“Oh, he’s a good trailer, is he?” said Bob.  “Well, I rather suspected you’d say that.  Now I know why they’re up there; they want to figure out from the signs we’ve left just what we’ve been up to.”

“That’s easy done,” remarked Ware.

This explanation fitted.  Bob had been in the Basin before, but on the business of estimating government timber.  Baker knew this.  Now that the Forest officer had gone in for a second time, it might be possible that he was doing the same thing; or it might be equally possible that he was engaged in an investigation of Baker’s own property.  This the power man had decided to find out.  Therefore he had sent in, with his land man, an individual expert at deducing from the half-obliterated marks of human occupation the activities that had left them.  That Oldham and his sinister companion had encountered the Forest men was a sheer accident due to miscalculation.

Having worked this out to his own satisfaction, Bob knew what next to expect.  Baker must interview him.  Bob was sure the young man would take his own time to the matter, for naturally it would not do to make the fact of such a meeting too public.  Accordingly he submitted his report to Thorne, and went on about his further investigations, certain that sooner or later he would again see the prime mover of all these dubious activities.

He was not in the least surprised, therefore, to look up when riding one day along the lonely and rugged trail that cuts across the lower canon of the River, to see Baker seated on the top of a round boulder.  The incongruity, however, brought a smile to his lips.  The sight of the round, smooth face, the humorous eyes, and the stout, city-fed figure of this very urban individual on a rock in a howling figure of this very urban individual on a rock in a howling wilderness, with the eternal mountains for a background, was inexpressibly comical.

“Hullo, merry sunshine!” called Baker, waving his hand as soon as he was certain Bob had seen him.  “Welcome to our thriving little hamlet.”

“Hullo, Baker,” said Bob; “what are you doing ’way off here?”

“Just drifting down the Grand Canal and listening to the gondoliers; and incidentally, waiting for you.  Climb off your horse and come up here and get a tailor-made cigarette.”

“I’m on my way over to Spruce Top,” said Bob, “and I’ve got to keep moving.”

“Haste not, hump not, hustle not,” said Baker, with the air of one quoting a hand-illuminated motto.  “It will only get you somewhere.  Come, gentle stranger, I would converse with thee; and I’ve come a long way to do it.”

“I live nearer home than this,” grinned Bob.

“I wanted to see you in your office,” grinned back Baker appreciatively, “and this is strictly business.”

Bob dismounted, threw the reins over his horse’s head, and ascended to the top of the boulder.

“Fire ahead,” said he; “I keep union hours.”