"Lam a kid, will ye, ye bloated pea-jammer," grinned McGinnis, who was beaming with delight now that the fight was really started.

"You fight, no talk," growled the other, recovering warily, for the one interchange had showed him that the Irishman was not to be despised.

"I can sing a tune," said McGinnis, "and then lick you with one hand—" He stopped as Peavey Jo bored in, fighting hard and straight and showing his mettle. There was no doubt of it, the Frenchman was the stronger and the better man. Twice McGinnis tried to dodge and duck, but Peavey Jo, for all his size, was lithe when roused and knew every trick of the trade, and a sigh went up when with a sweeping blow delivered on the point of the shoulder, the Frenchman sent McGinnis reeling to the ground. He would have kicked him with his spiked boots as he lay, in the fashion of the lumber camps, but the Supervisor, showing not the slightest fear of the infuriated giant, quietly stepped between.

"This fight's none of my making or my choosing," he said, "but I'll see that it's fought fair."

But before the bullying millman could turn his anger upon the self-appointed referee, McGinnis was up on his feet.

"Let me at him," he cried, "I'll show him a trick or two for that."

Again the fight changed color. McGinnis was not smiling, but neither had he lost his temper. His vigilance had doubled and his whole frame seemed to be of steel springs. Blow after blow came crashing straight for him, but the alert Irishman evaded them by the merest fraction of an inch. Two fearful swings from Peavey Jo followed each other in rapid succession, both of which McGinnis avoided by stepping inside them, his right arm apparently swinging idly by his side. Then suddenly, at a third swing, he ran in to meet it, stooped and brought up his right with all the force of arm and shoulder and with the full spring of the whole body upwards. It is a difficult blow to land, but deadly. It caught Peavey Jo on the point of the chin and he went down.

One of the mill hands hastened to the boss.

"You've killed him, I think," he said.

"Don't you belave it," said McGinnis; "he was born to be hanged, an' hanged he'll be."

But the big lumberman gave no sign of life.

"I have seen a man killed by that uppercut, though," said the Irishman a little more dubiously, as the minutes passed by and no sign of consciousness was apparent, "but I don't believe I've got the strength to do it."

Several moments passed and then Peavey Jo gave a deep respiration.

"There!" said McGinnis triumphantly. "I told ye he'd live to be hanged." He looked around for the appreciation of the spectators. "But it was a bird of a punch I handed him," he grinned.



CHAPTER IX

A HARD FOE TO CONQUER

With the defeat of Peavey Jo, and the evidence that he was not too seriously hurt by the licking he had received, the Supervisor's attention promptly returned to the question for which he had come to the mill. Ben had struggled up to a sitting posture, and Merritt repeated his question as to the whereabouts of the logs, the answering of which had brought the big millman's anger upon the half-witted lad. Accordingly, Ben looked frightened, and refused to answer, but when he saw his foe still lying stretched out on the ground he said:

"Logs, near, near. Under pile of slabs."

"Oh, that was the way he hid them," said the Forest Chief; "clever enough trick, too."

McGinnis and Merritt followed Ben, and a couple of the men around sauntered along also. Wilbur stayed with the horses, watching the mill-hands trying to bring Peavey Jo to consciousness. They had just roused him and got him to his feet when the government party returned.

"I've seen your logs," said the Supervisor with just a slight note of triumph in his voice, "and I've plenty of witnesses. I also know who you're working for, so it will do no good to skip out. I'll nail both of you. Four and a half million feet, remember."

Suddenly McGinnis startled every one by a sudden shout:

"Drop that ax!" he cried.

The lumberman, who was just about to get into the saddle, suddenly dropped from the stirrup and made a quick grab for Ben, who had been standing near by. The half-witted lad had picked up an ax, and was quietly sidling up in the direction of the lumberman, who was still too dazed from the blow he had received from McGinnis to be on the watch.

"What would ye do with the ax, ye little villain?" asked McGinnis.

"I kill him, once, twice," said the lad.

"Ye would, eh? Sure, I've always labored under the impression that killin' a man once is enough. 'Tis myself that can see the satisfaction it would be to whack him one with the ax, Ben, but ye'd be robbing the hangman."

"I kill him," repeated the half-witted lad.

"Not with that ax, anyway," said McGinnis wrenching it from his grasp and tossing it to one of the men who stood by. "I'm thinkin', Merritt, that we'd better take the boy away. When he's sot, there's no changin' him."

"You fellers had best take one o' my ponies," spoke up one of the sawyers; "I've got a string here, an' you can send him back any time. An' I guess it wouldn't be healthy here for Ben right now."

"All right, Phil," said McGinnis; "I'll go along with you and get him."

As soon as McGinnis was out of the way, Peavey Jo stepped up to where the Supervisor was sitting in the saddle. Ben had been standing beside him since McGinnis took the ax, but now he shrank back to Wilbur's side.

"You t'ink me beaten, hey?" he said, showing his teeth in an angry snarl; "you wait and see."

"I don't know whether you're beaten or no," said Merritt contemptuously, "but any one can see that you've been licked."

"You t'ink this forest good place. By Gar, I make him so bad you ashamed to live here."

"A threat's no more use than a lie, Peavey Jo," replied the Supervisor sharply. "I don't bluff worth a cent, and the government's behind me."

The half-breed spat on the ground.

"That for your American government," he said. "I, me, make your American government look sick. I warn you fairly now. You win this time, yes, but always, no. Bon! My turn come by and by."

"All right," replied the head of the forest indifferently, turning away as McGinnis and Ben came up, "turn on your viciousness whenever you like." Saying which, he rode away without paying further heed to the muttered response of the millman.

The ride home was singularly silent. Neither McGinnis nor the half-witted lad were in any mood for speaking, Ben nursing a badly swollen jaw, and McGinnis weak from the body blows and the lame shoulder he had received in the fight. The Supervisor was angry that the trouble had come to blows, but in justice could not blame McGinnis for the part he had taken. It annoyed him, especially, to feel that he had been compelled to take the part of a mere spectator, although this feeling was partly soothed by the knowledge that he had discovered and proved the very thing he had set out to find.

On arriving at headquarters, the four horses were turned into the corral, and the men went in to get supper. Merritt immediately commenced a full report to Washington on the case, and McGinnis and Ben were glad to lie down. At supper Wilbur took occasion to congratulate McGinnis on the result of the encounter. The Irishman nodded.

"He's a better man than me," he admitted readily, "and that uppercut was the only thing I had left. But 'tis a darlin' of a punch, is that same, when ye get it in right. But I don't think we're through with him. He looks like the breed that harbors a grudge."

"He threatened Merritt while you were away," said Wilbur, dropping his voice so as not to disturb the rest.

"The mischief he did! The nerve of him! Tell me what he said."

Wilbur repeated the conversation word for word, and the Irishman whistled.

"There, now," he said. "What did I tell ye? Not that I can see there's much that he can do."

"Do you suppose he'd set a fire?" asked Wilbur.

"He's mean enough to," said McGinnis, "but I don't believe he would. No man that knows anything at all about timber would. Sure, he knows that we could put it out in no time if there wasn't a wind, and if there was, why the blaze might veer at any minute and burn up his mill and all his lumber."

"But for revenge?"

"A Frenchy pea-jammer isn't goin' to lose any dollars unless he has to," said McGinnis. "I don't think you need to be afraid of that." Then, following along the train of thought that had been suggested, he told the boy some lurid stories of life in the lumber camps of Michigan and Wisconsin in the early days.

Early next morning Wilbur returned to his camp to resume his round of fire rides, which he found to be of growing interest. On his return to his camp, although tired, the lad would work till dark over his little garden, knowing that everything he succeeded in growing would add to the enrichment of his food supply. Then the fence around the garden was in very bad repair, and he set to work to make one which should effectively keep out the rabbits.

Another week he found that if he could build a little bridge across a place where the canyon was very narrow he could save an hour's ride on one of his trails. Already the lad had put up a small log span on his own account. He went over and over this line of travel, blazing his way until he felt entirely sure that he had picked out the best line of trail, and then one evening he called up Rifle-Eye and asked him if he would come over some time and show him how to build this little bridge.

There followed three most exciting days in which the Ranger and a Guard from the other side of the forest joined him in bridge-building. They not only spanned the canyon, but strengthened the little log bridge the boy had made all by himself. Wilbur's reward was not only the shortening of his route, but commendation from Rifle-Eye that he had taken the trouble to find out the route and that he had picked it so well. That night he wrote home as though he had been appointed in charge of all the forests of the world, so proud was he.

Then there was one day in which Wilbur found the value of his lookout, for from the very place that the old hunter had pointed out as being one of "the windows of his house," the boy saw curling up to the westward a small, dull cloud of smoke. Remembering the warnings of the Ranger, he did not leap to the saddle at once, but remained for several minutes, studying the nearest landmarks to the apparent location of the fire and the surest method of getting there. That ride was somewhat of a novel experience for Kit as well as the boy. The little mare had grown accustomed to a quiet, even pace on the forest trails, and the use of the spur was a thing not to be borne. Wilbur felt as if he were fairly flying through the pine woods. Still he remembered to keep the mare well in hand going down the steeper slopes, and within a couple of hours he found himself at the fire. Then Wilbur found how true it was that a blaze could easily be put out if caught early. There was little wind, and the line of fire was not more than a mile long. By clearing the ground, brushing the needles aside for a foot or so on the lee side of the fire, most of it burned itself out and the rest he could stamp to extinction. Here and there he used his fire shovel and threw a little earth where the blaze was highest.

