp. On this the man tossed a handful of pitch pine. Immediately the
+flames started up.
+
+"Here we are!" he remarked aloud.
+
+"Yes, I see we are," replied Bob, looking suspiciously about him, "but
+what does all this mean?"
+
+"I couldn't get to talk with you no other way, could I?" said the man in
+tones of complaint; "I sure tried hard enough! But you and your pardner
+stick closer than brothers."
+
+"If you wanted to speak to me, why didn't you say so?" demanded Bob, his
+temper rising.
+
+"Well, I don't know who your pardner is, or whether he's reliable, nor
+nothin'. A man can't be too careful. I thought mebbe you'd make a chance
+yourself, so I kept giving you a show to. 'Course I didn't want to be
+seen by him."
+
+"Not seen by him!" broke in Bob impatiently. "What in blazes are you
+driving at! Explain yourself!"
+
+"I showed myself plain only to you--except when he cut loose that time
+with his fool six-shooter. I thought he was further in the brush. Why
+didn't you make a chance to talk?"
+
+"Why should I?" burst out Bob. "Will you kindly explain to me why I
+should make a chance to talk to you; and why I've been dragged out here
+in the dead of night?"
+
+"No call to get mad," expostulated the man in rather discouraged tones;
+"I just thought as how mebbe you was still feeling friendly-like. My
+mistake. But I reckon you won't be giving me away anyhow?"
+
+During this speech he had slowly produced from his hip pocket a frayed
+bandana handkerchief; as slowly taken off his hat and mopped his brow.
+
+The removal of the floppy and shady old sombrero exposed to the mingled
+rays of the fire and the moon the man's full features. Heretofore, Bob
+had been able to see indistinctly only the meagre facts of a heavy beard
+and clear eyes.
+
+"George Pollock!" he cried, dropping the revolver and leaping forward
+with both hands outstretched.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Pollock took his hands, but stared at him puzzled. "Surely!" he said at
+last. His clear blue eyes slowly widened and became bigger. "Honest!
+Didn't you know me! Is that what ailed you, Bobby? I thought you'd done
+clean gone back on me; and I sure always remembered you for a friend!"
+
+"Know you!" shouted Bob. "Why, you eternal old fool, how should I know
+you?"
+
+"You might have made a plumb good guess."
+
+"Oh, sure!" said Bob; "easiest thing in the world. Guess that the first
+shadow you see in the woods is a man you thought was in Mexico."
+
+"Didn't you know I was here?" demanded Pollock earnestly. "Sure pop?"
+
+"How should I know?" asked Bob again.
+
+George Pollock's blue eyes smouldered with anger.
+
+"I'll sure tan that promising nephew of mine!" he threatened; "I've done
+sent you fifty messages by him. Didn't he never give you none of them?"
+
+"Who; Jack?"
+
+"That's the whelp."
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"That's a joke," said he; "I've been bunking with him for a year. Nary
+message!"
+
+"I told Carroll and Martin and one or two more to tell you."
+
+"I guess they're suspicious of any but the mountain people," said Bob.
+"They're right. How could they know?"
+
+"That's right, they couldn't," agreed George reluctantly. "But I done
+told them you was my friend. And I thought you'd gone back on me sure."
+
+"Not an inch!" cried Bob, heartily.
+
+George kicked the logs of the fire together, filled the coffee pot at
+the creek, hung it over the blaze, and squatted on his heels. Bob tossed
+him a sack of tobacco which he caught.
+
+"Thought you were bound for Mexico," hazarded Bob at length.
+
+"I went," said Pollock shortly, "and I came back."
+
+"Yes," said Bob after a time.
+
+"Homesick," said Pollock; "plain homesick. Wasn't so bad that-a-way at
+first. I was desp'rit. Took a job punching with a cow outfit near
+Nogales. Worked myself plumb out every day, and slept hard all night,
+and woke up in the morning to work myself plumb out again."
+
+He fished a coal from the fire and deftly flipped it atop his pipe bowl.
+After a dozen deep puffs, he continued:
+
+"Never noticed the country; had nothing to do with the people. All I
+knew was brands and my bosses. Did good enough cow work, I reckon. For a
+fact, it was mebbe half a year before I begun to look around. That
+country is worse than over Panamit way. There's no trees; there's no
+water; there's no green grass; there's no folks; there's no nothin'! The
+mountains look like they're made of paper. After about a half year, as I
+said, I took note of all this, but I didn't care. What the hell
+difference did it make to me what the country was like? I hadn't no
+theories to that. I'd left all that back here."
+
+He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach nearer his tragedy
+unless it was necessary. Bob nodded.
+
+"Then I begun to dream. Things come to me. I'd see places plain--like
+the falls at Cascadell--and smell things. For a fact, I smelt azaleas
+plain and sweet once; and woke up in the damndest alkali desert you ever
+see. I thought I'd never want to see this country again; the farther I
+got away, the more things I'd forget. You understand."
+
+Again Bob nodded.
+
+"It wasn't that way. The farther off I got, the more I remembered. So
+one day I cashed in and come back."
+
+He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the coffee pot bubbling
+over the fire.
+
+"It's good to get back!" he resumed at last. "It smells good; it tastes
+good. For a while that did me well enough.... I used to sneak down
+nights and look at my old place.... In summer I go back to Jim and the
+cattle, but it's dangerous these days. The towerists is getting thicker,
+and you can't trust everybody, even among the mountain folks."
+
+"How many know you are back here?" asked Bob.
+
+"Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course, and Tom Carroll and
+Martin and a few others. They ride up trail to the flat rock sometimes
+bringing me grub and papers. But it's plumb lonesome. I can't go on
+livin' this way forever, and I can't leave this yere place. Since I have
+been living here it seems like--well, I ain't no call as I can see it to
+desert my wife dead or alive!" he declared stoutly.
+
+"You needn't explain," said Bob.
+
+George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.
+
+"Well, you know about such things. What am I to do?"
+
+"There are only two courses that I can see," answered Bob, after
+reflection, "outside the one you're following now. You can give yourself
+up to the authorities and plead guilty. There's a chance that mitigating
+circumstances will influence the judge to give you a light sentence; and
+there's always a possibility of a pardon. When all the details are made
+known there ought to be a good show for getting off easy."
+
+"What's the other?" demanded Pollock, who had listened with the closest
+attention.
+
+"The other is simply to go back home."
+
+"They'd arrest me."
+
+"Let them," said Bob. "Plead not guilty, and take your chances on the
+trial. Their evidence is circumstantial; you don't have to incriminate
+yourself; I doubt if a jury would agree on convicting you. Have you ever
+talked with anybody about--about that morning?"
+
+"About me killing Plant?" supplied Pollock tranquilly. "No. A man don't
+ask about those things."
+
+"Not even to Jim?"
+
+"No. We just sort of took all that for granted."
+
+"Well, that would be all right. Then if they're called on the stand,
+they can tell nothing. There are at least no witnesses to the deed
+itself."
+
+"There's you----" suggested George.
+
+Bob brought up short in his train of reasoning.
+
+"But you won't testify agin me?"
+
+"There's no reason why I should be called. Nobody even knows I was out
+of bed at that time. If my name happens to be mentioned--which isn't at
+all likely--Auntie Belle or a dozen others will volunteer that I was in
+bed, like the rest of the town. There's no earthly reason to connect me
+with it."
+
+"But if you are called?" persisted the mountaineer.
+
+"Then I'll have to tell the truth, of course," said Bob soberly; "it'll
+be under oath, you know."
+
+Pollock looked at him strangely askant.
+
+"I didn't much look to hear you talk that-a-way," said he.
+
+"George," said Bob, "this will take money. Have you any?"
+
+"I've some," replied the mountaineer sulkily.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A hundred dollars or so."
+
+"Not enough by a long patch. You must let me help you on this."
+
+"I don't need no help," said Pollock.
+
+"You let me help you once before," Bob reminded him gently, "if it was
+only to hold a horse."
+
+"By God, that's right!" burst out George Pollock, "and I'm a fool! If
+they call you on the stand, don't you lie under oath for me! I don't
+believe you'd do it for yourself; and that's what I'm going to do for
+myself. I reckon I'll just plead guilty!"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry," Bob warned him. "It isn't a matter to go off
+half-cock on. Any man would have done what you did. I'd have done it
+myself. That's why I stood by you. I'm not sure you aren't right to take
+advantage of what the law can do for you. Plenty do just that with only
+the object of acquiring other people's dollars. I don't say it's right
+in theory; but in this case it may be eternally right in practice. Go
+slow on deciding."
+
+"You're sure a good friend, Bobby," said Pollock simply.
+
+"Whatever you decide, don't even mention my name to any one," warned
+Bob. "We don't want to get me connected with the case in any man's mind.
+Hardly let on you remember to have known me. Don't overdo it though.
+You'll want a real good lawyer. I'll find out about that. And the
+money--how'll we fix it?"
+
+George thought for a moment.
+
+"Fix it with Jack," said he at length. "He'll stay put. Tell him not to
+tell his own father. He won't. He's reliable."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Well, I'm risking my neck on it."
+
+"I'll simply tell him the name of the lawyer," decided Bob, "and get him
+actual cash."
+
+"I'll pay that back--the other I can't," said Pollock with sudden
+feeling. "Here, have a cup of coffee."
+
+Bob swallowed the hot coffee gratefully. Without speaking further,
+Pollock arose and led the way. When finally they had reached the open
+forest above the camp, the mountaineer squeezed Bob's fingers hard.
+
+"Good-bye," said the younger man in a guarded voice. "I won't see you
+again. Remember, even at best it's a long wait in jail. Think it over
+before you decide!"
+
+"I'm in jail here," replied Pollock.
+
+Bob walked thoughtfully to camp. He found a fire burning and Elliott
+afoot.
+
+"Thank God, you're here!" cried that young man; "I was getting scared
+for you. What's up?"
+
+"You are and I am," replied Bob. "Couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk.
+Think that bogy-man of yours had got me?"
+
+"I surely began to."
+
+"Nothing doing. I guess I can snooze a little now."
+
+"I can't," complained Elliott. "You've got me good and waked up,
+confound you!"
+
+Bob kicked off his boots, and without further disrobing rolled himself
+into his gray blanket. As he was dropping asleep two phrases flashed
+across his brain. They were: "compounding a felony," and "accessory
+after the fact."
+
+"Don't feel much like a criminal either," murmured Bob to himself; and
+after a moment: "Poor devil!"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Two days later, from the advantage of the rock designated by California
+John, Elliott reported the agreed signal for their recall. Accordingly,
+they packed together their belongings and returned to headquarters.
+
+"We're getting short-handed, and several things have come up," said
+Thorne. "I have work for both of you."
+
+Having dispatched Elliott, Thorne turned to Bob.
+
+"Orde," said he, "I'm going to try you out on a very delicate matter. At
+the north end lives an old fellow named Samuels. He and his family are
+living on a place inside the National forests. He took it up years ago,
+mainly for the timber, but he's one of these hard-headed old coons
+that's 'agin the Government,' on general principles. He never proved up,
+and when his attention was called to the fact, he refused to do
+anything. No reason why not, except that 'he'd always lived there and
+always would.' You know the kind."
+
+"Ought to--put in two years in the Michigan woods," said Bob.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, he gave up the claim to all intents and
+purposes, but now that the Yellow Pine people are cutting up toward him,
+he's suddenly come to the notion that the place is worth while. So he's
+patched up his cabin, and moved in his whole family. We've got to get a
+relinquishment out of him."
+
+"If he has no right there, why not put him off?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well, in the first place, this Samuels is a hard old citizen with a
+shotgun; in the second place, he has some shadow of right on which he
+could make a fight; in the third place, the country up that way doesn't
+care much for us anyway, and we want to minimize opposition."
+
+"I see," said Bob.
+
+"You'll have to go up and look the ground over, that's all. Do what you
+think best. Here are all the papers in the matter. You can look them
+over at your leisure."
+
+Bob tucked the bundle of papers in his _cantinas_, or pommel bags, and
+left the office. Amy was rattling the stove in her open-air kitchen,
+shaking down the ashes preparatory to the fire. Bob stopped to look
+across at her trim, full figure in its starched blue, immaculate as
+always.
+
+"Hullo, Colonel!" he called. "How are the legions of darkness and
+ignorance standing the cannonading these days? Funny paper any new
+jokes?"
+
+This last was in reference to Amy's habit of reading the Congressional
+Record in search of speeches or legislation affecting the forests. Bob
+stoutly maintained, and nobody but Amy disputed him, that she was the
+only living woman, in or out of captivity, known to read that series of
+documents.
+
+Amy shook her head, without looking up.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Bob solicitously. "Nothing wrong with the
+Hero, nor any of the Assistant Heroes?"
+
+Thus in their banter were designated the President, and such senators as
+stood behind his policies of conservation.
+
+"Then the villains must have been saying a few triumphant ha! has!"
+pursued Bob, referring to Fulton, Clark, Heyburn and the rest of the
+senatorial representatives of the anti-conservationists. "Or is it
+merely the stove? Let me help."
+
+Amy stood upright, and thrust back her hair.
+
+"Please don't," said she. "I don't feel like joking to-day."
+
+"It _is_ something!" cried Bob. "I do beg your pardon; I didn't realize
+... you know I'd like to help, if it's anything I can do."
+
+"It is nothing to do with any of us," said Amy, seating herself for a
+moment, and letting her hands fall in her lap. "It's just some news that
+made me feel sorry. Ware came up with the mail a little while ago, and
+he tells us that George Pollock has suddenly reappeared and is living
+down at his own place."
+
+"They've arrested him!" cried Bob.
+
+"Not yet; but they will. The sheriff has been notified. Of course, his
+friends warned him in time; but he won't go. Says he intends to stay."
+
+"Then he'll go to jail."
+
+"And to prison. What chance has a poor fellow like that without money or
+influence? All he has is his denial."
+
+"Then he denies?" asked Bob eagerly.
+
+"Says he knows nothing about Plant's killing. His wife died that same
+morning, and he went away because he could not stand it. That's his
+story; but the evidence is strong against him, poor fellow."
+
+"Do you believe him?" asked Bob.
+
+Amy swung her foot, pondering.
+
+"No," she said at last. "I believe he killed Plant; and I believe he did
+right! Plant killed his wife and child, and took away all his property.
+That's what it amounted to."
+
+"There are hardships worked in any administration," Bob pointed out.
+
+Amy looked at him slowly.
+
+"You don't believe that in this case," she pronounced at last.
+
+"Then Pollock will perjure himself," suggested Bob, to try her.
+
+"And if he has friends worth the name, they'll perjure themselves, too!"
+cried Amy boldly. "They'll establish an alibi, they'll invent a murderer
+for Plant, they'll do anything for a man as persecuted and hunted as
+poor George Pollock!"
+
+"Heavens!" returned Bob, genuinely aghast at this wholesale programme.
+"What would become of morals and honour and law and all the rest of it,
+if that sort of thing obtained?"
+
+"Law?" Amy caught him up. "Law? It's become foolish. No man lives
+capable of mastering it so completely that another man cannot find flaws
+in his best efforts. Reuf and Schmitz are guilty--everybody says so,
+even themselves. Why aren't they in jail? Because of the law. Don't talk
+to me of law!"
+
+"But how about ordinary mortals? You can't surely permit a man to lie in
+a court of justice just because he thinks his friend's cause is just!"
+
+"I don't know anything about it," sighed Amy, as though weary all at
+once, "except that it isn't right. The law should be a great and wise
+judge, humane and sympathetic. George Pollock should be able to go to
+that judge and say: 'I killed Plant, because he had done me an injury
+for which the perpetrator should suffer death. He was permitted to do
+this because of the deficiency of the law.' And he should be able to say
+it in all confidence that he would be given justice, eternal justice,
+and not a thing so warped by obscure and forgotten precedents that it
+fits nothing but some lawyer's warped notion of logic!"
+
+"Whew!" whistled Bob, "what a lady of theory and erudition it is!"
+
+Amy eyed him doubtfully, then smiled.
+
+"I'm glad you happened along," said she. "I feel better. Now I believe
+I'll be able to do something with my biscuits."
+
+"I could do justice to some of them," remarked Bob, "and it would be the
+real thing without any precedents in that line whatever."
+
+"Come around later and you'll have the chance," invited Amy, again
+addressing herself to the stove.
+
+Still smiling at this wholesale and feminine way of leaping directly to
+a despotically desired ideal result, Bob took the trail to his own camp.
+Here he found Jack Pollock poring over an old illustrated paper.
+
+"Hullo, Jack!" he called cheerfully. "Not out on duty, eh?"
+
+"I come in," said Jack, rising to his feet and folding the old paper
+carefully. He said nothing more, but stood eyeing his colleague gravely.
+
+"You want something of me?" asked Bob.
+
+"No," denied Jack, "I don't know nothing I want of you. But I was told
+to come and get a piece of paper and maybe some money that a stranger
+was goin' to leave by our chimbley. It ain't there. You ain't seen it,
+by any chance?"
+
+"It may have got shoved among some of my things by mistake," replied Bob
+gravely. "I haven't had a chance of looking. I'm just in from the
+Basin." At these last words he looked at Jack keenly, but that young
+man's expression remained inscrutable. "I'll look when I get back," he
+continued after a moment; "just now I've got to ride over to the mill to
+see Mr. Welton."
+
+Jack nodded gravely.
+
+"If you find them, leave them by the chimbley," said he. "I'm going to
+headquarters."
+
+Bob rode to the mill. By the exercise of some diplomacy he brought the
+conversation to good lawyers without arousing Welton's suspicions that
+he could have any personal interest in the matter.
+
+"Erbe's head and shoulders above the rest," said Welton. "He has half
+the business. He's for Baker's interests, and our own; and he's shrewd.
+Maybe you'll get into trouble yourself some day, Bob. Better send for
+him. He's the greatest criminal lawyer in the business."
+
+Bob laughed heartily with his old employer. From Poole he easily
+obtained currency for his personal check of two hundred dollars. This
+would do to go on with for the time being. He wrote Erbe's name and
+address--in a disguised hand--on a piece of rough brown paper. This he
+wrapped around the money, and deposited by the alarm clock on the rough
+log mantelpiece of his cabin. The place was empty. When he had returned
+from his invited supper with the Thornes, the package had disappeared.
+He did not again catch sight of Jack Pollock, for next morning he
+started out on his errand to the north end.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+At noon of the second day of a journey that led him up the winding
+watered valleys of the lower ranges, Bob surmounted a ridge higher than
+the rest and rode down a long, wide slope. Here the character of the
+country changed completely. Scrub oaks, young pines and chaparral
+covered the ground. Among this growth Bob made out the ancient stumps of
+great trees. The ranch houses were built of sawn lumber, and possessed
+brick chimneys. In appearance they seemed midway between the farm houses
+of the older settled plains and the rougher cabins of the mountaineers.
+
+Bob continued on a dusty road until he rode into a little town which he
+knew must be Durham. Its main street contained three stores, two
+saloons, a shady tree, a windmill and watering trough and a dozen
+chair-tilted loafers. A wooden sidewalk shaded by a wooden awning ran
+the entire length of this collection of commercial enterprises. A
+redwood hitching rail, much chewed, flanked it. Three saddle horses, and
+as many rigs, dozed in the sun.
+
+Bob tied his saddle horse to the rail, leaving the pack animal to its
+own devices. Without attention to the curious stares of the loafers, he
+pushed into the first store, and asked directions of the proprietor. The
+man, a type of the transplanted Yankee, pushed the spectacles up over
+his forehead, and coolly surveyed his questioner from head to foot
+before answering.
+
+"I see you're a ranger," he remarked drily. "Well, I wouldn't go to
+Samuels's if I was you. He's give it out that he'll kill the next ranger
+that sets foot on his place."
+
+"I've heard that sort of talk before," replied Bob impatiently.
+
+"Samuels means what he says," stated the storekeeper. "He drove off the
+last of you fellows with a shotgun--and he went too."
+
+"You haven't told me how to get there," Bob pointed out.
+
+"All you have to do is to turn to the right at the white church and
+follow your nose," replied the man curtly.
+
+"How far is it?"
+
+"About four mile."
+
+"Thank you," said Bob, and started out.
+
+The man let him get to the door.
+
+"Say, you!" he called.
+
+Bob stopped.
+
+"You might be in better business than to turn a poor man out of his
+house and home."
+
+Bob did not wait to hear the rest. As he untied his saddle horse, a man
+brushed by him with what was evidently intentional rudeness, for he
+actually jostled Bob's shoulder. The man jerked loose the tie rein of
+his own mount, leaped to the saddle, and clattered away. Bob noticed
+that he turned to the right at the white church.
+
+The four-mile ride, Bob discovered, was almost straight up. At the end
+of it he found himself well elevated above the valley, and once more in
+the sugar-pine belt. The road wound among shades of great trees. Piles
+of shakes, gleaming and fragrant, awaited the wagon. Rude signs, daubed
+on the riven shingles, instructed the wayfarer that this or that dim
+track through the forest led to So-and-so's shake camp.
+
+It was by now after four of the afternoon. Bob met nobody on the road,
+but he saw in the dust fresh tracks which he shrewdly surmised to be
+those of the man who had jostled him. Samuels had his warning. The
+mountaineer would be ready. Bob had no intention of delivering a frontal
+attack.
+
+He rode circumspectly, therefore, until he discerned an opening in the
+forest. Here he dismounted. The opening, of course, might be only that
+of a natural meadow, but in fact proved to be the homestead claim of
+which Bob was in search.
+
+The improvements consisted of a small log cabin with a stone and mud
+chimney; a log stable slightly larger in size; a rickety fence made
+partly of riven pickets, partly of split rails, but long since weathered
+and rotted; and what had been a tiny orchard of a score of apple trees.
+At some remote period this orchard had evidently been cultivated, but
+now the weeds and grasses grew rank and matted around neglected trees.
+The whole place was down at the heels. Tin cans and rusty baling wire
+strewed the back yard; an ill-cared-for wagon stood squarely in front;
+broken panes of glass in the windows had been replaced respectively by
+an old straw hat and the dirty remains of overalls. The supports of the
+little verandah roof sagged crazily. Over it clambered a vine. Close
+about drew the forest. That was it: the forest! The "homestead" was a
+mere hovel; the cultivation a patch; the improvements sketchy and
+ancient; but the forest, become valuable for lumber where long it had
+been considered available only for shakes, furnished the real motive for
+this desperate attempt to rehabilitate old and lapsed rights.
+
+The place was populous enough, for all its squalor. A half-dozen small
+children, scantily clothed, swarmed amongst the tin cans; two women, one
+with a baby in her arms, appeared and disappeared through the low
+doorway of the cabin; a horse or two dozed among the trees of the
+neglected orchard; chickens scratched everywhere. Square in the middle
+of the verandah, in a wooden chair, sat an old man whom Bob guessed to
+be Samuels. He sat bolt upright, facing the front, his knees spread
+apart, his feet planted solidly. A patriarchal beard swept his great
+chest; thick, white hair crowned his head; bushy white brows, like
+thatch, overshadowed his eyes. Even at the distance, Bob could imagine
+the deep-set, flashing, vigorous eyes of the old man. For everything
+about him, save the colour of his hair and beard, bespoke great vigour.
+His solidly planted attitude in his chair, the straight carriage of his
+back, the set of his shoulders, the very poise of his head told of the
+power and energy of an autocrat. Across his knees rested a shotgun.
+
+As Bob watched, a tall youth sauntered around the corner of the cabin.
+He spoke to the old man. Samuels did not look around, but nodded his
+massive head. The young man disappeared in the cabin to return after a
+moment, accompanied by the individual Bob had seen in Durham. The two
+spoke again to the old man; then sauntered off in the direction of the
+barn.
+
+Bob returned, untied his horse; and, leading that animal, approached the
+cabin afoot. No sooner had he emerged into view when the old man arose
+and came squarely and uncompromisingly to meet him. The two encountered
+perhaps fifty yards from the cabin door.
+
+Bob found that a closer inspection of his antagonist rather strengthened
+than diminished the impression of force. The old man's eyes were
+flashing fire, and his great chest rose and fell rapidly. He held his
+weapon across the hollow of his left arm, but the muscles of his right
+hand were white with the power of his grip.
+
+"Get out of here!" he fairly panted at Bob. "I warned you fellows!"
+
+Bob replied calmly.
+
+"I came in to see if I could get to stay for supper, and to feed my
+horse."
+
+At this the old man exploded in a violent rage. He ordered Bob off the
+place instantly, and menaced him with his shotgun. Had Bob been mounted,
+Samuels would probably have shot him; but the mere position of a
+horseman afoot conveys subtly an impression of defencelessness that is
+difficult to overcome. He is, as it were, anchored to the spot, and at
+the other man's mercy. Samuels raged, but he did not shoot.
+
+At the sounds of altercation, however, the whole hive swarmed. The
+numerous children scuttled for cover like quail, but immediately peered
+forth again. The two women thrust their heads from the doorway. From the
+direction of the stable the younger men came running. One of them held a
+revolver in his hand.
+
+During all this turmoil and furore Bob had stood perfectly still, saying
+no word. Provided he did nothing to invite it, he was now safe from
+personal violence. To be sure, a very slight mistake would invite it.
+Bob waited patiently.
+
+He remembered, and was acting upon, a conversation he had once held with
+Ware. The talk had fallen on gunfighting, and Bob, as usual, was trying
+to draw Ware out. The latter was, also, as usual, exceedingly reticent
+and disinclined to open up.
+
+"What would you do if a man got your hands up?" chaffed Bob.
+
+Ware turned on him quick as a flash.
+
+"No man ever got my hands up!"
+
+"No?" said Bob, hugely delighted at the success of his stratagem. "What
+do you do, then, when a man gets the cold drop on you?"
+
+But now Ware saw the trap into which his feet were leading him, and drew
+back into his shell.
+
+"Oh, shoot out, or bluff out," said he briefly.
+
+"But look here, Ware," insisted Bob, "it's all very well to talk like
+that. But suppose a man actually has his gun down on you. How can you
+'shoot out or bluff out'?"
+
+Ware suddenly became serious.
+
+"No man," said he, "can hold a gun on you for over ten seconds without
+his eyes flickering. It's too big a strain. He don't let go for mor'n
+about the hundredth part of a second. After that he has holt again for
+another ten seconds, and will pull trigger if you bat an eyelash. _But
+if you take it when his eyes flicker, and are quick, you'll get him!_"
+
+"What about the other way around?" asked Bob.
+
+"I never pulled a gun unless I meant to shoot," said Ware grimly.
+
+The practical philosophy of this Bob was now utilizing. If he had ridden
+up boldly, Samuels would probably have shot him from the saddle. Having
+gained the respite, Bob now awaited the inevitable momentary relaxing
+from this top pitch of excitement. It came.
+
+"I have not the slightest intention of tacking up any notices or serving
+any papers," he said quietly, referring to the errand of the man whom
+Samuels had driven off at the point of his weapon. "I am travelling on
+business; and I asked for shelter and supper."
+
+"No ranger sets foot on my premises," growled Samuels.
+
+"Very well," said Bob, unpinning and pocketing his pine tree badge.
+(_"Oh, I'd have died rather than do that!" cried Amy when she heard.
+"I'd have stuck to my guns!" "Heroic, but useless," replied her brother
+drily._) "I don't care whether the ranger is fed or not. But I'm a lot
+interested in me. I ask you as a man, not as an official."
+
+"Your sort ain't welcome here; and if you ain't got sense enough to see
+it, you got to be shown!" the youngest man broke in roughly.
+
+Bob turned to him calmly.
+
+"I am not asking your sufferance," said he, "nor would I eat where I am
+not welcome. I am asking Mr. Samuels to bid me welcome. If he will not
+do so, I will ride on." He turned to the old man again. "Do you mean to
+tell me that the North End is so far behind the South End in common
+hospitality? We've fed enough men at the Wolverine Company in our time."
+
+Bob let fly this shaft at a venture. He knew how many passing
+mountaineers paused for a meal at the cook house, and surmised it
+probable that at least one of his three opponents might at some time
+have stopped there. This proved to be the case.
+
+"Are you with the Wolverine Company?" demanded the man who had jostled
+him.
+
+"I was for some years in charge of the woods."
+
+"I've et there. You can stay to supper," said Samuels ungraciously.
+
+He turned sharp on his heel and marched back to the cabin, leaving Bob
+to follow with his horse. The two younger men likewise went about their
+business. Bob found himself quite alone, with only this ungracious
+permission to act on.
+
+Nevertheless, quite imperturbably, Bob unsaddled, led his animal into
+the dark stable, threw it some of the wild hay stacked therein, washed
+himself in the nearby creek, and took his station on the deserted
+verandah. The twilight fell. Some of the children ventured into sight,
+but remained utterly unmoved by the young man's tentative advances. He
+heard people moving about inside, but no one came near him. Finally,
+just at dusk, the youngest man protruded his head from the doorway.
+
+"Come to supper," said he surlily.
+
+Bob ducked his head to enter a long, low room. Its walls were of the
+rough logs; its floor of hewn timbers; its ceiling of round beams on
+which had been thrown untrimmed slabs as a floor to the loft above. A
+board table stood in the centre of this, flanked by homemade chairs and
+stools of all varieties of construction. A huge iron cooking stove
+occupied all of one end--an extraordinary piece of ordnance. The light
+from a single glass lamp cast its feeble illumination over coarse dishes
+steaming with food.
+
+Bob bowed politely to the two women, who stood, their arms crossed on
+their stomachs, without deigning his salutation the slightest attention.
+The children, of all sizes and ages, stared at him unblinking. The two
+men shuffled to their seats, without looking up at the visitor. Only the
+old man vouchsafed him the least notice....
+
+"Set thar!" he growled, indicating a stool.
+
+Bob found on the board that abundance and variety which always so much
+surprises the stranger to a Sierra mountaineer's cabin. Besides the
+usual bacon, beans, and bread, there were dishes of canned string-beans
+and corn, potatoes, boiled beef, tomatoes and pressed glass dishes of
+preserves. Coffee, hot as fire, and strong as lye, came in thick china
+cups without handles.
+
+The meal went forward in absolute silence, which Bob knew better than to
+interrupt. It ended for each as he or she finished eating. The two women
+were left at the last quite alone. Bob followed his host to the veranda.
+There he silently offered the old man a cigar; the younger men had
+vanished.
+
+Samuels took the cigar with a grunt of thanks, smelled it carefully, bit
+an inch off the end, and lit it with a slow-burning sulphur match. Bob
+also lit up.
+
+For one hour and a half--two cigars apiece--the two sat side by side
+without uttering a syllable. The velvet dark drew close. The heavens
+sparkled as though frosted with light. Bob, sitting tight on what he
+knew was the one and only plan to accomplish his purpose, began to
+despair of his chance. Of his companion he could make out dimly only the
+white of his hair and beard, the glowing fire of his cigar. Inside the
+house the noises made by the inhabitants thereof increased and died
+away; evidently the household was seeking its slumber. A tree-toad
+chirped, loudest in all the world of stillness.
+
+Suddenly, without warning, the old man scraped back his chair. Bob's
+heart leaped. Was his one chance escaping him? Then to his relief
+Samuels spoke. The long duel of silence was at an end.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+"What might your name be?" inquired Samuels.
+
+"Orde."
+
+"I heerd of you ... what might you be doing up here?"
+
+"I'm just riding through."
+
+"Best thing any of you can do," commented the old man grimly.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me now why you jumped on me so this evening," said
+Bob.
+
+"If you don't know, you're a fool," growled Samuels.
+
+"I've knocked around a good deal," persisted Bob, "and I've discovered
+that one side always sounds good until you hear the other man's story.
+I've only heard one side of this one."
+
+"And that's all you're like to hear," Samuels told him. "You don't get
+no evidence out of me against myself."
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"You're mighty suspicious--and I don't know as I blame you. Bless your
+soul, what evidence do you suppose I could get from you in a case like
+this? You've already made it clear enough with that old blunderbuss of
+yours what you think of the merits of the case. I asked you out of
+personal interest. I know the Government claims you don't own this
+place; and I was curious to know why you think you do. The Government
+reasoning looks pretty conclusive to a man who doesn't know all the
+circumstances."
+
+"Oh, it is, is it!" cried Samuels, stung to anger. "Well, what claim do
+you think the Government has?"
+
+But Bob was too wily to be put in the aggressive.
+
+"I'm not thinking; I'm asking," said he. "They say you're holding this
+for the timber, and never proved up."
+
+"I took it up bony-fidy," fairly shouted Samuels. "Do you think a man
+plants an orchard and such like on a timber claim. The timber is worth
+something, of course. Well, don't every man take up timber? What about
+that Wolverine Company of yours? What about the Yellow Pine people? What
+about everybody, everywhere? Ain't I got a right to it, same as
+everybody else?"
+
+He leaned forward, pounding his knee. A querulous and sleepy voice spoke
+up from the interior of the cabin:
+
+"Oh, pa, for heaven's sake don't holler so!"
+
+The old man paused in mid-career. Over the treetops the moon was rising
+slowly. Its light struck across the lower part of the verandah, showing
+clearly the gnarled hand of the mountaineer suspended above his sturdy
+knee; casting into dimness the silver of his massive head. The hand
+descended noiselessly.
+
+"Ain't I got my rights, same as another man?" he asked, more reasonably.
+"Just because I left out some little piece of their cussed red-tape am I
+a-goin' to be turned out bag and baggage, child, kit, and kaboodle,
+while fifty big men steal, just plain steal, a thousand acres apiece and
+there ain't nothing said? Not if I know it!"
+
+He talked on. Slowly Bob came to an understanding of the man's position.
+His argument, stripped of its verbiage and self-illusion, was simplicity
+itself. The public domain was for the people. Men selected therefrom
+what they needed. All about him, for fifty years, homesteads had been
+taken up quite frankly for the sake of timber. Nobody made any
+objections. Nobody even pretended that these claims were ever intended
+to be lived on. The barest letter of the law had been complied with.
+
+"I've seen a house, made out'n willow branches, and out'n coal-oil cans,
+called resident buildin's under the act," said Samuels, "and _they_ was
+so lost in the woods that it needed a compass to find 'em."
+
+He, Samuels, on the other hand, had actually planted an orchard and made
+improvements, and even lived on the place for a time. Then he had let
+the claim lapse, and only recently had decided to resume what he
+sincerely believed to be his rights in the matter.
+
+Bob did not at any point suggest any of the counter arguments he might
+very well have used. He listened, leaning back against the rail,
+watching the moonlight drop log by log as the luminary rose above the
+verandah roof.
+
+"And so there come along last week a ranger and started to tack up a
+sign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the United States.' Property
+of hell!"
+
+He ceased talking. Bob said nothing.
+
+"Now you got it; what you think?" asked the old man at last.
+
+"It's tough luck," said Bob. "There's more to be said for your side of
+the case than I had thought."
+
+"There's a lot more goin' to be said yet," stated Samuels, truculently.
+
+"But I'm afraid when it comes right down to the law of it, they'll
+decide against your claim. The law reads pretty plain on how to go about
+it; and as I understand it, you never did prove up."
+
+"My lawyer says if I hang on here, they never can get me out," said
+Samuels, "and I'm a-goin' to hang on."
+
+"Well, of course, that's for the courts to decide," agreed Bob, "and I
+don't claim to know much about law--nor want to."
+
+"Me neither!" agreed the mountaineer fervently.
+
+"But I've known of a dozen cases just like yours that went against the
+claimant. There was the Brown case in Idaho, for instance, that was
+exactly like yours. Brown had some money, and he fought it through up to
+the Supreme Court, but they decided against him."
+
+"How was that?" asked Samuels.
+
+Bob explained at length, dispassionately, avoiding even the colour of
+argument, but drawing strongly the parallel.
+
+"Even if you could afford it, I'm almighty afraid you'd run up against
+exactly the same thing," Bob concluded, "and they'd certainly use the
+Brown case as a precedent."
+
+"Well, I've got money!" said Samuels. "Don't you forget it. I don't have
+to live in a place like this. I've got a good, sawn-lumber house,
+painted, in Durham and a garden of posies."
+
+"I'd like to see it," said Bob.
+
+"Sometime you get to Durham, ask for me," invited Samuels.
+
+"Well, I see how you feel. If I were in your fix, I'd probably fight it
+too, but I'm morally certain they'd get you in the courts. And it is a
+tremendous expense for nothing."
+
+"Well, they've got to git me off'n here first," threatened Samuels.
+
+Bob averted the impending anger with a soft chuckle.
+
+"I wouldn't want the job!" said he. "But if they had the courts with
+them, they'd get you off. You can drive those rangers up a tree quick
+enough (_"You know that isn't so!" cried Amy at the subsequent
+recital._), but this is a Federal matter, and they'll send troops
+against you, if necessary."
+
+"My lawyer----" began Samuels.
+
+"May be dead right, or he _may_ enjoy a legal battle at the other man's
+expense," put in Bob. "The previous cases are all dead against him; and
+they're the only ammunition."
+
+"It's a-gittin' cold," said Samuels, rising abruptly. "Let's git
+inside!"
+
+Bob followed him to the main room of the cabin where the mountaineer lit
+a tallow candle stuck in the neck of a bottle.
+
+"Oh, pa, come to bed!" called a sleepy voice, "and quit your
+palavering."
+
+"Shet up!" commanded Samuels, setting the candle in the middle of the
+table, and seating himself by it. "Ain't there no decisions the other
+way?"
+
+"I'm no lawyer," Bob pointed out, dropping into a stool on the other
+side, so that the candle stood between them, "and my opinion is of no
+value"--the old man grunted what might have been assent, or a mere
+indication of attention--"but as far as I know, there have been none. I
+know all the leading cases, I _think_" he added.
+
+"So they can put me off, and leave all these other fellows, who are
+worse off than I be in keepin' up with what the law wants!" cried
+Samuels.
+
+"I hope they'll begin action against every doubtful claim," said Bob
+soberly.
+
+"It may be the law to take away my homestead, but it ain't justice,"
+stated the old man.
+
+Bob ventured his first aggressive movement.
+
+"Did you ever read the Homestead Law?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, as you remember, that law states pretty plainly the purpose of
+the Homestead Act. It is to provide, out of the public lands, for any
+citizen not otherwise provided, with one hundred and sixty acres as a
+farm to cultivate or a homestead on which to live. When a man takes that
+land for any other purpose whatever, he commits an injustice; and when
+that land is recalled to the public domain, that injustice is righted,
+not another committed."
+
+"Injustice!" challenged the old man; "against what, for heaven's sake!"
+
+"Against the People," replied Bob firmly.
+
+"I suppose these big lumber dealers need a home and a farm too!" sneered
+Samuels.
+
+"Because they did wrong is no reason you should."
+
+"Who dares say I done wrong?" demanded the mountaineer. "Look here! Why
+does the Government pick on me and try to drive me off'n my little place
+where I'm living, and leave these other fellows be? What right or
+justice is there in that?"
+
+"I don't know the ins and out of it all," Bob reminded him. "As I said
+before, I'm no lawyer. But they've at least conformed with the forms of
+the law, as far as the Government has any evidence. You have not. I
+imagine that's the reason your case has been selected first."
+
+"To hell with a law that drives the poor man off his home and leaves the
+rich man on his ill-got spoils!" cried Samuels.
+
+The note in this struck Bob's ear as something alien. "I wonder what
+that echoes from!" was his unspoken thought. Aloud he merely remarked:
+
+"But you said yourself you have money and a home in Durham."
+
+"That may be," retorted Samuels, "but ain't I got as much right to the
+timber, I who have been in the country since '55, as the next man?"
+
+"Why, of course you have, Mr. Samuels," agreed Bob heartily. "I'm with
+you there."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But you've exercised your rights to timber claims already. You took up
+your timber claim in '89, and what is more, your wife and her brother
+and your oldest son also took up timber claims in '90. As I understand
+it, this is an old homestead claim, antedating the others."
+
+Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been lured from
+his vantage ground of force to that of argument; how he scarcely knew.
+It had certainly been without his intention.
+
+Bob, however, had no desire that the old man should again take his stand
+behind the impenetrable screen of threat and bluster from which he had
+been decoyed.
+
+"We've all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop to this sort
+of thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the time is at hand when
+graft and grab by the rich and powerful will have to go. It will go only
+when we take hold together. Look at San Francisco--" With great skill
+he drew the old man into a discussion of the graft cases in that city.
+
+"Graft," he concluded, "is just the price the people are willing to pay
+to get their politics done for them while they attend to the pressing
+business of development and building. They haven't time nor energy to do
+everything, so they're willing to pay to have some things taken off
+their hands. The price is graft. When the people have more time, when
+the other things are done, then the price will be too high. They'll
+decide to attend to their own business."
+
+Samuels listened to this closely. "There's a good deal in what you say,"
+he agreed. "I know it's that way with us. If I couldn't build a better
+road with less money and less men than our Supervisor, Curtis, does, I'd
+lie down and roll over. But I ain't got time to be supervisor, even if
+anybody had time to elect me. There's a bunch of reformers down our way,
+but they don't seem to change Curtis much."
+
+"Reformers are no good unless the rank and file of the people come to
+think the way they do," said Bob. "That's why we've got to start by
+being good citizens ourselves, no matter what the next man would do."
+
+Samuels peered at him strangely, around the guttering candle. Bob
+allowed him no time to express his thought.
+
+"But to get back to your own case," said he. "What gets me is why you
+destroy your homestead right for a practical certainty."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why, I personally think it's a certainty that you will be dispossessed
+here. If you wait for the law to put you off, you'll have no right to
+take up another homestead--your right will be destroyed."
+
+"What good would a homestead right do me these days?" demanded Samuels.
+"There's nothing left."
+
+"New lands are thrown open constantly," said Bob, "and it's better,
+other things being equal, to have a right than to want it. On the other
+hand, if you voluntarily relinquish this claim, your right to take up
+another homestead is still good."
+
+At the mention of relinquishment the old mountaineer shied like a colt.
+With great patience Bob took up the other side of the question. The
+elements of the problem were now all laid down--patriotism, the
+certainty of ultimate loss, the advisability of striving to save rights,
+the desire to do one's part toward bringing the land grabbers in line.
+Remained only so to apply the pressure of all these cross-motives that
+they should finally bring the old man to the point of definite action.
+
+Bob wrestled with the demons of selfishness, doubt, suspicion, pride,
+stubbornness, anger, acquisitiveness that swarmed in the old man's
+spirit, as Christian with Apollyon. The labour was as great. At times,
+as he retraced once more and yet again ground already covered, his
+patience was overcome by a great weariness; almost the elemental
+obstinacy of the man wore him down. Then his very soul clamoured within
+him with the desire to cut all this short, to cry out impatiently
+against the slow stupidity or mulishness, or avariciousness, or whatever
+it was, that permitted the old man to agree to every one of the
+premises, but to balk finally at the conclusion. The night wore on. Bob
+realized that it was now or never; that he must take advantage of this
+receptive mood a combination of skill and luck had gained for him. The
+old man must be held to the point. The candle burned out. The room grew
+chill. Samuels threw an armful of pitch pine on the smouldering logs of
+the fireplace that balanced the massive cook stove. By its light the
+discussion went on. The red flames reflected strangely from unexpected
+places, showing the oddest inconsequences. Bob, at times, found himself
+drifting into noticing these things. He stared for a moment hypnotically
+on the incongruous juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then he
+roused himself with a start; for, although his tongue had continued
+saying what his brain had commanded it to say, the dynamics had gone
+from his utterance, and the old man was stirring restlessly as though
+about to bring the conference to a close. Warned by this incident, he
+forced his whole powers to the front. His head was getting tired, but he
+must continuously bring to bear against this dead opposition all the
+forces of his will.
+
+At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed. The other two men,
+rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their names as witnesses, and,
+shivering in the night chill, crawled back to rest, without any very
+clear idea of what they had been called on to do. Bob leaned back in his
+chair, the precious document clasped tight. The taut cords of his being
+had relaxed. For a moment he rested. To his consciousness dully
+penetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.
+
+"Don't see how you keep chickens," he found himself saying; "we can't.
+Coyotes and cats get 'em. I wish you'd tell me."
+
+Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motionless as a graven
+image. Between them the new candle, brought for the signing of the
+relinquishment, flared and sputtered.
+
+Bob stumbled to his feet.
+
+"Good night," said he.
+
+Samuels neither moved nor stirred. He might have been a figure such as
+used to be placed before the entrances of wax works exhibitions, so
+still he sat, so fixed were his eyes, so pallid the texture of his
+weather-tanned flesh after the vigil.
+
+Bob went out to the verandah. The chill air stirred his blood, set in
+motion the run-down machinery of his physical being. From the darkness a
+bird chirped loudly. Bob looked up. Over the still, pointed tops of the
+trees the sky had turned faintly gray. From the window streamed the
+candle light. It seemed unwontedly yellow in contrast to a daylight
+that, save by this contrast, was not yet visible. Bob stepped from the
+verandah. As he passed the window, he looked in. Samuels had risen to
+his feet, and stood rigid, his clenched fist on the table.
+
+At the stable Bob spoke quietly to his animals, saddled them, and led
+them out. For some instinctive reason which he could not have explained,
+he had decided to be immediately about his journey. The cold gray of
+dawn had come, and objects were visible dimly. Bob led his horses to the
+edge of the wood. There he mounted. When well within the trees he looked
+back. Samuels stood on the edge of the verandah, peering out into the
+uncertain light of the dawn. From the darkness of the trees Bob made out
+distinctly the white of his mane-like hair and the sweep of his
+patriarchal beard. Across the hollow of his left arm he carried his
+shotgun.
+
+Bob touched spur to his saddle horse and vanished in the depths of the
+forest.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Bob delivered his relinquishment at headquarters, and received the news.
+
+George Pollock had been arrested for the murder of Plant, and now lay in
+jail. Erbe, the White Oaks lawyer, had undertaken charge of his case.
+The evidence was as yet purely circumstantial. Erbe had naturally given
+out no intimation of what his defence would be.
+
+Then, within a week, events began to stir in Durham County. Samuels
+wrote a rather violent letter announcing his change of mind in regard to
+the relinquishment. To this a formal answer of regret was sent, together
+with an intimation that the matter was now irrevocable. Somebody sent a
+copy of the local paper containing a vituperative interview with the old
+mountaineer. This was followed by other copies in which other citizens
+contributed letters of expostulation and indignation. The matter was
+commented on ponderously in a typical country editorial containing such
+phrases as "clothed in a little brief authority," "arrogant minions of
+the law," and so forth. Tom Carroll, riding through Durham on business,
+was treated to ugly looks and uglier words. Ross Fletcher, visiting the
+county seat, escaped a physical encounter with belligerent members of an
+inflamed populace only by the exercise of the utmost coolness and good
+nature. Samuels moved further by petitioning to the proper authorities
+for the setting aside of the relinquishment and the reopening of the
+whole case, on the ground that his signature had been obtained by
+"coercion and undue influence." On the heels of this a mass meeting in
+Durham was called and largely attended, at which a number of speakers
+uttered very inflammatory doctrines. It culminated in resolutions of
+protest against Thorne personally, against his rangers, and his policy,
+alleging that one and all acted "arbitrarily, arrogantly, unjustly and
+oppressively in the abuse of their rights and duties." Finally, as a
+crowning absurdity, the grand jury, at its annual session, overstepping
+in its zeal the limits of its powers, returned findings against "one
+Ashley Thorne and Robert Orde, in the pay of the United States
+Government, for arbitrary exceeding of their rights and authorities; for
+illegal interference with the rights of citizens; for oppression," and
+so on through a round dozen vague counts.
+
+All this tumult astonished Thorne.
+
+"I had no idea this Samuels case interested them quite so much up there;
+nor did I imagine it possible they would raise such a row over that old
+long-horn. I haven't been up in that country as much as I should have
+liked, but I did not suspect they were so hostile to the Service."
+
+"They always have been," commented California John.
+
+"All this loud mouthing doesn't mean much," said Thorne, "though of
+course we'll have to undergo an investigation. Their charges don't mean
+anything. Old Samuels must be a good deal of a demagogue."
+
+"He's got a good lawyer," stated California John briefly.
+
+"Lawyer? Who?"
+
+"Erbe of White Oaks."
+
+Thorne stared at him puzzled.
+
+"Erbe? Are you sure of that? Why, the man is a big man; he's generally a
+cut or so above cases of this sort--with as little foundation for them.
+He's more in the line of fat fees. Here's two mountain cases he's
+undertaken."
+
+"I never knew Johnny Erbe to refuse any sort of case he'd get paid for,"
+observed California John.
+
+"Well, he's certainly raising a dust up north," said Thorne. "Every
+paper all at once is full of the most incendiary stuff. I hate to send a
+ranger up there these days."
+
+"I reckon the boys can take care of themselves!" put in Ross Fletcher.
+
+California John turned to look at him.
+
+"Sure thing, Ross," he drawled, "and a first-class row between a brutal
+ranger--who could take care of himself--and an inoffensive citizen would
+read fine in print."
+
+"That's the idea," approved Thorne. "We can't afford a row right now. It
+would bring matters to a head."
+
+"There's the Harris case, and the others," suggested Amy; "what are you
+going to do about them, now?"
+
+"Carry them through according to my instructions, unless I get orders to
+the contrary," said Thorne. "It is the policy of the Service throughout
+to clear up and settle these doubtful land cases. We must get such
+things decided. We can't stop because of a little localized popular
+clamour."
+
+"Are there many such cases up in the Durham country?" asked Bob.
+
+"Probably a dozen or so."
+
+"Isn't it likely that those men have got behind Samuels in order to
+discourage action on their own cases?"
+
+"I think there's no doubt of it," answered Thorne, "but the point is,
+they've been fighting tooth and nail from the start. We had felt out
+their strength from the first, and it developed nothing like this."
+
+"That's where Erbe comes in," suggested Bob.
+
+"Probably."
+
+"It don't amount to nothin'," said California John. "In the first place,
+it's only the 'nesters,' [A] the saloon crowd, who are after you for
+Austin's case; and the usual muck of old-timers and loafers who either
+think they own the country and ought to have a free hand in everything
+just as they're used to, or who are agin the Government on general
+principles. I don't believe the people at Durham are behind this. I bet
+a vote would give us a majority right now."
+
+"Well, the majority stays in the house, then," observed Ross Fletcher
+drily. "I didn't observe none of them when I walked down the street."
+
+"I believe with John," said Thorne. "This crowd makes an awful noise,
+but it doesn't mean much. The Office cannot fail to uphold us. There's
+nobody of any influence or importance behind all this."
+
+Nevertheless, so skilfully was the campaign conducted, pressure soon
+made itself felt from above. The usual memorials and largely-signed
+protests were drawn up and presented to the senators from California,
+and the representatives of that and neighbouring districts. Men in the
+employ of the saloon element rode actively in all directions obtaining
+signatures. A signature to anything that does not carry financial
+obligation is the easiest thing in the world to get. Hundreds who had no
+grievance, and who listened with the facile indignation of the ignorant
+to the representations of these emissaries, subscribed their names as
+voters and constituents to a cause whose merits or demerits were quite
+uncomprehended by them. The members of Congress receiving these
+memorials immediately set themselves in motion. As Thorne could not
+officially reply to what had not as yet been officially urged, his hands
+were tied. A clamour that had at first been merely noisy and
+meaningless, began now to gain an effect.
+
+Thorne confessed himself puzzled.
+
+"If it isn't a case of a snowball growing bigger the farther it rolls, I
+can't account for it," said he. "This thing ought to have died down long
+ago. It's been fomented very skilfully. Such a campaign as this one
+against us takes both ability and money--more of either than I thought
+Samuels could possibly possess."
+
+In the meantime, Erbe managed rapidly to tie up the legal aspects of the
+situation. The case, as it developed, proved to be open-and-shut against
+his client, but apparently unaffected by the certainty of this, he
+persisted in the interposition of all sorts of delays. Samuels continued
+to live undisturbed on his claim, which, as Thorne pointed out, had a
+bad moral effect on the community.
+
+The issue soon took on a national aspect. It began to be commented on by
+outside newspapers. Publications close to the administration and
+thoroughly in sympathy with its forest policies, began gravely to doubt
+the advisability of pushing these debatable claims at present.
+
+"They are of small value," said one, "in comparison with the large
+public domain of which they are part. At a time when the Forest Service
+is new in the saddle and as yet subjected to the most violent attacks by
+the special interests on the floors of Congress, it seems unwise to do
+anything that might tend to arouse public opinion against it."
+
+As though to give point to this, there now commenced in Congress that
+virulent assault led by some of the Western senators, aimed at the very
+life of the Service itself. Allegations of dishonesty, incompetence,
+despotism; of depriving the public of its heritage; of the curtailments
+of rights and liberties; of folly; of fraud were freely brought forward
+and urged with impassioned eloquence. Arguments special to cattlemen, to
+sheepmen, to lumbermen, to cordwood men, to pulp men, to power men were
+emphasized by all sorts of misstatements, twisted statements, or special
+appeals to greed, personal interest and individual policy. To support
+their eloquence, senators supposedly respectable did not hesitate boldly
+to utter sweeping falsehoods of fact. The Service was fighting for its
+very life.
+
+Nevertheless, persistently, the officials proceeded with their
+investigations. Bob had conducted his campaign so skilfully against
+Samuels that Thorne used him further in similar matters. Little by
+little, indeed, the young man was withdrawn from other work. He now
+spent many hours with Amy in the little office going over maps and
+files, over copies of documents and old records. When he had thoroughly
+mastered the ins and outs of a case, he departed with his pack animal
+and saddle horse to look the ground over in person.
+
+Since the _éclat_ of the Samuels case, he had little hope of obtaining
+relinquishments, nor did he greatly care to do so. A relinquishment
+saved trouble in the courts, but as far as avoiding adverse public
+notice went, the Samuels affair showed the absolute ineffectiveness of
+that method. But by going on the ground he was enabled to see, with his
+own eyes, just what sort of a claim was in question, the improvements
+that had been made on it, the value both to the claimant and the
+Government. Through an interview he was able to gauge the claimant, to
+weigh his probable motives and the purity of both his original and
+present intentions. A number of cases thus he dropped, and that on no
+other than his own responsibility. They were invariably those whose
+issue in the courts might very well be in doubt, so that it was
+impossible to tell, without trying them, how the decision would jump.
+Furthermore, and principally, he was always satisfied that the claimant
+had meant well and honestly throughout, and had lapsed through
+ignorance, bad advice, or merely that carelessness of the letter of the
+legal form so common among mountaineers. Such cases were far more
+numerous than he had supposed. The men had, in many instances, come into
+the country early in its development. They had built their cabins by the
+nearest meadow that appealed to them; for, to all intents and purposes,
+the country was a virgin wilderness whose camping sites were many and
+open to the first comer. Only after their households had been long
+established as squatters did these pioneers awake to an imperfect
+understanding that further formality was required before these, their
+homes, could be legally their own. Living isolated these men, even then,
+blundered in their applications or in the proving up of their claims.
+Such might be legally subject to eviction, but Bob in his
+recommendations gave them the benefit of the doubt and advised that full
+papers be issued. In the hurried days of the Service such
+recommendations of field inspectors were often considered as final.
+
+There were other cases, however, for which Bob's sympathies were
+strongly enlisted, but which presented such flagrant irregularities of
+procedure that he could not consistently recommend anything but a court
+test of the rights involved. To this he added a personal note, going
+completely into details, and suggesting a way out.
+
+And finally, as a third class, he was able, as in Samuels's case, to
+declare war on behalf of the Government. Men who had already taken up
+all the timber claims to which they or their families were legally
+entitled, nevertheless added an alleged homestead to the lot. Other men
+were taking advantage of twists and interpretations of the law to gain
+possession of desirable tracts of land still included in the National
+Forests. These men knew the letter of the law well enough, and took
+pains to conform accurately to it. Their lapses were of intention. The
+excuses were many--so-called mineral claims, alleged agricultural land,
+all the exceptions to reservation mentioned in the law; the actual ends
+aimed at were two--water rights or timber. In these cases Bob reported
+uncompromisingly against the granting of the final papers. Thousands of
+acres, however, had been already conveyed. Over these, naturally, he had
+no jurisdiction, but he kept his eyes open, and accumulated evidence
+which might some day prove useful in event of a serious effort to regain
+those lands that had been acquired by provable fraud.
+
+But on the borderland between these sharply defined classes lay many in
+the twilight zone. Bob, without knowing it, was to a certain extent
+exercising a despotic power. He possessed a latitude of choice as to
+which of these involved land cases should be pushed to a court decision.
+If the law were to be strictly and literally interpreted, there could be
+no doubt but that each and every one of these numerous claimants could
+be haled to court to answer for his short-comings. But that, in many
+instances, could not but work an unwarranted hardship. The expenses
+alone, of a journey to the state capital, would strain to the breaking
+point the means of some of the more impecunious. Insisting on the
+minutest technicalities would indubitably deprive many an honest,
+well-meaning homesteader of his entire worldly property. It was all very
+well to argue that ignorance of the law was no excuse; that it is a
+man's own fault if he does not fulfill the simple requirements of taking
+up public land. As a matter of cold fact, in such a situation as this,
+ignorance is an excuse. Legalizing apart, the rigid and invariable
+enforcement of the law can be tyrannical. Of course, this can never be
+officially recognized; that would shake the foundations. But it is not
+to be denied that the literal and universal and _invariable_ enforcement
+of the minute letter of any law, no matter how trivial, for the space of
+three months would bring about a mild revolution. As witness the
+sweeping and startling effects always consequent on an order from
+headquarters to its police to "enforce rigidly"--for a time--some
+particular city ordinance. Whether this is a fault of our system of law,
+or a defect inherent in the absolute logic of human affairs, is a matter
+for philosophy to determine. Be that as it may, the powers that enforce
+law often find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. They must take
+their choice between tyranny and despotism.
+
+So, in a mild way, Bob had become a despot. That is to say, he had to
+decide to whom a broken law was to apply, and to whom not, and this
+without being given any touchstone of choice. The matter rested with his
+own experience, knowledge and personal judgment. Fortunately he was a
+beneficent despot. A man evilly disposed, like Plant, could have worked
+incalculable harm for others and great financial benefit to himself.
+That this is not only possible but inevitable is another defect of law
+or system. No sane man for one single instant believes that literal
+enforcement of every law at all times is either possible or desirable.
+No sane man for one single instant believes that the law can be excepted
+to or annulled for especial occasions without undermining the public
+confidence and public morals. Yet where is the middle ground?
+
+In Bob's capacity as beneficent despot, he ran against many problems
+that taxed his powers. It was easy to say that Samuels, having full
+intention to get what he very well knew he had no right to have, and for
+acquiring which he had no excuse save that others were allowed to do
+likewise, should be proceeded against vigorously. It was likewise easy
+to determine that Ward, who had lived on his mountain farm, and
+cultivated what he could, and had himself made shakes of his timber, but
+who had blundered his formal processes, should be given a chance to make
+good. But what of the doubtful cases? What of the cases wherein
+apparently legality and equity took opposite sides?
+
+Bob had adventures in plenty. For lack of a better system, he started at
+the north end and worked steadily south, examining with patience the
+pedigree of each and every private holding within the confines of the
+National Forests. These were at first small and isolated. Only one large
+tract drew his attention, that belonging to old Simeon Wright in the big
+meadows under Black Peaks. These meadows, occupying a wide plateau grown
+sparsely with lodgepole pine, covered perhaps a thousand acres of good
+grazing, and were held legally, but without the shadow of equity, by the
+old land pirate who owned so much of California. In going over both the
+original records, the newer geological survey maps, and the country
+itself, Bob came upon a discrepancy. He asked and obtained leave for a
+resurvey. This determined that Wright's early-day surveyor had made a
+mistake--no extraordinary matter in a wild country so remote from base
+lines. Simeon's holdings were actually just one mile farther north,
+which brought them to the top of a bald granite ridge. His title to this
+was indubitable; but the broad and valuable meadows belonged still to
+the Government. As the case was one of fact merely, Wright had no
+opportunity to contest, or to exercise his undoubtedly powerful
+influence. The affair served, however, to draw Bob's name and activities
+into the sphere of his notice.
+
+Among the mountain people Bob was at first held in a distrust that
+sometimes became open hostility. He received threats and warnings
+innumerable. The Childs boys sent word to him, and spread that word
+abroad, that if this government inspector valued his life he would do
+well to keep off Iron Mountain. Bob promptly saddled his horse, rode
+boldly to the Childs' shake camp, took lunch with them, and rode back,
+speaking no word either of business or of threats. Having occasion to
+take a meal with some poor, squalid descendants of hog-raising Pike
+County Missourians, he detected a queer bitterness to his coffee,
+managed unseen to empty the cup into his canteen, and later found, as he
+had suspected, that an attempt had been made to poison him. He rode back
+at once to the cabin. Instead of taxing the woman with the deed--for he
+shrewdly suspected the man knew nothing of it--he reproached her with
+condemning him unheard.
+
+"I'm the best friend you people have," said he. "It isn't my fault that
+you are in trouble with the regulations. The Government must straighten
+these matters out. Don't think for a minute that the work will stop just
+because somebody gets away with me. They'll send somebody else. And the
+chances are, in that case, they'll send somebody who is instructed to
+stick close to the letter of the law: and who will turn you out mighty
+sudden. I'm trying to do the best I can for you people."
+
+This family ended by giving him its full confidence in the matter. Bob
+was able to save the place for them.
+
+Gradually his refusal to take offence, his refusal to debate any matter
+save on the impersonal grounds of the Government servant acting solely
+for his masters, coupled with his willingness to take things into
+consideration, and his desire to be absolutely fair, won for Bob a
+reluctant confidence. At the north end men's minds were as yet too
+inflamed. It is a curious matter of flock psychology that if the public
+mind ever occupies itself fully with an idea, it thereby becomes for the
+time being blind, impervious, to all others. But in other parts of the
+mountains Bob was not wholly unwelcome; and in one or two cases--which
+pleased him mightily--men came in to him voluntarily for the purpose of
+asking his advice.
+
+In the meantime the Samuels case had come rapidly to a crisis. The
+resounding agitation had resulted in the sending of inspectors to
+investigate the charges against the local officials. The first of these
+inspectors, a rather precise and formal youth fresh from Eastern
+training, was easily handled by the versatile Erbe. His report,
+voluminous as a tariff speech, and couched in very official language,
+exonerated Thorne and Orde of dishonesty, of course, but it emphasized
+their "lack of tact and business ability," and condemned strongly their
+attitude in the Durham matter. This report would ordinarily have gone no
+farther than the district office, where it might have been acted on by
+the officers in charge to the great detriment of the Service. At that
+time the evil of sending out as inspectors men admirably trained in
+theory but woefully lacking in practice and the knowledge of Western
+humankind was one of the great menaces to effective personnel.
+Fortunately this particular report came into the hands of the Chief, who
+happened to be touring in the West. A fuller investigation exposed to
+the sapient experience of that able man the gullibility of the
+inspector. From the district a brief statement was issued upholding the
+local administration.
+
+The agitation, thus deprived of its chief hope, might very well have
+been expected to simmer down, to die away slowly. As a matter of fact,
+it collapsed. The newspaper attacks ceased; the public meetings were
+discontinued; the saloons and other storm centres applied their powers
+to a discussion of the Gans-Nelson fight. Samuels was very briefly
+declared a trespasser by the courts. Erbe disappeared from the case.
+The United States Marshal, riding up with a posse into a supposedly
+hostile country, found no opposition to his enforcement of the court's
+decree. Only old Samuels himself offered an undaunted defence, but was
+soon dislodged and led away by men who half-pitied, half-ridiculed his
+violence. The sign "Property of the U.S." resumed its place. Thorne made
+of the ancient homestead a ranger's post.
+
+"It's incomprehensible as a genuine popular movement," said he on one of
+Bob's periodical returns to headquarters. The young man now held a
+commission, and lived with the Thornes when at home. "The opposition up
+there was so rabid and it wilted too suddenly."
+
+"'The mutable many,'" quoted Amy.
+
+But Thorne shook his head.
+
+"It's as though they'd pricked a balloon," said he. "They don't love us
+up there, yet; but it's no worse now than it used to be here. Last week
+it was actually unsafe on the streets. If they were so strong for
+Samuels then, why not now? A mere court decision could not change their
+minds so quickly. I should have expected the real bitterness and the
+real resistence when the Marshal went up to put the old man off."
+
+"That's the way I sized it up," admitted Bob.
+
+"It's as if somebody had turned off the steam and the engine quit
+running," said Thorne, "and for that reason I'm more than ever convinced
+that it was a made agitation. Samuels was only an excuse."
+
+"What for?" asked Bob.
+
+"Struck me the same way," put in California John. "Reminded me of the
+war. Looked like they held onto this as a sort of first defence as long
+as they could, and then just abandoned it and dropped back."
+
+"That's it," nodded Thorne. "That's my conclusion. Somebody bigger than
+Samuels fears investigation; and they hoped to stop our sort of
+investigation short at Samuels. Well, they haven't succeeded."
+
+Amy arose abruptly and ran to her filing cases.
+
+"That ought to be easily determined," she cried, looking over her
+shoulder with shining eyes. "I have the papers about all ready for the
+whole of our Forest. Here's a list of the private holdings, by whom
+held, how acquired and when." She spread the papers out on the table.
+"Now let's see who owns lots of land, and who is powerful enough to
+enlist senators, and who would fear investigation."
+
+All four bent over the list for a few moments. Then Thorne made five
+dots with his pencil opposite as many names.
+
+"All the rest are little homesteaders," said he. "One of these must be
+our villain."
+
+"Or all of them," amended California John drily.
+
+
+[Footnote A: "Nester"--Western term meaning squatters, small
+settlers--generally illegally such.]
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The little council of war at once commenced an eager discussion of the
+names thus indicated.
+
+"There's your own concern, the Wolverine Company," suggested Thorne.
+"What do you know about the way it acquired its timber?"
+
+"Acquired in 1879," replied Amy, consulting her notes. "Partly from the
+Bank, that held it on mortgage, and partly from individual owners."
+
+"Welton is no crook," struck in Bob. "Even if he'd strained the law,
+which I doubt; he wouldn't defend himself at this late date with any
+method as indirect as this."
+
+"I think you're right on the last point," agreed Thorne. "Proceed."
+
+"Next is the Marston N. Leavitt firm."
+
+"They bought their timber in a lump from a broker by the name of
+Robinson; and Robinson got it of the old Joncal [A] Mill outfit; and
+heaven knows where they got it," put in California John.
+
+"How long ago?"
+
+"'84--the last transfer," said Amy.
+
+"Doesn't look as though the situation ought to alarm them to immediate
+and violent action," observed Thorne. "Aren't there any more recent
+claims?" he asked Amy.
+
+"Here's one; the Modoc Mining Company, about one thousand mineral
+claims, amounting to approximately 28,000 acres, filed 1903."
+
+"That looks more promising. Patents issued in the reign of our esteemed
+predecessor, Plant."
+
+"Where are most of the claims?" asked California John.
+
+"_All_ the claims are in the same place," replied Amy.
+
+"The Basin!" said Bob.
+
+Amy recited the "descriptions" within whose boundaries lay the bulk of
+the claims.
+
+"That's it," said Bob.
+
+"Is there any real mineral there?" inquired Thorne.
+
+"Not that anybody ever heard of," said California John, who was himself
+an old miner; "but gold is where you find it," he added cautiously.
+
+"How's the timber?"
+
+"It's the best stand I've seen in the mountains," said Bob.
+
+"Well," observed Thorne, "of course it wouldn't do to say so, but I
+think we've run against the source of our opposition in the Samuels
+case."
+
+"That explains Erbe's taking the case," put in Bob; "he's counsel for
+most of these corporations."
+
+"The fact that this is not a mineral country," continued Thorne,
+"together with the additional considerations of a thousand claims in so
+limited an area, and the recent date, makes it look suspicious. I
+imagine the Modoc Mining Company intends to use a sawmill, rather more
+than a stamp mill."
+
+"Who are they?" asked California John.
+
+"We must find that out. Also we must ourselves ascertain just what
+colour of mineral there is over there."
+
+"That ought to be on the records somewhere already," Amy pointed out.
+
+"Plant's records," said Thorne drily.
+
+"I'm ashamed to say I haven't looked up the mineral lands act,"
+confessed Bob. "How did they do it?"
+
+"Well, it's simple enough. The company made application under the law
+that allows mineral land in National Forests to be 'freely prospected,
+located, developed and patented.' It is necessary to show evidence of
+'valuable deposits.'"
+
+"Gold and silver?"
+
+"Not necessarily. It may be even building stone, or fine clay, limestone
+or slate. Then it's up to the Forest Officer to determine whether the
+deposits are actually 'valuable' or not. You can drive a horse and cart
+through the law; and it's strictly up to the Forest Officer--or has been
+in the past. If he reports the deposits valuable, and on that report a
+patent is issued, why that settles it."
+
+"Even if the mineral is a fake?"
+
+"A patent is a patent. The time to head off the fraud is when the
+application is made."
+
+"Cannot the title be upset if fraud is clearly proved?"
+
+"I do not see how," replied Thorne. "Plant is dead. The law is very
+liberal. Predetermining the value of mineral deposits is largely a
+matter of personal judgment. The company could, as we have seen, bring
+an enormous influence to bear."
+
+"Well," said Bob, "that land will average sixty thousand feet to the
+acre. That's about a billion and a half feet. It's a big stake."
+
+"If the company wasn't scared, why did they try so hard to head us off?"
+observed California John shrewdly.
+
+"It will do us no harm to investigate," put in Bob, his eye kindling
+with eagerness. "It won't take long to examine the indications those
+claims are based on."
+
+"It's a ticklish period," objected Thorne. "I hate to embarrass the
+Administration with anything ill-timed. We have much to do straightening
+out what we now have on hand. You must remember we are short of men; we
+can't spare many now."
+
+"I'll tell you," suggested Amy. "Put it up to the Chief. Tell him just
+how the matter stands. Let him decide."
+
+"All right; I'll do that," agreed Thorne.
+
+In due time the reply came. It advised circumspection in the matter; but
+commanded a full report on the facts. Time enough, the Chief wrote, to
+decide on the course to be pursued when the case should be established
+in their own minds.
+
+Accordingly Thorne detached Bob and Ware to investigate the mineral
+status of the Basin. The latter's long experience in prospecting now
+promised to stand the Service in good stead.
+
+The two men camped in the Basin for three weeks, until the close of
+which time they saw no human being. During this period they examined
+carefully the various ledges on which the mineral claims had been based.
+Ware pronounced them valueless, as far as he could judge.
+
+"Some of them are just ordinary quartz dikes," said he. "I suppose they
+claim gold for them. There's nothing in it; or if this does warrant a
+man developing, then every citizen who lives near rock has a mine in his
+back yard."
+
+Nevertheless he made his reports as detailed as possible. In the
+meantime Bob accomplished a rough, or "cruiser's" estimate of the
+timber.
+
+As has been said, they found the Basin now quite deserted. The trail to
+Sycamore Flats had apparently not been travelled since George Pollock
+had ridden down it to give himself up to authority. Their preliminary
+labours finished, the two Forest officers packed, and were on the very
+point of turning up the steep mountain side toward the lookout, when two
+horsemen rode over the flat rock.
+
+Naturally Bob and Ware drew up, after the mountain custom, to exchange
+greetings. As the others drew nearer, Bob recognized in one the slanting
+eyeglasses, the close-lipped, gray moustache and the keen, cold features
+of Oldham. Ware nodded at the other man, who returned his salutation as
+curtly.
+
+"You're off your beat, Mr. Oldham," observed Bob.
+
+"I'm after a deer," replied Oldham. "You are a little off your own beat,
+aren't you?"
+
+"My beat is everywhere," replied Bob carelessly.
+
+"What devilment you up to now, Sal?" Ware was asking of the other man,
+a tall, loose-jointed, freckle-faced and red-haired individual with an
+evil red eye.
+
+"I'm earnin' my salary; and I misdoubt you ain't," sneered the
+individual thus addressed.
+
+"As what; gun man?" demanded Ware calmly.
+
+"You may find that out sometime."
+
+"I'm not as easy as young Franklin was," said Ware, dropping his hand
+carelessly to his side. "Don't make any mistakes when you get around to
+your demonstration."
+
+The man said nothing, but grinned, showing tobacco-stained, irregular
+teeth beneath his straggling, red moustache.
+
+After a moment's further conversation the little groups separated. Bob
+rode on up the trail. Ware followed for perhaps ten feet, or until out
+of sight behind the screen of willows that bordered the stream. Then,
+without drawing rein, he dropped from his saddle. The horse, urged by a
+gentle slap on the rump, followed in the narrow trail after Bob and the
+pack animal. Ware slipped quietly through the willows until he had
+gained a point commanding the other trail. Oldham and his companion were
+riding peacefully. Satisfied, Ware returned, climbed rapidly until he
+had caught up with his horse, and resumed his saddle. Bob had only that
+moment noticed his absence.
+
+"Look here, Bob," said Ware, "that fellow with Mr. Oldham is a man
+called Saleratus Bill. He's a hard citizen, a gun man, and brags of
+eleven killin's in his time. Mr. Oldham or no one else couldn't pick up
+a worse citizen to go deer hunting with. When you track up with him
+next, be sure that he starts and keeps going before you stir out of your
+tracks."
+
+"You don't believe that deer hunting lie, do you?" asked Bob.
+
+Ware chuckled.
+
+"I was wondering if _you_ did," said he.
+
+"I guess there's no doubt as to who the Modoc Mining Company is."
+
+"Oldham?"
+
+"No," said Bob; "Baker and the Power Company. Oldham is Baker's man."
+
+Ware whistled.
+
+"Well, I suppose you know what you're talking about," said he, "but it's
+pretty generally understood that Oldham is on the other side of the
+fence. He's been bucking Baker in White Oaks on some franchise business.
+Everybody knows that."
+
+Bob opened his eyes. Casting his mind back over the sources of his
+information, he then remembered that intimation of the connection
+between the two men had come to him when he had been looked on as a
+member of the inner circle, so that all things were talked of openly
+before him; that since Plant's day Oldham had in fact never appeared in
+Baker's interests.
+
+"He's up in this country a good deal," Bob observed finally. "What's he
+say is his business?"
+
+"Why, he's in a little timber business, as I understand it; and he buys
+a few cattle--sort of general brokerage."
+
+"I see," mused Bob.
+
+He rode in silence for some time, breathing his horse mechanically every
+fifty feet or so of the steep trail. He was busily recalling and piecing
+together the fragments of what he had at the time considered an
+unimportant discussion, and which he had in part forgotten.
+
+"It's a blind," he said at last; "Oldham is working for Baker."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"Something I heard once."
+
+He rode on. The Basin was dropping away beneath them; the prospect to
+the north was broadening as peak after peak raised itself into the line
+of ascending vision. The pines, clinging to the steep, cast bars of
+shadow across the trail, which zigzagged and dodged, taking advantage of
+every ledge and each strip of firm earth. Occasionally they crossed a
+singing brook, shaded with willows and cottonwoods, with fragrant bay
+and alders, only to clamber out again to the sunny steeps.
+
+Now Bob remembered and pieced together the whole. Baker had been
+bragging that he intended to pay nothing to the Government for his water
+power. Bob could almost remember the very words. "'They've swiped about
+everything in sight for these pestiferous reserves,'" he murmured to
+himself, "'but they encourage the honest prospector.... Oldham's got the
+whole matter ... '" and so on, in the unfolding of the very scheme by
+which these acres had been acquired. "Near headwaters," he had said; and
+that statement, combined with the fact that nothing had occurred to stir
+indistinct memories, had kept Bob in the dark. At the time "near
+headwaters" had meant to him the tract of yellow pine near the head of
+Sycamore Creek. So he had dismissed the matter. Now he saw clearly that
+a liberal construction could very well name the Basin as the headwaters
+of the drainage system from which Sycamore Creek drew, if not its
+source, at least its main volume of water. He exclaimed aloud in disgust
+at his stupidity; which, nevertheless, as all students of psychology
+know, typified a very common though curious phenomenon in the mental
+world. Suddenly he sat up straight in his saddle. Here, should Baker and
+the Modoc Mining Company prove to be one and the same, was the evidence
+of fraudulent intent! Would his word suffice? Painfully reconstructing
+the half-forgotten picture, he finally placed the burly figure of
+Welton. Welton was there too. His corroboration would make the testimony
+irrefutable.
+
+Certainties now rushed to Bob's mind in flocks. If he had been stupid in
+the matter, it was evident that Baker and Oldham had not. The fight in
+Durham was now explained. All the demagogic arousing of the populace,
+the heavy guns brought to bear in the newspaper world, the pressure
+exerted through political levers, even the concerted attacks on the
+Service from the floors of Congress traced, by no great stretch of
+probabilities, to the efforts of the Power Company to stop investigation
+before it should reach their stealings. That, as California John had
+said, was the first defence. If all investigation could be called off,
+naturally Baker was safe. Now that he realized the investigation must,
+in the natural course of events, come to his holdings, what would be his
+second line?
+
+Of course, he knew that Bob possessed the only testimony that could
+seriously damage him. Even Thorne's optimism had realized the
+difficulties of pressing to a conviction against such powerful interests
+without some evidence of a fraudulent intent. Could it be that the
+presence of this Saleratus Bill in company with Oldham meant that Baker
+was contemplating so sinister a removal of damaging testimony?
+
+A moment's thought disabused him of this notion, however. Baker was not
+the man to resort to violence of this sort; or at least he would not do
+so before exhausting all other means. Bob had been, in a way, the
+capitalist's friend. Surely, before turning a gun man loose, Baker would
+have found out definitely whether, in the first place, Bob was inclined
+to push the case; and secondly, whether he could not be persuaded to
+refrain from introducing his personal testimony. The longer Bob looked
+at the state of affairs, the more fantastic seemed the hypothesis that
+the gun man had been brought into the country for such a purpose.
+
+"Why do you suppose Oldham is up there with this Saleratus Bill?" he
+asked Ware at length.
+
+"Search me!"
+
+"Is Bill good for anything beside gun work?"
+
+"Well," said Ware, judicially, "he sure drinks without an effort."
+
+"I don't believe Oldham is interested in the liquor famine," laughed
+Bob. "Anything else?"
+
+"They _may_ be after deer," acknowledged Ware, reluctantly, "though I
+hate to think that rattlesnake is out for anything legitimate. I will
+say he's a good hunter; and an A1 trailer."
+
+"Oh, he's a good trailer, is he?" said Bob. "Well, I rather suspected
+you'd say that. Now I know why they're up there; they want to figure out
+from the signs we've left just what we've been up to."
+
+"That's easy done," remarked Ware.
+
+This explanation fitted. Bob had been in the Basin before, but on the
+business of estimating government timber. Baker knew this. Now that the
+Forest officer had gone in for a second time, it might be possible that
+he was doing the same thing; or it might be equally possible that he was
+engaged in an investigation of Baker's own property. This the power man
+had decided to find out. Therefore he had sent in, with his land man, an
+individual expert at deducing from the half-obliterated marks of human
+occupation the activities that had left them. That Oldham and his
+sinister companion had encountered the Forest men was a sheer accident
+due to miscalculation.
+
+Having worked this out to his own satisfaction, Bob knew what next to
+expect. Baker must interview him. Bob was sure the young man would take
+his own time to the matter, for naturally it would not do to make the
+fact of such a meeting too public. Accordingly he submitted his report
+to Thorne, and went on about his further investigations, certain that
+sooner or later he would again see the prime mover of all these dubious
+activities.
+
+He was not in the least surprised, therefore, to look up when riding one
+day along the lonely and rugged trail that cuts across the lower cañon
+of the River, to see Baker seated on the top of a round boulder. The
+incongruity, however, brought a smile to his lips. The sight of the
+round, smooth face, the humorous eyes, and the stout, city-fed figure of
+this very urban individual on a rock in a howling figure of this very
+urban individual on a rock in a howling wilderness, with the eternal
+mountains for a background, was inexpressibly comical.
+
+"Hullo, merry sunshine!" called Baker, waving his hand as soon as he was
+certain Bob had seen him. "Welcome to our thriving little hamlet."
+
+"Hullo, Baker," said Bob; "what are you doing 'way off here?"
+
+"Just drifting down the Grand Canal and listening to the gondoliers; and
+incidentally, waiting for you. Climb off your horse and come up here and
+get a tailor-made cigarette."
+
+"I'm on my way over to Spruce Top," said Bob, "and I've got to keep
+moving."
+
+"Haste not, hump not, hustle not," said Baker, with the air of one
+quoting a hand-illuminated motto. "It will only get you somewhere. Come,
+gentle stranger, I would converse with thee; and I've come a long way to
+do it."
+
+"I live nearer home than this," grinned Bob.
+
+"I wanted to see you in your office," grinned back Baker appreciatively,
+"and this is strictly business."
+
+Bob dismounted, threw the reins over his horse's head, and ascended to
+the top of the boulder.
+
+"Fire ahead," said he; "I keep union hours."
+
+
+[Footnote A: Pronounced Hone-kal.]
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+"Union hours suit me," said Baker. "Why work while papa has his health?
+What I want to know is, how high is the limit on this game anyway?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"This confounded so-called 'investigation' of yours? In other words, do
+you intend to get after me?"
+
+"As how?"
+
+Baker's shrewd eyes looked at him gravely from out his smiling fat face.
+
+"Modoc Mining Company's lands."
+
+"Then you are the Modoc Mining Company?" asked Bob.
+
+Baker eyed him again.
+
+"Look here, my angel child," said he in a tone of good-humoured pity, "I
+can make all that kind of talk in a witness box--if necessary. In any
+case, I didn't come 'way out here to exchange that sort with you. You
+know perfectly well I'm the Modoc Mining Company, and that I've got a
+fine body of timber under the mineral act, and all the rest of it. You
+know all this not only because you've got some sense, but because I told
+you so before a competent witness. It stands to reason that I don't mind
+telling you again where there are no witnesses. Now smoke up and join
+the King's Daughters--let's have a heart-to-heart and find out how we
+stand."
+
+Bob laughed, and Baker, with entirely whole-hearted enjoyment, laughed
+too.
+
+"You're next on the list," said Bob, "and, personally, I think----"
+
+Baker held up his hand.
+
+"Let's not exchange thinks," said he. "I've got a few thinks coming
+myself, you know. Let's stick to facts. Then the Government is going to
+open up on us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On the grounds of fraudulent entry, I suppose."
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Well, they'll never win----"
+
+"Let's not exchange thinks," Bob reminded him.
+
+"Right! I can see that you're acting under orders, and the suit must be
+brought. Now I tell you frankly, as one Modern Woods-pussy of the World
+to another, that you're the only fellow that has any real testimony.
+What I want to know is, are you going to use it?"
+
+Bob looked at his companion steadily.
+
+"I don't see why, even without witnesses, I should give away government
+plans to you, Baker."
+
+Baker sighed, and slid from the boulder.
+
+"I'm practically certain how the cat jumps, and I've long since made my
+plans accordingly. Whatever you say does not alter my course of action.
+Only I hate to do a man an injustice without being sure. You needn't
+answer. Your last remark means that you are. I have too much sense to do
+the little Eva to you, Orde. You've got the gray stuff in your head,
+even if it is a trifle wormy. Of course, it's no good telling you that
+you're going back on a friend, that you'll be dragging Welton into the
+game when he hasn't got a chip to enter with, that you're betraying
+private confidence--well, I guess the rest is all 'thinks.'"
+
+"I'm sorry, Baker," said Bob, "and I suppose I must appear to be a spy
+in the matter. But it can't be helped."
+
+Baker's good-humoured, fat face had fallen into grave lines. He studied
+a distant spruce tree for a moment.
+
+"Well," he roused himself at last, "I wish this particular attack of
+measles had passed off before you bucked up against us. Because, you
+know, that land's ours, and we don't expect to give it up on account of
+this sort of fool agitation. We'll win this case. I'm sorry you're mixed
+up in it."
+
+"Saleratus Bill?" hinted Bob.
+
+Baker's humorous expression returned.
+
+"What do you take me for?" he grinned. "No, that's Oldham's bodyguard.
+Thinks he needs a bodyguard these days. That's what comes from having a
+bad conscience, I tell him. Some of those dagoes he's sold bum farms to
+are more likely to show up with a desire to abate him, than that
+anything would happen to him in these hills. Now let's get this
+straight; the cases go on?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you testify?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And call Welton in for corroboration?"
+
+"I hardly think that's necessary."
+
+"It will be, as you very well know. I just wanted to be sure how we
+stood toward each other. So long."
+
+He turned uncompromisingly away, and stumped off down the trail on his
+fat and sturdy legs.
+
+Bob looked after him amazed, at this sudden termination of the
+interview. He had anticipated argument, sophistry, appeal to old
+friendship, perhaps a more dark and doubtful approach. Though conscious
+throughout of Baker's contempt for what the promoter would call his
+childish impracticability, his disloyalty and his crankiness, Bob
+realized that all of this had been carefully subdued. Baker's manner at
+parting expressed more of regret than of anger or annoyance.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+To this short and inconclusive interview, however, Baker did not fail to
+add somewhat through Oldham. The agent used none of the circumspection
+Baker had considered necessary, but rode openly into camp and asked for
+Bob. The latter, remembering Oldham's reputed antagonism to Baker, could
+not but admire the convenience of the arrangement. The lank and sinister
+figure of Saleratus Bill was observed to accompany that of the land
+agent, but the gun man, at a sign from his principal; did not dismount.
+He greeted no one, but sat easily across his saddle, holding the reins
+of both horses in his left hand, his jaws working slowly, his evil,
+little eyes wandering with sardonic interest over the people and
+belongings at headquarters. Ware nodded to him. The man's eyes half
+closed and for an instant the motion of his jaw quickened. Otherwise he
+made no sign.
+
+Oldham drew Bob one side.
+
+"I want to talk to you where we won't be interrupted," he requested.
+
+"Talk on," said Bob, seating himself on a log. "The open is as good a
+place as another; you can see your eavesdroppers there."
+
+Oldham considered this a moment, then nodded his head, and took his
+place by the young man's side.
+
+"It's about those Modoc lands," said he.
+
+"I suppose so," said Bob.
+
+"Mr. Baker tells me you fully intend to prosecute a suit for their
+recovery."
+
+"I believe the Government intends to do so. I am, of course, only the
+agent of the Government in this or any other matter."
+
+"In other words, you have received orders to proceed?"
+
+"I would hardly be acting without them, would I?"
+
+"Of course; I see. Mr. Baker is sometimes hasty. Assuming that you cared
+to do so, is there no way you could avoid this necessity?"
+
+"None that I can discover. I must obey orders as long as I'm a
+government officer."
+
+"Exactly," said Oldham. "Now we reach the main issue. What if you were
+not a government officer?"
+
+"But I am."
+
+"Assume that you were not."
+
+"Naturally my successor would carry out the same orders."
+
+"But," suggested Oldham, "it might very well be that another man would
+not be--well, quite so qualified to carry out the case--"
+
+"You mean I'm the only one who heard Baker say he was going to cheat the
+Government," put in Bob bluntly.
+
+"You and Mr. Welton and Mr. Baker were the only ones present at a
+certain interview," he amended. "Now, in the event that you were not
+personally in charge of the case would you feel it necessary to
+volunteer testimony unsuspected by anybody but you three?"
+
+"If I were to resign, I should volunteer nothing," stated Bob.
+
+Oldham's frosty eyes gleamed with satisfaction behind their glasses.
+
+"That's good!" he cried.
+
+"But I have no intention of resigning," Bob concluded.
+
+"That is a matter open to discussion," Oldham took him up. "There are a
+great many reasons that you have not yet considered."
+
+"I'm ready to hear them," said Bob.
+
+"Look at the case as it stands. In the first place, you cannot but admit
+that Mr. Baker and the men associated with him have done great things
+for this country. When they came into it, it was an undeveloped
+wilderness, supplying nothing of value to civilization, and supporting
+only a scattered and pastoral people. The valley towns went about their
+business on horse cars; they either paid practically a prohibitive price
+for electricity and gas, or used oil and candles; they drank well water
+and river water. The surrounding country was either a desert given over
+to sage brush and jack rabbits, or raised crops only according to the
+amount of rain that fell. You can have no conception, Mr. Orde, of the
+condition of the country in some of these regions before irrigation. In
+place of this the valley people now enjoy rapid transportation, not only
+through the streets of their towns, but also by trolley lines far out in
+all directions. They have cheap and abundant electric light and power.
+They possess pure drinking water. Above all they raise their certain
+crops irrespective of what rains the heavens may send."
+
+Bob admitted that electricity and irrigation are good things.
+
+"These advantages have drawn people. I am not going to bore you with a
+lot of statistics, but the population of all White Oaks County, for
+instance, is now above fifty thousand people, where before was a scant
+ten. But how much agricultural wealth do you suppose these people
+_export_ each year? Not how much they _produce_, but their net
+exportations?"
+
+"Give it up."
+
+"Fifty million dollars worth! That's a marvellous per capita."
+
+"It is indeed," said Bob.
+
+"Now," said Oldham impressively, "that wealth would be absolutely
+non-existent, that development could not have taken place, _did_ not
+take place, until men of Mr. Baker's genius and courage came along to
+take hold. I have personally the greatest admiration for Mr. Baker as a
+type of citizen without whom our resources and possibilities would be in
+the same backward condition as obtains in Canada."
+
+"I'm with you there," said Bob.
+
+"Mr. Baker has added a community to the state, cities to the
+commonwealth, millions upon millions of dollars to the nation's wealth.
+He took long chances, and he won out. Do not you think in return the
+national resources should in a measure reward him for the advantages he
+has conferred and the immense wealth he has developed? Mind you, Mr.
+Baker has merely taken advantage of the strict letter of the law. It is
+merely open to another interpretation. He needs this particular body of
+timber for the furtherance of one of his greatest quasi-public
+enterprises; and who has a better right in the distribution of the
+public domain than the man who uses it to develop the country? The
+public land has always been intended for the development of resources,
+and has always been used as such."
+
+Oldham talked fluently and well. He argued at length along the lines set
+forth above.
+
+"You have to use lubricating oil to overcome friction on a machine," he
+concluded. "You have to subsidize a railroad by land grants to enter a
+new country. By the same immutable law you must offer extraordinary
+inducements to extraordinary men. Otherwise they will not take the
+risks."
+
+"I've nothing to do with the letter of the law," Bob replied; "only with
+its spirit and intention. The main idea of the mineral act is to give
+legitimate miners the timber they need for legitimate mining. Baker does
+not pretend, except officially, that he ever intends to do anything with
+his claims. He certainly has done a great work for the country. I'll
+agree to everything you say there. But he came into California worth
+nothing, and he is now reputed to be worth ten millions and to control
+vast properties. That would seem to be reward enough for almost anybody.
+He does not need this Basin property for any of his power projects,
+except that its possession would let him off from paying a very
+reasonable tax on the waterpower he has been accustomed to getting free.
+Cutting that timber will not develop the country any further. I don't
+see the value of your argument in the present case."
+
+"Mr. Baker has invested in this project a great many millions of
+dollars," said Oldham. "He must be adequately safeguarded. To further
+develop and even to maintain the efficiency of what he has, he must
+operate to a large extent on borrowed capital. Borrowing depends on
+credit; and credit depends on confidence. If conditions are proved to be
+unstable, capital will prove more than cautious in risking itself. That
+is elementary. Surely you can see that point."
+
+"I can see that, all right," admitted Bob.
+
+"Well," went on Oldham, taking heart, "think of the responsibility you
+are assuming in pushing forward a mere technicality, and a debatable
+technicality at that. You are not only jeopardizing a great and
+established business--I will say little of that--but you are risking the
+prosperity of a whole countryside. If Mr. Baker's enterprises should
+quit this section, the civilization of the state would receive a serious
+setback. Thousands of men would be thrown out of employment, not only on
+the company's works, but all along the lines of its holdings; electric
+light and power would increase in price--a heavy burden to the consumer;
+the country trolley lines must quit business, for only with
+water-generated power can they compete with railroads at all; fertile
+lands would revert to desert--"
+
+"I am not denying the value of Mr. Baker's enterprises," broke in Bob;
+"but what has a billion and a half of timber to do with all this?"
+
+"Mr. Baker has long been searching for an available supply for use in
+the enterprises," said Oldham, eagerly availing himself of this opening.
+"You probably have a small idea of the immense lumber purchases
+necessary for the construction of the power plants, trolley lines, and
+roads projected by Mr. Baker. Heretofore the company has been forced to
+buy its timber in the open market."
+
+"This would be cheaper," suggested Bob.
+
+"Much."
+
+"That would increase net profits, of course. I suppose that would
+result in increased dividends. Or, perhaps, the public would reap the
+benefit in decreased cost of service."
+
+"Undoubtedly both. Certainly electricity and transportation would
+cheapen."
+
+"The same open markets can still supply the necessary timber?"
+
+"At practically prohibitive cost," Oldham reminded.
+
+"Which the company has heretofore afforded--and still paid its
+dividends," said Bob calmly. "Well, Mr. Oldham, even were I inclined to
+take all you say at its face value; even were I willing to admit that
+unless Mr. Baker were given this timber his business would fail, the
+country would be deprived of the benefits of his enterprise, and the
+public seriously incommoded, I would still be unable to follow the logic
+of your reasoning. Mind you, I do not admit anything of the kind. I do
+not anticipate any more dire results than that the dividends will remain
+at their present per cent. But even supposing your argument to be well
+founded, this timber belongs to the people of the United States. It is
+part of John Jones's heritage, whether John Jones lives in White Oaks or
+New York. Why should I permit Jones of New York to be robbed in favour
+of Jones of White Oaks--especially since Jones of New York put me here
+to look after his interests for him? That's the real issue; and it's
+very simple."
+
+"You look at the matter from a wrong point of view----" began Oldham,
+and stopped. The land agent was shrewd, and knew when he had come to an
+_impasse_.
+
+"I always respect a man who does his duty," he began again, "and I can
+see how you're tied up in this matter. But a resignation could be
+arranged for very easily. Mr. Baker knows thoroughly both your ability
+and experience, and has long regretted that he has not been able to
+avail himself of them. Of course, as you realize, the great future of
+all this country is not along the lines even of such great industries as
+lumber manufacture, but in agriculture and in waterpower engineering.
+Here, more than anywhere else in the world, Water is King!"
+
+A recollection tickled Bob. He laughed outright. Oldham glanced at him
+sharply.
+
+"Oh, the Lucky Lands," said he at last; "I'd forgotten you had ever been
+there. Well, the saying is as true now as it was then. The great future
+for any young man is along those lines. I am sure--in fact, I am told to
+say with authority--that Mr. Baker would be only too pleased to have you
+come in with him on this new enterprise he is opening up."
+
+"As how?"
+
+"As stockholder to the extent of ten thousand shares preferred, and a
+salaried position in the field, of course. But, that is a small matter
+compared with the future opportunities--"
+
+"It's cheering to know that I'm worth so much," interrupted Bob. "Shares
+now worth par?"
+
+"A fraction over."
+
+"One hundred thousand and some odd dollars," observed Bob. "It's a nice
+tidy bribe; and if I were any sort of a bribe taker at all, I'd surely
+feel proud and grateful. Only I'm not. So you might just as well have
+made it a million, and then I'd have felt still more set up over it."
+
+"I hope you don't think I'm a bribe giver, either," said Oldham. "I
+admit my offer was not well-timed; but it has been long under
+contemplation, and I mentioned it as it occurred to me."
+
+Having thus glided over this false start, the land agent promptly opened
+another consideration.
+
+"Perhaps we are at fatal variance on our economics," said he; "but how
+about the justice of the thing? When you get right down to cases, how
+about the rest of them? I'll venture to say there are not two private
+timber holdings of any size in this country that have been acquired
+strictly within the letter of the law. Do you favour general
+confiscation?"
+
+"I believe in the law," declared Bob, "and I do not believe your
+statement."
+
+Oldham rose.
+
+"I tell you this, young man," he said coldly: "you can prosecute the
+Modoc Company or not, as you please--or, perhaps, I should say, you can
+introduce your private testimony or not, as you please. We are
+reasonable; and we know you cannot control government prosecutions. But
+the Modoc Company intends that you play no favourites."
+
+"I do not understand you," said Bob with equal coldness.
+
+"If the Modoc Company is prosecuted, we will make it our business to see
+that every great land owner holding title in this Forest is brought into
+the courts for the same offence. If the letter of the law is to be
+enforced against us, we'll see that it is enforced against all others."
+
+Bob bowed. "Suits me," said he.
+
+"Does it?" sneered Oldham. He produced a bundle of papers bound by a
+thick elastic. "Well, I've saved you some trouble in your next case.
+Here are certified copies of the documents for it, copied at Sacramento,
+and subscribed to before a notary. Of course, you can verify them; but
+you'll find them accurate."
+
+He handed them to Bob, who took them, completely puzzled. Oldham's next
+speech enlightened him.
+
+"You'll find there," said the older man, tapping the papers in Bob's
+hand, "the documents in full relating to the Wolverine Company's land
+holdings, and how they were acquired. After looking them over, we shall
+expect you to bring suit. If you do not do so, we will take steps to
+force you to do so--or, failing this, to resign!"
+
+With these words, Oldham turned square on his heel and marched to where
+Saleratus Bill was stationed with the horses. Bob stared after him, the
+bundle of papers in his hand. When Oldham had mounted, Bob looked down
+on these papers.
+
+"The second line of defence!" said he.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Bob's first interest was naturally to examine these documents. He found
+them, as Oldham had said, copies whose accuracy was attested by the
+copyist before a notary. They divided themselves into two classes. The
+first traced the titles by which many small holdings had come into the
+hands of the corporation known as the Wolverine Company. The second
+seemed to be some sort of finding by an investigating commission. This
+latter was in the way of explanation of the title records, so that by
+referring from one to the other, Bob was able to trace out the process
+by which the land had been acquired. This had been by "colonizing," as
+it was called. According to Federal law, one man could take up but one
+hundred and sixty acres of government land. It had, therefore, been the
+practice to furnish citizens with the necessary capital so to do; after
+which these citizens transferred their land to the parent company. This
+was, of course, a direct evasion of the law; as direct an evasion as
+Baker's use of the mineral lands act.
+
+For a time Bob was unable to collect his reasoning powers adequately to
+confront this new fact. His thoughts were in a whirl. The only thing
+that stood out clearly was the difference in the two cases. He knew
+perfectly that after Baker's effort to lift bodily from the public
+domain a large block of its wealth every decent citizen should cry,
+"Stop thief!" Instinctively he felt, though as yet he could not analyze
+the reasons for so feeling, that to deprive the Wolverine Company of its
+holdings would work a crying injustice. Yet, to all intents and
+purposes, apparently, the cases were on all fours. Both Welton and
+Baker had taken advantage of a technicality.
+
+When Bob began to think more clearly, he at first laid this difference
+to a personal liking, and was inclined to blame himself for letting his
+affections cloud his sense of justice. Baker was companionable, jolly,
+but at the same time was shrewd, cold, calculating and unscrupulous in
+business. He could be as hard as nails. Welton, on the other hand, while
+possessing all of Baker's admirable and robust qualities, had with them
+an endearing and honest bigness of purpose, limited only--though
+decidedly--by his point of view and the bounds of his practical
+education. Baker would steal land without compunction; Welton would take
+land illegally without thought of the illegality, only because everybody
+else did it the same way.
+
+But should the mere fact of personality make any difference in the
+enforcing of laws? That one man was amiable and the other not so amiable
+had nothing to do with eternal justice. If Bob were to fulfil his duty
+only against those he disliked, and in favour of his friends, he had
+indeed slipped back to the old days of henchman politics from which the
+nation was slowly struggling. He reared his head at this thought. Surely
+he was man enough to sink private affairs in the face of a stern public
+duty!
+
+This determined, Bob thought the question settled. After a few minutes,
+it returned as full of interrogation points as ever. Leaving Baker and
+Welton entirely out of the question, the two cases still drew apart. One
+was just, the other unjust. Why? On the answer depended the peace of
+Bob's conscience. Of course he would resign rather than be forced to
+prosecute Welton. That was understood, and Bob resolutely postponed
+contemplation of the necessity. He loved this life, this cause. It
+opened out into wider and more beautiful vistas the further he
+penetrated into it. He conceived it the only life for which he was
+particularly fitted by temperament and inclination. To give it up would
+be to cut himself off from all that he cared for most in active life;
+and would be to cast him into the drudgery of new and uncongenial lines.
+That sacrifice must be made. It's contemplation and complete realization
+could wait. But a deeper necessity held Bob, the necessity of resolving
+the question of equities which the accident of his personal knowledge of
+Welton and Baker had evoked. He had to prove his instincts right or
+wrong.
+
+He was not quite ready to submit the matter officially, but he wished
+very much to talk it over with some one. Glancing up he caught sight of
+the glitter of silver and the satin sheen of a horse. Star was coming
+down through the trees, resplendent in his silver and carved leather
+trappings, glossy as a bird, stepping proudly and daintily under the
+curbing of his heavy Spanish bit. In the saddle lounged the tall, homely
+figure of old California John, clad in faded blue overalls, the brim of
+his disreputable, ancient hat flopped down over his lean brown face, and
+his kindly blue eyes. Bob signalled him.
+
+"John!" he called, "come here! I want to talk with you!"
+
+The stately, beautiful horse turned without any apparent guiding motion
+from his master, stepped the intervening space and stopped. California
+John swung from the saddle. Star, his head high, his nostril wide, his
+eye fixed vaguely on some distant vision, stood like an image.
+
+"I want a good talk with you," repeated Bob.
+
+They sat on the same log whereon Oldham and Bob had conferred.
+
+"John," said Bob, "Oldham has been here, and I don't know what to do."
+
+California John listened without a single word of comment while Bob
+detailed all the ins and outs of the situation. When he had finished,
+the old man slowly drew forth his pipe, filled it, and lit it.
+
+"Son," said he, "I'm an old man, and I've lived in this state since the
+early gold days. That means I've seen a lot of things. In all that time
+the two most valuable idees I've dug up are these: in the first place,
+it don't never do to go off half-cock; and in the second place, if you
+want to know about a thing, go to headquarters for it."
+
+He removed his pipe and blew a cloud.
+
+"Half of that's for me and the other half's for you," he resumed. "I
+ain't going to give you my notions until I've thought them over a
+little; that's for me. As for you, if I was you, I'd just amble over and
+talk the whole matter over with Mr. Welton and see what he thinks about
+his end of it."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+This advice seemed so good that Bob acted upon it at his earliest
+opportunity. He found Welton riding his old brindle mule in from the
+bull donkey where he had been inspecting the work. The lumberman's red,
+jolly face lit up with a smile of real affection as he recognized Bob,
+an expression quickly changed, however, as he caught sight of the young
+man's countenance.
+
+"What's up, Bobby?" he inquired with concern; "anything happened?"
+
+"Nothing yet; but I want to talk with you."
+
+Welton immediately dismounted, with the laborious clumsiness of the man
+brought up to other means of locomotion, tied Jane to a tree, and threw
+himself down at the foot of a tall pine.
+
+"Let's have it," said he.
+
+"There have come into my hands some documents," said Bob, "that
+embarrass me a great deal. Here they are."
+
+He handed them to Welton. The lumberman ran them through in silence.
+
+"Well," he commented cheerfully, "they seem to be all right. What's the
+matter?"
+
+"The matter is with the title to the land," said Bob.
+
+Welton looked the list of records over more carefully.
+
+"I'm no lawyer," he confessed at last; "but it don't need a lawyer to
+see that this is all regular enough."
+
+"Have you read the findings of the commission?"
+
+"That stuff? Sure! That don't amount to anything. It's merely an
+expression of opinion; and mighty poor opinion at that."
+
+"Don't you see what I'm up against?" insisted Bob. "It will be in my
+line of duty to open suit against the Wolverine Company for recovery of
+those lands."
+
+"Suit!" echoed Welton. "You talk foolish, Bob. This company has owned
+these lands for nearly thirty years, and paid taxes on them. The records
+are all straight, and the titles clear."
+
+"It begins to look as if the lands were taken up contrary to law,"
+insisted Bob; "and, if so, I'll be called upon to prosecute." "Contrary
+to your grandmother," said Welton contemptuously. "Some of your young
+squirts of lawyers have been reading their little books. If these lands
+were taken up contrary to law, why so were every other timber lands in
+the state."
+
+"That may be true, also," said Bob. "I don't know."
+
+"Well, will you tell me what's wrong with them?" asked Welton.
+
+"It appears as though the lands were 'colonized,'" said Bob; "or, at
+least, such of them as were not bought from the bank."
+
+"I guess you boys have a new brand of slang," confessed Welton.
+
+"Why, I mean the tract was taken direct from many small holders in
+hundred-and-sixty-acre lots," explained Bob.
+
+Welton stared at him.
+
+"Well, will you tell me how in blazes you were going to get together a
+piece of timber big enough to handle in any other way?" he demanded at
+last. "All one firm could take up by itself was a quarter section, and
+you're not crazy enough to think any concern could afford to build a
+plant for the sake of cutting that amount! That's preposterous! A man
+certainly has a right under the law to sell what is his to whom-ever he
+pleases."
+
+"But the 'colonists,'" said Bob, "took up this land merely for the
+purpose of turning it over to the company. The intention of the law is
+that the timber is for the benefit of the original claimant."
+
+"Well, it's for his benefit, if he gets paid for it, ain't it?" demanded
+Welton ingenuously. "You can't expect him to cut it himself."
+
+"That is the intent of the law," insisted Bob, "and that's what I'll be
+called upon to do. What shall I do about it?"
+
+"Quit the game!" said Welton, promptly and eagerly. "You can see
+yourself how foolish it is. That crew of young squirts just out of
+school would upset the whole property values of the state. Besides, as
+I've just shown you, it's foolish. Come on back in a sensible business.
+We'd get on fine!"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"Then go ahead; bring your case," said Welton. "I don't mind."
+
+"I do," said Bob. "It looks like a strong case to me."
+
+"Don't bring it. You don't need to report in your evidence as you call
+it. Just forget it."
+
+"Even if I were inclined to do so," said Bob, "I wouldn't be allowed.
+Baker would force the matter to publicity."
+
+"Baker," repeated Welton; "what has he got to do with it?"
+
+"It's in regard to the lands in the Basin. He took them up under the
+mineral act, and plainly against all law and decency. It's the plainest
+case of fraud I know about, and is a direct steal right from under our
+noses."
+
+"I think myself he's skinning things a trifle fine," admitted Welton;
+"but I can't see but what he's complied with the law all right. He don't
+have any right to that timber, I'll agree with you there; but it looks
+to me like the law had a hole in it."
+
+"If he took that land up for other purposes than an honest intention to
+mine on it, the title might be set aside," said Bob.
+
+"You'd have a picnic proving anything of the sort one way or another
+about what a man intends to do," Welton pointed out.
+
+"Do you remember one evening when Baker was up at camp and was kicking
+on paying water tolls? It was about the time Thorne first came in as
+Supervisor, and just before I entered the Service."
+
+"Seems to me I recall something of the sort."
+
+"Well, you think it over. Baker told us then that he had a way of
+beating the tolls, and mentioned this very scheme of taking advantage of
+the mineral laws. At the time he had a notion of letting us in on the
+timber."
+
+"Sure! I remember!" cried Welton.
+
+"Well, if you and I were to testify as to that conversation, we'd
+establish his intent plainly enough."
+
+"Sure as you're a foot high!" said Welton slowly.
+
+"Baker knows this; and he's threatened, if I testify against him, to
+bring the Wolverine Company into the fight. _Now_ what should I do about
+it?"
+
+Welton turned on him a troubled eye.
+
+"Bob," said he, "there's more to this than you think. I didn't have
+anything to do with this land until just before we came out here. One of
+the company got control of it thirty year ago. All that flapdoodle," he
+struck the papers, "didn't mean nothing to me when I thought it came
+from your amatoore detectives. But if Baker has this case looked up
+there's something to it. Go slow, son."
+
+He studied a moment.
+
+"Have you told your officers of your own evidence against Baker?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Or about these?" he held up the papers.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, that's all right. Don't."
+
+"It's my duty----"
+
+"Resign!" cried Welton energetically; "then it won't be your duty.
+Nobody knows about what you know. If you're not called on, you've
+nothing to say. You don't have to tell all you know."
+
+A vision swept before Bob's eyes of a noble forest supposedly safe for
+all time devoted by his silence to a private greed.
+
+"But concealing evidence is as much of a perjury as falsifying it--" he
+began. A second vision flashed by of a ragged, unshorn fugitive, now in
+jail, whom his testimony could condemn. He fell silent.
+
+"Let sleeping dogs lie," said Welton, earnestly. "You don't know the
+harm you may do. Your father's reelection comes this fall, you know, and
+even if it's untrue, a suit of this character--" He in his turn broke
+off.
+
+"I don't see how this could hurt father's chances--either way," said
+Bob, puzzled.
+
+"Well, you know how I think about it," said Welton curtly, rising. "You
+asked me."
+
+He stumped over to Jane, untied the rope with his thick fingers,
+clambered aboard. From the mule's back he looked down on Bob, his
+kindly, homely face again alight with affection.
+
+"If you never have anything worse on your conscience than keeping your
+face shut to protect a friend from injustice, Bobby," he said, "I reckon
+you won't lose much sleep."
+
+With these words he rode away. Bob, returning to camp, unsaddled, and,
+very weary, sought his cabin. His cabin mate was stolidly awaiting him,
+seated on the single door step.
+
+"My friend that was going to leave me some money in my bunk was coming
+to-day," said Jack Pollock. "It ain't in your bunk by mistake?"
+
+"Jack," said Bob, weariedly throwing all the usual pretence aside, "I'm
+ashamed to say I clean forgot it; I had such a job on hand. I'll ride
+over and get it now."
+
+"Don't understand you," said Jack, without moving a muscle of his face.
+
+Bob smiled at the serious young mountaineer, playing loyally his part
+even to his fellow-conspirator.
+
+"Jack," said he, "I guess your friend must have been delayed. Maybe
+he'll get here later."
+
+"Quite like," nodded Jack gravely.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Bob made the earliest chance to obtain California John's promised
+advice. The old man was unlettered, but his understanding was informed
+by a broad and gentle spirit and long experience of varied things. On
+this the head ranger himself touched.
+
+"Bob," he began, "I'm an old man, and I've lived through a lot. When I
+come into this state the elk and deer and antelope was running out on
+the plains like sheep. I mined and prospected up and down these
+mountains when nobody knew their names. There's hardly a gold camp you
+can call over that I ain't been in on; nor a set of men that had
+anything to do with making the state that I ain't tracked up with. Most
+of the valley towns wasn't in existence those days, and the rest was
+little cattle towns that didn't amount to anything. The railroad took a
+week to come from Chicago. There wasn't any railroad up the coast. They
+hadn't begun to irrigate much. Where the Redlands and Riverside orange
+groves are there was nothing but dry washes and sage-brush desert. It
+cost big money to send freight. All that was shipped out of the country
+in a season wouldn't make up one shipment these days. I suppose to folks
+back East this country looked about as far off as Africa. Even to folks
+living in California the country as far back as these mountains looked
+like going to China. They got all their lumber from the Coast ranges and
+the lower hills. This back here was just wilderness, so far off that
+nobody rightly thought of it as United States at all.
+
+"Of course, by and by the country settled up a little more but even then
+nobody ever thought of timber. You see, there was no market to amount
+to anything out here; and a few little jerk-water mills could supply the
+whole layout easy. East, the lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin and
+Minnesota never was going to give out. In those days you could hardly
+_give_ away land up in this country. The fellow that went in for timber
+was looked on as a lunatic. It took a big man with lots of sand to see
+it at all."
+
+Bob nodded, his eye kindling with the beginnings of understanding.
+
+"There was a few of them. They saw far enough ahead, and they come in
+here and took up some timber. Other folks laughed at them; but I guess
+they're doing most of the laughing now. It took nerve, and it took
+sense, and it took time, and it took patience." California John
+emphasized each point with a pat of his brown, gnarled hand.
+
+"Now those fellows started things for this country. If they hadn't had
+the sheer nerve to take up that timber, nobody would have dared do
+anything else--not for years anyhow. But just the fact that the
+Wolverine Company bought big, and other big men come in--why it give
+confidence to the people. The country boomed right ahead. If nobody had
+seen the future of the country, she'd have been twenty year behind. Out
+West that means a hell of a lot of value, let me tell you!"
+
+"The timber would have belonged to the Government," Bob reminded him.
+
+"I'm a Forest officer," said California John, "and what's more, I was a
+Forest officer for a good many years when there was nothin' to it but
+kicks. There can't nobody beat me in wishing a lot of good forest land
+was under the Service instead of being due to be cut up by lumbermen.
+But I've lived too long not to see the point. You can't get benefits
+without paying for 'em. The United States of America was big gainers
+because these old fellows had the nerve just to come in and buy. It
+ain't so much the lumber they saw and put out where it's needed--though
+that's a good deal; and it ain't so much the men they bring into the
+country and give work to--though that's a lot, too. _It's the confidence
+they inspire_, it's the lead they give. That's what counts. All the rest
+of these little operators, and workmen, and storekeepers, and
+manufacturers wouldn't have found their way out here in twenty years if
+the big fellows hadn't led the way. If you should go over and buy ten
+thousand acres of land by Table Mountain to-morrow, next year there'd be
+a dozen to follow you in and do whatever you'd be doing. And while it's
+the big fellow that gives the lead, _it's the little fellow that makes
+the wealth of the country!_"
+
+Bob stared at the old man in fascinated surprise. This was a new
+California John, this closely reasoning man, with, clear, earnest eyes,
+laying down the simple doctrine taught by a long life among men.
+
+"The Government gives alternate sections of land to railroads to bring
+them in the country," went on California John. "In my notion all this
+timber land in private hands is where it belongs. It's the price the
+Government paid for wealth."
+
+"And the Basin----" cried Bob.
+
+"What the hell more confidence does this country need now?" demanded
+California John fiercely; "what with its mills and its trolleys, its
+vineyards and all its big projects. What right has this man Baker to get
+pay for what he ain't done?"
+
+The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able to analyze, leaped
+at him. The equities hung in equal balance. On one side he saw the
+pioneer, pressing forward into an unknown wilderness, breaking a way for
+those that could follow, holding aloft a torch to illumine dark places,
+taking long and desperate chances, or seeing with almost clairvoyant
+power beyond the immediate vision of men; waiting in faith for the
+fulfillment of their prophecies. On the other he saw the plunderer,
+grasping for a wealth that did not belong to him, through values he had
+not made. This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob's mind,
+be gainsaid.
+
+Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did not extend to
+the surface of things by which men live. It explained; but did it
+excuse, especially in the eye of abstract ethics? Had not these men
+broken the law, and is not the upholding of the law important in its
+moral effect on those that follow?
+
+"Just the same," he voiced this thought to California John, "the laws
+read then as they do to-day."
+
+"On the books, yes," replied the old man, slowly; "but not in men's
+ideas. You got to remember that those fellows held pretty straight by
+what the law _says_. They got other men to take up the timber, and then
+had it transferred to themselves. That's according to law. A man can do
+what he wants with his own. You know."
+
+"But the intention of the law is to give every man a----"
+
+"That's what we go by now," interrupted California John.
+
+"What other way is there to go by?"
+
+"None--now. But in those days that was the settled way to get timber
+land. They didn't make any secret of it. They just looked at it as the
+process to go through with, like filing a deed, or getting two
+witnesses. It was a nuisance, and looked foolish, but if that was the
+way to do it, why they'd do it that way. Everybody knew that. Why, if a
+man wanted to get enough timber to go to operating on, his lawyer would
+explain to him how to do it; any of his friends that was posted would
+show him the ropes; and if he'd take the trouble to go to the Land
+Office itself, the clerk would say: 'No, Mr. Man, I can't transfer to
+you, personally, more'n a hundred and sixty acres, but you can get some
+of your friends to take it up for you.'[Footnote: A fact.] Now will you
+tell me how Mr. Man could get it any straighter than that?"
+
+Bob was seeing a great light. He nodded.
+
+"They've changed the rules of the game!" said California John
+impressively, "and now they want to go back thirty year and hold these
+fellows to account for what they did under the old rules. It don't look
+to me like it's fair."
+
+He thought a moment.
+
+"I suppose," he remarked reflectively, going off on one of his strange
+tangents, and lapsing once more into his customary picturesque speech,
+"that these old boys that burned those Salem witches was pretty well
+thought of in Salem--deacons in the church, and all such; p'ticular
+elect, and held up to the kids for high moral examples? had the plumb
+universal approval in those torchlight efforts of theirn?"
+
+"So I believe," said Bob.
+
+"Well," drawled California John, stretching his lank frame, "suppose one
+of those old bucks had lived to now--of course, he couldn't, but suppose
+he did--and was enjoying himself and being a good citizen. And suppose
+some day the sheriff touched him on the shoulder and says: 'Old boy,
+we're rounding up all the murderers. I've just got Saleratus Bill for
+scragging Franklin. You come along, too. Don't you know that burnin'
+witches is murder?'" California John spat with vigour. "Oh, hell!" said
+he.
+
+"Now, Baker," he went on, after a moment, "is Saleratus Bill because he
+knows he's agin what the people knows is the law; and the other fellows
+is old Salem because they lived like they were told to. Even old Salem
+would know that he couldn't burn no witches nowadays. These old timers
+ain't the ones trying to steal land now, you notice. They're too damn
+honest. You don't need to tell me that you believe for one minute when
+he took up this Wolverine land, that your father did anything that he,
+_or anybody else_, courts included, thought was off-colour."
+
+"My father!" cried Bob.
+
+"Why, yes," said California John, looking at him curiously; "you don't
+mean to say you didn't know he is the Wolverine Company!"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+"Well," said California John, after a pause, "after you've made your
+jump there ain't much use in trying to turn back. If you didn't know it,
+why it was evident you wasn't intended to know it. But I was in the
+country when your father bought the land, so I happened to know about
+it."
+
+Bob stared at the old man so long that the latter felt called upon to
+reassure him.
+
+"I wouldn't take it so hard, if I was you, son," said he. "I really
+don't think all these bluffs of Baker's amount to much. The findings of
+that commission ain't never been acted on, which would seem to show that
+it didn't come to nothing at the time; and I don't have the slightest
+notion in the world but what the whole thing will blow up in smoke."
+
+"As far as that is concerned, I haven't either," said Bob; "though you
+never can tell, and defending such a suit is always an expensive matter.
+But here's the trouble; my father is Congressman from Michigan, he's
+been in several pretty heavy fights this last year, and has some
+powerful enemies; he is up for reelection this fall."
+
+"Suffering cats!" whistled California John.
+
+"A lot could be made of a suit of that nature," said Bob, "whether it
+had any basis, or not."
+
+"I've run for County Supervisor in my time," said California John
+simply.
+
+"Well, what is your advice?" asked Bob.
+
+"Son, I ain't got none," replied the old man.
+
+That very evening a messenger rode over from the mill bringing a summons
+from Welton. Bob saddled up at once. He found the lumberman, not in the
+comfortable sitting room at his private sleeping camp, but watching the
+lamp alone in the office. As Bob entered, his former associate turned a
+troubled face toward the young man.
+
+"Bob," said he at once, "they've got the old man cinched, unless you'll
+help out."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"You remember when we first came in here how Plant closed the road and
+the flume right-of-way on us because we didn't have the permit?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Now, Bob, you remember how we was up against it, don't you? If we
+hadn't gone through that year we'd have busted the business absolutely.
+It was just a case of hold-up and we had to pay it. You remember?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well!" burst out Welton, bringing his fist down, "now this hound,
+Baker, sends up his slick lawyer to tell me that was bribery, and that
+he can have me up on a criminal charge!"
+
+"He's bluffing," said Bob quietly. "I remember all about that case. If
+I'd known as much then of inside workings as I do now, I'd have taken a
+hand. But Baker himself ran the whole show. If he brings that matter
+into court, he'll be subject to the same charge; for, if you remember,
+he paid the money."
+
+"Will he!" shouted Welton. "You don't know the lowlived skunk! Erbe told
+me that if this suit was brought and you testified in the matter, that
+Baker would turn state's evidence against me! That would let him off
+scot-free."
+
+"What!" said Bob incredulously. "Brand himself publicly as a criminal
+and tell-tale just to get you into trouble! Not likely. Think what that
+would mean to a man in his position! It would be every bit as bad as
+though he were to take his jail sentence. He's bluffing again."
+
+"Do you really think so?" asked Welton, a gleam of relief lightening
+the gloom of his red, good-natured face. "I'll agree to handle the worst
+river crew you can hand out to me; but this law business gets me running
+in circles."
+
+"It does all of us," said Bob with a sigh.
+
+"I concluded from Erbe's coming up here that you had decided to tell
+about what you knew. That ain't so, is it?"
+
+"I don't know; I can't see my duty clearly yet."
+
+"For heaven's sake, Bobby, what's it to you!" demanded Welton
+exasperated.
+
+But Bob did not hear him.
+
+"I think the direct way is the best," he remarked, by way of thinking
+aloud. "I'm going to keep on going to headquarters. I'm going to write
+father and put it straight to him how he did get those lands and tell
+him the whole situation; and I'm going down to interview Baker, and
+discover, if I can, just how much of a bluff he is putting up."
+
+"In the meantime----" said Welton apparently not noting the fact that
+Bob had become aware of the senior Orde's connection with the land.
+
+"In the meantime I'm going to postpone action if I can."
+
+"They're summoning witnesses for the Basin trial."
+
+"I'll do the best I can," concluded Bob.
+
+Accordingly he wrote the next day to his father. In this letter he
+stated frankly the situation as far as it affected the Wolverine lands,
+but said nothing about the threatened criminal charges against Welton.
+That was another matter. He set out the great value of the Basin lands
+and the methods by which they had been acquired. He pointed out his
+duty, both as a forest officer and as a citizen, but balanced this by
+the private considerations that had developed from the situation.
+
+This dispatched, he applied for leave.
+
+"This is the busy season, and we can spare no one," said Thorne. "You
+have important matters on hand."
+
+"This is especially important," urged Bob.
+
+"It is absolutely impossible. Come two months later, and I'll be glad
+to lay you off as long as I can."
+
+"This particular affair is most urgent business."
+
+"Private, of course?"
+
+"Not entirely."
+
+"Couldn't be considered official?"
+
+"It might become so."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That I am not at liberty to tell you."
+
+Thorne considered.
+
+"No; I'm sorry, but I don't see how I can spare you."
+
+"In that case," said Bob quietly, "you will force me to tender my
+resignation."
+
+Thorne looked up at him quickly, and studied his face.
+
+"From anybody else, Orde," said he, "I'd take that as a threat or a
+hold-up, and fire the man on the spot. From you I do not. The matter
+must be really serious. You may go. Get back as soon as you can."
+
+"Thank you," said Bob. "It is serious. Three days will do me."
+
+He set about his preparations at once, packing a suit case with linen
+long out of commission, smoothing out the tailored clothes he had not
+had occasion to use for many a day. He then transported this--and
+himself--down the mountain on his saddle horse. At Auntie Belle's he
+changed his clothes. The next morning he caught the stage, and by the
+day following walked up the main street of Fremont.
+
+He had no trouble in finding Baker's office. The Sycamore Creek
+operations were one group of many. As one of Baker's companies furnished
+Fremont with light and power, it followed that at night the name of that
+company blazed forth in thousands of lights. The sign was not the less
+legible, though not so fiery, by day. Bob walked into extensive
+ground-floor offices behind plate-glass windows. Here were wickets and
+railings through which and over which the public business was
+transacted. A narrow passageway sidled down between the wall and a row
+of ground-glass doors, on which were lettered the names of various
+officers of the company. At a swinging bar separating this passage from
+the main office sat a uniformed boy directing and stamping envelopes.
+
+Bob wrote his name on a blank form offered by this youth. The young man
+gazed at it a moment superciliously, then sauntered with an air of great
+leisure down the long corridor. He reappeared after a moment's absence
+behind the last door, to return with considerably more alacrity.
+
+"Come right in, sir," he told Bob, in tones which mingled much deference
+with considerable surprise.
+
+Bob had no reason to understand how unusual was the circumstance of so
+prompt a reception of a visitor for whom no previous appointment had
+been made. He entered the door held open for him by the boy, and so
+found himself in Baker's presence.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+The office was expensively but plainly furnished in hardwoods. A thick
+rug covered the floor, easy chairs drew up by a fireplace, several good
+pictures hung off the wall. Near the windows stood a small desk for a
+stenographer, and a wide mahogany table. Behind this latter, his back to
+the light, sat Baker.
+
+The man's sturdy figure was absolutely immobile, and the customary
+facetiously quizzical lines of his face had given place to an expression
+of cold attention. When he spoke, Bob found that the picturesque diction
+too had vanished.
+
+At Bob's entrance, Baker inclined his head coldly in greeting, but said
+nothing. Bob deliberately crossed the room and rested his two fists,
+knuckle down, on the polished desktop. Baker waited stolidly for him to
+proceed. Bob jerked his head toward the stenographer.
+
+"I want to talk to you in private," said he.
+
+The stenographer glanced toward her employer. The latter nodded,
+whereupon she gathered a few stray leaves of paper and departed. Bob
+looked after her until the door had closed behind her. Then, quite
+deliberately, he made a tour of the office, trying doors, peering behind
+curtains and portières. He ended at the desk, to find Baker's eye fixed
+on him with sardonic humour. "Melodramatic, useless--and ridiculous," he
+said briefly.
+
+"If I have any evidence to give, it will be in court, not in a private
+office," replied Bob composedly.
+
+"What do you want?" demanded Baker.
+
+"I have come this far solely and simply to get a piece of information at
+first hand. I was told you had threatened to become a blackmailer, and
+I wanted to find out if it is true?"
+
+"In a world of contrary definitions, it is necessary to come down to
+facts. What do you mean by blackmailer?"
+
+"It has been told me that you intend to aid criminal proceedings against
+Mr. Welton in regard to the right-of-way trouble and the 'sugaring' of
+Plant."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And that in order to evade your own criminal responsibility in the
+matter you intended to turn state's evidence."
+
+"Well?" repeated Baker.
+
+"It seemed inconceivable to me that a man of your social and business
+standing would not only confess himself a petty criminal, but one who
+shelters himself by betrayal of his confederate."
+
+"I do not relish any such process," stated Baker formally, "and would
+avoid it if possible. Nevertheless, if the situation comes squarely up
+to me, I shall meet it."
+
+"I suppose you have thought what decent men----"
+
+Baker held up one hand. This was the first physical movement he had
+made.
+
+"Pardon me," he interrupted. "Let us understand, once and for all, that
+I intend to defend myself when attacked. Personally I do not think that
+either Mr. Welton or myself are legally answerable for what we have
+done. I regret to observe that you, among others, think differently. If
+the whole matter were to be dropped at this point, I should rest quite
+content. But if the matter is not dropped"--at last he let his uplifted
+hand fall, "if the matter is not dropped," he repeated, "my sense of
+justice is strong enough to feel that every one should stand on the same
+footing. If I am to be dragged into court, so must others."
+
+Bob stood thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"I guess that's all," said he, and walked out.
+
+As the door closed behind him, Baker reached forward to touch one of
+several buttons. To the uniformed messenger who appeared he snapped out
+the one word, "Oldham!" A moment later the land agent stood before the
+wide mahogany desk.
+
+"Orde has just been here," stated Baker crisply. "He wanted to know if I
+intended to jail Welton on that old bribery charge. I told him I did."
+
+"How did he take it?"
+
+"As near as I can tell he is getting obstinate. You claimed very
+confidently you could head off his testimony. Up to date you haven't
+accomplished much. Make good."
+
+"I'll head him off," stated Oldham grimly, "or put him where he belongs.
+I've saved a little persuasion until all the rest had failed."
+
+"How?"
+
+"That I'll tell you in time, but not now. But I don't mind telling you
+that I've no reason to love this Orde--or any other Orde--and I intend
+to get even with him on my own account. It's a personal and private
+matter, but I have a club that will keep him."
+
+"Why the secrecy?"
+
+"It's an affair of my own," insisted Oldham, "but I have it on him. If
+he attempts to testify as to the Basin lands, I'll have him in the
+penitentiary in ten days."
+
+"And if he agrees?"
+
+"Then," said Oldham quietly, "I'll have him in the pen a little
+later--after the Basin matter is settled once and for all."
+
+Baker considered this a little.
+
+"My judgment might be worth something as to handling this," he
+suggested.
+
+"The matter is mine," said Oldham firmly, "and I must choose my own time
+and place."
+
+"Very well," Baker acquiesced; "but I'd advise you to tackle Orde at
+once. Time is short. Try out your club to see if it will work."
+
+"It will work!" stated Oldham confidently.
+
+"Of course," remarked Baker, relaxing abruptly his attitude, physical
+and mental, and lighting a cigar, "of course, it is all very well to
+yank the temples down around the merry Philistines, but it doesn't do
+your Uncle Samson much good. We can raise hell with Welton and Orde and
+a half-dozen others, and we will, if they push us too hard--but that
+don't keep us the Basin if this crazy reformer testifies and pulls in
+Welton to corroborate him. I'd rather keep the Basin. If we could stop
+Orde----"
+
+"I'll stop him," said Oldham.
+
+"I hope," said Baker impressively, "that you have more than one string
+to your bow. I am not inquiring into your methods, you understand"--his
+pause was so significantly long at this point, that Oldham nodded--"_but
+your sole job is to keep Orde out of court_."
+
+Baker looked his agent squarely in the eye for fifteen seconds. Then
+abruptly he dropped his gaze.
+
+"That's all," said he, and reached for some papers.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Oldham obeyed his principal's orders by joining Bob on the train back to
+the city. He dropped down by the young man's side, produced a cigar
+which he rolled between his lips, but did not light, and at once opened
+up the subject of his negotiations.
+
+"I wish to point out to you, with your permission," he began, "just
+where you stand in this matter. In the confusion and haste of a busy
+time you may not have cast up your accounts. First," he checked off the
+point on his long, slender forefinger, "in injuring Mr. Baker in this
+ill-advised fashion you are injuring your old-time employer and friend,
+Mr. Welton, and this in two ways: you are jeopardizing his whole
+business, and you are rendering practically certain his conviction on a
+criminal charge. Mr. Welton is an old man, a simple man, and a kindly
+man; this thing is likely to kill him." Oldham glanced keenly at the
+young man's sombre face, and went on. "Second"--he folded back his
+middle finger--"you are injuring your own father, also in two ways: you
+are bringing his lawful property into danger, and you are giving his
+political enemies the most effective sort of a weapon to swing in his
+coming campaign. And do not flatter yourself they will not make the best
+of it. It happens that your father has stood strongly with the
+Conservation members in the late fight in Congress. This would be a
+pretty scandal. Third," said Oldham, touching his ring finger, "you are
+injuring yourself. You are throwing away an opportunity to get in on the
+ground floor with the biggest man in the West; you are making for
+yourself a powerful enemy; and you are indubitably preparing the way for
+your removal from office--if removal from such an office can
+conceivably mean anything to any one." He removed the cigar from his
+mouth, gazed at the wetted end, waited a moment for the young man to
+comment, then replaced it, and resumed. "And fourth," he remarked
+closing his fist so that all fingers were concealed. There he stopped
+until Bob was fairly compelled to start him on again.
+
+"And fourth----" he suggested, therefore.
+
+"Fourth," rapped out Oldham, briskly, "you injure George Pollock."
+
+"George Pollock!" echoed Bob, trying vainly to throw a tone of ingenuous
+surprise into his voice.
+
+"Certainly; George Pollock," repeated Oldham. "I arrived in Sycamore
+Flats at the moment when Pollock murdered Plant. I know positively that
+you were an eye-witness to the deed. If you testify in one case, I shall
+certainly call upon you to testify in the other. Furthermore," he turned
+his gray eyes on Bob, and for the second time the young man was
+permitted to see an implacable hostility, "although not on the scene
+itself, I can myself testify, and will, that you held the murderer's
+horse during the deed, and assisted Pollock to escape. Furthermore, I
+can testify, and can bring a competent witness, that while supposed to
+be estimating Government timber in the Basin, you were in communication
+with Pollock."
+
+"Saleratus Bill!" cried Bob, enlightened as to the trailer's recent
+activities in the Basin.
+
+"It will be easy to establish not only Pollock's guilt, but your own as
+accessory. That will put you hard and fast behind the bars--where you
+belong."
+
+In this last speech Oldham made his one serious mistake of the
+interview. So long as he had appealed to Bob's feelings for, and sense
+of duty toward, other men, he had succeeded well in still further
+confusing the young man's decision. But at the direct personal threat,
+Bob's combative spirit flared. Suddenly his troubled mind was clarified,
+as though Oldham's menace had acted as a chemical reagent to
+precipitate all his doubts. Whatever the incidental hardships, right
+must prevail. And, as always, in the uprooting of evil, some unlucky
+innocent must suffer. It is the hardship of life, inevitable, not to be
+blinked at if a man is to be a man, and do a man's part. He leaned
+forward with so swift a movement that Oldham involuntarily dodged back.
+
+"You tell your boss," said Bob, "that nothing on God's earth can keep me
+out of court."
+
+He threw away his half-smoked cigar and went back to the chair car. The
+sight of Oldham was intolerable to him.
+
+The words were said, and the decision made. In his heart he knew the
+matter irrevocable. For a few moments he experienced a feeling of relief
+and freedom, as when a swimmer first gets his head above the surf that
+has tumbled him. These fine-spun matters of ethical balance had confused
+and wearied his spirit. He had become bewildered among such varied
+demands on his personal decision. It was a comfort to fall back on the
+old straight rule of right conduct no matter what the consequences. The
+essentials of the situation were not at all altered: Baker was guilty of
+the rankest fraud; Welton was innocent of every evil intent and should
+never be punished for what he had been unwillingly and doubtfully
+persuaded to permit; Orde senior had acquired his lands quite according
+to the customs and ideas of the time; George Pollock should have been
+justified a thousand times over in sight of God and man. Those things
+were to Bob's mind indisputable. To deprive the one man of a very small
+portion of his fraudulently acquired property, it was apparently
+necessary to punish three men who should not be punished. These men
+were, furthermore, all dear to Bob personally. It did not seem right
+that his decision should plunge them into undeserved penalties. But now
+the situation was materially altered. Bob also stood in danger from his
+action. He, too, must suffer with the others. All were in the same
+boat. The menace to his own liberty justified his course. The innocent
+must suffer with the guilty; but now the fact that he was one of those
+who must so suffer, raised his decision from a choice to a necessity.
+Whatever the consequences, the simplest, least perplexing, most
+satisfying course was to follow the obvious right. The odium of
+ingratitude, of lack of affection, of disloyalty, of self-reproach was
+lifted from him by the very fact that he, too, was one of those who must
+take consequences. In making the personal threat against the young man's
+liberty, Oldham had, without knowing it, furnished to his soul the one
+valid reason for going ahead, conscience-clear.
+
+Though naturally Oldham could not follow out this psychology, he was
+shrewd enough to understand that he had failed. This surprised him, for
+he had entertained not the slightest doubt that the threat of the
+penitentiary would bring Bob to terms.
+
+On arriving in the city, Oldham took quarters at the Buena Vista and
+sent for Saleratus Bill, whom he had summoned by wire as soon as he had
+heard from that individual of Bob's intended visit to Fremont.
+
+The spy arrived wearing a new broad, black hat, a celluloid collar, a
+wrinkled suit of store clothes, and his same shrewd, evil leer. Oldham
+did not appear, but requested that the visitor be shown into his room.
+There, having closed the transom, he issued his instructions.
+
+"I want you to pay attention, and not interrupt," said he. "Within a
+month a case is coming up in which Orde, the Forest man, is to appear as
+witness. He must not appear. I leave that all to you, but, of course, I
+want no more than necessary violence. He must be detained until after
+the trial, and for as long after that as I say. Understand?"
+
+"Sure," said Saleratus Bill. "But when he comes back, he'll fix you just
+the same."
+
+"I'll see to that part of it. The case will never be reopened. Now, mind
+you, no shooting----"
+
+"There might be an accident," suggested Saleratus Bill, opening his red
+eyes and staring straight at his principal.
+
+"Accidents," said Oldham, speaking slowly and judicially, "are always
+likely to happen. Sometimes they can't be helped." He paused to let
+these words sink in.
+
+Saleratus Bill wrinkled his eyes in an appreciative laugh. "Accidents is
+of two kinds: lucky and unlucky," he remarked briefly, by way of
+parenthesis.
+
+"But, of course, it is distinctly understood," went on Oldham, as though
+he had not heard, "that this is your own affair. You have nothing to
+expect from me if you get into trouble. And if you mention my name,
+you'll merely get jugged for attempted blackmail."
+
+Saleratus Bill's eyes flared.
+
+"Cut it," said he, with a rasp in his voice.
+
+"Nevertheless, that is the case," repeated Oldham, unmoved.
+
+The flame slowly died from Saleratus Bill's eyes.
+
+"I'll want a little raise for that kind of a job," said he.
+
+"Naturally," agreed Oldham.
+
+They entered into discussion of ways and means.
+
+In the meantime Bob had encountered an old friend.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Bob always stayed at the Monterosa Hotel when in town; a circumstance
+that had sent Oldham to the Buena Vista. Although it wanted but a few
+hours until train time, he drifted around to his customary stopping
+place, resolved to enjoy a quiet smoke by the great plate-glass windows
+before which the ever-varying theatre crowds stream by from Main Street
+cars. He had been thus settled for some time, when he heard his name
+pronounced by the man occupying the next chair.
+
+"Bob Orde!" he cried; "but this is luck!"
+
+Bob looked around to see an elderly, gray-haired, slender man, of keen,
+intelligent face, pure white hair and moustache, in whom he recognized
+Mr. Frank Taylor, a lifelong friend of his father's and one of the best
+lawyers his native state had produced. He sprang to his feet to grasp
+the older man's hand. The unexpected meeting was especially grateful,
+for Bob had been long enough without direct reminders of his old home to
+be hungry for them. Ever since he could remember, the erect, military
+form of Frank Taylor had been one of the landmarks of memory, like the
+sword that had belonged to Georgie Cathcart's father, or like the
+kindly, homely, gray figure of Mr. Kincaid in his rickety, two-wheeled
+cart--the man who had given Bob his first firearm.
+
+After first greetings and inquiries, the two men sank back to finish
+their smoke together.
+
+"It's good to see you again," observed Bob, "but I'm sorry your business
+brings you out here at this time of year. This is our dry season, you
+know. Everything is brown. I like it myself, as do most Californians,
+but an Easterner has to get used to it. After the rains, though, the
+country is wonderful."
+
+"This isn't my first trip," said Taylor. "I was out here for some months
+away back in--I think it was '79. I remember we went in to Santa Barbara
+on a steamer that fired a gun by way of greeting! Strangely enough, the
+same business brings me here now."
+
+"You are out here on father's account?" hazarded Bob, to whom the year
+1879 now began to have its significance.
+
+"Exactly. Didn't you get your father's letter telling of my coming?"
+
+"I've been from headquarters three days," Bob explained.
+
+"I see. Well, he sent you this message: 'Tell Bob to go ahead. I can
+take care of myself.'"
+
+"Bully for dad!" cried Bob, greatly heartened.
+
+"He told me he did not want to advise you, but that in the old days when
+a fight was on, the spectators were supposed to do their own dodging."
+
+"I'd about come to that conclusion," said Bob, "but it surely does me
+good to feel that father's behind me in it."
+
+"My trip in '79--or whenever it was--was exactly on this same muss-up."
+Mr. Taylor went on: "Your father owned this timber land then, and wanted
+to borrow money on it. At the time a rascally partner was trying to ruin
+him; and, in order to prevent his getting this money, which would save
+him, this partner instigated investigations and succeeded temporarily in
+clouding the title. Naturally the banks declined to lend money on
+doubtful titles; which was all this partner wanted.[A] Perhaps you know
+all this?"
+
+Bob shook his head. "I was a little too young to know anything of
+business."
+
+"Your father sent me out to straighten things. The whole matter was
+involved in endless red tape, obscured in every ingenious way possible.
+Although there proved to be nothing to the affair, to prove that fact
+took time, and time was what your father's partner was after. As a
+matter of fact, he failed; but that was not the result of
+miscalculation. Now I strongly suspect that your friend Baker, or his
+lawyers, have dug up a lot of this old evidence on the records and are
+going to use it to annoy us. There is nothing more in it how than there
+was at the beginning, but it's colourable enough to start a noisy suit
+on, and that's all these fellows are after."
+
+"But if it was decided once, how can they bring it up again?" Bob
+objected.
+
+"It was never brought to court. When the delay had been gained--or
+rather, when I unravelled the whole matter--it was dropped."
+
+"I see," said Bob. "Then the titles are all right?"
+
+"Every bit of that tract is as good as gold," said Taylor impressively.
+"Your father bought only from men who had taken up land with their own
+money. He paid as high as fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars for claims
+where by straight 'colonizing' he could have had them for three or four
+hundred."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," said Bob. "But are you sure you can handle
+this?"
+
+"As for a suit, they can never win this in the world," said Taylor. "But
+that isn't the question. What they want is a chance for big headlines."
+
+"Well, can you head them off?"
+
+"I'm going to try, after I look over the situation. If I can't head it
+off completely, I'll at least be in a position to reply publicly at
+once. It took me three months to dig this thing out, but it won't take
+me half an hour to get it in the papers."
+
+"I should think they'd know that."
+
+"I don't think their lawyer really knows about it. As I say, it took me
+three months to dig it all out. My notion is that while they have no
+idea they can win the case, they believe that we did actually colonize
+the lands. In other words, they think they have it on us straight
+enough. The results of my investigations will surprise them. I'll keep
+the thing out of court if I can; but in any case we're ready. It will be
+a trial in the newspapers."
+
+"Well," said Bob, "you want to get acquainted then. Western newspapers
+are not like those in the East. They certainly jump in with both feet on
+any cause that enlists them one way or another. It is a case of no
+quarter to the enemy, in headlines, subheads, down to the date--reading
+matter, of course. They have a powerful influence, too, for they are
+very widely read."
+
+"Can they be bought?" asked Taylor shrewdly.
+
+Bob glanced at him.
+
+"I was thinking of the Power Company," explained Taylor.
+
+"Blessed if I know," confessed Bob; "but I think not. I disagree with
+them on so many things that I'd like to think they are bought. But they
+are more often against those apt to buy, than for them. They lambaste
+impartially and with a certain Irish delight in doing the job
+thoroughly. I must say they are not fair about it. They hit a man just
+as hard when he is down. What you want to do is to be better news than
+Baker."
+
+"I'll be all of that," promised Taylor, "if it comes to a newspaper
+trial."
+
+Bob glanced at his watch and jumped to his feet with an exclamation of
+dismay.
+
+"I've five minutes to get to the station," he said. "Goodbye."
+
+He rushed out of the hotel, caught a car, ran a block--and arrived in
+time to see the tail lights slipping away. He had to wait until the
+morning train, but that mattered little to him now. His wait and the
+journey back to the mountains were considerably lightened by this
+partial relief of the situation. At the first sign of trouble his father
+had taken the field to fight out his own fights. That much
+responsibility was lifted from Bob's shoulders. He might have known!
+
+Of the four dangerous elements of his problem one was thus
+unexpectedly, almost miraculously, relieved. Remained, however, poor
+Welton's implication in the bribery matter, and Pollock's danger. Bob
+could not count in himself. If he could only relieve the others of the
+consequences of his action, he could face his own trouble with a stout
+heart.
+
+At White Oaks he was forced to wait for the next stage. This put him
+twenty-four hours behind, and he was inclined to curse his luck. Had he
+only known it, no better fortune could have fallen him. The news came
+down the line that the stage he would have taken had been held up by a
+lone highwayman just at the top of Flour Gold grade. As the vehicle
+carried only an assortment of perishable fruit and three Italian
+labourers, for the dam, the profits from the transaction were not
+extraordinary. The sheriff and a posse at once set out in pursuit. Their
+efforts at overtaking the highwayman were unavailing, for the trail soon
+ran out over the rocky and brushy ledges, and the fugitive had been
+clever enough to sprinkle some of his tracks liberally with red pepper
+to baffle the dogs. The sheriff made a hard push of it, however, and for
+one day held closely enough on the trail. Bob's journey to Sycamore
+Flats took place on this one day--during which Saleratus Bill was too
+busy dodging his pursuers to resume a purpose which Bob's delay had
+frustrated.
+
+On arriving at Auntie Belle's, Bob resolved to push on up the mountain
+that very night, instead of waiting as usual until the following
+morning. Accordingly, after supper, he saddled his horse, collected the
+camp mail, and set himself in motion up the steep road.
+
+Before he had passed Fern Falls, the twilight was falling. Hermit
+thrushes sang down through the cooling forest. From the side hill,
+exposed all the afternoon to the California summer sun, rose tepid
+odours of bear-clover and snowbush, which exhaled out into space, giving
+way to the wandering, faint perfumes of night. Bob took off his hat, and
+breathed deep, greatly refreshed after the long, hot stage ride of the
+day. Darkness fell. In the forest the strengthening moonlight laid its
+wand upon familiar scenes to transform them. New aisles opened down the
+woodlands, aisles at the end of which stood silvered, ghostly trees thus
+distinguished by the moonbeams from their unnumbered brethren. The whole
+landscape became ghostly, full of depths and shadows, mysteries and
+allurements, heights and spaces unknown to the more prosaic day.
+Landmarks were lost in the velvet dark; new features sprang into
+prominence. Were it not for the wagon trail, Bob felt that in this
+strange, enchanted, unfamiliar land he might easily have become lost.
+His horse plodded mechanically on. One by one he passed the homely
+roadside landmarks, exempt from the necromancies of the moon--the pile
+of old cedar posts, split heaven knows when, by heaven knows whom, and
+thriftlessly abandoned; the water trough, with the brook singing by; the
+S turn by the great boulders; the narrow defile of the Devil's
+Grade--and then, still under the spell of the night, Bob surmounted the
+ridge to look out over the pine-clad plateau slumbering dead-still under
+the soft radiance of the moon.
+
+He rode the remaining distance to headquarters at a brisker pace. As he
+approached the little meadow, and the group of buildings dark and
+silent, he raised joyously the wild hallo of the late-comer with mail.
+Immediately lights were struck. A moment later, by the glimmer of a
+lantern, he was distributing the coveted papers, letters and magazines
+to the half-dressed group that surrounded him. Amy summoned him to bring
+her share. He delivered it to the hand and arm extended from the low
+window.
+
+"You must be nearly dead," said Amy, "after that long stage ride--to
+come right up the mountain."
+
+"It's the finest sort of a night," said Bob. "I wouldn't have missed it
+for anything. It's H-O-T, hot, down at the Flats. This ride just saved
+my life."
+
+This might have been truer than Bob had thought, for at almost that
+very moment Saleratus Bill, having successfully shaken off his pursuers,
+was making casual and guarded inquiries at Austin's saloon. When he
+heard that Orde had arrived at the Flats on the evening's stage, he
+manifested some satisfaction. The next morning, however, that
+satisfaction vanished, for only then he learned that the young man must
+be already safe at headquarters.
+
+
+[Footnote A: See "The Riverman."]
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+In delivering his instructions to Oldham, Baker had, of course, no
+thought of extreme measures. Indeed, had the direct question been put to
+him, he would most strongly and emphatically have forbidden them.
+Nevertheless, he was glad to leave his intentions vague, feeling that in
+thus wilfully shutting his eyes he might avoid personal responsibility
+for what might happen. He had every confidence that Oldham--a man of
+more than average cultivation--while he might contemplate lawlessness,
+was of too high an order to consider physical violence. Baker was
+inclined to believe that on mature reflection Bob would yield to the
+accumulation of influence against him. If not, Oldham intimated with no
+uncertain confidence, that he possessed information of a sort to coerce
+the Forest officer into silence. If that in turn proved unavailing--a
+contingency, it must be remembered that Baker hardly thought worth
+entertainment--why, then, in some one of a thousand perfectly legal ways
+Oldham could entangle the chief witness into an enforced absence from
+the trial. This sort of manoeuvre was, later, actually carried out in
+the person of Mr. Fremont Older, a witness in the graft prosecutions of
+San Francisco. In short, Baker's intentions, while desperately illegal,
+contemplated no personal harm to their victim. He gave as general orders
+to his subordinate: "Keep Orde's testimony out of court"; and shrugged
+off minute responsibilities.
+
+This command, filtered through a second and inimical personality, gained
+in strength. Oldham was not of a temperament to contemplate murder. His
+nerves were too refined; his training too conventional; his imagination
+too developed. He, too, resolutely kept his intentions a trifle vague.
+If Orde persisted, then he must be kidnapped for a time.
+
+But Saleratus Bill, professional gun-man, well paid, took his
+instructions quite brutally. In literal and bald statement he closed the
+circle and returned to Baker's very words: "Keep Orde's testimony out of
+court." Only in this case Saleratus Bill read into the simple command a
+more sinister meaning.
+
+The morning after his return from the lower country, Bob saddled up to
+ride over to the mill. He wished to tell Welton of his meeting Taylor;
+and to consult him on the best course to pursue in regard to the bribery
+charges. With daylight many of his old perplexities had returned. He
+rode along so deep in thought that the only impression reaching him from
+the external world was one of the warmth of the sun.
+
+Suddenly a narrow shadow flashed by his eyes. Before his consciousness
+could leap from its inner contemplation, his arms were pulled flat to
+his sides, a shock ran through him as though he had received a heavy
+blow, and he was jerked backward from his horse to hit the ground with
+great violence.
+
+The wind was knocked from his body, so that for five seconds, perhaps,
+he was utterly confused. Before he could gather himself, or even
+comprehend what had happened, a heavy weight flung itself upon him. The
+beginnings of his feeble struggles were unceremoniously subdued. When,
+in another ten seconds, his vision had cleared, he found himself bound
+hand and foot. Saleratus Bill stood over him, slowly recoiling the
+_riata,_ or throwing rope, with which he had so dexterously caught Bob
+from behind. After contemplating his victim for a moment, Saleratus Bill
+mounted his own animal, and disappeared.
+
+Bob, his head humming from the violence of its impact with the ground,
+listened until the hoof beats had ceased to jar the earth. Then with a
+methodical desperation he began to wrench and work at his bonds. All his
+efforts were useless; Saleratus Bill understood "hog-tying" too well.
+When, finally, he had convinced himself that he could not get away, Bob
+gave over his efforts. The forest was very still and warm. After a time
+the sun fell upon him, and he began to feel its heat uncomfortably. The
+affair was inexplicable. He began to wonder whether Saleratus Bill
+intended leaving him there a prey to what fortune chance might bring.
+Although the odds were a hundred to one against his being heard, he
+shouted several times. About as he had begun once more to struggle
+against his bonds, his captor returned, leading Bob's horse, and cursing
+audibly over the difficulty he had been put to in catching it.
+
+Ignoring Bob's indignant demands, the gun-man loosed his ankles, taking,
+however, the precaution of throwing the riata over the young man's
+shoulders.
+
+"Climb your horse," he commanded briefly.
+
+"How do you expect me to do that, with my hands tied behind me?"
+demanded Bob.
+
+"I don't know. Just do it, and be quick," replied Saleratus Bill.
+
+Bob's horse was nervous and restive. Three times he dropped his master
+heavily to earth. Then Saleratus Bill, his evil eye wary, extended a
+helping hand. This was what Bob was hoping for; but the gun-man was too
+wily and experienced to allow himself within the captive's fettered
+reach.
+
+When Bob had finally gained his saddle, Saleratus Bill, leading the
+horse, set off at a rapid pace cross country. To all of Bob's questions
+and commands he turned a deaf ear, until, finally, seeing it was useless
+to ask, Bob fell silent. Only once did he pause, and then to breathe and
+water the horses. The country through which they passed was unfamiliar
+to Bob. He knew only that they were going north, and were keeping to
+westward of the Second Ranges.
+
+Late that evening Saleratus Bill halted for the night at a little
+meadow. He fed Bob a thick sandwich, and offered him a cup of water;
+after which he again shackled the young man's ankles, bound his elbows,
+and attached the helpless form to a tree. Bob spent the night in this
+case, covered only by his saddle blanket. The cords cut into his swelled
+flesh, the retarded circulation pricked him cruelly. He slept little. At
+early dawn his captor offered him the same fare. By sun-up they were
+under way again.
+
+All that day they angled to the northwest. The pine forests gave way to
+oaks, buckthorn, chaparral, as they entered lower country. Several times
+Saleratus Bill made long detours to avoid clearings and ranches. Bob, in
+spite of his strength and the excellence of his condition, reeled from
+sheer weariness and pain. They made no stop at noon.
+
+At two o'clock, or so, they left the last ranch and began once more
+leisurely to climb. The slope was gentle. A badly washed and eroded
+wagon grade led them on. It had not been used for years. The horses, now
+very tired, plodded on dispiritedly.
+
+Then, with the suddenness of a shift of scenery, they topped what seemed
+to be a trifling rounded hill. On the other side the slope dropped sheer
+away. Opposite and to north and south were the ranks of great mountains,
+some dark with the blue of atmosphere before pines, others glittering
+with snow. Directly beneath, almost under him, Bob saw a valley.
+
+It was many thousand feet below, mathematically round, and completely
+surrounded by lofty mountains. Indeed, already evening had there spread
+its shadows, although to the rest of the world the sun was still hours
+high. Through it flowed a river. From the height it looked like a piece
+of translucent green glass in the still depths; like cotton-wool where
+the rapids broke; for the great distance robbed it of all motion. This
+stream issued from a gorge and flowed into another, both so narrow that
+the lofty mountains seemed fairly to close them shut.
+
+Through the clear air of the Sierras this valley looked like a toy, a
+miniature. Every detail was distinct. Bob made out very plainly the
+pleasant trees, and a bridge over the river, and the roofs of many
+houses, and the streets of a little town.
+
+To the left the wagon road dropped away down the steep side of the
+mountain. Bob's eye could follow it, at first a band, then a ribbon,
+finally a tiny white thread, as it wound and zigzagged, seeking its
+contours, until finally it ran out on the level and rested at the bridge
+end. Opposite, on the other mountain, he thought to make out here and
+there faint suggestions of another way.
+
+Though his eye thus embraced at a glance the whole length of the route,
+Bob found it a two-hours' journey down. Always the walls of the
+mountains rose higher and higher above him, gaining in majesty and awe
+as he abandoned to them the upper air. Always the round valley grew
+larger, losing its toy-like character. Its features became, not more
+distinct, but more detailed. Bob saw the streets of the town were
+pleasantly shaded by cotton woods and willows; he distinguished dwelling
+houses, a store, an office building, a mill building for crushing of
+ore. The roar of the river came up to him more clearly. As though some
+power had released the magic of the stream, the water now moved. Rushing
+foam and white water tumbled over the black and shining rocks; deep
+pools eddied, dark and green, shot with swirls.
+
+As it became increasingly evident that the road could lead nowhere but
+through this village, Bob's spirits rose. The place was well built. Bob
+caught the shimmer of ample glass in the windows, the colour of paint on
+the boards, and even the ordered rectangles of brick chimneys! Evidently
+these things must have been freighted in over the devious steep grade he
+was at that moment descending. Bob well knew that, even nearer the
+source of supplies, such mining camps as this appeared to be were most
+often but a collection of rude, unpainted shanties, huddled together for
+a temporary need. The orderly, well-kept, decent appearance of this
+hamlet, more like a shaded New England village than a Western camp,
+argued old establishment, prosperity, and self-respect. The inhabitants
+could be no desperate fly-by-nights, such as Saleratus Bill would most
+likely have sought as companions. Bob made up his mind that the gun-man
+would shortly try to threaten him into a temporary secrecy as to the
+condition of affairs. This Bob instantly resolved to refuse.
+
+[Illustration: Bob found it two hours' journey down]
+
+Saleratus Bill, however, rode on in an unbroken silence. Long after the
+brawl of the river had become deafening, the road continued to dip and
+descend. It is a peculiar phenomenon incidental to the descent of the
+sheer cañons of the Sierra Nevada that the last few hundred feet down
+seem longer than the thousands already passed. This is probably because,
+having gained close to the level of the tree-tops, the mind, strung taut
+to the long descent, allows itself prematurely to relax its attention.
+Bob turned in his saddle to look back at the grade. He could not fail to
+reflect on how lucky it was that the inhabitants of this village could
+haul their materials and supplies _down_ the road. It would have been
+prohibitively difficult to drag anything up.
+
+After a wearisome time the road at last swung out on the flat, and so
+across the meadow to the bridge. Feed was belly deep to the horses. The
+bridge proved to be a suspension affair of wire cables, that swung
+alarmingly until the horses had to straddle in order to stand at all.
+Below it boiled the river, swirling, dashing, turning lazily and
+mysteriously over its glass-green depths, the shimmers and folds of
+eddies rising and swaying like air currents made visible.
+
+They climbed out on solid ground. The road swung to the left and back,
+following a contour to the slight elevation on which the houses stood.
+Saleratus Bill, however, turned up a brief short-cut, which landed them
+immediately on the main street.
+
+Bob saw two stores, an office building and a small hotel, shaded by
+wooden awnings. Beyond them, and opposite them, were substantial bunk
+houses and dwelling houses, painted red, each with its elevated, roofed
+verandah. Large trees, on either side, threw a shade fairly across the
+thoroughfare. An iron pump and water trough in front of the hotel saved
+the wayfarer from the necessity of riding his animals down to the river.
+The vista at the end of the street showed a mill building on a distant
+mountain side, with the rabbit-burrow dumps of many shafts and prospect
+holes all about it.
+
+They rode up the street past two or three of the houses, the hotel and
+the office. Bob, peering in through the windows, saw tables and chairs,
+old chromos and newer lithographs on the walls. Under the tree at the
+side of the hotel hung a water _olla_ with a porcelain cup atop. Near
+the back porch stood a screen meat safe.
+
+But not a soul was in sight. The street was deserted, the houses empty,
+the office unoccupied. As they proceeded Bob expected from one moment to
+the next to see a door open, a figure saunter around a corner. Save for
+the jays and squirrels, the place was absolutely empty.
+
+For some minutes the full realization of this fact was slow in coming.
+The village exhibited none of the symptoms of abandonment. The window
+glass was whole; the furniture of such houses as Bob had glanced into
+while passing stood in its accustomed places. A few strokes of the broom
+might have made any one of them immediately fit for habitation. The
+place looked less deserted than asleep; like one of the enchanted
+palaces so dear to tales of magic. It would not have seemed greatly
+wonderful to Bob to have seen the town spring suddenly to life in
+obedience to some spell. If the mill stamps in the distant crusher had
+creaked and begun to pound; if dogs had rushed barking around corners
+and from under porches; if from the hotel mine host had emerged,
+yawning and rubbing his eyes; if from the shops and offices and houses
+had issued the slow, grumbling sounds of life awakening, it would all
+have seemed natural and to be expected. Under the influence of this
+strange effect a deathly stillness seemed to fall, in spite of the
+bawling and roaring of the river, and the trickle of many streamlets
+hurrying down from the surrounding hills.
+
+So extraordinary was this effect of suspended animation that Bob again
+essayed his surly companion.
+
+"What place do you call this?" he inquired.
+
+Saleratus Bill had dismounted, and was stretching his long, lean arms
+over his head. Evidently he considered this the end of the long and
+painful journey, and as evidently he was, in his relief, inclined to be
+better natured.
+
+"Busted minin' camp called Bright's Cove," said he; "they took about ten
+million dollars out of here before she bust."
+
+"How long ago was that?" asked Bob.
+
+"Ten year or so."
+
+The young man gazed about him in amazement. The place looked as though
+it might have been abandoned the month before. In his subsequent sojourn
+he began more accurately to gauge the reasons for this. Here were no
+small boys to hurl the casual pebble through the delightfully shimmering
+glass; here was no dust to be swirled into crevices and angles, no wind
+to carry it; to this remote cove penetrated no vandals to rob, mutilate
+or wantonly disfigure; and the elevation of the valley's floor was low
+enough even to avoid the crushing weights of snow that every winter
+brought to the peaks around it. Only the squirrels, the birds and the
+tiny wood rats represented in their little way the forces of
+destruction. Furthermore, the difficulties of transportation absolutely
+precluded moving any of the small property whose absence so strongly
+impresses the desertion of a building. When Bright's Cove moved, it had
+merely to shut the front door. In some cases it did not shut the front
+door.
+
+Saleratus Bill assisted Bob from the saddle. This had become necessary,
+for the long ride in bonds had so cramped and stiffened the young man
+that he was unable to help himself. Indeed, he found he could not stand.
+Saleratus Bill, after looking at him shrewdly, untied his hands.
+
+"I guess you're safe enough for now," said he.
+
+Bob's wrists were swollen, and his arms so stiff he could hardly use
+them. Saleratus Bill paused in throwing the saddles off the wearied
+animals.
+
+"Look here," said he gruffly; "if you pass yore word you won't try to
+get away or make no fight, I'll turn you loose."
+
+"I'll promise you that for to-night, anyway," returned Bob quickly.
+
+Saleratus Bill immediately cast the ropes into a corner of the verandah.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+The shadows of evening were falling when Saleratus Bill returned from
+pasturing the wearied horses. Bob had been too exhausted to look about
+him, even to think. From a cache the gun-man produced several bags of
+food and a side of bacon. Evidently Bright's Cove was one of his
+familiar haunts. After a meal which Bob would have enjoyed more had he
+not been so dead weary, his captor motioned him to one of the bunks.
+Only too glad for an opportunity to rest, Bob tumbled in, clothes and
+all.
+
+About midnight he half roused, feeling the mountain chill. He groped
+instinctively; his hand encountered a quilt, which he drew around his
+shoulders.
+
+When he awoke it was broad daylight. A persistent discomfort which had
+for an hour fought with his drowsiness for the ascendancy, now disclosed
+itself as a ligature tying his elbows at the back. Evidently Saleratus
+Bill had taken this precaution while the young man slept. Bob could
+still use his hands and wrists, after a fashion; he could walk about but
+he would be unable to initiate any effective offence. The situation was
+admirably analogous to that of a hobbled horse. Moreover, the bonds were
+apparently of some broad, soft substance like sacking or harness
+webbing, so that, after Bob had moved from his constrained position,
+they did not excessively discommode him.
+
+He had no means of guessing what the hour might be, and no sounds
+reached him from the other parts of the house. His muscles were sore and
+bruised. For some time he was quite content to lie on his side, thinking
+matters over.
+
+From his knowledge of the connection between Baker and Oldham, Oldham
+and his captor, Bob had no doubt as to the purpose of his abduction; nor
+did he fail to guess that now, with the chief witness out of the way,
+the trial would be hurried where before it had been delayed. Personally
+he had little to fear beyond a detention--unless he should attempt to
+escape, or unless a searching party might blunder on his traces. Bob had
+already made up his mind to use his best efforts to get away. As to the
+probabilities of a rescue blundering on this retreat, he had no means of
+guessing; but he shrewdly concluded that Saleratus Bill was taking no
+chances.
+
+That individual now entered; and, seeing his captive awake, gruffly
+ordered him to rise. Bob found an abundant breakfast ready, to which he
+was able to do full justice. In the course of the meal he made several
+attempts on his jailer's taciturnity, but without success. Saleratus
+Bill met all his inquiries, open and guarded, with a sullen silence or
+evasive, curt replies.
+
+"It don't noways matter why you're here, or how you're here. You _are_
+here, and that's all there's to it."
+
+"How long do I stay?"
+
+"Until I get ready to let you go."
+
+"How can you get word from Mr. Oldham when to let me off?" asked Bob.
+
+But Saleratus Bill refused to rise to the bait.
+
+"I'll let you go when I get ready," he repeated.
+
+Bob was silent for some time.
+
+"You know this lets me off from my promise," said he, nodding backward
+toward his elbows. "I'll get away if I can."
+
+Saleratus Bill, for the first time, permitted himself a smile.
+
+"There's two ways out of this place," said he--"where we come in, and
+over north on the trail. You can see every inch--both ways--from here.
+Besides, don't make no mistakes. I'll shoot you if you make a break."
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"I believe you," said he.
+
+As though to convince Bob of the utter helplessness of any attempt,
+Saleratus Bill, leaving the dishes unwashed, led the way in a tour of
+the valley. Save where the wagon road descended and where the steep side
+hill of the north wall arose, the boundaries were utterly precipitous.
+From a narrow gorge, flanked by water-smoothed rock aprons, the river
+boiled between glassy perpendicular cliffs.
+
+"There ain't no swimming-holes in that there river," remarked Saleratus
+Bill grimly.
+
+Bob, leaning forward, could just catch a glimpse of the torrent raging
+and buffeting in the narrow box cañon, above which the mountains rose
+tremendous. No stream growths had any chance there. The place was water
+and rock--nothing more. In the valley itself willows and alders, well
+out of reach of high water, offered a partial screen to soften the
+savage vista.
+
+The round valley itself, however, was beautiful. Ripening grasses grew
+shoulder high. Shady trees swarmed with birds. Bees and other insects
+hummed through the sun-warmed air.
+
+In vain Bob looked about him for the horses, or for signs of them. They
+were nowhere to be seen. Saleratus Bill, reading his perplexity, grinned
+sardonically.
+
+"Yore friends might come in here," said he, evidently not unwilling to
+expose to Bob the full hopelessness of the latter's case. "And if so,
+they can trail us in; _and then trail us out again!_" He pointed to the
+lacets of the trail up the north wall. He grinned again. "You and I'd
+just crawl down a mile of mine shaft."
+
+Having thus, to his satisfaction, impressed Bob with the utter futility
+of an attempt to escape, Saleratus Bill led the way back to the deserted
+village. There he turned deliberately on his captive.
+
+"Now, young feller, you listen to me," said he. "Don't you try no monkey
+business. There won't be no questions asked, none whatever. As long as
+you set and look at the scenery, you won't come to no harm; but the
+minute you make even a bluff at gettin' funny--even if yore sorry the
+next minute--I'll shoot. And don't you never forget and try to get
+nearer to me than three paces. Don't forget that! I don't rightly want
+to hurt you; but I'd just as leave shoot you as anybody else."
+
+To this view of the situation Bob gave the expected assent.
+
+The next three days were ones of routine. Saleratus Bill spent his time
+rolling brown-paper cigarettes at a spot that commanded both trails. Bob
+was instructed to keep in sight. He early discovered the cheering fact
+that trout were to be had in the glass-green pools; and so spent hours
+awkwardly manipulating an improvised willow pole equipped with the short
+line and the Brown Hackle without which no mountaineer ever travels the
+Sierras. His bound elbows and the crudity of his tackle lost him many
+fish. Still, he caught enough for food; and his mind was busy.
+
+Canvassing the possibilities, Bob could not but admit that Saleratus
+Bill knew his job. The river was certain death, and led nowhere except
+into mysterious and awful granite gorges; the outlets by roads were well
+in sight. For one afternoon Bob seriously contemplated hazarding a
+personal encounter. He conceived that in some manner he could get rid of
+his bonds at night; that Saleratus Bill must necessarily sleep; and that
+there might be a chance to surprise the gun-man then. But when night
+came, Saleratus Bill disappeared into the outer darkness; nor did he
+return until morning. He might have spent the hours camped under the
+trees of the more remote meadow, whence in the brilliant moonlight he
+could keep tabs on the trails, or he might be lying near at hand; Bob
+had no means of telling. Certainly, again the young man reluctantly
+acknowledged to himself, Saleratus Bill knew his job!
+
+Nevertheless, as the days slipped by; and Bob's physical strength
+returned in its full measure, his active and bold spirit again took the
+initiative. A slow anger seized possession of him. The native combative
+stubbornness of the race asserted itself, the necessity of doing
+something, the inability tamely to submit to imposed circumstances.
+Bob's careful analysis of the situation as a whole failed to discover
+any feasible plan. Therefore he abandoned trying to plan ahead, and fell
+back on those always-ready and comfortable aphorisims of the
+adventurous--"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and "one
+thing at a time." Obviously, the first thing to do was to free his arms;
+after that he would see what he would see.
+
+Every evening Saleratus Bill took the candle and departed, leaving Bob
+to find his own way to his bunk. This was the time to cut his bonds; if
+at all. Unfortunately Bob could find nothing against which to cut them.
+Saleratus Bill had carefully removed every abrasive possibility in the
+two rooms. Bob very wisely relinquished the idea of passing the
+threshold in search of a suitable rock or piece of tin. He had no notion
+of risking a bullet until something was likely to be gained by it.
+
+Finally his cogitations brought him an idea. Saleratus Bill was
+attentive enough to such of the simple creature comforts as were within
+his means. Bob's pipe had been well supplied with tobacco. On the fourth
+evening Bob filled it just as his jailor was about to take away the
+candle for the night.
+
+"Just a minute," said Bob. "Let me have a light."
+
+Bill set the candle on the table again, and retired the three paces
+which he never forgot rigidly to maintain between himself and his
+captive. Bob thereupon lit his pipe and nodded his thanks. As soon as
+Saleratus Bill had well departed, however, he retired to his bunk room,
+shutting the door carefully after him. There, with great care, he
+deliberately set to work to coax into flame a small fire on the old
+hearth, using as fuel the rounds of a broken chair, and as ignition the
+glowing coal in the bowl of his pipe. Before the hearth he had managed
+to hang the heavy quilt from his bunk, so that the flicker of the flames
+should not be visible from the outside.
+
+The little fire caught, blazed for a few moments, and fell to a steady
+glow. Bob fished out one of the chair rungs, jammed the cool end firmly
+in one of the open cracks between the timbers of the room, turned his
+back, and deliberately pressed the band around his elbows against the
+live coal.
+
+A smell of burning cloth immediately filled the air. After a moment the
+coal went out. Bob replaced the charred rung in the fire, extracted
+another, and repeated the operation.
+
+It was exceedingly difficult to gauge the matter accurately, as Bob soon
+found out to his cost. He managed to burn more holes in his garment--and
+himself--than in the bonds. However, he kept at it, and after a half
+hour's steady and patient effort he was able to snap asunder the last
+strands. He stretched his arms over his head in an ecstasy of physical
+freedom.
+
+That was all very well, but what next? Bob was suddenly called to a
+decision which had up to that moment seemed inconceivably remote.
+Heretofore, an apparent impossibility had separated him from it. Now
+that impossibility was achieved.
+
+A moment's thought convinced him of the senseless hazard of attempting
+to slip out through any of the doors or windows. The moon was bright,
+and Saleratus Bill would have taken his precautions. Bob attacked the
+floor. Several boards proved to be loose. He pried them up cautiously,
+and so was enabled to drop through into the open space beneath the
+house. Thence it was easy to crawl away. Saleratus Bill's precautions
+were most likely taken, Bob argued to himself, with a view toward a man
+bound at the elbows, not to a man with two hands. In this he was
+evidently correct, for after a painful effort, he found himself among
+the high grasses of the meadow.
+
+There were now, as he recognized, two courses open to him: he could
+either try to discover Saleratus Bill's sleeping place and by surprise
+overpower that worthy as he slept; or he could make the best of the
+interim before his absence was discovered to get as far away as
+possible. Both courses had obvious disadvantages. The most immediate to
+the first alternative was the difficulty, failing some clue, of finding
+Saleratus Bill's sleeping place without too positive a risk of
+discovery; the most immediate to the second was the difficulty of
+getting to the other side of the river. As Saleratus Bill might be at
+any one of a thousand places, in or out of doors; whereas the river
+could be crossed only by the bridge. Bob, without hesitation, chose the
+latter.
+
+Therefore he made his way cautiously to that structure. It proved to be
+lying in broad moonlight. As it constituted the only link with the
+outside world to the south, Bob could not doubt that his captor had
+arranged to keep it in sight.
+
+The bridge was, as has been said, suspended across a strait between two
+rocks by means of heavy wire cables. Slipping beneath these rocks and
+into the shadow, Bob was rejoiced to find that between the stringers and
+the shore, smaller cables had been bent to act as guy lines. If he could
+walk "hand over hand," the distance comprised by the width of the stream
+he could pass the river below the level of the bridge floor. He measured
+the distance with his eye. It did not look farther than the length of
+the gymnasium at college. He seized the cable and swung himself out over
+the waters.
+
+Immediately the swift and boiling current, though twenty feet below,
+seemed to suck at his feet. The swirling and flashing of the water
+dizzied his brain with the impression of falling upstream. He had to fix
+his eyes on the black flooring above his head. The steel cable, too, was
+old and rusted and harsh. Bob's hands had not for many years grasped a
+rope strongly, and in that respect he found them soft. His muscles,
+cramped more than he had realized by the bonds of his captivity, soon
+began to drag and stretch. When halfway across, suspended above a
+ravening torrent; confronted, tired, by an effort he had needed all his
+fresh energies to put forth, Bob would have given a good deal to have
+been able to clamber aboard the bridge, risk or no risk. It was,
+however, a clear case of needs must. He finished the span on sheer nerve
+and will power; and fell thankfully on the rocks below the farther
+abutment. For a half minute he lay there, stretching slowly his muscles
+and straightening his hands, which had become cramped like claws. Then
+he crept, always in the shadow, to the level of the meadow.
+
+Bob was learning to be a mountaineer. Therefore, on the way down, he had
+subconsciously noted that from the head of the meadow a steep dry wash
+climbed straight up to intersect the road. The recollection came to the
+surface of his mind now. If he could make his way up this wash, he would
+gain three advantages: he would materially shorten his journey by
+cutting off a mile or so of the road-grade's twists and doublings; he
+would avoid the necessity of showing himself so near the Cove in the
+bright moonlight; and he would leave no tracks where the road touched
+the valley. Accordingly he turned sharp to the left and began to pick
+his way upstream, keeping in close to the river and treading as much as
+possible on the water-worn rocks. The willows and elders protected him
+somewhat. In this manner he proceeded until he had come to the smooth
+rock aprons near the gorge from which the river flowed. Here, in
+accordance with his intention of keeping close in the shadow of the
+mountain, he was to turn to the right until he should have arrived at
+the steep "chimney" of the wash. He was about to leave the shelter of
+the last willows when he looked back. As his eyes turned, a flash of
+moonlight struck them full, like the heliographing of a mirror. He fixed
+his gaze on the bushes from which the flicker had come. In a moment it
+was repeated. Then, stooping low, a human figure hurried across a tiny
+opening, and once again the moonlight reflected from the worn and
+shining revolver in its hand.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+In some manner Saleratus Bill had discovered the young man's escape, and
+had already eliminated the other possibilities of his direction of
+flight. Bob shuddered at this evidence of the rapidity with which the
+expert trailer had arrived at the correct conclusion. He could not now
+skirt the mountain, as he had intended, for that would at once expose
+him in full view; he could not return by the way he had come, for that
+would bring him face to face with his enemy. It would avail him little
+to surrender, for the gun-man would undoubtedly make good his threats;
+fidelity to such pledges is one of the few things sacred to the race.
+With some vague and desperate idea of defence, Bob picked up a heavy
+branch of driftwood. Then, as the man drew nearer, Bob scrambled hastily
+over the smooth apron to the tiny beach that the eddies had washed out
+below the precipice.
+
+Here for the moment he was hidden, but he did not flatter himself he
+would long remain so. He cast his eyes about him for a way of escape. To
+the one side was the river, in front of him was the rock apron with his
+enemy, to the other side and back of him was a sheer precipice. In his
+perplexity he looked down. A gleam of metal caught his eye. He stooped
+and picked up the half of a worn horseshoe. Even in his haste of mind,
+he cast a passing wonderment on how it had come there.
+
+If Bob had not been trained by his river work in the ways of currents,
+he might sooner have thought of the stream. But well he knew that
+Saleratus Bill had spoken right when he had said that there were "no
+swimming holes" here. The strongest swimmer could not have taken two
+strokes in that cauldron of seething white water. But now, as Bob
+looked, he saw that a little back eddy along the perpendicularity of the
+cliff slowed the current close to the sheer rock. It might be just
+possible, with luck, to win far enough along this cliff to lie concealed
+behind some outjutting boulder until Saleratus Bill had examined the
+beach and gone his way. Bob was too much in haste to consider the
+unexplained tracks he must leave on the sand.
+
+He thrust the branch he carried into the still black water. To his
+surprise it hit bottom at a foot's depth. Promptly he waded in. Sounding
+ahead, he walked on. The underwater ledge continued. The water never
+came above his knees. Out of curiosity he tapped with his branch until
+he had reached the edge of the submerged shelf. It proved to be some
+four feet wide. Beyond it the water dropped off sheer, and the current
+nearly wrenched the staff from Bob's hand.
+
+In this manner he proceeded cautiously for perhaps a hundred feet. Then
+he waded out on another beach.
+
+He found himself in a pocket of the cliffs, where the precipice so far
+drew back as to leave a clear space of four or five acres in the river
+bottom. Such pockets, or "coves," are by no means unusual in the
+inaccessible depths of the great box cañons of the Sierras. Often the
+traveller can look down on them from above, lying like green gems in
+their settings of granite, but rarely can he descend to examine them.
+Thankfully Bob darted to one side. Here for a moment he might be safe,
+for surely no one not driven by such desperation as his own would dream
+of setting foot in the river.
+
+A loud snort almost at his elbow, and a rush of scurrying shapes,
+startled him almost into crying aloud. Then out into the moonlight from
+the shadow of the cliffs rushed two horses. And Bob, seeing what they
+were, sprang from his fancied security into instant action, for in a
+flash he saw the significance of the broken horseshoe on the beach, the
+sunken ledge, and the secret of the horses' pasture. By sheer chance he
+had blundered on one of Saleratus Bill's outlaw retreats.
+
+Hastily he skirted the walls of the tiny valley. They were unbroken. The
+river swept by tortured and tumbled. He ran to the head of the cove. No
+sunken ledge there rewarded him. Instead, the river at that point swept
+inward, so that the full force of the current washed the very shores.
+
+Bob searched the prospect with eager eye. Twelve or fifteen feet
+upstream, and six or seven feet out from the cliff, stood a huge round
+boulder. That alone broke the shadowy expanse of the river, which here
+rushed down with great velocity. Manifestly it was impossible to swim to
+this boulder. Bob, however, conceived a daring idea. At imminent risk
+and by dint of frantic scrambling he worked his way along the cliff
+until he had gained a point opposite the boulder and considerably above
+it. Then, without hesitation, he sprang as strongly as he was able
+sidewise from the face of the cliff.
+
+He landed on the boulder with great force, so that for a moment he
+feared he must have broken some bones. Certainly his breath was all but
+knocked from his body. Spread out flat on the top of the rock, he moved
+his limbs cautiously. They seemed to work all right. He backed
+cautiously until he lay outspread on the upstream slope of the boulder.
+At just this moment he caught the sinister figure of Saleratus Bill
+moving along the sunken ledge.
+
+For the first time Bob remembered the tracks he must have left and the
+man's skill at trailing. A rapid review of his most recent actions
+reassured him at one point; in order to gain to the first of the minor
+cliff projections by means of which he had spread-eagled along the face
+of the rock, he had been forced to step into the very shallow water at
+the stream's edge. Thus his last footprints led directly into the river.
+
+The value of this impression, conjoined with the existence of a ledge
+below over which he had already waded safely, was not lost on Bob's
+preception. As has been stated, his earlier experience in river driving
+had given him an intimate knowledge of the action of currents. Casting
+his eye hastily down the moonlit river, he seized his hat from his head
+and threw it low and skimming toward an eddy opposite him as he lay. The
+river snatched it up, tossed it to one side or another, and finally
+carried it, as Bob had calculated, within a few feet of the ledge along
+which Saleratus Bill was still making his way.
+
+The gun-man, of course, caught sight of it, and even made an attempt to
+capture it as it floated past, but without avail. It served, however, to
+prepossess his mind with the idea that Bob had been swept away by the
+river, so that when, after a careful examination of the tiny cove, he
+came to the trail leading into the water, he was prepared to believe
+that the young man had been carried off his feet in an attempt to wade
+out past the cliff. He even picked up a branch, with which he poked at
+the bottom. A short and narrow rock projection favoured his hypothesis,
+for it might very well happen that merely an experimental venture on so
+slanting and slippery a footing would prove fatal. Saleratus Bill
+examined again for footprints emerging; threw his branch into the river,
+and watched the direction of its course; and then, for the first time,
+slipped the worn and shiny old revolver into its holster. He spent
+several moments more reexamining the cove, glanced again at the river,
+and finally disappeared, wading slowly back around the sunken ledge.
+
+Bob's next task was to regain solid land. For some minutes he sat
+astride the boulder, estimating the force and directions of the current.
+Then he leaped. As he had calculated, the stream threw him promptly
+against the bank below. There his legs were immediately sucked beneath
+the overhanging rock that had convinced Saleratus Bill of his captive's
+fate. It seemed likely now to justify that conviction. Bob clung
+desperately, until his muscles cracked, but was unable so far to draw
+his legs from underneath the rock as to gain a chance to struggle out
+of water. Indeed, he might very well have hung in that equilibrium of
+forces until tired out, had not a slender, water-washed alder root
+offered itself to his grasp. This frail shrub, but lightly rooted,
+nevertheless afforded him just the extra support he required. Though he
+expected every instant that the additional ounces of weight he from
+moment to moment applied to it would tear it away, it held. Inch by inch
+he drew himself from the clutch of the rushing water, until at length he
+succeeded in getting the broad of his chest against the bank. A few
+vigorous kicks then extricated him.
+
+For a moment or so he lay stretched out panting, and considering what
+next was to be done. There was a chance, of course--and, in view of
+Saleratus Bill's shrewdness, a very strong chance--that the gun-man
+would add to his precautions a wait and a watch at the entrance to the
+cove. If Bob were to wade out around the ledge, he might run fairly into
+his former jailer's gun. On the other hand, Saleratus Bill must be
+fairly well convinced of the young man's destruction, and he must be
+desirous of changing his wet clothes. Bob's own predicament, in this
+chill of night, made him attach much weight to this latter
+consideration. Besides, any delay in the cove meant more tracks to be
+noticed when the gun-man should come after the horses. Bob, his teeth
+chattering, resolved to take the chance of instant action.
+
+Accordingly he waded back along the sunken ledge, glided as quickly as
+he could over the rock apron, and wormed his way through the grasses to
+the dry wash leading up the side of the mountains. Here fortune had
+favoured him, and by a very simple, natural sequence. The moon had by an
+hour sailed farther to the west; the wash now lay in shadow.
+
+Bob climbed as rapidly as his wind would let him, and in that manner
+avoided a chill. He reached the road at a broad sheet of rock whereon
+his footsteps left no trace. After a moment's consideration, he decided
+to continue directly up the mountainside through the thick brush. This
+travel must be uncertain and laborious; but if he proceeded along the
+road, Saleratus Bill must see the traces he would indubitably leave. In
+the obscurity of the shady side of the mountain he found his task even
+more difficult than he had thought possible. Again and again he found
+himself puzzled by impenetrable thickets, impassable precipices, rough
+outcrops barring his way. By dint of patience and hard work, however, he
+gained the top of the mountain. At sunrise he looked back into Bright's
+Cove. It lay there peacefully deserted, to all appearance; but Bob,
+looking very closely, thought to make out smoke. The long thread of the
+road was quite vacant.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Bob had no very clear idea of where he was, except that it was in the
+unfriendly Durham country. It seemed well to postpone all public
+appearances until he should be beyond a chance that Saleratus Bill might
+hear of him. Bob was quite satisfied that the gun-man should believe him
+to have been swept away by the current.
+
+Accordingly, after he had well rested from his vigorous climb, he set
+out to parallel the dim old road by which the two had entered the Cove.
+At times this proved so difficult a matter that Bob was almost on the
+point of abandoning the hillside tangle of boulders and brush in favour
+of the open highway. He reflected in time that Saleratus Bill must come
+out by this route; and he shrewdly surmised the expert trailer might be
+able from some former minute observation to recognize his footprints.
+Therefore he struggled on until the road dipped down toward the lower
+country. He remembered that, on the way in, his captor had led him first
+down the mountain, and then up again. Bob resolved to abandon the road
+and keep to the higher contours, trusting to cut the trail where it
+again mounted to his level. To be sure, it was probable that there
+existed some very good reason why the road so dipped to the valley--some
+dike, ridge or deep cañon impassable to horses. Bob knew enough of
+mountains to guess that. Still, he argued, that might not stop a man
+afoot.
+
+The rest of a long, hard day he spent in proving this latter
+proposition. The country was very broken. A dozen times Bob scrambled
+and slid down a gorge, and out again, doing thus an hour's work for a
+half mile gain. The sun turned hot, and he had no food. Fortunately
+water was abundant. Toward the close of the afternoon he struck in to a
+long slope of pine belt, and conceived his difficulties over.
+
+After the heat and glare of the rocks, the cool shadows of the forest
+were doubly grateful. Bob lifted his face to the wandering breezes, and
+stepped out with fresh vigour. The way led at first up the narrow spine
+of a "hogback," but soon widened into one of the ample and spacious
+parks peculiar to the elevations near the summits of the First Rampart.
+Occasional cattle tracks meandered here and there, but save for these
+Bob saw no signs of man's activities--no cuttings, no shake-bolts, no
+blazes on the trees to mark a way. Nevertheless, as he rose on the slow,
+even swell of the mountain the conviction of familiarity began to force
+its way in him. The forest was just like every other forest; there was
+no outlook in any direction; but all the same, with that instinct for
+locality inherent in a natural woodsman, he began to get his bearings,
+to "feel the lay of the country," as the saying is. This is probably an
+effect of the subconscious mind in memory; a recognition of what the eye
+has seen without reporting to the conscious mind. However that may be,
+Bob was not surprised when toward sunset he came suddenly on a little
+clearing, a tiny orchard, and a house built rudely of logs and shakes.
+
+Relieved that he was not to spend the night without food and fire, he
+vaulted the "snake" fence, and strode to the back door. A woman was
+frying venison steaks.
+
+"Hullo, Mrs. Ward," Bob shouted at her. "That smells good to me; I
+haven't had a bite since last night!"
+
+The woman dropped her pan and came to the door. A lank and lean Pike
+County Missourian rose from the shadows and advanced.
+
+"Light and rest yo' hat, Mr. Orde!" he called before he came well into
+view. "But yo' already lighted, and you ain't go no hat!" he cried in
+puzzled tones. "Whar yo'all from?"
+
+"Came from north," Bob replied cheerfully, "and I lost my horse down a
+cañon, and my hat in a river."
+
+"And yere yo' be plumb afoot!"
+
+"And plumb empty," supplemented Bob. "Maybe Mrs. Ward will make me some
+coffee," he suggested with a side glance at the woman who had once tried
+to poison him.
+
+She turned a dull red under the tan of her sallow complexion.
+
+"Shore, Mr. Orde--" she began.
+
+"We didn't rightly understand each other," Bob reassured her. "That was
+all."
+
+"Did she-all refuse you coffee onct?" asked Ward. "What yo' palaverin'
+about?"
+
+"She isn't refusing to make me some now," said Bob.
+
+He spent the night comfortably with his new friends who a few months ago
+had been ready to murder him. The next morning early, supplied with an
+ample lunch, he set out. Ward offered him a riding horse, but he
+declined.
+
+"I'd have to send it back," said he, "and, anyway, I'd neither want to
+borrow your saddle nor ride bareback. I'd rather walk."
+
+The old man accompanied him to the edge of the clearing.
+
+"By the way," Bob mentioned, as he said farewell, "if some one asks you,
+just tell them you haven't seen me."
+
+The old man stopped short.
+
+"What-for a man?" he asked.
+
+"Any sort."
+
+A frosty gleam crept into the old Missourian's eye.
+
+"I'll keep hands off," said he. He strode on twenty feet. "I got an
+extra gun--" said he.
+
+"Thanks," Bob interrupted. "But I'll get organized better when I get
+home."
+
+"Hope you git him," said the old man by way of farewell. "He won't git
+nothing out of me," he shot back over his shoulder.
+
+Bob now knew exactly where he was going. Reinvigorated by the food, the
+night's rest, and the cool air of these higher altitudes, he made good
+time. By four o'clock of the afternoon he at last hit the broad, dusty
+thoroughfare over which were hauled the supplies to Baker's upper works.
+Along this he swung, hands in pockets, a whistle on his lips, the fine,
+light dust rising behind his footsteps. The slight down grade released
+his tired muscles from effort. He was enjoying himself.
+
+Then he came suddenly around a corner plump against a horseman climbing
+leisurely up the grade. Both stopped.
+
+If Bob had entertained any lingering doubt as to Oldham's complicity in
+his abduction, the expression on the land agent's face would have
+removed it. For the first time in public Oldham's countenance expressed
+a livelier emotion than that of cynical interest. His mouth fell open
+and his eyeglasses dropped off. He stared at Bob as though that young
+man had suddenly sprung into visibility from clear atmosphere. Bob
+surveyed him grimly.
+
+"Delighted to see me, aren't you?" he remarked. A slow anger surged up
+within him. "Your little scheme didn't work, did it? Wanted me out of
+the way, did you? Thought you'd keep me out of court! Well, I'm here,
+just as I said I'd be here. You can pay your villainous tool or kick him
+out, as you please. He's failed, and he won't get another chance. You
+miserable whelp!"
+
+But Oldham had recovered his poise.
+
+"Get out of my way. I don't know what you are talking about. I'll land
+you in the penitentiary a week after you appear in court. You're
+warned."
+
+"Oh, I've been warned for some time. But first I'll land you."
+
+"Really! How?"
+
+"Right here and now," said Bob stepping forward.
+
+Oldham reined back his horse, and drew from his side pocket a short,
+nickel-plated revolver.
+
+"Let me pass!" he commanded harshly. He presented the weapon, and his
+gray eyes contracted to pin points.
+
+"Throw that thing away," said Bob, laying his hand on the other man's
+bridle. "_I'm going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard
+tell of!_"
+
+The young man's muscles were tense with the expectation of a shot. To
+his vast astonishment, at his last words Oldham turned deadly pale,
+swayed in the saddle, and the revolver clattered past his stirrup to
+fall in the dust. With a snarl of contempt at what he erroneously took
+for a mere physical cowardice, Bob reached for his enemy and dragged him
+from the saddle.
+
+The chastisement was brief, but effective. Bob's anger cooled with the
+first blow, for Oldham was no match for his younger and more vigorous
+assailant. In fact, he hardly offered any resistance. Bob knocked him
+down, shook him by the collar as a terrier shakes a ground squirrel, and
+cast him fiercely in the dust. Oldham sat up, his face bleeding
+slightly, his eyes bewildered with the suddenness of the onslaught. The
+young man leaned over him, speaking vehemently to rivet his attention.
+
+"Now you listen to me," said he. "You leave me alone. If I ever hear any
+gossip, even, about what you will or will not do to me, I'll know where
+it started from. The first word I hear from any one anywhere, I'll start
+for you."
+
+He looked down for a moment at the disorganized man seated in the thick,
+white dust that was still floating lazily around him. Then he turned
+abruptly away and resumed his journey.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+For ten seconds Oldham sat as Bob had left him. His hat and eyeglasses
+were gone, his usually immaculate irongray hair rumpled, his clothes
+covered with dust. A thin stream of blood crept from beneath his
+close-clipped moustache. But the most striking result of the encounter,
+to one who had known the man, was in the convulsed expression of his
+countenance. A close friend would hardly have recognized him. His lips
+snarled, his eyes flared, the muscles of his face worked. Ordinarily
+repressed and inscrutable, this crisis had thrown him so far off his
+balance that, as often happens, he had fallen to the other extreme.
+Sniffling and half-sobbing, like a punished schoolboy, he dragged
+himself to where his revolver lay forgotten in the dust. Taking as
+deliberate aim as his condition permitted, he pulled at the trigger. The
+hammer refused to rise, or the cylinder to revolve. Abandoning the
+self-cocking feature of the arm, he tried to cock it by hand. The
+mechanism grated sullenly against the grit from the road. Oldham worked
+frantically to get the hammer to catch. By the time he had succeeded,
+his antagonist was out of reach. With a half-scream of baffled rage, he
+hurled the now useless weapon in the direction of the young man's
+disappearance. Then, as Oldham stood militant in the dusty road, a
+change came over him. Little by little the man resumed his old self. A
+full minute went by. Save for the quicker breathing, a spectator might
+have thought him sunk in reverie. At the end of that time the old,
+self-contained, reserved, cynical Oldham stepped from his tracks, and
+set methodically to repair damages.
+
+First he searched for and found his glasses, fortunately unbroken. At
+the nearest streamlet he washed his face, combed his hair, brushed off
+his clothes. The saddle horse browsed not far away. Finally he walked
+down the road, picked up the revolver, cleaned it thoroughly of dust,
+tested it and slipped it into his pocket. Then he resumed his journey,
+outwardly as self-possessed as ever.
+
+Near the upper dam he had another encounter. The dust of some one
+approaching warned him some time before the traveller came in sight.
+Oldham reined back his horse until he could see who it was; then he
+spurred forward to meet Saleratus Bill.
+
+The gun-man was lounging along at peace with all the world, his bridle
+rein loose, his leg slung over the pommel of his saddle. At the sight of
+his employer, he grinned cheerfully.
+
+Oldham rode directly to him.
+
+"Why aren't you attending to your job?" he demanded icily.
+
+"Out of a job," said Saleratus Bill cheerfully.
+
+"Why haven't you kept your man in charge?"
+
+"I did until he just naturally had one of those unavoidable accidents."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"Well. I ain't never been afraid of words. He's dead; that's what."
+
+"Indeed," said Oldham, "Then I suppose I met his ghost just now; and
+that a spirit gave me this cut lip."
+
+Saleratus Bill swung his leg from the saddle horn and straightened to
+attention.
+
+"Did he have a hat on?" he demanded keenly.
+
+"Yes--no--I believe not. No, I'm sure he didn't."
+
+"It's him, all right." He shook his head reflectively, "I can't figure
+it."
+
+Oldham was staring at him with deadly coldness.
+
+"Perhaps you'll be good enough to explain," he sneered--"five hundred
+dollars worth at any rate."
+
+Saleratus Bill detailed what he knew of the whole affair. Oldham
+listened to the end. His cynical expression did not change; and the
+unlighted cigar that he held between his swollen lips never changed its
+angle.
+
+"And so he just nat'rally disappeared," Saleratus Bill ended his
+recital. "I can't figure it out."
+
+Then Oldham spat forth the cigar. His calm utterly deserted him. He
+thrust his livid countenance out at his man.
+
+"Figure it out!" he cried. "You pin-headed fool! You had an unarmed man
+tied hand and foot, in a three-thousand-foot hole, and you couldn't keep
+him! And one of the smallest interests involved is worth more than
+everything your worthless hide can hold! I picked you out for this job
+because I thought you reliable. And now you come to me with 'I can't
+figure it out!' That's all the explanation or excuse you bring! You
+miserable, worthless cur!"
+
+Saleratus Bill was looking at him steadily from his evil, red-rimmed
+eyes.
+
+"Hold on," he drawled. "Go slow. I don't stand such talk."
+
+Oldham spurred up close to him.
+
+"Don't you try any of your gun-play or intimidation on me," he fairly
+shouted. "I won't stand for it. You'll hear what I've got to say, just
+as long as I choose to say it."
+
+He eyed the gun-man truculently. Certainly even Bob could not have
+accused him of physical cowardice at that moment.
+
+Saleratus Bill stared back at him with the steady, venomous glare of a
+rattlesnake. Then his lips, under his straggling, sandy moustache,
+parted in a slow grin.
+
+"Say your say," he conceded. "I reckon you're mad; I reckon that boy
+man-handled you something scand'lous."
+
+At the words Oldham's face became still more congested.
+
+"But you look a-here," said Saleratus Bill, suddenly leaning across
+from his saddle and pointing a long, lean finger. "You just remember
+this: I took this yere job with too many strings tied to it. I mustn't
+hurt him; and I must see no harm comes to him; and I must be noways
+cruel to mama's baby. You had me hobbled, and then you cuss me out
+because I can't get over the rocks. If you'd turned me loose with no
+instructions except to disappear your man, I'd have earned my money."
+
+He dropped his hand to the butt of his six-shooter, and looked his
+principal in the eye.
+
+"I'm just as sorry as you are that he made this get-away," he continued
+slowly. "Now I got to pull up stakes and get out. Nat'rally he'll make
+it too hot for me here. Then I could use that extry twenty-five hundred
+that was coming to me on this job. But it ain't too late. He's got away
+once; but he ain't in court yet. I can easy keep him out, if the
+original bargain stands. Of course, I'm sorry he punched your face."
+
+"Damn his soul!" burst out Oldham.
+
+"Just let me deal with him my way, instead of yours," repeated Saleratus
+Bill.
+
+"Do so," snarled Oldham; "the sooner the better."
+
+"That's all I want to hear," said the gun-man, and touched spurs to his
+horse.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Bob's absence had occasioned some speculation, but no uneasiness, at
+headquarters. An officer of the Forest Service was too often called upon
+for sudden excursions in unexpected emergencies to make it possible for
+his chiefs to keep accurate track of all his movements. A day's trip to
+the valley might easily be deflected to a week's excursion to the higher
+peaks by any one of a dozen circumstances. The report of trespassing
+sheep, a tiny smoke above distant trees, a messenger sent out for
+arbitration in a cattle dispute, are samples of the calls to which Bob
+must have hastened no matter on what errand he had been bound.
+
+He arrived at headquarters late in the afternoon. Already a thin wand of
+smoke wavered up through the trees from Amy's little, open kitchen. The
+open door of the shed office trickled forth a thin clicking of
+typewriters. Otherwise the camp seemed deserted.
+
+At Bob's halloo, however, both Thorne and old California John came to
+the door. In two minutes he had all three gathered about the table under
+the three big firs.
+
+"In the first place, I want to say right now," he began, "that I have
+the evidence to win the land case against the Modoc Mining Company."
+
+"How?" demanded Thorne, leaning forward eagerly.
+
+"Baker has boasted, before two witnesses, that his mineral entries were
+fraudulent and made simply to get water rights and timber."
+
+"Those witnesses will testify?"
+
+"They will."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Mr. Welton and myself."
+
+"Glory be!" cried Thorne, springing to his feet and clapping Bob on the
+back. "We've got him!"
+
+"So that's what you've been up to for the past week!" cried Amy. "We've
+been wondering where you had disappeared to!"
+
+"Well, not precisely," grinned Bob; "I've been in durance vile."
+
+In response to their questionings he detailed a semi-humorous account of
+his abduction, detention and escape. His three auditors listened with
+the deepest attention.
+
+As the recital progressed to the point wherein Bob described his
+midnight escape, Amy, unnoticed by the others, leaned back and closed
+her eyes. The colour left her face for a moment, but the next instant
+had rushed back to her cheeks in a tide of deeper red. She thrust
+forward, her eyes snapping with indignation.
+
+"They are desperate; there's no doubt of it," was Thorne's comment. "And
+they won't stop at this. I wish the trial was to-morrow. We must get
+your testimony in shape before anything happens."
+
+Amy was staring across the table at them, her lips parted with horror.
+
+"You don't think they'll try anything worse!" she gasped.
+
+Bob started to reassure her, but Thorne in his matter-of-fact way broke
+in.
+
+"I don't doubt they'll try to get him proper, next time. We must get out
+papers and the sheriff after this Saleratus Bill."
+
+"He'll be almighty hard to locate," put in California John.
+
+"And I think we'd better not let Bob, here, go around alone any more."
+
+"I don't think he ought to go around at all!" Amy amended this
+vigorously.
+
+Bob shot at her an obliquely humorous glance, before which her own fell.
+Somehow the humour died from his.
+
+"Bodyguard accepted with thanks," said he, recovering himself. "I've
+had enough Wild West on my own account." His words and the expression of
+his face were facetious, but his tones were instinct with a gravity that
+attracted even Thorne's attention. The Supervisor glanced at the young
+man curiously, wondering if he were going to lose his nerve at the last.
+But Bob's personal stake was furthest from his mind. Something in Amy's
+half-frightened gesture had opened a new door in his soul. The real and
+insistent demands of the situation had been suddenly struck shadowy
+while his forces adjusted themselves to new possibilities.
+
+"Ware's your man," suggested California John. "He's a gun-man, and he's
+got a nerve like a saw mill man."
+
+"Where is Ware?" Thorne asked Amy.
+
+"He's over at Fair's shake camp. He will be back to-morrow."
+
+"That's settled, then. How about Welton? Is he warned? You say he'll
+testify?"
+
+"If he has to," replied Bob, by a strong effort bringing himself back to
+a practical consideration of the matter in hand. "At least he'll never
+perjure himself, if he's called. Welton's case is different. Look here;
+it's bound to come out, so you may as well know the whole situation."
+
+He paused, glancing from one to another of his hearers. Thorne's keen
+face expressed interest of the alert official; California John's mild
+blue eye beamed upon him with a dawning understanding of the situation;
+Amy, intuitively divining a more personal trouble, looked across at him
+with sympathy.
+
+"John, here, will remember the circumstance," said Bob. "It happened
+about the time I first came out here with Mr. Welton. It seems that
+Plant had assured him that everything was all arranged so our works and
+roads could cross the Forest, so we went ahead and built them. In those
+days it was all a matter of form, anyway. Then when we were ready to go
+ahead with our first season's work, up steps Plant and asks to see our
+permission, threatening to shut us down! Of course, all he wanted was
+money."
+
+"And Welton gave it to him?" cried Amy.
+
+"It wasn't a case of buy a privilege," explained Bob, "but of life
+itself. We were operating on borrowed money, and just beginning our
+first year's operations. The season is short in these mountains, as you
+know, and we were under heavy obligations to fulfil a contract for sawed
+lumber. A delay of even a week meant absolute ruin to a large
+enterprise. Mr. Welton held off to the edge of danger, I remember,
+exhausting every means possible here and at Washington to rush through
+the necessary permission."
+
+"Why didn't he tell the truth--expose Plant? Surely no department would
+endorse that," put in Amy, a trifle subdued in manner.
+
+"That takes time," Bob pointed out. "There was no time."
+
+"So Welton came through," said Thorne drily. "What has that got to do
+with it?"
+
+"Baker paid the money for him," said Bob.
+
+"Well, they're both in the same boat," remarked Thorne tranquilly. "I
+don't see that that gives him any hold on Welton."
+
+"He threatens to turn state's evidence in the matter, and seems
+confident of immunity on that account."
+
+"He can't mean it!" cried Amy.
+
+"Sheer bluff," said Thorne.
+
+"I thought so, and went to see him. Now I am sure not. He means it; and
+he'll do it when this case against the Modoc Company is pushed."
+
+"I thought you said Welton would testify?" observed Thorne.
+
+"He will. But naturally only if he is summoned."
+
+"Then what----"
+
+"Oh, I see. Baker never thought he could keep Welton from telling the
+truth, but knew perfectly well he would not volunteer the evidence. He
+used his hold over Welton to try to keep me from bringing forward this
+testimony. Sort of relied on our intimacy and friendship."
+
+"But you will testify?"
+
+"I think I see my duty that way," said Bob in a troubled voice.
+
+"Quite right," said Thorne, dispassionately; "I'm sorry." He arose from
+the table. "This is most important. I don't often issue positive
+prohibitions in my capacity of superior officer; but in this instance I
+must. I am going to request you not to leave camp on any errand unless
+accompanied by Ranger Ware."
+
+Bob nodded a little impatiently. California John paused before following
+his chief into the office.
+
+"It's good sense, boy," said he, "and nobody gives a darn for your
+worthless skin, you know. It's just the information you got inside it."
+
+"Right," laughed Bob, his brow clearing. "I forgot."
+
+California John nodded at him, and disappeared into the office.
+
+Bob turned to Amy with a laughing comment that died on his lips. The
+girl was standing very straight on the other side of the table. One
+little brown hand grasped and crushed the edge of her starched apron;
+her black brows were drawn in a straight line of indignation beneath
+which her splendid eyes flashed; her rounded bosom, half-defined by the
+loose, soft blue of her simple gown, rose and fell rapidly.
+
+"And you're going to do it?" she threw across at him.
+
+Bob, bewildered, stared at her.
+
+"You're going to deliver over your friend to prison?" She moved swiftly
+around the table to stand close to him. "Surely you can't mean to do
+that! You've worked with him, and lived with him--and he's a dear, jolly
+old man!"
+
+"Hold on!" cried Bob, recovering from the first shock, and beginning to
+enjoy the situation. "You don't understand. If I don't give my
+testimony, think what the Service will lose in the Basin."
+
+"Lose!" she cried indignantly. "What of it? Do you think if I had a
+friend who was near and dear to me I'd sacrifice him for all the trees
+in the mountains? How can you!"
+
+"_Et tu Brute_!" said Bob a little wearily. "Where is all the
+no-compromise talk I've heard at various times, and the high ideals, and
+the loyalty to the Service at any cost, and all the rest of it? You're
+not consistent."
+
+Amy eyed him a little disdainfully.
+
+"You've got to save that poor old man," she stated. "It's all very easy
+for you to talk of duty and the rest of it, but the fact remains that
+you're sending that poor old man to prison for something that isn't his
+fault, and it'll break his heart."
+
+"He isn't there yet," Bob pointed out. "The case isn't decided."
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk that way," said Amy, "for all you
+have to do is to satisfy your conscience and bear your testimony. But if
+testifying would land you in danger of prison, you might feel
+differently about it."
+
+Bob thought of George Pollock, and smiled a trifle bitterly. Welton
+might get off with a fine, or even suspended sentence. There was but one
+punishment for those accessory before the fact to a murder. Amy was
+eyeing him reflectively. The appearance of anger had died. It was
+evident that she was thinking deeply.
+
+"Why doesn't Mr. Welton protect himself?" she inquired at length. "If he
+turned state's evidence before that man Baker did, wouldn't it work that
+way around?"
+
+"I don't believe it would," said Bob. "Baker was not the real principal
+in the offence, only an accessory. Besides, even if it were possible,
+Mr. Welton would not do such a thing. You don't know Welton."
+
+Amy sank again to reflection, her eyes losing themselves in a gaze
+beyond the visible world. Suddenly she threw up her head with a joyous
+chuckle.
+
+"I believe I have it!" she cried. She nodded her head several times as
+though to corroborate with herself certain points in her plan.
+"Listen!" she said at last. "As I understand it, Baker is really liable
+on this charge of bribing Plant as much as Mr. Welton is."
+
+"Yes; he paid the money."
+
+"So that if it were not for the fact that he intends to gain immunity by
+telling what he knows, he would get into as much trouble as Mr. Welton."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Well, don't you know enough about it all to testify? Weren't you
+there?"
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"Yes, I believe I was present at all the interviews."
+
+"Then," cried Amy triumphantly, "you can issue complaint against _both_
+Baker and Mr. Welton on a charge of bribery, and Baker can't possibly
+wriggle out by turning state's evidence, because your evidence will be
+enough."
+
+"Do you expect me to have Mr. Welton arrested on this charge?" cried
+Bob.
+
+"No, silly! But you can go to Baker, can't you, and say to him: 'See
+here, if you try to bring up this old bribery charge against Welton,
+I'll get in ahead of you and have you _both_ up. I haven't any desire to
+raise a fuss, nor start any trouble; but if you are bound to get Mr.
+Welton in on this, I might as well get you both in.' He'd back out, you
+see!"
+
+"I believe he would!" cried Bob. "It's a good bluff to make."
+
+"It mustn't be a bluff," warned Amy. "You must mean it. I don't believe
+he wants to face a criminal charge just to get Mr. Welton in trouble, if
+he realizes that you are both going to testify anyway. But if he thinks
+you're bluffing, he'll carry it through."
+
+"You're right," said Bob slowly. "If necessary, we must carry it through
+ourselves."
+
+Amy nodded.
+
+"I'll take down a letter for you to Baker," she said, "and type it out
+this evening. We'll say nothing to anybody."
+
+"I must tell Welton of our plan," said Bob; "I wouldn't for the world
+have to spring this on him unprepared. What would he think of me?"
+
+"We'll see him to-morrow--no, next day; we have to wait for Ware, you
+know."
+
+"Am I forgiven for doing my plain duty?" asked Bob a trifle
+mischievously.
+
+"Only if our scheme works," declared Amy. Her manner changed to one of
+great seriousness. "I know your way is brave and true, believe me I do.
+And I know what it costs you to follow it. I respect and admire the
+quality in men that leads them so straightly along the path. But I could
+not do it. Ideas and things are inspiring and great and to be worked for
+with enthusiasm and devotion, I know. No one loves the Service more than
+I, nor would make more personal sacrifices for her. But people are warm
+and living, and their hearts beat with human life, and they can be sorry
+and glad, happy and brokenhearted. I can't tell you quite what I mean,
+for I cannot even tell myself. I only feel it. I could turn my thumbs
+down on whole cohorts of senators and lawyers and demagogues that are
+attacking us in Washington and read calmly in next day's paper how they
+had been beheaded recanting all their sins against us. But I couldn't
+get any nearer home. Why, the other day Ashley told me to send a final
+and peremptory notice of dispossession to the Main family, over near
+Bald Knob, and I couldn't do it. I tried all day. I knew old Main had no
+business there, and is worthless and lazy and shiftless. But I kept
+remembering how his poor old back was bent over. Finally I made Ashley
+dictate it, and tried to keep thinking all the time that I was nothing
+but a machine for the transmission of his ideas. When it comes to such
+things I'm useless, and I know I fall short of all higher ideals of
+honour and duty and everything else."
+
+"Thank God you do," said Bob gravely.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+Ware returned to headquarters toward evening of the next day. He had
+ridden hard and long, but he listened to Thorne's definition of his new
+duties with kindling eye, and considerable appearance of quiet
+satisfaction. Bob met him outside the office.
+
+"You aren't living up to your part, Ware," said he, with mock anxiety.
+"According to Hoyle you ought to draw your gun, whirl the cylinder, and
+murmur gently, Aha!"
+
+"Why should I do that?" asked Ware, considerably mystified.
+
+"To see if your weapon is in order, of course."
+
+"How would a fool trick like that show whether my gun's in shape?"
+
+"Hanged if I know," confessed Bob, "but they always do that in books and
+on the stage."
+
+"Well, my gun will shoot," said Ware, shortly.
+
+It was then too late to visit Welton that evening, but at a good hour
+the following morning Bob announced his intention of going over to the
+mill.
+
+"If you're going to be my faithful guardian, you'll have to walk," he
+told Ware. "My horse is up north somewhere, and there isn't another
+saddle in camp."
+
+"I'm willing," said Ware; "my animals are plumb needy of a rest."
+
+At the last moment Amy joined them.
+
+"I have a day off instead of Sunday," she told them, "and you're the
+first humans that have discovered what two feet are made for. I never
+can get anybody to walk two steps with me," she complained.
+
+"Never tried before you acquired those _beautiful_ gray elkskin boots
+with the _ravishing_ hobnails in 'em," chaffed Bob.
+
+Amy said nothing, but her cheeks burned with two red spots. She chatted
+eagerly, too eagerly, trying to throw into the expedition the air of a
+holiday excursion. Bob responded to her rather feverish gaiety, but Ware
+looked at her with an eye in which comprehension was slowly dawning. He
+had nothing to add to the rapid-fire conversation. Finally Amy inquired
+with mock anxiety, over his unwonted silence.
+
+"I'm on my job," replied Ware briefly.
+
+This silenced her for a moment or so, while she examined the woods about
+them with furtive, searching glances as though their shadows might
+conceal an enemy.
+
+To Bob, at least, the morning conduced to gaiety, for the air was crisp
+and sparkling with the wine of early fall. Down through the sombre
+pines, here and there, flamed the delicate pink of a dogwood, the orange
+of the azaleas, or the golden yellow of aspens ripening already under
+the hurrying of early frosts. The squirrels, Stellar's jays,
+woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees were very busy scurrying here and
+there, screaming gossip, or moving diligently and methodically as their
+natures were. All the rest of the forest was silent. Not a breath of
+wind stirred the tallest fir-tip or swayed the most lofty pine branch.
+Through the woodland spaces the sunlight sparkled with the inconceivable
+brilliance of the higher levels, as though the air were filled with
+glittering particles in suspension, like the mica snowstorms of the peep
+shows inside a child's candy egg.
+
+They dipped into the cañon of the creek and out again through the yellow
+pines of the other side. They skirted the edge of the ancient clearing
+for the almost prehistoric mill that had supplied early settlers with
+their lumber, and thence looked out through trees to the brown and
+shimmering plain lying far below.
+
+"My, I'm glad I'm not there!" exclaimed Amy fervently; "I always say
+that," she added.
+
+"A hundred and eleven day before yesterday, Jack Pollock says," remarked
+Bob.
+
+So at last they gained the long ridge leading toward the mill and saw a
+hundred feet away the mill road, and the forks where their own wagon
+trail joined it.
+
+At this point they again entered the forest, screened by young growth
+and a thicket of alders.
+
+"Look there," Amy pointed out. "See that dogwood, up by the yellow pine.
+It's the most splendiferous we've seen yet. Wait a minute. I'm going to
+get a branch of it for Mr. Welton's office. I don't believe anybody ever
+picks anything for him."
+
+"Let me--" began Bob; but she was already gone, calling back over her
+shoulder.
+
+"No; this is my treat!"
+
+The men stopped in the wagon trail to wait for her. Bob watched with
+distinct pleasure her lithe, active figure making its way through the
+tangle of underbrush, finally emerging into the clear and climbing with
+swift, sure movements to the little elevation on which grew the
+beautiful, pink-leaved dogwoods. She turned when she had gained the
+level of the yellow pine, to wave her hand at her companions. Even at
+the distance, Bob could make out the flush of her cheeks and divine the
+delighted sparkle of her eyes.
+
+But as she turned, her gesture was arrested in midair, and almost
+instantly she uttered a piercing scream. Bob had time to take a half
+step forward. Then a heavy blow on the back of his neck threw him
+forward. He stumbled and fell on his face. As he left his feet, the
+crash of two revolver shots in quick succession rang in his ears.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+Oldham's cold rage carried him to the railroad and into his berth. Then,
+with the regular beat and throb of the carwheels over the sleepers,
+other considerations forced themselves upon him. Consequences demanded
+recognition.
+
+The land agent had not for many years permitted himself to act on
+impulse. Therefore this one lapse from habit alarmed him vaguely by the
+mere fact that it was a lapse from habit. He distrusted himself in an
+unaccustomed environment of the emotions.
+
+But superinduced on this formless uneasiness were graver considerations.
+He could not but admit to himself that he had by his expressed order
+placed himself to some extent in Saleratus Bill's power. He did not for
+a moment doubt the gun-man's loyal intentions. As long as things went
+well he would do his best by his employer--if merely to gain the reward
+promised him only on fulfillment of his task. But it is not easy to
+commit a murder undetected. And if detected, Oldham had no illusions as
+to Saleratus Bill. The gun-man, would promptly shelter himself behind
+his principal.
+
+As the night went on, and Oldham found himself unable to sleep in the
+terrible heat, the situation visualized itself. Step by step he followed
+out the sequence of events as they might be, filling in the minutest
+details of discovery, exposure and ruin. Gradually, in the tipped
+balance of after midnight, events as they might be became events as they
+surely would be. Oldham began to see that he had made a fearful mistake.
+No compunction entered his mind that he had condemned a man to death;
+but a cold fear gripped him lest his share should be discovered, and he
+should be called upon to face the consequences. Oldham enjoyed and could
+play only the game that was safe so far as physical and personal
+retribution went.
+
+So deeply did the guilty panic invade his soul that after a time he
+arose and dressed. The sleepy porter was just turning out from the
+smoking compartment.
+
+"What's this next station?" Oldham demanded.
+
+"Mo-harvey," blinked the porter.
+
+"I get off there," stated Oldham briefly.
+
+The porter stared at him.
+
+"I done thought you went 'way through," he confessed. "I'se scairt I
+done forgot you."
+
+"All right," said Oldham curtly, and handing him a tip. "Never mind that
+confounded brush; get my suit case."
+
+Ten seconds later he stood on the platform of the little station in the
+desert while the tail lights of the train diminished slowly into the
+distance.
+
+The desert lay all about him like a calmed sea on which were dim
+half-lights of sage brush or alkali flats. On a distant horizon slept
+black mountain ranges, stretched low under a brilliant sky that arched
+triumphant. In it the stars flamed steadily like candles, after the
+strange desert fashion. Although by day the heat would have scorched the
+boards on which he stood, now Oldham shivered in the searching of the
+cool insistent night wind that breathed across the great spaces.
+
+He turned to the lighted windows of the little station where a tousled
+operator sat at a telegraph key. A couch in the corner had been recently
+deserted. The fact that the operator was still awake and on duty argued
+well for another train soon. Oldham proffered his question.
+
+"Los Angeles express due now. Half-hour late," replied the operator
+wearily, without looking up.
+
+Oldham caught the train, which landed him in White Oaks about noon.
+There he hired a team, and drove the sixty miles to Sycamore Flats by
+eleven o'clock that night. The fear was growing in his heart, and he had
+to lay on himself a strong retaining hand to keep from lashing his
+horses beyond their endurance and strength. Sycamore Flats was, of
+course, long since abed. In spite of his wild impatience Oldham retained
+enough sense to know that it would not do to awaken any one for the sole
+purpose of inquiring as to the whereabouts of Saleratus Bill. That would
+too obviously connect him with the gun-man. Therefore he stabled his
+horses, roused one of the girls at Auntie Belle's, and retired to the
+little box room assigned him.
+
+There nature asserted herself. The man had not slept for two nights; he
+had travelled many miles on horseback, by train, and by buckboard; he
+had experienced the most exhausting of emotions and experiences. He fell
+asleep, and he did not awaken until after sun-up.
+
+Promptly he began his inquiries. Saleratus Bill had passed through the
+night before; he had ridden up the mill road.
+
+Oldham ate his breakfast, saddled one of the team horses, and followed.
+Ordinarily, he was little of a woodsman, but his anxiety sharpened his
+wits and his eyes, so that a quarter mile from the summit he noticed
+where a shod horse had turned off from the road. After a moment's
+hesitation he turned his own animal to follow the trail. The horse
+tracks were evidently fresh, and Oldham surmised that it was hardly
+probable two horsemen had as yet that morning travelled the mill road.
+While he debated, young Elliott swung down the dusty way headed toward
+the village. He greeted Oldham.
+
+"Is Orde back at headquarters yet?" the latter asked, on impulse.
+
+"Yes, he got back day before yesterday," the young ranger replied; "but
+you won't find him there this morning. He walked over to the mill to
+see Welton. You'd probably get him there."
+
+Oldham waited only until Elliott had rounded the next corner, then
+spurred his horse up the mountain. The significance of the detour was
+now no longer in doubt, for he remembered well how and where the wagon
+trail from headquarters joined the mill road. Saleratus Bill would leave
+his horse out of sight on the hog-back ridge, sneak forward afoot, and
+ambush his man at the forks of the road.
+
+And now, in the clairvoyance of this guilty terror, Oldham saw as
+assured facts several further possibilities. Saleratus Bill was known to
+have ridden up the mill road; he, Oldham, was known to have been
+inquiring after both Saleratus Bill and Orde--in short, out of wild
+improbabilities, which to his ordinary calm judgment would have meant
+nothing at all, he now wove a tissue of danger. He wished he had thought
+to ask Elliott how long ago Orde had started out from headquarters.
+
+The last pitch up the mountain was by necessity a fearful grade, for it
+had to surmount as best it could the ledge at the crest of the plateau.
+Horsemen here were accustomed to pause every fifty feet or so to allow
+their mounts a gulp of air. Oldham plied lash and spur. He came out from
+his frenzy of panic to find his horse, completely blown, lying down
+under him. The animal, already weary from its sixty-mile drive of
+yesterday, was quite done. After a futile effort to make it rise, Oldham
+realized this fact. He pursued his journey afoot.
+
+Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this accident, Oldham
+trudged on as rapidly as his wind would allow. As he neared the
+crossroads he slackened his pace, for he saw that no living creature
+moved on the headquarters fork of the road. As a matter of fact, at that
+precise instant both Bob and Ware were within forty yards of him,
+standing still waiting for Amy to collect her dogwood leaves. A single
+small alder concealed them from the other road. If they had not
+happened to have stopped, two seconds would have brought them into sight
+in either direction. Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and
+himself came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.
+
+As he replaced his hat, his eye caught a glimpse of a man crouching and
+gliding cautiously forward through the low concealment of the snowbush.
+His movements were quick, his head was craned forward, every muscle was
+taut, his eyes fixed on some object invisible to Oldham with an
+intensity that evidently excluded from the field of his vision
+everything but that toward which his lithe and snake-like advance was
+bringing him. In his hand he carried the worn and shining Colts 45 that
+was always his inseparable companion.
+
+Oldham made a single step forward. At the same moment somewhere above
+him on the hill a woman screamed. The cry was instantly followed by two
+revolver shots.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Ware was an expert gun-man who had survived the early days of Arizona,
+New Mexico, and the later ruffianism of the border on Old Mexico. His
+habit was at all times alert. Now, in especial, behind his casual
+conversation, he had been straining his finer senses for the first
+intimations of danger. For perhaps six seconds before Amy cried out he
+had been aware of an unusual faint sound heard beneath rather than above
+the cheerful and accustomed noises of the forest. It baffled him. If he
+had imposed silence on his companion, and had set himself to listening,
+he might have been able to identify and localize it, but it really
+presented nothing alarming enough. It might have been a squirrel
+playfully spasmodic, or the leisurely step forward of some hidden and
+distant cow browsing among the bushes. Ware lent an attentive ear to the
+quiet sounds of the woodland, but continued to stand at ease and
+unalarmed.
+
+The scream, however, released instantly the springs of his action. With
+the heel of his left palm he dealt Bob so violent a shoving blow that
+the young man was thrown forward off his feet. As part of the same
+motion his right hand snatched his weapon from its holster, threw the
+muzzle over his left shoulder, and discharged the revolver twice in the
+direction from which Ware all at once realized the sound had proceeded.
+So quickly did the man's brain act, so instantly did his muscles follow
+his brain, that the scream, the blow, and the two shots seemed to go off
+together as though fired by one fuse.
+
+Bob bounded to his feet. Ware had whirled in his tracks, had crouched,
+and was glaring fixedly across the openings at the forks. The revolver
+smoked in his hand.
+
+"Oh, are you hurt? Are you hurt?" Amy was crying over and over, as,
+regardless of the stiff manzañita and the spiny deer brush, she tore her
+way down the hill.
+
+"All right! All right!" Bob found his breath to assure her.
+
+She stopped short, clenched her hands at her sides, and drew a deep,
+sobbing breath. Then, quite collectedly, she began to disentangle
+herself from the difficulties into which her haste had precipitated her.
+
+"It's all right," she called to Ware. "He's gone. He's run."
+
+Still tense, Ware rose to his full height. He let down the hammer of his
+six-shooter, and dropped the weapon back in its holster.
+
+"What was it, Amy?" he asked, as the girl rejoined them.
+
+"Saleratus Bill," she panted. "He had his gun in his hand."
+
+Bob was looking about him a trifle bewildered.
+
+"I thought for a minute I was hit," said he.
+
+"I knocked you down to _get_ you down," explained Ware. "If there's
+shooting going on, it's best to get low."
+
+"Thought I was shot," confessed Bob. "I heard two shots."
+
+"I fired twice," said Ware. "Thought sure I must have hit, or he'd have
+fired back. Otherwise I'd a' kept shooting. You say he run?"
+
+"Immediately. Didn't you see him?"
+
+"I just cut loose at the noise he made. Why do you suppose he didn't
+shoot?"
+
+"Maybe he wasn't gunning for us after all," suggested Bob.
+
+"Maybe you've got another think coming," said Ware.
+
+During this short exchange they were all three moving down the wagon
+trail. Ware's keen old eyes were glancing to right, left and ahead, and
+his ears fairly twitched. In spite of his conversation and speculations,
+he was fully alive to the possibilities of further danger.
+
+"He maybe's laying for us yet," said Bob, as the thought finally
+occurred to him. "Better have your gun handy."
+
+"My gun's always handy," said Ware.
+
+"You're bearing too far south," interposed the girl. "He was more up
+this way."
+
+"Don't think it," said Ware.
+
+"Yes," she insisted. "I marked that young fir near where I first saw
+him; and he ran low around that clump of manzañita."
+
+Still skeptical, Ware joined her.
+
+"That's right," he admitted, after a moment. "Here's his trail. I'd have
+swore he was farther south. That's where I fired. I only missed him by
+about a hundred yards," he grinned. "He sure made a mighty tall sneak.
+I'm still figuring why he didn't open fire."
+
+"Waiting for a better chance, maybe," suggested Amy.
+
+"Must be. But what better chance does he want, unless he aims to get Bob
+here, with a club?"
+
+They followed the tracks left by Saleratus Bill until it was evident
+beyond doubt that the gun-man had in reality departed. Then they started
+to retrace their steps.
+
+"Why not cut across?" asked Bob.
+
+"I want to see whereabouts I _was_ shooting," said Ware.
+
+"We'll cut across and wait for you on the road."
+
+"All right," Ware agreed.
+
+They made their short-cut, and waited. After a minute or so Ware shouted
+to them.
+
+"Hullo!" Bob answered.
+
+"Come here!"
+
+They returned down the dusty mill road. Just beyond the forks Ware was
+standing, looking down at some object. As they approached he raised his
+face to them. Even under its tan, it was pale.
+
+"Guess this is another case of innocent bystander," said he gravely.
+
+Flat on his back, arms outstretched in the dust, lay Oldham, with a
+bullet hole accurately in the middle of his forehead.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Amy. "What an awful thing!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Ware; "this is certainly tough. But I can't see but
+it was a plumb accident. Who'd have thought he'd be coming along the
+road just at that minute."
+
+"Of course, you're not to blame," Amy reassured him quickly. "We must
+get help. Of course, he's quite dead."
+
+Ware nodded, gazing down at his victim reflectively.
+
+"I was shootin' a little high," he remarked at last.
+
+Up to this moment Bob had said nothing.
+
+"If it will relieve your mind, any," he told Ware, "it isn't such a case
+of innocent bystander as you may think. This man is the one who hired
+Saleratus Bill to abduct me in the first place; and probably to kill me
+in the second. I have a suspicion he got what he deserved."
+
+"Oh!" cried Amy, looking at him reproachfully.
+
+"It's a fact," Bob insisted. "I know his connection with all this better
+than you do, and his being on this road was no accident. It was to see
+his orders carried out."
+
+Ware was looking at him shrewdly.
+
+"That fits," he declared. "I couldn't figure why my old friend Bill
+didn't cut loose. But he's got a head on him."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, when he see Oldham dropped, what use was there of going to
+shooting? It would just make trouble for him and he couldn't hope for no
+pay. He just faded."
+
+"He's a quick thinker, then," said Bob.
+
+"You bet you!"
+
+The two men laid Oldham's body under the shade. As they disposed it
+decently, Bob experienced again that haunting sense of having known him
+elsewhere that had on several occasions assailed his memory. The man's
+face was familiar to him with a familiarity that Bob somehow felt
+antedated his California acquaintance.
+
+"We must get to the mill and send a wagon for him," Ware was saying.
+
+But Amy suddenly turned faint, and was unable to proceed.
+
+"It's perfectly silly of me!" she cried indignantly. "The idea of my
+feeling faint! It makes me so angry!"
+
+"It's perfectly natural," Bob told her. "I think you've shown a heap of
+nerve. Most girls would have flopped over."
+
+The men helped her to a streamlet some hundreds of yards away. Here it
+was agreed that Ware should proceed in search of a conveyance; and that
+Bob and Amy should there await his return.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Ware disappeared rapidly up the dusty road, Bob and Amy standing side by
+side in silence, watching him go. When the lean, long figure of the old
+mountaineer had quite disappeared, and the light, eddying dust, peculiar
+to the Sierra country, had died, Amy closed her eyes, raised her hand to
+her heart, and sank slowly to the bank of the little creek. Her vivid
+colour, which had for a moment returned under the influence of her
+strong will and her indignation over her weakness, had again ebbed from
+her cheeks.
+
+Bob, with an exclamation of alarm, dropped to her side and passed his
+arm back of her shoulders. As she felt the presence of his support, she
+let slip the last desperate holdings of physical command, and leaned
+back gratefully, breathing hard, her eyes still closed.
+
+After a moment she opened them long enough to smile palely at the
+anxious face of the young man.
+
+"It's all right," she said. "I'm all right. Don't be alarmed. Just let
+me rest a minute. I'll be all right."
+
+She closed her eyes again. Bob, watching, saw the colour gradually
+flowing up under her skin, and was reassured.
+
+The girl lay against his arm limply. At first he was concerned merely
+with the supporting of the slight burden; careful to hold her as
+comfortably as possible. Then the warmth of her body penetrated to his
+arm. A new emotion invaded him, feeble in the beginning, but gaining
+strength from instant to instant. It mounted his breast as a tide would
+mount, until it had shortened his breath, set his heart to thumping
+dully, choked his throat. He looked down at her with troubled eyes,
+following the curve of her upturned face, the long line of her throat
+exposed by the backward thrown position of her head, the swell of her
+breast under the thin gown. The helplessness of the pose caught at Bob's
+heart. For the first time Amy--the vivid, self-reliant, capable,
+laughing Amy--appealed to him as a being demanding protection, as a
+woman with a woman's instinctive craving for cherishing, as a delicious,
+soft, feminine creature, calling forth the tendernesses of a man's
+heart. In the normal world of everyday association this side of her had
+never been revealed, never suspected; yet now, here, it rose up to throw
+into insignificance all the other qualities of the girl he had known.
+Bob spared a swift thought of gratitude to the chance that had revealed
+to him this unguessed, intimate phase of womanhood.
+
+And then the insight with which the significant moment had endowed him
+leaped to the simple comprehension of another thought--that this
+revelation of intimacy, of the woman-appeal lying unguessed beneath the
+comradeship of everyday life, was after all only a matter of chance. It
+had been revealed to him by the accident of a moment's faintness, by
+which the conscious will of the girl had been driven back from the
+defences. In a short time it would be over. She would resume her
+ordinary demeanour, her ordinary interest, her ordinary bright,
+cheerful, attractive, matter-of-fact, efficient self. Everything would
+be as before. But--and here Bob's breath came quickest--in the great
+goodness of the world lay another possibility; that sometime, at the
+call of some one person, for that one and no other, this inner beautiful
+soul of the feminine appeal would come forth freely, consciously,
+willingly.
+
+Amy opened her eyes, sat up, shook herself slightly, and laughed.
+
+"I'm all right now," she told Bob, "and certainly very much ashamed."
+
+"Amy!" he stammered.
+
+She shot a swift look at him, and immediately arose to her feet.
+
+"We will have to testify at a coroner's inquest, I presume," said she,
+in the most matter-of-fact tones.
+
+"I suppose so," agreed Bob morosely. It is impossible to turn back all
+the strongly set currents of life without at least a temporary turmoil.
+
+Amy glanced at him sideways, and smiled a faint, wise smile to herself.
+For in these matters, while men are more analytical after the fact,
+women are by nature more informed. She said nothing, but stooped to the
+creek for a drink. When she had again straightened to her feet, Bob had
+come to himself. The purport of Amy's last speech had fully penetrated
+his understanding, and one word of it--the word _testify_--had struck
+him with an idea.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried, "that lets out Pollock!"
+
+"What?" said Amy.
+
+"This man Oldham was the only witness who could have convicted George
+Pollock of killing Plant."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Amy, leaning forward interestedly. "Was he
+there? How do you know about it?"
+
+A half-hour before Bob would have hesitated long before confiding his
+secret to a fourth party; but now, for him, the world of relations had
+shifted.
+
+"I'll tell you about it," said he, without hesitation; "but this is
+serious. You must never breathe even a word of it to any one!"
+
+"Certainly not!" cried Amy.
+
+"Oldham wasn't an actual witness of the killing; but I was, and he knew
+it. He could have made me testify by informing the prosecuting
+attorney."
+
+Bob sketched rapidly his share in the tragedy: how he had held Pollock's
+horse, and been in a way an accessory to the deed. Amy listened
+attentively to the recital of the facts, but before Bob had begun to
+draw his conclusions, she broke in swiftly.
+
+"So Oldham offered to let you off, if you would keep out of this Modoc
+Land case," said she.
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"That was it."
+
+"But it would have put you in the penitentiary," she pointed out.
+
+"Well, the case wasn't quite decided yet."
+
+She made her quaint gesture of the happily up-thrown hands.
+
+"Just what you said about Mr. Welton!" she cried. "Oh, I'm _glad_ you
+told me this! I was trying so hard to think you were doing a high and
+noble duty in ignoring the consequences to that poor old man. But I
+could not. Now I see!"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Bob curiously, as she paused.
+
+"You could do it because your act placed you in worse danger," she told
+him.
+
+"Too many for me," Bob disclaimed. "I simply wasn't going to be bluffed
+out by that gang!"
+
+"That was it," said Amy wisely. "I know you better than you do yourself.
+You don't suppose," she cried, as a new thought alarmed her, "that
+Oldham has told the prosecuting attorney that your evidence would be
+valuable."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"The trial is next week," he pointed out. "In case the prosecution had
+intended calling me, I should have been summoned long since. There's
+dust; they are coming. You'd better stay here."
+
+She agreed readily to this. After a moment a light wagon drove up. On
+the seat perched Welton and Ware. Bob climbed in behind.
+
+They drove rapidly down to the forks, stopped and hitched the team.
+
+"Ware's been telling me the whole situation, Bobby," said Welton. "That
+gang's getting pretty desperate! I've heard of this man Oldham around
+this country for a long while, but I always understood he was interested
+against the Power Company."
+
+"Bluff," said Bob briefly. "He's been in their employ from the first,
+but I never thought he'd go in for quite this kind of strong-arm work.
+He doesn't look it, do you think?"
+
+"I never laid eyes on him," replied Welton. "He's never been near the
+mill, and I never happened to run across him anywhere else."
+
+By this time they had secured the team. Ware led the way to the tree
+under which lay the body of the land agent. Welton surveyed the
+prostrate figure for some time in silence. Then turned to Bob, a curious
+expression on his face.
+
+"It wasn't an accident that I never met him," said he. "He saw to it.
+Don't you remember this man, Bobby?"
+
+"I saw him in Los Angeles some years ago."
+
+"Before that--in Michigan--many years ago."
+
+"His face has always seemed familiar to me," said Bob slowly. "I can't
+place it--yes--hold on!"
+
+A picture defined itself from the mists of his boyhood memories. It was
+of an open field, with a fringe of beech woods in the distance. A single
+hickory stood near its centre, and under this a group lounged, smoking
+pipes. A man, perched on a cracker box, held a blank book and pencil.
+Another stood by a board, a gun in his hand. The smell of black powder
+hung in the atmosphere. Little glass balls popped into the air, and were
+snuffed out. He saw Oldham distinctly, looking younger and browner, but
+with the same cynical mouth, the same cold eyes, the same slanted
+eyeglasses. Even before his recollections reproduced the scorer's
+drawling voice calling the next contestant, his memory supplied the
+name.
+
+"It's Newmark!" he cried aloud.
+
+"Joe Newmark, your father's old partner! He hasn't changed much. He
+disappeared from Michigan when you were about eight years old; didn't
+he! Nobody ever knew how or why, but everybody had suspicions.... Well;
+let's get him in."
+
+They disposed the body in the wagon, and drove back up the road. At the
+little brook they stopped to let off Ware. It was agreed that all danger
+to Bob was now past, and that the gun-man would do better to accompany
+Amy back to headquarters. Of course, it would be necessary to work the
+whole matter out at the coroner's inquest, but in view of the
+circumstances, Ware's safety was assured.
+
+At the mill the necessary telephoning was done, the officials summoned,
+and everything put in order.
+
+"What I really started over to see you about," then said Bob to Welton,
+"is this matter of the Modoc Company." He went on to explain fully Amy's
+plan for checkmating Baker. "You see, if I get in my word first, Baker
+is as much implicated as you are, and it won't do him any good to turn
+state's evidence."
+
+"I don't see as that helps me," remarked Welton gloomily.
+
+"Baker might be willing to put himself in any position," said Bob; "but
+I doubt if he'll care to take the risk of criminal punishment. I think
+this will head him off completely; but if it doesn't, every move he
+makes to save his own skin saves yours too."
+
+"It may do some good," agreed Welton. "Try it."
+
+"I've already written Baker. But I didn't want you to think I was
+starting up the bloodhounds against you without some blame good reason."
+
+"I'd know that anyway, Bobby," said Welton kindly. He stared moodily at
+the stovepipe. "This is getting too thick for an old-timer," he broke
+out at last. "I'm just a plain, old-fashioned lumberman, and all I know
+is to cut lumber. I pass this mess up. I wired your father he'd better
+come along out."
+
+"Is he coming?" asked Bob eagerly.
+
+"I just got a message over the 'phone from the telegraph office. He'll
+be in White Oaks as fast as he can get there. Didn't I tell you?"
+
+"Wire him aboard train to go through to Fremont, and that we'll meet him
+there," said Bob instantly. "It's getting about time to beard the lion
+in his den."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+The coroner's inquest detained Bob over until the week following. In it
+Amy's testimony as to the gun-man's appearance and evident intention was
+quite sufficient to excuse Ware's shooting; and the fact that Oldham, as
+he was still known, instead of Saleratus Bill, received the bullet was
+evidently sheer unavoidable accident. Bob's testimony added little save
+corroboration. As soon as he could get away, he took the road to
+Fremont.
+
+Orde was awaiting his son at the station. Bob saw the straight, heavy
+figure, the tanned face with the snow-white moustache, before the train
+had come to a stop. Full of eagerness, he waved his hat over the head of
+the outraged porter barricaded on the lower steps by his customary
+accumulation of suit cases.
+
+"Hullo, dad! Hullo, there!" he shouted again and again, quite oblivious
+to the amusement of the other passengers over this tall and bronzed
+young man's enthusiasm.
+
+Orde caught sight of his son at last; his face lit up, and he, too,
+swung his hat. A moment later they had clasped hands.
+
+After the first greetings, Bob gave his suit case in charge to the hotel
+bus-man.
+
+"We'll take a little walk up the street and talk things over," he
+suggested.
+
+They sauntered slowly up the hill and down the side streets beneath the
+pepper and acacia trees of Fremont's beautiful thoroughfares. So
+absorbed did they become that they did not realize in the slightest
+where they were going, so that at last they had topped the ridge and,
+from the stretch of the Sunrise Drive, they looked over into the cañon.
+
+"So you've been getting into trouble, have you?" chaffed Orde, as they
+left the station.
+
+"I don't know about that," Bob rejoined. "I do know that there are quite
+a number of people in trouble."
+
+Orde laughed.
+
+"Tell me about this Welton difficulty," said he. "Frank Taylor has our
+own matters well in hand. The opposition won't gain much by digging up
+that old charge against the integrity of our land titles. We'll count
+that much wiped off the slate."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob heartily. "Well, the trouble with Mr.
+Welton is that the previous administration held him up--" He detailed
+the aspects of the threatened bribery case; while Orde listened without
+comment. "So," he concluded, "it looked at first as if they rather had
+him, if I testified. It had me guessing. I hated the thought of getting
+a man like Mr. Welton in trouble of that sort over a case in which he
+was no way interested."
+
+"What did you decide?" asked Orde curiously.
+
+"I decided to testify."
+
+"That's right."
+
+"I suppose so. I felt a little better about it, because they had me in
+the same boat. That let me out in my own feelings, naturally."
+
+"How?" asked Orde swiftly.
+
+"There had been trouble up there between Plant--you remember I wrote you
+of the cattle difficulties?"
+
+"With Simeon Wright? I know all that."
+
+"Well, one of the cattlemen was ruined by Plant's methods; his wife and
+child died from want of care on that account. He was the one who killed
+Plant; you remember that."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I happened to be near and I helped him escape."
+
+"And some one connected with the Modoc Company was a witness,"
+conjectured Orde. "Who was it?"
+
+"A man who went under the name of Oldham. A certain familiarity puzzled
+me for a long time. Only the other day I got it. He was Mr. Newmark."
+
+"Newmark!" cried Orde, stopping short and staring fixedly at his son.
+
+"Yes; the man who was your partner when I was a very small boy. You
+remember?"
+
+"Remember!" repeated Orde; then in tones of great energy: "He and I both
+have reason to remember well enough! Where is he now? I can put a stop
+to him in about two jumps!"
+
+"You won't need to," said Bob quietly; "he's dead--shot last week."
+
+For some moments nothing more was said, while the two men trudged
+beneath the hanging peppers near the entrance to Sunrise Drive.
+
+"I always wondered why he had it in for me, and why he acted so
+queerly," Bob broke the silence at last. "He seemed to have a special
+and personal enmity for me. I always felt it, but I couldn't make it
+out."
+
+"He had plenty of reasons for that. But it's funny Welton didn't
+recognize the whelp."
+
+"Mr. Welton never saw him," Bob explained--"that is, until Newmark was
+dead. Then he recognized him instantly. What was it all about?"
+
+Orde indicated the bench on the cañon's edge.
+
+"Let's sit," said he. "Newmark and I made our start together. For eight
+years we worked together and built up a very decent business. Then, all
+at once, I discovered that he was plotting systematically to do me out
+of every cent we had made. It was the most cold-blooded proposition I
+ever ran across."
+
+"Couldn't you prove it on him?" asked Bob.
+
+"I could prove it all right; but the whole affair made me sick. He'd
+always been the closest friend, in a way, I had ever had; and the shock
+of discovering what he really was drove everything else out of my head.
+I was young then. It seemed to me that all I wanted was to wipe the
+whole affair off the slate, to get it behind me, to forget it--so I let
+him go."
+
+"I don't believe I'd have done that. Seems to me I'd have had to blow
+off steam," Bob commented.
+
+Orde smiled reminiscently.
+
+"I blew off steam," [A] said he. "It was rather fantastic; but I
+actually believe it was one of the most satisfactory episodes in my
+life. I went around to his place--he lived rather well in bachelor
+quarters, which was a new thing in those days--and locked the door and
+told him just why I was going to let him off. It tickled him hugely--for
+about a minute. Then I finished up by giving him about the very worst
+licking he ever heard tell of."
+
+[Footnote A: See "The Riverman."]
+
+"Was that what you told him?" cried Bob.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Did you say those words to him?--'I'm going to give you the very worst
+licking you ever heard tell of'?"
+
+"Why, I believe I did."
+
+Bob threw back his head and laughed.
+
+"So did I!" he cried; and then, after a moment, more soberly. "I think,
+incidentally, it saved my life."
+
+"Now what are you driving at?" asked Orde.
+
+"Listen, this is funny: Newmark had me kidnapped by one of his men, and
+lugged off to a little valley in the mountains. The idea was to keep me
+there until after the trial, so my testimony would not appear. You see,
+none of our side knew I had that testimony. I hadn't told anybody,
+because I had been undecided as to what I was going to do."
+
+Orde whistled.
+
+"I got away, and had quite a time getting home. I'll tell you all the
+details some other time. On the road I met Newmark. I was pretty mad, so
+I lit into him stiff-legged. After a few words he got scared and pulled
+a gun on me. I was just mad enough to keep coming, and I swear I believe
+he was just on the point of shooting, when I said those very same
+words: 'I'm going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard
+tell of.' He turned white as a sheet and dropped his gun. I thought he
+was a coward; but I guess it was conscience and luck. Now, wouldn't that
+come and get you?"
+
+"Did you?" asked Orde.
+
+"Did I what?"
+
+"Give him that licking?"
+
+"I sure did start out to; but I couldn't bring myself to more than shake
+him up a little."
+
+Orde rose, stretching his legs.
+
+"What are your plans now?"
+
+"To see Baker. I'm going to tell him that on the first indications of
+his making trouble I'm going to enter complaint for bribery against
+_both_ him and Mr. Welton. You see, I was there too. Think it'll work?"
+
+"The best way is to go and see."
+
+"Come on," said Bob.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+The two men found Baker seated behind his flat-top desk. He grinned
+cheerfully at them; and, to Bob's surprise, greeted him with great
+joviality.
+
+"All hail, great Chief!" he cried. "I've had my scalp nicely
+smoke-tanned for you, so you won't have to bother taking it." He bowed
+to Orde. "I'm glad to see you, sir," said he. "Know you by your picture.
+Please be seated."
+
+Bob brushed the levity aside.
+
+"I've come," said he, "to get an explanation from you as to why, in the
+first place, you had me kidnapped; and why, in the second place, you
+tried to get me murdered."
+
+Baker's mocking face became instantly grave; and, leaning forward, he
+hit the desk a thump with his right fist.
+
+"Orde," said he, "I want you to believe me in this: I never was more
+sorry for anything in my life! I wouldn't have had that happen for
+anything in the world! If I'd had the remotest idea that Oldham
+contemplated something of that sort, I should have laid very positive
+orders on him. He said he had something on you that would keep your
+mouth shut, but I never dreamed he meant gun play."
+
+"I don't suppose you dreamed he meant kidnapping either," observed Bob.
+
+Baker threw himself back with a chuckle.
+
+"Being kidnapped is fine for the health," said he. "Babies thrive on it.
+No," he continued, again leaning forward gravely, "Oldham got away from
+his instructions completely. Shooting or that kind of violence was
+absurd in such a case. You mustn't lay that to me, but to his personal
+grudge."
+
+"What do you know of a personal grudge?" Bob flashed back.
+
+"Ab-so-lute-ly nothing; but I suspected. It's part of my job to be a
+nifty young suspector--and to use what I guess at. He just got away from
+me. As for the rest of it, that's part of the game. This is no croquet
+match; you must expect to get your head bumped if you play it. I play
+the game."
+
+"I play the game, too," returned Bob, "and I came here to tell you so.
+I'll take care of myself, but I want to say that the moment you offer
+any move against Welton, I shall bring in my testimony against both of
+you on this bribery matter."
+
+"Sapient youth!" said Baker, amused; "did that aspect of it just get to
+you? But you misinterpreted the spirit of my greeting when you came in
+the room. In words of one syllable, you've got us licked. We lie down
+and roll over. We stick all four paws in the air. We bat our august
+forehead against the floor. Is that clear?"
+
+"Then you drop this prosecution against Welton?"
+
+"Nary prosecution, as far as I am concerned."
+
+"But the Modoc Land case----"
+
+"Take back your lands," chaffed Baker dramatically. "Kind of bum lands,
+anyway. No use skirmishing after the battle is over. Your father would
+tell you that."
+
+"Then you don't fight the suit?"
+
+"That," said Baker, "is still a point for compromise. You've got us, I'm
+willing to admit that. Also that you are a bright young man, and that I
+underestimated you. You've lifted my property, legally acquired, and
+you've done it by outplaying my bluff. I still maintain the points of
+the law are with me--we won't get into that," he checked himself. "But
+criminal prosecution is a different matter. I don't intend to stand for
+that a minute. Your gang don't slow-step me to any bastiles now listed
+in the prison records. Nothing doing that way. I'll fight her to a
+fare-ye-well on that." His round face seemed to become square-set and
+grim for an instant, but immediately reassumed its customary rather
+careless good-nature. "No, we'll just call the whole business off."
+
+"That is not for me to decide," said Bob.
+
+"No; but you've got a lot to say about it--and I'll see to the little
+details; don't fret. By the way," mentioned Baker, "just as a matter of
+ordinary curiosity, _did_ Oldham have anything on you, or was he just a
+strong-arm artist?" He threw back his head and laughed aloud at Bob's
+face. At the thought of Pollock the young man could not prevent a
+momentary expression of relief from crossing his countenance. "There's a
+tail-holt on all of us," Baker observed.
+
+He flipped open a desk drawer and produced a box of expensive-looking
+cigars which he offered to his visitors. Orde lit one; but Bob, eyeing
+the power-man coldly, refused. Baker laughed.
+
+"You'll get over it," he observed--"youth, I mean. Don't mix your
+business and your personal affairs. That came right out of the copy
+book, page one, but it's true. I'm the one that ought to feel sore,
+seems to me." He lit his own cigar, and puffed at it, swinging his bulky
+form to the edge of the desk. "Look here," said he, shaking the butt at
+the younger man. "You're making a great mistake. The future of this
+country is with water, and don't you forget it. Fuel is scarce; water
+power is the coming force. The country can produce like a garden under
+irrigation; and it's only been scratched yet, and that just about the
+big cities. We are getting control; and the future of the state is with
+us. You're wasting yourself in all this toy work. You've got too much
+ability to squander it in that sort of thing. Oldham made you an offer
+from us, didn't he?"
+
+"He tried to bribe me, if that's what you mean," said Bob.
+
+"Well, have it your way; but you'll admit there's hardly much use of
+bribing you now. I repeat the offer. Come in with us on those terms."
+
+"Why?" demanded Bob.
+
+"Well," said Baker quaintly, "because you seem to have licked me fair
+and square; and I never want a man who can lick me to remain where he is
+likely to do so."
+
+At this point Orde, who had up to now remained quietly a spectator,
+spoke up.
+
+"Bob," said he, "is already fairly intimately connected with certain
+interests, which, while not so large as water power, are enough to keep
+him busy."
+
+Baker turned to him joyously.
+
+"List' to the voice of reason!" he cried. "I'm sorry he won't come with
+us; but the next best thing is to put him where he won't fight us. I
+didn't know he was going back to your timber--"
+
+Bob opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again at a gesture from his
+father.
+
+Baker glanced at the clock.
+
+"Well," he remarked cheerfully, "come over to the Club with me to lunch,
+anyway."
+
+Bob stared at him incredulously. Here was the man who had employed
+against him every expedient from blackmail to physical violence; who had
+but that instant been worsted in a bald attempt at larceny,
+nevertheless, cheerfully inviting him out to lunch as though nothing had
+happened! Furthermore, his father, against whose ambitions one of the
+deadliest blows had been aimed, was quietly reaching for his hat. Baker
+looked up and caught Bob's expression.
+
+"Come, come!" said he; "forget it! You and I speak the language of the
+same tribe, and you can't get away from it. I'm playing my game, you're
+playing yours. Of course, we want to win. But what's the use of cutting
+out lots of bully good people on that account?"
+
+"You don't stick to the rules," insisted Bob stoutly.
+
+"I think I do," said Baker. "Who's to decide? You believe one way, I
+believe another. I know what you think of my methods in business; and
+I'd hate to say what I think of you as the blue ribbon damn fool in
+that respect. But I like you, and I'm willing to admit you've got stuff
+in you; and I know damn well you and your father and I can have a fine
+young lunch talking duck-shooting and football. And with all my faults
+you love me still, and you know you do." He smiled winningly, and hooked
+his arm through Bob's on one side and his father's on the other. "Come
+on, you old deacon; play the game!" he cried.
+
+Bob laughed, and gave in.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+Bob took his father with him back to headquarters. They rode in near the
+close of day; and, as usual, from the stovepipe of the roofless kitchen
+a brave pillar of white smoke rose high in the shadows of the firs. Amy
+came forth at Bob's shout, starched and fresh, her cheeks glowing with
+their steady colour, her intelligent eyes alight with interest under the
+straight, serene brows. At sight of Orde, the vivacity of her manner
+quieted somewhat, but Bob could see that she was excited about
+something. He presented his father, who dismounted and greeted her with
+a hearty shake of the hand.
+
+"We've heard of you, Miss Thorne," said he simply, but it was evident he
+was pleased with the frankness of her manner, the clear steadiness of
+her eye, the fresh daintiness of her appearance, and the respect of her
+greeting. On the other hand, she looked back with equal pleasure on the
+tanned, sturdy old man with the white hair and moustache, the clear
+eyes, and the innumerable lines of quaint good-humour about them. After
+they had thus covertly surveyed each other for a moment, the aforesaid
+lines about Orde's eyes deepened, his eyes twinkled with mischief, and
+he thrust forth his hand for the second time. "Shake again!" he offered.
+Amy gurgled forth a little chuckle of good feeling and understanding,
+and laid her fingers in his huge palm.
+
+After this they turned and walked slowly to the hitch rails where the
+men tied their horses.
+
+"Where's the Supervisor?" Bob asked of Amy.
+
+"In the office," she replied; and then burst out excitedly: "I've the
+greatest news!"
+
+"So have I," returned Bob, promptly. "Best kind."
+
+"Oh, what is it?" she cried, forgetting all about her own. "Is it Mr.
+Welton?"
+
+"It'll take some time to tell mine," said Bob, "and we must hunt up Mr.
+Thorne. Yours first."
+
+"Pollock is free!"
+
+"Pollock free!" echoed Bob. "How is that? I thought his trial was not
+until next week!"
+
+"The prosecuting attorney quashed the indictment--or whatever it is they
+do. Anyhow, he let George go for lack of evidence to convict."
+
+"I guess he was relying on evidence promised by Oldham, which he never
+got," Bob surmised.
+
+"And never will," Orde cautioned them. "You two young people must be
+careful never to know anything of this."
+
+Bob opened his mouth to say something; was suddenly struck by a thought,
+and closed it again.
+
+"Why do you say that?" he asked at last. "Why do you think Miss Thorne
+must know of this?"
+
+But Orde only smiled amusedly beneath his white moustache.
+
+They found Ashley Thorne, and acquainted him with the whole situation.
+He listened thoughtfully.
+
+"The matter is over our heads, of course; but we must do our best. Of
+course, by all rights the man ought to be indicted; but there can be no
+question that there is a common sense that takes the substance of
+victory and lets the shadow go."
+
+Orde stayed to supper and over night. In the course of the evening
+California John drifted in, and Ware, and Jack Pollock, and such other
+of the rangers as happened to be in from the Forest. Orde was at his
+best; and ended, to Bob's vast pride, in getting himself well liked by
+these conservative and quietly critical men of the mountains.
+
+The next morning Bob and his father saddled their horses and started
+early for the mill, Bob having been granted a short leave of absence.
+For some distance they rode in silence.
+
+"Father," said Bob, "why did you stop me from contradicting Baker the
+other day when he jumped to the conclusion that I was going to quit the
+Service?"
+
+"I think you are."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Only if you want to, Bob. I don't want to force you in any way; but
+both Welton and I are getting old, and we need younger blood. We'd
+rather have you." Bob shook his head. "I know what you mean, and I
+realize how you feel about the whole matter. Perhaps you are right. I
+have nothing to say against conservation and forestry methods
+theoretically. They are absolutely correct. I agree that the forests
+should be cut for future growths, and left so that fire cannot get
+through them; but it is a grave question in my mind whether, as yet, it
+can be done."
+
+"But it is being done!" cried Bob. "There is no difficulty in doing it."
+
+"That's for you to prove, if you want to," said Orde. "If you care to
+resign from the Service, we will for two years give you full swing with
+our timber, to cut and log according to your ideas--or rather the ideas
+of those over you. In that time you can prove your point, or fail.
+Personally," he repeated, "I have grave doubts as to whether it can be
+done at present; it will be in the future of course."
+
+"Why, what do you mean?" asked Bob. "It is being done every day! There's
+nothing complicated about it. It's just a question of cutting and piling
+the tops, and--"
+
+"I know the methods advocated," broke in Orde. "But it is not being done
+except on Government holdings where conditions as to taxation, situation
+and a hundred other things are not like those of private holdings; or on
+private holdings on an experimental scale, or in conjunction with older
+methods. The case has not been proved on a large private tract. Now is
+your chance so to prove it."
+
+Bob's face was grave.
+
+"That means a pretty complete about-face for me, sir," said he. "I
+fought this all out with myself some years back. I feel that I have
+fitted myself into the one thing that is worth while for me."
+
+"I know," said Orde. "Don't hurry. Think it over. Take advice. I have a
+notion you'll find this--if its handled right, and works out right--will
+come to much the same thing."
+
+He rode along in silence for some moments.
+
+"I want to be fair," he resumed at last, "and do not desire to get you
+in this on mistaken premises. This will not be a case of experiment, of
+plaything, but of business. However desirable a commercial theory may
+be, if it's commercial, _it must pay_! It's not enough if you don't lose
+money; or even if you succeed in coming out a little ahead. You must
+make it pay on a commercial basis, or else it's as worthless in the
+business world as so much moonshine. That is not sordid; it is simply
+common sense. We all agree that it would be better to cut our forests
+for the future; but _can it be done under present conditions?_"
+
+"There is no question of that," said Bob confidently.
+
+"There is quite a question of it among some of us old fogies, Bobby,"
+stated Orde good-humouredly. "I suppose we're stupid and behind the
+times; but we've been brought up in a hard school. We are beyond the age
+when we originate much, perhaps; but we're willing to be shown."
+
+He held up his hand, checking over his fingers as he talked.
+
+"Here's the whole proposition," said he. "You can consider it. Welton
+and I will turn over the whole works to you, lock, stock and barrel, for
+two years. You know the practical side of the business as well as you
+ever will, and you've got a good head on you. At the end of that time,
+turn in your balance sheet. We'll see how you come out, and how much it
+costs a thousand feet to do these things outside the schoolroom."
+
+"If I took it up, I couldn't make it pay quite as well as by present
+methods," Bob warned.
+
+"Of course not. Any reasonable man would expect to spend something by
+way of insurance for the future. But the point is, the operations must
+pay. Think it over!"
+
+They emerged into the mill clearing. Welton rolled out to greet them,
+his honest red face aglow with pleasure over greeting again his old
+friend. They pounded each other on the back, and uttered much facetious
+and affectionate abuse. Bob left them cursing each other heartily, broad
+grins illuminating their weatherbeaten faces.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+Bob's obvious course was to talk the whole matter over with his superior
+officer, and that is exactly what he intended to do. Instead, he hunted
+up Amy. He justified this course by the rather sophistical reflection
+that in her he would encounter the most positive force to the contrary
+of the proposition he had just received. Amy stood first, last and all
+the time for the Service; her heart was wholly in its cause. In her
+opinion he would gain the advantage of a direct antithesis to the ideas
+propounded by his father. This appeared to Bob an eminently just
+arrangement, but failed to account for a certain rather breathless
+excitement as he caught sight of Amy's sleek head bending over a pan of
+peas.
+
+"Amy," said he, dropping down at her feet, "I want your advice."
+
+She let fall her hands and looked at him with the refreshing directness
+peculiarly her own.
+
+"Father wants me to take charge of the Wolverine Company's operations,"
+he began.
+
+"Well?" she urged him after a pause.
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+"I thought you had worked that all out for yourself some time ago."
+
+"I had. But father and Mr. Welton are getting a little too old to handle
+such a proposition, and they are looking to me--" he paused.
+
+"That situation is no different than it has been," she suggested. "What
+else?"
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"You see through me very easily, don't you? Well, the situation is
+changed. I'm being bribed."
+
+"Bribed!" Amy cried, throwing her head back.
+
+"Extra inducements offered. They make it hard for me to refuse, without
+seeming positively brutal. They offer me complete charge--to do as I
+want. I can run the works absolutely according to my own ideas. Don't
+you see how I am going to hurt them when I refuse under such
+circumstances?"
+
+"Refuse!" cried Amy. "Refuse! What do you mean!"
+
+"Do you think I ought to leave the Service?" stammered Bob blankly.
+
+"Why, it's the best chance the Service has ever had!" said Amy, the
+words fairly tumbling over one another. "You must never dream of
+refusing. It's your chance--it's our chance. It's the one thing we've
+lacked, the opportunity of showing lumbermen everywhere that the thing
+can be made to pay. It's the one thing we've lacked. Oh, _what_ a
+chance!"
+
+"But--but," objected Bob--"it means giving up the Service--after these
+years--and all the wide interests--and the work----"
+
+"You must take it," she swept him away, "and you must do it with all
+your power and all the ability that is in you. You must devote yourself
+to one idea--make money, make it pay!"
+
+"This from you," said Bob sadly.
+
+"Oh, I am so _glad_!" cried Amy. "Your father is a dear! it's the one
+fear that has haunted me--lest some visionary incompetent should attempt
+it, and should fail dismally, and all the great world of business should
+visit our methods with the scorn due only his incompetence. It was our
+great danger! And now it is no longer a danger! You can do it, Bob; you
+have the knowledge and the ability and the energy--and you must have the
+enthusiasm. Can't you see it? You _must!_"
+
+She leaned over, her eyes shining with the excitement of her thought,
+to shake him by both shoulders. The pan of peas promptly deluged him.
+They both laughed.
+
+"I'd never looked at it that way," Bob confessed.
+
+"It's the only way to look at it."
+
+"Why!" cried Bob, in the sudden illumination of a new idea. "The more
+money I make, the more good I'll do--that's a brand new idea for you!"
+
+He rose to his feet, slowly, and stood for a moment lost in thought.
+Then he looked down at her, a fresh admiration shining in his eyes.
+
+"Yours is the inspiration and the insight--as always," he said humbly.
+"It has always been so. I have seemed to myself to have blundered and
+stumbled, groping for a way; and you have flown, swift as a shining
+arrow, straight to the mark."
+
+"No, no, no, no!" she disclaimed, coming close to him in the vigour of
+her denial. "You are unfair."
+
+She looked up into his face, and somehow in the earnestness of her
+disclaimer, the feminine soul of her rose to her eyes, so that again Bob
+saw the tender, appealing helplessness, and once more there arose to
+full tide in his breast the answering tenderness that would care for her
+and guard her from the rough jostling of the world. The warmth of her
+young body tingled in recollection along his arm, and then, strangely
+enough, without any other direct cause whatever, the tide rose higher to
+flood his soul. He drew her to him, crushing her to his breast. For an
+instant she yielded to him utterly; then drew away in a panic.
+
+"My dear, my dear!" she half whispered; "not here!"
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Bob rode home through the forest, singing at the top of his voice. When
+he met his father, near the lower meadow, he greeted the older man
+boisterously.
+
+"That," said Orde to him shrewdly, "sounds to me mighty like relief.
+Have you decided for or against?"
+
+"For," said Bob. "It's a fine chance for me to do just what I've always
+wanted to do--to work hard at what interests me and satisfies me."
+
+"Go to it, then," said Orde. "By the way, Bobby, how old are you now?"
+
+"Twenty-nine."
+
+"Well, you're a year younger than I was when I started in with Newmark.
+You're ahead of me there. But in other respects, my son, your father had
+a heap more sense; he got married, and he didn't waste any time on it.
+How long have you been living around in range of that Thorne girl,
+anyway? Somebody ought to build a fire under you."
+
+Bob hesitated a moment; but he preferred that his good news should come
+to his father when Amy could be there, too.
+
+"I'm glad you like her, father," said he quietly.
+
+Orde looked at his son, and his voice fell from its chaffing tone. "Good
+luck, boy," said he, and leaned from his saddle to touch the young man
+on the shoulder.
+
+They emerged into the clearing about the mill. Bob looked on the
+familiar scene with the new eyes of a great spiritual uplift. The yellow
+sawdust and the sawn lumber; the dark forest beyond; the bulk of the
+mill with its tall pines; the dazzling plume of steam against the very
+blue sky, all these appealed to him again with many voices, as they had
+years before in far-off Michigan. Once more he was back where his blood
+called him; but under conditions which his training and the spirit of
+the new times could approve. His heart exulted at the challenge to his
+young manhood.
+
+As he rode by the store he caught sight within its depths of Merker
+methodically waiting on a stolid squaw.
+
+"No more economic waste, Merker!" he could not forbear shouting; and
+then rocked in his saddle with laughter over the man's look of slow
+surprise. "It's his catchword," he explained to Orde. "He's a slow,
+queer old duck, but a mighty good sort for the place. There's Post, in
+from the woods. He's woods foreman. I expect I'll have lively times with
+Post at first, getting him broken into new ways. But he's a good sort,
+too."
+
+"Everybody's a good sort to-day, aren't they, son?" smiled Orde.
+
+Welton met them, and expressed his satisfaction over the way everything
+had turned out.
+
+"I'm going duck shooting for fair," said he, "and I'm going fishing at
+Catalina. Out here," he explained to Orde, "you sit in nice warm sun and
+let the ducks insult you into shooting at 'em! No
+freeze-your-fingers-and-break-the-ice early mornings! I'm willing to let
+the kid go it! He can't bust me in two years, anyway."
+
+Later, when the two were alone together, he clapped Bob on the back and
+wished him success.
+
+"I'm too old at the game to believe much in new methods to what I've
+been brought up to, Bob," said he; "but I believe in you. If anybody can
+do it, you can; and I'd be tickled to see you win out. Things change;
+and a man is foolish to act as though they didn't. He's just got to keep
+playing along according to the rules of the game. And they keep
+changing, too. It's good to have lived while they're making a country.
+I've done it. You're going to."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Rules of the Game, by Stewart Edward White
+
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rules of the Game, by Stewart Edward White
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Rules of the Game
+
+Author: Stewart Edward White
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #13194]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RULES OF THE GAME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Maria Khomenko and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+    <img src="images/rgfrontis.jpg"
+          alt=
+          "He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to scorch his face and hands.">
+     <br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="THE_RULES_OF_THE_GAME"></a>
+
+    <h2>THE RULES OF THE GAME</h2>
+
+    <h3>BY</h3>
+
+    <h2>STEWART EDWARD WHITE</h2>
+
+    <h4>1910</h4><br>
+
+
+    <p>Illustrated By Lejaren A. Hiller</p><br>
+
+
+    <p>INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
+    INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN, 1909, 1910, BY JAMES HORSBURGH, JR,
+    1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE &amp; COMPANY PUBLISHED, OCTOBER,
+    1910</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="AUTHOR'S_NOTE"></a>
+
+    <h2>AUTHOR'S NOTE</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p><i>The geography in this novel may easily be recognized by
+    one familiar with the country. For that reason it is necessary
+    to state that the characters therein are in no manner to be
+    confused with the people actually inhabiting and developing
+    that locality. The Power Company promoted by Baker has
+    absolutely nothing to do with any Power Company utilizing any
+    streams: the delectable Plant never exercised his talents in
+    Sierra North. The author must decline to acknowledge any
+    identifications of the sort. Plant and Baker and all the rest
+    are, however, only to a limited extent fictitious characters.
+    What they did and what they stood for is absolutely
+    true.</i></p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="ILLUSTRATIONS"></a>
+
+    <h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to
+    scorch his face and hands.</p>
+
+    <p>The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stood
+    to one side.</p>
+
+    <p>"I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found it two hours' journey down.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="PART_ONE"></a>
+
+    <h2>PART ONE</h2><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="I"></a>
+
+    <h2>I</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Late one fall afternoon, in the year 1898, a train paused
+    for a moment before crossing a bridge over a river. From it
+    descended a heavy-set, elderly man. The train immediately
+    proceeded on its way.</p>
+
+    <p>The heavy-set man looked about him. The river and the
+    bottom-land growths of willow and hardwood were hemmed in, as
+    far as he could see, by low-wooded hills. Only the railroad
+    bridge, the steep embankment of the right-of-way, and a small,
+    painted, windowless structure next the water met his eye as the
+    handiwork of man. The windowless structure was bleak, deserted
+    and obviously locked by a strong padlock and hasp.
+    Nevertheless, the man, throwing on his shoulder a canvas
+    duffle-bag with handles, made his way down the steep railway
+    embankment, across a plank over the ditch, and to the edge of
+    the water. Here he dropped his bag heavily, and looked about
+    him with an air of comical dismay.</p>
+
+    <p>The man was probably close to sixty years of age, but florid
+    and vigorous. His body was heavy and round; but so were his
+    arms and legs. An otherwise absolutely unprepossessing face was
+    rendered most attractive by a pair of twinkling, humorous blue
+    eyes, set far apart. Iron-gray hair, with a tendency to curl
+    upward at the ends, escaped from under his hat. His movements
+    were slow and large and purposeful.</p>
+
+    <p>He rattled the padlock on the boathouse, looked at his
+    watch, and sat down on his duffle-bag. The wind blew strong up
+    the river; the baring branches of the willows whipped loose
+    their yellow leaves. A dull, leaden light stole up from the
+    east as the afternoon sun lost its strength.</p>
+
+    <p>By the end of ten minutes, however, the wind carried with it
+    the creak of rowlocks. A moment later a light, flat duck-boat
+    shot around the bend and drew up at the float.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Orde, you confounded old scallywattamus," remarked
+    the man on the duffle-bag, without moving, "is this your notion
+    of meeting a train?"</p>
+
+    <p>The oarsman moored his frail craft and stepped to the float.
+    He was about ten years the other's junior, big of frame, tanned
+    of skin, clear of eye, and also purposeful of movement.</p>
+
+    <p>"This boathouse," he remarked incisively, "is the property
+    of the Maple County Duck Club. Trespassers will be prosecuted.
+    Get off this float."</p>
+
+    <p>Then they clasped hands and looked at each other.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's surely like old times to see you again, Welton," Orde
+    broke the momentary silence. "It's been&mdash;let's
+    see&mdash;fifteen years, hasn't it? How's Minnesota?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Full of ducks," stated Welton emphatically, "and if you
+    haven't anything but mud hens and hell divers here, I'm going
+    to sue you for getting me here under false pretences. I want
+    ducks."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'll get the keeper to shoot you some," replied Orde,
+    soothingly, "or you can come out and see me kill 'em if you'll
+    sit quiet and not rock the boat. Climb aboard. It's getting
+    late."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton threw aboard his duffle-bag, and, with a dexterity
+    marvellous in one apparently so unwieldy, stepped in astern.
+    Orde grinned.</p>
+
+    <p>"Haven't forgotten how to ride a log, I reckon?" he
+    commented.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton exploded.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, you little squirt!" he cried, "I'd have you know
+    I'm riding logs yet. I don't suppose you'd know a log if you'd
+    see one, you' soft-handed, degenerate, old riverhog, you! A
+    golf ball's about your size!"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said Orde; "a fat old hippopotamus named Welton is
+    about my size&mdash;as I'll show you when we land at the
+    Marsh!"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton grinned.</p>
+
+    <p>"How's Mrs. Orde and the little boy?" he inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mrs. Orde is fine and dandy, and the 'little boy,' as you
+    call him, graduated from college last June," Orde replied.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't say!" cried Welton, genuinely astounded. "Why, of
+    course, he must have! Can he lick his dad?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You bet he can&mdash;or could if his dad would give him a
+    chance. Why, he's been captain of the football team for two
+    years."</p>
+
+    <p>"And football's the only game I'd come out of the woods to
+    see," said Welton. "I must have seen him up at Minneapolis when
+    his team licked the stuffing out of our boys; and I remember
+    his name. But I never thought of him as little
+    Bobby&mdash;because&mdash;well, because I always did remember
+    him as little Bobby."</p>
+
+    <p>"He's big Bobby, now, all right," said Orde, "and that's one
+    reason I wanted to see you; why I asked you to run over from
+    Chicago next time you came down. Of course, there <i>are</i>
+    ducks, too."</p>
+
+    <p>"There'd better be!" said Welton grimly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I want Bob to go into the lumber business, same as his dad
+    was. This congressman game is all right, and I don't see how I
+    can very well get out of it, even if I wanted to. But, Welton,
+    I'm a Riverman, and I always will be. It's in my bones. I want
+    Bob to grow up in the smell of the woods&mdash;same as his dad.
+    I've always had that ambition for him. It was the one thing
+    that made me hesitate longest about going to Washington. I
+    looked forward to <i>Orde &amp; Son</i>."</p>
+
+    <p>He was resting on his oars, and the duck-boat drifted
+    silently by the swaying brown reeds.</p><br>
+
+
+    <p>Welton nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>"I want you to take him and break him in. I'd rather have
+    you than any one I know. You're the only one of the outsiders
+    who stayed by the Big Jam," Orde continued. "Don't try to
+    favour him&mdash;that's no favour. If he doesn't make good,
+    fire him. Don't tell any of your people that he's the son of a
+    friend. Let him stand on his own feet. If he's any good we'll
+    work him into the old game. Just give him a job, and keep an
+    eye on him for me, to see how well he does."</p>
+
+    <p>"Jack, the job's his," said Welton. "But it won't do him
+    much good, because it won't last long. We're cleaned up in
+    Minnesota; and have only an odd two years on some odds and ends
+    we picked up in Wisconsin just to keep us busy."</p>
+
+    <p>"What are you going to do then?" asked Orde, quietly dipping
+    his oars again.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going to retire and enjoy life."</p>
+
+    <p>Orde laughed quietly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, you are!" said he. "You'd have a high old time for a
+    calendar month. Then you'd get uneasy. You'd build you a big
+    house, which would keep you mad for six months more. Then you'd
+    degenerate to buying subscription books, and wheezing around a
+    club and going by the cocktail route. You'd look sweet
+    retiring, now, wouldn't you?"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton grinned back, a trifle ruefully.</p>
+
+    <p>"You can no more retire than I can," Orde went on. "And as
+    for enjoying life, I'll trade jobs with you in a minute, you
+    ungrateful old idiot."</p>
+
+    <p>"I know it, Jack," confessed Welton; "but what can I do? I
+    can't pick up any more timber at any price. I tell you, the
+    game is played out. We're old mossbacks; and our job is
+    done."</p>
+
+    <p>"I have five hundred million feet of sugar pine in
+    California. What do you say to going in with me to
+    manufacture?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The hell you have!" cried Welton, his jaw dropping. "I
+    didn't know that!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Neither does anybody else. I bought it twenty years ago,
+    under a corporation name. I was the whole corporation. Called
+    myself the Wolverine Company."</p>
+
+    <p>"You own the Wolverine property, do you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes; ever hear of it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I know where it is. I've been out there trying to get hold
+    of something, but you have the heart of it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Thought you were going to retire," Orde pointed out.</p>
+
+    <p>"The property's all right, but I've some sort of notion the
+    title is clouded."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Can't seem to remember; but I must have come against some
+    record somewhere. Didn't pay extra much attention, because I
+    wasn't interested in that piece. Something to do with
+    fraudulent homesteading, wasn't it?"</p>
+
+    <p>Orde dropped his oars across his lap to fill and light a
+    pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"That title was deliberately clouded by an enemy to prevent
+    my raising money at the time of the Big Jam, when I was
+    pinched," said he. "Frank Taylor straightened it out for me.
+    You can see him. As a matter of fact, most of that land I
+    bought outright from the original homesteaders, and the rest
+    from a bank. I was very particular. There's one 160 I wouldn't
+    take on that account."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that's all right," said Welton, his jolly eyes
+    twinkling. "Why the secrecy?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I wanted a business for Bob when he should grow up,"
+    explained Orde; "but I didn't want any of this 'rich man's son'
+    business. Nothing's worse for a boy than to feel that
+    everything's cut and dried for him. He is to understand that he
+    must go to work for somebody else, and stand strictly on his
+    own feet, and make good on his own efforts. That's why I want
+    you to break him in."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right. And about this partnership?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I want you to take charge. I can't leave Washington. We'll
+    get down to details later. Bob can work for you there the same
+    as here. By and by, we'll see whether to tell him or not."</p>
+
+    <p>The twilight had fallen, and the shores of the river were
+    lost in dusk. The surface of the water itself shone with an
+    added luminosity, reflecting the sky. In the middle distance
+    twinkled a light, beyond which in long stretches lay the sombre
+    marshes.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the club," said Orde. "Now, if you disgrace me, you
+    old duffer, I'll use you as a decoy!"</p>
+
+    <p>A few moments later the two men, opening the door of the
+    shooting-box, plunged into a murk of blue tobacco smoke. A
+    half-dozen men greeted them boisterously. These were just about
+    to draw lots for choice of blinds on the morrow. A savoury
+    smell of roasting ducks came from the tiny kitchen where
+    Weber&mdash;punter, keeper, duck-caller and
+    cook&mdash;exercised the last-named function. Welton drew last
+    choice, and was commiserated on his bad fortune. No one offered
+    to give way to the guest, however. On this point the rules of
+    the Club were inflexible.</p>
+
+    <p>Luckily the weather changed. It turned cold; the wind blew a
+    gale. Squalls of light snow swept the marshes. Men chattered
+    and shivered, and blew on their wet fingers, but in from the
+    great open lake came myriads of water-fowl, seeking shelter,
+    and the sport was grand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, old stick-in-the-mud," said Orde as, at the end of
+    two days, the men thawed out in a smoking car, "ducks enough
+    for you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Jack," said Welton solemnly, "there are no ducks in
+    Minnesota. They've all come over here. I've had the time of my
+    life. And about that other thing: as soon as our woods work is
+    under way, I'll run out to California and look over the
+    ground&mdash;see how easy it is to log that country. Then we
+    can talk business. In the meantime, send Bob over to the
+    Chicago office. I'll let Harvey break him in a little on the
+    office work until I get back. When will he show up?"</p>
+
+    <p>Orde grinned apologetically.</p>
+
+    <p>"The kid has set his heart on coaching the team this fall,
+    and he don't want to go to work until after the season," said
+    he. "I'm just an old fool enough to tell him he could wait. I
+    know he ought to be at it now&mdash;you and I were, long before
+    his age; but----"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, shut up!" interrupted Welton, his big body shaking all
+    over with mirth. "You talk like a copy-book. I'm not a
+    constituent, and you needn't run any bluffs on me. You're
+    tickled to death with that boy, and you are hoping that team
+    will lick the everlasting daylights out of Chicago,
+    Thanksgiving; and you wouldn't miss the game or have Bob out of
+    the coaching for the whole of California; and you know it. Send
+    him along when you get ready."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="II"></a>
+
+    <h2>II</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob Orde, armed with a card of introduction to Fox, Welton's
+    office partner, left home directly after Thanksgiving. He had
+    heard much of Welton &amp; Fox in the past, both from his
+    father and his father's associates. The firm name meant to him
+    big things in the past history of Michigan's industries, and
+    big things in the vague, large life of the Northwest.
+    Therefore, he was considerably surprised, on finding the firm's
+    Adams Street offices, to observe their comparative
+    insignificance.</p>
+
+    <p>He made his way into a narrow entry, containing merely a
+    high desk, a safe, some letter files, and two bookkeepers.
+    Then, without challenge, he walked directly into a large
+    apartment, furnished as simply, with another safe, a
+    typewriter, several chairs, and a large roll-top desk. At the
+    latter a man sprawled, reading a newspaper. Bob looked about
+    for a further door closed on an inner private office, where the
+    weighty business must be transacted. There was none. The tall,
+    broad, lean young man hesitated, looking about him with a
+    puzzled expression in his earnest young eyes. Could this be the
+    heart and centre of those vast and far-reaching activities he
+    had heard so much about?</p>
+
+    <p>After a moment the man in the revolving chair looked up
+    shrewdly over his paper. Bob felt himself the object of an
+    instant's searching scrutiny from a pair of elderly steel-gray
+    eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well?" said the man, briefly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am looking for Mr. Fox," explained Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am Fox."</p>
+
+    <p>The young man moved forward his great frame with the easy,
+    loose-jointed grace of the trained athlete. Without comment he
+    handed his card of introduction to the seated man. The latter
+    glanced at it, then back to the young fellow before him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Glad to see you, Mr. Orde," he unbent slightly. "I've been
+    expecting you. If you're as good a man as your father, you'll
+    succeed. If you're not as good a man as your father, you may
+    get on&mdash;well enough. But you've got to be some good on
+    your own account. We'll see." He raised his voice slightly.
