jolly chuckles. "Lumber barons!" he chortled. "Oh, it's easy enough! Any mossback can make money lumbering! Here's your stumpage at a dollar a thousand, and there's your lumber at twenty! Simplest thing in the world. Just the same there are more failures in the lumber business than in any other I know anything about. Why is it?"

"Economic waste," put in Merker, who was leaning across the counter.

"Lack of experience," said Bob.

"A little of both," admitted Welton; "but it's more because the business is made up of ten thousand little businesses. You have to conduct a cruising business, and a full-fledged real estate and mortgage business; you have to build houses and factories, make roads, build railroads; you have to do a livery trade, and be on the market for a thousand little things. Between the one dollar you pay for stumpage and the twenty dollars you get for lumber lies all these things. Along comes your hardware man and says, Here, why don't you put in my new kind of spark arrestor; think how little it costs; what's fifty dollars to a half-million-dollar business? The spark arrestor's a good thing all right, so you put it in. And then there's maybe a chance to use a little paint and make the shanties look like something besides shanties; that don't cost much, either, to a half-million-dollar business. And so on through a thousand things. And by and by it's costingy dollars and one cent to get your lumber to market; and it's B-U-S-T, bust!"

"That's economic waste," put in Merker.

"Or lack of experience," added Bob.

"No," said Welton, emphasizing his point with his pipe; "it's not sticking to business! It's not stripping her down to the bare necessities! It's going in for frills! When you get to be as old as I am, you learn not to monkey with the band wagon." His round, red face relaxed into one of his good-humoured grins, and he relit his pipe.

"That's the trouble with this forestry monkey business.

It's all right to fool with, if you want fooling. So's fancy farming. But it don't pay. If you are playing, why, it's all right to experiment. If you ain't, why, it's a good plan to stick to the methods of lumbering. The present system of doing things has been worked out pretty thorough by a lot of pretty shrewd business men. And it works!"

Bob laughed.

"Didn't know you could orate to that extent," he gibed. "Sic 'em!"

Welton grinned a trifle abashed.

"You don't want to get me started, then," said he.

"Oh, but I do!" Bob objected, for the second time that day. "Now this slashing business," went on the old lumberman in a more moderate tone. "When the millennium comes, it would be a fine thing to clear up the old slashings." He turned suddenly to Bob. "How long do you think it would take you with a crew of a dozen men to cut and pile the waste stuff in 18?" he inquired.

Bob cast back the eye of his recollection to the hopeless tangle that cumbered the ground.

"Oh, Lord!" he ejaculated; "don't ask me!"

"If you were running a business would you feel like stopping work and sending your men whom you are feeding and paying-back there to pile up that old truck?"

Bob's mind, trained to the eager hurry of the logging season, recoiled from this idea in dismay.

"I should say not!" he cried. Then as a second thought he added: "But what they want is to pile the tops while the work is going on."

"It takes just so much time to do so much work," stated Welton succinctly, "and it don't matter whether you do it all at once, or try to fool yourself by spraddling it out." He pulled strongly at his pipe.

"Forest Reserves are all right enough," he acknowledged, "and maybe some day their theories will work out. But not now; not while taxes go on!"

Ο

III

NE day, not over a week later, Bob working in the woods, noticed California John picking his way

through the new slashing. This was a difficult matter, for the fresh-peeled logs and the débris of the tops afforded few openings for the passage of a horse. The old man made it, however, and finally emerged on solid ground, much in the fashion of one climbing a bank after an uncertain ford. He caught sight of Bob.

"You fellows can change the face of the country beyant all belief," announced the old man, pushing back his hat. "You're worse than snow that way. I ought to know this country pretty well, but when I get down into one of your pesky slashings, I'm lost for a way out!"

Bob laughed, and exchanged a few commonplace remarks. "If you can get off, you better come over our way," said California John, as he gathered up his reins. "We're holding ranger examinations-something new. You got to tell what you know these days before you can work for Uncle Sam." "What do you have to know ?" asked Bob.

"Come over and find out.”

Bob reflected.

"I believe I will," he decided. "There's nothing to keep me here."

Accordingly, early next morning he rode over to the Upper Camp. Outside, near the creek, he came upon the deserted evidences of a gathering of men. Bed rolls lay scattered under the trees, saddles had been thrown over fallen trunks, bags of provisions hung from saplings, cooking utensils flanked the smouldering remains of a fire which was, how

ever, surrounded by a scraped circle of earth after the careful fashion of the mountains. Bob's eye, by now practised in the refinements of such matters, ran over the various accoutrements thus spread abroad. He estimated the number of their owners at about a score. The bedroll of the cowman, the "turkey" of the lumberjack, the quilts of the mountaineer, were all in evidence; as well as bedding plainly makeshift in character, belonging to those who must have come from a distance. A half-dozen horses dozed in an improvised fencecorner corral. As many more were tied to trees. Saddles, buckboards, two-wheeled carts, and even one top buggy represented the means of transportation.

Bob rode on through the gate to headquarters.. This he found deserted, except for Amy Thorne. She was engaged in wiping the breakfast dishes, and she excitedly waved a towel at the young man as he rode

up.

"A godsend!" she cried. "I'm just dancing with impatience! They've been gone five minutes! Come help me finish!"

Bob fastened his horse, rolled back his sleeves, and took hold with a will.

"Where's your examining board, and your candidates?” he inquired. "I thought I was going to see an examination." "Up the Meadow Trail," panted the girl. "Don't stop to talk. Hurry!"

They hurried, to such good purpose, that shortly they were clambering, rather breathless, up the steeps of the Meadow Trail. This led to a flat, upper shelf or bench in which, as the name implied, was situated a small meadow. At the upper end were grouped twenty-five men, closely gathered about some object.

Amy and Bob plunged into the dew-heavy grasses. The men proved to be watching Thorne, who was engaged in tacking a small target on the stub of a dead sugar pine. This accomplished, he led the way back some seventy-five or eighty paces.

"Three shots each," said he, consulting his note-book. "Off-hand. Hicks!"

The man so named stepped forward to the designated mark, sighted his piece carefully, and fired.

"Do I get each shot called?" he inquired; but Thorne shook his head.

"You ought to know where your guns shoot," said he.

After the third shot, the whole group went forward to examine the target. Thorne marked the results in his notebook, and called upon the next contestant.

While the shooting went on, Bob had leisure to examine the men. They numbered, as he had guessed, about twenty. Three were plainly from the towns, for they wore thin shoes, white shirts, and clothes of a sort ill adapted to out-of-door work in the mountains. Two others, while more appropriately dressed in khakis and high boots, were as evidently foreign to the hills. Bob guessed them recent college graduates, perhaps even of some one of the forestry schools. In this he was correct. The rest were professional out-of-door Bob recognized two of his own woods-crew-good men they were, too. He nodded to them. A half-dozen lithe, slender youths, handsome and browned, drew apart by themselves. He remembered having noticed one of them as a particularly daring rider after Pollock's cattle the fall before; and guessed his companions to be of the same breed. Among the remainder, two picturesque, lean, slow and quizzical prospectors attracted his particular attention.

men.

Most of these men were well practised in the use of the rifle, but evidently not to exhibiting their skill in company. What seemed to Bob a rather exaggerated earnestness oppressed them. The shooting, with two exceptions, was not good. Several, whom Bob strongly suspected had many a time brought down their deer on the run, even missed the target entirely! It was to be remarked that each contestant, though he might turn red beneath his tan, took the announcement of the result in silence.