WTJlt

'won

He worked desperately. The heat of the flames began to
scorch his face and hands

THE

RULES OF THE GAME

BY
STEWART EDWARD WHITE

ILLUSTRATED BY LEJAREN A. HILLER

NEW YORK

GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

ALl. RIGHTS RESERVED. INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION
INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

THE COUNTRY LITE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The geography in this novel may easily be recognized by
one familiar with tlie country. For that reason it is necessary
to state that the characters therein are in no manner to be
confused with the people actually inhabiting and developing
that locality. TIte Power Company promoted by Baker lias
absolutely nothing to do with any Power Company utilizing
any streams : the delectable Plant never exercised his talents
in Sierra North. The author must decline to acknowledge
any identifications of the sort. Plant and Baker and all the
rest are, however, only to a limited extent fictitious characters.
What they did and what they stood for is absolutely true.

ILLUSTRATIONS

He worked desperately. The heat of the flames

began to scorch his face and hands . . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel

and stood to one side 206

"I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned . . 332
Bob found it two hours' journey down . . .568

PART ONE

LATE one fall afternoon, in the year 1898, a train
paused for a moment before crossing a bridge over
a river. From it descended a heavy-set, elderly
man. The train immediately proceeded on its way.

The heavy-set man looked about him, The river and the
bottom-land growths of willow and hardwood were hemmed
in, as far as he could see, by low-wooded hills. Only the
railroad bridge, the steep embankment of the right-of-way,
and a small, painted, windowless structure next the water
met his eye as the handiwork of man. The windowless struc-
ture was bleak, deserted and obviously locked by a strong
padlock and hasp. Nevertheless, the man, throwing on his
shoulder a canvas duffle-bag with handles, made his way
down the steep railway embankment, across a plank over
the ditch, and to the edge of the water. Here he dropped
his bag heavily, and looked about him with an air of com-
ical dismay.

The man was probably close to sixty years of age, but florid
and vigorous. His body was heavy and round; but so were
his arms and legs. An otherwise absolutely unprepossessing
face was rendered most attractive by a pair of twinkling,
humorous blue eyes, set far apart. Iron-gray hair, with a
tendency to curl upward at the ends, escaped from under his
hat. His movements were slow and large and purposeful.

He rattled the padlock on the boathouse, looked at his
watch, and sat down on his duffle-bag. The wind blew
strong up the river; the baring branches of the willows
whipped loose their yellow leaves. A dull, leaden light stole
up from the east as the afternoon sun lost its strength.

4 THE RULES OF THE GAME

By the- end of ten- mijiutes, however, the wind carried
with it the' creak of rowlocks. A moment later a light,
flat duck-boat. shot areund, -.the -bend and drew up at the
float.

"Well, Orde, you confounded old scallywattamus,"
remarked the man on the duffle-bag, without moving, "is
this your notion of meeting a train?"

The oarsman moored his frail craft and stepped to the
float. He was about ten years the other's junior, big of
frame, tanned of skin, clear of eye, and also purposeful of
movement.

"This boathouse," he remarked incisively, "is the
property of the Maple County Duck Club. Trespassers
will be prosecuted. Get off this float."

Then they clasped hands and looked at each other.

"It's surely like old times to see you again, Welton,"
Orde broke the momentary silence. "It's been let's see
fifteen years, hasn't it? How's Minnesota?"

"Full of ducks," stated Welton emphatically, "and if you
haven't anything but mud hens and hell divers here, I'm
going to sue you for getting me here under false pretences.
I want ducks."

"Well, I'll get the keeper to shoot you some," replied Orde,
soothingly, "or you can come out and see me kill 'em if you'll
sit quiet and not rock the boat. Climb aboard. It's getting
late."

Welton threw aboard his duffle-bag, and, with a dexter-
ity marvellous in one apparently so unwieldy, stepped in
astern. Orde grinned.

"Haven't forgotten how to ride a log, I reckon?" he com-
mented.

Welton exploded.

"Look here, you little squirt!" he cried, "I'd have you
know I'm riding logs yet. I don't suppose you'd know a
log if you'd see one, you soft-handed, degenerate, old river-
hog, you ! A golf ball's about your size ! "

THE RULES OF THE GAME 5

"No," said Orde; "a fat old hippopotamus named Wei-
ton is about my size as I'll show you when we land at the
Marsh!"

Welton grinned.

" How's Mrs. Orde and the little boy?" he inquired.

"Mrs. Orde is fine and dandy, and the 'little boy,' as you
call him, graduated from college last June," Orde replied.

"You don't say!" cried Welton, genuinely astounded.
"Why, of course, he must have! Can he lick his dad?"

"You bet he can or could if his dad would give him a
chance. Why, he's been captain of the football team for
two years."

"And football's the only game I'd come out of the woods
to see," said Welton. "I must nave seen him up at Minne-
apolis when his team licked the stuffing out of our boys;
and I remember his name. But I never thought of him
as little Bobby because well, because I always did
remember him as little Bobby."

"He's big Bobby, now, all right," said Orde, "and that's
one reason I wanted to see you; why I asked you to run over
from Chicago next time you came down. Of course, there
are ducks, too."

"There'd better be!" said Welton grimly.

"I want Bob to go into the lumber business, same as his
dad was. This congressman game is all right, and I don't
see how I can very well get out of it, even if I wanted to.
But, Welton, I'm a Riverman, and I always will be. Irs
in my bones. I want Bob to grow up in the smell of the
woods same as his dad. I've always had that ambition
for him. It was the one thing that made me hesitate long-
est about going to Washington. I looked forward to Orde
& Son."

He was resting on his oars, and the duck-boat drifted
silently by the swaying brown reeds.

Welton nodded.

"I want you to take him and break him in. I'd rather

6 THE RULES OF THE GAME

have you than any one I know. You're the only one of the
outsiders who stayed by the Big Jam," Orde continued.
"Don't try to favour him that's no favour. If he doesn't
make good, fire him. Don't tell any of your people that
he's the son of a friend. Let him stand on his own feet.
If he's any good we'll work him into the old game. Just
give him a job, and keep an eye on him for me, to see how
well he does."

"Jack, the job's his," said Welton. "But it won't do
him much good, because it won't last long. We're cleaned up
in Minnesota; and have only an odd two years on some odds
and ends we picked up in Wisconsin just to keep us busy."

"What are you going to do then?" asked Orde, quietly
dipping his oars again.

"I'm going to retire and enjoy life."

Orde laughed quietly.

"Yes, you are!" said he. "You'd have a high old time
for a calendar month. Then you'd get uneasy. You'd
build you a big house, which would keep you mad for six
months more. Then you'd degenerate to buying subscrip-
tion books, and wheezing around a club and going by the
cocktail route. You'd look sweet retiring, now, wouldn't
you?"

Welton grinned back, a trifle ruefully.

"You can no more retire than I can," Orde went on.
" And as for enjoying life, I'll trade jobs with you in a min-
ute, you ungrateful old idiot."

"I know it, Jack," confessed Welton; "but what can I
do? I can't pick up any more timber at any price. I tell
you, the game is played out. We're old mossbacks; and our
job is done."

"I have five hundred million feet of sugar pine in Califor-
nia. What do you say to going in with me to manufacture ? "

"The hell you have!" cried Welton, his jaw dropping.
"I didn't know that!"

"Neither does anybody else. I bought it twenty years

THE RULES OF THE GAME 7

ago, under a corporation name. I was the whole corpora-
tion. Called myself the Wolverine Company."

" You own the Wolverine property, do you ? "

"Yes; ever hear of it?"

"I know where it is. I've been out there trying to get
hold of something, but you have the heart of it."

"Thought you were going to retire," Orde pointed out.

"The property's all right, but I've some sort of notion the
title is clouded."

"Why?"

"Can't seem to remember; but I must have come against
some record somewhere. Didn't pay extra much attention,
because I wasn't interested in that piece. Something to
do with fraudulent homesteading, wasn't it?"

Orde dropped his oars across his lap to fill and light a pipe.

"That title was deliberately clouded by an enemy to
prevent my raising money at the time of the Big Jam, when
I was pinched," said he. "Frank Taylor straightened it
out for me. You can see him. As a matter of fact, most
of that land I bought outright from the original homesteaders,
and the rest from a bank. I was very particular. There's
one 1 60 I wouldn't take on that account."

"Well, that's all right," said Welton, his jolly eyes twink-
ling. "Why the secrecy?"

"I wanted a business for Bob when he should grow up,"
explained Orde; "but I didn't want any of this 'rich man's
son' business. Nothing's worse for a boy than to feel that
everything's cut and dried for him. He is to understand
that he must go to work for somebody else, and stand strictly
on his own feet, and make good on his own efforts. That's
why I want you to break him in."

"All right. And about this partnership?"

"I want you to take charge. I can't leave Washington.
We'll get down to details later. Bob can work for you there
the same as here. By and by, we'll see whether to tell
him or not."

8 THE RULES OF THE GAME

The twilight had fallen, and the shores of the river were
lost in dusk. The surface of the water itself shone with an
added luminosity, reflecting the sky. In the middle distance
twinkled a light, beyond which in long stretches lay the som-
bre marshes.

''That's the club," said Orde. "Now, if you disgrace
me, you old duffer, I'll use you as a decoy!"

A few moments later the two men, opening the door of
the shooting-box, plunged into a murk of blue tobacco
smoke. A half-dozen men greeted them boisterously.
These were just about to draw lots for choice of blinds on
the morrow. A savoury smell of roasting ducks came from
the tiny kitchen where Weber punter, keeper, duck-caller
and cook exercised the last-named function. Welton
drew last choice, and was commiserated on his bad for-
tune. No one offered to give way to the guest, however.
On this point the rules of the Club were inflexible.

Luckily the weather changed. It turned cold; the wind
blew a gale. Squalls of light snow swept the marshes.
Men chattered and shivered, and blew on their wet fingers,
but in from the great open lake came myriads of water-
fowl, seeking shelter, and the sport was grand.

"Well, old stick-in-the-mud," said Orde as, a* the end
of two days, the men thawed out in a smoking car, "ducks
enough for you ? "

"Jack," said Welton solemnly, "there are no ducks in
Minnesota. They've all come over here. I've had the time
of my life. And about that other thing: as soon as our
woods work is under way, I'll run out to California and
look over the ground see how easy it is to log that coun-
try. Then we can talk business. In the meantime, send
Bob over to the Chicago office. I'll let Harvey break him
in a little on the office work until I get back. When will
he show up?"

Orde grinned apologetically.

"The kid has set his heart on coaching the team this

THE RULES OF THE GAME 9

fall, and he don't want to go to work until after the season,"
said he. "I'm just an old fool enough to tell him he could
wait. I know he ought to be at it now you and I were,
long before his age; but

"Oh, shut up!" interrupted Welton, his big body shak-
ing all over with mirth. "You talk like a copy-book. I'm
not a constituent, and you needn't run any bluffs on me.
You're tickled to death with that boy, and you are hoping
that team will lick the everlasting daylights out of Chicago,
Thanksgiving; and you wouldn't miss the game or have
Bob out of the coaching for the whole of California; and
you know it. Send him along when you get ready."

BOB ORDE, armed with a card of introduction to Fox,
Walton's office partner, left home directly after
Thanksgiving. He had heard much of Welton & Fox
in the past, both from his father and his father's associates.
The firm name meant to him big things in the past history
of Michigan's industries, and big things in the vague, large
life of the Northwest. Therefore, he was considerably sur-
prised, on finding the firm's Adams Street offices, to observe
their comparative insignificance.

He made his way into a narrow entry, containing merely
a high desk, a safe, some letter files, and two bookkeepers.
Then, without challenge, he walked directly into a large
apartment, furnished as simply, with another safe, a type-
writer, several chairs, and a large roll-top desk. At the
latter a man sprawled, reading a newspaper. Bob looked
about for a further door closed on an inner private office,
where the weighty business must be transacted. There
was none. The tall, broad, lean young man hesitated,
looking about him with a puzzled expression in his earnest
young eyes. Could this be the heart and centre of those
vast and far-reaching activities he had heard so much
about ?

After a moment the man in the revolving chair looked up
shrewdly over his paper. Bob felt himself the object of an
instant's searching scrutiny from a pair of elderly steel-
gray eyes. '

"Well?" said the man, briefly.

"I am looking for Mr. Fox," explained Bob.

"I am Fox."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 11

The young man moved forward his great frame with
the easy, loose- jointed grace of the trained athlete. With-
out comment he handed his card of introduction to the
seated man. The latter glanced at it, then back to the
young fellow before him.

"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 door-
way.

"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

12 THE RULES OF THE GAME

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. J of N. W. J

4 6 26 N. W. 1 of N. W. J

4 6 26 S. W. } of S. W. J

5 6 26 S. W. j of N. W. J
5 6 26 S. E. i of N. W. J

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.

"Descriptions," snapped Harvey.

In time he managed to reason out the fact that they
were descriptions of land; that each item of the many hun-
dreds 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 sec-
tion number four, township number six, north, range num-
ber twenty-six, west."

And that it represented forty acres of timber land. The

THE RULES OF THE GAME 13

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 of N. W. }, 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 22 got it down to 27 cents.

14 THE RULES OF THE GAME

That was all, absolutely all, except that occasionally they
sent him out to do an errand, or let him copy a wordy con-
tract with a great many wher eases 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 West-
ern tract.

Bob did his best because he was a true sportsman, and he
had entered the game, but he did not like it, and the slow,
sleepy monotony of the office, with its trivial tasks which
he did not understand, filled him with an immense and
cloying languor. The firm seemed to be dying of the sleep-
ing sickness. Nothing ever happened. They filed their
interminable statistics, and consulted their interminable
books, and marked squares off their interminable maps, and
droned along their monotonous, unimportant life in the
same manner day after day. Bob was used to out-of-doors,
used to exercise, used to the animation of free human inter-
course. He watched the clock in spite of himself. He made
mistakes out of sheer weariness of spirit, and in the footing
of the long columns of figures he could not summon to his
assistance the slow, painstaking enthusiasm for accuracy
which is the sole salvation of those who would get the answer.
He was not that sort of chap.

But he was not a quitter, either. This was life. He
tried conscientiously to do his best in it. Other men did;
so could he.

The winter moved on somnolently. He knew he was not
making a success. Harvey was inscrutable, taciturn, not to
be approached. Fox seemed to have forgotten his official
existence, although he was hearty enough in his morning
greetings to the young man. The young bookkeeper, Archie,
was more friendly, but even he was a being apart, alien, one
of the strangely accurate machines for the putting down and

THE RULES OF THE GAME 15

docketing of these innumerable and unimportant figures.
He would have liked to know and understand Bob, just as
the latter would have liked to know and understand him,
but they were separated by a wide gulf in which whirled
the nothingnesses of training and temperament. However,
Archie often pointed out mistakes to Bob before the sar-
donic Harvey discovered them. Harvey never said any-
thing. He merely made a blue pencil mark in the margin,
and handed the document back. But the weariness of his
smile !

One day Bob was sent to the bank. His business there
was that of an errand boy. Discovering it to be sleeting,
he returned for his overcoat. Harvey was standing rigid in
the door of the inner office, talking to Fox.

"He has an ingrained inaccuracy. He will never do
for business," Bob caught.

Archie looked at him pityingly.

THE winter wore away. Bob dragged himself out of
bed every morning at half-past six, hurried through
a breakfast, caught a car and hoped that the bridge
would be closed. Otherwise he would be late at the office,
which would earn him Harvey's marked disapproval. Bob
could not see that it mattered much whether he was late or not.
Generally he had nothing whatever to do for an hour or so.
At noon he ate disconsolately at a cheap saloon restaurant.
At five he was free to go out among his own kind with
always the thought before him of the alarm clock the follow-
ing morning.

One day he sat by the window, his clean, square chin in
his hand, his eyes lost in abstraction. As he looked, the
winter murk parted noiselessly, as though the effect were
prearranged; a blue sky shone through on a glint of bluer
water; and, wonder of wonders, there through the grimy
dirty roar of Adams Street a single, joyful robin note flew up
to him.

At once a great homesickness overpowered him. He
could see plainly the half-sodden grass of the campus, the
budding trees, the red "gym" building, and the crowd
knocking up flies. In a little while the shot putters and
jumpers would be out in their sweaters. Out at Regents'
Field the runners were getting into shape. Bob could
almost hear the creak of the rollers smoothing out the tennis
courts; he could almost recognize the voices of the fellows
perching about, smell the fragrant reek of their pipes, savour
the sweet spring breeze. The library clock boomed four
times, then clanged the hour. A rush of feet from all the

THE RULES OF THE GAME 17

recitation rooms followed as a sequence, the opening of
doors, the murmur of voices, occasionally a shout. Over
it sounded the sharp, half-petulant advice of the coaches
and the little trainer to the athletes. It was getting dusk.
The campus was emptying. Through the trees shone lights.
And Bob looked up, as he had so often done before, to see
the wonder of the great dome against the afterglow of sunset

Harvey was examining him with some curiosity.

"Copied those camp reports?" he inquired.

Bob glanced hastily at the clock. He had been dreaming
over an hour.

A little later Fox came in; and a little after that Harvey
returned bringing in his hand the copies of the camp reports,
but instead of taking them directly to Bob for correction,
as had been his habit, he laid them before Fox. The latter
picked them up and examined them. In a moment he,
dropped them on his desk.

" Do you mean to tell me," he demanded of Harvey, " that
seventeen only ran ten thousand? Why, it's preposterous I
Saw it myself. It has a half-million on it, if there's a stick.
Let's see Parsons's letter."

While Harvey was gone, Fox read further in the copy.

"See here, Harvey," he cried, "something's dead wrong,
We never cut all this hemlock. Why, hemlock's 'way
down."

Harvey laid the original on the desk. After a second
Fox's face cleared.

"Why, this is all right. There were 480,000 on seventeen*
And that hemlock seems to have got in the wrong column.
You want to be a little more careful, Jim. Never knew
that to happen before. Weren't out with the boys last
night, were you?"

But Harvey refused to respond to frivolity.

"It's never happened before because I never let it happen
before," he replied stiffly. "There have been mistakes like
that, and worse, in almost every report we've filed. I've

1 8 THE RULES OF THE GAME

cut them out. Now, Mr. Fox, I don't have much to say,
but I'd rather do a thing myself than do it over after some-
body else. We've got a good deal to keep track of in this
office, as you know, without having to go over everybody
else's work too."

"H'm," said Fox, thoughtfully. Then after a moment,
"HI see about it."

Harvey went back to the outer office, and Fox turned at
once to Bob.

" Well, how is it ?" he asked. " How did it happen ? "

"I don't know," replied Bob. "I'm trying, Mr. Fox.
Don't think it isn't that. But it's new to me, and I can't
seem to get the hang of it right away."

" I see. How long you been here ? "

"A little over four months."

Fox swung back in his chair leisurely.

"You must see you're not fair to Harvey," he announced.
"That man carries the details of four businesses in his head,
he practically does the clerical work for them all, and he
never seems to hurry. Also, he can put his hand without
hesitation on any one of these documents," he waved his
hand about the room. "I can't."

He stopped to light the stub of a long-extinct cigar.

"I can't make it hard for that sort of man. So I guess
we'll have to take you out of the office. Still, I promised
Welton to give you a good try-out. Then, too, I'm not satis-
fied in my own mind. I can see you are trying. Either
you're a damn fool or this college education racket has had
the same effect on you as on most other young cubs. If you're
the son of your father, you can't be entirely a damn fool. If
it's the college education, that will probably wear off in time.
Anyhow, I think I'll take you up to the mill. You can try
the office there. Collins is easy to get on with, and of course
there isn't the same responsibility there."

In the buffeting of humiliation Bob could not avoid a
fleeting inner smile over this last remark. Responsibility!

THE RULES OF THE GAME 19

In this sleepy, quiet backwater of a tenth-floor office, full of
infinite little statistics that led nowhere, that came to no
conclusion except to be engulfed in dark files with hundreds
of their own kind, aimless, useless, annoying as so many
gadflies! Then he set his face for the further remarks.

" Navigation will open this week," Fox's incisive tones
went on, "and our hold-overs will be moved now. It will
be busy there. We shall take the eight o'clock train
to-night." He glanced sharply at Bob's lean, set face. "I
assume you'll go?"

Bob was remembering certain trying afternoons on the
field when as captain, and later as coach, he had told some
very high-spirited boys what he considered some wholesome
truths. He was remembering the various ways in which
they had taken his remarks.

"Yes, sir," he replied.

"Well, you can go home now and pack up," said Fox.
"Jim!" he' shot out in his penetrating voice; then to Harvey,
"Make out Orde's check."

Bob closed his desk, and went into the outer office to
receive his check. Harvey handed it to him without com-
ment, and at once turned back to his books. Bob stood
irresolute a moment, then turned away without farewell.

But Archie followed him into the hall.

"I'm mighty sorry, old man," he whispered, furtively.
"Did you get'the G. B.?"

"I'm going up to the mill office," replied Bob.

"Oh!" the other commiserated him. Then with an
effort to see the best side, "Still you could hardly expect
to jump right into the head office at first. I didn't much
think you could hold down a job here. You see there's too
much doing here. Well, good-bye. Good luck to you,
old man."

There it was again, the insistence on the responsibility,
the activity, the importance of that sleepy, stuffy little office
with its two men at work, its leisure, its aimlessness. On

20 THE RULES OF THE GAME

his way to the car-line Bob stopped to look in at an open
door. A dozen men were jumping truck loads of boxes
here and there. Another man in a peaked cap and a silesia
coat, with a pencil behind his ear and a manifold book stick-
ing out of his pocket shouted orders, consulted a long list,
marked boxes and scribbled in a shipping book. Dim in the
background huge freight elevators rose and fell, burdened
with the mass of indeterminate things. Truck horses,
great as elephants, magnificently harnessed with brass
ornaments, drew drays, big enough to carry a small house,
to the loading platform where they were quickly laden and
sent away. From an opened upper window came the busy
click of many typewriters. Order in apparent confusion,
immense activity at a white heat, great movement, the
clanging of the wheels of commerce, the apparition and
embodiment of restless industry these appeared and
vanished, darted in and out, were plain to be seen and were
vague through the murk and gloom. Bob glanced up at the
emblazoned sign. He read the firm's name of well-known
wholesale grocers. As he crossed the bridge and proceeded
out Lincoln Park Boulevard two figures rose to him and
stood side by side. One was the shipping clerk in his peaked
cap and silesia coat, hurried, busy, commanding, full of
responsibility; the other was Harvey, with his round, black
skull cap, his great, gold-bowed spectacles, entering minutely,
painstakingly, deliberately, his neat little figures in a neat,
large book.

THE train stopped about noon at a small board town.
Fox and Bob descended. The latter drew his lungs
full of the sparkling clear air and felt inclined to shout.
The thing that claimed his attention most strongly was
the dull green band of the forest, thick and impenetrable to
the south, fringing into ragged tamaracks on the east, opening
into a charming vista of a narrowing bay to the west. North-
ward the land ran down to sandpits and beyond them
tossed the vivid white and blue of the Lake. Then when
his interest had detached itself from the predominant note
of the imminent wilderness, predominant less from its physical
size for it lay in remote perspective than from a certain
indefinable and psychological right of priority, Bob's eye was
at once drawn to the huge red-painted sawmill, with its
very tall smokestacks, its row of water barrels along the
ridge, its uncouth and separate conical sawdust burner, and
its long lines of elevated tramways leading out into the
lumber yard where was piled the white pine held over from
the season before. As Bob looked, a great, black horse
appeared on one of these aerial tramways, silhouetted against
the sky. The beast moved accurately, his head held low
against his chest, his feet lifted and planted with care.
Behind him rumbled a whole train of little cars each laden
with planks. On the foremost sat a man, his shoulders
bowed, driving the horse. They proceeded slowly, leisurely,
without haste, against the brightness of the sky. The
spider supports below them seemed strangely inadequate
to their mass, so that they appeared in an occult manner
to maintain their elevation by some buoyancy of their own,

22 THE RULES OF THE GAME

some quality that sustained them not only in their distance
above the earth but in a curious, decorative, extra-human
world of their own. After a moment they disappeared
behind the tall piles of lumber.

Against the sky, now, the place of the elephantine black
horse and the little tram cars and the man was taken by the
masts of ships lying beyond. They rose straight and tali,
their cordage like spider webs, in a succession of regular
spaces until they were lost behind the mill. From the
exhaust of the mill's engine a jet of white steam shot up
sparkling. Close on its apparition sounded the exultant,
high-keyed shriek of the saw. It ceased abruptly. Then
Bob became conscious of a heavy rud, thud of mill machinery.

All this time he and Fox were walking along a narrow
board walk, elevated two or three feet above the sawdust-
strewn street. They passed the mill and entered the cool
shade of the big lumber piles. Along their base lay half-
melted snow. Soggy pools soaked the ground in the exposed
places. Bob breathed deep of the clear air, keenly conscious
of the freshness of it after the murky city. A sweet and
delicate odour was abroad, an odour elusive yet pungent,
an aroma of the open. The young man sniffed it eagerly,
this essence of fresh sawdust, of new-cut pine, of sawlogs
dripping from the water, of faint old reminiscence of cured
lumber standing in the piles of the year before, and more
fancifully of the balsam and spruce, the hemlock and pine
of the distant forest.

"Great!" he cried aloud, "I never knew anything like
it! What a country to train in!"

"All this lumber here is going to be sold within the next
two months," said Fox with the first approach to enthusiasm
Bob had ever observed in him. "All of it. It's got to be
carried down to the docks, and tallied there, and loaded in
those vessels. The mill isn't much too old-fashioned.
We saw with ' circulars' instead of band-saws. Not like our
Minnesota mills. We bought the plant as it stands. Still

THE RULES OF THE GAME 23

we turn out a pretty good cut every day, and it has to be
run out and piled."

They stepped abruptly, without transition, into the town.
A double row of unpainted board shanties led straight to
the water's edge. This row was punctuated by four build-
ings different from the rest a huge rambling structure
with a wide porch over which was suspended a large bell;
a neatly painted smaller building labelled "Office"; a trim
house surrounded by what would later be a garden; and a
square-fronted store. The street between was soft and
springy with sawdust and finely broken shingles. Various
side streets started out bravely enough, but soon petered
out into stump land. Along one of them were extensive
stables.

Bob followed his conductor in silence. After an interval
they mounted short steps and entered the office.

Here Bob found himself at once in a small entry railed
off from the main room by a breast-high line of pickets strong
enough to resist a battering-ram. A man he had seen walk-
ing across from the mill was talking rapidly through a. tiny
wicket, emphasizing some point on a soiled memorandum
by the indication of a stubby forefinger. He was a short,
active, blue-eyed man, very tanned. Bob looked at him with
interest, for there was something about him the young man
did not recognize, something he liked a certain inde-
pendent carriage of the head, a certain self-reliance in the
set of his shoulders, a certain purposeful directness of his
whole personality. When he caught sight of Fox he turned
briskly, extending his hand.

"How are you, Mr. Fox?" he greeted. " Just in?"

"Hullo, Johnny," replied Fox, "how are things? I see
you're busy."

"Yes, we're busy," replied the man, "and we'll keep
busy."

"Everything going all right?"

"Pretty good. Poor lot of men this year. A good many

24 THE RULES OF THE GAME

of the old men haven't showed up this year some sort of
pull-out to Oregon and California. I'm having a little
trouble with them off and on."

"I'll bet on you to stay on top," replied Fox easily. "I'll
be over to see you pretty soon."

The man nodded to the bookkeeper with whom he had
been talking, and turned to go out. As he passed Bob, that
young man was conscious of a keen, gimlet scrutiny from the
blue eyes, a scrutiny instantaneous, but which seemed to
penetrate his very flesh to the soul of him. He experienced
a distinct physical shock as at the encountering of an ele-
mental force.

He came to himself to hear Fox saying:

"That's Johnny Mason, our mill foreman. He has charge
of all the sawing, and is a mighty good man. You'll see more
of him."

The speaker opened a gate in the picket railing and stepped
inside.

A long shelf desk, at which were high stools, backed up
against the pickets ; a big round stove occupied the centre ; a
safe crowded one corner. Blue print maps decorated the
walls. Coarse rope matting edged with tin strips protected
the floor. A single step down through a door led into a
painted private office where could be seen a flat table desk.
In the air hung a mingled odour of fresh pine, stale tobacco,
and the closeness of books.

Fox turned at once sharply to the left and entered into
earnest conversation with a pale, hatchet-faced man of
thirty-five, whom he addressed as "Collins." In a moment
he turned, beckoning Bob forward.

"Here's a youngster for you, Collins," said he, evidently
continuing former remarks. "Young Mr. Orde. He's
been in our home office awhile, but I brought him up to
help you out. He can get busy on your tally sheets and
time checks and tally boards, and sort of ease up the strain
a little."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 25

" I can use him r right now/' said Collins, nervously smooth-
ing back a strand of his pale hair. "Glad to meet you, Mr.
Orde. These 'jumpers' . . . and that confounded
mixed stuff from seventeen . . . "he trailed off, his eye
glazing in the abstraction of some inner calculation, his long,
nervous fingers reaching unconsciously toward the soiled
memoranda left by Mason.

"Well, I'll set you to work/' he roused himself, when he
perceived that the two were about to leave him. And almost
before they had time to turn away he was busy at the papers,
his pencil, beautifully pointed, running like lightning down
the long columns, pausing at certain places as though by
instinct, hovering the brief instant necessary to calcu-
lation, then racing on as though in pursuit of something
elusive.

As they turned away a slow, cool voice addressed then?
from behind the stove.

" Hullo, bub! "it drawled.

Fox's face lighted and he extended both hands.

"Well, Tally!" he cried. "You old snoozer!"

The man was upward of sixty years of age, but straight
and active. His features were tanned a deep mahogany,,
and carved by the years and exposure into lines of capability
and good humour. In contrast to this brown his sweeping
white moustache and bushy eyebrows, blenched flaxen by
the sun, showed strongly. His little blue eyes twinkled,
and fine wrinkles at their corners helped the twinkles. His
long figure was so heavily clothed as to be concealed from any
surmise, except that it was gaunt and wiry. Hands gnarled,
twisted, veined, brown, seemed less like flesh than like some
skilful Japanese carving. On his head he wore a visored
cap with an extraordinary high crown; on his back a rather
dingy coat cut from a Mackinaw blanket ; on his legs trousers
that had been "stagged" off just below the knees, heavy
German socks, and shoes nailed with sharp spikes at least
three-quarters of an inch in length.

26 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Thought you were up in the woods!" Fox was
exclaiming. " Where's Fagan?"

"He's walkin' white water," replied the old man.

"Things going well?"

"Damn poor," admitted Tally frankly. "That is to say,
the Whitefish branch is off. There's trouble with the men.
They're a mixed lot. Then there's old Meadows. He's
assertin' his heaven-born rights some more. It's all right.
We're on their backs. Other branches just about down."

There followed a rapid exchange of which Bob could make
little talk of flood water, of "plugging" and "pulling," of
" winging out," of " white water." It made no sense, and yet
somehow it thrilled him, as at times the mere roll of Greek
names used to arouse in his breast vague emotions of
grandeur and the struggle of mighty forces.

Still talking, the two men began slowly to move toward the
inner office. Suddenly Fox seemed to remember his com-
panion's existence.

"By the way, Jim," he said, "I want you to know one of
our new men, young Mr. Orde. You've worked for his
father. This is Jim Tally, and he's one of the best rivermen,
the best woodsman, the best boss of men old Michigan ever
turned out. He walked logs before I was born."

" Glad to know you, Mr. Orde," said Tally, quite unmoved.

THE two left Bob to his own devices. The old riverman
and the astonishingly thawed and rejuvenated Mr.
Fox disappeared in the private office. Bob proffered
a question to the busy Collins, discovered himself free until
afternoon, and so went out through the office and into the
clear open air.

He headed at once across the wide sawdust area toward
the mill and the lake. A great curiosity, a great interest
filled him. After a moment he found himself walking
between tall, leaning stacks of lumber, piled crosswise in
such a manner that the sweet currents of air eddied through
the interstices between the boards and in the narrow, alley-
like spaces between the square and separate stacks. A
coolness filled these streets, a coolness born of the shade in
which they were cast, the freshness of still unmelted snow
lying in patches, the quality of pine with its faint aromatic
pitch smell and its suggestion of the forest. Bob wandered
on slowly, his hands in his pockets. For the time being
his more active interest was in abeyance, lulled by the sub-
tle, elusive phantom of grandeur suggested in the aloof-
ness of this narrow street fronted by its square, skeleton,
windowless houses through which the wind rattled. After
a little he glimpsed blue through the alleys between. Then
a side street offered, full of sun. He turned down it a few
feet, and found himself standing over an inlet of the lake.

Then for the first time he realized that he had been walk-
ing on "made ground." The water chugged restlessly
against the uneven ends of the lath-like slabs, thousands
of them laid, side by side, down to and below the water's

28 THE RULES OF THE GAME

surface. They formed a substructure on which the saw-
dust had been heaped. Deep shadows darted from their
shelter and withdrew, following the play of the little waves.
The lower slabs were black with the wet, and from them, too,
crept a spicy odour set free by the moisture. On a pile head
sat an urchin fishing, with a long bamboo pole many sizes
too large for him. As Bob watched, he jerked forth
diminutive flat sunfish.

"Good work!" called Bob in congratulation.

The urchin looked up at the large, good-humoured man
and grinned.

Bob retraced his steps to the street on which he had
started out. There he discovered a steep stairway, and by
it mounted to the tramway above. Along this he wandered
for what seemed to him an interminable distance, lost as
in a maze among the streets and byways of this tenantless
city. Once he stepped aside to give passage to the great
horse, or one like him, and his train of little cars. The
man driving nodded to him. Again he happened on two
men unloading similar cars, and passing the boards down
to other men below, who piled them skilfully, two end
planks one way, and then the next tier the other, in regular
alternation. They wore thick leather aprons, and square
leather pieces strapped across the insides of their hands as
a protection against splinters. These, like all other especial
accoutrements, seemed to Bob somehow romantic, to be
desired, infinitely picturesque. He passed on with the clear,
yellow-white of the pine boards lingering back of his retina.

But now suddenly his sauntering brought him to the
water front. The tramway ended in a long platform run-
ning parallel to the edge of the docks below. There were
many little cars, both in the process of unloading and await-
ing their turn. The place swarmed with men, all busily
engaged in handing the boards from one to another as
buckets are passed at a fire. At each point where an unend-
ing stream of them passed over the side of each ship, stood

THE RULES OF THE GAME 29

a young man with a long, flexible rule. This he laid rap-
idly along the width of each board, and then as rapidly
entered a mark in a note-book. The boards seemed to
move fairly of their own volition, like a scutcllate monster
of many joints, crawling from the cars, across the dock,
over the side of the ship and into the black hold where pre-
sumably it coiled. There were six ships; six, many-jointed
monsters creeping to their appointed places under the urg-
ing of these their masters; six young men absorbed and busy
at the tallying; six crews panoplied in leather guiding the
monsters to their lairs. Here, too, the sun- warmed air arose
sluggish with the aroma of pitch, of lumber, of tar from the
ships' cordage, of the wetness of unpainted wood. Aloft
in the rigging, clear against the sky, were sailors in con-
trast of peaceful, leisurely industry to those who toiled and
hurried below. The masts swayed gently, describing an
arc against the heavens. The sailors swung easily to the
motion. From below came the quick dull sounds of planks
thrown down, the grind of ear wheels, the movement of
feet, the varied, complex sound of men working together,
the clapping of waters against the structure. It was con-
fusing, confusing as the noise of many hammers. Yet
two things seemed to steady it, to confine it, keep it in the
bounds of order, to prevent it from usurping more than its
meet and proper proportion. One was the tingling lake
breeze singing through the rigging of the ship; the other
was the idle and intermittent whistling of one of the sailors
aloft. And suddenly, as though it had but just commenced,
Bob again became aware of the saw shrieking in ecstasy as
it plunged into a pine log.

The sound came from the left, where at once he per-
ceived the tall stacks showing above the lumber piles, and
the plume of white steam glittering in the sun. In a moment
the steam fell, and the shriek of the saw fell with it. He
turned to follow the tramway, and in so doing almost
bumped into Mason, the mill foreman.

30 THE RULES OF THE GAME

" They're hustling it in," said the latter. "That's right.
Can't give me yard room any too soon. The drive'll be
down next month. Plenty doing then. Damn those Dutch-
men!"

He spoke abstractedly, as though voicing his inner thoughts
to himself, unconscious of his companion. Then he roused
himself.

" Going to the mill ? " he asked. " Come on."

They walked along the high, narrow platform overlook-
ing the water front and the lading of the ships. Soon the
trestles widened, the tracks diverging like the fingers of a
hand on the broad front to the second story of the mill.
Mason said something about seeing the whole of it, and led
the way along a narrow, railed outside passage to the other
end of the structure.

There Bob's attention was at once caught by a great
water enclosure of logs, lying still and sluggish in the man-
ner of beasts resting. Rank after rank, tier after tier, in
strange patterns they lay, brown and round, with the little
strips of blue water showing between like a fantastic pat-
tern. While Bob looked, a man ran out over them. He
was dressed in short trousers, heavy socks, and spiked boots,
and a faded blue shirt. The young man watched with
interest, old memories of his early boyhood thronging back
on him, before his people had moved from Monrovia and
the "booms." The man ran erratically, but with an acu-
rate purpose. Behind him the big logs bent in dignified
reminiscence of his tread, and slowly rolled over; the little
logs bobbed frantically in a turmoil of white water, disap-
pearing and reappearing again and again, sleek and wet as
seals. To these the man paid no attention, but leaped
easily on, pausing on the timbers heavy enough to support
him, barely spurning those too small to sustain his weight.
In a moment he stopped abruptly without the transitorial
balancing Bob would have believed necessary, and went
calmly to pushing mightily with a long pike-pole. The log

THE RULES OF THE GAME 31

on which he stood rolled under the pressure; the man quite
mechanically kept pace with its rolling, treading it in cor-
respondence now one way, now the other. In a few
moments thus he had forced the mass of logs before him
toward an inclined plane leading to the second story of
the mill.

Up this ran an endless chain armed with teeth. The
man pushed one of the logs against the chain; the teeth
bit; at once, shaking itself free of the water, without appar-
ent effort, without haste, calmly and leisurely as befitted
the dignity of its bulk, the great timber arose. The water
dripped from it, the surface streamed, a cheerful patter,
patter of the falling drops made itself heard beneath the
mill noises. In a moment the log disappeared beneath
projecting eaves. Another was just behind it, and behind
that yet another, and another, like great patient beasts
rising from the coolness of a stream to follow a leader through
the narrowness of pasture bars. And in the booms, up the
river, as far as the eye could see, were other logs awaiting
their turn. And beyond them the forest trees, straight
and tall and green, dreaming of the time when they should
follow their brothers to the ships and go out into the world.

Mason was looking up the river.

"I've seen the time when she was piled thirty feet high
there, and the freshet behind her. That was ten year
back."

"What?" asked Bob.

"A jam!" explained Mason.

He ducked his head below his shoulders and disappeared
beneath the eaves of the mill. Bob followed.

First it was dusky; then he saw the strip of bright yellow
sunlight and the blue bay in the opening below the eaves;
then he caught the glitter and whirr of the two huge saws,
moving silently but with the deadly menace of great speed
on their axes. Against the light in irregular succession,
alternately blotting and clearing the foreground at the end

32 THE RULES OF THE GAME

of the mill, appeared the ends of the logs coming up the
incline. For a moment they poised on the slant, then fell
to the level, and glided forward to a broad platform where
they were ravished from the chain and rolled into line.

Bob's eyes were becoming accustomed to the gloom.
He made out pulleys, belts, machinery, men. While he
watched a black, crooked arm shot vigorously up from
the floor, hurried a log to the embrace of two clamps, rolled
it a little this way, a little that, hovered over it as though
in doubt as to whether it was satisfactorily placed, then
plunged to unknown depths as swiftly and silently as it
had come. So abrupt and purposeful were its movements,
so detached did it seem from control, that, just as when he
was a youngster, Bob could not rid his mind of the notion
that it was possessed of volition, that it led a mysterious life
of its own down there in the shadows, that it was in the
nature of an intelligent and agile beast trained to apply its
powers independently.

Bob remembered it as the "nigger, 57 and looked about
for the man standing by a lever.

A momentary delay seemed to have occurred, owing to
some obscure difficulty. The man at the lever straightened
his back. Suddenly all that part of the floor seemed to
start forward with extraordinary swiftness. The log rushed
down on the circular saw. Instantly the wild, exultant
shriek arose. The car went on, burying the saw, all but
the very top, from which a stream of sawdust flew up and
back. A long, clean slab fell to a succession of revolving
rollers which carried it, passing it from one to the other,
far into the body of the mill. The car shot back to its origi-
nal position in front of the saw. The saw hummed an
undersong of strong vibration. Again it ploughed its way
the length of the timber. This time a plank with bark
edges dropped on the rollers. And when the car had flown
back to its starting point the " nigger " rose from obscurity
to turn the log half way around.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 33

They picked their way gingerly on. Bob looked back.
Against the light the two graceful, erect figures, immobile,
but carried back and forth over thirty feet with lightning
rapidity; the brute masses of the logs; the swift decisive
forays of the "nigger," the unobtrusive figures of the other
men handling the logs far in the background; and the
bright, smooth, glittering, dangerous saws, clear-cut in
outline by their very speed, humming in anticipation, or
shrieking like demons as they bit these seemed to him
to swell in the dim light to the proportions of something
gigantic, primeval to become forces beyond the experi-
ence of to-day, typical of the tremendous power that must
be invoked to subdue the equally tremendous power of the
wilderness.

He and Mason together examined the industriously
working gang-saws, long steel blades with the up-and-down
motion of cutting cord-wood. They passed the small
trimming saws y where men push the boards between little
round saws to trim their edges. Bob noticed how the sawdust
was carried away automatically, and where the waste slabs
went. They turned through a small side room, strangely
silent by contrast to the rest, where the filer did his minute
work. He was an old man, the filer, with steel-rimmed,
round spectacles, and he held Bob some time explaining
how important his position was.

They emerged filially to the broad, open platform with
the radiating tram-car tracks. Here Bob saw the finished
boards trundled out on the moving rollers to be transferred
to the cars.

Mason left him. He made his way slowly back toward
the office, noticing on the way the curious pairs of huge
wheels beneath which were slung the heavy timbers or piles
of boards for transportation at the level of the ground.

At the edge of the lumber piles Bob looked back. The
noises or industry were in his ears; the blur of industry
before his eyes; the clean, sweet smell of pine in his nostrils.

$4 THE RULES OF THE GAME

He saw clearly the row of ships and the many-jointed serpent
of boards making its way to the hold, the sailors swinging
aloft; the miles of ruminating brown logs, and the alert
little man zigzagging across them; the shadow of the mill
darkening the water, and the brown leviathan timbers rising
dripping in regular succession from them; the whirr of the
deadly circular saws, and the calm, erect men dominating
the cars that darted back and forth; and finally the spark-
ling white steam spraying suddenly against the intense blue
of the sky. Here was activity, business, industry, the clash
of forces. He admired the quick, compact alertness of
Johnny Mason; he joyed in the absorbed, interested acti-
vity of the brown young men with the sealer's rules; he
envied a trifle the muscle-stretching, physical labour of the
men with the leather aprons and hand-guards, piling the
lumber. It was good to draw in deep breaths of this air,
to smell deeply of he aromatic odours of the north.

Suddenly the mill whistle began to blow. Beneath the
noise he could hear the machinery beginning to run down.
From all directions men came. They converged in the
central alley, hundreds of them. In a moment Bob was
caught up in their stream, and borne with them toward
the weather-stained shanty town.

BOB followed this streaming multitude to the large
structure that had earlier been pointed out to him as
the boarding house. It was a commodious affair
with a narrow verandah to which led steps picked out by the
sharp caulks of the rivermen's boots. A round stove held
the place of honour in the first room. Benches flanked the
walls. At one end was a table-sink, and tin wa^sh-basins,
and roller towels. The men were splashing and blowing
in the plunge-in-all-over fashion of their class. They
emerged slicked down and fresh, their hair plastered wet
to their foreheads. After a moment a fat and motherly
woman made an announcement from a rear room. All
trooped out.

The dining room was precisely like those Bob remembered
from recollections of the river camps of his childhood. There
were the same long tables covered with red oilcloth, the
same pine benches worn smooth and shiny, the same thick
crockery, and the same huge receptacles steaming with
hearty and well-cooked food. Nowhere does the man
who labours with his hands fare better than in the average
lumber camp. Forest operations have a largeness in con-
ception and execution that leads away from the habit of
the mean, small and foolish economics. At one side, and
near the windows, stood a smaller table. The covering of
this was turkey-red cloth v/ith white pattern; it boasted
a white-metal "caster"; and possessed real chairs. Here
Bob took his seat, in company with Fox, Collins, Mason,
Tally and the half-doz^n active young fellows he had seen
handling the scaling rules near the ships.

36 THE RULES OF THE GAME

At the men's tables the meal was consumed in a silence
which Bob learned later came nearer being obligatory than
a matter of choice. Conversation was discouraged by the
good-natured fat woman, Mrs. Hallowell. Talk delayed;
and when one had dishes to wash

The " boss's table" was more leisurely. Bob was intro-
duced to the sealers. They proved to be, with one excep-
tion, young fellows of twenty-one or two, keen-eyed, brown-
faced, alert and active. They impressed Bob as belonging
to the clerk class, with something added by the outdoor,
varied life. Indeed, later he discovered them to be sons of
carpenters, mechanics and other higher-class, intelligent
workingmen; boys who had gone through high school,
and perhaps a little way into the business college; ambi-
tious youngsters, each with a different idea in the back of
his head. They had in common an air of capability, of
complete adequacy for the task in life they had selected.
The sixth sealer was much older and of the riverman type.
He had evidently come up from the ranks.

There was no general conversation. Talk confined
itself strictly to shop. Bob, his imagination already stirred
by the incidents of his stroll, listened eagerly. Fox was
getting in touch with the whole situation.

"The main drive is down," Tally told him, "but the
Cedar Branch hasn't got to the river yet. What in blazes
did you want to buy that little strip this late in the day for ? "

"Had to take it on a deal," said Fox briefly. "Why?
Is it hard driving? I've never been up there. Welton
saw to all that"

"It's hell. The pine's way up at the headwaters. You
have to drive her the whole length of the stream, through
a mixed hardwood and farm country. Lots of patridges
and mossbacks, but no improvements. Not a dam the whole
length of her. Case of hit the freshet water or get hung."

"Well, we've done that kind of a job before."

"Yes, before!" Tally retorted. "If I had a half -crew of

THE RULES OF THE GAME 37

good, oH-fashioned white- water birlers, I'd rest easy. But
we don't have no crews like we used to. The old bully
boys have all moved out west or died."

"Getting old like us," bantered Fox. "Why haven't
you died off too, Jim?"

"I'm never going to die," stated the old man, "I'm going
to live to turn into a grindstone and wear out. But it's a
fact. There's plenty left can ride a log all right, but they'i
a tough lot. It's too close here to Marion."

"That is too bad, " condoled Fox, "especially as I remem-
ber so well what a soft-spoken, lamb-like little tin angel
you used to be, Jim."

Fox, who had quite dropped his old office self, winked at
Bob. The latter felt encouraged to say:

" I had a course in college on archaeology. Don't remem-
ber much about it, but one thing. When they managed to
decipher the oldest known piece of hieroglyphics on an
Assyrian brick, what do you suppose it turned out to be?"

"Give it up, Brudder Bones," said Tally, dryly, "what
was it?"

Bob flushed at the old rivennan's tone, but went on.

"It was a letter from a man to his son away at school.
In it he lamented the good old times when he was young,
and gave it as his opinion that the world was going to the
dogs."

Tally grinned slowly; and the others burst into a shout
of laughter.

"All right, bub," said the riverman good-humouredly.
"But that doesn't get me a new foreman." He turned to
Fox. "Smith broke his leg; and I can't find a man to take
charge. I can't go. The main drive's got to be sorted."

"There ought to be plenty of good men," said Fox.

"There are, but they're at work."

"Dicky Darrell is over at Marion," spoke up one of the
sealers.

"Roaring Dick," said Tally sarcastically, " but there's

38 THE RULES OF THE GAME

no denying he's a good man in the woods. But if he's at
Marion, he's drunk; and if he's drunk, you can't do noth-
ing with him."

"I heard it three days ago," said the sealer.

Tally ruminated. "Well," he concluded, " maybe he's
about over with his bust. I'll run over this afternoon and
see what I can do with him. If Tom Welton would only
tear himself apart from California, we'd get on all right."

A scraping back of benches and a tramp of feet announced
the nearly simultaneous finishing of feeding at the men's
tables. At the boss's table everyone seized an unabashed
toothpick. Collins addressed Bob.

"Mr. Fox and I have so much to go over this afternoon,"
said he, "that I don't believe I'll have time to show you.
Just look around a little."

On the porch outside Bob paused. After a moment he
became aware of a figure at his elbow. He turned to see
old Jim Tally bent over to light his pipe behind the mahog-
any of his curved hard.

"Want to take in Marion, bub?" he enquired.

"Sure!" cried Bob heartily, surprised at this mark of
favour.

"Come on then," said the old riverman, "the lightning
express is gettin' anxious for us."

VII

THEY tramped to the station and boarded the single
passenger car of the accommodation. There they
selected a forward seat and waited patiently for the
freight-handling to finish and for the leisurely puffing little
engine to move on. An hour later they descended at Marion.
The journey had been made in an almost absolute silence.
Tally stared straight ahead, and sucked at his little pipe.
To him, apparently, the journey was merely something to
be endured; and he relapsed into that patient absent-mind-
edness developed among those who have to wait on forces
that will not be hurried. Bob's remarks he answered in
monosyllables. When the train pulled into the station,
Tally immediately arose, as though released by a spring.

Bob's impressions of Marion were of great mills and saw-
dust-burners along a wide river; of broad, sawdust-covered
streets; of a single block of good, brick stores on a main
thoroughfare which almost immediately petered out into the
vilest and most ramshackle frame "joints"; of wide side
streets flanked by small, painted houses in yards, some very
neat indeed. Tally walked rapidly by the respectable busi-
ness blocks, but pushed into the first of the unkempt frame
saloons beyond. Bob followed close at his heels. He
found himself in a cheap bar-room, its paint and varnish
scarred and marred, its floor sawdust-covered, its centre
occupied by a huge stove, its walls decorated by several
pictures of the nude.

Four men were playing cards at an old round table, hacked
and bruised and blackened by time. One of them was the
barkeeper, a burly individual with black hair plastered in

40 THE RULES OF THE GAME

a "lick" across his forehead. He pushed back his chair
and ducked behind the bar, whence he greeted the new-
comers. Tally proffered a question. The barkeeper
relaxed from his professional attitude, and leaned both
elbows on the bar. The two conversed for a moment; then
Tally nodded briefly and went out. Bob followed.

This performance was repeated down the length of the
street. The stage-settings varied little; same oblong,
painted rooms; same varnished bars down one side; same
mirrors and bottles behind them; same sawdust-strewn
floors; same pictures on the walls; same obscure, back
rooms; same sleepy card games by the same burly but sod-
den type of men. This was the off season. Profits were now
as slight as later they would be heavy. Tim talked with
the barkeepers low-voiced, nodded and went out. Only
when he had systematically worked both sides of the street
did he say anything to his companion.

"He's in town," said Tally; "but they don't know where,"

"Whither away?" asked Bob.

"Across the river."

They walked together down a side street to a long wooden
bridge. This rested on wooden piers shaped upstream like
the prow of a ram in order to withstand the battering of the
logs. It was a very long bridge. Beneath it the swift current
of the river slipped smoothly. The breadth of the stream
was divided into many channels and pockets by means of
brown poles. Some of these were partially filled with logs.
A clear channel had been preserved up the middle. Men
armed with long pike-poles were moving here and there over
the booms and the logs themselves, pushing, pulling, shoving
a big log into this pocket, another into that, gradually segre-
gating the different brands belonging to the different owners
of the mills below. From the quite considerable height of the
bridge all this lay spread out mapwise up and down the
perspective of the stream. The smooth, oily current of the
river, leaden-hued and cold in the light of the early spring,

THE RULES OF THE GAME 41

hurried by on its way to the lake, swiftly, yet without the
turmoil and fuss of lesser power. Downstream, as far as
Bob could see, were the huge mills with their flanking lum-
ber yards, the masts of their lading ships, their black sawdust-
burners, and above all the pure-white, triumphant banners
of steam that shot straight up against the gray of the sky.

Tally followed the direction of his gaze.

"Modern work," he commented. "Rand saws. No cir-
culars there. Two hundred thousand a day"; with which
cryptic utterance he resumed his walk.

The opposite side of the river proved to be a smaller edi-
tion of the other. Into the first saloon Tally pushed.

It resembled the others, except that no card game was in
progress. The barkeeper, his feet elevated, read a pink
paper behind the bar. A figure slept at the round table, its
head in its arms. Tally walked over to shake this man by
the shoulder.

In a moment the sleeper raised his head. Bob saw a
little, middle-aged man, not over five feet six in height, slen-
derly built, yet with broad, hanging shoulders. His head
was an almost exact inverted pyramid, the base formed by a
mop of red-brown hair, and the apex represented by i very
pointed chin. Two level, oblong patches of hair made
eyebrows. His face was white and nervous. A strong,
hooked nose separated a pair of red-brown eyes, small and
twinkling, like a chipmunk's. Just now they were blood-
shot and vague.

"Hullo, Dicky Darrell," said Tally.

The man struggled to his feet, knocking over the chair,
and laid both hands effusively on Tally's shoulders.

"Jim!" he cried thickly. "Good ole Jim! Glad to see
you! Rav 1 drinki "

Tally nodded, and, to Bob's surprise, took his place at
the bar.

"Hav' Another!" cried Darrell. "God! I'm glad to see
you! Nobody in town."

42 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"All right," agreed Tally pacifically; "but let's go across
the river to Dugan's and get it."

To this Darrell readily agreed. They left the saloon.
Bob, following, noticed the peculiar truculence imparted to
DarrelFs appearance by the fact that in walking he always
held his hands open and palms to the front. Suddenly Dar-
rell became for the first time aware of his presence. The
riverman whirled on him, and Bob became conscious of
something as distinct as a physical shock as he met the
impact of an electrical nervous energy. It passed, and he
found himself half smiling down on this little, white-faced
man with the matted hair and the bloodshot, chipmunk eyes.

"Who'n hell's this!" demanded Darrell savagely.

" Friend of mine," said Tally. " Come on."

Darrell stared a moment longer. "All right," he said at
last.

All the way across the bridge Tally argued with his com-
panion.

" We've got to have a foreman on the Cedar Branch, Dick,"
he began, "and you're the fellow."

To this Darrell offered a profane, emphatic and contemp-
tuous negative. With consummate diplomacy Tally led his
mind from sullen obstinacy to mere reluctance. At the cor-
ner of Main Street the three stopped.

" But I don't want to go yet, Jim," pleaded Darrell, almost
tearfully. " I ain't had all my ' time ' yet."

"Well," said Tally, "you've been polishing up the flames
of hell for four days pretty steady. What more do you
want?"

"I ain't smashed no rig yet," objected Darrell.

Tally looked puzzled.

"Well, go ahead and smash your rig and get done with it,"
he said.

"A' right," said Darrell cheerfully.

He started off briskly, the others following. Down a side
street his rather uncertain gait led them, to the wide-open

THE RULES OF THE GAME 43

door of a frame livery stable. The usual loungers in the
usual tipped-back chairs greeted him.

"Want m' rig," he demanded.

A large and leisurely man in shirt sleeves lounged out from
the office and looked him over dispassionately.

"You've been drunk four days," said he, "have you the
price?"

"Bet y 3 ," said Dick, cheerfully. He seated himself on
the ground and pulled off his boot from which he extracted
a pulpy mass of greenbacks. "Can't fool me!" he said
cunningly. "Always save 'nuff for my rig!"

He shoved the bills into the liveryman's hands. The
latter straightened them out, counted them, thrust a porx
tion into his pocket, and handed the rest back to Darrell.

"There you are," said he. He shouted an order into tb*
darkness of the stable.

An interval ensued. The stableman and Tally waited
imperturbably, without the faintest expression of interest
in anything evident on their immobile countenances. Dicky
Darrell rocked back and forth on his heels, a pleased smile
on his face.

After a few moments the stable boy led out a horse hitched
to the most ramshackle and patched-up old side-bar buggy
Bob had ever beheld. Darrell, after several vain attempts,
managed to clamber aboard. He gathered up the reins, and,
with exaggerated care, drove into the middle of the street.

Then suddenly he rose to his feet, uttered an ear-piercing
exultant yell, hurled the reins at the horse's head and began
to beat the animal with his whip. The horse, startled,
bounded forward. The buggy jerked. Darrell sat down
violently, but was at once on his feet, plying the whip. The
crazed man and the crazed horse disappeared up the street,
the buggy careening from side to side, Darrell yelling at the
top of his lungs. The stableman watched him out of
sight.

"Roaring Dick of the Woods!" said he thoughtfully at

44 THE RULES OF THE GAME

last. He thrust his hand in his pocket and took out the
wad of greenbacks, contemplated them for a moment, and
thrust them back. He caught Tally's eye. "Funny what
different ideas men have of a time," said he,

"Do this regular ?" inquired Tally dryly.

"Every year."

Bob got his breath at last.

"Why!" he cried. "What'll happen to him! He'll be
killed sure!"

"Not him!" stated the stableman emphatically. "Not
Dicky Darrell! He'll smash up good, and will crawl out of
the wreck > and he'll limp back here in just about one half-
hour."

"How about the horse and buggy?"

" Oh, we'll catch the horse in a day or two it's a spoiled
colt, anyway and we'll patch up the buggy if she's patch-
able. If not, we'll leave it. Usual programme."

The stableman and Tally lit their pipes. Nobody seemed
much interested now that the amusement was over. Bob
owned a boyish desire to follow the wake of the cyclone, but
in the presence of this imperturbability, he repressed his
inclination.

"Some day the damn fool will bust his head open," said
the liveryman, after a ruminative pause.

"I shouldn't think you'd rent him a horse," said Bob.

"He pays," yawned the other.

At the end of the half-hour the liveryman dove into his
office for a coat, which he put on. This indicated that he
contemplated exercising in the sun instead of sitting still in
the shade.

"Well, let's look him up," said he. "'This may be the
time he busts his fool head."

"Hope not," was Tally's comment; "can't afford ta lose
a foreman."

But near the outskirts of town they met Roaring Dick
limping painfully down the middle of the road. His hat was

THE RULES OF THE GAME 45

gone and he was liberally plastered with the soft mud of
early spring.

Not one word would he vouchsafe, but looked at them all
malevolently. His intoxication seemed to have evaporated
with his good spirits. As answer to the liveryman's ques-
tion as to the whereabouts of the smashed rig, he waved a
comprehensive hand toward the suburbs. At insistence,
he snapped back like an ugly dog.

"Out there somewhere," he snarled. "Go find iti What
the hell do I care where it is? It's mine, isn't it? I paid
you for it, didn' 1 1 ? Well, go find it ! You can have it ! "

He tramped vigorously back toward the main street, a
grotesque figure with his red-brown hair tumbled over his
white, nervous countenance of the pointed chin, with his
hooked nose, and his twinkling chipmunk eyes.

"He'll hit the fust saloon, if you don't watch out," Bob
managed to whisper to Tally.

But the latter shook his head. From long experience he
knew the type.

His reasoning was correct. Roaring Dick tramped dog-
gedly down the length of the street to the little frame depot.
There he slumped into one of the hard seats in the waiting-
room, where he promptly slept. Tally sat down beside him
and withdrew into himself. The twilight fell. After an
apparently interminable interval a train rumbled in.. Tally
shook his companion. The latter awakened just long enough
to stumble aboard the smoking car, where, his knees propped
up, his chin on his breast, he relapsed into deep slumber.

They arrived at the boarding house late in the evening.
Mrs. Hallowell set out a cold supper, to which Bob was
ready to do full justice. Ten minutes later he found him-
self in a tiny box of a bedroom, furnished barely. He
pushed open the window and propped it up with a piece of
kindling. The earth had fallen into a very narrow sil-
houette, and the star-filled heavens usurped all space, crowd-
ing the world down. Against the sky the outlines stood sig-

46 THE RULES OF THE GAME

nificant in what they suggested and concealed slumbering
roof-tops, the satiated mill glowing vaguely somewhere from
her banked fires, the blackness and mass of silent lumber
yards, the mysterious, hushing fingers of the ships' masts,
and then low and vague, like a narrow strip of velvet divid-
ing these men's affairs from the star-strewn infinite, the
wilderness. As Bob leaned from the window the bigness
of these things rushed into his office-starved spirit as air into
a vacuum. The cold of the lake breeze entered his lungs.
He drew a deep breath of it. For the first time in his short
business experience he looked forward eagerly to the morrow.

VIII

BOB was awakened before daylight by the unholy shriek
of a great whistle. He then realized that for some
time he had been vaguely aware of kindling and stove
sounds. The bare little room had become bitterly cold. A
gray-blackness represented the world outside. He lighted
his glass lamp and took a hasty, shivering sponge bath in the
crockery basin. Then he felt better in the answering glow
of his healthy, straight young body; and a few moments
later was prepared to enjoy a fragrant, new-lit, somewhat
smoky fire in the big stove outside his door. The bell rang.
Men knocked ashes from their pipes and arose; other men
stamped in from outside. The dining room was filled.

Bob took his seat, nodding to the men. A slightly grumpy
silence reigned. Collins and Fox had not yet appeared.
Bob saw Roaring Dick at the other table, rather whiter than
the day before, but carrying himself boldly in spite of his
poor head. As he looked, Roaring Dick caught his eye.
The riverman evidently did not recognize having seen the
young stranger the day before; but Bob was again con-
scious of the quick impact of the man's personality, quite
out of proportion to his diminutive height and siender build.
At the end of ten minutes the men trooped out noisily. Shortly
a second whistle blew. At the signal the mill awoke. The
clang of machinery, beginning slowly, increased in tempo.
The exultant shriek of the saws rose to heaven. Bob, peer-
ing forth into the young daylight, caught the silhouette of the
elephantine tram horse, high in the air, bending his great
shoulders to the starting of his little train of cars.

Not knowing what else to do, Bob sauntered to the office.

48 THE RULES OF THE GAME

It was locked and dark. He returned to the boarding house,
and sat down in the main room. The lamps became dimmer.
Finally the chore boy put them out. Then at last Collins
appeared, followed closely by Fox.

" You didn't get up to eat with the men?" the bookkeeper
asked Bob a trifle curiously. "You don't need to do that.
We eat with Mrs. Hallowell at seven."

At eight o'clock the little bookkeeper opened the office
door and ushered Bob in to the scene of his duties.

"You're to help me," said Collins concisely. "I have
the books. Our other duties are to make out time checks
for the men, to answer the correspondence in our province, to
keep track of carnp supplies, and to keep tab on shipments
and the stock on hand and sawed each day. There's your
desk. You'll find time blanks and everything there. The
copying press is in the corner. Over here is the tally board,"
He led the way to a pine bulletin, perhaps four feet square,
into which were screwed a hundred or more small brass
screw hooks. From each depended a small pine tablet or
tag inscribed with many figures. "Do you understand a
tally board?" Collms asked.

"No," replied Bob.

"Well, these screw hooks are arranged just like a map of
the lumber yards. Each hook represents one of the lumber
piles or rather the location of a lumber pile. The tags
hanging from them represent the lumber piles themselves;
see?"

"Sure," said Bob. Now that he understood he could
follow out on this strange map the blocks, streets and alleys
of that silent, tenantless city.

"On these tags," pursued Collins, "are figures. These
figures show how much lumber is in each pile, and what
kind it is, and of what quality. In that way we know just
what we have and where it is. The sealers report to us every
day just what has been shipped out, and what has been
piled from the mill. From their reports we change the

THE RULES OF THE GAME 49

figures on the tags. Fm going to let you take care of
that."

Bob bestowed his losag figure at the desk assigned him,
and went to work. He was interested, for it was all new to
him. Men were constantly in and out on all sorts of errands.
Fox came to shake hands and wish him well; he was off on
the ten o'clock train. Bob checked over a long invoice of
camp supplies; manipulated the copying press; and, under
Collins's instructions, made out time checks against the next
pay day. The insistence of details kept him at the stretch
until noon surprised him.

After dinner and a breath of fresh air, he plunged again
into his tasks. Now he had the sealers' noon reports to
transfer to the tally board. He was intensely interested by
the novelty of it all; but even this early he encountered his
old difficulties in the matter of figures. He made no mistakes,
but in order to correlate, remember and transfer correctly
he was forced to an utterly disproportionate intensity of
application. To the tally board he brought more absolute
concentration and will-power than did Collins to all his
manifold tasks. So evidently painstaking was he, that the
little bookkeeper glanced at him sharply once or twice.
However, he said nothing.

When darkness approached the bookkeeper closed his
ledger and came over to Bob's desk. In ten minutes he
ran deftly over Bob's afternoon work; re-checking the supply
invoices, verifying the time checks, comparing the tallies
with the sealers' reports. So swiftly and accurately did
he accomplish this, with so little hesitation and so assured
a belief in his own correctness that the really taxing job seemed
merely a bit of light mental gymnastics after the day's work.

"Good!" he complimented Bob; "everything's correct"

Bob nodded, a little gloomily. It might be correct; but
he was very tired from the strain of it.

"It'll come easier with practice," said Collins; "always
difficult to do a new thing."

50 THE RULES OF THE GAME

The whistle blew. Bob went directly to his room and
sat down on the edge of his bed. In spite of Collins's kindly
meant reassurances, the iron of doubt had entered his soul.
He had tried for four months, and was no nearer facility
than when he started.

"If a man hadn't learned better than that, I'd have called
him a dub and told him to get off the squad," he said to him-
self, a little bitterly. He thought a moment. "I guess
I'm tired. I must buck up. If Collins and Archie can do
it, I can. It's all in the game. Of course, it takes time and
training. Get in the game!"

THIS was on Tuesday. During the rest of the week
Bob worked hard. Even a skilled man would have
been kept busy by the multitude of details that
poured in on the little office. Poor Bob was far from skilled.
He felt as awkward amid all these swift and accurate activities
as he had when at sixteen it became necessary to force his
overgrown frame into a crowded drawing room. He tried
very hard, as he always did with everything. When Collins
succinctly called his attention to a discrepancy in his figur-
ings, he smiled his slow, winning, troubled smile, thrust
the hair back from his clear eyes, and bent his lean athlete's
frame again to the labour. He soon discovered that this
work demanded speed as well as accuracy. "And I need
a ten-acre lot to turn around in," he told himself half hum-
orously. "I'm a regular ice-wagon."

He now came to look back on his college triumphs with an
exaggerated but wholesome reaction. His athletic prowess
had given him great prominence in college circles. Girls
had been flattered at his attention; his classmates had deferred
to his skill and experience; his juniors had, in the manner of
college boys, looked up to him as to a demi-god. Then for
the few months of the football season the newspapers had
made of him a national character. His picture appeared
at least once a week; his opinions were recorded; his physical
measurements carefully detailed. When he appeared on
the streets and in hotel lobbies, people were apt to recog-
nize him and whisper furtively to one another. Bob was
naturally the most modest youth in the world, and he hated
a "fuss" after the delightfully normal fashion of normal

5 1

52 THE RULES OF THE GAME

boys, but all this could not fail to have its subtle effect. He
went out into the world without conceit, but confident of
his ability to take his place with the best of them.

His first experience showed him wholly second in natural
qualifications, in ability to learn, and in training to men sub-
ordinate in the business world.

"I'm just plain dub," he told himself. " I thought myself
some pumpkins and got all swelled up inside because good
food and leisure and heredity gave me a husky build 1 Foot-
ball! What good does that do me here? Four out of five
of these rivermen are huskier than I am. Me a business
man! Why I can't seem even to learn the first principles of
the first job of the whole lot! I've got to!" he admonished
himself grimly. "I hate a fellow who doesn't make good!"
and with a very determined set to his handsome chin he hurled
the whole force of his young energies at those elusive figures
that somehow would lie.

The week slipped by in this struggle. It was much worse
than in the Chicago office. There Bob was allowed all the
time he thought he needed. Here one task followed close
on the heels of another, without chance for a breathing space
or room to take bearings. Bob had to do the best he cold r
commit the result to a merciful providence, and seize the
next job by the throat.

One morning he awoke with a jump to find it was seven
o'clock. He had heard neither whistle, and must have
overslept! Hastily he leaped into his clothes, and rushed
out into the dining room. There he found the chore-boy
leisurely feeding a just-lighted kitchen fire. To Bob's
exclamation of astonishment he looked up.

"Sunday," he grinned; "breakfus' at eight."

The week had gone without Bob's having realized the
fact.

Mrs. Hallowell came in a moment later, smiling at the
winning, handsome young man in her fat and good-humoured
manner. Bob was seized with an inspiration.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 53

"Mrs. Hallowell," he said persuasively, "just let me
rummage around for five minutes, will you?"

"You that hungry?" she chuckled. "Law! I'll have
breakfast in an hour."

''It isn't that," said Bob; "but I want to get some air
to-day. I'm not used to being in an office. I want to
steal a hunk of bread, and a few of your good doughnuts and
a slice of cheese for breakfast and lunch."

"A cup of hot coffee would do you more good," objected
Mrs. Halloweil.

"Please," begged Bob, "and I won't disturb a thing."

"Oh, land I Don't worry about that," said Mrs. Hallo-
well, " there's teamsters and such in here all times of the day
and night. Help yourself."

Five minutes later, Bob, swinging a riverman's canvas
lunch bag, was walking rapidly up the River Trail. He
did not know whither he was bound; but here at last was a
travelled way. It was a brilliant blue and gold morning,
the air crisp, the sun warm. The trail led him first across
a stretch of stump-dotted wet land with pools and rounded
rises, green new grass, and trickling streamlets of recently
melted snow. Then came a fringe of scrub growth woven
into an almost impenetrable tangle oaks, poplars, willows,
cedar, tamarack and through it all an abattis of old
slashing with its rotting, fallen stumps, its network of
tops, its soggy root-holes, its fallen, uprooted trees. Along
one of these strutted a partridge. It clucked at Bob, but
refused to move faster, lifting its feet deliberately and spread-
ing its fanlike tail. The River Trail here took to poles
laid on rough horses. The poles were old and slippery, and
none too large. Bob had to walk circumspectly to stay on
them at all. Shortly, however, he stepped of! into the
higher country of the hardwoods. Here the spring had
passed, scattering her fresh green. The tops of the trees
were already in half-leaf; the lower branches just budding,
so that it seemed the sowing must have been from above.

54 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Last year's leaves, softened and packed by the snow, covered
the ground with an indescribably beautiful and noiseless
carpet. Through it pushed the early blossoms of the hepa-
tica. Grackles whistled clearly. Distant redwings gave
their celebrated imitation of a great multitude. Bluebirds
warbled on the wing. The busier chickadees and creepers
searched the twigs and trunks, interpolating occasional
remarks. The sun slanted through the forest.

Bob strode on vigorously. His consciousness received
these things gratefully, and yet he was more occupied with
a sense of physical joy and harmony with the world of out-
of-doors than with an analysis of its components. At one
point, however, he paused. The hardwoods had risen over
a low hill. Now they opened to show a framed picture of
the river, distant and below. In contrast to the modulated
browns of the tree-trunks, the new green and lilac of the
undergrowth and the far-off hills across the way, it showed
like a patch of burnished blue steel. Logs floated across
the vista, singly, in scattered groups, in masses. Again,
the river was clear. While Bob watched, a man floated into
view. He was standing bolt upright and at ease on a log
so small that the water lapped over its top. From this dis-
tance Bob could but just make it out. The man leaned
carelessly on his peavy. Across the vista he floated, grace-
ful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to the
mill.

Bob gave a whistle of admiration, and walked on.

"I wish some of our oarsmen could see that," he said to
himself. "They're always guying the fellows that tip over
their cranky little shells."

He stopped short.

s: I couldn't do it," he cried aloud; "nor I couldn't learn
tP do it. I sure am a dub ! ' '

He trudged on, his spirits again at the ebb. The bright-
ness of the day had dimmed. Indeed, physically, a change
had taken place. Over the sun banked clouds had drawn.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 55

With the disappearance of the sunlight a little breeze, before
but a pleasant and wandering companion to the birds, became
cold and draughty. The leaf carpet proved to be soggy;
and as for the birds themselves, their whistles suddenly grew
plaintive as though with the portent of late autumn.

This sudden transformation, usual enough with every pass-
ing cloud in the childhood of the spring, reacted still further
on Bob's spirits. He trudged doggedly on. After a time
a gleam of water caught his attention to the left. He deserted
the River Trail, descended a slope, pushed his way through
a thicket of tamaracks growing out from wire grass and pud-
dles, and found himself on the shores of a round lake.

It was a small body of water, completely surrounded by
tall, dead brown grasses. These were in turn fringed by
melancholy tamaracks. The water was dark slate colour, and
ruffled angrily by the breeze which here in the open devel-
oped some slight strength. It reminded Bob of a " bottom-
less" lake pointed out many years before to his childish
credulity. A lonesome hell diver flipped down out of sight
as Bob appeared.

The wet ground swayed and bent alarmingly under his
tread. A stub attracted him. He perched on the end of it,
his feet suspended above the wet, and abandoned himself to
reflection. The lonesome diver reappeared. The breeze
rustled the dead grasses and the tamaracks until they seemed
to be shivering in the cold.

Bob was facing himself squarely. This was his first grapple
with the world outside. To his direct American mind the
problem was simplicity in the extreme. An idler is a con-
temptible being. A rich idler is almost beneath contempt.
A man's life lies in activity. Activity, outside the artistic
and professional, means the world of business. All teaching
at home and through the homiletic magazines, fashionable
at that period, pointed out but one road to success in this
world the beginning at the bottom, as Bob was doing;
close application; accuracy; frugality; honesty; fair dealing.