+    "Jim!" he called.</p>
+
+    <p>One of the two bookkeepers appeared in the doorway.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is young Mr. Orde," Fox told him. "You knew his father
+    at Monrovia and Redding."</p>
+
+    <p>The bookkeeper examined Bob dispassionately.</p>
+
+    <p>"Harvey is our head man here," went on Fox. "He'll take
+    charge of you."</p>
+
+    <p>He swung his leg over the arm of his chair and resumed his
+    newspaper. After a few moments he thrust the crumpled sheet
+    into a huge waste basket and turned to his desk, where he
+    speedily lost himself in a mass of letters and papers.</p>
+
+    <p>Harvey disappeared. Bob stood for a moment, then took a seat
+    by the window, where he could look out over the smoky city and
+    catch a glimpse of the wintry lake beyond. As nothing further
+    occurred for some time, he removed his overcoat, and gazed
+    about him with interest on the framed photographs of logging
+    scenes and camps that covered the walls. At the end of ten
+    minutes Harvey returned from the small outer office. Harvey
+    was, perhaps, fifty-five years of age, exceeding methodical,
+    very competent.</p>
+
+    <p>"Can you run a typewriter?" he inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"A little," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, copy this, with a carbon duplicate."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob took the paper Harvey extended to him. He found it to be
+    a list, including hundreds of items. The first few lines were
+    like this:</p>
+
+    <p>Sec. 4 T, 6 N.R., 26 W S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4<br>
+          <span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+          6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;26&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+          N.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4</span><br>
+    <span style=
+    "layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">4&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;26&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    S.W. 1/4 of S.W. 1/4</span><br>
+    <span style=
+    "layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;26&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4</span><br>
+    <span style=
+    "layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 1.25em;">5&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    6&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;26&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+    S.E. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4</span></p>
+
+    <p>After an interminable sequence, another of the figures would
+    change, or a single letter of the alphabet would shift. And so
+    on, column after column. Bob had not the remotest notion of
+    what it all meant, but he copied it and handed the result to
+    Harvey. In a few moments Harvey returned.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you verify this?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" Bob inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"Verify it, check it over, compare it," snapped Harvey,
+    impatiently.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob took the list, and with infinite pains which,
+    nevertheless, could not prevent him from occasionally losing
+    the place in the bewilderment of so many similar figures, he
+    managed to discover that he had omitted three and miscopied
+    two. He corrected these mistakes with ink and returned the list
+    to Harvey. Harvey looked sourly at the ink marks, and gave the
+    boy another list to copy.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found this task, which lasted until noon, fully as
+    exhilarating as the other. When he returned his copies he
+    ventured an inquiry.</p>
+
+    <p>"What are these?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Descriptions," snapped Harvey.</p>
+
+    <p>In time he managed to reason out the fact that they were
+    descriptions of land; that each item of the many hundreds meant
+    a separate tract. Thus the first line of his first copy,
+    translated, would have read as follows:</p>
+
+    <p>"The southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section
+    number four, township number six, north, range number
+    twenty-six, west."</p>
+
+    <p>&mdash;And that it represented forty acres of timber land.
+    The stupendous nature of such holdings made him gasp, and he
+    gasped again when he realized that each of his mistakes meant
+    the misplacement on the map of enough for a good-sized farm.
+    Nevertheless, as day succeeded day, and the lists had no end,
+    the mistakes became more difficult to avoid. The S, W, E, and N
+    keys on the typewriter bothered him, hypnotized him, forced him
+    to strike fantastic combinations of their own. Once Harvey
+    entered to point out to him an impossible N.S.</p>
+
+    <p>Over his lists Harvey, the second bookkeeper, and Fox held
+    long consultations. Then Bob leaned back in his office chair to
+    examine for the hundredth time the framed photographs of
+    logging crews, winter scenes in the forest, record loads of
+    logs; and to speculate again on the maps, deer heads, and
+    hunting trophies. At first they had appealed to his
+    imagination. Now they had become too familiar. Out the window
+    were the palls of smoke, gigantic buildings, crevasse-like
+    streets, and swirling winds of Chicago.</p>
+
+    <p>Occasionally men would drift in, inquiring for the heads of
+    the firm. Then Fox would hang one leg over the arm of his
+    swinging chair, light a cigar, and enter into desultory
+    conversation. To Bob a great deal of time seemed thus to be
+    wasted. He did not know that big deals were decided in
+    apparently casual references to business.</p>
+
+    <p>Other lists varied the monotony. After he had finished the
+    tax lists he had to copy over every description a second time,
+    with additional statistics opposite each, like this:</p>
+
+    <p>S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4, T. 4 N.R., 17, W. Sec. 32,<br>
+          <span style="layout-flow: horizontal; margin-left: 3em;">W.P.
+          68, N. 16, H. 5.</span></p><br>
+
+    <p>The last characters translated into: "White pine, 68,000
+    feet; Norway pine, 16,000 feet; hemlock, 5,000 feet," and that
+    inventoried the standing timber on the special forty acres.</p>
+
+    <p>And occasionally he tabulated for reference long statistics
+    on how Camp 14 fed its men for 32 cents a day apiece, while
+    Camp 32 got it down to 27 cents.</p>
+
+    <p>That was all, absolutely all, except that occasionally they
+    sent him out to do an errand, or let him copy a wordy contract
+    with a great many <i>whereases</i> and <i>wherefores</i>.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob little realized that nine-tenths of this
+    timber&mdash;all that wherein S P (sugar pine) took the place
+    of W P&mdash;was in California, belonged to his own father, and
+    would one day be his. For just at this time the principal
+    labour of the office was in checking over the estimates on the
+    Western tract.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob did his best because he was a true sportsman, and he had
+    entered the game, but he did not like it, and the slow, sleepy
+    monotony of the office, with its trivial tasks which he did not
+    understand, filled him with an immense and cloying languor. The
+    firm seemed to be dying of the sleeping sickness. Nothing ever
+    happened. They filed their interminable statistics, and
+    consulted their interminable books, and marked squares off
+    their interminable maps, and droned along their monotonous,
+    unimportant life in the same manner day after day. Bob was used
+    to out-of-doors, used to exercise, used to the animation of
+    free human intercourse. He watched the clock in spite of
+    himself. He made mistakes out of sheer weariness of spirit, and
+    in the footing of the long columns of figures he could not
+    summon to his assistance the slow, painstaking enthusiasm for
+    accuracy which is the sole salvation of those who would get the
+    answer. He was not that sort of chap.</p>
+
+    <p>But he was not a quitter, either. This was life. He tried
+    conscientiously to do his best in it. Other men did; so could
+    he.</p>
+
+    <p>The winter moved on somnolently. He knew he was not making a
+    success. Harvey was inscrutable, taciturn, not to be
+    approached. Fox seemed to have forgotten his official
+    existence, although he was hearty enough in his morning
+    greetings to the young man. The young bookkeeper, Archie, was
+    more friendly, but even he was a being apart, alien, one of the
+    strangely accurate machines for the putting down and docketing
+    of these innumerable and unimportant figures. He would have
+    liked to know and understand Bob, just as the latter would have
+    liked to know and understand him, but they were separated by a
+    wide gulf in which whirled the nothingnesses of training and
+    temperament. However, Archie often pointed out mistakes to Bob
+    before the sardonic Harvey discovered them. Harvey never said
+    anything. He merely made a blue pencil mark in the margin, and
+    handed the document back. But the weariness of his smile!</p>
+
+    <p>One day Bob was sent to the bank. His business there was
+    that of an errand boy. Discovering it to be sleeting, he
+    returned for his overcoat. Harvey was standing rigid in the
+    door of the inner office, talking to Fox.</p>
+
+    <p>"He has an ingrained inaccuracy. He will never do for
+    business," Bob caught.</p>
+
+    <p>Archie looked at him pityingly.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="III"></a>
+
+    <h2>III</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The winter wore away. Bob dragged himself out of bed every
+    morning at half-past six, hurried through a breakfast, caught a
+    car&mdash;and hoped that the bridge would be closed. Otherwise
+    he would be late at the office, which would earn him Harvey's
+    marked disapproval. Bob could not see that it mattered much
+    whether he was late or not. Generally he had nothing whatever
+    to do for an hour or so. At noon he ate disconsolately at a
+    cheap saloon restaurant. At five he was free to go out among
+    his own kind&mdash;with always the thought before him of the
+    alarm clock the following morning.</p>
+
+    <p>One day he sat by the window, his clean, square chin in his
+    hand, his eyes lost in abstraction. As he looked, the winter
+    murk parted noiselessly, as though the effect were prearranged;
+    a blue sky shone through on a glint of bluer water; and, wonder
+    of wonders, there through the grimy dirty roar of Adams Street
+    a single, joyful robin note flew up to him.</p>
+
+    <p>At once a great homesickness overpowered him. He could see
+    plainly the half-sodden grass of the campus, the budding trees,
+    the red "gym" building, and the crowd knocking up flies. In a
+    little while the shot putters and jumpers would be out in their
+    sweaters. Out at Regents' Field the runners were getting into
+    shape. Bob could almost hear the creak of the rollers smoothing
+    out the tennis courts; he could almost recognize the voices of
+    the fellows perching about, smell the fragrant reek of their
+    pipes, savour the sweet spring breeze. The library clock boomed
+    four times, then clanged the hour. A rush of feet from all the
+    recitation rooms followed as a sequence, the opening of doors,
+    the murmur of voices, occasionally a shout. Over it sounded the
+    sharp, half-petulant advice of the coaches and the little
+    trainer to the athletes. It was getting dusk. The campus was
+    emptying. Through the trees shone lights. And Bob looked up, as
+    he had so often done before, to see the wonder of the great
+    dome against the afterglow of sunset.</p>
+
+    <p>Harvey was examining him with some curiosity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Copied those camp reports?" he inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob glanced hastily at the clock. He had been dreaming over
+    an hour.</p>
+
+    <p>A little later Fox came in; and a little after that Harvey
+    returned bringing in his hand the copies of the camp reports,
+    but instead of taking them directly to Bob for correction, as
+    had been his habit, he laid them before Fox. The latter picked
+    them up and examined them. In a moment he dropped them on his
+    desk.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded of Harvey, "that
+    <i>seventeen</i> only ran ten thousand? Why, it's preposterous!
+    Saw it myself. It has a half-million on it, if there's a stick.
+    Let's see Parsons's letter."</p>
+
+    <p>While Harvey was gone, Fox read further in the copy.</p>
+
+    <p>"See here, Harvey," he cried, "something's dead wrong. We
+    never cut all this hemlock. Why, hemlock's 'way down."</p>
+
+    <p>Harvey laid the original on the desk. After a second Fox's
+    face cleared.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, this is all right. There were 480,000 on
+    <i>seventeen</i>. And that hemlock seems to have got in the
+    wrong column. You want to be a little more careful, Jim. Never
+    knew that to happen before. Weren't out with the boys last
+    night, were you?"</p>
+
+    <p>But Harvey refused to respond to frivolity.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's never happened before because I never let it happen
+    before," he replied stiffly. "There have been mistakes like
+    that, and worse, in almost every report we've filed. I've cut
+    them out. Now, Mr. Fox, I don't have much to say, but I'd
+    rather do a thing myself than do it over after somebody else.
+    We've got a good deal to keep track of in this office, as you
+    know, without having to go over everybody else's work too."</p>
+
+    <p>"H'm," said Fox, thoughtfully. Then after a moment, "I'll
+    see about it."</p>
+
+    <p>Harvey went back to the outer office, and Fox turned at once
+    to Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, how is it?" he asked. "How did it happen?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," replied Bob. "I'm trying, Mr. Fox. Don't
+    think it isn't that. But it's new to me, and I can't seem to
+    get the hang of it right away."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see. How long you been here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"A little over four months."</p>
+
+    <p>Fox swung back in his chair leisurely.</p>
+
+    <p>"You must see you're not fair to Harvey," he announced.
+    "That man carries the details of four businesses in his head,
+    he practically does the clerical work for them all, and he
+    never seems to hurry. Also, he can put his hand without
+    hesitation on any one of these documents," he waved his hand
+    about the room. "I can't."</p>
+
+    <p>He stopped to light the stub of a long-extinct cigar.</p>
+
+    <p>"I can't make it hard for that sort of man. So I guess we'll
+    have to take you out of the office. Still, I promised Welton to
+    give you a good try-out. Then, too, I'm not satisfied in my own
+    mind. I can see you are trying. Either you're a damn fool or
+    this college education racket has had the same effect on you as
+    on most other young cubs. If you're the son of your father, you
+    can't be entirely a damn fool. If it's the college education,
+    that will probably wear off in time. Anyhow, I think I'll take
+    you up to the mill. You can try the office there. Collins is
+    easy to get on with, and of course there isn't the same
+    responsibility there."</p>
+
+    <p>In the buffeting of humiliation Bob could not avoid a
+    fleeting inner smile over this last remark. Responsibility! In
+    this sleepy, quiet backwater of a tenth-floor office, full of
+    infinite little statistics that led nowhere, that came to no
+    conclusion except to be engulfed in dark files with hundreds of
+    their own kind, aimless, useless, annoying as so many gadflies!
+    Then he set his face for the further remarks.</p>
+
+    <p>"Navigation will open this week," Fox's incisive tones went
+    on, "and our hold-overs will be moved now. It will be busy
+    there. We shall take the eight o'clock train to-night." He
+    glanced sharply at Bob's lean, set face. "I assume you'll
+    go?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob was remembering certain trying afternoons on the field
+    when as captain, and later as coach, he had told some very
+    high-spirited boys what he considered some wholesome truths. He
+    was remembering the various ways in which they had taken his
+    remarks.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir," he replied.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you can go home now and pack up," said Fox. "Jim!" he
+    shot out in his penetrating voice; then to Harvey, "Make out
+    Orde's check."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob closed his desk, and went into the outer office to
+    receive his check. Harvey handed it to him without comment, and
+    at once turned back to his books. Bob stood irresolute a
+    moment, then turned away without farewell.</p>
+
+    <p>But Archie followed him into the hall.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm mighty sorry, old man," he whispered, furtively. "Did
+    you get the G.B.?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going up to the mill office," replied Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh!" the other commiserated him. Then with an effort to see
+    the best side, "Still you could hardly expect to jump right
+    into the head office at first. I didn't much think you could
+    hold down a job here. You see there's too much doing here.
+    Well, good-bye. Good luck to you, old man."</p>
+
+    <p>There it was again, the insistence on the responsibility,
+    the activity, the importance of that sleepy, stuffy little
+    office with its two men at work, its leisure, its aimlessness.
+    On his way to the car-line Bob stopped to look in at an open
+    door. A dozen men were jumping truck loads of boxes here and
+    there. Another man in a peaked cap and a silesia coat, with a
+    pencil behind his ear and a manifold book sticking out of his
+    pocket shouted orders, consulted a long list, marked boxes and
+    scribbled in a shipping book. Dim in the background huge
+    freight elevators rose and fell, burdened with the mass of
+    indeterminate things. Truck horses, great as elephants,
+    magnificently harnessed with brass ornaments, drew drays, big
+    enough to carry a small house, to the loading platform where
+    they were quickly laden and sent away. From an opened upper
+    window came the busy click of many typewriters. Order in
+    apparent confusion, immense activity at a white heat, great
+    movement, the clanging of the wheels of commerce, the
+    apparition and embodiment of restless industry&mdash;these
+    appeared and vanished, darted in and out, were plain to be seen
+    and were vague through the murk and gloom. Bob glanced up at
+    the emblazoned sign. He read the firm's name of well-known
+    wholesale grocers. As he crossed the bridge and proceeded out
+    Lincoln Park Boulevard two figures rose to him and stood side
+    by side. One was the shipping clerk in his peaked cap and
+    silesia coat, hurried, busy, commanding, full of
+    responsibility; the other was Harvey, with his round, black
+    skull cap, his great, gold-bowed spectacles, entering minutely,
+    painstakingly, deliberately, his neat little figures in a neat,
+    large book.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IV"></a>
+
+    <h2>IV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The train stopped about noon at a small board town. Fox and
+    Bob descended. The latter drew his lungs full of the sparkling
+    clear air and felt inclined to shout. The thing that claimed
+    his attention most strongly was the dull green band of the
+    forest, thick and impenetrable to the south, fringing into
+    ragged tamaracks on the east, opening into a charming vista of
+    a narrowing bay to the west. Northward the land ran down to
+    sandpits and beyond them tossed the vivid white and blue of the
+    Lake. Then when his interest had detached itself from the
+    predominant note of the imminent wilderness, predominant less
+    from its physical size&mdash;for it lay in remote
+    perspective&mdash;than from a certain indefinable and
+    psychological right of priority, Bob's eye was at once drawn to
+    the huge red-painted sawmill, with its very tall smokestacks,
+    its row of water barrels along the ridge, its uncouth and
+    separate conical sawdust burner, and its long lines of elevated
+    tramways leading out into the lumber yard where was piled the
+    white pine held over from the season before. As Bob looked, a
+    great, black horse appeared on one of these aerial tramways,
+    silhouetted against the sky. The beast moved accurately, his
+    head held low against his chest, his feet lifted and planted
+    with care. Behind him rumbled a whole train of little cars each
+    laden with planks. On the foremost sat a man, his shoulders
+    bowed, driving the horse. They proceeded slowly, leisurely,
+    without haste, against the brightness of the sky. The spider
+    supports below them seemed strangely inadequate to their mass,
+    so that they appeared in an occult manner to maintain their
+    elevation by some buoyancy of their own, some quality that
+    sustained them not only in their distance above the earth but
+    in a curious, decorative, extra-human world of their own. After
+    a moment they disappeared behind the tall piles of lumber.</p>
+
+    <p>Against the sky, now, the place of the elephantine black
+    horse and the little tram cars and the man was taken by the
+    masts of ships lying beyond. They rose straight and tall, their
+    cordage like spider webs, in a succession of regular spaces
+    until they were lost behind the mill. From the exhaust of the
+    mill's engine a jet of white steam shot up sparkling. Close on
+    its apparition sounded the exultant, high-keyed shriek of the
+    saw. It ceased abruptly. Then Bob became conscious of a heavy
+    <i>rud, thud</i> of mill machinery.</p>
+
+    <p>All this time he and Fox were walking along a narrow board
+    walk, elevated two or three feet above the sawdust-strewn
+    street. They passed the mill and entered the cool shade of the
+    big lumber piles. Along their base lay half-melted snow. Soggy
+    pools soaked the ground in the exposed places. Bob breathed
+    deep of the clear air, keenly conscious of the freshness of it
+    after the murky city. A sweet and delicate odour was abroad, an
+    odour elusive yet pungent, an aroma of the open. The young man
+    sniffed it eagerly, this essence of fresh sawdust, of new-cut
+    pine, of sawlogs dripping from the water, of faint old
+    reminiscence of cured lumber standing in the piles of the year
+    before, and more fancifully of the balsam and spruce, the
+    hemlock and pine of the distant forest.</p>
+
+    <p>"Great!" he cried aloud, "I never knew anything like it!
+    What a country to train in!"</p>
+
+    <p>"All this lumber here is going to be sold within the next
+    two months," said Fox with the first approach to enthusiasm Bob
+    had ever observed in him. "All of it. It's got to be carried
+    down to the docks, and tallied there, and loaded in those
+    vessels. The mill isn't much&mdash;too old-fashioned. We saw
+    with 'circulars' instead of band-saws. Not like our Minnesota
+    mills. We bought the plant as it stands. Still we turn out a
+    pretty good cut every day, and it has to be run out and
+    piled."</p>
+
+    <p>They stepped abruptly, without transition, into the town. A
+    double row of unpainted board shanties led straight to the
+    water's edge. This row was punctuated by four buildings
+    different from the rest&mdash;a huge rambling structure with a
+    wide porch over which was suspended a large bell; a neatly
+    painted smaller building labelled "Office"; a trim house
+    surrounded by what would later be a garden; and a
+    square-fronted store. The street between was soft and springy
+    with sawdust and finely broken shingles. Various side streets
+    started out bravely enough, but soon petered out into stump
+    land. Along one of them were extensive stables.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob followed his conductor in silence. After an interval
+    they mounted short steps and entered the office.</p>
+
+    <p>Here Bob found himself at once in a small entry railed off
+    from the main room by a breast-high line of pickets strong
+    enough to resist a battering-ram. A man he had seen walking
+    across from the mill was talking rapidly through a tiny wicket,
+    emphasizing some point on a soiled memorandum by the indication
+    of a stubby forefinger. He was a short, active, blue-eyed man,
+    very tanned. Bob looked at him with interest, for there was
+    something about him the young man did not recognize, something
+    he liked&mdash;a certain independent carriage of the head, a
+    certain self-reliance in the set of his shoulders, a certain
+    purposeful directness of his whole personality. When he caught
+    sight of Fox he turned briskly, extending his hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"How are you, Mr. Fox?" he greeted. "Just in?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Johnny," replied Fox, "how are things? I see you're
+    busy."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, we're busy," replied the man, "and we'll keep
+    busy."</p>
+
+    <p>"Everything going all right?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty good. Poor lot of men this year. A good many of the
+    old men haven't showed up this year&mdash;some sort of pull-out
+    to Oregon and California. I'm having a little trouble with them
+    off and on."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll bet on you to stay on top," replied Fox easily. "I'll
+    be over to see you pretty soon."</p>
+
+    <p>The man nodded to the bookkeeper with whom he had been
+    talking, and turned to go out. As he passed Bob, that young man
+    was conscious of a keen, gimlet scrutiny from the blue eyes, a
+    scrutiny instantaneous, but which seemed to penetrate his very
+    flesh to the soul of him. He experienced a distinct physical
+    shock as at the encountering of an elemental force.</p>
+
+    <p>He came to himself to hear Fox saying:</p>
+
+    <p>"That's Johnny Mason, our mill foreman. He has charge of all
+    the sawing, and is a mighty good man. You'll see more of
+    him."</p>
+
+    <p>The speaker opened a gate in the picket railing and stepped
+    inside.</p>
+
+    <p>A long shelf desk, at which were high stools, backed up
+    against the pickets; a big round stove occupied the centre; a
+    safe crowded one corner. Blue print maps decorated the walls.
+    Coarse rope matting edged with tin strips protected the floor.
+    A single step down through a door led into a painted private
+    office where could be seen a flat table desk. In the air hung a
+    mingled odour of fresh pine, stale tobacco, and the closeness
+    of books.</p>
+
+    <p>Fox turned at once sharply to the left and entered into
+    earnest conversation with a pale, hatchet-faced man of
+    thirty-five, whom he addressed as "Collins." In a moment he
+    turned, beckoning Bob forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"Here's a youngster for you, Collins," said he, evidently
+    continuing former remarks. "Young Mr. Orde. He's been in our
+    home office awhile, but I brought him up to help you out. He
+    can get busy on your tally sheets and time checks and tally
+    boards, and sort of ease up the strain a little."</p>
+
+    <p>"I can use him, right now," said Collins, nervously
+    smoothing back a strand of his pale hair. "Glad to meet you,
+    Mr. Orde. These 'jumpers' ... and that confounded mixed stuff
+    from <i>seventeen</i> ..." he trailed off, his eye glazing in
+    the abstraction of some inner calculation, his long, nervous
+    fingers reaching unconsciously toward the soiled memoranda left
+    by Mason.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'll set you to work," he roused himself, when he
+    perceived that the two were about to leave him. And almost
+    before they had time to turn away he was busy at the papers,
+    his pencil, beautifully pointed, running like lightning down
+    the long columns, pausing at certain places as though by
+    instinct, hovering the brief instant necessary to calculation,
+    then racing on as though in pursuit of something elusive.</p>
+
+    <p>As they turned away a slow, cool voice addressed them from
+    behind the stove.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, bub!" it drawled.</p>
+
+    <p>Fox's face lighted and he extended both hands.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Tally!" he cried. "You old snoozer!"</p>
+
+    <p>The man was upward of sixty years of age, but straight and
+    active. His features were tanned a deep mahogany, and carved by
+    the years and exposure into lines of capability and good
+    humour. In contrast to this brown his sweeping white moustache
+    and bushy eyebrows, blenched flaxen by the sun, showed
+    strongly. His little blue eyes twinkled, and fine wrinkles at
+    their corners helped the twinkles. His long figure was so
+    heavily clothed as to be concealed from any surmise, except
+    that it was gaunt and wiry. Hands gnarled, twisted, veined,
+    brown, seemed less like flesh than like some skilful Japanese
+    carving. On his head he wore a visored cap with an
+    extraordinary high crown; on his back a rather dingy coat cut
+    from a Mackinaw blanket; on his legs trousers that had been
+    "stagged" off just below the knees, heavy German socks, and
+    shoes nailed with sharp spikes at least three-quarters of an
+    inch in length.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thought you were up in the woods!" Fox was exclaiming.
+    "Where's Fagan?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He's walkin' white water," replied the old man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Things going well?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Damn poor," admitted Tally frankly. "That is to say, the
+    Whitefish branch is off. There's trouble with the men. They're
+    a mixed lot. Then there's old Meadows. He's assertin' his
+    heaven-born rights some more. It's all right. We're on their
+    backs. Other branches just about down."</p>
+
+    <p>There followed a rapid exchange of which Bob could make
+    little&mdash;talk of flood water, of "plugging" and "pulling,"
+    of "winging out," of "white water." It made no sense, and yet
+    somehow it thrilled him, as at times the mere roll of Greek
+    names used to arouse in his breast vague emotions of grandeur
+    and the struggle of mighty forces.</p>
+
+    <p>Still talking, the two men began slowly to move toward the
+    inner office. Suddenly Fox seemed to remember his companion's
+    existence.</p>
+
+    <p>"By the way, Jim," he said, "I want you to know one of our
+    new men, young Mr. Orde. You've worked for his father. This is
+    Jim Tally, and he's one of the best rivermen, the best
+    woodsman, the best boss of men old Michigan ever turned out. He
+    walked logs before I was born."</p>
+
+    <p>"Glad to know you, Mr. Orde," said Tally, quite
+    unmoved.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="V"></a>
+
+    <h2>V</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The two left Bob to his own devices. The old riverman and
+    the astonishingly thawed and rejuvenated Mr. Fox disappeared in
+    the private office. Bob proffered a question to the busy
+    Collins, discovered himself free until afternoon, and so went
+    out through the office and into the clear open air.</p>
+
+    <p>He headed at once across the wide sawdust area toward the
+    mill and the lake. A great curiosity, a great interest filled
+    him. After a moment he found himself walking between tall,
+    leaning stacks of lumber, piled crosswise in such a manner that
+    the sweet currents of air eddied through the interstices
+    between the boards and in the narrow, alley-like spaces between
+    the square and separate stacks. A coolness filled these
+    streets, a coolness born of the shade in which they were cast,
+    the freshness of still unmelted snow lying in patches, the
+    quality of pine with its faint aromatic pitch smell and its
+    suggestion of the forest. Bob wandered on slowly, his hands in
+    his pockets. For the time being his more active interest was in
+    abeyance, lulled by the subtle, elusive phantom of grandeur
+    suggested in the aloofness of this narrow street fronted by its
+    square, skeleton, windowless houses through which the wind
+    rattled. After a little he glimpsed blue through the alleys
+    between. Then a side street offered, full of sun. He turned
+    down it a few feet, and found himself standing over an inlet of
+    the lake.</p>
+
+    <p>Then for the first time he realized that he had been walking
+    on "made ground." The water chugged restlessly against the
+    uneven ends of the lath-like slabs, thousands of them laid,
+    side by side, down to and below the water's surface. They
+    formed a substructure on which the sawdust had been heaped.
+    Deep shadows darted from their shelter and withdrew, following
+    the play of the little waves. The lower slabs were black with
+    the wet, and from them, too, crept a spicy odour set free by
+    the moisture. On a pile head sat an urchin fishing, with a long
+    bamboo pole many sizes too large for him. As Bob watched, he
+    jerked forth diminutive flat sunfish.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good work!" called Bob in congratulation.</p>
+
+    <p>The urchin looked up at the large, good-humoured man and
+    grinned.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob retraced his steps to the street on which he had started
+    out. There he discovered a steep stairway, and by it mounted to
+    the tramway above. Along this he wandered for what seemed to
+    him an interminable distance, lost as in a maze among the
+    streets and byways of this tenantless city. Once he stepped
+    aside to give passage to the great horse, or one like him, and
+    his train of little cars. The man driving nodded to him. Again
+    he happened on two men unloading similar cars, and passing the
+    boards down to other men below, who piled them skilfully, two
+    end planks one way, and then the next tier the other, in
+    regular alternation. They wore thick leather aprons, and square
+    leather pieces strapped across the insides of their hands as a
+    protection against splinters. These, like all other especial
+    accoutrements, seemed to Bob somehow romantic, to be desired,
+    infinitely picturesque. He passed on with the clear,
+    yellow-white of the pine boards lingering back of his
+    retina.</p>
+
+    <p>But now suddenly his sauntering brought him to the water
+    front. The tramway ended in a long platform running parallel to
+    the edge of the docks below. There were many little cars, both
+    in the process of unloading and awaiting their turn. The place
+    swarmed with men, all busily engaged in handing the boards from
+    one to another as buckets are passed at a fire. At each point
+    where an unending stream of them passed over the side of each
+    ship, stood a young man with a long, flexible rule. This he
+    laid rapidly along the width of each board, and then as rapidly
+    entered a mark in a note-book. The boards seemed to move fairly
+    of their own volition, like a scutellate monster of many
+    joints, crawling from the cars, across the dock, over the side
+    of the ship and into the black hold where presumably it coiled.
+    There were six ships; six, many-jointed monsters creeping to
+    their appointed places under the urging of these their masters;
+    six young men absorbed and busy at the tallying; six crews
+    panoplied in leather guiding the monsters to their lairs. Here,
+    too, the sun-warmed air arose sluggish with the aroma of pitch,
+    of lumber, of tar from the ships' cordage, of the wetness of
+    unpainted wood. Aloft in the rigging, clear against the sky,
+    were sailors in contrast of peaceful, leisurely industry to
+    those who toiled and hurried below. The masts swayed gently,
+    describing an arc against the heavens. The sailors swung easily
+    to the motion. From below came the quick dull sounds of planks
+    thrown down, the grind of car wheels, the movement of feet, the
+    varied, complex sound of men working together, the clapping of
+    waters against the structure. It was confusing, confusing as
+    the noise of many hammers. Yet two things seemed to steady it,
+    to confine it, keep it in the bounds of order, to prevent it
+    from usurping more than its meet and proper proportion. One was
+    the tingling lake breeze singing through the rigging of the
+    ship; the other was the idle and intermittent whistling of one
+    of the sailors aloft. And suddenly, as though it had but just
+    commenced, Bob again became aware of the saw shrieking in
+    ecstasy as it plunged into a pine log.</p>
+
+    <p>The sound came from the left, where at once he perceived the
+    tall stacks showing above the lumber piles, and the plume of
+    white steam glittering in the sun. In a moment the steam fell,
+    and the shriek of the saw fell with it. He turned to follow the
+    tramway, and in so doing almost bumped into Mason, the mill
+    foreman.</p>
+
+    <p>"They're hustling it in," said the latter. "That's right.
+    Can't give me yard room any too soon. The drive'll be down next
+    month. Plenty doing then. Damn those Dutchmen!"</p>
+
+    <p>He spoke abstractedly, as though voicing his inner thoughts
+    to himself, unconscious of his companion. Then he roused
+    himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"Going to the mill?" he asked. "Come on."</p>
+
+    <p>They walked along the high, narrow platform overlooking the
+    water front and the lading of the ships. Soon the trestles
+    widened, the tracks diverging like the fingers of a hand on the
+    broad front to the second story of the mill. Mason said
+    something about seeing the whole of it, and led the way along a
+    narrow, railed outside passage to the other end of the
+    structure.</p>
+
+    <p>There Bob's attention was at once caught by a great water
+    enclosure of logs, lying still and sluggish in the manner of
+    beasts resting. Rank after rank, tier after tier, in strange
+    patterns they lay, brown and round, with the little strips of
+    blue water showing between like a fantastic pattern. While Bob
+    looked, a man ran out over them. He was dressed in short
+    trousers, heavy socks, and spiked boots, and a faded blue
+    shirt. The young man watched with interest, old memories of his
+    early boyhood thronging back on him, before his people had
+    moved from Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically,
+    but with an accurate purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in
+    dignified reminiscence of his tread, and slowly rolled over;
+    the little logs bobbed frantically in a turmoil of white water,
+    disappearing and reappearing again and again, sleek and wet as
+    seals. To these the man paid no attention, but leaped easily
+    on, pausing on the timbers heavy enough to support him, barely
+    spurning those too small to sustain his weight. In a moment he
+    stopped abruptly without the transitorial balancing Bob would
+    have believed necessary, and went calmly to pushing mightily
+    with a long pike-pole. The log on which he stood rolled under
+    the pressure; the man quite mechanically kept pace with its
+    rolling, treading it in correspondence now one way, now the
+    other. In a few moments thus he had forced the mass of logs
+    before him toward an inclined plane leading to the second story
+    of the mill.</p>
+
+    <p>Up this ran an endless chain armed with teeth. The man
+    pushed one of the logs against the chain; the teeth bit; at
+    once, shaking itself free of the water, without apparent
+    effort, without haste, calmly and leisurely as befitted the
+    dignity of its bulk, the great timber arose. The water dripped
+    from it, the surface streamed, a cheerful <i>patter, patter</i>
+    of the falling drops made itself heard beneath the mill noises.
+    In a moment the log disappeared beneath projecting eaves.
+    Another was just behind it, and behind that yet another, and
+    another, like great patient beasts rising from the coolness of
+    a stream to follow a leader through the narrowness, of pasture
+    bars. And in the booms, up the river, as far as the eye could
+    see, were other logs awaiting their turn. And beyond them the
+    forest trees, straight and tall and green, dreaming of the time
+    when they should follow their brothers to the ships and go out
+    into the world.</p>
+
+    <p>Mason was looking up the river.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've seen the time when she was piled thirty feet high
+    there, and the freshet behind her. That was ten year back."</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"A jam!" explained Mason.</p>
+
+    <p>He ducked his head below his shoulders and disappeared
+    beneath the eaves of the mill. Bob followed.</p>
+
+    <p>First it was dusky; then he saw the strip of bright yellow
+    sunlight and the blue bay in the opening below the eaves; then
+    he caught the glitter and whirr of the two huge saws, moving
+    silently but with the deadly menace of great speed on their
+    axes. Against the light in irregular succession, alternately
+    blotting and clearing the foreground at the end of the mill,
+    appeared the ends of the logs coming up the incline. For a
+    moment they poised on the slant, then fell to the level, and
+    glided forward to a broad platform where they were ravished
+    from the chain and rolled into line.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. He made
+    out pulleys, belts, machinery, men. While he watched a black,
+    crooked arm shot vigorously up from the floor, hurried a log to
+    the embrace of two clamps, rolled it a little this way, a
+    little that, hovered over it as though in doubt as to whether
+    it was satisfactorily placed, then plunged to unknown depths as
+    swiftly and silently as it had come. So abrupt and purposeful
+    were its movements, so detached did it seem from control, that,
+    just as when he was a youngster, Bob could not rid his mind of
+    the notion that it was possessed of volition, that it led a
+    mysterious life of its own down there in the shadows, that it
+    was in the nature of an intelligent and agile beast trained to
+    apply its powers independently.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob remembered it as the "nigger," and looked about for the
+    man standing by a lever.</p>
+
+    <p>A momentary delay seemed to have occurred, owing to some
+    obscure difficulty. The man at the lever straightened his back.
+    Suddenly all that part of the floor seemed to start forward
+    with extraordinary swiftness. The log rushed down on the
+    circular saw. Instantly the wild, exultant shriek arose. The
+    car went on, burying the saw, all but the very top, from which
+    a stream of sawdust flew up and back. A long, clean slab fell
+    to a succession of revolving rollers which carried it, passing
+    it from one to the other, far into the body of the mill. The
+    car shot back to its original position in front of the saw. The
+    saw hummed an undersong of strong vibration. Again it ploughed
+    its way the length of the timber. This time a plank with bark
+    edges dropped on the rollers. And when the car had flown back
+    to its starting point the "nigger" rose from obscurity to turn
+    the log half way around.</p>
+
+    <p>They picked their way gingerly on. Bob looked back. Against
+    the light the two graceful, erect figures, immobile, but
+    carried back and forth over thirty feet with lightning
+    rapidity; the brute masses of the logs; the swift decisive
+    forays of the "nigger," the unobtrusive figures of the other
+    men handling the logs far in the background; and the bright,
+    smooth, glittering, dangerous saws, clear-cut in outline by
+    their very speed, humming in anticipation, or shrieking like
+    demons as they bit&mdash;these seemed to him to swell in the
+    dim light to the proportions of something gigantic,
+    primeval&mdash;to become forces beyond the experience of
+    to-day, typical of the tremendous power that must be invoked to
+    subdue the equally tremendous power of the wilderness.</p>
+
+    <p>He and Mason together examined the industriously working
+    gang-saws, long steel blades with the up-and-down motion of
+    cutting cord-wood. They passed the small trimming saws, where
+    men push the boards between little round saws to trim their
+    edges. Bob noticed how the sawdust was carried away
+    automatically, and where the waste slabs went. They turned
+    through a small side room, strangely silent by contrast to the
+    rest, where the filer did his minute work. He was an old man,
+    the filer, with steel-rimmed, round spectacles, and he held Bob
+    some time explaining how important his position was.</p>
+
+    <p>They emerged finally to the broad, open platform with the
+    radiating tram-car tracks. Here Bob saw the finished boards
+    trundled out on the moving rollers to be transferred to the
+    cars.</p>
+
+    <p>Mason left him. He made his way slowly back toward the
+    office, noticing on the way the curious pairs of huge wheels
+    beneath which were slung the heavy timbers or piles of boards
+    for transportation at the level of the ground.</p>
+
+    <p>At the edge of the lumber piles Bob looked back. The noises
+    of industry were in his ears; the blur of industry before his
+    eyes; the clean, sweet smell of pine in his nostrils. He saw
+    clearly the row of ships and the many-jointed serpent of boards
+    making its way to the hold, the sailors swinging aloft; the
+    miles of ruminating brown logs, and the alert little man
+    zigzagging across them; the shadow of the mill darkening the
+    water, and the brown leviathan timbers rising dripping in
+    regular succession from them; the whirr of the deadly circular
+    saws, and the calm, erect men dominating the cars that darted
+    back and forth; and finally the sparkling white steam spraying
+    suddenly against the intense blue of the sky. Here was
+    activity, business, industry, the clash of forces. He admired
+    the quick, compact alertness of Johnny Mason; he joyed in the
+    absorbed, interested activity of the brown young men with the
+    scaler's rules; he envied a trifle the muscle-stretching,
+    physical labour of the men with the leather aprons and
+    hand-guards, piling the lumber. It was good to draw in deep
+    breaths of this air, to smell deeply of he aromatic odours of
+    the north.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly the mill whistle began to blow. Beneath the noise
+    he could hear the machinery beginning to run down. From all
+    directions men came. They converged in the central alley,
+    hundreds of them. In a moment Bob was caught up in their
+    stream, and borne with them toward the weather-stained shanty
+    town.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VI"></a>
+
+    <h2>VI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob followed this streaming multitude to the large structure
+    that had earlier been pointed out to him as the boarding house.
+    It was a commodious affair with a narrow verandah to which led
+    steps picked out by the sharp caulks of the rivermen's boots. A
+    round stove held the place of honour in the first room. Benches
+    flanked the walls. At one end was a table-sink, and tin
+    wash-basins, and roller towels. The men were splashing and
+    blowing in the plunge-in-all-over fashion of their class. They
+    emerged slicked down and fresh, their hair plastered wet to
+    their foreheads. After a moment a fat and motherly woman made
+    an announcement from a rear room. All trooped out.</p>
+
+    <p>The dining room was precisely like those Bob remembered from
+    recollections of the river camps of his childhood. There were
+    the same long tables covered with red oilcloth, the same pine
+    benches worn smooth and shiny, the same thick crockery, and the
+    same huge receptacles steaming with hearty&mdash;and
+    well-cooked&mdash;food. Nowhere does the man who labours with
+    his hands fare better than in the average lumber camp. Forest
+    operations have a largeness in conception and execution that
+    leads away from the habit of the mean, small and foolish
+    economics. At one side, and near the windows, stood a smaller
+    table. The covering of this was turkey-red cloth with white
+    pattern; it boasted a white-metal "caster"; and possessed real
+    chairs. Here Bob took his seat, in company with Fox, Collins,
+    Mason, Tally and the half-dozen active young fellows he had
+    seen handling the scaling rules near the ships.</p>
+
+    <p>At the men's tables the meal was consumed in a silence which
+    Bob learned later came nearer being obligatory than a matter of
+    choice. Conversation was discouraged by the good-natured fat
+    woman, Mrs. Hallowell. Talk delayed; and when one had dishes to
+    wash----</p>
+
+    <p>The "boss's table" was more leisurely. Bob was introduced to
+    the sealers. They proved to be, with one exception, young
+    fellows of twenty-one or two, keen-eyed, brown-faced, alert and
+    active. They impressed Bob as belonging to the clerk class,
+    with something added by the outdoor, varied life. Indeed, later
+    he discovered them to be sons of carpenters, mechanics and
+    other higher-class, intelligent workingmen; boys who had gone
+    through high school, and perhaps a little way into the business
+    college; ambitious youngsters, each with a different idea in
+    the back of his head. They had in common an air of capability,
+    of complete adequacy for the task in life they had selected.
+    The sixth sealer was much older and of the riverman type. He
+    had evidently come up from the ranks.</p>
+
+    <p>There was no general conversation. Talk confined itself
+    strictly to shop. Bob, his imagination already stirred by the
+    incidents of his stroll, listened eagerly. Fox was getting in
+    touch with the whole situation.</p>
+
+    <p>"The main drive is down," Tally told him, "but the Cedar
+    Branch hasn't got to the river yet. What in blazes did you want
+    to buy that little strip this late in the day for?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Had to take it&mdash;on a deal," said Fox briefly. "Why? Is
+    it hard driving? I've never been up there. Welton saw to all
+    that."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's hell. The pine's way up at the headwaters. You have to
+    drive her the whole length of the stream, through a mixed
+    hardwood and farm country. Lots of patridges and mossbacks, but
+    no improvements. Not a dam the whole length of her. Case of hit
+    the freshet water or get hung."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, we've done that kind of a job before."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, <i>before</i>!" Tally retorted. "If I had a half-crew
+    of good, old-fashioned white-water birlers, I'd rest easy. But
+    we don't have no crews like we used to. The old bully boys have
+    all moved out west&mdash;or died."</p>
+
+    <p>"Getting old&mdash;like us," bantered Fox. "Why haven't you
+    died off too, Jim?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm never going to die," stated the old man, "I'm going to
+    live to turn into a grindstone and wear out. But it's a fact.
+    There's plenty left can ride a log all right, but they're a
+    tough lot. It's too close here to Marion."</p>
+
+    <p>"That <i>is</i> too bad," condoled Fox, "especially as I
+    remember so well what a soft-spoken, lamb-like little tin angel
+    you used to be, Jim."</p>
+
+    <p>Fox, who had quite dropped his old office self, winked at
+    Bob. The latter felt encouraged to say:</p>
+
+    <p>"I had a course in college on archaeology. Don't remember
+    much about it, but one thing. When they managed to decipher the
+    oldest known piece of hieroglyphics on an Assyrian brick, what
+    do you suppose it turned out to be?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Give it up, Brudder Bones," said Tally, dryly, "what was
+    it?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob flushed at the old riverman's tone, but went on.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was a letter from a man to his son away at school. In it
+    he lamented the good old times when he was young, and gave it
+    as his opinion that the world was going to the dogs."</p>
+
+    <p>Tally grinned slowly; and the others burst into a shout of
+    laughter.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right, bub," said the riverman good-humouredly. "But
+    that doesn't get me a new foreman." He turned to Fox. "Smith
+    broke his leg; and I can't find a man to take charge. I can't
+    go. The main drive's got to be sorted."</p>
+
+    <p>"There ought to be plenty of good men," said Fox.</p>
+
+    <p>"There are, but they're at work."</p>
+
+    <p>"Dicky Darrell is over at Marion," spoke up one of the
+    scalers.</p>
+
+    <p>"Roaring Dick," said Tally sarcastically, "&mdash;but
+    there's no denying he's a good man in the woods. But if he's at
+    Marion, he's drunk; and if he's drunk, you can't do nothing
+    with him."</p>
+
+    <p>"I heard it three days ago," said the scaler.</p>
+
+    <p>Tally ruminated. "Well," he concluded, "maybe he's about
+    over with his bust. I'll run over this afternoon and see what I
+    can do with him. If Tom Welton would only tear himself apart
+    from California, we'd get on all right."</p>
+
+    <p>A scraping back of benches and a tramp of feet announced the
+    nearly simultaneous finishing of feeding at the men's tables.
+    At the boss's table everyone seized an unabashed toothpick.
+    Collins addressed Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. Fox and I have so much to go over this afternoon," said
+    he, "that I don't believe I'll have time to show you. Just look
+    around a little."</p>
+
+    <p>On the porch outside Bob paused. After a moment he became
+    aware of a figure at his elbow. He turned to see old Jim Tally
+    bent over to light his pipe behind the mahogany of his curved
+    hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Want to take in Marion, bub?" he enquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure!" cried Bob heartily, surprised at this mark of
+    favour.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come on then," said the old riverman, "the lightning
+    express is gettin' anxious for us."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>They tramped to the station and boarded the single passenger
+    car of the accommodation. There they selected a forward seat
+    and waited patiently for the freight-handling to finish and for
+    the leisurely puffing little engine to move on. An hour later
+    they descended at Marion. The journey had been made in an
+    almost absolute silence. Tally stared straight ahead, and
+    sucked at his little pipe. To him, apparently, the journey was
+    merely something to be endured; and he relapsed into that
+    patient absent-mindedness developed among those who have to
+    wait on forces that will not be hurried. Bob's remarks he
+    answered in monosyllables. When the train pulled into the
+    station, Tally immediately arose, as though released by a
+    spring.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's impressions of Marion were of great mills and
+    sawdust-burners along a wide river; of broad, sawdust-covered
+    streets; of a single block of good, brick stores on a main
+    thoroughfare which almost immediately petered out into the
+    vilest and most ramshackle frame "joints"; of wide side streets
+    flanked by small, painted houses in yards, some very neat
+    indeed. Tally walked rapidly by the respectable business
+    blocks, but pushed into the first of the unkempt frame saloons
+    beyond. Bob followed close at his heels. He found himself in a
+    cheap bar-room, its paint and varnish scarred and marred, its
+    floor sawdust-covered, its centre occupied by a huge stove, its
+    walls decorated by several pictures of the nude.</p>
+
+    <p>Four men were playing cards at an old round table, hacked
+    and bruised and blackened by time. One of them was the
+    barkeeper, a burly individual with black hair plastered in a
+    "lick" across his forehead. He pushed back his chair and ducked
+    behind the bar, whence he greeted the newcomers. Tally
+    proffered a question. The barkeeper relaxed from his
+    professional attitude, and leaned both elbows on the bar. The
+    two conversed for a moment; then Tally nodded briefly and went
+    out. Bob followed.</p>
+
+    <p>This performance was repeated down the length of the street.
+    The stage-settings varied little; same oblong, painted rooms;
+    same varnished bars down one side; same mirrors and bottles
+    behind them; same sawdust-strewn floors; same pictures on the
+    walls; same obscure, back rooms; same sleepy card games by the
+    same burly but sodden type of men. This was the off season.
+    Profits were now as slight as later they would be heavy. Tim
+    talked with the barkeepers low-voiced, nodded and went out.
+    Only when he had systematically worked both sides of the street
+    did he say anything to his companion.</p>
+
+    <p>"He's in town," said Tally; "but they don't know where."</p>
+
+    <p>"Whither away?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Across the river."</p>
+
+    <p>They walked together down a side street to a long wooden
+    bridge. This rested on wooden piers shaped upstream like the
+    prow of a ram in order to withstand the battering of the logs.
+    It was a very long bridge. Beneath it the swift current of the
+    river slipped smoothly. The breadth of the stream was divided
+    into many channels and pockets by means of brown poles. Some of
+    these were partially filled with logs. A clear channel had been
+    preserved up the middle. Men armed with long pike-poles were
+    moving here and there over the booms and the logs themselves,
+    pushing, pulling, shoving a big log into this pocket, another
+    into that, gradually segregating the different brands belonging
+    to the different owners of the mills below. From the quite
+    considerable height of the bridge all this lay spread out
+    mapwise up and down the perspective of the stream. The smooth,
+    oily current of the river, leaden-hued and cold in the light of
+    the early spring, hurried by on its way to the lake, swiftly,
+    yet without the turmoil and fuss of lesser power. Downstream,
+    as far as Bob could see, were the huge mills' with their
+    flanking lumber yards, the masts of their lading ships, their
+    black sawdust-burners, and above all the pure-white, triumphant
+    banners of steam that shot straight up against the gray of the
+    sky.</p>
+
+    <p>Tally followed the direction of his gaze.</p>
+
+    <p>"Modern work," he commented. "Band saws. No circulars there.
+    Two hundred thousand a day"; with which cryptic utterance he
+    resumed his walk.</p>
+
+    <p>The opposite side of the river proved to be a smaller
+    edition of the other. Into the first saloon Tally pushed.</p>
+
+    <p>It resembled the others, except that no card game was in
+    progress. The barkeeper, his feet elevated, read a pink paper
+    behind the bar. A figure slept at the round table, its head in
+    its arms. Tally walked over to shake this man by the
+    shoulder.</p>
+
+    <p>In a moment the sleeper raised his head. Bob saw a little,
+    middle-aged man, not over five feet six in height, slenderly
+    built, yet with broad, hanging shoulders. His head was an
+    almost exact inverted pyramid, the base formed by a mop of
+    red-brown hair, and the apex represented by a very pointed
+    chin. Two level, oblong patches of hair made eyebrows. His face
+    was white and nervous. A strong, hooked nose separated a pair
+    of red-brown eyes, small and twinkling, like a chipmunk's. Just
+    now they were bloodshot and vague.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Dicky Darrell," said Tally.</p>
+
+    <p>The man struggled to his feet, knocking over the chair, and
+    laid both hands effusively on Tally's shoulders.</p>
+
+    <p>"Jim!" he cried thickly. "Good ole Jim! Glad to see you!
+    Hav' drink!"</p>
+
+    <p>Tally nodded, and, to Bob's surprise, took his place at the
+    bar.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hav' 'nother!" cried Darrell. "God! I'm glad to see you!
+    Nobody in town."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," agreed Tally pacifically; "but let's go across
+    the river to Dugan's and get it."</p>
+
+    <p>To this Darrell readily agreed. They left the saloon. Bob,
+    following, noticed the peculiar truculence imparted to
+    Darrell's appearance by the fact that in walking he always held
+    his hands open and palms to the front. Suddenly Darrell became
+    for the first time aware of his presence. The riverman whirled
+    on him, and Bob became conscious of something as distinct as a
+    physical shock as he met the impact of an electrical nervous
+    energy. It passed, and he found himself half smiling down on
+    this little, white-faced man with the matted hair and the
+    bloodshot, chipmunk eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who'n hell's this!" demanded Darrell savagely.</p>
+
+    <p>"Friend of mine," said Tally. "Come on."</p>
+
+    <p>Darrell stared a moment longer. "All right," he said at
+    last.</p>
+
+    <p>All the way across the bridge Tally argued with his
+    companion.</p>
+
+    <p>"We've got to have a foreman on the Cedar Branch, Dick," he
+    began, "and you're the fellow."</p>
+
+    <p>To this Darrell offered a profane, emphatic and contemptuous
+    negative. With consummate diplomacy Tally led his mind from
+    sullen obstinacy to mere reluctance. At the corner of Main
+    Street the three stopped.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I don't want to go yet, Jim," pleaded Darrell, almost
+    tearfully. "I ain't had all my 'time' yet."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said Tally, "you've been polishing up the flames of
+    hell for four days pretty steady. What more do you want?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I ain't smashed no rig yet," objected Darrell.</p>
+
+    <p>Tally looked puzzled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, go ahead and smash your rig and get done with it," he
+    said.</p>
+
+    <p>"A' right," said Darrell cheerfully.</p>
+
+    <p>He started off briskly, the others following. Down a side
+    street his rather uncertain gait led them, to the wide-open
+    door of a frame livery stable. The usual loungers in the usual
+    tipped-back chairs greeted him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Want m' rig," he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>A large and leisurely man in shirt sleeves lounged out from
+    the office and looked him over dispassionately.</p>
+
+    <p>"You've been drunk four days," said he, "have you the
+    price?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Bet y'," said Dick, cheerfully. He seated himself on the
+    ground and pulled off his boot from which he extracted a pulpy
+    mass of greenbacks. "Can't fool me!" he said cunningly. "Always
+    save 'nuff for my rig!"</p>
+
+    <p>He shoved the bills into the liveryman's hands. The latter
+    straightened them out, counted them, thrust a portion into his
+    pocket, and handed the rest back to Darrell.</p>
+
+    <p>"There you are," said he. He shouted an order into the
+    darkness of the stable.</p>
+
+    <p>An interval ensued. The stableman and Tally waited
+    imperturbably, without the faintest expression of interest in
+    anything evident on their immobile countenances. Dicky Darrell
+    rocked back and forth on his heels, a pleased smile on his
+    face.</p>
+
+    <p>After a few moments the stable boy led out a horse hitched
+    to the most ramshackle and patched-up old side-bar buggy Bob
+    had ever beheld. Darrell, after several vain attempts, managed
+    to clamber aboard. He gathered up the reins, and, with
+    exaggerated care, drove into the middle of the street.</p>
+
+    <p>Then suddenly he rose to his feet, uttered an ear-piercing
+    exultant yell, hurled the reins at the horse's head and began
+    to beat the animal with his whip. The horse, startled, bounded
+    forward. The buggy jerked. Darrell sat down violently, but was
+    at once on his feet, plying the whip. The crazed man and the
+    crazed horse disappeared up the street, the buggy careening
+    from side to side, Darrell yelling at the top of his lungs. The
+    stableman watched him out of sight.</p>
+
+    <p>"Roaring Dick of the Woods!" said he thoughtfully at last.
+    He thrust his hand in his pocket and took out the wad of
+    greenbacks, contemplated them for a moment, and thrust them
+    back. He caught Tally's eye. "Funny what different ideas men
+    have of a time," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do this regular?" inquired Tally dryly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Every year."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob got his breath at last.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why!" he cried. "What'll happen to him! He'll be killed
+    sure!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not him!" stated the stableman emphatically. "Not Dicky
+    Darrell! He'll smash up good, and will crawl out of the wreck,
+    and he'll limp back here in just about one half-hour."</p>
+
+    <p>"How about the horse and buggy?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, we'll catch the horse in a day or two&mdash;it's a
+    spoiled colt, anyway&mdash;and we'll patch up the buggy if
+    she's patchable. If not, we'll leave it. Usual programme."</p>
+
+    <p>The stableman and Tally lit their pipes. Nobody seemed much
+    interested now that the amusement was over. Bob owned a boyish
+    desire to follow the wake of the cyclone, but in the presence
+    of this imperturbability, he repressed his inclination.</p>
+
+    <p>"Some day the damn fool will bust his head open," said the
+    liveryman, after a ruminative pause.</p>
+
+    <p>"I shouldn't think you'd rent him a horse," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"He pays," yawned the other.</p>
+
+    <p>At the end of the half-hour the liveryman dove into his
+    office for a coat, which he put on. This indicated that he
+    contemplated exercising in the sun instead of sitting still in
+    the shade.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, let's look him up," said he. "This may be the time he
+    busts his fool head."</p>
+
+    <p>"Hope not," was Tally's comment; "can't afford to lose a
+    foreman."</p>
+
+    <p>But near the outskirts of town they met Roaring Dick limping
+    painfully down the middle of the road. His hat was gone and he
+    was liberally plastered with the soft mud of early spring.</p>
+
+    <p>Not one word would he vouchsafe, but looked at them all
+    malevolently. His intoxication seemed to have evaporated with
+    his good spirits. As answer to the liveryman's question as to
+    the whereabouts of the smashed rig, he waved a comprehensive
+    hand toward the suburbs. At insistence, he snapped back like an
+    ugly dog.</p>
+
+    <p>"Out there somewhere," he snarled. "Go find it! What the
+    hell do I care where it is? It's mine, isn't it? I paid you for
+    it, didn't I? Well, go find it! You can have it!"</p>
+
+    <p>He tramped vigorously back toward the main street, a
+    grotesque figure with his red-brown hair tumbled over his
+    white, nervous countenance of the pointed chin, with his hooked
+    nose, and his twinkling chipmunk eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"He'll hit the first saloon, if you don't watch out," Bob
+    managed to whisper to Tally.</p>
+
+    <p>But the latter shook his head. From long experience he knew
+    the type.</p>
+
+    <p>His reasoning was correct. Roaring Dick tramped doggedly
+    down the length of the street to the little frame depot. There
+    he slumped into one of the hard seats in the waiting-room,
+    where he promptly slept. Tally sat down beside him and withdrew
+    into himself. The twilight fell. After an apparently
+    interminable interval a train rumbled in. Tally shook his
+    companion. The latter awakened just long enough to stumble
+    aboard the smoking car, where, his knees propped up, his chin
+    on his breast, he relapsed into deep slumber.</p>
+
+    <p>They arrived at the boarding house late in the evening. Mrs.
+    Hallowell set out a cold supper, to which Bob was ready to do
+    full justice. Ten minutes later he found himself in a tiny box
+    of a bedroom, furnished barely. He pushed open the window and
+    propped it up with a piece of kindling. The earth had fallen
+    into a very narrow silhouette, and the star-filled heavens
+    usurped all space, crowding the world down. Against the sky the
+    outlines stood significant in what they suggested and
+    concealed&mdash;slumbering roof-tops, the satiated mill glowing
+    vaguely somewhere from her banked fires, the blackness and mass
+    of silent lumber yards, the mysterious, hushing fingers of the
+    ships' masts, and then low and vague, like a narrow strip of
+    velvet dividing these men's affairs from the star-strewn
+    infinite, the wilderness. As Bob leaned from the window the
+    bigness of these things rushed into his office-starved spirit
+    as air into a vacuum. The cold of the lake breeze entered his
+    lungs. He drew a deep breath of it. For the first time in his
+    short business experience he looked forward eagerly to the
+    morrow.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob was awakened before daylight by the unholy shriek of a
+    great whistle. He then realized that for some time he had been
+    vaguely aware of kindling and stove sounds. The bare little
+    room had become bitterly cold. A gray-blackness represented the
+    world outside. He lighted his glass lamp and took a hasty,
+    shivering sponge bath in the crockery basin. Then he felt
+    better in the answering glow of his healthy, straight young
+    body; and a few moments later was prepared to enjoy a fragrant,
+    new-lit, somewhat smoky fire in the big stove outside his door.
+    The bell rang. Men knocked ashes from their pipes and arose;
+    other men stamped in from outside. The dining room was
+    filled.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob took his seat, nodding to the men. A slightly grumpy
+    silence reigned. Collins and Fox had not yet appeared. Bob saw
+    Roaring Dick at the other table, rather whiter than the day
+    before, but carrying himself boldly in spite of his poor head.
+    As he looked, Roaring Dick caught his eye. The riverman
+    evidently did not recognize having seen the young stranger the
+    day before; but Bob was again conscious of the quick impact of
+    the man's personality, quite out of proportion to his
+    diminutive height and slender build. At the end of ten minutes
+    the men trooped out noisily. Shortly a second whistle blew. At
+    the signal the mill awoke. The clang of machinery, beginning
+    slowly, increased in tempo. The exultant shriek of the saws
+    rose to heaven. Bob, peering forth into the young daylight,
+    caught the silhouette of the elephantine tram horse, high in
+    the air, bending his great shoulders to the starting of his
+    little train of cars.</p>
+
+    <p>Not knowing what else to do, Bob sauntered to the office. It
+    was locked and dark. He returned to the boarding house, and sat
+    down in the main room. The lamps became dimmer. Finally the
+    chore boy put them out. Then at last Collins appeared, followed
+    closely by Fox.</p>
+
+    <p>"You didn't get up to eat with the men?" the bookkeeper
+    asked Bob a trifle curiously. "You don't need to do that. We
+    eat with Mrs. Hallowell at seven."</p>
+
+    <p>At eight o'clock the little bookkeeper opened the office
+    door and ushered Bob in to the scene of his duties.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're to help me," said Collins concisely. "I have the
+    books. Our other duties are to make out time checks for the
+    men, to answer the correspondence in our province, to keep
+    track of camp supplies, and to keep tab on shipments and the
+    stock on hand and sawed each day. There's your desk. You'll
+    find time blanks and everything there. The copying press is in
+    the corner. Over here is the tally board," He led the way to a
+    pine bulletin, perhaps four feet square, into which were
+    screwed a hundred or more small brass screw hooks. From each
+    depended a small pine tablet or tag inscribed with many
+    figures. "Do you understand a tally board?" Collins asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," replied Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, these screw hooks are arranged just like a map of the
+    lumber yards. Each hook represents one of the lumber
+    piles&mdash;or rather the location of a lumber pile. The tags
+    hanging from them represent the lumber piles themselves;
+    see?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure," said Bob. Now that he understood he could follow out
+    on this strange map the blocks, streets and alleys of that
+    silent, tenantless city.</p>
+
+    <p>"On these tags," pursued Collins, "are figures. These
+    figures show how much lumber is in each pile, and what kind it
+    is, and of what quality. In that way we know just what we have
+    and where it is. The sealers report to us every day just what
+    has been shipped out, and what has been piled from the mill.
+    From their reports we change the figures on the tags. I'm going
+    to let you take care of that."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob bestowed his long figure at the desk assigned him, and
+    went to work. He was interested, for it was all new to him. Men
+    were constantly in and out on all sorts of errands. Fox came to
+    shake hands and wish him well; he was off on the ten o'clock
+    train. Bob checked over a long invoice of camp supplies;
+    manipulated the copying press; and, under Collins's
+    instructions, made out time checks against the next pay day.
+    The insistence of details kept him at the stretch until noon
+    surprised him.</p>
+
+    <p>After dinner and a breath of fresh air, he plunged again
+    into his tasks. Now he had the scalers' noon reports to
+    transfer to the tally board. He was intensely interested by the
+    novelty of it all; but even this early he encountered his old
+    difficulties in the matter of figures. He made no mistakes, but
+    in order to correlate, remember and transfer correctly he was
+    forced to an utterly disproportionate intensity of application.
+    To the tally board he brought more absolute concentration and
+    will-power than did Collins to all his manifold tasks. So
+    evidently painstaking was he, that the little bookkeeper
+    glanced at him sharply once or twice. However, he said
+    nothing.</p>
+
+    <p>When darkness approached the bookkeeper closed his ledger
+    and came over to Bob's desk. In ten minutes he ran deftly over
+    Bob's afternoon work; re-checking the supply invoices,
+    verifying the time checks, comparing the tallies with the
+    scalers' reports. So swiftly and accurately did he accomplish
+    this, with so little hesitation and so assured a belief in his
+    own correctness that the really taxing job seemed merely a bit
+    of light mental gymnastics after the day's work.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good!" he complimented Bob; "everything's correct."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob nodded, a little gloomily. It might be correct; but he
+    was very tired from the strain of it.</p>
+
+    <p>"It'll come easier with practice," said Collins; "always
+    difficult to do a new thing."</p>
+
+    <p>The whistle blew. Bob went directly to his room and sat down
+    on the edge of his bed. In spite of Collins's kindly meant
+    reassurances, the iron of doubt had entered his soul. He had
+    tried for four months, and was no nearer facility than when he
+    started.</p>
+
+    <p>"If a man hadn't learned better than that, I'd have called
+    him a dub and told him to get off the squad," he said to
+    himself, a little bitterly. He thought a moment. "I guess I'm
+    tired. I must buck up. If Collins and Archie can do it, I can.
+    It's all in the game. Of course, it takes time and training.
+    Get in the game!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IX"></a>
+
+    <h2>IX</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>This was on Tuesday. During the rest of the week Bob worked
+    hard. Even a skilled man would have been kept busy by the
+    multitude of details that poured in on the little office. Poor
+    Bob was far from skilled. He felt as awkward amid all these
+    swift and accurate activities as he had when at sixteen it
+    became necessary to force his overgrown frame into a crowded
+    drawing room. He tried very hard, as he always did with
+    everything. When Collins succinctly called his attention to a
+    discrepancy in his figurings, he smiled his slow, winning,
+    troubled smile, thrust the hair back from his clear eyes, and
+    bent his lean athlete's frame again to the labour. He soon
+    discovered that this work demanded speed as well as accuracy.
+    "And I need a ten-acre lot to turn around in," he told himself
+    half humorously. "I'm a regular ice-wagon."</p>
+
+    <p>He now came to look back on his college triumphs with an
+    exaggerated but wholesome reaction. His athletic prowess had
+    given him great prominence in college circles. Girls had been
+    flattered at his attention; his classmates had deferred to his
+    skill and experience; his juniors had, in the manner of college
+    boys, looked up to him as to a demi-god. Then for the few
+    months of the football season the newspapers had made of him a
+    national character. His picture appeared at least once a week;
+    his opinions were recorded; his physical measurements carefully
+    detailed. When he appeared on the streets and in hotel lobbies,
+    people were apt to recognize him and whisper furtively to one
+    another. Bob was naturally the most modest youth in the world,
+    and he hated a "fuss" after the delightfully normal fashion of
+    normal boys, but all this could not fail to have its subtle
+    effect. He went out into the world without conceit, but
+    confident of his ability to take his place with the best of
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>His first experience showed him wholly second in natural
+    qualifications, in ability to learn, and in training to men
+    subordinate in the business world.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm just plain dub," he told himself. "I thought myself
+    some pumpkins and got all swelled up inside because good' food
+    and leisure and heredity gave me a husky build! Football! What
+    good does that do me here? Four out of five of these rivermen
+    are huskier than I am. Me a business man! Why I can't seem even
+    to learn the first principles of the first job of the whole
+    lot! I've <i>got</i> to!" he admonished; himself grimly. "I
+    <i>hate</i> a fellow who doesn't make good!"' and with a very
+    determined set to his handsome chin he hurled the whole force
+    of his young energies at those elusive figures that somehow
+    <i>would</i> lie.</p>
+
+    <p>The week slipped by in this struggle. It was much worse than
+    in the Chicago office. There Bob was allowed all the time he
+    thought he needed. Here one task followed close on the heels of
+    another, without chance for a breathing space or room to take
+    bearings. Bob had to do the best he could, commit the result to
+    a merciful providence, and seize the next job by the
+    throat.</p>
+
+    <p>One morning he awoke with a jump to find it was seven
+    o'clock. He had heard neither whistle, and must have overslept!
+    Hastily he leaped into his clothes, and rushed out into the
+    dining room. There he found the chore-boy leisurely feeding a
+    just-lighted kitchen fire. To Bob's exclamation of astonishment
+    he looked up.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sunday," he grinned; "breakfus' at eight."</p>
+
+    <p>The week had gone without Bob's having realized the
+    fact.</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Hallowell came in a moment later, smiling at the
+    winning, handsome young man in her fat and good-humoured
+    manner. Bob was seized with an inspiration.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mrs. Hallowell," he said persuasively, "just let me rummage
+    around for five minutes, will you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You that hungry?" she chuckled. "Law! I'll have breakfast
+    in an hour."</p>
+
+    <p>"It isn't that," said Bob; "but I want to get some air
+    to-day. I'm not used to being in an office. I want to steal a
+    hunk of bread, and a few of your good doughnuts and a slice of
+    cheese for breakfast and lunch."</p>
+
+    <p>"A cup of hot coffee would do you more good," objected Mrs.
+    Hallowell.</p>
+
+    <p>"Please," begged Bob, "and I won't disturb a thing."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, land! Don't worry about that," said Mrs. Hallowell,
+    "there's teamsters and such in here all times of the day and
+    night. Help yourself."</p>
+
+    <p>Five minutes later, Bob, swinging a riverman's canvas lunch
+    bag, was walking rapidly up the River Trail. He did not know
+    whither he was bound; but here at last was a travelled way. It
+    was a brilliant blue and gold morning, the air crisp, the sun
+    warm. The trail led him first across a stretch of stump-dotted
+    wet land with pools and rounded rises, green new grass, and
+    trickling streamlets of recently melted snow. Then came a
+    fringe of scrub growth woven into an almost impenetrable
+    tangle&mdash;oaks, poplars, willows, cedar, tamarack&mdash;and
+    through it all an abattis of old slashing&mdash;with its
+    rotting, fallen stumps, its network of tops, its soggy
+    root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees. Along one of these
+    strutted a partridge. It clucked at Bob, but refused to move
+    faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spreading its fanlike
+    tail. The River Trail here took to poles laid on rough horses.
+    The poles were old and slippery, and none too large. Bob had to
+    walk circumspectly to stay on them at all. Shortly, however, he
+    stepped off into the higher country of the hardwoods. Here the
+    spring had passed, scattering her fresh green. The tops of the
+    trees were already in half-leaf; the lower branches just
+    budding, so that it seemed the sowing must have been from
+    above. Last year's leaves, softened and packed by the snow,
+    covered the ground with an indescribably beautiful and
+    noiseless carpet. Through it pushed the early blossoms of the
+    hepatica. Grackles whistled clearly. Distant redwings gave
+    their celebrated imitation of a great multitude. Bluebirds
+    warbled on the wing. The busier chickadees and creepers
+    searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional
+    remarks. The sun slanted through the forest.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob strode on vigorously. His consciousness received these
+    things gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with a sense of
+    physical joy and harmony with the world of out-of-doors than
+    with an analysis of its components. At one point, however, he
+    paused. The hardwoods had risen over a low hill. Now they
+    opened to show a framed picture of the river, distant and
+    below. In contrast to the modulated browns of the tree-trunks,
+    the new green and lilac of the undergrowth and the far-off
+    hills across the way, it showed like a patch of burnished blue
+    steel. Logs floated across the vista, singly, in scattered
+    groups, in masses. Again, the river was clear. While Bob
+    watched, a man floated into view. He was standing bolt upright
+    and at ease on a log so small that the water lapped over its
+    top. From this distance Bob could but just make it out. The man
+    leaned carelessly on his peavy. Across the vista he floated,
+    graceful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to
+    the mill.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob gave a whistle of admiration, and walked on.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish some of our oarsmen could see that," he said to
+    himself. "They're always guying the fellows that tip over their
+    cranky little shells."</p>
+
+    <p>He stopped short.</p>
+
+    <p>"I couldn't do it," he cried aloud; "nor I couldn't learn to
+    do it. I sure <i>am</i> a dub!"</p>
+
+    <p>He trudged on, his spirits again at the ebb. The brightness
+    of the day had dimmed. Indeed, physically, a change had taken
+    place. Over the sun banked clouds had drawn. With the
+    disappearance of the sunlight a little breeze, before but a
+    pleasant and wandering companion to the birds, became cold and
+    draughty. The leaf carpet proved to be soggy; and as for the
+    birds themselves, their whistles suddenly grew plaintive as
+    though with the portent of late autumn.</p>
+
+    <p>This sudden transformation, usual enough with every passing
+    cloud in the childhood of the spring, reacted still further on
+    Bob's spirits. He trudged doggedly on. After a time a gleam of
+    water caught his attention to the left. He deserted the River
+    Trail, descended a slope, pushed his way through a thicket of
+    tamaracks growing out from wire grass and puddles, and found
+    himself on the shores of a round lake.</p>
+
+    <p>It was a small body of water, completely surrounded by tall,
+    dead brown grasses. These were in turn fringed by melancholy
+    tamaracks. The water was dark slate colour, and ruffled angrily
+    by the breeze which here in the open developed some slight
+    strength. It reminded Bob of a "bottomless" lake pointed out
+    many years before to his childish credulity. A lonesome hell
+    diver flipped down out of sight as Bob appeared.</p>
+
+    <p>The wet ground swayed and bent alarmingly under his tread. A
+    stub attracted him. He perched on the end of it, his feet
+    suspended above the wet, and abandoned himself to reflection.
+    The lonesome diver reappeared. The breeze rustled the dead
+    grasses and the tamaracks until they seemed to be shivering in
+    the cold.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob was facing himself squarely. This was his first grapple
+    with the world outside. To his direct American mind the problem
+    was simplicity in the extreme. An idler is a contemptible
+    being. A rich idler is almost beneath contempt. A man's life
+    lies in activity. Activity, outside the artistic and
+    professional, means the world of business. All teaching at home
+    and through the homiletic magazines, fashionable at that
+    period, pointed out but one road to success in this
+    world&mdash;the beginning at the bottom, as Bob was doing;
+    close application; accuracy; frugality; honesty; fair dealing.
+    The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and imagination; but
+    perhaps those qualities are so common in what some people are
+    pleased to call our humdrum modern business life that they were
+    taken for granted. If a young man could not succeed in this
+    world, something was wrong with him. Can Bob be blamed that in
+    this baffling and unsuspected incapacity he found a great
+    humility of spirit? In his fashion he began to remember
+    trifling significances which at the time had meant little to
+    him. Thus, a girl had once told him, half seriously:</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, you're a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a
+    nice, big, blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy."</p>
+
+    <p>He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten. Now he
+    caught at one word of it. That might explain it; he was just
+    plain stupid! And stupid boys either played polo or drove fancy
+    horses or ran yachts&mdash;or occupied ornamental&mdash;too
+    ornamental&mdash;desks for an hour or so a day. Bob remembered
+    how, as a small boy, he used to hold the ends of the reins
+    under the delighted belief that he was driving his father's
+    spirited pair.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've outgrown holding the reins, thank you," he said aloud
+    in disgust. At the sound of his voice the diver disappeared.
+    Bob laughed and felt a trifle better.</p>
+
+    <p>He reviewed himself dispassionately. He could not but admit
+    that he had tried hard enough, and that he had courage. It was
+    just a case of limitation. Bob, for the first time, bumped
+    against the stone wall that hems us in on all sides&mdash;save
+    toward the sky.</p>
+
+    <p>He fell into a profound discouragement; a discouragement
+    that somehow found its prototype in the mournful little lake
+    with its leaden water, its cold breeze, its whispering, dried
+    marsh grasses, its funereal tamaracks, and its lonesome
+    diver.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="X"></a>
+
+    <h2>X</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>But Bob was no quitter. The next morning he tramped down to
+    the office, animated by a new courage. Even stupid boys learn,
+    he remembered. It takes longer, of course, and requires more
+    application. But he was strong and determined. He remembered
+    Fatty Hayes, who took four years to make the team&mdash;Fatty,
+    who couldn't get a signal through his head until about time for
+    the next play, and whose great body moved appreciable seconds
+    after his brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the "scrub's"
+    chopping block for trying out new men on! And yet he did make
+    the team in his senior year. Bob acknowledged him a very good
+    centre, not brilliant, but utterly sure and safe.</p>
+
+    <p>Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day's work. It
+    was a heavy day's work. The mill was just hitting its stride,
+    the tall ships were being laden and sent away to the four
+    winds, buyers the country over were finishing their contracts.
+    Collins, his coat off, his sleeve protectors strapped closely
+    about his thin arms, worked at an intense white heat. He wasted
+    no second of time, nor did he permit discursive interruption.
+    His manner to those who entered the office was civil but curt.
+    Time was now the essence of the contract these men had with
+    life.</p>
+
+    <p>About ten o'clock he turned from a swift contemplation of
+    the tally board.</p>
+
+    <p>"Orde!" said he sharply.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob disentangled himself from his chair.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look there," said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and
+    nervous finger at three of the tags he held in his hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's three errors." He held out for inspection the
+    original sealers' report which he had dug out of the files.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked at the discrepant figures with amazement. He had
+    checked the tags over twice, and both times the error had
+    escaped his notice. His mind, self-hypnotized, had passed them
+    over in the same old fashion. Yet he had taken especial pains
+    with that list.</p>
+
+    <p>"I happened, just happened, to check these back myself,"
+    Collins was saying rapidly. "If I hadn't, we'd have made that
+    contract with Robinson on the basis of what these tags show. We
+    haven't got that much seasoned uppers, nor anything like it. If
+    you've made many more breaks like this, if we'd contracted with
+    Robinson for what we haven't got or couldn't get, we'd be in a
+    nice mess&mdash;and so would Robinson!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm sorry," murmured Bob. "I'll try to do better."</p>
+
+    <p>"Won't do," said Collins briefly. "You aren't big enough for
+    the job. I can't get behind, checking over your work. This
+    office is too rushed as it is. Can't fool with blundering
+    stupidity."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob flushed at the word.</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess you'd better take your time," went on Collins. "You
+    may be all right, for all I know, but I haven't got time to
+    find out."</p>
+
+    <p>He rang a bell twice, and snatched down the telephone
+    receiver.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, yards, send up Tommy Gould to the office. I want him
+    to help me. I don't give a damn for the scaling. You'll have to
+    get along somehow. The five of you ought to hold that down.
+    Send up Gould, anyhow." He slammed up the receiver, muttering
+    something about incompetence. Bob for a moment had a strong
+    impulse to retort, but his anger died. He saw that Collins was
+    not for the moment thinking of him at all as a human being, as
+    a personality&mdash;only as a piece of this great, swiftly
+    moving machine, that would not run smoothly. The fact that he
+    had come under Fox's convoy evidently meant nothing to the
+    little bookkeeper, at least for the moment. Collins was
+    entirely accustomed to hiring and discharging men. When
+    transplanted to the frontier industries, even such automatic
+    jobs as bookkeeping take on new duties and
+    responsibilities.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob, after a moment of irresolution, reached for his
+    hat.</p>
+
+    <p>"That will be all, then?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>Collins came out of the abstraction into which he had
+    fallen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh&mdash;yes," he said. "Sorry, but of course we can't take
+    chances on these things being right."</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course not," said Bob steadily.</p>
+
+    <p>"You just need more training," went on Collins with some
+    vague idea of being kind to this helpless, attractive young
+    fellow. "I learned under Harry Thorpe that results is all a man
+    looks at in this business."</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess that's right," said Bob. "Good-bye."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good-bye," said Collins over his shoulder. Already he was
+    lost in the rapid computations and calculations that filled his
+    hours.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XI"></a>
+
+    <h2>XI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob left the office and tramped blindly out of town. His
+    feet naturally led him to the River Trail. Where the path
+    finally came out on the banks of the river, he sat down and
+    delivered himself over to the gloomiest of reflections.</p>
+
+    <p>He was aroused finally by a hearty greeting from behind him.
+    He turned without haste, surprise or pleasure to examine the
+    new comer.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob saw surveying him a man well above sixty, heavy-bodied,
+    burly, big, with a square face, heavy-jowled and homely, with
+    deep blue eyes set far apart, and iron gray hair that curled at
+    the ends. With the quick, instinctive sizing-up developed on
+    the athletic field, Bob thought him coarse-fibred, jolly, a
+    little obtuse, but strong&mdash;very strong with the strength
+    of competent effectiveness. He was dressed in a slouch hat, a
+    flannel shirt, a wrinkled old business suit and mud-splashed,
+    laced half-boots.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, bub," said this man, "enjoying the scenery?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob with reserve. He was in no mood for casual
+    conversation, but the stranger went on cheerfully.</p>
+
+    <p>"Like it pretty well myself, hereabouts." He filled and
+    lighted a pipe. "This is a good time of year for the woods; no
+    mosquitos, pretty warm, mighty nice overhead. Can't say so much
+    for underfoot." He lifted and surveyed one foot comically, and
+    Bob noticed that his shoes were not armed with the riverman's
+    long, sharpened spikes. "Pretty good hunting here in the fall,
+    and fishing later. Not much now. Up here to look around a
+    little?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, not quite," said Bob vaguely.</p>
+
+    <p>"This ain't much of a pleasure resort, and a stranger's a
+    pretty unusual thing," said the big man by way of half-apology
+    for his curiosity. "Up buying, I suppose&mdash;or maybe
+    selling?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked up with a beginning of resentment against this
+    apparent intrusion on his private affairs. He met the
+    good-humoured, jolly eyes. In spite of himself he half
+    smiled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Not that either," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"You aren't in the company's employ?" persisted the stranger
+    with an undercurrent of huge delight in his tone, as though he
+    were playing a game that he enjoyed.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob threw back his head and laughed. It was a short laugh
+    and a bitter one.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said he shortly, "&mdash;not now. I've just been
+    fired."</p>
+
+    <p>The big man promptly dropped down beside him on the log.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't say!" he cried; "what's the matter?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The matter is that I'm no good," said Bob evenly, and
+    without the slightest note of complaint.</p>
+
+    <p>"Tell me about it," suggested the big man soberly after a
+    moment. "I'm pretty close to Fox. Perhaps----."</p>
+
+    <p>"It isn't a case of pull," Bob interrupted him pleasantly.
+    "It's a case of total incompetence."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's a rather large order for a husky boy like you," said
+    the older man with a sudden return to his undertone of
+    bantering jollity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I've filled it," said Bob. "That's the one job I've
+    done good and plenty."</p>
+
+    <p>"Haven't stolen the stove, have you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Might better. It couldn't be any hotter than Collins."</p>
+
+    <p>The stranger chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"He <i>is</i> a peppery little cuss," was his comment. "What
+    did you do to him?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be
+    considered humorous. The stranger became grave.</p>
+
+    <p>"That all?" he inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's self-disgust overpowered him.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said he, "not by a long shot." In brief sentences he
+    told of his whole experience since entering the business world.
+    When he had finished, his companion puffed away for several
+    moments in silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, what you going to do about it?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," Bob confessed. "I've got to tell father I'm
+    no good. That is the only thing I can see ahead to now. It will
+    break him all up, and I don't blame him. Father is too good a
+    man himself not to feel this sort of a thing."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," said the stranger. "Well, it may come out in the
+    wash," he concluded vaguely after a moment. Bob stared out at
+    the river, lost in the gloomy thoughts his last speech had
+    evoked. The stranger improved the opportunity to look the young
+    man over critically from head to foot.</p>
+
+    <p>"I see you're a college man," said he, indicating Bob's
+    fraternity pin.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," replied the young man listlessly. "I went to the
+    University."</p>
+
+    <p>"That so!" said the stranger, "well, you're ahead of me. I
+    never got even to graduate at the high school."</p>
+
+    <p>"Am I?" said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"What did you do at college?" inquired the big man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, usual classical course, Greek, Latin, Pol Ec.----"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't mean what you learned. What did you <i>do?</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob reflected.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't believe I did a single earthly thing except play a
+    little football," he confessed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, you played football, did you? That's a great game! I'd
+    rather see a good game of football than a snake fight. Make the
+    'varsity?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where did you play?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Halfback."</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty heavy for a 'half,' ain't you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well&mdash;I train down a little&mdash;and I managed to get
+    around."</p>
+
+    <p>"Play all four years?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+    <p>"Like it?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's eye lit up. "Yes!" he cried. Then his face fell. "Too
+    much, I guess," he added sadly.</p>
+
+    <p>For the first time the twinkle, in the stranger's eye found
+    vocal expression. He chuckled. It was a good, jolly,
+    subterranean chuckle from deep in his throat, and it shook all
+    his round body to its foundations.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who bossed you?" he asked, "&mdash;your captain, I mean.
+    What sort of a fellow was he? Did you get along with him all
+    right?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Had to," Bob grinned wryly; "you see they happened to make
+    me captain."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, they happened to, did they? What is your name?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Orde."</p>
+
+    <p>The stranger gurgled again.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're just out then. You must have captained those big
+    scoring teams."</p>
+
+    <p>"They were good teams. I was lucky," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't I see by the papers that you went back to coach last
+    fall?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+    <p>"I've been away and couldn't keep tab. How did you come
+    out?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty well."</p>
+
+    <p>"Win all your games?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's good. Thought you were going to have a hard row to
+    hoe. Before I went away the papers said most of the old men had
+    graduated, and the material was very poor. How did you work
+    it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The material was all right," Bob returned, relaxing a
+    trifle in the interest of this discussion. "It was only a
+    little raw, and needed shaking into shape."</p>
+
+    <p>"And you did the shaking."</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose so; but you see it didn't amount to much because
+    I'd had a lot of experience in being captain."</p>
+
+    <p>The stranger chuckled one of his jolly subterranean chuckles
+    again. He arose to his feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I've got to get along to town," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll trot along, too," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>They tramped back in silence by the River Trail. On the pole
+    trail across the swamp the stranger walked with a graceful and
+    assured ease in spite of his apparently unwieldy build. As the
+    two entered one of the sawdust-covered streets, they were
+    hailed by Jim Mason.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, Mr. Welton!" he cried, "when did you get in and where
+    did you come from?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Just now, Jim," Welton answered. "Dropped off at the tank,
+    and walked down to see how the river work was coming
+    on."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Toward dusk Welton entered the boarding house where Bob was
+    sitting rather gloomily by the central stove. The big man
+    plumped himself down into a protesting chair, and took off his
+    slouch hat. Bob saw his low, square forehead with the peculiar
+    hair, black and gray in streaks, curling at the ends.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you take a little trip with me up to the Cedar
+    Branch?" he asked Bob without preamble. "No use your going home
+    right now. Your family's in Washington; and will be for a month
+    or so yet."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob thought it over.</p>
+
+    <p>"Believe I will," he decided at last.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do so!" cried Welton heartily. "Might as well see a little
+    of the life. Don't suppose you ever went on a drive with your
+    dad when you were a kid?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said Bob, "I used to go up to the booms with
+    him&mdash;I remember them very well; but we moved up to Redding
+    before I was old enough to get about much."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton nodded his great head.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good old days," he commented; "and let me tell you, your
+    dad was one of the best of 'em. Jack Orde is a name you can
+    scare fresh young rivermen with yet," he added with a laugh.
+    "Well, pack your turkey to-night; we'll take the early train
+    to-morrow."</p>
+
+    <p>That evening Bob laid out what he intended to take with him,
+    and was just about to stuff it into a pair of canvas bags when
+    Tommy Gould, the youngest scaler, pushed open the door.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hello!" he smiled engagingly; "where are you going? Been
+    transferred from the office?"</p>
+
+    <p>"On drive," said Bob, diplomatically ignoring the last
+    question.</p>
+
+    <p>Tommy sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until he
+    was weak. Bob stared at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is there anything funny?" he inquired at last.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you say on drive?" inquired Tommy feebly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Certainly."</p>
+
+    <p>"With that?" Tommy pointed a wavering finger at the pile of
+    duffle.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter with it?" inquired Bob, a trifle
+    uncertainly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, <i>it's</i> all right. Only wait till Roaring Dick sees
+    it. I'd like to see his face."</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Tommy," said Bob with decision, "this isn't
+    fair. I've never been on drive before, and you know it. Now
+    tell me what's wrong or I'll wring your fool neck."</p>
+
+    <p>"You can't take all that stuff," Tommy explained, wiping his
+    eyes. "Why, if everybody had all that mess, how do you suppose
+    it would be carried?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've only got the barest necessities," objected Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Spread out your pile," Tommy commanded. "There. Take those.
+    Now forget the rest."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob surveyed the single change of underwear and the extra
+    socks with comical dismay. Next morning when he joined Welton
+    he discovered that individual carrying a tooth brush in his
+    vest pocket and a pair of woolen socks stuffed in his coat.
+    These and a sweater were his only baggage. Bob's "turkey,"
+    modest as it was, seemed to represent effete luxury in
+    comparison.</p>
+
+    <p>"How long will this take?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"The drive? About three weeks," Welton told him. "You'd
+    better stay and see it. It isn't much of a drive compared with
+    the old days; but in a very few years there won't be any drives
+    at all."</p>
+
+    <p>They boarded a train which at the end of twenty minutes came
+    to a stop. Bob and Welton descended. The train moved on,
+    leaving them standing by the track.</p>
+
+    <p>The remains of the forest, overgrown with scrub oak and
+    popple thickets pushed down to the right of way. A road, deep
+    with mud and water, beginning at this point, plunged into the
+    wilderness. That was all.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton thrust his hands in his pockets and splashed
+    cheerfully into the ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little
+    bag and followed. Somehow he had vaguely expected some sort of
+    conveyance.</p>
+
+    <p>"How far is it?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, ten or twelve miles," said Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob experienced a glow of gratitude to the blithe Tommy
+    Gould. What would he have done with that baggage out here in
+    this lonesome wilderness of unbroken barrens and mud?</p>
+
+    <p>The day was beautiful, but the sun breaking through the skin
+    of last night's freezing, softened the ground until the going
+    was literally ankle-deep in slush. Welton, despite his weight,
+    tramped along cheerfully in the apparently careless
+    indifference of the skilled woods walker. Bob followed, but he
+    used more energy. He was infinitely the older man's superior in
+    muscle and endurance, yet he realized, with respect and
+    admiration, that in a long or difficult day's tramp through the
+    woods Welton would probably hold him, step for step.</p>
+
+    <p>The road wound and changed direction entirely according to
+    expedient. It was a "tote road" merely, cutting across these
+    barrens by the directest possible route. Deep mire holes, roots
+    of trees, an infrequent boulder, puddles and cruel ruts
+    diversified the way. Occasional teeth-rattling stretches of
+    "corduroy" led through a swamp.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't see how a team can haul a load over this!" Bob
+    voiced his marvel, after a time.</p>
+
+    <p>"It don't," said Welton. "The supplies are all hauled while
+    the ground is frozen. A man goes by hand now."</p>
+
+    <p>In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide
+    and wallow. The going was trying on muscle and wind. To right
+    and left stretched mazes of white popples and willows tangled
+    with old berry vines and the abattis of the slashings. Water
+    stood everywhere. To traverse that swamp a man would have to
+    force his way by main strength through the thick growth, would
+    have to balance on half-rotted trunks of trees, wade and
+    stumble through pools of varying depths, crawl beneath or climb
+    over all sorts of obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky
+    new growths, and old tree trunks. If he had a gun in his hands,
+    he would furthermore be compelled, through all the vicissitudes
+    of making his way, to hold it always at the balance ready for
+    the snap shot. For a ruffed grouse is wary, and flies like a
+    bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost before the roar of
+    its wings has aroused the echoes. Through that veil of branches
+    a man must shoot quickly, instinctively, from any one of the
+    many positions in which the chance of the moment may have
+    caught him. Bob knew all about this sort of country, and his
+    pulses quickened to the call of it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Many partridge?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lots," replied Welton; "but the country's too confounded
+    big to hunt them in. Like to hunt?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing better," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the
+    hardwoods, full of warmth and light and new young green, and
+    the voices of many creatures; with the soft, silent carpet of
+    last autumn's brown, the tiny patches of melting snow, and the
+    pools with dead leaves sunk in them and clear surfaces over
+    which was mirrored the flight of birds.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton puffed along steadily. He did not appear to talk
+    much, and yet the sum of his information was considerable.</p>
+
+    <p>"That road," he said, pointing to a dim track, "goes down to
+    Thompson's. He's a settler. Lives on a little lake.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's a deer," he remarked, "over in that thicket against
+    the hill."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked closely, but could see nothing until the animal
+    bounded away, waving the white flag of its tail.</p>
+
+    <p>"Settlers up here are a confounded nuisance," went on Welton
+    after a while. "They're always hollering for what they call
+    their 'rights.' That generally means they try to hang up our
+    drive. The average mossback's a hard customer. I'd rather try
+    to drive nails in a snowbank than tackle driving logs through a
+    farm country. They never realize that we haven't got time to
+    talk it all out for a few weeks. There's one old cuss now
+    that's making us trouble about the water. Don't want to open up
+    to give us a fair run through the sluices of his dam. Don't
+    seem to realize that when we start to go out, we've got to go
+    out in a <i>hurry</i>, spite o' hell and low water."</p>
+
+    <p>He went on, in his good-natured, unexcited fashion, to
+    inveigh against the obstinacy of any and all mossbacks. There
+    was no bitterness in it, merely a marvel over an inexplicable,
+    natural phenomenon.</p>
+
+    <p>"Suppose you <i>didn't</i> get all the logs out this year,"
+    asked Bob, at length. "Of course it would be a nuisance; but
+    couldn't you get them next year?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the trouble," Welton explained. "If you leave them
+    over the summer, borers get into them, and they're about a
+    total loss. No, my son, when you start to take out logs in this
+    country, you've got to <i>take them out!</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's what I'm going in here for now," he explained, after
+    a moment. "This Cedar Branch is an odd job we had to take over
+    from another firm. It is an unimproved river, and difficult to
+    drive, and just lined with mossbacks. The crew is a mixed
+    bunch&mdash;some old men, some young toughs. They're a hard
+    crowd, and one not like the men on the main drive. It really
+    needs either Tally or me up here; but we can't get away for
+    this little proposition. He's got Darrell in charge. Darrell's
+    a good man on a big job. Then he feels his responsibility,
+    keeps sober and drives his men well. But I'm scared he won't
+    take this little drive serious. If he gets one drink in him,
+    it's all off!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I shouldn't think it would pay to put such a man in
+    charge," said Bob, more as the most obvious remark than from
+    any knowledge or conviction.</p>
+
+    <p>"Wouldn't you?" Welton's eyes twinkled. "Well, son, after
+    you've knocked around a while you'll find that every man is
+    good for something somewhere. Only you can't put a square peg
+    in a round hole."</p>
+
+    <p>"How much longer will the high water last?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hard to say."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I hope you get the logs out," Bob ventured.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure we'll get them out!" replied Welton confidently.
+    "We'll get them out if we have to go spit in the creek!" With
+    which remark the subject was considered closed.</p>
+
+    <p>About four o'clock of the afternoon they came out on a low
+    bluff overlooking a bottom land through which flowed a little
+    stream twenty-five or thirty feet across.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the Cedar Branch," said Welton, "and I reckon that's
+    one of the camps up where you see that smoke."</p>
+
+    <p>They deserted the road and made their way through a fringe
+    of thin brush to the smoke. Bob saw two big tents, a
+    smouldering fire surrounded by high frames on which hung a few
+    drying clothes, a rough table, and a cooking fire over which
+    bubbled tremendous kettles and fifty-pound lard tins suspended
+    from a rack. A man sat on a cracker box reading a fragment of
+    newspaper. A boy of sixteen squatted by the fire.</p>
+
+    <p>This man looked up and nodded, as Welton and his companion
+    approached.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's the drive, doctor?" asked the lumberman.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is the jam camp," replied the cook. "The jam's
+    upstream a mile or so. Rear's back by Thompson's
+    somewheres."</p>
+
+    <p>"Is there a jam in the river?" asked Bob with interest. "I'd
+    like to see it."</p>
+
+    <p>"There's a dozen a day, probably," replied Welton; "but in
+    this case he just means the head of the drive. We call that the
+    'jam.'"</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose Darrell's at the rear?" Welton asked the
+    cook.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yep," replied that individual, rising to peer into one of
+    his cavernous cooking utensils.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who's in charge here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Larsen"</p>
+
+    <p>"H'm," said Welton. "Well," he added to himself, "he's slow,
+    safe and sure, anyway."</p>
+
+    <p>He led the way to one of the tents and pulled aside the
+    flap. The ground inside was covered by a welter of tumbled
+    blankets and clothes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nice tidy housekeeping," he grinned at Bob. He picked out
+    two of the best blankets and took them outside where he hung
+    them on a bush and beat them vigorously.</p>
+
+    <p>"There," he concluded, "now they're ours."</p>
+
+    <p>"What about the fellows who had 'em before?" inquired
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"They probably had about eight apiece; and if they hadn't
+    they can bunk together."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob walked to the edge of the stream. It was not very wide,
+    yet at this point it carried from three to six or eight feet of
+    water, according to the bottom. A few logs were stranded along
+    shore. Two or three more floated by, the forerunners of the
+    drive. Bob could see where the highest water had flung debris
+    among the bushes, and by that he knew that the stream must be
+    already dropping from its freshet.</p>
+
+    <p>It was now late in the afternoon. The sun dipped behind a
+    cold and austere hill-line. Against the sky showed a fringe of
+    delicate popples, like spray frozen in the rise. The heavens
+    near the horizon were a cold, pale yellow of unguessed lucent
+    depths, that shaded above into an equally cold, pale green. Bob
+    thrust his hands in his pockets and turned back to where the
+    drying fire, its fuel replenished, was leaping across the
+    gathering dusk.</p>
+
+    <p>Immediately after, the driving crews came tramping in from
+    upstream. They paid no attention to the newcomers, but dove
+    first for the tent, then for the fire. There they began to pull
+    off their lower garments, and Bob saw that most of them were
+    drenched from the waist down. The drying racks were soon
+    steaming with wet clothes.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton fell into low conversation with an old man, straight
+    and slender as a Norway pine, with blue eyes, flaxen hair,
+    eyebrows and moustache. This was Larsen, in charge of the jam,
+    honest, capable in his way, slow of speech, almost childlike of
+    glance. After a few minutes Welton rejoined Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"He's a square peg, all right," he muttered, more to himself
+    than to his companion. "He's a good riverman, but he's no river
+    boss. Too easy-going. Well, all he has to do is to direct the
+    work, luckily. If anything really goes wrong, Darrell would be
+    down in two jumps."</p>
+
+    <p>"Grub pile!" remarked the cook conversationally.</p>
+
+    <p>The men seized the utensils from a heap of them, and began
+    to fill their plates from the kettles on the table.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come on, bub," said Welton, "dig in! It's a long time till
+    breakfast!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The cook was early a foot next morning. Bob, restless with
+    the uneasiness of the first night out of doors, saw the flicker
+    of the fire against the tent canvas long before the first signs
+    of daylight. In fact, the gray had but faintly lightened the
+    velvet black of the night when the cook thrust his head inside
+    the big sleeping tents to utter a wild yell of reveille.</p>
+
+    <p>The men stirred sleepily, stretched, yawned, finally kicked
+    aside their blankets. Bob stumbled into the outer air. The
+    chill of early morning struck into his bones. Teeth chattering,
+    he hurried to the river bank where he stripped and splashed his
+    body with the bracing water. Then he rubbed down with the
+    little towel Tommy Gould had allowed him. The reaction in this
+    chill air was slow in coming&mdash;Bob soon learned that the
+    early cold bath out of doors is a superstition&mdash;and he
+    shivered from time to time as he propped up his little mirror
+    against a stump. Then he shaved, anointing his face after the
+    careful manner of college boys. This satisfactorily completed,
+    he fished in his duffle bag to find his tooth brush and soap.
+    His hair he arranged painstakingly with a pair of military
+    brushes. He further manipulated a nail-brush vigorously, and
+    ended with manicuring his nails. Then, clean, vigorous, fresh,
+    but somewhat chilly, he packed away his toilet things and
+    started for camp.</p>
+
+    <p>Whereupon, for the first time, he became aware of one of the
+    rivermen, pipe clenched between his teeth, watching him
+    sardonically.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob nodded, and made as though to pass.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, bub!" said the older man.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob stopped.</p>
+
+    <p>"Say," drawled the riverman, "air you as much trouble to
+    yourself <i>every</i> day as this?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed, and dove for camp. He found it practically
+    deserted. The men had eaten breakfast and departed for work.
+    Welton greeted him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, bub," said he, "didn't know but we'd lost you. Feed
+    your face, and we'll go upstream."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob ate rapidly. After breakfast Welton struck into a
+    well-trodden foot trail that led by a circuitous route up the
+    river bottom, over points of land, around swamps. Occasionally
+    it forked. Then, Welton explained, one fork was always a short
+    cut across a bend, while the other followed accurately the
+    extreme bank of the river. They took this latter and longest
+    trail, always, in order more closely to examine the state of
+    the drive. As they proceeded upstream they came upon more and
+    more logs, some floating free, more stranded gently along the
+    banks. After a time they encountered the first of the driving
+    crew. This man was standing on an extreme point, leaning on his
+    peavy, watching the timbers float past. Pretty soon several
+    logs, held together by natural cohesion, floated to the bend,
+    hesitated, swung slowly and stopped. Other logs, following,
+    carromed gently against them and also came to rest.</p>
+
+    <p>Immediately the riverman made a flying leap to the nearest.
+    He hit it with a splash that threw the water high to either
+    side, immediately caught his equilibrium, and set to work with
+    his peavy. He seemed to know just where to bend his efforts.
+    Two, then three, logs, disentangled from the mass, floated
+    away. Finally, all moved slowly forward. The riverman intent on
+    his work, was swept from view.</p>
+
+    <p>"After he gets them to running free, he'll come ashore,"
+    said Welton, in answer to Bob's query. "Oh, just paddle ashore
+    with his peavy. Then he'll come back up the trail. This bend is
+    liable to jam, and so we have to keep a man here."</p>
+
+    <p>They walked on and on, up the trail. Every once in a while
+    they came upon other members of the jam crew, either watching,
+    as was the first man, at some critical point, or working in
+    twos and threes to keep the reluctant timbers always moving. At
+    one place six or eight were picking away busily at a jam that
+    had formed bristling quite across the river. Bob would have
+    liked to stop to watch; but Welton's practised eye saw nothing
+    to it.</p>
+
+    <p>"They're down to the key log, now," he pronounced. "They'll
+    have it out in a jiffy."</p>
+
+    <p>Inside of two miles or so farther they left behind them the
+    last member of the jam crew and came upon an outlying scout of
+    the "rear." Then Welton began to take the shorter trails. At
+    the end of another half-hour the two plumped into the full
+    activity of the rear itself.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob saw two crews of men, one on either bank, busily engaged
+    in restoring to the current the logs stranded along the shore.
+    In some cases this merely meant pushing them afloat by means of
+    the peavies. Again, when the timbers had gone hard aground,
+    they had to be rolled over and over until the deeper water
+    caught them. In extreme cases, when evidently the freshet water
+    had dropped away from them, leaving them high and dry, a number
+    of men would clamp on the jaws of their peavies and carry the
+    logs bodily to the water. In this active work the men were
+    everywhere across the surface of the river. They pushed and
+    heaved from the instability of the floating logs as easily as
+    though they had possessed beneath their feet the advantages of
+    solid land. When they wanted to go from one place to another
+    across the clear water they had various methods of propelling
+    themselves&mdash;either broad on, by rolling the log treadwise,
+    or endways by paddling, or by jumping strongly on one end. The
+    logs dipped and bobbed and rolled beneath them; the water
+    flowed over their feet; but always they seemed to maintain
+    their balance unconsciously, and to give their whole attention
+    to the work in hand. They worked as far as possible from the
+    decks of logs, but did not hesitate, when necessary, to plunge
+    even waist-deep into the icy current. Behind them they left a
+    clear river.</p>
+
+    <p>Like most exhibitions of superlative skill, all this would
+    have seemed to an uninitiated observer like Bob an easy task,
+    were it not for the misfortunes of one youth. That boy was
+    about half the time in the water. He could stand upright on a
+    log very well as long as he tried to do nothing else. This
+    partial skill undoubtedly had lured him to the drive. But as
+    soon as he tried to work, he was in trouble. The log commenced
+    to roll; he to struggle for his balance. It always ended with a
+    mighty splash and a shout of joy from every one in sight, as
+    the unfortunate youth soused in all over. Then, after many
+    efforts, he dragged himself out, his garments heavy and
+    dripping, and cautiously tried to gain the perpendicular. This
+    ordinarily required several attempts, each of which meant
+    another ducking as the treacherous log rolled at just the wrong
+    instant. The boy was game, though, and kept at it earnestly in
+    spite of repeated failure.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton watched two repetitions of this performance.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dick!" he roared across the tumult of sound.</p>
+
+    <p>Roaring Dick, whose light, active figure had been seen
+    everywhere across the logs, looked up, recognized Welton, and
+    zigzagged skilfully ashore. He stamped the water from his
+    shoes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you fire that kid ashore?" demanded Welton. "Do
+    you want to drown him? He's so cold now he don't know where's
+    his feet?"</p>
+
+    <p>Roaring Dick glanced carelessly at the boy. The latter had
+    succeeded in gaining the shallows, where he was trying to roll
+    over a stranded log. His hands were purple and swollen; his
+    face puffed and blue; violent shivers shook him from head to
+    foot; his teeth actually chattered when, for a moment, he
+    relaxed his evident intention to stick it through without
+    making a sign. All his movements were slow and awkward, and his
+    dripping clothes clung tight to his body.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, him!" said Roaring Dick in reply. "I didn't pay no more
+    attention to him than to one of these yere hell divers. He
+    ain't no <i>good</i>, so I clean overlooked him. Here, you!" he
+    cried suddenly.</p>
+
+    <p>The boy looked up, Bob saw him start convulsively, and knew
+    that he had met the impact of that peculiar dynamic energy in
+    Roaring Dick's nervous face. He clambered laboriously from the
+    shallows, the water draining from the bottom of his "stagged"
+    trousers.</p>
+
+    <p>"Get to camp," snapped Dick. "You're laid off."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why did you ever take such a man on in the first place?"
+    asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"He was here when I come," replied Roaring Dick,
+    indifferently, "and, anyway, he's bound he's goin to be a
+    river-hog. You couldn't keep him out with a fly-screen."</p>
+
+    <p>"How're things going?" inquired Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," said Roaring Dick. "This ain't no drive to have
+    things goin' wrong. A man could run a hand-organ, a quiltin'
+    party and this drive all to once and never drop a stitch."</p>
+
+    <p>"How about old Murdock's dam? Looks like he might make
+    trouble."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ain't got to old Murdock yet," said Roaring Dick. "When we
+    do, we'll trim his whiskers to pattern. Don't you worry none
+    about Murdock."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't," laughed Welton. "But, Dick, what are all these
+    deadheads I see in the river? Our logs are all marked, aren't
+    they?"</p>
+
+    <p>"They's been some jobbing done way below our rollways," said
+    Roaring Dick, "and the mossbacks have been taking 'em out long
+    before our drive got this far. Them few deadheads we've picked
+    up along the line; mossbacks left 'em stranded. They ain't very
+    many."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll send up a marking hammer, and we'll brand them.
+    Finders keepers."</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure," said Roaring Dick.</p>
+
+    <p>He nodded and ran out over the logs. The work leaped.
+    Wherever he went the men took hold as though reanimated by an
+    electric current.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dick's a driver," said Welton, reflectively, "and he gets
+    out the logs. But I'm scared he don't take this little job
+    serious."</p>
+
+    <p>He looked out over the animated scene for a moment in
+    silence. Then he seemed suddenly to remember his companion.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, son," said he, "that's called 'sacking' the river.
+    The rear crew is the place of honour, let me tell you. The old
+    timers used to take a great pride in belonging to a crack rear
+    on a big drive. When you get one side of the river working
+    against the other, it's great fun. I've seen some fine races in
+    my day."</p>
+
+    <p>At this moment two men swung up the river trail, bending to
+    the broad tump lines that crossed the tops of their heads.
+    These tump lines supported rather bulky wooden boxes running
+    the lengths of the men's backs. Arrived at the rear, they
+    deposited their burdens. One set to building a fire; the other
+    to unpacking from the boxes all the utensils and receptacles of
+    a hearty meal. The food was contained in big lard tins. It was
+    only necessary to re-heat it. In ten minutes the usual call of
+    "grub pile" rang out across the river. The men came ashore.
+    Each group of five or six built its little fire. The wind
+    sucked aloft these innumerable tiny smokes, and scattered them
+    in a thin mist through the trees.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton stayed to watch the sacking until after three
+    o'clock. Then he took up the river trail to the rear camp. This
+    Bob found to be much like the other, but larger.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ordinarily on drive we have a wanigan," said Welton. "A
+    wanigan's a big scow. It carries the camp and supplies to
+    follow the drive. Here we use teams; and it's some of a job,
+    let me tell you! The roads are bad, and sometimes it's a long
+    ways around. Hard sledding, isn't it Billy?" he inquired of the
+    teamster, who was warming his hands by the fire.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I always get there," the latter replied with some
+    pride. "From the Little Fork here I only tipped over six times,
+    all told."</p>
+
+    <p>The cook, who had been listening near by, grunted.</p>
+
+    <p>"Only time I wasn't with you, Billy," said he; "that's why
+    you got the nerve to tell that!"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a fact!" insisted the driver.</p>
+
+    <p>The young fellow who had been ordered off the river sat
+    alone by the drying-fire. Now that he had warmed up and dried
+    off, he was seen to be a rather good-looking boy, dark-skinned,
+    black-eyed, with overhanging, thick, straight brows, like a
+    line from temple to temple. These gave him either the sullen,
+    biding look of an Indian or an air of set determination, as the
+    observer pleased. Just now he contemplated the fire rather
+    gloomily.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton sat down on the same log with him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, bub," said the old riverman good-naturedly, "so you
+    thought you'd like to be a riverman?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir," replied the boy, with a certain sullen
+    reserve.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where did you think you learned to ride a log?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've been around a little at the booms."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see. Well, it's a different proposition when you come to
+    working on 'em in fast water."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where you from?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Down Greenville way."</p>
+
+    <p>"Farm?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir."</p>
+
+    <p>"Back to the farm now, eh?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose so."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't like the notion, eh?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No!" cried the boy, with a flash of passion.</p>
+
+    <p>"Still like to tackle the river?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, again encased in his
+    sullen apathy.</p>
+
+    <p>"If I send you back to-morrow, would you like to tackle it
+    again?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, yes!" said the boy eagerly. "I didn't have any sort of
+    a show when you saw me to-day! I can do a heap better than
+    that. I was froze through and couldn't handle myself."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton grinned.</p>
+
+    <p>"What you so stuck on getting wet for?" he inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"I dunno," replied the boy vaguely. "I just like the
+    woods."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I got no notion of drownding you off in the first
+    white water we come across," said Welton; "but I tell you what
+    to do: you wait around here a few days, helping the cook or
+    Billy there, and I'll take you down to the mill and put you on
+    the booms where you can practise in still water with a
+    pike-pole, and can go warm up in the engine room when you fall
+    off. Suit you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir. Thank you," said the boy quietly; but there was a
+    warm glow in his eye.</p>
+
+    <p>By now it was nearly dark.</p>
+
+    <p>"Guess we'll bunk here to-night," Welton told Bob
+    casually.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked his dismay.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, I left everything down at the other camp," he cried,
+    "even my tooth brush and hair brush!"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton looked at him comically.</p>
+
+    <p>"Me, too," said he. "We won't neither of us be near as much
+    trouble to ourselves to-morrow, will we?"</p>
+
+    <p>So he had overheard the riverman's remark that morning. Bob
+    laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's right," approved Welton, "take it easy. Necessities
+    is a great comfort, but you can do without even them."</p>
+
+    <p>After supper all sprawled around a fire. Welton's big bulk
+    extended in the acme of comfort. He puffed his pipe straight up
+    toward the stars, and swore gently from time to time when the
+    ashes dropped back into his eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now that's a good kid," he said, waving a pipe toward the
+    other fire where the would-be riverman was helping wash the
+    dishes. "He'll never be a first-class riverman, but he's a good
+    kid."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why won't he make a good riverman?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Same reason you wouldn't," said Welton bluntly. "A good
+    white water man has to start younger. Besides, what's the use?
+    There won't be any rivermen ten year from now. Say, you," he
+    raised his voice peremptorily, "what do you call yourself?"</p>
+
+    <p>The boy looked up startled, saw that he was indicated,
+    stammered, and caught his voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"John Harvey, sir," he replied.</p>
+
+    <p>"Son of old John who used to be on the Marquette back in the
+    seventies?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir; I suppose so."</p>
+
+    <p>"He ought to be a good kid: he comes of good stock,"
+    muttered Welton; "but he'll never be a riverman. No use trying
+    to shove that shape peg in a round hole!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIV"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Near noon of the following day a man came upstream to report
+    a jam beyond the powers of the outlying rivermen. Roaring Dick,
+    after a short absence for examination, returned to call off the
+    rear. All repaired to the scene of obstruction.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob noticed the slack water a mile or so above the jam. The
+    river was quite covered with logs pressed tight against each
+    other by the force of the interrupted current, but still
+    floating. A little farther along the increasing pressure had
+    lifted some of them clear of the water. They upended slightly,
+    or lay in hollows between the others. Still farther downstream
+    the salient features of a jam multiplied. More timbers stuck
+    out at angles from the surface; some were even lifted bodily.
+    An abattis formed, menacing and formidable, against which even
+    the mighty dynamics of the river pushed in vain. Then at last
+    the little group arrived at the "breast" itself&mdash;a sullen
+    and fearful tangle like a gigantic pile of jackstraws. Beneath
+    it the diminished river boiled out angrily. By the very fact of
+    its lessened volume Bob could guess at the pressure above.
+    Immediately the rivermen ran out on this tangle, and, after a
+    moment devoted to inspection, set to work with their peavies.
+    Bob started to follow, but Welton held him back.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's dangerous for a man not used to it. The jam may go out
+    at any time, and when she goes, she goes sky-hooting."</p>
+
+    <p>But in the event his precaution turned out useless. All day
+    the men rolled logs into the current below the dam. The
+    <i>click!</i> clank! clank! of their peavies sounded like the
+    valves of some great engine, so regular was the periodicity of
+    their metallic recurrence. They made quite a hole in the
+    breast; and several times the jam shrugged, creaked and
+    settled, but always to a more solid look. Billy, the teamster,
+    brought down his horses. By means of long blocks and tackle
+    they set to yanking out logs from certain places specified by
+    Roaring Dick. Still the jam proved obstinate.</p>
+
+    <p>"I hate to do it," said Roaring Dick to Welton; "but it's a
+    case of powder."</p>
+
+    <p>"Tie into it," agreed Welton. "What's a few smashed logs
+    compared to hanging the drive?"</p>
+
+    <p>Dick nodded. He picked up a little canvas lunch bag from a
+    stump where, earlier in the day, he had hung it, and from it
+    extracted several sticks of giant powder, a length of fuse and
+    several caps. These he prepared. Then he and Welton walked out
+    over the jam, examining it carefully, and consulting together
+    at length. Finally Roaring Dick placed his charge far down in
+    the interstices, lit the fuse and walked calmly ashore. The men
+    leisurely placed themselves out of harm's way. Welton joined
+    Bob behind a big burned stub.</p>
+
+    <p>"Will that start her sure?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Depends on whether we guessed right on the key log," said
+    Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>A great roar shook the atmosphere. Straight up into the air
+    spurted the cloud of the explosion. Through the white smoke Bob
+    could see the flame and four or five big logs, like upleaping,
+    dim giants. Then he dodged back from the rain of bark and
+    splinters.</p>
+
+    <p>The immediate effect on the jam was not apparent. It fell
+    forward into the opening made by the explosion, and a light but
+    perceptible movement ran through the waiting timbers up the
+    river. But the men, running out immediately, soon made it
+    evident that the desired result had been attained. Their
+    efforts now seemed to gain definite effects. An uneasiness ran
+    through the hitherto solid structure of the jam. Timbers
+    changed position. Sometimes the whole river seemed to start
+    forward a foot or so, but before the eye could catch the
+    motion, it had again frozen to immobility.</p>
+
+    <p>"That fetched the key logs, all right," said Welton,
+    watching.</p>
+
+    <p>Then all at once about half the breast of the jam fell
+    forward into the stream. Bob uttered an involuntary cry. But
+    the practised rivermen must have foreseen this, for none were
+    caught. At once the other logs at the breast began to topple of
+    their own accord into the stream. The splashes threw the water
+    high like the explosions of shells, and the thundering of the
+    falling and grinding timbers resembled the roar of artillery.
+    The pattern of the river changed, at first almost
+    imperceptibly, then more and more rapidly. The logs in the
+    centre thrust forward, those on the wings hung back. Near the
+    head of the jam the men worked like demons. Wherever the
+    timbers caught or hesitated for a moment in their slow crushing
+    forward, there a dozen men leaped savagely, to jerk, heave and
+    pry with their heavy peavies. Continually under them the
+    footing shifted; sullen logs menaced them with crushing or
+    complete engulfment in their grinding mill. Seemingly they paid
+    no attention to this, but gave all their energies to the work.
+    In reality, whether from calculation or merely from the
+    instinct that grows out of long experience, they must have
+    pre-estimated every chance.</p>
+
+    <p>"What bully team work!" cried Bob, stirred to
+    enthusiasm.</p>
+
+    <p>Now the motion quickened. The centre of the river rushed
+    forward; the wings sucked in after from either side. A roar and
+    battling of timbers, jets of spray, the smoke of waters filled
+    the air. Quite coolly the rivermen made their way ashore, their
+    peavies held like balancing poles across their bodies. Under
+    their feet the logs heaved, sank, ground together, tossed above
+    the hurrying under-mass, tumultuous as a close-packed drove of
+    wild horses. The rivermen rode them easily. For an appreciable
+    time one man perched on a stable timber watching keenly ahead.
+    Then quite coolly he leaped, made a dozen rapid zigzag steps
+    forward, and stopped. The log he had quitted dropped sullenly
+    from sight, and two closed, grinding, where it had been. In
+    twenty seconds every man was safely ashore.</p>
+
+    <p>The river caught its speed. Hurried on by the pressure of
+    water long dammed back, the logs tumbled forward. Rank after
+    rank they swept past, while the rivermen, leaning on the shafts
+    of their peavies, passed them in review.</p>
+
+    <p>"That was luck," Welton's voice broke in on Bob's
+    contemplation. "It's just getting dark. Couldn't have done it
+    without the dynamite. It splinters up a little timber, but we
+    save money, even at that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Billy doesn't carry that with the other supplies, does he?"
+    asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure," said Welton; "rolls it up in the bedding, or
+    something. Well, John Harvey, Junior," said he to that youth,
+    "what do you think of it? A little different driving this white
+    water than pushing logs with a pike pole down a slack-water
+    river like the Green, hey?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir," the boy nodded out of his Indian stolidity.</p>
+
+    <p>"You see now why a man has to start young to be a riverman,"
+    Welton told Bob, as they bent their steps toward camp. "Poor
+    little John Harvey out on that jam when she broke would have
+    stood about as much chance as a beetle at a woodpecker prayer
+    meeting."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XV"></a>
+
+    <h2>XV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Two days later Welton returned to the mill. At his
+    suggestion Bob stayed with the drive. He took his place quietly
+    as a visitor, had the good sense to be unobtrusive, and so was
+    tolerated by the men. That is to say, he sat at the camp fires
+    practically unnoticed, and the rivermen talked as though he
+    were not there. When he addressed any of them they answered him
+    with entire good humour, but ordinarily they paid no more
+    attention to him than they did to the trees and bushes that
+    chanced to surround the camp.</p>
+
+    <p>The drive moved forward slowly. Sometimes Billy packed up
+    every day to set forth on one of his highly adventurous drives;
+    again camp stayed for some time in the same place. Bob amused
+    himself tramping up and down the river, reviewing the
+    operations. Occasionally Roaring Dick, in his capacity of river
+    boss, accompanied the young fellow. Why, Bob could not imagine,
+    for the alert, self-contained little riverman trudged along in
+    almost entire silence, his keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly
+    on all there was to be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or
+    comment, he answered by a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or
+    the monosyllable was never sullen or hostile or contemptuous;
+    merely indifferent. Bob learned to economize speech, and so got
+    along well with his strange companion.</p>
+
+    <p>By the end of the week the drive entered a cleared farm
+    country. The cultivation was crude and the clearing partial.
+    Low-wooded hills dotted with stumps of the old forest
+    alternated with willow-grown bottom-lands and dense swamps. The
+    farmers lived for the most part in slab or log houses earthed
+    against the winter cold. Fences were of split rails laid "snake
+    fashion." Ploughing had to be in and out between the blackened
+    stumps on the tops of which were piled the loose rocks picked
+    from the soil as the share turned them up. Long, unimproved
+    roads wandered over the hills, following roughly the section
+    lines, but perfectly willing to turn aside through some man's
+    field in order to avoid a steep grade or soft going. These
+    things the rivermen saw from their stream exactly as a trainman
+    would see them from his right-of-way. The river was the
+    highway, and rarely was it considered worth while to climb the
+    low bluffs out of the bottom-land through which it flowed.</p>
+
+    <p>In the long run it landed them in a town named Twin Falls.
+    Here were a water-power dam and some small manufactories. Here,
+    too, were saloons and other temptations for rivermen. Camp was
+    made above town. In the evening the men, with but few
+    exceptions, turned in to the sleeping tent at the usual hour.
+    Bob was much surprised at this; but later he came to recognize
+    it as part of a riverman's peculiar code. Until the drive
+    should be down, he did not feel himself privileged to "blow off
+    steam." Even the exceptions did not get so drunk they could not
+    show up the following morning to take a share in sluicing the
+    drive through the dam.</p>
+
+    <p>All but Roaring Dick. The latter did not appear at all, and
+    was reported "drunk a-plenty" by some one who had seen him
+    early that morning. Evidently the river boss did not "take this
+    drive serious." His absence seemed to make no difference. The
+    sluicing went forward methodically.</p>
+
+    <p>"He'll show up in a day or two," said the cook with entire
+    indifference, when Bob inquired of him.</p>
+
+    <p>That evening, however, four or five of the men disappeared,
+    and did not return. Such was the effect of an evil example on
+    the part of the foreman. Larsen took charge. In almost unbroken
+    series the logs shot through the sluiceways into the river
+    below, where they were received by the jam crew and started on
+    the next stage of their long journey to the mills. In a day the
+    dam was passed. One of the younger men rode the last log
+    through the sluiceway, standing upright as it darted down the
+    chute into the eddy below. The crowd of townspeople cheered.
+    The boy waved his hat and birled the log until the spray
+    flew.</p>
+
+    <p>But hardly was camp pitched two miles below town when one of
+    the jam crew came upstream to report a difficulty. Larsen at
+    once made ready to accompany him down the river trail, and Bob,
+    out of curiosity, went along, too.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's mossbacks," the messenger explained, "and them
+    deadheads we been carrying along. They've rigged up a little
+    sawmill down there, where they're cutting what the farmers haul
+    in to 'em. And then, besides, they've planted a bunch of piles
+    right out in the middle of the stream and boomed in their side,
+    and they're out there with pike-poles, nailin' onto every stick
+    of deadhead that comes along."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that's all right," said Larsen. "I guess they got a
+    right to them as long as we ain't marked them."</p>
+
+    <p>"They can have their deadheads," agreed the riverman, "but
+    their piles have jammed our drive and hung her."</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll break the jam," said Larsen.</p>
+
+    <p>Arrived at the scene of difficulty, Bob looked about him
+    with great interest. The jam was apparently locked hard and
+    fast against a clump of piles driven about in the centre of the
+    stream. These had evidently been planted as the extreme outwork
+    of a long shunting boom. Men working there could shunt into the
+    sawmill enclosure that portion of the drive to which they could
+    lay claim. The remainder could proceed down the open channel to
+    the left. That was the theory. Unfortunately, this division of
+    the river's width so congested matters that the whole drive had
+    hung.</p>
+
+    <p>The jam crew were at work, but even Bob's unpractised eye
+    saw that their task was stupendous. Even should they succeed in
+    loosening the breast, there could be no reason to suppose the
+    performance would not have to be repeated over and over again
+    as the close-ranked drive came against the obstacle.</p>
+
+    <p>Larsen took one look, then made his way across to the other
+    side and down to the mill. Bob followed. The little sawmill was
+    going full blast under the handling of three men and a boy.
+    Everything was done in the most primitive manner, by main
+    strength, awkwardness, and old-fashioned tools.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who's boss?" yelled Larsen against the clang of the
+    mill.</p>
+
+    <p>A slow, black-bearded man stepped forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"What can I do for you?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Our drive's hung up against your boom," yelled Larsen.</p>
+
+    <p>The man raised his hand and the machinery was suddenly
+    stilled.</p>
+
+    <p>"So I perceive," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"Your boom-piles are drove too far out in the stream."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know about that," objected the mossback.</p>
+
+    <p>"I do," insisted Larsen. "Nobody on earth could keep from
+    jamming, the way you got things fixed."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's none of my business," said the man steadily.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, we'll have to take out that fur clump of piles to get
+    our jam broke."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know about that," repeated the man.</p>
+
+    <p>Larsen apparently paid no attention to this last remark, but
+    tramped back to the jam. There he ordered a couple of men out
+    with axes, and others with tackle. But at that moment the three
+    men and the boy appeared. They carried three shotguns and a
+    rifle.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's about enough of that," said the bearded man,
+    quietly. "You let my property alone. I don't want any trouble
+    with you men, but I'll blow hell out of the first man that
+    touches those piles. I've had about enough of this riverhog
+    monkey-work."</p>
+
+    <p>He looked as though he meant business, as did his
+    companions. When the rivermen drew back, he took his position
+    atop the disputed clump of piles, his shotgun across his
+    knees.</p>
+
+    <p>The driving crew retreated ashore. Larsen was plainly
+    uncertain.</p>
+
+    <p>"I tell you, boys," said he, "I'll get back to town. You
+    wait."</p>
+
+    <p>"Guess I'll go along," suggested Bob, determined to miss no
+    phase of this new species of warfare.</p>
+
+    <p>"What you going to do?" he asked Larsen when they were once
+    on the trail.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," confessed the older man, rubbing his cap.
+    "I'm just goin' to see some lawyer, and then I'm goin' to
+    telegraph the Company. I wish Darrell was in charge. I don't
+    know what to do. You can't expect those boys to run a chance of
+    gittin' a hole in 'em."</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you believe they'd shoot?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I believe so. It's a long chance, anyhow."</p>
+
+    <p>But in Twin Falls they received scant sympathy and
+    encouragement. The place was distinctly bucolic, and as such
+    opposed instinctively to larger mills, big millmen, lumber,
+    lumbermen and all pertaining thereunto. They tolerated the
+    drive because, in the first place they had to; and in the
+    second place there was some slight profit to be made. But the
+    rough rivermen antagonized them, and they were never averse to
+    seeing these buccaneers of the streams in difficulties. Then,
+    too, by chance the country lawyers Larsen consulted happened to
+    be attorneys for the little sawmill men. Larsen tried in his
+    blundering way to express his feeling that "nobody had a right
+    to hang our drive." His explanations were so involved and
+    futile that, without thinking, Bob struck in.</p>
+
+    <p>"Surely these men have no right to obstruct as they do.
+    Isn't there some law against interfering with navigation?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The stream is not navigable," returned the lawyer
+    curtly.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's memory vouchsafed a confused recollection of something
+    read sometime, somewhere.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hasn't a stream been declared navigable when logs can be
+    driven in it?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you in charge of this drive?" the lawyer asked, turning
+    on him sharply.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why&mdash;no," confessed Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Have you anything to do with this question?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't believe I have."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then I fail to see why I should answer your questions,"
+    said the lawyer, with finality. "As to your question," he went
+    on to Larsen with equal coldness, "if you have any doubts as to
+    Mr. Murdock's rights in the stream, you have the recourse of a
+    suit at law to settle that point, and to determine the damages,
+    if any."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found himself in the street with Larsen.</p>
+
+    <p>"But they haven't got no right to stop our drive <i>dead</i>
+    that way," expostulated the old man.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's temper was somewhat ruffled by his treatment at the
+    hands of the lawyer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, they've done it, whether they have the right to or
+    not," he said shortly; "what next?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess I'll telegraph Mr. Welton," said Larsen.</p>
+
+    <p>He did so. The two returned to camp. The rivermen were
+    loafing in camp awaiting Larsen's reappearance. The jam was as
+    before. Larsen walked out on the logs. The boy, seated on the
+    clump of piles, gave a shrill whistle. Immediately from the
+    little mill appeared the brown-bearded man and his two
+    companions. They picked their way across the jam to the piles,
+    where they roosted, their weapons across their knees, until
+    Larsen had returned to the other bank.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Mr. Welton ought to be up in a couple of days, if he
+    ain't up the main river somewheres," said Larsen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Aren't you going to do anything in the meantime?" asked
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"What can I do?" countered Larsen.'</p>
+
+    <p>The crew had nothing to say one way or the other, but
+    watched with a cynical amusement the progress of affairs. They
+    smoked, and spat, and squatted on their heels in the Indian
+    taciturnity of their kind when for some reason they withhold
+    their approval. That evening, however, Bob happened to be lying
+    at the campfire next two of the older men. As usual, he smoked
+    in unobtrusive silence, content to be ignored if only the men
+    would act in their accustomed way, and not as before a
+    stranger.</p>
+
+    <p>"Wait; hell!" said one of the men to the other. "Times is
+    certainly gone wrong! If they had anything like an oldtime
+    river boss in charge, they'd come the Jack Orde on this
+    lay-out."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob pricked up his ears at this mention of his father's
+    name.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's that?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>The riverman rolled over and examined him dispassionately
+    for a few moments.</p>
+
+    <p>"Jack Orde," he deigned to explain at last, "was a riverman.
+    He was a good one. He used to run the drive in the Redding
+    country. When he started to take out logs, he took 'em out, by
+    God! I've heard him often: 'Get your logs out first, and pay
+    the damage afterward,' says he. He was a holy terror. They got
+    the state troops out after him once. It came to be a sort of
+    by-word. When you generally gouge, kick and sandbag a man into
+    bein' real <i>good</i>, why we say you come the Jack Orde on
+    him."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," said Bob, vastly amused at this sidelight on the
+    family reputation. "What would you do here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," replied the riverman, "but I wouldn't lay
+    around and wait."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't some of you fellows go out there and storm the
+    fort, if you feel that way?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why?" demanded the riverman, "I won't let any boss stump
+    me; but why in hell should I go out and get my hide full of
+    birdshot? If this outfit don't know enough to get its drive
+    down, that ain't my fault."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob had seen enough of the breed to recognize this as an
+    eminently characteristic attitude.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," he remarked comfortably, "somebody'll be down from
+    the mill soon."</p>
+
+    <p>The riverman turned on him almost savagely.</p>
+
+    <p>"Down soon!" he snorted. "So'll the water be 'down soon.'
+    It's dropping every minute. That telegraft of yours won't even
+    start out before to-morrow morning. Don't you fool yourself.
+    That Twin Falls outfit is just too tickled to do us up. It'll
+    be two days before anybody shows up, and then where are you at?
+    Hell!" and the old riverman relapsed into a disgusted
+    silence.</p>
+
+    <p>Considerably perturbed, Bob hunted up Larsen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Larsen," said he, "they tell me a delay here is
+    likely to hang up this drive. Is that right?"</p>
+
+    <p>The old man looked at his interlocutor, his brow
+    wrinkled.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish Darrell was in charge," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"What would Darrell do that you can't do?" demanded Bob
+    bluntly.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's just it; I don't know," confessed Larsen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'd get some weapons up town and drive that gang
+    off," said Bob heatedly.</p>
+
+    <p>"They'd have a posse down and jug the lot of us," Larsen
+    pointed out, "before we could clear the river." He suddenly
+    flared up. "I ain't no river boss, and I ain't paid as a river
+    boss, and I never claimed to be one. Why in hell don't they
+    keep their men in charge?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You're working for the company, and you ought to do your
+    best for them," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>But Larsen had abruptly fallen into Scandinavian sulks. He
+    muttered something under his breath, and quite deliberately
+    arose and walked around to the other side of the fire.</p>
+
+    <p>Twice during the night Bob arose from his blankets and
+    walked down to the riverside. In the clear moonlight he could
+    see one or the other of the millmen always on watch, his
+    shotgun across his knees. Evidently they did not intend to be
+    surprised by any night work. The young fellow returned very
+    thoughtful to his blankets, where he lay staring up against the
+    canvas of the tent.</p>
+
+    <p>Next morning he was up early, and in close consultation with
+    Billy the teamster. The latter listened attentively to what Bob
+    had to say, nodding his head from time to time. Then the two
+    disappeared in the direction of the wagon, where for a long
+    interval they busied themselves at some mysterious
+    operation.</p>
+
+    <p>When they finally emerged from the bushes, Bob was carrying
+    over his shoulder a ten-foot poplar sapling around the end of
+    which was fastened a cylindrical bundle of considerable size.
+    Bob paid no attention to the men about the fire, but bent his
+    steps toward the river. Billy, however, said a few delighted
+    words to the sprawling group. It arose with alacrity and
+    followed the young man's lead.</p>
+
+    <p>Arrived at the bank of the river, Bob swung his burden to
+    the ground, knelt by it, and lit a match. The rivermen,
+    gathering close, saw that the bundle around the end of the
+    sapling consisted of a dozen rolls of giant powder from which
+    dangled a short fuse. Bob touched his match to the split outer
+    end of the fuse. It spluttered viciously. He arose with great
+    deliberation, picked up his strange weapon, and advanced out
+    over the logs.</p>
+
+    <p>In the meantime the opposing army had gathered about the
+    disputed clump of piles, to the full strength of its three
+    shotguns and the single rifle. Bob paid absolutely no attention
+    to them. When within a short distance he stopped and, quite
+    oblivious to warnings and threats from the army, set himself to
+    watching painstakingly the sputtering progress of the fire up
+    the fuse, exactly as a small boy watches his giant cracker
+    which he hopes to explode in mid-air. At what he considered the
+    proper moment he straightened his powerful young body, and cast
+    the sapling from him, javelin-wise.</p>
+
+    <p>"Scat!" he shouted, and scrambled madly for cover.</p>
+
+    <p>The army decamped in haste. Of its armament it lost near
+    fifty per cent., for one shotgun and the rifle remained where
+    they had fallen. Like Abou Ben Adam, Murdock led all the
+    rest.</p>
+
+    <p>Now Bob had hurled his weapon as hard as he knew how, and
+    had scampered for safety without looking to see where it had
+    fallen. As a matter of fact, by one of those very lucky
+    accidents, that often attend a star in the ascendent, the
+    sapling dove head on into a cavern in the jam above the clump
+    of piles. The detonation of the twelve full sticks of giant
+    powder was terrific. Half the river leaped into the air in a
+    beautiful column of water and spray that seemed to hang
+    motionless for appreciable moments. Dark fragments of timbers
+    were hurled in all directions. When the row had died the clump
+    of piles was seen to have disappeared. Bob's chance shot had
+    actually cleared the river!</p>
+
+    <p>The rivermen glanced at each other amazedly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you <i>mean</i> to place that charge, bub?" one
+    asked.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob was too good a field general not to welcome the gifts of
+    chance.</p>
+
+    <p>"Certainly," he snapped. "Now get out on that river, every
+    mother's son of you. Get that drive going and keep it going.
+    I've cleared the river for you; and if you'd any one of you had
+    the nerve of my poor old fat sub-centre, you'd have done it for
+    yourselves. Get busy! Hop!"</p>
+
+    <p>The men jumped for their peavies. Bob raged up and down the
+    bank. For the moment he had forgotten the husk of the
+    situation, and saw it only in essential. Here was a squad to
+    lick into shape, to fashion into a team. It mattered little
+    that they wore spikes in their boots instead of cleats; that
+    they sported little felt hats instead of head guards. The
+    principle was the same. The team had gone to pieces in the face
+    of a crisis; discipline was relaxed; grumblers were getting
+    noisy. Bob plunged joyously head over ears in his task. By now
+    he knew every man by name, and he addressed each personally. He
+    had no idea of what was to be done to start this riverful of
+    logs smoothly and surely on its way; he did not need to. Afloat
+    on the river was technical knowledge enough, and to spare. Bob
+    threw his men at the logs as he used to throw his backs at the
+    opposing line. And they went. Even in the whole-souled, frantic
+    absorption of the good coach he found time to wonder at the
+    likeness of all men. These rivermen differed in no essential
+    from the members of the squad. They responded to the same
+    authority; they could be hurled as a unit against opposing
+    obstacles.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and whirled to stare
+    straight into the bloodshot eyes of Roaring Dick. The man was
+    still drunk, but only with the lees of the debauch. He knew
+    perfectly what he was about, but the bad whiskey still hummed
+    through his head. Bob met the baleful glare from under his
+    square brows, as the man teetered back and forth on his
+    heels.</p>
+
+    <p>"You got a hell of a nerve!" said Roaring Dick, thickly.
+    "You talk like you was boss of this river."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked back at him steadily for a full half-minute.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am," said he at last.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XVI"></a>
+
+    <h2>XVI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Roaring Dick had not been brought up in the knowledge of
+    protocols or ultimatums. Scarcely had Bob uttered the last
+    words of his brief speech before he was hit twice in the face,
+    good smashing blows that sent him staggering. The blows were
+    followed by a savage rush. Roaring Dick was on his man with the
+    quickness and ferocity of a wildcat. He hit, kicked, wrestled,
+    even bit. Bob was whirled back by the very impetuosity of the
+    attack. Before he could collect his wits he was badly punished
+    and dazed. He tripped and Roaring Dick, with a bellow of
+    satisfaction, began to kick at his body even before he reached
+    the ground.</p>
+
+    <p>But strangely enough this fall served to clear Bob's head.
+    Thousands of times he had gone down just like this on the
+    football field, and had then been called upon to struggle on
+    with the ball as far as he was able. A slight hint of the
+    accustomed will sometimes steady us in the most difficult
+    positions. The mind, bumping aimlessly, falls into its groove,
+    and instinctively shoots forward with tremendous velocity. Bob
+    hit the ground, half turned on his shoulder, rolled over twice
+    with the rapid, vigorous twist second-nature to a seasoned
+    halfback, and bounded to his feet. He met Roaring Dick half way
+    with a straight blow. It failed to stop, or even to shake the
+    little riverman. The next instant the men were wrestling
+    fiercely.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found himself surprisingly opposed. Beneath his loose,
+    soft clothing the riverman seemed to be made of steel. Suddenly
+    Bob was called upon to exert every ounce of strength in his
+    body, and to summon all his acquired skill to prevent himself
+    from being ignominiously overpowered. The ferocity of the rush,
+    and the purposeful rapidity of Roaring Dick's attack, as well
+    as the unexpected variety thereof, kept him fully occupied in
+    defending himself. With the exception of the single blow
+    delivered when he had regained his feet, he had been unable
+    even to attempt aggression. It was as though he had touched a
+    button to release an astonishing and bewildering erratic
+    energy.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob had done a great deal of boxing and considerable
+    wrestling. During his boyhood and youth he had even become
+    involved in several fisticuffs. They had always been with the
+    boys or young men of his own ideas. Though conducted in anger
+    they retained still a certain remnant of convention. No matter
+    how much you wanted to "do" the other fellow, you tried to
+    accomplish that result by hitting cleanly, or by wrestling him
+    to a point where you could "punch his face in." The object was
+    to hurt your opponent until he had had enough, until he was
+    willing to quit, until he had been thoroughly impressed with
+    the fact that he was punished. But this result was to be
+    accomplished with the fists. If your opponent seized a club, or
+    a stone, or tried to kick, that very act indicated his defeat.
+    He had had enough, and that was one way of acknowledging your
+    superiority. So strongly ingrained had this instinct of the
+    fight-convention become that even now Bob unconsciously was
+    playing according to the rules of the game.</p>
+
+    <p>Roaring Dick, on the contrary, was out solely for results.
+    He fought with every resource at his command. Bob was slow to
+    realize this, slow to arouse himself beyond the point of
+    calculated defence. His whole training on the field inclined
+    him to keep cool and to play, whatever the game, from a
+    reasoning standpoint. He was young, strong and practised; but
+    he was not roused above the normal. And, as many rivermen had
+    good reason to know, the normal man availed little against
+    Roaring Dick's maniacal rushes.</p>
+
+    <p>The men were close-locked, and tugging and straining for an
+    advantage. Bob crouched lower and lower with a well-defined
+    notion of getting a twist on his opponent. For an instant he
+    partially freed one side. Like lightning Roaring Dick delivered
+    a fierce straight kick at his groin. The blow missed its aim,
+    but Bob felt the long, sharp spikes tearing the flesh of his
+    thigh. Sheer surprise relaxed his muscles for the fraction of
+    an instant. Roaring Dick lowered his head, rammed it into Bob's
+    chin, and at the same time reached for the young man's gullet
+    with both hands. Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of
+    time. As they closed again Roaring Dick's right hand was free.
+    Bob felt the riverman's thumb fumbling for his eyeball.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, he wants to cripple me, to kill me!" the young man
+    cried to himself. So vivid was the astonishment of this
+    revelation to his sportsman's soul that he believed he had said
+    it aloud. This was no mere fight, it was a combat. In modern
+    civilized conditions combats are notably few and far between.
+    It is difficult for the average man to come to a realization
+    that he must in any circumstances depend on himself for the
+    preservation of his life. Even to the last moment the victim of
+    the real melodrama that occasionally breaks out in the most
+    unlikely places is likely to be more concerned with his
+    outraged dignity than with his peril. That thumb, feeling
+    eagerly for his eye-socket, woke Bob to a new world. A swift
+    anger rushed over him like a hot wave.</p>
+
+    <p>This man was trying to injure him. Either the kick or the
+    gouge would have left him maimed for life. A sudden fierce
+    desire to beat his opponent into the earth seized Bob. With a
+    single effort he wrenched his arms free.</p>
+
+    <p>Now this fact has been noted again and again: mere size has
+    often little to do with a man's physical prowess. The list of
+    anecdotes wherein the little fellow "puts it all over" the big
+    bully is exceptionally long. Nor are more than a bare majority
+    of the anecdotes baseless. In our own lumber woods a
+    one-hundred-and-thirty-pound man with no other weapon than his
+    two hands once nearly killed a two-hundred-pound blacksmith for
+    pushing him off a bench. This phenomenon arises from the fact
+    that the little man seems capable often of releasing at will a
+    greater flood of dynamic energy than a big man. We express this
+    by saying that it is the spirit that counts. As a matter of
+    truth the big man may have as much courage as the little man.
+    It is simply that he cannot, at will, tap as quickly the vast
+    reservoir of nervous energy that lies beneath all human effort
+    of any kind whatsoever. He cannot arouse himself as can the
+    little man.</p>
+
+    <p>It was for the foregoing reason that Roaring Dick had
+    acquired his ascendancy. He possessed the temperament that
+    fuses. When he fought, he fought with the ferocity and
+    concentration of a wild beast. This concentration, this power
+    of fusing to white heat all the powers of a man's being down to
+    the uttermost, this instinctive ability to tap the extra-human
+    stores of dynamics is what constitutes the temperament of
+    genius, whether it be applied to invention, to artistic
+    creation, to ruling, to finance, or merely to beating down
+    personal opposition by beating in the opponent's face.
+    Unfortunately for him, Bob Orde happened also to possess the
+    temperament of genius. The two foul blows aroused him. All at
+    once he became blind to everything but an unreasoning desire to
+    hurt this man who had tried to hurt him. On the side of
+    dynamics the combat suddenly equalized. It became a question
+    merely of relative power, and Bob was the bigger man.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob threw his man from him by main strength. Roaring Dick
+    staggered back, only to carrom against a tree. A dozen swift,
+    straight blows in the face drove him by the sheer force of
+    them. He was smothered, overwhelmed, by the young man's
+    superior size. Bob fell upon him savagely. In less than a
+    minute the fight was over as far as Roaring Dick was concerned.
+    Blinded, utterly winded, his whiskey-driven energies drained
+    away, he fell like a log. Bob, still blazing, found himself
+    without an opponent.</p>
+
+    <p>He glared about him. The rivermen were gathered in a silent
+    ring. Just beyond stood a side-bar buggy in which a burly,
+    sodden red-faced man stood up the better to see. Bob recognized
+    him as one of the saloon keepers at Twin Falls, and his
+    white-hot brain jumped to the correct conclusion that Roaring
+    Dick, driven by some vague conscience-stirring in regard to his
+    work, had insisted on going down river; and that this
+    dive-keeper, loth to lose a profitable customer in the dull
+    season, had offered transportation in the hopeful probability
+    that he could induce the riverman to return with him. Bob
+    stooped, lifted his unconscious opponent, strode to the
+    side-bar buggy and unceremoniously dumped his burden
+    therein.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now," said he roughly, "get out of here! When this man
+    comes to, you tell him he's fired! He's not to show his face on
+    this river again!"</p>
+
+    <p>The saloon-keeper demurred, blustering slightly after the
+    time-tried manner of his sort.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, young fellow, you can't talk that way to
+    me."</p>
+
+    <p>"Can't I!" snapped Bob; "well, you turn around and get out
+    of here."</p>
+
+    <p>The man met full the blaze of the extra-normal powers not
+    yet fallen below the barrier in the young fellow's personality.
+    He gathered up the reins and drove away.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob watched him out of sight, his chest rising and falling
+    with the receding waves of his passion. He was a strange young
+    figure with his torn garments, his tossed hair, the streak of
+    blood beneath his eye, and the inner fading glow of his face.
+    At last he drew a long, shuddering breath, and turned to the
+    expectant and silent group of rivermen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Boys," said he pleasantly, "I don't know one damn thing
+    about river-driving, but I do know when a man's doing his best
+    work. I shall expect you fellows to get in and rustle down
+    those logs. Any man who thinks he's going to soldier on me is
+    going to get fooled, and he's going to get his time handed out
+    to him on the spot. As near as I can make out, unless we get an
+    everlasting wiggle on us&mdash;every one of us&mdash;this
+    drive'll hang up; and I'd just as soon hang it by laying off
+    those who try to shirk as by letting you hang it by not working
+    your best. So get busy. If anybody wants to quit, let 'em step
+    up right now. Any remarks?" He looked from one to another.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nary remark," said one man at last.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right. Now get your backs into this. It's <i>team
+    work</i> that counts. You've each got your choice; either you
+    can lie like the devil to hide the fact that you were a member
+    of the Cedar Branch crew in 1899, or you can go away and brag
+    about it. It's up to you. Get busy."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XVII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XVII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Two days later Welton swung from the train at Twin Falls.
+    His red, jolly face was as quizzical as ever, but one who knew
+    him might have noticed that his usual leisurely movements had
+    quickened. He walked rapidly to the livery stable where he
+    ordered a rig.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's the drive, Hank?" he asked the liveryman.</p>
+
+    <p>"Search me!" was his reply; "somewhere down river. Old
+    Murdock is up talkin' wild about damage suits, and there's
+    evidently been one hell of a row, but I just got back myself
+    from drivin' a drummer over to Watsonville."</p>
+
+    <p>"Know if Darrell is in town?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, <i>he's</i> in town; there ain't no manner of doubt as
+    to that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Drunk, eh?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Spifflicated, pie-eyed, loaded, soshed," agreed the
+    liveryman succinctly.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton shook his head humorously and ruefully.</p>
+
+    <p>"Say, Welton," demanded the liveryman with the easy
+    familiarity of his class, "why in blazes do you put a plain
+    drunk like that in charge?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Darrell is a good man on a big job," said Welton; "you
+    can't beat him, and you can't get him to take a drink. But it
+    takes a big job to steady him."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'd fire him," stated Hank positively.</p>
+
+    <p>"He's already fired," spoke up a hostler, "they laid him off
+    two days ago when he went down drunk and tried to take
+    charge."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, now," chuckled Welton, as he gathered up the reins,
+    "who'd have thought old Larsen could scare up the spunk!"</p>
+
+    <p>He drove down the river road. When he came to a point
+    opposite Murdock's he drew up.</p>
+
+    <p>"That wire said that Murdock had the river blocked," he
+    mused, "but she's certainly flowing free enough now. The
+    river's sacked clean now."</p>
+
+    <p>His presence on the bank had attracted the attention of a
+    man in the mill. After a long scrutiny, this individual
+    launched a skiff and pulled across the stream.</p>
+
+    <p>"I thought it was you," he cried as soon as he had stepped
+    ashore. "Well, let me tell you I'm going to sue you for
+    damages, big damages!"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton looked him over quizzically, and the laughing lines
+    deepened around the corners of his eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lay on, MacDuff," said he, "nobody's sued me yet this year,
+    and it didn't seem natural."</p>
+
+    <p>"And for assault with deadly weapons, and malicious
+    destruction of property, and seizure and----"</p>
+
+    <p>"You must have been talking to a country lawyer,"
+    interrupted Welton, with one of his subterranean chuckles.
+    "Don't do it. They got nothing <i>but</i> time, and you know
+    what your copy book says about idle hands." He crossed one leg
+    and leaned back as though for a comfortable chat. "No, you come
+    and see me, Murdock, and state how much you've been damaged,
+    and we'll see what we can do. Why, these little lawyers love to
+    name things big. They'd call a sewing circle a riot if one of
+    the members dropped a stitch."</p>
+
+    <p>But Murdock was in deadly earnest.</p>
+
+    <p>"Perhaps throwin' dynamite on the end of a pole, and mighty
+    nigh killin' us, and just blowin' the whole river up in the air
+    is your idea of somethin' little," he stormed; "well, you'll
+    find it'll look big enough in court."</p>
+
+    <p>"So that's what they did to clear the river," said Welton,
+    more than half to himself. "Well, Murdock, suit yourself; you
+    can see me or that intellectual giant of a lawyer of yours.
+    You'll find me cheaper. So long."</p>
+
+    <p>He drove on, chuckling.</p>
+
+    <p>"I didn't think old Larsen had the spunk," he repeated after
+    a time. "Guess I ought to have put him in charge in the
+    beginning."</p>
+
+    <p>He drove to a point where the erratic road turned inland.
+    There he tied his horse to a tree and tramped on afoot. After a
+    little he came in sight of the rear&mdash;and stopped.</p>
+
+    <p>The men were working hard; a burst of hearty laughter
+    saluted Welton's ears. He could hardly believe them. Nobody had
+    heard this sullen crew of nondescript rivermen from everywhere
+    exhibit the faintest symptoms of good-humour or interest
+    before. Another burst of laughter came up the breeze. A dozen
+    men ran out over the logs as though skylarking, inserted their
+    peavies in a threatened lock, and pried it loose.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty work," said the expert in Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>He drew nearer through the low growth until he stood well
+    within hearing and seeing distance. Then he stopped again.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob Orde was walking up and down the bank talking to the
+    men. They were laughing back at him. His manner was half fun,
+    half earnest, part rueful, part impatient, wholly
+    affectionate.</p>
+
+    <p>"You, Jim," said he, "go out and get busy. You're loafing,
+    you know you are; I don't give a damn what you're to do. Do
+    something! Don't give an imitation of a cast-iron hero. No, I
+    won't either tell you what to do. I don't know. But do it, even
+    if you have to make it up out of your own head. Consider the
+    festive water-beetle, and the ant and other industrious
+    doodle-bugs. Get a wiggle on you, fellows. We'll never get out
+    at this rate. If this drive gets hung up, I'm going to murder
+    every last one of you. Come on now, all together; if I could
+    walk out on those logs I'd build a fire under you; but you've
+    got me tied to the bank and you know it, you big fat loafers,
+    you!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Keep your hair on, bub; we'll make it, all right"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, we'd just better make it," warned Bob. "Now I'm going
+    down to the jam to see whether their alarm clock went off this
+    morning.&mdash;Now, don't slumber!"</p>
+
+    <p>After he had disappeared down the trail, Welton stepped into
+    view.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, Charley!" he called.</p>
+
+    <p>One of the rivermen sprang ashore.</p>
+
+    <p>"When did the rear leave Murdock's?" he asked without
+    preliminary.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thursday."</p>
+
+    <p>"You've made good time."</p>
+
+    <p>"Bet we have," replied Charley with pride.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who's jam boss?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Larsen."</p>
+
+    <p>"Who's in charge of the river, then?" demanded Welton
+    sharply.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, young Orde!" replied the riverman, surprised.</p>
+
+    <p>"Since when?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Since he blew up Murdock's piles."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, he did that, did he? I suppose he fired Darrell,
+    too?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure. It was a peach of a scrap."</p>
+
+    <p>"Scrap?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yep. That Orde boy is a wonder. He just <i>ruined</i>
+    Roaring Dick."</p>
+
+    <p>"He did, did he?" commented Welton. "Well, so long."</p>
+
+    <p>He followed Bob down the river trail. At the end of a
+    half-mile he overtook the young fellow kneeling on a point
+    gazing at a peeled stake planted at the edge of the river.</p>
+
+    <p>"Wish I knew how long this water was going to hold out," he
+    murmured, as he heard a man pause behind him. "She's dropped
+    two inches by my patent self-adjusting gauge."</p>
+
+    <p>"Young man," said Welton, "are you on the payrolls of this
+    company?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob turned around, then instantly came to his feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, you're here at last, Mr. Welton," he cried in tones of
+    vast relief.</p>
+
+    <p>"Answer my question, please."</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" asked Bob with an expression of bewilderment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you on the payrolls of this company?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, sir, of course not. You know that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then what are you doing in charge of this river?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, don't you see&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"I see you've destroyed property and let us in for a big
+    damage suit. I see you've discharged our employees without
+    authority to do so. I see you're bossing my men and running my
+    drive without the shadow of a right."</p>
+
+    <p>"But something had to be done," expostulated Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you know about river-driving?" broke in Welton.
+    "Not a thing."</p>
+
+    <p>"Men who told me did&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"A bunch of river-hogs," broke in Welton contemptuously. "It
+    strikes me, young man, that you have the most colossal cheek
+    I've ever heard of."</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob faced him squarely.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here," he said decidedly, "I'm technically wrong, and
+    I know it. But good men told me your measly old drive would
+    hang if it stayed there two days longer; and I believed them,
+    and I believe them yet. I don't claim to know anything about
+    river-driving, but here your confounded drive is well on its
+    way. I kicked that drunk off the river because he was no good.
+    I took hold here to help you out of a hole, and you're
+    out."</p>
+
+    <p>"But," said Welton, carefully, "don't you see that you took
+    chances on losing me a lot of property?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked up at him a moment wearily.</p>
+
+    <p>"From my point of view I have nothing to regret," said he
+    stiffly, and turned away.</p>
+
+    <p>The humorous lines about Welton's eyes had been deepening
+    throughout this interview.</p>
+
+    <p>"That tops it off," said he. "First you get me into trouble;
+    then you fire my head man; then you run off with my property;
+    finally you tell me to go to hell! Son, you are a great man!
+    Shake!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob whirled in surprise to search Welton's good-natured
+    jolly face. The latter was smiling.</p>
+
+    <p>"Shake," he repeated, relapsing, as was his habit when much
+    in earnest, into his more careless speech; "you done just
+    right. Son, remember this:&mdash;it's true&mdash;it ain't
+    <i>doing</i> things that makes a man so much as <i>deciding</i>
+    things."</p>
+
+    <p>One of his great chuckles bubbled up.</p>
+
+    <p>"It took some nerve to jump in the way you did; and some
+    sand to handle the flea-bitten bunch of river-hogs----"</p>
+
+    <p>"You're mistaken about them," Bob broke in earnestly.
+    "They've been maligned. They're as good and willing a squad as
+    I ever want to see----"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, sure," laughed Welton; "they're a nice little job lot
+    of tin angels. However, don't worry. You sure saved the day,
+    for I believe we would have hung if we hadn't got over the
+    riffles before this last drop of the water."</p>
+
+    <p>He began to laugh, at first, gently, then more and more
+    heartily, until Bob stared at him with considerable curiosity
+    and inquiry. Welton caught his look.</p>
+
+    <p>"I was just thinking of Harvey and Collins," he remarked
+    enigmatically as he wiped his eyes. "Oh, Bobby, my son, you
+    sure do please me. Only I was afraid for a minute it might be a
+    flash in the pan and you weren't going to tell me to go to
+    hell."</p>
+
+    <p>They turned back toward the rear.</p>
+
+    <p>"By the way," Welton remarked, "you made one bad break just
+    now."</p>
+
+    <p>"What was that?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"You told me you were not on the payrolls of this company.
+    You are."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XVIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XVIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>For a year Bob worked hard at all sorts of jobs. He saw the
+    woods work, the river work, the mill work. From the stump to
+    the barges he followed the timbers. Being naturally of a good
+    intelligence, he learned very fast how things were done, so
+    that at the end of the time mentioned he had acquired a fair
+    working knowledge of how affairs were accomplished in this
+    business he had adopted. That does not mean he had become a
+    capable lumberman. One of the strangest fallacies long
+    prevalent in the public mind is that lumbering is always a sure
+    road to wealth. The margin of profit seems very large. As a
+    matter of fact, the industry is so swiftly conducted, on so
+    large a scale, along such varied lines; the expenditures must
+    be made so lavishly, and yet so carefully; the consequences of
+    a niggardly policy are so quickly apparent in decreased
+    efficiency, and yet the possible leaks are so many, quickly
+    draining the most abundant resources, that few not brought up
+    through a long apprenticeship avoid a loss. A great deal of
+    money has been and is made in timber. A great deal has been
+    lost, simply because, while the possibilities are alluring, the
+    complexity of the numerous problems is unseen.</p>
+
+    <p>At first Bob saw only the results. You went into the woods
+    with a crew of men, felled trees, cut them into lengths,
+    dragged them to the roads already prepared, piled them on
+    sleighs, hauled them to the river, and stacked them there. In
+    the spring you floated the logs to the mill where they were
+    sawed into boards, laden into sailing vessels or steam barges,
+    and taken to market. There was the whole process in a nutshell.
+    Of course, there would be details and obstructions to cope
+    with. But between the eighty thousand dollars or so worth of
+    trees standing in the forest and the quarter-million dollars or
+    so they represented at the market seemed space enough to allow
+    for many reverses.</p>
+
+    <p>As time went on, however, the young man came more justly to
+    realize the minuteness of the bits comprising this complicated
+    mosaic. From keeping men to the point of returning, in work,
+    the worth of their wages; from so correlating and arranging
+    that work that all might be busy and not some waiting for
+    others; up through the anxieties of weather and the sullen or
+    active opposition of natural forces, to the higher levels of
+    competition and contracts, his awakened attention taught him
+    that legitimate profits could attend only on vigilant and
+    minute attention, on comprehensive knowledge of detail, on
+    experience, and on natural gift. The feeding of men abundantly
+    at a small price involved questions of buying, transportation
+    and forethought, not to speak of concrete knowledge of how much
+    such things should ideally be worth. Tools by the thousand were
+    needed at certain places and at certain times. They must be
+    cared for and accounted for. Horses, and their feed, equipment
+    and care, made another not inconsiderable item both of expense
+    and attention. And so with a thousand and one details which it
+    would be superfluous to enumerate here. Each cost money, and
+    some one's time. Relaxed attention might make each cost a few
+    pennies more. What do a few pennies amount to? Two things: a
+    lowering of the standard of efficiency, and, in the long run,
+    many dollars. If incompetence, or inexperience should be added
+    to relaxed attention, so that the various activities do not
+    mortise exactly one with another, and the legitimate results to
+    be expected from the pennies do not arrive, then the sum total
+    is very apt to be failure. Where organized and settled
+    industries, however complicated in detail, are in a manner
+    played by score, these frontier activities are vast
+    improvisations following only the general unchangeable laws of
+    commerce.</p>
+
+    <p>Therefore, Bob was very much surprised and not a little
+    dismayed at what Mr. Welton had to say to him one evening early
+    in the spring.</p>
+
+    <p>It was in the "van" of Camp Thirty-nine. Over in the corner
+    under the lamp the sealer and bookkeeper was epitomizing the
+    results of his day. Welton and Bob sat close to the round stove
+    in the middle, smoking their pipes. The three or four bunks
+    belonging to Bob, the scaler, and the camp boss were dim in
+    another corner; the shelves of goods for trade with the men
+    occupied a third. A rude door and a pair of tiny windows
+    communicated with the world outside. Flickers of light from the
+    cracks in the stove played over the massive logs of the little
+    building, over the rough floor and the weapons and snowshoes on
+    the wall. Both Bob and Welton were dressed in flannel and
+    kersey, with the heavy German socks and lumberman's rubbers on
+    their feet. Their bright-checked Mackinaw jackets lay where
+    they had been flung on the beds. Costume and surroundings both
+    were a thousand miles from civilization; yet civilization was
+    knocking at the door. Welton gave expression to this
+    thought.</p>
+
+    <p>"Two seasons more'll finish us, Bob," said he. "I've logged
+    the Michigan woods for thirty-five years, but now I'm about
+    done here."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, I guess they're all about done," agreed Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"The big men have gone West; lots of the old lumber jacks
+    are out there now. It's our turn. I suppose you know we've got
+    timber in California?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob, with a wry grin, as he thought of the
+    columns of "descriptions" he had copied; "I know that."</p>
+
+    <p>"There's about half a billion feet of it. We'll begin to
+    manufacture when we get through here. I'm going out next month,
+    as soon as the snow is out of the mountains, to see about the
+    plant and the general lay-out. I'm going to leave you in charge
+    here."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob almost dropped his pipe as his jaws fell apart.</p>
+
+    <p>"Me!" he cried.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, you."</p>
+
+    <p>"But I can't; I don't know enough! I'd make a mess of the
+    whole business," Bob expostulated.</p>
+
+    <p>"You've been around here for a year," said Welton, "and
+    things are running all right. I want somebody to see that
+    things move along, and you're the one. Are you going to
+    refuse?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No; I suppose I can't refuse," said Bob miserably, and fell
+    silent.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIX"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIX</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>To Bob's father Welton expressed himself in somewhat
+    different terms. The two men met at the Auditorium Annex, where
+    they promptly adjourned to the Palm Room and a little
+    table.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, Jack," the lumberman replied to his friend's
+    expostulation, "I know just as well as you do that the kid
+    isn't capable yet of handling a proposition on his own hook.
+    It's just for that reason that I put him in charge."</p>
+
+    <p>"And Welton isn't an Irish name, either," murmured Jack
+    Orde.</p>
+
+    <p>"What? Oh, I see. No; and that isn't an Irish bull, either.
+    I put him in charge so he'd have to learn something. He's a
+    good kid, and he'll take himself dead serious. He'll be
+    deciding everything that comes up all for himself, and he'll
+    lie awake nights doing it. And all the time things will be
+    going on almost like he wasn't there!"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton paused to chuckle in his hearty manner.</p>
+
+    <p>"You see, I've brought that crew up in the business. Mason
+    is as good a mill man as they make; and Tally's all right in
+    the woods and on the river; and I reckon it would be difficult
+    to take a nick out of Collins in office work."</p>
+
+    <p>"In other words, Bob is to hold the ends of the reins while
+    these other men drive," said his father, vastly amused. "That's
+    more like it. I'd hate to bury a green man under too much
+    responsibility."</p>
+
+    <p>"No," denied Welton, "it isn't that exactly. Somebody's got
+    to boss the rest of 'em. And Bob certainly is a wonder at
+    getting the men to like him and to work for him. That's his
+    strong point. He gets on with them, and he isn't afraid to tell
+    'em when he thinks they're 'sojering' on him. That makes me
+    think: I wonder what kind of ornaments these waiters are
+    supposed to be." He rapped sharply on the little table with his
+    pocket-knife.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's up to him," he went on, after the waiter had departed.
+    "If he's too touchy to acknowledge his ignorance on different
+    points that come up, and if he's too proud to ask questions
+    when he's stumped, why, he's going to get in a lot of trouble.
+    If he's willing to rely on his men for knowledge, and will just
+    see that everybody keeps busy and sees that they bunch their
+    hits, why, he'll get on well enough."</p>
+
+    <p>"It takes a pretty wise head to make them bunch their hits,"
+    Orde pointed out, "and a heap of figuring."</p>
+
+    <p>"It'll keep him mighty busy, even at best," acknowledged
+    Welton, "and he's going to make some bad breaks. I know
+    that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Bad breaks cost money," Orde reminded him.</p>
+
+    <p>"So does any education. Even at its worst this can't cost
+    much money. He can't wreck things&mdash;the organization is too
+    good&mdash;he'll just make 'em wobble a little. And this is a
+    mighty small and incidental proposition, while this California
+    lay-out is a big project. No, by my figuring Bob won't actually
+    do much, but he'll lie awake nights to do a hell of a lot of
+    deciding, and----."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I know," broke in Orde with a laugh; "you haven't
+    changed an inch in twenty years&mdash;and 'it's not doing but
+    deciding that makes a man,'" he quoted.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, isn't it?" demanded Welton insistently.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course," agreed Orde with another laugh. "I was just
+    tickled to see you hadn't changed a hair. Now if you'd only
+    moralize on square pegs in round holes, I'd hear again the
+    birds singing in the elms by the dear old churchyard."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton grinned, a trifle shamefacedly. Nevertheless he went
+    on with the development of his philosophy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," he asserted stoutly, "that's just what Bob was when
+    I got there. He can't handle figures any better than I can, and
+    Collins had been putting him through a course of sprouts." He
+    paused and sipped at his glass. "Of course, if I wasn't
+    absolutely certain of the men under him, it would be a fool
+    proposition. Bob isn't the kind to get onto treachery or
+    double-dealing very quick. He likes people too well. But as it
+    is, he'll get a lot of training cheap."</p>
+
+    <p>Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly
+    between puffs at his cigar.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California
+    now?" he asked at length. "You'll be building your roads and
+    flumes and railroad, getting your mill up, buying your
+    machinery and all the rest of it. That ought to be good
+    experience for him&mdash;to see the thing right from the
+    beginning."</p>
+
+    <p>"Bob is going to be a lumberman, and that isn't lumbering;
+    it's construction. Once it's up, it will never have to be done
+    again. The California timber will last out Bob's lifetime, and
+    you know it. He'd better learn lumbering, which he'll do for
+    the next fifty years, than to build a mill, which he'll never
+    have to do again&mdash;unless it burns up," he added as a
+    half-humorous afterthought.</p>
+
+    <p>"Correct," Orde agreed promptly to this. "You're a wonder.
+    When I found a university with my ill-gotten gains, I'll give
+    you a job as professor of&mdash;well, of Common Sense, by
+    jiminy!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XX"></a>
+
+    <h2>XX</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob managed to lose some money in his two years of
+    apprenticeship. That is to say, the net income from the small
+    operations under his charge was somewhat less than it would
+    have been under Welton's supervision. Even at that, the balance
+    sheet showed a profit. This was probably due more to the
+    perfection of the organization than to any great ability on
+    Bob's part. Nevertheless, he exercised a real control over the
+    firm's destinies, and in one or two instances of sudden crisis
+    threw its energies definitely into channels of his own
+    choosing. Especially was this true in dealing with the
+    riverman's arch-enemy, the mossback.</p>
+
+    <p>The mossback follows the axe. When the timber is cut,
+    naturally the land remains. Either the company must pay taxes
+    on it, sell it, or allow it to revert to the state. It may be
+    very good land, but it is encumbered with old slashing,
+    probably much of it needs drainage, a stubborn second-growth of
+    scrub oak or red willows has already usurped the soil, and
+    above all it is isolated. Far from the cities, far from the
+    railroad, far even from the crossroad's general store, it is
+    further cut off by the necessity of traversing atrocious
+    and&mdash;in the wet season&mdash;bottomless roads to even the
+    nearest neighbour. Naturally, then, in seeking purchasers for
+    this cut-over land, the Company must address itself to a
+    certain limited class. For, if a man has money, he will buy him
+    a cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in
+    pennies and gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself to
+    clearing the land. It follows that he is poverty-stricken,
+    lives frugally and is very tenacious of what property rights he
+    may be able to coax or wring from a hard wilderness. He dwells
+    in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees no farther than the rail
+    fence he has split out to surround his farm.</p>
+
+    <p>Thus, while he possesses many of the sturdy pioneer virtues,
+    he becomes by necessity the direct antithesis to the riverman.
+    The purchase of a bit of harness, a vehicle, a necessary tool
+    or implement is a matter of close economy, long figuring, and
+    much work. Interest on the mortgage must be paid. And what can
+    a backwoods farm produce worth money? And where can it find a
+    market? Very little; and very far. A man must "play close to
+    his chest" in order to accomplish that plain, primary, simple
+    duty of making both ends meet. The extreme of this virtue means
+    a defect, of course; it means narrowness of vision,
+    conservatism that comes close to suspicion, illiberality. When
+    these qualities meet the sometimes foolishly generous and
+    lavish ideas of men trained in the reckless life of the river,
+    almost inevitably are aroused suspicion on one side, contempt
+    on the other and antagonism on both.</p>
+
+    <p>This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But
+    when, as often happens, the mossback's farm extends to the very
+    river bank itself; when the legal rights of property clash with
+    the vaguer but no less certain rights of custom, then there is
+    room for endless bickering. When the river boss steps between
+    his men and the backwoods farmer, he must, on the merits of the
+    case and with due regard to the sort of man he has to deal
+    with, decide at once whether he will persuade, argue, coerce,
+    or fight. It may come to be a definite choice between present
+    delay or a future lawsuit.</p>
+
+    <p>This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon to
+    make. He knew little about law, but he had a very good feeling
+    for the human side. Whatever mistakes he made, the series of
+    squabbles nourished his sense of loyalty to the company. His
+    woods training was gradually bringing him to the lumberman's
+    point of view; and the lumberman's point of view means,
+    primarily, timber and loyalty.</p>
+
+    <p>"By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first
+    thought on entering a particularly imposing grove.</p>
+
+    <p>Where another man would catch merely a general effect, his
+    more practised eye would estimate heights, diameters, the
+    growth of the limbs, the probable straightness of the grain.
+    His eye almost unconsciously sought the possibilities of
+    location&mdash;whether a road could be brought in easily,
+    whether the grades could run right. A fine tree gave him the
+    complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on analytical
+    contemplation of any object. It meant timber, good or bad, as
+    well as beauty.</p>
+
+    <p>Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally of a
+    partisan temperament. He played the game fairly, but he played
+    it hard. Games imply rules, and any infraction of the rules is
+    unfair and to be punished. Bob could not be expected to reflect
+    that while rules are generally imposed by a third party on both
+    contestants alike, in this game the rules with which he was
+    acquainted had been made by his side; that perhaps the other
+    fellow might have another set of rules. All he saw was that the
+    antagonists were perpetrating a series of contemptible, petty,
+    mean tricks or a succession of dastardly outrages. His loyalty
+    and anger were both thoroughly aroused, and he plunged into his
+    little fights with entire whole-heartedness. As his side of the
+    question meant getting out the logs, the combination went far
+    toward efficiency. When the drive was down in the spring, Bob
+    looked back on his mossback campaign with a little grieved
+    surprise that men could think it worth their self-respect to
+    try to take such contemptible advantage of quibbles for the
+    purpose of defeating what was certainly customary and fair,
+    even if it might not be technically legal. What the mossbacks
+    thought about it we can safely leave to the crossroad
+    stores.</p>
+
+    <p>In other respects Bob had the good sense to depend
+    absolutely on his subordinates.</p>
+
+    <p>"How long do you think it ought to take to cut the rest of
+    Eight?" he would ask Tally.</p>
+
+    <p>"About two weeks."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob said nothing more, but next day he ruminated long in the
+    snow-still forest at Eight, trying to apportion in his own mind
+    the twelve days' work. If it did not go at a two weeks' gait,
+    he speedily wanted to know why.</p>
+
+    <p>When the sleighs failed to return up the ice road with
+    expected regularity, Bob tramped down to the "banks" to see
+    what the trouble was. When he returned, he remarked casually to
+    Jim Tally:</p>
+
+    <p>"I fired Powell off the job as foreman, and put in
+    Downy."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why?" asked Tally. "I put Powell in there because I thought
+    he was an almighty good worker."</p>
+
+    <p>"He is," said Bob; "too good. I found them a little
+    short-handed down there, and getting discouraged. The sleighs
+    were coming in on them faster than they could unload. The men
+    couldn't see how they were going to catch up, so they'd slacked
+    down a little, which made it worse. Powell had his jacket off
+    and was working like the devil with a canthook. He does about
+    the quickest and hardest yank with a canthook I ever saw,"
+    mused Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well?" demanded Tally.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh," said Bob, "I told him if that was the kind of a job he
+    wanted, he could have it. And I told Downy to take charge. I
+    don't pay a foreman's wages for canthook work; I hire him to
+    keep the men busy, and he sure can't do it if he occupies his
+    time and attention rolling logs."</p>
+
+    <p>"He was doing his best to straighten things out," said
+    Tally.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'm now paying him for his best," replied Bob,
+    philosophically.</p>
+
+    <p>But if it had been a question of how most quickly to skid
+    the logs brought in by the sleighs, Bob would never have
+    dreamed of questioning Powell's opinion, although he might
+    later have demanded expert corroboration from Tally.</p>
+
+    <p>The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in
+    training, both physically and spiritually. He realized his
+    mistakes, but they were now mistakes of judgment rather than of
+    mechanical accuracy, and he did not worry over them once they
+    were behind him.</p>
+
+    <p>When Welton returned from California toward the close of the
+    season, he found the young man buoyant and happy, deeply
+    absorbed, well liked, and in a fair way to learn something
+    about the business.</p>
+
+    <p>Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed
+    down. The remaining lumber in the yards was shipped out as
+    rapidly as possible. By the end of September the work was
+    over.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while
+    affairs were in preparation for the westward exodus.</p>
+
+    <p>Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the Chicago
+    offices.</p>
+
+    <p>He entered the little outer office he had left so
+    down-heartedly three years before. Harvey and his two
+    assistants sat on the high stools in front of the shelf-like
+    desk. The same pictures of record loads, large trees, mill
+    crews and logging camps hung on the walls. The same atmosphere
+    of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place. Through
+    the half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg swung over
+    the arm of his revolving chair, chatting in a leisurely fashion
+    with some visitor.</p>
+
+    <p>No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment staring at
+    the three bent backs before him. He remembered the infinite
+    details of the work he had left, the purchasings of innumerable
+    little things, the regulation of outlays, the balancings of
+    expenditures, the constantly shifting property values, the cost
+    of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery, transportation,
+    operation. And in addition he brought to mind the minute and
+    vexatious mortgage and sale and rental business having to do
+    with the old cut-over lands; the legal complications; the
+    questions of arbitration and privilege. And beyond that his
+    mind glimpsed dimly the extent of other interests, concerning
+    which he knew little&mdash;investment interests, and silent
+    interests in various manufacturing enterprises where the
+    Company had occasionally invested a surplus by way of a flyer.
+    In this quiet place all these things were correlated, compared,
+    docketed, and filed away. In the brains of the four men before
+    him all these infinite details were laid out in order. He knew
+    that Harvey could answer specific questions as to any feature
+    of any one of these activities. All the turmoil, the rush and
+    roar of the river, the mills, the open lakes, the great
+    wildernesses passed through this silent, dusty room. The
+    problems that kept a dozen men busy in the solving came here
+    also, together with a hundred others. Bob recalled his sight of
+    the hurried, wholesale shipping clerk he had admired when,
+    discouraged and discredited, he had left the office three years
+    before. He had thought that individual busy, and had contrasted
+    his activity with the somnolence of this office. Busy! Why, he,
+    Bob, had over and over again been ten times as busy. At the
+    thought he chuckled aloud. Harvey and his assistants turned to
+    the sound.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!" cried the young man. "I'm
+    certainly glad to see you. You're the only men I ever saw who
+    could be really bang-up rushed and never show it."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="PART_TWO"></a>
+
+    <h2>PART TWO</h2><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="I"></a>
+
+    <h2>I</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>On a wintry and blustering evening in the latter part of
+    February, 1902, Welton and Bob boarded the Union Pacific train
+    en route for California. They distributed their hand baggage,
+    then promptly took their way forward to the buffet car, where
+    they disposed themselves in the leather-and-wicker armchairs
+    for a smoke. At this time of year the travel had fallen off
+    somewhat in volume. The westward tourist rush had slackened,
+    and the train was occupied only by those who had definite
+    business in the Land of Promise, and by that class of wise ones
+    who realize that an Eastern March and April are more to be
+    avoided than the regulation winter months. The smoking car
+    contained then but a half-dozen men.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton and Bob took their places and lit their cigars. The
+    train swayed gently along, its rattle muffled by the storm.
+    Polished black squares represented the windows across which
+    drifted hazy lights and ghostlike suggestions of snowflakes.
+    Bob watched this ebony nothingness in great idleness of spirit.
+    Presently one of the half-dozen men arose from his place,
+    walked the length of the car, and dropped into the next
+    chair.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're Bob Orde, aren't you?" he remarked without
+    preliminary.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked up. He saw before him a very heavy-set young man,
+    of medium height, possessed of a full moon of a face, and alert
+    brown eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"I thought so," went on this young man in answer to Bob's
+    assent. "I'm Baker of '93. You wouldn't know me; I was before
+    your time. But I know you. Seen you play. Headed for the
+    Sunshine and Flowers?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ever been there before?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No."</p>
+
+    <p>"Great country! If you listen to all the come-on stuff you
+    may be disappointed&mdash;at first."</p>
+
+    <p>"How's that?" asked Bob, highly amused. "Isn't the place
+    what it's cracked up to be?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's more," asserted Baker, "but not the same stuff. The
+    climate's bully&mdash;best little old climate they've made, up
+    to date&mdash;but it's got to rain once in a while; and the
+    wind's got to blow; and all that. If you believe the Weather in
+    the Old Home column, you'll be sore. In two years you'll be
+    sore, anyway, whenever it does anything but stand 55 at night,
+    72 at noon and shine like the spotlight on the illustrated
+    songster. If a Californian sees a little white cloud about as
+    big as a toy balloon down in the southeast corner he gets
+    morose as a badger. If it starts to drizzle what you'd call a
+    light fog he holes up. When it rains he hibernates like a bear,
+    and the streets look like one of these populous and thriving
+    Aztec metropoli you see down Sonora way. I guess every man is
+    privileged to get just about so sore on the weather wherever he
+    is&mdash;and does so."</p>
+
+    <p>"You been out there long?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ever since I graduated," returned Baker promptly, "and I
+    wouldn't live anywhere else. They're doing real things. Don't
+    you run away with any notions of <i>dolce far nientes</i> or
+    tropical languor. This California gang is strictly on the job.
+    The bunch seated under the spreading banana tree aren't waiting
+    for the ripe fruit to drop in their mouths. That's in the First
+    Reader and maybe somewhere down among the Black and
+    Tans&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Black and Tans?" interrupted Bob with a note of query.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yep. Oilers&mdash;greasers&mdash;Mexicans&mdash;hidalgos of
+    all kinds from here to the equator," explained Baker. "No, sir,
+    that gang under the banana tree are either waiting there to
+    sandbag the next tourist and sell him some real estate before
+    he comes to, or else they're figuring on uprooting said
+    piffling shrub and putting up an office building. Which part of
+    the country are you going to?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Near White Oaks," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"No abalone shells for yours, eh?" remarked Baker
+    cryptically. He glanced at Welton. "Where's your timber
+    located?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Near Granite," replied Bob;&mdash;"why, how the devil did
+    you know we were out for timber?"</p>
+
+    <p>"'How did the Master Mind solve that problem?'" asked Baker.
+    "Ah, that's my secret!"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, that doesn't go," said Bob. "I insist on knowing; and
+    what was that abalone shell remark?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Abalone shells&mdash;tourists," capitulated Baker; "also
+    Mexican drawn work, bead belts, burned leather, fake turquoise
+    and ostrich eggs. Sabe?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure. But why not a tourist?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Tourist&mdash;in White Oaks!" cried Baker. "Son, White Oaks
+    raises raisins and peaches and apricots and figs and such
+    things in quantities to stagger you. It is a nice, well-built
+    city, and well conducted, and full of real estate boards and
+    chambers of commerce. But it is not framed up for tourists, and
+    it knows it. Not at 100 degrees Fahrenheit 'most all summer,
+    and a chill and solemn land fog 'most all winter."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, why timber?" demanded Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"My dear Watson," said Baker, indicating Mr. Welton, who
+    grinned. "Does your side partner resemble a raisin raiser? Has
+    he the ear marks of a gentle agriculturist? Would you describe
+    him as a typical sheepman, or as a daring and resolute
+    bee-keeper?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob shook his head, still unconvinced.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, if you will uncover my dark methods," sighed Baker.
+    He leaned over and deftly abstracted from the breast pocket of
+    Bob's coat a long, narrow document. "You see the top of this
+    stuck out in plain sight. To the intelligent eye instructed
+    beyond the second grade of our excellent school system the
+    inscription cannot be mistaken." He held it around for Bob to
+    see. In plain typing the document was endorsed as follows:</p>
+
+    <p>"Granite County Timber Lands."</p>
+
+    <p>"My methods are very subtle," said Baker, laughing. "I find
+    it difficult to explain them. Come around sometime and I'll
+    pick it out for you on the piano."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where are you going?" asked Bob in his turn.</p>
+
+    <p>"Los Angeles, on business."</p>
+
+    <p>"On business?&mdash;or just buying abalone shells?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It takes a millionaire or an Iowa farmer to be a tourist,"
+    replied Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"What are you doing?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Supporting an extravagant wife, I tell Mrs. Baker. You want
+    to get down that way. The town's a marvel. It's grown from
+    thirty thousand to two hundred thousand in twenty years; it has
+    enough real estate subdivisions to accommodate eight million;
+    it has invented the come-on house built by the real estate
+    agents to show how building is looking up at Lonesomehurst; it
+    has two thousand kinds of architecture&mdash;all different; it
+    has more good stuff and more fake stuff than any place on
+    earth&mdash;it's a wonder. Come on down and I'll show you the
+    high buildings."</p>
+
+    <p>He chatted for a few moments, then rose abruptly and
+    disappeared down the aisle toward the sleeping cars without the
+    formality of a farewell.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton had been listening amusedly, and puffing away at his
+    cigar in silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said he when Baker had gone. "How do you like your
+    friend?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He's certainly amusing," laughed Bob, "and mighty good
+    company. That sort of a fellow is lots of fun. I've seen them
+    many times coming back at initiation or Commencement. They are
+    great heroes to the kids."</p>
+
+    <p>"But not to any one else?" inquired Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well&mdash;that's about it," Bob hesitated. "They're
+    awfully good fellows, and see the joke, and jolly things up;
+    but they somehow don't amount to much."</p>
+
+    <p>"Wouldn't think much of the scheme of trying Baker as woods
+    foreman up in our timber, then?" suggested Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Him? Lord, no!" said Bob, surprised.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton threw back his head and laughed heartily, in great
+    salvos.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "Oh, Bobby, I wish any old Native
+    Son could be here to enjoy this joke with me. Ho! ho! ho!
+    ho!"</p>
+
+    <p>The coloured porter stuck his head in to see what this
+    tremendous rolling noise might be, grinned sympathetically, and
+    withdrew.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter with you!" cried Bob, exasperated. "Shut
+    up, and be sensible."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton wiped his eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"That, son, is Carleton P. Baker. Just say Carleton P. Baker
+    to a Californian."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I can't, for four days, anyway. Who is he?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't find out from him, for all his talk, did you?" said
+    Welton shrewdly. "Well, Baker, as he told you, graduated from
+    college in '93. He came to California with about two thousand
+    dollars of capital and no experience. He had the sense to go in
+    for water rights, and here he is!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Marvellous!" cried Bob sarcastically. "But what is he now
+    that he is here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Head of three of the biggest power projects in California,"
+    said Welton impressively, "and controller of more potential
+    water power than any other man or corporation in the
+    state."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton enjoyed his joke hugely. After Bob had turned in, the
+    big man parted the curtains to his berth.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, Bob," he called guardedly.</p>
+
+    <p>"What!" grunted the young man, half-asleep.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who do you think we'd better get for woods foreman just
+    <i>in case</i> Baker shouldn't take the job?"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="II"></a>
+
+    <h2>II</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>All next day the train puffed over the snow-blown plains.
+    There was little in the prospect, save an inspiration to
+    thankfulness that the cars were warm and comfortable. Bob and
+    Welton spent the morning going over their plans for the new
+    country. After lunch, which in the manner of trans-continental
+    travellers they stretched over as long a period as possible,
+    they again repaired to the smoking car. Baker hailed them
+    jovially, waving a stubby forefinger at vacant seats.</p>
+
+    <p>"Say, do Populists grow whiskers, or do whiskers make
+    Populists?" he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>"Give it up," replied Welton promptly. "Why?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Because if whiskers make Populists, I don't blame this
+    state for going Pop. A fellow'd have to grow some kind of
+    natural chest protector in self-defence. Look at that snow! And
+    thirty dollars will take you out where there's none of it, and
+    the soil's better, and you can see something around you besides
+    fresh air. Why, any one of these poor pinhead farmers could
+    come out our way, get twenty acres of irrigated land, and in
+    five years&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Hold on!" cried Bob, "you haven't by any chance some of
+    that real estate for sale&mdash;or a sandbag?"</p>
+
+    <p>Baker laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Everybody gets that way," said he. "I'll bet the first five
+    men you meet will fill you up on statistics."</p>
+
+    <p>He knew the country well, and pointed out in turn the first
+    low rises of the prairie swell, and the distant Rockies like a
+    faint blue and white cloud close down along the horizon. Bob
+    had never seen any real mountains before, and so was much
+    interested. The train laboured up the grades, steep to the
+    engine, but insignificant to the eye; it passed through the
+    ca&ntilde;ons to the broad central plateau. The country was
+    broken and strange, with its wide, free sweeps, its sage brush,
+    its stunted trees, but it was not mountainous as Bob had
+    conceived mountains. Baker grinned at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Snowclad peaks not up to specifications?" he inquired.
+    "Chromos much better? Mountain grandeur somewhat on the blink?
+    Where'd you expect them to put a railroad&mdash;out where the
+    scenery is? Never mind. Wait till you slide off 'Cape Horn'
+    into California."</p>
+
+    <p>The cold weather followed them to the top of the Sierras.
+    Snow, dull clouds, mists and cold enveloped the train. Miles of
+    snowsheds necessitated keeping the artificial light burning
+    even at midday. Winter held them in its grip.</p>
+
+    <p>Then one morning they rounded the bold corner of a high
+    mountain. Far below them dropped away the lesser peaks, down a
+    breathless descent. And from beneath, so distant as to draw
+    over themselves a tender veil of pearl gray, flowed out
+    foothills and green plains. The engine coughed, shut off the
+    roar of her exhaust. The train glided silently forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now come to the rear platform," Baker advised.</p>
+
+    <p>They sat in the open air while the train rushed downward.
+    From the great drifts they ran to the soft, melting snow, then
+    to the mud and freshness of early spring. Small boys crowded
+    early wild-flowers on them whenever they stopped at the small
+    towns built on the red clay. The air became indescribably soft
+    and balmy, full of a gentle caress. At the next station the
+    children brought oranges. A little farther the foothill ranches
+    began to show the brightness of flowers. The most dilapidated
+    hovel was glorified by splendid sprays of red roses big as
+    cabbages. Dooryards of the tiniest shacks blazed with red and
+    yellow. Trees and plants new to Bob's experience and strangely
+    and delightfully exotic in suggestion began to usurp the
+    landscape. To the far Northerner, brought up in only a
+    common-school knowledge of olive trees, palms, eucalyptus,
+    oranges, banana trees, pomegranates and the ordinary
+    semi-tropical fruits, there is something delightful and
+    wonderful in the first sight of them living and flourishing in
+    the open. When closer investigation reveals a whole series of
+    which he probably does not remember ever to have heard, he
+    feels indeed an explorer in a new and wonderful land. After a
+    few months these things become old stories. They take their
+    places in his cosmos as accustomed things. He is then at some
+    pains to understand his visitor's extravagant interest and
+    delight over loquats, chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds,
+    guavas, the blooming of century plants, the fruits of chollas
+    and the like. Baker pointed out some of these things to
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Winter to summer in two jumps and a hop," said he. "The
+    come-on stuff rings the bell in this respect, anyway. Smell the
+    air: it's real air. 'Listen to the mocking bird.'"</p>
+
+    <p>"Seriously or figuratively?" asked Bob. "I mean, is that a
+    real mocking bird?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Surest thing you know," replied Baker as the train moved
+    on, leaving the songster to his ecstasies. "They sing all night
+    out here. Sounds fine when you haven't a grouch. Then you want
+    to collect a brick and drive the darn fowl off the
+    reservation."</p>
+
+    <p>"I never saw one before outside a cage," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's lots of things you haven't seen that you're going
+    to see, now you've got out to the Real Thing," said Baker.
+    "Why, right in your own line: you don't know what big pine is.
+    Wait till you see the woods out here. We've got the biggest
+    trees, and the biggest mountains, and the biggest crops and the
+    biggest&mdash;."</p>
+
+    <p>"Liars," broke in Bob, laughing. "Don't forget them."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, the biggest liars, too," agreed Baker. "A man's got to
+    lie big out here to keep in practice so he can tell the plain
+    truth without straining himself."</p>
+
+    <p>Before they changed cars to the Valley line, Baker had a
+    suggestion to make.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here," said he, "why <i>don't</i> you come and look at
+    the tall buildings? You can't do anything in the mountains yet,
+    and when you get going you'll be too busy to see California.
+    Come, make a pasear. Glad to show you the sights. Get reckless.
+    Take a chance. Peruse carefully your copy of Rules for Rubes
+    and try it on."</p>
+
+    <p>"Go ahead," said Welton, unexpectedly.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="III"></a>
+
+    <h2>III</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob went on to Los Angeles with the sprightly Baker. At
+    first glance the city seemed to him like any other. Then, as he
+    wandered its streets, the marvel and vigour and humour of the
+    place seized on him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't you suppose I see the joke?" complained Baker at the
+    end of one of their long trolley rides. "Just get onto that
+    house; it looks like a mission-style switch engine. And the one
+    next to it, built to shed snow. Funny! sure it's funny. But you
+    ain't talking to me! It's alive! Those fellows wanted something
+    different from anybody else&mdash;so does everybody. After
+    they'd used up the regular styles, they had to make 'em up out
+    of the fresh air. But anyway, they weren't satisfied just to
+    copy Si Golosh's idea of a Noah's Ark chicken coop."</p>
+
+    <p>They stopped opposite very elaborate and impressive iron
+    gates opening across a graded street. These gates were
+    supported by a pair of stone towers crowned with tiles. A
+    smaller pair of towers and gates guarded the concrete sidewalk.
+    As a matter of fact, all these barriers enclosed nothing, for
+    even in the remote possibility that the inquiring visitor
+    should find them shut, an insignificant detour would circumvent
+    their fenceless flanks.</p>
+
+    <p>"Maudsley Court," Bob read sculptured on one of the
+    towers.</p>
+
+    <p>"That makes this particular subdivision mighty exclusive,"
+    grinned Baker. "Now if you were a homeseeker wouldn't you love
+    to bring your dinner pail back to the cawstle every night?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob peered down the single street. It was graded, guttered
+    and sidewalked. A small sentry box labelled "office," and
+    inscribed with glowing eulogiums, occupied a strategic position
+    near the gates. From this house Bob immediately became aware of
+    close scrutiny by a man half concealed by the indoor
+    dimness.</p>
+
+    <p>"The spider," said Baker. "He's onto us big as a house. He
+    can spot a yap at four hundred yards' range, and you bet they
+    don't get much nearer than that alone."</p>
+
+    <p>A huge sign shrieked of Maudsley Court. "Get a grin!" was
+    its first advice.</p>
+
+    <p>"They all try for a catchword&mdash;every one of 'em,"
+    explained Baker. "You'll see all kinds in the ads; some pretty
+    good, most of 'em rotten."</p>
+
+    <p>"They seem to have made a start, anyway," observed Bob,
+    indicating a new cottage half way down the street. It was a
+    super-artistic structure, exhibiting the ends of huge brown
+    beams at all points. Baker laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's what it's intended to seem," said he. "That's the
+    come-on house. It's built by the spider. It's stick-um for the
+    flies. 'This is going to be a high-brow proposition,' says the
+    intending purchaser; 'look at the beautiful house already up. I
+    must join this young and thriving colony.' Hence this settled
+    look."</p>
+
+    <p>He waved his hand abroad. Dotted over the low, rounded hills
+    of the charming landscapes were new and modern bungalows. They
+    were spaced widely, and each was flanked by an advertising
+    board and guarded by a pair of gates shutting their private
+    thoroughfares from the country highways. Between them showed
+    green the new crops.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nine out of ten come-on houses," said Baker, "and all
+    exclusive. If you can't afford iron gates, you can at least put
+    up a pair of shingled pillars. It's the game."</p>
+
+    <p>"Will these lots ever be sold?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Out here, yes," replied Baker. "That's part of the joke.
+    The methods are on the blink, but the goods insist on
+    delivering themselves. Most of these fellows are just bunks or
+    optimists. All hands are surprised when things turn out right.
+    But if <i>all</i> the lots are ever sold, Los Angeles will have
+    a population of five million."</p>
+
+    <p>They boarded an inward-bound trolley. Bob read the devices
+    as they flashed past. "Hill-top Acres," he read near a street
+    plastered against an apparently perpendicular hill. "Buy before
+    the rise!" advised this man's rival at its foot. The true
+    suburbs strung by in a panorama of strange little
+    houses&mdash;imitation Swiss chalets jostling bastard Moorish,
+    cobblestones elbowing plaster&mdash;a bewildering succession of
+    forced effects. Baker caught Bob's expression.</p>
+
+    <p>"These are workingmen's and small clerks' houses," he said
+    quietly. "Pretty bad, eh? But they're trying. Remember what
+    they lived in back East."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob recalled the square, painted, ugly, featureless boxes
+    built all after the same pattern of dreariness. He looked on
+    this gay bewilderment of bad taste with more interest.</p>
+
+    <p>"At least they're taking notice," said Baker, lighting his
+    pipe. "And every fellow raises <i>some</i> kind of posies."</p>
+
+    <p>A few moments later they plunged into the vortex of the city
+    and the smiling country, the far plains toward the sea, and the
+    circle of the mountains were lost. Only remained overhead the
+    blue of the California sky.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker led the way toward a blaring basement restaurant.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm beginning to feel that I'll have to find some
+    monkey-food somewhere, or cash in," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>They found a table and sat down.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is the place to see all the sights," proffered Baker,
+    his broad face radiating satisfaction. "When they strike it
+    rich on the desert, they hike right in here. That fat lady thug
+    yonder is worth between three and four millions. Eight months
+    ago she did washing at two bits a shirt while her husband drove
+    a one-man prospect shaft. The other day she blew into the big
+    jewelry store and wanted a thirty-thousand-dollar diamond
+    necklace. The boss rolled over twice and wagged his tail. 'Yes,
+    madam,' said he; 'what kind?' 'I dunno; just a
+    thirty-thousand-dollar one.' That's all he could get out of
+    her. 'But tell me how you want 'em set,' he begged. She looked
+    bewildered. <i>'Oh, set 'em so they'll jingle,'</i> says
+    she."</p>
+
+    <p>After the meal they walked down the principal streets,
+    watching the crowd. It was a large crowd, as though at busy
+    midday, and variously apparelled, from fur coat to straw hat.
+    Each extreme of costume seemed justified, either by the balmy
+    summer-night effect of the California open air, or by the hint
+    of chill that crept from the distant mountains. Either aspect
+    could be welcomed or ignored by a very slight effort of the
+    will. Electric signs blazed everywhere. Bob was struck by the
+    numbers of clairvoyants, palm readers, Hindu frauds, crazy
+    cults, fake healers, Chinese doctors, and the like thus
+    lavishly advertised. The class that elsewhere is pressed by
+    necessity to the inexpensive dinginess of back streets, here
+    blossomed forth in truly tropical luxuriance. Street vendors
+    with all sorts of things, from mechanical toys to spot
+    eradicators, spread their portable lay-outs at every corner.
+    Vacant lots were crowded with spielers of all
+    sorts&mdash;religious or political fanatics, vendors of
+    cure-alls, of universal tools, of marvelous axle grease, of
+    anything and everything to catch the idle dollar. Brilliantly
+    lighted shops called the passer-by to contemplate the latest
+    wavemotor, flying machine, door check, or what-not. Stock in
+    these enterprises was for sale&mdash;and was being sold! Other
+    sidewalk booths, like those ordinarily used as dispensaries of
+    hot doughnuts and coffee, offered wild-cat mining shares, oil
+    stock and real estate in some highly speculative suburb. Great
+    stores of curios lay open to the tourist trade. Here one could
+    buy sheepskin Indian moccasins made in Massachusetts, or
+    abalone shells, or burnt-leather pillows, or a whole collection
+    of photographic views so minute that they could all be packed
+    in a single walnut shell. Next door were shops of Japanese and
+    Chinese goods presided over by suave, sleepy-eyed Orientals, in
+    wonderful brocade, wearing the close cap with the red coral
+    button atop. Shooting galleries spit spitefully. Gasolene
+    torches flared.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his hat on
+    the back of his head. From time to time he cast an amused
+    glance at his companion.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come in here," he said abruptly.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found himself comfortably seated in a commodious
+    open-air theatre, watching an excellent vaudeville performance.
+    He enjoyed it thoroughly, for it was above the average. In
+    fifteen minutes, however, the last soubrette disappeared in the
+    wings to the accompaniment of a swirl of music. Her place was
+    taken by a tall, facetious-looking, bald individual, clad in a
+    loose frock coat. He held up his hand for silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ladies 'n' gentlemen," he drawled, "we hope you have
+    enjoyed yourselves. If you find a better show than this in any
+    theatre in town, barring the Orpheum, come and tell us about it
+    and we will see what we can do to brace ours up. I don't
+    believe you can. This show will be repeated every afternoon and
+    evening, with complete change of programme twice a week. Go
+    away and tell your friends about the great free show down on
+    Spring Street. Just tell them about it."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob glanced startled at his companion. Baker was
+    grinning.</p>
+
+    <p>"This show has cost us up to date," went on the leisurely
+    drawl, "just twenty-eight hundred dollars. Go and tell your
+    friends that. <i>But</i>"&mdash;he suddenly straightened his
+    figure and his voice became more incisive&mdash;"that is not
+    enough. We have decided to give you something <i>real</i> to
+    talk about. We have decided to give every man, woman and child
+    in this vast audience a first-night present of Two Silver
+    Dollars!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob could feel an electric thrill run through the crowd, and
+    every one sat up a little straighter in his chair.</p>
+
+    <p>"Let me see," the orator went on, running his eye over the
+    audience. He had resumed his quieter manner. "There are perhaps
+    seven hundred people present. That would make fourteen hundred
+    dollars. By the way, John, "he addressed some one briskly.
+    "Close the gates and lock them. We don't want anybody in on
+    this who didn't have interest enough in our show to come in the
+    first place." He winked humorously at the crowd, and several
+    laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty rotten, eh?" whispered Baker admiringly. "Fixed 'em
+    so they won't bolt when the show's over and before he works off
+    his dope."</p>
+
+    <p>"These Two Silver Dollars, which I want you all to get, are
+    in these hampers. Six little boys will distribute them. Come
+    up, boys, and get each a hatful of dollars." The six solemnly
+    marched up on the stage and busied themselves with the hampers.
+    "While we are waiting," went on the orator, "I will seize the
+    opportunity to present to you the world-famed discoverer of
+    that wonderful anaesthetic, Oxodyne, Painless Porter."</p>
+
+    <p>At the words a dapper little man in immaculately correct
+    evening dress, and carrying a crush hat under his arm, stepped
+    briskly from the wings. He was greeted by wild but presumably
+    manufactured applause. He bowed rigidly from the hips, and at
+    once began to speak in a high and nasal but extremely
+    penetrating voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"As far as advertising is concerned," he began without
+    preamble, "it is entirely unnecessary that I give this show.
+    There is no man, woman or child in this marvellous commonwealth
+    of ours who is not familiar with the name of Painless Porter,
+    whether from the daily papers, the advertising boards, the
+    street cars, or the elegant red brougham in which I traverse
+    your streets. My work for you is my best advertisement. It is
+    unnecessary from that point of view that I spend this money for
+    this show, or that this extra money should be distributed among
+    you by my colleague, Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of
+    Modern Times."</p>
+
+    <p>The tall man paused from his business with the hampers and
+    the six boys to bow in acknowledgment.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, ladies 'n' gentlemen, my purpose is higher. In the
+    breast of each human being is implanted an instinctive fear of
+    Pain. It sits on us like a nightmare, from the time we first
+    come to consciousness of our surroundings. It is a curse of
+    humanity, like drink, and he who can lighten that curse is as
+    much of a philanthropist as George W. Childs or Andrew
+    Carnegie. I want you to go away and talk about me. It don't
+    matter what you say, just so you say something. You can call me
+    quack, you may call me fakir, you may call me
+    charlatan&mdash;but be sure to call me SOMETHING! Then slowly
+    the news will spread abroad that Pain is banished, and I can
+    smile in peace, knowing that my vast expenditures of time and
+    money have not been in vain, and that I have been a benefit to
+    humanity. Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times,
+    will now attend to the distribution, after which I will pull a
+    few teeth gratis in order to demonstrate to you the wonderful
+    merits of Oxodyne."</p>
+
+    <p>"A dentist!" gasped Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yup," said Baker. "Not much gasoline-torch-on-the-back-lot
+    in his, is there?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob was hardly surprised, after much preamble and
+    heightening of suspense, to find that the Two Silver Dollars
+    turned out finally to be a pink ticket and a blue ticket, "good
+    respectively at the luxurious offices for one dollar's worth of
+    dental and medical attention FREE."</p>
+
+    <p>Nor was he more than slightly astounded when the back drop
+    rose to show the stage set glitteringly with nickel-mounted
+    dentist chairs and their appurtenances, with shining glass,
+    white linen, and with a chorus of fascinating damsels dressed
+    as trained nurses and standing rigidly at attention. Then
+    entered Painless himself, in snowy shirt-sleeves and serious
+    professional preoccupation. Volunteers came up two by two.
+    Painless explained obscurely the scientific principles on which
+    the marvelous Oxodyne worked&mdash;by severing temporarily but
+    entirely all communication between the nerves and the brain.
+    Then much business with a very glittering syringe.</p>
+
+    <p>"My lord," chuckled Baker, "if he fills that thing up, it'll
+    drown her!"</p>
+
+    <p>In an impressive silence Painless flourished the forceps,
+    planted himself square in front of his patient, heaved a
+    moment, and triumphantly held up in full view an undoubted
+    tooth. The trained nurses offered rinses. After a moment the
+    patient, a roughly dressed country woman, arose to her feet.
+    She was smiling broadly, and said something, which the audience
+    could not hear. Painless smiled indulgently.</p>
+
+    <p>"Speak up so they can all hear you," he encouraged her.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never hurt a bit," the woman stammered.</p>
+
+    <p>Three more operations were conducted as expeditiously and as
+    successfully. The audience was evidently impressed.</p>
+
+    <p>"How does he do it?" whispered Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Cappers," explained Baker briefly. "He only fakes pulling a
+    tooth. Watch him next time and you'll see that he doesn't
+    actually pull an ounce."</p>
+
+    <p>"Suppose a real toothache comes up?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I think that is one now. Watch him."</p>
+
+    <p>A young ranchman was making his way up the steps that led to
+    the stage. His skin was tanned by long exposure to the
+    California sun, and his cheek rounded into an unmistakable
+    swelling.</p>
+
+    <p>"No fake about him," commented Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>He seated himself in the chair. Painless examined his jaw
+    carefully. He started back, both hands spread in
+    expostulation.</p>
+
+    <p>"My <i>dear</i> friend!" he cried, "you can save that tooth!
+    It would be a crime to pull that tooth! Come to my office at
+    ten to-morrow morning and I will see what can be done." He
+    turned to the audience and for ten minutes expounded the
+    doctrine of modern dentistry as it stands for saving a tooth
+    whenever possible. Incidentally he had much to say as to his
+    skill in filling and bridge work and the marvellous
+    painlessness thereof. The meeting broke up finally to the
+    inspiring strains of a really good band. Bob and his friend,
+    standing near the door, watched the audience file out. Some
+    threw away their pink and blue tickets, but most stowed them
+    carefully away.</p>
+
+    <p>"And every one that goes to the 'luxurious offices' for the
+    free dollar's worth will leave ten round iron ones," said
+    Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>After a moment the Painless One and the Wizard marched
+    smartly out, serenely oblivious of the crowd. They stepped into
+    a resplendent red brougham and were whisked rapidly away.</p>
+
+    <p>"It pays to advertise," quoted Baker philosophically.</p>
+
+    <p>They moved on up the street.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's the inventor of the Unlimited Life," said Baker
+    suddenly, indicating a slender figure approaching. "I haven't
+    seen him in three years&mdash;not since he got into this graft,
+    anyway."</p>
+
+    <p>"Unlimited Life," echoed Bob, "what's that? A medicine?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No. A cult. Hullo, Sunny!"</p>
+
+    <p>The approaching figure swerved and stopped. Bob saw a very
+    slender figure clad in a close-fitting, gray frock suit. To his
+    surprise, from beneath the wide, black felt hat there peered at
+    him the keenly nervous face of the more intelligent mulatto.
+    The man's eyes were very bright and shrewd. His hair surrounded
+    his face as an aureole of darkness, and swept low to his coat
+    collar.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. Baker," he said, simply, his eyes inscrutable.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Sunny, this is my old friend Bob Orde. Bob, this is
+    the world-famous Sunny Larue, apostle of the Unlimited Life of
+    whom you've heard so much." He winked at Bob. "How's the Colony
+    flourishing, Sunny?"</p>
+
+    <p>"More and more our people are growing to see the light,"
+    said the mulatto in low, musical tones. "The mighty but simple
+    principles of Azamud are coming into their own. The poor and
+    lowly, the humble and oppressed are learning that in me is
+    their salvation&mdash;." He went on in his beautiful voice
+    explaining the Colony of the Unlimited Life, addressing always
+    Bob directly and paying little attention to Baker, who stood
+    aside, his hands in his pockets, a smile on his fat,
+    good-natured face. It seemed that the Colony lived in tents in
+    a ca&ntilde;on of the foothills. It paid Larue fifty dollars a
+    head, and in return was supported for six months and instructed
+    in the mysteries of the cult. It had its regimen. "At three we
+    arise and break our fast, quite simply, with three or four dry
+    prunes," breathed Larue, "and then, going forth to the high
+    places for one hour, we hold steadfast the thought of
+    Love."</p>
+
+    <p>"Say, Sunny," broke in Baker, "how many you got rounded up
+    now?"</p>
+
+    <p>"There are at present twenty-one earnest proselytes."</p>
+
+    <p>"At fifty a head&mdash;and you've got to feed and keep 'em
+    somehow&mdash;even three dried prunes cost you something in the
+    long run"&mdash;ruminated Baker. He turned briskly to the
+    mulatto: "Sunny, on the dead, where does the graft come
+    in?"</p>
+
+    <p>The mulatto drew himself up in swift offence, scrutinized
+    Bob closely for a moment, met Baker's grin. Abruptly his
+    impressive manner dropped from him. He leaned toward them with
+    a captivating flash of white teeth.</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>You just leave that to me</i>," he murmured, and glided
+    away into the crowd.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker laughed and drew Bob's arm within his own.</p>
+
+    <p>"Out of twenty of the faithful there's sure to be one or two
+    with life savings stowed away in a sock, and Sunny's the boy to
+    make them produce the sock."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's his cult, anyway?" asked Bob. "I mean, what do they
+    pretend to believe? I couldn't make out."</p>
+
+    <p>"A nigger's idea of Buddhism," replied Baker briefly. "But
+    you can get any brand of psychic damfoolishness you think you
+    need in your business. They do it all, here, from going
+    barefoot, eating nuts, swilling olive oil, rolling down hill,
+    adoring the Limitless Whichness, and all the works. It is now,"
+    he concluded, looking at his watch, "about ten o'clock. We will
+    finish the evening by dropping in on the Fuzzies."</p>
+
+    <p>Together they boarded a street car, which shortly deposited
+    them at an uptown corner. Large houses and spacious grounds
+    indicated a district of some wealth. To one of these houses,
+    brilliantly lighted, Baker directed his steps.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I don't know these people, and I'm not properly
+    dressed," objected Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"They know me. And as for dress, if you'd arrange to wear a
+    chaste feather duster only, you'd make a hit."</p>
+
+    <p>A roomful of people were buzzing like a hive. Most were in
+    conventional evening dress. Here and there, however, Bob caught
+    hints of masculine long hair, of feminine psyche knots,
+    bandeaux and other extremely artistic but unusual departures.
+    One man with his dinner jacket wore a soft linen shirt
+    perforated by a Mexican drawn-work pattern beneath which glowed
+    a bright red silk undergarment. Women's gowns on the flowing
+    and Grecian order were not uncommon. These were usually coupled
+    with the incongruity of parted hair brought low and
+    madonna-wise over the ears. As the two entered, a very powerful
+    blond man was just finishing the declamation of a French poem.
+    He was addressing it directly at two women seated on a
+    sofa.</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>Un r-r-reve d'amour!</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>He concluded with much passion and clasped hands.</p>
+
+    <p>In the rustle ensuing after this effort, Baker led his
+    friend down the room to a very fat woman upholstered in pink
+    satin, to whom he introduced Bob. Mrs. Annis, for such proved
+    to be her name, welcomed him effusively.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've heard so much about you!" she cried vivaciously, to
+    Bob's vast astonishment. She tapped him on the arm with her
+    fan. "I'm going to make a confession to you; I know it may be
+    foolish, but I do like music so much better than I do
+    pictures."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob, his brain whirling, muttered something.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I'm going to confess to you again, I like artists so
+    much better than I do musicians."</p>
+
+    <p>A light dawned on Bob. "But I'm not an artist nor a
+    musician," he blurted out.</p>
+
+    <p>The pink-upholstered lady, starting back with an agility
+    remarkable in one of her size, clasped her hands.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't <i>tell</i> me you write!" she cried
+    dramatically.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right, I won't," protested poor Bob, "for I don't."</p>
+
+    <p>A slow expression of bewilderment overspread Mrs. Annis's
+    face, and she glanced toward Baker with an arched brow of
+    interrogation.</p>
+
+    <p>"I merely wanted Mr. Orde to meet you, Mrs. Annis," he said
+    impressively, "and to feel that another time, when he is less
+    exhausted by the strain of a long day, he may have the
+    privilege of explaining to you the details of the great Psychic
+    Movement he is inaugurating."</p>
+
+    <p>Mrs. Annis smiled on him graciously. "I am home every Sunday
+    to my <i>intimes</i>," she murmured. "I should be so
+    pleased."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob bowed mechanically.</p>
+
+    <p>"You infernal idiot!" he ground out savagely to Baker, as
+    they moved away. "What do you mean? I'll punch your fool head
+    when I get you out of here!"</p>
+
+    <p>But the plump young man merely smiled.</p>
+
+    <p>Halfway down the room a group of attractive-looking young
+    men hailed them.</p>
+
+    <p>"Join in, Baker," said they. "Bring your friend along. We're
+    just going to raid the commissary."</p>
+
+    <p>But Baker shook his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm showing him life," he replied. "None but Fuzzies in his
+    to-night!"</p>
+
+    <p>He grasped Bob firmly by the arm and led him away.</p>
+
+    <p>"That," he said, indicating a very pale young man,
+    surrounded by women, "is Pickering, the celebrated submarine
+    painter."</p>
+
+    <p>"The what?" demanded Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Submarine painter. He paints fish and green water and
+    lobsters, and the bottom of the sea generally. He paints them
+    on the skins of kind-faced little calves."</p>
+
+    <p>"What does he do that for?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He says it's the only surface that will express what he
+    wants to. He has also invented a waterproof paint that he can
+    use under water. He has a coral throne down on the bottom which
+    he sits in, and paints as long as he can hold his breath."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, he does!" said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"But a man can't see three feet in front of his face under
+    water!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pickering says he can. He paints submarinescapes, and knows
+    all the fishes. He says fishes have individual expressions. He
+    claims he can tell by a fish's expression whether he is
+    polygamous or monogamous."</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you mean to tell me anybody swallows that rot!" demanded
+    Bob indignantly.</p>
+
+    <p>"The women do&mdash;and a lot more I can't remember. The
+    market for calf-skins with green swirls on them is booming.
+    Also the women clubbed together and gave him money enough to
+    build a house."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob surveyed the little white-faced man with a strong
+    expression of disgust.</p>
+
+    <p>"The natural man never sits in chairs," the artist was
+    expounding. "When humanity shall have come into its own we
+    shall assume the graceful and hygienic postures of the oriental
+    peoples. In society one must, to a certain extent, follow
+    convention, but in my own house, the House Beautiful of my
+    dreams, are no chairs. And even now a small group of the freer
+    spirits are following my example. In time----"</p>
+
+    <p>"If you don't take me away, I'll run in circles!" whispered
+    Bob fiercely to his friend.</p>
+
+    <p>They escaped into the open air.</p>
+
+    <p>"Phew!" said Bob, straightening his long form. "Is that what
+    you call the good society here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Good society is there," amended Baker. "That's the joke.
+    There are lots of nice people in this little old town, people
+    who lisp our language fluently. They are all mixed in with the
+    Fuzzies."</p>
+
+    <p>They decided to walk home. Bob marvelled at the impressive
+    and substantial buildings, at the atrocious streets. He spoke
+    of the beautiful method of illuminating one of the
+    thoroughfares&mdash;by globes of light gracefully supported in
+    clusters on branched arms either side the roadway.</p>
+
+    <p>"They were originally bronze&mdash;and they went and painted
+    them a mail-box green," commented Baker drily.</p>
+
+    <p>At the hotel the night clerk, a young man, quietly dressed
+    and with an engaging air, greeted them with just the right
+    amount of cordiality as he handed them their keys. Bob paused
+    to look about him.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is a good hotel," he remarked.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's one of the best-managed, the best-conducted, and the
+    best-appointed hotels in the United States," said Baker with
+    conviction.</p>
+
+    <p>The next morning Bob bought all the papers and glanced
+    through them with considerable wonder and amusement. They were
+    decidedly metropolitan in size, and carried a tremendous amount
+    of advertising. Early in his perusal he caught the personal
+    bias of the news. Without distortion to the point of literal
+    inaccuracy, nevertheless by skilful use of headlines and by
+    manipulation of the point of view, all items were made to
+    subserve a purpose. In local affairs the most vulgar
+    nicknaming, the most savage irony, vituperation, scorn and
+    contempt were poured out full measure on certain individuals
+    unpopular with the papers. Such epithets as "lickspittle,"
+    "toad," "carcass blown with the putrefying gas of its own
+    importance," were read in the body of narration.</p>
+
+    <p>"These are the best-edited, most influential and powerful
+    journals in the West," commented Baker. "They possess an
+    influence inconceivable to an Easterner."</p>
+
+    <p>The advertising columns were filled to bursting with
+    advertisements of patent medicines, sex remedies, quack
+    doctors, miraculous healers, clairvoyants, palm readers,
+    "philanthropists" with something "free" to bestow, cleverly
+    worded offers of abortion; with full-page prospectuses of
+    mines; of mushroom industrial concerns having to do with wave
+    motors, water motors, solar motors, patent couplers, improved
+    telephones and the like, all of whose stock now stood at $1.10,
+    but which on April 10th, at 8.02 P.M., would go up to $1.15;
+    with blaring, shrieking offers of real estate in this, that or
+    the other addition, consisting, as Bob knew from yesterday, of
+    farm acreage at front-foot figures. The proportion of this fake
+    advertising was astounding. One in particular seemed
+    incredible&mdash;a full page of the exponent of some Oriental
+    method of healing and prophecy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course, a full-page costs money," replied Baker. "But
+    this is the place to get it." He pushed back his chair. "Well,
+    what do you think of our fair young city?" he grinned.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's got me going," admitted Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Took me some time to find out where to get off at," said
+    Baker. "When I found it out, I didn't dare tell anybody. They
+    mob you here and string you up by your pigtail, if you try to
+    hint that this isn't the one best bet on terrestrial
+    habitations. They like their little place, and they believe in
+    it a whole lot, and they're dead right about it! They'd stand
+    right up on their hind legs and paw the atmosphere if anybody
+    were to tell them what they really are, but it's a fact. Same
+    joyous slambang, same line of sharps hanging on the outskirts,
+    same row, racket, and joy in life, same struggle; yes, and by
+    golly! the same big hopes and big enterprises and big optimism
+    and big energies! Wouldn't you like to be helping them do
+    it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the answer?" asked Bob, amused.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, for all its big buildings and its electric lights,
+    and trolleys, and police and size, it's nothing more nor less
+    than a frontier town."</p>
+
+    <p>"A frontier town!" echoed Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"You think it over," said Baker.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IV"></a>
+
+    <h2>IV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>But if Bob imagined for one moment that he had acquired even
+    a notion of California in his experiences and observations down
+    the San Joaquin and in Los Angeles, the next few stages of his
+    Sentimental Journey very soon undeceived him. Baker's business
+    interests soon took him away. Bob, armed with letters of
+    introduction from his friend, visited in turn such places as
+    Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, Redlands and Pasadena. He
+    could not but be struck by the absolute differences that
+    existed, not only in the physical aspects but in the spirit and
+    aims of the peoples. If these communities had been separated by
+    thousands of miles of distance they could not have been more
+    unlike.</p>
+
+    <p>At one place he found the semi-tropical luxuriance of
+    flowers and trees and fruits, the soft, warm sunshine, the
+    tepid, langourous, musical nights, the mellow haze of romance
+    over mountain and velvet hill and soft sea, the low-shaded
+    cottages, the leisurely attractive people one associates with
+    the story-book conception of California. The place was charming
+    in its surroundings and in its graces of life, but it was a
+    cheerful, happy, out-at-the-heels, raggedy little town, whose
+    bright gardens adorned its abyssmal streets, whose beautiful
+    mountains palliated the naivet&eacute; of its natural and
+    atrocious roads. Bob mingled with its people with the
+    pardonable amusement of a man fresh from the doing of big
+    things. There seemed to be such long, grave and futile
+    discussions over the undertaking of that which a more energetic
+    community would do as a matter of course in the day's work. The
+    liveryman from whom Bob hired his saddle horse proved to be a
+    person of a leisurely and sardonic humour.</p>
+
+    <p>"Their chief asset here is tourists," said he. "That's the
+    leading industry. They can't see it, and they don't want to.
+    They have just one road through the county. It's a bum one.
+    You'd think it was a dozen, to hear them talk about the immense
+    undertaking of making it halfway decent. Any other place would
+    do these things they've been talking about for ten years just
+    on the side, as part of the get-ready. Lucky they didn't have
+    to do anything in the way of getting those mountains set
+    proper, or there'd be a hole there yet."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you go East?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I did once. Didn't like it."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'll tell you. Back East when you don't do nothing,
+    you feel kind of guilty. Out here when you don't do nothing,
+    <i>you don't give a damn!</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>Nevertheless, Bob was very sorry when he had to leave this
+    quiet and beautiful little town, with its happy, careless,
+    charming people.</p>
+
+    <p>Thence he went directly to a town built in a half-circle of
+    the mountains. The sunshine here was warm and grateful, but
+    when its rays were withdrawn a stinging chill crept down from
+    the snow. No sitting out on the verandah after dinner, but
+    often a most grateful fire in the Club's fireplace. The
+    mornings were crisp and enlivening. And again by the middle of
+    the day the soft California warmth laid the land under its
+    spell.</p>
+
+    <p>This was a place of orange-growers, young fellows from the
+    East. Its University Club was large and prosperous. Its streets
+    were wide. Flowers lined the curbs. There were few fences. The
+    houses were in good taste. Even the telephone poles were
+    painted green so as to be unobtrusive. Bob thought it one of
+    the most attractive places he had ever seen, as indeed it
+    should be, for it was built practically to order by people of
+    intelligence.</p>
+
+    <p>Thence he drove through miles and miles of orange groves, so
+    large that the numerous workmen go about their work on
+    bicycles. Even here in the country, the roadsides were planted
+    with palms and other ornamental trees, and gay with flowers.
+    Abruptly he came upon a squalid village of the old regime, with
+    ugly frame houses, littered streets, sagging sidewalks foul
+    with puddles, old tin cans, rubbish; populous with children and
+    women in back-yard dressing sacks&mdash;a distressing reminder
+    of the worst from the older-established countries. And again,
+    at the end of the week, he most unexpectedly found himself
+    seated on a country-club verandah, having a very good time,
+    indeed, with some charming specimens of the idle rich. He
+    talked polo, golf, tennis and horses; he dined at several most
+    elaborate "cottages"; he rode forth on glossy, bang-tailed
+    horses, perfectly appointed; he drove in marvellously conceived
+    traps in company with most engaging damsels. When, finally, he
+    reached Los Angeles again he carried with him, as standing for
+    California, not even the heterogeneous but fairly coherent idea
+    one usually gains of a single commonwealth, but an impression
+    of many climes and many peoples.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Baker, "and if you'd gone North to where I live,
+    you'd have struck a different layout entirely."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="V"></a>
+
+    <h2>V</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>There remained in Bob's initial Southern California
+    experience one more episode that brought him an acquaintance,
+    apparently casual, but which later was to influence him.</p>
+
+    <p>Of an afternoon he walked up Main Street idly and alone. The
+    exhibit of a real estate office attracted him. Over the door,
+    in place of a sign, hung a huge stretched canvas depicting not
+    too rudely a wide country-side dotted with model farms of
+    astounding prosperity. The window was filled with pumpkins,
+    apples, oranges, sheaves of wheat, bottles full of soft fruits
+    preserved in alcohol, and the like. As background was an oil
+    painting in which the Lucky Lands occupied a spacious pervading
+    foreground, while in clever perspectives the Coast Range, the
+    foothills, and the other cities of the San Fernando Valley
+    supplied a modest setting. This was usual enough.</p>
+
+    <p>At the door stood a very alert man with glasses. He
+    scrutinized closely every passerby. Occasionally he hailed one
+    or the other, conversed earnestly a brief instant, and passed
+    them inside. Gradually it dawned on Bob that this man was
+    acting in the capacity of "barker"&mdash;that with quite
+    admirable perspicacity and accuracy, he was engaged in
+    selecting from the countless throngs the few possible
+    purchasers for Lucky Lands. Curious to see what attraction was
+    offered to induce this unanimity of acquiescence to the
+    barker's invitation, the young man approached.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's going on?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>The barker appraised him with one sweeping glance.</p>
+
+    <p>"Stereopticon lecture inside," he snapped, and turned his
+    back.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob made his way into a dimly lighted hall. At one end was a
+    slightly elevated platform above which the white screen was
+    suspended. More agricultural products supplied the decorations.
+    The body of the hall was filled with folding chairs, about half
+    of which were occupied. Perhaps a dozen attendants tiptoed here
+    and there. A successful attempt was everywhere made to endow
+    with high importance all the proceedings and appurtenances of
+    the Lucky Land Co.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob slipped into a chair. Immediately a small pasteboard
+    ticket and a fountain pen were thrust into his hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sign your name and address on this," the man whispered.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob held it up, the better to see what it was.</p>
+
+    <p>"All these tickets are placed in a hat," explained the man,
+    "and one is drawn. The lucky ticket gets a free ride to Lucky
+    on one of our weekly homeseekers' excursions. Others pay one
+    fare for round trip."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," said Bob, signing, "and in return you get the names
+    and addresses af every one here."</p>
+
+    <p>He glanced up at his interlocutor with a quizzical
+    expression that changed at once to one of puzzlement. Where had
+    he seen the man before? He was, perhaps, fifty-five years old,
+    tall and slender, slightly stooped, slightly awry. His lean
+    gray face was deeply lined, his close-clipped moustache and
+    hair were gray, and his eyes twinkled behind his glasses with a
+    cold gray light. Something about these glasses struck faintly a
+    chord of memory in Bob's experience, but he could not catch its
+    modulations. The man, on his side, stared at Bob a trifle
+    uncertainly. Then he held the card up to the dim light.</p>
+
+    <p>"You are interested in Lucky Lands&mdash;Mr. John Smith, of
+    Reno?" he asked, stooping low to be heard.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure!" grinned Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The man said nothing more, but glided away, and in a moment
+    the flare of light on the screen announced that the lecture was
+    to begin.</p>
+
+    <p>The lecturer, was a glib, self-possessed youth, filled to
+    the brim with statistics, with which he literally overwhelmed
+    his auditors. His remarks were accompanied by a rapid-fire
+    snapping of fingers to the time of which the operator changed
+    his slides. A bewildering succession of coloured views flashed
+    on the screen. They showed Lucky in all its glories&mdash;the
+    blacksmith shop, the main street, the new hotel, the grocery,
+    Brown's walnut ranch, the ditch, the Southern Pacific Depot,
+    the Methodist Church and a hundred others. So quickly did they
+    succeed each other that no one had time to reduce to the terms
+    of experience the scenes depicted on these slides&mdash;for
+    with the glamour of exaggerated colour, of unaccustomed
+    presentation, and of skillful posing the most commonplace
+    village street seems wonderful and attractive for the moment.
+    The lecturer concluded by an alarming statement as to the
+    rapidity with which this desirable ranching property was being
+    snapped up. He urged early decisions as the only safe course;
+    and, as usual with all real estate men, called attention to the
+    contrast between the Riverside of twenty years ago and the
+    Riverside of to-day.</p>
+
+    <p>The daylight was then admitted.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, gentlemen," concluded the lecturer, still in his
+    brisk, time-saving style, "the weekly excursion to Lucky will
+    take place to-morrow. One fare both ways to homeseekers. Free
+    carriages to the Lands. Grand free open-air lunch under the
+    spreading sycamores and by the babbling brook. Train leaves at
+    seven-thirty."</p>
+
+    <p>In full sight of all he threw the packet of tickets into a
+    hat and drew one.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. John Smith, of Reno," he read. "Who is Mr. Smith?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Here," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Would you like to go to Lucky to-morrow?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>One of the attendants immediately handed Bob a railroad
+    ticket. The lecturer had already disappeared.</p>
+
+    <p>To his surprise Bob found the street door locked.</p>
+
+    <p>"This way," urged one of the salesmen. "You go out this
+    way."</p>
+
+    <p>He and the rest of the audience were passed out another door
+    in the rear, where they were forced to go through the main
+    offices of the Company. Here were stationed the gray man and
+    all his younger assistants. Bob paused by the door. He could
+    not but admire the acumen of the barker in selecting his men.
+    The audience was made up of just the type of those who come to
+    California with agricultural desires and a few hundred
+    dollars&mdash;slow plodders from Eastern farms, Italians with
+    savings and ambitions, half invalids&mdash;all the element that
+    crowds the tourist sleepers day in and day out, the people who
+    are filling the odd corners of the greater valleys. As these
+    debouched into the glare of the outer offices, they hesitated,
+    making up their slow minds which way to turn. In that instant
+    or so the gray man, like a captain, assigned his salesmen. The
+    latter were of all sorts&mdash;fat and joking, thin and very
+    serious-minded, intense, enthusiastic, cold and haughty. The
+    gray man sized up his prospective customers and to each
+    assigned a salesman to suit. Bob had no means of guessing how
+    accurate these estimates might be, but they were evidently made
+    intelligently, with some system compounded of theory or
+    experience. After a moment Bob became conscious that he himself
+    was being sharply scrutinized by the gray man, and in return
+    watched covertly. He saw the gray man shake his head slightly.
+    Bob passed out the door unaccosted by any of the salesmen.</p>
+
+    <p>At half-past seven the following morning he boarded the
+    local train. In one car he found a score of "prospects" already
+    seated, accompanied by half their number of the young men of
+    the real estate office. The utmost jocularity and humour
+    prevailed, except in one corner where a very earnest young man
+    drove home the points of his argument with an impressive
+    forefinger. Bob dropped unobtrusively into a seat, and prepared
+    to enjoy his never-failing interest in the California landscape
+    with its changing wonderful mountains; its alternations of sage
+    brush and wide cultivation; its vineyards as far as the eye
+    could distinguish the vines; its grainfields seeming to fill
+    the whole cup of the valleys; its orchards wide as forests; and
+    its desert stretches, bigger than them all, awaiting but the
+    vivifying touch of water to burst into productiveness. He heard
+    one of the salesmen expressing this.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Water is King,'" he was saying, quoting thus the catchword
+    of this particular concern. He was talking in a half-joking
+    way, asking one or the other how many inches of rainfall could
+    be expected per annum back where they came from.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't know, do you?" he answered himself. "Nobody pays any
+    great and particular amount of attention to that&mdash;you get
+    water enough, except in exceptional years. Out here it's
+    different. Every one knows to the hundredth of an inch just how
+    much rain has fallen, and how much ought to have fallen. It's
+    vital. Water is King."</p>
+
+    <p>He gathered close the attention of his auditors.</p>
+
+    <p>"We have the water in California," he went on; "but it isn't
+    always in the right place nor does it come at the right time.
+    You can't grow crops in the high mountains where most of the
+    precipitation occurs. But you can bring that water down to the
+    plains. That's your answer: irrigation."</p>
+
+    <p>He looked from one to the other. Several nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>"But a man can't irrigate by himself. He can't build
+    reservoirs, ditches all alone. That's where a concern like the
+    Lucky Company makes good. We've brought the water to where you
+    can use it. Under the influence of cultivation that apparently
+    worthless land can produce&mdash;" he went on at great length
+    detailing statistics of production. Even to Bob, who had no
+    vital nor practical interest, it was all most novel and
+    convincing.</p>
+
+    <p>So absorbed did he become that he was somewhat startled when
+    a man sat down beside him. He looked, up to meet the steel gray
+    eyes and glittering glasses of the chief. Again there swept
+    over him a sense of familiarity, the feeling that somewhere, at
+    some time, he had met this man before. It passed almost as
+    quickly as it came, but left him puzzled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course your name is not Smith, nor do you come from
+    Reno," said the man in gray abruptly. "I've seen you somewhere
+    before, but I can't place you. Are you a newspaperman?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've been thinking the same of you," returned Bob. "No, I'm
+    just plain tourist."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't imagine you're particularly interested in Lucky,"
+    said the gray man. "Why did you come?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Just idleness and curiosity," replied Bob frankly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course we try to get the most value in return for our
+    expenditures on these excursions by taking men who are at least
+    interested in the country," suggested the gray man.</p>
+
+    <p>"By Jove, I never thought of that!" cried Bob. "Of course,
+    I'd no business to take that free ticket. I'll pay you my
+    fare."</p>
+
+    <p>The gray man had been scrutinizing him intensely and keenly.
+    At Bob's comically contrite expression, his own face
+    cleared.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, you misunderstand me," he replied in his crisp fashion.
+    "We give these excursions as an advertisement of what we have.
+    The more people to know about Lucky, the better our chances. We
+    made an offer of which you have taken advantage. You're
+    perfectly welcome, and I hope you'll enjoy yourself. Here,
+    Selwyn," he called to one of the salesman, "this is
+    Mr.&mdash;what did you say your name is?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Orde," replied Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The gray man seemed for an almost imperceptible instant to
+    stiffen in his seat. The gray eyes glazed over; the gray lined
+    face froze.</p>
+
+    <p>"Orde," he repeated harshly; "where from?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Michigan," Bob replied.</p>
+
+    <p>The gray man rose stiffly. "Well, Selwyn," said he, "this is
+    Mr. Orde&mdash;of Michigan&mdash;and I want you to show him
+    around."</p>
+
+    <p>He moved down the aisle to take a seat, distant, but facing
+    the two young men. Bob felt himself the object of a furtive but
+    minute scrutiny which lasted until the train slowed down at the
+    outskirts of Lucky.</p>
+
+    <p>Selwyn proved to be an agreeable young man, keen-faced,
+    clean-cut, full of energy and enthusiasm. He soon discovered
+    that Bob did not contemplate going into ranching, and at once
+    admitted that young man to his confidence.</p>
+
+    <p>"You just nail a seat in that surrey over there, while I
+    chase out my two 'prospects.' We sell on commission and I've
+    got to rustle."</p>
+
+    <p>They drove out of the sleepy little village on which had
+    been grafted showy samples of the Company's progress. The day
+    was beautiful with sunshine, with the mellow calls of meadow
+    larks, with warmth and sweet odours. As the surrey took its
+    zigzag way through the brush, as the quail paced away to right
+    and left, as the delicate aroma of the sage rose to his
+    nostrils, Bob began to be very glad he had come. Here and there
+    the brush had been cleared, small shacks built, fences of wire
+    strung, and the land ploughed over. At such places the surrey
+    paused while Selwyn held forth to his two stolid "prospects" on
+    how long these newcomers had been there and how well they were
+    getting on. The country rose in a gradual slope to the
+    slate-blue mountains. Ditches ran here and there. Everywhere
+    were small square stakes painted white, indicating the
+    boundaries of tracts yet unsold.</p>
+
+    <p>They visited the reservoir, which looked to Bob uncommonly
+    like a muddy duck pond, but whose value Selwyn soon made very
+    clear. They wandered through the Chiquito ranch, whence came
+    the exhibition fruit and other products, and which formed the
+    basis of most Lucky arguments. The owner had taken many medals
+    for his fruit, and had spent twenty-five years in making the
+    Chiquito a model.</p>
+
+    <p>"Any man can do likewise in this land of promise," said
+    Selwyn.</p>
+
+    <p>They ended finally in a beautiful little ca&ntilde;on among
+    the foothills. It was grown thick with twisted, mottled
+    sycamores just budding into leaf, with vines and greenery of
+    the luxurious California varieties. Birds sang everywhere and a
+    brook babbled and bubbled down a stony bed.</p>
+
+    <p>Under the largest of the sycamores a tent had been pitched
+    and a table spread. Affairs seemed to be in charge of a very
+    competent countrywoman whose fuzzy horse and ramshackle buggy
+    stood securely tethered below. The surries drove up and
+    deposited their burdens. Bob took his place at table to be
+    served with an abundant, hot and well-cooked meal.</p>
+
+    <p>The ice had been broken. Everybody laughed and joked. Some
+    of the men removed their coats in order to be more comfortable.
+    The young salesmen had laboured successfully to bring these
+    strangers to a feeling of partnership in at least the aims of
+    the Company, of partisanship against the claims of other
+    less-favoured valleys than Lucky. During a pause in the fun,
+    one of the "prospects," an elderly, white-whiskered farmer of
+    the more prosperous type, nodded toward the brook.</p>
+
+    <p>"That sounds good," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's the supply for the Lucky Lands," replied Selwyn. "It
+    ought to sound good."</p>
+
+    <p>"There's mighty few flowing creeks in California this far
+    out from the mountains," interposed another salesman. "You know
+    out here, except in the rainy season, the rivers all flow
+    bottom-up."</p>
+
+    <p>They all guffawed at this ancient and mild joke. The old
+    farmer wagged his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"Water is King," said he solemnly, as though voicing an
+    original and profound thought.</p>
+
+    <p>A look of satisfaction overspread the countenance of the
+    particular salesman who had the old farmer in charge. When you
+    can get your "prospect" to adopt your catchword and enunciate
+    it with conviction, he is yours!</p>
+
+    <p>After the meal Bob, unnoticed, wandered off up the
+    ca&ntilde;on. He had ascertained that the excursionists would
+    not leave the spot for two hours yet, and he welcomed the
+    chance for exercise. Accordingly he set himself to follow the
+    creek, the one stream of pure and limpid water that did not
+    flow bottom-up. At first this was easy enough, but after a
+    while the ca&ntilde;on narrowed, and Bob found himself
+    compelled to clamber over rocks and boulders, to push his way
+    through thickets of brush and clinging vines, finally even to
+    scale a precipitous and tangled side hill over which the stream
+    fell in a series of waterfalls. Once past this obstruction,
+    however, the country widened again. Bob stood in the bed of a
+    broad, flat wash flanked by low hills. Before him, and still
+    some miles distant, rose the mountains in which the stream
+    found its source.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob stood still for a moment, his hat in his hand, enjoying
+    the tepid odours, the warm sun and the calls of innumerable
+    birds. Then he became aware of a faint and intermittent
+    throb&mdash;<i>put-put</i> (pause) <i>put</i> (pause),
+    <i>put-put-put!</i></p>
+
+    <p>"Gasoline engine," said he to himself.</p>
+
+    <p>He tramped a few hundred yards up the dry wash, rounded a
+    bend, and came to a small wooden shack from which emanated the
+    sound of the gas explosions. A steady stream of water gushed
+    from a pump operated by the gasoline engine. Above, the stream
+    bed was dry. Here was the origin of the "beautiful mountain
+    stream."</p>
+
+    <p>Chair-tilted in front of the shack sat a man smoking a pipe.
+    He looked up as Bob approached.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo," said he; "show over?"</p>
+
+    <p>He disappeared inside and shut off the gasoline engine.
+    Immediately the flow ceased; the stream dried up as though
+    scorched. Presently the man emerged, thrusting his hands into
+    the armholes of an old coat. Shrugging the garment into place,
+    he snapped shut the padlock on the door.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come on," said he. "My rig's over behind that grease-wood.
+    You're a new one, ain't ye?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>"That horse is branded pretty thick," he said by way of
+    diversion.</p>
+
+    <p>The man chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Have to turn his skin other side out to get another one
+    on," he agreed.</p>
+
+    <p>They drove down an old dim road that avoided the
+    difficulties of the ca&ntilde;on. At camp they found the
+    surries just loading up. Bob took his place. Before the rigs
+    started back, the gray man, catching sight of the pump man,
+    drew him aside and said several things very vigorously. The
+    pump man answered with some indignation, pointing finally to
+    Bob. Instantly the gray man whirled to inspect the young
+    fellow. Then he shot a last remark, turned and climbed grumpily
+    into his vehicle.</p>
+
+    <p>At the station Bob tried to draw Selwyn aside for a
+    conversation.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll be with you when the train starts, old man," replied
+    Selwyn, "but I've got to stick close to these prospects.
+    There's a gang of knockers hanging around here always, just
+    waiting for a chance to lip in."</p>
+
+    <p>When the train started, however, Selwyn came back to drop
+    into Bob's seat with a wearied sigh.</p>
+
+    <p>"Gosh! I get sick of handing out dope to these yaps," said
+    he. "I was afraid for a while it was going to blow. Looked like
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"What of it?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"When it blows up here, it'd lift the feathers off a chicken
+    and the chicken off the earth," explained Selwyn. "I've seen
+    more than one good prospect ruined by a bad day."</p>
+
+    <p>"How'd you come out?" inquired Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Got one. He handed over his first payment on the spot.
+    Funny how these yahoos almost always bring their cash right
+    with 'em. Other's no good. I get so I can spot that kind the
+    first three words. They're always too blame enthusiastic about
+    the country and the Company. Seems like they try to pay for
+    their entertainment by jollying us along. Don't fool me any.
+    When a man begins to object to things, you know he's thinking
+    of buying."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob listened to this wisdom with some amusement. "How'd you
+    explain when the stream stopped?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why," said Selwyn, looking straight ahead, "didn't you hear
+    Mr. Oldham? They turned the water into the Upper Ditch to
+    irrigate the Foothill Tracts."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed. "You're not much of a liar, Selwyn," he said
+    pleasantly. "Failure of gasoline would hit it nearer."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, that's where you went," said Selwyn. "I ought to have
+    kept my eye on you closer."</p>
+
+    <p>He fell silent, and Bob eyed him speculatively. He liked the
+    young fellow's clear, frank cast of countenance.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Selwyn," he broke out, "do you like this bunco
+    game?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't like the methods," replied Selwyn promptly; "but
+    you are mistaken when you think it's a bunco game. The land is
+    good; there's plenty of artesian water to be had; and we don't
+    sell at a fancy price. We've located over eight hundred
+    families up there at Lucky Lands, and three out of four are
+    making good. The fourth simply hadn't the capital to hold out
+    until returns came in. It's as good a small-ranch proposition
+    as they could find. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be in it
+    for a minute."</p>
+
+    <p>"How about that stream?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Nobody said the stream was a natural one. And the water
+    exists, no matter where it comes from. You can't impress an
+    Eastern farmer with a pump proposition: that's a matter of
+    education. They come to see its value after they've tried
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"But your&mdash;".</p>
+
+    <p>"I told you I didn't like the methods. I won't have anything
+    to do with the dirty work, and Oldham knows it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why all the bluff, then?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"There are thousands of real estate firms in Los Angeles
+    trying to sell millions of acres," said Selwyn, "and this is
+    about the only concern that succeeds in colonizing on a large
+    scale. Oldham developed this system, and it seems to work."</p>
+
+    <p>"The law'll get him some day."</p>
+
+    <p>"I think not," replied Selwyn. "You may find him close to
+    the edge of the law, but he never steps over. He's a mighty
+    bright business man, and he's made a heap of money."</p>
+
+    <p>When nearing the Arcade depot, Oldham himself stepped
+    forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"Stopping in California long?" he asked, with some approach
+    to geniality.</p>
+
+    <p>"Permanently, I think," replied Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"You are going to manufacture your timber?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked up astonished.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're the Orde interested in Granite County timber, aren't
+    you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm employed by Welton, that's all," said Bob. "He owns the
+    timber. But how did you know I am with Welton?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"With Welton!" echoed Oldham. "Oh, yes&mdash;well, I heard
+    from Michigan business acquaintances you were with him.
+    Welton's lands are in Granite County?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said Oldham vaguely, "I hope you have enjoyed your
+    little outing." He turned away.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, how the deuce should anybody know about me, or that I
+    am with Welton, or take the trouble to write about it?"</p>
+
+    <p>He mulled over this for some time. For lack of a better
+    reason, he ascribed to his former football prominence the fact
+    that Oldham's Michigan correspondent had thought him worth
+    mention. Yet that seemed absurdly inadequate.</p>
+
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="PART_THREE"></a>
+
+    <h2>PART THREE</h2><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="I"></a>
+
+    <h2>I</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Two weeks later a light buckboard bearing Welton and Bob
+    dashed in the early morning across the plains, wormed its way
+    ingeniously through gaps in the foothills, and slowed to a walk
+    as it felt the grades of the first long low slopes. The air was
+    warm with the sun imprisoned in the pockets of the hills. High
+    chaparral, scrub oaks, and scattered, unkempt digger pines
+    threw their thicket up to the very right of way. It was in
+    general dense, almost impenetrable, yet it had a way of
+    breaking unexpectedly into spacious parks, into broad natural
+    pastures, into bold, rocky points prophetic of the mountains
+    yet to come. Every once in a while the road drew one side to
+    pause at a cabin nestling among fruit trees, bowered beneath
+    vines, bright with the most vivid of the commoner flowers. They
+    were crazily picturesque with their rough stone chimneys, their
+    roofs of shakes, their broad low verandahs, and their
+    split-picket fences. On these verandahs sat patriarchal-looking
+    men with sweeping white beards, who smoked pipes and gazed
+    across with dim eyes toward the distant blue mountains. When
+    Welton, casually and by the way, mentioned topographical names,
+    Bob realized to what placid and contented retirement these men
+    had turned, and who they were. Nugget Creek, Flour Gold, Bear
+    Gulch&mdash;these spoke of the strong, red-shirted Argonauts of
+    the El Dorado. Among these scarred but peaceful foothills had
+    been played and applauded the great, wonderful, sordid,
+    inspired drama of the early days, the traces of which had
+    almost vanished from the land.</p>
+
+    <p>Occasionally also the buckboard paused for water at a more
+    pretentious place set in a natural opening. There a low,
+    rambling, white ranch-house beneath trees was segregated by a
+    picket fence enclosing blossoms like a basket. At a greater or
+    lesser distance were corrals of all sizes arranged in a
+    complicated pattern. They resembled a huge puzzle. The barns
+    were large; a forge stood under an open shed indescribably
+    littered with scrap iron and fragments of all sorts; saddles
+    hung suspended by the horn or one stirrup; bright milk pails
+    sunned bottom-up on fence posts; a dozen horses cropped in a
+    small enclosed pasture or dozed beneath one or another of the
+    magnificent and spreading live-oak trees. Children of all sizes
+    and states of repair clambered to the fence tops or gazed
+    solemnly between the rails. Sometimes women stood in the
+    doorways to nod cheerfully at the travellers. They seemed to
+    Bob a comely, healthy-looking lot, competent and good-natured.
+    Beyond an occasional small field and an invariable kitchen
+    garden there appeared to be no evidences of cultivation. Around
+    the edges of the natural opening stretched immediately the open
+    jungle of the chaparral or the park-like forests of oaks.</p>
+
+    <p>"These are the typical mountain people of California," said
+    Welton. "It's only taken us a few hours to come up this far,
+    but we've struck among a different breed of cats. They're born,
+    live and die in the hills, and they might as well be a thousand
+    miles away as forty or fifty. As soon as the snow is out, they
+    hike for the big mountains."</p>
+
+    <p>"What do they do?" inquired Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Cattle," replied Welton. "Nothing else."</p>
+
+    <p>"I haven't seen any men."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, and you won't, except the old ones. They've taken their
+    cattle back to the summer ranges in the high mountains. By and
+    by the women and kids will go into the summer camps with the
+    horses."</p>
+
+    <p>On a steep and narrow grade they encountered a girl of
+    twenty riding a spirited pinto. She bestrode a cowboy's stock
+    saddle on which was coiled the usual rope, wore a broad felt
+    hat, and smiled at the two men quite frankly in spite of the
+    fact that she wore no habit and had been compelled to arrange
+    her light calico skirts as best she could. The pinto threw his
+    head and snorted, dancing sideways at sight of the buckboard.
+    So occupied was he with the strange vehicle that he paid scant
+    attention to the edge of the road. Bob saw that the passage
+    along the narrow outside strip was going to be precarious. He
+    prepared to descend, but at that moment the girl faced her pony
+    squarely at the edge of the road, dug her little heels into his
+    flanks, and flicked him sharply with the <i>morale</i> or
+    elongated lash of the reins. Without hesitation the pony
+    stepped off the grade, bunched his hoofs and slid down the
+    precipitous slope. So steep was the hill that a man would have
+    had to climb it on all fours.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob gasped and rose to his feet. The pony, leaving a long
+    furrow in the side of the mountain, caught himself on the
+    narrow ledge of a cattle trail, turned to the left, and
+    disappeared at a little fox trot.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked at this companion. Welton laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's hardly a woman in the country that doesn't help
+    round up stock. How'd you like to chase a cow full speed over
+    this country, hey?"</p>
+
+    <p>As they progressed, mounting slowly, but steadily, the
+    character of the country changed. The ca&ntilde;ons through
+    which flowed the streams became deeper and more precipitous;
+    the divides between them higher. At one point where the road
+    emerged on a bold, clear point, Bob looked back to the
+    shimmering plain, and was astonished to see how high they had
+    climbed. To the eastward and only a few miles distant rose the
+    dark mass of a pine-covered ridge, austere and solemn, the
+    first rampart of the Sierras. Welton pointed to it with his
+    whip.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's our timber," said he simply.</p>
+
+    <p>A little farther along the buckboard drew rein at the top of
+    a long declivity that led down to a broad wooded valley. Among
+    the trees Bob caught a glimpse of the roofs of scattered
+    houses, and the gleam of a river. From the opposite edge of the
+    valley rose the mountain-ridge, sheer and noble. The light of
+    afternoon tinted it with lilac and purple.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the celebrated town of Sycamore Flats," said Welton.
+    "Just at present we're the most important citizens. This fellow
+    here's the first yellow pine on the road."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked upon what he then considered a rather large tree.
+    Later he changed his mind. The buckboard rattled down the
+    grade, swung over a bridge, and so into the little town. Welton
+    drew up at a low, broad structure set back from the street
+    among some trees.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll tackle the mountain to-morrow," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob descended with a distinct feeling of pleasure at being
+    able to use his legs again. He and Welton and the baggage and
+    everything about the buckboard were powdered thick with the
+    fine, white California dust. At every movement he shook loose a
+    choking cloud. Welton's face was a dull gray, ludicrously
+    streaked, and he suspected himself of being in the same
+    predicament. A boy took the horses, and the travellers entered
+    the picketed enclosure. Welton lifted up his great rumbling
+    voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"O Auntie Belle!" he roared.</p>
+
+    <p>Within the dark depths of the house life stirred. In a
+    moment a capable and motherly woman had taken them in charge.
+    Amid a rapid-fire of greetings, solicitudes, jokes, questions,
+    commands and admonitions Bob was dusted vigorously and led to
+    ice-cold water and clean towels. Ten minutes later, much
+    refreshed, he stood on the low verandah looking out with
+    pleasure on the little there was to see. Eight dogs squatted
+    themselves in front of him, ears slightly uplifted, in
+    expectancy of something Bob could not guess. Probably the dogs
+    could not guess either. Within the house two or three young
+    girls were moving about, singing and clattering dishes in a
+    delightfully promising manner. Down the winding hill, for
+    Sycamore Flats proved after all to be built irregularly on a
+    slope, he could make out several other scattered houses, each
+    with its dooryard, and the larger structures of several stores.
+    Over all loomed the dark mountain. The sun had just dropped
+    below the ridge down which the road had led them, but still
+    shone clear and golden as an overlay of colour laid against the
+    sombre pines on the higher slopes.</p>
+
+    <p>After an excellent chicken supper, Bob lit his pipe and
+    wandered down the street. The larger structures, three in
+    number, now turned out to be a store and two saloons. A dozen
+    saddle horses dozed patiently. On the platform outside the
+    store a dozen Indian women dressed in bright calico huddled
+    beneath their shawls. After squatting thus in brute immobility
+    for a half-hour, one of them would purchase a few pounds of
+    flour or a half-pound of tea. Then she would take her place
+    again with the others. At the end of another half-hour another,
+    moved by some sudden and mysterious impulse, would in turn make
+    her purchases. The interior of the store proved to be no
+    different from the general country store anywhere. The
+    proprietor was very busy and occupied and important and
+    interested in selling a two-dollar bill of goods to a chance
+    prospector, which was well, for this was the storekeeper's
+    whole life, and he had in defence of his soul to make his
+    occupations filling. Bob bought a cigar and went out.</p>
+
+    <p>Next he looked in at one of the saloons. It was an
+    ill-smelling, cheap box, whose sole ornaments were advertising
+    lithographs. Four men played cards. They hardly glanced at the
+    newcomer. Bob deciphered Forest Reserve badges on three of
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>As he emerged from this joint, his eyes a trifle dazzled by
+    the light, he made out drawn up next the elevated platform a
+    buckboard containing a single man. As his pupils contracted he
+    distinguished such details as a wiry, smart little team, a man
+    so fat as almost to fill the seat, a moon-like, good-natured
+    face, a vest open to disclose a vast white shirt, "Hullo!" the
+    stranger rumbled in a great voice. "Any of my boys in
+    there?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't believe I know your boys," replied Bob
+    pleasantly.</p>
+
+    <p>The fat man heaved his bulk forward to peer at Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Consarn your hide!" he roared with the utmost good humour;
+    "stand out of the light so I can see your fool face. You lie
+    like a hound! Everybody knows my boys!"</p>
+
+    <p>There was no offence in the words.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed and obligingly stepped one side the lighted
+    doorway.</p>
+
+    <p>"A towerist!" wheezed the fat man. "Say, you're too early.
+    Nothing doing in the mountains yet. Who sent you this early,
+    anyway?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No tourist; permanent inhabitant," said Bob. "I'm with
+    Welton."</p>
+
+    <p>"Timber, by God!" exploded the fat man. "Well, you and I are
+    like to have friendly doings. Your road goes through us, and
+    you got to toe the mark, young fellow, let me tell you! I'm a
+    hell of a hard man to get on with!"</p>
+
+    <p>"You look it," said Bob. "You own some timber?"</p>
+
+    <p>The fat man exploded again.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hell, no!" he roared. "Why, you don't even know me, do you?
+    I'm Plant, Henry Plant. I'm Forest Supervisor."</p>
+
+    <p>"My name's Orde," said Bob. "If you're after Forest Rangers,
+    there's three in there."</p>
+
+    <p>"The rascals!" cried Plant. He raised his voice to a bellow.
+    "Oh, you Jim!"</p>
+
+    <p>The door was darkened.</p>
+
+    <p>"Say, Jim," said Plant. "They tell me there's a fire over
+    Stone Creek way. Somebody's got to take a look at it. You and
+    Joe better ride over in the morning and see what she looks
+    like."</p>
+
+    <p>The man stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "Oh,
+    hell!" said he with deep feeling. "Ain't you got any of those
+    suckers that <i>like</i> to ride? I've had a headache for three
+    days."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, it's hard luck you got to do anything, ain't it," said
+    Plant. "Well, I'll see if I can find old John, and if you don't
+    hear from me, you got to go."</p>
+
+    <p>The Supervisor gathered up his reins and was about to
+    proceed when down through the fading twilight rode a singular
+    figure. It was a thin, wiry, tall man, with a face like tanned
+    leather, a clear, blue eye and a drooping white moustache. He
+    wore a flopping old felt hat, a faded cotton shirt and an
+    ancient pair of copper-riveted blue-jeans overalls tucked into
+    a pair of cowboy's boots. A time-discoloured cartridge belt
+    encircled his hips, supporting a holster from which protruded
+    the shiny butt of an old-fashioned Colt's 45. But if the man
+    was thus nondescript and shabby, his mount and its caparisons
+    were magnificent. The horse was a glossy, clean-limbed sorrel
+    with a quick, intelligent eye. The bridle was of braided
+    rawhide, the broad spade-bit heavily inlaid with silver, the
+    reins of braided and knotted rawhide. Across the animal's brow
+    ran three plates of silver linked together. Below its ears were
+    wide silver <i>conchas</i>. The saddle was carved elaborately,
+    and likewise ornamented with silver. The whole outfit
+    shone&mdash;new-polished and well kept.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, you John!" called Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>The old man moved his left hand slightly. The proud-stepping
+    sorrel instantly turned to the left, and, on a signal Bob could
+    not distinguish, stopped to statue-like immobility. Then Bob
+    could see the Forest Ranger badge pinned to one strap of the
+    old man's suspender.</p>
+
+    <p>"John," said Plant, "they tell me there's a fire over at
+    Stone Creek. Ride over and see what it amounts to."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," replied the Ranger. "What help do I get?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, you just ride over and see what it amounts to,"
+    repeated Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>"I can't do nothing alone fighting fire."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well I can't spare anybody now," said Plant, "and it may
+    not amount to nothing. You go see."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," said John. "But if it does amount to something,
+    it'll get an awful start on us."</p>
+
+    <p>He rode away.</p>
+
+    <p>"Old California John," said Plant to Bob with a slight
+    laugh. "Crazy old fool." He raised his voice. "Oh, you Jim!
+    John, he's going to ride over. You needn't go."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob nodded a good night, and walked back up the street. At
+    the store he found the sorrel horse standing untethered in the
+    road. He stopped to examine more closely the very ornate
+    outfit. California John came out carrying a grain sack half
+    full of provisions. This he proceeded to tie on behind the
+    saddle, paying no attention to the young man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Star, you got a long ways to go," muttered the old
+    man.</p>
+
+    <p>"You aren't going over those mountains to-night, are you?"
+    cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The old man turned quite deliberately and inspected his
+    questioner in a manner to imply that he had committed an
+    indiscretion. But the answer was in a tone that implied he had
+    not.</p>
+
+    <p>"Certain sure," he replied. "The only way to handle a fire
+    is to stick to it like death to a dead nigger."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob returned to the hotel very thoughtful. There he found
+    Mr. Welton seated comfortably on the verandah, his feet up and
+    a cigar alight.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is pretty good medicine," he called to Bob. "Get your
+    feet up, you long-legged stork, and enjoy yourself. Been
+    exploring?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Listening to the band on the plaza," laughed Bob. He drew
+    up a chair. At that moment the dim figure of California John
+    jingled by. "I wouldn't like that old fellow's job. He's a
+    ranger, and he's got to go and look up a forest fire."</p>
+
+    <p>"Alone?" asked Welton. "Couldn't they scare up any more? Or
+    are they over there already?"</p>
+
+    <p>"There's three playing poker at the saloon. Looked to me
+    like a fool way to do. He's just going to take a look and then
+    come back and report."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, they're heavy on reports!" said Welton. "Where is the
+    fire; did you hear?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Stone Creek&mdash;wherever that is."</p>
+
+    <p>"Stone Creek!" yelled Welton, dropping the front legs of his
+    chair to the verandah with a thump. "Why, our timber adjoins
+    Stone Creek! You come with me!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="II"></a>
+
+    <h2>II</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Welton strode away into the darkness, followed closely by
+    Bob. He made his way as rapidly as he could through the village
+    to an attractive house at the farther outskirts. Here he turned
+    through the picket gate, and thundered on the door.</p>
+
+    <p>It was almost immediately opened by a meek-looking woman of
+    thirty.</p>
+
+    <p>"Plant in?" demanded Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>The meek woman had no opportunity to reply.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure! Sure! Come in!" roared the Supervisor's great
+    voice.</p>
+
+    <p>They entered to find the fat man, his coat off, leaning
+    luxuriously back in an office chair, his feet up on another, a
+    cigar in his mouth. He waved a hospitable hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sit down! Sit down!" he wheezed. "Glad to see you."</p>
+
+    <p>"They tell me there's a fire over in the Stone Creek
+    country," said Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"So it's reported," said Plant comfortably. "I've sent a man
+    over already to investigate."</p>
+
+    <p>"That timber adjoins ours," went on Welton. "Sending one
+    ranger to investigate don't seem to help the old man a great
+    deal."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, it may not amount to much," disclaimed Plant
+    vaguely.</p>
+
+    <p>"But if it does amount to much, it'll be getting one devil
+    of a start," persisted Welton. "Why don't you send over enough
+    men to give it a fight?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Haven't got 'em," replied Plant briefly.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's three playing poker now, down in the first saloon,"
+    broke in Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant looked at him coldly for ten seconds.</p>
+
+    <p>"Those men are waiting to tally Wright's cattle," he
+    condescended, naming one of the most powerful of the valley
+    ranch kings.</p>
+
+    <p>But Welton caught at Bob's statement.</p>
+
+    <p>"All you need is one man to count cattle," he pointed out.
+    "Can't you do that yourself, and send over your men?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you trying to tell me my business, Mr. Welton?" asked
+    the Supervisor formally.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton laughed one of his inexpressible chuckles.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lord love you, no!" he cried. "I have all I can handle. I'm
+    merely trying to protect my own. Can't you hire some men,
+    then?"</p>
+
+    <p>"My appropriation won't stand it," said Plant, a gleam
+    coming into his eye. "I simply haven't the money to pay them
+    with." He paused significantly.</p>
+
+    <p>"How much would it take?" inquired Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant cast his eyes to the ceiling.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course, I couldn't tell, because I don't know how much
+    of a fire it is, or how long it would take to corral it. But
+    I'll tell you what I'll do: suppose you leave me a lump sum,
+    and I'll look after such matters hereafter without having to
+    bother you with them. Of course, when I have rangers available
+    I'll use 'em; but any time you need protection, I can rush in
+    enough men to handle the situation without having to wait for
+    authorizations and all that. It might not take anything extra,
+    of course."</p>
+
+    <p>"How much do you suppose it would require to be sure we
+    don't run short?" asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, a thousand dollars ought to last indefinitely," replied
+    Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>The two men stared at each other for a moment. Then Welton
+    laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"I can hire a heap of men for a thousand dollars," said he,
+    rising. "Goodnight."</p>
+
+    <p>Plant rumbled something. The two went out, leaving the fat
+    man chewing his cigar and scowling angrily after them.</p>
+
+    <p>Once clear of the premises Welton laughed loudly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, my son, that's your first shy at the government
+    official, isn't it? They're not all as bad as that. At first I
+    couldn't make out whether he was just fat and lazy. Now I know
+    he's a grafter. He ought to get a nice neat 'For Sale' sign
+    painted. Did you hear the nerve of him? Wanted a thousand
+    dollars bribe to do his plain duty."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, that was what he was driving at!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, Baby Blue-eyes, didn't you tumble to that? Well, I
+    don't see a thousand in it whether he's for us or against
+    us."</p>
+
+    <p>"Was that the reason he didn't send over all his men to the
+    fire?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Partly. Principally because he wanted to help old Simeon
+    Wright's men in with the cattle. Simeon probably has a
+    ninety-nine year lease on his fat carcass&mdash;with the soul
+    thrown in for a trading stamp. It don't take but one man to
+    count cattle, but three extra cowboys comes mighty handy in the
+    timber."</p>
+
+    <p>"Would Wright bribe him, do you suppose?"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton stopped short.</p>
+
+    <p>"Let me tell you one thing about old Simeon, Bob," said he.
+    "He owns more land than any other man in California. He got it
+    all from the government. Eight sections on one of his ranches
+    he took up under the Swamp Act by swearing he had been all over
+    them in a boat. He had. The boat was drawn by eight mules.
+    That's just a sample. You bet Simeon owns a Supervisor, if he
+    thinks he needs one; and that's why the cattle business takes
+    precedence over the fire business."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's an outrage!" cried Bob. "We ought to report him for
+    neglect of duty."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"I didn't tell you this to get you mad, Bobby," he drawled
+    with his indescribable air of good humour; "only to show you
+    the situation. What difference does it make? As for reporting
+    to Washington! Look here, I don't know what Plant's political
+    backing is, but it must be 99.84 per cent. pure. Otherwise, how
+    would a man as fat as that get a job of Forest Supervisor? Why,
+    he can't ride a horse, and it's absurd to suppose he ever saw
+    any of the Reserve he's in charge of."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton bestirred himself to good purpose. Inside of two
+    hours a half-dozen men, well-mounted and provisioned, bearing
+    the usual tools of the fire-fighter, had ridden off into the
+    growing brightness of the moon.</p>
+
+    <p>"There," said the lumberman with satisfaction. "That isn't
+    going to cost much, and we'll feel safe. Now let's turn
+    in."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="III"></a>
+
+    <h2>III</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The next morning Bob was awakened to a cold dawn that became
+    still more shivery when he had dressed and stepped outside.
+    Even a hot breakfast helped little; and when the buckboard was
+    brought around, he mounted to his seat without any great
+    enthusiasm. The mountain rose dark and forbidding, high against
+    the eastern sky, and a cold wind breathed down its defiles.
+    When the wiry little ponies slowed to the first stretches of
+    the tiresome climb, Bob was glad to walk alongside.</p>
+
+    <p>Almost immediately the pines began. They were short and
+    scrubby as yet, but beautiful in the velvet of their dark green
+    needles. Bob glanced at them critically. They were perhaps
+    eighty to a hundred feet high and from a foot to thirty inches
+    in diameter.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fair timber," he commented to his companion.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton snorted. "Timber!" he cried. "That isn't timber; it's
+    weeds. There's no <i>timber</i> on this slope of the
+    mountain."</p>
+
+    <p>Slowly the ponies toiled up the steep grade, pausing often
+    for breath. Among the pines grew many oaks, buckthorns, tall
+    manza&ntilde;itas and the like. As the valley dropped beneath,
+    they came upon an occasional budding dogwood. Over the slopes
+    of some of the hills spread a mantle of velvety vivid green,
+    fair as the grass of a lawn, but indescribably soft and mobile.
+    It lent those declivities on which it grew a spacious,
+    well-kept, park appearance, on which Bob exclaimed with
+    delight.</p>
+
+    <p>But Welton would have none of it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bear clover," said he, "full of pitch as an old jack-pine.
+    Burns like coal oil, and you can't hardly cut it with a hoe.
+    Worst stuff to carry fire and to fight fire in you ever saw.
+    Pick a piece and smell it."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob broke off one of the tough, woody stems. A pungent odour
+    exactly like that of extract of hamamelis met his nostrils.
+    Then he realized that all the time he had been aware of this
+    perfume faintly disengaging itself from the hills. In spite of
+    Mr. Welton's disgust, Bob liked its clean, pungent
+    suggestion.</p>
+
+    <p>The road mounted always, following the contour of the
+    mountains. Thus it alternately emerged and crept on around bold
+    points, and bent back into the recesses of ravines. Clear,
+    beautiful streams dashed and sang down the latter; from the
+    former, often, Bob could look out over the valley from which
+    they had mounted, across the foothills, to the distant,
+    yellowing plains far on the horizon, lost finally in brown heat
+    waves. Sycamore Flats lay almost directly below. Always it
+    became smaller, and more and more like a coloured relief-map
+    with tiny, Noah's-ark houses. The forest grew sturdily on the
+    steep mountain. Bob's eyes were on a level with the tops of
+    trees growing but a few hundred feet away. The horizon line was
+    almost at eleven o'clock above him.</p>
+
+    <p>"How'd you handle this kind of a proposition?" he inquired.
+    "Looks to me like hard sledding."</p>
+
+    <p>"This stuff is no good," said Welton. "These little, yellow
+    pines ain't worth cutting. This is all Forest Reserve
+    stuff."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob glanced again down the aisles of what looked to him like
+    a noble forest, but said nothing. He was learning, in this land
+    of surprises, to keep his mouth shut.</p>
+
+    <p>At the end of two hours Welton drew up beside a new water
+    trough to water the ponies.</p>
+
+    <p>"There," he remarked casually, "is the first sugar
+    pine."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's eye followed the indication of his whip to the
+    spreading, graceful arms of a free so far up the bed of the
+    stream that he could make out only its top. The ponies,
+    refreshed, resumed their methodical plodding.</p>
+
+    <p>Insensibly, as they mounted, the season had changed. The
+    oaks that, at the level of Sycamore Flats, had been in full
+    leaf, here showed but the tender pinks and russets of the first
+    foliage. The dogwoods were quite dormant. Rivulets of seepage
+    and surface water trickled in the most unexpected places as
+    though from snow recently melted.</p>
+
+    <p>Of climbing there seemed no end. False skylines recurrently
+    deceived Bob into a belief that the buckboard was about to
+    surmount the top. Always the rise proved to be preliminary to
+    another. The road dipped behind little spurs, climbed ravines,
+    lost itself between deep cuts. Only rarely did the forest
+    growths permit a view, and then only in glimpses between the
+    tops of trees. In the valley and against the foothills now
+    intervened the peaceful and calm blue atmosphere of
+    distance.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd no idea from looking at it this mountain was so high,"
+    he told Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"You never do," said Welton. "They always fool you. We're
+    pretty nigh the top now."</p>
+
+    <p>Indeed, for a little space the forest had perforce to thin
+    because of lack of footing. The slope became almost a
+    precipice, ending in a bold comb above which once more could be
+    glimpsed the tops of trees. Quite ingeniously the road
+    discovered a cleft up which it laboured mightily, to land
+    breathless after a heart-breaking pull. Just over the top
+    Welton drew rein to breathe his horses&mdash;and to hear what
+    Bob had to say about it.</p>
+
+    <p>The buckboard stood at the head of a long, gentle slope
+    descending, perhaps fifty feet, to a plateau; which, in turn,
+    rose to another crest some miles distant. The level of this
+    plateau, which comprised, perhaps, thirty thousand acres all
+    told, supported a noble and unbroken forest.</p>
+
+    <p>Mere statistics are singularly unavailing to convey even an
+    idea of a California woodland at its best. We are not here
+    dealing with the so-called "Big Trees," but with the
+    ordinary&mdash;or extraordinary&mdash;pines and spruces. The
+    forest is free from dense undergrowths; the individual trees
+    are enormous, yet so symmetrical that the eye can realize their
+    size only when it catches sight of some usual and accustomed
+    object, such as men or horses or the buildings in which they
+    live. Even then it is quite as likely that the measures will
+    appear to have been struck small, as that the measured will
+    show in their true grandeur of proportion. The eye refuses to
+    be convinced off-hand that its education has been faulty.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now," said Welton decidedly. "We may as well have it over
+    with right now. How big is that young tree over there?"</p>
+
+    <p>He pointed out a half-grown specimen of sugar pine.</p>
+
+    <p>"About twenty inches in diameter," replied Bob promptly.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton silently handed him a tape line. Bob descended.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thirty-seven!" he cried with vast astonishment, when his
+    measurements were taken and his computations made.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now that one," commanded Welton, indicating a larger
+    tree.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob sized it up.</p>
+
+    <p>"No fair looking at the other for comparison," warned the
+    older man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Forty," hesitated Bob, "and I don't believe it's that!" he
+    added. "Four feet," he amended when he had measured.</p>
+
+    <p>"Climb in," said Welton; "now you're in a proper frame of
+    mind to listen to me with respect. The usual run of tree you
+    see down through here is from five to eight feet in diameter.
+    They are about all over two hundred feet tall, and some run
+    close to three hundred."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob sighed. "All right. Drive on. I'll get used to it in
+    time." His face lighted up with a grin. "Say, wouldn't you like
+    to see Roaring Dick trying to handle one of those logs with a
+    peavie? As for driving a stream full of them! Oh, Lord! You'd
+    have to send 'em down one at a time, fitted out with staterooms
+    for the crew, a rudder and a gasoline engine!"</p>
+
+    <p>The ponies jogged cheerfully along the winding road. Water
+    ran everywhere, or stood in pools. Under the young spruces were
+    the last snowbanks. Pushing up through the wet soil, already
+    showed early snowplants, those strange, waxlike towers of
+    crimson. After a time they came to a sidehill where the woods
+    thinned. There still stood many trees, but as the buckboard
+    approached, Bob could see that they were cedars, or spruce, or
+    smaller specimens of the pines. Prone upon the ground, like
+    naked giants, gleamed white and monstrous the peeled bodies of
+    great trees. A litter of "slash," beaten down by the winter,
+    cumbered the ground, and retained beneath its faded boughs
+    soggy and melting drifts.</p>
+
+    <p>"Had some 'fallers' in here last year," explained Welton
+    briefly. "Thought we'd have some logs on hand when it came time
+    to start up."</p>
+
+    <p>"Wait a minute," requested Bob. He sprang lightly from the
+    vehicle, and scrambled over to stand alongside the nearest of
+    the fallen monsters. He could just see over it comfortably. "My
+    good heavens!" said he soberly, resuming his seat. "How in
+    blazes do you handle them?"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton drove on a few paces, then pointed with his whip. A
+    narrow trough made of small peeled logs laid parallel and
+    pegged and mortised together at the ends, ran straight over the
+    next hill.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's a chute," he explained briefly. "We hitch a wire
+    cable to the log and just naturally yank it over to the
+    chute."</p>
+
+    <p>"How yank it?" demanded Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"By a good, husky donkey engine. Then the chute poles are
+    slushed, we hitch cables on four or five logs, and just tow
+    them over the hill to the mill."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's enthusiasm, as always, was growing with the
+    presentation of this new and mighty problem of engineering so
+    succinctly presented. It sounded simple; but from his two
+    years' experience he knew better. He was becoming accustomed to
+    filling in the outlines of pure theory. At a glance he realized
+    the importance of such things as adequate anchors for the
+    donkey engines; of figuring on straight pulls, horse power and
+    the breaking strain of steel cables; of arranging curves in
+    such manner as to obviate ditching the logs, of selecting
+    grades and routes in such wise as to avoid the lift of the
+    stretched cable; and more dimly he guessed at other accidents,
+    problems and necessities which only the emergency could fully
+    disclose. All he said was:</p>
+
+    <p>"So that's why you bark them all&mdash;so they'll slide. I
+    wondered."</p>
+
+    <p>But now the ponies, who had often made this same trip,
+    pricked up their ears and accelerated their pace. In a moment
+    they had rounded a hill and brought their masters into full
+    view of the mill itself.</p>
+
+    <p>The site was in a wide, natural clearing occupied originally
+    by a green meadow perhaps a dozen acres in extent. From the
+    borders of this park the forest had drawn back to a dark
+    fringe. Now among the trees at the upper end gleamed the yellow
+    of new, unpainted shanties. Square against the prospect was the
+    mill, a huge structure, built of axe-hewn timbers, rough
+    boards, and the hand-rived shingles known as shakes. Piece by
+    piece the machinery had been hauled up the mountain road until
+    enough had been assembled on the space provided for it by the
+    axe men to begin sawing. Then, like some strange monster, it
+    had eaten out for itself at once a space in the forest and the
+    materials for its shell and for the construction of its lesser
+    dependents, the shanties, the cook-houses, the offices and the
+    shops. Welton pointed out with pride the various arrangements;
+    here the flats and the trestles for the yards where the
+    new-sawn lumber was to be stacked; there the dump for the
+    sawdust and slabs; yonder the banking ground constructed of
+    great logs laid close together, wherein the timber-logs would
+    be deposited to await the saw.</p>
+
+    <p>From the lower end of the yard a trestle supporting a
+    V-shaped trough disappeared over the edge of a hill. Near its
+    head a clear stream cascaded down the slope.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the flume," explained the lumberman. "Brought the
+    stream around from the head of the meadow in a ditch. We'll
+    flume the sawn lumber down the mountain. For the present we'll
+    have to team it out to the railroad. Your friend Baker's
+    figuring on an electric road to meet us, though, and I guess
+    we'll fix it up with him inside a few years, anyway."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's Stone Creek from here?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Over the farther ridge. The mountain drops off again there
+    to Stone Creek three or four thousand feet."</p>
+
+    <p>"We ought to hear from the fire, soon."</p>
+
+    <p>"If we don't, we'll ride over that way and take a look
+    down," replied Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>They drove down the empty yards to a stable where already
+    was established their old barn-boss of the Michigan woods. Four
+    or five big freight wagons stood outside, and a score of
+    powerful mules rolled and sunned themselves in the largest
+    corral. Welton nodded toward several horses in another
+    enclosure.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pick your saddle horse, Bob," said he. "Straw boss has to
+    ride in this country."</p>
+
+    <p>"Make it the oldest, then," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>At the cookhouse they were just in time for the noon meal.
+    The long, narrow room, fresh with new wood, new tables and new
+    benches in preparation for the crew to come, looked bare and
+    empty with its handful of guests huddled at one end. These were
+    the teamsters, the stablemen, the caretakers and a few early
+    arrivals. The remainder of the crew was expected two days
+    later.</p>
+
+    <p>After lunch Bob wandered out into the dazzling sunlight. The
+    sky was wonderfully blue, the trees softly green, the new
+    boards and the tiny pile of sawdust vividly yellow. These
+    primary colours made all the world. The air breathed crisp and
+    bracing, with just a dash of cold in the nostrils that
+    contrasted paradoxically with the warm balminess of the
+    sunlight. It was as though these two opposed qualities, warmth
+    and cold, were here held suspended in the same medium and at
+    the same time. Birds flashed like spangles against the blue.
+    Others sang and darted and scratched and chirped everywhere.
+    Tiny chipmunks no bigger than half-grown rats scampered
+    fearlessly about. What Bob took for larger chipmunks&mdash;the
+    Douglas Squirrels&mdash;perched on the new fence posts. The
+    world seemed alive&mdash;alive through its creatures, through
+    the solemn, uplifting vitality of its forests, through the
+    sprouting, budding spring growths just bursting into green,
+    through the wine-draught of its very air, through the hurrying,
+    busy preoccupied murmur of its streams. Bob breathed his lungs
+    full again and again, and tingled from head to foot.</p>
+
+    <p>"How high are we here?" he called to Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"About six thousand. Why? Getting short-winded?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I could run ten miles," replied Bob. "Come on. I'm going to
+    look at the stream."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not at a run," protested Welton. "No, sir! At a nice,
+    middle-aged, dignified, fat <i>walk</i>!"</p>
+
+    <p>They sauntered down the length of the trestle, with its
+    miniature steel tracks, to where the flume began. It proved to
+    be a very solidly built V-trough, alongside which ran a
+    footboard. Welton pointed to the telephone wire that paralleled
+    it.</p>
+
+    <p>"When we get going," said he, "we just turn the stream in
+    here, clamp our sawn lumber into bundles of the right size, and
+    'let her went!' There'll be three stations along the line,
+    connected by 'phone, to see that things go all right. That
+    flume's six mile long."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob strode to the gate, and after some heaving and hauling
+    succeeded in throwing water into the flume.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wanted to see her go," he explained.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now if you want some real fun," said Welton, gazing after
+    the foaming advance wave as it ripped its way down the chute.
+    "You make you a sort of three-cornered boat just to fit the
+    angle of the flume; and then you lie down in it and go to
+    Sycamore Flats, in about six minutes more or less."</p>
+
+    <p>"You mean to say that's done?" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Often. It only means knocking together a plank or so."</p>
+
+    <p>"Doesn't the lumber ever jump the flume?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Once in a great while."</p>
+
+    <p>"Suppose the boat should do it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Then," said Welton drily, "it's probable you'd have to
+    begin learning to tune a harp."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not for mine," said Bob with fervour. "Any time I yearn for
+    Sycamore Flats real hard, I'll go by hand."</p>
+
+    <p>He shut off the water, and the two walked a little farther
+    to a bold point that pressed itself beyond the trees.</p>
+
+    <p>Below them the cliff dropped away so steeply that they
+    looked out above the treetops as from the summit of a true
+    precipice. Almost directly below them lay the wooded valley of
+    Sycamore Flats, maplike, tiny. It was just possible to make out
+    the roofs of houses, like gray dots. Roads showed as white
+    filaments threading the irregular patches of green and brown.
+    From beneath flowed the wide oak and brush-clad foothills,
+    rising always with the apparent cup of the earth until almost
+    at the height of the eye the shimmering, dim plains substituted
+    their brown for the dark green of the hills. The country that
+    yesterday had seemed mountainous, full of ca&ntilde;ons, ridges
+    and ranges, now showed gently undulating, flattened, like a
+    carpet spread before the feet of the Sierras. To the north were
+    tumbled, blue, pine-clad mountains as far as the eye could see,
+    receding into the dimness of great distance. At one point, but
+    so far away as to be distinguishable only by a slight effort of
+    the imagination, hovered like soap-bubbles against an ethereal
+    sky the forms of snow mountains. Welton pointed out the
+    approximate position of Yosemite.</p>
+
+    <p>They returned to camp where Welton showed the clean and
+    painted little house built for Bob and himself. It was quite
+    simply a row of rooms with a verandah in front of them all. But
+    the interiors were furnished with matting for the floors,
+    curtains to the windows, white iron bedsteads, running water
+    and open fireplaces.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm sick of camping," said Welton. "This is our summer
+    quarters for some time. I'm going to be comfortable."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob sighed.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is the bulliest place I ever saw!" he cried
+    boyishly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you're going to have time enough to get used to it,"
+    said Welton drily.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IV"></a>
+
+    <h2>IV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The Stone Creek fire indeed proved not to amount to much,
+    whereby sheer chance upheld Henry Plant. The following morning
+    the fire fighters returned; leaving, however, two of their
+    number to "guard the line" until the danger should be over.