That evening he telephoned to headquarters, reporting that he had put the fire out, but only received a kindly worded rebuke for not having endeavored to find out what caused the fire, and a suggestion that he should ride back the next day and investigate. But before he could telephone himself the next evening, and while he was at supper, the 'phone rang, and he found the Supervisor was on the wire.

"Come to headquarters at once," he was told; "all hands are wanted."

"To-night, Mr. Merritt?" the boy queried.

There was a moment's pause.

"What did you do to-day?" he asked in answer.

"I went to find out what started that fire," the boy replied. "It was a couple of fishermen from the city. They had been here before, and so had no guide. I followed them up and showed them how to make a fire properly."

"That's a pretty long ride," said Merritt; "I guess you can come over first thing to-morrow morning."

"Very well, sir," said Wilbur, and hung up the receiver.

"I certainly do wonder," he said aloud, "what it can be? It can't be a big fire, or he would tell me to come anyway, no matter what I'd done to-day, especially as fire is best fought at night. And I don't see how it can be any trouble over Peavey Jo, because that's in the hands of the Washington people now. Unless," he added as an afterthought, "they have come to arrest him."

Having settled in his mind that this was probably the trouble, Wilbur returned to his supper. Just as he was finishing it, he said aloud: "I don't see how it can be that, either. For if it's due to any trouble of that kind they want big, husky fellows, and Merritt can swear in any one he needs." So giving up the problem as temporarily insoluble, Wilbur went to bed early so as to make a quick start in the dawn of the morning.

It turned out to be a glorious day, with but very little wind, and Wilbur's mind was quite set at rest about the question of fire. But when he reached headquarters he was surprised to see the number of men that were gathered there. Not laughing and joking, as customarily, they stood gravely around, only eying him curiously as he came in. The boy turned to McGinnis.

"What's wrong?" he said.

For answer the lumberman held out a piece of wood from which the bark had been stripped. Underneath the bark on the soft wood were numberless little channels which looked as though they had been chiseled out with a fine, rounded chisel.

"Oh," he said, "I see." Then he continued: "But I didn't know there was any bark-beetle here."

McGinnis waved his hand around.

"Does this look as if we had known very long?" he said.

"Who found it out?" asked Wilbur.

"Rifle-Eye," was the reply, "or at least Merritt and he found traces on the same day and brought the news into camp. Merritt only saw signs in one spot, but the old Ranger dropped on several colonies at different parts of the forest, so that it must be widespread."

The boy whistled under his breath. He had heard enough of the ravages of the bark beetle to know what it might mean if it once secured a strong footing on the Sierras.

"I remember hearing once," he said, "that over twenty-two thousand acres of spruce in Bohemia were wiped out in a month by the Tomicus beetle."

"This is the work of a Tomicus," said McGinnis. "And what such a critter as that was ever made for gets me."

"What's going to be done?" asked Wilbur.

McGinnis pointed to the house whence the Supervisor was just coming out.

"I have notified the District Forester," he said, standing on the steps, "and if I find things in bad shape he will send for Wilcox, who knows more about the beetle than any man in the Service. I don't know how much damage has been done nor how widespread it is. There are eight of us here, and we will divide, as I said before, each two keeping about fifty yards apart and girdling infected and useless trees. Loyle, you go with Rifle-Eye."

Wilbur was delighted at finding himself with his old friend again, and he seized the opportunity gladly of asking him how he happened to find out that the pest had got a start.

"I was campin' last night," said the old Ranger, "an' I saw an old dead tree that looked as if it might have some tinder that would start a fire easy. So I picked up my ax an' went up to it. But the minute I got there I felt somethin' was wrong, so I sliced along the bark, an' there were hundreds of the beetles. Then I looked at some of the near by trees, an' there was a few, here and there. But the funny part of it was that although I looked, an' looked carefully, for a hundred yards on either side, I couldn't find any more."

"So much the better," said Wilbur, "you didn't want to find any more, did you?"

The old hunter stepped over to a spruce and examined it closely.

"I didn't think there were any there," he said, "but you can't be too sure."

They walked all the rest of the morning, without having seen a sign of any beetles, though once the most distant party whooped as a sign that some had been found.

"I remember," said the Ranger, "one year when we had a plague o' caterpillars. They was eatin' the needles of the trees an' killin' 'em by wholesale. There was nothin' we could do to stop it. But it got stopped all right."

"How?" Wilbur queried interestedly. "Rain?"

"Rain would only make it worse. Have you ever noticed, son, that when somethin' pretty bad comes along, there's always somethin' else comes to sort o' take off the smart? Nothin's bad all the time. Well, this time, there came a fly."

"A fly?"

"Yes, son, a fly, lookin' somethin' like a wasp, only not as long as your thumb-nail. They come in swarms, an' started disposin' o' them caterpillars as though they had been trained to the business. They stung 'em an' then dropped an egg where they'd stung. Sometimes the caterpillar lived long enough to spin a web, as they usually do, but it never come out as a moth. An' since it's the moth that lays the eggs, this fly put an end to the caterpillar output with pleasin' swiftness."

"What did they call the fly?"

"I did hear," said Rifle-Eye, thinking. "Oh, yes, now I remember; it was the ik, ik—"

"Oh, I know now," said Wilbur; "I remember hearing about it at the Ranger School. The ichneumon fly."

"That's it. But, as I was sayin'—" he stopped short. Then the old hunter took a quick step to one side, pointed at a pine tree, and said:

"There's one o' them."

Wilbur could only see a few little holes in the bark, but the old woodsman, slicing off a section, showed the tree girdled with the galleries that the beetle had made. He raised a whoop, and Wilbur in the distance could hear the Supervisor saying, "Three," implying it was the third piece found infected.

"But I don't quite see," said Wilbur, "how they make these galleries running in all sorts of ways."

"I ain't no expert on this here," said Rifle-Eye. "But as far as I know, in the spring a beetle finds an old decayed tree. She begins at once to bore a sort of passageway, half in the bark an' half in the wood, an' lays eggs all along the sides. When the eggs come out, each grub digs a tunnel out from the big gallery, an' in about three weeks the grub has made a long tunnel, livin' on the bark an' wood for its food, an' has grown to be a beetle. Then it bores its way out an' flies away to another tree to repeat the same interestin' performance."

"And if there are a lot of them," said Wilbur, "I suppose it stops the sap from going up."

"Exactly," said the hunter. "But they generally begin on sickly trees."

"Wilbur," he called a moment later, "come here."

The boy hurried over to the old hunter, who was standing by a dead tree—a small one, lying on the ground.

"Try that one," he said.

The boy struck it with the ax and it showed up alive with beetles and grubs and honeycombed with galleries.

"Gee," said the boy, "that's a bad one."

"That's very like the way I found the other," said the old hunter; "one very bad one lyin' on the ground an' just a few around it bad, while just a short distance away there was no signs."

He stood and thought for a minute or two, but aside from the coincidence, Wilbur could not see that there was anything strange in that. They worked busily for a few moments, girdling the infected trees, and also girdling some small useless trees near by, because, as the hunter explained, when the beetles flew out seeking a new tree to destroy, they would prefer one that was dying, as a tree from which all the bark has been cut away all round always does, and then these trees could be burned.

"Have you noticed wheel tracks around here?" asked the hunter thoughtfully.

"I did think so," said Wilbur, "near that dead tree, but I s'posed, of course, I was wrong. What would a wagon be doing up here?"

Suddenly the Ranger dropped his ax as though he had been stung. He turned to the boy, his eyes flashing.

"Boy!" he said, "did you see the stump of that dead tree!"

"I didn't notice," said Wilbur wonderingly.

The old woodsman picked up his ax, and led the way back to the dead tree.

Wilbur looked at the base of the tree.

"It isn't a windfall," he said; "it's been cut."

"Where's the stump?" asked Rifle-Eye.

The boy looked within a radius of a few feet, then looked up at the hunter.

"Where's the stump?" repeated the old man.

Wilbur turned back and searched for five minutes. Not a stump could he find that fitted the tree. None had been cut for some time, and none at all of so small a girth.

"I can't find any," he admitted shamefacedly, afraid that the Ranger would prove him wrong in some way.

"Nor can I," said Rifle-Eye. "Well?"

"Then I guess there isn't one there," said the boy.

"How did the tree get there?"

Wilbur looked at him, reflecting the question that he saw in the other's eyes.

"It couldn't get there of itself," he said, "and it was cut, too."

"An' wheel-tracks?"

"There were tracks," said the boy, "I'm sure of that."

"When a cut tree is found lyin' all by itself," said the Ranger, "with wagon tracks leadin' up to it an' away from it, it don't need a city detective to find out that some one dropped it there. An' when that dead tree is full of bark-beetle, an' there ain't none in the forest, that sure looks suspicious. An' when you find two of 'em jest the same way, with beetle in both, an' wheel-tracks near both, ye don't have to have a dog's nose to scent somethin's doin' that ain't over nice."

"But who," said Wilbur indignantly, "would do a trick like that?"

"The man that drove that wagon," said the old hunter. "I reckon, son, you an' me'll do a little trailin' an' see where those wheels lead us."

They left the place where the tree was lying and followed the faint mark of the wheels. In a few minutes they crossed the line of the Supervisor's inspection and he called to them.

"Hi, Rifle-Eye," he said, "you're away off the line."

"I know," said the old Ranger, "but I've got a plan of my own."

Merritt shrugged his shoulders, but he knew that Rifle-Eye never wasted his time, and he said no more. The old hunter and the boy walked on nearly a quarter of a mile, and there they found the tracks running beside a tiny gully, and a little distance down this, just as it had been thrown, was another of these small trees, equally filled with beetle.

