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"Painless Porter!" he cried aloud.

The man looked up at the mention of his name.

"That's my name," said he. "What can I do for you?" "I just remembered where I'd seen you," explained Bob. "I'm fairly well known."

Bob approached eagerly. The discourse, hollow, insincere, half-blasphemous, a buncombe bit of advertising as it was, nevertheless contained the germ of an essential truth for which Bob had been searching. He wanted to know how, through what experience, the man had come to this insight.

But his attempts at conversation met with a cold reception. Painless Porter was too old a bird ever to lower his guard. He met the youth on the high plane of professionalism, refused to utter other than the platitudinous counters demanded by the occasion. He held the young man at spear's length, and showed plainly by the or inous glitter of his eye that he did not intend to be trifled with.

Then Baker's jolly voice broke in.

"Well! well! well!" he cried. "If here aren't my old friends, Painless Porter and the Wiz! Simple life for yours, eh? Back to beans! What's the general outline of this graft ?"

"We have come camping for a complete rest," stated Waller gravely, his comical face cast in lines of reprobation and warning.

"Whatever it is, you'll get it," jibed Baker. "But I'll bet you a toothpick it isn't a rest. What's exhausted you fellows, anyway? Counting the easy money?"

66

Our professional labours have been very heavy lately," spoke up the painless one.

"What's biting you

"There's nobody here."

fellows?"

demanded

Baker.

Waller indicated Bob by a barely perceptible jerk of the head. Baker threw back his head and laughed.

"Thought you knew him," said he. "You were all having such a love feast gab-fest when I blew in. This is

Mr. Orde, who bosses this place — and most of the country around here. If you want to do good to humanity on this meadow you'd better begin by being good to him. He controls it. He's humanity with a capital H."

Ten minutes later the four men, cigars alight, a bottle within reach, were sprawling about the interior of one of the larger tents. Bob was enjoying himself hugely. It was the first time he had ever been behind the scenes at this sort

of game.

"But that was a good talk, just the same," he interrupted a cynical bit of bragging.

"Say, wasn't it!" cried Porter. "I got that out of a shoutin' evangelist. The minute I heard it I saw where it was hot stuff for my spiel. I'm that way: I got that kind of good eye. I'll be going along the street and some little thing'll happen that won't amount to nothin' at all really. Another man wouldn't think twice about it. But like a flash it comes to me how it would fit in to a spiel. It's like an artist that way finding things to put in a picture. You'd never spot a dago apple peddler as good for nothing but to work a little graft on mebbe; but an artist comes along and slaps him in a picture and he's the fanciest-looking dope in the art collection. That's me. I got some of my best spiels from the funniest places! That one this morning is a wonder, because it don't listen like a spiel. I followed that evangelist yap around for a week getting his dope down fine. You got to get the language just right on these things, or they don't carry over."

"Which one is it, Painful?" asked Baker.

"You know; the make-your-work-a-good-to-humanity bluff."

"And all about papa in the 'sixties?"

"That's it."

?'

"'And just don't you dare tell the neighbours ?" "

"Correct."

"The whole mountains will know all about it by

to-morrow," Baker told Bob, "and they'll flock up here in droves. It's easy money."

"Half these country yaps have bum teeth, anyway," said Porter.

"And the rest of them think they're sick," stated Wizard Waller.

"It beats a free show for results and expense," said Painless Porter. "All you got to have is the tents and the Japs and the Willie-off-the-yacht togs." He sighed. “There ought to be some advantages," he concluded, "to drag a man so far from the street lights."

"Then this isn't much of a pleasure trip?" asked Bob with some amusement.

"Pleasure, hell!" snorted Painless, helping himself to a drink. "Say, honest, how do you fellows that have business up here stick it out? It gives me the willies!"

One of the Japanese peered into the tent and made a sign. Painless Porter dropped his voice.

"A dope already," said he. He put on his air, and went out. As Bob and Baker crossed the enclosed space, they saw him in conversation with a gawky farm lad from the plains.

"I shore do hate to trouble you, doctor," the boy was saying, "and hit Sunday, too. But I got a tooth back here

Painless Porter was listening with an air of the deepest and gravest attention.

VII

HE charlatan had babbled; but without knowing it he had given Bob what he sought. He saw all

TH

the reasons for what had heretofore been obscure. Why had he been dissatisfied with business opportunities and successes beyond the hopes of most young men ? How could he dare criticize the ultimate value of such successes without criticizing the life work of such men as Welton, as his own father?

What right had he to condemn as insufficient nine-tenths of those in the industrial world; and yet what else but condemnation did his attitude of mind imply?

All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like fog. Quite simply it all resolved itself. He was dissatisfied because this was not his work. The other honest and sincere men- such as his father and Welton - had been satisfied because this was their work. The old generation, the one that was passing, needed just that kind of service but the need too was passing. Bob belonged to the new generation. He saw that new things were to be demanded. The old order was changing. The modern young men of energy and force and strong ability had a different task from that which their fathers had accomplished. The wilderness was subdued; the pioneer work of industry was finished; the hard brute struggle to shape things to efficiency was over. It had been necessary to get things done. Now it was becoming necessary to perfect the means and methods of doing. Lumber must still be cut, streams must still be dammed, railroads must still be built; but now that the pioneers, the men of fire, had blazed the way others.

could follow. Methods were established. It was all a business, like the selling of groceries. The industrial rank and file could attend to details. The men who thought and struggled and carried the torch - they must go beyond what their fathers had accomplished.

Now Bob understood Amy Thorne's pride in the Service. He saw the true basis of his feeling toward the Supervisor as opposed to his feeling toward Baker. Thorne was in the current. With his pitiful eighteen hundred a year he was nevertheless swimming strongly in new waters. His business went that little necessary step beyond. It not only earned him his living in the world, but it helped the race movement of his people. At present the living was small, just as at first the pioneer opening the country had wrested but a scanty livelihood from the stubborn wilderness; nevertheless, he could feel whether he stopped to think it out or notthat his efforts had that coördination with the trend of humanity which makes subtly for satisfaction and happiness. Bob looked about the mill yard with an understanding eye. This work was necessary; but it was not his work.

Something of this he tried to explain to his new friends at headquarters when next he found an opportunity to ride over. His explanations were not very lucid, for Bob was no great hand at analysis. To any other audience they might have been absolutely incoherent. But Thorne had long since reasoned all this out for himself; so he understood; while to California John the matter had always been one to take for granted. Bob leaned forward, his earnest, sun-browned young face flushed with the sincerity - and the embarrassment of his exposition. Amy nodded from time to time, her eyes shining, her glance every few moments seeking in triumph that of her brother. California John smoked.

Finally Bob put it squarely to Thorne.

"So you'd like to join the Service," said Thorne slowly.

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