+    Welton explained to Bob that only the fact that Stone Creek
+    bottom was at a low elevation, filled with brush and tarweed,
+    and grown thick with young trees rendered the forest even
+    inflammable at this time of year.</p>
+
+    <p>"Anywhere else in this country at this time of year it
+    wouldn't do any harm," he told Bob, "and Plant knew it couldn't
+    get out of the basin. He didn't give a cuss how much it did
+    there. But we've got some young stuff that would easy carry a
+    top fire. Later in the season you may see some tall rustling on
+    the fire lines."</p>
+
+    <p>But before noon of that day a new complication arose. Up the
+    road came a short, hairy man on a mule. His beard grew to his
+    high cheek bones, his eyebrows bristled and jutted out over his
+    black eyes, and a thick shock of hair pushed beneath the rim of
+    his hat to meet the eyebrows. The hat was an old black slouch,
+    misshapen, stained and dusty. His faded shirt opened to display
+    a hairy throat and chest. As for the rest he was short-limbed,
+    thick and powerful.</p>
+
+    <p>This nondescript individual rode up to the verandah on which
+    sat Welton and Bob, awaiting the lunch bell. He bowed gravely,
+    and dismounted.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dis ees Meestair Welton?" he inquired with a courtesy at
+    strange variance with his uncouth appearance.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am Peter Lejeune," said the newcomer, announcing one of
+    those hybrid names so common among the transplanted French and
+    Basques of California. "I have de ship."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, yes," said Welton rising and going forward to offer his
+    hand. "Come up and sit down, Mr. Leejune."</p>
+
+    <p>The hairy man "tied his mule to the ground" by dropping the
+    end of the reins, and mounted the two steps to the
+    verandah.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is my assistant, Mr. Orde," said Welton. "How are the
+    sheep coming on? Mr. Leejune," he told Bob, "rents the grazing
+    in our timber."</p>
+
+    <p>"Et is not coming," stated Lejeune with a studied calm.
+    "Plant he riffuse permit to cross."</p>
+
+    <p>"Permit to what?" asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"To cross hees fores', gov'ment fores'. I can' get in here
+    widout cross gov'ment land. I got to get permit from Plant.
+    Plant he riffuse."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton rose, staring at his visitor.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you mean to tell me," he cried at last, "that a man
+    hasn't got a right to get into his own land? That they can keep
+    a man out of his own <i>land</i>?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Da's right," nodded the Frenchman.</p>
+
+    <p>"But you've been in here for ten years or so to my
+    knowledge."</p>
+
+    <p>Abruptly the sheepman's calm fell from him. He became wildly
+    excited. His black eyes snapped, his hair bristled, he arose
+    from his chair and gesticulated.</p>
+
+    <p>"Every year I geev heem three ship! Three ship!" he
+    repeated, thrusting three stubby fingers at Welton's face.
+    "Three little ship! I stay all summer! He never say permit.
+    Thees year he kip me out."</p>
+
+    <p>"Give any reason?" asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"He say my ship feed over the line in gov'ment land."</p>
+
+    <p>"Did they?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Mebbe so, little bit. Mebbe not. Nobody show me line.
+    Nobody pay no 'tention. I feed thees range ten year."</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you give him three sheep this year?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton sighed.</p>
+
+    <p>"I can't go down and tend to this," said he. "My foremen are
+    here to be consulted, and the crews will begin to come in
+    to-morrow. You'll have to go and see what's eating this tender
+    Plant, Bob. Saddle up and ride down with Mr. Leejune."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob took his first lesson in Western riding behind Lejeune
+    and his stolid mule. He had ridden casually in the East, as had
+    most young men of his way of life, but only enough to make a
+    fair showing on a gentle and easy horse. His present mount was
+    gentle and easy enough, but Bob was called upon to admire feats
+    of which a Harlem goat might have been proud. Lejeune soon
+    turned off the wagon road to make his way directly down the
+    side of the mountain. Bob possessed his full share of personal
+    courage, but in this unaccustomed skirting of precipices,
+    hopping down ledges, and sliding down inclines too steep to
+    afford a foothold he found himself leaning inward, sitting very
+    light in the saddle, or holding his breath until a passage
+    perilous was safely passed. In the next few years he had
+    occasion to drop down the mountainside a great many times.
+    After the first few trips he became so thoroughly accustomed
+    that he often wondered how he had ever thought this scary
+    riding. Now, however, he was so busily occupied that he was
+    caught by surprise when Lejeune's mule turned off through a
+    patch of breast-high manza&ntilde;ita and he found himself
+    traversing the gentler slope at the foot of the mountain. Ten
+    minutes later they entered Sycamore Flats.</p>
+
+    <p>Then Bob had leisure to notice an astonishing change of
+    temperature. At the mill the air had been almost
+    cold&mdash;entirely so out of the direct rays of the sun. Here
+    it was as hot as though from a furnace. Passing the store, Bob
+    saw that the tall thermometer there stood at 96 degrees. The
+    day was unseasonable, but later, in the August heats, Bob had
+    often, to his sorrow, to test the difference between six
+    thousand and two thousand feet of elevation. From a clear,
+    crisp late-spring climate he would descend in two hours to a
+    temperature of 105 degrees.</p>
+
+    <p>Henry Plant was discovered sprawled out in an armchair
+    beneath a spreading tree in the front yard. His coat was off
+    and his vest unbuttoned to display a vast and billowing expanse
+    of soiled white shirt. In his hand was a palm-leaf fan, at his
+    elbow swung an <i>olla</i>, newspapers littered the ground or
+    lay across his fat knees. When Bob and Lejeune entered, he
+    merely nodded surlily, and went on with his reading.</p>
+
+    <p>"Can I speak to you a moment on business?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>By way of answer the fat man dropped his paper, and mopped
+    his brow.</p>
+
+    <p>"We've rented our sheep grazing to Mr. Lejeune, here, as I
+    understand we've been doing for some years. He tells me you
+    have refused him permission to cross the Forest Reserve with
+    his flocks."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's right," grunted Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>"What for?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I believe, young man, granting permits is discretionary
+    with the Supervisor," stated that individual.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose so," agreed Bob. "But Mr. Lejeune has always had
+    permission before. What reason do you assign for refusing
+    it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Wilful trespass," wheezed Plant. "That's what, young man.
+    His sheep grazed over our line. He's lucky that I don't have
+    him up before the United States courts for damages as
+    well."</p>
+
+    <p>Lejeune started to speak, but Bob motioned him to
+    silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm sure we could arrange for past damages, and guarantee
+    against any future trespass," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'm sure you can't," stated Plant positively. "Good
+    day."</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob was not willing to give up thus easily. He gave his
+    best efforts either to arguing Plant into a better frame of
+    mind, or to discovering some tangible reason for his sudden
+    change of front in regard to the sheep.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's no use," he told Lejeune, later, as they walked down
+    the street together. "He's undoubtedly the right to refuse
+    permits for cause; and technically he has cause if your sheep
+    got over the line."</p>
+
+    <p>"But what shall I do!" cried Lejeune. "My ship mus' have
+    feed!"</p>
+
+    <p>"You pasture them or feed them somewhere for a week or so,
+    and I'll let you know," said Bob. "We'll get you on the land or
+    see you through somewhere else."</p>
+
+    <p>He mounted his horse stiffly and rode back up the street.
+    Plant still sat in his armchair like a bloated spider. On
+    catching sight of Bob, however, he heaved himself to his feet
+    and waddled to the gate.</p>
+
+    <p>"Here!" he called. Bob drew rein. "It has been reported to
+    me that your firm has constructed a flume across 36, and a
+    wagon road across 14, 22, 28, and 32. Those are government
+    sections. I suppose, of course, your firm has permits from
+    Washington to build said improvements?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Naturally," said Bob, who, however, knew nothing whatever
+    of those details.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'll send a man up to examine them to-morrow," said
+    Plant, and turned his back.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="V"></a>
+
+    <h2>V</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob took supper at Auntie Belle's, and rode up the mountain
+    after dark. He did not attempt short cuts, but allowed his
+    horse to follow the plain grade of the road. After a time the
+    moon crept over the zenith, and at once the forest took on a
+    fairylike strangeness, as though at the touch of night new
+    worlds had taken the place of the vanished old. Somewhere near
+    midnight, his body shivering with the mountain cold, his legs
+    stiff and chafed from the long, unaccustomed riding, but his
+    mind filled with the wonder and beauty of the mountain night,
+    Bob drew rein beside the corrals. After turning in his horse,
+    he walked through the bright moonlight to Welton's door, on
+    which he hammered.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hey!" called the lumberman from within.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's I, Bob."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton scratched a match.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why in blazes didn't you come up in the morning?" he
+    inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've found out another and perhaps important hole we're
+    in."</p>
+
+    <p>"Can we do anything to help ourselves out before morning?"
+    demanded Welton. "No? Well, sleep tight! I'll see you at
+    six."</p>
+
+    <p>Next morning Welton rolled out, as good-humoured and
+    deliberate as ever.</p>
+
+    <p>"My boy," said he. "When you get to be as old as I am,
+    you'll never stir up trouble at night unless you can fix it
+    then. What is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob detailed his conversation with Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you mean to tell me that that old, fat <i>skunk</i> had
+    the nerve to tell you he was going to send a ranger to look at
+    our permit?" he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes. That's what he said."</p>
+
+    <p>"The miserable hound! Why I went to see him a year ago about
+    crossing this strip with our road&mdash;we had to haul a lot of
+    stuff in. He told me to go ahead and haul, and that he'd fix it
+    up when the time came. Since then I've tackled him two or three
+    times about it, but he's always told me to go ahead; that it
+    was all right. So we went ahead. It's always been a matter of
+    form, this crossing permit business. It's <i>meant</i> to be a
+    matter of form!"</p>
+
+    <p>After breakfast Welton ordered his buckboard and, in company
+    with Bob, drove down the mountain again. Plant was discovered
+    directing the activities of several men, who were loading a
+    light wagon with provisions and living utensils.</p>
+
+    <p>"Moving up to our summer camp," one of them told Bob.
+    "Getting too hot down here."</p>
+
+    <p>Plant received them, his fat face expressionless, and led
+    them into the stuffy little office.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Plant," said Welton, without a trace of
+    irritation on his weatherbeaten, round countenance. "What's all
+    this about seeing a permit to cross those government sections?
+    You know very well I haven't any permit."</p>
+
+    <p>"I have been informed by my men that you have constructed or
+    caused to be constructed a water flume through section 36, and
+    a road through sections 14, 22, 28 and 32. If this has been
+    done without due authorization you are liable for trespass.
+    Fine of not less than $200 or imprisonment for not less than
+    twelve months&mdash;or both." He delivered this in a voice
+    absolutely devoid of expression.</p>
+
+    <p>"But you told me to go ahead, and that you'd attend to the
+    details, and it would be all right," said Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"You must have misunderstood me," replied Plant blandly. "It
+    is against my sworn duty to permit such occupation of public
+    land without due conformity to law. It is within my discretion
+    whether to report the trespass for legal action. I am willing
+    to believe that you have acted in this matter without malicious
+    intent. But the trespass must cease."</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you mean by that?" asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"You must not use that road as a highway, nor the flume, and
+    you must remove the flume within a reasonable time. Or else you
+    may still get a permit."</p>
+
+    <p>"How long would that take?" asked Welton. "Could it be done
+    by wire?"</p>
+
+    <p>Plant lifted a glazed and fishy eye to survey him.</p>
+
+    <p>"You would be required to submit in writing specifications
+    of the length and location of said road and flume. This must be
+    accompanied by a topographical map and details of construction.
+    I shall then send out field men to investigate, after which,
+    endorsed with my approval, it goes for final decision to the
+    Secretary of the Interior."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good Lord, man!" cried Welton, aghast. "That would take all
+    summer! And besides, I made out all that tomfoolery last
+    summer. I supposed you must have unwound all that red tape long
+    ago!"</p>
+
+    <p>Plant for the first time looked his interlocutor square in
+    the eye.</p>
+
+    <p>"I find among my records no such application," he said
+    deliberately.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton stared at him a moment, then laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right, Mr. Plant, I'll see what's to be done," said he,
+    and went out.</p>
+
+    <p>In silence the two walked down the street until out of
+    earshot. Then Bob broke out.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd like to punch his fat carcass!" he cried. "The old
+    liar!"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"It all goes to show that a man's never too old to learn.
+    He's got us plain enough just because this old man was too busy
+    to wake up to the fact that these government grafters are so
+    strong out here. Back our way when you needed a logging road,
+    you just built it, and paid for the unavoidable damage, and
+    that's all there was to it."</p>
+
+    <p>"You take it cool," spluttered Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"No use taking it any other way," replied Welton. "But the
+    situation is serious. We've got our plant in shape, and our
+    supplies in, and our men engaged. It would be bad enough to
+    shut down with all that expense. But the main trouble is, we're
+    under contract to deliver our mill run to Marshall &amp;
+    Harding. We can't forfeit that contract and stay in
+    business."</p>
+
+    <p>"What are you going to do about it?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Get on the wires to your father in Washington," replied
+    Welton. "Lucky, your friend Baker's power project is only four
+    miles away; we can use his 'phone."</p>
+
+    <p>But at the edge of town they met Lejeune.</p>
+
+    <p>"I got de ship in pasture," he told Bob. "But hees good for
+    not more dan one wik."</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Leejune," said Welton. "I'm sorry, but you'll
+    have to look up another range for this summer. Of course, we'll
+    pay any loss or damage in the matter. It looks impossible to do
+    anything with Plant."</p>
+
+    <p>The Frenchman threw up both hands and broke into voluble
+    explanations. From them the listeners gathered more knowledge
+    in regard to the sheep business than they could have learned by
+    observation in a year. Briefly, it was necessary that the sheep
+    have high-country feed, at once; the sheepmen apportioned the
+    mountains among themselves, so that each had his understood
+    range; it would now be impossible to find anywhere another
+    range; only sometimes could one trade localities with another,
+    but that must be arranged earlier in the season before the
+    flocks are in the hills&mdash;in short, affairs were at a
+    critical point, where Lejeune must have feed, and no other feed
+    was to be had except that for which he had in all confidence
+    contracted. Welton listened thoughtfully, his eyes between his
+    horses.</p>
+
+    <p>"Can you run those sheep in, at night, or somehow?"</p>
+
+    <p>The Frenchman's eyes sparkled.</p>
+
+    <p>"I run ship two year in Yosemite Park," he bragged. "No
+    soldier fin' me."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's no great shakes," said Welton drily, "from what I've
+    seen of Park soldiers. If you can sneak these sheep across
+    without getting caught, you do it."</p>
+
+    <p>"I snik ship across all right," said Lejeune. "But I can'
+    stop hees track. The ranger he know I cross all right."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the penalty?" asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mos'ly 'bout one hundred dollars," replied Lejeune
+    promptly. "Mebbe five hundred."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton sighed. "Is that the limit?" he asked. "Not more than
+    five hundred?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No. Dat all."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, it'll take a good half of the rent to get you in, if
+    they soak us the limit; but you're up against it, and we'll
+    stand back of you. If we agreed to give you that grazing, by
+    God, <i>you'll get it</i>, as long as that land is ours."</p>
+
+    <p>He nodded and drove on, while Lejeune, the true sheepman's
+    delight in dodging the officers burning strong within his
+    breast, turned his mule's head to the lower country.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VI"></a>
+
+    <h2>VI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The full situation, as far as the wires could tell it, was
+    laid before Jack Orde in Washington. A detailed letter
+    followed. Toward evening of that day the mill crews began to
+    come in with the four and six-horse teams provided for their
+    transportation. They were a dusty but hilarious lot. The teams
+    drew up underneath the solitary sycamore tree that gave the
+    place its name, and at once went into camp. Bob strolled down
+    to look them over.</p>
+
+    <p>They proved to be fresh-faced, strong farm boys, for the
+    most part, with a fair sprinkling of older mountaineers, and
+    quite a contingent of half and quarter-bred Indians. All these
+    people worked on ranches or in the towns during the off season
+    when the Sierras were buried under winter snows. Their skill at
+    woodsmanship might be undoubted, but the intermittent character
+    of their work precluded any development of individual type,
+    like the rivermen and shanty boys of the vanished North. For a
+    moment Bob experienced a twinge of regret that the old, hard,
+    picturesque days of his Northern logging were indeed gone. Then
+    the interest of this great new country with its surging life
+    and its new problems gripped him hard. He left these decent,
+    hard-working, self-respecting ranch boys, these quiet
+    mountaineers, these stolid, inscrutable breeds to their
+    flickering camp fire. Next morning the many-seated vehicles
+    filled early and started up the road. But within a mile Welton
+    and Bob in their buckboard came upon old California John square
+    in the middle of the way. Star stood like a magnificent statue
+    except that slowly over and over, with relish, he turned the
+    wheel of the silver-mounted spade-bit under his tongue. As the
+    ranger showed no indication of getting out of the way, Welton
+    perforce came to a halt.</p>
+
+    <p>"Road closed to trespass by the Wolverine Company," the
+    ranger stated impassively.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton whistled.</p>
+
+    <p>"That mean I can't get to my own property?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"My orders are to close this road to the Wolverine
+    Company."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you've obeyed orders. Now get out the way. Tell your
+    chief he can go ahead on a trespass suit."</p>
+
+    <p>But the old man shook his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, you don't understand," he repeated patiently. "My
+    orders were to <i>close</i> the road to the Company, not just
+    to give notice."</p>
+
+    <p>Without replying Welton picked up his reins and started his
+    horses. The man seemed barely to shift his position, but from
+    some concealment he produced a worn and shiny Colt's. This he
+    laid across the horn of his saddle.</p>
+
+    <p>"Stop," he commanded, and this time his voice had a bite to
+    it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Millions for defence," chuckled Welton, who recognized
+    perfectly the tone, "and how much did you say for tribute?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What say?" inquired the old man.</p>
+
+    <p>"What sort of a hold-up is this? We certainly can't do this
+    road any damage driving over it once. How much of an inducement
+    does Plant want, anyway?"</p>
+
+    <p>"This department is only doing its sworn duty," replied the
+    old man. His blue eyes met Welton's steadily; not a line of his
+    weatherbeaten face changed. For twenty seconds the lumberman
+    tried to read his opponent's mind.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," he said at last. "You can tell your chief that if he
+    thinks he can annoy and harass me into bribing him to be
+    decent, he's left."</p>
+
+    <p>By this time the dust and creek of the first heavily laden
+    vehicle had laboured up to within a few hundred yards.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have over a hundred men there," said Welton, "that I've
+    hired to work for me at the top of that mountain. It's damn
+    foolishness that anybody should stop their going there; and
+    I'll bet they won't lose their jobs. My advice to you is to
+    stand one side. You can't stop a hundred men alone."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, I can," replied the old man calmly. "I'm not
+    alone."</p>
+
+    <p>"No?" said Welton, looking about him.</p>
+
+    <p>"No; there's eighty million people behind that," said
+    California John, touching lightly the shield of his Ranger
+    badge. The simplicity of the act robbed it of all
+    mock-heroics.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton paused, a frown of perplexity between his brows.
+    California John was watching him calmly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course, the <i>public</i> has a right to camp in all
+    Forest Reserves&mdash;subject to reg'lation," he proffered.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton caught at this.</p>
+
+    <p>"You mean&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"No, you got to turn back, and your Company's rigs have got
+    to turn back," said California John. "But I sure ain't no
+    orders to stop no campers."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton nodded briefly; and, after some difficulty,
+    succeeding in turning around, he drove back down the grade.
+    After he had bunched the wagons he addressed the assembled
+    men.</p>
+
+    <p>"Boys," said he, "there's been some sort of a row with the
+    Government, and they've closed this road to us temporarily. I
+    guess you'll have to hoof it the rest of the way."</p>
+
+    <p>This was no great and unaccustomed hardship, and no one
+    objected.</p>
+
+    <p>"How about our beds?" inquired some one.</p>
+
+    <p>This presented a difficulty. No Western camp of any
+    description&mdash;lumber, mining, railroad, cow&mdash;supplies
+    the bedding for its men. Camp blankets as dealt out in our
+    old-time Northern logging camp are unknown. Each man brings his
+    own blankets, which he further augments with a pair of quilts,
+    a pillow and a heavy canvas. All his clothing and personal
+    belongings he tucks inside; the canvas he firmly lashes
+    outside. Thus instead of his "turkey"&mdash;or
+    duffle-bag&mdash;he speaks of his "bed roll," and by that term
+    means not only his sleeping equipment but often all his worldly
+    goods.</p>
+
+    <p>"Can't you unhitch your horses and pack them?" asked
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure," cried several mountaineers at once.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"That sounds like it," he approved; "and remember, boys,
+    you're all innocent campers out to enjoy the wonders and
+    beauties of nature."</p>
+
+    <p>The men made short work of the job. In a twinkling the
+    horses were unhitched from the vehicles. Six out of ten of
+    these men were more or less practised at throwing packing
+    hitches, for your Californian brought up in sight of mountains
+    is often among them. Bob admired the dexterity with which some
+    of the mountaineers improvised slings and drew tight the bulky
+    and cumbersome packs. Within half an hour the long procession
+    was under way, a hundred men and fifty horses. They filed past
+    California John, who had drawn one side.</p>
+
+    <p>"Camping, boys?" he asked the leader.</p>
+
+    <p>The man nodded and passed on. California John sat at ease,
+    his elbow on the pommel, his hand on his chin, his blue eyes
+    staring vacantly at the silent procession filing before him.
+    Star stood motionless, his head high, his small ears pricked
+    forward. The light dust peculiar to the mountain soils of
+    California, stirred by many feet, billowed and rolled upward
+    through the pines. Long rays of sunlight cut through it like
+    swords.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now did you ever see such utter damn foolishness?" growled
+    Welton. "Make that bunch walk all the way up that mountain!
+    What on earth is the difference whether they walk or ride?"</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob, examining closely the faded, old figure on the
+    magnificent horse, felt his mind vaguely troubled by another
+    notion. He could not seize the thought, but its influence was
+    there. Somehow the irritation and exasperation had gone from
+    the episode.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know that sort of crazy old mossback," muttered Welton as
+    he turned down the mountain. "Pin a tin star on them and they
+    think they're as important as hell!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked back.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," he said vaguely. "I'm kind of for that old
+    coon."</p>
+
+    <p>The bend shut him out. After the buckboard had dipped into
+    the horseshoe and out to the next point, they again looked
+    back. The smoke of marching rose above the trees to eddy lazily
+    up the mountain. California John, a tiny figure now, still sat
+    patiently guarding the portals of an empty duty.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob and Welton left the buckboard at Sycamore Flats and rode
+    up to the mill by a d&eacute;tour. There they plunged into
+    active work. The labour of getting the new enterprise under way
+    proved to be tremendous. A very competent woods foreman, named
+    Post, was in charge of the actual logging, so Welton gave his
+    undivided attention to the mill work. All day the huge peeled
+    timbers slid and creaked along the greased slides, dragged
+    mightily by a straining wire cable that snapped and swung
+    dangerously. When they had reached the solid "bank" that
+    slanted down toward the mill, the obstreperous "bull" donkey
+    lowered its crest of white steam, coughed, and was still. A man
+    threw over the first of these timbers a heavy rope, armed with
+    a hook, that another man drove home with a blow of his sledge.
+    The rope tightened. Over rolled the log, out from the greased
+    slide, to come, finally, to rest among its fellows at the
+    entrance to the mill.</p>
+
+    <p>Thence it disappeared, moved always by steam-driven hooks,
+    for these great logs could not be managed by hand implements.
+    The sawyers, at their levers, controlled the various
+    activities. When the time came the smooth, deadly steel ribbon
+    of the modern bandsaws hummed hungrily into the great pines;
+    the automatic roller hurried the new-sawn boards to the edgers;
+    little cars piled high with them shot out from the cool dimness
+    into the dazzling sunlight; men armed with heavy canvas or
+    leather stacked them in the yards; and then----</p>
+
+    <p>That was the trouble; and then, nothing!</p>
+
+    <p>From this point they should have gone farther. Clamped in
+    rectangular bundles, pushing the raging white water before
+    their blunt noses, as strange craft they should have been
+    flashing at regular intervals down the twisting, turning and
+    plunging course of the flume. Arrived safely at the bottom, the
+    eight-and twelve-horse teams should have taken them in charge,
+    dragging them by the double wagon load to the waiting yards of
+    Marshall &amp; Harding. Nothing of the sort was happening.
+    Welton did not dare go ahead with the water for fear of
+    prejudicing his own case. The lumber accumulated. And, as the
+    mill's capacity was great and that of the yards small, the
+    accumulation soon threatened to become embarrassing.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob acted as Welton's lieutenant. As the older lumberman was
+    at first occupied in testing out his sawyers, and otherwise
+    supervising the finished product, Bob was necessarily much in
+    the woods. This suited him perfectly. Every morning at six he
+    and the men tramped to the scene of operations. There a dozen
+    crews scattered to as many tasks. Far in the van the fellers
+    plied their implements. First of all they determined which way
+    a tree could be made to fall, estimating long and carefully on
+    the weight of limbs, the slant of the trunk, the slope of
+    ground, all the elements having to do with the centre of
+    gravity. This having been determined, the men next chopped
+    notches of the right depth for the insertion of short boards to
+    afford footholds high enough to enable them to nick the tree
+    above the swell of the roots. Standing on these springy and
+    uncertain boards, they began their real work, swinging their
+    axes alternately, with untiring patience and incomparable
+    accuracy. Slowly, very slowly, the "nick" grew, a mouth gaping
+    ever wider in the brown tree. When it had gaped wide enough the
+    men hopped down from their springboards, laid aside their axes,
+    and betook themselves to the saw. And when, at last, the wedges
+    inserted in the saw-crack started the mighty top, the men
+    calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stood to one
+    side.</p>
+
+    <p><img src="images/rgillp206.jpg"
+         alt=
+         "The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stood to one side.">
+    </p>
+
+    <p>After the dust had subsided, and the last reverberations of
+    that mighty crash had ceased to re&euml;cho through the forest,
+    the fellers stepped forward to examine their work. They took
+    all things into consideration, such as old wind shakes, new
+    decay, twist of grain and location of the limbs. Then they
+    measured off the prostrate trunk into logs of twelve, fourteen,
+    sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty feet, according to the best
+    expediency. The division points between logs they notched
+    plainly, and, shouldering their axes and their sledge and their
+    long, limber saw, pocketing their wedges and their bottle of
+    coal oil, they moved on to where the next mighty pine had
+    through all the centuries been awaiting their coming.</p>
+
+    <p>Now arrived on the scene the "swampers" and cross-cut men,
+    swarming over the prostrate tree like ants over a piece of
+    sugar. Some of them cut off limbs; others, with axes and
+    crowbars, began to pry away great slabs of bark; still others,
+    with much precaution of shovel, wedge and axe against jamming,
+    commenced the slow and laborious undertaking of sawing apart
+    the logs.</p>
+
+    <p>But most interesting and complicated of all were the further
+    processes of handling the great logs after they had been peeled
+    and sawed.</p>
+
+    <p>The ends of steel cables were dragged by a horse to the
+    prostrate tree, where they were made fast by means of chains
+    and hooks. Then the puffing and snorting donkey engine near the
+    chute tightened the cable. The log stirred, moved, plunged its
+    great blunt nose forward, ploughing up the soil. Small trees
+    and bushes it overrode. But sooner or later it collided head
+    on, with a large tree, a stump, or a boulder. The cable
+    strained. Men shouted or waved their arms in signal. The donkey
+    engine ceased coughing. Then the horse pulled the end of the
+    log free. Behind it was left a deep trough, a half cylinder
+    scooped from the soil.</p>
+
+    <p>At the chutes the logs were laid end to end, like a train of
+    cars. A more powerful cable, endless, running to the mill and
+    back again, here took up the burden. At a certain point it was
+    broken by two great hooks. One of these, the one in advance,
+    the men imbedded in the rear log of the train. The other was
+    dragged behind. Away from the chutes ten feet the returning
+    cable snapped through rude pulleys. The train of logs moved
+    forward slowly and steadily, sliding on the greased ways.</p>
+
+    <p>On the knoll the donkey engine coughed and snorted as it
+    heaved the mighty timbers from the woods. The drag of the logs
+    was sometimes heavier than the engine, so it had to be anchored
+    by other cables to strong trees. Between these opposing
+    forces&mdash;the inertia of the rooted and the fallen&mdash;it
+    leaped and trembled. At its throttle, underneath a canopy
+    knocked together of rough boards, the engineer stood, ready
+    from one instant to another to shut off, speed up, or slow
+    down, according to the demands of an ever-changing exigence.
+    His was a nervous job, and he earned his repose.</p>
+
+    <p>At the rear of the boiler a boy of eighteen toiled with an
+    axe, chopping into appropriate lengths the dead wood brought in
+    for fuel. Next year it would be possible to utilize old tops
+    for this purpose, but now they were too green. Another boy, in
+    charge of a solemn mule, tramped ceaselessly back and forth
+    between the engine and a spring that had been dug out down the
+    hill in a ravine. Before the end of that summer they had worn a
+    trail so deep and hard and smooth that many seasons of snow
+    failed to obliterate it even from the soft earth. On either
+    side the mule were slung sacks of heavy canvas. At the spring
+    the boy filled these by means of a pail. Returned to the
+    engine, he replenished the boiler, draining the sacks from the
+    bottom, cast a fleeting glance at the water gauge of the donkey
+    engine, and hastened back to the spring. He had charge of three
+    engines; and was busy.</p>
+
+    <p>And back along the line of the chutes were other men to fill
+    out this crew of many activities&mdash;old men to signal; young
+    men to stand by with slush brush, axe, or bar when things did
+    not go well; axe-men with teams laying accurately new chutes
+    into new country yet untouched.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found plenty to keep him busy. Post, the woods foreman,
+    was a good chute man. By long experience he had gained
+    practical knowledge of the problems and accidents of this kind
+    of work. To get the logs out from the beds in which they lay,
+    across a rugged country, and into the mill was an engineering
+    proposition of some moment. It is easy to get into difficulties
+    from which hours of work will not extricate.</p>
+
+    <p>But a man involved closely in the practical management of a
+    saw log may conceivably possess scant leisure to correlate the
+    scattered efforts of such divergent activities. The cross
+    cutters and swampers may get ahead of the fellers and have to
+    wait in idleness until the latter have knocked down a tree. Or
+    the donkey may fall silent from lack of logs to haul; or the
+    chute crews may smoke their pipes awaiting the donkey. Or,
+    worst and unpardonable disgrace of all, the mill may ran out of
+    logs! When that happens, the Old Fellow is usually pretty
+    promptly on the scene.</p>
+
+    <p>Now it is obvious that if somewhere on the works ten men are
+    always waiting&mdash;even though the same ten men are not thus
+    idle over once a week&mdash;the employer is paying for ten men
+    too many. Bob found his best activity lay in seeing that this
+    did not happen. He rode everywhere reviewing the work; and he
+    kept it shaken together. Thus he made himself very useful, he
+    gained rapidly a working knowledge of this new kind of logging,
+    and, incidentally, he found his lines fallen in very pleasant
+    places indeed.</p>
+
+    <p>The forest never lost its marvel to him, but after he had to
+    some extent become accustomed to the immense trees, he began to
+    notice the smaller affairs of the woodland. The dogwoods and
+    azaleas were beginning to come out; the waxy, crimson snow
+    plants were up; the tiny green meadows near the heads of
+    streams were enamelled with flowers; hundreds of species of
+    birds sang and flashed and scratched and crept and soared. The
+    smaller animals were everywhere. The sun at noon disengaged
+    innumerable and subtle tepid odours of pine and blossom.</p>
+
+    <p>One afternoon, a little less than a week subsequent to the
+    beginning of work, Bob, riding home through the woods by a
+    d&eacute;tour around a hill, came upon sheep. They were
+    scattered all over the hill, cropping busily at the snowbush,
+    moving ever slowly forward. A constant murmur arose, a murmur
+    of a silent, quick, minute activity. Occasionally some mother
+    among them lifted her voice. Bob sat his horse looking silently
+    on the shifting grays. In ten seconds his sight blurred; he
+    experienced a slight giddiness as though the substantial ground
+    were shifting beneath him in masses, slowly, as in a dream. It
+    gave him a curious feeling of instability. By an effort he
+    focused his eyes; but almost immediately he caught himself
+    growing fuzzy-minded again, exactly as though he had been
+    gazing absently for a considerable period at a very bright
+    light. He shook himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't wonder sheep herders go dotty," said he aloud.</p>
+
+    <p>He looked about him, and for the first time became aware of
+    a tow-headed youth above him on the hill. The youth leaned on a
+    staff, and at his feet crouched two long-haired dogs. Bob
+    turned his horse in that direction.</p>
+
+    <p>When he had approached, he saw the boy to be about seventeen
+    years old. His hair was very light, as were his eyebrows and
+    eyelashes. Only a decided tinge of blue in his irises saved him
+    from albinism. His lips were thick and loose, his nose flat,
+    his expression vacant. In contrast, the two dogs, now seated on
+    their haunches, their heads to one side, their ears cocked up,
+    their eyes bright, looked to be the more intelligent
+    animals.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good evening," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The boy merely stared.</p>
+
+    <p>"You in charge of the sheep?" inquired the young man
+    presently.</p>
+
+    <p>The boy grunted.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where are you camped?" persisted Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>No answer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's your boss?"</p>
+
+    <p>A faint gleam came into the sheep-herder's eyes. He raised
+    his arm and pointed across through the woods.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob reined his horse in the direction indicated. As he
+    passed the last of the flock in that direction, he caught sight
+    of another herder and two more dogs. This seemed to be a
+    bearded man of better appearance than the boy; but he too
+    leaned motionless on his long staff; he too gazed unblinking on
+    the nibbling, restless, changing, imbecile sheep.</p>
+
+    <p>As Bob looked, this man uttered a shrill, long-drawn
+    whistle. Like arrows from bows the two dogs darted away, their
+    ears flat, their bodies held low to the ground. The whistle was
+    repeated by the youth. Immediately his dogs also glided
+    forward. The noise of quick, sharp barkings was heard. At once
+    the slow, shifting movement of the masses of gray ceased. The
+    sound of murmurous, deep-toned bells, of bleating, of the
+    movement of a multitude arose. The flock drew to a common
+    centre; it flowed slowly forward. Here and there the dark
+    bodies of the dogs darted, eager and intelligently busy. The
+    two herders followed after, leaning on their long staffs. Over
+    the hill passed the flock. Slowly the sounds of them merged
+    into a murmur. It died. Only remained the fog of dust drifting
+    through the trees, caught up by every passing current of air,
+    light and impalpable as powder.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob continued on his way, but had not proceeded more than a
+    few hundred feet before he was overtaken by Lejeune.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're the man I was looking for," said Bob. "I see you got
+    your sheep in all right. Have any trouble?"</p>
+
+    <p>The sheepman's teeth flashed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Not'tall," he replied. "I snik in ver' easy up by Beeg
+    Rock."</p>
+
+    <p>At the mill, Bob, while luxuriously splashing the ice cold
+    water on his face and throat, took time to call to Welton in
+    the next room.</p>
+
+    <p>"Saw your sheep man," he proffered. "He got in all right,
+    sheep and all."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton appeared in the doorway, mopping his round, red face
+    with a towel.</p>
+
+    <p>"Funny we haven't heard from Plant, then," said he. "That
+    fat man must be keeping track of Leejune's where-abouts, or
+    he's easier than I thought he was."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The week slipped by. Welton seemed to be completely immersed
+    in the business of cutting lumber. In due time Orde senior had
+    replied by wire, giving assurance that he would see to the
+    matter of the crossing permits.</p>
+
+    <p>"So <i>that's</i> settled," quoth Welton. "You bet-you Jack
+    Orde will make the red tape fly. It'll take a couple of weeks,
+    I suppose&mdash;time for the mail to get there and back.
+    Meantime, we'll get a cut ahead."</p>
+
+    <p>But at the end of ten days came a letter from the
+    congressman.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't know just what is the hitch," wrote Jack Orde. "It
+    ought to be the simplest matter in the world, and so I told
+    Russell in the Land Office to-day. They seem inclined to fall
+    back on their technicalities, which is all rot, of course. The
+    man wants to be annoying for some reason, but I'll take it
+    higher at once. Have an appointment with the Chief this
+    afternoon...."</p>
+
+    <p>The next letter came by the following mail.</p>
+
+    <p>"This seems to be a bad mess. I can't understand it, nor get
+    to the bottom of it. On the face of the showing here we've just
+    bulled ahead without any regard whatever for law or
+    regulations. Of course, I showed your letter stating your
+    agreement and talks with Plant, but the department has his
+    specific denial that you ever approached him. They stand pat on
+    that, and while they're very polite, they insist on a detailed
+    investigation. I'm going to see the Secretary this
+    morning."</p>
+
+    <p>Close on the heels of this came a wire:</p>
+
+    <p>"Plant submits reports of alleged sheep trespass committed
+    this spring by your orders. Wire denial."</p>
+
+    <p>"My Lord!" said Welton, as he took this. "That's why we
+    never heard from that! Bobby, that was a fool move, certainly;
+    but I couldn't turn Leejune down after I'd agreed to graze
+    him."</p>
+
+    <p>"How about these lumber contracts?" suggested Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"We've got to straighten this matter out," said Welton
+    soberly.</p>
+
+    <p>He returned a long telegram to Congressman Orde in
+    Washington, and himself interviewed Plant. He made no headway
+    whatever with the fat man, who refused to emerge beyond the
+    hard technicalities of the situation. Welton made a journey to
+    White Oaks, where he interviewed the Superintendent of the
+    Forest Reserves. The latter proved to be a well-meaning,
+    kindly, white-whiskered gentleman, named Smith, who listened
+    sympathetically, agreed absolutely with the equities of the
+    situation, promised to attend to the matter, and expressed
+    himself as delighted always to have these things brought to his
+    personal attention. On reaching the street, however, Welton
+    made a bee-line for the bank through which he did most of his
+    business.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. Lee," he asked the president, "I want you to be frank
+    with me. I am having certain dealings with the Forest Reserve,
+    and I want to know how much I can depend on this man
+    Smith."</p>
+
+    <p>Lee crossed his white hands on his round stomach, and looked
+    at Welton over his eyeglasses.</p>
+
+    <p>"In what way?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've had a little trouble with one of his subordinates.
+    I've just been around to state my case to Smith, and he agrees
+    with my side of the affair and promises to call down his man.
+    Can I rely on him? Does he mean what he says?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He means what he says," replied the bank president, slowly,
+    "and you can rely on him&mdash;until his subordinate gets a
+    chance to talk to him."</p>
+
+    <p>"H'm," ruminated Welton. "Chinless, eh? I wondered why he
+    wore long white whiskers."</p>
+
+    <p>As he walked up the street toward the hotel, where he would
+    spend the night before undertaking the long drive back,
+    somebody hailed him. He looked around to see a pair of
+    beautiful driving horses, shying playfully against each other,
+    coming to a stop at the curb. Their harness was the lightest
+    that could be devised&mdash;no blinders, no breeching, slender,
+    well-oiled straps; the rig they drew shone and twinkled with
+    bright varnish, and seemed as delicate and light as
+    thistledown. On the narrow seat sat a young man of thirty,
+    covered with an old-fashioned linen duster, wearing the wide,
+    gray felt hat of the country. He was a keen-faced, brown young
+    man, with snapping black eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Welton," said he as he brought the team to a stand;
+    "when did you get out of the hills?"</p>
+
+    <p>"How are you, Mr. Harding?" Welton returned his greeting.
+    "Just down for the day?"</p>
+
+    <p>"How are things going up your way?"</p>
+
+    <p>"First rate," replied Welton. "We're going ahead three bells
+    and a jingle. Started to saw last week."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's good," said Harding. "I haven't heard of one of your
+    teams on the road, and I began to wonder. We've got to begin
+    deliveries on our Los Angeles and San Pedro contracts by the
+    first of August, and we're depending on you."</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll be there," replied Welton with a laugh.</p>
+
+    <p>The young man laughed back.</p>
+
+    <p>"You'd better be, if you don't want us to come up and take
+    your scalp," said he, gathering his reins.</p>
+
+    <p>"Guess I lay in some hair tonic so's to have a good one
+    ready for you," returned Welton, as Harding nodded his
+    farewell.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IX"></a>
+
+    <h2>IX</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Matters stood thus dependent on the efforts of Jack Orde, at
+    Washington, when, one evening, Baker rode in to camp and
+    dismounted before the low verandah of the sleeping quarters.
+    Welton and Bob sat, chair-tilted, awaiting the supper gong.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thrice hail, noble chiefs!" cried Baker, cautiously
+    stretching out first one sturdy leg, then the other. "Against
+    which post can I lean my trusty charger?"</p>
+
+    <p>Baker was garbed to suit the r&ocirc;le. His boots were very
+    thick and very tall, and most bristly with hobnails; they laced
+    with belt laces through forty-four calibre eyelets, and were
+    strapped about the top with a broad piece of leather and two
+    glittering buckles. Furthermore, his trousers were of khaki,
+    his shirt of navy blue, his belt three inches broad, his
+    neckerchief of red, and his hat both wide and high.</p>
+
+    <p>In response to enthusiastic greetings, he struck a pose.</p>
+
+    <p>"How do you like it?" he inquired. "Isn't this the candy
+    make-up for the simple life&mdash;surveyor, hardy prospector,
+    mountain climber, sturdy pedestrian? Ain't I the real young
+    cover design for the Out-of-door number?"</p>
+
+    <p>He accepted their congratulations with a lofty wave.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right," said he; "but somebody take away this
+    horse before I bite him. I'm sore on that horse. Joke!
+    Snicker!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob delivered over the animal to the stableman who was
+    approaching.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come up to see the tall buildings?" he quoted Baker
+    himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"Not so," denied that young man. "My errand is
+    philanthropic. I'm robin redbreast. Leaves for yours."</p>
+
+    <p>"Pass that again," urged Bob; "I didn't get it."</p>
+
+    <p>"I hear you people have locked horns with Henry Plant," said
+    Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Plant's a little on the peck," amended Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Leaves for yours," repeated the self-constituted robin
+    redbreast. "Babes in the Woods!"</p>
+
+    <p>Beyond this he would vouchsafe nothing until after supper
+    when, cigars lighted, the three of them sprawled before the
+    fireplace in quarters.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now," he began, "you fellows are up against it good and
+    plenty. You can't wish your lumber out, and that's the only
+    feasible method unless you get a permit. Why in blazes did you
+    make this break, anyway?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What break?" asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker looked at him and smiled slowly.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't think I own a telephone line without knowing what
+    little birdies light on the wires, do you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Does that damn operator leak?" inquired Welton placidly but
+    with a narrowing of the eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"Not on your saccharine existence. If he did, he'd be out
+    among the scenery in two jumps. But I'm different. That's my
+    <i>business</i>."</p>
+
+    <p>"Mighty poor business," put in Bob quietly.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker turned full toward him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Think so? You'll never get any cigars in the guessing
+    contest unless you can scare up better ones than that. Let's
+    get back to cases. How did you happen to make this break,
+    anyway?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why," explained Welton, "it was simply a case of build a
+    road and a flume down a worthless mountain-side. Back with us a
+    man builds his road where he needs it, and pays for the
+    unavoidable damage. My head was full of all sorts of details. I
+    went and asked Plant about it, and he said all right, go ahead.
+    I supposed that settled it, and that he must certainly have
+    authority on his own job."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker nodded several times.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure. I see the point. Just the same, he has you."</p>
+
+    <p>"For the time being," amended Welton. "Bob's father, here,
+    is congressman from our district in Michigan, and he'll fix the
+    matter."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker turned his face to the ceiling, blew a cloud of smoke
+    toward it, and whistled. Then he looked down at Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose you know the real difficulty?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"One thousand dollars," replied Welton promptly&mdash;"to
+    hire extra fire-fighters to protect my timber," he added
+    ironically.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well!" the lumberman slapped his knee. "I won't be held up
+    in any such barefaced fashion!"</p>
+
+    <p>"And your congressman will pull you out. Now let me drop a
+    few pearls of wisdom in the form of conundrums. Why does a fat
+    man who can't ride a horse hold a job as Forest Supervisor in a
+    mountain country?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He's got a pull somewhere," replied Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bright boy! Go to the head. Why does a fat man who is hated
+    by every mountain man, who grafts barefacedly, whose men are
+    either loafers or discouraged, <i>hold</i> his job?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Same answer."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker leaned forward, and his mocking face became grave.</p>
+
+    <p>"That pull comes from the fact that old Gay is his first
+    cousin, and that he seems to have some special drag with
+    him."</p>
+
+    <p>"The Republican chairman!" cried Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker leaned back.</p>
+
+    <p>"About how much chance do you think Mr. Orde has of getting
+    a hearing? Especially as all they have to do is to stand pat on
+    the record. You'd better buy your extra fire-fighters."</p>
+
+    <p>"That would be plain bribery," put in Bob from the bed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fie, fie! Naughty!" chided Baker. "Bribery! to protect
+    one's timber against the ravages of the devouring element! Now
+    look here," he resumed his sober tone and more considered
+    speech; "what else can you do?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Fight it," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fight what? Prefer charges against Plant? That's been done
+    a dozen times. Such things never get beyond the clerks. There's
+    a man in Washington now who has direct evidence of some of the
+    worst frauds and biggest land steals ever perpetrated in the
+    West. He's been there now four months, and he hasn't even
+    <i>succeeded in getting a hearing</i> yet. I tried bucking
+    Plant, and it cost me first and last, in time, delay and money,
+    nearly fifty thousand dollars. I'm offering you that expensive
+    experience free, gratis, for nothing."</p>
+
+    <p>"Make a plain statement of the facts public," said Bob.
+    "Publish them. Arouse public sentiment."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker looked cynical.</p>
+
+    <p>"Such attacks are ascribed to soreheads," said he, "and
+    public sentiment <i>isn't interested</i>. The average citizen
+    wonders what all the fuss is about and why you don't get along
+    with the officials, anyway, as long as they are fairly
+    reasonable." He turned to Welton: "How much more of a delay can
+    you stand without closing down?"</p>
+
+    <p>"A month."</p>
+
+    <p>"How soon must your deliveries begin?"</p>
+
+    <p>"July first."</p>
+
+    <p>"If you default this contract you can't meet your
+    notes."</p>
+
+    <p>"What notes?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't do the baby blue-eyes. You can't start a show like
+    this without borrowing. Furthermore, if you default this
+    contract, you'll never get another, even if you do weather the
+    storm."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's true," said Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Furthermore," insisted Baker, "Marshall and Harding will be
+    considerably embarrassed to fill their contracts down below;
+    and the building operations will go bump for lack of material,
+    if they fail to make good. You can't stand or fall alone in
+    this kind of a game."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton said nothing, but puffed strongly on his cigar.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're still doing the Sister Anne toward Washington," said
+    Baker, pleasantly. "This came over the 'phone. I wired Mr. Orde
+    in your name, asking what prospects there were for a speedy
+    settlement. There's what he says!" He flipped a piece of
+    scratch paper over to Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Deadlock," read the latter slowly. "No immediate prospect.
+    Will hasten matters through regular channels. Signed,
+    Orde."</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. Orde is familiar with the whole situation?" asked
+    Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"He is."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, there's what he thinks about it even there. You'd
+    better see to that fire protection. It's going to be a dry
+    year."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's all your interest in this, anyway?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker did not answer, but looked inquiringly toward
+    Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Our interests are obviously his," said Welton. "We're the
+    only two business propositions in this country. And if one of
+    those two fail, how's the other to scratch along?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Correct, as far as you go," said Baker, who had listened
+    attentively. "Now, I'm no tight wad, and I'll give you another,
+    gratis. It's strictly under your hats, though. If you fellows
+    bust, how do you think I could raise money to do business up
+    here at all? It would hoodoo the country."</p>
+
+    <p>Silence fell on the three, while the fire leaped and fell
+    and crackled. Welton's face showed still a trace of
+    stubbornness. Suddenly Baker leaned forward, all his customary
+    fresh spirits shining in his face.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't like to take his na'ty medicine?" said he. "Well,
+    now, I'll tell you. I know Plant mighty well. He eats out of my
+    hand. He just loves me as a father. If I should go to him and
+    say; 'Plant, my agile sylph, these people are my friends. Give
+    them their nice little permit and let them run away and play,'
+    why, he'd do it in a minute." Baker rolled his eyes drolly at
+    Welton. "Can this be the shadow of doubt! You disbelieve my
+    power?" He leaned forward and tapped Welton's knee. His voice
+    became grave: "I'll tell you what I'll do. <i>I'll bet you a
+    thousand dollars I can get your permit for you!"</i></p>
+
+    <p>The two men looked steadily into each other's eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>At last Welton drew a deep sigh.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll go you," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker laughed gleefully.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a cinch," said he. "Now, honest, don't you think so?
+    Do you give up? Will you give me a check now?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll give you a check, and you can hunt up a good
+    stakeholder," said Welton. "Shall I make it out to Plant?" he
+    inquired sarcastically.</p>
+
+    <p>"Make the check out to me," said Baker. "I'll just let Plant
+    hold the stakes and decide the bet."</p>
+
+    <p>He rose.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bring out the fiery, untamed steed!" he cried. "I must
+    away!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not to-night?" cried Bob in astonishment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Plant's in his upper camp," said Baker, "and it's only five
+    miles by trail. There's still a moon."</p>
+
+    <p>"But why this haste?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said Baker, spreading his sturdy legs apart and
+    surveying first one and then the other. "To tell you the truth,
+    our old friend Plant is getting hostile about these prods from
+    Washington, and he intimated he'd better hear from me before
+    midnight to-day."</p>
+
+    <p>"You've already seen him!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>But Baker merely grinned.</p>
+
+    <p>As he stood by his horse preparing to mount, he remarked
+    casually.</p>
+
+    <p>"Just picked up a new man for my land business&mdash;name
+    Oldham."</p>
+
+    <p>"Never heard of him," said Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"He isn't the <i>Lucky Lands</i> Oldham, is he?" asked
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Same chicken," replied Baker; then, as Bob laughed, "Think
+    he's phoney? Maybe he'll take watching&mdash;and maybe he
+    won't. I'm a good little watcher. But I do know he's got 'em
+    all running up the street with their hats in their hands when
+    it comes to getting results."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="X"></a>
+
+    <h2>X</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Baker must have won his bet, for Welton never again saw his
+    check for one thousand dollars, until it was returned to him
+    cancelled. Nor did Baker himself return. He sent instead a note
+    advising some one to go over to Plant's headquarters.
+    Accordingly Bob saddled his horse, and followed the messenger
+    back to the Supervisor's summer quarters.</p>
+
+    <p>After an hour and a half of pleasant riding through the
+    great forest, the trail dropped into a wagon road which soon
+    led them to a fine, open meadow.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where does the road go to in the other direction?" Bob
+    asked his guide.</p>
+
+    <p>"She 'jines onto your road up the mountain just by the top
+    of the rise," replied the ranger.</p>
+
+    <p>"How did you get up here before we built that road?"
+    inquired Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Rode," answered the man briefly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pretty tough on Mr. Plant," Bob ventured.</p>
+
+    <p>The man made no reply, but spat carefully into the tarweed.
+    Bob chuckled to himself as the obvious humour of the situation
+    came to him. Plant was evidently finding the disputed right of
+    way a great convenience.</p>
+
+    <p>The meadow stretched broad and fair to a distant fringe of
+    aspens. On either side lay the open forest of spruce and pines,
+    spacious, without undergrowth. Among the trees gleamed several
+    new buildings and one or two old and weather-beaten structures.
+    The sounds of busy saws and hammers rang down the forest
+    aisles.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found the Supervisor sprawled comfortably in a rude,
+    homemade chair watching the activities about him. To his
+    surprise, he found there also Oldham, the real-estate promoter
+    from Los Angeles. Two men were nailing shakes on a new shed.
+    Two more were busily engaged in hewing and sawing, from a
+    cross-section of a huge sugar pine, a set of three steps. Plant
+    seemed to be greatly interested in this, as were still two
+    other men squatting on their heels close by. All wore the
+    badges of the Forest Reserves. Near at hand stood two more men
+    holding their horses by the bridle. As Bob ceased his
+    interchange with Oldham, he overhead one of these inquire:</p>
+
+    <p>"All right. Now what do you want us to do?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Get your names on the pay-roll and don't bother me,"
+    replied Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant caught sight of Bob, and, to that young man's
+    surprise, waved him a jovial hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Bout time you called on the old man!" he roared. "Tie your
+    horse to the ground and come look at these steps. I bet there
+    ain't another pair like 'em in the mountains!"</p>
+
+    <p>Somewhat amused at this cordiality, Bob dismounted.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant mentioned names by way of introduction.</p>
+
+    <p>"Baker told me that you were with him, but not that you were
+    on the mountain," said Bob. "Better come over and see us."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll try, but I'm rushed to get back," replied Oldham
+    formally.</p>
+
+    <p>"How's the work coming on?" asked Plant. "When you going to
+    start fluming 'em down?"</p>
+
+    <p>"As soon as we can get our permit," replied Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you did get in a hole there, didn't you? I guess you
+    better go ahead. It'll take all summer to get the permit, and
+    you don't want to lose a season, do you?"</p>
+
+    <p>Astonished at the effrontery of the man, Bob could with
+    difficulty control his expression.</p>
+
+    <p>"We expect to start to-morrow or next day," he replied.
+    "Just as soon as we can get our teams organized. Just scribble
+    me a temporary permit, will you?" He offered a fountain pen and
+    a blank leaf of his notebook.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant hesitated, but finally wrote a few words.</p>
+
+    <p>"You won't need it," he assured Bob. "I'll pass the word.
+    But there you are."</p>
+
+    <p>"Thanks," said Bob, folding away the paper. "You seem to be
+    comfortably fixed here."</p>
+
+    <p>Plant heaved his mighty body to its legs. His fat face
+    beamed with pride.</p>
+
+    <p>"My boy," he confided to Bob, laying a pudgy hand on the
+    young man's shoulder, "this is the best camp in the
+    mountains&mdash;without any exception."</p>
+
+    <p>He insisted on showing Bob around. Of course, the young
+    fellow, unaccustomed as yet to the difficulties of mountain
+    transportation, could not quite appreciate to the full extent
+    the value in forethought and labour of such things as glass
+    windows, hanging lamps, enamelled table service, open
+    fireplaces, and all the thousand and one
+    conveniences&mdash;either improvised or transported
+    mule-back&mdash;that Plant displayed. Nevertheless he found the
+    place most comfortable and attractive.</p>
+
+    <p>They caught a glimpse of skirts disappearing, but in spite
+    of Plant's roar of "Minnie!" the woman failed to appear.</p>
+
+    <p>"My niece," he explained.</p>
+
+    <p>In spite of himself, Bob found that he was beginning to like
+    the fat man. There could be no doubt that the Supervisor was a
+    great rascal; neither could there be any doubt but that his
+    personality was most attractive. He had a bull-like way of
+    roaring out his jokes, his orders, or his expostulations; a
+    smashing, dry humour; and, above all, an invariably confident
+    and optimistic belief that everything was going well and
+    according to everyone's desires. His manner, too, was hearty,
+    his handclasp warm. He fairly radiated good-fellowship and good
+    humour as he rolled about. Bob's animosity thawed in spite of
+    his half-amused realization of what he ought to feel.</p>
+
+    <p>When the tour of inspection had brought them again to the
+    grove where the men were at work, they found two new
+    arrivals.</p>
+
+    <p>These were evidently brothers, as their square-cut features
+    proclaimed. They squatted side by side on their heels. Two good
+    horses with the heavy saddles and coiled ropes of the stockmen
+    looked patiently over their shoulders. A mule, carrying a light
+    pack, wandered at will in the background. The men wore
+    straight-brimmed, wide felt hats, short jumpers, and overalls
+    of blue denim, and cowboy boots armed with the long, blunt
+    spurs of the craft. Their faces were stubby with a week's
+    growth, but their blue eyes were wide apart and clear.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Pollock," greeted Plant, as he dropped, blowing,
+    into his chair.</p>
+
+    <p>The men nodded briefly, never taking their steady gaze from
+    Plant's face. After a due and deliberate pause, the elder
+    spoke.</p>
+
+    <p>"They's a thousand head of Wright's cattle been drove in on
+    our ranges this year," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"I issued Wright permits for that number, Jim," replied
+    Plant blandly.</p>
+
+    <p>"But that's plumb crowdin' of our cattle off'n the range,"
+    protested the mountaineer.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, it ain't," denied Plant. "That range will keep a
+    thousand cattle more. I've had complete reports on it. I know
+    what I'm doing."</p>
+
+    <p>"It'll <i>keep</i> them, all right," spoke up the younger,
+    "which is saying they won't die. But they'll come out in the
+    fall awful pore."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm using my judgment as to that," said Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yore judgment is pore," said the younger Pollock, bluntly.
+    "You got to be a cattleman to know about them things."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I know Simeon Wright don't put in cattle where he's
+    going to lose on them," replied Plant. "If he's willing to risk
+    it, I'll back his judgment."</p>
+
+    <p>"Wright's a crowder," the older Pollock took up the argument
+    quietly. "He owns fifty thousand head. Me and George, here, we
+    have five hunderd. He just aims to summer his cattle, anyhow.
+    When they come out in the fall, he will fat them up on alfalfa
+    hay. Where is George and me and the Mortons and the Carrolls,
+    and all the rest of the mountain folks going to get alfalfa
+    hay? If our cattle come out pore in the fall, they ain't no
+    good to us. The range is overstocked with a thousand more
+    cattle on it. We're pore men, and Wright he owns half of
+    Californy. He's got a million acres of his own without crowdin'
+    in on us."</p>
+
+    <p>"This is the public domain, for all the public----" began
+    Plant, pompously, but George Pollock, the younger, cut in.</p>
+
+    <p>"We've run this range afore you had any Forest Reserves,
+    afore you came into this country, Henry Plant, and our fathers
+    and our grandfathers! We've built up our business here, and
+    we've built our ranches and we've made our reg'lations and
+    lived up to 'em! We ain't going to be run off our range without
+    knowin' why!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Just because you've always hogged the public land is no
+    reason why you should always continue to do so," said Plant
+    cheerfully.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who's the public? Simeon Wright? or the folks up and down
+    the mountains, who lives in the country?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You've got the same show as Wright or anybody else."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, we ain't," interposed Jim Pollock, "for we're playin' a
+    different game."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, what is it you want me to do, anyway?" demanded
+    Plant. "The man has his permit. You can't expect me to tell him
+    to get to hell out of there when he has a duly authorized
+    permit, do you?"</p>
+
+    <p>The Pollocks looked at each other.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," hesitated Jim, at last. "But we're overstocked. Don't
+    issue no such blanket permits next year. The range won't carry
+    no more cattle than it always has."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'll have it investigated," promised Plant. "I'll
+    send out a grazing man to look into the matter."</p>
+
+    <p>He nodded a dismissal, and the two men, rising slowly to
+    their feet, prepared to mount. They looked perplexed and
+    dissatisfied, but at a loss. Plant watched them sardonically.
+    Finally they swung into the saddle with the cowman's easy
+    grace.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, good day," said Jim Pollock, after a moment's
+    hesitation.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good day," returned Plant amusedly.</p>
+
+    <p>They rode away down the forest aisles. The pack mule fell in
+    behind them, ringing his tiny, sweet-toned bell, his long ears
+    swinging at every step.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant watched them out of sight.</p>
+
+    <p>"Most unreasonable people in the world," he remarked to Bob
+    and Oldham. "They never can be made to see sense. Between them
+    and these confounded sheepmen&mdash;I'd like to get rid of the
+    whole bunch, and deal only with <i>business</i> men. Takes too
+    much palaver to run this outfit. If they gave me fifty rangers,
+    I couldn't more'n make a start." He was plainly out of
+    humour.</p>
+
+    <p>"How many rangers do you get?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Twelve," snapped Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob saw eight of the twelve in sight, either idle or working
+    on such matters as the steps hewed from the section of pine
+    log. He said nothing, but smiled to himself.</p>
+
+    <p>Shortly after he took his leave. Plant, his good humour
+    entirely recovered, bellowed after him a dozen jokes and
+    invitations.</p>
+
+    <p>Down the road a quarter-mile, just before the trail turned
+    off to the mill, Bob and his guide, who was riding down the
+    mountain, passed a man on horseback. He rode a carved-leather
+    saddle, without tapaderos. <a name="FNanchor1"></a><a href=
+    "#Footnote_1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> A rawhide riata hung in its
+    loop on the right-hand side of the horn. He wore a very
+    stiff-brimmed hat encircled by a leather strap and buckle, a
+    cotton shirt, and belted trousers tucked into high-heeled boots
+    embroidered with varied patterns. He was a square-built but
+    very wiry man, with a bold, aggressive, half-hostile glance,
+    and rode very straight and easy after the manner of the plains
+    cowboy. A pair of straight-shanked spurs jingled at his heels,
+    and he wore a revolver.</p>
+
+    <p>"Shelby," explained the guide, after this man had passed.
+    "Simeon Wright's foreman with these cattle you been hearing
+    about. He ain't never far off when there's something doing.
+    Guess he's come to see about how's his fences."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XI"></a>
+
+    <h2>XI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob rode jubilantly into camp. The expedition had taken him
+    all the afternoon, and it was dropping dusk when he had reached
+    the mill.</p>
+
+    <p>"We can get busy," he cried, waving the permit at Welton.
+    "Here it is!"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton smiled. "I knew that, my boy," he replied, "and we're
+    already busy to the extent of being ready to turn her loose
+    to-morrow morning. I've sent down a yard crew to the lower end
+    of the flume; and I've started Max to rustling out the teams by
+    'phone."</p>
+
+    <p>Next day the water was turned into the flume. Fifty men
+    stood by. Rapidly the skilled workmen applied the clamps and
+    binders that made of the boards a compact bundle to be given to
+    the rushing current. Then they thrust it forward to the drag of
+    the water. It gathered headway, rubbing gently against the
+    flume, first on one side, then on the other. Its weight began
+    to tell; it gathered momentum; it pushed ahead of its blunt
+    nose a foaming white wave; it shot out of sight grandly,
+    careening from side to side. The men cheered.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, we're off!" said Bob cheerfully.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, we're off, thank God!" replied Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>From that moment the affairs of the new enterprise went as
+    well as could be expected. Of course, there were many rough
+    edges to be smoothed off, but as the season progressed the
+    community shaped itself. It was indeed a community, of many and
+    diverse activities, much more complicated, Bob soon discovered,
+    than any of the old Michigan logging camps. A great many of the
+    men brought their families. These occupied separate shanties,
+    of course. The presence of the women and children took away
+    much of that feeling of impermanence associated with most
+    pioneer activities. As without exception these women kept
+    house, the company "van" speedily expanded to a company store.
+    Where the "van" kept merely rough clothing, tobacco and patent
+    medicines, the store soon answered demands for all sorts of
+    household luxuries and necessities. Provisions, of course, were
+    always in request. These one of the company's bookkeepers doled
+    out.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. Poole," the purchaser would often say to this man,
+    "next time a wagon comes up from Sycamore Flats would you just
+    as soon have them bring me up a few things? I want a washboard,
+    and some shoes for Jimmy, and a double boiler; and there ought
+    to be an express package for me from my sister."</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure! I'll see to it," said Poole.</p>
+
+    <p>This meant a great deal of trouble, first and last, what
+    with the charges and all. Finally, Welton tired of it.</p>
+
+    <p>"We've got to keep a store," he told Bob finally.</p>
+
+    <p>With characteristic despatch he put the carpenters to work,
+    and sent for lists of all that had been ordered from Sycamore
+    Flats. A study of these, followed by a trip to White Oaks,
+    resulted in the equipment of a store under charge of a man
+    experienced in that sort of thing. As time went on, and the
+    needs of such a community made themselves more evident, the
+    store grew in importance. Its shelves accumulated dress goods,
+    dry goods, clothing, hardware; its rafters dangled with tinware
+    and kettles, with rope, harness, webbing; its bins overflowed
+    with various food-stuffs unknown to the purveyor of a lumber
+    camp's commissary, but in demand by the housewife; its one
+    glass case shone temptingly with fancy stationery, dollar
+    watches, and even cheap jewelry. There was candy for the
+    children, gum for the bashful maiden, soda pop for the
+    frivolous young. In short, there sprang to being in an
+    astonishingly brief space of time a very creditable specimen of
+    the country store. It was a business in itself, requiring all
+    the services of a competent man for the buying, the selling,
+    and the transportation. At the end of the year it showed a fair
+    return on the investment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Though we'd have to have it even at a dead loss," Welton
+    pointed out, "to hold our community together. All we need is a
+    few tufts of chin whiskers and some politics to be full-fledged
+    gosh-darn mossbacks."</p>
+
+    <p>The storekeeper, a very deliberate person, Merker by name,
+    was much given to contemplation and pondering. He possessed a
+    German pipe of porcelain, which he smoked when not actively
+    pestered by customers. At such times he leaned his elbows on
+    the counter, curved one hand about the porcelain bowl of his
+    pipe, lost the other in the depths of his great seal-brown
+    beard, and fell into staring reveries. When a customer entered
+    he came back&mdash;with due deliberation&mdash;from about one
+    thousand miles. He refused to accept more than one statement at
+    a time, to consider more than one person at a time, or to do
+    more than one thing at a time.</p>
+
+    <p>"Gim'me five pounds of beans, two of sugar, and half a pound
+    of tea!" demanded Mrs. Max.</p>
+
+    <p>Merker deliberately laid aside his pipe, deliberately moved
+    down the aisle behind his counter, deliberately filled his
+    scoop, deliberately manipulated the scales. After the package
+    was duly and neatly encased, labelled and deposited accurately
+    in front of Mrs. Max, Merker looked her in the eye.</p>
+
+    <p>"Five pounds of beans," said he, and paused for the next
+    item.</p>
+
+    <p>The moment the woman had departed, Merker resumed his pipe
+    and his wide-eyed vacancy.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton was immensely amused and tickled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Seems to me he might keep a little busier," grumbled
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I thought so, too, at first," replied the older man, "but
+    his store is always neat, and he keeps up his stock.
+    Furthermore, he never makes a mistake&mdash;there's no chance
+    for it on his one-thing-at-a-time system."</p>
+
+    <p>But it soon became evident that Merker's reveries did not
+    mean vacancy of mind. At such times the Placid One figured on
+    his stock. When he put in a list of goods required, there was
+    little guess-work as to the quantities needed. Furthermore, he
+    had other schemes. One evening he presented himself to Welton
+    with a proposition. His waving brown hair was slicked back from
+    his square, placid brow, his wide, cowlike eyes shone with the
+    glow of the common or domestic fire, his brown beard was neat,
+    and his holiday clothes were clean. At Welton's invitation he
+    sat, but bolt upright at the edge of a chair.</p>
+
+    <p>"After due investigation and deliberation," he stated, "I
+    have come to the independent conclusion that we are overlooking
+    a means of revenue."</p>
+
+    <p>"As what?" asked Welton, amused by the man's deadly
+    seriousness.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hogs," stated Merker.</p>
+
+    <p>He went on deliberately to explain the waste in camp
+    garbage, the price of young pigs, the cost of their
+    transportation, the average selling price of pork, the rate of
+    weight increase per month, and the number possible to maintain.
+    He further showed that, turned at large, they would require no
+    care. Amused still at the man's earnestness, Welton tried to
+    trip him up with questions. Merker had foreseen every
+    contingency.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll turn it over to you. Draw the necessary money from the
+    store account," Welton told him finally.</p>
+
+    <p>Merker bowed solemnly and went out. In two weeks pigs
+    appeared. They became a feature of the landscape, and those who
+    experimented with gardens indulged in profanity, clubs and
+    hog-proof fences. Returning home after dark, the wayfarer was
+    apt to be startled to the edge of flight by the grunting
+    upheaval of what had seemed a black shadow under the moon. Bob
+    in especial acquired concentrated practice in horsemanship for
+    the simple reason that his animal refused to dismiss his first
+    hypothesis of bears.</p>
+
+    <p>Nevertheless, at the end of the season Merker gravely
+    presented a duly made out balance to the credit of hogs.</p>
+
+    <p>Encouraged by the success of this venture, he next attempted
+    chickens. But even his vacant-eyed figuring had neglected to
+    take into consideration the abundance of such predatory beasts
+    and birds as wildcats, coyotes, raccoons, owls and the swift
+    hawks of the falcon family.</p>
+
+    <p>"I had thought," he reported to the secretly amused Welton,
+    "that even in feeding the finer sorts of garbage to hogs there
+    might be an economic waste; hogs fatten well enough on the
+    coarser grades, and chickens will eat the finer. In that I fell
+    into error. The percentage of loss from noxious varmints more
+    than equals the difference in the cost of eggs. I further find
+    that the margin of profits on chickens is not large enough to
+    warrant expenditures for traps, dogs and men sufficient for
+    protection."</p>
+
+    <p>"And how does the enterprise stand now?" asked Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"We are behind."</p>
+
+    <p>"H'm. And what would you advise by way of retrenchment?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I should advise closing out the business by killing the
+    fowl," was Merker's opinion. "Crediting the account with the
+    value of the chickens as food would bring us out with a loss of
+    approximately ten dollars."</p>
+
+    <p>"Fried chicken is hardly applicable as lumber camp
+    provender," pointed out Welton. "So it's scarcely a legitimate
+    asset."</p>
+
+    <p>"I had considered that point," replied Merker, "and in my
+    calculations I had valued the chickens at the price of
+    beef."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton gave it up.</p>
+
+    <p>Another enterprise for which Merker was responsible was the
+    utilization of the slabs and edgings in the construction of
+    fruit trays and boxes. When he approached Welton on the
+    subject, the lumberman was little inclined to be receptive to
+    the idea.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all very well, Merker," said he, impatiently; "I
+    don't doubt it's just as you say, and there's a lot of good
+    tray and box material going to waste. So, too, I don't doubt
+    there's lots of material for toothpicks and matches and wooden
+    soldiers and shingles and all sorts of things in our slashings.
+    The only trouble is that I'm trying to run a big lumber
+    company. I haven't time for all that sort of little monkey
+    business. There's too much detail involved in it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, sir," said Merker, and withdrew.</p>
+
+    <p>About two weeks later, however, he reappeared, towing after
+    him an elderly, bearded farmer and a bashful-looking, hulking
+    youth.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is Mr. Lee," said Merker, "and he wants to make
+    arrangements with you to set up a little cleat and box-stuff
+    mill, and use from your dump."</p>
+
+    <p>Mr. Lee, it turned out, had been sent up by an informal
+    association of the fruit growers of the valley. Said informal
+    association had been formed by Merker through the mails. The
+    store-keeper had submitted such convincing figures that Lee had
+    been dispatched to see about it. It looked cheaper in the long
+    run to send up a spare harvesting engine, to buy a saw, and to
+    cut up box and tray stuff than to purchase these necessities
+    from the regular dealers. Would Mr. Welton negotiate? Mr.
+    Welton did. Before long the millmen were regaled by the sight
+    of a snorting little upright engine connected by a flapping,
+    sagging belt to a small circular saw. Two men and two boys
+    worked like beavers. The racket and confusion, shouts,
+    profanity and general awkwardness were something tremendous.
+    Nevertheless, the pile of stock grew, and every once in a while
+    six-horse farm wagons from the valley would climb the mountain
+    to take away box material enough to pack the fruit of a whole
+    district. To Merker this was evidently a profound satisfaction.
+    Often he would vary his usual between-customer reverie by
+    walking out on his shaded verandah, where he would lean against
+    an upright, nursing the bowl of his pipe, gazing across the
+    sawdust to the diminutive and rackety box-plant in the
+    distance.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton, passing one day, laughed at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"How about your economic waste, Merker?" he called. "Two
+    good men could turn out three times the stuff all that gang
+    does in about half the time."</p>
+
+    <p>"There are no two good men for that job," replied Merker
+    unmoved. His large, cowlike eyes roved across the yards. "Men
+    grow in a generation; trees grow in ten," he resumed with
+    unexpected directness. "I have calculated that of a great tree
+    but 40 per cent. is used. All the rest is economic
+    waste&mdash;slabs, edging, tops, stumps, sawdust." He sighed.
+    "I couldn't get anybody to consider your toothpick and matches
+    idea, nor the wooden soldiers, nor even the shingles," he
+    ended.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton stared.</p>
+
+    <p>"You didn't quote me in the matter, did you?" he asked at
+    length.</p>
+
+    <p>"I did not take the matter as official. Would I have done
+    better to have done so?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Lord, no!" cried Welton fervently.</p>
+
+    <p>"The sawdust ought to make something," continued Merker.
+    "But I am unable to discover a practical use for it." He
+    indicated the great yellow mound that each day increased.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, I got to get a burner for it," said Welton, "it'll
+    soon swamp us."</p>
+
+    <p>"There might be power in it," mused Merker. "A big furnace,
+    now----"</p>
+
+    <p>"For heaven's sake, man, what for?" demanded Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know yet," answered the store-keeper.</p>
+
+    <p>Merker amused and interested Welton, and in addition proved
+    to be a valuable man for just his position. It tickled the
+    burly lumberman, too, to stop for a moment in his rounds for
+    the purpose of discussing with mock gravity any one of Marker's
+    thousand ideas on economic waste, Welton discovered a huge
+    entertainment in this. One day, however, he found Merker in
+    earnest discussion with a mountain man, whom the store-keeper
+    introduced as Ross Fletcher. Welton did not pay very much
+    attention to this man and was about to pass on when his eye
+    caught the gleam of a Forest Ranger's badge. Then he stopped
+    short.</p>
+
+    <p>"Merker!" he called sharply.</p>
+
+    <p>The store-keeper looked up.</p>
+
+    <p>"See here a minute. Now," said Welton, as he drew the other
+    aside, "I want one thing distinctly understood. This Government
+    gang don't go here. This is my property, and I won't have them
+    loafing around. That's all there is to it. Now understand me; I
+    mean business. If those fellows come in here, they must buy
+    what they want and get out. They're a lazy, loafing, grafting
+    crew, and I won't have them."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton spoke earnestly and in a low tone, and his face was
+    red. Bob, passing, drew rein in astonishment. Never, in his
+    long experience with Welton, had he seen the older man plainly
+    out of temper. Welton's usual habit in aggravating and contrary
+    circumstances was to show a surface, at least, of the most
+    leisurely good nature. So unprecedented was the present
+    condition that Bob, after hesitating a moment, dismounted and
+    approached.</p>
+
+    <p>Merker was staring at his chief with wide and astonished
+    eyes, and plucking nervously at his brown beard.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, that is Ross Fletcher," he gasped. "We were just
+    talking about the economic waste in the forests. He is a good
+    man. He isn't lazy. He&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Economic waste hell!" exploded Welton. "I won't have that
+    crew around here, and I won't have my employees confabbing with
+    them. I don't care what you tell them, or how you fix it, but
+    you keep them out of here. Understand? I hate the sight of one
+    of those fellows worse than a poison-snake!"</p>
+
+    <p>Merker glanced from Welton to the ranger and back again
+    perplexed.</p>
+
+    <p>"But&mdash;but&mdash;" he stammered. "I've known Ross
+    Fletcher a long time. What can I say&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton cut in on him with contempt.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you'd better say something, unless you want me to
+    throw him off the place. This is no corner saloon for
+    loafers."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll fix it," offered Bob, and without waiting for a reply,
+    he walked over to where the mountaineer was leaning against the
+    counter.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're a Forest Ranger, I see," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," replied the man, straightening from his lounging
+    position.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, from our bitter experiences as to the activities of a
+    Forest Ranger we conclude that you must be very busy
+    people&mdash;too busy to waste time on us."</p>
+
+    <p>The man's face changed, but he evidently had not quite
+    arrived at the drift of this.</p>
+
+    <p>"I think you know what I mean," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>A slow flush overspread the ranger's face. He looked the
+    young man up and down deliberately. Bob moved the fraction of
+    an inch nearer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Meaning I'm not welcome here?" he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>"This place is for the transaction of business only. Can I
+    have Merker get you anything?"</p>
+
+    <p>Fletcher shot a glance half of bewilderment, half of anger,
+    in the direction of the store-keeper. Then he nodded, not
+    without a certain dignity, at Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thanks, no," he said, and walked out, his spurs
+    jingling.</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess he won't bother us again," said Bob, returning to
+    Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>The latter laughed, a trifle ashamed of his anger.</p>
+
+    <p>"Those fellows give me the creeps," he said, "like cats do
+    some people. Mossbacks don't know no better, but a Government
+    grafter is a little more useless than a nigger on a
+    sawlog."</p>
+
+    <p>He went out. Bob turned to Merker.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sorry for the row," he said briefly, for he liked the
+    gentle, slow man. "But they're a bad lot. We've got to keep
+    that crew at arm's length for our own protection."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ross Fletcher is not that kind," protested Merker. "I've
+    known him for years."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, he's got a nerve to come in here. I've seen him and
+    his kind holding down too good a job next old Austin's
+    bar."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not Ross," protested Merker again. "He's a worker. He's
+    just back now from the high mountains. Mr. Orde, if you've got
+    a minute, sit down. I want to tell you about Ross."</p>
+
+    <p>Willing to do what he could to soften Merker's natural
+    feeling, Bob swung himself to the counter, and lit his
+    pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ross Fletcher is a ranger because he loves it and believes
+    in it," said Merker earnestly. "He knows things are going
+    rotten now, but he hopes that by and by they'll go better. His
+    district is in good shape. Why, let me tell you: last spring
+    Ross was fighting fire all alone, and he went out for help and
+    they docked him a day for being off the reserve!"</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't say," commented Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't believe it. Well, it's so. And they sent him in
+    after sheep in the high mountains early, when the feed was
+    froze, and wouldn't allow him pay for three sacks of barley for
+    his animals. And Ross gets sixty dollars a month, and he spends
+    about half of that for trail tools and fire tools that they
+    won't give him. What do you think of that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Merker," said Bob kindly, "I think your man is either a
+    damn liar or a damn fool. Why does he say he does all
+    this?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He likes the mountains. He&mdash;well, he just believes in
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see. Are there any more of these altruists? or is he the
+    only bird of the species?"</p>
+
+    <p>Merker caught the irony of Bob's tone.</p>
+
+    <p>"They don't amount to much, in general," he admitted. "But
+    there's a few&mdash;they keep the torch lit."</p>
+
+    <p>"I supposed their job was more in the line of putting it
+    out," observed Bob; then, catching Merker's look of slow
+    bewilderment, he added: "So there are several."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes. There's good men among 'em. There's Ross, and Charley
+    Morton, and Tom Carroll, and, of course, old California
+    John."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's amused smile died slowly. Before his mental vision
+    rose the picture of the old mountaineer, with his faded, ragged
+    clothes, his beautiful outfit, his lean, kindly face, his
+    steady blue eyes, guarding an empty trail for the sake of an
+    empty duty. That man was no fool; and Bob knew it. The young
+    fellow slid from the counter to the floor.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm glad you believe in your friend, Merker," said he "and
+    I don't doubt he's a fine fellow; but we can't have rangers,
+    good, bad, or indifferent, hanging around here. I hope you
+    understand that?"</p>
+
+    <p>Merker nodded, his wide eyes growing dreamy.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's an economic waste," he sighed, "all this
+    cross-purposes. Here's you a good man, and Ross a good man, and
+    you cannot work in harmony because of little things. The
+    Government and the private owner should conduct business
+    together for the best utilization of all raw
+    material&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Merker," broke in Bob, with a kindly twinkle, "you're a
+    Utopian."</p>
+
+    <p>"Mr. Orde," returned Merker with entire respect, "you're a
+    lumberman."</p>
+
+    <p>With this interchange of epithets they parted.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The establishment of the store attracted a great many
+    campers. California is the campers' state. Immediately after
+    the close of the rainy season they set forth. The wayfarer
+    along any of the country roads will everywhere meet them,
+    either plodding leisurely through the charming landscape, or
+    cheerfully gipsying it by the roadside. Some of the outfits are
+    very elaborate, veritable houses on wheels, with doors and
+    windows, stove pipes, steps that let down, unfolding devices so
+    ingenious that when they are all deployed the happy owners are
+    surrounded by complete convenience and luxury. The man drives
+    his ark from beneath a canopy; the women and children occupy
+    comfortably the living room of the house&mdash;whose sides,
+    perchance, fold outward like wings when the breeze is cool and
+    the dust not too thick. Carlo frisks joyously ahead and astern.
+    Other parties start out quite as cheerfully with the delivery
+    wagon, or the buckboard, or even&mdash;at a pinch&mdash;with
+    the top buggy. For all alike the country-side is golden, the
+    sun warm, the sky blue, the birds joyous, and the spring young
+    in the land. The climate is positively guaranteed. It will not
+    rain; it will shine; the stars will watch. Feed for the horses
+    everywhere borders the roads. One can idle along the highways
+    and the byways and the noways-at-all, utterly carefree,
+    surrounded by wild and beautiful scenery. No wonder half the
+    state turns nomadic in the spring.</p>
+
+    <p>And then, as summer lays its heats&mdash;blessed by the
+    fruit man, the irrigator, the farmer alike&mdash;over the great
+    interior valleys, the people divide into two classes. One
+    class, by far the larger, migrates to the Coast. There the
+    trade winds blowing softly from the Pacific temper the
+    semi-tropic sun; the Coast Ranges bar back the furnace-like
+    heat of the interior; and the result is a summer climate even
+    nearer perfection&mdash;though not so much
+    advertised&mdash;than is that of winter. Here the populace
+    stays in the big winter hotels at reduced rates, or rents
+    itself cottages, or lives in one or the other of the unique
+    tent cities. It is gregarious and noisy, and healthy and
+    hearty, and full of phonographs and a desire to live in bathing
+    suits. Another, and smaller contingent, turns to the
+    Sierras.</p>
+
+    <p>We have here nothing to do with those who attend the resorts
+    such as Tahoe or Klamath; nor yet with that much smaller
+    contingent of hardy and adventurous spirits who, with pack-mule
+    and saddle, lose themselves in the wonderful labyrinth of
+    granite and snow, of ca&ntilde;on and peak, of forest and
+    stream that makes up the High Sierras. But rather let us
+    confine ourselves to the great middle class, the class that has
+    not the wealth nor the desire for resort hotels, nor the skill
+    nor the equipment to explore a wilderness. These people hitch
+    up the farm team, or the grocer's cart, or the family horse,
+    pile in their bedding and their simple cooking utensils,
+    whistle to the dog, and climb up out of the scorching inferno
+    to the coolness of the pines.</p>
+
+    <p>They have few but definite needs. They must have company,
+    water, and the proximity of a store where they can buy things
+    to eat. If there is fishing, so much the better. At any rate
+    there is plenty of material for bonfires. And since other
+    stores are practically unknown above the six-thousand-foot
+    winter limit of habitability, it follows that each lumber-mill
+    is a magnet that attracts its own community of these visitors
+    to the out of doors.</p>
+
+    <p>As early as the beginning of July the first outfit drifted
+    in. Below the mill a half-mile there happened to be a small,
+    round lake with meadows at the upper and lower ends. By the
+    middle of the month two hundred people were camped there. Each
+    constructed his abiding place according to his needs and ideas,
+    and promptly erected a sign naming it. The names were
+    facetiously intended. The community was out for a good time,
+    and it had it. Phonographs, concertinas, and even a tiny
+    transportable organ appeared. The men dressed in loose rough
+    clothes; the women wore sun-bonnets; the girls inclined to
+    bandana handkerchiefs, rough-rider skirts and leggings, cowboy
+    hats caught up at the sides, fringed gauntlet gloves. They were
+    a good-natured, kindly lot, and Bob liked nothing better than
+    to stroll down to the Lake in the twilight. There he found the
+    arrangements differing widely. The smaller ranchmen lived
+    roughly, sleeping under the stars, perhaps, cooking over an
+    open fire, eating from tinware. The larger ranchmen did things
+    in better style. They brought rocking chairs, big tents,
+    chinaware, camp stoves and Japanese servants to manipulate
+    them. The women had flags and Chinese lanterns with which to
+    decorate, hammocks in which to lounge, books to read, tables at
+    which to sit, cots and mattresses on which to sleep. No
+    difference in social status was made, however. The young people
+    undertook their expeditions together: the older folks swapped
+    yarns in the peaceful enjoyment of the forest. Bob found
+    interest in all, for as yet the California ranchman has not
+    lost in humdrum occupations the initiative that brought him to
+    a new country nor the influences of the experience he has
+    gained there. To his surprise several of the parties were
+    composed entirely of girls. One, of four members, was made up
+    of students from Berkeley, out for their summer vacation. Late
+    in the summer these four damsels constructed a pack of their
+    belongings, lashed it on a borrowed mule, and departed. They
+    were gone for a week in the back country, and returned full of
+    adventures over the detailing of which they laughed until they
+    gasped.</p>
+
+    <p>To Bob's astonishment none of the men seemed particularly
+    wrought up over this escapade.</p>
+
+    <p>"They're used to the mountains," he was assured, "and
+    they'll get along all right with that old mule."</p>
+
+    <p>"Does anybody live over there?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, it's just a wild country, but the trails is good."</p>
+
+    <p>"Suppose they get into trouble?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What trouble? And 'tain't likely they'd all get into
+    trouble to once."</p>
+
+    <p>"I should think they'd be scared."</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothin' to be scared of," replied the man comfortably.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob thought of the great, uninhabited mountains, the dark
+    forests, the immense loneliness and isolation, the thousand
+    subtle and psychic influences which the wilderness exerts over
+    the untried soul. There might be nothing to be scared of, as
+    the man said. Wild animals are harmless, the trails are good.
+    But he could not imagine any of the girls with whom he had
+    acquaintance pushing off thus joyous and unafraid into a
+    wilderness three days beyond the farthest outpost. He had yet
+    to understand the spirit, almost universal among the
+    native-born Californians, that has been brought up so
+    intimately with the large things of nature that the sublime is
+    no longer the terrible. Perhaps this states it a little too
+    pompously. They have learned that the mere absence of mankind
+    is 'nothing to be scared of'; they have learned how to be
+    independent and to take care of themselves. Consequently, as a
+    matter of course, as one would ride in the park, they undertake
+    expeditions into the Big Country.</p>
+
+    <p>Many of these travellers, especially toward the close of the
+    summer, complained bitterly of the scarcity of horse-feed. In
+    the back country where the mountains were high and the
+    wilderness unbroken, they depended for forage on the grasses of
+    the mountain meadows. This year they reported that the cattle
+    had eaten the forage down to the roots. Where usually had been
+    abundance and pleasant camping, now were hard, close lawns, and
+    cattle overrunning and defiling everything. Under the heavy
+    labour of mountain travel the horses fell off rapidly in flesh
+    and strength.</p>
+
+    <p>"We're the public just as much as them cattlemen," declaimed
+    one grizzled veteran waving his pipe. "I come to these
+    mountains first in sixty-six, and the sheep was bad enough
+    then, but you always had some horse meadows. Now they're just
+    plumb overrunning the country. There's thousands and thousands
+    of folks that come in camping, and about a dozen of these yere
+    cattlemen. They got no right to hog the public land."</p>
+
+    <p>With so much approval did this view meet that a delegation
+    went to Plant's summer quarters to talk it over. The delegation
+    returned somewhat red about the ears. Plant had politely but
+    robustly told it that a supervisor was the best judge of how to
+    run his own forest. This led to declamatory denunciation, after
+    the American fashion, but without resulting in further
+    activity. Resentment seemed to be about equally divided between
+    Plant and the cattlemen as a class.</p>
+
+    <p>This resentment as to the latter, however, soon changed to
+    sympathy. In September the Pollock boys stopped overnight at
+    the Lake Meadow on their way out. Their cattle, in charge of
+    the dogs, they threw for the night into a rude corral of logs,
+    built many years before for just that purpose. Their horses
+    they fed with barley hay bought from Merker. Their camp they
+    spread away from the others, near the spring. It was dark
+    before they lit their fire. Visitors sauntering over found
+    George and Jim Pollock on either side the haphazard blaze
+    stolidly warming through flapjacks, and occasionally settling
+    into a firmer position the huge coffee pot. The dust and sweat
+    of driving cattle still lay thick on their faces. A boy of
+    eighteen, plainly the son of one of the other two, was hanging
+    up the saddles. The whole group appeared low-spirited and
+    tired. The men responded to the visitors by a brief nod only.
+    The latter there-upon sat down just inside the circle of
+    lamplight and smoked in silence. Presently Jim arose stiffly,
+    frying pan in hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's done," he announced.</p>
+
+    <p>They ate in silence, consuming great quantities of
+    half-cooked flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls
+    of scalding coffee. When they had finished they thrust aside
+    the battered tin dishes with the air of men too weary to bother
+    further with them. They rolled brown paper cigarettes and
+    smoked listlessly. After a time George Pollock remarked:</p>
+
+    <p>"We ain't washed up."</p>
+
+    <p>The statement resulted in no immediate action. After a few
+    moments more, however, the boy arose slowly, gathered the
+    dishes clattering into a kettle, filled the latter with water,
+    and set it in the fire. Jim and his brother, too, bestirred
+    themselves, disappearing in the direction of the spring with a
+    bar of mottled soap, an old towel, and a battered pan. They
+    returned after a few moments, their faces shining, their hair
+    wetted and sleeked down.</p>
+
+    <p>"Plumb too lazy to wash up." George addressed the silent
+    visitors by way of welcome.</p>
+
+    <p>"Drove far?" asked an old ranchman.</p>
+
+    <p>"Twin Peaks."</p>
+
+    <p>"How's the feed?" came the inevitable cowman's question.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pore, pore," replied the mountaineer. "Ain't never seen it
+    so short. My cattle's pore."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you're overstocked; that's what's the matter," spoke
+    up some one boldly.</p>
+
+    <p>George Pollock turned his face toward this voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't you suppose I know it?" he demanded. "There's a
+    thousand head too many on my range alone. I've been crowded and
+    pushed all summer, and I ain't got a beef steer fit to sell,
+    right now. My cattle are so pore I'll have to winter 'em on
+    foothill winter feed. And in the spring they'll be porer."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, why don't you all get together and reduce your
+    stock?" persisted the questioner. "Then there'll be a show for
+    somebody. I got three packs and two saddlers that ain't fatted
+    up from a two weeks' trip in August. You got the country
+    skinned; and that ain't no dream."</p>
+
+    <p>George Pollock turned so fiercely that his listeners
+    shrank.</p>
+
+    <p>"Get together! Reduce our stock!" he snarled, shaken from
+    the customary impassivity of the mountaineer, "It ain't us! We
+    got the same number of cattle, all we mountain men, that our
+    fathers had afore us! There ain't never been no trouble before.
+    Sometimes we crowded a little, but we all know our people and
+    we could fix things up, and so long as they let us be, we got
+    along all right. It don't <i>pay</i> us to overstock. What for
+    do we keep cattle? To sell, don't we? And we can't sell 'em
+    unless they're fat. Summer feed's all we got to fat 'em on.
+    Winter feed's no good. You know that. We ain't going to crowd
+    our range. You make me tired!"</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the trouble then?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Outsiders," snapped Pollock. "Folks that live on the plains
+    and just push in to summer their cattle anyhow, and then fat
+    'em for the market on alfalfa hay. This ain't their country.
+    Why don't they stick to their own?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Can't you handle them? Who are they?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It ain't they," replied George Pollock sullenly. "It's him.
+    It's the richest man in California, with forty ranches and
+    fifty thousand head of cattle and a railroad or two and God
+    knows what else. But he'll come up here and take a pore man's
+    living away from him for the sake of a few hundred dollars
+    saved."</p>
+
+    <p>"Old Simeon, hey?" remarked the ranchman thoughtfully.</p>
+
+    <p>"Simeon Wright," said Pollock. "The same damn old robber.
+    Forest Reserves!" he sneered bitterly. "For the use of the
+    public! Hell! Who's the public? me and you and the other
+    fellow? The public is Simeon Wright. What do you expect?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't Plant say he was going to look into the matter for
+    next year?" Bob inquired from the other side the fire.</p>
+
+    <p>"Plant! He's bought," returned Pollock contemptuously. "He's
+    never seen the country, anyway; and he never will."</p>
+
+    <p>He rose and kicked the fire together.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good night!" he said shortly, and, retiring to the shadows,
+    rolled himself in a blanket and turned his back on the
+    visitors.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The season passed without further incidents of general
+    interest. It was a busy season, as mountain seasons always are.
+    Bob had opportunity to go nowhere; but in good truth he had no
+    desire to do so. The surroundings immediate to the work were
+    rich enough in interest. After the flurry caused by the delay
+    in opening communication, affairs fell into their grooves. The
+    days passed on wings. Almost before he knew it, the dogwood
+    leaves had turned rose, the aspens yellow, and the pines,
+    thinning in anticipation of the heavy snows, were dropping
+    their russet needles everywhere. A light snow in September
+    reminded the workers of the altitude. By the first of November
+    the works were closed down. The donkey engines had been roughly
+    housed in; the machinery protected; all things prepared against
+    the heavy Sierra snows. Only the three caretakers were left to
+    inhabit a warm corner. Throughout the winter these men would
+    shovel away threatening weights of snow and see to the damage
+    done by storms. In order to keep busy they might make shakes,
+    or perhaps set themselves to trapping fur-bearing animals. They
+    would use <i>skis</i> to get about.</p>
+
+    <p>For a month after coming down from the mountain, Bob stayed
+    at Auntie Belle's. There were a number of things to attend to
+    on the lower levels, such as anticipating repairs to flumes,
+    roads and equipment, systematizing the yard arrangements, and
+    the like. Here Bob came to know more of the countryside and its
+    people.</p>
+
+    <p>He found this lower, but still mountainous, country threaded
+    by roads; rough roads, to be sure, but well enough graded.
+    Along these roads were the ranch houses and spacious corrals of
+    the mountain people. Far and wide through the wooded and brushy
+    foothills roamed the cattle, seeking the forage of the winter
+    range that a summer's absence in the high mountains had saved
+    for them. Bob used often to "tie his horse to the ground" and
+    enter for a chat with these people. Harbouring some vague
+    notions of Southern "crackers," he was at first considerably
+    surprised. The houses were in general well built and clean,
+    even though primitive, and Bob had often occasion to notice
+    excellent books and magazines. There were always plenty of
+    children of all sizes. The young women were usually attractive
+    and blooming. They insisted on hospitality; and Bob had the
+    greatest difficulty in persuading them that he stood in no
+    immediate need of nourishment. The men repaid cultivation.
+    Their ideas were often faulty because of insufficient basis of
+    knowledge: but, when untinged by prejudice, apt to be logical.
+    Opinions were always positive, and always existent. No
+    phenomenon, social or physical, could come into their ken
+    without being mulled over and decided upon. In the field of
+    their observations were no dead facts. Not much given to
+    reception of contrary argument or idea they were always eager
+    for new facts. Bob found himself often held in good-humoured
+    tolerance as a youngster when he advanced his opinion; but
+    listened to thirstily when he could detail actual experience or
+    knowledge. The head of the house held patriarchal sway until
+    the grown-up children were actually ready to leave the paternal
+    roof for homes of their own. One and all loved the mountains,
+    though incoherently, and perhaps without full consciousness of
+    the fact. They were extremely tenacious of personal rights.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob, being an engaging and open-hearted youth, soon gained
+    favour. Among others he came to know the two Pollock families
+    well. Jim Pollock, with his large brood, had arrived at a
+    certain philosophical, though watchful, acceptance of life; but
+    George, younger, recently married, and eagerly ambitious,
+    chafed sorely. The Pollocks had been in the country for three
+    generations. They inhabited two places on opposite sides of a
+    ca&ntilde;on. These houses possessed the distinction of having
+    the only two red-brick chimneys in the hills. They were low,
+    comfortable, rambling, vine-clad.</p>
+
+    <p>"We always run cattle in these hills," said George fiercely
+    to Bob, "and got along all right. But these last three years
+    it's been bad. Unless we can fat our cattle on the summer
+    ranges in the high mountains, we can't do business. The grazing
+    on these lower hills you just <i>got</i> to save for winter.
+    You can't raise no hay here. Since they begun to crowd us with
+    old Wright's stock it's tur'ble. I ain't had a head of beef
+    cattle fittin' to sell, bar a few old cows. And if I ain't got
+    cattle to sell, where do I get money to live on? I always been
+    out of debt; but this year I done put a mortgage on the place
+    to get money to go on with."</p>
+
+    <p>"We can always eat beef, George," said his wife with a
+    little laugh, "and miner's lettuce. We ain't the first folks
+    that has had hard times&mdash;and got over it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Mebbe not," agreed George, glancing with furrowed brow at a
+    tiny garment on which Mrs. George was sewing.</p>
+
+    <p>Jim Pollock, smoking comfortably in his shirt sleeves before
+    his fire, was not so worried. His youngest slept in his arms;
+    two children played and tumbled on the floor; buxom Mrs.
+    Pollock bustled here and there on household business; the older
+    children sprawled over the table under the lamp reading; the
+    oldest boy, with wrinkled brow, toiled through the instructions
+    of a correspondence school course.</p>
+
+    <p>"George always takes it hard," said Jim. "I've got six kids,
+    and he'll have one&mdash;or at most two&mdash;mebbe. It's hard
+    times all right, and a hard year. I had to mortgage, too. Lord
+    love you, a mortgage ain't so bad as a porous plaster. It'll
+    come off. One good year for beef will fix us. We ain't lost
+    nothing but this year's sales. Our cattle are too pore for
+    beef, but they're all in good enough shape. We ain't lost none.
+    Next year'll be better."</p>
+
+    <p>"What makes you think so?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Smith, he's superintendent at White Oaks, you know,
+    he's favourable to us. I seed him myself. And even Plant, he's
+    sent old California John back to look over what shape the
+    ranges are in. There ain't no doubt as to which way he'll
+    report. Old John is a cattleman, and he's square."</p>
+
+    <p>One day Bob found himself belated after a fishing excursion
+    to the upper end of the valley. As a matter of course he
+    stopped over night with the first people whose ranch he came
+    to. It was not much of a ranch and it's two-room house was of
+    logs and shakes, but the owners were hospitable. Bob put his
+    horse into a ramshackle shed, banked with earth against the
+    winter cold. He had a good time all the evening.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going to hike out before breakfast," said he before
+    turning in, "so if you'll just show me where the lantern is, I
+    won't bother you in the morning."</p>
+
+    <p>"Lantern!" snorted the mountaineer. "You turn on the switch.
+    It's just to the right of the door as you go in."</p>
+
+    <p>So Bob encountered another of the curious anomalies not
+    infrequent to the West. He entered a log stable in the remote
+    backwoods and turned on a sixteen-candle-power electric globe!
+    As he extended his rides among the low mountains of the First
+    Rampart, he ran across many more places where electric light
+    and even electric power were used in the rudest
+    habitations.</p>
+
+    <p>The explanation was very simple; these men had possessed
+    small water rights which Baker had needed. As part of their
+    compensation they received from Power House Number One what
+    current they required for their own use.</p>
+
+    <p>Thus reminded, Bob one Sunday visited Power House Number
+    One. It proved to be a corrugated iron structure through which
+    poured a great stream and from which went high-tension wires
+    strung to mushroom-shaped insulators. It was filled with the
+    clean and shining machinery of electricity. Bob rode up the
+    flume to the reservoir, a great lake penned in ca&ntilde;on
+    walls by a dam sixty feet high. The flume itself was of
+    concrete, large enough to carry a rushing stream. He made the
+    acquaintance of some of the men along the works. They tramped
+    and rode back and forth along the right of way, occupied with
+    their insulations, the height of their water, their watts and
+    volts and amperes. Surroundings were a matter of indifference
+    to them. Activity was of the same sort, whether in the city or
+    in the wilderness. As influences&mdash;city or
+    wilderness&mdash;it was all the same to them. They made their
+    own influences&mdash;which in turn developed a special type of
+    people&mdash;among the delicate and powerful mysteries of their
+    craft. Down through the land they had laid the narrow, uniform
+    strip of their peculiar activities; and on that strip they
+    dwelt satisfied with a world of their own. Bob sat in a
+    swinging chair talking in snatches to Hicks, between calls on
+    the telephone. He listened to quick, sharp orders as to men and
+    instruments, as to the management of water, the undertaking of
+    repairs. These were couched in technical phrases and slang, for
+    the most part. By means of the telephone Hicks seemed to keep
+    in touch not only with the plants in his own district, but also
+    with the activities in Power Houses Two, Three and Four, many
+    miles away. Hicks had never once, in four years, been to the
+    top of the first range. He had had no interest in doing so.
+    Neither had he an interest in the foothill country to the
+    west.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd kind of like to get back and kill a buck or so," he
+    confessed; "but I haven't got the time."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a different country up where we are," urged Bob. "You
+    wouldn't know it for the same state as this dry and brushy
+    country. It has fine timber and green grass."</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose so," said Hicks indifferently. "But I haven't got
+    the time."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob rode away a trifle inclined to that peculiar form of
+    smug pity a hotel visitor who has been in a place a week feels
+    for yesterday's arrival. He knew the coolness of the great
+    mountain.</p>
+
+    <p>At this point an opening in the second growth of yellow
+    pines permitted him a vista. He looked back. He had never been
+    in this part of the country before. A little portion of Baldy,
+    framed in a pine-clad cleft through the First Range, towered
+    chill, rugged and marvellous in its granite and snow. For the
+    first time Bob realized that even so immediately behind the
+    scene of his summer's work were other higher, more wonderful
+    countries. As he watched, the peak was lost in the blackness of
+    one of those sudden storms that gather out of nothing about the
+    great crests. The cloud spread like magic in all directions.
+    The faint roll of thunder came down a wind, damp and cool,
+    sucked from the high country.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob rounded a bend in the road to overtake old California
+    John, jingling placidly along on his beautiful sorrel. Though
+    by no means friendly to any member of this branch of government
+    service, Bob reined his animal.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo," said he, overborne by an unexpected impulse.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good day," responded the old man, with a friendly deepening
+    of the kindly wrinkles about his blue eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"John," asked Bob, "were you ever in those big mountains
+    there?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Baldy?" said the Ranger. "Lord love you, yes. I have to
+    cross Baldy 'most every time I go to the back country. There's
+    two good passes through Baldy."</p>
+
+    <p>"Back country!" repeated Bob. "Are there any higher
+    mountains than those?"</p>
+
+    <p>Old California John chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Listen, son," said he. "There's the First Range, and then
+    Stone Creek, and then Baldy. And on the other side of Baldy
+    there's the ca&ntilde;on of the Joncal which is three thousand
+    foot down. And then there's the Burro Mountains, which is half
+    again as high as Baldy, and all the Burro country to Little
+    Jackass. That's a plateau covered with lodge-pole pine and
+    meadows and creeks and little lakes. It's a big plateau, and
+    when you're a-ridin' it, you shore seem like bein' in a wide,
+    flat country. And then there's the Green Mountain country; and
+    you drop off five or six thousand foot into the box
+    ca&ntilde;on of the north fork; and then you climb out again to
+    Red Mountain; and after that is the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles is
+    the Fourth Rampart. After them is South Meadow, and the
+    Boneyard. Then you get to the Main Crest. And that's only if
+    you go plumb due east. North and south there's all sorts of big
+    country. Why, Baldy's only a sort of taster."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's satisfaction with himself collapsed. This land so
+    briefly shadowed forth was penetrable only in summer: that he
+    well knew. And all summer Bob was held to the great tasks of
+    the forest. He hadn't the time! Wherein did he differ from
+    Hicks? In nothing save that his right of way happened to be a
+    trifle wider.</p>
+
+    <p>"Have you been to all these places?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Many times," replied California John. "From Stanislaus to
+    the San Bernardino desert I've ridden."</p>
+
+    <p>"How big a country is that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's about four hundred mile long, and about eighty mile
+    wide as the crow flies&mdash;a lot bigger as a man must
+    ride."</p>
+
+    <p>"All big mountains?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Surely."</p>
+
+    <p>"You must have been everywhere?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said California John, "I never been to Jack Main's
+    Ca&ntilde;on. It's too fur up, and I never could get time off
+    to go in there."</p>
+
+    <p>So this man, too, the ranger whose business it was to travel
+    far and wide in the wild country, sighed for that which lay
+    beyond his right of way! Suddenly Bob was filled with a desire
+    to transcend all these activities, to travel on and over the
+    different rights of way to which all the rest of the world was
+    confined until he knew them all and what lay beyond them. The
+    impulse was but momentary, and Bob laughed at himself as it
+    passed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Something hid beyond the ranges," he quoted softly to
+    himself.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly he looked up, and gathered his reins.</p>
+
+    <p>"John," he said, "we're going to catch that storm."</p>
+
+    <p>"Surely," replied the old man looking at him with surprise;
+    "just found that out?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, we'd better hurry."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the use? It'll catch us, anyhow. We're shore due to
+    get wet."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, let's hunt a good tree."</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said California John, "this is a thunder-storm, and
+    trees is too scurce. You just keep ridin' along the open road.
+    I've noticed that lightnin' don't hit twice in the same place
+    mainly because the same place don't seem to be thar any more
+    after the first time."</p>
+
+    <p>The first big drops of the storm delayed fully five minutes.
+    It did seem foolish to be jogging peacefully along at a foxtrot
+    while the tempest gathered its power, but Bob realized the
+    justice of his companion's remarks.</p>
+
+    <p>When it did begin, however, it made up for lost time. The
+    rain fell as though it had been turned out of a bucket. In an
+    instant every runnel was full. The water even flowed in a thin
+    sheet from the hard surface of the ground. The men were
+    soaked.</p>
+
+    <p>Then came the thunder in a burst of fury and noise. The
+    lightning flashed almost continuously, not only down, but
+    aslant, and even&mdash;Bob thought&mdash;<i>up</i>. The thunder
+    roared and reverberated and re&euml;choed until the world was
+    filled with its crashes. Bob's nerves were steady with youth
+    and natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which
+    assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of
+    confusion. His horse snorted, pricking its ears backward and
+    forward, dancing from side to side. The lightning seemed fairly
+    to spring into being all about them, from the substance of the
+    murk in which they rode.</p>
+
+    <p>"Isn't this likely to hit us?" he yelled at California
+    John.</p>
+
+    <p>"Liable to," came back the old man's reply across the roar
+    of the tempest.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked about him uneasily. The ranger bent his head to
+    the wind. Star, walking more rapidly, outpaced Bob's horse,
+    until they were proceeding single file some ten feet apart.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly the earth seemed to explode directly ahead. A
+    blinding flare swept the ground, a hissing crackle was drowned
+    in an overwhelming roar of thunder. Bob dodged, and his horse
+    whirled. When he had mastered both his animal and himself he
+    spurred back. California John had reined in his mount. Not
+    twenty feet ahead of him the bolt had struck. California John
+    glanced quizzically over his shoulder at the sky.</p>
+
+    <p>"Old Man," he remarked, "you'll have to lower your sights a
+    little, if you want to git me."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIV"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>At Christmas Bob took a brief trip East, returning to
+    California about the middle of January. The remainder of the
+    winter was spent in outside business, and in preparatory
+    arrangements for the next season's work. The last of April he
+    returned to the lower mountains.</p>
+
+    <p>He found Sycamore Flats in a fever of excitement over the
+    cattle question. After lighting his post-prandial pipe he
+    sauntered down to chat with Martin, the lank and leisurely
+    keeper of the livery, proprietor of the general store, and
+    clearing house of both information and gossip.</p>
+
+    <p>"It looks like this," Martin answered Bob's question. "You
+    remember Plant sent back old California John to make a report
+    on the grazing. John reported her over-stocked, of course;
+    nobody could have done different. Plant kind of promised to fix
+    things up; and the word got around pretty definite that the
+    outside stock would be reduced."</p>
+
+    <p>"Wasn't it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not so you'd notice. When the permits was published for
+    this summer, they read good for the same old number."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then Wright's cattle will be in again this year."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the worst of it; they <i>are</i> in. Shelby brought
+    up a thousand head a week ago, and was going to push them right
+    in over the snow. The feed's <i>just</i> starting on the low
+    meadows in back, and it hasn't woke up a mite in the higher
+    meadows. You throw cattle in on that mushy, soft ground and new
+    feed, and they tromp down and destroy more'n they eat. No
+    mountain cattleman goes in till the feed's well started,
+    never."</p>
+
+    <p>"But what does Shelby do it for, then?"</p>
+
+    <p>Martin spat accurately at a knothole.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, he don't care. Those big men don't give a damn what
+    kind of shape cattle is in, as long as they stay alive. Same
+    with humans; only they ain't so particular about the staying
+    alive part."</p>
+
+    <p>"Couldn't anything be done to stop them?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Plant could keep them out, but he won't. Jim and George
+    Pollock, and Tom Carroll and some of the other boys put up such
+    a kick, though, that they saw a great light. They ain't going
+    in for a couple of weeks more."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right, then," said Bob heartily.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is it?" asked Martin.</p>
+
+    <p>"Isn't it?" inquired Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, some says not. Of course they couldn't be expected to
+    drive all those cattle back to the plains, so they're just
+    naturally spraddled out grazing over this lower country."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, what becomes of the winter feed?" cried Bob aghast,
+    well aware that in these lower altitudes the season's growth
+    was nearly finished and the ripening about to begin.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's just it," said Martin; "where, oh, where?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Can't anything be done?" repeated Bob, with some show of
+    indignation.</p>
+
+    <p>"What? This is all government land. The mountain boys ain't
+    got any real exclusive rights there. It's public property. The
+    regulations are pretty clear about preference being given to
+    the small owner, and the local man; but that's up to
+    Plant."</p>
+
+    <p>"It'll come pretty hard on some of the boys, if they keep on
+    eating off their winter feed and their summer feed too,"
+    hazarded Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"It'll drive 'em out of business," said Martin. "It'll do
+    more; it'll close out settlement in this country. There ain't
+    nothing doing <i>but</i> cattle, and if the small cattle
+    business is closed up, the permanent settlement closes up too.
+    There's only lumber and power and such left; and they don't
+    mean settlement. That's what the Government is supposed to look
+    out for."</p>
+
+    <p>"Government!" said Bob with contempt.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, now, there's a few good ones, even at that," stated
+    Martin argumentively. "There's old John, and Ross Fletcher, and
+    one or two more that are on the square. It may be these little
+    grafters have got theirs coming yet. Now and then an inspector
+    comes along. He looks over the books old Hen Plant or the next
+    fellow has fixed up; asks a few questions about trails and
+    such; writes out a nice little recommend on his pocket
+    typewriter, and moves on. And if there's a roar from some of
+    these little fellows, why it gets lost. Some clerk nails it,
+    and sends it to Mr. Inspector with a blue question mark on it;
+    and Mr. Inspector passes it on to Mr. Supervisor for
+    explanation; and Mr. Supervisor's strong holt is explanations.
+    There you are! But it only needs one inspector <i>who
+    inspects</i> to knock over the whole apple-cart. Once get by
+    your clerk to your chief, and you got it."</p>
+
+    <p>Whether Martin made this prediction in a spirit of hope and
+    a full knowledge, or whether his shot in the air merely chanced
+    to hit the mark, it would be impossible to say. As a matter of
+    fact within the month appeared Ashley Thorne, an inspector who
+    inspected.</p>
+
+    <p>By this time all the cattle, both of the plainsmen and the
+    mountaineers, had gone back. The mill had commenced its
+    season's operations. After the routine of work had been well
+    established, Bob had descended to attend to certain grading of
+    the lumber for a special sale of uppers. Thus he found himself
+    on the scene.</p>
+
+    <p>Ashley Thorne was driven in. He arrived late in the
+    afternoon. Plant with his coat on, and a jovial expression
+    illuminating his fat face, held out both hands in greeting as
+    the vehicle came to a stop by Martin's barn. The Inspector
+    leaped quickly to the ground. He was seen to be a man between
+    thirty and forty, compactly built, alert in movement. He had a
+    square face, aggressive gray eyes, and wore a small moustache
+    clipped at the line of the lips.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo! Hullo!" roared Plant in his biggest voice. "So here
+    we are, hey! Kind of dry, hot travel, but we've got the remedy
+    for that."</p>
+
+    <p>"How are you?" said Thorne crisply; "are you Mr. Plant? Glad
+    to meet you."</p>
+
+    <p>"Leave your truck," said Plant. "I'll send some one after
+    it. Come right along with me."</p>
+
+    <p>"Thanks," said Thorne, "but I think I'll take a wash and
+    clean up a bit, first."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right," urged Plant. "We can fix you up."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where is the hotel?" asked Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hotel!" cried Plant, "ain't you going to stay with me?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It is kind of you, and I appreciate it," said Thorne
+    briefly, "but I never mix official business with social
+    pleasure. This is an invariable rule and has no personal
+    application, of course. After my official work is done and my
+    report written, I shall be happy to avail myself of your
+    hospitality."</p>
+
+    <p>"Just as you say, of course," said Plant, quite
+    good-humouredly. To him this was an extraordinarily shrewd,
+    grand-stand play; and he approved of it.</p>
+
+    <p>"I shall go to your office at nine to-morrow," Thorne
+    advised him. "Please have your records ready."</p>
+
+    <p>"Always ready," said Plant.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne was assigned a room at Auntie Belle's, washed away
+    the dust of travel, and appeared promptly at table when the
+    bell rang. He wore an ordinary business suit, a flannel shirt
+    with white collar, and hung on the nail a wide felt hat.
+    Nevertheless his general air was of an out-of-door man,
+    competent and skilled in the open. His manner was
+    self-contained and a trifle reserved, although he talked freely
+    enough with Bob on a variety of subjects.</p>
+
+    <p>After supper he retired to his room, the door of which,
+    however, he left open. Any one passing down the narrow hallway
+    could have seen him bent over a mass of papers on the table,
+    his portable typewriter close at hand.</p>
+
+    <p>The following morning, armed with a little hand satchel, he
+    tramped down to Henry Plant's house. The Supervisor met him on
+    the verandah.</p>
+
+    <p>"Right on deck!" he roared jovially. "Come in! All ready for
+    the doctor!"</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne did not respond to this jocosity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good morning," he said formally, and that was all.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant led the way into his office, thrust forward a chair,
+    waved a comprehensive hand toward the filing cases, over the
+    bill files, at the tabulated reports laid out on the desk.</p>
+
+    <p>"Go to it," said he cheerfully. "Have a cigar! Everything's
+    all ready."</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne laid aside his broad hat, and at once with keen
+    concentration attacked the tabulations. Plant sat back watching
+    him. Occasionally the fat man yawned. When Thorne had digested
+    the epitome of the financial end, he reached for the bundles of
+    documents.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's just receipts and requisitions," said Plant, "and
+    such truck. It'll take you an hour to wade through that
+    stuff."</p>
+
+    <p>"Any objections to my doing so?" asked Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"None," replied Plant drily.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now rangers' reports," requested Thorne at the end of
+    another busy period.</p>
+
+    <p>"What, that flapdoodle?" cried Plant. "Nobody bothers much
+    with that stuff! A man has to write the history of his life
+    every time he gets a pail of water."</p>
+
+    <p>"Do I understand your ranger reports are remiss?" insisted
+    Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lord, there they are. Wish you joy of them. Most of the
+    boys have mighty vague ideas of spelling."</p>
+
+    <p>At noon Thorne knocked off, announcing his return at one
+    o'clock. Most inspectors would have finished an hour ago. At
+    the gate he paused.</p>
+
+    <p>"This place belong to you or the Government?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"To me," replied Plant. "Mighty good little joint for the
+    mountains, ain't it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why have you a United States Forest Ranger working on the
+    fences then?" inquired Thorne crisply.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant stared after his compact, alert figure. The fat man's
+    lower jaw had dropped in astonishment. Nobody had ever dared
+    question his right to use his own rangers as he damn well
+    pleased! A slow resentment surged up within him. He would have
+    been downright angry could he have been certain of this
+    inspector's attitude. Thorne was cold and businesslike, but he
+    had humorous wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Perhaps all
+    this monkey business was one elaborate josh. If so it wouldn't
+    do to fall into the trap by getting mad. That must be it. Plant
+    chuckled a cavernous chuckle. Nevertheless he ordered his
+    ranger to knock off fence mending for the present.</p>
+
+    <p>By two o'clock Thorne pushed back his chair and stretched
+    his arms over his head. Plant laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"That pretty near finishes what we have here," said he.
+    "There really isn't much to it, after all. We've got things
+    pretty well going. To-morrow I'll get one of the boys to ride
+    out with you near here. If you want to take any trips back
+    country, I'll scare up a pack."</p>
+
+    <p>This was the usual and never-accepted offer.</p>
+
+    <p>"I haven't time for that," said Thorne, "but I'll look at
+    that bridge site to-morrow."</p>
+
+    <p>"When must you go?"</p>
+
+    <p>"In a couple of days."</p>
+
+    <p>Plant's large countenance showed more than a trace of
+    satisfaction.</p>
+
+    <p>On leaving the Supervisor's headquarters, Thorne set off
+    vigorously up the road. He felt cramped for exercise, and he
+    was out for a tramp. Higher and higher he mounted on the road
+    to the mill, until at last he stood on a point far above the
+    valley. The creak and rattle of a wagon aroused him from his
+    contemplation of the scene spread wide before him. He looked up
+    to see a twelve-horse freight team ploughing toward him through
+    a cloud of dust that arose dense and choking. To escape this
+    dust Thorne deserted the road and struck directly up the side
+    of the mountain. A series of petty allurements led him on.
+    Yonder he caught a glimpse of tree fungus that interested him.
+    He pushed and plunged through the manza&ntilde;ita until he had
+    gained its level. Once there he concluded to examine a dying
+    yellow pine farther up the hill. Then he thought to find a
+    drink of water in the next hollow. Finally the way ahead seemed
+    easier than the brush behind. He pushed on, and after a moment
+    of breathless climbing reached the top of the ridge.</p>
+
+    <p>Here Thorne had reached a lower spur of that range on which
+    were located both the sawmill and Plant's summer quarters. He
+    drew a deep breath and looked about him over the topography
+    spread below. Then he examined with an expert's eye the wooded
+    growths. His glance fell naturally to the ground.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'll be----" began Thorne, and stopped.</p>
+
+    <p>Through the pine needles at his feet ran a shallow, narrow
+    and meandering trough. A rod or so away was a similar trough.
+    Thorne set about following their direction.</p>
+
+    <p>They led him down a gentle slope, through a young growth of
+    pines and cedars to a small meadow. The grass had been eaten
+    short to the soil and trampled by many little hoofs. Thorne
+    walked to the upper end of the meadow. Here he found old ashes.
+    Satisfied with his discoveries, he glanced at the westering
+    sun, and plunged directly down the side of the mountain.</p>
+
+    <p>Near the edge of the village he came upon California John.
+    The old man had turned Star into the corral, and was at this
+    moment seated on a boulder, smoking his pipe, and polishing
+    carefully the silver inlay of his Spanish spade-bit. Thorne
+    stopped and examined him closely, coming finally to the worn
+    brass ranger's badge pinned to the old man's suspenders.
+    California John did not cease his occupation.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're a ranger, I take it," said Thorne curtly.</p>
+
+    <p>California John looked up deliberately.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're an inspector, I take it," said he, after a
+    moment.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne grinned appreciation under his close-clipped
+    moustache. This was the first time he had relaxed his look of
+    official concentration, and the effect was most boyish and
+    pleasing. The illumination was but momentary, however.</p>
+
+    <p>"There have been sheep camped at a little meadow on that
+    ridge," he stated.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know it," replied California John tranquilly.</p>
+
+    <p>"You seem to know several things," retorted Thorne crisply,
+    "but your information seems to stop short of the fact that
+    you're supposed to keep sheep out of the Reserve."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not when they have permission," said California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"Permission!" echoed Thorne. "Sheep are absolutely
+    prohibited by regulation. What do you mean?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What I say. They had a permit."</p>
+
+    <p>"Who gave it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Supervisor Plant, of course."</p>
+
+    <p>"What for?"</p>
+
+    <p>California John polished his bit carefully for some moments
+    in silence. Then he laid it one side and deliberately faced
+    about.</p>
+
+    <p>"For ten dollars," said he coolly, looking Thorne in the
+    eye.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne looked back at him steadily.</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll swear to that?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"I sure will," said California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"How long has this sort of thing gone on?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Always," replied the ranger.</p>
+
+    <p>"How long have you known about it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Always," said California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why have you never said anything before?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What for?" countered the old man. "I'd just get fired.
+    There ain't no good in saying anything. He's my superior
+    officer. They used to teach me in the army that I ain't got no
+    call to criticize what my officer does. It's my job to obey
+    orders the best I can."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why do you tell me, then?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You're my superior officer, too&mdash;and his."</p>
+
+    <p>"So were all the other inspectors who have been here."</p>
+
+    <p>"Them&mdash;hell!" said California John.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne returned to his hotel very thoughtful. It was falling
+    dark, and the preliminary bell had rung for supper.
+    Nevertheless he lit his lamp and clicked off a letter to a
+    personal friend in the Land Office requesting the latter to
+    forward all Plant's vouchers for the past two years. Then he
+    hunted up Auntie Belle.</p>
+
+    <p>"I thought I should tell you that I won't be leaving my room
+    Wednesday, as I thought," said he. "My business will detain me
+    longer."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XV"></a>
+
+    <h2>XV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Thorne curtly explained himself to Plant as detained on
+    clerical business. While awaiting the vouchers from Washington,
+    he busily gathered the gossip of the place. Naturally the
+    cattle situation was one of the first phases to come to his
+    attention. After listening to what was to be said, he
+    despatched a messenger back into the mountains requesting the
+    cattlemen to send a representative. Ordinarily he would have
+    gone to the spot himself; but just now he preferred to remain
+    nearer the centre of Plant's activities.</p>
+
+    <p>Jim Pollock appeared in due course. He explained the state
+    of affairs carefully and dispassionately. Thorne heard him to
+    the end without comment.</p>
+
+    <p>"If the feed is too scarce for the number of cattle, that
+    fact should be officially ascertained," he said finally.</p>
+
+    <p>"Davidson&mdash;California John&mdash;was sent back last
+    fall to look into it. I didn't see his report, but John's a
+    good cattleman himself, and there couldn't be no two opinions
+    on the matter."</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne had been shown no copy of such a report during his
+    official inspection. He made a note of this.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said he finally, "if on investigation I find the
+    facts to be as you state them&mdash;and that I can determine
+    only on receiving all the evidence on both sides&mdash;I can
+    promise you relief for next season. The Land Office is just,
+    when it is acquainted with the facts. I will ask you to make
+    affidavits. I am obliged to you for your trouble in
+    coming."</p>
+
+    <p>Jim Pollock made his three-day ride back more cheered by
+    these few and tentative words than by Superintendent Smith's
+    effusive assurances, or Plant's promises. He so reported to his
+    neighbours in the back ranges.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne established from California John the truth as to the
+    suppressed reports.</p>
+
+    <p>Some rumour of all this reached Henry Plant. Whatever his
+    faults, the Supervisor was no coward. He had always bulled
+    things through by sheer weight and courage. If he could outroar
+    his opponent, he always considered the victory as his.
+    Certainly the results were generally that way.</p>
+
+    <p>On hearing of Thorne's activities, Plant drove down to see
+    him. He puffed along the passageway to Thorne's room. The
+    Inspector was pecking away at his portable typewriter and did
+    not look up as the fat man entered.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant surveyed the bent back for a moment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here," he demanded, "I hear you're still investigating
+    my district&mdash;as well as doing 'clerical work.'"</p>
+
+    <p>"I am," snapped Thorne without turning his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"Am I to consider myself under investigation?" demanded
+    Plant truculently. To this direct question he, of course,
+    expected a denial&mdash;a denial which he would proceed to
+    demolish with threats and abuse.</p>
+
+    <p>"You are," said Thorne, reaching for a fresh sheet of
+    paper.</p>
+
+    <p>Plant stared at him a moment; then went out. Next day he
+    drove away on the stage, and was no more seen for several
+    weeks.</p>
+
+    <p>This did not trouble Thorne. He began to reach in all
+    directions for evidence. At first there came to him only those
+    like the Pollock boys who were openly at outs with Plant, and
+    so had nothing to lose by antagonizing him further. Then,
+    hesitating, appeared others. Many of these grievances Thorne
+    found to be imaginary; but in several cases he was able to
+    elicit definite affidavits as to graft and irregularity.
+    Evidence of bribery was more difficult to obtain. Plant's
+    easy-going ways had made him friends, and his facile suspension
+    of gracing regulations&mdash;for a consideration&mdash;appealed
+    strongly to self-interest. However, as always in such cases,
+    enough had at some time felt themselves discriminated against
+    to entertain resentment. Thorne took advantage of this both to
+    get evidence, and to secure information that enabled him to
+    frighten evidence out of others.</p>
+
+    <p>The vouchers arrived from Washington. In them Plant's
+    methods showed clearly. Thorne early learned that it had been
+    the Supervisor's habit to obtain duplicate bills for
+    everything&mdash;purchases, livery, hotels and the like. He had
+    explained to the creditors that a copy would be necessary for
+    filing, and of course the mountain people knew no better. Thus,
+    by a trifling manipulation of dates, Plant had been able to
+    collect twice over for his expenses.</p>
+
+    <p>"There is the plumb limit," said Martin, while running over
+    the vouchers he had given. He showed Thorne two bearing the
+    same date. One read:</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>To team and driver to Big Baldy post office,
+    $4.</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>"That item's all right," said Martin; "I drove him there
+    myself. But here's the joke."</p>
+
+    <p>He handed the second bill to Thorne:</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>To saddle horse Big Baldy to McClintock claim,
+    $2.</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why," said Martin, "when we got to Big Baldy he put his
+    saddle on one of the driving horses and rode it about a mile
+    over to McClintock's. I remember objecting on account of his
+    being so heavy. Say," reflected the livery-man after a moment,
+    "he's right out for the little stuff, ain't he? When his hand
+    gets near a dollar, it cramps!"</p>
+
+    <p>In the sheaf of vouchers Thorne ran across one item repeated
+    several hundred times in the two years. It read:</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>To M. Aiken, team, $3.</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>Inquiry disclosed the fact that "M. Aiken," was Minnie,
+    Plant's niece. By the simple expedient of conveying to her
+    title in his team and buckboard, the Supervisor was enabled to
+    collect three dollars every time he drove anywhere.</p>
+
+    <p>Thus the case grew, fortified by affidavits. Thorne found
+    that Plant had been grafting between three and four thousand
+    dollars a year.</p>
+
+    <p>Of course the whole community soon came to know all about
+    it. The taking of testimony and the giving of affidavits were
+    matters for daily discussion. Thorne inspired faith, because he
+    had faith himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't wonder you people have been hostile to the Forest
+    Reserves," said he. "You can't be blamed. But it is not the
+    Office's fault. I've been in the Land Office a great many
+    years, and they won't stand for this sort of thing a minute. I
+    found very much the same sort of thing in one of the reserves
+    in Oregon, only there was a gang operating there. I got eleven
+    convictions, and a new deal all round. The Land Office is all
+    right, when you get to it. You'll see us in a different light,
+    after this is over."</p>
+
+    <p>The mountaineers liked him. He showed them a new kink by
+    which the lash rope of a pack could be jammed in the cinch-hook
+    for convenience of the lone packer; he proved to be an
+    excellent shot with the revolver; in his official work he had
+    used and tested the methods of many wilderness travellers, and
+    could discuss and demonstrate. Furthermore, he got results.</p>
+
+    <p>Austin conducted a roadhouse on the way to the Power House
+    Number One: this in addition to his saloon in Sycamore Flats.
+    The roadhouse was, as a matter of fact, on government land, but
+    Austin established the shadow of a claim under mineral
+    regulations, and, by obstructionist tactics, had prevented all
+    the red tape from being unwound. His mineral claim was flimsy;
+    he knew it, and everybody else knew it. But until the case
+    should be reported back, he remained where he was. It was up to
+    Plant; and Plant had been lenient. Probably Austin could have
+    told why.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne became cognizant of all this. He served Austin
+    notice. Austin offered no comment, but sat tight. He knew by
+    previous experience that the necessary reports,
+    recommendations, endorsements and official orders would take
+    anywhere from one to three months. By that time this inspector
+    would have moved on&mdash;Austin knew the game. But three days
+    later Thorne showed up early in the morning followed by a
+    half-dozen interested rangers. In the most business-like
+    fashion and despite the variegated objections of Austin and his
+    disreputable satellites, Thorne and his men attached their
+    ropes to the flimsy structure and literally pulled it to pieces
+    from the saddle.</p>
+
+    <p>"You have no right to use force!" cried Austin, who was well
+    versed in the regulations.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've saved my office a great deal of clerical work," Thorne
+    snapped back at him. "Report me if you feel like it!"</p>
+
+    <p>The d&eacute;bris remained where it had fallen. Austin did
+    not venture again&mdash;at least while this energetic youth was
+    on the scene. Nevertheless, after the first anger, even the
+    saloon-keeper had in a way his good word to say.</p>
+
+    <p>"If they's anythin' worse than a&mdash;of a&mdash;comes out
+    in the next fifty year, he'll be it!" stormed Austin. "But,
+    damn it," he added, "the little devil's worse'n a catamount for
+    fight!"</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne was little communicative, but after he and Bob became
+    better acquainted the Inspector would tell something of his
+    past inspections. All up and down the Sierras he had unearthed
+    enough petty fraud and inefficiency to send a half-dozen men to
+    jail and to break another half-dozen from the ranks.</p>
+
+    <p>"And the Office has upheld me right along," said Thorne in
+    answer to Bob's scepticism regarding government sincerity. "The
+    Office is all right; don't make any mistake on that. It's just
+    a question of getting at it. I admit the system is all wrong,
+    where the complaints can't get direct to the chiefs; but that's
+    what I'm here for. This Plant is one of the easiest cases I've
+    tackled yet. I've got direct evidence six times over to put him
+    over the road. He'll go behind the bars sure. As for the cattle
+    situation, it's a crying disgrace and a shame. There's no
+    earthly reason under the regulations why Simeon Wright should
+    bring cattle in at all; and I'll see that next year he
+    doesn't."</p>
+
+    <p>At the end of two weeks Thorne had finished his work and
+    departed. The mountain people with whom he had come in contact
+    liked and trusted him in spite of his brusque and business-like
+    manners. He could shoot, pack a horse, ride and follow trail,
+    swing an axe as well as any of them. He knew what he was
+    talking about. He was square. The mountain men "happened
+    around"&mdash;such of them as were not in back with the
+    cattle&mdash;to wish him farewell.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good-bye, boys," said he. "You'll see me again. I'm glad to
+    have had a chance to straighten things out a little. Don't lose
+    faith in Uncle Sam. He'll do well by you when you attract his
+    attention."</p>
+
+    <p>Fully a week after his departure Plant returned and took his
+    accustomed place in the community. He surveyed his old
+    constituents with a slightly sardonic eye, but had little to
+    say.</p>
+
+    <p>About this time Bob moved up on the mountain. He breathed in
+    a distinct pleasure over again finding himself among the pines,
+    in the cool air, with the clean, aromatic woods-work. The
+    Meadow Lake was completely surrounded by camps this year.
+    Several canvas boats were on the lake. Bob even welcomed the
+    raucous and confused notes of several phonographs going at full
+    speed. After the heat and dust and brown of the lower hills,
+    this high country was inexpressibly grateful.</p>
+
+    <p>At headquarters he found Welton rolling about, jovial,
+    good-natured, efficient as ever. With him was Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said Bob to the latter. "Where did you get by me? I
+    didn't know you were here."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I blew in the other day. Didn't have time to stop
+    below; and, besides, I was saving my strength for your partner
+    here." He looked at Welton ruefully. "I thought I'd come up and
+    get that water-rights matter all fixed up in a few minutes, and
+    get back to supper. Nothing doing!"</p>
+
+    <p>"This smooth-faced pirate," explained Welton, "offers to
+    take our water if we'll pay him for doing it, as near as I can
+    make out&mdash;that is, if we'll supply the machinery to do it
+    with. In return he'll allow us the privilege of buying back
+    what we are going to need for household purposes. I tell him
+    this is too liberal. We cannot permit him to rob himself. Since
+    he has known our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. Plant, he's
+    falling into that gentleman's liberal views."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker grinned at his accusor appreciatively, but at the
+    mention of Plant's name Bob broke in.</p>
+
+    <p>"Plant's landed," said he briefly. "They've got him. Prison
+    bars for his."</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" cried Welton and Baker in a breath.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob explained; telling them of Thorne, his record, methods,
+    and the definite evidence he had acquired. Long before he had
+    finished both men relaxed from their more eager attention.</p>
+
+    <p>"That all?" commented Baker. "From what you said I thought
+    he was in the bastile!"</p>
+
+    <p>"He will be shortly," said Bob. "They've got the evidence
+    direct. It's an open-and-shut case."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker merely grinned.</p>
+
+    <p>"But Thorne's jugged them all up the range," persisted Bob.
+    "He's convicted a whole lot of them&mdash;men who have been at
+    it for years."</p>
+
+    <p>"H'm," said Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"But how can they dodge it?" cried Bob. "They can't deny the
+    evidence! The Department has upheld Thorne warmly."</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure," said Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," concluded Bob. "Do you mean to say that they'll have
+    the nerve to pass over such direct evidence as that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't know anything about it," replied Baker briefly. "I
+    only know results when I see them. These other little grafters
+    that your man Thorne has bumped off probably haven't any
+    drag."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, what does Plant amount to once he's exposed?"
+    challenged Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I haven't figured it out on the Scribner scale," admitted
+    Baker, "but I know what happens when you try to bump him. Bet
+    you a thousand dollars I do," he shot at Welton. "It isn't the
+    wraith-like Plant you run up against; it's
+    <i>interests</i>."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I don't believe yet a great government will keep in a
+    miserable, petty thief like Plant against the direct evidence
+    of a man like Thorne!" stated Bob with some heat.</p>
+
+    <p>"Listen," said Baker kindly. "That isn't the scrap. Thorne
+    <i>vs.</i> Plant&mdash;looks like easy money on Thorne, eh?
+    Well, now, Plant has a drag with Chairman Gay; don't know what
+    it is, but it's a good one, a peacherino. We know because we've
+    trained some heavy guns on it ourselves, and it's stood the
+    shock. All right. Now it's up to Chairman Gay to support his
+    cousin. Then there's old Simeon Wright. Where would he get off
+    at without Plant? He's going to do a little missionary work.
+    Simeon owns Senator Barrow, and Senator Barrow is on the Ways
+    and Means Committee, so lots of people love the Senator. And so
+    on in all directions&mdash;I'm from Missouri. You got to show
+    me. If it came to a mere choice of turning down Plant or
+    Thorne, they'd turn down Plant, every time. But when it comes
+    to a choice between Thorne and Gay, Thorne and Barrow, Thorne
+    and Simeon Wright, Thorne and a dozen others that have their
+    own Angel Children to protect, and won't protect your Angel
+    Child unless you'll chuck a front for theirs&mdash;why Thorne
+    is just lost in the crowd!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't believe it," protested Bob. "It would be a
+    scandal."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, just politics," said Baker.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XVI"></a>
+
+    <h2>XVI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The sawmill lay on the direct trail to the back country.
+    Every man headed for the big mountains by way of Sycamore Flats
+    passed fairly through the settlement itself. So every cattleman
+    out after provisions or stock salt, followed by his docile
+    string of pack mules, paused to swap news and gossip with
+    whoever happened for the moment to have leisure for such an
+    exchange.</p>
+
+    <p>The variety poured through this funnel of the mountains
+    comprised all classes. Professional prospectors with their
+    burros, ready alike for the desert or the most inaccessible
+    crags, were followed by a troupe of college boys afoot leading
+    one or two old mares as baggage transportation. The
+    business-like, semi-military outfits of geological survey
+    parties, the worn but substantial hunters' equipments, the
+    marvellous and oftentimes ridiculous luxury affected by the
+    wealthy camper, the makeshifts of the poorer ranchmen of the
+    valley, out with their entire families and the farm stock for a
+    "real good fish," all these were of never-failing interest to
+    Bob. In fact, he soon discovered that the one absorbing
+    topic&mdash;outside of bears, of course&mdash;was the
+    discussion, the comparison and the appraising of the various
+    items of camping equipment. He also found each man amusingly
+    partisan for his own. There were schools
+    advocating&mdash;heatedly&mdash;the merits respectively of the
+    single or double cinch, of the Dutch oven or the reflector, of
+    rawhide or canvas kyacks, of sleeping bags or blankets. Each
+    man had invented some little kink of his own without which he
+    could not possibly exist. Some of these kinks were very handy
+    and deserved universal adoption, such as a small rubber tube
+    with a flattened brass nozzle with which to encourage reluctant
+    fires. Others expressed an individual idiosyncrasy only; as in
+    the case of the man who carried clothes hooks to screw into the
+    trees. A man's method of packing was also closely watched. Each
+    had his own favourite hitch. The strong preponderance seemed to
+    be in favour of the Diamond, both single and double, but many
+    proved strongly addicted to the Lone Packer, or the Basco, or
+    the Miners', or the Square, or even the generally despised
+    Squaw, and would stoutly defend their choices, and give reasons
+    therefore. Bob sometimes amused himself practising these
+    hitches in miniature by means of a string, a bent nail, and two
+    folded handkerchiefs as packs. After many trials, and many
+    lapses of memory, he succeeded on all but the Double Diamond.
+    Although apparently he followed every move, the result was
+    never that beautiful all-over tightening at the last pull. He
+    reluctantly concluded that on this point he must have
+    instruction.</p>
+
+    <p>Although rarely a day went by during the whole season that
+    one or more parties did not pass through, or camp over night at
+    the Meadow Lake, it was a fact that, after passing Baldy, these
+    hundreds could scatter so far through the labyrinth of the
+    Sierras that in a whole summer's journeying they were extremely
+    unlikely to see each other&mdash;or indeed any one else, save
+    when they stumbled on one of the established cow camps. The
+    vastness of the California mountains cannot be conveyed to one
+    who has not travelled them. Men have all summer pastured
+    illegally thousands of head of sheep undiscovered, in spite of
+    the fact that rangers and soldiers were out looking for them.
+    One may journey diligently throughout the season, and cover but
+    one corner of the three great maps that depict about one-half
+    of them. If one wills he can, to all intents and purposes,
+    become sole and undisputed master of kingdoms in extent. He can
+    occupy beautiful valleys miles long, guarded by cliffs rising
+    thousands of feet, threaded by fish-haunted streams, spangled
+    with fair, flower-grown lawns, cool with groves of trees, neck
+    high in rich feed. Unless by sheer chance, no one will disturb
+    his solitude. Of course he must work for his kingdom. He must
+    press on past the easy travel, past the wide cattle country of
+    the middle elevations, into the splintered, frowning granite
+    and snow, over the shoulders of the mighty peaks of the High
+    Sierras. Nevertheless, the reward is sure for the hardy
+    voyager.</p>
+
+    <p>Most men, however, elect to spend their time in the easier
+    middle ground. There the elevations run up to nine or ten
+    thousand feet; the trails are fairly well defined and
+    travelled; the streams are full of fish; meadows are in every
+    moist pocket; the great box ca&ntilde;ons and peaks of the spur
+    ranges offer the grandeur of real mountain scenery.</p>
+
+    <p>From these men, as they ended their journeys on the way out,
+    came tales and rumours. There was no doubt whatever that the
+    country had too many cattle in it. That was brought home to
+    each and every man by the scarcity of horse feed on meadows
+    where usually an abundance for everybody was to be expected.
+    The cattle were thin and restless. It was unsafe to leave a
+    camp unprotected; the half-wild animals trampled everything
+    into the ground. The cattlemen, of whatever camp, appeared
+    sullen and suspicious of every comer.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's mighty close to a cattle war," said one old lean and
+    leathery individual to Bob; "I know, for I been thar. Used to
+    run cows in Montana. I hear everywhar talk about Wright's
+    cattle dyin' in mighty funny ways. I know that's so, for I seen
+    a slather of dead cows myself. Some of 'em fall off cliffs;
+    some seem to have broke their legs. Some bogged down. Some look
+    like to have just laid down and died."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, if they're weak from loss of feed, isn't that
+    natural?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Wall," said the old cowman, "in the first place, they're
+    pore, but they ain't by no means weak. But the strange part is
+    that these yere accidents always happens to Wright's
+    cattle."</p>
+
+    <p>He laughed and added:</p>
+
+    <p>"The carcasses is always so chawed up by b'ar and
+    coyote&mdash;or at least that's what they <i>say</i> done
+    it&mdash;that you can't sw'ar as to how they <i>did</i> come to
+    die. But I heard one funny thing. It was over at the Pollock
+    boys' camp. Shelby, Wright's straw boss, come ridin' in pretty
+    mad, and made a talk about how it's mighty cur'ous only
+    Wright's cattle is dyin'.</p>
+
+    <p>"'It shorely looks like the country is unhealthy for plains
+    cattle,' says George Pollock; 'ours is brought up in the
+    hills.'</p>
+
+    <p>"'Well,' says Shelby, 'if I ever comes on one of these
+    accidents a-happenin', I'll shore make some one hard to
+    catch!'</p>
+
+    <p>"'Some one's likely one of these times to make you almighty
+    <i>easy</i> to catch!' says George.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now," concluded the old cattleman, "folks don't make them
+    bluffs for the sake of talkin' at a mark&mdash;not in this
+    country."</p>
+
+    <p>Nevertheless, in spite of that prediction, the summer passed
+    without any personal clash. The cattle came out from the
+    mountains rather earlier than usual, gaunt, wiry, active. They
+    were in fine shape, as far as health was concerned; but
+    absolutely unfit, as they then stood, for beef. The Simeon
+    Wright herds were first, thousands of them, in charge of many
+    cowboys and dogs. The punchers were a reckless, joyous crew,
+    skylarking in anticipation of the towns of the plains. They
+    kissed their hands and waved their hats at all women, old and
+    young, in the mill settlement; they played pranks on each
+    other; they charged here and there on their wiry ponies,
+    whirling to right and left, 'turning on a ten-cent piece,'
+    throwing their animals from full speed to a stand, indulging in
+    the cowboys' spectacular 'flash riding' for the sheer joy of
+    it. The leading cattle, eager with that strange instinct that,
+    even early in the fall, calls all ruminants from good mountain
+    feed to the brown lower country, pressed forward, their necks
+    outstretched, their eyes fixed on some distant vision. Their
+    calls blended into an organ note. Occasionally they broke into
+    a little trot. At such times the dogs ran forward, yelping, to
+    turn them back into their appointed way. At an especially bad
+    break to right or left one or more of the men would dash to the
+    aid of the dogs, riding with a splendid recklessness through
+    the timber, over fallen trees, ditches, rocks, boulders and
+    precipitous hills. The dust rose chokingly. At the rear of the
+    long procession plodded the old, the infirm, the cripples and
+    the young calves. Three or four men rode compactly behind this
+    rear guard, urging it to keep up. Their means of persuasion
+    were varied. Quirts, ropes, rattles made of tin cans and
+    pebbles, strong language were all used in turn and
+    simultaneously. Long after the multitude had passed, the vast
+    and composite voice of it re&euml;choed through the forest; the
+    dust eddied and swirled among the trees.</p>
+
+    <p>The mountain men's cattle, on the other hand, came out
+    sullenly, in herds of a few hundred head. There was more
+    barking of dogs; more scurrying to and fro of mounted men, for
+    small bands are more difficult to drive than large ones. There
+    were no songs, no boisterous high spirits, no flash riding. In
+    contrast to the plains cowboys, even the herders' appearance
+    was poor. They wore blue jeans overalls, short jeans jumpers,
+    hats floppy and all but disintegrated by age and exposure to
+    the elements. Wright's men, being nothing but cowboys, without
+    other profession, ties or interests, gave more attention to
+    details of professional equipment. Their wide hats were
+    straight of brim and generally encircled by a leather or hair
+    or snakeskin band; their shirts were loose; they wore
+    handkerchiefs around their necks, and oiled leather "chaps" on
+    their legs. Their distinguishing and especial mark, however,
+    was their boots. These were made of soft leather, were
+    elaborately stitched or embroidered in patterns, possessed
+    exaggeratedly wide and long straps like a spaniel's ears, and
+    were mounted on thin soles and very high heels. They were
+    footwear such as no mountain man, nor indeed any man who might
+    ever be required to go a mile afoot, would think of wearing.
+    The little herds trudged down the mountains. While the
+    plainsmen anticipated easy duty, the pleasures of the town,
+    fenced cattle growing fat on alfalfa raised during the summer
+    by irrigation, these sober-faced mountaineers looked forward to
+    a winter range much depleted, a market closed against such
+    wiry, active animals as they herded, and an impossibility of
+    rounding into shape for sale any but a few old cows.</p>
+
+    <p>"If it wasn't for this new shake-up," said Jim Pollock, "I'd
+    shore be gettin' discouraged. But if they keep out Simeon
+    Wright's cattle this spring, we'll be all right. It's cost us
+    money, though."</p>
+
+    <p>"A man with a wife and child can't afford to lose money,"
+    said George Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>Jim laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"You and your new kid!" he mocked. "No, I suppose he can't.
+    Neither can a man with a wife and six children. But I reckon
+    we'll be all right as long as there's a place to crawl under
+    when it rains."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XVII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XVII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The autumn passed, and winter closed down. Plant continued
+    his administration. For a month the countryside was on a
+    tip-toe of expectation. It counted on no immediate results, but
+    the "suspension pending investigation" was to take place within
+    a few weeks. As far as surface indications were concerned
+    nothing happened. Expectation was turned back on itself.
+    Absolute confidence in Plant's removal and criminal conviction
+    gave place to scepticism and doubt, finally to utter disbelief.
+    And since Thorne had succeeded in arousing a real faith and
+    enthusiasm, the reaction was by so much the stronger. Tolerance
+    gave way to antagonism; distrust to bitterness; grievance to
+    open hostility. The Forest Reserves were cursed as a vicious
+    institution created for the benefit of the rich man, depriving
+    the poor man of his rights and privileges, imposing on him
+    regulations that were at once galling and senseless.</p>
+
+    <p>The Forest Rangers suddenly found themselves openly
+    unpopular. Heretofore a ranger had been tolerated by the
+    mountaineers as either a good-for-nothing saloon loafer
+    enjoying the fats of political perquisite; or as a species of
+    inunderstandable fanatic to be looked down upon with
+    good-humoured contempt. Now a ranger became a partisan of the
+    opposing forces, and as such an enemy. Men ceased speaking to
+    him, or greeted him with the curtest of nods. Plant's men were
+    ostracized in every way, once they showed themselves obstinate
+    in holding to their positions. Every man was urged to resign.
+    Many did so. Others hung on because the job was too soft to
+    lose. Some, like Ross Fletcher, California John, Tom Carroll,
+    Charley Morton and a few others, moved on their accustomed
+    way.</p>
+
+    <p>One of the inspiring things in the later history of the
+    great West is the faith and insight, the devotion and
+    self-sacrifice of some of the rough mountain men in some few of
+    the badly managed reserves to truths that were but slowly being
+    recognized by even the better educated of the East. These men,
+    year after year, without leadership, without encouragement,
+    without the support and generally against the covered or open
+    hostility of their neighbours, under most disheartening
+    official conditions kept the torch alight. They had no wide
+    theory of forestry to sustain their interest; they could
+    certainly have little hope of promotion and advancement to a
+    real career; their experience with a bureaucratic government
+    could not arouse in their breasts any expectation of a broad, a
+    liberal, or even an enlightened policy of conservation or use.
+    They were set in opposition to their neighbours without
+    receiving the support of the power that so placed them.
+    Nevertheless, according to their knowledge they worked
+    faithfully. Five times out of ten they had little either of
+    supervision or instruction. Turned out in the mountains, like a
+    bunch of stock, each was free to do as much or as little of
+    whatever he pleased. Each improved his district according to
+    his ideas or his interests. One cared most for building trails;
+    another for chasing sheep trespassers; a third for construction
+    of bridges, cabins and fences. All had occasionally to fight
+    fires. Each was given the inestimable privilege of doing what
+    he could. Everything he did had to be reported on enormous and
+    complicated forms. If he made a mistake in any of these, he
+    heard from it, and perhaps his pay was held up. This pay ran
+    somewhere about sixty or seventy-five dollars a month, and he
+    was required to supply his own horses and to feed them. Most
+    rangers who were really interested in their profession spent
+    some of this in buying tools with which to work.<a name=
+    "FNanchor2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> The
+    Government supplied next to nothing. In 1902 between the King's
+    River and the Kaweah, an area of somewhere near a million
+    acres, the complete inventory of fire-fighting tools consisted
+    of two rakes made from fifty cents' worth of twenty-penny
+    nails.</p>
+
+    <p>But these negative discouragements were as nothing compared
+    to the petty rebuffs and rulings that emanated from the Land
+    Office itself.</p>
+
+    <p>One spring Ross Fletcher, following specific orders, was
+    sent out after twenty thousand trespassing sheep. It was early
+    in the season. His instructions took him up into the frozen
+    meadows, so he had to carry barley for his horses. He used
+    three sacks and sent in a bill for one. Item refused. Feed was
+    twenty dollars a thousand. Salary seventy-five dollars.</p>
+
+    <p>One of Simeon Wright's foremen broke down government fences
+    and fed out all the ranger horse feed. Tom Carroll wrote to
+    Superintendent Smith; later to Washington. The authorities,
+    however, refused to revoke the cattleman's licence. At
+    Christmas time, when Carroll was in White Oaks the foreman and
+    his two sons jeered at and insulted the ranger in regard to
+    this matter until the latter lost his temper and thrashed all
+    three, one after the other. For this he was severely
+    reprimanded by Washington.</p>
+
+    <p>Charley Morton was ordered to Yosemite to consult with the
+    military officers there. He was instructed to do so in a
+    certain number of days. To keep inside his time limit he had to
+    hire a team. Item refused.</p>
+
+    <p>California John fought fire alone for two days and a night,
+    then had to go outside for help. Docked a day for going off the
+    reserve.</p>
+
+    <p>Why did these men prefer to endure neglect and open
+    hostility to the favour of their neighbours and easier work?
+    Bob, with a growing wonder and respect, tried to find out.</p>
+
+    <p>He did not succeed. There certainly was no overwhelming love
+    for the administration of Henry Plant; nor loyalty to the Land
+    Office. Indeed for the latter, one and all entertained the deep
+    contempt of the out-of-door man for the red-tape clerk.</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you think is the latest," asked California John one
+    day, "from them little squirts? I just got instructions that
+    during of the fire season I must patrol the whole of my
+    district every day!" The old man grinned. "I only got from here
+    to Pumice Mountain! I wonder if those fellows ever saw a
+    mountain? I suppose they laid off an inch on the map and let it
+    go at that. Patrol every day!"</p>
+
+    <p>"How long would it take you?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"By riding hard, about a week."</p>
+
+    <p>Rather the loyalty seemed to be gropingly to the idea back
+    of it all, to something broad and dim and beautiful which these
+    rough, untutored men had drawn from their native mountains and
+    which thus they rendered back.</p>
+
+    <p>As Bob gradually came to understand more of the situation
+    his curiosity grew. The lumberman's instinctive hostility to
+    government control and interference had not in the slightest
+    degree modified; but he had begun to differentiate this small,
+    devoted band from the machinery of the Forest Reserves as they
+    were then conducted. He was a little inclined to the fanatic
+    theory; he knew by now that the laziness hypothesis would not
+    apply to these.</p>
+
+    <p>"What is there in it?" he asked. "You surely can't hope for
+    a boost in salary; and certainly your bosses treat you
+    badly."</p>
+
+    <p>At first he received vague and evasive answers. They liked
+    the work; they got along all right; it was a lot better than
+    the cattle business just now, and so on. Then as it became
+    evident that the young man was genuinely interested, California
+    John gradually opened up. One strange and beautiful feature of
+    American partisanship for an ideal is its shyness. It will work
+    and endure, will wait and suffer, but it will not go forth to
+    proselyte.</p>
+
+    <p>"The way I kind of look at it is this," said the old man one
+    evening. "I always did like these here mountains&mdash;and the
+    big trees&mdash;and the rocks and water and the snow.
+    Everywhere else the country belongs to some one: it's staked
+    out. Up here it belongs to me, because I'm an American. This
+    country belongs to all of us&mdash;the people&mdash;all of us.
+    We most of us don't know we've got it, that's all. I kind of
+    look at it this way: suppose I had a big pile of twenty-dollar
+    gold pieces lying up, say in Siskiyou, that I didn't know
+    nothing whatever about; and some fellow come along and took
+    care of it for me and hung onto it even when I sent out word
+    that anybody was welcome to anything I owned in
+    Siskiyou&mdash;I not thinking I really owned anything there,
+    you understand&mdash;why&mdash;well, you see, I sort of like to
+    feel I'm one of those fellows!"</p>
+
+    <p>"What good is there in hanging onto a lot of land that would
+    be better developed?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>But California John refused to be drawn into a discussion.
+    He had his faith, but he would not argue about it. Sometime or
+    other the people would come to that same faith. In the meantime
+    there was no sense in tangling up with discussions.</p>
+
+    <p>"They send us out some reading that tells about it," said
+    California John. "I'll give you some."</p>
+
+    <p>He was as good as his word. Bob carried away with him a
+    dozen government publications of the sort that, he had always
+    concluded, everybody received and nobody read. Interested, not
+    in the subject matter of the pamphlets, but in their influence
+    on these mountain men, he did read them. In this manner he
+    became for the first time acquainted with the elementary
+    principles of watersheds and water conservation. This was
+    actually so. Nor did he differ in this respect from any other
+    of the millions of well-educated youth of the country. In a
+    vague way he knew that trees influence climate. He had always
+    been too busy with trees to bother about climate.</p>
+
+    <p>The general facts interested him, and appealed to his
+    logical common sense. He saw for the first time, because for
+    the first time it had been presented to his attention, the real
+    use and reason for the forest reserves. Hitherto he had
+    considered the whole institution as semi-hostile, at least as
+    something in potential antagonism. Now he was willing fairly to
+    recognize the wisdom of preserving some portion of the mountain
+    cover. He had not really denied it; simply he hadn't considered
+    it.</p>
+
+    <p>Early in this conviction he made up to Ross Fletcher for his
+    brusqueness in ordering the ranger off the mill property.</p>
+
+    <p>"I just classed you with your gang, which was natural," said
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am one of my gang, of course," said Fletcher.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you consider yourself one of the same sort of dicky bird
+    as Plant and that crew?" demanded Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"There ain't no humans all alike," replied the
+    mountaineer.</p>
+
+    <p>Although Bob was thus rebuffed in immediately getting inside
+    of the man's loyalty to his service and his superiors, he was
+    from that moment made to feel at his ease. Later, in a fuller
+    intimacy, he was treated more frankly.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton laughed openly at Bob's growing interest in these
+    matters.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're the first man I ever saw read any of those things,"
+    said he in regard to the government reports. "I once read one,"
+    he went on in delightful contradiction to his first statement.
+    "It told how to cut timber. When you cut down a tree, you pile
+    up the remains in a neat pile and put a little white picket
+    fence around them. It would take a thousand men and cost enough
+    to buy a whole new tract to do all the monkey business they
+    want you to do. I've only been in the lumber business forty
+    years! When a college boy can teach me, I'm willing to listen;
+    but he can't teach me the A B C of the business."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed. "Well, I can't just see us taking time in a
+    short season to back-track and pile up ornamental brush piles,"
+    he admitted.</p>
+
+    <p>"Experimental farms, and experimental chickens, and
+    experimental lumbering are all right for the gentleman farmer
+    and the gentleman poultry fancier and the gentleman
+    lumberman&mdash;if there are any. But when it comes to
+    business----"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed. "Just the same," said he, "I'm beginning to see
+    that it's a good thing to keep some of this timber standing;
+    and the only way it can be done is through the Forest
+    Reserves."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right," agreed Welton. "Let'em reserve. I don't
+    care. But they are a nuisance. They keep stepping on my toes.
+    It's too good a chance to annoy and graft. It gives a hard lot
+    of loafers too good a chance to make trouble."</p>
+
+    <p>"They are a hard lot in general," agreed Bob, "but there's
+    some good men among them, men I can't help but admire."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton rolled his eyes drolly at the younger man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Who?" he inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, there's old California John."</p>
+
+    <p>"There's three or four mossbacks in the lot that are
+    honest," cut in Welton, "but it's because they're too damn
+    thick-headed to be anything else. Don't get kiddish enough to
+    do the picturesque mountaineer act, Bobby. I can dig you up
+    four hundred of that stripe anywhere&mdash;and holding down
+    just about as valuable jobs. Don't get too thick with that
+    kind. In the city you'll find them holding open-air meetings. I
+    suppose our friend Plant has been pinched?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not yet," grinned Bob, a trifle shamefacedly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't get the reform bug, Bob," said Welton kindly, "That's
+    all very well for those that like to amuse themselves, but
+    we're busy."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XVIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XVIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The following spring found Plant still in command. No word
+    had come from the silence of political darkness. His only
+    concession to the state of affairs had been an acknowledgment
+    under coercion that the cattle ranges had been overstocked, and
+    that outside cattle would not be permitted to enter, at least
+    for the coming season. This was just the concession to relieve
+    the immediate pressure against him, and to give the Supervisor
+    time to apply all his energies to details within the
+    shades.</p>
+
+    <p>Details were important, in spite of the absence of surface
+    indications. Many considerations were marshalled. On one side
+    were arrayed plain affidavits of fraud. In the lower ranks of
+    the Land Office it was necessary to corrupt men, by one means
+    or another. These lesser officials in the course of routine
+    would come face to face with the damaging affidavits, and must
+    be made to shut their eyes deliberately to what they know. The
+    cases of the higher officials were different. They must know of
+    the charges, of course, but matters must be so arranged that
+    the evidence must never meet their eyes, and that they must
+    adopt en bloc the findings of their subordinates. Bribery was
+    here impossible; but influence could be brought to bear.</p>
+
+    <p>Chairman Gay upheld his cousin, Henry Plant, because of the
+    relationship. This implied a good word, and personal influence.
+    After that Chairman Gay forgot the matter. But a great number
+    of people were extremely anxious to please Chairman Gay. These
+    exerted themselves. They came across evidence that would have
+    caused Chairman Gay to throw his beloved cousin out neck and
+    crop, but they swallowed it and asked for more simply because
+    Gay possessed patronage, and it was not to their interest to
+    bring disagreeable matters before the great man. Nor was the
+    Land Office unlikely to listen to reason. A strong fight was at
+    that time forward to transfer control of the Forest Reserves
+    from a department busy in other lines to the Bureau of Forestry
+    where it logically belonged. This transfer was violently
+    opposed by those to whom the distribution of supervisorships,
+    ranger appointments and the like seemed valuable. The Land
+    Office adherents needed all the political backing they could
+    procure; and the friends of Chairman Gay epitomized political
+    backing. So the Land Office, too, was anxious to please the
+    Chairman.</p>
+
+    <p>At the same time Simeon Wright had bestirred himself. There
+    seems to be no good and valid reason for owning a senator if
+    you don't use him. Wright was too shrewd to think it worth
+    while to own a senator from California. That was too obvious.
+    Few knew how closely affiliated were the Wright and the Barrow
+    interests. Wright dropped a hint to the dignified senator; the
+    senator paid a casual call to an official high up in the Land
+    Office. Senators would by their votes ultimately decide the
+    question of transfer. The official agreed to keep an eye on the
+    recommendations in this case.</p>
+
+    <p>Thus somebody submerged beneath the Gay interests saw
+    obscurely somebody equally submerged beneath the Wright and
+    Barrow interests. In due course all Thorne's careful work was
+    pigeonholed. An epitome of the charges was typed and submitted
+    to the High Official. On the back of them had been written:</p>
+
+    <p>"I find the charges not proved."</p>
+
+    <p>This was signed by the very obscure clerk who had filed away
+    the Thorne affidavits and who happened to be a friend of the
+    man to whom in devious ways and through many mouths had come an
+    expression of the Gay wishes. It was O.K.'d by a dozen others.
+    The High Official added his O.K. to the others. Then he
+    promptly forgot about it, as did every one else concerned, save
+    the men most vitally interested.</p>
+
+    <p>In due time Thorne, then in Los Angeles, received a brief
+    communication from Stafford, the obscure clerk.</p>
+
+    <p>"In regard to your charges against Supervisor H.M. Plant,
+    the Department begs to advise you that, after examining
+    carefully the evidence for the defence, it finds the charges
+    not proven."</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne stared at the paper incredulously, then he did
+    something he had never permitted himself before; he wrote in
+    expostulation to the Higher Official.</p>
+
+    <p>"I cannot imagine what the man's defence could be," he
+    wrote, in part, "but my evidence a mere denial could hardly
+    controvert. The whole countryside knows the man is crooked;
+    they know he was investigated; they are now awaiting with full
+    confidence the punishment for well-understood peculation. I can
+    hardly exaggerate the body blow to the Service such a decision
+    would give. Nobody will believe in it again."</p>
+
+    <p>On reading this the Higher Official called in one of his
+    subordinates.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have this from Thorne," said he. "What do you think of
+    it?"</p>
+
+    <p>The subordinate read it through.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll look it up," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do so and bring me the papers," advised the Higher
+    Official.</p>
+
+    <p>The Higher Official knew Thorne's work and approved it. The
+    inspector was efficient, and throughout all his reforming of
+    conditions in the West, the Department had upheld him. The
+    Department liked efficiency, and where the private interests of
+    its own grafters were not concerned, it gave good
+    government.</p>
+
+    <p>In due time the subordinate came back, but without the
+    papers.</p>
+
+    <p>"Stafford says he'll look them up, sir," said he. "He told
+    me to tell you that the case was the one you were asking
+    Senator Barrow about."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ah!" said the Higher Official.</p>
+
+    <p>He sat for some time in deep thought. Then he called through
+    the open door to his stenographer.</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>In re</i> your's 21st," he dictated, "I repose every
+    confidence in Mr. Stafford's judgment; and unless I should care
+    to supersede him, it would hardly be proper for me to carry any
+    matter over his head."</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne immediately resigned, and shortly went into
+    landlooking for a lumbering firm in Oregon. Chairman Gay wrote
+    a letter advising Plant to "adopt a policy of conciliation
+    toward the turbulent element."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIX"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIX</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Shortly after Bob's return in the early spring, George
+    Pollock rode to Auntie Belle's in some disorder to say that the
+    little girl, now about a year old, had been taken sick.</p>
+
+    <p>"Jenny has a notion it's something catching," said he, "so
+    she won't let Jim send Mary over. There's too many young-uns in
+    that family to run any risks."</p>
+
+    <p>"How does she seem?" called Auntie Belle from the bedroom
+    where she was preparing for departure.</p>
+
+    <p>"She's got a fever, and is restless, and won't eat," said
+    George anxiously. "She looks awful sick to me."</p>
+
+    <p>"They all do at that age," said Auntie Belle comfortably;
+    "don't you worry a mite."</p>
+
+    <p>Nevertheless Auntie Belle did not return that day, nor the
+    next, nor the next. When finally she appeared, it was only to
+    obtain certain supplies and clothes. These she caused to be
+    brought out and laid down where she could get them. She would
+    allow nobody to come near her.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's scarlet fever," she said, "and Lord knows where the
+    child got it. But we won't scatter it, so you-all stay away.
+    I'll do what I can. I've been through it enough times, Lord
+    knows."</p>
+
+    <p>Three days later she appeared again, very quietly.</p>
+
+    <p>"How's the baby?" asked Bob. "Better, I hope?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The poor little thing is dead," said Auntie Belle shortly,
+    "and I want you or somebody to ride down for the minister."</p>
+
+    <p>The community attended the funeral in a body. It was held in
+    the open air, under a white oak tree, for Auntie Belle, with
+    unusual caution and knowledge for the mountains, refused to
+    permit even a chance of spreading the contagion. The mother
+    appeared dazed. She sat through the services without apparent
+    consciousness of what was going on; she suffered herself to be
+    led to the tiny enclosure where all the Pollocks of other
+    generations had been buried; she allowed herself to be led away
+    again. There was in the brief and pathetic ceremony no meaning
+    and no pain for her. The father, on the other hand, seemed
+    crushed. So broken was his figure that, after the services, Bob
+    was impelled to lay his hand on the man's shoulder and mutter a
+    few incoherent but encouraging words. The mountaineer looked up
+    dully, but sharpened to comprehension and gratitude as his eyes
+    met those of the tall, vigorous young man leaning over him.</p>
+
+    <p>"I mean it," said Bob; "any time&mdash;any place."</p>
+
+    <p>On the way back to Sycamore Flats Auntie Belle expressed her
+    mind to the young man.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nobody realizes how things are going with those Pollocks,"
+    said she. "George sold his spurs and that Cruces bit of his to
+    get medicine. He wouldn't take anything from me. They're proud
+    folks, and nobody'd have a chance to suspect anything. I tell
+    you," said the good lady solemnly, "it don't matter where that
+    child got the fever; it's Henry Plant, the old, fat scoundrel,
+    that killed her just as plain as if he'd stuck a gun to her
+    head. He has a good deal to answer for. There's lots of folks
+    eating their own beef cattle right now; and that's ruinous. I
+    suppose Washington ain't going to do anything. We might have
+    known it. I don't suppose you heard anything outside about
+    it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Only that Thorne had resigned."</p>
+
+    <p>"That so!" Auntie Belle ruminated on this a moment. "Well,
+    I'm right glad to hear it. I'd hate to think I was fooled on
+    him. Reckon 'resign' means fired for daring to say anything
+    about His High-and-mightiness?" she guessed.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob shook his head. "Couldn't say," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>The busy season was beginning. Every day laden teams crawled
+    up the road bringing supplies for the summer work. Woodsmen
+    came in twos, in threes, in bunches of a dozen or more. Bob was
+    very busy arranging the distribution and forwarding, putting
+    into shape the great machinery of handling, so that when, a few
+    weeks later, the bundles of sawn lumber should begin to shoot
+    down the flume, they would fall automatically into a systematic
+    scheme of further transportation. He had done this twice
+    before, and he knew all the steps of it, and exactly what would
+    be required of him. Certain complications were likely to arise,
+    requiring each their individual treatments, but as Bob's
+    experience grew these were becoming fewer and of lesser
+    importance. The creative necessity was steadily lessening as
+    the work became more familiar. Often Bob found his eagerness
+    sinking to a blank; his attention economizing itself to the
+    bare needs of the occasion. He caught himself at times slipping
+    away from the closest interest in what he had to do. His
+    spirit, although he did not know it, was beginning once more to
+    shake itself restlessly, to demand, as it had always demanded
+    in the past from the time of his toy printing press in his
+    earliest boyhood, fresh food for the creative instinct that was
+    his. Bobby Orde, the child, had been thorough. No superficial
+    knowledge of a subject sufficed. He had worked away at the
+    mechanical difficulties of the cheap toy press after Johnny
+    English, his partner in enterprise, had given up in disgust. By
+    worrying the problem like a terrier, Bobby had shaken it into
+    shape. Then when the commercial possibilities of job printing
+    for parents had drawn Johnny back ablaze with enthusiasm, Bobby
+    had, to his partner's amazement, lost completely all interest
+    in printing presses. The subject had been exhausted; he had no
+    desire for repetitions.</p>
+
+    <p>So it had gone. One after another he had with the utmost
+    fervour taken up photography, sailing, carpentry, metal
+    working&mdash;a dozen and one occupations&mdash;only to drop
+    them as suddenly. This restlessness of childhood came to be
+    considered a defect in young manhood. It indicated instability
+    of character. Only his mother, wiser in her quiet way, saw the
+    thoroughness with which he ransacked each subject. Bobby would
+    read and absorb a dozen technical books in a week, reaching
+    eagerly for the vital principles of his subject. She alone
+    realized, although but dimly, that the boy did not relinquish
+    his subject until he had grasped those vital principles.</p>
+
+    <p>"He's learning all the time," she ventured.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Jack of all trades: master of none,'" quoted Orde
+    doubtfully.</p>
+
+    <p>The danger being recognized, little Bobby's teaching was
+    carefully directed. He was not discouraged in his varied
+    activities; but the bigger practical principles of American
+    life were inculcated. These may be very briefly stated. An
+    American must not idle; he must direct his energies toward
+    success; success means making one's way in life; nine times out
+    of ten, for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, that means the
+    business world. To seize the business opportunity; to develop
+    that opportunity through the business virtues of attention to
+    detail, industry, economy, persistence, and
+    enthusiasm&mdash;these represented the plain and manifest duty
+    of every citizen who intended to "be somebody."</p>
+
+    <p>Now Bob realized perfectly well that here he was more
+    fortunate than most. A great many of his friends had to begin
+    on small salaries in indoor positions of humdrum and mechanical
+    duty. He had started on a congenial out-of-door occupation of
+    great interest and picturesqueness, one suited to his abilities
+    and promising a great future. Nevertheless, he had now been in
+    the business five years. He was beginning to see through and
+    around it. As yet he had not lost one iota of his enthusiasm
+    for the game; but here and there, once in a while, some of the
+    necessary delays and slow, long repetitions of entirely
+    mechanical processes left him leisure to feel irked, to look
+    above him, beyond the affairs that surrounded him. At such
+    times the old blank, doped feeling fell across his mind. It had
+    always been so definite a symptom in his childhood of that
+    state wherein he simply could not drag himself to blow up the
+    embers of his extinguished enthusiasm, that he recoiled from
+    himself in alarm. He felt his whole stability of character on
+    trial. If he could not "make good" here, what excuse could
+    there be for him; what was there left for him save the
+    profitless and honourless life of the dilettante and idler? He
+    had caught on to a big business remarkably well, and it was
+    worse than childish to lose his interest in the game even for
+    the fraction of a second. Of course, it amounted to nothing but
+    that. He never did his work better than that spring.</p>
+
+    <p>A week after the burial of the Pollock baby, Mrs. Pollock
+    was reported seriously ill. Bob rode up a number of times to
+    inquire, and kept himself fully informed. The doctor came twice
+    from White Oaks, but then ceased his visits. Bob did not know
+    that such visits cost fifty dollars apiece. Mary, Jim's wife,
+    shared the care of the sick woman with George. She was reported
+    very weak, but getting on. The baby's death, together with the
+    other anxieties of the last two years, had naturally pulled her
+    down.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XX"></a>
+
+    <h2>XX</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Before the gray dawn one Sunday morning Bob, happening to
+    awaken, heard a strange, rumbling, distant sound to the west.
+    His first thought was that the power dam had been opened and
+    was discharging its waters, but as his senses came to him, he
+    realized that this could not be so. He stretched himself idly.
+    A mocking bird uttered a phrase outside. No dregs of drowsiness
+    remained in him, so he dressed and walked out into the
+    freshness of the new morning. Here the rumbling sound, which he
+    had concluded had been an effect of his half-conscious
+    imagination, came clearer to his ears. He listened for a
+    moment, then walked rapidly to the Lone Pine Hill from whose
+    slight elevation he could see abroad over the low mountains to
+    the west. The gray light before sunrise was now strengthening
+    every moment. By the time Bob had reached the summit of the
+    knoll it had illuminated the world.</p>
+
+    <p>A wandering suction of air toward the higher peaks brought
+    with it the murmur of a multitude. Bob topped the hill and
+    turned his eyes to the west. A great cloud of dust arose from
+    among the chaparral and oaks, drifting slowly but certainly
+    toward the Ranges. Bob could now make out the bawling,
+    shouting, lowing of great herds on the march. In spite of
+    pledges and promises, in spite of California John's reports, of
+    Thorne's recommendations, of Plant's assurances, Simeon
+    Wright's cattle were again coming in!</p>
+
+    <p>Bob shook his head sadly, and his clear-cut young face was
+    grave. No one knew better than himself what this must mean to
+    the mountain people, for his late spring and early fall work
+    had brought him much in contact with them. He walked
+    thoughtfully down the hill.</p>
+
+    <p>When just on the outskirts of the little village he was
+    overtaken by George Pollock on horseback. The mountaineer was
+    jogging along at a foot pace, his spurs jingling, his bridle
+    hand high after the Western fashion. When he saw Bob he reined
+    in, nodding a good morning. Bob noticed that he had strapped on
+    a blanket and slicker, and wore his six-shooter.</p>
+
+    <p>"You look as though you were going on a journey," remarked
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thinking of it," said Pollock. Bob glanced up quickly at
+    the tone of his voice, which somehow grated unusually on the
+    young man's ear, but the mountaineer's face was placid under
+    the brim of his floppy old hat. "Might as well," continued the
+    cattleman after a moment. "Nothin' special to keep me."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm glad Mrs. Pollock is better," ventured Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"She's dead," stated Pollock without emotion. "Died this
+    morning about two o'clock."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob cried out at the utterly unexpected shock of this
+    statement. Pollock looked down on him as though from a great
+    height.</p>
+
+    <p>"I sort of expected it," he answered Bob's exclamation. "I
+    reckon we won't talk of it. 'Spose you see that Wright's cattle
+    is coming in again? I'm sorry on account of Jim and the other
+    boys. It wipes me out, of course, but it don't matter as far as
+    I'm concerned, because I'm going away, anyway."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laid his hand on the man's stirrup leather and walked
+    alongside, thinking rapidly. He did not know how to take hold
+    of the situation.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where are you thinking of going?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>Pollock looked down at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's that to you?" he demanded roughly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why&mdash;nothing&mdash;I was simply interested," gasped
+    Bob in astonishment.</p>
+
+    <p>The mountaineer's eyes bored him through and through.
+    Finally the man dropped his gaze.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll tell you," said he at last, "'cause you and Jim are
+    the only square ones I know. I'm going to Mexico. I never been
+    there. I'm going by Vermilion Valley, and Mono Pass. If they
+    ask you, you can tell 'em different. I want you to do something
+    for me."</p>
+
+    <p>"Gladly," said Bob. "What is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Just hold my horse for me," requested Pollock, dismounting.
+    "He stands fine tied to the ground, but there's a few things
+    he's plumb afraid of, and I don't want to take chances on his
+    getting away. He goes plumb off the grade for freight teams; he
+    can't stand the crack of their whips. Sounds like a gun to him,
+    I reckon. He won't stand for shooting neither."</p>
+
+    <p>While talking the mountaineer handed the end of his hair
+    rope into Bob's keeping.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hang on to him," he said, turning away.</p>
+
+    <p>George Pollock sauntered easily down the street. At
+    Supervisor Plant's front gate, he turned and passed within. Bob
+    saw him walk rapidly up the front walk, and pound on Plant's
+    bedroom door. This, as usual in the mountains, opened directly
+    out on the verandah. With an exclamation Bob sprang forward,
+    dropping the hair rope. He was in time to see the bedroom door
+    snatched open from within, and Plant's huge figure,
+    white-robed, appear in the doorway. The Supervisor was
+    evidently angry.</p>
+
+    <p>"What in hell do you want?" he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>"You," said the mountaineer.</p>
+
+    <p>He dropped his hand quite deliberately to his holster,
+    flipped the forty-five out to the level of his hip, and fired
+    twice, without looking at the weapon. Plant's expression
+    changed; turned blank. For an appreciable instant he tottered
+    upright, then his knees gave out beneath him and he fell
+    forward with a crash. George Pollock leaned over him.
+    Apparently satisfied after a moment's inspection, the
+    mountaineer straightened, dropped his weapon into the holster,
+    and turned away.</p>
+
+    <p>All this took place in so short a space of time that Bob had
+    not moved five feet from the moment he guessed Pollock's
+    intention to the end of the tragedy. As the first shot rang
+    out, Bob turned and seized again the hair rope attached to
+    Pollock's horse. His habit of rapid decision and cool judgment
+    showed him in a flash that he was too late to interfere, and
+    revealed to him what he must do.</p>
+
+    <p>Pollock, looking neither to the right nor the left, took the
+    rope Bob handed him and swung into the saddle. His calm had
+    fallen from him. His eyes burned and his face worked. With a
+    muffled cry of pain he struck spurs to his horse and
+    disappeared.</p>
+
+    <p>Considerably shaken, Bob stood still, considering what he
+    must do. It was manifestly his duty to raise the alarm. If he
+    did so, however, he would have to bear witness to what he knew;
+    and this, for George Pollock's sake, he desired to avoid. He
+    was the only one who could know positively and directly and
+    immediately how Plant had died. The sound of the shots had not
+    aroused the village. If they had been heard, no one would have
+    paid any attention to them; the discharge of firearms was too
+    common an occurrence to attract special notice. It was better
+    to let the discovery come in the natural course of events.</p>
+
+    <p>However, Bob was neither a coward nor a fool. He wanted to
+    save George Pollock if he could, but he had no intention of
+    abandoning another plain duty in the matter. Without the
+    slightest hesitation he opened Plant's gate and walked to the
+    verandah where the huge, unlovely hulk huddled in the doorway.
+    There, with some loathing, he determined the fact that the man
+    was indeed dead. Convinced as to this point, he returned to the
+    street, and looked carefully up and down it. It was still quite
+    deserted.</p>
+
+    <p>His mind in a whirl of horror, pity, and an unconfessed,
+    hidden satisfaction, he returned to Auntie Belle's. The
+    customary daylight breakfast for the teamsters had been omitted
+    on account of the Sabbath. A thin curl of smoke was just
+    beginning to rise straight up from the kitchen stovepipe. Bob,
+    his mouth suddenly dry and sticky, went around to the back
+    porch, where a huge <i>olla</i> hung always full of spring
+    water. He rounded the corner to run plump against Oldham,
+    tilted back in a chair smoking the butt of a cigar.</p>
+
+    <p>In his agitation of mind, Bob had no stomach for casual
+    conversation. By an effort he smoothed out his manner and
+    collected his thoughts.</p>
+
+    <p>"How are you, Mr. Oldham?" he greeted the older man; "when
+    did you get in?"</p>
+
+    <p>"About an hour ago," replied Oldham. His spare figure in the
+    gray business suit did not stir from its lazy posture, nor did
+    the expression of his thin sardonic face change, but somehow,
+    after swallowing his drink, Bob decided to revise his first
+    intention of escaping to his room.</p>
+
+    <p>"An hour ago," he repeated, when the import of the words
+    finally filtered through his mental turmoil. "You travelled up
+    at night then?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes. It's getting hot on the plains."</p>
+
+    <p>"Got in just before daylight, then?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Just before. I'd have made it sooner, but I had to work my
+    way through the cattle."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's your team?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I left it down at the Company's stables; thought you
+    wouldn't mind."</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure not," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The Company's stables were at the other end of the village.
+    Oldham must have walked the length of the street. He had said
+    it was before daylight; but the look of the man's eyes was
+    quizzical and cold behind the glasses. Still, it was always
+    quizzical and cold. Bob called himself a panicky fool. Just the
+    same, he wished now he had looked for footprints in the dust of
+    the street. While his brain was thus busy with swift conjecture
+    and the weighing of probabilities, his tongue was making random
+    conversation, and his vacant eye was taking in and reporting to
+    his intelligence the most trivial things. Generally speaking,
+    his intelligence did not catch the significance of what his
+    eyes reported until after an appreciable interval. Thus he
+    noted that Oldham had smoked his cigar down to a short butt.
+    This unimportant fact meant nothing, until his belated mind
+    told him that never before had he seen the man actually
+    smoking. Oldham always held a cigar between his lips, but he
+    contented himself with merely chewing it or rolling it about.
+    And this was very early, before breakfast.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never saw you smoke before," he remarked abruptly, as this
+    bubble of irrelevant thought came to the surface.</p>
+
+    <p>"No?" said Oldham, politely.</p>
+
+    <p>"It would make me woozy all day to smoke before I ate," said
+    Bob, his voice trailing away, as his inner ear once more took
+    up its listening for the hubbub that must soon break.</p>
+
+    <p>As the moments went by, the suspense of this waiting became
+    almost unbearable. A small portion of him kept up its semblance
+    of conversation with Oldham; another small portion of him made
+    minute and careful notes of trivial things; all the rest of
+    him, body and soul, was listening, in the hope that soon, very
+    soon, a scream would break the suspense. From time to time he
+    felt that Oldham was looking at him queerly, and he rallied his
+    faculties to the task of seeming natural.</p>
+
+    <p>"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the older man at last.
+    "You're mighty pale. You want to watch out where you drink
+    water around some of these places."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob came to with a snap.</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't sleep well," said he, once more himself.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that wouldn't trouble me," yawned Oldham; "if it
+    hadn't been for cigars I'd have dropped asleep in this chair an
+    hour ago. You said you couldn't smoke before breakfast; neither
+    can I ordinarily. This isn't before breakfast for me, it's
+    after supper; and I've smoked two just to keep awake."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why keep awake?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"When I pass away, it'll be for all day. I want to eat
+    first."</p>
+
+    <p>There, at last, it had come! A man down the street shouted.
+    There followed a pounding at doors, and then the murmur of
+    exclamations, questions and replies.</p>
+
+    <p>"It sounds like some excitement," yawned Oldham, bringing
+    his chair down with a thump. "They haven't even rung the first
+    bell yet; let's wander out and stretch our legs."</p>
+
+    <p>He sauntered off the wide back porch toward the front of the
+    house. Bob followed. When near the gate Bob's mind grasped the
+    significance of one of the trivial details that his eyes had
+    reported to it some moments before. He uttered an exclamation,
+    and returned hurriedly to the back porch to verify his
+    impressions. They had been correct. Oldham had stated
+    definitely that he had arrived before daylight, that he had
+    been sitting in his chair for over an hour; that during that
+    time he had smoked two cigars through.</p>
+
+    <p><i>Neither on the broad porch, nor on the ground near it,
+    nor in any possible receptacle were there any cigar
+    ashes.</i></p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XXI"></a>
+
+    <h2>XXI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The hue and cry rose and died; the sheriff from the plains
+    did his duty; but no trace of the murderer was found. Indeed,
+    at the first it was not known positively who had done the deed;
+    a dozen might have had motive for the act. Only by the process
+    of elimination was the truth come at. No one could say which
+    way the fugitive had gone. Jim Pollock, under pressure,
+    admitted that his brother had stormed against the door, had
+    told the awakened inmates that his wife was dead and that he
+    was going away. Immediately on making this statement, he had
+    clattered off. Jim steadfastly maintained that his brother had
+    given no inkling of whither he fled. Simeon Wright's cattle, on
+    their way to the high country, filed past. The cowboys listened
+    to the news with interest, and a delight which they did not
+    attempt to conceal. They denied having seen the fugitive. The
+    sheriff questioned them perfunctorily. He knew the breed.
+    George Pollock might have breakfasted with them for all that
+    the denials assured him.</p>
+
+    <p>There appeared shortly on the scene of action a United
+    States marshal. The murder of a government official was
+    serious. Against the criminal the power of the nation was
+    deployed. Nevertheless, in the long run, George Pollock got
+    clean away. Nobody saw him from that day&mdash;or nobody would
+    acknowledge to have seen him.</p>
+
+    <p>For awhile Bob expected at any moment to be summoned for his
+    testimony. He was morally certain that Oldham had been an
+    eye-witness to the tragedy. But as time went on, and no
+    faintest indication manifested itself that he could have been
+    connected with the matter, he concluded himself mistaken.
+    Oldham could have had no motive in concealment, save that of
+    the same sympathy Bob had felt for Pollock. But in that case,
+    what more natural than that he should mention the matter
+    privately to Bob? If, on the other hand, he had any desire to
+    further the ends of the law, what should prevent him from
+    speaking out publicly? In neither case was silence compatible
+    with knowledge.</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob knew positively the man had lied, when he stated
+    that he had for over an hour been sitting in the chair on
+    Auntie Belle's back porch. Why had he done so? Where had he
+    been? Bob could not hazard even the wildest guess. Oldham's
+    status with Baker was mysterious; his occasional business in
+    these parts&mdash;it might well be that Oldham thought he had
+    something to conceal from Bob. In that case, where had the
+    elder man been, and what was he about during that fatal hour
+    that Sunday morning? Bob was not conversant with the affairs of
+    the Power Company, but he knew vaguely that Baker was always
+    shrewdly reaching out for new rights and privileges, for fresh
+    opportunities which the other fellow had not yet seen and which
+    he had no desire that the other fellow should see until too
+    late. It might be that Oldham was on some such errand. In the
+    rush of beginning the season's work, the question gradually
+    faded from Bob's thoughts.</p>
+
+    <p>Forest Reserve matters locally went into the hands of a
+    receiver. That is to say, the work of supervision fell to
+    Plant's head-ranger, while Plant's office was overhauled and
+    straightened out by a clerk sent on from Washington. Forest
+    Reserve matters nationally, however, were on a different
+    footing. The numerous members of Congress who desired to leave
+    things as they were, the still more numerous officials of the
+    interested departments, the swarming petty politicians dealing
+    direct with small patronage&mdash;all these powerful interests
+    were unable satisfactorily to answer one common-sense question;
+    why is the management of our Forest Reserves left to a Land
+    Office already busy, already doubted, when we have organized
+    and equipped a Bureau of Forestry consisting of trained,
+    enthusiastic and honest men? Reluctantly the transfer was made.
+    The forestry men picked up the tangle that incompetent,
+    perfunctory and often venal management had dropped.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XXII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XXII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>To most who heard of it this item of news was interesting,
+    but not especially important; Bob could not see where it made
+    much difference who held the reins three thousand miles away.
+    To others it came as the unhoped-for, dreamed-of culmination of
+    aspiration.</p>
+
+    <p>California John got the news from Martin. The old man had
+    come in from a long trip.</p>
+
+    <p>"You got to take a brace now and be scientific," chaffed
+    Martin. "You old mossback! Don't you dare fall any more trees
+    without measuring out the centre of gravity; and don't you
+    split any more wood unless you calculate first the probable
+    direction of riving; and don't you let any doodle-bug get away
+    without looking at his teeth."</p>
+
+    <p>California John grinned slowly, but his eyes were
+    shining.</p>
+
+    <p>"And what's more, you old grafters'll get bounced, sure
+    pop," continued Martin. "They won't want you. You don't wear
+    spectacles, and you eat too many proteids in your beans."</p>
+
+    <p>"You ain't heard who's going to be sent out for Supervisor?"
+    asked old John.</p>
+
+    <p>"They haven't found any one with thick enough glasses yet,"
+    retorted Martin.</p>
+
+    <p>California John made some purchases, packed his mule, and
+    climbed back up the mountain to the summer camp. Here he threw
+    off his saddle and supplies, and entered the ranger cabin. A
+    rusty stove was very hot. Atop bubbled a capacious kettle.
+    California John removed the cover and peered in.</p>
+
+    <p>"Chicken 'n' dumpling!" said he.</p>
+
+    <p>He drew a broken-backed chair to the table and set to
+    business. In ten minutes his plate contained nothing but
+    chicken bones. He contemplated them with satisfaction.</p>
+
+    <p>"I reckon that'll even up for that bacon performance," he
+    remarked in reference to some past joke on himself.</p>
+
+    <p>At dusk three men threw open the outside door and entered.
+    They found California John smoking his pipe contemplatively
+    before a clean table.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, you bowlegged old sidewinder," said Ross Fletcher,
+    striding to the door, "we'll show you something you don't get
+    up where you come from."</p>
+
+    <p>"What is it?" asked California John with a mild
+    curiosity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Chicken," replied Fletcher.</p>
+
+    <p>He peered into the kettle. Then he lit a match and peered
+    again. He reached for a long iron spoon with which he fished
+    up, one after another, several dumplings. Finally he swore
+    softly.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter, Ross?" inquired California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"You know what's the matter," retorted Ross shaking the
+    spoon.</p>
+
+    <p>California John arose and looked down into the kettle.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thought you said you had chicken," he observed; "looks to
+    me like dumplin' soup."</p>
+
+    <p>"I did have chicken," replied the man. "Oh, you
+    Miles!&mdash;Bob!&mdash;come here. This old wreck has gone and
+    stole all our chicken."</p>
+
+    <p>The boys popped in from the next room.</p>
+
+    <p>"I never," expostulated California John, his eyes twinkling.
+    "I never stole nothin'. I just came in and found a poor old hen
+    bogged down in a mess of dough, so I rescued her."</p>
+
+    <p>The other man said nothing for some time, but surveyed
+    California John from head to toe and from toe to head
+    again.</p>
+
+    <p>"Square," said he at last.</p>
+
+    <p>"Square," replied California John with equal gravity. They
+    shook hands.</p>
+
+    <p>While the newcomers ate supper, California John read
+    laboriously his accumulated mail. After spelling through one
+    document he uttered a hearty oath.</p>
+
+    <p>"What is it?" asked Ross, suspending operations.</p>
+
+    <p>"They've put me in as Supervisor to succeed Plant," replied
+    California John, handing over the official document. "I ain't
+    no supervisor."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd like to know why not," spoke up Miles indignantly. "You
+    know these mountains better'n any man ever set foot in
+    'em."</p>
+
+    <p>"I ain't got no education," replied California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"Damn good thing," growled Ross.</p>
+
+    <p>California John smoked with troubled brow.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter with you, anyhow?" demanded Ross
+    impatiently, after a while; "ain't you satisfied?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I'm satisfied well enough, but I kind of hate to leave
+    the service; I like her."</p>
+
+    <p>"Quit!" cried Ross.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," denied California John, "but I'll get fired. First
+    thing," he explained, "I'm going after Simeon Wright's grazing
+    permits. He ain't no right in the mountains, and the ranges are
+    overstocked. He can't trail in ten thousand head while I'm
+    supposed to be boss, so it looks as though I wasn't going to be
+    boss long after Simeon Wright comes in."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, go slow," pleaded Ross; "take things a little easy at
+    first, and then when you get going you can tackle the big
+    things."</p>
+
+    <p>"I ain't going to enforce any regulations they don't give
+    me," stated California John, "and I'm going to try to enforce
+    all they do. That's what I'm here for."</p>
+
+    <p>"That means war with Wright," said Ross.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then war it is," agreed California John comfortably.</p>
+
+    <p>"You won't last ten minutes against Wright."</p>
+
+    <p>"Reckon not," agreed old John, "reckon not; but I'll last
+    long enough to make him take notice."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XXIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XXIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>By end of summer California John was fairly on his road. He
+    entered office at a time when the local public sentiment was
+    almost unanimously against the system of Forest Reserves. The
+    first thing he did was to discharge eight of the Plant rangers.
+    These fell back on their rights, and California John, to his
+    surprise, found that he could not thus control his own men. He
+    wagged his head in his first discouragement. It was necessary
+    to recommend to Washington that these men be removed; and
+    California John knew well by experience what happened to such
+    recommendations. Nevertheless he sat him down to his
+    typewriter, and with one rigid forefinger, pecked out such a
+    request. Having thus accomplished his duty in the matter, but
+    without hope of results, he went about other things. Promptly
+    within two weeks came the necessary authority. The eight
+    ornamentals were removed.</p>
+
+    <p>Somewhat encouraged, California John next undertook the
+    sheep problem. That, under Plant, had been in the nature of a
+    protected industry. California John and his delighted rangers
+    plunged neck deep into a sheep war. They found themselves with
+    a man's job on their hands. The sheepmen, by long immunity, had
+    come to know the higher mountains intimately, and could hide
+    themselves from any but the most conscientious search. When
+    discovered, they submitted peacefully to being removed from the
+    Reserve. At the boundaries the rangers' power ceased. The
+    sheepmen simply waited outside the line. It was manifestly
+    impossible to watch each separate flock all the time. As soon
+    as surveillance was relaxed, over the line they slipped, again
+    to fatten on prohibited feed until again discovered, and again
+    removed. The rangers had no power of arrest; they could use
+    only necessary force in ejecting the trespassers. It was
+    possible to sue in the United States courts, but the process
+    was slow and unsatisfactory, and the damages awarded the
+    Government amounted to so little that the sheepmen cheerfully
+    paid them as a sort of grazing tax. The point was, that they
+    got the feed&mdash;either free or at a nominal cost&mdash;and
+    the rangers were powerless to stop them.</p>
+
+    <p>Over this problem California John puzzled a long time.</p>
+
+    <p>"We ain't doing any good playing hide and coop," he told
+    Ross; "it's just using up our time. We got to get at it
+    different. I wish those regulations was worded just the least
+    mite different!"</p>
+
+    <p>He produced the worn Blue Book and his own instructions and
+    thumbed them over for the hundredth time.</p>
+
+    <p>"'Employ only necessary force,'" he muttered; "'remove them
+    beyond the confines of the reserve.'" He bit savagely at his
+    pipe. Suddenly his tension relaxed and his wonted shrewdly
+    humorous expression returned to his brown and lean old face.
+    "Ross," said he, "this is going to be plumb amusing. Do you
+    guess we-all can track up with any sheep?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Jim Hutchins's herders must have sneaked back over by Iron
+    Mountain," suggested Fletcher.</p>
+
+    <p>"Jim Hutchins," mused California John; "where is he now?
+    Know?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I heard tell he was at Stockton."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that's all right then. If Jim was around, he might
+    start a shootin' row, and we don't want any of that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I don't know as I'm afraid of Jim Hutchins," said
+    Ross Fletcher.</p>
+
+    <p>"Neither am I, sonny," replied California John; "but this is
+    a grand-stand play, and we got to bring her off without
+    complications. You get the boys organized. We start
+    to-morrow."</p>
+
+    <p>"What you got up your sleeve?" asked Ross.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never you mind."</p>
+
+    <p>"Who's going to have charge of the office?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Nobody," stated California John positively; "we tackle one
+    thing to a time."</p>
+
+    <p>Next day the six rangers under command of their supervisor
+    disappeared in the wilderness. When they reached the trackless
+    country of the granite and snow and the lost short-hair
+    meadows, they began scouting. Sign of sheep they found in
+    plenty, but no sheep. Signal smokes over distant ranges rose
+    straight up, and died; but never could they discover where the
+    fire had been burned. Sheepmen of the old type are the best of
+    mountaineers, and their skill has been so often tested that
+    they are as full of tricks as so many foxes. The fires they
+    burned left no ash. The smokes they sent up warned all for two
+    hundred miles.</p>
+
+    <p>Nevertheless, by the end of three days young Tom Carroll and
+    Charley Morton trailed down a band of three thousand head. They
+    came upon the flock grazing peacefully over blind hillsides in
+    the torment of splintered granite. The herders grinned, as the
+    rangers came in sight. They had been "tagged" in this "game of
+    hide and coop." As a matter of course they began to pack their
+    camp on the two burros that grazed among the sheep; they
+    ordered the dogs to round up the flock. For two weeks they had
+    grazed unmolested, and they were perfectly satisfied to pay the
+    inconvenience of a day's journey over to the Inyo line.</p>
+
+    <p>"'llo boys," said their leader, flashing his teeth at them.
+    "'Wan start now?"</p>
+
+    <p>"These Jim Hutchins's sheep?" inquired Carroll.</p>
+
+    <p>But at that question the Frenchman suddenly lost all his
+    command of the English language.</p>
+
+    <p>"They're Hutchins's all right," said Charley, who had ridden
+    out to look at the brand painted black on the animals' flanks.
+    "No go to-night," he told the attentive herder. "Camp
+    here."</p>
+
+    <p>He threw off his saddle. Tom Carroll rode away to find
+    California John.</p>
+
+    <p>The two together, with Ross Fletcher, whom they had stumbled
+    upon accidentally, returned late the following afternoon. By
+    sunrise next morning the flocks were under way for Inyo. The
+    sheep strung out by the dogs went forward steadily like
+    something molten; the sheepherders plodded along staff in hand;
+    the rangers brought up the rear, riding. Thus they went for the
+    marching portions of two days. Then at noon they topped the
+    main crest at the broad Pass, and the sheer descents on the
+    Inyo side lay before them. From beneath them flowed the plains
+    of Owen's Valley, so far down that the white roads showed like
+    gossamer threads, the ranches like tiny squares of green. Eight
+    thousand feet almost straight down the precipice fell away.
+    Across the valley rose the White Mountains and the Panamints,
+    and beyond them dimly could be guessed Death Valley and the
+    sombre Funeral Ranges. To the north was a lake with islands
+    swimming in it, and above it empty craters looking from above
+    like photographs of the topography of the moon; and beyond it
+    tier after tier, as far as the eye could reach, the blue
+    mountains of Nevada. A narrow gorge, standing fairly on end,
+    led down from the Pass. Without hesitation, like a sluggishly
+    moving, viscid brown fluid, the sheep flowed over the edge. The
+    dogs, their flanking duties relieved by the walls of dark
+    basalt on either hand, fell to the rear with their masters. The
+    mountain-bred horses dropped calmly down the rough and
+    precipitous trail.</p>
+
+    <p>At the end of an hour the basalt gorge opened out to a wide
+    steep slope of talus on which grew in clumps the first sage
+    brush of the desert. Here California John called a halt. The
+    line of the Reserve, unmarked as yet save by landmarks and rare
+    rough "monuments" of loose stones, lay but just beyond.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is as far as we go," he told the chief herder.</p>
+
+    <p>The Frenchman flashed his teeth, and bowed with some
+    courtesy. "Au revoi'," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hold on," repeated California John, "I said this is as far
+    as we go. That means you, too; and your men."</p>
+
+    <p>"But th' ship!" cried the chief herder.</p>
+
+    <p>"My rangers will put them off the Reserve, according to
+    regulation," stated California John.</p>
+
+    <p>The Frenchman stared at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"W'at you do?" he gasped at last. "Where we go?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going to put you off the Reserve, too, but on the west
+    side," said California John. The old man's figure straightened
+    in his saddle, and his hand dropped to the worn and shiny butt
+    of his weapon: "No; none of that! Take your hand off your gun!
+    I got the right to use <i>necessary</i> force; and, by God,
+    I'll do it!"</p>
+
+    <p>The herder began a voluble discourse of mingled
+    protestations and exposition. California John cut him
+    short.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know my instructions as well as you do," said he. "They
+    tell me to put sheep and herders off the Reserve without using
+    unnecessary force; but <i>there ain't nothing said about
+    putting them off in the same place!</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>Ross Fletcher rocked with joy in his saddle.</p>
+
+    <p>"So that's what you had up your sleeve!" he fairly shouted.
+    "Why, it's as simple as a b'ar trap!"</p>
+
+    <p>California John pointed his gnarled forefinger at the
+    herder.</p>
+
+    <p>"Call your dogs!" he commanded sharply. "Call them in, and
+    tie them! The first dog loose in camp will be shot. If you care
+    for your dogs, tie them up. Now drop your gun on the ground.
+    Tom, you take their shootin'-irons." He produced from his
+    saddle bags several new pairs of hand-cuffs, which he surveyed
+    with satisfaction, "This is business," said he; "I bought these
+    on my own hook. You bet I don't mean to have to shoot any of
+    you fellows in the back; and I ain't going to sit up nights
+    either. Snap 'em on, Charley. Now, Ross, you and Tom run those
+    sheep over the line, and then follow us up."</p>
+
+    <p>As the full meaning of the situation broke on the
+    Frenchman's mind, he went frantic. By the time he and his
+    herders should be released, the whole eighty-mile width of the
+    Sierras would lie between him and his flocks. He would have to
+    await his chance to slip by the rangers. In the three weeks or
+    more that must elapse before he could get back, the flocks
+    would inevitably be about destroyed. For it is a striking fact,
+    and one on which California John had built his plan, that sheep
+    left to their own devices soon perish. They scatter. The
+    coyotes, bears and cougars gather to the feast. It would be
+    most probable that the sheep-hating cattlemen of Inyo would
+    enjoy mutton chops.</p>
+
+    <p>California John collected his scattered forces, delegated
+    two men to eject the captives; and went after more sheep. He
+    separated thus three flocks from their herders. After that the
+    sheep question was settled; government feed was too
+    expensive.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's off'n our minds," said he. "Now we'll tackle the
+    next job."</p>
+
+    <p>He went at it in his slow, painstaking way, and accomplished
+    it. Never, if he could help it, did he depend on the mails when
+    the case was within riding distance. He preferred to argue the
+    matter out, face to face.</p>
+
+    <p>"The Government <i>prefers</i> friends," he told everybody,
+    and then took his stand, in all good feeling, according as the
+    other man proved reasonable. Some of the regulations were
+    galling to the mountain traditions. He did not attempt to
+    explain or defend them, but simply stated their provisions.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, I'm swore in to see that these are carried out," said
+    he, "always, and if you ain't going to toe the mark, why, you
+    see, it puts me in one hell of a hole, don't it? I ain't liking
+    to be put in the position of fighting all my old neighbours,
+    and I sure can't lie down on my job. It don't <i>really</i>
+    mean much to you, now does it, Link? and it helps me out a
+    lot."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I know you're square, John, and I'll do it," said the
+    mountaineer reluctantly, "but I wouldn't do it for any other
+    blank of a blank in creation!"</p>
+
+    <p>Thus California John was able, by personality, to reduce
+    much friction and settle many disputes. He could be
+    uncompromising enough on occasion.</p>
+
+    <p>Thus Win Spencer and Tom Hoyt had a violent quarrel over
+    cattle allotments which they brought to California John for
+    settlement. Each told a different story, so the evidence
+    pointed clearly to neither party. California John listened in
+    silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"I won't take sides," said he; "settle it for yourselves.
+    <i>I'd just as soon make enemies of both of you as of
+    one</i>."</p>
+
+    <p>Then in the middle of summer came the trial of it all. The
+    Service sent notice that, beginning the following season, a
+    grazing tax would be charged, and it requested the Supervisor
+    to send in his estimate of grazing allotments. California John
+    sat him down at his typewriter and made out the required list.
+    Simeon Wright's name did not appear therein. In due time
+    somebody wanted, officially, to know why not. California John
+    told them, clearly, giving the reasons that the range was
+    overstocked, and quoting the regulations as to preference being
+    given to the small owner dwelling in or near the Forests. He
+    did this just as a good carpenter might finish the under side
+    of a drain; not that it would do any good, but for his own
+    satisfaction.</p>
+
+    <p>"We will now listen to the roar of the lion," he told Ross
+    Fletcher, "after which I'll hand over my scalp to save 'em the
+    trouble of sharpening up their knives."</p>
+
+    <p>As a matter of fact the lion did roar, but no faintest echo
+    reached the Sierras. For the first time Simeon Wright and the
+    influence Simeon Wright could bring to bear failed of their
+    accustomed effect at Washington. An honest, fearless, and
+    single-minded Chief, backed by an enthusiastic Service, saw
+    justice rather than expediency. California John received back
+    his recommendation marked "Approved."</p>
+
+    <p>The old man tore open the long official envelope, when he
+    received it from Martin's hand, and carried it to the light,
+    where he adjusted precisely his bowed spectacles, and, in his
+    slow, methodical way, proceeded to investigate the contents. As
+    he caught sight of the word and its initials his hand
+    involuntarily closed to crush the papers, and his gaunt form
+    straightened. In his mild blue eye sprang fire. He turned to
+    Martin, his voice vibrant with an emotion carefully suppressed
+    through the nine long years of his faithful service.</p>
+
+    <p>"They've turned down Wright," said he, "and they've give us
+    an appropriation. They've turned down old Wright! By God, we've
+    got a man!"</p>
+
+    <p>He strode from the store, his head high. As he went up the
+    street a canvas sign over the empty storehouse attracted his
+    attention. He pulled his bleached moustache a moment; then
+    removed his floppy old hat, and entered.</p>
+
+    <p>An old-fashioned exhorting evangelist was holding forth to
+    three listless and inattentive sinners. A tired-looking woman
+    sat at a miniature portable organ. At the close of the services
+    California John wandered forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm plumb busted," said he frankly, "and that's the reason
+    I couldn't chip in. I couldn't buy fleas for a dawg. I'm afraid
+    you didn't win much."</p>
+
+    <p>The preacher looked gloomily at a nickle and a ten-cent
+    piece.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dependin' on this sort of thing to get along?" asked
+    California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said the preacher. The woman looked out of the
+    window.</p>
+
+    <p>California John said no more, but went out of the building
+    and down the street to Austin's saloon.</p>
+
+    <p>"Howdy, boys," he greeted the loungers and card players.
+    "Saw off a minute. There's goin' to be a gospel meetin' right
+    here a half-hour from now. I'm goin' to hold it and I'm goin'
+    out now to rustle a congregation. At the close we'll take up a
+    collection for the benefit of the church."</p>
+
+    <p>At the end of the period mentioned he placed himself behind
+    the bar and faced a roomful of grinning men.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is serious, boys. Take off your hat, Bud. Wipe them
+    snickers off'n your face. We're all sinners; and I reckon now's
+    as good a time as any to realize the fact. I don't know much
+    about the Bible; but I do recall enough to hold divine services
+    for once, and I intend to have 'em respected."</p>
+
+    <p>For fifteen minutes California John conducted his services
+    according to his notion. Then he stated briefly his cause and
+    took up his collection.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nine-forty-five," said he thoughtfully, looking at the
+    silver. He carefully extracted two nickels, and dumped the rest
+    in his pocket. "I reckon I've earned a drink out of this," he
+    stated; "any objections?"</p>
+
+    <p>There were none; so California John bought his drink and
+    departed.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right," he told the astonished and grateful
+    evangelist, "I had to do somethin' to blow off steam, or else
+    go on a hell of a drunk. And it would have been plumb ruinous
+    to do that. So you see, it's lucky I met you." The old man's
+    twinkling and humorous blue eyes gazed quizzically at the
+    uneasy evangelist, divided between gratitude and his notion
+    that he ought to reprobate this attitude of mind. Then they
+    softened. California John laid his hand on the preacher's
+    shoulder. "Don't get discouraged," said he; "don't do it. The
+    God of Justice still rules. I've just had some news that proves
+    it."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XXIV"></a>
+
+    <h2>XXIV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>From this moment the old man held his head high, and went
+    about the work with confidence. He built trails where trails
+    had long been needed; he regulated the grazing; he fought fire
+    so successfully that his burned area dropped that year from two
+    per cent. to one-half of one per cent.; he adjusted minor cases
+    of special use and privilege justly. Constantly he rode his
+    district on the business of his beloved Forest. His beautiful
+    sorrel, Star, with his silver-mounted caparisons, was a
+    familiar figure on all the trails. When a man wanted his first
+    Special Privilege, he wrote the Supervisor. The affair was
+    quite apt to bungle. Then California John saw that man
+    personally. After that there was no more trouble. The
+    countryside dug up the rest of California John's name, and
+    conferred on him the dignity of it. John had heard it scarcely
+    at all for over thirty years. Now he rather liked the sound of
+    "Supervisor Davidson." In the title and the simple dignities
+    attaching thereunto he took the same gentle and innocent pride
+    that he did in Star, and the silver-mounted bridle and the
+    carved-leather saddle.</p>
+
+    <p>But when evening came, and the end of the month, Supervisor
+    Davidson always found himself in trouble. Then he sat down
+    before his typewriter, on which he pecked methodically with the
+    rigid forefinger of his right hand. Naturally slow of thought
+    when confronted by blank paper, the mechanical limitations put
+    him far behind in his reports and correspondence. Naturally
+    awkward of phrase when deprived of his picturesque vernacular,
+    he stumbled among phrases. The monthly reports were a nightmare
+    to him. When at last they were finished, he breathed a deep
+    sigh, and went out into his sugar pines and spruces.</p>
+
+    <p>In August California John received his first inspector. At
+    that time the Forest Service, new to the saddle, heir to the
+    confusion left by the Land Office, knew neither its field nor
+    its office men as well as it does now. Occasionally it made
+    mistakes in those it sent out. Brent was one of them.</p>
+
+    <p>Brent was of Teutonic extraction, brought up in Brookline,
+    educated in the Yale Forestry School, and experienced in the
+    offices of the Bureau of Forestry before it had had charge of
+    the nation's estates. He possessed a methodical mind, a rather
+    intolerant disposition, thick glasses, a very cold and precise
+    manner, extreme personal neatness, and abysmal ignorance of the
+    West. He disapproved of California John's rather slipshod
+    dress, to start with; his ingrained reticence shrank from
+    Davidson's informal cordiality; his orderly mind recoiled with
+    horror from the jumble of the Supervisor's accounts and
+    reports. As he knew nothing whatever of the Sierras, he was
+    quite unable to appreciate the value of trails, of fenced
+    meadows, of a countryside of peace&mdash;those things were so
+    much a matter of course back East that he hardly noticed them
+    one way or another. Brent's thoroughness burrowed deep into
+    office failures. One by one he dragged them to the light and
+    examined them through his near-sighted glasses. They were bad
+    enough in all conscience; and Brent was not in the least
+    malicious in the inferences he drew. Only he had no conception
+    of judging the Man with the Time and the Place.</p>
+
+    <p>He believed in military smartness, in discipline, in ordered
+    activities.</p>
+
+    <p>"It seems to me you give your rangers a great deal of
+    freedom and latitude," said he one day.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said California John, "strikes me that's the only
+    way. With men like these you got to get their confidence."</p>
+
+    <p>Brent peered at him.</p>
+
+    <p>"H'm," said he sarcastically, "do you think you have done
+    so?"</p>
+
+    <p>California John flushed through his tan at the implication,
+    but he replied nothing.</p>
+
+    <p>This studied respect for his superior officer on the
+    Supervisor's part encouraged Brent to deliver from time to time
+    rather priggish little homilies on the way to run a Forest.
+    California John listened, but with a sardonic smile concealed
+    beneath his sun-bleached moustache. After a little, however,
+    Brent became more inclined to bring home the personal
+    application. Then California John grew restive.</p>
+
+    <p>"In fact," Brent concluded his incisive remarks one day,
+    "you run this place entirely too much along your own
+    lines."</p>
+
+    <p>California John leaned forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is that an official report?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" inquired Brent, puzzled.</p>
+
+    <p>"That last remark. Because if it ain't you'd better put it
+    in writing and make it official. Step right in and do it
+    now!"</p>
+
+    <p>Brent looked at him in slight bewilderment.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm willing to hear your talk," went on California John
+    quietly. "Some of it's good talk, even if it ain't put out in
+    no very good spirit; and I ain't kicking on
+    criticism&mdash;that's what I'm here for, and what you're here
+    for. But I ain't here for no <i>private</i> remarks. If you've
+    got anything to kick on, put it down and sign it and send it
+    on. I'll stand for it, and explain it if I can; or take my
+    medicine if I can't. But anything you ain't ready and willing
+    to report on, I don't want to take from you private.
+    <i>Sabe?</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>Brent bowed coldly, turned his back and walked away without
+    a word. California John looked after him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that wasn't no act of Solomon," he told himself;
+    "but, anyway, I feel better."</p>
+
+    <p>After Brent's departure it took California John two weeks to
+    recover his equanimity and self-confidence. Then the importance
+    of his work gripped him once more. He looked about him at the
+    grazing, the policing, the fire-fighting, all the varied
+    business of the reserves. In them all he knew was no graft, and
+    no favouritism. The trails were being improved; the cabins
+    built; the meadows for horse-feed fenced; the bridges built and
+    repaired; the country patrolled by honest and enthusiastic men.
+    He recalled the old days of Henry Plant's administration under
+    the Land-Office&mdash;the graft, the supineness, the
+    inefficiency, the confusion.</p>
+
+    <p>"We're savin' the People's property, and keepin' it in good
+    shape," he argued to himself, "and that's sure the main point.
+    If we take care of things, we've done the main job. Let the
+    other fellows do the heavy figgerin'. The city's full of cheap
+    bookkeepers who can't do nothing else."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XXV"></a>
+
+    <h2>XXV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>But a month later, at the summer camp, California John had
+    opportunity to greet a visitor whom he was delighted to see.
+    One morning a very dusty man leaned from his saddle and
+    unlatched the gate before headquarters. As he straightened
+    again, he removed his broad hat and looked up into the cool
+    pine shadows with an air of great refreshment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, it's Ashley Thorne!" cried California John, leaping to
+    his feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"The same," replied Thorne, reaching out his hand.</p>
+
+    <p>He dismounted, and Charley Morton, grinning a welcome, led
+    his horse away to the pasture.</p>
+
+    <p>"I sure am glad to see you!" said California John over and
+    over again; "and where did you come from? I thought you were
+    selling pine lands in Oregon."</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne dropped into a chair with a sigh of contentment. "I
+    was," said he, "and then they made the Transfer, so I came
+    back."</p>
+
+    <p>"You're in the Service again?" cried California John
+    delighted.</p>
+
+    <p>"Couldn't stay out now that things are in proper hands."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good! I expect you're down here to haul me over the coals,"
+    California John chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, just to look around," said Thorne, biting at his
+    close-clipped, bristling moustache.</p>
+
+    <p>Next morning they began to look around. California John was
+    overjoyed at this chance to show a sympathetic and congenial
+    man what he had done.</p>
+
+    <p>"I got a trail 'way up Baldy now," he confided as they swung
+    aboard. "It's a good trail too; and it makes a great fire
+    lookout. We'll take a ride up there, if you have time before
+    you go. Well, as I was telling you about that Cook cattle
+    case&mdash;the old fellow says----"</p>
+
+    <p>At the end of the Supervisor's long and interested
+    dissertation on the Cook case, Thorne laughed gently.</p>
+
+    <p>"Looks as if you had him," said he, "and I think the Chief
+    will sustain you. You like this work, don't you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I sure just naturally love it," replied California John
+    earnestly. "I've got the chance now to straighten things out.
+    What I say goes. For upward of nine years I've been ridin'
+    around seein' how things had ought to be done. And I couldn't
+    get results nohow. Somebody always had a graft in it that
+    spoiled the whole show. I could see how simple and easy it
+    would be to straighten everythin' all out in good shape; but I
+    couldn't do nothing."</p>
+
+    <p>"Hard enough to hold your job," suggested Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's it. And everybody in the country thought I was a
+    damn fool. Only damn fools and lazy men took rangers' jobs
+    those days. But I hung on because I believed in it. And now I
+    got the best job in the bunch. In place of being looked down on
+    as that old fool John, I'm Mr. Davidson, the Forest
+    Supervisor."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a matter for pride," said Thorne non-committally.</p>
+
+    <p>"It isn't that," denied the old man; "I'm not proud because
+    I'm Supervisor. Lord love you, Henry Plant was Supervisor; and
+    I never heard tell that any one was proud of him, not even
+    himself. But I'm proud of being a <i>good</i> supervisor. They
+    ain't a sorehead near us now. Everybody's out for the Forest.
+    I've made 'em understand that it's for them. They know the
+    Service is square. And we ain't had fires to amount to nothing;
+    nor trespass."</p>
+
+    <p>"You've done good work," said Thorne soberly; "none better.
+    No one could have done it but you. You have a right to be proud
+    of it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then you'll be sending in a good report," said California
+    John, solely by way of conversation. "I suspicion that last
+    fellow gave me an awful roast."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm not an inspector," replied Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"That so? You used to be before you resigned; so I thought
+    sure you must be now. What's your job?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll tell you when we have more time," said Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>For three days they rode together. The Supervisor was a very
+    busy man. He had errands of all sorts to accomplish. Thorne
+    simply went along. Everywhere he found good feeling,
+    satisfactory conditions.</p>
+
+    <p>At the end of the third day as the two men sat before the
+    rough stone fireplace at headquarters, Thorne abruptly broke
+    the long silence.</p>
+
+    <p>"John," said he, "I've got a few things to say that are not
+    going to be pleasant either for you or for me. Nevertheless, I
+    am going to say them. In fact, I asked the Chief for the
+    privilege rather than having you hear through the regular
+    channels."</p>
+
+    <p>California John had not in the least changed his position,
+    yet all at once the man seemed to turn still and watchful.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fire ahead," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"You asked me the other day what my job is. It is Supervisor
+    of this district. They have appointed me in your place."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, they have," said California John. He sat for some time,
+    his eyes narrowing, looking straight ahead of him. "I'd like to
+    know why!" he burst out at last. A dull red spot burned on each
+    side his weather-beaten cheeks.</p>
+
+    <p>"I&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"You had nothing to do with it," interrupted California John
+    sharply; "I know that. But who did? Why did they do it? By
+    God," he brought his fist down sharply, "I intend to get to the
+    bottom of this! I've been in the Service since she started.
+    I've served honest. No man can say I haven't done all my duty
+    and been square. And that's been when every man-jack of them
+    was getting his graft as reg'lar as his pay check. And since
+    I've been Supervisor is the only time this Forest has ever been
+    in any kind of shape, if I do say it myself. I've rounded her
+    up. I've stopped the graft. I've fixed the 'soldiers.' I've got
+    things in shape. They can't remove me without cause&mdash;I
+    know that&mdash;and if they think I'm goin' to lie down and
+    take it without a kick, they've got off the wrong foot good and
+    plenty!"</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne sat tight, nor offered a word of comment.</p>
+
+    <p>"You've been an inspector," California John appealed to him.
+    "You've been all over the country among the different reserves.
+    Ain't mine up to the others?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Things are in better shape here than in any of them,"
+    replied Thorne decisively; "your rangers have more <i>esprit de
+    corps</i>, your neighbours are better disposed, your fires have
+    a smaller percentage of acreage, your trails are better."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well?" demanded California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," repeated Thorne leaning forward, "just this. What's
+    the use of it all?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Use?" repeated California John vaguely.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes. Of what you and all the rest of us are doing."</p>
+
+    <p>"To save the public's property."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's part of it; and that's the part you've been doing
+    superlatively well. It's the old idea, that: the idea expressed
+    by the old name&mdash;the Forest <i>Reserves</i>&mdash;to save,
+    to set aside. It seemed the most important thing. The forests
+    had so many eager enemies&mdash;unprincipled land-grabbers and
+    lumbermen, sheep, fire. To beat these back required all our
+    best efforts. It was all we could think of. We hadn't time to
+    think of anything else. It was a full job."</p>
+
+    <p>"You bet it was," commented the old man grimly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, it's done. There will be attempts to go back to the
+    old state of affairs, but they will grow feebler from year to
+    year. Things will never slide back again. The people are
+    awake."</p>
+
+    <p>"Think so?" doubted California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"I know it. Now comes the new idea. We no longer speak of
+    Forest Reserves, but of National Forests. We've saved them; now
+    what are we going to do with them? What would you think of a
+    man who cleared a 'forty', and pulled all the stumps, and then
+    quit work?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I never thought of that," said California John, "but what's
+    that got to do with these confounded whelps----"</p>
+
+    <p>"We are going to use these forests for the benefit of the
+    people. We're going to cut the ripe trees and sell them to the
+    lumber manufacturer; we're going to develop the water power;
+    we're going to improve the grazing; we're going to study what
+    we have here, so that by and by from our forests we will be
+    getting the income the lumberman now gets, and will not be
+    injuring the estate. Each Forest is going to be a big and
+    complicated business, like railroading or wholesaling. Anybody
+    can run Martin's store down at the Flats. It takes a trained
+    man to oversee even a proposition like the Star at White
+    Oaks."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I see what you're drivin' at," said California John,
+    "but I've made good up to now; and until they try me out,
+    they've no right to fire me. I'll defy 'em to find anythin'
+    crooked!!!"</p>
+
+    <p>"John, you're as straight as a string. But they have tried
+    you out. Your office work has been away off."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, that! What's those dinkey little reports and
+    monkeydoodle business amount to, anyhow? You know perfectly
+    well it's foolish to ask a ranger to fill out an eight-page
+    blank every time he takes a ride. What does that amount
+    to?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not very much," confessed Thorne. "But when things begin to
+    hum around here there'll be a thousand times as much of the
+    same sort of stuff, and it'll <i>all</i> be important."</p>
+
+    <p>"They'd better get me a clerk."</p>
+
+    <p>"They would get you a clerk, several of them. But no man has
+    a right to even boss a job he doesn't himself understand. What
+    do you know about timber grading? estimating? mapping? What is
+    your scientific training&mdash;?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've give my soul and boot-straps to this Service for nine
+    years&mdash;at sixty and ninety a month," interrupted
+    California John. "Part of that I spent for tools they was too
+    stingy to give me. Now they kick me out."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, no, they don't," said Thorne. "Not any! But you agree
+    with me, don't you, that you couldn't hold down the job?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose so," snapped California John. "To hell with such
+    a game. I think I'll go over Goldfield way."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, you won't," said Thorne gently. "You'll stay here, in
+    the Service."</p>
+
+    <p>"What!" cried the old man rising to his feet; "stay here in
+    the Service! And every mountain man to point me out as that old
+    fool Davidson who got fired after workin' nine years like a
+    damn ijit. You talk foolish!"</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne arose too, and put one hand on the old man's
+    shoulder.</p>
+
+    <p>"And what about those nine years?" he asked gently. "Things
+    looked pretty dark, didn't they? You didn't have enough to live
+    on; and you got your salary docked without any reason or
+    justice; and you had to stand one side while the other fellows
+    did things dishonest and wrong; and it didn't look as though it
+    was ever going to get better. Nine years is a long time. Why
+    did you do it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," muttered California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was just waiting for this time that is coming. In five
+    years we'll have the people with us; we'll have Congress, and
+    the money to do things; we'll have sawmills and water-power,
+    and regulated grazing, and telephone lines, and comfortable
+    quarters. We'll have a Service safeguarded by Civil Service,
+    and a body of disciplined men, and officers as the Army and
+    Navy have. It's coming; and it's coming soon. You've been nine
+    years at the other thing&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's humiliating," insisted California John, "to do a job
+    well and get fired."</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll still have just the job you have now&mdash;only
+    you'll be called a head-ranger."</p>
+
+    <p>"My people won't see it that way."</p>
+
+    <p>Ashley Thorne hesitated.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, they won't," said he frankly at last. "I could argue on
+    the other side; but they won't. They'll think you've dropped
+    back a peg; and they'll say to each other&mdash;at least some
+    of them will: 'Old Davidson bit off more than he could chew;
+    and it serves him right for being a damn fool, anyway.' You've
+    been content to play along misunderstood for nine years because
+    you had faith. Has that faith deserted you?"</p>
+
+    <p>California John looked down, and his erect shoulders shrunk
+    forward a little.</p>
+
+    <p>"Old friend," said Thorne, "it's a sacrifice. Are you going
+    to stay and help me?"</p>
+
+    <p>California John for a long time studied a crack in the
+    floor. When he looked up his face was illuminated with his
+    customary quizzical grin.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've sure got it on Ross Fletcher," he drawled. "I done
+    <i>told</i> him I wasn't no supervisor, and he swore I
+    was."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="PART_FOUR"></a>
+
+    <h2>PART FOUR</h2><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="I"></a>
+
+    <h2>I</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>When next Bob was able to visit the Upper Camp, he found
+    Thorne fully established. He rode in from the direction of Rock
+    Creek, and so through the pasture and by the back way. In the
+    tiny potato and garden patch behind the house he came upon a
+    woman wielding a hoe.</p>
+
+    <p>Her back was toward him, and a pink sunbonnet, freshly
+    starched, concealed all her face. The long, straight lines of
+    her gown fell about a vigorous and supple figure that swayed
+    with every stroke of the hoe. Bob stopped and watched her.
+    There was something refreshing in the eagerness with which she
+    attacked the weeds, as though it were less a drudgery than a
+    live interest which it was well to meet joyously. After a
+    moment she walked a few steps to another row of tiny beans. Her
+    movements had the perfect grace of muscular control; one
+    melted, flowed, into the other. Bob's eye of the athlete noted
+    and appreciated this fact. He wondered to which of the mountain
+    clans this girl belonged. Vigorous and breezy as were the
+    maidens of the hills, able to care for themselves, like the
+    paladins of old, afoot or ahorse, they lacked this grace of
+    movement. He stepped forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"I beg pardon," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>The girl turned, resting the heel of her hoe on the earth,
+    and both hands on the end of its handle. Bob saw a dark, oval
+    countenance, with very red cheeks, very black eyes and hair,
+    and an engaging flash of teeth. The eyes looked at him as
+    frankly as a boy's, and the flash of teeth made him
+    unaffectedly welcome.</p>
+
+    <p>"Is Mr. Thorne here?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, no," replied the girl; "but I'm Mr. Thorne's sister.
+    Won't I do?"</p>
+
+    <p>She was leisurely laying aside her hoe, and drawing the
+    fringed buckskin gauntlets from her hands. Bob stepped
+    gallantly forward to relieve her of the implement.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do?" he echoed. "Why, of course you'll do!"</p>
+
+    <p>She stopped and looked him full in the face, with an air of
+    great amusement.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you come to see Mr. Thorne on business?" she asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," replied Bob; "just ran over to see him."</p>
+
+    <p>She laughed quietly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then I'm afraid I won't do," she said, "for I must cook
+    dinner. You see," she explained, "I'm Mr. Thorne's clerk, and
+    if it were business, I might attend to it."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob flushed to the ears. He was ordinarily a young man of
+    sufficient self-possession, but this young woman's directness
+    was disconcerting. She surveyed his embarrassment with
+    approving eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"You might finish those beans," said she, offering the hoe.
+    "Of course, you must stay to dinner, and I must go light the
+    fire."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob finished the beans, leaned the hoe up against the house,
+    and went around to the front. There he stopped in
+    astonishment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you have changed things!" he cried.</p>
+
+    <p>The stuffy little shed kitchen was no longer occupied. A
+    floor had been laid between the bases of four huge trees, and
+    walls enclosing three sides to the height of about eight feet
+    had been erected. The affair had no roof. Inside these three
+    walls were the stove, the kitchen table, the shelves and
+    utensils of cooking. Miss Thorne, her sunbonnet laid aside from
+    her glossy black braids, moved swiftly and easily here and
+    there in this charming stage-set of a kitchen. About ten feet
+    in front of it, on the pine needles, stood the dining table,
+    set with white.</p>
+
+    <p><img src="images/rgillp332.jpg"
+         alt="I beg pardon, said he. The girl turned"></p>
+
+    <p>The girl nodded brightly to Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Finished?" she inquired. She pointed to the water pail:
+    "There's a useful task for willing hands."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob filled the pail, and set it brimming on the section of
+    cedar log which seemed to be its appointed resting place.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thank you," said the girl. Bob leaned against the tree and
+    watched her as she moved here and there about the varied
+    business of cooking. Every few minutes she would stop and look
+    upward through the cool shadows of the trees, like a bird
+    drinking. At times she burst into snatches of song, so brief as
+    to be unrecognizable.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you like sticks in your food?" she asked Bob, as though
+    suddenly remembering his presence, "and pine needles, and the
+    husks of pine nuts, and other d&eacute;bris? because that's
+    what the breezes and trees and naughty little squirrels are
+    always raining down on me."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you have the men stretch you a canvas?" asked
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said the girl, stopping short, "I have considered
+    it. I no more than you like unexpected twigs in my dough. But
+    you see I do like shadows and sunlight and upper air and
+    breezes in my food. And you can't have one without the other.
+    Did you get all the weeds out?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob. "Look here; you ought not to have to do
+    such work as that."</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you think it will wear down my fragile strength?" she
+    asked, looking at him good-humouredly. "Is it too much exercise
+    for me?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No&mdash;" hesitated Bob, "but&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, bless you, I like to help the babies to grow big and
+    green," said she. "One can't have the theatre or bridge up
+    here; do leave us some of the simple pleasures."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why did you want me to finish for you then?" demanded Bob
+    shrewdly.</p>
+
+    <p>She laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Young man," said she, "I could give you at least ten
+    reasons," with which enigmatic remark she whipped her apron
+    around her hand and whisked open the oven door, where were
+    displayed rows of beautifully browned biscuits.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nevertheless----" began Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nevertheless," she took him up, raising her face, slightly
+    flushed by the heat, "all the men-folks are busy, and this one
+    woman-folk is not harmed a bit by playing at being a farmer
+    lassie."</p>
+
+    <p>"One of the rangers could do it all in a couple of
+    hours."</p>
+
+    <p>"The rangers are in the employ of the United States
+    Government, and this garden is mine," she stated evenly. "How
+    could I take a Government employee to work on my property?"</p>
+
+    <p>"But surely Mr. Thorne&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>"Ashley, bless his dear old heart, takes beans for granted,
+    as something that happens on well-regulated tables."</p>
+
+    <p>She walked to the edge of the kitchen floor and looked up
+    through the trees. "He ought to be along soon now. I hope so;
+    my biscuits are just on the brown." She turned to Bob, her eyes
+    dancing: "Now comes the exciting moment of the day, the great
+    gamble! Will he come alone, or will he bring a half-dozen with
+    him? I am always ready for the half-dozen, and as a consequence
+    we live in a grand, ingenious debauch of warmed-ups and
+    next-days. You don't know what good practice it is; nor what
+    fun! I've often thought I could teach those cooks of Marc
+    Antony's something&mdash;you remember, don't you, they used to
+    keep six dinners going all at different stages of preparation
+    because they never knew at what hour His High-and-mightiness
+    might choose to dine. Or perhaps you don't know? Football men
+    don't have to study, do they?"</p>
+
+    <p>"What makes you think I'm a football man?" grinned Bob;
+    "generally bovine expression?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not know the great Bob Orde!" cried the girl. "Why, not one
+    of us but had your picture, generally in a nice gilt shrine,
+    but <i>always</i> with violets before it."</p>
+
+    <p>But on this ground Bob was sure.</p>
+
+    <p>"You have been reading a ten-cent magazine," he admonished
+    her gravely. "It is unwise to take your knowledge of the
+    customs in girls' colleges from such sources."</p>
+
+    <p>From the depths of the forest eddied a cloud of dust. Miss
+    Thorne appraised it carefully.</p>
+
+    <p>"Warmed-overs to-night," she pronounced. "There's no more
+    than two of them."</p>
+
+    <p>The accuracy of her guess was almost immediately verified by
+    the appearance of two riders. A moment later Thorne and
+    California John dismounted at the hitching rail, some distance
+    removed among the azaleas, and came up afoot. The younger man
+    had dropped all his dry, official precision, his incisive
+    abruptness, his reticence. Clad in the high, laced cruisers,
+    the khaki and gray flannel, the broad, felt hat and gay
+    neckerchief of what might be called the professional class of
+    out-of-door man, his face glowing with health and enthusiasm,
+    he seemed a different individual.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo! Hullo!" he cried out a joyous greeting as he drew
+    nearer; "I couldn't bring you much company to-day, Amy. But I
+    see you've found some. How are you, Orde? I'm glad to see
+    you."</p>
+
+    <p>He and California John disappeared behind the shed, where
+    the wash basin was; while Amy, with deftness, rearranged the
+    table to accord with the numbers who would sit down to it.</p>
+
+    <p>The meal in the open was most delightful; especially to Bob,
+    after his long course of lumber-camp provender. The deep
+    shadows shifted slowly across the forest floor. Sparkles of
+    sunlight from unexpected quarters touched gently in turn each
+    of the diners, or glittered back from glass or linen.
+    Occasionally a wandering breeze lifted a corner of the
+    tablecloth and let it fall, or scurried erratically across the
+    table itself. Occasionally, too, a pine needle, a twig, a leaf
+    would zigzag down through the air to fall in some one's coffee
+    or glass or plate. Birds flashed across the open vault of this
+    forest room&mdash;brilliant birds, like the Louisiana Tanager;
+    sober little birds like the creepers and nuthatches.
+    Circumspect and reserved whitecrowns and brush tohees scratched
+    and hopped silently over the forest litter. Once a swift
+    falcon, glancing like a shadowy death, slanted across the upper
+    spaces. The food was excellent, and daintily served.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am proud of my blue and white enamel-ware," Miss Thorne
+    told Bob; "it's so much better than tin or this ugly gray. And
+    that glass pitcher I got with coupons from the coffee
+    packages."</p>
+
+    <p>"You didn't get these with coupons?" said Bob, lifting one
+    of the massive silver forks.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," she admitted. "That is my one foolishness. All the
+    rest does not matter, but I can't get along without my
+    silver."</p>
+
+    <p>"And a great nuisance it is to those who have to move as we
+    move," put in Ashley Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>The forest officers took up their broken conversation. Bob
+    found himself a silent but willing listener. He heard
+    discussion of policies, business dealings, plans that widened
+    the horizon of what the Forest had meant to him. In these
+    discussions the girl took an active and intelligent part. Her
+    opinion seemed to be accepted seriously by both the men, as one
+    who had knowledge, and indeed, her grasp of details seemed as
+    comprehensive as that of the men themselves.</p>
+
+    <p>Finally Thorne pushed his chair back and began to fill his
+    pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"Anybody here to-day?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>The girl ran over rapidly a half-dozen names, sketching
+    briefly the business they had brought. Then, one after the
+    other, she told the answers she had made to them. This one had
+    been given blanks, forms and instructions. That one had been
+    told clearly that he was in the wrong, and must amend his ways.
+    The other had been advised but tentatively, and informed that
+    he must see the Supervisor personally. To each of these Thorne
+    responded by a brief nod, puffing, meanwhile, on his pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right?" she asked, when she had finished.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right but one," said he, removing his pipe at last. "I
+    don't think it will be advisable to let Francotti have what he
+    wants."</p>
+
+    <p>"Pull the string, then!" cried the girl gaily.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne turned to California John in discussion of the
+    Francotti affair.</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you mean by 'pull the string'?" Bob took the
+    occasion to inquire.</p>
+
+    <p>"I settle a lot of these little matters that aren't worth
+    bothering Ashley with," she explained, "but I tie a string to
+    each of my decisions. I always make them 'subject to the
+    Supervisor's approval.' Then if I do wrong, all I have to do is
+    to write the man and tell him the Supervisor does not
+    approve."</p>
+
+    <p>"I shouldn't think you'd like that," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Like what?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, it sort of puts you in a hole, doesn't it? Lays all
+    the blame on you."</p>
+
+    <p>She laughed in frank amusement.</p>
+
+    <p>"What of it?" she challenged.</p>
+
+    <p>"Any letters?" Thorne asked abruptly. "Morton brought mail
+    this morning, didn't he?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing wildly important&mdash;except that they're thinking
+    of adopting a ranger uniform."</p>
+
+    <p>"A uniform!" snorted California John, rearing his old
+    head.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, yes, I've heard of that," put in Thorne instantly.
+    "It's to be a white pith helmet with a green silk scarf on it;
+    red coat with gold lace, and white, English riding breeches
+    with leather leggins. Don't you think old John would look sweet
+    in that?" he asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>But the old man refused to be drawn out.</p>
+
+    <p>"Supervisors same; but with a gold pompon on top the
+    helmet," he observed. "What <i>is</i> the dang thing, anyway,
+    Amy?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Dark green whipcord, green buttons, gray hat, military
+    cut."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not bad," said Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"About one fifty-mile ride and one fire would make that
+    outfit look like a bunch of mildewed alfalfa. Blue jeans is
+    about my sort of uniform," observed John.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't believe we'd be supposed to wear it on range,"
+    suggested Thorne. "Only in town and official business." He
+    turned to the girl again: "May have to go over Baldy
+    to-morrow," said he, "so we'll run off those letters."</p>
+
+    <p>She arose and saluted, military fashion. The two disappeared
+    in the tiny box-office, whence presently came the sound of
+    Thorne's voice in dictation.</p>
+
+    <p>California John knocked the ashes from his pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"Get your apron on, sonny," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>He tested the water on the stove and slammed out a
+    commodious dish-pan.</p>
+
+    <p>"Glasses first; then silver; and if you break anything, I'll
+    bash in your fool head. There's going to be some style to this
+    dishwashing. I used to slide 'em all in together and let her
+    go. But that ain't the way here. She knows four aces and the
+    jolly joker better than that. Glasses first."</p>
+
+    <p>They washed and wiped the dishes, and laid them carefully
+    away.</p>
+
+    <p>"She's a little wonder," said California John, nodding at
+    the office, "and there ain't none of the boys but helps all
+    they can."</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne called the old man by name, and he disappeared into
+    the office. A moment later the girl emerged, smoothing back her
+    hair with both hands. She stepped immediately to the little
+    kitchen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thank you," said she. "That helps."</p>
+
+    <p>"It was old John," disclaimed Bob. "I'm ashamed to say I
+    should never have thought of it."</p>
+
+    <p>The girl nodded carelessly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where did you learn stenography?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I got that out of a ten-cent magazine too." She sat on
+    a bench, looked up at the sky through the trees, and drew a
+    deep breath.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're tired," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Not a bit," she denied. "But I don't often get a chance to
+    just look up."</p>
+
+    <p>"You seem to do the gardening, the cooking, the housework,
+    the clerical work&mdash;you don't do the laundry, too, do you?"
+    demanded Bob ironically.</p>
+
+    <p>"You noticed those miserable khakis!" cried Amy with a
+    gesture of dismay. "Ashley," she called, "change those khakis
+    before you go out."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, mama," came back a mock childish voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's your salary?" demanded Bob bluntly, nodding toward
+    the office.</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" she asked, as though puzzled.</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't you say you were the clerk?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I see. I just help Ashley out. He could <i>never</i>
+    get through the field work and the office work both."</p>
+
+    <p>"Doesn't the Service allow him a clerk?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not yet; but it will in time."</p>
+
+    <p>"What is Mr. Thorne's salary?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, really----"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, I beg pardon," cried Bob flushing; "I just meant
+    supervisors' salaries, of course. I wasn't prying, really. It's
+    all a matter of public record, isn't it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course." The girl checked herself. "Well, it's eighteen
+    hundred&mdash;and something for expenses."</p>
+
+    <p>"Eighteen hundred!" cried Bob. "Do you mean to say that the
+    <i>two</i> of you give all your time for that! Why, we pay a
+    good woods foreman pretty near that!"</p>
+
+    <p>"And that's all you do pay him," said the girl quietly.
+    "Money wage isn't the whole pay for any job that is worth
+    doing."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't understand," said Bob briefly.</p>
+
+    <p>"We belong to the Service," she stated with a little
+    movement of pride. "Those tasks in life which give a high
+    moneyed wage, generally give only that. Part of our
+    compensation is that we belong to the Service; we are doing
+    something for the whole people, not just for ourselves." She
+    caught Bob's half-smile, more at her earnestness than at her
+    sentiment, and took fire. "You needn't laugh!" she cried. "It's
+    small now, but that's because it's the beginning, because we
+    have the privilege of being the forerunners, the pioneers! The
+    time will come when in this country there will be three great
+    Services&mdash;the Army, the Navy, the Forest; and an officer
+    in the one will be as much respected and looked up to as the
+    others! Perhaps more! In the long times of peace, while they
+    are occupied with their eternal Preparation, we shall be
+    labouring at Accomplishment."</p>
+
+    <p>She broke off abruptly.</p>
+
+    <p>"If you don't want to get me started, don't be superior,"
+    she ended, half apologetic, half resentful.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I do want to get you started," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's amusing, I don't doubt."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not quite that: it's interesting, and I am no longer
+    bewildered at the eighteen hundred a year&mdash;that is," he
+    quoted a popular song, "'if there are any more at home like
+    you.'"</p>
+
+    <p>She looked at him humorously despairing.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's just like an outsider. There are plenty who feel as
+    I do, but they don't say so. Look at old California John, at
+    Ross Fletcher, at a half-dozen others under your very nose.
+    Have you ever stopped to think why they have so long been
+    loyal? I don't suppose you have, for I doubt if they have. But
+    you mark my words!"</p>
+
+    <p>"All right, Field Marshal&mdash;or is it 'General'?" said
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>She laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Just camp cook," she replied good-humouredly.</p>
+
+    <p>The sun was slanting low through the tall, straight trunks
+    of the trees. Amy Thorne arose, gathered a handful of kindling,
+    and began to rattle the stove.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am contemplating a real pudding," she said over her
+    shoulder.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob arose reluctantly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I must be getting on," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>They said farewell. At the hitching rail Thorne joined
+    him.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm afraid I'm not very hospitable," said the Supervisor,
+    "but that mustn't discourage you from coming often. We'll be
+    better organized in time."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's mighty pleasant over here; I've enjoyed myself," said
+    Bob, mounting.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne laid his hand on the young man's knee.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish we could induce you old-timers to come to our way of
+    thinking," said he pleasantly.</p>
+
+    <p>"How's that?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Your slash is in horrible shape."</p>
+
+    <p>"Our slash!" repeated Bob in a surprised tone. "How?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a regular fire-trap, the way you leave it tangled up.
+    It wouldn't cost you much to pile the tops and leave the ground
+    in good shape."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, it's just like any other slash!" protested Bob. "We're
+    logging just as everybody always logs!"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's just what I object to. And when you fell a tree or
+    pull a log to the skids, I do wish we could induce you to pay a
+    little attention to the young growth. It's a little more
+    trouble, sometimes, to go around instead of through, but it's
+    worth it to the forest."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's brows were bent on the Supervisor in puzzled surprise.
+    Thorne laughed, and slapped the young man's horse on the flanks
+    to start him.</p>
+
+    <p>"You think it over!" he called.</p>
+
+    <p>A half-hour's ride took Bob to the clearing where the
+    logging crews had worked the year before. Here, although the
+    hour was now late, he reined in his horse and looked. It was
+    the first time he had ever really done so. Heretofore a
+    slashing had been as much a part of the ordinary woodland
+    landscape as the forest itself.</p>
+
+    <p>He saw then the abattis of splintered old trunks, of lopped
+    limbs, and entangled branches, piled up like jackstraws to the
+    height of even six or eight feet from the ground; the unsightly
+    mat of sodden old masses of pine needles and cedar fans; the
+    hundreds of young saplings bent double by the weight of
+    d&eacute;bris, broken square off, or twisted out of all chance
+    of becoming straight trees in their age; the long, deep,
+    ruthless furrows where the logs had been dragged through
+    everything that could stand in their way; the few trees left
+    standing, weak specimens, undesirable species, the culls of the
+    forest, further scarred where the cruel steel cables had rasped
+    or bitten them. He knew by experience the difficulty of making
+    a way, even afoot, through this tangle. Now, under the
+    influence of Thorne's suggestion, he saw them as great piles of
+    so much fuel, laid as though by purpose for the time when the
+    evil genius of the forest should desire to warm himself.</p>
+
+<br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="II"></a>
+
+    <h2>II</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob was finally late for supper, which he ate hastily and
+    without much appetite. After finishing the meal, he hunted up
+    Welton. He found the lumberman tilted back in a wooden
+    armchair, his feet comfortably elevated to the low rail about
+    the stove, his pipe in mouth, his coat off, and his waistcoat
+    unbuttoned. At the sight of his homely, jolly countenance, Bob
+    experienced a pleasant sensation of slipping back from an
+    environment slightly off-focus to the normal, accustomed and
+    real. Nevertheless, at the first opportunity, he tested his new
+    doubts by Welton's common sense.</p>
+
+    <p>"I rode through our slash on 18," he remarked. "That's an
+    awful mess."</p>
+
+    <p>"Slashes are," replied Welton succinctly.</p>
+
+    <p>"If the thing gets afire it will make a hot blaze."</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure thing," agreed Welton. "But we've never had one go
+    yet&mdash;at least, while we were working. There's men enough
+    to corral anything like that."</p>
+
+    <p>"But we've always worked in a wet country," Bob pointed out.
+    "Here it's dry from April till October."</p>
+
+    <p>"Have to take chances, then; and jump on a fire quick if it
+    starts," said Welton philosophically.</p>
+
+    <p>"These forest men advise certain methods of obviating the
+    danger," Bob suggested.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pure theory," returned Welton. "The theory's a good one,
+    too," he added. "That's where these college men are
+    strong&mdash;only it isn't practical. They mean well enough,
+    but they haven't the knowledge. When you look at anything broad
+    enough, it looks easy. That's what busts so many people in the
+    lumber business." He rolled out one of his jolly chuckles.
+    "Lumber barons!" he chortled. "Oh, it's easy enough! Any
+    mossback can make money lumbering! Here's your stumpage at a
+    dollar a thousand, and there's your lumber at twenty! Simplest
+    thing in the world. Just the same there are more failures in
+    the lumber business than in any other I know anything about.
+    Why is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Economic waste," put in Merker, who was leaning across the
+    counter.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lack of experience," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"A little of both," admitted Welton; "but it's more because
+    the business is made up of ten thousand little businesses. You
+    have to conduct a cruising business, and a full-fledged real
+    estate and mortgage business; you have to build houses and
+    factories, make roads, build railroads; you have to do a livery
+    trade, and be on the market for a thousand little things.
+    Between the one dollar you pay for stumpage and the twenty
+    dollars you get for lumber lies all these things. Along comes
+    your hardware man and says, Here, why don't you put in my new
+    kind of spark arrestor; think how little it costs; what's fifty
+    dollars to a half-million-dollar business? The spark arrester's
+    a good thing all right, so you put it in. And then there's
+    maybe a chance to use a little paint and make the shanties look
+    like something besides shanties; that don't cost much, either,
+    to a half-million-dollar business. And so on through a thousand
+    things. And by and by it's costing twenty dollars and one cent
+    to get your lumber to market; and it's B-U-S-T, bust!"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's economic waste," put in Merker.</p>
+
+    <p>"Or lack of experience," added Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," said Welton, emphasizing his point with his pipe;
+    <i>"it's not sticking to business!</i> It's not stripping her
+    down to the bare necessities! It's going in for frills! When
+    you get to be as old as I am, you learn not to monkey with the
+    band wagon."</p>
+
+    <p>His round, red face relaxed into one of his good-humoured
+    grins, and he relit his pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the trouble with this forestry monkey business. It's
+    all right to fool with, if you want fooling. So's fancy
+    farming. But it don't pay. If you are playing, why, it's all
+    right to experiment. If you ain't, why, it's a good plan to
+    stick to the methods of lumbering. The present system of doing
+    things has been worked out pretty thorough by a lot of pretty
+    shrewd business men. And it <i>works!"</i></p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't know you could orate to that extent," he gibed.
+    "Sic'em!"</p>
+
+    <p>Welton grinned a trifle abashed. "You don't want to get me
+    started, then," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, but I do!" Bob objected, for the second time that
+    day.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now this slashing business," went on the old lumberman in a
+    more moderate tone. "When the millennium comes, it would be a
+    fine thing to clear up the old slashings." He turned suddenly
+    to Bob. "How long do you think it would take you with a crew of
+    a dozen men to cut and pile the waste stuff in 18?" he
+    inquired.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob cast back the eye of his recollection to the hopeless
+    tangle that cumbered the ground.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, Lord!" he ejaculated; "don't ask me!"</p>
+
+    <p>"If you were running a business would you feel like stopping
+    work and sending your men&mdash;whom you are feeding and
+    paying&mdash;back there to pile up that old truck?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's mind, trained to the eager hurry of the logging
+    season, recoiled from this idea in dismay.</p>
+
+    <p>"I should say not!" he cried. Then as a second thought he
+    added: "But what they want is to pile the tops while the work
+    is going on."</p>
+
+    <p>"It takes just so much time to do so much work," stated
+    Welton succinctly, "and it don't matter whether you do it all
+    at once, or try to fool yourself by spraddling it out."</p>
+
+    <p>He pulled strongly at his pipe.</p>
+
+    <p>"Forest Reserves are all right enough," he acknowledged,
+    "and maybe some day their theories will work out. But not now;
+    not while taxes go on!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="III"></a>
+
+    <h2>III</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>One day, not over a week later, Bob working in the woods,
+    noticed California John picking his way through the new
+    slashing. This was a difficult matter, for the fresh-peeled
+    logs and the debris of the tops afforded few openings for the
+    passage of a horse. The old man made it, however, and finally
+    emerged on solid ground, much in the fashion of one climbing a
+    bank after an uncertain ford. He caught sight of Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"You fellows can change the face of the country beyant all
+    belief," announced the old man, pushing back his hat. "You're
+    worse than snow that way. I ought to know this country pretty
+    well, but when I get down into one of your pesky slashings, I'm
+    lost for a way out!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed, and exchanged a few commonplace remarks.</p>
+
+    <p>"If you can get off, you better come over our way," said
+    California John, as he gathered up his reins. "We're holding
+    ranger examinations&mdash;something new. You got to tell what
+    you know these days before you can work for Uncle Sam."</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you have to know?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come over and find out."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob reflected.</p>
+
+    <p>"I believe I will," he decided. "There's nothing to keep me
+    here."</p>
+
+    <p>Accordingly, early next morning he rode over to the Upper
+    Camp. Outside, near the creek, he came upon the deserted
+    evidences of a gathering of men. Bed rolls lay scattered under
+    the trees, saddles had been thrown over fallen trunks, bags of
+    provisions hung from saplings, cooking utensils flanked the
+    smouldering remains of a fire which was, however, surrounded by
+    a scraped circle of earth after the careful fashion of the
+    mountains. Bob's eye, by now practised in the refinements of
+    such matters, ran over the various accoutrements thus spread
+    abroad. He estimated the number of their owners at about a
+    score. The bedroll of the cowman, the "turkey" of the lumber
+    jack, the quilts of the mountaineer, were all in evidence; as
+    well as bedding plainly makeshift in character, belonging to
+    those who must have come from a distance. A half-dozen horses
+    dozed in an improvised fence-corner corral. As many more were
+    tied to trees. Saddles, buckboards, two-wheeled carts, and even
+    one top buggy represented the means of transportation.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob rode on through the gate to headquarters.. This he found
+    deserted, except for Amy Thorne. She was engaged in wiping the
+    breakfast dishes, and she excitedly waved a towel at the young
+    man as he rode up.</p>
+
+    <p>"A godsend!" she cried. "I'm just dancing with impatience!
+    They've been gone five minutes! Come help me finish!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob fastened his horse, rolled back his sleeves, and took
+    hold with a will.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's your examining board, and your candidates?" he
+    inquired. "I thought I was going to see an examination."</p>
+
+    <p>"Up the Meadow Trail," panted the girl. "Don't stop to talk.
+    Hurry!"</p>
+
+    <p>They hurried, to such good purpose, that shortly they were
+    clambering, rather breathless, up the steeps of the Meadow
+    Trail. This led to a flat, upper shelf or bench in which, as
+    the name implied, was situated a small meadow. At the upper end
+    were grouped twenty-five men, closely gathered about some
+    object.</p>
+
+    <p>Amy and Bob plunged into the dew-heavy grasses. The men
+    proved to be watching Thorne, who was engaged in tacking a
+    small target on the stub of a dead sugar pine. This
+    accomplished, he led the way back some seventy-five or eighty
+    paces.</p>
+
+    <p>"Three shots each," said he, consulting his note-book.
+    "Off-hand. Hicks!"</p>
+
+    <p>The man so named stepped forward to the designated mark,
+    sighted his piece carefully, and fired.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do I get each shot called?" he inquired; but Thorne shook
+    his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"You ought to know where your guns shoot," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>After the third shot, the whole group went forward to
+    examine the target. Thorne marked the results in his note-book,
+    and called upon the next contestant.</p>
+
+    <p>While the shooting went on, Bob had leisure to examine the
+    men. They numbered, as he had guessed, about twenty. Three were
+    plainly from the towns, for they wore thin shoes, white shirts,
+    and clothes of a sort ill adapted to out-of-door work in the
+    mountains. Two others, while more appropriately dressed in
+    khakis and high boots, were as evidently foreign to the hills.
+    Bob guessed them recent college graduates, perhaps even of some
+    one of the forestry schools. In this he was correct. The rest
+    were professional out-of-door men. Bob recognized two of his
+    own woods-crew&mdash;good men they were, too. He nodded to
+    them. A half-dozen lithe, slender youths, handsome and browned,
+    drew apart by themselves. He remembered having noticed one of
+    them as a particularly daring rider after Pollock's cattle the
+    fall before; and guessed his companions to be of the same
+    breed. Among the remainder, two picturesque, lean, slow and
+    quizzical prospectors attracted his particular attention.</p>
+
+    <p>Most of these men were well practised in the use of the
+    rifle, but evidently not to exhibiting their skill in company.
+    What seemed to Bob a rather <i>exaggerated</i> earnestness
+    oppressed them. The shooting, with two exceptions, was not
+    good. Several, whom Bob strongly suspected had many a time
+    brought down their deer on the run, even missed the target
+    entirely! It was to be remarked that each contestant, though he
+    might turn red beneath his tan, took the announcement of the
+    result in silence.</p>
+
+    <p>The two notable exceptions referred to were strangely
+    contrasted. The elder was one of the prospectors. He was armed
+    with an ancient 45-70 Winchester, worn smooth and shiny by long
+    carrying in a saddle holster. This arm was fitted with buckhorn
+    sights of the old mountain type. When it exploded, its black
+    powder blew forth a stunning detonation and volume of smoke.
+    Nevertheless, of the three bullets, two were within the tiny
+    black Thorne had seen fit to mark as bullseye, and the other
+    clipped close to its edge. A murmur of admiration went up from
+    the bystanders. Even eliminating the unaccountable nervousness
+    that had thrown so many shots wild, it seemed improbable that
+    any of the other contestants felt themselves qualified to equal
+    this score.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good shooting," whispered Bob to Amy. "I doubt if I could
+    make out that bullseye through sights."</p>
+
+    <p>The other exception, whose turn came somewhat later, was one
+    of the Easterners mentioned as a graduate of the forestry
+    school. This young man, not over twenty-two years of age, was
+    an attractive youngster, with refined features, and engaging
+    dark-blue eyes. His arm was the then latest model, a 33-calibre
+    high power, fitted with aperture sights. This he manipulated
+    with great care, adjusting it again and again; and fired with
+    such deliberation that some of the spectators moved
+    impatiently. Nevertheless, the target, on examination, showed
+    that he had duplicated the prospector's score. To be sure, the
+    worst shot had not cut quite as close to the bull as had that
+    of the older man, but on the other hand, those in the black
+    were slightly nearer the centre. It was generally adjudged a
+    good tie.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, youngster!" cried the prospector, heartily, "we're
+    the cocks of the walk! If you can handle the other weep'n as
+    well, I'll give you my hand for a good shot."</p>
+
+    <p>The young man smiled shyly, but said nothing.</p>
+
+    <p>The distance was now shortened to something under twenty
+    paces, and a new target substituted for the old. The black in
+    this was fully six inches in diameter.</p>
+
+    <p>"Five shots with six-shooter," announced Thorne briefly.</p>
+
+    <p>"A man should hit a dollar twice in five at that distance,"
+    muttered the prospector. Thorne caught the remark.</p>
+
+    <p>"You hit that five out of five, and I'll forgive you," said
+    he curtly. "Hicks, you begin."</p>
+
+    <p>The contest went forward with varying success. Not over half
+    of the men were practised with the smaller arm. Some very wild
+    work was done. On the other hand, eight or ten performed very
+    creditably, placing their bullets in or near the black. Indeed,
+    two succeeded in hitting the bullseye four times out of five.
+    Every man took the utmost pains with every shot.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, Ware," said Thorne, at last, "step up. You've got to
+    make good that five out of five to win."</p>
+
+    <p>The prospector stood forward, at the same time producing
+    from an open holster blackened by time one of the
+    long-barrelled single-action Colt's 45's, so universally in use
+    on the frontier. He glanced carelessly toward the mark, grinned
+    back at the crowd, turned, and instantly began firing. He shot
+    the five shots without appreciable sighting before each, as
+    fast as his thumb could pull back the long-shanked hammer. The
+    muzzle of the weapon rose and fell with a regularity positively
+    mechanical, and the five shots had been delivered in half that
+    number of seconds.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's your five," said he, carelessly dropping his gun
+    back into its holster.</p>
+
+    <p>The five bullets were found to be scattered within the
+    six-inch black.</p>
+
+    <p>The concourse withdrew to give space for the next
+    contestant. Silence fell as the man was taking his aim. Amy
+    touched Bob's arm. He looked down. Her eyes were shining, and
+    her cheeks red with excitement.</p>
+
+    <p>"Doesn't it remind you of anything?" she whispered
+    eagerly.</p>
+
+    <p>"What?" he asked, not guessing her meaning.</p>
+
+    <p>"This: all of it!" she waved her hand abroad at the fair
+    oval meadow with its fringe of tall trees and the blue sky
+    above it; at the close-gathered knot of spectators, and the
+    single contestant advanced before them. He shook his head.
+    "Wait," she breathed, laying her fingers across her lips.</p>
+
+    <p>The contest wore along until it again came the turn of the
+    younger man. He stepped to the front, unbuckled a covered
+    holster of the sort never carried in the West, and produced one
+    of those beautifully balanced, beautifully finished revolvers
+    known as the Officer's Model. Taking the firm yet easy position
+    of the practised target shot, he sighted with great
+    deliberation, firing only when he considered his aim assured.
+    Indeed, once he lowered his weapon until a puff of wind had
+    passed. The five shots were found to be not only within the
+    black, but grouped inside a three-inch diameter.</p>
+
+    <p>"'<i>A Hubert! A Hubert</i>!'" breathed the girl in Bob's
+    ear. "<i>In the clout</i>!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I thought his name was Elliott," said Bob. "Is it
+    Hubert?"</p>
+
+    <p>The girl eyed him reproachfully, but said nothing.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're a <i>good</i> shot, youngster!" cried Ware, in the
+    heartiest congratulation; "but if Mr. Thorne don't mind, I'd
+    like to shoot off this tie. Down in our country we don't shoot
+    quite that way, or at that kind of a mark. Will you take a try
+    my way?"</p>
+
+    <p>Amy leaned again toward Bob, her face aflame.</p>
+
+    <p>"<i>'And now,'</i>" she shot at him, "'<i>I will crave your
+    Grace's permission to plant such a mark as is used in the north
+    country; and welcome every brave yeoman who shall try a shot at
+    it</i>&mdash;'Don't dare tell me you don't remember!"</p>
+
+    <p>"'<i>A man can but do his best</i>,'" Bob took up the tale.
+    "Of course, I remember; you're right."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," Thorne was agreeing, "but make it short. We've
+    got a lot to do."</p>
+
+    <p>Ware selected another target&mdash;one intended for the
+    six-shooters&mdash;that had not been used. This he tacked up in
+    place of the one already disfigured by many shots. Then he
+    paced off twelve yards.</p>
+
+    <p>"That looks easier than the other," Thorne commented.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mebbe," agreed Ware, non-committally, "but you may change
+    your mind. As for that sort of monkey-work," he indicated the
+    discarded target, "down our way we'd as soon shoot at a
+    barn."</p>
+
+    <p>The girl softly clapped her hands.</p>
+
+    <p>"'<i>For his own part</i>,'" she quoted in a breath, and so
+    rapidly that the words fairly tumbled over one another, "'<i>in
+    the land where he was bred, men would as soon take for their
+    mark King Arthur's round table, which held sixty knights around
+    it. A child of seven might hit yonder target with a headless
+    shaft</i>.' Oh, this is perfect."</p>
+
+    <p>"Now," said Ware to young Elliott, "if you'll hit that mark
+    in my fashion of shooting, you're all right."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob turned to the girl, his eyes dancing with delight.</p>
+
+    <p>"'&mdash;<i>he that hits yon mark at I-forget-how-many
+    yards</i>,'" he declaimed, "'<i>I will call him an archer fit
+    to bear bow before a king</i>'&mdash;or something to that
+    effect; I'm afraid I'm not letter perfect."</p>
+
+    <p>He laughed amusedly, and the girl laughed with him. "Just
+    the same, I'm glad you remember," she told him.</p>
+
+    <p>Ware had by now taken his place at the new mark he had
+    established.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fifteen shots," he announced. At the word his hand dropped
+    to the butt of his gun, his right shoulder hunched forward, and
+    with one lightning smooth motion the weapon glided from the
+    holster. Hardly had it left the leather when it was exploded.
+    The hammer had been cocked during the upward flip of the
+    muzzle. The first discharge was followed immediately by the
+    five others in a succession so rapid that Bob believed the man
+    had substituted a self-cocking arm until he caught the rapid
+    play of the marksman's thumb. The weapon was at no time raised
+    above the level of the man's waist.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hold on!" commanded Ware, as the bystanders started forward
+    to examine the result of the shots. "Let's finish the string
+    first."</p>
+
+    <p>He had been deliberately pushing out the exploded cartridges
+    one by one. Now he as deliberately reloaded. Taking a position
+    somewhat to the left of the target, he folded his arms so that
+    the revolver lay across his breast with its muzzle resting over
+    his left elbow. Then he strode rapidly but evenly across the
+    face of the target, discharging the five bullets as he
+    walked.</p>
+
+    <p>Again he reloaded. This time he stood with the revolver
+    hanging in his right hand gazing intently for some moments at
+    the target, measuring carefully with his eye its direction and
+    height. He turned his back; and, flipping his gun over his left
+    shoulder, fired without looking back.</p>
+
+    <p>"The first ten ought to be in the black," announced Ware,
+    "The last five ought to be somewheres on the paper. A fellow
+    can't expect more than to generally wing a man over his
+    shoulder."</p>
+
+    <p>But on examination the black proved to hold but eight bullet
+    holes. The other seven, however, all showed on the paper.</p>
+
+    <p>"Comes of not wiping out the dirt once in a while when
+    you're shooting black powder," said Ware philosophically.</p>
+
+    <p>The crowd gazed upon him with admiration.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's a remarkable group of shots to be literally
+    <i>thrown</i> out at that speed," muttered Thorne to Bob. "Why,
+    you could cover them with your hat! Well, young man," he
+    addressed Elliott, "step up!"</p>
+
+    <p>But Elliott shook his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"Couldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole," said he
+    pleasantly. "Mr. Ware has given me a new idea of what can be
+    done with a revolver. His work is especially good with that
+    heavily charged arm. I wish he would give us a little
+    exhibition of how close he can shoot with my gun. It's supposed
+    to be a more accurate weapon."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, thank you," spoke up Ware. "I couldn't hit a flock of
+    feather pillers with your gun. You see, I shoot by
+    <i>throw</i>, and I'm used to the balance of my gun."</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne finished making some notes.</p>
+
+    <p>"All right, boys," he said, snapping shut his book. "We'll
+    go down to headquarters next."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IV"></a>
+
+    <h2>IV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>On the way down the narrow trail Bob found himself near the
+    two men from his own camp. He chaffed them good-humouredly over
+    their lack of skill in the contests, to which they replied in
+    the same spirit.</p>
+
+    <p>Arrived at camp, Thorne turned to face his followers, who
+    gathered in a group to listen.</p>
+
+    <p>"Let's have a little riding, boys," said he. "Bring out a
+    horse or two and some saddles. Each man must saddle his horse,
+    circle that tree down the road, return, unsaddle and throw up
+    both hands to show he's done."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob was amused to see how the aspect of the men changed at
+    this announcement. The lithe young fellows, who had been
+    looking pretty sober over the records they had made at
+    shooting, brightened visibly and ran with some eagerness to
+    fetch out their own horses and saddles. Some of the others were
+    not so pleased, notably two of the young fellows from the
+    valley towns. Still others remained stolidly indifferent to a
+    trial in which they could not hope to compete with the
+    professional riders, but in which neither would they fail.</p>
+
+    <p>The results proved the accuracy of this reasoning. A new set
+    of stars rose to the ascendant, while the heroes of the upper
+    meadow dropped into obscurity. Most of the mountain men saddled
+    expeditiously but soberly their strong and capable mountain
+    horses, rode the required distance, and unsaddled deftly. It
+    was part of their everyday life to be able to do such things
+    well. The two town boys, and, to Bob's surprise, one of his
+    lumberjacks, furnished the comic relief. They frightened the
+    horses allotted them, to begin with; threw the saddles aboard
+    in a mess which it was necessary to untangle; finally clambered
+    on awkwardly and rode precariously amid the yells and laughter
+    of the spectators.</p>
+
+    <p>"How you expect to be a ranger, if you can't ride?" shouted
+    some one at the lumberjack.</p>
+
+    <p>"If horses don't plumb <i>detest</i> me, I reckon I can
+    learn!" retorted the shanty boy, stoutly. "This ain't my
+    game!"</p>
+
+    <p>But when young Pollock, whom Bob recognized as Jim's oldest,
+    was called out, the situation was altered. He appeared leading
+    a beautiful, half-broken bay, that snorted and planted its feet
+    and danced away from the unaccustomed crowd. Nevertheless the
+    lad, as impassive as an image, held him well in hand, awaiting
+    Thorne's signal.</p>
+
+    <p>"Go!" called the Supervisor, his eyes on his watch.</p>
+
+    <p>The boy, still grasping the hackamore in his left hand, with
+    his right threw the saddle blanket over the animal's back.
+    Stooping again, he seized the heavy stock saddle by the horn,
+    flipped it high in the air, and brought it across the horse
+    with so skilful a jerk that not only did the skirts, the heavy
+    stirrup and the horsehair cinch fall properly, but the cinch
+    itself swung so far under the horse's belly that young Pollock
+    was able to catch it deftly before it swung back. To thrust the
+    broad latigo through the rings, jerk it tight, and fasten it
+    securely was the work of an instant. With a yell to his horse
+    the boy sprang into the saddle. The animal bounded forward,
+    snorting and buck-plunging, his eye wild, his nostril wide.
+    Flung with apparent carelessness in the saddle, the rider, his
+    body swaying and bending and giving gracefully to every bound,
+    waved his broad hat, uttering shrill <i>yips</i> of
+    encouragement and admonition to his mount. The horse
+    straightened out and thundered swift as an arrow toward the
+    tree that marked the turning point. With unslackened gait, with
+    loosened rein, he swept fairly to the tree. It seemed to Bob
+    that surely the lad must overshoot the mark by many yards. But
+    at the last instant the rider swayed backward and sidewise; the
+    horse set his feet, plunged mightily thrice, threw up a great
+    cloud of dust, and was racing back almost before the spectators
+    could adjust their eyes to the change of movement. Straight to
+    the group horse and rider raced at top speed, until the more
+    inexperienced instinctively ducked aside. But in time the horse
+    sat back, slid and plunged ten feet in a spray of dust and pine
+    needles, to come to a quivering halt. Even before that young
+    Pollock had thrown himself from the saddle. Three jerks ripped
+    that article of furniture from its place to the earth. The boy,
+    with an engaging gleam of teeth, threw up both hands.</p>
+
+    <p>It was flash-riding, of course; but flash-riding at its
+    best. And how the boys enjoyed it! Now the little group of
+    "buckeroos," heretofore rather shyly in the background, shone
+    forth in full glory.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now let's see how good you are at packing," said Thorne,
+    when the last man had done his best or worst. "Jack," he told
+    young Pollock, "you go up in the pasture and catch me up that
+    old white pack mare. She's warranted to stand like a rock."</p>
+
+    <p>While the boy was gone on this errand, Thorne rummaged the
+    camp. Finally he laid out on the ground about a peck of loose
+    potatoes, miscellaneous provisions, a kettle, frying-pan,
+    coffee-pot, tin plates, cutlery, a single sack of barley, a
+    pick and shovel, and a coil of rope.</p>
+
+    <p>"That looks like a reasonable camp outfit," remarked Thorne.
+    "Just throw one of those pack saddles on her," he told Jack
+    Pollock, who led up the white mare. "Now you boys all retire;
+    you mustn't have a chance to learn from the other fellow.
+    Hicks, you stay. Now pack that stuff on that horse. I'll time
+    you."</p>
+
+    <p>Hicks looked about him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's the kyacks?<a name="FNanchor3"></a><a href=
+    "#Footnote_3"><sup>[3]</sup></a>" he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't get any kyacks," stated Thorne crisply.</p>
+
+    <p>"Got to pack all that stuff without 'em?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure."</p>
+
+    <p>Hicks set methodically to work, gathering up the loose
+    articles, thrusting them into sacks, lashing the sacks on the
+    crossbuck saddle. At the end of a half-hour, he stepped
+    back.</p>
+
+    <p>"That might ride&mdash;for a while," said Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"I never pack without kyacks," said Hicks.</p>
+
+    <p>"So I see. Well, sit down and watch the rest of them. Ware!"
+    Thorne shouted.</p>
+
+    <p>The prospector disengaged himself from the sprawling and
+    distant group.</p>
+
+    <p>"Throw those things off, and empty out those bags," ordered
+    Thorne. "Now, there's your camp outfit. Pack it, as fast as you
+    can."</p>
+
+    <p>Ware set to work, also deliberately, it seemed. He threw a
+    sling, packed on his articles, and over it all drew the diamond
+    hitch.</p>
+
+    <p>"Reckon that'll travel," he observed, stepping back.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good pack," commended Thorne briefly, as he glanced at his
+    watch. "Eleven minutes."</p>
+
+    <p>"Eleven minutes!" echoed Bob to California John, who sat
+    near, "and the other man took thirty-five! Impossible! Ware
+    didn't hurry any; he moved, if anything, slower than the other
+    man."</p>
+
+    <p>"He didn't make no moves twice," pointed out California
+    John. "He knows how. This no-kyack business is going to puzzle
+    plenty of those boys who can do good, ordinary packing."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's near noon," Thorne was saying; "we haven't time for
+    another of those duffers. I'll just call up your partner, Ware,
+    and we'll knock off for dinner."</p>
+
+    <p>The partner did as well, or even a little better, for the
+    watch credited him with ten and one-half minutes, whereupon he
+    chaffed Ware hugely. Then the pack horse was led to a patiently
+    earned feed, while the little group of rangers, with Thorne,
+    his sister and Bob, moved slowly toward headquarters.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all this morning, boys," he told the waiting group
+    as they passed it. "This afternoon we'll double up a bit. The
+    rest of you can all take a try at the packing, but at the same
+    time we'll see who can cut down a tree quickest and best."</p>
+
+    <p>"Stop and eat lunch with us," Amy was urging Bob. "It's only
+    a cold one&mdash;not even tea. I didn't want to miss the show.
+    So it's no bother."</p>
+
+    <p>They all turned to and set the table under the open.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is great fun," said Bob gratefully, as they sat down.
+    "Good as a field day. When do you expect to begin your
+    examinations? That's what these fellows are here for, isn't
+    it?"</p>
+
+    <p>He looked up to catch both Thorne and Amy looking on him
+    with a comically hopeless air.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't mean to say!" cried Bob, a light breaking in on
+    him. "&mdash;of course! I never thought----"</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you suppose we would examine candidates for Forest
+    Ranger in&mdash;higher mathematics?" demanded Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now that's practical&mdash;that's got some sense!" cried
+    Bob enthusiastically.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne, with a whimsical smile, held up his finger for
+    silence. Through the thin screen of azalea bushes that fringed
+    this open-air dining room Bob saw two men approaching down the
+    forest. They were evidently unaware of observation. With
+    considerable circumspection they drew near and disappeared
+    within the little tool house. Bob recognized the two
+    lumberjacks from his own camp.</p>
+
+    <p>"What are those fellows after?" he demanded indignantly.</p>
+
+    <p>But Thorne again motioned for caution.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suspect," said Thorne in a low voice. "Go on eating your
+    lunch. We'll see."</p>
+
+    <p>The men were inside the tool house for some time. When they
+    reappeared, each carried an axe. They looked about them
+    cautiously. No one was in sight. Then they thrust the axes
+    underneath a log, and disappeared in the direction of their own
+    camp.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne laughed aloud.</p>
+
+    <p>"The old foxes!" said he. "I'll bet anything you please that
+    we'll find the two best-balanced axes the Government owns under
+    that log."</p>
+
+    <p>Such proved to be the case. Furthermore, the implements had
+    been ground to a razor edge.</p>
+
+    <p>"When I mentioned tree cutting, I saw their eyes light up,"
+    said Thorne. "It's always interesting in a crowd of candidates
+    like this to see every man cheer up when his specialty comes
+    along." He chuckled. "Wait till I spring the written
+    examinations on them. Then you'll see them droop."</p>
+
+    <p>"What else is there?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'll organize regular survey
+    groups&mdash;compass-man, axe-man, rod-man, chain-men&mdash;and
+    let them run lines; and I'll make them estimate timber, and
+    make a sketch map or so. It's all practical."</p>
+
+    <p>"I should think so!" cried Bob. "I wonder if I could pass it
+    myself." He laughed. "I should hate to tackle tying those
+    things on that horse&mdash;even after seeing those prospectors
+    do it!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Most of them will go a little slow. They're used to kyacks.
+    But you'd have your specialty."</p>
+
+    <p>"What would it be?" asked Amy curiously of Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The young man shook his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"You haven't got some nice scrappy little job, have you?" he
+    asked, "where I can tell people to hop high? That's about all
+    I'm good for."</p>
+
+    <p>"We might even have that," said Thorne, eyeing the young
+    man's proportions.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="V"></a>
+
+    <h2>V</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob saw that afternoon the chopping contest. Thorne assigned
+    to each a tree some eighteen or twenty inches in diameter,
+    selecting those whose loss would aid rather than deplete the
+    timber stand, and also, it must be confessed, those whose close
+    proximity to others might make axe swinging awkward. About
+    twenty feet from the base of each tree he placed upright in the
+    earth a sharpened stake. This, he informed the axe-man, must be
+    driven by the fall of the tree.</p>
+
+    <p>As in the previous contests, three classes of performers
+    quickly manifested themselves&mdash;the expert, the man of
+    workmanlike skill, and the absolute duffer. The lumberjacks
+    produced the implements they had that noon so carefully ground
+    to an edge. It was beautiful to see them at work. To all
+    appearance they struck easily, yet each stroke buried half the
+    blade. The less experienced were inclined to put a great deal
+    of swift power in the back swing, to throw too much strength
+    into the beginning of the down stroke. The lumberjacks drew
+    back quite deliberately, swung forward almost lazily. But the
+    power constantly increased, until the axe met the wood in a
+    mighty swish and whack. And each stroke fell in the gash of the
+    one previous. Methodically they opened the "kerf," each face
+    almost as smooth as though it had been sawn. At the finish they
+    left the last fibres on one side or another, according as they
+    wanted to twist the direction of the tree's fall. Then the
+    trunk crashed down across the stake driven in the ground.</p>
+
+    <p>The mountaineers, accustomed to the use of the axe in their
+    backwoods work, did a workmanlike but not expert job on their
+    respective trees. They felled their trees accurately over the
+    mark, and their axe work was fairly clean, but it took them
+    some time to finish the job.</p>
+
+    <p>But some of the others made heavy weather. Young Elliott was
+    the worst. It was soon evident that he had probably never had
+    any but a possible and casual wood-pile axe in his hand before.
+    The axe rarely hit twice in the same place; its edge had
+    apparently no cutting power; the handle seemed to be animated
+    with a most diabolical tendency to twist in mid-air. Bob, with
+    the wisdom of the woods, withdrew to a safe distance. The
+    others followed.</p>
+
+    <p>Long after the others had finished, poor Elliott hacked
+    away. He seemed to have no definite idea of possible system.
+    All he seemed to be trying to do was to accomplish some kind of
+    a hole in that tree. The chips he cut away were small and
+    ragged; the gash in the side of the tree was long and
+    irregular.</p>
+
+    <p>"Looks like somethin' had set out to <i>chaw</i> that tree
+    down!" drawled a mountain man to his neighbour.</p>
+
+    <p>But when the tree finally tottered and crashed to the ground
+    it fairly centred the direction stake!</p>
+
+    <p>The bystanders stared; then catching the expression of
+    ludicrous astonishment on Elliott's face, broke into
+    appreciative laughter.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm as much surprised as you are, boys," said Elliott,
+    showing the palms of his hands, on which were two blisters.</p>
+
+    <p>"The little cuss is game, anyhow," muttered California John
+    to Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"It was an awful job," confided the other; "but I marked him
+    something on it because he stayed with it so well."</p>
+
+    <p>Toward sunset Bob said farewell, expressing many regrets
+    that he could not return on the morrow to see the rest of the
+    examinations. He rode back through the forest, thoughtfully
+    inclined. The first taste of the Western joy of mere existence
+    was passing with him. He was beginning to look upon his life,
+    and ask of it the why. To be sure, he could tell himself that
+    his day's work was well done, and that this should suffice any
+    man; that he was an integral part of the economic machine; that
+    in comparison with the average young man of his age he had made
+    his way with extraordinary success; that his responsibilities
+    were sufficient to keep him busy and happy; that men depended
+    on him&mdash;all the reasons that philosophy or acquiescence in
+    the plan of life ultimately bring to a man. But these did not
+    satisfy the uneasiness of his spirit. He was too young to
+    settle down to a routine; he was too intellectually restless to
+    be contented with reiterations, however varied, of that which
+    he had seen through and around. It was the old defect&mdash;or
+    glory&mdash;of his character; the quality that had caused him
+    more anxiety, more self-reproach, more bitterness of soul than
+    any other, the Rolling Stone spirit that&mdash;though now he
+    could not see it&mdash;even if it gathered no moss of
+    respectable achievement, might carry him far.</p>
+
+    <p>So as he rode he peered into the scheme of things for the
+    final satisfaction. In what did it lie? Not for him in mere
+    activity, nor in the accomplishment of the world's work, no
+    matter how variedly picturesque his particular share of it
+    might be. He felt his interest ebbing, his spirit restless at
+    its moorings. The days passed. He arose in the morning: and it
+    was night! Four years ago he had come to California. It seemed
+    but yesterday. The days were past, gone, used. Of it all what
+    had he retained? The years had run like sea sands between his
+    fingers, and not a grain of them remained in his grasp. A
+    little money was there, a little knowledge, a little
+    experience&mdash;but what toward the final satisfaction, the
+    justification of a man's life? Bob was still too young, too
+    individualistic to consider the doctrine of the day's work well
+    done as the explanation and justification of all. The coming
+    years would pass as quickly, leaving as little behind. Never so
+    poignantly had he felt the insistence of the <i>carpe diem</i>.
+    It was necessary that he find a reality, something he could
+    winnow from the years as fine gold from sand, so that he could
+    lay his hand on the treasure and say to his soul: "This much
+    have I accomplished." Bob had learned well the American lesson:
+    that the idler is to be scorned; that a true man must use his
+    powers, must work; that he must <i>succeed</i>. Now he was
+    taking the next step spiritually. How does a man really use his
+    powers? What is success?</p>
+
+    <p>Troubled by this spiritual unrest, the analysis of which,
+    even the nature of which was still beyond him, he arrived at
+    camp. The familiar objects fretted on his mood. For the moment
+    all the grateful feeling of power over understanding and
+    manipulating this complicated machinery of industry had left
+    him. He saw only the wheel in which these activities turned,
+    and himself bound to it. In this truly Buddhistic frame of mind
+    he returned to his quarters.</p>
+
+    <p>There, to his vague annoyance, he found Baker. Usually the
+    liveliness of that able young citizen was welcome, but to-night
+    it grated.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Gentle Stranger," sang out the power man, "what
+    jungle have you been lurking in? I laboured in about three and
+    went all over the works looking for you."</p>
+
+    <p>"I've been over watching the ranger examinations at their
+    headquarters," said Bob. "It's pretty good fun."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker leaned forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"Have you heard the latest dope?" he demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>"What sort?"</p>
+
+    <p>"They're trying to soak us, now. Want to charge us so much
+    per horse power! Now <i>what</i> do you think of that!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Can't you pay it?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Great guns! Why <i>should</i> we pay it?" demanded Baker.