"I don't think we'll find any stump to this one, either," said Wilbur gleefully, for he saw that they were on the right track.

"You will not," replied the other sternly. After they had girdled the infected trees again the Ranger shouldered his ax and, abandoning the tracks of the wheels, started straight for headquarters.

At supper all sorts of conjectures were expressed as to the cause of the pest, its extent, and similar matters, but Rifle-Eye said nothing. Wilbur was so full of the news that he was hardly able to eat anything for the information he was just bursting to give. But he kept it in. Finally, when the men had all finished and pipes were lighted, the old Ranger spoke, in his slow, drawling way, and every one stopped to listen.

"There's five of ye," he said, "that's found beetle, isn't there?"

"Yes," answered the Supervisor, "five."

"And I venture to bet," he continued, "that you found a dead tree lyin' in the middle of the infected patch!"

"Yes," said several voices, "we did."

"An' you didn't find much beetle except just round that one tree?"

"Not a bit," said one or two. "What about it?"

"There's a kind o' disease called Cholera," began Rifle-Eye in a conversational tone, "that drifts around a city in a queer sort o' way. It never hits two places at the same time, but if it goes up a street, it sort o' picks one side, an' stops at one place for a while then goes travelin' on. It acts jest as if a man was walkin' around, an' he was the cholera spirit himself."

"Well?" queried the Supervisor sharply.

The old Ranger smiled tolerantly at his impatience.

"Wa'al," he said, "I ain't believin' or disbelievin' the yarn. But I ain't believin' any such perambulatin' spirit for a bark-beetle. Especially when I finds wagon tracks leading to each place where the trouble is."

"What do you mean, Rifle-Eye?" asked Merritt. "Give it to us straight."

"I mean," he said, "that I ain't never heard of spirits needin' wagons to get around in. An' when I find dead trees containin' bark-beetles planted promiscuous where they'll do most good, I'm aimin' to draw a bead on the owner o' that wagon. An' I'll ask another thing. Did any o' you find the stumps of them infected trees?"

There was a long pause, and then McGinnis, always the first to see, laughed out loud ruefully.

"'Tis a black sorrow to me," he said, "that I didn't let Ben welt him wid the ax the other day. Somebody else will have to do it now."

"You mean," said the Supervisor, flaming, "that those trees were deliberately brought here to infect the forest, trees full of beetles?"

"Sure, 'tis as plain as the nose on your face," said McGinnis. "An' it's dubs we were not to see it ourselves."

"And it was—?"

"The bucko pea-jammer that I gave a lickin' to in the spring, for sure," said McGinnis. "Peavey Jo, of course, who else?"



CHAPTER X

A FOURTH OF JULY PERIL

Wilbur stayed but a few days at headquarters, the Supervisor and Rifle-Eye having succeeded in trailing the wagon that had deposited the trees from the point of its entrance into the forest to the place it went out, by this means ensuring the discovery of all the spots where diseased trees had been placed. One of them was in Wilbur's section of the forest, and he was required to go weekly and examine all the trees in the vicinity of the infected spot to make sure that the danger was over. But, thanks to Rifle-Eye's discovery, the threatened pest was speedily held down to narrow limits.

This added not a little to the lad's riding, for the place where Peavey Jo had deposited the infected tree in his particular part of the forest was a long way from the trail to the several lookout points to which he went daily to watch for fires. Fortunately, having built the little bridge across the canyon, and thus on one of the days of the week having shortened his ride, he was able to use the rest of the day looking after bark-beetles. But it made a very full week. He could not neglect any part of these rides, for June was drawing to an end and there had been no rain for weeks.

One night, returning from a hard day, on which he had not only ridden his fire patrol, but had also spent a couple of hours rolling big rocks into a creek to keep it from washing out a trail should a freshet come, he found a large party of people at his camp. There was an ex-professor of social science of the old regime, his wife and little daughter, a guide, and a lavish outfit. Although the gate of Wilbur's corral was padlocked and had "Property of the U. S. Forest Service" painted on it, the professor had ordered the guide to smash the gate and let the animals in.

Wilbur was angry, and took no pains to conceal it.

"Who turned those horses into my corral?" he demanded.

The professor, who wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses above a very dirty and tired face, replied:

"I am in charge of this party, and it was done at my orders."

"By what right do you steal my pasture?" asked the boy hotly.

"I understood," said the professor loftily, "that it was the custom of the West to be hospitable. But you are probably too young to know. Your parents live here?"

"No," replied the lad. "I am a Forest Guard, and in charge of this station. You will have to camp elsewhere."

At these last words the flap of the tent was parted and a woman came out, the professor's wife, in fact. She looked very tired and much troubled.

"What is this?" she asked querulously. "Have we got to start again to-night?"

Wilbur took off his hat.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I did not know there were ladies in the party." He turned to the professor. "I suppose if it will bother them I'll have to let you stay. But if it hadn't been for that I'd have turned every beast you've got out into the forest and let them rustle for themselves."

"Yes, you would!" said the guide. "An' what would I have had to say?"

"Nothing," said Wilbur, "except that I'd have you arrested for touching U. S. property." He turned to the professor: "How did you get here?" he said.

"Up that road," said the older man, pointing to the southwest.

"And why didn't you camp a couple of miles down? There's much better ground down there."

"The guide said there was no place at all, and he didn't know anything about this camp, either, and we thought we would have to go on all night."

Wilbur snorted.

"Guide!" he said contemptuously. "Acts more like a stable hand!"

"Well," said the professor testily, "if there's been any damage done you can tell your superiors to send me a bill and I'll take the matter up in Washington. In the meantime, we will stay here, and if I like it here, I will stay a week or two."

"Not much, you won't," said Wilbur, "at least you won't have any horses in the corral after daybreak to-morrow morning. I'll let them have one good feed, anyhow, and if they're traveling with a thing like that to look after them,"—he pointed to the "guide,"—"they'll need a rest. But out they go to-morrow."

"We will see to-morrow," said the camper.

"In the meantime, I see a string of trout hanging there. Are they fresh?"

"I caught them early this morning," answered Wilbur, "before I began my day's work."

The professor took out a roll of bills.

"How much do you want for them!" he asked.

"They are not for sale," the boy replied.

"Oh, but I must have them," the other persisted. "I had quite made up my mind to have those for supper to-night."

"And I suppose, if I hadn't come home when I did," said Wilbur, "you would have stolen those, too!"

"I would have recompensed you adequately," the former college official replied. "And you have no right to use the word 'stolen.' I shall report you for impertinence."

By this time Wilbur was almost too angry to talk, and, thinking it better not to say too much, he turned on his heel and went to his own tent. Before going down to the corral with Kit, however, he took the precaution of carrying the string of fish with him, for he realized that although the professor would not for the world have taken them without paying, he would not hesitate to appropriate them in his absence. He cooked his trout with a distinct delight in the thought that the intruders had nothing except canned goods.

In the morning Wilbur was up and had breakfast over before the other camp was stirring. As soon as the "guide" appeared Wilbur walked over to him.

"I've given you a chance to look after your animals," he said, "before turning them out. You take them out in ten minutes or I'll turn them loose."

"Aw, go on," said the other, "I've got to rustle grub. You haven't got the nerve to monkey with our horses."

Promptly at the end of the ten minutes Wilbur went over to the "guide" again.

"Out they go," he said.

But the other paid no attention. Wilbur went down to the corral, the gate of which he had fixed early that morning, caught his own two mounts, and tied them. Then he opened the gate of the corral and drove the other eight horses to the gate. In a moment he heard a wild shout and saw the "guide" coming down the trail in hot haste. He reached the corral in time to head off the first of his horses which was just coming through. Wilbur had no special desire to cause the animals to stray, and was only too well satisfied to help the "guide" catch them and tie them up to trees about the camp. By this time it was long after the hour that the boy usually began his patrol, but he waited to see the party start. As they were packing he noticed a lot of sticks that looked like rockets.

"What are those?" he asked. "If they're heavy, you're putting that pack on all wrong."

"These ain't got no weight," said the "guide"; "that's just some fireworks for the Fourth. We've got a bunch of them along for the little girl. She's crazy about fireworks."

Wilbur said no more, but waited until the professor came out. Then he walked up to him.

"I understand," he said, "that you have some fireworks for the Fourth."

The man addressed made no reply, but walked along as though he had not heard.

"I give you fair warning," said Wilbur, "that you can't set those off in this forest, Independence Day or no Independence Day."

"We shan't ask your permission," said the old pedant loftily. "In fact, some will be set off this evening, and some to-morrow, wherever we may be."

"But don't you understand," the boy said, "that you're putting the forest in danger, in awful danger of fire? And if a big forest fire starts, you are just as likely to suffer as any one else. You might cause a loss of millions of dollars for the sake of a few rockets."

"The man that sold me them," said the other, "said they were harmless, and he ought to know."

"All right," said Wilbur. "I've been told off to protect this forest from danger of fire, and if there's any greater danger around than a bunch like yours I haven't seen it. I reckon I'll camp on your trail till you're out of my end of the forest, and then I'll pass the word along and see that there's some one with you to keep you from making fools of yourselves."

He turned on his heel and commenced to make up a pack for his heavier horse, intending to ride Kit. He then went to the telephone and, finding no one at headquarters, called up the old hunter's cabin. The Ranger had a 'phone put in for Ben, who had learned how to use it, and by good fortune the half-witted lad knew where to find Rifle-Eye. He explained to Ben how matters stood, and asked him to get word to the Ranger if possible. Then Wilbur went back to the party and gave them a hand to get started.

