The other two lookouts were on the edge of the lower ridge.  They gave an opportunity of examining various coves and valleys concealed by the shoulder of the ridge from the observer on Baldy.  To reach them Bob rode across the plateau of the ridge, through the pine forests, past the mill.

Here, if the afternoon was not too far advanced, he used to allow himself the luxury of a moment’s chat with some of his old friends.  Welton, coat off, his burly face perspiring and red, always greeted him jovially.

“Spend all your salary this month?” he would ask.  “Does the business keep you occupied?” And once or twice, seriously, “Bob, haven’t you had enough of this confounded nonsense?  You’re getting too old to find any great fun riding around in this kid fashion pretending to do things.  There’s big business to be done in this country, and we need you boys to help.  When I was a youngster I’d have jumped hard at half the chance that’s offered you.”

But Bob never would answer seriously.  He knew this to be his only chance of avoiding even a deeper misunderstanding between himself and this man whom he had learned to admire and love.

Once he met Baker.  That young man greeted him as gaily as ever, but into his manner had crept the shadow of a cold contempt.  The stout youth’s standards were his own, and rigid, as is often the case with people of his type.  Bob felt himself suddenly and ruthlessly excluded from the ranks of those worthy of Baker’s respect.  A hard quality of character, hitherto unsuspected, stared from the fat young man’s impudent blue eyes.  Baker was perfectly polite, and suitably jocular; but he had not much time for Bob; and soon plunged into a deep discussion with Welton from which Bob was unmistakably excluded.

On one occasion, too, he encountered Oldham riding down the trail from headquarters.  The older man had nodded to him curtly.  His eyes had gleamed through his glasses with an ill-concealed and frosty amusement, and his thin lips had straightened to a perceptible sneer.  All at once Bob divined an enemy.  He could not account for this, as he had never dealt with the man; and the accident of his discovering the gasoline pump on the Lucky Land Company’s creeks could hardly be supposed to account for quite so malignant a triumph.  Next time Bob saw Welton, he asked his old employer about it.

“What have I ever done to Oldham?” he inquired.  “Do you know?”

“Oldham?” repeated Welton.

“Baker’s land agent.”

“Oh, yes.  I never happened to run across him.  Don’t know him at all.”

Bob put down Oldham’s manifest hatred to pettiness of disposition.

Even from Merker, the philosophic storekeeper, Bob obtained scant comfort.

“Men like you, with ability, youth, energy,” said Merker, “producing nothing, just conserving, saving.  Conditions should be such that the possibility of fire, of trespass, of all you fellows guard against, should be eliminated.  Then you could supply steam, energy, accomplishment, instead of being merely the lubrication.  It’s an economic waste.”