“Why, it’s Ashley Thorne!” cried California John, leaping to his feet.

“The same,” replied Thorne, reaching out his hand.

He dismounted, and Charley Morton, grinning a welcome, led his horse away to the pasture.

“I sure am glad to see you!” said California John over and over again; “and where did you come from?  I thought you were selling pine lands in Oregon.”

Thorne dropped into a chair with a sigh of contentment.  “I was,” said he, “and then they made the Transfer, so I came back.”

“You’re in the Service again?” cried California John delighted.

“Couldn’t stay out now that things are in proper hands.”

“Good!  I expect you’re down here to haul me over the coals,” California John chuckled.

“Oh, just to look around,” said Thorne, biting at his close-clipped, bristling moustache.

Next morning they began to look around.  California John was overjoyed at this chance to show a sympathetic and congenial man what he had done.

“I got a trail ’way up Baldy now,” he confided as they swung aboard.  “It’s a good trail too; and it makes a great fire lookout.  We’ll take a ride up there, if you have time before you go.  Well, as I was telling you about that Cook cattle case—­the old fellow says——­”

At the end of the Supervisor’s long and interested dissertation on the Cook case, Thorne laughed gently.

“Looks as if you had him,” said he, “and I think the Chief will sustain you.  You like this work, don’t you?”

“I sure just naturally love it,” replied California John earnestly.  “I’ve got the chance now to straighten things out.  What I say goes.  For upward of nine years I’ve been ridin’ around seein’ how things had ought to be done.  And I couldn’t get results nohow.  Somebody always had a graft in it that spoiled the whole show.  I could see how simple and easy it would be to straighten everythin’ all out in good shape; but I couldn’t do nothing.”

“Hard enough to hold your job,” suggested Thorne.

“That’s it.  And everybody in the country thought I was a damn fool.  Only damn fools and lazy men took rangers’ jobs those days.  But I hung on because I believed in it.  And now I got the best job in the bunch.  In place of being looked down on as that old fool John, I’m Mr. Davidson, the Forest Supervisor.”

“It’s a matter for pride,” said Thorne non-committally.

“It isn’t that,” denied the old man; “I’m not proud because I’m Supervisor.  Lord love you, Henry Plant was Supervisor; and I never heard tell that any one was proud of him, not even himself.  But I’m proud of being a good supervisor.  They ain’t a sorehead near us now.  Everybody’s out for the Forest.  I’ve made ’em understand that it’s for them.  They know the Service is square.  And we ain’t had fires to amount to nothing; nor trespass.”

“You’ve done good work,” said Thorne soberly; “none better.  No one could have done it but you.  You have a right to be proud of it.”