+    "It's the public domain, isn't it? First they take away the
+    settler's right to take up public land in his own state, and
+    now they want to <i>charge</i>, actually <i>charge</i> the
+    public for what's its own."</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob, a new light shining in his eyes, refused to become
+    heated.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," he asked deliberately, "who <i>is</i> the public,
+    anyhow?"</p>
+
+    <p>Baker stared at him, one chubby hand on each fat knee.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, everybody," said he; "the people who can make use of
+    it. You and I and the other fellow."</p>
+
+    <p>"Especially the other fellow," put in Bob drily.</p>
+
+    <p>Baker chuckled.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's like any business," said he. "First-come collect at
+    the ticket office for his business foresight. But we'll try out
+    this hold-up before we lie down and roll over."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why shouldn't you pay?" demanded Bob again. "You get your
+    value, don't you? The Forest Service protects your watershed,
+    and that's where you get your water. Why shouldn't you pay for
+    that service, just the same as you pay for a night watchman at
+    your works?"<a name="FNanchor4"></a><a href=
+    "#Footnote_4"><sup>[4]</sup></a></p>
+
+    <p>"Watershed!" snorted Baker. "Rot! If every stick of timber
+    was cleaned off these mountains, I'd get the water just the
+    same."</p>
+
+    <p>"Baker," said Bob to this. "You go and take a long, long
+    look at your bathroom sponge in action, and then come back and
+    I'll talk to you."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker contemplated his friend for a full ten seconds. Then
+    his fat, pugnacious face wrinkled into a grin.</p>
+
+    <p>"Stung on the ear by a wasp!" he cried, with a great shout
+    of appreciation. "You merry, merry little josher! You had me
+    going for about five minutes."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob let it go at that.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose you won't be able to pay over twenty per cent.
+    this next year, then?" he inquired, with an amused
+    expression.</p>
+
+    <p>"Twenty per cent.!" cried Baker rolling his eyes up. "It's
+    as much as I can do to dig up for improvements and bond
+    interest and the preferred."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not to mention the president's salary," amended Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I've got 'em where they live," went on Baker,
+    complacently, without attention to this. "You don't catch
+    Little Willie scattering shekels when he can just as well keep
+    kopecks. They've left a little joker in the pack." He produced
+    a paper-covered copy of the new regulations, later called the
+    Use Book. "They've swiped about everything in sight for these
+    pestiferous reserves, but they encourage the honest prospector.
+    'Let us develop the mineral wealth,' says they. So these
+    forests are still open for taking up under the mineral act. All
+    you have to do is to make a 'discovery,' and stake out your
+    claim; and there you are!"</p>
+
+    <p>"All the mineral's been taken up long ago," Bob pointed
+    out.</p>
+
+    <p>"All the valuable mineral," corrected Baker. "But it's
+    sufficient, so Erbe tells me, to discover a ledge. Ledges?
+    Hell! They're easier to find than an old maid at a sewing
+    circle! That's what the country is made of&mdash;ledges! You
+    can dig one out every ten feet. Well, I've got people out
+    finding ledges, and filing on them."</p>
+
+    <p>"Can you do that?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am doing it."</p>
+
+    <p>"I mean legally."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, this bunch of prospectors files on the claims, and gets
+    them patented. Then it's nobody's business what they do with
+    their own property. So they just sell it to me."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's colonizing," objected Bob. "You'll get nailed."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not on your tintype, it isn't. I don't furnish a cent. They
+    do it all on their own money. Oldham's got the whole matter in
+    hand. When we get the deal through, we'll have about two
+    hundred thousand acres all around the head-waters; and then
+    these blood-sucking, red-tape, autocratic slobs can go to
+    thunder."</p>
+
+    <p>Baker leaned forward impressively.</p>
+
+    <p>"Got to spring it all at once," said he, "otherwise there'll
+    be outsiders in, thinking there's a strike been made&mdash;also
+    they'll get inquisitive. It's a great chance. And, Orde, my
+    son, there's a few claims up there that will assay about sixty
+    thousand board feet to the acre. What do you think of it for a
+    young and active lumberman? I'm going to talk it over with
+    Welton. It's a grand little scheme. Wonder how that will hit
+    our old friend, Thorne?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob rose yawning.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm tired. Going to turn in," said he. "Thorne isn't a bad
+    sort."</p>
+
+    <p>"He's one of these damn theorists, that's what he is," said
+    Baker; "and he's got a little authority, and he's doing just as
+    much as he can to unsettle business and hinder the legitimate
+    development of the country." He relaxed his earnestness with
+    another grin. "Stung again. That's two rises you got out of
+    me," he remarked. "Say, Orde, don't get persuaded to turn
+    ranger. I hear they've boosted their salaries to ninety a
+    month. Must be a temptation!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VI"></a>
+
+    <h2>VI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob arose rather early the following Sunday, snatched a
+    hasty breakfast and departed. Baker had been in camp three
+    days. All at once Bob had taken the young man in strong
+    distaste. Baker amused him, commanded his admiration for
+    undoubted executive ability and a force of character so dynamic
+    as to be almost brutal. In a more social environment Bob would
+    still have found him a mighty pleasant fellow, generous,
+    open-hearted, and loyal to his personal friends. But just now
+    his methods chafed on the sensitiveness of Bob's new unrest.
+    Baker was worth probably a couple of million dollars, and
+    controlled ten times that. He had now a fine house in Fremont,
+    where he had chosen to live, a pretty wife, two attractive
+    children and a wide circle of friends. Life was very good to
+    him.</p>
+
+    <p>And yet, in the perversity and the clairvoyance of his mood,
+    Bob thought to see in Baker's life something of that same
+    emptiness of final achievement he faced in his own. This was
+    absurd, but the feeling of it persisted. Thorne, with his
+    miserable eighteen hundred a year, and his glowing enthusiasm
+    and quick interest seemed to him more worth while. Why? It was
+    absurd; but this feeling, too, persisted.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob was a healthy young fellow, a man of action rather than
+    of introspection, but now the hereditary twist of his character
+    drove him to attempt analysis. He arrived at nothing. Both
+    Baker and Thorne seemed to stand on one ground&mdash;each was
+    satisfied, neither felt that lack of the fulfilling content Bob
+    was so keenly experiencing. But the streak of feminine
+    divination Bob had inherited from his mother made him
+    understand&mdash;or made him think to understand&mdash;that
+    Baker's satisfaction was taken because he did not see, while
+    Thorne was working with his eyes open and a full sense of
+    values. This vague glimpse Bob gained only partially and at
+    length. It rather opened to him new vistas of spiritual
+    perplexity than offered to him any solution.</p>
+
+    <p>He paced rapidly down the length of the lake&mdash;whereon
+    the battered but efficient towing launch lay idle for
+    Sunday&mdash;to the Lake Meadow. This was, as usual, surrounded
+    by hundreds of campers of all classes. Bob was known to all of
+    them, of course; and he, in turn, had at least such a nodding
+    acquaintance with them that he could recognize any accretions
+    to their members. Near the lower end of the meadow, beneath a
+    group of a dozen noble firs, he caught sight of newcomers, and
+    so strolled down that way to see what they could be like.</p>
+
+    <p>He found pomp and circumstance. An enclosure had been roped
+    off to exclude the stock grazing at large in the meadow. Three
+    tents had been erected. They were made of a very light, shiny,
+    expensive-looking material with fringes along the walls, flies
+    overhead and stretched in front, sod cloths before the
+    entrances. Three gaily painted wooden rocking chairs, an
+    equally gaudy hammock, a table flanked with benches, a big
+    cooking stove in the rear, canvas pockets hung from the
+    trees&mdash;a dozen and one other conveniences and luxuries
+    bespoke the occupants as well-to-do and determined to be
+    comfortable. Two Japanese servants dressed all in white moved
+    silently and mysteriously in the background, a final touch of
+    incongruity in a rough country.</p>
+
+    <p>Before Bob had moved on, two men stepped into view from the
+    interior of one of the tents. They paced slowly to the gaudy
+    rocking chairs and sat down. In their progress they exhibited
+    that peculiar, careless but conscious deliberation of gait
+    affected everywhere by those accustomed to appearing in public.
+    In their seating of themselves, their producing of cigars,
+    their puffings thereon, was the same studied ignoring of
+    observation; a manner which, it must be acknowledged, becomes
+    second nature to those forced to its adoption. It was a certain
+    blown impressiveness, a significance in the smallest movements,
+    a self-importance, in short, too large for the affairs of any
+    private citizen. It is to be seen in those who sit in high
+    places, in clergy, actors off the boards, magistrates, and
+    people behind shop windows demonstrating things to street
+    crowds. Bob's first thought was of amusement that this
+    elaborate unconsciousness of his lone presence should be worth
+    while; his second a realization that his presence or the
+    presence of any one else had nothing to do with it. He
+    wondered, as we all wonder at times, whether these men acted
+    any differently when alone and in utter privacy, whether they
+    brushed their teeth and bathed with all the dignity of the
+    public man.</p>
+
+    <p>The smaller, but evidently more important of these men, wore
+    a complete camping costume. His hat was very wide and stiff of
+    brim and had a woven band of horsehair; his neckerchief was
+    very red and worn bib fashion in the way Bob had come to
+    believe that no one ever wore a neckerchief save in Western
+    plays and the illustrations of Western stories; his shirt was
+    of thick blue flannel, thrown wide open at the throat; his belt
+    was very wide and of carved leather; his breeches were of
+    khaki, but bagged above and fitted close below the knee into
+    the most marvellous laced boots, with leather flaps, belt
+    lacings, and rows of hobnails with which to make tracks. Bob
+    estimated these must weigh at least three pounds apiece. The
+    man wore a little pointed beard and eyeglasses. About him Bob
+    recognized a puzzling familiarity. He could not place it,
+    however, but finally decided he must have carried over a
+    recollection from a tailor's fashion plate of the Correct Thing
+    for Camping.</p>
+
+    <p>The other man was taller, heavier, but not near so
+    impressive. His form was awkward, his face homely, his ears
+    stuck out like wings, and his expression was that of the
+    always-appreciated buffoon.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob was about to pass on, when he noticed that he was not
+    the only spectator of all this ease of manner. A dozen of the
+    campers had gathered, and were staring across the ropes with
+    quite frank and unabashed curiosity. More were coming from all
+    directions. In a short time a crowd of several hundred had
+    collected, and stood, evidently in expectation. Then, and only
+    then, did the small man with the pointed beard seem to become
+    aware of the presence of any one besides his companion. He
+    leaned across to exchange a few words with the latter, after
+    which he laid aside his hat, arose and advanced to the rope
+    barrier on which he rested the tips of his fingers.</p>
+
+    <p>"My friends," he began in a nasal but penetrating voice,
+    that carried without effort to every hearer. "I am not a
+    regularly ordained minister of the gospel. I find, however,
+    that there is none such among us, so I have gathered you here
+    together this morning to hear a few words appropriate to the
+    day. It has pleased Providence to call me to a public position
+    wherein my person has become well known to you all; but that is
+    an accident of the great profession to which I have been
+    called, and I bow my heart in humility with the least and most
+    lowly. I am going to tell you about myself this morning, not
+    because I consider myself of importance, but because it seems
+    to me from my case a great lesson may be drawn."</p>
+
+    <p>He paused to let his eye run over the concourse. Bob felt
+    the gaze, impersonal, impassive, scrutinizing, cold, rest on
+    him the barest appreciable flicker of a moment, and then pass
+    on. He experienced a faint shock, as though his defences had
+    been tapped against.</p>
+
+    <p>"My father," went on the nasal voice, "came to this country
+    in the 'sixties. It was a new country in the hands of a lazy
+    people. It needed development, so my father was happy felling
+    the trees, damming the streams, building the roads, getting
+    possession of the land. That was his job in life, and he did it
+    well, because the country needed it. He didn't bother his head
+    with why he was doing it; he just thought he was making money.
+    As a matter of fact, he didn't make money; he died nearly
+    bankrupt."</p>
+
+    <p>The orator bowed his head for a moment.</p>
+
+    <p>"I might have done the same thing. It's all legitimate
+    business. But I couldn't. The country is being developed by its
+    inhabitants: work of that kind couldn't satisfy me. Why,
+    friends? <i>Because now it would be selfish work</i>. My father
+    didn't know it, but the reason he was happy was because the
+    work he was doing for himself was also work for other people.
+    You can see that. He didn't know it, but he was helping develop
+    the country. But it wouldn't have been quite so with me. The
+    country is developed in that way. If I did that kind of work,
+    I'd be working for myself and nobody else at all. That turns
+    out all right for most people, because they don't see it: they
+    do their duty as citizens and good business men and fathers and
+    husbands, and that ends it. But I saw it. I felt I had to do a
+    work that would support me in the world&mdash;but it must be a
+    work that helped humanity too. That is why, friends, I am what
+    I am. That a certain prominence is inevitable to my position is
+    incidental rather than gratifying.</p>
+
+    <p>"So, I think, the lesson to be drawn is that each of us
+    should make his life help humanity, should conduct his business
+    in such a way as to help humanity. Then he'll be happy."</p>
+
+    <p>He stood for a moment, then turned away. The tall, ungainly
+    man with the outstanding ears and the buffoon's face stepped
+    forward and whispered eagerly in his ear. He listened gravely,
+    but shook his head. The tall man whispered yet more vehemently,
+    at great length. Finally the orator stepped back to his
+    place.</p>
+
+    <p>"We are here for a complete rest after exhausting labours,"
+    he stated. "We have looked forward for months to undisturbed
+    repose amongst these giant pines. No thought of care was to
+    intrude. But my colleague's great and tender heart has smitten
+    him, and, I am ashamed to say against my first inclination, he
+    urges me to a course which I'd have liked to avoid; but which,
+    when he shows me the way, I realize is the only decent thing.
+    We find ourselves in the midst of a community of some hundreds
+    of people. It may be some of these people are suffering, far
+    from medical or surgical help. If there are any such, and the
+    case is really pressing, you understand, we will be willing,
+    just for common humanity, to do our best to relieve them. And
+    friends," the speaker stepped forward until his body touched
+    the rope, and he was leaning confidentially forth, "it would be
+    poor humanity that would cause you pain or give you inferior
+    treatments. I am happy to say we came to this great virgin
+    wilderness direct with our baggage from White Oaks where we had
+    been giving a two weeks' course of treatments&mdash;mainly
+    charitable. We have our instruments and our medicines with us
+    in their packin' cases. If need arises&mdash;which I trust it
+    will not&mdash;we will not hesitate to go to any trouble for
+    you. It is against our principles to give anything but our
+    best. You will suffer no pain. But it must be understood," he
+    warned impressively. "This is just for you, our neighbours! We
+    don't want this news spread to the lumber camps and over the
+    countryside. We are here for a rest. But we cannot be true to
+    our high calling and neglect the relieving of pain."</p>
+
+    <p>The man bowed slightly, and rejoined his companion to whom
+    he conversed low-voiced with absolute unconsciousness of the
+    audience he had just been addressing so intimately. The latter
+    hesitated, then slowly dispersed. Bob stood, his brows knit,
+    trying to recall. There was something hauntingly familiar about
+    the whole performance. Especially a strange nasal emphasis on
+    the word "pain" struck sharply a chord in his recollection. He
+    looked up in sudden enlightenment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Painless Porter!" he cried aloud.</p>
+
+    <p>The man looked up at the mention of his name.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's my name," said he. "What can I do for you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I just remembered where I'd seen you," explained Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm fairly well known."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob approached eagerly. The discourse, hollow, insincere,
+    half-blasphemous, a buncombe bit of advertising as it was,
+    nevertheless contained the germ of an essential truth for which
+    Bob had been searching. He wanted to know how, through what
+    experience, the man had come to this insight.</p>
+
+    <p>But his attempts at conversation met with a cold reception.
+    Painless Porter was too old a bird ever to lower his guard. He
+    met the youth on the high plane of professionalism, refused to
+    utter other than the platitudinous counters demanded by the
+    occasion. He held the young man at spear's length, and showed
+    plainly by the ominous glitter of his eye that he did not
+    intend to be trifled with.</p>
+
+    <p>Then Baker's jolly voice broke in.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well! well! well!" he cried. "If here aren't my old
+    friends, Painless Porter and the Wiz! Simple life for yours,
+    eh? Back to beans! What's the general outline of <i>this</i>
+    graft?"</p>
+
+    <p>"We have come camping for a complete rest," stated Waller
+    gravely, his comical face cast in lines of reprobation and
+    warning.</p>
+
+    <p>"Whatever it is, you'll get it," jibed Baker. "But I'll bet
+    you a toothpick it isn't a rest. What's exhausted you fellows,
+    anyway? Counting the easy money?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Our professional labours have been very heavy lately,"
+    spoke up the painless one.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's biting you fellows?" demanded Baker. "There's nobody
+    here."</p>
+
+    <p>Waller indicated Bob by a barely perceptible jerk of the
+    head. Baker threw back his head and laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thought you knew him," said he. "You were all having such a
+    love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who
+    bosses this place&mdash;and most of the country around here. If
+    you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better
+    begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with
+    a capital H."</p>
+
+    <p>Ten minutes later the four men, cigars alight, a bottle
+    within reach, were sprawling about the interior of one of the
+    larger tents. Bob was enjoying himself hugely. It was the first
+    time he had ever been behind the scenes at this sort of
+    game.</p>
+
+    <p>"But that was a good talk, just the same," he interrupted a
+    cynical bit of bragging.</p>
+
+    <p>"Say, wasn't it!" cried Porter. "I got that out of a
+    shoutin' evangelist. The minute I heard it I saw where it was
+    hot stuff for my spiel. I'm that way: I got that kind of good
+    eye. I'll be going along the street and some little thing'll
+    happen that won't amount to nothin' at all really. Another man
+    wouldn't think twice about it. But like a flash it comes to me
+    how it would fit in to a spiel. It's like an artist that way
+    finding things to put in a picture. You'd never spot a dago
+    apple peddler as good for nothing but to work a little graft on
+    mebbe; but an artist comes along and slaps him in a picture and
+    he's the fanciest-looking dope in the art collection. That's
+    me. I got some of my best spiels from the funniest places! That
+    one this morning is a wonder, because it don't <i>listen</i>
+    like a spiel. I followed that evangelist yap around for a week
+    getting his dope down fine. You got to get the language just
+    right on these things, or they don't carry over."</p>
+
+    <p>"Which one is it, Painful?" asked Baker.</p>
+
+    <p>"You know; the make-your-work-a-good-to-humanity bluff."</p>
+
+    <p>"And all about papa in the 'sixties?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's it."</p>
+
+    <p>"'And just don't you <i>dare</i> tell the neighbours?'"</p>
+
+    <p>"Correct."</p>
+
+    <p>"The whole mountains will know all about it by to-morrow,"
+    Baker told Bob, "and they'll flock up here in droves. It's easy
+    money."</p>
+
+    <p>"Half these country yaps have bum teeth, anyway," said
+    Porter.</p>
+
+    <p>"And the rest of them think they're sick," stated Wizard
+    Waller.</p>
+
+    <p>"It beats a free show for results and expense," said
+    Painless Porter. "All you got to have is the tents and the Japs
+    and the Willie-off-the-yacht togs." He sighed. "There ought to
+    be <i>some</i> advantages," he concluded, "to drag a man so far
+    from the street lights."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then this isn't much of a pleasure trip?" asked Bob with
+    some amusement.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pleasure, hell!" snorted Painless, helping himself to a
+    drink. "Say, honest, how do you fellows that have business up
+    here stick it out? It gives me the willies!"</p>
+
+    <p>One of the Japanese peered into the tent and made a
+    sign.</p>
+
+    <p>Painless Porter dropped his voice.</p>
+
+    <p>"A dope already," said he. He put on his air, and went out.
+    As Bob and Baker crossed the enclosed space, they saw him in
+    conversation with a gawky farm lad from the plains.</p>
+
+    <p>"I shore do hate to trouble you, doctor," the boy was
+    saying, "and hit Sunday, too. But I got a tooth back
+    here&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>Painless Porter was listening with an air of the deepest and
+    gravest attention.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The charlatan had babbled; but without knowing it he had
+    given Bob what he sought. He saw all the reasons for what had
+    heretofore been obscure.</p>
+
+    <p>Why had he been dissatisfied with business opportunities and
+    successes beyond the hopes of most young men?</p>
+
+    <p>How could he dare criticize the ultimate value of such
+    successes without criticizing the life work of such men as
+    Welton, as his own father?</p>
+
+    <p>What right had he to condemn as insufficient nine-tenths of
+    those in the industrial world; and yet what else but
+    condemnation did his attitude of mind imply?</p>
+
+    <p>All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like fog.
+    Quite simply it all resolved itself. He was dissatisfied
+    because this was not his work. The other honest and sincere
+    men&mdash;such as his father and Welton&mdash;had been
+    satisfied because this was their work. The old generation, the
+    one that was passing, needed just that kind of service but the
+    need too was passing. Bob belonged to the new generation. He
+    saw that new things were to be demanded. The old order was
+    changing. The modern young men of energy and force and strong
+    ability had a different task from that which their fathers had
+    accomplished. The wilderness was subdued; the pioneer work of
+    industry was finished; the hard brute struggle to shape things
+    to efficiency was over. It had been necessary to get things
+    done. Now it was becoming necessary to perfect the means and
+    methods of doing. Lumber must still be cut, streams must still
+    be dammed, railroads must still be built; but now that the
+    pioneers, the men of fire, had blazed the way others could
+    follow. Methods were established. It was all a business, like
+    the selling of groceries. The industrial rank and file could
+    attend to details. The men who thought and struggled and
+    carried the torch&mdash;they must go beyond what their fathers
+    had accomplished.</p>
+
+    <p>Now Bob understood Amy Thorne's pride in the Service. He saw
+    the true basis of his feeling toward the Supervisor as opposed
+    to his feeling toward Baker. Thorne was in the current. With
+    his pitiful eighteen hundred a year he was nevertheless
+    swimming strongly in new waters. His business went that little
+    necessary step beyond. It not only earned him his living in the
+    world, but it helped the race movement of his people. At
+    present the living was small, just as at first the pioneer
+    opening the country had wrested but a scanty livelihood from
+    the stubborn wilderness; nevertheless, he could
+    feel&mdash;whether he stopped to think it out or not&mdash;that
+    his efforts had that co&ouml;rdination with the trend of
+    humanity which makes subtly for satisfaction and happiness. Bob
+    looked about the mill yard with an understanding eye. This work
+    was necessary; but it was not his work.</p>
+
+    <p>Something of this he tried to explain to his new friends at
+    headquarters when next he found an opportunity to ride over.
+    His explanations were not very lucid, for Bob was no great hand
+    at analysis. To any other audience they might have been
+    absolutely incoherent. But Thorne had long since reasoned all
+    this out for himself; so he understood; while to California
+    John the matter had always been one to take for granted. Bob
+    leaned forward, his earnest, sun-browned young face flushed
+    with the sincerity&mdash;and the embarrassment&mdash;of his
+    exposition. Amy nodded from time to time, her eyes shining, her
+    glance every few moments seeking in triumph that of her
+    brother. California John smoked.</p>
+
+    <p>Finally Bob put it squarely to Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"So you'd like to join the Service," said Thorne slowly. "I
+    suppose you've thought of the chance you're giving up? Welton
+    will take you into partnership in time, of course."</p>
+
+    <p>"I know. It seems foolish. Can't make it seem anything
+    else," Bob admitted.</p>
+
+    <p>"You'd have to take your chances," Thorne persisted. "I
+    couldn't help you. A ranger's salary is ninety a month now, and
+    find yourself and horses. Have you any private means?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Not enough to say so."</p>
+
+    <p>"There's another thing," Thorne went on. "This forestry of
+    our government is destined to be a tremendous affair; but what
+    we need more just now is better logging methods among the
+    private loggers. It would count more than anything else if
+    you'd stay just where you are and give us model operations in
+    your own work."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob shook his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"Perhaps you don't know men like Mr. Welton as well as I
+    do," said he; "I couldn't change his methods. That's absolutely
+    out of the question. And," he went on with a sudden flash of
+    loyalty to what the old-timers had meant, "I don't believe I'd
+    want to."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not want to!" cried Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," pursued Bob doggedly, "not unless he could see the
+    point himself and of his own accord. He's done a great work in
+    his time, and he's grown old at it. I wouldn't for anything in
+    the world do anything to shake his faith in what he's done,
+    even if he's doing it wrong now."</p>
+
+    <p>"He and his kind have always slaughtered the forests
+    shamefully!" broke in Amy with some heat.</p>
+
+    <p>"They opened a new country for a new people," said Bob
+    gently. "Perhaps they did it wastefully; perhaps not. I notice
+    you've got to use lots of lubricating oil on a new machine. But
+    there was nobody else to do it any different."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then you'd let them go on wasting and destroying?" demanded
+    Amy scornfully.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know," hesitated Bob; "I haven't thought all this
+    out. Perhaps I'm not very much on the think. It seems to me
+    rather this way: We've got to have lumber, haven't we? And
+    somebody has to cut it and supply it. Men like Mr. Welton are
+    doing it, by the methods they've found effective. They are
+    working for the Present; we of the new generation want to work
+    for the Future. It's a fair division. Somebody's got to attend
+    to them both."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that's what I say!" cried Amy. "If they wouldn't
+    waste and slash and leave good material in the
+    woods&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob smiled whimsically.</p>
+
+    <p>"A lumberman doesn't like to leave things in the woods,"
+    said he. "If somebody will pay for the tops and the needles,
+    he'll sell them; if there's a market for cull lumber, he'll
+    supply it; and if somebody will create a demand for knotholes,
+    <i>he'll invent some way of getting them out</i>! You see I'm a
+    lumberman myself."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why don't you log with some reference to the future, then?"
+    demanded Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Because it doesn't pay," stated Bob deliberately.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pay!" cried Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob mildly. "Why not? The lumberman fulfills a
+    commercial function, like any one else; why shouldn't he be
+    allowed freely a commercial reward? You can't lead a commercial
+    class by ideals that absolutely conflict with commercial
+    motives. If you want to introduce your ideals among lumbermen,
+    you want to educate them; and in order to educate them you must
+    fix it so your ideals don't actually spell <i>loss!</i>
+    Rearrange the scheme of taxation, for one thing. Get your ideas
+    of fire protection and conservation on a practical basis. It's
+    all very well to talk about how nice it would be to chop up all
+    the waste tops and pile them like cordwood, and to scrape
+    together the twigs and needles and burn them. It would
+    certainly be neat and effective. But can't you get some scheme
+    that would be just as effective, but not so neat? It's the
+    difference between a yacht and a lumber schooner. We can't
+    expect everybody to turn right in and sacrifice themselves to
+    be philanthropists because the spirit of the age tells them
+    they ought to be. We've got to make it so easy to do things
+    right that anybody at all decent will be ashamed not to. Then
+    we've got to wait for the spirit of the people to grow to new
+    things. It's coming, but it's not here yet."</p>
+
+    <p>California John, who had listened with the closest
+    attention, slapped his knee.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good sense," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>"But you can educate people, can't you?" asked Amy, a trifle
+    subdued and puzzled by these practical considerations.</p>
+
+    <p>"Some people can," agreed Thorne, speaking up, "and they're
+    doing it. But Mr. Orde is right; it's only the spirit of the
+    people that can bring about new things. We think we have
+    leaders, but we have only interpreters. When the time is ripe
+    to change things, then the spirit of the people rises to forbid
+    old practices."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's it," said Bob; "I just couldn't get at it. Well, the
+    way I feel about it is that when all these new methods and
+    principles have become well known, then we can call a halt with
+    some authority. You can't condemn a man for doing his best, can
+    you?"</p>
+
+    <p>The girl, at a loss, flushed, and almost crying, looked at
+    them all helplessly.</p>
+
+    <p>"But---- " she cried.</p>
+
+    <p>"I believe it will all come about in time," said Thorne.
+    "There's sure to come a time when it will not be too much off
+    balance to <i>require</i> private firms to do things according
+    to our methods. Then it will pay to log the government forests
+    on an extensive scale; and private forests will have to come to
+    our way of doing things."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the use of all our fights and strivings?" asked Amy;
+    "what's the use of our preaching decent woods work if it can't
+    be carried out?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's educational," explained Thorne. "It starts people
+    thinking, so that when the time comes they'll be ready."</p>
+
+    <p>"Furthermore," put in Bob, "it fixes it so these young
+    fellows who will then be in charge of private operations will
+    have no earthly excuse to look at it wrong, or do it
+    wrong."</p>
+
+    <p>"It will then be the difference between their acting
+    according to general ideas or against them," agreed Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never lick a pup for chasin' rabbits until yore ready to
+    teach him to chase deer," put in California John.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob found it much more difficult to approach Welton. When he
+    did, he had to contend with the older man's absolute disbelief
+    in what he was saying. Welton sat down on a stump and
+    considered Bob with a humorous twinkle.</p>
+
+    <p>"Want to quit the lumber business!" he echoed Bob's first
+    statement. "What for?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't think I'm cut out for it."</p>
+
+    <p>"No? Well, then, I never saw anybody that was. You don't
+    happen to need no more money?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Lord, no!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course, you know you'll have pretty good prospects
+    here----" stated Welton tentatively.</p>
+
+    <p>"I understand that; but the work doesn't satisfy me,
+    somehow: I'm through with it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Getting restless," surmised Welton. "What you need is a
+    vacation. I forgot we kept you at it pretty close all last
+    winter. Take a couple weeks off and make a trip in back
+    somewheres."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob shook his head.</p>
+
+    <p>"It isn't that; I'm sorry. I'm just through with this. I
+    couldn't keep on at it and do good work. I know that."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a vacation you need," insisted Welton chuckling,
+    "&mdash;or else you're in love. Isn't that, is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No," Bob laughed quite wholeheartedly. "It isn't that."</p>
+
+    <p>"You haven't got a better job, have you?" Welton joked.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob considered. "Yes; I believe I have," he said at last;
+    "at least I'm hoping to get it."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton looked at him closely; saw that he was in
+    earnest.</p>
+
+    <p>"What is it?" he asked curtly.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob, suddenly smitten with a sense of the futility of trying
+    to argue out his point of view here in the woods, drew
+    back.</p>
+
+    <p>"Can't tell just yet," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Welton climbed down from the stump; stood firmly for a
+    moment, his sturdy legs apart; then moved forward down the
+    trail.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll raise his ante, whatever it is," he said abruptly at
+    length. "I don't believe in it, but I'll do it. I need
+    you."</p>
+
+    <p>"You've always treated me better than I ever deserved," said
+    Bob earnestly, "and I'll stay all summer, or all next
+    winter&mdash;until you feel that you do not need me longer; but
+    I'm sure that I must go."</p>
+
+    <p>For two days Welton disbelieved the reality of his
+    intention. For two days further he clung to a notion that in
+    some way Bob must be dissatisfied with something tangible in
+    his treatment. Then, convinced at last, he took alarm, and
+    dropped his facetious attitude.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Bob," said he, "this isn't quite fair, is it?
+    This is a big piece of timber. It needs a man with a longer
+    life in front of him than I can hope for. I wanted to be able
+    to think that in a few years, when I get tired I could count on
+    you for the heavy work. It's too big a business for an old
+    man."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll stay with you until you find that young man," said
+    Bob. "There are a good many, trained to the business, capable
+    of handling this property."</p>
+
+    <p>"But nobody like you, Bobby. I've brought you up to my
+    methods. We've grown up together at this. You're just like a
+    son to me." Welton's round, red face was puckered to a wistful
+    and comically pathetic twist, as he looked across at the
+    serious manly young fellow.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked away. "That's just what makes it hard," he
+    managed to say at last; "I'd like to go on with you. We've
+    gotten on famously. But I can't. This isn't my work."</p>
+
+    <p>Welton laboured in vain to induce him to change his mind.
+    Several times he considered telling Bob the truth&mdash;that
+    all this timber belonged really to Jack Orde, Bob's father, and
+    that his, Welton's interest in it was merely that of the active
+    partner in the industry. But this his friend had expressly
+    forbidden. Welton ended by saying nothing about it. He resolved
+    first to write Orde.</p>
+
+    <p>"You might tell me what this new job is, though," he said at
+    last, in apparent acquiescence.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob hesitated. "You won't understand; and I won't be able to
+    make you understand," he said. "I'm going to enter the Forest
+    Service!"</p>
+
+    <p>"What!" cried Welton, in blank astonishment. "What's
+    that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've about decided to take service as a ranger," stated
+    Bob, his face flushing.</p>
+
+    <p>From that moment all Welton's anxiety seemed to vanish. It
+    became unbearably evident that he looked on all this as the
+    romance of youth. Bob felt himself suddenly reduced, in the
+    lumberman's eyes, to the status of the small boy who wants to
+    be a cowboy, or a sailor, or an Indian fighter. Welton looked
+    on him with an indulgent eye as on one who would soon get
+    enough of it. The glamour&mdash;whatever it was&mdash;would
+    soon wear off; and then Bob, his fling over, would return to
+    sober, real business once more. All Welton's joviality
+    returned. From time to time he would throw a facetious remark
+    in Bob's direction, when, in the course of the day's work, he
+    happened to pass.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's sure going to be fine to wear a real tin star and be
+    an officer!"</p>
+
+    <p>Or:</p>
+
+    <p>"Bob, it sure will seem scrumptious to ride out and boss the
+    whole country&mdash;on ninety a month. Guess I'll join
+    you."</p>
+
+    <p>Or:</p>
+
+    <p>"You going to make me sweep up my slashings, or will a rake
+    do, Mr. Ranger?"</p>
+
+    <p>To these feeble jests Bob always replied good-naturedly. He
+    did not attempt to improve Welton's conception of his purposes.
+    That must come with time. To his father, however, he wrote at
+    great length; trying his best to explain the situation. Mr.
+    Orde replied that a government position was always honourable;
+    but confessed himself disappointed that his son had not more
+    steadfastness of purpose. Welton received a reply to his own
+    letter by the same mail.</p>
+
+    <p>"I shouldn't tell him anything," it read. "Let him go be a
+    ranger, or a cowboy, or anything else he wants. He's still
+    young. I didn't get my start until I was thirty; and the
+    business is big enough to wait for him. You keep pegging along,
+    and when he gets enough, he'll come back. He's apparently got
+    some notions of serving the public, and doing good in the
+    world, and all that. We all get it at his age. By and by he'll
+    find out that tending to his business honestly is about one
+    man's job."</p>
+
+    <p>So, without active opposition, and with only tacit
+    disapproval, Bob made his change. Nor was he received at
+    headquarters with any blare of trumpets.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll put you on as 'temporary' until the fall
+    examinations," said Thorne, "and you can try it out. Rangering
+    is hard work&mdash;all kinds of hard work. It isn't just riding
+    around, you know. You'll have to make good. You can bunk up
+    with Pollock at the upper cabin. Report to-morrow morning with
+    him."</p>
+
+    <p>Amy smiled at him brightly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't let him scare you," said she. "He thinks it looks
+    official to be an awful bear!"</p>
+
+    <p>California John met him as he rode out the gate. He reached
+    out his gnarled old hand.</p>
+
+    <p>"Son, we'll get him to send us sometime to Jack Main's
+    Ca&ntilde;on," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob, who had been feeling the least shade depressed, rode
+    on, his head high. Before him lay the great mysterious country
+    where had penetrated only the Pioneers! Another century would
+    build therein the structures of its institutions. Now, like
+    Jack Main's Ca&ntilde;on, the far country of new things was to
+    be the field of his enterprise. In the future, when the new
+    generations had come, these things would all be ordered and
+    secure, would be systematized, their value conceded, their
+    acceptance a matter of course. All problems would be regulated;
+    all difficulties smoothed away; all opposition overcome. Then
+    the officers and rangers of that peaceful and organized
+    service, then the public&mdash;accepting such things as they
+    accept all self-evident truths&mdash;would look back on these
+    beginnings as men look back on romance. They would recall the
+    time when, like knights errant, armed men rode abroad on horses
+    through a wilderness, lying down under the stars, living hard,
+    dwelling lowly in poverty, accomplishing with small means,
+    striving mightily, combating the great elemental nature and the
+    powers of darkness in men, enduring patiently, suffering
+    contempt and misunderstanding and enmity in order that the
+    inheritance of the people yet to come might be assured. He was
+    one of them; he had the privilege. Suddenly his spirit felt
+    freed. His old life receded swiftly. A new glory and uplift of
+    soul swept him from his old moorings.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="PART_FIVE"></a>
+
+    <h2>PART FIVE</h2><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="I"></a>
+
+    <h2>I</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Next morning Bob was set to work with young Jack Pollock
+    stringing barbed wire fence. He had never done this before. The
+    spools of wire weighed on him heavily. A crowbar thrust through
+    the core made them a sort of axle with which to carry it. Thus
+    they walked forward, revolving the heavy spool with the
+    greatest care while the strand of wire unwound behind them.
+    Every once in a while a coil would kink, or buckle back, or
+    strike as swiftly and as viciously as a snake. The sharp barbs
+    caught at their clothing, and tore Bob's hands. Jack Pollock
+    seemed familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the stuff, for he
+    suffered little damage. Indeed, he even found leisure, as Bob
+    soon discovered, to scrutinize his companion with a covert
+    curiosity. In the eyes of the countryside, Bob had been
+    "fired," and had been forced to take a job rangering. When the
+    entangling strand had been laid along the ground by the newly
+    planted cedar posts, it became necessary to stretch and fasten
+    it. Here, too, young Jack proved himself a competent teacher.
+    He showed Bob how to get a tremendous leverage with the curve
+    on the back of an ordinary hammer by means of which the wire
+    was held taut until the staples could be driven home. It was
+    aggravating, nervous, painful work for one not accustomed to
+    it. Bob's hands were soon cut and bleeding, no matter how
+    gingerly he took hold of the treacherous wire. To all his
+    comments, heated and otherwise, Jack Pollock opposed the
+    mountaineer's determined inscrutability. He watched Bob's
+    efforts always in silence until that young man had made all his
+    mistakes. Then he spat carefully, and, with quiet patience, did
+    it right.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob's sense of humour was tickled. With all his education
+    and his subsequent wide experience and training, he stood in
+    the position of a very awkward subordinate to this mountain
+    boy. The joke of it was that the matter was so entirely his own
+    choice. In the normal relations of industry Bob would have been
+    the boss of a hundred activities and twice that number of men;
+    while Jack Pollock, at best, would be water-boy or
+    fuel-purveyor to a donkey engine. Along in the middle of the
+    morning young Elliott passed carrying a crowbar and a
+    spade.</p>
+
+    <p>"How'll you trade jobs?" he called.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's yours?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going to make two cedar posts grow where none grew
+    before," said Elliott.</p>
+
+    <p>At noon they knocked off and went back to the ranger camp
+    where they cooked their own meal. Most of the older rangers
+    were afield. A half-dozen of the newcomers and probationers
+    only were there. Elliott, Jack Pollock, two other young
+    mountaineers, Ware and one of the youths from the valley towns
+    had apparently passed the examinations and filled vacancies.
+    All, with the exception of Elliott and this latter
+    youth&mdash;Curtis by name&mdash;were old hands at taking care
+    of themselves in the woods, so matters of their own accord fell
+    into a rough system. Some built the fire, one mixed bread,
+    others busied themselves with the rest of the provisions.
+    Elliott rummaged about, and set the rough table with the
+    battered service. Only Curtis, seated with his back against a
+    tree, appeared too utterly exhausted or ignorant to take hold
+    at anything. Indeed, he hardly spoke to his companions, ate
+    hastily, and disappeared into his own quarters without offering
+    to help wash the dishes.</p>
+
+    <p>This task accomplished, the little group scattered to its
+    afternoon work. In the necessity of stringing wire without
+    cutting himself to ribbons, Bob forgot everything, even the
+    flight of time.</p>
+
+    <p>"I reckon it's about quittin' time," Jack observed to him at
+    last.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked up in surprise. The sun was indeed dropping
+    low.</p>
+
+    <p>"We must be about half done," he remarked, measuring the
+    extent of the meadow with his eye.</p>
+
+    <p>"Two more wires to string," Pollock reminded him.</p>
+
+    <p>The mountaineer threw the grain sack of staples against the
+    last post, tossed his hammer and the hatchet with them.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hold on," said Bob. "You aren't going to leave them
+    there?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Shore," said Pollock. "We'll have to begin there
+    to-morrow."</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob's long training in handling large bodies of men with
+    tools had developed in him an instinct of tool-orderliness.</p>
+
+    <p>"Won't do," he stated with something of his old-time
+    authority in his tones. "Suppose for some reason we shouldn't
+    get back here to-morrow? That's the way such things get
+    mislaid; and they're valuable."</p>
+
+    <p>He picked up the hatchet and the axe. Grumbling something
+    under his breath, Pollock shouldered the staples and thrust the
+    hammer in his pocket.</p>
+
+    <p>"It isn't as if these things were ours," said Bob, realizing
+    that he had spoken in an unduly minatory tone.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's right," agreed Jack more cheerfully.</p>
+
+    <p>In addition to the new men, they found Ross Fletcher and
+    Charley Morton at the camp. The evening meal was prepared
+    cheerfully and roughly, eaten under a rather dim lamp. Pipes
+    were lit, and they all began leisurely to clean up. The smoke
+    hung low in the air. One by one the men dropped back into their
+    rough, homemade chairs, or sprawled out on the floor. Some one
+    lit the fire in the stone chimney, for the mountain air nipped
+    shrewdly after the sun had set. A general relaxing after the
+    day's work, a general cheerfulness, a general dry, chaffing wit
+    took possession of them. Two played cribbage under the lamp.
+    One wrote a letter. The rest gossiped of the affairs of the
+    service. Only in the corner by himself young Curtis sat. As at
+    noon, he had had nothing to say to any one, and had not
+    attempted to offer assistance in the communal work. Bob
+    concluded he must be tired from the unaccustomed labour of the
+    day. Bob's own shoulders ached; and he was in pretty good
+    shape, too.</p>
+
+    <p>"What makes me mad," Ross Fletcher's voice suddenly clove
+    the murmur, "is the things we have to do. I was breaking rock
+    on a trail all day to-day. Think of that! Day labourer's work!
+    State prison work!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked up in amazement, as did every one else.</p>
+
+    <p>"When a man hires out to be a ranger," Ross went on, "he
+    don't expect to be a carpenter, or a stone mason; he expects to
+    be a <i>ranger</i>!"</p>
+
+    <p>Immediately Charley Morton chimed in to the same purpose.
+    Bob listened with a rising indignation. This sort of talk was
+    old, but he had not expected to meet it here; it is the talk of
+    incompetence against authority everywhere, of the sea lawyer,
+    the lumberjack, the soldier, the spoiled subordinate in all
+    walks of life. He had taken for granted a finer sort of loyalty
+    here; especially from such men as Ross and Charley Morton. His
+    face flushed, and he leaned forward to say something. Jack
+    Pollock jogged his elbow fiercely.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hush up!" the young mountaineer whispered; "cain't you see
+    they're tryin' for a rise?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed softly to himself, and relaxed. He should have
+    been experienced enough, he told himself, to have recognized so
+    obvious and usual a trick of all campers.</p>
+
+    <p>But it was not for Bob, nor his like, that Ross was angling.
+    In fact, he caught his bite almost immediately. For the first
+    time that day Curtis woke up and displayed some interest.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's what I say!" he cried.</p>
+
+    <p>The older man turned to him.</p>
+
+    <p>"What they been making you do to-day, son?" asked Ross.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've been digging post holes up in those rocks," said
+    Curtis indignantly.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't mean to tell me they put you at that?" demanded
+    Ross; "why, they're supposed to get <i>Injins</i>, just cheap
+    dollar-a-day Digger Injins, for that job. And they put you at
+    it!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Curtis, "they did. I didn't hire out for any
+    such work. My father's county clerk down below."</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't say!" said Ross.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, and my hands are all blistered and my back is lame,
+    and----"</p>
+
+    <p>But the expectant youngsters could hold in no longer. A roar
+    of laughter cut the speaker short. Curtis stared, bewildered.
+    Ross and Charley Morton were laughing harder than anybody else.
+    He started to his feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hold on, son," Ross commanded him, wiping his eyes. "Don't
+    get hostile at a little joke. You'll get used to the work. Of
+    course we all like to ride off in the mountains, and do cattle
+    work, and figure on things, and do administrative work; and we
+    none of us are stuck on construction." He looked around him at
+    his audience, now quiet and attentive. "But we've got to have
+    headquarters, and barns, and houses, and corrals and pastures.
+    Once they're built, they're built and that ends it. But they
+    got to be built. We're just in hard luck that we happen to be
+    rangers right now. The Service can't hire carpenters for us
+    very well, way up here; and <i>somebody's</i> got to do it. It
+    ain't as if we had to do it for a living, all the time. There's
+    a variety. We get all kinds. Rangering's no snap, any more than
+    any other job. One thing," he ended with a laugh, "we get a
+    chance to do about everything."</p>
+
+    <p>The valley youth had dropped sullenly back into the shadows,
+    nor did he reply to this. After a little the men scattered to
+    their quarters, for they were tired.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob and Jack Pollock occupied together one of the older
+    cabins, a rough little structure, built mainly of shakes. It
+    contained two bunks, a rough table, and two stools constructed
+    of tobacco boxes to which legs had been nailed. As the young
+    men were preparing for bed, Bob remarked:</p>
+
+    <p>"Fletcher got his rise, all right. Much obliged for your
+    tip. I nearly bit. But he wasted his talk in my notion. That
+    fellow is hopeless. Ross labours in vain if he tries to brace
+    him up."</p>
+
+    <p>"I reckon Ross knows that," replied Jack, "and I reckon too,
+    he has mighty few hopes of bracin' up Curtis. I have a kind of
+    notion Ross was just usin' that Curtis as a mark to talk at.
+    What he was talkin' <i>to</i> was us."</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="II"></a>
+
+    <h2>II</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>The week's hard physical toil was unrelieved. After Bob and
+    Jack Pollock had driven the last staple in the last strand of
+    barbed wire, they turned their horses into the new pasture. The
+    animals, overjoyed to get free of the picket ropes that had
+    heretofore confined them, took long, satisfying rolls in the
+    sandy corner, and then went eagerly to cropping at the green
+    feed. Bob, leaning on the gate, with the rope still in his
+    hand, experienced a glow of personal achievement greater than
+    any he remembered to have felt since, as a small boy, he had
+    unaided reasoned out the problem of clear impression on his toy
+    printing press. He recognized this as illogical, for he had, in
+    all modesty, achieved affairs of some importance. Nevertheless,
+    the sight of his own animal enjoying its liberty in an
+    enclosure created by his own two hands pleased him to the core.
+    He grinned in appreciation of Elliott's humorous parody on the
+    sentimental slogan of the schools&mdash;"to make two cedar
+    posts grow where none grew before." There was, after all, a
+    rather especial satisfaction in that principle.</p>
+
+    <p>It next became necessary, he found, that the roof over the
+    new office at headquarters should receive a stain that would
+    protect it against the weather. He acquired a flat brush, a
+    little seat with spikes in its supports, and a can of stain
+    whose base seemed to be a very evil-smelling fish oil. Here all
+    day long he clung, daubing on the stain. When one shingle was
+    done, another awaited his attention, over and over, in
+    unvarying monotony. It was the sort of job he had always
+    loathed, but he stuck to it cheerfully, driving his brush deep
+    in the cracks in order that no crevice might remain for the
+    entrance of the insidious principle of decay. Casting about in
+    his leisure there for the reason of his patience, he discovered
+    it in just that; he was now at no task to be got through with,
+    to be made way with; he was engaged in a job that was to be
+    permanent. Unless he did it right, it would not be
+    permanent.</p>
+
+    <p>Below him the life of headquarters went on. He saw it all,
+    and heard it all, for every scrap of conversation rose to him
+    from within the office. He was amazed at the diversity of
+    interests and the complexity of problems that came there for
+    attention.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here, Mr. Thorne," said one of the rangers, "this Use
+    Book says that a settler has a right to graze ten head of stock
+    <i>actually in use</i> free of grazing charge. Now there's
+    Brown up at the north end. He runs a little dairy business, and
+    has about a hundred head of cattle up. He claims we ought not
+    to charge him for ten head of them because they're all
+    'actually in use.' How about it?"</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne explained that the exemption did not apply to
+    commercial uses and that Brown must pay for all. He qualified
+    the statement by saying that this was the latest interpretation
+    of which he had heard.</p>
+
+    <p>In like manner the policies in regard to a dozen little
+    industries and interests were being patiently defined and
+    determined&mdash;dairies, beef cattle, shake makers, bees, box
+    and cleat men, free timber users, mining men, seekers for water
+    concessions, those who desired rights of way, permits for
+    posts, pastures, mill sites&mdash;all these proffered their
+    requests and difficulties to the Supervisor. Sometimes they
+    were answered on the spot. Oftener their remarks were listened
+    to, their propositions taken under advisement. Then one or
+    another of the rangers was summoned, given instructions. He
+    packed his mule, saddled his horse, and rode away to be gone a
+    greater or lesser period of time. Others were sent out to run
+    lines about tracts, to define boundaries. Still others, like
+    Ross Fletcher, pounded drill and rock, and exploded powder on
+    the new trail that was to make more accessible the tremendous
+    ca&ntilde;on of the river. The men who came and went rarely
+    represented any but the smallest interests; yet somehow Bob
+    felt their importance, and the importance of the little
+    problems threshed out in the tiny, rough-finished office below
+    him. These but foreshadowed the greater things to come. And
+    these minute decisions shaped the policies and precedents of
+    what would become mighty affairs. Whether Brown should be
+    allowed to save his paltry three dollars and a half or not
+    determined larger things. To Bob's half-mystic mood, up there
+    under the mottled shadows, every tiny move of this game became
+    portentous with fate. A return of the old exultation lifted
+    him. He saw the shadows of these affairs cast dim and gigantic
+    against the mists of the future. These men were big with the
+    responsibility of a new thing. It behooved them all to act with
+    circumspection, with due heed, with reverence----</p>
+
+    <p>Bob applied his broad brush and the evil-smelling stain
+    methodically and with minute care as to every tiny detail of
+    the simple work. But his eyes were wide and unseeing, and all
+    the inner forces of his soul were moving slowly and mightily.
+    His personality had nothing to do with the matter. He painted;
+    and affairs went on with him. His being held itself passive, in
+    suspension, while the forces and experiences and influences of
+    one phase of his life crystallized into their foreordained
+    shapes deep within him. Yesterday he was this; now he was
+    becoming that; and the two were as different beings. New doors
+    of insight were silently swinging open on their hinges, old
+    prejudices were closing, fresh convictions long snugly in the
+    bud were unfolding like flowers. These things were not new.
+    They had begun many years before when as a young boy he had
+    stared wide-eyed, unseeing and uncomprehending, gazing down the
+    sun-streaked, green, lucent depths of an aisle in the forest.
+    Bob painted steadily on, moving his little seat nearer and
+    nearer the eaves. When noon and night came, he hung up his
+    utensils very carefully, washed up, and tramped to the rangers'
+    camp, where he took his part in the daily tasks, assumed his
+    share of the conversation, entered into the fun, and
+    contributed his ideas toward the endless discussions. No one
+    noticed that he was in any way different from his ordinary
+    self. But it was as though some one outside of himself, in the
+    outer circle of his being, carried on these necessary and
+    customary things. He, drawn apart, watched by the shrine of his
+    soul. He did nothing, either by thought or effort&mdash;merely
+    watched, patient and rapt, while foreordained and mighty
+    changes took place&mdash;</p>
+
+    <p>He reached the edge of the roof; stood on the ladder to
+    finish the last row of the riven shingles. Slowly his brush
+    moved, finishing the cracks deep down so that the principle of
+    decay might never enter. Inside the office Thorne sat dictating
+    a letter to some applicant for privilege. The principle was new
+    in its interpretation, and so Thorne was choosing his words
+    with the greatest care. Swiftly before Bob's inner vision the
+    prospect widened. Thorne became a prophet speaking down the
+    years; the least of these men in a great new Service became the
+    austere champions of something high and beautiful. For one
+    moment Bob dwelt in a wonderful, breathless, vast, unreal
+    country where heroic figures moved in the importance of all the
+    unborn future, dim-seen, half-revealed. He drew his brush
+    across the last shingle of all. Something seemed to click.
+    Swiftly the gates shut, the strange country receded into
+    infinite distance. With a rush like the sucking of water into a
+    vacuum the everyday world drew close. Bob, his faculties once
+    more in their accustomed seat, looked about him as one
+    awakened. His hour was over. The change had taken place.</p>
+
+    <p>Thorne was standing in the doorway with Amy, their dictation
+    finished.</p>
+
+    <p>"All done?" said he. "Well, you did a thorough job. It's the
+    kind that will last."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm right on deck when it comes to painting things red,"
+    retorted Bob. "What next?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Next," said Thorne, "I want you to help one of the boys
+    split some cedar posts. We've got a corral or so to make."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob descended slowly from the ladder, balancing the
+    remainder of the red stain. Thorne looked at him curiously.</p>
+
+    <p>"How do you like it as far as you've gone?" he permitted
+    himself to ask. "This isn't quite up to the romantic idea of
+    rangering, is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said Bob with conviction, "I suppose it may sound
+    foolish; but I never was surer of anything in my life than that
+    I've struck the right job."</p>
+
+    <p>As he walked home that night, he looked back on the last few
+    days with a curious bewilderment. It had all been so real; now
+    apparently it meant nothing. Thorne was doing good work; these
+    rangers were good men. But where had vanished all Bob's
+    exaltation? where his feeling of the portent and influence and
+    far-reaching significance of what these men were doing? He
+    realized its importance; but the feeling of its fatefulness had
+    utterly gone. Things with him were back on a work-a-day basis.
+    He even laughed a little, good-humouredly, at himself. At the
+    gate to the new pasture he once more stopped and looked at his
+    horse. A deep content came over him.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've sure struck the right job!" he repeated aloud with
+    conviction.</p>
+
+    <p>And this, could he have known it, was the outward and
+    visible and only sign of the things spiritual that had been
+    veiled.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="III"></a>
+
+    <h2>III</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>When Saturday evening came the men washed and shaved and put
+    on clean garments. Bob, dog tired after a hard day, was more
+    inclined to lie on his back.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ain't you-all goin' over to-night?" asked Jack Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>"Over where?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why," explained the younger man, "always after supper
+    Saturdays all the boys who are in camp go over to spend the
+    evenin' at headquarters."</p>
+
+    <p>Aggressively sleek and scrubbed, the little group marched
+    down through the woods in the twilight. At headquarters Amy
+    Thorne and her brother welcomed them and ushered them into the
+    big room, with the stone fireplace. In this latter a fire of
+    shake-bolts leaped and roared. The men crowded in, a trifle
+    bashfully, found boxes and home-made chairs, and perched about
+    talking occasionally in very low tones to the nearest
+    neighbour. Amy sat in a rocking chair by the table lamp, sewing
+    on something, paying little attention to the rangers, save to
+    throw out an occasional random remark. Thorne had not yet
+    entered. Finally Amy dropped the sewing in her lap.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're all as solemn as a camp-meeting," she told them
+    severely. "How many times must I tell you to smoke up and be
+    agreeable? Here, Mr. Ware, set them a good example."</p>
+
+    <p>She pushed a cigar box toward the older man. Bob saw it to
+    be half full of the fine-flaked tobacco so much used in the
+    West. Thus encouraged, Ware rolled himself a cigarette. Others
+    followed suit. Still others produced and filled black old
+    pipes. A formidable haze eddied through the apartment. Amy,
+    still sewing, said, without looking up:</p>
+
+    <p>"One of you boys go rummage the store room for the corn
+    popper. The corn's in a corn-meal sack on the far shelf."</p>
+
+    <p>Just then Thorne came in, bringing a draft of cold air with
+    him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said he, "this is a pretty full house for this time
+    of year."</p>
+
+    <p>He walked directly to the rough, board shelf and from it
+    took down a book.</p>
+
+    <p>"This man Kipling will do again for to-night," he remarked.
+    "He knows more about our kind of fellow than most. I've sent
+    for one or two other things you ought to know, but just now I
+    want to read you a story that may remind you of something
+    you've run against yourself. We've a few wild, red-headed
+    Irishmen ourselves in these hills."</p>
+
+    <p>He walked briskly to the lamp, opened the volume, and at
+    once began to read. Every once in a while he looked up from the
+    book to explain a phrase in terms the men would understand, or
+    to comment pithily on some similarity in their own experience.
+    When he had finished, he looked about at them, challenging.</p>
+
+    <p>"There; what did I tell you? Isn't that just about the way
+    they hand it out to us here? And this story took place the
+    other side of the world! It's quite wonderful when you stop to
+    think about it, isn't it? Listen to this&mdash;"</p>
+
+    <p>He pounced on another story. This led him to a second
+    incursion on the meagre library. Bob did not recognize the
+    practical, rather hard Thorne of everyday official life. The
+    man was carried away by his eagerness to interpret the little
+    East Indian to these comrade spirits of the West. The rangers
+    listened with complete sympathy, every once in a while throwing
+    in a comment or a criticism, never hesitating to interrupt when
+    interruption seemed pertinent.</p>
+
+    <p>Finally Amy, who had all this time been sewing away unmoved,
+    a half-tender, half-amused smile curving her lips, laid down
+    her work with an air of decision.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll call your attention," said she, "to the fact that I'm
+    hungry. Shut up your book; I won't hear another word." She
+    leaned across the table, and, in spite of Thorne's half-earnest
+    protests, took possession of the volume.</p>
+
+    <p>"Besides," she remarked, "look at poor Jack Pollock; he's
+    been popping corn like a little machine, and he must be nearly
+    roasted himself."</p>
+
+    <p>Jack turned to her a face very red from the heat of the
+    leaping pine fire.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's right," he grinned, "but I got about a dishpan
+    done."</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll be in practice to fight fire," some one chaffed
+    him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, he'll fight fire all right, if there's somethin' to eat
+    the other side," drawled Charley Morton.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's plenty," said Amy, referring to the quantity of
+    popcorn.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why," spoke up California John in an aggrieved and
+    surprised tone, "ain't there nobody going to eat popcorn but
+    me?"</p>
+
+    <p>Amy disappeared only to return bearing a cake frosted with
+    chocolate. The respect with which this was viewed proved that
+    the men appreciated to the full what was represented by
+    chocolate cake in this altitude of tiny stoves and scanty
+    supplies. Again Amy dove into the store room. This time she
+    bore back a huge enamel-ware pitcher which she set in the
+    middle of the round table.</p>
+
+    <p>"There!" she cried, her cheeks red with triumph.</p>
+
+    <p>"What you got, Amy?" asked her brother.</p>
+
+    <p>Ross Fletcher leaned forward to look.</p>
+
+    <p>"Great guns!" he cried.</p>
+
+    <p>The men jostled around, striving for a glimpse, half in
+    joke, half in genuine curiosity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Lemonade!" cried Ware.</p>
+
+    <p>"None of your lime juice either," pronounced California
+    John; "look at the genuine article floatin' around on top."</p>
+
+    <p>They turned to Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where did you get them?" they demanded.</p>
+
+    <p>But she shook her head, smiling, and declined to tell.</p>
+
+    <p>They devoured the popcorn and the chocolate cake to the last
+    crumb, and emptied the pitcher of genuine lemonade. Then they
+    went home. It was all simple enough: cheap tobacco; reading
+    aloud; a little rude chaffing; lemonade, cake and popcorn! Bob
+    smiled to himself as he thought of the consternation a recital
+    of these ingredients would carry to the sophisticated souls of
+    most of his friends. Yet he had enjoyed the party, enjoyed it
+    deeply and thoroughly. He came away from it glowing with
+    good-fellowship.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IV"></a>
+
+    <h2>IV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>At these and similar occupations the latter days of June
+    slipped by. Bob had little leisure, for the Service was
+    undermanned for the work it must do. Curtis sooned resigned, to
+    everybody's joy and relief.</p>
+
+    <p>On only one occasion did Bob gain a chance to ride over to
+    the scenes of his old activities. This was on a Sunday when, by
+    a miracle, nothing unexpected came up to tie him to his duty.
+    He had rather an unsatisfactory visit with Mr. Welton. It was
+    cordial enough on both sides, for the men were genuinely fond
+    of each other; but they had lost touch of each other's
+    interests. Welton persisted in regarding Bob with a covert
+    amusement, as an older man regards a younger who is having his
+    fling, and will later settle down. Bob asked after the work,
+    and was answered. Neither felt any real human interest in the
+    questions nor their replies. A certain constraint held them, to
+    Bob's very genuine regret. He rode back through the westering
+    shadows vaguely uneasy in his mind.</p>
+
+    <p>He and two of the new mountain men had been for two days
+    cutting up some dead and down trees that encumbered the
+    enclosure at headquarters. They cross-cut the trunks into handy
+    lengths; bored holes in them with a two-inch augur; loaded the
+    holes with blasting powder and a fuse, and touched them off.
+    The powder split the logs into rough posts small enough to
+    handle. These fragments they carried laboriously to the middle
+    of the meadow, where they stacked them rack-fashion and on end.
+    The idea was to combine business with pleasure by having a
+    grand bonfire the night of the Fourth of July.</p>
+
+    <p>For this day other preparations were forward. Amy promised a
+    spread for everybody, if she could get a little help at the
+    last moment. As many of the outlying rangers as could manage it
+    would come in for the occasion. A shooting match, roping and
+    chopping contests, and other sports were in contemplation.</p>
+
+    <p>As the time drew near, various mysteries were plainly afoot.
+    Men claimed their turns in riding down the mountain for the
+    mail. They took with them pack horses. These they unpacked
+    secretly and apart. Amy gave Bob to understand that this
+    holiday, when the ranks were fullest and conditions ripe, went
+    far as a substitute for Christmas among these men.</p>
+
+    <p>Then at noon of July second Charley Morton dashed down the
+    trail from the Upper Meadow, rode rapidly to Headquarters,
+    flung himself from his horse, and dove into the office. After a
+    moment he reappeared, followed by Thorne.</p>
+
+    <p>"Saddle up, boys," said the latter. "Fire over beyond Baldy.
+    Ride and gather in the men who are about here," he told
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob sprang on Charley Morton's horse and rode about
+    instructing the workers to gather. When he returned, Thorne
+    gave his instructions.</p>
+
+    <p>"We're short-handed," he stated, "and it'll be hard to get
+    help just at this time. Charley, you take Ware, Elliott and
+    Carroll and see what it looks like. Start a fire line, and do
+    the best you can. Orde, you and Pollock can get up some pack
+    horses and follow later with grub, blankets, and so forth. I'll
+    ride down the mountain to see what I can do about help. It may
+    be I can catch somebody by phone at the Power House who can let
+    the boys know at the north end. You say it's a big fire?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I see quite a lot of smoke," said Charley.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then the boys over Jackass way and by the Crossing ought to
+    see it for themselves."</p>
+
+    <p>The four men designated caught up their horses, saddled
+    them, and mounted. Thorne handed them each a broad hoe, a rake
+    and an axe. They rode off up the trail. Thorne mounted on his
+    own horse.</p>
+
+    <p>"Pack up and follow as fast as you can," he told the two who
+    still remained.</p>
+
+    <p>"What you want we should take?" asked Jack.</p>
+
+    <p>"Amy will tell you. Get started early as you can. You'll
+    have to follow their tracks."</p>
+
+    <p>Amy took direction of them promptly. While they caught and
+    saddled the pack horses, she was busy in the storeroom. They
+    found laid out for them a few cooking utensils, a variety of
+    provisions tied up in strong little sacks, several more hoes,
+    axes and rakes, two mattocks, a half-dozen flat files, and as
+    many big zinc canteens.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now hurry!" she commanded them; "pack these, and then get
+    some blankets from your camp, and some hobbles and picket
+    ropes."</p>
+
+    <p>With Bob's rather awkward help everything was made fast. By
+    the time the two had packed the blankets and returned to
+    headquarters on their way to the upper trail, they found Amy
+    had changed her clothes, caught and saddled her own horse, tied
+    on well-filled saddle bags, and stood awaiting them. She wore
+    her broad hat looped back by the pine tree badge of the
+    Service, a soft shirtwaist of gray flannel, a short divided
+    skirt of khaki and high-laced boots. A red neckerchief matched
+    her cheeks, which were glowing with excitement. Immediately
+    they appeared, she swung aboard with the easy grace of one long
+    accustomed to the saddle. Bob's lower jaw dropped in
+    amazement.</p>
+
+    <p>"You going?" he gasped, unable even yet to comprehend the
+    everyday fact that so many gently nurtured Western girls are
+    accustomed to those rough-and-ready bivouacs.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wouldn't stay away for worlds!" she cried, turning her
+    pony's head up the trail.</p>
+
+    <p>Beyond the upper meadow this trail suddenly began to climb.
+    It made its way by lacets in the dry earth, by scrambles in the
+    rocks until, through the rapidly thinning ranks of the scrubby
+    trees, Bob could look back over all the broad shelf of the
+    mountain whereon grew the pines. It lay spread before him as a
+    soft green carpet of tops, miles of it, wrinkling and billowing
+    gently as here and there the conformation of the country
+    changed. At some distance it dropped over an edge. Beyond that,
+    very dimly, he realized the brown shimmer rising from the
+    plain. Far to the right was a tenuous smoke, a suggestion of
+    thinning in the forest, a flash of blue water. This, Bob knew,
+    must be the mill and the lake.</p>
+
+    <p>The trail shortly made its way over the shoulder of the
+    ridge and emerged on the wide, gentle rounding of the crest.
+    Here the trees were small, stunted and wind-blown. Huge curving
+    sheets of unbroken granite lay like armour across the shoulder
+    of the mountain. Decomposing granite shale crunched under the
+    horses' hoofs. Here and there on it grew isolated tiny tufts of
+    the hardy upland flowers. Above, the sky was deeply, intensely
+    blue; bluer than Bob had ever seen a sky before. The air held
+    in it a tang of wildness, as though it had breathed from great
+    spaces.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose this is the top of our ridge, isn't it?" Bob
+    asked Jack Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>The boy nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly the trail dipped sharp to the left into a narrow
+    and shallow little ravine. The bed of this was carpeted by a
+    narrow stringer of fresh grass and flowers, through which a
+    tiny stream felt its hesitating way. This ravine widened and
+    narrowed, turned and doubled. Here and there groups of cedars
+    on a dry flat offered ideal shelter for a camp. Abruptly the
+    stringer burst through a screen of azaleas to a round green
+    meadow surrounded by the taller trees of the eastern slope of
+    the mountain.</p>
+
+    <p>In other circumstances Bob would have liked to stop for a
+    better sight of this little gem of a meadow. It was ankle deep
+    with new grasses, starred with flowers, bordered with pink and
+    white azaleas. The air, prisoned in a pocket, warmed by the
+    sun, perfumed heavily by the flowers, lay in the cup of the
+    trees like a tepid bath. A hundred birds sang in June-tide
+    ecstasy.</p>
+
+    <p>But Jack Pollock, without pause, skirted this meadow,
+    crossed the tiny silver creek that bubbled from it down the
+    slope, and stolidly mounted a little knoll beyond. The trained
+    pack horses swung along behind him, swaying gently from side to
+    side that they might carry their packs comfortably and level.
+    Bob turned involuntarily to glance at Amy. Their eyes met. She
+    understood; and smiled at him brightly.</p>
+
+    <p>Jack led the way to the top of the knoll and stopped.</p>
+
+    <p>Here the edge of the mountain broke into a tiny outcropping
+    spur that shook itself free from the pines. It constituted a
+    natural lookout to the east. Bob drew rein so violently that
+    even his well-trained mountain horse shook its head in
+    protest.</p>
+
+    <p>Before him, hushed with that tremendous calm of vast
+    distances, lay the Sierras he had never seen, as though
+    embalmed in the sunlight of a thousand afternoons. A
+    tremendous, deep ca&ntilde;on plunged below him, blue with
+    distance. It climbed again to his level eventually, but by that
+    time it was ten miles away. And over against him, very remote,
+    were pine ridges looking velvety and dark and ruffled and full
+    of shadows, like the erect fur of a beast that has been
+    alarmed. From them here and there projected granite domes. And
+    beyond them bald ranges; and beyond them, splintered granite
+    with snow in the crevices; and beyond this the dark and
+    frowning Pinnacles; and still beyond, other mountains so
+    distant, so ethereal, so delicately pink and rose and saffron
+    that almost he expected they might at any moment dissolve into
+    the vivid sky. And, strangely enough, though he realized the
+    tremendous heights and depths of these peaks and ca&ntilde;ons,
+    the whole effect to Bob was as something spread out broad. The
+    sky, the wonderful over-arching, very blue sky, was the most
+    important thing in the universe. Compared to its infinitudes
+    these mountains lay spread like a fair and wrinkled footrug to
+    a horizon inconceivably remote and mysterious.</p>
+
+    <p>Then his eye fell to the ridge opposite, across the blue
+    ca&ntilde;on. From one point on it a straight column of smoke
+    rolled upward, to mushroom out and hang motionless above the
+    top of the ridge. Its base was shot by half-seen, half-guessed
+    flaming streaks.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob had vaguely expected to see a whole country-side ablaze.
+    This single, slender column was almost absurd. It looked like a
+    camp-fire, magnified to fit the setting, of course.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's the fire, all right," said Jack. "We got to get
+    across to it somehow. Trail ends here."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, that doesn't amount to much!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't it?" said Jack. "Well, I'd call that some shakes of a
+    fire myself. It's covered mighty nigh three hundred acres by
+    now."</p>
+
+    <p>"Three hundred acres! Better say ten."</p>
+
+    <p>"You're wrong," said Jack; "I've rode all that country with
+    cattle."</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll find it fire enough, when you get there," put in
+    Amy. "It's right in good timber, too."</p>
+
+    <p>"All right," agreed Bob; "I'll believe anything&mdash;after
+    this." He waved his hand abroad. "Jack," he called, as that
+    young man led the way off the edge, "can you see where Jack
+    Main's Ca&ntilde;on is from here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Jack Main's!" repeated young Pollock. "Why, if you was on
+    the top of the farthest mountain in sight, you couldn't see any
+    place you could see it from."</p>
+
+    <p>"Good Lord!" said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The way zigzagged down the slope of the mountain. As Jack
+    had said, there was no trail, but the tracks left by the four
+    rangers were plainly to be discerned. Bob, following the pack
+    horses, had leisure to observe how skilfully this way had been
+    picked out. Always it held to the easy footing, but always it
+    was evident that if certain turns had not been made some
+    distance back this easy footing would have lacked. At times the
+    tracks led far to the left at nearly the same level until one,
+    two or three little streams had been crossed. Then without
+    apparent reason they turned directly down the backbone of a
+    steep ridge exactly like a half-dozen others they had passed
+    over. But later Bob saw that this ridge was the only one of the
+    lot that dipped over gently to lower levels; all the rest broke
+    off abruptly in precipitous rocks. Bob was a good woodsman, but
+    this was his first experience in that mountaineering skill
+    which noses its way by the "lay of the country."</p>
+
+    <p>In the meantime they were steadily descending. The trees
+    hemmed them closer. Thickets of willows and alders had to be
+    crossed. Dimly through the tree-tops they seemed to see the sky
+    darkening by degrees as they worked their way down. At first
+    Bob thought it the lateness of the afternoon; then he concluded
+    it must be the smoke of the fire; finally, through a clear
+    opening, he saw this apparent darkening of the horizon was in
+    reality the blue of the ca&ntilde;on wall opposite, rising as
+    they descended. But, too, as they drew nearer, the heavy smoke
+    of the conflagration began to spread over them. In time it
+    usurped the heavens, and Bob had difficulty in believing that
+    it could appear to any one anywhere as so simple a
+    mushroom-head over a slender smoke column.</p>
+
+    <p>By the time the horses stepped from the slope to the bed of
+    the ca&ntilde;on, it was quite dark. Jack turned down
+    stream.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll cut the trail to Burro Rock pretty quick," said
+    he.</p>
+
+    <p>Within five minutes of travel they did cut it; a narrow
+    brown trough, trodden by the hoofs of many generations of
+    cattlemen bound for the back country. Almost immediately it
+    began to mount the slope.</p>
+
+    <p>Now ahead, through the gathering twilight, lights began to
+    show, sometimes scattered, sometimes grouped, like the
+    camp-fires of an immense army. These were the stubs, stumps,
+    down logs and the like left still blazing after all the more
+    readily inflammable material had been burned away. As the
+    little cavalcade laboured upward, stopping every few minutes to
+    breathe the horses, these flickering lights defined themselves.
+    In particular one tall dead yellow pine standing boldly
+    prominent, afire to the top, alternately glowed and paled as
+    the wind breathed or died. A smell of stale burning drifted
+    down the damp night air. Pretty soon Jack Pollock halted for a
+    moment to call back:</p>
+
+    <p>"Here's their fire line!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob spurred forward. Just beyond Jack's horse the country
+    lay blackened. The pine needles had burned down to the soil;
+    the seedlings and younger trees had been withered away; the
+    larger trees scorched; the fuel with which every forest is
+    littered consumed in the fierceness of the conflagration. Here
+    and there some stub or trunk still blazed and crackled,
+    outposts of the army whose camp-fires seemed to dot the
+    hills.</p>
+
+    <p>The line of demarcation between the burned and the unburned
+    areas seemed extraordinarily well defined. Bob looked closer
+    and saw that this definition was due to a peculiar path,
+    perhaps two yards wide. It looked as though some one had gone
+    along there with a huge broom, sweeping as one would sweep a
+    path in deep dust. Only in this case the broom must have been a
+    powerful implement as well as one of wide reach. The brushed
+    marks went not only through the carpet of pine needles, but
+    through the tarweed, the snow brush, the manza&ntilde;ita. This
+    was technically the fire line. At the sight of the positiveness
+    with which it had checked the spread of the flames, Bob's
+    spirits rose.</p>
+
+    <p>"They seem to have stopped it here easy enough, already," he
+    cried.</p>
+
+    <p>"Being as how this is the windward side of the fire, and on
+    a down slope, I should think they might," remarked Jack Pollock
+    drily.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob chuckled and glanced at the girl.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm finding out every day how little I know," said he; "at
+    my age, too!"</p>
+
+    <p>"The hard work is down wind," said Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Of course."</p>
+
+    <p>They entered the burned area, and climbed on up the hill.
+    Though evidently here the ferocity of the conflagration had
+    passed, it had left its rear guard behind. Fallen trees still
+    blazed; standing trees flamed like torches&mdash;but all
+    harmlessly within the magic circle drawn by the desperate quick
+    work of the rangers. They threaded their way cautiously among
+    these isolated fires, watching lest some dead giant should fall
+    across their path. The ground smoked under their feet. Against
+    the background of a faint and distant roaring, which now made
+    itself evident, the immediate surroundings seemed very quiet.
+    The individual cracklings of flames were an undertone. Only
+    once in a while a dull heavy crash smote the air as some great
+    tree gave up the unequal struggle.</p>
+
+    <p>They passed as rapidly as they could through this stricken
+    field. The night had fallen, but the forest was still bright,
+    the trail still plain. They followed it for an hour until it
+    had topped the lower ridge.</p>
+
+    <p>Then far ahead, down through the dark trunks of trees, they
+    saw, wavering, flickering, leaping and dying, a line of fire.
+    In some places it was a dozen feet high; in others it sank to
+    within a few inches of the ground&mdash;but nowhere could the
+    eye discern an opening through it. A roar and a crackling
+    filled the air. Sparks were shooting upward in the suction. A
+    blast of heat rushed against Bob's cheek. All at once he
+    realized that a forest fire was not a widespread general
+    conflagration, like the burning of a city block. It was a line
+    of battle, a ring of flame advancing steadily. All they had
+    passed had been negligible. Here was the true enemy, now
+    charging rapidly through the dry, inflammable low growth, now
+    creeping stealthily in the needles and among the rocks; always
+    making way, always gathering itself for one of its wild leaps
+    which should lay an entire new province under its ravaging.
+    Somewhere on the other side of that ring of fire were four men.
+    They were trying to cut a lane over which the fire could not
+    leap.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob gazed at the wall of flame with some dismay.</p>
+
+    <p>"How we going to get through?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"We got to find a rock outcrop somewheres up the ridge,"
+    explained Jack, "where there'll be a break in the fire."</p>
+
+    <p>He turned up the side of the mountain again, leading the
+    way. After a time they came to an outcrop of the sort
+    described, which, with some difficulty and stumbling, they
+    succeeded in crossing.</p>
+
+    <p>Ahead, in the darkness, showed a tiny licking little fire,
+    only a few inches high.</p>
+
+    <p>"The fire has jumped!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"No, that's their backfire," Pollock corrected him.</p>
+
+    <p>They found this to be true. The rangers had hastily hoed and
+    raked out a narrow path. Over this a very small fire could not
+    pass; but there could be no doubt that the larger conflagration
+    would take the slight obstacle in its stride. Therefore the
+    rangers had themselves ignited the small fire. This would eat
+    away the fuel, and automatically widen the path. Between the
+    main fire and the back fire were still several hundred yards of
+    good, unburned country. To Bob's expression of surprise Amy
+    added to the two principles of fire-fighting he had learned
+    from Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>"It doesn't do to try to stop a fire anywhere and
+    everywhere," said she. "A good man knows his country, and he
+    takes advantage of it. This fire line probably runs along the
+    line of natural defence."</p>
+
+    <p>They followed it down the mountain for a long distance
+    through the eddying smoke. The flames to their right shot up
+    and died and crept. The shadows to their left&mdash;their own
+    among the number&mdash;leaped and fell. After a while, down
+    through the mists, they made out a small figure, very busy at
+    something. When they approached, they found this to be Charley
+    Morton. The fire had leaped the cleared path and was greedily
+    eating in all directions through the short, pitchy growth of
+    tarweed. It was as yet only a tiny leak, but once let it get
+    started, the whole forest beyond the fire line would be ablaze.
+    The ranger had started to cut around this a half-circle
+    connected at both ends with the main fire line. With short,
+    quick jabs of his hoe, he was tearing away at the tough
+    tarweed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo!" said he without looking up. "You'll find camp on
+    the bald ridge north the fire line. There's a little feed
+    there."</p>
+
+    <p>Having completed his defence, he straightened his back to
+    look at them. His face was grimed a dingy black through which
+    rivulets of sweat had made streaks.</p>
+
+    <p>"Had it pretty hot all afternoon," he proffered. "Got the
+    fire line done, though. How're those canteens&mdash;full? I'll
+    trade you my empty one." He took a long draught. "That tastes
+    good. Went dry about three o'clock, and haven't had a drop
+    since."</p>
+
+    <p>They left him there, leaning on the handle of his hoe. Jack
+    Pollock seemed to know where the place described as the
+    camp-site was located, for after various d&eacute;tours and
+    false starts, he led them over the brow of a knoll to a tiny
+    flat among the pine needles where they were greeted by whinnies
+    from unseen animals. It was here very dark. Jack scraped
+    together and lit some of the pine needles. By the flickering
+    light they saw the four saddles dumped down in a heap.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's a side hill over yander with a few bunches of grass
+    and some of these blue lupins," said Jack. "It ain't much in
+    the way of hoss-feed, but it'll have to do."</p>
+
+    <p>He gathered fuel and soon had enough of a fire to furnish
+    light.</p>
+
+    <p>"It certainly does seem plumb foolish to be lightin'
+    <i>more</i> fires!" he remarked.</p>
+
+    <p>In the meantime Amy had unsaddled her own horse and was busy
+    unpacking one of the pack animals. Bob followed her
+    example.</p>
+
+    <p>"There," she said; "now here are the canteens, all full; and
+    here's six lunches already tied together that I put up before
+    we started. You can get them to the other boys. Take your tools
+    and run along. I'll straighten up, and be ready for you when
+    you can come back."</p>
+
+    <p>"What if the fire gets over to you?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll turn the horses loose and ride away," she said
+    gaily.</p>
+
+    <p>"It won't get clost to there," put in Jack. "This little
+    ridge is rock all round it. That's why they put the camp
+    here."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's water?" asked Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't rightly remember," confessed Pollock. "I've only
+    been in here once."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll find out in the morning. Good luck!"</p>
+
+    <p>Jack handed Bob three of the canteens, a hoe and rake and
+    one of the flat files.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's this for?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"To keep the edge of your hoe sharp," replied Jack.</p>
+
+    <p>They shouldered their implements and felt their way in the
+    darkness over the tumbled rock outcrop. As they surmounted the
+    shoulder of the hill, they saw once more flickering before them
+    the fire line.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="V"></a>
+
+    <h2>V</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Charley Morton received the lunch with joy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ain't had time to get together grub since we came," said
+    he, "and didn't know when I would."</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you want us to do?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"The fire line's drawn right across from Granite Creek down
+    there in the ca&ntilde;on over to a bald dome. We got her done
+    an hour ago, and pretty well back-fired. All we got to do now
+    is to keep her from crossing anywheres; and if she does cross,
+    to corral her before she can get away from us."</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish we could have got here sooner!" cried Bob,
+    disappointed that the little adventure seemed to be flattening
+    out.</p>
+
+    <p>"So?" commented Charley drily. "Well, there's plenty yet. If
+    she gets out in one single, lonesome place, this fire line of
+    ours won't be worth a cent. She's inside now&mdash;if we can
+    hold her there." He gazed contemplatively aloft at a big dead
+    pine blazing merrily to its very top. Every once in a while a
+    chunk of bark or a piece of limb came flaring down to hit the
+    ground with a thump. "There's the trouble," said he. "What's to
+    keep a spark or a coal from that old coon from falling or
+    rolling on the wrong side of the line? If it happens when none
+    of us are around, why the fire gets a start. And maybe a coal
+    will roll down hill from somewhere; or a breeze come up and
+    carry sparks. One spark over here," he stamped his foot on the
+    brushed line, "and it's all to do over again. There's six of
+    us," added the ranger, "and a hundred of these trees near the
+    line. By rights there ought to be a man camped down near every
+    one of them."</p>
+
+    <p>"Give us our orders," repeated Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"The orders are to patrol the fire line," said Morton. "If
+    you find the fire has broken across, corral it. If it gets too
+    strong for you, shoot your six-shooter twice. Keep a-moving,
+    but take it easy and save yourself for to-morrow. About two
+    o'clock, or so, I'll shoot three times. Then you can come to
+    camp and get a little sleep. You got to be in shape for
+    to-morrow."</p>
+
+    <p>"Why especially to-morrow?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fire dies in the cool of night; it comes up in the middle
+    of the day," explained Morton succinctly.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob took to the right, while Jack went in the opposite
+    direction. His way led down hill. He crossed a ravine,
+    surmounted a little ridge. Now he was in the worse than total
+    darkness of the almost extinct area. Embers and coals burned
+    all over the side hill like so many evil winking eyes. Far
+    ahead, down the mountain, the rising smoke glowed incandescent
+    with the light of an invisible fire beneath, Bob, blinded by
+    this glow, had great difficulty in making his way. Once he
+    found that he had somehow crept out on the great bald roundness
+    of a granite dome, and had to retrace his steps. Twice he lost
+    his footing utterly, but fortunately fell but a short distance.
+    At last he found himself in the V of a narrow ravine.</p>
+
+    <p>All this time he had, with one exception, kept close track
+    of the fire line. The exception was when he strayed out over
+    the dome; but that was natural, for the dome had been adopted
+    bodily as part of the system of defence. Everywhere the edge of
+    the path proved to be black and dead. No living fire glowed
+    within striking distance of the inflammable material on the
+    hither side the path.</p>
+
+    <p>But here, in the bottom of the ravine, a single coal had
+    lodged, and had already started into flame the dry small brush.
+    It had fallen originally from an oak fully a hundred feet away;
+    and in some mysterious manner had found a path to this hidden
+    pocket. The circumstances somewhat shook Bob's faith in the
+    apparent safety of the country he had just traversed.</p>
+
+    <p>However, there were the tiny flames, licking here and there,
+    insignificant, but nevertheless dangerous. Bob carefully laid
+    his canteens and the rake on a boulder, and set to work with
+    his sharpened hoe. It looked to be a very easy task to dig out
+    a path around this little fire.</p>
+
+    <p>In the course of the miniature fight he learned considerable
+    of the ways of fire. The brush proved unexpectedly difficult.
+    It would not stand up to the force of his stroke, but bent
+    away. The tarweed, especially, was stubborn under even the most
+    vigorous wielding of his sharpened hoe.</p>
+
+    <p>He made an initial mistake by starting to hoe out his path
+    too near the blaze, forgetting that in the time necessary to
+    complete his half-circle the flames would have spread.
+    Discovering this, he abandoned his beginning and fell back
+    twenty feet. This naturally considerably lengthened the line he
+    would have to cut. When it was about half done, Bob discovered
+    that he would have to hustle to prevent the fire breaking by
+    him before he could complete his half-circle. It became a race.
+    He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to scorch
+    his face and hands, so that it was with difficulty he could
+    face his work. Irrelevantly enough there arose before his mind
+    the image of Jack Pollock popping corn before the fireplace at
+    headquarters. Continual wielding of the hoe tired a certain set
+    of muscles to the aching point. His mouth became dry and
+    sticky, but he could not spare time to hunt up his canteen. The
+    thought flashed across his mind that the fire was probably
+    breaking across elsewhere, just like this. The other men must
+    be in the same fix. There were six of them. Suppose the fire
+    should break across simultaneously in seven places? The little
+    licking flames had at last, by dint of a malignant persistence,
+    become a personal enemy. He fought them absorbedly, throwing
+    his line farther and farther as the necessity arose, running to
+    beat down with green brush the first feeble upstartings of the
+    fire as it leaped here and there his barrier, keeping a
+    vigilant eye on every part of his defences.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," drawled Charley Morton's voice behind him, "what you
+    think you're doing?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Corralling this fire, of course," Bob panted, dashing at a
+    marauding little flame.</p>
+
+    <p>"What for?" demanded Charley.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked up in sheer amazement.</p>
+
+    <p>"See that rock dike just up the hill behind you?" explained
+    Morton. "Well, our fire line already runs up to that on both
+    sides. Fire couldn't cross it. We expected this to burn."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob suddenly felt a little nauseated and dizzy from the heat
+    and violence of his exertions in this high altitude.</p>
+
+    <p>"Here's your canteen," Morton went on easily. "Take a swig.
+    Better save a little. Feel better? Let me give you a pointer:
+    don't try to stop a fire going up hill. Take it on top or just
+    over the top. It burns slower and it ain't so apt to jump."</p>
+
+    <p>"I know; I forgot," said Bob, feeling a trifle foolish.</p>
+
+    <p>"Never mind; you've learned something," said Morton
+    comfortably. "Let's go down below. There's fresh fire there;
+    and it may have jumped past Elliott."</p>
+
+    <p>They scrambled down. Elliott and Ware were found to be
+    working desperately in the face of the flames. The fire had not
+    here jumped the line, but it was burning with great ferocity up
+    to the very edge of it. If the rangers could for a half-hour
+    prevent the heat from igniting the growths across the defence,
+    the main fire would have consumed its fuel and died down to
+    comparative safety. With faces averted, heads lowered,
+    handkerchiefs over their mouths, they continually beat down the
+    new little fires which as continually sprang into life again.
+    Here the antagonists were face to face across the narrow line.
+    The rangers could not give back an inch, for an inch of headway
+    on the wrong side the path would convert a kindling little
+    blaze to a real fire. They stood up to their work doggedly as
+    best they might.</p>
+
+    <p>With entire understanding of the situation Charley motioned
+    Bob to the front.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll hold her for a minute," he shouted to the others.
+    "Drop back and get a drink."</p>
+
+    <p>They fell back to seize eagerly their canteens. Bob gripped
+    his handful of green brush and set to work. For a minute he did
+    not think it possible to face the terrible heat. His garments
+    were literally drenched with sweat which immediately dried into
+    steam. A fierce drain sucked at his strength. He could hardly
+    breathe, and could see only with difficulty. After a moment
+    Elliott and Ware, evidently somewhat refreshed, again took
+    hold.</p>
+
+    <p>How they stuck it out for that infernal half-hour Bob could
+    not have told, but stick it out they did. The flames gradually
+    died down; the heat grew less; the danger that the shrivelled
+    brush on the wrong side the fire line would be ignited by sheer
+    heat, vanished. The four men fell back. Their eyebrows and hair
+    were singed; their skin blackened. Bob's face felt sore, and as
+    though it had been stretched. He took a long pull at his
+    canteen. For the moment he felt as though his energy had all
+    been drained away.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that was a good little scrap," observed Charley
+    Morton cheerfully. "I certainly do wish it was always night
+    when a man had to fight fire. In a hot sun it gets to be hard
+    work."</p>
+
+    <p>Elliott rolled his eyes, curiously white like a minstrel's
+    in his blackened face, at Bob, but said nothing.</p>
+
+    <p>"We'll leave Elliott here to watch this a few minutes, and
+    go down the line," said Morton.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob lifted his canteen, and, to his surprise, found it
+    empty.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, I must have drunk a gallon!" he cried.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's dry work," said Morton.</p>
+
+    <p>They continued on down the fire line, pausing every once in
+    a while to rake and scrape leisurely at the heavy bark beneath
+    some blazing stub. The fierce, hard work was over. All along
+    the fire line from the dome of granite over the ridge down to
+    Granite Creek the fire had consumed all the light fuel on its
+    own side the defence. No further danger was to be apprehended
+    in the breaking across. But everywhere through the now
+    darkening forest blazed the standing trees. A wind would fill
+    the air with brands; and even in the present dead calm those
+    near the line were a threat.</p>
+
+    <p>The men traversed the fire line from end to end a half-dozen
+    times. Bob became acquainted individually and minutely with
+    each of the danger spots. The new temporary features of country
+    took on, from the effects of vigilance and toil, the dignity of
+    age and establishment. Anxiously he widened the path here,
+    kicked back glowing brands there, tried to assure himself that
+    in no possible manner could the seed of a new conflagration
+    find germination. After a long time he heard three shots from
+    up the mountain. This, he remarked, was a signal agreed upon.
+    He shouldered his blackened implements and commenced a
+    laborious ascent.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly he discovered that he was very tired, and that his
+    legs were weak and wobbly. Stubs and sticks protruded
+    everywhere; stones rolled from under his feet. Once on a steep
+    shale, he fell and rolled ten feet out of sheer weariness. In
+    addition he was again very thirsty, and his canteen empty. A
+    chill gray of dawn was abroad; the smell of stale burning hung
+    in the air.</p>
+
+    <p>By the time he had staggered into camp the daylight had
+    come. He glanced about him wearily. Across a tiny ravine the
+    horses dozed, tied each to a short picket rope. Bob was already
+    enough of a mountaineer to notice that the feed was very scant.
+    The camp itself had been made under a dozen big yellow pines. A
+    bright little fire flickered. About it stood utensils from
+    which the men were rather dispiritedly helping themselves. Bob
+    saw that the long pine needles had been scraped together to
+    make soft beds, over which the blankets had been spread. Amy
+    herself, her cheeks red, her eyes bright, was passing around
+    tin cups of strong coffee, and tin plates of food. Her horse,
+    saddled and bridled, stood nearby.</p>
+
+    <p>"Take a little of this," she urged Bob, "and then turn
+    in."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob muttered his thanks. After swallowing the coffee,
+    however, he felt his energies reviving somewhat.</p>
+
+    <p>"How did you leave things at the lower end?" Morton was
+    asking him.</p>
+
+    <p>"All out but two or three smouldering old stubs," replied
+    Bob. "Everything's safe."</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing's safe," contradicted Morton. "By rights we ought
+    to watch every minute. But we got to get some rest in a long
+    fight. It's the cool of the morning and the fire burns low.
+    Turn in and get all the sleep you can. May need you later."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm all in," acknowledged Bob, throwing back his blanket;
+    "I'm willing to say so."</p>
+
+    <p>"No more fire in mine," agreed young Elliott.</p>
+
+    <p>The other men said nothing, but fell to their beds. Only
+    Charley Morton rose a little stiffly to his feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Aren't you going to turn in too, Charley?" asked the girl
+    quickly.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's daylight now," explained the ranger, "and I can see to
+    ride a horse. I reckon I'd better ride down the line."</p>
+
+    <p>"I've thought of that," said Amy. "Of course, it wouldn't do
+    to let the fire take care of itself. See; I have Pronto
+    saddled. I'll look over the line, and if anything happens I'll
+    wake you."</p>
+
+    <p>"You must be about dead," said Charley. "You've been up all
+    night fixing camp and cooking----"</p>
+
+    <p>"Up all night!" repeated Amy scornfully. "How long do you
+    think it takes me to make camp and cook a simple little
+    breakfast?"</p>
+
+    <p>"But the country's almighty rough riding."</p>
+
+    <p>"On Pronto?"</p>
+
+    <p>"He's a good mountain pony," agreed Charley Morton;
+    "California John picked him out himself. All right. I do feel
+    some tired."</p>
+
+    <p>This was about six o'clock. The men had slept but a little
+    over an hour when Amy scrambled over the rim of the dike and
+    dropped from her horse.</p>
+
+    <p>"Charley!" she cried, shaking the ranger by the shoulder;
+    "I'm sorry. But there's fresh smoke about half-way down the
+    mountain. There was nothing left to burn fresh inside the fire
+    line, was there? I thought not."</p>
+
+    <p>Twenty minutes later all six were frantically digging,
+    hoeing, chopping, beating in a frenzy against the spread of the
+    flames. In some manner the fire had jumped the line. It might
+    have been that early in the fight a spark had lodged. As long
+    as the darkness of night held down the temperature, this spark
+    merely smouldered. When, however, the rays of the sun gathered
+    heat, it had burst into flame.</p>
+
+    <p>This sun made all the difference in the world. Where, in the
+    cool of the night, the flames had crept slowly, now they leaped
+    forward with a fierce crackling; green brush that would
+    ordinarily have resisted for a long time, now sprang into fire
+    at a touch. The conflagration spread from a single point in all
+    directions, running swiftly, roaring in a sheet of fire,
+    licking up all before it.</p>
+
+    <p>The work was fierce in its intensity. Bob, in common with
+    the others, had given up trying&mdash;or indeed caring&mdash;to
+    protect himself. His clothes smoked, his face smarted and
+    burned, his skin burned and blistered. He breathed the hot air
+    in gasps. Strangely enough, he did not feel in the least
+    tired.</p>
+
+    <p>He did not need to be told what to do. The only possible
+    defence was across a rock outcrop. To right and left of him the
+    other men were working desperately to tear out the brush. He
+    grubbed away trying to clear the pine needles and little bushes
+    that would carry the fire through the rocks like so many powder
+    fuses.</p>
+
+    <p>He had no time to see how the others were getting on; he
+    worked on faith. His own efforts were becoming successful. The
+    fire, trying, one after another, various leads through the
+    rocks, ran out of fuel and died. The infernal roaring furnace
+    below, however, leaped ever to new trial.</p>
+
+    <p>Then all at once Bob found himself temporarily out of the
+    game. In trying to roll a boulder out of the way, he caught his
+    hand. A sharp, lightning pain shot up his arm and into the
+    middle of his chest. When he had succeeded in extricating
+    himself, he found that his middle finger was squarely
+    broken.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VI"></a>
+
+    <h2>VI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob stood still for a moment, looking at the injured member.
+    Charley Morton touched him on the shoulder. When he looked up,
+    the ranger motioned him back. Casting a look of regret at his
+    half-completed defences, he obeyed. To his surprise he found
+    the other four already gathered together. Evidently his being
+    called off the work had nothing to do with his broken finger,
+    as he had at first supposed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I guess we'll have to fall back," said Morton
+    composedly. "It's got away from us."</p>
+
+    <p>Without further comment he shouldered his implements and
+    took his way up the hill. Bob handed his hoe and rake to Jack
+    Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>"Carry 'em a minute," he explained. "I hurt my hand a
+    little."</p>
+
+    <p>As he walked along he bound the finger roughly to its
+    neighbour, and on both tied a rude splint.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's up?" he muttered to Jack, as he worked at this.</p>
+
+    <p>"I reckon we must be goin' to start a fire line back of the
+    next cross-bridge somewheres," Jack ventured his opinion.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob stopped short.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then we've abandoned the old one!" he exclaimed.</p>
+
+    <p>"Complete," spoke up Ware, who overheard.</p>
+
+    <p>"And all the work we've done there is useless?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Absolutely."</p>
+
+    <p>"We've got it all to do over again from the beginning?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Certain sure."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob adjusted his mind to this new and rather overwhelming
+    idea.</p>
+
+    <p>"I saw Senator What's-his-name&mdash;from Montana&mdash;made
+    a speech the other day," spoke up Elliott, "in which he
+    attacked the Service because he said it was a refuge for
+    consumptives and incompetents!"</p>
+
+    <p>At this moment Amy rode up draped with canteens and
+    balancing carefully a steaming pail of coffee. She was
+    accompanied by another woman similarly provided.</p>
+
+    <p>The newcomer was a decided-looking girl under thirty, with a
+    full, strong figure, pronounced flaxen-blond hair, a clear
+    though somewhat sunburned skin, blue eyes, and a flash of
+    strong, white teeth. Bob had never seen her before, but he
+    recognized her as a mountain woman. She rode a pinto, guided by
+    a hackamore, and was attired quite simply in the universal
+    broad felt hat and a serviceable blue calico gown. In spite of
+    this she rode astride; and rode well. A throwing rope, or
+    riata, hung in the sling at the right side of her saddle
+    pommel; and it looked as though it had been used.</p>
+
+    <p>"Where's Charley?" she asked promptly as she rode up. "Is
+    that you? You look like a nigger. How you feeling? You just
+    mind me, and don't you try to do too much. You don't get paid
+    for overtime at this job."</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Lou," replied Charley Morton; "I thought it was
+    about time you showed up."</p>
+
+    <p>The woman nodded at the others.</p>
+
+    <p>"Howdy, Mrs. Morton," answered Tom Carroll, Pollock and
+    Ware. Bob and Elliott bowed.</p>
+
+    <p>By now the fire had been left far in the rear. The crackling
+    of flames had died in the distance; even the smoke cleared from
+    the atmosphere. All the forest was peaceful and cool. The
+    Douglas squirrels scampered and barked; the birds twittered and
+    flashed or slanted in long flight through the trees; the sun
+    shone soft; a cool breeze ruffled the feathery tips of the
+    tarweed.</p>
+
+    <p>At the top of the ridge Charley Morton called a halt.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is pretty easy country," said he. "We'll run the line
+    square down either side. Get busy."</p>
+
+    <p>"Have a cup of coffee first," urged Amy.</p>
+
+    <p>"Surely. Forgot that."</p>
+
+    <p>They drank the coffee, finding it good, and tucked away the
+    lunches Amy, with her unfailing forethought, had brought
+    them.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good-bye!" she called gaily; "I've got to get back to camp
+    before the fire cuts me off. I won't see you again till the
+    fire burns me out a way to get to you."</p>
+
+    <p>"Take my horse, too," said Mrs. Morton, dismounting. "You
+    don't need me in camp."</p>
+
+    <p>Amy took the lead rein and rode away as a matter of course.
+    She was quite alone to guard the horses and camp equipage on
+    the little knoll while the fire spent its fury all around her.
+    Everybody seemed to take the matter for granted; but Bob looked
+    after her with mingled feelings of anxiety and astonishment.
+    This Western breed of girl was still beyond his
+    comprehension.</p>
+
+    <p>The work was at once begun. In spite of the cruel throb of
+    his injured hand, Bob found the labour pleasant by sheer force
+    of contrast. The air was cool, the shade refreshing, the
+    frantic necessity of struggle absent. He raked carefully his
+    broad path among the pine needles, laying bare the brown earth;
+    hoed and chopped in the tarweed and brush. Several times
+    Charley Morton passed him. Each time the ranger paused for a
+    moment to advise him.</p>
+
+    <p>"You ought to throw your line farther back," he told Bob.
+    "See that 'dead-and-down' ahead? If you let that cross your
+    fire line, it'll carry the fire sooner or later, sure; and if
+    you curve your line too quick to go around it, the fire'll
+    jump. You want to keep your eye out 'way ahead."</p>
+
+    <p>Once Bob caught a glimpse of blue calico through the trees.
+    As he came nearer, he was surprised to see Mrs. Morton working
+    away stoutly with a hoe. Her skirts were turned back, her
+    sleeves rolled up to display a white and plump forearm, the
+    neck of her gown loosened to show a round and well-moulded
+    neck. The strokes of her hoe were as vigorous as those of any
+    of the men. In watching the strong, free movements of her body,
+    Bob forgot for a moment what had been intruding itself on him
+    with more and more insistance&mdash;the throb of his broken
+    hand.</p>
+
+    <p>In the course of an hour the fire line was well under way.
+    But now wisps of smoke began to drift down the tree aisles.
+    Birds shot past, at first by ones and twos, later in flocks. A
+    deer that must have lain perdu to let them pass bounded across
+    the ridge, his head high, his nostrils wide. The squirrels ran
+    chattering down the trees, up others, leaped across the gaps,
+    working always farther and farther to the north. The cool
+    breeze carried with it puffs of hot air. Finally in distant
+    openings could be discerned little busy, flickering flames. All
+    at once the thought gripped Bob hard: the might of the fire was
+    about to test the quality of his work!</p>
+
+    <p>"There she comes!" gasped Charley Morton. "My Lord, how
+    she's run to-day! We got to close the line to that stone
+    dike."</p>
+
+    <p>By one of the lightning transitions of motive with which
+    these activities seemed to abound, the affair had become a very
+    deadly earnest sort of race. It was simple. If the men could
+    touch the dike before the fire, they won.</p>
+
+    <p>The realization of this electrified even the weary spirits
+    of the fire-fighters. They redoubled their efforts. The hoes,
+    mattocks and axes rose and fell feverishly. Mrs. Morton, the
+    perspiration matting her beautiful and shining hair across her
+    forehead, laboured with the best. The fire, having gained the
+    upward-rising slope, came at them with the speed of an enemy
+    charging. Soon they were fairly choked by the dense clouds of
+    smoke, fairly scorched by the waves of heat. Sweat poured from
+    them in streams. Bob utterly forgot his wounded hand.</p>
+
+    <p>And then, when they were within a scant fifty yards of the
+    dike which was intended to be their right wing, the flames
+    sprang with a roar to new life. Up the slope they galloped,
+    whirled around the end of the fire line, and began eagerly to
+    lick up the tarweed and needles of the ridge-top.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob and Elliott uttered a simultaneous cry of dismay. The
+    victory had seemed fairly in their grasp. Now all chance of it
+    was snatched away.</p>
+
+    <p>"Poor guess," said Charley Morton. The men, without other
+    comment, shouldered their implements and set off on a dog-trot
+    after their leader. The ranger merely fell back to the next
+    natural barrier.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now, let's see if we can't hold her, boys," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Twice again that day were these scenes re&euml;nacted. The
+    same result obtained. Each time it seemed to Bob that he could
+    do no more. His hand felt as big as a pillow, and his whole arm
+    and shoulder ached. Besides this he was tired out. Amy had been
+    cut off from them by the fire. In two days they had had but an
+    hour's sleep. Water had long since given out on them. The sun
+    beat hot and merciless, assisting its kinsman, the fire. Bob
+    would, if left to himself, have given up the contest long
+    since. It seemed ridiculous that this little handful of men
+    should hope to arrest anything so mighty, so proud, so
+    magnificent as this great conflagration. As well expect a
+    colony of ants to stop a break in the levee. But Morton
+    continued to fall back as though each defeat were a matter of
+    course. He seemed unwearied, though beneath the smoke-black his
+    eyes were hollow. Mrs. Morton did her part with the rest,
+    strong as a man for all her feminine attraction, for all the
+    soft lines of her figure.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll drop back far enough this time," Charley muttered to
+    her, as they were thrown together in their last retreat. "Can't
+    seem to get far enough back!"</p>
+
+    <p>"There's too few of us to handle such a big fire," his wife
+    replied. "You can't do it with six men."</p>
+
+    <p>"Seven," amended Charley. "You're as good as any of us.
+    Don't you worry, Lou. Even if we don't stop her&mdash;and I
+    think we will&mdash;we're checking the run of her until we get
+    help. We're doing well. There's only two old fire-fighters in
+    the lot&mdash;you and me. All the rest is green hands. We're
+    doing almighty well."</p>
+
+    <p>Overhearing this Bob plucked up heart. These desperate
+    stands were not then so wasted as he had thought them. At least
+    the fire was checked at each defence&mdash;it was not permitted
+    to run wild over the country.</p>
+
+    <p>"We ought to get help before long," he said.</p>
+
+    <p>"To-morrow, I figure," replied Charley Morton. "The boys are
+    scattered wide, finishing odds and ends before coming in for
+    the Fourth. It'll be about impossible to get hold of any of 'em
+    except by accident. But they'll all come in for the
+    Fourth."</p>
+
+    <p>The next defence was successfully completed before the fire
+    reached it. Bob felt a sudden rush of most extraordinary and
+    vivifying emotion. A moment ago he had been ready to drop in
+    his tracks, indifferent whether the fire burned him as he lay.
+    Now he felt ready to go on forever. Bert Elliott found energy
+    enough to throw his hat into the air, while Jack shook his fist
+    at the advancing fire.</p>
+
+    <p>"We fooled him that time!" cried Elliott.</p>
+
+    <p>"Bet you!" growled Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>The other men and the woman stood leaning on the long
+    handles of their implements staring at the advancing
+    flames.</p>
+
+    <p>Morton aroused himself with an effort.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do your best boys," said he briefly. "There she comes.
+    Another hour will tell whether we've stopped her. Then we've
+    got to hold her. Scatter!"</p>
+
+    <p>The day had passed without anybody's being aware of the
+    fact. The cool of the evening was already falling, and the
+    fierceness of the conflagration was falling in accord.</p>
+
+    <p>They held the line until the flames had burned themselves
+    out against it. Then they took up their weary patrol. Last
+    night, when Bob was fresh, this part of fire-fighting had
+    seemed the hardest kind of hard work. Now, crippled and weary
+    as he was, in contrast to the day's greater labour, it had
+    become comparatively easy. About eight o'clock Amy, having
+    found a way through, appeared leading all the horses, saddled
+    and packed.</p>
+
+    <p>"You boys came a long way," she explained simply, "and I
+    thought I'd bring over camp."</p>
+
+    <p>She distributed food, and made trips down the fire line with
+    coffee.</p>
+
+    <p>In this manner the night passed. The line had been held. No
+    one had slept. Sunrise found Bob and Jack Pollock far down the
+    mountain. They were doggedly beating back some tiny flames. The
+    camp was a thousand feet above, and their canteens had long
+    been empty. Bob raised his weary eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>Out on a rock inside the burned area, like a sentinel cast
+    in bronze, stood a horseman. The light was behind him, so only
+    his outline could be seen. For a minute he stood there quite
+    motionless, looking. Then he moved forward, and another came up
+    behind him on the rock. This one advanced, and a third took his
+    place. One after the other, in single file, they came,
+    glittering in the sun, their long rakes and hoes slanted over
+    their shoulders like spears.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look!" gasped Bob weakly.</p>
+
+    <p>The two stood side by side spellbound. The tiny flames
+    licked past them in the tarweed; they did not heed. The
+    horsemen rode up, twenty strong. It seemed to Bob that they
+    said things, and shouted. Certainly a half-dozen leaped spryly
+    off their horses and in an instant had confined the escaping
+    fire. Somebody took Bob's hoe from him. A cheery voice shouted
+    in his ear:</p>
+
+    <p>"Hop along! You're through. We're on the job. Go back to
+    camp and take a sleep."</p>
+
+    <p>He and Pollock turned up the mountain. Bob felt stupid.
+    After he had gone a hundred feet, he realized he was thirsty,
+    and wondered why he had not asked for a drink. Then it came to
+    him that he might have borrowed a horse, but remembered thickly
+    after a long time the impassable dikes between him and
+    camp.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's why I didn't," he said aloud.</p>
+
+    <p>By this time it was too late to go back for the drink. He
+    did not care. The excitement and responsibility had drained
+    from him suddenly, leaving him a hollow shell.</p>
+
+    <p>They dragged themselves up the dike.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!" said
+    Pollock suddenly.</p>
+
+    <p>They stumbled and staggered on. A twig sufficed to trip
+    them. Pollock muttered between set teeth, over and over again,
+    his unvarying complaint: "I'd give a dollar and a half for a
+    drink of water!"</p>
+
+    <p>Finally, with a flicker of vitality, Bob's sense of humour
+    cleared for an instant.</p>
+
+    <p>"Not high enough," said he. "Make it two dollars, and maybe
+    some angel will hand you out a glass."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right," returned Pollock resentfully, "but I bet
+    there's some down in that hollow; and I'm going to see!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I wouldn't climb down there for a million drinks," said
+    Bob; "I'll sit down and wait for you."</p>
+
+    <p>Pollock climbed down, found his water, drank. He filled the
+    canteen and staggered back up the steep climb.</p>
+
+    <p>"Here you be," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob seized the canteen and drank deep. When he took breath,
+    he said:</p>
+
+    <p>"Thank you, Jack. That was an awful climb back."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right," nodded Jack shortly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, come on," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"The hell!" muttered Jack, and fell over sound asleep.</p>
+
+    <p>An hour later Bob felt himself being shaken violently. He
+    stirred and advanced a little way toward the light, then
+    dropped back like a plummet into the abysses of sleep.
+    Afterward he recalled a vague, half-conscious impression of
+    being lifted on a horse. Possibly he managed to hang on;
+    possibly he was held in the saddle&mdash;that he never
+    knew.</p>
+
+    <p>The next thing he seemed conscious of was the flicker of a
+    camp-fire, and the soft feel of blankets. It was night, but how
+    it came to be so he could not imagine. He was very stiff and
+    sore and burned, and his hand was very painful. He moved it,
+    and discovered, to his vast surprise, that it was bound
+    tightly. When this bit of surgery had been performed he could
+    not have told.</p>
+
+    <p>He opened his eyes. Amy and Mrs. Morton were bending over
+    cooking utensils. Five motionless forms reposed in blankets.
+    Bob counted them carefully. After some moments it occurred to
+    his dulled brain that the number represented his companions.
+    Some one on horseback seemed to be arriving. A glitter of
+    silver caught his eye. He recognized finally California John.
+    Then he dozed off again. The sound of voices rumbled through
+    the haze of his half-consciousness.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fifty hours of steady fire-fighting with only an hour's
+    sleep!" he caught Thorne's voice saying.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob took this statement into himself. He computed painfully
+    over and over. He could not make the figures. He counted the
+    hours one after the other. Finally he saw.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fifty hours for all but Pollock and me," he said suddenly;
+    "forty for us."</p>
+
+    <p>No one heard him. As a matter of fact, he had not spoken
+    aloud; though he thought he had done so.</p>
+
+    <p>"We found the two of them curled up together," he next heard
+    Thorne say. "Orde was coiled around a sharp root&mdash;and
+    didn't know it, and Pollock was on top of him. They were out in
+    the full sun, and a procession of red ants was disappearing up
+    Orde's pants leg and coming out at his collar. Fact!"</p>
+
+    <p>"They're a good lot," admitted California John. "Best
+    unbroke lot I ever saw."</p>
+
+    <p>"We found Orde's finger broken and badly swelled. Heaven
+    knows when he did it, but he never peeped. Morton says he
+    noticed his hand done up in a handkerchief yesterday
+    morning."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob dozed again. From time to time he caught
+    fragments&mdash;"Four fire-lines&mdash;think of it&mdash;only
+    one old-timer in the lot&mdash;I'm proud of my boys----"</p>
+
+    <p>He came next to full consciousness to hear Thorne
+    saying:</p>
+
+    <p>"Mrs. Morton fought fire with the best of them. That's the
+    ranger spirit I like&mdash;when as of old the women and
+    children----"</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't praise me," broke in Mrs. Morton tartly. "I don't
+    give a red cent for all your forests, and your pesky rangering.
+    I've got no use for them. If Charley Morton would quit you and
+    tend to his cattle, I'd be pleased. I didn't fight fire to help
+    you, let me tell you."</p>
+
+    <p>"What did you do it for?" asked Thorne, evidently
+    amused.</p>
+
+    <p>"I knew I couldn't get Charley Morton home and in bed and
+    <i>resting</i> until that pesky fire was <i>out</i>; that's
+    why!" shot back Mrs. Morton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, Mrs. Morton," said Thorne composedly, "if you're ever
+    fixed so sass will help you out, you'll find it a very valuable
+    quality."</p>
+
+    <p>Then Bob fell into a deep sleep.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>On returning to headquarters, as Bob was naturally somewhat
+    incapacitated for manual work, he was given the fire patrol.
+    This meant that every day he was required to ride to four
+    several "lookouts" on the main ridge, from which points he
+    could spy abroad carefully over vast stretches of mountainous
+    country. One of these was near the meadow of the cold spring
+    whence the three of them had first caught sight of the Granite
+    Creek fire. Thence he turned sharp to the north along the ridge
+    top. The trail led among great trees that dropped away to right
+    and left on the slopes of the mountain. Through them he caught
+    glimpses of the blue distance, or far-off glittering snow, or
+    unexpected ca&ntilde;on depths. The riding was smooth, over
+    undulating knolls. Every once in a while passing through a
+    "<i>puerto suelo</i>," he looked on either side to tiny green
+    meadows, from which streams were born. Occasionally he saw a
+    deer, or more likely small bands of the wild mountain cattle
+    that swung along before him, heads held high, eyes staring,
+    nostrils expanded. Then Bob felt his pony's muscles stiffen
+    beneath his thighs, and saw the animal's little ears prick
+    first forward at the cattle, then back for his master's
+    commands.</p>
+
+    <p>After three miles of this he came out on a broad plateau
+    formed by the joining of his ridge with that of the Baldy
+    range. Here Granite Creek itself rose, and the stream that
+    flowed by the mill. It was a country of wild, park-like vistas
+    between small pines, with a floor of granite and shale. Over it
+    frowned the steeps of Baldy, with its massive domes, its sheer
+    precipices, and its scant tree-growth clinging to its sides.
+    Against the sky it looked very rugged, very old, very
+    formidable; and the sky, behind its yellowed age, was
+    inconceivably blue.</p>
+
+    <p>Sometimes Bob rode up into the pass. More often he tied his
+    horse and took the steep rough trail afoot. The way was guarded
+    by strange, distorted trees, and rocks carved into fantastic
+    shapes. Some of them were piled high like temples. Others,
+    round and squat, resembled the fat and obscene deities of
+    Eastern religions. There were seals and elephants and
+    crocodiles and allegorical monsters, some of them as tiny as
+    the grotesque Japanese carvings, others as stupendous as Egypt.
+    The trail led by them, among them, between them. At their feet
+    clutched snowbush, ground juniper, the gnarled fingers of
+    manza&ntilde;ita, like devotees. A foaming little stream crept
+    and plunged over bare and splintered rocks. Twisted junipers
+    and the dwarf pines of high elevations crouched like malignant
+    gnomes amongst the boulders, or tossed their arms like witches
+    on the crags. This bold and splintered range rose from the
+    softness and mystery of the great pine woods on the lower ridge
+    as a rock rises above cool water.</p>
+
+    <p>The pass itself was not over fifty feet wide. Either side of
+    it like portals were the high peaks. It lay like the notch of a
+    rifle sight between them. Once having gained the tiny platform,
+    Bob would sit down and look abroad over the wonderful
+    Sierra.</p>
+
+    <p>Never did he tire of this. At one eye-glance he could
+    comprehend a summer's toilsome travel. To reach yonder snowy
+    peak would consume the greater part of a week. Unlike the Swiss
+    alps, which he had once visited, these mountains were not only
+    high, but wide as well. They had the whole of blue space in
+    which to lie. They were like the stars, for when Bob had
+    convinced himself that his eye had settled on the farthest
+    peak, then still farther, taking half-guessed iridescent form
+    out of the blue, another shone.</p>
+
+    <p>But his business was not with these distances. Almost below
+    him, so precipitous is the easterly slope of Baldy, lay
+    ca&ntilde;ons, pine forests, lesser ridges, streams, the green
+    of meadows. Patiently, piece by piece, he must go over all
+    this, watching for that faint blue haze, that deepening of the
+    atmosphere, that almost imagined pearliness against the distant
+    hills which meant new fire.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't look for <i>smoke</i>," California John had told him.
+    "When a fire gets big enough for smoke, you can't help but see
+    it. It's the new fire you want to spot before it gets started.
+    Then it's easy handled. And new fire's almighty easy to
+    overlook. Sometimes it's as hard for a greenhorn to see as a
+    deer. Look close!"</p>
+
+    <p>So Bob, concentrating his attention, looked close. When he
+    had satisfied himself, he turned square around.</p>
+
+    <p>From this point of view he saw only pine forests. They
+    covered the ridge below him like a soft green mantle thrown
+    down in folds. They softened the more distant ranges. They
+    billowed and eddied, and dropped into unguessed depths, and
+    came bravely up to eyesight again far away. At last they seemed
+    to change colour abruptly, and a brown haze overcast them
+    through which glimmered a hint of yellow. This Bob knew was the
+    plain, hot and brown under the July sun. It rose dimly through
+    the mist to the height of his eye. Thus, even at eight thousand
+    feet, Bob seemed to stand in the cup of the earth, beneath the
+    cup of the sky.</p>
+
+    <p>The other two lookouts were on the edge of the lower ridge.
+    They gave an opportunity of examining various coves and valleys
+    concealed by the shoulder of the ridge from the observer on
+    Baldy. To reach them Bob rode across the plateau of the ridge,
+    through the pine forests, past the mill.</p>
+
+    <p>Here, if the afternoon was not too far advanced, he used to
+    allow himself the luxury of a moment's chat with some of his
+    old friends. Welton, coat off, his burly face perspiring and
+    red, always greeted him jovially.</p>
+
+    <p>"Spend all your salary this month?" he would ask. "Does the
+    business keep you occupied?" And once or twice, seriously,
+    "Bob, haven't you had enough of this confounded nonsense?
+    You're getting too old to find any great fun riding around in
+    this kid fashion pretending to do things. There's big business
+    to be done in this country, and we need you boys to help. When
+    I was a youngster I'd have jumped hard at half the chance
+    that's offered you."</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob never would answer seriously. He knew this to be his
+    only chance of avoiding even a deeper misunderstanding between
+    himself and this man whom he had learned to admire and
+    love.</p>
+
+    <p>Once he met Baker. That young man greeted him as gaily as
+    ever, but into his manner had crept the shadow of a cold
+    contempt. The stout youth's standards were his own, and rigid,
+    as is often the case with people of his type. Bob felt himself
+    suddenly and ruthlessly excluded from the ranks of those worthy
+    of Baker's respect. A hard quality of character, hitherto
+    unsuspected, stared from the fat young man's impudent blue
+    eyes. Baker was perfectly polite, and suitably jocular; but he
+    had not much time for Bob; and soon plunged into a deep
+    discussion with Welton from which Bob was unmistakably
+    excluded.</p>
+
+    <p>On one occasion, too, he encountered Oldham riding down the
+    trail from headquarters. The older man had nodded to him
+    curtly. His eyes had gleamed through his glasses with an
+    ill-concealed and frosty amusement, and his thin lips had
+    straightened to a perceptible sneer. All at once Bob divined an
+    enemy. He could not account for this, as he had never dealt
+    with the man; and the accident of his discovering the gasoline
+    pump on the Lucky Land Company's creeks could hardly be
+    supposed to account for quite so malignant a triumph. Next time
+    Bob saw Welton, he asked his old employer about it.</p>
+
+    <p>"What have I ever done to Oldham?" he inquired. "Do you
+    know?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Oldham?" repeated Welton.</p>
+
+    <p>"Baker's land agent."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, yes. I never happened to run across him. Don't know him
+    at all."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob put down Oldham's manifest hatred to pettiness of
+    disposition.</p>
+
+    <p>Even from Merker, the philosophic storekeeper, Bob obtained
+    scant comfort.</p>
+
+    <p>"Men like you, with ability, youth, energy," said Merker,
+    "producing nothing, just conserving, saving. Conditions should
+    be such that the possibility of fire, of trespass, of all you
+    fellows guard against, should be eliminated. Then you could
+    supply steam, energy, accomplishment, instead of being merely
+    the lubrication. It's an economic waste."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob left the mill-yards half-depressed, half-amused. All his
+    people had become alien. He opposed them in nothing, his work
+    in no way interfered with their activities; yet, without his
+    volition, and probably without their realization, he was
+    already looked upon as one to be held at arms' length. It
+    saddened Bob, as it does every right-thinking young man when he
+    arrives at setting up his own standards of conduct and his own
+    ways of life. He longed with a great longing, which at the same
+    time he realized to be hopeless, to make these people feel as
+    he felt. It gave him real pain to find that his way of life
+    could never gain anything beyond disapproval or
+    incomprehension. It took considerable fortitude to conclude
+    that he now must build his own structure, unsupported. He was
+    entering the loneliness of soul inseparable from complete
+    manhood.</p>
+
+    <p>After such disquieting contacts, the more uncomfortable in
+    that they defied analysis, Bob rode out to the last lookout and
+    gazed abroad over the land. The pineclad bluff fell away nearly
+    four thousand feet. Below him the country lay spread like a
+    relief map&mdash;valley, lesser ranges, foothills, far-off
+    plain, the green of trees, the brown of grass and harvest, the
+    blue of glimpsed water, the haze of heat and great distance,
+    the thread-like gossamer of roads, the half-guessed shimmer of
+    towns and cities in the mirage of summer, all the opulence of
+    earth and the business of human activity. Millions dwelt in
+    that haze, and beyond them, across the curve of the earth,
+    hundreds of millions more, each actuated by its own selfishness
+    or charity, by its own conception of the things nearest it. Not
+    one in a multitude saw or cared beyond the immediate, nor
+    bothered his head with what it all meant, or whether it meant
+    anything. Bob, sitting on his motionless horse high up there in
+    the world, elevated above it all, in an isolation of pines,
+    close under his sky, bent his ear to the imagined faint humming
+    of the spheres. Affairs went on. The machine fulfilled its
+    function. All things had their place, the evil as well as the
+    good, the waste as well as the building, balancing like the
+    governor of an engine the opposition of forces. He saw, by the
+    soft flooding of light, rather than by any flash of insight,
+    that were the shortsightedness, the indifference, the
+    ignorance, the crass selfishness to be eliminated before yet
+    the world's work was done, the energies of men, running too
+    easily, would outstrip the development of the Plan, as a
+    machine "races" without its load. A humility came to him. His
+    not to judge his fellows by the mere externals of their deeds.
+    He could only act honestly according to what he saw, as he
+    hoped others were doing.</p>
+
+    <p>"Just so a man isn't <i>mean</i>, I don't know as I have any
+    right to despise him," he summed it all up to his horse. "But,"
+    he added cheerfully, "that doesn't prevent my kicking him into
+    the paths of righteousness if he tries to steal my watch."</p>
+
+    <p>The sun dipped toward the heat haze of the plains. It was
+    from a golden world that Bob turned at last to ride through the
+    forest to the cheerfulness of his rude camp.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="VIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>VIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Bob took his examinations, passed successfully, and was at
+    once appointed as ranger. Thorne had no intention of neglecting
+    the young man's ability. After his arduous apprenticeship at
+    all sorts of labour, Bob found himself specializing. This, he
+    discovered, was becoming more and more the tendency in the
+    personnel of the Service. Jack Pollock already was being sent
+    far afield, looking into grazing conditions, reporting on the
+    state of the range, the advisable number of cattle, the
+    trespass cases. He had a natural aptitude for that sort of
+    thing. Ware, on the other hand, developed into a mighty
+    builder. Nothing pleased him more than to discover new ways
+    through the country, to open them up, to blast and dig and
+    construct his trails, to nose out bridge sites and on them to
+    build spans hewn from the material at hand. He made himself a
+    set of stencils and with them signed all the forks of the
+    trails, so that a stranger could follow the routes. Always he
+    painstakingly added the letters U.S.F.S. to indicate that these
+    works had been done by his beloved Service. Charley Morton was
+    the fire chief&mdash;though any and all took a hand at that
+    when occasion arose. He could, as California John expressed it,
+    run a fire out on a rocky point and lose it there better than
+    any other man on the force. Ross Fletcher was the best
+    policeman. He knew the mountains, their infinite labyrinths,
+    better than any other; and he could guess the location of sheep
+    where another might have searched all summer.</p>
+
+    <p>Though each and every man was kept busy enough, and to
+    spare, on all the varied business inseparable from the
+    activities of a National Forest, nevertheless Thorne knew
+    enough to avail himself of these especial gifts and likings.
+    So, early in the summer he called in Bob and Elliott.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now," he told them, "we have plenty of work to do, and you
+    boys must buckle into it as you see fit. But this is what I
+    want you to keep in the back of your mind: someday the National
+    Forests are going to supply a great part of the timber in the
+    country. It's too early yet. There's too much private timber
+    standing, which can be cut without restriction. But when that
+    is largely reduced, Uncle Sam will be going into the lumber
+    business on a big scale. Even now we will be selling a few
+    shake trees, and some small lots, and occasionally a bigger
+    piece to some of the lumbermen who own adjoining timber. We've
+    got to know what we have to sell. For instance, there's eighty
+    acres in there surrounded by Welton's timber. When he comes to
+    cut, it might pay us and him to sell the ripe trees off that
+    eighty."</p>
+
+    <p>"I doubt if he'd think it would pay," Bob interposed.</p>
+
+    <p>"He might. I think the Chief will ease up a little on
+    cutting restrictions before long. You've simply got to
+    over-emphasize a matter at first to make it carry."</p>
+
+    <p>"You mean----?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I mean--this is only my private opinion, you
+    understand&mdash;that lumbering has been done so wastefully and
+    badly that it has been necessary, merely as education, to go to
+    the other extreme. We've insisted on chopping and piling the
+    tops like cordwood, and cutting up the down trunks of trees,
+    and generally 'parking' the forest simply to get the idea into
+    people's heads. They'd never thought of such things before. I
+    don't believe it's necessary to go to such extremes,
+    practically; and I don't believe the Service will demand it
+    when it comes actually to do business."</p>
+
+    <p>Elliott and Bob looked at each other a little
+    astonished.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mind you, I don't talk this way outside; and I don't want
+    you to do so," pursued Thorne. "But when you come right down to
+    it, all that's necessary is to prevent fire from
+    running&mdash;and, of course, to leave a few seed-trees. Yo'
+    can keep fire from running just as well by piling the debris in
+    isolated heaps, as by chopping it up and stacking it. And it's
+    a lot cheaper."</p>
+
+    <p>He leaned forward.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's coming," he continued. "Now you, Elliott, have had
+    as thorough a theoretical education as the schools can give
+    you; and you, Orde, have had a lot of practical experience in
+    logging. You ought to make a good pair. Here's a map of the
+    Government holdings hereabouts. What I want is a working plan
+    for every forty, together with a topographical description, an
+    estimate of timber, and a plan for the easiest method of
+    logging it. There's no hurry about it; you can do it when
+    nothing else comes up to take you away. But do it thoroughly,
+    and to the best of your judgment, so I can file your reports
+    for future reference when they are needed."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where do you want us to begin?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Welton is the only big operator," Thorpe pointed out, "so
+    you'd better look over the timber adjoining or surrounded by
+    his. Then the basin and ranges above the Power Company are
+    important. There's a fine body of timber there, but we must cut
+    it with a more than usual attention to water supplies."</p>
+
+    <p>This work Bob and Elliott found most congenial. They would
+    start early in the morning, carrying with them their compass on
+    its Jacob's-staff, their chain, their field notes, their maps
+    and their axes. Arrived at the scene of operations, they
+    unsaddled and picketed their horses. Then commenced a search
+    for the "corner," established nearly fifty years before by the
+    dead and gone surveyor, a copy of those field notes now guided
+    them. This was no easy matter. The field notes described
+    accurately the location, but in fifty years the character of a
+    country may change. Great trees fall, new trees grow up, brush
+    clothes an erstwhile bare hillside, fire denudes a slope, even
+    the rocks and boulders shift their places under the coercion of
+    frost or avalanche. The young men separated, shoulder deep in
+    the high brakes and alders of a creek bottom, climbing tiny
+    among great trees on the open slope of a distant hill,
+    clambering busily among austere domes and pinnacles, fading in
+    the cool green depths of the forest. Finally one would shout
+    loudly. The other scrambled across.</p>
+
+    <p>"Here we are," Bob said, pointing to the trunk of a huge
+    yellow pine.</p>
+
+    <p>On it showed a wrinkle in the bark, only just
+    appreciable.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's our line blaze," said Bob. "Let's see if we can
+    find it in the notes." He opened his book. "'Small creek three
+    links wide, course SW,'" he murmured. "'Sugar pine, 48 in.
+    dia., on line, 48 links.' That's not it. 'Top of ridge 34 ch. 6
+    1. course NE.' Now we come to the down slope. Here we are!
+    'Yellow pine 20 in. dia., on line, 50 chains.' Twenty inches!
+    Well, old fellow, you've grown some since! Let's see your
+    compass, Elliott."</p>
+
+    <p>Having thus cut the line, they established their course and
+    went due north, spying sharply for the landmarks and old blazes
+    as mentioned in the surveyor's field notes.</p>
+
+    <p>When they had gone about the required distance, they began
+    to look for the corner. After some search, Elliott called Bob's
+    attention to a grown-over blaze.</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess this is our witness tree," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Without a word Bob began to chop above and below the wrinkle
+    in the bark. After ten minutes careful work, he laid aside a
+    thick slab of wood. The inner surface of this was shiny with
+    pitch. The space from which it had peeled was also coated with
+    the smooth substance. This pitch had filmed over the old blaze,
+    protecting it against the new wood and bark which had gradually
+    grown over it. Thus, although the original blaze had been
+    buried six inches in the living white pine wood, nevertheless
+    the lettering was as clear and sharp as when it had been carved
+    fifty years before. Furthermore, the same lettering, only
+    reversed and in relief, showed on the thick slab that Bob had
+    peeled away. So the tree had preserved the record in its
+    heart.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now let's see," said Bob. "This witness bears S 80 W. Let's
+    find another."</p>
+
+    <p>This proved to be no great matter. Sighting the given
+    directions from the two, they converged on the corner. This was
+    described by the old surveyor as: "Oak post, 4 in. dia., set in
+    pile of rocks," etc. The pile of rocks was now represented by
+    scattered stones; and the oak post had long since rotted. Bob,
+    however, unearthed a fragment on which ran a single grooved
+    mark. It was like those made by borers in dead limbs. Were it
+    not for one circumstance, the searchers would not have been
+    justified in assuming that it was anything else. But, as Bob
+    pointed out, the passageways made by borers are never straight.
+    The fact that this was so, established indisputably that it had
+    been made by the surveyor's steel "scribe."</p>
+
+    <p>Having thus located a corner, it was an easy matter to
+    determine the position of a tract of land. At first hazy in its
+    general configuration and extent, it took definition as the
+    young men progressed with the accurate work of timber
+    estimating. Before they had finished with it, they knew every
+    little hollow, ridge, ravine, rock and tree in it. Out of the
+    whole vast wilderness this one small patch had become
+    thoroughly known.</p>
+
+    <p>The work was the most pleasant of any Bob had ever
+    undertaken. It demanded accuracy, good judgment, knowledge. It
+    did not require feverish haste. The surroundings were
+    wonderfully beautiful; and if the men paused in their work, as
+    they often did, the spirit of the woods, which as always had
+    drawn aside from the engrossments of human activity, came
+    closer as with fluttering of wings. Sometimes, nervous and
+    impatient from the busy, tiny clatter of facts and figures and
+    guesses, from the restless shuttle-weaving of estimates and
+    plans, Bob looked up suddenly into a deathless and eternal
+    peace. Like the cool green refreshment of waters it closed over
+    him. When he again came to the surface-world of his occupation,
+    he was rested and slowed down to a respectable patience.</p>
+
+    <p>Elliott was good company, interested in the work, well-bred,
+    intelligent, eager to do his share&mdash;an ideal companion. He
+    and Bob discussed many affairs during their rides to and from
+    the work and during the interims of rest. As time went on, and
+    the tracts to be estimated and plotted became more distant,
+    they no longer attempted to return at night to Headquarters.
+    Small meadows offered them resting places for the day or the
+    week. They became expert in taking care of themselves so
+    expeditiously that the process stole little time from their
+    labours. On Saturday afternoon they rode to headquarters to
+    report, and to spend Sunday.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="IX"></a>
+
+    <h2>IX</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Toward the end of the season they had worked well past the
+    main ridge on which were situated Welton's operations and the
+    Service Headquarters. Several deep ca&ntilde;ons and rocky
+    peaks, by Thorne's instructions, they skipped over as only
+    remotely available as a timber supply. This brought them to the
+    ample circle of a basin, well-timbered, wide, containing an
+    unusual acreage of gently sloping or rolling table-land. Behind
+    this rose the spurs of the Range. A half-hundred streams here
+    had their origin. These converged finally in the Forks, which,
+    leaping and plunging steadily downward from a height of over
+    six thousand feet, was trapped and used again and again to turn
+    the armatures of Baker's dynamos. After serving this purpose at
+    six power houses strung down the contour line of its descent,
+    the water was deflected into wide, deep ditches which forked
+    and forked again until a whole plains province was rendered
+    fertile and productive by irrigation.</p>
+
+    <p>All this California John, who rode over to show them some
+    corners, explained to them. They sat on the rim of the basin
+    overlooking it as it lay below them like a green cup.</p>
+
+    <p>"You can see the whole of her from here," said California
+    John, "and that's why we use this for fire lookout. It saves a
+    heap of riding, for let me tell you it's a long ways down this
+    bluff. But you bet we keep a close watch on this Basin. It's
+    the most valuable, as a watershed, of any we've got. This is
+    about the only country we've managed to throw a fire-break
+    around yet. It took a lot of time to do it, but it's worth
+    while."</p>
+
+    <p>"This is where the Power Company gets its power," remarked
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," replied California John, drily. "Which same company
+    is putting up the fight of its life in Congress to keep from
+    payin' anything at all for what it gets."</p>
+
+    <p>They gave themselves to the task of descending into the
+    Basin by a steep and rough trail. At the end of an hour, their
+    horses stepped from the side of the hill to a broad, pleasant
+    flat on which the tall trees grew larger than any Bob had seen
+    on the ridge.</p>
+
+    <p>"What magnificent timber!" he cried. "How does it happen
+    this wasn't taken up long ago?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," said California John, "a good share of it <i>is</i>
+    claimed by the Power Company; and unless you come up the way we
+    did, you don't see it. From below, all this looks like part of
+    the bald ridge. Even if a cruiser in the old days happened to
+    look down on this, he wouldn't realize how good it was unless
+    he came down to it&mdash;it's all just trees from above. And in
+    those days there were lots of trees easier to come at."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's great timber!" repeated Bob. "That 'sugar's' eight
+    feet through if it's an inch!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Nearer nine," said California John.</p>
+
+    <p>"It'll be some years' work to estimate and plot all this,"
+    mused Bob. "If it's so important a watershed, what do they
+    <i>want</i> it plotted for? They'll never want to cut it."</p>
+
+    <p>"There ain't so much of it left, as you'll see when you look
+    at your map. The Power Company owns most. Anyway, government
+    cutting won't hurt the watershed," stated California John.</p>
+
+    <p>As they rode forward through the trees, a half-dozen deer
+    jumped startled from a clump of low brush and sped away.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's more deer than I've seen in a bunch since I left
+    Michigan," observed Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Nobody ever gets into this place," explained California
+    John. "There ain't been a fire here in years, and we don't none
+    of us have any reason to ride down. She's too hard to get out
+    of, and we can see her too well from the lookout. The rest of
+    the country feels pretty much the same way."</p>
+
+    <p>"How about sheep?" inquired Elliott.</p>
+
+    <p>"They got to get in over some trail, if they get in at all,"
+    California John pointed out, "and we can circle the Basin."</p>
+
+    <p>By now they were riding over a bed of springy pine needles
+    through a magnificent open forest. Undergrowth absolutely
+    lacked; even the soft green of the bear clover was absent. The
+    straight columns of the trees rose grandly from a swept floor.
+    Only where tiny streams trickled and sang through rocks and
+    shallow courses, grew ferns and the huge leaves of the
+    saxifrage. In this temple-like austerity dwelt a silence
+    unusual to the Sierra forests. The lack of undergrowth and
+    younger trees implied a scarcity of insects; and this condition
+    meant an equal scarcity of birds. Only the creepers and the
+    great pileated woodpeckers seemed to inhabit these truly
+    cloistral shades. The breeze passed through branches too
+    elevated to permit its whisperings to be heard. The very sound
+    of the horses' hoofs was muffled in the thick carpet of pine
+    needles.</p>
+
+    <p>California John led them sharp to the right, however, and in
+    a few moments they emerged to cheerful sunlight, alders, young
+    pines among the old, a leaping flashing stream of some size,
+    and multitudes of birds, squirrels, insects and
+    butterflies.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's a meadow, and a good camping place just up-stream,"
+    said he. "It's easy riding. You'd better spread your blankets
+    there. Now, here's the corner to 34. We re&euml;stablished it
+    four years ago, so as to have <i>something</i> to go by in this
+    country. You can find your way about from there. That bold
+    cliff of rock you see just through the trees there you can
+    climb. From the top you can make out the lookout. If you're
+    wanted at headquarters we'll hang out a signal. That will save
+    a hard ride down. Let's see; how long you got grub for?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess there's enough to last us ten days or so," replied
+    Elliott.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, if you keep down this stream until you strike a big
+    bald slide rock, you'll run into an old trail that takes you to
+    the Flats. It's pretty old, and it ain't blazed, but you can
+    make it out if you'll sort of keep track of the country. It
+    ain't been used for years."</p>
+
+    <p>California John, anxious to make a start at the hard climb,
+    now said good-bye and started back. Bob and Elliott, their pack
+    horse following, rode up the flat through which ran the river.
+    They soon found the meadow. It proved to be a beautiful spot,
+    surrounded by cedars, warm with the sun, bright with colour,
+    alive with birds. A fringe of azaleas, cottonwoods and quaking
+    asps screened it completely from all that lay outside its
+    charmed circle. A cheerful blue sky spread its canopy overhead.
+    Here Bob and Elliott turned loose their horses and made their
+    camp. After lunch they lay on their backs and smoked. Through a
+    notch in the trees showed a very white mountain against a very
+    blue sky. The sun warmed them gratefully. Birds sang. Squirrels
+    scampered. Their horses stood dozing, ears and head
+    down-drooped, eyes half-closed, one hind leg tucked up.</p>
+
+    <p>"Confound it!" cried Elliott suddenly, following his
+    unspoken thought. "I feel like a bad little boy stealing jam!
+    By night I'll be scared. If those woods over behind that screen
+    aren't full of large, dignified gods that disapprove of me
+    being so cheerful and contented and light-minded and frivolous,
+    I miss my guess!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Same here!" said Bob with, a short laugh. "Let's get
+    busy."</p>
+
+    <p>They started out that very afternoon from the corner
+    California John had showed them. It took all that day and most
+    of the following to define and blaze the boundaries of the
+    first tract they intended to estimate. In the accomplishment of
+    this they found nothing out of the ordinary; but when they
+    began to move forward across the forty, they were soon brought
+    to a halt by the unexpected.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here!" Bob shouted to his companion; "here's a brand
+    new corner away off the line."</p>
+
+    <p>Elliott came over. Bob showed him a stake set neatly in a
+    pile of rocks.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's not a very old one, either," said Bob. "Now what do
+    you make of that?"</p>
+
+    <p>Elliott had been spying about him.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's another just like it over on the hill," said he. "I
+    should call it the stakes of a mining claim. There ought to be
+    a notice somewhere."</p>
+
+    <p>They looked about and soon came across the notice in
+    question. It was made out in the name of a man neither Bob nor
+    Elliott had ever heard of before.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose that's his ledge," remarked Elliott, kicking a
+    little outcrop, "but it looks like mighty slim mining to
+    me!"</p>
+
+    <p>They proceeded with their estimating. In due time they came
+    upon another mining claim, and then a third.</p>
+
+    <p>"This is getting funny!" remarked Elliott. "Looks as though
+    somebody expected to make a strike for fair. More timber than
+    mineral here, I should say."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's it!" cried Bob, slapping his leg; "I'd just about
+    forgotten! This must be what Baker was talking about one
+    evening over at camp. He had some scheme for getting some
+    timber and water rights somewhere under the mineral act. I
+    didn't pay so very much attention to it at the time, and it had
+    slipped my mind. But this must be it!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you mean to say that any man was going to take this
+    beautiful timber away from us on that kind of a
+    technicality?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I believe that's just what he did."</p>
+
+    <p>Two days later Elliott straightened his back after a squint
+    through the compass sights to exclaim:</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish we had a dog!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why?" laughed Bob. "Can't you eat your share?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've a feeling that somebody's hanging around these woods;
+    I've had it ever since we got here. And just now while I was
+    looking through the sights I thought I saw something&mdash;you
+    know how the sights will concentrate your gaze."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's these big woods," said Bob; "I've had the same hunch
+    before. Besides, you can easily look for tracks along your line
+    of sights."</p>
+
+    <p>They did so, but found nothing.</p>
+
+    <p>"But among these rocks a man needn't leave any tracks if he
+    didn't want to," Elliott pointed out.</p>
+
+    <p>"The bogy-man's after you," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>Elliott laughed. Nevertheless, as the work progressed, from
+    time to time he would freeze to an attitude of listening.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's like feeling that there's somebody else in a dark room
+    with you," he told Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll end by giving me the willy-willies, too," complained
+    Bob. "I'm beginning to feel the same way. Quit it!"</p>
+
+    <p>By the end of the week it became necessary to go to town
+    after more supplies. Bob volunteered. He saddled his riding
+    horse and the pack animal, and set forth. Following California
+    John's directions he traced the length of the river through the
+    basin to the bald rock where the old trail was said to begin.
+    Here he anticipated some difficulty in picking up the trail,
+    and more in following it. To his surprise he ran immediately
+    into a well-defined path.</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, this is as plain as a strip of carpet!" muttered</p>
+
+    <p>Bob to himself. "If this is his idea of a dim trail, I'd
+    like to see a good one!"</p>
+
+    <p>He had not ridden far, however, before, in crossing a tiny
+    trickle of water, he could not fail to notice a clear-cut,
+    recent hoof print. The mark was that of a barefoot horse. Bob
+    stared at it.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now if I were real <i>good</i>," he reflected, "like old
+    what-you-may-call-him&mdash;the Arabian Sherlock
+    Holmes&mdash;I'd be able to tell whether this horse was loose
+    and climbing for pasture, or carrying a rider, and if so,
+    whether the rider had ever had his teeth filled. There's been a
+    lot of travel on this trail, anyway. I wonder where it all went
+    to?" He paused irresolutely. "It isn't more than two jumps back
+    to the rock," he decided; "I'll just find out what direction
+    they take anyway."</p>
+
+    <p>Accordingly he retraced his steps to the bald rock, and
+    commenced an examination of its circumference to determine
+    where the trail led away. He found no such exit. Save from the
+    direction of his own camp the way was closed either by
+    precipitous sides or dense brush. The conclusion was
+    unavoidable that those who had travelled the trail, had either
+    ended their journeys at the bald rock or actually taken to the
+    bed of the river.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well," concluded Bob, "I'm enough of a sleuth to see that
+    that barefoot horse had a rider and wasn't just looking
+    pasture. No animal in its senses would hike uphill and then
+    hike down again, or wade belly deep up a stream."</p>
+
+    <p>Puzzling over this mystery, he again took his way down the
+    trail. He found it easy to follow, for it had been considerably
+    travelled. In some places the brush had been cut back to open
+    easier passage. Examining these cuttings, Bob found their raw
+    ends only slightly weathered. All this might have been done by
+    the men who had staked the mineral claims, to be sure, but even
+    then Bob found it difficult to reconcile all the facts. In the
+    first place, the trail had indubitably been much used since the
+    time the claims were staked. In the second place, if the
+    prospector had wished to conceal anything, it should have been
+    the fact of his going to the Basin at all, not his whereabouts
+    after arriving there. In other words, if desiring to keep his
+    presence secret, he would have blinded the <i>beginning</i> of
+    the trail rather than its end.</p>
+
+    <p>He kept a sharp lookout. Near the entrance to the
+    ca&ntilde;on he managed to discover another clear print of the
+    barefoot horse, but headed the other way. Clearly the rider had
+    returned. Bob had hunted deer enough to recognize that the
+    track had been made within the last twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+    <p>At Sycamore Flats he was treated to further surprises.
+    Martin, of whom he bought his supplies, at first greeted him
+    with customary joviality.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo! hullo!" he cried; "quite a stranger! Out in camp,
+    eh?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob, "they've got us working for a change."</p>
+
+    <p>"Where you located?"</p>
+
+    <p>"We're estimating timber up in the Basin," replied Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>The silence that followed was so intense that Bob looked up
+    from the bag he was tying. He met Martin's eyes fixed on
+    him.</p>
+
+    <p>"The Basin," repeated Martin slowly, at last. "Since
+    when?"</p>
+
+    <p>"About ten days."</p>
+
+    <p>"We! Who's we?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Elliott and I," answered Bob, surprised. "Why?"</p>
+
+    <p>Martin's gaze shifted. He plainly hesitated for a next
+    remark.</p>
+
+    <p>"How'd you like it there?" he asked lamely, at length. "I
+    thought none of you fellows ever went there."</p>
+
+    <p>"Fine timber," answered Bob, cheerfully. "We don't usually.
+    Somebody does though. California John told me that trail was
+    old and out of use; but it's been used a lot. Who gets up
+    there?"</p>
+
+    <p>"The boys drive in some cattle occasionally," replied
+    Martin, with an effort.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob stared in surprise. He knew this was not so, and started
+    to speak, but thought better of it. After he had left the
+    store, he looked back. Martin was gazing after him, a frown
+    between his brows.</p>
+
+    <p>Before he left town a half-dozen of the mountain men had
+    asked him, with an obvious attempt to make the question casual,
+    how he liked the Basin, how long he thought his work would keep
+    him there. Each, as he turned away, followed him with that
+    long, speculative, brooding look. Always, heretofore, his
+    relations with these mountain people had been easy, sympathetic
+    and cordial. Now all at once, without reason, they held him at
+    arm's length and regarded him with suspicious if not hostile
+    eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>Puzzling over this he rode back up the road past the Power
+    House. Thence issued Oldham to hail him. He pulled up.</p>
+
+    <p>"I hear you're estimating the timber in the Basin," said the
+    gray man, with more appearance of disturbance than Bob had ever
+    seen him display.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob acknowledged the accuracy of his statement.</p>
+
+    <p>"Indeed!" said Oldham, pulling at his clipped moustache, and
+    after a little, "Indeed!" he repeated.</p>
+
+    <p>So the news had run ahead of him. Bob began to think the
+    news important, but for some reason at which he could not as
+    yet guess. This conviction was strengthened by the fact that
+    from the two mountain cabins he passed on his way to the
+    beginning of the trail, men lounged out to talk with him, and
+    in each case the question, craftily rendered casual, was put to
+    him as to his business in the Basin. Before one of these cabins
+    stood a sweating horse.</p>
+
+    <p>"Look here," he demanded of the Carrolls, "why all this
+    interest about our being in the Basin? Every man-jack asks me.
+    What's the point?"</p>
+
+    <p>Old man Carroll stroked his long beard.</p>
+
+    <p>"Do they so?" he drawled comfortably. "Well, I reckon little
+    things make news, as they say, when you're in a wild country.
+    They ain't been no work done in the Basin for so long that
+    we're all just nat'rally interested; that's all."</p>
+
+    <p>He looked Bob tranquilly in the eye with the limpid gaze of
+    innocence before which Bob's scrutiny fell abashed. For a while
+    his suspicions of anything unusual were almost lulled; the
+    countryside <i>was</i> proverbially curious of anything out of
+    the course of events. Then, from a point midway up the steep
+    trail, he just happened to look back, and just happened through
+    an extraordinary combination of openings to catch a glimpse of
+    a rider on the trail. The man was far below. Bob watched a long
+    time, his eye fixed on another opening. Nothing appeared. From
+    somewhere in the ca&ntilde;on a coyote shrilled. Another
+    answered him from up the mountain. A moment later Bob again saw
+    the rider through the same opening as before, but this time
+    descending.</p>
+
+    <p>"A signal!" he exclaimed, in reference to the coyote
+    howls.</p>
+
+    <p>On arriving at the bare rock, he dismounted and hastily
+    looked it over on all sides. Near the stream it had been
+    splashed. A tiny eddy out of reach of the current still held
+    mud in suspension.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="X"></a>
+
+    <h2>X</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>On his arrival at camp he found Elliott much interested over
+    discoveries of his own. It seemed that the Easterner had spent
+    the afternoon fishing. At one point, happening to look up, he
+    caught sight of a man surveying him intently from a thicket. As
+    he stared, the man drew back and disappeared.</p>
+
+    <p>"I couldn't see him very plainly," said Elliott. "He had a
+    beard and an old gray hat; but that doesn't mean much of
+    course. When I got my nerve up, and had concluded to
+    investigate, I could hardly find a trace of him. He must wear
+    moccasins, I think."</p>
+
+    <p>In return Bob detailed his own experiences. The two could
+    make nothing of it all.</p>
+
+    <p>"If we were down South I'd say 'moonshiners,'" said Elliott,
+    "but the beautiful objection to that is, that we aren't!"</p>
+
+    <p>"It's some mystery to do with the Basin," said Bob, "and the
+    whole countryside is 'on'&mdash;except our boys. I don't
+    believe California John knew a thing about it."</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't act so. Question: what possibly could everybody in
+    the mountains be interested in that the Forest Service would
+    object to?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Lots of things," replied Bob promptly, "but I don't believe
+    the mountains are unfriendly to us&mdash;as a unit. I know
+    Martin isn't, and he was the first one I noticed as
+    particularly worried."</p>
+
+    <p>Elliott reflected.</p>
+
+    <p>"If he's so friendly, perhaps he was a little uneasy about
+    <i>us</i>," he suggested at length. "If somebody doesn't want
+    the Forest Service in this neck of the woods&mdash;if that
+    somebody is relying on the fact that we never come down in here
+    farther than the lookout, why then it may not be very healthy
+    here."</p>
+
+    <p>"Hadn't thought of that," said Bob. "That looks cheerful.
+    But what's the point? Nine-tenths of this timber is private
+    property anyway. There's certainly no trespass&mdash;sheep,
+    timber or otherwise&mdash;on the government land. What in
+    blazes is the point?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Give it up; but we'd better wear our guns."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd have a healthy show against a man who really wanted to
+    get me with a gun. Presumably he'd be an expert, or he wouldn't
+    be sent."</p>
+
+    <p>It was agreed, however, "in view of the unsettled state of
+    the country," as Bob gravely characterized the situation, that
+    the young men should stick together in their work.</p>
+
+    <p>"There's no use taking chances, of course," Bob summed up,
+    "but there's no sense in making fools of ourselves, either.
+    Lord love you, I don't mind being <i>haunted</i>! They can
+    spring as many mysterious apparitions as they please, so long
+    as said apparitions don't take to heaving bricks. We'd look
+    sweet and lovely, wouldn't we, to go back to headquarters and
+    tell them we'd decided to come in because a bad man with
+    whiskers who'd never been introduced came and looked at us out
+    of the trees."</p>
+
+    <p>In pursuance of this determination Bob and Elliott combined
+    forces closely in their next day's work. That this was not a
+    useless precaution early became apparent. As, momentarily
+    separated by a few feet, they passed a dense thicket, Bob was
+    startled by a low whistle. He looked up. Within fifty feet of
+    him, but so far in the shadow as to be indistinguishable, a man
+    peered at him. As he caught Bob's eyes he made a violent
+    gesture whose purport Bob could not guess.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you whistle?" asked Elliott at his elbow. "What's
+    up?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob pointed; but the man had vanished. Where he had stood
+    they found the print of moccasins.</p>
+
+    <p>Thrice during the day they were interrupted by this
+    mysterious presence. On each occasion Bob saw him first. Always
+    he gestured, but whether in warning or threat Bob could not
+    tell. Each time be vanished as though the earth had swallowed
+    him the instant Elliott turned at Bob's exclamation.</p>
+
+    <p>"I believe he's crazy!" exclaimed Elliott impatiently.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd think so, too," replied Bob, "if it weren't for the way
+    everybody acted down below. Do you suppose he's trying to warn
+    us out or scare us off?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going to take a crack at him next time he shows up,"
+    threatened Elliott. "I'm getting sick of this."</p>
+
+    <p>"No, you can't do that," warned Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going to tell him so anyway."</p>
+
+    <p>"That's all right."</p>
+
+    <p>For this experiment they had not long to await the
+    opportunity.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hi, there!" shouted Elliott at the place from which the
+    mysterious apparition had disappeared; "I give you fair
+    warning! Step out and declare yourself peaceably or accept the
+    consequences. If you show yourself again after five minutes are
+    up, I'll open fire!"</p>
+
+    <p>The empty forest gave no sign. For an hour nothing happened.
+    Then all at once, when Elliott was entangled in a tiny thicket
+    close at Bob's elbow, the latter was startled by the appearance
+    of the man not ten feet away. He leaped apparently from below a
+    rounded rock, and now stood in full view of its crown. Bob had
+    time only to catch cognizance of a blue eye and a long beard,
+    to realize that the man was saying something rapidly and in a
+    low voice, when Elliott's six-shooter exploded so near his ear
+    as almost to deafen him. At the report the man toppled backward
+    off the rock.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good Lord! You've killed him!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I did not; I fired straight up!" panted Elliott, dashing
+    past him. "Quick! We'll catch him!"</p>
+
+    <p>But catch him nor see him again they did not.</p>
+
+    <p>Ten minutes later while working in a wide open stretch of
+    forest, they were brought to a stand by the report of a rifle.
+    At the same instant the shock of a bullet threw a shower of
+    dead pine needles and humus over Elliott. Another and another
+    followed, until six had thudded into the soft earth at the
+    young man's feet. He stood quite motionless, and though he went
+    a little pale, his coolness did not desert him. After the sixth
+    shot silence fell abruptly. Elliott stood still for some
+    moments, then moved forward a single step.</p>
+
+    <p>"Guess the show's over," he remarked with a curt laugh. He
+    stooped to examine the excavation the bullets had made. "Quaint
+    cuss," he remarked a trifle bitterly. "Just wanted to show me
+    how easy it would be. All right, my friend, I'm obliged to you.
+    We'll quit the gun racket; but next time you show your pretty
+    face I'll give you a run for it."</p>
+
+    <p>"And get shot," interposed Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"If it's shoot, we'll get ours any minute. Say," went on the
+    young man in absolutely conversational tones, "don't you see
+    I'm mad?"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob looked and saw.</p>
+
+    <p>"Maybe you think shooting at me is one of my little niece's
+    favourite summer-day stunts?" went on Elliott. "Well, uncle
+    isn't used to it yet."</p>
+
+    <p>His tone was quiet, but his eyes burned and the muscles
+    around his mouth were white.</p>
+
+    <p>"He's probably crazy, and he's armed," Bob pointed out. "For
+    heaven's sake, go slow."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm going to paddle his pantalettes, if he commands a
+    gatling," stated Elliott.</p>
+
+    <p>But the mysterious visitor appeared no more that afternoon,
+    and Elliott's resolutions had time to settle.</p>
+
+    <p>That night the young men turned in rather earlier than
+    usual, as they were very tired. Bob immediately dropped into a
+    black sleep. So deep was his slumber that it seemed to him he
+    had just dropped off, when he was awakened by a cool hand
+    placed across his forehead. He opened his eyes quietly, without
+    alarm, to look full into the waning moon sailing high above.
+    His first drowsy motion was one of astonishment, for the
+    luminary had not arisen when he had turned in. The camp fire
+    had fallen to a few faintly glowing coals. These perceptions
+    came to him so gently that he would probably have dropped
+    asleep again had not the touch on his forehead been repeated.
+    Then he started broad awake to find himself staring at a
+    silhouetted man leaning over him.</p>
+
+    <p>With a gesture of caution, the stranger motioned him to
+    arise. Bob obeyed mechanically. The man bent toward him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Put on your pants and sweater and come along," he whispered
+    guardedly.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob peered at him through the moonlight and recognized,
+    vaguely, the man who had been so mysteriously pursuing them all
+    day. He drew back.</p>
+
+    <p>"For the Lord's sake do what I tell you!" whispered the man.
+    "Here!"</p>
+
+    <p>His hand sought the shadow of his side, and instantly
+    gleamed with a weapon. Bob started back; but the man was
+    holding the revolver's butt to him.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now come on!" besought the stranger with a strange note of
+    pleading. "Don't wake your pardner!"</p>
+
+    <p>Yielding, with a pleasant thrill, to the adventure of the
+    situation, and it must be confessed, to a strong curiosity, Bob
+    hastily assumed his outer clothing. Then, with the muzzle of
+    the revolver, he motioned the stranger to proceed.</p>
+
+    <p>Stepping cautiously they gained the open forest beyond the
+    screen of brush. Here the man led the way more rapidly. Bob
+    followed close at his heels. They threaded the forest aisles
+    without hesitation, crossed a deep ravine where the man paused
+    to drink, and began to clamber the precipitous and rocky sides
+    of Baldy.</p>
+
+    <p>"That'll do for that!" growled Bob suddenly.</p>
+
+    <p>The man looked around as though for information.</p>
+
+    <p>"You needn't go so fast. Keep about three feet in front of
+    me. And when we strike your gang, you keep close to me.
+    <i>Sabe</i>?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm alone," expostulated the man.</p>
+
+    <p>Nevertheless he slackened pace.</p>
+
+    <p>After five minutes' climb they entered a narrow ravine
+    gashed almost perpendicularly in the side of the mountain. At
+    this point, however, it flattened for perhaps fifty paces, so
+    that there existed a tiny foothold. It was concealed from every
+    point, and nevertheless, directly to the west, Bob, pausing for
+    breath, looked out over California slumbering in the moon. On
+    this ledge flowed a tiny stream, and over it grew a score of
+    cedar and fir trees. A fire smouldered near an open camp. On
+    this the man tossed a handful of pitch pine. Immediately the
+    flames started up.</p>
+
+    <p>"Here we are!" he remarked aloud.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes, I see we are," replied Bob, looking suspiciously about
+    him, "but what does all this mean?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I couldn't get to talk with you no other way, could I?"
+    said the man in tones of complaint; "I sure tried hard enough!
+    But you and your pardner stick closer than brothers."</p>
+
+    <p>"If you wanted to speak to me, why didn't you say so?"
+    demanded Bob, his temper rising.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I don't know who your pardner is, or whether he's
+    reliable, nor nothin'. A man can't be too careful. I thought
+    mebbe you'd make a chance yourself, so I kept giving you a show
+    to. 'Course I didn't want to be seen by him."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not seen by him!" broke in Bob impatiently. "What in blazes
+    are you driving at! Explain yourself!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I showed myself plain only to you&mdash;except when he cut
+    loose that time with his fool six-shooter. I thought he was
+    further in the brush. Why didn't you make a chance to
+    talk?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why should I?" burst out Bob. "Will you kindly explain to
+    me why I should make a chance to talk to you; and why I've been
+    dragged out here in the dead of night?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No call to get mad," expostulated the man in rather
+    discouraged tones; "I just thought as how mebbe you was still
+    feeling friendly-like. My mistake. But I reckon you won't be
+    giving me away anyhow?"</p>
+
+    <p>During this speech he had slowly produced from his hip
+    pocket a frayed bandana handkerchief; as slowly taken off his
+    hat and mopped his brow.</p>
+
+    <p>The removal of the floppy and shady old sombrero exposed to
+    the mingled rays of the fire and the moon the man's full
+    features. Heretofore, Bob had been able to see indistinctly
+    only the meagre facts of a heavy beard and clear eyes.</p>
+
+    <p>"George Pollock!" he cried, dropping the revolver and
+    leaping forward with both hands outstretched.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XI"></a>
+
+    <h2>XI</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Pollock took his hands, but stared at him puzzled. "Surely!"
+    he said at last. His clear blue eyes slowly widened and became
+    bigger. "Honest! Didn't you know me! Is that what ailed you,
+    Bobby? I thought you'd done clean gone back on me; and I sure
+    always remembered you for a friend!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Know you!" shouted Bob. "Why, you eternal old fool, how
+    should I know you?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You might have made a plumb good guess."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, sure!" said Bob; "easiest thing in the world. Guess
+    that the first shadow you see in the woods is a man you thought
+    was in Mexico."</p>
+
+    <p>"Didn't you know I was here?" demanded Pollock earnestly.
+    "Sure pop?"</p>
+
+    <p>"How should I know?" asked Bob again.</p>
+
+    <p>George Pollock's blue eyes smouldered with anger.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll sure tan that promising nephew of mine!" he
+    threatened; "I've done sent you fifty messages by him. Didn't
+    he never give you none of them?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Who; Jack?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's the whelp."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"That's a joke," said he; "I've been bunking with him for a
+    year. Nary message!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I told Carroll and Martin and one or two more to tell
+    you."</p>
+
+    <p>"I guess they're suspicious of any but the mountain people,"
+    said Bob. "They're right. How could they know?"</p>
+
+    <p>"That's right, they couldn't," agreed George reluctantly.
+    "But I done told them you was my friend. And I thought you'd
+    gone back on me sure."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not an inch!" cried Bob, heartily.</p>
+
+    <p>George kicked the logs of the fire together, filled the
+    coffee pot at the creek, hung it over the blaze, and squatted
+    on his heels. Bob tossed him a sack of tobacco which he
+    caught.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thought you were bound for Mexico," hazarded Bob at
+    length.</p>
+
+    <p>"I went," said Pollock shortly, "and I came back."</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes," said Bob after a time.</p>
+
+    <p>"Homesick," said Pollock; "plain homesick. Wasn't so bad
+    that-a-way at first. I was desp'rit. Took a job punching with a
+    cow outfit near Nogales. Worked myself plumb out every day, and
+    slept hard all night, and woke up in the morning to work myself
+    plumb out again."</p>
+
+    <p>He fished a coal from the fire and deftly flipped it atop
+    his pipe bowl. After a dozen deep puffs, he continued:</p>
+
+    <p>"Never noticed the country; had nothing to do with the
+    people. All I knew was brands and my bosses. Did good enough
+    cow work, I reckon. For a fact, it was mebbe half a year before
+    I begun to look around. That country is worse than over Panamit
+    way. There's no trees; there's no water; there's no green
+    grass; there's no folks; there's no nothin'! The mountains look
+    like they're made of paper. After about a half year, as I said,
+    I took note of all this, but I didn't care. What the hell
+    difference did it make to me what the country was like? I
+    hadn't no theories to that. I'd left all that back here."</p>
+
+    <p>He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach nearer
+    his tragedy unless it was necessary. Bob nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then I begun to dream. Things come to me. I'd see places
+    plain&mdash;like the falls at Cascadell&mdash;and smell things.
+    For a fact, I smelt azaleas plain and sweet once; and woke up
+    in the damndest alkali desert you ever see. I thought I'd never
+    want to see this country again; the farther I got away, the
+    more things I'd forget. You understand."</p>
+
+    <p>Again Bob nodded.</p>
+
+    <p>"It wasn't that way. The farther off I got, the more I
+    remembered. So one day I cashed in and come back."</p>
+
+    <p>He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the coffee
+    pot bubbling over the fire.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's good to get back!" he resumed at last. "It smells
+    good; it tastes good. For a while that did me well enough.... I
+    used to sneak down nights and look at my old place.... In
+    summer I go back to Jim and the cattle, but it's dangerous
+    these days. The towerists is getting thicker, and you can't
+    trust everybody, even among the mountain folks."</p>
+
+    <p>"How many know you are back here?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course, and Tom
+    Carroll and Martin and a few others. They ride up trail to the
+    flat rock sometimes bringing me grub and papers. But it's plumb
+    lonesome. I can't go on livin' this way forever, and I can't
+    leave this yere place. Since I have been living here it seems
+    like&mdash;well, I ain't no call as I can see it to desert my
+    wife dead or alive!" he declared stoutly.</p>
+
+    <p>"You needn't explain," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, you know about such things. What am I to do?"</p>
+
+    <p>"There are only two courses that I can see," answered Bob,
+    after reflection, "outside the one you're following now. You
+    can give yourself up to the authorities and plead guilty.
+    There's a chance that mitigating circumstances will influence
+    the judge to give you a light sentence; and there's always a
+    possibility of a pardon. When all the details are made known
+    there ought to be a good show for getting off easy."</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the other?" demanded Pollock, who had listened with
+    the closest attention.</p>
+
+    <p>"The other is simply to go back home."</p>
+
+    <p>"They'd arrest me."</p>
+
+    <p>"Let them," said Bob. "Plead not guilty, and take your
+    chances on the trial. Their evidence is circumstantial; you
+    don't have to incriminate yourself; I doubt if a jury would
+    agree on convicting you. Have you ever talked with anybody
+    about&mdash;about that morning?"</p>
+
+    <p>"About me killing Plant?" supplied Pollock tranquilly. "No.
+    A man don't ask about those things."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not even to Jim?"</p>
+
+    <p>"No. We just sort of took all that for granted."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, that would be all right. Then if they're called on
+    the stand, they can tell nothing. There are at least no
+    witnesses to the deed itself."</p>
+
+    <p>"There's you----" suggested George.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob brought up short in his train of reasoning.</p>
+
+    <p>"But you won't testify agin me?"</p>
+
+    <p>"There's no reason why I should be called. Nobody even knows
+    I was out of bed at that time. If my name happens to be
+    mentioned&mdash;which isn't at all likely&mdash;Auntie Belle or
+    a dozen others will volunteer that I was in bed, like the rest
+    of the town. There's no earthly reason to connect me with
+    it."</p>
+
+    <p>"But if you are called?" persisted the mountaineer.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then I'll have to tell the truth, of course," said Bob
+    soberly; "it'll be under oath, you know."</p>
+
+    <p>Pollock looked at him strangely askant.</p>
+
+    <p>"I didn't much look to hear you talk that-a-way," said
+    he.</p>
+
+    <p>"George," said Bob, "this will take money. Have you
+    any?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I've some," replied the mountaineer sulkily.</p>
+
+    <p>"How much?"</p>
+
+    <p>"A hundred dollars or so."</p>
+
+    <p>"Not enough by a long patch. You must let me help you on
+    this."</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't need no help," said Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>"You let me help you once before," Bob reminded him gently,
+    "if it was only to hold a horse."</p>
+
+    <p>"By God, that's right!" burst out George Pollock, "and I'm a
+    fool! If they call you on the stand, don't you lie under oath
+    for me! I don't believe you'd do it for yourself; and that's
+    what I'm going to do for myself. I reckon I'll just plead
+    guilty!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't be in a hurry," Bob warned him. "It isn't a matter to
+    go off half-cock on. Any man would have done what you did. I'd
+    have done it myself. That's why I stood by you. I'm not sure
+    you aren't right to take advantage of what the law can do for
+    you. Plenty do just that with only the object of acquiring
+    other people's dollars. I don't say it's right in theory; but
+    in this case it may be eternally right in practice. Go slow on
+    deciding."</p>
+
+    <p>"You're sure a good friend, Bobby," said Pollock simply.</p>
+
+    <p>"Whatever you decide, don't even mention my name to any
+    one," warned Bob. "We don't want to get me connected with the
+    case in any man's mind. Hardly let on you remember to have
+    known me. Don't overdo it though. You'll want a real good
+    lawyer. I'll find out about that. And the money&mdash;how'll we
+    fix it?"</p>
+
+    <p>George thought for a moment.</p>
+
+    <p>"Fix it with Jack," said he at length. "He'll stay put. Tell
+    him not to tell his own father. He won't. He's reliable."</p>
+
+    <p>"Sure?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I'm risking my neck on it."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll simply tell him the name of the lawyer," decided Bob,
+    "and get him actual cash."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'll pay that back&mdash;the other I can't," said Pollock
+    with sudden feeling. "Here, have a cup of coffee."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob swallowed the hot coffee gratefully. Without speaking
+    further, Pollock arose and led the way. When finally they had
+    reached the open forest above the camp, the mountaineer
+    squeezed Bob's fingers hard.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good-bye," said the younger man in a guarded voice. "I
+    won't see you again. Remember, even at best it's a long wait in
+    jail. Think it over before you decide!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm in jail here," replied Pollock.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob walked thoughtfully to camp. He found a fire burning and
+    Elliott afoot.</p>
+
+    <p>"Thank God, you're here!" cried that young man; "I was
+    getting scared for you. What's up?"</p>
+
+    <p>"You are and I am," replied Bob. "Couldn't sleep, so I went
+    for a walk. Think that bogy-man of yours had got me?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I surely began to."</p>
+
+    <p>"Nothing doing. I guess I can snooze a little now."</p>
+
+    <p>"I can't," complained Elliott. "You've got me good and waked
+    up, confound you!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob kicked off his boots, and without further disrobing
+    rolled himself into his gray blanket. As he was dropping asleep
+    two phrases flashed across his brain. They were: "compounding a
+    felony," and "accessory after the fact."</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't feel much like a criminal either," murmured Bob to
+    himself; and after a moment: "Poor devil!"</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>Two days later, from the advantage of the rock designated by
+    California John, Elliott reported the agreed signal for their
+    recall. Accordingly, they packed together their belongings and
+    returned to headquarters.</p>
+
+    <p>"We're getting short-handed, and several things have come
+    up," said Thorne. "I have work for both of you."</p>
+
+    <p>Having dispatched Elliott, Thorne turned to Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Orde," said he, "I'm going to try you out on a very
+    delicate matter. At the north end lives an old fellow named
+    Samuels. He and his family are living on a place inside the
+    National forests. He took it up years ago, mainly for the
+    timber, but he's one of these hard-headed old coons that's
+    'agin the Government,' on general principles. He never proved
+    up, and when his attention was called to the fact, he refused
+    to do anything. No reason why not, except that 'he'd always
+    lived there and always would.' You know the kind."</p>
+
+    <p>"Ought to&mdash;put in two years in the Michigan woods,"
+    said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, as a matter of fact, he gave up the claim to all
+    intents and purposes, but now that the Yellow Pine people are
+    cutting up toward him, he's suddenly come to the notion that
+    the place is worth while. So he's patched up his cabin, and
+    moved in his whole family. We've got to get a relinquishment
+    out of him."</p>
+
+    <p>"If he has no right there, why not put him off?" asked
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, in the first place, this Samuels is a hard old
+    citizen with a shotgun; in the second place, he has some shadow
+    of right on which he could make a fight; in the third place,
+    the country up that way doesn't care much for us anyway, and we
+    want to minimize opposition."</p>
+
+    <p>"I see," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"You'll have to go up and look the ground over, that's all.
+    Do what you think best. Here are all the papers in the matter.
+    You can look them over at your leisure."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob tucked the bundle of papers in his <i>cantinas</i>, or
+    pommel bags, and left the office. Amy was rattling the stove in
+    her open-air kitchen, shaking down the ashes preparatory to the
+    fire. Bob stopped to look across at her trim, full figure in
+    its starched blue, immaculate as always.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Colonel!" he called. "How are the legions of
+    darkness and ignorance standing the cannonading these days?
+    Funny paper any new jokes?"</p>
+
+    <p>This last was in reference to Amy's habit of reading the
+    Congressional Record in search of speeches or legislation
+    affecting the forests. Bob stoutly maintained, and nobody but
+    Amy disputed him, that she was the only living woman, in or out
+    of captivity, known to read that series of documents.</p>
+
+    <p>Amy shook her head, without looking up.</p>
+
+    <p>"What's the matter?" asked Bob solicitously. "Nothing wrong
+    with the Hero, nor any of the Assistant Heroes?"</p>
+
+    <p>Thus in their banter were designated the President, and such
+    senators as stood behind his policies of conservation.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then the villains must have been saying a few triumphant
+    ha! has!" pursued Bob, referring to Fulton, Clark, Heyburn and
+    the rest of the senatorial representatives of the
+    anti-conservationists. "Or is it merely the stove? Let me
+    help."</p>
+
+    <p>Amy stood upright, and thrust back her hair.</p>
+
+    <p>"Please don't," said she. "I don't feel like joking
+    to-day."</p>
+
+    <p>"It <i>is</i> something!" cried Bob. "I do beg your pardon;
+    I didn't realize ... you know I'd like to help, if it's
+    anything I can do."</p>
+
+    <p>"It is nothing to do with any of us," said Amy, seating
+    herself for a moment, and letting her hands fall in her lap.
+    "It's just some news that made me feel sorry. Ware came up with
+    the mail a little while ago, and he tells us that George
+    Pollock has suddenly reappeared and is living down at his own
+    place."</p>
+
+    <p>"They've arrested him!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Not yet; but they will. The sheriff has been notified. Of
+    course, his friends warned him in time; but he won't go. Says
+    he intends to stay."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then he'll go to jail."</p>
+
+    <p>"And to prison. What chance has a poor fellow like that
+    without money or influence? All he has is his denial."</p>
+
+    <p>"Then he denies?" asked Bob eagerly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Says he knows nothing about Plant's killing. His wife died
+    that same morning, and he went away because he could not stand
+    it. That's his story; but the evidence is strong against him,
+    poor fellow."</p>
+
+    <p>"Do you believe him?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>Amy swung her foot, pondering.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," she said at last. "I believe he killed Plant; and I
+    believe he did right! Plant killed his wife and child, and took
+    away all his property. That's what it amounted to."</p>
+
+    <p>"There are hardships worked in any administration," Bob
+    pointed out.</p>
+
+    <p>Amy looked at him slowly.</p>
+
+    <p>"You don't believe that in this case," she pronounced at
+    last.</p>
+
+    <p>"Then Pollock will perjure himself," suggested Bob, to try
+    her.</p>
+
+    <p>"And if he has friends worth the name, they'll perjure
+    themselves, too!" cried Amy boldly. "They'll establish an
+    alibi, they'll invent a murderer for Plant, they'll do anything
+    for a man as persecuted and hunted as poor George Pollock!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Heavens!" returned Bob, genuinely aghast at this wholesale
+    programme. "What would become of morals and honour and law and
+    all the rest of it, if that sort of thing obtained?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Law?" Amy caught him up. "Law? It's become foolish. No man
+    lives capable of mastering it so completely that another man
+    cannot find flaws in his best efforts. Reuf and Schmitz are
+    guilty&mdash;everybody says so, even themselves. Why aren't
+    they in jail? Because of the law. Don't talk to me of law!"</p>
+
+    <p>"But how about ordinary mortals? You can't surely permit a
+    man to lie in a court of justice just because he thinks his
+    friend's cause is just!"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know anything about it," sighed Amy, as though
+    weary all at once, "except that it isn't right. The law should
+    be a great and wise judge, humane and sympathetic. George
+    Pollock should be able to go to that judge and say: 'I killed
+    Plant, because he had done me an injury for which the
+    perpetrator should suffer death. He was permitted to do this
+    because of the deficiency of the law.' And he should be able to
+    say it in all confidence that he would be given justice,
+    eternal justice, and not a thing so warped by obscure and
+    forgotten precedents that it fits nothing but some lawyer's
+    warped notion of logic!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Whew!" whistled Bob, "what a lady of theory and erudition
+    it is!"</p>
+
+    <p>Amy eyed him doubtfully, then smiled.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm glad you happened along," said she. "I feel better. Now
+    I believe I'll be able to do something with my biscuits."</p>
+
+    <p>"I could do justice to some of them," remarked Bob, "and it
+    would be the real thing without any precedents in that line
+    whatever."</p>
+
+    <p>"Come around later and you'll have the chance," invited Amy,
+    again addressing herself to the stove.</p>
+
+    <p>Still smiling at this wholesale and feminine way of leaping
+    directly to a despotically desired ideal result, Bob took the
+    trail to his own camp. Here he found Jack Pollock poring over
+    an old illustrated paper.</p>
+
+    <p>"Hullo, Jack!" he called cheerfully. "Not out on duty,
+    eh?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I come in," said Jack, rising to his feet and folding the
+    old paper carefully. He said nothing more, but stood eyeing his
+    colleague gravely.</p>
+
+    <p>"You want something of me?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"No," denied Jack, "I don't know nothing I want of you. But
+    I was told to come and get a piece of paper and maybe some
+    money that a stranger was goin' to leave by our chimbley. It
+    ain't there. You ain't seen it, by any chance?"</p>
+
+    <p>"It may have got shoved among some of my things by mistake,"
+    replied Bob gravely. "I haven't had a chance of looking. I'm
+    just in from the Basin." At these last words he looked at Jack
+    keenly, but that young man's expression remained inscrutable.
+    "I'll look when I get back," he continued after a moment; "just
+    now I've got to ride over to the mill to see Mr. Welton."</p>
+
+    <p>Jack nodded gravely.</p>
+
+    <p>"If you find them, leave them by the chimbley," said he.
+    "I'm going to headquarters."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob rode to the mill. By the exercise of some diplomacy he
+    brought the conversation to good lawyers without arousing
+    Welton's suspicions that he could have any personal interest in
+    the matter.</p>
+
+    <p>"Erbe's head and shoulders above the rest," said Welton. "He
+    has half the business. He's for Baker's interests, and our own;
+    and he's shrewd. Maybe you'll get into trouble yourself some
+    day, Bob. Better send for him. He's the greatest criminal
+    lawyer in the business."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed heartily with his old employer. From Poole he
+    easily obtained currency for his personal check of two hundred
+    dollars. This would do to go on with for the time being. He
+    wrote Erbe's name and address&mdash;in a disguised
+    hand&mdash;on a piece of rough brown paper. This he wrapped
+    around the money, and deposited by the alarm clock on the rough
+    log mantelpiece of his cabin. The place was empty. When he had
+    returned from his invited supper with the Thornes, the package
+    had disappeared. He did not again catch sight of Jack Pollock,
+    for next morning he started out on his errand to the north
+    end.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIII"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIII</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>At noon of the second day of a journey that led him up the
+    winding watered valleys of the lower ranges, Bob surmounted a
+    ridge higher than the rest and rode down a long, wide slope.
+    Here the character of the country changed completely. Scrub
+    oaks, young pines and chaparral covered the ground. Among this
+    growth Bob made out the ancient stumps of great trees. The
+    ranch houses were built of sawn lumber, and possessed brick
+    chimneys. In appearance they seemed midway between the farm
+    houses of the older settled plains and the rougher cabins of
+    the mountaineers.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob continued on a dusty road until he rode into a little
+    town which he knew must be Durham. Its main street contained
+    three stores, two saloons, a shady tree, a windmill and
+    watering trough and a dozen chair-tilted loafers. A wooden
+    sidewalk shaded by a wooden awning ran the entire length of
+    this collection of commercial enterprises. A redwood hitching
+    rail, much chewed, flanked it. Three saddle horses, and as many
+    rigs, dozed in the sun.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob tied his saddle horse to the rail, leaving the pack
+    animal to its own devices. Without attention to the curious
+    stares of the loafers, he pushed into the first store, and
+    asked directions of the proprietor. The man, a type of the
+    transplanted Yankee, pushed the spectacles up over his
+    forehead, and coolly surveyed his questioner from head to foot
+    before answering.</p>
+
+    <p>"I see you're a ranger," he remarked drily. "Well, I
+    wouldn't go to Samuels's if I was you. He's give it out that
+    he'll kill the next ranger that sets foot on his place."</p>
+
+    <p>"I've heard that sort of talk before," replied Bob
+    impatiently.</p>
+
+    <p>"Samuels means what he says," stated the storekeeper. "He
+    drove off the last of you fellows with a shotgun&mdash;and he
+    went too."</p>
+
+    <p>"You haven't told me how to get there," Bob pointed out.</p>
+
+    <p>"All you have to do is to turn to the right at the white
+    church and follow your nose," replied the man curtly.</p>
+
+    <p>"How far is it?"</p>
+
+    <p>"About four mile."</p>
+
+    <p>"Thank you," said Bob, and started out.</p>
+
+    <p>The man let him get to the door.</p>
+
+    <p>"Say, you!" he called.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob stopped.</p>
+
+    <p>"You might be in better business than to turn a poor man out
+    of his house and home."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob did not wait to hear the rest. As he untied his saddle
+    horse, a man brushed by him with what was evidently intentional
+    rudeness, for he actually jostled Bob's shoulder. The man
+    jerked loose the tie rein of his own mount, leaped to the
+    saddle, and clattered away. Bob noticed that he turned to the
+    right at the white church.</p>
+
+    <p>The four-mile ride, Bob discovered, was almost straight up.
+    At the end of it he found himself well elevated above the
+    valley, and once more in the sugar-pine belt. The road wound
+    among shades of great trees. Piles of shakes, gleaming and
+    fragrant, awaited the wagon. Rude signs, daubed on the riven
+    shingles, instructed the wayfarer that this or that dim track
+    through the forest led to So-and-so's shake camp.</p>
+
+    <p>It was by now after four of the afternoon. Bob met nobody on
+    the road, but he saw in the dust fresh tracks which he shrewdly
+    surmised to be those of the man who had jostled him. Samuels
+    had his warning. The mountaineer would be ready. Bob had no
+    intention of delivering a frontal attack.</p>
+
+    <p>He rode circumspectly, therefore, until he discerned an
+    opening in the forest. Here he dismounted. The opening, of
+    course, might be only that of a natural meadow, but in fact
+    proved to be the homestead claim of which Bob was in
+    search.</p>
+
+    <p>The improvements consisted of a small log cabin with a stone
+    and mud chimney; a log stable slightly larger in size; a
+    rickety fence made partly of riven pickets, partly of split
+    rails, but long since weathered and rotted; and what had been a
+    tiny orchard of a score of apple trees. At some remote period
+    this orchard had evidently been cultivated, but now the weeds
+    and grasses grew rank and matted around neglected trees. The
+    whole place was down at the heels. Tin cans and rusty baling
+    wire strewed the back yard; an ill-cared-for wagon stood
+    squarely in front; broken panes of glass in the windows had
+    been replaced respectively by an old straw hat and the dirty
+    remains of overalls. The supports of the little verandah roof
+    sagged crazily. Over it clambered a vine. Close about drew the
+    forest. That was it: the forest! The "homestead" was a mere
+    hovel; the cultivation a patch; the improvements sketchy and
+    ancient; but the forest, become valuable for lumber where long
+    it had been considered available only for shakes, furnished the
+    real motive for this desperate attempt to rehabilitate old and
+    lapsed rights.</p>
+
+    <p>The place was populous enough, for all its squalor. A
+    half-dozen small children, scantily clothed, swarmed amongst
+    the tin cans; two women, one with a baby in her arms, appeared
+    and disappeared through the low doorway of the cabin; a horse
+    or two dozed among the trees of the neglected orchard; chickens
+    scratched everywhere. Square in the middle of the verandah, in
+    a wooden chair, sat an old man whom Bob guessed to be Samuels.
+    He sat bolt upright, facing the front, his knees spread apart,
+    his feet planted solidly. A patriarchal beard swept his great
+    chest; thick, white hair crowned his head; bushy white brows,
+    like thatch, overshadowed his eyes. Even at the distance, Bob
+    could imagine the deep-set, flashing, vigorous eyes of the old
+    man. For everything about him, save the colour of his hair and
+    beard, bespoke great vigour. His solidly planted attitude in
+    his chair, the straight carriage of his back, the set of his
+    shoulders, the very poise of his head told of the power and
+    energy of an autocrat. Across his knees rested a shotgun.</p>
+
+    <p>As Bob watched, a tall youth sauntered around the corner of
+    the cabin. He spoke to the old man. Samuels did not look
+    around, but nodded his massive head. The young man disappeared
+    in the cabin to return after a moment, accompanied by the
+    individual Bob had seen in Durham. The two spoke again to the
+    old man; then sauntered off in the direction of the barn.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob returned, untied his horse; and, leading that animal,
+    approached the cabin afoot. No sooner had he emerged into view
+    when the old man arose and came squarely and uncompromisingly
+    to meet him. The two encountered perhaps fifty yards from the
+    cabin door.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found that a closer inspection of his antagonist rather
+    strengthened than diminished the impression of force. The old
+    man's eyes were flashing fire, and his great chest rose and
+    fell rapidly. He held his weapon across the hollow of his left
+    arm, but the muscles of his right hand were white with the
+    power of his grip.</p>
+
+    <p>"Get out of here!" he fairly panted at Bob. "I warned you
+    fellows!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob replied calmly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I came in to see if I could get to stay for supper, and to
+    feed my horse."</p>
+
+    <p>At this the old man exploded in a violent rage. He ordered
+    Bob off the place instantly, and menaced him with his shotgun.
+    Had Bob been mounted, Samuels would probably have shot him; but
+    the mere position of a horseman afoot conveys subtly an
+    impression of defencelessness that is difficult to overcome. He
+    is, as it were, anchored to the spot, and at the other man's
+    mercy. Samuels raged, but he did not shoot.</p>
+
+    <p>At the sounds of altercation, however, the whole hive
+    swarmed. The numerous children scuttled for cover like quail,
+    but immediately peered forth again. The two women thrust their
+    heads from the doorway. From the direction of the stable the
+    younger men came running. One of them held a revolver in his
+    hand.</p>
+
+    <p>During all this turmoil and furore Bob had stood perfectly
+    still, saying no word. Provided he did nothing to invite it, he
+    was now safe from personal violence. To be sure, a very slight
+    mistake would invite it. Bob waited patiently.</p>
+
+    <p>He remembered, and was acting upon, a conversation he had
+    once held with Ware. The talk had fallen on gunfighting, and
+    Bob, as usual, was trying to draw Ware out. The latter was,
+    also, as usual, exceedingly reticent and disinclined to open
+    up.</p>
+
+    <p>"What would you do if a man got your hands up?" chaffed
+    Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>Ware turned on him quick as a flash.</p>
+
+    <p>"No man ever got my hands up!"</p>
+
+    <p>"No?" said Bob, hugely delighted at the success of his
+    stratagem. "What do you do, then, when a man gets the cold drop
+    on you?"</p>
+
+    <p>But now Ware saw the trap into which his feet were leading
+    him, and drew back into his shell.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, shoot out, or bluff out," said he briefly.</p>
+
+    <p>"But look here, Ware," insisted Bob, "it's all very well to
+    talk like that. But suppose a man actually has his gun down on
+    you. How can you 'shoot out or bluff out'?"</p>
+
+    <p>Ware suddenly became serious.</p>
+
+    <p>"No man," said he, "can hold a gun on you for over ten
+    seconds without his eyes flickering. It's too big a strain. He
+    don't let go for mor'n about the hundredth part of a second.
+    After that he has holt again for another ten seconds, and will
+    pull trigger if you bat an eyelash. <i>But if you take it when
+    his eyes flicker, and are quick, you'll get him!</i>"</p>
+
+    <p>"What about the other way around?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"I never pulled a gun unless I meant to shoot," said Ware
+    grimly.</p>
+
+    <p>The practical philosophy of this Bob was now utilizing. If
+    he had ridden up boldly, Samuels would probably have shot him
+    from the saddle. Having gained the respite, Bob now awaited the
+    inevitable momentary relaxing from this top pitch of
+    excitement. It came.</p>
+
+    <p>"I have not the slightest intention of tacking up any
+    notices or serving any papers," he said quietly, referring to
+    the errand of the man whom Samuels had driven off at the point
+    of his weapon. "I am travelling on business; and I asked for
+    shelter and supper."</p>
+
+    <p>"No ranger sets foot on my premises," growled Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>"Very well," said Bob, unpinning and pocketing his pine tree
+    badge. (<i>"Oh, I'd have died rather than do that!" cried Amy
+    when she heard. "I'd have stuck to my guns!" "Heroic, but
+    useless," replied her brother drily.</i>) "I don't care whether
+    the ranger is fed or not. But I'm a lot interested in me. I ask
+    you as a man, not as an official."</p>
+
+    <p>"Your sort ain't welcome here; and if you ain't got sense
+    enough to see it, you got to be shown!" the youngest man broke
+    in roughly.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob turned to him calmly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I am not asking your sufferance," said he, "nor would I eat
+    where I am not welcome. I am asking Mr. Samuels to bid me
+    welcome. If he will not do so, I will ride on." He turned to
+    the old man again. "Do you mean to tell me that the North End
+    is so far behind the South End in common hospitality? We've fed
+    enough men at the Wolverine Company in our time."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob let fly this shaft at a venture. He knew how many
+    passing mountaineers paused for a meal at the cook house, and
+    surmised it probable that at least one of his three opponents
+    might at some time have stopped there. This proved to be the
+    case.</p>
+
+    <p>"Are you with the Wolverine Company?" demanded the man who
+    had jostled him.</p>
+
+    <p>"I was for some years in charge of the woods."</p>
+
+    <p>"I've et there. You can stay to supper," said Samuels
+    ungraciously.</p>
+
+    <p>He turned sharp on his heel and marched back to the cabin,
+    leaving Bob to follow with his horse. The two younger men
+    likewise went about their business. Bob found himself quite
+    alone, with only this ungracious permission to act on.</p>
+
+    <p>Nevertheless, quite imperturbably, Bob unsaddled, led his
+    animal into the dark stable, threw it some of the wild hay
+    stacked therein, washed himself in the nearby creek, and took
+    his station on the deserted verandah. The twilight fell. Some
+    of the children ventured into sight, but remained utterly
+    unmoved by the young man's tentative advances. He heard people
+    moving about inside, but no one came near him. Finally, just at
+    dusk, the youngest man protruded his head from the doorway.</p>
+
+    <p>"Come to supper," said he surlily.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob ducked his head to enter a long, low room. Its walls
+    were of the rough logs; its floor of hewn timbers; its ceiling
+    of round beams on which had been thrown untrimmed slabs as a
+    floor to the loft above. A board table stood in the centre of
+    this, flanked by homemade chairs and stools of all varieties of
+    construction. A huge iron cooking stove occupied all of one
+    end&mdash;an extraordinary piece of ordnance. The light from a
+    single glass lamp cast its feeble illumination over coarse
+    dishes steaming with food.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob bowed politely to the two women, who stood, their arms
+    crossed on their stomachs, without deigning his salutation the
+    slightest attention. The children, of all sizes and ages,
+    stared at him unblinking. The two men shuffled to their seats,
+    without looking up at the visitor. Only the old man vouchsafed
+    him the least notice....</p>
+
+    <p>"Set thar!" he growled, indicating a stool.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob found on the board that abundance and variety which
+    always so much surprises the stranger to a Sierra mountaineer's
+    cabin. Besides the usual bacon, beans, and bread, there were
+    dishes of canned string-beans and corn, potatoes, boiled beef,
+    tomatoes and pressed glass dishes of preserves. Coffee, hot as
+    fire, and strong as lye, came in thick china cups without
+    handles.</p>
+
+    <p>The meal went forward in absolute silence, which Bob knew
+    better than to interrupt. It ended for each as he or she
+    finished eating. The two women were left at the last quite
+    alone. Bob followed his host to the veranda. There he silently
+    offered the old man a cigar; the younger men had vanished.</p>
+
+    <p>Samuels took the cigar with a grunt of thanks, smelled it
+    carefully, bit an inch off the end, and lit it with a
+    slow-burning sulphur match. Bob also lit up.</p>
+
+    <p>For one hour and a half&mdash;two cigars apiece&mdash;the
+    two sat side by side without uttering a syllable. The velvet
+    dark drew close. The heavens sparkled as though frosted with
+    light. Bob, sitting tight on what he knew was the one and only
+    plan to accomplish his purpose, began to despair of his chance.
+    Of his companion he could make out dimly only the white of his
+    hair and beard, the glowing fire of his cigar. Inside the house
+    the noises made by the inhabitants thereof increased and died
+    away; evidently the household was seeking its slumber. A
+    tree-toad chirped, loudest in all the world of stillness.</p>
+
+    <p>Suddenly, without warning, the old man scraped back his
+    chair. Bob's heart leaped. Was his one chance escaping him?
+    Then to his relief Samuels spoke. The long duel of silence was
+    at an end.</p><br>
+    <br>
+    <hr style="width: 65%;">
+    <br>
+    <br>
+    <a name="XIV"></a>
+
+    <h2>XIV</h2><br>
+
+
+    <p>"What might your name be?" inquired Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>"Orde."</p>
+
+    <p>"I heerd of you ... what might you be doing up here?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm just riding through."</p>
+
+    <p>"Best thing any of you can do," commented the old man
+    grimly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wish you'd tell me now why you jumped on me so this
+    evening," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"If you don't know, you're a fool," growled Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've knocked around a good deal," persisted Bob, "and I've
+    discovered that one side always sounds good until you hear the
+    other man's story. I've only heard one side of this one."</p>
+
+    <p>"And that's all you're like to hear," Samuels told him. "You
+    don't get no evidence out of me against myself."</p>
+
+    <p>Bob laughed.</p>
+
+    <p>"You're mighty suspicious&mdash;and I don't know as I blame
+    you. Bless your soul, what evidence do you suppose I could get
+    from you in a case like this? You've already made it clear
+    enough with that old blunderbuss of yours what you think of the
+    merits of the case. I asked you out of personal interest. I
+    know the Government claims you don't own this place; and I was
+    curious to know why you think you do. The Government reasoning
+    looks pretty conclusive to a man who doesn't know all the
+    circumstances."</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, it is, is it!" cried Samuels, stung to anger. "Well,
+    what claim do you think the Government has?"</p>
+
+    <p>But Bob was too wily to be put in the aggressive.</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm not thinking; I'm asking," said he. "They say you're
+    holding this for the timber, and never proved up."</p>
+
+    <p>"I took it up bony-fidy," fairly shouted Samuels. "Do you
+    think a man plants an orchard and such like on a timber claim.
+    The timber is worth something, of course. Well, don't every man
+    take up timber? What about that Wolverine Company of yours?
+    What about the Yellow Pine people? What about everybody,
+    everywhere? Ain't I got a right to it, same as everybody
+    else?"</p>
+
+    <p>He leaned forward, pounding his knee. A querulous and sleepy
+    voice spoke up from the interior of the cabin:</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, pa, for heaven's sake don't holler so!"</p>
+
+    <p>The old man paused in mid-career. Over the treetops the moon
+    was rising slowly. Its light struck across the lower part of
+    the verandah, showing clearly the gnarled hand of the
+    mountaineer suspended above his sturdy knee; casting into
+    dimness the silver of his massive head. The hand descended
+    noiselessly.</p>
+
+    <p>"Ain't I got my rights, same as another man?" he asked, more
+    reasonably. "Just because I left out some little piece of their
+    cussed red-tape am I a-goin' to be turned out bag and baggage,
+    child, kit, and kaboodle, while fifty big men steal, just plain
+    steal, a thousand acres apiece and there ain't nothing said?
+    Not if I know it!"</p>
+
+    <p>He talked on. Slowly Bob came to an understanding of the
+    man's position. His argument, stripped of its verbiage and
+    self-illusion, was simplicity itself. The public domain was for
+    the people. Men selected therefrom what they needed. All about
+    him, for fifty years, homesteads had been taken up quite
+    frankly for the sake of timber. Nobody made any objections.
+    Nobody even pretended that these claims were ever intended to
+    be lived on. The barest letter of the law had been complied
+    with.</p>
+
+    <p>"I've seen a house, made out'n willow branches, and out'n
+    coal-oil cans, called resident buildin's under the act," said
+    Samuels, "and <i>they</i> was so lost in the woods that it
+    needed a compass to find 'em."</p>
+
+    <p>He, Samuels, on the other hand, had actually planted an
+    orchard and made improvements, and even lived on the place for
+    a time. Then he had let the claim lapse, and only recently had
+    decided to resume what he sincerely believed to be his rights
+    in the matter.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob did not at any point suggest any of the counter
+    arguments he might very well have used. He listened, leaning
+    back against the rail, watching the moonlight drop log by log
+    as the luminary rose above the verandah roof.</p>
+
+    <p>"And so there come along last week a ranger and started to
+    tack up a sign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the United
+    States.' Property of hell!"</p>
+
+    <p>He ceased talking. Bob said nothing.</p>
+
+    <p>"Now you got it; what you think?" asked the old man at
+    last.</p>
+
+    <p>"It's tough luck," said Bob. "There's more to be said for
+    your side of the case than I had thought."</p>
+
+    <p>"There's a lot more goin' to be said yet," stated Samuels,
+    truculently.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I'm afraid when it comes right down to the law of it,
+    they'll decide against your claim. The law reads pretty plain
+    on how to go about it; and as I understand it, you never did
+    prove up."</p>
+
+    <p>"My lawyer says if I hang on here, they never can get me
+    out," said Samuels, "and I'm a-goin' to hang on."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, of course, that's for the courts to decide," agreed
+    Bob, "and I don't claim to know much about law&mdash;nor want
+    to."</p>
+
+    <p>"Me neither!" agreed the mountaineer fervently.</p>
+
+    <p>"But I've known of a dozen cases just like yours that went
+    against the claimant. There was the Brown case in Idaho, for
+    instance, that was exactly like yours. Brown had some money,
+    and he fought it through up to the Supreme Court, but they
+    decided against him."</p>
+
+    <p>"How was that?" asked Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob explained at length, dispassionately, avoiding even the
+    colour of argument, but drawing strongly the parallel.</p>
+
+    <p>"Even if you could afford it, I'm almighty afraid you'd run
+    up against exactly the same thing," Bob concluded, "and they'd
+    certainly use the Brown case as a precedent."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I've got money!" said Samuels. "Don't you forget it.
+    I don't have to live in a place like this. I've got a good,
+    sawn-lumber house, painted, in Durham and a garden of
+    posies."</p>
+
+    <p>"I'd like to see it," said Bob.</p>
+
+    <p>"Sometime you get to Durham, ask for me," invited
+    Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, I see how you feel. If I were in your fix, I'd
+    probably fight it too, but I'm morally certain they'd get you
+    in the courts. And it is a tremendous expense for nothing."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, they've got to git me off'n here first," threatened
+    Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob averted the impending anger with a soft chuckle.</p>
+
+    <p>"I wouldn't want the job!" said he. "But if they had the
+    courts with them, they'd get you off. You can drive those
+    rangers up a tree quick enough (<i>"You know that isn't so!"
+    cried Amy at the subsequent recital.</i>), but this is a
+    Federal matter, and they'll send troops against you, if
+    necessary."</p>
+
+    <p>"My lawyer----" began Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>"May be dead right, or he <i>may</i> enjoy a legal battle at
+    the other man's expense," put in Bob. "The previous cases are
+    all dead against him; and they're the only ammunition."</p>
+
+    <p>"It's a-gittin' cold," said Samuels, rising abruptly. "Let's
+    git inside!"</p>
+
+    <p>Bob followed him to the main room of the cabin where the
+    mountaineer lit a tallow candle stuck in the neck of a
+    bottle.</p>
+
+    <p>"Oh, pa, come to bed!" called a sleepy voice, "and quit your
+    palavering."</p>
+
+    <p>"Shet up!" commanded Samuels, setting the candle in the
+    middle of the table, and seating himself by it. "Ain't there no
+    decisions the other way?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I'm no lawyer," Bob pointed out, dropping into a stool on
+    the other side, so that the candle stood between them, "and my
+    opinion is of no value"&mdash;the old man grunted what might
+    have been assent, or a mere indication of attention&mdash;"but
+    as far as I know, there have been none. I know all the leading
+    cases, I <i>think</i>" he added.</p>
+
+    <p>"So they can put me off, and leave all these other fellows,
+    who are worse off than I be in keepin' up with what the law
+    wants!" cried Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>"I hope they'll begin action against every doubtful claim,"
+    said Bob soberly.</p>
+
+    <p>"It may be the law to take away my homestead, but it ain't
+    justice," stated the old man.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob ventured his first aggressive movement.</p>
+
+    <p>"Did you ever read the Homestead Law?" he asked.</p>
+
+    <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well, as you remember, that law states pretty plainly the
+    purpose of the Homestead Act. It is to provide, out of the
+    public lands, for any citizen not otherwise provided, with one
+    hundred and sixty acres as a farm to cultivate or a homestead
+    on which to live. When a man takes that land for any other
+    purpose whatever, he commits an injustice; and when that land
+    is recalled to the public domain, that injustice is righted,
+    not another committed."</p>
+
+    <p>"Injustice!" challenged the old man; "against what, for
+    heaven's sake!"</p>
+
+    <p>"Against the People," replied Bob firmly.</p>
+
+    <p>"I suppose these big lumber dealers need a home and a farm
+    too!" sneered Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>"Because they did wrong is no reason you should."</p>
+
+    <p>"Who dares say I done wrong?" demanded the mountaineer.
+    "Look here! Why does the Government pick on me and try to drive
+    me off'n my little place where I'm living, and leave these
+    other fellows be? What right or justice is there in that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"I don't know the ins and out of it all," Bob reminded him.
+    "As I said before, I'm no lawyer. But they've at least
+    conformed with the forms of the law, as far as the Government
+    has any evidence. You have not. I imagine that's the reason
+    your case has been selected first."</p>
+
+    <p>"To hell with a law that drives the poor man off his home
+    and leaves the rich man on his ill-got spoils!" cried
+    Samuels.</p>
+
+    <p>The note in this struck Bob's ear as something alien. "I
+    wonder what that echoes from!" was his unspoken thought. Aloud
+    he merely remarked:</p>
+
+    <p>"But you said yourself you have money and a home in
+    Durham."</p>
+
+    <p>"That may be," retorted Samuels, "but ain't I got as much
+    right to the timber, I who have been in the country since '55,
+    as the next man?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, of course you have, Mr. Samuels," agreed Bob heartily.
+    "I'm with you there."</p>
+
+    <p>"Well?"</p>
+
+    <p>"But you've exercised your rights to timber claims already.
+    You took up your timber claim in '89, and what is more, your
+    wife and her brother and your oldest son also took up timber
+    claims in '90. As I understand it, this is an old homestead
+    claim, antedating the others."</p>
+
+    <p>Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been
+    lured from his vantage ground of force to that of argument; how
+    he scarcely knew. It had certainly been without his
+    intention.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob, however, had no desire that the old man should again
+    take his stand behind the impenetrable screen of threat and
+    bluster from which he had been decoyed.</p>
+
+    <p>"We've all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop
+    to this sort of thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the
+    time is at hand when graft and grab by the rich and powerful
+    will have to go. It will go only when we take hold together.
+    Look at San Francisco&mdash;" With great skill he drew the old
+    man into a discussion of the graft cases in that city.</p>
+
+    <p>"Graft," he concluded, "is just the price the people are
+    willing to pay to get their politics done for them while they
+    attend to the pressing business of development and building.
+    They haven't time nor energy to do everything, so they're
+    willing to pay to have some things taken off their hands. The
+    price is graft. When the people have more time, when the other
+    things are done, then the price will be too high. They'll
+    decide to attend to their own business."</p>
+
+    <p>Samuels listened to this closely. "There's a good deal in
+    what you say," he agreed. "I know it's that way with us. If I
+    couldn't build a better road with less money and less men than
+    our Supervisor, Curtis, does, I'd lie down and roll over. But I
+    ain't got time to be supervisor, even if anybody had time to
+    elect me. There's a bunch of reformers down our way, but they
+    don't seem to change Curtis much."</p>
+
+    <p>"Reformers are no good unless the rank and file of the
+    people come to think the way they do," said Bob. "That's why
+    we've got to start by being good citizens ourselves, no matter
+    what the next man would do."</p>
+
+    <p>Samuels peered at him strangely, around the guttering
+    candle. Bob allowed him no time to express his thought.</p>
+
+    <p>"But to get back to your own case," said he. "What gets me
+    is why you destroy your homestead right for a practical
+    certainty."</p>
+
+    <p>"What do you mean by that?"</p>
+
+    <p>"Why, I personally think it's a certainty that you will be
+    dispossessed here. If you wait for the law to put you off,
+    you'll have no right to take up another homestead&mdash;your
+    right will be destroyed."</p>
+
+    <p>"What good would a homestead right do me these days?"
+    demanded Samuels. "There's nothing left."</p>
+
+    <p>"New lands are thrown open constantly," said Bob, "and it's
+    better, other things being equal, to have a right than to want
+    it. On the other hand, if you voluntarily relinquish this
+    claim, your right to take up another homestead is still
+    good."</p>
+
+    <p>At the mention of relinquishment the old mountaineer shied
+    like a colt. With great patience Bob took up the other side of
+    the question. The elements of the problem were now all laid
+    down&mdash;patriotism, the certainty of ultimate loss, the
+    advisability of striving to save rights, the desire to do one's
+    part toward bringing the land grabbers in line. Remained only
+    so to apply the pressure of all these cross-motives that they
+    should finally bring the old man to the point of definite
+    action.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob wrestled with the demons of selfishness, doubt,
+    suspicion, pride, stubbornness, anger, acquisitiveness that
+    swarmed in the old man's spirit, as Christian with Apollyon.
+    The labour was as great. At times, as he retraced once more and
+    yet again ground already covered, his patience was overcome by
+    a great weariness; almost the elemental obstinacy of the man
+    wore him down. Then his very soul clamoured within him with the
+    desire to cut all this short, to cry out impatiently against
+    the slow stupidity or mulishness, or avariciousness, or
+    whatever it was, that permitted the old man to agree to every
+    one of the premises, but to balk finally at the conclusion. The
+    night wore on. Bob realized that it was now or never; that he
+    must take advantage of this receptive mood a combination of
+    skill and luck had gained for him. The old man must be held to
+    the point. The candle burned out. The room grew chill. Samuels
+    threw an armful of pitch pine on the smouldering logs of the
+    fireplace that balanced the massive cook stove. By its light
+    the discussion went on. The red flames reflected strangely from
+    unexpected places, showing the oddest inconsequences. Bob, at
+    times, found himself drifting into noticing these things. He
+    stared for a moment hypnotically on the incongruous
+    juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then he roused
+    himself with a start; for, although his tongue had continued
+    saying what his brain had commanded it to say, the dynamics had
+    gone from his utterance, and the old man was stirring
+    restlessly as though about to bring the conference to a close.
+    Warned by this incident, he forced his whole powers to the
+    front. His head was getting tired, but he must continuously
+    bring to bear against this dead opposition all the forces of
+    his will.</p>
+
+    <p>At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed. The
+    other two men, rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their
+    names as witnesses, and, shivering in the night chill, crawled
+    back to rest, without any very clear idea of what they had been
+    called on to do. Bob leaned back in his chair, the precious
+    document clasped tight. The taut cords of his being had
+    relaxed. For a moment he rested. To his consciousness dully
+    penetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.</p>
+
+    <p>"Don't see how you keep chickens," he found himself saying;
+    "we can't. Coyotes and cats get 'em. I wish you'd tell me."</p>
+
+    <p>Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motionless
+    as a graven image. Between them the new candle, brought for the
+    signing of the relinquishment, flared and sputtered.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob stumbled to his feet.</p>
+
+    <p>"Good night," said he.</p>
+
+    <p>Samuels neither moved nor stirred. He might have been a
+    figure such as used to be placed before the entrances of wax
+    works exhibitions, so still he sat, so fixed were his eyes, so
+    pallid the texture of his weather-tanned flesh after the
+    vigil.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob went out to the verandah. The chill air stirred his
+    blood, set in motion the run-down machinery of his physical
+    being. From the darkness a bird chirped loudly. Bob looked up.
+    Over the still, pointed tops of the trees the sky had turned
+    faintly gray. From the window streamed the candle light. It
+    seemed unwontedly yellow in contrast to a daylight that, save
+    by this contrast, was not yet visible. Bob stepped from the
+    verandah. As he passed the window, he looked in. Samuels had
+    risen to his feet, and stood rigid, his clenched fist on the
+    table.</p>
+
+    <p>At the stable Bob spoke quietly to his animals, saddled
+    them, and led them out. For some instinctive reason which he
+    could not have explained, he had decided to be immediately
+    about his journey. The cold gray of dawn had come, and objects
+    were visible dimly. Bob led his horses to the edge of the wood.
+    There he mounted. When well within the trees he looked back.
+    Samuels stood on the edge of the verandah, peering out into the
+    uncertain light of the dawn. From the darkness of the trees Bob
+    made out distinctly the white of his mane-like hair and the
+    sweep of his patriarchal beard. Across the hollow of his left
+    arm he carried his shotgun.</p>
+
+    <p>Bob touched spur to his saddle horse and vanished in the
+    depths of the forest.</p>
+
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XV" id="XV"></a>
+
+  <h2>XV</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob delivered his relinquishment at headquarters, and received
+  the news.</p>
+
+  <p>George Pollock had been arrested for the murder of Plant, and
+  now lay in jail. Erbe, the White Oaks lawyer, had undertaken
+  charge of his case. The evidence was as yet purely
+  circumstantial. Erbe had naturally given out no intimation of
+  what his defence would be.</p>
+
+  <p>Then, within a week, events began to stir in Durham County.
+  Samuels wrote a rather violent letter announcing his change of
+  mind in regard to the relinquishment. To this a formal answer of
+  regret was sent, together with an intimation that the matter was
+  now irrevocable. Somebody sent a copy of the local paper
+  containing a vituperative interview with the old mountaineer.
+  This was followed by other copies in which other citizens
+  contributed letters of expostulation and indignation. The matter
+  was commented on ponderously in a typical country editorial
+  containing such phrases as "clothed in a little brief authority,"
+  "arrogant minions of the law," and so forth. Tom Carroll, riding
+  through Durham on business, was treated to ugly looks and uglier
+  words. Ross Fletcher, visiting the county seat, escaped a
+  physical encounter with belligerent members of an inflamed
+  populace only by the exercise of the utmost coolness and good
+  nature. Samuels moved further by petitioning to the proper
+  authorities for the setting aside of the relinquishment and the
+  reopening of the whole case, on the ground that his signature had
+  been obtained by "coercion and undue influence." On the heels of
+  this a mass meeting in Durham was called and largely attended, at
+  which a number of speakers uttered very inflammatory doctrines.
+  It culminated in resolutions of protest against Thorne
+  personally, against his rangers, and his policy, alleging that
+  one and all acted "arbitrarily, arrogantly, unjustly and
+  oppressively in the abuse of their rights and duties." Finally,
+  as a crowning absurdity, the grand jury, at its annual session,
+  overstepping in its zeal the limits of its powers, returned
+  findings against "one Ashley Thorne and Robert Orde, in the pay
+  of the United States Government, for arbitrary exceeding of their
+  rights and authorities; for illegal interference with the rights
+  of citizens; for oppression," and so on through a round dozen
+  vague counts.</p>
+
+  <p>All this tumult astonished Thorne.</p>
+
+  <p>"I had no idea this Samuels case interested them quite so much
+  up there; nor did I imagine it possible they would raise such a
+  row over that old long-horn. I haven't been up in that country as
+  much as I should have liked, but I did not suspect they were so
+  hostile to the Service."</p>
+
+  <p>"They always have been," commented California John.</p>
+
+  <p>"All this loud mouthing doesn't mean much," said Thorne,
+  "though of course we'll have to undergo an investigation. Their
+  charges don't mean anything. Old Samuels must be a good deal of a
+  demagogue."</p>
+
+  <p>"He's got a good lawyer," stated California John briefly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Lawyer? Who?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Erbe of White Oaks."</p>
+
+  <p>Thorne stared at him puzzled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Erbe? Are you sure of that? Why, the man is a big man; he's
+  generally a cut or so above cases of this sort&mdash;with as
+  little foundation for them. He's more in the line of fat fees.
+  Here's two mountain cases he's undertaken."</p>
+
+  <p>"I never knew Johnny Erbe to refuse any sort of case he'd get
+  paid for," observed California John.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, he's certainly raising a dust up north," said Thorne.
+  "Every paper all at once is full of the most incendiary stuff. I
+  hate to send a ranger up there these days."</p>
+
+  <p>"I reckon the boys can take care of themselves!" put in Ross
+  Fletcher.</p>
+
+  <p>California John turned to look at him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure thing, Ross," he drawled, "and a first-class row between
+  a brutal ranger&mdash;who could take care of himself&mdash;and an
+  inoffensive citizen would read fine in print."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's the idea," approved Thorne. "We can't afford a row
+  right now. It would bring matters to a head."</p>
+
+  <p>"There's the Harris case, and the others," suggested Amy;
+  "what are you going to do about them, now?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Carry them through according to my instructions, unless I get
+  orders to the contrary," said Thorne. "It is the policy of the
+  Service throughout to clear up and settle these doubtful land
+  cases. We must get such things decided. We can't stop because of
+  a little localized popular clamour."</p>
+
+  <p>"Are there many such cases up in the Durham country?" asked
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Probably a dozen or so."</p>
+
+  <p>"Isn't it likely that those men have got behind Samuels in
+  order to discourage action on their own cases?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I think there's no doubt of it," answered Thorne, "but the
+  point is, they've been fighting tooth and nail from the start. We
+  had felt out their strength from the first, and it developed
+  nothing like this."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's where Erbe comes in," suggested Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Probably."</p>
+
+  <p>"It don't amount to nothin'," said California John. "In the
+  first place, it's only the 'nesters,' <a name="FNanchor5" id=
+  "FNanchor5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> the
+  saloon crowd, who are after you for Austin's case; and the usual
+  muck of old-timers and loafers who either think they own the
+  country and ought to have a free hand in everything just as
+  they're used to, or who are agin the Government on general
+  principles. I don't believe the people at Durham are behind this.
+  I bet a vote would give us a majority right now."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, the majority stays in the house, then," observed Ross
+  Fletcher drily. "I didn't observe none of them when I walked down
+  the street."</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe with John," said Thorne. "This crowd makes an awful
+  noise, but it doesn't mean much. The Office cannot fail to uphold
+  us. There's nobody of any influence or importance behind all
+  this."</p>
+
+  <p>Nevertheless, so skilfully was the campaign conducted,
+  pressure soon made itself felt from above. The usual memorials
+  and largely-signed protests were drawn up and presented to the
+  senators from California, and the representatives of that and
+  neighbouring districts. Men in the employ of the saloon element
+  rode actively in all directions obtaining signatures. A signature
+  to anything that does not carry financial obligation is the
+  easiest thing in the world to get. Hundreds who had no grievance,
+  and who listened with the facile indignation of the ignorant to
+  the representations of these emissaries, subscribed their names
+  as voters and constituents to a cause whose merits or demerits
+  were quite uncomprehended by them. The members of Congress
+  receiving these memorials immediately set themselves in motion.
+  As Thorne could not officially reply to what had not as yet been
+  officially urged, his hands were tied. A clamour that had at
+  first been merely noisy and meaningless, began now to gain an
+  effect.</p>
+
+  <p>Thorne confessed himself puzzled.</p>
+
+  <p>"If it isn't a case of a snowball growing bigger the farther
+  it rolls, I can't account for it," said he. "This thing ought to
+  have died down long ago. It's been fomented very skilfully. Such
+  a campaign as this one against us takes both ability and
+  money&mdash;more of either than I thought Samuels could possibly
+  possess."</p>
+
+  <p>In the meantime, Erbe managed rapidly to tie up the legal
+  aspects of the situation. The case, as it developed, proved to be
+  open-and-shut against his client, but apparently unaffected by
+  the certainty of this, he persisted in the interposition of all
+  sorts of delays. Samuels continued to live undisturbed on his
+  claim, which, as Thorne pointed out, had a bad moral effect on
+  the community.</p>
+
+  <p>The issue soon took on a national aspect. It began to be
+  commented on by outside newspapers. Publications close to the
+  administration and thoroughly in sympathy with its forest
+  policies, began gravely to doubt the advisability of pushing
+  these debatable claims at present.</p>
+
+  <p>"They are of small value," said one, "in comparison with the
+  large public domain of which they are part. At a time when the
+  Forest Service is new in the saddle and as yet subjected to the
+  most violent attacks by the special interests on the floors of
+  Congress, it seems unwise to do anything that might tend to
+  arouse public opinion against it."</p>
+
+  <p>As though to give point to this, there now commenced in
+  Congress that virulent assault led by some of the Western
+  senators, aimed at the very life of the Service itself.
+  Allegations of dishonesty, incompetence, despotism; of depriving
+  the public of its heritage; of the curtailments of rights and
+  liberties; of folly; of fraud were freely brought forward and
+  urged with impassioned eloquence. Arguments special to cattlemen,
+  to sheepmen, to lumbermen, to cordwood men, to pulp men, to power
+  men were emphasized by all sorts of misstatements, twisted
+  statements, or special appeals to greed, personal interest and
+  individual policy. To support their eloquence, senators
+  supposedly respectable did not hesitate boldly to utter sweeping
+  falsehoods of fact. The Service was fighting for its very
+  life.</p>
+
+  <p>Nevertheless, persistently, the officials proceeded with their
+  investigations. Bob had conducted his campaign so skilfully
+  against Samuels that Thorne used him further in similar matters.
+  Little by little, indeed, the young man was withdrawn from other
+  work. He now spent many hours with Amy in the little office going
+  over maps and files, over copies of documents and old records.
+  When he had thoroughly mastered the ins and outs of a case, he
+  departed with his pack animal and saddle horse to look the ground
+  over in person.</p>
+
+  <p>Since the <i>&eacute;clat</i> of the Samuels case, he had
+  little hope of obtaining relinquishments, nor did he greatly care
+  to do so. A relinquishment saved trouble in the courts, but as
+  far as avoiding adverse public notice went, the Samuels affair
+  showed the absolute ineffectiveness of that method. But by going
+  on the ground he was enabled to see, with his own eyes, just what
+  sort of a claim was in question, the improvements that had been
+  made on it, the value both to the claimant and the Government.
+  Through an interview he was able to gauge the claimant, to weigh
+  his probable motives and the purity of both his original and
+  present intentions. A number of cases thus he dropped, and that
+  on no other than his own responsibility. They were invariably
+  those whose issue in the courts might very well be in doubt, so
+  that it was impossible to tell, without trying them, how the
+  decision would jump. Furthermore, and principally, he was always
+  satisfied that the claimant had meant well and honestly
+  throughout, and had lapsed through ignorance, bad advice, or
+  merely that carelessness of the letter of the legal form so
+  common among mountaineers. Such cases were far more numerous than
+  he had supposed. The men had, in many instances, come into the
+  country early in its development. They had built their cabins by
+  the nearest meadow that appealed to them; for, to all intents and
+  purposes, the country was a virgin wilderness whose camping sites
+  were many and open to the first comer. Only after their
+  households had been long established as squatters did these
+  pioneers awake to an imperfect understanding that further
+  formality was required before these, their homes, could be
+  legally their own. Living isolated these men, even then,
+  blundered in their applications or in the proving up of their
+  claims. Such might be legally subject to eviction, but Bob in his
+  recommendations gave them the benefit of the doubt and advised
+  that full papers be issued. In the hurried days of the Service
+  such recommendations of field inspectors were often considered as
+  final.</p>
+
+  <p>There were other cases, however, for which Bob's sympathies
+  were strongly enlisted, but which presented such flagrant
+  irregularities of procedure that he could not consistently
+  recommend anything but a court test of the rights involved. To
+  this he added a personal note, going completely into details, and
+  suggesting a way out.</p>
+
+  <p>And finally, as a third class, he was able, as in Samuels's
+  case, to declare war on behalf of the Government. Men who had
+  already taken up all the timber claims to which they or their
+  families were legally entitled, nevertheless added an alleged
+  homestead to the lot. Other men were taking advantage of twists
+  and interpretations of the law to gain possession of desirable
+  tracts of land still included in the National Forests. These men
+  knew the letter of the law well enough, and took pains to conform
+  accurately to it. Their lapses were of intention. The excuses
+  were many&mdash;so-called mineral claims, alleged agricultural
+  land, all the exceptions to reservation mentioned in the law; the
+  actual ends aimed at were two&mdash;water rights or timber. In
+  these cases Bob reported uncompromisingly against the granting of
+  the final papers. Thousands of acres, however, had been already
+  conveyed. Over these, naturally, he had no jurisdiction, but he
+  kept his eyes open, and accumulated evidence which might some day
+  prove useful in event of a serious effort to regain those lands
+  that had been acquired by provable fraud.</p>
+
+  <p>But on the borderland between these sharply defined classes
+  lay many in the twilight zone. Bob, without knowing it, was to a
+  certain extent exercising a despotic power. He possessed a
+  latitude of choice as to which of these involved land cases
+  should be pushed to a court decision. If the law were to be
+  strictly and literally interpreted, there could be no doubt but
+  that each and every one of these numerous claimants could be
+  haled to court to answer for his short-comings. But that, in many
+  instances, could not but work an unwarranted hardship. The
+  expenses alone, of a journey to the state capital, would strain
+  to the breaking point the means of some of the more impecunious.
+  Insisting on the minutest technicalities would indubitably
+  deprive many an honest, well-meaning homesteader of his entire
+  worldly property. It was all very well to argue that ignorance of
+  the law was no excuse; that it is a man's own fault if he does
+  not fulfill the simple requirements of taking up public land. As
+  a matter of cold fact, in such a situation as this, ignorance is
+  an excuse. Legalizing apart, the rigid and invariable enforcement
+  of the law can be tyrannical. Of course, this can never be
+  officially recognized; that would shake the foundations. But it
+  is not to be denied that the literal and universal and
+  <i>invariable</i> enforcement of the minute letter of any law, no
+  matter how trivial, for the space of three months would bring
+  about a mild revolution. As witness the sweeping and startling
+  effects always consequent on an order from headquarters to its
+  police to "enforce rigidly"&mdash;for a time&mdash;some
+  particular city ordinance. Whether this is a fault of our system
+  of law, or a defect inherent in the absolute logic of human
+  affairs, is a matter for philosophy to determine. Be that as it
+  may, the powers that enforce law often find themselves on the
+  horns of a dilemma. They must take their choice between tyranny
+  and despotism.</p>
+
+  <p>So, in a mild way, Bob had become a despot. That is to say, he
+  had to decide to whom a broken law was to apply, and to whom not,
+  and this without being given any touchstone of choice. The matter
+  rested with his own experience, knowledge and personal judgment.
+  Fortunately he was a beneficent despot. A man evilly disposed,
+  like Plant, could have worked incalculable harm for others and
+  great financial benefit to himself. That this is not only
+  possible but inevitable is another defect of law or system. No
+  sane man for one single instant believes that literal enforcement
+  of every law at all times is either possible or desirable. No
+  sane man for one single instant believes that the law can be
+  excepted to or annulled for especial occasions without
+  undermining the public confidence and public morals. Yet where is
+  the middle ground?</p>
+
+  <p>In Bob's capacity as beneficent despot, he ran against many
+  problems that taxed his powers. It was easy to say that Samuels,
+  having full intention to get what he very well knew he had no
+  right to have, and for acquiring which he had no excuse save that
+  others were allowed to do likewise, should be proceeded against
+  vigorously. It was likewise easy to determine that Ward, who had
+  lived on his mountain farm, and cultivated what he could, and had
+  himself made shakes of his timber, but who had blundered his
+  formal processes, should be given a chance to make good. But what
+  of the doubtful cases? What of the cases wherein apparently
+  legality and equity took opposite sides?</p>
+
+  <p>Bob had adventures in plenty. For lack of a better system, he
+  started at the north end and worked steadily south, examining
+  with patience the pedigree of each and every private holding
+  within the confines of the National Forests. These were at first
+  small and isolated. Only one large tract drew his attention, that
+  belonging to old Simeon Wright in the big meadows under Black
+  Peaks. These meadows, occupying a wide plateau grown sparsely
+  with lodgepole pine, covered perhaps a thousand acres of good
+  grazing, and were held legally, but without the shadow of equity,
+  by the old land pirate who owned so much of California. In going
+  over both the original records, the newer geological survey maps,
+  and the country itself, Bob came upon a discrepancy. He asked and
+  obtained leave for a resurvey. This determined that Wright's
+  early-day surveyor had made a mistake&mdash;no extraordinary
+  matter in a wild country so remote from base lines. Simeon's
+  holdings were actually just one mile farther north, which brought
+  them to the top of a bald granite ridge. His title to this was
+  indubitable; but the broad and valuable meadows belonged still to
+  the Government. As the case was one of fact merely, Wright had no
+  opportunity to contest, or to exercise his undoubtedly powerful
+  influence. The affair served, however, to draw Bob's name and
+  activities into the sphere of his notice.</p>
+
+  <p>Among the mountain people Bob was at first held in a distrust
+  that sometimes became open hostility. He received threats and
+  warnings innumerable. The Childs boys sent word to him, and
+  spread that word abroad, that if this government inspector valued
+  his life he would do well to keep off Iron Mountain. Bob promptly
+  saddled his horse, rode boldly to the Childs' shake camp, took
+  lunch with them, and rode back, speaking no word either of
+  business or of threats. Having occasion to take a meal with some
+  poor, squalid descendants of hog-raising Pike County Missourians,
+  he detected a queer bitterness to his coffee, managed unseen to
+  empty the cup into his canteen, and later found, as he had
+  suspected, that an attempt had been made to poison him. He rode
+  back at once to the cabin. Instead of taxing the woman with the
+  deed&mdash;for he shrewdly suspected the man knew nothing of
+  it&mdash;he reproached her with condemning him unheard.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm the best friend you people have," said he. "It isn't my
+  fault that you are in trouble with the regulations. The
+  Government must straighten these matters out. Don't think for a
+  minute that the work will stop just because somebody gets away
+  with me. They'll send somebody else. And the chances are, in that
+  case, they'll send somebody who is instructed to stick close to
+  the letter of the law: and who will turn you out mighty sudden.
+  I'm trying to do the best I can for you people."</p>
+
+  <p>This family ended by giving him its full confidence in the
+  matter. Bob was able to save the place for them.</p>
+
+  <p>Gradually his refusal to take offence, his refusal to debate
+  any matter save on the impersonal grounds of the Government
+  servant acting solely for his masters, coupled with his
+  willingness to take things into consideration, and his desire to
+  be absolutely fair, won for Bob a reluctant confidence. At the
+  north end men's minds were as yet too inflamed. It is a curious
+  matter of flock psychology that if the public mind ever occupies
+  itself fully with an idea, it thereby becomes for the time being
+  blind, impervious, to all others. But in other parts of the
+  mountains Bob was not wholly unwelcome; and in one or two
+  cases&mdash;which pleased him mightily&mdash;men came in to him
+  voluntarily for the purpose of asking his advice.</p>
+
+  <p>In the meantime the Samuels case had come rapidly to a crisis.
+  The resounding agitation had resulted in the sending of
+  inspectors to investigate the charges against the local
+  officials. The first of these inspectors, a rather precise and
+  formal youth fresh from Eastern training, was easily handled by
+  the versatile Erbe. His report, voluminous as a tariff speech,
+  and couched in very official language, exonerated Thorne and Orde
+  of dishonesty, of course, but it emphasized their "lack of tact
+  and business ability," and condemned strongly their attitude in
+  the Durham matter. This report would ordinarily have gone no
+  farther than the district office, where it might have been acted
+  on by the officers in charge to the great detriment of the
+  Service. At that time the evil of sending out as inspectors men
+  admirably trained in theory but woefully lacking in practice and
+  the knowledge of Western humankind was one of the great menaces
+  to effective personnel. Fortunately this particular report came
+  into the hands of the Chief, who happened to be touring in the
+  West. A fuller investigation exposed to the sapient experience of
+  that able man the gullibility of the inspector. From the district
+  a brief statement was issued upholding the local
+  administration.</p>
+
+  <p>The agitation, thus deprived of its chief hope, might very
+  well have been expected to simmer down, to die away slowly. As a
+  matter of fact, it collapsed. The newspaper attacks ceased; the
+  public meetings were discontinued; the saloons and other storm
+  centres applied their powers to a discussion of the Gans-Nelson
+  fight. Samuels was very briefly declared a trespasser by the
+  courts. Erbe disappeared from the case. The United States
+  Marshal, riding up with a posse into a supposedly hostile
+  country, found no opposition to his enforcement of the court's
+  decree. Only old Samuels himself offered an undaunted defence,
+  but was soon dislodged and led away by men who half-pitied,
+  half-ridiculed his violence. The sign "Property of the U.S."
+  resumed its place. Thorne made of the ancient homestead a
+  ranger's post.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's incomprehensible as a genuine popular movement," said he
+  on one of Bob's periodical returns to headquarters. The young man
+  now held a commission, and lived with the Thornes when at home.
+  "The opposition up there was so rabid and it wilted too
+  suddenly."</p>
+
+  <p>"'The mutable many,'" quoted Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>But Thorne shook his head.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's as though they'd pricked a balloon," said he. "They
+  don't love us up there, yet; but it's no worse now than it used
+  to be here. Last week it was actually unsafe on the streets. If
+  they were so strong for Samuels then, why not now? A mere court
+  decision could not change their minds so quickly. I should have
+  expected the real bitterness and the real resistence when the
+  Marshal went up to put the old man off."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's the way I sized it up," admitted Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's as if somebody had turned off the steam and the engine
+  quit running," said Thorne, "and for that reason I'm more than
+  ever convinced that it was a made agitation. Samuels was only an
+  excuse."</p>
+
+  <p>"What for?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Struck me the same way," put in California John. "Reminded me
+  of the war. Looked like they held onto this as a sort of first
+  defence as long as they could, and then just abandoned it and
+  dropped back."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's it," nodded Thorne. "That's my conclusion. Somebody
+  bigger than Samuels fears investigation; and they hoped to stop
+  our sort of investigation short at Samuels. Well, they haven't
+  succeeded."</p>
+
+  <p>Amy arose abruptly and ran to her filing cases.</p>
+
+  <p>"That ought to be easily determined," she cried, looking over
+  her shoulder with shining eyes. "I have the papers about all
+  ready for the whole of our Forest. Here's a list of the private
+  holdings, by whom held, how acquired and when." She spread the
+  papers out on the table. "Now let's see who owns lots of land,
+  and who is powerful enough to enlist senators, and who would fear
+  investigation."</p>
+
+  <p>All four bent over the list for a few moments. Then Thorne
+  made five dots with his pencil opposite as many names.</p>
+
+  <p>"All the rest are little homesteaders," said he. "One of these
+  must be our villain."</p>
+
+  <p>"Or all of them," amended California John drily.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>
+
+  <h2>XVI</h2><br>
+
+  <p>The little council of war at once commenced an eager
+  discussion of the names thus indicated.</p>
+
+  <p>"There's your own concern, the Wolverine Company," suggested
+  Thorne. "What do you know about the way it acquired its
+  timber?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Acquired in 1879," replied Amy, consulting her notes. "Partly
+  from the Bank, that held it on mortgage, and partly from
+  individual owners."</p>
+
+  <p>"Welton is no crook," struck in Bob. "Even if he'd strained
+  the law, which I doubt; he wouldn't defend himself at this late
+  date with any method as indirect as this."</p>
+
+  <p>"I think you're right on the last point," agreed Thorne.
+  "Proceed."</p>
+
+  <p>"Next is the Marston N. Leavitt firm."</p>
+
+  <p>"They bought their timber in a lump from a broker by the name
+  of Robinson; and Robinson got it of the old Joncal <a name=
+  "FNanchor6" id="FNanchor6"></a><a href=
+  "#Footnote_6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> Mill outfit; and heaven knows
+  where they got it," put in California John.</p>
+
+  <p>"How long ago?"</p>
+
+  <p>"'84&mdash;the last transfer," said Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Doesn't look as though the situation ought to alarm them to
+  immediate and violent action," observed Thorne. "Aren't there any
+  more recent claims?" he asked Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Here's one; the Modoc Mining Company, about one thousand
+  mineral claims, amounting to approximately 28,000 acres, filed
+  1903."</p>
+
+  <p>"That looks more promising. Patents issued in the reign of our
+  esteemed predecessor, Plant."</p>
+
+  <p>"Where are most of the claims?" asked California John.</p>
+
+  <p>"<i>All</i> the claims are in the same place," replied
+  Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"The Basin!" said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Amy recited the "descriptions" within whose boundaries lay the
+  bulk of the claims.</p>
+
+  <p>"That's it," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Is there any real mineral there?" inquired Thorne.</p>
+
+  <p>"Not that anybody ever heard of," said California John, who
+  was himself an old miner; "but gold is where you find it," he
+  added cautiously.</p>
+
+  <p>"How's the timber?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's the best stand I've seen in the mountains," said
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," observed Thorne, "of course it wouldn't do to say so,
+  but I think we've run against the source of our opposition in the
+  Samuels case."</p>
+
+  <p>"That explains Erbe's taking the case," put in Bob; "he's
+  counsel for most of these corporations."</p>
+
+  <p>"The fact that this is not a mineral country," continued
+  Thorne, "together with the additional considerations of a
+  thousand claims in so limited an area, and the recent date, makes
+  it look suspicious. I imagine the Modoc Mining Company intends to
+  use a sawmill, rather more than a stamp mill."</p>
+
+  <p>"Who are they?" asked California John.</p>
+
+  <p>"We must find that out. Also we must ourselves ascertain just
+  what colour of mineral there is over there."</p>
+
+  <p>"That ought to be on the records somewhere already," Amy
+  pointed out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Plant's records," said Thorne drily.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm ashamed to say I haven't looked up the mineral lands
+  act," confessed Bob. "How did they do it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, it's simple enough. The company made application under
+  the law that allows mineral land in National Forests to be
+  'freely prospected, located, developed and patented.' It is
+  necessary to show evidence of 'valuable deposits.'"</p>
+
+  <p>"Gold and silver?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Not necessarily. It may be even building stone, or fine clay,
+  limestone or slate. Then it's up to the Forest Officer to
+  determine whether the deposits are actually 'valuable' or not.
+  You can drive a horse and cart through the law; and it's strictly
+  up to the Forest Officer&mdash;or has been in the past. If he
+  reports the deposits valuable, and on that report a patent is
+  issued, why that settles it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Even if the mineral is a fake?"</p>
+
+  <p>"A patent is a patent. The time to head off the fraud is when
+  the application is made."</p>
+
+  <p>"Cannot the title be upset if fraud is clearly proved?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I do not see how," replied Thorne. "Plant is dead. The law is
+  very liberal. Predetermining the value of mineral deposits is
+  largely a matter of personal judgment. The company could, as we
+  have seen, bring an enormous influence to bear."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," said Bob, "that land will average sixty thousand feet
+  to the acre. That's about a billion and a half feet. It's a big
+  stake."</p>
+
+  <p>"If the company wasn't scared, why did they try so hard to
+  head us off?" observed California John shrewdly.</p>
+
+  <p>"It will do us no harm to investigate," put in Bob, his eye
+  kindling with eagerness. "It won't take long to examine the
+  indications those claims are based on."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's a ticklish period," objected Thorne. "I hate to
+  embarrass the Administration with anything ill-timed. We have
+  much to do straightening out what we now have on hand. You must
+  remember we are short of men; we can't spare many now."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll tell you," suggested Amy. "Put it up to the Chief. Tell
+  him just how the matter stands. Let him decide."</p>
+
+  <p>"All right; I'll do that," agreed Thorne.</p>
+
+  <p>In due time the reply came. It advised circumspection in the
+  matter; but commanded a full report on the facts. Time enough,
+  the Chief wrote, to decide on the course to be pursued when the
+  case should be established in their own minds.</p>
+
+  <p>Accordingly Thorne detached Bob and Ware to investigate the
+  mineral status of the Basin. The latter's long experience in
+  prospecting now promised to stand the Service in good stead.</p>
+
+  <p>The two men camped in the Basin for three weeks, until the
+  close of which time they saw no human being. During this period
+  they examined carefully the various ledges on which the mineral
+  claims had been based. Ware pronounced them valueless, as far as
+  he could judge.</p>
+
+  <p>"Some of them are just ordinary quartz dikes," said he. "I
+  suppose they claim gold for them. There's nothing in it; or if
+  this does warrant a man developing, then every citizen who lives
+  near rock has a mine in his back yard."</p>
+
+  <p>Nevertheless he made his reports as detailed as possible. In
+  the meantime Bob accomplished a rough, or "cruiser's" estimate of
+  the timber.</p>
+
+  <p>As has been said, they found the Basin now quite deserted. The
+  trail to Sycamore Flats had apparently not been travelled since
+  George Pollock had ridden down it to give himself up to
+  authority. Their preliminary labours finished, the two Forest
+  officers packed, and were on the very point of turning up the
+  steep mountain side toward the lookout, when two horsemen rode
+  over the flat rock.</p>
+
+  <p>Naturally Bob and Ware drew up, after the mountain custom, to
+  exchange greetings. As the others drew nearer, Bob recognized in
+  one the slanting eyeglasses, the close-lipped, gray moustache and
+  the keen, cold features of Oldham. Ware nodded at the other man,
+  who returned his salutation as curtly.</p>
+
+  <p>"You're off your beat, Mr. Oldham," observed Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm after a deer," replied Oldham. "You are a little off your
+  own beat, aren't you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"My beat is everywhere," replied Bob carelessly.</p>
+
+  <p>"What devilment you up to now, Sal?" Ware was asking of the
+  other man, a tall, loose-jointed, freckle-faced and red-haired
+  individual with an evil red eye.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm earnin' my salary; and I misdoubt you ain't," sneered the
+  individual thus addressed.</p>
+
+  <p>"As what; gun man?" demanded Ware calmly.</p>
+
+  <p>"You may find that out sometime."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm not as easy as young Franklin was," said Ware, dropping
+  his hand carelessly to his side. "Don't make any mistakes when
+  you get around to your demonstration."</p>
+
+  <p>The man said nothing, but grinned, showing tobacco-stained,
+  irregular teeth beneath his straggling, red moustache.</p>
+
+  <p>After a moment's further conversation the little groups
+  separated. Bob rode on up the trail. Ware followed for perhaps
+  ten feet, or until out of sight behind the screen of willows that
+  bordered the stream. Then, without drawing rein, he dropped from
+  his saddle. The horse, urged by a gentle slap on the rump,
+  followed in the narrow trail after Bob and the pack animal. Ware
+  slipped quietly through the willows until he had gained a point
+  commanding the other trail. Oldham and his companion were riding
+  peacefully. Satisfied, Ware returned, climbed rapidly until he
+  had caught up with his horse, and resumed his saddle. Bob had
+  only that moment noticed his absence.</p>
+
+  <p>"Look here, Bob," said Ware, "that fellow with Mr. Oldham is a
+  man called Saleratus Bill. He's a hard citizen, a gun man, and
+  brags of eleven killin's in his time. Mr. Oldham or no one else
+  couldn't pick up a worse citizen to go deer hunting with. When
+  you track up with him next, be sure that he starts and keeps
+  going before you stir out of your tracks."</p>
+
+  <p>"You don't believe that deer hunting lie, do you?" asked
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Ware chuckled.</p>
+
+  <p>"I was wondering if <i>you</i> did," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"I guess there's no doubt as to who the Modoc Mining Company
+  is."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oldham?"</p>
+
+  <p>"No," said Bob; "Baker and the Power Company. Oldham is
+  Baker's man."</p>
+
+  <p>Ware whistled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, I suppose you know what you're talking about," said he,
+  "but it's pretty generally understood that Oldham is on the other
+  side of the fence. He's been bucking Baker in White Oaks on some
+  franchise business. Everybody knows that."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob opened his eyes. Casting his mind back over the sources of
+  his information, he then remembered that intimation of the
+  connection between the two men had come to him when he had been
+  looked on as a member of the inner circle, so that all things
+  were talked of openly before him; that since Plant's day Oldham
+  had in fact never appeared in Baker's interests.</p>
+
+  <p>"He's up in this country a good deal," Bob observed finally.
+  "What's he say is his business?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, he's in a little timber business, as I understand it;
+  and he buys a few cattle&mdash;sort of general brokerage."</p>
+
+  <p>"I see," mused Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>He rode in silence for some time, breathing his horse
+  mechanically every fifty feet or so of the steep trail. He was
+  busily recalling and piecing together the fragments of what he
+  had at the time considered an unimportant discussion, and which
+  he had in part forgotten.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's a blind," he said at last; "Oldham is working for
+  Baker."</p>
+
+  <p>"What makes you think that?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Something I heard once."</p>
+
+  <p>He rode on. The Basin was dropping away beneath them; the
+  prospect to the north was broadening as peak after peak raised
+  itself into the line of ascending vision. The pines, clinging to
+  the steep, cast bars of shadow across the trail, which zigzagged
+  and dodged, taking advantage of every ledge and each strip of
+  firm earth. Occasionally they crossed a singing brook, shaded
+  with willows and cottonwoods, with fragrant bay and alders, only
+  to clamber out again to the sunny steeps.</p>
+
+  <p>Now Bob remembered and pieced together the whole. Baker had
+  been bragging that he intended to pay nothing to the Government
+  for his water power. Bob could almost remember the very words.
+  "'They've swiped about everything in sight for these pestiferous
+  reserves,'" he murmured to himself, "'but they encourage the
+  honest prospector.... Oldham's got the whole matter ... '" and so
+  on, in the unfolding of the very scheme by which these acres had
+  been acquired. "Near headwaters," he had said; and that
+  statement, combined with the fact that nothing had occurred to
+  stir indistinct memories, had kept Bob in the dark. At the time
+  "near headwaters" had meant to him the tract of yellow pine near
+  the head of Sycamore Creek. So he had dismissed the matter. Now
+  he saw clearly that a liberal construction could very well name
+  the Basin as the headwaters of the drainage system from which
+  Sycamore Creek drew, if not its source, at least its main volume
+  of water. He exclaimed aloud in disgust at his stupidity; which,
+  nevertheless, as all students of psychology know, typified a very
+  common though curious phenomenon in the mental world. Suddenly he
+  sat up straight in his saddle. Here, should Baker and the Modoc
+  Mining Company prove to be one and the same, was the evidence of
+  fraudulent intent! Would his word suffice? Painfully
+  reconstructing the half-forgotten picture, he finally placed the
+  burly figure of Welton. Welton was there too. His corroboration
+  would make the testimony irrefutable.</p>
+
+  <p>Certainties now rushed to Bob's mind in flocks. If he had been
+  stupid in the matter, it was evident that Baker and Oldham had
+  not. The fight in Durham was now explained. All the demagogic
+  arousing of the populace, the heavy guns brought to bear in the
+  newspaper world, the pressure exerted through political levers,
+  even the concerted attacks on the Service from the floors of
+  Congress traced, by no great stretch of probabilities, to the
+  efforts of the Power Company to stop investigation before it
+  should reach their stealings. That, as California John had said,
+  was the first defence. If all investigation could be called off,
+  naturally Baker was safe. Now that he realized the investigation
+  must, in the natural course of events, come to his holdings, what
+  would be his second line?</p>
+
+  <p>Of course, he knew that Bob possessed the only testimony that
+  could seriously damage him. Even Thorne's optimism had realized
+  the difficulties of pressing to a conviction against such
+  powerful interests without some evidence of a fraudulent intent.
+  Could it be that the presence of this Saleratus Bill in company
+  with Oldham meant that Baker was contemplating so sinister a
+  removal of damaging testimony?</p>
+
+  <p>A moment's thought disabused him of this notion, however.
+  Baker was not the man to resort to violence of this sort; or at
+  least he would not do so before exhausting all other means. Bob
+  had been, in a way, the capitalist's friend. Surely, before
+  turning a gun man loose, Baker would have found out definitely
+  whether, in the first place, Bob was inclined to push the case;
+  and secondly, whether he could not be persuaded to refrain from
+  introducing his personal testimony. The longer Bob looked at the
+  state of affairs, the more fantastic seemed the hypothesis that
+  the gun man had been brought into the country for such a
+  purpose.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why do you suppose Oldham is up there with this Saleratus
+  Bill?" he asked Ware at length.</p>
+
+  <p>"Search me!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Is Bill good for anything beside gun work?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," said Ware, judicially, "he sure drinks without an
+  effort."</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't believe Oldham is interested in the liquor famine,"
+  laughed Bob. "Anything else?"</p>
+
+  <p>"They <i>may</i> be after deer," acknowledged Ware,
+  reluctantly, "though I hate to think that rattlesnake is out for
+  anything legitimate. I will say he's a good hunter; and an A1
+  trailer."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, he's a good trailer, is he?" said Bob. "Well, I rather
+  suspected you'd say that. Now I know why they're up there; they
+  want to figure out from the signs we've left just what we've been
+  up to."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's easy done," remarked Ware.</p>
+
+  <p>This explanation fitted. Bob had been in the Basin before, but
+  on the business of estimating government timber. Baker knew this.
+  Now that the Forest officer had gone in for a second time, it
+  might be possible that he was doing the same thing; or it might
+  be equally possible that he was engaged in an investigation of
+  Baker's own property. This the power man had decided to find out.
+  Therefore he had sent in, with his land man, an individual expert
+  at deducing from the half-obliterated marks of human occupation
+  the activities that had left them. That Oldham and his sinister
+  companion had encountered the Forest men was a sheer accident due
+  to miscalculation.</p>
+
+  <p>Having worked this out to his own satisfaction, Bob knew what
+  next to expect. Baker must interview him. Bob was sure the young
+  man would take his own time to the matter, for naturally it would
+  not do to make the fact of such a meeting too public. Accordingly
+  he submitted his report to Thorne, and went on about his further
+  investigations, certain that sooner or later he would again see
+  the prime mover of all these dubious activities.</p>
+
+  <p>He was not in the least surprised, therefore, to look up when
+  riding one day along the lonely and rugged trail that cuts across
+  the lower canon of the River, to see Baker seated on the top of a
+  round boulder. The incongruity, however, brought a smile to his
+  lips. The sight of the round, smooth face, the humorous eyes, and
+  the stout, city-fed figure of this very urban individual on a
+  rock in a howling figure of this very urban individual on a rock
+  in a howling wilderness, with the eternal mountains for a
+  background, was inexpressibly comical.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hullo, merry sunshine!" called Baker, waving his hand as soon
+  as he was certain Bob had seen him. "Welcome to our thriving
+  little hamlet."</p>
+
+  <p>"Hullo, Baker," said Bob; "what are you doing 'way off
+  here?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Just drifting down the Grand Canal and listening to the
+  gondoliers; and incidentally, waiting for you. Climb off your
+  horse and come up here and get a tailor-made cigarette."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm on my way over to Spruce Top," said Bob, "and I've got to
+  keep moving."</p>
+
+  <p>"Haste not, hump not, hustle not," said Baker, with the air of
+  one quoting a hand-illuminated motto. "It will only get you
+  somewhere. Come, gentle stranger, I would converse with thee; and
+  I've come a long way to do it."</p>
+
+  <p>"I live nearer home than this," grinned Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"I wanted to see you in your office," grinned back Baker
+  appreciatively, "and this is strictly business."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob dismounted, threw the reins over his horse's head, and
+  ascended to the top of the boulder.</p>
+
+  <p>"Fire ahead," said he; "I keep union hours."</p>
+
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XVII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>"Union hours suit me," said Baker. "Why work while papa has
+  his health? What I want to know is, how high is the limit on this
+  game anyway?"</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+  <p>"This confounded so-called 'investigation' of yours? In other
+  words, do you intend to get after me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"As how?"</p>
+
+  <p>Baker's shrewd eyes looked at him gravely from out his smiling
+  fat face.</p>
+
+  <p>"Modoc Mining Company's lands."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then you are the Modoc Mining Company?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Baker eyed him again.</p>
+
+  <p>"Look here, my angel child," said he in a tone of
+  good-humoured pity, "I can make all that kind of talk in a
+  witness box&mdash;if necessary. In any case, I didn't come 'way
+  out here to exchange that sort with you. You know perfectly well
+  I'm the Modoc Mining Company, and that I've got a fine body of
+  timber under the mineral act, and all the rest of it. You know
+  all this not only because you've got some sense, but because I
+  told you so before a competent witness. It stands to reason that
+  I don't mind telling you again where there are no witnesses. Now
+  smoke up and join the King's Daughters&mdash;let's have a
+  heart-to-heart and find out how we stand."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob laughed, and Baker, with entirely whole-hearted enjoyment,
+  laughed too.</p>
+
+  <p>"You're next on the list," said Bob, "and, personally, I
+  think----"</p>
+
+  <p>Baker held up his hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let's not exchange thinks," said he. "I've got a few thinks
+  coming myself, you know. Let's stick to facts. Then the
+  Government is going to open up on us?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"On the grounds of fraudulent entry, I suppose."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, they'll never win----"</p>
+
+  <p>"Let's not exchange thinks," Bob reminded him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Right! I can see that you're acting under orders, and the
+  suit must be brought. Now I tell you frankly, as one Modern
+  Woods-pussy of the World to another, that you're the only fellow
+  that has any real testimony. What I want to know is, are you
+  going to use it?"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob looked at his companion steadily.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't see why, even without witnesses, I should give away
+  government plans to you, Baker."</p>
+
+  <p>Baker sighed, and slid from the boulder.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm practically certain how the cat jumps, and I've long
+  since made my plans accordingly. Whatever you say does not alter
+  my course of action. Only I hate to do a man an injustice without
+  being sure. You needn't answer. Your last remark means that you
+  are. I have too much sense to do the little Eva to you, Orde.
+  You've got the gray stuff in your head, even if it is a trifle
+  wormy. Of course, it's no good telling you that you're going back
+  on a friend, that you'll be dragging Welton into the game when he
+  hasn't got a chip to enter with, that you're betraying private
+  confidence&mdash;well, I guess the rest is all 'thinks.'"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm sorry, Baker," said Bob, "and I suppose I must appear to
+  be a spy in the matter. But it can't be helped."</p>
+
+  <p>Baker's good-humoured, fat face had fallen into grave lines.
+  He studied a distant spruce tree for a moment.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," he roused himself at last, "I wish this particular
+  attack of measles had passed off before you bucked up against us.
+  Because, you know, that land's ours, and we don't expect to give
+  it up on account of this sort of fool agitation. We'll win this
+  case. I'm sorry you're mixed up in it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Saleratus Bill?" hinted Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Baker's humorous expression returned.</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you take me for?" he grinned. "No, that's Oldham's
+  bodyguard. Thinks he needs a bodyguard these days. That's what
+  comes from having a bad conscience, I tell him. Some of those
+  dagoes he's sold bum farms to are more likely to show up with a
+  desire to abate him, than that anything would happen to him in
+  these hills. Now let's get this straight; the cases go on?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"And you testify?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"And call Welton in for corroboration?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I hardly think that's necessary."</p>
+
+  <p>"It will be, as you very well know. I just wanted to be sure
+  how we stood toward each other. So long."</p>
+
+  <p>He turned uncompromisingly away, and stumped off down the
+  trail on his fat and sturdy legs.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob looked after him amazed, at this sudden termination of the
+  interview. He had anticipated argument, sophistry, appeal to old
+  friendship, perhaps a more dark and doubtful approach. Though
+  conscious throughout of Baker's contempt for what the promoter
+  would call his childish impracticability, his disloyalty and his
+  crankiness, Bob realized that all of this had been carefully
+  subdued. Baker's manner at parting expressed more of regret than
+  of anger or annoyance.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XVIII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>To this short and inconclusive interview, however, Baker did
+  not fail to add somewhat through Oldham. The agent used none of
+  the circumspection Baker had considered necessary, but rode
+  openly into camp and asked for Bob. The latter, remembering
+  Oldham's reputed antagonism to Baker, could not but admire the
+  convenience of the arrangement. The lank and sinister figure of
+  Saleratus Bill was observed to accompany that of the land agent,
+  but the gun man, at a sign from his principal; did not dismount.
+  He greeted no one, but sat easily across his saddle, holding the
+  reins of both horses in his left hand, his jaws working slowly,
+  his evil, little eyes wandering with sardonic interest over the
+  people and belongings at headquarters. Ware nodded to him. The
+  man's eyes half closed and for an instant the motion of his jaw
+  quickened. Otherwise he made no sign.</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham drew Bob one side.</p>
+
+  <p>"I want to talk to you where we won't be interrupted," he
+  requested.</p>
+
+  <p>"Talk on," said Bob, seating himself on a log. "The open is as
+  good a place as another; you can see your eavesdroppers
+  there."</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham considered this a moment, then nodded his head, and
+  took his place by the young man's side.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's about those Modoc lands," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose so," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Baker tells me you fully intend to prosecute a suit for
+  their recovery."</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe the Government intends to do so. I am, of course,
+  only the agent of the Government in this or any other
+  matter."</p>
+
+  <p>"In other words, you have received orders to proceed?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I would hardly be acting without them, would I?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course; I see. Mr. Baker is sometimes hasty. Assuming that
+  you cared to do so, is there no way you could avoid this
+  necessity?"</p>
+
+  <p>"None that I can discover. I must obey orders as long as I'm a
+  government officer."</p>
+
+  <p>"Exactly," said Oldham. "Now we reach the main issue. What if
+  you were not a government officer?"</p>
+
+  <p>"But I am."</p>
+
+  <p>"Assume that you were not."</p>
+
+  <p>"Naturally my successor would carry out the same orders."</p>
+
+  <p>"But," suggested Oldham, "it might very well be that another
+  man would not be&mdash;well, quite so qualified to carry out the
+  case&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"You mean I'm the only one who heard Baker say he was going to
+  cheat the Government," put in Bob bluntly.</p>
+
+  <p>"You and Mr. Welton and Mr. Baker were the only ones present
+  at a certain interview," he amended. "Now, in the event that you
+  were not personally in charge of the case would you feel it
+  necessary to volunteer testimony unsuspected by anybody but you
+  three?"</p>
+
+  <p>"If I were to resign, I should volunteer nothing," stated
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham's frosty eyes gleamed with satisfaction behind their
+  glasses.</p>
+
+  <p>"That's good!" he cried.</p>
+
+  <p>"But I have no intention of resigning," Bob concluded.</p>
+
+  <p>"That is a matter open to discussion," Oldham took him up.
+  "There are a great many reasons that you have not yet
+  considered."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm ready to hear them," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Look at the case as it stands. In the first place, you cannot
+  but admit that Mr. Baker and the men associated with him have
+  done great things for this country. When they came into it, it
+  was an undeveloped wilderness, supplying nothing of value to
+  civilization, and supporting only a scattered and pastoral
+  people. The valley towns went about their business on horse cars;
+  they either paid practically a prohibitive price for electricity
+  and gas, or used oil and candles; they drank well water and river
+  water. The surrounding country was either a desert given over to
+  sage brush and jack rabbits, or raised crops only according to
+  the amount of rain that fell. You can have no conception, Mr.
+  Orde, of the condition of the country in some of these regions
+  before irrigation. In place of this the valley people now enjoy
+  rapid transportation, not only through the streets of their
+  towns, but also by trolley lines far out in all directions. They
+  have cheap and abundant electric light and power. They possess
+  pure drinking water. Above all they raise their certain crops
+  irrespective of what rains the heavens may send."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob admitted that electricity and irrigation are good
+  things.</p>
+
+  <p>"These advantages have drawn people. I am not going to bore
+  you with a lot of statistics, but the population of all White
+  Oaks County, for instance, is now above fifty thousand people,
+  where before was a scant ten. But how much agricultural wealth do
+  you suppose these people <i>export</i> each year? Not how much
+  they <i>produce</i>, but their net exportations?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Give it up."</p>
+
+  <p>"Fifty million dollars worth! That's a marvellous per
+  capita."</p>
+
+  <p>"It is indeed," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now," said Oldham impressively, "that wealth would be
+  absolutely non-existent, that development could not have taken
+  place, <i>did</i> not take place, until men of Mr. Baker's genius
+  and courage came along to take hold. I have personally the
+  greatest admiration for Mr. Baker as a type of citizen without
+  whom our resources and possibilities would be in the same
+  backward condition as obtains in Canada."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm with you there," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Baker has added a community to the state, cities to the
+  commonwealth, millions upon millions of dollars to the nation's
+  wealth. He took long chances, and he won out. Do not you think in
+  return the national resources should in a measure reward him for
+  the advantages he has conferred and the immense wealth he has
+  developed? Mind you, Mr. Baker has merely taken advantage of the
+  strict letter of the law. It is merely open to another
+  interpretation. He needs this particular body of timber for the
+  furtherance of one of his greatest quasi-public enterprises; and
+  who has a better right in the distribution of the public domain
+  than the man who uses it to develop the country? The public land
+  has always been intended for the development of resources, and
+  has always been used as such."</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham talked fluently and well. He argued at length along the
+  lines set forth above.</p>
+
+  <p>"You have to use lubricating oil to overcome friction on a
+  machine," he concluded. "You have to subsidize a railroad by land
+  grants to enter a new country. By the same immutable law you must
+  offer extraordinary inducements to extraordinary men. Otherwise
+  they will not take the risks."</p>
+
+  <p>"I've nothing to do with the letter of the law," Bob replied;
+  "only with its spirit and intention. The main idea of the mineral
+  act is to give legitimate miners the timber they need for
+  legitimate mining. Baker does not pretend, except officially,
+  that he ever intends to do anything with his claims. He certainly
+  has done a great work for the country. I'll agree to everything
+  you say there. But he came into California worth nothing, and he
+  is now reputed to be worth ten millions and to control vast
+  properties. That would seem to be reward enough for almost
+  anybody. He does not need this Basin property for any of his
+  power projects, except that its possession would let him off from
+  paying a very reasonable tax on the waterpower he has been
+  accustomed to getting free. Cutting that timber will not develop
+  the country any further. I don't see the value of your argument
+  in the present case."</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Baker has invested in this project a great many millions
+  of dollars," said Oldham. "He must be adequately safeguarded. To
+  further develop and even to maintain the efficiency of what he
+  has, he must operate to a large extent on borrowed capital.
+  Borrowing depends on credit; and credit depends on confidence. If
+  conditions are proved to be unstable, capital will prove more
+  than cautious in risking itself. That is elementary. Surely you
+  can see that point."</p>
+
+  <p>"I can see that, all right," admitted Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," went on Oldham, taking heart, "think of the
+  responsibility you are assuming in pushing forward a mere
+  technicality, and a debatable technicality at that. You are not
+  only jeopardizing a great and established business&mdash;I will
+  say little of that&mdash;but you are risking the prosperity of a
+  whole countryside. If Mr. Baker's enterprises should quit this
+  section, the civilization of the state would receive a serious
+  setback. Thousands of men would be thrown out of employment, not
+  only on the company's works, but all along the lines of its
+  holdings; electric light and power would increase in
+  price&mdash;a heavy burden to the consumer; the country trolley
+  lines must quit business, for only with water-generated power can
+  they compete with railroads at all; fertile lands would revert to
+  desert&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I am not denying the value of Mr. Baker's enterprises," broke
+  in Bob; "but what has a billion and a half of timber to do with
+  all this?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Baker has long been searching for an available supply for
+  use in the enterprises," said Oldham, eagerly availing himself of
+  this opening. "You probably have a small idea of the immense
+  lumber purchases necessary for the construction of the power
+  plants, trolley lines, and roads projected by Mr. Baker.
+  Heretofore the company has been forced to buy its timber in the
+  open market."</p>
+
+  <p>"This would be cheaper," suggested Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Much."</p>
+
+  <p>"That would increase net profits, of course. I suppose that
+  would result in increased dividends. Or, perhaps, the public
+  would reap the benefit in decreased cost of service."</p>
+
+  <p>"Undoubtedly both. Certainly electricity and transportation
+  would cheapen."</p>
+
+  <p>"The same open markets can still supply the necessary
+  timber?"</p>
+
+  <p>"At practically prohibitive cost," Oldham reminded.</p>
+
+  <p>"Which the company has heretofore afforded&mdash;and still
+  paid its dividends," said Bob calmly. "Well, Mr. Oldham, even
+  were I inclined to take all you say at its face value; even were
+  I willing to admit that unless Mr. Baker were given this timber
+  his business would fail, the country would be deprived of the
+  benefits of his enterprise, and the public seriously incommoded,
+  I would still be unable to follow the logic of your reasoning.
+  Mind you, I do not admit anything of the kind. I do not
+  anticipate any more dire results than that the dividends will
+  remain at their present per cent. But even supposing your
+  argument to be well founded, this timber belongs to the people of
+  the United States. It is part of John Jones's heritage, whether
+  John Jones lives in White Oaks or New York. Why should I permit
+  Jones of New York to be robbed in favour of Jones of White
+  Oaks&mdash;especially since Jones of New York put me here to look
+  after his interests for him? That's the real issue; and it's very
+  simple."</p>
+
+  <p>"You look at the matter from a wrong point of view----" began
+  Oldham, and stopped. The land agent was shrewd, and knew when he
+  had come to an <i>impasse</i>.</p>
+
+  <p>"I always respect a man who does his duty," he began again,
+  "and I can see how you're tied up in this matter. But a
+  resignation could be arranged for very easily. Mr. Baker knows
+  thoroughly both your ability and experience, and has long
+  regretted that he has not been able to avail himself of them. Of
+  course, as you realize, the great future of all this country is
+  not along the lines even of such great industries as lumber
+  manufacture, but in agriculture and in waterpower engineering.
+  Here, more than anywhere else in the world, Water is King!"</p>
+
+  <p>A recollection tickled Bob. He laughed outright. Oldham
+  glanced at him sharply.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, the Lucky Lands," said he at last; "I'd forgotten you had
+  ever been there. Well, the saying is as true now as it was then.
+  The great future for any young man is along those lines. I am
+  sure&mdash;in fact, I am told to say with authority&mdash;that
+  Mr. Baker would be only too pleased to have you come in with him
+  on this new enterprise he is opening up."</p>
+
+  <p>"As how?"</p>
+
+  <p>"As stockholder to the extent of ten thousand shares
+  preferred, and a salaried position in the field, of course. But,
+  that is a small matter compared with the future
+  opportunities&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's cheering to know that I'm worth so much," interrupted
+  Bob. "Shares now worth par?"</p>
+
+  <p>"A fraction over."</p>
+
+  <p>"One hundred thousand and some odd dollars," observed Bob.
+  "It's a nice tidy bribe; and if I were any sort of a bribe taker
+  at all, I'd surely feel proud and grateful. Only I'm not. So you
+  might just as well have made it a million, and then I'd have felt
+  still more set up over it."</p>
+
+  <p>"I hope you don't think I'm a bribe giver, either," said
+  Oldham. "I admit my offer was not well-timed; but it has been
+  long under contemplation, and I mentioned it as it occurred to
+  me."</p>
+
+  <p>Having thus glided over this false start, the land agent
+  promptly opened another consideration.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps we are at fatal variance on our economics," said he;
+  "but how about the justice of the thing? When you get right down
+  to cases, how about the rest of them? I'll venture to say there
+  are not two private timber holdings of any size in this country
+  that have been acquired strictly within the letter of the law. Do
+  you favour general confiscation?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe in the law," declared Bob, "and I do not believe
+  your statement."</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham rose.</p>
+
+  <p>"I tell you this, young man," he said coldly: "you can
+  prosecute the Modoc Company or not, as you please&mdash;or,
+  perhaps, I should say, you can introduce your private testimony
+  or not, as you please. We are reasonable; and we know you cannot
+  control government prosecutions. But the Modoc Company intends
+  that you play no favourites."</p>
+
+  <p>"I do not understand you," said Bob with equal coldness.</p>
+
+  <p>"If the Modoc Company is prosecuted, we will make it our
+  business to see that every great land owner holding title in this
+  Forest is brought into the courts for the same offence. If the
+  letter of the law is to be enforced against us, we'll see that it
+  is enforced against all others."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob bowed. "Suits me," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"Does it?" sneered Oldham. He produced a bundle of papers
+  bound by a thick elastic. "Well, I've saved you some trouble in
+  your next case. Here are certified copies of the documents for
+  it, copied at Sacramento, and subscribed to before a notary. Of
+  course, you can verify them; but you'll find them accurate."</p>
+
+  <p>He handed them to Bob, who took them, completely puzzled.
+  Oldham's next speech enlightened him.</p>
+
+  <p>"You'll find there," said the older man, tapping the papers in
+  Bob's hand, "the documents in full relating to the Wolverine
+  Company's land holdings, and how they were acquired. After
+  looking them over, we shall expect you to bring suit. If you do
+  not do so, we will take steps to force you to do so&mdash;or,
+  failing this, to resign!"</p>
+
+  <p>With these words, Oldham turned square on his heel and marched
+  to where Saleratus Bill was stationed with the horses. Bob stared
+  after him, the bundle of papers in his hand. When Oldham had
+  mounted, Bob looked down on these papers.</p>
+
+  <p>"The second line of defence!" said he.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>
+
+  <h2>XIX</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob's first interest was naturally to examine these documents.
+  He found them, as Oldham had said, copies whose accuracy was
+  attested by the copyist before a notary. They divided themselves
+  into two classes. The first traced the titles by which many small
+  holdings had come into the hands of the corporation known as the
+  Wolverine Company. The second seemed to be some sort of finding
+  by an investigating commission. This latter was in the way of
+  explanation of the title records, so that by referring from one
+  to the other, Bob was able to trace out the process by which the
+  land had been acquired. This had been by "colonizing," as it was
+  called. According to Federal law, one man could take up but one
+  hundred and sixty acres of government land. It had, therefore,
+  been the practice to furnish citizens with the necessary capital
+  so to do; after which these citizens transferred their land to
+  the parent company. This was, of course, a direct evasion of the
+  law; as direct an evasion as Baker's use of the mineral lands
+  act.</p>
+
+  <p>For a time Bob was unable to collect his reasoning powers
+  adequately to confront this new fact. His thoughts were in a
+  whirl. The only thing that stood out clearly was the difference
+  in the two cases. He knew perfectly that after Baker's effort to
+  lift bodily from the public domain a large block of its wealth
+  every decent citizen should cry, "Stop thief!" Instinctively he
+  felt, though as yet he could not analyze the reasons for so
+  feeling, that to deprive the Wolverine Company of its holdings
+  would work a crying injustice. Yet, to all intents and purposes,
+  apparently, the cases were on all fours. Both Welton and Baker
+  had taken advantage of a technicality.</p>
+
+  <p>When Bob began to think more clearly, he at first laid this
+  difference to a personal liking, and was inclined to blame
+  himself for letting his affections cloud his sense of justice.
+  Baker was companionable, jolly, but at the same time was shrewd,
+  cold, calculating and unscrupulous in business. He could be as
+  hard as nails. Welton, on the other hand, while possessing all of
+  Baker's admirable and robust qualities, had with them an
+  endearing and honest bigness of purpose, limited
+  only&mdash;though decidedly&mdash;by his point of view and the
+  bounds of his practical education. Baker would steal land without
+  compunction; Welton would take land illegally without thought of
+  the illegality, only because everybody else did it the same
+  way.</p>
+
+  <p>But should the mere fact of personality make any difference in
+  the enforcing of laws? That one man was amiable and the other not
+  so amiable had nothing to do with eternal justice. If Bob were to
+  fulfil his duty only against those he disliked, and in favour of
+  his friends, he had indeed slipped back to the old days of
+  henchman politics from which the nation was slowly struggling. He
+  reared his head at this thought. Surely he was man enough to sink
+  private affairs in the face of a stern public duty!</p>
+
+  <p>This determined, Bob thought the question settled. After a few
+  minutes, it returned as full of interrogation points as ever.
+  Leaving Baker and Welton entirely out of the question, the two
+  cases still drew apart. One was just, the other unjust. Why? On
+  the answer depended the peace of Bob's conscience. Of course he
+  would resign rather than be forced to prosecute Welton. That was
+  understood, and Bob resolutely postponed contemplation of the
+  necessity. He loved this life, this cause. It opened out into
+  wider and more beautiful vistas the further he penetrated into
+  it. He conceived it the only life for which he was particularly
+  fitted by temperament and inclination. To give it up would be to
+  cut himself off from all that he cared for most in active life;
+  and would be to cast him into the drudgery of new and uncongenial
+  lines. That sacrifice must be made. It's contemplation and
+  complete realization could wait. But a deeper necessity held Bob,
+  the necessity of resolving the question of equities which the
+  accident of his personal knowledge of Welton and Baker had
+  evoked. He had to prove his instincts right or wrong.</p>
+
+  <p>He was not quite ready to submit the matter officially, but he
+  wished very much to talk it over with some one. Glancing up he
+  caught sight of the glitter of silver and the satin sheen of a
+  horse. Star was coming down through the trees, resplendent in his
+  silver and carved leather trappings, glossy as a bird, stepping
+  proudly and daintily under the curbing of his heavy Spanish bit.
+  In the saddle lounged the tall, homely figure of old California
+  John, clad in faded blue overalls, the brim of his disreputable,
+  ancient hat flopped down over his lean brown face, and his kindly
+  blue eyes. Bob signalled him.</p>
+
+  <p>"John!" he called, "come here! I want to talk with you!"</p>
+
+  <p>The stately, beautiful horse turned without any apparent
+  guiding motion from his master, stepped the intervening space and
+  stopped. California John swung from the saddle. Star, his head
+  high, his nostril wide, his eye fixed vaguely on some distant
+  vision, stood like an image.</p>
+
+  <p>"I want a good talk with you," repeated Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>They sat on the same log whereon Oldham and Bob had
+  conferred.</p>
+
+  <p>"John," said Bob, "Oldham has been here, and I don't know what
+  to do."</p>
+
+  <p>California John listened without a single word of comment
+  while Bob detailed all the ins and outs of the situation. When he
+  had finished, the old man slowly drew forth his pipe, filled it,
+  and lit it.</p>
+
+  <p>"Son," said he, "I'm an old man, and I've lived in this state
+  since the early gold days. That means I've seen a lot of things.
+  In all that time the two most valuable idees I've dug up are
+  these: in the first place, it don't never do to go off half-cock;
+  and in the second place, if you want to know about a thing, go to
+  headquarters for it."</p>
+
+  <p>He removed his pipe and blew a cloud.</p>
+
+  <p>"Half of that's for me and the other half's for you," he
+  resumed. "I ain't going to give you my notions until I've thought
+  them over a little; that's for me. As for you, if I was you, I'd
+  just amble over and talk the whole matter over with Mr. Welton
+  and see what he thinks about his end of it."</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XX" id="XX"></a>
+
+  <h2>XX</h2><br>
+
+  <p>This advice seemed so good that Bob acted upon it at his
+  earliest opportunity. He found Welton riding his old brindle mule
+  in from the bull donkey where he had been inspecting the work.
+  The lumberman's red, jolly face lit up with a smile of real
+  affection as he recognized Bob, an expression quickly changed,
+  however, as he caught sight of the young man's countenance.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's up, Bobby?" he inquired with concern; "anything
+  happened?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Nothing yet; but I want to talk with you."</p>
+
+  <p>Welton immediately dismounted, with the laborious clumsiness
+  of the man brought up to other means of locomotion, tied Jane to
+  a tree, and threw himself down at the foot of a tall pine.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let's have it," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"There have come into my hands some documents," said Bob,
+  "that embarrass me a great deal. Here they are."</p>
+
+  <p>He handed them to Welton. The lumberman ran them through in
+  silence.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," he commented cheerfully, "they seem to be all right.
+  What's the matter?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The matter is with the title to the land," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Welton looked the list of records over more carefully.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm no lawyer," he confessed at last; "but it don't need a
+  lawyer to see that this is all regular enough."</p>
+
+  <p>"Have you read the findings of the commission?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That stuff? Sure! That don't amount to anything. It's merely
+  an expression of opinion; and mighty poor opinion at that."</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't you see what I'm up against?" insisted Bob. "It will be
+  in my line of duty to open suit against the Wolverine Company for
+  recovery of those lands."</p>
+
+  <p>"Suit!" echoed Welton. "You talk foolish, Bob. This company
+  has owned these lands for nearly thirty years, and paid taxes on
+  them. The records are all straight, and the titles clear."</p>
+
+  <p>"It begins to look as if the lands were taken up contrary to
+  law," insisted Bob; "and, if so, I'll be called upon to
+  prosecute." "Contrary to your grandmother," said Welton
+  contemptuously. "Some of your young squirts of lawyers have been
+  reading their little books. If these lands were taken up contrary
+  to law, why so were every other timber lands in the state."</p>
+
+  <p>"That may be true, also," said Bob. "I don't know."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, will you tell me what's wrong with them?" asked
+  Welton.</p>
+
+  <p>"It appears as though the lands were 'colonized,'" said Bob;
+  "or, at least, such of them as were not bought from the
+  bank."</p>
+
+  <p>"I guess you boys have a new brand of slang," confessed
+  Welton.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, I mean the tract was taken direct from many small
+  holders in hundred-and-sixty-acre lots," explained Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Welton stared at him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, will you tell me how in blazes you were going to get
+  together a piece of timber big enough to handle in any other
+  way?" he demanded at last. "All one firm could take up by itself
+  was a quarter section, and you're not crazy enough to think any
+  concern could afford to build a plant for the sake of cutting
+  that amount! That's preposterous! A man certainly has a right
+  under the law to sell what is his to whom-ever he pleases."</p>
+
+  <p>"But the 'colonists,'" said Bob, "took up this land merely for
+  the purpose of turning it over to the company. The intention of
+  the law is that the timber is for the benefit of the original
+  claimant."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, it's for his benefit, if he gets paid for it, ain't
+  it?" demanded Welton ingenuously. "You can't expect him to cut it
+  himself."</p>
+
+  <p>"That is the intent of the law," insisted Bob, "and that's
+  what I'll be called upon to do. What shall I do about it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Quit the game!" said Welton, promptly and eagerly. "You can
+  see yourself how foolish it is. That crew of young squirts just
+  out of school would upset the whole property values of the state.
+  Besides, as I've just shown you, it's foolish. Come on back in a
+  sensible business. We'd get on fine!"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head.</p>
+
+  <p>"Then go ahead; bring your case," said Welton. "I don't
+  mind."</p>
+
+  <p>"I do," said Bob. "It looks like a strong case to me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't bring it. You don't need to report in your evidence as
+  you call it. Just forget it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Even if I were inclined to do so," said Bob, "I wouldn't be
+  allowed. Baker would force the matter to publicity."</p>
+
+  <p>"Baker," repeated Welton; "what has he got to do with it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's in regard to the lands in the Basin. He took them up
+  under the mineral act, and plainly against all law and decency.
+  It's the plainest case of fraud I know about, and is a direct
+  steal right from under our noses."</p>
+
+  <p>"I think myself he's skinning things a trifle fine," admitted
+  Welton; "but I can't see but what he's complied with the law all
+  right. He don't have any right to that timber, I'll agree with
+  you there; but it looks to me like the law had a hole in it."</p>
+
+  <p>"If he took that land up for other purposes than an honest
+  intention to mine on it, the title might be set aside," said
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"You'd have a picnic proving anything of the sort one way or
+  another about what a man intends to do," Welton pointed out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you remember one evening when Baker was up at camp and was
+  kicking on paying water tolls? It was about the time Thorne first
+  came in as Supervisor, and just before I entered the
+  Service."</p>
+
+  <p>"Seems to me I recall something of the sort."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, you think it over. Baker told us then that he had a way
+  of beating the tolls, and mentioned this very scheme of taking
+  advantage of the mineral laws. At the time he had a notion of
+  letting us in on the timber."</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure! I remember!" cried Welton.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, if you and I were to testify as to that conversation,
+  we'd establish his intent plainly enough."</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure as you're a foot high!" said Welton slowly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Baker knows this; and he's threatened, if I testify against
+  him, to bring the Wolverine Company into the fight. <i>Now</i>
+  what should I do about it?"</p>
+
+  <p>Welton turned on him a troubled eye.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bob," said he, "there's more to this than you think. I didn't
+  have anything to do with this land until just before we came out
+  here. One of the company got control of it thirty year ago. All
+  that flapdoodle," he struck the papers, "didn't mean nothing to
+  me when I thought it came from your amatoore detectives. But if
+  Baker has this case looked up there's something to it. Go slow,
+  son."</p>
+
+  <p>He studied a moment.</p>
+
+  <p>"Have you told your officers of your own evidence against
+  Baker?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Not yet."</p>
+
+  <p>"Or about these?" he held up the papers.</p>
+
+  <p>"No."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, that's all right. Don't."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's my duty----"</p>
+
+  <p>"Resign!" cried Welton energetically; "then it won't be your
+  duty. Nobody knows about what you know. If you're not called on,
+  you've nothing to say. You don't have to tell all you know."</p>
+
+  <p>A vision swept before Bob's eyes of a noble forest supposedly
+  safe for all time devoted by his silence to a private greed.</p>
+
+  <p>"But concealing evidence is as much of a perjury as falsifying
+  it&mdash;" he began. A second vision flashed by of a ragged,
+  unshorn fugitive, now in jail, whom his testimony could condemn.
+  He fell silent.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let sleeping dogs lie," said Welton, earnestly. "You don't
+  know the harm you may do. Your father's reelection comes this
+  fall, you know, and even if it's untrue, a suit of this
+  character&mdash;" He in his turn broke off.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't see how this could hurt father's chances&mdash;either
+  way," said Bob, puzzled.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, you know how I think about it," said Welton curtly,
+  rising. "You asked me."</p>
+
+  <p>He stumped over to Jane, untied the rope with his thick
+  fingers, clambered aboard. From the mule's back he looked down on
+  Bob, his kindly, homely face again alight with affection.</p>
+
+  <p>"If you never have anything worse on your conscience than
+  keeping your face shut to protect a friend from injustice,
+  Bobby," he said, "I reckon you won't lose much sleep."</p>
+
+  <p>With these words he rode away. Bob, returning to camp,
+  unsaddled, and, very weary, sought his cabin. His cabin mate was
+  stolidly awaiting him, seated on the single door step.</p>
+
+  <p>"My friend that was going to leave me some money in my bunk
+  was coming to-day," said Jack Pollock. "It ain't in your bunk by
+  mistake?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack," said Bob, weariedly throwing all the usual pretence
+  aside, "I'm ashamed to say I clean forgot it; I had such a job on
+  hand. I'll ride over and get it now."</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't understand you," said Jack, without moving a muscle of
+  his face.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob smiled at the serious young mountaineer, playing loyally
+  his part even to his fellow-conspirator.</p>
+
+  <p>"Jack," said he, "I guess your friend must have been delayed.
