"He's playful enough," was the reply, "some like a kitten, an' he surely is plenty restless in his habits. But where he shines is nerves. Why, pard, he c'd make a parcel of females besieged by a mouse look as if they was posin' for a picter, they'd be so still by comparison. But he's gentle, all right."

"I wouldn't want to try it if he was vicious, Rifle-Eye," said the boy appealingly, "but I really can ride, and he looks like a good horse."

"Are you buyin' this horse for your own pleasure or the work o' the Service? You're goin' to do your ridin' on my range, an' I reckon you'll admit I have some say."

"But I can break him to the work of the Service. Do let me try him!" Wilbur's persistence appeared in every look and word. "I don't see why I can't try, anyway, and then if I can't do it, there's no harm done."

"Can you throw a rope?" queried the Ranger.

"No," returned the boy promptly. "I never learned. But I can try."

"If you can't rope, how do you expect to saddle him? These ain't farm horses that you c'n harness or saddle while they eat oats out of your hand." He turned to the cowboy. "Can the sorrel be saddled without ropin'?"

"Bluey does," was the reply, "but I don't know that he'll let me."

"Won't you saddle him for me, Bob-Cat? I know I can ride him if I have a fair show."

The range-rider turned to the old Ranger.

"How about it?" he said. "The kid'll hunt leather for a while and then eat grass. But there's nothin' mean in the sorrel, an' he won't get hurt."

"I'll ride him," said Wilbur stoutly.

"You might, at that," rejoined Bob-Cat. "He's a game little sport, Rifle-Eye," he added, turning to the tall figure beside him, "why not let him play his hand out? You can't be dead sure how the spots will fall. Sure, I've twice seen an Eastern maverick driftin' into a faro game, an' by fools' luck cleanin' up the bank."

"If a man's a fool who depends on luck, what kind of a fool is the man who depends on fools' luck? You ain't playin' a square deal, Bob-Cat, in supportin' the lad to go on askin' to do what ain't good for him. But seein' you force my hand, why, you'd better go ahead now."

"I didn't force your hand none," replied the other, "I was merely throwin' out a suggestion."

"If I refuse the boy somethin' another man says is all right, doesn't that make it look as ef it was meanness in me? An' he goin' to work with me, too! What's the use o' sayin' that you ain't forcin' my hand? Givin' advice, Bob-Cat, ain't any go-as-you-please proposition; it's got to be thought out. Feelin's don't allers point the right trail to jedgment, an', as often as not, the blazes lead the wrong way. You're all right in your own way, Bob-Cat, but you're shy on roots, and your idees gets a windfall every time an extra puff comes along. You're like the trees settlers forgets about when they cuts on the outside of a forest an' ruins the inside."

"How is that?" asked Wilbur, anxious to divert the stream of Rifle-Eye's criticism from the cowboy, who had got himself into trouble defending him. "I didn't know there was any difference between a tree on the outside of a forest and one on the inside."

"Wa'al, then, I guess you're due to learn right now. If there's a tree of any size, standin' out by itself on a mountain side, with plenty of leaves, an' a big wind comes along, you c'n see easy enough that she presents a heap of surface to the wind. An' when a mountain gale gets up and blows fer fair, there's a pressure of air on that tree amountin' to several tons."

"Tons?" queried Bob-Cat incredulously.

"Tons," answered the old Banger. "A tree needs to have some strength in order to hold up its end. There's three ways o' doin' it. One is by havin' a lot more give in the fibers, more elastic like, so that the tree'll bend in the wind an' not get snapped off; another is by puttin' out a lot o' roots an' shovin' 'em in deep an' at the same time havin' a trunk that's plenty stout; an' the third is the thickenin' o' the trunk, right near the ground, where the greatest part o' the strain comes. An' all the various kinds o' trees works this out in different ways. But nothin's ever wasted, an'—"

"Oh, I see now," broke in Wilbur. "You're going to say that the trees which don't grow on the outside of a forest don't have to waste vitality into these forms of resistance."

"That's right. A tree that grows in a ravine, where there is little chance of a high wind, an' where light is scarce an' hard to get, such a tree will have a shallow root system an' a spindlin' trunk, all the growth havin' gone to height, an' a tree in the center of a forest is often the same way. The wind can't git through the forest, an' so the trees don't need ter prop themselves against it."

"Talk about yer eddicated trees!" ejaculated the cowboy, "which colleges is a fool to them."

"It's true enough, Bob-Cat, just the same. But supposin' a belt on the outside o' the forest is cut down, then the inner trees, thus exposed, haven't any proper weapons to fight the wind, an' they go down."

"Doesn't it take a very high wind to blow down some of these big trees?" asked Wilbur.

"Some kinds it does," said the Ranger, "but there's others that go down pretty easy, lodge-pole pine, fer instance. But a tree doesn't have to be blown down to be ruined. Even if a branch is blown off—an' you know how often that happens—insects and fungi get into the wound of the tree and decay follows."

"But you can't persuade the wind none," objected Bob-Cat. "If she's goin' to blow, she's goin' to blow, an' that's all there is to it."

"No, it ain't any use arguin' with a fifty-mile breeze, that's sure. But you can keep the inside trees from bein' blown down by leavin' uncut the deep-rooted trees on the outside. If you wanted a good big bit of timber, an' could cut it from a tree on the outside o' the forest, you'd take it first because it was handiest, wouldn't you?"

"I sure would."

"Yet, you see, it would ha' been the worst thing you could do. An' as I started out to say, that's where you get in wrong doin' things without thinkin'. Just like this ridin' idee to-day. By urgin' on the lad's nateral desire you make it hard fer him an' fer me."

"All right, Rifle-Eye," said Bob-Cat good-humoredly, "you've got me. I reckon I passes up this hand entire." He nodded and began to stroll away.

But Wilbur called him back.

"Oh, Bob-Cat," he cried, "aren't you going to saddle him for me now?"

The cowboy turned and grinned.

"Which you'd make tar an' feathers look sick for stickin' to a thing." Then, reading a grudging assent from Rifle-Eye, he continued: "Yep, I'll go an' saddle," and sauntered into the corral.

In a few minutes he came back, leading the sorrel. He was saddled and Bob-Cat had shortened up the stirrups. Wilbur jumped forward eagerly, put his foot in the stirrup, and was up like a flash. The sorrel never moved. The boy shook the reins a little and clucked his tongue against his teeth without any apparent result. Then Wilbur dug his heels into the pony's ribs.

Things began to happen. The sorrel went straight up in the air with all four feet, coming down with the legs stiff, giving Wilbur a jar which set every nerve twitching as though he had got an electric shock. But he kept his seat. Then the sorrel began pacing forward softly with an occasional sudden buck, each of which nearly threw him off and at most of which he had to "hunt leather," or in other words, catch hold of the saddle with his hands. Still he kept his seat.

Finding that these simpler methods did not avail, the sorrel began a little more aggressive bucking, fore and aft, "sun-fishing" and "weaving," and once or twice rearing up so straight that Wilbur was afraid the sorrel would fall over backwards on him, and he had heard of riders being killed that way. But he stole a glance at Rifle-Eye, and, seeing that the old Ranger was looking on quite unperturbed, he realized that there was no great danger. And still he kept his seat.

But as the sorrel warmed up to his work the boy began to realize that he had not the faintest chance of being able to wear the pony down. It was now only a question of how long he could stick on. He knew he would be done if the sorrel started to roll, but as yet the beast had shown no inclination that way. But as the bucks grew quicker and more jerky, Wilbur began to wonder within himself whether he would prefer to pitch over the pony's head or slide off over his tail. Suddenly, with a bound, the pony went up in the air and gave a double wriggle as he came down and Wilbur found himself on the ground before he knew what had happened. The sorrel, who, as Bob-Cat had said, was a gentle beast, stood quietly by, and the boy always afterwards declared that he could hear the horse chuckle.

The boy got up abashed and red in the face, because several other ranchmen had come up and were enjoying his confusion, but he tried to put a good face on it, and said:

"That's a bucker for fair."

"No," responded Bob-Cat, "that isn't bucking," and he swung himself into the saddle.

The sorrel commenced plunging and rearing again, this time with greater vigor. But Bob-Cat, taking a little bag of tobacco and some cigarette papers out of his pocket, quietly poured out some of the tobacco on the paper, rolled it carefully, and then lighted it, keeping his seat on the bucking broncho quite easily the while. This done, he dismounted, turning to the boy as he did so.

"She's easy enough. There's lots o' the boys, like Bluey, fer example, who really can ride," he continued, "that 'd just split with laughin' at the idee o' me showin' off in the saddle. I c'n rope with the best o' them, but I'm no buster. And some o' these here critters you've got to ride. See that big roan in there?"

Wilbur followed the direction of his finger and nodded.

"They call her 'Squealin' Bess,' an' you couldn't pay me to get on her back. Bluey c'n ride her; he's done it twice; but you c'n bet your last blue chip that he doesn't do it fer fun."

Wilbur turned to the old Ranger who had been standing silently by through the performance.

"I'm much obliged, Rifle-Eye," he said, "but I'd like to buy that sorrel just the same and learn to ride him."

For the first time the old Ranger smiled.

"You're somethin' like a crab, Wilbur," he said, "that grabs a stick viciously with his claw an' won't let go even when he's hauled up out o' the water. You c'n buy the sorrel if you want to, but he won't be any use to you up in the forest. Broncho-bustin' is an amusement you c'n keep for your leisure hours. But I'm thinkin', son, from what I know of the work you'll have to do, that you'll mostly be tired enough after a day's work to want to rest a while. But if you're sot, I s'pose you're sot. An' I'm old enough to know that it's no use hammerin' a mule when he's got his forelegs spread. Get whatever horses you like, I've got a saddle for you up at the bunk-house, an' you c'n meet me beyond the corral sunup to-morrow mornin'."

He nodded to the boys and turned on his heel, walking off in the direction of the river. Seeing that the fun was over the boys scattered, and Wilbur, finding that his friend Bob-Cat was going to stay at the ranch over-night, attached himself to him. But as soon as supper was over, the lad, finding himself stiffer than he had expected from his battle with the sorrel, partly because he had not been riding constantly for a couple of years, was glad to go to his bunk, listening to the breezy Western talk of the men and the yarns of cattle and of horses that they had to tell. He hardly knew that he had fallen asleep when Bob-Cat shook him, saying:

"Better tumble up, bub. Rifle-Eye is sure an early bird. He's some chanticleer, believe me. He's plumb convinced that if he ain't awake and up to greet the sun, it won't rise."