Although he had been made very angry, Wilbur could see no gain in sulking and he spent the day trying to establish a friendly relation with the professor, so that, as he expressed it afterwards, "he could jolly him out of the fireworks idea." But while this scholastic visitor was willing to talk about subjects in connection with the government, and was quite well-informed on reclamation projects, Wilbur found the professor as stubborn as a mule, and every time he tried to bring the conversation round to forest fires he would be snubbed promptly.

That evening Wilbur led the party to a camping place where, he reasoned, there would be little likelihood of fire trouble, as it was a very open stand and all the brush on it had been piled and burned in the spring. But the lad was at his wits' end what further to do. He could not seize and carry off all the fireworks, and even if he were able to do so, he couldn't see that he had any right to. It was a great relief to the boy when he heard a horse on the trail and the old Ranger cantered up.

"Oh, Rifle-Eye," he said, "I'm so glad you've come. Tell me what to do," and the boy recounted his difficulty with the party from first to last.

The old woodsman listened attentively, and then said:

"I reckon, son, we'll stroll over and sorter see just how the land lies. There's a lot of things can be done with a mule by talkin' to him, although there is some that ain't wholly convinced by a stick of dynamite. We'll see which-all these here are."

"I think they're the dynamite kind," the boy replied.

"Well, we'll see," the Ranger repeated. He stepped in his loose-jointed way to where the party was sitting around the campfire. Then, looking straight at the man of the party, he said:

"You're a professor?"

The remark admitted of no reply but:

"I was for twenty years."

"And what did you profess?"

At this the camper rose to his feet, finding it uncomfortable to sit and look up at the tall, gaunt mountaineer. He replied testily that it wasn't anything to do with Rifle-Eye what chair he had held or in what college, and he'd trouble him to go about his business.

Rifle-Eye heard him patiently to the end, and then asked again, without any change of voice:

"And what did you profess?"

Once again the reputed educator expressed himself as to the Ranger's interference and declared that he had been more annoyed since coming into the forest than if he had stayed out of it. He worked himself up into a towering rage. Presently Rifle-Eye replied quietly:

"You refuse to tell?"

"I do," snapped the professor.

"Is it because you are ashamed of what you taught, or of where you taught it?" the Ranger asked.

This was touching the stranger in a tender place. He was proud of his college and of his hobby, and he retorted immediately:

"Ashamed? Certainly not. I was Professor of Social Economy in Blurtville University."

"And what do you call Social Economy?" asked Rifle-Eye.

The educator fell into the trap thus laid out for him and launched into a vigorous description of his own peculiar personal views toward securing a better understanding of the rights of the poor and of modern plans for ensuring better conditions of life, until he painted a picture of his science and his own aims which was most admirable. When he drew breath, he seemed quite pleased with himself.

The Ranger thought a minute.

"An' under which of these departments," he said, "would you put breakin' into this young fellow's corral, and havin' your eight horses eatin' up feed which will hardly be enough for his two when the dry weather comes?"

"That's another matter entirely," replied the professor, becoming angry as soon as he was criticised.

"Yes, it's another matter," said Rifle-Eye. "It's doin' instead of talkin'. I reckon you're one o' the talkin' kind, so deafened by the sound o' your own splutterin' that you can't hear any one else. It's a pity, too, that you don't learn somethin' yourself before you set others to learnin'."

"Are you trying to teach me?" snapped the traveler.

The old Ranger leaned his arm on the barrel of his rifle, which, according to his invariable custom, he was carrying with him, a habit from old hunting days, and looking straight at the professor, said:

"I ain't no great shakes on Social Economy, as you call it, and I ain't been to college. But I c'n see right enough that there's no real meanin' to you in all you know about the rich an' the poor when you'll go an' rob a lad o' the pasture he'll need for his horses; an' you're only actin' hypocrite in lecturin' about promotin' good feelin's in society when you're busy provokin' bad feelin' yourself. An' when you're harpin' on the deep canyon that lies between Knowledge an' Ignorance, it don't pay to forget that Politeness is a mighty easy bridge to rear, an' one that's always safe. You may profess well enough, Mister Professor, but you're a pretty ornery example o' practisin'."

"But it's none of your business—" interrupted the stranger angrily.

Rifle-Eye with a gesture stopped him.

"It's just as much my business to talk to you," he said, "as it'd be yours to talk to me. In fact it's more. You c'n talk in your lecture room, an' I'll talk here. Perhaps it ain't altogether your fault; it's just that you don't know any better. You're just a plumb ignorant critter out here, Mister Professor, an' by rights you oughtn't to be around loose.

"An' you tried to threaten a boy here who was doin' his duty by sayin' that you'd write to Washington. What for? Are you so proud o' thievin' an' bullyin' that you want every one to know, or do you want to tell only a part o' the story so as you'll look all right an' the other fellow all wrong. That breed o' Social Economy don't go, not out here. We calls it lyin', an' pretty mean lyin' at that."

He broke off suddenly and looked down with a smile.

"Well, Pussy," he said, "that's right. You come an' back me up," and reaching out his brown gnarled hand he drew to his side the little girl who had come trustingly forward to him as all children did, and now had slipped her little hand into his.

"An' then there's this question o' fire," he continued. "Haven't you got some fireworks for the Fourth, Pussy?" he said, looking down at his little companion.

"Oh, yeth," she lisped, "pin-wheelth, and crackerth, and thnaketh, and heapth of thingth."

"What a time we'll have," he said. "Shall we look at them now?"

"Oh, yeth," the little girl replied, and ran across to her father, "can we thee them now?"

"No, not now," the father replied.

The old Ranger called the "guide" by name.

"Miguel," he said, "the fireworks are wanted to-night. Bring 'em to me."

The professor protested, but a glance at the sinewy frame of the mountaineer decided Miguel, and he brought several packages. In order to please the little girl, Rifle-Eye lent her his huge pocket-knife and let her open the packages, sharing the surprises with her. Some of them he put aside, especially the rockets, but by far the larger number he let the child make up into a pile.

"Will you give me your word you won't set off these?" queried the mountaineer, pointing to the smaller pile of dangerous explosives with his foot.

"I'll say nothing," said the professor.

Without another word the Ranger stooped down, picked them up in one big armful, and disappeared beyond the circle of the light of the campfire into the darkness. He reappeared in a few minutes.

"I'm afeard," he said, "your fireworks may be a little wet. I tied 'em in a bundle, fastened a stone to 'em, an' then dropped 'em in that little lake. You can't do any harm with those you've got now." He waited a moment. "You can get those rockets," he said, "any time you have a mind to. That lake dries up about the middle of September."

"By what right—" began the professor.

"I plumb forget what sub-section you called that partickler right just now," Rifle-Eye replied, "but out here we calls it fool-hobblin'. You're off your range, Mister Professor, an' the change o' feed has got you locoed mighty bad. I reckon you'd better trot back to your own pastures in the East, an' stay there till you know a little more."

"What is your name and address?" blustered the professor; "I'll have the law invoked for this."

"There's few in the Rockies as don't know old Rifle-Eye Bill," the Ranger replied, "an' my address is wherever I c'n find some good to be done. Any one c'n find me when I'm wanted, an' I'm ready any time you say. Now, you're goin' to celebrate the Fourth to-morrow, to show how fond you are o' good government. You c'n add to your lectures on Social Economy one rule you don't know any thin' about. It's a Western rule, this one, an' it's just that no man that can't govern himself can govern anythin' else."

He turned on his heel, ignoring the reply shouted after him, and followed by Wilbur, mounted and rode away up the trail.

"I've got to get right back," said the Ranger; "we're goin' to start workin' out a special sale of poles."

"Telegraph poles?" queried Wilbur.

"Yes."

"When you come to think of it," said the boy, "there must be quite a lot of poles all over the country."

"Merritt said he reckoned there was about sixteen million poles now in use, an' three and a half million poles are needed every year just for telegraph and telephone purposes alone."

"When you think," said Wilbur, "that every telegraph and telephone pole means a whole tree, there's some forest been cut down, hasn't there?"

"How many poles do you s'pose are used in a mile?"

"About forty, I heard at school," the boy replied, "and it takes an army of men working all the year round just puttin' in poles."

The old hunter struck a match and put a light to his pipe.

"More forest destruction," said the boy mischievously, "I should think, Rifle-Eye, you'd be ashamed to waste wood by burning it up in the form of matches."

"Go on talkin'," said Rifle-Eye, "you like tellin' me these things you picked up at the Ranger School. Can you tell how much timber is used, or how many matches are lighted an' thrown away?"

"Three million matches a minute, every minute of the twenty-four hours," said Wilbur immediately. "That is," he added after a moment's calculation, "nearly four and a half billion a day. And then only the very best portion of the finest wood can be used, and, as I hear, the big match factories turn out huge quantities of other stuff, like doors and window sashes, in order to use up the wood which is not of the very finest quality, such as is needed for matches."

"How do they saw 'em so thin, I wonder?" interposed the Ranger.

"Some of it is sawed both ways," the boy replied. "Some logs are boiled and then revolved on a lathe which makes a continuous shaving the thickness of a match, and a lot of matches are paper-pulp, which is really wood after all. There's no saying, Rifle-Eye," he continued, laughing, "how many good trees have been cut down to make a light for your pipe."

The old hunter puffed hard, as the pipe was not well lighted.

"Well," he said, "I guess I'll let the Forest Guards handle it." He looked across at the boy. "It's up to you," he said, "to keep me goin.' Got a match?"