56 THE RULES OF THE GAME

The homiletic magazines omitted idealism and imagination;
but perhaps those qualities are so common in what some
people are pleased to call our humdrum modern business life
that they were taken for granted. If a young man could not
succeed in this world, something was wrong with him. Can
Bob be blamed that in this baffling and unsuspected incapa-
city he found a great humility of spirit? In his fashion he
began to remember trifling significances which at the time
had meant little to him. Thus, a girl had once told him,
half seriously:

" Yes, you're a nice boy, just as everybody tells you; a nice,
big, blundering, stupid, Newfoundland-dog boy."

He had laughed good-humouredly, and had forgotten.
Now he caught at one word of it. That might explain it;
he was just plain stupid I And stupid boys either played
polo or drove fancy horses or ran yachts or occupied orna-
mental too ornamental desks for an hour or so a day.
Bob remembered how, as a small boy,, he used to hold the
ends of the reins under the delighted belief that he was
driving his father's spirited pair.

"I've outgrown holding the reins, thank you," he said
aloud in disgust. At the sound of his voice the diver dis-
appeared. Bob laughed and felt a trifle better.

He reviewed himself dispassionately. He could not but
admit that he had tried hard enough, and that he had cour-
age. It was just a case of limitation. Bob, for the first
tiime r bumped against the stone wall that hems us in on all
sidles save toward the sky.

He fell into a profound discouragement; a discouragement
that somehow found its prototype in the mournful little
lake with its kaden water, its cold breeze, its whispering,dried
marsh grasses, its funereal tamaracks, and its lonesome diver.

BUT Bob was no quitter. The next morning he tramped
down to the office, animated by a new courage. Even
stupid boys learn, he remembered. It takes longer,
of course, and requires more application. But he was strong
and determined. He remembered Fatty Hayes, who took
four years to make the team Fatty, who couldn't get a
signal through his head until about time for the next play,
and whose great body moved appreciable seconds after his
brain had commanded it; Fatty Hayes, the "scrub's" chop-
ping block for trying out new men on! And yet he did
make the team in his senior year. Bob acknowledged him
a very good centre, not brilliant, but utterly sure and
safe.

Full of this dogged spirit, he tackled the day's work. It
was a heavy day's work. The mill was just hitting its
stride, the tall ships were being laden and sent away to the
four winds, buyers the country over were finishing their
contracts. Collins, his coat off, his sleeve protectors strapped
closely about his thin arms, worked at an intense white heat.
He wasted no second of time, nor did he permit discursive
interruption. His manner to those who entered the office
was civil but curt. Time was now the essence of the con-
tract these men had with life.

About ten o'clock he turned from a swift contemplation
of the tally board.

"Orde!" said he sharply.

Bob disentangled himself from his chair.

"Look there," said the bookkeeper, pointing a long and
nervous finger at three of the tags he held in his hand.

58 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"There's three errors." He held out for inspection the
original sealers' report which he had dug out of the files.

Bob looked at the discrepant figures with amazement.
He had checked the tags over twice, and both times the
error had escaped his notice. His mind, self-hypnotized,
had passed them over in the same old fashion. Yet he had
taken especial pains with that list.

"I happened, just happened, to check these back myself,"
Collins was saying rapidly. "If I hadn't, we'd have made
that contract with Robinson on the basis of what these
tags show. We haven't got that much seasoned uppers,
nor anything like it. If you've made many more breaks like
this, if we'd contracted with Robinson for what we haven't
got or couldn't get, we'd be in a nice mess and so would
Robinson!"

"I'm sorry," murmured Bob. "I'll try to do better."

"Won't do," said Collins briefly. "You aren't big
enough for the job. I can't get behind, checking over
your work. This office is too rushed as it is. Can't fool
with blundering stupidity."

Bob flushed at the word.

"I guess you'd better take your time," went on Collins.
"You may be all right, for all I know, but I haven't got time
to find out."

He rang a bell twice, and snatched down the telephone
receiver.

"Hullo, yards, send up Tommy Gould to the office. I
want him to help me. I don't give a damn for the scaling.
You'll have to get along somehow. The five of you ought
to hold that down. Send up Gould, anyhow." He slammed
up the receiver, muttering something about incompetence.
Bob for a moment had a strong impulse to retort, but his
anger died. He saw that Collins was not for the moment
thinking of him at all as a human being, as a personality -
only as a piece of this great, swiftly moving machine, that
would not run smoothly. The fact that he had come under

THE RULES OF THE GAME 59

Fox's convoy evidently meant nothing to the little book-
keeper, at least for the moment. Collins was entirely accus-
tomed to hiring and discharging men. When transplanted
to the frontier industries, even such automatic jobs as book-
keeping take on new duties and responsibilities.

Bob, after a moment of irresolution, reached for his hat.

"That will be all, then?" he asked.

Collins came out of the abstraction into which he had
fallen.

"Oh yes," he said. "Sorry, but of course we can't
take chances on these things being right."

"Of course not," said Bob steadily.

"You just need more training," went on Collins with
some vague idea of being kind to this helpless, attractive
young fellow. "I learned under Harry Thorpe that results
is all a man looks at in this business."

"I guess that's right," said Bob. "Good-bye."

"Good-bye," said Collins over his shoulder. Already he
was lost in the rapid computations and calculations that
filled his hours.

BOB left the office and tramped blindly out of town. His
feet naturally led him to the River Trail. Where the
path finally came out on the banks of the river, he sat
down and delivered himself over to the gloomiest of reflections.

He was aroused finally by a hearty greeting from behind
him. He turned without haste, surprise or pleasure to
examine the new comer.

Bob saw surveying him a man well above sixty, heavy-
bodied, burly, big, with a square face, heavy- jowled and
homely, with deep blue eyes set far apart, and iron gray hair
that curled at the ends. With the quick, instinctive sizing-up
developed on the athletic field, Bob thought him coarse-
fibred, jolly, a little obtuse, but strong very strong with
the strength of competent effectiveness. He was dressed in
a slouch hat, a flannel shirt, a wrinkled old business suit and
mud-splashed, laced half-boots.

"Well, bub," said this man, " enjoying the scenery?"

"Yes," said Bob with reserve. He was in no mood for
casual conversation, but the stranger went on cheerfully.

"Like it pretty well myself, hereabouts." He filled and
lighted a pipe. "This is a good time of year for the woods;
no mosquitos, pretty warm, mighty nice overhead. Can't
say so much for underfoot." He lifted and surveyed one
foot comically, and Bob noticed that his shoes were not
armed with the riverman's long, sharpened spikes. "Pretty
good hunting here in the fall, and fishing later. Not much
now. Up here to look around a little ? "

"No, not quite," said Bob vaguely.

"This ain't much of a pleasure resort, and a stranger's a

THE RULES OF THE GAME 61

pretty unusual thing," said the big man by way of half-
apology for his curiosity. "Up buying, I suppose or
maybe selling?"

Bob looked up with a beginning of resentment against
this apparent intrusion on his private affairs. He met the
good-humoured, jolly eyes. In spite of himself he half
smiled.

"Not that either," said he.

"You aren't in the company's employ?" persisted the
stranger with an undercurrent of huge delight in his tone,
as though he were playing a game that he enjoyed.

Bob threw back his head and laughed. It was a short
laugh and a bitter one.

"No," said he shortly, " not now. I've just been
fired."

The big man promptly dropped down beside him on the
log.

"Don't say!" he cried; "what's the matter?"

"The matter is that I'm no good," said Bob evenly, and
without the slightest note of complaint.

"Tell me about it," suggested the big man soberly after
a moment. "I'm pretty close to Fox. Perhaps "

"It isn't a case of pull," Bob interrupted him pleasantly.
"It's a case of total incompetence."

"That's a rather large order for a husky boy like you,"
said the older man with a sudden return to his undertone
of bantering jollity.

" Well, I've filled it," said Bob. " That's the one job I've
done good and plenty."

"Haven't stolen the stove, have you?"

"Might better. It couldn't be any hotter than Collins."

The stranger chuckled.

"He is a peppery little cuss," was his comment. "What
did you do to him?"

Bob told him, lightly, as though the affair might be con-
sidered humorous. The stranger became grave.

62 THE RULES OF THE GAME

" That all?" he inquired.

Bob's self-disgust overpowered him.

"No," said he, "not by a long shot." In brief sentences
he told of his whole experience since entering the business
world. When he had finished, his companion puffed away
for several moments in silence.

"Well, what you going to do about it?" he asked.

"I don't know," Bob confessed. "I've got to tell father
I'm no good. That is the only thing I can see ahead to
now. It will break him all up, and I don't blame him.
Father is too good a man himself not to feel this sort of a
thing."

"I see," said the stranger. "Well, it may come out in
the wash," he concluded vaguely after a moment. Bob
stared out at the river, lost in the gloomy thoughts his last
speech had evoked. The stranger improved the opportunity
to look the young man over critically from head to foot.

"I see you're a college man," said he, indicating Bob's
fraternity pin.

"Yes," replied the young man listlessly. "I went to the
University."

"That so!" said the stranger, "well, you're ahead of me.
I never got even to graduate at the high school."

"Am I?" said Bob.

"What did you do at college?" inquired the big man.

"Oh, usual classical course, Greek, Latin, Pol EC. *

" I don't mean what you learned. What did you do ? "

Bob reflected.

"I don't believe I did a single earthly thing except play
little football," he confessed.

"Oh, you played football, did you? That's a great game!
I'd rather see a good game of football than a snake fight.
Make the 'varsity?"

"Yes."

"Where did you play?"

"Halfback."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 63

"Pretty heavy for a 'half/ ain't you?"

"Well I train down a little and I managed to get
around."

"Play all four years?"

"Yes/"

"Like it?"

Bob's eye lit up. "Yes!" he cried. Then his face fell.
"Too much, I guess," he added sadly.

For the first time the twinkle in the stranger's eye found
vocal expression. He chuckled. It was a good, jolly,
subterranean chuckle from deep in his throat, and it shook
all his round body to its foundations.

"Who bossed you?" he asked, " your captain, I mean.
What sort of a fellow was he ? Did you get along with him
all right?"

"Had to," Bob grinned wryly; "you see they happened
to make me captain."

" Oh, they happened to, did they ? What is your name ? "

"Orde."

The stranger gurgled again.

"You're just out then. You must have captained those
big scoring teams."

"They were good teams. I was lucky," said Bob.

"Didn't I see by the papers that you went back to coach
last fall?"

"Yes."

"I've been away and couldn't keep tab. How did you
come out?"

"Pretty well."

"Win ail your games?"

"Yes."

"That's good. Thought you were going to have a hard
row to hoe. Before I went away the papers said most of the
old men had graduated, and the material was very poor.
How did you work it?"

"The material was all right," Bob returned, relaxing a

64 THE RULES OF THE GAME

trifle in the interest of this discussion. "It was only a little
raw, and needed shaking into shape."

"And you did the shaking."

"I suppose so; but you see it didn't amount to much
because I'd had a lot of experience in being captain."

The stranger chuckled one of his jolly subterranean
chuckles again. He arose to his feet.

"Well, I've got to get along to town," said he.

"I'll trot along, too," said Bob.

They tramped back in silence by the River Trail. On
the pole trail across the swamp the stranger walked with
a graceful and assured ease in spite of his apparently unwieldy
build. As the two entered one of the sawdust-covered streets,
they were hailed by Jim Mason.

"Why, Mr. Welton!" he cried, "when did you get in and
where did you come from?"

"Just now, Jim," Welton answered. "Dropped off at
the tank, and walked down to see how the river work was
coming on."

XII

TOWARD dusk Welton entered the boarding house
where Bob was sitting rather gloomily by the central
stove. The big man plumped himself down into a pro-
testing chair, and took off his slouch hat. Bob saw his low,
square forehead with the peculiar hair, black and gray in
streaks, curling at the ends.

"Why don't you take a little trip with me up to the Cedar
Branch?" he asked Bob without preamble. "No use your
going home right now. Your family's in Washington; and
will be for a month or so yet."

Bob thought it over.

"Believe I will," he decided at last.

"Do so!" cried Welton heartily. "Might as well see a
little of the life. Don't suppose you ever went on a drive
with your dad when you were a kid ? "

"No," said Bob, "I used to go up to the booms
with him I remember them very well ; but we moved
up to Redding before I was old enough to get about
much."

Welton nodded his great head.

"Good old days," he commented; "and let me tell you,
your dad was one of the best of 'em. Jack Orde is a name
you can scare fresh young rivermen with yet," he added with
a laugh. "Well, pack your turkey to-night; we'll take the
early train to-morrow."

That evening Bob laid out what he intended to take with
him, and was just about to stuff it into a pair of canvas bags
when Tommy Gould, the youngest sealer, pushed open the
door.

66 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Hello!" he smiled engagingly; "where are you going?
Been transferred from the office?"

"On drive," said Bob, diplomatically ignoring the last
question.

Tommy sat down on the edge of the bed and laughed until
he was weak. Bob stared at him.

"Is there anything funny?" he inquired at last.

"Did, you say on drive?" inquired Tommy feebly.

"Certainly."

"With that?" Tommy pointed a wavering finger at the
pile of duffle.

"What's the matter with it?" inquired Bob, a trifle
uncertainly.

"Oh, it's all right. Only wait till Roaring Dick sees it.
I'd like to see his face."

" Look here, Tommy," said Bob with decision, " this isn't
fair. Fve never been on drive before, and you know it.
Now tell me what's wrong or I'll wring your fool neck."

"You can't take all that stuff," Tommy explained, wiping
his eyes. "Why, if everybody had all that mess, how do
you suppose it would be carried?"

"I've only got the barest necessities," objected Bob.

"Spread out your pile," Tommy commanded. "There.
Take those. Now forget the rest."

Bob surveyed the single change of underwear and the
extra socks with comical dismay. Next morning when he
joined Welton he discovered that individual carrying a tooth
brush in his vest pocket and a pair of woolen socks stuffed
in his coat. These and a sweater were his only baggage.
Bob's "turkey," modest as it was, seemed to represent effete
luxury in comparison.
, " How long will this take ? " he asked.

"'The drive? About three weeks," Welton told him.
"You'd better stay and see it. It isn't much of a drive
compared with the old days; but in a very few years there
won't be any drives at all."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 67

They boarded a train which at the end of twenty minutes
came to a stop. Bob and Welton descended. The train
moved on, leaving them standing by the track.

The remains of the forest, overgrown with scrub oak and
popple thickets pushed down to the right of way. A road,
deep with mud and water, beginning at this point, plunged
into the wilderness. That was all.

Welton thrust his hands in his pockets and splashed cheer-
fully into the ankle-deep mud. Bob shouldered his little
bag and followed. Somehow he had vaguely expected some
sort of conveyance.

"How far is it?" he asked.

"Oh, ten or twelve miles," said Welton.

Bob experienced a glow of gratitude to the blithe Tommy
Gould. What would he have done with that baggage out here
in this lonesome wilderness of unbroken barrens and mud?

The day was beautiful, but the sun breaking through the
skin of last night's freezing, softened the ground until the
going was literally ankle-deep in slush. Welton, despite
his weight, tramped along cheerfully in the apparently
careless indifference of the skilled woods walker. Bob
followed, but he used more energy. He was infinitely the
older man's superior in muscle and endurance, yet he realized,
with respect and admiration, that in a long or difficult day's
tramp through the woods Welton would probably hold him,
step for step.

The road wound and changed direction entirely according
to expedient. It was a "tote road" merely, cutting across
these barrens by the direct est possible route. Deep mire
holes, roots of trees, an infrequent boulder, puddles and
cruel ruts diversified the way. Occasional teeth- rattling
stretches of "corduroy" led through a swamp.

"I don't see how a team can haul a load over this!" Bob
voiced his marvel, after a time.

"It don't," said Welton. "The supplies are all hauled
while the ground is frozen. A man goes by hand now."

68 THE RULES OF THE GAME

In the swamps and bottom lands it was a case of slip, slide
and wallow. The going was trying on muscle and wind.
To right and left stretched mazes of white popples and
willows tangled with old berry vines and the abattis of the
slashings. Water stood everywhere. To traverse that
swamp a man would have to force his way by main strength
through the thick growth, would have to balance on half-
rotted trunks of trees, wade and stumble through pools of
varying depths, crawl beneath or climb over all sorts of
obstructions in the shape of uproots, spiky new growths, and
old tree trunks. If he had a gun in his hands, he would
furthermore be compelled, through all the vicissitudes of
making his way, to hold it always at the balance ready
for the snap shot. For a ruffed grouse is wary, and flies
like a bullet for speed, and is up and gone almost before the
roar of its wings has aroused the echoes. Through that
veil of branches a man must shoot quickly, instinctively,
from any one of the many positions in which the chance
of the moment may have caught him. Bob knew all
about this sort of countiy, and his pulses quickened to the
call of it.

"Many partridge?" he asked.

" Lots," replied Welton; " but the country's too confounded
big to hunt them in. Like to hunt ?"

"Nothing better," said Bob.

After a time the road climbed out of the swamp into the
hardwoods, full of warmth and light and new young green,
and the voices of many creatures; with the soft, silent carpet
of last autumn's brown, the tiny patches of melting snow,
and the pools with dead leaves sunk in them and clear sur-
faces over which was mirrored the flight of birds.

Welton puffed along steadily. He did not appear to
talk much, and yet the sum of his information was consid-
erable.

''That road," he said, pointing to a dim track, "goes down
to Thompson's. He's a settler. Lives on a little lake,

THE RULES OF THE GAME 69

"There's a deer," he remarked, "over in that thicket
against the hill."

Bob looked closely, but could see nothing until the animal
bounded away, waving the white flag of its tail.

"Settlers up here are a confounded nuisance," went on
Welton after a while. "They're always hollering for what
they call their 'rights.' That generally means they try to
hang up our drive. The average mossback's a hard cus-
tomer. I'd rather try to drive nails in a snowbank than
tackle driving logs through a farm country. They never
realize that we haven't got time to talk it all out for a few
weeks. There's one old cuss now that's making us trouble
about the water. Don't want to open up to give us a fair
run through the sluices of his dam. Don't seem to realize
that when we start to go out, we've got to go out in a hurry,
spite o' hell and low water."

He went on, in his good-natured, unexcited fashion, to
inveigh against the obstinacy of any and all mossbacks.
There was no bitterness in it, merely a marvel over an inex-
plicable, natural phenomenon.

" Suppose you didn't get all the logs out this year," asked
Bob, at length. "Of course it would be a nuisance; but
couldn't you get them next year ? "

"That's the trouble," Welton explained. "If you leave
them over the summer, borers get into them, and they're
about a total loss. No, my son, when you start to take out
logs in this country, you've got to take them out!"

"That's what I'm going in here for now," he explained,
after a moment. "This Cedar Branch is an odd job we had
to take over from another firm. It is an unimproved river,
and difficult to drive, and just lined with mossbacks. The
crew is a mixed bunch some old men, some young toughs.
They're a hard crowd, and one not like the men on the main
drive. It really needs either Tally or me up here; but we
can't get away for this little proposition. He's got Darrell
in charge. Darrell's a good man on a big job. Then he

70 THE RULES OF THE GAME

feels his responsibility, keeps sober and drives his men well.
But I'm scared he won't take this little drive serious. If he
gets one drink in him, it's all off!"

"I shouldn't think it would pay to put such a man in
charge," said Bob, more as the most obvious remark than
from any knowledge or conviction.

" Wouldn't you?" Welton's eyes twinkled. "Well, son,
after you've knocked around a while you'll find that every
man is good for something somewhere. Only you can't
put a square peg in a round hole."

"How much longer will the high water last?" asked
Bob.

"Hard to say."

"Well, I hope you get the logs out," Bob ventured.

"Sure we'll get them out!" replied Welton confidently.
"We'll get them out if we have to go spit in the creek!"
With which remark the subject was considered closed.

About four o'clock of the afternoon they came out on
a low bluff overlooking a bottom land through which flowed
a little stream twenty-five or thirty feet across.

"That's the Cedar Branch," said Welton, "and I reckon
that's one of the camps up where you see that smoke."

They deserted the road and made their way through a
fringe of thin brush to the smoke. Bob saw two big tents,
a smouldering fire surrounded by high frames on which hung
a few drying clothes, a rough table, and a cooking fire over
which bubbled tremendous kettles and fifty-pound lard
tins suspended from a rack. A man sat on a cracker box
reading a fragment of newspaper. A boy of sixteen squatted
by the fire.

This man looked up and nodded, as Welton and his com-
panion approached.

" Where's the drive, doctor ? " asked the lumberman.

"This is the jam camp," replied the cook. "The jam's
upstream a mile or so. Rear's back by Thompson's some-
wheres."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 71

"Is there a jam in the river?" asked Bob with interest.
41 I'd like to see it."

"There's a dozen a day, probably," replied Welton; "but
in this case he just means the head of the drive. We call
that the 'jam.'"

" I suppose Darrell's at the rear?" Welton asked the cook.

"Yep," replied that individual, rising to peer into one of
his cavernous cooking utensils.

"Who's in charge here?"

"Larsen."

" H'm," said Welton. " Well, " he added to himself, " he's
slow, safe and sure, anyway."

He led the way to one of the tents and pulled aside the flap.
The ground inside was covered by a welter of tumbled
blankets and clothes.

"Nice tidy housekeeping," he grinned at Bob. He picked
out two of the best blankets and took them outside where-
he hung them on a bush and beat them vigorously.

"There," he concluded, "now they're ours."

"What about the fellows who had 'em before?" inquired
Bob.

" They probably had about eight apiece; and if they hadn't
they can bunk together."

Bob walked to the edge of the stream. It was not very
wide, yet at this point it carried from three to six or eight
feet of water, according to the bottom. A few logs were
stranded along shore. Two or three more floated by, the
forerunners of the drive. Bob could see where the highest
water had flung debris among the bushes, and by that he
knew that the stream must be already dropping from its
freshet.

It was now late in the afternoon. The sun dipped behind
a cold and austere hill-line. Against the sky showed a fringe
of delicate popples, like spray frozen in the rise. The heavens
near the horizon were a cold, pale yellow of unguessed lucent
depths, that shaded above into an equally cold, pale green.

72 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Bob thrust his hands in his pockets and turned back to where
the drying fire, its fuel replenished, was leaping across the
gathering dusk.

Immediately after, the driving crews came tramping in
from upstream. They paid no attention to the newcomers,
but dove first for the tent, then for the fire. There they
began to pull off their lower garments, and Bob saw that
most of them were drenched from the waist down. The
drying racks were soon steaming with wet clothes.

Welton fell into low conversation with an old man, straight
and slender as a Norway pine, with blue eyes, flaxen hair,
eyebrows and moustache. This was Larsen, in charge of
the jam, honest, capable in his way, slow of speech, almost
childlike of glance. After a few minutes Welton rejoined
Bob.

"He's a square peg, all right," he muttered, more to him-
self than to his companion. "He's a good riverman, but
lie's no river boss. Too easy-going. Well, all he has to do
:is to direct the work, luckily. If anything really goes wrong,
Darrell would be down in two jumps."

"Grub pile!" remarked the cook conversationally.

The men seized the utensils from a heap of them, and began
to fill their plates from the kettles on the table.

"Come on, bub," said Welton, "dig in! It's a long time
till breakfast!"

XIII

THE cook was early a foot next morning. Bob, restless
with the uneasiness of the first night out of doors,
saw the flicker of the fire against the tent canvas long
before the first signs of daylight. In fact, the gray had but
faintly lightened the velvet black of the night when the cook
thrust his head inside the big sleeping tents to utter a wild
yell of reveille.

The men stirred sleepily, stretched, yawned, finally kicked
aside their blankets. Bob stumbled into the outer air. The
chill of early morning struck into his bones. Teeth chat-
tering, he hurried to the river bank where he stripped and
splashed his body with the bracing water. Then he rubbed
down with the little towel Tommy Gould had allowed him.
The reaction in this chill air was slow in coming Bob
soon learned that the early cold bath out of doors is a super-
stition and he shivered from time to time as he propped
up his little mirror against a stump. Then he shaved,
anointing his face after the careful manner of college boys.
This satisfactorily completed, he fished in his duffle bag to
find his tooth brush and soap. His hair he arranged pains-
takingly with a pair of military brushes. He further mani-
pulated a nail-brush vigorously, and ended with manicuring
his nails. Then, clean, vigorous, fresh, but somewhat
chilly, he packed away I. : s toilet things and started for camp.

Whereupon, for the first time, he became aware of one of
the rivermen, pipe clenched between his teeth, watching
him sardonically.

Bob nodded, and made as though to pass.

"Oh, bub!" said the older man.

74 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Bob stopped.

" Say," drawled the riverman, " air you as much trouble to
yourself every day as this?"

Bob laughed, and dove for camp. He found it practically
deserted. The men had eaten breakfast and departed for
work. Welton greeted him.

"Well, bub," said he, "didn't know but we'd lost you.
Feed your face, and we'll go upstream."

Bob ate rapidly. After breakfast Welton struck into a
well-trodden foot trail that led by a circuitous route up the
river bottom, over points of land, around swamps. Occa-
sionally it forked. Then, Welton explained, one fork was
always a short cut across a bend, while the other followed
accurately the extreme bank of the river. They took this
latter and longest trail, always, in order more closely to
examine the state of the drive. As they proceeded upstream
they came upon more and more logs, some floating free, more
stranded gently along the banks. After a time they encoun-
tered the first of the driving crew. This man was standing
on an extreme point, leaning on his peavy, watching the
timbers float past. Pretty soon several logs, held together
by natural cohesion, floated to the bend, hesitated, swung
slowly and stopped. Other logs, following, carromed gen-
tly against them and also came to rest.

Immediately the riverman made a flying leap to the nearest.
He hit it with a splash that threw the water high to either side,
immediately caught his equilibrium, and set to work with his
peavy. He seemed to know just where to bend his efforts.
Two, then three, logs, disentangled from the mass, floated
away. Finally, all moved slowly forward. The riverman
intent on his work, was swept from view.

"After he gets them to running free, he'll come ashore,"
said Welton, in answer to Bob's query. "Oh, just paddle
ashore with his peavy. Then he'll come back up the trail.
This bend is liable to jam, and so we have to keep a man
here."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 75

They walked on and on, up the trail. Every once in a
while they came upon other members of the jam crew,
either watching, as was the first man, at some critical point,
or working in twos and threes to keep the reluctant timbers
always moving. At one place six or eight were picking
away busily at a jam that had formed bristling quite across
the river. Bob would have liked to stop to watch; but
Welton's practised eye saw nothing to it.

"They're down to the key log, now," he pronounced.
"They'll have it out in a jiffy."

Inside of two miles or so farther they left behind them
the last member of the jam crew and came upon an outlying
scout of the "rear." Then Wei ton began to take the shorter
trails. At the end of another half-hour the two plumped
into the full activity of the rear itself.

Bob saw two crews of men, one on either bank, busily
engaged in restoring to the current the logs stranded along
the shore. In some cases this merely meant pushing them
afloat by means of the peavies. Again, when the timbers
had gone hard aground, they had to be rolled over and over
until the deeper water caught them. In extreme cases, when
evidently the freshet water had dropped away from them,
leaving them high and dry, a number of men would clamp
on the jaws of their peavies and carry the logs bodily to the
water. In this active work the men were everywhere across
the surface of the river. They pushed and heaved from
the instability of the floating logs as easily as though they
had possessed beneath their feet the advantages of solid
land. When they wanted to go from one place to another
across the clear water they had various methods of propel-
ling themselves either broad on, by rolling the log treadwise,
or endways by paddling, or by jumping strongly on one end.
The logs dipped and bobbed and rolled beneath them;
the water flowed over their feet; but always they seemed
to maintain their balance unconsciously, and to give their
whole attention to the work in hand. They worked as far

76 THE RULES OF THE GAME

as possible from the decks of logs, but did not hesitate,
when necessary, to plunge even waist-deep into the icy cur-
rent. Behind them they left a clear river.

Like most exhibitions of superlative skill, all this would
have seemed to an uninitiated observer like Bob an easy task,
were it not for the misfortunes of one youth. That boy was
about half the time in the water. He could stand upright
on a log very well as long as he tried to do nothing else. This
partial skill undoubtedly had lured him to the drive. But
as soon as he tried to work, he was in trouble. The log
commenced to roll; he to struggle for his balance. It always
ended with a mighty splash and a shout of joy from every
one in sight, as the unfortunate youth soused in all over.
Then, after many efforts, he dragged himself out, his gar-
ments heavy and dripping, and cautiously tried to gain the
perpendicular. This ordinarily required several attempts,
each of which meant another ducking as the treacherous log
rolled at just the wrong instant. The boy was game,
though, and kept at it earnestly in spite of repeated failure.

Welton watched two repetitions of this performance.

"Dick!" he roared across the tumult of sound.

Roaring Dick, whose light, active figure had been seen
everywhere across the logs, looked up, recognized Welton,
and zigzagged skilfully ashore. He stamped the water
from his shoes.

"Why don't you fire that kid ashore?" demanded Welton.
"Do you want to drown him? He's so cold now he don't
know where's his feet?"

Roaring Dick glanced carelessly at the boy. The latter
had succeeded in gaining the shallows, where he was try-
ing to roll over a stranded log. His hands were purple and
swollen; his face puffed and blue; violent shivers shook him
from head to foot; his teeth actually chattered when, for a
moment, he relaxed his evident intention to stick it through
without making a sign. All his movements were slow and
awkward, and his dripping clothes clung tight to his body.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 77

"Oh, him!" said Roaring Dick in reply. "I didn't pay
no more attention to him than to one of these yere hell
divers. He ain't no good, so I clean overlooked him. Here,
you!" he cried suddenly.

The boy looked up, Bob saw him start convulsively, and
knew that he had met the impact of that peculiar dynamic
energy in Roaring Dick's nervous face. He clambered
laboriously from the shallows, the water draining from
the bottom of his "stagged" trousers.

"Get to camp," snapped Dick. "You're laid off."

" Why did you ever take such a man on in the first place ?"
asked Wei ton.

"He was here when I come," replied Roaring Dick,
indifferently, "and, anyway, he's bound he's goin to be a
river-hog. You couldn't keep him out with a fly-screen."

"How're things going?" inquired Welton.

"All right," said Roaring Dick. "This ain't no drive
to have things goin' wrong. A man could run a hand-organ,
a quiltin' party and this drive all to once and never drop a
stitch."

" How about old Murdock's dam ? Looks like he might
make trouble."

" Ain't got to old Murdock yet," said Roaring Dick. " When
we do, we'll trim his whiskers to pattern. Don't you worry
none about Murdock."

" I don't," laughed Welton. " But, Dick, what are all these
deadheads I see in the river? Our logs are all marked,
aren't they?"

"They's been some jobbing done way below our roll-
ways," said Roaring Dick, "and the mossbacks have been
taking 'em out long before our drive got this far. Them
few deadheads we've picked up along the line; mossbacks left
'em stranded. They ain't very many."

"I'll send up a marking hammer, and we'll brand them.
Finders keepers."

" Sure," said Roaring Dick.

78 THE RULES OF THE GAME

He nodded and ran out over the logs. The work leaped.
Wherever he went the men took hold as though reanimated
by an electric current.

"Dick's a driver," said Welton, reflectively, "and he gets out
the logs. But I'm scared he don't take this little job serious."

He looked out over the animated scene for a moment in
silence. Then he seemed suddenly to remember his com-
panion.

"Well, son," said he, "that's called 'sacking' the river.
The rear crew is the place of honour, let me tell you. The
old timers used to take a great pride in belonging to a crack
rear on a big drive. When you get one side of the river
working against the other, it's great fun. I've seen some
fine races in my day."

At this moment two men swung up the river trail, bend-
ing to the broad tump lines that crossed the tops of their
heads. These tump lines supported rather bulky wooden
boxes running the lengths of the men's backs. Arrived at the
rear, they deposited their burdens. One set to building a
fire; the other to unpacking from the boxes all the untensils
and receptacles of a hearty meal. The food was contained
in big lard tins. It was only necessary to re-heat it. In
ten minutes the usual call of "grub pile" rang out across the
river. The men came ashore. Each group of five or six built
its little fire. The wind sucked aloft these innumerable tiny
smokes, and scattered them in a thin mist through the trees.

Welton stayed to watch the sacking until after three
o'clock. Then he took up the river trail to the rear camp.
This Bob found to be much like the other, but larger.

"Ordinarily on drive we have a wanigan," said Welton.
"A wanigan's a big scow. It carries the camp and supplies
to follow the drive. Here we use teams; and it's some of a
job, let me tell you! The roads are bad, and sometimes it's a
long ways around. Hard sledding, isn't it Billy ? " he inquired
of the teamster, who was warming his hands by the fire.

"Well, I always get there," the latter replied with some

THE RULES OF THE GAME 79

pride. "From the Little Fork here I only tipped over six
times, all told."

The cook, who had been listening near by, grunted.

"Only time I wasn't with you, Billy," said he; " that's
why you got the nerve to tell that!"

"It's a fact!" insisted the driver.

The young fellow who had been ordered off the river sat
alone by the drying-fire. Now that he had warmed up and
dried off, he was seen to be a rather good-looking boy, dark-
skinned, black-eyed, with overhanging, thick, straight brows,
like a line from temple to temple. These gave him either
the sullen, biding look of an Indian or an air of set deter-
mination, as the observer pleased. Just now he contemplated
the fire rather gloomily.

Welton sat down on the same log with him.

"Well, bub," said the old riverman good-naturedly, "so
you thought you'd like to be a riverman?"

"Yes, sir," replied the boy, with a certain sullen reserve.

"Where did you think you learned to ride a log?"

"I've been around a little at the booms."

"I see. Well, it's a different proposition when you come
to working on 'em in fast water."

"Yes, sir."

"Where you from?"

" Down Greenville way."

"Farm?"

"Yes, sir."

"Back to the farm now, eh?"

"I suppose so."

" Don't like the notion, eh?"

"No!" cried the boy, with a flash of passion.

" Still like to tackle the river?"

"Yes, sir," replied the young fellow, again encased in his
sullen apathy.

"If I send you back to-morrow, would you like to tackle
it again?"

8o THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Oh, yes!" said the boy eagerly. "I didn't have any
sort of a show when you saw me to-day! I can do a heap
better than that. I was froze through and couldn't handle
myself."

Welton grinned.

"What you so stuck on getting wet for?" he inquired.

"I dunno," replied the boy vaguely. "I just like the
woods."

"Well, I got no notion of drownding you off in the first
white water we come across," said Welton; "but I tell you
what to do: you wait around here a few days, helping the
cook or Billy there, and I'll take you down to the mill and
put you on the booms where you can practise in still water
with a pike-pole, and can go warm up in the engine room
when you fall off. Suit you ? "

"Yes, sir. Thank you," said the boy quietly; but there
was a warm glow in his eye.

By now it was nearly dark.

"Guess we'll bunk here tonight," Welton told Bob
casually.

Bob looked his dismay.

"Why, I left everything down at the other camp," he
cried, "even my tooth brush and hair brush!"

Welton looked at him comically.

"Me, too," said he. "We won't neither of us be near as
much trouble to ourselves to-morrow, will we?"

So he had overheard the riverman's remark that morning.
Bob laughed.

"That's right," approved Welton, "take it easy. Neces-
sities is a great comfort, but you can do without even them."

After supper all sprawled around a fire. Welton' s big
bulk extended in the acme of comfort. He puffed his pipe
straight up toward the stars, and swore gently from time to
time when the ashes dropped back into his eyes.

"Now that's a good kid," he said, waving a pipe toward
the other fire where the would-be riverman was helping wash

THE RULES OF THE GAME 81

the dishes. "He'll never be a first-class riverman, but he's
a good kid."

"Why won't he make a good riverman?" asked Bob.

"Same reason you wouldn't," said Welton bluntly. "A
good white water man has to start younger. Besides, what's
the use? There won't be any rivermen ten year from now.
Say, you," he raised his voice peremptorily, "what do you
call yourself?"

The boy looked up startled, saw that he was indicated,
stammered, and caught his voice.

"John Harvey, sir," he replied.

" Son of old John who used to be on the Marquette back
in the seventies?"

"Yes, sir; I suppose so."

"He ought to be a good kid: he comes of good stock,"
muttered Welton; "but he'll never be a riverman. No use
trying to shove that shape peg in a round hole!"

XIV

NEAR noon of the following day a man came upstream
to report a jam beyond the powers of the outlying
rivermen. Roaring Dick, after a short absence for
examination, returned to call off the rear. All repaired
to the scene of obstruction.

Bob noticed the slack water a mile or so above the jam.
The river was quite covered with logs pressed tight against
each other by the force of the interrupted current, but still
floating. A little farther along the increasing pressure had
lifted some of them clear of the water. They upended
slightly, or lay in hollows between the others. Still farther
downstream the salient features of a jam multiplied. More
timbers stuck out at angles from the surface; some were even
lifted bodily. An abattis formed, menacing and formidable,
against which even the mighty dynamics of the river pushed
in vain. Then at last the little group arrived at the " breast"
itself a sullen and fearful tangle like a gigantic pile of
jackstraws. Beneath it the diminished river boiled out
angrily. By the very fact of its lessened volume Bob could
guess at the pressure above. Immediately the rivermen
ran out on this tangle, and, after a moment devoted to
inspection, set to work with their peavies. Bob started to
follow, but Welton held him back.

"It's dangerous for a man not used to it. The jam may
go out at any time, and when she goes, she goes sky-hooting."

But in the event his precaution turned out useless. All
day the men rolled logs into the current below the dam.
The click! clank! clank! of their peavies sounded like the
valves of some great engine, so regular was the periodicity

THE RULES OF THE GAME 83

of their metallic recurrence. They made quite a hole in the
breast; and several times the jam shrugged, creaked and
settled, but always to a more solid look. Billy, the team-
ster, brought down his horses. By means of long blocks
and tackle they set to yanking out logs from certain places
specified by Roaring Dick. Still the jam proved obstinate.

"I hate to do it," said Roaring Dick to Welton; "but it's
a case of powder."

"Tie into it," agreed Welton. "What's a few smashed
logs compared to hanging the drive?"

Dick nodded. He picked up a little canvas lunch bag
from a stump where, earlier in the day, he had hung it, and
from it extracted several sticks of giant powder, a length of
fuse and several caps. These he prepared. Then he and
Welton walked out over the jam, examining it carefully,
and consulting together at length. Finally Roaring Dick
placed his charge far down in the interstices, lit the fuse
and walked calmly ashore. The men leisurely placed them-
selves out of harm's way. Welton joined Bob behind a big
burned stub.

"Will that start her sure?", asked Bob.

"Depends on whether we guessed right on the key log,"
said Welton.

A great roar shook the atmosphere. Straight up into the
air spurted the cloud of the explosion. Through the white
smoke Bob could see the flame and four or five big logs,
like upleaping, dim giants. Then he dodged back from the
rain of bark and splinters.

The immediate effect on the jam was not apparent. It
fell forward into the opening made by the explosion, and a
light but perceptible movement ran through the waiting
timbers up the river. But the men, running out immediately,
soon made it evident that the desired result had been attained.
Their efforts now seemed to gain definite effects. An uneasi-
ness ran through the hitherto solid structure of the jam.
1'imbers changed position. Sometimes the whole river

84 THE RULES OF THE GAME

seemed to start forward a foot or so, but before the eye could
catch the motion, it had again frozen to immobility.

"That fetched the key logs, all right," said Welton, watch-
ing.

Then all at once about half the breast of the jam fell for-
ward into the stream. Bob uttered an involuntary cry. But
the practised rivermen must have foreseen this, for none
was caught. At once the other logs at the breast began
to topple of their own accord into the stream. The splashes
threw the water high like the explosions of shells, and the
thundering of the falling and grinding timbers resembled the
roar of artillery. The pattern of the river changed, at first
almost imperceptibly, then more and more rapidly. The
logs in the centre thrust forward, those on the wings hung
back. Near the head of the jam the men worked like
demons. Wherever the timbers caught or hesitated for a
moment in their slow crushing forward, there a dozen men
leaped savagely, to jerk, heave and pry with their heavy
peavies. Continually under them the footing shifted; sullen
logs menaced them with crushing or complete engulfment
in their grinding mill. Seemingly they paid no attention to
this, but gave all their energies to the work. In reality,
whether from calculation or merely from the instinct that
grows out of long experience, they must have pre-estimated
every chance.

" What bully team work! " cried Bob, stirred to enthusiasm.

Now the motion quickened. The centre of the river
rushed forward; the wings sucked in after from either side.
A roar and battling of timbers, jets of spray, the smoke of
waters filled the air. Quite coolly the rivermen made their
way ashore, their peavies held like balancing poles across
their bodies. Under their feet the logs heaved, sank,
ground together, tossed above the hurrying under-mass,
tumultuous as a close-packed drove of wild horses. The
rivermen rode them easily. For an appreciable time one
man perched on a stable timber watching keenly ahead.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 85

Then quite coolly he leaped, made a dozen rapid zigzag steps
forward, and stopped. The log he had quitted dropped
sullenly from sight, and two closed, grinding, where it had
been. In twenty seconds every man was safely ashore.

The river caught its speed. Hurried on by the pressure
of water long (lammed back, the logs tumbled forward.
Rank after rank they swept past, while the rivermen, lean-
ing on the shafts of their peavies, passed them in review.

"That was luck," Welton's voice broke in on Bob's con-
templation. "It's just getting dark. Couldn't have done
it without the dynamite. It splinters up a little timber,
but we save money, even at that."

"Billy doesn't carry that with the other supplies, does he?'
asked Bob.

"Sure," said Welton; "rolls it up in the bedding, ot
something. Well, John Harvey, Junior," said he to that
youth, "what do you think of it? A little different driving
this white water than pushing logs with a pike pole down a
slack-water river like the Green, hey?"

"Yes, sir," the boy nodded out of his Indian stolidity.

"You see now why a man has to start young to be a river-
man," Welton told Bob, as they bent their steps toward camp.
"Poor little John Harvey out on that jam when she broke
would have stood about as much chance as a beetle at a
woodpecker prayer meeting."

TWO days later Welton returned to the mill. At his
suggestion Bob stayed with the drive. He took
his place quietly as a visitor, had the good sense to
be unobtrusive, and so was tolerated by the men. That is
to say, he sat at the camp fires practically unnoticed, and the
rivermen talked as though he were not there. When he
addressed any of them they answered him with entire good
humour, but ordinarily they paid no more attention to him
than they did to the trees and bushes that chanced to sur-
round the camp.

The drive moved forward slowly. Sometimes Billy
packed up every day to set forth on one of his highly adven-
turous drives; again camp stayed for some time in the same
place. Bob amused himself tramping up and down the
river, reviewing the operations. Occasionally Roaring Dick,
in his capacity of river boss, accompanied the young fellow.
Why, Bob could not imagine, for the alert, self-contained
little riverman trudged along in almost entire silence, his
keen chipmunk eyes spying restlessly on all there was to
be seen. When Bob ventured a remark or comment, he
answered by a grunt or a monosyllable. The grunt or the
monosyllable was never sullen or hostile or contemptuous;
merely indifferent. Bob learned to economize speech, and
so got along well with his strange companion.

By the end of the week the drive entered a cleared farm
country. The cultivation was crude and the clearing par-
tial. Low-wooded hills dotted with stumps of the old forest
alternated with willow-grown bottom-lands and dense
swamps. The farmers lived for the most part in slab or log

THE RULES OF THE GAME 87

houses earthed against the winter cold. Fences were of split
rails laid "snake fashion." Ploughing had to be in and out
between the blackened stumps on the tops of which were
piled the loose rocks picked from the soil as the share turned
them up. Long, unimproved roads wandered over the hills,
following roughly the section lines, but perfectly willing to
turn aside through some man's field in order to avoid a
steep grade or soft going. These things the rivermen saw
from their stream exactly as a trainman would see them from
his right-of-way. The river was the highway, and rarely
was it considered worth while to climb the low bluffs out of
the bottom-land through which it flowed.

In the long run it landed them in a town named Twin
Falls. Here were a water-power dam and some small manu-
factories. Here, too, were saloons and other temptations for
rivermen. Camp was made above town. In the evening
the men, with but few exceptions, turned in to the sleeping
tent at the usual hour. Bob was much surprised at this;
but later he came to recognize it as part of a riverman's pecu-
liar code. Until the drive should be down, he did not feel
himself privileged to "blow off steam. " Even the excep-
tions did not get so drunk they could not show up the follow-
ing morning to take a share in sluicing the drive through the
dam.

All but Roaring Dick. The latter did not appear at all,
and was reported "drunk a-plenty" by some one who had
seen him early that morning. Evidently the river boss did
not "take this drive serious." His absence seemed to make
no difference. The sluicing went forward methodically.

"He'll show up hi a day or two," said the cook with entire
indifference, when Bob inquired of him.

That evening, however, four or five of the men disappeared,
and did not return. Such was the effect of an evil example
on the part of the foreman. Larsen took charge. In
almost unbroken series the logs shot through the sluiceways
into the river below, where they were received by the jam

88 THE RULES OF THE GAME

crew and started on the next stage of their long journey to the
mills. In a day the dam was passed. One of the younger
men rode the last log through the sluiceway, standing upright
as it darted down the chute into the eddy below. The
crowd of townspeople cheered. The boy waved his hat and
birled the log until the spray flew.

But hardly was camp pitched two miles below town when
one of the jam crew came upstream to report a difficulty.
Larsen at once made ready to accompany him down the river
trail, and Bob, out of curiosity, went along, too.

"It's mossbacks," the messenger explained, "and them
deadheads we been carrying along. They've rigged up a
little sawmill down there, where they're cutting what the
farmers haul in to 'em. And then, besides, they've planted
a bunch of piles right out in the middle of the stream and
boomed in their side, and they're out there with pike-poles,
nailin' onto every stick of deadhead that comes along."

"Well, that's all right," said Larsen. "I guess they got
a right to them as long as we ain't marked them."

"They can have their deadheads," agreed the riverman,
"but their piles have jammed our drive and hung her."

"We'll break the jam," said Larsen.

Arrived at the scene of difficulty, Bob looked about him
with great interest. The jam was apparently locked hard
and fast against a clump of piles driven about in the centre of
the stream. These had evidently been planted as the ex-
treme outwork of a long shunting boom. Men working there
could shunt into the sawmill enclosure that portion of the
drive to which they could lay claim. The remainder could
proceed down the open channel to the left. That was the
theory. Unfortunately, this division of the river's width
so congested matters that the whole drive had hung.

The jam crew were at work, but even Bob's unpractised
eye saw that their task was stupendous. Even should they
succeed in loosening the breast, there could be no reason to
suppose the performance would not have to be repeated

THE RULES OF THE GAME 89

over and over again as the close-ranked drive came against
the obstacle.

Larsen took one look, then made his way across to the
other side and down to the mill. Bob followed. The little
sawmill was going full blast under the handling of three men
and a boy. Everything was done in the most primitive
manner, by main strength, awkwardness, and old-fashioned
tools.

"Who's boss?" yelled Larsen against the clang of the
mill.

A slow, black-bearded man stepped forward.

"What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Our drive's hung up against your boom," yelled Larsen.

The man raised his hand and the machinery was suddenly
stilled.

"So I perceive," said he.

"Your boom-piles are drove too far out in the stream."

"I don't know about that," objected the mossback.

"I do," insisted Larsen. "Nobody on earth could keep
from jamming, the way you got things fixed."

"That's none of my business," said the man steadily.

"Well, we'll have to take out that fur clump of piles to
get our jam broke."

" I don't know about that," repeated the man.

Larsen apparently paid no attention to this last remark,
but tramped back to the jam. There he ordered a couple of
men out with axes, and others with tackle. But at that
moment the three men and the boy appeared. They car-
ried three shotguns and a rifle.

"That's about enough of that," said the bearded man,
quietly. "You let my property alone. I don't want any
trouble with you men, but I'll blow hell out of the first man
that touches those piles. I've had about enough of this river-
hog monkey-work."

He looked as though he meant business, as did his com-
panions. When the river men drew back, he took his position

go THE RULES OF THE GAME

atop the disputed clump of piles, his shotgun across his
knees.

The driving crew retreated ashore. Larsen was plainly
uncertain.

"I tell you, boys," said he, "I'll get back to town. You
wait."

" Guess I'll go along," suggested Bob, determined to miss
no phase of this new species of warfare.

" What you going to do ?" he asked Larsen when they were
once on the trail.

"I don't know," confessed the older man, rubbing his cap.
"I'm just goin' to see some lawyer, and then I'm goin' to
telegraph the Company. I wish Darrell was in charge. I
don't know what to do. You can't expect those boys to run
a chance of gittin' a hole in 'em."

"Do you believe they'd shoot?" asked Bob.

"I believe so. It's a long chance, anyhow."

But in Twin Falls they received scant sympathy and
encouragement. The place was distinctly bucolic, and as
such opposed instinctively to larger mills, big millmen, lum-
ber, lumbermen and all pertaining thereunto. They tolerated
the drive because, in the first place they had to; and in the
second place there was some slight profit to be made. But
the rough rivermen antagonized them, and they were never
averse to seeing these buccaneers of the streams in diffi-
culties. Then, too, by chance the country lawyers Larsen
consulted happened to be attorneys for the little sawmill
men. Larsen tried in his blundering way to express his
feeling that "nobody had a right to hang our drive." His
explanations were so involved and futile that, without think-
ing, Bob struck in.

"Surely these men have no right to obstruct as they do.
Isn't there some law against interfering with navigation?"

"The stream is not navigable," returned the lawyer curtly.

Bob's memory vouchsafed a confused recollection of some-
thing read sometime, somewhere.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 91

"Hasn't a stream been declared navigable when logs can
be driven in it?" he asked.

"Are you in charge of this drive?" the lawyer asked,
turning on him sharply.

"Why no," confessed Bob.

"Have you anything to do with this question?"

"I don't believe I have."

" Then I fail to see why I should answer your questions,"
said the lawyer, with finality. "As to your question," he
went on to Larsen with equal coldness, "if you have any
doubts as to Mr. Murdock's rights in the stream, you have
the recourse of a suit at law to settle that point, and to deter-
mine the damages, if any."

Bob found himself in the street with Larsen.

" But they haven't got no right to stop our drive dead that
way," expostulated the old man.

Bob's temper was somewhat ruffled by his treatment at the
hands of the lawyer.

"Well, they've done it, whether they have the right to
or not," he said shortly; "what next?"

"I guess I'll telegraph Mr. Welton," said Larsen.

He did so. The two returned to camp. The rivermen
were loafing in camp awaiting Larsen's reappearance. The
jam was as before. Larsen walked out on the logs. The
boy, seated on the clump of piles, gave a shrill whistle.
Immediately from the little mill appeared the brown-
bearded man and his two companions. They picked their
way across the jam to the piles, where they roosted, their
weapons across their knees, until Larsen had returned to
the other bank.

"Well, Mr. Welton ought to be up in a couple of days,
if he ain't up the main river somewheres," said Larsen.

"Aren't you going to do anything in the meantime?'*
asked Bob.

"What can I do?" countered Larsen.

The crew had nothing to say one way or the other, but

92 THE RULES OF THE GAME

watched with a cynical amusement the progress of affairs.
They smoked, and spat, and squatted on their heels in the
Indian taciturnity of their kind when for some reason they
withhold their approval. That evening, however, Bob hap-
pened to be lying at the campnre next two of the older men.
As usual, he smoked in unobtrusive silence, content to be
ignored if only the men would act in their accustomed way,
and not as before a stranger.

"Wait; hell!" said one of the men to the other. "Times
is certainly gone wrong! If they had anything like an old-
time river boss in charge, they'd come the Jack Orde on this
lay-out."

Bob pricked up his ears at this mention of his father's
name.

"What's that? "he asked.

The riverman rolled over and examined him dispassion-
ately for a few moments.

"Jack Orde," he deigned to explain at last, "was a river-
man. He was a good one. He used to run the drive in the
Redding country. When he started to take out logs, he took
'em out, by God! I've heard him often: ' Get your logs out
first, and pay the damage afterward,' says he. He was
a holy terror. They got the state troops out after him once.
It came to be a sort of by-word. When you generally gouge,
kick and sandbag a man into bein' real good, why we say you
come the Jack Orde on him."

"I see," said Bob, vastly amused at this sidelight on the
family reputation. " What would you do here ? "

"I don't know," replied the riverman, "but I wouldn't
lay around and wait."

"Why don't some of you fellows go out there and storm
the fort, if you feel that way?" asked Bob.

"Why?" demanded the riverman, "I won't let any boss
stump me; but why in hell should I go out and get my hide
full of birdshot? If this outfit don't know enough to get its
drive down, that ain't my fault."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 93

Bob had seen enough of the breed to recognize this as an
eminently characteristic attitude.

"Well," he remarked comfortably, "somebody'll be down
from the mill soon."

The riverman turned on him almost savagely.

"Down soon!" he snorted. "So'll the water be 'down
soon.' It's dropping every minute. That telegraft of yours
won't even start out before to-morrow morning. Don't you
fool yourself. That Twin Falls outfit is just too tickled to
do us up. It'll be two days before anybody shows up, and
then where are you at ? Hell!" and the old riverman relapsed
into a disgusted silence.

Considerably perturbed, Bob hunted up Larsen.

" Look here, Larsen," said he, " they tell me a delay here is
likely to hang up this drive. Is that right?"

The old man looked at his interlocutor, his brow wrinkled.

"I wish Darrell was in charge," said he.

"What would Darrell do that you can't do?" demanded
Bob bluntly.

"That's just it; I don't know," confessed Larsen.

"Well, I'd get some weapons up town and drive that gang
off," said Bob heatedly.

"They'd have a posse down and jug the lot of us," Larsen
pointed out, "before we could clear the river." He suddenly
flared up. " I ain't no river boss, and I ain't paid as a river
boss, and I never claimed to be one. Why in hell don't they
keep their men in charge?"

"You're working for the company, and you ought to do
your best for them/' said Bob.

But Larsen had abruptly fallen into Scandinavian sulks.
He muttered something under his breath, and quite deliber-
ately arose and walked around to the other side of the fire.

Twice during the night Bob arose from his blankets and
walked down to the riverside. In the clear moonlight he
could see one or the other of the millmen always on watch,
his shotgun across his knees. Evidently they did not intend

94 THE RULES OF THE GAME

to be surprised by any night work. The young fellow returned
very thoughtful to his blankets, where he lay staring up
against the canvas of the tent.

Next morning he was up early, and in close consultation
with Billy the teamster. The latter listened attentively to
what Bob had to say, nodding his head from time to time.
Then the two disappeared in the direction of the wagon,
where for a long interval they busied themselves at some
mysterious operation.

When they finally emerged from the bushes, Bob was carry-
ing over his shoulder a ten-foot poplar sapling around the
end of which was fastened a cylindrical bundle of consid-
erable size. Bob paid no attention to the men about the fire,
but bent his steps toward the river. Billy, however, said a
few delighted words to the sprawling group. It arose with
alacrity and followed the young man' lead.

Arrived at the bank of the rivet, Bob swung his burden
to the ground, knelt by it, and lit a match. The rivermen,
gathering close, saw that the bundle around the end of the
sapling consisted of a dozen rolls of giant powder from which
dangled a short fuse. Bob touched his match to the split
outer end of the fuse. It spluttered viciously. He arose
with great deliberation, picked up his strange weapon, and
advanced out over the logs.

In the meantime the opposing army had gathered about
the disputed clump of piles, to the full strength of its three
shotguns and the single rifle. Bob paid absolutely no atten-
tion to them. When within a short distance he stopped
and, quite oblivious to warnings and threats from the army,
set himself to watching painstakingly the sputtering pro-
gress of the fire up the fuse, exactly as a small boy watches
his giant cracker which he hopes to explode in mid-air. At
what he considered the proper moment he straightened
his powerful young body, and cast the sapling from him,
javelin- wise.

"Scat!" he shouted, and scrambled madly for cover.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 95

The army decamped in haste. Of its armament it lost
near fifty per cent., for one shotgun and the rifle remained
where they had fallen. Like Abou Ben Adam, Murdock led
all the rest.

Now Bob had hurled his weapon as hard as he knew how,
and had scampered for safety without looking to see where it
had fallen. As a matter of fact, by one of those very lucky
accidents, that often attend a star in the ascendent, the sap-
ling dove head on into a cavern in the jam above the clump
of piles. The detonation of the twelve full sticks of giant
powder was terrific. Half the river leaped into the air in a
beautiful column of water and spray that seemed to hang
motionless for appreciable moments. Dark fragments of
timbers were hurled in all directions. When the row had
died the clump of piles was seen to have disappeared. Bob's
chance shot had actually cleared the river!

The rivermen glanced at each other amazedly.

"Did you mean to place that charge, bub?" one asked.

Bob was too good a field general not to welcome the gifts
of chance.

" Certainly," he snapped. "Now get out on that river,
every mother's son of you. Get that drive going and keep
it going. I've cleared the river for you; and if you'd any one
of you h/d the nerve of my poor old fat sub-centre, you'd
have done it for yourselves. Get busy! Hop!"

The men jumped for their peavies. Bob raged up and
down the bank. For the moment he had forgotten the husk
of the situation, and saw it only in essential. Here was a
squad to lick into shape, to fashion into a team. It mattered
little that they wore spikes in their boots instead of cleats;
that they sported little felt hats instead of head guards. The
principle was the same. The team had gone to pieces in the
face of a crisis; discipline was relaxed; grumblers were get-
ting noisy. Bob plunged joyously head over ears in his task.
By now he knew every man by name, and he addressed each
personally. He had no idea of what was to be done to start

96 THE RULES OF THE GAME

this riverful of logs smoothly and surely on its way; he did
not need to. Afloat on the river was technical knowledge
enough, and to spare. Bob threw his men at the logs as he
used to throw his backs at the opposing line. And they went.
Even in the whole-souled, frantic absorption of the good
coach he found time to wonder at the likeness of all men.
These rivermen differed in no essential from the members of
the squad. They responded to the same authority; they
could be hurled as a unit against opposing obstacles.

Bob felt a heavy hand on his shoulder and whirled to stare
straight into the bloodshot eyes of Roaring Dick. The man
was still drunk, but only with the lees of the debauch. He
knew perfectly what he was about, but the bad whiskey still
hummed through his head. Bob met the baleful glare from
under his square brows, as the man teetered back and forth
on his heels.

"You got a hell of a nerve!" said Roaring Dick, thickly.
"You talk like you was boss of this river."

Bob looked back*at him steadily for a full half-minute.

"lam," said he at last.

XVI

R DARING Dick had not been brought up in the knowl-
edge of protocols or ultimatums. Scarcely had Bob
uttered the last words of his brief speech before he
was hit twice in the face, good smashing blows that sent him
staggering. The blows were followed by a savage rush,
Roaring Dick was on his man with the quickness and fero-
city of a wildcat. He hit, kicked, wrestled, even bit. Bob
was whirled back by the very impetuosity of the attack.
Before he could collect his wits he was badly punished and
dazed. He tripped and Roaring Dick, with a bellow oi
satisfaction, began to kick at his body even before he reached
the ground.

But strangely enough this fall served to clear Bob's head.
Thousands of times he had gone down just like this on the
football field, and had then been called upon to struggle on
with the ball as far as he was able. A slight hint of the
accustomed will sometimes steady us in the most difficult
positions. The mind, bumping aimlessly, falls into its
groove, and instinctively shoots forward with tremendous
velocity. Bob hit the ground, half turned on his shoulder,
rolled over twice with the rapid, vigorous twist second-
nature to a seasoned halfback, and bounded to his feet.
He met Roaring Dick half way with a straight blow. It
failed to stop, or even to shake the little riverman. The
next instant the men were wrestling fiercely.

Bob found himself surprisingly opposed. Beneath his
loose, soft clothing the riverman seemed to be made of
steel. Suddenly Bob was called upon to exert every ounce of
strength in his body, and to summon all his acquired skill

98 THE RULES OF THE GAME

to prevent himself from being ignominiously overpowered.
The ferocity of the rush, and the purposeful rapidity of
Roaring Dick's attack, as well as the unexpected variety
thereof, kept him fully occupied in defending himself. With
the exception of the single blow delivered when he had
regained his feet, he had been unable even to attempt aggres-
sion. It was as though he had touched a button to release
an astonishing and bewildering erratic energy.

Bob had done a great deal of boxing and considerable
wrestling. During his boyhood and youth he had even
become involved in several fisticuffs. They had always
been with the boys or young men of his own ideas. Though
conducted in anger they retained still a certain remnant
of convention. No matter how much you wanted to "do"
the other fellow, you tried to accomplish that result by hit-
ting cleanly, or by wrestling him to a point where you could
"punch his face in." The object was to hurt your oppo-
nent until he had had enough, until he was willing to quit,
until he had been thoroughly impressed with the fact that
he was punished. But this result was to be accomplished
with the fists. If your opponent seized a club, or a stone,
or tried to kick, that very act indicated his defeat. He
had had enough, and that was one way of acknowledging
your superiority. So strongly ingrained had this instinct
of the fight-convention become that even now Bob uncon-
sciously was playing according to the rules of the game.

Roaring Dick, on the contrary, was out solely for results.
He fought with every resource at his command. Bob was
slow to realize this, slow to arouse himself beyond the point
of calculated defence. His whole training on the field
inclined him to keep cool and to play, whatever the game,
from a reasoning standpoint. He was young, strong and
practised; but he was not roused above the normal. And,
as many rivermen had good reason to know, the nor-
mal man availed little against Roaring Dick's maniacal
rushes.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 99

The men were close -locked, and tugging and straining
for an advantage. Bob crouched lower and lower with a
well-defined notion of getting a twist on his opponent. For
an instant he partially freed one side. Like lightning
Roaring Dick delivered a fierce straight kick at his groin.
The blow missed its aim, but Bob felt the long, sharp spikes
tearing the flesh of his thigh. Sheer surprise relaxed his
muscles for the fraction of an instant. Roaring Dick low-
ered his head, rammed it into Bob's chin, and at the same
time reached for the young man's gullet with both hands.
Bob tore his head out of reach in the nick of time. As
they closed again Roaring Dick's right hand was free.
Bob felt the riverman's thumb fumbling for his eyeball.

"Why, he wants to cripple me, to kill me!" the young
man cried to himself. So vivid was the astonishment of
this revelation to his sportsman's soul that he believed he
had said it aloud. This was no mere fight, it was a com-
bat. In modern civilized conditions combats are notably
few and far between. It is difficult for the average man
to come to a realization that he must in any circumstances
depend on himself for the preservation of his life. Even
to the last moment the victim of the real melodrama that
occasionally breaks out in the most unlikely places is likely
to be more concerned with his outraged dignity than with
his peril. That thumb, feeling eagerly for his eye-socket,
woke Bob to a new world. A swift anger rushed over him
like a hot wave.

This man was trying to injure him. Either the kick or
the gouge would have left him maimed for life. A sudden
fierce desire to beat his opponent into the earth seized Bob.
With a single effort he wrenched his arms free.

Now this fact has been noted again and again: mere
size has often little to do with a man's physical prowess.
The list of anecdotes wherein the little fellow "puts it all
over" the big bully is exceptionally long. Nor are more
than a bare majority of the anecdotes baseless. In our

ioo THE RULES OF THE GAME

own lumber woods a one-hundred-and-thirty-pound man
with no other weapon than his two hands once nearly killed
a two-hundred-pound blacksmith for pushing him off a
bench. This phenomenon arises from the fact that the
little man seems capable often of releasing at will a greater
flood of dynamic energy than a big man. We express this
by saying that it is the spirit that counts. As a matter of
truth the big man may have as much courage as the little
man. It is simply that he cannot, at will, tap as quickly
the vast reservoir of nervous energy that lies beneath all
human effort of any kind whatsoever. He cannot arouse
himself as can the little man.

It was for the foregoing reason that Roaring Dick had
acquired his ascendancy. He possessed the temperament
that fuses. When he fought, he fought with the ferocity
and concentration of a wild beast. This concentration,
this power of fusing to white heat all the powers of a man's
being down to the uttermost, this instinctive ability to tap
the extra-human stores of dynamics is what constitutes the
temperament of genius, whether it be applied to invention,
to artistic creation, to ruling, to finance, or merely to beat-
ing down personal opposition by beating in the opponent's
face. Unfortunately for him, Bob Orde happened also to
possess the temperament of genius. The two foul blows
aroused him. All at once he became blind to everything
but an unreasoning desire to hurt this man who had tried
to hurt him. On the side of dynamics the combat suddenly
equalized. It became a question merely of relative power,
and Bob was the bigger man.

Bob threw his man from him by main strength. Roar-
ing Dick staggered back, only to carrom against a tree.
A dozen swift, straight blows in the face drove him by the
sheer force of them. He was smothered, overwhelmed, by
the young man's superior size. Bob fell upon him
savagely. In less than a minute the fight was over as far as
Roaring Dick was concerned. Blinded, utterly winded, his

THE RULES OF THE GAME 101

whiskey-driven energies drained away, he fell like a log.
Bob, still blazing, found himself without an opponent.

He glared about hm\. The rp*ermer>. were gathered in
a silent ring. Just beyond stood a side-bar buggy in which
a burly, sodden red-faced man stood up the better to see.
Bob recognized him as one of the saloon keepers at Twin
Falls, and his white-hot brain jumped to the correct con-
clusion that Roaring Dick, driven by some vague conscience-
stirring in regard to his work, had insisted on going down
river; and that this dive-keeper, loth to lose a profitable
customer in the dull season, had offered transportation in
the hopeful probability that he could induce the riverman to
return with him. Bob stooped, lifted his unconscious oppo-
nent, strode to the side-bar buggy and unceremoniously
dumped his burden therein.

"Now," said he roughly, "get out of here! When this
man comes to, you tell him he's fired! He's not to show
his face on this river again!"

The saloon-keeper demurred, blustering slightly after the
time-tried manner of his sort.

"Look here, young fellow, you can't talk that way to me."

"Can't I!" snapped Bob; "well, you turn around and
get out of here."

The man met full the blaze of the extra-normal powers
not yet fallen below the barrier in the young fellow's per-
sonality. He gathered up the reins and drove away.

Bob watched him out of sight, his chest rising and fall-
ing with the receding waves of his passion. He was a
strange young figure with his torn garments, his tossed hair,
the streak of blood beneath his eye, and the inner fading
glow of his face. At last he drew a long, shuddering breath,
and turned to the expectant and silent group of rivermen.

"Boys," said he pleasantly, "I don't know one damn
thing about river-driving, but I do know when a man's
doing his best work. I shall expect you fellows to get in
and rustle down those logs. Any man who thinks he's

102 THE RULES OF THE GAME

going to soldier on me is going to get fooled, and he's going
to get his time handed put to him on the spot. As near as
I can make, oat, unisss we get <ar. everlasting wiggle on us
every one of us this drive'll hang up; and I'd just as
soon hang it by laying off those who try to shirk as by letting
you hang it by not working your best. So get busy. If
anybody wants to quit, let 'em step up right now. Any
remarks?" He looked from one to another.

"Nary remark," said one man at last.

" All right. Now get your backs into this. It's team work
that counts. You've each got your choice; either you can
lie like the devil to hide the fact that you were a member
of the Cedar Branch crew in 1899, or you can go away and
brag about it. It's up to you. Get busy."

XVII

TWO days later Welton swung from the train at Twin
Falls. His red, jolly face was as quizzical as ever,
but one who knew him might have noticed that his
usual leisurely movements had quickened. He walked
rapidly to the livery stable where he ordered a rig.

"Where's the drive, Hank?" he asked the livery-
man.

" Search me!" was his reply; "somewhere down river.
Old Murdock is up talkin' wild about damage suits, and
there's evidently been one hell of a row, but I just got back
myself from drivin' a drummer over to Watsonville."

"Know if Darrell is in town?"

"Oh, he's in town; there ain't no manner of doubt as to
that."

"Drunk, eh?"

" Spifflicated, pie-eyed, loaded, soshed," agreed the livery-
man succinctly.

Welton shook his head humorously and ruefully.

"Say, Welton," demanded the liveryman with the easy
familiarity of his class, "why in blazes do you put a plain
drunk like that in charge ?"

"Darrell is a good man on a big job," said Welton; "you
can't beat him, and you can't get him to take a drink. But
it takes a big job to steady him."

" Well, I'd fire him," stated Hank positively.

"He's already fired," spoke up a hostler, "they laid him
off two days ago when he went down drunk and tried to
take charge."

"Well, now," chuckled Welton, as he gathered up the

104 THE RULES OF THE GAME

reins, "who'd have thought old Larsen could scare up the
spunk !"

He drove down the river road. When he came to a point
opposite Murdock's he drew up.

" That wire said that Murdock had the river blocked,"
he mused, "but she's certainly flowing free enough now.
The river's sacked clean now."

His presence on the bank had attracted the attention of
a man in the mill. After a long scrutiny, this individual
launched a skiff and pulled across the stream.

" I thought it was you," he cried as soon as he had stepped
ashore. "Well, let me tell you I'm going to sue you for
damages, big damages!"

Welton looked him over quizzically, and the laughing
lines deepened around the corners of his eyes.

"Lay on, MacDuff," said he, "nobody's sued me yet
this year, and it didn't seem natural."

"And for assault with deadly weapons, and malicious
destruction of property, and seizure and

"You must have been talking to a country lawyer,"
interrupted Welton, with one of his subterranean chuckles.
"Don't do it. They got nothing but time, and you know
what your copy book says about idle hands." He crossed
one leg and leaned back as though for a comfortable chat.
"No, you come and see me, Murdock, and state how^much
you've been damaged, and we'll see what we can do. Why,
these little lawyers love to name things big. They'd call
a sewing circle a riot if one of the members dropped a
stitch."

But Murdock was in deadly earnest.

"Perhaps throwin' dynamite on the end of a pole, and
mighty nigh killin' us, and just blowin' the whole river up
in the air is your idea of somethin' little," he stormed;
"well, you'll find it'll look big enough in court."

"So that's what they did to clear the river," said Welton.
more than half to himself. "Well, Murdock, suit your-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 105

self; you can see me or that intellectual giant of a lawyer
of yours. You'll find me cheaper. So long."

He drove on, chuckling.

"I didn't think old Larsen had the spunk," he repeated
after a time. " Guess I ought to have put him in charge in
the beginning."

He drove to a point where the erratic road turned inland.
There he tied his horse to a tree and tramped on afoot.
After a little he came in sight of the rear and stopped.

The men were working hard; a burst of hearty laughter
saluted Welton's ears. He could hardly believe them.
Nobody had heard this sullen crew of nondescript river-
men from everywhere exhibit the faintest symptoms of
good-humour or interest before. Another burst of laughter
came up the breeze. A dozen men ran out over the logs
as though skylarking, inserted their peavies in a threatened
lock, and pried it loose.

" Pretty work," said the expert in Welton.

He drew nearer through the low growth until he stood
well within hearing and seeing distance, Then he stopped
again.

Bob Orde was walking up and down the bank talking to
the men. They were laughing back at him. His manner
was half fun, half earnest, part rueful, part impatient,
wholly affectionate.

"You, Jim," said he, "go out and get busy. You're
loafing, you know you are; I don't give a damn what you're
to do. Do something! Don't give an imitation of a cast-
iron hero. No, I won't either tell, you what to do. I don't
know. But do it, even if you have to make it up out of
your own head. Consider the festive water-beetle, and the
ant and other industrious doodle-bugs. Get a wiggle on
you, fellows. We'll never get out at this rate. If this
drive gets hung up, I'm going to murder every last one of
you. Come on now, all together; if I could walk out on
those logs I'd build a fire under you; but you've got me

106 THE RULES OF THE GAME

tied to the bank and you know it, you big fat loafers,
you!"

" Keep your hair on, bub; we'll make it, all right"

"Well, we'd just better make it," warned Bob. "Now
I'm going down to the jam to see whether their alarm clock
went off this morning. Now, don't slumber!"

After he had disappeared down the trail, Welton step-
ped into view.

"Oh, Charley!" he called.

One of the rivermen sprang ashore.

"When did the rear leave Murdock's?" he asked without
preliminary.

"Thursday."

"You've made good time."

"Bet we have," replied Charley with pride.

"Who's jam boss?"

"Larsen."

"Who's in charge of the river, then?" demanded Welton
sharply.

"Why, young Orde!" replied the riverman, surprised.

"Since when?"

"Since he blew up Murdock's piles."

"Oh, he did that, did he? I suppose he fired Darrell,
too?"

" Sure. It was a peach of a scrap."

"Scrap?"

"Yep. That Orde boy is a wonder. He just ruined-
Roaring Dick."

"He did, did he?" commented Welton. "Well, so long."

He followed Bob down the river trail. At the end of a
half-mile he overtook the young fellow kneeling on a point
gazing at a peeled stake planted at the edge of the
river.

"Wish I knew how long this water was going to hold out,"
he murmured, as he heard a man pause behind him. " She's
dropped two inches by my patent self-adjusting gauge."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 107

"Young man," said Welton, "are you on the payrolls
of this company?"

Bob turned around, then instantly came to his feet.

" Oh, you're here at last, Mr. Welton," he cried in tones
of vast relief.

" Answer my question, please."

"What?" asked Bob with an expression of bewilderment.

"Are you on the payrolls of this company?"

"No, sir, of course not. You know that."

" Then what are you doing in charge of this river ? "

"Why, don't you see "

"I see you've destroyed property and let us in for a big
damage suit. I see you've discharged our employees with-
out authority to do so. I see you're bossing my men and
running my drive without the shadow of a right."

"But something had to be done," expostulated Bob.

"What do you know about river-driving?" broke in
Welton. "Not a thing."

"Men who told me did "

"A bunch of river-hogs," broke in Welton contemptu-
ously. " It strikes me, young man, that you have the most
colossal cheek I've ever heard of."

But Bob faced him squarely.

"Look here," he said decidedly, "I'm technically wrong,
and I know it. But good men told me your measly old
drive would hang if it stayed there two days longer; and I
believed them, and I believe them yet. I don't claim to
know anything about river-driving, but here your confounded
drive is well on its way. I kicked that drunk off the river
because he was no good. I took hold here to help you out
of a hole, and you're out."