Wilbur laughed and "tumbled up" accordingly.

At breakfast, over the plentiful food served on tin plates and in tin mugs, Rifle-Eye was entirely silent, uttering never a word and paying no attention to any allusion about horses. Right after the meal Wilbur went down to the corral, saddled one of his two new horses, put a leading bridle on the other, and, after bidding Bob-Cat and the boys "Good-by," started for the point where he was to meet the Ranger.

As he rode up, the old frontiersman scanned carefully the two horses the boy had with him and his face cleared.

"What horses are those?" he asked.

"Oh, just a couple I got for the forest work," answered Wilbur with overdone carelessness.

They rode on in silence a few rods, then the old Ranger spoke again.

"Don't ever be afraid o' lettin' on you've made a mistake, son," he said; "the more mistakes you make the more you'll know. There's only one thing to remember, don't make the same mistake twice."

"I'll try not," said the boy.

The Ranger reined up beside the lad, and, reaching out his long, gaunt hand, patted the neck of the pony on which Wilbur was riding.

"They're half-sisters, those two," he said. "I raised 'em from colts myself. I rode the mother over these very trails, many and many's the time. This one is called Kit, after her."

Wilbur flushed at the remembrance of the manner in which before he had slighted the old scout's choice.

"Oh, Rifle-Eye," he said penitently, "if I'd only known!"

"You'll prize them more now," the Ranger said.



CHAPTER V

A TUSSLE WITH A WILD-CAT

"Bob-Cat was telling me," said Wilbur, as with the Ranger he rode through the arid and silvered grayness of the Mohave desert and reached the foothill country, "that before you entered the Service you were pretty well known as a hunter."

"Wa'al, son," the mountaineer replied, "I reckon I've done some kind o' huntin' for fifty years on end. But there's not much huntin' in this part o' the country."

"No," said Wilbur, looking around him, "I guess there isn't."

The road ran along a little gully with a small stream shaded by scrub oak, but arising from this and similar gullies, in great rounded bosses, heaved the barren slopes, the grass already turning yellow and too sparse to cloak the red earth below.

"Yet," said Rifle-Eye, pointing with his finger as he spoke, "there's a desert fox."

Wilbur strained his eyes to see, but the unfamiliar growth of cacti, sage-brush, palo verde, and the dusty-miller plants made quick vision difficult. In a moment, however, he caught sight of the little reddish-gray animal running swiftly and almost indistinguishable from its surroundings.

"But up there?" queried the boy, pointing in front of them. The road wound onward toward the middle Sierras, thickly wooded with oak and digger pine, and, of course, the chapparal, and towering to the clouds rose the mighty serrated peaks of the range, where magnificent forests of pine, fir, and cedar swept upwards to the limits of eternal snow. "Up there the hunting must be wonderful."

"Among the mount'ns!" said the old hunter slowly. "Wa'al, up there, you see, is home."

"You certainly can't complain about the looks of your home, then," said the boy, "for that's just about the finest I've ever seen."

"'There's no place like home,'" quoted Rifle-Eye quietly, "but I ain't ever feelin' that my home's so humble. It ain't a question of its bein' good enough fer me, it's a question o' whether I'm good enough fer it."

"It makes quite a house," said Wilbur, following the old mountaineer's line of thought.

"I've never lived in any smaller house than that," responded Rifle-Eye, "an' I reckon now I never will. There's some I know that boasts of ownin' a few feet o' space shut in by a brick wall. Not for me. My house is as far as my eyes c'n see, an' from the ground to the sky."

Wilbur was silent for a moment, feeling the thrill of Nature in the old man's speech.

"It's to be my home, too," he said gently.

Rifle-Eye smiled at the lad.

"I don't know that I'm quite the oldest inhabitant," he said, "but I sure am the oldest Ranger in the Service, an' all I c'n say is, 'Make yerself to home.'"

"All right," said Wilbur promptly, "I'll take that as an official welcome from the Sierras, and I will. But," he added, "you were going to tell me about your hunting. I should think it would be great sport."

"Son," said Rifle-Eye somewhat sharply, "I never killed a harmless critter 'for sport,' as you call it, in my life."

"But I thought," gasped Wilbur in astonishment, "that you were hunting nearly all the time, before you started in as Ranger."

"So I was," was the quiet reply.

"But—but I don't quite see—" Wilbur stopped lamely.

"I said before," resumed the old hunter, "that I never killed a harmless critter onless I had to. Neither have I. Varmints, o' course, is a different matter. I've shot plenty o' them, an' once in a while I've had ter kill fer food. But just shootin' for the sake o' shootin' is the trick of a coward or a fool or a tenderfoot or a mixture of all three. It's plumb unnecessary, an' it's dead wrong."

"You mean shooting deer and so forth?"

"I mean just that, son, if the shootin's only fer antlers an' what these here greenhorns calls 'trophies.' If venison is needed, why, I ain't got nothin' to say. A man's life is worth more than a deer's when he needs food, but a man's conceit ain't worth more than a deer's life."

"How about bear, then, and trapping for skins?" asked the boy.

"I said 'harmless critters.' Now, a bear ain't harmless, leastways, not as you'd notice it. Bear will take young stock, an' they're particularly partial to young pig, an' down among these here foothills we've been passin' through there's a lot o' shiftless hog-rustlers as depends on pork fer a livin'. As for bearskins, why, o' course you use the pelts. What's the idee o' leavin' them around? It ain't any kind o' good tryin' to spare an animal's feelin's when he's plenty good an' dead. But I've made this here section of the Sierras pretty hot for wolves."

"I heard down at the ranch," the boy remarked, "that you had bagged forty-seven wolves last season."

"I did have a good year," assented the Ranger, "an', of course, I can't give much time to it. But I reckon I've disposed of more'n a thousand wolves in my day, one way and another. An' as I look at it, that's makin' pretty good use of time."

"Are wolves worse than bear?" queried Wilbur surprisedly.

"They do a lot more harm in the long run. Cattlemen reckon that a wolf will get away with about four head a year. Myself, I think that's pressin' the average some; I'd put it at somewhere between two an' three. But it's generally figured at four."

"I didn't know that wolves, lone wolves, would attack cattle."

"It's calves an' yearlin's mostly that they go for. It ain't often that you see a wolf tacklin' anythin' bigger'n a two-year-old. But if you figure that a wolf gets rid o' four head a year, an' inflicts himself on a sufferin' community for a space of about ten years, that's somewhere in the neighborhood o' forty head. A thousand wolves means about forty thousand head of cattle, or pretty nigh a million dollars' worth of stock."

"The beef you've saved by killing wolves," commented Wilbur, "would feed quite a town."

"Forty thousand is a tolerable sized bunch. An' that's without figurin' on the wolf cubs there would have been durin' all those years from the older ones whose matrimonial expectations I disappointed plenty abrupt. An' it makes a pile o' difference to cattlemen to know they c'n send a herd grazin' on the national forest, an' be fairly sure they won't lose much by varmints."

"It surely must," said the boy. "But I hadn't realized that wolves were such a danger."

"I wouldn't go to say that they was dangerous. An old gray wolf, if you corner him, is surly an' savage, an' will fight anythin' at any odds. Out on the Barren Grounds they're bad, but around the Sierras I ain't heard o' them attackin' humans but twice, an' they was children, lost in the woods. I figure the kids had wandered around till they petered out, an' then, when they were exhausted, the wolves got 'em. But I've never heard of a wolf attackin' a man anywhere in the Rockies."

"But I thought wolves ran in packs often."

"Not in the United States, son, so far as I've heard of. I knew a Russian trapper, though, who meandered down this way from Alaska in the early days. He used to spin a lot o' yarns about the Siberian wolves runnin' in packs an' breakfastin' freely off travelers. But he seemed to think that it was the horses the wolves were after chiefly, although they weren't passin' up any toothsome peasant that happened along."

"And do wolves attack horses here, too?"

"Not on the trail, that fashion. But they're some partial to colts."

"How about coyotes?"

"They're mean critters an' they give a pesky lot o' trouble, although they bother sheep more'n cattle. But a few husky dogs will keep coyotes at a distance, though they'll watch a chance an' sneak off with a young lamb or any sheep what is hurt an' has fallen behind the herd. But they don't worry us here such a great deal, they keep mostly to the plains an' the prairie country."

Saying this, the Ranger pulled up at the door of a shack lying a short distance from the road and gave a hail. Immediately there stepped from the door one of the largest women Wilbur had ever seen. Though her hair was gray, and she was angular and harsh of feature, yet, standing well over six feet and quite erect, she seemed to fit in well under the shadow of the Sierras.

"I reckon you've some bacon, Susan?" was the Ranger's greeting as he swung himself off his horse. Wilbur followed suit.

"There's somethin' awful would have to happen to a pile o' hogs," was the reply, "when you came by here an' couldn't get a bite."

By this time a swarm of children had come out, and Wilbur, seeing that the Ranger had simply resigned his horse into the hands of one of the larger boys, did likewise and followed his guide into the house.

"I wasn't sure if I'd find you here, Susan," said the old scout when they were seated at a simple meal. "I thought you were goin' to move into town."

"I did," she replied. "I stayed thar jest two weeks. An' they was two weeks o' misery. These yar towns is too crowded for me. Now, hogs, I've been used to 'em all my life, an' I don't mind how many's around. But it only takes a few folks to make me feel as if I was real crowded."

"Do you prefer hogs to people?" questioned Wilbur, smiling.

"Not one by one, bub, o' course," came the slow reply, "but when it comes to a crowd o' both, I'm kind o' lost with folks. Everybody's busy an' they don't care nothin' about you, an' it makes you-all feel no 'count. An' the noise is bewilderin'. Have you ever been in a city?"

Wilbur admitted that he had.

"Well, then," she said, "ye'll know what I mean. But out here, there's more room, like, an' I know I'm bigger'n my hogs." Following which, Susan launched into a long description of her favorite porkers, which continued almost without cessation until it was time for the two to be on the trail again.

"That's a queer woman," said Wilbur when they were in the saddle again and out of hearing of the shack.

"She's a good one," answered the Ranger. "Her son, by the way, is a member o' the legislature, an' a good lawyer, an' she's made him what he is. But she ain't the city kind."

"Not with all those children," said Wilbur. "She'd have to hire a block to keep them all."

