Into the cleft thus opened by the axe of human sympathy the man in the wicker chair presently inserted a wedge of cautious inquiry touching another matter.  In addition to his mining ventures he had been making investments in timber-lands, or, rather, in certain lumber companies operating “in the mountains”—­bad investments, he feared, since the Government had lately taken such a decided stand against the cutting of timber in the mountain-land reserves and water-sheds.  Was it likely, he asked, that the talk would materialize in restraining action?  If so, he was in the hole again—­worse off than he should be if his mining lawsuits should go against him.

Again Blount, good-naturedly charitable and not a little amused by the nervous anxiety of the gentleman of many troubles, gave an opinion.

“Conservation, in timber as well as in other remaining resources of the country, has come to be a word which is in everybody’s mouth,” was the form the opinion took.  “The plain citizen who isn’t familiar with the methods of the timber sharks would do well to keep his money out of their hands if he doesn’t wish to be held as particeps criminis with them in the day of reckoning.”

“Say!” ejaculated the thin man, wriggling nervously in his chair.  “If you were a Government agent yourself you could hardly put the case stronger for the conservation crowd!”

Now, in ordinary circumstances, nothing was ever farther from Blount’s normal attitude toward his fellow-men than a disposition to yield to the sudden joking impulse.  But the hawk-faced man’s perturbation was so real, or so faultlessly simulated, that he could not resist the temptation.

“How do you know that I am not a Government agent?” he demanded, with a decent show of gravity.

“Because you are not travelling on Government transportation,” was the shrewd retort.

At another time Blount might have wondered why a casual fellow-traveller should have taken the trouble to make the discovery.  But at the moment he was intent only upon keeping the small misunderstanding alive.

“I suppose you have seen my ticket, but you can’t tell anything by that,” he countered, laughing.  “A good many civilian employees of the Government travel nowadays on regular tickets, like other people.”

“I know damned well they do,” admitted the anxious one; and then, with a swift eye-shot which Blount missed:  “Especially if they happen to be travelling on the quiet to catch some poor devil napping on the job.”

“You needn’t be alarmed; you haven’t told me anything that the department could make use of,” returned Blount, carrying the jest the one necessary move farther along.

It was precisely at this point, as Blount remembered afterward, that the timber-thieving subject was dropped.  Later on, after the talk had drifted back to mining, and from mining to politics, the nervous gentleman pleaded weariness and declared his intention of going to his section to take a nap, and presently disappeared to carry it out.