"But," said Welton, carefully, "don't you see that you
took chances on losing me a lot of property ?"

Bob looked up at him a moment wearily.

"From my point of view I have nothing to regret," said
he stiffly, and turned away.

io8 THE RULES OF THE GAME

The humorous lines about Welton's eyes had been deep-
ening throughout this interview.

"That tops it off," said he. "First you get me into trouble;
then you fire my head man; then you run off with my
property; finally you tell me to go to hell! Son, you are a
great man! Shake!"

Bob whirled in surprise to search Welton's good-natured
jolly face. The latter was smiling.

"Shake," he repeated, relapsing, as was his habit when
much in earnest, into his more careless speech; "you done
just right. Son, remember this: it's true it ain't
doing things that makes a man so much as deciding things."

One of his great chuckles bubbled up.

"It took some nerve to jump in the way you did; and
some sand to handle the flea-bitten bunch of river-hogs "

"You're mistaken about them," Bob broke in earnestly.
"They've been maligned. They're as good and willing a
squad as I ever want to see "

"Oh, sure," laughed Welton; "they're a nice little job
lot of tin angels. However, don't worry. You sure saved
the day, for I believe we would have hung if we hadn't got
over the riffles before this last drop of the water."

He began to laugh, at first, gently, then more and more
heartily, until Bob stared at him with considerable curi-
osity and inquiry. Welton caught his look.

"I was just thinking of Harvey and Collins," he remarked
enigmatically as he wiped his eyes. "Oh, Bobby, my son,
you sure do please me. Only I was afraid for a minute it
might be a flash in the pan and you weren't going to tell
me to go to hell."

They turned back toward the rear.

"By the way," Welton remarked, "you made one bad
break just now."

"What was that?" asked Bob.

"You told me you were not on the payrolls of this com-
pany. You are."

XVIII

FOR a year Bob worked hard at all sorts of jobs. He
saw the woods work, the river work, the mill work.
From the stump to the barges he followed the tim-
bers. Being naturally of a good intelligence, he learned
very fast how things were done, so that at the end of the time
mentioned he had acquired a fair working knowledge of
how affairs were accomplished in this business he had
adopted. That does not mean he had become a capable
lumberman. One of the strangest fallacies long prevalent
in the public mind is that lumbering is always a sure road
to wealth. The margin of profit seems very large. As a
matter of fact, the industry is so swiftly conducted, on so
large a scale, along such varied lines; the expenditures must
be made so lavishly, and yet so carefully; the consequences
of a niggardly policy are so quickly apparent in decreased
efficiency, and yet the possible leaks are so many, quickly
draining the most abundant resources, that few not brought
up through a long apprenticeship avoid a loss. A great deal
of money has been and is made in timber. A great deal
has been lost, simply because, while the possibilities are
alluring, the complexity of the numerous problems is unseen.
At first Bob saw only the results. You went into the woods
with a crew of men, felled trees, cut them into lengths,
dragged them to the roads already prepared, piled them on
sleighs, hauled them to the river, and stacked them there.
In the spring you floated the logs to the mill where they were
sawed into boards, laden into sailing vessels or steam barges,
and taken to market. There was the whole process in a nut-
shell. Of course, there would be details and obstructions to

109

I lo THE RULES OF THE GAME

cope with. But between the eighty thousand dollars or so
worth of trees standing in the forest and the quarter-million
dollars or so they represented at the market seemed space
enough to allow for many reverses.

As time went on, however, the young man came more
justly to realize the minuteness of the bits comprising this
complicated mosaic. From keeping men to the point of
returning, in work, the worth of their wages; from so corre-
lating and arranging that work that all might be busy and
not some waiting for others; up through the anxieties of
weather and the sullen or active opposition of natural forces,
to the higher levels of competition and contracts, his awak-
ened attention taught him that legitimate profits could attend
only on vigilant and minute attention, on comprehensive
knowledge of detail, on experience, and on natural gift.
The feeding of men abundantly at a small price involved
questions of buying, transportation and forethought, not to
speak of concrete knowledge of how much such things should
ideally be worth. Tools by the thousand were needed at
certain places and at certain times. They must be cared
for and accounted for. Horses, and their feed, equipment
and care, made another not inconsiderable item both of
expense and attention. And so with a thousand and one
details which it would be superfluous to enumerate here.
Each cost money, and some one's time. Relaxed attention
might make each cost a few pennies more. What do a few
pennies amount to? Two things: a lowering of the stand-
ard of efficiency, and, in the long run, many dollars. If
incompetence, or inexperience should be added to relaxed
attention, so that the various activities do not mortise exactly
one with another, and the legitimate results to be expected
from the pennies do not arrive, then the sum total is very
apt to be failure. Where organized and settled industries,
however complicated in detail, are in a manner played by
score, these frontier activities are vast improvisations follow-
ing only the general unchangeable laws of commerce.

THE RULES OF THE GAME in

Therefore, Bob was very much surprised and not a little
dismayed at what Mr. Welton had to say to him one evening
early in the spring.

It was in the "van" of Camp Thirty-nine. Over in the
corner under the lamp the sealer and bookkeeper was epito-
mizing the results of his day. Welton and Bob sat close to
the round stove in the middle, smoking their pipes. The
three or four bunks belonging to Bob, the sealer, and the
camp boss were dim in another corner; the shelves of goods
for trade with the men occupied a third. A rude door and
a pair of tiny windows communicated with the world out-
side. Flickers of light from the cracks in the stove played
over the massive logs of the little building, over the rough
floor and the weapons and snowshoes on the wall. Both
Bob and Welton were dressed in flannel and kersey, with the
heavy German socks and lumberman's rubbers on their feet.
Their bright-checked Mackinaw jackets lay where they had
been flung on the beds. Costume and surroundings both
were a thousand miles from civilization; yet civilization was
knocking at the door. Welton gave expression to this
thought.

"Two seasons more'll finish us, Bob," said he. "I've
logged the Michigan woods for thirty-five years, but now
I'm about done here."

"Yes, I guess they're all about done," agreed Bob.

" The big men have gone West; lots of the old lumber jacks
are out there now. It's our turn. I suppose you know
we've got timber in California?"

"Yes," said Bob, with a wry grin, as he thought of the
columns of "descriptions" he had copied; "I know that."

"There's about half a billion feet of it. We'll begin to
manufacture when we get through here. I'm going out next
month, as soon as the snow is out of the mountains, to see
about the plant and the general lay-out. I'm going to leave
you in charge here."

Bob almost dropped his pipe as his jaws fell apart.

112 THE RULES OF THE GAME

" Me !" he cried.

" Yes, you."

"But I can't; I don't know enough! I'd make a mess of
the whole business," Bob expostulated.

"You've been around here for a year," said Welton, "and
things are running all right. I want somebody to see that
things move along, and you're the one. Are you going to
refuse?"

"No; I suppose I can't refuse," said Bob miserably, and
fell silent

XIX

TO BOB'S father Wei ton expressed himself in some-
what different terms. The two men met at the
Auditorium Annex, where they promptly adjourned
to the Palm Room and a little table.

"Now, Jack," the lumberman replied to his friend's
expostulation, "I know just as well as you do that the kid
isn't capable yet of handling a proposition on his own hook.
It's just for that reason that I put him in charge."

"And Welton isn't an Irish name, either," murmured
Jack Orde.

"What? Oh, I see. No; and that isn't an Irish bull,
either. I put him in charge so he'd have to learn something.
He's a good kid, and he'll take himself dead serious. He'll
be deciding everything that comes up all for himself, and
he'll lie awake nights doing it. And all the time things will
be going on almost like he wasn't there!"

Welton paused to chuckle in his hearty manner.

"You see, I've brought that crew up in the business.
Mason is as good a mill man as they make; and Tally's all
right in the woods and on the river; and I reckon it would
be difficult to take a nick out of Collins in office work."

"In other words, Bob is to hold the ends of the reins
while these other men drive," said his father, vastly amused.
"That's more like it. I'd hate to bury a green man under
too much responsibility."

"No," denied Welton, "it isn't that exactly. Somebody's
got to boss the rest of 'em. And Bob certainly is a wonder
at getting the men to like him and to work for him. That's
his strong point. He gets on with them, and he isn't afraid

IH THE RULES OF THE GAME

to tell 'em when he thinks they're 'sojering' on him. That
makes me think: I wonder what kind of ornaments these
waiters are supposed to be." He rapped sharply on the
little table with his pocket-knife.

" It's up to him," he went on, after the waiter had departed.
" If he's too touchy to acknowledge his ignorance on different
points that come up, and if he's too proud to ask questions
when he's stumped, why, he's going to get in a lot of trouble.
If he's willing to rely on his men for knowledge, and will
just see that everybody keeps busy and sees that they bunch
their hits, why, he'll get on well enough."

"It takes a pretty wise head to make them bunch their
hits," Orde pointed out, "and a heap of figuring."

"It'll keep him mighty busy, even at best," acknowledged
Welton, " and he's going to make some bad breaks. I know
that."

"Bad breaks cost money," Orde reminded him.

" So does any education. Even at its worst this can't cost
much money. He can't wreck things the organization
is too good he'll just make 'em wobble a little. And this
is a mighty small and incidental proposition, while this Cali-
fornia lay-out is a big project. No, by my figuring Bob won't
actually do much, but he'll lie awake nights to do a hell of a
lot of deciding, and "

"Oh, I know," broke in Orde with a laugh; "you haven't
changed an inch in twenty years and 'it's not doing but
deciding that makes a man,'" he quoted.

" Well, isn't it ? " demanded Welton insistently.

"Of course," agreed Orde with another laugh. "I was
just tickled to see you hadn't changed a hair. Now if you'd
only moralize on square pegs in round holes, I'd hear again
the birds singing in the elms by the dear old churchyard."

Welton grinned, a trifle shamefacedly. Nevertheless he
went on with the development of his philosophy.

"Well," he asserted stoutly, "that's just what Bob was
when I got there. He can't handle figures any better than

THE RULES OF THE GAME 115

I can, and Collins had been putting him through a course of
sprouts." He paused and sipped at his glass. " Of course,
if I wasn't absolutely certain of the men under him, it would
be a fool proposition. Bob isn't the kind to get onto treachery
or double-dealing very quick. He likes people too well.
But as it is, he'll get a lot of training cheap."

Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly
between puffs at his cigar.

"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California
now?" he asked at length. "You'll be building your roads
and flumes and railroad, getting your mill up, buying your
machinery and all the rest of it. That ought to be good
experience for him to see the thing right from the begin-
ning."

"Bob is going to be a lumberman, and that isn't lumber-
ing; it's construction. Once it's up, it will never have to be
done again. The California timber will last out Bob's life-
time, and you know it. He'd better learn lumbering, which
he'll do for the next fifty years, than to build a mill, which
he'll never have to do again unless it burns up," he added
as a half-humorous afterthought.

"Correct," Orde agreed promptly to this. "You're a
wonder. When I found a university with my ill-gotten
gains, I'll give you a job as professor of well, of Common
Sense, by jiminy!"

BOB managed to lose some money in his two years of
apprenticeship. That is to say, the net income
from the small operations under his charge was
somewhat less than it would have been under Welton's super-
vision. Even at that, the balance sheet showed a profit.
This was probably due more to the perfection of the organi-
zation than to any great ability on Bob's part. Nevertheless,
he exercised a real control over the firm's destinies, and in
one or two instances of sudden crisis threw its energies defin-
itely into channels of his own choosing. Especially was
this true in dealing with the riverman's arch-enemy, the moss-
back.

The mossback follows the axe. When the timber is cut,
naturally the land remains. Either the company must pay
taxes on it, sell it, or allow it to revert to the state. It may
be very good land, but it is encumbered with old slashing,
probably much of it needs drainage, a stubborn second-
growth of scrub oak or red willows has already usurped the
soil, and above all it is isolated. Far from the cities, far
from the railroad, far even from the crossroad's general store >
it is further cut off by the necessity of traversing atrocious and
in the wet season bottomless roads to even the nearest
neighbour. Naturally, then, in seeking purchasers for this
cut-over land, the Company must address itself to a certain
limited class. For, if a man has money, he will buy him a
cleared farm in a settled country. The mossback pays in
pennies and gives a mortgage. Then he addresses himself
to clearing the land. It follows that he is poverty-stricken,
lives frugally and is very tenacious of what property rights

116

THE RULES OF THE GAME 117

he may be able to coax or wring from a hard wilderness. He
dwells in a shack, works in a swamp, and sees no farther than
the rail fence he has split out to surround his farm.

Thus, while he possesses many of the sturdy pioneer vir-
tues, he becomes by necessity the direct antithesis to the
riverman. The purchase of a bit of harness, a vehicle, a
necessary tool or implement is a matter of close economy,
long figuring, and much work. Interest on the mortgage
must be paid. And what can a backwoods farm produce
worth money? And where can it find a market? Very
little; and very far. A man must "play close to his chest"
in order to accomplish that plain, primary, simple duty of
making both ends meet. The extreme of this virtue means
a defect, of course; it means narrowness of vision, conser-
vatism that comes close to suspicion, illiberality. When
these qualities meet the sometimes foolishly generous and
lavish ideas of men trained in the reckless life of the river,
almost inevitably are aroused suspicion on one side, con-
tempt on the other and antagonism on both.

This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But
when, as often happens, the mossback's farm extends to the
very river bank itself; when the legal rights of property clash
with the vaguer but no less certain rights of custom, then
there is room for endless bickering. When the river boss
steps between his men and the backwoods farmer, he must,
on the merits of the case and with due regard to the sort
of man he has to deal with, decide at once whether he will
persuade, argue, coerce, or fight. It may come to be a
definite choice between present delay or a future lav/suit.

This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon
to make. He knew little about law, but he had a very good
feeling for the human side. Whatever mistakes he made,
the series of squabbles nourished his sense of loyalty to the
company. His woods training was gradually bringing him
to the lumberman's point of view; and the lumberman's point
of view means, primarily, timber and loyalty.

n8 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first
thought on entering a particularly imposing grove.

Where another man would catch merely a general effect,
his more practised eye would estimate heights, diameters,
the growth of the limbs, the probable straightness of the
grain. His eye almost unconsciously sought the possibilities
of location whether a road could be brought in easily,
whether the grades could run right. A fine tree gave him
the complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on ana-
lytical contemplation of any object. It meant timber, good
or bad, as well as beauty.

Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally
of a partisan temperament. He played the game fairly,
but he played it hard. Games imply rules, and any infrac-
tion of the rules is unfair and to be punished. Bob could
not be expected to reflect that while rules are generally
imposed by a third party on both contestants alike, in this
game the rules with which he was acquainted had been made
by his side; that perhaps the other fellow might have another
set of rules. All he saw was that the antagonists were per-
petrating a series of contemptible, petty, mean tricks or a
succession of dastardly outrages. His loyalty and anger
were both thoroughly aroused, and he plunged into his little
fights with entire whole-heartedness. As his side of the ques-
tion meant getting out the logs, the combination went far
toward efficiency. When the drive was down in the spring, Bob
looked back on his mossback campaign with a little grieved
surprise that men could think it worth their self-respect to try
to take such contemptible advantage of quibbles for the pur-
pose of defeating what was certainly customary and fair, even
if it might not be technically legal. What the mossbacks
thought about it we can safely leave to the crossroad stores.

In other respects Bob had the good sense to depend abso-
lutely on his subordinates.

"How long do you think it ought to take to cut the rest
of Eight?" he would ask Tally.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 119

"About two weeks."

Bob said nothing more, but next day he ruminated long in
the snow-still forest at Eight, trying to apportion in his
own mind the twelve days' work. If it did not go at a two
weeks' gait, he speedily wanted to know why.

When the sleighs failed to return up the ice road wit>
expected regularity, Bob tramped down to the " banks" to
see what the trouble was. When he returned, he remarked
casually to Jim Tally:

"I fired Powell off the job as foreman, and put in Downy."

"Why?" asked Tally. "I put Powell in there because
I thought he was an almighty good worker."

" He is," said Bob ; " too good. I found them a little short-
handed down there, and getting discouraged. The sleighs
were coming in on them faster than they could unload.
The men couldn't see how they were going to catch up, so
they'd slacked down a little, which made it worse. Powell
had his jacket off and was working like the devil with a
canthook. He does about the quickest and hardest yank
with a canthook I ever saw," mused Bob.

"Well?" demanded Tally.

"Oh," said Bob, "I told him if that was the kind of a
job he wanted, he could have it. And I told Downy to take
charge. I don't pay a foreman's wages for canthook work;
I hire him to keep the men busy, and he sure can't do it if he
occupies his time and attention rolling logs."

"He was doing his best to straighten things out," said
Tally.

"Well, I'm now paying him for his best," replied Bob,
philosophically.

But if it had been a question of how most quickly to skid
the logs brought in by the sleighs, Bob would never have
dreamed of questioning Powell's opinion, although he might
later have demanded expert corroboration from Tally.

The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in train-
ing, both physically and spiritually. He realized his mis-

120 THE RULES OF THE GAME

takes, but they were now mistakes of judgment rather than of
mechanical accuracy, and he did not worry over them once
they were behind him.

When Welton returned from California toward the close
of the season, he found the young man buoyant and happy,
deeply absorbed, well liked, and in a fair way to learn some-
thing about the business.

Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed
down. The remaining lumber in the yards was shipped
mit as rapidly as possible. By the end of September the
(vork was over.

Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while
affairs were in preparation for the westward exodus.

Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the
Chicago offices.

He entered the little outer office he had left so down-
heartedly three years before. Harvey and his two assistants
sat on the high stools in front of the shelf-like desk. The
same pictures of record loads, large trees, mill crews and
logging camps hung on the walls. The same atmosphere
of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place.
Through the half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg
swung over the arm of his revolving chair, chatting in a
leisurely fashion with some visitor.

No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment
staring at the three bent backs before him. He remembered
the infinite details of the work he had left, the purchasings
of innumerable little things, the regulation of outlays, the
balancings of expenditures, the constantly shifting property
values, the cost of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery,
transportation, operation. And in addition he brought to
mind the minute and vexatious mortgage and sale and rental
business having to do with the old cut-over lands; the legal
complications; the questions of arbitration and privilege.
And beyond that his mind glimpsed dimly the extent of other
interests, concerning which he knew little investment

THE RULES OF THE GAME 121

interests, and silent interests in various manufacturing enter-
prises where the Company had occasionally invested a surplus
by way of a flyer. In this quiet place all these things were
correlated, compared, docketed, and filed away. In the
brains of the four men before him all these infinite details
were laid out in order. He knew that Harvey could answer
specific questions as to any feature of any one of these activ-
ities. All the turmoil, the rush and roar of the river, the mills,
the open lakes, the great wildernesses passed through this
silent, dusty room. The problems that kept a dozen men
busy in the solving came here also, together with a hundred
others. Bob recalled his sight of the hurried, wholesale ship-
ping clerk he had admired when, discouraged and discred-
ited, he had left the office three years before. He had
thought that individual busy, and had contrasted his activ-
ity with the somnolence of this office. Busy ! Why, he, Bob,
had over and over again been ten times as busy. At the
thought he chuckled aloud. Harvey and his assistants turned
to the sound.

" Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!" cried the young man.
"I'm certainly glad to see you. You're the only men I ever
saw who could be really bang-up rushed and never show it."

PART TWO

ON A wintry and blustering evening in the latter part
of February, 1902, Welton and Bob boarded the
Union Pacific train en route for California. They
distributed their hand baggage, then promptly took their
way forward to the buffet car, where they disposed them-
selves in the leather-and-wicker arm-chairs for a smoke.
At this time of year the travel had fallen off some-
what in volume. The westward tourist rush had slack-
ened, and the train was occupied only by those who had
definite business in the Land of Promise, and by that class
of wise ones who realize that an Eastern March and April
are more to be avoided than the regulation winter months.
The smoking car contained then but a half-dozen men.

Welton and Bob took their places and lit their cigars. The
train swayed gently along, its rattle muffled by the storm.
Polished black squares represented the windows across which
drifted hazy lights and ghostlike suggestions of snowflakes.
Bob watched this ebony nothingness in great idleness of spirit.
Presently one of the half-dozen men arose from his place,
walked the length of the car, and dropped into the next chair.

"You're Bob Orde, aren't you?" he remarked without
preliminary.

Bob looked up. He saw before him a very heavy-set
young man, of medium height, possessed of a full moon of
a face, and alert brown eyes.

"I thought so," went on this young man in answer to
Bob's assent. "I'm Baker of '93. You wouldn't know me;
I was before your time. But I know you. Seen you play.
Headed for the Sunshine and Flowers?"

126 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Yes," said Bob.

"Ever been there before ?"

"No."

"Great country! If you listen to all the come-on stuff
you may be disappointed at first."

"How's that?" asked Bob, highly amused. "Isn't the
place what it's cracked up to be?"

"It's more," asserted Baker, "but not the same stuff.
The climate's bully best little old climate they've made,
up to date but it's got to rain once in a while; and the
wind's got to blow; and all that. If you believe the Weather
in the Old Home column, you'll be sore. In two years you'll
be sore, anyway, whenever it does anything but stand 55 at
night, 72 at noon and shine like the spotlight on the illustrated
songster. If a Californian sees a little white cloud about as
big as a toy balloon down in the southeast corner he gets
morose as a badger. If it starts to drizzle what you'd call
a light fog he holes up. When it rains he hibernates like
a bear, and the streets look like one of these populous and
thriving Aztec metropoli you see down Sonora way. I guess
every man is privileged to get just about so sore on the weather
wherever he is and does so."

"You been out there long?" asked Bob.

"Ever since I graduated," returned Baker promptly, "and
I wouldn't live anywhere else. They're doing real things.
Don't you run away with any notions of dolce far nientes
or tropical languor. This California gang is strictly on the
job. The bunch seated under the spreading banana tree
aren't waiting for the ripe fruit to drop in their mouths.
That's in the First Reader and maybe somewhere down
among the Black and Tans

" Black and Tans?" interrupted Bob with a note of query.

"Yep. Oilers greasers Mexicans hidalgos of all
kinds from here to the equator," explained Baker. "No,
sir, that gang under the banana tree are either waiting there
to sandbag the next tourist and sell him some real estate

THE RULES OF THE GAME 127

before he comes to, or else they're figuring on uprooting said
piffling shrub and putting up an office building. Which
part of the country are you going to?"

"Near White Oaks," said Bob.

"No abalone shells for yours, eh?" remarked Baker
cryptically. He glanced at Welton. "Where's your tim-
ber located?" he asked.

"Near Granite," replied Bob; "why, how the devil did
you know we were out for timber?"

"'How did the Master Mind solve that problem?'"
asked Baker. " Ah, that's my secret!"

"No, that doesn't go," said Bob. "I insist on knowing;
and what was that abalone shell remark?"

"Abalone shells tourists." capitulated Baker; "also
Mexican drawn work, bead belts, burned leather, fake tur-
quoise and ostrich eggs. Sabe?"

"Sure. But why not a tourist?"

"Tourist in White Oaks!" cried Baker. "Son, White
Oaks raises raisins and peaches and apricots and figs and such
things in quantities to stagger you. It is a nice, well-built
city, and well conducted, and full of real estate boards and
chambers of commerce. But it is not framed up for tourists,
and it knows it. Not at TOO degrees Fahrenheit 'most all
summer, and a chill and solemn land fog 'most all winter."

"Well, why timber?" demanded Bob.

"My dear Watson," said Baker, indicating Mr. Welton,
who grinned. "Does your side partner resemble a raisin
raiser? Has he the ear marks of a gentle agriculturist?
Would you describe him as a typical sheepman, or as a
daring and resolute bee-keeper?"

Bob shook his head, still unconvinced.

"Well, if you will uncover my dark methods," sighed
Baker. He leaned over and deftly abstracted from the
breast pocket of Bob's coat a long, narrow document. "You
see the top of this stuck out in plain sight. To the intelli-
gent eye instructed beyond the second grade of our excel-

128 THE RULES OF THE GAME

lent school system the inscription cannot be mistaken." He
held it around for Bob to see. In plain typing the docu-
ment was endorsed as follows :

"Granite County Timber Lands."

"My methods are very subtle," said Baker, laughing. "I
find it difficult to explain them. Come around sometime
and I'll pick it out for you on the piano."

"Where are you going?" asked Bob in his turn.

"Los Angeles, on business."

"On business? or just buying abalone shells?"

"It takes a millionaire or an Iowa farmer to be a tourist,"
replied Baker.

"What are you doing?"

" Supporting an extravagant wife, I tell Mrs. Baker. You
want to get down that way. The town's a marvel. It's
grown from thirty thousand to two hundred thousand in
twenty years; it has enough real estate sub-divisions to
accommodate eight million; it has invented the come-on
house built by the real estate agents to show how building
is looking up at Lonesomehurst; it has two thousand kinds
of architecture all different; it has more good stuff and
more fake stuff than any place on earth it's a wonder.
Come on down and I'll show you the high buildings."

He chatted for a few moments, then rose abruptly and
disappeared down the aisle toward the sleeping cars with-
out the formality of a farewell.

Welton had been listening amusedly, and puffing away
at his cigar in silence.

"Well," said he when Baker had gone. "How do you
like your friend?"

"He's certainly amusing," laughed Bob, "and mighty
good company. That sort of a fellow is lots of fun. I've
seen them many times coming back at initiation or Com-
mencement. They are great heroes to the kids."

"But not to any one else?" inquired Welton.

"Well that's about it," Bob hesitated. "They're

THE RULES OF THE GAME 129

awfully good fellows, and see the joke, and jolly things up;
but they somehow don't amount to much."

"Wouldn't think much of the scheme of trying Baker as
woods foreman up in our timber, then?" suggested Welton,

"Him? Lord, no!" said Bob, surprised.

Welton threw back his head and laughed heartily, in
great salvos.

"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "Oh, Bobby, I wish any old
Native Son could be here to enjoy this joke with me. Hoi
ho! ho! ho!"

The coloured porter stuck his head in to see what this
tremendous rolling noise might be, grinned sympathetically,
and withdrew.

"What's the matter with you!" cried Bob, exasperated,
"Shut up, and be sensible."

Welton wiped his eyes.

"That, son, is Carleton P. Baker. Just say Carleton P.
Baker to a Californian."

"Well, I can't, for four days, anyway. Who is he?"

"Didn't find out from him, for all his talk, did you?"
said Welton shrewdly. "Well, Baker, as he told you,
graduated from college in '93. He came to California with
about two thousand dollars of capital and no experience^
He had the sense to go in for water rights, and here he is!"'

"Marvellous!" cried Bob sarcastically. "But what is
he now that he is here?"

" Head of three of the biggest power projects in California,"'
said Welton impressively, "and controller of more potential
water power than any other man or corporation in the state."'

Welton enjoyed his joke hugely. After Bob had turned
in, the big man parted the curtains to his berth.

"Oh, Bob," he called guardedly.

"What!" grunted the young man, half-asleep.

"Who do you think we'd better get for woods foreman
just in case Baker shouldn't take the job?"

AtL next day the train puffed over the snow-blown
plains. There was little in the prospect, save an
inspiration to thankfulness that the cars were warm
and comfortable. Bob and Welton spent the morning
going over their plans for the new country. After lunch,
which in the manner of trans-continental travellers they
stretched over as long a period as possible, they again repaired
to the smoking car. Baker hailed them jovially, waving a
stubby forefinger at vacant seats.

"Say, do Populists grow whiskers, or do whiskers make
Populists?" he demanded.

"Give it up," replied Welton promptly. "Why?"

"Because if whiskers make Populists, I don't blame this
state for going Pop. A fellow'd have to grow some kind
of natural chest protector in self-defence. Look at that
snow! And thirty dollars will take you out where there's
none of it, and the soil's better, and you can see something
around you besides fresh air. Why, any one of these poor
pinhead farmers could come out our way, get twenty acres
of irrigated land, and in five years "

"Hold on!" cried Bob, "you haven't by any chance some
of that real estate for sale or a sandbag?"

Baker laughed.

"Everybody gets that way," said he. "I'll bet the first
five men you meet will fill you up on statistics."

He knew the country well, and pointed out in turn the
first low rises of the prairie swell, and the distant Rockies
like a faint blue and white cloud close down along the horizon.
Bob had never seen any real mountains before, and so was

130

THE RULES OF THE GAME 131

much interested. The train laboured up the grades, steep
to the engine, but insignificant to the eye; it passed through
the canons to the broad central plateau. The country was
broken and strange, with its wide, free sweeps, its sage
brush, its stunted trees, but it was not mountainous as Bob
had conceived mountains. Baker grinned at him.

"Snowclad peaks not up to specifications?" he inquired.
"Chromos much better? Mountain grandeur somewhat
on the blink? Where'd you expect them to put a railroad
out where the scenery is ? Never mind. Wait till you
slide off 'Cape Horn' into California."

The cold weather followed them to the top of the Sierras.
Snow, dull clouds, mists and cold enveloped the train.
Miles of snowsheds necessitated keeping the artificial light
burning even at midday. Winter held them in its grip.

Then one morning they rounded the bold corner of a high
mountain. Far below them dropped away the lesser peaks,
down a breathless descent. And from beneath, so distant
as to draw over themselves a tender veil of pearl gray, flowed
out foothills and green plains. The engine coughed, shut
off the roar of her exhaust. The train glided silently forward.

"Now come to the rear platform," Baker advised.

They sat in the open air while the train rushed downward.
From the great drifts they ran to the soft, melting snow, then
to the mud and freshness of early spring. Small boys
crowded early wild-flowers on them whenever they stopped
at the small towns built on the red clay. The air became
indescribably soft and balmy, full of a gentle caress. At the
next station the children brought oranges. A little farther
the foothill ranches began to show the brightness of flowers.
The most dilapidated hovel was glorified by splendid sprays
of red roses big as cabbages. Dooryards of the tiniest
shacks blazed with red and yellow. Trees and plants new
to Bob's experience and strangely and delightfully exotic
in suggestion began to usurp the landscape. To the far
Northerner, brought up in only a common-school knowledge

THE RULES OF THE GAME

of olive trees, palms, eucalyptus, oranges, banana trees,
pomegranates and the ordinary semi-tropical fruits, there is
something delightful and wonderful in the first sight of them
living and flourishing in the open. When closer investigation
reveals a whole series of which he probably does not remem-
ber ever to have heard, he feels indeed an explorer in a new
and wonderful land. After a few months these things become
old stories. They take their places in his cosmos as accus-
tomed things. He is then at some pains to understand his
visitor's extravagant interest and delight over loquats,
chiramoyas, alligator pears, tamarinds, guavas, the bloom-
mg of century plants, the fruits of chollas and the like.
Baker pointed out some of these things to Bob.

"Winter to summer in two jumps and a hop," said he.
"The come-on stuff rings the bell in this respect, anyway.
Smell the air: it's real air. ' Listen to the mocking bird.' '

" Seriously or figuratively ? " asked Bob. " I mean, is that
a real mocking bird?"

" Surest thing you know," replied Baker as the train moved
on, leaving the songster to his ecstasies. "They sing all
night out here. Sounds fine when you haven't a grouch.
Then you want to collect a brick and drive the darn fowl off
the reservation."

"I never saw one before outside a cage," said Bob.

"There's lots of things you haven't seen that you're going
to see, now you've got out to the Real Thing," said Baker.
"Why, right in your own line: you don't know what big pine
is. Wait till you see the woods out here. We've got the
biggest trees, and the biggest mountains, and the biggest
crops and the biggest "

"Liars," broke in Bob, laughing. "Don't forget them."

"Yes, the biggest liars, too," agreed Baker. "A man's
got to lie big out here to keep in practice so he can tell the
plain truth without straining himself."

Before they changed cars to the Valley line, Baker had a
suggestion to make.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 133

"Look here," said he, "why don't you come and look at
the tall buildings? You can't do anything in the mountains
yet, and when you get going you'll be too busy to see Cali-
fornia. Come, make a pasear. Glad to show you the sights*
Get reckless. Take a chance. Peruse carefully your copy
of Rules for Rubes and try it on."

" Go ahead," said Welton, unexpectedly.

Ill

BO B went on to Los Angeles with the sprightly Baker.
At first glance the city seemed to him like any other.
Then, as he wandered its streets, the marvel and
vigour and humour of the place seized on him.

" Don't you suppose I see the joke?" complained Baker
at the end of one of their long trolley rides. " Just get onto
that house; it looks like a mission-style switch engine. And
the one next to it, built to shed snow. Funny! sure it's funny.
But you ain't talking to me ! It's alive ! Those fellows wanted
something different from anybody else so does everybody.
After they'd used up the regular styles, they had to make
'em up out of the fresh air. But anyway, they weren't satis-
fied just to copy Si Golosh's idea of a Noah's Ark chicken
coop."

They stopped opposite very elaborate and impressive iron
gates opening across a graded street. These gates were sup-
ported by a pair of stone towers crowned with tiles. A
smaller pair of towers and gates guarded the concrete side-
walk. As a matter of fact, all these barriers enclosed nothing,
for even in the remote possibility that the inquiring visitor
should find them shut, an insignificant detour would cir-
cumvent their fenceless flanks.

"Maudsley Court," Bob read sculptured on one of the
towers.

"That makes this particular subdivision mighty exclusive,"
grinned Baker. "Now if you were a homeseeker wouldn't
you love to bring your dinner pail back to the cawstle every
night?"

Bob peered down the single street. It was graded, gut-

134

THE RULES OF THE GAME 135

tered and sidewalked. A small sentry box labelled " office,"
and inscribed with glowing eulogiums, occupied a strategic
position near the gates. From this house Bob immediately
became aware of close scrutiny by a man half concealed by the
indoor dimness.

"The spider," said Baker. "He's onto us big as a house.
He can spot a yap at four hundred yards' range, and you bet
they don't get much nearer than that alone."

A huge sign shrieked of Maudsley Court. "Get a grin!"
was its first advice.

"They all try for a catchword every one of 'em,"
explained Baker. "You'll see all kinds in the ads; some
pretty good, most of 'em rotten."

"They seem to have made a start, anyway," observed Bob,
indicating a new cottage half way down the street. It was
a super-artistic structure, exhibiting the ends of huge brown
beams at all points. Baker laughed.

"That's what it's intended to seem," said he. "That's
the come-on house. It's built by the spider. It's stick-um
for the flies. 'This is going to be a high-brow proposition/
says the intending purchaser; 'look at the beautiful house
already up. I must join this young and thriving colony.'
Hence this settled look."

He waved his hand abroad. Dotted over the low, rounded
hills of the charming landscapes were new and modern
bungalows. They were spaced widely, and each was flanked
by an advertising board and guarded by a pair of gates shut-
ting their private thoroughfares from the country highways.
Between them showed green the new crops.

"Nine out of ten come-on houses," said Baker, "and
all exclusive. If you can't afford iron gates, you can at least
put up a pair of shingled pillars. It's the game."

"Will these lots ever be sold?" asked Bob.

" Out here, yes," replied Baker. " That's part of the joke.
The methods are on the blink, but the goods insist on deliv-
ering themselves. Most of these fellows are just bunks or

136 THE RULES OF THE GAME

optimists. All hands are surprised when things turn out right.
But if all the lots are ever sold, Los Angeles will have a popu-
lation of five million."

They boarded an inward-bound trolley. Bob read the
devices as they flashed past. " Hill-top Acres," he read
near a street plastered against an apparently perpendicular
hill. "Buy before the rise!" advised this man's rival at
its foot. The true suburbs strung by in a panorama of
strange little houses imitation Swiss chalets jostling bas-
tard Moorish, cobblestones elbowing plaster a bewilder-
ing succession of forced effects. Baker caught Bob's
expression.

"These are workingmen's and small clerks' houses," he
said quietly. " Pretty bad, eh ? But they're trying. Remem-
ber what they lived in back East. "

Bob recalled the square, painted, ugly, featureless boxes
built all after the same pattern of dreariness. He looked
on this gay bewilderment of bad taste with more interest.

"At least they're taking notice," said Baker, lighting his
pipe. "And every fellow raises some kind of posies."

A few moments later they plunged into the vortex of
the city and the smiling country, the far plains toward the
sea, and the circle of the mountains were lost. Only
remained overhead the blue of the California sky.

Baker led the way toward a blaring basement restaurant.

"I'm beginning to feel that I'll have to find some monkey-
food somewhere, or cash in," said he.

They found a table and sat down.

"This is the place to see all the sights," proffered Baker,
his broad face radiating satisfaction. "When they strike
it rich on the desert, they hike right in here. That fat lady
thug yonder is worth between three and four millions. Eight
months ago she did washing at two bits a shirt while her hus-
band drove a one-man prospect shaft. The other day she
blew into the big jewelry store and wanted a thirty-thousand-
dollar diamond necklace. The boss rolled over twice and

THE RULES OF THE GAME 137

wagged his tail. 'Yes, madam/ said he; 'what kind?'
'I dunno; just a thirty-thousand-dollar one.' That's all he
could get out of her. 'But tell me how you want 'em set,'
he begged. She looked bewildered. ' Oh, set 'em so they II
jingle,' says she."

After the meal they walked down the principal streets,
watching the crowd. It was a large crowd, as though at busy
midday, and variously apparelled, from fur coat to straw
hat. Each extreme of costume seemed justified, either by the
balmy summer-night effect of the California open air, or by
the hint of chill that crept from the distant mountains.
Either aspect could be welcomed or ignored by a very slight
effort of the will. Electric signs blazed everywhere. Bob
was struck by the numbers of clairvoyants, palm readers,
Hindu frauds, crazy cults, fake healers, Chinese doctors,
and the like thus lavishly advertised. The class that else-
where is pressed by necessity to the inexpensive dinginess of
back streets, here blossomed forth in truly tropical luxur-
iance. Street vendors with all sorts of things, from mechan-
ical toys to spot eradicators, spread their portable lay-outs
at every corner. Vacant lots were crowded with spielers of
all sorts religious or political fanatics, vendors of cure-
alls, of universal tools, of marvellous axle grease, of anything
and everything to catch the idle dollar. Brilliantly lighted
shops called the passer-by to contemplate the latest wave-
motor, flying machine, door check, or what-not. Stock in
these enterprises was for sale and was being sold! Other
sidewalk booths, like those ordinarily used as dispensaries
of hot doughnuts and coffee, offered wild-cat mining shares,
oil stock and real estate in some highly speculative suburb.
Great stores of curios lay open to the tourist trade. Here
one could buy sheepskin Indian moccasins made in Massa-
chusetts, or abalone shells, or burnt-leatner pillows, or a
whole collection of photographic views so minute that they
could all be packed in a single walnut shell. Next door
were shops of Japanese and Chinese goods presided over by

138 THE RULES OF THE GAME

suave, sleepy-eyed Orientals, in wonderful brocade, wearing
the close cap with the red coral button atop. Shooting gal-
leries spit spitefully. Gasolene torches flared.

Baker strolled along, his hands in his pockets, his hat on
the back of his head. From time to time he cast an amused
glance at his companion.

"Come in here," he said abruptly.

Bob found himself comfortably seated in a commodious
open-air theatre, watching an excellent vaudeville perform-
ance. He enjoyed it thoroughly, for it was above the average.
In fifteen minutes, however, the last soubrette disappeared
in the wings to the accompaniment of a swirl of music. Her
place was taken by a tall, facetious-looking, bald individual,
clad in a loose frock coat. He held up his hand for silence.

"Ladies 'n' gentlemen," he drawled, "we hope you have
enjoyed yourselves. If you find a better show than this in
any theatre in town, barring the Orpheum, come and tell
us about it and we will see what we can do to brace ours up.
I don't believe you can. This show will be repeated every
afternoon and evening, with complete change of programme
twice a week. Go away and tell your friends about the great
free show down on Spring Street. Just tell them about it."

Bob glanced startled at his companion. Baker was grin-
ning.

"This show has cost us up to date," went on the leisurely
drawl, "just twenty-eight hundred dollars. Go and tell
your friends that. But" he suddenly straightened his fig-
ure and his voice became more incisive " that is not enough.
We have decided to give you something real to talk about.
We have decided to give every man, woman and child in this
vast audience a first-night present of Two Silver Dollars!"

Bob could feel an electric thrill run through the crowd,
and every one sat up a little straighter in his chair.

"Let me see," the orator went on, running his eye over the
audience. He had resumed his quieter manner. "There
are perhaps seven hundred people present. That would

THE RULES OF THE GAME 139

make fourteen hundred dollars. By the way, John," he
addressed some one briskly. "Close the gates and lock
them. We don't want anybody in on this who didn't have
interest enough in our show to come in the first place." He
winked humorously at the crowd, and several laughed.

" Pretty rotten, eh ? " whispered Baker admiringly. " Fixed
'em so they won't bolt when the show's over and before he
works off his dope."

" These Two Silver Dollars, which I want you all to get,
are in these hampers. Six little boys will distribute them.
Come up, boys, and get each a hatful of dollars." The six
solemnly marched up on the stage and busied themselves
with the hampers. "While we are waiting," went on the
orator, "I will seize the opportunity to present to you
the world-famed discoverer of that wonderful anaesthetic,
Oxodyne, Painless Porter."

At the words a dapper little man in immaculately correct
evening dress, and carrying a crush hat under his arm,
stepped briskly from the wings. He was greeted by wild
but presumably manufactured applause. He bowed rigidly
from the hips, and at once began to speak in a high and nasal
but extremely penetrating voice.

"As far as advertising is concerned," he began without
preamble, "it is entirely unnecessary that I give this show.
There is no man, woman or child in this marvellous common-
wealth of ours who is not familiar with the name of Painless
Porter, whether from the daily papers, the advertising boards,
the street cars, or the elegant red brougham in which I trav-
erse your streets. My work for you is my best advertise-
ment. It is unnecessary from that point of view that I
spend this money for this show, or that this extra money should
be distributed among you by my colleague, Wizard Walker,
the Medical Marvel of Modern Times."

The tall man paused from his business with the hampers
and the six boys to bow in acknowledgment.

" No, ladies 'n' gentlemen, my purpose is higher. In the

140 THE RULES OF THE GAME

breast of each human being is implanted an instinctive fear
of Pain. It sits on us like a nightmare, from the time we
first come to consciousness of our surroundings. It is a curse
of humanity, like drink, and he who can lighten that curse
is as much of a philanthropist as George W. Childs or Andrew
Carnegie. I want you to go away and talk about me. It
don't matter what you say, just so you say something. You
can call me quack, you may call me fakir, you may call me
charletan but be sure to call me SOMETHING! Then
slowly the news will spread abroad that Pain is banished,
and I can smile in peace, knowing that my vast expenditures
of time and money have not been in vain, and that I have
been a benefit to humanity. Wizard Walker, the Medical
Marvel of Modern Times, will now attend to the distribu-
tion, after which I will pull a few teeth gratis in order to
demonstrate to you the wonderful merits of Oxodyne."

"A dentist!" gasped Bob.

"Yup," said Baker. "Not much gasoline-torch-on-the-
back-lot in his, is there ?"

Bob was hardly surprised, after much preamble and height-
ening of suspense, to find that the Two Silver Dollars turned
out finally to be a pink ticket and a blue ticket, " good respect-
ively at the luxurious offices for one dollar's worth of dental
and medical attention FREE."

Nor was he more than slightly astounded when the back
drop rose to show the stage set glitteringly with nickel-
mounted dentist chairs and their appurtenances, with
shining glass, white linen, and with a chorus of fascinating
damsels dressed as trained nurses and standing rigidly at
attention. Then entered Painless himself, in snowy shirt-
sleeves and serious professional preoccupation. Volunteers
came up two by two. Painless explained obscurely the
scientific principles on which the marvellous Oxodyne worked
by severing temporarily but entirely all communication
between the nerves and the brain. Then much business
with a very glittering syringe.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 141

"My lord," chuckled Baker, "if he fills that thing up, it'll
drown her!"

In an impressive silence Painless flourished the forceps,
planted himself square in front of his patient, heaved a mom-
ent, and triumphantly held up in full view an undoubted
tooth. The trained nurses offered rinses. After a moment
the patient, a roughly dressed country woman, arose to her
feet. She was smiling broadly, and said something, which
the audience could not hear. Painless smiled indulgently.

" Speak up so they can all hear you," he encouraged her.

" Never hurt a bit," the woman stammered.

Three more operations were conducted as expeditiously
and as successfully. The audience was evidently impressed.

"How does he do it?" whispered Bob.

"Cappers," explained Baker briefly. "He only fakes
pulling a tooth. Watch him next time and you'll see that he
doesn't actually pull an ounce."

"Suppose a real toothache comes up?"

" I think that is one now. Watch him. "

A young ranchman was making his way up the steps
that led to the stage. His skin was tanned by long exposure
to the California sun, and his cheek rounded into an unmis-
takable swelling.

"No fake about him," commented Baker.

He seated himself in the chair. Painless examined his
jaw carefully. He started back, both hands spread in expos-
tulation.

"My dear friend!" he cried, "you can save that tooth!
It would be a crime to pull that tooth! Come to my office
at ten to-morrow morning and I will see what can be done."
He turned to the audience and for ten minutes expounded
the doctrine of modern dentistry as it stands for saving a
tooth whenever possible. Incidentally he had much to say
as to his skill in filling and bridge work and the marvellous
painlessness thereof. The meeting broke up finally to the
inspiring strains of a really good band. Bob and his friend,

142 THE RULES OF THE GAME

standing near the door, watched the audience file out.
Some threw away their pink and blue tickets, but most
stowed them carefully away.

"And every one that goes to the 'luxurious offices' for the
free dollar's worth will leave ten round iron ones," said
Baker.

After a moment the Painless One and the Wizard marched
smartly out, serenely oblivious of the crowd. They stepped
into a resplendent red brougham and were whisked rapidly
away.

"It pays to advertise," quoted Baker philosophically.

They moved on up the street.

"There's the inventor of the Unlimited Life," said Baker
suddenly, indicating a slender figure approaching. "I
haven't seen him in three years not since he got into this
graft, anyway."

"Unlimited Life," echoed Bob, "what's that? A medi-
cine?"

" No. A cult. Hullo, Sunny ! "

The approaching figure swerved and stopped. Bob saw
a very slender figure clad in a close-fitting, gray frock suit.
To his surprise, from beneath the wide, black felt hat there
peered at him the keenly nervous face of the more intelligent
mulatto. The man's eyes were very bright and shrewd.
His hair surrounded his face as an aureole of darkness, and
swept low to his coat collar.

"Mr. Baker," he said, simply, his eyes inscrutable.

"Well, Sunny, this is my old friend Bob Orde. Bob, this
is the world-famous Sunny Larue, apostle of the Unlimited
Life of whom you've heard so much." He winked at Bob.
"How's the Colony flourishing, Sunny?"

"More and more our people are growing to see the light,"
said the mulatto in low, musical tones. "The mighty but
simple principles of Azamud are coming into their own. The
poor and lowly, the humble and oppressed are learning that
in me is their salvation " He went on in his beautiful

THE RULES OF THE GAME 143

voice explaining the Colony of the Unlimited Life, addressing
always Bob directly and paying little attention to Baker,
who stood aside, his hands in his pockets, a smile on his fat,
good-natured face. It seemed that the Colony lived in tents
in a canon of the foothills. It paid Larue fifty dollars a head,
and in return was supported for six months and instructed
in the mysteries of the cult. It had its regimen. " At three we
arise and break our fast, quite simply, with three or four dry
prunes," breathed Larue, "and then, going forth to the high
places for one hour, we hold steadfast the thought of Love."

"Say, Sunny," broke in Baker, "how many you got
rounded up now?"

"There are at present twenty-one earnest proselytes."

" At fifty a head and you've got to feed and keep 'em
somehow even three dried prunes cost you something in
the long run " ruminated Baker. He turned briskly to the
mulatto : " Sunny, on the dead, where does the graft come in?"

The mulatto drew himself up in swift offence, scrutinized
Bob closely for a moment, met Baker's grin. Abruptly his
impressive manner dropped from him. He leaned toward
them with a captivating flash of white teeth.

"You just leave that to vie" he murmured, and glided
away into the crowd.

Baker laughed and drew Bob's arm within his own.

"Out of twenty of the faithful there's sure to be one or
two with life savings stowed away in a sock, and Sunny's
the boy to make them produce the sock."

"What's his cult, anyway?" asked Bob. "I mean, what
do they pretend to believe? I couldn't make out."

"A nigger's idea of Buddhism," replied Baker briefly.
" But you can get any brand of psychic damfoolishness you
think you need in your business. They do it all, here, from
going barefoot, eating nuts, swilling olive oil, rolling down hill,
adoring the Limitless Whichness, and all the works. It is
now," he concluded, looking at his watch, " about ten o'clock.
We will finish the evening by dropping in on the Fuzzies."

144 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Together they boarded a street car, which shortly depos-
ited them at an uptown corner. Large houses and spacious
grounds indicated a district of some wealth. To one of these
houses, brilliantly lighted, Baker directed his steps.

"But I don't know these people, and I'm not properly
dressed," objected Bob.

"They know me. And as for dress, if you'd arrange to
wear a chaste feather duster only, you'd make a hit."

A roomful of people were buzzing like a hive. Most were
in conventional evening dress. Here and there, however,
Bob caught hints of masculine long hair, of feminine psyche
knots, bandeaux and other extremely artistic but unusual
departures. One man with his dinner jacket wore a soft
linen shirt perforated by a Mexican drawn-work pattern
beneath which glowed a bright red silk undergarment.
Women's gowns on the flowing and Grecian order were not
uncommon. These were usually coupled with the incongru-
ity of parted hair brought low and madonna-wise over the
ears. As the two entered, a very powerful blond man was
just finishing the declamation of a French poem. He was
addressing it directly at two women seated on a sofa.

" Un r-r-reve d? amour!"

He concluded with much passion and clasped hands.

In the rustle ensuing after this effort, Baker led his friend
down the room to a very fat woman upholstered in pink
satin, to whom he introduced Bob. Mrs. Annis, for such
proved to be her name, welcomed him effusively.

"I've heard so much about you!" she cried vivaciously, to
Bob's vast astonishment. She tapped him on the arm with her
fan. "I'm going to make a confession to you; I know it may be
foolish, but I do like music so much better than I do pictures."

Bob, his brain whirling, muttered something.

"But I'm going to confess to you again, I like artists so
much better than I do musicians."

A light dawned on Bob. "But I'm not an artist nor a
musician," he blurted out.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 145

The pink-upholstered lady, starting back with an agility
remarkable in one of her size, clasped her hands.

"Don't tell me you write!" she cried dramatically.

"All right, I won't," protested poor Bob, "for I don't."

A slow expression of bewilderment overspread Mrs. Annis's
face, and she glanced toward Baker with an arched brow
of interrogation.

"I merely wanted Mr. Orde to meet you, Mrs. Annis," he
said impressively, "and to feel that another time, when he
is less exhausted by the strain of a long day, he may have
the privilege of explaining to you the details of the great
Psychic Movement he is inaugurating."

Mrs. Annis smiled on him graciously. "I am home
every Sunday to my intimes" she murmured. "I should
be so pleased."

Bob bowed mechanically.

"You infernal idiot!" he ground out savagely to Baker,
as they moved away. "What do you mean? I'll punch
your fool head when I get you out of here!"

But the plump young man merely smiled.

Halfway down the room a group of attractive-looking
young men hailed them.

"Join in, Baker," said they. "Bring your friend along.
We're just going to raid the commissary."

But Baker shook his head.

"I'm showing him life," he replied. "None but Fuzzies
in his to-night !"

He grasped Bob firmly by the arm and led him away.

"That," he said, indicating a very pale young man, sur-
rounded by women, "is Pickering, the celebrated sub-
marine painter."

"The what?" demanded Bob.

"Submarine painter. He paints fish and green water
and lobsters, and the bottom of the sea generally. He
paints them on the skins of kind-faced little calves."

"What does he do that for?"

146 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"He says it's the only surface that will express what he
wants to. He has also invented a waterproof paint that
he can use under water. He has a coral throne down on
the bottom which he sits in, and paints as long as he can
hold his breath."

"Oh, he does!" said Bob.

"Yes," said Baker.

"But a man can't see three feet in front of his face under
water!" cried Bob.

"Pickering says he can. He paints submarinescapes,
and knows all the fishes. He says fishes have individual
expressions. He claims he can tell by a fish's expression
whether he is polygamous or monogamous."

"Do you mean to tell me anybody swallows that rot!"
demanded Bob indignantly.

" The women do and a lot more I can't remember. The
market for calf-skins with green swirls on them is booming.
Also the women clubbed together and gave him money
enough to build a house."

Bob surveyed the little white-faced man with a strong
expression of disgust.

"The natural man never sits in chairs," the artist was
exppunding. "When humanity shall have come into its
own we shall assume the graceful aid hygienic postures of
the oriental peoples. In society one must, to a certain extent,
follow convention, but in my own house, the House Beau-
tiful of my dreams, are no chairs. And even now a small
group of the freer spirits are following my example. In
time "

"If you don't take me away, I'll run in circles!" whis-
pered Bob fiercely to his friend.

They escaped into the open air.

"Phew!" said Bob, straightening his long form. "Is
that what you call the good society here?"

"Good society is there," amended Baker. "That's the
joke. There are lots of nice people in this little old town,

THE RULES OF THE GAME 147

people who lisp our language fluently. They are all mixed
in with the Fuzzies."

They decided to walk home. Bob marvelled at the
impressive and substantial buildings, at the atrocious streets.
He spoke of the beautiful method of illuminating one of
the thoroughfares by globes of light gracefully supported
in clusters on branched arms either side the roadway.

"They were originally bronze and they went and
painted them a mail-box green," commented Baker drily.

At the hotel the night clerk, a young man, quietly dressed
and with an engaging air, greeted them with just the right
amount of cordiality as he handed them their keys. Bob
paused to look about him.

"This is a good hotel," he remarked.

"It's one of the best-managed, the best-conducted, and
the best-appointed hotels in the United States," said Baker
with conviction.

The next morning Bob bought all the papers and glanced
through them with considerable wonder and amusement.
They were decidedly metropolitan in size, and carried
a tremendous amount of advertising. Early in his perusal
he caught the personal bias of the news. Without distor-
tion to the point of literal inaccuracy, nevertheless by skil-
ful use of headlines and by manipulation of the point of view,
all items were made to subserve a purpose. In local affairs
the most vulgar nicknaming, the most savage irony, vitupera-
tion, scorn and contempt were poured out full measure on
certain individuals unpopular with the papers. Such epi-
thets as "lickspittle," "toad," "carcass blown with the
putrefying gas of its own importance," were read in the body
of narration.

"These are the best-edited, most influential and powerful
journals in the West," commented Baker. "They possess
an influence inconceivable to an Easterner."

The advertising columns were filled to bursting with
advertisements of patent medicines, sex remedies, quack

148 THE RULES OF THE GAME

doctors, miraculous healers, clairvoyants, palm readers,
" philanthropists" with something "free" to bestow, clev-
erly worded offers of abortion; with full-page prospectuses
of mines; of mushroom industrial concerns having to do with
wave motors, water motors, solar motors, patent couplers,
improved telephones and the like, all of whose stock now
stood at $1.10, but which on April zoth, at 8.02 p. M., would
go up to $1.15; with blaring, shrieking offers of real estate
in this, that or the other addition, consisting, as Bob knew
from yesterday, of farm acreage at front-foot figures. The
proportion of this fake advertising was astounding. One
in particular seemed incredible a full page of the exponent
of some Oriental method of healing and prophecy.

" Of course, a full-page costs money," replied Baker. " But
this is the place to get it." He pushed back his chair. "Well,
what do you think of our fair young city ? " he grinned.

"It's got me going," admitted Bob.

"Took me some time to find out where to get off at,"
said Baker. " When I found it out, I didn't dare tell anybody.
They mob you here and string you up by your pigtail, if
you try to hint that this isn't the one best bet on terrestrial
habitations. They like their little place, and they believe
in it a whole lot, and they're dead right about it! They'd
stand right up on their hind legs and paw the atmosphere
if anybody were to tell them what they really are, but it's
a fact. Same joyous slambang, same line of sharps hanging
on the outskirts, same row, racket, and joy in life, same
struggle; yes, and by golly! the same big hopes and big
enterprises and big optimism and big energies! Wouldn't
you like to be helping them do it?"

"What's the answer?" asked Bob, amused.

"Well, for all its big buildings and its electric lights, and
trolleys, and police and size> it's nothing more nor less than
a frontier town."

"A frontier town!" echoed Bob.

"You think it over," said Baker.

BU T if Bob imagined for one moment that he had ac-
quired even a notion of California in his experiences
and observations down the San Joaquin and in Los
Angeles, the next few stages of his Sentimental Journey
very soon undeceived him. Baker's business interests soon
took him away. Bob, armed with letters of introduction
from his friend, visited in turn such places as Santa Barbara,
Riverside, San Diego, Redlands and Pasadena. He could
not but be struck by the absolute differences that existed,
not only in the physical aspects but in the spirit and aims
of the peoples. If these communities had been separated
by thousands of miles of distance they could not have been
more unlike.

At one place he found the semi-tropical luxuriance of
flowers and trees and fruits, the soft, warm sunshine, the
tepid, langourous, musical nights, the mellow haze of
romance over mountain and velvet hill and soft sea, the
low-shaded cottages, the leisurely attractive people one
associates with the story-book conception of California.
The place was charming in its surroundings and in its graces
of life, but it was a cheerful, happy, out-at-the-heels, raggedy
little town, whose bright gardens adorned its abyssmal
streets, whose beautiful mountains palliated the naivete* of
its natural and atrocious roads. Bob mingled with its
people with the pardonable amusement of a man fresh from
the doing of big things. There seemed to be such long,
grave and futile discussions over the undertaking of that
which a more energetic community would do as a matter
of course in the day's work. The liveryman from whom

149

150 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Bob hired his saddle horse proved to be a person of a leis-
urely and sardonic humour.

"Their chief asset here is tourists," said he. " That's
the leading industry. They can't see it, and they don't want
to. They have just one road through the county. It's a
bum one. You'd think it was a dozen, to hear them talk
about the immense undertaking of making it halfway decent.
Any other place would do these things they've been talking
about for ten years just on the side, as part of the get-ready.
Lucky they didn't have to do anything in the way of getting
those mountains set proper, or there'd be a hole there yet."

"Why don't you go East?" asked Bob.

"I did once. Didn't like it."

"What's the matter?"

"Well, I'll tell you. Back East when you don't do noth-
ing, you feel kind of guilty. Out here when you don't do
nothing, you don't give a damn!"

Nevertheless, Bob was very sorry when he had to leave
this quiet and beautiful little town, with its happy, care-
less, charming people.

Thence he went directly to a town built in a half -circle of
the mountains. The sunshine here was warm and grate-
ful, but when its rays were withdrawn a stinging chill crept
down from the snow. No sitting out on the verandah after
dinner, but often a most grateful fire in the Club's fireplace.
The mornings were crisp and enlivening. And again by
the middle of the day the soft California warmth laid the
land under its spell.

This was a place of orange-growers, young fellows from
the East. Its University Club was large and prosperous.
Its streets were wide. Flowers lined the curbs. There were
few fences. The houses were in good taste. Even the
telephone poles were painted green so as to be unobtrusive.
Bob thought it one of the most attractive places he had ever
seen, as indeed it should be, for it was built practically to
order by people of intelligence.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 151

Thence he drove through miles and miles of orange groves,
so large that the numerous workmen go about their work
on bicycles. Even here in the country, the roadsides were
planted with palms and other ornamental trees, and gay with
flowers. Abruptly he came upon a squalid village of the old
regime, with ugly frame houses, littered streets, sagging side-
walks foul with puddles, old tin cans, rubbish; populous
with children and women in back-yard dressing sacks
a distressing reminder of the worst from the older-established
countries. And again, at the end of the week, he most unex-
pectedly found himself seated on a country-club verandah,
having a very good time, indeed, with some charming speci-
mens of the idle rich. He talked polo, golf, tennis and
horses; he dined at several most elaborate " cottages"; he
rode forth on glossy, bang-tailed horses, perfectly appointed;
he drove in marvellously conceived traps in company with
most engaging damsels. When, finally, he reached Los
Angeles again he carried with him, as standing for California,
not even the heterogeneous but fairly coherent idea one
usually gains of a single commonwealth, but an impression
of many climes and many peoples.

"Yes," said Baker, "and if you'd gone North to where I
live, you'd have struck a different layout entirely."

THERE remained in Bob's initial Southern California
experience one more episode that brought him an
acquaintance, apparently casual, but which later
was to influence him.

Of an afternoon he walked up Main Street idly and alone.
The exhibit of a real estate office attracted him. Over the
door, in place of a sign, hung a huge stretched canvas depict-
ing not too rudely a wide country-side dotted with model
farms of astounding prosperity. The window was filled
with pumpkins, apples, oranges, sheaves of wheat, bottles
full of r>oft fruits preserved in alcohol, and the like. As
background was an oil painting in which the Lucky Lands
occupied a spacious pervading foreground, while in clever
perspectives the Coast Range, the foothills, and the other
cities of the San Fernando Valley supplied a modest setting.
This was usual enough.

At the door stood a very alert man with glasses. He
scrutinized closely every passerby. Occasionally he hailed
one or the other, conversed earnestly a brief instant, and
passed them inside. Gradually it dawned on Bob that
this man was acting in the capacity of "barker" that
with quite admirable perspicacity and accuracy, he was
engaged in selecting from the countless throngs the few
possible purchasers for Lucky Lands. Curious to see
what attraction was offered to induce this unanimity of
acquiescence to the barker's invitation, the young man
approached.

"What's going on?" he asked.

The barker appraised him with one sweeping glance.

152

THE RULES OF THE GAME 153

" Stereopticon lecture inside," he snapped, and turned his
back.

Bob made his way into a dimly lighted hall. At one end
was a slightly elevated platform above which the white screen
was suspended. More agricultural products supplied the
decorations. The body of the hall was filled with folding
chairs, about half of which were occupied. Perhaps a dozen
attendants tiptoed here and there. A successful attempt
was everywhere made to endow with high importance all
the proceedings and appurtenances of the Lucky Land Co.

Bob slipped into a chair. Immediately a small paste-
board ticket and a fountain pen were thrust into his hand.

" Sign your name and address on this," the man whispered.

Bob held it up, the better to see what it was.

"All these tickets are placed in a hat," explained the man,
" and one is drawn. The lucky ticket gets a free ride to
Lucky on one of our weekly homcseekers' excursions.
Others pay one fare for round trip."

" I see/' said Bob, signing, " and in return you get the
names and addresses af every one here."

He glanced up at his interlocutor with a quizzical expres-
sion that changed at once to one of puzzlement. Where had
he seen the man before? He was, perhaps, fifty-five years
old, tall and slender, slightly stooped, slightly awry. His lean
gray face was deeply lined, his close-clipped moustache and
hair were gray, and his eyes twinkled behind his glasses with
a cold gray light. Something about these glasses struck
faintly a chord of memory in Bob's experience, but he could
not catch its modulations. The man, on his side, stared at Bob
a trifle uncertainly. Then he held the card up to the dim light.

"You are interested in Lucky Lands Mr. John Smith,
of Reno?" he asked, stooping low to be heard.

"Sure! "grinned Bob.

The man said nothing more, but glided away, and in a
moment the flare of light on the screen announced that the
lecture was to begin.

154 THE RULES OF THE GAME

The lecturer was a glib, self-possessed youth, filled to tlie
brim with statistics, with which he literally overwhelmed his
auditors. His remarks were accompanied by a rapid-fire
snapping of fingers to the time of which the operator changed
his slides. A bewildering succession of coloured views
flashed on the screen. They showed Lucky in all its glories
the blacksmith shop, the main street, the new hotel, the
grocery, Brown's walnut ranch, the ditch, the Southern
Pacific Depot, the Methodist Church and a hundred others.
So quickly did they succeed each other that no one had time
to reduce to the terms of experience the scenes depicted on
these slides for with the glamour of exaggerated colour,
of unaccustomed presentation, and of skillful posing the
most commonplace village street seems wonderful and attract-
ive for the moment. The lecturer concluded by an alarm-
ing statement as to the rapidity with which this desirable
ranching property was being snapped up. He urged early
decisions as the only safe course; and, as usual with all real
estate men, called attention to the contrast between the
Riverside of twenty years ago and the Riverside of to-day.

The daylight was then admitted.

"Now, gentlemen," concluded the lecturer, still in his
brisk, time-saving style, "the weekly excursion to Lucky
will take place to-morrow. One fare both ways to home-
seekers. Free carriages to the Lands. Grand free open-air
lunch under the spreading sycamores and by the babbling
brook. Train leaves at seven-thirty."

In full sight of all he threw the packet of tickets into a
hat and drew one.

"Mr. John Smith, of Reno," he read. "Who is Mr.
Smith?"

"Here," said Bob.

"Would you like to go to Lucky to-morrow?"

"Sure," said Bob.

One of the attendants immediately handed Bob a railroad
ticket. The lecturer had already disappeared.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 155

To his surprise Bob found the street door locked.

"This way," urged one of the salesmen. "You go out
this way."

He and the rest of the audience were passed out another
door in the rear, where they were forced to go through the
main offices of the Company. Here were stationed the
gray man and all his younger assistants. Bob paused by
the door. He could not but admire the acumen of the barker
in selecting his men. The audience was made up of just
the type of those who come to California with agricultural
desires and a few hundred dollars slow plodders from
Eastern farms, Italians with savings and ambitions, half
invalids all the element that crowds the tourist sleepers
day in and day out, the people who are filling the odd corners
of the greater valleys. As these debouched into the glare
of the outer offices, they hesitated, making up their slow
minds which way to turn. In that instant or so the gray
man, like a captain, assigned his salesmen. The latter were
of all sorts fat and joking, thin and very serious-minded,
intense, enthusiastic, cold and haughty. The gray man
sized up his prospective customers and to each assigned a
salesman to suit. Bob had no means of guessing how
accurate these estimates might be, but they were evidently
made intelligently, with some system compounded of theory
or experience. After a moment Bob became conscious that
he himself was being sharply scrutinized by the gray man,
and in return watched covertly. He saw the gray man
shake his head slightly. Bob passed out the door unac-
costed by any of the salesmen.

At half-past seven the following morning he boarded the
local train. In one car he found a score of "prospects"
already seated, accompanied by half their number of the
young men of the real estate office. The utmost jocularity
and humour prevailed, except in one corner where a very
earnest young man drove home the points of his argument
with an impressive forefinger. Bob dropped unobtrusively

156 THE RULES OF THE GAME

into a seat, and prepared to enjoy his never-failing interest
in the California landscape with its changing wonderful
mountains; its alternations of sage brush and wide cultivation;
its vineyards as far as the eye could distinguish the vines;
its grainfields seeming to fill the whole cup of the valleys;
its orchards wide as forests; and its desert stretches, bigger
than them all, awaiting but the vivifying touch of water to
burst into productiveness. He heard one of the salesmen
expressing this.

"' Water is King,'" he was saying, quoting thus the catch-
word of this particular concern. He was talking in a half-
joking way, asking one or the other how many inches of rainfall
could be expected per annum back where they came from.

" Don't know, do you?" he answered himself. "Nobody
pays any great and particular amount of attention to that
you get water enough, except in exceptional years. Out here
it's different. Every one knows to the hundredth of an inch
just how much rain has fallen, and how much ought to have
fallen. It's vital. Water is King."

He gathered close the attention of his auditors.

"We have the water in California," he went on; "but it
isn't always in the right place nor does it come at the right
time. You can't grow crops in the high mountains where
most of the precipitation occurs. But you can bring that
water down to the plains. That's your answer: irrigation."

He looked from one to the other. Several nodded.

"But a man can't irrigate by himself. He can't build
reservoirs, ditches all alone. That's where a concern like
the Lucky Company makes good. We've brought the water
to where you can use it. Under the influence of cultivation
that apparently worthless land can produce - "he went
on at great length detailing statistics of production. Even
to Bob, who had no vital nor practical interest, it was all
most novel and convincing.

So absorbed did he become that he was somewhat startled
when a man sat down beside him. He looked up to meet

THE RULES OF THE GAME 157

the steel gray eyes and glittering glasses of the chief. Again
there swept over him a sense of familiarity, the feeling that
somewhere, at some time, he had met this man before.
It passed almost as quickly as it came, but left him puzzled.

"Of course your name is not Smith, nor do you come
from Reno," said the man in gray abruptly. "I've seen
you somewhere before, but I can't place you. Are you a
newspaper man?"

" I've been thinking the same of you," returned Bob. " No,
I'm just plain tourist."

"I don't imagine you're particularly interested in Lucky,"
said the gray man. "Why did you come?"

" Just idleness and curiosity," replied Bob frankly.

"Of course we try to get the most value in return for our
expenditures on these excursions by taking men who are
at least interested in the country," suggested the gray man.

"By Jove, I never thought of that!" cried Bob. "Of
course, I'd no business to take that free ticket. I'll pay you
my fare."

The gray man had been scrutinizing him intensely and
keenly. At Bob's comically contrite expression, his own face
cleared.

"No, you misunderstand me," he replied in his crisp fash-
ion. "We give these excursions as an advertisement of what
we have. The more people to know about Lucky, the better
our chances. We made an offer of which you have taken
advantage. You're perfectly welcome, and I hope you'll
enjoy yourself. Here, Selwyn," he called to one of the
salesman, "this is Mr. what did you say your name is?"

"Orde," replied Bob.

The gray man seemed for an almost imperceptible instant
to stiffen in his seat. The gray eyes glazed over; the gray-
lined face froze.

"Orde," he repeated harshly; "where from?"

"Michigan," Bob replied.

The gray man rose stiffly. "Well, Selwyn," said he, "this

158 THE RULES OF THE GAME

is Mr. Orde of Michigan and I want you to show him
around."

He moved down the aisle to take a seat, distant, but facing
the two young men. Bob felt himself the object of a furtive
but minute scrutiny which lasted until the train slowed down
at the outskirts of Lucky.

Selwyn proved to be an agreeable young man, keen-faced,
clean-cut, full of energy and enthusiasm. He soon discovered
that Bob did not contemplate going into ranching, and at once
admitted that young man to his confidence.

"You just nail a seat iri that surrey over there, while I
chase out my two 'prospects.' We sell on commission and
I've got to rustle."

They drove out of the sleepy little village on which had
been grafted showy samples of the Company's progress.
The day was beautiful with sunshine, with the mellow calls
of meadow larks, with warmth and sweet odours. As the
surrey took its zigzag way through the brush, as the quail
paced away to right and left, as the delicate aroma of the
sage rose to his nostrils, Bob began to be very glad he had
come. Here and there the brush had been cleared, small
shacks built, fences of wire strung, and the land ploughed
over. At such places the surrey paused while Selwyn held
forth to his two stolid " prospects" on how long these new-
comers had been there and how well they were getting on.
The country rose in a gradual slope to the slate-blue moun-
tains. Ditches ran here and there. Everywhere were small
square stakes painted white, indicating the boundaries of
tracts yet unsold.

They visited the reservoir, which looked to Bob uncom-
monly like a muddy duck pond, but whose value Selwyn
soon made very clear. They wandered through the Chiquito
ranch, whence came the exhibition fruit and other products,
and which formed the basis of most Lucky arguments. The
owner had taken many medals for his fruit, and had spent
twenty-five years in making the Chiquito a model.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 159

"Any man can do likewise in this land of promise," said
Selwyn.

They ended finally in a beautiful little canon among the
foothills. It was grown thick with twisted, mottled syca-
mores just budding into leaf, with vines and greenery of the
luxurious California varieties. Birds sang everywhere and
a brook babbled and bubbled down a stony bed.

Under the largest of the sycamores a tent had been pitched
and a table spread. Affairs seemed to be in charge of a very
competent countrywoman whose fuzzy horse and ram-
shackle buggy stood securely tethered below. The surries
drove up and deposited their burdens. Bob took his place
at table to be served with an abundant, hot and well-cooked
meal.

The ice had been broken. Everybody laughed and joked.
Some of the men removed their coats in order to be more com-
fortable. The young salesmen had laboured successfully to
bring these strangers to a feeling of partnership in at least
the aims of the Company, of partisanship against the claims
of other less-favoured valleys than Lucky. During a pause
in the fun, one of the " prospects," an elderly, white- whiskered
farmer of the more prosperous type, nodded toward the
brook.

"That sounds good," said he.

"It's the supply for the Lucky Lands," replied Selwyn.
"It ought to sound good."

"There's mighty few flowing creeks in California this far
out from the mountains," interposed another salesman.
"You know out here, except in the rainy season, the rivers
all flow bottom-up."

They all guffawed at this ancient and mild joke. The old
farmer wagged his head.

"Water is King," said he solemnly, as though voicing an
original and profound thought.

A look of satisfaction overspread the countenance of the
particular salesman who had the old farmer in charge. When

160 THE RULES OF THE GAME

you can get your " prospect" to adopt your catchword and
enunciate it with conviction, he is yours!

After the meal Bob, unnoticed, wandered off up the canon.
He had ascertained that the excursionists would not leave the
spot for two hours yet, and he welcomed the chance for
exercise. Accordingly he set himself to follow the creek,
the one stream of pure and limpid water that did not flow
bottom-up. At first this was easy enough, but after a while
the canon narrowed, and Bob found himself compelled to
clamber over rocks and boulders, to push his way through
thickets of brush and clinging vines, finally even to scale a
precipitous and tangled side hill over which the stream fell
in a series of waterfalls. Once past this obstruction, how-
ever, the country widened again. Bob stood in the bed of
a broad, flat wash flanked by low hills. Before him, and
still some miles distant, rose the mountains in which the
stream found its source.

Bob stood still for a moment, his hat in his hand, enjoying
the tepid odours, the warm sun and the calls of innumerable
birds. Then he became aware of a faint and intermittent
throb put-put (pause) put (pause) , put-put-put!

" Gasoline engine," said he to himself.

He tramped a few hundred yards up the dry wash, rounded
a bend, and came to a small wooden shack from which
emanated the sound of the gas explosions. A steady stream
of water gushed from a pump operated by the gasoline engine.
Above, the stream bed was dry. Here was the origin of the
" beautiful mountain stream."

