“Who, me?  Huh!  Well, now, John, that’s just the run of news that floats in when you’re movin’ around the country.  If I was to set out to get info’mation—­”

“You’d swamp the office.  All right.  I’ll have my clerk draft a letter of application.  You can sign it.  I’ll add my word.  It will take some time to put this through, if it goes through.  I don’t promise anything.  Come in at noon and sign the letter.  Then you might drop in in about two weeks; say Saturday morning.  We’ll have heard something by then.”

Bud beamed.  “I’ll do that.  And while I’m waitin’ I’ll ride over some of that country up there and look around.”

Torrance leaned forward.  “There’s one more thing, Bud.  I know this job offers a temptation to a man to favor his friends.  So far as this office is concerned, I don’t want you to have any friends.  I want things run straight.  I’ve given the best of my life to the Service.  I love it.  I have dipped into my own pocket when Washington couldn’t see the need for improvements.  I have bought fire-fighting tools, built trails, and paid extra salaries at times.  Now I will be where I can back you up.  Keep things right up to the minute.  If you get stuck, wire me.  Here’s your territory on this map.  You know the country, but you will find this system of keeping track of the men a big help.  The pins show where each man is working.  We can go over the office detail after we have heard from headquarters.”

Bud perspired, blinked, shuffled his feet.  “I ain’t goin’ to say thanks, John.  You know it.”

“That’s all right, Bud.  Your thanks will be just what you make of this work when I leave.  There has been a big shake-up in the Service.  Some of us stayed on top.”

“Congratulations, John.  Saturday, come two weeks, then.”

And Bud heaved himself up.  The Airedale, Bondsman, thumped the floor with his tail.  Bud turned a whimsical face to the supervisor.  “Now listen to that!  What does he say?  Well, he’s tellin’ me he sabes I got a chanct at a job and that he’ll keep his mouth shut about what you said, like me.  And that it’s about time I quit botherin’ folks what’s busy and went back to the hotel so he can watch things go by.  That there dog bosses me around somethin’ scandalous.”

Torrance smiled, and waved his hand as Bud waddled from the office, with Bondsman at his heels.

About an hour later, as Torrance was dictating a letter, he glanced up.  Bud Shoop, astride a big bay horse, passed down the street.  For a moment Torrance forgot office detail in a general appreciation of the Western rider, who, once in the saddle, despite age or physical attributes, bears himself with a subconscious ease that is a delight to behold, be he lean Indian, lithe Mexican, or bed-rock American with a girth, say, of fifty-two inches and weighing perhaps not less than two hundred and twenty pounds.

“He’ll make good,” soliloquized the supervisor.  “He likes horses and dogs, and he knows men.  He’s all human—­and there’s a lot of him.  And they say that Bud Shoop used to be the last word in riding ’em straight up, and white lightning with a gun.”