+  Maybe he'll get here later."</p>
+
+  <p>"Quite like," nodded Jack gravely.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXI</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob made the earliest chance to obtain California John's
+  promised advice. The old man was unlettered, but his
+  understanding was informed by a broad and gentle spirit and long
+  experience of varied things. On this the head ranger himself
+  touched.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bob," he began, "I'm an old man, and I've lived through a
+  lot. When I come into this state the elk and deer and antelope
+  was running out on the plains like sheep. I mined and prospected
+  up and down these mountains when nobody knew their names. There's
+  hardly a gold camp you can call over that I ain't been in on; nor
+  a set of men that had anything to do with making the state that I
+  ain't tracked up with. Most of the valley towns wasn't in
+  existence those days, and the rest was little cattle towns that
+  didn't amount to anything. The railroad took a week to come from
+  Chicago. There wasn't any railroad up the coast. They hadn't
+  begun to irrigate much. Where the Redlands and Riverside orange
+  groves are there was nothing but dry washes and sage-brush
+  desert. It cost big money to send freight. All that was shipped
+  out of the country in a season wouldn't make up one shipment
+  these days. I suppose to folks back East this country looked
+  about as far off as Africa. Even to folks living in California
+  the country as far back as these mountains looked like going to
+  China. They got all their lumber from the Coast ranges and the
+  lower hills. This back here was just wilderness, so far off that
+  nobody rightly thought of it as United States at all.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, by and by the country settled up a little more but
+  even then nobody ever thought of timber. You see, there was no
+  market to amount to anything out here; and a few little
+  jerk-water mills could supply the whole layout easy. East, the
+  lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota never was going to
+  give out. In those days you could hardly <i>give</i> away land up
+  in this country. The fellow that went in for timber was looked on
+  as a lunatic. It took a big man with lots of sand to see it at
+  all."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob nodded, his eye kindling with the beginnings of
+  understanding.</p>
+
+  <p>"There was a few of them. They saw far enough ahead, and they
+  come in here and took up some timber. Other folks laughed at
+  them; but I guess they're doing most of the laughing now. It took
+  nerve, and it took sense, and it took time, and it took
+  patience." California John emphasized each point with a pat of
+  his brown, gnarled hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now those fellows started things for this country. If they
+  hadn't had the sheer nerve to take up that timber, nobody would
+  have dared do anything else&mdash;not for years anyhow. But just
+  the fact that the Wolverine Company bought big, and other big men
+  come in&mdash;why it give confidence to the people. The country
+  boomed right ahead. If nobody had seen the future of the country,
+  she'd have been twenty year behind. Out West that means a hell of
+  a lot of value, let me tell you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"The timber would have belonged to the Government," Bob
+  reminded him.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm a Forest officer," said California John, "and what's
+  more, I was a Forest officer for a good many years when there was
+  nothin' to it but kicks. There can't nobody beat me in wishing a
+  lot of good forest land was under the Service instead of being
+  due to be cut up by lumbermen. But I've lived too long not to see
+  the point. You can't get benefits without paying for 'em. The
+  United States of America was big gainers because these old
+  fellows had the nerve just to come in and buy. It ain't so much
+  the lumber they saw and put out where it's needed&mdash;though
+  that's a good deal; and it ain't so much the men they bring into
+  the country and give work to&mdash;though that's a lot, too.
+  <i>It's the confidence they inspire</i>, it's the lead they give.
+  That's what counts. All the rest of these little operators, and
+  workmen, and storekeepers, and manufacturers wouldn't have found
+  their way out here in twenty years if the big fellows hadn't led
+  the way. If you should go over and buy ten thousand acres of land
+  by Table Mountain to-morrow, next year there'd be a dozen to
+  follow you in and do whatever you'd be doing. And while it's the
+  big fellow that gives the lead, <i>it's the little fellow that
+  makes the wealth of the country!</i>"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob stared at the old man in fascinated surprise. This was a
+  new California John, this closely reasoning man, with, clear,
+  earnest eyes, laying down the simple doctrine taught by a long
+  life among men.</p>
+
+  <p>"The Government gives alternate sections of land to railroads
+  to bring them in the country," went on California John. "In my
+  notion all this timber land in private hands is where it belongs.
+  It's the price the Government paid for wealth."</p>
+
+  <p>"And the Basin----" cried Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"What the hell more confidence does this country need now?"
+  demanded California John fiercely; "what with its mills and its
+  trolleys, its vineyards and all its big projects. What right has
+  this man Baker to get pay for what he ain't done?"</p>
+
+  <p>The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able to
+  analyze, leaped at him. The equities hung in equal balance. On
+  one side he saw the pioneer, pressing forward into an unknown
+  wilderness, breaking a way for those that could follow, holding
+  aloft a torch to illumine dark places, taking long and desperate
+  chances, or seeing with almost clairvoyant power beyond the
+  immediate vision of men; waiting in faith for the fulfillment of
+  their prophecies. On the other he saw the plunderer, grasping for
+  a wealth that did not belong to him, through values he had not
+  made. This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob's
+  mind, be gainsaid.</p>
+
+  <p>Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did not
+  extend to the surface of things by which men live. It explained;
+  but did it excuse, especially in the eye of abstract ethics? Had
+  not these men broken the law, and is not the upholding of the law
+  important in its moral effect on those that follow?</p>
+
+  <p>"Just the same," he voiced this thought to California John,
+  "the laws read then as they do to-day."</p>
+
+  <p>"On the books, yes," replied the old man, slowly; "but not in
+  men's ideas. You got to remember that those fellows held pretty
+  straight by what the law <i>says</i>. They got other men to take
+  up the timber, and then had it transferred to themselves. That's
+  according to law. A man can do what he wants with his own. You
+  know."</p>
+
+  <p>"But the intention of the law is to give every man a----"</p>
+
+  <p>"That's what we go by now," interrupted California John.</p>
+
+  <p>"What other way is there to go by?"</p>
+
+  <p>"None&mdash;now. But in those days that was the settled way to
+  get timber land. They didn't make any secret of it. They just
+  looked at it as the process to go through with, like filing a
+  deed, or getting two witnesses. It was a nuisance, and looked
+  foolish, but if that was the way to do it, why they'd do it that
+  way. Everybody knew that. Why, if a man wanted to get enough
+  timber to go to operating on, his lawyer would explain to him how
+  to do it; any of his friends that was posted would show him the
+  ropes; and if he'd take the trouble to go to the Land Office
+  itself, the clerk would say: 'No, Mr. Man, I can't transfer to
+  you, personally, more'n a hundred and sixty acres, but you can
+  get some of your friends to take it up for you.'[Footnote: A
+  fact.] Now will you tell me how Mr. Man could get it any
+  straighter than that?"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob was seeing a great light. He nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>"They've changed the rules of the game!" said California John
+  impressively, "and now they want to go back thirty year and hold
+  these fellows to account for what they did under the old rules.
+  It don't look to me like it's fair."</p>
+
+  <p>He thought a moment.</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose," he remarked reflectively, going off on one of his
+  strange tangents, and lapsing once more into his customary
+  picturesque speech, "that these old boys that burned those Salem
+  witches was pretty well thought of in Salem&mdash;deacons in the
+  church, and all such; p'ticular elect, and held up to the kids
+  for high moral examples? had the plumb universal approval in
+  those torchlight efforts of theirn?"</p>
+
+  <p>"So I believe," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," drawled California John, stretching his lank frame,
+  "suppose one of those old bucks had lived to now&mdash;of course,
+  he couldn't, but suppose he did&mdash;and was enjoying himself
+  and being a good citizen. And suppose some day the sheriff
+  touched him on the shoulder and says: 'Old boy, we're rounding up
+  all the murderers. I've just got Saleratus Bill for scragging
+  Franklin. You come along, too. Don't you know that burnin'
+  witches is murder?'" California John spat with vigour. "Oh,
+  hell!" said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, Baker," he went on, after a moment, "is Saleratus Bill
+  because he knows he's agin what the people knows is the law; and
+  the other fellows is old Salem because they lived like they were
+  told to. Even old Salem would know that he couldn't burn no
+  witches nowadays. These old timers ain't the ones trying to steal
+  land now, you notice. They're too damn honest. You don't need to
+  tell me that you believe for one minute when he took up this
+  Wolverine land, that your father did anything that he, <i>or
+  anybody else</i>, courts included, thought was off-colour."</p>
+
+  <p>"My father!" cried Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, yes," said California John, looking at him curiously;
+  "you don't mean to say you didn't know he is the Wolverine
+  Company!"</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>"Well," said California John, after a pause, "after you've
+  made your jump there ain't much use in trying to turn back. If
+  you didn't know it, why it was evident you wasn't intended to
+  know it. But I was in the country when your father bought the
+  land, so I happened to know about it."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob stared at the old man so long that the latter felt called
+  upon to reassure him.</p>
+
+  <p>"I wouldn't take it so hard, if I was you, son," said he. "I
+  really don't think all these bluffs of Baker's amount to much.
+  The findings of that commission ain't never been acted on, which
+  would seem to show that it didn't come to nothing at the time;
+  and I don't have the slightest notion in the world but what the
+  whole thing will blow up in smoke."</p>
+
+  <p>"As far as that is concerned, I haven't either," said Bob;
+  "though you never can tell, and defending such a suit is always
+  an expensive matter. But here's the trouble; my father is
+  Congressman from Michigan, he's been in several pretty heavy
+  fights this last year, and has some powerful enemies; he is up
+  for reelection this fall."</p>
+
+  <p>"Suffering cats!" whistled California John.</p>
+
+  <p>"A lot could be made of a suit of that nature," said Bob,
+  "whether it had any basis, or not."</p>
+
+  <p>"I've run for County Supervisor in my time," said California
+  John simply.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, what is your advice?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Son, I ain't got none," replied the old man.</p>
+
+  <p>That very evening a messenger rode over from the mill bringing
+  a summons from Welton. Bob saddled up at once. He found the
+  lumberman, not in the comfortable sitting room at his private
+  sleeping camp, but watching the lamp alone in the office. As Bob
+  entered, his former associate turned a troubled face toward the
+  young man.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bob," said he at once, "they've got the old man cinched,
+  unless you'll help out."</p>
+
+  <p>"How's that?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You remember when we first came in here how Plant closed the
+  road and the flume right-of-way on us because we didn't have the
+  permit?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course."</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, Bob, you remember how we was up against it, don't you?
+  If we hadn't gone through that year we'd have busted the business
+  absolutely. It was just a case of hold-up and we had to pay it.
+  You remember?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well!" burst out Welton, bringing his fist down, "now this
+  hound, Baker, sends up his slick lawyer to tell me that was
+  bribery, and that he can have me up on a criminal charge!"</p>
+
+  <p>"He's bluffing," said Bob quietly. "I remember all about that
+  case. If I'd known as much then of inside workings as I do now,
+  I'd have taken a hand. But Baker himself ran the whole show. If
+  he brings that matter into court, he'll be subject to the same
+  charge; for, if you remember, he paid the money."</p>
+
+  <p>"Will he!" shouted Welton. "You don't know the lowlived skunk!
+  Erbe told me that if this suit was brought and you testified in
+  the matter, that Baker would turn state's evidence against me!
+  That would let him off scot-free."</p>
+
+  <p>"What!" said Bob incredulously. "Brand himself publicly as a
+  criminal and tell-tale just to get you into trouble! Not likely.
+  Think what that would mean to a man in his position! It would be
+  every bit as bad as though he were to take his jail sentence.
+  He's bluffing again."</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you really think so?" asked Welton, a gleam of relief
+  lightening the gloom of his red, good-natured face. "I'll agree
+  to handle the worst river crew you can hand out to me; but this
+  law business gets me running in circles."</p>
+
+  <p>"It does all of us," said Bob with a sigh.</p>
+
+  <p>"I concluded from Erbe's coming up here that you had decided
+  to tell about what you knew. That ain't so, is it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't know; I can't see my duty clearly yet."</p>
+
+  <p>"For heaven's sake, Bobby, what's it to you!" demanded Welton
+  exasperated.</p>
+
+  <p>But Bob did not hear him.</p>
+
+  <p>"I think the direct way is the best," he remarked, by way of
+  thinking aloud. "I'm going to keep on going to headquarters. I'm
+  going to write father and put it straight to him how he did get
+  those lands and tell him the whole situation; and I'm going down
+  to interview Baker, and discover, if I can, just how much of a
+  bluff he is putting up."</p>
+
+  <p>"In the meantime----" said Welton apparently not noting the
+  fact that Bob had become aware of the senior Orde's connection
+  with the land.</p>
+
+  <p>"In the meantime I'm going to postpone action if I can."</p>
+
+  <p>"They're summoning witnesses for the Basin trial."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll do the best I can," concluded Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Accordingly he wrote the next day to his father. In this
+  letter he stated frankly the situation as far as it affected the
+  Wolverine lands, but said nothing about the threatened criminal
+  charges against Welton. That was another matter. He set out the
+  great value of the Basin lands and the methods by which they had
+  been acquired. He pointed out his duty, both as a forest officer
+  and as a citizen, but balanced this by the private considerations
+  that had developed from the situation.</p>
+
+  <p>This dispatched, he applied for leave.</p>
+
+  <p>"This is the busy season, and we can spare no one," said
+  Thorne. "You have important matters on hand."</p>
+
+  <p>"This is especially important," urged Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"It is absolutely impossible. Come two months later, and I'll
+  be glad to lay you off as long as I can."</p>
+
+  <p>"This particular affair is most urgent business."</p>
+
+  <p>"Private, of course?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Not entirely."</p>
+
+  <p>"Couldn't be considered official?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It might become so."</p>
+
+  <p>"What is it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That I am not at liberty to tell you."</p>
+
+  <p>Thorne considered.</p>
+
+  <p>"No; I'm sorry, but I don't see how I can spare you."</p>
+
+  <p>"In that case," said Bob quietly, "you will force me to tender
+  my resignation."</p>
+
+  <p>Thorne looked up at him quickly, and studied his face.</p>
+
+  <p>"From anybody else, Orde," said he, "I'd take that as a threat
+  or a hold-up, and fire the man on the spot. From you I do not.
+  The matter must be really serious. You may go. Get back as soon
+  as you can."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank you," said Bob. "It is serious. Three days will do
+  me."</p>
+
+  <p>He set about his preparations at once, packing a suit case
+  with linen long out of commission, smoothing out the tailored
+  clothes he had not had occasion to use for many a day. He then
+  transported this&mdash;and himself&mdash;down the mountain on his
+  saddle horse. At Auntie Belle's he changed his clothes. The next
+  morning he caught the stage, and by the day following walked up
+  the main street of Fremont.</p>
+
+  <p>He had no trouble in finding Baker's office. The Sycamore
+  Creek operations were one group of many. As one of Baker's
+  companies furnished Fremont with light and power, it followed
+  that at night the name of that company blazed forth in thousands
+  of lights. The sign was not the less legible, though not so
+  fiery, by day. Bob walked into extensive ground-floor offices
+  behind plate-glass windows. Here were wickets and railings
+  through which and over which the public business was transacted.
+  A narrow passageway sidled down between the wall and a row of
+  ground-glass doors, on which were lettered the names of various
+  officers of the company. At a swinging bar separating this
+  passage from the main office sat a uniformed boy directing and
+  stamping envelopes.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob wrote his name on a blank form offered by this youth. The
+  young man gazed at it a moment superciliously, then sauntered
+  with an air of great leisure down the long corridor. He
+  reappeared after a moment's absence behind the last door, to
+  return with considerably more alacrity.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come right in, sir," he told Bob, in tones which mingled much
+  deference with considerable surprise.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob had no reason to understand how unusual was the
+  circumstance of so prompt a reception of a visitor for whom no
+  previous appointment had been made. He entered the door held open
+  for him by the boy, and so found himself in Baker's
+  presence.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXIII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>The office was expensively but plainly furnished in hardwoods.
+  A thick rug covered the floor, easy chairs drew up by a
+  fireplace, several good pictures hung off the wall. Near the
+  windows stood a small desk for a stenographer, and a wide
+  mahogany table. Behind this latter, his back to the light, sat
+  Baker.</p>
+
+  <p>The man's sturdy figure was absolutely immobile, and the
+  customary facetiously quizzical lines of his face had given place
+  to an expression of cold attention. When he spoke, Bob found that
+  the picturesque diction too had vanished.</p>
+
+  <p>At Bob's entrance, Baker inclined his head coldly in greeting,
+  but said nothing. Bob deliberately crossed the room and rested
+  his two fists, knuckle down, on the polished desktop. Baker
+  waited stolidly for him to proceed. Bob jerked his head toward
+  the stenographer.</p>
+
+  <p>"I want to talk to you in private," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>The stenographer glanced toward her employer. The latter
+  nodded, whereupon she gathered a few stray leaves of paper and
+  departed. Bob looked after her until the door had closed behind
+  her. Then, quite deliberately, he made a tour of the office,
+  trying doors, peering behind curtains and porti&egrave;res. He
+  ended at the desk, to find Baker's eye fixed on him with sardonic
+  humour. "Melodramatic, useless&mdash;and ridiculous," he said
+  briefly.</p>
+
+  <p>"If I have any evidence to give, it will be in court, not in a
+  private office," replied Bob composedly.</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you want?" demanded Baker.</p>
+
+  <p>"I have come this far solely and simply to get a piece of
+  information at first hand. I was told you had threatened to
+  become a blackmailer, and I wanted to find out if it is
+  true?"</p>
+
+  <p>"In a world of contrary definitions, it is necessary to come
+  down to facts. What do you mean by blackmailer?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It has been told me that you intend to aid criminal
+  proceedings against Mr. Welton in regard to the right-of-way
+  trouble and the 'sugaring' of Plant."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well?"</p>
+
+  <p>"And that in order to evade your own criminal responsibility
+  in the matter you intended to turn state's evidence."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well?" repeated Baker.</p>
+
+  <p>"It seemed inconceivable to me that a man of your social and
+  business standing would not only confess himself a petty
+  criminal, but one who shelters himself by betrayal of his
+  confederate."</p>
+
+  <p>"I do not relish any such process," stated Baker formally,
+  "and would avoid it if possible. Nevertheless, if the situation
+  comes squarely up to me, I shall meet it."</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose you have thought what decent men----"</p>
+
+  <p>Baker held up one hand. This was the first physical movement
+  he had made.</p>
+
+  <p>"Pardon me," he interrupted. "Let us understand, once and for
+  all, that I intend to defend myself when attacked. Personally I
+  do not think that either Mr. Welton or myself are legally
+  answerable for what we have done. I regret to observe that you,
+  among others, think differently. If the whole matter were to be
+  dropped at this point, I should rest quite content. But if the
+  matter is not dropped"&mdash;at last he let his uplifted hand
+  fall, "if the matter is not dropped," he repeated, "my sense of
+  justice is strong enough to feel that every one should stand on
+  the same footing. If I am to be dragged into court, so must
+  others."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob stood thoughtful for a moment.</p>
+
+  <p>"I guess that's all," said he, and walked out.</p>
+
+  <p>As the door closed behind him, Baker reached forward to touch
+  one of several buttons. To the uniformed messenger who appeared
+  he snapped out the one word, "Oldham!" A moment later the land
+  agent stood before the wide mahogany desk.</p>
+
+  <p>"Orde has just been here," stated Baker crisply. "He wanted to
+  know if I intended to jail Welton on that old bribery charge. I
+  told him I did."</p>
+
+  <p>"How did he take it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"As near as I can tell he is getting obstinate. You claimed
+  very confidently you could head off his testimony. Up to date you
+  haven't accomplished much. Make good."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll head him off," stated Oldham grimly, "or put him where
+  he belongs. I've saved a little persuasion until all the rest had
+  failed."</p>
+
+  <p>"How?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That I'll tell you in time, but not now. But I don't mind
+  telling you that I've no reason to love this Orde&mdash;or any
+  other Orde&mdash;and I intend to get even with him on my own
+  account. It's a personal and private matter, but I have a club
+  that will keep him."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why the secrecy?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's an affair of my own," insisted Oldham, "but I have it on
+  him. If he attempts to testify as to the Basin lands, I'll have
+  him in the penitentiary in ten days."</p>
+
+  <p>"And if he agrees?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Then," said Oldham quietly, "I'll have him in the pen a
+  little later&mdash;after the Basin matter is settled once and for
+  all."</p>
+
+  <p>Baker considered this a little.</p>
+
+  <p>"My judgment might be worth something as to handling this," he
+  suggested.</p>
+
+  <p>"The matter is mine," said Oldham firmly, "and I must choose
+  my own time and place."</p>
+
+  <p>"Very well," Baker acquiesced; "but I'd advise you to tackle
+  Orde at once. Time is short. Try out your club to see if it will
+  work."</p>
+
+  <p>"It will work!" stated Oldham confidently.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course," remarked Baker, relaxing abruptly his attitude,
+  physical and mental, and lighting a cigar, "of course, it is all
+  very well to yank the temples down around the merry Philistines,
+  but it doesn't do your Uncle Samson much good. We can raise hell
+  with Welton and Orde and a half-dozen others, and we will, if
+  they push us too hard&mdash;but that don't keep us the Basin if
+  this crazy reformer testifies and pulls in Welton to corroborate
+  him. I'd rather keep the Basin. If we could stop Orde----"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll stop him," said Oldham.</p>
+
+  <p>"I hope," said Baker impressively, "that you have more than
+  one string to your bow. I am not inquiring into your methods, you
+  understand"&mdash;his pause was so significantly long at this
+  point, that Oldham nodded&mdash;"<i>but your sole job is to keep
+  Orde out of court</i>."</p>
+
+  <p>Baker looked his agent squarely in the eye for fifteen
+  seconds. Then abruptly he dropped his gaze.</p>
+
+  <p>"That's all," said he, and reached for some papers.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXIV</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Oldham obeyed his principal's orders by joining Bob on the
+  train back to the city. He dropped down by the young man's side,
+  produced a cigar which he rolled between his lips, but did not
+  light, and at once opened up the subject of his negotiations.</p>
+
+  <p>"I wish to point out to you, with your permission," he began,
+  "just where you stand in this matter. In the confusion and haste
+  of a busy time you may not have cast up your accounts. First," he
+  checked off the point on his long, slender forefinger, "in
+  injuring Mr. Baker in this ill-advised fashion you are injuring
+  your old-time employer and friend, Mr. Welton, and this in two
+  ways: you are jeopardizing his whole business, and you are
+  rendering practically certain his conviction on a criminal
+  charge. Mr. Welton is an old man, a simple man, and a kindly man;
+  this thing is likely to kill him." Oldham glanced keenly at the
+  young man's sombre face, and went on. "Second"&mdash;he folded
+  back his middle finger&mdash;"you are injuring your own father,
+  also in two ways: you are bringing his lawful property into
+  danger, and you are giving his political enemies the most
+  effective sort of a weapon to swing in his coming campaign. And
+  do not flatter yourself they will not make the best of it. It
+  happens that your father has stood strongly with the Conservation
+  members in the late fight in Congress. This would be a pretty
+  scandal. Third," said Oldham, touching his ring finger, "you are
+  injuring yourself. You are throwing away an opportunity to get in
+  on the ground floor with the biggest man in the West; you are
+  making for yourself a powerful enemy; and you are indubitably
+  preparing the way for your removal from office&mdash;if removal
+  from such an office can conceivably mean anything to any one." He
+  removed the cigar from his mouth, gazed at the wetted end, waited
+  a moment for the young man to comment, then replaced it, and
+  resumed. "And fourth," he remarked closing his fist so that all
+  fingers were concealed. There he stopped until Bob was fairly
+  compelled to start him on again.</p>
+
+  <p>"And fourth----" he suggested, therefore.</p>
+
+  <p>"Fourth," rapped out Oldham, briskly, "you injure George
+  Pollock."</p>
+
+  <p>"George Pollock!" echoed Bob, trying vainly to throw a tone of
+  ingenuous surprise into his voice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Certainly; George Pollock," repeated Oldham. "I arrived in
+  Sycamore Flats at the moment when Pollock murdered Plant. I know
+  positively that you were an eye-witness to the deed. If you
+  testify in one case, I shall certainly call upon you to testify
+  in the other. Furthermore," he turned his gray eyes on Bob, and
+  for the second time the young man was permitted to see an
+  implacable hostility, "although not on the scene itself, I can
+  myself testify, and will, that you held the murderer's horse
+  during the deed, and assisted Pollock to escape. Furthermore, I
+  can testify, and can bring a competent witness, that while
+  supposed to be estimating Government timber in the Basin, you
+  were in communication with Pollock."</p>
+
+  <p>"Saleratus Bill!" cried Bob, enlightened as to the trailer's
+  recent activities in the Basin.</p>
+
+  <p>"It will be easy to establish not only Pollock's guilt, but
+  your own as accessory. That will put you hard and fast behind the
+  bars&mdash;where you belong."</p>
+
+  <p>In this last speech Oldham made his one serious mistake of the
+  interview. So long as he had appealed to Bob's feelings for, and
+  sense of duty toward, other men, he had succeeded well in still
+  further confusing the young man's decision. But at the direct
+  personal threat, Bob's combative spirit flared. Suddenly his
+  troubled mind was clarified, as though Oldham's menace had acted
+  as a chemical reagent to precipitate all his doubts. Whatever the
+  incidental hardships, right must prevail. And, as always, in the
+  uprooting of evil, some unlucky innocent must suffer. It is the
+  hardship of life, inevitable, not to be blinked at if a man is to
+  be a man, and do a man's part. He leaned forward with so swift a
+  movement that Oldham involuntarily dodged back.</p>
+
+  <p>"You tell your boss," said Bob, "that nothing on God's earth
+  can keep me out of court."</p>
+
+  <p>He threw away his half-smoked cigar and went back to the chair
+  car. The sight of Oldham was intolerable to him.</p>
+
+  <p>The words were said, and the decision made. In his heart he
+  knew the matter irrevocable. For a few moments he experienced a
+  feeling of relief and freedom, as when a swimmer first gets his
+  head above the surf that has tumbled him. These fine-spun matters
+  of ethical balance had confused and wearied his spirit. He had
+  become bewildered among such varied demands on his personal
+  decision. It was a comfort to fall back on the old straight rule
+  of right conduct no matter what the consequences. The essentials
+  of the situation were not at all altered: Baker was guilty of the
+  rankest fraud; Welton was innocent of every evil intent and
+  should never be punished for what he had been unwillingly and
+  doubtfully persuaded to permit; Orde senior had acquired his
+  lands quite according to the customs and ideas of the time;
+  George Pollock should have been justified a thousand times over
+  in sight of God and man. Those things were to Bob's mind
+  indisputable. To deprive the one man of a very small portion of
+  his fraudulently acquired property, it was apparently necessary
+  to punish three men who should not be punished. These men were,
+  furthermore, all dear to Bob personally. It did not seem right
+  that his decision should plunge them into undeserved penalties.
+  But now the situation was materially altered. Bob also stood in
+  danger from his action. He, too, must suffer with the others. All
+  were in the same boat. The menace to his own liberty justified
+  his course. The innocent must suffer with the guilty; but now the
+  fact that he was one of those who must so suffer, raised his
+  decision from a choice to a necessity. Whatever the consequences,
+  the simplest, least perplexing, most satisfying course was to
+  follow the obvious right. The odium of ingratitude, of lack of
+  affection, of disloyalty, of self-reproach was lifted from him by
+  the very fact that he, too, was one of those who must take
+  consequences. In making the personal threat against the young
+  man's liberty, Oldham had, without knowing it, furnished to his
+  soul the one valid reason for going ahead, conscience-clear.</p>
+
+  <p>Though naturally Oldham could not follow out this psychology,
+  he was shrewd enough to understand that he had failed. This
+  surprised him, for he had entertained not the slightest doubt
+  that the threat of the penitentiary would bring Bob to terms.</p>
+
+  <p>On arriving in the city, Oldham took quarters at the Buena
+  Vista and sent for Saleratus Bill, whom he had summoned by wire
+  as soon as he had heard from that individual of Bob's intended
+  visit to Fremont.</p>
+
+  <p>The spy arrived wearing a new broad, black hat, a celluloid
+  collar, a wrinkled suit of store clothes, and his same shrewd,
+  evil leer. Oldham did not appear, but requested that the visitor
+  be shown into his room. There, having closed the transom, he
+  issued his instructions.</p>
+
+  <p>"I want you to pay attention, and not interrupt," said he.
+  "Within a month a case is coming up in which Orde, the Forest
+  man, is to appear as witness. He must not appear. I leave that
+  all to you, but, of course, I want no more than necessary
+  violence. He must be detained until after the trial, and for as
+  long after that as I say. Understand?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Sure," said Saleratus Bill. "But when he comes back, he'll
+  fix you just the same."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll see to that part of it. The case will never be reopened.
+  Now, mind you, no shooting----"</p>
+
+  <p>"There might be an accident," suggested Saleratus Bill,
+  opening his red eyes and staring straight at his principal.</p>
+
+  <p>"Accidents," said Oldham, speaking slowly and judicially, "are
+  always likely to happen. Sometimes they can't be helped." He
+  paused to let these words sink in.</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill wrinkled his eyes in an appreciative laugh.
+  "Accidents is of two kinds: lucky and unlucky," he remarked
+  briefly, by way of parenthesis.</p>
+
+  <p>"But, of course, it is distinctly understood," went on Oldham,
+  as though he had not heard, "that this is your own affair. You
+  have nothing to expect from me if you get into trouble. And if
+  you mention my name, you'll merely get jugged for attempted
+  blackmail."</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill's eyes flared.</p>
+
+  <p>"Cut it," said he, with a rasp in his voice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Nevertheless, that is the case," repeated Oldham,
+  unmoved.</p>
+
+  <p>The flame slowly died from Saleratus Bill's eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll want a little raise for that kind of a job," said
+  he.</p>
+
+  <p>"Naturally," agreed Oldham.</p>
+
+  <p>They entered into discussion of ways and means.</p>
+
+  <p>In the meantime Bob had encountered an old friend.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXV</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob always stayed at the Monterosa Hotel when in town; a
+  circumstance that had sent Oldham to the Buena Vista. Although it
+  wanted but a few hours until train time, he drifted around to his
+  customary stopping place, resolved to enjoy a quiet smoke by the
+  great plate-glass windows before which the ever-varying theatre
+  crowds stream by from Main Street cars. He had been thus settled
+  for some time, when he heard his name pronounced by the man
+  occupying the next chair.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bob Orde!" he cried; "but this is luck!"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob looked around to see an elderly, gray-haired, slender man,
+  of keen, intelligent face, pure white hair and moustache, in whom
+  he recognized Mr. Frank Taylor, a lifelong friend of his father's
+  and one of the best lawyers his native state had produced. He
+  sprang to his feet to grasp the older man's hand. The unexpected
+  meeting was especially grateful, for Bob had been long enough
+  without direct reminders of his old home to be hungry for them.
+  Ever since he could remember, the erect, military form of Frank
+  Taylor had been one of the landmarks of memory, like the sword
+  that had belonged to Georgie Cathcart's father, or like the
+  kindly, homely, gray figure of Mr. Kincaid in his rickety,
+  two-wheeled cart&mdash;the man who had given Bob his first
+  firearm.</p>
+
+  <p>After first greetings and inquiries, the two men sank back to
+  finish their smoke together.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's good to see you again," observed Bob, "but I'm sorry
+  your business brings you out here at this time of year. This is
+  our dry season, you know. Everything is brown. I like it myself,
+  as do most Californians, but an Easterner has to get used to it.
+  After the rains, though, the country is wonderful."</p>
+
+  <p>"This isn't my first trip," said Taylor. "I was out here for
+  some months away back in&mdash;I think it was '79. I remember we
+  went in to Santa Barbara on a steamer that fired a gun by way of
+  greeting! Strangely enough, the same business brings me here
+  now."</p>
+
+  <p>"You are out here on father's account?" hazarded Bob, to whom
+  the year 1879 now began to have its significance.</p>
+
+  <p>"Exactly. Didn't you get your father's letter telling of my
+  coming?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I've been from headquarters three days," Bob explained.</p>
+
+  <p>"I see. Well, he sent you this message: 'Tell Bob to go ahead.
+  I can take care of myself.'"</p>
+
+  <p>"Bully for dad!" cried Bob, greatly heartened.</p>
+
+  <p>"He told me he did not want to advise you, but that in the old
+  days when a fight was on, the spectators were supposed to do
+  their own dodging."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'd about come to that conclusion," said Bob, "but it surely
+  does me good to feel that father's behind me in it."</p>
+
+  <p>"My trip in '79&mdash;or whenever it was&mdash;was exactly on
+  this same muss-up." Mr. Taylor went on: "Your father owned this
+  timber land then, and wanted to borrow money on it. At the time a
+  rascally partner was trying to ruin him; and, in order to prevent
+  his getting this money, which would save him, this partner
+  instigated investigations and succeeded temporarily in clouding
+  the title. Naturally the banks declined to lend money on doubtful
+  titles; which was all this partner wanted.<a name="FNanchor7" id=
+  "FNanchor7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> Perhaps
+  you know all this?"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head. "I was a little too young to know anything
+  of business."</p>
+
+  <p>"Your father sent me out to straighten things. The whole
+  matter was involved in endless red tape, obscured in every
+  ingenious way possible. Although there proved to be nothing to
+  the affair, to prove that fact took time, and time was what your
+  father's partner was after. As a matter of fact, he failed; but
+  that was not the result of miscalculation. Now I strongly suspect
+  that your friend Baker, or his lawyers, have dug up a lot of this
+  old evidence on the records and are going to use it to annoy us.
+  There is nothing more in it how than there was at the beginning,
+  but it's colourable enough to start a noisy suit on, and that's
+  all these fellows are after."</p>
+
+  <p>"But if it was decided once, how can they bring it up again?"
+  Bob objected.</p>
+
+  <p>"It was never brought to court. When the delay had been
+  gained&mdash;or rather, when I unravelled the whole
+  matter&mdash;it was dropped."</p>
+
+  <p>"I see," said Bob. "Then the titles are all right?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Every bit of that tract is as good as gold," said Taylor
+  impressively. "Your father bought only from men who had taken up
+  land with their own money. He paid as high as fifteen or sixteen
+  hundred dollars for claims where by straight 'colonizing' he
+  could have had them for three or four hundred."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm glad to hear that," said Bob. "But are you sure you can
+  handle this?"</p>
+
+  <p>"As for a suit, they can never win this in the world," said
+  Taylor. "But that isn't the question. What they want is a chance
+  for big headlines."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, can you head them off?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm going to try, after I look over the situation. If I can't
+  head it off completely, I'll at least be in a position to reply
+  publicly at once. It took me three months to dig this thing out,
+  but it won't take me half an hour to get it in the papers."</p>
+
+  <p>"I should think they'd know that."</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't think their lawyer really knows about it. As I say,
+  it took me three months to dig it all out. My notion is that
+  while they have no idea they can win the case, they believe that
+  we did actually colonize the lands. In other words, they think
+  they have it on us straight enough. The results of my
+  investigations will surprise them. I'll keep the thing out of
+  court if I can; but in any case we're ready. It will be a trial
+  in the newspapers."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," said Bob, "you want to get acquainted then. Western
+  newspapers are not like those in the East. They certainly jump in
+  with both feet on any cause that enlists them one way or another.
+  It is a case of no quarter to the enemy, in headlines, subheads,
+  down to the date&mdash;reading matter, of course. They have a
+  powerful influence, too, for they are very widely read."</p>
+
+  <p>"Can they be bought?" asked Taylor shrewdly.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob glanced at him.</p>
+
+  <p>"I was thinking of the Power Company," explained Taylor.</p>
+
+  <p>"Blessed if I know," confessed Bob; "but I think not. I
+  disagree with them on so many things that I'd like to think they
+  are bought. But they are more often against those apt to buy,
+  than for them. They lambaste impartially and with a certain Irish
+  delight in doing the job thoroughly. I must say they are not fair
+  about it. They hit a man just as hard when he is down. What you
+  want to do is to be better news than Baker."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll be all of that," promised Taylor, "if it comes to a
+  newspaper trial."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob glanced at his watch and jumped to his feet with an
+  exclamation of dismay.</p>
+
+  <p>"I've five minutes to get to the station," he said.
+  "Goodbye."</p>
+
+  <p>He rushed out of the hotel, caught a car, ran a
+  block&mdash;and arrived in time to see the tail lights slipping
+  away. He had to wait until the morning train, but that mattered
+  little to him now. His wait and the journey back to the mountains
+  were considerably lightened by this partial relief of the
+  situation. At the first sign of trouble his father had taken the
+  field to fight out his own fights. That much responsibility was
+  lifted from Bob's shoulders. He might have known!</p>
+
+  <p>Of the four dangerous elements of his problem one was thus
+  unexpectedly, almost miraculously, relieved. Remained, however,
+  poor Welton's implication in the bribery matter, and Pollock's
+  danger. Bob could not count in himself. If he could only relieve
+  the others of the consequences of his action, he could face his
+  own trouble with a stout heart.</p>
+
+  <p>At White Oaks he was forced to wait for the next stage. This
+  put him twenty-four hours behind, and he was inclined to curse
+  his luck. Had he only known it, no better fortune could have
+  fallen him. The news came down the line that the stage he would
+  have taken had been held up by a lone highwayman just at the top
+  of Flour Gold grade. As the vehicle carried only an assortment of
+  perishable fruit and three Italian labourers, for the dam, the
+  profits from the transaction were not extraordinary. The sheriff
+  and a posse at once set out in pursuit. Their efforts at
+  overtaking the highwayman were unavailing, for the trail soon ran
+  out over the rocky and brushy ledges, and the fugitive had been
+  clever enough to sprinkle some of his tracks liberally with red
+  pepper to baffle the dogs. The sheriff made a hard push of it,
+  however, and for one day held closely enough on the trail. Bob's
+  journey to Sycamore Flats took place on this one day&mdash;during
+  which Saleratus Bill was too busy dodging his pursuers to resume
+  a purpose which Bob's delay had frustrated.</p>
+
+  <p>On arriving at Auntie Belle's, Bob resolved to push on up the
+  mountain that very night, instead of waiting as usual until the
+  following morning. Accordingly, after supper, he saddled his
+  horse, collected the camp mail, and set himself in motion up the
+  steep road.</p>
+
+  <p>Before he had passed Fern Falls, the twilight was falling.
+  Hermit thrushes sang down through the cooling forest. From the
+  side hill, exposed all the afternoon to the California summer
+  sun, rose tepid odours of bear-clover and snowbush, which exhaled
+  out into space, giving way to the wandering, faint perfumes of
+  night. Bob took off his hat, and breathed deep, greatly refreshed
+  after the long, hot stage ride of the day. Darkness fell. In the
+  forest the strengthening moonlight laid its wand upon familiar
+  scenes to transform them. New aisles opened down the woodlands,
+  aisles at the end of which stood silvered, ghostly trees thus
+  distinguished by the moonbeams from their unnumbered brethren.
+  The whole landscape became ghostly, full of depths and shadows,
+  mysteries and allurements, heights and spaces unknown to the more
+  prosaic day. Landmarks were lost in the velvet dark; new features
+  sprang into prominence. Were it not for the wagon trail, Bob felt
+  that in this strange, enchanted, unfamiliar land he might easily
+  have become lost. His horse plodded mechanically on. One by one
+  he passed the homely roadside landmarks, exempt from the
+  necromancies of the moon&mdash;the pile of old cedar posts, split
+  heaven knows when, by heaven knows whom, and thriftlessly
+  abandoned; the water trough, with the brook singing by; the S
+  turn by the great boulders; the narrow defile of the Devil's
+  Grade&mdash;and then, still under the spell of the night, Bob
+  surmounted the ridge to look out over the pine-clad plateau
+  slumbering dead-still under the soft radiance of the moon.</p>
+
+  <p>He rode the remaining distance to headquarters at a brisker
+  pace. As he approached the little meadow, and the group of
+  buildings dark and silent, he raised joyously the wild hallo of
+  the late-comer with mail. Immediately lights were struck. A
+  moment later, by the glimmer of a lantern, he was distributing
+  the coveted papers, letters and magazines to the half-dressed
+  group that surrounded him. Amy summoned him to bring her share.
+  He delivered it to the hand and arm extended from the low
+  window.</p>
+
+  <p>"You must be nearly dead," said Amy, "after that long stage
+  ride&mdash;to come right up the mountain."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's the finest sort of a night," said Bob. "I wouldn't have
+  missed it for anything. It's H-O-T, hot, down at the Flats. This
+  ride just saved my life."</p>
+
+  <p>This might have been truer than Bob had thought, for at almost
+  that very moment Saleratus Bill, having successfully shaken off
+  his pursuers, was making casual and guarded inquiries at Austin's
+  saloon. When he heard that Orde had arrived at the Flats on the
+  evening's stage, he manifested some satisfaction. The next
+  morning, however, that satisfaction vanished, for only then he
+  learned that the young man must be already safe at
+  headquarters.</p>
+
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXVI</h2><br>
+
+  <p>In delivering his instructions to Oldham, Baker had, of
+  course, no thought of extreme measures. Indeed, had the direct
+  question been put to him, he would most strongly and emphatically
+  have forbidden them. Nevertheless, he was glad to leave his
+  intentions vague, feeling that in thus wilfully shutting his eyes
+  he might avoid personal responsibility for what might happen. He
+  had every confidence that Oldham&mdash;a man of more than average
+  cultivation&mdash;while he might contemplate lawlessness, was of
+  too high an order to consider physical violence. Baker was
+  inclined to believe that on mature reflection Bob would yield to
+  the accumulation of influence against him. If not, Oldham
+  intimated with no uncertain confidence, that he possessed
+  information of a sort to coerce the Forest officer into silence.
+  If that in turn proved unavailing&mdash;a contingency, it must be
+  remembered that Baker hardly thought worth
+  entertainment&mdash;why, then, in some one of a thousand
+  perfectly legal ways Oldham could entangle the chief witness into
+  an enforced absence from the trial. This sort of manoeuvre was,
+  later, actually carried out in the person of Mr. Fremont Older, a
+  witness in the graft prosecutions of San Francisco. In short,
+  Baker's intentions, while desperately illegal, contemplated no
+  personal harm to their victim. He gave as general orders to his
+  subordinate: "Keep Orde's testimony out of court"; and shrugged
+  off minute responsibilities.</p>
+
+  <p>This command, filtered through a second and inimical
+  personality, gained in strength. Oldham was not of a temperament
+  to contemplate murder. His nerves were too refined; his training
+  too conventional; his imagination too developed. He, too,
+  resolutely kept his intentions a trifle vague. If Orde persisted,
+  then he must be kidnapped for a time.</p>
+
+  <p>But Saleratus Bill, professional gun-man, well paid, took his
+  instructions quite brutally. In literal and bald statement he
+  closed the circle and returned to Baker's very words: "Keep
+  Orde's testimony out of court." Only in this case Saleratus Bill
+  read into the simple command a more sinister meaning.</p>
+
+  <p>The morning after his return from the lower country, Bob
+  saddled up to ride over to the mill. He wished to tell Welton of
+  his meeting Taylor; and to consult him on the best course to
+  pursue in regard to the bribery charges. With daylight many of
+  his old perplexities had returned. He rode along so deep in
+  thought that the only impression reaching him from the external
+  world was one of the warmth of the sun.</p>
+
+  <p>Suddenly a narrow shadow flashed by his eyes. Before his
+  consciousness could leap from its inner contemplation, his arms
+  were pulled flat to his sides, a shock ran through him as though
+  he had received a heavy blow, and he was jerked backward from his
+  horse to hit the ground with great violence.</p>
+
+  <p>The wind was knocked from his body, so that for five seconds,
+  perhaps, he was utterly confused. Before he could gather himself,
+  or even comprehend what had happened, a heavy weight flung itself
+  upon him. The beginnings of his feeble struggles were
+  unceremoniously subdued. When, in another ten seconds, his vision
+  had cleared, he found himself bound hand and foot. Saleratus Bill
+  stood over him, slowly recoiling the <i>riata,</i> or throwing
+  rope, with which he had so dexterously caught Bob from behind.
+  After contemplating his victim for a moment, Saleratus Bill
+  mounted his own animal, and disappeared.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob, his head humming from the violence of its impact with the
+  ground, listened until the hoof beats had ceased to jar the
+  earth. Then with a methodical desperation he began to wrench and
+  work at his bonds. All his efforts were useless; Saleratus Bill
+  understood "hog-tying" too well. When, finally, he had convinced
+  himself that he could not get away, Bob gave over his efforts.
+  The forest was very still and warm. After a time the sun fell
+  upon him, and he began to feel its heat uncomfortably. The affair
+  was inexplicable. He began to wonder whether Saleratus Bill
+  intended leaving him there a prey to what fortune chance might
+  bring. Although the odds were a hundred to one against his being
+  heard, he shouted several times. About as he had begun once more
+  to struggle against his bonds, his captor returned, leading Bob's
+  horse, and cursing audibly over the difficulty he had been put to
+  in catching it.</p>
+
+  <p>Ignoring Bob's indignant demands, the gun-man loosed his
+  ankles, taking, however, the precaution of throwing the riata
+  over the young man's shoulders.</p>
+
+  <p>"Climb your horse," he commanded briefly.</p>
+
+  <p>"How do you expect me to do that, with my hands tied behind
+  me?" demanded Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't know. Just do it, and be quick," replied Saleratus
+  Bill.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob's horse was nervous and restive. Three times he dropped
+  his master heavily to earth. Then Saleratus Bill, his evil eye
+  wary, extended a helping hand. This was what Bob was hoping for;
+  but the gun-man was too wily and experienced to allow himself
+  within the captive's fettered reach.</p>
+
+  <p>When Bob had finally gained his saddle, Saleratus Bill,
+  leading the horse, set off at a rapid pace cross country. To all
+  of Bob's questions and commands he turned a deaf ear, until,
+  finally, seeing it was useless to ask, Bob fell silent. Only once
+  did he pause, and then to breathe and water the horses. The
+  country through which they passed was unfamiliar to Bob. He knew
+  only that they were going north, and were keeping to westward of
+  the Second Ranges.</p>
+
+  <p>Late that evening Saleratus Bill halted for the night at a
+  little meadow. He fed Bob a thick sandwich, and offered him a cup
+  of water; after which he again shackled the young man's ankles,
+  bound his elbows, and attached the helpless form to a tree. Bob
+  spent the night in this case, covered only by his saddle blanket.
+  The cords cut into his swelled flesh, the retarded circulation
+  pricked him cruelly. He slept little. At early dawn his captor
+  offered him the same fare. By sun-up they were under way
+  again.</p>
+
+  <p>All that day they angled to the northwest. The pine forests
+  gave way to oaks, buckthorn, chaparral, as they entered lower
+  country. Several times Saleratus Bill made long detours to avoid
+  clearings and ranches. Bob, in spite of his strength and the
+  excellence of his condition, reeled from sheer weariness and
+  pain. They made no stop at noon.</p>
+
+  <p>At two o'clock, or so, they left the last ranch and began once
+  more leisurely to climb. The slope was gentle. A badly washed and
+  eroded wagon grade led them on. It had not been used for years.
+  The horses, now very tired, plodded on dispiritedly.</p>
+
+  <p>Then, with the suddenness of a shift of scenery, they topped
+  what seemed to be a trifling rounded hill. On the other side the
+  slope dropped sheer away. Opposite and to north and south were
+  the ranks of great mountains, some dark with the blue of
+  atmosphere before pines, others glittering with snow. Directly
+  beneath, almost under him, Bob saw a valley.</p>
+
+  <p>It was many thousand feet below, mathematically round, and
+  completely surrounded by lofty mountains. Indeed, already evening
+  had there spread its shadows, although to the rest of the world
+  the sun was still hours high. Through it flowed a river. From the
+  height it looked like a piece of translucent green glass in the
+  still depths; like cotton-wool where the rapids broke; for the
+  great distance robbed it of all motion. This stream issued from a
+  gorge and flowed into another, both so narrow that the lofty
+  mountains seemed fairly to close them shut.</p>
+
+  <p>Through the clear air of the Sierras this valley looked like a
+  toy, a miniature. Every detail was distinct. Bob made out very
+  plainly the pleasant trees, and a bridge over the river, and the
+  roofs of many houses, and the streets of a little town.</p>
+
+  <p>To the left the wagon road dropped away down the steep side of
+  the mountain. Bob's eye could follow it, at first a band, then a
+  ribbon, finally a tiny white thread, as it wound and zigzagged,
+  seeking its contours, until finally it ran out on the level and
+  rested at the bridge end. Opposite, on the other mountain, he
+  thought to make out here and there faint suggestions of another
+  way.</p>
+
+  <p>Though his eye thus embraced at a glance the whole length of
+  the route, Bob found it a two-hours' journey down. Always the
+  walls of the mountains rose higher and higher above him, gaining
+  in majesty and awe as he abandoned to them the upper air. Always
+  the round valley grew larger, losing its toy-like character. Its
+  features became, not more distinct, but more detailed. Bob saw
+  the streets of the town were pleasantly shaded by cotton woods
+  and willows; he distinguished dwelling houses, a store, an office
+  building, a mill building for crushing of ore. The roar of the
+  river came up to him more clearly. As though some power had
+  released the magic of the stream, the water now moved. Rushing
+  foam and white water tumbled over the black and shining rocks;
+  deep pools eddied, dark and green, shot with swirls.</p>
+
+  <p>As it became increasingly evident that the road could lead
+  nowhere but through this village, Bob's spirits rose. The place
+  was well built. Bob caught the shimmer of ample glass in the
+  windows, the colour of paint on the boards, and even the ordered
+  rectangles of brick chimneys! Evidently these things must have
+  been freighted in over the devious steep grade he was at that
+  moment descending. Bob well knew that, even nearer the source of
+  supplies, such mining camps as this appeared to be were most
+  often but a collection of rude, unpainted shanties, huddled
+  together for a temporary need. The orderly, well-kept, decent
+  appearance of this hamlet, more like a shaded New England village
+  than a Western camp, argued old establishment, prosperity, and
+  self-respect. The inhabitants could be no desperate
+  fly-by-nights, such as Saleratus Bill would most likely have
+  sought as companions. Bob made up his mind that the gun-man would
+  shortly try to threaten him into a temporary secrecy as to the
+  condition of affairs. This Bob instantly resolved to refuse.</p>
+
+  <p><img src="images/rgillp568.jpg" alt=
+  "Bob found it two hours' journey down"></p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill, however, rode on in an unbroken silence. Long
+  after the brawl of the river had become deafening, the road
+  continued to dip and descend. It is a peculiar phenomenon
+  incidental to the descent of the sheer canons of the Sierra
+  Nevada that the last few hundred feet down seem longer than the
+  thousands already passed. This is probably because, having gained
+  close to the level of the tree-tops, the mind, strung taut to the
+  long descent, allows itself prematurely to relax its attention.
+  Bob turned in his saddle to look back at the grade. He could not
+  fail to reflect on how lucky it was that the inhabitants of this
+  village could haul their materials and supplies <i>down</i> the
+  road. It would have been prohibitively difficult to drag anything
+  up.</p>
+
+  <p>After a wearisome time the road at last swung out on the flat,
+  and so across the meadow to the bridge. Feed was belly deep to
+  the horses. The bridge proved to be a suspension affair of wire
+  cables, that swung alarmingly until the horses had to straddle in
+  order to stand at all. Below it boiled the river, swirling,
+  dashing, turning lazily and mysteriously over its glass-green
+  depths, the shimmers and folds of eddies rising and swaying like
+  air currents made visible.</p>
+
+  <p>They climbed out on solid ground. The road swung to the left
+  and back, following a contour to the slight elevation on which
+  the houses stood. Saleratus Bill, however, turned up a brief
+  short-cut, which landed them immediately on the main street.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob saw two stores, an office building and a small hotel,
+  shaded by wooden awnings. Beyond them, and opposite them, were
+  substantial bunk houses and dwelling houses, painted red, each
+  with its elevated, roofed verandah. Large trees, on either side,
+  threw a shade fairly across the thoroughfare. An iron pump and
+  water trough in front of the hotel saved the wayfarer from the
+  necessity of riding his animals down to the river. The vista at
+  the end of the street showed a mill building on a distant
+  mountain side, with the rabbit-burrow dumps of many shafts and
+  prospect holes all about it.</p>
+
+  <p>They rode up the street past two or three of the houses, the
+  hotel and the office. Bob, peering in through the windows, saw
+  tables and chairs, old chromos and newer lithographs on the
+  walls. Under the tree at the side of the hotel hung a water
+  <i>olla</i> with a porcelain cup atop. Near the back porch stood
+  a screen meat safe.</p>
+
+  <p>But not a soul was in sight. The street was deserted, the
+  houses empty, the office unoccupied. As they proceeded Bob
+  expected from one moment to the next to see a door open, a figure
+  saunter around a corner. Save for the jays and squirrels, the
+  place was absolutely empty.</p>
+
+  <p>For some minutes the full realization of this fact was slow in
+  coming. The village exhibited none of the symptoms of
+  abandonment. The window glass was whole; the furniture of such
+  houses as Bob had glanced into while passing stood in its
+  accustomed places. A few strokes of the broom might have made any
+  one of them immediately fit for habitation. The place looked less
+  deserted than asleep; like one of the enchanted palaces so dear
+  to tales of magic. It would not have seemed greatly wonderful to
+  Bob to have seen the town spring suddenly to life in obedience to
+  some spell. If the mill stamps in the distant crusher had creaked
+  and begun to pound; if dogs had rushed barking around corners and
+  from under porches; if from the hotel mine host had emerged,
+  yawning and rubbing his eyes; if from the shops and offices and
+  houses had issued the slow, grumbling sounds of life awakening,
+  it would all have seemed natural and to be expected. Under the
+  influence of this strange effect a deathly stillness seemed to
+  fall, in spite of the bawling and roaring of the river, and the
+  trickle of many streamlets hurrying down from the surrounding
+  hills.</p>
+
+  <p>So extraordinary was this effect of suspended animation that
+  Bob again essayed his surly companion.</p>
+
+  <p>"What place do you call this?" he inquired.</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill had dismounted, and was stretching his long,
+  lean arms over his head. Evidently he considered this the end of
+  the long and painful journey, and as evidently he was, in his
+  relief, inclined to be better natured.</p>
+
+  <p>"Busted minin' camp called Bright's Cove," said he; "they took
+  about ten million dollars out of here before she bust."</p>
+
+  <p>"How long ago was that?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ten year or so."</p>
+
+  <p>The young man gazed about him in amazement. The place looked
+  as though it might have been abandoned the month before. In his
+  subsequent sojourn he began more accurately to gauge the reasons
+  for this. Here were no small boys to hurl the casual pebble
+  through the delightfully shimmering glass; here was no dust to be
+  swirled into crevices and angles, no wind to carry it; to this
+  remote cove penetrated no vandals to rob, mutilate or wantonly
+  disfigure; and the elevation of the valley's floor was low enough
+  even to avoid the crushing weights of snow that every winter
+  brought to the peaks around it. Only the squirrels, the birds and
+  the tiny wood rats represented in their little way the forces of
+  destruction. Furthermore, the difficulties of transportation
+  absolutely precluded moving any of the small property whose
+  absence so strongly impresses the desertion of a building. When
+  Bright's Cove moved, it had merely to shut the front door. In
+  some cases it did not shut the front door.</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill assisted Bob from the saddle. This had become
+  necessary, for the long ride in bonds had so cramped and
+  stiffened the young man that he was unable to help himself.
+  Indeed, he found he could not stand. Saleratus Bill, after
+  looking at him shrewdly, untied his hands.</p>
+
+  <p>"I guess you're safe enough for now," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob's wrists were swollen, and his arms so stiff he could
+  hardly use them. Saleratus Bill paused in throwing the saddles
+  off the wearied animals.</p>
+
+  <p>"Look here," said he gruffly; "if you pass yore word you won't
+  try to get away or make no fight, I'll turn you loose."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll promise you that for to-night, anyway," returned Bob
+  quickly.</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill immediately cast the ropes into a corner of the
+  verandah.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXVII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>The shadows of evening were falling when Saleratus Bill
+  returned from pasturing the wearied horses. Bob had been too
+  exhausted to look about him, even to think. From a cache the
+  gun-man produced several bags of food and a side of bacon.
+  Evidently Bright's Cove was one of his familiar haunts. After a
+  meal which Bob would have enjoyed more had he not been so dead
+  weary, his captor motioned him to one of the bunks. Only too glad
+  for an opportunity to rest, Bob tumbled in, clothes and all.</p>
+
+  <p>About midnight he half roused, feeling the mountain chill. He
+  groped instinctively; his hand encountered a quilt, which he drew
+  around his shoulders.</p>
+
+  <p>When he awoke it was broad daylight. A persistent discomfort
+  which had for an hour fought with his drowsiness for the
+  ascendancy, now disclosed itself as a ligature tying his elbows
+  at the back. Evidently Saleratus Bill had taken this precaution
+  while the young man slept. Bob could still use his hands and
+  wrists, after a fashion; he could walk about but he would be
+  unable to initiate any effective offence. The situation was
+  admirably analogous to that of a hobbled horse. Moreover, the
+  bonds were apparently of some broad, soft substance like sacking
+  or harness webbing, so that, after Bob had moved from his
+  constrained position, they did not excessively discommode
+  him.</p>
+
+  <p>He had no means of guessing what the hour might be, and no
+  sounds reached him from the other parts of the house. His muscles
+  were sore and bruised. For some time he was quite content to lie
+  on his side, thinking matters over.</p>
+
+  <p>From his knowledge of the connection between Baker and Oldham,
+  Oldham and his captor, Bob had no doubt as to the purpose of his
+  abduction; nor did he fail to guess that now, with the chief
+  witness out of the way, the trial would be hurried where before
+  it had been delayed. Personally he had little to fear beyond a
+  detention&mdash;unless he should attempt to escape, or unless a
+  searching party might blunder on his traces. Bob had already made
+  up his mind to use his best efforts to get away. As to the
+  probabilities of a rescue blundering on this retreat, he had no
+  means of guessing; but he shrewdly concluded that Saleratus Bill
+  was taking no chances.</p>
+
+  <p>That individual now entered; and, seeing his captive awake,
+  gruffly ordered him to rise. Bob found an abundant breakfast
+  ready, to which he was able to do full justice. In the course of
+  the meal he made several attempts on his jailer's taciturnity,
+  but without success. Saleratus Bill met all his inquiries, open
+  and guarded, with a sullen silence or evasive, curt replies.</p>
+
+  <p>"It don't noways matter why you're here, or how you're here.
+  You <i>are</i> here, and that's all there's to it."</p>
+
+  <p>"How long do I stay?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Until I get ready to let you go."</p>
+
+  <p>"How can you get word from Mr. Oldham when to let me off?"
+  asked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>But Saleratus Bill refused to rise to the bait.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll let you go when I get ready," he repeated.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob was silent for some time.</p>
+
+  <p>"You know this lets me off from my promise," said he, nodding
+  backward toward his elbows. "I'll get away if I can."</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill, for the first time, permitted himself a
+  smile.</p>
+
+  <p>"There's two ways out of this place," said he&mdash;"where we
+  come in, and over north on the trail. You can see every
+  inch&mdash;both ways&mdash;from here. Besides, don't make no
+  mistakes. I'll shoot you if you make a break."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe you," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>As though to convince Bob of the utter helplessness of any
+  attempt, Saleratus Bill, leaving the dishes unwashed, led the way
+  in a tour of the valley. Save where the wagon road descended and
+  where the steep side hill of the north wall arose, the boundaries
+  were utterly precipitous. From a narrow gorge, flanked by
+  water-smoothed rock aprons, the river boiled between glassy
+  perpendicular cliffs.</p>
+
+  <p>"There ain't no swimming-holes in that there river," remarked
+  Saleratus Bill grimly.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob, leaning forward, could just catch a glimpse of the
+  torrent raging and buffeting in the narrow box ca&ntilde;on,
+  above which the mountains rose tremendous. No stream growths had
+  any chance there. The place was water and rock&mdash;nothing
+  more. In the valley itself willows and alders, well out of reach
+  of high water, offered a partial screen to soften the savage
+  vista.</p>
+
+  <p>The round valley itself, however, was beautiful. Ripening
+  grasses grew shoulder high. Shady trees swarmed with birds. Bees
+  and other insects hummed through the sun-warmed air.</p>
+
+  <p>In vain Bob looked about him for the horses, or for signs of
+  them. They were nowhere to be seen. Saleratus Bill, reading his
+  perplexity, grinned sardonically.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yore friends might come in here," said he, evidently not
+  unwilling to expose to Bob the full hopelessness of the latter's
+  case. "And if so, they can trail us in; <i>and then trail us out
+  again!</i>" He pointed to the lacets of the trail up the north
+  wall. He grinned again. "You and I'd just crawl down a mile of
+  mine shaft."</p>
+
+  <p>Having thus, to his satisfaction, impressed Bob with the utter
+  futility of an attempt to escape, Saleratus Bill led the way back
+  to the deserted village. There he turned deliberately on his
+  captive.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now, young feller, you listen to me," said he. "Don't you try
+  no monkey business. There won't be no questions asked, none
+  whatever. As long as you set and look at the scenery, you won't
+  come to no harm; but the minute you make even a bluff at gettin'
+  funny&mdash;even if yore sorry the next minute&mdash;I'll shoot.
+  And don't you never forget and try to get nearer to me than three
+  paces. Don't forget that! I don't rightly want to hurt you; but
+  I'd just as leave shoot you as anybody else."</p>
+
+  <p>To this view of the situation Bob gave the expected
+  assent.</p>
+
+  <p>The next three days were ones of routine. Saleratus Bill spent
+  his time rolling brown-paper cigarettes at a spot that commanded
+  both trails. Bob was instructed to keep in sight. He early
+  discovered the cheering fact that trout were to be had in the
+  glass-green pools; and so spent hours awkwardly manipulating an
+  improvised willow pole equipped with the short line and the Brown
+  Hackle without which no mountaineer ever travels the Sierras. His
+  bound elbows and the crudity of his tackle lost him many fish.
+  Still, he caught enough for food; and his mind was busy.</p>
+
+  <p>Canvassing the possibilities, Bob could not but admit that
+  Saleratus Bill knew his job. The river was certain death, and led
+  nowhere except into mysterious and awful granite gorges; the
+  outlets by roads were well in sight. For one afternoon Bob
+  seriously contemplated hazarding a personal encounter. He
+  conceived that in some manner he could get rid of his bonds at
+  night; that Saleratus Bill must necessarily sleep; and that there
+  might be a chance to surprise the gun-man then. But when night
+  came, Saleratus Bill disappeared into the outer darkness; nor did
+  he return until morning. He might have spent the hours camped
+  under the trees of the more remote meadow, whence in the
+  brilliant moonlight he could keep tabs on the trails, or he might
+  be lying near at hand; Bob had no means of telling. Certainly,
+  again the young man reluctantly acknowledged to himself,
+  Saleratus Bill knew his job!</p>
+
+  <p>Nevertheless, as the days slipped by; and Bob's physical
+  strength returned in its full measure, his active and bold spirit
+  again took the initiative. A slow anger seized possession of him.
+  The native combative stubbornness of the race asserted itself,
+  the necessity of doing something, the inability tamely to submit
+  to imposed circumstances. Bob's careful analysis of the situation
+  as a whole failed to discover any feasible plan. Therefore he
+  abandoned trying to plan ahead, and fell back on those
+  always-ready and comfortable aphorisims of the
+  adventurous&mdash;"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,"
+  and "one thing at a time." Obviously, the first thing to do was
+  to free his arms; after that he would see what he would see.</p>
+
+  <p>Every evening Saleratus Bill took the candle and departed,
+  leaving Bob to find his own way to his bunk. This was the time to
+  cut his bonds; if at all. Unfortunately Bob could find nothing
+  against which to cut them. Saleratus Bill had carefully removed
+  every abrasive possibility in the two rooms. Bob very wisely
+  relinquished the idea of passing the threshold in search of a
+  suitable rock or piece of tin. He had no notion of risking a
+  bullet until something was likely to be gained by it.</p>
+
+  <p>Finally his cogitations brought him an idea. Saleratus Bill
+  was attentive enough to such of the simple creature comforts as
+  were within his means. Bob's pipe had been well supplied with
+  tobacco. On the fourth evening Bob filled it just as his jailor
+  was about to take away the candle for the night.</p>
+
+  <p>"Just a minute," said Bob. "Let me have a light."</p>
+
+  <p>Bill set the candle on the table again, and retired the three
+  paces which he never forgot rigidly to maintain between himself
+  and his captive. Bob thereupon lit his pipe and nodded his
+  thanks. As soon as Saleratus Bill had well departed, however, he
+  retired to his bunk room, shutting the door carefully after him.
+  There, with great care, he deliberately set to work to coax into
+  flame a small fire on the old hearth, using as fuel the rounds of
+  a broken chair, and as ignition the glowing coal in the bowl of
+  his pipe. Before the hearth he had managed to hang the heavy
+  quilt from his bunk, so that the flicker of the flames should not
+  be visible from the outside.</p>
+
+  <p>The little fire caught, blazed for a few moments, and fell to
+  a steady glow. Bob fished out one of the chair rungs, jammed the
+  cool end firmly in one of the open cracks between the timbers of
+  the room, turned his back, and deliberately pressed the band
+  around his elbows against the live coal.</p>
+
+  <p>A smell of burning cloth immediately filled the air. After a
+  moment the coal went out. Bob replaced the charred rung in the
+  fire, extracted another, and repeated the operation.</p>
+
+  <p>It was exceedingly difficult to gauge the matter accurately,
+  as Bob soon found out to his cost. He managed to burn more holes
+  in his garment&mdash;and himself&mdash;than in the bonds.
+  However, he kept at it, and after a half hour's steady and
+  patient effort he was able to snap asunder the last strands. He
+  stretched his arms over his head in an ecstasy of physical
+  freedom.</p>
+
+  <p>That was all very well, but what next? Bob was suddenly called
+  to a decision which had up to that moment seemed inconceivably
+  remote. Heretofore, an apparent impossibility had separated him
+  from it. Now that impossibility was achieved.</p>
+
+  <p>A moment's thought convinced him of the senseless hazard of
+  attempting to slip out through any of the doors or windows. The
+  moon was bright, and Saleratus Bill would have taken his
+  precautions. Bob attacked the floor. Several boards proved to be
+  loose. He pried them up cautiously, and so was enabled to drop
+  through into the open space beneath the house. Thence it was easy
+  to crawl away. Saleratus Bill's precautions were most likely
+  taken, Bob argued to himself, with a view toward a man bound at
+  the elbows, not to a man with two hands. In this he was evidently
+  correct, for after a painful effort, he found himself among the
+  high grasses of the meadow.</p>
+
+  <p>There were now, as he recognized, two courses open to him: he
+  could either try to discover Saleratus Bill's sleeping place and
+  by surprise overpower that worthy as he slept; or he could make
+  the best of the interim before his absence was discovered to get
+  as far away as possible. Both courses had obvious disadvantages.
+  The most immediate to the first alternative was the difficulty,
+  failing some clue, of finding Saleratus Bill's sleeping place
+  without too positive a risk of discovery; the most immediate to
+  the second was the difficulty of getting to the other side of the
+  river. As Saleratus Bill might be at any one of a thousand
+  places, in or out of doors; whereas the river could be crossed
+  only by the bridge. Bob, without hesitation, chose the
+  latter.</p>
+
+  <p>Therefore he made his way cautiously to that structure. It
+  proved to be lying in broad moonlight. As it constituted the only
+  link with the outside world to the south, Bob could not doubt
+  that his captor had arranged to keep it in sight.</p>
+
+  <p>The bridge was, as has been said, suspended across a strait
+  between two rocks by means of heavy wire cables. Slipping beneath
+  these rocks and into the shadow, Bob was rejoiced to find that
+  between the stringers and the shore, smaller cables had been bent
+  to act as guy lines. If he could walk "hand over hand," the
+  distance comprised by the width of the stream he could pass the
+  river below the level of the bridge floor. He measured the
+  distance with his eye. It did not look farther than the length of
+  the gymnasium at college. He seized the cable and swung himself
+  out over the waters.</p>
+
+  <p>Immediately the swift and boiling current, though twenty feet
+  below, seemed to suck at his feet. The swirling and flashing of
+  the water dizzied his brain with the impression of falling
+  upstream. He had to fix his eyes on the black flooring above his
+  head. The steel cable, too, was old and rusted and harsh. Bob's
+  hands had not for many years grasped a rope strongly, and in that
+  respect he found them soft. His muscles, cramped more than he had
+  realized by the bonds of his captivity, soon began to drag and
+  stretch. When halfway across, suspended above a ravening torrent;
+  confronted, tired, by an effort he had needed all his fresh
+  energies to put forth, Bob would have given a good deal to have
+  been able to clamber aboard the bridge, risk or no risk. It was,
+  however, a clear case of needs must. He finished the span on
+  sheer nerve and will power; and fell thankfully on the rocks
+  below the farther abutment. For a half minute he lay there,
+  stretching slowly his muscles and straightening his hands, which
+  had become cramped like claws. Then he crept, always in the
+  shadow, to the level of the meadow.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob was learning to be a mountaineer. Therefore, on the way
+  down, he had subconsciously noted that from the head of the
+  meadow a steep dry wash climbed straight up to intersect the
+  road. The recollection came to the surface of his mind now. If he
+  could make his way up this wash, he would gain three advantages:
+  he would materially shorten his journey by cutting off a mile or
+  so of the road-grade's twists and doublings; he would avoid the
+  necessity of showing himself so near the Cove in the bright
+  moonlight; and he would leave no tracks where the road touched
+  the valley. Accordingly he turned sharp to the left and began to
+  pick his way upstream, keeping in close to the river and treading
+  as much as possible on the water-worn rocks. The willows and
+  elders protected him somewhat. In this manner he proceeded until
+  he had come to the smooth rock aprons near the gorge from which
+  the river flowed. Here, in accordance with his intention of
+  keeping close in the shadow of the mountain, he was to turn to
+  the right until he should have arrived at the steep "chimney" of
+  the wash. He was about to leave the shelter of the last willows
+  when he looked back. As his eyes turned, a flash of moonlight
+  struck them full, like the heliographing of a mirror. He fixed
+  his gaze on the bushes from which the flicker had come. In a
+  moment it was repeated. Then, stooping low, a human figure
+  hurried across a tiny opening, and once again the moonlight
+  reflected from the worn and shining revolver in its hand.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXVIII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>In some manner Saleratus Bill had discovered the young man's
+  escape, and had already eliminated the other possibilities of his
+  direction of flight. Bob shuddered at this evidence of the
+  rapidity with which the expert trailer had arrived at the correct
+  conclusion. He could not now skirt the mountain, as he had
+  intended, for that would at once expose him in full view; he
+  could not return by the way he had come, for that would bring him
+  face to face with his enemy. It would avail him little to
+  surrender, for the gun-man would undoubtedly make good his
+  threats; fidelity to such pledges is one of the few things sacred
+  to the race. With some vague and desperate idea of defence, Bob
+  picked up a heavy branch of driftwood. Then, as the man drew
+  nearer, Bob scrambled hastily over the smooth apron to the tiny
+  beach that the eddies had washed out below the precipice.</p>
+
+  <p>Here for the moment he was hidden, but he did not flatter
+  himself he would long remain so. He cast his eyes about him for a
+  way of escape. To the one side was the river, in front of him was
+  the rock apron with his enemy, to the other side and back of him
+  was a sheer precipice. In his perplexity he looked down. A gleam
+  of metal caught his eye. He stooped and picked up the half of a
+  worn horseshoe. Even in his haste of mind, he cast a passing
+  wonderment on how it had come there.</p>
+
+  <p>If Bob had not been trained by his river work in the ways of
+  currents, he might sooner have thought of the stream. But well he
+  knew that Saleratus Bill had spoken right when he had said that
+  there were "no swimming holes" here. The strongest swimmer could
+  not have taken two strokes in that cauldron of seething white
+  water. But now, as Bob looked, he saw that a little back eddy
+  along the perpendicularity of the cliff slowed the current close
+  to the sheer rock. It might be just possible, with luck, to win
+  far enough along this cliff to lie concealed behind some
+  outjutting boulder until Saleratus Bill had examined the beach
+  and gone his way. Bob was too much in haste to consider the
+  unexplained tracks he must leave on the sand.</p>
+
+  <p>He thrust the branch he carried into the still black water. To
+  his surprise it hit bottom at a foot's depth. Promptly he waded
+  in. Sounding ahead, he walked on. The underwater ledge continued.
+  The water never came above his knees. Out of curiosity he tapped
+  with his branch until he had reached the edge of the submerged
+  shelf. It proved to be some four feet wide. Beyond it the water
+  dropped off sheer, and the current nearly wrenched the staff from
+  Bob's hand.</p>
+
+  <p>In this manner he proceeded cautiously for perhaps a hundred
+  feet. Then he waded out on another beach.</p>
+
+  <p>He found himself in a pocket of the cliffs, where the
+  precipice so far drew back as to leave a clear space of four or
+  five acres in the river bottom. Such pockets, or "coves," are by
+  no means unusual in the inaccessible depths of the great box
+  ca&ntilde;ons of the Sierras. Often the traveller can look down
+  on them from above, lying like green gems in their settings of
+  granite, but rarely can he descend to examine them. Thankfully
+  Bob darted to one side. Here for a moment he might be safe, for
+  surely no one not driven by such desperation as his own would
+  dream of setting foot in the river.</p>
+
+  <p>A loud snort almost at his elbow, and a rush of scurrying
+  shapes, startled him almost into crying aloud. Then out into the
+  moonlight from the shadow of the cliffs rushed two horses. And
+  Bob, seeing what they were, sprang from his fancied security into
+  instant action, for in a flash he saw the significance of the
+  broken horseshoe on the beach, the sunken ledge, and the secret
+  of the horses' pasture. By sheer chance he had blundered on one
+  of Saleratus Bill's outlaw retreats.</p>
+
+  <p>Hastily he skirted the walls of the tiny valley. They were
+  unbroken. The river swept by tortured and tumbled. He ran to the
+  head of the cove. No sunken ledge there rewarded him. Instead,
+  the river at that point swept inward, so that the full force of
+  the current washed the very shores.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob searched the prospect with eager eye. Twelve or fifteen
+  feet upstream, and six or seven feet out from the cliff, stood a
+  huge round boulder. That alone broke the shadowy expanse of the
+  river, which here rushed down with great velocity. Manifestly it
+  was impossible to swim to this boulder. Bob, however, conceived a
+  daring idea. At imminent risk and by dint of frantic scrambling
+  he worked his way along the cliff until he had gained a point
+  opposite the boulder and considerably above it. Then, without
+  hesitation, he sprang as strongly as he was able sidewise from
+  the face of the cliff.</p>
+
+  <p>He landed on the boulder with great force, so that for a
+  moment he feared he must have broken some bones. Certainly his
+  breath was all but knocked from his body. Spread out flat on the
+  top of the rock, he moved his limbs cautiously. They seemed to
+  work all right. He backed cautiously until he lay outspread on
+  the upstream slope of the boulder. At just this moment he caught
+  the sinister figure of Saleratus Bill moving along the sunken
+  ledge.</p>
+
+  <p>For the first time Bob remembered the tracks he must have left
+  and the man's skill at trailing. A rapid review of his most
+  recent actions reassured him at one point; in order to gain to
+  the first of the minor cliff projections by means of which he had
+  spread-eagled along the face of the rock, he had been forced to
+  step into the very shallow water at the stream's edge. Thus his
+  last footprints led directly into the river.</p>
+
+  <p>The value of this impression, conjoined with the existence of
+  a ledge below over which he had already waded safely, was not
+  lost on Bob's preception. As has been stated, his earlier
+  experience in river driving had given him an intimate knowledge
+  of the action of currents. Casting his eye hastily down the
+  moonlit river, he seized his hat from his head and threw it low
+  and skimming toward an eddy opposite him as he lay. The river
+  snatched it up, tossed it to one side or another, and finally
+  carried it, as Bob had calculated, within a few feet of the ledge
+  along which Saleratus Bill was still making his way.</p>
+
+  <p>The gun-man, of course, caught sight of it, and even made an
+  attempt to capture it as it floated past, but without avail. It
+  served, however, to prepossess his mind with the idea that Bob
+  had been swept away by the river, so that when, after a careful
+  examination of the tiny cove, he came to the trail leading into
+  the water, he was prepared to believe that the young man had been
+  carried off his feet in an attempt to wade out past the cliff. He
+  even picked up a branch, with which he poked at the bottom. A
+  short and narrow rock projection favoured his hypothesis, for it
+  might very well happen that merely an experimental venture on so
+  slanting and slippery a footing would prove fatal. Saleratus Bill
+  examined again for footprints emerging; threw his branch into the
+  river, and watched the direction of its course; and then, for the
+  first time, slipped the worn and shiny old revolver into its
+  holster. He spent several moments more reexamining the cove,
+  glanced again at the river, and finally disappeared, wading
+  slowly back around the sunken ledge.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob's next task was to regain solid land. For some minutes he
+  sat astride the boulder, estimating the force and directions of
+  the current. Then he leaped. As he had calculated, the stream
+  threw him promptly against the bank below. There his legs were
+  immediately sucked beneath the overhanging rock that had
+  convinced Saleratus Bill of his captive's fate. It seemed likely
+  now to justify that conviction. Bob clung desperately, until his
+  muscles cracked, but was unable so far to draw his legs from
+  underneath the rock as to gain a chance to struggle out of water.
+  Indeed, he might very well have hung in that equilibrium of
+  forces until tired out, had not a slender, water-washed alder
+  root offered itself to his grasp. This frail shrub, but lightly
+  rooted, nevertheless afforded him just the extra support he
+  required. Though he expected every instant that the additional
+  ounces of weight he from moment to moment applied to it would
+  tear it away, it held. Inch by inch he drew himself from the
+  clutch of the rushing water, until at length he succeeded in
+  getting the broad of his chest against the bank. A few vigorous
+  kicks then extricated him.</p>
+
+  <p>For a moment or so he lay stretched out panting, and
+  considering what next was to be done. There was a chance, of
+  course&mdash;and, in view of Saleratus Bill's shrewdness, a very
+  strong chance&mdash;that the gun-man would add to his precautions
+  a wait and a watch at the entrance to the cove. If Bob were to
+  wade out around the ledge, he might run fairly into his former
+  jailer's gun. On the other hand, Saleratus Bill must be fairly
+  well convinced of the young man's destruction, and he must be
+  desirous of changing his wet clothes. Bob's own predicament, in
+  this chill of night, made him attach much weight to this latter
+  consideration. Besides, any delay in the cove meant more tracks
+  to be noticed when the gun-man should come after the horses. Bob,
+  his teeth chattering, resolved to take the chance of instant
+  action.</p>
+
+  <p>Accordingly he waded back along the sunken ledge, glided as
+  quickly as he could over the rock apron, and wormed his way
+  through the grasses to the dry wash leading up the side of the
+  mountains. Here fortune had favoured him, and by a very simple,
+  natural sequence. The moon had by an hour sailed farther to the
+  west; the wash now lay in shadow.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob climbed as rapidly as his wind would let him, and in that
+  manner avoided a chill. He reached the road at a broad sheet of
+  rock whereon his footsteps left no trace. After a moment's
+  consideration, he decided to continue directly up the
+  mountainside through the thick brush. This travel must be
+  uncertain and laborious; but if he proceeded along the road,
+  Saleratus Bill must see the traces he would indubitably leave. In
+  the obscurity of the shady side of the mountain he found his task
+  even more difficult than he had thought possible. Again and again
+  he found himself puzzled by impenetrable thickets, impassable
+  precipices, rough outcrops barring his way. By dint of patience
+  and hard work, however, he gained the top of the mountain. At
+  sunrise he looked back into Bright's Cove. It lay there
+  peacefully deserted, to all appearance; but Bob, looking very
+  closely, thought to make out smoke. The long thread of the road
+  was quite vacant.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXIX" id="XXIX"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXIX</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob had no very clear idea of where he was, except that it was
+  in the unfriendly Durham country. It seemed well to postpone all
+  public appearances until he should be beyond a chance that
+  Saleratus Bill might hear of him. Bob was quite satisfied that
+  the gun-man should believe him to have been swept away by the
+  current.</p>
+
+  <p>Accordingly, after he had well rested from his vigorous climb,
+  he set out to parallel the dim old road by which the two had
+  entered the Cove. At times this proved so difficult a matter that
+  Bob was almost on the point of abandoning the hillside tangle of
+  boulders and brush in favour of the open highway. He reflected in
+  time that Saleratus Bill must come out by this route; and he
+  shrewdly surmised the expert trailer might be able from some
+  former minute observation to recognize his footprints. Therefore
+  he struggled on until the road dipped down toward the lower
+  country. He remembered that, on the way in, his captor had led
+  him first down the mountain, and then up again. Bob resolved to
+  abandon the road and keep to the higher contours, trusting to cut
+  the trail where it again mounted to his level. To be sure, it was
+  probable that there existed some very good reason why the road so
+  dipped to the valley&mdash;some dike, ridge or deep ca&ntilde;on
+  impassable to horses. Bob knew enough of mountains to guess that.
+  Still, he argued, that might not stop a man afoot.</p>
+
+  <p>The rest of a long, hard day he spent in proving this latter
+  proposition. The country was very broken. A dozen times Bob
+  scrambled and slid down a gorge, and out again, doing thus an
+  hour's work for a half mile gain. The sun turned hot, and he had
+  no food. Fortunately water was abundant. Toward the close of the
+  afternoon he struck in to a long slope of pine belt, and
+  conceived his difficulties over.</p>
+
+  <p>After the heat and glare of the rocks, the cool shadows of the
+  forest were doubly grateful. Bob lifted his face to the wandering
+  breezes, and stepped out with fresh vigour. The way led at first
+  up the narrow spine of a "hogback," but soon widened into one of
+  the ample and spacious parks peculiar to the elevations near the
+  summits of the First Rampart. Occasional cattle tracks meandered
+  here and there, but save for these Bob saw no signs of man's
+  activities&mdash;no cuttings, no shake-bolts, no blazes on the
+  trees to mark a way. Nevertheless, as he rose on the slow, even
+  swell of the mountain the conviction of familiarity began to
+  force its way in him. The forest was just like every other
+  forest; there was no outlook in any direction; but all the same,
+  with that instinct for locality inherent in a natural woodsman,
+  he began to get his bearings, to "feel the lay of the country,"
+  as the saying is. This is probably an effect of the subconscious
+  mind in memory; a recognition of what the eye has seen without
+  reporting to the conscious mind. However that may be, Bob was not
+  surprised when toward sunset he came suddenly on a little
+  clearing, a tiny orchard, and a house built rudely of logs and
+  shakes.</p>
+
+  <p>Relieved that he was not to spend the night without food and
+  fire, he vaulted the "snake" fence, and strode to the back door.
+  A woman was frying venison steaks.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hullo, Mrs. Ward," Bob shouted at her. "That smells good to
+  me; I haven't had a bite since last night!"</p>
+
+  <p>The woman dropped her pan and came to the door. A lank and
+  lean Pike County Missourian rose from the shadows and
+  advanced.</p>
+
+  <p>"Light and rest yo' hat, Mr. Orde!" he called before he came
+  well into view. "But yo' already lighted, and you ain't go no
+  hat!" he cried in puzzled tones. "Whar yo'all from?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Came from north," Bob replied cheerfully, "and I lost my
+  horse down a ca&ntilde;on, and my hat in a river."</p>
+
+  <p>"And yere yo' be plumb afoot!"</p>
+
+  <p>"And plumb empty," supplemented Bob. "Maybe Mrs. Ward will
+  make me some coffee," he suggested with a side glance at the
+  woman who had once tried to poison him.</p>
+
+  <p>She turned a dull red under the tan of her sallow
+  complexion.</p>
+
+  <p>"Shore, Mr. Orde&mdash;" she began.</p>
+
+  <p>"We didn't rightly understand each other," Bob reassured her.
+  "That was all."</p>
+
+  <p>"Did she-all refuse you coffee onct?" asked Ward. "What yo'
+  palaverin' about?"</p>
+
+  <p>"She isn't refusing to make me some now," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>He spent the night comfortably with his new friends who a few
+  months ago had been ready to murder him. The next morning early,
+  supplied with an ample lunch, he set out. Ward offered him a
+  riding horse, but he declined.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'd have to send it back," said he, "and, anyway, I'd neither
+  want to borrow your saddle nor ride bareback. I'd rather
+  walk."</p>
+
+  <p>The old man accompanied him to the edge of the clearing.</p>
+
+  <p>"By the way," Bob mentioned, as he said farewell, "if some one
+  asks you, just tell them you haven't seen me."</p>
+
+  <p>The old man stopped short.</p>
+
+  <p>"What-for a man?" he asked.</p>
+
+  <p>"Any sort."</p>
+
+  <p>A frosty gleam crept into the old Missourian's eye.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll keep hands off," said he. He strode on twenty feet. "I
+  got an extra gun&mdash;" said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"Thanks," Bob interrupted. "But I'll get organized better when
+  I get home."</p>
+
+  <p>"Hope you git him," said the old man by way of farewell. "He
+  won't git nothing out of me," he shot back over his shoulder.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob now knew exactly where he was going. Reinvigorated by the
+  food, the night's rest, and the cool air of these higher
+  altitudes, he made good time. By four o'clock of the afternoon he
+  at last hit the broad, dusty thoroughfare over which were hauled
+  the supplies to Baker's upper works. Along this he swung, hands
+  in pockets, a whistle on his lips, the fine, light dust rising
+  behind his footsteps. The slight down grade released his tired
+  muscles from effort. He was enjoying himself.</p>
+
+  <p>Then he came suddenly around a corner plump against a horseman
+  climbing leisurely up the grade. Both stopped.</p>
+
+  <p>If Bob had entertained any lingering doubt as to Oldham's
+  complicity in his abduction, the expression on the land agent's
+  face would have removed it. For the first time in public Oldham's
+  countenance expressed a livelier emotion than that of cynical
+  interest. His mouth fell open and his eyeglasses dropped off. He
+  stared at Bob as though that young man had suddenly sprung into
+  visibility from clear atmosphere. Bob surveyed him grimly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Delighted to see me, aren't you?" he remarked. A slow anger
+  surged up within him. "Your little scheme didn't work, did it?
+  Wanted me out of the way, did you? Thought you'd keep me out of
+  court! Well, I'm here, just as I said I'd be here. You can pay
+  your villainous tool or kick him out, as you please. He's failed,
+  and he won't get another chance. You miserable whelp!"</p>
+
+  <p>But Oldham had recovered his poise.</p>
+
+  <p>"Get out of my way. I don't know what you are talking about.
+  I'll land you in the penitentiary a week after you appear in
+  court. You're warned."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I've been warned for some time. But first I'll land
+  you."</p>
+
+  <p>"Really! How?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Right here and now," said Bob stepping forward.</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham reined back his horse, and drew from his side pocket a
+  short, nickel-plated revolver.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let me pass!" he commanded harshly. He presented the weapon,
+  and his gray eyes contracted to pin points.</p>
+
+  <p>"Throw that thing away," said Bob, laying his hand on the
+  other man's bridle. "<i>I'm going to give you the very worst
+  licking you ever heard tell of!</i>"</p>
+
+  <p>The young man's muscles were tense with the expectation of a
+  shot. To his vast astonishment, at his last words Oldham turned
+  deadly pale, swayed in the saddle, and the revolver clattered
+  past his stirrup to fall in the dust. With a snarl of contempt at
+  what he erroneously took for a mere physical cowardice, Bob
+  reached for his enemy and dragged him from the saddle.</p>
+
+  <p>The chastisement was brief, but effective. Bob's anger cooled
+  with the first blow, for Oldham was no match for his younger and
+  more vigorous assailant. In fact, he hardly offered any
+  resistance. Bob knocked him down, shook him by the collar as a
+  terrier shakes a ground squirrel, and cast him fiercely in the
+  dust. Oldham sat up, his face bleeding slightly, his eyes
+  bewildered with the suddenness of the onslaught. The young man
+  leaned over him, speaking vehemently to rivet his attention.</p>
+
+  <p>"Now you listen to me," said he. "You leave me alone. If I
+  ever hear any gossip, even, about what you will or will not do to
+  me, I'll know where it started from. The first word I hear from
+  any one anywhere, I'll start for you."</p>
+
+  <p>He looked down for a moment at the disorganized man seated in
+  the thick, white dust that was still floating lazily around him.
+  Then he turned abruptly away and resumed his journey.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXX" id="XXX"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXX</h2><br>
+
+  <p>For ten seconds Oldham sat as Bob had left him. His hat and
+  eyeglasses were gone, his usually immaculate irongray hair
+  rumpled, his clothes covered with dust. A thin stream of blood
+  crept from beneath his close-clipped moustache. But the most
+  striking result of the encounter, to one who had known the man,
+  was in the convulsed expression of his countenance. A close
+  friend would hardly have recognized him. His lips snarled, his
+  eyes flared, the muscles of his face worked. Ordinarily repressed
+  and inscrutable, this crisis had thrown him so far off his
+  balance that, as often happens, he had fallen to the other
+  extreme. Sniffling and half-sobbing, like a punished schoolboy,
+  he dragged himself to where his revolver lay forgotten in the
+  dust. Taking as deliberate aim as his condition permitted, he
+  pulled at the trigger. The hammer refused to rise, or the
+  cylinder to revolve. Abandoning the self-cocking feature of the
+  arm, he tried to cock it by hand. The mechanism grated sullenly
+  against the grit from the road. Oldham worked frantically to get
+  the hammer to catch. By the time he had succeeded, his antagonist
+  was out of reach. With a half-scream of baffled rage, he hurled
+  the now useless weapon in the direction of the young man's
+  disappearance. Then, as Oldham stood militant in the dusty road,
+  a change came over him. Little by little the man resumed his old
+  self. A full minute went by. Save for the quicker breathing, a
+  spectator might have thought him sunk in reverie. At the end of
+  that time the old, self-contained, reserved, cynical Oldham
+  stepped from his tracks, and set methodically to repair
+  damages.</p>
+
+  <p>First he searched for and found his glasses, fortunately
+  unbroken. At the nearest streamlet he washed his face, combed his
+  hair, brushed off his clothes. The saddle horse browsed not far
+  away. Finally he walked down the road, picked up the revolver,
+  cleaned it thoroughly of dust, tested it and slipped it into his
+  pocket. Then he resumed his journey, outwardly as self-possessed
+  as ever.</p>
+
+  <p>Near the upper dam he had another encounter. The dust of some
+  one approaching warned him some time before the traveller came in
+  sight. Oldham reined back his horse until he could see who it
+  was; then he spurred forward to meet Saleratus Bill.</p>
+
+  <p>The gun-man was lounging along at peace with all the world,
+  his bridle rein loose, his leg slung over the pommel of his
+  saddle. At the sight of his employer, he grinned cheerfully.</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham rode directly to him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why aren't you attending to your job?" he demanded icily.</p>
+
+  <p>"Out of a job," said Saleratus Bill cheerfully.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why haven't you kept your man in charge?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I did until he just naturally had one of those unavoidable
+  accidents."</p>
+
+  <p>"Explain yourself."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well. I ain't never been afraid of words. He's dead; that's
+  what."</p>
+
+  <p>"Indeed," said Oldham, "Then I suppose I met his ghost just
+  now; and that a spirit gave me this cut lip."</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill swung his leg from the saddle horn and
+  straightened to attention.</p>
+
+  <p>"Did he have a hat on?" he demanded keenly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes&mdash;no&mdash;I believe not. No, I'm sure he
+  didn't."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's him, all right." He shook his head reflectively, "I
+  can't figure it."</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham was staring at him with deadly coldness.</p>
+
+  <p>"Perhaps you'll be good enough to explain," he
+  sneered&mdash;"five hundred dollars worth at any rate."</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill detailed what he knew of the whole affair.
+  Oldham listened to the end. His cynical expression did not
+  change; and the unlighted cigar that he held between his swollen
+  lips never changed its angle.</p>
+
+  <p>"And so he just nat'rally disappeared," Saleratus Bill ended
+  his recital. "I can't figure it out."</p>
+
+  <p>Then Oldham spat forth the cigar. His calm utterly deserted
+  him. He thrust his livid countenance out at his man.</p>
+
+  <p>"Figure it out!" he cried. "You pin-headed fool! You had an
+  unarmed man tied hand and foot, in a three-thousand-foot hole,
+  and you couldn't keep him! And one of the smallest interests
+  involved is worth more than everything your worthless hide can
+  hold! I picked you out for this job because I thought you
+  reliable. And now you come to me with 'I can't figure it out!'
+  That's all the explanation or excuse you bring! You miserable,
+  worthless cur!"</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill was looking at him steadily from his evil,
+  red-rimmed eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hold on," he drawled. "Go slow. I don't stand such talk."</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham spurred up close to him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't you try any of your gun-play or intimidation on me," he
+  fairly shouted. "I won't stand for it. You'll hear what I've got
+  to say, just as long as I choose to say it."</p>
+
+  <p>He eyed the gun-man truculently. Certainly even Bob could not
+  have accused him of physical cowardice at that moment.</p>
+
+  <p>Saleratus Bill stared back at him with the steady, venomous
+  glare of a rattlesnake. Then his lips, under his straggling,
+  sandy moustache, parted in a slow grin.</p>
+
+  <p>"Say your say," he conceded. "I reckon you're mad; I reckon
+  that boy man-handled you something scand'lous."</p>
+
+  <p>At the words Oldham's face became still more congested.</p>
+
+  <p>"But you look a-here," said Saleratus Bill, suddenly leaning
+  across from his saddle and pointing a long, lean finger. "You
+  just remember this: I took this yere job with too many strings
+  tied to it. I mustn't hurt him; and I must see no harm comes to
+  him; and I must be noways cruel to mama's baby. You had me
+  hobbled, and then you cuss me out because I can't get over the
+  rocks. If you'd turned me loose with no instructions except to
+  disappear your man, I'd have earned my money."</p>
+
+  <p>He dropped his hand to the butt of his six-shooter, and looked
+  his principal in the eye.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm just as sorry as you are that he made this get-away," he
+  continued slowly. "Now I got to pull up stakes and get out.
+  Nat'rally he'll make it too hot for me here. Then I could use
+  that extry twenty-five hundred that was coming to me on this job.
+  But it ain't too late. He's got away once; but he ain't in court
+  yet. I can easy keep him out, if the original bargain stands. Of
+  course, I'm sorry he punched your face."</p>
+
+  <p>"Damn his soul!" burst out Oldham.</p>
+
+  <p>"Just let me deal with him my way, instead of yours," repeated
+  Saleratus Bill.</p>
+
+  <p>"Do so," snarled Oldham; "the sooner the better."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's all I want to hear," said the gun-man, and touched
+  spurs to his horse.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXI" id="XXXI"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXI</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob's absence had occasioned some speculation, but no
+  uneasiness, at headquarters. An officer of the Forest Service was
+  too often called upon for sudden excursions in unexpected
+  emergencies to make it possible for his chiefs to keep accurate
+  track of all his movements. A day's trip to the valley might
+  easily be deflected to a week's excursion to the higher peaks by
+  any one of a dozen circumstances. The report of trespassing
+  sheep, a tiny smoke above distant trees, a messenger sent out for
+  arbitration in a cattle dispute, are samples of the calls to
+  which Bob must have hastened no matter on what errand he had been
+  bound.</p>
+
+  <p>He arrived at headquarters late in the afternoon. Already a
+  thin wand of smoke wavered up through the trees from Amy's
+  little, open kitchen. The open door of the shed office trickled
+  forth a thin clicking of typewriters. Otherwise the camp seemed
+  deserted.</p>
+
+  <p>At Bob's halloo, however, both Thorne and old California John
+  came to the door. In two minutes he had all three gathered about
+  the table under the three big firs.</p>
+
+  <p>"In the first place, I want to say right now," he began, "that
+  I have the evidence to win the land case against the Modoc Mining
+  Company."</p>
+
+  <p>"How?" demanded Thorne, leaning forward eagerly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Baker has boasted, before two witnesses, that his mineral
+  entries were fraudulent and made simply to get water rights and
+  timber."</p>
+
+  <p>"Those witnesses will testify?"</p>
+
+  <p>"They will."</p>
+
+  <p>"Who are they?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Welton and myself."</p>
+
+  <p>"Glory be!" cried Thorne, springing to his feet and clapping
+  Bob on the back. "We've got him!"</p>
+
+  <p>"So that's what you've been up to for the past week!" cried
+  Amy. "We've been wondering where you had disappeared to!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, not precisely," grinned Bob; "I've been in durance
+  vile."</p>
+
+  <p>In response to their questionings he detailed a semi-humorous
+  account of his abduction, detention and escape. His three
+  auditors listened with the deepest attention.</p>
+
+  <p>As the recital progressed to the point wherein Bob described
+  his midnight escape, Amy, unnoticed by the others, leaned back
+  and closed her eyes. The colour left her face for a moment, but
+  the next instant had rushed back to her cheeks in a tide of
+  deeper red. She thrust forward, her eyes snapping with
+  indignation.</p>
+
+  <p>"They are desperate; there's no doubt of it," was Thorne's
+  comment. "And they won't stop at this. I wish the trial was
+  to-morrow. We must get your testimony in shape before anything
+  happens."</p>
+
+  <p>Amy was staring across the table at them, her lips parted with
+  horror.</p>
+
+  <p>"You don't think they'll try anything worse!" she gasped.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob started to reassure her, but Thorne in his matter-of-fact
+  way broke in.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't doubt they'll try to get him proper, next time. We
+  must get out papers and the sheriff after this Saleratus
+  Bill."</p>
+
+  <p>"He'll be almighty hard to locate," put in California
+  John.</p>
+
+  <p>"And I think we'd better not let Bob, here, go around alone
+  any more."</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't think he ought to go around at all!" Amy amended this
+  vigorously.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shot at her an obliquely humorous glance, before which her
+  own fell. Somehow the humour died from his.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bodyguard accepted with thanks," said he, recovering himself.
+  "I've had enough Wild West on my own account." His words and the
+  expression of his face were facetious, but his tones were
+  instinct with a gravity that attracted even Thorne's attention.
+  The Supervisor glanced at the young man curiously, wondering if
+  he were going to lose his nerve at the last. But Bob's personal
+  stake was furthest from his mind. Something in Amy's
+  half-frightened gesture had opened a new door in his soul. The
+  real and insistent demands of the situation had been suddenly
+  struck shadowy while his forces adjusted themselves to new
+  possibilities.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ware's your man," suggested California John. "He's a gun-man,
+  and he's got a nerve like a saw mill man."</p>
+
+  <p>"Where is Ware?" Thorne asked Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"He's over at Fair's shake camp. He will be back
+  to-morrow."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's settled, then. How about Welton? Is he warned? You say
+  he'll testify?"</p>
+
+  <p>"If he has to," replied Bob, by a strong effort bringing
+  himself back to a practical consideration of the matter in hand.
+  "At least he'll never perjure himself, if he's called. Welton's
+  case is different. Look here; it's bound to come out, so you may
+  as well know the whole situation."</p>
+
+  <p>He paused, glancing from one to another of his hearers.
+  Thorne's keen face expressed interest of the alert official;
+  California John's mild blue eye beamed upon him with a dawning
+  understanding of the situation; Amy, intuitively divining a more
+  personal trouble, looked across at him with sympathy.</p>
+
+  <p>"John, here, will remember the circumstance," said Bob. "It
+  happened about the time I first came out here with Mr. Welton. It
+  seems that Plant had assured him that everything was all arranged
+  so our works and roads could cross the Forest, so we went ahead
+  and built them. In those days it was all a matter of form,
+  anyway. Then when we were ready to go ahead with our first
+  season's work, up steps Plant and asks to see our permission,
+  threatening to shut us down! Of course, all he wanted was
+  money."</p>
+
+  <p>"And Welton gave it to him?" cried Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"It wasn't a case of buy a privilege," explained Bob, "but of
+  life itself. We were operating on borrowed money, and just
+  beginning our first year's operations. The season is short in
+  these mountains, as you know, and we were under heavy obligations
+  to fulfil a contract for sawed lumber. A delay of even a week
+  meant absolute ruin to a large enterprise. Mr. Welton held off to
+  the edge of danger, I remember, exhausting every means possible
+  here and at Washington to rush through the necessary
+  permission."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why didn't he tell the truth&mdash;expose Plant? Surely no
+  department would endorse that," put in Amy, a trifle subdued in
+  manner.</p>
+
+  <p>"That takes time," Bob pointed out. "There was no time."</p>
+
+  <p>"So Welton came through," said Thorne drily. "What has that
+  got to do with it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Baker paid the money for him," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, they're both in the same boat," remarked Thorne
+  tranquilly. "I don't see that that gives him any hold on
+  Welton."</p>
+
+  <p>"He threatens to turn state's evidence in the matter, and
+  seems confident of immunity on that account."</p>
+
+  <p>"He can't mean it!" cried Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Sheer bluff," said Thorne.</p>
+
+  <p>"I thought so, and went to see him. Now I am sure not. He
+  means it; and he'll do it when this case against the Modoc
+  Company is pushed."</p>
+
+  <p>"I thought you said Welton would testify?" observed
+  Thorne.</p>
+
+  <p>"He will. But naturally only if he is summoned."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then what----"</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I see. Baker never thought he could keep Welton from
+  telling the truth, but knew perfectly well he would not volunteer
+  the evidence. He used his hold over Welton to try to keep me from
+  bringing forward this testimony. Sort of relied on our intimacy
+  and friendship."</p>
+
+  <p>"But you will testify?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I think I see my duty that way," said Bob in a troubled
+  voice.</p>
+
+  <p>"Quite right," said Thorne, dispassionately; "I'm sorry." He
+  arose from the table. "This is most important. I don't often
+  issue positive prohibitions in my capacity of superior officer;
+  but in this instance I must. I am going to request you not to
+  leave camp on any errand unless accompanied by Ranger Ware."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob nodded a little impatiently. California John paused before
+  following his chief into the office.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's good sense, boy," said he, "and nobody gives a darn for
+  your worthless skin, you know. It's just the information you got
+  inside it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Right," laughed Bob, his brow clearing. "I forgot."</p>
+
+  <p>California John nodded at him, and disappeared into the
+  office.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob turned to Amy with a laughing comment that died on his
+  lips. The girl was standing very straight on the other side of
+  the table. One little brown hand grasped and crushed the edge of
+  her starched apron; her black brows were drawn in a straight line
+  of indignation beneath which her splendid eyes flashed; her
+  rounded bosom, half-defined by the loose, soft blue of her simple
+  gown, rose and fell rapidly.</p>
+
+  <p>"And you're going to do it?" she threw across at him.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob, bewildered, stared at her.</p>
+
+  <p>"You're going to deliver over your friend to prison?" She
+  moved swiftly around the table to stand close to him. "Surely you
+  can't mean to do that! You've worked with him, and lived with
+  him&mdash;and he's a dear, jolly old man!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Hold on!" cried Bob, recovering from the first shock, and
+  beginning to enjoy the situation. "You don't understand. If I
+  don't give my testimony, think what the Service will lose in the
+  Basin."</p>
+
+  <p>"Lose!" she cried indignantly. "What of it? Do you think if I
+  had a friend who was near and dear to me I'd sacrifice him for
+  all the trees in the mountains? How can you!"</p>
+
+  <p>"<i>Et tu Brute</i>!" said Bob a little wearily. "Where is all
+  the no-compromise talk I've heard at various times, and the high
+  ideals, and the loyalty to the Service at any cost, and all the
+  rest of it? You're not consistent."</p>
+
+  <p>Amy eyed him a little disdainfully.</p>
+
+  <p>"You've got to save that poor old man," she stated. "It's all
+  very easy for you to talk of duty and the rest of it, but the
+  fact remains that you're sending that poor old man to prison for
+  something that isn't his fault, and it'll break his heart."</p>
+
+  <p>"He isn't there yet," Bob pointed out. "The case isn't
+  decided."</p>
+
+  <p>"It's all very well for you to talk that way," said Amy, "for
+  all you have to do is to satisfy your conscience and bear your
+  testimony. But if testifying would land you in danger of prison,
+  you might feel differently about it."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob thought of George Pollock, and smiled a trifle bitterly.
+  Welton might get off with a fine, or even suspended sentence.
+  There was but one punishment for those accessory before the fact
+  to a murder. Amy was eyeing him reflectively. The appearance of
+  anger had died. It was evident that she was thinking deeply.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why doesn't Mr. Welton protect himself?" she inquired at
+  length. "If he turned state's evidence before that man Baker did,
+  wouldn't it work that way around?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't believe it would," said Bob. "Baker was not the real
+  principal in the offence, only an accessory. Besides, even if it
+  were possible, Mr. Welton would not do such a thing. You don't
+  know Welton."</p>
+
+  <p>Amy sank again to reflection, her eyes losing themselves in a
+  gaze beyond the visible world. Suddenly she threw up her head
+  with a joyous chuckle.</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe I have it!" she cried. She nodded her head several
+  times as though to corroborate with herself certain points in her
+  plan. "Listen!" she said at last. "As I understand it, Baker is
+  really liable on this charge of bribing Plant as much as Mr.
+  Welton is."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes; he paid the money."</p>
+
+  <p>"So that if it were not for the fact that he intends to gain
+  immunity by telling what he knows, he would get into as much
+  trouble as Mr. Welton."</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, don't you know enough about it all to testify? Weren't
+  you there?"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob reflected.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, I believe I was present at all the interviews."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then," cried Amy triumphantly, "you can issue complaint
+  against <i>both</i> Baker and Mr. Welton on a charge of bribery,
+  and Baker can't possibly wriggle out by turning state's evidence,
+  because your evidence will be enough."</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you expect me to have Mr. Welton arrested on this charge?"
+  cried Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"No, silly! But you can go to Baker, can't you, and say to
+  him: 'See here, if you try to bring up this old bribery charge
+  against Welton, I'll get in ahead of you and have you <i>both</i>
+  up. I haven't any desire to raise a fuss, nor start any trouble;
+  but if you are bound to get Mr. Welton in on this, I might as
+  well get you both in.' He'd back out, you see!"</p>
+
+  <p>"I believe he would!" cried Bob. "It's a good bluff to
+  make."</p>
+
+  <p>"It mustn't be a bluff," warned Amy. "You must mean it. I
+  don't believe he wants to face a criminal charge just to get Mr.
+  Welton in trouble, if he realizes that you are both going to
+  testify anyway. But if he thinks you're bluffing, he'll carry it
+  through."</p>
+
+  <p>"You're right," said Bob slowly. "If necessary, we must carry
+  it through ourselves."</p>
+
+  <p>Amy nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll take down a letter for you to Baker," she said, "and
+  type it out this evening. We'll say nothing to anybody."</p>
+
+  <p>"I must tell Welton of our plan," said Bob; "I wouldn't for
+  the world have to spring this on him unprepared. What would he
+  think of me?"</p>
+
+  <p>"We'll see him to-morrow&mdash;no, next day; we have to wait
+  for Ware, you know."</p>
+
+  <p>"Am I forgiven for doing my plain duty?" asked Bob a trifle
+  mischievously.</p>
+
+  <p>"Only if our scheme works," declared Amy. Her manner changed
+  to one of great seriousness. "I know your way is brave and true,
+  believe me I do. And I know what it costs you to follow it. I
+  respect and admire the quality in men that leads them so
+  straightly along the path. But I could not do it. Ideas and
+  things are inspiring and great and to be worked for with
+  enthusiasm and devotion, I know. No one loves the Service more
+  than I, nor would make more personal sacrifices for her. But
+  people are warm and living, and their hearts beat with human
+  life, and they can be sorry and glad, happy and brokenhearted. I
+  can't tell you quite what I mean, for I cannot even tell myself.
+  I only feel it. I could turn my thumbs down on whole cohorts of
+  senators and lawyers and demagogues that are attacking us in
+  Washington and read calmly in next day's paper how they had been
+  beheaded recanting all their sins against us. But I couldn't get
+  any nearer home. Why, the other day Ashley told me to send a
+  final and peremptory notice of dispossession to the Main family,
+  over near Bald Knob, and I couldn't do it. I tried all day. I
+  knew old Main had no business there, and is worthless and lazy
+  and shiftless. But I kept remembering how his poor old back was
+  bent over. Finally I made Ashley dictate it, and tried to keep
+  thinking all the time that I was nothing but a machine for the
+  transmission of his ideas. When it comes to such things I'm
+  useless, and I know I fall short of all higher ideals of honour
+  and duty and everything else."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thank God you do," said Bob gravely.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXII" id="XXXII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Ware returned to headquarters toward evening of the next day.
+  He had ridden hard and long, but he listened to Thorne's
+  definition of his new duties with kindling eye, and considerable
+  appearance of quiet satisfaction. Bob met him outside the
+  office.</p>
+
+  <p>"You aren't living up to your part, Ware," said he, with mock
+  anxiety. "According to Hoyle you ought to draw your gun, whirl
+  the cylinder, and murmur gently, Aha!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why should I do that?" asked Ware, considerably
+  mystified.</p>
+
+  <p>"To see if your weapon is in order, of course."</p>
+
+  <p>"How would a fool trick like that show whether my gun's in
+  shape?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Hanged if I know," confessed Bob, "but they always do that in
+  books and on the stage."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, my gun will shoot," said Ware, shortly.</p>
+
+  <p>It was then too late to visit Welton that evening, but at a
+  good hour the following morning Bob announced his intention of
+  going over to the mill.</p>
+
+  <p>"If you're going to be my faithful guardian, you'll have to
+  walk," he told Ware. "My horse is up north somewhere, and there
+  isn't another saddle in camp."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm willing," said Ware; "my animals are plumb needy of a
+  rest."</p>
+
+  <p>At the last moment Amy joined them.</p>
+
+  <p>"I have a day off instead of Sunday," she told them, "and
+  you're the first humans that have discovered what two feet are
+  made for. I never can get anybody to walk two steps with me," she
+  complained.</p>
+
+  <p>"Never tried before you acquired those <i>beautiful</i> gray
+  elkskin boots with the <i>ravishing</i> hobnails in 'em," chaffed
+  Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Amy said nothing, but her cheeks burned with two red spots.
+  She chatted eagerly, too eagerly, trying to throw into the
+  expedition the air of a holiday excursion. Bob responded to her
+  rather feverish gaiety, but Ware looked at her with an eye in
+  which comprehension was slowly dawning. He had nothing to add to
+  the rapid-fire conversation. Finally Amy inquired with mock
+  anxiety, over his unwonted silence.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm on my job," replied Ware briefly.</p>
+
+  <p>This silenced her for a moment or so, while she examined the
+  woods about them with furtive, searching glances as though their
+  shadows might conceal an enemy.</p>
+
+  <p>To Bob, at least, the morning conduced to gaiety, for the air
+  was crisp and sparkling with the wine of early fall. Down through
+  the sombre pines, here and there, flamed the delicate pink of a
+  dogwood, the orange of the azaleas, or the golden yellow of
+  aspens ripening already under the hurrying of early frosts. The
+  squirrels, Stellar's jays, woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees
+  were very busy scurrying here and there, screaming gossip, or
+  moving diligently and methodically as their natures were. All the
+  rest of the forest was silent. Not a breath of wind stirred the
+  tallest fir-tip or swayed the most lofty pine branch. Through the
+  woodland spaces the sunlight sparkled with the inconceivable
+  brilliance of the higher levels, as though the air were filled
+  with glittering particles in suspension, like the mica snowstorms
+  of the peep shows inside a child's candy egg.</p>
+
+  <p>They dipped into the ca&ntilde;on of the creek and out again
+  through the yellow pines of the other side. They skirted the edge
+  of the ancient clearing for the almost prehistoric mill that had
+  supplied early settlers with their lumber, and thence looked out
+  through trees to the brown and shimmering plain lying far
+  below.</p>
+
+  <p>"My, I'm glad I'm not there!" exclaimed Amy fervently; "I
+  always say that," she added.</p>
+
+  <p>"A hundred and eleven day before yesterday, Jack Pollock
+  says," remarked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>So at last they gained the long ridge leading toward the mill
+  and saw a hundred feet away the mill road, and the forks where
+  their own wagon trail joined it.</p>
+
+  <p>At this point they again entered the forest, screened by young
+  growth and a thicket of alders.</p>
+
+  <p>"Look there," Amy pointed out. "See that dogwood, up by the
+  yellow pine. It's the most splendiferous we've seen yet. Wait a
+  minute. I'm going to get a branch of it for Mr. Welton's office.
+  I don't believe anybody ever picks anything for him."</p>
+
+  <p>"Let me&mdash;" began Bob; but she was already gone, calling
+  back over her shoulder.</p>
+
+  <p>"No; this is my treat!"</p>
+
+  <p>The men stopped in the wagon trail to wait for her. Bob
+  watched with distinct pleasure her lithe, active figure making
+  its way through the tangle of underbrush, finally emerging into
+  the clear and climbing with swift, sure movements to the little
+  elevation on which grew the beautiful, pink-leaved dogwoods. She
+  turned when she had gained the level of the yellow pine, to wave
+  her hand at her companions. Even at the distance, Bob could make
+  out the flush of her cheeks and divine the delighted sparkle of
+  her eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>But as she turned, her gesture was arrested in midair, and
+  almost instantly she uttered a piercing scream. Bob had time to
+  take a half step forward. Then a heavy blow on the back of his
+  neck threw him forward. He stumbled and fell on his face. As he
+  left his feet, the crash of two revolver shots in quick
+  succession rang in his ears.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXIII" id="XXXIII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXIII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Oldham's cold rage carried him to the railroad and into his
+  berth. Then, with the regular beat and throb of the carwheels
+  over the sleepers, other considerations forced themselves upon
+  him. Consequences demanded recognition.</p>
+
+  <p>The land agent had not for many years permitted himself to act
+  on impulse. Therefore this one lapse from habit alarmed him
+  vaguely by the mere fact that it was a lapse from habit. He
+  distrusted himself in an unaccustomed environment of the
+  emotions.</p>
+
+  <p>But superinduced on this formless uneasiness were graver
+  considerations. He could not but admit to himself that he had by
+  his expressed order placed himself to some extent in Saleratus
+  Bill's power. He did not for a moment doubt the gun-man's loyal
+  intentions. As long as things went well he would do his best by
+  his employer&mdash;if merely to gain the reward promised him only
+  on fulfillment of his task. But it is not easy to commit a murder
+  undetected. And if detected, Oldham had no illusions as to
+  Saleratus Bill. The gun-man, would promptly shelter himself
+  behind his principal.</p>
+
+  <p>As the night went on, and Oldham found himself unable to sleep
+  in the terrible heat, the situation visualized itself. Step by
+  step he followed out the sequence of events as they might be,
+  filling in the minutest details of discovery, exposure and ruin.
+  Gradually, in the tipped balance of after midnight, events as
+  they might be became events as they surely would be. Oldham began
+  to see that he had made a fearful mistake. No compunction entered
+  his mind that he had condemned a man to death; but a cold fear
+  gripped him lest his share should be discovered, and he should be
+  called upon to face the consequences. Oldham enjoyed and could
+  play only the game that was safe so far as physical and personal
+  retribution went.</p>
+
+  <p>So deeply did the guilty panic invade his soul that after a
+  time he arose and dressed. The sleepy porter was just turning out
+  from the smoking compartment.</p>
+
+  <p>"What's this next station?" Oldham demanded.</p>
+
+  <p>"Mo-harvey," blinked the porter.</p>
+
+  <p>"I get off there," stated Oldham briefly.</p>
+
+  <p>The porter stared at him.</p>
+
+  <p>"I done thought you went 'way through," he confessed. "I'se
+  scairt I done forgot you."</p>
+
+  <p>"All right," said Oldham curtly, and handing him a tip. "Never
+  mind that confounded brush; get my suit case."</p>
+
+  <p>Ten seconds later he stood on the platform of the little
+  station in the desert while the tail lights of the train
+  diminished slowly into the distance.</p>
+
+  <p>The desert lay all about him like a calmed sea on which were
+  dim half-lights of sage brush or alkali flats. On a distant
+  horizon slept black mountain ranges, stretched low under a
+  brilliant sky that arched triumphant. In it the stars flamed
+  steadily like candles, after the strange desert fashion. Although
+  by day the heat would have scorched the boards on which he stood,
+  now Oldham shivered in the searching of the cool insistent night
+  wind that breathed across the great spaces.</p>
+
+  <p>He turned to the lighted windows of the little station where a
+  tousled operator sat at a telegraph key. A couch in the corner
+  had been recently deserted. The fact that the operator was still
+  awake and on duty argued well for another train soon. Oldham
+  proffered his question.</p>
+
+  <p>"Los Angeles express due now. Half-hour late," replied the
+  operator wearily, without looking up.</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham caught the train, which landed him in White Oaks about
+  noon. There he hired a team, and drove the sixty miles to
+  Sycamore Flats by eleven o'clock that night. The fear was growing
+  in his heart, and he had to lay on himself a strong retaining
+  hand to keep from lashing his horses beyond their endurance and
+  strength. Sycamore Flats was, of course, long since abed. In
+  spite of his wild impatience Oldham retained enough sense to know
+  that it would not do to awaken any one for the sole purpose of
+  inquiring as to the whereabouts of Saleratus Bill. That would too
+  obviously connect him with the gun-man. Therefore he stabled his
+  horses, roused one of the girls at Auntie Belle's, and retired to
+  the little box room assigned him.</p>
+
+  <p>There nature asserted herself. The man had not slept for two
+  nights; he had travelled many miles on horseback, by train, and
+  by buckboard; he had experienced the most exhausting of emotions
+  and experiences. He fell asleep, and he did not awaken until
+  after sun-up.</p>
+
+  <p>Promptly he began his inquiries. Saleratus Bill had passed
+  through the night before; he had ridden up the mill road.</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham ate his breakfast, saddled one of the team horses, and
+  followed. Ordinarily, he was little of a woodsman, but his
+  anxiety sharpened his wits and his eyes, so that a quarter mile
+  from the summit he noticed where a shod horse had turned off from
+  the road. After a moment's hesitation he turned his own animal to
+  follow the trail. The horse tracks were evidently fresh, and
+  Oldham surmised that it was hardly probable two horsemen had as
+  yet that morning travelled the mill road. While he debated, young
+  Elliott swung down the dusty way headed toward the village. He
+  greeted Oldham.</p>
+
+  <p>"Is Orde back at headquarters yet?" the latter asked, on
+  impulse.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, he got back day before yesterday," the young ranger
+  replied; "but you won't find him there this morning. He walked
+  over to the mill to see Welton. You'd probably get him
+  there."</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham waited only until Elliott had rounded the next corner,
+  then spurred his horse up the mountain. The significance of the
+  detour was now no longer in doubt, for he remembered well how and
+  where the wagon trail from headquarters joined the mill road.
+  Saleratus Bill would leave his horse out of sight on the hog-back
+  ridge, sneak forward afoot, and ambush his man at the forks of
+  the road.</p>
+
+  <p>And now, in the clairvoyance of this guilty terror, Oldham saw
+  as assured facts several further possibilities. Saleratus Bill
+  was known to have ridden up the mill road; he, Oldham, was known
+  to have been inquiring after both Saleratus Bill and
+  Orde&mdash;in short, out of wild improbabilities, which to his
+  ordinary calm judgment would have meant nothing at all, he now
+  wove a tissue of danger. He wished he had thought to ask Elliott
+  how long ago Orde had started out from headquarters.</p>
+
+  <p>The last pitch up the mountain was by necessity a fearful
+  grade, for it had to surmount as best it could the ledge at the
+  crest of the plateau. Horsemen here were accustomed to pause
+  every fifty feet or so to allow their mounts a gulp of air.
+  Oldham plied lash and spur. He came out from his frenzy of panic
+  to find his horse, completely blown, lying down under him. The
+  animal, already weary from its sixty-mile drive of yesterday, was
+  quite done. After a futile effort to make it rise, Oldham
+  realized this fact. He pursued his journey afoot.</p>
+
+  <p>Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this accident,
+  Oldham trudged on as rapidly as his wind would allow. As he
+  neared the crossroads he slackened his pace, for he saw that no
+  living creature moved on the headquarters fork of the road. As a
+  matter of fact, at that precise instant both Bob and Ware were
+  within forty yards of him, standing still waiting for Amy to
+  collect her dogwood leaves. A single small alder concealed them
+  from the other road. If they had not happened to have stopped,
+  two seconds would have brought them into sight in either
+  direction. Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and himself
+  came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.</p>
+
+  <p>As he replaced his hat, his eye caught a glimpse of a man
+  crouching and gliding cautiously forward through the low
+  concealment of the snowbush. His movements were quick, his head
+  was craned forward, every muscle was taut, his eyes fixed on some
+  object invisible to Oldham with an intensity that evidently
+  excluded from the field of his vision everything but that toward
+  which his lithe and snake-like advance was bringing him. In his
+  hand he carried the worn and shining Colts 45 that was always his
+  inseparable companion.</p>
+
+  <p>Oldham made a single step forward. At the same moment
+  somewhere above him on the hill a woman screamed. The cry was
+  instantly followed by two revolver shots.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXIV" id="XXXIV"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXIV</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Ware was an expert gun-man who had survived the early days of
+  Arizona, New Mexico, and the later ruffianism of the border on
+  Old Mexico. His habit was at all times alert. Now, in especial,
+  behind his casual conversation, he had been straining his finer
+  senses for the first intimations of danger. For perhaps six
+  seconds before Amy cried out he had been aware of an unusual
+  faint sound heard beneath rather than above the cheerful and
+  accustomed noises of the forest. It baffled him. If he had
+  imposed silence on his companion, and had set himself to
+  listening, he might have been able to identify and localize it,
+  but it really presented nothing alarming enough. It might have
+  been a squirrel playfully spasmodic, or the leisurely step
+  forward of some hidden and distant cow browsing among the bushes.
+  Ware lent an attentive ear to the quiet sounds of the woodland,
+  but continued to stand at ease and unalarmed.</p>
+
+  <p>The scream, however, released instantly the springs of his
+  action. With the heel of his left palm he dealt Bob so violent a
+  shoving blow that the young man was thrown forward off his feet.
+  As part of the same motion his right hand snatched his weapon
+  from its holster, threw the muzzle over his left shoulder, and
+  discharged the revolver twice in the direction from which Ware
+  all at once realized the sound had proceeded. So quickly did the
+  man's brain act, so instantly did his muscles follow his brain,
+  that the scream, the blow, and the two shots seemed to go off
+  together as though fired by one fuse.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob bounded to his feet. Ware had whirled in his tracks, had
+  crouched, and was glaring fixedly across the openings at the
+  forks. The revolver smoked in his hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, are you hurt? Are you hurt?" Amy was crying over and
+  over, as, regardless of the stiff manza&ntilde;ita and the spiny
+  deer brush, she tore her way down the hill.</p>
+
+  <p>"All right! All right!" Bob found his breath to assure
+  her.</p>
+
+  <p>She stopped short, clenched her hands at her sides, and drew a
+  deep, sobbing breath. Then, quite collectedly, she began to
+  disentangle herself from the difficulties into which her haste
+  had precipitated her.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's all right," she called to Ware. "He's gone. He's
+  run."</p>
+
+  <p>Still tense, Ware rose to his full height. He let down the
+  hammer of his six-shooter, and dropped the weapon back in its
+  holster.</p>
+
+  <p>"What was it, Amy?" he asked, as the girl rejoined them.</p>
+
+  <p>"Saleratus Bill," she panted. "He had his gun in his
+  hand."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob was looking about him a trifle bewildered.</p>
+
+  <p>"I thought for a minute I was hit," said he.</p>
+
+  <p>"I knocked you down to <i>get</i> you down," explained Ware.
+  "If there's shooting going on, it's best to get low."</p>
+
+  <p>"Thought I was shot," confessed Bob. "I heard two shots."</p>
+
+  <p>"I fired twice," said Ware. "Thought sure I must have hit, or
+  he'd have fired back. Otherwise I'd a' kept shooting. You say he
+  run?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Immediately. Didn't you see him?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I just cut loose at the noise he made. Why do you suppose he
+  didn't shoot?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Maybe he wasn't gunning for us after all," suggested Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Maybe you've got another think coming," said Ware.</p>
+
+  <p>During this short exchange they were all three moving down the
+  wagon trail. Ware's keen old eyes were glancing to right, left
+  and ahead, and his ears fairly twitched. In spite of his
+  conversation and speculations, he was fully alive to the
+  possibilities of further danger.</p>
+
+  <p>"He maybe's laying for us yet," said Bob, as the thought
+  finally occurred to him. "Better have your gun handy."</p>
+
+  <p>"My gun's always handy," said Ware.</p>
+
+  <p>"You're bearing too far south," interposed the girl. "He was
+  more up this way."</p>
+
+  <p>"Don't think it," said Ware.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes," she insisted. "I marked that young fir near where I
+  first saw him; and he ran low around that clump of
+  manza&ntilde;ita."</p>
+
+  <p>Still skeptical, Ware joined her.</p>
+
+  <p>"That's right," he admitted, after a moment. "Here's his
+  trail. I'd have swore he was farther south. That's where I fired.
+  I only missed him by about a hundred yards," he grinned. "He sure
+  made a mighty tall sneak. I'm still figuring why he didn't open
+  fire."</p>
+
+  <p>"Waiting for a better chance, maybe," suggested Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Must be. But what better chance does he want, unless he aims
+  to get Bob here, with a club?"</p>
+
+  <p>They followed the tracks left by Saleratus Bill until it was
+  evident beyond doubt that the gun-man had in reality departed.
+  Then they started to retrace their steps.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why not cut across?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"I want to see whereabouts I <i>was</i> shooting," said
+  Ware.</p>
+
+  <p>"We'll cut across and wait for you on the road."</p>
+
+  <p>"All right," Ware agreed.</p>
+
+  <p>They made their short-cut, and waited. After a minute or so
+  Ware shouted to them.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hullo!" Bob answered.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come here!"</p>
+
+  <p>They returned down the dusty mill road. Just beyond the forks
+  Ware was standing, looking down at some object. As they
+  approached he raised his face to them. Even under its tan, it was
+  pale.</p>
+
+  <p>"Guess this is another case of innocent bystander," said he
+  gravely.</p>
+
+  <p>Flat on his back, arms outstretched in the dust, lay Oldham,
+  with a bullet hole accurately in the middle of his
+  forehead.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXV" id="XXXV"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXV</h2><br>
+
+  <p>"Good heavens!" cried Amy. "What an awful thing!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes, ma'am," said Ware; "this is certainly tough. But I can't
+  see but it was a plumb accident. Who'd have thought he'd be
+  coming along the road just at that minute."</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course, you're not to blame," Amy reassured him quickly.
+  "We must get help. Of course, he's quite dead."</p>
+
+  <p>Ware nodded, gazing down at his victim reflectively.</p>
+
+  <p>"I was shootin' a little high," he remarked at last.</p>
+
+  <p>Up to this moment Bob had said nothing.</p>
+
+  <p>"If it will relieve your mind, any," he told Ware, "it isn't
+  such a case of innocent bystander as you may think. This man is
+  the one who hired Saleratus Bill to abduct me in the first place;
+  and probably to kill me in the second. I have a suspicion he got
+  what he deserved."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh!" cried Amy, looking at him reproachfully.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's a fact," Bob insisted. "I know his connection with all
+  this better than you do, and his being on this road was no
+  accident. It was to see his orders carried out."</p>
+
+  <p>Ware was looking at him shrewdly.</p>
+
+  <p>"That fits," he declared. "I couldn't figure why my old friend
+  Bill didn't cut loose. But he's got a head on him."</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, when he see Oldham dropped, what use was there of going
+  to shooting? It would just make trouble for him and he couldn't
+  hope for no pay. He just faded."</p>
+
+  <p>"He's a quick thinker, then," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"You bet you!"</p>
+
+  <p>The two men laid Oldham's body under the shade. As they
+  disposed it decently, Bob experienced again that haunting sense
+  of having known him elsewhere that had on several occasions
+  assailed his memory. The man's face was familiar to him with a
+  familiarity that Bob somehow felt antedated his California
+  acquaintance.</p>
+
+  <p>"We must get to the mill and send a wagon for him," Ware was
+  saying.</p>
+
+  <p>But Amy suddenly turned faint, and was unable to proceed.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's perfectly silly of me!" she cried indignantly. "The idea
+  of my feeling faint! It makes me so angry!"</p>
+
+  <p>"It's perfectly natural," Bob told her. "I think you've shown
+  a heap of nerve. Most girls would have flopped over."</p>
+
+  <p>The men helped her to a streamlet some hundreds of yards away.
+  Here it was agreed that Ware should proceed in search of a
+  conveyance; and that Bob and Amy should there await his
+  return.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXVI" id="XXXVI"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXVI</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Ware disappeared rapidly up the dusty road, Bob and Amy
+  standing side by side in silence, watching him go. When the lean,
+  long figure of the old mountaineer had quite disappeared, and the
+  light, eddying dust, peculiar to the Sierra country, had died,
+  Amy closed her eyes, raised her hand to her heart, and sank
+  slowly to the bank of the little creek. Her vivid colour, which
+  had for a moment returned under the influence of her strong will
+  and her indignation over her weakness, had again ebbed from her
+  cheeks.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob, with an exclamation of alarm, dropped to her side and
+  passed his arm back of her shoulders. As she felt the presence of
+  his support, she let slip the last desperate holdings of physical
+  command, and leaned back gratefully, breathing hard, her eyes
+  still closed.</p>
+
+  <p>After a moment she opened them long enough to smile palely at
+  the anxious face of the young man.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's all right," she said. "I'm all right. Don't be alarmed.
+  Just let me rest a minute. I'll be all right."</p>
+
+  <p>She closed her eyes again. Bob, watching, saw the colour
+  gradually flowing up under her skin, and was reassured.</p>
+
+  <p>The girl lay against his arm limply. At first he was concerned
+  merely with the supporting of the slight burden; careful to hold
+  her as comfortably as possible. Then the warmth of her body
+  penetrated to his arm. A new emotion invaded him, feeble in the
+  beginning, but gaining strength from instant to instant. It
+  mounted his breast as a tide would mount, until it had shortened
+  his breath, set his heart to thumping dully, choked his throat.
+  He looked down at her with troubled eyes, following the curve of
+  her upturned face, the long line of her throat exposed by the
+  backward thrown position of her head, the swell of her breast
+  under the thin gown. The helplessness of the pose caught at Bob's
+  heart. For the first time Amy&mdash;the vivid, self-reliant,
+  capable, laughing Amy&mdash;appealed to him as a being demanding
+  protection, as a woman with a woman's instinctive craving for
+  cherishing, as a delicious, soft, feminine creature, calling
+  forth the tendernesses of a man's heart. In the normal world of
+  everyday association this side of her had never been revealed,
+  never suspected; yet now, here, it rose up to throw into
+  insignificance all the other qualities of the girl he had known.
+  Bob spared a swift thought of gratitude to the chance that had
+  revealed to him this unguessed, intimate phase of womanhood.</p>
+
+  <p>And then the insight with which the significant moment had
+  endowed him leaped to the simple comprehension of another
+  thought&mdash;that this revelation of intimacy, of the
+  woman-appeal lying unguessed beneath the comradeship of everyday
+  life, was after all only a matter of chance. It had been revealed
+  to him by the accident of a moment's faintness, by which the
+  conscious will of the girl had been driven back from the
+  defences. In a short time it would be over. She would resume her
+  ordinary demeanour, her ordinary interest, her ordinary bright,
+  cheerful, attractive, matter-of-fact, efficient self. Everything
+  would be as before. But&mdash;and here Bob's breath came
+  quickest&mdash;in the great goodness of the world lay another
+  possibility; that sometime, at the call of some one person, for
+  that one and no other, this inner beautiful soul of the feminine
+  appeal would come forth freely, consciously, willingly.</p>
+
+  <p>Amy opened her eyes, sat up, shook herself slightly, and
+  laughed.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm all right now," she told Bob, "and certainly very much
+  ashamed."</p>
+
+  <p>"Amy!" he stammered.</p>
+
+  <p>She shot a swift look at him, and immediately arose to her
+  feet.</p>
+
+  <p>"We will have to testify at a coroner's inquest, I presume,"
+  said she, in the most matter-of-fact tones.</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose so," agreed Bob morosely. It is impossible to turn
+  back all the strongly set currents of life without at least a
+  temporary turmoil.</p>
+
+  <p>Amy glanced at him sideways, and smiled a faint, wise smile to
+  herself. For in these matters, while men are more analytical
+  after the fact, women are by nature more informed. She said
+  nothing, but stooped to the creek for a drink. When she had again
+  straightened to her feet, Bob had come to himself. The purport of
+  Amy's last speech had fully penetrated his understanding, and one
+  word of it&mdash;the word <i>testify</i>&mdash;had struck him
+  with an idea.</p>
+
+  <p>"By Jove!" he cried, "that lets out Pollock!"</p>
+
+  <p>"What?" said Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"This man Oldham was the only witness who could have convicted
+  George Pollock of killing Plant."</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you mean?" asked Amy, leaning forward interestedly.
+  "Was he there? How do you know about it?"</p>
+
+  <p>A half-hour before Bob would have hesitated long before
+  confiding his secret to a fourth party; but now, for him, the
+  world of relations had shifted.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'll tell you about it," said he, without hesitation; "but
+  this is serious. You must never breathe even a word of it to any
+  one!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Certainly not!" cried Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oldham wasn't an actual witness of the killing; but I was,
+  and he knew it. He could have made me testify by informing the
+  prosecuting attorney."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob sketched rapidly his share in the tragedy: how he had held
+  Pollock's horse, and been in a way an accessory to the deed. Amy
+  listened attentively to the recital of the facts, but before Bob
+  had begun to draw his conclusions, she broke in swiftly.</p>
+
+  <p>"So Oldham offered to let you off, if you would keep out of
+  this Modoc Land case," said she.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob nodded.</p>
+
+  <p>"That was it."</p>
+
+  <p>"But it would have put you in the penitentiary," she pointed
+  out.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, the case wasn't quite decided yet."</p>
+
+  <p>She made her quaint gesture of the happily up-thrown
+  hands.</p>
+
+  <p>"Just what you said about Mr. Welton!" she cried. "Oh, I'm
+  <i>glad</i> you told me this! I was trying so hard to think you
+  were doing a high and noble duty in ignoring the consequences to
+  that poor old man. But I could not. Now I see!"</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you mean?" asked Bob curiously, as she paused.</p>
+
+  <p>"You could do it because your act placed you in worse danger,"
+  she told him.</p>
+
+  <p>"Too many for me," Bob disclaimed. "I simply wasn't going to
+  be bluffed out by that gang!"</p>
+
+  <p>"That was it," said Amy wisely. "I know you better than you do
+  yourself. You don't suppose," she cried, as a new thought alarmed
+  her, "that Oldham has told the prosecuting attorney that your
+  evidence would be valuable."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob shook his head.</p>
+
+  <p>"The trial is next week," he pointed out. "In case the
+  prosecution had intended calling me, I should have been summoned
+  long since. There's dust; they are coming. You'd better stay
+  here."</p>
+
+  <p>She agreed readily to this. After a moment a light wagon drove
+  up. On the seat perched Welton and Ware. Bob climbed in
+  behind.</p>
+
+  <p>They drove rapidly down to the forks, stopped and hitched the
+  team.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ware's been telling me the whole situation, Bobby," said
+  Welton. "That gang's getting pretty desperate! I've heard of this
+  man Oldham around this country for a long while, but I always
+  understood he was interested against the Power Company."</p>
+
+  <p>"Bluff," said Bob briefly. "He's been in their employ from the
+  first, but I never thought he'd go in for quite this kind of
+  strong-arm work. He doesn't look it, do you think?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I never laid eyes on him," replied Welton. "He's never been
+  near the mill, and I never happened to run across him anywhere
+  else."</p>
+
+  <p>By this time they had secured the team. Ware led the way to
+  the tree under which lay the body of the land agent. Welton
+  surveyed the prostrate figure for some time in silence. Then
+  turned to Bob, a curious expression on his face.</p>
+
+  <p>"It wasn't an accident that I never met him," said he. "He saw
+  to it. Don't you remember this man, Bobby?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I saw him in Los Angeles some years ago."</p>
+
+  <p>"Before that&mdash;in Michigan&mdash;many years ago."</p>
+
+  <p>"His face has always seemed familiar to me," said Bob slowly.
+  "I can't place it&mdash;yes&mdash;hold on!"</p>
+
+  <p>A picture defined itself from the mists of his boyhood
+  memories. It was of an open field, with a fringe of beech woods
+  in the distance. A single hickory stood near its centre, and
+  under this a group lounged, smoking pipes. A man, perched on a
+  cracker box, held a blank book and pencil. Another stood by a
+  board, a gun in his hand. The smell of black powder hung in the
+  atmosphere. Little glass balls popped into the air, and were
+  snuffed out. He saw Oldham distinctly, looking younger and
+  browner, but with the same cynical mouth, the same cold eyes, the
+  same slanted eyeglasses. Even before his recollections reproduced
+  the scorer's drawling voice calling the next contestant, his
+  memory supplied the name.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's Newmark!" he cried aloud.</p>
+
+  <p>"Joe Newmark, your father's old partner! He hasn't changed
+  much. He disappeared from Michigan when you were about eight
+  years old; didn't he! Nobody ever knew how or why, but everybody
+  had suspicions.... Well; let's get him in."</p>
+
+  <p>They disposed the body in the wagon, and drove back up the
+  road. At the little brook they stopped to let off Ware. It was
+  agreed that all danger to Bob was now past, and that the gun-man
+  would do better to accompany Amy back to headquarters. Of course,
+  it would be necessary to work the whole matter out at the
+  coroner's inquest, but in view of the circumstances, Ware's
+  safety was assured.</p>
+
+  <p>At the mill the necessary telephoning was done, the officials
+  summoned, and everything put in order.</p>
+
+  <p>"What I really started over to see you about," then said Bob
+  to Welton, "is this matter of the Modoc Company." He went on to
+  explain fully Amy's plan for checkmating Baker. "You see, if I
+  get in my word first, Baker is as much implicated as you are, and
+  it won't do him any good to turn state's evidence."</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't see as that helps me," remarked Welton gloomily.</p>
+
+  <p>"Baker might be willing to put himself in any position," said
+  Bob; "but I doubt if he'll care to take the risk of criminal
+  punishment. I think this will head him off completely; but if it
+  doesn't, every move he makes to save his own skin saves yours
+  too."</p>
+
+  <p>"It may do some good," agreed Welton. "Try it."</p>
+
+  <p>"I've already written Baker. But I didn't want you to think I
+  was starting up the bloodhounds against you without some blame
+  good reason."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'd know that anyway, Bobby," said Welton kindly. He stared
+  moodily at the stovepipe. "This is getting too thick for an
+  old-timer," he broke out at last. "I'm just a plain,
+  old-fashioned lumberman, and all I know is to cut lumber. I pass
+  this mess up. I wired your father he'd better come along
+  out."</p>
+
+  <p>"Is he coming?" asked Bob eagerly.</p>
+
+  <p>"I just got a message over the 'phone from the telegraph
+  office. He'll be in White Oaks as fast as he can get there.
+  Didn't I tell you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Wire him aboard train to go through to Fremont, and that
+  we'll meet him there," said Bob instantly. "It's getting about
+  time to beard the lion in his den."</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXVII" id="XXXVII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXVII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>The coroner's inquest detained Bob over until the week
+  following. In it Amy's testimony as to the gun-man's appearance
+  and evident intention was quite sufficient to excuse Ware's
+  shooting; and the fact that Oldham, as he was still known,
+  instead of Saleratus Bill, received the bullet was evidently
+  sheer unavoidable accident. Bob's testimony added little save
+  corroboration. As soon as he could get away, he took the road to
+  Fremont.</p>
+
+  <p>Orde was awaiting his son at the station. Bob saw the
+  straight, heavy figure, the tanned face with the snow-white
+  moustache, before the train had come to a stop. Full of
+  eagerness, he waved his hat over the head of the outraged porter
+  barricaded on the lower steps by his customary accumulation of
+  suit cases.</p>
+
+  <p>"Hullo, dad! Hullo, there!" he shouted again and again, quite
+  oblivious to the amusement of the other passengers over this tall
+  and bronzed young man's enthusiasm.</p>
+
+  <p>Orde caught sight of his son at last; his face lit up, and he,
+  too, swung his hat. A moment later they had clasped hands.</p>
+
+  <p>After the first greetings, Bob gave his suit case in charge to
+  the hotel bus-man.</p>
+
+  <p>"We'll take a little walk up the street and talk things over,"
+  he suggested.</p>
+
+  <p>They sauntered slowly up the hill and down the side streets
+  beneath the pepper and acacia trees of Fremont's beautiful
+  thoroughfares. So absorbed did they become that they did not
+  realize in the slightest where they were going, so that at last
+  they had topped the ridge and, from the stretch of the Sunrise
+  Drive, they looked over into the ca&ntilde;on.</p>
+
+  <p>"So you've been getting into trouble, have you?" chaffed Orde,
+  as they left the station.</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't know about that," Bob rejoined. "I do know that there
+  are quite a number of people in trouble."</p>
+
+  <p>Orde laughed.</p>
+
+  <p>"Tell me about this Welton difficulty," said he. "Frank Taylor
+  has our own matters well in hand. The opposition won't gain much
+  by digging up that old charge against the integrity of our land
+  titles. We'll count that much wiped off the slate."</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob heartily. "Well, the trouble
+  with Mr. Welton is that the previous administration held him
+  up&mdash;" He detailed the aspects of the threatened bribery
+  case; while Orde listened without comment. "So," he concluded,
+  "it looked at first as if they rather had him, if I testified. It
+  had me guessing. I hated the thought of getting a man like Mr.
+  Welton in trouble of that sort over a case in which he was no way
+  interested."</p>
+
+  <p>"What did you decide?" asked Orde curiously.</p>
+
+  <p>"I decided to testify."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's right."</p>
+
+  <p>"I suppose so. I felt a little better about it, because they
+  had me in the same boat. That let me out in my own feelings,
+  naturally."</p>
+
+  <p>"How?" asked Orde swiftly.</p>
+
+  <p>"There had been trouble up there between Plant&mdash;you
+  remember I wrote you of the cattle difficulties?"</p>
+
+  <p>"With Simeon Wright? I know all that."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, one of the cattlemen was ruined by Plant's methods; his
+  wife and child died from want of care on that account. He was the
+  one who killed Plant; you remember that."</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes."</p>
+
+  <p>"I happened to be near and I helped him escape."</p>
+
+  <p>"And some one connected with the Modoc Company was a witness,"
+  conjectured Orde. "Who was it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"A man who went under the name of Oldham. A certain
+  familiarity puzzled me for a long time. Only the other day I got
+  it. He was Mr. Newmark."</p>
+
+  <p>"Newmark!" cried Orde, stopping short and staring fixedly at
+  his son.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yes; the man who was your partner when I was a very small
+  boy. You remember?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Remember!" repeated Orde; then in tones of great energy: "He
+  and I both have reason to remember well enough! Where is he now?
+  I can put a stop to him in about two jumps!"</p>
+
+  <p>"You won't need to," said Bob quietly; "he's dead&mdash;shot
+  last week."</p>
+
+  <p>For some moments nothing more was said, while the two men
+  trudged beneath the hanging peppers near the entrance to Sunrise
+  Drive.</p>
+
+  <p>"I always wondered why he had it in for me, and why he acted
+  so queerly," Bob broke the silence at last. "He seemed to have a
+  special and personal enmity for me. I always felt it, but I
+  couldn't make it out."</p>
+
+  <p>"He had plenty of reasons for that. But it's funny Welton
+  didn't recognize the whelp."</p>
+
+  <p>"Mr. Welton never saw him," Bob explained&mdash;"that is,
+  until Newmark was dead. Then he recognized him instantly. What
+  was it all about?"</p>
+
+  <p>Orde indicated the bench on the ca&ntilde;on's edge.</p>
+
+  <p>"Let's sit," said he. "Newmark and I made our start together.
+  For eight years we worked together and built up a very decent
+  business. Then, all at once, I discovered that he was plotting
+  systematically to do me out of every cent we had made. It was the
+  most cold-blooded proposition I ever ran across."</p>
+
+  <p>"Couldn't you prove it on him?" asked Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"I could prove it all right; but the whole affair made me
+  sick. He'd always been the closest friend, in a way, I had ever
+  had; and the shock of discovering what he really was drove
+  everything else out of my head. I was young then. It seemed to me
+  that all I wanted was to wipe the whole affair off the slate, to
+  get it behind me, to forget it&mdash;so I let him go."</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't believe I'd have done that. Seems to me I'd have had
+  to blow off steam," Bob commented.</p>
+
+  <p>Orde smiled reminiscently.</p>
+
+  <p>"I blew off steam," <a name="FNanchor8" id=
+  "FNanchor8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> said he.
+  "It was rather fantastic; but I actually believe it was one of
+  the most satisfactory episodes in my life. I went around to his
+  place&mdash;he lived rather well in bachelor quarters, which was
+  a new thing in those days&mdash;and locked the door and told him
+  just why I was going to let him off. It tickled him
+  hugely&mdash;for about a minute. Then I finished up by giving him
+  about the very worst licking he ever heard tell of."</p>
+
+  <p>"Was that what you told him?" cried Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"What?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Did you say those words to him?&mdash;'I'm going to give you
+  the very worst licking you ever heard tell of'?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, I believe I did."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob threw back his head and laughed.</p>
+
+  <p>"So did I!" he cried; and then, after a moment, more soberly.
+  "I think, incidentally, it saved my life."</p>
+
+  <p>"Now what are you driving at?" asked Orde.</p>
+
+  <p>"Listen, this is funny: Newmark had me kidnapped by one of his
+  men, and lugged off to a little valley in the mountains. The idea
+  was to keep me there until after the trial, so my testimony would
+  not appear. You see, none of our side knew I had that testimony.
+  I hadn't told anybody, because I had been undecided as to what I
+  was going to do."</p>
+
+  <p>Orde whistled.</p>
+
+  <p>"I got away, and had quite a time getting home. I'll tell you
+  all the details some other time. On the road I met Newmark. I was
+  pretty mad, so I lit into him stiff-legged. After a few words he
+  got scared and pulled a gun on me. I was just mad enough to keep
+  coming, and I swear I believe he was just on the point of
+  shooting, when I said those very same words: 'I'm going to give
+  you the very worst licking you ever heard tell of.' He turned
+  white as a sheet and dropped his gun. I thought he was a coward;
+  but I guess it was conscience and luck. Now, wouldn't that come
+  and get you?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Did you?" asked Orde.</p>
+
+  <p>"Did I what?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Give him that licking?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I sure did start out to; but I couldn't bring myself to more
+  than shake him up a little."</p>
+
+  <p>Orde rose, stretching his legs.</p>
+
+  <p>"What are your plans now?"</p>
+
+  <p>"To see Baker. I'm going to tell him that on the first
+  indications of his making trouble I'm going to enter complaint
+  for bribery against <i>both</i> him and Mr. Welton. You see, I
+  was there too. Think it'll work?"</p>
+
+  <p>"The best way is to go and see."</p>
+
+  <p>"Come on," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXVIII" id="XXXVIII"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXVIII</h2><br>
+
+  <p>The two men found Baker seated behind his flat-top desk. He
+  grinned cheerfully at them; and, to Bob's surprise, greeted him
+  with great joviality.</p>
+
+  <p>"All hail, great Chief!" he cried. "I've had my scalp nicely
+  smoke-tanned for you, so you won't have to bother taking it." He
+  bowed to Orde. "I'm glad to see you, sir," said he. "Know you by
+  your picture. Please be seated."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob brushed the levity aside.</p>
+
+  <p>"I've come," said he, "to get an explanation from you as to
+  why, in the first place, you had me kidnapped; and why, in the
+  second place, you tried to get me murdered."</p>
+
+  <p>Baker's mocking face became instantly grave; and, leaning
+  forward, he hit the desk a thump with his right fist.</p>
+
+  <p>"Orde," said he, "I want you to believe me in this: I never
+  was more sorry for anything in my life! I wouldn't have had that
+  happen for anything in the world! If I'd had the remotest idea
+  that Oldham contemplated something of that sort, I should have
+  laid very positive orders on him. He said he had something on you
+  that would keep your mouth shut, but I never dreamed he meant gun
+  play."</p>
+
+  <p>"I don't suppose you dreamed he meant kidnapping either,"
+  observed Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>Baker threw himself back with a chuckle.</p>
+
+  <p>"Being kidnapped is fine for the health," said he. "Babies
+  thrive on it. No," he continued, again leaning forward gravely,
+  "Oldham got away from his instructions completely. Shooting or
+  that kind of violence was absurd in such a case. You mustn't lay
+  that to me, but to his personal grudge."</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you know of a personal grudge?" Bob flashed back.</p>
+
+  <p>"Ab-so-lute-ly nothing; but I suspected. It's part of my job
+  to be a nifty young suspector&mdash;and to use what I guess at.
+  He just got away from me. As for the rest of it, that's part of
+  the game. This is no croquet match; you must expect to get your
+  head bumped if you play it. I play the game."</p>
+
+  <p>"I play the game, too," returned Bob, "and I came here to tell
+  you so. I'll take care of myself, but I want to say that the
+  moment you offer any move against Welton, I shall bring in my
+  testimony against both of you on this bribery matter."</p>
+
+  <p>"Sapient youth!" said Baker, amused; "did that aspect of it
+  just get to you? But you misinterpreted the spirit of my greeting
+  when you came in the room. In words of one syllable, you've got
+  us licked. We lie down and roll over. We stick all four paws in
+  the air. We bat our august forehead against the floor. Is that
+  clear?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Then you drop this prosecution against Welton?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Nary prosecution, as far as I am concerned."</p>
+
+  <p>"But the Modoc Land case----"</p>
+
+  <p>"Take back your lands," chaffed Baker dramatically. "Kind of
+  bum lands, anyway. No use skirmishing after the battle is over.
+  Your father would tell you that."</p>
+
+  <p>"Then you don't fight the suit?"</p>
+
+  <p>"That," said Baker, "is still a point for compromise. You've
+  got us, I'm willing to admit that. Also that you are a bright
+  young man, and that I underestimated you. You've lifted my
+  property, legally acquired, and you've done it by outplaying my
+  bluff. I still maintain the points of the law are with
+  me&mdash;we won't get into that," he checked himself. "But
+  criminal prosecution is a different matter. I don't intend to
+  stand for that a minute. Your gang don't slow-step me to any
+  bastiles now listed in the prison records. Nothing doing that
+  way. I'll fight her to a fare-ye-well on that." His round face
+  seemed to become square-set and grim for an instant, but
+  immediately reassumed its customary rather careless good-nature.
+  "No, we'll just call the whole business off."</p>
+
+  <p>"That is not for me to decide," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"No; but you've got a lot to say about it&mdash;and I'll see
+  to the little details; don't fret. By the way," mentioned Baker,
+  "just as a matter of ordinary curiosity, <i>did</i> Oldham have
+  anything on you, or was he just a strong-arm artist?" He threw
+  back his head and laughed aloud at Bob's face. At the thought of
+  Pollock the young man could not prevent a momentary expression of
+  relief from crossing his countenance. "There's a tail-holt on all
+  of us," Baker observed.</p>
+
+  <p>He flipped open a desk drawer and produced a box of
+  expensive-looking cigars which he offered to his visitors. Orde
+  lit one; but Bob, eyeing the power-man coldly, refused. Baker
+  laughed.</p>
+
+  <p>"You'll get over it," he observed&mdash;"youth, I mean. Don't
+  mix your business and your personal affairs. That came right out
+  of the copy book, page one, but it's true. I'm the one that ought
+  to feel sore, seems to me." He lit his own cigar, and puffed at
+  it, swinging his bulky form to the edge of the desk. "Look here,"
+  said he, shaking the butt at the younger man. "You're making a
+  great mistake. The future of this country is with water, and
+  don't you forget it. Fuel is scarce; water power is the coming
+  force. The country can produce like a garden under irrigation;
+  and it's only been scratched yet, and that just about the big
+  cities. We are getting control; and the future of the state is
+  with us. You're wasting yourself in all this toy work. You've got
+  too much ability to squander it in that sort of thing. Oldham
+  made you an offer from us, didn't he?"</p>
+
+  <p>"He tried to bribe me, if that's what you mean," said Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, have it your way; but you'll admit there's hardly much
+  use of bribing you now. I repeat the offer. Come in with us on
+  those terms."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why?" demanded Bob.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," said Baker quaintly, "because you seem to have licked
+  me fair and square; and I never want a man who can lick me to
+  remain where he is likely to do so."</p>
+
+  <p>At this point Orde, who had up to now remained quietly a
+  spectator, spoke up.</p>
+
+  <p>"Bob," said he, "is already fairly intimately connected with
+  certain interests, which, while not so large as water power, are
+  enough to keep him busy."</p>
+
+  <p>Baker turned to him joyously.</p>
+
+  <p>"List' to the voice of reason!" he cried. "I'm sorry he won't
+  come with us; but the next best thing is to put him where he
+  won't fight us. I didn't know he was going back to your
+  timber&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again at a
+  gesture from his father.</p>
+
+  <p>Baker glanced at the clock.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well," he remarked cheerfully, "come over to the Club with me
+  to lunch, anyway."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob stared at him incredulously. Here was the man who had
+  employed against him every expedient from blackmail to physical
+  violence; who had but that instant been worsted in a bald attempt
+  at larceny, nevertheless, cheerfully inviting him out to lunch as
+  though nothing had happened! Furthermore, his father, against
+  whose ambitions one of the deadliest blows had been aimed, was
+  quietly reaching for his hat. Baker looked up and caught Bob's
+  expression.</p>
+
+  <p>"Come, come!" said he; "forget it! You and I speak the
+  language of the same tribe, and you can't get away from it. I'm
+  playing my game, you're playing yours. Of course, we want to win.
+  But what's the use of cutting out lots of bully good people on
+  that account?"</p>
+
+  <p>"You don't stick to the rules," insisted Bob stoutly.</p>
+
+  <p>"I think I do," said Baker. "Who's to decide? You believe one
+  way, I believe another. I know what you think of my methods in
+  business; and I'd hate to say what I think of you as the blue
+  ribbon damn fool in that respect. But I like you, and I'm willing
+  to admit you've got stuff in you; and I know damn well you and
+  your father and I can have a fine young lunch talking
+  duck-shooting and football. And with all my faults you love me
+  still, and you know you do." He smiled winningly, and hooked his
+  arm through Bob's on one side and his father's on the other.
+  "Come on, you old deacon; play the game!" he cried.</p>
+
+  <p>Bob laughed, and gave in.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XXXIX" id="XXXIX"></a>
+
+  <h2>XXXIX</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob took his father with him back to headquarters. They rode
+  in near the close of day; and, as usual, from the stovepipe of
+  the roofless kitchen a brave pillar of white smoke rose high in
+  the shadows of the firs. Amy came forth at Bob's shout, starched
+  and fresh, her cheeks glowing with their steady colour, her
+  intelligent eyes alight with interest under the straight, serene
+  brows. At sight of Orde, the vivacity of her manner quieted
+  somewhat, but Bob could see that she was excited about something.
+  He presented his father, who dismounted and greeted her with a
+  hearty shake of the hand.</p>
+
+  <p>"We've heard of you, Miss Thorne," said he simply, but it was
+  evident he was pleased with the frankness of her manner, the
+  clear steadiness of her eye, the fresh daintiness of her
+  appearance, and the respect of her greeting. On the other hand,
+  she looked back with equal pleasure on the tanned, sturdy old man
+  with the white hair and moustache, the clear eyes, and the
+  innumerable lines of quaint good-humour about them. After they
+  had thus covertly surveyed each other for a moment, the aforesaid
+  lines about Orde's eyes deepened, his eyes twinkled with
+  mischief, and he thrust forth his hand for the second time.
+  "Shake again!" he offered. Amy gurgled forth a little chuckle of
+  good feeling and understanding, and laid her fingers in his huge
+  palm.</p>
+
+  <p>After this they turned and walked slowly to the hitch rails
+  where the men tied their horses.</p>
+
+  <p>"Where's the Supervisor?" Bob asked of Amy.</p>
+
+  <p>"In the office," she replied; and then burst out excitedly:
+  "I've the greatest news!"</p>
+
+  <p>"So have I," returned Bob, promptly. "Best kind."</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, what is it?" she cried, forgetting all about her own. "Is
+  it Mr. Welton?"</p>
+
+  <p>"It'll take some time to tell mine," said Bob, "and we must
+  hunt up Mr. Thorne. Yours first."</p>
+
+  <p>"Pollock is free!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Pollock free!" echoed Bob. "How is that? I thought his trial
+  was not until next week!"</p>
+
+  <p>"The prosecuting attorney quashed the indictment&mdash;or
+  whatever it is they do. Anyhow, he let George go for lack of
+  evidence to convict."</p>
+
+  <p>"I guess he was relying on evidence promised by Oldham, which
+  he never got," Bob surmised.</p>
+
+  <p>"And never will," Orde cautioned them. "You two young people
+  must be careful never to know anything of this."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob opened his mouth to say something; was suddenly struck by
+  a thought, and closed it again.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why do you say that?" he asked at last. "Why do you think
+  Miss Thorne must know of this?"</p>
+
+  <p>But Orde only smiled amusedly beneath his white moustache.</p>
+
+  <p>They found Ashley Thorne, and acquainted him with the whole
+  situation. He listened thoughtfully.</p>
+
+  <p>"The matter is over our heads, of course; but we must do our
+  best. Of course, by all rights the man ought to be indicted; but
+  there can be no question that there is a common sense that takes
+  the substance of victory and lets the shadow go."</p>
+
+  <p>Orde stayed to supper and over night. In the course of the
+  evening California John drifted in, and Ware, and Jack Pollock,
+  and such other of the rangers as happened to be in from the
+  Forest. Orde was at his best; and ended, to Bob's vast pride, in
+  getting himself well liked by these conservative and quietly
+  critical men of the mountains.</p>
+
+  <p>The next morning Bob and his father saddled their horses and
+  started early for the mill, Bob having been granted a short leave
+  of absence. For some distance they rode in silence.</p>
+
+  <p>"Father," said Bob, "why did you stop me from contradicting
+  Baker the other day when he jumped to the conclusion that I was
+  going to quit the Service?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I think you are."</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"Only if you want to, Bob. I don't want to force you in any
+  way; but both Welton and I are getting old, and we need younger
+  blood. We'd rather have you." Bob shook his head. "I know what
+  you mean, and I realize how you feel about the whole matter.
+  Perhaps you are right. I have nothing to say against conservation
+  and forestry methods theoretically. They are absolutely correct.
+  I agree that the forests should be cut for future growths, and
+  left so that fire cannot get through them; but it is a grave
+  question in my mind whether, as yet, it can be done."</p>
+
+  <p>"But it is being done!" cried Bob. "There is no difficulty in
+  doing it."</p>
+
+  <p>"That's for you to prove, if you want to," said Orde. "If you
+  care to resign from the Service, we will for two years give you
+  full swing with our timber, to cut and log according to your
+  ideas&mdash;or rather the ideas of those over you. In that time
+  you can prove your point, or fail. Personally," he repeated, "I
+  have grave doubts as to whether it can be done at present; it
+  will be in the future of course."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, what do you mean?" asked Bob. "It is being done every
+  day! There's nothing complicated about it. It's just a question
+  of cutting and piling the tops, and&mdash;"</p>
+
+  <p>"I know the methods advocated," broke in Orde. "But it is not
+  being done except on Government holdings where conditions as to
+  taxation, situation and a hundred other things are not like those
+  of private holdings; or on private holdings on an experimental
+  scale, or in conjunction with older methods. The case has not
+  been proved on a large private tract. Now is your chance so to
+  prove it."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob's face was grave.</p>
+
+  <p>"That means a pretty complete about-face for me, sir," said
+  he. "I fought this all out with myself some years back. I feel
+  that I have fitted myself into the one thing that is worth while
+  for me."</p>
+
+  <p>"I know," said Orde. "Don't hurry. Think it over. Take advice.
+  I have a notion you'll find this&mdash;if its handled right, and
+  works out right&mdash;will come to much the same thing."</p>
+
+  <p>He rode along in silence for some moments.</p>
+
+  <p>"I want to be fair," he resumed at last, "and do not desire to
+  get you in this on mistaken premises. This will not be a case of
+  experiment, of plaything, but of business. However desirable a
+  commercial theory may be, if it's commercial, <i>it must pay</i>!
+  It's not enough if you don't lose money; or even if you succeed
+  in coming out a little ahead. You must make it pay on a
+  commercial basis, or else it's as worthless in the business world
+  as so much moonshine. That is not sordid; it is simply common
+  sense. We all agree that it would be better to cut our forests
+  for the future; but <i>can it be done under present
+  conditions?</i>"</p>
+
+  <p>"There is no question of that," said Bob confidently.</p>
+
+  <p>"There is quite a question of it among some of us old fogies,
+  Bobby," stated Orde good-humouredly. "I suppose we're stupid and
+  behind the times; but we've been brought up in a hard school. We
+  are beyond the age when we originate much, perhaps; but we're
+  willing to be shown."</p>
+
+  <p>He held up his hand, checking over his fingers as he
+  talked.</p>
+
+  <p>"Here's the whole proposition," said he. "You can consider it.
+  Welton and I will turn over the whole works to you, lock, stock
+  and barrel, for two years. You know the practical side of the
+  business as well as you ever will, and you've got a good head on
+  you. At the end of that time, turn in your balance sheet. We'll
+  see how you come out, and how much it costs a thousand feet to do
+  these things outside the schoolroom."</p>
+
+  <p>"If I took it up, I couldn't make it pay quite as well as by
+  present methods," Bob warned.</p>
+
+  <p>"Of course not. Any reasonable man would expect to spend
+  something by way of insurance for the future. But the point is,
+  the operations must pay. Think it over!"</p>
+
+  <p>They emerged into the mill clearing. Welton rolled out to
+  greet them, his honest red face aglow with pleasure over greeting
+  again his old friend. They pounded each other on the back, and
+  uttered much facetious and affectionate abuse. Bob left them
+  cursing each other heartily, broad grins illuminating their
+  weatherbeaten faces.</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XL" id="XL"></a>
+
+  <h2>XL</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob's obvious course was to talk the whole matter over with
+  his superior officer, and that is exactly what he intended to do.
+  Instead, he hunted up Amy. He justified this course by the rather
+  sophistical reflection that in her he would encounter the most
+  positive force to the contrary of the proposition he had just
+  received. Amy stood first, last and all the time for the Service;
+  her heart was wholly in its cause. In her opinion he would gain
+  the advantage of a direct antithesis to the ideas propounded by
+  his father. This appeared to Bob an eminently just arrangement,
+  but failed to account for a certain rather breathless excitement
+  as he caught sight of Amy's sleek head bending over a pan of
+  peas.</p>
+
+  <p>"Amy," said he, dropping down at her feet, "I want your
+  advice."</p>
+
+  <p>She let fall her hands and looked at him with the refreshing
+  directness peculiarly her own.</p>
+
+  <p>"Father wants me to take charge of the Wolverine Company's
+  operations," he began.</p>
+
+  <p>"Well?" she urged him after a pause.</p>
+
+  <p>"What do you think of it?"</p>
+
+  <p>"I thought you had worked that all out for yourself some time
+  ago."</p>
+
+  <p>"I had. But father and Mr. Welton are getting a little too old
+  to handle such a proposition, and they are looking to me&mdash;"
+  he paused.</p>
+
+  <p>"That situation is no different than it has been," she
+  suggested. "What else?"</p>
+
+  <p>Bob laughed.</p>
+
+  <p>"You see through me very easily, don't you? Well, the
+  situation is changed. I'm being bribed."</p>
+
+  <p>"Bribed!" Amy cried, throwing her head back.</p>
+
+  <p>"Extra inducements offered. They make it hard for me to
+  refuse, without seeming positively brutal. They offer me complete
+  charge&mdash;to do as I want. I can run the works absolutely
+  according to my own ideas. Don't you see how I am going to hurt
+  them when I refuse under such circumstances?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Refuse!" cried Amy. "Refuse! What do you mean!"</p>
+
+  <p>"Do you think I ought to leave the Service?" stammered Bob
+  blankly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Why, it's the best chance the Service has ever had!" said
+  Amy, the words fairly tumbling over one another. "You must never
+  dream of refusing. It's your chance&mdash;it's our chance. It's
+  the one thing we've lacked, the opportunity of showing lumbermen
+  everywhere that the thing can be made to pay. It's the one thing
+  we've lacked. Oh, <i>what</i> a chance!"</p>
+
+  <p>"But&mdash;but," objected Bob&mdash;"it means giving up the
+  Service&mdash;after these years&mdash;and all the wide
+  interests&mdash;and the work----"</p>
+
+  <p>"You must take it," she swept him away, "and you must do it
+  with all your power and all the ability that is in you. You must
+  devote yourself to one idea&mdash;make money, make it pay!"</p>
+
+  <p>"This from you," said Bob sadly.</p>
+
+  <p>"Oh, I am so <i>glad</i>!" cried Amy. "Your father is a dear!
+  it's the one fear that has haunted me&mdash;lest some visionary
+  incompetent should attempt it, and should fail dismally, and all
+  the great world of business should visit our methods with the
+  scorn due only his incompetence. It was our great danger! And now
+  it is no longer a danger! You can do it, Bob; you have the
+  knowledge and the ability and the energy&mdash;and you must have
+  the enthusiasm. Can't you see it? You <i>must!</i>"</p>
+
+  <p>She leaned over, her eyes shining with the excitement of her
+  thought, to shake him by both shoulders. The pan of peas promptly
+  deluged him. They both laughed.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'd never looked at it that way," Bob confessed.</p>
+
+  <p>"It's the only way to look at it."</p>
+
+  <p>"Why!" cried Bob, in the sudden illumination of a new idea.
+  "The more money I make, the more good I'll do&mdash;that's a
+  brand new idea for you!"</p>
+
+  <p>He rose to his feet, slowly, and stood for a moment lost in
+  thought. Then he looked down at her, a fresh admiration shining
+  in his eyes.</p>
+
+  <p>"Yours is the inspiration and the insight&mdash;as always," he
+  said humbly. "It has always been so. I have seemed to myself to
+  have blundered and stumbled, groping for a way; and you have
+  flown, swift as a shining arrow, straight to the mark."</p>
+
+  <p>"No, no, no, no!" she disclaimed, coming close to him in the
+  vigour of her denial. "You are unfair."</p>
+
+  <p>She looked up into his face, and somehow in the earnestness of
+  her disclaimer, the feminine soul of her rose to her eyes, so
+  that again Bob saw the tender, appealing helplessness, and once
+  more there arose to full tide in his breast the answering
+  tenderness that would care for her and guard her from the rough
+  jostling of the world. The warmth of her young body tingled in
+  recollection along his arm, and then, strangely enough, without
+  any other direct cause whatever, the tide rose higher to flood
+  his soul. He drew her to him, crushing her to his breast. For an
+  instant she yielded to him utterly; then drew away in a
+  panic.</p>
+
+  <p>"My dear, my dear!" she half whispered; "not here!"</p><br>
+  <br>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+  <a name="XLI" id="XLI"></a>
+
+  <h2>XLI</h2><br>
+
+  <p>Bob rode home through the forest, singing at the top of his
+  voice. When he met his father, near the lower meadow, he greeted
+  the older man boisterously.</p>
+
+  <p>"That," said Orde to him shrewdly, "sounds to me mighty like
+  relief. Have you decided for or against?"</p>
+
+  <p>"For," said Bob. "It's a fine chance for me to do just what
+  I've always wanted to do&mdash;to work hard at what interests me
+  and satisfies me."</p>
+
+  <p>"Go to it, then," said Orde. "By the way, Bobby, how old are
+  you now?"</p>
+
+  <p>"Twenty-nine."</p>
+
+  <p>"Well, you're a year younger than I was when I started in with
+  Newmark. You're ahead of me there. But in other respects, my son,
+  your father had a heap more sense; he got married, and he didn't
+  waste any time on it. How long have you been living around in
+  range of that Thorne girl, anyway? Somebody ought to build a fire
+  under you."</p>
+
+  <p>Bob hesitated a moment; but he preferred that his good news
+  should come to his father when Amy could be there, too.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm glad you like her, father," said he quietly.</p>
+
+  <p>Orde looked at his son, and his voice fell from its chaffing
+  tone. "Good luck, boy," said he, and leaned from his saddle to
+  touch the young man on the shoulder.</p>
+
+  <p>They emerged into the clearing about the mill. Bob looked on
+  the familiar scene with the new eyes of a great spiritual uplift.
+  The yellow sawdust and the sawn lumber; the dark forest beyond;
+  the bulk of the mill with its tall pines; the dazzling plume of
+  steam against the very blue sky, all these appealed to him again
+  with many voices, as they had years before in far-off Michigan.
+  Once more he was back where his blood called him; but under
+  conditions which his training and the spirit of the new times
+  could approve. His heart exulted at the challenge to his young
+  manhood.</p>
+
+  <p>As he rode by the store he caught sight within its depths of
+  Merker methodically waiting on a stolid squaw.</p>
+
+  <p>"No more economic waste, Merker!" he could not forbear
+  shouting; and then rocked in his saddle with laughter over the
+  man's look of slow surprise. "It's his catchword," he explained
+  to Orde. "He's a slow, queer old duck, but a mighty good sort for
+  the place. There's Post, in from the woods. He's woods foreman. I
+  expect I'll have lively times with Post at first, getting him
+  broken into new ways. But he's a good sort, too."</p>
+
+  <p>"Everybody's a good sort to-day, aren't they, son?" smiled
+  Orde.</p>
+
+  <p>Welton met them, and expressed his satisfaction over the way
+  everything had turned out.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm going duck shooting for fair," said he, "and I'm going
+  fishing at Catalina. Out here," he explained to Orde, "you sit in
+  nice warm sun and let the ducks insult you into shooting at 'em!
+  No freeze-your-fingers-and-break-the-ice early mornings! I'm
+  willing to let the kid go it! He can't bust me in two years,
+  anyway."</p>
+
+  <p>Later, when the two were alone together, he clapped Bob on the
+  back and wished him success.</p>
+
+  <p>"I'm too old at the game to believe much in new methods to
+  what I've been brought up to, Bob," said he; "but I believe in
+  you. If anybody can do it, you can; and I'd be tickled to see you
+  win out. Things change; and a man is foolish to act as though
+  they didn't. He's just got to keep playing along according to the
+  rules of the game. And they keep changing, too. It's good to have
+  lived while they're making a country. I've done it. You're going
+  to."</p><br>
+
+  <h2>THE END</h2>
+  <hr style="width: 65%;">
+  <br>
+  <br>
+
+    <h2>Footnotes:</h2>
+
+    <p><a name="Footnote_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor1">[1]</a></p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        Stirrup hoods.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p><a name="Footnote_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor2">[2]</a></p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        The accounts of one man showed that for a long period he
+        had so disbursed from his own pocket an average of thirty
+        dollars a month. His salary was sixty dollars.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p><a name="Footnote_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor3">[3]</a></p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        Kyacks&mdash;pack sacks slung either side the pack saddle.
+    </blockquote>
+
+    <p><a name="Footnote_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor4">[4]</a></p>
+
+    <blockquote>
+        Extraordinary as it may seem to the modern reader, this
+        sentiment&mdash;or this ignorance&mdash;was at that time
+        sincerely entertained by men as influential, as powerful,
+        and as closely interested in water power as Baker is here
+        depicted.
+    </blockquote>
+
+  <p><a name="Footnote_5" id="Footnote_5"></a><a href=
+  "#FNanchor5">[5]</a></p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    "Nester"&mdash;Western term meaning squatters, small
+    settlers&mdash;generally illegally such.
+  </blockquote>
+
+  <p><a name="Footnote_6" id="Footnote_6"></a><a href=
+  "#FNanchor6">[6]</a></p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    Pronounced Hone-kal.
+  </blockquote>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_7" id="Footnote_7"></a><a href=
+  "#FNanchor7">[7]</a></p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    See "The Riverman."
+  </blockquote>
+
+<p><a name="Footnote_8" id="Footnote_8"></a><a href=
+  "#FNanchor8">[8]</a></p>
+
+  <blockquote>
+    See "The Riverman."
+  </blockquote>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Rules of the Game, by Stewart Edward White
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+</body>
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+
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@@ -0,0 +1,23484 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rules of the Game, by Stewart Edward White
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Rules of the Game
+
+Author: Stewart Edward White
+
+Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #13194]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RULES OF THE GAME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Maria Khomenko and
+the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to
+scorch his face and hands]
+
+
+
+
+THE RULES OF THE GAME
+
+BY
+
+STEWART EDWARD WHITE
+
+1910
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY LEJAREN A. HILLER
+
+
+
+
+1909, 1910, BY JAMES HORSBURGH, JR
+
+1910, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
+
+PUBLISHED, OCTOBER, 1910
+
+
+
+
+AUTHOR'S NOTE
+
+
+_The geography in this novel may easily be recognized by one familiar
+with the country. For that reason it is necessary to state that the
+characters therein are in no manner to be confused with the people
+actually inhabiting and developing that locality. The Power Company
+promoted by Baker has absolutely nothing to do with any Power Company
+utilizing any streams: the delectable Plant never exercised his talents
+in Sierra North. The author must decline to acknowledge any
+identifications of the sort. Plant and Baker and all the rest are,
+however, only to a limited extent fictitious characters. What they did
+and what they stood for is absolutely true._
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to scorch his face
+and hands.
+
+The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stood to one side.
+
+"I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned.
+
+Bob found it two hours' journey down.
+
+
+
+
+PART ONE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Late one fall afternoon, in the year 1898, a train paused for a moment
+before crossing a bridge over a river. From it descended a heavy-set,
+elderly man. The train immediately proceeded on its way.
+
+The heavy-set man looked about him. The river and the bottom-land
+growths of willow and hardwood were hemmed in, as far as he could see,
+by low-wooded hills. Only the railroad bridge, the steep embankment of
+the right-of-way, and a small, painted, windowless structure next the
+water met his eye as the handiwork of man. The windowless structure was
+bleak, deserted and obviously locked by a strong padlock and hasp.
+Nevertheless, the man, throwing on his shoulder a canvas duffle-bag with
+handles, made his way down the steep railway embankment, across a plank
+over the ditch, and to the edge of the water. Here he dropped his bag
+heavily, and looked about him with an air of comical dismay.
+
+The man was probably close to sixty years of age, but florid and
+vigorous. His body was heavy and round; but so were his arms and legs.
+An otherwise absolutely unprepossessing face was rendered most
+attractive by a pair of twinkling, humorous blue eyes, set far apart.
+Iron-gray hair, with a tendency to curl upward at the ends, escaped from
+under his hat. His movements were slow and large and purposeful.
+
+He rattled the padlock on the boathouse, looked at his watch, and sat
+down on his duffle-bag. The wind blew strong up the river; the baring
+branches of the willows whipped loose their yellow leaves. A dull,
+leaden light stole up from the east as the afternoon sun lost its
+strength.
+
+By the end of ten minutes, however, the wind carried with it the creak
+of rowlocks. A moment later a light, flat duck-boat shot around the bend
+and drew up at the float.
+
+"Well, Orde, you confounded old scallywattamus," remarked the man on the
+duffle-bag, without moving, "is this your notion of meeting a train?"
+
+The oarsman moored his frail craft and stepped to the float. He was
+about ten years the other's junior, big of frame, tanned of skin, clear
+of eye, and also purposeful of movement.
+
+"This boathouse," he remarked incisively, "is the property of the Maple
+County Duck Club. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Get off this float."
+
+Then they clasped hands and looked at each other.
+
+"It's surely like old times to see you again, Welton," Orde broke the
+momentary silence. "It's been--let's see--fifteen years, hasn't it?
+How's Minnesota?"
+
+"Full of ducks," stated Welton emphatically, "and if you haven't
+anything but mud hens and hell divers here, I'm going to sue you for
+getting me here under false pretences. I want ducks."
+
+"Well, I'll get the keeper to shoot you some," replied Orde, soothingly,
+"or you can come out and see me kill 'em if you'll sit quiet and not
+rock the boat. Climb aboard. It's getting late."
+
+Welton threw aboard his duffle-bag, and, with a dexterity marvellous in
+one apparently so unwieldy, stepped in astern. Orde grinned.
+
+"Haven't forgotten how to ride a log, I reckon?" he commented.
+
+Welton exploded.
+
+"Look here, you little squirt!" he cried, "I'd have you know I'm riding
+logs yet. I don't suppose you'd know a log if you'd see one, you'
+soft-handed, degenerate, old riverhog, you! A golf ball's about your
+size!"
+
+"No," said Orde; "a fat old hippopotamus named Welton is about my
+size--as I'll show you when we land at the Marsh!"
+
+Welton grinned.
+
+"How's Mrs. Orde and the little boy?" he inquired.
+
+"Mrs. Orde is fine and dandy, and the 'little boy,' as you call him,
+graduated from college last June," Orde replied.
+
+"You don't say!" cried Welton, genuinely astounded. "Why, of course, he
+must have! Can he lick his dad?"
+
+"You bet he can--or could if his dad would give him a chance. Why, he's
+been captain of the football team for two years."
+
+"And football's the only game I'd come out of the woods to see," said
+Welton. "I must have seen him up at Minneapolis when his team licked the
+stuffing out of our boys; and I remember his name. But I never thought
+of him as little Bobby--because--well, because I always did remember him
+as little Bobby."
+
+"He's big Bobby, now, all right," said Orde, "and that's one reason I
+wanted to see you; why I asked you to run over from Chicago next time
+you came down. Of course, there _are_ ducks, too."
+
+"There'd better be!" said Welton grimly.
+
+"I want Bob to go into the lumber business, same as his dad was. This
+congressman game is all right, and I don't see how I can very well get
+out of it, even if I wanted to. But, Welton, I'm a Riverman, and I
+always will be. It's in my bones. I want Bob to grow up in the smell of
+the woods--same as his dad. I've always had that ambition for him. It
+was the one thing that made me hesitate longest about going to
+Washington. I looked forward to _Orde & Son_."
+
+He was resting on his oars, and the duck-boat drifted silently by the
+swaying brown reeds.
+
+
+Welton nodded.
+
+"I want you to take him and break him in. I'd rather have you than any
+one I know. You're the only one of the outsiders who stayed by the Big
+Jam," Orde continued. "Don't try to favour him--that's no favour. If he
+doesn't make good, fire him. Don't tell any of your people that he's the
+son of a friend. Let him stand on his own feet. If he's any good we'll
+work him into the old game. Just give him a job, and keep an eye on him
+for me, to see how well he does."
+
+"Jack, the job's his," said Welton. "But it won't do him much good,
+because it won't last long. We're cleaned up in Minnesota; and have only
+an odd two years on some odds and ends we picked up in Wisconsin just to
+keep us busy."
+
+"What are you going to do then?" asked Orde, quietly dipping his oars
+again.
+
+"I'm going to retire and enjoy life."
+
+Orde laughed quietly.
+
+"Yes, you are!" said he. "You'd have a high old time for a calendar
+month. Then you'd get uneasy. You'd build you a big house, which would
+keep you mad for six months more. Then you'd degenerate to buying
+subscription books, and wheezing around a club and going by the cocktail
+route. You'd look sweet retiring, now, wouldn't you?"
+
+Welton grinned back, a trifle ruefully.
+
+"You can no more retire than I can," Orde went on. "And as for enjoying
+life, I'll trade jobs with you in a minute, you ungrateful old idiot."
+
+"I know it, Jack," confessed Welton; "but what can I do? I can't pick up
+any more timber at any price. I tell you, the game is played out. We're
+old mossbacks; and our job is done."
+
+"I have five hundred million feet of sugar pine in California. What do
+you say to going in with me to manufacture?"
+
+"The hell you have!" cried Welton, his jaw dropping. "I didn't know
+that!"
+
+"Neither does anybody else. I bought it twenty years ago, under a
+corporation name. I was the whole corporation. Called myself the
+Wolverine Company."
+
+"You own the Wolverine property, do you?"
+
+"Yes; ever hear of it?"
+
+"I know where it is. I've been out there trying to get hold of
+something, but you have the heart of it."
+
+"Thought you were going to retire," Orde pointed out.
+
+"The property's all right, but I've some sort of notion the title is
+clouded."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Can't seem to remember; but I must have come against some record
+somewhere. Didn't pay extra much attention, because I wasn't interested
+in that piece. Something to do with fraudulent homesteading, wasn't it?"
+
+Orde dropped his oars across his lap to fill and light a pipe.
+
+"That title was deliberately clouded by an enemy to prevent my raising
+money at the time of the Big Jam, when I was pinched," said he. "Frank
+Taylor straightened it out for me. You can see him. As a matter of fact,
+most of that land I bought outright from the original homesteaders, and
+the rest from a bank. I was very particular. There's one 160 I wouldn't
+take on that account."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Welton, his jolly eyes twinkling. "Why
+the secrecy?"
+
+"I wanted a business for Bob when he should grow up," explained Orde;
+"but I didn't want any of this 'rich man's son' business. Nothing's
+worse for a boy than to feel that everything's cut and dried for him. He
+is to understand that he must go to work for somebody else, and stand
+strictly on his own feet, and make good on his own efforts. That's why I
+want you to break him in."
+
+"All right. And about this partnership?"
+
+"I want you to take charge. I can't leave Washington. We'll get down to
+details later. Bob can work for you there the same as here. By and by,
+we'll see whether to tell him or not."
+
+The twilight had fallen, and the shores of the river were lost in dusk.
+The surface of the water itself shone with an added luminosity,
+reflecting the sky. In the middle distance twinkled a light, beyond
+which in long stretches lay the sombre marshes.
+
+"That's the club," said Orde. "Now, if you disgrace me, you old duffer,
+I'll use you as a decoy!"
+
+A few moments later the two men, opening the door of the shooting-box,
+plunged into a murk of blue tobacco smoke. A half-dozen men greeted them
+boisterously. These were just about to draw lots for choice of blinds on
+the morrow. A savoury smell of roasting ducks came from the tiny kitchen
+where Weber--punter, keeper, duck-caller and cook--exercised the
+last-named function. Welton drew last choice, and was commiserated on
+his bad fortune. No one offered to give way to the guest, however. On
+this point the rules of the Club were inflexible.
+
+Luckily the weather changed. It turned cold; the wind blew a gale.
+Squalls of light snow swept the marshes. Men chattered and shivered, and
+blew on their wet fingers, but in from the great open lake came myriads
+of water-fowl, seeking shelter, and the sport was grand.
+
+"Well, old stick-in-the-mud," said Orde as, at the end of two days, the
+men thawed out in a smoking car, "ducks enough for you?"
+
+"Jack," said Welton solemnly, "there are no ducks in Minnesota. They've
+all come over here. I've had the time of my life. And about that other
+thing: as soon as our woods work is under way, I'll run out to
+California and look over the ground--see how easy it is to log that
+country. Then we can talk business. In the meantime, send Bob over to
+the Chicago office. I'll let Harvey break him in a little on the office
+work until I get back. When will he show up?"
+
+Orde grinned apologetically.
+
+"The kid has set his heart on coaching the team this fall, and he don't
+want to go to work until after the season," said he. "I'm just an old
+fool enough to tell him he could wait. I know he ought to be at it
+now--you and I were, long before his age; but----"
+
+"Oh, shut up!" interrupted Welton, his big body shaking all over with
+mirth. "You talk like a copy-book. I'm not a constituent, and you
+needn't run any bluffs on me. You're tickled to death with that boy, and
+you are hoping that team will lick the everlasting daylights out of
+Chicago, Thanksgiving; and you wouldn't miss the game or have Bob out of
+the coaching for the whole of California; and you know it. Send him
+along when you get ready."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Bob Orde, armed with a card of introduction to Fox, Welton's office
+partner, left home directly after Thanksgiving. He had heard much of
+Welton & Fox in the past, both from his father and his father's
+associates. The firm name meant to him big things in the past history of
+Michigan's industries, and big things in the vague, large life of the
+Northwest. Therefore, he was considerably surprised, on finding the
+firm's Adams Street offices, to observe their comparative
+insignificance.
+
+He made his way into a narrow entry, containing merely a high desk, a
+safe, some letter files, and two bookkeepers. Then, without challenge,
+he walked directly into a large apartment, furnished as simply, with
+another safe, a typewriter, several chairs, and a large roll-top desk.
+At the latter a man sprawled, reading a newspaper. Bob looked about for
+a further door closed on an inner private office, where the weighty
+business must be transacted. There was none. The tall, broad, lean young
+man hesitated, looking about him with a puzzled expression in his
+earnest young eyes. Could this be the heart and centre of those vast and
+far-reaching activities he had heard so much about?
+
+After a moment the man in the revolving chair looked up shrewdly over
+his paper. Bob felt himself the object of an instant's searching
+scrutiny from a pair of elderly steel-gray eyes.
+
+"Well?" said the man, briefly.
+
+"I am looking for Mr. Fox," explained Bob.
+
+"I am Fox."
+
+The young man moved forward his great frame with the easy,
+loose-jointed grace of the trained athlete. Without comment he handed
+his card of introduction to the seated man. The latter glanced at it,
+then back to the young fellow before him.
+
+"Glad to see you, Mr. Orde," he unbent slightly. "I've been expecting
+you. If you're as good a man as your father, you'll succeed. If you're
+not as good a man as your father, you may get on--well enough. But
+you've got to be some good on your own account. We'll see." He raised
+his voice slightly. "Jim!" he called.
+
+One of the two bookkeepers appeared in the doorway.
+
+"This is young Mr. Orde," Fox told him. "You knew his father at Monrovia
+and Redding."
+
+The bookkeeper examined Bob dispassionately.
+
+"Harvey is our head man here," went on Fox. "He'll take charge of you."
+
+He swung his leg over the arm of his chair and resumed his newspaper.
+After a few moments he thrust the crumpled sheet into a huge waste
+basket and turned to his desk, where he speedily lost himself in a mass
+of letters and papers.
+
+Harvey disappeared. Bob stood for a moment, then took a seat by the
+window, where he could look out over the smoky city and catch a glimpse
+of the wintry lake beyond. As nothing further occurred for some time, he
+removed his overcoat, and gazed about him with interest on the framed
+photographs of logging scenes and camps that covered the walls. At the
+end of ten minutes Harvey returned from the small outer office. Harvey
+was, perhaps, fifty-five years of age, exceeding methodical, very
+competent.
+
+"Can you run a typewriter?" he inquired.
+
+"A little," said Bob.
+
+"Well, copy this, with a carbon duplicate."
+
+Bob took the paper Harvey extended to him. He found it to be a list,
+including hundreds of items. The first few lines were like this:
+
+Sec. 4    T, 6    N.R., 26  W  S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+     4       6          26     N.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+     4       6          26     S.W. 1/4 of S.W. 1/4
+     5       6          26     S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+     5       6          26     S.E. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
+
+After an interminable sequence, another of the figures would change, or
+a single letter of the alphabet would shift. And so on, column after
+column. Bob had not the remotest notion of what it all meant, but he
+copied it and handed the result to Harvey. In a few moments Harvey
+returned.
+
+"Did you verify this?" he asked.
+
+"What?" Bob inquired.
+
+"Verify it, check it over, compare it," snapped Harvey, impatiently.
+
+Bob took the list, and with infinite pains which, nevertheless, could
+not prevent him from occasionally losing the place in the bewilderment
+of so many similar figures, he managed to discover that he had omitted
+three and miscopied two. He corrected these mistakes with ink and
+returned the list to Harvey. Harvey looked sourly at the ink marks, and
+gave the boy another list to copy.
+
+Bob found this task, which lasted until noon, fully as exhilarating as
+the other. When he returned his copies he ventured an inquiry.
+
+"What are these?" he asked.
+
+"Descriptions," snapped Harvey.
+
+In time he managed to reason out the fact that they were descriptions of
+land; that each item of the many hundreds meant a separate tract. Thus
+the first line of his first copy, translated, would have read as
+follows:
+
+"The southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section number four,
+township number six, north, range number twenty-six, west."
+
+--And that it represented forty acres of timber land. The stupendous
+nature of such holdings made him gasp, and he gasped again when he
+realized that each of his mistakes meant the misplacement on the map of
+enough for a good-sized farm. Nevertheless, as day succeeded day, and
+the lists had no end, the mistakes became more difficult to avoid. The
+S, W, E, and N keys on the typewriter bothered him, hypnotized him,
+forced him to strike fantastic combinations of their own. Once Harvey
+entered to point out to him an impossible N.S.
+
+Over his lists Harvey, the second bookkeeper, and Fox held long
+consultations. Then Bob leaned back in his office chair to examine for
+the hundredth time the framed photographs of logging crews, winter
+scenes in the forest, record loads of logs; and to speculate again on
+the maps, deer heads, and hunting trophies. At first they had appealed
+to his imagination. Now they had become too familiar. Out the window
+were the palls of smoke, gigantic buildings, crevasse-like streets, and
+swirling winds of Chicago.
+
+Occasionally men would drift in, inquiring for the heads of the firm.
+Then Fox would hang one leg over the arm of his swinging chair, light a
+cigar, and enter into desultory conversation. To Bob a great deal of
+time seemed thus to be wasted. He did not know that big deals were
+decided in apparently casual references to business.
+
+Other lists varied the monotony. After he had finished the tax lists he
+had to copy over every description a second time, with additional
+statistics opposite each, like this:
+
+S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4, T. 4 N.R., 17, W. Sec. 32,
+            W.P. 68, N. 16, H. 5.
+
+The last characters translated into: "White pine, 68,000 feet; Norway
+pine, 16,000 feet; hemlock, 5,000 feet," and that inventoried the
+standing timber on the special forty acres.
+
+And occasionally he tabulated for reference long statistics on how Camp
+14 fed its men for 32 cents a day apiece, while Camp 32 got it down to
+27 cents.
+
+That was all, absolutely all, except that occasionally they sent him
+out to do an errand, or let him copy a wordy contract with a great many
+_whereases_ and _wherefores_.
+
+Bob little realized that nine-tenths of this timber--all that wherein S
+P (sugar pine) took the place of W P--was in California, belonged to his
+own father, and would one day be his. For just at this time the
+principal labour of the office was in checking over the estimates on the
+Western tract.
+
+Bob did his best because he was a true sportsman, and he had entered the
+game, but he did not like it, and the slow, sleepy monotony of the
+office, with its trivial tasks which he did not understand, filled him
+with an immense and cloying languor. The firm seemed to be dying of the
+sleeping sickness. Nothing ever happened. They filed their interminable
+statistics, and consulted their interminable books, and marked squares
+off their interminable maps, and droned along their monotonous,
+unimportant life in the same manner day after day. Bob was used to
+out-of-doors, used to exercise, used to the animation of free human
+intercourse. He watched the clock in spite of himself. He made mistakes
+out of sheer weariness of spirit, and in the footing of the long columns
+of figures he could not summon to his assistance the slow, painstaking
+enthusiasm for accuracy which is the sole salvation of those who would
+get the answer. He was not that sort of chap.
+
+But he was not a quitter, either. This was life. He tried
+conscientiously to do his best in it. Other men did; so could he.
+
+The winter moved on somnolently. He knew he was not making a success.
+Harvey was inscrutable, taciturn, not to be approached. Fox seemed to
+have forgotten his official existence, although he was hearty enough in
+his morning greetings to the young man. The young bookkeeper, Archie,
+was more friendly, but even he was a being apart, alien, one of the
+strangely accurate machines for the putting down and docketing of these
+innumerable and unimportant figures. He would have liked to know and
+understand Bob, just as the latter would have liked to know and
+understand him, but they were separated by a wide gulf in which whirled
+the nothingnesses of training and temperament. However, Archie often
+pointed out mistakes to Bob before the sardonic Harvey discovered them.
+Harvey never said anything. He merely made a blue pencil mark in the
+margin, and handed the document back. But the weariness of his smile!
+
+One day Bob was sent to the bank. His business there was that of an
+errand boy. Discovering it to be sleeting, he returned for his overcoat.
+Harvey was standing rigid in the door of the inner office, talking to
+Fox.
+
+"He has an ingrained inaccuracy. He will never do for business," Bob
+caught.
+
+Archie looked at him pityingly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The winter wore away. Bob dragged himself out of bed every morning at
+half-past six, hurried through a breakfast, caught a car--and hoped that
+the bridge would be closed. Otherwise he would be late at the office,
+which would earn him Harvey's marked disapproval. Bob could not see that
+it mattered much whether he was late or not. Generally he had nothing
+whatever to do for an hour or so. At noon he ate disconsolately at a
+cheap saloon restaurant. At five he was free to go out among his own
+kind--with always the thought before him of the alarm clock the
+following morning.
+
+One day he sat by the window, his clean, square chin in his hand, his
+eyes lost in abstraction. As he looked, the winter murk parted
+noiselessly, as though the effect were prearranged; a blue sky shone
+through on a glint of bluer water; and, wonder of wonders, there through
+the grimy dirty roar of Adams Street a single, joyful robin note flew up
+to him.
+
+At once a great homesickness overpowered him. He could see plainly the
+half-sodden grass of the campus, the budding trees, the red "gym"
+building, and the crowd knocking up flies. In a little while the shot
+putters and jumpers would be out in their sweaters. Out at Regents'
+Field the runners were getting into shape. Bob could almost hear the
+creak of the rollers smoothing out the tennis courts; he could almost
+recognize the voices of the fellows perching about, smell the fragrant
+reek of their pipes, savour the sweet spring breeze. The library clock
+boomed four times, then clanged the hour. A rush of feet from all the
+recitation rooms followed as a sequence, the opening of doors, the
+murmur of voices, occasionally a shout. Over it sounded the sharp,
+half-petulant advice of the coaches and the little trainer to the
+athletes. It was getting dusk. The campus was emptying. Through the
+trees shone lights. And Bob looked up, as he had so often done before,
+to see the wonder of the great dome against the afterglow of sunset.
+
+Harvey was examining him with some curiosity.
+
+"Copied those camp reports?" he inquired.
+
+Bob glanced hastily at the clock. He had been dreaming over an hour.
+
+A little later Fox came in; and a little after that Harvey returned
+bringing in his hand the copies of the camp reports, but instead of
+taking them directly to Bob for correction, as had been his habit, he
+laid them before Fox. The latter picked them up and examined them. In a
+moment he dropped them on his desk.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded of Harvey, "that _seventeen_ only
+ran ten thousand? Why, it's preposterous! Saw it myself. It has a
+half-million on it, if there's a stick. Let's see Parsons's letter."
+
+While Harvey was gone, Fox read further in the copy.
+
+"See here, Harvey," he cried, "something's dead wrong. We never cut all
+this hemlock. Why, hemlock's 'way down."
+
+Harvey laid the original on the desk. After a second Fox's face cleared.
+
+"Why, this is all right. There were 480,000 on _seventeen_. And that
+hemlock seems to have got in the wrong column. You want to be a little
+more careful, Jim. Never knew that to happen before. Weren't out with
+the boys last night, were you?"
+
+But Harvey refused to respond to frivolity.
+
+"It's never happened before because I never let it happen before," he
+replied stiffly. "There have been mistakes like that, and worse, in
+almost every report we've filed. I've cut them out. Now, Mr. Fox, I
+don't have much to say, but I'd rather do a thing myself than do it over
+after somebody else. We've got a good deal to keep track of in this
+office, as you know, without having to go over everybody else's work
+too."
+
+"H'm," said Fox, thoughtfully. Then after a moment, "I'll see about it."
+
+Harvey went back to the outer office, and Fox turned at once to Bob.
+
+"Well, how is it?" he asked. "How did it happen?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Bob. "I'm trying, Mr. Fox. Don't think it isn't
+that. But it's new to me, and I can't seem to get the hang of it right
+away."
+
+"I see. How long you been here?"
+
+"A little over four months."
+
+Fox swung back in his chair leisurely.
+
+"You must see you're not fair to Harvey," he announced. "That man
+carries the details of four businesses in his head, he practically does
+the clerical work for them all, and he never seems to hurry. Also, he
+can put his hand without hesitation on any one of these documents," he
+waved his hand about the room. "I can't."
+
+He stopped to light the stub of a long-extinct cigar.
+
+"I can't make it hard for that sort of man. So I guess we'll have to
+take you out of the office. Still, I promised Welton to give you a good
+try-out. Then, too, I'm not satisfied in my own mind. I can see you are
+trying. Either you're a damn fool or this college education racket has
+had the same effect on you as on most other young cubs. If you're the
+son of your father, you can't be entirely a damn fool. If it's the
+college education, that will probably wear off in time. Anyhow, I think
+I'll take you up to the mill. You can try the office there. Collins is
+easy to get on with, and of course there isn't the same responsibility
+there."
+
+In the buffeting of humiliation Bob could not avoid a fleeting inner
+smile over this last remark. Responsibility! In this sleepy, quiet
+backwater of a tenth-floor office, full of infinite little statistics
+that led nowhere, that came to no conclusion except to be engulfed in
+dark files with hundreds of their own kind, aimless, useless, annoying
+as so many gadflies! Then he set his face for the further remarks.
+
+"Navigation will open this week," Fox's incisive tones went on, "and our
+hold-overs will be moved now. It will be busy there. We shall take the
+eight o'clock train to-night." He glanced sharply at Bob's lean, set
+face. "I assume you'll go?"
+
+Bob was remembering certain trying afternoons on the field when as
+captain, and later as coach, he had told some very high-spirited boys
+what he considered some wholesome truths. He was remembering the various
+ways in which they had taken his remarks.
+
+"Yes, sir," he replied.
+
+"Well, you can go home now and pack up," said Fox. "Jim!" he shot out in
+his penetrating voice; then to Harvey, "Make out Orde's check."
+
+Bob closed his desk, and went into the outer office to receive his
+check. Harvey handed it to him without comment, and at once turned back
+to his books. Bob stood irresolute a moment, then turned away without
+farewell.
+
+But Archie followed him into the hall.
+
+"I'm mighty sorry, old man," he whispered, furtively. "Did you get the
+G.B.?"
+
+"I'm going up to the mill office," replied Bob.
+
+"Oh!" the other commiserated him. Then with an effort to see the best
+side, "Still you could hardly expect to jump right into the head office
+at first. I didn't much think you could hold down a job here. You see
+there's too much doing here. Well, good-bye. Good luck to you, old man."
+
+There it was again, the insistence on the responsibility, the activity,
+the importance of that sleepy, stuffy little office with its two men at
+work, its leisure, its aimlessness. On his way to the car-line Bob
+stopped to look in at an open door. A dozen men were jumping truck loads
+of boxes here and there. Another man in a peaked cap and a silesia coat,
+with a pencil behind his ear and a manifold book sticking out of his
+pocket shouted orders, consulted a long list, marked boxes and scribbled
+in a shipping book. Dim in the background huge freight elevators rose
+and fell, burdened with the mass of indeterminate things. Truck horses,
+great as elephants, magnificently harnessed with brass ornaments, drew
+drays, big enough to carry a small house, to the loading platform where
+they were quickly laden and sent away. From an opened upper window came
+the busy click of many typewriters. Order in apparent confusion, immense
+activity at a white heat, great movement, the clanging of the wheels of
+commerce, the apparition and embodiment of restless industry--these
+appeared and vanished, darted in and out, were plain to be seen and were
+vague through the murk and gloom. Bob glanced up at the emblazoned sign.
+He read the firm's name of well-known wholesale grocers. As he crossed
+the bridge and proceeded out Lincoln Park Boulevard two figures rose to
+him and stood side by side. One was the shipping clerk in his peaked cap
+and silesia coat, hurried, busy, commanding, full of responsibility; the
+other was Harvey, with his round, black skull cap, his great, gold-bowed
+spectacles, entering minutely, painstakingly, deliberately, his neat
+little figures in a neat, large book.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The train stopped about noon at a small board town. Fox and Bob
+descended. The latter drew his lungs full of the sparkling clear air and
+felt inclined to shout. The thing that claimed his attention most
+strongly was the dull green band of the forest, thick and impenetrable
+to the south, fringing into ragged tamaracks on the east, opening into a
+charming vista of a narrowing bay to the west. Northward the land ran
+down to sandpits and beyond them tossed the vivid white and blue of the
+Lake. Then when his interest had detached itself from the predominant
+note of the imminent wilderness, predominant less from its physical
+size--for it lay in remote perspective--than from a certain indefinable
+and psychological right of priority, Bob's eye was at once drawn to the
+huge red-painted sawmill, with its very tall smokestacks, its row of
+water barrels along the ridge, its uncouth and separate conical sawdust
+burner, and its long lines of elevated tramways leading out into the
+lumber yard where was piled the white pine held over from the season
+before. As Bob looked, a great, black horse appeared on one of these
+aerial tramways, silhouetted against the sky. The beast moved
+accurately, his head held low against his chest, his feet lifted and
+planted with care. Behind him rumbled a whole train of little cars each
+laden with planks. On the foremost sat a man, his shoulders bowed,
+driving the horse. They proceeded slowly, leisurely, without haste,
+against the brightness of the sky. The spider supports below them seemed
+strangely inadequate to their mass, so that they appeared in an occult
+manner to maintain their elevation by some buoyancy of their own, some
+quality that sustained them not only in their distance above the earth
+but in a curious, decorative, extra-human world of their own. After a
+moment they disappeared behind the tall piles of lumber.
+
+Against the sky, now, the place of the elephantine black horse and the
+little tram cars and the man was taken by the masts of ships lying
+beyond. They rose straight and tall, their cordage like spider webs, in
+a succession of regular spaces until they were lost behind the mill.
+From the exhaust of the mill's engine a jet of white steam shot up
+sparkling. Close on its apparition sounded the exultant, high-keyed
+shriek of the saw. It ceased abruptly. Then Bob became conscious of a
+heavy _rud, thud_ of mill machinery.
+
+All this time he and Fox were walking along a narrow board walk,
+elevated two or three feet above the sawdust-strewn street. They passed
+the mill and entered the cool shade of the big lumber piles. Along their
+base lay half-melted snow. Soggy pools soaked the ground in the exposed
+places. Bob breathed deep of the clear air, keenly conscious of the
+freshness of it after the murky city. A sweet and delicate odour was
+abroad, an odour elusive yet pungent, an aroma of the open. The young
+man sniffed it eagerly, this essence of fresh sawdust, of new-cut pine,
+of sawlogs dripping from the water, of faint old reminiscence of cured
+lumber standing in the piles of the year before, and more fancifully of
+the balsam and spruce, the hemlock and pine of the distant forest.
+
+"Great!" he cried aloud, "I never knew anything like it! What a country
+to train in!"
+
+"All this lumber here is going to be sold within the next two months,"
+said Fox with the first approach to enthusiasm Bob had ever observed in
+him. "All of it. It's got to be carried down to the docks, and tallied
+there, and loaded in those vessels. The mill isn't much--too
+old-fashioned. We saw with 'circulars' instead of band-saws. Not like
+our Minnesota mills. We bought the plant as it stands. Still we turn
+out a pretty good cut every day, and it has to be run out and piled."
+
+They stepped abruptly, without transition, into the town. A double row
+of unpainted board shanties led straight to the water's edge. This row
+was punctuated by four buildings different from the rest--a huge
+rambling structure with a wide porch over which was suspended a large
+bell; a neatly painted smaller building labelled "Office"; a trim house
+surrounded by what would later be a garden; and a square-fronted store.
+The street between was soft and springy with sawdust and finely broken
+shingles. Various side streets started out bravely enough, but soon
+petered out into stump land. Along one of them were extensive stables.
+
+Bob followed his conductor in silence. After an interval they mounted
+short steps and entered the office.
+
+Here Bob found himself at once in a small entry railed off from the main
+room by a breast-high line of pickets strong enough to resist a
+battering-ram. A man he had seen walking across from the mill was
+talking rapidly through a tiny wicket, emphasizing some point on a
+soiled memorandum by the indication of a stubby forefinger. He was a
+short, active, blue-eyed man, very tanned. Bob looked at him with
+interest, for there was something about him the young man did not
+recognize, something he liked--a certain independent carriage of the
+head, a certain self-reliance in the set of his shoulders, a certain
+purposeful directness of his whole personality. When he caught sight of
+Fox he turned briskly, extending his hand.
+
+"How are you, Mr. Fox?" he greeted. "Just in?"
+
+"Hullo, Johnny," replied Fox, "how are things? I see you're busy."
+
+"Yes, we're busy," replied the man, "and we'll keep busy."
+
+"Everything going all right?"
+
+"Pretty good. Poor lot of men this year. A good many of the old men
+haven't showed up this year--some sort of pull-out to Oregon and
+California. I'm having a little trouble with them off and on."
+
+"I'll bet on you to stay on top," replied Fox easily. "I'll be over to
+see you pretty soon."
+
+The man nodded to the bookkeeper with whom he had been talking, and
+turned to go out. As he passed Bob, that young man was conscious of a
+keen, gimlet scrutiny from the blue eyes, a scrutiny instantaneous, but
+which seemed to penetrate his very flesh to the soul of him. He
+experienced a distinct physical shock as at the encountering of an
+elemental force.
+
+He came to himself to hear Fox saying:
+
+"That's Johnny Mason, our mill foreman. He has charge of all the sawing,
+and is a mighty good man. You'll see more of him."
+
+The speaker opened a gate in the picket railing and stepped inside.
+
+A long shelf desk, at which were high stools, backed up against the
+pickets; a big round stove occupied the centre; a safe crowded one
+corner. Blue print maps decorated the walls. Coarse rope matting edged
+with tin strips protected the floor. A single step down through a door
+led into a painted private office where could be seen a flat table desk.
+In the air hung a mingled odour of fresh pine, stale tobacco, and the
+closeness of books.
+
+Fox turned at once sharply to the left and entered into earnest
+conversation with a pale, hatchet-faced man of thirty-five, whom he
+addressed as "Collins." In a moment he turned, beckoning Bob forward.
+
+"Here's a youngster for you, Collins," said he, evidently continuing
+former remarks. "Young Mr. Orde. He's been in our home office awhile,
+but I brought him up to help you out. He can get busy on your tally
+sheets and time checks and tally boards, and sort of ease up the strain
+a little."
+
+"I can use him, right now," said Collins, nervously smoothing back a
+strand of his pale hair. "Glad to meet you, Mr. Orde. These 'jumpers' ...
+and that confounded mixed stuff from _seventeen_ ..." he trailed off, his
+eye glazing in the abstraction of some inner calculation, his long,
+nervous fingers reaching unconsciously toward the soiled memoranda left
+by Mason.
+
+"Well, I'll set you to work," he roused himself, when he perceived that
+the two were about to leave him. And almost before they had time to turn
+away he was busy at the papers, his pencil, beautifully pointed, running
+like lightning down the long columns, pausing at certain places as
+though by instinct, hovering the brief instant necessary to calculation,
+then racing on as though in pursuit of something elusive.
+
+As they turned away a slow, cool voice addressed them from behind the
+stove.
+
+"Hullo, bub!" it drawled.
+
+Fox's face lighted and he extended both hands.
+
+"Well, Tally!" he cried. "You old snoozer!"
+
+The man was upward of sixty years of age, but straight and active. His
+features were tanned a deep mahogany, and carved by the years and
+exposure into lines of capability and good humour. In contrast to this
+brown his sweeping white moustache and bushy eyebrows, blenched flaxen
+by the sun, showed strongly. His little blue eyes twinkled, and fine
+wrinkles at their corners helped the twinkles. His long figure was so
+heavily clothed as to be concealed from any surmise, except that it was
+gaunt and wiry. Hands gnarled, twisted, veined, brown, seemed less like
+flesh than like some skilful Japanese carving. On his head he wore a
+visored cap with an extraordinary high crown; on his back a rather dingy
+coat cut from a Mackinaw blanket; on his legs trousers that had been
+"stagged" off just below the knees, heavy German socks, and shoes nailed
+with sharp spikes at least three-quarters of an inch in length.
+
+"Thought you were up in the woods!" Fox was exclaiming. "Where's
+Fagan?"
+
+"He's walkin' white water," replied the old man.
+
+"Things going well?"
+
+"Damn poor," admitted Tally frankly. "That is to say, the Whitefish
+branch is off. There's trouble with the men. They're a mixed lot. Then
+there's old Meadows. He's assertin' his heaven-born rights some more.
+It's all right. We're on their backs. Other branches just about down."
+
+There followed a rapid exchange of which Bob could make little--talk of
+flood water, of "plugging" and "pulling," of "winging out," of "white
+water." It made no sense, and yet somehow it thrilled him, as at times
+the mere roll of Greek names used to arouse in his breast vague emotions
+of grandeur and the struggle of mighty forces.
+
+Still talking, the two men began slowly to move toward the inner office.
+Suddenly Fox seemed to remember his companion's existence.
+
+"By the way, Jim," he said, "I want you to know one of our new men,
+young Mr. Orde. You've worked for his father. This is Jim Tally, and
+he's one of the best rivermen, the best woodsman, the best boss of men
+old Michigan ever turned out. He walked logs before I was born."
+
+"Glad to know you, Mr. Orde," said Tally, quite unmoved.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The two left Bob to his own devices. The old riverman and the
+astonishingly thawed and rejuvenated Mr. Fox disappeared in the private
+office. Bob proffered a question to the busy Collins, discovered himself
+free until afternoon, and so went out through the office and into the
+clear open air.
+
+He headed at once across the wide sawdust area toward the mill and the
+lake. A great curiosity, a great interest filled him. After a moment he
+found himself walking between tall, leaning stacks of lumber, piled
+crosswise in such a manner that the sweet currents of air eddied through
+the interstices between the boards and in the narrow, alley-like spaces
+between the square and separate stacks. A coolness filled these streets,
+a coolness born of the shade in which they were cast, the freshness of
+still unmelted snow lying in patches, the quality of pine with its faint
+aromatic pitch smell and its suggestion of the forest. Bob wandered on
+slowly, his hands in his pockets. For the time being his more active
+interest was in abeyance, lulled by the subtle, elusive phantom of
+grandeur suggested in the aloofness of this narrow street fronted by its
+square, skeleton, windowless houses through which the wind rattled.
+After a little he glimpsed blue through the alleys between. Then a side
+street offered, full of sun. He turned down it a few feet, and found
+himself standing over an inlet of the lake.
+
+Then for the first time he realized that he had been walking on "made
+ground." The water chugged restlessly against the uneven ends of the
+lath-like slabs, thousands of them laid, side by side, down to and below
+the water's surface. They formed a substructure on which the sawdust
+had been heaped. Deep shadows darted from their shelter and withdrew,
+following the play of the little waves. The lower slabs were black with
+the wet, and from them, too, crept a spicy odour set free by the
+moisture. On a pile head sat an urchin fishing, with a long bamboo pole
+many sizes too large for him. As Bob watched, he jerked forth diminutive
+flat sunfish.
+
+"Good work!" called Bob in congratulation.
+
+The urchin looked up at the large, good-humoured man and grinned.
+
+Bob retraced his steps to the street on which he had started out. There
+he discovered a steep stairway, and by it mounted to the tramway above.
+Along this he wandered for what seemed to him an interminable distance,
+lost as in a maze among the streets and byways of this tenantless city.
+Once he stepped aside to give passage to the great horse, or one like
+him, and his train of little cars. The man driving nodded to him. Again
+he happened on two men unloading similar cars, and passing the boards
+down to other men below, who piled them skilfully, two end planks one
+way, and then the next tier the other, in regular alternation. They wore
+thick leather aprons, and square leather pieces strapped across the
+insides of their hands as a protection against splinters. These, like
+all other especial accoutrements, seemed to Bob somehow romantic, to be
+desired, infinitely picturesque. He passed on with the clear,
+yellow-white of the pine boards lingering back of his retina.
+
+But now suddenly his sauntering brought him to the water front. The
+tramway ended in a long platform running parallel to the edge of the
+docks below. There were many little cars, both in the process of
+unloading and awaiting their turn. The place swarmed with men, all
+busily engaged in handing the boards from one to another as buckets are
+passed at a fire. At each point where an unending stream of them passed
+over the side of each ship, stood a young man with a long, flexible
+rule. This he laid rapidly along the width of each board, and then as
+rapidly entered a mark in a note-book. The boards seemed to move fairly
+of their own volition, like a scutellate monster of many joints,
+crawling from the cars, across the dock, over the side of the ship and
+into the black hold where presumably it coiled. There were six ships;
+six, many-jointed monsters creeping to their appointed places under the
+urging of these their masters; six young men absorbed and busy at the
+tallying; six crews panoplied in leather guiding the monsters to their
+lairs. Here, too, the sun-warmed air arose sluggish with the aroma of
+pitch, of lumber, of tar from the ships' cordage, of the wetness of
+unpainted wood. Aloft in the rigging, clear against the sky, were
+sailors in contrast of peaceful, leisurely industry to those who toiled
+and hurried below. The masts swayed gently, describing an arc against
+the heavens. The sailors swung easily to the motion. From below came the
+quick dull sounds of planks thrown down, the grind of car wheels, the
+movement of feet, the varied, complex sound of men working together, the
+clapping of waters against the structure. It was confusing, confusing as
+the noise of many hammers. Yet two things seemed to steady it, to
+confine it, keep it in the bounds of order, to prevent it from usurping
+more than its meet and proper proportion. One was the tingling lake
+breeze singing through the rigging of the ship; the other was the idle
+and intermittent whistling of one of the sailors aloft. And suddenly, as
+though it had but just commenced, Bob again became aware of the saw
+shrieking in ecstasy as it plunged into a pine log.
+
+The sound came from the left, where at once he perceived the tall stacks
+showing above the lumber piles, and the plume of white steam glittering
+in the sun. In a moment the steam fell, and the shriek of the saw fell
+with it. He turned to follow the tramway, and in so doing almost bumped
+into Mason, the mill foreman.
+
+"They're hustling it in," said the latter. "That's right. Can't give me
+yard room any too soon. The drive'll be down next month. Plenty doing
+then. Damn those Dutchmen!"
+
+He spoke abstractedly, as though voicing his inner thoughts to himself,
+unconscious of his companion. Then he roused himself.
+
+"Going to the mill?" he asked. "Come on."
+
+They walked along the high, narrow platform overlooking the water front
+and the lading of the ships. Soon the trestles widened, the tracks
+diverging like the fingers of a hand on the broad front to the second
+story of the mill. Mason said something about seeing the whole of it,
+and led the way along a narrow, railed outside passage to the other end
+of the structure.
+
+There Bob's attention was at once caught by a great water enclosure of
+logs, lying still and sluggish in the manner of beasts resting. Rank
+after rank, tier after tier, in strange patterns they lay, brown and
+round, with the little strips of blue water showing between like a
+fantastic pattern. While Bob looked, a man ran out over them. He was
+dressed in short trousers, heavy socks, and spiked boots, and a faded
+blue shirt. The young man watched with interest, old memories of his
+early boyhood thronging back on him, before his people had moved from
+Monrovia and the "booms." The man ran erratically, but with an accurate
+purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in dignified reminiscence of his
+tread, and slowly rolled over; the little logs bobbed frantically in a
+turmoil of white water, disappearing and reappearing again and again,
+sleek and wet as seals. To these the man paid no attention, but leaped
+easily on, pausing on the timbers heavy enough to support him, barely
+spurning those too small to sustain his weight. In a moment he stopped
+abruptly without the transitorial balancing Bob would have believed
+necessary, and went calmly to pushing mightily with a long pike-pole.
+The log on which he stood rolled under the pressure; the man quite
+mechanically kept pace with its rolling, treading it in correspondence
+now one way, now the other. In a few moments thus he had forced the mass
+of logs before him toward an inclined plane leading to the second story
+of the mill.
+
+Up this ran an endless chain armed with teeth. The man pushed one of the
+logs against the chain; the teeth bit; at once, shaking itself free of
+the water, without apparent effort, without haste, calmly and leisurely
+as befitted the dignity of its bulk, the great timber arose. The water
+dripped from it, the surface streamed, a cheerful _patter, patter_ of
+the falling drops made itself heard beneath the mill noises. In a moment
+the log disappeared beneath projecting eaves. Another was just behind
+it, and behind that yet another, and another, like great patient beasts
+rising from the coolness of a stream to follow a leader through the
+narrowness, of pasture bars. And in the booms, up the river, as far as
+the eye could see, were other logs awaiting their turn. And beyond them
+the forest trees, straight and tall and green, dreaming of the time when
+they should follow their brothers to the ships and go out into the
+world.
+
+Mason was looking up the river.
+
+"I've seen the time when she was piled thirty feet high there, and the
+freshet behind her. That was ten year back."
+
+"What?" asked Bob.
+
+"A jam!" explained Mason.
+
+He ducked his head below his shoulders and disappeared beneath the eaves
+of the mill. Bob followed.
+
+First it was dusky; then he saw the strip of bright yellow sunlight and
+the blue bay in the opening below the eaves; then he caught the glitter
+and whirr of the two huge saws, moving silently but with the deadly
+menace of great speed on their axes. Against the light in irregular
+succession, alternately blotting and clearing the foreground at the end
+of the mill, appeared the ends of the logs coming up the incline. For a
+moment they poised on the slant, then fell to the level, and glided
+forward to a broad platform where they were ravished from the chain and
+rolled into line.
+
+Bob's eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom. He made out pulleys,
+belts, machinery, men. While he watched a black, crooked arm shot
+vigorously up from the floor, hurried a log to the embrace of two
+clamps, rolled it a little this way, a little that, hovered over it as
+though in doubt as to whether it was satisfactorily placed, then plunged
+to unknown depths as swiftly and silently as it had come. So abrupt and
+purposeful were its movements, so detached did it seem from control,
+that, just as when he was a youngster, Bob could not rid his mind of the
+notion that it was possessed of volition, that it led a mysterious life
+of its own down there in the shadows, that it was in the nature of an
+intelligent and agile beast trained to apply its powers independently.
+
+Bob remembered it as the "nigger," and looked about for the man standing
+by a lever.
+
+A momentary delay seemed to have occurred, owing to some obscure
+difficulty. The man at the lever straightened his back. Suddenly all
+that part of the floor seemed to start forward with extraordinary
+swiftness. The log rushed down on the circular saw. Instantly the wild,
+exultant shriek arose. The car went on, burying the saw, all but the
+very top, from which a stream of sawdust flew up and back. A long, clean
+slab fell to a succession of revolving rollers which carried it, passing
+it from one to the other, far into the body of the mill. The car shot
+back to its original position in front of the saw. The saw hummed an
+undersong of strong vibration. Again it ploughed its way the length of
+the timber. This time a plank with bark edges dropped on the rollers.
+And when the car had flown back to its starting point the "nigger" rose
+from obscurity to turn the log half way around.
+
+They picked their way gingerly on. Bob looked back. Against the light
+the two graceful, erect figures, immobile, but carried back and forth
+over thirty feet with lightning rapidity; the brute masses of the logs;
+the swift decisive forays of the "nigger," the unobtrusive figures of
+the other men handling the logs far in the background; and the bright,
+smooth, glittering, dangerous saws, clear-cut in outline by their very
+speed, humming in anticipation, or shrieking like demons as they
+bit--these seemed to him to swell in the dim light to the proportions of
+something gigantic, primeval--to become forces beyond the experience of
+to-day, typical of the tremendous power that must be invoked to subdue
+the equally tremendous power of the wilderness.
+
+He and Mason together examined the industriously working gang-saws, long
+steel blades with the up-and-down motion of cutting cord-wood. They
+passed the small trimming saws, where men push the boards between little
+round saws to trim their edges. Bob noticed how the sawdust was carried
+away automatically, and where the waste slabs went. They turned through
+a small side room, strangely silent by contrast to the rest, where the
+filer did his minute work. He was an old man, the filer, with
+steel-rimmed, round spectacles, and he held Bob some time explaining how
+important his position was.
+
+They emerged finally to the broad, open platform with the radiating
+tram-car tracks. Here Bob saw the finished boards trundled out on the
+moving rollers to be transferred to the cars.
+
+Mason left him. He made his way slowly back toward the office, noticing
+on the way the curious pairs of huge wheels beneath which were slung the
+heavy timbers or piles of boards for transportation at the level of the
+ground.
+
+At the edge of the lumber piles Bob looked back. The noises of industry
+were in his ears; the blur of industry before his eyes; the clean, sweet
+smell of pine in his nostrils. He saw clearly the row of ships and the
+many-jointed serpent of boards making its way to the hold, the sailors
+swinging aloft; the miles of ruminating brown logs, and the alert little
+man zigzagging across them; the shadow of the mill darkening the water,
+and the brown leviathan timbers rising dripping in regular succession
+from them; the whirr of the deadly circular saws, and the calm, erect
+men dominating the cars that darted back and forth; and finally the
+sparkling white steam spraying suddenly against the intense blue of the
+sky. Here was activity, business, industry, the clash of forces. He
+admired the quick, compact alertness of Johnny Mason; he joyed in the
+absorbed, interested activity of the brown young men with the scaler's
+rules; he envied a trifle the muscle-stretching, physical labour of the
+men with the leather aprons and hand-guards, piling the lumber. It was
+good to draw in deep breaths of this air, to smell deeply of he
+aromatic odours of the north.
+
+Suddenly the mill whistle began to blow. Beneath the noise he could hear
+the machinery beginning to run down. From all directions men came. They
+converged in the central alley, hundreds of them. In a moment Bob was
+caught up in their stream, and borne with them toward the
+weather-stained shanty town.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Bob followed this streaming multitude to the large structure that had
+earlier been pointed out to him as the boarding house. It was a
+commodious affair with a narrow verandah to which led steps picked out
+by the sharp caulks of the rivermen's boots. A round stove held the
+place of honour in the first room. Benches flanked the walls. At one end
+was a table-sink, and tin wash-basins, and roller towels. The men were
+splashing and blowing in the plunge-in-all-over fashion of their class.
+They emerged slicked down and fresh, their hair plastered wet to their
+foreheads. After a moment a fat and motherly woman made an announcement
+from a rear room. All trooped out.
+
+The dining room was precisely like those Bob remembered from
+recollections of the river camps of his childhood. There were the same
+long tables covered with red oilcloth, the same pine benches worn smooth
+and shiny, the same thick crockery, and the same huge receptacles
+steaming with hearty--and well-cooked--food. Nowhere does the man who
+labours with his hands fare better than in the average lumber camp.
+Forest operations have a largeness in conception and execution that
+leads away from the habit of the mean, small and foolish economics. At
+one side, and near the windows, stood a smaller table. The covering of
+this was turkey-red cloth with white pattern; it boasted a white-metal
+"caster"; and possessed real chairs. Here Bob took his seat, in company
+with Fox, Collins, Mason, Tally and the half-dozen active young fellows
+he had seen handling the scaling rules near the ships.
+
+At the men's tables the meal was consumed in a silence which Bob
+learned later came nearer being obligatory than a matter of choice.
+Conversation was discouraged by the good-natured fat woman, Mrs.
+Hallowell. Talk delayed; and when one had dishes to wash----
+
+The "boss's table" was more leisurely. Bob was introduced to the
+sealers. They proved to be, with one exception, young fellows of
+twenty-one or two, keen-eyed, brown-faced, alert and active. They
+impressed Bob as belonging to the clerk class, with something added by
+the outdoor, varied life. Indeed, later he discovered them to be sons of
+carpenters, mechanics and other higher-class, intelligent workingmen;
+boys who had gone through high school, and perhaps a little way into the
+business college; ambitious youngsters, each with a different idea in
+the back of his head. They had in common an air of capability, of
+complete adequacy for the task in life they had selected. The sixth
+sealer was much older and of the riverman type. He had evidently come up
+from the ranks.
+
+There was no general conversation. Talk confined itself strictly to
+shop. Bob, his imagination already stirred by the incidents of his
+stroll, listened eagerly. Fox was getting in touch with the whole
+situation.
+
+"The main drive is down," Tally told him, "but the Cedar Branch hasn't
+got to the river yet. What in blazes did you want to buy that little
+strip this late in the day for?"
+
+"Had to take it--on a deal," said Fox briefly. "Why? Is it hard driving?
+I've never been up there. Welton saw to all that."
+
+"It's hell. The pine's way up at the headwaters. You have to drive her
+the whole length of the stream, through a mixed hardwood and farm
+country. Lots of partridges and mossbacks, but no improvements. Not a dam
+the whole length of her. Case of hit the freshet water or get hung."
+
+"Well, we've done that kind of a job before."
+
+"Yes, _before_!" Tally retorted. "If I had a half-crew of good,
+old-fashioned white-water birlers, I'd rest easy. But we don't have no
+crews like we used to. The old bully boys have all moved out west--or
+died."
+
+"Getting old--like us," bantered Fox. "Why haven't you died off too,
+Jim?"
+
+"I'm never going to die," stated the old man, "I'm going to live to turn
+into a grindstone and wear out. But it's a fact. There's plenty left can
+ride a log all right, but they're a tough lot. It's too close here to
+Marion."
+
+"That _is_ too bad," condoled Fox, "especially as I remember so well
+what a soft-spoken, lamb-like little tin angel you used to be, Jim."
+
+Fox, who had quite dropped his old office self, winked at Bob. The
+latter felt encouraged to say:
+
+"I had a course in college on archaeology. Don't remember much about it,
+but one thing. When they managed to decipher the oldest known piece of
+hieroglyphics on an Assyrian brick, what do you suppose it turned out to
+be?"
+
+"Give it up, Brudder Bones," said Tally, dryly, "what was it?"
+
+Bob flushed at the old riverman's tone, but went on.
+
+"It was a letter from a man to his son away at school. In it he lamented
+the good old times when he was young, and gave it as his opinion that
+the world was going to the dogs."
+
+Tally grinned slowly; and the others burst into a shout of laughter.
+
+"All right, bub," said the riverman good-humouredly. "But that doesn't
+get me a new foreman." He turned to Fox. "Smith broke his leg; and I
+can't find a man to take charge. I can't go. The main drive's got to be
+sorted."
+
+"There ought to be plenty of good men," said Fox.
+
+"There are, but they're at work."
+
+"Dicky Darrell is over at Marion," spoke up one of the scalers.
+
+"Roaring Dick," said Tally sarcastically, "--but there's no denying
+he's a good man in the woods. But if he's at Marion, he's drunk; and if
+he's drunk, you can't do nothing with him."
+
+"I heard it three days ago," said the scaler.
+
+Tally ruminated. "Well," he concluded, "maybe he's about over with his
+bust. I'll run over this afternoon and see what I can do with him. If
+Tom Welton would only tear himself apart from California, we'd get on
+all right."
+
+A scraping back of benches and a tramp of feet announced the nearly
+simultaneous finishing of feeding at the men's tables. At the boss's
+table everyone seized an unabashed toothpick. Collins addressed Bob.
+
+"Mr. Fox and I have so much to go over this afternoon," said he, "that I
+don't believe I'll have time to show you. Just look around a little."
+
+On the porch outside Bob paused. After a moment he became aware of a
+figure at his elbow. He turned to see old Jim Tally bent over to light
+his pipe behind the mahogany of his curved hand.
+
+"Want to take in Marion, bub?" he enquired.
+
+"Sure!" cried Bob heartily, surprised at this mark of favour.
+
+"Come on then," said the old riverman, "the lightning express is gettin'
+anxious for us."
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+They tramped to the station and boarded the single passenger car of the
+accommodation. There they selected a forward seat and waited patiently
+for the freight-handling to finish and for the leisurely puffing little
+engine to move on. An hour later they descended at Marion. The journey
+had been made in an almost absolute silence. Tally stared straight
+ahead, and sucked at his little pipe. To him, apparently, the journey
+was merely something to be endured; and he relapsed into that patient
+absent-mindedness developed among those who have to wait on forces that
+will not be hurried. Bob's remarks he answered in monosyllables. When
+the train pulled into the station, Tally immediately arose, as though
+released by a spring.
+
+Bob's impressions of Marion were of great mills and sawdust-burners
+along a wide river; of broad, sawdust-covered streets; of a single block
+of good, brick stores on a main thoroughfare which almost immediately
+petered out into the vilest and most ramshackle frame "joints"; of wide
+side streets flanked by small, painted houses in yards, some very neat
+indeed. Tally walked rapidly by the respectable business blocks, but
+pushed into the first of the unkempt frame saloons beyond. Bob followed
+close at his heels. He found himself in a cheap bar-room, its paint and
+varnish scarred and marred, its floor sawdust-covered, its centre
+occupied by a huge stove, its walls decorated by several pictures of the
+nude.
+
+Four men were playing cards at an old round table, hacked and bruised
+and blackened by time. One of them was the barkeeper, a burly individual
+with black hair plastered in a "lick" across his forehead. He pushed
+back his chair and ducked behind the bar, whence he greeted the
+newcomers. Tally proffered a question. The barkeeper relaxed from his
+professional attitude, and leaned both elbows on the bar. The two
+conversed for a moment; then Tally nodded briefly and went out. Bob
+followed.
+
+This performance was repeated down the length of the street. The
+stage-settings varied little; same oblong, painted rooms; same varnished
+bars down one side; same mirrors and bottles behind them; same
+sawdust-strewn floors; same pictures on the walls; same obscure, back
+rooms; same sleepy card games by the same burly but sodden type of men.
+This was the off season. Profits were now as slight as later they would
+be heavy. Tim talked with the barkeepers low-voiced, nodded and went
+out. Only when he had systematically worked both sides of the street did
+he say anything to his companion.
+
+"He's in town," said Tally; "but they don't know where."
+
+"Whither away?" asked Bob.
+
+"Across the river."
+
+They walked together down a side street to a long wooden bridge. This
+rested on wooden piers shaped upstream like the prow of a ram in order
+to withstand the battering of the logs. It was a very long bridge.
+Beneath it the swift current of the river slipped smoothly. The breadth
+of the stream was divided into many channels and pockets by means of
+brown poles. Some of these were partially filled with logs. A clear
+channel had been preserved up the middle. Men armed with long pike-poles
+were moving here and there over the booms and the logs themselves,
+pushing, pulling, shoving a big log into this pocket, another into that,
+gradually segregating the different brands belonging to the different
+owners of the mills below. From the quite considerable height of the
+bridge all this lay spread out mapwise up and down the perspective of
+the stream. The smooth, oily current of the river, leaden-hued and cold
+in the light of the early spring, hurried by on its way to the lake,
+swiftly, yet without the turmoil and fuss of lesser power. Downstream,
+as far as Bob could see, were the huge mills' with their flanking lumber
+yards, the masts of their lading ships, their black sawdust-burners, and
+above all the pure-white, triumphant banners of steam that shot straight
+up against the gray of the sky.
+
+Tally followed the direction of his gaze.
+
+"Modern work," he commented. "Band saws. No circulars there. Two hundred
+thousand a day"; with which cryptic utterance he resumed his walk.
+
+The opposite side of the river proved to be a smaller edition of the
+other. Into the first saloon Tally pushed.
+
+It resembled the others, except that no card game was in progress. The
+barkeeper, his feet elevated, read a pink paper behind the bar. A figure
+slept at the round table, its head in its arms. Tally walked over to
+shake this man by the shoulder.
+
+In a moment the sleeper raised his head. Bob saw a little, middle-aged
+man, not over five feet six in height, slenderly built, yet with broad,
+hanging shoulders. His head was an almost exact inverted pyramid, the
+base formed by a mop of red-brown hair, and the apex represented by a
+very pointed chin. Two level, oblong patches of hair made eyebrows. His
+face was white and nervous. A strong, hooked nose separated a pair of
+red-brown eyes, small and twinkling, like a chipmunk's. Just now they
+were bloodshot and vague.
+
+"Hullo, Dicky Darrell," said Tally.
+
+The man struggled to his feet, knocking over the chair, and laid both
+hands effusively on Tally's shoulders.
+
+"Jim!" he cried thickly. "Good ole Jim! Glad to see you! Hav' drink!"
+
+Tally nodded, and, to Bob's surprise, took his place at the bar.
+
+"Hav' 'nother!" cried Darrell. "God! I'm glad to see you! Nobody in
+town."
+
+"All right," agreed Tally pacifically; "but let's go across the river
+to Dugan's and get it."
+
+To this Darrell readily agreed. They left the saloon. Bob, following,
+noticed the peculiar truculence imparted to Darrell's appearance by the
+fact that in walking he always held his hands open and palms to the
+front. Suddenly Darrell became for the first time aware of his presence.
+The riverman whirled on him, and Bob became conscious of something as
+distinct as a physical shock as he met the impact of an electrical
+nervous energy. It passed, and he found himself half smiling down on
+this little, white-faced man with the matted hair and the bloodshot,
+chipmunk eyes.
+
+"Who'n hell's this!" demanded Darrell savagely.
+
+"Friend of mine," said Tally. "Come on."
+
+Darrell stared a moment longer. "All right," he said at last.
+
+All the way across the bridge Tally argued with his companion.
+
+"We've got to have a foreman on the Cedar Branch, Dick," he began, "and
+you're the fellow."
+
+To this Darrell offered a profane, emphatic and contemptuous negative.
+With consummate diplomacy Tally led his mind from sullen obstinacy to
+mere reluctance. At the corner of Main Street the three stopped.
+
+"But I don't want to go yet, Jim," pleaded Darrell, almost tearfully. "I
+ain't had all my 'time' yet."
+
+"Well," said Tally, "you've been polishing up the flames of hell for
+four days pretty steady. What more do you want?"
+
+"I ain't smashed no rig yet," objected Darrell.
+
+Tally looked puzzled.
+
+"Well, go ahead and smash your rig and get done with it," he said.
+
+"A' right," said Darrell cheerfully.
+
+He started off briskly, the others following. Down a side street his
+rather uncertain gait led them, to the wide-open door of a frame livery
+stable. The usual loungers in the usual tipped-back chairs greeted him.
+
+"Want m' rig," he demanded.
+
+A large and leisurely man in shirt sleeves lounged out from the office
+and looked him over dispassionately.
+
+"You've been drunk four days," said he, "have you the price?"
+
+"Bet y'," said Dick, cheerfully. He seated himself on the ground and
+pulled off his boot from which he extracted a pulpy mass of greenbacks.
+"Can't fool me!" he said cunningly. "Always save 'nuff for my rig!"
+
+He shoved the bills into the liveryman's hands. The latter straightened
+them out, counted them, thrust a portion into his pocket, and handed the
+rest back to Darrell.
+
+"There you are," said he. He shouted an order into the darkness of the
+stable.
+
+An interval ensued. The stableman and Tally waited imperturbably,
+without the faintest expression of interest in anything evident on their
+immobile countenances. Dicky Darrell rocked back and forth on his heels,
+a pleased smile on his face.
+
+After a few moments the stable boy led out a horse hitched to the most
+ramshackle and patched-up old side-bar buggy Bob had ever beheld.
+Darrell, after several vain attempts, managed to clamber aboard. He
+gathered up the reins, and, with exaggerated care, drove into the middle
+of the street.
+
+Then suddenly he rose to his feet, uttered an ear-piercing exultant
+yell, hurled the reins at the horse's head and began to beat the animal
+with his whip. The horse, startled, bounded forward. The buggy jerked.
+Darrell sat down violently, but was at once on his feet, plying the
+whip. The crazed man and the crazed horse disappeared up the street, the
+buggy careening from side to side, Darrell yelling at the top of his
+lungs. The stableman watched him out of sight.
+
+"Roaring Dick of the Woods!" said he thoughtfully at last. He thrust
+his hand in his pocket and took out the wad of greenbacks, contemplated
+them for a moment, and thrust them back. He caught Tally's eye. "Funny
+what different ideas men have of a time," said he.
+
+"Do this regular?" inquired Tally dryly.
+
+"Every year."
+
+Bob got his breath at last.
+
+"Why!" he cried. "What'll happen to him! He'll be killed sure!"
+
+"Not him!" stated the stableman emphatically. "Not Dicky Darrell! He'll
+smash up good, and will crawl out of the wreck, and he'll limp back here
+in just about one half-hour."
+
+"How about the horse and buggy?"
+
+"Oh, we'll catch the horse in a day or two--it's a spoiled colt,
+anyway--and we'll patch up the buggy if she's patchable. If not, we'll
+leave it. Usual programme."
+
+The stableman and Tally lit their pipes. Nobody seemed much interested
+now that the amusement was over. Bob owned a boyish desire to follow the
+wake of the cyclone, but in the presence of this imperturbability, he
+repressed his inclination.
+
+"Some day the damn fool will bust his head open," said the liveryman,
+after a ruminative pause.
+
+"I shouldn't think you'd rent him a horse," said Bob.
+
+"He pays," yawned the other.
+
+At the end of the half-hour the liveryman dove into his office for a
+coat, which he put on. This indicated that he contemplated exercising in
+the sun instead of sitting still in the shade.
+
+"Well, let's look him up," said he. "This may be the time he busts his
+fool head."
+
+"Hope not," was Tally's comment; "can't afford to lose a foreman."
+
+But near the outskirts of town they met Roaring Dick limping painfully
+down the middle of the road. His hat was gone and he was liberally
+plastered with the soft mud of early spring.
+
+Not one word would he vouchsafe, but looked at them all malevolently.
+His intoxication seemed to have evaporated with his good spirits. As
+answer to the liveryman's question as to the whereabouts of the smashed
+rig, he waved a comprehensive hand toward the suburbs. At insistence, he
+snapped back like an ugly dog.
+
+"Out there somewhere," he snarled. "Go find it! What the hell do I care
+where it is? It's mine, isn't it? I paid you for it, didn't I? Well, go
+find it! You can have it!"
+
+He tramped vigorously back toward the main street, a grotesque figure
+with his red-brown hair tumbled over his white, nervous countenance of
+the pointed chin, with his hooked nose, and his twinkling chipmunk eyes.
+
+"He'll hit the first saloon, if you don't watch out," Bob managed to
+whisper to Tally.
+
+But the latter shook his head. From long experience he knew the type.
+
+His reasoning was correct. Roaring Dick tramped doggedly down the length
+of the street to the little frame depot. There he slumped into one of
+the hard seats in the waiting-room, where he promptly slept. Tally sat
+down beside him and withdrew into himself. The twilight fell. After an
+apparently interminable interval a train rumbled in. Tally shook his
+companion. The latter awakened just long enough to stumble aboard the
+smoking car, where, his knees propped up, his chin on his breast, he
+relapsed into deep slumber.
+
+They arrived at the boarding house late in the evening. Mrs. Hallowell
+set out a cold supper, to which Bob was ready to do full justice. Ten
+minutes later he found himself in a tiny box of a bedroom, furnished
+barely. He pushed open the window and propped it up with a piece of
+kindling. The earth had fallen into a very narrow silhouette, and the
+star-filled heavens usurped all space, crowding the world down. Against
+the sky the outlines stood significant in what they suggested and
+concealed--slumbering roof-tops, the satiated mill glowing vaguely
+somewhere from her banked fires, the blackness and mass of silent lumber
+yards, the mysterious, hushing fingers of the ships' masts, and then low
+and vague, like a narrow strip of velvet dividing these men's affairs
+from the star-strewn infinite, the wilderness. As Bob leaned from the
+window the bigness of these things rushed into his office-starved spirit
+as air into a vacuum. The cold of the lake breeze entered his lungs. He
+drew a deep breath of it. For the first time in his short business
+experience he looked forward eagerly to the morrow.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Bob was awakened before daylight by the unholy shriek of a great
+whistle. He then realized that for some time he had been vaguely aware
+of kindling and stove sounds. The bare little room had become bitterly
+cold. A gray-blackness represented the world outside. He lighted his
+glass lamp and took a hasty, shivering sponge bath in the crockery
+basin. Then he felt better in the answering glow of his healthy,
+straight young body; and a few moments later was prepared to enjoy a
+fragrant, new-lit, somewhat smoky fire in the big stove outside his
+door. The bell rang. Men knocked ashes from their pipes and arose; other
+men stamped in from outside. The dining room was filled.
+
+Bob took his seat, nodding to the men. A slightly grumpy silence
+reigned. Collins and Fox had not yet appeared. Bob saw Roaring Dick at
+the other table, rather whiter than the day before, but carrying himself
+boldly in spite of his poor head. As he looked, Roaring Dick caught his
+eye. The riverman evidently did not recognize having seen the young
+stranger the day before; but Bob was again conscious of the quick impact
+of the man's personality, quite out of proportion to his diminutive
+height and slender build. At the end of ten minutes the men trooped out
+noisily. Shortly a second whistle blew. At the signal the mill awoke.
+The clang of machinery, beginning slowly, increased in tempo. The
+exultant shriek of the saws rose to heaven. Bob, peering forth into the
+young daylight, caught the silhouette of the elephantine tram horse,
+high in the air, bending his great shoulders to the starting of his
+little train of cars.
+
+Not knowing what else to do, Bob sauntered to the office. It was locked
+and dark. He returned to the boarding house, and sat down in the main
+room. The lamps became dimmer. Finally the chore boy put them out. Then
+at last Collins appeared, followed closely by Fox.
+
+"You didn't get up to eat with the men?" the bookkeeper asked Bob a
+trifle curiously. "You don't need to do that. We eat with Mrs. Hallowell
+at seven."
+
+At eight o'clock the little bookkeeper opened the office door and
+ushered Bob in to the scene of his duties.
+
+"You're to help me," said Collins concisely. "I have the books. Our
+other duties are to make out time checks for the men, to answer the
+correspondence in our province, to keep track of camp supplies, and to
+keep tab on shipments and the stock on hand and sawed each day. There's
+your desk. You'll find time blanks and everything there. The copying
+press is in the corner. Over here is the tally board," He led the way to
+a pine bulletin, perhaps four feet square, into which were screwed a
+hundred or more small brass screw hooks. From each depended a small pine
+tablet or tag inscribed with many figures. "Do you understand a tally
+board?" Collins asked.
+
+"No," replied Bob.
+
+"Well, these screw hooks are arranged just like a map of the lumber
+yards. Each hook represents one of the lumber piles--or rather the
+location of a lumber pile. The tags hanging from them represent the
+lumber piles themselves; see?"
+
+"Sure," said Bob. Now that he understood he could follow out on this
+strange map the blocks, streets and alleys of that silent, tenantless
+city.
+
+"On these tags," pursued Collins, "are figures. These figures show how
+much lumber is in each pile, and what kind it is, and of what quality.
+In that way we know just what we have and where it is. The sealers
+report to us every day just what has been shipped out, and what has been
+piled from the mill. From their reports we change the figures on the
+tags. I'm going to let you take care of that."
+
+Bob bestowed his long figure at the desk assigned him, and went to work.
+He was interested, for it was all new to him. Men were constantly in and
+out on all sorts of errands. Fox came to shake hands and wish him well;
+he was off on the ten o'clock train. Bob checked over a long invoice of
+camp supplies; manipulated the copying press; and, under Collins's
+instructions, made out time checks against the next pay day. The
+insistence of details kept him at the stretch until noon surprised him.
+
+After dinner and a breath of fresh air, he plunged again into his tasks.
+Now he had the scalers' noon reports to transfer to the tally board. He
+was intensely interested by the novelty of it all; but even this early
+he encountered his old difficulties in the matter of figures. He made no
+mistakes, but in order to correlate, remember and transfer correctly he
+was forced to an utterly disproportionate intensity of application. To
+the tally board he brought more absolute concentration and will-power
+than did Collins to all his manifold tasks. So evidently painstaking was
+he, that the little bookkeeper glanced at him sharply once or twice.
+However, he said nothing.
+
+When darkness approached the bookkeeper closed his ledger and came over
+to Bob's desk. In ten minutes he ran deftly over Bob's afternoon work;
+re-checking the supply invoices, verifying the time checks, comparing
+the tallies with the scalers' reports. So swiftly and accurately did he
+accomplish this, with so little hesitation and so assured a belief in
+his own correctness that the really taxing job seemed merely a bit of
+light mental gymnastics after the day's work.
+
+"Good!" he complimented Bob; "everything's correct."
+
+Bob nodded, a little gloomily. It might be correct; but he was very
+tired from the strain of it.
+
+"It'll come easier with practice," said Collins; "always difficult to do
+a new thing."
+
+The whistle blew. Bob went directly to his room and sat down on the
+edge of his bed. In spite of Collins's kindly meant reassurances, the
+iron of doubt had entered his soul. He had tried for four months, and
+was no nearer facility than when he started.
+
+"If a man hadn't learned better than that, I'd have called him a dub and
+told him to get off the squad," he said to himself, a little bitterly.
+He thought a moment. "I guess I'm tired. I must buck up. If Collins and
+Archie can do it, I can. It's all in the game. Of course, it takes time
+and training. Get in the game!"
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+This was on Tuesday. During the rest of the week Bob worked hard. Even a
+skilled man would have been kept busy by the multitude of details that
+poured in on the little office. Poor Bob was far from skilled. He felt
+as awkward amid all these swift and accurate activities as he had when
+at sixteen it became necessary to force his overgrown frame into a
+crowded drawing room. He tried very hard, as he always did with
+everything. When Collins succinctly called his attention to a
+discrepancy in his figurings, he smiled his slow, winning, troubled
+smile, thrust the hair back from his clear eyes, and bent his lean
+athlete's frame again to the labour. He soon discovered that this work
+demanded speed as well as accuracy. "And I need a ten-acre lot to turn
+around in," he told himself half humorously. "I'm a regular ice-wagon."
+
+He now came to look back on his college triumphs with an exaggerated but
+wholesome reaction. His athletic prowess had given him great prominence
+in college circles. Girls had been flattered at his attention; his
+classmates had deferred to his skill and experience; his juniors had, in
+the manner of college boys, looked up to him as to a demi-god. Then for
+the few months of the football season the newspapers had made of him a
+national character. His picture appeared at least once a week; his
+opinions were recorded; his physical measurements carefully detailed.
+When he appeared on the streets and in hotel lobbies, people were apt to
+recognize him and whisper furtively to one another. Bob was naturally
+the most modest youth in the world, and he hated a "fuss" after the
+delightfully normal fashion of normal boys, but all this could not fail
+to have its subtle effect. He went out into the world without conceit,
+but confident of his ability to take his place with the best of them.
+
+His first experience showed him wholly second in natural qualifications,
+in ability to learn, and in training to men subordinate in the business
+world.
+
+"I'm just plain dub," he told himself. "I thought myself some pumpkins
+and got all swelled up inside because good' food and leisure and
+heredity gave me a husky build! Football! What good does that do me
+here? Four out of five of these rivermen are huskier than I am. Me a
+business man! Why I can't seem even to learn the first principles of the
+first job of the whole lot! I've _got_ to!" he admonished; himself
+grimly. "I _hate_ a fellow who doesn't make good!"' and with a very
+determined set to his handsome chin he hurled the whole force of his
+young energies at those elusive figures that somehow _would_ lie.
+
+The week slipped by in this struggle. It was much worse than in the
+Chicago office. There Bob was allowed all the time he thought he needed.
+Here one task followed close on the heels of another, without chance for
+a breathing space or room to take bearings. Bob had to do the best he
+could, commit the result to a merciful providence, and seize the next
+job by the throat.
+
+One morning he awoke with a jump to find it was seven o'clock. He had
+heard neither whistle, and must have overslept! Hastily he leaped into
+his clothes, and rushed out into the dining room. There he found the
+chore-boy leisurely feeding a just-lighted kitchen fire. To Bob's
+exclamation of astonishment he looked up.
+
+"Sunday," he grinned; "breakfus' at eight."
+
+The week had gone without Bob's having realized the fact.
+
+Mrs. Hallowell came in a moment later, smiling at the winning, handsome
+young man in her fat and good-humoured manner. Bob was seized with an
+inspiration.
+
+"Mrs. Hallowell," he said persuasively, "just let me rummage around for
+five minutes, will you?"
+
+"You that hungry?" she chuckled. "Law! I'll have breakfast in an hour."
+
+"It isn't that," said Bob; "but I want to get some air to-day. I'm not
+used to being in an office. I want to steal a hunk of bread, and a few
+of your good doughnuts and a slice of cheese for breakfast and lunch."
+
+"A cup of hot coffee would do you more good," objected Mrs. Hallowell.
+
+"Please," begged Bob, "and I won't disturb a thing."
+
+"Oh, land! Don't worry about that," said Mrs. Hallowell, "there's
+teamsters and such in here all times of the day and night. Help
+yourself."
+
+Five minutes later, Bob, swinging a riverman's canvas lunch bag, was
+walking rapidly up the River Trail. He did not know whither he was
+bound; but here at last was a travelled way. It was a brilliant blue and
+gold morning, the air crisp, the sun warm. The trail led him first
+across a stretch of stump-dotted wet land with pools and rounded rises,
+green new grass, and trickling streamlets of recently melted snow. Then
+came a fringe of scrub growth woven into an almost impenetrable
+tangle--oaks, poplars, willows, cedar, tamarack--and through it all an
+abattis of old slashing--with its rotting, fallen stumps, its network of
+tops, its soggy root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees. Along one of
+these strutted a partridge. It clucked at Bob, but refused to move
+faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spreading its fanlike tail.
+The River Trail here took to poles laid on rough horses. The poles were
+old and slippery, and none too large. Bob had to walk circumspectly to
+stay on them at all. Shortly, however, he stepped off into the higher
+country of the hardwoods. Here the spring had passed, scattering her
+fresh green. The tops of the trees were already in half-leaf; the lower
+branches just budding, so that it seemed the sowing must have been from
+above. Last year's leaves, softened and packed by the snow, covered the
+ground with an indescribably beautiful and noiseless carpet. Through it
+pushed the early blossoms of the hepatica. Grackles whistled clearly.
+Distant redwings gave their celebrated imitation of a great multitude.
+Bluebirds warbled on the wing. The busier chickadees and creepers
+searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional remarks. The sun
+slanted through the forest.
+
+Bob strode on vigorously. His consciousness received these things
+gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with a sense of physical joy
+and harmony with the world of out-of-doors than with an analysis of its
+components. At one point, however, he paused. The hardwoods had risen
+over a low hill. Now they opened to show a framed picture of the river,
+distant and below. In contrast to the modulated browns of the
+tree-trunks, the new green and lilac of the undergrowth and the far-off
+hills across the way, it showed like a patch of burnished blue steel.
+Logs floated across the vista, singly, in scattered groups, in masses.
+Again, the river was clear. While Bob watched, a man floated into view.
+He was standing bolt upright and at ease on a log so small that the
+water lapped over its top. From this distance Bob could but just make it
+out. The man leaned carelessly on his peavy. Across the vista he
+floated, graceful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to
+the mill.
+
+Bob gave a whistle of admiration, and walked on.
+
+"I wish some of our oarsmen could see that," he said to himself.
+"They're always guying the fellows that tip over their cranky little
+shells."
+
+He stopped short.
+
+"I couldn't do it," he cried aloud; "nor I couldn't learn to do it. I
+sure _am_ a dub!"
+
+He trudged on, his spirits again at the ebb. The brightness of the day
+had dimmed. Indeed, physically, a change had taken place. Over the sun
+banked clouds had drawn. With the disappearance of the sunlight a
+little breeze, before but a pleasant and wandering companion to the
+birds, became cold and draughty. The leaf carpet proved to be soggy; and
+as for the birds themselves, their whistles suddenly grew plaintive as
+though with the portent of late autumn.
+
+This sudden transformation, usual enough with every passing cloud in the
+childhood of the spring, reacted still further on Bob's spirits. He
+trudged doggedly on. After a time a gleam of water caught his attention
+to the left. He deserted the River Trail, descended a slope, pushed his
+way through a thicket of tamaracks growing out from wire grass and
+puddles, and found himself on the shores of a round lake.
+
+It was a small body of water, completely surrounded by tall, dead brown
+grasses. These were in turn fringed by melancholy tamaracks. The water
+was dark slate colour, and ruffled angrily by the breeze which here in
+the open developed some slight strength. It reminded Bob of a
+"bottomless" lake pointed out many years before to his childish
+credulity. A lonesome hell diver flipped down out of sight as Bob
+appeared.
+
+The wet ground swayed and bent alarmingly under his tread. A stub
+attracted him. He perched on the end of it, his feet suspended above the
+wet, and abandoned himself to reflection. The lonesome diver reappeared.
+The breeze rustled the dead grasses and the tamaracks until they seemed
+to be shivering in the cold.
+
+Bob was facing himself squarely. This was his first grapple with the
+world outside. To his direct American mind the problem was simplicity in
+the extreme. An idler is a contemptible being. A rich idler is almost
+beneath contempt. A man's life lies in activity. Activity, outside the
+artistic and professional, means the world of business. All teaching at
+home and through the homiletic magazines, fashionable at that period,
+pointed out but one road to success in this world--the beginning at the
+bottom, as Bob was doing; close application; accuracy; frugality;
+honesty; fair dealing. The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and
+imagination; but perhaps those qualities are so common in what some
+people are pleased to call our humdrum modern business life that they
+were taken for granted. If a young man could not succeed in this world,
+something was wrong with him. Can Bob be blamed that in this baffling
+and unsuspected incapacity he found a great humility of spirit? In his
+fashion he began to remember trifling significances which at the time
+had meant little to him. Thus, a girl had once told him, half seriously:
+
+"Yes, you're a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a nice, big,
+blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy."
+
+He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten. Now he caught at one
+word of it. That might explain it; he was just plain stupid! And stupid
+boys either played polo or drove fancy horses or ran yachts--or occupied
+ornamental--too ornamental--desks for an hour or so a day. Bob
+remembered how, as a small boy, he used to hold the ends of the reins
+under the delighted belief that he was driving his father's spirited
+pair.
+
+"I've outgrown holding the reins, thank you," he said aloud in disgust.
+At the sound of his voice the diver disappeared. Bob laughed and felt a
+trifle better.
+
+He reviewed himself dispassionately. He could not but admit that he had
+tried hard enough, and that he had courage. It was just a case of
+limitation. Bob, for the first time, bumped against the stone wall that
+hems us in on all sides--save toward the sky.
+
+He fell into a profound discouragement; a discouragement that somehow
+found its prototype in the mournful little lake with its leaden water,
+its cold breeze, its whispering, dried marsh grasses, its funereal
+tamaracks, and its lonesome diver.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+But Bob was no quitter. The next morning he tramped down to the office,
+animated by a new courage. Even stupid boys learn, he remembered. It
+takes longer, of course, and requires more application. But he was
+strong and determined. He remembered Fatty Hayes, who took four years to
+make the team--Fatty, who couldn't get a signal through his head until
+about time for the next play, and whose great body moved appreciable
+seconds after his brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the "scrub's"
+chopping block for trying out new men on! And yet he did make the team
+in his senior year. Bob acknowledged him a very good centre, not
+brilliant, but utterly sure and safe.
+
+Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day's work. It was a heavy
+day's work. The mill was just hitting its stride, the tall ships were
+being laden and sent away to the four winds, buyers the country over
+were finishing their contracts. Collins, his coat off, his sleeve
+protectors strapped closely about his thin arms, worked at an intense
+white heat. He wasted no second of time, nor did he permit discursive
+interruption. His manner to those who entered the office was civil but
+curt. Time was now the essence of the contract these men had with life.
+
+About ten o'clock he turned from a swift contemplation of the tally
+board.
+
+"Orde!" said he sharply.
+
+Bob disentangled himself from his chair.
+
+"Look there," said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and nervous finger at
+three of the tags he held in his hand.
+
+"There's three errors." He held out for inspection the original
+sealers' report which he had dug out of the files.
+
+Bob looked at the discrepant figures with amazement. He had checked the
+tags over twice, and both times the error had escaped his notice. His
+mind, self-hypnotized, had passed them over in the same old fashion. Yet
+he had taken especial pains with that list.
+
+"I happened, just happened, to check these back myself," Collins was
+saying rapidly. "If I hadn't, we'd have made that contract with Robinson
+on the basis of what these tags show. We haven't got that much seasoned
+uppers, nor anything like it. If you've made many more breaks like this,
+if we'd contracted with Robinson for what we haven't got or couldn't
+get, we'd be in a nice mess--and so would Robinson!"
+
+"I'm sorry," murmured Bob. "I'll try to do better."
+
+"Won't do," said Collins briefly. "You aren't big enough for the job. I
+can't get behind, checking over your work. This office is too rushed as
+it is. Can't fool with blundering stupidity."
+
+Bob flushed at the word.
+
+"I guess you'd better take your time," went on Collins. "You may be all
+right, for all I know, but I haven't got time to find out."
+
+He rang a bell twice, and snatched down the telephone receiver.
+
+"Hullo, yards, send up Tommy Gould to the office. I want him to help me.
+I don't give a damn for the scaling. You'll have to get along somehow.
+The five of you ought to hold that down. Send up Gould, anyhow." He
+slammed up the receiver, muttering something about incompetence. Bob for
+a moment had a strong impulse to retort, but his anger died. He saw that
+Collins was not for the moment thinking of him at all as a human being,
+as a personality--only as a piece of this great, swiftly moving machine,
+that would not run smoothly. The fact that he had come under Fox's
+convoy evidently meant nothing to the little bookkeeper, at least for
+the moment. Collins was entirely accustomed to hiring and discharging
+men. When transplanted to the frontier industries, even such automatic
+jobs as bookkeeping take on new duties and responsibilities.
+
+Bob, after a moment of irresolution, reached for his hat.
+
+"That will be all, then?" he asked.
+
+Collins came out of the abstraction into which he had fallen.
+
+"Oh--yes," he said. "Sorry, but of course we can't take chances on these
+things being right."
+
+"Of course not," said Bob steadily.
+
+"You just need more training," went on Collins with some vague idea of
+being kind to this helpless, attractive young fellow. "I learned under
+Harry Thorpe that results is all a man looks at in this business."
+
+"I guess that's right," said Bob. "Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Collins over his shoulder. Already he was lost in the
+rapid computations and calculations that filled his hours.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Bob left the office and tramped blindly out of town. His feet naturally
+led him to the River Trail. Where the path finally came out on the banks
+of the river, he sat down and delivered himself over to the gloomiest of
+reflections.
+
+He was aroused finally by a hearty greeting from behind him. He turned
+without haste, surprise or pleasure to examine the new comer.
+
+Bob saw surveying him a man well above sixty, heavy-bodied, burly, big,
+with a square face, heavy-jowled and homely, with deep blue eyes set far
+apart, and iron gray hair that curled at the ends. With the quick,
+instinctive sizing-up developed on the athletic field, Bob thought him
+coarse-fibred, jolly, a little obtuse, but strong--very strong with the
+strength of competent effectiveness. He was dressed in a slouch hat, a
+flannel shirt, a wrinkled old business suit and mud-splashed, laced
+half-boots.
+
+"Well, bub," said this man, "enjoying the scenery?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob with reserve. He was in no mood for casual conversation,
+but the stranger went on cheerfully.
+
+"Like it pretty well myself, hereabouts." He filled and lighted a pipe.
+"This is a good time of year for the woods; no mosquitos, pretty warm,
+mighty nice overhead. Can't say so much for underfoot." He lifted and
+surveyed one foot comically, and Bob noticed that his shoes were not
+armed with the riverman's long, sharpened spikes. "Pretty good hunting
+here in the fall, and fishing later. Not much now. Up here to look
+around a little?"
+
+"No, not quite," said Bob vaguely.
+
+"This ain't much of a pleasure resort, and a stranger's a pretty
+unusual thing," said the big man by way of half-apology for his
+curiosity. "Up buying, I suppose--or maybe selling?"
+
+Bob looked up with a beginning of resentment against this apparent
+intrusion on his private affairs. He met the good-humoured, jolly eyes.
+In spite of himself he half smiled.
+
+"Not that either," said he.
+
+"You aren't in the company's employ?" persisted the stranger with an
+undercurrent of huge delight in his tone, as though he were playing a
+game that he enjoyed.
+
+Bob threw back his head and laughed. It was a short laugh and a bitter
+one.
+
+"No," said he shortly, "--not now. I've just been fired."
+
+The big man promptly dropped down beside him on the log.
+
+"Don't say!" he cried; "what's the matter?"
+
+"The matter is that I'm no good," said Bob evenly, and without the
+slightest note of complaint.
+
+"Tell me about it," suggested the big man soberly after a moment. "I'm
+pretty close to Fox. Perhaps----."
+
+"It isn't a case of pull," Bob interrupted him pleasantly. "It's a case
+of total incompetence."
+
+"That's a rather large order for a husky boy like you," said the older
+man with a sudden return to his undertone of bantering jollity.
+
+"Well, I've filled it," said Bob. "That's the one job I've done good and
+plenty."
+
+"Haven't stolen the stove, have you?"
+
+"Might better. It couldn't be any hotter than Collins."
+
+The stranger chuckled.
+
+"He _is_ a peppery little cuss," was his comment. "What did you do to
+him?"
+
+Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be considered
+humorous. The stranger became grave.
+
+"That all?" he inquired.
+
+Bob's self-disgust overpowered him.
+
+"No," said he, "not by a long shot." In brief sentences he told of his
+whole experience since entering the business world. When he had
+finished, his companion puffed away for several moments in silence.
+
+"Well, what you going to do about it?" he asked.
+
+"I don't know," Bob confessed. "I've got to tell father I'm no good.
+That is the only thing I can see ahead to now. It will break him all up,
+and I don't blame him. Father is too good a man himself not to feel this
+sort of a thing."
+
+"I see," said the stranger. "Well, it may come out in the wash," he
+concluded vaguely after a moment. Bob stared out at the river, lost in
+the gloomy thoughts his last speech had evoked. The stranger improved
+the opportunity to look the young man over critically from head to foot.
+
+"I see you're a college man," said he, indicating Bob's fraternity pin.
+
+"Yes," replied the young man listlessly. "I went to the University."
+
+"That so!" said the stranger, "well, you're ahead of me. I never got
+even to graduate at the high school."
+
+"Am I?" said Bob.
+
+"What did you do at college?" inquired the big man.
+
+"Oh, usual classical course, Greek, Latin, Pol Ec.----"
+
+"I don't mean what you learned. What did you _do?_"
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"I don't believe I did a single earthly thing except play a little
+football," he confessed.
+
+"Oh, you played football, did you? That's a great game! I'd rather see a
+good game of football than a snake fight. Make the 'varsity?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where did you play?"
+
+"Halfback."
+
+"Pretty heavy for a 'half,' ain't you?"
+
+"Well--I train down a little--and I managed to get around."
+
+"Play all four years?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Like it?"
+
+Bob's eye lit up. "Yes!" he cried. Then his face fell. "Too much, I
+guess," he added sadly.
+
+For the first time the twinkle, in the stranger's eye found vocal
+expression. He chuckled. It was a good, jolly, subterranean chuckle from
+deep in his throat, and it shook all his round body to its foundations.
+
+"Who bossed you?" he asked, "--your captain, I mean. What sort of a
+fellow was he? Did you get along with him all right?"
+
+"Had to," Bob grinned wryly; "you see they happened to make me captain."
+
+"Oh, they happened to, did they? What is your name?"
+
+"Orde."
+
+The stranger gurgled again.
+
+"You're just out then. You must have captained those big scoring teams."
+
+"They were good teams. I was lucky," said Bob.
+
+"Didn't I see by the papers that you went back to coach last fall?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I've been away and couldn't keep tab. How did you come out?"
+
+"Pretty well."
+
+"Win all your games?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That's good. Thought you were going to have a hard row to hoe. Before I
+went away the papers said most of the old men had graduated, and the
+material was very poor. How did you work it?"
+
+"The material was all right," Bob returned, relaxing a trifle in the
+interest of this discussion. "It was only a little raw, and needed
+shaking into shape."
+
+"And you did the shaking."
+
+"I suppose so; but you see it didn't amount to much because I'd had a
+lot of experience in being captain."
+
+The stranger chuckled one of his jolly subterranean chuckles again. He
+arose to his feet.
+
+"Well, I've got to get along to town," said he.
+
+"I'll trot along, too," said Bob.
+
+They tramped back in silence by the River Trail. On the pole trail
+across the swamp the stranger walked with a graceful and assured ease in
+spite of his apparently unwieldy build. As the two entered one of the
+sawdust-covered streets, they were hailed by Jim Mason.
+
+"Why, Mr. Welton!" he cried, "when did you get in and where did you come
+from?"
+
+"Just now, Jim," Welton answered. "Dropped off at the tank, and walked
+down to see how the river work was coming on."
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Toward dusk Welton entered the boarding house where Bob was sitting
+rather gloomily by the central stove. The big man plumped himself down
+into a protesting chair, and took off his slouch hat. Bob saw his low,
+square forehead with the peculiar hair, black and gray in streaks,
+curling at the ends.
+
+"Why don't you take a little trip with me up to the Cedar Branch?" he
+asked Bob without preamble. "No use your going home right now. Your
+family's in Washington; and will be for a month or so yet."
+
+Bob thought it over.
+
+"Believe I will," he decided at last.
+
+"Do so!" cried Welton heartily. "Might as well see a little of the life.
+Don't suppose you ever went on a drive with your dad when you were a
+kid?"
+
+"No," said Bob, "I used to go up to the booms with him--I remember them
+very well; but we moved up to Redding before I was old enough to get
+about much."
+
+Welton nodded his great head.
+
+"Good old days," he commented; "and let me tell you, your dad was one of
+the best of 'em. Jack Orde is a name you can scare fresh young rivermen
+with yet," he added with a laugh. "Well, pack your turkey to-night;
+we'll take the early train to-morrow."
+
+That evening Bob laid out what he intended to take with him, and was
+just about to stuff it into a pair of canvas bags when Tommy Gould, the
+youngest scaler, pushed open the door.
+
+"Hello!" he smiled engagingly; "where are you going? Been transferred
+from the office?"
+
+"On drive," said Bob, diplomatically ignoring the last question.
+
+Tommy sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until he was weak. Bob
+stared at him.
+
+"Is there anything funny?" he inquired at last.
+
+"Did you say on drive?" inquired Tommy feebly.
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"With that?" Tommy pointed a wavering finger at the pile of duffle.
+
+"What's the matter with it?" inquired Bob, a trifle uncertainly.
+
+"Oh, _it's_ all right. Only wait till Roaring Dick sees it. I'd like to
+see his face."
+
+"Look here, Tommy," said Bob with decision, "this isn't fair. I've never
+been on drive before, and you know it. Now tell me what's wrong or I'll
+wring your fool neck."
+
+"You can't take all that stuff," Tommy explained, wiping his eyes. "Why,
+if everybody had all that mess, how do you suppose it would be carried?"
+
+"I've only got the barest necessities," objected Bob.
+
+"Spread out your pile," Tommy commanded. "There. Take those. Now forget
+the rest."
+
+Bob surveyed the single change of underwear and the extra socks with
+comical dismay. Next morning when he joined Welton he discovered that
+individual carrying a tooth brush in his vest pocket and a pair of
+woolen socks stuffed in his coat. These and a sweater were his only
+baggage. Bob's "turkey," modest as it was, seemed to represent effete
+luxury in comparison.
+
+"How long will this take?" he asked.
+
+"The drive? About three weeks," Welton told him. "You'd better stay and
+see it. It isn't much of a drive compared with the old days; but in a
+very few years there won't be any drives at all."
+
+They boarded a train which at the end of twenty minutes came to a stop.
+Bob and Welton descended. The train moved on, leaving them standing by
+the track.
+
+The remains of the forest, overgrown with scrub oak and popple thickets
+pushed down to the right of way. A road, deep with mud and water,
+beginning at this point, plunged into the wilderness. That was all.
+
+Welton thrust his hands in his pockets and splashed cheerfully into the
+ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little bag and followed. Somehow he
+had vaguely expected some sort of conveyance.
+
+"How far is it?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, ten or twelve miles," said Welton.
+
+Bob experienced a glow of gratitude to the blithe Tommy Gould. What
+would he have done with that baggage out here in this lonesome
+wilderness of unbroken barrens and mud?
+
+The day was beautiful, but the sun breaking through the skin of last
+night's freezing, softened the ground until the going was literally
+ankle-deep in slush. Welton, despite his weight, tramped along
+cheerfully in the apparently careless indifference of the skilled woods
+walker. Bob followed, but he used more energy. He was infinitely the
+older man's superior in muscle and endurance, yet he realized, with
+respect and admiration, that in a long or difficult day's tramp through
+the woods Welton would probably hold him, step for step.
+
+The road wound and changed direction entirely according to expedient. It
+was a "tote road" merely, cutting across these barrens by the directest
+possible route. Deep mire holes, roots of trees, an infrequent boulder,
+puddles and cruel ruts diversified the way. Occasional teeth-rattling
+stretches of "corduroy" led through a swamp.
+
+"I don't see how a team can haul a load over this!" Bob voiced his
+marvel, after a time.
+
+"It don't," said Welton. "The supplies are all hauled while the ground
+is frozen. A man goes by hand now."
+
+In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide and wallow.
+The going was trying on muscle and wind. To right and left stretched
+mazes of white popples and willows tangled with old berry vines and the
+abattis of the slashings. Water stood everywhere. To traverse that swamp
+a man would have to force his way by main strength through the thick
+growth, would have to balance on half-rotted trunks of trees, wade and
+stumble through pools of varying depths, crawl beneath or climb over all
+sorts of obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky new growths, and
+old tree trunks. If he had a gun in his hands, he would furthermore be
+compelled, through all the vicissitudes of making his way, to hold it
+always at the balance ready for the snap shot. For a ruffed grouse is
+wary, and flies like a bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost
+before the roar of its wings has aroused the echoes. Through that veil
+of branches a man must shoot quickly, instinctively, from any one of the
+many positions in which the chance of the moment may have caught him.
+Bob knew all about this sort of country, and his pulses quickened to the
+call of it.
+
+"Many partridge?" he asked.
+
+"Lots," replied Welton; "but the country's too confounded big to hunt
+them in. Like to hunt?"
+
+"Nothing better," said Bob.
+
+After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the hardwoods, full
+of warmth and light and new young green, and the voices of many
+creatures; with the soft, silent carpet of last autumn's brown, the tiny
+patches of melting snow, and the pools with dead leaves sunk in them and
+clear surfaces over which was mirrored the flight of birds.
+
+Welton puffed along steadily. He did not appear to talk much, and yet
+the sum of his information was considerable.
+
+"That road," he said, pointing to a dim track, "goes down to Thompson's.
+He's a settler. Lives on a little lake.
+
+"There's a deer," he remarked, "over in that thicket against the hill."
+
+Bob looked closely, but could see nothing until the animal bounded away,
+waving the white flag of its tail.
+
+"Settlers up here are a confounded nuisance," went on Welton after a
+while. "They're always hollering for what they call their 'rights.' That
+generally means they try to hang up our drive. The average mossback's a
+hard customer. I'd rather try to drive nails in a snowbank than tackle
+driving logs through a farm country. They never realize that we haven't
+got time to talk it all out for a few weeks. There's one old cuss now
+that's making us trouble about the water. Don't want to open up to give
+us a fair run through the sluices of his dam. Don't seem to realize that
+when we start to go out, we've got to go out in a _hurry_, spite o' hell
+and low water."
+
+He went on, in his good-natured, unexcited fashion, to inveigh against
+the obstinacy of any and all mossbacks. There was no bitterness in it,
+merely a marvel over an inexplicable, natural phenomenon.
+
+"Suppose you _didn't_ get all the logs out this year," asked Bob, at
+length. "Of course it would be a nuisance; but couldn't you get them
+next year?"
+
+"That's the trouble," Welton explained. "If you leave them over the
+summer, borers get into them, and they're about a total loss. No, my
+son, when you start to take out logs in this country, you've got to
+_take them out!_"
+
+"That's what I'm going in here for now," he explained, after a moment.
+"This Cedar Branch is an odd job we had to take over from another firm.
+It is an unimproved river, and difficult to drive, and just lined with
+mossbacks. The crew is a mixed bunch--some old men, some young toughs.
+They're a hard crowd, and one not like the men on the main drive. It
+really needs either Tally or me up here; but we can't get away for this
+little proposition. He's got Darrell in charge. Darrell's a good man on
+a big job. Then he feels his responsibility, keeps sober and drives his
+men well. But I'm scared he won't take this little drive serious. If he
+gets one drink in him, it's all off!"
+
+"I shouldn't think it would pay to put such a man in charge," said Bob,
+more as the most obvious remark than from any knowledge or conviction.
+
+"Wouldn't you?" Welton's eyes twinkled. "Well, son, after you've knocked
+around a while you'll find that every man is good for something
+somewhere. Only you can't put a square peg in a round hole."
+
+"How much longer will the high water last?" asked Bob.
+
+"Hard to say."
+
+"Well, I hope you get the logs out," Bob ventured.
+
+"Sure we'll get them out!" replied Welton confidently. "We'll get them
+out if we have to go spit in the creek!" With which remark the subject
+was considered closed.
+
+About four o'clock of the afternoon they came out on a low bluff
+overlooking a bottom land through which flowed a little stream
+twenty-five or thirty feet across.
+
+"That's the Cedar Branch," said Welton, "and I reckon that's one of the
+camps up where you see that smoke."
+
+They deserted the road and made their way through a fringe of thin brush
+to the smoke. Bob saw two big tents, a smouldering fire surrounded by
+high frames on which hung a few drying clothes, a rough table, and a
+cooking fire over which bubbled tremendous kettles and fifty-pound lard
+tins suspended from a rack. A man sat on a cracker box reading a
+fragment of newspaper. A boy of sixteen squatted by the fire.
+
+This man looked up and nodded, as Welton and his companion approached.
+
+"Where's the drive, doctor?" asked the lumberman.
+
+"This is the jam camp," replied the cook. "The jam's upstream a mile or
+so. Rear's back by Thompson's somewheres."
+
+"Is there a jam in the river?" asked Bob with interest. "I'd like to
+see it."
+
+"There's a dozen a day, probably," replied Welton; "but in this case he
+just means the head of the drive. We call that the 'jam.'"
+
+"I suppose Darrell's at the rear?" Welton asked the cook.
+
+"Yep," replied that individual, rising to peer into one of his cavernous
+cooking utensils.
+
+"Who's in charge here?"
+
+"Larsen"
+
+"H'm," said Welton. "Well," he added to himself, "he's slow, safe and
+sure, anyway."
+
+He led the way to one of the tents and pulled aside the flap. The ground
+inside was covered by a welter of tumbled blankets and clothes.
+
+"Nice tidy housekeeping," he grinned at Bob. He picked out two of the
+best blankets and took them outside where he hung them on a bush and
+beat them vigorously.
+
+"There," he concluded, "now they're ours."
+
+"What about the fellows who had 'em before?" inquired Bob.
+
+"They probably had about eight apiece; and if they hadn't they can bunk
+together."
+
+Bob walked to the edge of the stream. It was not very wide, yet at this
+point it carried from three to six or eight feet of water, according to
+the bottom. A few logs were stranded along shore. Two or three more
+floated by, the forerunners of the drive. Bob could see where the
+highest water had flung debris among the bushes, and by that he knew
+that the stream must be already dropping from its freshet.
+
+It was now late in the afternoon. The sun dipped behind a cold and
+austere hill-line. Against the sky showed a fringe of delicate popples,
+like spray frozen in the rise. The heavens near the horizon were a cold,
+pale yellow of unguessed lucent depths, that shaded above into an
+equally cold, pale green. Bob thrust his hands in his pockets and
+turned back to where the drying fire, its fuel replenished, was leaping
+across the gathering dusk.
+
+Immediately after, the driving crews came tramping in from upstream.
+They paid no attention to the newcomers, but dove first for the tent,
+then for the fire. There they began to pull off their lower garments,
+and Bob saw that most of them were drenched from the waist down. The
+drying racks were soon steaming with wet clothes.
+
+Welton fell into low conversation with an old man, straight and slender
+as a Norway pine, with blue eyes, flaxen hair, eyebrows and moustache.
+This was Larsen, in charge of the jam, honest, capable in his way, slow
+of speech, almost childlike of glance. After a few minutes Welton
+rejoined Bob.
+
+"He's a square peg, all right," he muttered, more to himself than to his
+companion. "He's a good riverman, but he's no river boss. Too
+easy-going. Well, all he has to do is to direct the work, luckily. If
+anything really goes wrong, Darrell would be down in two jumps."
+
+"Grub pile!" remarked the cook conversationally.
+
+The men seized the utensils from a heap of them, and began to fill their
+plates from the kettles on the table.
+
+"Come on, bub," said Welton, "dig in! It's a long time till breakfast!"
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The cook was early a foot next morning. Bob, restless with the
+uneasiness of the first night out of doors, saw the flicker of the fire
+against the tent canvas long before the first signs of daylight. In
+fact, the gray had but faintly lightened the velvet black of the night
+when the cook thrust his head inside the big sleeping tents to utter a
+wild yell of reveille.
+
+The men stirred sleepily, stretched, yawned, finally kicked aside their
+blankets. Bob stumbled into the outer air. The chill of early morning
+struck into his bones. Teeth chattering, he hurried to the river bank
+where he stripped and splashed his body with the bracing water. Then he
+rubbed down with the little towel Tommy Gould had allowed him. The
+reaction in this chill air was slow in coming--Bob soon learned that the
+early cold bath out of doors is a superstition--and he shivered from
+time to time as he propped up his little mirror against a stump. Then he
+shaved, anointing his face after the careful manner of college boys.
+This satisfactorily completed, he fished in his duffle bag to find his
+tooth brush and soap. His hair he arranged painstakingly with a pair of
+military brushes. He further manipulated a nail-brush vigorously, and
+ended with manicuring his nails. Then, clean, vigorous, fresh, but
+somewhat chilly, he packed away his toilet things and started for camp.
+
+Whereupon, for the first time, he became aware of one of the rivermen,
+pipe clenched between his teeth, watching him sardonically.
+
+Bob nodded, and made as though to pass.
+
+"Oh, bub!" said the older man.
+
+Bob stopped.
+
+"Say," drawled the riverman, "air you as much trouble to yourself
+_every_ day as this?"
+
+Bob laughed, and dove for camp. He found it practically deserted. The
+men had eaten breakfast and departed for work. Welton greeted him.
+
+"Well, bub," said he, "didn't know but we'd lost you. Feed your face,
+and we'll go upstream."
+
+Bob ate rapidly. After breakfast Welton struck into a well-trodden foot
+trail that led by a circuitous route up the river bottom, over points of
+land, around swamps. Occasionally it forked. Then, Welton explained, one
+fork was always a short cut across a bend, while the other followed
+accurately the extreme bank of the river. They took this latter and
+longest trail, always, in order more closely to examine the state of the
+drive. As they proceeded upstream they came upon more and more logs,
+some floating free, more stranded gently along the banks. After a time
+they encountered the first of the driving crew. This man was standing on
+an extreme point, leaning on his peavy, watching the timbers float past.
+Pretty soon several logs, held together by natural cohesion, floated to
+the bend, hesitated, swung slowly and stopped. Other logs, following,
+carromed gently against them and also came to rest.