CHAPTER XI

AMIDST A CATTLE STAMPEDE

Wilbur would have liked greatly to be able to stay at his little tent home and celebrate the Fourth of July in some quiet fashion, but the fireworks folly of the professor's party had got on his nerve a little, and he was not satisfied until he really got into the saddle and was on his way to a lookout point. Nor was he entirely without reward, for shortly before noon, as he rode along his accustomed trail, a half-Indian miner met him and told him he had been waiting to ask him to dinner. And there, with all the ceremony the little shack could muster, this simple family had prepared a feast to the only representative of the United States that lived near them, and Wilbur, boy-like, had to make a speech, and rode along the trail later in the afternoon, feeling that he had indeed had a glorious Fourth of July dinner in the Indian's cabin.

The week following the Supervisor rode up, much to Wilbur's surprise, who had not expected to see him back in that part of the forest so soon. But Merritt, who indeed was anxious to get away, by his conversation showed that he was awaiting the arrival and conveyance of a trainload of machinery for the establishment of a large pulp-mill on the Kern River. The trail over which this machinery would have to be taken was brushed out and ready, all save about nine miles of it, a section too small to make it worth while to call a Ranger from another part of the forest. So the Supervisor announced his intention of doing the work himself, together with Wilbur. The night preceding, just before they turned in for the night, the boy turned to his chief and said:

"What time in the morning, Mr. Merritt?"

"I'll call you," replied the Supervisor.

He did, too, for at sharp five o'clock the next morning Wilbur was wakened to find the older man up and with breakfast ready.

"I ought to have got breakfast, sir," said the boy; "why didn't you leave it for me?"

"You need more sleep than I do," was the sufficient answer. "Now, tuck in."

The boy waited for no second invitation and devoted his attention to securing as much grub as he could in the shortest possible time. Breakfast was over, the camp straightened up, and they were in the saddle by a quarter to six. It was ten miles from Wilbur's camp to the point where the trail should start. The country was very rough, and it was drawing on for nine o'clock when they reached the point desired.

"Now," said the Supervisor, "take the brush hook and clear the trail as I locate it."

Wilbur, accordingly, following immediately after his chief, worked for all he knew how, cutting down the brushwood and preparing the trail. Every once in a while Merritt, who had blazed the trail some distance ahead, would return, and, bidding the boy pile brush, would attack the underwood as though it were a personal enemy of his and would cover the ground in a way that would make Wilbur's most strenuous moments seem trifling in comparison. Once he returned and saw the lad laboring for dear life, breathing hard, and showing by his very pose that he was tiring rapidly, although it was not yet noon, and he called to him.

"Loyle," he said, "what are you breaking your neck at it that way for?"

"I don't come near doing as much as I ought unless I do hurry," he said. "And then I'm a long way behind."

"You mean as much as me?"

The boy nodded.

"Absurd. No two men's speed is the same. Don't force work. Find out what gait you can keep up all day and do that. Make your own standard, don't take another man's."

"But I go so slowly!"

"Want to know it all and do it all the first summer, don't you? Suppose no one else had to learn? I don't work as hard as you do, though I get more done. You can't buck up against an old axman. I haven't done this for some time, but I guess I haven't forgotten how. Go and sit down and get your breath."

"But I'm not tired—" began Wilbur protestingly.

"Sit down," he was ordered, and the boy, feeling it was better to do what he was told, did so. After he had a rest, which indeed was very welcome, the Supervisor called him.

"Loyle," he said, "you know something about a horse, for I've watched you with them. Handle yourself the same way. You wouldn't force a horse; don't force yourself."

Moreover, the older man showed the boy many ways wherein to save labor, explaining that there was a right way and a wrong way of attacking every different kind of bush. In consequence, when Wilbur started again in the afternoon he found himself able to do almost half as much again with less labor. Working steadily all day until sundown, five miles of the trail had been located, brushed out, and marked.

There was a small lake near by, and thinking that it would be less fatiguing for the boy to catch fish than to look after the camp, the Supervisor sent him off to try his luck. Wilbur, delighted to have been lucky, returned in less than fifteen minutes with four middling-sized trout, and he found himself hungry enough to eat his two, almost bones and all. That night they slept under a small Baker tent that Merritt had brought along on his pack horse, the riding and pack saddles being piled beside the tent and covered with a slicker.

The following day, by starting work a little after daybreak, the remaining four miles of the trail were finished before the noonday halt, which was made late in order to allow the completion of the work. Wilbur, when he reviewed the fact that they had gone foot by foot over nine miles of trail, clearing out the brush and piling it, so that it could be burned and rendered harmless as soon as it was dry, thought it represented as big a two days' work as he had ever covered.

"Will the pulp-mill be above or below the new Edison plant?" queried Wilbur on their way home.

"Above," said his companion. "I'll show you just where. You're going to ride down with me to the site of the mill to-morrow. There's a lot of spruce here, and it ought to pay."

"But I thought," said Wilbur, "that paper-pulp was such a destructive way of using timber?"

"It is," answered Merritt, "but paper is a necessity. A book is more important than a board."

"But doesn't it take a lot of wood to make a little paper?" asked the boy. "There's been such a howl about paper-pulp that I thought it must be fearfully wasteful."

"It isn't wasteful at all," was the reply. "A cord and a half of spruce will make a ton of pulp. Where the outcry comes in is the quantity used. One newspaper uses a hundred and fifty tons of paper a day. That means two hundred and twenty-five cords of wood. The stand of spruce here is about ten cords to the acre. So one newspaper would clean off ten acres a day or three thousand acres a year."

"But wouldn't it ruin the forest to take it off at that rate?"

"Certainly," the Supervisor answered, "but the sale will be so arranged that not more will be sold each year than will be good for the forest."

"Is all paper made of spruce?" asked Wilbur.

"No. Many kinds of wood will make paper. Carolina poplar and tulip wood are both satisfactory."

"Except for the branches and knot-wood," said Wilbur, "almost every part of every kind of tree is good for something."

"And you can use those, too," came the instant reply. "That's what dry distillation is for. All that you've got to do is fill a retort with wood and put a furnace under it, and all pine tree leavings can be transformed into tar and acetic acid, from which they can make vinegar, as well as wood alcohol and charcoal."

Finding that the boy was thoroughly interested in the possibilities of lumber, the Supervisor, usually so silent and brief in manner, opened out a little and talked for two straight hours to Wilbur on the possibilities of forestry. He showed the value of turpentine and resin in the pine trees and advocated the planting of hemlock trees and oak trees for their bark, as used in the tanning industry.

As the Forester warmed up to his subject, Wilbur thought he was listening to an "Arabian Nights" fairy tale. Despite his customary silence Merritt was an enthusiast, and believed that forestry was the "chief end of man." He assured the boy that twenty different species of tree of immense value could be acclimatized in North America which are of great commercial value now in South America; he compared the climate in the valleys of the lower Mississippi with those of the Ganges, and named tree after tree, most of them entirely unknown to Wilbur, which would be of high value in the warm, swampy bottoms. And when Wilbur ventured to express doubt, he was confronted with the example of the eucalyptus, commonly called gum tree, once a native of Australia, now becoming an important American tree.

All the way home and all through supper the Supervisor talked, until when it finally became time to turn in, the boy dreamed of an ideal time when every acre of land in the United States should be rightly occupied; the arid land irrigated from streams fed by reservoirs in the forested mountains; the rivers full of navigation and never suffering floods; the farms possessing their wood-lots all duly tended; and every inch of the hills and mountains clothed with forests—pure stands, or mixed stands, as might best suit the conditions—each forest being the best possible for its climate and its altitude.

But he had to get up at five o'clock next morning, just the same, and dreams became grim realities when he found himself in the saddle again and off for a day's work before six. A heavy thunderstorm in the night had made everything fresh and shining, but at the same time the water on the underbrush soaked Wilbur through and through when he went out to wrangle the horses. Merritt's riding horse, a fine bay with a blazed face, had a bad reputation in the country, which Wilbur had heard, and he was in an ugly frame of mind when the boy found him. But Wilbur was not afraid of horses, and he soon got him saddled.

"I think Baldy's a little restless this morning, sir," ventured Wilbur, as they went to the corral to get their horses. But he received no answer. The Supervisor's fluent streak had worn itself out the day before and he was more silent than ever this morning.

Merritt swung himself into his saddle, and, as Wilbur expected, the bay began to buck. It was then, more than ever, that the boy realized the difference between the riding he had seen on the plains and ordinary riding. Merritt was a good rider, and he stuck to his saddle well. But Wilbur could see that it was with difficulty, and that the task was a hard one. There was none of the easy grace with which Bob-Cat Bob had ridden, and when Baldy did settle down Wilbur felt that his rider had considered his keeping his seat quite a feat, not regarding it as a trifling and unimportant incident in the day.

Merritt and the boy rode on entirely off the part of the forest on which Wilbur had his patrol, to a section he did not know. They stopped once to look over a young pine plantation. Just over a high ridge there was a wider valley traversed by an old road which crossed the main range about five miles west and went down into a valley where there were numerous ranches. The principal occupation of these ranchmen was stock-raising, on account of their long distance from a railroad which prevented them marketing any produce. Just about July of each year these ranchmen rounded up their stock, cut out the beef steers, and shipped them to the markets. It was then the last week in July, and the Supervisor expected to meet some of the herds upon the old road which crossed the mountains further on. Just as they reached the bottom of the hill they saw the leaders of a big herd coming down the road from the pass. In the distance a couple of cowpunchers could be seen in front holding up the lead of the bunch.