Chair-tilted in front of the shack sat a man smoking a pipe.
He looked up as Bob approached.

"Hullo," said he; "show over?"

He disappeared inside and shut off the gasoline engine.
Immediately the flow ceased; the stream dried up as though
scorched. Presently the man emerged, thrusting his hands
into the armholes of an old coat. Shrugging the garment
into place, he snapped shut the padlock on the door.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 161

"Come on," said he. "My rig's over behind that grease-
wood. You're a new one, ain't ye?"

Bob nodded.

"That horse is branded pretty thick," he said by way of
diversion.

The man chuckled.

"Have to turn his skin other side out to get another one
on," he agreed.

They drove down an old dim road that avoided the diffi-
culties of the canon. At camp they found the surries just
loading up. Bob took his place. Before the rigs started
back, the gray man, catching sight of the pump man, drew
him aside and said several things very vigorously. The
pump man answered with some indignation, pointing finally
to Bob. Instantly the gray man whirled to inspect the young
fellow. Then he shot a last remark, turned and climbed
grumpily into his vehicle.

At the station Bob tried to draw Selwyn aside for a con-
versation.

"I'll be with you when the train starts, old man," replied
Selwyn, "but I've got to stick close to these prospects.
There's a gang of knockers hanging around here always,
just waiting for a chance to lip in."

When the train started, however, Selwyn came back to
drop into Bob's seat with a wearied sigh.

" Gosh! I get sick of handing out dope to these yaps," said
he. "I was afraid for a while it was going to blow. Looked
like it."

"What of it? "asked Bob.

" When it blows up here, it'd lift the feathers off a chicken
and the chicken off the earth," explained Selwyn. "I've
seen more than one good prospect ruined by a bad day."

"How'd you come out?" inquired Bob.

" Got one. He handed over his first payment on the spot.
Funny how these yahoos almost always bring their cash right
with 'em. Other's no good. I get so I can spot that kind

162 THE RULES OF THE GAME

the first three words. They're always too blame enthus-
iastic about the country and the Company. Seems like they
try to pay for their entertainment by jollying us along.
Don't fool me any. When a man begins to object to things,
you know he's thinking of buying."

Bob listened to this wisdom with some amusement.
"How'd you explain when the stream stopped?" he asked.

"Why," said Selwyn, looking straight ahead, " didn't
you hear Mr. Oldham? They turned the water into the
Upper Ditch to irrigate the Foothill Tracts."

Bob laughed. "You're not much of a liar, Selwyn," he
said pleasantly. "Failure of gasoline would hit it nearer."

"Oh, that's where you went," said Selwyn. "I ought to
have kept my eye on you closer."

He fell silent, and Bob eyed him speculatively. He liked
the young fellow's clear, frank cast of countenance.

"Look here, Sdwyn," he broke out, "do you like this
bunco game?"

"I don't like the methods," replied Selwyn promptly;
"but you are mistaken when you think it's a bunco game.
The land is good; there's plenty of artesian water to be had;
and we don't sell at a fancy price. We've located over eight
hundred families up there at Lucky Lands, and three out of
four are making good. The fourth simply hadn't the capital
to hold out until returns came in. It's as good a small-
ranch proposition as they could find. If I didn't think so,
I wouldn't be in it for a minute."

"How about that stream?"

"Nobody said the stream was a natural one. And the
water exists, no matter where it cornes from. You can't
impress an Eastern farmer with a pump proposition: that's
a matter of education. They come to see its value after
they've tried it."

"But your '

"I told you I didn't like the methods. I won't have any-
thing to do with the dirty work, and Oldham knows it."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 163

"Why all the bluff, then?" asked Bob.

" There are thousands of real estate firms in Los Angeles
trying to sell millions of acres," said Selwyn, "and this is
about the only concern that succeeds in colonizing on a large
scale. Oldham developed this system, and it seems to work."

" The law'll get him some day."

"I think not," replied Selwyn. "You may find him close
to the edge of the law, but he never steps over. He's a
mighty bright business man, and he's made a heap of money."

When nearing the Arcade depot, Oldham himself stepped
forward.

"Stopping in California long?" he asked, with some
approach to geniality.

"Permanently, I think," replied Bob.

"You are going to manufacture your timber?"

Bob looked up astonished.

"You're the Orde interested in Granite County timber,
aren't you?"

"I'm employed by Welton, that's all," said Bob. "He
owns the timber. But how did you know I am with
Welton?" he asked.

"With Welton!" echoed Oldham. "Oh, yes well, I
heard from Michigan business acquaintances you were
with him. Welton's lands are in Granite County?"

"Yes," said Bob.

"Well," said Oldham vaguely, "I hope you have enjoyed
your little outing." He turned away.

"Now, how the deuce should anybody know about me,
or that I am with Welton, or take the trouble to write about
it?"

He mulled over this for some time. For lack of a better
reason, he ascribed to his former football prominence the
fact that Oldham' s Michigan correspondent had thought
him worth mention. Yet that seemed absurdly inadequate.

PART THREE

TWO weeks later a light buckboard bearing Welton
and Bob dashed in the early morning across the
plains, wormed its way ingeniously through gaps
in the foothills, and slowed to a walk as it felt the grades of
the first long low slopes. The air was warm with the sun
imprisoned in the pockets of the hills. High chaparral,
scrub oaks, and scattered, unkempt digger pines threw their
thicket up to the very right of way. It was in general dense,
almost impenetrable, yet it had a way of breaking unexpect-
edly into spacious parks, into broad natural pastures, into
bold, rocky points prophetic of the mountains yet to come.
Every once in a while the road drew one side to pause at a
cabin nestling among fruit trees, bowered beneath vines,
bright with the most vivid of the commoner flowers. They
were crazily picturesque with their rough stone chimneys,
their roofs of shakes, their broad low verandahs, and their
split-picket fences. On these verandahs sat patriarchal-
looking men with sweeping white beards, who smoked pipes
and gazed across with dim eyes toward the distant blue
mountains. When Welton, casually and by the way, men-
tioned topographical names, Bob realized to what placid
and contented retirement these men had turned, and who
they were. Nugget Creek, Flour Gold, Bear Gulch
these spoke of the strong, red-shirt ed Argonauts of the
El Dorado. Among these scarred but peaceful foothills
had been played and applauded the great, wonderful, sor-
did, inspired drama of the early days, the traces of which
had almost vanished from the land.

Occasionally also the buckboard paused for water at a

167

1 68 THE RULES OF THE GAME

more pretentious place set in a natural opening. There a
low, rambling, white ranch-house beneath trees was segre-
gated by a picket fence enclosing blossoms like a basket. At
a greater or lesser distance were corrals of all sizes arranged
in a complicated pattern. They resembled a huge puzzle.
The barns were large; a forge stood under an open shed
indescribably littered with scrap iron and fragments of all
sorts; saddles hung suspended by the horn or one stirrup;
bright milk pails sunned bottom-up on fence posts; a dozen
horses cropped in a small enclosed pasture or dozed beneath
one or another of the magnificent and spreading live-oak
trees. Children of all sizes and states of repair clambered
to the fence tops or gazed solemnly between the rails. Some-
times women stood in the doorways to nod cheerfully at the
travellers. They seemed to Bob a comely, healthy-looking
lot, competent and good-natured. Beyond an occasional
small field and an invariable kitchen garden there appeared
to be no evidences of cultivation. Around the edges of the
natural opening stretched immediately the open jungle of
the chaparral or the park-like forests of oaks.

" These are the typical mountain people of California,"
said Welton. " It's only taken us a few hours to come up
this far, but we've struck among a different breed of cats.
They're born, live and die in the hills, and they might as
well be a thousand miles away as forty or fifty. As soon
as the snow is out, they hike for the big mountains."

"What do they do?" inquired Bob.

" Cattle," replied Welton. " Nothing else."

"I haven't seen any men."

"No, and you won't, except the old ones. They've
taken their cattle back to the summer ranges in the high
mountains. By and by the women and kids will go into
the summer camps with the horses."

On a steep and narrow grade they encountered a girl of
twenty riding a spirited pinto. She bestrode a cowboy's
stock saddle on which was coiled the usual rope, wore a

THE RULES OF THE GAME 169

broad felt hat, and smiled at the two men quite frankly in
spite of the fact that she wore no habit and had been com-
pelled to arrange her light calico skirts as best she could.
The pinto threw his head and snorted, dancing sideways at
sight of the buckboard. So occupied was he with the
strange vehicle that he paid scant attention to the edge of
the road. Bob saw that the passage along the narrow out-
side strip was going to be precarious. He prepared to
descend, but at that moment the girl faced her pony squarely
at the edge of the road, dug her little heels into his flanks,
and flicked him sharply with the morale or elongated lash
of the reins. Without hesitation the pony stepped off the
grade, bunched his hoofs and slid down the precipitous slope.
So steep was the hill that a man would have had to climb it
on all fours.

Bob gasped and rose to his feet. The pony, leaving a
long furrow in the side of the mountain, caught himself on
the narrow ledge of a cattle trail, turned to the left, and
disappeared at a little fox trot.

Bob looked at this companion. Welton laughed.

"There's hardly a woman in the country that doesn't help
round up stock. How'd you like to chase a cow full speed
over this country, hey?"

As they progressed, mounting slowly, but steadily, the
character of the country changed. The canons through
which flowed the streams became deeper and more pre-
cipitous; the divides between them higher. At one point
where the road emerged on a bold, clear point, Bob looked
back to the shimmering plain, and was astonished to see how
high they had climbed. To the eastward and only a few
miles distant rose the dark mass of a pine-covered ridge,
austere and solemn, the first rampart of the Sierras. Welton
pointed to it with his whip.

"There's our timber," said he simply.

A little farther along the buckboard drew rein at the top
of a long declivity that led down to a broad wooded valley.

170 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Among the trees Bob caught a glimpse of the roofs of scat-
tered houses, and the gleam of a river. From the opposite
edge of the valley rose the mountain-ridge, sheer and noble.
The light of afternoon tinted it with lilac and purple.

" That's the celebrated town of Sycamore Flats," said
Welton. " Just at present we're the most important citizens.
This fellow here's the first yellow pine on the road."

Bob looked upon what he then considered a rather large
tree. Later he changed his mind. The buckboard rattled
down the grade, swung over a bridge, and so into the little
town. Welton drew up at a low, broad structure set back
from the street among some trees.

"We'll tackle the mountain to-morrow," said he.

Bob descended with a distinct feeling of pleasure at being
able to use his legs again. He and Welton and the baggage
and everything about the buckboard were powdered thick
with the fine, white California dust. At every movement
he shook loose a choking cloud. Welton' s face was a dull
gray, ludicrously streaked, and he suspected himself of being
in the same predicament. A boy took the horses, and the
travellers entered the picketed enclosure. Welton lifted up
his great rumbling voice.

"O Auntie Belle!" he roared.

Within the dark depths of the house life stirred. In a
moment a capable and motherly woman had taken them in
charge. Amid a rapid-fire of greetings, solicitudes, jokes,
questions, commands and admonitions Bob was dusted
vigorously and led to ice-cold water and clean towels. Ten
minutes later, much refreshed, he stood on the low verandah
looking out with pleasure on the little there was to see.
Eight dogs squatted themselves in front of him, ears slightly
uplifted, in expectancy of something Bob could not guess.
Probably the dogs could not guess either. Within the
house two or three young girls were moving about, singing
and clattering dishes in a delightfully promising manner.
Down the winding hill, for Sycamore Flats proved after

THE RULES OF THE GAME 171

all to be built irregularly on a slope, he could make out
several other scattered houses, each with its dooryard, and
the larger structures of several stores. Over all loomed the
dark mountain. The sun had just dropped below the ridge
down which the road had led them, but still shone clear and
golden as an overlay of colour laid against the sombre pines
on the higher slopes.

After an excellent chicken supper, Bob lit his pipe and
wandered down the street. The larger structures, three in
number, now turned out to be a store and two saloons. A
dozen saddle horses dozed patiently. On the platform
outside the store a dozen Indian women dressed in bright
calico huddled beneath their shawls. After squatting thus
in brute immobility for a half- hour, one of them would pur-
chase a few pounds of flour or a half-pound of tea. Then
she would take her place again with the others. At the end
of another half-hour another, moved by some sudden and
mysterious impulse, would in turn make her purchases. The
interior of the store proved to be no different from the general
country store anywhere. The proprietor was very busy
and occupied and important and interested in selling a two-
dollar bill of goods to a chance prospector, which was well,
for this was the storekeeper's whole life, and he had in
defence of his soul to make his occupations filling. Bob
bought a cigar and went out.

Next he looked in at one of the saloons. It was an ill-
smelling, cheap box, whose sole ornaments were advertising
lithographs. Four men played cards. They hardly glanced
at the newcomer. Bob deciphered Forest Reserve badges
on three of them.

As he emerged from this joint, his eyes a trifle dazzled by
the light, he made out drawn up next the elevated platform
a buckboard containing a single man. As his pupils con-
tracted he distinguished such details as a wiry, smart little
team, a man so fat as almost to fill the seat, a moon-like,
good-natured face, a vest open to disclose a vast white shirt.

172 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Hullo!" the stranger rumbled in a great voice. "Any
f>f my boys in there?"

"Don't believe I know your boys," replied Bob pleasantly.

The fat man heaved his bulk forward to peer at Bob.

"Consarn your hide!" he roared with the utmost good
humour; "stand out of the light so I can see your fool face.
You lie like a hound! Everybody knows my boys!"

There was no offence in the words.

Bob laughed and obligingly stepped one side the lighted
doorway.

"A towerist!" wheezed the fat man. "Say, you're too
early. Nothing doing in the mountains yet. Who sent you
this early, anyway?"

"No tourist; permanent inhabitant," said Bob. "I'm
with Welton."

"Timber, by God!" exploded the fat man. "Well, you
and I are like to have friendly doings. Your road goes
through us, and you got to toe the mark, young fellow, let
me tell you! I'm a hell of a hard man to get on with!"

"You look it," said Bob. "You own some timber?"

The fat man exploded again.

"Hell, no!" he roared. "Why, you don't even know me,
do you? I'm Plant, Henry Plant. I'm Forest Supervisor."

"My name's Orde," said Bob. "If you're after Fore&t
Rangers, there's three in there."

"The rascals!" cried Plant. He raised his voice to a
bellow. "Oh, you Jim!"

The door was darkened.

"Say, Jim," said Plant. "They tell me there's a fire over
Stone Creek way. Somebody's got to take a look at it.
You and Joe better ride over in the morning and see what
she looks like."

The man stretched his arms over his head and yawned.
"Oh, hell!" said he with deep feeling. "Ain't you got any
of those suckers that like to ride ? I've had a headache for
three days."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 173

"Yes, it's hard luck you got to do anything, ain't it," said
Plant. "Well, I'll see if I can find old John, and if you
don't hear from me, you got to go."

The Supervisor gathered up his reins and was about to
proceed when down through the fading twilight rode a
singular figure. It was a thin, wiry, tall man, with a face
like tanned leather, a clear, blue eye and a drooping white
moustache. He wore a flopping old felt hat, a faded cot-
ton shirt and an ancient pair of copper-riveted blue-jeans
overalls tucked into a pair of cowboy's boots. A time-
discoloured cartridge belt encircled his hips, supporting a
holster from which protruded the shiny butt of an old-
fashioned Colt's 45. But if the man was thus nondescript
and shabby, his mount and its caparisons were magnificent.
The horse was a glossy, clean-limbed sorrel with a quick,
intelligent eye. The bridle was of braided rawhide, the
broad spade-bit heavily inlaid with silver, the reins of braided
and knotted rawhide. Across the animal's brow ran three
plates of silver linked together. Below its ears were wide
silver conchas. The saddle was carved elaborately, and
likewise ornamented with silver. The whole outfit shone
new-polished and well kept.

"Oh, you John!" called Plant.

The old man moved his left hand slightly. The proud-
stepping sorrel instantly turned to the left, and, on a signal
Bob could not distinguish, stopped to statue-like immobility.
Then Bob could see the Forest Ranger badge pinned to one
strap of the old man's suspender.

"John," said Plant, "they tell me there's a fire over at
Stone Creek. Ride over and see what it amounts to."

"All right," replied the Ranger. "What help do I get?"

"Oh, you just ride over and see what it amounts to,"
repeated Plant.

" I can't do nothing alone fighting fire."

"Well I can't spare anybody now," said Plant, "and it
may not amount, to nothing. You go see."

1/4 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"All right," said John. "But if it does amount to some-
thing, it'll get an awful start on us."

He rode away.

"Old California John," said Plant to Bob with a slight
laugh. "Crazy old fool." He raised his voice. "Oh,
you Jim! John, he's going to ride over. You needn't go."

Bob nodded a good night, and walked back up the street.
At the store he found the sorrel horse standing untethered
in the road. He stopped to examine more closely the very
ornate outfit. California John came out carrying a grain
sack half full of provisions. This he proceeded to tie on
behind the saddle, paying no attention to the young man.

"Well, Star, you got a long ways to go," muttered the old
man.

"You aren't going over those mountains to-night, are
you?" cried Bob.

The old man turned quite deliberately and inspected his
questioner in a manner to imply that he had committed an
indiscretion. But the answer was in a tone that implied
he had not.

"Certain sure," he replied. "The only way to handle a
fire is to stick to it like death to a dead nigger."

Bob returned to the hotel very thoughtful. There he
found Mr. Welton seated comfortably on the verandah, his
feet up and a cigar alight.

"This is pretty good medicine," he called to Bob. "Get
your feet up, you long-legged stork, and enjoy yourself.
Been exploring?"

"Listening to the band on the plaza," laughed Bob. He
drew up a chair. At that moment the dim figure of Cali-
fornia John jingled by. "I wouldn't like that old fellow's
job. He's a ranger, and he's got to go and look up a forest
fire."

"Alone?" asked Welton. "Couldn't they scare up any
more? Or are they over there already?"

"There's three playing poker at the saloon. Looked to

THE RULES OF THE GAME 175

me like a fool way to do. He's just going to take a look
and then come back and report."

"Oh, they're heavy on reports!" said Welton. "Where
is the fire; did you hear ? "

" Stone Creek wherever that is."

"Stone Creek!" yelled Welton, dropping the front legs of
his chair to the verandah with a thump. "Why, our timber
adjoins Stone Creek! You com* 1 with me!"

W ELTON strode away into the darkness, followed
closely by Bob. He made his way as rapidly as he
could through the village to an attractive house at
the farther outskirts. Here he turned through the picket
gate, and thundered on the door.

It was almost immediately opened by a meek-looking
woman of thirty.

"Plant in?" demanded Welton.

The meek woman had no opportunity to reply.

"Sure! Sure! Come in!" roared the Supervisor's great
voice.

They entered to find the fat man, his coat off, leaning
luxuriously back in an office chair, his feet up on another,
a cigar in his mouth. He waved a hospitable hand.

"Sit down! Sit down!" he wheezed. "Glad to see
you."

"They tell me there's a fire over in the Stone Creek
country," said Welton.

"So it's reported," said Plant comfortably. "I've sent
a man over already to investigate."

"That timber adjoins ours," went on Welton. "Sending
one ranger to investigate don't seem to help the old man a
great deal."

"'Oh, it may not amount to much," disclaimed Plant
vaguely.

"But if it does amount to much, it'll be getting one devil
of a start," persisted Welton. "Why don't you send over
enough men to give it a fight?"

"Haven't got 'em," replied Plant briefly.

176

THE RULES OF THE GAME 177

"There's three playing poker now, down in the first
saloon," broke in Bob.

Plant looked at him coldly for ten seconds.

"Those men are waiting to tally Wright's cattle," he
condescended, naming one of the most powerful of the
valley ranch kings.

But Welton caught at Bob's statement.

a All you need is one man to count cattle," he pointed
out. "Can't you do that yourself, and send over your
men?"

"Are you trying to tell me my business, Mr. Welton?"
asked the Supervisor formally.

Welton laughed one of his inexpressible chuckles.

"Lord love you, no!" he cried. "I have all I can handle.
I'm merely trying to protect my own. Can't you hire some
men, then?"

"My appropriation won't stand it," said Plant, a gleam
coming into his eye. "I simply haven't the money to pay
them with." He paused significantly.

" How much would it take?" inquired Welton.

Plant cast his eyes to the ceiling.

"Of course, I couldn't tell, because I don't know how
much of a fire it is, or how long it would take to corral it.
But I'll tell you what I'll do: suppose you leave me a lump
sum, and I'll look after such matters hereafter without
having to bother you with them. Of course, when I have
rangers available I'll use 'em; but any time you need
protection, I can rush in enough men to handle the situation
without having to wait for authorizations and all that. It
might not take anything extra, of course."

"How much do you suppose it would require to be surf
we don't run short?" asked Welton.

"Oh, a thousand dollars ought to last indefinitely," replied
Plant.

The two men stared at each other for a moment. Then
Welton laughed.

178 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"I can hire a heap of men for a thousand dollars," said he,
rising. " Good night."

Plant rumbled something. The two went out, leaving
ihe fat man chewing his cigar and scowling angrily after
them.

Once clear of the premises Welton laughed loudly.

"Well, my son, that's your first shy at the government
official, isn't it? They're not all as bad as that. At first
I couldn't make out whether he was just fat and lazy. Now
I know he's a grafter. He ought to get a nice neat 'For
Sale' sign painted. Did you hear the nerve of him ? Wanted
a thousand dollars bribe to do his plain duty."

"Oh, that was what he was driving at!" cried Bob.

"Yes, Baby Blue-eyes, didn't you tumble to that? Well,
I don't see a thousand in it whether he's for us or against us."

"Was that the reason he didn't send over all his men to
the fire?" asked Bob.

"Partly. Principally because he wanted to help old
Simeon Wright's men in with the cattle. Simeon probably
has a ninety-nine year lease on his fat carcass with the
soul thrown in for a trading stamp. It don't take but one
man to count cattle, but three extra cowboys comes mighty
handy in the timber."

"Would Wright bribe him, do you suppose?"

Welton stopped short.

"Let me tell you one thing about old Simeon, Bob," said
he. "He owns more land than any other man in California.
He got it all from the government. Eight sections on one of
his ranches he took up under the Swamp Act by swearing
he had been all over them in a boat. He had. The boat
was drawn by eight mules. That's just a sample. You bet
Simeon owns a Supervisor, if he thinks he needs one; and
that's why the cattle business takes precedence over the fire
business."

"It's an outrage!" cried Bob. "We ought to report him
for neglect of duty."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 179

Welton chuckled.

"I didn't tell you this to get you mad, Bobby," he drawled
with his indescribable air of good humour; "only to show
you the situation. What difference does it make? As for
reporting to Washington! Look here, I don't know what
Plant's political backing is, but it must be 99.84 per cent,
pure. Otherwise, how would a man as fat as that get a job
of Forest Supervisor? Why, he can't ride a horse, and it's
absurd to suppose he ever saw any of the Reserve he's in
charge of."

Welton bestirred himself to good purpose. Inside of two
hours a half-dozen men, well-mounted and provisioned,
bearing the usual tools of the fire-fighter, had ridden off
into the growing brightness of the moon.

"There," said the lumberman with satisfaction. "That
isn't going to cost much, and we'll feel safe. Now let's
turn in."

Ill

THE next morning Bob was awakened to a cold dawn
that became still more shivery when he had dressed
and stepped outside. Even a hot breakfast helped
little; and when the blackboard was brought around, he
mounted to his seat without any great enthusiasm. The
mountain rose dark and forbidding, high against the eastern
sky, and a cold wind breathed down its defiles. When the
wiry little ponies slowed to the first stretches of the tiresome
climb, Bob was glad to walk alongside.

Almost immediately the pines began. They were short
and scrubby as yet, but beautiful in the velvet of their dark
green needles. Bob glanced at them critically. They were
perhaps eighty to a hundred feet high and from a foot to
thirty inches in diameter.

"Fair timber/' he commented to his companion.

Welton snorted. "Timber!" he cried. "That isn't
timber; it's weeds. There's no timber on this slope of the
mountain."

Slowly the ponies toiled up the steep grade, pausing often
for breath. Among the pines grew many oaks, buckthorns,
tall manzanitas and the like. As the valley dropped beneath,
they came upon an occasional budding dogwood. Over
the slopes of some of the hills spread a mantle of velvety
vivid green, fair as the grass of a lawn, but indescribably
soft and mobile. It lent those declivities on which it grew
a spacious, well-kept, park appearance, on which Bob
exclaimed with delight.

But Welton would have none of it.

"Bear clover," said he, "full of pitch as an old jack-pine.

180

THE RULES OF THE GAME 181

Burns like coal oil, and you can't hardly cut it with a hoe.
Worst stuff to carry fire and to fight fire in you ever saw.
Pick a piece and smell it."

Bob broke off one of the tough, woody stems. A pungent
odour exactly like that of extract of hamamelis met his
nostrils. Then he realized that all the time he had been
aware of this perfume faintly disengaging itself from the
hills. In spite of Mr. Welton's disgust, Bob liked its clean,
pungent suggestion.

The road mounted always, following the contour of the
mountains. Thus it alternately emerged and crept on
around bold points, and bent back into the recesses of
ravines. Clear, beautiful streams dashed and sang down
the latter; from the former, often, Bob could look out over
the valley from which they had mounted, across the foothills,
to the distant, yellowing plains far on the horizon, lost finally
in brown heat waves. Sycamore Flats lay almost directly
below. Always it became smaller, and more and more like
a coloured relief-map with tiny, Noah's-ark houses. The
forest grew sturdily on the steep mountain. Bob's eyes
were on a level with the tops of trees growing but a few
hundred feet away. The horizon line was almost at eleven
o'clock above him.

"How'd you handle this kind of a proposition?" he
inquired. "Looks to me like hard sledding."

"This stuff is no good," said Welton. "These little,
yellow pines ain't worth cutting. This is all Forest Reserve
stuff."

Bob glanced again down the aisles of what looked to him
like a noble forest, but said nothing. He was learning, in
this land of surprises, to keep his mouth shut.

At the end of two hours Welton drew up beside a new
water trough to water the ponies.

"There," he remarked casually, "is the first sugar pine."

Bob's eye followed the indication of his whip to the spread-
ing, graceful arms of a tree so far up the bed of the stream

1 82 THE RULES OF THE GAME

that he could make out only its top. The ponies, refreshed,
resumed their methodical plodding.

Insensibly, as they mounted, the season had changed.
The oaks that, at the level of Sycamore Flats, had been in
full leaf, here showed but the tender pinks and russets of the
first foliage. The dogwoods were quite dormant. Rivulets
of seepage and surface water trickled in the most unexpected
places as though from snow recently melted.

Of climbing there seemed no end. False skylines recur-
rently deceived Bob into a belief that the buckboard was
about to surmount the top. Always the rise proved to be
preliminary to another. The road dipped behind little
spurs, climbed ravines, lost itself between deep cuts. Only
rarely did the forest growths permit a view, and then only
in glimpses between the tops of trees. In the valley and
against the foothills now intervened the peaceful and calm
blue atmosphere of distance.

" I'd no idea from looking at it this mountain was so high,"
he told Welton.

"You never do," said Welton. "They always fool you.
We're pretty nigh the top now."

Indeed, for a little space the forest had perforce to thin
because of lack of footing. The slope became almost a
precipice, ending in a bold comb above which once more
could be glimpsed the tops of trees. Quite ingeniously the
road discovered a cleft up which it laboured mightily, to land
breathless after a heart-breaking pull. Just over the top
Welton drew rein to breathe his horses and to hear what
Bob had to say about it.

The buckboard stood at the head of a long, gentle slope
descending, perhaps fifty feet, to a plateau; which, in turn,
rose to another crest some miles distant. The level of this
plateau, which comprised, perhaps, thirty thousand acres
all told, supported a noble and unbroken forest.

Mere statistics are singularly unavailing to convey even
an idea of a California woodland at its best. We are not

THE RULES OF THE GAME 183

here dealing with the so-called "Big Trees," but with the
ordinary or extraordinary pines and spruces. The
forest is free from dense undergrowths; the individual trees
are enormous, yet so symmetrical that the eye can realize
their size only when it catches sight of some usual and accus-
tomed object, such as men or horses or the buildings in which
they live. Even then it is quite as likely that the measures
will appear to have been struck small, as that the measured
will show in their true grandeur of proportion. The eye
refuses to be convinced off-hand that its education has been
faulty.

"Now," said Welton decidedly. "We may as well have
it over with right now. How big is that young tree over
there?"

He pointed out a half-grown specimen of sugar pine.

"About twenty inches in diameter," replied Bob promptly.

Welton silently handed him a tape line. Bob descended.

"Thirty-seven!" he cried with vast astonishment, when
his measurements were taken and his computations made.

"Now that one," commanded Welton, indicating a larger
tree.

Bob sized it up.

"No fair looking at the other for comparison," warned
the older man.

"Forty," hesitated Bob, "and I don't believe it's that!"
he added. " Four feet," he amended when he had measured.

"Climb in," said Welton; "now you're in a proper frame
of mind to listen to me with respect. The usual run of tree
you see down through here is from five to eight feet in diam-
eter. They are about all over two hundred feet tall, and
some run close to three hundred."

Bob sighed. " All right. Drive on. I'll get used to it in
time." His face lighted up with a grin. "Say, wouldn't
you like to see Roaring Dick trying to handle one of those
logs with a peavie? As for driving a stream full of them!
Oh, Lord! You'd have to send 'em down one at a time,

1 84 THE RULES OF THE GAME

fitted out with staterooms for the crew, a rudder and a gaso-
line engine!''

The ponies jogged cheerfully along the winding road.
Water ran everywhere, or stood in pools. Under the young
spruces were the last snowbanks. Pushing up through the
wet soil, already showed early snowplants, those strange,
waxlike towers of crimson. After a time they came to a
sidehill where the woods thinned. There still stood many
trees, but as the buckboard approached, Bob could see that
they were cedars, or spruce, or smaller specimens of the
pines. Prone upon the ground, like naked giants, gleamed
white and monstrous the peeled bodies of great trees. A
litter of "slash," beaten down by the winter, cumbered the
ground, and retained beneath its faded boughs soggy and
melting drifts.

"Had some 'fallers' in here last year," explained Welton
briefly. "Thought we'd have some logs on hand when it
came time to start up."

" Wait a minute," requested Bob. He sprang lightly from
the vehicle, and scrambled over to stand alongside the
nearest of the fallen monsters. He could just see over it
comfortably. "My good heavens!" said he soberly, resum-
ing his seat. "How in blazes do you handle them?"

Welton drove on a few paces, then pointed with his whip.
A narrow trough made of small peeled logs laid parallel and
pegged and mortised together at the ends, ran straight over
the next hill.

" That's a chute," he explained briefly. " We hitch a wire
cable to the log and just naturally yank it over to the chute."

"How yank it?" demanded Bob.

" By a good, husky donkey engine. Then the chute poles
are slushed, we hitch cables on four or five logs, and just
tow them over the hill to the mill."

Bob's enthusiasm, as always, was growing with the pres-
entation of this new and mighty problem of engineering so
succinctly presented. It sounded simple; but from his

THE RULES OF THE GAME 185

two years* experience he knew better. He was becoming
accustomed to filling in the outlines of pure theory. At a
glance he realized the importance of such things as adequate
anchors for the donkey engines; of figuring on straight pulls,
horse power and the breaking strain of steel cables; of
arranging curves in such manner as to obviate ditching the
logs, of selecting grades and routes in such wise as to avoid
the lift of the stretched cable; and more dimly he guessed at
other accidents, problems and necessities which only the
emergency could fully disclose. All he said was:

" So that's why you bark them all so they'll slide. I
wondered."

But now the ponies, who had often made this same trip,
pricked up their ears and accelerated their pace. In a
moment they had rounded a hill and brought their masters
into full view of the mill itself.

The site was in a wide, natural clearing occupied originally
by a green meadow perhaps a dozen acres in extent. From
the borders of this park the forest had drawn back to a dark
fringe. Now among the trees at the upper end gleamed
the yellow of new, unpainted shanties. Square against the
prospect was the mill, a huge structure, built of axe-hewn
timbers, rough boards, and the hand-rived shingles known
as shakes. Piece by piece the machinery had been hauled
up the mountain road until enough had been assembled on
the space provided for it by the axe men to begin sawing.
Then, like some strange monster, it had eaten out for itself
at once a space in the forest and the materials for its shell
and for the construction of its lesser dependents, the shanties,
the cook-houses, the offices and the shops. Welton pointed
out with pride the various arrangements; here the flats and
the trestles for the yards where the new-sawn lumber was
to be stacked; there the dump for the sawdust and slabs;
yonder the banking ground constructed of great logs laid
close together, wherein the timber-logs would be deposited
to await the saw.

1 86 THE RULES OF THE GAME

From the lower end of the yard a trestle supporting a
V-shaped trough disappeared over the edge of a hill. Near
its head a clear stream cascaded down the slope.

" That's the flume," explained the lumberman. " Brought
the stream around from the head of the meadow in a ditch.
We'll flume the sawn lumber down the mountain. For the
present we'll have to team it out to the railroad. Your
friend Baker's figuring on an electric road to meet us, though,
and I guess we'll fix it up with him inside a few years,
anyway."

" Where's Stone Creek from here?" asked Bob.

"Over the farther ridge. The mountain drops off again
there to Stone Creek three or four thousand feet."

"We ought to hear from the fire, soon."

"If we don't, we'll ride over that way and take a look
down," replied Welton.

They drove down the empty yards to a stable where
already was established their old barn-boss of the Michigan
woods. Four or five big freight wagons stood outside, and
a score of powerful mules rolled and sunned themselves in
the largest corral. Welton nodded toward several horses
in another enclosure.

"Pick your saddle horse, Bob," said he. "Straw boss
has to ride in this country."

"Make it the oldest, then," said Bob.

At the cookhouse they were just in time for the noon meal.
The long, narrow room, fresh with new wood, new tables
and new benches in preparation for the crew to come, looked
bare and empty with its handful of guests huddled at one
end. These were the teamsters, the stablemen, the care-
takers and a few early arrivals. The remainder of the crew
was expected two days later.

After lunch Bob wandered out into the dazzling sunlight.
The sky was wonderfully blue, the trees softly green, the
new boards and the tiny pile of sawdust vividly yellow.
These primary colours made all the world. The air breathed

THE RULES OF THE GAME 187

crisp and bracing, with just a dash of cold in the nostrils
that contrasted paradoxically with the warm balminess of
the sunlight. It was as though these two opposed qualities,
warmth and cold, were here held suspended in the same
medium and at the same time. Birds flashed like spangles
against the blue. Others sang and darted and scratched
and chirped everywhere. Tiny chipmunks no bigger than
half-grown rats scampered fearlessly about. What Bob took
for larger chipmunks the Douglas Squirrels perched
on the new fence posts. The world seemed alive alive
through its creatures, through the solemn, uplifting vitality
of its forests, through the sprouting, budding spring growths
just bursting into green, through the wine-draught of its
very air, through the hurrying, busy preoccupied murmur
of its streams. Bob breathed his lungs full again and again,
and tingled from head to foot.

"How high are we here?" he called to Welton.

"About six thousand. Why? Getting short-winded?"

"I could run ten miles," replied Bob. "Come on. I'm
going to look at the stream."

"Not at a run," protested Welton. "No, sir! At a nice,
middle-aged, dignified, fat walk! 11

They sauntered down the length of the trestle, with its
miniature steel tracks, to where the flume began. It proved
to be a very solidly built V- trough, alongside which ran a
footboard. Welton pointed to the telephone wire that
paralleled it.

"When we get going," said he, "we just turn the stream
in here, clamp our sawn lumber into bundles of the right
size, and 'let her went!' There'll be three stations along
the line, connected by 'phone, to see that things go all right.
That flume's six mile long."

Bob strode to the gate, and after some heaving and haul-
ing succeeded in throwing water into the flume.

"I wanted to see her go," he explained.

"Now if you want some real fun," said Welton, gazing

1 88 THE RULES OF THE GAME

after the foaming advance wave as it ripped its way down
the chute. "You make you a sort of three-cornered boat
just to fit the angle of the flume; and then you lie down in
it and go to Sycamore Flats, in about six minutes more or
less."

"You mean to say that's done?" cried Bob.

" Often. It only means knocking together a plank or so."

"Doesn't the lumber ever jump the flume?"

"Once in a great while."

"Suppose the boat should do it?"

"Then," said Welton drily, "it's probable you'd have to
begin learning to tune a harp."

" Not for mine," said Bob with fervour. " Any time I yearn
for Sycamore Flats real hard, I'll go by hand."

He shut off the water, and the two walked a little farther
to a bold point that pressed itself beyond the trees.

Below them the cliff dropped away so steeply that they
looked out above the treetops as from the summit of a true
precipice. Almost directly below them lay the wooded
valley of Sycamore Flats, maplike, tiny. It was just possible
to make out the roofs of houses, like gray dots. Roads
showed as white filaments threading the irregular patches of
green and brown. From beneath flowed the wide oak and
brush-clad foothills, rising always with the apparent cup of
the earth until almost at the height of the eye the shimmering,
dim plains substituted their brown for the dark green of the
hills. The country that yesterday had seemed mountainous,
full of canons, ridges and ranges, now showed gently undu-
lating, flattened, like a carpet spread before the feet of the
Sierras. To the north were tumbled, blue, pine-clad moun-
tains as far as the eye could see, receding into the dimness
of great distance. At one point, but so far away as to be
distinguishable only by a slight effort of the imagination,
hovered like soap-bubbles against an ethereal sky the forms
of snow mountains. Welton pointed out the approximate
position of Yosemite.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 189

They returned to camp where Welton showed the clean
and painted little house built for Bob and himself. It was
quite simply a row of rooms with a verandah in front of them
all. But the interiors were furnished with matting for the
floors, curtains to the windows, white iron bedsteads, run-
ning water and open fireplaces.

"I'm sick of camping," said Welton. "This is our sum-
mer quarters for some time. I'm going to be comfortable."

Bob sighed.

"This is the bulliest place I ever saw!" he cried boyishly.

"Well, you're going to have time enough to get used to
it," said Welton drily.

THE Stone Creek fire indeed proved not to amount to
much, whereby sheer chance upheld Henry Plant.
The following morning the fire fighters returned;
leaving, however, two of their number to "guard the line"
until the danger should be over. Welton explained to Bob
that only the fact that Stone Creek bottom was at a low
elevation, filled with brush and tarweed, and grown thick
with young trees rendered the forest even inflammable at
this time of year.

"Anywhere else in this country at this time of year it
wouldn't do any harm," he told Bob, "and Plant knew it
couldn't get out of the basin. He didn't give a cuss how
much it did there. But we've got some young stuff that
would easy carry a top fire. Later in the season you may
see some tall rustling on the fire lines."

But before noon of that day a new complication arose.
Up the road came a short, hairy man on a mule. His beard
grew to his high cheek bones, his eyebrows bristled and
jutted out over his black eyes, and a thick shock of hair
pushed beneath the rim of his hat to meet the eyebrows.
The hat was an old black slouch, misshapen, stained and
dusty. His faded shirt opened to display a hairy throat
and chest. As for the rest he was short-limbed, thick and
powerful.

This nondescript individual rode up to the verandah on
which sat Welton and Bob, awaiting the lunch bell. He
bowed gravely, and dismounted.

"Dis ees Meestair Welton?" he inquired with a courtesy
at strange variance with his uncouth appearance.

190

THE RULES OF THE GAME 191

Welton nodded.

" I am Peter Lejeune," said the newcomer, announcing one
of those hybrid names so common among the transplanted
French and Basques of California. " I have de ship."

"Oh, yes," said Welton rising and going forward to offer
his hand. " Come up and sit down, Mr. Leejune."

The hairy man " tied his mule to the ground" by dropping
the end of the reins, and mounted the two steps to the
verandah.

"This is my assistant, Mr. Orde," said Welton. "How
are the sheep coming on? Mr. Leejune,' he told Bob,
"rents the grazing in our timber."

"Et is not coming," stated Lejeune with a studied calm.
"Plant he riffuse permit to cross."

"Permit to what?" asked Welton.

"To cross hees fores', gov'ment fores'. I can' get in here
widout cross gov'ment land. I got to get permit from Plant.
Plant he riffuse."

Welton rose, staring at his visitor.

"Do you mean to tell me," he cried at last, "that a man
hasn't got a right to get into his own land ? That they can
keep a man out of his own land?"

"Da's right," nodded the Frenchman.

" But you've been in here for ten years or so to my knowl-
edge."

Abruptly the sheepman's calm fell from him. He became
wildly excited. His black eyes snapped, his hair bristled,
he arose from his chair and gesticulated.

"Every year I geev heem three ship! Three ship!" he
repeated, thrusting three stubby fingers at Wei ton's face.
"Three little ship! I stay all summer! He never say per-
mit. Thees year he kip me out."

"Give any reason?" asked Welton.

" He say my ship feed over the line in gov'ment land."

"Did they?"

"Mebbe so, little bit. Mebbe not. Nobody show me

192 THE RULES OF THE GAME

line. Nobody pay no 'tention. I feed thees range ten
year."

"Did you give him three sheep this year?"

"Sure."

Welton sighed.

"I can't go down and tend to this," said he. "My fore-
men are here to be consulted, and the crews will begin to
come in to-morrow. You'll have to go and see what's eat-
ing this tender Plant, Bob. Saddle up and ride down with
Mr. Leejune."

Bob took his first lesson in Western riding behind Lejeune
and his stolid mule. He had ridden casually in the East,
as had most young men of his way of life, but only enough
to make a fair showing on a gentle and easy horse. His
present mount was gentle and easy enough, but Bob was
called upon to admire feats of which a Harlem goat might
have been proud. Lejeune soon turned off the wagon road
to make his way directly down the side of the mountain.
Bob possessed his full share of personal courage, but in this
unaccustomed skirting of precipices, hopping down ledges,
and sliding down inclines too steep to afford a foothold he
found himself leaning inward, sitting very light in the sad-
dle, or holding his breath until a passage perilous was
safely passed. In the next few years he had occasion to
drop down the mountainside a great many times. After
the first few trips he became so thoroughly accustomed that
he often wondered how he had ever thought this scary riding.
Now, however, he was so busily occupied that he was caught
by surprise when Lejeune's mule turned off through a patch
of breast-high manzafiita and he found himself traversing
the gentler slope at the foot of the mountain. Ten minutes
later they entered Sycamore Flats.

Then Bob had leisure to notice an astonishing change of
temperature. At the mill the air had been almost cold
entirely so out of the direct rays of the sun. Here it was as
hot as though from a furnace. Passing the store, Bob saw

THE RULES OF THE GAME 193

that the tall thermometer there stood at 96 degrees. The
day was unseasonable, but later, in the August heats, Bob
had often, to his sorrow, to test the difference between six
thousand and two thousand feet of elevation. From a clear,
crisp late-spring climate he would descend in two hours to
a temperature of 105 degrees.

Henry Plant was discovered sprawled out in an armchair
beneath a spreading tree in the front yard. His coat was off
and his vest unbuttoned to display a vast and billowing
expanse of soiled white shirt. In his hand was a palm-leaf
fan, at his elbow swung an olla, newspapers littered the
ground or lay across his fat knees. When Bob and Lejeune
entered, he merely nodded surlily, and went on with his
reading.

"Can I speak to you a moment on business?" asked
Bob.

By way of answer the fat man dropped his paper, and
mopped his brow.

"We've rented our sheep grazing to Mr. Lejeune, here,
as I understand we've been doing for some years. He tells
ine you have refused him permission to cress the Forest
Reserve with his flocks."

"That's right," grunted Plant.

"What for?"

"I believe, young man, granting permits is discretionary
with the Supervisor," stated that individual.

"I suppose so," agreed Bob. "But Mr. Lejeune has
always had permission before. What reason do you assign
for refusing it?"

"Wilful trespass," wheezed Plant. "That's what, young
man. His sheep grazed over our line. He's lucky that
I don't have him up before the United States courts for
damages as well."

Lejeune started to speak, but Bob motioned him to silence.

"I'm sure we could arrange for past damages, and guar-
antee against any future trespass," said he.

194 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Well, I'm sure you can't," stated Plant positively.
" Good day."

But Bob was not willing to give up thus easily. He gave
his best efforts either to arguing Plant into a better frame
of mind, or to discovering some tangible reason for his sud-
den change of front in regard to the sheep.

"It's no use," he told Lejeune, later, as they walked down
the street together. "He's undoubtedly the right to refuse
permits for cause ; and technically he has cause if your sheep
got over the line."

"But what shall I do!" cried Lejeune. "My ship mus'
have feed!"

"You pasture them or feed them somewhere for a week
or so, and I'll let you know," said Bob. "We'll get you on
the land or see you through somewhere else."

He mounted his horse stiffly and rode back up the street.
Plant still sat in his armchair like a bloated spider. On
catching sight of Bob, however, he heaved himself to his
feet and waddled to the gate.

"Here!" he called. Bob drew rein. "It has been
reported to me that your firm has constructed a flume across
36, and a wagon road across 14, 22, 28, and 32. Those are
government sections. I suppose, of course, your firm has
permits from Washington to build said improvements?"

"Naturally," said Bob, who, however, knew nothing
whatever of those details.

"Well, I'll send a man up to examine them to-morrow,"
said Plant, and turned his back.

BO B took supper at Auntie Belle's, and rode up the
mountain after dark. He did not attempt short
cuts, but allowed his horse to follow the plain grade
of the road. After a time the moon crept over the zenith,
and at once the forest took on a fairylike strangeness, as
though at the touch of night new worlds had taken the place
of the vanished old. Somewhere near midnight, his body
shivering with the mountain cold, his legs stiff and chafed
from the long, unaccustomed riding, but his mind filled with
the wonder and beauty of the mountain night, Bob drew
rein beside the corrals. After turning in his horse, he
walked through the bright moonlight to Welton's door, on
which he hammered.

"Hey!" called the lumberman from within.

"It's I, Bob."

Welton scratched a match.

"Why in blazes didn't you come up in the morning?"
tye inquired.

"Ive found out another and perhaps important hole
we're in."

"Can we do anything to help ourselves out before morn-
ing?" demanded Welton. "No? Well, sleep tight! I'll
see you at six."

Next morning Welton rolled out, as good-humoured and
deliberate as ever.

"My boy," said he. "When you get to be as old as I am,
you'll never stir up trouble at night unless you can fix it
then. What is it?"

Bob detailed his conversation with Plant.

196 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Do you mean to tell me that that old, fat skunk had the
nerve to tell you he was going to send a ranger to look at
our permit?" he demanded.

"Yes. That's what he said."

"The miserable hound! Why I went to see him a year
ago about crossing this strip with our road we had to
haul a lot of stuff in. He told me to go ahead and haul,
and that he'd fix it up when the time came. Since then I've
tackled him two or three times about it, but he's always
told me to go ahead; that it was all right. So we went
ahead. It's always been a matter of form, this crossing
permit business. It's meant to be a matter of form!"

After breakfast Welton ordered his buckboard and, in
company with Bob, drove down the mountain again. Plant
was discovered directing the activities of several men, who
were loading a light wagon with provisions and living utensils.

"Moving up to our summer camp," one of them told Bob.
" Getting too hot down here."

Plant received them, his fat face expressionless, and led
them into the stuffy little office.

"Look here, Plant," said Welton, without a trace of
irritation on his weatherbeaten, round countenance.
"What's all this about seeing a permit to cross those govern-
ment sections? You know very well I haven't any permit."

"I have been informed by my men that you have corfe-
structed or caused to be constructed a water flume through
section 36, and a road through sections 14, 22, 28 and 32.
If this has been done without due authorization you are
liable for trespass. Fine of not less than $200 or imprison-
ment for not less than twelve months or both." He
delivered this in a voice absolutely devoid of expression.

" But you told me to go ahead, and that you'd attend to the
details, and it would be all right," said Welton.

"You must have misunderstood me," replied Plant
blandly. "It is against my sworn duty to permit such occu-
pation of public land without due conformity to law. It is

THE RULES OF THE GAME 197

within iy discretion whether to report the trespass for legal
action. I am willing to believe that you have acted in this
matter without malicious intent. But the trespass must
cease."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Welton.

" You must not use that road as a highway, nor the flume,
and you must remove the flume within a reasonable time.
Or else you may still get a permit."

"How long would that take?" asked Welton. "Could
it be done by wire?"

Plant lifted a glazed and fishy eye to survey him.

"You would be required to submit in writing specifications
of the length and location of said road and flume. This
must be accompanied by a topographical map and details
of construction. I shall then send out field men to investi-
gate, after which, endorsed with my approval, it goes for
final decision to the Secretary of the Interior."

"Good Lord, man!" cried Welton, aghast. "That
would take all summer! And besides, I made out all
that tomfoolery last summer. I supposed you must have
unwound all that red tape long ago!"

Plant for the first time looked his interlocutor square in
the eye.

"I find among my records no such application," he said
deliberately.

Welton stared at him a moment, then laughed.

"All right, Mr. Plant, I'll see what's to be done," said he;
and went out.

In silence the two walked down the street until out of
earshot. Then Bob broke out.

"I'd like to punch his fat carcass!" he cried. "The old
liar!"

Welton laughed.

"It all goes to show that a man's never too old to learn.
He's got us plain enough just because this old man was too
busy to wake up to the fact that these government grafters

THE RULES OF THE GAME

are so strong out here. Back our way when you needed a
logging road, you just built it, and paid for the unavoidable
damage, and that's all there was to it."

"You take it cool," spluttered Bob.

"No use taking it any other way," replied Welton. "But
the situation is serious. We've got our plant in shape, and
our supplies in, and our men engaged. It would be bad
enough to shut down with all that expense. But the main
trouble is, we're under contract to deliver our mill run to
Marshall & Harding. We can't forfeit that contract and
stay in business."

"What are you going to do about it?" asked Bob.

" Get on the wires to your father in Washington," replied
Welton. "Lucky your friend Baker's power project is only
four miles away; we can use his 'phone."

But at the edge of town they met Lejeune.

"I got de ship in pasture," he told Bob. "But hees
good for not more dan one wik."

"Look here, Leejune," said Welton. "I'm sorry, but
you'll have to look up another range for this summer. Of
course, we'll pay any loss or damage in the matter. It looks
impossible to do anything with Plant."

The Frenchman threw up both hands and broke into
voluble explanations. From them the listeners gathered
more knowledge in regard to the sheep business than they
could have learned by observation in a year. Briefly, it
was necessary that the sheep have high-country feed, at
once; the sheepmen apportioned the mountains among
themselves, so that each had his understood range; it would
now be impossible to find anywhere another range; only
sometimes could one trade localities with another, but that
must be arranged earlier in the season before the flocks are
in the hills in short, affairs were at a critical point, where
Lejeune must have feed, and no other feed was to be had
except that for which he had in all confidence contracted.
Welton listened thoughtfully, his eyes between his horses.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 199

"Can you run those sheep in, at night, or somehow?"

The Frenchman's eyes sparkled.

"I run ship two year in Yosemite Park," he bragged.
" No soldier fin' me."

" That's no great shakes," said Welton drily, "from what
I've seen of Park soldiers. If you can sneak these sheep
across without getting caught, you do it."

"I snik ship across all right," said Lejeune. "But I can*
stop hees track. The ranger he know I cross all right."

"What's the penalty?" asked Welton.

"Mos'ly 'bout one hundred dollars," replied Lejeune
promptly. " Mebbe five hundred."

Welton sighed. "Is that the limit?" he asked. "Not
more than five hundred?"

"No. Dat all."

"Well, it'll take a good half of the rent to get you in, if
they soak us the limit; but you're up against it, and we'll
stand back of you. If we agreed to give you that grazing,
by God, you'll get it, as long as that land is ours."

He nodded and drove on, while Lejeune, the true sheep-
man's delight in dodging the officers burning strong within
his breast, turned his mule's head to the lower country.

THE full situation, as far as the wires could tell It, was
laid before Jack Orde in Washington. A detailed
letter followed. Toward evening of that day the
mill crews began to come in with the four- and six-horse
teams provided for their transportation. They were a
dusty but hilarious lot. The teams drew up underneath
the solitary sycamore tree that gave the place its name, and
at once went into camp. Bob strolled down to look them
over.

They proved to be fresh-faced, strong farm boys, for the
most part, with a fair sprinkling of older mountaineers, and
quite a contingent of half- and quarter-bred Indians. All
these people worked on ranches or in the towns during the
off season when the Sierras were buried under winter snows.
Their skill at woodsmanship might be undoubted, but the
intermittent character of their work precluded any develop-
ment of individual type, like the rivermen and shanty boys
of the vanished North. For a moment Bob experienced a
twinge of regret that the old, hard, picturesque days of his
Northern logging were indeed gone. Then the interest of
this great new country with its surging life and its new
problems gripped him hard. He left these decent, hard-
working, self-respecting ranch boys, these quiet mountaineers,
these stolid, inscrutable breeds to their flickering camp fire.
Next morning the many-seated vehicles filled early and
started up the road. But within a mile Welton and Bob in
their buckboard came upon old California John square in
the middle of the way. Star stood like a magnificent statue
except that slowly over and over, with relish, he turned the

THE RULES OF THE GAME 201

wheel of the silver-mounted spade-bit under his tongue. As
the ranger showed no indication of getting out of the way,
Welton perforce came to a halt.

"Road closed to trespass by the Wolverine Company,"
the ranger stated impassively.

Welton whistled.

"That mean I can't get to my own property?" he asked.

"My orders are to close this road to the Wolverine
Company."

"Well, you've obeyed orders. Now get out the way.
Tell your chief he can go ahead on a trespass suit."

But the old man shook his head.

"No, you don't understand," he repeated patiently. "My
orders were to close the road to the Company, not just to
give notice."

Without replying Welton picked up his reins and started
his horses. The man seemed barely to shift his position,
but from some concealment he produced a worn and shiny
Colt's. This he laid across the horn of his saddle.

"Stop," he commanded, and this time his voice had a
bite to it.

"Millions for defence," chuckled Welton, who recognized
perfectly the tone, "and how much did you say for tribute?"

"What say?" inquired the old man.

"What sort of a hold-up is this? We certainly can't do
this road any damage driving over it once. How much of
an inducement does Plant want, anyway?"

"This department is only doing its sworn duty," replied
the old man. His blue eyes met Welton's steadily; not a
line of his weatherbeaten face changed. For twenty seconds
the lumberman tried to read his opponent's mind.

"Well," he said at last. "You can tell your chief that
if he thinks he can annoy and harass me into bribing him
to be decent, he's left."

By this time the dust and creek of the first heavily laden
vehicle had laboured up to within a few hundred yards.

202 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"I have over a hundred men there," said Welton, "that
I've hired to work for me at the top of that mountain. It's
damn foolishness that anybody should stop their going there ;
and I'll bet they won't lose their jobs. My advice to you is
to stand one side. You can't stop a hundred men alone."

"Yes, I can," replied the old man calmly. "I'm not
alone."

"No?" said Welton, looking about him.

"No; there's eighty million people behind that," said
California John, touching lightly the shield of his Ranger
badge. The simplicity of the act robbed it of all mock-
heroics.

Welton paused, a frown of perplexity between his brows.
California John was watching him calmly.

"Of course, the public has a right to camp in all Forest
Reserves subject to reg'lation," he proffered.

Welton caught at this.

"You mean "

"No, you got to turn back, and your Company's rigs
have got to turn back," said California John. "But I
sure ain't no orders to stop no campers."

Welton nodded briefly; and, after some difficulty, suc-
ceeding in turning around, he drove back down the grade.
After he had bunched the wagons he addressed the assembled
men.

"Boys," said he, "there's been some sort of a row with the
Government, and they've closed this road to us temporarily.
I guess you'll have to hoof it the rest of the way."

This was no great and unaccustomed hardship, and no
one objected.

"How about our beds?" inquired some one.

This presented a difficulty. No Western camp of any
description lumber, mining, railroad, cow supplies the
bedding for its men. Camp blankets as dealt out in our old-
time Northern logging camp are unknown. Each man brings
his own blankets, which he further augments with a pair of

THE RULES OF THE GAME 203

quilts, a pillow and a heavy canvas. All his clothing and
personal belongings he tucks inside; the canvas he firmly
lashes outside. Thus instead of his "turkey" or duffle-
bag he speaks of his "bed roll," and by that term means
not only his sleeping equipment but often all his worldly
goods.

"Can't you unhitch your horses and pack them?" asked
Bob.

"Sure," cried several mountaineers at once.

Welton chuckled.

"That sounds like it," he approved; "and remember,
boys, you're all innocent campers out to enjoy the wonders
and beauties of nature."

The men made short work of the job. In a twinkling
the horses were unhitched from the vehicles. Six out of
ten of these men were more or less practised at throwing
packing hitches, for your Californian brought up in sight
of mountains is often among them. Bob admired the
dexterity with which some of the mountaineers improvised
slings and drew tight the bulky and cumbersome packs.
Within half an hour the long procession was under way,
a hundred men and fifty horses. They filed past California
John, who had drawn one side.

"Camping, boys?" he asked the leader.

The man nodded and passed on. California John sat
at ease, his elbow on the pommel, his hand on his chin, his
blue eyes staring vacantly at the silent procession filing
before him. Star stood motionless, his head high, his small
ears pricked forward. The light dust peculiar to the mount-
ain soils of California, stirred by many feet, billowed and
rolled upward through the pines. Long rays of sunlight
cut through it like swords.

"Now did you ever see such utter damn foolishness?"
growled Welton. "Make that bunch walk all the way up
that mountain! What on earth is the difference whether
they walk or ride ? "

204 THE RULES OF THE GAME

But Bob, examining closely the faded, old figure on the
magnificent horse, felt his mind vaguely troubled by another
notion. He could not seize the thought, but its influence
was there. Somehow the irritation and exasperation had
gone from the episode.

" I know that sort of crazy old mossback," muttered Welton
as he turned down the mountain. "Pin a tin star on them
and they think they're as important as hell!"

Bob looked back.

"I don't know," he said vaguely. "I'm kind of for that
old coon."

The bend shut him out. After the buckboard had dipped
into the horseshoe and out to the next point, they again
looked back. The smoke of marching rose above the trees
to eddy lazily up the mountain. California John, a tiny
figure now, still sat patiently guarding the portals of an empty
duty.

VII

BOB and Welton left the buckboard at Sycamore Flats
and rode up to the mill by a detour. There they
plunged into active work. The labour of getting
the new enterprise under way proved to be tremendous. A
very competent woods foreman, named Post, was in charge
of the actual logging, so Welton gave his undivided attention
to the mill work. All day the huge peeled timbers slid and
creaked along the greased slides, dragged mightily by a strain-
ing wire cable that snapped and swung dangerously. When
they had reached the solid "bank" that slanted down toward
the mill, the obstreperous "bull" donkey lowered its crest
of white steam, coughed, and was still. A man threw over
the first of these timbers a heavy rope, armed with a hook,
that another man drove home with a blow of his sledge.
The rope tightened. Over rolled the log, out from the
greased slide, to come, finally, to rest among its fellows at the
entrance to the mill.

Thence it disappeared, moved always by steam-driven
hooks, for these great logs could not be managed by hand
implements. The sawyers, at their levers, controlled the
various activities. When the time came the smooth, deadly
steel ribbon of the modern bandsaws hummed hungrily into
the great pines; the automatic roller hurried the new-sawn
boards to the edgers; little cars piled high with them shot out
from the cool dimness into the dazzling sunlight; men armed
with heavy canvas or leather stacked them in the yards;
and then

That was the trouble; and then, nothing!

From this point they should have gone farther. Clamped

205

206 THE RULES OF THE GAME

in rectangular bundles, pushing the raging white water
before their blunt noses, as strange craft they should have
been flashing at regular intervals down the twisting, turn-
ing and plunging course of the flume. Arrived safely at
the bottom, the eight- and twelve-horse teams should have
taken them in charge, dragging them by the double wagon
load to the waiting yards of Marshall & Harding. Nothing
of the sort was happening. Welton did not dare go ahead
with the water for fear of prejudicing his own case. The
lumber accumulated. And, as the mill's capacity was great
and that of the yards small, the accumulation soon threat-
ened to become embarrassing.

Bob acted as Welton's lieutenant. As the older lumber-
man was at first occupied in testing out his sawyers, and
otherwise supervising the finished product, Bob was neces-
sarily much in the woods. This suited him perfectly.
Every morning at six he and the men tramped to the scene
of operations. There a dozen crews scattered to as many
tasks. Far in the van the fellers plied their implements.
First of all they determined which way a tree could be made
to fall, estimating long and carefully on the weight of limbs,
the slant of the trunk, the slope of ground, all the elements
having to do with the centre of gravity. This having been
determined, the men next chopped notches of the right depth
for the insertion of short boards to afford footholds high
enough to enable them to nick the tree above the swell of
the roots. Standing on these springy and uncertain boards,
they began their real work, swinging their axes alternately,
with untiring patience and incomparable accuracy. Slowly,
very slowly, the "nick" grew, a mouth gaping ever wider
in the brown tree. When it had gaped wide enough the
men hopped down from their springboards, laid aside their
axes, and betook themselves to the saw. And when, at
last, the wedges inserted in the saw-crack started the mighty
top, the men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and
stood to one side.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 207

After the dust had subsided, and the last reverberations of
that mighty crash had ceased to reecho through the forest,
the fellers stepped forward to examine their work. They
took all things into consideration, such as old wind shakes,
new decay, twist of grain and location of the limbs. Then
they measured off the prostrate trunk into logs of twelve,
fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, or even twenty feet, according
to the best expediency. The division points between logs
they notched plainly, and, shouldering their axes and their
sledge and their long, limber saw, pocketing their wedges
and their bottle of coal oil, they moved on to where the
next mighty pine had through all the centuries been awaiting
their coming.

Now arrived on the scene the "swampers" and cross-cut
men, swarming over the prostrate tree like ants over a piece
of sugar. Some of them cut off limbs; others, with axes and
crowbars, began to pry away great slabs of bark; still others,
with much precaution of shovel, wedge and axe against
jamming, commenced the slow and laborious undertaking
of sawing apart the logs.

But most interesting and complicated of all were the
further processes of handling the great logs after they had
been peeled and sawed.

The ends of steel cables were dragged by a horse to the
prostrate tree, where they were made fast by means of chains
and hooks. Then the puffing and snorting donkey engine
near the chute tightened the cable. The log stirred, moved,
plunged its great blunt nose forward, ploughing up the soil.
Small trees and bushes it overrode. But sooner or later
it collided head on, with a large tree, a stump, or a boulder.
The cable strained. Men shouted or waved their arms in
signal. The donkey engine ceased coughing. Then the
horse pulled the end of the log free. Behind it was left a deep
trough, a half cylinder scooped from the soil.

At the chutes the logs were laid end to end, like a train
of cars. A more powerful cable, endless, running to the

208 THE RULES OF THE GAME

mill and back again, here took up the burden. At a certain
point it was broken by two great hooks. One of these, the
one in advance, the men imbedded in the rear log of the
train. The other was dragged behind. Away from the
chutes ten feet the returning cable snapped through rude
pulleys. The train of logs moved forward slowly and stead-
ily, sliding on the greased ways.

On the knoll the donkey engine coughed and snorted as it
heaved the mighty timbers from the woods. The drag
of the logs was sometimes heavier than the engine, so it had
to be anchored by other cables to strong trees. Between these
opposing forces the inertia of the rooted and the fallen
it leaped and trembled. At its throttle, underneath a canopy
knocked together of rough boaids, the engineer stood,
ready from one instant to another to shut off, speed up,
or slow down, according to the demands of an ever-changing
exigence. His was a nervous job, and he earned his
repose.

At the rear of the boiler a boy of eighteen toiled with an
axe, chopping into appropriate lengths the dead wood brought
in for fuel. Next year it would be possible to utilize old tops
for this purpose, but now they were too green. Another boy, in
charge of a solemn mule, tramped ceaselessly back and forth
between the engine and a spring that had been dug out down
the hill in a ravine. Before the end of that summer they had
worn a trail so deep and hard and smooth that many seasons
of snow failed to obliterate it even from the soft earth. On
either side the mule were slung sacks of heavy canvas. At
the spring the boy filled these by means of a pail. Returned
to the engine, he replenished the boiler, draining the sacks
from the bottom, cast a fleeting glance at the water gauge
of the donkey engine, and hastened back to the spring. He
had charge of three engines; and was busy.

And back along the line of the chutes were other men to
fill out this crew of many activities old men to signal;
young men to stand by with slush brush, axe, or bar when

The men calmly withdrew the long ribbon of steel and
stood to one side

THE RULES OF THE GAME 209

things did not go well ; axe-men with teams laying accurately
new chutes into new country yet untouched.

Bob found plenty to keep him busy. Post, the woods
foreman, was a good chute man. By long experience he
had gained practical knowledge of the problems and accidents
of this kind of work. To get the logs out from the beds in
which they lay, across a rugged country, and into the mill
was an engineering proposition of some moment. It is
easy to get into difficulties from which hours of work will
not extricate.

But a man involved closely in the practical management
of a saw log may conceivably possess scant leisure to corre-
late the scattered efforts of such divergent activities. The
cross cutters and swampers may get ahead of the fellers
and have to wait in idleness until the latter have knocked
down a tree. Or the donkey may fall silent from lack of logs
to haul; or the chute crews may smoke their pipes awaiting
the donkey. Or, worst and unpardonable disgrace of all,
the mill may run out of logs! When that happens, the Old
Fellow is usually pretty promptly on the scene.

Now it is obvious that if somewhere on the works ten men
are always waiting even though the same ten men are
not thus idle over once a week the employer is paying foi
ten men too many. Bob found his best activity lay in seeing
that this did not happen. He rode everywhere reviewing
the work; and he kept it shaken together. Thus he made
himself very useful, he gained rapidly a working knowledge
of this new kind of logging, and, incidentally, he found his
lines fallen in very pleasant places indeed.

The forest never lost its marvel to him, but after he had to
some extent become accustomed to the immense trees, he
began to notice the smaller affairs of the woodland. The
dogwoods and azaleas were beginning to come out; the waxy,
crimson snow plants were up; the tiny green meadows near
the heads of streams were enamelled with flowers; hundreds
of species of birds sang and flashed and scratched and crept

210 THE RULES OF THE GAME

and soared. The smaller animals were everywhere. The
sun at noon disengaged innumerable and subtle tepid odours
of pine and blossom.

One afternoon, a little less than a week subsequent to the
beginning of work, Bob, riding home through the woods
by a detour around a hill, came upon sheep. They were
scattered all over the hill, cropping busily at the snowbush,
moving ever slowly forward. A constant murmur arose, a
murmur of a silent, quick, minute activity. Occasionally some
mother among them lifted her voice. Bob sat his horse look-
ing silently on the shifting grays. In ten seconds his sight
blurred; he experienced a slight giddiness as though the sub-
stantial ground were shifting beneath him in masses, slowly,
as in a dream. It gave him a curious feeling of instability.
By an effort he focused his eyes; but almost immediately he
caught himself growing fuzzy-minded again, exactly as though
he had been gazing absently for a considerable period at
a very bright light. He shook himself.

"I don't wonder sheep herders go dotty," said he aloud.

He looked about him, and for the first time became aware
of a tow-headed youth above him on the hill. The youth
leaned on a staff, and at his feet crouched two long-haired
dogs. Bob turned his horse in that direction.

When he had approached, he saw the boy to be about
seventeen years old. His hair was very light, as were his
eyebrows and eyelashes. Only a decided tinge of blue in
his irises saved him from albinism. His lips were thick and
loose, his nose flat, his expression vacant. In contrast, the
two dogs, now seated on their haunches, their heads to one
side, their ears cocked up, their eyes bright, looked to be the
more intelligent animals.

"Good evening," said Bob.

The boy merely stared.

"You in charge of the sheep?" inquired the young man
presently.

The boy grunted.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 21 1

" Where are you camped?" persisted Bob.

No answer.

"Where's your boss?"

A faint gleam came into the sheep-herder's eyes. He raised
his arm and pointed across through the woods.

Bob reined his horse in the direction indicated. As he
passed the last of the flock in that direction, he caught sight
of another herder and two more dogs. This seemed to be a
bearded man of better appearance than the boy; but he too
leaned motionless on his long staff; he too gazed unblinking
on the nibbling, restless, changing, imbecile sheep.

As Bob looked, this man uttered a shrill, long-drawn
whistle. Like arrows from bows the two dogs darted away,
their ears flat, their bodies held low to the ground. The
whistle was repeated by the youth. Immediately his dogs
also glided forward. The noise of quick, sharp barkings
was heard. At once the slow, shifting movement of the
masses of gray ceased. The sound of mumiurous, deep-
toned bells, of bleating, of the movement of a multitude arose.
The flock drew to a common centre; it flowed slowly forward.
Here and there the dark bodies of the dogs darted, eager and
intelligently busy. The two herders followed after, leaning
on their long staffs. Over the hill passed the flock. Slowly
the sounds of them merged into a murmur. It died. Only
remained the fog of dust drifting through the trees, caught
up by every passing current of air, light and impalpable as
powder.

Bob continued on his way, but had not proceeded more
than a few hundred feet before he was overtaken by
Lejeune.

"You're the man I was looking for," said Bob. " I see you
got your sheep in all right. Have any trouble?"

The sheepman's teeth flashed.

"Not 'tall," he replied. "I snik in ver' easy up by Beeg
Rock."

At the mill, Bob, while luxuriously splashing the ice-cold

212 THE RULES OF THE GAME

water on his face and throat, took time to call to Welton in
the next room.

"Saw your sheep man," he proffered. "He got in all
right, sheep and all."

Welton appeared in the doorway, mopping his round, red
face with a towel.

"Funny we haven't heard from Plant, then," said he.
"That fat man must be keeping track of Leejune's where-
abouts, or he's easier than I thought he was."

VIII

THE week slipped by. Welton seemed to be completely
immersed in the business of cutting lumber. In
due time Orde senior had replied by wire, giving
assurance that he would see to the matter of the crossing
permits.

"So that's settled," quoth Welton. "You bet-you Jack
Orde will make the red tape fly. It'll take a couple of
weeks, I suppose time for the mail to get there and back.
Meantime, we'll get a cut ahead."

But at the end of ten days came a letter from the congress-
man.

"Don't know just what is the hitch," wrote Jack Orde.
"It ought to be the simplest matter in the world, and so I
told Russell in the Land Office to-day. They seem inclined
to fall back on their technicalities, which is all rot, of course.
The man wants to be annoying for some reason, but I'll
take it higher at once. Have an appointment with the Chief
this afternoon . . .

The next letter came by the following mail.

"This seems to be a bad mess. I can't understand it, nor
get to the bottom of it. On the face of the showing here
we've just bulled ahead without any regard whatever for
law or regulations. Of course, I showed your letter stating
your agreement and talks with Plant, but the department
has his specific denial that you ever approached him. They
stand pat on that, and while they're very polite, they insist
on a detailed investigation. I'm going to see the Secretary
this morning."

Close on the heels of this came a wire:

213

214 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Plant submits reports of alleged sheep trespass com-
mitted this spring by your orders. Wire denial."

"My Lord!" said Welton, as he took this. "That's why
we never heard from that! Bobby, that was a fool move,
certainly; but I couldn't turn Leejune down after I'd agreed
to graze him."

"How about these lumber contracts?" suggested Bob.

"We've got to straighten this matter out," said Welton
soberly.

He returned a long telegram to Congressman Orde in
Washington, and himself interviewed Plant. He made no
headway whatever with the fat man, who refused to emerge
beyond the hard technicalities of the situation. Welton made
a journey to White Oaks, where he interviewed the Super-
intendent of the Forest Reserves. The latter proved to be
a well-meaning, kindly, white-whiskered gentleman, named
Smith, who listened sympathetically, agreed absolutely with
the equities of the situation, promised to attend to the mat-
ter, and expressed himself as delighted always to have these
things brought to his personal attention. On reaching the
street, however, Welton made a bee-line for the bank through
which he did most of his business.

"Mr. Lee," he asked the president, "I want you to be
frank with me. I am having certain dealings with the
Forest Reserve, and I want to know how much I can depend
on this man Smith."

Lee crossed his white hands on his round stomach, and
looked at Welton over his eyeglasses."

"In what way?" he asked.

"I've had a little trouble with one of his subordinates.
I've just been around to state my case to Smith, and he agrees
with my side of the affair and promises to call down his man.
Can I rely on him ? Does he mean what he says ? "

"He means what he says," replied the bank president,
slowly, "and you can rely on him until his subordinate
gets a chance to talk to him."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 215

"H'm," ruminated Welton. "Chinless, eh? I wondered
why he wore long white whiskers."

As he walked up the street toward the hotel, where he
would spend the night before undertaking the long drive
back, somebody hailed him. He looked around to see a
pair of beautiful driving horses, shying playfully against
each other, coming to a stop at the curb. Their harness
was the lightest that could be devised no blinders, no
breeching, slender, well-oiled straps; the rig they drew
shone and twinkled with bright varnish, and seemed as
delicate and light as thistledown. On the narrow seat
sat a young man of thirty, covered with an old-fashioned
linen duster, wearing the wide, gray felt hat of the country.
He was a keen-faced, brown young man, with snapping
black eyes.

"Hullo, Welton," said he as he brought the team to a
stand; "when did you get out of the hills?"

"How are you, Mr. Harding?" Welton returned his greet-
ing. " Just down for the day ? "

"How are things going up your way?"

"First rate," replied Welton. "We're going ahead three
bells and a jingle. Started to saw last week."

"That's good," said Harding. "I haven't heard of one
of your teams on the road, and I began to wonder. We've
got to begin deliveries on our Los Angeles and San Pedro
contracts by the first of August, and we're depending on you."

"We'll be there," replied Welton with a laugh.

The young man laughed back.

"You'd better be, if you don't want us to come up and
take your scalp," said he, gathering his reins.

"Guess I lay in some hair tonic so's to have a good one
ready for you," returned Welton, as Harding nodded his
farewell.