"Those ain't her own children," replied the Ranger, "not a bit of it. If a youngster gits orphaned or laid up she just says 'Pork's plenty, send 'em to me.' An' I generally do. Other folks do, too, an' quite a few o' them hev been brought her by the 'little white lady' you've been hearing about. She's fonder o' children than any woman I ever saw, is Susan. But she won't talk kids, she'll only talk hogs."

"That's pretty fine work, I think," said the boy. "But I should imagine the youngsters wouldn't have much of a chance. It isn't any better than a backwoods life, away out there."

The old Ranger, usually so slow and deliberate in his movements, turned on him like a flash.

"The meanest thing in this world," he said, "is not bein' able to see or willin' to see what some one else has done for you. There ain't a home in all these here United States that don't owe its happiness to the backwoodsman. You can't make a country civilized by sittin' in an office an' writin' the word 'civilized' on the map. Some one has got to get out an' do it, an' keep on doin' it till it's done. It was the man who had nothin' in the world but a wife, a rifle, an' an ax who made America."

"I had forgotten for the moment," said the boy, a little taken off his feet by the sudden energy and the flashing speech of the usually impassive mountaineer.

"So does mighty near every one else 'forget for the moment.' But if the backwoodsman forgot for the moment he was likely to be missin' his scalp-lock, or if he tried to take a holiday it meant his family would go hungry. He never forgot his children or his children's children, but they're none too fond o' rememberin' him.

"Everythin' you have now, he first showed you how. If he wanted a house, he had to build it; if he wanted bread, he had to raise the grain, grind, an' bake it; if he wanted clothin', he had to get skins, cure, an' sew 'em. But he never had to hunt for honor an' for courage; he brought those with him; an' he didn't have to get any book-larnin' to teach him how to make his cabin a home, an' his wife an' his children were allers joys to him, not cares. They were men! An' what do you reckon made 'em men?"

"The hardships of the life, I suppose," hazarded Wilbur.

"Not a bit of it; it was the forest. The forest was their nurse in infancy, their playmate when they were barefooted kids runnin' around under the trees, their work by day, an' their home when it was dark. They lived right down with Nature, an' they larned that if she was rugged, she was kind. They became rugged an' kind, too. An' that's what the right sort of American is to this day."

"A lot of our best statesmen in early days were from the newly cleared settlements; that's a fact," said Wilbur thoughtfully, "right up to the Civil War."

"An' through it!" added the Ranger. "How about Abe Lincoln?"

Wilbur thought to himself that perhaps "backwoodsman" was not quite a fair idea of the great President's Illinois upbringing, but he thought it wiser not to argue the point to no profit.

"But it's all different now," continued Rifle-Eye a trifle sadly, "things have changed an' the city's beginnin' to have a bigger hold than the forest. An' the forest still needs, an' I reckon it allers will need, the old kind o' men. Once we had to fight tooth an' nail agin the forest jest to get enough land to live on, an' now we've got to fight jest as hard for the forest so as there'll be enough of it for what we need. In this here country you can't ever get away from the woods-dweller, whether he's backwoodsman or Forester, or whatever you call him—the man who can depend on himself an' live his life wherever there's sky overhead an' ground underfoot an' trees between.

"They're the discoverers of America, too. Oh, yes, they are," he continued, noting Wilbur's look of contradiction. "It wasn't Columbus or Amerigo or any o' the floatin' adventurers who first saw a blue splotch o' land on the horizon that discovered America. It was the men who conquered the forest, who found all, did all, an' became all that the life demanded, that really brought into bein' America an' the Americans."

The Ranger stopped as suddenly as he had begun, and, touching his horse lightly with the spur, went on ahead up the trail. Evidently he was thinking of the old times and the boy had wisdom enough not to disturb him. As the afternoon drew on the foothills were left behind and the open road became more and more enclosed, until at last it was simply a trail through the forest. The shadows were lengthening and it was drawing on toward evening, when the Ranger halted beside a little ravine, densely wooded with yellow pine, incense cedar, and white fir. Wilbur was tired and his horses, fresh to the trail, were showing signs of fatigue, so he was glad to stop.

"I don't know how you feel about it," said the Ranger, "but I reckon I'll camp here. There's a good spring a couple of hundred feet down stream. But you ain't used to this sort o' thing, an' maybe you'd better keep on the trail for another half-mile till you come to a little settlement. Somebody can put you up, I reckon."

"No need to," said the boy, "I'll camp here with you."

"Maybe you ain't used to sleepin' on the ground."

"I guess I can stand it, if you can," replied Wilbur promptly.

"Wa'al, I reckon I can," said the Ranger, "seein' that I always have an' always do."

Wilbur had never camped in the open before without a tent or shelter of some kind, but he would not for the world have had his Ranger think that he was in the least disconcerted. Neither, to do him justice, was he, but rather anticipating the night under the open sky with a good deal of pleasure.

After the horses were unsaddled and hobbled, Rifle-Eye told Wilbur to get the beds ready. The boy, greatly pleased with himself that he knew how to do this without being told, picked up his ax and started for the nearest balsam. But he found himself in somewhat of a difficulty. The white fir grew to a much larger tree than the Balm-of-Gilead he had known in the East, and the lower branches were tough. So he chopped down a young tree near, scarcely more than a sapling.

A moment later he heard the Ranger call to him.

"How many trees of that size do you reckon you'll want?" he asked.

"Oh, they're only just saplings," the boy replied, "five or six ought to do."

"They'll make five or six fine trees some day, won't they?" queried the old woodsman.

"Yes, Rifle-Eye, they will," answered the boy, flushing at his lack of thoughtfulness. "I'd better take only one, and that a little bigger, hadn't I?"

"An' one that's crooked. Always take a tree that isn't goin' to make good timber when you're not cuttin' for timber."

Wilbur accordingly felled a small white fir near by, having had his first practical lesson of forest economy on his own forest, stripped the tree of its fans or flattest branches and laid them on the ground. A thickness of about six inches, he found, was enough to make the beds wonderfully springy and comfortable.

In the meantime he found that Rifle-Eye was getting a fireplace ready, using for the purpose some flat stones which lay conveniently near by. Wilbur, stepping over a tiny rivulet which ran into the creek, noted a couple of stones apparently just suited for the making of a rough fireplace and brought them along. The Ranger looked at them.

"What kind o' stone do you call that?" he asked.

"Granite," said Wilbur immediately.

"An' you took them out o' the water?"

"Yes," answered the boy.

"An' what happens when you build a fire between granite stones?"

"I don't know, Rifle-Eye. What does?"

"They explode sometimes, leastways, when they're wet inside. Don't forget that," he added as he put the stones aside. "Now," he continued, "go down to the spring an' fill this pot with water, an' I'll have a fire goin' an' some grub sizzlin' by the time you get back. The spring is about two hundred feet downstream and about twenty feet above the water. You can't miss it."

Wilbur took the aluminum pot and started for the spring. He had not gone half the distance when he noted a stout crotched stick such as he had been used to getting when he camped out in the middle West for the purpose of hanging the cooking utensils on over the fire. So he picked it up and carried it along with him. Presently the gurgling of water told him that he was nearing the spring, and a moment later he saw the clearing through the trees. But, suddenly, a low snarling met his ears, and he halted dead at the edge of the clearing.

There, before him, on the ground immediately beside the spring, crouched a large wild-cat, the hairy tips of her ears twitching nervously. Under her claws was a rabbit, evidently just caught, into which the wild-cat had just sunk her teeth when the approach of the boy was heard. At first Wilbur could not understand why she had not sprung into the woods with her prey at the first distant twig-snapping which would betoken his approach. But as he looked more closely he saw that this was precisely what the cat had tried to do, but that in the jerk the rabbit had been caught and partly impaled on a tree root that projected above the ground, and for the moment the cat could not budge it.

Wilbur was utterly at a loss to know what to do. He had been told that wild-cats would never attack any one unless they had been provoked to fight, and he found himself very unwilling to provoke this particular specimen. The cat stood still, her eyes narrowed to mere slits, the ears slightly moving, and the tip of the tail flicking from side to side in quick, angry jerks. There was menace in every line of the wild-cat's pose.

The boy had his revolver with him, but while he had occasionally fired a six-shooter, he was by no means a crack shot, and he realized that if he fired at and only wounded the creature he would unquestionably be attacked. And there was a lithe suppleness in the manner that the movement of the muscles rippled over the skin that was alarmingly suggestive of ferocity. Wilbur did not like the looks of it at all. On the other hand, he had not the slightest intention of going back to the camp without water. He had come for water, and he would carry water back, he thought to himself, if a regiment of bob-cats was in the way.

The old fable that a wild beast cannot stand the gaze of the human eye recurred to Wilbur's remembrance, and he stood at the edge of the clearing regarding the cat fixedly. But the snarls only grew the louder. Wilbur was frightened, and he knew it, and what was more, he felt the cat knew it with that intuition the wild animals have for recognizing danger or the absence of danger. She made another effort to drag away the rabbit, but failing in that, with an angry yowl, with quick jerks and rending of her powerful jaws began to try to force the rabbit free from the entangling root, which done, she could carry it into the forest to devour at leisure. The ease with which those claws and teeth rent asunder the yielding flesh was an instructive sight for Wilbur, but the fact that the wild-cat should dare to go on striving to free her prey instead of slinking away in fright made the boy angry. Besides, he had come for that water.

Wilbur decided to advance into the clearing anyway, and then, if the creature did not stir, he would be so near that he couldn't miss her with the revolver. As he grew angrier his fear began to leave him. He took the pot in his left hand, putting the long stick under his arm, and, drawing his six-shooter, advanced on the cat. He came forward slowly, but without hesitation. At his second step forward the wild-cat raised her head, but instead of springing at him, as Wilbur half feared, she retreated into the woods, leaving her prey, snarling as she went. Wilbur went boldly forward to the spring, and, thinking that he would see no more of the cat, put away his revolver.

Having secured the water, and as he turned to go, however, the boy felt a sudden impulse to look up. He had not heard a sound, and yet, on a low branch a few feet above his head, crouched the wild-cat, her eyes glaring yellow in the waning light. Once again he felt the temptation to shoot her, but resisted it, through his fear of only wounding the creature and thus bringing her full fury upon him.