"I'll wait and talk," said Merritt, reining in. As perhaps he had exchanged four whole sentences in two hours' ride, Wilbur thought to himself that the conversation would have to be rather one-sided, but he knew the other believed in seizing every opportunity to promote friendliness with the people in his forest and waited their upcoming with interest. The Supervisor had his pack-horse with him, and as the herd drew nearer he told Wilbur to take him out of sight into the brush, so as not to scare the steers, and tie him up safely. That done, Wilbur rode back to the road.

By the time he had returned the two punchers had ridden up. One proved to be the foreman of the outfit, by name Billy Grier, and the other a Texan, whom Merritt called Tubby Rodgers, apparently because he was as thin as a lath.

"I was a-hopin'," said Grier as he rode up, "that you-all was headin' down the road a bit."

"I wasn't planning to," said the Forester. "Why?"

"We had a heavy storm down in the valley last night, which sort of broke things up badly, an' I had to leave a couple of men behind."

"Don't want to hire us to drive, do you?" asked Merritt.

"Allers willin' to pay a good man," said the foreman with a grin. "Give ye forty and chuck."

The Supervisor smiled.

"I'm supposed to be holding down a soft job," he said; "government service."

"Soft job," snorted Grier, "they'd have to give me the bloomin' forest afore I'd go at it the way you do. But, Merritt," he added, "this is how. A piece down the road, say a mile an' a half, I'm told there's a rotten bit o' road, an' I'm a little leery of trouble there. I'd have strung out the cattle three times as far if I'd known of it. But I had no chance; I've only just heard that some old county board is tryin' to fix a bridge, an' they're movin' about as rapid as a spavined mule with three broken legs."

"Well?" queried Merritt; "I suppose you want us to help you over that spot."

"That's it, pard," said the foreman; "an' I'll do as much for you some time."

"I wish you could, but I'll never have a string of cattle like those to turn into good hard coin."

"Well," said the cowpuncher, "why not?"

"Nothing doing," replied Merritt; "the Forest Service is an incurable disease that nobody ever wants to be cured of."

By this time the head of the bunch of steers was drawing close and the foreman repeated his request.

"All right," answered the Forester, who thought it good policy to have the ranchman feel that he was under obligations to the Service, "we'll give you a hand all right."

After riding down the road for about a mile it became precipitous, and Wilbur could readily see where there was likely to be trouble. Shortly before they reached the place where the bridge was being repaired the bank on the right-hand side of the road gave place to a sheer drop forty to fifty feet high and deepening with every step forward. As the bunch neared the bridge Merritt and Wilbur, with the cowpunchers, slowed up until the steers were quite close. Then Grier and Rodgers went ahead over the bridge, while Merritt waited until about fifty cattle had passed and then swung in among them, telling Wilbur to do the same when about another fifty head had passed.

At first Wilbur could not see the purpose of this, and he had great difficulty in forcing his horse among the cattle. But they pressed back as he swung into the road, giving him a little space to ride in, and thus dividing the head of the drove into two groups of fifty. Following instructions, Wilbur gradually pressed the pace of the bunch in order to prevent any chance of overcrowding from the rear.

It seemed easy enough. Owing to the narrowness of the road and the precipitous slope it was impossible for the steers to scatter, and as long as the pace was kept up, there was likely to be no difficulty. But Kit—Wilbur was riding Kit—suddenly pricked her ears and began to dance a little in her steps. The steers, although their pace had not changed, were snuffling in an uncertain fashion, and Wilbur vaguely became conscious that fear was abroad. He quieted Kit, but could see from every motion that she was catching the infection of the fear. He tightened his hold on the lines, for he saw that if she tried to bolt both of them would go over the edge. Wilbur looked down.

A hundred yards or so further on the road widened slightly, and Wilbur wondered whether it would be possible for him to work his way to the right of the steers and gallop full speed alongside the herd to get in front of them; but even as he thought of the plan he realized that it would scarcely be possible, and that unless he reached the front of the herd before the road narrowed again he would be forced over the edge. And, as he reached the wider place, he saw Grier and Rodgers standing. They also had sensed the notion of fear and were waiting to see what could be done in the main body of the herd. Merritt had worked his way through the steers, and was riding in the lead. Wilbur wondered how he had ever been able to force Baldy through. This put Wilbur behind a bunch of about one hundred steers and in front of five or six hundred more.

Below him, to the right, was a valley, the drop now being about one hundred and fifty feet, and Wilbur could see at the edge of the creek, pitched among some willows, a little tent, the white contrasting strongly with the green of the willows. The road wound round high above the valley in order to keep the grade. Twice Wilbur halted Kit to try to stop the foremost of the herd behind him from pressing on too close, but the third time Kit would not halt. She was stepping as though on springs, with every muscle and sinew tense, and the distance between the steers before and the steers behind was gradually lessening.

Wilbur realized that as long as the even, slow pace was kept he was in no danger, but if once the steers began to run his peril would be extreme. He could turn neither to the right nor to the left, the little pony was nothing in weight compared to the steers, and even if she were, he stood a chance of having his legs crushed. The only hope was to keep the two herds apart. He wheeled Kit. But as the little mare turned and faced the tossing heads and threatening horns, she knew, as did Wilbur instantaneously, that with the force behind them, no single man could stop the impetus of the herd, although only traveling slowly. Indeed, if he tried, he could see that the rear by pressure onwards would force the outside ranks midway down the herd over the edge of the cliff. Kit spun round again almost on one hoof, all but unseating Wilbur.

But even in that brief moment there had been a change, and the boy felt it. The steers were nervous, and, worst of all, he knew that Kit could realize that he himself was frightened. When a horse feels that the rider is frightened, anything is apt to happen. Wilbur's judgment was not gone, but he was ready to yell. The herd behind grew closer and closer. Presently the walk broke into a short trot, the horns of the following bunch of steers appeared at Kit's flanks, a rumbling as of half-uttered bellows was heard from the rear of the herd, and, on the instant, the steers began to run.



CHAPTER XII

ALMOST TRAMPLED TO DEATH

The minute the stampede began Wilbur's nerves steadied, and with voice more than with hand he quieted Kit. It took a moment or two for the front group to break into the running gallop of the frightened steer, and two head of cattle not twenty feet from Wilbur were forced over the edge before the leaders started to run. In this moment the rear bunch closed up solidly and Wilbur was hemmed in.

The pace became terrific, and as they hurtled along the face of the cliff with the precipice below, Wilbur noted to his horror that he was gradually being forced to the outer edge. Being lighter than the steers, the heavier animals were surging ahead alongside the cliff wall, and the little pony with the boy on his back was inch by inch being forced to the verge, of which there was a clear fall now of about one hundred feet. Vainly he looked for a tree overhanging the road into which he could leap; there were no trees. And every few strides he found himself appreciably nearer the edge. Looking back, as far as he could see the steers were crowding, and looking forward the road curved, hiding what might lie before.

His feet were out of the stirrups and well forward, so that, although he had received three or four bruising encounters as the cattle lurched and surged against him, he was unhurt. Several times Kit was hurled from her stride, but she always picked up her feet neatly again. Wilbur could not but admire the little mare, although he felt that there was no hope for them.

Then suddenly, with an angry bellow, a big black steer which had been pushing up on the inside turned his head and tried to gore the pony. There was not room, however, but the action so angered Wilbur that, pulling his six-shooter, he sent a bullet crashing to his brain. The steer gave a wild lurch, but did not fall immediately, and in an instant was forced to the edge and fell into the valley below. Instantly, Kit, even before Wilbur could speak or lay hand on the rein, gave a sidewise jump into the hole made by the place the black steer had occupied. In one stride as much gain away from the dangerous edge had been made as had been lost in the previous half mile.

More at his ease, but for the fearful speed and the danger that Kit might lose her footing, Wilbur looked ahead, talking to the steers around, endeavoring to quiet them, noting that the road was turning more sharply in the valley, although the downward grade was steeper and it was increasingly hard for the little pony to hold up. But as they turned the curve, there, immediately before them, standing in the middle of the road, with their fishing poles over their shoulders, were a man and a boy, evidently entirely ignorant of the danger so rapidly approaching. The bank above was too steep to climb, and the one below straight ninety feet sheer to the creek. To Wilbur it looked like sure death, and a most awful one at that, but he at least was utterly unable to do anything to prevent it, and he shuddered to think that he himself might be trampling with his pony's hoofs on what might be below.

But just as he had in that instant decided that there was no help for it, he suddenly saw Merritt on old Baldy shoot forward like an arrow from a bow stretched to the uttermost. The herd of steers was traveling at a rapid clip, but under the startling influence of combined quirt and spur, and with no room in which to display his bucking propensities, Baldy just put himself to running, and only hit the high spots here and there.

It seemed incredible to Wilbur that any horse could stop, especially on a down grade, at the speed that Baldy was traveling, but just before he reached the man and boy, having previously shouted to warn them, Merritt pulled up with a jerk that brought Baldy clear back on his haunches. Like a flash of light he leaped from the horse and half lifted, half pushed the man into the saddle, tossed the boy up behind him, and then, grabbing hold of the slicker which was tied behind the cantle, he hit old Baldy a slap with the quirt, and down the road they went, not twenty yards ahead of the steers, Baldy carrying on his back the man and the boy, and Merritt, hanging on like grim death, trying to run, taking strides that looked as though he wore seven-leagued boots. The speed was terrific and presently Wilbur noticed that Merritt was keeping both feet together, putting his weight on the saddle, and vaulting along in immense leaps. One moment he was there, but the next moment that Wilbur looked ahead Baldy was still racing down the road with his double load, but Merritt was nowhere to be seen. It was with a sickening feeling that Wilbur realized that he must have lost his hold, and was in the same peril from which he had saved the man and the boy.