MATTERS stood thus dependent on the efforts of
Jack Orde, at Washington, when, one evening,
Baker rode in to camp and dismounted before the
low verandah of the sleeping quarters. Welton and Bob sat,
chair-tilted, awaiting the supper gong.

"Thrice hail, noble chiefs!" cried Baker, cautiously
stretching out first one sturdy leg, then the other. "Against
which post can I lean my trusty charger?"

Baker was garbed to suit the role. His boots were very
thick and very tall, and most bristly with hobnails; they
laced with belt laces through forty-four calibre eyelets, and
were strapped about the top with a broad piece of leather
and two glittering buckles. Furthermore, his trousers were
of khaki, his shirt of navy blue, his belt three inches broad,
his neckerchief of red, and his hat both wide and high.

In response to enthusiastic greetings, he struck a
pose.

"How do you like it?" he inquired. "Isn't this the
candy make-up for the simple life surveyor, hardy pros-
pector, mountain climber, sturdy pedestrian? Ain't I the
real young cover design for the Out-of-door number?"

He accepted their congratulations with a lofty wave.

"That's all right," said he; "but somebody take away
this horse before I bite him. I'm sore on that horse. Joke !
Snicker!"

Bob delivered over the animal to the stableman who was
approaching.

"Come up to see the tall buildings?" he quoted Baker
himself.

91*

THE RULES OF THE GAME 217

<: Not so," denied that young man. "My errand
is philanthropic. I'm robin redbreast. Leaves for
yours."

"Pass that again," urged Bob; "I didn't get it."

" I hear you people have locked horns with Henry Plant,"
said Baker.

"Well, Plant's a little on the peck," amended Welton.

"Leaves for yours," repeated the self -constituted robin
redbreast. "Babes in the Woods!"

Beyond this he would vouchsafe nothing until after supper
when, cigars lighted, the three of them sprawled before the
fireplace in quarters.

"Now," he began, "you fellows are up against it good
and plenty. You can't wish your lumber out, and that's the
only feasible method unless you get a permit. Why in blazes
did you make this break, anyway?"

" What break ? " asked Welton.

Baker looked at him and smiled slowly,

"You don't think I own a telephone line without know-
ing what little birdies light on the wires, do you?"

" Does that damn operator leak ? " inquired Welton placidly
but with a narrowing of the eyes.

"Not on your saccharine existence. If he did, he'd
be out among the scenery in two jumps. But I'm different.
That's my business"

"Mighty poor business," put in Bob quietly.

Baker turned full toward him.

"Think so? You'll never get any cigars in the guess-
ing contest unless you can scare up better ones than that.
Let's get back to cases. How did you happen to make this
break, anyway?"

"Why," explained Welton, "it was simply a case of build
a road and a flume down a worthless mountain-side. Back
with us a man builds his road where he needs it, and pays
for the unavoidable damage. My head was full of all
sorts of details. I went and asked Plant about it, and he said

218 THE RULES OF THE GAME

all right, go ahead. I supposed that settled it, and that he
must certainly have authority on his own job."

Baker nodded several times.

" Sure. I see the point. Just the same, he has you."

"For the time being," amended Welton. " Bob's father,
here, is congressman from our district in Michigan, and
he'll fix the matter."

Baker turned his face to the ceiling, blew a cloud of smoke
toward it, and whistled. Then he looked down at Welton.

" I suppose you know the real difficulty ? " he asked.

"One thousand dollars," replied Welton promptly "to
hire extra fire-fighters to protect my timber," he added
ironically.

"Well?"

"Well!" the lumberman slapped his knee. "I won't be
held up in any such barefaced fashion!"

"And your congressman will pull you out. Now let me
drop a few pearls of wisdom in the form of conundrums.
Why does a fat man who can't ride a horse hold a job as
Forest Supervisor in a mountain country?"

"He's got a pull somewhere," replied Welton.

" Bright boy! Go to the head. Why does a fat man who
is hated by every mountain man, who grafts barefacedly,
whose men are either loafers or discouraged, hold his job?"

"Same answer."

Baker leaned forward, and his mocking face became grave.

"That pull comes from the fact that old Gay is his first
cousin, and that he seems to have some special drag with
him."

"The Republican chairman!" cried Welton.

Baker leaned back.

"About how much chance do you think Mr. Orde has of
getting a hearing? Especially as all they have to do is to
stand pat on the record. You'd better buy your extra fire-
fighters."

"That would be plain bribery," put in Bob from the bed.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 219

"Fie, fie! Naughty!'' chided Baker. "Bribery! to pro-
tect one's timber against the ravages of the devouring ele-
ment! Now look here," he resumed his sober tone and more
considered speech; "what else can you do?"

"Fight it," said Bob.

"Fight what? Prefer charges against Plant? That's
been done a dozen times. Such things never get beyond
the clerks. There's a man in Washington now who has
direct evidence of some of the worst frauds and biggest land
steals ever perpetrated in the West. He's been there now
four months, and he hasn't even succeeded in getting a hear-
ing yet. I tried bucking Plant, and it cost me first and last,
in time, delay and money, nearly fifty thousand dollars. I'm
offering you that expensive experience free, gratis, for
nothing."

"Make a plain statement of the facts public," said Bob.
"Publish them. Arouse public sentiment."

Baker looked cynical.

"Such attacks are ascribed to soreheads," said he, "and
public sentiment isn't interested. The average citizen won-
ders what all the fuss is about and why you don't get along
with the officials, anyway, as long as they are fairly reason-
able." He turned to Welton: "How much more of a delay
can you stand without closing down?"

"A month."

"How soon must your deliveries begin ?"

"July first."

"If you default this contract you can't meet your notes."

"What notes?"

"Don't do the baby blue-eyes. You can't start a show
like this without borrowing. Furthermore, if you default
this contract, you'll never get another, even if you do weather
the storm."

"That's true," said Welton.

"Furthermore," insisted Baker, "Marshall and Harding
will be considerably embarrassed to fill their contracts down

220 THE RULES OF THE GAME

below; and the building operations will go bump for lack
of material, if they fail to make good. You can't stand
or fall alone in this kind of a game."

Welton said nothing, but puffed strongly on his cigar.

"You're still doing the Sister Anne toward Washington,"
said Baker, pleasantly. "This came over the 'phone. I
wired Mr. Orde in your name, asking what prospects there
were for a speedy settlement. There's what he says!" He
flipped a piece of scratch paper over to Welton.

"Deadlock," read the latter slowly. "No immediate
prospect. Will hasten matters through regular channels.
Signed, Orde."

"Mr. Orde is familiar with the whole situation?" asked
Baker.

"He is."

"Well, there's what he thinks about it even there. You'd
better see to that fire protection. It's going to be a dry year."

"What's all your interest in this, anyway?" asked Bob.

Baker did not answer, but looked inquiringly toward
Welton.

"Our interests are obviously his," said Welton. "We're
the only two business propositions in this country. And if
one of those two fail, how's the other to scratch along?"

"Correct, as far as you go," said Baker, who had listened
attentively. "Now, I'm no tight wad, and I'll give you
another, gratis. It's strictly under your hats, though. If
you fellows bust, how do you think I could raise money to
do business up here at all ? It would hoodoo the country."

Silence fell on the three, while the fire leaped and fell and
crackled. Welton's face showed still a trace of stubbornness.
Suddenly Baker leaned forward, all his customary fresh spirits
shining in his face.

"Don't like to take his na'ty medicine?" said he. "Well,
now, I'll tell you. I know Plant mighty well. He eats out
of my hand. He just loves me as a father. If I should go
to him and say: 'Plant, my agile sylph, these people are my

THE RULES OF THE GAME 221

friends. Give them their nice little permit and let them run
away and play,' why, he'd do it in a minute." Baker rolled
his eyes drolly at Welton. "Can this be the shadow of
doubt! You disbelieve my power?" He leaned forward
and tapped Welton's knee. His voice became grave: "I'll
tell you what I'll do. /'// bet you a thousand dollars I can
get your permit jor you! 11

The two men looked steadily into each other's eyes.

At last Welton drew a deep sigh.

"I'll go you," said he.

Baker laughed gleefully.

"It's a cinch," said he. "Now, honest, don't you think
so? Do you give up? Will you give me a check now?"

"I'll give you a check, and you can hunt up a good stake-
holder," said Welton. "Shall I make it out to Plant?" he
inquired sarcastically.

"Make the check out to me," said Baker. "I'll just let
Plant hold the stakes and decide the bet."

He rose.

"Bring out the fiery, untamed steed!" he cried. "I
must away!"

"Not to-night?" cried Bob in astonishment.

"Plant's in his upper camp," said Baker, "and it's only
five miles by trail. There's still a moon."

"But why this haste?"

"Well," said Baker, spreading his sturdy legs apart and
surveying first one and then the other. "To tell you the
truth, our old friend Plant is getting hostile about these prods
from Washington, and he intimated he'd better hear from
me before midnight to-day."

"You've already seen him!" cried Bob.

But Baker merely grinned.

As he stood by his horse preparing to mount, he remarked
casually.

"Just picked up a new man for my land business
name Oldham."

222 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Never heard of him," said Welton.

"He isn't the Lucky Lands Oldham, is he?" asked Bob.

"Same chicken," replied Baker; then, as Bob laughed,
"Think he's phoney? Maybe he'll take watching and
maybe he won't. I'm a good little watcher. But I do
know he's got 'em all running up the street with their hats
in their hands when it comes to getting results."

BAKER must have won his bet, for Welton never again
saw his check for one thousand dollars, until it was
returned to him cancelled. Nor did Baker himself
return. He sent instead a note advising some one to go
over to Plant's headquarters. Accordingly Bob saddled his
horse, and followed the messenger back to the Supervisor's
summer quarters.

After an hour and a half of pleasant riding through the
great forest, the trail dropped into a wagon road which soon
led them to a fine, open meadow.

"Where does the road go to in the other direction?"
Bob asked his guide.

"She 'jines onto your road up the mountain just by the
top of the rise," replied the ranger.

"How did you get up here before we built that road?"
inquired Bob.

"Rode," answered the man briefly.

"Pretty tough on Mr. Plant," Bob ventured.

The man made no reply, but spat carefully into the tar-
weed. Bob chuckled to himself as the obvious humour of the
situation came to him. Plant was evidently finding the dis-
puted right of way a great convenience.

The meadow stretched broad and fair to a distant fringe
of aspens. On either side lay the open forest of spruce and
pines, spacious, without undergrowth. Among the trees
gleamed several new buildings and one or two old and
weather-beaten structures. The sounds of busy saws and
hammers rang down the forest aisles.

Bob found the Supervisor sprawled comfortably in a rude,

323

224 THE RULES OF THE GAME

homemade chair watching the activities about him. To his
surprise, he found there also Oldham, the real- estate pro-
moter from Los Angeles. Two men were nailing shakes on
a new shed. Two more were busily engaged in hewing and
sawing, from a cross-section of a huge sugar pine, a set of
three steps. Plant seemed to be greatly interested in this,
as were still two other men squatting on their heels close by.
All wore the badges of the Forest Reserves. Near at hand
stood two more men holding their horses by the bridle. As
Bob ceased his interchange with Oldham, he overhead
one of these inquire:

"All right. Now what do you want us to do?"

"Get your names on the pay-roll and don't bother me,"
replied Plant.

Plant caught sight of Bob, and, to that young man's sur-
prise, waved him a jovial hand.

"'Bout time you called on the old man!" he roared.
"Tie your horse to the ground and come look at these
steps. I bet there ain't another pair like 'em in the
mountains!"

Somewhat amused at this cordiality, Bob dismounted.

Plant mentioned names by way of introduction.

"Baker told me that you were with him, but not that you
were on the mountain," said Bob. "Better come over and
see us."

"I'll try, but I'm rushed to get back," replied Oldham
formally.

"How's the work coming on?" asked Plant. "When
you going to start fluming 'em down?"

"As soon as we can get our permit," replied Bob.

Plant chuckled.

"Well, you did get in a hole there, didn't you? I guess
you better go ahead. It'll take all summer to get the per-
mit, and you don't want to lose a season, do you?"

Astonished at the effrontery of the man, Bob could with
difficulty control his expression.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 225

"We expect to start to-morrow or next day," he replied.
"Just as soon as we can get our teams organized. Just
scribble me a temporary permit, will you?" He offered
a fountain pen and a blank leaf of his notebook.

Plant hesitated, but finally wrote a few words.

"You won't need it," he assured Bob. "I'll pass the
word. But there you are."

"Thanks," said Bob, folding away the paper. "You seem
to be comfortably fixed here."

Plant heaved his mighty body to its legs. His fat face
beamed with pride.

" My boy," he confided to Bob, laying a pudgy hand on the
young man's shoulder, " this is the best camp in the moun-
tains without any exception."

He insisted on showing Bob around. Of course, the
young fellow, unaccustomed as yet to the difficulties of
mountain transportation, could not quite appreciate to the
full extent the value in forethought and labour of such things
as glass windows, hanging lamps, enamelled table service,
open fireplaces, and ail the thousand and one conveniences
either improvised or transported mule-back that Plant
displayed. Nevertheless he found the place most com-
fortable and attractive.

They caught a glimpse of skirts disappearing, but in spite
of Plant's roar of "Minnie!" the woman failed to appear.

"My niece," he explained.

In spite of himself, Bob found that he was beginning to
like the fat man. There could be no doubt that the Super-
visor was a great rascal; neither could there be any doubt
but that his personality was most attractive. He had a
bull-like way of roaring out his jokes, his orders, or his expos-
tulations; a smashing, dry humour; and, above all, an invari-
ably confident and optimistic belief that everything was
going well and according to every one's desires. His manner,
too, was hearty, his handclasp warm. He fairly radiated
good-fellowship and good humour as he rolled about. Bob's

226 THE RULES OF THE GAME

animosity thawed in spite of his half-amused realization of
what he ought to feel.

When the tour of inspection had brought them again to the
grove where the men were at work, they found two new
arrivals.

These were evidently brothers, as their square-cut features
proclaimed. They squatted side by side on their heels. Two
good horses with the heavy saddles and coiled ropes of the
stockmen looked patiently over their shoulders. A mule,
carrying a light pack, wandered at will in the background.
The men wore straight-brimmed, wide felt hats, short
jumpers, and overalls of blue denim, and cowboy boots
armed with the long, blunt spurs of the craft. Their faces
were stubby with a week's growth, but their blue eyes were
wide apart and clear.

"Hullo, Pollock," greeted Plant, as he dropped, blowing,
into his chair.

The men nodded briefly, never taking their steady gaze
from Plant's face. After a due and deliberate pause, the
elder spoke.

"They's a thousand head of Wright's cattle been drove
in on our ranges this year," said he.

"I issued Wright permits for that number, Jim," replied
Plant blandly.

"But that's plumb crowdin' of our cattle ofl'n the range,"
protested the mountaineer.

"No, it ain't," denied Plant. "That range will keep a
thousand cattle more. I've had complete reports on it. I
know what I'm doing."

"It'll keep them, all right," spoke up the younger, "which
is saying they won't die. But they'll come out in the fall
awful pore."

" I'm using my judgment as to that," said Plant.

"Yore judgment is pore," said the younger Pollock, bluntly.
"You got to be a cattleman to know about them things."

"Well, I know Simeon Wright don't put in cattle where

THE RULES OF THE GAME 227

he's going to lose on them," replied Plant. "If he's willing
to risk it, I'll back his judgment."

" Wright's a crowder," the older Pollock took up the
argument quietly. "He owns fifty thousand head. Me
and George, here, we have five hunderd. He just aims to
summer his cattle, anyhow. When they come out in the
fall, he will fat them up on alfalfa hay. Where is George
and me and the Mortons and the Carrolls, and all the rest
of the mountain folks going to get alfalfa hay? If our cattle
come out pore in the fall, they ain't no good to us. The
range is overstocked with a thousand more cattle on it.
We're pore men, and Wright he owns half of CaHforny.
He's got a million acres of his own without crowdin' in on us."

"This is the public domain, for all the public "

began Plant, pompously, but George Pollock, the younger,
cut in.

"We've run this range afore you had any Forest Reserves,
afore you came into this country, Henry Plant, and our
fathers and our grandfathers! We've built up our busi-
ness here, and we've built our ranches and we've made our
reg'lations and lived up to 'em! We ain't going to be run
off our range without knowin' why!"

" Just because you've always hogged the public land is no
reason why you should always continue to do so," said
Plant cheerfully.

"Who's the public ? Simeon Wright ? or the folks up and
down the mountains, who lives in the country?"

"You've got the same show as Wright or anybody else."

"No, we ain't," interposed Jim Pollock, "for we're playin*
a different game."

"Well, what is it you want me to do, anyway ?" demanded
Plant. "The man has his permit. You can't expect me
to tell him to get to hell out of there when he has a duly
authorized permit, do you?"

The Pollocks looked at each other.

"No," hesitated Jim, at last. "But we're overstocked.

228 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Don't issue no such blanket permits next year. The range
won't carry no more cattle than it always has."

"Well, I'll have it investigated," promised Plant. "I'll
send out a grazing man to look into the matter."

He nodded a dismissal, and the two men, rising slowly to
their feet, prepared to mount. They looked perplexed and
dissatisfied, but at a loss. Plant watched them sardonically.
Finally they swung into the saddle with the cowman's easy
grace.

"Well, good day," said Jim Pollock, after a moment's hesi-
tation.

"Good day," returned Plant amusedly.

They rode away down the forest aisles. The pack mule
fell in behind them, ringing his tiny, sweet-toned bell, his
long ears swinging at every step.

Plant watched them out of sight.

"Most unreasonable people in the world," he remarked
to Bob and Oldham. "They never can be made to see
sense. Between them and these confounded sheepmen
I'd like to get rid of the whole bunch, and deal only with
business men. Takes too much palaver to run this outfit.
If they gave me fifty rangers, I couldn't more'n make a
start." He was plainly out of humour.

"How many rangers do you get?" asked Bob.

"Twelve," snapped Plant.

Bob saw eight of the twelve in sight, either idle or work-
ing on such matters as the steps hewed from the section of
pine log. He said nothing, but smiled to himself.

Shortly after he took his leave. Plant, his good humour
entirely recovered, bellowed after him a dozen jokes and
invitations.

Down the road a quarter-mile, just before the trail turned
off to the mill, Bob and his guide, who was riding down the
mountain, passed a man on horseback. He rode a carved-
Jeather saddle, without tapaderos.* A rawhide riata hung

*Stirrup hoods.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 229

in its loop on the right-hand side of the horn. He wore a
very stiff-brimmed hat encircled by a leather strap and buckle,
a cotton shirt, and belted trousers tucked into high-heeled
boots embroidered with varied patterns. He was a square-
built but very wiry man, with a bold, aggressive, half-hostile
glance, and rode very straight and easy after the manner of
the plains cowboy. A pair of straight-shanked spurs jingled
at his heels, and he wore a revolver.

"Shelby," explained the guide, after this man had passed.
" Simeon Wright's foreman with these cattle you been hearing
about. He ain't never far off when there's something doing.
Guess he's come to see about how's his fences.' '

BOB rode jubilantly into camp. The expedition had
taken him all the afternoon, and it was dropping
dusk when he had reached the mill.

"We can get busy," he cried, waving the permit at Welton.
"Here it is!"

Welton smiled. "I knew that, my boy," he replied, "and
we're already busy to the extent of being ready to turn her
loose to-morrow morning. I've sent down a yard crew to
the lower end of the flume; and I've started Max to rustling
out the teams by 'phone."

Next day the water was turned into the flume. Fifty men
stood by. Rapidly the skilled workmen applied the clamps
and binders that made of the boards a compact bundle to be
given to the rushing current. Then they thrust it forward
to the drag of the water. It gathered headway, rubbing
gently against the flume, first on one side, then on the other.
Its weight began to tell; it gathered momentum; it pushed
ahead of its blunt nose a foaming white wave; it shot out of
sight grandly, careening from side to side. The men cheered.

"Well, we're off!" said Bob cheerfully.

"Yes, we're off, thank God!" replied Welton.

From that moment the affairs of the new enterprise went as
well as could be expected. Of course, there were many
rough edges to be smoothed off, but as the season progressed
the community shaped itself. It was indeed a community,
of many and diverse activities, much more complicated, Bob
soon discovered, than any of the old Michigan logging camps.
A great many of the men brought their families. These
occupied separate shanties, of course. The presence of the

230

THE RULES OF THE GAME 231

women and children took away much of that feeling of
impermanence associated with most pioneer activities. As
without exception these women kept house, the company
"van" speedily expanded to a company store. Where
the " van " kept merely rough clothing, tobacco and patent
medicines, the store soon answered demands for all sorts of
household luxuries and necessities. Provisions, of course,
were always in request. These one of the company's book-
keepers doled out.

"Mr. Poole," the purchaser would often say to this man,
"next time a wagon comes up from Sycamore Flats would
you just as soon have them bring me up a few things? I
want a washboard, and some shoes for Jimmy, and a double
boiler; and there ought to be an express package for me from
my sister."

"Sure! I'll see to it," said Poole.

This meant a great deal of trouble, first and last, what with
the charges and all. Finally, Welton tired of it.

"We've got to keep a store," he told Bob finally.

With characteristic despatch he put the carpenters to work,
and sent for lists of all that had been ordered from Sycamore
Flats. A study of these, followed by a trip to White Oaks,
resulted in the equipment of a store under charge of a man
experienced in that sort of thing. As time went on, and the
needs of such a community made themselves more evident, the
store grew in importance. Its shelves accumulated dress
goods, dry goods, clothing, hardware; its rafters dangled with
tinware and kettles, with rope, harness, webbing; its bins over-
flowed with various food-stuffs unknown to the purveyor of a
lumber camp's commissary, but in demand by the housewife;
its one glass case shone temptingly with fancy stationery,
dollar watches, and even cheap jewelry. There was candy
for the children, gum for the bashful maiden, soda pop for
the frivolous young. In short, there sprang to being in an
astonishingly brief space of time a very creditable specimen
of the country store. It was a business in itself, requiring

232 THE RULES OF THE GAME

all the services of a competent man for the buying, the selling,
and the transportation. At the end of the year it showed a
fair return on the investment.

"Though we'd have to have it even at a dead loss," Welton
pointed out, "to hold our community together. All we need
is a few tufts of chin whiskers and some politics to be full-
fledged gosh-darn mossbacks."

The storekeeper, a very deliberate person, Merker by name,
was much given to contemplation and pondering. He pos-
sessed a German pipe of porcelain, which he smoked when
not actively pestered by customers. At such times he leaned
his elbows on the counter, curved one hand about the porce-
lain bowl of his pipe, lost the other in the depths of his great
seal-brown beard, and fell into staring reveries. When a
customer entered he came back with due deliberation
from about one thousand miles. He refused to accept more
than one statement at a time, to consider more than one per-
son at a time, or to do more than one thing at a time.

" Gim'me five pounds of beans, two of sugar, and half a
pound of tea!" demanded Mrs. Max.

Merker deliberately laid aside his pipe, deliberately moved
down the aisle behind his counter, deliberately filled his scoop,
deliberately manipulated the scales. After the package
was duly and neatly encased, labelled and deposited accu-
rately in front of Mrs. Max, Merker looked her in the eye.

"Five pounds of beans," said he, and paused for the next
item.

The moment the woman had departed, Merker resumed
his pipe and his wide-eyed vacancy.

Welton was immensely amused and tickled.

"Seems to me he might keep a little busier," grumbled
Bob.

"I thought so, too, at first," replied the older man, "but
his store is always neat, and he keeps up his stock. Further-
more, he never makes a mistake there's no chance for it
on his one-thing-at-a-time system."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 233

But it soon became evident that Merker's reveries did not
mean vacancy of mind. At such times the Placid One fig-
ured on his stock. When he put in a list of goods required,
there was little guess-work as to the quantities needed.
Furthermore, he had other schemes. One evening he pre-
sented himself to Welton with a proposition. His waving
brown hair was slicked back from his square, placid brow,
his wide, cowlike eyes shone with the glow of the common or
domestic fire, his brown beard was neat, and his holiday
clothes were clean. At Welton's invitation he sat, but bolt
upright at the edge of a chair.

"After due investigation and deliberation," he stated,
"I have come to the independent conclusion that we are
overlooking a means of revenue."

"As what?" asked Welton, amused by the man's deadly
seriousness.

"Hogs," stated Merker.

He went on deliberately to explain the waste in camp gar-
bage, the price of young pigs, the cost of their transportation,
the average selling price of pork, the rate of weight increase
per month, and the number possible to maintain. He fur-
ther showed that, turned at large, they would require no
care. Amused still at the man's earnestness, Welton tried
to trip him up with questions. Merker had foreseen every
contingency.

" I'll turn it over to you. Draw the necessary money from
the store account," Welton told him finally.

Merker bowed solemnly and went out. In two weeks
pigs appeared. They became a feature of the landscape,
and those who experimented with gardens indulged in pro-
fanity, clubs and hog-proof fences. Returning home after
dark, the wayfarer was apt to be startled to the edge of flight
by the grunting upheaval of what had seemed a black shadow
under the moon. Bob in especial acquired concentrated
practice in horsemanship for the simple reason that his
animal refused to dismiss his first hypothesis of bears.

234 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Nevertheless, at the end of the season Merker gravely
presented a duly made out balance to the credit of hogs.

Encouraged by the success of this venture, he next
attempted chickens. But even his vacant-eyed figuring
had neglected to take into consideration the abundance of
such predatory beasts and birds as wildcats, coyotes, rac-
coons, owls and the swift hawks of the falcon family.

" I had thought," he reported to the secretly amused Welton,
" that even in feeding the finer sorts of garbage to hogs there
might be an economic waste; hogs fatten well enough on the
coarser grades, and chickens will eat the finer. In that I fell
into error. The percentage of loss from noxious varmints
more than equals the difference in the cost of eggs. I fur-
ther find that the margin of profits on chickens is not large
enough to warrant expenditures for traps, dogs and men suf-
ficient for protection."

"And how does the enterprise stand now?" asked Welton.

"We are behind."

"H'm. And what would you advise by way of retrench-
ment?"

"I should advise closing out the business by killing the
fowl," was Merker's opinion. "Crediting the account with
the value of the chickens as food would bring us out with a
loss of approximately ten dollars."

"Fried chicken is hardly applicable as lumber camp
provender," pointed out Welton. "So it's scarcely a legiti-
mate asset."

"I had considered that point," replied Merker, "and in
my calculations I had valued the chickens at the price of
beef."

Welton gave it up.

Another enterprise for which Merker was responsible was
the utilization of the slabs and edgings in the construction of
fruit trays and boxes. When he approached W T elton on the
subject, the lumberman was little inclined to be receptive
to the idea.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 235

"That's all very well, Merker," said he, impatiently; "I
don't doubt it's just as you say, and there's a lot of good
tray and box material going to waste. So, too, I don't doubt
there's lots of material for toothpicks and matches and
wooden soldiers and shingles and all sorts of things in our
slashings. The only trouble is that I'm trying to run a big
lumber company. I haven't time for all that sort of little
monkey business. There's too much detail involved in it."

"Yes, sir," said Merker, and withdrew.

About two weeks later, however, he reappeared, towing
after him an elderly, bearded farmer and a bashful-looking,
hulking youth.

"This is Mr. Lee," said Merker, "and he wants to make
arrangements with you to set up a little cleat and box-stuff
mill, and use from your dump."

Mr. Lee, it turned out, had been sent up by an informal
association of the fruit growers of the valley. Said informal
association had been formed by Merker through the mails.
The store-keeper had submitted such convincing figures
that Lee had been dispatched to see about it. It looked
cheaper in the long run to send up a spare harvesting engine,
to buy a saw, and to cut up box and tray stuff than to pur-
chase these necessities from the regular dealers. Would Mr.
Welton negotiate? Mr. Welton did. Before long the mill-
men were regaled by the sight of a snorting little upright
engine connected by a flapping, sagging belt to a small cir-
cular saw. Two men and two boys worked like beavers.
The racket and confusion, shouts, profanity and general
awkwardness were something tremendous. Nevertheless,
the pile of stock grew, and every once in a while six-horse
farm wagons from the valley would climb the mountain to
take away box material enough to pack the fruit of a whole
district. To Merker this was evidently a profound satis-
faction. Often he would vary his usual between-customer
reverie by walking out on his shaded verandah, where he
would lean against an upright, nursing the bowl of his pipe,

236 THE RULES OF THE GAME

gazing across the sawdust to the diminutive and rackety
box-plant in the distance.

Welton, passing one day, laughed at him.

"How about your economic waste, Merker?" he called.
"Two good men could turn out three times the stuff all that
gang does in about half the time."

"There are no two good men for that job," replied Merker
unmoved. His large, cowlike eyes roved across the yards.
"Men grow in a generation; trees grow in ten," he resumed
with unexpected directness. "I have calculated that of a
great tree but 40 per cent, is used. All the rest is economic
waste slabs, edging, tops, stumps, sawdust." He sighed.
"I couldn't get anybody to consider your toothpick and
matches idea, nor the wooden soldiers, nor even the shingles,"
he ended.

Welton stared.

"You didn't quote me in the matter, did you?" he asked
at length.

" I did not take the matter as official. Would I have done
better to have done so?"

"Lord, no!" cried Welton fervently.

"The sawdust ought to make something," continued
Merker. "But I am unable to discover a practical use for
it." He indicated the great yellow mound that each day
increased.

"Yes, I got to get a burner for it," said Welton, " it'll soon
swamp us."

"There might be power in it," mused Merker. "A big
furnace, now "

"For heaven's sake, man, what for?" demanded Welton.

"I don't know yet," answered the store-keeper.

Merker amused and interested Weiton, and in addition
proved to be a valuable man for just his position. It tickled
the burly lumberman, too, to stop for a moment in his rounds
for the purpose of discussing with mock gravity any one of
Merker's thousand ideas on economic waste. Welton dis-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 237

covered a huge entertainment in this. One day, however,
he found Merker in earnest discussion with a mountain man,
whom the store-keeper introduced as Ross Fletcher. Welton
did not pay very much attention to this man and was about
to pass on when his eye caught the gleam of a Forest Ranger's
badge. Then he stopped short.

"Merker!" he called sharply.

The store-keeper looked up.

"See here a minute. Now," said Welton, as he drew the
other aside, "I want one thing distinctly understood. This
Government gang don't go here. This is my property, and
I won't have them loafing around. That's all there is to it.
Now understand me; I mean business. If those fellows
come in here, they must buy what they want and get out.
They're a lazy, loafing, grafting crew, and I won't have them."

Welton spoke earnestly and in a low tone, and his face
was red. Bob, passing, drew rein in astonishment. Never,
in his long experience with Welton, had he seen the older
man plainly out of temper. Welton' s usual habit in aggra-
vating and contrary circumstances was to show a surface, at
least, of the most leisurely good nature. So unprecedented
was the present condition that Bob, after hesitating a moment,
dismounted and approached.

Merker was staring at his chief with wide and astonished
eyes, and plucking nervously at his brown beard.

"Why, that is Ross Fletcher," he gasped. "We were just
talking about the economic waste in the forests. He is a
good man. He isn't lazy. He "

" Economic waste hell! " exploded Welton. "I won't have
that crew around here, and I won't have my employees con-
fabbing with them. I don't care what you tell them, or how
you fix it, but you keep them out of here. Understand? I
hate the sight of one of those fellows worse than a poison-
snake!"

Merker glanced from Welton to the ranger and back again
perplexed.

238 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"But but " he stammered. "I've known Ross

Fletcher a long time. What can I say "

Welt on cut in on him with contempt.

"Well, you'd better say something, unless you want me to
throw him off the place. This is no corner saloon for
loafers."

"I'll fix it," offered Bob, and without waiting for a reply,
he walked over to where the mountaineer was leaning against
the counter.

"You're a Forest Ranger, I see," said Bob.

"Yes," replied the man, straightening from his lounging
position.

"Well, from our bitter experiences as to the activities of a
Forest Ranger we conclude that you must be very busy people
too busy to waste time on us."

The man's face changed, but he evidently had not quite
arrived at the drift of this.

"I think you know what I mean," said Bob.

A slow flush overspread the ranger's face. He looked the
young man up and down deliberately. Bob moved the frac-
tion of an inch nearer.

" Meaning I'm not welcome here?" he demanded.

"This place is for the transaction of business only. Can
I have Merker get you anything ? "

Fletcher shot a glance half of bewilderment, half of anger,
in the direction of the store-keeper. Then he nodded, not
without a certain dignity, at Bob.

"Thanks, no," he said, and walked out, his spurs jingling.

"I guess he won't bother us again," said Bob, returning
to Welton.

The latter laughed, a trifle ashamed of his anger.

"Those fellows give me the creeps," he said, "like cats
do some people. Mossbacks don't know no better, but a
Government grafter is a little more useless than a nigger on
a sawlog."

He went out. Bob turned to Merker.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 239

" Sorry for the row," he said briefly, for he liked the gentle,
slow man. "But they're a bad lot. We've got to keep that
crew at arm's length for our own protection."

"Ross Fletcher is not that kind," protested Merker. "I've
known him for years."

"Well, he's got a nerve to come in here. I've seen him
and his kind holding down too good a job next old Austin's
bar."

"Not Ross," protested Merker again. "He's a worker.
He's just back now from the high mountains. Mr. Orde, if
you've got a minute, sit down. I want to tell you about
Ross."

Willing to do what he could to soften Merker' s natural
feeling, Bob swung himself to the counter, and lit his pipe.

"Ross Fletcher is a ranger because he loves it and believes
in it," said Merker earnestly. "He knows things are going
rotten now, but he hopes that by and by they'll go better.
His district is in good shape. Why, let me tell you : last
spring Ross was fighting fire all alone, and he went out for
help and they docked him a day for being off the reserve 1"

"You don't say," commented Bob.

"You don't believe it. Well, it's so. And they sent him
in after sheep in the high mountains earl}', when the feed
was froze, and wouldn't allow him pay for three sacks of
barley for his animals. And Ross gets sixty dollars a month,
and he spends about half of that for trail tools and fire tools
that they won't give him. What do you think of that ?"

"Merker," said Bob kindly, "I think your man is either a
damn liar or a damn fool. Why does he say he does all this ? "

"He likes the mountains. He well, he just believes
in it."

"I see. Are there any more of these altruists? or is he the
only bird of the species?"

Merker caught the irony of Bob's tone.

"They don't amount to much, in general," he admitted.
"' But there's a few they keep the torch lit."

240 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"I supposed their job was more in the line of putting it
out," observed Bob; then, catching Merker's look of slow
bewilderment, he added: "So there are several."

"Yes. There's good men among 'em. There's Ross,
and Charley Morton, and Tom Carroll, and, of course, old
California John."

Bob's amused smile died slowly. Before his mental vis-
ion rose the picture of the old mountaineer, with his faded,
ragged clothes, his beautiful outfit, his lean, kindly face, his
steady blue eyes, guarding an empty trail for the sake of an
empty duty. That man was no fool; and Bob knew it. The
young fellow slid from the counter to the floor.

"I'm glad you believe in your friend, Merker," said he
"and I don't doubt he's a fine fellow; but we can't have
rangers, good, bad, or indifferent, hanging around here.
I hope you understand that?"

Merker nodded, his wide eyes growing dreamy.

"It's an economic waste," he sighed, "all this cross-pur-
poses. Here's you a good man, and Ross a good man, and
you cannot work in harmony because of little things. The
Government and the private owner should conduct business
together for the best utilization of all raw material "

"Merker," br Ae in Bob, with a kindly twinkle, "you're
a Utopian."

"Mr. Orde," returned Merker with entire respect, "you're
a lumberman."

With this interchange of epithets they parted.

XII

THE establishment of the store attracted a great many
campers. California is the campers' state. Imme-
diately after the close of the rainy season they set
forth. The wayfarer along any of the country roads will
everywhere meet them, either plodding leisurely through the
charming landscape, or cheerfully gipsying it by the road-
side. Some of the outfits are very elaborate, veritable houses
on wheels, with doors and windows, stove pipes, steps that
let down, unfolding devices so ingenious that when they are
all deployed the happy owners are surrounded by complete
convenience and luxury. The man drives his ark from
beneath a canopy; the women and children occupy com-
fortably the living room of the house whose sides, per-
chance, fold outward like wings when the breeze is cool and
the dust not too thick. Carlo frisks joyously ahead and
astern. Other parties start out quite as cheerfully with the
delivery wagon, or the buckboard, or even at a pinch
with the top buggy. For all alike the country-side is golden,
the sun warm, the sky blue, the birds joyous, and the spring
young in the land. The climate is positively guaranteed.
It will not rain; it will shine; the stars will watch. Feed
for the horses everywhere borders the roads. One can idle
along the highways and the byways and the noways-at-all,
utterly carefree, surrounded by wild and beautiful scenery.
No wonder half the state turns nomadic in the spring.

And then, as summer lays its heats blessed by the fruit
man, the irrigator, the farmer alike over the great interior
valleys, the people divide into two classes. One class, by
far the larger, migrates to the Coast. There the trade winds

241

242 THE RULES OF THE GAME

blowing softly from the Pacific temper the semi- tropic sun;
the Coast Ranges bar back the furnace -like heat of the
interior; and the result is a summer climate even nearer
perfection though not so much advertised than is that
of winter. Here the populace stays in the big winter hotels
at reduced rates, or rents itself cottages, or lives in one or
the other of the unique tent cities. It is gregarious and
noisy, and healthy and hearty, and full of phonographs and
a desire to live in bathing suits. Another, and smaller con-
tingent, turns to the Sierras.

We have here nothing to do with those who attend the
resorts such as Tahoe or Klamath; nor yet with that much
smaller contingent of hardy and adventurous spirits who,
with pack-mule and saddle, lose themselves in the wonderful
labyrinth of granite and snow, of canon and peak, of forest
and stream that makes up the High Sierras. But rather let
us confine ourselves to the great middle class, the class that
has not the wealth nor the desire for resort hotels, nor the
skill nor the equipment to explore a wilderness. These peo-
ple hitch up the farm team, or the grocer's cart, or the family
horse, pile in their bedding and their simple cooking utensils,
whistle to the dog, and climb up out of the scorching inferno
to the coolness of the pines.

They have few but definite needs. They must have
company, water, and the proximity of a store where they
can buy things to eat. If there is fishing, so much the
better. At any rate there is plenty of material for bonfires.
And since other stores are practically unknown above the
six-thousand-foot winter limit of habitability, it follows that
each lumber-mill is a magnet that attracts its own community
of these visitors to the out of doors.

As early as the beginning of July the first outfit drifted in.
Below the mill a half-mile there happened to be a small,
round lake with meadows at the upper and lower ends. By
the middle of the month two hundred people were camped
there. Each constructed his abiding place according to his

THE RULES OF THE GAME 243

needs and ideas, and promptly erected a sign naming it. The
names were facetiously intended. The community was out
for a good time, and it had it. Phonographs, concertinas,
and even a tiny transportable organ appeared. The men
dressed in loose rough clothes ; the women wore sun-bonnets ;
the girls inclined to bandana handkerchiefs, rough-rider
skirts and leggings, cowboy hats caught up at the sides,
fringed gauntlet gloves. They were a good-natured, kindly
lot, and Bob liked nothing better than to stroll down to the
Lake in the twilight. There he found the arrangements
differing widely. The smaller ranchmen lived roughly,
sleeping under the stars, perhaps, cooking over an open fire,
eating from tinware. The larger ranchmen did things in
better style. They brought rocking chairs, big tents, china-
ware, camp stoves and Japanese servants to manipulate
them. The women had flags and Chinese lanterns with
which to decorate, hammocks in which to lounge, books to
read, tables at which to sit, cots and mattresses on which to
sleep. No difference in social status was made, however.
The young people undertook their expeditions together:
the older folks swapped yarns in the peaceful enjoyment of
the forest. Bob found interest in all, for as yet the California
ranchman has not lost in humdrum occupations the initiative
that brought him to a new country nor the influences of the
experience he has gained there. To his surprise several of
the parties were composed entirely of girls. One, of four
members, was made up of students from Berkeley, out for
their summer vacation. Late in the summer these four
damsels constructed a pack of their belongings, lashed it on
a borrowed mule, and departed. They were gone for a
week in the back country, and returned full of adventures
over the detailing of which they laughed until they gasped.

To Bob's astonishment none of the men seemed particu-
larly wrought up over this escapade.

"They're used to the mountains," he was assured, "and
they'll get along all right with that old mule."

244 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Does anybody live over there?" asked Bob.

"No, it's just a wild country, but the trails is good."

"Suppose they get into trouble?"

"What trouble? And 'tain't likely they'd all get into
trouble to once."

"I should think they'd be scared."

"Nothin' to be scared of," replied the man comfortably.

Bob thought of the great, uninhabited mountains, the
dark forests, the immense loneliness and isolation, the thou-
sand subtle and psychic influences which the wilderness
exerts over the untried soul. There might be nothing to
be scared of, as the man said. Wild animals are harmless,
the trails are good. But he could not imagine any of the
girls with whom he had acquaintance pushing off thus
joyous and unafraid into a wilderness three days beyond
the farthest outpost. He had yet to understand the spirit,
almost universal among the native-born Californians, that
has been brought up so intimately with the large things of
nature that the sublime is no longer the terrible. Perhaps
this states it a little too pompously. They have learned
that the mere absence of mankind is ' nothing to be scared
of; they have learned how to be independent and to take
care of themselves. Consequently, as a matter of course, as
one would ride in the park, they undertake expeditions into
the Big Country.

Many of these travellers, especially toward the close of
the summer, complained bitterly of the scarcity of horse-
feed. In the back country where the mountains were high
and the wilderness unbroken, they depended for forage on the
grasses of the mountain meadows. This year they reported
that the cattle had eaten the forage down to the roots.
Where usually had been abundance and pleasant camping,
now were hard, close lawns, and cattle overrunning and
defiling everything. Under the heavy labour of mountain
travel the horses fell off rapidly in flesh and strength.

"We're the public just as much as them cattlemen,"

THE RULES OF THE GAME 245

declamied one grizzled veteran waving his pipe. "I come
to these mountains first in sixty-six, and the sheep was bad
enough then, but you always had some horse meadows.
Now they're just plumb overrunning the country. There's
thousands and thousands of folks that come in camping,
and about a dozen of these yere cattlemen. They got no
right to hog the public land."

With so much approval did this view meet that a delegation
went to Plant's summer quarters to talk it over. The
delegation returned somewhat red about the ears. Plant
had politely but robustly told it that a supervisor was the
best judge of how to run his own forest. This led to declama-
tory denunciation, after the American fashion, but without
resulting in further activity. Resentment seemed to be about
equally divided between Plant and the cattlemen as a class.

This resentment as to the latter, however, soon changed
to sympathy. In September the Pollock boys stopped over-
night at the Lake Meadow on their way out. Their cattle,
in charge of the dogs, they threw for the night into a rude
corral of logs, built many years before for just that purpose.
Their horses they fed with barley hay bought from Merker.
Their camp they spread away from the others, near the
spring. It was dark before they lit their fire. Visitors
sauntering over found George and Jim Pollock on either
side the haphazard blaze stolidly warming through flapjacks,
and occasionally settling into a firmer position the huge
coffee pot. The dust and sweat of driving cattle still lay
thick on their faces. A boy of eighteen, plainly the son of
one of the other two, was hanging up the saddles. The
whole group appeared low-spirited and tired. The men res-
ponded to the visitors by a brief nod only. The latter there-
upon sat down just inside the circle of lamplight and smoked
in silence. Presently Jim arose stiffly, frying pan in hand.

"It's done," he announced.

They ate in silence, consuming great quantities of half-
cooked flapjacks, chunks of overdone beef, and tin-cupfuls

246 THE RULES OF THE GAME

of scalding coffee. When they had finished they thrust aside
the battered tin dishes with the air of men too weary to bother
further with them. They rolled brown paper .cigarettes and
smoked listlessly. After a time George Pollock remarked:

"We ain't washed up."

The statement resulted in no immediate action. After
a few moments more, however, the boy arose slowly, gathered
the dishes clattering into a kettle, filled the latter with water,
and set it in the fire. Jim and his brother, too, bestirred
themselves, disappearing in the direction of the spring with
a bar of mottled soap, an old towel, and a battered pan.
They returned after a few moments, their faces shining,
their hair wetted and sleeked down.

"Plumb too lazy to wash up." George addressed the
silent visitors by way of welcome.

" Drove far ? " asked an old ranchman.

"Twin Peaks."

"How's the feed?" came the inevitable cowman's question.

"Pore, pore," replied the mountaineer. "Ain't never
seen it so short. My cattle's pore."

"Well, you're overstocked; that's what's the matter,"
spoke up some one boldly.

George Pollock turned his face toward this voice.

" Don't you suppose I know it ? " he demanded. " There's
a thousand head too many on my range alone. I've been
crowded and pushed all summer, and I ain't got a beef steer fit
to sell, right now. My cattle are so pore I'll have to winter 'em
on foothill winter feed. And in the spring they'll be porer."

"Well, why don't you all get together and reduce your
stock?" persisted the questioner. "Then there'll be a show
for somebody. I got three packs and two saddlers that
ain't fatted up from a two weeks' trip in August. You got
the country skinned; and that ain't no dream."

George Pollock turned so fiercely that his listeners shrank.

"Get together! Reduce our stock 1" he snarled, shaken
from the customary impassivity of the mountaineer. "It

THE RULES OF THE GAME 247

ain't us! We got the same number of cattle, all we mountain
men, that our fathers had afore us! There ain't never been
no trouble before. Sometimes we crowded a little, but we
all know our people and we could fix things up, and so long
as they let us be, we got along all right. It don't pay us to
overstock. What for do we keep cattle? To sell, don't
we? And we can't sell 'em unless they're fat. Summer
feed's all we got to fat 'em on. Winter feed's no good. You
know that. We ain't going to crowd our range. You make
me tired!"

"What's the trouble then?"

"Outsiders," snapped Pollock. "Folks that live on the
plains and just push in to summer their cattle anyhow,
and then fat 'em for the market on alfalfa hay. This ain't
their country. Why don't they stick to their own?"

"Can't you handle them? Who are they?"

"It ain't they," replied George Pollock sullenly. "It's
him. It's the richest man in California, with forty ranches
and fifty thousand head of cattle and a railroad or two and
God knows what else. But he'll come up here and take
a pore man's living away from him for the sake of a few
hundred dollars saved."

" Old Simeon, hey ?" remarked the ranchman thoughtfully.

"Simeon Wright," said Pollock. "The same damn old
robber. Forest Reserves!" he sneered bitterly. "For the
use of the public! Hell! Who's the public? me and you
and the other fellow ? The public is Simeon Wright. What
do you expect?"

" Didn't Plant say he was going to look into the matter
for next year ? " Bob inquired from the other side the fire.

" Plant ! He's bought," returned Pollock contemptuously.
" He's never seen the country, anyway ; and he never will."

He rose and kicked the fire together.

" Good night ! " he said shortly, and, retiring to the
shadows, rolled himself in a blanket and turned his back
on the visitors.

XIII

THE season passed without further incidents of general
interest. It was a busy season, as mountain seasons
always are. Bob had opportunity to go nowhere;
but in good truth he had no desire to do so. The surround-
ings immediate to the work were rich enough in interest.
After the flurry caused by the delay in opening communi-
cation, affairs fell into their grooves. The days passed on
wings. Almost before he knew it, the dogwood leaves
had turned rose, the aspens yellow, and the pines, thinning
in anticipation of the heavy snows, were dropping their
russet needles everywhere. A light snow in September
reminded the workers of the altitude. By the first of Novem-
ber the works were closed down. -The donkey engines had
been roughly housed in; the machinery protected; all things
prepared against the heavy Sierra snows. Only the three
caretakers were left to inhabit a warm corner. Throughout
the winter these men would shovel away threatening weights
of snow and see to the damage done by storms. In order to
keep busy they might make shakes, or perhaps set themselves
to trapping fur-bearing animals. They would use skis to
get about.

For a month after coming down from the mountain, Bob
stayed at Auntie Belle's. There were a number of things
to attend to on the lower levels, such as anticipating repairs
to flumes, roads and equipment, systematizing the yard
arrangements, and the like. Here Bob came to know more
of the countryside and its people.

He found this lower, but still mountainous, country
threaded by roads ; rough roads, to be sure, but well enough

248

THE RULES OF THE GAME 249

graded. Along these roads were the ranch houses and
spacious corrals of the mountain people. Far and wide
through the wooded and brushy foothills roamed the cattle,
seeking the forage of the winter range that a summer's
absence in the high mountains had saved for them. Bob
used often to "tie his horse to the ground" and enter for a
chat with these people. Harbouring some vague notions
of Southern "crackers," he was at first considerably sur
prised. The houses were in general well built and clean,
even though primitive, and Bob had often occasion to notice
excellent books and magazines. There were always plenty
of children of all sizes. The young women were usually
attractive and blooming. They insisted on hospitality;
and Bob had the greatest difficulty in persuading them that
he stood in no immediate need of nourishment. The men
repaid cultivation. Their ideas were often faulty because
of insufficient basis of knowledge: but, when untinged by
prejudice, apt to be logical. Opinions were always positive,
and always existent. No phenomenon, social or physical,
could come into their ken without being mulled over and
decided upon. In the field of their observations were no
dead facts. Not much given to reception of contrary argu-
ment or idea they were always eager for new facts. Bob
found himself often held in good-humoured tolerance as a
youngster when he advanced his opinion; but listened to
thirstily when he could detail actual experience or knowl-
edge. The head of the house held patriarchal sway until
the grown-up children were actually ready to leave the
paternal roof for homes of their own. One and all loved
the mountains, though incoherently, and perhaps without
full consciousness of the fact. They were extremely tena-
cious of personal rights.

Bob, being an engaging and open-hearted youth, soon
gained favour. Among others he came to know the two
Pollock families well. Jim Pollock, with his large brood,
had arrived at a certain philosophical, though watchful,

250 THE RULES OF THE GAME

acceptance of life; but George, younger, recently married,
and eagerly ambitious, chafed sorely. The Pollocks had
been in the country for three generations. They inhabited
two places on opposite sides of a canon. These houses
possessed the distinction of having the only two red-brick
chimneys in the hills. They were low, comfortable, ram-
bling, vine-clad.

"We always run cattle in these hills," said George fiercely
to Bob, "and got along all right. But these last three years
it's been bad. Unless we can fat our cattle on the summer
ranges in the high mountains, we can't do business. The
grazing on these lower hills you just got to save for winter.
You can't raise no hay here. Since they begun to crowd
us with old Wright's stock it's tur'ble. I ain't had a head
of beef cattle fittin' to sell, bar a few old cows. And if I
ain't got cattle to sell, where do I get money to live on? I
always been out of debt; but this year I done put a mort-
gage on the place to get money to go on with."

"We can always eat beef, George," said his wife with a
little laugh, "and miner's lettuce. We ain't the first folks
that has had hard times and got over it."

"Mebbe not," agreed George, glancing with furrowed
brow at a. tiny garment on which Mrs. George was sewing.

Jim Pollock, smoking comfortably in his shirt sleeves
before his fire, was not so worried. His youngest slept in
his arms; two children played and tumbled on the floor;
buxom Mrs. Pollock bustled here and there on household
business; the older children sprawled over the table under
the lamp reading; the oldest boy, with wrinkled brow, toiled
through the instructions of a correspondence school course.

"George always takes it hard," said Jim. "I've got
six kids, and he'll have one or at most two mebbe.
It's hard times all right, and a hard year. I had to mortgage,
too. Lord love you, a mortgage ain't so bad as a porous
plaster. It'll come off. One good year for beef will fix us.
We ain't lost nothing but this year's sales. Our cattle are

THE RULES OF THE GAME 251

too pore for beef, but they're all in good enough shape. We
ain't lost none. Next year'll be better."

"What makes you think so?" asked Bob.

"Well, Smith,he's superintendent atWhiteOaks, you know,
he's favourable to us. I seed him myself. And even Plant,
he's sent old California John back to look over what shape
the ranges are in. There ain't no doubt as to which way
he'll report. Old John is a cattleman, and he's square."

One day Bob found himself belated after a fishing excur-
sion to the upper end of the valley. As a matter of course he
stopped over night with the first people whose ranch he
came to. It was not much of a ranch and it's two-room
house was of logs and shakes, but the owners were hospitable.
Bob put his horse into a ramshackle shed, banked with
earth against the winter cold. He had a good time all the
evening.

"I'm going to hike out before breakfast," said he before
turning in, "so if you'll just show me where the lantern is,
I won't bother you in the morning."

"Lantern!" snorted the mountaineer. "You turn on the
switch. It's just to the right of the door as you go in."

So Bob encountered another of the curious anomalies
not infrequent to the West. He entered a log stable in the
remote backwoods and turned on a sixteen-candle-power
electric globe! As he extended his rides among the low
mountains of the First Rampart, he ran across many more
places where electric light and even electric power were used
in the rudest habitations.

The explanation was very simple ; these men had possessed
small water rights which Baker had needed. As part of
their compensation they received from Power House Num-
ber One what current they required for their own use.

Thus reminded, Bob one Sunday visited Power House
Number One. It proved to be a corrugated iron structure
through which poured a great stream and from which went
high-tension wires strung to mushroom- shaped insulators.

252 THE RULES OF THE GAME

It was filled with the clean and shining machinery of elec-
tricity. Bob rode up the flume to the reservoir, a great lake
penned in canon walls by a dam sixty feet high. The flume
itself was of concrete, large enough to carry a rushing stream.
He made the acquaintance of some of the men along the
works. They tramped and rode back and forth along the
right of way, occupied with their insulations, the height of
their water, their watts and volts and amperes. Surround-
ings were a matter of indifference to them. Activity was
of the same sort, whether in the city or in the wilderness. As
influences city or wilderness it was all the same to
them. They made their own influences which in turn
developed a special type of people among the delicate and
powerful mysteries of their craft. Down through the land
they had laid the narrow, uniform strip of their peculiar
activities; and on that strip they dwelt satisfied with a world
of their own. Bob sat in a swinging chair talking in snatches
to Hicks, between calls on the telephone. He listened to
quick, sharp orders as to men and instruments, as to the
management of water, the undertaking of repairs. These
were couched in technical phrases and slang, for the most
part. By means of the telephone Hicks seemed to keep in
touch not only with the plants in his own district, but also
with the activities in Power Houses Two, Three and Four,
many miles away. Hicks had never once, in four years,
been to the top of the first range. He had had no interest in
doing so. Neither had he an interest in the foothill country
to the west.

"I'd kind of like to get back and kill a buck or so," he
confessed; "but I haven't got the time."

"It's a different country up where we are," urged Bob.
"You wouldn't know it for the same state as this dry and
brushy country. It has fine timber and green grass."

"I suppose so," said Hicks indifferently. "But I haven't
got the time."

Bob rode away a trifle inclined to that peculiar form of

THE RULES OF THE GAME 253

smug pity a hotel visitor who has been in a place a week
feels for yesterday's arrival. He knew the coolness of the
great mountain.

At this point an opening in the second growth of yellow
pines permitted him a vista. He looked back. He had
never been in this part of the country before. A little
portion of Baldy, framed in a pine-clad cleft through the First
Range, towered chill, rugged and marvellous in its granite
and snow. For the first time Bob realized that even so
immediately behind the scene of his summer's work were
other higher, more wonderful countries. As he watched,
the peak was lost in the blackness of one of those sudden
storms that gather out of nothing about the great crests. The
cloud spread like magic in all directions. The faint roll of
thunder came down a wind, damp and cool, sucked from
the high country.

Bob rounded a bend in the road to overtake old California
John, jingling placidly along on his beautiful sorrel. Though
by no means friendly to any member of this branch of
government service, Bob reined his animal.

"Hullo," said he, overborne by an unexpected impulse.

"Good day," responded the old man, with a friendly
deepening of the kindly wrinkles about his blue eyes.

" John," asked Bob, " were you ever in those big mountains
there?"

" Baldy ? " said the Ranger. " Lord love you, yes. I have
to cross Baldy 'most every time I go to the back country.
There's two good passes through Baldy."

"Back country!" repeated Bob. "Are there any higher
mountains than those?"

Old California John chuckled.

"Listen, son," said he. "There's the First Range, and
then Stone Creek, and then Baldy. And on the other side
of Baldy there's the canon of the Joncal which is three
thousand foot down. And then there's the Burro Mount-
ains, which is half again as high as Baldy, and all the

254 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Burro country to Little Jackass. That's a plateau covered
with lodge-pole pine and meadows and creeks and little
lakes. It's a big plateau, and when you're a-ridin' it, you
shore seem like bein' in a wide, flat country. And then
there's the Green Mountain country; and you drop off five
or six thousand foot into the box canon of the north fork;
and then you climb out again to Red Mountain; and after
that is the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles is the Fourth Rampart.
After them is South Meadow, and the Boneyard. Then
you get to the Main Crest. And that's only if you go plumb
due east. North and south there's all sorts of big country.
Why, Baldy's only a sort of taster."

Bob's satisfaction with himself collapsed. This land so
briefly shadowed forth was penetrable only in summer: that
he well knew. And all summer Bob was held to the great
tasks of the forest. He hadn't the time! Wherein did he
differ from Hicks? In nothing save that his right of wav
happened to be a trifle wider.

"Have you been to all these places?" asked Bob.

"Many times," replied California John. "From Stan-
islaus to the San Bernardino desert I've ridden."

"How big a country is that?"

"It's about four hundred mile long, and about eighty mile
wide as the crow flies a lot bigger as a man must
ride."

"All big mountains?"

"Surely."

"You must have been everywhere?"

"No," said California John, "I never been to Jack Main's
Canon. It's too fur up, and I never could get time off to
go in there."

So this man, too, the ranger whose business it was to travel
far and wide in the wild country, sighed for that which lay
beyond his right of way! Suddenly Bob was filled with a
desire to transcend all these activities, to travel on and over
the different rights of way to which ail the rest of the world

THE RULES OF THE GAME 255

was confined until he knew them all and what lay beyond
them. The impulse was but momentary, and Bob laughed
at himself as it passed.

" 'Something hid beyond the ranges,' " he quoted softly
to himself.

Suddenly he looked up, and gathered his reins.

"John," he said, "we're going to catch that storm."

" Surely," replied the old man looking at him with surprise;
"just found that out?"

"Well, we'd better hurry."

"What's the use? It'll catch us, anyhow. We're shore
due to get wet."

"Well, let's hunt a good tree."

"No,' 3aid California John, "this is a thunder-storm,
and trees is too scurce. You just keep ridin' along the open
road. I've noticed that lightnin' don't hit twice in the
same place mainly because the same place don't seem to be
thar any more after the first time."

The first big drops of the storm delayed fully five minutes.
It did seem foolish to be jogging peacefully along at a fox-
trot while the tempest gathered its power, but Bob realized
the justice of his companion's remarks.

When it did begin, however, it made up for lost time. The
rain fell as though it Cad been turned out of a bucket. In
an instant every runnel was full. The water even flowed in
a thin sheet from the hard surface of the ground. The men
were soaked.

Then came the thunder in a burst of fury and noise. The
lightning flashed almost continuously, not only down, but
aslant, and even Bob thought up. The thunder roared
and reverberated and reechoed until the world was filled
with its crashes. Bob's nerves were steady with youth and
natural courage, but the implacable rapidity with which
assault followed assault ended by shaking him into a sort of
confusion. His horse snorted, pricking its ears backward
and forward, dancing from side to side. The lightning

256 THE RULES OF THE GAME

seemed iairly to spring into being all about them, from the
substance of the murk in which they rode.

"Isn't this likely to hit us?" he yelled at California John.

"Liable to," came back the old man's reply across the roar
of the tempest.

Bob looked about him uneasily. The ranger bent his
head to the wind. Star, walking more rapidly, outpaced
Bob's horse, until they were proceeding single file some ten
feet apart.

Suddenly the earth seemed to explode directly ahead. A
blinding flare swept the ground, a hissing crackle was
drowned in an overwhelming roar of thunder. Bob dodged,
and his horse whirled. When he had mastered both his
animal and himself he spurred back. California John had
reined in his mount. Not twenty feet ahead of him the bolt
had struck. California John glanced quizzically over his
shoulder at the sky.

"Old Man," he remarked, "you'll have to lower you:.
sights a little, if you want to git me."

XIV

A CHRISTMAS Bob took a brief trip East, returning
to California about the middle of January. The
remainder of the winter was spent in outside business,
and in preparatory arrangements for the next season's work.
The last of April he returned to the lower mountains.

He found Sycamore Flats in a fever of excitement over
the cattle question. After lighting his post-prandial pipe
he sauntered down to chat with Martin, the lank and leisurely
keeper of the livery, proprietor of the general store, and;
clearing house of both information and gossip.

"It looks like this," Martin answered Bob's question.
"You remember Plant sent back old California John to
make a report on the grazing. John reported her over-
stocked, of course; nobody could have done different. Plant
kind of promised to fix things up; and the word got around
pretty definite that the outside stock would be reduced."

"Wasn't it?"

"Not so you'd notice. When the permits was published
for this summer, they read good for the same old number."

"Then Wright's cattle will be in again this year."

"That's the worst of it; they are in. Shelby brought up p
a thousand head a week ago, and was going to push them
right in over the snow. The feed's just starting on the low
meadows in back, and it hasn't woke up a mite in the higher
meadows. You throw cattle in on that mushy, soft ground
and new feed, and they tromp down and destroy more'n
they eat. No mountain cattleman goes in till the feed's
weU started, never."

"But what does Shelby do it for, then?"

257

258 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Martin spat accurately at a knothole.

""Oh, he don't care. Those big men don't give a damn
what kind of shape cattle is in, as long as they stay alive.
Same with humans; only they ain't so particular about the
staying alive part."

" Couldn't anything be done to stop them?"

"Plant could keep them out, but he won't. Jim and
George Pollock, and Tom Carroll and some of the other
boys put up such a kick, though, that they saw a great light.
They ain't going in for a couple of weeks more."

"That's all right, then," said Bob heartily.

"Is it? "asked Martin.

"Isn't it?" inquired Bob.

"Well, some says not. Of course they couldn't be expected
to drive all those cattle back to the plains, so they're
just naturally spraddled out grazing over this lower
country."

"Why, what becomes of the winter feed?" cried Bob
aghast, well aware that in these lower altitudes the season's
growth was nearly finished and the ripening about to begin.

"That's just it," said Martin; "where, oh, where?"

"Can't anything be done?" repeated Bob, with some
show of indignation.

"What? This is all government land. The mountain
boys ain't got any real exclusive rights there. It's public
property. The regulations are pretty clear about preference
being given to the small owner, and the local man; but
that's up to Plant."

"It'll come pretty hard on some of the boys, if they keep
on eating off their winter feed and their summer feed too,"
hazarded Bob.

"It'll drive 'em out of business," said Martin. "It'll dc
more; it'll close out settlement in this country. There ain't
nothing doing but cattle, and if the small cattle business is
closed up, the permanent settlement closes up too. There's
only lumber and power and such left; and they don't mean

THE RULES OF THE GAME 259

settlement. That's what the Government is supposed to
look out for."

"Government!" said Bob with contempt.

"Well, now, there's a few good ones, oven at that," stated
Martin argumentively. " There's old John, and Ross
Fletcher, and one or two more that are on the square. It
may be these little grafters have got theirs coming yet. Now
and then an inspector comes along. He looks over the
books old Hen Plant or the next fellow has fixed up; asks a
few questions about trails and such; writes out a nice little
recommend on his pocket typewriter, and moves on. And
if there's a roar from some of these little fellows, why it gets
lost. Some clerk nails it, and sends it to Mr. Inspector
with a blue question mark on it; and Mr. Inspector passes
it on to Mr. Supervisor for explanation; and Mr. Super-
visor's strong holt is explanations. There you are! But
it only needs one inspector who inspects to knock over the
whole apple-cart. Once get by your clerk to your chief, and
you got it."

Whether Martin made this prediction in a spirit of hope
and a full knowledge, or whether his shot in the air merely
chanced to hit the mark, it would be impossible to say. As
a matter of fact within the month appeared Ashley Thorne, an
inspector who inspected.

By this time all the cattle, both of the plainsmen and the
mountaineers, had gone back. The mill had commenced
its season's operations. After the routine of work had
been well established, Bob had descended to attend to cer-
tain grading of the lumber for a special sale of uppers. Thus
he found himself on the scene.

Ashley Thorne was driven in. He arrived late in the
afternoon. Plant with his coat on, and a jovial expression
illuminating his fat face, held out both hands in greeting as
the vehicle came to a stop by Martin's barn. The Inspector
leaped quickly to the ground. He was seen to be a man
between thirty and forty, compactly built, alert in movement

260 THE RULES OF THE GAME

He had a square face, aggressive gray eyes, and wore a
small moustache clipped at the line of the lips.

"Hullo! Hullo!" roared Plant in his biggest voice. "So
here we are, hey! Kind of dry, hot travel, but we've got
the remedy for that."

"How are you?" said Thorne crisply; "are you Mr.
Plant ? Glad to meet you."

"Leave your truck," said Plant. "I'll send some one
after it. Come right along with me."

"Thanks," said Thorne, "but I think I'll take a wash
and clean up a bit, first."

"That's all right," urged Plant. "We can fix you up."

"Where is the hotel?" asked Thorne.

"Hotel!" cried Plant, "ain't you going to stay with
me?"

"It is kind of you, and I appreciate it," said Thorne
briefly, "but I never mix official business with social pleasure.
This is an invariable rule and has no personal application,
of course. After my official work is done and my report
written, I shall be happy to avail myself of your hospitality."

"Just as you say, of course," said Plant, quite good-
humouredly. To him this was an extraordinarily shrewd,
grand-stand play; and he approved of it.

"I shall go to your office at nine to-morrow," Thorne
advised him. " Please have your records ready."

" Always ready," said Plant.

Thorne was assigned a room at Auntie Belle's, washed
away the dust of travel, and appeared promptly at table
when the bell rang. He wore an ordinary business suit, a
flannel shirt with white collar, and hung on the nail a wide
felt hat. Nevertheless his general air was of an out-of-door
man, competent and skilled in the open. His manner was
self-contained and a trifle reserved, although he talked
freely enough with Bob on a variety of subjects.

After supper he retired to his room, the door of which,
however, he left open. Any one passing down the narrow

THE RULES OF THE GAME 261

hallway could have seen him bent over a mass of papers on
the table, his portable typewriter close at hand.

The following morning, armed with a little hand satchel,
he tramped down to Henry Plant's house. The Supervisor
met him on the verandah.

" Right on deck!" he roared jovially. "Come in! AU
ready for the doctor!"

Thome did not respond to this jocosity.

"Good morning," he said formally, and that was all.

Plant led the way into his office, thrust forward a chair,
waved a comprehensive hand toward the filing cases, over
the bill files, at the tabulated reports laid out on the desk.

"Go to it," said he cheerfully. "Have a cigarl Every-
thing's all ready."

Thorne laid aside his broad hat, and at once with keen con-
centration attacked the tabulations. Plant sat back watch-
ing him. Occasionally the fat man yawned. When Thorne
had digested the epitome of the financial end, he reached for
the bundles of documents.

"That's just receipts and requisitions," said Plant, "and
such truck. It'll take you an hour to wade through that stuff."

"Any objections 10 my doing so?" asked Thorne.

"None," replied Plant drily.

"Now rangers' reports," requested Thorne at the end of
another busy period.

"What, that flapdoodle?" cried Plant. "Nobody bothers
much with that stuff! A man has to write the history of his
life every time he gets a pail of water."

"Do I understand your ranger reports are remiss?"
insisted Thorne.

"Lord, there they are. Wish you joy of them. Most of
the boys have mighty vague ideas of spelling."

At noon Thorne knocked off, announcing his return at
one o'clock. Most inspectors would have finished an hour
ago. At the gate he paused.

" This place belong to you or the Government?" he asked.

262 THE RULES OF THE GAME

-'To me," replied Plant. " Mighty good little joint foi
the mountains, ain't it?"

"Why have you a United States Forest Ranger working on
the fences then?" inquired Thorne crisply.

Plant stared after his compact, alert figure. The fat
man's lower jaw had dropped in astonishment. Nobody
had ever dared question his right to use his own rangers as
he damn well pleased! A slow resentment surged up within
him. He would have been downright angry could he have
been certain of this inspector's attitude. Thorne was cold
and businesslike, but he had humorous wrinkles at the
corners of his eyes. Perhaps all this monkey business was
one elaborate josh. If so it wouldn't do to fall into the trap
by getting mad. That must be it. Plant chuckled a cavern-
ous chuckle. Nevertheless he ordered his ranger to knock
off fence mending for the present.

By two o'clock Thorne pushed back his chair and stretched
his arms over his head. Plant laughed.

"That pretty near finishes what we have here," said he.
"There really isn't much to it, after all. We've got things
pretty well going. To-morrow I'll get one of the boys to
ride out with you near here. If you want to take any trips
back country, I'll scare up a pack."

This was the usual and never- accepted offer.

"I haven't time for that," said Thorne, "but I'll look at
that bridge site to-morrow."

"When must you go?"

"In a couple of days."

Plant's large countenance showed more than a trace of
satisfaction.

On leaving the Supervisor's headquarters, Thorne set off
vigorously up the road. He felt cramped for exercise, and
he was out for a tramp. Higher and higher he mounted on
the road to the mill, until at last he stood on a point far above
the valley, f he creak and rattle of a wagon aroused him
from his contemplation of the scene spread wide before him.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 263

He looked up to see a twelve-horse freight team ploughing
toward him through a cloud of dust that arose dense and
choking. To escape this dust Thorne deserted the road
and struck directly up the side of the mountain. A series
of petty allurements led him on. Yonder he caught a glimpse
of tree fungus that interested him. He pushed and plunged
through the manzanita until he had gained its level. Once
there he concluded to examine a dying yellow pine farther
up the hill. Then he thought to find a drink of water in
the next hollow. Finally the way ahead seemed easier than
the brush behind. He pushed on, and after a moment of
breathless climbing reached the top of the ridge.

Here Thorne had reached a lower spur of that range on
which were located both the sawmill and Plant's summer
quarters. He drew a deep breath and looked about him
over the topography spread below. Then he examined
with an expert's eye the wooded growths. His glance fell
naturally to the ground.

"Well, I'll be- " began Thorne, and stopped.

Through the pine needles at his feet ran a shallow, narrow
and meandering trough. A rod or so away was a similar
trough. Thorne set about following their direction.

They led him down a gentle slope, through a young growth
of pines and cedars to a small meadow. The grass had
been eaten short to the soil and trampled by many little
hoofs. Thorne walked to the upper end of the meadow.
Here he found old ashes. Satisfied with his discoveries, he
glanced at the westering sun, and plunged directly down the
side of the mountain.

Near the edge of the village he came upon California John.
The old man had turned Star into the corral, and was at
this moment seated on a boulder, smoking his pipe, and
polishing carefully the silver inlay of his Spanish spade-bit.
Thorne stopped and examined him closely, coming finally
to the worn brass ranger's badge pinned to the old man's
suspenders. California John did not cease his occupation.

264 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"You're a ranger, I take it," said Thorne curtly.

California John looked up deliberately.

"You're an inspector, I take it," said he, after a moment.

"Thorne grinned appreciation under his close-clipped
moustache. This was the first time he had relaxed his look
of official concentration, and the effect was most boyish and
pleasing. The illumination was but momentary, however.

"There have been sheep camped at a little meadow on
that ridge," he stated.

"I know it," replied California John tranquilly.

"You seem to know several things," retorted Thorne
crisply, "but your information seems to stop short of the
fact that you're supposed to keep sheep out of the Reserve."

"Not when they have permission," said California John.

" Permission 1" echoed Thorne. "Sheep are absolutely
prohibited by regulation. What do you mean?"

"What I say. They had a permit."

"Who gave it?"

"Supervisor Plant, of course."

"What for?"

California John polished his bit carefully for some moments
in silence. Then he laid it one side and deliberately faced
about.

"For ten dollars," said he coolly, looking Thorne in the
eye.

Thorne looked back at him steadily.

"You'll swear to that?" he asked.

"I sure will," said California John.

"How long has this sort of thing gone on?"

"Always," replied the ranger.

"How long have you known about it?"

"Always," said California John.

"Why have you never said anything before?"

"What for?" countered the old man. "I'd just get fired.
There ain't no good in saying anything. He's my superior
officer. They used to teach me in the army that I ain't got

THE RULES OF THE GAME 265

no call to criticize what my officer does. It's my job to obey
orders the best I can."

"Why do you tell me, then?"
"You're my superior officer, too and his."
"So were all the other inspectors who have been here."
"Them hell!" said California John.
Thorne returned to his hotel very thoughtful. It was
falling dark, and the preliminary bell had rung for supper-
Nevertheless he lit his lamp and clicked off a letter to a
personal friend in the Land Office requesting the latter to
forward all Plant's vouchers for the past two years. Then
he hunted up Auntie Belle.

"I thought I should tell you that I won't be leaving my
room Wednesday, as I thought," said he. "My business
will detain me longer."

THORNE curtly explained himself to Plant as detained
on clerical business. While awaiting the vouchers
from Washington, he busily gathered the gossip of
the place. Naturally the cattle situation was one of the
first phases to come to his attention. After listening to
what was to be said, he despatched a messenger back into
the mountains requesting the cattlemen to send a represen-
tative. Ordinarily he would have gone to the spot himself;
but just now he preferred to remain nearer the centre of
Plant's activities.

Jim Pollock appeared in due course. He explained the
state of affairs carefully and dispassionately. Thome
heard him to the end without comment.

"If the feed is too scarce for the number of cattle, that
fact should be officially ascertained," he said finally.

"Davidson California John was sent back last fall
to look into it. I didn't see his report, but John's a good
cattleman himself, and there couldn't be no two opinions
on the matter."

Thorne had been shown no copy of such a report during
his official inspection. He made a note of this.

"Well," said he finally, "if on investigation I find the
facts to be as you state them and that I can determine
only on receiving all the evidence on both sides I can
promise you relief for next season. The Land Office is just,
when it is acquainted with the facts. I will ask you to make
affidavits. I am obliged to you for your trouble in coming."

