XLI

Bob rode home through the forest, singing at the top of his voice.  When he met his father, near the lower meadow, he greeted the older man boisterously.

“That,” said Orde to him shrewdly, “sounds to me mighty like relief.  Have you decided for or against?”

“For,” said Bob.  “It’s a fine chance for me to do just what I’ve always wanted to do—­to work hard at what interests me and satisfies me.”

“Go to it, then,” said Orde.  “By the way, Bobby, how old are you now?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“Well, you’re a year younger than I was when I started in with Newmark.  You’re ahead of me there.  But in other respects, my son, your father had a heap more sense; he got married, and he didn’t waste any time on it.  How long have you been living around in range of that Thorne girl, anyway?  Somebody ought to build a fire under you.”

Bob hesitated a moment; but he preferred that his good news should come to his father when Amy could be there, too.

“I’m glad you like her, father,” said he quietly.

Orde looked at his son, and his voice fell from its chaffing tone.  “Good luck, boy,” said he, and leaned from his saddle to touch the young man on the shoulder.

They emerged into the clearing about the mill.  Bob looked on the familiar scene with the new eyes of a great spiritual uplift.  The yellow sawdust and the sawn lumber; the dark forest beyond; the bulk of the mill with its tall pines; the dazzling plume of steam against the very blue sky, all these appealed to him again with many voices, as they had years before in far-off Michigan.  Once more he was back where his blood called him; but under conditions which his training and the spirit of the new times could approve.  His heart exulted at the challenge to his young manhood.

As he rode by the store he caught sight within its depths of Merker methodically waiting on a stolid squaw.

“No more economic waste, Merker!” he could not forbear shouting; and then rocked in his saddle with laughter over the man’s look of slow surprise.  “It’s his catchword,” he explained to Orde.  “He’s a slow, queer old duck, but a mighty good sort for the place.  There’s Post, in from the woods.  He’s woods foreman.  I expect I’ll have lively times with Post at first, getting him broken into new ways.  But he’s a good sort, too.”

“Everybody’s a good sort to-day, aren’t they, son?” smiled Orde.

Welton met them, and expressed his satisfaction over the way everything had turned out.

“I’m going duck shooting for fair,” said he, “and I’m going fishing at Catalina.  Out here,” he explained to Orde, “you sit in nice warm sun and let the ducks insult you into shooting at ’em!  No freeze-your-fingers-and-break-the-ice early mornings!  I’m willing to let the kid go it!  He can’t bust me in two years, anyway.”

Later, when the two were alone together, he clapped Bob on the back and wished him success.