But it occurred to Wilbur that it was not unlikely that he might have to come back to the spring a second time for more water, and he did not wish to risk another encounter. He thought to himself that if he did return and interrupted the wild-cat a second time he would not escape as easily as he had on this occasion, and consequently he tried to devise a means to prevent such meeting. He figured that if he picked up the rabbit and threw it far into the woods the cat would follow and the path to the spring would be open. Forgetting for the moment that he could not expect the angry creature in the tree to divine the honesty of his intentions, he stooped down and grasped the rabbit by the leg to throw it into the forest. As he did so, the wild-cat, thinking herself about to be deprived of her prey, sprang at him.

With one hand holding the pot of water, which, boy-like, he did not want to spill, and the other grasping the rabbit, Wilbur was terribly handicapped. But, by the greatest good fortune, as he stooped, the crotch of the stick that he was carrying caught the wild-cat under the body as she launched herself at him from the tree. The stick was knocked out of the boy's grasp, but it also turned the cat aside, and she half fell, landing on Wilbur's outstretched leg, instead of on his neck, which was the objective point in her spring. As her claws ripped into the soft flesh of his thigh, Wilbur released his hold of the rabbit, drew his revolver, and fired full at the creature hanging on his leg.

Almost instantaneously with the shot, however, one of her foreclaws shot out and caught the back of his right hand, making a long but superficial gash from the wrist to the knuckles. At the same time, too, one of her hind claws struck down, opening the calf of the leg and making the boy sick for a moment. His right hand was bleeding vigorously and paining a good deal, but his finger was still on the trigger and Wilbur fired again. A moment later, the Ranger came running into the clearing. But before he reached the boy's side the cat had fallen limply to the ground. The second shot had gone clear through her skull, and, being fired at point-blank distance, had almost blown her head off.

The old Ranger, without wasting time in words, quickly examined the boy's injuries and found them slight, although they were bleeding profusely. Wilbur reached out the pot full of water from the spring.

"Here's the water, Rifle-Eye," he said a little quaveringly; "I hardly spilled a drop."

The old woodsman took the vessel without a word. Then he looked down at the cat.

"Just as well for you," he said, "that it wasn't a true lynx. But how did she get at your leg? Did you walk on her, or kick her, just for fun?"

Wilbur, laughing a little nervously from the reaction of the excitement, described how it was that the wild-cat had landed on his leg instead of on his neck, and the old hunter nodded.

"It's a mighty lucky thing for you," he said, "that stick was there, because there's a heap o' places around the neck where a clawin' ain't healthy. But these scratches of yours won't take long to heal. Where you were a fool," he continued, "was in touchin' the rabbit at all. It's just as I told you. When you went quietly forward, you say, the bob-cat got out of your road all right. Of course, that's what she ought to do. And if you had filled the pot with water an' come away that's all there'd have been to it. But jest as soon as you begin ter get mixed up in the prey any varmint's killed, you've got ter begin considerin' the chances o' joinin' the select company o' victims."

"But I wanted her out of the way for next time," said Wilbur.

"She'd have got out of your way so quick you couldn't see her go," said the hunter, "if you'd given her a chance. Next time, leave a varmint's dinner alone."

"Next time, I will," the boy declared.

"I guess now," continued the old hunter, "you'd better come back to camp an' we'll see what we c'n do to improve them delicate attentions you've received. An' don't be quite the same kind of an idiot again."

"Well," said Wilbur, "I got the water from the spring, anyhow."



CHAPTER VI

IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST

Towards noon the next day, Wilbur and the Ranger rode up to the shack in the woods which Rifle-Eye considered as one of his headquarters. As soon as they reached the clearing they were met by a big, shambling youth, whose general appearance and hesitating air proclaimed him to be the half-witted lad of whom Wilbur had heard. He came forward and took the horses.

"You've heard about Ben?" queried the hunter as the horses were being led away.

"Yes," answered Wilbur, "Bob-Cat Bob told me all about the death of his father during the sheep and cattle war. He told me when we were riding up to the ranch, from the station at Sumber."

"I have thought," said Rifle-Eye, "that perhaps it ain't quite the right thing to keep Ben here, up in the woods. But I tried sendin' him to school. It wasn't no manner of use. It only troubled the teacher an' bothered him, an' I reckon his life will stack up at the end jest as well, even if he can't read."

"What does he do while you are away?" asked Wilbur.

"Oh, a lot of things. He ain't idle a minute, really, an' there's times that he's as good as them that thinks themselves so wise."

"What sort of things?"

"Well, he's done a lot o' work stampin' out the prairie dogs. Of course, there's very few o' them in these parts, so few that the government has made no appropriation for this forest. It's in Eastern Montana an' the Dakotas that you get them, an' there's been a lot o' trouble in the Custer an' Sioux forests. He's gone there several times, an' there's been villages o' them here among the foothills that Ben's cleared up entirely."

"They poison the prairie dogs, don't they?"

"Yes, with strychnine, mainly. Grain is soaked in the poison an' a few grains put outside each hole in a dog town. If this is done early in the year, before the green grass is up for food, it will pretty nearly clean up the town."

"It seems rather a shame," said Wilbur, "they are such fat, jolly little fellows, and the way they sit up on their hind legs and look at you is a wonder."

"It's all right for them to look 'fat and jolly,'" replied Rifle-Eye, "but when the stock raiser finds hundreds of acres of grass nibbled down to the roots, an' when the farmer's young wheat is ruined, they don't see so much jollity in it."

"But I didn't know that the Forest Service took a hand in that sort of thing."

"Only indirectly. But they provide the poison an' the settlers usually git some one to put it round. As I say, Ben's been doin' a lot of it this spring."

"But that sort of work doesn't last long."

"No, only in the spring. But Ben's busy other ways. Sometimes he goes down to the valleys an' helps the ranchers with their hayin'. He don't know anythin' about money, though, an' so they never pay him cash."

"That's tough on Ben, then," remarked Wilbur. "Does he work all the time for nothing?"

"Not at all. They always see that he gits a fair return. Every once in a while the man he's workin' for will drive up to the shack with some bacon an' a barrel o' flour an' trimmin's. Often as not, he'll bring the wife along, an' she'll go over the lad's things to find what he needs."

"That's mighty nice," commented Wilbur.

"Some of 'em are as good to Ben as if he was their own," said the Ranger. "They'll go over everything he's got, fix up whatever needs mendin', an' make a list o' things to be bought next time any one goes into town. You see, he gits his wages that way. He works well, an' so it ain't like charity, an' at the same time it gives the man he works for a chance to do the right thing."

"I suppose if he didn't, you'd get after him," suggested the boy.

"Never had to yet, an' never expect to," was the prompt reply. "Mostly folks is all right, an' a lot o' the supposed selfishness is jest because they ain't been reminded. And then Ben never makes trouble."

"He seems quiet enough," said Wilbur, with a gesture towards the doorway where the lad was approaching. He came in and stood looking vacantly at the two sitting together.

"What were you doin' yesterday, Ben?" asked the Ranger sharply to rouse him.

The lad flung out both arms with a wild gesture.

"I was away, away, far away," he answered; "away, away over the hills."

"Where?"

The half-witted lad passed his hand across his eyes.

"With Mickey," he said.

"An' what were you an' Mickey doin'?"

"Lots of things, lots, lots, lots. Little fires creep, creep, creepin' on the ground," he moved his hands waveringly backward and forward as though to show the progress of the flames, "then put them out quick, so!" he stamped his foot on the ground.

"Does he mean a forest fire, Rifle-Eye?" queried Wilbur, alert at the very mention of fire.

"No, no, no," interrupted Ben; "little bit fires. Pile burn, burn hot, grass catch fire, put out grass."

"You mean," said the mountaineer, "that you an' Mickey were burnin' up brush?"

"Yes, brush all in piles, burn."

"It's a pretty risky business," said Rifle-Eye, "this burnin' brush in the late spring, but Mickey's right enough to have had Ben along. He's one o' the best fire-fighters that ever happened. He never knows enough to quit."

"Did you have any trouble, Ben?" asked Wilbur.

"One little fire, walk, walk, walk away into the woods. But I stopped him."

"Alone?"

The half-witted lad nodded. Then, coming over to Wilbur, he pointed to the rude bandages and said questioningly:

"Tumble?"

"No, Ben," replied the other boy, "I got into a mix-up with a bob-cat."

"I fight, too. Wait, I show you something."

He disappeared for a moment and then came back with two wolf pups, carrying one in each hand as he might a kitten.

"I got five more," he said.

"Where did you get 'em, Ben?" asked the Ranger.

"Way, way over. Deadman Canyon."

"Get the old wolf?"

The half-witted lad nodded his head vigorously several times.

"Yes," he said, "dead, dead, dead."

"Was the den just by the Sentinel Pine?"

"Yes."

"I reckon that's the wolf that's been givin' such a lot of trouble on the Arroyo," commented Rifle-Eye. "I went out after that wolf one day this spring, Ben, but I didn't get her. I waited at the den a long time, too."

"Two holes out of den, two. I wait, too. Long, long time. No come out. Plug up one hole. Long more time waited. Then wolf go in. I go in, too."

"You went into the wolf's den?" queried Wilbur in amazement.

"Yes, in. Far, far in."

"How far?"

"Don't know. Far."

"Well, I went in about forty feet myself," said the old hunter, "an' I didn't see any sign o' the pups, so I backed out again. If you went all the way in, Ben, I reckon it was a pretty long crawl."

"But why did you go in the den when the mother wolf was there?" asked Wilbur.

"Boy fool," said the half-witted lad, pointing at him. "Why go in if wolf not there?"

"Well," said Wilbur, on the defensive, "I should think it a whole lot safer to go in—that is, if I was going in at all—sometime when I'd be sure the mother wolf wouldn't be there."

But the other, still holding the cubs in his hands, negatived this reasoning with a vigorous shake of the head.

"Safer, wolf in," he said.

"I don't see that at all," objected Wilbur. "It can't be safer."

"You go in, in far, when wolf out. By and by wolf come, eat up legs, no can turn round for shoot."

"I hadn't thought of that," the boy said, a little humbled.

"Ben's nearly right," said the Ranger, "an' it ain't really as dangerous as it sounds. There ain't room in the passage for the wolf to spring, an' if you shoot you're bound to hit her somewhere, no matter how you aim. O' course, a wolf ain't goin' to come along an' 'eat up your legs' the way he puts it, but you might get a nasty bite or two. It's a lot better to go after a wolf than have the wolf come after you. It takes more nerve, but it ain't so hard at that."

"But how did you kill the old wolf, Ben?" asked Wilbur.

"I go in, far in. See eyes glitter. Shoot once. Shoot twice. Old wolf dead. Take out pups, easy. Skin wolf."

