Troubled by this spiritual unrest, the analysis of which, even the nature of which was still beyond him, he arrived at camp.  The familiar objects fretted on his mood.  For the moment all the grateful feeling of power over understanding and manipulating this complicated machinery of industry had left him.  He saw only the wheel in which these activities turned, and himself bound to it.  In this truly Buddhistic frame of mind he returned to his quarters.

There, to his vague annoyance, he found Baker.  Usually the liveliness of that able young citizen was welcome, but to-night it grated.

“Well, Gentle Stranger,” sang out the power man, “what jungle have you been lurking in?  I laboured in about three and went all over the works looking for you.”

“I’ve been over watching the ranger examinations at their headquarters,” said Bob.  “It’s pretty good fun.”

Baker leaned forward.

“Have you heard the latest dope?” he demanded.

“What sort?”

“They’re trying to soak us, now.  Want to charge us so much per horse power!  Now what do you think of that!”

“Can’t you pay it?” asked Bob.

“Great guns!  Why should we pay it?” demanded Baker.  “It’s the public domain, isn’t it?  First they take away the settler’s right to take up public land in his own state, and now they want to charge, actually charge the public for what’s its own.”

But Bob, a new light shining in his eyes, refused to become heated.

“Well,” he asked deliberately, “who is the public, anyhow?”

Baker stared at him, one chubby hand on each fat knee.

“Why, everybody,” said he; “the people who can make use of it.  You and I and the other fellow.”

“Especially the other fellow,” put in Bob drily.

Baker chuckled.

“It’s like any business,” said he.  “First-come collect at the ticket office for his business foresight.  But we’ll try out this hold-up before we lie down and roll over.”

“Why shouldn’t you pay?” demanded Bob again.  “You get your value, don’t you?  The Forest Service protects your watershed, and that’s where you get your water.  Why shouldn’t you pay for that service, just the same as you pay for a night watchman at your works?”

“Watershed!” snorted Baker.  “Rot!  If every stick of timber was cleaned off these mountains, I’d get the water just the same."[A]

“Baker,” said Bob to this.  “You go and take a long, long look at your bathroom sponge in action, and then come back and I’ll talk to you.”

Baker contemplated his friend for a full ten seconds.  Then his fat, pugnacious face wrinkled into a grin.

“Stung on the ear by a wasp!” he cried, with a great shout of appreciation.  “You merry, merry little josher!  You had me going for about five minutes.”

Bob let it go at that.

“I suppose you won’t be able to pay over twenty per cent. this next year, then?” he inquired, with an amused expression.