Jim Pollock made his three-day ride back more cheered
by these few and tentative words than by Superintendent

266

THE RULES OF THE GAME 267

Smith's effusive assurances, or Plant's promises. He so
reported to his neighbours in the back ranges.

Thorne established from California John the truth as to
the suppressed reports.

Some rumour of all this reached Henry Plant. Whatever
his faults, the Supervisor was no coward. He had always
bulled things through by sheer weight and courage. If he
could outroar his opponent, he always considered the victory
as his. Certainly the results were generally that way.

On hearing of Thome's activities, Plant drove down to
see him. He puffed along the passageway to Thome's room.
The Inspector was pecking away at his portable typewriter
and did not look up as the fat man entered.

Plant surveyed the bent back for a moment.

"Look here/' he demanded, "I hear you're still investi-
gating my district as well as doing 'clerical work.' '

"I am, 1 ' snapped Thorne without turning his head.

" Am I to consider myself under investigation ? " demanded
Plant truculently. To this direct question he, of course,
expected a denial a denial which he would proceed to
demolish with threats and abuse.

"You are," said Thorne, reaching for a fresh sheet of
paper.

Plant stared at him a moment; then went out. Next
day he drove away on the stage, and was no more seen for
several weeks.

This did not trouble Thorne. He began to reach in all
directions for evidence. At first there came to him only
those like the Pollock boys who were openly at outs with
Plant, and so had nothing to lose by antagonizing him fur-
ther. Then, hesitating, appeared others. Many of these
grievances Thorne found to be imaginary; but in several
cases he was able to elicit definite affidavits as to graft and
irregularity. Evidence of bribery was more difficult to
obtain. Plant's easy-going ways had made him friends, and
his facile suspension of grazing regulations for a con-

268 THE RULES OF THE GAME

sideration appealed strongly to self-interest. However,
as always in such cases, enough had at some time felt them-
selves discriminated against to entertain resentment. Thorne
tooK advantage of this both to get evidence, and to secure
information that enabled him to frighten evidence out of
others.

The vouchers arrived from Washington. In them Plant's
methods showed clearly. Thorne early learned that it had
been the Supervisor's habit to obtain duplicate bills for
everything purchases, livery, hotels and the like. He had
explained to the creditors that a copy would be necessary for
riling, and of course the mountain people knew no better.
Thus, by a trifling manipulation of dates, Plant had been
able to collect twice over for his expenses.

"There is the plumb limit," said Martin, while running
over the vouchers he had given. He showed Thorne two
bearing the same date. One read:

" To team and driver to Big Baldy post office, $4."

"That item's all right," said Martin; "I drove him there
myself. But here's the joke."

He handed the second bill to Thorne:

" To saddle horse Big Baldy to McClintock claim, $2."

"Why," said Martin, "when we got to Big Baldy he put
his saddle on one of the driving horses and rode it about
a mile over to McClintock's. I remember objecting on
account of his being so heavy. Say," reflected the livery-
man after a moment, "he's right out for the little stuff,
ain't he? When his hand gets near a dollar, it cramps!"

In the sheaf of vouchers Thorne ran across one item
repeated several hundred times in the two years. It read:

"To M.Aiken, team, $3."

Inquiry disclosed the fact that "M. Aiken," was Minnie,
Plant's niece. By the simple expedient of conveying to her
title in his team and buckboard, the Supervisor was enabled
to collect three dollars every time he drove anywhere.

Thus the case grew, fortified by affidavits. Thorne

THE RULES OF THE GAME 269

found that Plant had been grafting between three and four
thousand dollars a year.

Of course the whole community soon came to know all
about it. The taking of testimony and the giving of
affidavits were matters for daily discussion. Thorne
inspired faith, because he had faith himself.

"I don't wonder you people have been hostile to the
Forest Reserves," said he. "You can't be blamed. But
it is not the Office's fault. I've been in the Land Office a
great many years, and they won't stand for this sort of thing
a minute. I found very much the same sort of thing in one
of the reserves in Oregon, only there was a gang operating
there. I got eleven convictions, and a new deal ail round.
The Land Office is all right, when you get to it. You'll see
us in a different light, after this is over."

The mountaineers liked him. He showed them a new
kink by which the lash rope of a pack could be jammed in
the cinch-hook for convenience of the lone packer; he proved
to be an excellent shot with the revolver; in his official work
he had used and tested the methods of many wilderness
travellers, and could discuss and demonstrate. Further-
more, he got results.

Austin conducted a roadhouse on the way to the Power
House Number One: this in addition to his saloon in Syca-
more Flats. The roadhouse was, as a matter of fact, on
government land, but Austin established the shadow of a
claim under mineral regulations, and, by obstructionist
tactics, had prevented all the red tape from being unwound.
His mineral claim was flimsy; he knew it, and everybody
else knew it. But until the case should be reported back,
he remained where he was. It was up to Plant; and Plant
had been lenient. Probably Austin could have told why.

Thorne became cognizant of all this. He served Austin
notice. Austin offered no comment, but sat tight. He
knew by previous experience that the necessary reports,
recommendations, endorsements and official orders would

270 THE RULES OF THE GAME

take anywhere from one to three months. By that time this
inspector would have moved on Austin knew the game.
But three days later Thorne showed up early in the morning
followed by a half-dozen interested rangers. In the most
business-like fashion and despite the variegated objections of
Austin and his disreputable satellites, Thorne and his men
attached their ropes to the flimsy structure and literally
pulled it to pieces from the saddle.

"You have no right to use force!" cried Austin, who was
well versed in the regulations.

" I've saved my office a great deal of clerical work," Thorne
snapped back at him. "Report me if you feel like it!"

The debris remained where it had fallen. Austin did not
venture again at least while this energetic youth was on
the scene. Nevertheless, after the first anger, even the saloon-
keeper had in a way his good word to say.

"If they's anythin' worse than a of a comes out in
the next fifty year, he'll be it!" stormed Austin. "But,
damn it," he added, "the little devil's worse'n a cata-
mount for fight!"

Thorne was little communicative, but after he and Bob
became better acquainted the Inspector would tell something
of his past inspections. AJl up and down the Sierras he
had unearthed enough petty fraud and inefficiency to send
a half-dozen men to jail and to break another half-dozen
from the ranks.

"And the Office has upheld me right along," said Thorne
in answer to Bob's scepticism regarding government sincerity.
"The Office is all right; don't make any mistake on that.
It's just a question of getting at it. I admit the system is all
wrong, where the complaints can't get direct to the chiefs;
but that's what I'm here for. This Plant is one of the
easiest cases I've tackled yet. I've got direct evidence six
times over to put him over the road. He'll go behind the
bars sure. As for the cattle situation, it's a crying disgrace
and a shame. There's no earthly reason under the regula-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 271

tions why Simeon Wright should bring cattle in at all; and
I'll see that next year he doesn't."

At the end of two weeks Thorne had finished his work
and departed. The mountain people with whom he had
come in contact liked and trusted him in spite of his brusque
and business-like manners. He could shoot, pack a
horse, ride and follow trail, swing an axe as well as any of
them. He knew what he was talking about. He was square.
The mountain men "happened around" such of them as
were not in back with the cattle to wish him farewell.

"Good-bye, boys," said he. "You'll see me again. I'm
glad to have had a chance to straighten things out a little.
Don't lose faith in Uncle Sam. He'll do well by you when
you attract his attention."

Fully a week after his departure Plant returned and took
his accustomed place in the community. He surveyed his old
constituents with a slightly sardonic eye, but had little to say.

About this time Bob moved up on the mountain. He
breathed in a distinct pleasure over again finding himself
among the pines, in the cool air, with the clean, aromatic
woods-work. The Meadow Lake was completely sur-
rounded by camps this year. Several canvas boats were
on the lake. Bob even welcomed the raucous and confused
notes of several phonographs going at full speed. After
the heat and dust and brown of the lower hills, this high
country was inexpressibly grateful.

At headquarters he found Welton rolling about, jovial,
good-natured, efficient as ever. With him was Baker.

"Well," said Bob to the latter. "Where did you get by
me? I didn't know you were here."

" Oh, I blew in the other day. Didn't have time to stop
below; and, besides, I was saving my strength for your
partner here." He looked at Welton ruefully. "I thought
I'd come up and get that water-rights matter all fixed up
in a few minutes, and get back to supper. Nothing doing!"

"This smooth-faced pirate,' ' explained Welton, "offers

272 THE RULES OF THE GAME

to take our water if we'll pay him for doing it, as near as I
can make out that is, if we'll supply the machinery to do
it with. In return he'll allow us the privilege of buying back
what we are going to need for household purposes. I tell him
this is too liberal. We cannot permit him to rob himself.
Since he has known our esteemed fellow-citizen, Mr. Plant,
he's falling into that gentleman's liberal views."

Baker grinned at his accusor appreciatively, but at the
mention of Plant's name Bob broke in.

"Plant's landed," said he briefly. "They've got him.
Prison bars for his."

"What?" cried Welton and Baker in a breath.

Bob explained; telling them of Thorne, his record,
methods, and the definite evidence he had acquired. Long
before he had finished both men relaxed from their more
eager attention.

"That all?" commented Baker. "From what you said
I thought he was in the bastile!"

"He will be shortly," said Bob. "They've got the evi-
dence direct. It's an open-and-shut case."

Baker merely grinned.

"But Thome's jugged them all up the range," persisted
Bob. "He's convicted a whole lot of them men who
have been at it for years."

"H'm," said Baker.

"But how can they dodge it?" cried Bob. "They can't
deny the evidence! The Department has upheld Thorne
warmly."

"Sure," said Baker.

"Well," concluded Bob. "Do you mean to say that
they'll have the nerve to pass over such direct evidence as
that?"

"Don't know anything about it," replied Baker briefly.
"I only know results when I see them. These other little
grafters that your man Thorne has bumped off probably
haven't any drag."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 273

"Well, what does Plant amount to once he's exposed?"
challenged Bob.

"I haven't figured it out on the Scribner scale," admitted
Baker, "but I know what happens when you try to bump
him. Bet you a thousand dollars I do," he shot at Welton.
"It isn't the wraith-like Plant you run up against; it's
interests"

"Well, I don't believe yet a great government will keep
in a miserable, petty thief like Plant against the direct evi-
dence of a man like Thorne!" stated Bob with some heat.

"Listen," said Baker kindly. "That isn't the scrap.
Thorne vs. Plant looks like easy money on Thorne, eh ?
Well, now, Plant has a drag with Chairman Gay; don't know
what if is, but it's a good one, a peacherino. We know
because we've trained some heavy guns on it ourselves, and
it's stood the shock. All right. Now it's up to Chairman
Gay to support his cousin. Then there's old Simeon Wright.
Where would he get off at without Plant? He's going to do
a little missionary work. Simeon owns Senator Barrow,
and Senator Barrow is on the Ways and Means Committee,
so lots of people love the Senator. And so on in all direc-
tions I'm from Missouri. You got to show me. If it
came to a mere choice of turning down Plant or Thorne,
they'd turn down Plant, every time. But when it comes
to a choice between Thorne and Gay, Thorne and Barrow,
Thorne and Simeon Wright, Thorne and a dozen others that
have their own Angel Children to protect, and won't protect
your Angel Child unless you'll chuck a front for theirs
why Thorne is just lost in the crowd ! "

"I don't believe it," protested Bob. "It would be a
scandal."

"No, just politics," said Baker.

XVI

THE sawmill lay on the direct trail to the back country.
Every man headed for the big mountains by way of
Sycamore Flats passed fairly through the settle-
ment itself. So every cattleman out after provisions or
stock salt, followed by his docile string of pack mules, paused
to swap news and gossip with whoever happened for the
moment to have leisure for such an exchange.

The variety poured through this funnel of the mountains
comprised all classes. Professional prospectors with their
burros, ready alike for the desert or the most inaccessible
crags, were followed by a troupe of college boys afoot lead-
ing one or two old mares as baggage transportation. The
business-like, semi-military outfits of geological survey
parties, the worn but substantial hunters' equipments, the
marvellous and oftentimes ridiculous luxury affected by the
wealthy camper, the makeshifts of the poorer ranchmen
of the valley, out with their entire families and the farm
stock for a "real good fish," all these were of never-failing
interest to Bob. In fact, he soon discovered that the one
absorbing topic outside of bears, of course was the
discussion, the comparison and the appraising of the vari-
ous items of camping equipment. He also found each man
amusingly partisan for his own. There were schools advo-
cating heatedly the merits respectively of the single
or double cinch, of the Dutch oven or the reflector, of raw-
hide or canvas kyacks, of sleeping bags or blankets.
Each man had invented some little kink of his own without
which he could not possibly exist. Some of these kinks
were very handy and deserved universal adoption, such as

274

THE RULES OF THE GAME 275

a small rubber tube with a flattened brass nozzle with which
to encourage reluctant fires. Others expressed an individ-
ual idiosyncrasy only; as in the case of the man who carried
clothes hooks to screw into the trees. A man's method of
packing was also closely watched. Each had his own
favourite hitch. The strong preponderance seemed to be
in favour of the Diamond, both single and double, but many
proved strongly addicted to the Lone Packer, or the Basco,
or the Miners', or the Square, or even the generally despised
Squaw, and would stoutly defend their choices, and give
reasons therefore. Bob sometimes amused himself prac-
tising these hitches in miniature by means of a string, a
bent nail, and two folded handkerchiefs as packs. After
many trials, and many lapses of memory, he succeeded on
all but the Double Diamond. Although apparently he
followed every move, the result was never that beautiful
all-over tightening at the last pull. He reluctantly con-
cluded that on this point he must have instruction.

Although rarely a day went by during the whole season
that one or more parties did not pass through, or camp over
night at the Meadow Lake, it was a fact that, after passing
Baldy, these hundreds could scatter so far through the
labyrinth of the Sierras that in a whole summer's journeying
they were extremely unlikely to see each other or indeed
any one else, save when they stumbled on one of the estab-
lished cow camps. The vastness of the California mountains
cannot be conveyed to one who has not travelled them.
Men have all summer pastured illegally thousands of head
of sheep undiscovered, in spite of the fact that rangers and
soldiers were out looking for them. One may journey
diligently throughout the season, and cover but one corner
of the three great maps that depict about one-half of them.
If one wills he can, to all intents and purposes, become sole
and undisputed master of kingdoms in extent. He can
occupy beautiful valleys miles long, guarded by cliffs rising
thousands of feet, threaded by fish-haunted streams, spangled

276 THE RULES OF THE GAME

with fair, flower-grown lawns, cool with groves of trees,
neck high in rich feed. Unless by sheer chance, no one
will disturb his solitude. Of course he must work for his
kingdom. He must press on past the easy travel, past the
wide cattle country of the middle elevations, into the splint-
ered, frowning granite and snow, over the shoulders of the
mighty peaks of the High Sierras. Nevertheless, the reward
AS sure for the hardy voyager.

Most men, however, elect to spend their time in the eas-
ier middle ground. There the elevations run up to nine
or ten thousand feet; the trails are fairly well denned and
travelled; the streams are full of fish; meadows are in
every moist pocket; the great box canons and peaks of the
spur ranges offer the grandeur of real mountain scenery.

From these men, as they ended their journeys on the way
out, came tales and rumours. There was no doubt what-
ever that the country had too many cattle in it. That was
brought home to each and every man by the scarcity of horse
feed on meadows where usually an abundance for everybody
was to be expected. The cattle were thin and restless. It
was unsafe to leave a camp unprotected; the half -wild ani-
mals trampled everything into the ground. The cattlemen,
of whatever camp, appeared sullen and suspicious of every
comer.

"It's mighty close to a cattle war," said one old lean and
leathery individual to Bob; "I know, for I been thar. Used
to run cows in Montana. I hear everywhar talk about
Wright's cattle dyin' in mighty funny ways. I know that's
so, for I seen a slather of dead cows myself. Some of 'em
fall off cliffs; some seem to have broke their legs. Some
bogged down. Some look like to have just laid down and
died."

"Well, if they're weak from loss of feed, isn't that nat-
ural?" asked Bob.

"Wall," said the old cowman, "in the first place, they're
pore, but they ain't by no means weak. But the strange

THE RULES OF THE GAME 277

part is that these yere accidents always happens to Wright's
cattle."

He laughed and added:

"The carcasses is always so chawed up by b'ar and coyote
- or at least that's what they say done it that you can't
sw'ar as to how they did come to die. But I heard one
funny thing. It was over at the Pollock boys' camp.
Shelby, Wright's straw boss, come ridin' in pretty mad, and
made a talk about how it's mighty cur'ous only Wright's
cattle is dyin'.

"'It shorely looks like the country is unhealthy for
plains cattle,' says George Pollock; 'ours is brought up in
the hills.'

"'Well,' says Shelby, 'if I ever comes on one of these acci-
dents a-happenin', I'll shore make some one hard to catch!'

'"Some one's likely one of these times to make you
almighty easy to catch!' says George.

"Now," concluded the old cattleman, "folks don't make
them bluffs for the sake of talkin' at a mark not in this
country."

Nevertheless, in spite of that prediction, the summer
passed without any personal clash. The cattle came out
from the mountains rather earlier than usual, gaunt, wiry,
active. They were in fine shape, as far as health was con-
cerned; but absolutely unfit, as they then stood, for beef.
The Simeon Wright herds were first, thousands of them, in
charge of many cowboys and dogs. The punchers were a
reckless, joyous crew, skylarking in anticipation of the towns
of the plains. They kissed their hands and waved their
hats at all women, old and young, in the mill settlement;
they played pranks on each other; they charged here and
there on their wiry ponies, whirling to right and left, ' turn-
ing on a ten-cent piece/ throwing their animals from full
speed to a stand, indulging in the cowboys' spectacular
'flash riding' for the sheer joy of it. The leading cattle,
eager with that strange instinct that, even early in the fall,

278 THE RULES OF THE GAME

calls all ruminants from good mountain feed to the brown
lower country, pressed forward, their necks outstretched,
their eyes fixed on some distant vision. Their calls blended
into an organ note. Occasionally they broke into a little
trot. At such times the dogs ran forward, yelping, to turn
them back into their appointed way. At an especially bad
break to right or left one or more of the men would dash to
the aid of the dogs, riding with a splendid recklessness through
the timber, over fallen trees, ditches, rocks, boulders and
precipitous hills. The dust rose chokingly. At the rear
of the long procession plodded the old, the infirm, the crip-
ples and the young calves. Three or four men rode compactly
behind this rear guard, urging it to keep up. Their means
of persuasion were varied. Quirts, ropes, rattles made of
tin cans and pebbles, strong language were all used in turn
and simultaneously. Long after the multitude had passed,
the vast and composite voice of it reechoed through the for-
est ; the dust eddied and swirled among the trees.

The mountain men's cattle, on the other hand, came out
sullenly, in herds of a few hundred head. There was more
barking of dogs ; more scurrying to and fro of mounted men,
for small bands are more difficult to drive than large ones.
There were no songs, no boisterous high spirits, no flash
riding. In contrast to the plains cowboys, even the
herders' appearance was poor. They wore blue jeans
overalls, short jeans jumpers, hats floppy and all but dis-
integrated by age and exposure to the elements. Wright's
men, being nothing but cowboys, without other profession,
ties or interests, gave more attention to details of profes-
sional equipment. Their wide hats were straight of brim and
generally encircled by a leather or hair or snakeskin band;
their shirts were loose; they wore handkerchiefs around
their necks, and oiled leather "chaps" on their legs. Their
distinguishing and especial mark, however, was their boots.
These were made of soft leather, were elaborately stitched
or embroidered in patterns, possessed exaggeratedly wide

THE RULES OF THE GAME 279

and long straps like a spaniel's ears, and were mounted on
thin soles and very high heels. They were footwear such
as no mountain man, nor indeed any man who might ever
be required to go a mile afoot, would think of wearing.
The little herds trudged down the mountains. While the
plainsmen anticipated easy duty, the pleasures of the town,
fenced cattle growing fat on alfalfa raised during the sum-
mer by irrigation, these sober-faced mountaineers looked
forward to a winter range much depleted, a market closed
against such wiry, active animals as they herded, and an
impossibility of rounding into shape for sale any but a
few old cows.

"If it wasn't for this new shake-up," said Jim Pollock,
;< I'd shore be gettin' discouraged. But if they keep out
Simeon Wright's cattle this spring, we'll be all right. It's
cost us money, though."

"A man with a wife and child can't afford to lose money/'
said George Pollock.

Jim laughed.

"You and your new kid!" he mocked. "No, I suppose
ne can't. Neither can a man with a wife and six children.
But I reckon we'll be all right as long as there's a place to
crawl under when it rains."

XVII

THE autumn passed, and winter closed down. Plant
continued his administration. For a month the
countryside was on a tip-toe of expectation. It
counted on no immediate results, but the " suspension pend-
ing investigation" was to take place within a few weeks.
As far as surface indications were concerned nothing
happened. Expectation was turned back on itself. Abso-
lute confidence in Plant's removal and criminal conviction
gave place to scepticism and doubt, finally to utter disbelief.
And since Thorne had succeeded in arousing a real faith
and enthusiasm, the reaction was by so much the stronger.
Tolerance gave way to antagonism; distrust to bitterness;
grievance to open hostility. The Forest Reserves were
cursed as a vicious institution created for the benefit of the
rich man, depriving the poor man of his rights and privi-
leges, imposing on him regulations that were at once galling
and senseless.

The Forest Rangers suddenly found themselves openly
unpopular. Heretofore a ranger had been tolerated by
the mountaineers as either a good-for-nothing saloon loafer
enjoying the fats of political perquisite; or as a species of
inunderstandable fanatic to be looked down upon with good-
humoured contempt. Now a ranger became a partisan
of the opposing forces, and as such an enemy. Men ceased
speaking to him, or greeted him with the curtest of
nods. Plant's men were ostracized in every way, once they
showed themselves obstinate in holding to their positions.
Every man was urged to resign. Many did so. Others
hung on because the job was too soft to lose. Some,

280

THE RULES OF THE GAME 281

like Ross Fletcher, California John, Tom Carroll, Charley
Morton and a few others, moved on their accustomed
way.

One of the inspiring things in the later history of the great
West is the faith and insight, the devotion and self-sacrifice
of some of the rough mountain men in some few of the
badly managed reserves to truths that were but slowly
being recognized by even the better educated of the East.
These men, year after year, without leadership, without
encouragement, without the support and generally against the
covered or open hostility of their neighbours, under most
disheartening official conditions kept the torch alight. They
had no wide theory of forestry to sustain their interest; they
could certainly have little hope of promotion and advance-
ment to a real career; their experience with a bureaucratic
government could not arouse in their breasts any expec-
tation of a broad, a liberal, or even an enlightened policy of
conservation or use. They were set in opposition to their
neighbours without receiving the support of the power that
so placed them. Nevertheless, according to their knowledge
they worked faithfully. Five times out of ten they had
little either of supervision or instruction. Turned out in
the mountains, like a bunch of stock, each was free to do
as much or as little of whatever he pleased. Each improved
his district according to his ideas or his interests. One cared
most for building trails; another for chasing sheep trespas-
sers; a third for construction of bridges, cabins and fences.
All had occasionally to fight fires. Each was given the
inestimable privilege of doing what he could. Everything
he did had to be reported on enormous and complicated
forms. If he made a mistake in any of these, he heard
from it, and perhaps his pay was held up. This pay ran
somewhere about sixty or seventy-five dollars a month, and
he was required to supply his own horses and to feed
them. Most rangers who were really interested in their
profession spent some of this in buying tools with which

282 THE RULES OF THE GAME

to work.* The Government supplied next to nothing. In
1902 between the King's River and the Kaweah, an area of
somewhere near a million acres, the complete inventory of
fire- fighting tools consisted of two rakes made from fifty
cents' worth of twenty-penny nails.

But these negative discouragements were as nothing com-
pared to the petty rebuffs and rulings that emanated from
the Land Office itself.

One spring Ross Fletcher, following specific orders, was
sent out after twenty thousand trespassing sheep. It was
early in the season. His instructions took him up into the
frozen meadows, so he had to carry barley for his horses.
He used three sacks and sent in a bill for one. Item refused.
Feed was twenty dollars a thousand. Salary seventy-five
dollars.

One of Simeon Wright's foremen broke down govern-
ment fences and fed out all the ranger horse feed. Tom
Carroll wrote to Superintendent Smith; later to Washington.
The authorities, however, refused to revoke the cattleman's
licence. At Christmas time, when Carroll was inWhite Oaks
the foreman and his two sons jeered at and insulted the
ranger in regard to this matter until the latter lost his temper
and thrashed all three, one after the other. For this he was
severely reprimanded by Washington.

Charley Morton was ordered to Yosemite to consult with
the military officers there. He was instructed to do so in
a certain number of days. To keep inside his time limit
he had to hire a team. Item refused.

California John fought fire alone for two days and a night,
then had to go outside for help. Docked a day for going
off the reserve.

Why did these men prefer to endure neglect and open
hostility to the favour of their neighbours and easier work ?
Bob, with a growing wonder and respect, tried to find out.

*The accounts of one man showed that for a long period he had so disbursed from his own
pocket an average of thirty dollars a month. His salary was sixty dollars.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 283

He did not succeed. There certainly was no overwhelming
love for the administration of Henry Plant; nor loyalty to the
Land Office. Indeed for the latter, one and all entertained the
deep contempt of the out-of-door man for the red-tape clerk.

"What do you think is the latest," asked California
John one day, "from them little squirts? I just got instruc-
tions that during of the fire season I must patrol the whole
of my district every dayi" The old man grinned. "I only
got from here to Pumice Mountain ! I wonder if those fellows
ever saw a mountain? I suppose they laid off an inch on
the map and let it go at that. Patrol every day ! "

"How long would it take you?" asked Bob.

"By riding hard, about a week."

Rather the loyalty seemed to be gropingly to the idea back
of it all, to something broad and dim and beautiful which
these rough, untutored men had drawn from their native
mountains and which thus they rendered back.

As Bob gradually came to understand more of the situation
his curiosity grew. The lumberman's instinctive hostility
to government control and interference had not in the
slightest degree modified; but he had begun to differentiate
this small, devoted band from the machinery of the
Forest Reserves as they were then conducted. He was a
little inclined to the fanatic theory; he knew by now that the
laziness hypothesis would not apply to these.

"What is there in it?" he asked. "You surely can't hope
for a boost in salary; and certainly your bosses treat you
badly."

At first he received vague and evasive answers. They
liked the work; they got along all right; it was a lot better
than the cattle business just now, and so on. Then as it
became evident that the young man was genuinely inter-
ested, California John gradually opened up. One strange
and beautiful feature of American partisanship for an ideal
is its shyness. It will work and endure, will wait and suf-
fer, but it will not go forth to proselyte.

284 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"The way I kind of look at it is this," said the old man
one evening. "I always did like these here mountains
and the big trees and the rocks and water and the snow.
Everywhere else the country belongs to some one: it's
staked out. Up here it belongs to me, because I'm an
American. This country belongs to all of us the people
all of us. We most of us don't know we've got it, that's
all. I kind of look at it this way: suppose I had a big pile
of twenty- dollar gold pieces lying up, say in Siskiyou, that
I didn't know nothing whatever about; and some fellow come
along and took care of it for me and hung onto it even when
I sent out word that anybody was welcome to anything I
owned in Siskiyou I not thinking I really owned anything
there, you understand why well, you see, I sort of
like to feel I'm one of those fellows!"

"What good is there in hanging onto a lot of land that
would be better developed?" asked Bob.

But California John refused to be drawn into a discus-
sion. He had his faith, but he would not argue about it.
Sometime or other the people would come to that same
faith. In the meantime there was no sense in tangling up
with discussions.

"They send us out some reading that tells about it,"
said California John. "I'll give you some."

He was as good as his word. Bob carried away with
him a dozen government publications of the sort that, he
had always concluded, everybody received and nobody read.
Interested, not in the subject matter of the pamphlets, but
in their influence on these mountain men, he did read them.
In this manner he became for the first time acquainted with
the elementary principles of watersheds and water con-
servation. This was actually so. Nor did he differ in this
respect from any other of the millions of well-educated youth
of the country. In a vague way he knew that trees influence
climate. He had always been too busy with trees to bother
about climate.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 285

The general facts interested him, and appealed to his
logical common sense. He saw for the first time, because
for the first time it had been presented to his attention, the
real use and reason for the forest reserves. Hitherto he
had considered the whole institution as semi-hostile, at least
AS something in potential antagonism. Now he was will-
ing fairly to recognize the wisdom of preserving some
portion of the mountain cover. He had not really denied
it; simply he hadn't considered it.

Early in this conviction he made up to Ross Fletcher for
his brusqueness in ordering the ranger off the mill property.

"I just classed you with your gang, which was natural,"
said Bob.

"I am one of my gang, of course," said Fletcher.

"Do you consider yourself one of the same sort of dicky
bird as Plant and that crew?" demanded Bob.

"There ain't no humans all alike," replied the moun-
taineer.

Although Bob was thus rebuffed in immediately getting
inside of the man's loyalty to his service and his superiors,
he was from that moment made to feel at his ease. Later, in a
fuller intimacy, he was treated more frankly.

Welton laughed openly at Bob's growing interest in these
matters.

"You're the first man I ever saw read any of those things,"
said he in regard to the government reports. "I once read
one," he went on in delightful contradiction to his first
statement. "It told how to cut timber. When you cut
down a tree, you pile up the remains in a neat pile and put
a little white picket fence around them. It would take
a thousand men and cost enough to buy a whole new tract
to do all the monkey business they want you to do. I've
only been in the lumber business forty years! When a
college boy can teach me, I'm willing to listen; but he can't
teach me the A B C of the business."

Bob laughed. "Well, I can't just see us taking time in a

286 THE RULES OF THE GAME

short season to back-track and pile up ornamental brush
piles," he admitted.

"Experimental farms, and experimental chickens, and
experimental lumbering are all right for the gentleman
farmer and the gentleman poultry fancier and the gentle-
man lumberman if there are any. But when it comes to
business "

Bob laughed. "Just the same," said he, "I'm begin-
ning to see that it's a good thing to keep some of this timber
standing; and the only way it can be done is through the
Forest Reserves."

"That's aU right," agreed Welton. "Let 'em reserve.
I don't care. But they are a nuisance. They keep step-
ping on my toes. It's too good a chance to annoy and
graft. It gives a hard lot of loafers too good a chance to
make trouble."

"They are a hard lot in general," agreed Bob, "but there's
some good men among them, men I can't help but admire."

Welton rolled his eyes drolly at the younger man.

"Who?" he inquired.

"Well, there's old California John."

"There's three or four mossbacks in the lot that are hon-
est," cut in Welton, "but it's because they're too damn
thick-headed to be anything else. Don't get kiddish enough
to do the picturesque mountaineer act, Bobby. I can dig
you up four hundred of that stripe anywhere and hold-
ing down just about as valuable jobs. Don't get too thick
with that kind. In the city you'll find them holding open-
air meetings. I suppose our friend Plant has been pinched ? ' '

"Not yet," grinned Bob, a trifle shamefacedly.

"Don't get the reform bug, Bob," said Welton kindly,
"That's all very well for those that like to amuse themselves,
but we're busy."

XVIII

THE following spring found Plant still in command.
No word had come from the silence of political
darkness. His only concession to the state of affairs
had been an acknowledgment under coercion that the cat-
tle ranges had been overstocked, and that outside cattle
would not be permitted to enter, at least for the coming
season. This was just the concession to relieve the imme-
diate pressure against him, and to give the Supervisor time
to apply all his energies to details within the shades.

Details were important, in spite of the absence of surface
indications. Many considerations were marshalled. On one
side were arrayed plain affidavits of fraud. In the lower
ranks of the Land Office it was necessary to corrupt men,
by one means or another. These lesser officials in the course
of routine would come face to face with the damaging affi-
davits, and must be made to shut their eyes d( dberately to
what they know. The cases of the higher officials were
different. They must know of the charges, of course, but
matters must be so arranged that the evidence must never
meet their eyes, and that they must adopt en bloc the findings
of their subordinates. Bribery was here impossible; but
influence could be brought to bear.

Chairman Gay upheld his cousin, Henry Plant, because
of the relationship. This implied a good word, and per-
sonal influence. After that Chairman Gay forgot the
matter. But a great number of people were extremely
anxious to please Chairman Gay. These exerted them-
selves. They came across evidence that would have caused
Chairman Gay to throw his beloved cousin out neck and

287

288 THE RULES OF THE GAME

crop, but they swallowed it and asked for more simply
because Gay possessed patronage, and it was not to their
interest to bring disagreeable matters before the great man.
Nor was the Land Office unlikely to listen to reason. A
strong fight was at that time forward to transfer control of
the Forest Reserves from a department busy in other lines
to the Bureau of Forestry where it logically belonged. This
transfer was violently opposed by those to whom the dis-
tribution of supervisorships, ranger appointments and the
like seemed valuable. The Land Office adherents needed
all the political backing they could procure; and the friends
of Chairman Gay epitomized political backing. So the
Land Office, too, was anxious to please the Chairman.

At the same time Simeon Wright had bestirred himself.
There seems to be no good and valid reason for owning a
senator if you don't use him. Wright was too shrewd to
think it worth while to own a senator from California.
That was too obvious. Few knew how closely affiliated
were the Wright and the Barrow interests. Wright dropped
a hint to the dignified senator; the senator paid a casual
call to an official high up in the Land Office. Senators
would by their votes ultimately decide the question of
transfer. The official agreed to keep an eye on the recom-
mendations in this case.

Thus somebody submerged beneath the Gay interests
saw obscurely somebody equally submerged beneath the
Wright and Barrow interests. In due course all Thome's
careful work was pigeonholed. An epitome of the charges
was typed and submitted to the High Official. On the back
of them had been written:

"I find the charges not proved."

This was signed by the very obscure clerk who had filed
away the Thorne affidavits and who happened to be a friend
of the man to whom in devious ways and through many
mouths had come an expression of the Gay wishes. It
was O. K.'d by a dozen others. The High Official added

THE RULES OF THE GAME 289

his O. K. to the others. Then he promptly forgot about it,
as did every one else concerned, save the men most vitally
interested.

In due time Thorne, then in Los Angeles, received a brief
communication from Stafford, the obscure clerk.

"In regard to your charges against Supervisor H. M.
Plant, the Department begs to advise you that, after exam-
ining carefully the evidence for the defence, it finds the
charges not proven."

Thorne stared at the paper incredulously, then he did some-
thing he had never permitted himself before; he wrote in
expostulation to the Higher Official.

"I cannot imagine what the man's defence could be," he
wrote, hi part, "but my evidence a mere denial could hardly
controvert. The whole countryside knows the man is
crooked; they know he was investigated; they are now
awaiting with full confidence the punishment for well-under-
stood peculation. I can hardly exaggerate the body blow
to the Service such a decision would give. Nobody will
believe in it again."

On reading this the Higher Official called in one of his
subordinates.

" I have this from Thorne/' said he. " What do you think
of it?"

The subordinate read it through.

"I'll look it up," said he.

"Do so and bring me the papers," advised the Higher
Official.

The Higher Official knew Thome's work and approved
it. The inspector was efficient, and throughout all his
reforming of conditions in the West, the Department had
upheld him. The Department liked efficiency, and where
the private interests of its own grafters were not concerned,
it gave good government.

In due time the subordinate came back, but without the
papers.

2QO THE RULES OF THE GAME

" Stafford says he'll look them up, sir," said he. "He
told me to tell you that the case was the one you were ask-
ing Senator Barrow about."

"Ah!" said the Higher Official.

He sat for some time in deep thought. Then he called
through the open door to his stenographer.

" In re your's 2ist," he dictated, "I repose every confi-
dence in Mr. Stafford's judgment; and unless I should
care to supersede him, it would hardly be proper for me to
carry any matter over his head."

Thorne immediately resigned, and shortly went into
landlooking for a lumbering firm in Oregon. Chairman
Gay wrote a letter advising Plant to "adopt a policy of
conciliation toward the turbulent element."

XIX

SHORTLY after Bob's return in the early spring,
George Pollock rode to Auntie Belle's in some dis-
order to say that the little girl, now about a year
old, had been taken sick.

"Jenny has a notion it's something catching," said he,
"so she won't let Jim send Mary over. There's too many
young-uns in that family to run any risks."

"How does she seem?" called Auntie Belle from the bed-
room where she was preparing for departure.

"She's got a fever, and is restless, and won't eat," said
George anxiously. " She looks awful sick to me."

"They all do at that age," said Auntie Belle c'/.nfortably;
"don't you worry a mite."

Nevertheless Auntie Belle did not return that day, nor
the next, nor the next. When finally she appeared, it was
only to obtain certain supplies and clothes. These she
caused to be brought out and laid down where she could
get them. She would allow nobod* to come near her.

"It's scarlet fever," she said, "a*id Lord knows where
the child got it. But we won't scatter it, so you-all stay
away. I'll do what I can. I've been through it enough
times, Lord knows."

Three days later she appeared again, very quietly.

"How's the baby?" asked Bob. "Better, I hope?"

"The poor little thing is dead," said Auntie Belle shortly,
"and I want you or somebody to ride down for the
minister."

The community attended the funeral in a body. It was
held in the open air, under a white oak tree, for Auntie

391

292 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Belle, with unusual caution and knowledge for the mount-
ains, refused to permit even a chance of spreading the
contagion. The mother appeared dazed. She sat through
the services without apparent consciousness of what was
going on; she suffered herself to be led to the tiny enclosure
where all the Pollocks of other generations had been buried;
she allowed herself to be led away again. There was in
the brief and pathetic ceremony no meaning and no pain
for her. The father, on the other hand, seemed crushed.
So broken was his figure that, after the services, Bob was
impelled to lay his hand on the man's shoulder and mutter
a few incoherent but encouraging words. The mountain-
eer looked up dully, but sharpened to comprehension and
gratitude as his eyes met those of the tall, vigorous young
man leaning over him.

"I mean it," said Bob; "any time any place."

On the way back to Sycamore Flats Auntie Belle expressed
her mind to the young man.

"Nobody realizes how things are going with those Pol-
locks," said she. " George sold his spurs and that Cruces
bit of his to get medicine. He wouldn't take anything from
me. They're proud folks, and nobody'd have a chance to
suspect anything. I tell you," said the good lady solemnly,
"it don't matter where that child got the fever; it's Henry
Plant, the old, fat scoundrel, that killed her just as plain
as if he'd stuck a gun to her head. He has a good deal to
answer for. There's lots of folks eating their own beef cat-
tle right now; and that's ruinous. I suppose Washington
ain't going to do anything. We might have known it. I
don't suppose you heard anything outside about it?"

"Only that Thorne had resigned."

"That so!" Auntie Belle ruminated on this a moment.
"Well, I'm right glad to hear it. I'd hate to think I was
fooled on him. Reckon l resign' means fired for daring to
say anything about His High- and- mightiness?" she guessed.

Bob shook his head. "Couldn't say," said he.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 293

The busy season was beginning. Every day laden teams
crawled up the road bringing supplies for the summer work.
Woodsmen came in twos, in threes, in bunches of a dozen
or more. Bob was very busy arranging the distribution
and forwarding, putting into shape the great machinery
of handling, so that when, a few weeks later, the bundles of
sawn lumber should begin to shoot down the flume, they
would fall automatically into a systematic scheme of furtht~
transportation. He had done this twice before, and he kne^ '
all the steps of it, and exactly what would be required of
him. Certain complications were likely to arise, requiring
each their individual treatments, but as Bob's experience
grew these were becoming fewer and of lesser importance.
The creative necessity was steadily lessening as the work
became more familiar. Often Bob found his eagerness
sinking to a blank; his attention economizing itself to the
bare needs of the occasion. He caught himself at times
slipping away from the closest interest in what he had to do.
His spirit, although he did not know it, was beginning once
more to shake itself restlessly, to demand, as it had always
demanded in the past from the time of his toy printing press
in his earliest boyhood, fresh food for the creative instinct
that was his. Bobby Orde, the child, had been thorough.
No superficial knowledge of a subject sufficed. He had
worked away at the mechanical difficulties of the cheap
toy press after Johnny English, his partner in enterprise,
had given up in disgust. By worrying the problem like a
terrier, Bobby had shaken it into shape. Then when the
commercial possibilities of job printing for parents had
drawn Johnny back ablaze with enthusiasm, Bobby had,
to his partner's amazement, lost completely all interest in
printing presses. The subject had been exhausted; he had
no desire for repetitions.

So it had gone. One after another he had with the utmost
fervour taken up photography, sailing, carpentry, metal
working a dozen and one occupations only to drop

294 THE RULES OF THE GAME

them as suddenly. This restlessness of childhood came to
be considered a defect in young manhood. It indicated
instability of character. Only his mother, wiser in her
quiet way, saw the thoroughness with which he ransacked
each subject. Bobby would read and absorb a dozen tech-
nical books in a week, reaching eagerly for the vital principles
of his subject. She alone realized, although but dimly,
y aat the boy did not relinquish his subject until he had
L rasped those vital principles.

"He's learning all the time," she ventured.

"'Jack of all trades: master of none,'" quoted Orde
doubtfully.

The danger being recognized, little Bobby's teaching
was carefully directed. He was not discouraged in his
varied activities; but the bigger practical principles of Ameri-
can life were inculcated. These may be very briefly
stated. An American must not idle; he must direct his
energies toward success; success means making one's way
in life; nine times out of ten, for ninety-nine men out of a
hundred, that means the business world. To seize the busi-
ness opportunity; to develop that opportunity through the
business virtues of attention to detail, industry, economy,
persistence, and enthusiasm these represented the plain
and manifest duty of every citizen who intended to "be
somebody."

Now Bob realized perfectly well that here he was more
fortunate than most. A great many of his friends had to
begin on small salaries in indoor positions of humdrum and
mechanical duty. He had started on a congenial out-of-
door occupation of great interest and picturesqueness, one
suited to his abilities and promising a great future. Never-
theless, he had now been in the business five years. He was
beginning to see through and around it. As yet he had not
lost one iota of his enthusiasm for the game; but here and
there, once in a while, some of the necessary delays and slow,
long repetitions of entirely mechanical processes left him

THE RULES OF THE GAME 295

leisure to feel irked, to look above him, beyond the affairs
that surrounded him. At such times the old blank, doped
feeling fell across his mind. It had always been so defin-
ite a symptom in his childhood of that state wherein he
simply could not drag himself to blow up the embers of his
extinguished enthusiasm, that he recoiled from himself in
alarm. He felt his whole stability of character on trial. If
be could not "make good" here, what excuse could there
be for him; what was there left for him save the profitless
and honourless life of the dilettante and idler? He had
caught on to a big business remarkably well, and it was
worse than childish to lose his interest in the game even for
the fraction of a second. Of course, it amounted to nothing
but that. He never did his work better than that spring.
A week after the burial of the Pollock baby, Mrs. Pollock
was reported seriously ill. Bob rode up a number of times
to inquire, and kept himself fully informed. The doctor
came twice from White Oaks, but then ceased his visits.
Bob did not know that such visits cost fifty dollars apiece.
Mary, Jim's wife, shared the care of the sick woman with
George. She was reported very weak, but getting on. The
baby's death, together with the other anxieties of the last
two years, had naturally pulled her down.

BEFORE the gray dawn one Sunday morning Bob,
happening to awaken, heard a strange, rumbling,
distant sound to the west. His first thought was
that the power dam had been opened and was discharging
its waters, but as his senses came to him, he realized that
this could not be so. He stretched himself idly. A mock-
ing bird uttered a phrase outside. No dregs of drowsiness
remained in him, so he dressed and walked out into the
freshness of the new morning. Here the rumbling sound,
which he had concluded had been an effect of his half-con-
scious imagination, came clearer to his ears. He listened
for a moment, then walked rapidly to the Lone Pine Hill
from whose slight elevation he could see abroad over the
low mountains to the west. The gray light before sunrise
was now strengthening every moment. By the time Bob
had reached the summit of the knoll it had illuminated the
world.

A wandering suction of air toward the higher peaks brought
with it the murmur of a multitude. Bob topped the hill
and turned his eyes to the west. A great cloud of dust
arose from among the chaparral and oaks, drifting slowly
but certainly toward the Ranges. Bob could now make
out the bawling, shouting, lowing of great herds on the
march. In spite of pledges and promises, in spite of Cali-
fornia John's reports, of Thome's recommendations, of
Plant's assurances, Simeon Wright's cattle were again com-
ing in!

Bob shook his head sadly, and his clear-cut young face
was grave. No one knew better than himself what this

296

THE RULES OF THE GAME 297

must mean to the mountain people, for his late spring and
early fall work had brought him much in contact with them.
He walked thoughtfully down the hill.

When just on the outskirts of the little village he was
overtaken by George Pollock on horseback. The mount-
aineer was jogging along at a foot pace, his spurs jingling,
his bridle hand high after the Western fashion. When he
saw Bob he reined in, nodding a good morning. Bob
noticed that he had strapped on a blanket and slicker, and
wore his six-shooter.

"You look as though you were going on a journey,"
remarked Bob.

" Thinking of it," said Pollock. Bob glanced up quickly
at the tone of his voice, which somehow grated unusually on
the young man's ear, but the mountaineer's face was placid
under the brim of his floppy old hat. "Might as well,"
continued the cattleman after a moment. "No thin' special
to keep me."

" I'm glad Mrs. Pollock is better," ventured Bob.

"She's dead," stated Pollock without emotion. "Died
this morning about two o'clock."

Bob cried out at the utterly unexpected shock of this
statement. Pollock looked down on him as though from
a great height.

"I sort of expected it," he answered Bob's exclamation.
"I reckon we won't talk of it. 'Spose you see that Wright's
cattle is coming in again? I'm sorry on account of Jim
and the other boys. It wipes me out, of course, but it don't
matter as far as I'm concerned, because I'm going away,
anyway."

Bob laid his hand on the man's stirrup leather and walked
alongside, thinking rapidly. He did not know how to take
hold of the situation.

"Where are you thinking of going?" he asked.

Pollock looked down at him.

" What's that to you?" he demanded roughly.

298 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Why nothing I was simply interested," gasped
Bob in astonishment.

The mountaineer's eyes bored him through and through.
Finally the man dropped his gaze.

"I'll tell you," said he at last, "'cause you and Jim are
the only square ones I know. I'm going to Mexico. I
never been there. I'm going by Vermilion Valley, and
Mono Pass. If they ask you, you can tell 'em different.
I want you to do something for me."

"Gladly," said Bob. "What is it?"

"Just hold my horse for me," requested Pollock, dis-
mounting. "He stands fine tied to the ground, but there's
a few things he's plumb afraid of, and I don't want to take
chances on his getting away. He goes plumb off the grade
for freight teams; he can't stand the crack of their whips.
Sounds like a gun to him, I reckon. He won't stand for
shooting neither."

While talking the mountaineer handed the end of his
hair rope into Bob's keeping.

"Hang on to him," he said, turning away.

George Pollock sauntered easily down the street. At
Supervisor Plant's front gate, he turned and passed with-
in. Bob saw him walk rapidly up the front walk, and pound
on Plant's bedroom door. This, as usual in the mountains,
opened directly out on the verandah. With an exclamation
Bob sprang forward, dropping the hair rope. He was in
time to see the bedroom door snatched open from within,
and Plant's huge figure, white-robed, appear in the door-
way. The Supervisor was evidently angry.

"What in hell do you want?" he demanded.

"You," said the mountaineer.

He dropped his hand quite deliberately to his holster,
flipped the forty-five out to the level of his hip, and fired
twice, without looking at the weapon. Plant's expression
changed; turned blank. For an appreciable instant he
tottered upright, then his knees gave out beneath him and

THE RULES OF THE GAME 299

he fell forward with a crash. George Pollock leaned over
him. Apparently satisfied after a moment's inspection, the
mountaineer straightened, dropped his weapon into the
holster, and turned away.

All this took place in so short a space of time that Bob
had not moved five feet from the moment he guessed Pol-
lock's intention to the end of the tragedy. As the first shot
rang out, Bob turned and seized again the hair rope attached
to Pollock's horse. His habit of rapid decision and cool
judgment showed him in a flash that he was too late to inter-
fere, and revealed to him what he must do.

Pollock, looking neither to the right nor the left, took
the rope Bob handed him and swung into the saddle. His
calm h; d. fallen from him. His eyes burned and his face
worked. With a muffled cry of pain he struck spurs to his
horse and disappeared.

Considerably shaken, Bob stood still, considering what
he must do. It was manifestly his duty to raise the alarm.
If he did so, however, he would have to bear witness to what
he knew; and this, for George Pollock's sake, he desired
to avoid. He was the only one who could know positively
and directly and immediately how Plant had died. -The
sound of the shots had not aroused the village. If they had
been heard, no one would have paid any attention to them;
the discharge of firearms was too common an occurrence
to attract special notice. It was better to let the discovery
come in the natural course of events.

However, Bob was neither a coward nor a fool. He
wanted to save George Pollock if he could, but he had no
intention of abandoning another plain duty in the matter.
Without the slightest hesitation he opened Plant's gate and
walked to the verandah where the huge, unlovely hulk hud-
dled in the doorway. There, with some loathing, he
determined the fact that the man was indeed dead.
Convinced as to this point, he returned to the street, and
looked carefully up and down it. It was still quite deserted.

300 THE RULES OF THE GAME

His mind in a whirl of horror, pity, and an unconfessed,
hidden satisfaction, he returned to Auntie Belle's. The
customary daylight breakfast for the teamsters had been
omitted on account of the Sabbath. A thin curl of smoke
was just beginning to rise straight up from the kitchen stove-
pipe. Bob, his mouth suddenly dry and sticky, went around
to the back porch, where a huge olla hung always full of
spring water. He rounded the corner to run plump against
Oldham, tilted back in a chair smoking the butt of a cigar.

In his agitation of mind, Bob had no stomach for casual
conversation. By an effort he smoothed out his manner
and collected his thoughts.

"How are you, Mr. Oldham?" he greeted the older man;
"when did you get in?"

"About an hour ago," replied Oldham. His spare figure
in the gray business suit did not stir from its lazy posture,
nor did the expression of his thin sardonic face change,
but somehow, after swallowing his drink, Bob decided to
revise his first intention of escaping to his room.

"An hour ago," he repeated, when the import of the words
finally filtered through his mental turmoil. "You travelled
up at night then?"

"Yes. It's getting hot on the plains."

"Got in just before daylight, then?"

"Just before. I'd have made it sooner, but I had to
work my way through the cattle."

"Where's your team?"

"I left it down at the Company's stables; thought you
wouldn't mind."

"Sure not," said Bob.

The Company's stables were at the other end of the vil-
lage. Oldham must have walked the length of the street.
He had said it was before daylight; but the look of the man's
eyes was quizzical and cold behind the glasses. Still, it
was always quizzical and cold. Bob called himself a pan-
icky fool. Just the same, he wished now he had looked

THE RULES OF THE GAME 301

for footprints in the dust of the street. While his brain
was thus busy with swift conjecture and the weighing of
probabilities, his tongue was making random conversation,
and his vacant eye was taking in and reporting to his intel-
ligence the most trivial things. Generally speaking, his
intelligence did not catch the significance of what his eyes
reported until after an appreciable interval. Thus he noted
that Oldham had smoked his cigar down to a short butt.
This unimportant fact meant nothing, until his belated
mind told him that never before had he seen the man actu-
ally smoking. Oldham always held a cigar between his
lips, but he contented himself with merely chewing it or
rolling it about. And this was very early, before breakfast.

" Never saw you smoke before," he remarked abruptly,
as this bubble of irrelevant thought came to the surface.

"No?" said Oldham, politely.

" It would make me woozy all day to smoke before I ate,"
said Bob, his voice trailing away, as his inner ear once more
took up its listening for the hubbub that must soon break.

As the moments went by, the suspense of this waiting
became almost unbearable. A small portion of him kept
up its semblance of conversation with Oldham; another
small portion of him made minute and careful notes of triv-
ial things; all the rest of him, body and soul, was listening,
in the hope that soon, very soon, a scream would break the
suspense. From time to time he felt that Oldham was
looking at him queerly, and he rallied his faculties to the
task of seeming natural.

" Aren't you feeling well?" asked the older man at last.
"You're mighty pale. You want to watch out where you
drink water around some of these places."

Bob came to with a snap.

"Didn't sleep well," said he, once more himself.

"Well, that wouldn't trouble me," yawned Oldham; "if
it hadn't been for cigars I'd have dropped asleep in this
chair an hour ago. You said you couldn't smoke before

302 THE RULES OF THE GAME

breakfast; neither can I ordinarily. This isn't before break-
fast for me, it's after supper; and I've smoked two just to
keep awake."

"Why keep awake?" asked Bob.

"When I pass away, it'll be for all day. I want to eat
first."

There, at last, it had come! A man down the street
shouted. There followed a pounding at doors, and then
the murmur of exclamations, questions and replies.

"It sounds like some excitement," yawned Oldham,
bringing his chair down with a thump. " They haven't even
rung the first bell yet; let's wander out and stretch our legs."

He sauntered off the wide back porch toward the front
of the house. Bob followed. When near the gate Bob's
mind grasped the significance of one of the trivial details
that his eyes had reported to it some moments before. He
uttered an exclamation, and returned hurriedly to the back
porch to verify his impressions. They had been correct.
Oldham had stated definitely that he had arrived before
daylight, that he had been sitting in his chair for over an
hour; that during that time he had smoked two cigars through.

Neither on the broad porch, nor on the ground near it, nor
in any possible receptacle were there any cigar ashes f

XXI

THE hue and cry rose and died; the sheriff from the
plains did his duty; but no trace of the murderer
was found. Indeed, at the first it was not known
positively who had done the deed; a dozen might have had
motive for the act. Only by the process of elimination was
the truth come at. No one could say which way the fugi-
tive had gone. Jim Pollock, under pressure, admitted that
his brother had stormed against the door, had told the awak-
ened inmates that his wife was dead and that he was
going away. Immediately on making this statement, he
had clattered off. Jim steadfastly maintained that his
brother had given no inkling of whither he fled. Simeon
Wright's cattle, on their way to the high country, filed
past. The cowboys listened to the news with interest,
and a delight which they did not attempt to conceal.
They denied having seen the fugitive. The sheriff
questioned them perfunctorily. He knew the breed. George
Pollock might have breakfasted with them for all that the
denials assured him.

There appeared shortly on the scene of action a United
States marshal. The murder of a government official was
serious. Against the criminal the power of the nation was
deployed. Nevertheless, in the long run, George Pollock
got clean away. Nobody saw him from that day or
nobody would acknowledge to have seen him.

For awhile Bob expected at any moment to be summoned
for his testimony. He was morally certain that Oldham
had been an eye-witness to the tragedy. But as time went
on, and no faintest indication manifested itself that he could

303

304 THE RULES OF THE GAME

have been connected with the matter, he concluded himself
mistaken. Oldham could have had no motive in conceal-
ment, save that of the same sympathy Bob had felt for
Pollock. But in that case, what more natural than that
he should mention the matter privately to Bob ? If, on the
other hand, he had any desire to further the ends of the law,
what should prevent him from speaking out publicly? In
neither case was silence compatible with knowledge.

But Bob knew positively the man had lied, when he
stated that he had for over an hour been sitting in the chair
on Auntie Belle's back porch. Why had he done so ? Where
had he been ? Bob could not hazard even the wildest guess.
Oldham' s status with Baker was mysterious; his occasional
business in these parts it might well be that Oldham
thought he had something to conceal from Bob. In that
case, where had the elder man been, and what was he about
during that fatal hour that Sunday morning? Bob was
not conversant with the affairs of the Power Company, but
he knew vaguely that Baker was always shrewdly reaching
out for new rights and privileges, for fresh opportunities
which the other fellow had not yet seen and which he had
no desire that the other fellow should see until too late.
It might be that Oldham was on some such errand. In the
rush of beginning the season's work, the question gradually
faded from Bob's thoughts.

Forest Reserve matters locally went into the hands of a
receiver. That is to say, the work of supervision fell to
Plant's head-ranger, while Plant's office was overhauled
and straightened out by a clerk sent on from Washington.
Forest Reserve matters nationally, however, were on a dif-
ferent footing. The numerous members of Congress who
desired to leave things as they were, the still more numerous
officials of the interested departments, the swarming petty poli-
iticians dealing direct with small patronage all these power-
ful interests were unable satisfactorily to answer one com-
mon-sense question; why is the management of our Forest

THE RULES OF THE GAME 305

Reserves left to a Land Office already busy, already doubted,
when we have organized and equipped a Bureau of Forestry
consisting of trained, enthusiastic and honest men ? Reluct-
antly the transfer was made. The forestry men picked
up the tangle that incompetent, perfunctory and often venal
management had dropped.

XXII

TO MOST who heard of it this item of news was inter-
esting, but not especially important; Bob could
not see where it made much difference who held
the reins three thousand miles away. To others it came as
the unhoped-for, dreamed-of culmination of aspiration.

California John got the news from Martin. The old
man had come in from a long trip.

"You got to take a brace now and be scientific," chaffed
Martin. "You old mossback! Don't you dare fall any
more trees without measuring out the centre of gravity;
and don't you split any more wood unless you calculate first
the probable direction of riving; and don't you let any
doodle-bug get away without looking at his teeth/*'

California John grinned slowly, but his eyes were shining.

"And what's more, you old grafters' 11 get bounced, sure
pop," continued Martin. "They won't want you. You
don't wear spectacles, and you eat too many proteids in your
beans."

"You ain't heard who's going to be sent out for Super-
visor?" asked old John.

"They haven't found any one with thick enough glasses
yet," retorted Martin,

California John made some purchases, packed his mule,
and climbed back up the mountain to the summer camp.
Here he threw off his saddle and supplies, and entered the
ranger cabin. A rusty stove was very hot. Atop bubbled
a capacious kettle. California John removed the cover and
peered in.

"Chicken V dumpling!" said he.

306

THE RULES OF THE GAME 307

He drew a broken-backed chair to the table and set to
business. In ten minutes his plate contained nothing but
chicken bones. He contemplated them with satisfaction.

"I reckon that'll even up for that bacon performance,"
he remarked in reference to some past joke on himself.

At dusk three men threw open the outside door and entered.
They found California John smoking his pipe contempla-
tively before a clean table.

"Now, you bowlegged old sidewinder," said Ross Fletcher,
striding to the door, "we'll show you something you don't
get up where you come from."

"What is it?" asked California John with a mild curiosity.

"Chicken," replied Fletcher.

He peered into the kettle. Then he lit a match and
peered again. He reached for a long iron spoon with which
he fished up, one after another, several dumplings. Finally
he swore softly.

"What's the matter, Ross?" inquired California John.

"You know what's the matter," retorted Ross shaking
the spoon.

California John arose and looked down into the kettle.

"Thought you said you had chicken," he observed; "looks
to me like dumplin' soup."

" I did have chicken," replied the man. " Oh, you Miles!
Bob! come here. This old wreck has gone and stole all
our chicken."

The boys popped in from the next room.

"I never," expostulated California John, his eyes twink-
ling. "I never stole nothin'. I just came in and found a
poor old hen bogged down in a mess of dough, so I rescued
her."

The other man said nothing for some time, but surveyed
California John from head to toe and from toe to head again.

" Square," said he at last.

"Square," replied California John with equal gravity.
They shook hands.

308 THE RULES OF THE GAME

While the newcomers ate supper, California John read
laboriously his accumulated mail. After spelling through
one document he uttered a hearty oath.

" What is it ? " asked Ross, suspending operations.

" They've put me in as Supervisor to succeed Plant,"
replied California John, handing over the official document.
"I ain't no supervisor."

"I'd like to know why not," spoke up Miles indignantly.
"You know these mountains better'n any man ever set foot
in J em."

"I ain't got no education," replied California John.

"Damn good thing," growled Ross.

California John smoked with troubled brow.

"What's the matter with you, anyhow?" demanded
Ross impatiently, after a while; "ain't you satisfied?"

"Oh, I'm satisfied well enough, but I kind of hate to
leave the service; I like her."

"Quit!" cried Ross.

"No," denied California John, "but I'll get fired. First
thing," he explained, "I'm going after Simeon Wright's
grazing permits. He ain't no right in the mountains, and
the ranges are overstocked. He can't trail in ten thousand
head while I'm supposed to be boss, so it looks as though
I wasn't going to be boss long after Simeon Wright comes
in."

"Oh, go slow," pleaded Ross; "take things a little easy
at first, and then when you get going you can tackle the big
things."

" I ain't going to enforce any regulations they don't give
me," stated California John, "and I'm going to try to
enforce all they do. That's what I'm here for."

"That means war with Wright," said Ross.

"Then war it is," agreed California John comfortably.

"You won't last ten minutes against Wright."

"Reckon not," agreed old John, "reckon not; but I'll
iast long enough to make him take notice."

XXIII

BY end of summer California John was fairly on his
road. He entered office at a time when the local
public sentiment was almost unanimously against
the system of Forest Reserves. The first thing he did was
to discharge eight of the Plant rangers. These fell back
on their rights, and California John, to his surprise, found
that he could not thus control his own men. He wagged
his head in his first discouragement. It was necessary to
recommend to Washington that these men be removed;
and California John knew well by experience what happened
to such recommendations. Nevertheless he sat him down
to his typewriter, and with one rigid forefinger, pecked out
such a request. Having thus accomplished his duty in the
matter, but without hope of results, he went about other
things. Promptly within two weeks came the necessary
authority. The eight ornamentals were removed.

Somewhat encouraged, California John next undertook
the sheep problem. That, under Plant, had been in the
nature of a protected industry. California John and his
delighted rangers plunged neck deep into a sheep war.
They found themselves with a man's job on their hands.
The sheepmen, by long immunity, had come to know the
higher mountains intimately, and could hide themselves
from any but the most conscientious search. When dis-
covered, they submitted peacefully to being removed from
the Reserve. At the boundaries the rangers' power ceased.
The sheepmen simply waited outside the line. It was mani-
festly impossible to watch each separate flock all the time.
As soon as surveillance was relaxed, over the line they slipped,

309

3io THE RULES OF THE GAME

again to fatten on prohibited feed until again discovered,
and again removed. The rangers had no power of arrest;
they could use only necessary force in ejecting the trespas-
sers. It was possible to sue in the United States courts,
but the process was slow and unsatisfactory, and the dam-
ages awarded the Government amounted to so little that
the sheepmen cheerfully paid them as a sort of grazing tax.
The point was, that they got the feed either free or at a
nominal cost and the rangers were powerless to stop them.

Over this problem California John puzzled a long time.

"We ain't doing any good playing hide and coop," he
told Ross; "it's just using up our time. We got to get at
it different. I wish those regulations was worded just the
least mite different!"

He produced the worn Blue Book and his own instruc-
tions and thumbed them over for the hundredth time.

"' Employ only necessary force,'" he muttered; "'remove
them beyond the confines of the reserve.'" He bit sav-
agely at his pipe. Suddenly his tension relaxed and his
wonted shrewdly humorous expression returned to his
brown and lean old face. "Ross," said he, "this is going
to be plumb amusing. Do you guess we-all can track up
with any sheep?"

" Jim Hutchins's herders must have sneaked back over
by Iron Mountain," suggested Fletcher.

"Jim Hutchins," mused California John; "where is he
now? Know?"

"I heard tell he was at Stockton."

"Well, that's all right then. If Jim was around, he
might start a shootin' row, and we don't want any of that."

"Well, I don't know as I'm afraid of Jim Hutchins,"
said Ross Fletcher.

"Neither am I, sonny," replied California John; "but
this is a grand-stand play, and we got to bring her off with-
out complications. You get the boys organized. We start
to-morrow."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 311

"What you got up your sleeve?" asked Ross.

"Never you mind."

"Who's going to have charge of the office?"

"Nobody," stated California John positively; "we tackle
one thing to a time."

Next day the six rangers under command of their super-
visor disappeared in the wilderness. When they reached
the trackless country of the granite and snow and the lost
short-hair meadows, they began scouting. Sign of sheep
they found in plenty, but no sheep. Signal smokes over
distant ranges rose straight up, and died; but never could
they discover where the fire had been burned. Sheepmen
of the old type are the best of mountaineers, and their skill
has been so often tested that they are as full of tricks as so
many foxes. The fires they burned left no ash. The
smokes they sent up warned all for two hundred miles.

Nevertheless, by the end of three days young Tom Car-
roll and Charley Morton trailed down a band of three thou-
sand head. They came upon the flock grazing peacefully
over blind hillsides in the torment of splintered granite. The
herders grinned, as the rangers came in sight. They had
been "tagged" in this "game of hide and coop." As a
matter of course they began to pack their camp on the two
burros that grazed among the sheep; they ordered the dogs
to round up the flock. For two weeks they had grazed
unmolested, and they were perfectly satisfied to pay the
inconvenience of a day's journey over to the Inyo line.

"'llo boys," said their leader, flashing his teeth at them.
"'Wan start now?"

"These Jim Hutchins's sheep?" inquired Carroll.

But at that question the Frenchman suddenly lost all his
command of the English language.

"They're Hutchins's all right," said Charley, who had
ridden out to look at the brand painted black on the animals'
flanks. "No go to-night," he told the attentive herder,
u Camp here."

312 THE RULES OF THE GAME

He threw off his saddle. Tom Carroll rode away to find
California John.

The two together, with Ross Fletcher, whom they had
stumbled upon accidentally, returned late the following
afternoon. By sunrise next morning the flocks were under
way for Inyo. The sheep strung out by the dogs went for-
ward steadily like something molten; the sheepherders
plodded along staff in hand; the rangers brought up the
rear, riding. Thus they went for the marching portions
of two days. Then at noon they topped the main crest at
the broad Pass, and the sheer descents on the Inyo side
lay before them. From beneath them flowed the plains
of Owen's Valley, so far down that the white roads showed
like gossamer threads, the ranches like tiny squares of green.
Eight thousand feet almost straight down the precipice
fell away. Across the valley rose the White Mountains
and the Panamints, and beyond them dimly could be guessed
Death Valley and the sombre Funeral Ranges. To the
north was a lake with islands swimming in it, and above
it empty craters looking from above like photographs of
the topography of the moon; and beyond it tier after tier,
as far as the eye could reach, the blue mountains of Nevada.
A narrow gorge, standing fairly on end, led down from the
Pass. Without hesitation, like a sluggishly moving, viscid
brown fluid, the sheep flowed over the edge. The dogs,
their flanking duties relieved by the walls of dark basalt on
either hand, fell to the rear with their masters. The
mountain-bred horses dropped calmly down the rough
and precipitous trail.

At the end of an hour the basalt gorge opened out to a
wide steep slope of talus on which grew in clumps the first
sage brush of the desert. Here California John called a
halt. The line of the Reserve, unmarked as yet save by
landmarks and rare rough "monuments" of loose stones
lay but just beyond.

"This is as far as we go," he told the chief herder.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 313

The Frenchman flashed his teeth, and bowed with some
courtesy. "Au revoi'," said he.

"Hold on," repeated California John, "I said this is as
far as we go. That means you, too; and your men."

"But th' ship!" cried the chief herder.

" My rangers will put them off the Reserve, according to
regulation," stated California John.

The Frenchman stared at him.

"Wat you do? " he gasped at last. "Where we go?"

"I'm going to put you off the Reserve, too, but on the west
side," said California John. The old man's figure straight-
ened in his saddle, and his hand dropped to the worn and
shiny butt of his weapon: "No; none of that! Take your
hand off your gun! I got the right to use necessary force;
and, by God, I'll do it!"

The herder began a voluble discourse of mingled pro-
testations and exposition. California John cut him short

"I know my instructions as well as you do," said he.
"They tell me to put sheep and herders off the Reserve
without using unnecessary force; but there ain't nothing
said about putting them off in the same place!"

Ross Fletcher rocked with joy in his saddle.

"So that's what you had up your sleeve!" he fairly
shouted. "Why, it's as simple as a b'ar trap!"

California John pointed his gnarled forefinger at the herder.

"Call your dogs!" he commanded sharply. "Call them
in, and tie them! The first dog loose in camp will be shot.
If you care for your dogs, tie them up. Now drop your
gun on the ground. Tom, you take their shootin' -irons."
He produced from his saddle bags several new pairs of hand-
cuffs, which he surveyed with satisfaction. "This is busi-
ness," said he; "I bought these on my own hook. You bet I
don't mean to have to shoot any of you fellows in the back;
and I ain't going to sit up nights either. Snap 'em on,
Charley. Now, Ross, you and Tom run those sheep over
the line, and then follow us up."

3 14 THE RULES OF THE GAME

As the full meaning of the situation broke on the French-
man's mind, he went frantic. By the time he and his herders
should be released, the whole eighty-mile width of the Sier-
ras would lie between him and his flocks. He would have
to await his chance to slip by the rangers. In the three
weeks or more that must elapse before he could get back,
the flocks would inevitably be about destroyed. For it is
a striking fact, and one on which California John had built
his plan, that sheep left to their own devices soon perish.
They scatter. The coyotes, bears and cougars gather to
the feast. It would be most probable that the sheep-hating
cattlemen of Inyo would enjoy mutton chops.

California John collected his scattered forces, delegated
TWO men to eject the captives; and went after more sheep.
He separated thus three flocks from their herders. After
that the sheep question was settled; government feed was
too expensive.

" That's off'n our minds," said he. "Now we'll tackle
the next job."

He went at it in his slow, painstaking way, and accom-
plished it. Never, if he could help it, did he depend on the
mails when the case was within riding distance. He pre-
ferred to argue the matter out, face to face.

"The Government prejers friends," he told everybody,
and then took his stand, in all good feeling, according as the
other man proved reasonable. Some of the regulations
were galling to the mountain traditions. He did not attempt
to explain or defend them, but simply stated their pro-
visions.

"Now, I'm swore in to see that these are carried out,"
said he, "always, and if you ain't going to toe the mark,
why, you see, it puts me in one hell of a hole, don't it? I
ain't liking to be put in the position of fighting all my old
neighbours, and I sure can't lie down on my job. It don't
really mean much to you, now does it ; Link? and it helps
me out a lot."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 315

"Well, I know you're square, John, and I'll do it," said
the mountaineer reluctantly, "but I wouldn't do it for any
other blank of a blank in creation!"

Thus California John was able, by personality, to reduce
much friction and settle many disputes. He could be uncom-
promising enough on occasion.

Thus Win Spencer and Tom Hoyt had a violent quarrel
over cattle allotments which they brought to California John
for settlement. Each told a different story, so the evidence
pointed clearly to neither party. California John listened
in silence.

"I won't take sides," said he; "settle it for yourselves.
Pd just as soon make enemies of both oj you as o) one."

Then in the middle of summer came the trial of it all.
The Service sent notice that, beginning the following season,
a grazing tax would be charged, and it requested the
Supervisor to send in his estimate of grazing allotments.
California John sat him down at his typewriter and made
out the required list. Simeon Wright's name did not appear
therein. In due time somebody wanted, officially, to know
why not. California John told them, clearly, giving the
reasons that the range was overstocked, and quoting the
regulations as to preference being given to the small owner
dwelling in or near the Forests. He did this just as a good
carpenter might finish the under side of a drain; not that
it would do any good, but for his own satisfaction.

"We will now listen to the roar of the lion," he told Ross
Fletcher, "after which I'll hand over my scalp to save 'em
the trouble of sharpening up their knives."

As a matter of fact the lion did roar, but no faintest echo
reached the Sierras. Fr the first time Simeon Wright and
the influence Simeon Wright could bring to bear failed of
their accustomed effect at Washington. An honest, fear-
less, and single-minded Chief, backed by an enthusiastic
Service, saw justice rather than expediency. California John
received back his recommendation marked "Approved."

316 THE RULES OF THE GAME

The old man tore open the long official envelope, when
he received it from Martin's hand, and carried it to the
light, where he adjusted precisely his bowed spectacles,
and, hi his slow, methodical way, proceeded to investigate
the contents. As he caught sight of the word and its ini-
tials his hand involuntarily closed to crush the papers, and
his gaunt form straightened. In his mild blue eye sprang
fire. He turned to Martin, his voice vibrant with an emo-
tion carefully suppressed through the nine long years of his
faithful service.

"They've turned down Wright," said he, "and they've
give us an appropriation. They've turned down old Wright!
By God, we've got a man!"

He strode from the store, his head high. As he went up
the street a canvas sign over the empty storehouse attracted
his attention. He pulled his bleached moustache a moment;
then removed his floppy old hat, and entered.

An old-fashioned exhorting evangelist was holding forth
to three listless and inattentive sinners. A tired-looking
woman sat at a miniature portable organ. At the close of
the services California John wandered forward.

"I'm plumb busted," said he frankly, "and that's the
reason I couldn't chip in. I couldn't buy fleas for a dawg.
I'm afraid you didn't win much."

The preacher looked gloomily at a nickle and a ten-cent
piece.

"Dependin' on this sort of thing to get along?" asked
California John.

"Yes," said the preacher. The woman looked out of
the window.

California John said no more, but went out of the build-
ing and down the street to Austin's saloon.

"Howdy, boys," he greeted the loungers and card players.
"Saw off a minute. There's goin' to be a gospel meetin'
right here a half-hour from now. I'm goin' to hold it
and I'm goin* out now to rustle a congregation. At the

THE RULES OF THE GAME 317

close we'll take up a collection for the benefit of the
church."

At the end of the period mentioned he placed himself
behind the bar and faced a roomful of grinning men.

"This is serious, boys. Take off your hat, Bud. Wipe
them snickers offn your face. We're all sinners; and I
reckon now's as good a time as any to realize the fact. I
don ? t know much about the Bible; but I do recall enough
to hold divine services for once, and I intend to have 'em
respected."

For fifteen minutes California John conducted his ser-
vices according to his notion. Then he stated briefly his
cause and took up his collection.

"Nine-forty-five," said he thoughtfully, looking at the
silver. He carefully extracted two nickels, and dumped
the rest in his pocket. "I reckon I've earned a drink out
of this," he stated; "any objections?"

There were none; so California John bought his drink
and departed.