+
+Immediately the riverman made a flying leap to the nearest. He hit it
+with a splash that threw the water high to either side, immediately
+caught his equilibrium, and set to work with his peavy. He seemed to
+know just where to bend his efforts. Two, then three, logs, disentangled
+from the mass, floated away. Finally, all moved slowly forward. The
+riverman intent on his work, was swept from view.
+
+"After he gets them to running free, he'll come ashore," said Welton, in
+answer to Bob's query. "Oh, just paddle ashore with his peavy. Then
+he'll come back up the trail. This bend is liable to jam, and so we have
+to keep a man here."
+
+They walked on and on, up the trail. Every once in a while they came
+upon other members of the jam crew, either watching, as was the first
+man, at some critical point, or working in twos and threes to keep the
+reluctant timbers always moving. At one place six or eight were picking
+away busily at a jam that had formed bristling quite across the river.
+Bob would have liked to stop to watch; but Welton's practised eye saw
+nothing to it.
+
+"They're down to the key log, now," he pronounced. "They'll have it out
+in a jiffy."
+
+Inside of two miles or so farther they left behind them the last member
+of the jam crew and came upon an outlying scout of the "rear." Then
+Welton began to take the shorter trails. At the end of another half-hour
+the two plumped into the full activity of the rear itself.
+
+Bob saw two crews of men, one on either bank, busily engaged in
+restoring to the current the logs stranded along the shore. In some
+cases this merely meant pushing them afloat by means of the peavies.
+Again, when the timbers had gone hard aground, they had to be rolled
+over and over until the deeper water caught them. In extreme cases, when
+evidently the freshet water had dropped away from them, leaving them
+high and dry, a number of men would clamp on the jaws of their peavies
+and carry the logs bodily to the water. In this active work the men were
+everywhere across the surface of the river. They pushed and heaved from
+the instability of the floating logs as easily as though they had
+possessed beneath their feet the advantages of solid land. When they
+wanted to go from one place to another across the clear water they had
+various methods of propelling themselves--either broad on, by rolling
+the log treadwise, or endways by paddling, or by jumping strongly on one
+end. The logs dipped and bobbed and rolled beneath them; the water
+flowed over their feet; but always they seemed to maintain their balance
+unconsciously, and to give their whole attention to the work in hand.
+They worked as far as possible from the decks of logs, but did not
+hesitate, when necessary, to plunge even waist-deep into the icy
+current. Behind them they left a clear river.
+
+Like most exhibitions of superlative skill, all this would have seemed
+to an uninitiated observer like Bob an easy task, were it not for the
+misfortunes of one youth. That boy was about half the time in the water.
+He could stand upright on a log very well as long as he tried to do
+nothing else. This partial skill undoubtedly had lured him to the drive.
+But as soon as he tried to work, he was in trouble. The log commenced to
+roll; he to struggle for his balance. It always ended with a mighty
+splash and a shout of joy from every one in sight, as the unfortunate
+youth soused in all over. Then, after many efforts, he dragged himself
+out, his garments heavy and dripping, and cautiously tried to gain the
+perpendicular. This ordinarily required several attempts, each of which
+meant another ducking as the treacherous log rolled at just the wrong
+instant. The boy was game, though, and kept at it earnestly in spite of
+repeated failure.
+
+Welton watched two repetitions of this performance.
+
+"Dick!" he roared across the tumult of sound.
+
+Roaring Dick, whose light, active figure had been seen everywhere across
+the logs, looked up, recognized Welton, and zigzagged skilfully ashore.
+He stamped the water from his shoes.
+
+"Why don't you fire that kid ashore?" demanded Welton. "Do you want to
+drown him? He's so cold now he don't know where's his feet?"
+
+Roaring Dick glanced carelessly at the boy. The latter had succeeded in
+gaining the shallows, where he was trying to roll over a stranded log.
+His hands were purple and swollen; his face puffed and blue; violent
+shivers shook him from head to foot; his teeth actually chattered when,
+for a moment, he relaxed his evident intention to stick it through
+without making a sign. All his movements were slow and awkward, and his
+dripping clothes clung tight to his body.
+
+"Oh, him!" said Roaring Dick in reply. "I didn't pay no more attention
+to him than to one of these yere hell divers. He ain't no _good_, so I
+clean overlooked him. Here, you!" he cried suddenly.
+
+The boy looked up, Bob saw him start convulsively, and knew that he had
+met the impact of that peculiar dynamic energy in Roaring Dick's nervous
+face. He clambered laboriously from the shallows, the water draining
+from the bottom of his "stagged" trousers.
+
+"Get to camp," snapped Dick. "You're laid off."
+
+"Why did you ever take such a man on in the first place?" asked Welton.
+
+"He was here when I come," replied Roaring Dick, indifferently, "and,
+anyway, he's bound he's goin to be a river-hog. You couldn't keep him
+out with a fly-screen."
+
+"How're things going?" inquired Welton.
+
+"All right," said Roaring Dick. "This ain't no drive to have things
+goin' wrong. A man could run a hand-organ, a quiltin' party and this
+drive all to once and never drop a stitch."
+
+"How about old Murdock's dam? Looks like he might make trouble."
+
+"Ain't got to old Murdock yet," said Roaring Dick. "When we do, we'll
+trim his whiskers to pattern. Don't you worry none about Murdock."
+
+"I don't," laughed Welton. "But, Dick, what are all these deadheads I
+see in the river? Our logs are all marked, aren't they?"
+
+"They's been some jobbing done way below our rollways," said Roaring
+Dick, "and the mossbacks have been taking 'em out long before our drive
+got this far. Them few deadheads we've picked up along the line;
+mossbacks left 'em stranded. They ain't very many."
+
+"I'll send up a marking hammer, and we'll brand them. Finders keepers."
+
+"Sure," said Roaring Dick.
+
+He nodded and ran out over the logs. The work leaped. Wherever he went
+the men took hold as though reanimated by an electric current.
+
+"Dick's a driver," said Welton, reflectively, "and he gets out the logs.
+But I'm scared he don't take this little job serious."
+
+He looked out over the animated scene for a moment in silence. Then he
+seemed suddenly to remember his companion.
+
+"Well, son," said he, "that's called 'sacking' the river. The rear crew
+is the place of honour, let me tell you. The old timers used to take a
+great pride in belonging to a crack rear on a big drive. When you get
+one side of the river working against the other, it's great fun. I've
+seen some fine races in my day."
+
+At this moment two men swung up the river trail, bending to the broad
+tump lines that crossed the tops of their heads. These tump lines
+supported rather bulky wooden boxes running the lengths of the men's
+backs. Arrived at the rear, they deposited their burdens. One set to
+building a fire; the other to unpacking from the boxes all the utensils
+and receptacles of a hearty meal. The food was contained in big lard
+tins. It was only necessary to re-heat it. In ten minutes the usual call
+of "grub pile" rang out across the river. The men came ashore. Each
+group of five or six built its little fire. The wind sucked aloft these
+innumerable tiny smokes, and scattered them in a thin mist through the
+trees.
+
+Welton stayed to watch the sacking until after three o'clock. Then he
+took up the river trail to the rear camp. This Bob found to be much like
+the other, but larger.
+
+"Ordinarily on drive we have a wanigan," said Welton. "A wanigan's a big
+scow. It carries the camp and supplies to follow the drive. Here we use
+teams; and it's some of a job, let me tell you! The roads are bad, and
+sometimes it's a long ways around. Hard sledding, isn't it Billy?" he
+inquired of the teamster, who was warming his hands by the fire.
+
+"Well, I always get there," the latter replied with some pride. "From
+the Little Fork here I only tipped over six times, all told."
+
+The cook, who had been listening near by, grunted.
+
+"Only time I wasn't with you, Billy," said he; "that's why you got the
+nerve to tell that!"
+
+"It's a fact!" insisted the driver.
+
+The young fellow who had been ordered off the river sat alone by the
+drying-fire. Now that he had warmed up and dried off, he was seen to be
+a rather good-looking boy, dark-skinned, black-eyed, with overhanging,
+thick, straight brows, like a line from temple to temple. These gave him
+either the sullen, biding look of an Indian or an air of set
+determination, as the observer pleased. Just now he contemplated the
+fire rather gloomily.
+
+Welton sat down on the same log with him.
+
+"Well, bub," said the old riverman good-naturedly, "so you thought you'd
+like to be a riverman?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the boy, with a certain sullen reserve.
+
+"Where did you think you learned to ride a log?"
+
+"I've been around a little at the booms."
+
+"I see. Well, it's a different proposition when you come to working on
+'em in fast water."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Where you from?"
+
+"Down Greenville way."
+
+"Farm?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Back to the farm now, eh?"
+
+"I suppose so."
+
+"Don't like the notion, eh?"
+
+"No!" cried the boy, with a flash of passion.
+
+"Still like to tackle the river?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, again encased in his sullen
+apathy.
+
+"If I send you back to-morrow, would you like to tackle it again?"
+
+"Oh, yes!" said the boy eagerly. "I didn't have any sort of a show when
+you saw me to-day! I can do a heap better than that. I was froze through
+and couldn't handle myself."
+
+Welton grinned.
+
+"What you so stuck on getting wet for?" he inquired.
+
+"I dunno," replied the boy vaguely. "I just like the woods."
+
+"Well, I got no notion of drownding you off in the first white water we
+come across," said Welton; "but I tell you what to do: you wait around
+here a few days, helping the cook or Billy there, and I'll take you down
+to the mill and put you on the booms where you can practise in still
+water with a pike-pole, and can go warm up in the engine room when you
+fall off. Suit you?"
+
+"Yes, sir. Thank you," said the boy quietly; but there was a warm glow
+in his eye.
+
+By now it was nearly dark.
+
+"Guess we'll bunk here to-night," Welton told Bob casually.
+
+Bob looked his dismay.
+
+"Why, I left everything down at the other camp," he cried, "even my
+tooth brush and hair brush!"
+
+Welton looked at him comically.
+
+"Me, too," said he. "We won't neither of us be near as much trouble to
+ourselves to-morrow, will we?"
+
+So he had overheard the riverman's remark that morning. Bob laughed.
+
+"That's right," approved Welton, "take it easy. Necessities is a great
+comfort, but you can do without even them."
+
+After supper all sprawled around a fire. Welton's big bulk extended in
+the acme of comfort. He puffed his pipe straight up toward the stars,
+and swore gently from time to time when the ashes dropped back into his
+eyes.
+
+"Now that's a good kid," he said, waving a pipe toward the other fire
+where the would-be riverman was helping wash the dishes. "He'll never
+be a first-class riverman, but he's a good kid."
+
+"Why won't he make a good riverman?" asked Bob.
+
+"Same reason you wouldn't," said Welton bluntly. "A good white water man
+has to start younger. Besides, what's the use? There won't be any
+rivermen ten year from now. Say, you," he raised his voice peremptorily,
+"what do you call yourself?"
+
+The boy looked up startled, saw that he was indicated, stammered, and
+caught his voice.
+
+"John Harvey, sir," he replied.
+
+"Son of old John who used to be on the Marquette back in the seventies?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I suppose so."
+
+"He ought to be a good kid: he comes of good stock," muttered Welton;
+"but he'll never be a riverman. No use trying to shove that shape peg in
+a round hole!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Near noon of the following day a man came upstream to report a jam
+beyond the powers of the outlying rivermen. Roaring Dick, after a short
+absence for examination, returned to call off the rear. All repaired to
+the scene of obstruction.
+
+Bob noticed the slack water a mile or so above the jam. The river was
+quite covered with logs pressed tight against each other by the force of
+the interrupted current, but still floating. A little farther along the
+increasing pressure had lifted some of them clear of the water. They
+upended slightly, or lay in hollows between the others. Still farther
+downstream the salient features of a jam multiplied. More timbers stuck
+out at angles from the surface; some were even lifted bodily. An abattis
+formed, menacing and formidable, against which even the mighty dynamics
+of the river pushed in vain. Then at last the little group arrived at
+the "breast" itself--a sullen and fearful tangle like a gigantic pile of
+jackstraws. Beneath it the diminished river boiled out angrily. By the
+very fact of its lessened volume Bob could guess at the pressure above.
+Immediately the rivermen ran out on this tangle, and, after a moment
+devoted to inspection, set to work with their peavies. Bob started to
+follow, but Welton held him back.
+
+"It's dangerous for a man not used to it. The jam may go out at any
+time, and when she goes, she goes sky-hooting."
+
+But in the event his precaution turned out useless. All day the men
+rolled logs into the current below the dam. The _click!_ clank! clank!
+of their peavies sounded like the valves of some great engine, so
+regular was the periodicity of their metallic recurrence. They made
+quite a hole in the breast; and several times the jam shrugged, creaked
+and settled, but always to a more solid look. Billy, the teamster,
+brought down his horses. By means of long blocks and tackle they set to
+yanking out logs from certain places specified by Roaring Dick. Still
+the jam proved obstinate.
+
+"I hate to do it," said Roaring Dick to Welton; "but it's a case of
+powder."
+
+"Tie into it," agreed Welton. "What's a few smashed logs compared to
+hanging the drive?"
+
+Dick nodded. He picked up a little canvas lunch bag from a stump where,
+earlier in the day, he had hung it, and from it extracted several sticks
+of giant powder, a length of fuse and several caps. These he prepared.
+Then he and Welton walked out over the jam, examining it carefully, and
+consulting together at length. Finally Roaring Dick placed his charge
+far down in the interstices, lit the fuse and walked calmly ashore. The
+men leisurely placed themselves out of harm's way. Welton joined Bob
+behind a big burned stub.
+
+"Will that start her sure?" asked Bob.
+
+"Depends on whether we guessed right on the key log," said Welton.
+
+A great roar shook the atmosphere. Straight up into the air spurted the
+cloud of the explosion. Through the white smoke Bob could see the flame
+and four or five big logs, like upleaping, dim giants. Then he dodged
+back from the rain of bark and splinters.
+
+The immediate effect on the jam was not apparent. It fell forward into
+the opening made by the explosion, and a light but perceptible movement
+ran through the waiting timbers up the river. But the men, running out
+immediately, soon made it evident that the desired result had been
+attained. Their efforts now seemed to gain definite effects. An
+uneasiness ran through the hitherto solid structure of the jam. Timbers
+changed position. Sometimes the whole river seemed to start forward a
+foot or so, but before the eye could catch the motion, it had again
+frozen to immobility.
+
+"That fetched the key logs, all right," said Welton, watching.
+
+Then all at once about half the breast of the jam fell forward into the
+stream. Bob uttered an involuntary cry. But the practised rivermen must
+have foreseen this, for none were caught. At once the other logs at the
+breast began to topple of their own accord into the stream. The splashes
+threw the water high like the explosions of shells, and the thundering
+of the falling and grinding timbers resembled the roar of artillery. The
+pattern of the river changed, at first almost imperceptibly, then more
+and more rapidly. The logs in the centre thrust forward, those on the
+wings hung back. Near the head of the jam the men worked like demons.
+Wherever the timbers caught or hesitated for a moment in their slow
+crushing forward, there a dozen men leaped savagely, to jerk, heave and
+pry with their heavy peavies. Continually under them the footing
+shifted; sullen logs menaced them with crushing or complete engulfment
+in their grinding mill. Seemingly they paid no attention to this, but
+gave all their energies to the work. In reality, whether from
+calculation or merely from the instinct that grows out of long
+experience, they must have pre-estimated every chance.
+
+"What bully team work!" cried Bob, stirred to enthusiasm.
+
+Now the motion quickened. The centre of the river rushed forward; the
+wings sucked in after from either side. A roar and battling of timbers,
+jets of spray, the smoke of waters filled the air. Quite coolly the
+rivermen made their way ashore, their peavies held like balancing poles
+across their bodies. Under their feet the logs heaved, sank, ground
+together, tossed above the hurrying under-mass, tumultuous as a
+close-packed drove of wild horses. The rivermen rode them easily. For an
+appreciable time one man perched on a stable timber watching keenly
+ahead. Then quite coolly he leaped, made a dozen rapid zigzag steps
+forward, and stopped. The log he had quitted dropped sullenly from
+sight, and two closed, grinding, where it had been. In twenty seconds
+every man was safely ashore.
+
+The river caught its speed. Hurried on by the pressure of water long
+dammed back, the logs tumbled forward. Rank after rank they swept past,
+while the rivermen, leaning on the shafts of their peavies, passed them
+in review.
+
+"That was luck," Welton's voice broke in on Bob's contemplation. "It's
+just getting dark. Couldn't have done it without the dynamite. It
+splinters up a little timber, but we save money, even at that."
+
+"Billy doesn't carry that with the other supplies, does he?" asked Bob.
+
+"Sure," said Welton; "rolls it up in the bedding, or something. Well,
+John Harvey, Junior," said he to that youth, "what do you think of it? A
+little different driving this white water than pushing logs with a pike
+pole down a slack-water river like the Green, hey?"
+
+"Yes, sir," the boy nodded out of his Indian stolidity.
+
+"You see now why a man has to start young to be a riverman," Welton told
+Bob, as they bent their steps toward camp. "Poor little John Harvey out
+on that jam when she broke would have stood about as much chance as a
+beetle at a woodpecker prayer meeting."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Two days later Welton returned to the mill. At his suggestion Bob stayed
+with the drive. He took his place quietly as a visitor, had the good
+sense to be unobtrusive, and so was tolerated by the men. That is to
+say, he sat at the camp fires practically unnoticed, and the rivermen
+talked as though he were not there. When he addressed any of them they
+answered him with entire good humour, but ordinarily they paid no more
+attention to him than they did to the trees and bushes that chanced to
+surround the camp.
+
+The drive moved forward slowly. Sometimes Billy packed up every day to
+set forth on one of his highly adventurous drives; again camp stayed for
+some time in the same place. Bob amused himself tramping up and down the
+river, reviewing the operations. Occasionally Roaring Dick, in his
+capacity of river boss, accompanied the young fellow. Why, Bob could not
+imagine, for the alert, self-contained little riverman trudged along in
+almost entire silence, his keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly on all
+there was to be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or comment, he answered
+by a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or the monosyllable was never
+sullen or hostile or contemptuous; merely indifferent. Bob learned to
+economize speech, and so got along well with his strange companion.
+
+By the end of the week the drive entered a cleared farm country. The
+cultivation was crude and the clearing partial. Low-wooded hills dotted
+with stumps of the old forest alternated with willow-grown bottom-lands
+and dense swamps. The farmers lived for the most part in slab or log
+houses earthed against the winter cold. Fences were of split rails laid
+"snake fashion." Ploughing had to be in and out between the blackened
+stumps on the tops of which were piled the loose rocks picked from the
+soil as the share turned them up. Long, unimproved roads wandered over
+the hills, following roughly the section lines, but perfectly willing to
+turn aside through some man's field in order to avoid a steep grade or
+soft going. These things the rivermen saw from their stream exactly as a
+trainman would see them from his right-of-way. The river was the
+highway, and rarely was it considered worth while to climb the low
+bluffs out of the bottom-land through which it flowed.
+
+In the long run it landed them in a town named Twin Falls. Here were a
+water-power dam and some small manufactories. Here, too, were saloons
+and other temptations for rivermen. Camp was made above town. In the
+evening the men, with but few exceptions, turned in to the sleeping tent
+at the usual hour. Bob was much surprised at this; but later he came to
+recognize it as part of a riverman's peculiar code. Until the drive
+should be down, he did not feel himself privileged to "blow off steam."
+Even the exceptions did not get so drunk they could not show up the
+following morning to take a share in sluicing the drive through the dam.
+
+All but Roaring Dick. The latter did not appear at all, and was reported
+"drunk a-plenty" by some one who had seen him early that morning.
+Evidently the river boss did not "take this drive serious." His absence
+seemed to make no difference. The sluicing went forward methodically.
+
+"He'll show up in a day or two," said the cook with entire indifference,
+when Bob inquired of him.
+
+That evening, however, four or five of the men disappeared, and did not
+return. Such was the effect of an evil example on the part of the
+foreman. Larsen took charge. In almost unbroken series the logs shot
+through the sluiceways into the river below, where they were received by
+the jam crew and started on the next stage of their long journey to the
+mills. In a day the dam was passed. One of the younger men rode the last
+log through the sluiceway, standing upright as it darted down the chute
+into the eddy below. The crowd of townspeople cheered. The boy waved his
+hat and birled the log until the spray flew.
+
+But hardly was camp pitched two miles below town when one of the jam
+crew came upstream to report a difficulty. Larsen at once made ready to
+accompany him down the river trail, and Bob, out of curiosity, went
+along, too.
+
+"It's mossbacks," the messenger explained, "and them deadheads we been
+carrying along. They've rigged up a little sawmill down there, where
+they're cutting what the farmers haul in to 'em. And then, besides,
+they've planted a bunch of piles right out in the middle of the stream
+and boomed in their side, and they're out there with pike-poles, nailin'
+onto every stick of deadhead that comes along."
+
+"Well, that's all right," said Larsen. "I guess they got a right to them
+as long as we ain't marked them."
+
+"They can have their deadheads," agreed the riverman, "but their piles
+have jammed our drive and hung her."
+
+"We'll break the jam," said Larsen.
+
+Arrived at the scene of difficulty, Bob looked about him with great
+interest. The jam was apparently locked hard and fast against a clump of
+piles driven about in the centre of the stream. These had evidently been
+planted as the extreme outwork of a long shunting boom. Men working
+there could shunt into the sawmill enclosure that portion of the drive
+to which they could lay claim. The remainder could proceed down the open
+channel to the left. That was the theory. Unfortunately, this division
+of the river's width so congested matters that the whole drive had hung.
+
+The jam crew were at work, but even Bob's unpractised eye saw that their
+task was stupendous. Even should they succeed in loosening the breast,
+there could be no reason to suppose the performance would not have to be
+repeated over and over again as the close-ranked drive came against the
+obstacle.
+
+Larsen took one look, then made his way across to the other side and
+down to the mill. Bob followed. The little sawmill was going full blast
+under the handling of three men and a boy. Everything was done in the
+most primitive manner, by main strength, awkwardness, and old-fashioned
+tools.
+
+"Who's boss?" yelled Larsen against the clang of the mill.
+
+A slow, black-bearded man stepped forward.
+
+"What can I do for you?" he asked.
+
+"Our drive's hung up against your boom," yelled Larsen.
+
+The man raised his hand and the machinery was suddenly stilled.
+
+"So I perceive," said he.
+
+"Your boom-piles are drove too far out in the stream."
+
+"I don't know about that," objected the mossback.
+
+"I do," insisted Larsen. "Nobody on earth could keep from jamming, the
+way you got things fixed."
+
+"That's none of my business," said the man steadily.
+
+"Well, we'll have to take out that fur clump of piles to get our jam
+broke."
+
+"I don't know about that," repeated the man.
+
+Larsen apparently paid no attention to this last remark, but tramped
+back to the jam. There he ordered a couple of men out with axes, and
+others with tackle. But at that moment the three men and the boy
+appeared. They carried three shotguns and a rifle.
+
+"That's about enough of that," said the bearded man, quietly. "You let
+my property alone. I don't want any trouble with you men, but I'll blow
+hell out of the first man that touches those piles. I've had about
+enough of this riverhog monkey-work."
+
+He looked as though he meant business, as did his companions. When the
+rivermen drew back, he took his position atop the disputed clump of
+piles, his shotgun across his knees.
+
+The driving crew retreated ashore. Larsen was plainly uncertain.
+
+"I tell you, boys," said he, "I'll get back to town. You wait."
+
+"Guess I'll go along," suggested Bob, determined to miss no phase of
+this new species of warfare.
+
+"What you going to do?" he asked Larsen when they were once on the
+trail.
+
+"I don't know," confessed the older man, rubbing his cap. "I'm just
+goin' to see some lawyer, and then I'm goin' to telegraph the Company. I
+wish Darrell was in charge. I don't know what to do. You can't expect
+those boys to run a chance of gittin' a hole in 'em."
+
+"Do you believe they'd shoot?" asked Bob.
+
+"I believe so. It's a long chance, anyhow."
+
+But in Twin Falls they received scant sympathy and encouragement. The
+place was distinctly bucolic, and as such opposed instinctively to
+larger mills, big millmen, lumber, lumbermen and all pertaining
+thereunto. They tolerated the drive because, in the first place they had
+to; and in the second place there was some slight profit to be made. But
+the rough rivermen antagonized them, and they were never averse to
+seeing these buccaneers of the streams in difficulties. Then, too, by
+chance the country lawyers Larsen consulted happened to be attorneys for
+the little sawmill men. Larsen tried in his blundering way to express
+his feeling that "nobody had a right to hang our drive." His
+explanations were so involved and futile that, without thinking, Bob
+struck in.
+
+"Surely these men have no right to obstruct as they do. Isn't there some
+law against interfering with navigation?"
+
+"The stream is not navigable," returned the lawyer curtly.
+
+Bob's memory vouchsafed a confused recollection of something read
+sometime, somewhere.
+
+"Hasn't a stream been declared navigable when logs can be driven in
+it?" he asked.
+
+"Are you in charge of this drive?" the lawyer asked, turning on him
+sharply.
+
+"Why--no," confessed Bob.
+
+"Have you anything to do with this question?"
+
+"I don't believe I have."
+
+"Then I fail to see why I should answer your questions," said the
+lawyer, with finality. "As to your question," he went on to Larsen with
+equal coldness, "if you have any doubts as to Mr. Murdock's rights in
+the stream, you have the recourse of a suit at law to settle that point,
+and to determine the damages, if any."
+
+Bob found himself in the street with Larsen.
+
+"But they haven't got no right to stop our drive _dead_ that way,"
+expostulated the old man.
+
+Bob's temper was somewhat ruffled by his treatment at the hands of the
+lawyer.
+
+"Well, they've done it, whether they have the right to or not," he said
+shortly; "what next?"
+
+"I guess I'll telegraph Mr. Welton," said Larsen.
+
+He did so. The two returned to camp. The rivermen were loafing in camp
+awaiting Larsen's reappearance. The jam was as before. Larsen walked out
+on the logs. The boy, seated on the clump of piles, gave a shrill
+whistle. Immediately from the little mill appeared the brown-bearded man
+and his two companions. They picked their way across the jam to the
+piles, where they roosted, their weapons across their knees, until
+Larsen had returned to the other bank.
+
+"Well, Mr. Welton ought to be up in a couple of days, if he ain't up the
+main river somewheres," said Larsen.
+
+"Aren't you going to do anything in the meantime?" asked Bob.
+
+"What can I do?" countered Larsen.'
+
+The crew had nothing to say one way or the other, but watched with a
+cynical amusement the progress of affairs. They smoked, and spat, and
+squatted on their heels in the Indian taciturnity of their kind when for
+some reason they withhold their approval. That evening, however, Bob
+happened to be lying at the campfire next two of the older men. As
+usual, he smoked in unobtrusive silence, content to be ignored if only
+the men would act in their accustomed way, and not as before a stranger.
+
+"Wait; hell!" said one of the men to the other. "Times is certainly gone
+wrong! If they had anything like an oldtime river boss in charge, they'd
+come the Jack Orde on this lay-out."
+
+Bob pricked up his ears at this mention of his father's name.
+
+"What's that?" he asked.
+
+The riverman rolled over and examined him dispassionately for a few
+moments.
+
+"Jack Orde," he deigned to explain at last, "was a riverman. He was a
+good one. He used to run the drive in the Redding country. When he
+started to take out logs, he took 'em out, by God! I've heard him often:
+'Get your logs out first, and pay the damage afterward,' says he. He was
+a holy terror. They got the state troops out after him once. It came to
+be a sort of by-word. When you generally gouge, kick and sandbag a man
+into bein' real _good_, why we say you come the Jack Orde on him."
+
+"I see," said Bob, vastly amused at this sidelight on the family
+reputation. "What would you do here?"
+
+"I don't know," replied the riverman, "but I wouldn't lay around and
+wait."
+
+"Why don't some of you fellows go out there and storm the fort, if you
+feel that way?" asked Bob.
+
+"Why?" demanded the riverman, "I won't let any boss stump me; but why in
+hell should I go out and get my hide full of birdshot? If this outfit
+don't know enough to get its drive down, that ain't my fault."
+
+Bob had seen enough of the breed to recognize this as an eminently
+characteristic attitude.
+
+"Well," he remarked comfortably, "somebody'll be down from the mill
+soon."
+
+The riverman turned on him almost savagely.
+
+"Down soon!" he snorted. "So'll the water be 'down soon.' It's dropping
+every minute. That telegraft of yours won't even start out before
+to-morrow morning. Don't you fool yourself. That Twin Falls outfit is
+just too tickled to do us up. It'll be two days before anybody shows up,
+and then where are you at? Hell!" and the old riverman relapsed into a
+disgusted silence.
+
+Considerably perturbed, Bob hunted up Larsen.
+
+"Look here, Larsen," said he, "they tell me a delay here is likely to
+hang up this drive. Is that right?"
+
+The old man looked at his interlocutor, his brow wrinkled.
+
+"I wish Darrell was in charge," said he.
+
+"What would Darrell do that you can't do?" demanded Bob bluntly.
+
+"That's just it; I don't know," confessed Larsen.
+
+"Well, I'd get some weapons up town and drive that gang off," said Bob
+heatedly.
+
+"They'd have a posse down and jug the lot of us," Larsen pointed out,
+"before we could clear the river." He suddenly flared up. "I ain't no
+river boss, and I ain't paid as a river boss, and I never claimed to be
+one. Why in hell don't they keep their men in charge?"
+
+"You're working for the company, and you ought to do your best for
+them," said Bob.
+
+But Larsen had abruptly fallen into Scandinavian sulks. He muttered
+something under his breath, and quite deliberately arose and walked
+around to the other side of the fire.
+
+Twice during the night Bob arose from his blankets and walked down to
+the riverside. In the clear moonlight he could see one or the other of
+the millmen always on watch, his shotgun across his knees. Evidently
+they did not intend to be surprised by any night work. The young fellow
+returned very thoughtful to his blankets, where he lay staring up
+against the canvas of the tent.
+
+Next morning he was up early, and in close consultation with Billy the
+teamster. The latter listened attentively to what Bob had to say,
+nodding his head from time to time. Then the two disappeared in the
+direction of the wagon, where for a long interval they busied themselves
+at some mysterious operation.
+
+When they finally emerged from the bushes, Bob was carrying over his
+shoulder a ten-foot poplar sapling around the end of which was fastened
+a cylindrical bundle of considerable size. Bob paid no attention to the
+men about the fire, but bent his steps toward the river. Billy, however,
+said a few delighted words to the sprawling group. It arose with
+alacrity and followed the young man's lead.
+
+Arrived at the bank of the river, Bob swung his burden to the ground,
+knelt by it, and lit a match. The rivermen, gathering close, saw that
+the bundle around the end of the sapling consisted of a dozen rolls of
+giant powder from which dangled a short fuse. Bob touched his match to
+the split outer end of the fuse. It spluttered viciously. He arose with
+great deliberation, picked up his strange weapon, and advanced out over
+the logs.
+
+In the meantime the opposing army had gathered about the disputed clump
+of piles, to the full strength of its three shotguns and the single
+rifle. Bob paid absolutely no attention to them. When within a short
+distance he stopped and, quite oblivious to warnings and threats from
+the army, set himself to watching painstakingly the sputtering progress
+of the fire up the fuse, exactly as a small boy watches his giant
+cracker which he hopes to explode in mid-air. At what he considered the
+proper moment he straightened his powerful young body, and cast the
+sapling from him, javelin-wise.
+
+"Scat!" he shouted, and scrambled madly for cover.
+
+The army decamped in haste. Of its armament it lost near fifty per
+cent., for one shotgun and the rifle remained where they had fallen.
+Like Abou Ben Adam, Murdock led all the rest.
+
+Now Bob had hurled his weapon as hard as he knew how, and had scampered
+for safety without looking to see where it had fallen. As a matter of
+fact, by one of those very lucky accidents, that often attend a star in
+the ascendent, the sapling dove head on into a cavern in the jam above
+the clump of piles. The detonation of the twelve full sticks of giant
+powder was terrific. Half the river leaped into the air in a beautiful
+column of water and spray that seemed to hang motionless for appreciable
+moments. Dark fragments of timbers were hurled in all directions. When
+the row had died the clump of piles was seen to have disappeared. Bob's
+chance shot had actually cleared the river!
+
+The rivermen glanced at each other amazedly.
+
+"Did you _mean_ to place that charge, bub?" one asked.
+
+Bob was too good a field general not to welcome the gifts of chance.
+
+"Certainly," he snapped. "Now get out on that river, every mother's son
+of you. Get that drive going and keep it going. I've cleared the river
+for you; and if you'd any one of you had the nerve of my poor old fat
+sub-centre, you'd have done it for yourselves. Get busy! Hop!"
+
+The men jumped for their peavies. Bob raged up and down the bank. For
+the moment he had forgotten the husk of the situation, and saw it only
+in essential. Here was a squad to lick into shape, to fashion into a
+team. It mattered little that they wore spikes in their boots instead of
+cleats; that they sported little felt hats instead of head guards. The
+principle was the same. The team had gone to pieces in the face of a
+crisis; discipline was relaxed; grumblers were getting noisy. Bob
+plunged joyously head over ears in his task. By now he knew every man by
+name, and he addressed each personally. He had no idea of what was to be
+done to start this riverful of logs smoothly and surely on its way; he
+did not need to. Afloat on the river was technical knowledge enough, and
+to spare. Bob threw his men at the logs as he used to throw his backs at
+the opposing line. And they went. Even in the whole-souled, frantic
+absorption of the good coach he found time to wonder at the likeness of
+all men. These rivermen differed in no essential from the members of the
+squad. They responded to the same authority; they could be hurled as a
+unit against opposing obstacles.
+
+Bob felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and whirled to stare straight into
+the bloodshot eyes of Roaring Dick. The man was still drunk, but only
+with the lees of the debauch. He knew perfectly what he was about, but
+the bad whiskey still hummed through his head. Bob met the baleful glare
+from under his square brows, as the man teetered back and forth on his
+heels.
+
+"You got a hell of a nerve!" said Roaring Dick, thickly. "You talk like
+you was boss of this river."
+
+Bob looked back at him steadily for a full half-minute.
+
+"I am," said he at last.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+Roaring Dick had not been brought up in the knowledge of protocols or
+ultimatums. Scarcely had Bob uttered the last words of his brief speech
+before he was hit twice in the face, good smashing blows that sent him
+staggering. The blows were followed by a savage rush. Roaring Dick was
+on his man with the quickness and ferocity of a wildcat. He hit, kicked,
+wrestled, even bit. Bob was whirled back by the very impetuosity of the
+attack. Before he could collect his wits he was badly punished and
+dazed. He tripped and Roaring Dick, with a bellow of satisfaction, began
+to kick at his body even before he reached the ground.
+
+But strangely enough this fall served to clear Bob's head. Thousands of
+times he had gone down just like this on the football field, and had
+then been called upon to struggle on with the ball as far as he was
+able. A slight hint of the accustomed will sometimes steady us in the
+most difficult positions. The mind, bumping aimlessly, falls into its
+groove, and instinctively shoots forward with tremendous velocity. Bob
+hit the ground, half turned on his shoulder, rolled over twice with the
+rapid, vigorous twist second-nature to a seasoned halfback, and bounded
+to his feet. He met Roaring Dick half way with a straight blow. It
+failed to stop, or even to shake the little riverman. The next instant
+the men were wrestling fiercely.
+
+Bob found himself surprisingly opposed. Beneath his loose, soft clothing
+the riverman seemed to be made of steel. Suddenly Bob was called upon to
+exert every ounce of strength in his body, and to summon all his
+acquired skill to prevent himself from being ignominiously overpowered.
+The ferocity of the rush, and the purposeful rapidity of Roaring Dick's
+attack, as well as the unexpected variety thereof, kept him fully
+occupied in defending himself. With the exception of the single blow
+delivered when he had regained his feet, he had been unable even to
+attempt aggression. It was as though he had touched a button to release
+an astonishing and bewildering erratic energy.
+
+Bob had done a great deal of boxing and considerable wrestling. During
+his boyhood and youth he had even become involved in several fisticuffs.
+They had always been with the boys or young men of his own ideas. Though
+conducted in anger they retained still a certain remnant of convention.
+No matter how much you wanted to "do" the other fellow, you tried to
+accomplish that result by hitting cleanly, or by wrestling him to a
+point where you could "punch his face in." The object was to hurt your
+opponent until he had had enough, until he was willing to quit, until he
+had been thoroughly impressed with the fact that he was punished. But
+this result was to be accomplished with the fists. If your opponent
+seized a club, or a stone, or tried to kick, that very act indicated his
+defeat. He had had enough, and that was one way of acknowledging your
+superiority. So strongly ingrained had this instinct of the
+fight-convention become that even now Bob unconsciously was playing
+according to the rules of the game.
+
+Roaring Dick, on the contrary, was out solely for results. He fought
+with every resource at his command. Bob was slow to realize this, slow
+to arouse himself beyond the point of calculated defence. His whole
+training on the field inclined him to keep cool and to play, whatever
+the game, from a reasoning standpoint. He was young, strong and
+practised; but he was not roused above the normal. And, as many rivermen
+had good reason to know, the normal man availed little against Roaring
+Dick's maniacal rushes.
+
+The men were close-locked, and tugging and straining for an advantage.
+Bob crouched lower and lower with a well-defined notion of getting a
+twist on his opponent. For an instant he partially freed one side. Like
+lightning Roaring Dick delivered a fierce straight kick at his groin.
+The blow missed its aim, but Bob felt the long, sharp spikes tearing the
+flesh of his thigh. Sheer surprise relaxed his muscles for the fraction
+of an instant. Roaring Dick lowered his head, rammed it into Bob's chin,
+and at the same time reached for the young man's gullet with both hands.
+Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of time. As they closed again
+Roaring Dick's right hand was free. Bob felt the riverman's thumb
+fumbling for his eyeball.
+
+"Why, he wants to cripple me, to kill me!" the young man cried to
+himself. So vivid was the astonishment of this revelation to his
+sportsman's soul that he believed he had said it aloud. This was no mere
+fight, it was a combat. In modern civilized conditions combats are
+notably few and far between. It is difficult for the average man to come
+to a realization that he must in any circumstances depend on himself for
+the preservation of his life. Even to the last moment the victim of the
+real melodrama that occasionally breaks out in the most unlikely places
+is likely to be more concerned with his outraged dignity than with his
+peril. That thumb, feeling eagerly for his eye-socket, woke Bob to a new
+world. A swift anger rushed over him like a hot wave.
+
+This man was trying to injure him. Either the kick or the gouge would
+have left him maimed for life. A sudden fierce desire to beat his
+opponent into the earth seized Bob. With a single effort he wrenched his
+arms free.
+
+Now this fact has been noted again and again: mere size has often little
+to do with a man's physical prowess. The list of anecdotes wherein the
+little fellow "puts it all over" the big bully is exceptionally long.
+Nor are more than a bare majority of the anecdotes baseless. In our own
+lumber woods a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound man with no other weapon
+than his two hands once nearly killed a two-hundred-pound blacksmith for
+pushing him off a bench. This phenomenon arises from the fact that the
+little man seems capable often of releasing at will a greater flood of
+dynamic energy than a big man. We express this by saying that it is the
+spirit that counts. As a matter of truth the big man may have as much
+courage as the little man. It is simply that he cannot, at will, tap as
+quickly the vast reservoir of nervous energy that lies beneath all human
+effort of any kind whatsoever. He cannot arouse himself as can the
+little man.
+
+It was for the foregoing reason that Roaring Dick had acquired his
+ascendancy. He possessed the temperament that fuses. When he fought, he
+fought with the ferocity and concentration of a wild beast. This
+concentration, this power of fusing to white heat all the powers of a
+man's being down to the uttermost, this instinctive ability to tap the
+extra-human stores of dynamics is what constitutes the temperament of
+genius, whether it be applied to invention, to artistic creation, to
+ruling, to finance, or merely to beating down personal opposition by
+beating in the opponent's face. Unfortunately for him, Bob Orde happened
+also to possess the temperament of genius. The two foul blows aroused
+him. All at once he became blind to everything but an unreasoning desire
+to hurt this man who had tried to hurt him. On the side of dynamics the
+combat suddenly equalized. It became a question merely of relative
+power, and Bob was the bigger man.
+
+Bob threw his man from him by main strength. Roaring Dick staggered
+back, only to carrom against a tree. A dozen swift, straight blows in
+the face drove him by the sheer force of them. He was smothered,
+overwhelmed, by the young man's superior size. Bob fell upon him
+savagely. In less than a minute the fight was over as far as Roaring
+Dick was concerned. Blinded, utterly winded, his whiskey-driven
+energies drained away, he fell like a log. Bob, still blazing, found
+himself without an opponent.
+
+He glared about him. The rivermen were gathered in a silent ring. Just
+beyond stood a side-bar buggy in which a burly, sodden red-faced man
+stood up the better to see. Bob recognized him as one of the saloon
+keepers at Twin Falls, and his white-hot brain jumped to the correct
+conclusion that Roaring Dick, driven by some vague conscience-stirring
+in regard to his work, had insisted on going down river; and that this
+dive-keeper, loth to lose a profitable customer in the dull season, had
+offered transportation in the hopeful probability that he could induce
+the riverman to return with him. Bob stooped, lifted his unconscious
+opponent, strode to the side-bar buggy and unceremoniously dumped his
+burden therein.
+
+"Now," said he roughly, "get out of here! When this man comes to, you
+tell him he's fired! He's not to show his face on this river again!"
+
+The saloon-keeper demurred, blustering slightly after the time-tried
+manner of his sort.
+
+"Look here, young fellow, you can't talk that way to me."
+
+"Can't I!" snapped Bob; "well, you turn around and get out of here."
+
+The man met full the blaze of the extra-normal powers not yet fallen
+below the barrier in the young fellow's personality. He gathered up the
+reins and drove away.
+
+Bob watched him out of sight, his chest rising and falling with the
+receding waves of his passion. He was a strange young figure with his
+torn garments, his tossed hair, the streak of blood beneath his eye, and
+the inner fading glow of his face. At last he drew a long, shuddering
+breath, and turned to the expectant and silent group of rivermen.
+
+"Boys," said he pleasantly, "I don't know one damn thing about
+river-driving, but I do know when a man's doing his best work. I shall
+expect you fellows to get in and rustle down those logs. Any man who
+thinks he's going to soldier on me is going to get fooled, and he's
+going to get his time handed out to him on the spot. As near as I can
+make out, unless we get an everlasting wiggle on us--every one of
+us--this drive'll hang up; and I'd just as soon hang it by laying off
+those who try to shirk as by letting you hang it by not working your
+best. So get busy. If anybody wants to quit, let 'em step up right now.
+Any remarks?" He looked from one to another.
+
+"Nary remark," said one man at last.
+
+"All right. Now get your backs into this. It's _team work_ that counts.
+You've each got your choice; either you can lie like the devil to hide
+the fact that you were a member of the Cedar Branch crew in 1899, or you
+can go away and brag about it. It's up to you. Get busy."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Two days later Welton swung from the train at Twin Falls. His red, jolly
+face was as quizzical as ever, but one who knew him might have noticed
+that his usual leisurely movements had quickened. He walked rapidly to
+the livery stable where he ordered a rig.
+
+"Where's the drive, Hank?" he asked the liveryman.
+
+"Search me!" was his reply; "somewhere down river. Old Murdock is up
+talkin' wild about damage suits, and there's evidently been one hell of
+a row, but I just got back myself from drivin' a drummer over to
+Watsonville."
+
+"Know if Darrell is in town?"
+
+"Oh, _he's_ in town; there ain't no manner of doubt as to that."
+
+"Drunk, eh?"
+
+"Spifflicated, pie-eyed, loaded, soshed," agreed the liveryman
+succinctly.
+
+Welton shook his head humorously and ruefully.
+
+"Say, Welton," demanded the liveryman with the easy familiarity of his
+class, "why in blazes do you put a plain drunk like that in charge?"
+
+"Darrell is a good man on a big job," said Welton; "you can't beat him,
+and you can't get him to take a drink. But it takes a big job to steady
+him."
+
+"Well, I'd fire him," stated Hank positively.
+
+"He's already fired," spoke up a hostler, "they laid him off two days
+ago when he went down drunk and tried to take charge."
+
+"Well, now," chuckled Welton, as he gathered up the reins, "who'd have
+thought old Larsen could scare up the spunk!"
+
+He drove down the river road. When he came to a point opposite Murdock's
+he drew up.
+
+"That wire said that Murdock had the river blocked," he mused, "but
+she's certainly flowing free enough now. The river's sacked clean now."
+
+His presence on the bank had attracted the attention of a man in the
+mill. After a long scrutiny, this individual launched a skiff and pulled
+across the stream.
+
+"I thought it was you," he cried as soon as he had stepped ashore.
+"Well, let me tell you I'm going to sue you for damages, big damages!"
+
+Welton looked him over quizzically, and the laughing lines deepened
+around the corners of his eyes.
+
+"Lay on, MacDuff," said he, "nobody's sued me yet this year, and it
+didn't seem natural."
+
+"And for assault with deadly weapons, and malicious destruction of
+property, and seizure and----"
+
+"You must have been talking to a country lawyer," interrupted Welton,
+with one of his subterranean chuckles. "Don't do it. They got nothing
+_but_ time, and you know what your copy book says about idle hands." He
+crossed one leg and leaned back as though for a comfortable chat. "No,
+you come and see me, Murdock, and state how much you've been damaged,
+and we'll see what we can do. Why, these little lawyers love to name
+things big. They'd call a sewing circle a riot if one of the members
+dropped a stitch."
+
+But Murdock was in deadly earnest.
+
+"Perhaps throwin' dynamite on the end of a pole, and mighty nigh killin'
+us, and just blowin' the whole river up in the air is your idea of
+somethin' little," he stormed; "well, you'll find it'll look big enough
+in court."
+
+"So that's what they did to clear the river," said Welton, more than
+half to himself. "Well, Murdock, suit yourself; you can see me or that
+intellectual giant of a lawyer of yours. You'll find me cheaper. So
+long."
+
+He drove on, chuckling.
+
+"I didn't think old Larsen had the spunk," he repeated after a time.
+"Guess I ought to have put him in charge in the beginning."
+
+He drove to a point where the erratic road turned inland. There he tied
+his horse to a tree and tramped on afoot. After a little he came in
+sight of the rear--and stopped.
+
+The men were working hard; a burst of hearty laughter saluted Welton's
+ears. He could hardly believe them. Nobody had heard this sullen crew of
+nondescript rivermen from everywhere exhibit the faintest symptoms of
+good-humour or interest before. Another burst of laughter came up the
+breeze. A dozen men ran out over the logs as though skylarking, inserted
+their peavies in a threatened lock, and pried it loose.
+
+"Pretty work," said the expert in Welton.
+
+He drew nearer through the low growth until he stood well within hearing
+and seeing distance. Then he stopped again.
+
+Bob Orde was walking up and down the bank talking to the men. They were
+laughing back at him. His manner was half fun, half earnest, part
+rueful, part impatient, wholly affectionate.
+
+"You, Jim," said he, "go out and get busy. You're loafing, you know you
+are; I don't give a damn what you're to do. Do something! Don't give an
+imitation of a cast-iron hero. No, I won't either tell you what to do. I
+don't know. But do it, even if you have to make it up out of your own
+head. Consider the festive water-beetle, and the ant and other
+industrious doodle-bugs. Get a wiggle on you, fellows. We'll never get
+out at this rate. If this drive gets hung up, I'm going to murder every
+last one of you. Come on now, all together; if I could walk out on those
+logs I'd build a fire under you; but you've got me tied to the bank and
+you know it, you big fat loafers, you!"
+
+"Keep your hair on, bub; we'll make it, all right"
+
+"Well, we'd just better make it," warned Bob. "Now I'm going down to the
+jam to see whether their alarm clock went off this morning.--Now, don't
+slumber!"
+
+After he had disappeared down the trail, Welton stepped into view.
+
+"Oh, Charley!" he called.
+
+One of the rivermen sprang ashore.
+
+"When did the rear leave Murdock's?" he asked without preliminary.
+
+"Thursday."
+
+"You've made good time."
+
+"Bet we have," replied Charley with pride.
+
+"Who's jam boss?"
+
+"Larsen."
+
+"Who's in charge of the river, then?" demanded Welton sharply.
+
+"Why, young Orde!" replied the riverman, surprised.
+
+"Since when?"
+
+"Since he blew up Murdock's piles."
+
+"Oh, he did that, did he? I suppose he fired Darrell, too?"
+
+"Sure. It was a peach of a scrap."
+
+"Scrap?"
+
+"Yep. That Orde boy is a wonder. He just _ruined_ Roaring Dick."
+
+"He did, did he?" commented Welton. "Well, so long."
+
+He followed Bob down the river trail. At the end of a half-mile he
+overtook the young fellow kneeling on a point gazing at a peeled stake
+planted at the edge of the river.
+
+"Wish I knew how long this water was going to hold out," he murmured, as
+he heard a man pause behind him. "She's dropped two inches by my patent
+self-adjusting gauge."
+
+"Young man," said Welton, "are you on the payrolls of this company?"
+
+Bob turned around, then instantly came to his feet.
+
+"Oh, you're here at last, Mr. Welton," he cried in tones of vast relief.
+
+"Answer my question, please."
+
+"What?" asked Bob with an expression of bewilderment.
+
+"Are you on the payrolls of this company?"
+
+"No, sir, of course not. You know that."
+
+"Then what are you doing in charge of this river?"
+
+"Why, don't you see--"
+
+"I see you've destroyed property and let us in for a big damage suit. I
+see you've discharged our employees without authority to do so. I see
+you're bossing my men and running my drive without the shadow of a
+right."
+
+"But something had to be done," expostulated Bob.
+
+"What do you know about river-driving?" broke in Welton. "Not a thing."
+
+"Men who told me did--"
+
+"A bunch of river-hogs," broke in Welton contemptuously. "It strikes me,
+young man, that you have the most colossal cheek I've ever heard of."
+
+But Bob faced him squarely.
+
+"Look here," he said decidedly, "I'm technically wrong, and I know it.
+But good men told me your measly old drive would hang if it stayed there
+two days longer; and I believed them, and I believe them yet. I don't
+claim to know anything about river-driving, but here your confounded
+drive is well on its way. I kicked that drunk off the river because he
+was no good. I took hold here to help you out of a hole, and you're
+out."
+
+"But," said Welton, carefully, "don't you see that you took chances on
+losing me a lot of property?"
+
+Bob looked up at him a moment wearily.
+
+"From my point of view I have nothing to regret," said he stiffly, and
+turned away.
+
+The humorous lines about Welton's eyes had been deepening throughout
+this interview.
+
+"That tops it off," said he. "First you get me into trouble; then you
+fire my head man; then you run off with my property; finally you tell me
+to go to hell! Son, you are a great man! Shake!"
+
+Bob whirled in surprise to search Welton's good-natured jolly face. The
+latter was smiling.
+
+"Shake," he repeated, relapsing, as was his habit when much in earnest,
+into his more careless speech; "you done just right. Son, remember
+this:--it's true--it ain't _doing_ things that makes a man so much as
+_deciding_ things."
+
+One of his great chuckles bubbled up.
+
+"It took some nerve to jump in the way you did; and some sand to handle
+the flea-bitten bunch of river-hogs----"
+
+"You're mistaken about them," Bob broke in earnestly. "They've been
+maligned. They're as good and willing a squad as I ever want to see----"
+
+"Oh, sure," laughed Welton; "they're a nice little job lot of tin
+angels. However, don't worry. You sure saved the day, for I believe we
+would have hung if we hadn't got over the riffles before this last drop
+of the water."
+
+He began to laugh, at first, gently, then more and more heartily, until
+Bob stared at him with considerable curiosity and inquiry. Welton caught
+his look.
+
+"I was just thinking of Harvey and Collins," he remarked enigmatically
+as he wiped his eyes. "Oh, Bobby, my son, you sure do please me. Only I
+was afraid for a minute it might be a flash in the pan and you weren't
+going to tell me to go to hell."
+
+They turned back toward the rear.
+
+"By the way," Welton remarked, "you made one bad break just now."
+
+"What was that?" asked Bob.
+
+"You told me you were not on the payrolls of this company. You are."
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+For a year Bob worked hard at all sorts of jobs. He saw the woods work,
+the river work, the mill work. From the stump to the barges he followed
+the timbers. Being naturally of a good intelligence, he learned very
+fast how things were done, so that at the end of the time mentioned he
+had acquired a fair working knowledge of how affairs were accomplished
+in this business he had adopted. That does not mean he had become a
+capable lumberman. One of the strangest fallacies long prevalent in the
+public mind is that lumbering is always a sure road to wealth. The
+margin of profit seems very large. As a matter of fact, the industry is
+so swiftly conducted, on so large a scale, along such varied lines; the
+expenditures must be made so lavishly, and yet so carefully; the
+consequences of a niggardly policy are so quickly apparent in decreased
+efficiency, and yet the possible leaks are so many, quickly draining the
+most abundant resources, that few not brought up through a long
+apprenticeship avoid a loss. A great deal of money has been and is made
+in timber. A great deal has been lost, simply because, while the
+possibilities are alluring, the complexity of the numerous problems is
+unseen.
+
+At first Bob saw only the results. You went into the woods with a crew
+of men, felled trees, cut them into lengths, dragged them to the roads
+already prepared, piled them on sleighs, hauled them to the river, and
+stacked them there. In the spring you floated the logs to the mill where
+they were sawed into boards, laden into sailing vessels or steam barges,
+and taken to market. There was the whole process in a nutshell. Of
+course, there would be details and obstructions to cope with. But
+between the eighty thousand dollars or so worth of trees standing in the
+forest and the quarter-million dollars or so they represented at the
+market seemed space enough to allow for many reverses.
+
+As time went on, however, the young man came more justly to realize the
+minuteness of the bits comprising this complicated mosaic. From keeping
+men to the point of returning, in work, the worth of their wages; from
+so correlating and arranging that work that all might be busy and not
+some waiting for others; up through the anxieties of weather and the
+sullen or active opposition of natural forces, to the higher levels of
+competition and contracts, his awakened attention taught him that
+legitimate profits could attend only on vigilant and minute attention,
+on comprehensive knowledge of detail, on experience, and on natural
+gift. The feeding of men abundantly at a small price involved questions
+of buying, transportation and forethought, not to speak of concrete
+knowledge of how much such things should ideally be worth. Tools by the
+thousand were needed at certain places and at certain times. They must
+be cared for and accounted for. Horses, and their feed, equipment and
+care, made another not inconsiderable item both of expense and
+attention. And so with a thousand and one details which it would be
+superfluous to enumerate here. Each cost money, and some one's time.
+Relaxed attention might make each cost a few pennies more. What do a few
+pennies amount to? Two things: a lowering of the standard of efficiency,
+and, in the long run, many dollars. If incompetence, or inexperience
+should be added to relaxed attention, so that the various activities do
+not mortise exactly one with another, and the legitimate results to be
+expected from the pennies do not arrive, then the sum total is very apt
+to be failure. Where organized and settled industries, however
+complicated in detail, are in a manner played by score, these frontier
+activities are vast improvisations following only the general
+unchangeable laws of commerce.
+
+Therefore, Bob was very much surprised and not a little dismayed at
+what Mr. Welton had to say to him one evening early in the spring.
+
+It was in the "van" of Camp Thirty-nine. Over in the corner under the
+lamp the sealer and bookkeeper was epitomizing the results of his day.
+Welton and Bob sat close to the round stove in the middle, smoking their
+pipes. The three or four bunks belonging to Bob, the scaler, and the
+camp boss were dim in another corner; the shelves of goods for trade
+with the men occupied a third. A rude door and a pair of tiny windows
+communicated with the world outside. Flickers of light from the cracks
+in the stove played over the massive logs of the little building, over
+the rough floor and the weapons and snowshoes on the wall. Both Bob and
+Welton were dressed in flannel and kersey, with the heavy German socks
+and lumberman's rubbers on their feet. Their bright-checked Mackinaw
+jackets lay where they had been flung on the beds. Costume and
+surroundings both were a thousand miles from civilization; yet
+civilization was knocking at the door. Welton gave expression to this
+thought.
+
+"Two seasons more'll finish us, Bob," said he. "I've logged the Michigan
+woods for thirty-five years, but now I'm about done here."
+
+"Yes, I guess they're all about done," agreed Bob.
+
+"The big men have gone West; lots of the old lumber jacks are out there
+now. It's our turn. I suppose you know we've got timber in California?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob, with a wry grin, as he thought of the columns of
+"descriptions" he had copied; "I know that."
+
+"There's about half a billion feet of it. We'll begin to manufacture
+when we get through here. I'm going out next month, as soon as the snow
+is out of the mountains, to see about the plant and the general lay-out.
+I'm going to leave you in charge here."
+
+Bob almost dropped his pipe as his jaws fell apart.
+
+"Me!" he cried.
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"But I can't; I don't know enough! I'd make a mess of the whole
+business," Bob expostulated.
+
+"You've been around here for a year," said Welton, "and things are
+running all right. I want somebody to see that things move along, and
+you're the one. Are you going to refuse?"
+
+"No; I suppose I can't refuse," said Bob miserably, and fell silent.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+To Bob's father Welton expressed himself in somewhat different terms.
+The two men met at the Auditorium Annex, where they promptly adjourned
+to the Palm Room and a little table.
+
+"Now, Jack," the lumberman replied to his friend's expostulation, "I
+know just as well as you do that the kid isn't capable yet of handling a
+proposition on his own hook. It's just for that reason that I put him in
+charge."
+
+"And Welton isn't an Irish name, either," murmured Jack Orde.
+
+"What? Oh, I see. No; and that isn't an Irish bull, either. I put him in
+charge so he'd have to learn something. He's a good kid, and he'll take
+himself dead serious. He'll be deciding everything that comes up all for
+himself, and he'll lie awake nights doing it. And all the time things
+will be going on almost like he wasn't there!"
+
+Welton paused to chuckle in his hearty manner.
+
+"You see, I've brought that crew up in the business. Mason is as good a
+mill man as they make; and Tally's all right in the woods and on the
+river; and I reckon it would be difficult to take a nick out of Collins
+in office work."
+
+"In other words, Bob is to hold the ends of the reins while these other
+men drive," said his father, vastly amused. "That's more like it. I'd
+hate to bury a green man under too much responsibility."
+
+"No," denied Welton, "it isn't that exactly. Somebody's got to boss the
+rest of 'em. And Bob certainly is a wonder at getting the men to like
+him and to work for him. That's his strong point. He gets on with them,
+and he isn't afraid to tell 'em when he thinks they're 'sojering' on
+him. That makes me think: I wonder what kind of ornaments these waiters
+are supposed to be." He rapped sharply on the little table with his
+pocket-knife.
+
+"It's up to him," he went on, after the waiter had departed. "If he's
+too touchy to acknowledge his ignorance on different points that come
+up, and if he's too proud to ask questions when he's stumped, why, he's
+going to get in a lot of trouble. If he's willing to rely on his men for
+knowledge, and will just see that everybody keeps busy and sees that
+they bunch their hits, why, he'll get on well enough."
+
+"It takes a pretty wise head to make them bunch their hits," Orde
+pointed out, "and a heap of figuring."
+
+"It'll keep him mighty busy, even at best," acknowledged Welton, "and
+he's going to make some bad breaks. I know that."
+
+"Bad breaks cost money," Orde reminded him.
+
+"So does any education. Even at its worst this can't cost much money. He
+can't wreck things--the organization is too good--he'll just make 'em
+wobble a little. And this is a mighty small and incidental proposition,
+while this California lay-out is a big project. No, by my figuring Bob
+won't actually do much, but he'll lie awake nights to do a hell of a lot
+of deciding, and----."
+
+"Oh, I know," broke in Orde with a laugh; "you haven't changed an inch
+in twenty years--and 'it's not doing but deciding that makes a man,'" he
+quoted.
+
+"Well, isn't it?" demanded Welton insistently.
+
+"Of course," agreed Orde with another laugh. "I was just tickled to see
+you hadn't changed a hair. Now if you'd only moralize on square pegs in
+round holes, I'd hear again the birds singing in the elms by the dear
+old churchyard."
+
+Welton grinned, a trifle shamefacedly. Nevertheless he went on with the
+development of his philosophy.
+
+"Well," he asserted stoutly, "that's just what Bob was when I got there.
+He can't handle figures any better than I can, and Collins had been
+putting him through a course of sprouts." He paused and sipped at his
+glass. "Of course, if I wasn't absolutely certain of the men under him,
+it would be a fool proposition. Bob isn't the kind to get onto treachery
+or double-dealing very quick. He likes people too well. But as it is,
+he'll get a lot of training cheap."
+
+Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly between puffs at
+his cigar.
+
+"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California now?" he asked
+at length. "You'll be building your roads and flumes and railroad,
+getting your mill up, buying your machinery and all the rest of it. That
+ought to be good experience for him--to see the thing right from the
+beginning."
+
+"Bob is going to be a lumberman, and that isn't lumbering; it's
+construction. Once it's up, it will never have to be done again. The
+California timber will last out Bob's lifetime, and you know it. He'd
+better learn lumbering, which he'll do for the next fifty years, than to
+build a mill, which he'll never have to do again--unless it burns up,"
+he added as a half-humorous afterthought.
+
+"Correct," Orde agreed promptly to this. "You're a wonder. When I found
+a university with my ill-gotten gains, I'll give you a job as professor
+of--well, of Common Sense, by jiminy!"
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Bob managed to lose some money in his two years of apprenticeship. That
+is to say, the net income from the small operations under his charge was
+somewhat less than it would have been under Welton's supervision. Even
+at that, the balance sheet showed a profit. This was probably due more
+to the perfection of the organization than to any great ability on Bob's
+part. Nevertheless, he exercised a real control over the firm's
+destinies, and in one or two instances of sudden crisis threw its
+energies definitely into channels of his own choosing. Especially was
+this true in dealing with the riverman's arch-enemy, the mossback.
+
+The mossback follows the axe. When the timber is cut, naturally the land
+remains. Either the company must pay taxes on it, sell it, or allow it
+to revert to the state. It may be very good land, but it is encumbered
+with old slashing, probably much of it needs drainage, a stubborn
+second-growth of scrub oak or red willows has already usurped the soil,
+and above all it is isolated. Far from the cities, far from the
+railroad, far even from the crossroad's general store, it is further cut
+off by the necessity of traversing atrocious and--in the wet
+season--bottomless roads to even the nearest neighbour. Naturally, then,
+in seeking purchasers for this cut-over land, the Company must address
+itself to a certain limited class. For, if a man has money, he will buy
+him a cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in pennies
+and gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself to clearing the land. It
+follows that he is poverty-stricken, lives frugally and is very
+tenacious of what property rights he may be able to coax or wring from
+a hard wilderness. He dwells in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees no
+farther than the rail fence he has split out to surround his farm.
+
+Thus, while he possesses many of the sturdy pioneer virtues, he becomes
+by necessity the direct antithesis to the riverman. The purchase of a
+bit of harness, a vehicle, a necessary tool or implement is a matter of
+close economy, long figuring, and much work. Interest on the mortgage
+must be paid. And what can a backwoods farm produce worth money? And
+where can it find a market? Very little; and very far. A man must "play
+close to his chest" in order to accomplish that plain, primary, simple
+duty of making both ends meet. The extreme of this virtue means a
+defect, of course; it means narrowness of vision, conservatism that
+comes close to suspicion, illiberality. When these qualities meet the
+sometimes foolishly generous and lavish ideas of men trained in the
+reckless life of the river, almost inevitably are aroused suspicion on
+one side, contempt on the other and antagonism on both.
+
+This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But when, as often
+happens, the mossback's farm extends to the very river bank itself; when
+the legal rights of property clash with the vaguer but no less certain
+rights of custom, then there is room for endless bickering. When the
+river boss steps between his men and the backwoods farmer, he must, on
+the merits of the case and with due regard to the sort of man he has to
+deal with, decide at once whether he will persuade, argue, coerce, or
+fight. It may come to be a definite choice between present delay or a
+future lawsuit.
+
+This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon to make. He
+knew little about law, but he had a very good feeling for the human
+side. Whatever mistakes he made, the series of squabbles nourished his
+sense of loyalty to the company. His woods training was gradually
+bringing him to the lumberman's point of view; and the lumberman's point
+of view means, primarily, timber and loyalty.
+
+"By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first thought on
+entering a particularly imposing grove.
+
+Where another man would catch merely a general effect, his more
+practised eye would estimate heights, diameters, the growth of the
+limbs, the probable straightness of the grain. His eye almost
+unconsciously sought the possibilities of location--whether a road could
+be brought in easily, whether the grades could run right. A fine tree
+gave him the complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on analytical
+contemplation of any object. It meant timber, good or bad, as well as
+beauty.
+
+Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally of a partisan
+temperament. He played the game fairly, but he played it hard. Games
+imply rules, and any infraction of the rules is unfair and to be
+punished. Bob could not be expected to reflect that while rules are
+generally imposed by a third party on both contestants alike, in this
+game the rules with which he was acquainted had been made by his side;
+that perhaps the other fellow might have another set of rules. All he
+saw was that the antagonists were perpetrating a series of contemptible,
+petty, mean tricks or a succession of dastardly outrages. His loyalty
+and anger were both thoroughly aroused, and he plunged into his little
+fights with entire whole-heartedness. As his side of the question meant
+getting out the logs, the combination went far toward efficiency. When
+the drive was down in the spring, Bob looked back on his mossback
+campaign with a little grieved surprise that men could think it worth
+their self-respect to try to take such contemptible advantage of
+quibbles for the purpose of defeating what was certainly customary and
+fair, even if it might not be technically legal. What the mossbacks
+thought about it we can safely leave to the crossroad stores.
+
+In other respects Bob had the good sense to depend absolutely on his
+subordinates.
+
+"How long do you think it ought to take to cut the rest of Eight?" he
+would ask Tally.
+
+"About two weeks."
+
+Bob said nothing more, but next day he ruminated long in the snow-still
+forest at Eight, trying to apportion in his own mind the twelve days'
+work. If it did not go at a two weeks' gait, he speedily wanted to know
+why.
+
+When the sleighs failed to return up the ice road with expected
+regularity, Bob tramped down to the "banks" to see what the trouble was.
+When he returned, he remarked casually to Jim Tally:
+
+"I fired Powell off the job as foreman, and put in Downy."
+
+"Why?" asked Tally. "I put Powell in there because I thought he was an
+almighty good worker."
+
+"He is," said Bob; "too good. I found them a little short-handed down
+there, and getting discouraged. The sleighs were coming in on them
+faster than they could unload. The men couldn't see how they were going
+to catch up, so they'd slacked down a little, which made it worse.
+Powell had his jacket off and was working like the devil with a
+canthook. He does about the quickest and hardest yank with a canthook I
+ever saw," mused Bob.
+
+"Well?" demanded Tally.
+
+"Oh," said Bob, "I told him if that was the kind of a job he wanted, he
+could have it. And I told Downy to take charge. I don't pay a foreman's
+wages for canthook work; I hire him to keep the men busy, and he sure
+can't do it if he occupies his time and attention rolling logs."
+
+"He was doing his best to straighten things out," said Tally.
+
+"Well, I'm now paying him for his best," replied Bob, philosophically.
+
+But if it had been a question of how most quickly to skid the logs
+brought in by the sleighs, Bob would never have dreamed of questioning
+Powell's opinion, although he might later have demanded expert
+corroboration from Tally.
+
+The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in training, both
+physically and spiritually. He realized his mistakes, but they were now
+mistakes of judgment rather than of mechanical accuracy, and he did not
+worry over them once they were behind him.
+
+When Welton returned from California toward the close of the season, he
+found the young man buoyant and happy, deeply absorbed, well liked, and
+in a fair way to learn something about the business.
+
+Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed down. The
+remaining lumber in the yards was shipped out as rapidly as possible. By
+the end of September the work was over.
+
+Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while affairs were in
+preparation for the westward exodus.
+
+Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the Chicago offices.
+
+He entered the little outer office he had left so down-heartedly three
+years before. Harvey and his two assistants sat on the high stools in
+front of the shelf-like desk. The same pictures of record loads, large
+trees, mill crews and logging camps hung on the walls. The same
+atmosphere of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place. Through
+the half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg swung over the arm of
+his revolving chair, chatting in a leisurely fashion with some visitor.
+
+No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment staring at the three
+bent backs before him. He remembered the infinite details of the work he
+had left, the purchasings of innumerable little things, the regulation
+of outlays, the balancings of expenditures, the constantly shifting
+property values, the cost of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery,
+transportation, operation. And in addition he brought to mind the minute
+and vexatious mortgage and sale and rental business having to do with
+the old cut-over lands; the legal complications; the questions of
+arbitration and privilege. And beyond that his mind glimpsed dimly the
+extent of other interests, concerning which he knew little--investment
+interests, and silent interests in various manufacturing enterprises
+where the Company had occasionally invested a surplus by way of a flyer.
+In this quiet place all these things were correlated, compared,
+docketed, and filed away. In the brains of the four men before him all
+these infinite details were laid out in order. He knew that Harvey could
+answer specific questions as to any feature of any one of these
+activities. All the turmoil, the rush and roar of the river, the mills,
+the open lakes, the great wildernesses passed through this silent, dusty
+room. The problems that kept a dozen men busy in the solving came here
+also, together with a hundred others. Bob recalled his sight of the
+hurried, wholesale shipping clerk he had admired when, discouraged and
+discredited, he had left the office three years before. He had thought
+that individual busy, and had contrasted his activity with the
+somnolence of this office. Busy! Why, he, Bob, had over and over again
+been ten times as busy. At the thought he chuckled aloud. Harvey and his
+assistants turned to the sound.
+
+"Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!" cried the young man. "I'm certainly glad
+to see you. You're the only men I ever saw who could be really bang-up
+rushed and never show it."
+
+
+
+
+PART TWO
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+On a wintry and blustering evening in the latter part of February, 1902,
+Welton and Bob boarded the Union Pacific train en route for California.
+They distributed their hand baggage, then promptly took their way
+forward to the buffet car, where they disposed themselves in the
+leather-and-wicker armchairs for a smoke. At this time of year the
+travel had fallen off somewhat in volume. The westward tourist rush had
+slackened, and the train was occupied only by those who had definite
+business in the Land of Promise, and by that class of wise ones who
+realize that an Eastern March and April are more to be avoided than the
+regulation winter months. The smoking car contained then but a
+half-dozen men.
+
+Welton and Bob took their places and lit their cigars. The train swayed
+gently along, its rattle muffled by the storm. Polished black squares
+represented the windows across which drifted hazy lights and ghostlike
+suggestions of snowflakes. Bob watched this ebony nothingness in great
+idleness of spirit. Presently one of the half-dozen men arose from his
+place, walked the length of the car, and dropped into the next chair.
+
+"You're Bob Orde, aren't you?" he remarked without preliminary.
+
+Bob looked up. He saw before him a very heavy-set young man, of medium
+height, possessed of a full moon of a face, and alert brown eyes.
+
+"I thought so," went on this young man in answer to Bob's assent. "I'm
+Baker of '93. You wouldn't know me; I was before your time. But I know
+you. Seen you play. Headed for the Sunshine and Flowers?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob.
+
+"Ever been there before?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Great country! If you listen to all the come-on stuff you may be
+disappointed--at first."
+
+"How's that?" asked Bob, highly amused. "Isn't the place what it's
+cracked up to be?"
+
+"It's more," asserted Baker, "but not the same stuff. The climate's
+bully--best little old climate they've made, up to date--but it's got to
+rain once in a while; and the wind's got to blow; and all that. If you
+believe the Weather in the Old Home column, you'll be sore. In two years
+you'll be sore, anyway, whenever it does anything but stand 55 at night,
+72 at noon and shine like the spotlight on the illustrated songster. If
+a Californian sees a little white cloud about as big as a toy balloon
+down in the southeast corner he gets morose as a badger. If it starts to
+drizzle what you'd call a light fog he holes up. When it rains he
+hibernates like a bear, and the streets look like one of these populous
+and thriving Aztec metropoli you see down Sonora way. I guess every man
+is privileged to get just about so sore on the weather wherever he
+is--and does so."
+
+"You been out there long?" asked Bob.
+
+"Ever since I graduated," returned Baker promptly, "and I wouldn't live
+anywhere else. They're doing real things. Don't you run away with any
+notions of _dolce far nientes_ or tropical languor. This California gang
+is strictly on the job. The bunch seated under the spreading banana tree
+aren't waiting for the ripe fruit to drop in their mouths. That's in the
+First Reader and maybe somewhere down among the Black and Tans--"
+
+"Black and Tans?" interrupted Bob with a note of query.
+
+"Yep. Oilers--greasers--Mexicans--hidalgos of all kinds from here to the
+equator," explained Baker. "No, sir, that gang under the banana tree are
+either waiting there to sandbag the next tourist and sell him some real
+estate before he comes to, or else they're figuring on uprooting said
+piffling shrub and putting up an office building. Which part of the
+country are you going to?"
+
+"Near White Oaks," said Bob.
+
+"No abalone shells for yours, eh?" remarked Baker cryptically. He
+glanced at Welton. "Where's your timber located?" he asked.
+
+"Near Granite," replied Bob;--"why, how the devil did you know we were
+out for timber?"
+
+"'How did the Master Mind solve that problem?'" asked Baker. "Ah, that's
+my secret!"
+
+"No, that doesn't go," said Bob. "I insist on knowing; and what was that
+abalone shell remark?"
+
+"Abalone shells--tourists," capitulated Baker; "also Mexican drawn work,
+bead belts, burned leather, fake turquoise and ostrich eggs. Sabe?"
+
+"Sure. But why not a tourist?"
+
+"Tourist--in White Oaks!" cried Baker. "Son, White Oaks raises raisins
+and peaches and apricots and figs and such things in quantities to
+stagger you. It is a nice, well-built city, and well conducted, and full
+of real estate boards and chambers of commerce. But it is not framed up
+for tourists, and it knows it. Not at 100 degrees Fahrenheit 'most all
+summer, and a chill and solemn land fog 'most all winter."
+
+"Well, why timber?" demanded Bob.
+
+"My dear Watson," said Baker, indicating Mr. Welton, who grinned. "Does
+your side partner resemble a raisin raiser? Has he the ear marks of a
+gentle agriculturist? Would you describe him as a typical sheepman, or
+as a daring and resolute bee-keeper?"
+
+Bob shook his head, still unconvinced.
+
+"Well, if you will uncover my dark methods," sighed Baker. He leaned
+over and deftly abstracted from the breast pocket of Bob's coat a long,
+narrow document. "You see the top of this stuck out in plain sight. To
+the intelligent eye instructed beyond the second grade of our excellent
+school system the inscription cannot be mistaken." He held it around for
+Bob to see. In plain typing the document was endorsed as follows:
+
+"Granite County Timber Lands."
+
+"My methods are very subtle," said Baker, laughing. "I find it difficult
+to explain them. Come around sometime and I'll pick it out for you on
+the piano."
+
+"Where are you going?" asked Bob in his turn.
+
+"Los Angeles, on business."
+
+"On business?--or just buying abalone shells?"
+
+"It takes a millionaire or an Iowa farmer to be a tourist," replied
+Baker.
+
+"What are you doing?"
+
+"Supporting an extravagant wife, I tell Mrs. Baker. You want to get down
+that way. The town's a marvel. It's grown from thirty thousand to two
+hundred thousand in twenty years; it has enough real estate subdivisions
+to accommodate eight million; it has invented the come-on house built by
+the real estate agents to show how building is looking up at
+Lonesomehurst; it has two thousand kinds of architecture--all different;
+it has more good stuff and more fake stuff than any place on earth--it's
+a wonder. Come on down and I'll show you the high buildings."
+
+He chatted for a few moments, then rose abruptly and disappeared down
+the aisle toward the sleeping cars without the formality of a farewell.
+
+Welton had been listening amusedly, and puffing away at his cigar in
+silence.
+
+"Well," said he when Baker had gone. "How do you like your friend?"
+
+"He's certainly amusing," laughed Bob, "and mighty good company. That
+sort of a fellow is lots of fun. I've seen them many times coming back
+at initiation or Commencement. They are great heroes to the kids."
+
+"But not to any one else?" inquired Welton.
+
+"Well--that's about it," Bob hesitated. "They're awfully good fellows,
+and see the joke, and jolly things up; but they somehow don't amount to
+much."
+
+"Wouldn't think much of the scheme of trying Baker as woods foreman up
+in our timber, then?" suggested Welton.
+
+"Him? Lord, no!" said Bob, surprised.
+
+Welton threw back his head and laughed heartily, in great salvos.
+
+"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "Oh, Bobby, I wish any old Native Son could be
+here to enjoy this joke with me. Ho! ho! ho! ho!"
+
+The coloured porter stuck his head in to see what this tremendous
+rolling noise might be, grinned sympathetically, and withdrew.
+
+"What's the matter with you!" cried Bob, exasperated. "Shut up, and be
+sensible."
+
+Welton wiped his eyes.
+
+"That, son, is Carleton P. Baker. Just say Carleton P. Baker to a
+Californian."
+
+"Well, I can't, for four days, anyway. Who is he?"
+
+"Didn't find out from him, for all his talk, did you?" said Welton
+shrewdly. "Well, Baker, as he told you, graduated from college in '93.
+He came to California with about two thousand dollars of capital and no
+experience. He had the sense to go in for water rights, and here he is!"
+
+"Marvellous!" cried Bob sarcastically. "But what is he now that he is
+here?"
+
+"Head of three of the biggest power projects in California," said Welton
+impressively, "and controller of more potential water power than any
+other man or corporation in the state."
+
+Welton enjoyed his joke hugely. After Bob had turned in, the big man
+parted the curtains to his berth.
+
+"Oh, Bob," he called guardedly.
+
+"What!" grunted the young man, half-asleep.
+
+"Who do you think we'd better get for woods foreman just _in case_
+Baker shouldn't take the job?"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+All next day the train puffed over the snow-blown plains. There was
+little in the prospect, save an inspiration to thankfulness that the
+cars were warm and comfortable. Bob and Welton spent the morning going
+over their plans for the new country. After lunch, which in the manner
+of trans-continental travellers they stretched over as long a period as
+possible, they again repaired to the smoking car. Baker hailed them
+jovially, waving a stubby forefinger at vacant seats.
+
+"Say, do Populists grow whiskers, or do whiskers make Populists?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Give it up," replied Welton promptly. "Why?"
+
+"Because if whiskers make Populists, I don't blame this state for going
+Pop. A fellow'd have to grow some kind of natural chest protector in
+self-defence. Look at that snow! And thirty dollars will take you out
+where there's none of it, and the soil's better, and you can see
+something around you besides fresh air. Why, any one of these poor
+pinhead farmers could come out our way, get twenty acres of irrigated
+land, and in five years--"
+
+"Hold on!" cried Bob, "you haven't by any chance some of that real
+estate for sale--or a sandbag?"
+
+Baker laughed.
+
+"Everybody gets that way," said he. "I'll bet the first five men you
+meet will fill you up on statistics."
+
+He knew the country well, and pointed out in turn the first low rises of
+the prairie swell, and the distant Rockies like a faint blue and white
+cloud close down along the horizon. Bob had never seen any real
+mountains before, and so was much interested. The train laboured up the
+grades, steep to the engine, but insignificant to the eye; it passed
+through the canons to the broad central plateau. The country was broken
+and strange, with its wide, free sweeps, its sage brush, its stunted
+trees, but it was not mountainous as Bob had conceived mountains. Baker
+grinned at him.
+
+"Snowclad peaks not up to specifications?" he inquired. "Chromos much
+better? Mountain grandeur somewhat on the blink? Where'd you expect them
+to put a railroad--out where the scenery is? Never mind. Wait till you
+slide off 'Cape Horn' into California."
+
+The cold weather followed them to the top of the Sierras. Snow, dull
+clouds, mists and cold enveloped the train. Miles of snowsheds
+necessitated keeping the artificial light burning even at midday. Winter
+held them in its grip.
+
+Then one morning they rounded the bold corner of a high mountain. Far
+below them dropped away the lesser peaks, down a breathless descent. And
+from beneath, so distant as to draw over themselves a tender veil of
+pearl gray, flowed out foothills and green plains. The engine coughed,
+shut off the roar of her exhaust. The train glided silently forward.
+
+"Now come to the rear platform," Baker advised.
+
+They sat in the open air while the train rushed downward. From the great
+drifts they ran to the soft, melting snow, then to the mud and freshness
+of early spring. Small boys crowded early wild-flowers on them whenever
+they stopped at the small towns built on the red clay. The air became
+indescribably soft and balmy, full of a gentle caress. At the next
+station the children brought oranges. A little farther the foothill
+ranches began to show the brightness of flowers. The most dilapidated
+hovel was glorified by splendid sprays of red roses big as cabbages.
+Dooryards of the tiniest shacks blazed with red and yellow. Trees and
+plants new to Bob's experience and strangely and delightfully exotic in
+suggestion began to usurp the landscape. To the far Northerner, brought
+up in only a common-school knowledge of olive trees, palms, eucalyptus,
+oranges, banana trees, pomegranates and the ordinary semi-tropical
+fruits, there is something delightful and wonderful in the first sight
+of them living and flourishing in the open. When closer investigation
+reveals a whole series of which he probably does not remember ever to
+have heard, he feels indeed an explorer in a new and wonderful land.
+After a few months these things become old stories. They take their
+places in his cosmos as accustomed things. He is then at some pains to
+understand his visitor's extravagant interest and delight over loquats,
+chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds, guavas, the blooming of century
+plants, the fruits of chollas and the like. Baker pointed out some of
+these things to Bob.
+
+"Winter to summer in two jumps and a hop," said he. "The come-on stuff
+rings the bell in this respect, anyway. Smell the air: it's real air.
+'Listen to the mocking bird.'"
+
+"Seriously or figuratively?" asked Bob. "I mean, is that a real mocking
+bird?"
+
+"Surest thing you know," replied Baker as the train moved on, leaving
+the songster to his ecstasies. "They sing all night out here. Sounds
+fine when you haven't a grouch. Then you want to collect a brick and
+drive the darn fowl off the reservation."
+
+"I never saw one before outside a cage," said Bob.
+
+"There's lots of things you haven't seen that you're going to see, now
+you've got out to the Real Thing," said Baker. "Why, right in your own
+line: you don't know what big pine is. Wait till you see the woods out
+here. We've got the biggest trees, and the biggest mountains, and the
+biggest crops and the biggest--."
+
+"Liars," broke in Bob, laughing. "Don't forget them."
+
+"Yes, the biggest liars, too," agreed Baker. "A man's got to lie big out
+here to keep in practice so he can tell the plain truth without
+straining himself."
+
+Before they changed cars to the Valley line, Baker had a suggestion to
+make.
+
+"Look here," said he, "why _don't_ you come and look at the tall
+buildings? You can't do anything in the mountains yet, and when you get
+going you'll be too busy to see California. Come, make a pasear. Glad to
+show you the sights. Get reckless. Take a chance. Peruse carefully your
+copy of Rules for Rubes and try it on."
+
+"Go ahead," said Welton, unexpectedly.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Bob went on to Los Angeles with the sprightly Baker. At first glance the
+city seemed to him like any other. Then, as he wandered its streets, the
+marvel and vigour and humour of the place seized on him.
+
+"Don't you suppose I see the joke?" complained Baker at the end of one
+of their long trolley rides. "Just get onto that house; it looks like a
+mission-style switch engine. And the one next to it, built to shed snow.
+Funny! sure it's funny. But you ain't talking to me! It's alive! Those
+fellows wanted something different from anybody else--so does everybody.
+After they'd used up the regular styles, they had to make 'em up out of
+the fresh air. But anyway, they weren't satisfied just to copy Si
+Golosh's idea of a Noah's Ark chicken coop."
+
+They stopped opposite very elaborate and impressive iron gates opening
+across a graded street. These gates were supported by a pair of stone
+towers crowned with tiles. A smaller pair of towers and gates guarded
+the concrete sidewalk. As a matter of fact, all these barriers enclosed
+nothing, for even in the remote possibility that the inquiring visitor
+should find them shut, an insignificant detour would circumvent their
+fenceless flanks.
+
+"Maudsley Court," Bob read sculptured on one of the towers.
+
+"That makes this particular subdivision mighty exclusive," grinned
+Baker. "Now if you were a homeseeker wouldn't you love to bring your
+dinner pail back to the cawstle every night?"
+
+Bob peered down the single street. It was graded, guttered and
+sidewalked. A small sentry box labelled "office," and inscribed with
+glowing eulogiums, occupied a strategic position near the gates. From
+this house Bob immediately became aware of close scrutiny by a man half
+concealed by the indoor dimness.
+
+"The spider," said Baker. "He's onto us big as a house. He can spot a
+yap at four hundred yards' range, and you bet they don't get much nearer
+than that alone."
+
+A huge sign shrieked of Maudsley Court. "Get a grin!" was its first
+advice.
+
+"They all try for a catchword--every one of 'em," explained Baker.
+"You'll see all kinds in the ads; some pretty good, most of 'em rotten."
+
+"They seem to have made a start, anyway," observed Bob, indicating a new
+cottage half way down the street. It was a super-artistic structure,
+exhibiting the ends of huge brown beams at all points. Baker laughed.
+
+"That's what it's intended to seem," said he. "That's the come-on house.
+It's built by the spider. It's stick-um for the flies. 'This is going to
+be a high-brow proposition,' says the intending purchaser; 'look at the
+beautiful house already up. I must join this young and thriving colony.'
+Hence this settled look."
+
+He waved his hand abroad. Dotted over the low, rounded hills of the
+charming landscapes were new and modern bungalows. They were spaced
+widely, and each was flanked by an advertising board and guarded by a
+pair of gates shutting their private thoroughfares from the country
+highways. Between them showed green the new crops.
+
+"Nine out of ten come-on houses," said Baker, "and all exclusive. If you
+can't afford iron gates, you can at least put up a pair of shingled
+pillars. It's the game."
+
+"Will these lots ever be sold?" asked Bob.
+
+"Out here, yes," replied Baker. "That's part of the joke. The methods
+are on the blink, but the goods insist on delivering themselves. Most of
+these fellows are just bunks or optimists. All hands are surprised when
+things turn out right. But if _all_ the lots are ever sold, Los Angeles
+will have a population of five million."
+
+They boarded an inward-bound trolley. Bob read the devices as they
+flashed past. "Hill-top Acres," he read near a street plastered against
+an apparently perpendicular hill. "Buy before the rise!" advised this
+man's rival at its foot. The true suburbs strung by in a panorama of
+strange little houses--imitation Swiss chalets jostling bastard Moorish,
+cobblestones elbowing plaster--a bewildering succession of forced
+effects. Baker caught Bob's expression.
+
+"These are workingmen's and small clerks' houses," he said quietly.
+"Pretty bad, eh? But they're trying. Remember what they lived in back
+East."
+
+Bob recalled the square, painted, ugly, featureless boxes built all
+after the same pattern of dreariness. He looked on this gay bewilderment
+of bad taste with more interest.
+
+"At least they're taking notice," said Baker, lighting his pipe. "And
+every fellow raises _some_ kind of posies."
+
+A few moments later they plunged into the vortex of the city and the
+smiling country, the far plains toward the sea, and the circle of the
+mountains were lost. Only remained overhead the blue of the California
+sky.
+
+Baker led the way toward a blaring basement restaurant.
+
+"I'm beginning to feel that I'll have to find some monkey-food
+somewhere, or cash in," said he.
+
+They found a table and sat down.
+
+"This is the place to see all the sights," proffered Baker, his broad
+face radiating satisfaction. "When they strike it rich on the desert,
+they hike right in here. That fat lady thug yonder is worth between
+three and four millions. Eight months ago she did washing at two bits a
+shirt while her husband drove a one-man prospect shaft. The other day
+she blew into the big jewelry store and wanted a thirty-thousand-dollar
+diamond necklace. The boss rolled over twice and wagged his tail. 'Yes,
+madam,' said he; 'what kind?' 'I dunno; just a thirty-thousand-dollar
+one.' That's all he could get out of her. 'But tell me how you want 'em
+set,' he begged. She looked bewildered. _'Oh, set 'em so they'll
+jingle,'_ says she."
+
+After the meal they walked down the principal streets, watching the
+crowd. It was a large crowd, as though at busy midday, and variously
+apparelled, from fur coat to straw hat. Each extreme of costume seemed
+justified, either by the balmy summer-night effect of the California
+open air, or by the hint of chill that crept from the distant mountains.
+Either aspect could be welcomed or ignored by a very slight effort of
+the will. Electric signs blazed everywhere. Bob was struck by the
+numbers of clairvoyants, palm readers, Hindu frauds, crazy cults, fake
+healers, Chinese doctors, and the like thus lavishly advertised. The
+class that elsewhere is pressed by necessity to the inexpensive
+dinginess of back streets, here blossomed forth in truly tropical
+luxuriance. Street vendors with all sorts of things, from mechanical
+toys to spot eradicators, spread their portable lay-outs at every
+corner. Vacant lots were crowded with spielers of all sorts--religious
+or political fanatics, vendors of cure-alls, of universal tools, of
+marvelous axle grease, of anything and everything to catch the idle
+dollar. Brilliantly lighted shops called the passer-by to contemplate
+the latest wavemotor, flying machine, door check, or what-not. Stock in
+these enterprises was for sale--and was being sold! Other sidewalk
+booths, like those ordinarily used as dispensaries of hot doughnuts and
+coffee, offered wild-cat mining shares, oil stock and real estate in
+some highly speculative suburb. Great stores of curios lay open to the
+tourist trade. Here one could buy sheepskin Indian moccasins made in
+Massachusetts, or abalone shells, or burnt-leather pillows, or a whole
+collection of photographic views so minute that they could all be packed
+in a single walnut shell. Next door were shops of Japanese and Chinese
+goods presided over by suave, sleepy-eyed Orientals, in wonderful
+brocade, wearing the close cap with the red coral button atop. Shooting
+galleries spit spitefully. Gasolene torches flared.
+
+Baker strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his hat on the back of
+his head. From time to time he cast an amused glance at his companion.
+
+"Come in here," he said abruptly.
+
+Bob found himself comfortably seated in a commodious open-air theatre,
+watching an excellent vaudeville performance. He enjoyed it thoroughly,
+for it was above the average. In fifteen minutes, however, the last
+soubrette disappeared in the wings to the accompaniment of a swirl of
+music. Her place was taken by a tall, facetious-looking, bald
+individual, clad in a loose frock coat. He held up his hand for silence.
+
+"Ladies 'n' gentlemen," he drawled, "we hope you have enjoyed
+yourselves. If you find a better show than this in any theatre in town,
+barring the Orpheum, come and tell us about it and we will see what we
+can do to brace ours up. I don't believe you can. This show will be
+repeated every afternoon and evening, with complete change of programme
+twice a week. Go away and tell your friends about the great free show
+down on Spring Street. Just tell them about it."
+
+Bob glanced startled at his companion. Baker was grinning.
+
+"This show has cost us up to date," went on the leisurely drawl, "just
+twenty-eight hundred dollars. Go and tell your friends that. _But_"--he
+suddenly straightened his figure and his voice became more
+incisive--"that is not enough. We have decided to give you something
+_real_ to talk about. We have decided to give every man, woman and child
+in this vast audience a first-night present of Two Silver Dollars!"
+
+Bob could feel an electric thrill run through the crowd, and every one
+sat up a little straighter in his chair.
+
+"Let me see," the orator went on, running his eye over the audience. He
+had resumed his quieter manner. "There are perhaps seven hundred people
+present. That would make fourteen hundred dollars. By the way, John,"
+he addressed some one briskly. "Close the gates and lock them. We don't
+want anybody in on this who didn't have interest enough in our show to
+come in the first place." He winked humorously at the crowd, and several
+laughed.
+
+"Pretty rotten, eh?" whispered Baker admiringly. "Fixed 'em so they
+won't bolt when the show's over and before he works off his dope."
+
+"These Two Silver Dollars, which I want you all to get, are in these
+hampers. Six little boys will distribute them. Come up, boys, and get
+each a hatful of dollars." The six solemnly marched up on the stage and
+busied themselves with the hampers. "While we are waiting," went on the
+orator, "I will seize the opportunity to present to you the world-famed
+discoverer of that wonderful anaesthetic, Oxodyne, Painless Porter."
+
+At the words a dapper little man in immaculately correct evening dress,
+and carrying a crush hat under his arm, stepped briskly from the wings.
+He was greeted by wild but presumably manufactured applause. He bowed
+rigidly from the hips, and at once began to speak in a high and nasal
+but extremely penetrating voice.
+
+"As far as advertising is concerned," he began without preamble, "it is
+entirely unnecessary that I give this show. There is no man, woman or
+child in this marvellous commonwealth of ours who is not familiar with
+the name of Painless Porter, whether from the daily papers, the
+advertising boards, the street cars, or the elegant red brougham in
+which I traverse your streets. My work for you is my best advertisement.
+It is unnecessary from that point of view that I spend this money for
+this show, or that this extra money should be distributed among you by
+my colleague, Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times."
+
+The tall man paused from his business with the hampers and the six boys
+to bow in acknowledgment.
+
+"No, ladies 'n' gentlemen, my purpose is higher. In the breast of each
+human being is implanted an instinctive fear of Pain. It sits on us like
+a nightmare, from the time we first come to consciousness of our
+surroundings. It is a curse of humanity, like drink, and he who can
+lighten that curse is as much of a philanthropist as George W. Childs or
+Andrew Carnegie. I want you to go away and talk about me. It don't
+matter what you say, just so you say something. You can call me quack,
+you may call me fakir, you may call me charlatan--but be sure to call me
+SOMETHING! Then slowly the news will spread abroad that Pain is
+banished, and I can smile in peace, knowing that my vast expenditures of
+time and money have not been in vain, and that I have been a benefit to
+humanity. Wizard Walker, the Medical Marvel of Modern Times, will now
+attend to the distribution, after which I will pull a few teeth gratis
+in order to demonstrate to you the wonderful merits of Oxodyne."
+
+"A dentist!" gasped Bob.
+
+"Yup," said Baker. "Not much gasoline-torch-on-the-back-lot in his, is
+there?"
+
+Bob was hardly surprised, after much preamble and heightening of
+suspense, to find that the Two Silver Dollars turned out finally to be a
+pink ticket and a blue ticket, "good respectively at the luxurious
+offices for one dollar's worth of dental and medical attention FREE."
+
+Nor was he more than slightly astounded when the back drop rose to show
+the stage set glitteringly with nickel-mounted dentist chairs and their
+appurtenances, with shining glass, white linen, and with a chorus of
+fascinating damsels dressed as trained nurses and standing rigidly at
+attention. Then entered Painless himself, in snowy shirt-sleeves and
+serious professional preoccupation. Volunteers came up two by two.
+Painless explained obscurely the scientific principles on which the
+marvelous Oxodyne worked--by severing temporarily but entirely all
+communication between the nerves and the brain. Then much business with
+a very glittering syringe.
+
+"My lord," chuckled Baker, "if he fills that thing up, it'll drown
+her!"
+
+In an impressive silence Painless flourished the forceps, planted
+himself square in front of his patient, heaved a moment, and
+triumphantly held up in full view an undoubted tooth. The trained nurses
+offered rinses. After a moment the patient, a roughly dressed country
+woman, arose to her feet. She was smiling broadly, and said something,
+which the audience could not hear. Painless smiled indulgently.
+
+"Speak up so they can all hear you," he encouraged her.
+
+"Never hurt a bit," the woman stammered.
+
+Three more operations were conducted as expeditiously and as
+successfully. The audience was evidently impressed.
+
+"How does he do it?" whispered Bob.
+
+"Cappers," explained Baker briefly. "He only fakes pulling a tooth.
+Watch him next time and you'll see that he doesn't actually pull an
+ounce."
+
+"Suppose a real toothache comes up?"
+
+"I think that is one now. Watch him."
+
+A young ranchman was making his way up the steps that led to the stage.
+His skin was tanned by long exposure to the California sun, and his
+cheek rounded into an unmistakable swelling.
+
+"No fake about him," commented Baker.
+
+He seated himself in the chair. Painless examined his jaw carefully. He
+started back, both hands spread in expostulation.
+
+"My _dear_ friend!" he cried, "you can save that tooth! It would be a
+crime to pull that tooth! Come to my office at ten to-morrow morning and
+I will see what can be done." He turned to the audience and for ten
+minutes expounded the doctrine of modern dentistry as it stands for
+saving a tooth whenever possible. Incidentally he had much to say as to
+his skill in filling and bridge work and the marvellous painlessness
+thereof. The meeting broke up finally to the inspiring strains of a
+really good band. Bob and his friend, standing near the door, watched
+the audience file out. Some threw away their pink and blue tickets, but
+most stowed them carefully away.
+
+"And every one that goes to the 'luxurious offices' for the free
+dollar's worth will leave ten round iron ones," said Baker.
+
+After a moment the Painless One and the Wizard marched smartly out,
+serenely oblivious of the crowd. They stepped into a resplendent red
+brougham and were whisked rapidly away.
+
+"It pays to advertise," quoted Baker philosophically.
+
+They moved on up the street.
+
+"There's the inventor of the Unlimited Life," said Baker suddenly,
+indicating a slender figure approaching. "I haven't seen him in three
+years--not since he got into this graft, anyway."
+
+"Unlimited Life," echoed Bob, "what's that? A medicine?"
+
+"No. A cult. Hullo, Sunny!"
+
+The approaching figure swerved and stopped. Bob saw a very slender
+figure clad in a close-fitting, gray frock suit. To his surprise, from
+beneath the wide, black felt hat there peered at him the keenly nervous
+face of the more intelligent mulatto. The man's eyes were very bright
+and shrewd. His hair surrounded his face as an aureole of darkness, and
+swept low to his coat collar.
+
+"Mr. Baker," he said, simply, his eyes inscrutable.
+
+"Well, Sunny, this is my old friend Bob Orde. Bob, this is the
+world-famous Sunny Larue, apostle of the Unlimited Life of whom you've
+heard so much." He winked at Bob. "How's the Colony flourishing, Sunny?"
+
+"More and more our people are growing to see the light," said the
+mulatto in low, musical tones. "The mighty but simple principles of
+Azamud are coming into their own. The poor and lowly, the humble and
+oppressed are learning that in me is their salvation--." He went on in
+his beautiful voice explaining the Colony of the Unlimited Life,
+addressing always Bob directly and paying little attention to Baker, who
+stood aside, his hands in his pockets, a smile on his fat, good-natured
+face. It seemed that the Colony lived in tents in a canon of the
+foothills. It paid Larue fifty dollars a head, and in return was
+supported for six months and instructed in the mysteries of the cult. It
+had its regimen. "At three we arise and break our fast, quite simply,
+with three or four dry prunes," breathed Larue, "and then, going forth
+to the high places for one hour, we hold steadfast the thought of Love."
+
+"Say, Sunny," broke in Baker, "how many you got rounded up now?"
+
+"There are at present twenty-one earnest proselytes."
+
+"At fifty a head--and you've got to feed and keep 'em somehow--even
+three dried prunes cost you something in the long run"--ruminated Baker.
+He turned briskly to the mulatto: "Sunny, on the dead, where does the
+graft come in?"
+
+The mulatto drew himself up in swift offence, scrutinized Bob closely
+for a moment, met Baker's grin. Abruptly his impressive manner dropped
+from him. He leaned toward them with a captivating flash of white teeth.
+
+"_You just leave that to me_," he murmured, and glided away into the
+crowd.
+
+Baker laughed and drew Bob's arm within his own.
+
+"Out of twenty of the faithful there's sure to be one or two with life
+savings stowed away in a sock, and Sunny's the boy to make them produce
+the sock."
+
+"What's his cult, anyway?" asked Bob. "I mean, what do they pretend to
+believe? I couldn't make out."
+
+"A nigger's idea of Buddhism," replied Baker briefly. "But you can get
+any brand of psychic damfoolishness you think you need in your business.
+They do it all, here, from going barefoot, eating nuts, swilling olive
+oil, rolling down hill, adoring the Limitless Whichness, and all the
+works. It is now," he concluded, looking at his watch, "about ten
+o'clock. We will finish the evening by dropping in on the Fuzzies."
+
+Together they boarded a street car, which shortly deposited them at an
+uptown corner. Large houses and spacious grounds indicated a district of
+some wealth. To one of these houses, brilliantly lighted, Baker directed
+his steps.
+
+"But I don't know these people, and I'm not properly dressed," objected
+Bob.
+
+"They know me. And as for dress, if you'd arrange to wear a chaste
+feather duster only, you'd make a hit."
+
+A roomful of people were buzzing like a hive. Most were in conventional
+evening dress. Here and there, however, Bob caught hints of masculine
+long hair, of feminine psyche knots, bandeaux and other extremely
+artistic but unusual departures. One man with his dinner jacket wore a
+soft linen shirt perforated by a Mexican drawn-work pattern beneath
+which glowed a bright red silk undergarment. Women's gowns on the
+flowing and Grecian order were not uncommon. These were usually coupled
+with the incongruity of parted hair brought low and madonna-wise over
+the ears. As the two entered, a very powerful blond man was just
+finishing the declamation of a French poem. He was addressing it
+directly at two women seated on a sofa.
+
+"_Un r-r-reve d'amour!_"
+
+He concluded with much passion and clasped hands.
+
+In the rustle ensuing after this effort, Baker led his friend down the
+room to a very fat woman upholstered in pink satin, to whom he
+introduced Bob. Mrs. Annis, for such proved to be her name, welcomed him
+effusively.
+
+"I've heard so much about you!" she cried vivaciously, to Bob's vast
+astonishment. She tapped him on the arm with her fan. "I'm going to make
+a confession to you; I know it may be foolish, but I do like music so
+much better than I do pictures."
+
+Bob, his brain whirling, muttered something.
+
+"But I'm going to confess to you again, I like artists so much better
+than I do musicians."
+
+A light dawned on Bob. "But I'm not an artist nor a musician," he
+blurted out.
+
+The pink-upholstered lady, starting back with an agility remarkable in
+one of her size, clasped her hands.
+
+"Don't _tell_ me you write!" she cried dramatically.
+
+"All right, I won't," protested poor Bob, "for I don't."
+
+A slow expression of bewilderment overspread Mrs. Annis's face, and she
+glanced toward Baker with an arched brow of interrogation.
+
+"I merely wanted Mr. Orde to meet you, Mrs. Annis," he said
+impressively, "and to feel that another time, when he is less exhausted
+by the strain of a long day, he may have the privilege of explaining to
+you the details of the great Psychic Movement he is inaugurating."
+
+Mrs. Annis smiled on him graciously. "I am home every Sunday to my
+_intimes_," she murmured. "I should be so pleased."
+
+Bob bowed mechanically.
+
+"You infernal idiot!" he ground out savagely to Baker, as they moved
+away. "What do you mean? I'll punch your fool head when I get you out of
+here!"
+
+But the plump young man merely smiled.
+
+Halfway down the room a group of attractive-looking young men hailed
+them.
+
+"Join in, Baker," said they. "Bring your friend along. We're just going
+to raid the commissary."
+
+But Baker shook his head.
+
+"I'm showing him life," he replied. "None but Fuzzies in his to-night!"
+
+He grasped Bob firmly by the arm and led him away.
+
+"That," he said, indicating a very pale young man, surrounded by women,
+"is Pickering, the celebrated submarine painter."
+
+"The what?" demanded Bob.
+
+"Submarine painter. He paints fish and green water and lobsters, and the
+bottom of the sea generally. He paints them on the skins of kind-faced
+little calves."
+
+"What does he do that for?"
+
+"He says it's the only surface that will express what he wants to. He
+has also invented a waterproof paint that he can use under water. He has
+a coral throne down on the bottom which he sits in, and paints as long
+as he can hold his breath."
+
+"Oh, he does!" said Bob.
+
+"Yes," said Baker.
+
+"But a man can't see three feet in front of his face under water!" cried
+Bob.
+
+"Pickering says he can. He paints submarinescapes, and knows all the
+fishes. He says fishes have individual expressions. He claims he can
+tell by a fish's expression whether he is polygamous or monogamous."
+
+"Do you mean to tell me anybody swallows that rot!" demanded Bob
+indignantly.
+
+"The women do--and a lot more I can't remember. The market for
+calf-skins with green swirls on them is booming. Also the women clubbed
+together and gave him money enough to build a house."
+
+Bob surveyed the little white-faced man with a strong expression of
+disgust.
+
+"The natural man never sits in chairs," the artist was expounding. "When
+humanity shall have come into its own we shall assume the graceful and
+hygienic postures of the oriental peoples. In society one must, to a
+certain extent, follow convention, but in my own house, the House
+Beautiful of my dreams, are no chairs. And even now a small group of the
+freer spirits are following my example. In time----"
+
+"If you don't take me away, I'll run in circles!" whispered Bob fiercely
+to his friend.
+
+They escaped into the open air.
+
+"Phew!" said Bob, straightening his long form. "Is that what you call
+the good society here?"
+
+"Good society is there," amended Baker. "That's the joke. There are lots
+of nice people in this little old town, people who lisp our language
+fluently. They are all mixed in with the Fuzzies."
+
+They decided to walk home. Bob marvelled at the impressive and
+substantial buildings, at the atrocious streets. He spoke of the
+beautiful method of illuminating one of the thoroughfares--by globes of
+light gracefully supported in clusters on branched arms either side the
+roadway.
+
+"They were originally bronze--and they went and painted them a mail-box
+green," commented Baker drily.
+
+At the hotel the night clerk, a young man, quietly dressed and with an
+engaging air, greeted them with just the right amount of cordiality as
+he handed them their keys. Bob paused to look about him.
+
+"This is a good hotel," he remarked.
+
+"It's one of the best-managed, the best-conducted, and the
+best-appointed hotels in the United States," said Baker with conviction.
+
+The next morning Bob bought all the papers and glanced through them with
+considerable wonder and amusement. They were decidedly metropolitan in
+size, and carried a tremendous amount of advertising. Early in his
+perusal he caught the personal bias of the news. Without distortion to
+the point of literal inaccuracy, nevertheless by skilful use of
+headlines and by manipulation of the point of view, all items were made
+to subserve a purpose. In local affairs the most vulgar nicknaming, the
+most savage irony, vituperation, scorn and contempt were poured out full
+measure on certain individuals unpopular with the papers. Such epithets
+as "lickspittle," "toad," "carcass blown with the putrefying gas of its
+own importance," were read in the body of narration.
+
+"These are the best-edited, most influential and powerful journals in
+the West," commented Baker. "They possess an influence inconceivable to
+an Easterner."
+
+The advertising columns were filled to bursting with advertisements of
+patent medicines, sex remedies, quack doctors, miraculous healers,
+clairvoyants, palm readers, "philanthropists" with something "free" to
+bestow, cleverly worded offers of abortion; with full-page prospectuses
+of mines; of mushroom industrial concerns having to do with wave motors,
+water motors, solar motors, patent couplers, improved telephones and the
+like, all of whose stock now stood at $1.10, but which on April 10th, at
+8.02 P.M., would go up to $1.15; with blaring, shrieking offers of real
+estate in this, that or the other addition, consisting, as Bob knew from
+yesterday, of farm acreage at front-foot figures. The proportion of this
+fake advertising was astounding. One in particular seemed incredible--a
+full page of the exponent of some Oriental method of healing and
+prophecy.
+
+"Of course, a full-page costs money," replied Baker. "But this is the
+place to get it." He pushed back his chair. "Well, what do you think of
+our fair young city?" he grinned.
+
+"It's got me going," admitted Bob.
+
+"Took me some time to find out where to get off at," said Baker. "When I
+found it out, I didn't dare tell anybody. They mob you here and string
+you up by your pigtail, if you try to hint that this isn't the one best
+bet on terrestrial habitations. They like their little place, and they
+believe in it a whole lot, and they're dead right about it! They'd stand
+right up on their hind legs and paw the atmosphere if anybody were to
+tell them what they really are, but it's a fact. Same joyous slambang,
+same line of sharps hanging on the outskirts, same row, racket, and joy
+in life, same struggle; yes, and by golly! the same big hopes and big
+enterprises and big optimism and big energies! Wouldn't you like to be
+helping them do it?"
+
+"What's the answer?" asked Bob, amused.
+
+"Well, for all its big buildings and its electric lights, and trolleys,
+and police and size, it's nothing more nor less than a frontier town."
+
+"A frontier town!" echoed Bob.
+
+"You think it over," said Baker.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+But if Bob imagined for one moment that he had acquired even a notion of
+California in his experiences and observations down the San Joaquin and
+in Los Angeles, the next few stages of his Sentimental Journey very soon
+undeceived him. Baker's business interests soon took him away. Bob,
+armed with letters of introduction from his friend, visited in turn such
+places as Santa Barbara, Riverside, San Diego, Redlands and Pasadena. He
+could not but be struck by the absolute differences that existed, not
+only in the physical aspects but in the spirit and aims of the peoples.
+If these communities had been separated by thousands of miles of
+distance they could not have been more unlike.
+
+At one place he found the semi-tropical luxuriance of flowers and trees
+and fruits, the soft, warm sunshine, the tepid, langourous, musical
+nights, the mellow haze of romance over mountain and velvet hill and
+soft sea, the low-shaded cottages, the leisurely attractive people one
+associates with the story-book conception of California. The place was
+charming in its surroundings and in its graces of life, but it was a
+cheerful, happy, out-at-the-heels, raggedy little town, whose bright
+gardens adorned its abyssmal streets, whose beautiful mountains
+palliated the naivete of its natural and atrocious roads. Bob mingled
+with its people with the pardonable amusement of a man fresh from the
+doing of big things. There seemed to be such long, grave and futile
+discussions over the undertaking of that which a more energetic
+community would do as a matter of course in the day's work. The
+liveryman from whom Bob hired his saddle horse proved to be a person of
+a leisurely and sardonic humour.
+
+"Their chief asset here is tourists," said he. "That's the leading
+industry. They can't see it, and they don't want to. They have just one
+road through the county. It's a bum one. You'd think it was a dozen, to
+hear them talk about the immense undertaking of making it halfway
+decent. Any other place would do these things they've been talking about
+for ten years just on the side, as part of the get-ready. Lucky they
+didn't have to do anything in the way of getting those mountains set
+proper, or there'd be a hole there yet."
+
+"Why don't you go East?" asked Bob.
+
+"I did once. Didn't like it."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"Well, I'll tell you. Back East when you don't do nothing, you feel kind
+of guilty. Out here when you don't do nothing, _you don't give a damn!_"
+
+Nevertheless, Bob was very sorry when he had to leave this quiet and
+beautiful little town, with its happy, careless, charming people.
+
+Thence he went directly to a town built in a half-circle of the
+mountains. The sunshine here was warm and grateful, but when its rays
+were withdrawn a stinging chill crept down from the snow. No sitting out
+on the verandah after dinner, but often a most grateful fire in the
+Club's fireplace. The mornings were crisp and enlivening. And again by
+the middle of the day the soft California warmth laid the land under its
+spell.
+
+This was a place of orange-growers, young fellows from the East. Its
+University Club was large and prosperous. Its streets were wide. Flowers
+lined the curbs. There were few fences. The houses were in good taste.
+Even the telephone poles were painted green so as to be unobtrusive. Bob
+thought it one of the most attractive places he had ever seen, as indeed
+it should be, for it was built practically to order by people of
+intelligence.
+
+Thence he drove through miles and miles of orange groves, so large that
+the numerous workmen go about their work on bicycles. Even here in the
+country, the roadsides were planted with palms and other ornamental
+trees, and gay with flowers. Abruptly he came upon a squalid village of
+the old regime, with ugly frame houses, littered streets, sagging
+sidewalks foul with puddles, old tin cans, rubbish; populous with
+children and women in back-yard dressing sacks--a distressing reminder
+of the worst from the older-established countries. And again, at the end
+of the week, he most unexpectedly found himself seated on a country-club
+verandah, having a very good time, indeed, with some charming specimens
+of the idle rich. He talked polo, golf, tennis and horses; he dined at
+several most elaborate "cottages"; he rode forth on glossy, bang-tailed
+horses, perfectly appointed; he drove in marvellously conceived traps in
+company with most engaging damsels. When, finally, he reached Los
+Angeles again he carried with him, as standing for California, not even
+the heterogeneous but fairly coherent idea one usually gains of a single
+commonwealth, but an impression of many climes and many peoples.
+
+"Yes," said Baker, "and if you'd gone North to where I live, you'd have
+struck a different layout entirely."
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+There remained in Bob's initial Southern California experience one more
+episode that brought him an acquaintance, apparently casual, but which
+later was to influence him.
+
+Of an afternoon he walked up Main Street idly and alone. The exhibit of
+a real estate office attracted him. Over the door, in place of a sign,
+hung a huge stretched canvas depicting not too rudely a wide
+country-side dotted with model farms of astounding prosperity. The
+window was filled with pumpkins, apples, oranges, sheaves of wheat,
+bottles full of soft fruits preserved in alcohol, and the like. As
+background was an oil painting in which the Lucky Lands occupied a
+spacious pervading foreground, while in clever perspectives the Coast
+Range, the foothills, and the other cities of the San Fernando Valley
+supplied a modest setting. This was usual enough.
+
+At the door stood a very alert man with glasses. He scrutinized closely
+every passerby. Occasionally he hailed one or the other, conversed
+earnestly a brief instant, and passed them inside. Gradually it dawned
+on Bob that this man was acting in the capacity of "barker"--that with
+quite admirable perspicacity and accuracy, he was engaged in selecting
+from the countless throngs the few possible purchasers for Lucky Lands.
+Curious to see what attraction was offered to induce this unanimity of
+acquiescence to the barker's invitation, the young man approached.
+
+"What's going on?" he asked.
+
+The barker appraised him with one sweeping glance.
+
+"Stereopticon lecture inside," he snapped, and turned his back.
+
+Bob made his way into a dimly lighted hall. At one end was a slightly
+elevated platform above which the white screen was suspended. More
+agricultural products supplied the decorations. The body of the hall was
+filled with folding chairs, about half of which were occupied. Perhaps a
+dozen attendants tiptoed here and there. A successful attempt was
+everywhere made to endow with high importance all the proceedings and
+appurtenances of the Lucky Land Co.
+
+Bob slipped into a chair. Immediately a small pasteboard ticket and a
+fountain pen were thrust into his hand.
+
+"Sign your name and address on this," the man whispered.
+
+Bob held it up, the better to see what it was.
+
+"All these tickets are placed in a hat," explained the man, "and one is
+drawn. The lucky ticket gets a free ride to Lucky on one of our weekly
+homeseekers' excursions. Others pay one fare for round trip."
+
+"I see," said Bob, signing, "and in return you get the names and
+addresses of every one here."
+
+He glanced up at his interlocutor with a quizzical expression that
+changed at once to one of puzzlement. Where had he seen the man before?
+He was, perhaps, fifty-five years old, tall and slender, slightly
+stooped, slightly awry. His lean gray face was deeply lined, his
+close-clipped moustache and hair were gray, and his eyes twinkled behind
+his glasses with a cold gray light. Something about these glasses struck
+faintly a chord of memory in Bob's experience, but he could not catch
+its modulations. The man, on his side, stared at Bob a trifle
+uncertainly. Then he held the card up to the dim light.
+
+"You are interested in Lucky Lands--Mr. John Smith, of Reno?" he asked,
+stooping low to be heard.
+
+"Sure!" grinned Bob.
+
+The man said nothing more, but glided away, and in a moment the flare of
+light on the screen announced that the lecture was to begin.
+
+The lecturer, was a glib, self-possessed youth, filled to the brim with
+statistics, with which he literally overwhelmed his auditors. His
+remarks were accompanied by a rapid-fire snapping of fingers to the time
+of which the operator changed his slides. A bewildering succession of
+coloured views flashed on the screen. They showed Lucky in all its
+glories--the blacksmith shop, the main street, the new hotel, the
+grocery, Brown's walnut ranch, the ditch, the Southern Pacific Depot,
+the Methodist Church and a hundred others. So quickly did they succeed
+each other that no one had time to reduce to the terms of experience the
+scenes depicted on these slides--for with the glamour of exaggerated
+colour, of unaccustomed presentation, and of skillful posing the most
+commonplace village street seems wonderful and attractive for the
+moment. The lecturer concluded by an alarming statement as to the
+rapidity with which this desirable ranching property was being snapped
+up. He urged early decisions as the only safe course; and, as usual with
+all real estate men, called attention to the contrast between the
+Riverside of twenty years ago and the Riverside of to-day.
+
+The daylight was then admitted.
+
+"Now, gentlemen," concluded the lecturer, still in his brisk,
+time-saving style, "the weekly excursion to Lucky will take place
+to-morrow. One fare both ways to homeseekers. Free carriages to the
+Lands. Grand free open-air lunch under the spreading sycamores and by
+the babbling brook. Train leaves at seven-thirty."
+
+In full sight of all he threw the packet of tickets into a hat and drew
+one.
+
+"Mr. John Smith, of Reno," he read. "Who is Mr. Smith?"
+
+"Here," said Bob.
+
+"Would you like to go to Lucky to-morrow?"
+
+"Sure," said Bob.
+
+One of the attendants immediately handed Bob a railroad ticket. The
+lecturer had already disappeared.
+
+To his surprise Bob found the street door locked.
+
+"This way," urged one of the salesmen. "You go out this way."
+
+He and the rest of the audience were passed out another door in the
+rear, where they were forced to go through the main offices of the
+Company. Here were stationed the gray man and all his younger
+assistants. Bob paused by the door. He could not but admire the acumen
+of the barker in selecting his men. The audience was made up of just the
+type of those who come to California with agricultural desires and a few
+hundred dollars--slow plodders from Eastern farms, Italians with savings
+and ambitions, half invalids--all the element that crowds the tourist
+sleepers day in and day out, the people who are filling the odd corners
+of the greater valleys. As these debouched into the glare of the outer
+offices, they hesitated, making up their slow minds which way to turn.
+In that instant or so the gray man, like a captain, assigned his
+salesmen. The latter were of all sorts--fat and joking, thin and very
+serious-minded, intense, enthusiastic, cold and haughty. The gray man
+sized up his prospective customers and to each assigned a salesman to
+suit. Bob had no means of guessing how accurate these estimates might
+be, but they were evidently made intelligently, with some system
+compounded of theory or experience. After a moment Bob became conscious
+that he himself was being sharply scrutinized by the gray man, and in
+return watched covertly. He saw the gray man shake his head slightly.
+Bob passed out the door unaccosted by any of the salesmen.
+
+At half-past seven the following morning he boarded the local train. In
+one car he found a score of "prospects" already seated, accompanied by
+half their number of the young men of the real estate office. The utmost
+jocularity and humour prevailed, except in one corner where a very
+earnest young man drove home the points of his argument with an
+impressive forefinger. Bob dropped unobtrusively into a seat, and
+prepared to enjoy his never-failing interest in the California landscape
+with its changing wonderful mountains; its alternations of sage brush
+and wide cultivation; its vineyards as far as the eye could distinguish
+the vines; its grainfields seeming to fill the whole cup of the valleys;
+its orchards wide as forests; and its desert stretches, bigger than them
+all, awaiting but the vivifying touch of water to burst into
+productiveness. He heard one of the salesmen expressing this.
+
+"'Water is King,'" he was saying, quoting thus the catchword of this
+particular concern. He was talking in a half-joking way, asking one or
+the other how many inches of rainfall could be expected per annum back
+where they came from.
+
+"Don't know, do you?" he answered himself. "Nobody pays any great and
+particular amount of attention to that--you get water enough, except in
+exceptional years. Out here it's different. Every one knows to the
+hundredth of an inch just how much rain has fallen, and how much ought
+to have fallen. It's vital. Water is King."
+
+He gathered close the attention of his auditors.
+
+"We have the water in California," he went on; "but it isn't always in
+the right place nor does it come at the right time. You can't grow crops
+in the high mountains where most of the precipitation occurs. But you
+can bring that water down to the plains. That's your answer:
+irrigation."
+
+He looked from one to the other. Several nodded.
+
+"But a man can't irrigate by himself. He can't build reservoirs, ditches
+all alone. That's where a concern like the Lucky Company makes good.
+We've brought the water to where you can use it. Under the influence of
+cultivation that apparently worthless land can produce--" he went on at
+great length detailing statistics of production. Even to Bob, who had no
+vital nor practical interest, it was all most novel and convincing.
+
+So absorbed did he become that he was somewhat startled when a man sat
+down beside him. He looked, up to meet the steel gray eyes and
+glittering glasses of the chief. Again there swept over him a sense of
+familiarity, the feeling that somewhere, at some time, he had met this
+man before. It passed almost as quickly as it came, but left him
+puzzled.
+
+"Of course your name is not Smith, nor do you come from Reno," said the
+man in gray abruptly. "I've seen you somewhere before, but I can't place
+you. Are you a newspaperman?"
+
+"I've been thinking the same of you," returned Bob. "No, I'm just plain
+tourist."
+
+"I don't imagine you're particularly interested in Lucky," said the gray
+man. "Why did you come?"
+
+"Just idleness and curiosity," replied Bob frankly.
+
+"Of course we try to get the most value in return for our expenditures
+on these excursions by taking men who are at least interested in the
+country," suggested the gray man.
+
+"By Jove, I never thought of that!" cried Bob. "Of course, I'd no
+business to take that free ticket. I'll pay you my fare."
+
+The gray man had been scrutinizing him intensely and keenly. At Bob's
+comically contrite expression, his own face cleared.
+
+"No, you misunderstand me," he replied in his crisp fashion. "We give
+these excursions as an advertisement of what we have. The more people to
+know about Lucky, the better our chances. We made an offer of which you
+have taken advantage. You're perfectly welcome, and I hope you'll enjoy
+yourself. Here, Selwyn," he called to one of the salesman, "this is
+Mr.--what did you say your name is?"
+
+"Orde," replied Bob.
+
+The gray man seemed for an almost imperceptible instant to stiffen in
+his seat. The gray eyes glazed over; the gray lined face froze.
+
+"Orde," he repeated harshly; "where from?"
+
+"Michigan," Bob replied.
+
+The gray man rose stiffly. "Well, Selwyn," said he, "this is Mr.
+Orde--of Michigan--and I want you to show him around."
+
+He moved down the aisle to take a seat, distant, but facing the two
+young men. Bob felt himself the object of a furtive but minute scrutiny
+which lasted until the train slowed down at the outskirts of Lucky.
+
+Selwyn proved to be an agreeable young man, keen-faced, clean-cut, full
+of energy and enthusiasm. He soon discovered that Bob did not
+contemplate going into ranching, and at once admitted that young man to
+his confidence.
+
+"You just nail a seat in that surrey over there, while I chase out my
+two 'prospects.' We sell on commission and I've got to rustle."
+
+They drove out of the sleepy little village on which had been grafted
+showy samples of the Company's progress. The day was beautiful with
+sunshine, with the mellow calls of meadow larks, with warmth and sweet
+odours. As the surrey took its zigzag way through the brush, as the
+quail paced away to right and left, as the delicate aroma of the sage
+rose to his nostrils, Bob began to be very glad he had come. Here and
+there the brush had been cleared, small shacks built, fences of wire
+strung, and the land ploughed over. At such places the surrey paused
+while Selwyn held forth to his two stolid "prospects" on how long these
+newcomers had been there and how well they were getting on. The country
+rose in a gradual slope to the slate-blue mountains. Ditches ran here
+and there. Everywhere were small square stakes painted white, indicating
+the boundaries of tracts yet unsold.
+
+They visited the reservoir, which looked to Bob uncommonly like a muddy
+duck pond, but whose value Selwyn soon made very clear. They wandered
+through the Chiquito ranch, whence came the exhibition fruit and other
+products, and which formed the basis of most Lucky arguments. The owner
+had taken many medals for his fruit, and had spent twenty-five years in
+making the Chiquito a model.
+
+"Any man can do likewise in this land of promise," said Selwyn.
+
+They ended finally in a beautiful little canon among the foothills. It
+was grown thick with twisted, mottled sycamores just budding into leaf,
+with vines and greenery of the luxurious California varieties. Birds
+sang everywhere and a brook babbled and bubbled down a stony bed.
+
+Under the largest of the sycamores a tent had been pitched and a table
+spread. Affairs seemed to be in charge of a very competent countrywoman
+whose fuzzy horse and ramshackle buggy stood securely tethered below.
+The surries drove up and deposited their burdens. Bob took his place at
+table to be served with an abundant, hot and well-cooked meal.
+
+The ice had been broken. Everybody laughed and joked. Some of the men
+removed their coats in order to be more comfortable. The young salesmen
+had laboured successfully to bring these strangers to a feeling of
+partnership in at least the aims of the Company, of partisanship against
+the claims of other less-favoured valleys than Lucky. During a pause in
+the fun, one of the "prospects," an elderly, white-whiskered farmer of
+the more prosperous type, nodded toward the brook.
+
+"That sounds good," said he.
+
+"It's the supply for the Lucky Lands," replied Selwyn. "It ought to
+sound good."
+
+"There's mighty few flowing creeks in California this far out from the
+mountains," interposed another salesman. "You know out here, except in
+the rainy season, the rivers all flow bottom-up."
+
+They all guffawed at this ancient and mild joke. The old farmer wagged
+his head.
+
+"Water is King," said he solemnly, as though voicing an original and
+profound thought.
+
+A look of satisfaction overspread the countenance of the particular
+salesman who had the old farmer in charge. When you can get your
+"prospect" to adopt your catchword and enunciate it with conviction, he
+is yours!
+
+After the meal Bob, unnoticed, wandered off up the canon. He had
+ascertained that the excursionists would not leave the spot for two
+hours yet, and he welcomed the chance for exercise. Accordingly he set
+himself to follow the creek, the one stream of pure and limpid water
+that did not flow bottom-up. At first this was easy enough, but after a
+while the canon narrowed, and Bob found himself compelled to clamber
+over rocks and boulders, to push his way through thickets of brush and
+clinging vines, finally even to scale a precipitous and tangled side
+hill over which the stream fell in a series of waterfalls. Once past
+this obstruction, however, the country widened again. Bob stood in the
+bed of a broad, flat wash flanked by low hills. Before him, and still
+some miles distant, rose the mountains in which the stream found its
+source.
+
+Bob stood still for a moment, his hat in his hand, enjoying the tepid
+odours, the warm sun and the calls of innumerable birds. Then he became
+aware of a faint and intermittent throb--_put-put_ (pause) _put_
+(pause), _put-put-put!_
+
+"Gasoline engine," said he to himself.
+
+He tramped a few hundred yards up the dry wash, rounded a bend, and came
+to a small wooden shack from which emanated the sound of the gas
+explosions. A steady stream of water gushed from a pump operated by the
+gasoline engine. Above, the stream bed was dry. Here was the origin of
+the "beautiful mountain stream."
+
+Chair-tilted in front of the shack sat a man smoking a pipe. He looked
+up as Bob approached.
+
+"Hullo," said he; "show over?"
+
+He disappeared inside and shut off the gasoline engine. Immediately the
+flow ceased; the stream dried up as though scorched. Presently the man
+emerged, thrusting his hands into the armholes of an old coat. Shrugging
+the garment into place, he snapped shut the padlock on the door.
+
+"Come on," said he. "My rig's over behind that grease-wood. You're a
+new one, ain't ye?"
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"That horse is branded pretty thick," he said by way of diversion.
+
+The man chuckled.
+
+"Have to turn his skin other side out to get another one on," he agreed.
+
+They drove down an old dim road that avoided the difficulties of the
+canon. At camp they found the surries just loading up. Bob took his
+place. Before the rigs started back, the gray man, catching sight of the
+pump man, drew him aside and said several things very vigorously. The
+pump man answered with some indignation, pointing finally to Bob.
+Instantly the gray man whirled to inspect the young fellow. Then he shot
+a last remark, turned and climbed grumpily into his vehicle.
+
+At the station Bob tried to draw Selwyn aside for a conversation.
+
+"I'll be with you when the train starts, old man," replied Selwyn, "but
+I've got to stick close to these prospects. There's a gang of knockers
+hanging around here always, just waiting for a chance to lip in."
+
+When the train started, however, Selwyn came back to drop into Bob's
+seat with a wearied sigh.
+
+"Gosh! I get sick of handing out dope to these yaps," said he. "I was
+afraid for a while it was going to blow. Looked like it."
+
+"What of it?" asked Bob.
+
+"When it blows up here, it'd lift the feathers off a chicken and the
+chicken off the earth," explained Selwyn. "I've seen more than one good
+prospect ruined by a bad day."
+
+"How'd you come out?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Got one. He handed over his first payment on the spot. Funny how these
+yahoos almost always bring their cash right with 'em. Other's no good. I
+get so I can spot that kind the first three words. They're always too
+blame enthusiastic about the country and the Company. Seems like they
+try to pay for their entertainment by jollying us along. Don't fool me
+any. When a man begins to object to things, you know he's thinking of
+buying."
+
+Bob listened to this wisdom with some amusement. "How'd you explain when
+the stream stopped?" he asked.
+
+"Why," said Selwyn, looking straight ahead, "didn't you hear Mr. Oldham?
+They turned the water into the Upper Ditch to irrigate the Foothill
+Tracts."
+
+Bob laughed. "You're not much of a liar, Selwyn," he said pleasantly.
+"Failure of gasoline would hit it nearer."
+
+"Oh, that's where you went," said Selwyn. "I ought to have kept my eye
+on you closer."
+
+He fell silent, and Bob eyed him speculatively. He liked the young
+fellow's clear, frank cast of countenance.
+
+"Look here, Selwyn," he broke out, "do you like this bunco game?"
+
+"I don't like the methods," replied Selwyn promptly; "but you are
+mistaken when you think it's a bunco game. The land is good; there's
+plenty of artesian water to be had; and we don't sell at a fancy price.
+We've located over eight hundred families up there at Lucky Lands, and
+three out of four are making good. The fourth simply hadn't the capital
+to hold out until returns came in. It's as good a small-ranch
+proposition as they could find. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't be in
+it for a minute."
+
+"How about that stream?"
+
+"Nobody said the stream was a natural one. And the water exists, no
+matter where it comes from. You can't impress an Eastern farmer with a
+pump proposition: that's a matter of education. They come to see its
+value after they've tried it."
+
+"But your--".
+
+"I told you I didn't like the methods. I won't have anything to do with
+the dirty work, and Oldham knows it."
+
+"Why all the bluff, then?" asked Bob.
+
+"There are thousands of real estate firms in Los Angeles trying to sell
+millions of acres," said Selwyn, "and this is about the only concern
+that succeeds in colonizing on a large scale. Oldham developed this
+system, and it seems to work."
+
+"The law'll get him some day."
+
+"I think not," replied Selwyn. "You may find him close to the edge of
+the law, but he never steps over. He's a mighty bright business man, and
+he's made a heap of money."
+
+When nearing the Arcade depot, Oldham himself stepped forward.
+
+"Stopping in California long?" he asked, with some approach to
+geniality.
+
+"Permanently, I think," replied Bob.
+
+"You are going to manufacture your timber?"
+
+Bob looked up astonished.
+
+"You're the Orde interested in Granite County timber, aren't you?"
+
+"I'm employed by Welton, that's all," said Bob. "He owns the timber. But
+how did you know I am with Welton?" he asked.
+
+"With Welton!" echoed Oldham. "Oh, yes--well, I heard from Michigan
+business acquaintances you were with him. Welton's lands are in Granite
+County?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob.
+
+"Well," said Oldham vaguely, "I hope you have enjoyed your little
+outing." He turned away.
+
+"Now, how the deuce should anybody know about me, or that I am with
+Welton, or take the trouble to write about it?"
+
+He mulled over this for some time. For lack of a better reason, he
+ascribed to his former football prominence the fact that Oldham's
+Michigan correspondent had thought him worth mention. Yet that seemed
+absurdly inadequate.
+
+
+
+
+PART THREE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Two weeks later a light buckboard bearing Welton and Bob dashed in the
+early morning across the plains, wormed its way ingeniously through gaps
+in the foothills, and slowed to a walk as it felt the grades of the
+first long low slopes. The air was warm with the sun imprisoned in the
+pockets of the hills. High chaparral, scrub oaks, and scattered, unkempt
+digger pines threw their thicket up to the very right of way. It was in
+general dense, almost impenetrable, yet it had a way of breaking
+unexpectedly into spacious parks, into broad natural pastures, into
+bold, rocky points prophetic of the mountains yet to come. Every once in
+a while the road drew one side to pause at a cabin nestling among fruit
+trees, bowered beneath vines, bright with the most vivid of the commoner
+flowers. They were crazily picturesque with their rough stone chimneys,
+their roofs of shakes, their broad low verandahs, and their split-picket
+fences. On these verandahs sat patriarchal-looking men with sweeping
+white beards, who smoked pipes and gazed across with dim eyes toward the
+distant blue mountains. When Welton, casually and by the way, mentioned
+topographical names, Bob realized to what placid and contented
+retirement these men had turned, and who they were. Nugget Creek, Flour
+Gold, Bear Gulch--these spoke of the strong, red-shirted Argonauts of
+the El Dorado. Among these scarred but peaceful foothills had been
+played and applauded the great, wonderful, sordid, inspired drama of the
+early days, the traces of which had almost vanished from the land.
+
+Occasionally also the buckboard paused for water at a more pretentious
+place set in a natural opening. There a low, rambling, white ranch-house
+beneath trees was segregated by a picket fence enclosing blossoms like a
+basket. At a greater or lesser distance were corrals of all sizes
+arranged in a complicated pattern. They resembled a huge puzzle. The
+barns were large; a forge stood under an open shed indescribably
+littered with scrap iron and fragments of all sorts; saddles hung
+suspended by the horn or one stirrup; bright milk pails sunned bottom-up
+on fence posts; a dozen horses cropped in a small enclosed pasture or
+dozed beneath one or another of the magnificent and spreading live-oak
+trees. Children of all sizes and states of repair clambered to the fence
+tops or gazed solemnly between the rails. Sometimes women stood in the
+doorways to nod cheerfully at the travellers. They seemed to Bob a
+comely, healthy-looking lot, competent and good-natured. Beyond an
+occasional small field and an invariable kitchen garden there appeared
+to be no evidences of cultivation. Around the edges of the natural
+opening stretched immediately the open jungle of the chaparral or the
+park-like forests of oaks.
+
+"These are the typical mountain people of California," said Welton.
+"It's only taken us a few hours to come up this far, but we've struck
+among a different breed of cats. They're born, live and die in the
+hills, and they might as well be a thousand miles away as forty or
+fifty. As soon as the snow is out, they hike for the big mountains."
+
+"What do they do?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Cattle," replied Welton. "Nothing else."
+
+"I haven't seen any men."
+
+"No, and you won't, except the old ones. They've taken their cattle back
+to the summer ranges in the high mountains. By and by the women and kids
+will go into the summer camps with the horses."
+
+On a steep and narrow grade they encountered a girl of twenty riding a
+spirited pinto. She bestrode a cowboy's stock saddle on which was coiled
+the usual rope, wore a broad felt hat, and smiled at the two men quite
+frankly in spite of the fact that she wore no habit and had been
+compelled to arrange her light calico skirts as best she could. The
+pinto threw his head and snorted, dancing sideways at sight of the
+buckboard. So occupied was he with the strange vehicle that he paid
+scant attention to the edge of the road. Bob saw that the passage along
+the narrow outside strip was going to be precarious. He prepared to
+descend, but at that moment the girl faced her pony squarely at the edge
+of the road, dug her little heels into his flanks, and flicked him
+sharply with the _morale_ or elongated lash of the reins. Without
+hesitation the pony stepped off the grade, bunched his hoofs and slid
+down the precipitous slope. So steep was the hill that a man would have
+had to climb it on all fours.
+
+Bob gasped and rose to his feet. The pony, leaving a long furrow in the
+side of the mountain, caught himself on the narrow ledge of a cattle
+trail, turned to the left, and disappeared at a little fox trot.
+
+Bob looked at this companion. Welton laughed.
+
+"There's hardly a woman in the country that doesn't help round up stock.
+How'd you like to chase a cow full speed over this country, hey?"
+
+As they progressed, mounting slowly, but steadily, the character of the
+country changed. The canons through which flowed the streams became
+deeper and more precipitous; the divides between them higher. At one
+point where the road emerged on a bold, clear point, Bob looked back to
+the shimmering plain, and was astonished to see how high they had
+climbed. To the eastward and only a few miles distant rose the dark mass
+of a pine-covered ridge, austere and solemn, the first rampart of the
+Sierras. Welton pointed to it with his whip.
+
+"There's our timber," said he simply.
+
+A little farther along the buckboard drew rein at the top of a long
+declivity that led down to a broad wooded valley. Among the trees Bob
+caught a glimpse of the roofs of scattered houses, and the gleam of a
+river. From the opposite edge of the valley rose the mountain-ridge,
+sheer and noble. The light of afternoon tinted it with lilac and purple.
+
+"That's the celebrated town of Sycamore Flats," said Welton. "Just at
+present we're the most important citizens. This fellow here's the first
+yellow pine on the road."
+
+Bob looked upon what he then considered a rather large tree. Later he
+changed his mind. The buckboard rattled down the grade, swung over a
+bridge, and so into the little town. Welton drew up at a low, broad
+structure set back from the street among some trees.
+
+"We'll tackle the mountain to-morrow," said he.
+
+Bob descended with a distinct feeling of pleasure at being able to use
+his legs again. He and Welton and the baggage and everything about the
+buckboard were powdered thick with the fine, white California dust. At
+every movement he shook loose a choking cloud. Welton's face was a dull
+gray, ludicrously streaked, and he suspected himself of being in the
+same predicament. A boy took the horses, and the travellers entered the
+picketed enclosure. Welton lifted up his great rumbling voice.
+
+"O Auntie Belle!" he roared.
+
+Within the dark depths of the house life stirred. In a moment a capable
+and motherly woman had taken them in charge. Amid a rapid-fire of
+greetings, solicitudes, jokes, questions, commands and admonitions Bob
+was dusted vigorously and led to ice-cold water and clean towels. Ten
+minutes later, much refreshed, he stood on the low verandah looking out
+with pleasure on the little there was to see. Eight dogs squatted
+themselves in front of him, ears slightly uplifted, in expectancy of
+something Bob could not guess. Probably the dogs could not guess either.
+Within the house two or three young girls were moving about, singing and
+clattering dishes in a delightfully promising manner. Down the winding
+hill, for Sycamore Flats proved after all to be built irregularly on a
+slope, he could make out several other scattered houses, each with its
+dooryard, and the larger structures of several stores. Over all loomed
+the dark mountain. The sun had just dropped below the ridge down which
+the road had led them, but still shone clear and golden as an overlay of
+colour laid against the sombre pines on the higher slopes.
+
+After an excellent chicken supper, Bob lit his pipe and wandered down
+the street. The larger structures, three in number, now turned out to be
+a store and two saloons. A dozen saddle horses dozed patiently. On the
+platform outside the store a dozen Indian women dressed in bright calico
+huddled beneath their shawls. After squatting thus in brute immobility
+for a half-hour, one of them would purchase a few pounds of flour or a
+half-pound of tea. Then she would take her place again with the others.
+At the end of another half-hour another, moved by some sudden and
+mysterious impulse, would in turn make her purchases. The interior of
+the store proved to be no different from the general country store
+anywhere. The proprietor was very busy and occupied and important and
+interested in selling a two-dollar bill of goods to a chance prospector,
+which was well, for this was the storekeeper's whole life, and he had in
+defence of his soul to make his occupations filling. Bob bought a cigar
+and went out.
+
+Next he looked in at one of the saloons. It was an ill-smelling, cheap
+box, whose sole ornaments were advertising lithographs. Four men played
+cards. They hardly glanced at the newcomer. Bob deciphered Forest
+Reserve badges on three of them.
+
+As he emerged from this joint, his eyes a trifle dazzled by the light,
+he made out drawn up next the elevated platform a buckboard containing a
+single man. As his pupils contracted he distinguished such details as a
+wiry, smart little team, a man so fat as almost to fill the seat, a
+moon-like, good-natured face, a vest open to disclose a vast white
+shirt, "Hullo!" the stranger rumbled in a great voice. "Any of my boys
+in there?"
+
+"Don't believe I know your boys," replied Bob pleasantly.
+
+The fat man heaved his bulk forward to peer at Bob.
+
+"Consarn your hide!" he roared with the utmost good humour; "stand out
+of the light so I can see your fool face. You lie like a hound!
+Everybody knows my boys!"
+
+There was no offence in the words.
+
+Bob laughed and obligingly stepped one side the lighted doorway.
+
+"A towerist!" wheezed the fat man. "Say, you're too early. Nothing doing
+in the mountains yet. Who sent you this early, anyway?"
+
+"No tourist; permanent inhabitant," said Bob. "I'm with Welton."
+
+"Timber, by God!" exploded the fat man. "Well, you and I are like to
+have friendly doings. Your road goes through us, and you got to toe the
+mark, young fellow, let me tell you! I'm a hell of a hard man to get on
+with!"
+
+"You look it," said Bob. "You own some timber?"
+
+The fat man exploded again.
+
+"Hell, no!" he roared. "Why, you don't even know me, do you? I'm Plant,
+Henry Plant. I'm Forest Supervisor."
+
+"My name's Orde," said Bob. "If you're after Forest Rangers, there's
+three in there."
+
+"The rascals!" cried Plant. He raised his voice to a bellow. "Oh, you
+Jim!"
+
+The door was darkened.
+
+"Say, Jim," said Plant. "They tell me there's a fire over Stone Creek
+way. Somebody's got to take a look at it. You and Joe better ride over
+in the morning and see what she looks like."
+
+The man stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "Oh, hell!" said he
+with deep feeling. "Ain't you got any of those suckers that _like_ to
+ride? I've had a headache for three days."
+
+"Yes, it's hard luck you got to do anything, ain't it," said Plant.
+"Well, I'll see if I can find old John, and if you don't hear from me,
+you got to go."
+
+The Supervisor gathered up his reins and was about to proceed when down
+through the fading twilight rode a singular figure. It was a thin, wiry,
+tall man, with a face like tanned leather, a clear, blue eye and a
+drooping white moustache. He wore a flopping old felt hat, a faded
+cotton shirt and an ancient pair of copper-riveted blue-jeans overalls
+tucked into a pair of cowboy's boots. A time-discoloured cartridge belt
+encircled his hips, supporting a holster from which protruded the shiny
+butt of an old-fashioned Colt's 45. But if the man was thus nondescript
+and shabby, his mount and its caparisons were magnificent. The horse was
+a glossy, clean-limbed sorrel with a quick, intelligent eye. The bridle
+was of braided rawhide, the broad spade-bit heavily inlaid with silver,
+the reins of braided and knotted rawhide. Across the animal's brow ran
+three plates of silver linked together. Below its ears were wide silver
+_conchas_. The saddle was carved elaborately, and likewise ornamented
+with silver. The whole outfit shone--new-polished and well kept.
+
+"Oh, you John!" called Plant.
+
+The old man moved his left hand slightly. The proud-stepping sorrel
+instantly turned to the left, and, on a signal Bob could not
+distinguish, stopped to statue-like immobility. Then Bob could see the
+Forest Ranger badge pinned to one strap of the old man's suspender.
+
+"John," said Plant, "they tell me there's a fire over at Stone Creek.
+Ride over and see what it amounts to."
+
+"All right," replied the Ranger. "What help do I get?"
+
+"Oh, you just ride over and see what it amounts to," repeated Plant.
+
+"I can't do nothing alone fighting fire."
+
+"Well I can't spare anybody now," said Plant, "and it may not amount to
+nothing. You go see."
+
+"All right," said John. "But if it does amount to something, it'll get
+an awful start on us."
+
+He rode away.
+
+"Old California John," said Plant to Bob with a slight laugh. "Crazy old
+fool." He raised his voice. "Oh, you Jim! John, he's going to ride over.
+You needn't go."
+
+Bob nodded a good night, and walked back up the street. At the store he
+found the sorrel horse standing untethered in the road. He stopped to
+examine more closely the very ornate outfit. California John came out
+carrying a grain sack half full of provisions. This he proceeded to tie
+on behind the saddle, paying no attention to the young man.
+
+"Well, Star, you got a long ways to go," muttered the old man.
+
+"You aren't going over those mountains to-night, are you?" cried Bob.
+
+The old man turned quite deliberately and inspected his questioner in a
+manner to imply that he had committed an indiscretion. But the answer
+was in a tone that implied he had not.
+
+"Certain sure," he replied. "The only way to handle a fire is to stick
+to it like death to a dead nigger."
+
+Bob returned to the hotel very thoughtful. There he found Mr. Welton
+seated comfortably on the verandah, his feet up and a cigar alight.
+
+"This is pretty good medicine," he called to Bob. "Get your feet up, you
+long-legged stork, and enjoy yourself. Been exploring?"
+
+"Listening to the band on the plaza," laughed Bob. He drew up a chair.
+At that moment the dim figure of California John jingled by. "I wouldn't
+like that old fellow's job. He's a ranger, and he's got to go and look
+up a forest fire."
+
+"Alone?" asked Welton. "Couldn't they scare up any more? Or are they
+over there already?"
+
+"There's three playing poker at the saloon. Looked to me like a fool
+way to do. He's just going to take a look and then come back and
+report."
+
+"Oh, they're heavy on reports!" said Welton. "Where is the fire; did you
+hear?"
+
+"Stone Creek--wherever that is."
+
+"Stone Creek!" yelled Welton, dropping the front legs of his chair to
+the verandah with a thump. "Why, our timber adjoins Stone Creek! You
+come with me!"
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Welton strode away into the darkness, followed closely by Bob. He made
+his way as rapidly as he could through the village to an attractive
+house at the farther outskirts. Here he turned through the picket gate,
+and thundered on the door.
+
+It was almost immediately opened by a meek-looking woman of thirty.
+
+"Plant in?" demanded Welton.
+
+The meek woman had no opportunity to reply.
+
+"Sure! Sure! Come in!" roared the Supervisor's great voice.
+
+They entered to find the fat man, his coat off, leaning luxuriously back
+in an office chair, his feet up on another, a cigar in his mouth. He
+waved a hospitable hand.
+
+"Sit down! Sit down!" he wheezed. "Glad to see you."
+
+"They tell me there's a fire over in the Stone Creek country," said
+Welton.
+
+"So it's reported," said Plant comfortably. "I've sent a man over
+already to investigate."
+
+"That timber adjoins ours," went on Welton. "Sending one ranger to
+investigate don't seem to help the old man a great deal."
+
+"Oh, it may not amount to much," disclaimed Plant vaguely.
+
+"But if it does amount to much, it'll be getting one devil of a start,"
+persisted Welton. "Why don't you send over enough men to give it a
+fight?"
+
+"Haven't got 'em," replied Plant briefly.
+
+"There's three playing poker now, down in the first saloon," broke in
+Bob.
+
+Plant looked at him coldly for ten seconds.
+
+"Those men are waiting to tally Wright's cattle," he condescended,
+naming one of the most powerful of the valley ranch kings.
+
+But Welton caught at Bob's statement.
+
+"All you need is one man to count cattle," he pointed out. "Can't you do
+that yourself, and send over your men?"
+
+"Are you trying to tell me my business, Mr. Welton?" asked the
+Supervisor formally.
+
+Welton laughed one of his inexpressible chuckles.
+
+"Lord love you, no!" he cried. "I have all I can handle. I'm merely
+trying to protect my own. Can't you hire some men, then?"
+
+"My appropriation won't stand it," said Plant, a gleam coming into his
+eye. "I simply haven't the money to pay them with." He paused
+significantly.
+
+"How much would it take?" inquired Welton.
+
+Plant cast his eyes to the ceiling.
+
+"Of course, I couldn't tell, because I don't know how much of a fire it
+is, or how long it would take to corral it. But I'll tell you what I'll
+do: suppose you leave me a lump sum, and I'll look after such matters
+hereafter without having to bother you with them. Of course, when I have
+rangers available I'll use 'em; but any time you need protection, I can
+rush in enough men to handle the situation without having to wait for
+authorizations and all that. It might not take anything extra, of
+course."
+
+"How much do you suppose it would require to be sure we don't run
+short?" asked Welton.
+
+"Oh, a thousand dollars ought to last indefinitely," replied Plant.
+
+The two men stared at each other for a moment. Then Welton laughed.
+
+"I can hire a heap of men for a thousand dollars," said he, rising.
+"Goodnight."
+
+Plant rumbled something. The two went out, leaving the fat man chewing
+his cigar and scowling angrily after them.
+
+Once clear of the premises Welton laughed loudly.
+
+"Well, my son, that's your first shy at the government official, isn't
+it? They're not all as bad as that. At first I couldn't make out whether
+he was just fat and lazy. Now I know he's a grafter. He ought to get a
+nice neat 'For Sale' sign painted. Did you hear the nerve of him? Wanted
+a thousand dollars bribe to do his plain duty."
+
+"Oh, that was what he was driving at!" cried Bob.
+
+"Yes, Baby Blue-eyes, didn't you tumble to that? Well, I don't see a
+thousand in it whether he's for us or against us."
+
+"Was that the reason he didn't send over all his men to the fire?" asked
+Bob.
+
+"Partly. Principally because he wanted to help old Simeon Wright's men
+in with the cattle. Simeon probably has a ninety-nine year lease on his
+fat carcass--with the soul thrown in for a trading stamp. It don't take
+but one man to count cattle, but three extra cowboys comes mighty handy
+in the timber."
+
+"Would Wright bribe him, do you suppose?"
+
+Welton stopped short.
+
+"Let me tell you one thing about old Simeon, Bob," said he. "He owns
+more land than any other man in California. He got it all from the
+government. Eight sections on one of his ranches he took up under the
+Swamp Act by swearing he had been all over them in a boat. He had. The
+boat was drawn by eight mules. That's just a sample. You bet Simeon owns
+a Supervisor, if he thinks he needs one; and that's why the cattle
+business takes precedence over the fire business."
+
+"It's an outrage!" cried Bob. "We ought to report him for neglect of
+duty."
+
+Welton chuckled.
+
+"I didn't tell you this to get you mad, Bobby," he drawled with his
+indescribable air of good humour; "only to show you the situation. What
+difference does it make? As for reporting to Washington! Look here, I
+don't know what Plant's political backing is, but it must be 99.84 per
+cent. pure. Otherwise, how would a man as fat as that get a job of
+Forest Supervisor? Why, he can't ride a horse, and it's absurd to
+suppose he ever saw any of the Reserve he's in charge of."
+
+Welton bestirred himself to good purpose. Inside of two hours a
+half-dozen men, well-mounted and provisioned, bearing the usual tools of
+the fire-fighter, had ridden off into the growing brightness of the
+moon.
+
+"There," said the lumberman with satisfaction. "That isn't going to cost
+much, and we'll feel safe. Now let's turn in."
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+The next morning Bob was awakened to a cold dawn that became still more
+shivery when he had dressed and stepped outside. Even a hot breakfast
+helped little; and when the buckboard was brought around, he mounted to
+his seat without any great enthusiasm. The mountain rose dark and
+forbidding, high against the eastern sky, and a cold wind breathed down
+its defiles. When the wiry little ponies slowed to the first stretches
+of the tiresome climb, Bob was glad to walk alongside.
+
+Almost immediately the pines began. They were short and scrubby as yet,
+but beautiful in the velvet of their dark green needles. Bob glanced at
+them critically. They were perhaps eighty to a hundred feet high and
+from a foot to thirty inches in diameter.
+
+"Fair timber," he commented to his companion.
+
+Welton snorted. "Timber!" he cried. "That isn't timber; it's weeds.
+There's no _timber_ on this slope of the mountain."
+
+Slowly the ponies toiled up the steep grade, pausing often for breath.
+Among the pines grew many oaks, buckthorns, tall manzanitas and the
+like. As the valley dropped beneath, they came upon an occasional
+budding dogwood. Over the slopes of some of the hills spread a mantle of
+velvety vivid green, fair as the grass of a lawn, but indescribably soft
+and mobile. It lent those declivities on which it grew a spacious,
+well-kept, park appearance, on which Bob exclaimed with delight.
+
+But Welton would have none of it.
+
+"Bear clover," said he, "full of pitch as an old jack-pine. Burns like
+coal oil, and you can't hardly cut it with a hoe. Worst stuff to carry
+fire and to fight fire in you ever saw. Pick a piece and smell it."
+
+Bob broke off one of the tough, woody stems. A pungent odour exactly
+like that of extract of hamamelis met his nostrils. Then he realized
+that all the time he had been aware of this perfume faintly disengaging
+itself from the hills. In spite of Mr. Welton's disgust, Bob liked its
+clean, pungent suggestion.
+
+The road mounted always, following the contour of the mountains. Thus it
+alternately emerged and crept on around bold points, and bent back into
+the recesses of ravines. Clear, beautiful streams dashed and sang down
+the latter; from the former, often, Bob could look out over the valley
+from which they had mounted, across the foothills, to the distant,
+yellowing plains far on the horizon, lost finally in brown heat waves.
+Sycamore Flats lay almost directly below. Always it became smaller, and
+more and more like a coloured relief-map with tiny, Noah's-ark houses.
+The forest grew sturdily on the steep mountain. Bob's eyes were on a
+level with the tops of trees growing but a few hundred feet away. The
+horizon line was almost at eleven o'clock above him.
+
+"How'd you handle this kind of a proposition?" he inquired. "Looks to me
+like hard sledding."
+
+"This stuff is no good," said Welton. "These little, yellow pines ain't
+worth cutting. This is all Forest Reserve stuff."
+
+Bob glanced again down the aisles of what looked to him like a noble
+forest, but said nothing. He was learning, in this land of surprises, to
+keep his mouth shut.
+
+At the end of two hours Welton drew up beside a new water trough to
+water the ponies.
+
+"There," he remarked casually, "is the first sugar pine."
+
+Bob's eye followed the indication of his whip to the spreading, graceful
+arms of a free so far up the bed of the stream that he could make out
+only its top. The ponies, refreshed, resumed their methodical plodding.
+
+Insensibly, as they mounted, the season had changed. The oaks that, at
+the level of Sycamore Flats, had been in full leaf, here showed but the
+tender pinks and russets of the first foliage. The dogwoods were quite
+dormant. Rivulets of seepage and surface water trickled in the most
+unexpected places as though from snow recently melted.
+
+Of climbing there seemed no end. False skylines recurrently deceived Bob
+into a belief that the buckboard was about to surmount the top. Always
+the rise proved to be preliminary to another. The road dipped behind
+little spurs, climbed ravines, lost itself between deep cuts. Only
+rarely did the forest growths permit a view, and then only in glimpses
+between the tops of trees. In the valley and against the foothills now
+intervened the peaceful and calm blue atmosphere of distance.
+
+"I'd no idea from looking at it this mountain was so high," he told
+Welton.
+
+"You never do," said Welton. "They always fool you. We're pretty nigh
+the top now."
+
+Indeed, for a little space the forest had perforce to thin because of
+lack of footing. The slope became almost a precipice, ending in a bold
+comb above which once more could be glimpsed the tops of trees. Quite
+ingeniously the road discovered a cleft up which it laboured mightily,
+to land breathless after a heart-breaking pull. Just over the top Welton
+drew rein to breathe his horses--and to hear what Bob had to say about
+it.
+
+The buckboard stood at the head of a long, gentle slope descending,
+perhaps fifty feet, to a plateau; which, in turn, rose to another crest
+some miles distant. The level of this plateau, which comprised, perhaps,
+thirty thousand acres all told, supported a noble and unbroken forest.
+
+Mere statistics are singularly unavailing to convey even an idea of a
+California woodland at its best. We are not here dealing with the
+so-called "Big Trees," but with the ordinary--or extraordinary--pines
+and spruces. The forest is free from dense undergrowths; the individual
+trees are enormous, yet so symmetrical that the eye can realize their
+size only when it catches sight of some usual and accustomed object,
+such as men or horses or the buildings in which they live. Even then it
+is quite as likely that the measures will appear to have been struck
+small, as that the measured will show in their true grandeur of
+proportion. The eye refuses to be convinced off-hand that its education
+has been faulty.
+
+"Now," said Welton decidedly. "We may as well have it over with right
+now. How big is that young tree over there?"
+
+He pointed out a half-grown specimen of sugar pine.
+
+"About twenty inches in diameter," replied Bob promptly.
+
+Welton silently handed him a tape line. Bob descended.
+
+"Thirty-seven!" he cried with vast astonishment, when his measurements
+were taken and his computations made.
+
+"Now that one," commanded Welton, indicating a larger tree.
+
+Bob sized it up.
+
+"No fair looking at the other for comparison," warned the older man.
+
+"Forty," hesitated Bob, "and I don't believe it's that!" he added. "Four
+feet," he amended when he had measured.
+
+"Climb in," said Welton; "now you're in a proper frame of mind to listen
+to me with respect. The usual run of tree you see down through here is
+from five to eight feet in diameter. They are about all over two hundred
+feet tall, and some run close to three hundred."
+
+Bob sighed. "All right. Drive on. I'll get used to it in time." His face
+lighted up with a grin. "Say, wouldn't you like to see Roaring Dick
+trying to handle one of those logs with a peavie? As for driving a
+stream full of them! Oh, Lord! You'd have to send 'em down one at a
+time, fitted out with staterooms for the crew, a rudder and a gasoline
+engine!"
+
+The ponies jogged cheerfully along the winding road. Water ran
+everywhere, or stood in pools. Under the young spruces were the last
+snowbanks. Pushing up through the wet soil, already showed early
+snowplants, those strange, waxlike towers of crimson. After a time they
+came to a sidehill where the woods thinned. There still stood many
+trees, but as the buckboard approached, Bob could see that they were
+cedars, or spruce, or smaller specimens of the pines. Prone upon the
+ground, like naked giants, gleamed white and monstrous the peeled bodies
+of great trees. A litter of "slash," beaten down by the winter, cumbered
+the ground, and retained beneath its faded boughs soggy and melting
+drifts.
+
+"Had some 'fallers' in here last year," explained Welton briefly.
+"Thought we'd have some logs on hand when it came time to start up."
+
+"Wait a minute," requested Bob. He sprang lightly from the vehicle, and
+scrambled over to stand alongside the nearest of the fallen monsters. He
+could just see over it comfortably. "My good heavens!" said he soberly,
+resuming his seat. "How in blazes do you handle them?"
+
+Welton drove on a few paces, then pointed with his whip. A narrow trough
+made of small peeled logs laid parallel and pegged and mortised together
+at the ends, ran straight over the next hill.
+
+"That's a chute," he explained briefly. "We hitch a wire cable to the
+log and just naturally yank it over to the chute."
+
+"How yank it?" demanded Bob.
+
+"By a good, husky donkey engine. Then the chute poles are slushed, we
+hitch cables on four or five logs, and just tow them over the hill to
+the mill."
+
+Bob's enthusiasm, as always, was growing with the presentation of this
+new and mighty problem of engineering so succinctly presented. It
+sounded simple; but from his two years' experience he knew better. He
+was becoming accustomed to filling in the outlines of pure theory. At a
+glance he realized the importance of such things as adequate anchors for
+the donkey engines; of figuring on straight pulls, horse power and the
+breaking strain of steel cables; of arranging curves in such manner as
+to obviate ditching the logs, of selecting grades and routes in such
+wise as to avoid the lift of the stretched cable; and more dimly he
+guessed at other accidents, problems and necessities which only the
+emergency could fully disclose. All he said was:
+
+"So that's why you bark them all--so they'll slide. I wondered."
+
+But now the ponies, who had often made this same trip, pricked up their
+ears and accelerated their pace. In a moment they had rounded a hill and
+brought their masters into full view of the mill itself.
+
+The site was in a wide, natural clearing occupied originally by a green
+meadow perhaps a dozen acres in extent. From the borders of this park
+the forest had drawn back to a dark fringe. Now among the trees at the
+upper end gleamed the yellow of new, unpainted shanties. Square against
+the prospect was the mill, a huge structure, built of axe-hewn timbers,
+rough boards, and the hand-rived shingles known as shakes. Piece by
+piece the machinery had been hauled up the mountain road until enough
+had been assembled on the space provided for it by the axe men to begin
+sawing. Then, like some strange monster, it had eaten out for itself at
+once a space in the forest and the materials for its shell and for the
+construction of its lesser dependents, the shanties, the cook-houses,
+the offices and the shops. Welton pointed out with pride the various
+arrangements; here the flats and the trestles for the yards where the
+new-sawn lumber was to be stacked; there the dump for the sawdust and
+slabs; yonder the banking ground constructed of great logs laid close
+together, wherein the timber-logs would be deposited to await the saw.
+
+From the lower end of the yard a trestle supporting a V-shaped trough
+disappeared over the edge of a hill. Near its head a clear stream
+cascaded down the slope.
+
+"That's the flume," explained the lumberman. "Brought the stream around
+from the head of the meadow in a ditch. We'll flume the sawn lumber down
+the mountain. For the present we'll have to team it out to the railroad.
+Your friend Baker's figuring on an electric road to meet us, though, and
+I guess we'll fix it up with him inside a few years, anyway."
+
+"Where's Stone Creek from here?" asked Bob.
+
+"Over the farther ridge. The mountain drops off again there to Stone
+Creek three or four thousand feet."
+
+"We ought to hear from the fire, soon."
+
+"If we don't, we'll ride over that way and take a look down," replied
+Welton.
+
+They drove down the empty yards to a stable where already was
+established their old barn-boss of the Michigan woods. Four or five big
+freight wagons stood outside, and a score of powerful mules rolled and
+sunned themselves in the largest corral. Welton nodded toward several
+horses in another enclosure.
+
+"Pick your saddle horse, Bob," said he. "Straw boss has to ride in this
+country."
+
+"Make it the oldest, then," said Bob.
+
+At the cookhouse they were just in time for the noon meal. The long,
+narrow room, fresh with new wood, new tables and new benches in
+preparation for the crew to come, looked bare and empty with its handful
+of guests huddled at one end. These were the teamsters, the stablemen,
+the caretakers and a few early arrivals. The remainder of the crew was
+expected two days later.
+
+After lunch Bob wandered out into the dazzling sunlight. The sky was
+wonderfully blue, the trees softly green, the new boards and the tiny
+pile of sawdust vividly yellow. These primary colours made all the
+world. The air breathed crisp and bracing, with just a dash of cold in
+the nostrils that contrasted paradoxically with the warm balminess of
+the sunlight. It was as though these two opposed qualities, warmth and
+cold, were here held suspended in the same medium and at the same time.
+Birds flashed like spangles against the blue. Others sang and darted and
+scratched and chirped everywhere. Tiny chipmunks no bigger than
+half-grown rats scampered fearlessly about. What Bob took for larger
+chipmunks--the Douglas Squirrels--perched on the new fence posts. The
+world seemed alive--alive through its creatures, through the solemn,
+uplifting vitality of its forests, through the sprouting, budding spring
+growths just bursting into green, through the wine-draught of its very
+air, through the hurrying, busy preoccupied murmur of its streams. Bob
+breathed his lungs full again and again, and tingled from head to foot.
+
+"How high are we here?" he called to Welton.
+
+"About six thousand. Why? Getting short-winded?"
+
+"I could run ten miles," replied Bob. "Come on. I'm going to look at the
+stream."
+
+"Not at a run," protested Welton. "No, sir! At a nice, middle-aged,
+dignified, fat _walk_!"
+
+They sauntered down the length of the trestle, with its miniature steel
+tracks, to where the flume began. It proved to be a very solidly built
+V-trough, alongside which ran a footboard. Welton pointed to the
+telephone wire that paralleled it.
+
+"When we get going," said he, "we just turn the stream in here, clamp
+our sawn lumber into bundles of the right size, and 'let her went!'
+There'll be three stations along the line, connected by 'phone, to see
+that things go all right. That flume's six mile long."
+
+Bob strode to the gate, and after some heaving and hauling succeeded in
+throwing water into the flume.
+
+"I wanted to see her go," he explained.
+
+"Now if you want some real fun," said Welton, gazing after the foaming
+advance wave as it ripped its way down the chute. "You make you a sort
+of three-cornered boat just to fit the angle of the flume; and then you
+lie down in it and go to Sycamore Flats, in about six minutes more or
+less."
+
+"You mean to say that's done?" cried Bob.
+
+"Often. It only means knocking together a plank or so."
+
+"Doesn't the lumber ever jump the flume?"
+
+"Once in a great while."
+
+"Suppose the boat should do it?"
+
+"Then," said Welton drily, "it's probable you'd have to begin learning
+to tune a harp."
+
+"Not for mine," said Bob with fervour. "Any time I yearn for Sycamore
+Flats real hard, I'll go by hand."
+
+He shut off the water, and the two walked a little farther to a bold
+point that pressed itself beyond the trees.
+
+Below them the cliff dropped away so steeply that they looked out above
+the treetops as from the summit of a true precipice. Almost directly
+below them lay the wooded valley of Sycamore Flats, maplike, tiny. It
+was just possible to make out the roofs of houses, like gray dots. Roads
+showed as white filaments threading the irregular patches of green and
+brown. From beneath flowed the wide oak and brush-clad foothills, rising
+always with the apparent cup of the earth until almost at the height of
+the eye the shimmering, dim plains substituted their brown for the dark
+green of the hills. The country that yesterday had seemed mountainous,
+full of canons, ridges and ranges, now showed gently undulating,
+flattened, like a carpet spread before the feet of the Sierras. To the
+north were tumbled, blue, pine-clad mountains as far as the eye could
+see, receding into the dimness of great distance. At one point, but so
+far away as to be distinguishable only by a slight effort of the
+imagination, hovered like soap-bubbles against an ethereal sky the forms
+of snow mountains. Welton pointed out the approximate position of
+Yosemite.
+
+They returned to camp where Welton showed the clean and painted little
+house built for Bob and himself. It was quite simply a row of rooms with
+a verandah in front of them all. But the interiors were furnished with
+matting for the floors, curtains to the windows, white iron bedsteads,
+running water and open fireplaces.
+
+"I'm sick of camping," said Welton. "This is our summer quarters for
+some time. I'm going to be comfortable."
+
+Bob sighed.
+
+"This is the bulliest place I ever saw!" he cried boyishly.
+
+"Well, you're going to have time enough to get used to it," said Welton
+drily.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The Stone Creek fire indeed proved not to amount to much, whereby sheer
+chance upheld Henry Plant. The following morning the fire fighters
+returned; leaving, however, two of their number to "guard the line"
+until the danger should be over. Welton explained to Bob that only the
+fact that Stone Creek bottom was at a low elevation, filled with brush
+and tarweed, and grown thick with young trees rendered the forest even
+inflammable at this time of year.
+
+"Anywhere else in this country at this time of year it wouldn't do any
+harm," he told Bob, "and Plant knew it couldn't get out of the basin. He
+didn't give a cuss how much it did there. But we've got some young stuff
+that would easy carry a top fire. Later in the season you may see some
+tall rustling on the fire lines."
+
+But before noon of that day a new complication arose. Up the road came a
+short, hairy man on a mule. His beard grew to his high cheek bones, his
+eyebrows bristled and jutted out over his black eyes, and a thick shock
+of hair pushed beneath the rim of his hat to meet the eyebrows. The hat
+was an old black slouch, misshapen, stained and dusty. His faded shirt
+opened to display a hairy throat and chest. As for the rest he was
+short-limbed, thick and powerful.
+
+This nondescript individual rode up to the verandah on which sat Welton
+and Bob, awaiting the lunch bell. He bowed gravely, and dismounted.
+
+"Dis ees Meestair Welton?" he inquired with a courtesy at strange
+variance with his uncouth appearance.
+
+Welton nodded.
+
+"I am Peter Lejeune," said the newcomer, announcing one of those hybrid
+names so common among the transplanted French and Basques of California.
+"I have de ship."
+
+"Oh, yes," said Welton rising and going forward to offer his hand. "Come
+up and sit down, Mr. Leejune."
+
+The hairy man "tied his mule to the ground" by dropping the end of the
+reins, and mounted the two steps to the verandah.
+
+"This is my assistant, Mr. Orde," said Welton. "How are the sheep coming
+on? Mr. Leejune," he told Bob, "rents the grazing in our timber."
+
+"Et is not coming," stated Lejeune with a studied calm. "Plant he
+riffuse permit to cross."
+
+"Permit to what?" asked Welton.
+
+"To cross hees fores', gov'ment fores'. I can' get in here widout cross
+gov'ment land. I got to get permit from Plant. Plant he riffuse."
+
+Welton rose, staring at his visitor.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," he cried at last, "that a man hasn't got a
+right to get into his own land? That they can keep a man out of his own
+_land_?"
+
+"Da's right," nodded the Frenchman.
+
+"But you've been in here for ten years or so to my knowledge."
+
+Abruptly the sheepman's calm fell from him. He became wildly excited.
+His black eyes snapped, his hair bristled, he arose from his chair and
+gesticulated.
+
+"Every year I geev heem three ship! Three ship!" he repeated, thrusting
+three stubby fingers at Welton's face. "Three little ship! I stay all
+summer! He never say permit. Thees year he kip me out."
+
+"Give any reason?" asked Welton.
+
+"He say my ship feed over the line in gov'ment land."
+
+"Did they?"
+
+"Mebbe so, little bit. Mebbe not. Nobody show me line. Nobody pay no
+'tention. I feed thees range ten year."
+
+"Did you give him three sheep this year?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+Welton sighed.
+
+"I can't go down and tend to this," said he. "My foremen are here to be
+consulted, and the crews will begin to come in to-morrow. You'll have to
+go and see what's eating this tender Plant, Bob. Saddle up and ride down
+with Mr. Leejune."
+
+Bob took his first lesson in Western riding behind Lejeune and his
+stolid mule. He had ridden casually in the East, as had most young men
+of his way of life, but only enough to make a fair showing on a gentle
+and easy horse. His present mount was gentle and easy enough, but Bob
+was called upon to admire feats of which a Harlem goat might have been
+proud. Lejeune soon turned off the wagon road to make his way directly
+down the side of the mountain. Bob possessed his full share of personal
+courage, but in this unaccustomed skirting of precipices, hopping down
+ledges, and sliding down inclines too steep to afford a foothold he
+found himself leaning inward, sitting very light in the saddle, or
+holding his breath until a passage perilous was safely passed. In the
+next few years he had occasion to drop down the mountainside a great
+many times. After the first few trips he became so thoroughly accustomed
+that he often wondered how he had ever thought this scary riding. Now,
+however, he was so busily occupied that he was caught by surprise when
+Lejeune's mule turned off through a patch of breast-high manzanita and
+he found himself traversing the gentler slope at the foot of the
+mountain. Ten minutes later they entered Sycamore Flats.
+
+Then Bob had leisure to notice an astonishing change of temperature. At
+the mill the air had been almost cold--entirely so out of the direct
+rays of the sun. Here it was as hot as though from a furnace. Passing
+the store, Bob saw that the tall thermometer there stood at 96 degrees.
+The day was unseasonable, but later, in the August heats, Bob had often,
+to his sorrow, to test the difference between six thousand and two
+thousand feet of elevation. From a clear, crisp late-spring climate he
+would descend in two hours to a temperature of 105 degrees.
+
+Henry Plant was discovered sprawled out in an armchair beneath a
+spreading tree in the front yard. His coat was off and his vest
+unbuttoned to display a vast and billowing expanse of soiled white
+shirt. In his hand was a palm-leaf fan, at his elbow swung an _olla_,
+newspapers littered the ground or lay across his fat knees. When Bob and
+Lejeune entered, he merely nodded surlily, and went on with his reading.
+
+"Can I speak to you a moment on business?" asked Bob.
+
+By way of answer the fat man dropped his paper, and mopped his brow.
+
+"We've rented our sheep grazing to Mr. Lejeune, here, as I understand
+we've been doing for some years. He tells me you have refused him
+permission to cross the Forest Reserve with his flocks."
+
+"That's right," grunted Plant.
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I believe, young man, granting permits is discretionary with the
+Supervisor," stated that individual.
+
+"I suppose so," agreed Bob. "But Mr. Lejeune has always had permission
+before. What reason do you assign for refusing it?"
+
+"Wilful trespass," wheezed Plant. "That's what, young man. His sheep
+grazed over our line. He's lucky that I don't have him up before the
+United States courts for damages as well."
+
+Lejeune started to speak, but Bob motioned him to silence.
+
+"I'm sure we could arrange for past damages, and guarantee against any
+future trespass," said he.
+
+"Well, I'm sure you can't," stated Plant positively. "Good day."
+
+But Bob was not willing to give up thus easily. He gave his best efforts
+either to arguing Plant into a better frame of mind, or to discovering
+some tangible reason for his sudden change of front in regard to the
+sheep.
+
+"It's no use," he told Lejeune, later, as they walked down the street
+together. "He's undoubtedly the right to refuse permits for cause; and
+technically he has cause if your sheep got over the line."
+
+"But what shall I do!" cried Lejeune. "My ship mus' have feed!"
+
+"You pasture them or feed them somewhere for a week or so, and I'll let
+you know," said Bob. "We'll get you on the land or see you through
+somewhere else."
+
+He mounted his horse stiffly and rode back up the street. Plant still
+sat in his armchair like a bloated spider. On catching sight of Bob,
+however, he heaved himself to his feet and waddled to the gate.
+
+"Here!" he called. Bob drew rein. "It has been reported to me that your
+firm has constructed a flume across 36, and a wagon road across 14, 22,
+28, and 32. Those are government sections. I suppose, of course, your
+firm has permits from Washington to build said improvements?"
+
+"Naturally," said Bob, who, however, knew nothing whatever of those
+details.
+
+"Well, I'll send a man up to examine them to-morrow," said Plant, and
+turned his back.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Bob took supper at Auntie Belle's, and rode up the mountain after dark.
+He did not attempt short cuts, but allowed his horse to follow the plain
+grade of the road. After a time the moon crept over the zenith, and at
+once the forest took on a fairylike strangeness, as though at the touch
+of night new worlds had taken the place of the vanished old. Somewhere
+near midnight, his body shivering with the mountain cold, his legs stiff
+and chafed from the long, unaccustomed riding, but his mind filled with
+the wonder and beauty of the mountain night, Bob drew rein beside the
+corrals. After turning in his horse, he walked through the bright
+moonlight to Welton's door, on which he hammered.
+
+"Hey!" called the lumberman from within.
+
+"It's I, Bob."
+
+Welton scratched a match.
+
+"Why in blazes didn't you come up in the morning?" he inquired.
+
+"I've found out another and perhaps important hole we're in."
+
+"Can we do anything to help ourselves out before morning?" demanded
+Welton. "No? Well, sleep tight! I'll see you at six."
+
+Next morning Welton rolled out, as good-humoured and deliberate as ever.
+
+"My boy," said he. "When you get to be as old as I am, you'll never stir
+up trouble at night unless you can fix it then. What is it?"
+
+Bob detailed his conversation with Plant.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me that that old, fat _skunk_ had the nerve to
+tell you he was going to send a ranger to look at our permit?" he
+demanded.
+
+"Yes. That's what he said."
+
+"The miserable hound! Why I went to see him a year ago about crossing
+this strip with our road--we had to haul a lot of stuff in. He told me
+to go ahead and haul, and that he'd fix it up when the time came. Since
+then I've tackled him two or three times about it, but he's always told
+me to go ahead; that it was all right. So we went ahead. It's always
+been a matter of form, this crossing permit business. It's _meant_ to be
+a matter of form!"
+
+After breakfast Welton ordered his buckboard and, in company with Bob,
+drove down the mountain again. Plant was discovered directing the
+activities of several men, who were loading a light wagon with
+provisions and living utensils.
+
+"Moving up to our summer camp," one of them told Bob. "Getting too hot
+down here."
+
+Plant received them, his fat face expressionless, and led them into the
+stuffy little office.
+
+"Look here, Plant," said Welton, without a trace of irritation on his
+weatherbeaten, round countenance. "What's all this about seeing a permit
+to cross those government sections? You know very well I haven't any
+permit."
+
+"I have been informed by my men that you have constructed or caused to
+be constructed a water flume through section 36, and a road through
+sections 14, 22, 28 and 32. If this has been done without due
+authorization you are liable for trespass. Fine of not less than $200 or
+imprisonment for not less than twelve months--or both." He delivered
+this in a voice absolutely devoid of expression.
+
+"But you told me to go ahead, and that you'd attend to the details, and
+it would be all right," said Welton.
+
+"You must have misunderstood me," replied Plant blandly. "It is against
+my sworn duty to permit such occupation of public land without due
+conformity to law. It is within my discretion whether to report the
+trespass for legal action. I am willing to believe that you have acted
+in this matter without malicious intent. But the trespass must cease."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" asked Welton.
+
+"You must not use that road as a highway, nor the flume, and you must
+remove the flume within a reasonable time. Or else you may still get a
+permit."
+
+"How long would that take?" asked Welton. "Could it be done by wire?"
+
+Plant lifted a glazed and fishy eye to survey him.
+
+"You would be required to submit in writing specifications of the length
+and location of said road and flume. This must be accompanied by a
+topographical map and details of construction. I shall then send out
+field men to investigate, after which, endorsed with my approval, it
+goes for final decision to the Secretary of the Interior."
+
+"Good Lord, man!" cried Welton, aghast. "That would take all summer! And
+besides, I made out all that tomfoolery last summer. I supposed you must
+have unwound all that red tape long ago!"
+
+Plant for the first time looked his interlocutor square in the eye.
+
+"I find among my records no such application," he said deliberately.
+
+Welton stared at him a moment, then laughed.
+
+"All right, Mr. Plant, I'll see what's to be done," said he, and went
+out.
+
+In silence the two walked down the street until out of earshot. Then Bob
+broke out.
+
+"I'd like to punch his fat carcass!" he cried. "The old liar!"
+
+Welton laughed.
+
+"It all goes to show that a man's never too old to learn. He's got us
+plain enough just because this old man was too busy to wake up to the
+fact that these government grafters are so strong out here. Back our
+way when you needed a logging road, you just built it, and paid for the
+unavoidable damage, and that's all there was to it."
+
+"You take it cool," spluttered Bob.
+
+"No use taking it any other way," replied Welton. "But the situation is
+serious. We've got our plant in shape, and our supplies in, and our men
+engaged. It would be bad enough to shut down with all that expense. But
+the main trouble is, we're under contract to deliver our mill run to
+Marshall & Harding. We can't forfeit that contract and stay in
+business."
+
+"What are you going to do about it?" asked Bob.
+
+"Get on the wires to your father in Washington," replied Welton. "Lucky,
+your friend Baker's power project is only four miles away; we can use
+his 'phone."
+
+But at the edge of town they met Lejeune.
+
+"I got de ship in pasture," he told Bob. "But hees good for not more dan
+one wik."
+
+"Look here, Leejune," said Welton. "I'm sorry, but you'll have to look
+up another range for this summer. Of course, we'll pay any loss or
+damage in the matter. It looks impossible to do anything with Plant."
+
+The Frenchman threw up both hands and broke into voluble explanations.
+From them the listeners gathered more knowledge in regard to the sheep
+business than they could have learned by observation in a year. Briefly,
+it was necessary that the sheep have high-country feed, at once; the
+sheepmen apportioned the mountains among themselves, so that each had
+his understood range; it would now be impossible to find anywhere
+another range; only sometimes could one trade localities with another,
+but that must be arranged earlier in the season before the flocks are in
+the hills--in short, affairs were at a critical point, where Lejeune
+must have feed, and no other feed was to be had except that for which he
+had in all confidence contracted. Welton listened thoughtfully, his eyes
+between his horses.
+
+"Can you run those sheep in, at night, or somehow?"
+
+The Frenchman's eyes sparkled.
+
+"I run ship two year in Yosemite Park," he bragged. "No soldier fin'
+me."
+
+"That's no great shakes," said Welton drily, "from what I've seen of
+Park soldiers. If you can sneak these sheep across without getting
+caught, you do it."
+
+"I snik ship across all right," said Lejeune. "But I can' stop hees
+track. The ranger he know I cross all right."
+
+"What's the penalty?" asked Welton.
+
+"Mos'ly 'bout one hundred dollars," replied Lejeune promptly. "Mebbe
+five hundred."
+
+Welton sighed. "Is that the limit?" he asked. "Not more than five
+hundred?"
+
+"No. Dat all."
+
+"Well, it'll take a good half of the rent to get you in, if they soak us
+the limit; but you're up against it, and we'll stand back of you. If we
+agreed to give you that grazing, by God, _you'll get it_, as long as
+that land is ours."
+
+He nodded and drove on, while Lejeune, the true sheepman's delight in
+dodging the officers burning strong within his breast, turned his mule's
+head to the lower country.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The full situation, as far as the wires could tell it, was laid before
+Jack Orde in Washington. A detailed letter followed. Toward evening of
+that day the mill crews began to come in with the four and six-horse
+teams provided for their transportation. They were a dusty but hilarious
+lot. The teams drew up underneath the solitary sycamore tree that gave
+the place its name, and at once went into camp. Bob strolled down to
+look them over.
+
+They proved to be fresh-faced, strong farm boys, for the most part, with
+a fair sprinkling of older mountaineers, and quite a contingent of half
+and quarter-bred Indians. All these people worked on ranches or in the
+towns during the off season when the Sierras were buried under winter
+snows. Their skill at woodsmanship might be undoubted, but the
+intermittent character of their work precluded any development of
+individual type, like the rivermen and shanty boys of the vanished
+North. For a moment Bob experienced a twinge of regret that the old,
+hard, picturesque days of his Northern logging were indeed gone. Then
+the interest of this great new country with its surging life and its new
+problems gripped him hard. He left these decent, hard-working,
+self-respecting ranch boys, these quiet mountaineers, these stolid,
+inscrutable breeds to their flickering camp fire. Next morning the
+many-seated vehicles filled early and started up the road. But within a
+mile Welton and Bob in their buckboard came upon old California John
+square in the middle of the way. Star stood like a magnificent statue
+except that slowly over and over, with relish, he turned the wheel of
+the silver-mounted spade-bit under his tongue. As the ranger showed no
+indication of getting out of the way, Welton perforce came to a halt.
+
+"Road closed to trespass by the Wolverine Company," the ranger stated
+impassively.
+
+Welton whistled.
+
+"That mean I can't get to my own property?" he asked.
+
+"My orders are to close this road to the Wolverine Company."
+
+"Well, you've obeyed orders. Now get out the way. Tell your chief he can
+go ahead on a trespass suit."
+
+But the old man shook his head.
+
+"No, you don't understand," he repeated patiently. "My orders were to
+_close_ the road to the Company, not just to give notice."
+
+Without replying Welton picked up his reins and started his horses. The
+man seemed barely to shift his position, but from some concealment he
+produced a worn and shiny Colt's. This he laid across the horn of his
+saddle.
+
+"Stop," he commanded, and this time his voice had a bite to it.
+
+"Millions for defence," chuckled Welton, who recognized perfectly the
+tone, "and how much did you say for tribute?"
+
+"What say?" inquired the old man.
+
+"What sort of a hold-up is this? We certainly can't do this road any
+damage driving over it once. How much of an inducement does Plant want,
+anyway?"
+
+"This department is only doing its sworn duty," replied the old man. His
+blue eyes met Welton's steadily; not a line of his weatherbeaten face
+changed. For twenty seconds the lumberman tried to read his opponent's
+mind.
+
+"Well," he said at last. "You can tell your chief that if he thinks he
+can annoy and harass me into bribing him to be decent, he's left."
+
+By this time the dust and creek of the first heavily laden vehicle had
+laboured up to within a few hundred yards.
+
+"I have over a hundred men there," said Welton, "that I've hired to
+work for me at the top of that mountain. It's damn foolishness that
+anybody should stop their going there; and I'll bet they won't lose
+their jobs. My advice to you is to stand one side. You can't stop a
+hundred men alone."
+
+"Yes, I can," replied the old man calmly. "I'm not alone."
+
+"No?" said Welton, looking about him.
+
+"No; there's eighty million people behind that," said California John,
+touching lightly the shield of his Ranger badge. The simplicity of the
+act robbed it of all mock-heroics.
+
+Welton paused, a frown of perplexity between his brows. California John
+was watching him calmly.
+
+"Of course, the _public_ has a right to camp in all Forest
+Reserves--subject to reg'lation," he proffered.
+
+Welton caught at this.
+
+"You mean--"
+
+"No, you got to turn back, and your Company's rigs have got to turn
+back," said California John. "But I sure ain't no orders to stop no
+campers."
+
+Welton nodded briefly; and, after some difficulty, succeeding in turning
+around, he drove back down the grade. After he had bunched the wagons he
+addressed the assembled men.
+
+"Boys," said he, "there's been some sort of a row with the Government,
+and they've closed this road to us temporarily. I guess you'll have to
+hoof it the rest of the way."
+
+This was no great and unaccustomed hardship, and no one objected.
+
+"How about our beds?" inquired some one.
+
+This presented a difficulty. No Western camp of any description--lumber,
+mining, railroad, cow--supplies the bedding for its men. Camp blankets
+as dealt out in our old-time Northern logging camp are unknown. Each man
+brings his own blankets, which he further augments with a pair of
+quilts, a pillow and a heavy canvas. All his clothing and personal
+belongings he tucks inside; the canvas he firmly lashes outside. Thus
+instead of his "turkey"--or duffle-bag--he speaks of his "bed roll,"
+and by that term means not only his sleeping equipment but often all his
+worldly goods.
+
+"Can't you unhitch your horses and pack them?" asked Bob.
+
+"Sure," cried several mountaineers at once.
+
+Welton chuckled.
+
+"That sounds like it," he approved; "and remember, boys, you're all
+innocent campers out to enjoy the wonders and beauties of nature."
+
+The men made short work of the job. In a twinkling the horses were
+unhitched from the vehicles. Six out of ten of these men were more or
+less practised at throwing packing hitches, for your Californian brought
+up in sight of mountains is often among them. Bob admired the dexterity
+with which some of the mountaineers improvised slings and drew tight the
+bulky and cumbersome packs. Within half an hour the long procession was
+under way, a hundred men and fifty horses. They filed past California
+John, who had drawn one side.
+
+"Camping, boys?" he asked the leader.
+
+The man nodded and passed on. California John sat at ease, his elbow on
+the pommel, his hand on his chin, his blue eyes staring vacantly at the
+silent procession filing before him. Star stood motionless, his head
+high, his small ears pricked forward. The light dust peculiar to the
+mountain soils of California, stirred by many feet, billowed and rolled
+upward through the pines. Long rays of sunlight cut through it like
+swords.
+
+"Now did you ever see such utter damn foolishness?" growled Welton.
+"Make that bunch walk all the way up that mountain! What on earth is the
+difference whether they walk or ride?"
+
+But Bob, examining closely the faded, old figure on the magnificent
+horse, felt his mind vaguely troubled by another notion. He could not
+seize the thought, but its influence was there. Somehow the irritation
+and exasperation had gone from the episode.
+
+"I know that sort of crazy old mossback," muttered Welton as he turned
+down the mountain. "Pin a tin star on them and they think they're as
+important as hell!"
+
+Bob looked back.
+
+"I don't know," he said vaguely. "I'm kind of for that old coon."
+
+The bend shut him out. After the buckboard had dipped into the horseshoe
+and out to the next point, they again looked back. The smoke of marching
+rose above the trees to eddy lazily up the mountain. California John, a
+tiny figure now, still sat patiently guarding the portals of an empty
+duty.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Bob and Welton left the buckboard at Sycamore Flats and rode up to the
+mill by a detour. There they plunged into active work. The labour of
+getting the new enterprise under way proved to be tremendous. A very
+competent woods foreman, named Post, was in charge of the actual
+logging, so Welton gave his undivided attention to the mill work. All
+day the huge peeled timbers slid and creaked along the greased slides,
+dragged mightily by a straining wire cable that snapped and swung
+dangerously. When they had reached the solid "bank" that slanted down
+toward the mill, the obstreperous "bull" donkey lowered its crest of
+white steam, coughed, and was still. A man threw over the first of these
+timbers a heavy rope, armed with a hook, that another man drove home
+with a blow of his sledge. The rope tightened. Over rolled the log, out
+from the greased slide, to come, finally, to rest among its fellows at
+the entrance to the mill.
+
+Thence it disappeared, moved always by steam-driven hooks, for these
+great logs could not be managed by hand implements. The sawyers, at
+their levers, controlled the various activities. When the time came the
+smooth, deadly steel ribbon of the modern bandsaws hummed hungrily into
+the great pines; the automatic roller hurried the new-sawn boards to the
+edgers; little cars piled high with them shot out from the cool dimness
+into the dazzling sunlight; men armed with heavy canvas or leather
+stacked them in the yards; and then----
+
+That was the trouble; and then, nothing!
+
+From this point they should have gone farther. Clamped in rectangular
+bundles, pushing the raging white water before their blunt noses, as
+strange craft they should have been flashing at regular intervals down
+the twisting, turning and plunging course of the flume. Arrived safely
+at the bottom, the eight-and twelve-horse teams should have taken them
+in charge, dragging them by the double wagon load to the waiting yards
+of Marshall & Harding. Nothing of the sort was happening. Welton did not
+dare go ahead with the water for fear of prejudicing his own case. The
+lumber accumulated. And, as the mill's capacity was great and that of
+the yards small, the accumulation soon threatened to become
+embarrassing.
+
+Bob acted as Welton's lieutenant. As the older lumberman was at first
+occupied in testing out his sawyers, and otherwise supervising the
+finished product, Bob was necessarily much in the woods. This suited him
+perfectly. Every morning at six he and the men tramped to the scene of
+operations. There a dozen crews scattered to as many tasks. Far in the
+van the fellers plied their implements. First of all they determined
+which way a tree could be made to fall, estimating long and carefully on
+the weight of limbs, the slant of the trunk, the slope of ground, all
+the elements having to do with the centre of gravity. This having been
+determined, the men next chopped notches of the right depth for the
+insertion of short boards to afford footholds high enough to enable them
+to nick the tree above the swell of the roots. Standing on these springy
+and uncertain boards, they began their real work, swinging their axes
+alternately, with untiring patience and incomparable accuracy. Slowly,
+very slowly, the "nick" grew, a mouth gaping ever wider in the brown
+tree. When it had gaped wide enough the men hopped down from their
+springboards, laid aside their axes, and betook themselves to the saw.
+And when, at last, the wedges inserted in the saw-crack started the
+mighty top, the men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and stood
+to one side.
+
+[Illustration: The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and
+stood to one side]
+
+After the dust had subsided, and the last reverberations of that mighty
+crash had ceased to reecho through the forest, the fellers stepped
+forward to examine their work. They took all things into consideration,
+such as old wind shakes, new decay, twist of grain and location of the
+limbs. Then they measured off the prostrate trunk into logs of twelve,
+fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty feet, according to the best
+expediency. The division points between logs they notched plainly, and,
+shouldering their axes and their sledge and their long, limber saw,
+pocketing their wedges and their bottle of coal oil, they moved on to
+where the next mighty pine had through all the centuries been awaiting
+their coming.
+
+Now arrived on the scene the "swampers" and cross-cut men, swarming over
+the prostrate tree like ants over a piece of sugar. Some of them cut off
+limbs; others, with axes and crowbars, began to pry away great slabs of
+bark; still others, with much precaution of shovel, wedge and axe
+against jamming, commenced the slow and laborious undertaking of sawing
+apart the logs.
+
+But most interesting and complicated of all were the further processes
+of handling the great logs after they had been peeled and sawed.
+
+The ends of steel cables were dragged by a horse to the prostrate tree,
+where they were made fast by means of chains and hooks. Then the puffing
+and snorting donkey engine near the chute tightened the cable. The log
+stirred, moved, plunged its great blunt nose forward, ploughing up the
+soil. Small trees and bushes it overrode. But sooner or later it
+collided head on, with a large tree, a stump, or a boulder. The cable
+strained. Men shouted or waved their arms in signal. The donkey engine
+ceased coughing. Then the horse pulled the end of the log free. Behind
+it was left a deep trough, a half cylinder scooped from the soil.
+
+At the chutes the logs were laid end to end, like a train of cars. A
+more powerful cable, endless, running to the mill and back again, here
+took up the burden. At a certain point it was broken by two great hooks.
+One of these, the one in advance, the men imbedded in the rear log of
+the train. The other was dragged behind. Away from the chutes ten feet
+the returning cable snapped through rude pulleys. The train of logs
+moved forward slowly and steadily, sliding on the greased ways.
+
+On the knoll the donkey engine coughed and snorted as it heaved the
+mighty timbers from the woods. The drag of the logs was sometimes
+heavier than the engine, so it had to be anchored by other cables to
+strong trees. Between these opposing forces--the inertia of the rooted
+and the fallen--it leaped and trembled. At its throttle, underneath a
+canopy knocked together of rough boards, the engineer stood, ready from
+one instant to another to shut off, speed up, or slow down, according to
+the demands of an ever-changing exigence. His was a nervous job, and he
+earned his repose.
+
+At the rear of the boiler a boy of eighteen toiled with an axe, chopping
+into appropriate lengths the dead wood brought in for fuel. Next year it
+would be possible to utilize old tops for this purpose, but now they
+were too green. Another boy, in charge of a solemn mule, tramped
+ceaselessly back and forth between the engine and a spring that had been
+dug out down the hill in a ravine. Before the end of that summer they
+had worn a trail so deep and hard and smooth that many seasons of snow
+failed to obliterate it even from the soft earth. On either side the
+mule were slung sacks of heavy canvas. At the spring the boy filled
+these by means of a pail. Returned to the engine, he replenished the
+boiler, draining the sacks from the bottom, cast a fleeting glance at
+the water gauge of the donkey engine, and hastened back to the spring.
+He had charge of three engines; and was busy.
+
+And back along the line of the chutes were other men to fill out this
+crew of many activities--old men to signal; young men to stand by with
+slush brush, axe, or bar when things did not go well; axe-men with
+teams laying accurately new chutes into new country yet untouched.
+
+Bob found plenty to keep him busy. Post, the woods foreman, was a good
+chute man. By long experience he had gained practical knowledge of the
+problems and accidents of this kind of work. To get the logs out from
+the beds in which they lay, across a rugged country, and into the mill
+was an engineering proposition of some moment. It is easy to get into
+difficulties from which hours of work will not extricate.
+
+But a man involved closely in the practical management of a saw log may
+conceivably possess scant leisure to correlate the scattered efforts of
+such divergent activities. The cross cutters and swampers may get ahead
+of the fellers and have to wait in idleness until the latter have
+knocked down a tree. Or the donkey may fall silent from lack of logs to
+haul; or the chute crews may smoke their pipes awaiting the donkey. Or,
+worst and unpardonable disgrace of all, the mill may ran out of logs!
+When that happens, the Old Fellow is usually pretty promptly on the
+scene.
+
+Now it is obvious that if somewhere on the works ten men are always
+waiting--even though the same ten men are not thus idle over once a
+week--the employer is paying for ten men too many. Bob found his best
+activity lay in seeing that this did not happen. He rode everywhere
+reviewing the work; and he kept it shaken together. Thus he made himself
+very useful, he gained rapidly a working knowledge of this new kind of
+logging, and, incidentally, he found his lines fallen in very pleasant
+places indeed.
+
+The forest never lost its marvel to him, but after he had to some extent
+become accustomed to the immense trees, he began to notice the smaller
+affairs of the woodland. The dogwoods and azaleas were beginning to come
+out; the waxy, crimson snow plants were up; the tiny green meadows near
+the heads of streams were enamelled with flowers; hundreds of species of
+birds sang and flashed and scratched and crept and soared. The smaller
+animals were everywhere. The sun at noon disengaged innumerable and
+subtle tepid odours of pine and blossom.
+
+One afternoon, a little less than a week subsequent to the beginning of
+work, Bob, riding home through the woods by a detour around a hill, came
+upon sheep. They were scattered all over the hill, cropping busily at
+the snowbush, moving ever slowly forward. A constant murmur arose, a
+murmur of a silent, quick, minute activity. Occasionally some mother
+among them lifted her voice. Bob sat his horse looking silently on the
+shifting grays. In ten seconds his sight blurred; he experienced a
+slight giddiness as though the substantial ground were shifting beneath
+him in masses, slowly, as in a dream. It gave him a curious feeling of
+instability. By an effort he focused his eyes; but almost immediately he
+caught himself growing fuzzy-minded again, exactly as though he had been
+gazing absently for a considerable period at a very bright light. He
+shook himself.
+
+"I don't wonder sheep herders go dotty," said he aloud.
+
+He looked about him, and for the first time became aware of a tow-headed
+youth above him on the hill. The youth leaned on a staff, and at his
+feet crouched two long-haired dogs. Bob turned his horse in that
+direction.
+
+When he had approached, he saw the boy to be about seventeen years old.
+His hair was very light, as were his eyebrows and eyelashes. Only a
+decided tinge of blue in his irises saved him from albinism. His lips
+were thick and loose, his nose flat, his expression vacant. In contrast,
+the two dogs, now seated on their haunches, their heads to one side,
+their ears cocked up, their eyes bright, looked to be the more
+intelligent animals.
+
+"Good evening," said Bob.
+
+The boy merely stared.
+
+"You in charge of the sheep?" inquired the young man presently.
+
+The boy grunted.
+
+"Where are you camped?" persisted Bob.
+
+No answer.
+
+"Where's your boss?"
+
+A faint gleam came into the sheep-herder's eyes. He raised his arm and
+pointed across through the woods.
+
+Bob reined his horse in the direction indicated. As he passed the last
+of the flock in that direction, he caught sight of another herder and
+two more dogs. This seemed to be a bearded man of better appearance than
+the boy; but he too leaned motionless on his long staff; he too gazed
+unblinking on the nibbling, restless, changing, imbecile sheep.
+
+As Bob looked, this man uttered a shrill, long-drawn whistle. Like
+arrows from bows the two dogs darted away, their ears flat, their bodies
+held low to the ground. The whistle was repeated by the youth.
+Immediately his dogs also glided forward. The noise of quick, sharp
+barkings was heard. At once the slow, shifting movement of the masses of
+gray ceased. The sound of murmurous, deep-toned bells, of bleating, of
+the movement of a multitude arose. The flock drew to a common centre; it
+flowed slowly forward. Here and there the dark bodies of the dogs
+darted, eager and intelligently busy. The two herders followed after,
+leaning on their long staffs. Over the hill passed the flock. Slowly the
+sounds of them merged into a murmur. It died. Only remained the fog of
+dust drifting through the trees, caught up by every passing current of
+air, light and impalpable as powder.
+
+Bob continued on his way, but had not proceeded more than a few hundred
+feet before he was overtaken by Lejeune.
+
+"You're the man I was looking for," said Bob. "I see you got your sheep
+in all right. Have any trouble?"
+
+The sheepman's teeth flashed.
+
+"Not'tall," he replied. "I snik in ver' easy up by Beeg Rock."
+
+At the mill, Bob, while luxuriously splashing the ice cold water on his
+face and throat, took time to call to Welton in the next room.
+
+"Saw your sheep man," he proffered. "He got in all right, sheep and
+all."
+
+Welton appeared in the doorway, mopping his round, red face with a
+towel.
+
+"Funny we haven't heard from Plant, then," said he. "That fat man must
+be keeping track of Leejune's where-abouts, or he's easier than I
+thought he was."
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The week slipped by. Welton seemed to be completely immersed in the
+business of cutting lumber. In due time Orde senior had replied by wire,
+giving assurance that he would see to the matter of the crossing
+permits.
+
+"So _that's_ settled," quoth Welton. "You bet-you Jack Orde will make
+the red tape fly. It'll take a couple of weeks, I suppose--time for
+the mail to get there and back. Meantime, we'll get a cut ahead."
+
+But at the end of ten days came a letter from the congressman.
+
+"Don't know just what is the hitch," wrote Jack Orde. "It ought to be
+the simplest matter in the world, and so I told Russell in the Land
+Office to-day. They seem inclined to fall back on their technicalities,
+which is all rot, of course. The man wants to be annoying for some
+reason, but I'll take it higher at once. Have an appointment with the
+Chief this afternoon...."
+
+The next letter came by the following mail.
+
+"This seems to be a bad mess. I can't understand it, nor get to the
+bottom of it. On the face of the showing here we've just bulled ahead
+without any regard whatever for law or regulations. Of course, I showed
+your letter stating your agreement and talks with Plant, but the
+department has his specific denial that you ever approached him. They
+stand pat on that, and while they're very polite, they insist on a
+detailed investigation. I'm going to see the Secretary this morning."
+
+Close on the heels of this came a wire:
+
+"Plant submits reports of alleged sheep trespass committed this spring
+by your orders. Wire denial."
+
+"My Lord!" said Welton, as he took this. "That's why we never heard from
+that! Bobby, that was a fool move, certainly; but I couldn't turn
+Leejune down after I'd agreed to graze him."
+
+"How about these lumber contracts?" suggested Bob.
+
+"We've got to straighten this matter out," said Welton soberly.
+
+He returned a long telegram to Congressman Orde in Washington, and
+himself interviewed Plant. He made no headway whatever with the fat man,
+who refused to emerge beyond the hard technicalities of the situation.
+Welton made a journey to White Oaks, where he interviewed the
+Superintendent of the Forest Reserves. The latter proved to be a
+well-meaning, kindly, white-whiskered gentleman, named Smith, who
+listened sympathetically, agreed absolutely with the equities of the
+situation, promised to attend to the matter, and expressed himself as
+delighted always to have these things brought to his personal attention.
+On reaching the street, however, Welton made a bee-line for the bank
+through which he did most of his business.
+
+"Mr. Lee," he asked the president, "I want you to be frank with me. I am
+having certain dealings with the Forest Reserve, and I want to know how
+much I can depend on this man Smith."
+
+Lee crossed his white hands on his round stomach, and looked at Welton
+over his eyeglasses.
+
+"In what way?" he asked.
+
+"I've had a little trouble with one of his subordinates. I've just been
+around to state my case to Smith, and he agrees with my side of the
+affair and promises to call down his man. Can I rely on him? Does he
+mean what he says?"
+
+"He means what he says," replied the bank president, slowly, "and you
+can rely on him--until his subordinate gets a chance to talk to him."
+
+"H'm," ruminated Welton. "Chinless, eh? I wondered why he wore long
+white whiskers."
+
+As he walked up the street toward the hotel, where he would spend the
+night before undertaking the long drive back, somebody hailed him. He
+looked around to see a pair of beautiful driving horses, shying
+playfully against each other, coming to a stop at the curb. Their
+harness was the lightest that could be devised--no blinders, no
+breeching, slender, well-oiled straps; the rig they drew shone and
+twinkled with bright varnish, and seemed as delicate and light as
+thistledown. On the narrow seat sat a young man of thirty, covered with
+an old-fashioned linen duster, wearing the wide, gray felt hat of the
+country. He was a keen-faced, brown young man, with snapping black eyes.
+
+"Hullo, Welton," said he as he brought the team to a stand; "when did
+you get out of the hills?"
+
+"How are you, Mr. Harding?" Welton returned his greeting. "Just down for
+the day?"
+
+"How are things going up your way?"
+
+"First rate," replied Welton. "We're going ahead three bells and a
+jingle. Started to saw last week."
+
+"That's good," said Harding. "I haven't heard of one of your teams on
+the road, and I began to wonder. We've got to begin deliveries on our
+Los Angeles and San Pedro contracts by the first of August, and we're
+depending on you."
+
+"We'll be there," replied Welton with a laugh.
+
+The young man laughed back.
+
+"You'd better be, if you don't want us to come up and take your scalp,"
+said he, gathering his reins.
+
+"Guess I lay in some hair tonic so's to have a good one ready for you,"
+returned Welton, as Harding nodded his farewell.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Matters stood thus dependent on the efforts of Jack Orde, at Washington,
+when, one evening, Baker rode in to camp and dismounted before the low
+verandah of the sleeping quarters. Welton and Bob sat, chair-tilted,
+awaiting the supper gong.
+
+"Thrice hail, noble chiefs!" cried Baker, cautiously stretching out
+first one sturdy leg, then the other. "Against which post can I lean my
+trusty charger?"
+
+Baker was garbed to suit the role. His boots were very thick and very
+tall, and most bristly with hobnails; they laced with belt laces through
+forty-four calibre eyelets, and were strapped about the top with a broad
+piece of leather and two glittering buckles. Furthermore, his trousers
+were of khaki, his shirt of navy blue, his belt three inches broad, his
+neckerchief of red, and his hat both wide and high.
+
+In response to enthusiastic greetings, he struck a pose.
+
+"How do you like it?" he inquired. "Isn't this the candy make-up for the
+simple life--surveyor, hardy prospector, mountain climber, sturdy
+pedestrian? Ain't I the real young cover design for the Out-of-door
+number?"
+
+He accepted their congratulations with a lofty wave.
+
+"That's all right," said he; "but somebody take away this horse before I
+bite him. I'm sore on that horse. Joke! Snicker!"
+
+Bob delivered over the animal to the stableman who was approaching.
+
+"Come up to see the tall buildings?" he quoted Baker himself.
+
+"Not so," denied that young man. "My errand is philanthropic. I'm robin
+redbreast. Leaves for yours."
+
+"Pass that again," urged Bob; "I didn't get it."
+
+"I hear you people have locked horns with Henry Plant," said Baker.
+
+"Well, Plant's a little on the peck," amended Welton.
+
+"Leaves for yours," repeated the self-constituted robin redbreast.
+"Babes in the Woods!"
+
+Beyond this he would vouchsafe nothing until after supper when, cigars
+lighted, the three of them sprawled before the fireplace in quarters.
+
+"Now," he began, "you fellows are up against it good and plenty. You
+can't wish your lumber out, and that's the only feasible method unless
+you get a permit. Why in blazes did you make this break, anyway?"
+
+"What break?" asked Welton.
+
+Baker looked at him and smiled slowly.
+
+"You don't think I own a telephone line without knowing what little
+birdies light on the wires, do you?"
+
+"Does that damn operator leak?" inquired Welton placidly but with a
+narrowing of the eyes.
+
+"Not on your saccharine existence. If he did, he'd be out among the
+scenery in two jumps. But I'm different. That's my _business_."
+
+"Mighty poor business," put in Bob quietly.
+
+Baker turned full toward him.
+
+"Think so? You'll never get any cigars in the guessing contest unless
+you can scare up better ones than that. Let's get back to cases. How did
+you happen to make this break, anyway?"
+
+"Why," explained Welton, "it was simply a case of build a road and a
+flume down a worthless mountain-side. Back with us a man builds his road
+where he needs it, and pays for the unavoidable damage. My head was full
+of all sorts of details. I went and asked Plant about it, and he said
+all right, go ahead. I supposed that settled it, and that he must
+certainly have authority on his own job."
+
+Baker nodded several times.
+
+"Sure. I see the point. Just the same, he has you."
+
+"For the time being," amended Welton. "Bob's father, here, is
+congressman from our district in Michigan, and he'll fix the matter."
+
+Baker turned his face to the ceiling, blew a cloud of smoke toward it,
+and whistled. Then he looked down at Welton.
+
+"I suppose you know the real difficulty?" he asked.
+
+"One thousand dollars," replied Welton promptly--"to hire extra
+fire-fighters to protect my timber," he added ironically.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well!" the lumberman slapped his knee. "I won't be held up in any such
+barefaced fashion!"
+
+"And your congressman will pull you out. Now let me drop a few pearls of
+wisdom in the form of conundrums. Why does a fat man who can't ride a
+horse hold a job as Forest Supervisor in a mountain country?"
+
+"He's got a pull somewhere," replied Welton.
+
+"Bright boy! Go to the head. Why does a fat man who is hated by every
+mountain man, who grafts barefacedly, whose men are either loafers or
+discouraged, _hold_ his job?"
+
+"Same answer."
+
+Baker leaned forward, and his mocking face became grave.
+
+"That pull comes from the fact that old Gay is his first cousin, and
+that he seems to have some special drag with him."
+
+"The Republican chairman!" cried Welton.
+
+Baker leaned back.
+
+"About how much chance do you think Mr. Orde has of getting a hearing?
+Especially as all they have to do is to stand pat on the record. You'd
+better buy your extra fire-fighters."
+
+"That would be plain bribery," put in Bob from the bed.
+
+"Fie, fie! Naughty!" chided Baker. "Bribery! to protect one's timber
+against the ravages of the devouring element! Now look here," he resumed
+his sober tone and more considered speech; "what else can you do?"
+
+"Fight it," said Bob.
+
+"Fight what? Prefer charges against Plant? That's been done a dozen
+times. Such things never get beyond the clerks. There's a man in
+Washington now who has direct evidence of some of the worst frauds and
+biggest land steals ever perpetrated in the West. He's been there now
+four months, and he hasn't even _succeeded in getting a hearing_ yet. I
+tried bucking Plant, and it cost me first and last, in time, delay and
+money, nearly fifty thousand dollars. I'm offering you that expensive
+experience free, gratis, for nothing."
+
+"Make a plain statement of the facts public," said Bob. "Publish them.
+Arouse public sentiment."
+
+Baker looked cynical.
+
+"Such attacks are ascribed to soreheads," said he, "and public sentiment
+_isn't interested_. The average citizen wonders what all the fuss is
+about and why you don't get along with the officials, anyway, as long as
+they are fairly reasonable." He turned to Welton: "How much more of a
+delay can you stand without closing down?"
+
+"A month."
+
+"How soon must your deliveries begin?"
+
+"July first."
+
+"If you default this contract you can't meet your notes."
+
+"What notes?"
+
+"Don't do the baby blue-eyes. You can't start a show like this without
+borrowing. Furthermore, if you default this contract, you'll never get
+another, even if you do weather the storm."
+
+"That's true," said Welton.
+
+"Furthermore," insisted Baker, "Marshall and Harding will be
+considerably embarrassed to fill their contracts down below; and the
+building operations will go bump for lack of material, if they fail to
+make good. You can't stand or fall alone in this kind of a game."
+
+Welton said nothing, but puffed strongly on his cigar.
+
+"You're still doing the Sister Anne toward Washington," said Baker,
+pleasantly. "This came over the 'phone. I wired Mr. Orde in your name,
+asking what prospects there were for a speedy settlement. There's what
+he says!" He flipped a piece of scratch paper over to Welton.
+
+"Deadlock," read the latter slowly. "No immediate prospect. Will hasten
+matters through regular channels. Signed, Orde."
+
+"Mr. Orde is familiar with the whole situation?" asked Baker.
+
+"He is."
+
+"Well, there's what he thinks about it even there. You'd better see to
+that fire protection. It's going to be a dry year."
+
+"What's all your interest in this, anyway?" asked Bob.
+
+Baker did not answer, but looked inquiringly toward Welton.
+
+"Our interests are obviously his," said Welton. "We're the only two
+business propositions in this country. And if one of those two fail,
+how's the other to scratch along?"
+
+"Correct, as far as you go," said Baker, who had listened attentively.
+"Now, I'm no tight wad, and I'll give you another, gratis. It's strictly
+under your hats, though. If you fellows bust, how do you think I could
+raise money to do business up here at all? It would hoodoo the country."
+
+Silence fell on the three, while the fire leaped and fell and crackled.
+Welton's face showed still a trace of stubbornness. Suddenly Baker
+leaned forward, all his customary fresh spirits shining in his face.
+
+"Don't like to take his na'ty medicine?" said he. "Well, now, I'll tell
+you. I know Plant mighty well. He eats out of my hand. He just loves me
+as a father. If I should go to him and say; 'Plant, my agile sylph,
+these people are my friends. Give them their nice little permit and let
+them run away and play,' why, he'd do it in a minute." Baker rolled his
+eyes drolly at Welton. "Can this be the shadow of doubt! You disbelieve
+my power?" He leaned forward and tapped Welton's knee. His voice became
+grave: "I'll tell you what I'll do. _I'll bet you a thousand dollars I
+can get your permit for you!"_
+
+The two men looked steadily into each other's eyes.
+
+At last Welton drew a deep sigh.
+
+"I'll go you," said he.
+
+Baker laughed gleefully.
+
+"It's a cinch," said he. "Now, honest, don't you think so? Do you give
+up? Will you give me a check now?"
+
+"I'll give you a check, and you can hunt up a good stakeholder," said
+Welton. "Shall I make it out to Plant?" he inquired sarcastically.
+
+"Make the check out to me," said Baker. "I'll just let Plant hold the
+stakes and decide the bet."
+
+He rose.
+
+"Bring out the fiery, untamed steed!" he cried. "I must away!"
+
+"Not to-night?" cried Bob in astonishment.
+
+"Plant's in his upper camp," said Baker, "and it's only five miles by
+trail. There's still a moon."
+
+"But why this haste?"
+
+"Well," said Baker, spreading his sturdy legs apart and surveying first
+one and then the other. "To tell you the truth, our old friend Plant is
+getting hostile about these prods from Washington, and he intimated he'd
+better hear from me before midnight to-day."
+
+"You've already seen him!" cried Bob.
+
+But Baker merely grinned.
+
+As he stood by his horse preparing to mount, he remarked casually.
+
+"Just picked up a new man for my land business--name Oldham."
+
+"Never heard of him," said Welton.
+
+"He isn't the _Lucky Lands_ Oldham, is he?" asked Bob.
+
+"Same chicken," replied Baker; then, as Bob laughed, "Think he's phoney?
+Maybe he'll take watching--and maybe he won't. I'm a good little
+watcher. But I do know he's got 'em all running up the street with their
+hats in their hands when it comes to getting results."
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+Baker must have won his bet, for Welton never again saw his check for
+one thousand dollars, until it was returned to him cancelled. Nor did
+Baker himself return. He sent instead a note advising some one to go
+over to Plant's headquarters. Accordingly Bob saddled his horse, and
+followed the messenger back to the Supervisor's summer quarters.
+
+After an hour and a half of pleasant riding through the great forest,
+the trail dropped into a wagon road which soon led them to a fine, open
+meadow.
+
+"Where does the road go to in the other direction?" Bob asked his guide.
+
+"She 'jines onto your road up the mountain just by the top of the rise,"
+replied the ranger.
+
+"How did you get up here before we built that road?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Rode," answered the man briefly.
+
+"Pretty tough on Mr. Plant," Bob ventured.
+
+The man made no reply, but spat carefully into the tarweed. Bob
+chuckled to himself as the obvious humour of the situation came to him.
+Plant was evidently finding the disputed right of way a great
+convenience.
+
+The meadow stretched broad and fair to a distant fringe of aspens. On
+either side lay the open forest of spruce and pines, spacious, without
+undergrowth. Among the trees gleamed several new buildings and one or
+two old and weather-beaten structures. The sounds of busy saws and
+hammers rang down the forest aisles.
+
+Bob found the Supervisor sprawled comfortably in a rude, homemade chair
+watching the activities about him. To his surprise, he found there also
+Oldham, the real-estate promoter from Los Angeles. Two men were nailing
+shakes on a new shed. Two more were busily engaged in hewing and sawing,
+from a cross-section of a huge sugar pine, a set of three steps. Plant
+seemed to be greatly interested in this, as were still two other men
+squatting on their heels close by. All wore the badges of the Forest
+Reserves. Near at hand stood two more men holding their horses by the
+bridle. As Bob ceased his interchange with Oldham, he overhead one of
+these inquire:
+
+"All right. Now what do you want us to do?"
+
+"Get your names on the pay-roll and don't bother me," replied Plant.
+
+Plant caught sight of Bob, and, to that young man's surprise, waved him
+a jovial hand.
+
+"'Bout time you called on the old man!" he roared. "Tie your horse to
+the ground and come look at these steps. I bet there ain't another pair
+like 'em in the mountains!"
+
+Somewhat amused at this cordiality, Bob dismounted.
+
+Plant mentioned names by way of introduction.
+
+"Baker told me that you were with him, but not that you were on the
+mountain," said Bob. "Better come over and see us."
+
+"I'll try, but I'm rushed to get back," replied Oldham formally.
+
+"How's the work coming on?" asked Plant. "When you going to start
+fluming 'em down?"
+
+"As soon as we can get our permit," replied Bob.
+
+Plant chuckled.
+
+"Well, you did get in a hole there, didn't you? I guess you better go
+ahead. It'll take all summer to get the permit, and you don't want to
+lose a season, do you?"
+
+Astonished at the effrontery of the man, Bob could with difficulty
+control his expression.
+
+"We expect to start to-morrow or next day," he replied. "Just as soon
+as we can get our teams organized. Just scribble me a temporary permit,
+will you?" He offered a fountain pen and a blank leaf of his notebook.
+
+Plant hesitated, but finally wrote a few words.
+
+"You won't need it," he assured Bob. "I'll pass the word. But there you
+are."
+
+"Thanks," said Bob, folding away the paper. "You seem to be comfortably
+fixed here."
+
+Plant heaved his mighty body to its legs. His fat face beamed with
+pride.
+
+"My boy," he confided to Bob, laying a pudgy hand on the young man's
+shoulder, "this is the best camp in the mountains--without any
+exception."
+
+He insisted on showing Bob around. Of course, the young fellow,
+unaccustomed as yet to the difficulties of mountain transportation,
+could not quite appreciate to the full extent the value in forethought
+and labour of such things as glass windows, hanging lamps, enamelled
+table service, open fireplaces, and all the thousand and one
+conveniences--either improvised or transported mule-back--that Plant
+displayed. Nevertheless he found the place most comfortable and
+attractive.
+
+They caught a glimpse of skirts disappearing, but in spite of Plant's
+roar of "Minnie!" the woman failed to appear.
+
+"My niece," he explained.
+
+In spite of himself, Bob found that he was beginning to like the fat
+man. There could be no doubt that the Supervisor was a great rascal;
+neither could there be any doubt but that his personality was most
+attractive. He had a bull-like way of roaring out his jokes, his orders,
+or his expostulations; a smashing, dry humour; and, above all, an
+invariably confident and optimistic belief that everything was going
+well and according to everyone's desires. His manner, too, was hearty,
+his handclasp warm. He fairly radiated good-fellowship and good humour
+as he rolled about. Bob's animosity thawed in spite of his half-amused
+realization of what he ought to feel.
+
+When the tour of inspection had brought them again to the grove where
+the men were at work, they found two new arrivals.
+
+These were evidently brothers, as their square-cut features proclaimed.
+They squatted side by side on their heels. Two good horses with the
+heavy saddles and coiled ropes of the stockmen looked patiently over
+their shoulders. A mule, carrying a light pack, wandered at will in the
+background. The men wore straight-brimmed, wide felt hats, short
+jumpers, and overalls of blue denim, and cowboy boots armed with the
+long, blunt spurs of the craft. Their faces were stubby with a week's
+growth, but their blue eyes were wide apart and clear.
+
+"Hullo, Pollock," greeted Plant, as he dropped, blowing, into his chair.
+
+The men nodded briefly, never taking their steady gaze from Plant's
+face. After a due and deliberate pause, the elder spoke.
+
+"They's a thousand head of Wright's cattle been drove in on our ranges
+this year," said he.
+
+"I issued Wright permits for that number, Jim," replied Plant blandly.
+
+"But that's plumb crowdin' of our cattle off'n the range," protested the
+mountaineer.
+
+"No, it ain't," denied Plant. "That range will keep a thousand cattle
+more. I've had complete reports on it. I know what I'm doing."
+
+"It'll _keep_ them, all right," spoke up the younger, "which is saying
+they won't die. But they'll come out in the fall awful pore."
+
+"I'm using my judgment as to that," said Plant.
+
+"Yore judgment is pore," said the younger Pollock, bluntly. "You got to
+be a cattleman to know about them things."
+
+"Well, I know Simeon Wright don't put in cattle where he's going to
+lose on them," replied Plant. "If he's willing to risk it, I'll back his
+judgment."
+
+"Wright's a crowder," the older Pollock took up the argument quietly.
+"He owns fifty thousand head. Me and George, here, we have five hunderd.
+He just aims to summer his cattle, anyhow. When they come out in the
+fall, he will fat them up on alfalfa hay. Where is George and me and the
+Mortons and the Carrolls, and all the rest of the mountain folks going
+to get alfalfa hay? If our cattle come out pore in the fall, they ain't
+no good to us. The range is overstocked with a thousand more cattle on
+it. We're pore men, and Wright he owns half of Californy. He's got a
+million acres of his own without crowdin' in on us."
+
+"This is the public domain, for all the public----" began Plant,
+pompously, but George Pollock, the younger, cut in.
+
+"We've run this range afore you had any Forest Reserves, afore you came
+into this country, Henry Plant, and our fathers and our grandfathers!
+We've built up our business here, and we've built our ranches and we've
+made our reg'lations and lived up to 'em! We ain't going to be run off
+our range without knowin' why!"
+
+"Just because you've always hogged the public land is no reason why you
+should always continue to do so," said Plant cheerfully.
+
+"Who's the public? Simeon Wright? or the folks up and down the
+mountains, who lives in the country?"
+
+"You've got the same show as Wright or anybody else."
+
+"No, we ain't," interposed Jim Pollock, "for we're playin' a different
+game."
+
+"Well, what is it you want me to do, anyway?" demanded Plant. "The man
+has his permit. You can't expect me to tell him to get to hell out of
+there when he has a duly authorized permit, do you?"
+
+The Pollocks looked at each other.
+
+"No," hesitated Jim, at last. "But we're overstocked. Don't issue no
+such blanket permits next year. The range won't carry no more cattle
+than it always has."
+
+"Well, I'll have it investigated," promised Plant. "I'll send out a
+grazing man to look into the matter."
+
+He nodded a dismissal, and the two men, rising slowly to their feet,
+prepared to mount. They looked perplexed and dissatisfied, but at a
+loss. Plant watched them sardonically. Finally they swung into the
+saddle with the cowman's easy grace.
+
+"Well, good day," said Jim Pollock, after a moment's hesitation.
+
+"Good day," returned Plant amusedly.
+
+They rode away down the forest aisles. The pack mule fell in behind
+them, ringing his tiny, sweet-toned bell, his long ears swinging at
+every step.
+
+Plant watched them out of sight.
+
+"Most unreasonable people in the world," he remarked to Bob and Oldham.
+"They never can be made to see sense. Between them and these confounded
+sheepmen--I'd like to get rid of the whole bunch, and deal only with
+_business_ men. Takes too much palaver to run this outfit. If they gave
+me fifty rangers, I couldn't more'n make a start." He was plainly out of
+humour.
+
+"How many rangers do you get?" asked Bob.
+
+"Twelve," snapped Plant.
+
+Bob saw eight of the twelve in sight, either idle or working on such
+matters as the steps hewed from the section of pine log. He said
+nothing, but smiled to himself.
+
+Shortly after he took his leave. Plant, his good humour entirely
+recovered, bellowed after him a dozen jokes and invitations.
+
+Down the road a quarter-mile, just before the trail turned off to the
+mill, Bob and his guide, who was riding down the mountain, passed a man
+on horseback. He rode a carved-leather saddle, without
+tapaderos.[Footnote: Stirrup hoods] A rawhide riata hung in its loop on
+the right-hand side of the horn. He wore a very stiff-brimmed hat
+encircled by a leather strap and buckle, a cotton shirt, and belted
+trousers tucked into high-heeled boots embroidered with varied patterns.
+He was a square-built but very wiry man, with a bold, aggressive,
+half-hostile glance, and rode very straight and easy after the manner of
+the plains cowboy. A pair of straight-shanked spurs jingled at his
+heels, and he wore a revolver.
+
+"Shelby," explained the guide, after this man had passed. "Simeon
+Wright's foreman with these cattle you been hearing about. He ain't
+never far off when there's something doing. Guess he's come to see about
+how's his fences."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Bob rode jubilantly into camp. The expedition had taken him all the
+afternoon, and it was dropping dusk when he had reached the mill.
+
+"We can get busy," he cried, waving the permit at Welton. "Here it is!"
+
+Welton smiled. "I knew that, my boy," he replied, "and we're already
+busy to the extent of being ready to turn her loose to-morrow morning.
+I've sent down a yard crew to the lower end of the flume; and I've
+started Max to rustling out the teams by 'phone."
+
+Next day the water was turned into the flume. Fifty men stood by.
+Rapidly the skilled workmen applied the clamps and binders that made of
+the boards a compact bundle to be given to the rushing current. Then
+they thrust it forward to the drag of the water. It gathered headway,
+rubbing gently against the flume, first on one side, then on the other.
+Its weight began to tell; it gathered momentum; it pushed ahead of its
+blunt nose a foaming white wave; it shot out of sight grandly, careening
+from side to side. The men cheered.
+
+"Well, we're off!" said Bob cheerfully.
+
+"Yes, we're off, thank God!" replied Welton.
+
+From that moment the affairs of the new enterprise went as well as could
+be expected. Of course, there were many rough edges to be smoothed off,
+but as the season progressed the community shaped itself. It was indeed
+a community, of many and diverse activities, much more complicated, Bob
+soon discovered, than any of the old Michigan logging camps. A great
+many of the men brought their families. These occupied separate
+shanties, of course. The presence of the women and children took away
+much of that feeling of impermanence associated with most pioneer
+activities. As without exception these women kept house, the company
+"van" speedily expanded to a company store. Where the "van" kept merely
+rough clothing, tobacco and patent medicines, the store soon answered
+demands for all sorts of household luxuries and necessities. Provisions,
+of course, were always in request. These one of the company's
+bookkeepers doled out.
+
+"Mr. Poole," the purchaser would often say to this man, "next time a
+wagon comes up from Sycamore Flats would you just as soon have them
+bring me up a few things? I want a washboard, and some shoes for Jimmy,
+and a double boiler; and there ought to be an express package for me
+from my sister."
+
+"Sure! I'll see to it," said Poole.
+
+This meant a great deal of trouble, first and last, what with the
+charges and all. Finally, Welton tired of it.
+
+"We've got to keep a store," he told Bob finally.
+
+With characteristic despatch he put the carpenters to work, and sent for
+lists of all that had been ordered from Sycamore Flats. A study of
+these, followed by a trip to White Oaks, resulted in the equipment of a
+store under charge of a man experienced in that sort of thing. As time
+went on, and the needs of such a community made themselves more evident,
+the store grew in importance. Its shelves accumulated dress goods, dry
+goods, clothing, hardware; its rafters dangled with tinware and kettles,
+with rope, harness, webbing; its bins overflowed with various
+food-stuffs unknown to the purveyor of a lumber camp's commissary, but
+in demand by the housewife; its one glass case shone temptingly with
+fancy stationery, dollar watches, and even cheap jewelry. There was
+candy for the children, gum for the bashful maiden, soda pop for the
+frivolous young. In short, there sprang to being in an astonishingly
+brief space of time a very creditable specimen of the country store. It
+was a business in itself, requiring all the services of a competent man
+for the buying, the selling, and the transportation. At the end of the
+year it showed a fair return on the investment.
+
+"Though we'd have to have it even at a dead loss," Welton pointed out,
+"to hold our community together. All we need is a few tufts of chin
+whiskers and some politics to be full-fledged gosh-darn mossbacks."
+
+The storekeeper, a very deliberate person, Merker by name, was much
+given to contemplation and pondering. He possessed a German pipe of
+porcelain, which he smoked when not actively pestered by customers. At
+such times he leaned his elbows on the counter, curved one hand about
+the porcelain bowl of his pipe, lost the other in the depths of his
+great seal-brown beard, and fell into staring reveries. When a customer
+entered he came back--with due deliberation--from about one thousand
+miles. He refused to accept more than one statement at a time, to
+consider more than one person at a time, or to do more than one thing at
+a time.
+
+"Gim'me five pounds of beans, two of sugar, and half a pound of tea!"
+demanded Mrs. Max.
+
+Merker deliberately laid aside his pipe, deliberately moved down the
+aisle behind his counter, deliberately filled his scoop, deliberately
+manipulated the scales. After the package was duly and neatly encased,
+labelled and deposited accurately in front of Mrs. Max, Merker looked
+her in the eye.
+
+"Five pounds of beans," said he, and paused for the next item.
+
+The moment the woman had departed, Merker resumed his pipe and his
+wide-eyed vacancy.
+
+Welton was immensely amused and tickled.
+
+"Seems to me he might keep a little busier," grumbled Bob.
+
+"I thought so, too, at first," replied the older man, "but his store is
+always neat, and he keeps up his stock. Furthermore, he never makes a
+mistake--there's no chance for it on his one-thing-at-a-time system."
+
+But it soon became evident that Merker's reveries did not mean vacancy
+of mind. At such times the Placid One figured on his stock. When he put
+in a list of goods required, there was little guess-work as to the
+quantities needed. Furthermore, he had other schemes. One evening he
+presented himself to Welton with a proposition. His waving brown hair
+was slicked back from his square, placid brow, his wide, cowlike eyes
+shone with the glow of the common or domestic fire, his brown beard was
+neat, and his holiday clothes were clean. At Welton's invitation he sat,
+but bolt upright at the edge of a chair.
+
+"After due investigation and deliberation," he stated, "I have come to
+the independent conclusion that we are overlooking a means of revenue."
+
+"As what?" asked Welton, amused by the man's deadly seriousness.
+
+"Hogs," stated Merker.
+
+He went on deliberately to explain the waste in camp garbage, the price
+of young pigs, the cost of their transportation, the average selling
+price of pork, the rate of weight increase per month, and the number
+possible to maintain. He further showed that, turned at large, they
+would require no care. Amused still at the man's earnestness, Welton
+tried to trip him up with questions. Merker had foreseen every
+contingency.
+
+"I'll turn it over to you. Draw the necessary money from the store
+account," Welton told him finally.
+
+Merker bowed solemnly and went out. In two weeks pigs appeared. They
+became a feature of the landscape, and those who experimented with
+gardens indulged in profanity, clubs and hog-proof fences. Returning
+home after dark, the wayfarer was apt to be startled to the edge of
+flight by the grunting upheaval of what had seemed a black shadow under
+the moon. Bob in especial acquired concentrated practice in horsemanship
+for the simple reason that his animal refused to dismiss his first
+hypothesis of bears.
+
+Nevertheless, at the end of the season Merker gravely presented a duly
+made out balance to the credit of hogs.
+
+Encouraged by the success of this venture, he next attempted chickens.
+But even his vacant-eyed figuring had neglected to take into
+consideration the abundance of such predatory beasts and birds as
+wildcats, coyotes, raccoons, owls and the swift hawks of the falcon
+family.
+
+"I had thought," he reported to the secretly amused Welton, "that even
+in feeding the finer sorts of garbage to hogs there might be an economic
+waste; hogs fatten well enough on the coarser grades, and chickens will
+eat the finer. In that I fell into error. The percentage of loss from
+noxious varmints more than equals the difference in the cost of eggs. I
+further find that the margin of profits on chickens is not large enough
+to warrant expenditures for traps, dogs and men sufficient for
+protection."
+
+"And how does the enterprise stand now?" asked Welton.
+
+"We are behind."
+
+"H'm. And what would you advise by way of retrenchment?"
+
+"I should advise closing out the business by killing the fowl," was
+Merker's opinion. "Crediting the account with the value of the chickens
+as food would bring us out with a loss of approximately ten dollars."
+
+"Fried chicken is hardly applicable as lumber camp provender," pointed
+out Welton. "So it's scarcely a legitimate asset."
+
+"I had considered that point," replied Merker, "and in my calculations I
+had valued the chickens at the price of beef."
+
+Welton gave it up.
+
+Another enterprise for which Merker was responsible was the utilization
+of the slabs and edgings in the construction of fruit trays and boxes.
+When he approached Welton on the subject, the lumberman was little
+inclined to be receptive to the idea.
+
+"That's all very well, Merker," said he, impatiently; "I don't doubt
+it's just as you say, and there's a lot of good tray and box material
+going to waste. So, too, I don't doubt there's lots of material for
+toothpicks and matches and wooden soldiers and shingles and all sorts of
+things in our slashings. The only trouble is that I'm trying to run a
+big lumber company. I haven't time for all that sort of little monkey
+business. There's too much detail involved in it."
+
+"Yes, sir," said Merker, and withdrew.
+
+About two weeks later, however, he reappeared, towing after him an
+elderly, bearded farmer and a bashful-looking, hulking youth.
+
+"This is Mr. Lee," said Merker, "and he wants to make arrangements with
+you to set up a little cleat and box-stuff mill, and use from your
+dump."
+
+Mr. Lee, it turned out, had been sent up by an informal association of
+the fruit growers of the valley. Said informal association had been
+formed by Merker through the mails. The store-keeper had submitted such
+convincing figures that Lee had been dispatched to see about it. It
+looked cheaper in the long run to send up a spare harvesting engine, to
+buy a saw, and to cut up box and tray stuff than to purchase these
+necessities from the regular dealers. Would Mr. Welton negotiate? Mr.
+Welton did. Before long the millmen were regaled by the sight of a
+snorting little upright engine connected by a flapping, sagging belt to
+a small circular saw. Two men and two boys worked like beavers. The
+racket and confusion, shouts, profanity and general awkwardness were
+something tremendous. Nevertheless, the pile of stock grew, and every
+once in a while six-horse farm wagons from the valley would climb the
+mountain to take away box material enough to pack the fruit of a whole
+district. To Merker this was evidently a profound satisfaction. Often he
+would vary his usual between-customer reverie by walking out on his
+shaded verandah, where he would lean against an upright, nursing the
+bowl of his pipe, gazing across the sawdust to the diminutive and
+rackety box-plant in the distance.
+
+Welton, passing one day, laughed at him.
+
+"How about your economic waste, Merker?" he called. "Two good men could
+turn out three times the stuff all that gang does in about half the
+time."
+
+"There are no two good men for that job," replied Merker unmoved. His
+large, cowlike eyes roved across the yards. "Men grow in a generation;
+trees grow in ten," he resumed with unexpected directness. "I have
+calculated that of a great tree but 40 per cent. is used. All the rest
+is economic waste--slabs, edging, tops, stumps, sawdust." He sighed. "I
+couldn't get anybody to consider your toothpick and matches idea, nor
+the wooden soldiers, nor even the shingles," he ended.
+
+Welton stared.
+
+"You didn't quote me in the matter, did you?" he asked at length.
+
+"I did not take the matter as official. Would I have done better to have
+done so?"
+
+"Lord, no!" cried Welton fervently.
+
+"The sawdust ought to make something," continued Merker. "But I am
+unable to discover a practical use for it." He indicated the great
+yellow mound that each day increased.
+
+"Yes, I got to get a burner for it," said Welton, "it'll soon swamp us."
+
+"There might be power in it," mused Merker. "A big furnace, now----"
+
+"For heaven's sake, man, what for?" demanded Welton.
+
+"I don't know yet," answered the store-keeper.
+
+Merker amused and interested Welton, and in addition proved to be a
+valuable man for just his position. It tickled the burly lumberman, too,
+to stop for a moment in his rounds for the purpose of discussing with
+mock gravity any one of Marker's thousand ideas on economic waste,
+Welton discovered a huge entertainment in this. One day, however, he
+found Merker in earnest discussion with a mountain man, whom the
+store-keeper introduced as Ross Fletcher. Welton did not pay very much
+attention to this man and was about to pass on when his eye caught the
+gleam of a Forest Ranger's badge. Then he stopped short.
+
+"Merker!" he called sharply.
+
+The store-keeper looked up.
+
+"See here a minute. Now," said Welton, as he drew the other aside, "I
+want one thing distinctly understood. This Government gang don't go
+here. This is my property, and I won't have them loafing around. That's
+all there is to it. Now understand me; I mean business. If those fellows
+come in here, they must buy what they want and get out. They're a lazy,
+loafing, grafting crew, and I won't have them."
+
+Welton spoke earnestly and in a low tone, and his face was red. Bob,
+passing, drew rein in astonishment. Never, in his long experience with
+Welton, had he seen the older man plainly out of temper. Welton's usual
+habit in aggravating and contrary circumstances was to show a surface,
+at least, of the most leisurely good nature. So unprecedented was the
+present condition that Bob, after hesitating a moment, dismounted and
+approached.
+
+Merker was staring at his chief with wide and astonished eyes, and
+plucking nervously at his brown beard.
+
+"Why, that is Ross Fletcher," he gasped. "We were just talking about the
+economic waste in the forests. He is a good man. He isn't lazy. He--"
+
+"Economic waste hell!" exploded Welton. "I won't have that crew around
+here, and I won't have my employees confabbing with them. I don't care
+what you tell them, or how you fix it, but you keep them out of here.
+Understand? I hate the sight of one of those fellows worse than a
+poison-snake!"
+
+Merker glanced from Welton to the ranger and back again perplexed.
+
+"But--but--" he stammered. "I've known Ross Fletcher a long time. What
+can I say--"
+
+Welton cut in on him with contempt.
+
+"Well, you'd better say something, unless you want me to throw him off
+the place. This is no corner saloon for loafers."
+
+"I'll fix it," offered Bob, and without waiting for a reply, he walked
+over to where the mountaineer was leaning against the counter.
+
+"You're a Forest Ranger, I see," said Bob.
+
+"Yes," replied the man, straightening from his lounging position.
+
+"Well, from our bitter experiences as to the activities of a Forest
+Ranger we conclude that you must be very busy people--too busy to waste
+time on us."
+
+The man's face changed, but he evidently had not quite arrived at the
+drift of this.
+
+"I think you know what I mean," said Bob.
+
+A slow flush overspread the ranger's face. He looked the young man up
+and down deliberately. Bob moved the fraction of an inch nearer.
+
+"Meaning I'm not welcome here?" he demanded.
+
+"This place is for the transaction of business only. Can I have Merker
+get you anything?"
+
+Fletcher shot a glance half of bewilderment, half of anger, in the
+direction of the store-keeper. Then he nodded, not without a certain
+dignity, at Bob.
+
+"Thanks, no," he said, and walked out, his spurs jingling.
+
+"I guess he won't bother us again," said Bob, returning to Welton.
+
+The latter laughed, a trifle ashamed of his anger.
+
+"Those fellows give me the creeps," he said, "like cats do some people.
+Mossbacks don't know no better, but a Government grafter is a little
+more useless than a nigger on a sawlog."
+
+He went out. Bob turned to Merker.
+
+"Sorry for the row," he said briefly, for he liked the gentle, slow
+man. "But they're a bad lot. We've got to keep that crew at arm's length
+for our own protection."
+
+"Ross Fletcher is not that kind," protested Merker. "I've known him for
+years."
+
+"Well, he's got a nerve to come in here. I've seen him and his kind
+holding down too good a job next old Austin's bar."
+
+"Not Ross," protested Merker again. "He's a worker. He's just back now
+from the high mountains. Mr. Orde, if you've got a minute, sit down. I
+want to tell you about Ross."
+
+Willing to do what he could to soften Merker's natural feeling, Bob
+swung himself to the counter, and lit his pipe.
+
+"Ross Fletcher is a ranger because he loves it and believes in it," said
+Merker earnestly. "He knows things are going rotten now, but he hopes
+that by and by they'll go better. His district is in good shape. Why,
+let me tell you: last spring Ross was fighting fire all alone, and he
+went out for help and they docked him a day for being off the reserve!"
+
+"You don't say," commented Bob.
+
+"You don't believe it. Well, it's so. And they sent him in after sheep
+in the high mountains early, when the feed was froze, and wouldn't allow
+him pay for three sacks of barley for his animals. And Ross gets sixty
+dollars a month, and he spends about half of that for trail tools and
+fire tools that they won't give him. What do you think of that?"
+
+"Merker," said Bob kindly, "I think your man is either a damn liar or a
+damn fool. Why does he say he does all this?"
+
+"He likes the mountains. He--well, he just believes in it."
+
+"I see. Are there any more of these altruists? or is he the only bird of
+the species?"
+
+Merker caught the irony of Bob's tone.
+
+"They don't amount to much, in general," he admitted. "But there's a
+few--they keep the torch lit."
+
+"I supposed their job was more in the line of putting it out," observed
+Bob; then, catching Merker's look of slow bewilderment, he added: "So
+there are several."
+
+"Yes. There's good men among 'em. There's Ross, and Charley Morton, and
+Tom Carroll, and, of course, old California John."
+
+Bob's amused smile died slowly. Before his mental vision rose the
+picture of the old mountaineer, with his faded, ragged clothes, his
+beautiful outfit, his lean, kindly face, his steady blue eyes, guarding
+an empty trail for the sake of an empty duty. That man was no fool; and
+Bob knew it. The young fellow slid from the counter to the floor.
+
+"I'm glad you believe in your friend, Merker," said he "and I don't
+doubt he's a fine fellow; but we can't have rangers, good, bad, or
+indifferent, hanging around here. I hope you understand that?"
+
+Merker nodded, his wide eyes growing dreamy.
+
+"It's an economic waste," he sighed, "all this cross-purposes. Here's
+you a good man, and Ross a good man, and you cannot work in harmony
+because of little things. The Government and the private owner should
+conduct business together for the best utilization of all raw
+material--"
+
+"Merker," broke in Bob, with a kindly twinkle, "you're a Utopian."
+
+"Mr. Orde," returned Merker with entire respect, "you're a lumberman."
+
+With this interchange of epithets they parted.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+The establishment of the store attracted a great many campers.
+California is the campers' state. Immediately after the close of the
+rainy season they set forth. The wayfarer along any of the country roads
+will everywhere meet them, either plodding leisurely through the
+charming landscape, or cheerfully gipsying it by the roadside. Some of
+the outfits are very elaborate, veritable houses on wheels, with doors
+and windows, stove pipes, steps that let down, unfolding devices so
+ingenious that when they are all deployed the happy owners are
+surrounded by complete convenience and luxury. The man drives his ark
+from beneath a canopy; the women and children occupy comfortably the
+living room of the house--whose sides, perchance, fold outward like
+wings when the breeze is cool and the dust not too thick. Carlo frisks
+joyously ahead and astern. Other parties start out quite as cheerfully
+with the delivery wagon, or the buckboard, or even--at a pinch--with the
+top buggy. For all alike the country-side is golden, the sun warm, the
+sky blue, the birds joyous, and the spring young in the land. The
+climate is positively guaranteed. It will not rain; it will shine; the
+stars will watch. Feed for the horses everywhere borders the roads. One
+can idle along the highways and the byways and the noways-at-all,
+utterly carefree, surrounded by wild and beautiful scenery. No wonder
+half the state turns nomadic in the spring.
+
+And then, as summer lays its heats--blessed by the fruit man, the
+irrigator, the farmer alike--over the great interior valleys, the people
+divide into two classes. One class, by far the larger, migrates to the
+Coast. There the trade winds blowing softly from the Pacific temper the
+semi-tropic sun; the Coast Ranges bar back the furnace-like heat of the
+interior; and the result is a summer climate even nearer
+perfection--though not so much advertised--than is that of winter. Here
+the populace stays in the big winter hotels at reduced rates, or rents
+itself cottages, or lives in one or the other of the unique tent cities.
+It is gregarious and noisy, and healthy and hearty, and full of
+phonographs and a desire to live in bathing suits. Another, and smaller
+contingent, turns to the Sierras.
+
+We have here nothing to do with those who attend the resorts such as
+Tahoe or Klamath; nor yet with that much smaller contingent of hardy and
+adventurous spirits who, with pack-mule and saddle, lose themselves in
+the wonderful labyrinth of granite and snow, of canon and peak, of
+forest and stream that makes up the High Sierras. But rather let us
+confine ourselves to the great middle class, the class that has not the
+wealth nor the desire for resort hotels, nor the skill nor the equipment
+to explore a wilderness. These people hitch up the farm team, or the
+grocer's cart, or the family horse, pile in their bedding and their
+simple cooking utensils, whistle to the dog, and climb up out of the
+scorching inferno to the coolness of the pines.
+
+They have few but definite needs. They must have company, water, and the
+proximity of a store where they can buy things to eat. If there is
+fishing, so much the better. At any rate there is plenty of material for
+bonfires. And since other stores are practically unknown above the
+six-thousand-foot winter limit of habitability, it follows that each
+lumber-mill is a magnet that attracts its own community of these
+visitors to the out of doors.
+
+As early as the beginning of July the first outfit drifted in. Below the
+mill a half-mile there happened to be a small, round lake with meadows
+at the upper and lower ends. By the middle of the month two hundred
+people were camped there. Each constructed his abiding place according
+to his needs and ideas, and promptly erected a sign naming it. The
+names were facetiously intended. The community was out for a good time,
+and it had it. Phonographs, concertinas, and even a tiny transportable
+organ appeared. The men dressed in loose rough clothes; the women wore
+sun-bonnets; the girls inclined to bandana handkerchiefs, rough-rider
+skirts and leggings, cowboy hats caught up at the sides, fringed
+gauntlet gloves. They were a good-natured, kindly lot, and Bob liked
+nothing better than to stroll down to the Lake in the twilight. There he
+found the arrangements differing widely. The smaller ranchmen lived
+roughly, sleeping under the stars, perhaps, cooking over an open fire,
+eating from tinware. The larger ranchmen did things in better style.
+They brought rocking chairs, big tents, chinaware, camp stoves and
+Japanese servants to manipulate them. The women had flags and Chinese
+lanterns with which to decorate, hammocks in which to lounge, books to
+read, tables at which to sit, cots and mattresses on which to sleep. No
+difference in social status was made, however. The young people
+undertook their expeditions together: the older folks swapped yarns in
+the peaceful enjoyment of the forest. Bob found interest in all, for as
+yet the California ranchman has not lost in humdrum occupations the
+initiative that brought him to a new country nor the influences of the
+experience he has gained there. To his surprise several of the parties
+were composed entirely of girls. One, of four members, was made up of
+students from Berkeley, out for their summer vacation. Late in the
+summer these four damsels constructed a pack of their belongings, lashed
+it on a borrowed mule, and departed. They were gone for a week in the
+back country, and returned full of adventures over the detailing of
+which they laughed until they gasped.
+
+To Bob's astonishment none of the men seemed particularly wrought up
+over this escapade.
+
+"They're used to the mountains," he was assured, "and they'll get along
+all right with that old mule."
+
+"Does anybody live over there?" asked Bob.
+
+"No, it's just a wild country, but the trails is good."
+
+"Suppose they get into trouble?"
+
+"What trouble? And 'tain't likely they'd all get into trouble to once."
+
+"I should think they'd be scared."
+
+"Nothin' to be scared of," replied the man comfortably.
+
+Bob thought of the great, uninhabited mountains, the dark forests, the
+immense loneliness and isolation, the thousand subtle and psychic
+influences which the wilderness exerts over the untried soul. There
+might be nothing to be scared of, as the man said. Wild animals are
+harmless, the trails are good. But he could not imagine any of the girls
+with whom he had acquaintance pushing off thus joyous and unafraid into
+a wilderness three days beyond the farthest outpost. He had yet to
+understand the spirit, almost universal among the native-born
+Californians, that has been brought up so intimately with the large
+things of nature that the sublime is no longer the terrible. Perhaps
+this states it a little too pompously. They have learned that the mere
+absence of mankind is 'nothing to be scared of'; they have learned how
+to be independent and to take care of themselves. Consequently, as a
+matter of course, as one would ride in the park, they undertake
+expeditions into the Big Country.
+
+Many of these travellers, especially toward the close of the summer,
+complained bitterly of the scarcity of horse-feed. In the back country
+where the mountains were high and the wilderness unbroken, they depended
+for forage on the grasses of the mountain meadows. This year they
+reported that the cattle had eaten the forage down to the roots. Where
+usually had been abundance and pleasant camping, now were hard, close
+lawns, and cattle overrunning and defiling everything. Under the heavy
+labour of mountain travel the horses fell off rapidly in flesh and
+strength.
+
+"We're the public just as much as them cattlemen," declaimed one
+grizzled veteran waving his pipe. "I come to these mountains first in
+sixty-six, and the sheep was bad enough then, but you always had some
+horse meadows. Now they're just plumb overrunning the country. There's
+thousands and thousands of folks that come in camping, and about a dozen
+of these yere cattlemen. They got no right to hog the public land."
+
+With so much approval did this view meet that a delegation went to
+Plant's summer quarters to talk it over. The delegation returned
+somewhat red about the ears. Plant had politely but robustly told it
+that a supervisor was the best judge of how to run his own forest. This
+led to declamatory denunciation, after the American fashion, but without
+resulting in further activity. Resentment seemed to be about equally
+divided between Plant and the cattlemen as a class.
+
+This resentment as to the latter, however, soon changed to sympathy. In
+September the Pollock boys stopped overnight at the Lake Meadow on their
+way out. Their cattle, in charge of the dogs, they threw for the night
+into a rude corral of logs, built many years before for just that
+purpose. Their horses they fed with barley hay bought from Merker. Their
+camp they spread away from the others, near the spring. It was dark
+before they lit their fire. Visitors sauntering over found George and
+Jim Pollock on either side the haphazard blaze stolidly warming through
+flapjacks, and occasionally settling into a firmer position the huge
+coffee pot. The dust and sweat of driving cattle still lay thick on
+their faces. A boy of eighteen, plainly the son of one of the other two,
+was hanging up the saddles. The whole group appeared low-spirited and
+tired. The men responded to the visitors by a brief nod only. The latter
+there-upon sat down just inside the circle of lamplight and smoked in
+silence. Presently Jim arose stiffly, frying pan in hand.
+
+"It's done," he announced.
+
+They ate in silence, consuming great quantities of half-cooked
+flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls of scalding coffee.
+When they had finished they thrust aside the battered tin dishes with
+the air of men too weary to bother further with them. They rolled brown
+paper cigarettes and smoked listlessly. After a time George Pollock
+remarked:
+
+"We ain't washed up."
+
+The statement resulted in no immediate action. After a few moments more,
+however, the boy arose slowly, gathered the dishes clattering into a
+kettle, filled the latter with water, and set it in the fire. Jim and
+his brother, too, bestirred themselves, disappearing in the direction of
+the spring with a bar of mottled soap, an old towel, and a battered pan.
+They returned after a few moments, their faces shining, their hair
+wetted and sleeked down.
+
+"Plumb too lazy to wash up." George addressed the silent visitors by way
+of welcome.
+
+"Drove far?" asked an old ranchman.
+
+"Twin Peaks."
+
+"How's the feed?" came the inevitable cowman's question.
+
+"Pore, pore," replied the mountaineer. "Ain't never seen it so short. My
+cattle's pore."
+
+"Well, you're overstocked; that's what's the matter," spoke up some one
+boldly.
+
+George Pollock turned his face toward this voice.
+
+"Don't you suppose I know it?" he demanded. "There's a thousand head too
+many on my range alone. I've been crowded and pushed all summer, and I
+ain't got a beef steer fit to sell, right now. My cattle are so pore
+I'll have to winter 'em on foothill winter feed. And in the spring
+they'll be porer."
+
+"Well, why don't you all get together and reduce your stock?" persisted
+the questioner. "Then there'll be a show for somebody. I got three packs
+and two saddlers that ain't fatted up from a two weeks' trip in August.
+You got the country skinned; and that ain't no dream."
+
+George Pollock turned so fiercely that his listeners shrank.
+
+"Get together! Reduce our stock!" he snarled, shaken from the customary
+impassivity of the mountaineer, "It ain't us! We got the same number of
+cattle, all we mountain men, that our fathers had afore us! There ain't
+never been no trouble before. Sometimes we crowded a little, but we all
+know our people and we could fix things up, and so long as they let us
+be, we got along all right. It don't _pay_ us to overstock. What for do
+we keep cattle? To sell, don't we? And we can't sell 'em unless they're
+fat. Summer feed's all we got to fat 'em on. Winter feed's no good. You
+know that. We ain't going to crowd our range. You make me tired!"
+
+"What's the trouble then?"
+
+"Outsiders," snapped Pollock. "Folks that live on the plains and just
+push in to summer their cattle anyhow, and then fat 'em for the market
+on alfalfa hay. This ain't their country. Why don't they stick to their
+own?"
+
+"Can't you handle them? Who are they?"
+
+"It ain't they," replied George Pollock sullenly. "It's him. It's the
+richest man in California, with forty ranches and fifty thousand head of
+cattle and a railroad or two and God knows what else. But he'll come up
+here and take a pore man's living away from him for the sake of a few
+hundred dollars saved."
+
+"Old Simeon, hey?" remarked the ranchman thoughtfully.
+
+"Simeon Wright," said Pollock. "The same damn old robber. Forest
+Reserves!" he sneered bitterly. "For the use of the public! Hell! Who's
+the public? me and you and the other fellow? The public is Simeon
+Wright. What do you expect?"
+
+"Didn't Plant say he was going to look into the matter for next year?"
+Bob inquired from the other side the fire.
+
+"Plant! He's bought," returned Pollock contemptuously. "He's never seen
+the country, anyway; and he never will."
+
+He rose and kicked the fire together.
+
+"Good night!" he said shortly, and, retiring to the shadows, rolled
+himself in a blanket and turned his back on the visitors.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+The season passed without further incidents of general interest. It was
+a busy season, as mountain seasons always are. Bob had opportunity to go
+nowhere; but in good truth he had no desire to do so. The surroundings
+immediate to the work were rich enough in interest. After the flurry
+caused by the delay in opening communication, affairs fell into their
+grooves. The days passed on wings. Almost before he knew it, the dogwood
+leaves had turned rose, the aspens yellow, and the pines, thinning in
+anticipation of the heavy snows, were dropping their russet needles
+everywhere. A light snow in September reminded the workers of the
+altitude. By the first of November the works were closed down. The
+donkey engines had been roughly housed in; the machinery protected; all
+things prepared against the heavy Sierra snows. Only the three
+caretakers were left to inhabit a warm corner. Throughout the winter
+these men would shovel away threatening weights of snow and see to the
+damage done by storms. In order to keep busy they might make shakes, or
+perhaps set themselves to trapping fur-bearing animals. They would use
+_skis_ to get about.
+
+For a month after coming down from the mountain, Bob stayed at Auntie
+Belle's. There were a number of things to attend to on the lower levels,
+such as anticipating repairs to flumes, roads and equipment,
+systematizing the yard arrangements, and the like. Here Bob came to know
+more of the countryside and its people.
+
+He found this lower, but still mountainous, country threaded by roads;
+rough roads, to be sure, but well enough graded. Along these roads were
+the ranch houses and spacious corrals of the mountain people. Far and
+wide through the wooded and brushy foothills roamed the cattle, seeking
+the forage of the winter range that a summer's absence in the high
+mountains had saved for them. Bob used often to "tie his horse to the
+ground" and enter for a chat with these people. Harbouring some vague
+notions of Southern "crackers," he was at first considerably surprised.
+The houses were in general well built and clean, even though primitive,
+and Bob had often occasion to notice excellent books and magazines.
+There were always plenty of children of all sizes. The young women were
+usually attractive and blooming. They insisted on hospitality; and Bob
+had the greatest difficulty in persuading them that he stood in no
+immediate need of nourishment. The men repaid cultivation. Their ideas
+were often faulty because of insufficient basis of knowledge: but, when
+untinged by prejudice, apt to be logical. Opinions were always positive,
+and always existent. No phenomenon, social or physical, could come into
+their ken without being mulled over and decided upon. In the field of
+their observations were no dead facts. Not much given to reception of
+contrary argument or idea they were always eager for new facts. Bob
+found himself often held in good-humoured tolerance as a youngster when
+he advanced his opinion; but listened to thirstily when he could detail
+actual experience or knowledge. The head of the house held patriarchal
+sway until the grown-up children were actually ready to leave the
+paternal roof for homes of their own. One and all loved the mountains,
+though incoherently, and perhaps without full consciousness of the fact.
+They were extremely tenacious of personal rights.
+
+Bob, being an engaging and open-hearted youth, soon gained favour. Among
+others he came to know the two Pollock families well. Jim Pollock, with
+his large brood, had arrived at a certain philosophical, though
+watchful, acceptance of life; but George, younger, recently married,
+and eagerly ambitious, chafed sorely. The Pollocks had been in the
+country for three generations. They inhabited two places on opposite
+sides of a canon. These houses possessed the distinction of having the
+only two red-brick chimneys in the hills. They were low, comfortable,
+rambling, vine-clad.
+
+"We always run cattle in these hills," said George fiercely to Bob, "and
+got along all right. But these last three years it's been bad. Unless we
+can fat our cattle on the summer ranges in the high mountains, we can't
+do business. The grazing on these lower hills you just _got_ to save for
+winter. You can't raise no hay here. Since they begun to crowd us with
+old Wright's stock it's tur'ble. I ain't had a head of beef cattle
+fittin' to sell, bar a few old cows. And if I ain't got cattle to sell,
+where do I get money to live on? I always been out of debt; but this
+year I done put a mortgage on the place to get money to go on with."
+
+"We can always eat beef, George," said his wife with a little laugh,
+"and miner's lettuce. We ain't the first folks that has had hard
+times--and got over it."
+
+"Mebbe not," agreed George, glancing with furrowed brow at a tiny
+garment on which Mrs. George was sewing.
+
+Jim Pollock, smoking comfortably in his shirt sleeves before his fire,
+was not so worried. His youngest slept in his arms; two children played
+and tumbled on the floor; buxom Mrs. Pollock bustled here and there on
+household business; the older children sprawled over the table under the
+lamp reading; the oldest boy, with wrinkled brow, toiled through the
+instructions of a correspondence school course.
+
+"George always takes it hard," said Jim. "I've got six kids, and he'll
+have one--or at most two--mebbe. It's hard times all right, and a hard
+year. I had to mortgage, too. Lord love you, a mortgage ain't so bad as
+a porous plaster. It'll come off. One good year for beef will fix us. We
+ain't lost nothing but this year's sales. Our cattle are too pore for
+beef, but they're all in good enough shape. We ain't lost none. Next
+year'll be better."
+
+"What makes you think so?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well, Smith, he's superintendent at White Oaks, you know, he's
+favourable to us. I seed him myself. And even Plant, he's sent old
+California John back to look over what shape the ranges are in. There
+ain't no doubt as to which way he'll report. Old John is a cattleman,
+and he's square."
+
+One day Bob found himself belated after a fishing excursion to the upper
+end of the valley. As a matter of course he stopped over night with the
+first people whose ranch he came to. It was not much of a ranch and it's
+two-room house was of logs and shakes, but the owners were hospitable.
+Bob put his horse into a ramshackle shed, banked with earth against the
+winter cold. He had a good time all the evening.
+
+"I'm going to hike out before breakfast," said he before turning in, "so
+if you'll just show me where the lantern is, I won't bother you in the
+morning."
+
+"Lantern!" snorted the mountaineer. "You turn on the switch. It's just
+to the right of the door as you go in."
+
+So Bob encountered another of the curious anomalies not infrequent to
+the West. He entered a log stable in the remote backwoods and turned on
+a sixteen-candle-power electric globe! As he extended his rides among
+the low mountains of the First Rampart, he ran across many more places
+where electric light and even electric power were used in the rudest
+habitations.
+
+The explanation was very simple; these men had possessed small water
+rights which Baker had needed. As part of their compensation they
+received from Power House Number One what current they required for
+their own use.
+
+Thus reminded, Bob one Sunday visited Power House Number One. It proved
+to be a corrugated iron structure through which poured a great stream
+and from which went high-tension wires strung to mushroom-shaped
+insulators. It was filled with the clean and shining machinery of
+electricity. Bob rode up the flume to the reservoir, a great lake penned
+in canon walls by a dam sixty feet high. The flume itself was of
+concrete, large enough to carry a rushing stream. He made the
+acquaintance of some of the men along the works. They tramped and rode
+back and forth along the right of way, occupied with their insulations,
+the height of their water, their watts and volts and amperes.
+Surroundings were a matter of indifference to them. Activity was of the
+same sort, whether in the city or in the wilderness. As influences--city
+or wilderness--it was all the same to them. They made their own
+influences--which in turn developed a special type of people--among the
+delicate and powerful mysteries of their craft. Down through the land
+they had laid the narrow, uniform strip of their peculiar activities;
+and on that strip they dwelt satisfied with a world of their own. Bob
+sat in a swinging chair talking in snatches to Hicks, between calls on
+the telephone. He listened to quick, sharp orders as to men and
+instruments, as to the management of water, the undertaking of repairs.
+These were couched in technical phrases and slang, for the most part. By
+means of the telephone Hicks seemed to keep in touch not only with the
+plants in his own district, but also with the activities in Power Houses
+Two, Three and Four, many miles away. Hicks had never once, in four
+years, been to the top of the first range. He had had no interest in
+doing so. Neither had he an interest in the foothill country to the
+west.
+
+"I'd kind of like to get back and kill a buck or so," he confessed; "but
+I haven't got the time."
+
+"It's a different country up where we are," urged Bob. "You wouldn't
+know it for the same state as this dry and brushy country. It has fine
+timber and green grass."
+
+"I suppose so," said Hicks indifferently. "But I haven't got the time."
+
+Bob rode away a trifle inclined to that peculiar form of smug pity a
+hotel visitor who has been in a place a week feels for yesterday's
+arrival. He knew the coolness of the great mountain.
+
+At this point an opening in the second growth of yellow pines permitted
+him a vista. He looked back. He had never been in this part of the
+country before. A little portion of Baldy, framed in a pine-clad cleft
+through the First Range, towered chill, rugged and marvellous in its
+granite and snow. For the first time Bob realized that even so
+immediately behind the scene of his summer's work were other higher,
+more wonderful countries. As he watched, the peak was lost in the
+blackness of one of those sudden storms that gather out of nothing about
+the great crests. The cloud spread like magic in all directions. The
+faint roll of thunder came down a wind, damp and cool, sucked from the
+high country.
+
+Bob rounded a bend in the road to overtake old California John, jingling
+placidly along on his beautiful sorrel. Though by no means friendly to
+any member of this branch of government service, Bob reined his animal.
+
+"Hullo," said he, overborne by an unexpected impulse.
+
+"Good day," responded the old man, with a friendly deepening of the
+kindly wrinkles about his blue eyes.
+
+"John," asked Bob, "were you ever in those big mountains there?"
+
+"Baldy?" said the Ranger. "Lord love you, yes. I have to cross Baldy
+'most every time I go to the back country. There's two good passes
+through Baldy."
+
+"Back country!" repeated Bob. "Are there any higher mountains than
+those?"
+
+Old California John chuckled.
+
+"Listen, son," said he. "There's the First Range, and then Stone Creek,
+and then Baldy. And on the other side of Baldy there's the canon of the
+Joncal which is three thousand foot down. And then there's the Burro
+Mountains, which is half again as high as Baldy, and all the Burro
+country to Little Jackass. That's a plateau covered with lodge-pole pine
+and meadows and creeks and little lakes. It's a big plateau, and when
+you're a-ridin' it, you shore seem like bein' in a wide, flat country.
+And then there's the Green Mountain country; and you drop off five or
+six thousand foot into the box canon of the north fork; and then you
+climb out again to Red Mountain; and after that is the Pinnacles. The
+Pinnacles is the Fourth Rampart. After them is South Meadow, and the
+Boneyard. Then you get to the Main Crest. And that's only if you go
+plumb due east. North and south there's all sorts of big country. Why,
+Baldy's only a sort of taster."
+
+Bob's satisfaction with himself collapsed. This land so briefly shadowed
+forth was penetrable only in summer: that he well knew. And all summer
+Bob was held to the great tasks of the forest. He hadn't the time!
+Wherein did he differ from Hicks? In nothing save that his right of way
+happened to be a trifle wider.
+
+"Have you been to all these places?" asked Bob.
+
+"Many times," replied California John. "From Stanislaus to the San
+Bernardino desert I've ridden."
+
+"How big a country is that?"
+
+"It's about four hundred mile long, and about eighty mile wide as the
+crow flies--a lot bigger as a man must ride."
+
+"All big mountains?"
+
+"Surely."
+
+"You must have been everywhere?"
+
+"No," said California John, "I never been to Jack Main's Canon. It's too
+fur up, and I never could get time off to go in there."
+
+So this man, too, the ranger whose business it was to travel far and
+wide in the wild country, sighed for that which lay beyond his right of
+way! Suddenly Bob was filled with a desire to transcend all these
+activities, to travel on and over the different rights of way to which
+all the rest of the world was confined until he knew them all and what
+lay beyond them. The impulse was but momentary, and Bob laughed at
+himself as it passed.
+
+"Something hid beyond the ranges," he quoted softly to himself.
+
+Suddenly he looked up, and gathered his reins.
+
+"John," he said, "we're going to catch that storm."
+
+"Surely," replied the old man looking at him with surprise; "just found
+that out?"
+
+"Well, we'd better hurry."
+
+"What's the use? It'll catch us, anyhow. We're shore due to get wet."
+
+"Well, let's hunt a good tree."
+
+"No," said California John, "this is a thunder-storm, and trees is too
+scurce. You just keep ridin' along the open road. I've noticed that
+lightnin' don't hit twice in the same place mainly because the same
+place don't seem to be thar any more after the first time."
+
+The first big drops of the storm delayed fully five minutes. It did seem
+foolish to be jogging peacefully along at a foxtrot while the tempest
+gathered its power, but Bob realized the justice of his companion's
+remarks.
+
+When it did begin, however, it made up for lost time. The rain fell as
+though it had been turned out of a bucket. In an instant every runnel
+was full. The water even flowed in a thin sheet from the hard surface of
+the ground. The men were soaked.
+
+Then came the thunder in a burst of fury and noise. The lightning
+flashed almost continuously, not only down, but aslant, and even--Bob
+thought--_up_. The thunder roared and reverberated and reechoed until
+the world was filled with its crashes. Bob's nerves were steady with
+youth and natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which
+assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of confusion.
+His horse snorted, pricking its ears backward and forward, dancing from
+side to side. The lightning seemed fairly to spring into being all
+about them, from the substance of the murk in which they rode.
+
+"Isn't this likely to hit us?" he yelled at California John.
+
+"Liable to," came back the old man's reply across the roar of the
+tempest.
+
+Bob looked about him uneasily. The ranger bent his head to the wind.
+Star, walking more rapidly, outpaced Bob's horse, until they were
+proceeding single file some ten feet apart.
+
+Suddenly the earth seemed to explode directly ahead. A blinding flare
+swept the ground, a hissing crackle was drowned in an overwhelming roar
+of thunder. Bob dodged, and his horse whirled. When he had mastered both
+his animal and himself he spurred back. California John had reined in
+his mount. Not twenty feet ahead of him the bolt had struck. California
+John glanced quizzically over his shoulder at the sky.
+
+"Old Man," he remarked, "you'll have to lower your sights a little, if
+you want to git me."
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+At Christmas Bob took a brief trip East, returning to California about
+the middle of January. The remainder of the winter was spent in outside
+business, and in preparatory arrangements for the next season's work.
+The last of April he returned to the lower mountains.
+
+He found Sycamore Flats in a fever of excitement over the cattle
+question. After lighting his post-prandial pipe he sauntered down to
+chat with Martin, the lank and leisurely keeper of the livery,
+proprietor of the general store, and clearing house of both information
+and gossip.
+
+"It looks like this," Martin answered Bob's question. "You remember
+Plant sent back old California John to make a report on the grazing.
+John reported her over-stocked, of course; nobody could have done
+different. Plant kind of promised to fix things up; and the word got
+around pretty definite that the outside stock would be reduced."
+
+"Wasn't it?"
+
+"Not so you'd notice. When the permits was published for this summer,
+they read good for the same old number."
+
+"Then Wright's cattle will be in again this year."
+
+"That's the worst of it; they _are_ in. Shelby brought up a thousand
+head a week ago, and was going to push them right in over the snow. The
+feed's _just_ starting on the low meadows in back, and it hasn't woke up
+a mite in the higher meadows. You throw cattle in on that mushy, soft
+ground and new feed, and they tromp down and destroy more'n they eat. No
+mountain cattleman goes in till the feed's well started, never."
+
+"But what does Shelby do it for, then?"
+
+Martin spat accurately at a knothole.
+
+"Oh, he don't care. Those big men don't give a damn what kind of shape
+cattle is in, as long as they stay alive. Same with humans; only they
+ain't so particular about the staying alive part."
+
+"Couldn't anything be done to stop them?"
+
+"Plant could keep them out, but he won't. Jim and George Pollock, and
+Tom Carroll and some of the other boys put up such a kick, though, that
+they saw a great light. They ain't going in for a couple of weeks more."
+
+"That's all right, then," said Bob heartily.
+
+"Is it?" asked Martin.
+
+"Isn't it?" inquired Bob.
+
+"Well, some says not. Of course they couldn't be expected to drive all
+those cattle back to the plains, so they're just naturally spraddled out
+grazing over this lower country."
+
+"Why, what becomes of the winter feed?" cried Bob aghast, well aware
+that in these lower altitudes the season's growth was nearly finished
+and the ripening about to begin.
+
+"That's just it," said Martin; "where, oh, where?"
+
+"Can't anything be done?" repeated Bob, with some show of indignation.
+
+"What? This is all government land. The mountain boys ain't got any real
+exclusive rights there. It's public property. The regulations are pretty
+clear about preference being given to the small owner, and the local
+man; but that's up to Plant."
+
+"It'll come pretty hard on some of the boys, if they keep on eating off
+their winter feed and their summer feed too," hazarded Bob.
+
+"It'll drive 'em out of business," said Martin. "It'll do more; it'll
+close out settlement in this country. There ain't nothing doing _but_
+cattle, and if the small cattle business is closed up, the permanent
+settlement closes up too. There's only lumber and power and such left;
+and they don't mean settlement. That's what the Government is supposed
+to look out for."
+
+"Government!" said Bob with contempt.
+
+"Well, now, there's a few good ones, even at that," stated Martin
+argumentively. "There's old John, and Ross Fletcher, and one or two more
+that are on the square. It may be these little grafters have got theirs
+coming yet. Now and then an inspector comes along. He looks over the
+books old Hen Plant or the next fellow has fixed up; asks a few
+questions about trails and such; writes out a nice little recommend on
+his pocket typewriter, and moves on. And if there's a roar from some of
+these little fellows, why it gets lost. Some clerk nails it, and sends
+it to Mr. Inspector with a blue question mark on it; and Mr. Inspector
+passes it on to Mr. Supervisor for explanation; and Mr. Supervisor's
+strong holt is explanations. There you are! But it only needs one
+inspector _who inspects_ to knock over the whole apple-cart. Once get by
+your clerk to your chief, and you got it."
+
+Whether Martin made this prediction in a spirit of hope and a full
+knowledge, or whether his shot in the air merely chanced to hit the
+mark, it would be impossible to say. As a matter of fact within the
+month appeared Ashley Thorne, an inspector who inspected.
+
+By this time all the cattle, both of the plainsmen and the mountaineers,
+had gone back. The mill had commenced its season's operations. After the
+routine of work had been well established, Bob had descended to attend
+to certain grading of the lumber for a special sale of uppers. Thus he
+found himself on the scene.
+
+Ashley Thorne was driven in. He arrived late in the afternoon. Plant
+with his coat on, and a jovial expression illuminating his fat face,
+held out both hands in greeting as the vehicle came to a stop by
+Martin's barn. The Inspector leaped quickly to the ground. He was seen
+to be a man between thirty and forty, compactly built, alert in
+movement. He had a square face, aggressive gray eyes, and wore a small
+moustache clipped at the line of the lips.
+
+"Hullo! Hullo!" roared Plant in his biggest voice. "So here we are, hey!
+Kind of dry, hot travel, but we've got the remedy for that."
+
+"How are you?" said Thorne crisply; "are you Mr. Plant? Glad to meet
+you."
+
+"Leave your truck," said Plant. "I'll send some one after it. Come right
+along with me."
+
+"Thanks," said Thorne, "but I think I'll take a wash and clean up a bit,
+first."
+
+"That's all right," urged Plant. "We can fix you up."
+
+"Where is the hotel?" asked Thorne.
+
+"Hotel!" cried Plant, "ain't you going to stay with me?"
+
+"It is kind of you, and I appreciate it," said Thorne briefly, "but I
+never mix official business with social pleasure. This is an invariable
+rule and has no personal application, of course. After my official work
+is done and my report written, I shall be happy to avail myself of your
+hospitality."
+
+"Just as you say, of course," said Plant, quite good-humouredly. To him
+this was an extraordinarily shrewd, grand-stand play; and he approved of
+it.
+
+"I shall go to your office at nine to-morrow," Thorne advised him.
+"Please have your records ready."
+
+"Always ready," said Plant.
+
+Thorne was assigned a room at Auntie Belle's, washed away the dust of
+travel, and appeared promptly at table when the bell rang. He wore an
+ordinary business suit, a flannel shirt with white collar, and hung on
+the nail a wide felt hat. Nevertheless his general air was of an
+out-of-door man, competent and skilled in the open. His manner was
+self-contained and a trifle reserved, although he talked freely enough
+with Bob on a variety of subjects.
+
+After supper he retired to his room, the door of which, however, he left
+open. Any one passing down the narrow hallway could have seen him bent
+over a mass of papers on the table, his portable typewriter close at
+hand.
+
+The following morning, armed with a little hand satchel, he tramped down
+to Henry Plant's house. The Supervisor met him on the verandah.
+
+"Right on deck!" he roared jovially. "Come in! All ready for the
+doctor!"
+
+Thorne did not respond to this jocosity.
+
+"Good morning," he said formally, and that was all.
+
+Plant led the way into his office, thrust forward a chair, waved a
+comprehensive hand toward the filing cases, over the bill files, at the
+tabulated reports laid out on the desk.
+
+"Go to it," said he cheerfully. "Have a cigar! Everything's all ready."
+
+Thorne laid aside his broad hat, and at once with keen concentration
+attacked the tabulations. Plant sat back watching him. Occasionally the
+fat man yawned. When Thorne had digested the epitome of the financial
+end, he reached for the bundles of documents.
+
+"That's just receipts and requisitions," said Plant, "and such truck.
+It'll take you an hour to wade through that stuff."
+
+"Any objections to my doing so?" asked Thorne.
+
+"None," replied Plant drily.
+
+"Now rangers' reports," requested Thorne at the end of another busy
+period.
+
+"What, that flapdoodle?" cried Plant. "Nobody bothers much with that
+stuff! A man has to write the history of his life every time he gets a
+pail of water."
+
+"Do I understand your ranger reports are remiss?" insisted Thorne.
+
+"Lord, there they are. Wish you joy of them. Most of the boys have
+mighty vague ideas of spelling."
+
+At noon Thorne knocked off, announcing his return at one o'clock. Most
+inspectors would have finished an hour ago. At the gate he paused.
+
+"This place belong to you or the Government?" he asked.
+
+"To me," replied Plant. "Mighty good little joint for the mountains,
+ain't it?"
+
+"Why have you a United States Forest Ranger working on the fences then?"
+inquired Thorne crisply.
+
+Plant stared after his compact, alert figure. The fat man's lower jaw
+had dropped in astonishment. Nobody had ever dared question his right to
+use his own rangers as he damn well pleased! A slow resentment surged up
+within him. He would have been downright angry could he have been
+certain of this inspector's attitude. Thorne was cold and businesslike,
+but he had humorous wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Perhaps all
+this monkey business was one elaborate josh. If so it wouldn't do to
+fall into the trap by getting mad. That must be it. Plant chuckled a
+cavernous chuckle. Nevertheless he ordered his ranger to knock off fence
+mending for the present.
+
+By two o'clock Thorne pushed back his chair and stretched his arms over
+his head. Plant laughed.
+
+"That pretty near finishes what we have here," said he. "There really
+isn't much to it, after all. We've got things pretty well going.
+To-morrow I'll get one of the boys to ride out with you near here. If
+you want to take any trips back country, I'll scare up a pack."
+
+This was the usual and never-accepted offer.
+
+"I haven't time for that," said Thorne, "but I'll look at that bridge
+site to-morrow."
+
+"When must you go?"
+
+"In a couple of days."
+
+Plant's large countenance showed more than a trace of satisfaction.
+
+On leaving the Supervisor's headquarters, Thorne set off vigorously up
+the road. He felt cramped for exercise, and he was out for a tramp.
+Higher and higher he mounted on the road to the mill, until at last he
+stood on a point far above the valley. The creak and rattle of a wagon
+aroused him from his contemplation of the scene spread wide before him.
+He looked up to see a twelve-horse freight team ploughing toward him
+through a cloud of dust that arose dense and choking. To escape this
+dust Thorne deserted the road and struck directly up the side of the
+mountain. A series of petty allurements led him on. Yonder he caught a
+glimpse of tree fungus that interested him. He pushed and plunged
+through the manzanita until he had gained its level. Once there he
+concluded to examine a dying yellow pine farther up the hill. Then he
+thought to find a drink of water in the next hollow. Finally the way
+ahead seemed easier than the brush behind. He pushed on, and after a
+moment of breathless climbing reached the top of the ridge.
+
+Here Thorne had reached a lower spur of that range on which were located
+both the sawmill and Plant's summer quarters. He drew a deep breath and
+looked about him over the topography spread below. Then he examined with
+an expert's eye the wooded growths. His glance fell naturally to the
+ground.
+
+"Well, I'll be----" began Thorne, and stopped.
+
+Through the pine needles at his feet ran a shallow, narrow and
+meandering trough. A rod or so away was a similar trough. Thorne set
+about following their direction.
+
+They led him down a gentle slope, through a young growth of pines and
+cedars to a small meadow. The grass had been eaten short to the soil and
+trampled by many little hoofs. Thorne walked to the upper end of the
+meadow. Here he found old ashes. Satisfied with his discoveries, he
+glanced at the westering sun, and plunged directly down the side of the
+mountain.
+
+Near the edge of the village he came upon California John. The old man
+had turned Star into the corral, and was at this moment seated on a
+boulder, smoking his pipe, and polishing carefully the silver inlay of
+his Spanish spade-bit. Thorne stopped and examined him closely, coming
+finally to the worn brass ranger's badge pinned to the old man's
+suspenders. California John did not cease his occupation.
+
+"You're a ranger, I take it," said Thorne curtly.
+
+California John looked up deliberately.
+
+"You're an inspector, I take it," said he, after a moment.
+
+Thorne grinned appreciation under his close-clipped moustache. This was
+the first time he had relaxed his look of official concentration, and
+the effect was most boyish and pleasing. The illumination was but
+momentary, however.
+
+"There have been sheep camped at a little meadow on that ridge," he
+stated.
+
+"I know it," replied California John tranquilly.
+
+"You seem to know several things," retorted Thorne crisply, "but your
+information seems to stop short of the fact that you're supposed to keep
+sheep out of the Reserve."
+
+"Not when they have permission," said California John.
+
+"Permission!" echoed Thorne. "Sheep are absolutely prohibited by
+regulation. What do you mean?"
+
+"What I say. They had a permit."
+
+"Who gave it?"
+
+"Supervisor Plant, of course."
+
+"What for?"
+
+California John polished his bit carefully for some moments in silence.
+Then he laid it one side and deliberately faced about.
+
+"For ten dollars," said he coolly, looking Thorne in the eye.
+
+Thorne looked back at him steadily.
+
+"You'll swear to that?" he asked.