For a few fearful minutes Wilbur watched the ground beneath his horse's feet, but saw no object in the occasional glimpses he could secure of the dusty road. Once again Wilbur found himself being forced to the outer edge of the road, but the cliff was shallowing rapidly, and now they were not more than twenty feet above the valley with the road curving into it in the distance. A couple of hundred feet further on, however, a hillock rose abruptly, coming within four feet of the level of the road, and Wilbur decided to put the pony at it, seeing there was a chance of safety, and that even if they both got bad falls, there was no fear of being trampled.

Allowing the pony to come to the outside, he reined her in hard and led her to the jump, swinging from the saddle as he did so in order to give both Kit and himself a fair chance. The pony, released from the weight of the rider before she struck ground, met it in a fair stride, and without losing footing kept up the gait to the bottom of the hillock, pulling up herself on the level grass below. But Wilbur, not being able to estimate his jump, because he was in the act of vaulting from the saddle, struck the ground all in a heap, crumpled up as though he were broken in pieces and was hurled down the hill, reaching the bottom stunned. He was unconscious for several minutes, but when he came to himself, Kit was standing over him, nosing him with her soft muzzle as though to bring him round. Weakly he staggered to his feet, and seeing Kit standing patiently, managed to clamber into the saddle.

The pony started immediately at an easy canter, crossing the valley and meeting the herd where the road ran into the level. The cattle were tired from the run, and sick and bruised as he was, Wilbur headed them off and rounded them up, being aided presently by Rodgers and Grier, who had found themselves unable to cut into the stampeding herd, and consequently had waited until the whole herd got by, when they had ridden back along the trail a little distance, got down to the creek by a bridle path, and crossed the valley by a short cut.

In the distance Baldy could be seen grazing, and Wilbur lightly touched Kit with the spur to find out what had happened. The bay, as soon as he had stopped running, evidently had bucked off his two riders, who were still sitting on the ground, apparently dazed. The man, who was evidently an Eastern tourist, was pale as ashes and dumb with fright, and could tell nothing. The boy knew no more than, "He had to let go, he had to let go."

Together with Grier, Wilbur started back along the road to look for what might be left of Merritt. The foreman tried to persuade the lad to stay, for he was bleeding from a scalp wound and his left wrist was sorely twisted, if not actually sprained, but Wilbur replied that he had said he was going back to look for Merritt, and go back he would if both arms and legs were broken. Kit, although very much blown, was willing to be taken up the road at a fair gallop, when, just as they turned a corner, they almost ran down the Supervisor, who was walking down the road as unconcernedly as though nothing had happened.

"Oh, Mr. Merritt," cried the boy, "I thought you were dead."

"Cheerful greeting, that," answered the Forester. "No, I'm not dead. You look nearer it than I do."

"But didn't you get run down?"

"Do I look as if I'd been a sidewalk for a thousand steers?" was the disgusted reply. "Don't ask silly questions, Loyle."

But the foreman broke in:

"The boy's right enough to ask," he said; "an' there's no reason why you shouldn't tell. How did you dodge the steers?"

"That was easy enough," said Merritt. "I held on to Baldy until I saw a crack in the rock big enough to hold a man. Then I let go and crawled into that until the herd passed by."

The boy breathed a sigh of relief.

"I sure thought you were gone," he said.

The Supervisor scanned him keenly, then slapped Kit heartily on the flank.

"You've got a good little mare there," he said; "there's not many of them could have done it. Tell me all about it some time. What started them?" he added, turning to the cattleman.

"That fool new bridge gave way just as the last of the bunch crowded on it. About twenty of them fell over the cliff there, and about thirty more along the road. But it might have been a heap worse, an' you ought ter have two life-savin' medals."

Merritt's only reply was a gesture of protest.

"An' you, youngster," went on the cattleman, "you kept your nerve and rode a bully ride. I wish you'd take my quirt and keep it from me as a remembrance of your first experience with a cattle stampede."

Wilbur stammered some words of thanks, but the foreman waved them aside.

"And now," said the Supervisor, with an entire change of tone, "I guess we'll go back and get the pack-horse and go on to the valley."

As they rode over the bridge Wilbur noted with a great deal of interest the breakage of the supporting timbers on the outer side, and looking down into the valley beneath, he could see the bodies of the cattle who had been pushed over the edge in the stampede.

"I read a story once," said the boy, "of a youngster who got caught in a stampede of buffalo, and when his horse lost his footing he escaped by jumping from the back of one buffalo to another until he reached the outside of the herd. But I never believed it much."

"It makes a good yarn," said the Supervisor, "an' it's a little like the story they tell of Buffalo Bill, who, trying to get away from a buffalo stampede, was thrown by his horse puttin' his foot in a badger hole and breaking his leg."

"Why, what in the world did he do?" queried Wilbur.

"He waited until the foremost buffalo was just upon him, then gave a leap, clear over his horns, and landed on his back, then turning sharply round so as to face the head instead of the tail, he pulled out his revolver and kept shooting to one side of the buffalo's head, just past his eye, so that at every shot the beast turned a little more to one side, thus cutting him out of the herd. Then, when he was clear of the herd, he shot the buffalo."

"What for?" asked Wilbur indignantly. "It seems a shame to kill the buffalo which had got him free."

"What chance would he have had against an angered buffalo alone and on foot?" said Merritt. "He couldn't very well get off and make a bow to the beast and have the buffalo drop a curtsey?"

"I hadn't thought of that," said the boy, laughing.

"I was afraid I might have to try that dodge, but when I saw the crack in the rock I knew it was all right."

"Well," said Wilbur as they turned off the road to where the pack-horse had been picketed, "I think we're both pretty lucky to have come off so easily."

Merritt looked at the lad. He was dusty and grimy to a degree, his clothes were torn in a dozen places where he had gone rolling down the hill, a handkerchief was roughly knotted around his head, and there were streaks of dried blood in his hair.

"You look a little the worse for wear," he said; "maybe you'd better go home, and I'll go on alone."

"I won't," said Wilbur.

"You what?" came the curt rebuke. "You mean that you would rather not."

"Yes, sir," said the boy. "I mean that I don't feel too used up."

The Supervisor nodded and rode on ahead. For a couple of miles or so, they rode single file, and in spite of the boy's bold announcement that he was not too badly shaken up, by the time he had ridden nearly an hour more in the hot sun his head was aching furiously and he was beginning to stiffen up. Accordingly he was glad when a cabin hove in sight, and he cantered up to ask if they might call for a drink of water.

"We stop here," was the laconic reply.

As they rode up a big man came out of the house, which was quite a fair-sized place, to meet them.

"Well, Merritt," he said, "what have you got for me this time?" motioning to the boy.

"No patient for you, Doc," said Merritt; "one for your wife."

The mountain doctor laughed, a great big hearty laugh.

"Violet," he called, "you're taking my practice away from me. Here's a patient that says he won't have me, but wants you."

Immediately at his call, a small, slender woman came to the porch of the house, and seeing the doctor helping Wilbur down from the saddle, stepped forward.

"I can walk all right," said Wilbur when the doctor put out a hand to steady him. "I just wanted a drink of water."

"Right you are," said the doctor, "we'll give you all the water you want, just in a minute. Now," he continued as he led the boy into the house, "let's have a look at the trouble."

But Wilbur interposed.

"This Forest Service," he said, smiling, "is the worst that ever happened for having to obey orders, and Mr. Merritt put me in charge of your wife, not you."

The big doctor put his hand on the shoulder of his wife and roared until the house shook with his laughter. It was impossible to resist the infection, and Wilbur, despite his headache, found himself laughing with the rest. But the doctor's wife, stepping quietly forward, took the lad aside and, removing the handkerchief that Grier had wound around his head, bathed the wound and cleansed it. She had just finished this when the doctor came over, still laughing. He touched the wound deftly, and Wilbur was amazed to find that the touch of this large, hearty man was just as soft and tender as that of his wife. There was power in his very finger-tips, and the boy felt it. He looked up, smiling.

"I guess you're Doctor Davis," he said.

"Why?" said the doctor; "what makes you think so?"

"Oh, I just felt it," the boy replied. "I've heard a lot about you."

"I'm 'it,' all right," said the doctor, "but you've refused to allow me to attend you. I'll turn the case over to Dr. Violet Davis," and he laughed again.

Mrs. Davis smiled brightly in response and continued attending to the boy. Then she turned to the two men.

"You've put this case in my charge," she said, "and I'm going to prescribe rest for a day or two anyway. That is," she added, "unless Mr. Merritt finds it compulsory to take him away."

The Supervisor smiled one of his rare smiles.

"I wouldn't be so unkind as to take any one away from here unnecessarily," he said, "no matter how busy. But there always is a lot to do. Ever since the beavers first started forestry, it has meant work, and lots of it. But if you're told to rest you've got to do it. I know. I've been sick myself here."

The doctor slapped him on the shoulder.

"Beautiful case," he said, "beautiful case. But he wouldn't obey orders."

"He always did mine," put in Mrs. Davis.

"I'm afraid I can't this time," said the Supervisor with one of his abrupt changes of manner, turning to the door. "I'll call for Loyle on my way home to-morrow."

"Oh, Mr. Merritt," began Mrs. Davis in protest, "he ought to have two or three days' rest, anyway."

The chief of the forest turned to Wilbur.

"Well?" he queried.