"That's all right," he told the astonished and grateful
evangelist, "I had to do somethin' to blow off steam, or else
go on a hell of a drunk. And it would have been plumb
ruinous to do that. So you see, it's lucky I met you." The
old man's twinkling and humorous blue eyes gazed quiz-
zically at the uneasy evangelist, divided between gratitude
and his notion that he ought to reprobate this attitude of
mind. Then they softened. California John laid his hand
on the preacher's shoulder. "Don't get discouraged,"
said he; "don't do it. The God of Justice still rules. I've
just had some news that proves it."

XXIV

FROM this moment the old man held his head high,
and went about the work with confidence. He
built trails where trails had long been needed; he
regulated the grazing; he fought fire so successfully that his
burned area dropped that year from two per cent, to one-
half of one per cent. ; he adjusted minor cases of special use
and privilege justly. Constantly he rode his district on the
business of his beloved Forest. His beautiful sorrel, Star,
with his silver-mounted caparisons, was a familiar figure
on all the trails. When a man wanted his first Special
Privilege, he wrote the Supervisor. The affair was quite
apt to bungle. Then California John saw that man per-
sonally. After that there was no more trouble. The
countryside dug up the rest of California John's name, and
conferred on him the dignity of it. John had heard it
scarcely at all for over thirty years. Now he rather liked
the sound of "Supervisor Davidson." In the title and the
simple dignities attaching thereunto he took the same gentle
and innocent pride that he did in Star, and the silver- mounted
bridle and the carved-leatber saddle.

But when evening came, and the end of the month, Super-
visor Davidson always found himself in trouble. Then he
sat down before his typewriter, on which he pecked method-
ically with the rigid forefinger of his right hand. Naturally
slow of thought when confronted by blank paper, the
mechanical limitations put him far behind in his reports and
correspondence. Naturally awkward of phrase when
deprived of his picturesque vernacular, he stumbled among
phrases. The monthly reports were a nightmare to him.

318

THE RULES OF THE GAME 319

When at last they were finished, he breathed a deep sigh,
and went out into his sugar pines and spruces.

In August California John received his first inspector.
At that time the Forest Service, new to the saddle, heir to
the confusion left by the Land Office, knew neither its field
nor its office men as well as it does now. Occasionally it
made mistakes in those it sent out. Brent was one of them.

Brent was of Teutonic extraction, brought up in Brook-
line, educated in the Yale Forestry School, and experienced
in the offices of the Bureau of Forestry before it had had
charge of the nation's estates. He possessed a method-
ical mind, a rather intolerant disposition, thick glasses, a
very cold and precise manner, extreme personal neatness,
and abysmal ignorance of the West. He disapproved of
California John's rather slipshod dress, to start with; his
ingrained reticence shrank from Davidson's informal cor-
diality; his orderly mind recoiled with horror from the
jumble of the Supervisor's accounts and reports. As he
knew nothing whatever of the Sierras, he was quite unable
to appreciate the value of trails, of fenced meadows, of a
countryside of peace those things were so much a matter
of course back East that he hardly noticed them one way
or another. Brent's thoroughness burrowed deep into office
failures. One by one he dragged them to the light and
examined them through his near-sighted glasses. They
were bad enough in all conscience; and Brent was not in
the least malicious in the inferences he drew. Only he had
no conception of judging the Man with the Time and the
Place.

He believed in military smartness, in discipline, in ordered
activities.

"It seems to me you give your rangers a great deal of
freedom and latitude," said he one day.

"Well," said California John, " strikes me that's the only
way. With men like these you got to get their confidence,"

Brent peered at him.

320 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"H'm," said he sarcastically, "do you think you have
done so?"

California John flushed through his tan at the implica-
tion, but he replied nothing.

This studied respect for his superior officer on the Super-
visor's part encouraged Brent to deliver from time to time
rather priggish little homilies on the way to run a Forest.
California John listened, but with a sardonic smile concealed
beneath his sun-bleached moustache. After a little, how-
ever, Brent became more inclined to bring home the personal
application. Then California John grew restive.

"In fact," Brent concluded his incisive remarks one day,
"you run this place entirely too much along your own
lines."

California John leaned forward.

"Is that an official report?" he asked.

"What?" inquired Brent, puzzled.

"That last remark. Because if it ain't you'd better put
it in writing and make it official. Step right in and do it
now!"

Brent looked at him in slight bewilderment.

"I'm willing to hear your talk," went on California John
quietly. "Some of it's good talk, even if it ain't put out in
no very good spirit; and I ain't kicking on criticism that's
what I'm here for, and what you're here for. But I ain't
here for no private remarks. If you've got anything to
kick on, put it down and sign it and send it on. I'll stand
for it, and explain it if I can; or take my medicine if I
can't. But anything you ain't ready and willing to report
on, I don't want to take from you private. Sabe?"

Brent bowed coldly, turned his back and walked away
without a word. California John looked after him.

"Well, that wasn't no act of Solomon," he told himself;
"but, anyway, I feel better."

After Brent's departure it took California John two weeks
to recover his equanimity and self-confidence. Then the

THE RULES OF THE GAME 321

importance of his work gripped him once more. He looked
about him at the grazing, the policing, the fire-fighting,
all the varied business of the reserves. In them all he knew
was no graft, and no favouritism. The trails were being
improved; the cabins built; the meadows for horse-feed
fenced; the bridges built and repaired; the country pa-
trolled by honest and enthusiastic men. He recalled the
old days of Henry Plant's administration under the Land-
Office the graft, the supineness, the inefficiency, the con-
fusion.

"We're savin' the People's property, and keepin' it in
good shape," he argued to himself, "and that's sure the
main point. If we take care of things, we've done the main
job. Let the other fellows do the heavy figgerin'. The
city's full of cheap bookkeepers who can't do nothing else."

XXV

BUT a month later, at the summer camp, California
John had opportunity to greet a visitor whom he
was delighted to see. One morning a very dusty
man leaned from his saddle and unlatched the gate before
headquarters. As he straightened again, he removed his
broad hat and looked up into the cool pine shadows with
an air of great refreshment.

"Why, it's Ashley Thorne!" cried California John, leap-
ing to his feet.

"The same," replied Thorne, reaching out his hand.

He dismounted, and Charley Morton, grinning a wel-
come, led his horse away to the pasture.

"I sure am glad to see you!" said California John over
and over again; "and where did you come from? I thought
you were selling pine lands in Oregon."

Thorne dropped into a chair with a sigh of contentment.
"I was," said he, "and then they made the Transfer, so I
came back."

"You're in the Service again?" cried California John
delighted.

"Couldn't stay out now that things are in proper hands."

"Good! I expect you're down here to haul me over
the coals," California John chuckled.

"Oh, just to look around," said Thorne, biting at his
close-clipped, bristling moustache.

Next morning they began to look around. California
John was overjoyed at this chance to show a sympathetic
and congenial man what he had done.

41 1 got a trail 'way up Baldy now," he confided as they

322

THE RULES OF THE GAME 323

swung aboard. "It's a good trail too; and it makes a great
fire lookout. We'll take a ride up there, if you have trnie
before you go. Well, as I was telling you about that Cook
cattle case the old fellow says

At the end of the Supervisor's long and interested dis-
sertation on the Cook case, Thome laughed gently.

"Looks as if you had him," said he, "and I think the
Chief will sustain you. You like this work, don't you?"

"I sure just naturally love it," replied California John
earnestly. "I've got the chance now to straighten things
out. What I say goes. For upward of nine years I've
been ridin' around seein' how things had ought to be done*
And I couldn't get results nohow. Somebody always had
a graft in it that spoiled the whole show. I could see how
simple and easy it would be to straighten everythin* all out
in good shape; but I couldn't do nothing."

"Hard enough to hold your job," suggested Thome,

"That's it. And everybody in the country thought I
was a damn fool. Only damn fools and lazy men took
rangers' jobs those days. But I hung on because I believed
in it. And now I got the best job in the bunch. In place
of being looked down on as that old fool John, I'm Mr.
Davidson, the Forest Supervisor."

"It's a matter for pride," said Thorne non-committally.

" It isn't that," denied the old man; " I'm not proud because
I'm Supervisor. Lord love you, Henry Plant was Super-
visor; and I never heard tell that any one was proud of him,
not even himself. But I'm proud of being a good super-
visor. They ain't a sorehead near us now. Everybody's
out for the Forest. I've made 'em understand that it's for
them. They know the Service is square. And we ain't
had fires to amount to nothing; nor trespass,"

"You've done good work," said Thorne soberly; "none
better. No one could have done it but you. You have
a right to be proud of it."

"Then you'll be sending in a good report," said Call-

324 THE RULES OF THE GAME

fornia John, solely by way of conversation. "I suspicion
that last fellow gave me an awful roast."

"I'm not an inspector," replied Thorne.

"That so? You used to be before you resigned; so I
thought sure you must be now. What's your job ? "

"I'll tell you when we have more time," said Thorne.

For three days they rode together. The Supervisor was
a very busy man. He had errands of all sorts to accom-
plish. Thorne simply went along. Everywhere he found
good feeling, satisfactory conditions.

At the end of the third day as the two men sat before the
rough stone fireplace at headquarters, Thorne abruptly
broke the long silence.

"John," said he, "I've got a few things to say that are
not going to be pleasant either for you or for me. Never-
theless, I am going to say them. In fact, I asked the Chief
for the privilege rather than having you hear through the
regular channels."

California John had not in the least changed his position,
yet all at once the man seemed to turn still and watchful.

"Fire ahead," said he.

"You asked me the other day what my job is. It is
Supervisor of this district. They have appointed me in
your place."

"Oh, they have," said California John. He sat for some
time, his eyes narrowing, looking straight ahead of him.
'Td like to know why!" he burst out at last. A dull red
spot burned on each side his weather-beaten cheeks.

d-r j>

"You had nothing to do with it," interrupted Cali-
fornia John sharply; "I know that. But who did? Why
did they do it? By God," he brought his fist down sharply,
"I intend to get to the bottom of this! I've been in the
Service since she started. I've served honest. No man
can say I haven't done all my duty and been square. And
that's been when every man- jack of them was getting his

THE RULES OF THE GAME 325

graft as reg'lar as his pay check. And since I've been Super-
visor is the only time tftis Forest has ever been in any kind
of shape, if I do say it myself. I've rounded her up. I've
stopped the graft. I've fixed the 'soldiers.' I've got
things in shape. They can't remove me without cause
I know that and if they think I'm goin' to lie down and
take it without a kick, they've got off the wrong foot good
and plenty!' 7

Thorne sat tight, nor offered a word of comment.

" You've been an inspector," California John appealed
to him. " You've been all over the country among the dif-
ferent reserves. Ain't mine up to the others?"

"Things are in better shape here than in any of them,"
replied Thorne decisively; "your rangers have more esprit
de corps, your neighbours are better disposed, your fires
have a smaller percentage of acreage, your trails are better."

"Well?" demanded California John.

"Well," repeated Thorne leaning forward, "just this.
What's the use of it all?"

"Use?" repeated California John, vaguely.

"Yes. Of what you and all the rest of us are doing."

"To save the public's property."

"That's part of it; and that's the part you've been doing
superlatively well. It's the old idea, that: the idea ex-
pressed by the old name the Forest Reserves to save,
to set aside. It seemed the most important thing. The
forests had so many eager enemies unprincipled land-
grabbers and lumbermen, sheep, fire. To beat these back
required all our best efforts. It was all we could think of.
We hadn't time to think of anything else. It was a full
job."

"You bet it was," commented the old man grimly.

"Well, it's done. There will be attempts to go back to
the old state of affairs, but they will grow feebler from
year to year. Things will never slide back again. The
people are awake."

326 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Think so?" doubted California John.

"I know it. Now comes the new idea. We no longer
speak of Forest Reserves, but of National Forests. We've
saved them; now what are we going to do with them?
What would you think of a man who cleared a 'forty,' and
pulled all the stumps, and then quit work?"

"I never thought of that," said California John, "but
what's that got to do with these confounded whelps "

"We are going to use these forests for the benefit of the
people. We're going to cut the ripe trees and sell them to
the lumber manufacturer; we're going to develc p the water
power; we're going to improve the grazing; Are' re going
to study what we have here, so that by and by from our
forests we will be getting the income the lumberman now
gets, and will not be injuring the estate. Each Forest
is going to be a big and complicated business, like rail-
roading or wholesaling. Anybody can run Martin's store
down at the Flats. It takes a trained man to oversee even
a proposition like the Star at White Oaks."

"Oh, I see what you're drivin' at," said California John,
"but I've made good up to now; and until they try me out,
they've no right to fire me. I'll defy 'em to find anythin'
crooked! ! !"

"John, you're as straight as a string. But they have
tried you out. Your office work has been away off."

" Oh, that! What's those dinkey little reports and tiionkey-
doodle business amount to, anyhow? You know per-
fectly well it's foolish to ask a ranger to fill out an eight-
page blank every time he takes a ride. What does that
amount to?"

"Not very much," confessed Thome. "But when things
begin to hum around here there'll be a thousand times as
much of the same sort of stuff, and it'll all be important."

"They'd better get me a clerk."

"They would get you a clerk, several of them. But no
man has a right to even boss a job he doesn't himself under-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 327

stand. What do you know about timber grading? esti-
mating? mapping? What is your scientific training ?"

"I've give my soul and boot-straps to this Service for
nine years at sixty and ninety a month," interrupted
California John. "Part of that I spent for tools they was
too stingy to give me. Now they kick me out."

" Oh, no, they don't," said Thome. "Not any! But you
agree with me, don't you, that you couldn't hold down the
job?"

"I suppose so," snapped California John. "To hell with
such a game. I think I'll go over Goldfield way."

"No, you won't," said Thome gently. "You'll stay here,
in the Service."

"What!" cried the old man rising to his feet; "stay here
in the Service! And every mountain man to point me out
as that old fool Davidson who got fired after workin' nine
years like a damn ijit. You talk foolish!"

Thorne arose too, and put one hand on the old man's
shoulder.

"And what about those nine years?" he asked gently.
"Things looked pretty dark, didn't they? You didn't have
enough to live on; and you got your salary docked without
any reason or justice; and you had to stand one side while
the other fellows did things dishonest and wrong; and it
didn't look as though it was ever going to get better. Nine
years is a long time. Why did you do it?"

"I don't know," muttered California John.

" It was just waiting for this time that is coming. In five
years we'll have the people with us ; we'll have Congress,
and the money to do things; we'll have sawmills and
water-power, and regulated grazing, and telephone lines r
and comfortable quarters. We'll have a Service safe-
guarded by Civil Service, and a body of disciplined men r
and officers as the Army and Navy have. It's coming;
and it's coming soon You've been nine years at the other
thing "

328 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"It's humiliating," insisted California John, "to do a
job well and get fired."

"You'll still have just the job you have now only
you'll be called a head-ranger."

"My people won't see it that way."

Ashley Thorne hesitated.

" No, they won't," said he frankly at last. " I could argue
on the other side; but they won't. They'll think you've
dropped back a peg; and they'll say to each other at
least some of them will: 'Old Davidson bit off more than
he could chew; and it serves him right for being a damn
fool, anyway.' You've been content to play along mis-
understood for nine years because you had faith. Has
that faith deserted you?"

California John looked down, and his erect shoulders
shrunk forward a little.

"Old friend," said Thorne, "it's a sacrifice. Are you
going to stay and help me?"

California John for a long time studied a crack in the
floor. When he looked up his face was illuminated with
his customary quizzical grin.

"I've sure got it on Ross Fletcher," he drawled. "I done
told him I wasn't no supervisor, and he swore I was."

PART FOUR

WHEN next Bob was able to visit the Upper Camp,
he found Thorne fully established. He rode in
from the direction of Rock Creek, and so through
the pasture and by the back way. In the tiny potato and
garden patch behind the house he came upon a woman
wielding a hoe.

Her back was toward him, and a pink sunbonnet, freshly
starched, concealed all her face. The long, straight lines
of her gown fell about a vigorous and supple figure that
swayed with every stroke of the hoe. Bob stopped and
watched her. There was something refreshing hi the eager-
ness with which she attacked the weeds, as though it were
less a drudgery than a live interest which it was well to meet
joyously. After a moment she walked a few steps to another
row of tiny beans. Her movements had the perfect grace
of muscular control; one melted, flowed, into the other.
Bob's eye of the athlete noted and appreciated this fact.
He wondered to which of the mountain clans this girl
belonged. Vigorous and breezy as were the maidens of the
hills, able to care for themselves, like the paladins of old,
afoot or ahorse, they lacked this grace of movement. He
stepped forward.

"I beg pardon," said he.

The girl turned, resting the heel of her hoe on the earth,
and both hands on the end of its handle. Bob saw a dark,
oval countenance, with very red cheeks, very black eyes and
hair, and an engaging flash of teeth. The eyes looked at
him as frankly as a boy's, and the flash of teeth made him
unaffectedly welcome.

331

332 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Is Mr. Thorne here?" asked Bob.

"Why, no," replied the girl; "but I'm Mr. Thome's sister.
Won't I do?"

She was leisurely laying aside her hoe, and drawing the
fringed buckskin gauntlets from her hands. Bob stepped
gallantly forward to relieve her of the implement.

"Do?" he echoed. "Why, of course you'll do!"

She stopped and looked him full in the face, with an air
of great amusement.

" Did you come to see Mr. Thorne on business ? " she asked.

"No," replied Bob; "just ran over to see him."

She laughed quietly.

"Then I'm afraid I won't do," she said, "for I must cook
dinner. You see," she explained, "I'm Mr. Thome's clerk,
and if it were business, I might attend to it."

Bob flushed to the ears. He was ordinarily a young man
of sufficient self-possession, but this young woman's direct-
ness was disconcerting. She surveyed his embarrassment
with approving eyes.

"You might finish those beans," said she, offering the
hoe. "Of course, you must stay to dinner, and I must go
light the fire."

Bob finished the beans, leaned the hoe up against the
house, and went around to the front. There he stopped in
astonishment.

"Well, you have changed things!" he cried.

The stuffy little shed kitchen was no longer occupied.
A. floor had been laid between the bases of four huge trees,
and walls enclosing three sides to the height of about eight
feet had been erected. The affair had no roof. Inside these
three walls were the stove, the kitchen table, the shelves and
utensils of cooking. Miss Thorne, her sunbonnet laid aside
irom her glossy black braids, moved swiftly and easily here
and there in this charming stage-set of a kitchen. About
ten feet in front of it, on the pine needles, stood the dining
table, set with white.

"I beg pardon," said he. The girl turned

THE RULES OF THE GAME 333

The girl nodded brightly to Bob.

"Finished?" she inquired. She pointed to the water pail:
"There's a useful task for willing hands."

Bob filled the pail, and set it brimming on the section of
cedar log which seemed to be its appointed resting place.

"Thank you," said the girl. Bob leaned against the
tree and watched her as she moved here and there about the
varied business of cooking. Every few minutes she would
stop and look upward through the cool shadows of the trees,
like a bird drinking. At times she burst into snatches of song,
so brief as to be unrecognizable.

"Do you like sticks in your food?" she asked Bob, as
though suddenly remembering his presence, "and pine
needles, and the husks of pine nuts, and other debris ? because
that's what the breezes and treeses and naughty little squir-
rels are always raining down on me."

"Why don't you have the men stretch you a canvas?"
asked Bob.

"Well," said the girl, stopping short, "I have considered
it. I no more than you like unexpected twigs in my dough.
But you see I do like shadows and sunlight and upper air
and breezes in my food. And you can't have one without
the other. Did you get all the weeds out ? ' '

"Yes," said Bob. "Look here; you ought not to have to
do such work as that."

"Do you think it will wear down my fragile strength?"
she asked, looking at him good-humouredly. "Is it too
much exercise for me?"

"No- " hesitated Bob, "but "

" Why, bless you, I like to help the babies to grow big and
green," said she. "One can't have the theatre or bridge up
here; do leave us some of the simple pleasures."

" Why did you want me to finish for you then ? " demanded
Bob shrewdly.

She laughed.

"Young man," said she, "I could give you at least ten

334 THE RULES OF THE GAME

reasons," with which enigmatic remark she whipped her
apron around her hand and whisked open the oven door,
where were displayed rows of beautifully browned biscuits.

"Nevertheless " began Bob.

"Nevertheless," she took him up, raising her face, slightly
flushed by the heat, " all the men-folks are busy, and this one
woman-folk is not harmed a bit by playing at being a farmer
lassie."

" One of the rangers could do it all in a couple of hours."

"The rangers are in the employ of the United States Gov-
ernment, and this garden is mine," she stated evenly. "How
could I take a Government employee to work on my prop-
erty?"

"But surely Mr. Thorne "

"Ashley, bless his dear old heart, takes beans for granted,
as something that happens on well-regulated tables."

She walked to the edge of the kitchen floor and looked up
through the trees. "He ought to be along soon now. I
hope so; my biscuits are just on the brown." She turned to
Bob, her eyes dancing: "Now comes the exciting moment
of the day, the great gamble! Will he come alone, or will
he bring a half-dozen with him ? I am always ready for the
half-dozen, and as a consequence we live in a grand, ingenious
debauch of warmed-ups and next-days. You don't know
what good practice it is; nor what fun! I've often thought
I could teach those cook > of Marc Antony's something
you remember, don't you, they used to keep six dinners
going all at different stages of preparation because they never
knew at what hour His High-and-mightiness might choose to
dine. Or perhaps you don't know ? Football men don't
have to study, do they ? "

"What makes you think I'm a football man?" grinned
Bob; "generally bovine expression?"

"Not know the great Bob Orde!" cried the girl. "Why,
not one of us but had your picture, generally in a nice gilt
shrine, but always with violets before it."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 335

But on this ground Bob was sure.

"You have been reading a ten-cent magazine," he admon-
ished her gravely. "It is unwise to take your knowledge of
the customs in girls' colleges from such sources."

From the depths of the forest eddied a cloud of dust. Miss
Thorne appraised it carefully.

" Warmed-overs to-night," she pronounced. "There's
no more than two of them."

The accuracy of her guess was almost immediately veri-
fied by the appearance of two riders. A moment later Thorne
and California Jonn dismounted at the hitching rail, some
distance removed ?mong the azaleas, and came up afoot.
The younger man Lad dropped all his dry, official precision,
his incisive abruptness, his reticence. Clad in the high,
laced cruisers, the khaki and gray flannel, the broad, felt
hat and gay neckerchief of what might be called the pro-
fessional class of out-of-door man, his face glowing with
health and enthusiasm, he seemed a different individual.

" Hullo! Hullo!" he cried out a joyous greeting as he drew
nearer; "I couldn't bring you much company to-day, Amy.
But I see you've found some. How are you, Orde? I'm
glad to see you."

He and California John disappeared behind the shed,
where the wash basin was; while Amy, with deftness, re-
arranged the taWe to accord with the numbers who would
sit down to it.

The meal in the open was most delightful; especially to
Bob, after his long course of lumber-camp provender. The
deep shadows shifted slowly across the forest floor. Sparkles
of sunlight from unexpected quarters touched gently in turn
each of the diners, or glittered back from glass or linen.
Occasionally a wandering breeze lifted a corner of the table-
cloth and let it fall, or scurried erratically across the table
itself. Occasionally, too, a pine needle, a twig, a leaf would
zigzag down through the air to fall in some one's coffee or
glass or plate. Birds flashed across the open vault of thi?

336 THE RULES OF THE GAME

forest room brilliant birds, like the Louisiana Tanager;
sober little birds like the creepers and nuthatches. Circum-
spect and reserved whitecrowns and brush tohees scratched
and hopped silently over the forest litter. Once a swift fal-
con, glancing like a shadowy death, slanted across the upper
spaces. The food was excellent, and daintily served.

"I am proud of my blue and white enamel-ware," Miss
Thorne told Bob; "it's so much better than tin or this ugly
gray. And that glass pitcher I got with coupons from the
coffee packages."

"You didn't get these with coupons?" said Bob, lifting
one of the massive silver forks.

" No," she admitted. " That is my one foolishness. All the
rest does not matter, but I can't get along without my silver."

"And a great nuisance it is to those who have to move
as we move," put in Ashley Thorne.

The forest officers took up their broken conversation.
Bob found himself a silent but willing listener. He heard
discussion of policies, business dealings, plans that widened
the horizon of what the Forest had meant to him. In these
discussions the girl took an active and intelligent part. Her
opinion seemed to be accepted seriously by both the men,
as one who had knowledge, and indeed, her grasp of details
seemed as comprehensive as that of the men themselves.

Finally Thorne pushed his chair back and began to fill
his pipe.

"Anybody here to-day?" he asked.

The girl ran over rapidly a half-dozen names, sketching
briefly the business they had brought. Then, one after the
other, she told the answers she had made to them. This
one had been given blanks, forms and instructions. That
one had been told clearly that he was in the wrong, and must
amend his ways. The other had been advised but tenta-
tively, and informed that he must see the Supervisor person-
ally. To each of these Thorne responded by a brief nod,
puffing, meanwhile, on his pipe.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 337

"All right?" she asked, when she had finished.

" All right but one," said he, removing his pipe at last. " I
don't think it will be advisable to let Francotti have what
he wants."

"Pull the string, then!" cried the girl gaily.

Thorne turned to California John in discussion of the
Francotti affair.

"What do you mean by 'pull the string'?" Bob took the
occasion to inquire.

"I settle a lot of these little matters that aren't worth
bothering Ashley with," she explained, "but I tie a string to
each of my decisions. I always make them 'subject to the
Supervisor's approval.' Then if I do wrong, all I have to do
is to write the man and tell him the Supervisor does not
approve."

"I shouldn't think you'd like that," said Bob.

"Like what?"

"Why, it sort of puts you in a hole, doesn't it? Lays all
the blame on you."

She laughed in frank amusement.

"What of it?" she challenged.

1 ' Any letters ? ' ' Thorne asked abruptly. ' ' Morton brought
mail this morning, didn't he?"

"Nothing wildly important except that they're thinking
of adopting a ranger uniform."

"A uniform!" snorted California John, rearing his old
head.

"Oh, yes, I've heard of that," put in Thorne instantly.
"It's to be a white pith helmet with a green silk scarf on it;
red coat with gold lace, and white, English riding breeches
with leather leggins. Don't you think old John would
look sweet in that?" he asked Bob.

But the old man refused to be drawn out.

"Supervisors same; but with a gold pompon on top the
helmet," he observed. "What is the dang thing, anyway,
Amy ?" he asked.

338 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Dark green whipcord, green buttons, gray hat, military
cut."

"Not bad," said Thorne.

"About one fifty-mile ride and one fire would make that
outfit look like a bunch of mildewed alfalfa. Blue jeans
is about my sort of uniform," observed John.

"I don't believe we'd be supposed to wear it on range,"
suggested Thorne. "Only in town and official business."
He turned to the girl again: "May have to go over Baldy
to-morrow," said he, "so we'll run off those letters."

She arose and saluted, military fashion. The two dis-
appeared in the tiny box-office, whence presently came the
sound of Thome's voice in dictation.

California John knocked the ashes from his pipe.

" Get your apron on, sonny," said he.

He tested the water on the stove and slammed out a
commodious dish-pan.

"Glasses first; then silver; and if you break anything, I'll
bash in your fool head. There's going to be some style to
this dish-washing. I used to slide 'em all in together and let
her go. But that ain't the way here. She knc \vs four aces
and the jolly joker better than that. Glasses fin.t."

They washed and wiped the dishes, and laid them carefully
away.

" She's a little wonder," said California John, nodding at
the office, "and there ain't none of the boys but helps all
they can."

Thorne called the old man by name, and he disappeared
into the office. A moment later the girl emerged, smoothing
back her hair with both hands. She stepped immediately
to the little kitchen.

" Thank you," said she. " That helps."

"It was old John," disclaimed Bob. "I'm ashamed to
say I should never have thought of it."

The girl nodded carelessly.

"Where did you learn stenography?" asked Bob.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 339

"Oh, I got that out of a ten-cent magazine too." She
sat on a bench, looked up at the sky through the trees, and
drew a deep breath.

"You're tired," said Bob.

" Not a bit," she denied. " But I don't often get a chance
to just look up."

"You seem to do the gardening, the cooking, tht house-
work, the clerical work you don't do the laundry, too,
do you?" demanded Bob ironically.

"You noticed those miserable khakis!" cried Amy with
a gesture of dismay. "Ashley," she called, "change those
khakis before you go out."

"Yes, mama," came back a mock childish voice.

"What's your salary?" demanded Bob bluntly, nodding
toward the office.

"What?" she asked, as tho:igh puzzled.

" Didn't you say you were the clerk ?"

"Oh, I see. I just help Ashley out. He could never
get through the field work and the office work both."

"Doesn't the Service allow him a clerk?"

" Not yet; but it will in time."

"What is Mr. Thome's salary?"

"Well, really "

"Oh, I beg pardon," cried Bob flushing; "I just meant
supervisors' salaries, of course. I wasn't prying, really.
It's all a matter of public record, isn't it?"

"Of course." The girl checked herself. "Well, it's
eighteen hundred and something for expenses."

"Eighteen hundred!" cried Bob. "Do you mean to say
that the two of you give all your time for that} Why, we pay
a good woods foreman pretty near that!"

"And that's all you do pay him," said the girl quietly.
"Money wage isn't the whole pay for any job that is worth
doing."

" Don't understand," said Bob briefly.

"We belong to the Service," she stated with a little move-

340 THE RULES OF THE GAME

ment of pride. "Those tasks in life which give a high
moneyed wage, generally give only that. Part of our com-
pensation is that we belong to the Service; we are doing
something for the whole people, not just for ourselves." She
caught Bob's half -smile, more at her earnestness than at her
sentiment, and took fire. "You needn't laugh 1" she cried.
' It's small now, but that's because it's the beginning, because
we have the privilege of being the forerunners, the pioneers!
The time will come when in this country there will be three
great Services the Army, the Navy, the Forest; and an
officer in the one will be as much respected and looked up to
as the others! Perhaps more! In the long times of peace,
while they are occupied with their eternal Preparation, we
shall be labouring at Accomplishment."

She broke off abruptly.

"If you don't want to get me started, don't be superior,"
she ended, half apologetic, half resentful.

" But I do want to get you started," said Bob.

" It's amusing, I don't doubt."

"Not quite that: it's interesting, and I am no longer bewil-
dered at the eighteen hundred a year that is," he quoted
a popular song, "'if there are any more at home like you.'"

She looked at him humorously despairing.

"That's just like an outsider. There are plenty who
feel as I do, but they don't say so. Look at old California
John, at Ross Fletcher, at a half-dozen others under your
very nose. Have you ever stopped to think why they have
so long been loyal? I don't suppose you have, for I doubt
if they have. But you mark my words!"

"All right, Field Marshal or is it 'General'?" said
Bob.

She laughed.

" Just camp cook," she replied good-humouredly.

The sun was slanting low through the tall, straight trunks
of the trees. Amy Thorne arose, gathered a handful of kind-
ling, and began to rattle the stove.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 341

"I am contemplating a real pudding," she said over her
shoulder.

Bob arose reluctantly.

"I must be getting on," said he.

They said farewell. At the hitching rail Thome joined him.

" I'm afraid I'm not very hospitable," said the Supervisor,
"but that mustn't discourage you from coming often. We'll
be better organized in time."

"It's mighty pleasant over here; I've enjoyed myself,"
said Bob, mounting.

Thorne laid his hand on the young man's knee.

"I wish we could induce you old-timers to come to our
way of thinking," said he pleasantly.

"How's that?" asked Bob.

"Your slash is in horrible shape."

" Our slash ! " repeated Bob in a surprised tone. " How ? "

"It's a regular fire-trap, the way you leave it tangled up.
It wouldn't cost you much to pile the tops and leave the
ground in good shape."

"Why, it's just like any other slash!" protested Bob.
"We're logging just as everybody always logs!"

"That's just what I object to. And when you fall a tree
or pull a log to the skids, I do wish we could induce you to
pay a little attention to the young growth. It's a little more
trouble, sometimes, to go around instead of through, but
it's worth it to the forest."

Bob's brows were bent on the Supervisor in puzzled sur-
prise. Thorne laughed, and slapped the young man's horse
on the flanks to start him.

"You think it over!" he called.

A half-hour's ride took Bob to the clearing where the log-
ging crews had worked the year before. Here, although the
hour was now late, he reined in his horse and looked. It
was the first time he had ever really done so. Heretofore
a slashing had been as much a part of the ordinary woodland
landscape as the forest itself.

342 THE RULES OF THE GAME

He saw then the abattis of splintered old trunks, of lopped
limbs, and entangled branches, piled up like jackstraws to the
height of even six or eight feet from the ground; the unsightly
mat of sodden old masses of pine needles and cedar fans; the
hundreds of young saplings bent double by the weight of de-
bris, broken square off, or twisted out of all chance of becoming
straight trees in their age; the long, deep, ruthless furrows
where the logs had been dragged through everything that
could stand in their way; the few trees left standing, weak
specimens, undesirable species, the culls of the forest, further
scarred where the cruel steel cables had rasped or bitten them.
He knew by experience the difficulty of making a way, even
afoot, through this tangle. Now, under the influence of
Thome's suggestion, he saw them as great piles of so much
fuel, laid as though by purpose for the time when the evil
genius of the forest should desire to warm himself.

BOB was finally late for supper, which he ate hastily and
without much appetite. After finishing the meal,
he hunted up Welton. He found the lumberman
tilted back in a wooden armchair, his feet comfortably eleva-
ted to the low rail about the stove, his pipe in mouth, his coat
off, and his waistcoat unbuttoned. At the sight of his homely,
jolly countenance, Bob experienced a pleasant sensation of
slipping back from an environment slightly off-focus to the nor-
mal, accustomed and real. Nevertheless, at the first opportu-
nity, he tested his new doubts by Welton's common sense.

"I rode through our slash on 18," he remarked. " That's
an awful mess."

" Slashes are," replied Welton succinctly.

" If the thing gets afire it will make a hot blaze."

"Sure thing," agreed Welton. "But we've never had
one go yet at least, while we were working. There's men
enough to corral anything like that."

"But we've always worked in a wet country," Bob pointed
out. "Here it's dry from April till October."

"Have to take chances, then; and jump on a f:vr ~-""ck if it
starts," said Welton philosophically.

"These forest men advise certain methods of obviating the
danger," Bob suggested.

"Pure theory," returned Welton. "The theory's a good
one, too," he added. "That's where these college men are
strong only it isn't practical. They mean well enough,
but they haven't the knowledge. When you look at anything
broad enough, it looks easy. That's what busts so many
people in the lumber business." He rolled out one of his

343

344 THE RULES OF THE GAME

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
die 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 arrester; think how little
it costs; what's fifty dollars to a half-million-dollar business?
The spark arrester'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
costing *~- ->nty 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.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 345

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 lumber-
man 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 stop-
ping 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!"

Ill

ONE 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 mat-
ter, for the fresh-peeled logs and the debris 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 ever 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-

346

THE RULES OF THE GAME 347

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 accoutre-
ments thus spread abroad. He estimated the number of
their owners at about a score. The bedroll of the cowman,
the "turkey" of the lumber jack, 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 fence-
corner 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 impa-
tience! 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.

348 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"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 note-
book, 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 appro-
priately dressed in khakis and high boots, were as evidently
foreign to the hills. Bob guessed them recent college grad-
uates, perhaps even of some one of the forestry schools. In
this he was correct. The rest were professional out-of-door
men. 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 quiz-
zical prospectors attracted his particular attention.

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 announce-
ment of the result in silence.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 349

The two notable exceptions referred to were strangely con-
trasted. The elder was one of the prospectors. He was
armed with an ancient 45-70 Winchester, worn smooth and
shiny by long carrying in a saddle holster. This arm was
fitted with buckhorn sights of the old mountain type. When
it exploded, its black powder blew forth a stunning detona-
tion and volume of smoke. Nevertheless, of the three bullets,
two were within the tiny black Thorne had seen fit to mark
as bullseye, and the other clipped close to its edge. A
murmur of admiration went up from the bystanders. Even
eliminating the unaccountable nervousness that had thrown
so many shots wild, it seemed improbable that any of the other
contestants felt themselves qualified to equal this score.

"Good shooting," whispered Bob to Amy. "I doubt
if I could make out that bullseye through sights."

The other exception, whose turn came somewhat later, was
one of the Easterners mentioned as a graduate of the for-
estry school. This young man, not over twenty-two years of
age, was an attractive youngster, with refined features, and
engaging dark-blue eyes. His arm was the then latest model,
a 33-calibre high power, fitted with aperture sights. This
he manipulated with great care, adjusting it again and again;
and fired with such deliberation that some of the spectators
moved impatiently. Nevertheless, the target, on examina-
tion, showed that he had duplicated the prospector's score.
To be sure, the worst shot had not cut quite as close to the
bull as had that of the older man, but on the other hand,
those in the black were slightly nearer the centre. It was
generally adjudged a good tie.

"Well, youngster!" cried the prospector, heartily, "we're
the cocks of the walk! If you can handle the other weep'n
as well, I'll give you my hand for a good shot."

The young man smiled shyly, but said nothing.

The distance was now shortened to something under
twenty paces, and a new target substituted for the old. The
black in this was fully six inches in diameter.

350 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Five shots with six-shooter," announced Thorne briefly.

"A man should hit a dollar twice in five at that distance,"
muttered the prospector. Thorne caught the remark.

" You hit that five out of five, and I'll forgive you," said he
curtly. "Hicks, you begin."

The contest went forward with varying success. Not over
half of the men were practised with the smaller arm. Some
very wild work was done. On the other hand, eight or ten
performed very creditably, placing their bullets in or near
the black. Indeed, two succeeded in hitting the bullseye
four times out of five. Every man took the utmost pains with
every shot.

"Now, Ware," said Thorne, at last, "step up. You've
got to make good that five out of five to win."

The prospector stood forward, at the same time producing
from an open holster blackened by time one of the long-
barrelled single-action Colt's 45*5, so universally in use on the
frontier. He glarvcod carelessly toward the mark, grinned
back at the crowd, turned, and instantly began firing. He
shot the five shots without appreciable sighting before each,
as fast as his thumb could pull back the long-shanked hammer.
The muzzle of the weapon rose and fell with a regularity posi-
tively mechanical, and the five shots had been delivered
in half that number of seconds.

"There's your five," said he, carelessly dropping his gun
back into its holster.

The five bullets were found to be scattered within the six-
inch black.

The concourse withdrew to give space for the next con-
testant. Silence fell as the man was taking his aim. Amy
touched Bob's arm. He looked down. Her eyes were shin-
ing, and her cheeks red with excitement.

"Doesn't it remind you of anything?" she whispered
eagerly.

"What?" he asked, not guessing her meaning.

"This: all of it!" she waved her hand abroad at the fair

THE RULES OF THE GAME 351

oval meadow with its fringe of tall trees and the blue sky above
it; at the close-gathered knot of spectators, and the single
contestant advanced before them. He shook his head.
"Wait," she breathed, laying her fingers across her lips.

The contest wore along until it again came the turn of the
younger man. He stepped to the front, unbuckled a covered
holster of the sort never carried in the West, and produced
one of those beautifully balanced, beautifully finished revol-
vers known as the Officer's Model. Taking the firm yet
easy position of the practised target shot, he sighted with
great deliberation, firing only when he considered his aim
assured. Indeed, once he lowered his weapon until a puff
of wind had passed. The five shots were found to be not
only within the black, but grouped inside a three-inch diam-
eter.

" ' A Hubert! A Hubert! ' " breathed the girl in Bob's ear.
"In the clout!"

"I thought his name was Elliott," said Bob. "Is it
Hubert?"

The girl eyed him reproachfully, but said nothing.

"You're a good shot, youngster!" cried Ware, in the
heartiest congratulation; "but if Mr. Thorne don't mind,
I'd like to shoot off this tie. Down in our country we don't
shoot quite that way, or at that kind of a mark. Will you
take a try my way ? "

Amy leaned again toward Bob, her face aflame.

"'And now, 1 " she shot at him, "'/ will crave your Grace's
permission to plant such a mark as is used in the north country;

and welcome every brave yeoman who shall try a shot at it '

Don't dare tell me you don't remember!"

" ' A man can but do his best,' " Bob took up the tale. " Of
course, I remember; you're right."

"All right," Thorne was agreeing, "but make it short.
We've got a lot to do."

Ware selected another target one intended for the six-
shooters that had not been used. This he tacked up in

352 THE RULES OF THE GAME

place of the one already disfigured by many shots. Then
he paced off twelve yards.

"That looks easier than the other," Thorne commented.

"Mebbe," agreed Ware, non-committally, "but you may
change your mind. As for that sort of monkey- work," he
indicated the discarded target, "down our way we'd as soon
shoot at a barn."

The girl softly clapped her hands.

"*For his own part,'" she quoted in a breath, and so
rapidly that the words fairly tumbled over one another, "'in
the land where he was bred, men would as soon take for their
mark King Arthur's round table, which held sixty knights
around it. A child of seven might hit yonder target with a
headless shaft. ' Oh, this is perfect."

" Now," said Ware to young Elliott, "if you'll hit that mark
in my fashion of shooting, you're all right."

Bob turned to the girl, his eyes dancing with delight.

"' he that hits yon mark at I-jorget-how-many yards,'"
he declaimed, " '/ will call him an archer fit to bear bow before
a king' or something to that effect; I'm afraid I'm not
letter perfect."

He laughed amusedly, and the girl laughed with him.
"Just the same, I'm glad you remember," she told him.

Ware had by now taken his place at the new mark he had
established.

"Fifteen shots," he announced. At the word his hand
dropped to the butt of his gun, his right shoulder hunched
forward, and with one lightning smooth motion the weapon
glided from the holster. Hardly had it left the leather when
it was exploded. The hammer had been cocked during the
upward flip of the muzzle. The first discharge was followed
immediately by the five others in a succession so rapid that
Bob believed the man had substituted a self-cocking arm
until he caught the rapid play of the marksman's thumb.
The weapon was at no time raised above the level of the
man's waist.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 353

"Hold on!" commanded Ware, as the bystanders started
forward to examine the result of the shots. " Let's finish
the string first."

He had been deliberately pushing out the exploded cart-
ridges one by one. Now he as deliberately reloaded. Tak-
ing a position somewhat to the left of the target, he folded
his arms so that the revolver lay across his breast with its
muzzle resting over his left elbow. Then he strode rapidly
but evenly across the face of the target, discharging the five
bullets as he walked.

Again he reloaded. This time he stood with the revolver
hanging in his right hand gazing intently for some moments
at the target, measuring carefully with his eye its direction and
height. He turned his back; and, flipping his gun over his
left shoulder, fired without looking back.

"The first ten ought to be in the black," announced Ware,
"The last five ought to be somewheres on the paper. A
fellow can't expect more than to generally wing a man over
his shoulder."

But on examination the black proved to hold but eight
bullet holes. The other seven, however, all showed on the
paper.

"Comes of not wiping out the dirt once in a while when
you're shooting black powder," said Ware philosophically.

The crowd gazed upon him with admiration.

"That's a remarkable group of shots to be literally thrown
out at that speed," muttered Thorne to Bob. "Why, you
could cover them with your hat! Well, young man," he
addressed Elliott, "step up!"

But Elliott shook his head.

"Couldn't touch that with a ten-foot pole," said he pleas-
antly. "Mr. Ware has given me a new idea of what can be
done with a revolver. His work is especially good with
that heavily charged arm. I wish he would give us a little
exhibition of how close he can shoot with my gun, It's sup-
posed to be a more accurate weapon."

354 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"No, thank you," spoke up Ware. "I couldn't hit a
flock of feather pillers with your gun. You see, I shoot by
throw, and I'm used to the balance of my gun."

Thorne finished making some notes.

" All right, boys," he said, sr cpping shut his book. " We'll
go down to headquarters next."

ON THE way down the narrow trail Bob found himself
near the two men from his own camp. He chaffed
them good-humouredly over their lack of skill in the
contests, to which they replied in the same spirit.

Arrived at camp, Thorne turned to face his followers, who
gathered in a group to listen.

"Let's have a little riding, boys," said he. "Bring out
a horse or two and some saddles. Each man must saddle
his horse, circle that tree down the road, return, unsaddle
and throw up both hands to show he's done."

Bob was amused to see how the aspect of the men changed
at this announcement. The lithe young fellows, who had
been looking pretty sober over the records they had made
at shooting, brightened visibly and ran with some eagerness
to fetch out their own horses and saddles. Some of the
others were not so pleased, notably two of the young fellows
from the valley towns. Still others remained stolidly
indifferent to a trial in which they could not hope to compete
with the professional riders, but in which neither would they
fail.

The results proved the accuracy of this reasoning. A
new set of stars rose to the ascendant, while the heroes of the
upper meadow dropped into obscurity. Most of the moun-
tain men saddled expeditiously but soberly their strong and
capable mountain horses, rode the required distance, and
unsaddled deftly. It was part of their everyday life to be
able to do such things well. The two town boys, and, to
Bob's surprise, one of his lumberjacks, furnished the comic
relief. They frightened the horses allotted them, to begin

355

356 THE RULES OF THE GAME

with; threw the saddles aboard in a mess which it was neces-
sary to untangle; finally clambered on awkwardly and rode
precariously amid the yells and laughter of the spectators.

"How you expect to be a ranger, if you can't ride?"
shouted some one at the lumberjack.

1 'If horses don't plumb detest me, I reckon I can learn!"
retorted the shanty boy, stoutly. "This ain't my game!"

But when young Pollock, whom Bob recognized as Jim's
oldest, was called out, the situation was altered. He appeared
leading a beautiful, half-broken bay, that snorted and
planted its feet and danced away from the unaccustomed
crowd. Nevertheless the lad, as impassive as an image,
held him well in hand, awaiting Thome's signal.

"Go!" called the Supervisor, his eyes on his watch.

The boy, still grasping the hackamore in his left hand,
with his right threw the saddle blanket over the animal's
back. Stooping again, he seized the heavy stock saddle by
the horn, flipped it high in the air, and brought it across the
horse with so skilful a jerk that not only did the skirts,
the heavy stirrup and the horsehair cinch fall properly, but
the cinch itself swung so far under the horse's belly that
young Pollock was able to catch it deftly before it swung
back. To thrust the broad latigo through the rings, jerk
it tight, and fasten it securely was the work of an instant.
With a yell to his horse the boy sprang into the saddle. The
animal bounded forward, snorting and buck-plunging, his
eye wild, his nostril wide. Flung with apparent carelessness
in the saddle, the rider, his body swaying and bending and
giving gracefully to every bound, waved his broad hat,
uttering shrill yips of encouragement and admonition to his
mount. The horse straightened out and thundered swift
as an arrow toward the tree that marked the turning point.
'With unslackened gait, with loosened rein, he swept fairly
to the tree. It seemed to Bob that surely the lad must over-
shoot the mark by many yards. But at the last instant
the rider swayed backward and sidewise; the horse set his

THE RULES OF THE GAME 357

feet, plunged mightily thrice, threw up a great cloud of dust,
and was racing back almost before the spectators could
adjust their eyes to the change of movement. Straight to
the group horse and rider raced at top speed, until the more
inexperienced instinctively ducked aside. But in time the
horse sat back, slid and plunged ten feet in a spray of dust
and pine needles, to come to a quivering halt. Even before
that young Pollock had thrown himself from the saddle.
Three jerks ripped that article of furniture from its place to
the earth. The boy, with an engaging gleam of teeth, threw
up both hands.

It was flash-riding, of course; but flash-riding at its best.
And how the boys enjoyed it! Now the little group of
"buckeroos," heretofore rather shyly in the background,
shone forth in full glory.

" Now let's see how good you are at packing," said Thome,
when the last man had done his best or worst. " Jack," he
told young Pollock, "you go up in the pasture and catch me
up that old white pack mare. She's warranted to stand like
erock."

While the boy was gone on this errand, Thorne rummaged
the camp. Finally he laid out on the ground about a peck of
loose potatoes, miscellaneous provisions, a kettle, frying-
pan, coffee-pot, tin plates, cutler} 7 , a single sack of barley, a
pick and shovel, and a coil of rope.

"That looks like a reasonable camp outfit," remarked
Thorne. " Just throw one of those pack saddles on her," he
told Jack Pollock, who led up the white mare. "Now you
boys all retire; you mustn't have a chance to learn from the
other fellow. Hicks, you stay. Now pack that stuff on that
horse. I'll time you."

Hicks looked about him.

"Where's the kyacks?"* he demanded.

"You don't get any kyacks," stated Thorne crisply.

"Got to pack all that stuff without 'em?"

* Kyacks pack sacks slung either side the pack saddle.

358 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Sure."

Hicks set methodically to work, gathering up the loose
articles, thrusting them into sacks, lashing the sacks on the
cross buck saddle. At the end of a half- hour, he stepped back.

"That might ride for a while," said Thorne.

"I never pack without kyacks," said Hicks.

"So I see. Well, sit down and watch the rest of them.
Ware!" Thorne shouted.

The prospector disengaged himself from the sprawling
and distant group.

"Throw those things off, and empty out those bags,"
ordered Thorne. " Now, there's your camp outfit. Pack it,
as fast as you can."

Ware set to work, also deliberately, it seemed. He threw
a sling, packed on his articles, and over it all drew the dia-
mond hitch.

"Reckon that'll travel," he observed, stepping back.

"Good pack," commended Thorne briefly, as he glanced
at his watch. "Eleven minutes."

"Eleven minutes!" echoed Bob to California John, who
sat near, "and the other man took thirty-five! Impossible!
Ware didn't hurry any; he moved, if anything, slower than
the other man."

"He didn't make no moves twice," pointed out California
John. "He knows how. This no-kyack business is going
to puzzle plenty of those boys who can do good, ordinary
packing."

" It's near noon," Thorne was saying; " we haven't time for
another of those duffers. I'll just call up your partner, Ware,
and we'll knock off for dinner."

The partner did as well, or even a little better, for the
watch credited him with ten and one-half minutes, whereupon
he chaffed Ware hugely. Then the pack horse was led to a
patiently earned feed, while the little group of rangers, with
Thorne, his sister and Bob, moved slowly toward headquar-
ters.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 359

"That's all this morning, boys," he told the waiting
group as they passed it. " This afternoon we'll double up a bit.
The rest of you can all take a try at the packing, but at the
same time we'll see who can cut down a tree quickest and best."

"Stop and eat lunch with us," Amy was urging Bob.
"It's only a cold one not even tea. I didn't want to miss
the show. So it's no bother."

They all turned to and set the table under the open.

"This is great fun," said Bob gratefully, as they sat down.
"Good as a field day. When do you expect to begin your
examinations? That's what these fellows are here for, isn't
it?"

He looked up to catch both Thorne and Amy looking on
him with a comically hopeless air.

"You don't mean to say!" cried Bob, a light breaking in
on him. " of course! I never thought "

"What do you suppose we would examine candidates for
Forest Ranger in higher mathematics?" demanded Amy.

"Now that's practical that's got some sense!" cried
Bob enthusiastically.

Thorne, with a whimsical smile, held up his finger for
silence. Through the thin screen of azalea bushes that
fringed this open-air dining room Bob saw two men approach-
ing down the forest. They were evidently unaware of obser-
vation. With considerable circumspection they drew near
and disappeared within the little tool house. Bob recognized
the two lumberjacks from his own camp.

"What are those fellows after?" he demanded indignantly.

But Thorne again motioned for caution.

"I suspect," said Thorne in a low voice. "Go on eating
your lunch. We'll see."

The men were inside the tool house for some time. When
they reappeared, each carried an axe. They looked about
them cautiously. No one was in sight. Then they thrust
the axes underneath a log, and disappeared in the direction
of their own camp.

360 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Thorne laughed aloud.

"The old foxes!" said he. "I'll bet anything you please
that we'll find the two best-balanced axes the Government
owns under that log."

Such proved to be the case. Furthermore, the implements
had been ground to a razor edge.

"When I mentioned tree cutting, I saw their eyes light up,"
said Thorne. "It's always interesting in a crowd of can-
didates like this to see every man cheer up when his spec-
ialty comes along." He chuckled. "Wait till I spring the
written examinations on them. Then you'll see them droop."

" What else is there ? " asked Bob.

"Well, I'll organize regular survey groups compass-
man, axe-man, rod-man, chain-men and let them run
lines; and I'll make them estimate timber, and make a sketch
map or so. It's all practical. "

"I should think so!" cried Bob. "I wonder if I could
pass it myself." He laughed. " I should hate to tackle tying
those things on that horse even after seeing those pros-
pectors do it!"

"Most of them will go a little slow. They're used to
kyacks. But you'd have your specialty."

"What would it be?" asked Amy curiously of Bob.

The young man shook his head.

"You haven't got some nice scrappy little job, have you?"
he asked, "where I can tell people to hop high? That's
about all I'm good for."

"We might even have that," said Thorne, eyeing the young
man's proportions.

BOB saw that afternoon the chopping contest. Thorne
assigned to each a tree some eighteen or twenty inches
in diameter, selecting those whose loss would aid
rather than deplete the timber stand, and also, it must be
confessed, those whose close proximity to others might make
axe swinging awkward. About twenty feet from the base
of each tree he placed upright in the earth a sharpened
stake. This, he informed the axe-man, must be driven by the
fall of the tree.

As in the previous contests, three classes of performers
quickly manifested themselves the expert, the man of
workmanlike skill, and the absolute duffer. The lumber-
jacks produced the implements they had that noon so care-
fully ground to an edge. It was beautiful to see them at
work. To all appearance they struck easily, yet each stroke
buried half the blade. The less experienced were inclined
to put a great deal of swift power in the back swing, to throw
too much strength into the beginning of the down stroke.
The lumberjacks drew back quite deliberately, swung for-
ward almost lazily. But the power constantly increased,
until the axe met the wood in a mighty swish and whack.
And each stroke fell in the gash of the one previous. Meth-
odically they opened the "kerf," each face almost as smooth
as though it had been sawn. At the finish they left the last
fibres on one side or another, according as they wanted to
twist the direction of the tree's fall. Then the trunk crashed
down across the stake driven in the ground.

The mountaineers, accustomed to the use of the axe in their
backwoods work, did a workmanlike but not expert job on

362 THE RULES OF THE GAME

their respective trees. They felled their trees accurately
over the mark, and their axe work was fairly clean, but it
took them some time to finish the job.

But some of the others made heavy weather. Young
Elliott was the worst. It was soon evident that he had prob-
ably never had any but a possible and casual wood-pile axe
in his hand before. The axe rarely hit twice in the same
place; its edge had apparently no cutting power; the handle
seemed to be animated with a most diabolical tendency to
twist in mid- air. Bob, with the wisdom of the woods, with-
drew to a safe distance. The others followed.

Long after the others had finished, poor Elliott hacked
away. He seemed to have no definite idea of possible system.
All he seemed to be trying to do was to accomplish some kind
of a hole in that tree. The chips he cut away were small and
ragged; the gash in the side. of the tree was long and irregular.

" Looks like some thin' had set out to chaw that tree down!"
drawled a mountain man to his neighbour.

But when the tree finally tottered and crashed to the ground
it fairly centred the direction stake !

The bystanders stared; then catching the expression of
ludicrous astonishment on Elliott's face, broke into appre-
ciative laughter.

"I'm as much surprised as you are, boys," said Elliott,
showing the palms of his hands, on which were two blisters.

"The little cuss is game, anyhow," muttered California
John to Thorne.

"It was an awful job," confided the other; "but I marked
him something on it because he stayed with it so well."

Toward sunset Bob said farewell, expressing many regrets
that he could not return on the morrow to see the rest of the
examinations. He rode back through the forest, thoughtfully
inclined. The first taste of the Western joy of mere existence
was passing with him. He was beginning to look upon his
life, and ask of it the why. To be sure, he could tell him-
self that his day's work was well done, and that this should

THE RULES OF THE GAME 363

suffice any man; that he was an integral part of the economic
machine; that in comparison with the average young man
of his age he had made his way with extraordinary success;
that his responsibilities were sufficient to keep him busy
and happy; that men depended on him all the reasons
that philosophy or acquiescence in the plan of ! ; .fe ultimately
bring to a man. But these did not satisfy the uneasiness of
his spirit. He was too young to settle down to a routine; he
was too intellectually restless to be contented with reiterations,
however varied, of that which he had seen through and
around. It was the old defect or glory of his char-
acter; the quality that had caused him more anxiety, more
self-reproach, more bitterness of soul than any other, the
Rolling Stone spirit that though now he could not see it
even if it gathered no moss of respectable achievement, might
carry him far.

So as he rode he peered into the scheme of things for the
final satisfaction. In what did it lie ? Not for him in mere
activity, nor in the accomplishment of the world's work, no
matter how variedly picturesque his particular share of it
might be. He felt his interest ebbing, his spirit restless at its
moorings. The days passed. He arose in the morning:
and it was night! Four years ago he had come to California.
It seemed but yesterday. The days were past, gone, used.
Of it all what had he retained ? The years had run like sea
sands between his fingers, and not a grain of them remained
in his grasp. A little money was there, a little knowledge,
a little experience but what toward the final satisfaction,
the justification of a man's life? Bob was still too young,
too individualistic to consider the doctrine of the day's work
well done as the explanation and justification of all. The
coming years would pass as quickly, leaving as little behind.
Never so poignantly had he felt the insistence of the carpe
diem. It was necessary that he find a reality, something he
could winnow from the years as fine gold from sand, so that
he could lay his hand on the treasure and say to his soul:

364 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"This much have I accomplished." Bob had learned well
the American lesson: that the idler is to be scorned; that a
true man must use his powers, must work; that he must suc-
ceed. Now he was taking the next step spiritually. How
does a man really use his powers? What is success?

Troubled by this spiritual unrest, the analysis of which,
even the nature of which was still beyond him, he arrived
at camp. The familiar objects fretted on his mood. For
the moment all the grateful feeling of power over under-
standing and manipulating this complicated machinery of
industry had left him. He saw only the wheel in which these
activities turned, and himself bound to it. In this truly
Buddhistic frame of mind he returned to his quarters.

There, to his vague annoyance, he found Baker. Usually
the liveliness of that able young citizen was welcome, but
to-night it grated.

"Well, Gentle Stranger," sang out the power man, "what
jungle have you been lurking in ? I laboured in about three
and went all over the works looking for you."

" I've been over watching the ranger examinations at their
headquarters," said Bob. "It's pretty good fun."

Baker leaned forward.

"Have you heard the latest dope?" he demanded.

"What sort?"

"They're trying to soak us, now. Want to charge us so
much per horse power! Now what do you think of that!"

" Can't you pay it?" asked Bob.

" Great guns! Why should we pay it?" demanded Baker.
"It's the public domain, isn't it? First they take away the
settler's right to take up public land in his own state, and
now they want to charge, actually charge the public for what's
its own."

But Bob, a new light shining in his eyes, refused to become
heated.

"Well," he asked deliberately, "who is the public,
anyhow?"

THE RULES OF THE GAME 365

Baker stared at him, one chubby hand on each fat knee.

"Why, everybody," said he; "the people who can make
use of it. You and I and the other fellow."

" Especially the other fellow," put in Bob drily.

Baker chuckled.

"It's like any business," said he. "First-come collect
at the ticket office for his business foresight. But we'll try
out this hold-up before we lie down and roll over."

"Why shouldn't you pay?" demanded Bob again. "You
get your value, don't you ? The Forest Service protects your
watershed, and that's where you get your water. Why
shouldn't you pay for that service, just the same as you pay
for a night watchman at your works?"

"Watershed!" snorted Baker. "Rot! If every stick
of timber was cleaned off these mountains, I'd get the water
just the same."*

"Baker," said Bob to this. "You go and take a long,
long look at your bathroom sponge in action, and then come
back and I'll talk to you."

Baker contemplated his friend for a full ten seconds.
Then his fat, pugnacious face wrinkled into a grin.

" Stung on the ear by a wasp!" he cried, with a great shout
of appreciation. "You merry, merry little josher! You
had me going for about five minutes."

Bob let it go at that.

" I suppose you won't be able to pay over twenty per cent,
this next year, then?" he inquired, with an amused
expression.

"Twenty per cent.!" cried Baker rolling his eyes up.
"It's as much as I can do to dig up for improvements and
bond interest and the preferred."

"Not to mention the president's salary," amended Bob.

"But I've got 'em where they live," went on Baker, com-
placently, without attention to this. "You don't catch

* Extraordinary as it may seem to the modern reader, this sentiment or this ignorance
was at that time sincerely entertained by men as influential, as powerful, and as closely
interested in water power as Baker is here depicted.

366 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Little Willie scattering shekels when he can just as well keep
kopecks. They've left a little joker in the pack." He
produced a paper-covered copy of the new regulations, later
called the Use Book. "They've swiped about everything
in sight for these pestiferous reserves, but they encourage the
honest prospector. 'Let us develop the mineral wealth/
says they. So these forests are still open for taking up under
the mineral act. All you have to do is to make a ' discovery/
and stake out your claim; and there you are!"

"All the mineral's been taken up long ago," Bob pointed
out.

"All the valuable mineral," corrected Baker. "But it's
sufficient, so Erbe tells rne, to discover a ledge. Ledges?
Hell! They're easier to find than an old maid at a sewing
circle! That's what the country is made of ledges!
You can dig one out every ten feet. Well, I've got people
out finding ledges, and filing on them."

"Can you do that?" asked 3ob.

"I am doing it."

"I mean legally."

"Oh, this bunch of prospectors files on the claims, and
gets them patented. Then it's nobody's business what they
do with their own property. So they just sell it to me."

"That's colonizing," objected Bob. "You'll get nailed."

"Not on your tintype, it isn't. I don't furnish a cent.
They do it all on their own money. Oldham's got the whole
matter in hand. When we get the deal through, we'll have
about two hundred thousand acres all around the head-
waters; and then these blood-sucking, red-tape, autocratic
slobs can go to thunder."

Baker leaned forward impressively.

"Got to spring it all at once," said he, "otherwise there'll
be outsiders in, thinking there's a strike been made also
they'll get inquisitive. It's a great chance. And, Orde,
my son, there's a few claims up there that will assay about
sixty thousand board feet to the acre. What do you think

THE RULES OF THE GAME 367

of it for a young and active lumberman ? I'm going to talk
it over with Welton. It's a grand little scheme. Wonder
how that will hit our old friend, Thome?"

Bob rose yawning.

"I'm tired. Going to turn in," said he. "Thome isn't
a bad sort."

"He's one of these damn theorists, that's what he is," said
Baker; "and he's got a little authority, and he's doing just
as much as he can to unsettle business and hinder the legiti-
mate development of the country." He relaxed his earnest-
ness with another grin. "Stung again. That's two rises
you got out of me," he remarked. "Say, Orde, don't get
persuaded to turn ranger. I hear they've boosted their
salaries to ninety a month. Must be a temptation I"

BOB arose rather early the following Sunday, snatched
a hasty breakfast and departed. Baker had been
in camp three days. All at once Bob had taken the
young man in strong distaste. Baker amused him, com-
manded his admiration for undoubted executive ability and
a force of character so dynamic as to be almost brutal. In a
more social environment Bob would still have found him
a mighty pleasant fellow, generous, open-hearted, and loyal
to his personal friends. But just now his methods chafed
on the sensitiveness of Bob's new unrest. Baker was worth
probably a couple of million dollars, and controlled ten
times that. He had now a fine house in Fremont, where
he had chosen to live, a pretty wife, two attractive children
and a wide circle of friends. Life was very good to him.

And yet, in the perversity and the clairvoyance of his
mood, Bob thought to see in Baker's life something of that
same emptiness of final achievement he faced in his own.
This was absurd, but the feeling of it persisted. Thorne,
with his miserable eighteen hundred a year, and his glowing
enthusiasm and quick interest seemed to him more worth
while. Why? It was absurd; but this feeling, too,
persisted.

Bob was a healthy young fellow, a man of action rather
than of introspection, but now the hereditary twist of his
character drove him to attempt analysis. He arrived at
nothing. Both Baker and Thorne seemed to stand on one
ground each was satisfied, neither felt that lack of the ful-
filling content Bob was so keenly experiencing. But the
streak of feminine divination Bob had inherited from his

368

THE RULES OF THE GAME 369

mother made him understand or made him think to
understand that Baker's satisfaction was taken because
he did not see, while Thome was working with his eyes open
and a full sense of values. This vague glimpse Bob gained
only partially and at length. It rather opened to him
new vistas of spiritual perplexity than offered to him any
solution.

He paced rapidly down the length of the lake whereon
Che battered but efficient towing launch lay idle for Sunday
to the Lake Meadow. This was, as usual, surrounded
by hundreds of campers of all classes. Bob was known to
all of them, of course; and he, in turn, had at least such a
nodding acquaintance with them that he could recognize
any accretions to their members. Near the lower end of
the meadow, beneath a group of a dozen noble firs, he caught
sight of newcomers, and so strolled down that way to see
what they could be like.

He found pomp and circumstance. An enclosure had
been roped off to exclude the stock grazing at large in the
meadow. Three tents had been erected. They were
made of a very light, shiny, expensive-looking material
with fringes along the walls, flies overhead and stretched
in front, sod cloths before the entrances. Three gaily
painted wooden rocking chairs, an equally gaudy hammock,
a table flanked with benches, a big cooking stove in the rear,
canvas pockets hung from the trees a dozen and one
other conveniences and luxuries bespoke the occupants as
well-to-do and determined to be comfortable. Two
Japanese servants dressed all in white moved silently and
mysteriously in the background, a final touch of incongruity
in a rough country.

Before Bob had moved on, two men stepped into view
from the interior of one of the tents. They paced slowly
to the gaudy rocking chairs and sat down. In their progress
they exhibited that peculiar, careless but conscious delibera-
tion of gait affected everywhere by those accustomed to

370 THE RULES OF THE GAME

appearing in public. In their seating of themselves, their
producing of cigars, their puffings thereon, was the same
studied ignoring of observation; a manner which, it must
be acknowledged, becomes second nature to those forced
to its adoption. It was a certain blown impressiveness, a
significance in the smallest movements, a self-importance,
in short, too large for the affairs of any private citizen. It is
to be seen in those who sit in high places, in clergy, actors
off the boards, magistrates, and people behind shop windows
demonstrating things to street crowds. Bob's first thought
was of amusement that this elaborate unconsciousness of
his lone presence should be worth while; his second a realiza-
tion that his presence or the presence of any one else had
nothing to do with it. He wondered, as we all wonder at
times, whether these men acted any differently when alone
and in utter privacy, whether they brushed their teeth and
bathed with all the dignity of the public man.

The smaller, but evidently more important of these men,
wore a complete camping costume. His hat was very wide
and stiff of brim and had a woven band of horsehair; his
neckerchief was ve*> red and worn bib fashion in the way
Bob had come to believe that no one ever wore a neckerchief
save in Western plays and the illustrations of Western stories;
his shirt was of thick blue flannel, thrown wide open at the
throat; his belt was very wide and of carved leather; his
breeches were of khaki, but bagged above and fitted close
below the knee into the most marvellous laced boots, with
leather flaps, belt lacings, and rows of hobnails with which
to make tracks. Bob estimated these must weigh at least
three pounds apiece. The man wore a little pointed beard
and eyeglasses. About him Bob recognized a puzzling
familiarity. He could not place it, however, but finally
decided he must have carried over a recollection from a
tailor's fashion plate of the Correct Thing for Camping.

The other man was taller, heavier, but not near so impres-
sive. His form was awkward, his face homely, his ears

THE RULES OF THE GAME 371

stuck out like wings, and his expression was that of the
always-appreciated buffoon.

Bob was about to pass on, when he noticed that he was
not the only spectator of all this ease of manner. A dozen
of the campers had gathered, and were staring across the
ropes with quite frank and unabashed curiosity. More
were coming from all directions. In a short time a crowd
of several hundred had collected, and stood, evidently in
expectation. Then, and only then, did the small man 'with
the pointed beard seem to become aware of the presence
of any one besides his companion. He leaned across to
exchange a few words with the latter, after which he laid
aside his hat, arose and advanced to the rope barrier on
which he rested the tips of his fingers.

"My friends," he began in a nasal but penetrating voice,
that carried without effort to every hearer. "I am not a
regularly ordained minister of the gospel. I find, however,
that there is none such among us, so I have gathered you
here together this morning to hear a few words appropriate
to the day. It has pleased Providence to call me to a public
position wherein my person has become well known to you
all; but that is an accident of the great profession to which
I have been called, and I bow my heart in humility with
the least and most lowly. I am going to tell you about myself
this morning, not because I consider myself of importance,
but because it seems to me from my case a great lesson may
be drawn."

He paused to let his eye run over the concourse. Bob
felt the gaze, impersonal, impassive, scrutinizing, cold, rest
on him the barest appreciable flicker of a moment, and then
pass on. He experienced a faint shock, as though his
defences had been tapped against.

"My father," went on the nasal voice, "came to this
country in the 'sixties. It was a new country in the hands
of a lazy people. It needed development, so my father was
happy felling the trees, damming the streams, building the

372 THE RULES OF THE GAME

roads, getting possession of the land. That was his job in
life, and he did it well, because the country needed it. He
didn't bother his head with why he was doing it; he just
thought he was making money. As a matter of fact, he
didn't make money; he died nearly bankrupt."

The orator bowed his head for a moment.

"I might have done the same thing. It's all legitimate
business. But I couldn't. The country is being developed
by its inhabitants: work of that kind couldn't satisfy me.
Why, friends? Because now it would be selfish work. My
father didn't know it, but the reason he was happy was
because the work he was doing for himself was also work
for other people. You can see that. He didn't know it,
but he was helping develop the country. But it wouldn't
have been quite so with me. The country is developed in
that way. If I did that kind of work, I'd be working for
myself and nobody else at all. That turns out all right for
most people, because they don't see it: they do their duty
as citizens and good business men and fathers and husbands,
and that ends it. But I saw it. I felt I had to do a work
that would support me in the world but it must be a work
that helped humanity too. That is why, friends, I am what
I am. That a certain prominence is inevitable to my position
is incidental rather than gratifying.

"So, I think, the lesson to be drawn is that each of us
should make his life help humanity, should conduct his
business in such a way as to help humanity. Then he'll
be happy."

He stood for a moment, then turned away. The tall,
ungainly man with the outstanding ears and the buffoon's
face stepped forward and whispered eagerly in his ear. He
listened gravely, but shook his head. The tall man whisp-
ered yet more vehemently, at great length. Finally the
orator stepped back to his place.

" We are here for a complete rest after exhausting labours,"
he stated. "We have looked forward for months to undis-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 373

turbed repose amongst these giant pines. No thought of
care was to intrude. But my colleague's great and tender
heart has smitten him, and, I am ashamed to say against my
first inclination, he urges me to a course which I'd have liked
to avoid; but which, when he shows me the way, I realize
is the only decent thing. We find ourselves in the midst
of a community of some hundreds of people. It may be
some of these people are suffering, far from medical or
surgical help. If there are any such, and the case is really
pressing, you understand, we will be willing, just for common
humanity, to do our best to relieve them. And friends, "
the speaker stepped forward until his body touched the rope,
and he was leaning confidentially forth, "it would be poor
humanity that would cause you pain or give you inferior
treatments. I am happy to say we came to this great virgin
wilderness direct with our baggage from White Oaks where we
had been giving a two weeks' course of treatments mainly
charitable. We have our instruments and our medicines
with us in their packin' cases. If need arises which I
trust it will not we will not hesitate to go to any trouble
for you. It is against our principles to give anything but
our best. You will suffer no pain. But it must be under-
stood, " he warned impressively. "This is just for you, our
neighbours! We don't want this news spread to the lumber
camps and over the countryside. We are here for a rest.
But we cannot be true to our high calling and neglect the
relieving of pain."

The man bowed slightly, and rejoined his companion to
whom he conversed low-voiced with absolute unconscious-
ness of the audience he had just been addressing so intimately.
The latter hesitated, then slowly dispersed. Bob stood, his
brows knit, trying to recall. There was something haunt-
ingly familiar about the whole performance. Especially a
strange nasal emphasis on the word "pain" struck sharply
a chord in his recollection. He looked up in sudden
enlightenment.

374 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"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, insin-
cere, 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 de-
manded by the occasion. He held the young man at spear's
length, and showed plainly by the oriinous 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?"

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

"What's biting you fellows?" demanded Baker.
"There's nobody here."

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

THE RULES OF THE GAME 375

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

376 THE RULES OF THE GAME

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 Pain-
less 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

THE charlatan had babbled; but without knowing
it he had given Bob what he sought. He saw all
the reasons for what had heretofore been obscure.

Why had he been dissatisfied with business opportuni-
ties 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
Wei ton, 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 con-
demnation did his attitude of mind imply?

All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like
fog. Quite simply it all resolved itself. He was dissatis-
fied 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 effi-
ciency 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
(hat the pioneers, the men of fire, had blazed the way others

377

378 THE RULES OF THE GAME

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 Thome'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 cur-
rent. With his pitiful eighteen hundred a year he was never-
theless 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 not
that his efforts had that coordination with the trend of
humanity which makes subtly for satisfaction and hap-
piness. Bob looked about the mill yard with an under-
standing 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 under-
stood; 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 nod-
ded from time to time, her eyes shining, her glance every
few moments seeking in triumph that of her brother. Cali-
fornia John smoked.

Finally Bob put it squarely to Thome.

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

THE RULES OF THE GAME 379

"I suppose you've thought of the chance you're giving up?
Welton will take you into partnership in time, of course."

"I know. It seems foolish. Can't make it seem any-
thing else," Bob admitted.

"You'd have to take your chances," Thorne persisted.
"I couldn't help you. A ranger's salary is ninety a month
now, and find yourself and horses. Have you any private
means?"

"Not enough to say so."

"There's another thing," Thorne went on. "This
forestry of our government is destined to be a tremendous
affair; but what we need more just now is better logging
methods among the private loggers. It would count more
than anything else if you'd stay just where you are and give
us model operations in your own worL"

Bob shook his head.

"Perhaps you don't know men like Mr. Welton as well
as I do," said he; "I couldn't change his methods. That's
absolutely out oi the question. And," he went on with a
sudden flash of loyalty to what the old-timers had meant,
"I don't believe I'd want to."

"Not want to!" cried Amy.

