“Descriptions,” snapped Harvey.

In time he managed to reason out the fact that they were descriptions of land; that each item of the many hundreds meant a separate tract.  Thus the first line of his first copy, translated, would have read as follows: 

“The southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section number four, township number six, north, range number twenty-six, west.”

—­And that it represented forty acres of timber land.  The stupendous nature of such holdings made him gasp, and he gasped again when he realized that each of his mistakes meant the misplacement on the map of enough for a good-sized farm.  Nevertheless, as day succeeded day, and the lists had no end, the mistakes became more difficult to avoid.  The S, W, E, and N keys on the typewriter bothered him, hypnotized him, forced him to strike fantastic combinations of their own.  Once Harvey entered to point out to him an impossible N.S.

Over his lists Harvey, the second bookkeeper, and Fox held long consultations.  Then Bob leaned back in his office chair to examine for the hundredth time the framed photographs of logging crews, winter scenes in the forest, record loads of logs; and to speculate again on the maps, deer heads, and hunting trophies.  At first they had appealed to his imagination.  Now they had become too familiar.  Out the window were the palls of smoke, gigantic buildings, crevasse-like streets, and swirling winds of Chicago.

Occasionally men would drift in, inquiring for the heads of the firm.  Then Fox would hang one leg over the arm of his swinging chair, light a cigar, and enter into desultory conversation.  To Bob a great deal of time seemed thus to be wasted.  He did not know that big deals were decided in apparently casual references to business.

Other lists varied the monotony.  After he had finished the tax lists he had to copy over every description a second time, with additional statistics opposite each, like this: 

S.W. 1/4 of N.W. 1/4, T. 4 N.R., 17, W. Sec. 32,
            W.P. 68, N. 16, H. 5.

The last characters translated into:  “White pine, 68,000 feet; Norway pine, 16,000 feet; hemlock, 5,000 feet,” and that inventoried the standing timber on the special forty acres.

And occasionally he tabulated for reference long statistics on how Camp 14 fed its men for 32 cents a day apiece, while Camp 32 got it down to 27 cents.

That was all, absolutely all, except that occasionally they sent him out to do an errand, or let him copy a wordy contract with a great many whereases and wherefores.

Bob little realized that nine-tenths of this timber—­all that wherein S P (sugar pine) took the place of W P—­was in California, belonged to his own father, and would one day be his.  For just at this time the principal labour of the office was in checking over the estimates on the Western tract.