“Glad to see you, Mr. Orde,” he unbent slightly.  “I’ve been expecting you.  If you’re as good a man as your father, you’ll succeed.  If you’re not as good a man as your father, you may get on—­well enough.  But you’ve got to be some good on your own account.  We’ll see.”  He raised his voice slightly.  “Jim!” he called.

One of the two bookkeepers appeared in the doorway.

“This is young Mr. Orde,” Fox told him.  “You knew his father at Monrovia and Redding.”

The bookkeeper examined Bob dispassionately.

“Harvey is our head man here,” went on Fox.  “He’ll take charge of you.”

He swung his leg over the arm of his chair and resumed his newspaper.  After a few moments he thrust the crumpled sheet into a huge waste basket and turned to his desk, where he speedily lost himself in a mass of letters and papers.

Harvey disappeared.  Bob stood for a moment, then took a seat by the window, where he could look out over the smoky city and catch a glimpse of the wintry lake beyond.  As nothing further occurred for some time, he removed his overcoat, and gazed about him with interest on the framed photographs of logging scenes and camps that covered the walls.  At the end of ten minutes Harvey returned from the small outer office.  Harvey was, perhaps, fifty-five years of age, exceeding methodical, very competent.

“Can you run a typewriter?” he inquired.

“A little,” said Bob.

“Well, copy this, with a carbon duplicate.”

Bob took the paper Harvey extended to him.  He found it to be a list, including hundreds of items.  The first few lines were like this: 

Sec. 4 T, 6 N.R., 26 W S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
     4 6 26 N.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
     4 6 26 S.W. 1/4 of S.W. 1/4
     5 6 26 S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4
     5 6 26 S.E. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4

After an interminable sequence, another of the figures would change, or a single letter of the alphabet would shift.  And so on, column after column.  Bob had not the remotest notion of what it all meant, but he copied it and handed the result to Harvey.  In a few moments Harvey returned.

“Did you verify this?” he asked.

“What?” Bob inquired.

“Verify it, check it over, compare it,” snapped Harvey, impatiently.

Bob took the list, and with infinite pains which, nevertheless, could not prevent him from occasionally losing the place in the bewilderment of so many similar figures, he managed to discover that he had omitted three and miscopied two.  He corrected these mistakes with ink and returned the list to Harvey.  Harvey looked sourly at the ink marks, and gave the boy another list to copy.

Bob found this task, which lasted until noon, fully as exhilarating as the other.  When he returned his copies he ventured an inquiry.

“What are these?” he asked.