"Where's the skin?"

"Dryin'."

But Wilbur was by no means satisfied and he plied the half-witted lad with questions until he had secured all the details of the story. In the meantime the Ranger had been getting dinner, and as soon as it was over Wilbur was glad to lie down on Ben's bed, for he had lost not a little blood in his tussle with the wild-cat the night before, and riding all morning with those deep scratches only rudely bandaged had been rather a strain. By the time that Rifle-Eye was ready to start again Wilbur was fairly stiffened up, and at the Ranger's suggestion he agreed to stay on a couple of days in the shack, having Ben cook for him and look after him, as the Ranger felt that he himself ought to get back to headquarters.

It was not until the third day that Wilbur once more got into the saddle and with Ben to guide him through the forest, started for the Supervisor's headquarters, or rather the Ranger's cabin where the Supervisor was staying. The two boys rode on and up, leaving behind the scrub oak, chapparal, and manzanita, and into the great yellow pine and sugar pine forests. Shortly before noontime they heard voices in the woods, and Ben, after listening a moment, turned from the trail. In a few minutes he reined up beside a tall, sunburned man, walking through the woods pencil and notebook in hand. At the same time the Ranger, who was working with him, stepped up.

"Thanks, Ben," he said. Then, turning to the Supervisor, he said: "Merritt, here's the boy!"

Wilbur's new chief stepped forward quickly and held out his hand with a word of greeting. Wilbur shook it heartily and decided on the spot that he was going to like him. Wearing khaki with the Forest Service bronze badge, a Stetson army hat, and the high lace boots customarily seen, he looked thoroughly equipped for business.

"You're Wilbur Loyle," he said, "of course. I heard you were coming. Have you had any experience?"

"Just the Colorado Ranger School, sir," said the boy.

"You were to be here three days ago."

"Yes, Mr. Merritt, but I was delayed, and I put up a couple of days with Ben, here."

"He reckoned he had more right to a rabbit what a bob-cat was feastin' on than the cat had," volunteered Rifle-Eye in explanation. "In the ensooin' disagreement he got a bit scratched, an' so I looked after him. I told him to stay at Ben's, an' I guess he's all right now."

"Being three days late isn't the best start in the world," said the Supervisor sharply, "but if Rifle-Eye knows all about it and is willing to stand for it, I won't say any more. Can you cruise?"

"I've learned, sir, but I haven't done much of it. I think, though, I can do it, all right."

"Very well. We'll break off for dinner now, and you can try this afternoon. Or do you still feel tired, and would you rather wait until to-morrow?"

"Thanks, Mr. Merritt," answered Wilbur, "but I want to start right now."

"Very well," said the Supervisor laconically. Then, turning to the Ranger, he commenced talking with him about the work in hand, and for the moment Wilbur was left aside. The lumberman who had been working on the other side of the Supervisor, however, sauntered up and introduced himself as "McGinnis, me boy, Red McGinnis, they call me, because of the natural beauty of me hair."

"I'm very glad, Mr. McGinnis—" began the boy when the lumberman interrupted him.

"'Tis very sorry ye'll be if ye call me out of me right name. Sure I said McGinnis, jest plain McGinnis, not Misther McGinnis. Ye can call me 'Judge,' or 'Doctor,' or 'Colonel,' or annything else, but I won't be called Misther by annyone."

"Very well, McGinnis," said the boy, looking at his height and broad shoulders, "I guess there's no one that will make you."

"There is not!" the big lumberman replied. "And are ye goin' to join us in a little promenade through the timber?"

"So Mr. Merritt said."

"I don't see what for," the Irishman replied. "Sure, there's the three of us now."

"Is there much of it to do?"

"There is that. There's three million feet wanted, half sugar pine and half yellow pine, in this sale alone. An' there's another sale waiting, so I hear, as soon as this one's through."

"Maybe it's just to find out whether I can do it?" suggested Wilbur.

The lumberman nodded affirmatively.

"That's just about it," he said. "Because ye'll have a big stretch to cover as Guard, an' there'll be no time for ye cruisin'. You keep the trees from burnin' up so as we can mark them for cuttin' down."

"It always seems a shame," said Wilbur, "to have to cut down these trees. Of course, I know it's done so as to help the forest, not to hurt it, and that if the big trees weren't cut down the young ones couldn't get sunlight and wouldn't have a chance to grow. But still one hates to see a big tree go."

"It isn't that way at all, at all," said the lumberman. "There's some that does their best work livin', and there's some that does it dead. A man does it livin' and a tree does it dead. But what a tree does after it's dead depends on what kind of a chance it's had when it's been livin'. Sure ye've been to the schools when all the girls and some of the boys gets into white dresses, the girls I mean, and sings songs, and gives speeches and class poems and other contraptions, and graduates."

"I have," said Wilbur, "and not so long ago at that."

"And so have I," answered the lumberman. "Sure, me own little Kathleen was graduated just a month ago from high school. Well, cuttin' down a tree is like its graduation. It's been livin' and growin' and gettin' big and strong and makin' up into good timber. Now its schoolin' in the forest is over, it's goin' out into the world, to be made useful in some kind of way, and in goin' it makes room for more."

"You don't take kindly to the 'Oh, Woodman, spare that tree' ideal?" smiled Wilbur.

"I do not. But I'd spare it, all right, until there were other young trees growin' near it to take its place in time. 'Tis the biggest part of the work is cuttin' down the trees that make the best timber."

When they were settled drinking hot tea and eating some trout that the party had with them, the Supervisor turned to Wilbur.

"McGinnis is a good man," he began, smiling as the Irishman with pantomime returned the compliment by drinking his health in a pannikin of tea, "but he's so built that he can't see straight. If you introduce McGinnis to a girl he'll want to estimate how many feet she'd make board measure."

He dodged a pine cone which the Irishman threw at him.

"How about Aileen?" he said.

"I'll take that back," said Merritt; "Mrs. McGinnis hasn't gone to diameter growth. But," he continued, "she's good on clear length and has a fine crown."

By which Wilbur readily understood that the lumberman's wife was slight, well-built, and neat, and with heavy hair. The lumberman, mollified by the tribute, returned to his dinner, and the Supervisor continued:

"McGinnis told you that cutting down the best trees available for timber is the most important part of forest work. It's not. The most important thing is keeping the forest at its best. Cutting trees when they have reached their maximum is a most necessary part, and it's a policy that helps to make the forest pay for itself. But the value to the forest lies in its conservation. You know about that?"

"Yes, sir," said the boy; "it's keeping the watersheds from becoming deforested, either by cutting or by fire, and so preventing erosion from taking place."

"I reckon," put in the old Ranger, "thar's another that pleases me still better than either of those."

"And what's that, Rifle-Eye?" asked Merritt.

"It's the plantin'. When I walk along some of the forest nurseries, an' see hundreds and hundreds of little seedlin's all growin' protected like, and bein' cared for just the same as if they was little children, an' when I know that in fifty years time they'll be big fine trees like the one we're sittin' under, I tell you it looks pretty good to me. They're such helpless little things, seedlin's, and they do have such a time to get a start. Nursery's a good name all right. I've been along some of 'em at night, when the moonlight was a shinin' down on them, and they wasn't really no different from children in their little beds."

"I should think," said Wilbur, "that the changing of a forest from one kind of tree to another would be the most interesting. I mean getting rid of the worthless trees and giving the advantage to those that are finer."

"And a few sections west," commented the Supervisor, "you would find that Bellwall, who's the Ranger there, thinks that the most interesting thing in the whole of the forest work is putting an end to the diseases of trees and to the insects that are a danger to them. Another Ranger may be a tree surgeon."

"A tree surgeon doesn't help so much," put in McGinnis, "the timber is niver worth a whoop!"

"There you go again," said the head of the forest, "there's other things to be thought of besides timber." He turned to the boy. "You don't know the trees of the Sierras, I suppose?"

"I think I know them pretty well now," answered Wilbur. "I had to learn a lot about them at school, and then Rifle-Eye has been giving me pointers the last few days."

"What's the difference between a yellow pine and a sugar pine?" queried the Supervisor.

"Sugar pine wood is white and soft," said the boy, "yellow pine is hard, harder than any other pine except the long-leaf variety."

"That's right enough. But how are you going to tell them when standing?"

Wilbur thought for a moment.

"I should think," he said, "that the yellow pine is a so much bigger tree as a rule that you could tell it by that alone. But I suppose a younger yellow pine might look like a sugar. The leaves would help, though, because I should think the sugar, like most of the soft pines, has its leaves in clusters of five in a sheath, and the yellow being a hard pine, has them in bundles of three."

"How about the bark?"

"Sugar pine bark is smoother," said the boy.

The Supervisor nodded.

"All right," he said, "we'll try you at it. You go along with McGinnis for an hour or so, to see just how he does it, and then you can take one side, and he the other. Just for a day or two, while Rifle-Eye looks after some other matters."

Wilbur accordingly took a pair of calipers and walked with McGinnis back to where he had originally met the party. Resuming work the lumberman started through the forest, calling as he went the kind of trees and their approximate size. As, however, this particular portion of the forest had never been "cruised," McGinnis not only called and marked the trees which were to be cut in the sale, but also the other timber.

Thus he would call, as he reached a tree, "Sugar, thirty-four, six," by which Wilbur understood him to mean that the tree was a sugar pine, that it was thirty-four inches in diameter breast high, and that it would cut into six logs of the regular sixteen-foot length. It probably would be thirty or fifty feet higher, but the top could only be used for posts, cordwood, and similar uses. Such a tree, having been estimated and adjudged fit for sale, the lumberman would make a blaze with a small ax, by slicing off a portion of bark about eight inches long, then turning the head of the ax, whereon was "U. S." in raised letters, he would whack the blaze, making a mark which was unchangeable. No other trees than those so marked might be cut.

But as other trees were passed which were not good enough for merchantable timber, he would call these rapidly, "Cedar, small," "Engelmann (spruce), eighteen," "Douglas (spruce), fourteen," all of which were entered by the Supervisor, walking behind, in his cruising book. At the same time he made full notes as to the condition of the young forest, the presence of parasitic plants such as mistletoe, of diseased trees, if any were found, of the nature of the soil, of the drainage of the forest, and of the best way in which the timber sale was to be logged in order to do the least possible damage to the forest.

In a half an hour or so Wilbur dropped back to the Supervisor.

