“I’ll stay with you until you find that young man,” said Bob.  “There are a good many, trained to the business, capable of handling this property.”

“But nobody like you, Bobby.  I’ve brought you up to my methods.  We’ve grown up together at this.  You’re just like a son to me.”  Welton’s round, red face was puckered to a wistful and comically pathetic twist, as he looked across at the serious manly young fellow.

Bob looked away.  “That’s just what makes it hard,” he managed to say at last; “I’d like to go on with you.  We’ve gotten on famously.  But I can’t.  This isn’t my work.”

Welton laboured in vain to induce him to change his mind.  Several times he considered telling Bob the truth—­that all this timber belonged really to Jack Orde, Bob’s father, and that his, Welton’s interest in it was merely that of the active partner in the industry.  But this his friend had expressly forbidden.  Welton ended by saying nothing about it.  He resolved first to write Orde.

“You might tell me what this new job is, though,” he said at last, in apparent acquiescence.

Bob hesitated.  “You won’t understand; and I won’t be able to make you understand,” he said.  “I’m going to enter the Forest Service!”

“What!” cried Welton, in blank astonishment.  “What’s that?”

“I’ve about decided to take service as a ranger,” stated Bob, his face flushing.

From that moment all Welton’s anxiety seemed to vanish.  It became unbearably evident that he looked on all this as the romance of youth.  Bob felt himself suddenly reduced, in the lumberman’s eyes, to the status of the small boy who wants to be a cowboy, or a sailor, or an Indian fighter.  Welton looked on him with an indulgent eye as on one who would soon get enough of it.  The glamour—­whatever it was—­would soon wear off; and then Bob, his fling over, would return to sober, real business once more.  All Welton’s joviality returned.  From time to time he would throw a facetious remark in Bob’s direction, when, in the course of the day’s work, he happened to pass.

“It’s sure going to be fine to wear a real tin star and be an officer!”

Or: 

“Bob, it sure will seem scrumptious to ride out and boss the whole country—­on ninety a month.  Guess I’ll join you.”

Or: 

“You going to make me sweep up my slashings, or will a rake do, Mr. Ranger?”

To these feeble jests Bob always replied good-naturedly.  He did not attempt to improve Welton’s conception of his purposes.  That must come with time.  To his father, however, he wrote at great length; trying his best to explain the situation.  Mr. Orde replied that a government position was always honourable; but confessed himself disappointed that his son had not more steadfastness of purpose.  Welton received a reply to his own letter by the same mail.