Plant watched them out of sight.

“Most unreasonable people in the world,” he remarked to Bob and Oldham.  “They never can be made to see sense.  Between them and these confounded sheepmen—­I’d like to get rid of the whole bunch, and deal only with business men.  Takes too much palaver to run this outfit.  If they gave me fifty rangers, I couldn’t more’n make a start.”  He was plainly out of humour.

“How many rangers do you get?” asked Bob.

“Twelve,” snapped Plant.

Bob saw eight of the twelve in sight, either idle or working on such matters as the steps hewed from the section of pine log.  He said nothing, but smiled to himself.

Shortly after he took his leave.  Plant, his good humour entirely recovered, bellowed after him a dozen jokes and invitations.

Down the road a quarter-mile, just before the trail turned off to the mill, Bob and his guide, who was riding down the mountain, passed a man on horseback.  He rode a carved-leather saddle, without tapaderos.[Footnote:  Stirrup hoods] A rawhide riata hung in its loop on the right-hand side of the horn.  He wore a very stiff-brimmed hat encircled by a leather strap and buckle, a cotton shirt, and belted trousers tucked into high-heeled boots embroidered with varied patterns.  He was a square-built but very wiry man, with a bold, aggressive, half-hostile glance, and rode very straight and easy after the manner of the plains cowboy.  A pair of straight-shanked spurs jingled at his heels, and he wore a revolver.

“Shelby,” explained the guide, after this man had passed.  “Simeon Wright’s foreman with these cattle you been hearing about.  He ain’t never far off when there’s something doing.  Guess he’s come to see about how’s his fences.”

XI

Bob rode jubilantly into camp.  The expedition had taken him all the afternoon, and it was dropping dusk when he had reached the mill.

“We can get busy,” he cried, waving the permit at Welton.  “Here it is!”

Welton smiled.  “I knew that, my boy,” he replied, “and we’re already busy to the extent of being ready to turn her loose to-morrow morning.  I’ve sent down a yard crew to the lower end of the flume; and I’ve started Max to rustling out the teams by ’phone.”

Next day the water was turned into the flume.  Fifty men stood by.  Rapidly the skilled workmen applied the clamps and binders that made of the boards a compact bundle to be given to the rushing current.  Then they thrust it forward to the drag of the water.  It gathered headway, rubbing gently against the flume, first on one side, then on the other.  Its weight began to tell; it gathered momentum; it pushed ahead of its blunt nose a foaming white wave; it shot out of sight grandly, careening from side to side.  The men cheered.

“Well, we’re off!” said Bob cheerfully.

“Yes, we’re off, thank God!” replied Welton.