"I think, sir," he said, "that I can do that without any trouble. But I can't do it as fast as McGinnis, sir, for he can tell the size of a tree just by looking at it. I shall have to use the calipers for a day or two."

Merritt looked at him.

"For a day or two?" he said. "McGinnis has been doing it for thirty years. In these Western forests, too. You take him to an Eastern forest and even now he wouldn't be sure of estimating correctly. You use the calipers for a year or two!"

Wilbur, accordingly, quickened his pace, and, going along a little to the left and in advance of the Supervisor, took up his share of the work. He found that he had to depend entirely upon McGinnis for his compass direction, and that he was only doing about one tree to McGinnis' six, but still every hour that passed by gave him greater confidence. The afternoon was wearing away when suddenly they came to a part of the forest in which some timber seemed to have been cut during the winter preceding. McGinnis dropped back.

"Sure, ye didn't tell me that any of this had been cut over," he said aggrievedly.

"It hasn't, so far as I know," said Merritt. He put his book in his pocket and walked on briskly for a few hundred yards. Although the logging had been done the preceding winter the signs were clear for those who could read them determining the direction in which the logs had been taken.

"That's Peavey Jo's work," said the Supervisor at last. "I reckon this is where he begins to find trouble on his hands. We'll find out, McGinnis, how much of this timber he has stolen, measure up the stumps and make him pay for every stick he's taken."

"Ye'd better leave Peavey Jo alone. They used to call him 'The Canuck Brute,'" remarked McGinnis.

"He will pay," repeated Merritt quietly, "for every foot that he's got. And I'll see that he does."

"You'll have the fight of your life."

"What of it! You don't want to back out?"

"Back out? Me? I will not! But it'll be a jim-dandy of a scrap."

The Supervisor turned to Wilbur.

"Measure," he said, "the diameter of all those stumps and mark with a bit of chalk those you have measured. We'll talk to Peavey Jo in a day or two."



CHAPTER VII

WILBUR IN HIS OWN CAMP

"I should think," said Wilbur at headquarters that night, when the timber theft of Peavey Jo was being discussed, "that it would be mighty hard to prove that the timber had been taken."

"Why?" asked the Supervisor.

"Well, we can see how the logs were drawn, and so forth, but you can't bring those driveways into court very well, and put them before the judge as Exhibit A, or anything?"

"You could bring affidavits, couldn't you? But there are few who want to go to law about it. A man knows he can't buck the government on a fake case. We have very little trouble now, but there used to be a lot of it."

"Did you ever have to use weapons, Mr. Merritt?" asked the boy, remembering the story he had heard in Washington about the tie-cutters.

"No," was the instant reply. "You don't handle people with a gun any more in California than you do in New York. These aren't the days of Forty-nine."

"But I thought the 'old-timers' still carried guns," persisted the boy.

"Very few do now. But I got into trouble once, or thought I was going to, when I was a Ranger in the Gunnison Forest. It involved some Douglas fir telephone poles. This trespass was done while I was in town for a while in the Supervisor's office. When I came back I happened to pass by this man's camp, and seeing a lot of telephone poles, I asked if they had been cut in the forest. The man was a good deal of a bully, and he ordered me off the place. He said he didn't have to answer any questions, and wasn't going to."

"Did you go?" asked Wilbur.

"Certainly I went. What would be the use of staying around there? But before I left I got a kind of an answer. He said he had shipped in these telephone poles from another part of the State."

"Sure, that was a fairy tale," said McGinnis.

"Of course it was. I went into the forest and searched around, although there had been a recent fall of snow, until I found the place where most of the poles had been cut. Then I went back to the trespasser and told him, saying I would prove to him that it was on government ground.

"He agreed, and we rode to the place. He took his Winchester along and carried it over his shoulder. He wasn't carrying it in the usual way, but had his hand almost level with his shoulder so that the barrel pointed in my direction. I noticed, too, that he was playing with the trigger. It seemed likely that it might suit his purposes rather well if I was accidentally killed. But each time I cantered up close to him, the barrel returned to its natural position.

"Presently, as we rode along, we came to a waterfall, not a big one, but falling with quite a splashing, and under the cover of the noise I suddenly came to a quick gallop, overtook the trespasser, and, grasping his Winchester firmly with both hands, jerked it out of his grasp."

"Sure, he must have been the maddest thing that iver happened!" said McGinnis.

"He was sore, all right. But what could he do? I had the rifle, and we neither of us had any six-shooters. I showed him that there was no object in my shooting him, while he would gain by shooting me, so I proposed to hold the gun. And hold it I did. On my return I put a notice of seizure on the poles.

"The report went through the usual way to the Commissioner of the General Land Office. He wrote me a letter direct about the case and put it up to me to ask the trespasser what proposition of settlement he intended to make. I thought the town was the best place for this and waited at the post-office for a day or two until he came in. There I tackled him, and told him he would have to notify the Department immediately. At this, he and his son invited me outside to fight it out. I told them I did not intend to fight, but that if within thirty minutes they did not make a proposition of settlement I would telegraph to the Department and his case would become one for harsher measures.

"The postmaster set out to convince him that Uncle Sam was too big a job for him to handle, and in twenty minutes or so back he came with an offer which was forwarded to the Department. A year or so later the case was settled by a Special Agent."

McGinnis added several similar stories of timber difficulties, and, supper being over, they got ready to turn in. The headquarters was a most comfortable house, fairly large, having been built by the previous Ranger, who was married. It was now used by another Ranger, as well as Rifle-Eye, being near the borders of their two districts, and having plenty of good water and good feed near. But although it was barely dark, Wilbur was tired enough to be glad to stretch himself on the cot in the little room and sink to sleep amid the soughing of the wind through the pine needles of neighboring forest giants one and two hundred feet high.

Early the next morning, Wilbur tumbled up, went out and looked after his horses, and came in hungry to breakfast.

"I had intended," said the Supervisor, "to go with you this morning and show you the part of the range you are to look after. But I want to get at Peavey Jo, lest he should decide to leave suddenly, and Rifle-Eye will show you the way instead. I had the tent pitched three or four days ago, when you ought to have been here. You'll find that to cover your range takes about six hours' good riding a day. Use a different horse, of course, each day, and remember that your horse in some ways is fully as important as you are. You can stand a heap of things that he can't. A man will tire out any animal that breathes."

"And what have I to do?"

"You have three trails to ride, on three successive days, so that you will have a chance of seeing all your range, or points that will command all your range at least twice a week. And, of course, quite a good deal of it you will cover daily. You are to watch out for fires, and if you see one, put it out. If you can't put it out alone, ride back to your camp and telephone here, as soon as it is evening. Sometimes it is better to keep working alone until you know there's some one to answer the 'phone, sometimes it's better to get help right away. You can tell about that when you have got to the fire and have seen what it is."

Wilbur nodded.

"That's easy enough to follow," he said.

"If a heavy rain comes, you had better ride back here, because for a few days after a big rain a fire isn't likely to start, and there's always lots of other stuff to be done in the forest, trail-building, and things of that sort."

"Very well, Mr. Merritt," answered the boy.

"There are no timber sales going on in that section of the forest, so that if you see any cutting going on, just ride up quietly and get into conversation with the people cutting and casually find out their names. Ask no other questions, but in the evening telephone to me."

"The telephone must be a big convenience. But," added Wilbur, "it seems to take away the primitiveness of it, somehow."

"Wilbur," said the Supervisor seriously, "you don't want to run into the mistake of thinking that life on a national forest is principally a picturesque performance. It's a business that the government is running for the benefit of the country at large. Anything that can be done to make it efficient is tremendously important. The telephone already has saved many a fearful night ride through bad places of the forest, has been the means of stopping many a fire, and has saved many a life in consequence. I think that's a little more important than 'primitiveness,' as you call it."

The boy accepted the rebuke silently. Indeed, there was nothing more to say.

"As for grazing, there's not much to be said, except that the sheep limits are pretty well defined. The cattle can wander up the range without doing much harm here, for the young forest is of pretty good growth, but the sheep must stay down where they belong. Rifle-Eye will show you where, and sheep notices have been posted all along the limits. And if there's anything you don't know, ask. And I guess that's about all."

The Supervisor rose to go, but Wilbur stopped him.

"How am I to arrange about supplies?" he said.

"The tent's near a spring," was the brief but all-embracing reply. "There's a lake near by with plenty of trout, there's flour and groceries and canned stuff in a cache, and the Guard that was there last year had some kind of a little garden. You can see what there is, and if you want seeds of any kind, let me know. And there's nothing to prevent you shooting rabbits, though they're not much good this time of year."

"I'll get along all right, Mr. Merritt," said Wilbur confidently.

"I'll ride over on Sunday and see you anyway," added the Supervisor as he strode through the doorway, meeting McGinnis, who was waiting for him outside. Wilbur followed him to the door.

"'Tis all the luck in the world I'm wishin' ye," shouted the big Irishman, "an' while ye're keepin' the fires away we'll be gettin' another nicely started for that old logjammer. Sure, we'll make it hot enough for him."

"Good hunting," responded Wilbur with a laugh, as the two men disappeared under the trees.

Although only a day had passed since Wilbur had met the Supervisor and McGinnis, it seemed to him that several days must have elapsed, so much had happened, and he found it hard to believe, when he found himself in the saddle again beside the old Ranger, that they had started from Ben's shack only the morning before.

"I like Mr. Merritt," he said as soon as they had got started. "I like McGinnis, too."

"I reckon he wasn't over-pleased with your bein' late?" queried Rifle-Eye.

"He wasn't," admitted the boy candidly, "but I don't blame him for that. I liked him just the same. But I don't think it's safe to monkey with him. Now, McGinnis is easygoing and good-natured."

"So is a mountain river runnin' down a smooth bed. The river is just the same old river when rocks get in the road, but it acts a lot different. Now, Merritt, when he's satisfied and when he ain't, don't vary, but I tell you, McGinnis can show white water sometimes."

"I don't think I'm aching to be that rock," said Wilbur with a grin.

"Wa'al," said the Ranger, "I ain't filed no petition for the nomination, not yet."

"But tell me, Rifle-Eye," said the boy, "what is McGinnis? He isn't a Guard, is he? and he doesn't talk like a Ranger from another part of the forest."

"No, he's an expert lumberman," replied the hunter. "He isn't attached to this forest at all. He ain't even under the service of the government all the while. He generally is, because he knows his business an' the Forest Service knows a good man when it sees one. They engage him for a month, or three, or four months, an' he goes wherever there's a timber sale, or a big cut. Often as not, he teaches the Rangers a heap of things they don't know about lumberin', and the Forest Assistants themselves ain't above takin' practical pointers from him."