+
+"I sure will," said California John.
+
+"How long has this sort of thing gone on?"
+
+"Always," replied the ranger.
+
+"How long have you known about it?"
+
+"Always," said California John.
+
+"Why have you never said anything before?"
+
+"What for?" countered the old man. "I'd just get fired. There ain't no
+good in saying anything. He's my superior officer. They used to teach me
+in the army that I ain't got no call to criticize what my officer does.
+It's my job to obey orders the best I can."
+
+"Why do you tell me, then?"
+
+"You're my superior officer, too--and his."
+
+"So were all the other inspectors who have been here."
+
+"Them--hell!" said California John.
+
+Thorne returned to his hotel very thoughtful. It was falling dark, and
+the preliminary bell had rung for supper. Nevertheless he lit his lamp
+and clicked off a letter to a personal friend in the Land Office
+requesting the latter to forward all Plant's vouchers for the past two
+years. Then he hunted up Auntie Belle.
+
+"I thought I should tell you that I won't be leaving my room Wednesday,
+as I thought," said he. "My business will detain me longer."
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Thorne curtly explained himself to Plant as detained on clerical
+business. While awaiting the vouchers from Washington, he busily
+gathered the gossip of the place. Naturally the cattle situation was one
+of the first phases to come to his attention. After listening to what
+was to be said, he despatched a messenger back into the mountains
+requesting the cattlemen to send a representative. Ordinarily he would
+have gone to the spot himself; but just now he preferred to remain
+nearer the centre of Plant's activities.
+
+Jim Pollock appeared in due course. He explained the state of affairs
+carefully and dispassionately. Thorne heard him to the end without
+comment.
+
+"If the feed is too scarce for the number of cattle, that fact should be
+officially ascertained," he said finally.
+
+"Davidson--California John--was sent back last fall to look into it. I
+didn't see his report, but John's a good cattleman himself, and there
+couldn't be no two opinions on the matter."
+
+Thorne had been shown no copy of such a report during his official
+inspection. He made a note of this.
+
+"Well," said he finally, "if on investigation I find the facts to be as
+you state them--and that I can determine only on receiving all the
+evidence on both sides--I can promise you relief for next season. The
+Land Office is just, when it is acquainted with the facts. I will ask
+you to make affidavits. I am obliged to you for your trouble in coming."
+
+Jim Pollock made his three-day ride back more cheered by these few and
+tentative words than by Superintendent Smith's effusive assurances, or
+Plant's promises. He so reported to his neighbours in the back ranges.
+
+Thorne established from California John the truth as to the suppressed
+reports.
+
+Some rumour of all this reached Henry Plant. Whatever his faults, the
+Supervisor was no coward. He had always bulled things through by sheer
+weight and courage. If he could outroar his opponent, he always
+considered the victory as his. Certainly the results were generally that
+way.
+
+On hearing of Thorne's activities, Plant drove down to see him. He puffed
+along the passageway to Thorne's room. The Inspector was pecking away at
+his portable typewriter and did not look up as the fat man entered.
+
+Plant surveyed the bent back for a moment.
+
+"Look here," he demanded, "I hear you're still investigating my
+district--as well as doing 'clerical work.'"
+
+"I am," snapped Thorne without turning his head.
+
+"Am I to consider myself under investigation?" demanded Plant
+truculently. To this direct question he, of course, expected a denial--a
+denial which he would proceed to demolish with threats and abuse.
+
+"You are," said Thorne, reaching for a fresh sheet of paper.
+
+Plant stared at him a moment; then went out. Next day he drove away on
+the stage, and was no more seen for several weeks.
+
+This did not trouble Thorne. He began to reach in all directions for
+evidence. At first there came to him only those like the Pollock boys
+who were openly at outs with Plant, and so had nothing to lose by
+antagonizing him further. Then, hesitating, appeared others. Many of
+these grievances Thorne found to be imaginary; but in several cases he
+was able to elicit definite affidavits as to graft and irregularity.
+Evidence of bribery was more difficult to obtain. Plant's easy-going
+ways had made him friends, and his facile suspension of gracing
+regulations--for a consideration--appealed strongly to self-interest.
+However, as always in such cases, enough had at some time felt
+themselves discriminated against to entertain resentment. Thorne took
+advantage of this both to get evidence, and to secure information that
+enabled him to frighten evidence out of others.
+
+The vouchers arrived from Washington. In them Plant's methods showed
+clearly. Thorne early learned that it had been the Supervisor's habit to
+obtain duplicate bills for everything--purchases, livery, hotels and the
+like. He had explained to the creditors that a copy would be necessary
+for filing, and of course the mountain people knew no better. Thus, by a
+trifling manipulation of dates, Plant had been able to collect twice
+over for his expenses.
+
+"There is the plumb limit," said Martin, while running over the vouchers
+he had given. He showed Thorne two bearing the same date. One read:
+
+"_To team and driver to Big Baldy post office, $4._"
+
+"That item's all right," said Martin; "I drove him there myself. But
+here's the joke."
+
+He handed the second bill to Thorne:
+
+"_To saddle horse Big Baldy to McClintock claim, $2._"
+
+"Why," said Martin, "when we got to Big Baldy he put his saddle on one
+of the driving horses and rode it about a mile over to McClintock's. I
+remember objecting on account of his being so heavy. Say," reflected the
+livery-man after a moment, "he's right out for the little stuff, ain't
+he? When his hand gets near a dollar, it cramps!"
+
+In the sheaf of vouchers Thorne ran across one item repeated several
+hundred times in the two years. It read:
+
+"_To M. Aiken, team, $3._"
+
+Inquiry disclosed the fact that "M. Aiken," was Minnie, Plant's niece.
+By the simple expedient of conveying to her title in his team and
+buckboard, the Supervisor was enabled to collect three dollars every
+time he drove anywhere.
+
+Thus the case grew, fortified by affidavits. Thorne found that Plant
+had been grafting between three and four thousand dollars a year.
+
+Of course the whole community soon came to know all about it. The taking
+of testimony and the giving of affidavits were matters for daily
+discussion. Thorne inspired faith, because he had faith himself.
+
+"I don't wonder you people have been hostile to the Forest Reserves,"
+said he. "You can't be blamed. But it is not the Office's fault. I've
+been in the Land Office a great many years, and they won't stand for
+this sort of thing a minute. I found very much the same sort of thing in
+one of the reserves in Oregon, only there was a gang operating there. I
+got eleven convictions, and a new deal all round. The Land Office is all
+right, when you get to it. You'll see us in a different light, after
+this is over."
+
+The mountaineers liked him. He showed them a new kink by which the lash
+rope of a pack could be jammed in the cinch-hook for convenience of the
+lone packer; he proved to be an excellent shot with the revolver; in his
+official work he had used and tested the methods of many wilderness
+travellers, and could discuss and demonstrate. Furthermore, he got
+results.
+
+Austin conducted a roadhouse on the way to the Power House Number One:
+this in addition to his saloon in Sycamore Flats. The roadhouse was, as
+a matter of fact, on government land, but Austin established the shadow
+of a claim under mineral regulations, and, by obstructionist tactics,
+had prevented all the red tape from being unwound. His mineral claim was
+flimsy; he knew it, and everybody else knew it. But until the case
+should be reported back, he remained where he was. It was up to Plant;
+and Plant had been lenient. Probably Austin could have told why.
+
+Thorne became cognizant of all this. He served Austin notice. Austin
+offered no comment, but sat tight. He knew by previous experience that
+the necessary reports, recommendations, endorsements and official orders
+would take anywhere from one to three months. By that time this
+inspector would have moved on--Austin knew the game. But three days
+later Thorne showed up early in the morning followed by a half-dozen
+interested rangers. In the most business-like fashion and despite the
+variegated objections of Austin and his disreputable satellites, Thorne
+and his men attached their ropes to the flimsy structure and literally
+pulled it to pieces from the saddle.
+
+"You have no right to use force!" cried Austin, who was well versed in
+the regulations.
+
+"I've saved my office a great deal of clerical work," Thorne snapped
+back at him. "Report me if you feel like it!"
+
+The debris remained where it had fallen. Austin did not venture
+again--at least while this energetic youth was on the scene.
+Nevertheless, after the first anger, even the saloon-keeper had in a way
+his good word to say.
+
+"If they's anythin' worse than a--of a--comes out in the next fifty
+year, he'll be it!" stormed Austin. "But, damn it," he added, "the
+little devil's worse'n a catamount for fight!"
+
+Thorne was little communicative, but after he and Bob became better
+acquainted the Inspector would tell something of his past inspections.
+All up and down the Sierras he had unearthed enough petty fraud and
+inefficiency to send a half-dozen men to jail and to break another
+half-dozen from the ranks.
+
+"And the Office has upheld me right along," said Thorne in answer to
+Bob's scepticism regarding government sincerity. "The Office is all
+right; don't make any mistake on that. It's just a question of getting
+at it. I admit the system is all wrong, where the complaints can't get
+direct to the chiefs; but that's what I'm here for. This Plant is one of
+the easiest cases I've tackled yet. I've got direct evidence six times
+over to put him over the road. He'll go behind the bars sure. As for the
+cattle situation, it's a crying disgrace and a shame. There's no earthly
+reason under the regulations why Simeon Wright should bring cattle in
+at all; and I'll see that next year he doesn't."
+
+At the end of two weeks Thorne had finished his work and departed. The
+mountain people with whom he had come in contact liked and trusted him
+in spite of his brusque and business-like manners. He could shoot, pack
+a horse, ride and follow trail, swing an axe as well as any of them. He
+knew what he was talking about. He was square. The mountain men
+"happened around"--such of them as were not in back with the cattle--to
+wish him farewell.
+
+"Good-bye, boys," said he. "You'll see me again. I'm glad to have had a
+chance to straighten things out a little. Don't lose faith in Uncle Sam.
+He'll do well by you when you attract his attention."
+
+Fully a week after his departure Plant returned and took his accustomed
+place in the community. He surveyed his old constituents with a slightly
+sardonic eye, but had little to say.
+
+About this time Bob moved up on the mountain. He breathed in a distinct
+pleasure over again finding himself among the pines, in the cool air,
+with the clean, aromatic woods-work. The Meadow Lake was completely
+surrounded by camps this year. Several canvas boats were on the lake.
+Bob even welcomed the raucous and confused notes of several phonographs
+going at full speed. After the heat and dust and brown of the lower
+hills, this high country was inexpressibly grateful.
+
+At headquarters he found Welton rolling about, jovial, good-natured,
+efficient as ever. With him was Baker.
+
+"Well," said Bob to the latter. "Where did you get by me? I didn't know
+you were here."
+
+"Oh, I blew in the other day. Didn't have time to stop below; and,
+besides, I was saving my strength for your partner here." He looked at
+Welton ruefully. "I thought I'd come up and get that water-rights matter
+all fixed up in a few minutes, and get back to supper. Nothing doing!"
+
+"This smooth-faced pirate," explained Welton, "offers to take our water
+if we'll pay him for doing it, as near as I can make out--that is, if
+we'll supply the machinery to do it with. In return he'll allow us the
+privilege of buying back what we are going to need for household
+purposes. I tell him this is too liberal. We cannot permit him to rob
+himself. Since he has known our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. Plant, he's
+falling into that gentleman's liberal views."
+
+Baker grinned at his accusor appreciatively, but at the mention of
+Plant's name Bob broke in.
+
+"Plant's landed," said he briefly. "They've got him. Prison bars for
+his."
+
+"What?" cried Welton and Baker in a breath.
+
+Bob explained; telling them of Thorne, his record, methods, and the
+definite evidence he had acquired. Long before he had finished both men
+relaxed from their more eager attention.
+
+"That all?" commented Baker. "From what you said I thought he was in the
+bastile!"
+
+"He will be shortly," said Bob. "They've got the evidence direct. It's
+an open-and-shut case."
+
+Baker merely grinned.
+
+"But Thorne's jugged them all up the range," persisted Bob. "He's
+convicted a whole lot of them--men who have been at it for years."
+
+"H'm," said Baker.
+
+"But how can they dodge it?" cried Bob. "They can't deny the evidence!
+The Department has upheld Thorne warmly."
+
+"Sure," said Baker.
+
+"Well," concluded Bob. "Do you mean to say that they'll have the nerve
+to pass over such direct evidence as that?"
+
+"Don't know anything about it," replied Baker briefly. "I only know
+results when I see them. These other little grafters that your man
+Thorne has bumped off probably haven't any drag."
+
+"Well, what does Plant amount to once he's exposed?" challenged Bob.
+
+"I haven't figured it out on the Scribner scale," admitted Baker, "but I
+know what happens when you try to bump him. Bet you a thousand dollars I
+do," he shot at Welton. "It isn't the wraith-like Plant you run up
+against; it's _interests_."
+
+"Well, I don't believe yet a great government will keep in a miserable,
+petty thief like Plant against the direct evidence of a man like
+Thorne!" stated Bob with some heat.
+
+"Listen," said Baker kindly. "That isn't the scrap. Thorne _vs._
+Plant--looks like easy money on Thorne, eh? Well, now, Plant has a drag
+with Chairman Gay; don't know what it is, but it's a good one, a
+peacherino. We know because we've trained some heavy guns on it
+ourselves, and it's stood the shock. All right. Now it's up to Chairman
+Gay to support his cousin. Then there's old Simeon Wright. Where would
+he get off at without Plant? He's going to do a little missionary work.
+Simeon owns Senator Barrow, and Senator Barrow is on the Ways and Means
+Committee, so lots of people love the Senator. And so on in all
+directions--I'm from Missouri. You got to show me. If it came to a mere
+choice of turning down Plant or Thorne, they'd turn down Plant, every
+time. But when it comes to a choice between Thorne and Gay, Thorne and
+Barrow, Thorne and Simeon Wright, Thorne and a dozen others that have
+their own Angel Children to protect, and won't protect your Angel Child
+unless you'll chuck a front for theirs--why Thorne is just lost in the
+crowd!"
+
+"I don't believe it," protested Bob. "It would be a scandal."
+
+"No, just politics," said Baker.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The sawmill lay on the direct trail to the back country. Every man
+headed for the big mountains by way of Sycamore Flats passed fairly
+through the settlement itself. So every cattleman out after provisions
+or stock salt, followed by his docile string of pack mules, paused to
+swap news and gossip with whoever happened for the moment to have
+leisure for such an exchange.
+
+The variety poured through this funnel of the mountains comprised all
+classes. Professional prospectors with their burros, ready alike for the
+desert or the most inaccessible crags, were followed by a troupe of
+college boys afoot leading one or two old mares as baggage
+transportation. The business-like, semi-military outfits of geological
+survey parties, the worn but substantial hunters' equipments, the
+marvellous and oftentimes ridiculous luxury affected by the wealthy
+camper, the makeshifts of the poorer ranchmen of the valley, out with
+their entire families and the farm stock for a "real good fish," all
+these were of never-failing interest to Bob. In fact, he soon discovered
+that the one absorbing topic--outside of bears, of course--was the
+discussion, the comparison and the appraising of the various items of
+camping equipment. He also found each man amusingly partisan for his
+own. There were schools advocating--heatedly--the merits respectively of
+the single or double cinch, of the Dutch oven or the reflector, of
+rawhide or canvas kyacks, of sleeping bags or blankets. Each man had
+invented some little kink of his own without which he could not possibly
+exist. Some of these kinks were very handy and deserved universal
+adoption, such as a small rubber tube with a flattened brass nozzle
+with which to encourage reluctant fires. Others expressed an individual
+idiosyncrasy only; as in the case of the man who carried clothes hooks
+to screw into the trees. A man's method of packing was also closely
+watched. Each had his own favourite hitch. The strong preponderance
+seemed to be in favour of the Diamond, both single and double, but many
+proved strongly addicted to the Lone Packer, or the Basco, or the
+Miners', or the Square, or even the generally despised Squaw, and would
+stoutly defend their choices, and give reasons therefore. Bob sometimes
+amused himself practising these hitches in miniature by means of a
+string, a bent nail, and two folded handkerchiefs as packs. After many
+trials, and many lapses of memory, he succeeded on all but the Double
+Diamond. Although apparently he followed every move, the result was
+never that beautiful all-over tightening at the last pull. He
+reluctantly concluded that on this point he must have instruction.
+
+Although rarely a day went by during the whole season that one or more
+parties did not pass through, or camp over night at the Meadow Lake, it
+was a fact that, after passing Baldy, these hundreds could scatter so
+far through the labyrinth of the Sierras that in a whole summer's
+journeying they were extremely unlikely to see each other--or indeed any
+one else, save when they stumbled on one of the established cow camps.
+The vastness of the California mountains cannot be conveyed to one who
+has not travelled them. Men have all summer pastured illegally thousands
+of head of sheep undiscovered, in spite of the fact that rangers and
+soldiers were out looking for them. One may journey diligently
+throughout the season, and cover but one corner of the three great maps
+that depict about one-half of them. If one wills he can, to all intents
+and purposes, become sole and undisputed master of kingdoms in extent.
+He can occupy beautiful valleys miles long, guarded by cliffs rising
+thousands of feet, threaded by fish-haunted streams, spangled with
+fair, flower-grown lawns, cool with groves of trees, neck high in rich
+feed. Unless by sheer chance, no one will disturb his solitude. Of
+course he must work for his kingdom. He must press on past the easy
+travel, past the wide cattle country of the middle elevations, into the
+splintered, frowning granite and snow, over the shoulders of the mighty
+peaks of the High Sierras. Nevertheless, the reward is sure for the
+hardy voyager.
+
+Most men, however, elect to spend their time in the easier middle
+ground. There the elevations run up to nine or ten thousand feet; the
+trails are fairly well defined and travelled; the streams are full of
+fish; meadows are in every moist pocket; the great box canons and peaks
+of the spur ranges offer the grandeur of real mountain scenery.
+
+From these men, as they ended their journeys on the way out, came tales
+and rumours. There was no doubt whatever that the country had too many
+cattle in it. That was brought home to each and every man by the
+scarcity of horse feed on meadows where usually an abundance for
+everybody was to be expected. The cattle were thin and restless. It was
+unsafe to leave a camp unprotected; the half-wild animals trampled
+everything into the ground. The cattlemen, of whatever camp, appeared
+sullen and suspicious of every comer.
+
+"It's mighty close to a cattle war," said one old lean and leathery
+individual to Bob; "I know, for I been thar. Used to run cows in
+Montana. I hear everywhar talk about Wright's cattle dyin' in mighty
+funny ways. I know that's so, for I seen a slather of dead cows myself.
+Some of 'em fall off cliffs; some seem to have broke their legs. Some
+bogged down. Some look like to have just laid down and died."
+
+"Well, if they're weak from loss of feed, isn't that natural?" asked
+Bob.
+
+"Wall," said the old cowman, "in the first place, they're pore, but they
+ain't by no means weak. But the strange part is that these yere
+accidents always happens to Wright's cattle."
+
+He laughed and added:
+
+"The carcasses is always so chawed up by b'ar and coyote--or at least
+that's what they _say_ done it--that you can't sw'ar as to how they
+_did_ come to die. But I heard one funny thing. It was over at the
+Pollock boys' camp. Shelby, Wright's straw boss, come ridin' in pretty
+mad, and made a talk about how it's mighty cur'ous only Wright's cattle
+is dyin'.
+
+"'It shorely looks like the country is unhealthy for plains cattle,'
+says George Pollock; 'ours is brought up in the hills.'
+
+"'Well,' says Shelby, 'if I ever comes on one of these accidents
+a-happenin', I'll shore make some one hard to catch!'
+
+"'Some one's likely one of these times to make you almighty _easy_ to
+catch!' says George.
+
+"Now," concluded the old cattleman, "folks don't make them bluffs for
+the sake of talkin' at a mark--not in this country."
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of that prediction, the summer passed without any
+personal clash. The cattle came out from the mountains rather earlier
+than usual, gaunt, wiry, active. They were in fine shape, as far as
+health was concerned; but absolutely unfit, as they then stood, for
+beef. The Simeon Wright herds were first, thousands of them, in charge
+of many cowboys and dogs. The punchers were a reckless, joyous crew,
+skylarking in anticipation of the towns of the plains. They kissed their
+hands and waved their hats at all women, old and young, in the mill
+settlement; they played pranks on each other; they charged here and
+there on their wiry ponies, whirling to right and left, 'turning on a
+ten-cent piece,' throwing their animals from full speed to a stand,
+indulging in the cowboys' spectacular 'flash riding' for the sheer joy
+of it. The leading cattle, eager with that strange instinct that, even
+early in the fall, calls all ruminants from good mountain feed to the
+brown lower country, pressed forward, their necks outstretched, their
+eyes fixed on some distant vision. Their calls blended into an organ
+note. Occasionally they broke into a little trot. At such times the dogs
+ran forward, yelping, to turn them back into their appointed way. At an
+especially bad break to right or left one or more of the men would dash
+to the aid of the dogs, riding with a splendid recklessness through the
+timber, over fallen trees, ditches, rocks, boulders and precipitous
+hills. The dust rose chokingly. At the rear of the long procession
+plodded the old, the infirm, the cripples and the young calves. Three or
+four men rode compactly behind this rear guard, urging it to keep up.
+Their means of persuasion were varied. Quirts, ropes, rattles made of
+tin cans and pebbles, strong language were all used in turn and
+simultaneously. Long after the multitude had passed, the vast and
+composite voice of it reechoed through the forest; the dust eddied and
+swirled among the trees.
+
+The mountain men's cattle, on the other hand, came out sullenly, in
+herds of a few hundred head. There was more barking of dogs; more
+scurrying to and fro of mounted men, for small bands are more difficult
+to drive than large ones. There were no songs, no boisterous high
+spirits, no flash riding. In contrast to the plains cowboys, even the
+herders' appearance was poor. They wore blue jeans overalls, short jeans
+jumpers, hats floppy and all but disintegrated by age and exposure to
+the elements. Wright's men, being nothing but cowboys, without other
+profession, ties or interests, gave more attention to details of
+professional equipment. Their wide hats were straight of brim and
+generally encircled by a leather or hair or snakeskin band; their shirts
+were loose; they wore handkerchiefs around their necks, and oiled
+leather "chaps" on their legs. Their distinguishing and especial mark,
+however, was their boots. These were made of soft leather, were
+elaborately stitched or embroidered in patterns, possessed exaggeratedly
+wide and long straps like a spaniel's ears, and were mounted on thin
+soles and very high heels. They were footwear such as no mountain man,
+nor indeed any man who might ever be required to go a mile afoot, would
+think of wearing. The little herds trudged down the mountains. While the
+plainsmen anticipated easy duty, the pleasures of the town, fenced
+cattle growing fat on alfalfa raised during the summer by irrigation,
+these sober-faced mountaineers looked forward to a winter range much
+depleted, a market closed against such wiry, active animals as they
+herded, and an impossibility of rounding into shape for sale any but a
+few old cows.
+
+"If it wasn't for this new shake-up," said Jim Pollock, "I'd shore be
+gettin' discouraged. But if they keep out Simeon Wright's cattle this
+spring, we'll be all right. It's cost us money, though."
+
+"A man with a wife and child can't afford to lose money," said George
+Pollock.
+
+Jim laughed.
+
+"You and your new kid!" he mocked. "No, I suppose he can't. Neither can
+a man with a wife and six children. But I reckon we'll be all right as
+long as there's a place to crawl under when it rains."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+The autumn passed, and winter closed down. Plant continued his
+administration. For a month the countryside was on a tip-toe of
+expectation. It counted on no immediate results, but the "suspension
+pending investigation" was to take place within a few weeks. As far as
+surface indications were concerned nothing happened. Expectation was
+turned back on itself. Absolute confidence in Plant's removal and
+criminal conviction gave place to scepticism and doubt, finally to utter
+disbelief. And since Thorne had succeeded in arousing a real faith and
+enthusiasm, the reaction was by so much the stronger. Tolerance gave way
+to antagonism; distrust to bitterness; grievance to open hostility. The
+Forest Reserves were cursed as a vicious institution created for the
+benefit of the rich man, depriving the poor man of his rights and
+privileges, imposing on him regulations that were at once galling and
+senseless.
+
+The Forest Rangers suddenly found themselves openly unpopular.
+Heretofore a ranger had been tolerated by the mountaineers as either a
+good-for-nothing saloon loafer enjoying the fats of political
+perquisite; or as a species of inunderstandable fanatic to be looked
+down upon with good-humoured contempt. Now a ranger became a partisan of
+the opposing forces, and as such an enemy. Men ceased speaking to him,
+or greeted him with the curtest of nods. Plant's men were ostracized in
+every way, once they showed themselves obstinate in holding to their
+positions. Every man was urged to resign. Many did so. Others hung on
+because the job was too soft to lose. Some, like Ross Fletcher,
+California John, Tom Carroll, Charley Morton and a few others, moved on
+their accustomed way.
+
+One of the inspiring things in the later history of the great West is
+the faith and insight, the devotion and self-sacrifice of some of the
+rough mountain men in some few of the badly managed reserves to truths
+that were but slowly being recognized by even the better educated of the
+East. These men, year after year, without leadership, without
+encouragement, without the support and generally against the covered or
+open hostility of their neighbours, under most disheartening official
+conditions kept the torch alight. They had no wide theory of forestry to
+sustain their interest; they could certainly have little hope of
+promotion and advancement to a real career; their experience with a
+bureaucratic government could not arouse in their breasts any
+expectation of a broad, a liberal, or even an enlightened policy of
+conservation or use. They were set in opposition to their neighbours
+without receiving the support of the power that so placed them.
+Nevertheless, according to their knowledge they worked faithfully. Five
+times out of ten they had little either of supervision or instruction.
+Turned out in the mountains, like a bunch of stock, each was free to do
+as much or as little of whatever he pleased. Each improved his district
+according to his ideas or his interests. One cared most for building
+trails; another for chasing sheep trespassers; a third for construction
+of bridges, cabins and fences. All had occasionally to fight fires. Each
+was given the inestimable privilege of doing what he could. Everything
+he did had to be reported on enormous and complicated forms. If he made
+a mistake in any of these, he heard from it, and perhaps his pay was
+held up. This pay ran somewhere about sixty or seventy-five dollars a
+month, and he was required to supply his own horses and to feed them.
+Most rangers who were really interested in their profession spent some
+of this in buying tools with which to work.[A] The Government supplied
+next to nothing. In 1902 between the King's River and the Kaweah, an
+area of somewhere near a million acres, the complete inventory of
+fire-fighting tools consisted of two rakes made from fifty cents' worth
+of twenty-penny nails.
+
+But these negative discouragements were as nothing compared to the petty
+rebuffs and rulings that emanated from the Land Office itself.
+
+One spring Ross Fletcher, following specific orders, was sent out after
+twenty thousand trespassing sheep. It was early in the season. His
+instructions took him up into the frozen meadows, so he had to carry
+barley for his horses. He used three sacks and sent in a bill for one.
+Item refused. Feed was twenty dollars a thousand. Salary seventy-five
+dollars.
+
+One of Simeon Wright's foremen broke down government fences and fed out
+all the ranger horse feed. Tom Carroll wrote to Superintendent Smith;
+later to Washington. The authorities, however, refused to revoke the
+cattleman's licence. At Christmas time, when Carroll was in White Oaks
+the foreman and his two sons jeered at and insulted the ranger in regard
+to this matter until the latter lost his temper and thrashed all three,
+one after the other. For this he was severely reprimanded by Washington.
+
+Charley Morton was ordered to Yosemite to consult with the military
+officers there. He was instructed to do so in a certain number of days.
+To keep inside his time limit he had to hire a team. Item refused.
+
+California John fought fire alone for two days and a night, then had to
+go outside for help. Docked a day for going off the reserve.
+
+Why did these men prefer to endure neglect and open hostility to the
+favour of their neighbours and easier work? Bob, with a growing wonder
+and respect, tried to find out.
+
+He did not succeed. There certainly was no overwhelming love for the
+administration of Henry Plant; nor loyalty to the Land Office. Indeed
+for the latter, one and all entertained the deep contempt of the
+out-of-door man for the red-tape clerk.
+
+"What do you think is the latest," asked California John one day, "from
+them little squirts? I just got instructions that during of the fire
+season I must patrol the whole of my district every day!" The old man
+grinned. "I only got from here to Pumice Mountain! I wonder if those
+fellows ever saw a mountain? I suppose they laid off an inch on the map
+and let it go at that. Patrol every day!"
+
+"How long would it take you?" asked Bob.
+
+"By riding hard, about a week."
+
+Rather the loyalty seemed to be gropingly to the idea back of it all, to
+something broad and dim and beautiful which these rough, untutored men
+had drawn from their native mountains and which thus they rendered back.
+
+As Bob gradually came to understand more of the situation his curiosity
+grew. The lumberman's instinctive hostility to government control and
+interference had not in the slightest degree modified; but he had begun
+to differentiate this small, devoted band from the machinery of the
+Forest Reserves as they were then conducted. He was a little inclined to
+the fanatic theory; he knew by now that the laziness hypothesis would
+not apply to these.
+
+"What is there in it?" he asked. "You surely can't hope for a boost in
+salary; and certainly your bosses treat you badly."
+
+At first he received vague and evasive answers. They liked the work;
+they got along all right; it was a lot better than the cattle business
+just now, and so on. Then as it became evident that the young man was
+genuinely interested, California John gradually opened up. One strange
+and beautiful feature of American partisanship for an ideal is its
+shyness. It will work and endure, will wait and suffer, but it will not
+go forth to proselyte.
+
+"The way I kind of look at it is this," said the old man one evening.
+"I always did like these here mountains--and the big trees--and the
+rocks and water and the snow. Everywhere else the country belongs to
+some one: it's staked out. Up here it belongs to me, because I'm an
+American. This country belongs to all of us--the people--all of us. We
+most of us don't know we've got it, that's all. I kind of look at it
+this way: suppose I had a big pile of twenty-dollar gold pieces lying
+up, say in Siskiyou, that I didn't know nothing whatever about; and some
+fellow come along and took care of it for me and hung onto it even when
+I sent out word that anybody was welcome to anything I owned in
+Siskiyou--I not thinking I really owned anything there, you
+understand--why--well, you see, I sort of like to feel I'm one of those
+fellows!"
+
+"What good is there in hanging onto a lot of land that would be better
+developed?" asked Bob.
+
+But California John refused to be drawn into a discussion. He had his
+faith, but he would not argue about it. Sometime or other the people
+would come to that same faith. In the meantime there was no sense in
+tangling up with discussions.
+
+"They send us out some reading that tells about it," said California
+John. "I'll give you some."
+
+He was as good as his word. Bob carried away with him a dozen government
+publications of the sort that, he had always concluded, everybody
+received and nobody read. Interested, not in the subject matter of the
+pamphlets, but in their influence on these mountain men, he did read
+them. In this manner he became for the first time acquainted with the
+elementary principles of watersheds and water conservation. This was
+actually so. Nor did he differ in this respect from any other of the
+millions of well-educated youth of the country. In a vague way he knew
+that trees influence climate. He had always been too busy with trees to
+bother about climate.
+
+The general facts interested him, and appealed to his logical common
+sense. He saw for the first time, because for the first time it had been
+presented to his attention, the real use and reason for the forest
+reserves. Hitherto he had considered the whole institution as
+semi-hostile, at least as something in potential antagonism. Now he was
+willing fairly to recognize the wisdom of preserving some portion of the
+mountain cover. He had not really denied it; simply he hadn't considered
+it.
+
+Early in this conviction he made up to Ross Fletcher for his brusqueness
+in ordering the ranger off the mill property.
+
+"I just classed you with your gang, which was natural," said Bob.
+
+"I am one of my gang, of course," said Fletcher.
+
+"Do you consider yourself one of the same sort of dicky bird as Plant
+and that crew?" demanded Bob.
+
+"There ain't no humans all alike," replied the mountaineer.
+
+Although Bob was thus rebuffed in immediately getting inside of the
+man's loyalty to his service and his superiors, he was from that moment
+made to feel at his ease. Later, in a fuller intimacy, he was treated
+more frankly.
+
+Welton laughed openly at Bob's growing interest in these matters.
+
+"You're the first man I ever saw read any of those things," said he in
+regard to the government reports. "I once read one," he went on in
+delightful contradiction to his first statement. "It told how to cut
+timber. When you cut down a tree, you pile up the remains in a neat pile
+and put a little white picket fence around them. It would take a
+thousand men and cost enough to buy a whole new tract to do all the
+monkey business they want you to do. I've only been in the lumber
+business forty years! When a college boy can teach me, I'm willing to
+listen; but he can't teach me the A B C of the business."
+
+Bob laughed. "Well, I can't just see us taking time in a short season
+to back-track and pile up ornamental brush piles," he admitted.
+
+"Experimental farms, and experimental chickens, and experimental
+lumbering are all right for the gentleman farmer and the gentleman
+poultry fancier and the gentleman lumberman--if there are any. But when
+it comes to business----"
+
+Bob laughed. "Just the same," said he, "I'm beginning to see that it's a
+good thing to keep some of this timber standing; and the only way it can
+be done is through the Forest Reserves."
+
+"That's all right," agreed Welton. "Let'em reserve. I don't care. But
+they are a nuisance. They keep stepping on my toes. It's too good a
+chance to annoy and graft. It gives a hard lot of loafers too good a
+chance to make trouble."
+
+"They are a hard lot in general," agreed Bob, "but there's some good men
+among them, men I can't help but admire."
+
+Welton rolled his eyes drolly at the younger man.
+
+"Who?" he inquired.
+
+"Well, there's old California John."
+
+"There's three or four mossbacks in the lot that are honest," cut in
+Welton, "but it's because they're too damn thick-headed to be anything
+else. Don't get kiddish enough to do the picturesque mountaineer act,
+Bobby. I can dig you up four hundred of that stripe anywhere--and
+holding down just about as valuable jobs. Don't get too thick with that
+kind. In the city you'll find them holding open-air meetings. I suppose
+our friend Plant has been pinched?"
+
+"Not yet," grinned Bob, a trifle shamefacedly.
+
+"Don't get the reform bug, Bob," said Welton kindly, "That's all very
+well for those that like to amuse themselves, but we're busy."
+
+
+[Footnote A: The accounts of one man showed that for a long period he
+had so disbursed from his own pocket an average of thirty dollars a
+month. His salary was sixty dollars.]
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+The following spring found Plant still in command. No word had come from
+the silence of political darkness. His only concession to the state of
+affairs had been an acknowledgment under coercion that the cattle ranges
+had been overstocked, and that outside cattle would not be permitted to
+enter, at least for the coming season. This was just the concession to
+relieve the immediate pressure against him, and to give the Supervisor
+time to apply all his energies to details within the shades.
+
+Details were important, in spite of the absence of surface indications.
+Many considerations were marshalled. On one side were arrayed plain
+affidavits of fraud. In the lower ranks of the Land Office it was
+necessary to corrupt men, by one means or another. These lesser
+officials in the course of routine would come face to face with the
+damaging affidavits, and must be made to shut their eyes deliberately to
+what they know. The cases of the higher officials were different. They
+must know of the charges, of course, but matters must be so arranged
+that the evidence must never meet their eyes, and that they must adopt
+en bloc the findings of their subordinates. Bribery was here impossible;
+but influence could be brought to bear.
+
+Chairman Gay upheld his cousin, Henry Plant, because of the
+relationship. This implied a good word, and personal influence. After
+that Chairman Gay forgot the matter. But a great number of people were
+extremely anxious to please Chairman Gay. These exerted themselves. They
+came across evidence that would have caused Chairman Gay to throw his
+beloved cousin out neck and crop, but they swallowed it and asked for
+more simply because Gay possessed patronage, and it was not to their
+interest to bring disagreeable matters before the great man. Nor was the
+Land Office unlikely to listen to reason. A strong fight was at that
+time forward to transfer control of the Forest Reserves from a
+department busy in other lines to the Bureau of Forestry where it
+logically belonged. This transfer was violently opposed by those to whom
+the distribution of supervisorships, ranger appointments and the like
+seemed valuable. The Land Office adherents needed all the political
+backing they could procure; and the friends of Chairman Gay epitomized
+political backing. So the Land Office, too, was anxious to please the
+Chairman.
+
+At the same time Simeon Wright had bestirred himself. There seems to be
+no good and valid reason for owning a senator if you don't use him.
+Wright was too shrewd to think it worth while to own a senator from
+California. That was too obvious. Few knew how closely affiliated were
+the Wright and the Barrow interests. Wright dropped a hint to the
+dignified senator; the senator paid a casual call to an official high up
+in the Land Office. Senators would by their votes ultimately decide the
+question of transfer. The official agreed to keep an eye on the
+recommendations in this case.
+
+Thus somebody submerged beneath the Gay interests saw obscurely somebody
+equally submerged beneath the Wright and Barrow interests. In due course
+all Thorne's careful work was pigeonholed. An epitome of the charges was
+typed and submitted to the High Official. On the back of them had been
+written:
+
+"I find the charges not proved."
+
+This was signed by the very obscure clerk who had filed away the Thorne
+affidavits and who happened to be a friend of the man to whom in devious
+ways and through many mouths had come an expression of the Gay wishes.
+It was O.K.'d by a dozen others. The High Official added his O.K. to
+the others. Then he promptly forgot about it, as did every one else
+concerned, save the men most vitally interested.
+
+In due time Thorne, then in Los Angeles, received a brief communication
+from Stafford, the obscure clerk.
+
+"In regard to your charges against Supervisor H.M. Plant, the Department
+begs to advise you that, after examining carefully the evidence for the
+defence, it finds the charges not proven."
+
+Thorne stared at the paper incredulously, then he did something he had
+never permitted himself before; he wrote in expostulation to the Higher
+Official.
+
+"I cannot imagine what the man's defence could be," he wrote, in part,
+"but my evidence a mere denial could hardly controvert. The whole
+countryside knows the man is crooked; they know he was investigated;
+they are now awaiting with full confidence the punishment for
+well-understood peculation. I can hardly exaggerate the body blow to the
+Service such a decision would give. Nobody will believe in it again."
+
+On reading this the Higher Official called in one of his subordinates.
+
+"I have this from Thorne," said he. "What do you think of it?"
+
+The subordinate read it through.
+
+"I'll look it up," said he.
+
+"Do so and bring me the papers," advised the Higher Official.
+
+The Higher Official knew Thorne's work and approved it. The inspector
+was efficient, and throughout all his reforming of conditions in the
+West, the Department had upheld him. The Department liked efficiency,
+and where the private interests of its own grafters were not concerned,
+it gave good government.
+
+In due time the subordinate came back, but without the papers.
+
+"Stafford says he'll look them up, sir," said he. "He told me to tell
+you that the case was the one you were asking Senator Barrow about."
+
+"Ah!" said the Higher Official.
+
+He sat for some time in deep thought. Then he called through the open
+door to his stenographer.
+
+"_In re_ your's 21st," he dictated, "I repose every confidence in Mr.
+Stafford's judgment; and unless I should care to supersede him, it would
+hardly be proper for me to carry any matter over his head."
+
+Thorne immediately resigned, and shortly went into landlooking for a
+lumbering firm in Oregon. Chairman Gay wrote a letter advising Plant to
+"adopt a policy of conciliation toward the turbulent element."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Shortly after Bob's return in the early spring, George Pollock rode to
+Auntie Belle's in some disorder to say that the little girl, now about a
+year old, had been taken sick.
+
+"Jenny has a notion it's something catching," said he, "so she won't let
+Jim send Mary over. There's too many young-uns in that family to run any
+risks."
+
+"How does she seem?" called Auntie Belle from the bedroom where she was
+preparing for departure.
+
+"She's got a fever, and is restless, and won't eat," said George
+anxiously. "She looks awful sick to me."
+
+"They all do at that age," said Auntie Belle comfortably; "don't you
+worry a mite."
+
+Nevertheless Auntie Belle did not return that day, nor the next, nor the
+next. When finally she appeared, it was only to obtain certain supplies
+and clothes. These she caused to be brought out and laid down where she
+could get them. She would allow nobody to come near her.
+
+"It's scarlet fever," she said, "and Lord knows where the child got it.
+But we won't scatter it, so you-all stay away. I'll do what I can. I've
+been through it enough times, Lord knows."
+
+Three days later she appeared again, very quietly.
+
+"How's the baby?" asked Bob. "Better, I hope?"
+
+"The poor little thing is dead," said Auntie Belle shortly, "and I want
+you or somebody to ride down for the minister."
+
+The community attended the funeral in a body. It was held in the open
+air, under a white oak tree, for Auntie Belle, with unusual caution and
+knowledge for the mountains, refused to permit even a chance of
+spreading the contagion. The mother appeared dazed. She sat through the
+services without apparent consciousness of what was going on; she
+suffered herself to be led to the tiny enclosure where all the Pollocks
+of other generations had been buried; she allowed herself to be led away
+again. There was in the brief and pathetic ceremony no meaning and no
+pain for her. The father, on the other hand, seemed crushed. So broken
+was his figure that, after the services, Bob was impelled to lay his
+hand on the man's shoulder and mutter a few incoherent but encouraging
+words. The mountaineer looked up dully, but sharpened to comprehension
+and gratitude as his eyes met those of the tall, vigorous young man
+leaning over him.
+
+"I mean it," said Bob; "any time--any place."
+
+On the way back to Sycamore Flats Auntie Belle expressed her mind to the
+young man.
+
+"Nobody realizes how things are going with those Pollocks," said she.
+"George sold his spurs and that Cruces bit of his to get medicine. He
+wouldn't take anything from me. They're proud folks, and nobody'd have a
+chance to suspect anything. I tell you," said the good lady solemnly,
+"it don't matter where that child got the fever; it's Henry Plant, the
+old, fat scoundrel, that killed her just as plain as if he'd stuck a gun
+to her head. He has a good deal to answer for. There's lots of folks
+eating their own beef cattle right now; and that's ruinous. I suppose
+Washington ain't going to do anything. We might have known it. I don't
+suppose you heard anything outside about it?"
+
+"Only that Thorne had resigned."
+
+"That so!" Auntie Belle ruminated on this a moment. "Well, I'm right
+glad to hear it. I'd hate to think I was fooled on him. Reckon 'resign'
+means fired for daring to say anything about His High-and-mightiness?"
+she guessed.
+
+Bob shook his head. "Couldn't say," said he.
+
+The busy season was beginning. Every day laden teams crawled up the
+road bringing supplies for the summer work. Woodsmen came in twos, in
+threes, in bunches of a dozen or more. Bob was very busy arranging the
+distribution and forwarding, putting into shape the great machinery of
+handling, so that when, a few weeks later, the bundles of sawn lumber
+should begin to shoot down the flume, they would fall automatically into
+a systematic scheme of further transportation. He had done this twice
+before, and he knew all the steps of it, and exactly what would be
+required of him. Certain complications were likely to arise, requiring
+each their individual treatments, but as Bob's experience grew these
+were becoming fewer and of lesser importance. The creative necessity was
+steadily lessening as the work became more familiar. Often Bob found his
+eagerness sinking to a blank; his attention economizing itself to the
+bare needs of the occasion. He caught himself at times slipping away
+from the closest interest in what he had to do. His spirit, although he
+did not know it, was beginning once more to shake itself restlessly, to
+demand, as it had always demanded in the past from the time of his toy
+printing press in his earliest boyhood, fresh food for the creative
+instinct that was his. Bobby Orde, the child, had been thorough. No
+superficial knowledge of a subject sufficed. He had worked away at the
+mechanical difficulties of the cheap toy press after Johnny English, his
+partner in enterprise, had given up in disgust. By worrying the problem
+like a terrier, Bobby had shaken it into shape. Then when the commercial
+possibilities of job printing for parents had drawn Johnny back ablaze
+with enthusiasm, Bobby had, to his partner's amazement, lost completely
+all interest in printing presses. The subject had been exhausted; he had
+no desire for repetitions.
+
+So it had gone. One after another he had with the utmost fervour taken
+up photography, sailing, carpentry, metal working--a dozen and one
+occupations--only to drop them as suddenly. This restlessness of
+childhood came to be considered a defect in young manhood. It indicated
+instability of character. Only his mother, wiser in her quiet way, saw
+the thoroughness with which he ransacked each subject. Bobby would read
+and absorb a dozen technical books in a week, reaching eagerly for the
+vital principles of his subject. She alone realized, although but dimly,
+that the boy did not relinquish his subject until he had grasped those
+vital principles.
+
+"He's learning all the time," she ventured.
+
+"'Jack of all trades: master of none,'" quoted Orde doubtfully.
+
+The danger being recognized, little Bobby's teaching was carefully
+directed. He was not discouraged in his varied activities; but the
+bigger practical principles of American life were inculcated. These may
+be very briefly stated. An American must not idle; he must direct his
+energies toward success; success means making one's way in life; nine
+times out of ten, for ninety-nine men out of a hundred, that means the
+business world. To seize the business opportunity; to develop that
+opportunity through the business virtues of attention to detail,
+industry, economy, persistence, and enthusiasm--these represented the
+plain and manifest duty of every citizen who intended to "be somebody."
+
+Now Bob realized perfectly well that here he was more fortunate than
+most. A great many of his friends had to begin on small salaries in
+indoor positions of humdrum and mechanical duty. He had started on a
+congenial out-of-door occupation of great interest and picturesqueness,
+one suited to his abilities and promising a great future. Nevertheless,
+he had now been in the business five years. He was beginning to see
+through and around it. As yet he had not lost one iota of his enthusiasm
+for the game; but here and there, once in a while, some of the necessary
+delays and slow, long repetitions of entirely mechanical processes left
+him leisure to feel irked, to look above him, beyond the affairs that
+surrounded him. At such times the old blank, doped feeling fell across
+his mind. It had always been so definite a symptom in his childhood of
+that state wherein he simply could not drag himself to blow up the
+embers of his extinguished enthusiasm, that he recoiled from himself in
+alarm. He felt his whole stability of character on trial. If he could
+not "make good" here, what excuse could there be for him; what was there
+left for him save the profitless and honourless life of the dilettante
+and idler? He had caught on to a big business remarkably well, and it
+was worse than childish to lose his interest in the game even for the
+fraction of a second. Of course, it amounted to nothing but that. He
+never did his work better than that spring.
+
+A week after the burial of the Pollock baby, Mrs. Pollock was reported
+seriously ill. Bob rode up a number of times to inquire, and kept
+himself fully informed. The doctor came twice from White Oaks, but then
+ceased his visits. Bob did not know that such visits cost fifty dollars
+apiece. Mary, Jim's wife, shared the care of the sick woman with George.
+She was reported very weak, but getting on. The baby's death, together
+with the other anxieties of the last two years, had naturally pulled her
+down.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+Before the gray dawn one Sunday morning Bob, happening to awaken, heard
+a strange, rumbling, distant sound to the west. His first thought was
+that the power dam had been opened and was discharging its waters, but
+as his senses came to him, he realized that this could not be so. He
+stretched himself idly. A mocking bird uttered a phrase outside. No
+dregs of drowsiness remained in him, so he dressed and walked out into
+the freshness of the new morning. Here the rumbling sound, which he had
+concluded had been an effect of his half-conscious imagination, came
+clearer to his ears. He listened for a moment, then walked rapidly to
+the Lone Pine Hill from whose slight elevation he could see abroad over
+the low mountains to the west. The gray light before sunrise was now
+strengthening every moment. By the time Bob had reached the summit of
+the knoll it had illuminated the world.
+
+A wandering suction of air toward the higher peaks brought with it the
+murmur of a multitude. Bob topped the hill and turned his eyes to the
+west. A great cloud of dust arose from among the chaparral and oaks,
+drifting slowly but certainly toward the Ranges. Bob could now make out
+the bawling, shouting, lowing of great herds on the march. In spite of
+pledges and promises, in spite of California John's reports, of Thorne's
+recommendations, of Plant's assurances, Simeon Wright's cattle were
+again coming in!
+
+Bob shook his head sadly, and his clear-cut young face was grave. No one
+knew better than himself what this must mean to the mountain people,
+for his late spring and early fall work had brought him much in contact
+with them. He walked thoughtfully down the hill.
+
+When just on the outskirts of the little village he was overtaken by
+George Pollock on horseback. The mountaineer was jogging along at a foot
+pace, his spurs jingling, his bridle hand high after the Western
+fashion. When he saw Bob he reined in, nodding a good morning. Bob
+noticed that he had strapped on a blanket and slicker, and wore his
+six-shooter.
+
+"You look as though you were going on a journey," remarked Bob.
+
+"Thinking of it," said Pollock. Bob glanced up quickly at the tone of
+his voice, which somehow grated unusually on the young man's ear, but
+the mountaineer's face was placid under the brim of his floppy old hat.
+"Might as well," continued the cattleman after a moment. "Nothin'
+special to keep me."
+
+"I'm glad Mrs. Pollock is better," ventured Bob.
+
+"She's dead," stated Pollock without emotion. "Died this morning about
+two o'clock."
+
+Bob cried out at the utterly unexpected shock of this statement. Pollock
+looked down on him as though from a great height.
+
+"I sort of expected it," he answered Bob's exclamation. "I reckon we
+won't talk of it. 'Spose you see that Wright's cattle is coming in
+again? I'm sorry on account of Jim and the other boys. It wipes me out,
+of course, but it don't matter as far as I'm concerned, because I'm
+going away, anyway."
+
+Bob laid his hand on the man's stirrup leather and walked alongside,
+thinking rapidly. He did not know how to take hold of the situation.
+
+"Where are you thinking of going?" he asked.
+
+Pollock looked down at him.
+
+"What's that to you?" he demanded roughly.
+
+"Why--nothing--I was simply interested," gasped Bob in astonishment.
+
+The mountaineer's eyes bored him through and through. Finally the man
+dropped his gaze.
+
+"I'll tell you," said he at last, "'cause you and Jim are the only
+square ones I know. I'm going to Mexico. I never been there. I'm going
+by Vermilion Valley, and Mono Pass. If they ask you, you can tell 'em
+different. I want you to do something for me."
+
+"Gladly," said Bob. "What is it?"
+
+"Just hold my horse for me," requested Pollock, dismounting. "He stands
+fine tied to the ground, but there's a few things he's plumb afraid of,
+and I don't want to take chances on his getting away. He goes plumb off
+the grade for freight teams; he can't stand the crack of their whips.
+Sounds like a gun to him, I reckon. He won't stand for shooting
+neither."
+
+While talking the mountaineer handed the end of his hair rope into Bob's
+keeping.
+
+"Hang on to him," he said, turning away.
+
+George Pollock sauntered easily down the street. At Supervisor Plant's
+front gate, he turned and passed within. Bob saw him walk rapidly up the
+front walk, and pound on Plant's bedroom door. This, as usual in the
+mountains, opened directly out on the verandah. With an exclamation Bob
+sprang forward, dropping the hair rope. He was in time to see the
+bedroom door snatched open from within, and Plant's huge figure,
+white-robed, appear in the doorway. The Supervisor was evidently angry.
+
+"What in hell do you want?" he demanded.
+
+"You," said the mountaineer.
+
+He dropped his hand quite deliberately to his holster, flipped the
+forty-five out to the level of his hip, and fired twice, without looking
+at the weapon. Plant's expression changed; turned blank. For an
+appreciable instant he tottered upright, then his knees gave out beneath
+him and he fell forward with a crash. George Pollock leaned over him.
+Apparently satisfied after a moment's inspection, the mountaineer
+straightened, dropped his weapon into the holster, and turned away.
+
+All this took place in so short a space of time that Bob had not moved
+five feet from the moment he guessed Pollock's intention to the end of
+the tragedy. As the first shot rang out, Bob turned and seized again the
+hair rope attached to Pollock's horse. His habit of rapid decision and
+cool judgment showed him in a flash that he was too late to interfere,
+and revealed to him what he must do.
+
+Pollock, looking neither to the right nor the left, took the rope Bob
+handed him and swung into the saddle. His calm had fallen from him. His
+eyes burned and his face worked. With a muffled cry of pain he struck
+spurs to his horse and disappeared.
+
+Considerably shaken, Bob stood still, considering what he must do. It
+was manifestly his duty to raise the alarm. If he did so, however, he
+would have to bear witness to what he knew; and this, for George
+Pollock's sake, he desired to avoid. He was the only one who could know
+positively and directly and immediately how Plant had died. The sound of
+the shots had not aroused the village. If they had been heard, no one
+would have paid any attention to them; the discharge of firearms was too
+common an occurrence to attract special notice. It was better to let the
+discovery come in the natural course of events.
+
+However, Bob was neither a coward nor a fool. He wanted to save George
+Pollock if he could, but he had no intention of abandoning another plain
+duty in the matter. Without the slightest hesitation he opened Plant's
+gate and walked to the verandah where the huge, unlovely hulk huddled in
+the doorway. There, with some loathing, he determined the fact that the
+man was indeed dead. Convinced as to this point, he returned to the
+street, and looked carefully up and down it. It was still quite
+deserted.
+
+His mind in a whirl of horror, pity, and an unconfessed, hidden
+satisfaction, he returned to Auntie Belle's. The customary daylight
+breakfast for the teamsters had been omitted on account of the Sabbath.
+A thin curl of smoke was just beginning to rise straight up from the
+kitchen stovepipe. Bob, his mouth suddenly dry and sticky, went around
+to the back porch, where a huge _olla_ hung always full of spring water.
+He rounded the corner to run plump against Oldham, tilted back in a
+chair smoking the butt of a cigar.
+
+In his agitation of mind, Bob had no stomach for casual conversation. By
+an effort he smoothed out his manner and collected his thoughts.
+
+"How are you, Mr. Oldham?" he greeted the older man; "when did you get
+in?"
+
+"About an hour ago," replied Oldham. His spare figure in the gray
+business suit did not stir from its lazy posture, nor did the expression
+of his thin sardonic face change, but somehow, after swallowing his
+drink, Bob decided to revise his first intention of escaping to his
+room.
+
+"An hour ago," he repeated, when the import of the words finally
+filtered through his mental turmoil. "You travelled up at night then?"
+
+"Yes. It's getting hot on the plains."
+
+"Got in just before daylight, then?"
+
+"Just before. I'd have made it sooner, but I had to work my way through
+the cattle."
+
+"Where's your team?"
+
+"I left it down at the Company's stables; thought you wouldn't mind."
+
+"Sure not," said Bob.
+
+The Company's stables were at the other end of the village. Oldham must
+have walked the length of the street. He had said it was before
+daylight; but the look of the man's eyes was quizzical and cold behind
+the glasses. Still, it was always quizzical and cold. Bob called himself
+a panicky fool. Just the same, he wished now he had looked for
+footprints in the dust of the street. While his brain was thus busy with
+swift conjecture and the weighing of probabilities, his tongue was
+making random conversation, and his vacant eye was taking in and
+reporting to his intelligence the most trivial things. Generally
+speaking, his intelligence did not catch the significance of what his
+eyes reported until after an appreciable interval. Thus he noted that
+Oldham had smoked his cigar down to a short butt. This unimportant fact
+meant nothing, until his belated mind told him that never before had he
+seen the man actually smoking. Oldham always held a cigar between his
+lips, but he contented himself with merely chewing it or rolling it
+about. And this was very early, before breakfast.
+
+"Never saw you smoke before," he remarked abruptly, as this bubble of
+irrelevant thought came to the surface.
+
+"No?" said Oldham, politely.
+
+"It would make me woozy all day to smoke before I ate," said Bob, his
+voice trailing away, as his inner ear once more took up its listening
+for the hubbub that must soon break.
+
+As the moments went by, the suspense of this waiting became almost
+unbearable. A small portion of him kept up its semblance of conversation
+with Oldham; another small portion of him made minute and careful notes
+of trivial things; all the rest of him, body and soul, was listening, in
+the hope that soon, very soon, a scream would break the suspense. From
+time to time he felt that Oldham was looking at him queerly, and he
+rallied his faculties to the task of seeming natural.
+
+"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the older man at last. "You're mighty
+pale. You want to watch out where you drink water around some of these
+places."
+
+Bob came to with a snap.
+
+"Didn't sleep well," said he, once more himself.
+
+"Well, that wouldn't trouble me," yawned Oldham; "if it hadn't been for
+cigars I'd have dropped asleep in this chair an hour ago. You said you
+couldn't smoke before breakfast; neither can I ordinarily. This isn't
+before breakfast for me, it's after supper; and I've smoked two just to
+keep awake."
+
+"Why keep awake?" asked Bob.
+
+"When I pass away, it'll be for all day. I want to eat first."
+
+There, at last, it had come! A man down the street shouted. There
+followed a pounding at doors, and then the murmur of exclamations,
+questions and replies.
+
+"It sounds like some excitement," yawned Oldham, bringing his chair down
+with a thump. "They haven't even rung the first bell yet; let's wander
+out and stretch our legs."
+
+He sauntered off the wide back porch toward the front of the house. Bob
+followed. When near the gate Bob's mind grasped the significance of one
+of the trivial details that his eyes had reported to it some moments
+before. He uttered an exclamation, and returned hurriedly to the back
+porch to verify his impressions. They had been correct. Oldham had
+stated definitely that he had arrived before daylight, that he had been
+sitting in his chair for over an hour; that during that time he had
+smoked two cigars through.
+
+_Neither on the broad porch, nor on the ground near it, nor in any
+possible receptacle were there any cigar ashes._
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+The hue and cry rose and died; the sheriff from the plains did his duty;
+but no trace of the murderer was found. Indeed, at the first it was not
+known positively who had done the deed; a dozen might have had motive
+for the act. Only by the process of elimination was the truth come at.
+No one could say which way the fugitive had gone. Jim Pollock, under
+pressure, admitted that his brother had stormed against the door, had
+told the awakened inmates that his wife was dead and that he was going
+away. Immediately on making this statement, he had clattered off. Jim
+steadfastly maintained that his brother had given no inkling of whither
+he fled. Simeon Wright's cattle, on their way to the high country, filed
+past. The cowboys listened to the news with interest, and a delight
+which they did not attempt to conceal. They denied having seen the
+fugitive. The sheriff questioned them perfunctorily. He knew the breed.
+George Pollock might have breakfasted with them for all that the denials
+assured him.
+
+There appeared shortly on the scene of action a United States marshal.
+The murder of a government official was serious. Against the criminal
+the power of the nation was deployed. Nevertheless, in the long run,
+George Pollock got clean away. Nobody saw him from that day--or nobody
+would acknowledge to have seen him.
+
+For awhile Bob expected at any moment to be summoned for his testimony.
+He was morally certain that Oldham had been an eye-witness to the
+tragedy. But as time went on, and no faintest indication manifested
+itself that he could have been connected with the matter, he concluded
+himself mistaken. Oldham could have had no motive in concealment, save
+that of the same sympathy Bob had felt for Pollock. But in that case,
+what more natural than that he should mention the matter privately to
+Bob? If, on the other hand, he had any desire to further the ends of the
+law, what should prevent him from speaking out publicly? In neither case
+was silence compatible with knowledge.
+
+But Bob knew positively the man had lied, when he stated that he had for
+over an hour been sitting in the chair on Auntie Belle's back porch. Why
+had he done so? Where had he been? Bob could not hazard even the wildest
+guess. Oldham's status with Baker was mysterious; his occasional
+business in these parts--it might well be that Oldham thought he had
+something to conceal from Bob. In that case, where had the elder man
+been, and what was he about during that fatal hour that Sunday morning?
+Bob was not conversant with the affairs of the Power Company, but he
+knew vaguely that Baker was always shrewdly reaching out for new rights
+and privileges, for fresh opportunities which the other fellow had not
+yet seen and which he had no desire that the other fellow should see
+until too late. It might be that Oldham was on some such errand. In the
+rush of beginning the season's work, the question gradually faded from
+Bob's thoughts.
+
+Forest Reserve matters locally went into the hands of a receiver. That
+is to say, the work of supervision fell to Plant's head-ranger, while
+Plant's office was overhauled and straightened out by a clerk sent on
+from Washington. Forest Reserve matters nationally, however, were on a
+different footing. The numerous members of Congress who desired to leave
+things as they were, the still more numerous officials of the interested
+departments, the swarming petty politicians dealing direct with small
+patronage--all these powerful interests were unable satisfactorily to
+answer one common-sense question; why is the management of our Forest
+Reserves left to a Land Office already busy, already doubted, when we
+have organized and equipped a Bureau of Forestry consisting of trained,
+enthusiastic and honest men? Reluctantly the transfer was made. The
+forestry men picked up the tangle that incompetent, perfunctory and
+often venal management had dropped.
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+To most who heard of it this item of news was interesting, but not
+especially important; Bob could not see where it made much difference
+who held the reins three thousand miles away. To others it came as the
+unhoped-for, dreamed-of culmination of aspiration.
+
+California John got the news from Martin. The old man had come in from a
+long trip.
+
+"You got to take a brace now and be scientific," chaffed Martin. "You
+old mossback! Don't you dare fall any more trees without measuring out
+the centre of gravity; and don't you split any more wood unless you
+calculate first the probable direction of riving; and don't you let any
+doodle-bug get away without looking at his teeth."
+
+California John grinned slowly, but his eyes were shining.
+
+"And what's more, you old grafters'll get bounced, sure pop," continued
+Martin. "They won't want you. You don't wear spectacles, and you eat too
+many proteids in your beans."
+
+"You ain't heard who's going to be sent out for Supervisor?" asked old
+John.
+
+"They haven't found any one with thick enough glasses yet," retorted
+Martin.
+
+California John made some purchases, packed his mule, and climbed back
+up the mountain to the summer camp. Here he threw off his saddle and
+supplies, and entered the ranger cabin. A rusty stove was very hot. Atop
+bubbled a capacious kettle. California John removed the cover and peered
+in.
+
+"Chicken 'n' dumpling!" said he.
+
+He drew a broken-backed chair to the table and set to business. In ten
+minutes his plate contained nothing but chicken bones. He contemplated
+them with satisfaction.
+
+"I reckon that'll even up for that bacon performance," he remarked in
+reference to some past joke on himself.
+
+At dusk three men threw open the outside door and entered. They found
+California John smoking his pipe contemplatively before a clean table.
+
+"Now, you bowlegged old sidewinder," said Ross Fletcher, striding to the
+door, "we'll show you something you don't get up where you come from."
+
+"What is it?" asked California John with a mild curiosity.
+
+"Chicken," replied Fletcher.
+
+He peered into the kettle. Then he lit a match and peered again. He
+reached for a long iron spoon with which he fished up, one after
+another, several dumplings. Finally he swore softly.
+
+"What's the matter, Ross?" inquired California John.
+
+"You know what's the matter," retorted Ross shaking the spoon.
+
+California John arose and looked down into the kettle.
+
+"Thought you said you had chicken," he observed; "looks to me like
+dumplin' soup."
+
+"I did have chicken," replied the man. "Oh, you Miles!--Bob!--come here.
+This old wreck has gone and stole all our chicken."
+
+The boys popped in from the next room.
+
+"I never," expostulated California John, his eyes twinkling. "I never
+stole nothin'. I just came in and found a poor old hen bogged down in a
+mess of dough, so I rescued her."
+
+The other man said nothing for some time, but surveyed California John
+from head to toe and from toe to head again.
+
+"Square," said he at last.
+
+"Square," replied California John with equal gravity. They shook hands.
+
+While the newcomers ate supper, California John read laboriously his
+accumulated mail. After spelling through one document he uttered a
+hearty oath.
+
+"What is it?" asked Ross, suspending operations.
+
+"They've put me in as Supervisor to succeed Plant," replied California
+John, handing over the official document. "I ain't no supervisor."
+
+"I'd like to know why not," spoke up Miles indignantly. "You know these
+mountains better'n any man ever set foot in 'em."
+
+"I ain't got no education," replied California John.
+
+"Damn good thing," growled Ross.
+
+California John smoked with troubled brow.
+
+"What's the matter with you, anyhow?" demanded Ross impatiently, after a
+while; "ain't you satisfied?"
+
+"Oh, I'm satisfied well enough, but I kind of hate to leave the service;
+I like her."
+
+"Quit!" cried Ross.
+
+"No," denied California John, "but I'll get fired. First thing," he
+explained, "I'm going after Simeon Wright's grazing permits. He ain't no
+right in the mountains, and the ranges are overstocked. He can't trail
+in ten thousand head while I'm supposed to be boss, so it looks as
+though I wasn't going to be boss long after Simeon Wright comes in."
+
+"Oh, go slow," pleaded Ross; "take things a little easy at first, and
+then when you get going you can tackle the big things."
+
+"I ain't going to enforce any regulations they don't give me," stated
+California John, "and I'm going to try to enforce all they do. That's
+what I'm here for."
+
+"That means war with Wright," said Ross.
+
+"Then war it is," agreed California John comfortably.
+
+"You won't last ten minutes against Wright."
+
+"Reckon not," agreed old John, "reckon not; but I'll last long enough to
+make him take notice."
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+By end of summer California John was fairly on his road. He entered
+office at a time when the local public sentiment was almost unanimously
+against the system of Forest Reserves. The first thing he did was to
+discharge eight of the Plant rangers. These fell back on their rights,
+and California John, to his surprise, found that he could not thus
+control his own men. He wagged his head in his first discouragement. It
+was necessary to recommend to Washington that these men be removed; and
+California John knew well by experience what happened to such
+recommendations. Nevertheless he sat him down to his typewriter, and
+with one rigid forefinger, pecked out such a request. Having thus
+accomplished his duty in the matter, but without hope of results, he
+went about other things. Promptly within two weeks came the necessary
+authority. The eight ornamentals were removed.
+
+Somewhat encouraged, California John next undertook the sheep problem.
+That, under Plant, had been in the nature of a protected industry.
+California John and his delighted rangers plunged neck deep into a sheep
+war. They found themselves with a man's job on their hands. The
+sheepmen, by long immunity, had come to know the higher mountains
+intimately, and could hide themselves from any but the most
+conscientious search. When discovered, they submitted peacefully to
+being removed from the Reserve. At the boundaries the rangers' power
+ceased. The sheepmen simply waited outside the line. It was manifestly
+impossible to watch each separate flock all the time. As soon as
+surveillance was relaxed, over the line they slipped, again to fatten
+on prohibited feed until again discovered, and again removed. The
+rangers had no power of arrest; they could use only necessary force in
+ejecting the trespassers. It was possible to sue in the United States
+courts, but the process was slow and unsatisfactory, and the damages
+awarded the Government amounted to so little that the sheepmen
+cheerfully paid them as a sort of grazing tax. The point was, that they
+got the feed--either free or at a nominal cost--and the rangers were
+powerless to stop them.
+
+Over this problem California John puzzled a long time.
+
+"We ain't doing any good playing hide and coop," he told Ross; "it's
+just using up our time. We got to get at it different. I wish those
+regulations was worded just the least mite different!"
+
+He produced the worn Blue Book and his own instructions and thumbed them
+over for the hundredth time.
+
+"'Employ only necessary force,'" he muttered; "'remove them beyond the
+confines of the reserve.'" He bit savagely at his pipe. Suddenly his
+tension relaxed and his wonted shrewdly humorous expression returned to
+his brown and lean old face. "Ross," said he, "this is going to be plumb
+amusing. Do you guess we-all can track up with any sheep?"
+
+"Jim Hutchins's herders must have sneaked back over by Iron Mountain,"
+suggested Fletcher.
+
+"Jim Hutchins," mused California John; "where is he now? Know?"
+
+"I heard tell he was at Stockton."
+
+"Well, that's all right then. If Jim was around, he might start a
+shootin' row, and we don't want any of that."
+
+"Well, I don't know as I'm afraid of Jim Hutchins," said Ross Fletcher.
+
+"Neither am I, sonny," replied California John; "but this is a
+grand-stand play, and we got to bring her off without complications. You
+get the boys organized. We start to-morrow."
+
+"What you got up your sleeve?" asked Ross.
+
+"Never you mind."
+
+"Who's going to have charge of the office?"
+
+"Nobody," stated California John positively; "we tackle one thing to a
+time."
+
+Next day the six rangers under command of their supervisor disappeared
+in the wilderness. When they reached the trackless country of the
+granite and snow and the lost short-hair meadows, they began scouting.
+Sign of sheep they found in plenty, but no sheep. Signal smokes over
+distant ranges rose straight up, and died; but never could they discover
+where the fire had been burned. Sheepmen of the old type are the best of
+mountaineers, and their skill has been so often tested that they are as
+full of tricks as so many foxes. The fires they burned left no ash. The
+smokes they sent up warned all for two hundred miles.
+
+Nevertheless, by the end of three days young Tom Carroll and Charley
+Morton trailed down a band of three thousand head. They came upon the
+flock grazing peacefully over blind hillsides in the torment of
+splintered granite. The herders grinned, as the rangers came in sight.
+They had been "tagged" in this "game of hide and coop." As a matter of
+course they began to pack their camp on the two burros that grazed among
+the sheep; they ordered the dogs to round up the flock. For two weeks
+they had grazed unmolested, and they were perfectly satisfied to pay the
+inconvenience of a day's journey over to the Inyo line.
+
+"'llo boys," said their leader, flashing his teeth at them. "'Wan start
+now?"
+
+"These Jim Hutchins's sheep?" inquired Carroll.
+
+But at that question the Frenchman suddenly lost all his command of the
+English language.
+
+"They're Hutchins's all right," said Charley, who had ridden out to look
+at the brand painted black on the animals' flanks. "No go to-night," he
+told the attentive herder. "Camp here."
+
+He threw off his saddle. Tom Carroll rode away to find California John.
+
+The two together, with Ross Fletcher, whom they had stumbled upon
+accidentally, returned late the following afternoon. By sunrise next
+morning the flocks were under way for Inyo. The sheep strung out by the
+dogs went forward steadily like something molten; the sheepherders
+plodded along staff in hand; the rangers brought up the rear, riding.
+Thus they went for the marching portions of two days. Then at noon they
+topped the main crest at the broad Pass, and the sheer descents on the
+Inyo side lay before them. From beneath them flowed the plains of Owen's
+Valley, so far down that the white roads showed like gossamer threads,
+the ranches like tiny squares of green. Eight thousand feet almost
+straight down the precipice fell away. Across the valley rose the White
+Mountains and the Panamints, and beyond them dimly could be guessed
+Death Valley and the sombre Funeral Ranges. To the north was a lake with
+islands swimming in it, and above it empty craters looking from above
+like photographs of the topography of the moon; and beyond it tier after
+tier, as far as the eye could reach, the blue mountains of Nevada. A
+narrow gorge, standing fairly on end, led down from the Pass. Without
+hesitation, like a sluggishly moving, viscid brown fluid, the sheep
+flowed over the edge. The dogs, their flanking duties relieved by the
+walls of dark basalt on either hand, fell to the rear with their
+masters. The mountain-bred horses dropped calmly down the rough and
+precipitous trail.
+
+At the end of an hour the basalt gorge opened out to a wide steep slope
+of talus on which grew in clumps the first sage brush of the desert.
+Here California John called a halt. The line of the Reserve, unmarked as
+yet save by landmarks and rare rough "monuments" of loose stones, lay
+but just beyond.
+
+"This is as far as we go," he told the chief herder.
+
+The Frenchman flashed his teeth, and bowed with some courtesy. "Au
+revoi'," said he.
+
+"Hold on," repeated California John, "I said this is as far as we go.
+That means you, too; and your men."
+
+"But th' ship!" cried the chief herder.
+
+"My rangers will put them off the Reserve, according to regulation,"
+stated California John.
+
+The Frenchman stared at him.
+
+"W'at you do?" he gasped at last. "Where we go?"
+
+"I'm going to put you off the Reserve, too, but on the west side," said
+California John. The old man's figure straightened in his saddle, and
+his hand dropped to the worn and shiny butt of his weapon: "No; none of
+that! Take your hand off your gun! I got the right to use _necessary_
+force; and, by God, I'll do it!"
+
+The herder began a voluble discourse of mingled protestations and
+exposition. California John cut him short.
+
+"I know my instructions as well as you do," said he. "They tell me to
+put sheep and herders off the Reserve without using unnecessary force;
+but _there ain't nothing said about putting them off in the same
+place!_"
+
+Ross Fletcher rocked with joy in his saddle.
+
+"So that's what you had up your sleeve!" he fairly shouted. "Why, it's
+as simple as a b'ar trap!"
+
+California John pointed his gnarled forefinger at the herder.
+
+"Call your dogs!" he commanded sharply. "Call them in, and tie them! The
+first dog loose in camp will be shot. If you care for your dogs, tie
+them up. Now drop your gun on the ground. Tom, you take their
+shootin'-irons." He produced from his saddle bags several new pairs of
+hand-cuffs, which he surveyed with satisfaction, "This is business,"
+said he; "I bought these on my own hook. You bet I don't mean to have to
+shoot any of you fellows in the back; and I ain't going to sit up nights
+either. Snap 'em on, Charley. Now, Ross, you and Tom run those sheep
+over the line, and then follow us up."
+
+As the full meaning of the situation broke on the Frenchman's mind, he
+went frantic. By the time he and his herders should be released, the
+whole eighty-mile width of the Sierras would lie between him and his
+flocks. He would have to await his chance to slip by the rangers. In the
+three weeks or more that must elapse before he could get back, the
+flocks would inevitably be about destroyed. For it is a striking fact,
+and one on which California John had built his plan, that sheep left to
+their own devices soon perish. They scatter. The coyotes, bears and
+cougars gather to the feast. It would be most probable that the
+sheep-hating cattlemen of Inyo would enjoy mutton chops.
+
+California John collected his scattered forces, delegated two men to
+eject the captives; and went after more sheep. He separated thus three
+flocks from their herders. After that the sheep question was settled;
+government feed was too expensive.
+
+"That's off'n our minds," said he. "Now we'll tackle the next job."
+
+He went at it in his slow, painstaking way, and accomplished it. Never,
+if he could help it, did he depend on the mails when the case was within
+riding distance. He preferred to argue the matter out, face to face.
+
+"The Government _prefers_ friends," he told everybody, and then took his
+stand, in all good feeling, according as the other man proved
+reasonable. Some of the regulations were galling to the mountain
+traditions. He did not attempt to explain or defend them, but simply
+stated their provisions.
+
+"Now, I'm swore in to see that these are carried out," said he, "always,
+and if you ain't going to toe the mark, why, you see, it puts me in one
+hell of a hole, don't it? I ain't liking to be put in the position of
+fighting all my old neighbours, and I sure can't lie down on my job. It
+don't _really_ mean much to you, now does it, Link? and it helps me out
+a lot."
+
+"Well, I know you're square, John, and I'll do it," said the
+mountaineer reluctantly, "but I wouldn't do it for any other blank of a
+blank in creation!"
+
+Thus California John was able, by personality, to reduce much friction
+and settle many disputes. He could be uncompromising enough on occasion.
+
+Thus Win Spencer and Tom Hoyt had a violent quarrel over cattle
+allotments which they brought to California John for settlement. Each
+told a different story, so the evidence pointed clearly to neither
+party. California John listened in silence.
+
+"I won't take sides," said he; "settle it for yourselves. _I'd just as
+soon make enemies of both of you as of one_."
+
+Then in the middle of summer came the trial of it all. The Service sent
+notice that, beginning the following season, a grazing tax would be
+charged, and it requested the Supervisor to send in his estimate of
+grazing allotments. California John sat him down at his typewriter and
+made out the required list. Simeon Wright's name did not appear therein.
+In due time somebody wanted, officially, to know why not. California
+John told them, clearly, giving the reasons that the range was
+overstocked, and quoting the regulations as to preference being given to
+the small owner dwelling in or near the Forests. He did this just as a
+good carpenter might finish the under side of a drain; not that it would
+do any good, but for his own satisfaction.
+
+"We will now listen to the roar of the lion," he told Ross Fletcher,
+"after which I'll hand over my scalp to save 'em the trouble of
+sharpening up their knives."
+
+As a matter of fact the lion did roar, but no faintest echo reached the
+Sierras. For the first time Simeon Wright and the influence Simeon
+Wright could bring to bear failed of their accustomed effect at
+Washington. An honest, fearless, and single-minded Chief, backed by an
+enthusiastic Service, saw justice rather than expediency. California
+John received back his recommendation marked "Approved."
+
+The old man tore open the long official envelope, when he received it
+from Martin's hand, and carried it to the light, where he adjusted
+precisely his bowed spectacles, and, in his slow, methodical way,
+proceeded to investigate the contents. As he caught sight of the word
+and its initials his hand involuntarily closed to crush the papers, and
+his gaunt form straightened. In his mild blue eye sprang fire. He turned
+to Martin, his voice vibrant with an emotion carefully suppressed
+through the nine long years of his faithful service.
+
+"They've turned down Wright," said he, "and they've give us an
+appropriation. They've turned down old Wright! By God, we've got a man!"
+
+He strode from the store, his head high. As he went up the street a
+canvas sign over the empty storehouse attracted his attention. He pulled
+his bleached moustache a moment; then removed his floppy old hat, and
+entered.
+
+An old-fashioned exhorting evangelist was holding forth to three
+listless and inattentive sinners. A tired-looking woman sat at a
+miniature portable organ. At the close of the services California John
+wandered forward.
+
+"I'm plumb busted," said he frankly, "and that's the reason I couldn't
+chip in. I couldn't buy fleas for a dawg. I'm afraid you didn't win
+much."
+
+The preacher looked gloomily at a nickle and a ten-cent piece.
+
+"Dependin' on this sort of thing to get along?" asked California John.
+
+"Yes," said the preacher. The woman looked out of the window.
+
+California John said no more, but went out of the building and down the
+street to Austin's saloon.
+
+"Howdy, boys," he greeted the loungers and card players. "Saw off a
+minute. There's goin' to be a gospel meetin' right here a half-hour from
+now. I'm goin' to hold it and I'm goin' out now to rustle a
+congregation. At the close we'll take up a collection for the benefit
+of the church."
+
+At the end of the period mentioned he placed himself behind the bar and
+faced a roomful of grinning men.
+
+"This is serious, boys. Take off your hat, Bud. Wipe them snickers off'n
+your face. We're all sinners; and I reckon now's as good a time as any
+to realize the fact. I don't know much about the Bible; but I do recall
+enough to hold divine services for once, and I intend to have 'em
+respected."
+
+For fifteen minutes California John conducted his services according to
+his notion. Then he stated briefly his cause and took up his collection.
+
+"Nine-forty-five," said he thoughtfully, looking at the silver. He
+carefully extracted two nickels, and dumped the rest in his pocket. "I
+reckon I've earned a drink out of this," he stated; "any objections?"
+
+There were none; so California John bought his drink and departed.
+
+"That's all right," he told the astonished and grateful evangelist, "I
+had to do somethin' to blow off steam, or else go on a hell of a drunk.
+And it would have been plumb ruinous to do that. So you see, it's lucky
+I met you." The old man's twinkling and humorous blue eyes gazed
+quizzically at the uneasy evangelist, divided between gratitude and his
+notion that he ought to reprobate this attitude of mind. Then they
+softened. California John laid his hand on the preacher's shoulder.
+"Don't get discouraged," said he; "don't do it. The God of Justice still
+rules. I've just had some news that proves it."
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+From this moment the old man held his head high, and went about the work
+with confidence. He built trails where trails had long been needed; he
+regulated the grazing; he fought fire so successfully that his burned
+area dropped that year from two per cent. to one-half of one per cent.;
+he adjusted minor cases of special use and privilege justly. Constantly
+he rode his district on the business of his beloved Forest. His
+beautiful sorrel, Star, with his silver-mounted caparisons, was a
+familiar figure on all the trails. When a man wanted his first Special
+Privilege, he wrote the Supervisor. The affair was quite apt to bungle.
+Then California John saw that man personally. After that there was no
+more trouble. The countryside dug up the rest of California John's name,
+and conferred on him the dignity of it. John had heard it scarcely at
+all for over thirty years. Now he rather liked the sound of "Supervisor
+Davidson." In the title and the simple dignities attaching thereunto he
+took the same gentle and innocent pride that he did in Star, and the
+silver-mounted bridle and the carved-leather saddle.
+
+But when evening came, and the end of the month, Supervisor Davidson
+always found himself in trouble. Then he sat down before his typewriter,
+on which he pecked methodically with the rigid forefinger of his right
+hand. Naturally slow of thought when confronted by blank paper, the
+mechanical limitations put him far behind in his reports and
+correspondence. Naturally awkward of phrase when deprived of his
+picturesque vernacular, he stumbled among phrases. The monthly reports
+were a nightmare to him. When at last they were finished, he breathed a
+deep sigh, and went out into his sugar pines and spruces.
+
+In August California John received his first inspector. At that time the
+Forest Service, new to the saddle, heir to the confusion left by the
+Land Office, knew neither its field nor its office men as well as it
+does now. Occasionally it made mistakes in those it sent out. Brent was
+one of them.
+
+Brent was of Teutonic extraction, brought up in Brookline, educated in
+the Yale Forestry School, and experienced in the offices of the Bureau
+of Forestry before it had had charge of the nation's estates. He
+possessed a methodical mind, a rather intolerant disposition, thick
+glasses, a very cold and precise manner, extreme personal neatness, and
+abysmal ignorance of the West. He disapproved of California John's
+rather slipshod dress, to start with; his ingrained reticence shrank
+from Davidson's informal cordiality; his orderly mind recoiled with
+horror from the jumble of the Supervisor's accounts and reports. As he
+knew nothing whatever of the Sierras, he was quite unable to appreciate
+the value of trails, of fenced meadows, of a countryside of peace--those
+things were so much a matter of course back East that he hardly noticed
+them one way or another. Brent's thoroughness burrowed deep into office
+failures. One by one he dragged them to the light and examined them
+through his near-sighted glasses. They were bad enough in all
+conscience; and Brent was not in the least malicious in the inferences
+he drew. Only he had no conception of judging the Man with the Time and
+the Place.
+
+He believed in military smartness, in discipline, in ordered activities.
+
+"It seems to me you give your rangers a great deal of freedom and
+latitude," said he one day.
+
+"Well," said California John, "strikes me that's the only way. With men
+like these you got to get their confidence."
+
+Brent peered at him.
+
+"H'm," said he sarcastically, "do you think you have done so?"
+
+California John flushed through his tan at the implication, but he
+replied nothing.
+
+This studied respect for his superior officer on the Supervisor's part
+encouraged Brent to deliver from time to time rather priggish little
+homilies on the way to run a Forest. California John listened, but with
+a sardonic smile concealed beneath his sun-bleached moustache. After a
+little, however, Brent became more inclined to bring home the personal
+application. Then California John grew restive.
+
+"In fact," Brent concluded his incisive remarks one day, "you run this
+place entirely too much along your own lines."
+
+California John leaned forward.
+
+"Is that an official report?" he asked.
+
+"What?" inquired Brent, puzzled.
+
+"That last remark. Because if it ain't you'd better put it in writing
+and make it official. Step right in and do it now!"
+
+Brent looked at him in slight bewilderment.
+
+"I'm willing to hear your talk," went on California John quietly. "Some
+of it's good talk, even if it ain't put out in no very good spirit; and
+I ain't kicking on criticism--that's what I'm here for, and what you're
+here for. But I ain't here for no _private_ remarks. If you've got
+anything to kick on, put it down and sign it and send it on. I'll stand
+for it, and explain it if I can; or take my medicine if I can't. But
+anything you ain't ready and willing to report on, I don't want to take
+from you private. _Sabe?_"
+
+Brent bowed coldly, turned his back and walked away without a word.
+California John looked after him.
+
+"Well, that wasn't no act of Solomon," he told himself; "but, anyway, I
+feel better."
+
+After Brent's departure it took California John two weeks to recover his
+equanimity and self-confidence. Then the importance of his work gripped
+him once more. He looked about him at the grazing, the policing, the
+fire-fighting, all the varied business of the reserves. In them all he
+knew was no graft, and no favouritism. The trails were being improved;
+the cabins built; the meadows for horse-feed fenced; the bridges built
+and repaired; the country patrolled by honest and enthusiastic men. He
+recalled the old days of Henry Plant's administration under the
+Land-Office--the graft, the supineness, the inefficiency, the confusion.
+
+"We're savin' the People's property, and keepin' it in good shape," he
+argued to himself, "and that's sure the main point. If we take care of
+things, we've done the main job. Let the other fellows do the heavy
+figgerin'. The city's full of cheap bookkeepers who can't do nothing
+else."
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+But a month later, at the summer camp, California John had opportunity
+to greet a visitor whom he was delighted to see. One morning a very
+dusty man leaned from his saddle and unlatched the gate before
+headquarters. As he straightened again, he removed his broad hat and
+looked up into the cool pine shadows with an air of great refreshment.
+
+"Why, it's Ashley Thorne!" cried California John, leaping to his feet.
+
+"The same," replied Thorne, reaching out his hand.
+
+He dismounted, and Charley Morton, grinning a welcome, led his horse
+away to the pasture.
+
+"I sure am glad to see you!" said California John over and over again;
+"and where did you come from? I thought you were selling pine lands in
+Oregon."
+
+Thorne dropped into a chair with a sigh of contentment. "I was," said
+he, "and then they made the Transfer, so I came back."
+
+"You're in the Service again?" cried California John delighted.
+
+"Couldn't stay out now that things are in proper hands."
+
+"Good! I expect you're down here to haul me over the coals," California
+John chuckled.
+
+"Oh, just to look around," said Thorne, biting at his close-clipped,
+bristling moustache.
+
+Next morning they began to look around. California John was overjoyed at
+this chance to show a sympathetic and congenial man what he had done.
+
+"I got a trail 'way up Baldy now," he confided as they swung aboard.
+"It's a good trail too; and it makes a great fire lookout. We'll take a
+ride up there, if you have time before you go. Well, as I was telling
+you about that Cook cattle case--the old fellow says----"
+
+At the end of the Supervisor's long and interested dissertation on the
+Cook case, Thorne laughed gently.
+
+"Looks as if you had him," said he, "and I think the Chief will sustain
+you. You like this work, don't you?"
+
+"I sure just naturally love it," replied California John earnestly.
+"I've got the chance now to straighten things out. What I say goes. For
+upward of nine years I've been ridin' around seein' how things had ought
+to be done. And I couldn't get results nohow. Somebody always had a
+graft in it that spoiled the whole show. I could see how simple and easy
+it would be to straighten everythin' all out in good shape; but I
+couldn't do nothing."
+
+"Hard enough to hold your job," suggested Thorne.
+
+"That's it. And everybody in the country thought I was a damn fool. Only
+damn fools and lazy men took rangers' jobs those days. But I hung on
+because I believed in it. And now I got the best job in the bunch. In
+place of being looked down on as that old fool John, I'm Mr. Davidson,
+the Forest Supervisor."
+
+"It's a matter for pride," said Thorne non-committally.
+
+"It isn't that," denied the old man; "I'm not proud because I'm
+Supervisor. Lord love you, Henry Plant was Supervisor; and I never heard
+tell that any one was proud of him, not even himself. But I'm proud of
+being a _good_ supervisor. They ain't a sorehead near us now.
+Everybody's out for the Forest. I've made 'em understand that it's for
+them. They know the Service is square. And we ain't had fires to amount
+to nothing; nor trespass."
+
+"You've done good work," said Thorne soberly; "none better. No one could
+have done it but you. You have a right to be proud of it."
+
+"Then you'll be sending in a good report," said California John, solely
+by way of conversation. "I suspicion that last fellow gave me an awful
+roast."
+
+"I'm not an inspector," replied Thorne.
+
+"That so? You used to be before you resigned; so I thought sure you must
+be now. What's your job?"
+
+"I'll tell you when we have more time," said Thorne.
+
+For three days they rode together. The Supervisor was a very busy man.
+He had errands of all sorts to accomplish. Thorne simply went along.
+Everywhere he found good feeling, satisfactory conditions.
+
+At the end of the third day as the two men sat before the rough stone
+fireplace at headquarters, Thorne abruptly broke the long silence.
+
+"John," said he, "I've got a few things to say that are not going to be
+pleasant either for you or for me. Nevertheless, I am going to say them.
+In fact, I asked the Chief for the privilege rather than having you hear
+through the regular channels."
+
+California John had not in the least changed his position, yet all at
+once the man seemed to turn still and watchful.
+
+"Fire ahead," said he.
+
+"You asked me the other day what my job is. It is Supervisor of this
+district. They have appointed me in your place."
+
+"Oh, they have," said California John. He sat for some time, his eyes
+narrowing, looking straight ahead of him. "I'd like to know why!" he
+burst out at last. A dull red spot burned on each side his
+weather-beaten cheeks.
+
+"I--"
+
+"You had nothing to do with it," interrupted California John sharply; "I
+know that. But who did? Why did they do it? By God," he brought his fist
+down sharply, "I intend to get to the bottom of this! I've been in the
+Service since she started. I've served honest. No man can say I haven't
+done all my duty and been square. And that's been when every man-jack of
+them was getting his graft as reg'lar as his pay check. And since I've
+been Supervisor is the only time this Forest has ever been in any kind
+of shape, if I do say it myself. I've rounded her up. I've stopped the
+graft. I've fixed the 'soldiers.' I've got things in shape. They can't
+remove me without cause--I know that--and if they think I'm goin' to lie
+down and take it without a kick, they've got off the wrong foot good and
+plenty!"
+
+Thorne sat tight, nor offered a word of comment.
+
+"You've been an inspector," California John appealed to him. "You've
+been all over the country among the different reserves. Ain't mine up to
+the others?"
+
+"Things are in better shape here than in any of them," replied Thorne
+decisively; "your rangers have more _esprit de corps_, your neighbours
+are better disposed, your fires have a smaller percentage of acreage,
+your trails are better."
+
+"Well?" demanded California John.
+
+"Well," repeated Thorne leaning forward, "just this. What's the use of
+it all?"
+
+"Use?" repeated California John vaguely.
+
+"Yes. Of what you and all the rest of us are doing."
+
+"To save the public's property."
+
+"That's part of it; and that's the part you've been doing superlatively
+well. It's the old idea, that: the idea expressed by the old name--the
+Forest _Reserves_--to save, to set aside. It seemed the most important
+thing. The forests had so many eager enemies--unprincipled land-grabbers
+and lumbermen, sheep, fire. To beat these back required all our best
+efforts. It was all we could think of. We hadn't time to think of
+anything else. It was a full job."
+
+"You bet it was," commented the old man grimly.
+
+"Well, it's done. There will be attempts to go back to the old state of
+affairs, but they will grow feebler from year to year. Things will never
+slide back again. The people are awake."
+
+"Think so?" doubted California John.
+
+"I know it. Now comes the new idea. We no longer speak of Forest
+Reserves, but of National Forests. We've saved them; now what are we
+going to do with them? What would you think of a man who cleared a
+'forty', and pulled all the stumps, and then quit work?"
+
+"I never thought of that," said California John, "but what's that got to
+do with these confounded whelps----"
+
+"We are going to use these forests for the benefit of the people. We're
+going to cut the ripe trees and sell them to the lumber manufacturer;
+we're going to develop the water power; we're going to improve the
+grazing; we're going to study what we have here, so that by and by from
+our forests we will be getting the income the lumberman now gets, and
+will not be injuring the estate. Each Forest is going to be a big and
+complicated business, like railroading or wholesaling. Anybody can run
+Martin's store down at the Flats. It takes a trained man to oversee even
+a proposition like the Star at White Oaks."
+
+"Oh, I see what you're drivin' at," said California John, "but I've made
+good up to now; and until they try me out, they've no right to fire me.
+I'll defy 'em to find anythin' crooked!!!"
+
+"John, you're as straight as a string. But they have tried you out. Your
+office work has been away off."
+
+"Oh, that! What's those dinkey little reports and monkeydoodle business
+amount to, anyhow? You know perfectly well it's foolish to ask a ranger
+to fill out an eight-page blank every time he takes a ride. What does
+that amount to?"
+
+"Not very much," confessed Thorne. "But when things begin to hum around
+here there'll be a thousand times as much of the same sort of stuff, and
+it'll _all_ be important."
+
+"They'd better get me a clerk."
+
+"They would get you a clerk, several of them. But no man has a right to
+even boss a job he doesn't himself understand. What do you know about
+timber grading? estimating? mapping? What is your scientific
+training--?"
+
+"I've give my soul and boot-straps to this Service for nine years--at
+sixty and ninety a month," interrupted California John. "Part of that I
+spent for tools they was too stingy to give me. Now they kick me out."
+
+"Oh, no, they don't," said Thorne. "Not any! But you agree with me,
+don't you, that you couldn't hold down the job?"
+
+"I suppose so," snapped California John. "To hell with such a game. I
+think I'll go over Goldfield way."
+
+"No, you won't," said Thorne gently. "You'll stay here, in the Service."
+
+"What!" cried the old man rising to his feet; "stay here in the Service!
+And every mountain man to point me out as that old fool Davidson who got
+fired after workin' nine years like a damn ijit. You talk foolish!"
+
+Thorne arose too, and put one hand on the old man's shoulder.
+
+"And what about those nine years?" he asked gently. "Things looked
+pretty dark, didn't they? You didn't have enough to live on; and you got
+your salary docked without any reason or justice; and you had to stand
+one side while the other fellows did things dishonest and wrong; and it
+didn't look as though it was ever going to get better. Nine years is a
+long time. Why did you do it?"
+
+"I don't know," muttered California John.
+
+"It was just waiting for this time that is coming. In five years we'll
+have the people with us; we'll have Congress, and the money to do
+things; we'll have sawmills and water-power, and regulated grazing, and
+telephone lines, and comfortable quarters. We'll have a Service
+safeguarded by Civil Service, and a body of disciplined men, and
+officers as the Army and Navy have. It's coming; and it's coming soon.
+You've been nine years at the other thing--"
+
+"It's humiliating," insisted California John, "to do a job well and get
+fired."
+
+"You'll still have just the job you have now--only you'll be called a
+head-ranger."
+
+"My people won't see it that way."
+
+Ashley Thorne hesitated.
+
+"No, they won't," said he frankly at last. "I could argue on the other
+side; but they won't. They'll think you've dropped back a peg; and
+they'll say to each other--at least some of them will: 'Old Davidson bit
+off more than he could chew; and it serves him right for being a damn
+fool, anyway.' You've been content to play along misunderstood for nine
+years because you had faith. Has that faith deserted you?"
+
+California John looked down, and his erect shoulders shrunk forward a
+little.
+
+"Old friend," said Thorne, "it's a sacrifice. Are you going to stay and
+help me?"
+
+California John for a long time studied a crack in the floor. When he
+looked up his face was illuminated with his customary quizzical grin.
+
+"I've sure got it on Ross Fletcher," he drawled. "I done _told_ him I
+wasn't no supervisor, and he swore I was."
+
+
+
+
+PART FOUR
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+When next Bob was able to visit the Upper Camp, he found Thorne fully
+established. He rode in from the direction of Rock Creek, and so through
+the pasture and by the back way. In the tiny potato and garden patch
+behind the house he came upon a woman wielding a hoe.
+
+Her back was toward him, and a pink sunbonnet, freshly starched,
+concealed all her face. The long, straight lines of her gown fell about
+a vigorous and supple figure that swayed with every stroke of the hoe.
+Bob stopped and watched her. There was something refreshing in the
+eagerness with which she attacked the weeds, as though it were less a
+drudgery than a live interest which it was well to meet joyously. After
+a moment she walked a few steps to another row of tiny beans. Her
+movements had the perfect grace of muscular control; one melted, flowed,
+into the other. Bob's eye of the athlete noted and appreciated this
+fact. He wondered to which of the mountain clans this girl belonged.
+Vigorous and breezy as were the maidens of the hills, able to care for
+themselves, like the paladins of old, afoot or ahorse, they lacked this
+grace of movement. He stepped forward.
+
+"I beg pardon," said he.
+
+The girl turned, resting the heel of her hoe on the earth, and both
+hands on the end of its handle. Bob saw a dark, oval countenance, with
+very red cheeks, very black eyes and hair, and an engaging flash of
+teeth. The eyes looked at him as frankly as a boy's, and the flash of
+teeth made him unaffectedly welcome.
+
+"Is Mr. Thorne here?" asked Bob.
+
+"Why, no," replied the girl; "but I'm Mr. Thorne's sister. Won't I do?"
+
+She was leisurely laying aside her hoe, and drawing the fringed buckskin
+gauntlets from her hands. Bob stepped gallantly forward to relieve her
+of the implement.
+
+"Do?" he echoed. "Why, of course you'll do!"
+
+She stopped and looked him full in the face, with an air of great
+amusement.
+
+"Did you come to see Mr. Thorne on business?" she asked.
+
+"No," replied Bob; "just ran over to see him."
+
+She laughed quietly.
+
+"Then I'm afraid I won't do," she said, "for I must cook dinner. You
+see," she explained, "I'm Mr. Thorne's clerk, and if it were business, I
+might attend to it."
+
+Bob flushed to the ears. He was ordinarily a young man of sufficient
+self-possession, but this young woman's directness was disconcerting.
+She surveyed his embarrassment with approving eyes.
+
+"You might finish those beans," said she, offering the hoe. "Of course,
+you must stay to dinner, and I must go light the fire."
+
+Bob finished the beans, leaned the hoe up against the house, and went
+around to the front. There he stopped in astonishment.
+
+"Well, you have changed things!" he cried.
+
+The stuffy little shed kitchen was no longer occupied. A floor had been
+laid between the bases of four huge trees, and walls enclosing three
+sides to the height of about eight feet had been erected. The affair had
+no roof. Inside these three walls were the stove, the kitchen table, the
+shelves and utensils of cooking. Miss Thorne, her sunbonnet laid aside
+from her glossy black braids, moved swiftly and easily here and there in
+this charming stage-set of a kitchen. About ten feet in front of it, on
+the pine needles, stood the dining table, set with white.
+
+[Illustration: "I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned]
+
+The girl nodded brightly to Bob.
+
+"Finished?" she inquired. She pointed to the water pail: "There's a
+useful task for willing hands."
+
+Bob filled the pail, and set it brimming on the section of cedar log
+which seemed to be its appointed resting place.
+
+"Thank you," said the girl. Bob leaned against the tree and watched her
+as she moved here and there about the varied business of cooking. Every
+few minutes she would stop and look upward through the cool shadows of
+the trees, like a bird drinking. At times she burst into snatches of
+song, so brief as to be unrecognizable.
+
+"Do you like sticks in your food?" she asked Bob, as though suddenly
+remembering his presence, "and pine needles, and the husks of pine nuts,
+and other debris? because that's what the breezes and trees and naughty
+little squirrels are always raining down on me."
+
+"Why don't you have the men stretch you a canvas?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well," said the girl, stopping short, "I have considered it. I no more
+than you like unexpected twigs in my dough. But you see I do like
+shadows and sunlight and upper air and breezes in my food. And you can't
+have one without the other. Did you get all the weeds out?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob. "Look here; you ought not to have to do such work as
+that."
+
+"Do you think it will wear down my fragile strength?" she asked, looking
+at him good-humouredly. "Is it too much exercise for me?"
+
+"No--" hesitated Bob, "but--"
+
+"Why, bless you, I like to help the babies to grow big and green," said
+she. "One can't have the theatre or bridge up here; do leave us some of
+the simple pleasures."
+
+"Why did you want me to finish for you then?" demanded Bob shrewdly.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Young man," said she, "I could give you at least ten reasons," with
+which enigmatic remark she whipped her apron around her hand and whisked
+open the oven door, where were displayed rows of beautifully browned
+biscuits.
+
+"Nevertheless----" began Bob.
+
+"Nevertheless," she took him up, raising her face, slightly flushed by
+the heat, "all the men-folks are busy, and this one woman-folk is not
+harmed a bit by playing at being a farmer lassie."
+
+"One of the rangers could do it all in a couple of hours."
+
+"The rangers are in the employ of the United States Government, and this
+garden is mine," she stated evenly. "How could I take a Government
+employee to work on my property?"
+
+"But surely Mr. Thorne--"
+
+"Ashley, bless his dear old heart, takes beans for granted, as something
+that happens on well-regulated tables."
+
+She walked to the edge of the kitchen floor and looked up through the
+trees. "He ought to be along soon now. I hope so; my biscuits are just
+on the brown." She turned to Bob, her eyes dancing: "Now comes the
+exciting moment of the day, the great gamble! Will he come alone, or
+will he bring a half-dozen with him? I am always ready for the
+half-dozen, and as a consequence we live in a grand, ingenious debauch
+of warmed-ups and next-days. You don't know what good practice it is;
+nor what fun! I've often thought I could teach those cooks of Marc
+Antony's something--you remember, don't you, they used to keep six
+dinners going all at different stages of preparation because they never
+knew at what hour His High-and-mightiness might choose to dine. Or
+perhaps you don't know? Football men don't have to study, do they?"
+
+"What makes you think I'm a football man?" grinned Bob; "generally
+bovine expression?"
+
+"Not know the great Bob Orde!" cried the girl. "Why, not one of us but
+had your picture, generally in a nice gilt shrine, but _always_ with
+violets before it."
+
+But on this ground Bob was sure.
+
+"You have been reading a ten-cent magazine," he admonished her gravely.
+"It is unwise to take your knowledge of the customs in girls' colleges
+from such sources."
+
+From the depths of the forest eddied a cloud of dust. Miss Thorne
+appraised it carefully.
+
+"Warmed-overs to-night," she pronounced. "There's no more than two of
+them."
+
+The accuracy of her guess was almost immediately verified by the
+appearance of two riders. A moment later Thorne and California John
+dismounted at the hitching rail, some distance removed among the
+azaleas, and came up afoot. The younger man had dropped all his dry,
+official precision, his incisive abruptness, his reticence. Clad in the
+high, laced cruisers, the khaki and gray flannel, the broad, felt hat
+and gay neckerchief of what might be called the professional class of
+out-of-door man, his face glowing with health and enthusiasm, he seemed
+a different individual.
+
+"Hullo! Hullo!" he cried out a joyous greeting as he drew nearer; "I
+couldn't bring you much company to-day, Amy. But I see you've found
+some. How are you, Orde? I'm glad to see you."
+
+He and California John disappeared behind the shed, where the wash basin
+was; while Amy, with deftness, rearranged the table to accord with the
+numbers who would sit down to it.
+
+The meal in the open was most delightful; especially to Bob, after his
+long course of lumber-camp provender. The deep shadows shifted slowly
+across the forest floor. Sparkles of sunlight from unexpected quarters
+touched gently in turn each of the diners, or glittered back from glass
+or linen. Occasionally a wandering breeze lifted a corner of the
+tablecloth and let it fall, or scurried erratically across the table
+itself. Occasionally, too, a pine needle, a twig, a leaf would zigzag
+down through the air to fall in some one's coffee or glass or plate.
+Birds flashed across the open vault of this forest room--brilliant
+birds, like the Louisiana Tanager; sober little birds like the creepers
+and nuthatches. Circumspect and reserved whitecrowns and brush tohees
+scratched and hopped silently over the forest litter. Once a swift
+falcon, glancing like a shadowy death, slanted across the upper spaces.
+The food was excellent, and daintily served.
+
+"I am proud of my blue and white enamel-ware," Miss Thorne told Bob;
+"it's so much better than tin or this ugly gray. And that glass pitcher
+I got with coupons from the coffee packages."
+
+"You didn't get these with coupons?" said Bob, lifting one of the
+massive silver forks.
+
+"No," she admitted. "That is my one foolishness. All the rest does not
+matter, but I can't get along without my silver."
+
+"And a great nuisance it is to those who have to move as we move," put
+in Ashley Thorne.
+
+The forest officers took up their broken conversation. Bob found himself
+a silent but willing listener. He heard discussion of policies, business
+dealings, plans that widened the horizon of what the Forest had meant to
+him. In these discussions the girl took an active and intelligent part.
+Her opinion seemed to be accepted seriously by both the men, as one who
+had knowledge, and indeed, her grasp of details seemed as comprehensive
+as that of the men themselves.
+
+Finally Thorne pushed his chair back and began to fill his pipe.
+
+"Anybody here to-day?" he asked.
+
+The girl ran over rapidly a half-dozen names, sketching briefly the
+business they had brought. Then, one after the other, she told the
+answers she had made to them. This one had been given blanks, forms and
+instructions. That one had been told clearly that he was in the wrong,
+and must amend his ways. The other had been advised but tentatively, and
+informed that he must see the Supervisor personally. To each of these
+Thorne responded by a brief nod, puffing, meanwhile, on his pipe.
+
+"All right?" she asked, when she had finished.
+
+"All right but one," said he, removing his pipe at last. "I don't think
+it will be advisable to let Francotti have what he wants."
+
+"Pull the string, then!" cried the girl gaily.
+
+Thorne turned to California John in discussion of the Francotti affair.
+
+"What do you mean by 'pull the string'?" Bob took the occasion to
+inquire.
+
+"I settle a lot of these little matters that aren't worth bothering
+Ashley with," she explained, "but I tie a string to each of my
+decisions. I always make them 'subject to the Supervisor's approval.'
+Then if I do wrong, all I have to do is to write the man and tell him
+the Supervisor does not approve."
+
+"I shouldn't think you'd like that," said Bob.
+
+"Like what?"
+
+"Why, it sort of puts you in a hole, doesn't it? Lays all the blame on
+you."
+
+She laughed in frank amusement.
+
+"What of it?" she challenged.
+
+"Any letters?" Thorne asked abruptly. "Morton brought mail this morning,
+didn't he?"
+
+"Nothing wildly important--except that they're thinking of adopting a
+ranger uniform."
+
+"A uniform!" snorted California John, rearing his old head.
+
+"Oh, yes, I've heard of that," put in Thorne instantly. "It's to be a
+white pith helmet with a green silk scarf on it; red coat with gold
+lace, and white, English riding breeches with leather leggins. Don't you
+think old John would look sweet in that?" he asked Bob.
+
+But the old man refused to be drawn out.
+
+"Supervisors same; but with a gold pompon on top the helmet," he
+observed. "What _is_ the dang thing, anyway, Amy?" he asked.
+
+"Dark green whipcord, green buttons, gray hat, military cut."
+
+"Not bad," said Thorne.
+
+"About one fifty-mile ride and one fire would make that outfit look like
+a bunch of mildewed alfalfa. Blue jeans is about my sort of uniform,"
+observed John.
+
+"I don't believe we'd be supposed to wear it on range," suggested
+Thorne. "Only in town and official business." He turned to the girl
+again: "May have to go over Baldy to-morrow," said he, "so we'll run off
+those letters."
+
+She arose and saluted, military fashion. The two disappeared in the tiny
+box-office, whence presently came the sound of Thorne's voice in
+dictation.
+
+California John knocked the ashes from his pipe.
+
+"Get your apron on, sonny," said he.
+
+He tested the water on the stove and slammed out a commodious dish-pan.
+
+"Glasses first; then silver; and if you break anything, I'll bash in
+your fool head. There's going to be some style to this dishwashing. I
+used to slide 'em all in together and let her go. But that ain't the way
+here. She knows four aces and the jolly joker better than that. Glasses
+first."
+
+They washed and wiped the dishes, and laid them carefully away.
+
+"She's a little wonder," said California John, nodding at the office,
+"and there ain't none of the boys but helps all they can."
+
+Thorne called the old man by name, and he disappeared into the office. A
+moment later the girl emerged, smoothing back her hair with both hands.
+She stepped immediately to the little kitchen.
+
+"Thank you," said she. "That helps."
+
+"It was old John," disclaimed Bob. "I'm ashamed to say I should never
+have thought of it."
+
+The girl nodded carelessly.
+
+"Where did you learn stenography?" asked Bob.
+
+"Oh, I got that out of a ten-cent magazine too." She sat on a bench,
+looked up at the sky through the trees, and drew a deep breath.
+
+"You're tired," said Bob.
+
+"Not a bit," she denied. "But I don't often get a chance to just look
+up."
+
+"You seem to do the gardening, the cooking, the housework, the clerical
+work--you don't do the laundry, too, do you?" demanded Bob ironically.
+
+"You noticed those miserable khakis!" cried Amy with a gesture of
+dismay. "Ashley," she called, "change those khakis before you go out,"
+
+"Yes, mama," came back a mock childish voice.
+
+"What's your salary?" demanded Bob bluntly, nodding toward the office.
+
+"What?" she asked, as though puzzled.
+
+"Didn't you say you were the clerk?"
+
+"Oh, I see. I just help Ashley out. He could _never_ get through the
+field work and the office work both."
+
+"Doesn't the Service allow him a clerk?"
+
+"Not yet; but it will in time."
+
+"What is Mr. Thorne's salary?"
+
+"Well, really----"
+
+"Oh, I beg pardon," cried Bob flushing; "I just meant supervisors'
+salaries, of course. I wasn't prying, really. It's all a matter of
+public record, isn't it?"
+
+"Of course." The girl checked herself. "Well, it's eighteen hundred--and
+something for expenses."
+
+"Eighteen hundred!" cried Bob. "Do you mean to say that the _two_ of you
+give all your time for that! Why, we pay a good woods foreman pretty
+near that!"
+
+"And that's all you do pay him," said the girl quietly. "Money wage
+isn't the whole pay for any job that is worth doing."
+
+"Don't understand," said Bob briefly.
+
+"We belong to the Service," she stated with a little movement of pride.
+"Those tasks in life which give a high moneyed wage, generally give only
+that. Part of our compensation is that we belong to the Service; we are
+doing something for the whole people, not just for ourselves." She
+caught Bob's half-smile, more at her earnestness than at her sentiment,
+and took fire. "You needn't laugh!" she cried. "It's small now, but
+that's because it's the beginning, because we have the privilege of
+being the forerunners, the pioneers! The time will come when in this
+country there will be three great Services--the Army, the Navy, the
+Forest; and an officer in the one will be as much respected and looked
+up to as the others! Perhaps more! In the long times of peace, while
+they are occupied with their eternal Preparation, we shall be labouring
+at Accomplishment."
+
+She broke off abruptly.
+
+"If you don't want to get me started, don't be superior," she ended,
+half apologetic, half resentful.
+
+"But I do want to get you started," said Bob.
+
+"It's amusing, I don't doubt."
+
+"Not quite that: it's interesting, and I am no longer bewildered at the
+eighteen hundred a year--that is," he quoted a popular song, "'if there
+are any more at home like you.'"
+
+She looked at him humorously despairing.
+
+"That's just like an outsider. There are plenty who feel as I do, but
+they don't say so. Look at old California John, at Ross Fletcher, at a
+half-dozen others under your very nose. Have you ever stopped to think
+why they have so long been loyal? I don't suppose you have, for I doubt
+if they have. But you mark my words!"
+
+"All right, Field Marshal--or is it 'General'?" said Bob.
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Just camp cook," she replied good-humouredly.
+
+The sun was slanting low through the tall, straight trunks of the trees.
+Amy Thorne arose, gathered a handful of kindling, and began to rattle
+the stove.
+
+"I am contemplating a real pudding," she said over her shoulder.
+
+Bob arose reluctantly.
+
+"I must be getting on," said he.
+
+They said farewell. At the hitching rail Thorne joined him.
+
+"I'm afraid I'm not very hospitable," said the Supervisor, "but that
+mustn't discourage you from coming often. We'll be better organized in
+time."
+
+"It's mighty pleasant over here; I've enjoyed myself," said Bob,
+mounting.
+
+Thorne laid his hand on the young man's knee.
+
+"I wish we could induce you old-timers to come to our way of thinking,"
+said he pleasantly.
+
+"How's that?" asked Bob.
+
+"Your slash is in horrible shape."
+
+"Our slash!" repeated Bob in a surprised tone. "How?"
+
+"It's a regular fire-trap, the way you leave it tangled up. It wouldn't
+cost you much to pile the tops and leave the ground in good shape."
+
+"Why, it's just like any other slash!" protested Bob. "We're logging
+just as everybody always logs!"
+
+"That's just what I object to. And when you fell a tree or pull a log to
+the skids, I do wish we could induce you to pay a little attention to
+the young growth. It's a little more trouble, sometimes, to go around
+instead of through, but it's worth it to the forest."
+
+Bob's brows were bent on the Supervisor in puzzled surprise. Thorne
+laughed, and slapped the young man's horse on the flanks to start him.
+
+"You think it over!" he called.
+
+A half-hour's ride took Bob to the clearing where the logging crews had
+worked the year before. Here, although the hour was now late, he reined
+in his horse and looked. It was the first time he had ever really done
+so. Heretofore a slashing had been as much a part of the ordinary
+woodland landscape as the forest itself.
+
+He saw then the abattis of splintered old trunks, of lopped limbs, and
+entangled branches, piled up like jackstraws to the height of even six
+or eight feet from the ground; the unsightly mat of sodden old masses of
+pine needles and cedar fans; the hundreds of young saplings bent double
+by the weight of debris, broken square off, or twisted out of all chance
+of becoming straight trees in their age; the long, deep, ruthless
+furrows where the logs had been dragged through everything that could
+stand in their way; the few trees left standing, weak specimens,
+undesirable species, the culls of the forest, further scarred where the
+cruel steel cables had rasped or bitten them. He knew by experience the
+difficulty of making a way, even afoot, through this tangle. Now, under
+the influence of Thorne's suggestion, he saw them as great piles of so
+much fuel, laid as though by purpose for the time when the evil genius
+of the forest should desire to warm himself.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Bob was finally late for supper, which he ate hastily and without much
+appetite. After finishing the meal, he hunted up Welton. He found the
+lumberman tilted back in a wooden armchair, his feet comfortably
+elevated to the low rail about the stove, his pipe in mouth, his coat
+off, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. At the sight of his homely, jolly
+countenance, Bob experienced a pleasant sensation of slipping back from
+an environment slightly off-focus to the normal, accustomed and real.
+Nevertheless, at the first opportunity, he tested his new doubts by
+Welton's common sense.
+
+"I rode through our slash on 18," he remarked. "That's an awful mess."
+
+"Slashes are," replied Welton succinctly.
+
+"If the thing gets afire it will make a hot blaze."
+
+"Sure thing," agreed Welton. "But we've never had one go yet--at least,
+while we were working. There's men enough to corral anything like that."
+
+"But we've always worked in a wet country," Bob pointed out. "Here it's
+dry from April till October."
+
+"Have to take chances, then; and jump on a fire quick if it starts,"
+said Welton philosophically.
+
+"These forest men advise certain methods of obviating the danger," Bob
+suggested.
+
+"Pure theory," returned Welton. "The theory's a good one, too," he
+added. "That's where these college men are strong--only it isn't
+practical. They mean well enough, but they haven't the knowledge. When
+you look at anything broad enough, it looks easy. That's what busts so
+many people in the lumber business." He rolled out one of his jolly
+chuckles. "Lumber barons!" he chortled. "Oh, it's easy enough! Any
+mossback can make money lumbering! Here's your stumpage at a dollar a
+thousand, and there's your lumber at twenty! Simplest thing in the
+world. Just the same there are more failures in the lumber business than
+in any other I know anything about. Why is it?"
+
+"Economic waste," put in Merker, who was leaning across the counter.
+
+"Lack of experience," said Bob.
+
+"A little of both," admitted Welton; "but it's more because the business
+is made up of ten thousand little businesses. You have to conduct a
+cruising business, and a full-fledged real estate and mortgage business;
+you have to build houses and factories, make roads, build railroads; you
+have to do a livery trade, and be on the market for a thousand little
+things. Between the one dollar you pay for stumpage and the twenty
+dollars you get for lumber lies all these things. Along comes your
+hardware man and says, Here, why don't you put in my new kind of spark
+arrestor; think how little it costs; what's fifty dollars to a
+half-million-dollar business? The spark arrester's a good thing all
+right, so you put it in. And then there's maybe a chance to use a little
+paint and make the shanties look like something besides shanties; that
+don't cost much, either, to a half-million-dollar business. And so on
+through a thousand things. And by and by it's costing twenty dollars and
+one cent to get your lumber to market; and it's B-U-S-T, bust!"
+
+"That's economic waste," put in Merker.
+
+"Or lack of experience," added Bob.
+
+"No," said Welton, emphasizing his point with his pipe; _"it's not
+sticking to business!_ It's not stripping her down to the bare
+necessities! It's going in for frills! When you get to be as old as I
+am, you learn not to monkey with the band wagon."
+
+His round, red face relaxed into one of his good-humoured grins, and he
+relit his pipe.
+
+"That's the trouble with this forestry monkey business. It's all right
+to fool with, if you want fooling. So's fancy farming. But it don't pay.
+If you are playing, why, it's all right to experiment. If you ain't,
+why, it's a good plan to stick to the methods of lumbering. The present
+system of doing things has been worked out pretty thorough by a lot of
+pretty shrewd business men. And it _works!"_
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"Didn't know you could orate to that extent," he gibed. "Sic'em!"
+
+Welton grinned a trifle abashed. "You don't want to get me started,
+then," said he.
+
+"Oh, but I do!" Bob objected, for the second time that day.
+
+"Now this slashing business," went on the old lumberman in a more
+moderate tone. "When the millennium comes, it would be a fine thing to
+clear up the old slashings." He turned suddenly to Bob. "How long do you
+think it would take you with a crew of a dozen men to cut and pile the
+waste stuff in 18?" he inquired.
+
+Bob cast back the eye of his recollection to the hopeless tangle that
+cumbered the ground.
+
+"Oh, Lord!" he ejaculated; "don't ask me!"
+
+"If you were running a business would you feel like stopping work and
+sending your men--whom you are feeding and paying--back there to pile up
+that old truck?"
+
+Bob's mind, trained to the eager hurry of the logging season, recoiled
+from this idea in dismay.
+
+"I should say not!" he cried. Then as a second thought he added: "But
+what they want is to pile the tops while the work is going on."
+
+"It takes just so much time to do so much work," stated Welton
+succinctly, "and it don't matter whether you do it all at once, or try
+to fool yourself by spraddling it out."
+
+He pulled strongly at his pipe.
+
+"Forest Reserves are all right enough," he acknowledged, "and maybe some
+day their theories will work out. But not now; not while taxes go on!"
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+One day, not over a week later, Bob working in the woods, noticed
+California John picking his way through the new slashing. This was a
+difficult matter, for the fresh-peeled logs and the debris of the tops
+afforded few openings for the passage of a horse. The old man made it,
+however, and finally emerged on solid ground, much in the fashion of one
+climbing a bank after an uncertain ford. He caught sight of Bob.
+
+"You fellows can change the face of the country beyant all belief,"
+announced the old man, pushing back his hat. "You're worse than snow
+that way. I ought to know this country pretty well, but when I get down
+into one of your pesky slashings, I'm lost for a way out!"
+
+Bob laughed, and exchanged a few commonplace remarks.
+
+"If you can get off, you better come over our way," said California
+John, as he gathered up his reins. "We're holding ranger
+examinations--something new. You got to tell what you know these days
+before you can work for Uncle Sam."
+
+"What do you have to know?" asked Bob.
+
+"Come over and find out."
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"I believe I will," he decided. "There's nothing to keep me here."
+
+Accordingly, early next morning he rode over to the Upper Camp. Outside,
+near the creek, he came upon the deserted evidences of a gathering of
+men. Bed rolls lay scattered under the trees, saddles had been thrown
+over fallen trunks, bags of provisions hung from saplings, cooking
+utensils flanked the smouldering remains of a fire which was, however,
+surrounded by a scraped circle of earth after the careful fashion of the
+mountains. Bob's eye, by now practised in the refinements of such
+matters, ran over the various accoutrements thus spread abroad. He
+estimated the number of their owners at about a score. The bedroll of
+the cowman, the "turkey" of the lumber jack, the quilts of the
+mountaineer, were all in evidence; as well as bedding plainly makeshift
+in character, belonging to those who must have come from a distance. A
+half-dozen horses dozed in an improvised fence-corner corral. As many
+more were tied to trees. Saddles, buckboards, two-wheeled carts, and
+even one top buggy represented the means of transportation.
+
+Bob rode on through the gate to headquarters.. This he found deserted,
+except for Amy Thorne. She was engaged in wiping the breakfast dishes,
+and she excitedly waved a towel at the young man as he rode up.
+
+"A godsend!" she cried. "I'm just dancing with impatience! They've been
+gone five minutes! Come help me finish!"
+
+Bob fastened his horse, rolled back his sleeves, and took hold with a
+will.
+
+"Where's your examining board, and your candidates?" he inquired. "I
+thought I was going to see an examination."
+
+"Up the Meadow Trail," panted the girl. "Don't stop to talk. Hurry!"
+
+They hurried, to such good purpose, that shortly they were clambering,
+rather breathless, up the steeps of the Meadow Trail. This led to a
+flat, upper shelf or bench in which, as the name implied, was situated a
+small meadow. At the upper end were grouped twenty-five men, closely
+gathered about some object.
+
+Amy and Bob plunged into the dew-heavy grasses. The men proved to be
+watching Thorne, who was engaged in tacking a small target on the stub
+of a dead sugar pine. This accomplished, he led the way back some
+seventy-five or eighty paces.
+
+"Three shots each," said he, consulting his note-book. "Off-hand.
+Hicks!"
+
+The man so named stepped forward to the designated mark, sighted his
+piece carefully, and fired.
+
+"Do I get each shot called?" he inquired; but Thorne shook his head.
+
+"You ought to know where your guns shoot," said he.
+
+After the third shot, the whole group went forward to examine the
+target. Thorne marked the results in his note-book, and called upon the
+next contestant.
+
+While the shooting went on, Bob had leisure to examine the men. They
+numbered, as he had guessed, about twenty. Three were plainly from the
+towns, for they wore thin shoes, white shirts, and clothes of a sort ill
+adapted to out-of-door work in the mountains. Two others, while more
+appropriately dressed in khakis and high boots, were as evidently
+foreign to the hills. Bob guessed them recent college graduates, perhaps
+even of some one of the forestry schools. In this he was correct. The
+rest were professional out-of-door men. Bob recognized two of his own
+woods-crew--good men they were, too. He nodded to them. A half-dozen
+lithe, slender youths, handsome and browned, drew apart by themselves.
+He remembered having noticed one of them as a particularly daring rider
+after Pollock's cattle the fall before; and guessed his companions to be
+of the same breed. Among the remainder, two picturesque, lean, slow and
+quizzical prospectors attracted his particular attention.
+
+Most of these men were well practised in the use of the rifle, but
+evidently not to exhibiting their skill in company. What seemed to Bob a
+rather _exaggerated_ earnestness oppressed them. The shooting, with two
+exceptions, was not good. Several, whom Bob strongly suspected had many
+a time brought down their deer on the run, even missed the target
+entirely! It was to be remarked that each contestant, though he might
+turn red beneath his tan, took the announcement of the result in
+silence.
+
+The two notable exceptions referred to were strangely contrasted. The
+elder was one of the prospectors. He was armed with an ancient 45-70
+Winchester, worn smooth and shiny by long carrying in a saddle holster.
+This arm was fitted with buckhorn sights of the old mountain type. When
+it exploded, its black powder blew forth a stunning detonation and
+volume of smoke. Nevertheless, of the three bullets, two were within the
+tiny black Thorne had seen fit to mark as bullseye, and the other
+clipped close to its edge. A murmur of admiration went up from the
+bystanders. Even eliminating the unaccountable nervousness that had
+thrown so many shots wild, it seemed improbable that any of the other
+contestants felt themselves qualified to equal this score.
+
+"Good shooting," whispered Bob to Amy. "I doubt if I could make out that
+bullseye through sights."
+
+The other exception, whose turn came somewhat later, was one of the
+Easterners mentioned as a graduate of the forestry school. This young
+man, not over twenty-two years of age, was an attractive youngster, with
+refined features, and engaging dark-blue eyes. His arm was the then
+latest model, a 33-calibre high power, fitted with aperture sights. This
+he manipulated with great care, adjusting it again and again; and fired
+with such deliberation that some of the spectators moved impatiently.
+Nevertheless, the target, on examination, showed that he had duplicated
+the prospector's score. To be sure, the worst shot had not cut quite as
+close to the bull as had that of the older man, but on the other hand,
+those in the black were slightly nearer the centre. It was generally
+adjudged a good tie.
+
+"Well, youngster!" cried the prospector, heartily, "we're the cocks of
+the walk! If you can handle the other weep'n as well, I'll give you my
+hand for a good shot."
+
+The young man smiled shyly, but said nothing.
+
+The distance was now shortened to something under twenty paces, and a
+new target substituted for the old. The black in this was fully six
+inches in diameter.
+
+"Five shots with six-shooter," announced Thorne briefly.
+
+"A man should hit a dollar twice in five at that distance," muttered the
+prospector. Thorne caught the remark.
+
+"You hit that five out of five, and I'll forgive you," said he curtly.
+"Hicks, you begin."
+
+The contest went forward with varying success. Not over half of the men
+were practised with the smaller arm. Some very wild work was done. On
+the other hand, eight or ten performed very creditably, placing their
+bullets in or near the black. Indeed, two succeeded in hitting the
+bullseye four times out of five. Every man took the utmost pains with
+every shot.
+
+"Now, Ware," said Thorne, at last, "step up. You've got to make good
+that five out of five to win."
+
+The prospector stood forward, at the same time producing from an open
+holster blackened by time one of the long-barrelled single-action Colt's
+45's, so universally in use on the frontier. He glanced carelessly
+toward the mark, grinned back at the crowd, turned, and instantly began
+firing. He shot the five shots without appreciable sighting before each,
+as fast as his thumb could pull back the long-shanked hammer. The muzzle
+of the weapon rose and fell with a regularity positively mechanical, and
+the five shots had been delivered in half that number of seconds.
+
+"There's your five," said he, carelessly dropping his gun back into its
+holster.
+
+The five bullets were found to be scattered within the six-inch black.
+
+The concourse withdrew to give space for the next contestant. Silence
+fell as the man was taking his aim. Amy touched Bob's arm. He looked
+down. Her eyes were shining, and her cheeks red with excitement.
+
+"Doesn't it remind you of anything?" she whispered eagerly.
+
+"What?" he asked, not guessing her meaning.
+
+"This: all of it!" she waved her hand abroad at the fair oval meadow
+with its fringe of tall trees and the blue sky above it; at the
+close-gathered knot of spectators, and the single contestant advanced
+before them. He shook his head. "Wait," she breathed, laying her fingers
+across her lips.
+
+The contest wore along until it again came the turn of the younger man.
+He stepped to the front, unbuckled a covered holster of the sort never
+carried in the West, and produced one of those beautifully balanced,
+beautifully finished revolvers known as the Officer's Model. Taking the
+firm yet easy position of the practised target shot, he sighted with
+great deliberation, firing only when he considered his aim assured.
+Indeed, once he lowered his weapon until a puff of wind had passed. The
+five shots were found to be not only within the black, but grouped
+inside a three-inch diameter.
+
+"'_A Hubert! A Hubert_!'" breathed the girl in Bob's ear. "_In the
+clout_!"
+
+"I thought his name was Elliott," said Bob. "Is it Hubert?"
+
+The girl eyed him reproachfully, but said nothing.
+
+"You're a _good_ shot, youngster!" cried Ware, in the heartiest
+congratulation; "but if Mr. Thorne don't mind, I'd like to shoot off
+this tie. Down in our country we don't shoot quite that way, or at that
+kind of a mark. Will you take a try my way?"
+
+Amy leaned again toward Bob, her face aflame.
+
+"_'And now,'_" she shot at him, "'_I will crave your Grace's permission
+to plant such a mark as is used in the north country; and welcome every
+brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it_--'Don't dare tell me you don't
+remember!"
+
+"'_A man can but do his best_,'" Bob took up the tale. "Of course, I
+remember; you're right."
+
+"All right," Thorne was agreeing, "but make it short. We've got a lot to
+do."
+
+Ware selected another target--one intended for the six-shooters--that
+had not been used. This he tacked up in place of the one already
+disfigured by many shots. Then he paced off twelve yards.
+
+"That looks easier than the other," Thorne commented.
+
+"Mebbe," agreed Ware, non-committally, "but you may change your mind. As
+for that sort of monkey-work," he indicated the discarded target, "down
+our way we'd as soon shoot at a barn."
+
+The girl softly clapped her hands.
+
+"'_For his own part_,'" she quoted in a breath, and so rapidly that the
+words fairly tumbled over one another, "'_in the land where he was bred,
+men would as soon take for their mark King Arthur's round table, which
+held sixty knights around it. A child of seven might hit yonder target
+with a headless shaft_.' Oh, this is perfect."
+
+"Now," said Ware to young Elliott, "if you'll hit that mark in my
+fashion of shooting, you're all right."
+
+Bob turned to the girl, his eyes dancing with delight.
+
+"'--_he that hits yon mark at I-forget-how-many yards_,'" he declaimed,
+"'_I will call him an archer fit to bear bow before a king_'--or
+something to that effect; I'm afraid I'm not letter perfect."
+
+He laughed amusedly, and the girl laughed with him. "Just the same, I'm
+glad you remember," she told him.
+
+Ware had by now taken his place at the new mark he had established.
+
+"Fifteen shots," he announced. At the word his hand dropped to the butt
+of his gun, his right shoulder hunched forward, and with one lightning
+smooth motion the weapon glided from the holster. Hardly had it left the
+leather when it was exploded. The hammer had been cocked during the
+upward flip of the muzzle. The first discharge was followed immediately
+by the five others in a succession so rapid that Bob believed the man
+had substituted a self-cocking arm until he caught the rapid play of the
+marksman's thumb. The weapon was at no time raised above the level of
+the man's waist.
+
+"Hold on!" commanded Ware, as the bystanders started forward to examine
+the result of the shots. "Let's finish the string first."
+
+He had been deliberately pushing out the exploded cartridges one by one.
+Now he as deliberately reloaded. Taking a position somewhat to the left
+of the target, he folded his arms so that the revolver lay across his
+breast with its muzzle resting over his left elbow. Then he strode
+rapidly but evenly across the face of the target, discharging the five
+bullets as he walked.
+
+Again he reloaded. This time he stood with the revolver hanging in his
+right hand gazing intently for some moments at the target, measuring
+carefully with his eye its direction and height. He turned his back;
+and, flipping his gun over his left shoulder, fired without looking
+back.
+
+"The first ten ought to be in the black," announced Ware, "The last five
+ought to be somewheres on the paper. A fellow can't expect more than to
+generally wing a man over his shoulder."
+
+But on examination the black proved to hold but eight bullet holes. The
+other seven, however, all showed on the paper.
+
+"Comes of not wiping out the dirt once in a while when you're shooting
+black powder," said Ware philosophically.
+
+The crowd gazed upon him with admiration.
+
+"That's a remarkable group of shots to be literally _thrown_ out at that
+speed," muttered Thorne to Bob. "Why, you could cover them with your
+hat! Well, young man," he addressed Elliott, "step up!"
+
+But Elliott shook his head.
+
+"Couldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole," said he pleasantly. "Mr.
+Ware has given me a new idea of what can be done with a revolver. His
+work is especially good with that heavily charged arm. I wish he would
+give us a little exhibition of how close he can shoot with my gun. It's
+supposed to be a more accurate weapon."
+
+"No, thank you," spoke up Ware. "I couldn't hit a flock of feather
+pillers with your gun. You see, I shoot by _throw_, and I'm used to the
+balance of my gun."
+
+Thorne finished making some notes.
+
+"All right, boys," he said, snapping shut his book. "We'll go down to
+headquarters next."
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+On the way down the narrow trail Bob found himself near the two men from
+his own camp. He chaffed them good-humouredly over their lack of skill
+in the contests, to which they replied in the same spirit.
+
+Arrived at camp, Thorne turned to face his followers, who gathered in a
+group to listen.
+
+"Let's have a little riding, boys," said he. "Bring out a horse or two
+and some saddles. Each man must saddle his horse, circle that tree down
+the road, return, unsaddle and throw up both hands to show he's done."
+
+Bob was amused to see how the aspect of the men changed at this
+announcement. The lithe young fellows, who had been looking pretty sober
+over the records they had made at shooting, brightened visibly and ran
+with some eagerness to fetch out their own horses and saddles. Some of
+the others were not so pleased, notably two of the young fellows from
+the valley towns. Still others remained stolidly indifferent to a trial
+in which they could not hope to compete with the professional riders,
+but in which neither would they fail.
+
+The results proved the accuracy of this reasoning. A new set of stars
+rose to the ascendant, while the heroes of the upper meadow dropped into
+obscurity. Most of the mountain men saddled expeditiously but soberly
+their strong and capable mountain horses, rode the required distance,
+and unsaddled deftly. It was part of their everyday life to be able to
+do such things well. The two town boys, and, to Bob's surprise, one of
+his lumberjacks, furnished the comic relief. They frightened the horses
+allotted them, to begin with; threw the saddles aboard in a mess which
+it was necessary to untangle; finally clambered on awkwardly and rode
+precariously amid the yells and laughter of the spectators.
+
+"How you expect to be a ranger, if you can't ride?" shouted some one at
+the lumberjack.
+
+"If horses don't plumb _detest_ me, I reckon I can learn!" retorted the
+shanty boy, stoutly. "This ain't my game!"
+
+But when young Pollock, whom Bob recognized as Jim's oldest, was called
+out, the situation was altered. He appeared leading a beautiful,
+half-broken bay, that snorted and planted its feet and danced away from
+the unaccustomed crowd. Nevertheless the lad, as impassive as an image,
+held him well in hand, awaiting Thorne's signal.
+
+"Go!" called the Supervisor, his eyes on his watch.
+
+The boy, still grasping the hackamore in his left hand, with his right
+threw the saddle blanket over the animal's back. Stooping again, he
+seized the heavy stock saddle by the horn, flipped it high in the air,
+and brought it across the horse with so skilful a jerk that not only did
+the skirts, the heavy stirrup and the horsehair cinch fall properly, but
+the cinch itself swung so far under the horse's belly that young Pollock
+was able to catch it deftly before it swung back. To thrust the broad
+latigo through the rings, jerk it tight, and fasten it securely was the
+work of an instant. With a yell to his horse the boy sprang into the
+saddle. The animal bounded forward, snorting and buck-plunging, his eye
+wild, his nostril wide. Flung with apparent carelessness in the saddle,
+the rider, his body swaying and bending and giving gracefully to every
+bound, waved his broad hat, uttering shrill _yips_ of encouragement and
+admonition to his mount. The horse straightened out and thundered swift
+as an arrow toward the tree that marked the turning point. With
+unslackened gait, with loosened rein, he swept fairly to the tree. It
+seemed to Bob that surely the lad must overshoot the mark by many yards.
+But at the last instant the rider swayed backward and sidewise; the
+horse set his feet, plunged mightily thrice, threw up a great cloud of
+dust, and was racing back almost before the spectators could adjust
+their eyes to the change of movement. Straight to the group horse and
+rider raced at top speed, until the more inexperienced instinctively
+ducked aside. But in time the horse sat back, slid and plunged ten feet
+in a spray of dust and pine needles, to come to a quivering halt. Even
+before that young Pollock had thrown himself from the saddle. Three
+jerks ripped that article of furniture from its place to the earth. The
+boy, with an engaging gleam of teeth, threw up both hands.
+
+It was flash-riding, of course; but flash-riding at its best. And how
+the boys enjoyed it! Now the little group of "buckeroos," heretofore
+rather shyly in the background, shone forth in full glory.
+
+"Now let's see how good you are at packing," said Thorne, when the last
+man had done his best or worst. "Jack," he told young Pollock, "you go
+up in the pasture and catch me up that old white pack mare. She's
+warranted to stand like a rock."
+
+While the boy was gone on this errand, Thorne rummaged the camp. Finally
+he laid out on the ground about a peck of loose potatoes, miscellaneous
+provisions, a kettle, frying-pan, coffee-pot, tin plates, cutlery, a
+single sack of barley, a pick and shovel, and a coil of rope.
+
+"That looks like a reasonable camp outfit," remarked Thorne. "Just throw
+one of those pack saddles on her," he told Jack Pollock, who led up the
+white mare. "Now you boys all retire; you mustn't have a chance to learn
+from the other fellow. Hicks, you stay. Now pack that stuff on that
+horse. I'll time you."
+
+Hicks looked about him.
+
+"Where's the kyacks?" he demanded. [Footnote: Kyacks--pack sacks slung
+either side the pack saddle.]
+
+"You don't get any kyacks," stated Thorne crisply.
+
+"Got to pack all that stuff without 'em?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+Hicks set methodically to work, gathering up the loose articles,
+thrusting them into sacks, lashing the sacks on the crossbuck saddle. At
+the end of a half-hour, he stepped back.
+
+"That might ride--for a while," said Thorne.
+
+"I never pack without kyacks," said Hicks.
+
+"So I see. Well, sit down and watch the rest of them. Ware!" Thorne
+shouted.
+
+The prospector disengaged himself from the sprawling and distant group.
+
+"Throw those things off, and empty out those bags," ordered Thorne.
+"Now, there's your camp outfit. Pack it, as fast as you can."
+
+Ware set to work, also deliberately, it seemed. He threw a sling, packed
+on his articles, and over it all drew the diamond hitch.
+
+"Reckon that'll travel," he observed, stepping back.
+
+"Good pack," commended Thorne briefly, as he glanced at his watch.
+"Eleven minutes."
+
+"Eleven minutes!" echoed Bob to California John, who sat near, "and the
+other man took thirty-five! Impossible! Ware didn't hurry any; he moved,
+if anything, slower than the other man."
+
+"He didn't make no moves twice," pointed out California John. "He knows
+how. This no-kyack business is going to puzzle plenty of those boys who
+can do good, ordinary packing."
+
+"It's near noon," Thorne was saying; "we haven't time for another of
+those duffers. I'll just call up your partner, Ware, and we'll knock off
+for dinner."
+
+The partner did as well, or even a little better, for the watch credited
+him with ten and one-half minutes, whereupon he chaffed Ware hugely.
+Then the pack horse was led to a patiently earned feed, while the little
+group of rangers, with Thorne, his sister and Bob, moved slowly toward
+headquarters.
+
+"That's all this morning, boys," he told the waiting group as they
+passed it. "This afternoon we'll double up a bit. The rest of you can
+all take a try at the packing, but at the same time we'll see who can
+cut down a tree quickest and best."
+
+"Stop and eat lunch with us," Amy was urging Bob. "It's only a cold
+one--not even tea. I didn't want to miss the show. So it's no bother."
+
+They all turned to and set the table under the open.
+
+"This is great fun," said Bob gratefully, as they sat down. "Good as a
+field day. When do you expect to begin your examinations? That's what
+these fellows are here for, isn't it?"
+
+He looked up to catch both Thorne and Amy looking on him with a
+comically hopeless air.
+
+"You don't mean to say!" cried Bob, a light breaking in on him. "--of
+course! I never thought----"
+
+"What do you suppose we would examine candidates for Forest Ranger
+in--higher mathematics?" demanded Amy.
+
+"Now that's practical--that's got some sense!" cried Bob
+enthusiastically.
+
+Thorne, with a whimsical smile, held up his finger for silence. Through
+the thin screen of azalea bushes that fringed this open-air dining room
+Bob saw two men approaching down the forest. They were evidently unaware
+of observation. With considerable circumspection they drew near and
+disappeared within the little tool house. Bob recognized the two
+lumberjacks from his own camp.
+
+"What are those fellows after?" he demanded indignantly.
+
+But Thorne again motioned for caution.
+
+"I suspect," said Thorne in a low voice. "Go on eating your lunch. We'll
+see."
+
+The men were inside the tool house for some time. When they reappeared,
+each carried an axe. They looked about them cautiously. No one was in
+sight. Then they thrust the axes underneath a log, and disappeared in
+the direction of their own camp.
+
+Thorne laughed aloud.
+
+"The old foxes!" said he. "I'll bet anything you please that we'll find
+the two best-balanced axes the Government owns under that log."
+
+Such proved to be the case. Furthermore, the implements had been ground
+to a razor edge.
+
+"When I mentioned tree cutting, I saw their eyes light up," said Thorne.
+"It's always interesting in a crowd of candidates like this to see every
+man cheer up when his specialty comes along." He chuckled. "Wait till I
+spring the written examinations on them. Then you'll see them droop."
+
+"What else is there?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well, I'll organize regular survey groups--compass-man, axe-man,
+rod-man, chain-men--and let them run lines; and I'll make them estimate
+timber, and make a sketch map or so. It's all practical."
+
+"I should think so!" cried Bob. "I wonder if I could pass it myself." He
+laughed. "I should hate to tackle tying those things on that horse--even
+after seeing those prospectors do it!"
+
+"Most of them will go a little slow. They're used to kyacks. But you'd
+have your specialty."
+
+"What would it be?" asked Amy curiously of Bob.
+
+The young man shook his head.
+
+"You haven't got some nice scrappy little job, have you?" he asked,
+"where I can tell people to hop high? That's about all I'm good for."
+
+"We might even have that," said Thorne, eyeing the young man's
+proportions.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Bob saw that afternoon the chopping contest. Thorne assigned to each a
+tree some eighteen or twenty inches in diameter, selecting those whose
+loss would aid rather than deplete the timber stand, and also, it must
+be confessed, those whose close proximity to others might make axe
+swinging awkward. About twenty feet from the base of each tree he placed
+upright in the earth a sharpened stake. This, he informed the axe-man,
+must be driven by the fall of the tree.
+
+As in the previous contests, three classes of performers quickly
+manifested themselves--the expert, the man of workmanlike skill, and the
+absolute duffer. The lumberjacks produced the implements they had that
+noon so carefully ground to an edge. It was beautiful to see them at
+work. To all appearance they struck easily, yet each stroke buried half
+the blade. The less experienced were inclined to put a great deal of
+swift power in the back swing, to throw too much strength into the
+beginning of the down stroke. The lumberjacks drew back quite
+deliberately, swung forward almost lazily. But the power constantly
+increased, until the axe met the wood in a mighty swish and whack. And
+each stroke fell in the gash of the one previous. Methodically they
+opened the "kerf," each face almost as smooth as though it had been
+sawn. At the finish they left the last fibres on one side or another,
+according as they wanted to twist the direction of the tree's fall. Then
+the trunk crashed down across the stake driven in the ground.
+
+The mountaineers, accustomed to the use of the axe in their backwoods
+work, did a workmanlike but not expert job on their respective trees.
+They felled their trees accurately over the mark, and their axe work was
+fairly clean, but it took them some time to finish the job.
+
+But some of the others made heavy weather. Young Elliott was the worst.
+It was soon evident that he had probably never had any but a possible
+and casual wood-pile axe in his hand before. The axe rarely hit twice in
+the same place; its edge had apparently no cutting power; the handle
+seemed to be animated with a most diabolical tendency to twist in
+mid-air. Bob, with the wisdom of the woods, withdrew to a safe distance.
+The others followed.
+
+Long after the others had finished, poor Elliott hacked away. He seemed
+to have no definite idea of possible system. All he seemed to be trying
+to do was to accomplish some kind of a hole in that tree. The chips he
+cut away were small and ragged; the gash in the side of the tree was
+long and irregular.
+
+"Looks like somethin' had set out to _chaw_ that tree down!" drawled a
+mountain man to his neighbour.
+
+But when the tree finally tottered and crashed to the ground it fairly
+centred the direction stake!
+
+The bystanders stared; then catching the expression of ludicrous
+astonishment on Elliott's face, broke into appreciative laughter.
+
+"I'm as much surprised as you are, boys," said Elliott, showing the
+palms of his hands, on which were two blisters.
+
+"The little cuss is game, anyhow," muttered California John to Thorne.
+
+"It was an awful job," confided the other; "but I marked him something
+on it because he stayed with it so well."
+
+Toward sunset Bob said farewell, expressing many regrets that he could
+not return on the morrow to see the rest of the examinations. He rode
+back through the forest, thoughtfully inclined. The first taste of the
+Western joy of mere existence was passing with him. He was beginning to
+look upon his life, and ask of it the why. To be sure, he could tell
+himself that his day's work was well done, and that this should suffice
+any man; that he was an integral part of the economic machine; that in
+comparison with the average young man of his age he had made his way
+with extraordinary success; that his responsibilities were sufficient to
+keep him busy and happy; that men depended on him--all the reasons that
+philosophy or acquiescence in the plan of life ultimately bring to a
+man. But these did not satisfy the uneasiness of his spirit. He was too
+young to settle down to a routine; he was too intellectually restless to
+be contented with reiterations, however varied, of that which he had
+seen through and around. It was the old defect--or glory--of his
+character; the quality that had caused him more anxiety, more
+self-reproach, more bitterness of soul than any other, the Rolling Stone
+spirit that--though now he could not see it--even if it gathered no moss
+of respectable achievement, might carry him far.
+
+So as he rode he peered into the scheme of things for the final
+satisfaction. In what did it lie? Not for him in mere activity, nor in
+the accomplishment of the world's work, no matter how variedly
+picturesque his particular share of it might be. He felt his interest
+ebbing, his spirit restless at its moorings. The days passed. He arose
+in the morning: and it was night! Four years ago he had come to
+California. It seemed but yesterday. The days were past, gone, used. Of
+it all what had he retained? The years had run like sea sands between
+his fingers, and not a grain of them remained in his grasp. A little
+money was there, a little knowledge, a little experience--but what
+toward the final satisfaction, the justification of a man's life? Bob
+was still too young, too individualistic to consider the doctrine of the
+day's work well done as the explanation and justification of all. The
+coming years would pass as quickly, leaving as little behind. Never so
+poignantly had he felt the insistence of the _carpe diem_. It was
+necessary that he find a reality, something he could winnow from the
+years as fine gold from sand, so that he could lay his hand on the
+treasure and say to his soul: "This much have I accomplished." Bob had
+learned well the American lesson: that the idler is to be scorned; that
+a true man must use his powers, must work; that he must _succeed_. Now
+he was taking the next step spiritually. How does a man really use his
+powers? What is success?
+
+Troubled by this spiritual unrest, the analysis of which, even the
+nature of which was still beyond him, he arrived at camp. The familiar
+objects fretted on his mood. For the moment all the grateful feeling of
+power over understanding and manipulating this complicated machinery of
+industry had left him. He saw only the wheel in which these activities
+turned, and himself bound to it. In this truly Buddhistic frame of mind
+he returned to his quarters.
+
+There, to his vague annoyance, he found Baker. Usually the liveliness of
+that able young citizen was welcome, but to-night it grated.
+
+"Well, Gentle Stranger," sang out the power man, "what jungle have you
+been lurking in? I laboured in about three and went all over the works
+looking for you."
+
+"I've been over watching the ranger examinations at their headquarters,"
+said Bob. "It's pretty good fun."
+
+Baker leaned forward.
+
+"Have you heard the latest dope?" he demanded.
+
+"What sort?"
+
+"They're trying to soak us, now. Want to charge us so much per horse
+power! Now _what_ do you think of that!"
+
+"Can't you pay it?" asked Bob.
+
+"Great guns! Why _should_ we pay it?" demanded Baker. "It's the public
+domain, isn't it? First they take away the settler's right to take up
+public land in his own state, and now they want to _charge_, actually
+_charge_ the public for what's its own."
+
+But Bob, a new light shining in his eyes, refused to become heated.
+
+"Well," he asked deliberately, "who _is_ the public, anyhow?"
+
+Baker stared at him, one chubby hand on each fat knee.
+
+"Why, everybody," said he; "the people who can make use of it. You and I
+and the other fellow."
+
+"Especially the other fellow," put in Bob drily.
+
+Baker chuckled.
+
+"It's like any business," said he. "First-come collect at the ticket
+office for his business foresight. But we'll try out this hold-up before
+we lie down and roll over."
+
+"Why shouldn't you pay?" demanded Bob again. "You get your value, don't
+you? The Forest Service protects your watershed, and that's where you
+get your water. Why shouldn't you pay for that service, just the same as
+you pay for a night watchman at your works?"
+
+"Watershed!" snorted Baker. "Rot! If every stick of timber was cleaned
+off these mountains, I'd get the water just the same."[A]
+
+"Baker," said Bob to this. "You go and take a long, long look at your
+bathroom sponge in action, and then come back and I'll talk to you."
+
+Baker contemplated his friend for a full ten seconds. Then his fat,
+pugnacious face wrinkled into a grin.
+
+"Stung on the ear by a wasp!" he cried, with a great shout of
+appreciation. "You merry, merry little josher! You had me going for
+about five minutes."
+
+Bob let it go at that.
+
+"I suppose you won't be able to pay over twenty per cent. this next
+year, then?" he inquired, with an amused expression.
+
+"Twenty per cent.!" cried Baker rolling his eyes up. "It's as much as I
+can do to dig up for improvements and bond interest and the preferred."
+
+"Not to mention the president's salary," amended Bob.
+
+"But I've got 'em where they live," went on Baker, complacently, without
+attention to this. "You don't catch Little Willie scattering shekels
+when he can just as well keep kopecks. They've left a little joker in
+the pack." He produced a paper-covered copy of the new regulations,
+later called the Use Book. "They've swiped about everything in sight for
+these pestiferous reserves, but they encourage the honest prospector.
+'Let us develop the mineral wealth,' says they. So these forests are
+still open for taking up under the mineral act. All you have to do is to
+make a 'discovery,' and stake out your claim; and there you are!"
+
+"All the mineral's been taken up long ago," Bob pointed out.
+
+"All the valuable mineral," corrected Baker. "But it's sufficient, so
+Erbe tells me, to discover a ledge. Ledges? Hell! They're easier to find
+than an old maid at a sewing circle! That's what the country is made
+of--ledges! You can dig one out every ten feet. Well, I've got people
+out finding ledges, and filing on them."
+
+"Can you do that?" asked Bob.
+
+"I am doing it."
+
+"I mean legally."
+
+"Oh, this bunch of prospectors files on the claims, and gets them
+patented. Then it's nobody's business what they do with their own
+property. So they just sell it to me."
+
+"That's colonizing," objected Bob. "You'll get nailed."
+
+"Not on your tintype, it isn't. I don't furnish a cent. They do it all
+on their own money. Oldham's got the whole matter in hand. When we get
+the deal through, we'll have about two hundred thousand acres all around
+the head-waters; and then these blood-sucking, red-tape, autocratic
+slobs can go to thunder."
+
+Baker leaned forward impressively.
+
+"Got to spring it all at once," said he, "otherwise there'll be
+outsiders in, thinking there's a strike been made--also they'll get
+inquisitive. It's a great chance. And, Orde, my son, there's a few
+claims up there that will assay about sixty thousand board feet to the
+acre. What do you think of it for a young and active lumberman? I'm
+going to talk it over with Welton. It's a grand little scheme. Wonder
+how that will hit our old friend, Thorne?"
+
+Bob rose yawning.
+
+"I'm tired. Going to turn in," said he. "Thorne isn't a bad sort."
+
+"He's one of these damn theorists, that's what he is," said Baker; "and
+he's got a little authority, and he's doing just as much as he can to
+unsettle business and hinder the legitimate development of the country."
+He relaxed his earnestness with another grin. "Stung again. That's two
+rises you got out of me," he remarked. "Say, Orde, don't get persuaded
+to turn ranger. I hear they've boosted their salaries to ninety a month.
+Must be a temptation!"
+
+
+[Footnote A: Extraordinary as it may seem to the modern reader, this
+sentiment--or this ignorance--was at that time sincerely entertained by
+men as influential, as powerful, and as closely interested in water
+power as Baker is here depicted.]
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Bob arose rather early the following Sunday, snatched a hasty breakfast
+and departed. Baker had been in camp three days. All at once Bob had
+taken the young man in strong distaste. Baker amused him, commanded his
+admiration for undoubted executive ability and a force of character so
+dynamic as to be almost brutal. In a more social environment Bob would
+still have found him a mighty pleasant fellow, generous, open-hearted,
+and loyal to his personal friends. But just now his methods chafed on
+the sensitiveness of Bob's new unrest. Baker was worth probably a couple
+of million dollars, and controlled ten times that. He had now a fine
+house in Fremont, where he had chosen to live, a pretty wife, two
+attractive children and a wide circle of friends. Life was very good to
+him.
+
+And yet, in the perversity and the clairvoyance of his mood, Bob thought
+to see in Baker's life something of that same emptiness of final
+achievement he faced in his own. This was absurd, but the feeling of it
+persisted. Thorne, with his miserable eighteen hundred a year, and his
+glowing enthusiasm and quick interest seemed to him more worth while.
+Why? It was absurd; but this feeling, too, persisted.
+
+Bob was a healthy young fellow, a man of action rather than of
+introspection, but now the hereditary twist of his character drove him
+to attempt analysis. He arrived at nothing. Both Baker and Thorne seemed
+to stand on one ground--each was satisfied, neither felt that lack of
+the fulfilling content Bob was so keenly experiencing. But the streak of
+feminine divination Bob had inherited from his mother made him
+understand--or made him think to understand--that Baker's satisfaction
+was taken because he did not see, while Thorne was working with his eyes
+open and a full sense of values. This vague glimpse Bob gained only
+partially and at length. It rather opened to him new vistas of spiritual
+perplexity than offered to him any solution.
+
+He paced rapidly down the length of the lake--whereon the battered but
+efficient towing launch lay idle for Sunday--to the Lake Meadow. This
+was, as usual, surrounded by hundreds of campers of all classes. Bob was
+known to all of them, of course; and he, in turn, had at least such a
+nodding acquaintance with them that he could recognize any accretions to
+their members. Near the lower end of the meadow, beneath a group of a
+dozen noble firs, he caught sight of newcomers, and so strolled down
+that way to see what they could be like.
+
+He found pomp and circumstance. An enclosure had been roped off to
+exclude the stock grazing at large in the meadow. Three tents had been
+erected. They were made of a very light, shiny, expensive-looking
+material with fringes along the walls, flies overhead and stretched in
+front, sod cloths before the entrances. Three gaily painted wooden
+rocking chairs, an equally gaudy hammock, a table flanked with benches,
+a big cooking stove in the rear, canvas pockets hung from the trees--a
+dozen and one other conveniences and luxuries bespoke the occupants as
+well-to-do and determined to be comfortable. Two Japanese servants
+dressed all in white moved silently and mysteriously in the background,
+a final touch of incongruity in a rough country.
+
+Before Bob had moved on, two men stepped into view from the interior of
+one of the tents. They paced slowly to the gaudy rocking chairs and sat
+down. In their progress they exhibited that peculiar, careless but
+conscious deliberation of gait affected everywhere by those accustomed
+to appearing in public. In their seating of themselves, their producing
+of cigars, their puffings thereon, was the same studied ignoring of
+observation; a manner which, it must be acknowledged, becomes second
+nature to those forced to its adoption. It was a certain blown
+impressiveness, a significance in the smallest movements, a
+self-importance, in short, too large for the affairs of any private
+citizen. It is to be seen in those who sit in high places, in clergy,
+actors off the boards, magistrates, and people behind shop windows
+demonstrating things to street crowds. Bob's first thought was of
+amusement that this elaborate unconsciousness of his lone presence
+should be worth while; his second a realization that his presence or the
+presence of any one else had nothing to do with it. He wondered, as we
+all wonder at times, whether these men acted any differently when alone
+and in utter privacy, whether they brushed their teeth and bathed with
+all the dignity of the public man.
+
+The smaller, but evidently more important of these men, wore a complete
+camping costume. His hat was very wide and stiff of brim and had a woven
+band of horsehair; his neckerchief was very red and worn bib fashion in
+the way Bob had come to believe that no one ever wore a neckerchief save
+in Western plays and the illustrations of Western stories; his shirt was
+of thick blue flannel, thrown wide open at the throat; his belt was very
+wide and of carved leather; his breeches were of khaki, but bagged above
+and fitted close below the knee into the most marvellous laced boots,
+with leather flaps, belt lacings, and rows of hobnails with which to
+make tracks. Bob estimated these must weigh at least three pounds
+apiece. The man wore a little pointed beard and eyeglasses. About him
+Bob recognized a puzzling familiarity. He could not place it, however,
+but finally decided he must have carried over a recollection from a
+tailor's fashion plate of the Correct Thing for Camping.
+
+The other man was taller, heavier, but not near so impressive. His form
+was awkward, his face homely, his ears stuck out like wings, and his
+expression was that of the always-appreciated buffoon.
+
+Bob was about to pass on, when he noticed that he was not the only
+spectator of all this ease of manner. A dozen of the campers had
+gathered, and were staring across the ropes with quite frank and
+unabashed curiosity. More were coming from all directions. In a short
+time a crowd of several hundred had collected, and stood, evidently in
+expectation. Then, and only then, did the small man with the pointed
+beard seem to become aware of the presence of any one besides his
+companion. He leaned across to exchange a few words with the latter,
+after which he laid aside his hat, arose and advanced to the rope
+barrier on which he rested the tips of his fingers.
+
+"My friends," he began in a nasal but penetrating voice, that carried
+without effort to every hearer. "I am not a regularly ordained minister
+of the gospel. I find, however, that there is none such among us, so I
+have gathered you here together this morning to hear a few words
+appropriate to the day. It has pleased Providence to call me to a public
+position wherein my person has become well known to you all; but that is
+an accident of the great profession to which I have been called, and I
+bow my heart in humility with the least and most lowly. I am going to
+tell you about myself this morning, not because I consider myself of
+importance, but because it seems to me from my case a great lesson may
+be drawn."
+
+He paused to let his eye run over the concourse. Bob felt the gaze,
+impersonal, impassive, scrutinizing, cold, rest on him the barest
+appreciable flicker of a moment, and then pass on. He experienced a
+faint shock, as though his defences had been tapped against.
+
+"My father," went on the nasal voice, "came to this country in the
+'sixties. It was a new country in the hands of a lazy people. It needed
+development, so my father was happy felling the trees, damming the
+streams, building the roads, getting possession of the land. That was
+his job in life, and he did it well, because the country needed it. He
+didn't bother his head with why he was doing it; he just thought he was
+making money. As a matter of fact, he didn't make money; he died nearly
+bankrupt."
+
+The orator bowed his head for a moment.
+
+"I might have done the same thing. It's all legitimate business. But I
+couldn't. The country is being developed by its inhabitants: work of
+that kind couldn't satisfy me. Why, friends? _Because now it would be
+selfish work_. My father didn't know it, but the reason he was happy was
+because the work he was doing for himself was also work for other
+people. You can see that. He didn't know it, but he was helping develop
+the country. But it wouldn't have been quite so with me. The country is
+developed in that way. If I did that kind of work, I'd be working for
+myself and nobody else at all. That turns out all right for most people,
+because they don't see it: they do their duty as citizens and good
+business men and fathers and husbands, and that ends it. But I saw it. I
+felt I had to do a work that would support me in the world--but it must
+be a work that helped humanity too. That is why, friends, I am what I
+am. That a certain prominence is inevitable to my position is incidental
+rather than gratifying.
+
+"So, I think, the lesson to be drawn is that each of us should make his
+life help humanity, should conduct his business in such a way as to help
+humanity. Then he'll be happy."
+
+He stood for a moment, then turned away. The tall, ungainly man with the
+outstanding ears and the buffoon's face stepped forward and whispered
+eagerly in his ear. He listened gravely, but shook his head. The tall
+man whispered yet more vehemently, at great length. Finally the orator
+stepped back to his place.
+
+"We are here for a complete rest after exhausting labours," he stated.
+"We have looked forward for months to undisturbed repose amongst these
+giant pines. No thought of care was to intrude. But my colleague's great
+and tender heart has smitten him, and, I am ashamed to say against my
+first inclination, he urges me to a course which I'd have liked to
+avoid; but which, when he shows me the way, I realize is the only decent
+thing. We find ourselves in the midst of a community of some hundreds of
+people. It may be some of these people are suffering, far from medical
+or surgical help. If there are any such, and the case is really
+pressing, you understand, we will be willing, just for common humanity,
+to do our best to relieve them. And friends," the speaker stepped
+forward until his body touched the rope, and he was leaning
+confidentially forth, "it would be poor humanity that would cause you
+pain or give you inferior treatments. I am happy to say we came to this
+great virgin wilderness direct with our baggage from White Oaks where we
+had been giving a two weeks' course of treatments--mainly charitable. We
+have our instruments and our medicines with us in their packin' cases.
+If need arises--which I trust it will not--we will not hesitate to go to
+any trouble for you. It is against our principles to give anything but
+our best. You will suffer no pain. But it must be understood," he warned
+impressively. "This is just for you, our neighbours! We don't want this
+news spread to the lumber camps and over the countryside. We are here
+for a rest. But we cannot be true to our high calling and neglect the
+relieving of pain."
+
+The man bowed slightly, and rejoined his companion to whom he conversed
+low-voiced with absolute unconsciousness of the audience he had just
+been addressing so intimately. The latter hesitated, then slowly
+dispersed. Bob stood, his brows knit, trying to recall. There was
+something hauntingly familiar about the whole performance. Especially a
+strange nasal emphasis on the word "pain" struck sharply a chord in his
+recollection. He looked up in sudden enlightenment.
+
+"Painless Porter!" he cried aloud.
+
+The man looked up at the mention of his name.
+
+"That's my name," said he. "What can I do for you?"
+
+"I just remembered where I'd seen you," explained Bob.
+
+"I'm fairly well known."
+
+Bob approached eagerly. The discourse, hollow, insincere,
+half-blasphemous, a buncombe bit of advertising as it was, nevertheless
+contained the germ of an essential truth for which Bob had been
+searching. He wanted to know how, through what experience, the man had
+come to this insight.
+
+But his attempts at conversation met with a cold reception. Painless
+Porter was too old a bird ever to lower his guard. He met the youth on
+the high plane of professionalism, refused to utter other than the
+platitudinous counters demanded by the occasion. He held the young man
+at spear's length, and showed plainly by the ominous glitter of his eye
+that he did not intend to be trifled with.
+
+Then Baker's jolly voice broke in.
+
+"Well! well! well!" he cried. "If here aren't my old friends, Painless
+Porter and the Wiz! Simple life for yours, eh? Back to beans! What's the
+general outline of _this_ graft?"
+
+"We have come camping for a complete rest," stated Waller gravely, his
+comical face cast in lines of reprobation and warning.
+
+"Whatever it is, you'll get it," jibed Baker. "But I'll bet you a
+toothpick it isn't a rest. What's exhausted you fellows, anyway?
+Counting the easy money?"
+
+"Our professional labours have been very heavy lately," spoke up the
+painless one.
+
+"What's biting you fellows?" demanded Baker. "There's nobody here."
+
+Waller indicated Bob by a barely perceptible jerk of the head. Baker
+threw back his head and laughed.
+
+"Thought you knew him," said he. "You were all having such a love feast
+gab-fest when I blew in. This is Mr. Orde, who bosses this place--and
+most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on
+this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it.
+He's humanity with a capital H."
+
+Ten minutes later the four men, cigars alight, a bottle within reach,
+were sprawling about the interior of one of the larger tents. Bob was
+enjoying himself hugely. It was the first time he had ever been behind
+the scenes at this sort of game.
+
+"But that was a good talk, just the same," he interrupted a cynical bit
+of bragging.
+
+"Say, wasn't it!" cried Porter. "I got that out of a shoutin'
+evangelist. The minute I heard it I saw where it was hot stuff for my
+spiel. I'm that way: I got that kind of good eye. I'll be going along
+the street and some little thing'll happen that won't amount to nothin'
+at all really. Another man wouldn't think twice about it. But like a
+flash it comes to me how it would fit in to a spiel. It's like an artist
+that way finding things to put in a picture. You'd never spot a dago
+apple peddler as good for nothing but to work a little graft on mebbe;
+but an artist comes along and slaps him in a picture and he's the
+fanciest-looking dope in the art collection. That's me. I got some of my
+best spiels from the funniest places! That one this morning is a wonder,
+because it don't _listen_ like a spiel. I followed that evangelist yap
+around for a week getting his dope down fine. You got to get the
+language just right on these things, or they don't carry over."
+
+"Which one is it, Painful?" asked Baker.
+
+"You know; the make-your-work-a-good-to-humanity bluff."
+
+"And all about papa in the 'sixties?"
+
+"That's it."
+
+"'And just don't you _dare_ tell the neighbours?'"
+
+"Correct."
+
+"The whole mountains will know all about it by to-morrow," Baker told
+Bob, "and they'll flock up here in droves. It's easy money."
+
+"Half these country yaps have bum teeth, anyway," said Porter.
+
+"And the rest of them think they're sick," stated Wizard Waller.
+
+"It beats a free show for results and expense," said Painless Porter.
+"All you got to have is the tents and the Japs and the
+Willie-off-the-yacht togs." He sighed. "There ought to be _some_
+advantages," he concluded, "to drag a man so far from the street
+lights."
+
+"Then this isn't much of a pleasure trip?" asked Bob with some
+amusement.
+
+"Pleasure, hell!" snorted Painless, helping himself to a drink. "Say,
+honest, how do you fellows that have business up here stick it out? It
+gives me the willies!"
+
+One of the Japanese peered into the tent and made a sign.
+
+Painless Porter dropped his voice.
+
+"A dope already," said he. He put on his air, and went out. As Bob and
+Baker crossed the enclosed space, they saw him in conversation with a
+gawky farm lad from the plains.
+
+"I shore do hate to trouble you, doctor," the boy was saying, "and hit
+Sunday, too. But I got a tooth back here--"
+
+Painless Porter was listening with an air of the deepest and gravest
+attention.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The charlatan had babbled; but without knowing it he had given Bob what
+he sought. He saw all the reasons for what had heretofore been obscure.
+
+Why had he been dissatisfied with business opportunities and successes
+beyond the hopes of most young men?
+
+How could he dare criticize the ultimate value of such successes without
+criticizing the life work of such men as Welton, as his own father?
+
+What right had he to condemn as insufficient nine-tenths of those in the
+industrial world; and yet what else but condemnation did his attitude of
+mind imply?
+
+All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like fog. Quite simply
+it all resolved itself. He was dissatisfied because this was not his
+work. The other honest and sincere men--such as his father and
+Welton--had been satisfied because this was their work. The old
+generation, the one that was passing, needed just that kind of service
+but the need too was passing. Bob belonged to the new generation. He saw
+that new things were to be demanded. The old order was changing. The
+modern young men of energy and force and strong ability had a different
+task from that which their fathers had accomplished. The wilderness was
+subdued; the pioneer work of industry was finished; the hard brute
+struggle to shape things to efficiency was over. It had been necessary
+to get things done. Now it was becoming necessary to perfect the means
+and methods of doing. Lumber must still be cut, streams must still be
+dammed, railroads must still be built; but now that the pioneers, the
+men of fire, had blazed the way others could follow. Methods were
+established. It was all a business, like the selling of groceries. The
+industrial rank and file could attend to details. The men who thought
+and struggled and carried the torch--they must go beyond what their
+fathers had accomplished.
+
+Now Bob understood Amy Thorne's pride in the Service. He saw the true
+basis of his feeling toward the Supervisor as opposed to his feeling
+toward Baker. Thorne was in the current. With his pitiful eighteen
+hundred a year he was nevertheless swimming strongly in new waters. His
+business went that little necessary step beyond. It not only earned him
+his living in the world, but it helped the race movement of his people.
+At present the living was small, just as at first the pioneer opening
+the country had wrested but a scanty livelihood from the stubborn
+wilderness; nevertheless, he could feel--whether he stopped to think it
+out or not--that his efforts had that coordination with the trend of
+humanity which makes subtly for satisfaction and happiness. Bob looked
+about the mill yard with an understanding eye. This work was necessary;
+but it was not his work.
+
+Something of this he tried to explain to his new friends at headquarters
+when next he found an opportunity to ride over. His explanations were
+not very lucid, for Bob was no great hand at analysis. To any other
+audience they might have been absolutely incoherent. But Thorne had long
+since reasoned all this out for himself; so he understood; while to
+California John the matter had always been one to take for granted. Bob
+leaned forward, his earnest, sun-browned young face flushed with the
+sincerity--and the embarrassment--of his exposition. Amy nodded from
+time to time, her eyes shining, her glance every few moments seeking in
+triumph that of her brother. California John smoked.
+
+Finally Bob put it squarely to Thorne.
+
+"So you'd like to join the Service," said Thorne slowly. "I suppose
+you've thought of the chance you're giving up? Welton will take you into
+partnership in time, of course."
+
+"I know. It seems foolish. Can't make it seem anything else," Bob
+admitted.
+
+"You'd have to take your chances," Thorne persisted. "I couldn't help
+you. A ranger's salary is ninety a month now, and find yourself and
+horses. Have you any private means?"
+
+"Not enough to say so."
+
+"There's another thing," Thorne went on. "This forestry of our
+government is destined to be a tremendous affair; but what we need more
+just now is better logging methods among the private loggers. It would
+count more than anything else if you'd stay just where you are and give
+us model operations in your own work."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"Perhaps you don't know men like Mr. Welton as well as I do," said he;
+"I couldn't change his methods. That's absolutely out of the question.
+And," he went on with a sudden flash of loyalty to what the old-timers
+had meant, "I don't believe I'd want to."
+
+"Not want to!" cried Amy.
+
+"No," pursued Bob doggedly, "not unless he could see the point himself
+and of his own accord. He's done a great work in his time, and he's
+grown old at it. I wouldn't for anything in the world do anything to
+shake his faith in what he's done, even if he's doing it wrong now."
+
+"He and his kind have always slaughtered the forests shamefully!" broke
+in Amy with some heat.
+
+"They opened a new country for a new people," said Bob gently. "Perhaps
+they did it wastefully; perhaps not. I notice you've got to use lots of
+lubricating oil on a new machine. But there was nobody else to do it any
+different."
+
+"Then you'd let them go on wasting and destroying?" demanded Amy
+scornfully.
+
+"I don't know," hesitated Bob; "I haven't thought all this out. Perhaps
+I'm not very much on the think. It seems to me rather this way: We've
+got to have lumber, haven't we? And somebody has to cut it and supply
+it. Men like Mr. Welton are doing it, by the methods they've found
+effective. They are working for the Present; we of the new generation
+want to work for the Future. It's a fair division. Somebody's got to
+attend to them both."
+
+"Well, that's what I say!" cried Amy. "If they wouldn't waste and slash
+and leave good material in the woods--"
+
+Bob smiled whimsically.
+
+"A lumberman doesn't like to leave things in the woods," said he. "If
+somebody will pay for the tops and the needles, he'll sell them; if
+there's a market for cull lumber, he'll supply it; and if somebody will
+create a demand for knotholes, _he'll invent some way of getting them
+out_! You see I'm a lumberman myself."
+
+"Why don't you log with some reference to the future, then?" demanded
+Amy.
+
+"Because it doesn't pay," stated Bob deliberately.
+
+"Pay!" cried Amy.
+
+"Yes," said Bob mildly. "Why not? The lumberman fulfills a commercial
+function, like any one else; why shouldn't he be allowed freely a
+commercial reward? You can't lead a commercial class by ideals that
+absolutely conflict with commercial motives. If you want to introduce
+your ideals among lumbermen, you want to educate them; and in order to
+educate them you must fix it so your ideals don't actually spell _loss!_
+Rearrange the scheme of taxation, for one thing. Get your ideas of fire
+protection and conservation on a practical basis. It's all very well to
+talk about how nice it would be to chop up all the waste tops and pile
+them like cordwood, and to scrape together the twigs and needles and
+burn them. It would certainly be neat and effective. But can't you get
+some scheme that would be just as effective, but not so neat? It's the
+difference between a yacht and a lumber schooner. We can't expect
+everybody to turn right in and sacrifice themselves to be
+philanthropists because the spirit of the age tells them they ought to
+be. We've got to make it so easy to do things right that anybody at all
+decent will be ashamed not to. Then we've got to wait for the spirit of
+the people to grow to new things. It's coming, but it's not here yet."
+
+California John, who had listened with the closest attention, slapped
+his knee.
+
+"Good sense," said he.
+
+"But you can educate people, can't you?" asked Amy, a trifle subdued and
+puzzled by these practical considerations.
+
+"Some people can," agreed Thorne, speaking up, "and they're doing it.
+But Mr. Orde is right; it's only the spirit of the people that can bring
+about new things. We think we have leaders, but we have only
+interpreters. When the time is ripe to change things, then the spirit of
+the people rises to forbid old practices."
+
+"That's it," said Bob; "I just couldn't get at it. Well, the way I feel
+about it is that when all these new methods and principles have become
+well known, then we can call a halt with some authority. You can't
+condemn a man for doing his best, can you?"
+
+The girl, at a loss, flushed, and almost crying, looked at them all
+helplessly.
+
+"But----" she cried.
+
+"I believe it will all come about in time," said Thorne. "There's sure
+to come a time when it will not be too much off balance to _require_
+private firms to do things according to our methods. Then it will pay to
+log the government forests on an extensive scale; and private forests
+will have to come to our way of doing things."
+
+"What's the use of all our fights and strivings?" asked Amy; "what's the
+use of our preaching decent woods work if it can't be carried out?"
+
+"It's educational," explained Thorne. "It starts people thinking, so
+that when the time comes they'll be ready."
+
+"Furthermore," put in Bob, "it fixes it so these young fellows who will
+then be in charge of private operations will have no earthly excuse to
+look at it wrong, or do it wrong."
+
+"It will then be the difference between their acting according to
+general ideas or against them," agreed Thorne.
+
+"Never lick a pup for chasin' rabbits until yore ready to teach him to
+chase deer," put in California John.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Bob found it much more difficult to approach Welton. When he did, he had
+to contend with the older man's absolute disbelief in what he was
+saying. Welton sat down on a stump and considered Bob with a humorous
+twinkle.
+
+"Want to quit the lumber business!" he echoed Bob's first statement.
+"What for?"
+
+"I don't think I'm cut out for it."
+
+"No? Well, then, I never saw anybody that was. You don't happen to need
+no more money?"
+
+"Lord, no!"
+
+"Of course, you know you'll have pretty good prospects here----" stated
+Welton tentatively.
+
+"I understand that; but the work doesn't satisfy me, somehow: I'm
+through with it."
+
+"Getting restless," surmised Welton. "What you need is a vacation. I
+forgot we kept you at it pretty close all last winter. Take a couple
+weeks off and make a trip in back somewheres."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"It isn't that; I'm sorry. I'm just through with this. I couldn't keep
+on at it and do good work. I know that."
+
+"It's a vacation you need," insisted Welton chuckling, "--or else you're
+in love. Isn't that, is it?"
+
+"No," Bob laughed quite wholeheartedly. "It isn't that."
+
+"You haven't got a better job, have you?" Welton joked.
+
+Bob considered. "Yes; I believe I have," he said at last; "at least I'm
+hoping to get it."
+
+Welton looked at him closely; saw that he was in earnest.
+
+"What is it?" he asked curtly.
+
+Bob, suddenly smitten with a sense of the futility of trying to argue
+out his point of view here in the woods, drew back.
+
+"Can't tell just yet," said he.
+
+Welton climbed down from the stump; stood firmly for a moment, his
+sturdy legs apart; then moved forward down the trail.
+
+"I'll raise his ante, whatever it is," he said abruptly at length. "I
+don't believe in it, but I'll do it. I need you."
+
+"You've always treated me better than I ever deserved," said Bob
+earnestly, "and I'll stay all summer, or all next winter--until you feel
+that you do not need me longer; but I'm sure that I must go."
+
+For two days Welton disbelieved the reality of his intention. For two
+days further he clung to a notion that in some way Bob must be
+dissatisfied with something tangible in his treatment. Then, convinced
+at last, he took alarm, and dropped his facetious attitude.
+
+"Look here, Bob," said he, "this isn't quite fair, is it? This is a big
+piece of timber. It needs a man with a longer life in front of him than
+I can hope for. I wanted to be able to think that in a few years, when I
+get tired I could count on you for the heavy work. It's too big a
+business for an old man."
+
+"I'll stay with you until you find that young man," said Bob. "There are
+a good many, trained to the business, capable of handling this
+property."
+
+"But nobody like you, Bobby. I've brought you up to my methods. We've
+grown up together at this. You're just like a son to me." Welton's
+round, red face was puckered to a wistful and comically pathetic twist,
+as he looked across at the serious manly young fellow.
+
+Bob looked away. "That's just what makes it hard," he managed to say at
+last; "I'd like to go on with you. We've gotten on famously. But I
+can't. This isn't my work."
+
+Welton laboured in vain to induce him to change his mind. Several times
+he considered telling Bob the truth--that all this timber belonged
+really to Jack Orde, Bob's father, and that his, Welton's interest in it
+was merely that of the active partner in the industry. But this his
+friend had expressly forbidden. Welton ended by saying nothing about it.
+He resolved first to write Orde.
+
+"You might tell me what this new job is, though," he said at last, in
+apparent acquiescence.
+
+Bob hesitated. "You won't understand; and I won't be able to make you
+understand," he said. "I'm going to enter the Forest Service!"
+
+"What!" cried Welton, in blank astonishment. "What's that?"
+
+"I've about decided to take service as a ranger," stated Bob, his face
+flushing.
+
+From that moment all Welton's anxiety seemed to vanish. It became
+unbearably evident that he looked on all this as the romance of youth.
+Bob felt himself suddenly reduced, in the lumberman's eyes, to the
+status of the small boy who wants to be a cowboy, or a sailor, or an
+Indian fighter. Welton looked on him with an indulgent eye as on one who
+would soon get enough of it. The glamour--whatever it was--would soon
+wear off; and then Bob, his fling over, would return to sober, real
+business once more. All Welton's joviality returned. From time to time
+he would throw a facetious remark in Bob's direction, when, in the
+course of the day's work, he happened to pass.
+
+"It's sure going to be fine to wear a real tin star and be an officer!"
+
+Or:
+
+"Bob, it sure will seem scrumptious to ride out and boss the whole
+country--on ninety a month. Guess I'll join you."
+
+Or:
+
+"You going to make me sweep up my slashings, or will a rake do, Mr.
+Ranger?"
+
+To these feeble jests Bob always replied good-naturedly. He did not
+attempt to improve Welton's conception of his purposes. That must come
+with time. To his father, however, he wrote at great length; trying his
+best to explain the situation. Mr. Orde replied that a government
+position was always honourable; but confessed himself disappointed that
+his son had not more steadfastness of purpose. Welton received a reply
+to his own letter by the same mail.
+
+"I shouldn't tell him anything," it read. "Let him go be a ranger, or a
+cowboy, or anything else he wants. He's still young. I didn't get my
+start until I was thirty; and the business is big enough to wait for
+him. You keep pegging along, and when he gets enough, he'll come back.
+He's apparently got some notions of serving the public, and doing good
+in the world, and all that. We all get it at his age. By and by he'll
+find out that tending to his business honestly is about one man's job."
+
+So, without active opposition, and with only tacit disapproval, Bob made
+his change. Nor was he received at headquarters with any blare of
+trumpets.
+
+"I'll put you on as 'temporary' until the fall examinations," said
+Thorne, "and you can try it out. Rangering is hard work--all kinds of
+hard work. It isn't just riding around, you know. You'll have to make
+good. You can bunk up with Pollock at the upper cabin. Report to-morrow
+morning with him."
+
+Amy smiled at him brightly.
+
+"Don't let him scare you," said she. "He thinks it looks official to be
+an awful bear!"
+
+California John met him as he rode out the gate. He reached out his
+gnarled old hand.
+
+"Son, we'll get him to send us sometime to Jack Main's Canon," said he.
+
+Bob, who had been feeling the least shade depressed, rode on, his head
+high. Before him lay the great mysterious country where had penetrated
+only the Pioneers! Another century would build therein the structures
+of its institutions. Now, like Jack Main's Canon, the far country of new
+things was to be the field of his enterprise. In the future, when the
+new generations had come, these things would all be ordered and secure,
+would be systematized, their value conceded, their acceptance a matter
+of course. All problems would be regulated; all difficulties smoothed
+away; all opposition overcome. Then the officers and rangers of that
+peaceful and organized service, then the public--accepting such things
+as they accept all self-evident truths--would look back on these
+beginnings as men look back on romance. They would recall the time when,
+like knights errant, armed men rode abroad on horses through a
+wilderness, lying down under the stars, living hard, dwelling lowly in
+poverty, accomplishing with small means, striving mightily, combating
+the great elemental nature and the powers of darkness in men, enduring
+patiently, suffering contempt and misunderstanding and enmity in order
+that the inheritance of the people yet to come might be assured. He was
+one of them; he had the privilege. Suddenly his spirit felt freed. His
+old life receded swiftly. A new glory and uplift of soul swept him from
+his old moorings.
+
+
+
+
+PART FIVE
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Next morning Bob was set to work with young Jack Pollock stringing
+barbed wire fence. He had never done this before. The spools of wire
+weighed on him heavily. A crowbar thrust through the core made them a
+sort of axle with which to carry it. Thus they walked forward, revolving
+the heavy spool with the greatest care while the strand of wire unwound
+behind them. Every once in a while a coil would kink, or buckle back, or
+strike as swiftly and as viciously as a snake. The sharp barbs caught at
+their clothing, and tore Bob's hands. Jack Pollock seemed familiar with
+the idiosyncrasies of the stuff, for he suffered little damage. Indeed,
+he even found leisure, as Bob soon discovered, to scrutinize his
+companion with a covert curiosity. In the eyes of the countryside, Bob
+had been "fired," and had been forced to take a job rangering. When the
+entangling strand had been laid along the ground by the newly planted
+cedar posts, it became necessary to stretch and fasten it. Here, too,
+young Jack proved himself a competent teacher. He showed Bob how to get
+a tremendous leverage with the curve on the back of an ordinary hammer
+by means of which the wire was held taut until the staples could be
+driven home. It was aggravating, nervous, painful work for one not
+accustomed to it. Bob's hands were soon cut and bleeding, no matter how
+gingerly he took hold of the treacherous wire. To all his comments,
+heated and otherwise, Jack Pollock opposed the mountaineer's determined
+inscrutability. He watched Bob's efforts always in silence until that
+young man had made all his mistakes. Then he spat carefully, and, with
+quiet patience, did it right.
+
+Bob's sense of humour was tickled. With all his education and his
+subsequent wide experience and training, he stood in the position of a
+very awkward subordinate to this mountain boy. The joke of it was that
+the matter was so entirely his own choice. In the normal relations of
+industry Bob would have been the boss of a hundred activities and twice
+that number of men; while Jack Pollock, at best, would be water-boy or
+fuel-purveyor to a donkey engine. Along in the middle of the morning
+young Elliott passed carrying a crowbar and a spade.
+
+"How'll you trade jobs?" he called.
+
+"What's yours?" asked Bob.
+
+"I'm going to make two cedar posts grow where none grew before," said
+Elliott.
+
+At noon they knocked off and went back to the ranger camp where they
+cooked their own meal. Most of the older rangers were afield. A
+half-dozen of the newcomers and probationers only were there. Elliott,
+Jack Pollock, two other young mountaineers, Ware and one of the youths
+from the valley towns had apparently passed the examinations and filled
+vacancies. All, with the exception of Elliott and this latter
+youth--Curtis by name--were old hands at taking care of themselves in
+the woods, so matters of their own accord fell into a rough system. Some
+built the fire, one mixed bread, others busied themselves with the rest
+of the provisions. Elliott rummaged about, and set the rough table with
+the battered service. Only Curtis, seated with his back against a tree,
+appeared too utterly exhausted or ignorant to take hold at anything.
+Indeed, he hardly spoke to his companions, ate hastily, and disappeared
+into his own quarters without offering to help wash the dishes.
+
+This task accomplished, the little group scattered to its afternoon
+work. In the necessity of stringing wire without cutting himself to
+ribbons, Bob forgot everything, even the flight of time.
+
+"I reckon it's about quittin' time," Jack observed to him at last.
+
+Bob looked up in surprise. The sun was indeed dropping low.
+
+"We must be about half done," he remarked, measuring the extent of the
+meadow with his eye.
+
+"Two more wires to string," Pollock reminded him.
+
+The mountaineer threw the grain sack of staples against the last post,
+tossed his hammer and the hatchet with them.
+
+"Hold on," said Bob. "You aren't going to leave them there?"
+
+"Shore," said Pollock. "We'll have to begin there to-morrow."
+
+But Bob's long training in handling large bodies of men with tools had
+developed in him an instinct of tool-orderliness.
+
+"Won't do," he stated with something of his old-time authority in his
+tones. "Suppose for some reason we shouldn't get back here to-morrow?
+That's the way such things get mislaid; and they're valuable."
+
+He picked up the hatchet and the axe. Grumbling something under his
+breath, Pollock shouldered the staples and thrust the hammer in his
+pocket.
+
+"It isn't as if these things were ours," said Bob, realizing that he had
+spoken in an unduly minatory tone.
+
+"That's right," agreed Jack more cheerfully.
+
+In addition to the new men, they found Ross Fletcher and Charley Morton
+at the camp. The evening meal was prepared cheerfully and roughly, eaten
+under a rather dim lamp. Pipes were lit, and they all began leisurely to
+clean up. The smoke hung low in the air. One by one the men dropped back
+into their rough, homemade chairs, or sprawled out on the floor. Some
+one lit the fire in the stone chimney, for the mountain air nipped
+shrewdly after the sun had set. A general relaxing after the day's work,
+a general cheerfulness, a general dry, chaffing wit took possession of
+them. Two played cribbage under the lamp. One wrote a letter. The rest
+gossiped of the affairs of the service. Only in the corner by himself
+young Curtis sat. As at noon, he had had nothing to say to any one, and
+had not attempted to offer assistance in the communal work. Bob
+concluded he must be tired from the unaccustomed labour of the day.
+Bob's own shoulders ached; and he was in pretty good shape, too.
+
+"What makes me mad," Ross Fletcher's voice suddenly clove the murmur,
+"is the things we have to do. I was breaking rock on a trail all day
+to-day. Think of that! Day labourer's work! State prison work!"
+
+Bob looked up in amazement, as did every one else.
+
+"When a man hires out to be a ranger," Ross went on, "he don't expect to
+be a carpenter, or a stone mason; he expects to be a _ranger_!"
+
+Immediately Charley Morton chimed in to the same purpose. Bob listened
+with a rising indignation. This sort of talk was old, but he had not
+expected to meet it here; it is the talk of incompetence against
+authority everywhere, of the sea lawyer, the lumberjack, the soldier,
+the spoiled subordinate in all walks of life. He had taken for granted a
+finer sort of loyalty here; especially from such men as Ross and Charley
+Morton. His face flushed, and he leaned forward to say something. Jack
+Pollock jogged his elbow fiercely.
+
+"Hush up!" the young mountaineer whispered; "cain't you see they're
+tryin' for a rise?"
+
+Bob laughed softly to himself, and relaxed. He should have been
+experienced enough, he told himself, to have recognized so obvious and
+usual a trick of all campers.
+
+But it was not for Bob, nor his like, that Ross was angling. In fact, he
+caught his bite almost immediately. For the first time that day Curtis
+woke up and displayed some interest.
+
+"That's what I say!" he cried.
+
+The older man turned to him.
+
+"What they been making you do to-day, son?" asked Ross.
+
+"I've been digging post holes up in those rocks," said Curtis
+indignantly.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me they put you at that?" demanded Ross; "why,
+they're supposed to get _Injins_, just cheap dollar-a-day Digger Injins,
+for that job. And they put you at it!"
+
+"Yes," said Curtis, "they did. I didn't hire out for any such work. My
+father's county clerk down below."
+
+"You don't say!" said Ross.
+
+"Yes, and my hands are all blistered and my back is lame, and----"
+
+But the expectant youngsters could hold in no longer. A roar of laughter
+cut the speaker short. Curtis stared, bewildered. Ross and Charley
+Morton were laughing harder than anybody else. He started to his feet.
+
+"Hold on, son," Ross commanded him, wiping his eyes. "Don't get hostile
+at a little joke. You'll get used to the work. Of course we all like to
+ride off in the mountains, and do cattle work, and figure on things, and
+do administrative work; and we none of us are stuck on construction." He
+looked around him at his audience, now quiet and attentive. "But we've
+got to have headquarters, and barns, and houses, and corrals and
+pastures. Once they're built, they're built and that ends it. But they
+got to be built. We're just in hard luck that we happen to be rangers
+right now. The Service can't hire carpenters for us very well, way up
+here; and _somebody's_ got to do it. It ain't as if we had to do it for
+a living, all the time. There's a variety. We get all kinds. Rangering's
+no snap, any more than any other job. One thing," he ended with a laugh,
+"we get a chance to do about everything."
+
+The valley youth had dropped sullenly back into the shadows, nor did he
+reply to this. After a little the men scattered to their quarters, for
+they were tired.
+
+Bob and Jack Pollock occupied together one of the older cabins, a rough
+little structure, built mainly of shakes. It contained two bunks, a
+rough table, and two stools constructed of tobacco boxes to which legs
+had been nailed. As the young men were preparing for bed, Bob remarked:
+
+"Fletcher got his rise, all right. Much obliged for your tip. I nearly
+bit. But he wasted his talk in my notion. That fellow is hopeless. Ross
+labours in vain if he tries to brace him up."
+
+"I reckon Ross knows that," replied Jack, "and I reckon too, he has
+mighty few hopes of bracin' up Curtis. I have a kind of notion Ross was
+just usin' that Curtis as a mark to talk at. What he was talkin' _to_
+was us."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The week's hard physical toil was unrelieved. After Bob and Jack Pollock
+had driven the last staple in the last strand of barbed wire, they
+turned their horses into the new pasture. The animals, overjoyed to get
+free of the picket ropes that had heretofore confined them, took long,
+satisfying rolls in the sandy corner, and then went eagerly to cropping
+at the green feed. Bob, leaning on the gate, with the rope still in his
+hand, experienced a glow of personal achievement greater than any he
+remembered to have felt since, as a small boy, he had unaided reasoned
+out the problem of clear impression on his toy printing press. He
+recognized this as illogical, for he had, in all modesty, achieved
+affairs of some importance. Nevertheless, the sight of his own animal
+enjoying its liberty in an enclosure created by his own two hands
+pleased him to the core. He grinned in appreciation of Elliott's
+humorous parody on the sentimental slogan of the schools--"to make two
+cedar posts grow where none grew before." There was, after all, a rather
+especial satisfaction in that principle.
+
+It next became necessary, he found, that the roof over the new office at
+headquarters should receive a stain that would protect it against the
+weather. He acquired a flat brush, a little seat with spikes in its
+supports, and a can of stain whose base seemed to be a very
+evil-smelling fish oil. Here all day long he clung, daubing on the
+stain. When one shingle was done, another awaited his attention, over
+and over, in unvarying monotony. It was the sort of job he had always
+loathed, but he stuck to it cheerfully, driving his brush deep in the
+cracks in order that no crevice might remain for the entrance of the
+insidious principle of decay. Casting about in his leisure there for the
+reason of his patience, he discovered it in just that; he was now at no
+task to be got through with, to be made way with; he was engaged in a
+job that was to be permanent. Unless he did it right, it would not be
+permanent.
+
+Below him the life of headquarters went on. He saw it all, and heard it
+all, for every scrap of conversation rose to him from within the office.
+He was amazed at the diversity of interests and the complexity of
+problems that came there for attention.
+
+"Look here, Mr. Thorne," said one of the rangers, "this Use Book says
+that a settler has a right to graze ten head of stock _actually in use_
+free of grazing charge. Now there's Brown up at the north end. He runs a
+little dairy business, and has about a hundred head of cattle up. He
+claims we ought not to charge him for ten head of them because they're
+all 'actually in use.' How about it?"
+
+Thorne explained that the exemption did not apply to commercial uses and
+that Brown must pay for all. He qualified the statement by saying that
+this was the latest interpretation of which he had heard.
+
+In like manner the policies in regard to a dozen little industries and
+interests were being patiently defined and determined--dairies, beef
+cattle, shake makers, bees, box and cleat men, free timber users, mining
+men, seekers for water concessions, those who desired rights of way,
+permits for posts, pastures, mill sites--all these proffered their
+requests and difficulties to the Supervisor. Sometimes they were
+answered on the spot. Oftener their remarks were listened to, their
+propositions taken under advisement. Then one or another of the rangers
+was summoned, given instructions. He packed his mule, saddled his horse,
+and rode away to be gone a greater or lesser period of time. Others were
+sent out to run lines about tracts, to define boundaries. Still others,
+like Ross Fletcher, pounded drill and rock, and exploded powder on the
+new trail that was to make more accessible the tremendous canon of the
+river. The men who came and went rarely represented any but the smallest
+interests; yet somehow Bob felt their importance, and the importance of
+the little problems threshed out in the tiny, rough-finished office
+below him. These but foreshadowed the greater things to come. And these
+minute decisions shaped the policies and precedents of what would become
+mighty affairs. Whether Brown should be allowed to save his paltry three
+dollars and a half or not determined larger things. To Bob's half-mystic
+mood, up there under the mottled shadows, every tiny move of this game
+became portentous with fate. A return of the old exultation lifted him.
+He saw the shadows of these affairs cast dim and gigantic against the
+mists of the future. These men were big with the responsibility of a new
+thing. It behooved them all to act with circumspection, with due heed,
+with reverence----
+
+Bob applied his broad brush and the evil-smelling stain methodically and
+with minute care as to every tiny detail of the simple work. But his
+eyes were wide and unseeing, and all the inner forces of his soul were
+moving slowly and mightily. His personality had nothing to do with the
+matter. He painted; and affairs went on with him. His being held itself
+passive, in suspension, while the forces and experiences and influences
+of one phase of his life crystallized into their foreordained shapes
+deep within him. Yesterday he was this; now he was becoming that; and
+the two were as different beings. New doors of insight were silently
+swinging open on their hinges, old prejudices were closing, fresh
+convictions long snugly in the bud were unfolding like flowers. These
+things were not new. They had begun many years before when as a young
+boy he had stared wide-eyed, unseeing and uncomprehending, gazing down
+the sun-streaked, green, lucent depths of an aisle in the forest. Bob
+painted steadily on, moving his little seat nearer and nearer the
+eaves. When noon and night came, he hung up his utensils very carefully,
+washed up, and tramped to the rangers' camp, where he took his part in
+the daily tasks, assumed his share of the conversation, entered into the
+fun, and contributed his ideas toward the endless discussions. No one
+noticed that he was in any way different from his ordinary self. But it
+was as though some one outside of himself, in the outer circle of his
+being, carried on these necessary and customary things. He, drawn apart,
+watched by the shrine of his soul. He did nothing, either by thought or
+effort--merely watched, patient and rapt, while foreordained and mighty
+changes took place--
+
+He reached the edge of the roof; stood on the ladder to finish the last
+row of the riven shingles. Slowly his brush moved, finishing the cracks
+deep down so that the principle of decay might never enter. Inside the
+office Thorne sat dictating a letter to some applicant for privilege.
+The principle was new in its interpretation, and so Thorne was choosing
+his words with the greatest care. Swiftly before Bob's inner vision the
+prospect widened. Thorne became a prophet speaking down the years; the
+least of these men in a great new Service became the austere champions
+of something high and beautiful. For one moment Bob dwelt in a
+wonderful, breathless, vast, unreal country where heroic figures moved
+in the importance of all the unborn future, dim-seen, half-revealed. He
+drew his brush across the last shingle of all. Something seemed to
+click. Swiftly the gates shut, the strange country receded into infinite
+distance. With a rush like the sucking of water into a vacuum the
+everyday world drew close. Bob, his faculties once more in their
+accustomed seat, looked about him as one awakened. His hour was over.
+The change had taken place.
+
+Thorne was standing in the doorway with Amy, their dictation finished.
+
+"All done?" said he. "Well, you did a thorough job. It's the kind that
+will last."
+
+"I'm right on deck when it comes to painting things red," retorted Bob.
+"What next?"
+
+"Next," said Thorne, "I want you to help one of the boys split some
+cedar posts. We've got a corral or so to make."
+
+Bob descended slowly from the ladder, balancing the remainder of the red
+stain. Thorne looked at him curiously.
+
+"How do you like it as far as you've gone?" he permitted himself to ask.
+"This isn't quite up to the romantic idea of rangering, is it?"
+
+"Well," said Bob with conviction, "I suppose it may sound foolish; but I
+never was surer of anything in my life than that I've struck the right
+job."
+
+As he walked home that night, he looked back on the last few days with a
+curious bewilderment. It had all been so real; now apparently it meant
+nothing. Thorne was doing good work; these rangers were good men. But
+where had vanished all Bob's exaltation? where his feeling of the
+portent and influence and far-reaching significance of what these men
+were doing? He realized its importance; but the feeling of its
+fatefulness had utterly gone. Things with him were back on a work-a-day
+basis. He even laughed a little, good-humouredly, at himself. At the
+gate to the new pasture he once more stopped and looked at his horse. A
+deep content came over him.
+
+"I've sure struck the right job!" he repeated aloud with conviction.
+
+And this, could he have known it, was the outward and visible and only
+sign of the things spiritual that had been veiled.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+When Saturday evening came the men washed and shaved and put on clean
+garments. Bob, dog tired after a hard day, was more inclined to lie on
+his back.
+
+"Ain't you-all goin' over to-night?" asked Jack Pollock.
+
+"Over where?"
+
+"Why," explained the younger man, "always after supper Saturdays all the
+boys who are in camp go over to spend the evenin' at headquarters."
+
+Aggressively sleek and scrubbed, the little group marched down through
+the woods in the twilight. At headquarters Amy Thorne and her brother
+welcomed them and ushered them into the big room, with the stone
+fireplace. In this latter a fire of shake-bolts leaped and roared. The
+men crowded in, a trifle bashfully, found boxes and home-made chairs,
+and perched about talking occasionally in very low tones to the nearest
+neighbour. Amy sat in a rocking chair by the table lamp, sewing on
+something, paying little attention to the rangers, save to throw out an
+occasional random remark. Thorne had not yet entered. Finally Amy
+dropped the sewing in her lap.
+
+"You're all as solemn as a camp-meeting," she told them severely. "How
+many times must I tell you to smoke up and be agreeable? Here, Mr. Ware,
+set them a good example."
+
+She pushed a cigar box toward the older man. Bob saw it to be half full
+of the fine-flaked tobacco so much used in the West. Thus encouraged,
+Ware rolled himself a cigarette. Others followed suit. Still others
+produced and filled black old pipes. A formidable haze eddied through
+the apartment. Amy, still sewing, said, without looking up:
+
+"One of you boys go rummage the store room for the corn popper. The
+corn's in a corn-meal sack on the far shelf."
+
+Just then Thorne came in, bringing a draft of cold air with him.
+
+"Well," said he, "this is a pretty full house for this time of year."
+
+He walked directly to the rough, board shelf and from it took down a
+book.
+
+"This man Kipling will do again for to-night," he remarked. "He knows
+more about our kind of fellow than most. I've sent for one or two other
+things you ought to know, but just now I want to read you a story that
+may remind you of something you've run against yourself. We've a few
+wild, red-headed Irishmen ourselves in these hills."
+
+He walked briskly to the lamp, opened the volume, and at once began to
+read. Every once in a while he looked up from the book to explain a
+phrase in terms the men would understand, or to comment pithily on some
+similarity in their own experience. When he had finished, he looked
+about at them, challenging.
+
+"There; what did I tell you? Isn't that just about the way they hand it
+out to us here? And this story took place the other side of the world!
+It's quite wonderful when you stop to think about it, isn't it? Listen
+to this--"
+
+He pounced on another story. This led him to a second incursion on the
+meagre library. Bob did not recognize the practical, rather hard Thorne
+of everyday official life. The man was carried away by his eagerness to
+interpret the little East Indian to these comrade spirits of the West.
+The rangers listened with complete sympathy, every once in a while
+throwing in a comment or a criticism, never hesitating to interrupt when
+interruption seemed pertinent.
+
+Finally Amy, who had all this time been sewing away unmoved, a
+half-tender, half-amused smile curving her lips, laid down her work with
+an air of decision.
+
+"I'll call your attention," said she, "to the fact that I'm hungry. Shut
+up your book; I won't hear another word." She leaned across the table,
+and, in spite of Thorne's half-earnest protests, took possession of the
+volume.
+
+"Besides," she remarked, "look at poor Jack Pollock; he's been popping
+corn like a little machine, and he must be nearly roasted himself."
+
+Jack turned to her a face very red from the heat of the leaping pine
+fire.
+
+"That's right," he grinned, "but I got about a dishpan done."
+
+"You'll be in practice to fight fire," some one chaffed him.
+
+"Oh, he'll fight fire all right, if there's somethin' to eat the other
+side," drawled Charley Morton.
+
+"It's plenty," said Amy, referring to the quantity of popcorn.
+
+"Why," spoke up California John in an aggrieved and surprised tone,
+"ain't there nobody going to eat popcorn but me?"
+
+Amy disappeared only to return bearing a cake frosted with chocolate.
+The respect with which this was viewed proved that the men appreciated
+to the full what was represented by chocolate cake in this altitude of
+tiny stoves and scanty supplies. Again Amy dove into the store room.
+This time she bore back a huge enamel-ware pitcher which she set in the
+middle of the round table.
+
+"There!" she cried, her cheeks red with triumph.
+
+"What you got, Amy?" asked her brother.
+
+Ross Fletcher leaned forward to look.
+
+"Great guns!" he cried.
+
+The men jostled around, striving for a glimpse, half in joke, half in
+genuine curiosity.
+
+"Lemonade!" cried Ware.
+
+"None of your lime juice either," pronounced California John; "look at
+the genuine article floatin' around on top."
+
+They turned to Amy.
+
+"Where did you get them?" they demanded.
+
+But she shook her head, smiling, and declined to tell.
+
+They devoured the popcorn and the chocolate cake to the last crumb, and
+emptied the pitcher of genuine lemonade. Then they went home. It was all
+simple enough: cheap tobacco; reading aloud; a little rude chaffing;
+lemonade, cake and popcorn! Bob smiled to himself as he thought of the
+consternation a recital of these ingredients would carry to the
+sophisticated souls of most of his friends. Yet he had enjoyed the
+party, enjoyed it deeply and thoroughly. He came away from it glowing
+with good-fellowship.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+At these and similar occupations the latter days of June slipped by. Bob
+had little leisure, for the Service was undermanned for the work it must
+do. Curtis sooned resigned, to everybody's joy and relief.
+
+On only one occasion did Bob gain a chance to ride over to the scenes of
+his old activities. This was on a Sunday when, by a miracle, nothing
+unexpected came up to tie him to his duty. He had rather an
+unsatisfactory visit with Mr. Welton. It was cordial enough on both
+sides, for the men were genuinely fond of each other; but they had lost
+touch of each other's interests. Welton persisted in regarding Bob with
+a covert amusement, as an older man regards a younger who is having his
+fling, and will later settle down. Bob asked after the work, and was
+answered. Neither felt any real human interest in the questions nor
+their replies. A certain constraint held them, to Bob's very genuine
+regret. He rode back through the westering shadows vaguely uneasy in his
+mind.
+
+He and two of the new mountain men had been for two days cutting up some
+dead and down trees that encumbered the enclosure at headquarters. They
+cross-cut the trunks into handy lengths; bored holes in them with a
+two-inch augur; loaded the holes with blasting powder and a fuse, and
+touched them off. The powder split the logs into rough posts small
+enough to handle. These fragments they carried laboriously to the middle
+of the meadow, where they stacked them rack-fashion and on end. The idea
+was to combine business with pleasure by having a grand bonfire the
+night of the Fourth of July.
+
+For this day other preparations were forward. Amy promised a spread for
+everybody, if she could get a little help at the last moment. As many of
+the outlying rangers as could manage it would come in for the occasion.
+A shooting match, roping and chopping contests, and other sports were in
+contemplation.
+
+As the time drew near, various mysteries were plainly afoot. Men claimed
+their turns in riding down the mountain for the mail. They took with
+them pack horses. These they unpacked secretly and apart. Amy gave Bob
+to understand that this holiday, when the ranks were fullest and
+conditions ripe, went far as a substitute for Christmas among these men.
+
+Then at noon of July second Charley Morton dashed down the trail from
+the Upper Meadow, rode rapidly to Headquarters, flung himself from his
+horse, and dove into the office. After a moment he reappeared, followed
+by Thorne.
+
+"Saddle up, boys," said the latter. "Fire over beyond Baldy. Ride and
+gather in the men who are about here," he told Bob.
+
+Bob sprang on Charley Morton's horse and rode about instructing the
+workers to gather. When he returned, Thorne gave his instructions.
+
+"We're short-handed," he stated, "and it'll be hard to get help just at
+this time. Charley, you take Ware, Elliott and Carroll and see what it
+looks like. Start a fire line, and do the best you can. Orde, you and
+Pollock can get up some pack horses and follow later with grub,
+blankets, and so forth. I'll ride down the mountain to see what I can do
+about help. It may be I can catch somebody by phone at the Power House
+who can let the boys know at the north end. You say it's a big fire?"
+
+"I see quite a lot of smoke," said Charley.
+
+"Then the boys over Jackass way and by the Crossing ought to see it for
+themselves."
+
+The four men designated caught up their horses, saddled them, and
+mounted. Thorne handed them each a broad hoe, a rake and an axe. They
+rode off up the trail. Thorne mounted on his own horse.
+
+"Pack up and follow as fast as you can," he told the two who still
+remained.
+
+"What you want we should take?" asked Jack.
+
+"Amy will tell you. Get started early as you can. You'll have to follow
+their tracks."
+
+Amy took direction of them promptly. While they caught and saddled the
+pack horses, she was busy in the storeroom. They found laid out for them
+a few cooking utensils, a variety of provisions tied up in strong little
+sacks, several more hoes, axes and rakes, two mattocks, a half-dozen
+flat files, and as many big zinc canteens.
+
+"Now hurry!" she commanded them; "pack these, and then get some blankets
+from your camp, and some hobbles and picket ropes."
+
+With Bob's rather awkward help everything was made fast. By the time the
+two had packed the blankets and returned to headquarters on their way to
+the upper trail, they found Amy had changed her clothes, caught and
+saddled her own horse, tied on well-filled saddle bags, and stood
+awaiting them. She wore her broad hat looped back by the pine tree badge
+of the Service, a soft shirtwaist of gray flannel, a short divided skirt
+of khaki and high-laced boots. A red neckerchief matched her cheeks,
+which were glowing with excitement. Immediately they appeared, she swung
+aboard with the easy grace of one long accustomed to the saddle. Bob's
+lower jaw dropped in amazement.
+
+"You going?" he gasped, unable even yet to comprehend the everyday fact
+that so many gently nurtured Western girls are accustomed to those
+rough-and-ready bivouacs.
+
+"I wouldn't stay away for worlds!" she cried, turning her pony's head up
+the trail.
+
+Beyond the upper meadow this trail suddenly began to climb. It made its
+way by lacets in the dry earth, by scrambles in the rocks until, through
+the rapidly thinning ranks of the scrubby trees, Bob could look back
+over all the broad shelf of the mountain whereon grew the pines. It lay
+spread before him as a soft green carpet of tops, miles of it, wrinkling
+and billowing gently as here and there the conformation of the country
+changed. At some distance it dropped over an edge. Beyond that, very
+dimly, he realized the brown shimmer rising from the plain. Far to the
+right was a tenuous smoke, a suggestion of thinning in the forest, a
+flash of blue water. This, Bob knew, must be the mill and the lake.
+
+The trail shortly made its way over the shoulder of the ridge and
+emerged on the wide, gentle rounding of the crest. Here the trees were
+small, stunted and wind-blown. Huge curving sheets of unbroken granite
+lay like armour across the shoulder of the mountain. Decomposing granite
+shale crunched under the horses' hoofs. Here and there on it grew
+isolated tiny tufts of the hardy upland flowers. Above, the sky was
+deeply, intensely blue; bluer than Bob had ever seen a sky before. The
+air held in it a tang of wildness, as though it had breathed from great
+spaces.
+
+"I suppose this is the top of our ridge, isn't it?" Bob asked Jack
+Pollock.
+
+The boy nodded.
+
+Suddenly the trail dipped sharp to the left into a narrow and shallow
+little ravine. The bed of this was carpeted by a narrow stringer of
+fresh grass and flowers, through which a tiny stream felt its hesitating
+way. This ravine widened and narrowed, turned and doubled. Here and
+there groups of cedars on a dry flat offered ideal shelter for a camp.
+Abruptly the stringer burst through a screen of azaleas to a round green
+meadow surrounded by the taller trees of the eastern slope of the
+mountain.
+
+In other circumstances Bob would have liked to stop for a better sight
+of this little gem of a meadow. It was ankle deep with new grasses,
+starred with flowers, bordered with pink and white azaleas. The air,
+prisoned in a pocket, warmed by the sun, perfumed heavily by the
+flowers, lay in the cup of the trees like a tepid bath. A hundred birds
+sang in June-tide ecstasy.
+
+But Jack Pollock, without pause, skirted this meadow, crossed the tiny
+silver creek that bubbled from it down the slope, and stolidly mounted a
+little knoll beyond. The trained pack horses swung along behind him,
+swaying gently from side to side that they might carry their packs
+comfortably and level. Bob turned involuntarily to glance at Amy. Their
+eyes met. She understood; and smiled at him brightly.
+
+Jack led the way to the top of the knoll and stopped.
+
+Here the edge of the mountain broke into a tiny outcropping spur that
+shook itself free from the pines. It constituted a natural lookout to
+the east. Bob drew rein so violently that even his well-trained mountain
+horse shook its head in protest.
+
+Before him, hushed with that tremendous calm of vast distances, lay the
+Sierras he had never seen, as though embalmed in the sunlight of a
+thousand afternoons. A tremendous, deep canon plunged below him, blue
+with distance. It climbed again to his level eventually, but by that
+time it was ten miles away. And over against him, very remote, were pine
+ridges looking velvety and dark and ruffled and full of shadows, like
+the erect fur of a beast that has been alarmed. From them here and there
+projected granite domes. And beyond them bald ranges; and beyond them,
+splintered granite with snow in the crevices; and beyond this the dark
+and frowning Pinnacles; and still beyond, other mountains so distant, so
+ethereal, so delicately pink and rose and saffron that almost he
+expected they might at any moment dissolve into the vivid sky. And,
+strangely enough, though he realized the tremendous heights and depths
+of these peaks and canons, the whole effect to Bob was as something
+spread out broad. The sky, the wonderful over-arching, very blue sky,
+was the most important thing in the universe. Compared to its
+infinitudes these mountains lay spread like a fair and wrinkled footrug
+to a horizon inconceivably remote and mysterious.
+
+Then his eye fell to the ridge opposite, across the blue canon. From one
+point on it a straight column of smoke rolled upward, to mushroom out
+and hang motionless above the top of the ridge. Its base was shot by
+half-seen, half-guessed flaming streaks.
+
+Bob had vaguely expected to see a whole country-side ablaze. This
+single, slender column was almost absurd. It looked like a camp-fire,
+magnified to fit the setting, of course.
+
+"There's the fire, all right," said Jack. "We got to get across to it
+somehow. Trail ends here."
+
+"Why, that doesn't amount to much!" cried Bob.
+
+"Don't it?" said Jack. "Well, I'd call that some shakes of a fire
+myself. It's covered mighty nigh three hundred acres by now."
+
+"Three hundred acres! Better say ten."
+
+"You're wrong," said Jack; "I've rode all that country with cattle."
+
+"You'll find it fire enough, when you get there," put in Amy. "It's
+right in good timber, too."
+
+"All right," agreed Bob; "I'll believe anything--after this." He waved
+his hand abroad. "Jack," he called, as that young man led the way off
+the edge, "can you see where Jack Main's Canon is from here?"
+
+"Jack Main's!" repeated young Pollock. "Why, if you was on the top of
+the farthest mountain in sight, you couldn't see any place you could see
+it from."
+
+"Good Lord!" said Bob.
+
+The way zigzagged down the slope of the mountain. As Jack had said,
+there was no trail, but the tracks left by the four rangers were plainly
+to be discerned. Bob, following the pack horses, had leisure to observe
+how skilfully this way had been picked out. Always it held to the easy
+footing, but always it was evident that if certain turns had not been
+made some distance back this easy footing would have lacked. At times
+the tracks led far to the left at nearly the same level until one, two
+or three little streams had been crossed. Then without apparent reason
+they turned directly down the backbone of a steep ridge exactly like a
+half-dozen others they had passed over. But later Bob saw that this
+ridge was the only one of the lot that dipped over gently to lower
+levels; all the rest broke off abruptly in precipitous rocks. Bob was a
+good woodsman, but this was his first experience in that mountaineering
+skill which noses its way by the "lay of the country."
+
+In the meantime they were steadily descending. The trees hemmed them
+closer. Thickets of willows and alders had to be crossed. Dimly through
+the tree-tops they seemed to see the sky darkening by degrees as they
+worked their way down. At first Bob thought it the lateness of the
+afternoon; then he concluded it must be the smoke of the fire; finally,
+through a clear opening, he saw this apparent darkening of the horizon
+was in reality the blue of the canon wall opposite, rising as they
+descended. But, too, as they drew nearer, the heavy smoke of the
+conflagration began to spread over them. In time it usurped the heavens,
+and Bob had difficulty in believing that it could appear to any one
+anywhere as so simple a mushroom-head over a slender smoke column.
+
+By the time the horses stepped from the slope to the bed of the canon,
+it was quite dark. Jack turned down stream.
+
+"We'll cut the trail to Burro Rock pretty quick," said he.
+
+Within five minutes of travel they did cut it; a narrow brown trough,
+trodden by the hoofs of many generations of cattlemen bound for the back
+country. Almost immediately it began to mount the slope.
+
+Now ahead, through the gathering twilight, lights began to show,
+sometimes scattered, sometimes grouped, like the camp-fires of an
+immense army. These were the stubs, stumps, down logs and the like left
+still blazing after all the more readily inflammable material had been
+burned away. As the little cavalcade laboured upward, stopping every few
+minutes to breathe the horses, these flickering lights defined
+themselves. In particular one tall dead yellow pine standing boldly
+prominent, afire to the top, alternately glowed and paled as the wind
+breathed or died. A smell of stale burning drifted down the damp night
+air. Pretty soon Jack Pollock halted for a moment to call back:
+
+"Here's their fire line!"
+
+Bob spurred forward. Just beyond Jack's horse the country lay blackened.
+The pine needles had burned down to the soil; the seedlings and younger
+trees had been withered away; the larger trees scorched; the fuel with
+which every forest is littered consumed in the fierceness of the
+conflagration. Here and there some stub or trunk still blazed and
+crackled, outposts of the army whose camp-fires seemed to dot the hills.
+
+The line of demarcation between the burned and the unburned areas seemed
+extraordinarily well defined. Bob looked closer and saw that this
+definition was due to a peculiar path, perhaps two yards wide. It looked
+as though some one had gone along there with a huge broom, sweeping as
+one would sweep a path in deep dust. Only in this case the broom must
+have been a powerful implement as well as one of wide reach. The brushed
+marks went not only through the carpet of pine needles, but through the
+tarweed, the snow brush, the manzanita. This was technically the fire
+line. At the sight of the positiveness with which it had checked the
+spread of the flames, Bob's spirits rose.
+
+"They seem to have stopped it here easy enough, already," he cried.
+
+"Being as how this is the windward side of the fire, and on a down
+slope, I should think they might," remarked Jack Pollock drily.
+
+Bob chuckled and glanced at the girl.
+
+"I'm finding out every day how little I know," said he; "at my age,
+too!"
+
+"The hard work is down wind," said Amy.
+
+"Of course."
+
+They entered the burned area, and climbed on up the hill. Though
+evidently here the ferocity of the conflagration had passed, it had left
+its rear guard behind. Fallen trees still blazed; standing trees flamed
+like torches--but all harmlessly within the magic circle drawn by the
+desperate quick work of the rangers. They threaded their way cautiously
+among these isolated fires, watching lest some dead giant should fall
+across their path. The ground smoked under their feet. Against the
+background of a faint and distant roaring, which now made itself
+evident, the immediate surroundings seemed very quiet. The individual
+cracklings of flames were an undertone. Only once in a while a dull
+heavy crash smote the air as some great tree gave up the unequal
+struggle.
+
+They passed as rapidly as they could through this stricken field. The
+night had fallen, but the forest was still bright, the trail still
+plain. They followed it for an hour until it had topped the lower ridge.
+
+Then far ahead, down through the dark trunks of trees, they saw,
+wavering, flickering, leaping and dying, a line of fire. In some places
+it was a dozen feet high; in others it sank to within a few inches of
+the ground--but nowhere could the eye discern an opening through it. A
+roar and a crackling filled the air. Sparks were shooting upward in the
+suction. A blast of heat rushed against Bob's cheek. All at once he
+realized that a forest fire was not a widespread general conflagration,
+like the burning of a city block. It was a line of battle, a ring of
+flame advancing steadily. All they had passed had been negligible. Here
+was the true enemy, now charging rapidly through the dry, inflammable
+low growth, now creeping stealthily in the needles and among the rocks;
+always making way, always gathering itself for one of its wild leaps
+which should lay an entire new province under its ravaging. Somewhere on
+the other side of that ring of fire were four men. They were trying to
+cut a lane over which the fire could not leap.
+
+Bob gazed at the wall of flame with some dismay.
+
+"How we going to get through?" he asked.
+
+"We got to find a rock outcrop somewheres up the ridge," explained Jack,
+"where there'll be a break in the fire."
+
+He turned up the side of the mountain again, leading the way. After a
+time they came to an outcrop of the sort described, which, with some
+difficulty and stumbling, they succeeded in crossing.
+
+Ahead, in the darkness, showed a tiny licking little fire, only a few
+inches high.
+
+"The fire has jumped!" cried Bob.
+
+"No, that's their backfire," Pollock corrected him.
+
+They found this to be true. The rangers had hastily hoed and raked out a
+narrow path. Over this a very small fire could not pass; but there could
+be no doubt that the larger conflagration would take the slight obstacle
+in its stride. Therefore the rangers had themselves ignited the small
+fire. This would eat away the fuel, and automatically widen the path.
+Between the main fire and the back fire were still several hundred yards
+of good, unburned country. To Bob's expression of surprise Amy added to
+the two principles of fire-fighting he had learned from Pollock.
+
+"It doesn't do to try to stop a fire anywhere and everywhere," said she.
+"A good man knows his country, and he takes advantage of it. This fire
+line probably runs along the line of natural defence."
+
+They followed it down the mountain for a long distance through the
+eddying smoke. The flames to their right shot up and died and crept. The
+shadows to their left--their own among the number--leaped and fell.
+After a while, down through the mists, they made out a small figure,
+very busy at something. When they approached, they found this to be
+Charley Morton. The fire had leaped the cleared path and was greedily
+eating in all directions through the short, pitchy growth of tarweed. It
+was as yet only a tiny leak, but once let it get started, the whole
+forest beyond the fire line would be ablaze. The ranger had started to
+cut around this a half-circle connected at both ends with the main fire
+line. With short, quick jabs of his hoe, he was tearing away at the
+tough tarweed.
+
+"Hullo!" said he without looking up. "You'll find camp on the bald ridge
+north the fire line. There's a little feed there."
+
+Having completed his defence, he straightened his back to look at them.
+His face was grimed a dingy black through which rivulets of sweat had
+made streaks.
+
+"Had it pretty hot all afternoon," he proffered. "Got the fire line
+done, though. How're those canteens--full? I'll trade you my empty one."
+He took a long draught. "That tastes good. Went dry about three o'clock,
+and haven't had a drop since."
+
+They left him there, leaning on the handle of his hoe. Jack Pollock
+seemed to know where the place described as the camp-site was located,
+for after various detours and false starts, he led them over the brow of
+a knoll to a tiny flat among the pine needles where they were greeted by
+whinnies from unseen animals. It was here very dark. Jack scraped
+together and lit some of the pine needles. By the flickering light they
+saw the four saddles dumped down in a heap.
+
+"There's a side hill over yander with a few bunches of grass and some of
+these blue lupins," said Jack. "It ain't much in the way of hoss-feed,
+but it'll have to do."
+
+He gathered fuel and soon had enough of a fire to furnish light.
+
+"It certainly does seem plumb foolish to be lightin' _more_ fires!" he
+remarked.
+
+In the meantime Amy had unsaddled her own horse and was busy unpacking
+one of the pack animals. Bob followed her example.
+
+"There," she said; "now here are the canteens, all full; and here's six
+lunches already tied together that I put up before we started. You can
+get them to the other boys. Take your tools and run along. I'll
+straighten up, and be ready for you when you can come back."
+
+"What if the fire gets over to you?" asked Bob.
+
+"I'll turn the horses loose and ride away," she said gaily.
+
+"It won't get clost to there," put in Jack. "This little ridge is rock
+all round it. That's why they put the camp here."
+
+"Where's water?" asked Amy.
+
+"I don't rightly remember," confessed Pollock. "I've only been in here
+once."
+
+"I'll find out in the morning. Good luck!"
+
+Jack handed Bob three of the canteens, a hoe and rake and one of the
+flat files.
+
+"What's this for?" asked Bob.
+
+"To keep the edge of your hoe sharp," replied Jack.
+
+They shouldered their implements and felt their way in the darkness over
+the tumbled rock outcrop. As they surmounted the shoulder of the hill,
+they saw once more flickering before them the fire line.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Charley Morton received the lunch with joy.
+
+"Ain't had time to get together grub since we came," said he, "and
+didn't know when I would."
+
+"What do you want us to do?" asked Bob.
+
+"The fire line's drawn right across from Granite Creek down there in the
+canon over to a bald dome. We got her done an hour ago, and pretty well
+back-fired. All we got to do now is to keep her from crossing anywheres;
+and if she does cross, to corral her before she can get away from us."
+
+"I wish we could have got here sooner!" cried Bob, disappointed that the
+little adventure seemed to be flattening out.
+
+"So?" commented Charley drily. "Well, there's plenty yet. If she gets
+out in one single, lonesome place, this fire line of ours won't be worth
+a cent. She's inside now--if we can hold her there." He gazed
+contemplatively aloft at a big dead pine blazing merrily to its very
+top. Every once in a while a chunk of bark or a piece of limb came
+flaring down to hit the ground with a thump. "There's the trouble," said
+he. "What's to keep a spark or a coal from that old coon from falling or
+rolling on the wrong side of the line? If it happens when none of us are
+around, why the fire gets a start. And maybe a coal will roll down hill
+from somewhere; or a breeze come up and carry sparks. One spark over
+here," he stamped his foot on the brushed line, "and it's all to do over
+again. There's six of us," added the ranger, "and a hundred of these
+trees near the line. By rights there ought to be a man camped down near
+every one of them."
+
+"Give us our orders," repeated Bob.
+
+"The orders are to patrol the fire line," said Morton. "If you find the
+fire has broken across, corral it. If it gets too strong for you, shoot
+your six-shooter twice. Keep a-moving, but take it easy and save
+yourself for to-morrow. About two o'clock, or so, I'll shoot three
+times. Then you can come to camp and get a little sleep. You got to be
+in shape for to-morrow."
+
+"Why especially to-morrow?" asked Bob.
+
+"Fire dies in the cool of night; it comes up in the middle of the day,"
+explained Morton succinctly.
+
+Bob took to the right, while Jack went in the opposite direction. His
+way led down hill. He crossed a ravine, surmounted a little ridge. Now
+he was in the worse than total darkness of the almost extinct area.
+Embers and coals burned all over the side hill like so many evil winking
+eyes. Far ahead, down the mountain, the rising smoke glowed incandescent
+with the light of an invisible fire beneath, Bob, blinded by this glow,
+had great difficulty in making his way. Once he found that he had
+somehow crept out on the great bald roundness of a granite dome, and had
+to retrace his steps. Twice he lost his footing utterly, but fortunately
+fell but a short distance. At last he found himself in the V of a narrow
+ravine.
+
+All this time he had, with one exception, kept close track of the fire
+line. The exception was when he strayed out over the dome; but that was
+natural, for the dome had been adopted bodily as part of the system of
+defence. Everywhere the edge of the path proved to be black and dead. No
+living fire glowed within striking distance of the inflammable material
+on the hither side the path.
+
+But here, in the bottom of the ravine, a single coal had lodged, and had
+already started into flame the dry small brush. It had fallen originally
+from an oak fully a hundred feet away; and in some mysterious manner had
+found a path to this hidden pocket. The circumstances somewhat shook
+Bob's faith in the apparent safety of the country he had just traversed.
+
+However, there were the tiny flames, licking here and there,
+insignificant, but nevertheless dangerous. Bob carefully laid his
+canteens and the rake on a boulder, and set to work with his sharpened
+hoe. It looked to be a very easy task to dig out a path around this
+little fire.
+
+In the course of the miniature fight he learned considerable of the ways
+of fire. The brush proved unexpectedly difficult. It would not stand up
+to the force of his stroke, but bent away. The tarweed, especially, was
+stubborn under even the most vigorous wielding of his sharpened hoe.
+
+He made an initial mistake by starting to hoe out his path too near the
+blaze, forgetting that in the time necessary to complete his half-circle
+the flames would have spread. Discovering this, he abandoned his
+beginning and fell back twenty feet. This naturally considerably
+lengthened the line he would have to cut. When it was about half done,
+Bob discovered that he would have to hustle to prevent the fire breaking
+by him before he could complete his half-circle. It became a race. He
+worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to scorch his face and
+hands, so that it was with difficulty he could face his work.
+Irrelevantly enough there arose before his mind the image of Jack
+Pollock popping corn before the fireplace at headquarters. Continual
+wielding of the hoe tired a certain set of muscles to the aching point.
+His mouth became dry and sticky, but he could not spare time to hunt up
+his canteen. The thought flashed across his mind that the fire was
+probably breaking across elsewhere, just like this. The other men must
+be in the same fix. There were six of them. Suppose the fire should
+break across simultaneously in seven places? The little licking flames
+had at last, by dint of a malignant persistence, become a personal
+enemy. He fought them absorbedly, throwing his line farther and farther
+as the necessity arose, running to beat down with green brush the first
+feeble upstartings of the fire as it leaped here and there his barrier,
+keeping a vigilant eye on every part of his defences.
+
+"Well," drawled Charley Morton's voice behind him, "what you think
+you're doing?"
+
+"Corralling this fire, of course," Bob panted, dashing at a marauding
+little flame.
+
+"What for?" demanded Charley.
+
+Bob looked up in sheer amazement.
+
+"See that rock dike just up the hill behind you?" explained Morton.
+"Well, our fire line already runs up to that on both sides. Fire
+couldn't cross it. We expected this to burn."
+
+Bob suddenly felt a little nauseated and dizzy from the heat and
+violence of his exertions in this high altitude.
+
+"Here's your canteen," Morton went on easily. "Take a swig. Better save
+a little. Feel better? Let me give you a pointer: don't try to stop a
+fire going up hill. Take it on top or just over the top. It burns slower
+and it ain't so apt to jump."
+
+"I know; I forgot," said Bob, feeling a trifle foolish.
+
+"Never mind; you've learned something," said Morton comfortably. "Let's
+go down below. There's fresh fire there; and it may have jumped past
+Elliott."
+
+They scrambled down. Elliott and Ware were found to be working
+desperately in the face of the flames. The fire had not here jumped the
+line, but it was burning with great ferocity up to the very edge of it.
+If the rangers could for a half-hour prevent the heat from igniting the
+growths across the defence, the main fire would have consumed its fuel
+and died down to comparative safety. With faces averted, heads lowered,
+handkerchiefs over their mouths, they continually beat down the new
+little fires which as continually sprang into life again. Here the
+antagonists were face to face across the narrow line. The rangers could
+not give back an inch, for an inch of headway on the wrong side the path
+would convert a kindling little blaze to a real fire. They stood up to
+their work doggedly as best they might.
+
+With entire understanding of the situation Charley motioned Bob to the
+front.
+
+"We'll hold her for a minute," he shouted to the others. "Drop back and
+get a drink."
+
+They fell back to seize eagerly their canteens. Bob gripped his handful
+of green brush and set to work. For a minute he did not think it
+possible to face the terrible heat. His garments were literally drenched
+with sweat which immediately dried into steam. A fierce drain sucked at
+his strength. He could hardly breathe, and could see only with
+difficulty. After a moment Elliott and Ware, evidently somewhat
+refreshed, again took hold.
+
+How they stuck it out for that infernal half-hour Bob could not have
+told, but stick it out they did. The flames gradually died down; the
+heat grew less; the danger that the shrivelled brush on the wrong side
+the fire line would be ignited by sheer heat, vanished. The four men
+fell back. Their eyebrows and hair were singed; their skin blackened.
+Bob's face felt sore, and as though it had been stretched. He took a
+long pull at his canteen. For the moment he felt as though his energy
+had all been drained away.
+
+"Well, that was a good little scrap," observed Charley Morton
+cheerfully. "I certainly do wish it was always night when a man had to
+fight fire. In a hot sun it gets to be hard work."
+
+Elliott rolled his eyes, curiously white like a minstrel's in his
+blackened face, at Bob, but said nothing.
+
+"We'll leave Elliott here to watch this a few minutes, and go down the
+line," said Morton.
+
+Bob lifted his canteen, and, to his surprise, found it empty.
+
+"Why, I must have drunk a gallon!" he cried.
+
+"It's dry work," said Morton.
+
+They continued on down the fire line, pausing every once in a while to
+rake and scrape leisurely at the heavy bark beneath some blazing stub.
+The fierce, hard work was over. All along the fire line from the dome of
+granite over the ridge down to Granite Creek the fire had consumed all
+the light fuel on its own side the defence. No further danger was to be
+apprehended in the breaking across. But everywhere through the now
+darkening forest blazed the standing trees. A wind would fill the air
+with brands; and even in the present dead calm those near the line were
+a threat.
+
+The men traversed the fire line from end to end a half-dozen times. Bob
+became acquainted individually and minutely with each of the danger
+spots. The new temporary features of country took on, from the effects
+of vigilance and toil, the dignity of age and establishment. Anxiously
+he widened the path here, kicked back glowing brands there, tried to
+assure himself that in no possible manner could the seed of a new
+conflagration find germination. After a long time he heard three shots
+from up the mountain. This, he remarked, was a signal agreed upon. He
+shouldered his blackened implements and commenced a laborious ascent.
+
+Suddenly he discovered that he was very tired, and that his legs were
+weak and wobbly. Stubs and sticks protruded everywhere; stones rolled
+from under his feet. Once on a steep shale, he fell and rolled ten feet
+out of sheer weariness. In addition he was again very thirsty, and his
+canteen empty. A chill gray of dawn was abroad; the smell of stale
+burning hung in the air.
+
+By the time he had staggered into camp the daylight had come. He glanced
+about him wearily. Across a tiny ravine the horses dozed, tied each to a
+short picket rope. Bob was already enough of a mountaineer to notice
+that the feed was very scant. The camp itself had been made under a
+dozen big yellow pines. A bright little fire flickered. About it stood
+utensils from which the men were rather dispiritedly helping themselves.
+Bob saw that the long pine needles had been scraped together to make
+soft beds, over which the blankets had been spread. Amy herself, her
+cheeks red, her eyes bright, was passing around tin cups of strong
+coffee, and tin plates of food. Her horse, saddled and bridled, stood
+nearby.
+
+"Take a little of this," she urged Bob, "and then turn in."
+
+Bob muttered his thanks. After swallowing the coffee, however, he felt
+his energies reviving somewhat.
+
+"How did you leave things at the lower end?" Morton was asking him.
+
+"All out but two or three smouldering old stubs," replied Bob.
+"Everything's safe."
+
+"Nothing's safe," contradicted Morton. "By rights we ought to watch
+every minute. But we got to get some rest in a long fight. It's the cool
+of the morning and the fire burns low. Turn in and get all the sleep you
+can. May need you later."
+
+"I'm all in," acknowledged Bob, throwing back his blanket; "I'm willing
+to say so."
+
+"No more fire in mine," agreed young Elliott.
+
+The other men said nothing, but fell to their beds. Only Charley Morton
+rose a little stiffly to his feet.
+
+"Aren't you going to turn in too, Charley?" asked the girl quickly.
+
+"It's daylight now," explained the ranger, "and I can see to ride a
+horse. I reckon I'd better ride down the line."
+
+"I've thought of that," said Amy. "Of course, it wouldn't do to let the
+fire take care of itself. See; I have Pronto saddled. I'll look over the
+line, and if anything happens I'll wake you."
+
+"You must be about dead," said Charley. "You've been up all night fixing
+camp and cooking----"
+
+"Up all night!" repeated Amy scornfully. "How long do you think it
+takes me to make camp and cook a simple little breakfast?"
+
+"But the country's almighty rough riding."
+
+"On Pronto?"
+
+"He's a good mountain pony," agreed Charley Morton; "California John
+picked him out himself. All right. I do feel some tired."
+
+This was about six o'clock. The men had slept but a little over an hour
+when Amy scrambled over the rim of the dike and dropped from her horse.
+
+"Charley!" she cried, shaking the ranger by the shoulder; "I'm sorry.
+But there's fresh smoke about half-way down the mountain. There was
+nothing left to burn fresh inside the fire line, was there? I thought
+not."
+
+Twenty minutes later all six were frantically digging, hoeing, chopping,
+beating in a frenzy against the spread of the flames. In some manner the
+fire had jumped the line. It might have been that early in the fight a
+spark had lodged. As long as the darkness of night held down the
+temperature, this spark merely smouldered. When, however, the rays of
+the sun gathered heat, it had burst into flame.
+
+This sun made all the difference in the world. Where, in the cool of the
+night, the flames had crept slowly, now they leaped forward with a
+fierce crackling; green brush that would ordinarily have resisted for a
+long time, now sprang into fire at a touch. The conflagration spread
+from a single point in all directions, running swiftly, roaring in a
+sheet of fire, licking up all before it.
+
+The work was fierce in its intensity. Bob, in common with the others,
+had given up trying--or indeed caring--to protect himself. His clothes
+smoked, his face smarted and burned, his skin burned and blistered. He
+breathed the hot air in gasps. Strangely enough, he did not feel in the
+least tired.
+
+He did not need to be told what to do. The only possible defence was
+across a rock outcrop. To right and left of him the other men were
+working desperately to tear out the brush. He grubbed away trying to
+clear the pine needles and little bushes that would carry the fire
+through the rocks like so many powder fuses.
+
+He had no time to see how the others were getting on; he worked on
+faith. His own efforts were becoming successful. The fire, trying, one
+after another, various leads through the rocks, ran out of fuel and
+died. The infernal roaring furnace below, however, leaped ever to new
+trial.
+
+Then all at once Bob found himself temporarily out of the game. In
+trying to roll a boulder out of the way, he caught his hand. A sharp,
+lightning pain shot up his arm and into the middle of his chest. When he
+had succeeded in extricating himself, he found that his middle finger
+was squarely broken.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Bob stood still for a moment, looking at the injured member. Charley
+Morton touched him on the shoulder. When he looked up, the ranger
+motioned him back. Casting a look of regret at his half-completed
+defences, he obeyed. To his surprise he found the other four already
+gathered together. Evidently his being called off the work had nothing
+to do with his broken finger, as he had at first supposed.
+
+"Well, I guess we'll have to fall back," said Morton composedly. "It's
+got away from us."
+
+Without further comment he shouldered his implements and took his way up
+the hill. Bob handed his hoe and rake to Jack Pollock.
+
+"Carry 'em a minute," he explained. "I hurt my hand a little."
+
+As he walked along he bound the finger roughly to its neighbour, and on
+both tied a rude splint.
+
+"What's up?" he muttered to Jack, as he worked at this.
+
+"I reckon we must be goin' to start a fire line back of the next
+cross-bridge somewheres," Jack ventured his opinion.
+
+Bob stopped short.
+
+"Then we've abandoned the old one!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Complete," spoke up Ware, who overheard.
+
+"And all the work we've done there is useless?"
+
+"Absolutely."
+
+"We've got it all to do over again from the beginning?"
+
+"Certain sure."
+
+Bob adjusted his mind to this new and rather overwhelming idea.
+
+"I saw Senator What's-his-name--from Montana--made a speech the other
+day," spoke up Elliott, "in which he attacked the Service because he
+said it was a refuge for consumptives and incompetents!"
+
+At this moment Amy rode up draped with canteens and balancing carefully
+a steaming pail of coffee. She was accompanied by another woman
+similarly provided.
+
+The newcomer was a decided-looking girl under thirty, with a full,
+strong figure, pronounced flaxen-blond hair, a clear though somewhat
+sunburned skin, blue eyes, and a flash of strong, white teeth. Bob had
+never seen her before, but he recognized her as a mountain woman. She
+rode a pinto, guided by a hackamore, and was attired quite simply in the
+universal broad felt hat and a serviceable blue calico gown. In spite of
+this she rode astride; and rode well. A throwing rope, or riata, hung in
+the sling at the right side of her saddle pommel; and it looked as
+though it had been used.
+
+"Where's Charley?" she asked promptly as she rode up. "Is that you? You
+look like a nigger. How you feeling? You just mind me, and don't you try
+to do too much. You don't get paid for overtime at this job."
+
+"Hullo, Lou," replied Charley Morton; "I thought it was about time you
+showed up."
+
+The woman nodded at the others.
+
+"Howdy, Mrs. Morton," answered Tom Carroll, Pollock and Ware. Bob and
+Elliott bowed.
+
+By now the fire had been left far in the rear. The crackling of flames
+had died in the distance; even the smoke cleared from the atmosphere.
+All the forest was peaceful and cool. The Douglas squirrels scampered
+and barked; the birds twittered and flashed or slanted in long flight
+through the trees; the sun shone soft; a cool breeze ruffled the
+feathery tips of the tarweed.
+
+At the top of the ridge Charley Morton called a halt.
+
+"This is pretty easy country," said he. "We'll run the line square down
+either side. Get busy."
+
+"Have a cup of coffee first," urged Amy.
+
+"Surely. Forgot that."
+
+They drank the coffee, finding it good, and tucked away the lunches Amy,
+with her unfailing forethought, had brought them.
+
+"Good-bye!" she called gaily; "I've got to get back to camp before the
+fire cuts me off. I won't see you again till the fire burns me out a way
+to get to you."
+
+"Take my horse, too," said Mrs. Morton, dismounting. "You don't need me
+in camp."
+
+Amy took the lead rein and rode away as a matter of course. She was
+quite alone to guard the horses and camp equipage on the little knoll
+while the fire spent its fury all around her. Everybody seemed to take
+the matter for granted; but Bob looked after her with mingled feelings
+of anxiety and astonishment. This Western breed of girl was still beyond
+his comprehension.
+
+The work was at once begun. In spite of the cruel throb of his injured
+hand, Bob found the labour pleasant by sheer force of contrast. The air
+was cool, the shade refreshing, the frantic necessity of struggle
+absent. He raked carefully his broad path among the pine needles, laying
+bare the brown earth; hoed and chopped in the tarweed and brush. Several
+times Charley Morton passed him. Each time the ranger paused for a
+moment to advise him.
+
+"You ought to throw your line farther back," he told Bob. "See that
+'dead-and-down' ahead? If you let that cross your fire line, it'll carry
+the fire sooner or later, sure; and if you curve your line too quick to
+go around it, the fire'll jump. You want to keep your eye out 'way
+ahead."
+
+Once Bob caught a glimpse of blue calico through the trees. As he came
+nearer, he was surprised to see Mrs. Morton working away stoutly with a
+hoe. Her skirts were turned back, her sleeves rolled up to display a
+white and plump forearm, the neck of her gown loosened to show a round
+and well-moulded neck. The strokes of her hoe were as vigorous as those
+of any of the men. In watching the strong, free movements of her body,
+Bob forgot for a moment what had been intruding itself on him with more
+and more insistance--the throb of his broken hand.
+
+In the course of an hour the fire line was well under way. But now wisps
+of smoke began to drift down the tree aisles. Birds shot past, at first
+by ones and twos, later in flocks. A deer that must have lain perdu to
+let them pass bounded across the ridge, his head high, his nostrils
+wide. The squirrels ran chattering down the trees, up others, leaped
+across the gaps, working always farther and farther to the north. The
+cool breeze carried with it puffs of hot air. Finally in distant
+openings could be discerned little busy, flickering flames. All at once
+the thought gripped Bob hard: the might of the fire was about to test
+the quality of his work!
+
+"There she comes!" gasped Charley Morton. "My Lord, how she's run
+to-day! We got to close the line to that stone dike."
+
+By one of the lightning transitions of motive with which these
+activities seemed to abound, the affair had become a very deadly earnest
+sort of race. It was simple. If the men could touch the dike before the
+fire, they won.
+
+The realization of this electrified even the weary spirits of the
+fire-fighters. They redoubled their efforts. The hoes, mattocks and axes
+rose and fell feverishly. Mrs. Morton, the perspiration matting her
+beautiful and shining hair across her forehead, laboured with the best.
+The fire, having gained the upward-rising slope, came at them with the
+speed of an enemy charging. Soon they were fairly choked by the dense
+clouds of smoke, fairly scorched by the waves of heat. Sweat poured from
+them in streams. Bob utterly forgot his wounded hand.
+
+And then, when they were within a scant fifty yards of the dike which
+was intended to be their right wing, the flames sprang with a roar to
+new life. Up the slope they galloped, whirled around the end of the fire
+line, and began eagerly to lick up the tarweed and needles of the
+ridge-top.
+
+Bob and Elliott uttered a simultaneous cry of dismay. The victory had
+seemed fairly in their grasp. Now all chance of it was snatched away.
+
+"Poor guess," said Charley Morton. The men, without other comment,
+shouldered their implements and set off on a dog-trot after their
+leader. The ranger merely fell back to the next natural barrier.
+
+"Now, let's see if we can't hold her, boys," said he.
+
+Twice again that day were these scenes reenacted. The same result
+obtained. Each time it seemed to Bob that he could do no more. His hand
+felt as big as a pillow, and his whole arm and shoulder ached. Besides
+this he was tired out. Amy had been cut off from them by the fire. In
+two days they had had but an hour's sleep. Water had long since given
+out on them. The sun beat hot and merciless, assisting its kinsman, the
+fire. Bob would, if left to himself, have given up the contest long
+since. It seemed ridiculous that this little handful of men should hope
+to arrest anything so mighty, so proud, so magnificent as this great
+conflagration. As well expect a colony of ants to stop a break in the
+levee. But Morton continued to fall back as though each defeat were a
+matter of course. He seemed unwearied, though beneath the smoke-black
+his eyes were hollow. Mrs. Morton did her part with the rest, strong as
+a man for all her feminine attraction, for all the soft lines of her
+figure.
+
+"I'll drop back far enough this time," Charley muttered to her, as they
+were thrown together in their last retreat. "Can't seem to get far
+enough back!"
+
+"There's too few of us to handle such a big fire," his wife replied.
+"You can't do it with six men."
+
+"Seven," amended Charley. "You're as good as any of us. Don't you
+worry, Lou. Even if we don't stop her--and I think we will--we're
+checking the run of her until we get help. We're doing well. There's
+only two old fire-fighters in the lot--you and me. All the rest is green
+hands. We're doing almighty well."
+
+Overhearing this Bob plucked up heart. These desperate stands were not
+then so wasted as he had thought them. At least the fire was checked at
+each defence--it was not permitted to run wild over the country.
+
+"We ought to get help before long," he said.
+
+"To-morrow, I figure," replied Charley Morton. "The boys are scattered
+wide, finishing odds and ends before coming in for the Fourth. It'll be
+about impossible to get hold of any of 'em except by accident. But
+they'll all come in for the Fourth."
+
+The next defence was successfully completed before the fire reached it.
+Bob felt a sudden rush of most extraordinary and vivifying emotion. A
+moment ago he had been ready to drop in his tracks, indifferent whether
+the fire burned him as he lay. Now he felt ready to go on forever. Bert
+Elliott found energy enough to throw his hat into the air, while Jack
+shook his fist at the advancing fire.
+
+"We fooled him that time!" cried Elliott.
+
+"Bet you!" growled Pollock.
+
+The other men and the woman stood leaning on the long handles of their
+implements staring at the advancing flames.
+
+Morton aroused himself with an effort.
+
+"Do your best boys," said he briefly. "There she comes. Another hour
+will tell whether we've stopped her. Then we've got to hold her.
+Scatter!"
+
+The day had passed without anybody's being aware of the fact. The cool
+of the evening was already falling, and the fierceness of the
+conflagration was falling in accord.
+
+They held the line until the flames had burned themselves out against
+it. Then they took up their weary patrol. Last night, when Bob was
+fresh, this part of fire-fighting had seemed the hardest kind of hard
+work. Now, crippled and weary as he was, in contrast to the day's
+greater labour, it had become comparatively easy. About eight o'clock
+Amy, having found a way through, appeared leading all the horses,
+saddled and packed.
+
+"You boys came a long way," she explained simply, "and I thought I'd
+bring over camp."
+
+She distributed food, and made trips down the fire line with coffee.
+
+In this manner the night passed. The line had been held. No one had
+slept. Sunrise found Bob and Jack Pollock far down the mountain. They
+were doggedly beating back some tiny flames. The camp was a thousand
+feet above, and their canteens had long been empty. Bob raised his weary
+eyes.
+
+Out on a rock inside the burned area, like a sentinel cast in bronze,
+stood a horseman. The light was behind him, so only his outline could be
+seen. For a minute he stood there quite motionless, looking. Then he
+moved forward, and another came up behind him on the rock. This one
+advanced, and a third took his place. One after the other, in single
+file, they came, glittering in the sun, their long rakes and hoes
+slanted over their shoulders like spears.
+
+"Look!" gasped Bob weakly.
+
+The two stood side by side spellbound. The tiny flames licked past them
+in the tarweed; they did not heed. The horsemen rode up, twenty strong.
+It seemed to Bob that they said things, and shouted. Certainly a
+half-dozen leaped spryly off their horses and in an instant had confined
+the escaping fire. Somebody took Bob's hoe from him. A cheery voice
+shouted in his ear:
+
+"Hop along! You're through. We're on the job. Go back to camp and take a
+sleep."
+
+He and Pollock turned up the mountain. Bob felt stupid. After he had
+gone a hundred feet, he realized he was thirsty, and wondered why he
+had not asked for a drink. Then it came to him that he might have
+borrowed a horse, but remembered thickly after a long time the
+impassable dikes between him and camp.
+
+"That's why I didn't," he said aloud.
+
+By this time it was too late to go back for the drink. He did not care.
+The excitement and responsibility had drained from him suddenly, leaving
+him a hollow shell.
+
+They dragged themselves up the dike.
+
+"I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!" said Pollock
+suddenly.
+
+They stumbled and staggered on. A twig sufficed to trip them. Pollock
+muttered between set teeth, over and over again, his unvarying
+complaint: "I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!"
+
+Finally, with a flicker of vitality, Bob's sense of humour cleared for
+an instant.
+
+"Not high enough," said he. "Make it two dollars, and maybe some angel
+will hand you out a glass."
+
+"That's all right," returned Pollock resentfully, "but I bet there's
+some down in that hollow; and I'm going to see!"
+
+"I wouldn't climb down there for a million drinks," said Bob; "I'll sit
+down and wait for you."
+
+Pollock climbed down, found his water, drank. He filled the canteen and
+staggered back up the steep climb.
+
+"Here you be," said he.
+
+Bob seized the canteen and drank deep. When he took breath, he said:
+
+"Thank you, Jack. That was an awful climb back."
+
+"That's all right," nodded Jack shortly.
+
+"Well, come on," said Bob.
+
+"The hell!" muttered Jack, and fell over sound asleep.
+
+An hour later Bob felt himself being shaken violently. He stirred and
+advanced a little way toward the light, then dropped back like a plummet
+into the abysses of sleep. Afterward he recalled a vague,
+half-conscious impression of being lifted on a horse. Possibly he
+managed to hang on; possibly he was held in the saddle--that he never
+knew.
+
+The next thing he seemed conscious of was the flicker of a camp-fire,
+and the soft feel of blankets. It was night, but how it came to be so he
+could not imagine. He was very stiff and sore and burned, and his hand
+was very painful. He moved it, and discovered, to his vast surprise,
+that it was bound tightly. When this bit of surgery had been performed
+he could not have told.
+
+He opened his eyes. Amy and Mrs. Morton were bending over cooking
+utensils. Five motionless forms reposed in blankets. Bob counted them
+carefully. After some moments it occurred to his dulled brain that the
+number represented his companions. Some one on horseback seemed to be
+arriving. A glitter of silver caught his eye. He recognized finally
+California John. Then he dozed off again. The sound of voices rumbled
+through the haze of his half-consciousness.
+
+"Fifty hours of steady fire-fighting with only an hour's sleep!" he
+caught Thorne's voice saying.
+
+Bob took this statement into himself. He computed painfully over and
+over. He could not make the figures. He counted the hours one after the
+other. Finally he saw.
+
+"Fifty hours for all but Pollock and me," he said suddenly; "forty for
+us."
+
+No one heard him. As a matter of fact, he had not spoken aloud; though
+he thought he had done so.
+
+"We found the two of them curled up together," he next heard Thorne say.
+"Orde was coiled around a sharp root--and didn't know it, and Pollock
+was on top of him. They were out in the full sun, and a procession of
+red ants was disappearing up Orde's pants leg and coming out at his
+collar. Fact!"
+
+"They're a good lot," admitted California John. "Best unbroke lot I ever
+saw."
+
+"We found Orde's finger broken and badly swelled. Heaven knows when he
+did it, but he never peeped. Morton says he noticed his hand done up in
+a handkerchief yesterday morning."
+
+Bob dozed again. From time to time he caught fragments--"Four
+fire-lines--think of it--only one old-timer in the lot--I'm proud of my
+boys----"
+
+He came next to full consciousness to hear Thorne saying:
+
+"Mrs. Morton fought fire with the best of them. That's the ranger spirit
+I like--when as of old the women and children----"
+
+"Don't praise me," broke in Mrs. Morton tartly. "I don't give a red cent
+for all your forests, and your pesky rangering. I've got no use for
+them. If Charley Morton would quit you and tend to his cattle, I'd be
+pleased. I didn't fight fire to help you, let me tell you."
+
+"What did you do it for?" asked Thorne, evidently amused.
+
+"I knew I couldn't get Charley Morton home and in bed and _resting_
+until that pesky fire was _out_; that's why!" shot back Mrs. Morton.
+
+"Well, Mrs. Morton," said Thorne composedly, "if you're ever fixed so
+sass will help you out, you'll find it a very valuable quality."
+
+Then Bob fell into a deep sleep.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+On returning to headquarters, as Bob was naturally somewhat
+incapacitated for manual work, he was given the fire patrol. This meant
+that every day he was required to ride to four several "lookouts" on the
+main ridge, from which points he could spy abroad carefully over vast
+stretches of mountainous country. One of these was near the meadow of
+the cold spring whence the three of them had first caught sight of the
+Granite Creek fire. Thence he turned sharp to the north along the ridge
+top. The trail led among great trees that dropped away to right and left
+on the slopes of the mountain. Through them he caught glimpses of the
+blue distance, or far-off glittering snow, or unexpected canon depths.
+The riding was smooth, over undulating knolls. Every once in a while
+passing through a "_puerto suelo_," he looked on either side to tiny
+green meadows, from which streams were born. Occasionally he saw a deer,
+or more likely small bands of the wild mountain cattle that swung along
+before him, heads held high, eyes staring, nostrils expanded. Then Bob
+felt his pony's muscles stiffen beneath his thighs, and saw the animal's
+little ears prick first forward at the cattle, then back for his
+master's commands.
+
+After three miles of this he came out on a broad plateau formed by the
+joining of his ridge with that of the Baldy range. Here Granite Creek
+itself rose, and the stream that flowed by the mill. It was a country of
+wild, park-like vistas between small pines, with a floor of granite and
+shale. Over it frowned the steeps of Baldy, with its massive domes, its
+sheer precipices, and its scant tree-growth clinging to its sides.
+Against the sky it looked very rugged, very old, very formidable; and
+the sky, behind its yellowed age, was inconceivably blue.
+
+Sometimes Bob rode up into the pass. More often he tied his horse and
+took the steep rough trail afoot. The way was guarded by strange,
+distorted trees, and rocks carved into fantastic shapes. Some of them
+were piled high like temples. Others, round and squat, resembled the fat
+and obscene deities of Eastern religions. There were seals and elephants
+and crocodiles and allegorical monsters, some of them as tiny as the
+grotesque Japanese carvings, others as stupendous as Egypt. The trail
+led by them, among them, between them. At their feet clutched snowbush,
+ground juniper, the gnarled fingers of manzanita, like devotees. A
+foaming little stream crept and plunged over bare and splintered rocks.
+Twisted junipers and the dwarf pines of high elevations crouched like
+malignant gnomes amongst the boulders, or tossed their arms like witches
+on the crags. This bold and splintered range rose from the softness and
+mystery of the great pine woods on the lower ridge as a rock rises above
+cool water.
+
+The pass itself was not over fifty feet wide. Either side of it like
+portals were the high peaks. It lay like the notch of a rifle sight
+between them. Once having gained the tiny platform, Bob would sit down
+and look abroad over the wonderful Sierra.
+
+Never did he tire of this. At one eye-glance he could comprehend a
+summer's toilsome travel. To reach yonder snowy peak would consume the
+greater part of a week. Unlike the Swiss alps, which he had once
+visited, these mountains were not only high, but wide as well. They had
+the whole of blue space in which to lie. They were like the stars, for
+when Bob had convinced himself that his eye had settled on the farthest
+peak, then still farther, taking half-guessed iridescent form out of the
+blue, another shone.
+
+But his business was not with these distances. Almost below him, so
+precipitous is the easterly slope of Baldy, lay canons, pine forests,
+lesser ridges, streams, the green of meadows. Patiently, piece by piece,
+he must go over all this, watching for that faint blue haze, that
+deepening of the atmosphere, that almost imagined pearliness against the
+distant hills which meant new fire.
+
+"Don't look for _smoke_," California John had told him. "When a fire
+gets big enough for smoke, you can't help but see it. It's the new fire
+you want to spot before it gets started. Then it's easy handled. And new
+fire's almighty easy to overlook. Sometimes it's as hard for a greenhorn
+to see as a deer. Look close!"
+
+So Bob, concentrating his attention, looked close. When he had satisfied
+himself, he turned square around.
+
+From this point of view he saw only pine forests. They covered the ridge
+below him like a soft green mantle thrown down in folds. They softened
+the more distant ranges. They billowed and eddied, and dropped into
+unguessed depths, and came bravely up to eyesight again far away. At
+last they seemed to change colour abruptly, and a brown haze overcast
+them through which glimmered a hint of yellow. This Bob knew was the
+plain, hot and brown under the July sun. It rose dimly through the mist
+to the height of his eye. Thus, even at eight thousand feet, Bob seemed
+to stand in the cup of the earth, beneath the cup of the sky.
+
+The other two lookouts were on the edge of the lower ridge. They gave an
+opportunity of examining various coves and valleys concealed by the
+shoulder of the ridge from the observer on Baldy. To reach them Bob rode
+across the plateau of the ridge, through the pine forests, past the
+mill.
+
+Here, if the afternoon was not too far advanced, he used to allow
+himself the luxury of a moment's chat with some of his old friends.
+Welton, coat off, his burly face perspiring and red, always greeted him
+jovially.
+
+"Spend all your salary this month?" he would ask. "Does the business
+keep you occupied?" And once or twice, seriously, "Bob, haven't you had
+enough of this confounded nonsense? You're getting too old to find any
+great fun riding around in this kid fashion pretending to do things.
+There's big business to be done in this country, and we need you boys to
+help. When I was a youngster I'd have jumped hard at half the chance
+that's offered you."
+
+But Bob never would answer seriously. He knew this to be his only chance
+of avoiding even a deeper misunderstanding between himself and this man
+whom he had learned to admire and love.
+
+Once he met Baker. That young man greeted him as gaily as ever, but into
+his manner had crept the shadow of a cold contempt. The stout youth's
+standards were his own, and rigid, as is often the case with people of
+his type. Bob felt himself suddenly and ruthlessly excluded from the
+ranks of those worthy of Baker's respect. A hard quality of character,
+hitherto unsuspected, stared from the fat young man's impudent blue
+eyes. Baker was perfectly polite, and suitably jocular; but he had not
+much time for Bob; and soon plunged into a deep discussion with Welton
+from which Bob was unmistakably excluded.
+
+On one occasion, too, he encountered Oldham riding down the trail from
+headquarters. The older man had nodded to him curtly. His eyes had
+gleamed through his glasses with an ill-concealed and frosty amusement,
+and his thin lips had straightened to a perceptible sneer. All at once
+Bob divined an enemy. He could not account for this, as he had never
+dealt with the man; and the accident of his discovering the gasoline
+pump on the Lucky Land Company's creeks could hardly be supposed to
+account for quite so malignant a triumph. Next time Bob saw Welton, he
+asked his old employer about it.
+
+"What have I ever done to Oldham?" he inquired. "Do you know?"
+
+"Oldham?" repeated Welton.
+
+"Baker's land agent."
+
+"Oh, yes. I never happened to run across him. Don't know him at all."
+
+Bob put down Oldham's manifest hatred to pettiness of disposition.
+
+Even from Merker, the philosophic storekeeper, Bob obtained scant
+comfort.
+
+"Men like you, with ability, youth, energy," said Merker, "producing
+nothing, just conserving, saving. Conditions should be such that the
+possibility of fire, of trespass, of all you fellows guard against,
+should be eliminated. Then you could supply steam, energy,
+accomplishment, instead of being merely the lubrication. It's an
+economic waste."
+
+Bob left the mill-yards half-depressed, half-amused. All his people had
+become alien. He opposed them in nothing, his work in no way interfered
+with their activities; yet, without his volition, and probably without
+their realization, he was already looked upon as one to be held at arms'
+length. It saddened Bob, as it does every right-thinking young man when
+he arrives at setting up his own standards of conduct and his own ways
+of life. He longed with a great longing, which at the same time he
+realized to be hopeless, to make these people feel as he felt. It gave
+him real pain to find that his way of life could never gain anything
+beyond disapproval or incomprehension. It took considerable fortitude to
+conclude that he now must build his own structure, unsupported. He was
+entering the loneliness of soul inseparable from complete manhood.
+
+After such disquieting contacts, the more uncomfortable in that they
+defied analysis, Bob rode out to the last lookout and gazed abroad over
+the land. The pineclad bluff fell away nearly four thousand feet. Below
+him the country lay spread like a relief map--valley, lesser ranges,
+foothills, far-off plain, the green of trees, the brown of grass and
+harvest, the blue of glimpsed water, the haze of heat and great
+distance, the thread-like gossamer of roads, the half-guessed shimmer of
+towns and cities in the mirage of summer, all the opulence of earth and
+the business of human activity. Millions dwelt in that haze, and beyond
+them, across the curve of the earth, hundreds of millions more, each
+actuated by its own selfishness or charity, by its own conception of the
+things nearest it. Not one in a multitude saw or cared beyond the
+immediate, nor bothered his head with what it all meant, or whether it
+meant anything. Bob, sitting on his motionless horse high up there in
+the world, elevated above it all, in an isolation of pines, close under
+his sky, bent his ear to the imagined faint humming of the spheres.
+Affairs went on. The machine fulfilled its function. All things had
+their place, the evil as well as the good, the waste as well as the
+building, balancing like the governor of an engine the opposition of
+forces. He saw, by the soft flooding of light, rather than by any flash
+of insight, that were the shortsightedness, the indifference, the
+ignorance, the crass selfishness to be eliminated before yet the world's
+work was done, the energies of men, running too easily, would outstrip
+the development of the Plan, as a machine "races" without its load. A
+humility came to him. His not to judge his fellows by the mere externals
+of their deeds. He could only act honestly according to what he saw, as
+he hoped others were doing.
+
+"Just so a man isn't _mean_, I don't know as I have any right to despise
+him," he summed it all up to his horse. "But," he added cheerfully,
+"that doesn't prevent my kicking him into the paths of righteousness if
+he tries to steal my watch."
+
+The sun dipped toward the heat haze of the plains. It was from a golden
+world that Bob turned at last to ride through the forest to the
+cheerfulness of his rude camp.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Bob took his examinations, passed successfully, and was at once
+appointed as ranger. Thorne had no intention of neglecting the young
+man's ability. After his arduous apprenticeship at all sorts of labour,
+Bob found himself specializing. This, he discovered, was becoming more
+and more the tendency in the personnel of the Service. Jack Pollock
+already was being sent far afield, looking into grazing conditions,
+reporting on the state of the range, the advisable number of cattle, the
+trespass cases. He had a natural aptitude for that sort of thing. Ware,
+on the other hand, developed into a mighty builder. Nothing pleased him
+more than to discover new ways through the country, to open them up, to
+blast and dig and construct his trails, to nose out bridge sites and on
+them to build spans hewn from the material at hand. He made himself a
+set of stencils and with them signed all the forks of the trails, so
+that a stranger could follow the routes. Always he painstakingly added
+the letters U.S.F.S. to indicate that these works had been done by his
+beloved Service. Charley Morton was the fire chief--though any and all
+took a hand at that when occasion arose. He could, as California John
+expressed it, run a fire out on a rocky point and lose it there better
+than any other man on the force. Ross Fletcher was the best policeman.
+He knew the mountains, their infinite labyrinths, better than any other;
+and he could guess the location of sheep where another might have
+searched all summer.
+
+Though each and every man was kept busy enough, and to spare, on all the
+varied business inseparable from the activities of a National Forest,
+nevertheless Thorne knew enough to avail himself of these especial gifts
+and likings. So, early in the summer he called in Bob and Elliott.
+
+"Now," he told them, "we have plenty of work to do, and you boys must
+buckle into it as you see fit. But this is what I want you to keep in
+the back of your mind: someday the National Forests are going to supply
+a great part of the timber in the country. It's too early yet. There's
+too much private timber standing, which can be cut without restriction.
+But when that is largely reduced, Uncle Sam will be going into the
+lumber business on a big scale. Even now we will be selling a few shake
+trees, and some small lots, and occasionally a bigger piece to some of
+the lumbermen who own adjoining timber. We've got to know what we have
+to sell. For instance, there's eighty acres in there surrounded by
+Welton's timber. When he comes to cut, it might pay us and him to sell
+the ripe trees off that eighty."
+
+"I doubt if he'd think it would pay," Bob interposed.
+
+"He might. I think the Chief will ease up a little on cutting
+restrictions before long. You've simply got to over-emphasize a matter
+at first to make it carry."
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"I mean--this is only my private opinion, you understand--that
+lumbering has been done so wastefully and badly that it has been
+necessary, merely as education, to go to the other extreme. We've
+insisted on chopping and piling the tops like cordwood, and cutting up
+the down trunks of trees, and generally 'parking' the forest simply to
+get the idea into people's heads. They'd never thought of such things
+before. I don't believe it's necessary to go to such extremes,
+practically; and I don't believe the Service will demand it when it
+comes actually to do business."
+
+Elliott and Bob looked at each other a little astonished.
+
+"Mind you, I don't talk this way outside; and I don't want you to do
+so," pursued Thorne. "But when you come right down to it, all that's
+necessary is to prevent fire from running--and, of course, to leave a
+few seed-trees. Yo' can keep fire from running just as well by piling
+the debris in isolated heaps, as by chopping it up and stacking it. And
+it's a lot cheaper."
+
+He leaned forward.
+
+"That's coming," he continued. "Now you, Elliott, have had as thorough a
+theoretical education as the schools can give you; and you, Orde, have
+had a lot of practical experience in logging. You ought to make a good
+pair. Here's a map of the Government holdings hereabouts. What I want is
+a working plan for every forty, together with a topographical
+description, an estimate of timber, and a plan for the easiest method of
+logging it. There's no hurry about it; you can do it when nothing else
+comes up to take you away. But do it thoroughly, and to the best of your
+judgment, so I can file your reports for future reference when they are
+needed."
+
+"Where do you want us to begin?" asked Bob.
+
+"Welton is the only big operator," Thorpe pointed out, "so you'd better
+look over the timber adjoining or surrounded by his. Then the basin and
+ranges above the Power Company are important. There's a fine body of
+timber there, but we must cut it with a more than usual attention to
+water supplies."
+
+This work Bob and Elliott found most congenial. They would start early
+in the morning, carrying with them their compass on its Jacob's-staff,
+their chain, their field notes, their maps and their axes. Arrived at
+the scene of operations, they unsaddled and picketed their horses. Then
+commenced a search for the "corner," established nearly fifty years
+before by the dead and gone surveyor, a copy of those field notes now
+guided them. This was no easy matter. The field notes described
+accurately the location, but in fifty years the character of a country
+may change. Great trees fall, new trees grow up, brush clothes an
+erstwhile bare hillside, fire denudes a slope, even the rocks and
+boulders shift their places under the coercion of frost or avalanche.
+The young men separated, shoulder deep in the high brakes and alders of
+a creek bottom, climbing tiny among great trees on the open slope of a
+distant hill, clambering busily among austere domes and pinnacles,
+fading in the cool green depths of the forest. Finally one would shout
+loudly. The other scrambled across.
+
+"Here we are," Bob said, pointing to the trunk of a huge yellow pine.
+
+On it showed a wrinkle in the bark, only just appreciable.
+
+"There's our line blaze," said Bob. "Let's see if we can find it in the
+notes." He opened his book. "'Small creek three links wide, course SW,'"
+he murmured. "'Sugar pine, 48 in. dia., on line, 48 links.' That's not
+it. 'Top of ridge 34 ch. 6 1. course NE.' Now we come to the down slope.
+Here we are! 'Yellow pine 20 in. dia., on line, 50 chains.' Twenty
+inches! Well, old fellow, you've grown some since! Let's see your
+compass, Elliott."
+
+Having thus cut the line, they established their course and went due
+north, spying sharply for the landmarks and old blazes as mentioned in
+the surveyor's field notes.
+
+When they had gone about the required distance, they began to look for
+the corner. After some search, Elliott called Bob's attention to a
+grown-over blaze.
+
+"I guess this is our witness tree," said he.
+
+Without a word Bob began to chop above and below the wrinkle in the
+bark. After ten minutes careful work, he laid aside a thick slab of
+wood. The inner surface of this was shiny with pitch. The space from
+which it had peeled was also coated with the smooth substance. This
+pitch had filmed over the old blaze, protecting it against the new wood
+and bark which had gradually grown over it. Thus, although the original
+blaze had been buried six inches in the living white pine wood,
+nevertheless the lettering was as clear and sharp as when it had been
+carved fifty years before. Furthermore, the same lettering, only
+reversed and in relief, showed on the thick slab that Bob had peeled
+away. So the tree had preserved the record in its heart.
+
+"Now let's see," said Bob. "This witness bears S 80 W. Let's find
+another."
+
+This proved to be no great matter. Sighting the given directions from
+the two, they converged on the corner. This was described by the old
+surveyor as: "Oak post, 4 in. dia., set in pile of rocks," etc. The pile
+of rocks was now represented by scattered stones; and the oak post had
+long since rotted. Bob, however, unearthed a fragment on which ran a
+single grooved mark. It was like those made by borers in dead limbs.
+Were it not for one circumstance, the searchers would not have been
+justified in assuming that it was anything else. But, as Bob pointed
+out, the passageways made by borers are never straight. The fact that
+this was so, established indisputably that it had been made by the
+surveyor's steel "scribe."
+
+Having thus located a corner, it was an easy matter to determine the
+position of a tract of land. At first hazy in its general configuration
+and extent, it took definition as the young men progressed with the
+accurate work of timber estimating. Before they had finished with it,
+they knew every little hollow, ridge, ravine, rock and tree in it. Out
+of the whole vast wilderness this one small patch had become thoroughly
+known.
+
+The work was the most pleasant of any Bob had ever undertaken. It
+demanded accuracy, good judgment, knowledge. It did not require feverish
+haste. The surroundings were wonderfully beautiful; and if the men
+paused in their work, as they often did, the spirit of the woods, which
+as always had drawn aside from the engrossments of human activity, came
+closer as with fluttering of wings. Sometimes, nervous and impatient
+from the busy, tiny clatter of facts and figures and guesses, from the
+restless shuttle-weaving of estimates and plans, Bob looked up suddenly
+into a deathless and eternal peace. Like the cool green refreshment of
+waters it closed over him. When he again came to the surface-world of
+his occupation, he was rested and slowed down to a respectable patience.
+
+Elliott was good company, interested in the work, well-bred,
+intelligent, eager to do his share--an ideal companion. He and Bob
+discussed many affairs during their rides to and from the work and
+during the interims of rest. As time went on, and the tracts to be
+estimated and plotted became more distant, they no longer attempted to
+return at night to Headquarters. Small meadows offered them resting
+places for the day or the week. They became expert in taking care of
+themselves so expeditiously that the process stole little time from
+their labours. On Saturday afternoon they rode to headquarters to
+report, and to spend Sunday.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Toward the end of the season they had worked well past the main ridge on
+which were situated Welton's operations and the Service Headquarters.
+Several deep canons and rocky peaks, by Thorne's instructions, they
+skipped over as only remotely available as a timber supply. This brought
+them to the ample circle of a basin, well-timbered, wide, containing an
+unusual acreage of gently sloping or rolling table-land. Behind this
+rose the spurs of the Range. A half-hundred streams here had their
+origin. These converged finally in the Forks, which, leaping and
+plunging steadily downward from a height of over six thousand feet, was
+trapped and used again and again to turn the armatures of Baker's
+dynamos. After serving this purpose at six power houses strung down the
+contour line of its descent, the water was deflected into wide, deep
+ditches which forked and forked again until a whole plains province was
+rendered fertile and productive by irrigation.
+
+All this California John, who rode over to show them some corners,
+explained to them. They sat on the rim of the basin overlooking it as it
+lay below them like a green cup.
+
+"You can see the whole of her from here," said California John, "and
+that's why we use this for fire lookout. It saves a heap of riding, for
+let me tell you it's a long ways down this bluff. But you bet we keep a
+close watch on this Basin. It's the most valuable, as a watershed, of
+any we've got. This is about the only country we've managed to throw a
+fire-break around yet. It took a lot of time to do it, but it's worth
+while."
+
+"This is where the Power Company gets its power," remarked Bob.
+
+"Yes," replied California John, drily. "Which same company is putting up
+the fight of its life in Congress to keep from payin' anything at all
+for what it gets."
+
+They gave themselves to the task of descending into the Basin by a steep
+and rough trail. At the end of an hour, their horses stepped from the
+side of the hill to a broad, pleasant flat on which the tall trees grew
+larger than any Bob had seen on the ridge.
+
+"What magnificent timber!" he cried. "How does it happen this wasn't
+taken up long ago?"
+
+"Well," said California John, "a good share of it _is_ claimed by the
+Power Company; and unless you come up the way we did, you don't see it.
+From below, all this looks like part of the bald ridge. Even if a
+cruiser in the old days happened to look down on this, he wouldn't
+realize how good it was unless he came down to it--it's all just trees
+from above. And in those days there were lots of trees easier to come
+at."
+
+"It's great timber!" repeated Bob. "That 'sugar's' eight feet through if
+it's an inch!"
+
+"Nearer nine," said California John.
+
+"It'll be some years' work to estimate and plot all this," mused Bob.
+"If it's so important a watershed, what do they _want_ it plotted for?
+They'll never want to cut it."
+
+"There ain't so much of it left, as you'll see when you look at your
+map. The Power Company owns most. Anyway, government cutting won't hurt
+the watershed," stated California John.
+
+As they rode forward through the trees, a half-dozen deer jumped
+startled from a clump of low brush and sped away.
+
+"That's more deer than I've seen in a bunch since I left Michigan,"
+observed Bob.
+
+"Nobody ever gets into this place," explained California John. "There
+ain't been a fire here in years, and we don't none of us have any
+reason to ride down. She's too hard to get out of, and we can see her
+too well from the lookout. The rest of the country feels pretty much the
+same way."
+
+"How about sheep?" inquired Elliott.
+
+"They got to get in over some trail, if they get in at all," California
+John pointed out, "and we can circle the Basin."
+
+By now they were riding over a bed of springy pine needles through a
+magnificent open forest. Undergrowth absolutely lacked; even the soft
+green of the bear clover was absent. The straight columns of the trees
+rose grandly from a swept floor. Only where tiny streams trickled and
+sang through rocks and shallow courses, grew ferns and the huge leaves
+of the saxifrage. In this temple-like austerity dwelt a silence unusual
+to the Sierra forests. The lack of undergrowth and younger trees implied
+a scarcity of insects; and this condition meant an equal scarcity of
+birds. Only the creepers and the great pileated woodpeckers seemed to
+inhabit these truly cloistral shades. The breeze passed through branches
+too elevated to permit its whisperings to be heard. The very sound of
+the horses' hoofs was muffled in the thick carpet of pine needles.
+
+California John led them sharp to the right, however, and in a few
+moments they emerged to cheerful sunlight, alders, young pines among the
+old, a leaping flashing stream of some size, and multitudes of birds,
+squirrels, insects and butterflies.
+
+"There's a meadow, and a good camping place just up-stream," said he.
+"It's easy riding. You'd better spread your blankets there. Now, here's
+the corner to 34. We reestablished it four years ago, so as to have
+_something_ to go by in this country. You can find your way about from
+there. That bold cliff of rock you see just through the trees there you
+can climb. From the top you can make out the lookout. If you're wanted
+at headquarters we'll hang out a signal. That will save a hard ride
+down. Let's see; how long you got grub for?"
+
+"I guess there's enough to last us ten days or so," replied Elliott.
+
+"Well, if you keep down this stream until you strike a big bald slide
+rock, you'll run into an old trail that takes you to the Flats. It's
+pretty old, and it ain't blazed, but you can make it out if you'll sort
+of keep track of the country. It ain't been used for years."
+
+California John, anxious to make a start at the hard climb, now said
+good-bye and started back. Bob and Elliott, their pack horse following,
+rode up the flat through which ran the river. They soon found the
+meadow. It proved to be a beautiful spot, surrounded by cedars, warm
+with the sun, bright with colour, alive with birds. A fringe of azaleas,
+cottonwoods and quaking asps screened it completely from all that lay
+outside its charmed circle. A cheerful blue sky spread its canopy
+overhead. Here Bob and Elliott turned loose their horses and made their
+camp. After lunch they lay on their backs and smoked. Through a notch in
+the trees showed a very white mountain against a very blue sky. The sun
+warmed them gratefully. Birds sang. Squirrels scampered. Their horses
+stood dozing, ears and head down-drooped, eyes half-closed, one hind leg
+tucked up.
+
+"Confound it!" cried Elliott suddenly, following his unspoken thought.
+"I feel like a bad little boy stealing jam! By night I'll be scared. If
+those woods over behind that screen aren't full of large, dignified gods
+that disapprove of me being so cheerful and contented and light-minded
+and frivolous, I miss my guess!"
+
+"Same here!" said Bob with, a short laugh. "Let's get busy."
+
+They started out that very afternoon from the corner California John had
+showed them. It took all that day and most of the following to define
+and blaze the boundaries of the first tract they intended to estimate.
+In the accomplishment of this they found nothing out of the ordinary;
+but when they began to move forward across the forty, they were soon
+brought to a halt by the unexpected.
+
+"Look here!" Bob shouted to his companion; "here's a brand new corner
+away off the line."
+
+Elliott came over. Bob showed him a stake set neatly in a pile of rocks.
+
+"It's not a very old one, either," said Bob. "Now what do you make of
+that?"
+
+Elliott had been spying about him.
+
+"There's another just like it over on the hill," said he. "I should call
+it the stakes of a mining claim. There ought to be a notice somewhere."
+
+They looked about and soon came across the notice in question. It was
+made out in the name of a man neither Bob nor Elliott had ever heard of
+before.
+
+"I suppose that's his ledge," remarked Elliott, kicking a little
+outcrop, "but it looks like mighty slim mining to me!"
+
+They proceeded with their estimating. In due time they came upon another
+mining claim, and then a third.
+
+"This is getting funny!" remarked Elliott. "Looks as though somebody
+expected to make a strike for fair. More timber than mineral here, I
+should say."
+
+"That's it!" cried Bob, slapping his leg; "I'd just about forgotten!
+This must be what Baker was talking about one evening over at camp. He
+had some scheme for getting some timber and water rights somewhere under
+the mineral act. I didn't pay so very much attention to it at the time,
+and it had slipped my mind. But this must be it!"
+
+"Do you mean to say that any man was going to take this beautiful timber
+away from us on that kind of a technicality?"
+
+"I believe that's just what he did."
+
+Two days later Elliott straightened his back after a squint through the
+compass sights to exclaim:
+
+"I wish we had a dog!"
+
+"Why?" laughed Bob. "Can't you eat your share?"
+
+"I've a feeling that somebody's hanging around these woods; I've had it
+ever since we got here. And just now while I was looking through the
+sights I thought I saw something--you know how the sights will
+concentrate your gaze."
+
+"It's these big woods," said Bob; "I've had the same hunch before.
+Besides, you can easily look for tracks along your line of sights."
+
+They did so, but found nothing.
+
+"But among these rocks a man needn't leave any tracks if he didn't want
+to," Elliott pointed out.
+
+"The bogy-man's after you," said Bob.
+
+Elliott laughed. Nevertheless, as the work progressed, from time to time
+he would freeze to an attitude of listening.
+
+"It's like feeling that there's somebody else in a dark room with you,"
+he told Bob.
+
+"You'll end by giving me the willy-willies, too," complained Bob. "I'm
+beginning to feel the same way. Quit it!"
+
+By the end of the week it became necessary to go to town after more
+supplies. Bob volunteered. He saddled his riding horse and the pack
+animal, and set forth. Following California John's directions he traced
+the length of the river through the basin to the bald rock where the old
+trail was said to begin. Here he anticipated some difficulty in picking
+up the trail, and more in following it. To his surprise he ran
+immediately into a well-defined path.
+
+"Why, this is as plain as a strip of carpet!" muttered
+
+Bob to himself. "If this is his idea of a dim trail, I'd like to see a
+good one!"
+
+He had not ridden far, however, before, in crossing a tiny trickle of
+water, he could not fail to notice a clear-cut, recent hoof print. The
+mark was that of a barefoot horse. Bob stared at it.
+
+"Now if I were real _good_," he reflected, "like old
+what-you-may-call-him--the Arabian Sherlock Holmes--I'd be able to tell
+whether this horse was loose and climbing for pasture, or carrying a
+rider, and if so, whether the rider had ever had his teeth filled.
+There's been a lot of travel on this trail, anyway. I wonder where it
+all went to?" He paused irresolutely. "It isn't more than two jumps back
+to the rock," he decided; "I'll just find out what direction they take
+anyway."
+
+Accordingly he retraced his steps to the bald rock, and commenced an
+examination of its circumference to determine where the trail led away.
+He found no such exit. Save from the direction of his own camp the way
+was closed either by precipitous sides or dense brush. The conclusion
+was unavoidable that those who had travelled the trail, had either ended
+their journeys at the bald rock or actually taken to the bed of the
+river.
+
+"Well," concluded Bob, "I'm enough of a sleuth to see that that barefoot
+horse had a rider and wasn't just looking pasture. No animal in its
+senses would hike uphill and then hike down again, or wade belly deep up
+a stream."
