The sun dipped toward the heat haze of the plains.  It was from a golden world that Bob turned at last to ride through the forest to the cheerfulness of his rude camp.

VIII

Bob took his examinations, passed successfully, and was at once appointed as ranger.  Thorne had no intention of neglecting the young man’s ability.  After his arduous apprenticeship at all sorts of labour, Bob found himself specializing.  This, he discovered, was becoming more and more the tendency in the personnel of the Service.  Jack Pollock already was being sent far afield, looking into grazing conditions, reporting on the state of the range, the advisable number of cattle, the trespass cases.  He had a natural aptitude for that sort of thing.  Ware, on the other hand, developed into a mighty builder.  Nothing pleased him more than to discover new ways through the country, to open them up, to blast and dig and construct his trails, to nose out bridge sites and on them to build spans hewn from the material at hand.  He made himself a set of stencils and with them signed all the forks of the trails, so that a stranger could follow the routes.  Always he painstakingly added the letters U.S.F.S. to indicate that these works had been done by his beloved Service.  Charley Morton was the fire chief—­though any and all took a hand at that when occasion arose.  He could, as California John expressed it, run a fire out on a rocky point and lose it there better than any other man on the force.  Ross Fletcher was the best policeman.  He knew the mountains, their infinite labyrinths, better than any other; and he could guess the location of sheep where another might have searched all summer.

Though each and every man was kept busy enough, and to spare, on all the varied business inseparable from the activities of a National Forest, nevertheless Thorne knew enough to avail himself of these especial gifts and likings.  So, early in the summer he called in Bob and Elliott.

“Now,” he told them, “we have plenty of work to do, and you boys must buckle into it as you see fit.  But this is what I want you to keep in the back of your mind:  someday the National Forests are going to supply a great part of the timber in the country.  It’s too early yet.  There’s too much private timber standing, which can be cut without restriction.  But when that is largely reduced, Uncle Sam will be going into the lumber business on a big scale.  Even now we will be selling a few shake trees, and some small lots, and occasionally a bigger piece to some of the lumbermen who own adjoining timber.  We’ve got to know what we have to sell.  For instance, there’s eighty acres in there surrounded by Welton’s timber.  When he comes to cut, it might pay us and him to sell the ripe trees off that eighty.”

“I doubt if he’d think it would pay,” Bob interposed.

“He might.  I think the Chief will ease up a little on cutting restrictions before long.  You’ve simply got to over-emphasize a matter at first to make it carry.”