"But I thought Mr. Merritt said that McGinnis only knew this kind of forest?"

"He said McGinnis wouldn't know anything of an Eastern hardwood forest. That's right. But the government hasn't got any hardwood forests yet, though I guess they soon will in the Appalachians. But you can't lose him in any kind of pine. I've met up with him from Arizona to Alaska."

The old woodsman turned sharply from the trail, apparently into the unbroken forest.

"Do you see the trail?" he asked.

Wilbur looked on the ground to see if he could discern any traces. Not doing so, he looked up at the Ranger, who had half turned in the saddle to watch him. As he shook his head in denial he noticed the old mountaineer looking at him with grieved surprise.

"What do you reckon you were lookin' on the ground for?" he asked.

"For the trail," said Wilbur.

"Did ye think this was a city park?" said Rifle-Eye disgustedly.

"Well, I never saw a trail before that you couldn't see," responded Wilbur defiantly.

The old hunter stopped his horse.

"Turn half round," he said. Wilbur did so. "Now," he continued, "can you see any trail through there?"

The boy looked through the long cool aisles of trees, realizing that he could ride in any direction without being stopped by undergrowth, but he could see nothing that looked like a trail.

"Now turn round and look ahead," said the hunter.

The moment Wilbur turned he became conscious of what the old mountaineer wanted to show him. Not a definite sign could he see, the ground was untrampled, the trees showed no blaze marks, yet somehow there was a consciousness that in a certain direction there was a way.

"Yes," he said vaguely. "I can't see it, but I feel somehow that there's a trail through there." He pointed between two large spruces that stood near.

The hunter slapped his pony on the neck.

"Get up there, Milly," he said, "we'll teach him yet! You see," he continued, "there ain't no manner of use in tryin' to see a trail. If the trail's visible, the worst tenderfoot that ever lived could follow it. It's the trail that you can't see that you've got to learn to follow."

"And how do you do it, Rifle-Eye?" asked the boy.

"Same as you did just now. There's just a mite of difference where folks have ridden, there's perhaps just a few seedlin's been trodden down, an' there's a line between the trees that's just a little straighter than any animal's runway. But it's so faint that the more you think about it, the less sure you are. But, by an' by, you get so that you couldn't help followin' it in any kind of weather." And the old hunter, seeing the need of teaching Wilbur the intricacies of the pine country forests, gave him hint after hint all the way to his little camp.

When he got there Wilbur gave an exclamation of delight. The camp, as the Supervisor had said, was near a little spring, which indeed bubbled from the hillside not more than ten feet away from the tent, and gleaming on the slope a couple of hundred feet below, he could see the little lake which was "so full of trout" glistening itself like a silver fish in the sunlight. A tall flagstaff, with a cord all reeved for the flag, stood by the tent, and for the realities of life a strong, serviceable telephone was fastened to a tree.

Wilbur turned to the hunter, his eyes shining.

"What a daisy place!" he cried.

The old hunter smiled at his enthusiasm.

"Let's see the tent," he said, and was about to leap from his horse when the hunter called him.

"I reckon, son," he said, "there's somethin' you're forgettin'."

"What's that?" said Wilbur.

"Horses come first," said Rifle-Eye. "It's nigh dinner-time now. Where's the corral?"

But Wilbur's spirits were not to be dampened by any check.

"Is there a corral?" he said. "How bully! Oh, yes, I remember now Mr. Merritt said there was. Where is it, Rifle-Eye? Say, this is a jim-dandy of a camp!"

A few steps further they came to the corral, a pretty little meadow in a clearing, and in the far corner of it the stream which trickled from the spring near the house. Wilbur unsaddled with a whoop and turned the horses in the corral, then hurried back to the camp. The old hunter, thinking perhaps that the boy would rather have the feeling of doing it all himself for the first time, had not gone near the tent. There was a small outer tent, which was little more than a strip of canvas thrown over a horizontal pole and shielding a rough fireplace for rainy weather, and within was the little dwelling-tent, with a cot, and even a tiny table. On the ground was Wilbur's pack, containing all the things he had sent up when he had broken his journey to go to the Double Bar J ranch, and there, upon the bed, all spread out in the fullness of its glory, was a brand-new Stars and Stripes. For a moment the boy's breath was taken away, then, with a dash, he rushed for it, and fairly danced out to the flagpole, where he fastened it and ran it to the truck, shouting as he did so. His friend, entering into the boy's feelings, solemnly raised his hat, as the flag settled at the peak and waved in the wind. Wilbur, turning, saw the old scout saluting, and with stirring patriotism, saluted, too.

"And now," said the old hunter. "I'll get dinner."

"That you'll not," said Wilbur indignantly. "I guess this is my house, and you're to be my first guest."



CHAPTER VIII

DOWNING A GIANT LUMBERJACK

"I don't believe," said Wilbur the next morning as they rode along the trail that led to the nearest of his "lookout points," "that any king or emperor ever had as fine a palace as this one."

The comparison was a just one. Throughout the part of the forest in which they were riding the whole sensation was of being roofed in and enclosed, the roof itself being of shifting and glowing green, through which at infrequent intervals broad streams of living light poured in, gilding with a golden bronze the carpet of pine needles, while the purple brown shafts of the trunks of the mighty trees formed a colonnade illimitable.

"I reckon every kind of palace," replied the Ranger, "had some sort of a forest for a pattern. I took an artist through the Rockies one time, an' he showed me that every kind of buildin' that had ever been built, and every kind of trimmin's that had been devised had started as mere copies of trees an' leaves."

"Well," said Wilbur, his mind going back to a former exclamation of the old woodsman, "you said this was your house."

"My house it is," said Rifle-Eye, "an' if you wait a few minutes I'll show you the view from one of my windows."

For two hours the hunter and the boy had been riding up a sharp slope, in places getting off their horses so as to give them the benefit of as little unnecessary carrying as possible, constantly ascending on a great granite spur twenty miles wide, between the Kaweah and King's River canyons. Now, suddenly they emerged from the shadowy roof of the forest to the bare surface of a ridge of granite.

"There's the real world," said Rifle-Eye; "it ain't goin' to hurt your eyes to look at it, same as a city does, and your own little worryin's soon drop off in a place like this."

He turned his horse slightly to the left, where a small group of mountain balsam, growing in a cleft of the granite, made a spot of shadow upon the very precipice's brink. The boy looked around for a minute or two without speaking, then said softly: "How fine!"

Three thousand feet below, descending in bold faces of naked rugged rock, broken here and there by ledges whereon mighty pines found lodgment, lay the valley of King's River, a thin, winding gleam of green with the water a silver thread so fine as only to be seen at intervals. Here and there in the depths the bottom widened to a quarter of a mile, and there the sunlight, falling on the young grass, gave a brilliancy of green that was almost startling in contrast with the dark foliage of the pines.

"What do you call that rock?" asked the boy, pointing to a tall, pyramidal mass of granite, buttressed with rock masses but little less noble than the central peak, between each buttress a rift of snow, flecked here and there by the outline of a daring spruce clinging to the rock, apparently in defiance of all laws of gravity.

"That is called 'Grand Sentinel,'" said the hunter, "and if you will take out your glasses you will see that from here you can overlook miles and miles of country to the west. This is about as high as any place on the south fork of the King's River until it turns north where Bubbs Creek runs into it."

Wilbur took out from their case his field-glasses and scanned the horizon carefully as far as he could see, then snapping them back into the case, he turned to the hunter, saying:

"No fire in sight here!"

"All right," replied Rifle-Eye, "then we'll go on to the next point."

That whole day was a revelation to Wilbur of the beauty and of the size of that portion of the forest which it was his especial business to oversee. Here and there the Ranger made a short break from the direct line of the journey to take the boy down to some miner's cabin or Indian shack, so that, as he expressed it, "you c'n live in a world of friends. There ain't no man livin', son," he continued, "but what'll be the better of havin' a kind word some day, an' the more of them you give, the more you're likely to have."

Owing to these deviations from the direct trail, it was late when they returned to Wilbur's little camp. But not even the lateness of the hour, nor the boy's fatigue, could keep down his delight in his tent home. He was down at the corral quite a long time, and when he came back Rifle-Eye asked him where he had been. The boy flushed a little.

"I hadn't seen Kit all day," he said, "so I went down and had a little talk to her."

The Ranger smiled and said nothing but looked well pleased. In the meantime he had quickly prepared supper, and Wilbur started in and ate as though he would never stop. At last he leaned back and sighed aloud.

"That's the best dinner I ever ate," he said; "I never thought fish could taste so good."

But he jumped up again immediately and took the dishes down to the spring to wash them. He had just dipped the plates into the pool under the spring when the old woodsman stopped him.

"You don't ever want to do that," he said. "There ain't any manner of use in foulin' a stream that you'll want to use all the time. Little bits of food, washin' off the plates, will soon make that water bad if you let them run in there. An' not only is that bad for you, but ef you'll notice, it's the overflow from that little pool that runs down through the meadow."

"And it would spoil the drinking water for the horses," exclaimed Wilbur; "I hadn't thought of that. I'm awfully glad you're along, Rifle-Eye, for I should be making all sorts of mistakes."

Under the advice of his friend Wilbur washed up and put away the dishes and then settled down for the evening. He made up his day's report, and then thought he would write a long letter. But he had penned very, few sentences when he began to get quite sleepy and to nod over the paper. The Ranger noted it, and told him promptly to go to bed.

"I'll finish this letter first," said Wilbur.

A moment or two later he was again advised to turn in, and again Wilbur persisted that he would finish the letter first. There was a short pause.

"Son," said Rifle-Eye, "what do you suppose you are ridin' from point to point of the forest for?"

"To see if there's any sign of fire," said the boy.

"And you've got to look pretty closely through those glasses o' yours, don't you?"

The boy admitted that they were a little dazzling and that he had to look all he knew how.

"Then, if you make your eyes heavy and tired for the next mornin', you're robbin' the Service of what they got you for—your eyesight, ain't you? I ain't forcin' you, noways. I'm only showin' you what's the square thing."

Wilbur put forward his chin obstinately, then, thinking of the kindness he had received from the Ranger all the way through, and realizing that he was in the right, said:

"All right, Rifle-Eye, I'll turn in."

About half an hour later, just as the old woodsman stretched himself on his pile of boughs outside the tent, he heard the boy mutter:

"I hope I'll never have to live anywhere but here."