+
+Puzzling over this mystery, he again took his way down the trail. He
+found it easy to follow, for it had been considerably travelled. In some
+places the brush had been cut back to open easier passage. Examining
+these cuttings, Bob found their raw ends only slightly weathered. All
+this might have been done by the men who had staked the mineral claims,
+to be sure, but even then Bob found it difficult to reconcile all the
+facts. In the first place, the trail had indubitably been much used
+since the time the claims were staked. In the second place, if the
+prospector had wished to conceal anything, it should have been the fact
+of his going to the Basin at all, not his whereabouts after arriving
+there. In other words, if desiring to keep his presence secret, he would
+have blinded the _beginning_ of the trail rather than its end.
+
+He kept a sharp lookout. Near the entrance to the canon he managed to
+discover another clear print of the barefoot horse, but headed the other
+way. Clearly the rider had returned. Bob had hunted deer enough to
+recognize that the track had been made within the last twenty-four
+hours.
+
+At Sycamore Flats he was treated to further surprises. Martin, of whom
+he bought his supplies, at first greeted him with customary joviality.
+
+"Hullo! hullo!" he cried; "quite a stranger! Out in camp, eh?"
+
+"Yes," said Bob, "they've got us working for a change."
+
+"Where you located?"
+
+"We're estimating timber up in the Basin," replied Bob.
+
+The silence that followed was so intense that Bob looked up from the bag
+he was tying. He met Martin's eyes fixed on him.
+
+"The Basin," repeated Martin slowly, at last. "Since when?"
+
+"About ten days."
+
+"We! Who's we?"
+
+"Elliott and I," answered Bob, surprised. "Why?"
+
+Martin's gaze shifted. He plainly hesitated for a next remark.
+
+"How'd you like it there?" he asked lamely, at length. "I thought none
+of you fellows ever went there."
+
+"Fine timber," answered Bob, cheerfully. "We don't usually. Somebody
+does though. California John told me that trail was old and out of use;
+but it's been used a lot. Who gets up there?"
+
+"The boys drive in some cattle occasionally," replied Martin, with an
+effort.
+
+Bob stared in surprise. He knew this was not so, and started to speak,
+but thought better of it. After he had left the store, he looked back.
+Martin was gazing after him, a frown between his brows.
+
+Before he left town a half-dozen of the mountain men had asked him, with
+an obvious attempt to make the question casual, how he liked the Basin,
+how long he thought his work would keep him there. Each, as he turned
+away, followed him with that long, speculative, brooding look. Always,
+heretofore, his relations with these mountain people had been easy,
+sympathetic and cordial. Now all at once, without reason, they held him
+at arm's length and regarded him with suspicious if not hostile eyes.
+
+Puzzling over this he rode back up the road past the Power House. Thence
+issued Oldham to hail him. He pulled up.
+
+"I hear you're estimating the timber in the Basin," said the gray man,
+with more appearance of disturbance than Bob had ever seen him display.
+
+Bob acknowledged the accuracy of his statement.
+
+"Indeed!" said Oldham, pulling at his clipped moustache, and after a
+little, "Indeed!" he repeated.
+
+So the news had run ahead of him. Bob began to think the news important,
+but for some reason at which he could not as yet guess. This conviction
+was strengthened by the fact that from the two mountain cabins he passed
+on his way to the beginning of the trail, men lounged out to talk with
+him, and in each case the question, craftily rendered casual, was put to
+him as to his business in the Basin. Before one of these cabins stood a
+sweating horse.
+
+"Look here," he demanded of the Carrolls, "why all this interest about
+our being in the Basin? Every man-jack asks me. What's the point?"
+
+Old man Carroll stroked his long beard.
+
+"Do they so?" he drawled comfortably. "Well, I reckon little things make
+news, as they say, when you're in a wild country. They ain't been no
+work done in the Basin for so long that we're all just nat'rally
+interested; that's all."
+
+He looked Bob tranquilly in the eye with the limpid gaze of innocence
+before which Bob's scrutiny fell abashed. For a while his suspicions of
+anything unusual were almost lulled; the countryside _was_ proverbially
+curious of anything out of the course of events. Then, from a point
+midway up the steep trail, he just happened to look back, and just
+happened through an extraordinary combination of openings to catch a
+glimpse of a rider on the trail. The man was far below. Bob watched a
+long time, his eye fixed on another opening. Nothing appeared. From
+somewhere in the canon a coyote shrilled. Another answered him from up
+the mountain. A moment later Bob again saw the rider through the same
+opening as before, but this time descending.
+
+"A signal!" he exclaimed, in reference to the coyote howls.
+
+On arriving at the bare rock, he dismounted and hastily looked it over
+on all sides. Near the stream it had been splashed. A tiny eddy out of
+reach of the current still held mud in suspension.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+On his arrival at camp he found Elliott much interested over discoveries
+of his own. It seemed that the Easterner had spent the afternoon
+fishing. At one point, happening to look up, he caught sight of a man
+surveying him intently from a thicket. As he stared, the man drew back
+and disappeared.
+
+"I couldn't see him very plainly," said Elliott. "He had a beard and an
+old gray hat; but that doesn't mean much of course. When I got my nerve
+up, and had concluded to investigate, I could hardly find a trace of
+him. He must wear moccasins, I think."
+
+In return Bob detailed his own experiences. The two could make nothing
+of it all.
+
+"If we were down South I'd say 'moonshiners,'" said Elliott, "but the
+beautiful objection to that is, that we aren't!"
+
+"It's some mystery to do with the Basin," said Bob, "and the whole
+countryside is 'on'--except our boys. I don't believe California John
+knew a thing about it."
+
+"Didn't act so. Question: what possibly could everybody in the mountains
+be interested in that the Forest Service would object to?"
+
+"Lots of things," replied Bob promptly, "but I don't believe the
+mountains are unfriendly to us--as a unit. I know Martin isn't, and he
+was the first one I noticed as particularly worried."
+
+Elliott reflected.
+
+"If he's so friendly, perhaps he was a little uneasy about _us_," he
+suggested at length. "If somebody doesn't want the Forest Service in
+this neck of the woods--if that somebody is relying on the fact that we
+never come down in here farther than the lookout, why then it may not be
+very healthy here."
+
+"Hadn't thought of that," said Bob. "That looks cheerful. But what's the
+point? Nine-tenths of this timber is private property anyway. There's
+certainly no trespass--sheep, timber or otherwise--on the government
+land. What in blazes is the point?"
+
+"Give it up; but we'd better wear our guns."
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"I'd have a healthy show against a man who really wanted to get me with
+a gun. Presumably he'd be an expert, or he wouldn't be sent."
+
+It was agreed, however, "in view of the unsettled state of the country,"
+as Bob gravely characterized the situation, that the young men should
+stick together in their work.
+
+"There's no use taking chances, of course," Bob summed up, "but there's
+no sense in making fools of ourselves, either. Lord love you, I don't
+mind being _haunted_! They can spring as many mysterious apparitions as
+they please, so long as said apparitions don't take to heaving bricks.
+We'd look sweet and lovely, wouldn't we, to go back to headquarters and
+tell them we'd decided to come in because a bad man with whiskers who'd
+never been introduced came and looked at us out of the trees."
+
+In pursuance of this determination Bob and Elliott combined forces
+closely in their next day's work. That this was not a useless precaution
+early became apparent. As, momentarily separated by a few feet, they
+passed a dense thicket, Bob was startled by a low whistle. He looked up.
+Within fifty feet of him, but so far in the shadow as to be
+indistinguishable, a man peered at him. As he caught Bob's eyes he made
+a violent gesture whose purport Bob could not guess.
+
+"Did you whistle?" asked Elliott at his elbow. "What's up?"
+
+Bob pointed; but the man had vanished. Where he had stood they found the
+print of moccasins.
+
+Thrice during the day they were interrupted by this mysterious presence.
+On each occasion Bob saw him first. Always he gestured, but whether in
+warning or threat Bob could not tell. Each time be vanished as though
+the earth had swallowed him the instant Elliott turned at Bob's
+exclamation.
+
+"I believe he's crazy!" exclaimed Elliott impatiently.
+
+"I'd think so, too," replied Bob, "if it weren't for the way everybody
+acted down below. Do you suppose he's trying to warn us out or scare us
+off?"
+
+"I'm going to take a crack at him next time he shows up," threatened
+Elliott. "I'm getting sick of this."
+
+"No, you can't do that," warned Bob.
+
+"I'm going to tell him so anyway."
+
+"That's all right."
+
+For this experiment they had not long to await the opportunity.
+
+"Hi, there!" shouted Elliott at the place from which the mysterious
+apparition had disappeared; "I give you fair warning! Step out and
+declare yourself peaceably or accept the consequences. If you show
+yourself again after five minutes are up, I'll open fire!"
+
+The empty forest gave no sign. For an hour nothing happened. Then all at
+once, when Elliott was entangled in a tiny thicket close at Bob's elbow,
+the latter was startled by the appearance of the man not ten feet away.
+He leaped apparently from below a rounded rock, and now stood in full
+view of its crown. Bob had time only to catch cognizance of a blue eye
+and a long beard, to realize that the man was saying something rapidly
+and in a low voice, when Elliott's six-shooter exploded so near his ear
+as almost to deafen him. At the report the man toppled backward off the
+rock.
+
+"Good Lord! You've killed him!" cried Bob.
+
+"I did not; I fired straight up!" panted Elliott, dashing past him.
+"Quick! We'll catch him!"
+
+But catch him nor see him again they did not.
+
+Ten minutes later while working in a wide open stretch of forest, they
+were brought to a stand by the report of a rifle. At the same instant
+the shock of a bullet threw a shower of dead pine needles and humus over
+Elliott. Another and another followed, until six had thudded into the
+soft earth at the young man's feet. He stood quite motionless, and
+though he went a little pale, his coolness did not desert him. After the
+sixth shot silence fell abruptly. Elliott stood still for some moments,
+then moved forward a single step.
+
+"Guess the show's over," he remarked with a curt laugh. He stooped to
+examine the excavation the bullets had made. "Quaint cuss," he remarked
+a trifle bitterly. "Just wanted to show me how easy it would be. All
+right, my friend, I'm obliged to you. We'll quit the gun racket; but
+next time you show your pretty face I'll give you a run for it."
+
+"And get shot," interposed Bob.
+
+"If it's shoot, we'll get ours any minute. Say," went on the young man
+in absolutely conversational tones, "don't you see I'm mad?"
+
+Bob looked and saw.
+
+"Maybe you think shooting at me is one of my little niece's favourite
+summer-day stunts?" went on Elliott. "Well, uncle isn't used to it yet."
+
+His tone was quiet, but his eyes burned and the muscles around his mouth
+were white.
+
+"He's probably crazy, and he's armed," Bob pointed out. "For heaven's
+sake, go slow."
+
+"I'm going to paddle his pantalettes, if he commands a gatling," stated
+Elliott.
+
+But the mysterious visitor appeared no more that afternoon, and
+Elliott's resolutions had time to settle.
+
+That night the young men turned in rather earlier than usual, as they
+were very tired. Bob immediately dropped into a black sleep. So deep was
+his slumber that it seemed to him he had just dropped off, when he was
+awakened by a cool hand placed across his forehead. He opened his eyes
+quietly, without alarm, to look full into the waning moon sailing high
+above. His first drowsy motion was one of astonishment, for the luminary
+had not arisen when he had turned in. The camp fire had fallen to a few
+faintly glowing coals. These perceptions came to him so gently that he
+would probably have dropped asleep again had not the touch on his
+forehead been repeated. Then he started broad awake to find himself
+staring at a silhouetted man leaning over him.
+
+With a gesture of caution, the stranger motioned him to arise. Bob
+obeyed mechanically. The man bent toward him.
+
+"Put on your pants and sweater and come along," he whispered guardedly.
+
+Bob peered at him through the moonlight and recognized, vaguely, the man
+who had been so mysteriously pursuing them all day. He drew back.
+
+"For the Lord's sake do what I tell you!" whispered the man. "Here!"
+
+His hand sought the shadow of his side, and instantly gleamed with a
+weapon. Bob started back; but the man was holding the revolver's butt to
+him.
+
+"Now come on!" besought the stranger with a strange note of pleading.
+"Don't wake your pardner!"
+
+Yielding, with a pleasant thrill, to the adventure of the situation, and
+it must be confessed, to a strong curiosity, Bob hastily assumed his
+outer clothing. Then, with the muzzle of the revolver, he motioned the
+stranger to proceed.
+
+Stepping cautiously they gained the open forest beyond the screen of
+brush. Here the man led the way more rapidly. Bob followed close at his
+heels. They threaded the forest aisles without hesitation, crossed a
+deep ravine where the man paused to drink, and began to clamber the
+precipitous and rocky sides of Baldy.
+
+"That'll do for that!" growled Bob suddenly.
+
+The man looked around as though for information.
+
+"You needn't go so fast. Keep about three feet in front of me. And when
+we strike your gang, you keep close to me. _Sabe_?"
+
+"I'm alone," expostulated the man.
+
+Nevertheless he slackened pace.
+
+After five minutes' climb they entered a narrow ravine gashed almost
+perpendicularly in the side of the mountain. At this point, however, it
+flattened for perhaps fifty paces, so that there existed a tiny
+foothold. It was concealed from every point, and nevertheless, directly
+to the west, Bob, pausing for breath, looked out over California
+slumbering in the moon. On this ledge flowed a tiny stream, and over it
+grew a score of cedar and fir trees. A fire smouldered near an open
+camp. On this the man tossed a handful of pitch pine. Immediately the
+flames started up.
+
+"Here we are!" he remarked aloud.
+
+"Yes, I see we are," replied Bob, looking suspiciously about him, "but
+what does all this mean?"
+
+"I couldn't get to talk with you no other way, could I?" said the man in
+tones of complaint; "I sure tried hard enough! But you and your pardner
+stick closer than brothers."
+
+"If you wanted to speak to me, why didn't you say so?" demanded Bob, his
+temper rising.
+
+"Well, I don't know who your pardner is, or whether he's reliable, nor
+nothin'. A man can't be too careful. I thought mebbe you'd make a chance
+yourself, so I kept giving you a show to. 'Course I didn't want to be
+seen by him."
+
+"Not seen by him!" broke in Bob impatiently. "What in blazes are you
+driving at! Explain yourself!"
+
+"I showed myself plain only to you--except when he cut loose that time
+with his fool six-shooter. I thought he was further in the brush. Why
+didn't you make a chance to talk?"
+
+"Why should I?" burst out Bob. "Will you kindly explain to me why I
+should make a chance to talk to you; and why I've been dragged out here
+in the dead of night?"
+
+"No call to get mad," expostulated the man in rather discouraged tones;
+"I just thought as how mebbe you was still feeling friendly-like. My
+mistake. But I reckon you won't be giving me away anyhow?"
+
+During this speech he had slowly produced from his hip pocket a frayed
+bandana handkerchief; as slowly taken off his hat and mopped his brow.
+
+The removal of the floppy and shady old sombrero exposed to the mingled
+rays of the fire and the moon the man's full features. Heretofore, Bob
+had been able to see indistinctly only the meagre facts of a heavy beard
+and clear eyes.
+
+"George Pollock!" he cried, dropping the revolver and leaping forward
+with both hands outstretched.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Pollock took his hands, but stared at him puzzled. "Surely!" he said at
+last. His clear blue eyes slowly widened and became bigger. "Honest!
+Didn't you know me! Is that what ailed you, Bobby? I thought you'd done
+clean gone back on me; and I sure always remembered you for a friend!"
+
+"Know you!" shouted Bob. "Why, you eternal old fool, how should I know
+you?"
+
+"You might have made a plumb good guess."
+
+"Oh, sure!" said Bob; "easiest thing in the world. Guess that the first
+shadow you see in the woods is a man you thought was in Mexico."
+
+"Didn't you know I was here?" demanded Pollock earnestly. "Sure pop?"
+
+"How should I know?" asked Bob again.
+
+George Pollock's blue eyes smouldered with anger.
+
+"I'll sure tan that promising nephew of mine!" he threatened; "I've done
+sent you fifty messages by him. Didn't he never give you none of them?"
+
+"Who; Jack?"
+
+"That's the whelp."
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"That's a joke," said he; "I've been bunking with him for a year. Nary
+message!"
+
+"I told Carroll and Martin and one or two more to tell you."
+
+"I guess they're suspicious of any but the mountain people," said Bob.
+"They're right. How could they know?"
+
+"That's right, they couldn't," agreed George reluctantly. "But I done
+told them you was my friend. And I thought you'd gone back on me sure."
+
+"Not an inch!" cried Bob, heartily.
+
+George kicked the logs of the fire together, filled the coffee pot at
+the creek, hung it over the blaze, and squatted on his heels. Bob tossed
+him a sack of tobacco which he caught.
+
+"Thought you were bound for Mexico," hazarded Bob at length.
+
+"I went," said Pollock shortly, "and I came back."
+
+"Yes," said Bob after a time.
+
+"Homesick," said Pollock; "plain homesick. Wasn't so bad that-a-way at
+first. I was desp'rit. Took a job punching with a cow outfit near
+Nogales. Worked myself plumb out every day, and slept hard all night,
+and woke up in the morning to work myself plumb out again."
+
+He fished a coal from the fire and deftly flipped it atop his pipe bowl.
+After a dozen deep puffs, he continued:
+
+"Never noticed the country; had nothing to do with the people. All I
+knew was brands and my bosses. Did good enough cow work, I reckon. For a
+fact, it was mebbe half a year before I begun to look around. That
+country is worse than over Panamit way. There's no trees; there's no
+water; there's no green grass; there's no folks; there's no nothin'! The
+mountains look like they're made of paper. After about a half year, as I
+said, I took note of all this, but I didn't care. What the hell
+difference did it make to me what the country was like? I hadn't no
+theories to that. I'd left all that back here."
+
+He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach nearer his tragedy
+unless it was necessary. Bob nodded.
+
+"Then I begun to dream. Things come to me. I'd see places plain--like
+the falls at Cascadell--and smell things. For a fact, I smelt azaleas
+plain and sweet once; and woke up in the damndest alkali desert you ever
+see. I thought I'd never want to see this country again; the farther I
+got away, the more things I'd forget. You understand."
+
+Again Bob nodded.
+
+"It wasn't that way. The farther off I got, the more I remembered. So
+one day I cashed in and come back."
+
+He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the coffee pot bubbling
+over the fire.
+
+"It's good to get back!" he resumed at last. "It smells good; it tastes
+good. For a while that did me well enough.... I used to sneak down
+nights and look at my old place.... In summer I go back to Jim and the
+cattle, but it's dangerous these days. The towerists is getting thicker,
+and you can't trust everybody, even among the mountain folks."
+
+"How many know you are back here?" asked Bob.
+
+"Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course, and Tom Carroll and
+Martin and a few others. They ride up trail to the flat rock sometimes
+bringing me grub and papers. But it's plumb lonesome. I can't go on
+livin' this way forever, and I can't leave this yere place. Since I have
+been living here it seems like--well, I ain't no call as I can see it to
+desert my wife dead or alive!" he declared stoutly.
+
+"You needn't explain," said Bob.
+
+George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.
+
+"Well, you know about such things. What am I to do?"
+
+"There are only two courses that I can see," answered Bob, after
+reflection, "outside the one you're following now. You can give yourself
+up to the authorities and plead guilty. There's a chance that mitigating
+circumstances will influence the judge to give you a light sentence; and
+there's always a possibility of a pardon. When all the details are made
+known there ought to be a good show for getting off easy."
+
+"What's the other?" demanded Pollock, who had listened with the closest
+attention.
+
+"The other is simply to go back home."
+
+"They'd arrest me."
+
+"Let them," said Bob. "Plead not guilty, and take your chances on the
+trial. Their evidence is circumstantial; you don't have to incriminate
+yourself; I doubt if a jury would agree on convicting you. Have you ever
+talked with anybody about--about that morning?"
+
+"About me killing Plant?" supplied Pollock tranquilly. "No. A man don't
+ask about those things."
+
+"Not even to Jim?"
+
+"No. We just sort of took all that for granted."
+
+"Well, that would be all right. Then if they're called on the stand,
+they can tell nothing. There are at least no witnesses to the deed
+itself."
+
+"There's you----" suggested George.
+
+Bob brought up short in his train of reasoning.
+
+"But you won't testify agin me?"
+
+"There's no reason why I should be called. Nobody even knows I was out
+of bed at that time. If my name happens to be mentioned--which isn't at
+all likely--Auntie Belle or a dozen others will volunteer that I was in
+bed, like the rest of the town. There's no earthly reason to connect me
+with it."
+
+"But if you are called?" persisted the mountaineer.
+
+"Then I'll have to tell the truth, of course," said Bob soberly; "it'll
+be under oath, you know."
+
+Pollock looked at him strangely askant.
+
+"I didn't much look to hear you talk that-a-way," said he.
+
+"George," said Bob, "this will take money. Have you any?"
+
+"I've some," replied the mountaineer sulkily.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"A hundred dollars or so."
+
+"Not enough by a long patch. You must let me help you on this."
+
+"I don't need no help," said Pollock.
+
+"You let me help you once before," Bob reminded him gently, "if it was
+only to hold a horse."
+
+"By God, that's right!" burst out George Pollock, "and I'm a fool! If
+they call you on the stand, don't you lie under oath for me! I don't
+believe you'd do it for yourself; and that's what I'm going to do for
+myself. I reckon I'll just plead guilty!"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry," Bob warned him. "It isn't a matter to go off
+half-cock on. Any man would have done what you did. I'd have done it
+myself. That's why I stood by you. I'm not sure you aren't right to take
+advantage of what the law can do for you. Plenty do just that with only
+the object of acquiring other people's dollars. I don't say it's right
+in theory; but in this case it may be eternally right in practice. Go
+slow on deciding."
+
+"You're sure a good friend, Bobby," said Pollock simply.
+
+"Whatever you decide, don't even mention my name to any one," warned
+Bob. "We don't want to get me connected with the case in any man's mind.
+Hardly let on you remember to have known me. Don't overdo it though.
+You'll want a real good lawyer. I'll find out about that. And the
+money--how'll we fix it?"
+
+George thought for a moment.
+
+"Fix it with Jack," said he at length. "He'll stay put. Tell him not to
+tell his own father. He won't. He's reliable."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Well, I'm risking my neck on it."
+
+"I'll simply tell him the name of the lawyer," decided Bob, "and get him
+actual cash."
+
+"I'll pay that back--the other I can't," said Pollock with sudden
+feeling. "Here, have a cup of coffee."
+
+Bob swallowed the hot coffee gratefully. Without speaking further,
+Pollock arose and led the way. When finally they had reached the open
+forest above the camp, the mountaineer squeezed Bob's fingers hard.
+
+"Good-bye," said the younger man in a guarded voice. "I won't see you
+again. Remember, even at best it's a long wait in jail. Think it over
+before you decide!"
+
+"I'm in jail here," replied Pollock.
+
+Bob walked thoughtfully to camp. He found a fire burning and Elliott
+afoot.
+
+"Thank God, you're here!" cried that young man; "I was getting scared
+for you. What's up?"
+
+"You are and I am," replied Bob. "Couldn't sleep, so I went for a walk.
+Think that bogy-man of yours had got me?"
+
+"I surely began to."
+
+"Nothing doing. I guess I can snooze a little now."
+
+"I can't," complained Elliott. "You've got me good and waked up,
+confound you!"
+
+Bob kicked off his boots, and without further disrobing rolled himself
+into his gray blanket. As he was dropping asleep two phrases flashed
+across his brain. They were: "compounding a felony," and "accessory
+after the fact."
+
+"Don't feel much like a criminal either," murmured Bob to himself; and
+after a moment: "Poor devil!"
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+Two days later, from the advantage of the rock designated by California
+John, Elliott reported the agreed signal for their recall. Accordingly,
+they packed together their belongings and returned to headquarters.
+
+"We're getting short-handed, and several things have come up," said
+Thorne. "I have work for both of you."
+
+Having dispatched Elliott, Thorne turned to Bob.
+
+"Orde," said he, "I'm going to try you out on a very delicate matter. At
+the north end lives an old fellow named Samuels. He and his family are
+living on a place inside the National forests. He took it up years ago,
+mainly for the timber, but he's one of these hard-headed old coons
+that's 'agin the Government,' on general principles. He never proved up,
+and when his attention was called to the fact, he refused to do
+anything. No reason why not, except that 'he'd always lived there and
+always would.' You know the kind."
+
+"Ought to--put in two years in the Michigan woods," said Bob.
+
+"Well, as a matter of fact, he gave up the claim to all intents and
+purposes, but now that the Yellow Pine people are cutting up toward him,
+he's suddenly come to the notion that the place is worth while. So he's
+patched up his cabin, and moved in his whole family. We've got to get a
+relinquishment out of him."
+
+"If he has no right there, why not put him off?" asked Bob.
+
+"Well, in the first place, this Samuels is a hard old citizen with a
+shotgun; in the second place, he has some shadow of right on which he
+could make a fight; in the third place, the country up that way doesn't
+care much for us anyway, and we want to minimize opposition."
+
+"I see," said Bob.
+
+"You'll have to go up and look the ground over, that's all. Do what you
+think best. Here are all the papers in the matter. You can look them
+over at your leisure."
+
+Bob tucked the bundle of papers in his _cantinas_, or pommel bags, and
+left the office. Amy was rattling the stove in her open-air kitchen,
+shaking down the ashes preparatory to the fire. Bob stopped to look
+across at her trim, full figure in its starched blue, immaculate as
+always.
+
+"Hullo, Colonel!" he called. "How are the legions of darkness and
+ignorance standing the cannonading these days? Funny paper any new
+jokes?"
+
+This last was in reference to Amy's habit of reading the Congressional
+Record in search of speeches or legislation affecting the forests. Bob
+stoutly maintained, and nobody but Amy disputed him, that she was the
+only living woman, in or out of captivity, known to read that series of
+documents.
+
+Amy shook her head, without looking up.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Bob solicitously. "Nothing wrong with the
+Hero, nor any of the Assistant Heroes?"
+
+Thus in their banter were designated the President, and such senators as
+stood behind his policies of conservation.
+
+"Then the villains must have been saying a few triumphant ha! has!"
+pursued Bob, referring to Fulton, Clark, Heyburn and the rest of the
+senatorial representatives of the anti-conservationists. "Or is it
+merely the stove? Let me help."
+
+Amy stood upright, and thrust back her hair.
+
+"Please don't," said she. "I don't feel like joking to-day."
+
+"It _is_ something!" cried Bob. "I do beg your pardon; I didn't realize
+... you know I'd like to help, if it's anything I can do."
+
+"It is nothing to do with any of us," said Amy, seating herself for a
+moment, and letting her hands fall in her lap. "It's just some news that
+made me feel sorry. Ware came up with the mail a little while ago, and
+he tells us that George Pollock has suddenly reappeared and is living
+down at his own place."
+
+"They've arrested him!" cried Bob.
+
+"Not yet; but they will. The sheriff has been notified. Of course, his
+friends warned him in time; but he won't go. Says he intends to stay."
+
+"Then he'll go to jail."
+
+"And to prison. What chance has a poor fellow like that without money or
+influence? All he has is his denial."
+
+"Then he denies?" asked Bob eagerly.
+
+"Says he knows nothing about Plant's killing. His wife died that same
+morning, and he went away because he could not stand it. That's his
+story; but the evidence is strong against him, poor fellow."
+
+"Do you believe him?" asked Bob.
+
+Amy swung her foot, pondering.
+
+"No," she said at last. "I believe he killed Plant; and I believe he did
+right! Plant killed his wife and child, and took away all his property.
+That's what it amounted to."
+
+"There are hardships worked in any administration," Bob pointed out.
+
+Amy looked at him slowly.
+
+"You don't believe that in this case," she pronounced at last.
+
+"Then Pollock will perjure himself," suggested Bob, to try her.
+
+"And if he has friends worth the name, they'll perjure themselves, too!"
+cried Amy boldly. "They'll establish an alibi, they'll invent a murderer
+for Plant, they'll do anything for a man as persecuted and hunted as
+poor George Pollock!"
+
+"Heavens!" returned Bob, genuinely aghast at this wholesale programme.
+"What would become of morals and honour and law and all the rest of it,
+if that sort of thing obtained?"
+
+"Law?" Amy caught him up. "Law? It's become foolish. No man lives
+capable of mastering it so completely that another man cannot find flaws
+in his best efforts. Reuf and Schmitz are guilty--everybody says so,
+even themselves. Why aren't they in jail? Because of the law. Don't talk
+to me of law!"
+
+"But how about ordinary mortals? You can't surely permit a man to lie in
+a court of justice just because he thinks his friend's cause is just!"
+
+"I don't know anything about it," sighed Amy, as though weary all at
+once, "except that it isn't right. The law should be a great and wise
+judge, humane and sympathetic. George Pollock should be able to go to
+that judge and say: 'I killed Plant, because he had done me an injury
+for which the perpetrator should suffer death. He was permitted to do
+this because of the deficiency of the law.' And he should be able to say
+it in all confidence that he would be given justice, eternal justice,
+and not a thing so warped by obscure and forgotten precedents that it
+fits nothing but some lawyer's warped notion of logic!"
+
+"Whew!" whistled Bob, "what a lady of theory and erudition it is!"
+
+Amy eyed him doubtfully, then smiled.
+
+"I'm glad you happened along," said she. "I feel better. Now I believe
+I'll be able to do something with my biscuits."
+
+"I could do justice to some of them," remarked Bob, "and it would be the
+real thing without any precedents in that line whatever."
+
+"Come around later and you'll have the chance," invited Amy, again
+addressing herself to the stove.
+
+Still smiling at this wholesale and feminine way of leaping directly to
+a despotically desired ideal result, Bob took the trail to his own camp.
+Here he found Jack Pollock poring over an old illustrated paper.
+
+"Hullo, Jack!" he called cheerfully. "Not out on duty, eh?"
+
+"I come in," said Jack, rising to his feet and folding the old paper
+carefully. He said nothing more, but stood eyeing his colleague gravely.
+
+"You want something of me?" asked Bob.
+
+"No," denied Jack, "I don't know nothing I want of you. But I was told
+to come and get a piece of paper and maybe some money that a stranger
+was goin' to leave by our chimbley. It ain't there. You ain't seen it,
+by any chance?"
+
+"It may have got shoved among some of my things by mistake," replied Bob
+gravely. "I haven't had a chance of looking. I'm just in from the
+Basin." At these last words he looked at Jack keenly, but that young
+man's expression remained inscrutable. "I'll look when I get back," he
+continued after a moment; "just now I've got to ride over to the mill to
+see Mr. Welton."
+
+Jack nodded gravely.
+
+"If you find them, leave them by the chimbley," said he. "I'm going to
+headquarters."
+
+Bob rode to the mill. By the exercise of some diplomacy he brought the
+conversation to good lawyers without arousing Welton's suspicions that
+he could have any personal interest in the matter.
+
+"Erbe's head and shoulders above the rest," said Welton. "He has half
+the business. He's for Baker's interests, and our own; and he's shrewd.
+Maybe you'll get into trouble yourself some day, Bob. Better send for
+him. He's the greatest criminal lawyer in the business."
+
+Bob laughed heartily with his old employer. From Poole he easily
+obtained currency for his personal check of two hundred dollars. This
+would do to go on with for the time being. He wrote Erbe's name and
+address--in a disguised hand--on a piece of rough brown paper. This he
+wrapped around the money, and deposited by the alarm clock on the rough
+log mantelpiece of his cabin. The place was empty. When he had returned
+from his invited supper with the Thornes, the package had disappeared.
+He did not again catch sight of Jack Pollock, for next morning he
+started out on his errand to the north end.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+At noon of the second day of a journey that led him up the winding
+watered valleys of the lower ranges, Bob surmounted a ridge higher than
+the rest and rode down a long, wide slope. Here the character of the
+country changed completely. Scrub oaks, young pines and chaparral
+covered the ground. Among this growth Bob made out the ancient stumps of
+great trees. The ranch houses were built of sawn lumber, and possessed
+brick chimneys. In appearance they seemed midway between the farm houses
+of the older settled plains and the rougher cabins of the mountaineers.
+
+Bob continued on a dusty road until he rode into a little town which he
+knew must be Durham. Its main street contained three stores, two
+saloons, a shady tree, a windmill and watering trough and a dozen
+chair-tilted loafers. A wooden sidewalk shaded by a wooden awning ran
+the entire length of this collection of commercial enterprises. A
+redwood hitching rail, much chewed, flanked it. Three saddle horses, and
+as many rigs, dozed in the sun.
+
+Bob tied his saddle horse to the rail, leaving the pack animal to its
+own devices. Without attention to the curious stares of the loafers, he
+pushed into the first store, and asked directions of the proprietor. The
+man, a type of the transplanted Yankee, pushed the spectacles up over
+his forehead, and coolly surveyed his questioner from head to foot
+before answering.
+
+"I see you're a ranger," he remarked drily. "Well, I wouldn't go to
+Samuels's if I was you. He's give it out that he'll kill the next ranger
+that sets foot on his place."
+
+"I've heard that sort of talk before," replied Bob impatiently.
+
+"Samuels means what he says," stated the storekeeper. "He drove off the
+last of you fellows with a shotgun--and he went too."
+
+"You haven't told me how to get there," Bob pointed out.
+
+"All you have to do is to turn to the right at the white church and
+follow your nose," replied the man curtly.
+
+"How far is it?"
+
+"About four mile."
+
+"Thank you," said Bob, and started out.
+
+The man let him get to the door.
+
+"Say, you!" he called.
+
+Bob stopped.
+
+"You might be in better business than to turn a poor man out of his
+house and home."
+
+Bob did not wait to hear the rest. As he untied his saddle horse, a man
+brushed by him with what was evidently intentional rudeness, for he
+actually jostled Bob's shoulder. The man jerked loose the tie rein of
+his own mount, leaped to the saddle, and clattered away. Bob noticed
+that he turned to the right at the white church.
+
+The four-mile ride, Bob discovered, was almost straight up. At the end
+of it he found himself well elevated above the valley, and once more in
+the sugar-pine belt. The road wound among shades of great trees. Piles
+of shakes, gleaming and fragrant, awaited the wagon. Rude signs, daubed
+on the riven shingles, instructed the wayfarer that this or that dim
+track through the forest led to So-and-so's shake camp.
+
+It was by now after four of the afternoon. Bob met nobody on the road,
+but he saw in the dust fresh tracks which he shrewdly surmised to be
+those of the man who had jostled him. Samuels had his warning. The
+mountaineer would be ready. Bob had no intention of delivering a frontal
+attack.
+
+He rode circumspectly, therefore, until he discerned an opening in the
+forest. Here he dismounted. The opening, of course, might be only that
+of a natural meadow, but in fact proved to be the homestead claim of
+which Bob was in search.
+
+The improvements consisted of a small log cabin with a stone and mud
+chimney; a log stable slightly larger in size; a rickety fence made
+partly of riven pickets, partly of split rails, but long since weathered
+and rotted; and what had been a tiny orchard of a score of apple trees.
+At some remote period this orchard had evidently been cultivated, but
+now the weeds and grasses grew rank and matted around neglected trees.
+The whole place was down at the heels. Tin cans and rusty baling wire
+strewed the back yard; an ill-cared-for wagon stood squarely in front;
+broken panes of glass in the windows had been replaced respectively by
+an old straw hat and the dirty remains of overalls. The supports of the
+little verandah roof sagged crazily. Over it clambered a vine. Close
+about drew the forest. That was it: the forest! The "homestead" was a
+mere hovel; the cultivation a patch; the improvements sketchy and
+ancient; but the forest, become valuable for lumber where long it had
+been considered available only for shakes, furnished the real motive for
+this desperate attempt to rehabilitate old and lapsed rights.
+
+The place was populous enough, for all its squalor. A half-dozen small
+children, scantily clothed, swarmed amongst the tin cans; two women, one
+with a baby in her arms, appeared and disappeared through the low
+doorway of the cabin; a horse or two dozed among the trees of the
+neglected orchard; chickens scratched everywhere. Square in the middle
+of the verandah, in a wooden chair, sat an old man whom Bob guessed to
+be Samuels. He sat bolt upright, facing the front, his knees spread
+apart, his feet planted solidly. A patriarchal beard swept his great
+chest; thick, white hair crowned his head; bushy white brows, like
+thatch, overshadowed his eyes. Even at the distance, Bob could imagine
+the deep-set, flashing, vigorous eyes of the old man. For everything
+about him, save the colour of his hair and beard, bespoke great vigour.
+His solidly planted attitude in his chair, the straight carriage of his
+back, the set of his shoulders, the very poise of his head told of the
+power and energy of an autocrat. Across his knees rested a shotgun.
+
+As Bob watched, a tall youth sauntered around the corner of the cabin.
+He spoke to the old man. Samuels did not look around, but nodded his
+massive head. The young man disappeared in the cabin to return after a
+moment, accompanied by the individual Bob had seen in Durham. The two
+spoke again to the old man; then sauntered off in the direction of the
+barn.
+
+Bob returned, untied his horse; and, leading that animal, approached the
+cabin afoot. No sooner had he emerged into view when the old man arose
+and came squarely and uncompromisingly to meet him. The two encountered
+perhaps fifty yards from the cabin door.
+
+Bob found that a closer inspection of his antagonist rather strengthened
+than diminished the impression of force. The old man's eyes were
+flashing fire, and his great chest rose and fell rapidly. He held his
+weapon across the hollow of his left arm, but the muscles of his right
+hand were white with the power of his grip.
+
+"Get out of here!" he fairly panted at Bob. "I warned you fellows!"
+
+Bob replied calmly.
+
+"I came in to see if I could get to stay for supper, and to feed my
+horse."
+
+At this the old man exploded in a violent rage. He ordered Bob off the
+place instantly, and menaced him with his shotgun. Had Bob been mounted,
+Samuels would probably have shot him; but the mere position of a
+horseman afoot conveys subtly an impression of defencelessness that is
+difficult to overcome. He is, as it were, anchored to the spot, and at
+the other man's mercy. Samuels raged, but he did not shoot.
+
+At the sounds of altercation, however, the whole hive swarmed. The
+numerous children scuttled for cover like quail, but immediately peered
+forth again. The two women thrust their heads from the doorway. From the
+direction of the stable the younger men came running. One of them held a
+revolver in his hand.
+
+During all this turmoil and furore Bob had stood perfectly still, saying
+no word. Provided he did nothing to invite it, he was now safe from
+personal violence. To be sure, a very slight mistake would invite it.
+Bob waited patiently.
+
+He remembered, and was acting upon, a conversation he had once held with
+Ware. The talk had fallen on gunfighting, and Bob, as usual, was trying
+to draw Ware out. The latter was, also, as usual, exceedingly reticent
+and disinclined to open up.
+
+"What would you do if a man got your hands up?" chaffed Bob.
+
+Ware turned on him quick as a flash.
+
+"No man ever got my hands up!"
+
+"No?" said Bob, hugely delighted at the success of his stratagem. "What
+do you do, then, when a man gets the cold drop on you?"
+
+But now Ware saw the trap into which his feet were leading him, and drew
+back into his shell.
+
+"Oh, shoot out, or bluff out," said he briefly.
+
+"But look here, Ware," insisted Bob, "it's all very well to talk like
+that. But suppose a man actually has his gun down on you. How can you
+'shoot out or bluff out'?"
+
+Ware suddenly became serious.
+
+"No man," said he, "can hold a gun on you for over ten seconds without
+his eyes flickering. It's too big a strain. He don't let go for mor'n
+about the hundredth part of a second. After that he has holt again for
+another ten seconds, and will pull trigger if you bat an eyelash. _But
+if you take it when his eyes flicker, and are quick, you'll get him!_"
+
+"What about the other way around?" asked Bob.
+
+"I never pulled a gun unless I meant to shoot," said Ware grimly.
+
+The practical philosophy of this Bob was now utilizing. If he had ridden
+up boldly, Samuels would probably have shot him from the saddle. Having
+gained the respite, Bob now awaited the inevitable momentary relaxing
+from this top pitch of excitement. It came.
+
+"I have not the slightest intention of tacking up any notices or serving
+any papers," he said quietly, referring to the errand of the man whom
+Samuels had driven off at the point of his weapon. "I am travelling on
+business; and I asked for shelter and supper."
+
+"No ranger sets foot on my premises," growled Samuels.
+
+"Very well," said Bob, unpinning and pocketing his pine tree badge.
+(_"Oh, I'd have died rather than do that!" cried Amy when she heard.
+"I'd have stuck to my guns!" "Heroic, but useless," replied her brother
+drily._) "I don't care whether the ranger is fed or not. But I'm a lot
+interested in me. I ask you as a man, not as an official."
+
+"Your sort ain't welcome here; and if you ain't got sense enough to see
+it, you got to be shown!" the youngest man broke in roughly.
+
+Bob turned to him calmly.
+
+"I am not asking your sufferance," said he, "nor would I eat where I am
+not welcome. I am asking Mr. Samuels to bid me welcome. If he will not
+do so, I will ride on." He turned to the old man again. "Do you mean to
+tell me that the North End is so far behind the South End in common
+hospitality? We've fed enough men at the Wolverine Company in our time."
+
+Bob let fly this shaft at a venture. He knew how many passing
+mountaineers paused for a meal at the cook house, and surmised it
+probable that at least one of his three opponents might at some time
+have stopped there. This proved to be the case.
+
+"Are you with the Wolverine Company?" demanded the man who had jostled
+him.
+
+"I was for some years in charge of the woods."
+
+"I've et there. You can stay to supper," said Samuels ungraciously.
+
+He turned sharp on his heel and marched back to the cabin, leaving Bob
+to follow with his horse. The two younger men likewise went about their
+business. Bob found himself quite alone, with only this ungracious
+permission to act on.
+
+Nevertheless, quite imperturbably, Bob unsaddled, led his animal into
+the dark stable, threw it some of the wild hay stacked therein, washed
+himself in the nearby creek, and took his station on the deserted
+verandah. The twilight fell. Some of the children ventured into sight,
+but remained utterly unmoved by the young man's tentative advances. He
+heard people moving about inside, but no one came near him. Finally,
+just at dusk, the youngest man protruded his head from the doorway.
+
+"Come to supper," said he surlily.
+
+Bob ducked his head to enter a long, low room. Its walls were of the
+rough logs; its floor of hewn timbers; its ceiling of round beams on
+which had been thrown untrimmed slabs as a floor to the loft above. A
+board table stood in the centre of this, flanked by homemade chairs and
+stools of all varieties of construction. A huge iron cooking stove
+occupied all of one end--an extraordinary piece of ordnance. The light
+from a single glass lamp cast its feeble illumination over coarse dishes
+steaming with food.
+
+Bob bowed politely to the two women, who stood, their arms crossed on
+their stomachs, without deigning his salutation the slightest attention.
+The children, of all sizes and ages, stared at him unblinking. The two
+men shuffled to their seats, without looking up at the visitor. Only the
+old man vouchsafed him the least notice....
+
+"Set thar!" he growled, indicating a stool.
+
+Bob found on the board that abundance and variety which always so much
+surprises the stranger to a Sierra mountaineer's cabin. Besides the
+usual bacon, beans, and bread, there were dishes of canned string-beans
+and corn, potatoes, boiled beef, tomatoes and pressed glass dishes of
+preserves. Coffee, hot as fire, and strong as lye, came in thick china
+cups without handles.
+
+The meal went forward in absolute silence, which Bob knew better than to
+interrupt. It ended for each as he or she finished eating. The two women
+were left at the last quite alone. Bob followed his host to the veranda.
+There he silently offered the old man a cigar; the younger men had
+vanished.
+
+Samuels took the cigar with a grunt of thanks, smelled it carefully, bit
+an inch off the end, and lit it with a slow-burning sulphur match. Bob
+also lit up.
+
+For one hour and a half--two cigars apiece--the two sat side by side
+without uttering a syllable. The velvet dark drew close. The heavens
+sparkled as though frosted with light. Bob, sitting tight on what he
+knew was the one and only plan to accomplish his purpose, began to
+despair of his chance. Of his companion he could make out dimly only the
+white of his hair and beard, the glowing fire of his cigar. Inside the
+house the noises made by the inhabitants thereof increased and died
+away; evidently the household was seeking its slumber. A tree-toad
+chirped, loudest in all the world of stillness.
+
+Suddenly, without warning, the old man scraped back his chair. Bob's
+heart leaped. Was his one chance escaping him? Then to his relief
+Samuels spoke. The long duel of silence was at an end.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+"What might your name be?" inquired Samuels.
+
+"Orde."
+
+"I heerd of you ... what might you be doing up here?"
+
+"I'm just riding through."
+
+"Best thing any of you can do," commented the old man grimly.
+
+"I wish you'd tell me now why you jumped on me so this evening," said
+Bob.
+
+"If you don't know, you're a fool," growled Samuels.
+
+"I've knocked around a good deal," persisted Bob, "and I've discovered
+that one side always sounds good until you hear the other man's story.
+I've only heard one side of this one."
+
+"And that's all you're like to hear," Samuels told him. "You don't get
+no evidence out of me against myself."
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"You're mighty suspicious--and I don't know as I blame you. Bless your
+soul, what evidence do you suppose I could get from you in a case like
+this? You've already made it clear enough with that old blunderbuss of
+yours what you think of the merits of the case. I asked you out of
+personal interest. I know the Government claims you don't own this
+place; and I was curious to know why you think you do. The Government
+reasoning looks pretty conclusive to a man who doesn't know all the
+circumstances."
+
+"Oh, it is, is it!" cried Samuels, stung to anger. "Well, what claim do
+you think the Government has?"
+
+But Bob was too wily to be put in the aggressive.
+
+"I'm not thinking; I'm asking," said he. "They say you're holding this
+for the timber, and never proved up."
+
+"I took it up bony-fidy," fairly shouted Samuels. "Do you think a man
+plants an orchard and such like on a timber claim. The timber is worth
+something, of course. Well, don't every man take up timber? What about
+that Wolverine Company of yours? What about the Yellow Pine people? What
+about everybody, everywhere? Ain't I got a right to it, same as
+everybody else?"
+
+He leaned forward, pounding his knee. A querulous and sleepy voice spoke
+up from the interior of the cabin:
+
+"Oh, pa, for heaven's sake don't holler so!"
+
+The old man paused in mid-career. Over the treetops the moon was rising
+slowly. Its light struck across the lower part of the verandah, showing
+clearly the gnarled hand of the mountaineer suspended above his sturdy
+knee; casting into dimness the silver of his massive head. The hand
+descended noiselessly.
+
+"Ain't I got my rights, same as another man?" he asked, more reasonably.
+"Just because I left out some little piece of their cussed red-tape am I
+a-goin' to be turned out bag and baggage, child, kit, and kaboodle,
+while fifty big men steal, just plain steal, a thousand acres apiece and
+there ain't nothing said? Not if I know it!"
+
+He talked on. Slowly Bob came to an understanding of the man's position.
+His argument, stripped of its verbiage and self-illusion, was simplicity
+itself. The public domain was for the people. Men selected therefrom
+what they needed. All about him, for fifty years, homesteads had been
+taken up quite frankly for the sake of timber. Nobody made any
+objections. Nobody even pretended that these claims were ever intended
+to be lived on. The barest letter of the law had been complied with.
+
+"I've seen a house, made out'n willow branches, and out'n coal-oil cans,
+called resident buildin's under the act," said Samuels, "and _they_ was
+so lost in the woods that it needed a compass to find 'em."
+
+He, Samuels, on the other hand, had actually planted an orchard and made
+improvements, and even lived on the place for a time. Then he had let
+the claim lapse, and only recently had decided to resume what he
+sincerely believed to be his rights in the matter.
+
+Bob did not at any point suggest any of the counter arguments he might
+very well have used. He listened, leaning back against the rail,
+watching the moonlight drop log by log as the luminary rose above the
+verandah roof.
+
+"And so there come along last week a ranger and started to tack up a
+sign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the United States.' Property
+of hell!"
+
+He ceased talking. Bob said nothing.
+
+"Now you got it; what you think?" asked the old man at last.
+
+"It's tough luck," said Bob. "There's more to be said for your side of
+the case than I had thought."
+
+"There's a lot more goin' to be said yet," stated Samuels, truculently.
+
+"But I'm afraid when it comes right down to the law of it, they'll
+decide against your claim. The law reads pretty plain on how to go about
+it; and as I understand it, you never did prove up."
+
+"My lawyer says if I hang on here, they never can get me out," said
+Samuels, "and I'm a-goin' to hang on."
+
+"Well, of course, that's for the courts to decide," agreed Bob, "and I
+don't claim to know much about law--nor want to."
+
+"Me neither!" agreed the mountaineer fervently.
+
+"But I've known of a dozen cases just like yours that went against the
+claimant. There was the Brown case in Idaho, for instance, that was
+exactly like yours. Brown had some money, and he fought it through up to
+the Supreme Court, but they decided against him."
+
+"How was that?" asked Samuels.
+
+Bob explained at length, dispassionately, avoiding even the colour of
+argument, but drawing strongly the parallel.
+
+"Even if you could afford it, I'm almighty afraid you'd run up against
+exactly the same thing," Bob concluded, "and they'd certainly use the
+Brown case as a precedent."
+
+"Well, I've got money!" said Samuels. "Don't you forget it. I don't have
+to live in a place like this. I've got a good, sawn-lumber house,
+painted, in Durham and a garden of posies."
+
+"I'd like to see it," said Bob.
+
+"Sometime you get to Durham, ask for me," invited Samuels.
+
+"Well, I see how you feel. If I were in your fix, I'd probably fight it
+too, but I'm morally certain they'd get you in the courts. And it is a
+tremendous expense for nothing."
+
+"Well, they've got to git me off'n here first," threatened Samuels.
+
+Bob averted the impending anger with a soft chuckle.
+
+"I wouldn't want the job!" said he. "But if they had the courts with
+them, they'd get you off. You can drive those rangers up a tree quick
+enough (_"You know that isn't so!" cried Amy at the subsequent
+recital._), but this is a Federal matter, and they'll send troops
+against you, if necessary."
+
+"My lawyer----" began Samuels.
+
+"May be dead right, or he _may_ enjoy a legal battle at the other man's
+expense," put in Bob. "The previous cases are all dead against him; and
+they're the only ammunition."
+
+"It's a-gittin' cold," said Samuels, rising abruptly. "Let's git
+inside!"
+
+Bob followed him to the main room of the cabin where the mountaineer lit
+a tallow candle stuck in the neck of a bottle.
+
+"Oh, pa, come to bed!" called a sleepy voice, "and quit your
+palavering."
+
+"Shet up!" commanded Samuels, setting the candle in the middle of the
+table, and seating himself by it. "Ain't there no decisions the other
+way?"
+
+"I'm no lawyer," Bob pointed out, dropping into a stool on the other
+side, so that the candle stood between them, "and my opinion is of no
+value"--the old man grunted what might have been assent, or a mere
+indication of attention--"but as far as I know, there have been none. I
+know all the leading cases, I _think_" he added.
+
+"So they can put me off, and leave all these other fellows, who are
+worse off than I be in keepin' up with what the law wants!" cried
+Samuels.
+
+"I hope they'll begin action against every doubtful claim," said Bob
+soberly.
+
+"It may be the law to take away my homestead, but it ain't justice,"
+stated the old man.
+
+Bob ventured his first aggressive movement.
+
+"Did you ever read the Homestead Law?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, as you remember, that law states pretty plainly the purpose of
+the Homestead Act. It is to provide, out of the public lands, for any
+citizen not otherwise provided, with one hundred and sixty acres as a
+farm to cultivate or a homestead on which to live. When a man takes that
+land for any other purpose whatever, he commits an injustice; and when
+that land is recalled to the public domain, that injustice is righted,
+not another committed."
+
+"Injustice!" challenged the old man; "against what, for heaven's sake!"
+
+"Against the People," replied Bob firmly.
+
+"I suppose these big lumber dealers need a home and a farm too!" sneered
+Samuels.
+
+"Because they did wrong is no reason you should."
+
+"Who dares say I done wrong?" demanded the mountaineer. "Look here! Why
+does the Government pick on me and try to drive me off'n my little place
+where I'm living, and leave these other fellows be? What right or
+justice is there in that?"
+
+"I don't know the ins and out of it all," Bob reminded him. "As I said
+before, I'm no lawyer. But they've at least conformed with the forms of
+the law, as far as the Government has any evidence. You have not. I
+imagine that's the reason your case has been selected first."
+
+"To hell with a law that drives the poor man off his home and leaves the
+rich man on his ill-got spoils!" cried Samuels.
+
+The note in this struck Bob's ear as something alien. "I wonder what
+that echoes from!" was his unspoken thought. Aloud he merely remarked:
+
+"But you said yourself you have money and a home in Durham."
+
+"That may be," retorted Samuels, "but ain't I got as much right to the
+timber, I who have been in the country since '55, as the next man?"
+
+"Why, of course you have, Mr. Samuels," agreed Bob heartily. "I'm with
+you there."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"But you've exercised your rights to timber claims already. You took up
+your timber claim in '89, and what is more, your wife and her brother
+and your oldest son also took up timber claims in '90. As I understand
+it, this is an old homestead claim, antedating the others."
+
+Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been lured from
+his vantage ground of force to that of argument; how he scarcely knew.
+It had certainly been without his intention.
+
+Bob, however, had no desire that the old man should again take his stand
+behind the impenetrable screen of threat and bluster from which he had
+been decoyed.
+
+"We've all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop to this sort
+of thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the time is at hand when
+graft and grab by the rich and powerful will have to go. It will go only
+when we take hold together. Look at San Francisco--" With great skill
+he drew the old man into a discussion of the graft cases in that city.
+
+"Graft," he concluded, "is just the price the people are willing to pay
+to get their politics done for them while they attend to the pressing
+business of development and building. They haven't time nor energy to do
+everything, so they're willing to pay to have some things taken off
+their hands. The price is graft. When the people have more time, when
+the other things are done, then the price will be too high. They'll
+decide to attend to their own business."
+
+Samuels listened to this closely. "There's a good deal in what you say,"
+he agreed. "I know it's that way with us. If I couldn't build a better
+road with less money and less men than our Supervisor, Curtis, does, I'd
+lie down and roll over. But I ain't got time to be supervisor, even if
+anybody had time to elect me. There's a bunch of reformers down our way,
+but they don't seem to change Curtis much."
+
+"Reformers are no good unless the rank and file of the people come to
+think the way they do," said Bob. "That's why we've got to start by
+being good citizens ourselves, no matter what the next man would do."
+
+Samuels peered at him strangely, around the guttering candle. Bob
+allowed him no time to express his thought.
+
+"But to get back to your own case," said he. "What gets me is why you
+destroy your homestead right for a practical certainty."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"Why, I personally think it's a certainty that you will be dispossessed
+here. If you wait for the law to put you off, you'll have no right to
+take up another homestead--your right will be destroyed."
+
+"What good would a homestead right do me these days?" demanded Samuels.
+"There's nothing left."
+
+"New lands are thrown open constantly," said Bob, "and it's better,
+other things being equal, to have a right than to want it. On the other
+hand, if you voluntarily relinquish this claim, your right to take up
+another homestead is still good."
+
+At the mention of relinquishment the old mountaineer shied like a colt.
+With great patience Bob took up the other side of the question. The
+elements of the problem were now all laid down--patriotism, the
+certainty of ultimate loss, the advisability of striving to save rights,
+the desire to do one's part toward bringing the land grabbers in line.
+Remained only so to apply the pressure of all these cross-motives that
+they should finally bring the old man to the point of definite action.
+
+Bob wrestled with the demons of selfishness, doubt, suspicion, pride,
+stubbornness, anger, acquisitiveness that swarmed in the old man's
+spirit, as Christian with Apollyon. The labour was as great. At times,
+as he retraced once more and yet again ground already covered, his
+patience was overcome by a great weariness; almost the elemental
+obstinacy of the man wore him down. Then his very soul clamoured within
+him with the desire to cut all this short, to cry out impatiently
+against the slow stupidity or mulishness, or avariciousness, or whatever
+it was, that permitted the old man to agree to every one of the
+premises, but to balk finally at the conclusion. The night wore on. Bob
+realized that it was now or never; that he must take advantage of this
+receptive mood a combination of skill and luck had gained for him. The
+old man must be held to the point. The candle burned out. The room grew
+chill. Samuels threw an armful of pitch pine on the smouldering logs of
+the fireplace that balanced the massive cook stove. By its light the
+discussion went on. The red flames reflected strangely from unexpected
+places, showing the oddest inconsequences. Bob, at times, found himself
+drifting into noticing these things. He stared for a moment hypnotically
+on the incongruous juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then he
+roused himself with a start; for, although his tongue had continued
+saying what his brain had commanded it to say, the dynamics had gone
+from his utterance, and the old man was stirring restlessly as though
+about to bring the conference to a close. Warned by this incident, he
+forced his whole powers to the front. His head was getting tired, but he
+must continuously bring to bear against this dead opposition all the
+forces of his will.
+
+At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed. The other two men,
+rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their names as witnesses, and,
+shivering in the night chill, crawled back to rest, without any very
+clear idea of what they had been called on to do. Bob leaned back in his
+chair, the precious document clasped tight. The taut cords of his being
+had relaxed. For a moment he rested. To his consciousness dully
+penetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.
+
+"Don't see how you keep chickens," he found himself saying; "we can't.
+Coyotes and cats get 'em. I wish you'd tell me."
+
+Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motionless as a graven
+image. Between them the new candle, brought for the signing of the
+relinquishment, flared and sputtered.
+
+Bob stumbled to his feet.
+
+"Good night," said he.
+
+Samuels neither moved nor stirred. He might have been a figure such as
+used to be placed before the entrances of wax works exhibitions, so
+still he sat, so fixed were his eyes, so pallid the texture of his
+weather-tanned flesh after the vigil.
+
+Bob went out to the verandah. The chill air stirred his blood, set in
+motion the run-down machinery of his physical being. From the darkness a
+bird chirped loudly. Bob looked up. Over the still, pointed tops of the
+trees the sky had turned faintly gray. From the window streamed the
+candle light. It seemed unwontedly yellow in contrast to a daylight
+that, save by this contrast, was not yet visible. Bob stepped from the
+verandah. As he passed the window, he looked in. Samuels had risen to
+his feet, and stood rigid, his clenched fist on the table.
+
+At the stable Bob spoke quietly to his animals, saddled them, and led
+them out. For some instinctive reason which he could not have explained,
+he had decided to be immediately about his journey. The cold gray of
+dawn had come, and objects were visible dimly. Bob led his horses to the
+edge of the wood. There he mounted. When well within the trees he looked
+back. Samuels stood on the edge of the verandah, peering out into the
+uncertain light of the dawn. From the darkness of the trees Bob made out
+distinctly the white of his mane-like hair and the sweep of his
+patriarchal beard. Across the hollow of his left arm he carried his
+shotgun.
+
+Bob touched spur to his saddle horse and vanished in the depths of the
+forest.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Bob delivered his relinquishment at headquarters, and received the news.
+
+George Pollock had been arrested for the murder of Plant, and now lay in
+jail. Erbe, the White Oaks lawyer, had undertaken charge of his case.
+The evidence was as yet purely circumstantial. Erbe had naturally given
+out no intimation of what his defence would be.
+
+Then, within a week, events began to stir in Durham County. Samuels
+wrote a rather violent letter announcing his change of mind in regard to
+the relinquishment. To this a formal answer of regret was sent, together
+with an intimation that the matter was now irrevocable. Somebody sent a
+copy of the local paper containing a vituperative interview with the old
+mountaineer. This was followed by other copies in which other citizens
+contributed letters of expostulation and indignation. The matter was
+commented on ponderously in a typical country editorial containing such
+phrases as "clothed in a little brief authority," "arrogant minions of
+the law," and so forth. Tom Carroll, riding through Durham on business,
+was treated to ugly looks and uglier words. Ross Fletcher, visiting the
+county seat, escaped a physical encounter with belligerent members of an
+inflamed populace only by the exercise of the utmost coolness and good
+nature. Samuels moved further by petitioning to the proper authorities
+for the setting aside of the relinquishment and the reopening of the
+whole case, on the ground that his signature had been obtained by
+"coercion and undue influence." On the heels of this a mass meeting in
+Durham was called and largely attended, at which a number of speakers
+uttered very inflammatory doctrines. It culminated in resolutions of
+protest against Thorne personally, against his rangers, and his policy,
+alleging that one and all acted "arbitrarily, arrogantly, unjustly and
+oppressively in the abuse of their rights and duties." Finally, as a
+crowning absurdity, the grand jury, at its annual session, overstepping
+in its zeal the limits of its powers, returned findings against "one
+Ashley Thorne and Robert Orde, in the pay of the United States
+Government, for arbitrary exceeding of their rights and authorities; for
+illegal interference with the rights of citizens; for oppression," and
+so on through a round dozen vague counts.
+
+All this tumult astonished Thorne.
+
+"I had no idea this Samuels case interested them quite so much up there;
+nor did I imagine it possible they would raise such a row over that old
+long-horn. I haven't been up in that country as much as I should have
+liked, but I did not suspect they were so hostile to the Service."
+
+"They always have been," commented California John.
+
+"All this loud mouthing doesn't mean much," said Thorne, "though of
+course we'll have to undergo an investigation. Their charges don't mean
+anything. Old Samuels must be a good deal of a demagogue."
+
+"He's got a good lawyer," stated California John briefly.
+
+"Lawyer? Who?"
+
+"Erbe of White Oaks."
+
+Thorne stared at him puzzled.
+
+"Erbe? Are you sure of that? Why, the man is a big man; he's generally a
+cut or so above cases of this sort--with as little foundation for them.
+He's more in the line of fat fees. Here's two mountain cases he's
+undertaken."
+
+"I never knew Johnny Erbe to refuse any sort of case he'd get paid for,"
+observed California John.
+
+"Well, he's certainly raising a dust up north," said Thorne. "Every
+paper all at once is full of the most incendiary stuff. I hate to send a
+ranger up there these days."
+
+"I reckon the boys can take care of themselves!" put in Ross Fletcher.
+
+California John turned to look at him.
+
+"Sure thing, Ross," he drawled, "and a first-class row between a brutal
+ranger--who could take care of himself--and an inoffensive citizen would
+read fine in print."
+
+"That's the idea," approved Thorne. "We can't afford a row right now. It
+would bring matters to a head."
+
+"There's the Harris case, and the others," suggested Amy; "what are you
+going to do about them, now?"
+
+"Carry them through according to my instructions, unless I get orders to
+the contrary," said Thorne. "It is the policy of the Service throughout
+to clear up and settle these doubtful land cases. We must get such
+things decided. We can't stop because of a little localized popular
+clamour."
+
+"Are there many such cases up in the Durham country?" asked Bob.
+
+"Probably a dozen or so."
+
+"Isn't it likely that those men have got behind Samuels in order to
+discourage action on their own cases?"
+
+"I think there's no doubt of it," answered Thorne, "but the point is,
+they've been fighting tooth and nail from the start. We had felt out
+their strength from the first, and it developed nothing like this."
+
+"That's where Erbe comes in," suggested Bob.
+
+"Probably."
+
+"It don't amount to nothin'," said California John. "In the first place,
+it's only the 'nesters,' [A] the saloon crowd, who are after you for
+Austin's case; and the usual muck of old-timers and loafers who either
+think they own the country and ought to have a free hand in everything
+just as they're used to, or who are agin the Government on general
+principles. I don't believe the people at Durham are behind this. I bet
+a vote would give us a majority right now."
+
+"Well, the majority stays in the house, then," observed Ross Fletcher
+drily. "I didn't observe none of them when I walked down the street."
+
+"I believe with John," said Thorne. "This crowd makes an awful noise,
+but it doesn't mean much. The Office cannot fail to uphold us. There's
+nobody of any influence or importance behind all this."
+
+Nevertheless, so skilfully was the campaign conducted, pressure soon
+made itself felt from above. The usual memorials and largely-signed
+protests were drawn up and presented to the senators from California,
+and the representatives of that and neighbouring districts. Men in the
+employ of the saloon element rode actively in all directions obtaining
+signatures. A signature to anything that does not carry financial
+obligation is the easiest thing in the world to get. Hundreds who had no
+grievance, and who listened with the facile indignation of the ignorant
+to the representations of these emissaries, subscribed their names as
+voters and constituents to a cause whose merits or demerits were quite
+uncomprehended by them. The members of Congress receiving these
+memorials immediately set themselves in motion. As Thorne could not
+officially reply to what had not as yet been officially urged, his hands
+were tied. A clamour that had at first been merely noisy and
+meaningless, began now to gain an effect.
+
+Thorne confessed himself puzzled.
+
+"If it isn't a case of a snowball growing bigger the farther it rolls, I
+can't account for it," said he. "This thing ought to have died down long
+ago. It's been fomented very skilfully. Such a campaign as this one
+against us takes both ability and money--more of either than I thought
+Samuels could possibly possess."
+
+In the meantime, Erbe managed rapidly to tie up the legal aspects of the
+situation. The case, as it developed, proved to be open-and-shut against
+his client, but apparently unaffected by the certainty of this, he
+persisted in the interposition of all sorts of delays. Samuels continued
+to live undisturbed on his claim, which, as Thorne pointed out, had a
+bad moral effect on the community.
+
+The issue soon took on a national aspect. It began to be commented on by
+outside newspapers. Publications close to the administration and
+thoroughly in sympathy with its forest policies, began gravely to doubt
+the advisability of pushing these debatable claims at present.
+
+"They are of small value," said one, "in comparison with the large
+public domain of which they are part. At a time when the Forest Service
+is new in the saddle and as yet subjected to the most violent attacks by
+the special interests on the floors of Congress, it seems unwise to do
+anything that might tend to arouse public opinion against it."
+
+As though to give point to this, there now commenced in Congress that
+virulent assault led by some of the Western senators, aimed at the very
+life of the Service itself. Allegations of dishonesty, incompetence,
+despotism; of depriving the public of its heritage; of the curtailments
+of rights and liberties; of folly; of fraud were freely brought forward
+and urged with impassioned eloquence. Arguments special to cattlemen, to
+sheepmen, to lumbermen, to cordwood men, to pulp men, to power men were
+emphasized by all sorts of misstatements, twisted statements, or special
+appeals to greed, personal interest and individual policy. To support
+their eloquence, senators supposedly respectable did not hesitate boldly
+to utter sweeping falsehoods of fact. The Service was fighting for its
+very life.
+
+Nevertheless, persistently, the officials proceeded with their
+investigations. Bob had conducted his campaign so skilfully against
+Samuels that Thorne used him further in similar matters. Little by
+little, indeed, the young man was withdrawn from other work. He now
+spent many hours with Amy in the little office going over maps and
+files, over copies of documents and old records. When he had thoroughly
+mastered the ins and outs of a case, he departed with his pack animal
+and saddle horse to look the ground over in person.
+
+Since the _eclat_ of the Samuels case, he had little hope of obtaining
+relinquishments, nor did he greatly care to do so. A relinquishment
+saved trouble in the courts, but as far as avoiding adverse public
+notice went, the Samuels affair showed the absolute ineffectiveness of
+that method. But by going on the ground he was enabled to see, with his
+own eyes, just what sort of a claim was in question, the improvements
+that had been made on it, the value both to the claimant and the
+Government. Through an interview he was able to gauge the claimant, to
+weigh his probable motives and the purity of both his original and
+present intentions. A number of cases thus he dropped, and that on no
+other than his own responsibility. They were invariably those whose
+issue in the courts might very well be in doubt, so that it was
+impossible to tell, without trying them, how the decision would jump.
+Furthermore, and principally, he was always satisfied that the claimant
+had meant well and honestly throughout, and had lapsed through
+ignorance, bad advice, or merely that carelessness of the letter of the
+legal form so common among mountaineers. Such cases were far more
+numerous than he had supposed. The men had, in many instances, come into
+the country early in its development. They had built their cabins by the
+nearest meadow that appealed to them; for, to all intents and purposes,
+the country was a virgin wilderness whose camping sites were many and
+open to the first comer. Only after their households had been long
+established as squatters did these pioneers awake to an imperfect
+understanding that further formality was required before these, their
+homes, could be legally their own. Living isolated these men, even then,
+blundered in their applications or in the proving up of their claims.
+Such might be legally subject to eviction, but Bob in his
+recommendations gave them the benefit of the doubt and advised that full
+papers be issued. In the hurried days of the Service such
+recommendations of field inspectors were often considered as final.
+
+There were other cases, however, for which Bob's sympathies were
+strongly enlisted, but which presented such flagrant irregularities of
+procedure that he could not consistently recommend anything but a court
+test of the rights involved. To this he added a personal note, going
+completely into details, and suggesting a way out.
+
+And finally, as a third class, he was able, as in Samuels's case, to
+declare war on behalf of the Government. Men who had already taken up
+all the timber claims to which they or their families were legally
+entitled, nevertheless added an alleged homestead to the lot. Other men
+were taking advantage of twists and interpretations of the law to gain
+possession of desirable tracts of land still included in the National
+Forests. These men knew the letter of the law well enough, and took
+pains to conform accurately to it. Their lapses were of intention. The
+excuses were many--so-called mineral claims, alleged agricultural land,
+all the exceptions to reservation mentioned in the law; the actual ends
+aimed at were two--water rights or timber. In these cases Bob reported
+uncompromisingly against the granting of the final papers. Thousands of
+acres, however, had been already conveyed. Over these, naturally, he had
+no jurisdiction, but he kept his eyes open, and accumulated evidence
+which might some day prove useful in event of a serious effort to regain
+those lands that had been acquired by provable fraud.
+
+But on the borderland between these sharply defined classes lay many in
+the twilight zone. Bob, without knowing it, was to a certain extent
+exercising a despotic power. He possessed a latitude of choice as to
+which of these involved land cases should be pushed to a court decision.
+If the law were to be strictly and literally interpreted, there could be
+no doubt but that each and every one of these numerous claimants could
+be haled to court to answer for his short-comings. But that, in many
+instances, could not but work an unwarranted hardship. The expenses
+alone, of a journey to the state capital, would strain to the breaking
+point the means of some of the more impecunious. Insisting on the
+minutest technicalities would indubitably deprive many an honest,
+well-meaning homesteader of his entire worldly property. It was all very
+well to argue that ignorance of the law was no excuse; that it is a
+man's own fault if he does not fulfill the simple requirements of taking
+up public land. As a matter of cold fact, in such a situation as this,
+ignorance is an excuse. Legalizing apart, the rigid and invariable
+enforcement of the law can be tyrannical. Of course, this can never be
+officially recognized; that would shake the foundations. But it is not
+to be denied that the literal and universal and _invariable_ enforcement
+of the minute letter of any law, no matter how trivial, for the space of
+three months would bring about a mild revolution. As witness the
+sweeping and startling effects always consequent on an order from
+headquarters to its police to "enforce rigidly"--for a time--some
+particular city ordinance. Whether this is a fault of our system of law,
+or a defect inherent in the absolute logic of human affairs, is a matter
+for philosophy to determine. Be that as it may, the powers that enforce
+law often find themselves on the horns of a dilemma. They must take
+their choice between tyranny and despotism.
+
+So, in a mild way, Bob had become a despot. That is to say, he had to
+decide to whom a broken law was to apply, and to whom not, and this
+without being given any touchstone of choice. The matter rested with his
+own experience, knowledge and personal judgment. Fortunately he was a
+beneficent despot. A man evilly disposed, like Plant, could have worked
+incalculable harm for others and great financial benefit to himself.
+That this is not only possible but inevitable is another defect of law
+or system. No sane man for one single instant believes that literal
+enforcement of every law at all times is either possible or desirable.
+No sane man for one single instant believes that the law can be excepted
+to or annulled for especial occasions without undermining the public
+confidence and public morals. Yet where is the middle ground?
+
+In Bob's capacity as beneficent despot, he ran against many problems
+that taxed his powers. It was easy to say that Samuels, having full
+intention to get what he very well knew he had no right to have, and for
+acquiring which he had no excuse save that others were allowed to do
+likewise, should be proceeded against vigorously. It was likewise easy
+to determine that Ward, who had lived on his mountain farm, and
+cultivated what he could, and had himself made shakes of his timber, but
+who had blundered his formal processes, should be given a chance to make
+good. But what of the doubtful cases? What of the cases wherein
+apparently legality and equity took opposite sides?
+
+Bob had adventures in plenty. For lack of a better system, he started at
+the north end and worked steadily south, examining with patience the
+pedigree of each and every private holding within the confines of the
+National Forests. These were at first small and isolated. Only one large
+tract drew his attention, that belonging to old Simeon Wright in the big
+meadows under Black Peaks. These meadows, occupying a wide plateau grown
+sparsely with lodgepole pine, covered perhaps a thousand acres of good
+grazing, and were held legally, but without the shadow of equity, by the
+old land pirate who owned so much of California. In going over both the
+original records, the newer geological survey maps, and the country
+itself, Bob came upon a discrepancy. He asked and obtained leave for a
+resurvey. This determined that Wright's early-day surveyor had made a
+mistake--no extraordinary matter in a wild country so remote from base
+lines. Simeon's holdings were actually just one mile farther north,
+which brought them to the top of a bald granite ridge. His title to this
+was indubitable; but the broad and valuable meadows belonged still to
+the Government. As the case was one of fact merely, Wright had no
+opportunity to contest, or to exercise his undoubtedly powerful
+influence. The affair served, however, to draw Bob's name and activities
+into the sphere of his notice.
+
+Among the mountain people Bob was at first held in a distrust that
+sometimes became open hostility. He received threats and warnings
+innumerable. The Childs boys sent word to him, and spread that word
+abroad, that if this government inspector valued his life he would do
+well to keep off Iron Mountain. Bob promptly saddled his horse, rode
+boldly to the Childs' shake camp, took lunch with them, and rode back,
+speaking no word either of business or of threats. Having occasion to
+take a meal with some poor, squalid descendants of hog-raising Pike
+County Missourians, he detected a queer bitterness to his coffee,
+managed unseen to empty the cup into his canteen, and later found, as he
+had suspected, that an attempt had been made to poison him. He rode back
+at once to the cabin. Instead of taxing the woman with the deed--for he
+shrewdly suspected the man knew nothing of it--he reproached her with
+condemning him unheard.
+
+"I'm the best friend you people have," said he. "It isn't my fault that
+you are in trouble with the regulations. The Government must straighten
+these matters out. Don't think for a minute that the work will stop just
+because somebody gets away with me. They'll send somebody else. And the
+chances are, in that case, they'll send somebody who is instructed to
+stick close to the letter of the law: and who will turn you out mighty
+sudden. I'm trying to do the best I can for you people."
+
+This family ended by giving him its full confidence in the matter. Bob
+was able to save the place for them.
+
+Gradually his refusal to take offence, his refusal to debate any matter
+save on the impersonal grounds of the Government servant acting solely
+for his masters, coupled with his willingness to take things into
+consideration, and his desire to be absolutely fair, won for Bob a
+reluctant confidence. At the north end men's minds were as yet too
+inflamed. It is a curious matter of flock psychology that if the public
+mind ever occupies itself fully with an idea, it thereby becomes for the
+time being blind, impervious, to all others. But in other parts of the
+mountains Bob was not wholly unwelcome; and in one or two cases--which
+pleased him mightily--men came in to him voluntarily for the purpose of
+asking his advice.
+
+In the meantime the Samuels case had come rapidly to a crisis. The
+resounding agitation had resulted in the sending of inspectors to
+investigate the charges against the local officials. The first of these
+inspectors, a rather precise and formal youth fresh from Eastern
+training, was easily handled by the versatile Erbe. His report,
+voluminous as a tariff speech, and couched in very official language,
+exonerated Thorne and Orde of dishonesty, of course, but it emphasized
+their "lack of tact and business ability," and condemned strongly their
+attitude in the Durham matter. This report would ordinarily have gone no
+farther than the district office, where it might have been acted on by
+the officers in charge to the great detriment of the Service. At that
+time the evil of sending out as inspectors men admirably trained in
+theory but woefully lacking in practice and the knowledge of Western
+humankind was one of the great menaces to effective personnel.
+Fortunately this particular report came into the hands of the Chief, who
+happened to be touring in the West. A fuller investigation exposed to
+the sapient experience of that able man the gullibility of the
+inspector. From the district a brief statement was issued upholding the
+local administration.
+
+The agitation, thus deprived of its chief hope, might very well have
+been expected to simmer down, to die away slowly. As a matter of fact,
+it collapsed. The newspaper attacks ceased; the public meetings were
+discontinued; the saloons and other storm centres applied their powers
+to a discussion of the Gans-Nelson fight. Samuels was very briefly
+declared a trespasser by the courts. Erbe disappeared from the case.
+The United States Marshal, riding up with a posse into a supposedly
+hostile country, found no opposition to his enforcement of the court's
+decree. Only old Samuels himself offered an undaunted defence, but was
+soon dislodged and led away by men who half-pitied, half-ridiculed his
+violence. The sign "Property of the U.S." resumed its place. Thorne made
+of the ancient homestead a ranger's post.
+
+"It's incomprehensible as a genuine popular movement," said he on one of
+Bob's periodical returns to headquarters. The young man now held a
+commission, and lived with the Thornes when at home. "The opposition up
+there was so rabid and it wilted too suddenly."
+
+"'The mutable many,'" quoted Amy.
+
+But Thorne shook his head.
+
+"It's as though they'd pricked a balloon," said he. "They don't love us
+up there, yet; but it's no worse now than it used to be here. Last week
+it was actually unsafe on the streets. If they were so strong for
+Samuels then, why not now? A mere court decision could not change their
+minds so quickly. I should have expected the real bitterness and the
+real resistence when the Marshal went up to put the old man off."
+
+"That's the way I sized it up," admitted Bob.
+
+"It's as if somebody had turned off the steam and the engine quit
+running," said Thorne, "and for that reason I'm more than ever convinced
+that it was a made agitation. Samuels was only an excuse."
+
+"What for?" asked Bob.
+
+"Struck me the same way," put in California John. "Reminded me of the
+war. Looked like they held onto this as a sort of first defence as long
+as they could, and then just abandoned it and dropped back."
+
+"That's it," nodded Thorne. "That's my conclusion. Somebody bigger than
+Samuels fears investigation; and they hoped to stop our sort of
+investigation short at Samuels. Well, they haven't succeeded."
+
+Amy arose abruptly and ran to her filing cases.
+
+"That ought to be easily determined," she cried, looking over her
+shoulder with shining eyes. "I have the papers about all ready for the
+whole of our Forest. Here's a list of the private holdings, by whom
+held, how acquired and when." She spread the papers out on the table.
+"Now let's see who owns lots of land, and who is powerful enough to
+enlist senators, and who would fear investigation."
+
+All four bent over the list for a few moments. Then Thorne made five
+dots with his pencil opposite as many names.
+
+"All the rest are little homesteaders," said he. "One of these must be
+our villain."
+
+"Or all of them," amended California John drily.
+
+
+[Footnote A: "Nester"--Western term meaning squatters, small
+settlers--generally illegally such.]
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+The little council of war at once commenced an eager discussion of the
+names thus indicated.
+
+"There's your own concern, the Wolverine Company," suggested Thorne.
+"What do you know about the way it acquired its timber?"
+
+"Acquired in 1879," replied Amy, consulting her notes. "Partly from the
+Bank, that held it on mortgage, and partly from individual owners."
+
+"Welton is no crook," struck in Bob. "Even if he'd strained the law,
+which I doubt; he wouldn't defend himself at this late date with any
+method as indirect as this."
+
+"I think you're right on the last point," agreed Thorne. "Proceed."
+
+"Next is the Marston N. Leavitt firm."
+
+"They bought their timber in a lump from a broker by the name of
+Robinson; and Robinson got it of the old Joncal [A] Mill outfit; and
+heaven knows where they got it," put in California John.
+
+"How long ago?"
+
+"'84--the last transfer," said Amy.
+
+"Doesn't look as though the situation ought to alarm them to immediate
+and violent action," observed Thorne. "Aren't there any more recent
+claims?" he asked Amy.
+
+"Here's one; the Modoc Mining Company, about one thousand mineral
+claims, amounting to approximately 28,000 acres, filed 1903."
+
+"That looks more promising. Patents issued in the reign of our esteemed
+predecessor, Plant."
+
+"Where are most of the claims?" asked California John.
+
+"_All_ the claims are in the same place," replied Amy.
+
+"The Basin!" said Bob.
+
+Amy recited the "descriptions" within whose boundaries lay the bulk of
+the claims.
+
+"That's it," said Bob.
+
+"Is there any real mineral there?" inquired Thorne.
+
+"Not that anybody ever heard of," said California John, who was himself
+an old miner; "but gold is where you find it," he added cautiously.
+
+"How's the timber?"
+
+"It's the best stand I've seen in the mountains," said Bob.
+
+"Well," observed Thorne, "of course it wouldn't do to say so, but I
+think we've run against the source of our opposition in the Samuels
+case."
+
+"That explains Erbe's taking the case," put in Bob; "he's counsel for
+most of these corporations."
+
+"The fact that this is not a mineral country," continued Thorne,
+"together with the additional considerations of a thousand claims in so
+limited an area, and the recent date, makes it look suspicious. I
+imagine the Modoc Mining Company intends to use a sawmill, rather more
+than a stamp mill."
+
+"Who are they?" asked California John.
+
+"We must find that out. Also we must ourselves ascertain just what
+colour of mineral there is over there."
+
+"That ought to be on the records somewhere already," Amy pointed out.
+
+"Plant's records," said Thorne drily.
+
+"I'm ashamed to say I haven't looked up the mineral lands act,"
+confessed Bob. "How did they do it?"
+
+"Well, it's simple enough. The company made application under the law
+that allows mineral land in National Forests to be 'freely prospected,
+located, developed and patented.' It is necessary to show evidence of
+'valuable deposits.'"
+
+"Gold and silver?"
+
+"Not necessarily. It may be even building stone, or fine clay, limestone
+or slate. Then it's up to the Forest Officer to determine whether the
+deposits are actually 'valuable' or not. You can drive a horse and cart
+through the law; and it's strictly up to the Forest Officer--or has been
+in the past. If he reports the deposits valuable, and on that report a
+patent is issued, why that settles it."
+
+"Even if the mineral is a fake?"
+
+"A patent is a patent. The time to head off the fraud is when the
+application is made."
+
+"Cannot the title be upset if fraud is clearly proved?"
+
+"I do not see how," replied Thorne. "Plant is dead. The law is very
+liberal. Predetermining the value of mineral deposits is largely a
+matter of personal judgment. The company could, as we have seen, bring
+an enormous influence to bear."
+
+"Well," said Bob, "that land will average sixty thousand feet to the
+acre. That's about a billion and a half feet. It's a big stake."
+
+"If the company wasn't scared, why did they try so hard to head us off?"
+observed California John shrewdly.
+
+"It will do us no harm to investigate," put in Bob, his eye kindling
+with eagerness. "It won't take long to examine the indications those
+claims are based on."
+
+"It's a ticklish period," objected Thorne. "I hate to embarrass the
+Administration with anything ill-timed. We have much to do straightening
+out what we now have on hand. You must remember we are short of men; we
+can't spare many now."
+
+"I'll tell you," suggested Amy. "Put it up to the Chief. Tell him just
+how the matter stands. Let him decide."
+
+"All right; I'll do that," agreed Thorne.
+
+In due time the reply came. It advised circumspection in the matter; but
+commanded a full report on the facts. Time enough, the Chief wrote, to
+decide on the course to be pursued when the case should be established
+in their own minds.
+
+Accordingly Thorne detached Bob and Ware to investigate the mineral
+status of the Basin. The latter's long experience in prospecting now
+promised to stand the Service in good stead.
+
+The two men camped in the Basin for three weeks, until the close of
+which time they saw no human being. During this period they examined
+carefully the various ledges on which the mineral claims had been based.
+Ware pronounced them valueless, as far as he could judge.
+
+"Some of them are just ordinary quartz dikes," said he. "I suppose they
+claim gold for them. There's nothing in it; or if this does warrant a
+man developing, then every citizen who lives near rock has a mine in his
+back yard."
+
+Nevertheless he made his reports as detailed as possible. In the
+meantime Bob accomplished a rough, or "cruiser's" estimate of the
+timber.
+
+As has been said, they found the Basin now quite deserted. The trail to
+Sycamore Flats had apparently not been travelled since George Pollock
+had ridden down it to give himself up to authority. Their preliminary
+labours finished, the two Forest officers packed, and were on the very
+point of turning up the steep mountain side toward the lookout, when two
+horsemen rode over the flat rock.
+
+Naturally Bob and Ware drew up, after the mountain custom, to exchange
+greetings. As the others drew nearer, Bob recognized in one the slanting
+eyeglasses, the close-lipped, gray moustache and the keen, cold features
+of Oldham. Ware nodded at the other man, who returned his salutation as
+curtly.
+
+"You're off your beat, Mr. Oldham," observed Bob.
+
+"I'm after a deer," replied Oldham. "You are a little off your own beat,
+aren't you?"
+
+"My beat is everywhere," replied Bob carelessly.
+
+"What devilment you up to now, Sal?" Ware was asking of the other man,
+a tall, loose-jointed, freckle-faced and red-haired individual with an
+evil red eye.
+
+"I'm earnin' my salary; and I misdoubt you ain't," sneered the
+individual thus addressed.
+
+"As what; gun man?" demanded Ware calmly.
+
+"You may find that out sometime."
+
+"I'm not as easy as young Franklin was," said Ware, dropping his hand
+carelessly to his side. "Don't make any mistakes when you get around to
+your demonstration."
+
+The man said nothing, but grinned, showing tobacco-stained, irregular
+teeth beneath his straggling, red moustache.
+
+After a moment's further conversation the little groups separated. Bob
+rode on up the trail. Ware followed for perhaps ten feet, or until out
+of sight behind the screen of willows that bordered the stream. Then,
+without drawing rein, he dropped from his saddle. The horse, urged by a
+gentle slap on the rump, followed in the narrow trail after Bob and the
+pack animal. Ware slipped quietly through the willows until he had
+gained a point commanding the other trail. Oldham and his companion were
+riding peacefully. Satisfied, Ware returned, climbed rapidly until he
+had caught up with his horse, and resumed his saddle. Bob had only that
+moment noticed his absence.
+
+"Look here, Bob," said Ware, "that fellow with Mr. Oldham is a man
+called Saleratus Bill. He's a hard citizen, a gun man, and brags of
+eleven killin's in his time. Mr. Oldham or no one else couldn't pick up
+a worse citizen to go deer hunting with. When you track up with him
+next, be sure that he starts and keeps going before you stir out of your
+tracks."
+
+"You don't believe that deer hunting lie, do you?" asked Bob.
+
+Ware chuckled.
+
+"I was wondering if _you_ did," said he.
+
+"I guess there's no doubt as to who the Modoc Mining Company is."
+
+"Oldham?"
+
+"No," said Bob; "Baker and the Power Company. Oldham is Baker's man."
+
+Ware whistled.
+
+"Well, I suppose you know what you're talking about," said he, "but it's
+pretty generally understood that Oldham is on the other side of the
+fence. He's been bucking Baker in White Oaks on some franchise business.
+Everybody knows that."
+
+Bob opened his eyes. Casting his mind back over the sources of his
+information, he then remembered that intimation of the connection
+between the two men had come to him when he had been looked on as a
+member of the inner circle, so that all things were talked of openly
+before him; that since Plant's day Oldham had in fact never appeared in
+Baker's interests.
+
+"He's up in this country a good deal," Bob observed finally. "What's he
+say is his business?"
+
+"Why, he's in a little timber business, as I understand it; and he buys
+a few cattle--sort of general brokerage."
+
+"I see," mused Bob.
+
+He rode in silence for some time, breathing his horse mechanically every
+fifty feet or so of the steep trail. He was busily recalling and piecing
+together the fragments of what he had at the time considered an
+unimportant discussion, and which he had in part forgotten.
+
+"It's a blind," he said at last; "Oldham is working for Baker."
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"Something I heard once."
+
+He rode on. The Basin was dropping away beneath them; the prospect to
+the north was broadening as peak after peak raised itself into the line
+of ascending vision. The pines, clinging to the steep, cast bars of
+shadow across the trail, which zigzagged and dodged, taking advantage of
+every ledge and each strip of firm earth. Occasionally they crossed a
+singing brook, shaded with willows and cottonwoods, with fragrant bay
+and alders, only to clamber out again to the sunny steeps.
+
+Now Bob remembered and pieced together the whole. Baker had been
+bragging that he intended to pay nothing to the Government for his water
+power. Bob could almost remember the very words. "'They've swiped about
+everything in sight for these pestiferous reserves,'" he murmured to
+himself, "'but they encourage the honest prospector.... Oldham's got the
+whole matter ... '" and so on, in the unfolding of the very scheme by
+which these acres had been acquired. "Near headwaters," he had said; and
+that statement, combined with the fact that nothing had occurred to stir
+indistinct memories, had kept Bob in the dark. At the time "near
+headwaters" had meant to him the tract of yellow pine near the head of
+Sycamore Creek. So he had dismissed the matter. Now he saw clearly that
+a liberal construction could very well name the Basin as the headwaters
+of the drainage system from which Sycamore Creek drew, if not its
+source, at least its main volume of water. He exclaimed aloud in disgust
+at his stupidity; which, nevertheless, as all students of psychology
+know, typified a very common though curious phenomenon in the mental
+world. Suddenly he sat up straight in his saddle. Here, should Baker and
+the Modoc Mining Company prove to be one and the same, was the evidence
+of fraudulent intent! Would his word suffice? Painfully reconstructing
+the half-forgotten picture, he finally placed the burly figure of
+Welton. Welton was there too. His corroboration would make the testimony
+irrefutable.
+
+Certainties now rushed to Bob's mind in flocks. If he had been stupid in
+the matter, it was evident that Baker and Oldham had not. The fight in
+Durham was now explained. All the demagogic arousing of the populace,
+the heavy guns brought to bear in the newspaper world, the pressure
+exerted through political levers, even the concerted attacks on the
+Service from the floors of Congress traced, by no great stretch of
+probabilities, to the efforts of the Power Company to stop investigation
+before it should reach their stealings. That, as California John had
+said, was the first defence. If all investigation could be called off,
+naturally Baker was safe. Now that he realized the investigation must,
+in the natural course of events, come to his holdings, what would be his
+second line?
+
+Of course, he knew that Bob possessed the only testimony that could
+seriously damage him. Even Thorne's optimism had realized the
+difficulties of pressing to a conviction against such powerful interests
+without some evidence of a fraudulent intent. Could it be that the
+presence of this Saleratus Bill in company with Oldham meant that Baker
+was contemplating so sinister a removal of damaging testimony?
+
+A moment's thought disabused him of this notion, however. Baker was not
+the man to resort to violence of this sort; or at least he would not do
+so before exhausting all other means. Bob had been, in a way, the
+capitalist's friend. Surely, before turning a gun man loose, Baker would
+have found out definitely whether, in the first place, Bob was inclined
+to push the case; and secondly, whether he could not be persuaded to
+refrain from introducing his personal testimony. The longer Bob looked
+at the state of affairs, the more fantastic seemed the hypothesis that
+the gun man had been brought into the country for such a purpose.
+
+"Why do you suppose Oldham is up there with this Saleratus Bill?" he
+asked Ware at length.
+
+"Search me!"
+
+"Is Bill good for anything beside gun work?"
+
+"Well," said Ware, judicially, "he sure drinks without an effort."
+
+"I don't believe Oldham is interested in the liquor famine," laughed
+Bob. "Anything else?"
+
+"They _may_ be after deer," acknowledged Ware, reluctantly, "though I
+hate to think that rattlesnake is out for anything legitimate. I will
+say he's a good hunter; and an A1 trailer."
+
+"Oh, he's a good trailer, is he?" said Bob. "Well, I rather suspected
+you'd say that. Now I know why they're up there; they want to figure out
+from the signs we've left just what we've been up to."
+
+"That's easy done," remarked Ware.
+
+This explanation fitted. Bob had been in the Basin before, but on the
+business of estimating government timber. Baker knew this. Now that the
+Forest officer had gone in for a second time, it might be possible that
+he was doing the same thing; or it might be equally possible that he was
+engaged in an investigation of Baker's own property. This the power man
+had decided to find out. Therefore he had sent in, with his land man, an
+individual expert at deducing from the half-obliterated marks of human
+occupation the activities that had left them. That Oldham and his
+sinister companion had encountered the Forest men was a sheer accident
+due to miscalculation.
+
+Having worked this out to his own satisfaction, Bob knew what next to
+expect. Baker must interview him. Bob was sure the young man would take
+his own time to the matter, for naturally it would not do to make the
+fact of such a meeting too public. Accordingly he submitted his report
+to Thorne, and went on about his further investigations, certain that
+sooner or later he would again see the prime mover of all these dubious
+activities.
+
+He was not in the least surprised, therefore, to look up when riding one
+day along the lonely and rugged trail that cuts across the lower canon
+of the River, to see Baker seated on the top of a round boulder. The
+incongruity, however, brought a smile to his lips. The sight of the
+round, smooth face, the humorous eyes, and the stout, city-fed figure of
+this very urban individual on a rock in a howling figure of this very
+urban individual on a rock in a howling wilderness, with the eternal
+mountains for a background, was inexpressibly comical.
+
+"Hullo, merry sunshine!" called Baker, waving his hand as soon as he was
+certain Bob had seen him. "Welcome to our thriving little hamlet."
+
+"Hullo, Baker," said Bob; "what are you doing 'way off here?"
+
+"Just drifting down the Grand Canal and listening to the gondoliers; and
+incidentally, waiting for you. Climb off your horse and come up here and
+get a tailor-made cigarette."
+
+"I'm on my way over to Spruce Top," said Bob, "and I've got to keep
+moving."
+
+"Haste not, hump not, hustle not," said Baker, with the air of one
+quoting a hand-illuminated motto. "It will only get you somewhere. Come,
+gentle stranger, I would converse with thee; and I've come a long way to
+do it."
+
+"I live nearer home than this," grinned Bob.
+
+"I wanted to see you in your office," grinned back Baker appreciatively,
+"and this is strictly business."
+
+Bob dismounted, threw the reins over his horse's head, and ascended to
+the top of the boulder.
+
+"Fire ahead," said he; "I keep union hours."
+
+
+[Footnote A: Pronounced Hone-kal.]
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+"Union hours suit me," said Baker. "Why work while papa has his health?
+What I want to know is, how high is the limit on this game anyway?"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"This confounded so-called 'investigation' of yours? In other words, do
+you intend to get after me?"
+
+"As how?"
+
+Baker's shrewd eyes looked at him gravely from out his smiling fat face.
+
+"Modoc Mining Company's lands."
+
+"Then you are the Modoc Mining Company?" asked Bob.
+
+Baker eyed him again.
+
+"Look here, my angel child," said he in a tone of good-humoured pity, "I
+can make all that kind of talk in a witness box--if necessary. In any
+case, I didn't come 'way out here to exchange that sort with you. You
+know perfectly well I'm the Modoc Mining Company, and that I've got a
+fine body of timber under the mineral act, and all the rest of it. You
+know all this not only because you've got some sense, but because I told
+you so before a competent witness. It stands to reason that I don't mind
+telling you again where there are no witnesses. Now smoke up and join
+the King's Daughters--let's have a heart-to-heart and find out how we
+stand."
+
+Bob laughed, and Baker, with entirely whole-hearted enjoyment, laughed
+too.
+
+"You're next on the list," said Bob, "and, personally, I think----"
+
+Baker held up his hand.
+
+"Let's not exchange thinks," said he. "I've got a few thinks coming
+myself, you know. Let's stick to facts. Then the Government is going to
+open up on us?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"On the grounds of fraudulent entry, I suppose."
+
+"That's it."
+
+"Well, they'll never win----"
+
+"Let's not exchange thinks," Bob reminded him.
+
+"Right! I can see that you're acting under orders, and the suit must be
+brought. Now I tell you frankly, as one Modern Woods-pussy of the World
+to another, that you're the only fellow that has any real testimony.
+What I want to know is, are you going to use it?"
+
+Bob looked at his companion steadily.
+
+"I don't see why, even without witnesses, I should give away government
+plans to you, Baker."
+
+Baker sighed, and slid from the boulder.
+
+"I'm practically certain how the cat jumps, and I've long since made my
+plans accordingly. Whatever you say does not alter my course of action.
+Only I hate to do a man an injustice without being sure. You needn't
+answer. Your last remark means that you are. I have too much sense to do
+the little Eva to you, Orde. You've got the gray stuff in your head,
+even if it is a trifle wormy. Of course, it's no good telling you that
+you're going back on a friend, that you'll be dragging Welton into the
+game when he hasn't got a chip to enter with, that you're betraying
+private confidence--well, I guess the rest is all 'thinks.'"
+
+"I'm sorry, Baker," said Bob, "and I suppose I must appear to be a spy
+in the matter. But it can't be helped."
+
+Baker's good-humoured, fat face had fallen into grave lines. He studied
+a distant spruce tree for a moment.
+
+"Well," he roused himself at last, "I wish this particular attack of
+measles had passed off before you bucked up against us. Because, you
+know, that land's ours, and we don't expect to give it up on account of
+this sort of fool agitation. We'll win this case. I'm sorry you're mixed
+up in it."
+
+"Saleratus Bill?" hinted Bob.
+
+Baker's humorous expression returned.
+
+"What do you take me for?" he grinned. "No, that's Oldham's bodyguard.
+Thinks he needs a bodyguard these days. That's what comes from having a
+bad conscience, I tell him. Some of those dagoes he's sold bum farms to
+are more likely to show up with a desire to abate him, than that
+anything would happen to him in these hills. Now let's get this
+straight; the cases go on?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you testify?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And call Welton in for corroboration?"
+
+"I hardly think that's necessary."
+
+"It will be, as you very well know. I just wanted to be sure how we
+stood toward each other. So long."
+
+He turned uncompromisingly away, and stumped off down the trail on his
+fat and sturdy legs.
+
+Bob looked after him amazed, at this sudden termination of the
+interview. He had anticipated argument, sophistry, appeal to old
+friendship, perhaps a more dark and doubtful approach. Though conscious
+throughout of Baker's contempt for what the promoter would call his
+childish impracticability, his disloyalty and his crankiness, Bob
+realized that all of this had been carefully subdued. Baker's manner at
+parting expressed more of regret than of anger or annoyance.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+To this short and inconclusive interview, however, Baker did not fail to
+add somewhat through Oldham. The agent used none of the circumspection
+Baker had considered necessary, but rode openly into camp and asked for
+Bob. The latter, remembering Oldham's reputed antagonism to Baker, could
+not but admire the convenience of the arrangement. The lank and sinister
+figure of Saleratus Bill was observed to accompany that of the land
+agent, but the gun man, at a sign from his principal; did not dismount.
+He greeted no one, but sat easily across his saddle, holding the reins
+of both horses in his left hand, his jaws working slowly, his evil,
+little eyes wandering with sardonic interest over the people and
+belongings at headquarters. Ware nodded to him. The man's eyes half
+closed and for an instant the motion of his jaw quickened. Otherwise he
+made no sign.
+
+Oldham drew Bob one side.
+
+"I want to talk to you where we won't be interrupted," he requested.
+
+"Talk on," said Bob, seating himself on a log. "The open is as good a
+place as another; you can see your eavesdroppers there."
+
+Oldham considered this a moment, then nodded his head, and took his
+place by the young man's side.
+
+"It's about those Modoc lands," said he.
+
+"I suppose so," said Bob.
+
+"Mr. Baker tells me you fully intend to prosecute a suit for their
+recovery."
+
+"I believe the Government intends to do so. I am, of course, only the
+agent of the Government in this or any other matter."
+
+"In other words, you have received orders to proceed?"
+
+"I would hardly be acting without them, would I?"
+
+"Of course; I see. Mr. Baker is sometimes hasty. Assuming that you cared
+to do so, is there no way you could avoid this necessity?"
+
+"None that I can discover. I must obey orders as long as I'm a
+government officer."
+
+"Exactly," said Oldham. "Now we reach the main issue. What if you were
+not a government officer?"
+
+"But I am."
+
+"Assume that you were not."
+
+"Naturally my successor would carry out the same orders."
+
+"But," suggested Oldham, "it might very well be that another man would
+not be--well, quite so qualified to carry out the case--"
+
+"You mean I'm the only one who heard Baker say he was going to cheat the
+Government," put in Bob bluntly.
+
+"You and Mr. Welton and Mr. Baker were the only ones present at a
+certain interview," he amended. "Now, in the event that you were not
+personally in charge of the case would you feel it necessary to
+volunteer testimony unsuspected by anybody but you three?"
+
+"If I were to resign, I should volunteer nothing," stated Bob.
+
+Oldham's frosty eyes gleamed with satisfaction behind their glasses.
+
+"That's good!" he cried.
+
+"But I have no intention of resigning," Bob concluded.
+
+"That is a matter open to discussion," Oldham took him up. "There are a
+great many reasons that you have not yet considered."
+
+"I'm ready to hear them," said Bob.
+
+"Look at the case as it stands. In the first place, you cannot but admit
+that Mr. Baker and the men associated with him have done great things
+for this country. When they came into it, it was an undeveloped
+wilderness, supplying nothing of value to civilization, and supporting
+only a scattered and pastoral people. The valley towns went about their
+business on horse cars; they either paid practically a prohibitive price
+for electricity and gas, or used oil and candles; they drank well water
+and river water. The surrounding country was either a desert given over
+to sage brush and jack rabbits, or raised crops only according to the
+amount of rain that fell. You can have no conception, Mr. Orde, of the
+condition of the country in some of these regions before irrigation. In
+place of this the valley people now enjoy rapid transportation, not only
+through the streets of their towns, but also by trolley lines far out in
+all directions. They have cheap and abundant electric light and power.
+They possess pure drinking water. Above all they raise their certain
+crops irrespective of what rains the heavens may send."
+
+Bob admitted that electricity and irrigation are good things.
+
+"These advantages have drawn people. I am not going to bore you with a
+lot of statistics, but the population of all White Oaks County, for
+instance, is now above fifty thousand people, where before was a scant
+ten. But how much agricultural wealth do you suppose these people
+_export_ each year? Not how much they _produce_, but their net
+exportations?"
+
+"Give it up."
+
+"Fifty million dollars worth! That's a marvellous per capita."
+
+"It is indeed," said Bob.
+
+"Now," said Oldham impressively, "that wealth would be absolutely
+non-existent, that development could not have taken place, _did_ not
+take place, until men of Mr. Baker's genius and courage came along to
+take hold. I have personally the greatest admiration for Mr. Baker as a
+type of citizen without whom our resources and possibilities would be in
+the same backward condition as obtains in Canada."
+
+"I'm with you there," said Bob.
+
+"Mr. Baker has added a community to the state, cities to the
+commonwealth, millions upon millions of dollars to the nation's wealth.
+He took long chances, and he won out. Do not you think in return the
+national resources should in a measure reward him for the advantages he
+has conferred and the immense wealth he has developed? Mind you, Mr.
+Baker has merely taken advantage of the strict letter of the law. It is
+merely open to another interpretation. He needs this particular body of
+timber for the furtherance of one of his greatest quasi-public
+enterprises; and who has a better right in the distribution of the
+public domain than the man who uses it to develop the country? The
+public land has always been intended for the development of resources,
+and has always been used as such."
+
+Oldham talked fluently and well. He argued at length along the lines set
+forth above.
+
+"You have to use lubricating oil to overcome friction on a machine," he
+concluded. "You have to subsidize a railroad by land grants to enter a
+new country. By the same immutable law you must offer extraordinary
+inducements to extraordinary men. Otherwise they will not take the
+risks."
+
+"I've nothing to do with the letter of the law," Bob replied; "only with
+its spirit and intention. The main idea of the mineral act is to give
+legitimate miners the timber they need for legitimate mining. Baker does
+not pretend, except officially, that he ever intends to do anything with
+his claims. He certainly has done a great work for the country. I'll
+agree to everything you say there. But he came into California worth
+nothing, and he is now reputed to be worth ten millions and to control
+vast properties. That would seem to be reward enough for almost anybody.
+He does not need this Basin property for any of his power projects,
+except that its possession would let him off from paying a very
+reasonable tax on the waterpower he has been accustomed to getting free.
+Cutting that timber will not develop the country any further. I don't
+see the value of your argument in the present case."
+
+"Mr. Baker has invested in this project a great many millions of
+dollars," said Oldham. "He must be adequately safeguarded. To further
+develop and even to maintain the efficiency of what he has, he must
+operate to a large extent on borrowed capital. Borrowing depends on
+credit; and credit depends on confidence. If conditions are proved to be
+unstable, capital will prove more than cautious in risking itself. That
+is elementary. Surely you can see that point."
+
+"I can see that, all right," admitted Bob.
+
+"Well," went on Oldham, taking heart, "think of the responsibility you
+are assuming in pushing forward a mere technicality, and a debatable
+technicality at that. You are not only jeopardizing a great and
+established business--I will say little of that--but you are risking the
+prosperity of a whole countryside. If Mr. Baker's enterprises should
+quit this section, the civilization of the state would receive a serious
+setback. Thousands of men would be thrown out of employment, not only on
+the company's works, but all along the lines of its holdings; electric
+light and power would increase in price--a heavy burden to the consumer;
+the country trolley lines must quit business, for only with
+water-generated power can they compete with railroads at all; fertile
+lands would revert to desert--"
+
+"I am not denying the value of Mr. Baker's enterprises," broke in Bob;
+"but what has a billion and a half of timber to do with all this?"
+
+"Mr. Baker has long been searching for an available supply for use in
+the enterprises," said Oldham, eagerly availing himself of this opening.
+"You probably have a small idea of the immense lumber purchases
+necessary for the construction of the power plants, trolley lines, and
+roads projected by Mr. Baker. Heretofore the company has been forced to
+buy its timber in the open market."
+
+"This would be cheaper," suggested Bob.
+
+"Much."
+
+"That would increase net profits, of course. I suppose that would
+result in increased dividends. Or, perhaps, the public would reap the
+benefit in decreased cost of service."
+
+"Undoubtedly both. Certainly electricity and transportation would
+cheapen."
+
+"The same open markets can still supply the necessary timber?"
+
+"At practically prohibitive cost," Oldham reminded.
+
+"Which the company has heretofore afforded--and still paid its
+dividends," said Bob calmly. "Well, Mr. Oldham, even were I inclined to
+take all you say at its face value; even were I willing to admit that
+unless Mr. Baker were given this timber his business would fail, the
+country would be deprived of the benefits of his enterprise, and the
+public seriously incommoded, I would still be unable to follow the logic
+of your reasoning. Mind you, I do not admit anything of the kind. I do
+not anticipate any more dire results than that the dividends will remain
+at their present per cent. But even supposing your argument to be well
+founded, this timber belongs to the people of the United States. It is
+part of John Jones's heritage, whether John Jones lives in White Oaks or
+New York. Why should I permit Jones of New York to be robbed in favour
+of Jones of White Oaks--especially since Jones of New York put me here
+to look after his interests for him? That's the real issue; and it's
+very simple."
+
+"You look at the matter from a wrong point of view----" began Oldham,
+and stopped. The land agent was shrewd, and knew when he had come to an
+_impasse_.
+
+"I always respect a man who does his duty," he began again, "and I can
+see how you're tied up in this matter. But a resignation could be
+arranged for very easily. Mr. Baker knows thoroughly both your ability
+and experience, and has long regretted that he has not been able to
+avail himself of them. Of course, as you realize, the great future of
+all this country is not along the lines even of such great industries as
+lumber manufacture, but in agriculture and in waterpower engineering.
+Here, more than anywhere else in the world, Water is King!"
+
+A recollection tickled Bob. He laughed outright. Oldham glanced at him
+sharply.
+
+"Oh, the Lucky Lands," said he at last; "I'd forgotten you had ever been
+there. Well, the saying is as true now as it was then. The great future
+for any young man is along those lines. I am sure--in fact, I am told to
+say with authority--that Mr. Baker would be only too pleased to have you
+come in with him on this new enterprise he is opening up."
+
+"As how?"
+
+"As stockholder to the extent of ten thousand shares preferred, and a
+salaried position in the field, of course. But, that is a small matter
+compared with the future opportunities--"
+
+"It's cheering to know that I'm worth so much," interrupted Bob. "Shares
+now worth par?"
+
+"A fraction over."
+
+"One hundred thousand and some odd dollars," observed Bob. "It's a nice
+tidy bribe; and if I were any sort of a bribe taker at all, I'd surely
+feel proud and grateful. Only I'm not. So you might just as well have
+made it a million, and then I'd have felt still more set up over it."
+
+"I hope you don't think I'm a bribe giver, either," said Oldham. "I
+admit my offer was not well-timed; but it has been long under
+contemplation, and I mentioned it as it occurred to me."
+
+Having thus glided over this false start, the land agent promptly opened
+another consideration.
+
+"Perhaps we are at fatal variance on our economics," said he; "but how
+about the justice of the thing? When you get right down to cases, how
+about the rest of them? I'll venture to say there are not two private
+timber holdings of any size in this country that have been acquired
+strictly within the letter of the law. Do you favour general
+confiscation?"
+
+"I believe in the law," declared Bob, "and I do not believe your
+statement."
+
+Oldham rose.
+
+"I tell you this, young man," he said coldly: "you can prosecute the
+Modoc Company or not, as you please--or, perhaps, I should say, you can
+introduce your private testimony or not, as you please. We are
+reasonable; and we know you cannot control government prosecutions. But
+the Modoc Company intends that you play no favourites."
+
+"I do not understand you," said Bob with equal coldness.
+
+"If the Modoc Company is prosecuted, we will make it our business to see
+that every great land owner holding title in this Forest is brought into
+the courts for the same offence. If the letter of the law is to be
+enforced against us, we'll see that it is enforced against all others."
+
+Bob bowed. "Suits me," said he.
+
+"Does it?" sneered Oldham. He produced a bundle of papers bound by a
+thick elastic. "Well, I've saved you some trouble in your next case.
+Here are certified copies of the documents for it, copied at Sacramento,
+and subscribed to before a notary. Of course, you can verify them; but
+you'll find them accurate."
+
+He handed them to Bob, who took them, completely puzzled. Oldham's next
+speech enlightened him.
+
+"You'll find there," said the older man, tapping the papers in Bob's
+hand, "the documents in full relating to the Wolverine Company's land
+holdings, and how they were acquired. After looking them over, we shall
+expect you to bring suit. If you do not do so, we will take steps to
+force you to do so--or, failing this, to resign!"
+
+With these words, Oldham turned square on his heel and marched to where
+Saleratus Bill was stationed with the horses. Bob stared after him, the
+bundle of papers in his hand. When Oldham had mounted, Bob looked down
+on these papers.
+
+"The second line of defence!" said he.
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+Bob's first interest was naturally to examine these documents. He found
+them, as Oldham had said, copies whose accuracy was attested by the
+copyist before a notary. They divided themselves into two classes. The
+first traced the titles by which many small holdings had come into the
+hands of the corporation known as the Wolverine Company. The second
+seemed to be some sort of finding by an investigating commission. This
+latter was in the way of explanation of the title records, so that by
+referring from one to the other, Bob was able to trace out the process
+by which the land had been acquired. This had been by "colonizing," as
+it was called. According to Federal law, one man could take up but one
+hundred and sixty acres of government land. It had, therefore, been the
+practice to furnish citizens with the necessary capital so to do; after
+which these citizens transferred their land to the parent company. This
+was, of course, a direct evasion of the law; as direct an evasion as
+Baker's use of the mineral lands act.
+
+For a time Bob was unable to collect his reasoning powers adequately to
+confront this new fact. His thoughts were in a whirl. The only thing
+that stood out clearly was the difference in the two cases. He knew
+perfectly that after Baker's effort to lift bodily from the public
+domain a large block of its wealth every decent citizen should cry,
+"Stop thief!" Instinctively he felt, though as yet he could not analyze
+the reasons for so feeling, that to deprive the Wolverine Company of its
+holdings would work a crying injustice. Yet, to all intents and
+purposes, apparently, the cases were on all fours. Both Welton and
+Baker had taken advantage of a technicality.
+
+When Bob began to think more clearly, he at first laid this difference
+to a personal liking, and was inclined to blame himself for letting his
+affections cloud his sense of justice. Baker was companionable, jolly,
+but at the same time was shrewd, cold, calculating and unscrupulous in
+business. He could be as hard as nails. Welton, on the other hand, while
+possessing all of Baker's admirable and robust qualities, had with them
+an endearing and honest bigness of purpose, limited only--though
+decidedly--by his point of view and the bounds of his practical
+education. Baker would steal land without compunction; Welton would take
+land illegally without thought of the illegality, only because everybody
+else did it the same way.
+
+But should the mere fact of personality make any difference in the
+enforcing of laws? That one man was amiable and the other not so amiable
+had nothing to do with eternal justice. If Bob were to fulfil his duty
+only against those he disliked, and in favour of his friends, he had
+indeed slipped back to the old days of henchman politics from which the
+nation was slowly struggling. He reared his head at this thought. Surely
+he was man enough to sink private affairs in the face of a stern public
+duty!
+
+This determined, Bob thought the question settled. After a few minutes,
+it returned as full of interrogation points as ever. Leaving Baker and
+Welton entirely out of the question, the two cases still drew apart. One
+was just, the other unjust. Why? On the answer depended the peace of
+Bob's conscience. Of course he would resign rather than be forced to
+prosecute Welton. That was understood, and Bob resolutely postponed
+contemplation of the necessity. He loved this life, this cause. It
+opened out into wider and more beautiful vistas the further he
+penetrated into it. He conceived it the only life for which he was
+particularly fitted by temperament and inclination. To give it up would
+be to cut himself off from all that he cared for most in active life;
+and would be to cast him into the drudgery of new and uncongenial lines.
+That sacrifice must be made. It's contemplation and complete realization
+could wait. But a deeper necessity held Bob, the necessity of resolving
+the question of equities which the accident of his personal knowledge of
+Welton and Baker had evoked. He had to prove his instincts right or
+wrong.
+
+He was not quite ready to submit the matter officially, but he wished
+very much to talk it over with some one. Glancing up he caught sight of
+the glitter of silver and the satin sheen of a horse. Star was coming
+down through the trees, resplendent in his silver and carved leather
+trappings, glossy as a bird, stepping proudly and daintily under the
+curbing of his heavy Spanish bit. In the saddle lounged the tall, homely
+figure of old California John, clad in faded blue overalls, the brim of
+his disreputable, ancient hat flopped down over his lean brown face, and
+his kindly blue eyes. Bob signalled him.
+
+"John!" he called, "come here! I want to talk with you!"
+
+The stately, beautiful horse turned without any apparent guiding motion
+from his master, stepped the intervening space and stopped. California
+John swung from the saddle. Star, his head high, his nostril wide, his
+eye fixed vaguely on some distant vision, stood like an image.
+
+"I want a good talk with you," repeated Bob.
+
+They sat on the same log whereon Oldham and Bob had conferred.
+
+"John," said Bob, "Oldham has been here, and I don't know what to do."
+
+California John listened without a single word of comment while Bob
+detailed all the ins and outs of the situation. When he had finished,
+the old man slowly drew forth his pipe, filled it, and lit it.
+
+"Son," said he, "I'm an old man, and I've lived in this state since the
+early gold days. That means I've seen a lot of things. In all that time
+the two most valuable idees I've dug up are these: in the first place,
+it don't never do to go off half-cock; and in the second place, if you
+want to know about a thing, go to headquarters for it."
+
+He removed his pipe and blew a cloud.
+
+"Half of that's for me and the other half's for you," he resumed. "I
+ain't going to give you my notions until I've thought them over a
+little; that's for me. As for you, if I was you, I'd just amble over and
+talk the whole matter over with Mr. Welton and see what he thinks about
+his end of it."
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+This advice seemed so good that Bob acted upon it at his earliest
+opportunity. He found Welton riding his old brindle mule in from the
+bull donkey where he had been inspecting the work. The lumberman's red,
+jolly face lit up with a smile of real affection as he recognized Bob,
+an expression quickly changed, however, as he caught sight of the young
+man's countenance.
+
+"What's up, Bobby?" he inquired with concern; "anything happened?"
+
+"Nothing yet; but I want to talk with you."
+
+Welton immediately dismounted, with the laborious clumsiness of the man
+brought up to other means of locomotion, tied Jane to a tree, and threw
+himself down at the foot of a tall pine.
+
+"Let's have it," said he.
+
+"There have come into my hands some documents," said Bob, "that
+embarrass me a great deal. Here they are."
+
+He handed them to Welton. The lumberman ran them through in silence.
+
+"Well," he commented cheerfully, "they seem to be all right. What's the
+matter?"
+
+"The matter is with the title to the land," said Bob.
+
+Welton looked the list of records over more carefully.
+
+"I'm no lawyer," he confessed at last; "but it don't need a lawyer to
+see that this is all regular enough."
+
+"Have you read the findings of the commission?"
+
+"That stuff? Sure! That don't amount to anything. It's merely an
+expression of opinion; and mighty poor opinion at that."
+
+"Don't you see what I'm up against?" insisted Bob. "It will be in my
+line of duty to open suit against the Wolverine Company for recovery of
+those lands."
+
+"Suit!" echoed Welton. "You talk foolish, Bob. This company has owned
+these lands for nearly thirty years, and paid taxes on them. The records
+are all straight, and the titles clear."
+
+"It begins to look as if the lands were taken up contrary to law,"
+insisted Bob; "and, if so, I'll be called upon to prosecute." "Contrary
+to your grandmother," said Welton contemptuously. "Some of your young
+squirts of lawyers have been reading their little books. If these lands
+were taken up contrary to law, why so were every other timber lands in
+the state."
+
+"That may be true, also," said Bob. "I don't know."
+
+"Well, will you tell me what's wrong with them?" asked Welton.
+
+"It appears as though the lands were 'colonized,'" said Bob; "or, at
+least, such of them as were not bought from the bank."
+
+"I guess you boys have a new brand of slang," confessed Welton.
+
+"Why, I mean the tract was taken direct from many small holders in
+hundred-and-sixty-acre lots," explained Bob.
+
+Welton stared at him.
+
+"Well, will you tell me how in blazes you were going to get together a
+piece of timber big enough to handle in any other way?" he demanded at
+last. "All one firm could take up by itself was a quarter section, and
+you're not crazy enough to think any concern could afford to build a
+plant for the sake of cutting that amount! That's preposterous! A man
+certainly has a right under the law to sell what is his to whom-ever he
+pleases."
+
+"But the 'colonists,'" said Bob, "took up this land merely for the
+purpose of turning it over to the company. The intention of the law is
+that the timber is for the benefit of the original claimant."
+
+"Well, it's for his benefit, if he gets paid for it, ain't it?" demanded
+Welton ingenuously. "You can't expect him to cut it himself."
+
+"That is the intent of the law," insisted Bob, "and that's what I'll be
+called upon to do. What shall I do about it?"
+
+"Quit the game!" said Welton, promptly and eagerly. "You can see
+yourself how foolish it is. That crew of young squirts just out of
+school would upset the whole property values of the state. Besides, as
+I've just shown you, it's foolish. Come on back in a sensible business.
+We'd get on fine!"
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"Then go ahead; bring your case," said Welton. "I don't mind."
+
+"I do," said Bob. "It looks like a strong case to me."
+
+"Don't bring it. You don't need to report in your evidence as you call
+it. Just forget it."
+
+"Even if I were inclined to do so," said Bob, "I wouldn't be allowed.
+Baker would force the matter to publicity."
+
+"Baker," repeated Welton; "what has he got to do with it?"
+
+"It's in regard to the lands in the Basin. He took them up under the
+mineral act, and plainly against all law and decency. It's the plainest
+case of fraud I know about, and is a direct steal right from under our
+noses."
+
+"I think myself he's skinning things a trifle fine," admitted Welton;
+"but I can't see but what he's complied with the law all right. He don't
+have any right to that timber, I'll agree with you there; but it looks
+to me like the law had a hole in it."
+
+"If he took that land up for other purposes than an honest intention to
+mine on it, the title might be set aside," said Bob.
+
+"You'd have a picnic proving anything of the sort one way or another
+about what a man intends to do," Welton pointed out.
+
+"Do you remember one evening when Baker was up at camp and was kicking
+on paying water tolls? It was about the time Thorne first came in as
+Supervisor, and just before I entered the Service."
+
+"Seems to me I recall something of the sort."
+
+"Well, you think it over. Baker told us then that he had a way of
+beating the tolls, and mentioned this very scheme of taking advantage of
+the mineral laws. At the time he had a notion of letting us in on the
+timber."
+
+"Sure! I remember!" cried Welton.
+
+"Well, if you and I were to testify as to that conversation, we'd
+establish his intent plainly enough."
+
+"Sure as you're a foot high!" said Welton slowly.
+
+"Baker knows this; and he's threatened, if I testify against him, to
+bring the Wolverine Company into the fight. _Now_ what should I do about
+it?"
+
+Welton turned on him a troubled eye.
+
+"Bob," said he, "there's more to this than you think. I didn't have
+anything to do with this land until just before we came out here. One of
+the company got control of it thirty year ago. All that flapdoodle," he
+struck the papers, "didn't mean nothing to me when I thought it came
+from your amatoore detectives. But if Baker has this case looked up
+there's something to it. Go slow, son."
+
+He studied a moment.
+
+"Have you told your officers of your own evidence against Baker?"
+
+"Not yet."
+
+"Or about these?" he held up the papers.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, that's all right. Don't."
+
+"It's my duty----"
+
+"Resign!" cried Welton energetically; "then it won't be your duty.
+Nobody knows about what you know. If you're not called on, you've
+nothing to say. You don't have to tell all you know."
+
+A vision swept before Bob's eyes of a noble forest supposedly safe for
+all time devoted by his silence to a private greed.
+
+"But concealing evidence is as much of a perjury as falsifying it--" he
+began. A second vision flashed by of a ragged, unshorn fugitive, now in
+jail, whom his testimony could condemn. He fell silent.
+
+"Let sleeping dogs lie," said Welton, earnestly. "You don't know the
+harm you may do. Your father's reelection comes this fall, you know, and
+even if it's untrue, a suit of this character--" He in his turn broke
+off.
+
+"I don't see how this could hurt father's chances--either way," said
+Bob, puzzled.
+
+"Well, you know how I think about it," said Welton curtly, rising. "You
+asked me."
+
+He stumped over to Jane, untied the rope with his thick fingers,
+clambered aboard. From the mule's back he looked down on Bob, his
+kindly, homely face again alight with affection.
+
+"If you never have anything worse on your conscience than keeping your
+face shut to protect a friend from injustice, Bobby," he said, "I reckon
+you won't lose much sleep."
+
+With these words he rode away. Bob, returning to camp, unsaddled, and,
+very weary, sought his cabin. His cabin mate was stolidly awaiting him,
+seated on the single door step.
+
+"My friend that was going to leave me some money in my bunk was coming
+to-day," said Jack Pollock. "It ain't in your bunk by mistake?"
+
+"Jack," said Bob, weariedly throwing all the usual pretence aside, "I'm
+ashamed to say I clean forgot it; I had such a job on hand. I'll ride
+over and get it now."
+
+"Don't understand you," said Jack, without moving a muscle of his face.
+
+Bob smiled at the serious young mountaineer, playing loyally his part
+even to his fellow-conspirator.
+
+"Jack," said he, "I guess your friend must have been delayed. Maybe
+he'll get here later."
+
+"Quite like," nodded Jack gravely.
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Bob made the earliest chance to obtain California John's promised
+advice. The old man was unlettered, but his understanding was informed
+by a broad and gentle spirit and long experience of varied things. On
+this the head ranger himself touched.
+
+"Bob," he began, "I'm an old man, and I've lived through a lot. When I
+come into this state the elk and deer and antelope was running out on
+the plains like sheep. I mined and prospected up and down these
+mountains when nobody knew their names. There's hardly a gold camp you
+can call over that I ain't been in on; nor a set of men that had
+anything to do with making the state that I ain't tracked up with. Most
+of the valley towns wasn't in existence those days, and the rest was
+little cattle towns that didn't amount to anything. The railroad took a
+week to come from Chicago. There wasn't any railroad up the coast. They
+hadn't begun to irrigate much. Where the Redlands and Riverside orange
+groves are there was nothing but dry washes and sage-brush desert. It
+cost big money to send freight. All that was shipped out of the country
+in a season wouldn't make up one shipment these days. I suppose to folks
+back East this country looked about as far off as Africa. Even to folks
+living in California the country as far back as these mountains looked
+like going to China. They got all their lumber from the Coast ranges and
+the lower hills. This back here was just wilderness, so far off that
+nobody rightly thought of it as United States at all.
+
+"Of course, by and by the country settled up a little more but even then
+nobody ever thought of timber. You see, there was no market to amount
+to anything out here; and a few little jerk-water mills could supply the
+whole layout easy. East, the lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin and
+Minnesota never was going to give out. In those days you could hardly
+_give_ away land up in this country. The fellow that went in for timber
+was looked on as a lunatic. It took a big man with lots of sand to see
+it at all."
+
+Bob nodded, his eye kindling with the beginnings of understanding.
+
+"There was a few of them. They saw far enough ahead, and they come in
+here and took up some timber. Other folks laughed at them; but I guess
+they're doing most of the laughing now. It took nerve, and it took
+sense, and it took time, and it took patience." California John
+emphasized each point with a pat of his brown, gnarled hand.
+
+"Now those fellows started things for this country. If they hadn't had
+the sheer nerve to take up that timber, nobody would have dared do
+anything else--not for years anyhow. But just the fact that the
+Wolverine Company bought big, and other big men come in--why it give
+confidence to the people. The country boomed right ahead. If nobody had
+seen the future of the country, she'd have been twenty year behind. Out
+West that means a hell of a lot of value, let me tell you!"
+
+"The timber would have belonged to the Government," Bob reminded him.
+
+"I'm a Forest officer," said California John, "and what's more, I was a
+Forest officer for a good many years when there was nothin' to it but
+kicks. There can't nobody beat me in wishing a lot of good forest land
+was under the Service instead of being due to be cut up by lumbermen.
+But I've lived too long not to see the point. You can't get benefits
+without paying for 'em. The United States of America was big gainers
+because these old fellows had the nerve just to come in and buy. It
+ain't so much the lumber they saw and put out where it's needed--though
+that's a good deal; and it ain't so much the men they bring into the
+country and give work to--though that's a lot, too. _It's the confidence
+they inspire_, it's the lead they give. That's what counts. All the rest
+of these little operators, and workmen, and storekeepers, and
+manufacturers wouldn't have found their way out here in twenty years if
+the big fellows hadn't led the way. If you should go over and buy ten
+thousand acres of land by Table Mountain to-morrow, next year there'd be
+a dozen to follow you in and do whatever you'd be doing. And while it's
+the big fellow that gives the lead, _it's the little fellow that makes
+the wealth of the country!_"
+
+Bob stared at the old man in fascinated surprise. This was a new
+California John, this closely reasoning man, with, clear, earnest eyes,
+laying down the simple doctrine taught by a long life among men.
+
+"The Government gives alternate sections of land to railroads to bring
+them in the country," went on California John. "In my notion all this
+timber land in private hands is where it belongs. It's the price the
+Government paid for wealth."
+
+"And the Basin----" cried Bob.
+
+"What the hell more confidence does this country need now?" demanded
+California John fiercely; "what with its mills and its trolleys, its
+vineyards and all its big projects. What right has this man Baker to get
+pay for what he ain't done?"
+
+The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able to analyze, leaped
+at him. The equities hung in equal balance. On one side he saw the
+pioneer, pressing forward into an unknown wilderness, breaking a way for
+those that could follow, holding aloft a torch to illumine dark places,
+taking long and desperate chances, or seeing with almost clairvoyant
+power beyond the immediate vision of men; waiting in faith for the
+fulfillment of their prophecies. On the other he saw the plunderer,
+grasping for a wealth that did not belong to him, through values he had
+not made. This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob's mind,
+be gainsaid.
+
+Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did not extend to
+the surface of things by which men live. It explained; but did it
+excuse, especially in the eye of abstract ethics? Had not these men
+broken the law, and is not the upholding of the law important in its
+moral effect on those that follow?
+
+"Just the same," he voiced this thought to California John, "the laws
+read then as they do to-day."
+
+"On the books, yes," replied the old man, slowly; "but not in men's
+ideas. You got to remember that those fellows held pretty straight by
+what the law _says_. They got other men to take up the timber, and then
+had it transferred to themselves. That's according to law. A man can do
+what he wants with his own. You know."
+
+"But the intention of the law is to give every man a----"
+
+"That's what we go by now," interrupted California John.
+
+"What other way is there to go by?"
+
+"None--now. But in those days that was the settled way to get timber
+land. They didn't make any secret of it. They just looked at it as the
+process to go through with, like filing a deed, or getting two
+witnesses. It was a nuisance, and looked foolish, but if that was the
+way to do it, why they'd do it that way. Everybody knew that. Why, if a
+man wanted to get enough timber to go to operating on, his lawyer would
+explain to him how to do it; any of his friends that was posted would
+show him the ropes; and if he'd take the trouble to go to the Land
+Office itself, the clerk would say: 'No, Mr. Man, I can't transfer to
+you, personally, more'n a hundred and sixty acres, but you can get some
+of your friends to take it up for you.'[Footnote: A fact.] Now will you
+tell me how Mr. Man could get it any straighter than that?"
+
+Bob was seeing a great light. He nodded.
+
+"They've changed the rules of the game!" said California John
+impressively, "and now they want to go back thirty year and hold these
+fellows to account for what they did under the old rules. It don't look
+to me like it's fair."
+
+He thought a moment.
+
+"I suppose," he remarked reflectively, going off on one of his strange
+tangents, and lapsing once more into his customary picturesque speech,
+"that these old boys that burned those Salem witches was pretty well
+thought of in Salem--deacons in the church, and all such; p'ticular
+elect, and held up to the kids for high moral examples? had the plumb
+universal approval in those torchlight efforts of theirn?"
+
+"So I believe," said Bob.
+
+"Well," drawled California John, stretching his lank frame, "suppose one
+of those old bucks had lived to now--of course, he couldn't, but suppose
+he did--and was enjoying himself and being a good citizen. And suppose
+some day the sheriff touched him on the shoulder and says: 'Old boy,
+we're rounding up all the murderers. I've just got Saleratus Bill for
+scragging Franklin. You come along, too. Don't you know that burnin'
+witches is murder?'" California John spat with vigour. "Oh, hell!" said
+he.
+
+"Now, Baker," he went on, after a moment, "is Saleratus Bill because he
+knows he's agin what the people knows is the law; and the other fellows
+is old Salem because they lived like they were told to. Even old Salem
+would know that he couldn't burn no witches nowadays. These old timers
+ain't the ones trying to steal land now, you notice. They're too damn
+honest. You don't need to tell me that you believe for one minute when
+he took up this Wolverine land, that your father did anything that he,
+_or anybody else_, courts included, thought was off-colour."
+
+"My father!" cried Bob.
+
+"Why, yes," said California John, looking at him curiously; "you don't
+mean to say you didn't know he is the Wolverine Company!"
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+"Well," said California John, after a pause, "after you've made your
+jump there ain't much use in trying to turn back. If you didn't know it,
+why it was evident you wasn't intended to know it. But I was in the
+country when your father bought the land, so I happened to know about
+it."
+
+Bob stared at the old man so long that the latter felt called upon to
+reassure him.
+
+"I wouldn't take it so hard, if I was you, son," said he. "I really
+don't think all these bluffs of Baker's amount to much. The findings of
+that commission ain't never been acted on, which would seem to show that
+it didn't come to nothing at the time; and I don't have the slightest
+notion in the world but what the whole thing will blow up in smoke."
+
+"As far as that is concerned, I haven't either," said Bob; "though you
+never can tell, and defending such a suit is always an expensive matter.
+But here's the trouble; my father is Congressman from Michigan, he's
+been in several pretty heavy fights this last year, and has some
+powerful enemies; he is up for reelection this fall."
+
+"Suffering cats!" whistled California John.
+
+"A lot could be made of a suit of that nature," said Bob, "whether it
+had any basis, or not."
+
+"I've run for County Supervisor in my time," said California John
+simply.
+
+"Well, what is your advice?" asked Bob.
+
+"Son, I ain't got none," replied the old man.
+
+That very evening a messenger rode over from the mill bringing a summons
+from Welton. Bob saddled up at once. He found the lumberman, not in the
+comfortable sitting room at his private sleeping camp, but watching the
+lamp alone in the office. As Bob entered, his former associate turned a
+troubled face toward the young man.
+
+"Bob," said he at once, "they've got the old man cinched, unless you'll
+help out."
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"You remember when we first came in here how Plant closed the road and
+the flume right-of-way on us because we didn't have the permit?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Now, Bob, you remember how we was up against it, don't you? If we
+hadn't gone through that year we'd have busted the business absolutely.
+It was just a case of hold-up and we had to pay it. You remember?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well!" burst out Welton, bringing his fist down, "now this hound,
+Baker, sends up his slick lawyer to tell me that was bribery, and that
+he can have me up on a criminal charge!"
+
+"He's bluffing," said Bob quietly. "I remember all about that case. If
+I'd known as much then of inside workings as I do now, I'd have taken a
+hand. But Baker himself ran the whole show. If he brings that matter
+into court, he'll be subject to the same charge; for, if you remember,
+he paid the money."
+
+"Will he!" shouted Welton. "You don't know the lowlived skunk! Erbe told
+me that if this suit was brought and you testified in the matter, that
+Baker would turn state's evidence against me! That would let him off
+scot-free."
+
+"What!" said Bob incredulously. "Brand himself publicly as a criminal
+and tell-tale just to get you into trouble! Not likely. Think what that
+would mean to a man in his position! It would be every bit as bad as
+though he were to take his jail sentence. He's bluffing again."
+
+"Do you really think so?" asked Welton, a gleam of relief lightening
+the gloom of his red, good-natured face. "I'll agree to handle the worst
+river crew you can hand out to me; but this law business gets me running
+in circles."
+
+"It does all of us," said Bob with a sigh.
+
+"I concluded from Erbe's coming up here that you had decided to tell
+about what you knew. That ain't so, is it?"
+
+"I don't know; I can't see my duty clearly yet."
+
+"For heaven's sake, Bobby, what's it to you!" demanded Welton
+exasperated.
+
+But Bob did not hear him.
+
+"I think the direct way is the best," he remarked, by way of thinking
+aloud. "I'm going to keep on going to headquarters. I'm going to write
+father and put it straight to him how he did get those lands and tell
+him the whole situation; and I'm going down to interview Baker, and
+discover, if I can, just how much of a bluff he is putting up."
+
+"In the meantime----" said Welton apparently not noting the fact that
+Bob had become aware of the senior Orde's connection with the land.
+
+"In the meantime I'm going to postpone action if I can."
+
+"They're summoning witnesses for the Basin trial."
+
+"I'll do the best I can," concluded Bob.
+
+Accordingly he wrote the next day to his father. In this letter he
+stated frankly the situation as far as it affected the Wolverine lands,
+but said nothing about the threatened criminal charges against Welton.
+That was another matter. He set out the great value of the Basin lands
+and the methods by which they had been acquired. He pointed out his
+duty, both as a forest officer and as a citizen, but balanced this by
+the private considerations that had developed from the situation.
+
+This dispatched, he applied for leave.
+
+"This is the busy season, and we can spare no one," said Thorne. "You
+have important matters on hand."
+
+"This is especially important," urged Bob.
+
+"It is absolutely impossible. Come two months later, and I'll be glad
+to lay you off as long as I can."
+
+"This particular affair is most urgent business."
+
+"Private, of course?"
+
+"Not entirely."
+
+"Couldn't be considered official?"
+
+"It might become so."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That I am not at liberty to tell you."
+
+Thorne considered.
+
+"No; I'm sorry, but I don't see how I can spare you."
+
+"In that case," said Bob quietly, "you will force me to tender my
+resignation."
+
+Thorne looked up at him quickly, and studied his face.
+
+"From anybody else, Orde," said he, "I'd take that as a threat or a
+hold-up, and fire the man on the spot. From you I do not. The matter
+must be really serious. You may go. Get back as soon as you can."
+
+"Thank you," said Bob. "It is serious. Three days will do me."
+
+He set about his preparations at once, packing a suit case with linen
+long out of commission, smoothing out the tailored clothes he had not
+had occasion to use for many a day. He then transported this--and
+himself--down the mountain on his saddle horse. At Auntie Belle's he
+changed his clothes. The next morning he caught the stage, and by the
+day following walked up the main street of Fremont.
+
+He had no trouble in finding Baker's office. The Sycamore Creek
+operations were one group of many. As one of Baker's companies furnished
+Fremont with light and power, it followed that at night the name of that
+company blazed forth in thousands of lights. The sign was not the less
+legible, though not so fiery, by day. Bob walked into extensive
+ground-floor offices behind plate-glass windows. Here were wickets and
+railings through which and over which the public business was
+transacted. A narrow passageway sidled down between the wall and a row
+of ground-glass doors, on which were lettered the names of various
+officers of the company. At a swinging bar separating this passage from
+the main office sat a uniformed boy directing and stamping envelopes.
+
+Bob wrote his name on a blank form offered by this youth. The young man
+gazed at it a moment superciliously, then sauntered with an air of great
+leisure down the long corridor. He reappeared after a moment's absence
+behind the last door, to return with considerably more alacrity.
+
+"Come right in, sir," he told Bob, in tones which mingled much deference
+with considerable surprise.
+
+Bob had no reason to understand how unusual was the circumstance of so
+prompt a reception of a visitor for whom no previous appointment had
+been made. He entered the door held open for him by the boy, and so
+found himself in Baker's presence.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+The office was expensively but plainly furnished in hardwoods. A thick
+rug covered the floor, easy chairs drew up by a fireplace, several good
+pictures hung off the wall. Near the windows stood a small desk for a
+stenographer, and a wide mahogany table. Behind this latter, his back to
+the light, sat Baker.
+
+The man's sturdy figure was absolutely immobile, and the customary
+facetiously quizzical lines of his face had given place to an expression
+of cold attention. When he spoke, Bob found that the picturesque diction
+too had vanished.
+
+At Bob's entrance, Baker inclined his head coldly in greeting, but said
+nothing. Bob deliberately crossed the room and rested his two fists,
+knuckle down, on the polished desktop. Baker waited stolidly for him to
+proceed. Bob jerked his head toward the stenographer.
+
+"I want to talk to you in private," said he.
+
+The stenographer glanced toward her employer. The latter nodded,
+whereupon she gathered a few stray leaves of paper and departed. Bob
+looked after her until the door had closed behind her. Then, quite
+deliberately, he made a tour of the office, trying doors, peering behind
+curtains and portieres. He ended at the desk, to find Baker's eye fixed
+on him with sardonic humour. "Melodramatic, useless--and ridiculous," he
+said briefly.
+
+"If I have any evidence to give, it will be in court, not in a private
+office," replied Bob composedly.
+
+"What do you want?" demanded Baker.
+
+"I have come this far solely and simply to get a piece of information at
+first hand. I was told you had threatened to become a blackmailer, and
+I wanted to find out if it is true?"
+
+"In a world of contrary definitions, it is necessary to come down to
+facts. What do you mean by blackmailer?"
+
+"It has been told me that you intend to aid criminal proceedings against
+Mr. Welton in regard to the right-of-way trouble and the 'sugaring' of
+Plant."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"And that in order to evade your own criminal responsibility in the
+matter you intended to turn state's evidence."
+
+"Well?" repeated Baker.
+
+"It seemed inconceivable to me that a man of your social and business
+standing would not only confess himself a petty criminal, but one who
+shelters himself by betrayal of his confederate."
+
+"I do not relish any such process," stated Baker formally, "and would
+avoid it if possible. Nevertheless, if the situation comes squarely up
+to me, I shall meet it."
+
+"I suppose you have thought what decent men----"
+
+Baker held up one hand. This was the first physical movement he had
+made.
+
+"Pardon me," he interrupted. "Let us understand, once and for all, that
+I intend to defend myself when attacked. Personally I do not think that
+either Mr. Welton or myself are legally answerable for what we have
+done. I regret to observe that you, among others, think differently. If
+the whole matter were to be dropped at this point, I should rest quite
+content. But if the matter is not dropped"--at last he let his uplifted
+hand fall, "if the matter is not dropped," he repeated, "my sense of
+justice is strong enough to feel that every one should stand on the same
+footing. If I am to be dragged into court, so must others."
+
+Bob stood thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"I guess that's all," said he, and walked out.
+
+As the door closed behind him, Baker reached forward to touch one of
+several buttons. To the uniformed messenger who appeared he snapped out
+the one word, "Oldham!" A moment later the land agent stood before the
+wide mahogany desk.
+
+"Orde has just been here," stated Baker crisply. "He wanted to know if I
+intended to jail Welton on that old bribery charge. I told him I did."
+
+"How did he take it?"
+
+"As near as I can tell he is getting obstinate. You claimed very
+confidently you could head off his testimony. Up to date you haven't
+accomplished much. Make good."
+
+"I'll head him off," stated Oldham grimly, "or put him where he belongs.
+I've saved a little persuasion until all the rest had failed."
+
+"How?"
+
+"That I'll tell you in time, but not now. But I don't mind telling you
+that I've no reason to love this Orde--or any other Orde--and I intend
+to get even with him on my own account. It's a personal and private
+matter, but I have a club that will keep him."
+
+"Why the secrecy?"
+
+"It's an affair of my own," insisted Oldham, "but I have it on him. If
+he attempts to testify as to the Basin lands, I'll have him in the
+penitentiary in ten days."
+
+"And if he agrees?"
+
+"Then," said Oldham quietly, "I'll have him in the pen a little
+later--after the Basin matter is settled once and for all."
+
+Baker considered this a little.
+
+"My judgment might be worth something as to handling this," he
+suggested.
+
+"The matter is mine," said Oldham firmly, "and I must choose my own time
+and place."
+
+"Very well," Baker acquiesced; "but I'd advise you to tackle Orde at
+once. Time is short. Try out your club to see if it will work."
+
+"It will work!" stated Oldham confidently.
+
+"Of course," remarked Baker, relaxing abruptly his attitude, physical
+and mental, and lighting a cigar, "of course, it is all very well to
+yank the temples down around the merry Philistines, but it doesn't do
+your Uncle Samson much good. We can raise hell with Welton and Orde and
+a half-dozen others, and we will, if they push us too hard--but that
+don't keep us the Basin if this crazy reformer testifies and pulls in
+Welton to corroborate him. I'd rather keep the Basin. If we could stop
+Orde----"
+
+"I'll stop him," said Oldham.
+
+"I hope," said Baker impressively, "that you have more than one string
+to your bow. I am not inquiring into your methods, you understand"--his
+pause was so significantly long at this point, that Oldham nodded--"_but
+your sole job is to keep Orde out of court_."
+
+Baker looked his agent squarely in the eye for fifteen seconds. Then
+abruptly he dropped his gaze.
+
+"That's all," said he, and reached for some papers.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Oldham obeyed his principal's orders by joining Bob on the train back to
+the city. He dropped down by the young man's side, produced a cigar
+which he rolled between his lips, but did not light, and at once opened
+up the subject of his negotiations.
+
+"I wish to point out to you, with your permission," he began, "just
+where you stand in this matter. In the confusion and haste of a busy
+time you may not have cast up your accounts. First," he checked off the
+point on his long, slender forefinger, "in injuring Mr. Baker in this
+ill-advised fashion you are injuring your old-time employer and friend,
+Mr. Welton, and this in two ways: you are jeopardizing his whole
+business, and you are rendering practically certain his conviction on a
+criminal charge. Mr. Welton is an old man, a simple man, and a kindly
+man; this thing is likely to kill him." Oldham glanced keenly at the
+young man's sombre face, and went on. "Second"--he folded back his
+middle finger--"you are injuring your own father, also in two ways: you
+are bringing his lawful property into danger, and you are giving his
+political enemies the most effective sort of a weapon to swing in his
+coming campaign. And do not flatter yourself they will not make the best
+of it. It happens that your father has stood strongly with the
+Conservation members in the late fight in Congress. This would be a
+pretty scandal. Third," said Oldham, touching his ring finger, "you are
+injuring yourself. You are throwing away an opportunity to get in on the
+ground floor with the biggest man in the West; you are making for
+yourself a powerful enemy; and you are indubitably preparing the way for
+your removal from office--if removal from such an office can
+conceivably mean anything to any one." He removed the cigar from his
+mouth, gazed at the wetted end, waited a moment for the young man to
+comment, then replaced it, and resumed. "And fourth," he remarked
+closing his fist so that all fingers were concealed. There he stopped
+until Bob was fairly compelled to start him on again.
+
+"And fourth----" he suggested, therefore.
+
+"Fourth," rapped out Oldham, briskly, "you injure George Pollock."
+
+"George Pollock!" echoed Bob, trying vainly to throw a tone of ingenuous
+surprise into his voice.
+
+"Certainly; George Pollock," repeated Oldham. "I arrived in Sycamore
+Flats at the moment when Pollock murdered Plant. I know positively that
+you were an eye-witness to the deed. If you testify in one case, I shall
+certainly call upon you to testify in the other. Furthermore," he turned
+his gray eyes on Bob, and for the second time the young man was
+permitted to see an implacable hostility, "although not on the scene
+itself, I can myself testify, and will, that you held the murderer's
+horse during the deed, and assisted Pollock to escape. Furthermore, I
+can testify, and can bring a competent witness, that while supposed to
+be estimating Government timber in the Basin, you were in communication
+with Pollock."
+
+"Saleratus Bill!" cried Bob, enlightened as to the trailer's recent
+activities in the Basin.
+
+"It will be easy to establish not only Pollock's guilt, but your own as
+accessory. That will put you hard and fast behind the bars--where you
+belong."
+
+In this last speech Oldham made his one serious mistake of the
+interview. So long as he had appealed to Bob's feelings for, and sense
+of duty toward, other men, he had succeeded well in still further
+confusing the young man's decision. But at the direct personal threat,
+Bob's combative spirit flared. Suddenly his troubled mind was clarified,
+as though Oldham's menace had acted as a chemical reagent to
+precipitate all his doubts. Whatever the incidental hardships, right
+must prevail. And, as always, in the uprooting of evil, some unlucky
+innocent must suffer. It is the hardship of life, inevitable, not to be
+blinked at if a man is to be a man, and do a man's part. He leaned
+forward with so swift a movement that Oldham involuntarily dodged back.
+
+"You tell your boss," said Bob, "that nothing on God's earth can keep me
+out of court."
+
+He threw away his half-smoked cigar and went back to the chair car. The
+sight of Oldham was intolerable to him.
+
+The words were said, and the decision made. In his heart he knew the
+matter irrevocable. For a few moments he experienced a feeling of relief
+and freedom, as when a swimmer first gets his head above the surf that
+has tumbled him. These fine-spun matters of ethical balance had confused
+and wearied his spirit. He had become bewildered among such varied
+demands on his personal decision. It was a comfort to fall back on the
+old straight rule of right conduct no matter what the consequences. The
+essentials of the situation were not at all altered: Baker was guilty of
+the rankest fraud; Welton was innocent of every evil intent and should
+never be punished for what he had been unwillingly and doubtfully
+persuaded to permit; Orde senior had acquired his lands quite according
+to the customs and ideas of the time; George Pollock should have been
+justified a thousand times over in sight of God and man. Those things
+were to Bob's mind indisputable. To deprive the one man of a very small
+portion of his fraudulently acquired property, it was apparently
+necessary to punish three men who should not be punished. These men
+were, furthermore, all dear to Bob personally. It did not seem right
+that his decision should plunge them into undeserved penalties. But now
+the situation was materially altered. Bob also stood in danger from his
+action. He, too, must suffer with the others. All were in the same
+boat. The menace to his own liberty justified his course. The innocent
+must suffer with the guilty; but now the fact that he was one of those
+who must so suffer, raised his decision from a choice to a necessity.
+Whatever the consequences, the simplest, least perplexing, most
+satisfying course was to follow the obvious right. The odium of
+ingratitude, of lack of affection, of disloyalty, of self-reproach was
+lifted from him by the very fact that he, too, was one of those who must
+take consequences. In making the personal threat against the young man's
+liberty, Oldham had, without knowing it, furnished to his soul the one
+valid reason for going ahead, conscience-clear.
+
+Though naturally Oldham could not follow out this psychology, he was
+shrewd enough to understand that he had failed. This surprised him, for
+he had entertained not the slightest doubt that the threat of the
+penitentiary would bring Bob to terms.
+
+On arriving in the city, Oldham took quarters at the Buena Vista and
+sent for Saleratus Bill, whom he had summoned by wire as soon as he had
+heard from that individual of Bob's intended visit to Fremont.
+
+The spy arrived wearing a new broad, black hat, a celluloid collar, a
+wrinkled suit of store clothes, and his same shrewd, evil leer. Oldham
+did not appear, but requested that the visitor be shown into his room.
+There, having closed the transom, he issued his instructions.
+
+"I want you to pay attention, and not interrupt," said he. "Within a
+month a case is coming up in which Orde, the Forest man, is to appear as
+witness. He must not appear. I leave that all to you, but, of course, I
+want no more than necessary violence. He must be detained until after
+the trial, and for as long after that as I say. Understand?"
+
+"Sure," said Saleratus Bill. "But when he comes back, he'll fix you just
+the same."
+
+"I'll see to that part of it. The case will never be reopened. Now, mind
+you, no shooting----"
+
+"There might be an accident," suggested Saleratus Bill, opening his red
+eyes and staring straight at his principal.
+
+"Accidents," said Oldham, speaking slowly and judicially, "are always
+likely to happen. Sometimes they can't be helped." He paused to let
+these words sink in.
+
+Saleratus Bill wrinkled his eyes in an appreciative laugh. "Accidents is
+of two kinds: lucky and unlucky," he remarked briefly, by way of
+parenthesis.
+
+"But, of course, it is distinctly understood," went on Oldham, as though
+he had not heard, "that this is your own affair. You have nothing to
+expect from me if you get into trouble. And if you mention my name,
+you'll merely get jugged for attempted blackmail."
+
+Saleratus Bill's eyes flared.
+
+"Cut it," said he, with a rasp in his voice.
+
+"Nevertheless, that is the case," repeated Oldham, unmoved.
+
+The flame slowly died from Saleratus Bill's eyes.
+
+"I'll want a little raise for that kind of a job," said he.
+
+"Naturally," agreed Oldham.
+
+They entered into discussion of ways and means.
+
+In the meantime Bob had encountered an old friend.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+
+Bob always stayed at the Monterosa Hotel when in town; a circumstance
+that had sent Oldham to the Buena Vista. Although it wanted but a few
+hours until train time, he drifted around to his customary stopping
+place, resolved to enjoy a quiet smoke by the great plate-glass windows
+before which the ever-varying theatre crowds stream by from Main Street
+cars. He had been thus settled for some time, when he heard his name
+pronounced by the man occupying the next chair.
+
+"Bob Orde!" he cried; "but this is luck!"
+
+Bob looked around to see an elderly, gray-haired, slender man, of keen,
+intelligent face, pure white hair and moustache, in whom he recognized
+Mr. Frank Taylor, a lifelong friend of his father's and one of the best
+lawyers his native state had produced. He sprang to his feet to grasp
+the older man's hand. The unexpected meeting was especially grateful,
+for Bob had been long enough without direct reminders of his old home to
+be hungry for them. Ever since he could remember, the erect, military
+form of Frank Taylor had been one of the landmarks of memory, like the
+sword that had belonged to Georgie Cathcart's father, or like the
+kindly, homely, gray figure of Mr. Kincaid in his rickety, two-wheeled
+cart--the man who had given Bob his first firearm.
+
+After first greetings and inquiries, the two men sank back to finish
+their smoke together.
+
+"It's good to see you again," observed Bob, "but I'm sorry your business
+brings you out here at this time of year. This is our dry season, you
+know. Everything is brown. I like it myself, as do most Californians,
+but an Easterner has to get used to it. After the rains, though, the
+country is wonderful."
+
+"This isn't my first trip," said Taylor. "I was out here for some months
+away back in--I think it was '79. I remember we went in to Santa Barbara
+on a steamer that fired a gun by way of greeting! Strangely enough, the
+same business brings me here now."
+
+"You are out here on father's account?" hazarded Bob, to whom the year
+1879 now began to have its significance.
+
+"Exactly. Didn't you get your father's letter telling of my coming?"
+
+"I've been from headquarters three days," Bob explained.
+
+"I see. Well, he sent you this message: 'Tell Bob to go ahead. I can
+take care of myself.'"
+
+"Bully for dad!" cried Bob, greatly heartened.
+
+"He told me he did not want to advise you, but that in the old days when
+a fight was on, the spectators were supposed to do their own dodging."
+
+"I'd about come to that conclusion," said Bob, "but it surely does me
+good to feel that father's behind me in it."
+
+"My trip in '79--or whenever it was--was exactly on this same muss-up."
+Mr. Taylor went on: "Your father owned this timber land then, and wanted
+to borrow money on it. At the time a rascally partner was trying to ruin
+him; and, in order to prevent his getting this money, which would save
+him, this partner instigated investigations and succeeded temporarily in
+clouding the title. Naturally the banks declined to lend money on
+doubtful titles; which was all this partner wanted.[A] Perhaps you know
+all this?"
+
+Bob shook his head. "I was a little too young to know anything of
+business."
+
+"Your father sent me out to straighten things. The whole matter was
+involved in endless red tape, obscured in every ingenious way possible.
+Although there proved to be nothing to the affair, to prove that fact
+took time, and time was what your father's partner was after. As a
+matter of fact, he failed; but that was not the result of
+miscalculation. Now I strongly suspect that your friend Baker, or his
+lawyers, have dug up a lot of this old evidence on the records and are
+going to use it to annoy us. There is nothing more in it how than there
+was at the beginning, but it's colourable enough to start a noisy suit
+on, and that's all these fellows are after."
+
+"But if it was decided once, how can they bring it up again?" Bob
+objected.
+
+"It was never brought to court. When the delay had been gained--or
+rather, when I unravelled the whole matter--it was dropped."
+
+"I see," said Bob. "Then the titles are all right?"
+
+"Every bit of that tract is as good as gold," said Taylor impressively.
+"Your father bought only from men who had taken up land with their own
+money. He paid as high as fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars for claims
+where by straight 'colonizing' he could have had them for three or four
+hundred."
+
+"I'm glad to hear that," said Bob. "But are you sure you can handle
+this?"
+
+"As for a suit, they can never win this in the world," said Taylor. "But
+that isn't the question. What they want is a chance for big headlines."
+
+"Well, can you head them off?"
+
+"I'm going to try, after I look over the situation. If I can't head it
+off completely, I'll at least be in a position to reply publicly at
+once. It took me three months to dig this thing out, but it won't take
+me half an hour to get it in the papers."
+
+"I should think they'd know that."
+
+"I don't think their lawyer really knows about it. As I say, it took me
+three months to dig it all out. My notion is that while they have no
+idea they can win the case, they believe that we did actually colonize
+the lands. In other words, they think they have it on us straight
+enough. The results of my investigations will surprise them. I'll keep
+the thing out of court if I can; but in any case we're ready. It will be
+a trial in the newspapers."
+
+"Well," said Bob, "you want to get acquainted then. Western newspapers
+are not like those in the East. They certainly jump in with both feet on
+any cause that enlists them one way or another. It is a case of no
+quarter to the enemy, in headlines, subheads, down to the date--reading
+matter, of course. They have a powerful influence, too, for they are
+very widely read."
+
+"Can they be bought?" asked Taylor shrewdly.
+
+Bob glanced at him.
+
+"I was thinking of the Power Company," explained Taylor.
+
+"Blessed if I know," confessed Bob; "but I think not. I disagree with
+them on so many things that I'd like to think they are bought. But they
+are more often against those apt to buy, than for them. They lambaste
+impartially and with a certain Irish delight in doing the job
+thoroughly. I must say they are not fair about it. They hit a man just
+as hard when he is down. What you want to do is to be better news than
+Baker."
+
+"I'll be all of that," promised Taylor, "if it comes to a newspaper
+trial."
+
+Bob glanced at his watch and jumped to his feet with an exclamation of
+dismay.
+
+"I've five minutes to get to the station," he said. "Goodbye."
+
+He rushed out of the hotel, caught a car, ran a block--and arrived in
+time to see the tail lights slipping away. He had to wait until the
+morning train, but that mattered little to him now. His wait and the
+journey back to the mountains were considerably lightened by this
+partial relief of the situation. At the first sign of trouble his father
+had taken the field to fight out his own fights. That much
+responsibility was lifted from Bob's shoulders. He might have known!
+
+Of the four dangerous elements of his problem one was thus
+unexpectedly, almost miraculously, relieved. Remained, however, poor
+Welton's implication in the bribery matter, and Pollock's danger. Bob
+could not count in himself. If he could only relieve the others of the
+consequences of his action, he could face his own trouble with a stout
+heart.
+
+At White Oaks he was forced to wait for the next stage. This put him
+twenty-four hours behind, and he was inclined to curse his luck. Had he
+only known it, no better fortune could have fallen him. The news came
+down the line that the stage he would have taken had been held up by a
+lone highwayman just at the top of Flour Gold grade. As the vehicle
+carried only an assortment of perishable fruit and three Italian
+labourers, for the dam, the profits from the transaction were not
+extraordinary. The sheriff and a posse at once set out in pursuit. Their
+efforts at overtaking the highwayman were unavailing, for the trail soon
+ran out over the rocky and brushy ledges, and the fugitive had been
+clever enough to sprinkle some of his tracks liberally with red pepper
+to baffle the dogs. The sheriff made a hard push of it, however, and for
+one day held closely enough on the trail. Bob's journey to Sycamore
+Flats took place on this one day--during which Saleratus Bill was too
+busy dodging his pursuers to resume a purpose which Bob's delay had
+frustrated.
+
+On arriving at Auntie Belle's, Bob resolved to push on up the mountain
+that very night, instead of waiting as usual until the following
+morning. Accordingly, after supper, he saddled his horse, collected the
+camp mail, and set himself in motion up the steep road.
+
+Before he had passed Fern Falls, the twilight was falling. Hermit
+thrushes sang down through the cooling forest. From the side hill,
+exposed all the afternoon to the California summer sun, rose tepid
+odours of bear-clover and snowbush, which exhaled out into space, giving
+way to the wandering, faint perfumes of night. Bob took off his hat, and
+breathed deep, greatly refreshed after the long, hot stage ride of the
+day. Darkness fell. In the forest the strengthening moonlight laid its
+wand upon familiar scenes to transform them. New aisles opened down the
+woodlands, aisles at the end of which stood silvered, ghostly trees thus
+distinguished by the moonbeams from their unnumbered brethren. The whole
+landscape became ghostly, full of depths and shadows, mysteries and
+allurements, heights and spaces unknown to the more prosaic day.
+Landmarks were lost in the velvet dark; new features sprang into
+prominence. Were it not for the wagon trail, Bob felt that in this
+strange, enchanted, unfamiliar land he might easily have become lost.
+His horse plodded mechanically on. One by one he passed the homely
+roadside landmarks, exempt from the necromancies of the moon--the pile
+of old cedar posts, split heaven knows when, by heaven knows whom, and
+thriftlessly abandoned; the water trough, with the brook singing by; the
+S turn by the great boulders; the narrow defile of the Devil's
+Grade--and then, still under the spell of the night, Bob surmounted the
+ridge to look out over the pine-clad plateau slumbering dead-still under
+the soft radiance of the moon.
+
+He rode the remaining distance to headquarters at a brisker pace. As he
+approached the little meadow, and the group of buildings dark and
+silent, he raised joyously the wild hallo of the late-comer with mail.
+Immediately lights were struck. A moment later, by the glimmer of a
+lantern, he was distributing the coveted papers, letters and magazines
+to the half-dressed group that surrounded him. Amy summoned him to bring
+her share. He delivered it to the hand and arm extended from the low
+window.
+
+"You must be nearly dead," said Amy, "after that long stage ride--to
+come right up the mountain."
+
+"It's the finest sort of a night," said Bob. "I wouldn't have missed it
+for anything. It's H-O-T, hot, down at the Flats. This ride just saved
+my life."
+
+This might have been truer than Bob had thought, for at almost that
+very moment Saleratus Bill, having successfully shaken off his pursuers,
+was making casual and guarded inquiries at Austin's saloon. When he
+heard that Orde had arrived at the Flats on the evening's stage, he
+manifested some satisfaction. The next morning, however, that
+satisfaction vanished, for only then he learned that the young man must
+be already safe at headquarters.
+
+
+[Footnote A: See "The Riverman."]
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+
+In delivering his instructions to Oldham, Baker had, of course, no
+thought of extreme measures. Indeed, had the direct question been put to
+him, he would most strongly and emphatically have forbidden them.
+Nevertheless, he was glad to leave his intentions vague, feeling that in
+thus wilfully shutting his eyes he might avoid personal responsibility
+for what might happen. He had every confidence that Oldham--a man of
+more than average cultivation--while he might contemplate lawlessness,
+was of too high an order to consider physical violence. Baker was
+inclined to believe that on mature reflection Bob would yield to the
+accumulation of influence against him. If not, Oldham intimated with no
+uncertain confidence, that he possessed information of a sort to coerce
+the Forest officer into silence. If that in turn proved unavailing--a
+contingency, it must be remembered that Baker hardly thought worth
+entertainment--why, then, in some one of a thousand perfectly legal ways
+Oldham could entangle the chief witness into an enforced absence from
+the trial. This sort of manoeuvre was, later, actually carried out in
+the person of Mr. Fremont Older, a witness in the graft prosecutions of
+San Francisco. In short, Baker's intentions, while desperately illegal,
+contemplated no personal harm to their victim. He gave as general orders
+to his subordinate: "Keep Orde's testimony out of court"; and shrugged
+off minute responsibilities.
+
+This command, filtered through a second and inimical personality, gained
+in strength. Oldham was not of a temperament to contemplate murder. His
+nerves were too refined; his training too conventional; his imagination
+too developed. He, too, resolutely kept his intentions a trifle vague.
+If Orde persisted, then he must be kidnapped for a time.
+
+But Saleratus Bill, professional gun-man, well paid, took his
+instructions quite brutally. In literal and bald statement he closed the
+circle and returned to Baker's very words: "Keep Orde's testimony out of
+court." Only in this case Saleratus Bill read into the simple command a
+more sinister meaning.
+
+The morning after his return from the lower country, Bob saddled up to
+ride over to the mill. He wished to tell Welton of his meeting Taylor;
+and to consult him on the best course to pursue in regard to the bribery
+charges. With daylight many of his old perplexities had returned. He
+rode along so deep in thought that the only impression reaching him from
+the external world was one of the warmth of the sun.
+
+Suddenly a narrow shadow flashed by his eyes. Before his consciousness
+could leap from its inner contemplation, his arms were pulled flat to
+his sides, a shock ran through him as though he had received a heavy
+blow, and he was jerked backward from his horse to hit the ground with
+great violence.
+
+The wind was knocked from his body, so that for five seconds, perhaps,
+he was utterly confused. Before he could gather himself, or even
+comprehend what had happened, a heavy weight flung itself upon him. The
+beginnings of his feeble struggles were unceremoniously subdued. When,
+in another ten seconds, his vision had cleared, he found himself bound
+hand and foot. Saleratus Bill stood over him, slowly recoiling the
+_riata,_ or throwing rope, with which he had so dexterously caught Bob
+from behind. After contemplating his victim for a moment, Saleratus Bill
+mounted his own animal, and disappeared.
+
+Bob, his head humming from the violence of its impact with the ground,
+listened until the hoof beats had ceased to jar the earth. Then with a
+methodical desperation he began to wrench and work at his bonds. All his
+efforts were useless; Saleratus Bill understood "hog-tying" too well.
+When, finally, he had convinced himself that he could not get away, Bob
+gave over his efforts. The forest was very still and warm. After a time
+the sun fell upon him, and he began to feel its heat uncomfortably. The
+affair was inexplicable. He began to wonder whether Saleratus Bill
+intended leaving him there a prey to what fortune chance might bring.
+Although the odds were a hundred to one against his being heard, he
+shouted several times. About as he had begun once more to struggle
+against his bonds, his captor returned, leading Bob's horse, and cursing
+audibly over the difficulty he had been put to in catching it.
+
+Ignoring Bob's indignant demands, the gun-man loosed his ankles, taking,
+however, the precaution of throwing the riata over the young man's
+shoulders.
+
+"Climb your horse," he commanded briefly.
+
+"How do you expect me to do that, with my hands tied behind me?"
+demanded Bob.
+
+"I don't know. Just do it, and be quick," replied Saleratus Bill.
+
+Bob's horse was nervous and restive. Three times he dropped his master
+heavily to earth. Then Saleratus Bill, his evil eye wary, extended a
+helping hand. This was what Bob was hoping for; but the gun-man was too
+wily and experienced to allow himself within the captive's fettered
+reach.
+
+When Bob had finally gained his saddle, Saleratus Bill, leading the
+horse, set off at a rapid pace cross country. To all of Bob's questions
+and commands he turned a deaf ear, until, finally, seeing it was useless
+to ask, Bob fell silent. Only once did he pause, and then to breathe and
+water the horses. The country through which they passed was unfamiliar
+to Bob. He knew only that they were going north, and were keeping to
+westward of the Second Ranges.
+
+Late that evening Saleratus Bill halted for the night at a little
+meadow. He fed Bob a thick sandwich, and offered him a cup of water;
+after which he again shackled the young man's ankles, bound his elbows,
+and attached the helpless form to a tree. Bob spent the night in this
+case, covered only by his saddle blanket. The cords cut into his swelled
+flesh, the retarded circulation pricked him cruelly. He slept little. At
+early dawn his captor offered him the same fare. By sun-up they were
+under way again.
+
+All that day they angled to the northwest. The pine forests gave way to
+oaks, buckthorn, chaparral, as they entered lower country. Several times
+Saleratus Bill made long detours to avoid clearings and ranches. Bob, in
+spite of his strength and the excellence of his condition, reeled from
+sheer weariness and pain. They made no stop at noon.
+
+At two o'clock, or so, they left the last ranch and began once more
+leisurely to climb. The slope was gentle. A badly washed and eroded
+wagon grade led them on. It had not been used for years. The horses, now
+very tired, plodded on dispiritedly.
+
+Then, with the suddenness of a shift of scenery, they topped what seemed
+to be a trifling rounded hill. On the other side the slope dropped sheer
+away. Opposite and to north and south were the ranks of great mountains,
+some dark with the blue of atmosphere before pines, others glittering
+with snow. Directly beneath, almost under him, Bob saw a valley.
+
+It was many thousand feet below, mathematically round, and completely
+surrounded by lofty mountains. Indeed, already evening had there spread
+its shadows, although to the rest of the world the sun was still hours
+high. Through it flowed a river. From the height it looked like a piece
+of translucent green glass in the still depths; like cotton-wool where
+the rapids broke; for the great distance robbed it of all motion. This
+stream issued from a gorge and flowed into another, both so narrow that
+the lofty mountains seemed fairly to close them shut.
+
+Through the clear air of the Sierras this valley looked like a toy, a
+miniature. Every detail was distinct. Bob made out very plainly the
+pleasant trees, and a bridge over the river, and the roofs of many
+houses, and the streets of a little town.
+
+To the left the wagon road dropped away down the steep side of the
+mountain. Bob's eye could follow it, at first a band, then a ribbon,
+finally a tiny white thread, as it wound and zigzagged, seeking its
+contours, until finally it ran out on the level and rested at the bridge
+end. Opposite, on the other mountain, he thought to make out here and
+there faint suggestions of another way.
+
+Though his eye thus embraced at a glance the whole length of the route,
+Bob found it a two-hours' journey down. Always the walls of the
+mountains rose higher and higher above him, gaining in majesty and awe
+as he abandoned to them the upper air. Always the round valley grew
+larger, losing its toy-like character. Its features became, not more
+distinct, but more detailed. Bob saw the streets of the town were
+pleasantly shaded by cotton woods and willows; he distinguished dwelling
+houses, a store, an office building, a mill building for crushing of
+ore. The roar of the river came up to him more clearly. As though some
+power had released the magic of the stream, the water now moved. Rushing
+foam and white water tumbled over the black and shining rocks; deep
+pools eddied, dark and green, shot with swirls.
+
+As it became increasingly evident that the road could lead nowhere but
+through this village, Bob's spirits rose. The place was well built. Bob
+caught the shimmer of ample glass in the windows, the colour of paint on
+the boards, and even the ordered rectangles of brick chimneys! Evidently
+these things must have been freighted in over the devious steep grade he
+was at that moment descending. Bob well knew that, even nearer the
+source of supplies, such mining camps as this appeared to be were most
+often but a collection of rude, unpainted shanties, huddled together for
+a temporary need. The orderly, well-kept, decent appearance of this
+hamlet, more like a shaded New England village than a Western camp,
+argued old establishment, prosperity, and self-respect. The inhabitants
+could be no desperate fly-by-nights, such as Saleratus Bill would most
+likely have sought as companions. Bob made up his mind that the gun-man
+would shortly try to threaten him into a temporary secrecy as to the
+condition of affairs. This Bob instantly resolved to refuse.
+
+[Illustration: Bob found it two hours' journey down]
+
+Saleratus Bill, however, rode on in an unbroken silence. Long after the
+brawl of the river had become deafening, the road continued to dip and
+descend. It is a peculiar phenomenon incidental to the descent of the
+sheer canons of the Sierra Nevada that the last few hundred feet down
+seem longer than the thousands already passed. This is probably because,
+having gained close to the level of the tree-tops, the mind, strung taut
+to the long descent, allows itself prematurely to relax its attention.
+Bob turned in his saddle to look back at the grade. He could not fail to
+reflect on how lucky it was that the inhabitants of this village could
+haul their materials and supplies _down_ the road. It would have been
+prohibitively difficult to drag anything up.
+
+After a wearisome time the road at last swung out on the flat, and so
+across the meadow to the bridge. Feed was belly deep to the horses. The
+bridge proved to be a suspension affair of wire cables, that swung
+alarmingly until the horses had to straddle in order to stand at all.
+Below it boiled the river, swirling, dashing, turning lazily and
+mysteriously over its glass-green depths, the shimmers and folds of
+eddies rising and swaying like air currents made visible.
+
+They climbed out on solid ground. The road swung to the left and back,
+following a contour to the slight elevation on which the houses stood.
+Saleratus Bill, however, turned up a brief short-cut, which landed them
+immediately on the main street.
+
+Bob saw two stores, an office building and a small hotel, shaded by
+wooden awnings. Beyond them, and opposite them, were substantial bunk
+houses and dwelling houses, painted red, each with its elevated, roofed
+verandah. Large trees, on either side, threw a shade fairly across the
+thoroughfare. An iron pump and water trough in front of the hotel saved
+the wayfarer from the necessity of riding his animals down to the river.
+The vista at the end of the street showed a mill building on a distant
+mountain side, with the rabbit-burrow dumps of many shafts and prospect
+holes all about it.
+
+They rode up the street past two or three of the houses, the hotel and
+the office. Bob, peering in through the windows, saw tables and chairs,
+old chromos and newer lithographs on the walls. Under the tree at the
+side of the hotel hung a water _olla_ with a porcelain cup atop. Near
+the back porch stood a screen meat safe.
+
+But not a soul was in sight. The street was deserted, the houses empty,
+the office unoccupied. As they proceeded Bob expected from one moment to
+the next to see a door open, a figure saunter around a corner. Save for
+the jays and squirrels, the place was absolutely empty.
+
+For some minutes the full realization of this fact was slow in coming.
+The village exhibited none of the symptoms of abandonment. The window
+glass was whole; the furniture of such houses as Bob had glanced into
+while passing stood in its accustomed places. A few strokes of the broom
+might have made any one of them immediately fit for habitation. The
+place looked less deserted than asleep; like one of the enchanted
+palaces so dear to tales of magic. It would not have seemed greatly
+wonderful to Bob to have seen the town spring suddenly to life in
+obedience to some spell. If the mill stamps in the distant crusher had
+creaked and begun to pound; if dogs had rushed barking around corners
+and from under porches; if from the hotel mine host had emerged,
+yawning and rubbing his eyes; if from the shops and offices and houses
+had issued the slow, grumbling sounds of life awakening, it would all
+have seemed natural and to be expected. Under the influence of this
+strange effect a deathly stillness seemed to fall, in spite of the
+bawling and roaring of the river, and the trickle of many streamlets
+hurrying down from the surrounding hills.
+
+So extraordinary was this effect of suspended animation that Bob again
+essayed his surly companion.
+
+"What place do you call this?" he inquired.
+
+Saleratus Bill had dismounted, and was stretching his long, lean arms
+over his head. Evidently he considered this the end of the long and
+painful journey, and as evidently he was, in his relief, inclined to be
+better natured.
+
+"Busted minin' camp called Bright's Cove," said he; "they took about ten
+million dollars out of here before she bust."
+
+"How long ago was that?" asked Bob.
+
+"Ten year or so."
+
+The young man gazed about him in amazement. The place looked as though
+it might have been abandoned the month before. In his subsequent sojourn
+he began more accurately to gauge the reasons for this. Here were no
+small boys to hurl the casual pebble through the delightfully shimmering
+glass; here was no dust to be swirled into crevices and angles, no wind
+to carry it; to this remote cove penetrated no vandals to rob, mutilate
+or wantonly disfigure; and the elevation of the valley's floor was low
+enough even to avoid the crushing weights of snow that every winter
+brought to the peaks around it. Only the squirrels, the birds and the
+tiny wood rats represented in their little way the forces of
+destruction. Furthermore, the difficulties of transportation absolutely
+precluded moving any of the small property whose absence so strongly
+impresses the desertion of a building. When Bright's Cove moved, it had
+merely to shut the front door. In some cases it did not shut the front
+door.
+
+Saleratus Bill assisted Bob from the saddle. This had become necessary,
+for the long ride in bonds had so cramped and stiffened the young man
+that he was unable to help himself. Indeed, he found he could not stand.
+Saleratus Bill, after looking at him shrewdly, untied his hands.
+
+"I guess you're safe enough for now," said he.
+
+Bob's wrists were swollen, and his arms so stiff he could hardly use
+them. Saleratus Bill paused in throwing the saddles off the wearied
+animals.
+
+"Look here," said he gruffly; "if you pass yore word you won't try to
+get away or make no fight, I'll turn you loose."
+
+"I'll promise you that for to-night, anyway," returned Bob quickly.
+
+Saleratus Bill immediately cast the ropes into a corner of the verandah.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+
+The shadows of evening were falling when Saleratus Bill returned from
+pasturing the wearied horses. Bob had been too exhausted to look about
+him, even to think. From a cache the gun-man produced several bags of
+food and a side of bacon. Evidently Bright's Cove was one of his
+familiar haunts. After a meal which Bob would have enjoyed more had he
+not been so dead weary, his captor motioned him to one of the bunks.
+Only too glad for an opportunity to rest, Bob tumbled in, clothes and
+all.
+
+About midnight he half roused, feeling the mountain chill. He groped
+instinctively; his hand encountered a quilt, which he drew around his
+shoulders.
+
+When he awoke it was broad daylight. A persistent discomfort which had
+for an hour fought with his drowsiness for the ascendancy, now disclosed
+itself as a ligature tying his elbows at the back. Evidently Saleratus
+Bill had taken this precaution while the young man slept. Bob could
+still use his hands and wrists, after a fashion; he could walk about but
+he would be unable to initiate any effective offence. The situation was
+admirably analogous to that of a hobbled horse. Moreover, the bonds were
+apparently of some broad, soft substance like sacking or harness
+webbing, so that, after Bob had moved from his constrained position,
+they did not excessively discommode him.
+
+He had no means of guessing what the hour might be, and no sounds
+reached him from the other parts of the house. His muscles were sore and
+bruised. For some time he was quite content to lie on his side, thinking
+matters over.
+
+From his knowledge of the connection between Baker and Oldham, Oldham
+and his captor, Bob had no doubt as to the purpose of his abduction; nor
+did he fail to guess that now, with the chief witness out of the way,
+the trial would be hurried where before it had been delayed. Personally
+he had little to fear beyond a detention--unless he should attempt to
+escape, or unless a searching party might blunder on his traces. Bob had
+already made up his mind to use his best efforts to get away. As to the
+probabilities of a rescue blundering on this retreat, he had no means of
+guessing; but he shrewdly concluded that Saleratus Bill was taking no
+chances.
+
+That individual now entered; and, seeing his captive awake, gruffly
+ordered him to rise. Bob found an abundant breakfast ready, to which he
+was able to do full justice. In the course of the meal he made several
+attempts on his jailer's taciturnity, but without success. Saleratus
+Bill met all his inquiries, open and guarded, with a sullen silence or
+evasive, curt replies.
+
+"It don't noways matter why you're here, or how you're here. You _are_
+here, and that's all there's to it."
+
+"How long do I stay?"
+
+"Until I get ready to let you go."
+
+"How can you get word from Mr. Oldham when to let me off?" asked Bob.
+
+But Saleratus Bill refused to rise to the bait.
+
+"I'll let you go when I get ready," he repeated.
+
+Bob was silent for some time.
+
+"You know this lets me off from my promise," said he, nodding backward
+toward his elbows. "I'll get away if I can."
+
+Saleratus Bill, for the first time, permitted himself a smile.
+
+"There's two ways out of this place," said he--"where we come in, and
+over north on the trail. You can see every inch--both ways--from here.
+Besides, don't make no mistakes. I'll shoot you if you make a break."
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"I believe you," said he.
+
+As though to convince Bob of the utter helplessness of any attempt,
+Saleratus Bill, leaving the dishes unwashed, led the way in a tour of
+the valley. Save where the wagon road descended and where the steep side
+hill of the north wall arose, the boundaries were utterly precipitous.
+From a narrow gorge, flanked by water-smoothed rock aprons, the river
+boiled between glassy perpendicular cliffs.
+
+"There ain't no swimming-holes in that there river," remarked Saleratus
+Bill grimly.
+
+Bob, leaning forward, could just catch a glimpse of the torrent raging
+and buffeting in the narrow box canon, above which the mountains rose
+tremendous. No stream growths had any chance there. The place was water
+and rock--nothing more. In the valley itself willows and alders, well
+out of reach of high water, offered a partial screen to soften the
+savage vista.
+
+The round valley itself, however, was beautiful. Ripening grasses grew
+shoulder high. Shady trees swarmed with birds. Bees and other insects
+hummed through the sun-warmed air.
+
+In vain Bob looked about him for the horses, or for signs of them. They
+were nowhere to be seen. Saleratus Bill, reading his perplexity, grinned
+sardonically.
+
+"Yore friends might come in here," said he, evidently not unwilling to
+expose to Bob the full hopelessness of the latter's case. "And if so,
+they can trail us in; _and then trail us out again!_" He pointed to the
+lacets of the trail up the north wall. He grinned again. "You and I'd
+just crawl down a mile of mine shaft."
+
+Having thus, to his satisfaction, impressed Bob with the utter futility
+of an attempt to escape, Saleratus Bill led the way back to the deserted
+village. There he turned deliberately on his captive.
+
+"Now, young feller, you listen to me," said he. "Don't you try no monkey
+business. There won't be no questions asked, none whatever. As long as
+you set and look at the scenery, you won't come to no harm; but the
+minute you make even a bluff at gettin' funny--even if yore sorry the
+next minute--I'll shoot. And don't you never forget and try to get
+nearer to me than three paces. Don't forget that! I don't rightly want
+to hurt you; but I'd just as leave shoot you as anybody else."
+
+To this view of the situation Bob gave the expected assent.
+
+The next three days were ones of routine. Saleratus Bill spent his time
+rolling brown-paper cigarettes at a spot that commanded both trails. Bob
+was instructed to keep in sight. He early discovered the cheering fact
+that trout were to be had in the glass-green pools; and so spent hours
+awkwardly manipulating an improvised willow pole equipped with the short
+line and the Brown Hackle without which no mountaineer ever travels the
+Sierras. His bound elbows and the crudity of his tackle lost him many
+fish. Still, he caught enough for food; and his mind was busy.
+
+Canvassing the possibilities, Bob could not but admit that Saleratus
+Bill knew his job. The river was certain death, and led nowhere except
+into mysterious and awful granite gorges; the outlets by roads were well
+in sight. For one afternoon Bob seriously contemplated hazarding a
+personal encounter. He conceived that in some manner he could get rid of
+his bonds at night; that Saleratus Bill must necessarily sleep; and that
+there might be a chance to surprise the gun-man then. But when night
+came, Saleratus Bill disappeared into the outer darkness; nor did he
+return until morning. He might have spent the hours camped under the
+trees of the more remote meadow, whence in the brilliant moonlight he
+could keep tabs on the trails, or he might be lying near at hand; Bob
+had no means of telling. Certainly, again the young man reluctantly
+acknowledged to himself, Saleratus Bill knew his job!
+
+Nevertheless, as the days slipped by; and Bob's physical strength
+returned in its full measure, his active and bold spirit again took the
+initiative. A slow anger seized possession of him. The native combative
+stubbornness of the race asserted itself, the necessity of doing
+something, the inability tamely to submit to imposed circumstances.
+Bob's careful analysis of the situation as a whole failed to discover
+any feasible plan. Therefore he abandoned trying to plan ahead, and fell
+back on those always-ready and comfortable aphorisims of the
+adventurous--"sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof," and "one
+thing at a time." Obviously, the first thing to do was to free his arms;
+after that he would see what he would see.
+
+Every evening Saleratus Bill took the candle and departed, leaving Bob
+to find his own way to his bunk. This was the time to cut his bonds; if
+at all. Unfortunately Bob could find nothing against which to cut them.
+Saleratus Bill had carefully removed every abrasive possibility in the
+two rooms. Bob very wisely relinquished the idea of passing the
+threshold in search of a suitable rock or piece of tin. He had no notion
+of risking a bullet until something was likely to be gained by it.
+
+Finally his cogitations brought him an idea. Saleratus Bill was
+attentive enough to such of the simple creature comforts as were within
+his means. Bob's pipe had been well supplied with tobacco. On the fourth
+evening Bob filled it just as his jailor was about to take away the
+candle for the night.
+
+"Just a minute," said Bob. "Let me have a light."
+
+Bill set the candle on the table again, and retired the three paces
+which he never forgot rigidly to maintain between himself and his
+captive. Bob thereupon lit his pipe and nodded his thanks. As soon as
+Saleratus Bill had well departed, however, he retired to his bunk room,
+shutting the door carefully after him. There, with great care, he
+deliberately set to work to coax into flame a small fire on the old
+hearth, using as fuel the rounds of a broken chair, and as ignition the
+glowing coal in the bowl of his pipe. Before the hearth he had managed
+to hang the heavy quilt from his bunk, so that the flicker of the flames
+should not be visible from the outside.
+
+The little fire caught, blazed for a few moments, and fell to a steady
+glow. Bob fished out one of the chair rungs, jammed the cool end firmly
+in one of the open cracks between the timbers of the room, turned his
+back, and deliberately pressed the band around his elbows against the
+live coal.
+
+A smell of burning cloth immediately filled the air. After a moment the
+coal went out. Bob replaced the charred rung in the fire, extracted
+another, and repeated the operation.
+
+It was exceedingly difficult to gauge the matter accurately, as Bob soon
+found out to his cost. He managed to burn more holes in his garment--and
+himself--than in the bonds. However, he kept at it, and after a half
+hour's steady and patient effort he was able to snap asunder the last
+strands. He stretched his arms over his head in an ecstasy of physical
+freedom.
+
+That was all very well, but what next? Bob was suddenly called to a
+decision which had up to that moment seemed inconceivably remote.
+Heretofore, an apparent impossibility had separated him from it. Now
+that impossibility was achieved.
+
+A moment's thought convinced him of the senseless hazard of attempting
+to slip out through any of the doors or windows. The moon was bright,
+and Saleratus Bill would have taken his precautions. Bob attacked the
+floor. Several boards proved to be loose. He pried them up cautiously,
+and so was enabled to drop through into the open space beneath the
+house. Thence it was easy to crawl away. Saleratus Bill's precautions
+were most likely taken, Bob argued to himself, with a view toward a man
+bound at the elbows, not to a man with two hands. In this he was
+evidently correct, for after a painful effort, he found himself among
+the high grasses of the meadow.
+
+There were now, as he recognized, two courses open to him: he could
+either try to discover Saleratus Bill's sleeping place and by surprise
+overpower that worthy as he slept; or he could make the best of the
+interim before his absence was discovered to get as far away as
+possible. Both courses had obvious disadvantages. The most immediate to
+the first alternative was the difficulty, failing some clue, of finding
+Saleratus Bill's sleeping place without too positive a risk of
+discovery; the most immediate to the second was the difficulty of
+getting to the other side of the river. As Saleratus Bill might be at
+any one of a thousand places, in or out of doors; whereas the river
+could be crossed only by the bridge. Bob, without hesitation, chose the
+latter.
+
+Therefore he made his way cautiously to that structure. It proved to be
+lying in broad moonlight. As it constituted the only link with the
+outside world to the south, Bob could not doubt that his captor had
+arranged to keep it in sight.
+
+The bridge was, as has been said, suspended across a strait between two
+rocks by means of heavy wire cables. Slipping beneath these rocks and
+into the shadow, Bob was rejoiced to find that between the stringers and
+the shore, smaller cables had been bent to act as guy lines. If he could
+walk "hand over hand," the distance comprised by the width of the stream
+he could pass the river below the level of the bridge floor. He measured
+the distance with his eye. It did not look farther than the length of
+the gymnasium at college. He seized the cable and swung himself out over
+the waters.
+
+Immediately the swift and boiling current, though twenty feet below,
+seemed to suck at his feet. The swirling and flashing of the water
+dizzied his brain with the impression of falling upstream. He had to fix
+his eyes on the black flooring above his head. The steel cable, too, was
+old and rusted and harsh. Bob's hands had not for many years grasped a
+rope strongly, and in that respect he found them soft. His muscles,
+cramped more than he had realized by the bonds of his captivity, soon
+began to drag and stretch. When halfway across, suspended above a
+ravening torrent; confronted, tired, by an effort he had needed all his
+fresh energies to put forth, Bob would have given a good deal to have
+been able to clamber aboard the bridge, risk or no risk. It was,
+however, a clear case of needs must. He finished the span on sheer nerve
+and will power; and fell thankfully on the rocks below the farther
+abutment. For a half minute he lay there, stretching slowly his muscles
+and straightening his hands, which had become cramped like claws. Then
+he crept, always in the shadow, to the level of the meadow.
+
+Bob was learning to be a mountaineer. Therefore, on the way down, he had
+subconsciously noted that from the head of the meadow a steep dry wash
+climbed straight up to intersect the road. The recollection came to the
+surface of his mind now. If he could make his way up this wash, he would
+gain three advantages: he would materially shorten his journey by
+cutting off a mile or so of the road-grade's twists and doublings; he
+would avoid the necessity of showing himself so near the Cove in the
+bright moonlight; and he would leave no tracks where the road touched
+the valley. Accordingly he turned sharp to the left and began to pick
+his way upstream, keeping in close to the river and treading as much as
+possible on the water-worn rocks. The willows and elders protected him
+somewhat. In this manner he proceeded until he had come to the smooth
+rock aprons near the gorge from which the river flowed. Here, in
+accordance with his intention of keeping close in the shadow of the
+mountain, he was to turn to the right until he should have arrived at
+the steep "chimney" of the wash. He was about to leave the shelter of
+the last willows when he looked back. As his eyes turned, a flash of
+moonlight struck them full, like the heliographing of a mirror. He fixed
+his gaze on the bushes from which the flicker had come. In a moment it
+was repeated. Then, stooping low, a human figure hurried across a tiny
+opening, and once again the moonlight reflected from the worn and
+shining revolver in its hand.
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+
+In some manner Saleratus Bill had discovered the young man's escape, and
+had already eliminated the other possibilities of his direction of
+flight. Bob shuddered at this evidence of the rapidity with which the
+expert trailer had arrived at the correct conclusion. He could not now
+skirt the mountain, as he had intended, for that would at once expose
+him in full view; he could not return by the way he had come, for that
+would bring him face to face with his enemy. It would avail him little
+to surrender, for the gun-man would undoubtedly make good his threats;
+fidelity to such pledges is one of the few things sacred to the race.
+With some vague and desperate idea of defence, Bob picked up a heavy
+branch of driftwood. Then, as the man drew nearer, Bob scrambled hastily
+over the smooth apron to the tiny beach that the eddies had washed out
+below the precipice.
+
+Here for the moment he was hidden, but he did not flatter himself he
+would long remain so. He cast his eyes about him for a way of escape. To
+the one side was the river, in front of him was the rock apron with his
+enemy, to the other side and back of him was a sheer precipice. In his
+perplexity he looked down. A gleam of metal caught his eye. He stooped
+and picked up the half of a worn horseshoe. Even in his haste of mind,
+he cast a passing wonderment on how it had come there.
+
+If Bob had not been trained by his river work in the ways of currents,
+he might sooner have thought of the stream. But well he knew that
+Saleratus Bill had spoken right when he had said that there were "no
+swimming holes" here. The strongest swimmer could not have taken two
+strokes in that cauldron of seething white water. But now, as Bob
+looked, he saw that a little back eddy along the perpendicularity of the
+cliff slowed the current close to the sheer rock. It might be just
+possible, with luck, to win far enough along this cliff to lie concealed
+behind some outjutting boulder until Saleratus Bill had examined the
+beach and gone his way. Bob was too much in haste to consider the
+unexplained tracks he must leave on the sand.
+
+He thrust the branch he carried into the still black water. To his
+surprise it hit bottom at a foot's depth. Promptly he waded in. Sounding
+ahead, he walked on. The underwater ledge continued. The water never
+came above his knees. Out of curiosity he tapped with his branch until
+he had reached the edge of the submerged shelf. It proved to be some
+four feet wide. Beyond it the water dropped off sheer, and the current
+nearly wrenched the staff from Bob's hand.
+
+In this manner he proceeded cautiously for perhaps a hundred feet. Then
+he waded out on another beach.
+
+He found himself in a pocket of the cliffs, where the precipice so far
+drew back as to leave a clear space of four or five acres in the river
+bottom. Such pockets, or "coves," are by no means unusual in the
+inaccessible depths of the great box canons of the Sierras. Often the
+traveller can look down on them from above, lying like green gems in
+their settings of granite, but rarely can he descend to examine them.
+Thankfully Bob darted to one side. Here for a moment he might be safe,
+for surely no one not driven by such desperation as his own would dream
+of setting foot in the river.
+
+A loud snort almost at his elbow, and a rush of scurrying shapes,
+startled him almost into crying aloud. Then out into the moonlight from
+the shadow of the cliffs rushed two horses. And Bob, seeing what they
+were, sprang from his fancied security into instant action, for in a
+flash he saw the significance of the broken horseshoe on the beach, the
+sunken ledge, and the secret of the horses' pasture. By sheer chance he
+had blundered on one of Saleratus Bill's outlaw retreats.
+
+Hastily he skirted the walls of the tiny valley. They were unbroken. The
+river swept by tortured and tumbled. He ran to the head of the cove. No
+sunken ledge there rewarded him. Instead, the river at that point swept
+inward, so that the full force of the current washed the very shores.
+
+Bob searched the prospect with eager eye. Twelve or fifteen feet
+upstream, and six or seven feet out from the cliff, stood a huge round
+boulder. That alone broke the shadowy expanse of the river, which here
+rushed down with great velocity. Manifestly it was impossible to swim to
+this boulder. Bob, however, conceived a daring idea. At imminent risk
+and by dint of frantic scrambling he worked his way along the cliff
+until he had gained a point opposite the boulder and considerably above
+it. Then, without hesitation, he sprang as strongly as he was able
+sidewise from the face of the cliff.
+
+He landed on the boulder with great force, so that for a moment he
+feared he must have broken some bones. Certainly his breath was all but
+knocked from his body. Spread out flat on the top of the rock, he moved
+his limbs cautiously. They seemed to work all right. He backed
+cautiously until he lay outspread on the upstream slope of the boulder.
+At just this moment he caught the sinister figure of Saleratus Bill
+moving along the sunken ledge.
+
+For the first time Bob remembered the tracks he must have left and the
+man's skill at trailing. A rapid review of his most recent actions
+reassured him at one point; in order to gain to the first of the minor
+cliff projections by means of which he had spread-eagled along the face
+of the rock, he had been forced to step into the very shallow water at
+the stream's edge. Thus his last footprints led directly into the river.
+
+The value of this impression, conjoined with the existence of a ledge
+below over which he had already waded safely, was not lost on Bob's
+preception. As has been stated, his earlier experience in river driving
+had given him an intimate knowledge of the action of currents. Casting
+his eye hastily down the moonlit river, he seized his hat from his head
+and threw it low and skimming toward an eddy opposite him as he lay. The
+river snatched it up, tossed it to one side or another, and finally
+carried it, as Bob had calculated, within a few feet of the ledge along
+which Saleratus Bill was still making his way.
+
+The gun-man, of course, caught sight of it, and even made an attempt to
+capture it as it floated past, but without avail. It served, however, to
+prepossess his mind with the idea that Bob had been swept away by the
+river, so that when, after a careful examination of the tiny cove, he
+came to the trail leading into the water, he was prepared to believe
+that the young man had been carried off his feet in an attempt to wade
+out past the cliff. He even picked up a branch, with which he poked at
+the bottom. A short and narrow rock projection favoured his hypothesis,
+for it might very well happen that merely an experimental venture on so
+slanting and slippery a footing would prove fatal. Saleratus Bill
+examined again for footprints emerging; threw his branch into the river,
+and watched the direction of its course; and then, for the first time,
+slipped the worn and shiny old revolver into its holster. He spent
+several moments more reexamining the cove, glanced again at the river,
+and finally disappeared, wading slowly back around the sunken ledge.
+
+Bob's next task was to regain solid land. For some minutes he sat
+astride the boulder, estimating the force and directions of the current.
+Then he leaped. As he had calculated, the stream threw him promptly
+against the bank below. There his legs were immediately sucked beneath
+the overhanging rock that had convinced Saleratus Bill of his captive's
+fate. It seemed likely now to justify that conviction. Bob clung
+desperately, until his muscles cracked, but was unable so far to draw
+his legs from underneath the rock as to gain a chance to struggle out
+of water. Indeed, he might very well have hung in that equilibrium of
+forces until tired out, had not a slender, water-washed alder root
+offered itself to his grasp. This frail shrub, but lightly rooted,
+nevertheless afforded him just the extra support he required. Though he
+expected every instant that the additional ounces of weight he from
+moment to moment applied to it would tear it away, it held. Inch by inch
+he drew himself from the clutch of the rushing water, until at length he
+succeeded in getting the broad of his chest against the bank. A few
+vigorous kicks then extricated him.
+
+For a moment or so he lay stretched out panting, and considering what
+next was to be done. There was a chance, of course--and, in view of
+Saleratus Bill's shrewdness, a very strong chance--that the gun-man
+would add to his precautions a wait and a watch at the entrance to the
+cove. If Bob were to wade out around the ledge, he might run fairly into
+his former jailer's gun. On the other hand, Saleratus Bill must be
+fairly well convinced of the young man's destruction, and he must be
+desirous of changing his wet clothes. Bob's own predicament, in this
+chill of night, made him attach much weight to this latter
+consideration. Besides, any delay in the cove meant more tracks to be
+noticed when the gun-man should come after the horses. Bob, his teeth
+chattering, resolved to take the chance of instant action.
+
+Accordingly he waded back along the sunken ledge, glided as quickly as
+he could over the rock apron, and wormed his way through the grasses to
+the dry wash leading up the side of the mountains. Here fortune had
+favoured him, and by a very simple, natural sequence. The moon had by an
+hour sailed farther to the west; the wash now lay in shadow.
+
+Bob climbed as rapidly as his wind would let him, and in that manner
+avoided a chill. He reached the road at a broad sheet of rock whereon
+his footsteps left no trace. After a moment's consideration, he decided
+to continue directly up the mountainside through the thick brush. This
+travel must be uncertain and laborious; but if he proceeded along the
+road, Saleratus Bill must see the traces he would indubitably leave. In
+the obscurity of the shady side of the mountain he found his task even
+more difficult than he had thought possible. Again and again he found
+himself puzzled by impenetrable thickets, impassable precipices, rough
+outcrops barring his way. By dint of patience and hard work, however, he
+gained the top of the mountain. At sunrise he looked back into Bright's
+Cove. It lay there peacefully deserted, to all appearance; but Bob,
+looking very closely, thought to make out smoke. The long thread of the
+road was quite vacant.
+
+
+
+
+XXIX
+
+
+Bob had no very clear idea of where he was, except that it was in the
+unfriendly Durham country. It seemed well to postpone all public
+appearances until he should be beyond a chance that Saleratus Bill might
+hear of him. Bob was quite satisfied that the gun-man should believe him
+to have been swept away by the current.
+
+Accordingly, after he had well rested from his vigorous climb, he set
+out to parallel the dim old road by which the two had entered the Cove.
+At times this proved so difficult a matter that Bob was almost on the
+point of abandoning the hillside tangle of boulders and brush in favour
+of the open highway. He reflected in time that Saleratus Bill must come
+out by this route; and he shrewdly surmised the expert trailer might be
+able from some former minute observation to recognize his footprints.
+Therefore he struggled on until the road dipped down toward the lower
+country. He remembered that, on the way in, his captor had led him first
+down the mountain, and then up again. Bob resolved to abandon the road
+and keep to the higher contours, trusting to cut the trail where it
+again mounted to his level. To be sure, it was probable that there
+existed some very good reason why the road so dipped to the valley--some
+dike, ridge or deep canon impassable to horses. Bob knew enough of
+mountains to guess that. Still, he argued, that might not stop a man
+afoot.
+
+The rest of a long, hard day he spent in proving this latter
+proposition. The country was very broken. A dozen times Bob scrambled
+and slid down a gorge, and out again, doing thus an hour's work for a
+half mile gain. The sun turned hot, and he had no food. Fortunately
+water was abundant. Toward the close of the afternoon he struck in to a
+long slope of pine belt, and conceived his difficulties over.
+
+After the heat and glare of the rocks, the cool shadows of the forest
+were doubly grateful. Bob lifted his face to the wandering breezes, and
+stepped out with fresh vigour. The way led at first up the narrow spine
+of a "hogback," but soon widened into one of the ample and spacious
+parks peculiar to the elevations near the summits of the First Rampart.
+Occasional cattle tracks meandered here and there, but save for these
+Bob saw no signs of man's activities--no cuttings, no shake-bolts, no
+blazes on the trees to mark a way. Nevertheless, as he rose on the slow,
+even swell of the mountain the conviction of familiarity began to force
+its way in him. The forest was just like every other forest; there was
+no outlook in any direction; but all the same, with that instinct for
+locality inherent in a natural woodsman, he began to get his bearings,
+to "feel the lay of the country," as the saying is. This is probably an
+effect of the subconscious mind in memory; a recognition of what the eye
+has seen without reporting to the conscious mind. However that may be,
+Bob was not surprised when toward sunset he came suddenly on a little
+clearing, a tiny orchard, and a house built rudely of logs and shakes.
+
+Relieved that he was not to spend the night without food and fire, he
+vaulted the "snake" fence, and strode to the back door. A woman was
+frying venison steaks.
+
+"Hullo, Mrs. Ward," Bob shouted at her. "That smells good to me; I
+haven't had a bite since last night!"
+
+The woman dropped her pan and came to the door. A lank and lean Pike
+County Missourian rose from the shadows and advanced.
+
+"Light and rest yo' hat, Mr. Orde!" he called before he came well into
+view. "But yo' already lighted, and you ain't go no hat!" he cried in
+puzzled tones. "Whar yo'all from?"
+
+"Came from north," Bob replied cheerfully, "and I lost my horse down a
+canon, and my hat in a river."
+
+"And yere yo' be plumb afoot!"
+
+"And plumb empty," supplemented Bob. "Maybe Mrs. Ward will make me some
+coffee," he suggested with a side glance at the woman who had once tried
+to poison him.
+
+She turned a dull red under the tan of her sallow complexion.
+
+"Shore, Mr. Orde--" she began.
+
+"We didn't rightly understand each other," Bob reassured her. "That was
+all."
+
+"Did she-all refuse you coffee onct?" asked Ward. "What yo' palaverin'
+about?"
+
+"She isn't refusing to make me some now," said Bob.
+
+He spent the night comfortably with his new friends who a few months ago
+had been ready to murder him. The next morning early, supplied with an
+ample lunch, he set out. Ward offered him a riding horse, but he
+declined.
+
+"I'd have to send it back," said he, "and, anyway, I'd neither want to
+borrow your saddle nor ride bareback. I'd rather walk."
+
+The old man accompanied him to the edge of the clearing.
+
+"By the way," Bob mentioned, as he said farewell, "if some one asks you,
+just tell them you haven't seen me."
+
+The old man stopped short.
+
+"What-for a man?" he asked.
+
+"Any sort."
+
+A frosty gleam crept into the old Missourian's eye.
+
+"I'll keep hands off," said he. He strode on twenty feet. "I got an
+extra gun--" said he.
+
+"Thanks," Bob interrupted. "But I'll get organized better when I get
+home."
+
+"Hope you git him," said the old man by way of farewell. "He won't git
+nothing out of me," he shot back over his shoulder.
+
+Bob now knew exactly where he was going. Reinvigorated by the food, the
+night's rest, and the cool air of these higher altitudes, he made good
+time. By four o'clock of the afternoon he at last hit the broad, dusty
+thoroughfare over which were hauled the supplies to Baker's upper works.
+Along this he swung, hands in pockets, a whistle on his lips, the fine,
+light dust rising behind his footsteps. The slight down grade released
+his tired muscles from effort. He was enjoying himself.
+
+Then he came suddenly around a corner plump against a horseman climbing
+leisurely up the grade. Both stopped.
+
+If Bob had entertained any lingering doubt as to Oldham's complicity in
+his abduction, the expression on the land agent's face would have
+removed it. For the first time in public Oldham's countenance expressed
+a livelier emotion than that of cynical interest. His mouth fell open
+and his eyeglasses dropped off. He stared at Bob as though that young
+man had suddenly sprung into visibility from clear atmosphere. Bob
+surveyed him grimly.
+
+"Delighted to see me, aren't you?" he remarked. A slow anger surged up
+within him. "Your little scheme didn't work, did it? Wanted me out of
+the way, did you? Thought you'd keep me out of court! Well, I'm here,
+just as I said I'd be here. You can pay your villainous tool or kick him
+out, as you please. He's failed, and he won't get another chance. You
+miserable whelp!"
+
+But Oldham had recovered his poise.
+
+"Get out of my way. I don't know what you are talking about. I'll land
+you in the penitentiary a week after you appear in court. You're
+warned."
+
+"Oh, I've been warned for some time. But first I'll land you."
+
+"Really! How?"
+
+"Right here and now," said Bob stepping forward.
+
+Oldham reined back his horse, and drew from his side pocket a short,
+nickel-plated revolver.
+
+"Let me pass!" he commanded harshly. He presented the weapon, and his
+gray eyes contracted to pin points.
+
+"Throw that thing away," said Bob, laying his hand on the other man's
+bridle. "_I'm going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard
+tell of!_"
+
+The young man's muscles were tense with the expectation of a shot. To
+his vast astonishment, at his last words Oldham turned deadly pale,
+swayed in the saddle, and the revolver clattered past his stirrup to
+fall in the dust. With a snarl of contempt at what he erroneously took
+for a mere physical cowardice, Bob reached for his enemy and dragged him
+from the saddle.
+
+The chastisement was brief, but effective. Bob's anger cooled with the
+first blow, for Oldham was no match for his younger and more vigorous
+assailant. In fact, he hardly offered any resistance. Bob knocked him
+down, shook him by the collar as a terrier shakes a ground squirrel, and
+cast him fiercely in the dust. Oldham sat up, his face bleeding
+slightly, his eyes bewildered with the suddenness of the onslaught. The
+young man leaned over him, speaking vehemently to rivet his attention.
+
+"Now you listen to me," said he. "You leave me alone. If I ever hear any
+gossip, even, about what you will or will not do to me, I'll know where
+it started from. The first word I hear from any one anywhere, I'll start
+for you."
+
+He looked down for a moment at the disorganized man seated in the thick,
+white dust that was still floating lazily around him. Then he turned
+abruptly away and resumed his journey.
+
+
+
+
+XXX
+
+
+For ten seconds Oldham sat as Bob had left him. His hat and eyeglasses
+were gone, his usually immaculate irongray hair rumpled, his clothes
+covered with dust. A thin stream of blood crept from beneath his
+close-clipped moustache. But the most striking result of the encounter,
+to one who had known the man, was in the convulsed expression of his
+countenance. A close friend would hardly have recognized him. His lips
+snarled, his eyes flared, the muscles of his face worked. Ordinarily
+repressed and inscrutable, this crisis had thrown him so far off his
+balance that, as often happens, he had fallen to the other extreme.
+Sniffling and half-sobbing, like a punished schoolboy, he dragged
+himself to where his revolver lay forgotten in the dust. Taking as
+deliberate aim as his condition permitted, he pulled at the trigger. The
+hammer refused to rise, or the cylinder to revolve. Abandoning the
+self-cocking feature of the arm, he tried to cock it by hand. The
+mechanism grated sullenly against the grit from the road. Oldham worked
+frantically to get the hammer to catch. By the time he had succeeded,
+his antagonist was out of reach. With a half-scream of baffled rage, he
+hurled the now useless weapon in the direction of the young man's
+disappearance. Then, as Oldham stood militant in the dusty road, a
+change came over him. Little by little the man resumed his old self. A
+full minute went by. Save for the quicker breathing, a spectator might
+have thought him sunk in reverie. At the end of that time the old,
+self-contained, reserved, cynical Oldham stepped from his tracks, and
+set methodically to repair damages.
+
+First he searched for and found his glasses, fortunately unbroken. At
+the nearest streamlet he washed his face, combed his hair, brushed off
+his clothes. The saddle horse browsed not far away. Finally he walked
+down the road, picked up the revolver, cleaned it thoroughly of dust,
+tested it and slipped it into his pocket. Then he resumed his journey,
+outwardly as self-possessed as ever.
+
+Near the upper dam he had another encounter. The dust of some one
+approaching warned him some time before the traveller came in sight.
+Oldham reined back his horse until he could see who it was; then he
+spurred forward to meet Saleratus Bill.
+
+The gun-man was lounging along at peace with all the world, his bridle
+rein loose, his leg slung over the pommel of his saddle. At the sight of
+his employer, he grinned cheerfully.
+
+Oldham rode directly to him.
+
+"Why aren't you attending to your job?" he demanded icily.
+
+"Out of a job," said Saleratus Bill cheerfully.
+
+"Why haven't you kept your man in charge?"
+
+"I did until he just naturally had one of those unavoidable accidents."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"Well. I ain't never been afraid of words. He's dead; that's what."
+
+"Indeed," said Oldham, "Then I suppose I met his ghost just now; and
+that a spirit gave me this cut lip."
+
+Saleratus Bill swung his leg from the saddle horn and straightened to
+attention.
+
+"Did he have a hat on?" he demanded keenly.
+
+"Yes--no--I believe not. No, I'm sure he didn't."
+
+"It's him, all right." He shook his head reflectively, "I can't figure
+it."
+
+Oldham was staring at him with deadly coldness.
+
+"Perhaps you'll be good enough to explain," he sneered--"five hundred
+dollars worth at any rate."
+
+Saleratus Bill detailed what he knew of the whole affair. Oldham
+listened to the end. His cynical expression did not change; and the
+unlighted cigar that he held between his swollen lips never changed its
+angle.
+
+"And so he just nat'rally disappeared," Saleratus Bill ended his
+recital. "I can't figure it out."
+
+Then Oldham spat forth the cigar. His calm utterly deserted him. He
+thrust his livid countenance out at his man.
+
+"Figure it out!" he cried. "You pin-headed fool! You had an unarmed man
+tied hand and foot, in a three-thousand-foot hole, and you couldn't keep
+him! And one of the smallest interests involved is worth more than
+everything your worthless hide can hold! I picked you out for this job
+because I thought you reliable. And now you come to me with 'I can't
+figure it out!' That's all the explanation or excuse you bring! You
+miserable, worthless cur!"
+
+Saleratus Bill was looking at him steadily from his evil, red-rimmed
+eyes.
+
+"Hold on," he drawled. "Go slow. I don't stand such talk."
+
+Oldham spurred up close to him.
+
+"Don't you try any of your gun-play or intimidation on me," he fairly
+shouted. "I won't stand for it. You'll hear what I've got to say, just
+as long as I choose to say it."
+
+He eyed the gun-man truculently. Certainly even Bob could not have
+accused him of physical cowardice at that moment.
+
+Saleratus Bill stared back at him with the steady, venomous glare of a
+rattlesnake. Then his lips, under his straggling, sandy moustache,
+parted in a slow grin.
+
+"Say your say," he conceded. "I reckon you're mad; I reckon that boy
+man-handled you something scand'lous."
+
+At the words Oldham's face became still more congested.
+
+"But you look a-here," said Saleratus Bill, suddenly leaning across
+from his saddle and pointing a long, lean finger. "You just remember
+this: I took this yere job with too many strings tied to it. I mustn't
+hurt him; and I must see no harm comes to him; and I must be noways
+cruel to mama's baby. You had me hobbled, and then you cuss me out
+because I can't get over the rocks. If you'd turned me loose with no
+instructions except to disappear your man, I'd have earned my money."
+
+He dropped his hand to the butt of his six-shooter, and looked his
+principal in the eye.
+
+"I'm just as sorry as you are that he made this get-away," he continued
+slowly. "Now I got to pull up stakes and get out. Nat'rally he'll make
+it too hot for me here. Then I could use that extry twenty-five hundred
+that was coming to me on this job. But it ain't too late. He's got away
+once; but he ain't in court yet. I can easy keep him out, if the
+original bargain stands. Of course, I'm sorry he punched your face."
+
+"Damn his soul!" burst out Oldham.
+
+"Just let me deal with him my way, instead of yours," repeated Saleratus
+Bill.
+
+"Do so," snarled Oldham; "the sooner the better."
+
+"That's all I want to hear," said the gun-man, and touched spurs to his
+horse.
+
+
+
+
+XXXI
+
+
+Bob's absence had occasioned some speculation, but no uneasiness, at
+headquarters. An officer of the Forest Service was too often called upon
+for sudden excursions in unexpected emergencies to make it possible for
+his chiefs to keep accurate track of all his movements. A day's trip to
+the valley might easily be deflected to a week's excursion to the higher
+peaks by any one of a dozen circumstances. The report of trespassing
+sheep, a tiny smoke above distant trees, a messenger sent out for
+arbitration in a cattle dispute, are samples of the calls to which Bob
+must have hastened no matter on what errand he had been bound.
+
+He arrived at headquarters late in the afternoon. Already a thin wand of
+smoke wavered up through the trees from Amy's little, open kitchen. The
+open door of the shed office trickled forth a thin clicking of
+typewriters. Otherwise the camp seemed deserted.
+
+At Bob's halloo, however, both Thorne and old California John came to
+the door. In two minutes he had all three gathered about the table under
+the three big firs.
+
+"In the first place, I want to say right now," he began, "that I have
+the evidence to win the land case against the Modoc Mining Company."
+
+"How?" demanded Thorne, leaning forward eagerly.
+
+"Baker has boasted, before two witnesses, that his mineral entries were
+fraudulent and made simply to get water rights and timber."
+
+"Those witnesses will testify?"
+
+"They will."
+
+"Who are they?"
+
+"Mr. Welton and myself."
+
+"Glory be!" cried Thorne, springing to his feet and clapping Bob on the
+back. "We've got him!"
+
+"So that's what you've been up to for the past week!" cried Amy. "We've
+been wondering where you had disappeared to!"
+
+"Well, not precisely," grinned Bob; "I've been in durance vile."
+
+In response to their questionings he detailed a semi-humorous account of
+his abduction, detention and escape. His three auditors listened with
+the deepest attention.
+
+As the recital progressed to the point wherein Bob described his
+midnight escape, Amy, unnoticed by the others, leaned back and closed
+her eyes. The colour left her face for a moment, but the next instant
+had rushed back to her cheeks in a tide of deeper red. She thrust
+forward, her eyes snapping with indignation.
+
+"They are desperate; there's no doubt of it," was Thorne's comment. "And
+they won't stop at this. I wish the trial was to-morrow. We must get
+your testimony in shape before anything happens."
+
+Amy was staring across the table at them, her lips parted with horror.
+
+"You don't think they'll try anything worse!" she gasped.
+
+Bob started to reassure her, but Thorne in his matter-of-fact way broke
+in.
+
+"I don't doubt they'll try to get him proper, next time. We must get out
+papers and the sheriff after this Saleratus Bill."
+
+"He'll be almighty hard to locate," put in California John.
+
+"And I think we'd better not let Bob, here, go around alone any more."
+
+"I don't think he ought to go around at all!" Amy amended this
+vigorously.
+
+Bob shot at her an obliquely humorous glance, before which her own fell.
+Somehow the humour died from his.
+
+"Bodyguard accepted with thanks," said he, recovering himself. "I've
+had enough Wild West on my own account." His words and the expression of
+his face were facetious, but his tones were instinct with a gravity that
+attracted even Thorne's attention. The Supervisor glanced at the young
+man curiously, wondering if he were going to lose his nerve at the last.
+But Bob's personal stake was furthest from his mind. Something in Amy's
+half-frightened gesture had opened a new door in his soul. The real and
+insistent demands of the situation had been suddenly struck shadowy
+while his forces adjusted themselves to new possibilities.
+
+"Ware's your man," suggested California John. "He's a gun-man, and he's
+got a nerve like a saw mill man."
+
+"Where is Ware?" Thorne asked Amy.
+
+"He's over at Fair's shake camp. He will be back to-morrow."
+
+"That's settled, then. How about Welton? Is he warned? You say he'll
+testify?"
+
+"If he has to," replied Bob, by a strong effort bringing himself back to
+a practical consideration of the matter in hand. "At least he'll never
+perjure himself, if he's called. Welton's case is different. Look here;
+it's bound to come out, so you may as well know the whole situation."
+
+He paused, glancing from one to another of his hearers. Thorne's keen
+face expressed interest of the alert official; California John's mild
+blue eye beamed upon him with a dawning understanding of the situation;
+Amy, intuitively divining a more personal trouble, looked across at him
+with sympathy.
+
+"John, here, will remember the circumstance," said Bob. "It happened
+about the time I first came out here with Mr. Welton. It seems that
+Plant had assured him that everything was all arranged so our works and
+roads could cross the Forest, so we went ahead and built them. In those
+days it was all a matter of form, anyway. Then when we were ready to go
+ahead with our first season's work, up steps Plant and asks to see our
+permission, threatening to shut us down! Of course, all he wanted was
+money."
+
+"And Welton gave it to him?" cried Amy.
+
+"It wasn't a case of buy a privilege," explained Bob, "but of life
+itself. We were operating on borrowed money, and just beginning our
+first year's operations. The season is short in these mountains, as you
+know, and we were under heavy obligations to fulfil a contract for sawed
+lumber. A delay of even a week meant absolute ruin to a large
+enterprise. Mr. Welton held off to the edge of danger, I remember,
+exhausting every means possible here and at Washington to rush through
+the necessary permission."
+
+"Why didn't he tell the truth--expose Plant? Surely no department would
+endorse that," put in Amy, a trifle subdued in manner.
+
+"That takes time," Bob pointed out. "There was no time."
+
+"So Welton came through," said Thorne drily. "What has that got to do
+with it?"
+
+"Baker paid the money for him," said Bob.
+
+"Well, they're both in the same boat," remarked Thorne tranquilly. "I
+don't see that that gives him any hold on Welton."
+
+"He threatens to turn state's evidence in the matter, and seems
+confident of immunity on that account."
+
+"He can't mean it!" cried Amy.
+
+"Sheer bluff," said Thorne.
+
+"I thought so, and went to see him. Now I am sure not. He means it; and
+he'll do it when this case against the Modoc Company is pushed."
+
+"I thought you said Welton would testify?" observed Thorne.
+
+"He will. But naturally only if he is summoned."
+
+"Then what----"
+
+"Oh, I see. Baker never thought he could keep Welton from telling the
+truth, but knew perfectly well he would not volunteer the evidence. He
+used his hold over Welton to try to keep me from bringing forward this
+testimony. Sort of relied on our intimacy and friendship."
+
+"But you will testify?"
+
+"I think I see my duty that way," said Bob in a troubled voice.
+
+"Quite right," said Thorne, dispassionately; "I'm sorry." He arose from
+the table. "This is most important. I don't often issue positive
+prohibitions in my capacity of superior officer; but in this instance I
+must. I am going to request you not to leave camp on any errand unless
+accompanied by Ranger Ware."
+
+Bob nodded a little impatiently. California John paused before following
+his chief into the office.
+
+"It's good sense, boy," said he, "and nobody gives a darn for your
+worthless skin, you know. It's just the information you got inside it."
+
+"Right," laughed Bob, his brow clearing. "I forgot."
+
+California John nodded at him, and disappeared into the office.
+
+Bob turned to Amy with a laughing comment that died on his lips. The
+girl was standing very straight on the other side of the table. One
+little brown hand grasped and crushed the edge of her starched apron;
+her black brows were drawn in a straight line of indignation beneath
+which her splendid eyes flashed; her rounded bosom, half-defined by the
+loose, soft blue of her simple gown, rose and fell rapidly.
+
+"And you're going to do it?" she threw across at him.
+
+Bob, bewildered, stared at her.
+
+"You're going to deliver over your friend to prison?" She moved swiftly
+around the table to stand close to him. "Surely you can't mean to do
+that! You've worked with him, and lived with him--and he's a dear, jolly
+old man!"
+
+"Hold on!" cried Bob, recovering from the first shock, and beginning to
+enjoy the situation. "You don't understand. If I don't give my
+testimony, think what the Service will lose in the Basin."
+
+"Lose!" she cried indignantly. "What of it? Do you think if I had a
+friend who was near and dear to me I'd sacrifice him for all the trees
+in the mountains? How can you!"
+
+"_Et tu Brute_!" said Bob a little wearily. "Where is all the
+no-compromise talk I've heard at various times, and the high ideals, and
+the loyalty to the Service at any cost, and all the rest of it? You're
+not consistent."
+
+Amy eyed him a little disdainfully.
+
+"You've got to save that poor old man," she stated. "It's all very easy
+for you to talk of duty and the rest of it, but the fact remains that
+you're sending that poor old man to prison for something that isn't his
+fault, and it'll break his heart."
+
+"He isn't there yet," Bob pointed out. "The case isn't decided."
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk that way," said Amy, "for all you
+have to do is to satisfy your conscience and bear your testimony. But if
+testifying would land you in danger of prison, you might feel
+differently about it."
+
+Bob thought of George Pollock, and smiled a trifle bitterly. Welton
+might get off with a fine, or even suspended sentence. There was but one
+punishment for those accessory before the fact to a murder. Amy was
+eyeing him reflectively. The appearance of anger had died. It was
+evident that she was thinking deeply.
+
+"Why doesn't Mr. Welton protect himself?" she inquired at length. "If he
+turned state's evidence before that man Baker did, wouldn't it work that
+way around?"
+
+"I don't believe it would," said Bob. "Baker was not the real principal
+in the offence, only an accessory. Besides, even if it were possible,
+Mr. Welton would not do such a thing. You don't know Welton."
+
+Amy sank again to reflection, her eyes losing themselves in a gaze
+beyond the visible world. Suddenly she threw up her head with a joyous
+chuckle.
+
+"I believe I have it!" she cried. She nodded her head several times as
+though to corroborate with herself certain points in her plan.
+"Listen!" she said at last. "As I understand it, Baker is really liable
+on this charge of bribing Plant as much as Mr. Welton is."
+
+"Yes; he paid the money."
+
+"So that if it were not for the fact that he intends to gain immunity by
+telling what he knows, he would get into as much trouble as Mr. Welton."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"Well, don't you know enough about it all to testify? Weren't you
+there?"
+
+Bob reflected.
+
+"Yes, I believe I was present at all the interviews."
+
+"Then," cried Amy triumphantly, "you can issue complaint against _both_
+Baker and Mr. Welton on a charge of bribery, and Baker can't possibly
+wriggle out by turning state's evidence, because your evidence will be
+enough."
+
+"Do you expect me to have Mr. Welton arrested on this charge?" cried
+Bob.
+
+"No, silly! But you can go to Baker, can't you, and say to him: 'See
+here, if you try to bring up this old bribery charge against Welton,
+I'll get in ahead of you and have you _both_ up. I haven't any desire to
+raise a fuss, nor start any trouble; but if you are bound to get Mr.
+Welton in on this, I might as well get you both in.' He'd back out, you
+see!"
+
+"I believe he would!" cried Bob. "It's a good bluff to make."
+
+"It mustn't be a bluff," warned Amy. "You must mean it. I don't believe
+he wants to face a criminal charge just to get Mr. Welton in trouble, if
+he realizes that you are both going to testify anyway. But if he thinks
+you're bluffing, he'll carry it through."
+
+"You're right," said Bob slowly. "If necessary, we must carry it through
+ourselves."
+
+Amy nodded.
+
+"I'll take down a letter for you to Baker," she said, "and type it out
+this evening. We'll say nothing to anybody."
+
+"I must tell Welton of our plan," said Bob; "I wouldn't for the world
+have to spring this on him unprepared. What would he think of me?"
+
+"We'll see him to-morrow--no, next day; we have to wait for Ware, you
+know."
+
+"Am I forgiven for doing my plain duty?" asked Bob a trifle
+mischievously.
+
+"Only if our scheme works," declared Amy. Her manner changed to one of
+great seriousness. "I know your way is brave and true, believe me I do.
+And I know what it costs you to follow it. I respect and admire the
+quality in men that leads them so straightly along the path. But I could
+not do it. Ideas and things are inspiring and great and to be worked for
+with enthusiasm and devotion, I know. No one loves the Service more than
+I, nor would make more personal sacrifices for her. But people are warm
+and living, and their hearts beat with human life, and they can be sorry
+and glad, happy and brokenhearted. I can't tell you quite what I mean,
+for I cannot even tell myself. I only feel it. I could turn my thumbs
+down on whole cohorts of senators and lawyers and demagogues that are
+attacking us in Washington and read calmly in next day's paper how they
+had been beheaded recanting all their sins against us. But I couldn't
+get any nearer home. Why, the other day Ashley told me to send a final
+and peremptory notice of dispossession to the Main family, over near
+Bald Knob, and I couldn't do it. I tried all day. I knew old Main had no
+business there, and is worthless and lazy and shiftless. But I kept
+remembering how his poor old back was bent over. Finally I made Ashley
+dictate it, and tried to keep thinking all the time that I was nothing
+but a machine for the transmission of his ideas. When it comes to such
+things I'm useless, and I know I fall short of all higher ideals of
+honour and duty and everything else."
+
+"Thank God you do," said Bob gravely.
+
+
+
+
+XXXII
+
+
+Ware returned to headquarters toward evening of the next day. He had
+ridden hard and long, but he listened to Thorne's definition of his new
+duties with kindling eye, and considerable appearance of quiet
+satisfaction. Bob met him outside the office.
+
+"You aren't living up to your part, Ware," said he, with mock anxiety.
+"According to Hoyle you ought to draw your gun, whirl the cylinder, and
+murmur gently, Aha!"
+
+"Why should I do that?" asked Ware, considerably mystified.
+
+"To see if your weapon is in order, of course."
+
+"How would a fool trick like that show whether my gun's in shape?"
+
+"Hanged if I know," confessed Bob, "but they always do that in books and
+on the stage."
+
+"Well, my gun will shoot," said Ware, shortly.
+
+It was then too late to visit Welton that evening, but at a good hour
+the following morning Bob announced his intention of going over to the
+mill.
+
+"If you're going to be my faithful guardian, you'll have to walk," he
+told Ware. "My horse is up north somewhere, and there isn't another
+saddle in camp."
+
+"I'm willing," said Ware; "my animals are plumb needy of a rest."
+
+At the last moment Amy joined them.
+
+"I have a day off instead of Sunday," she told them, "and you're the
+first humans that have discovered what two feet are made for. I never
+can get anybody to walk two steps with me," she complained.
+
+"Never tried before you acquired those _beautiful_ gray elkskin boots
+with the _ravishing_ hobnails in 'em," chaffed Bob.
+
+Amy said nothing, but her cheeks burned with two red spots. She chatted
+eagerly, too eagerly, trying to throw into the expedition the air of a
+holiday excursion. Bob responded to her rather feverish gaiety, but Ware
+looked at her with an eye in which comprehension was slowly dawning. He
+had nothing to add to the rapid-fire conversation. Finally Amy inquired
+with mock anxiety, over his unwonted silence.
+
+"I'm on my job," replied Ware briefly.
+
+This silenced her for a moment or so, while she examined the woods about
+them with furtive, searching glances as though their shadows might
+conceal an enemy.
+
+To Bob, at least, the morning conduced to gaiety, for the air was crisp
+and sparkling with the wine of early fall. Down through the sombre
+pines, here and there, flamed the delicate pink of a dogwood, the orange
+of the azaleas, or the golden yellow of aspens ripening already under
+the hurrying of early frosts. The squirrels, Stellar's jays,
+woodpeckers, nuthatches and chickadees were very busy scurrying here and
+there, screaming gossip, or moving diligently and methodically as their
+natures were. All the rest of the forest was silent. Not a breath of
+wind stirred the tallest fir-tip or swayed the most lofty pine branch.
+Through the woodland spaces the sunlight sparkled with the inconceivable
+brilliance of the higher levels, as though the air were filled with
+glittering particles in suspension, like the mica snowstorms of the peep
+shows inside a child's candy egg.
+
+They dipped into the canon of the creek and out again through the yellow
+pines of the other side. They skirted the edge of the ancient clearing
+for the almost prehistoric mill that had supplied early settlers with
+their lumber, and thence looked out through trees to the brown and
+shimmering plain lying far below.
+
+"My, I'm glad I'm not there!" exclaimed Amy fervently; "I always say
+that," she added.
+
+"A hundred and eleven day before yesterday, Jack Pollock says," remarked
+Bob.
+
+So at last they gained the long ridge leading toward the mill and saw a
+hundred feet away the mill road, and the forks where their own wagon
+trail joined it.
+
+At this point they again entered the forest, screened by young growth
+and a thicket of alders.
+
+"Look there," Amy pointed out. "See that dogwood, up by the yellow pine.
+It's the most splendiferous we've seen yet. Wait a minute. I'm going to
+get a branch of it for Mr. Welton's office. I don't believe anybody ever
+picks anything for him."
+
+"Let me--" began Bob; but she was already gone, calling back over her
+shoulder.
+
+"No; this is my treat!"
+
+The men stopped in the wagon trail to wait for her. Bob watched with
+distinct pleasure her lithe, active figure making its way through the
+tangle of underbrush, finally emerging into the clear and climbing with
+swift, sure movements to the little elevation on which grew the
+beautiful, pink-leaved dogwoods. She turned when she had gained the
+level of the yellow pine, to wave her hand at her companions. Even at
+the distance, Bob could make out the flush of her cheeks and divine the
+delighted sparkle of her eyes.
+
+But as she turned, her gesture was arrested in midair, and almost
+instantly she uttered a piercing scream. Bob had time to take a half
+step forward. Then a heavy blow on the back of his neck threw him
+forward. He stumbled and fell on his face. As he left his feet, the
+crash of two revolver shots in quick succession rang in his ears.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIII
+
+
+Oldham's cold rage carried him to the railroad and into his berth. Then,
+with the regular beat and throb of the carwheels over the sleepers,
+other considerations forced themselves upon him. Consequences demanded
+recognition.
+
+The land agent had not for many years permitted himself to act on
+impulse. Therefore this one lapse from habit alarmed him vaguely by the
+mere fact that it was a lapse from habit. He distrusted himself in an
+unaccustomed environment of the emotions.
+
+But superinduced on this formless uneasiness were graver considerations.
+He could not but admit to himself that he had by his expressed order
+placed himself to some extent in Saleratus Bill's power. He did not for
+a moment doubt the gun-man's loyal intentions. As long as things went
+well he would do his best by his employer--if merely to gain the reward
+promised him only on fulfillment of his task. But it is not easy to
+commit a murder undetected. And if detected, Oldham had no illusions as
+to Saleratus Bill. The gun-man, would promptly shelter himself behind
+his principal.
+
+As the night went on, and Oldham found himself unable to sleep in the
+terrible heat, the situation visualized itself. Step by step he followed
+out the sequence of events as they might be, filling in the minutest
+details of discovery, exposure and ruin. Gradually, in the tipped
+balance of after midnight, events as they might be became events as they
+surely would be. Oldham began to see that he had made a fearful mistake.
+No compunction entered his mind that he had condemned a man to death;
+but a cold fear gripped him lest his share should be discovered, and he
+should be called upon to face the consequences. Oldham enjoyed and could
+play only the game that was safe so far as physical and personal
+retribution went.
+
+So deeply did the guilty panic invade his soul that after a time he
+arose and dressed. The sleepy porter was just turning out from the
+smoking compartment.
+
+"What's this next station?" Oldham demanded.
+
+"Mo-harvey," blinked the porter.
+
+"I get off there," stated Oldham briefly.
+
+The porter stared at him.
+
+"I done thought you went 'way through," he confessed. "I'se scairt I
+done forgot you."
+
+"All right," said Oldham curtly, and handing him a tip. "Never mind that
+confounded brush; get my suit case."
+
+Ten seconds later he stood on the platform of the little station in the
+desert while the tail lights of the train diminished slowly into the
+distance.
+
+The desert lay all about him like a calmed sea on which were dim
+half-lights of sage brush or alkali flats. On a distant horizon slept
+black mountain ranges, stretched low under a brilliant sky that arched
+triumphant. In it the stars flamed steadily like candles, after the
+strange desert fashion. Although by day the heat would have scorched the
+boards on which he stood, now Oldham shivered in the searching of the
+cool insistent night wind that breathed across the great spaces.
+
+He turned to the lighted windows of the little station where a tousled
+operator sat at a telegraph key. A couch in the corner had been recently
+deserted. The fact that the operator was still awake and on duty argued
+well for another train soon. Oldham proffered his question.
+
+"Los Angeles express due now. Half-hour late," replied the operator
+wearily, without looking up.
+
+Oldham caught the train, which landed him in White Oaks about noon.
+There he hired a team, and drove the sixty miles to Sycamore Flats by
+eleven o'clock that night. The fear was growing in his heart, and he had
+to lay on himself a strong retaining hand to keep from lashing his
+horses beyond their endurance and strength. Sycamore Flats was, of
+course, long since abed. In spite of his wild impatience Oldham retained
+enough sense to know that it would not do to awaken any one for the sole
+purpose of inquiring as to the whereabouts of Saleratus Bill. That would
+too obviously connect him with the gun-man. Therefore he stabled his
+horses, roused one of the girls at Auntie Belle's, and retired to the
+little box room assigned him.
+
+There nature asserted herself. The man had not slept for two nights; he
+had travelled many miles on horseback, by train, and by buckboard; he
+had experienced the most exhausting of emotions and experiences. He fell
+asleep, and he did not awaken until after sun-up.
+
+Promptly he began his inquiries. Saleratus Bill had passed through the
+night before; he had ridden up the mill road.
+
+Oldham ate his breakfast, saddled one of the team horses, and followed.
+Ordinarily, he was little of a woodsman, but his anxiety sharpened his
+wits and his eyes, so that a quarter mile from the summit he noticed
+where a shod horse had turned off from the road. After a moment's
+hesitation he turned his own animal to follow the trail. The horse
+tracks were evidently fresh, and Oldham surmised that it was hardly
+probable two horsemen had as yet that morning travelled the mill road.
+While he debated, young Elliott swung down the dusty way headed toward
+the village. He greeted Oldham.
+
+"Is Orde back at headquarters yet?" the latter asked, on impulse.
+
+"Yes, he got back day before yesterday," the young ranger replied; "but
+you won't find him there this morning. He walked over to the mill to
+see Welton. You'd probably get him there."
+
+Oldham waited only until Elliott had rounded the next corner, then
+spurred his horse up the mountain. The significance of the detour was
+now no longer in doubt, for he remembered well how and where the wagon
+trail from headquarters joined the mill road. Saleratus Bill would leave
+his horse out of sight on the hog-back ridge, sneak forward afoot, and
+ambush his man at the forks of the road.
+
+And now, in the clairvoyance of this guilty terror, Oldham saw as
+assured facts several further possibilities. Saleratus Bill was known to
+have ridden up the mill road; he, Oldham, was known to have been
+inquiring after both Saleratus Bill and Orde--in short, out of wild
+improbabilities, which to his ordinary calm judgment would have meant
+nothing at all, he now wove a tissue of danger. He wished he had thought
+to ask Elliott how long ago Orde had started out from headquarters.
+
+The last pitch up the mountain was by necessity a fearful grade, for it
+had to surmount as best it could the ledge at the crest of the plateau.
+Horsemen here were accustomed to pause every fifty feet or so to allow
+their mounts a gulp of air. Oldham plied lash and spur. He came out from
+his frenzy of panic to find his horse, completely blown, lying down
+under him. The animal, already weary from its sixty-mile drive of
+yesterday, was quite done. After a futile effort to make it rise, Oldham
+realized this fact. He pursued his journey afoot.
+
+Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this accident, Oldham
+trudged on as rapidly as his wind would allow. As he neared the
+crossroads he slackened his pace, for he saw that no living creature
+moved on the headquarters fork of the road. As a matter of fact, at that
+precise instant both Bob and Ware were within forty yards of him,
+standing still waiting for Amy to collect her dogwood leaves. A single
+small alder concealed them from the other road. If they had not
+happened to have stopped, two seconds would have brought them into sight
+in either direction. Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and
+himself came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.
+
+As he replaced his hat, his eye caught a glimpse of a man crouching and
+gliding cautiously forward through the low concealment of the snowbush.
+His movements were quick, his head was craned forward, every muscle was
+taut, his eyes fixed on some object invisible to Oldham with an
+intensity that evidently excluded from the field of his vision
+everything but that toward which his lithe and snake-like advance was
+bringing him. In his hand he carried the worn and shining Colts 45 that
+was always his inseparable companion.
+
+Oldham made a single step forward. At the same moment somewhere above
+him on the hill a woman screamed. The cry was instantly followed by two
+revolver shots.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIV
+
+
+Ware was an expert gun-man who had survived the early days of Arizona,
+New Mexico, and the later ruffianism of the border on Old Mexico. His
+habit was at all times alert. Now, in especial, behind his casual
+conversation, he had been straining his finer senses for the first
+intimations of danger. For perhaps six seconds before Amy cried out he
+had been aware of an unusual faint sound heard beneath rather than above
+the cheerful and accustomed noises of the forest. It baffled him. If he
+had imposed silence on his companion, and had set himself to listening,
+he might have been able to identify and localize it, but it really
+presented nothing alarming enough. It might have been a squirrel
+playfully spasmodic, or the leisurely step forward of some hidden and
+distant cow browsing among the bushes. Ware lent an attentive ear to the
+quiet sounds of the woodland, but continued to stand at ease and
+unalarmed.
+
+The scream, however, released instantly the springs of his action. With
+the heel of his left palm he dealt Bob so violent a shoving blow that
+the young man was thrown forward off his feet. As part of the same
+motion his right hand snatched his weapon from its holster, threw the
+muzzle over his left shoulder, and discharged the revolver twice in the
+direction from which Ware all at once realized the sound had proceeded.
+So quickly did the man's brain act, so instantly did his muscles follow
+his brain, that the scream, the blow, and the two shots seemed to go off
+together as though fired by one fuse.
+
+Bob bounded to his feet. Ware had whirled in his tracks, had crouched,
+and was glaring fixedly across the openings at the forks. The revolver
+smoked in his hand.
+
+"Oh, are you hurt? Are you hurt?" Amy was crying over and over, as,
+regardless of the stiff manzanita and the spiny deer brush, she tore her
+way down the hill.
+
+"All right! All right!" Bob found his breath to assure her.
+
+She stopped short, clenched her hands at her sides, and drew a deep,
+sobbing breath. Then, quite collectedly, she began to disentangle
+herself from the difficulties into which her haste had precipitated her.
+
+"It's all right," she called to Ware. "He's gone. He's run."
+
+Still tense, Ware rose to his full height. He let down the hammer of his
+six-shooter, and dropped the weapon back in its holster.
+
+"What was it, Amy?" he asked, as the girl rejoined them.
+
+"Saleratus Bill," she panted. "He had his gun in his hand."
+
+Bob was looking about him a trifle bewildered.
+
+"I thought for a minute I was hit," said he.
+
+"I knocked you down to _get_ you down," explained Ware. "If there's
+shooting going on, it's best to get low."
+
+"Thought I was shot," confessed Bob. "I heard two shots."
+
+"I fired twice," said Ware. "Thought sure I must have hit, or he'd have
+fired back. Otherwise I'd a' kept shooting. You say he run?"
+
+"Immediately. Didn't you see him?"
+
+"I just cut loose at the noise he made. Why do you suppose he didn't
+shoot?"
+
+"Maybe he wasn't gunning for us after all," suggested Bob.
+
+"Maybe you've got another think coming," said Ware.
+
+During this short exchange they were all three moving down the wagon
+trail. Ware's keen old eyes were glancing to right, left and ahead, and
+his ears fairly twitched. In spite of his conversation and speculations,
+he was fully alive to the possibilities of further danger.
+
+"He maybe's laying for us yet," said Bob, as the thought finally
+occurred to him. "Better have your gun handy."
+
+"My gun's always handy," said Ware.
+
+"You're bearing too far south," interposed the girl. "He was more up
+this way."
+
+"Don't think it," said Ware.
+
+"Yes," she insisted. "I marked that young fir near where I first saw
+him; and he ran low around that clump of manzanita."
+
+Still skeptical, Ware joined her.
+
+"That's right," he admitted, after a moment. "Here's his trail. I'd have
+swore he was farther south. That's where I fired. I only missed him by
+about a hundred yards," he grinned. "He sure made a mighty tall sneak.
+I'm still figuring why he didn't open fire."
+
+"Waiting for a better chance, maybe," suggested Amy.
+
+"Must be. But what better chance does he want, unless he aims to get Bob
+here, with a club?"
+
+They followed the tracks left by Saleratus Bill until it was evident
+beyond doubt that the gun-man had in reality departed. Then they started
+to retrace their steps.
+
+"Why not cut across?" asked Bob.
+
+"I want to see whereabouts I _was_ shooting," said Ware.
+
+"We'll cut across and wait for you on the road."
+
+"All right," Ware agreed.
+
+They made their short-cut, and waited. After a minute or so Ware shouted
+to them.
+
+"Hullo!" Bob answered.
+
+"Come here!"
+
+They returned down the dusty mill road. Just beyond the forks Ware was
+standing, looking down at some object. As they approached he raised his
+face to them. Even under its tan, it was pale.
+
+"Guess this is another case of innocent bystander," said he gravely.
+
+Flat on his back, arms outstretched in the dust, lay Oldham, with a
+bullet hole accurately in the middle of his forehead.
+
+
+
+
+XXXV
+
+
+"Good heavens!" cried Amy. "What an awful thing!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said Ware; "this is certainly tough. But I can't see but
+it was a plumb accident. Who'd have thought he'd be coming along the
+road just at that minute."
+
+"Of course, you're not to blame," Amy reassured him quickly. "We must
+get help. Of course, he's quite dead."
+
+Ware nodded, gazing down at his victim reflectively.
+
+"I was shootin' a little high," he remarked at last.
+
+Up to this moment Bob had said nothing.
+
+"If it will relieve your mind, any," he told Ware, "it isn't such a case
+of innocent bystander as you may think. This man is the one who hired
+Saleratus Bill to abduct me in the first place; and probably to kill me
+in the second. I have a suspicion he got what he deserved."
+
+"Oh!" cried Amy, looking at him reproachfully.
+
+"It's a fact," Bob insisted. "I know his connection with all this better
+than you do, and his being on this road was no accident. It was to see
+his orders carried out."
+
+Ware was looking at him shrewdly.
+
+"That fits," he declared. "I couldn't figure why my old friend Bill
+didn't cut loose. But he's got a head on him."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Why, when he see Oldham dropped, what use was there of going to
+shooting? It would just make trouble for him and he couldn't hope for no
+pay. He just faded."
+
+"He's a quick thinker, then," said Bob.
+
+"You bet you!"
+
+The two men laid Oldham's body under the shade. As they disposed it
+decently, Bob experienced again that haunting sense of having known him
+elsewhere that had on several occasions assailed his memory. The man's
+face was familiar to him with a familiarity that Bob somehow felt
+antedated his California acquaintance.
+
+"We must get to the mill and send a wagon for him," Ware was saying.
+
+But Amy suddenly turned faint, and was unable to proceed.
+
+"It's perfectly silly of me!" she cried indignantly. "The idea of my
+feeling faint! It makes me so angry!"
+
+"It's perfectly natural," Bob told her. "I think you've shown a heap of
+nerve. Most girls would have flopped over."
+
+The men helped her to a streamlet some hundreds of yards away. Here it
+was agreed that Ware should proceed in search of a conveyance; and that
+Bob and Amy should there await his return.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVI
+
+
+Ware disappeared rapidly up the dusty road, Bob and Amy standing side by
+side in silence, watching him go. When the lean, long figure of the old
+mountaineer had quite disappeared, and the light, eddying dust, peculiar
+to the Sierra country, had died, Amy closed her eyes, raised her hand to
+her heart, and sank slowly to the bank of the little creek. Her vivid
+colour, which had for a moment returned under the influence of her
+strong will and her indignation over her weakness, had again ebbed from
+her cheeks.
+
+Bob, with an exclamation of alarm, dropped to her side and passed his
+arm back of her shoulders. As she felt the presence of his support, she
+let slip the last desperate holdings of physical command, and leaned
+back gratefully, breathing hard, her eyes still closed.
+
+After a moment she opened them long enough to smile palely at the
+anxious face of the young man.
+
+"It's all right," she said. "I'm all right. Don't be alarmed. Just let
+me rest a minute. I'll be all right."
+
+She closed her eyes again. Bob, watching, saw the colour gradually
+flowing up under her skin, and was reassured.
+
+The girl lay against his arm limply. At first he was concerned merely
+with the supporting of the slight burden; careful to hold her as
+comfortably as possible. Then the warmth of her body penetrated to his
+arm. A new emotion invaded him, feeble in the beginning, but gaining
+strength from instant to instant. It mounted his breast as a tide would
+mount, until it had shortened his breath, set his heart to thumping
+dully, choked his throat. He looked down at her with troubled eyes,
+following the curve of her upturned face, the long line of her throat
+exposed by the backward thrown position of her head, the swell of her
+breast under the thin gown. The helplessness of the pose caught at Bob's
+heart. For the first time Amy--the vivid, self-reliant, capable,
+laughing Amy--appealed to him as a being demanding protection, as a
+woman with a woman's instinctive craving for cherishing, as a delicious,
+soft, feminine creature, calling forth the tendernesses of a man's
+heart. In the normal world of everyday association this side of her had
+never been revealed, never suspected; yet now, here, it rose up to throw
+into insignificance all the other qualities of the girl he had known.
+Bob spared a swift thought of gratitude to the chance that had revealed
+to him this unguessed, intimate phase of womanhood.
+
+And then the insight with which the significant moment had endowed him
+leaped to the simple comprehension of another thought--that this
+revelation of intimacy, of the woman-appeal lying unguessed beneath the
+comradeship of everyday life, was after all only a matter of chance. It
+had been revealed to him by the accident of a moment's faintness, by
+which the conscious will of the girl had been driven back from the
+defences. In a short time it would be over. She would resume her
+ordinary demeanour, her ordinary interest, her ordinary bright,
+cheerful, attractive, matter-of-fact, efficient self. Everything would
+be as before. But--and here Bob's breath came quickest--in the great
+goodness of the world lay another possibility; that sometime, at the
+call of some one person, for that one and no other, this inner beautiful
+soul of the feminine appeal would come forth freely, consciously,
+willingly.
+
+Amy opened her eyes, sat up, shook herself slightly, and laughed.
+
+"I'm all right now," she told Bob, "and certainly very much ashamed."
+
+"Amy!" he stammered.
+
+She shot a swift look at him, and immediately arose to her feet.
+
+"We will have to testify at a coroner's inquest, I presume," said she,
+in the most matter-of-fact tones.
+
+"I suppose so," agreed Bob morosely. It is impossible to turn back all
+the strongly set currents of life without at least a temporary turmoil.
+
+Amy glanced at him sideways, and smiled a faint, wise smile to herself.
+For in these matters, while men are more analytical after the fact,
+women are by nature more informed. She said nothing, but stooped to the
+creek for a drink. When she had again straightened to her feet, Bob had
+come to himself. The purport of Amy's last speech had fully penetrated
+his understanding, and one word of it--the word _testify_--had struck
+him with an idea.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried, "that lets out Pollock!"
+
+"What?" said Amy.
+
+"This man Oldham was the only witness who could have convicted George
+Pollock of killing Plant."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Amy, leaning forward interestedly. "Was he
+there? How do you know about it?"
+
+A half-hour before Bob would have hesitated long before confiding his
+secret to a fourth party; but now, for him, the world of relations had
+shifted.
+
+"I'll tell you about it," said he, without hesitation; "but this is
+serious. You must never breathe even a word of it to any one!"
+
+"Certainly not!" cried Amy.
+
+"Oldham wasn't an actual witness of the killing; but I was, and he knew
+it. He could have made me testify by informing the prosecuting
+attorney."
+
+Bob sketched rapidly his share in the tragedy: how he had held Pollock's
+horse, and been in a way an accessory to the deed. Amy listened
+attentively to the recital of the facts, but before Bob had begun to
+draw his conclusions, she broke in swiftly.
+
+"So Oldham offered to let you off, if you would keep out of this Modoc
+Land case," said she.
+
+Bob nodded.
+
+"That was it."
+
+"But it would have put you in the penitentiary," she pointed out.
+
+"Well, the case wasn't quite decided yet."
+
+She made her quaint gesture of the happily up-thrown hands.
+
+"Just what you said about Mr. Welton!" she cried. "Oh, I'm _glad_ you
+told me this! I was trying so hard to think you were doing a high and
+noble duty in ignoring the consequences to that poor old man. But I
+could not. Now I see!"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Bob curiously, as she paused.
+
+"You could do it because your act placed you in worse danger," she told
+him.
+
+"Too many for me," Bob disclaimed. "I simply wasn't going to be bluffed
+out by that gang!"
+
+"That was it," said Amy wisely. "I know you better than you do yourself.
+You don't suppose," she cried, as a new thought alarmed her, "that
+Oldham has told the prosecuting attorney that your evidence would be
+valuable."
+
+Bob shook his head.
+
+"The trial is next week," he pointed out. "In case the prosecution had
+intended calling me, I should have been summoned long since. There's
+dust; they are coming. You'd better stay here."
+
+She agreed readily to this. After a moment a light wagon drove up. On
+the seat perched Welton and Ware. Bob climbed in behind.
+
+They drove rapidly down to the forks, stopped and hitched the team.
+
+"Ware's been telling me the whole situation, Bobby," said Welton. "That
+gang's getting pretty desperate! I've heard of this man Oldham around
+this country for a long while, but I always understood he was interested
+against the Power Company."
+
+"Bluff," said Bob briefly. "He's been in their employ from the first,
+but I never thought he'd go in for quite this kind of strong-arm work.
+He doesn't look it, do you think?"
+
+"I never laid eyes on him," replied Welton. "He's never been near the
+mill, and I never happened to run across him anywhere else."
+
+By this time they had secured the team. Ware led the way to the tree
+under which lay the body of the land agent. Welton surveyed the
+prostrate figure for some time in silence. Then turned to Bob, a curious
+expression on his face.
+
+"It wasn't an accident that I never met him," said he. "He saw to it.
+Don't you remember this man, Bobby?"
+
+"I saw him in Los Angeles some years ago."
+
+"Before that--in Michigan--many years ago."
+
+"His face has always seemed familiar to me," said Bob slowly. "I can't
+place it--yes--hold on!"
+
+A picture defined itself from the mists of his boyhood memories. It was
+of an open field, with a fringe of beech woods in the distance. A single
+hickory stood near its centre, and under this a group lounged, smoking
+pipes. A man, perched on a cracker box, held a blank book and pencil.
+Another stood by a board, a gun in his hand. The smell of black powder
+hung in the atmosphere. Little glass balls popped into the air, and were
+snuffed out. He saw Oldham distinctly, looking younger and browner, but
+with the same cynical mouth, the same cold eyes, the same slanted
+eyeglasses. Even before his recollections reproduced the scorer's
+drawling voice calling the next contestant, his memory supplied the
+name.
+
+"It's Newmark!" he cried aloud.
+
+"Joe Newmark, your father's old partner! He hasn't changed much. He
+disappeared from Michigan when you were about eight years old; didn't
+he! Nobody ever knew how or why, but everybody had suspicions.... Well;
+let's get him in."
+
+They disposed the body in the wagon, and drove back up the road. At the
+little brook they stopped to let off Ware. It was agreed that all danger
+to Bob was now past, and that the gun-man would do better to accompany
+Amy back to headquarters. Of course, it would be necessary to work the
+whole matter out at the coroner's inquest, but in view of the
+circumstances, Ware's safety was assured.
+
+At the mill the necessary telephoning was done, the officials summoned,
+and everything put in order.
+
+"What I really started over to see you about," then said Bob to Welton,
+"is this matter of the Modoc Company." He went on to explain fully Amy's
+plan for checkmating Baker. "You see, if I get in my word first, Baker
+is as much implicated as you are, and it won't do him any good to turn
+state's evidence."
+
+"I don't see as that helps me," remarked Welton gloomily.
+
+"Baker might be willing to put himself in any position," said Bob; "but
+I doubt if he'll care to take the risk of criminal punishment. I think
+this will head him off completely; but if it doesn't, every move he
+makes to save his own skin saves yours too."
+
+"It may do some good," agreed Welton. "Try it."
+
+"I've already written Baker. But I didn't want you to think I was
+starting up the bloodhounds against you without some blame good reason."
+
+"I'd know that anyway, Bobby," said Welton kindly. He stared moodily at
+the stovepipe. "This is getting too thick for an old-timer," he broke
+out at last. "I'm just a plain, old-fashioned lumberman, and all I know
+is to cut lumber. I pass this mess up. I wired your father he'd better
+come along out."
+
+"Is he coming?" asked Bob eagerly.
+
+"I just got a message over the 'phone from the telegraph office. He'll
+be in White Oaks as fast as he can get there. Didn't I tell you?"
+
+"Wire him aboard train to go through to Fremont, and that we'll meet him
+there," said Bob instantly. "It's getting about time to beard the lion
+in his den."
+
+
+
+
+XXXVII
+
+
+The coroner's inquest detained Bob over until the week following. In it
+Amy's testimony as to the gun-man's appearance and evident intention was
+quite sufficient to excuse Ware's shooting; and the fact that Oldham, as
+he was still known, instead of Saleratus Bill, received the bullet was
+evidently sheer unavoidable accident. Bob's testimony added little save
+corroboration. As soon as he could get away, he took the road to
+Fremont.
+
+Orde was awaiting his son at the station. Bob saw the straight, heavy
+figure, the tanned face with the snow-white moustache, before the train
+had come to a stop. Full of eagerness, he waved his hat over the head of
+the outraged porter barricaded on the lower steps by his customary
+accumulation of suit cases.
+
+"Hullo, dad! Hullo, there!" he shouted again and again, quite oblivious
+to the amusement of the other passengers over this tall and bronzed
+young man's enthusiasm.
+
+Orde caught sight of his son at last; his face lit up, and he, too,
+swung his hat. A moment later they had clasped hands.
+
+After the first greetings, Bob gave his suit case in charge to the hotel
+bus-man.
+
+"We'll take a little walk up the street and talk things over," he
+suggested.
+
+They sauntered slowly up the hill and down the side streets beneath the
+pepper and acacia trees of Fremont's beautiful thoroughfares. So
+absorbed did they become that they did not realize in the slightest
+where they were going, so that at last they had topped the ridge and,
+from the stretch of the Sunrise Drive, they looked over into the canon.
+
+"So you've been getting into trouble, have you?" chaffed Orde, as they
+left the station.
+
+"I don't know about that," Bob rejoined. "I do know that there are quite
+a number of people in trouble."
+
+Orde laughed.
+
+"Tell me about this Welton difficulty," said he. "Frank Taylor has our
+own matters well in hand. The opposition won't gain much by digging up
+that old charge against the integrity of our land titles. We'll count
+that much wiped off the slate."
+
+"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob heartily. "Well, the trouble with Mr.
+Welton is that the previous administration held him up--" He detailed
+the aspects of the threatened bribery case; while Orde listened without
+comment. "So," he concluded, "it looked at first as if they rather had
+him, if I testified. It had me guessing. I hated the thought of getting
+a man like Mr. Welton in trouble of that sort over a case in which he
+was no way interested."
+
+"What did you decide?" asked Orde curiously.
+
+"I decided to testify."
+
+"That's right."
+
+"I suppose so. I felt a little better about it, because they had me in
+the same boat. That let me out in my own feelings, naturally."
+
+"How?" asked Orde swiftly.
+
+"There had been trouble up there between Plant--you remember I wrote you
+of the cattle difficulties?"
+
+"With Simeon Wright? I know all that."
+
+"Well, one of the cattlemen was ruined by Plant's methods; his wife and
+child died from want of care on that account. He was the one who killed
+Plant; you remember that."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I happened to be near and I helped him escape."
+
+"And some one connected with the Modoc Company was a witness,"
+conjectured Orde. "Who was it?"
+
+"A man who went under the name of Oldham. A certain familiarity puzzled
+me for a long time. Only the other day I got it. He was Mr. Newmark."
+
+"Newmark!" cried Orde, stopping short and staring fixedly at his son.
+
+"Yes; the man who was your partner when I was a very small boy. You
+remember?"
+
+"Remember!" repeated Orde; then in tones of great energy: "He and I both
+have reason to remember well enough! Where is he now? I can put a stop
+to him in about two jumps!"
+
+"You won't need to," said Bob quietly; "he's dead--shot last week."
+
+For some moments nothing more was said, while the two men trudged
+beneath the hanging peppers near the entrance to Sunrise Drive.
+
+"I always wondered why he had it in for me, and why he acted so
+queerly," Bob broke the silence at last. "He seemed to have a special
+and personal enmity for me. I always felt it, but I couldn't make it
+out."
+
+"He had plenty of reasons for that. But it's funny Welton didn't
+recognize the whelp."
+
+"Mr. Welton never saw him," Bob explained--"that is, until Newmark was
+dead. Then he recognized him instantly. What was it all about?"
+
+Orde indicated the bench on the canon's edge.
+
+"Let's sit," said he. "Newmark and I made our start together. For eight
+years we worked together and built up a very decent business. Then, all
+at once, I discovered that he was plotting systematically to do me out
+of every cent we had made. It was the most cold-blooded proposition I
+ever ran across."
+
+"Couldn't you prove it on him?" asked Bob.
+
+"I could prove it all right; but the whole affair made me sick. He'd
+always been the closest friend, in a way, I had ever had; and the shock
+of discovering what he really was drove everything else out of my head.
+I was young then. It seemed to me that all I wanted was to wipe the
+whole affair off the slate, to get it behind me, to forget it--so I let
+him go."
+
+"I don't believe I'd have done that. Seems to me I'd have had to blow
+off steam," Bob commented.
+
+Orde smiled reminiscently.
+
+"I blew off steam," [A] said he. "It was rather fantastic; but I
+actually believe it was one of the most satisfactory episodes in my
+life. I went around to his place--he lived rather well in bachelor
+quarters, which was a new thing in those days--and locked the door and
+told him just why I was going to let him off. It tickled him hugely--for
+about a minute. Then I finished up by giving him about the very worst
+licking he ever heard tell of."
+
+[Footnote A: See "The Riverman."]
+
+"Was that what you told him?" cried Bob.
+
+"What?"
+
+"Did you say those words to him?--'I'm going to give you the very worst
+licking you ever heard tell of'?"
+
+"Why, I believe I did."
+
+Bob threw back his head and laughed.
+
+"So did I!" he cried; and then, after a moment, more soberly. "I think,
+incidentally, it saved my life."
+
+"Now what are you driving at?" asked Orde.
+
+"Listen, this is funny: Newmark had me kidnapped by one of his men, and
+lugged off to a little valley in the mountains. The idea was to keep me
+there until after the trial, so my testimony would not appear. You see,
+none of our side knew I had that testimony. I hadn't told anybody,
+because I had been undecided as to what I was going to do."
+
+Orde whistled.
+
+"I got away, and had quite a time getting home. I'll tell you all the
+details some other time. On the road I met Newmark. I was pretty mad, so
+I lit into him stiff-legged. After a few words he got scared and pulled
+a gun on me. I was just mad enough to keep coming, and I swear I believe
+he was just on the point of shooting, when I said those very same
+words: 'I'm going to give you the very worst licking you ever heard
+tell of.' He turned white as a sheet and dropped his gun. I thought he
+was a coward; but I guess it was conscience and luck. Now, wouldn't that
+come and get you?"
+
+"Did you?" asked Orde.
+
+"Did I what?"
+
+"Give him that licking?"
+
+"I sure did start out to; but I couldn't bring myself to more than shake
+him up a little."
+
+Orde rose, stretching his legs.
+
+"What are your plans now?"
+
+"To see Baker. I'm going to tell him that on the first indications of
+his making trouble I'm going to enter complaint for bribery against
+_both_ him and Mr. Welton. You see, I was there too. Think it'll work?"
+
+"The best way is to go and see."
+
+"Come on," said Bob.
+
+
+
+
+XXXVIII
+
+
+The two men found Baker seated behind his flat-top desk. He grinned
+cheerfully at them; and, to Bob's surprise, greeted him with great
+joviality.
+
+"All hail, great Chief!" he cried. "I've had my scalp nicely
+smoke-tanned for you, so you won't have to bother taking it." He bowed
+to Orde. "I'm glad to see you, sir," said he. "Know you by your picture.
+Please be seated."
+
+Bob brushed the levity aside.
+
+"I've come," said he, "to get an explanation from you as to why, in the
+first place, you had me kidnapped; and why, in the second place, you
+tried to get me murdered."
+
+Baker's mocking face became instantly grave; and, leaning forward, he
+hit the desk a thump with his right fist.
+
+"Orde," said he, "I want you to believe me in this: I never was more
+sorry for anything in my life! I wouldn't have had that happen for
+anything in the world! If I'd had the remotest idea that Oldham
+contemplated something of that sort, I should have laid very positive
+orders on him. He said he had something on you that would keep your
+mouth shut, but I never dreamed he meant gun play."
+
+"I don't suppose you dreamed he meant kidnapping either," observed Bob.
+
+Baker threw himself back with a chuckle.
+
+"Being kidnapped is fine for the health," said he. "Babies thrive on it.
+No," he continued, again leaning forward gravely, "Oldham got away from
+his instructions completely. Shooting or that kind of violence was
+absurd in such a case. You mustn't lay that to me, but to his personal
+grudge."
+
+"What do you know of a personal grudge?" Bob flashed back.
+
+"Ab-so-lute-ly nothing; but I suspected. It's part of my job to be a
+nifty young suspector--and to use what I guess at. He just got away from
+me. As for the rest of it, that's part of the game. This is no croquet
+match; you must expect to get your head bumped if you play it. I play
+the game."
+
+"I play the game, too," returned Bob, "and I came here to tell you so.
+I'll take care of myself, but I want to say that the moment you offer
+any move against Welton, I shall bring in my testimony against both of
+you on this bribery matter."
+
+"Sapient youth!" said Baker, amused; "did that aspect of it just get to
+you? But you misinterpreted the spirit of my greeting when you came in
+the room. In words of one syllable, you've got us licked. We lie down
+and roll over. We stick all four paws in the air. We bat our august
+forehead against the floor. Is that clear?"
+
+"Then you drop this prosecution against Welton?"
+
+"Nary prosecution, as far as I am concerned."
+
+"But the Modoc Land case----"
+
+"Take back your lands," chaffed Baker dramatically. "Kind of bum lands,
+anyway. No use skirmishing after the battle is over. Your father would
+tell you that."
+
+"Then you don't fight the suit?"
+
+"That," said Baker, "is still a point for compromise. You've got us, I'm
+willing to admit that. Also that you are a bright young man, and that I
+underestimated you. You've lifted my property, legally acquired, and
+you've done it by outplaying my bluff. I still maintain the points of
+the law are with me--we won't get into that," he checked himself. "But
+criminal prosecution is a different matter. I don't intend to stand for
+that a minute. Your gang don't slow-step me to any bastiles now listed
+in the prison records. Nothing doing that way. I'll fight her to a
+fare-ye-well on that." His round face seemed to become square-set and
+grim for an instant, but immediately reassumed its customary rather
+careless good-nature. "No, we'll just call the whole business off."
+
+"That is not for me to decide," said Bob.
+
+"No; but you've got a lot to say about it--and I'll see to the little
+details; don't fret. By the way," mentioned Baker, "just as a matter of
+ordinary curiosity, _did_ Oldham have anything on you, or was he just a
+strong-arm artist?" He threw back his head and laughed aloud at Bob's
+face. At the thought of Pollock the young man could not prevent a
+momentary expression of relief from crossing his countenance. "There's a
+tail-holt on all of us," Baker observed.
+
+He flipped open a desk drawer and produced a box of expensive-looking
+cigars which he offered to his visitors. Orde lit one; but Bob, eyeing
+the power-man coldly, refused. Baker laughed.
+
+"You'll get over it," he observed--"youth, I mean. Don't mix your
+business and your personal affairs. That came right out of the copy
+book, page one, but it's true. I'm the one that ought to feel sore,
+seems to me." He lit his own cigar, and puffed at it, swinging his bulky
+form to the edge of the desk. "Look here," said he, shaking the butt at
+the younger man. "You're making a great mistake. The future of this
+country is with water, and don't you forget it. Fuel is scarce; water
+power is the coming force. The country can produce like a garden under
+irrigation; and it's only been scratched yet, and that just about the
+big cities. We are getting control; and the future of the state is with
+us. You're wasting yourself in all this toy work. You've got too much
+ability to squander it in that sort of thing. Oldham made you an offer
+from us, didn't he?"
+
+"He tried to bribe me, if that's what you mean," said Bob.
+
+"Well, have it your way; but you'll admit there's hardly much use of
+bribing you now. I repeat the offer. Come in with us on those terms."
+
+"Why?" demanded Bob.
+
+"Well," said Baker quaintly, "because you seem to have licked me fair
+and square; and I never want a man who can lick me to remain where he is
+likely to do so."
+
+At this point Orde, who had up to now remained quietly a spectator,
+spoke up.
+
+"Bob," said he, "is already fairly intimately connected with certain
+interests, which, while not so large as water power, are enough to keep
+him busy."
+
+Baker turned to him joyously.
+
+"List' to the voice of reason!" he cried. "I'm sorry he won't come with
+us; but the next best thing is to put him where he won't fight us. I
+didn't know he was going back to your timber--"
+
+Bob opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again at a gesture from his
+father.
+
+Baker glanced at the clock.
+
+"Well," he remarked cheerfully, "come over to the Club with me to lunch,
+anyway."
+
+Bob stared at him incredulously. Here was the man who had employed
+against him every expedient from blackmail to physical violence; who had
+but that instant been worsted in a bald attempt at larceny,
+nevertheless, cheerfully inviting him out to lunch as though nothing had
+happened! Furthermore, his father, against whose ambitions one of the
+deadliest blows had been aimed, was quietly reaching for his hat. Baker
+looked up and caught Bob's expression.
+
+"Come, come!" said he; "forget it! You and I speak the language of the
+same tribe, and you can't get away from it. I'm playing my game, you're
+playing yours. Of course, we want to win. But what's the use of cutting
+out lots of bully good people on that account?"
+
+"You don't stick to the rules," insisted Bob stoutly.
+
+"I think I do," said Baker. "Who's to decide? You believe one way, I
+believe another. I know what you think of my methods in business; and
+I'd hate to say what I think of you as the blue ribbon damn fool in
+that respect. But I like you, and I'm willing to admit you've got stuff
+in you; and I know damn well you and your father and I can have a fine
+young lunch talking duck-shooting and football. And with all my faults
+you love me still, and you know you do." He smiled winningly, and hooked
+his arm through Bob's on one side and his father's on the other. "Come
+on, you old deacon; play the game!" he cried.
+
+Bob laughed, and gave in.
+
+
+
+
+XXXIX
+
+
+Bob took his father with him back to headquarters. They rode in near the
+close of day; and, as usual, from the stovepipe of the roofless kitchen
+a brave pillar of white smoke rose high in the shadows of the firs. Amy
+came forth at Bob's shout, starched and fresh, her cheeks glowing with
+their steady colour, her intelligent eyes alight with interest under the
+straight, serene brows. At sight of Orde, the vivacity of her manner
+quieted somewhat, but Bob could see that she was excited about
+something. He presented his father, who dismounted and greeted her with
+a hearty shake of the hand.
+
+"We've heard of you, Miss Thorne," said he simply, but it was evident he
+was pleased with the frankness of her manner, the clear steadiness of
+her eye, the fresh daintiness of her appearance, and the respect of her
+greeting. On the other hand, she looked back with equal pleasure on the
+tanned, sturdy old man with the white hair and moustache, the clear
+eyes, and the innumerable lines of quaint good-humour about them. After
+they had thus covertly surveyed each other for a moment, the aforesaid
+lines about Orde's eyes deepened, his eyes twinkled with mischief, and
+he thrust forth his hand for the second time. "Shake again!" he offered.
+Amy gurgled forth a little chuckle of good feeling and understanding,
+and laid her fingers in his huge palm.
+
+After this they turned and walked slowly to the hitch rails where the
+men tied their horses.
+
+"Where's the Supervisor?" Bob asked of Amy.
+
+"In the office," she replied; and then burst out excitedly: "I've the
+greatest news!"
+
+"So have I," returned Bob, promptly. "Best kind."
+
+"Oh, what is it?" she cried, forgetting all about her own. "Is it Mr.
+Welton?"
+
+"It'll take some time to tell mine," said Bob, "and we must hunt up Mr.
+Thorne. Yours first."
+
+"Pollock is free!"
+
+"Pollock free!" echoed Bob. "How is that? I thought his trial was not
+until next week!"
+
+"The prosecuting attorney quashed the indictment--or whatever it is they
+do. Anyhow, he let George go for lack of evidence to convict."
+
+"I guess he was relying on evidence promised by Oldham, which he never
+got," Bob surmised.
+
+"And never will," Orde cautioned them. "You two young people must be
+careful never to know anything of this."
+
+Bob opened his mouth to say something; was suddenly struck by a thought,
+and closed it again.
+
+"Why do you say that?" he asked at last. "Why do you think Miss Thorne
+must know of this?"
+
+But Orde only smiled amusedly beneath his white moustache.
+
+They found Ashley Thorne, and acquainted him with the whole situation.
+He listened thoughtfully.
+
+"The matter is over our heads, of course; but we must do our best. Of
+course, by all rights the man ought to be indicted; but there can be no
+question that there is a common sense that takes the substance of
+victory and lets the shadow go."
+
+Orde stayed to supper and over night. In the course of the evening
+California John drifted in, and Ware, and Jack Pollock, and such other
+of the rangers as happened to be in from the Forest. Orde was at his
+best; and ended, to Bob's vast pride, in getting himself well liked by
+these conservative and quietly critical men of the mountains.
+
+The next morning Bob and his father saddled their horses and started
+early for the mill, Bob having been granted a short leave of absence.
+For some distance they rode in silence.
+
+"Father," said Bob, "why did you stop me from contradicting Baker the
+other day when he jumped to the conclusion that I was going to quit the
+Service?"
+
+"I think you are."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Only if you want to, Bob. I don't want to force you in any way; but
+both Welton and I are getting old, and we need younger blood. We'd
+rather have you." Bob shook his head. "I know what you mean, and I
+realize how you feel about the whole matter. Perhaps you are right. I
+have nothing to say against conservation and forestry methods
+theoretically. They are absolutely correct. I agree that the forests
+should be cut for future growths, and left so that fire cannot get
+through them; but it is a grave question in my mind whether, as yet, it
+can be done."
+
+"But it is being done!" cried Bob. "There is no difficulty in doing it."
+
+"That's for you to prove, if you want to," said Orde. "If you care to
+resign from the Service, we will for two years give you full swing with
+our timber, to cut and log according to your ideas--or rather the ideas
+of those over you. In that time you can prove your point, or fail.
+Personally," he repeated, "I have grave doubts as to whether it can be
+done at present; it will be in the future of course."
+
+"Why, what do you mean?" asked Bob. "It is being done every day! There's
+nothing complicated about it. It's just a question of cutting and piling
+the tops, and--"
+
+"I know the methods advocated," broke in Orde. "But it is not being done
+except on Government holdings where conditions as to taxation, situation
+and a hundred other things are not like those of private holdings; or on
+private holdings on an experimental scale, or in conjunction with older
+methods. The case has not been proved on a large private tract. Now is
+your chance so to prove it."
+
+Bob's face was grave.
+
+"That means a pretty complete about-face for me, sir," said he. "I
+fought this all out with myself some years back. I feel that I have
+fitted myself into the one thing that is worth while for me."
+
+"I know," said Orde. "Don't hurry. Think it over. Take advice. I have a
+notion you'll find this--if its handled right, and works out right--will
+come to much the same thing."
+
+He rode along in silence for some moments.
+
+"I want to be fair," he resumed at last, "and do not desire to get you
+in this on mistaken premises. This will not be a case of experiment, of
+plaything, but of business. However desirable a commercial theory may
+be, if it's commercial, _it must pay_! It's not enough if you don't lose
+money; or even if you succeed in coming out a little ahead. You must
+make it pay on a commercial basis, or else it's as worthless in the
+business world as so much moonshine. That is not sordid; it is simply
+common sense. We all agree that it would be better to cut our forests
+for the future; but _can it be done under present conditions?_"
+
+"There is no question of that," said Bob confidently.
+
+"There is quite a question of it among some of us old fogies, Bobby,"
+stated Orde good-humouredly. "I suppose we're stupid and behind the
+times; but we've been brought up in a hard school. We are beyond the age
+when we originate much, perhaps; but we're willing to be shown."
+
+He held up his hand, checking over his fingers as he talked.
+
+"Here's the whole proposition," said he. "You can consider it. Welton
+and I will turn over the whole works to you, lock, stock and barrel, for
+two years. You know the practical side of the business as well as you
+ever will, and you've got a good head on you. At the end of that time,
+turn in your balance sheet. We'll see how you come out, and how much it
+costs a thousand feet to do these things outside the schoolroom."
+
+"If I took it up, I couldn't make it pay quite as well as by present
+methods," Bob warned.
+
+"Of course not. Any reasonable man would expect to spend something by
+way of insurance for the future. But the point is, the operations must
+pay. Think it over!"
+
+They emerged into the mill clearing. Welton rolled out to greet them,
+his honest red face aglow with pleasure over greeting again his old
+friend. They pounded each other on the back, and uttered much facetious
+and affectionate abuse. Bob left them cursing each other heartily, broad
+grins illuminating their weatherbeaten faces.
+
+
+
+
+XL
+
+
+Bob's obvious course was to talk the whole matter over with his superior
+officer, and that is exactly what he intended to do. Instead, he hunted
+up Amy. He justified this course by the rather sophistical reflection
+that in her he would encounter the most positive force to the contrary
+of the proposition he had just received. Amy stood first, last and all
+the time for the Service; her heart was wholly in its cause. In her
+opinion he would gain the advantage of a direct antithesis to the ideas
+propounded by his father. This appeared to Bob an eminently just
+arrangement, but failed to account for a certain rather breathless
+excitement as he caught sight of Amy's sleek head bending over a pan of
+peas.
+
+"Amy," said he, dropping down at her feet, "I want your advice."
+
+She let fall her hands and looked at him with the refreshing directness
+peculiarly her own.
+
+"Father wants me to take charge of the Wolverine Company's operations,"
+he began.
+
+"Well?" she urged him after a pause.
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+"I thought you had worked that all out for yourself some time ago."
+
+"I had. But father and Mr. Welton are getting a little too old to handle
+such a proposition, and they are looking to me--" he paused.
+
+"That situation is no different than it has been," she suggested. "What
+else?"
+
+Bob laughed.
+
+"You see through me very easily, don't you? Well, the situation is
+changed. I'm being bribed."
+
+"Bribed!" Amy cried, throwing her head back.
+
+"Extra inducements offered. They make it hard for me to refuse, without
+seeming positively brutal. They offer me complete charge--to do as I
+want. I can run the works absolutely according to my own ideas. Don't
+you see how I am going to hurt them when I refuse under such
+circumstances?"
+
+"Refuse!" cried Amy. "Refuse! What do you mean!"
+
+"Do you think I ought to leave the Service?" stammered Bob blankly.
+
+"Why, it's the best chance the Service has ever had!" said Amy, the
+words fairly tumbling over one another. "You must never dream of
+refusing. It's your chance--it's our chance. It's the one thing we've
+lacked, the opportunity of showing lumbermen everywhere that the thing
+can be made to pay. It's the one thing we've lacked. Oh, _what_ a
+chance!"
+
+"But--but," objected Bob--"it means giving up the Service--after these
+years--and all the wide interests--and the work----"
+
+"You must take it," she swept him away, "and you must do it with all
+your power and all the ability that is in you. You must devote yourself
+to one idea--make money, make it pay!"
+
+"This from you," said Bob sadly.
+
+"Oh, I am so _glad_!" cried Amy. "Your father is a dear! it's the one
+fear that has haunted me--lest some visionary incompetent should attempt
+it, and should fail dismally, and all the great world of business should
+visit our methods with the scorn due only his incompetence. It was our
+great danger! And now it is no longer a danger! You can do it, Bob; you
+have the knowledge and the ability and the energy--and you must have the
+enthusiasm. Can't you see it? You _must!_"
+
+She leaned over, her eyes shining with the excitement of her thought,
+to shake him by both shoulders. The pan of peas promptly deluged him.
+They both laughed.
+
+"I'd never looked at it that way," Bob confessed.
+
+"It's the only way to look at it."
+
+"Why!" cried Bob, in the sudden illumination of a new idea. "The more
+money I make, the more good I'll do--that's a brand new idea for you!"
+
+He rose to his feet, slowly, and stood for a moment lost in thought.
+Then he looked down at her, a fresh admiration shining in his eyes.
+
+"Yours is the inspiration and the insight--as always," he said humbly.
+"It has always been so. I have seemed to myself to have blundered and
+stumbled, groping for a way; and you have flown, swift as a shining
+arrow, straight to the mark."
+
+"No, no, no, no!" she disclaimed, coming close to him in the vigour of
+her denial. "You are unfair."
+
+She looked up into his face, and somehow in the earnestness of her
+disclaimer, the feminine soul of her rose to her eyes, so that again Bob
+saw the tender, appealing helplessness, and once more there arose to
+full tide in his breast the answering tenderness that would care for her
+and guard her from the rough jostling of the world. The warmth of her
+young body tingled in recollection along his arm, and then, strangely
+enough, without any other direct cause whatever, the tide rose higher to
+flood his soul. He drew her to him, crushing her to his breast. For an
+instant she yielded to him utterly; then drew away in a panic.
+
+"My dear, my dear!" she half whispered; "not here!"
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+
+Bob rode home through the forest, singing at the top of his voice. When
+he met his father, near the lower meadow, he greeted the older man
+boisterously.
+
+"That," said Orde to him shrewdly, "sounds to me mighty like relief.
+Have you decided for or against?"
+
+"For," said Bob. "It's a fine chance for me to do just what I've always
+wanted to do--to work hard at what interests me and satisfies me."
+
+"Go to it, then," said Orde. "By the way, Bobby, how old are you now?"
+
+"Twenty-nine."
+
+"Well, you're a year younger than I was when I started in with Newmark.
+You're ahead of me there. But in other respects, my son, your father had
+a heap more sense; he got married, and he didn't waste any time on it.
+How long have you been living around in range of that Thorne girl,
+anyway? Somebody ought to build a fire under you."
+
+Bob hesitated a moment; but he preferred that his good news should come
+to his father when Amy could be there, too.
+
+"I'm glad you like her, father," said he quietly.
+
+Orde looked at his son, and his voice fell from its chaffing tone. "Good
+luck, boy," said he, and leaned from his saddle to touch the young man
+on the shoulder.
+
+They emerged into the clearing about the mill. Bob looked on the
+familiar scene with the new eyes of a great spiritual uplift. The yellow
+sawdust and the sawn lumber; the dark forest beyond; the bulk of the
+mill with its tall pines; the dazzling plume of steam against the very
+blue sky, all these appealed to him again with many voices, as they had
+years before in far-off Michigan. Once more he was back where his blood
+called him; but under conditions which his training and the spirit of
+the new times could approve. His heart exulted at the challenge to his
+young manhood.
+
+As he rode by the store he caught sight within its depths of Merker
+methodically waiting on a stolid squaw.
+
+"No more economic waste, Merker!" he could not forbear shouting; and
+then rocked in his saddle with laughter over the man's look of slow
+surprise. "It's his catchword," he explained to Orde. "He's a slow,
+queer old duck, but a mighty good sort for the place. There's Post, in
+from the woods. He's woods foreman. I expect I'll have lively times with
+Post at first, getting him broken into new ways. But he's a good sort,
+too."
+
+"Everybody's a good sort to-day, aren't they, son?" smiled Orde.
+
+Welton met them, and expressed his satisfaction over the way everything
+had turned out.
+
+"I'm going duck shooting for fair," said he, "and I'm going fishing at
+Catalina. Out here," he explained to Orde, "you sit in nice warm sun and
+let the ducks insult you into shooting at 'em! No
+freeze-your-fingers-and-break-the-ice early mornings! I'm willing to let
+the kid go it! He can't bust me in two years, anyway."
+
+Later, when the two were alone together, he clapped Bob on the back and
+wished him success.
+
+"I'm too old at the game to believe much in new methods to what I've
+been brought up to, Bob," said he; "but I believe in you. If anybody can
+do it, you can; and I'd be tickled to see you win out. Things change;
+and a man is foolish to act as though they didn't. He's just got to keep
+playing along according to the rules of the game. And they keep
+changing, too. It's good to have lived while they're making a country.
+I've done it. You're going to."
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Rules of the Game, by Stewart Edward White
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RULES OF THE GAME ***
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