The boy looked around at the comfortable home, at the big jovial doctor, and his charming little wife, and thought how delightful it would be to have a few days' rest. And his head was aching, and he was very stiff. Then he looked at the Supervisor, quiet and unflinching in anything that was to be done, working with him and helping him despite the big interests for which he was responsible, he thought of the Forest Service to which he was pledged to serve, he remembered his little tent home and the portion of the range over which he had control, and straightened up.

"What time to-morrow?" he said. "I'll be ready."

"Middle of the afternoon," said Merritt. "So long."

He bade good-by to the doctor and his wife, and after having seen that Kit was properly attended to, went on his way to the Kern River Valley, to visit the Edison power plant erected on the river, and to prepare for the installation of the new pulp-mill.

In the meantime, Wilbur, more fatigued by the day's excitement than he had supposed himself to be, had fallen asleep, a sleep unbroken until the evening. And all evening the doctor and his wife told him stories of the Forest Service men and of the various miners, lumbermen, prospectors, ranchers, and so forth, all tales of manliness, courage, and endurance, and not infrequently of heroism. But when Wilbur told of the professor and asked about other greenhorns that had come to the forest, the doctor turned and asked him if he knew anything of "the boy from Peanutville."

"He had just come into camp up here in the Sierras," said the doctor on receiving the lad's negative reply, "from some little place in the middle West that was giving itself airs as a city. He had read somewhere about the forest Rangers, and he himself had been on several Sunday School picnics in the woods, so he thought that he knew all about it. At the end of his first couple of days' work he said:

"'I never supposed that a Ranger had to cut brush and build fence and grub stumps and slave like a nigger. I don't believe he ought to. I don't think it's what my people would like to have me do. I always supposed that he just rode around under the trees and made outsiders toe the mark.'

"I said he was a new Guard," the doctor continued, "but he said this in camp to a group of old-timers with whom he had been working. They hadn't worried him at all, but had given him a fair show and helped him all they could. But this was too rich. They glanced at each other with mingled contempt and amusement, then put on mournful faces, looked on him solemn-eyed, and regretted the cruelties of the Service.

"'The boss,' they said, 'just sticks it on us all the time. We are workin' like slaves—Guards and Rangers and everybody. It's plumb wicked the way we're herded here.'

"So the new hand felt comforted by this outward sympathy, and he ambled innocently on.

"'That heavy brush tears my clothes, and my back aches, and I burned a shoe, and my socks are full of stickers. Then I fell on the barbed wire when I was stretching it—and cut my nose. I tell you what it is, fellows, if I ever get a chance to get away, I hope I'll never see another inch of barbed wire as long as I live. If I was only back in Peanutville, where I used to live, I could be eating a plate of ice cream this minute instead of working like a dog and having to wash my own clothes Sundays when I might be hearing the band play in the park.'

"'Too bad,' shouted the old Rangers in chorus, until a peal of laughter that echoed through and through that mountain camp showed the indignant youngster that his point of view hadn't been what you might say warmly welcomed by the old-timers.

"But the following day, as I heard the story from Charles H. Shinn," the doctor went on, "one of the best men in the gang took the lad aside the following morning as they were riding up the trail, and said to him:

"'How much of that stuff you was preachin' last night did you mean? Of course, this is hard work; it has to be. Either leave it mighty pronto, or wrastle with it till you're a man at the game. I've seen lots of young fellows harden up—some of 'em just as green an' useless when they came as you are now. Don't you know you hold us back, and waste our time, too, on almost any job? But it's the price we have to pay up here to get new men started. Unless you grow to love it so much that there isn't anything else in all the world you'd care to do, you ain't fit for it, an' you'd better get out, and let some one with more sand than you have get in.'

"Well, Loyle," the doctor said, "that youngster was provoked. He wasn't man enough to get really angry, so that his temper would keep him sticking to the work; he was one of these saucy slap-'em-on-the-wrist-naughty kind.

"'I think all of you are crazy,' he said.

"He walked into the Supervisor's office that afternoon and explained that the kind of work he had been given to do was altogether below his intellectual powers. He never understood how quickly things happened, but he signed a resignation blank almost before he knew it, and went back to Peanutville.

"It so happened that one of the Rangers had friends in Peanutville, and the boys at the camp followed the youth's career with much interest. He clerked, he took money at a circus window, he tried cub newspaper work, he stood behind a dry-goods counter, he was everything by turns but nothing long."

"What finally happened to him?" asked Wilbur.

"Last I heard he was a salesman in a woman's shoe store. But he's still with us in spirit," said the doctor, "as a horrible example. Right now, down in the heart of a forest fire, when the Rangers are working like men possessed down some hot gulch, one will say to the other:

"'Gee, Jack, if I was only back where I used to be, I could be having a plate of ice cream this minute.' And the other will reply: 'I wish I might be back in Peanutville and hear the band play in the park.' And both men will laugh and go at the work all the harder for realizing what a miserable failure the weak greenhorn had been."

"I'm thinking," said Wilbur, "that I'll never give them the chance to talk like that about me!"

"From what I heard," said the doctor, "I don't believe you will."

"And from what I see," said the doctor's wife gently, as the two rose and bade the "patient" good-night, "I know we shall all be glad that you have come to us here in the forest."



CHAPTER XIII

HOW THE FOREST WON A GREAT DOCTOR

In the middle of the night the telephone bell rang. Instantly Wilbur heard the doctor's voice responding.

"Yes, where is it?" he queried. "Where? Oh, just beyond Basco Aleck's place. All right, I'll start right away."

There was some rummaging in the other rooms, and in less than five minutes' time the clatter of hoofs outside told the boy that the doctor was off, probably on the huge gray horse Wilbur had seen in the corral as he rode in that day. It was broad daylight when he wakened again, and Mrs. Davis was standing beside him with his breakfast tray. It was so long since Wilbur had not had to prepare breakfast for himself that he felt quite strange, but the night's rest had eased him wonderfully, and aside from a little soreness where he had had his scalp laid open, he was quite himself again.

"Did Doctor Davis have to go away in the night?" he asked. "I thought I heard the telephone."

"Yes," answered the doctor's wife. "But that is nothing new. Almost once a week, at least, he is sent for in the night, or does not reach home till late in the night. I've grown used to it," she added; "doctors' wives must."

"But distances are so great, and there are so few trails," said the boy, "and Doctor Davis is so famous, one would think that he would do better in a city."

"Better for himself?" came the softly uttered query.

The boy colored hotly as he realized the idea of selfishness that there had been in his speech.

"I beg your pardon," he said. "No, I see. But it does seem strange, just the same, that he should be out here."

"He wouldn't be happy anywhere else."

"Excuse me, Mrs. Davis," said the boy, who had caught something of the Supervisor's abruptness, "but what brought him here?"

"Do you not," answered the doctor's wife, giving question for question, "know the old hunter, 'Rifle-Eye Bill'? I don't know his right name. Why, of course, you must; he's the Ranger in your part of the forest."

"Do I know him?" said Wilbur, and without stopping for further question talked for ten minutes on end, telling all that the old hunter had done for him and how greatly he admired him. "Know him," he concluded, "I should just guess I did."

"It was he," said the woman, "who persuaded us to come out here."

"Won't you tell me?" pleaded the boy. "I'd love to hear anything about Rifle-Eye. And the doctor, too," he added as an afterthought.

"It was long ago," she began, "seventeen years ago. Yes," she continued with a smile at the lad's surprise, "I have lived here seventeen years."

"Do you—" began the boy excitedly, "do you ride a white mare?"

This time it was the doctor's wife who colored. She flushed to the roots of her hair.

"Yes," she answered hurriedly, and went on to explain the early conditions of the forest. But Wilbur was not listening, he was remembering the stories that he had heard since his arrival into the forest of the "little white lady," of whom the ranchers and miners always spoke so reverently. But presently Rifle-Eye's name attracted his attention and he listened again.

"We were camping," she said, "in one of the redwood groves not far from San Francisco for the summer, the doctor having been appointed an attending surgeon at one of the larger hospitals, although he was very young. We had been married only a little over a year. One evening just after supper, Rifle-Eye, although we did not know him then, walked into camp.

"'You are a doctor, an operating doctor?' he inquired.

"'Yes,' my husband replied, 'I am a surgeon.'

"Then the old hunter came to where I was standing.

"'You are a doctor's wife?' he queried. You know that direct way of his?"

"Indeed I do," Wilbur replied. "It's one you've got to answer."

"So I said, 'Yes, I am a doctor's wife,' just as if I was a little girl answering a catechism.

"'The case is seventy miles away,' he said, 'and there's a horse saddled.' He turned to me. 'A woman I know is coming over in a little while to stay the night with you, so that you will not be lonely. Come, doctor.' There was a hurried farewell, and they were gone. I can laugh now, as I think of it, but it was dreadful then.

"Presently, however, the woman that he had spoken of came over to our camp. She was a mountaineer's wife, and very willing and helpful. But I was a little frightened, as I had never seen any one quite like her before."

"You couldn't have had much in common," said Wilbur, who was observant enough to note the artistic nature of the room wherein he lay, the exquisite cleanliness and freshness of all his surroundings, and the faultless English of the doctor's wife. Besides, she was pretty and sweet-looking, and boys are quick to note it.

"We didn't," she answered, "but when I happened to mention the old hunter, why the woman was transformed. She brightened up, and told me tales far into the night of what the old hunter had done until," she smiled, "I almost thought he must be as nice as Doctor Davis."

"Doctor Davis does look awfully fine," agreed Wilbur.

"I always think so," said his wife demurely. "Two days passed before the men returned, and when I got a chance alone with my husband, he was twice as bad as the mountaineer's wife. He would talk of nothing but Rifle-Eye and the need of surgical work in the mountains.