The following day and the next were similar in many ways to the first. Wilbur and the Ranger rode the various trails, the boy learning the landmarks by which he might make sure that he was going right, and making acquaintance with the few settlers who lived in his portion of the forest. On Sunday morning, however, the Ranger told the boy he must leave him to his own devices.

"I've put in several days with you gettin' you started," he said, "an' I reckon I'd better be goin' about some other business. There's a heap o' things doin' all the time, an' as it is I'm pressed to keep up. But I'll drop in every now an' again, an' you're allers welcome at headquarters."

"I hate to have you go, Rifle-Eye," the boy replied, "and you certainly have been mighty good to me. I'll try not to forget all the things you've told me, and I'll look forward to seeing you again before long."

"I'll come first chance I can," replied the hunter. "Take care of yourself."

"Good-by, Rifle-Eye," called the boy, "and I'll look for your coming back." He watched the old man until he was lost to sight and then waited until the sound of the horse's hoofs on the hillside had ceased. He found a lump in his throat as he turned away, but he went into the tent, and went over his reports to see if they read all right before the Supervisor arrived. Then, thinking that it was likely his chief would come about noon, he exerted himself trying to make up an extra good dinner. He caught some trout, and finding some lettuce growing in the little garden, got it ready for salad, and then mixed up the batter for some "flapjacks," as the old hunter had shown him how. He had everything ready to begin the cooking, and was writing letters when he heard his guest coming up the trail, and went out to meet him.

After Wilbur had made his reports and got dinner, for both of which he received a short commendation, the Supervisor broached the question of the timber trespass.

"Loyle," he said, "McGinnis and I have measured up the lumber stolen. There's about four and a half million feet. You were with us when we first located the trespass, and I want you to come with us to the mill."

"Very well, Mr. Merritt," answered the boy.

"I don't want you to do any talking at all, unless I ask you a question. Then answer carefully and in the fewest words you can. Don't tell me what you think. Say what you know. I'll do all the talking that will be necessary."

Wilbur thought to himself that the conversation probably would not be very long, but he said nothing.

"That is," continued the other as an afterthought, "McGinnis and I. I don't suppose he can be kept quiet."

Wilbur grinned.

"But he usually knows what he is talking about, I should think," he hazarded.

"He does—on lumber." Then, with one of the abrupt changes of topic, characteristic of the man, the Supervisor turned to the question of intended improvements in that part of the forest where Wilbur was to be. He showed himself to be aware that the lad's appointment as Guard was not merely a temporary affair, but a part of his training to fit himself for higher posts, and accordingly explained matters more fully than he would otherwise have done. Reaching the close of that subject he rose to go suddenly. He looked around the tent.

"Got everything you want?" he demanded.

"Yes, indeed, sir," the boy replied. "It's very comfortable here."

"Got a watch?"

"No, Mr. Merritt, not now."

"Why not?"

"Mine got lost in that little trouble I had with the bob-cat, and I didn't notice it until next day."

"Saw you hadn't one the other day. Take this."

He pulled a watch out of his pocket and handed it to the boy.

"But, Mr. Merritt," began the boy, "your watch? Oh, I couldn't—"

"Got another. You'll need it." He turned and walked out of the tent.

Wilbur overtook him on the way to the corral.

"Oh, Mr. Merritt—" he began, but his chief turned sharply round on him. The boy, for all his impulsiveness, could read a face, and he checked himself. "Thank you very much, indeed," he ended quietly. He got out the Supervisor's horse, and as the latter swung himself into the saddle, he said:

"What time to-morrow, Mr. Merritt?"

"Eleven, sharp," was the reply. "So long."

Wilbur looked after him as he rode away.

"That means starting by daybreak," he said aloud. "Well, I don't think I'm going to suffer from sleeping sickness on this job, anyway." And he went back into the tent to finish the letter which he had started two evenings before and never had a chance to complete.

By dawn the next morning Wilbur was on the trail. He was giving himself more time than he needed, but he had not the slightest intention of arriving late, neither did he wish the flanks of his horse to show that he had been riding hard. For the boy was perfectly sure that not a detail would escape the Supervisor's eye. Accordingly, he was able to take the trip quietly and trotted easily into camp a quarter of an hour ahead of time. He was heartily welcomed by McGinnis, while Merritt told him to go in and get a snack, as they would start in a few minutes. There was enough to make a good meal, and Wilbur was hungry after riding since dawn, so that he had just got through when the other two men rode up. He hastily finished his last mouthful, jumped up, and clambered into the saddle after the Supervisor, who had not waited a moment to see if he were ready.

Merritt set a fairly fast pace, and the trail was only intended for single file, so that there was no conversation for an hour or more. Then the head of the forest pulled up a little and conversed with McGinnis briefly for a while, resuming his rapid pace as soon as they were through. Once, and once only, did he speak to Wilbur, and that was just as they got on the road leading to the sawmill. There he said:

"Think all you like, but don't say it."

When they reached the mill they passed the time of day with several of the men, who seemed glad to see them, and a good deal of good-natured banter passed between McGinnis and the men to whom he was well known. The Supervisor sent word that he wanted to see the boss, and presently Peavey Jo came out to meet them.

"Salut, Merritt!" he said; "I t'ink it's long time since you were here, hey?"

The words as well as the look of the man told Wilbur his race and nation. Evidently of French origin, possibly with a trace of Indian in him, this burly son of generations of voyageurs looked his strength. Wilbur had gone up one winter to northern Wisconsin and Michigan where some of the big lumber camps were, and he knew the breed. He decided that Merritt's advice was extremely good; he would talk just as little as he had to.

The Supervisor wasted no time on preliminary greetings. That was not his way.

"How much lumber did you cut last winter off ground that didn't belong to you?" he queried shortly.

"Off land not mine?"

"You heard my question!"

"I cut him off my own land," said the millman with an injured expression.

"Some of it."

"You scale all the logs I cut. You mark him. I sell him. All right."

"You tell it well," commented the Supervisor tersely. "But it don't go, Jo. How much was there?"

"I tell you I cut him off my land."

Merritt pointedly took his notebook from his breastpocket.

"Liars make me tired," he announced impartially.

"You call me a liar—" began the big lumberman savagely, edging up to the horse.

"Not yet. But I probably will before I'm through," was the unperturbed reply.

"You say all the same that I am a liar, is it not?"

"Not yet, anyway. What does it matter? You cut four and a half million feet, a little over."

A smile passed over the faces of the men attached to the sawmill. It was evident that a number of them must know about the trespass, and probably thought that Peavey Jo had been clever in getting away with it. The mill-owner laughed.

"You t'ink I keep him in my pocket, hey?" he queried. "Four and a half million feet is big enough to see. You have a man here, he see logs, he mark logs, I cut them."

The Supervisor swung himself from his horse and handed the reins to Wilbur. McGinnis did the same.

"You don't need to get down, Loyle," he said; "it will not take long to find where the logs are."

The big lumberman stepped forward with an angry gleam in his eye.

"This my mill," he said. "You have not the right to walk it over."

"This is a National Forest," was the sharp reply, "and I'm in charge of it. I'll go just wherever I see fit. Who'll stop me?"

"Me, Josef La Blanc—I stop you."

Just then Wilbur, glancing over the circle of men, saw standing among them Ben, the half-witted boy who lived in the old hunter's cabin. Seeing that he was observed, the lad sidled over to Wilbur and said, in a low voice, questioningly:

"Plenty, plenty logs? No marked?"

"Yes," said Wilbur, wondering that he should have followed the discussion so closely.

"I know where!"

"You do?" queried Wilbur.

Ben nodded his head a great many times, until Wilbur thought it would fall off. In the meantime Merritt and Peavey Jo, standing a few feet apart, had been eying each other. Presently the Supervisor stepped forward:

"Show me those logs," he ordered.

"You better keep back, I t'ink," growled the millman.

Merritt stepped forward unconcernedly, but was met with an open-hand push that sent him reeling backward.

"I not want to fight you," he cried; "I get a plenty fight when I want him. You no good; can't fight."

"I'm not going to fight," said the Supervisor, "but I'm going to see where those logs are, or were. Stand aside!"

But the big Frenchman planted himself squarely in the way.

"If you hunt for the trouble," he said, "you get him sure," he said menacingly.

"I'm not hunting for trouble, Jo, and you know it But I'm hunting logs, and I'll find them."

He was just about to step forward, trusting to quickness to dodge the blow that he could see would be launched at him, when Ben, who had been whispering to Wilbur, lurched over to the Supervisor and pulled his arm.

"Plenty, plenty logs, no mark," he said loudly; "I know where. I show you. They are up—"

But he never finished the sentence, for the lumberman, taking one step forward, drove his left fist square at the side of the boy's jaw, dropping him insensible before he could give the information which Merritt was seeking.

But unexpected as the blow had been, it was met scarcely a second later by an equally unexpected pile-driver jolt from McGinnis.

"Ye big murdhering spalpeen," burst out the angry Irishman, "ye think it's a fine thing to try and shtop a man that's trying to do his duty, and think yerself a fightin' man, bekass ye can lick a man that doesn't want to fight. This isn't any Forest Service scrap, mind ye, and I'm saying nothing about logs. I'm talking about your hittin' a weak, half-crazed boy. Ye're a liar and a coward, Peavey Jo, and a dirty one at that."

"Keep quiet, McGinnis," said Merritt, who was stooping down over the insensible lad, "we'll put him in jail for this."

"Ye will, maybe," snorted the Irishman, "afther he laves the hospital."

"You make dis your bizness, hey?" queried the mill-owner.

"I'll make it your funeral, ye sneaking half-breed Canuck! How about it, boys," he added turning to the crowd, "do I get fair play?"

A chorus of "Sure," "'Twas a dirty trick," "The kid didn't know no better," and similar cries showed how the sentiment of the crowd lay. In a moment McGinnis and the Frenchman had stripped their coats and faced each other. The mill-owner was by far the bigger man, and the play of his shoulders showed that his fearful strength was not muscle bound, but he stood ponderously; on the other hand, the Irishman, who, while tall, was not nearly as heavy, only seemed to touch the ground, his step was so light and springy.

The Frenchman rushed, swinging as he did so. A less sure fighter would have given ground, thereby weakening the force of his return blow should he have a chance to give it. McGinnis sidestepped and cross-jolted with his left. It was a wicked punch, but Peavey Jo partly stopped it. As it was, it jarred him to his heels.