“I think you know what I mean,” said Bob.

A slow flush overspread the ranger’s face.  He looked the young man up and down deliberately.  Bob moved the fraction of an inch nearer.

“Meaning I’m not welcome here?” he demanded.

“This place is for the transaction of business only.  Can I have Merker get you anything?”

Fletcher shot a glance half of bewilderment, half of anger, in the direction of the store-keeper.  Then he nodded, not without a certain dignity, at Bob.

“Thanks, no,” he said, and walked out, his spurs jingling.

“I guess he won’t bother us again,” said Bob, returning to Welton.

The latter laughed, a trifle ashamed of his anger.

“Those fellows give me the creeps,” he said, “like cats do some people.  Mossbacks don’t know no better, but a Government grafter is a little more useless than a nigger on a sawlog.”

He went out.  Bob turned to Merker.

“Sorry for the row,” he said briefly, for he liked the gentle, slow man.  “But they’re a bad lot.  We’ve got to keep that crew at arm’s length for our own protection.”

“Ross Fletcher is not that kind,” protested Merker.  “I’ve known him for years.”

“Well, he’s got a nerve to come in here.  I’ve seen him and his kind holding down too good a job next old Austin’s bar.”

“Not Ross,” protested Merker again.  “He’s a worker.  He’s just back now from the high mountains.  Mr. Orde, if you’ve got a minute, sit down.  I want to tell you about Ross.”

Willing to do what he could to soften Merker’s natural feeling, Bob swung himself to the counter, and lit his pipe.

“Ross Fletcher is a ranger because he loves it and believes in it,” said Merker earnestly.  “He knows things are going rotten now, but he hopes that by and by they’ll go better.  His district is in good shape.  Why, let me tell you:  last spring Ross was fighting fire all alone, and he went out for help and they docked him a day for being off the reserve!”

“You don’t say,” commented Bob.

“You don’t believe it.  Well, it’s so.  And they sent him in after sheep in the high mountains early, when the feed was froze, and wouldn’t allow him pay for three sacks of barley for his animals.  And Ross gets sixty dollars a month, and he spends about half of that for trail tools and fire tools that they won’t give him.  What do you think of that?”

“Merker,” said Bob kindly, “I think your man is either a damn liar or a damn fool.  Why does he say he does all this?”

“He likes the mountains.  He—­well, he just believes in it.”

“I see.  Are there any more of these altruists? or is he the only bird of the species?”

Merker caught the irony of Bob’s tone.

“They don’t amount to much, in general,” he admitted.  “But there’s a few—­they keep the torch lit.”

“I supposed their job was more in the line of putting it out,” observed Bob; then, catching Merker’s look of slow bewilderment, he added:  “So there are several.”