"No," pursued Bob doggedly, "not unless he could see
the point himself and of his own accord. He's done a great
work in his time, and he's grown old at it. I wouldn't for
anything in the world do anything to shake his faith in what
he's done, even if he's doing it wrong now."

"He and his kind have always slaughtered the forests
shamefully 1" broke in Amy with some heat.

"They opened a new country for a new people," said Bob
gently. " Perhaps they did it wastefully; perhaps not. I
notice you've got to use lots of lubricating oil on a new
machine. But there was nobody else to do it any different."

"Then you'd let them go on wasting and destroying?"
demanded Amy scornfully.

"I don't know," hesitated Bob; "I haven't thought all

380 THE RULES OF THE GAME

this out. Perhaps I'm not very much on the think. It
seems to me rather this way: We've got to have lumber,
haven't we? And somebody has to cut it and supply it.
Men like Mr. Welton are doing it, by the methods they've
found effective. They are working for the Present;
we of the new generation want to work for the Future.
It's a fair division. Somebody's got to attend to them
both."

"Well, that's what I say!" cried Amy. "If they wouldn't
waste and slash and leave good material in the woods "

Bob smiled whimsically.

" A lumberman doesn't like to leave things in the woods,"
said he. " If somebody will pay for the tops and the needles,
he'll sell them; if there's a market for cull lumber, he'll
supply it; and if somebody will create a demand for knot-
holes, he'll invent some way of getting them out! You see
I'm a lumberman myself."

"Why don't you log with some reference to the future,
then?" demanded Amy.

" Because it doesn't pay," stated Bob deliberately.

"Pay!" cried Amy.

"Yes," said Bob mildly. "Why not? The lumberman
fulfills a commercial function, like any one else; why shouldn't
he be allowed freely a commercial reward? You can't
lead a commercial class by ideals that absolutely conflict
with commercial motives. If you want to introduce your
ideals among lumbermen, you want to educate them; and
in order to educate them you must fix it so your ideals don't
actually spell loss! Rearrange the scheme of taxation, for
one thing. Get your ideas of fire protection and conserva-
tion on a practical basis. It's all very well to talk about
how nice it would be to chop up all the waste tops and pile
them like cordwood, and to scrape together the twigs and
needles and burn them. It would certainly be neat and
effective. But can't you get some scheme that would be just
as effective, but not so neat ? It's the difference between a

THE RULES OF THE GAME 381

yacht and a lumber schooner. We can't expect everybody
to turn right in and sacrifice themselves to be philanthro-
pists because the spirit of the age tells them they ought to
be. We've got to make it so easy to do things right that
anybody at all decent will be ashamed not to. Then we've
got to wait for the spirit of the people to grow to new things.
It's coming, but it's not here yet."

California John, who had listened with the closest atten-
tion, slapped his knee.

"Good sense," said he.

"But you can educate people, can't you?" asked Amy,
a trifle subdued and puzzled by these practical considera-
tions.

" Some people can," agreed Thome, speaking up, "and
they're doing it. But Mr. Orde is right; it's only the spirit
of the people that can bring about new things. We think
we have leaders, but we have only interpreters. When
the time is ripe to change things, then the spirit of the people
rises to forbid old practices."

"That's it," said Bob; "I just couldn't get at it. Well,
the way I feel about it is that when all these new methods
and principles have become well known, then we can call a
halt with some authority.- You can't condemn a man for
doing his best, can you?"

The girl, at a loss, flushed, and almost crying, looked at
them all helplessly.

"But- " she cried.

"I believe it will all come about in time," said Thorne.
"There's sure to come a time when it will not be too much
off balance to require private firms to do things according
to our methods. Then it will pay to log the government
forests on an extensive scale; and private forests will have
to come to our way of doing things."

"What's the use of all our fights and strivings?" asked
Amy; "what's the use of our preaching decent woods work
if it can't be carried out?"

382 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"It's educational," explained Thome. "It starts people
thinking, so that when the time comes they'll be ready."

"Furthermore," put in Bob, "it fixes it so these young
fellows who will then be in charge of private operations
will have no earthly excuse to look at it wrong, or do it
wrong."

" It will then be the difference between their acting accord-
ing to general ideas or against them," agreed Thome.

"Never lick a pup for chasin' rabbits until yore ready to
teach him to chase deer," put in California John.

VIII

BOB found it much more difficult to approach Welton.
When he did, he had to contend with the older
man's absolute disbelief in what he was saying.
Welton sat down on a stump and considered Bob with a
humorous twinkle.

"Want to quit the lumber business!" he echoed Bob's
first statement. " What for ? "

"I don't think I'm cut out for it."

"No? Well, then, I never saw anybody that was. You
don't happen to need no more money?"

"Lord, no!"

"Of course, you know you'll have pretty good prospects,
here " stated Welton tentatively.

"I ^nderstand that; but the work doesn't satisfy me,
somehow: I'm through with it."

" Getting restless," surmised Welton. "What you need
is a vacation. I forgot we kept you at it pretty close all
last winter. Take a couple weeks off and make a trip
in back somewheres."

Bob shook his head.

"It isn't that; I'm sorry. I'm just through with this.
I couldn't keep on at it and do good work. I know that."

"It's a vacation you need," insisted Welton chuckling,
" or else you're in love. Isn't that, is it ? "

"No," Bob laughed quite wholeheartedly. "It isn't that."

"You haven't got a better job, have you?" Welton joked.

Bob considered. "Yes; I believe I have," he said at
last; "at least I'm hoping to get it."

Welton looked at him closely; saw that he was in earnest.

383

384 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"What is it?" he asked curtly.

Bob, suddenly smitten with a sense of the futility of trying
to argue out his point of view here in the woods, drew back.

"Can't tell just yet," said he.

Welton climbed down from the stump; stood firmly for
a moment, his sturdy legs apart; then moved forward down
the trail.

"I'll raise his ante, whatever it is," he said abruptly at
length. "I don't believe in it, but I'll do it. I need you."

"You've always treated me better than I ever deserved,"
said Bob earnestly, "and I'll stay all summer, or all next
winter until you feel that you do not need me longer; but
I'm sure that I must go."

For two days Welton disbelieved the reality of his inten-
tion. For two days further he clung to a notion that in
some way Bob must be dissatisfied with something tangible
in his treatment. Then, convinced at last, he took alarm,
and dropped his facetious attitude.

"Look here, Bob," said he, "this isn't quite fair, is it?
This is a big piece of timber. It needs a man with a longer
life in front of him than I can hope for. I wanted to be
able to think that in a few years, when I get tired I could
count on you for the heavy work. It's too big a business
for an old man."

"I'll stay with you until you find that young man," said
Bob. "There are a good many, trained to the business,
capable of handling this property."

"But nobody like you, Bobby. I've brought you up
to my methods. We've grown up together at this. You're
just like a son to me." Welton's round, red face was puck-
ered to a wistful and comically pathetic twist, as he looked
across at the serious manly young fellow.

Bob looked away. "That's just what makes it hard,"
lie managed to say at last; " I'd like to go on with you. We've
gotten on famously. But I can't. This isn't my work."

Welton laboured in vain to induce him to change his

THE RULES OF THE GAME 385

mind. Several times he considered telling Bob the truth
that all this timber belonged really to Jack Orde, Bob's
father, and that his, Welton's interest in it was merely that
of the active partner in the industry. But this his friend
had expressly forbidden. Welton ended by saying nothing:
about it. He resolved first to write Orde.

"You might tell me what this new job is, though," he
said at last, in apparent acquiescence.

Bob hesitated. "You won't understand; and I won't be
able to make you understand," he said. "I'm going to enter
the Forest Service!"

"What I" cried Welton, in blank astonishment. "What's
that?"

"I've about decided to take sendee as a ranger," stated
Bob, his face flushing.

From that moment all Welton's anxiety seemed to van-
ish. It became unbearably evident that he looked on all
this as the romance of youth. Bob felt himself suddenly
reduced, in the lumberman's eyes, to the status of the small
boy who wants to be a cowboy, or a sailor, or an Indian
fighter. Welton looked on him with an indulgent eye as
on one who would soon get enough of it. The glamour
whatever it was would soon wear off; and then Bob,
his fling over, would return to sober, real business once
more. All Welton's joviality returned. From time to
time he would throw a facetious remark in Bob's direction,
when, in the course of the day's work, he happened to pass.

"It's sure going to be fine to wear a real tin star and be an.
officer!"

Or:

"Bob, it sure will seem scrumptious to ride out and boss;
the whole country on ninety a month. Guess I'll join
you."

Or:

"You going to make me sweep up my slashings, or will
a rake do, Mr. Ranger?"

386 THE RULES OF THE GAME

To these feeble jests Bob always replied good-naturedly.
He did not attempt to improve Welton's conception of his
purposes. That must come with time. To his father, how-
ever, he wrote at great length; trying his best to explain
the situation. Mr. Orde replied that a government position
was always honourable; but confessed himself disappointed
that his son had not more steadfastness of purpose. Wei-
ton received a reply to his own letter by the same mail.

"I shouldn't tell him anything," it read. "Let him go be
a ranger, or a cowboy, or anything else he wants. He's
still young. I didn't get my start until I was thirty; and
the business is big enough to wait for him. You keep peg-
ging along, and when he gets enough, he'll come back.
He's apparently got some notions of serving the public, and
doing good in the world, and all that. We all get it at his
age. By and by he'll find out that tending to his business
honestly is about one man's job."

So, without active opposition, and with only tacit dis-
approval, Bob made his change. Nor was he received
at headquarters with any blare of trumpets.

"I'll put you on as 'temporary' until the fall examina-
tions," said Thorne, "and you can try it out. Rangering
is hard work all kinds of hard work. It isn't just riding
around, you know. You'll have to make good. You can
bunk up with Pollock at the upper cabin. Report to-mor-
row morning with him."

Amy smiled at him brightly.

"Don't let him scare you," said she. "He thinks it looks
official to be an awful bear!"

California John met him as he rode out the gate. He
reached out his gnarled old hand.

" Son, we'll get him to send us sometime to Jack Main's
Canon," said he.

Bob, who had been feeling the least shade depressed,
rode on, his head high. Before him lay the great mysterious
country where had penetrated only the Pioneers ! Another

THE RULES OF THE GAME 387

century would build therein the structures of its institutions.
Now, like Jack Main's Canon, the far country of new things
was to be the field of his enterprise. In the future, when
the new generations had come, these things would all be
ordered and secure, would be systematized, their value con-
ceded, their acceptance a matter of course. All problems
would be regulated; all difficulties smoothed away; all
opposition overcome. Then the officers and rangers of
that peaceful and organized service, then the public accept-
ing such things as they accept all self-evident truths
would look back on these beginnings as men look back
on romance. They would recall the time when, like knights
errant, armed men rode abroad on horses through a wilder-
ness, lying down under the stars, living hard, dwelling lowly
in poverty, accomplishing with small means, striving might-
ily, combating the great elemental nature and the powers
of darkness in men, enduring patiently, suffering contempt
and misunderstanding and enmity in order that the inheri-
tance of the people yet to come might be assured. He was
one of them; he had the privilege. Suddenly his svirit
felt freed. His old life receded swiftly. A new glory vud
uplift of soul swept him from his old moorings.

PART FIVE

NEXT morning Bob was set to work with young Jack
Pollock stringing barbed wire fence. He had never
done this before. The spools of wire weighed on
him heavily. A crowbar thrust through the core made
them a sort of axle with which to carry it. Thus they walked
forward, revolving the heavy spool with the greatest care
while the strand of wire unwound behind them. Every
once in a while a coil would kink, or buckle back, or strike
as swiftly and as viciously as a snake. The sharp barbs
caught at their clothing, and tore Bob's hands. Jack Pol-
lock seemed familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the stuff,
for he suffered little damage. Indeed, he even found leisure,
as Bob soon discovered, to scrutinize his companion with a
covert curiosity. In the eyes of the countryside, Bob had
been "fired," and had been forced to take a job rangering.
When the entangling strand had been laid along the ground
by the newly planted cedar posts, it became necessary to
stretch and fasten it. Here, too, young Jack proved him-
self a competent teacher. He showed Bob how to get a
tremendous leverage with the curve on the back of an ordi-
nary hammer by means of which the wire was held taut
until the staples could be driven home. It was aggravating,
nervous, painful work for one not accustomed to it. Bob's
hands were soon cut and bleeding, no matter how gingerly
he took hold of the treacherous wire. To all his comments,
heated and otherwise, Jack Pollock opposed the mountaineer's
determined inscrutability. He watched Bob's efforts always
in silence until that young man had made all his mistakes.
Then he spat carefully, and, with quiet patience, did it right.

391

392 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Bob's sense of humour was tickled. With all his edu-
cation and his subsequent wide experience and training,
he stood in the position of a very awkward subordinate to
this mountain boy. The joke of it was that the matter was
so entirely his own choice. In the normal relations of indus-
try Bob would have been the boss of a hundred activities
<and twice that number of men; while Jack Pollock, at best,
Tvould be water-boy or fuel-purveyor to a donkey engine.
Along in the middle of the morning young Elliott passed
carrying a crowbar and a spade.

"How'll you trade jobs?" he called.

"What's yours?" asked Bob.

"I'm going to make two cedar posts grow where none
grew before," said Elliott.

At noon they knocked off and went back to the ranger
camp where they cooked their own meal. Most of the
older rangers were afield. A half-dozen of the newcomers
and probationers only were there. Elliott, Jack Pollock,
two other young mountaineers, Ware and one of the youths
from the valley towns had apparently passed the examin-
ations and filled vacancies. All, with the exception of
Elliott and this latter youth Curtis by name were old
frauds at taking care of themselves in the woods, so mat-
ters of their own accord fell into a rough system. Some built
the fire, one mixed bread, others busied themselves with
the rest of the provisions. Elliott rummaged about, and set
the rough table with the battered service. Only Curtis,
seated with his back against a tree, appeared too utterly
exhausted or ignorant to take hold at anything. Indeed,
he hardly spoke to his companions, ate hastily, and disap-
peared into his own quarters without offering to help wash
the dishes.

This task accomplished, the little group scattered to its
afternoon work. In the necessity of stringing wire without
cutting himself to ribbons, Bob forgot everything, even
the flight of time.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 393

"I reckon it's about quittin' time," Jack observed to
him at last.

Bob looked up in surprise. The sun was indeed drop-
ping low.

"We must be about half done," he remarked, measur-
ing the extent of the meadow with his eye.

"Two more wires to string," Pollock reminded him.

The mountaineer threw the grain sack of staples against
the last post, tossed his hammer and the hatchet with them.

"Hold on," said Bob. "You aren't going to leave them
there?"

"Shore," said Pollock. "We'll have to begin there
to-morrow."

But Bob's long training in handling large bodies of men
with tools had developed in him an instinct of tool-order-
liness.

"Won't do," he stated with something of his old-time
authority in his tones. "Suppose for some reason we
shouldn't get back here to-morrow? That's the way such
things get mislaid; and they're valuable."

He picked up the hatchet and the axe. Grumbling some-
thing under his breath, Pollock shouldered the staples and
thrust the hammer in his pocket.

"It isn't as if these things were ours," said Bob, realiz-
ing that he had spoken in an unduly minatory tone.

"That's right," agreed Jack more cheerfully.

In addition to the new men, they found Ross Fletcher and
Charley Morton at the camp. The evening meal was pre-
pared cheerfully and roughly, eaten under a rather dim
lamp. Pipes were lit, and they all began leisurely to clean
up. The smoke hung low in the air. One by one the men
dropped back into their rough, homemade chairs, or sprawled
out on the floor. Some one lit the fire in the stone chimney,
for the mountain air nipped shrewdly after the sun had
set. A general relaxing after the day's work, a general
cheerfulness, a general dry, chaffing wit took possession of

394 THE RULES OF THE GAME

them. Two played cribbage under the lamp. One wrote
a letter. The rest gossiped of the affairs of the service.
Only in the corner by himself young Curtis sat. As at noon,
he had had nothing to say to any one, and had not attempted
to offer assistance in the communal work. Bob concluded
he must be tired from the unaccustomed labour of the day.
Bob's own shoulders ached; and he was in pretty good
shape, too.

"What makes me mad," Ross Fletcher's voice suddenly
clove the murmur, "is the things we have to do. I was
breaking rock on a trail all day to-day. Think of that!
Day labourer's workl State prison work!"

Bob looked up in amazement, as did every one else.

"When a man hires out to be a ranger," Ross went on,
"he don't expect to be a carpenter, or a stone mason; he
expects to be a ranger!"

Immediately Charley Morton chimed in to the same
purpose. Bob listened with a rising indignation. This
sort of talk was old, but he had not expected to meet it here;
it is the talk of incompetence against authority everywhere,
of the sea lawyer, -the lumberjack, the soldier, the spoiled
subordinate in all walks of life. He had taken for granted
a finer sort of loyalty here; especially from such men as
Ross and Charley Morton. His face flushed, and he leaned
forward to say something. Jack Pollock jogged his elbow
fiercely.

"Hush up!" the young mountaineer whispered; "cain't
you see they're tryin' for a rise?"

Bob laughed softly to himself, and relaxed. He should
have been experienced enough, he told himself, to have
recognized so obvious and usual a trick of all campers.

But it was not for Bob, nor his like, that Ross was ang-
ling. In fact, he caught his bite almost immediately. For
the first time that day Curtis woke up and displayed some
interest.

"That's what I say!" he cried.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 395

The older man turned to him.

"What they been making you do to-day, son ? " asked Ross.

"I've been digging post holes up in those rocks," said
Curtis indignantly.

"You don't mean to tell me they put you at that?"
demanded Ross; "why, they're supposed to get Injins,
just cheap dollar-a-day Digger Injins, for that job. And
they put you at it!"

"Yes," said Curtis, "they did. I didn't hire out for any
such work. My father's county clerk down below."

"You don't say!" said Ross.

"Yes, and my hands are all blistered and my back is
lame, and -

But the expectant youngsters could hold in no longer.
A roar of laughter cut the speaker short. Curtis stared,
bewildered. Ross and Charley Morton were laughing
harder than anybody else. He started to his feet.

"Hold on, son," Ross commanded him, wiping his eyes.
"Don't get hostile at a little joke. You'll get used to the
work. Of course we all like to ride off in the mountains,
and do cattle work, and figure on things, and do adminis-
trative work; and we none of us are stuck on construction."
He looked around him at his audience, now quiet and atten-
tive. " But we've got to have headquarters, and barns, and
houses, and corrals and pastures. Once they're built,
they're built and that ends it. But they got to be built.
We're just in hard luck that we happen to be rangers right
now. The Service can't hire carpenters for us very well,
way up here; and somebody 1 s got to do it. It ain't as if
we had to do it for a living, all the time. There's a variety.
We get all kinds. Rangering's no snap, any more than any
other job. One thing," he ended with a laugh, "we get a
chance to do about everything."

The valley youth had dropped sullenly back into the
shadows, nor did he reply to this. After a little the men
scattered to their quarters, for they were tired.

396 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Bob and Jack Pollock occupied together one of the older
cabins, a rough little structure, built mainly of shakes. It
contained two bunks, a rough table, and two stools con-
structed of tobacco boxes to which legs had been nailed.
As the young men were preparing for bed, Bob remarked:

"Fletcher got his rise, all right. Much obliged for your
tip. I nearly bit. But he wasted his talk in my notion.
That fellow is hopeless. Ross labours in vain if he tries
to brace him up."

"I reckon Ross knows that," replied Jack, "and I reckon
too, he has mighty few hopes of bracin' up Curtis. I have
a kind of notion Ross was just usin' that Curtis as a
mark to talk at. What he was talkin' to was us."

THE week's hard physical toil was unrelieved. After
Bob and Jack Pollock had driven the last staple in
the last strand of barbed wire, they turned their
horses into the new pasture. The animals, overjoyed to
get free of the picket ropes that had heretofore confined
them, took long, satisfying rolls in the sandy corner, and
then went eagerly to cropping at the green feed. Bob,
leaning on the gate, with the rope still in his hand, experi-
enced a glow of personal achievement greater than any he
remembered to have felt since, as a small boy, he had unaided
reasoned out the problem of clear impression on his toy print-
ing press. He recognized this as illogical, for he had, in
all modesty, achieved affairs of some importance. Never-
theless, the sight of his own animal enjoying its liberty in
an enclosure created by his own two hands pleased him to
the core. He grinned in appreciation of Elliott's humor-
ous parody on the sentimental slogan of the schools " to
make two cedar posts grow where none grew before." There
was, after all, a rather especial satisfaction in that principle.
It next became necessary, he found, that the roof over the
new office at headquarters should receive a stain that would
protect it against the weather. He acquired a flat brush, a
little seat with spikes in its supports, and a can of stain whose
base seemed to be a very evil-smelling fish oil. Here all
day long he clung, daubing on the stain. When one shingle
was done, another awaited his attention, over and over, in
unvarying monotony. It was the sort of job he had always
loathed, but he stuck to it cheerfully, driving his brush
deep in the cracks in order that no crevice might remain

397

398 THE RULES OF THE GAME

for the entrance of the insidious principle of decay. Cast-
ing about in his leisure there for the reason of his patience,
he discovered it in just that; he was now at no task to be
got through with, to be made way with; he was engaged
in a job that was to be permanent. Unless he did it right,
it would not be permanent.

Below him the life of headquarters went on. He saw it
all, and heard it all, for every scrap of conversation rose to
him from within the office. He was amazed at the diver-
sity of interests and the complexity of problems that came
there for attention.

"Look here, Mr. Thorne," said one of the rangers, "this
Use Book says that a settler has a right to graze ten head
of stock actually in use free of grazing charge. Now there's
Brown up at the north end. He runs a little dairy business,
and has about a hundred head of cattle up. He claims
we ought not to charge him for ten head of them because
they're all ' actually in use.' How about it?"

Thorne explained that the exemption did not apply to
commercial uses and that Brown must pay for all. He
qualified the statement by saying that this was the latest
interpretation of which he had heard.

In like manner the policies in regard to a dozen little
industries and interests were being patiently defined and
determined dairies, beef cattle, shake makers, bees, box
and cleat men, free timber users, mining men, seekers for
water concessions, those who desired rights of way, per-
mits for posts, pastures, mill sites all these proffered
their requests and difficulties to the Supervisor. Sometimes
they were answered on the spot. Oftener their remarks
were listened to, their propositions taken under advisement.
Then one or another of the rangers was summoned, given
instructions. He packed his mule, saddled his horse, and
rode away to be gone a greater or lesser period of time.
Others were sent out to run lines about tracts, to define
boundaries. Still others, like Ross Fletcher, pounded drill

THE RULES OF THE GAME 399

and rock, and exploded powder on the new trail that was
to make more accessible the tremendous canon of the
river. The men who came and went rarely represented
any but the smallest interests; yet somehow Bob felt their
importance, and the importance of the little problems
threshed out in the tiny, rough-finished office below him.
These but foreshadowed the greater things to come. And
these minute decisions shaped the policies and precedents
of what would become mighty affairs. Whether Brown
should be allowed to save his paltry three dollars and a half
or not determined larger things. To Bob's half- mystic
mood, up there under the mottled shadows, every tiny move
of this game became portentous with fate. A return of
the old exultation lifted him. He saw the shadows of these
affairs cast dim and gigantic against the mists of the future.
These men were big with the responsibility of a new thing.
It behooved them all to act with circumspection, with due

heed, with reverence

Bob applied his broad brush and the evil-smelling stain
methodically and with minute care as to every tiny detail
of the simple work. But his eyes were wide and unseeing,
and all the inner forces of his soul were moving slowly and
mightily. His personality had nothing to do with the mat-
ter. He painted; and affairs went on with him. His being
held itself passive, in suspension, while the forces and exper-
iences and influences of one phase of his life crystallized
into their foreordained shapes deep within him. Yester-
day he was this; now he was becoming that; and the two
were as different beings. New doors of insight were silently
swinging open on their hinges, old prejudices were closing,
fresh convictions long snugly in the bud were unfolding
like flowers. These things were not new. They had begun
many years before when as a young boy he had stared wide-
eyed, unseeing and uncomprehending, gazing down the
sun-streaked, green, lucent depths of an aisle in the forest.
Bob painted steadily on, moving his little seat nearer and

400 THE RULES OF THE GAME

nearer the eaves. When noon and night came, he hung
up his utensils very carefully, washed up, and tramped to
the rangers' camp, where he took his part in the daily tasks,
assumed his share of the conversation, entered into the fun,
and contributed his ideas toward the endless discussions. No
one noticed that he was in any way different from his ordi-
nary self. But it was as though some one outside of himself,
in the outer circle of his being, carried on these necessary
and customary things. He, drawn apart, watched by the
shrine of his soul. He did nothing, either by thought or
effort merely watched, patient and rapt, while foreor-
dained and mighty changes took place

He reached the edge of the roof; stood on the ladder to
finish the last row of the riven shingles. Slowly his brush
moved, finishing the cracks deep down so that the principle
of decay might never enter. Inside the office Thorne sat
dictating a letter to some applicant for privilege. The prin-
ciple was new hi its interpretation, and so Thorne was
choosing his words with the greatest care. Swiftly before
Bob's inner vision the prospect widened. Thorne became
a prophet speaking down the years; the least of these men
in a great new Service became the austere champions of
something high and beautiful. For one moment Bob
dwelt in a wonderful, breathless, vast, unreal country where
heroic figures moved in the importance of all the unborn
future, dim-seen, half-revealed. He drew his brush across
the last shingle of all. Something seemed to click. Swiftly
the gates shut, the strange country receded into infinite dis-
tance. With a rush like the sucking of water into a vacuum
the everyday world drew close. Bob, his faculties once more
in their accustomed seat, looked about him as one awakened.
His hour was over. The change had taken place.

Thorne was standing in the doorway with Amy, their
dictation finished.

"All done?" said he. "Well, you did a thorough job.
It's the kind that will last."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 401

"I'm right on deck when it comes to painting things red,"
retorted Bob. " What next ? "

"Next," said Thorne, "I want you to help one of the boys
split some cedar posts. We've got a corral or so to make."

Bob descended slowly from the ladder, balancing the
remainder of the red stain. Thorne looked at him curi-
ously.

"How do you like it as far as you've gone?" he per-
mitted himself to ask. "This isn't quite up to the romantic
idea of rangering, is it?"

"Well," said Bob with conviction, "I suppose it may
sound foolish; but I never was surer of anything in my
life than that I've struck the right job."

As he walked home that night, he looked back on the
last few days with a curious bewilderment. It had all been
so real; now apparently it meant nothing. Thorne was
doing good work; these rangers were good men. But
where had vanished all Bob's exaltation? where his feeling
of the portent and influence and far-reaching significance
of what these men were doing? He realized its impor-
tance; but the feeling of its fatefulness had utterly gone.
Things with him were back on a work-a-day basis. He
even laughed a little, good-humouredly, at himself. At
the gate to the new pasture he once more stopped and looked
at his horse. A deep content came over him.

"I've sure struck the right job!" he repeated aloud with
conviction.

And this, could he have known it, was the outward and
visible and only sign of the things spiritual that had been
veiled.

Ill

WHEN Saturday evening came the men washed and
shaved and put on clean garments. Bob, dog
tired after a hard day, was more inclined to lie
on his back.

"Ain't you-ali goin' over to-night?" asked Jack Pollock.

"Over where ?"

"Why," explained the younger man, "always after sup-
per Saturdays all the boys who are in camp go over to spend
the evenin' at headquarters."

Aggressively sleek and scrubbed, the little group marched
down through the woods in the twilight. At headquarters
Amy Thorne and her brother welcomed them and ushered
them into the big room, with the stone fireplace. In this latter
a fire of shake-bolts leaped and roared. The men crowded
in, a trifle bashfully, found boxes and home-made chairs,
and perched about talking occasionally in very low tones
to the nearest neighbour. Amy sat in a rocking chair by
the table lamp, sewing on something, paying little attention
to the rangers, save to throw out an occasional random
remark. Thorne had not yet entered. Finally Amy dropped
the sewing in her lap.

"You're all as solemn as a camp-meeting," she told them
severely. "How many times must I tell you to smoke up
and be agreeable? Here, Mr. Ware, set* them a good
example."

She pushed a cigar box toward the older man. Bob saw
it to be half full of the fine-flaked tobacco so much used in
the West. Thus encouraged, Ware rolled himself a cigar-
ette. Others followed suit. Still others produced and filled

402

THE RULES OF THE GAME 403

black old pipes. A formidable haze eddied through the
apartment. Amy, still sewing, said, without looking up:

"One of you boys go rummage the store room for the
corn popper. The corn's in a corn-meal sack on the far
shelf."

Just then Thorne came in, bringing a draft of cold air
with him.

"Well," said he, "this is a pretty full house for this time
of year."

He walked directly to the rough, board shelf and from
it took down a book.

" This man Kipling will do again for to-night," he remarked.
"He knows more about our kind of fellow than most. I've
sent for one or two other things you ought to know, but
just now I want to read you a story that may remind you
of something you've run against yourself. We've a few
wild, red-headed Irishmen ourselves in these hills."

He walked briskly to the lamp, opened the volume, and
at once began to read. Every once in a while he looked
up from the book to explain a phrase in terms the men
would understand, or to comment pithily on some similar-
ity in their own experience. When he had finished, he
looked about at them, challenging.

"There; what did I tell you? Isn't that just about the
way they hand it out to us here ? And this story took place
the other side of the world! It's quite wonderful when
you stop to think about it, isn't it? Listen to this '

He pounced on another story. This led him to a second
incursion on the meagre library. Bob did not recognize the
practical, rather hard Thorne of everyday official life. The
man was carried away by his eagerness to interpret the little
East Indian to these comrade spirits of the West. The
rangers listened with complete sympathy, every once in a
while throwing in a comment or a criticism, never hesitating
to interrupt when interruption seemed pertinent.

Finally Amy, who had all this time been sewing away

404 THE RULES OF THE GAME

unmoved, a half-tender, half-amused smile curving her
lips, laid down her work with an air of decision.

"I'll call your attention," said she, "to the fact that I'm
hungry. Shut up your book; I won't hear another word."
She leaned across the table, and, in spite of Thome's half-
earnest protests, took possession of the volume.

"Besides," she remarked, "look at poor Jack Pollock;
he's been popping corn like a little machine, and he must
be nearly roasted himself."

Jack turned to her a face very red from the heat of the
leaping pine fire.

"That's right," he grinned, "but I got about a dish-
pan done."

"You'll be in practice to fight fire," some one chaffed him.

" Oh, he'll fight fire all right, if there's somethin' to eat
the other side," drawled Charley Morton.

"It's plenty," said Amy, referring to the quantity of pop-
corn.

"Why," spoke up California John in an aggrieved and
surprised tone, "ain't there nobody going to eat popcorn
but me?"

Amy disappeared only to return bearing a cake frosted
with chocolate. The respect with which this was viewed
proved that the men appreciated to the full what was repre-
sented by chocolate cake in this altitude of tiny stoves and
scanty supplies. Again Amy dove into the store room.
This time she bore back a huge enamel-ware pitcher which
she set in the middle of the round table.

"There!" she cried, her cheeks red with triumph.

"What you got, Amy?" asked her brother.

Ross Fletcher leaned forward to look.

"Great guns!" he cried.

The men jostled around, striving for a glimpse, half in
joke, half in genuine curiosity.

"Lemonade!" cried Ware.

"None of your lime juice either," pronounced California

THE RULES OF THE GAME 405

John; "look at the genuine article floatin' around on
top."

They turned to Amy.

"Where did you get them?" they demanded.

But she shook her head, smiling, and declined to tell.

They devoured the popcorn and the chocolate cake to
the last crumb, and emptied the pitcher of genuine lemon-
ade. Then they went home. It was all simple enough:
cheap tobacco; reading aloud; a little rude chaffing; lemon-
ade, cake and popcorn! Bob smiled to himself as he thought
of the consternation a recital of these ingredients would
carry to the sophisticated souls of most of his friends. Yet
he had enjoyed the party, enjoyed it deeply and thoroughly,
He came away from it glowing with good-fellowship.

A THESE and similar occupations the latter days of
June slipped by. Bob had little leisure, for the
Service was undermanned for the work it must do.
Curtis sooned resigned, to everybody's joy and relief.
On only one occasion did Bob gain a chance to ride over
to the scenes of his old activities. This was on a Sunday
when, by a miracle, nothing unexpected came up to tie him
to his duty. He had rather an unsatisfactory visit with
Mr. Welton. It was cordial enough on both sides, for the
men w r ere genuinely fond of each other; but they had lost
touch of each other's interests. Welton persisted in regard-
ing Bob with a covert amusement, as an older man regards
a younger who is having his fling, and will later settle down.
Bob asked after the work, and was answered. Neither
felt any real human interest in the questions nor their replies.
A certain constraint held them, to Bob's very genuine regret.
He rode back through the westering shadows vaguely uneasy
in his mind.

He and two of the new mountain men had been for two
days cutting up some dead and down trees that encumbered
the enclosure at headquarters. They cross-cut the trunks
into handy lengths; bored holes in them with a two-inch
augur; loaded the holes with blasting powder and a fuse,
and touched them off. The powder split the logs into rough
posts small enough to handle. These fragments they car-
ried laboriously to the middle of the meadow, where they
stacked them rack-fashion and on end. The idea was to
combine business with pleasure by having a grand bonfire
the night of the Fourth of July.

406

THE RULES OF THE GAME 407

For this day other preparations were forward. Amy
promised a spread for everybody, if she could get a little
help at the last moment. As many of the outlying rangers
as could manage it would come in for the occasion. A
shooting match, roping and chopping contests, and other
sports were in contemplation.

As the time drew near, various mysteries were plainly
afoot. Men claimed their turns in riding down the moun-
tain for the mail. They took with them pack horses. These
they unpacked secretly and apart. Amy gave Bob to under^
stand that this holiday, when the ranks were fullest and
conditions ripe, went far as a substitute for Christmas
among these men.

Then at noon of July second Charley Morton dashed
down the trail from the Upper Meadow, rode rapidly to
Headquarters, flung himself from his horse, and dove into
the office. After a moment he reappeared, followed by
Thome.

"Saddle up, boys," said the latter. "Fire over beyond
Baldy. Ride and gather in the men who are about here,"
he told Bob.

Bob sprang on Charley Morton's horse and rode about
instructing the workers to gather. When he returned,
Thorne gave his instructions.

"We're short-handed," he stated, "and it'll be hard to get
help just at this time. Charley, you take Ware, Elliott
and Carroll and see what it looks like. Start a fire line,
and do the best you can. Orde, you and Pollock can get
up some pack horses and follow later with grub, blankets,
and so forth. I'll ride down the mountain to see what I
can do about help. It may be I can catch somebody by
phone at the Power House who can let the boys know at
the north end. You say it's a big fire?"

"I see quite a lot of smoke," said Charley.

"Then the boys over Jackass way and by the Cross-
ing ought to see it for themselves."

408 THE RULES OF THE GAME

The four men designated caught up their horses, saddled
them, and mounted. Thorne handed them each a broad
hoe, a rake and an axe. They rode off up the trail. Thorne
mounted on his own horse.

"Pack up and follow as fast as you can," he told the two
who still remained.

'What you want we should take?" asked Jack.

" Amy will tell you. Get started early as you can. You'll
have to follow their tracks."

Amy took direction of them promptly. While they caught
and saddled the pack horses, she was busy in the store-
room. They found laid out for them a few cooking utensils,
a variety of provisions tied up in strong little sacks, several
more hoes, axes and rakes, two mattocks, a half-dozen flat
files, and as many big zinc canteens.

"Now hurry!" she commanded them; "pack these, and
then get some blankets from your camp, and some hobbles
and picket ropes."

With Bob's rather awkward help everything was made
fast. By the time the two had packed the blankets and
returned to headquarters on their way to the upper trail,
they found Amy had changed her clothes, caught and sad-
dled her own horse, tied on well-filled saddle bags, and stood
awaiting them. She wore her broad hat looped back by
the pine tree badge of the Service, a soft shirtwaist of gray
flannel, a short divided skirt of khaki and high-laced boots.
A red neckerchief matched her cheeks, which were glowing
with excitement. Immediately they appeared, she swung
aboard with the easy grace of one long accustomed to the
saddle. Bob's lower jaw dropped in amazement.

"You going?" he gasped, unable even yet to compre-
hend the everyday fact that so many gently nurtured West-
ern girls are accustomed to those rough-and-ready bivouacs.

"I wouldn't stay away for worlds!" she cried, turning
her pony's head up the trail.

Beyond the upper meadow this trail suddenly began to

THE RULES OF THE GAME 409

climb. It made its way by lacets in the dry earth, by scram-
bles in the rocks until, through the rapidly thinning ranks
of the scrubby trees, Bob could look back over all the broad
shelf of the mountain whereon grew the pines. It lay spread
before him as a soft green carpet of tops, miles of it, wrink-
ling and billowing gently as here and there the conformation
of the country changed. At some distance it dropped over
an edge. Beyond that, very dimly, he realized the brown
shimmer rising from the plain. Far to the right was a
tenuous smoke, a suggestion of thinning in the forest, a flash
of blue water. This, Bob knew, must be the mill and the
lake.

The trail shortly made its way over the shoulder of the
ridge and emerged on the wide, gentle rounding of the crest.
Here the trees were small, stunted and wind-blown. Huge
curving sheets of unbroken granite lay like armour across
the shoulder of the mountain. Decomposing granite shale
crunched under the horses' hoofs. Here and there on it
grew isolated tiny tufts of the hardy upland flowers. Above,
the sky was deeply, intensely blue; bluer than Bob had
ever seen a sky before. The air held in it a tang of wild-
ness, as though it had breathed from great spaces.

"I suppose this is the top of our ridge, isn't it?" Bob
asked Jack Pollock.

The boy nodded.

Suddenly the trail dipped sharp to the left into a nar-
row and shallow little ravine. The bed of this was carpeted
by a narrow stringer of fresh grass and flowers, through
which a tiny stream felt its hesitating way. This ravine
widened and narrowed, turned and doubled. Here and
there groups of cedars on a dry flat offered ideal shelter for
a camp. Abruptly the stringer burst through a screen of
azaleas to a round green meadow surrounded by the taller
trees of the eastern slope of the mountain.

In other circumstances Bob would have liked to stop for
a better sight of this little gem of a meadow. It was ankle

4io THE RULES OF THE GAME

deep with new grasses, starred with flowers, bordered with
pink and white azaleas. The air, prisoned in a pocket,
warmed by the sun, perfumed heavily by the flowers, lay
in the cup of the trees like a tepid bath. A hundred birds
sang in June-tide ecstasy.

But Jack Pollock, without pause, skirted this meadow,
crossed the tiny silver creek that bubbled from it down the
slope, and stolidly mounted a little knoll beyond. The
trained pack horses swung along behind him, swaying
gently from side to side that they might carry their packs
comfortably and level. Bob turned involuntarily to glance
at Amy. Their eyes met. She understood; and smiled
at him brightly.

Jack led the way to the top of the knoll and stopped.

Here the edge of the mountain broke into a tiny out-
cropping spur that shook itself free from the pines. It con-
stituted a natural lookout '\, the east. Bob drew rein so
violently that even his well-trained mountain horse shook
its head in protest.

Before him, hushed with that tremendous calm of vast
distances, lay the Sierras he had never seen, as though
embalmed in the sunlight of a thousand afternoons. A
tremendous, deep canon plunged below him, blue with
distance. It climbed again to his level eventually, but by
that time it was ten miles away. And over against him,
very remote, were pine ridges looking velvety and dark and
ruffled and full of shadows, like the erect fur of a beast that
has been alarmed. From them here and there projected
granite domes. And beyond them bald ranges; and beyond
them, splintered granite with snow in the crevices; and
beyond this the dark and frowning Pinnacles; and still
beyond, other mountains so distant, so ethereal, so deli-
cately pink and rose and saffron that almost he expected
they might at any moment dissolve into the vivid sky. And,
strangely enough, though he realized the tremendous heights
and depths of these peaks and canons, the whole effect to

THE RULES OF THE GAME 411

Bob was as something spread out broad. The sky, the
wonderful over-arching, very blue sky, was the most impor-
tant thing in the universe. Compared to its infinitudes
these mountains lay spread like a fair and wrinkled foot-
rug to a horizon inconceivably remote and mysterious.

Then his eye fell to the ridge opposite, across the blue
canon. From one point on it a straight column of smoke
rolled upward, to mushroom out and hang motionless above
the top of the ridge. Its base was shot by half-seen, half-
guessed flaming streaks.

Bob had vaguely expected to see a whole country-side
ablaze. This single, slender column was almost absurd. It
looked like a camp-fire, magnified to fit the setting, of course.

"There's the fire, all right," said Jack. "We got to get
across to it somehow. Trail ends here."

"Why, that doesn't amount to much!" cried Bob.

"Don't it?" said Jack. "Well, I'd call that some shakes
of a fire myself. It's covered mighty nigh three hundred
acres by now."

"Three hundred acres! Better say ten."

"You're wrong," said Jack; "I've rode all that country
with cattle."

"You'll find it fire enough, when you get there," put in
Amy. "It's right in good timber, too."

"All right," agreed Bob; "I'll believe anything after
this." He waved his hand abroad. "Jack," he called,
as that young man led the way off the edge, "can you see
where Jack Main's Canon is from here?"

"Jack Main's!" repeated young Pollock. "Why, if you
was on the top of the farthest mountain in sight, you
couldn't see any place you could see it from."

"Good Lord!" said Bob.

The way zigzagged down the slope of the mountain.
As Jack had said, there was no trail, but the tracks left
by the four rangers were plainly to be discerned. Bob,
following the pack horses, had leisure to observe how skil-

412 THE RULES OF THE GAME

fully this way had been picked out. Always it held to the
easy footing, but always it was evident that if certain turns
had not been made some distance back this easy footing
would have lacked. At times the tracks led far to the left
at nearly the same level until one, two or three little streams
had been crossed. Then without apparent reason they
turned directly down the backbone of a steep ridge exactly
like a half-dozen others they had passed over. But later
Bob saw that this ridge was the only one of the lot that
dipped over gently to lower levels; all the rest broke off
abruptly in precipitous rocks. Bob was a good woods-
man, but this was his first experience in that mountaineering
skill which noses its way by the " lay of the country."

In the meantime they were steadily descending. The
trees hemmed them closer. Thickets of willows and alders
had to be crossed. Dimly through the tree-tops they seemed
to see the sky darkening by degrees as they worked their
way down. At first Bob thought it the lateness of the after-
noon; then he concluded it must be the smoke of the fire;
finally, through a clear opening, he saw this apparent dark-
ening of the horizon was in reality the blue of the canon
wall opposite, rising as they descended. But, too, as they
drew nearer, the heavy smoke of the conflagration began
to spread over them. In time it usurped the heavens, and
Bob had difficulty in believing that it could appear to any
one anywhere as so simple a mushroom-head over a slender
smoke column.

By the time the horses stepped from the slope to the bed
of the canon, it was quite dark. Jack turned down
stream.

"We'll cut the trail to Burro Rock pretty quick," said he.

Within five minutes of travel they did cut it; a narrow
brown trough, trodden by the hoofs of many generations
of cattlemen bound for the back country. Almost imme-
diately it began to mount the slope.

Now ahead, through the gathering twilight, lights began

THE RULES OF THE GAME 413

to show, sometimes scattered, sometimes grouped, like the
camp-fires of an immense army. These were the stubs,
stumps, down logs and the like left still blazing after all
the more readily inflammable material had been burned
away. As the little cavalcade laboured upward, stopping
every few minutes to breathe the horses, these flickering
lights defined themselves. In particular one tall dead yel-
low pine standing boldly prominent, afire to the top, alter-
nately glowed and paled as the wind breathed or died. A
smell of stale burning drifted down the damp night air.
Pretty soon Jack Pollock halted for a moment to call back:

"Here's their fire line!"

Bob spurred forward. Just beyond Jack's horse the
country lay blackened. The pine needles had burned down
to the soil; the seedlings and younger trees had been withered
away; the larger trees scorched; the fuel with which every
forest is littered consumed in the fierceness of the conflagra-
tion. Here and there some stub or trunk still blazed and
crackled, outposts of the army whose camp-fires seemed
to dot the hills.

The line of demarcation between the burned and the
unburned areas seemed extraordinarily well defined. Bob
looked closer and saw that this definition was due to a pecul-
iar path, perhaps two yards wide. It looked as though
some one had gone along there with a huge broom, sweeping
as one would sweep a path in deep dust. Only in this case
the broom must have been a powerful implement as well
as one of wide reach. The brushed marks went not only
through the carpet of pine needles, but through the tar-
weed, the snow brush, the manzanita. This was technic-
ally the fire line. At the sight of the positiveness with
which it had checked the spread of the flames, Bob's spirits
rose.

"They seem to have stopped it here easy enough, already,"
he cried.

"Being as how this is the windward side of the fire, and

414 THE RULES OF THE GAME

on a down slope, I should think they might," remarked
Jack Pollock drily.

Bob chuckled and glanced at the girl.

"I'm finding out every day how little I know,' 7 said he;
"at my age, too!"

"The hard work is down wind," said Amy,

"Of course."

They entered the burned area, and climbed on up the
hill. Though evidently here the ferocity of the confla-
gration had passed, it had left its rear guard behind. Fal-
len trees still blazed; standing trees flamed like torches
but all harmlessly within the magic circle drawn by the
desperate quick work of the rangers. They threaded their
way cautiously among these isolated fires, watching lest
some dead giant should fall across their path. The ground
smoked under their feet. Against the background of a
faint and distant roaring, which now made itself evident,
the immediate surroundings seemed very quiet. The indi-
vidual cracklings of flames were an undertone. Only once
in a while a dull heavy crash smote the air as some great
tree gave up the unequal struggle.

They passed as rapidly as they could through this stricken
field. The night had fallen, but the forest was still
bright, the trail still plain. They followed it for an hour
until it had topped the lower ridge.

Then far ahead, down through the dark trunks of trees,
they saw, wavering, flickering, leaping and dying, a line of
fire. In some places it was a dozen feet high; in others it
sank to within a few inches of the ground but nowhere
could the eye discern an opening through it. A roar and
a crackling filled the air. Sparks were shooting upward
in the suction. A blast of heat rushed against Bob's cheek.
All at once he realized that a forest fire was not a widespread
general conflagration, like the burning of a city block. It
was a line of battle, a ring of flame advancing steadily. All
they had passed had been negligible. Here was the true

THE RULES OF THE GAME 415

enemy, now charging rapidly through the dry, inflammable
low growth, now creeping stealthily in the needles and
among the rocks; always making way, always gathering
itself for one of its wild leaps which should lay an entire new
province under its ravaging. Somewhere on the other side
of that ring of fire were four men. They were trying to
cut a lane over which the fire could not leap.

Bob gazed at the wall of flame with some dismay.

"How we going to get through?" he asked.

"We got to find a rock outcrop somewheres up the ridge,"
explained Jack, "where there'll be a break in the fire."

He turned up the side of the mountain again, leading
the way. After a time they came to an outcrop of the sort
described, which, with some difficulty and stumbling, they
succeeded in crossing.

Ahead, in the darkness, showed a tiny licking little fire,
only a few inches high.

"The fire has jumped !" cried Bob.

"No, that's their backfire," Pollock corrected him.

They found this to be true. The rangers had hastily
hoed and raked out a narrow path. Over this a very small
fire could not pass; but there could be no doubt that the
larger conflagration would take the slight obstacle in its
stride. Therefore the rangers had themselves ignited the
small fire. This would eat away the fuel, and automatic-
ally widen the path. Between the main fire and the back
fire were still several hundred yards of good, unburned
country. To Bob's expression of surprise Amy added to the
two principles of fire-fighting he had learned from Pollock.

"It doesn't do to try to stop a fire anywhere and every-
where," said she. "A good man knows his country, and he
takes advantage of it. This fire line probably runs along
the line of natural defence."

They followed it down the mountain for a long distance
through the eddying smoke. The flames to their right
shot up and died and crept. The shadows to their left

4i 6 THE RULES OF THE GAME

their own among the number leaped and fell. After a
while, down through the mists, they made out a small fig-
ure, very busy at something. When they approached, they
found this to be Charley Morton. The fire had leaped
the cleared path and was greedily eating in all directions
through the short, pitchy growth of tarweed. It was as
yet only a tiny leak, but once let it get started, the whole
forest beyond the fire line would be ablaze. The ranger
had started to cut around this a half-circle connected at
both ends with the main fire line. With short, quick jabs
of his hoe, he was tearing away at the tough tarweed.

"Hullo!" said he without looking up. "You'll find
camp on the bald ridge north the fire line. There's a little
feed there."

Having completed his defence, he straightened his back
to look at them. His face was grimed a dingy black through
which rivulets of sweat had made streaks.

"Had it pretty hot all afternoon," he proffered. "Got
the fire line done, though. How're those canteens full?
I'll trade you my empty one." He took a long draught.
"That tastes good. Went dry about three o'clock, and
haven't had a drop since."

They left him there, leaning on the handle of his hoe.
Jack Pollock seemed to know where the place described
as the camp-site was located, for after various detours and
false starts, he led them over the brow of a knoll to a tiny
flat among the pine needles where they were greeted by
whinnies from unseen animals. It was here very dark.
Jack scraped together and lit some of the pine needles.
By the flickering light they saw the four saddles dumped
down in a heap.

"There's a side hill over yander with a few bunches of
grass and some of these blue lupins," said Jack. "It ain't
much in the way of hoss-feed, but it'll have to do."

He gathered fuel and soon had enough of a fire to furnish
light.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 417

"It certainly does seem plumb foolish to be lightin' more
fires!" he remarked.

In the meantime Amy had unsaddled her own horse and
was busy unpacking one of the pack animals. Bob fol-
lowed her example.

"There," she said; "now here are the canteens, all full;
and here's six lunches already tied together that I put up
before we started. You can get them to the other boys.
Take your tools and run along. I'll straighten up, and be
ready for you when you can come back."

"What if the fire gets over to you?" asked Bob.

"I'll turn the horses loose and ride away," she said gaily.

"It won't get clost to there," put in Jack. "This little
ridge is rock all round it. That's why they put the camp
here."

"Where's water?" asked Amy.

"I don't rightly remember," confessed Pollock. "I've
only been in here once."

"I'll find out in the morning. Good luck!"

Jack handed Bob three of the canteens, a hoe and rake
and one of the flat files.

"What's this for?" asked Bob.

"To keep the edge of your hoe sharp," replied Jack.

They shouldered their implements and felt their way in
the darkness over the tumbled rock outcrop. As they sur-
mounted the shoulder of the hill, they saw once more flick-
ering before them the fire line.

CHARLEY MORTON received the lunch with joy.
"Ain't had time to get together grub since we
came," said he, "and didn't know when I would."

"What do you want us to do?" asked Bob,

"The fire line's drawn right across from Granite Creek
down there in the canon over to a bald dome. We got her
done an hour ago, and pretty well back-fired. All we got to
do now is to keep her from crossing anywheres; and if she
does cross, to corral her before she can get away from us."

"I wish we could have got here sooner!" cried Bob,
disappointed that the little adventure seemed to be flatten-
ing out.

"So?" commented Charley drily. "Well, there's plenty
yet. If she gets out in one single, lonesome place, this
fire line of ours won't be worth a cent. She's inside now
if we can hold her there." He gazed contemplatively aloft
at a big dead pine blazing merrily to its very top. Every
once in a while a chunk of bark or a piece of limb came flar-
ing down to hit the ground with a thump. "There's the
trouble," said he. "What's to keep a spark or a coal from
that old coon from falling or rolling on the wrong side of
the line ? If it happens when none of us are around, why the
fire gets a start. And maybe a coal will roll down hill from
somewhere; or a breeze come up and carry sparks. One
spark over here," he stamped his foot on the brushed line,
"and it's all to do over again. There's six of us," added
the ranger, " and a hundred of these trees near the line. By
rights there ought to be a man camped down near every one
of them."

418

THE RULES OF THE GAME 419

"Give us our orders," repeated Bob.

"The orders are to patrol the fire line," said Morton.
"If you find the fire has broken across, corral it. If it gets
too strong for you, shoot your six-shooter twice. Keep
a-moving, but take it easy and save yourself for to-morrow.
About two o'clock, or so, I'll shoot three times. Then you
can come to camp and get a little sleep. You got to be in
shape for to-morrow."

"Why especially to-morrow?" asked Bob.

"Fire dies in the cool of night; it comes up in the middle
of the day," explained Morton succinctly.

Bob took to the right, while Jack went in the opposite
direction. His way led down hill. He crossed a ravine,
surmounted a little ridge. Now he was in the worse than
total darkness of the almost extinct area. Embers and
coals burned all over the side hill like so many evil winking
eyes. Far ahead, down the mountain, the rising smoke
glowed incandescent with the light of an invisible fire beneath.
Bob, blinded by this glow, had great difficulty in making his
way. Once he found that he had somehow crept out on
the great bald roundness of a granite dome, and had to
retrace his steps. Twice he lost his footing utterly, but
fortunately fell but a short distance. At last he found him-
self in the V of a narrow ravine.

All this time he had, with one exception, kept close track
of the fire line. The exception was when he strayed out
over the dome; but that was natural, for the dome had been
adopted bodily as part of the system of defence. Every-
where the edge of the path proved to be black and dead.
No living fire glowed within striking distance of the inflam-
mable material on the hither side the path.

But here, in the bottom of the ravine, a single coal had
lodged, and had already started into flame the dry small
brush. It had fallen originally from an oak fully a hun-
dred feet away; and in some mysterious manner had found
a path to this hidden pocket. The circumstances some*

420 THE RULES OF THE GAME

what shook Bob's faith in the apparent safety of the country
he had just traversed.

However, there were the tiny flames, licking here and
there, insignificant, but nevertheless dangerous. Bob care-
fully laid his canteens and the rake on a boulder, and set
to work with his sharpened hoe. It looked to be a very
easy task to dig out a path around this little fire.

In the course of the miniature fight he learned consider-
able of the ways of fire. The brush proved unexpectedly
difficult. It would not stand up to the force of his stroke,
but bent away. The tarweed, especially, was stubborn
under even the most vigorous wielding of his sharpened
hoe.

He made an initial mistake by starting to hoe out his
path too near the blaze, forgetting that in the time neces-
sary to complete his half-circle the flames would have spread.
Discovering this, he abandoned his beginning and fell back
twenty feet. This naturally considerably lengthened the
line he would have to cut. When it was about half done,
Bob discovered that he would have to hustle to prevent
the fire breaking by him before he could complete his half-
circle. It became a race. He worked desperately. The
heat of the flames began to scorch his face and hands, so
that it was with difficulty he could face his work. Irrele-
vantly enough there arose before his mind the image of
Jack Pollock popping corn before the fireplace at head-
quarters. Continual wielding of the hoe tired a certain
set of muscles to the aching point. His mouth became dry
and sticky, but he could not spare time to hunt up his can-
teen. The thought flashed across his mind that the fire
was probably breaking across elsewhere, just like this.
The other men must be in the same fix. There were six
of them. Suppose the fire should break across simultane-
ously in seven places? The little licking flames had at
last, by dint of a malignant persistence, become a personal
enemy. He fought them absorbedly, throwing his line

THE RULES OF THE GAME 421

farther and farther as the necessity arose, running to beat
down with green brush the first feeble upstartings of the
fire as it leaped here and there his barrier, keeping a vigi-
lant eye on every part of his defences.

"Well," drawled Charley Morton's voice behind him,
"what you think you're doing?"

"Corralling this fire, of course," Bob panted, dashing
at a marauding little flame.

"What for?" demanded Charley.

Bob looked up in sheer amazement.

" See that rock dike just up the hill behind you ?" explained
Morton. "Well, our fire line already runs up to that on
both sides. Fire couldn't cross it. We expected this to
burn."

Bob suddenly felt a little nauseated and dizzy from the
heat and violence of his exertions in this high altitude.

"Here's your canteen," Morton went on easily. "Take
a swig. Better save a little. Feel better? Let me give
you a pointer: don't try to stop a fire going up hill. Take
it on top or just over the top. It burns slower and it ain't
so apt to jump."

"I know; I forgot," said Bob, feeling a trifle foolish.

"Never mind; you've learned something/' said Morton
comfortably. "Let's go down below. There's fresh fire
there; and it may have jumped past Elliott."

They scrambled down. Elliott and Ware were found
to be working desperately in the face of the flames. The
fire had not here jumped the line, but it was burning with
great ferocity up to the very edge of it. If the rangers
could for a half-hour prevent the heat from igniting the
growths across the defence, the main fire would have con-
sumed its fuel and died down to comparative safety. With
faces averted, heads lowered, handkerchiefs over their
mouths, they continually beat down the new little fires which
as continually sprang into life again. Here the antagon-
ists were face to face across the narrow line. The rangers

422 THE RULES OF THE GAME

could not give back an inch, for an inch of headway on the
wrong side the path would convert a kindling little blaze
to a real fire. They stood up to their work doggedly as
best they might.

With entire understanding of the situation Charley
motioned Bob to the front.

"We'll hold her for a minute," he shouted to the others.
"Drop back and get a drink."

They fell back to seize eagerly their canteens. Bob
gripped his handful of green brush and set to work. For a
minute he did not think it possible to face the terrible heat.
His garments were literally drenched with sweat which
immediately dried into steam. A fierce drain sucked at
his strength. He could hardly breathe, and could see only
with difficulty. After a moment Elliott and Ware, evidently
somewhat refreshed, again took hold.

How they stuck it out for that infernal half-hour Bob
could not have told, but stick it out they did. The flames
gradually died down; the heat grew less; the danger that
the shrivelled brush on the wrong side the fire line would
be ignited by sheer heat, vanished. The four men fell
back. Their eyebrows and hair were singed; their skin
blackened. Bob's face felt sore, and as though it had been
stretched. He took a long pull at his canteen. For the
moment he felt as though his energy had all been drained
away.

"Well, that was a good little scrap," observed Charley
Morton cheerfully. "I certainly do wish it was always night
when a man had to fight fire. In a hot sun it gets to be
hard work."

Elliott rolled his eyes, curiously white like a minstrel's
in his blackened face, at Bob, but said nothing.

"We'll leave Elliott here to watch this a few minutes,
and go down the line," said Morton.

Bob lifted his canteen, and, to his surprise, found it empty.

"Why, I must have drunk a gallon 1" he cried.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 423

"It's dry work," said Morton.

They continued on down the fire line, pausing every
once in a while to rake and scrape leisurely at the heavy
bark beneath some blazing stub. The fierce, hard work
was over. All along the fire line from the dome of granite
over the ridge down to Granite Creek the fire had consumed
all the light fuel on its own side the defence. No further
danger was to be apprehended in the breaking across. But
everywhere through the now darkening forest blazed the
standing trees. A wind would fill the air with brands;
and even in the present dead calm those near the line were
a threat.

The men traversed the fire line from end to end a half-
dozen times. Bob became acquainted individually and
minutely with each of the danger spots. The new tempor-
ary features of country took on, from the effects of vigilance
and toil, the dignity of age and establishment. Anxiously
he widened the path here, kicked back glowing brands
there, tried to assure himself that in no possible manner
could the seed of a new conflagration find germination.
After a long time he heard three shots from up the moun-
tain. This, he remarked, was a signal agreed upon. He
shouldered his blackened implements and commenced a
laborious ascent.

Suddenly he discovered that he was very tired, and that
his legs were weak and wobbly. Stubs and sticks pro-
truded everywhere; stones rolled from under his feet. Once
on a steep shale, he fell and rolled ten feet out of sheer
weariness. In addition he was again very thirsty, and his
canteen empty. A chill gray of dawn was abroad; the
smell of stale burning hung in the air.

By the time he had staggered into camp the daylight
had come. He glanced about him wearily. Across a tiny
ravine the horses dozed, tied each to a short picket rope.
Bob was already enough of a mountaineer to notice that
the feed was very scant. The camp itself had been made

424 THE RULES OF THE GAME

under a dozen big yellow pines. A bright little fire flick-
ered. About it stood utensils from which the men were
rather dispiritedly helping themselves. Bob saw that the
long pine needles had been scraped together to make soft
beds, over which the blankets had been spread. Amy her-
self, her cheeks red, her eyes bright, was passing around
tin cups of strong coffee, and tin plates of food. Her horse,
saddled and bridled, stood nearby.

"Take a little of this," she urged Bob, "and then turn
in."

Bob muttered his thanks. After swallowing the coffee,
however, he felt his energies reviving somewhat.

"How did you leave things at the lower end?" Morton
was asking him.

" All out but two or three smouldering old stubs," replied
Bob. "Everything's safe."

"Nothing's safe," contradicted Morton. "By rights we
ought to watch every minute. But we got to get some rest
in a long fight. It's the cool of the morning and the fire
burns low. Turn in and get all the sleep you can. May
need you later."

"I'm all in," acknowledged Bob, throwing back his
blanket; "I'm willing to say so."

"No more fire in mine," agreed young Elliott.

The other men said nothing, but fell to their beds. Only
Charley Morton rose a little stiffly to his feet.

"Aren't you going to turn in too, Charley?" asked the
girl quickly.

"It's daylight now," explained the ranger, "and I can
see to ride a horse. I reckon I'd better ride down the line."

" I've thought of that," said Amy. " Of course, it wouldn't
do to let the fire take care of itself. See; I have Pronto
saddled. I'll look over the line, and if anything happens
I'll wake you."

"You must be about dead," said Charley. "You've been
up all night fixing camp and cooking "

THE RULES OF THE GAME 425

"Up all night!" repeated Amy scornfully. "How long
do you think it takes me to make camp and cook a simple
little breakfast?"

"But the country's almighty rough riding."

"On Pronto?"

"He's a good mountain pony," agreed Charley Morton;
"California John picked him out himself. All right. I
do feel some tired."

This was about six o'clock. The men had slept but a
little over an hour when Amy scrambled over the rim of the
dike and dropped from her horse.

"Charley!" she cried, shaking the ranger by the shoul-
der; "I'm sorry. But there's fresh smoke about half-way
down the mountain. There was nothing left to burn fresh
inside the fire line, was there? I thought not."

Twenty minutes later all six were frantically digging,
hoeing, chopping, beating in a frenzy against the spread
of the flames. In some manner the fire had jumped the
line. It might have been that early in the fight a spark
had lodged. As long as the darkness of night held down
the temperature, this spark merely smouldered. When,
however, the rays of the sun gathered heat, it had burst into
flame.

This sun made all the difference in the world. Where,
in the cool of the night, the flames had crept slowly, now
they leaped forward with a fierce crackling; green brush
that would ordinarily have resisted for a long time, now
sprang into fire at a touch. The conflagration spread from
a single point in all directions, running swiftly, roaring in
a sheet of fire, licking up all before it.

The work was fierce in its intensity. Bob, in common
with the others, had given up trying or indeed caring
to protect himself. His clothes smoked, his face smarted
and burned, his skin burned and blistered. He breathed
the hot air in gasps. Strangely enough, he did not feel in
the least tired.

426 THE RULES OF THE GAME

He did not need to be told what to do. The only possible
defence was across a rock outcrop. To right and left of
him the other men were working desperately to tear out
the brush. He grubbed away trying to clear the pine need-
les and little bushes that would carry the fire through the
rocks like so many powder fuses.

He had no time to see how the others were getting on;
he worked on faith. His own efforts were becoming suc-
cessful. The fire, trying, one after another, various leads
through the rocks, ran out of fuel and died. The infernal
roaring furnace below, however, leaped ever to new trial.

Then all at once Bob found himself temporarily out of
the game. In trying to roll a boulder out of the way, he
caught his hand. A sharp, lightning pain shot up his
arm and into the middle of his chest. When he had suc-
ceeded in extricating himself, he found that his middle finger
was squarely broken.

BOB stood still for a moment, looking at the injured
member. Charley Morton touched him on the
shoulder. When he looked up, the ranger motioned
him back. Casting a look of regret at his half -completed
defences, he obeyed. To his surprise he found the other
four already gathered together. Evidently his being called
off the work had nothing to do with his broken finger, as he
had at first supposed.

"Well, I guess we'll have to fall back," said Morton
composedly. "It's got away from us."

Without further comment he shouldered his implements
and took his way up the hill. Bob handed his hoe and
rake to Jack Pollock.

"Carry 'em a minute," he explained. "I hurt my hand
a little."

As he walked along he bound the finger roughly to its
neighbour, and on both tied a rude splint.

"What's up?" he muttered to Jack, as he worked at
this.

" I reckon we must be goin' to start a fire line back of
the next cross-bridge somewheres," Jack ventured his
opinion.

Bob stopped short.

"Then we've abandoned the old one!" he exclaimed.

"Complete," spoke up Ware, who overheard.

"And all the work we've done there is useless?"

"Absolutely."

"We've got it all to do over again from the beginning?"

"Certain sure."

427

428 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Bob adjusted his mind to this new and rather overwhelm-
ing idea.

" I saw Senator What's-his-name from Montana
made a speech the other day," spoke up Elliott, "in which
he attacked the Service because he said it was a refuge for
consumptives and incompetents!"

At this moment Amy rode up draped with canteens and
balancing carefully a steaming pail of coffee. She was
accompanied by another woman similarly provided.

The newcomer was a decided-looking girl under thirty,
with a full, strong figure, pronounced flaxen-blond hair,
a clear though somewhat sunburned skin, blue eyes, and a
flash of strong, white teeth. Bob had never seen her before,
but he recognized her as a mountain woman. She rode a
pinto, guided by a hackamore, and was attired quite simply
in the universal broad felt hat and a serviceable blue calico
gown. In spite of this she rode astride; and rode well.
A throwing rope, or riata, hung in the sling at the right side
of her saddle pommel; and it looked as though it had been
used.

"Where's Charley?" she asked promptly as she rode up.
"Is that you? You look like a nigger. How you
feeling? You just mind me, and don't you try to do too
much. You don't get paid for overtime at this job."

"Hullo, Lou," replied Charley Morton; "I thought it
was about time you showed up."

The woman nodded at the others.

"Howdy, Mrs. Morton," answered Tom Carroll, Pol-
lock and Ware. Bob and Elliott bowed.

By now the fire had been left far in the rear. The crack-
ling of flames had died in the distance; even the smoke
cleared from the atmosphere. All the forest was peaceful
and cool. The Douglas squirrels scampered and barked;
the birds twittered and flashed or slanted in long flight
through the trees; the sun shone soft; a cool breeze ruffled
the feathery tips of the tarweed.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 429

At the top of the ridge Charley Morton called a halt.

"This is pretty easy country," said he. " We'll run the
line square down either side. Get busy."

"Have a cup of coffee first," urged Amy.

" Surely. Forgot that."

They drank the coffee, finding it good, and tucked
away the lunches Amy, with her unfailing forethought, had
brought them.

"Good-bye!" she called gaily; "I've got to get back to
camp before the fire cuts me off. I won't see you again
till the fire burns me out a way to get to you."

"Take my horse, too," said Mrs. Morton, dismounting.
"You don't need me in camp."

Amy took the lead rein and rode away as a matter of
course. She was quite alone to guard the horses and camp
equipage on the little knoll while the fire spent its fury all
around her. Everybody seemed to take the matter for
granted; but Bob looked after her with mingled feelings
of anxiety and astonishment. This Western breed of
girl was still beyond his comprehension.

The work was at once begun. In spite of the cruel throb
of his injured hand, Bob found the labour pleasant by sheer
force of contrast. The air was cool, the shade refreshing,
the frantic necessity of struggle absent. He raked care-
fully his broad path among the pine needles, laying bare
the brown earth; hoed and chopped in the tarweed and
brush. Several times Charley Morton passed him. Each
time the ranger paused for a moment to advise him.

"You ought to throw your line farther back," he told
Bob. "See that ' dead-and-down ' ahead? If you let that
cross your fire line, it'll carry the fire sooner or later, sure;
and if you curve your line too quick to go around it, the
fire'll jump. You want to keep your eye out 'way ahead."

Once Bob caught a glimpse of blue calico through the
trees. As he came nearer, he was surprised to see Mrs.
Morton working away stoutly with a hoe. Her skirts were

430 THE RULES OF THE GAME

turned back, her sleeves rolled up to display a while and
plump forearm, the neck of her gown loosened to show a
round and well-moulded neck. The strokes of her hoe
were as vigorous as those of any of the men. In watching
the strong, free movements of her body, Bob forgot for a
moment what had been intruding itself on him with more
and more insistance the throb of his broken hand.

In the course of an hour the fire line was well under way.
But now wisps of smoke began to drift down the tree aisles.
Birds shot past, at first by ones and twos, later in flocks.
A deer that must have lain perdu to let them pass bounded
across the ridge, his head high, his nostrils wide. The
squirrels ran chattering down the trees, up others, leaped
across the gaps, working always farther and farther to the
north. The cool breeze carried with it puffs of hot air.
Finally in distant openings could be discerned little busy,
flickering flames. All at once the thought gripped Bob
hard: the might of the fire was about to test the quality of
his work!

" There she comes! " gasped Charley Morton. " My Lord,
how she's run to-day! We got to close the line to that stone
dike."

By one of the lightning transitions of motive with which
these activities seemed to abound, the affair had become a
very deadly earnest sort of race. It was simple. If the
men could touch the dike before the fire, they won.

The realization of this electrified even the weary spirits
of the fire-fighters. They redoubled their efforts. The
hoes, mattocks and axes rose and fell feverishly. Mrs.
Morton, the perspiration matting her beautiful and shining
hair across her forehead, laboured with the best. The
fire, having gained the upward-rising slope, came at them
with the speed of an enemy charging. Soon they were
fairly choked by the dense clouds of smoke, fairly scorched
by the waves of heat. Sweat poured from them in streams.
Bob utterly forgot his wounded hand.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 431

And then, when they were within a scant fifty yards of
the dike which was intended to be their right wing, the flames
sprang with a roar to new life. Up the slope they galloped,
whirled around the end of the fire line, and began eagerly
to lick up the tarweed and needles of the ridge-top.

Bob and Elliott uttered a simultaneous cry of dismay.
The victory had seemed fairly in their grasp. Now all
chance of it was snatched away.

"Poor guess," said Charley Morton. The men, with-
out other comment, shouldered their implements and set off
on a dog-trot after their leader. The ranger merely fell
back to the next natural barrier.

"Now, let's see if we can't hold her, boys," said he.

Twice again that day were these scenes reenacted. The
same result obtained. Each time it seemed to Bob that
he could do no more. His hand felt as big as a pillow, and
his whole arm and shoulder ached. Besides this he was
tired out. Amy had been cut off from them by the fire.
In two days they had had but an hour's sleep. Water had
long since given out on them. The sun beat hot and merci-
less, assisting its kinsman, the fire. Bob would, if left to
himself, have given up the contest long since. It seemed
ridiculous that this little handful of men should hope to
arrest anything so mighty, so proud, so magnificent as this
great conflagration. As well expect a colony of ants to
stop a break in the levee. But Morton continued to fall
back as though each defeat were a matter of course. He
seemed unwearied, though beneath the smoke-black his
eyes were hollow. Mrs. Morton did her part with the rest,
strong as a man for all her feminine attraction, for all the
soft lines of her figure.

"I'll drop back far enough this time," Charley muttered
to her, as they were thrown together in their last retreat.
"Can't seem to get far enough back!"

"There's too few of us to handle such a big fire," his
wife replied. "You can't do it with six men."

432 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Seven," amended Charley. " You're as good as any of
us. Don't you worry, Lou. Even if we don't stop her
and I think we will we're checking the run of her until
we get help. We're doing well. There's only two old
fire-fighters in the lot you and me. All the rest is green
hands. We're doing almighty well."

Overhearing this Bob plucked up heart. These des-
perate stands were not then so wasted as he had thought
them. At least the fire was checked at each defence it
was not permitted to run wild over the country.

"We ought to get help before long," he said.

"To-morrow, I figure," replied Charley Morton. "The
boys are scattered wide, finishing odds and ends before
coming in for the Fourth. It'll be about impossible to get
hold of any of 'em except by accident. But they'll all come
in for the Fourth."

The next defence was successfully completed before the
fire reached it. Bob felt a sudden rush of most extraordi-
nary and vivifying emotion. A moment ago he had been
ready to drop in his tracks, indifferent whether the fire
burned him as he lay. Now he felt ready to go on forever.
Bert Elliott found energy enough to throw his hat into the
air, while Jack shook his fist at the advancing fire.

"We fooled him that time!" cried Elliott.

"Bet you!" growled Pollock.

The other men and the woman stood leaning on the long
handles of their implements staring at the advancing flames.

Morton aroused himself with an effort.

"Do your best boys," said he briefly. "There she comes.
Another hour will tell whether we've stopped her. Then
we've got to hold her. Scatter!"

The day had passed without anybody's being aware of
the fact. The cool of the evening was already falling, and
the fierceness of the conflagration was falling in accord.

They held the line until the flames had burned themselves
out against it. Then they took up their weary patrol. Last

THE RULES OF THE GAME 433

night, when Bob was fresh, this part of fire-fighting had
seemed the hardest kind of hard work. Now, crippled
and weary as he was, in contrast to the day's greater labour,
it had become comparatively easy. About eight o'clock
Amy, having found a way through, appeared leading all
the horses, saddled and packed.

"You boys came a long way," she explained simply,
"and I thought I'd bring over camp."

She distributed food, and made trips down the fire line
with coffee.

In this manner the night passed. The line had been
held. No one had slept. Sunrise found Bob and Jack
Pollock far down the mountain. They were doggedly beat-
ing back some tiny flames. The camp was a thousand
feet above, and their canteens had long been empty. Bob
raised his weary eyes.

Out on a rock inside the burned area, like a sentinel cast
in bronze, stood a horseman. The light was behind him,
so only his outline could be seen. For a minute he stood
there quite motionless, looking. Then he moved forward,
and another came up behind him on the rock. This one
advanced, and a third took his place. One after the other,
in single file, they came, glittering in the sun, their long
rakes and hoes slanted over their shoulders like spears.

"Look!" gasped Bob weakly.

The two stood side by side spellbound. The tiny flames
licked past them in the tarweed; they did not heed. The
horsemen rode up, twenty strong. It seemed to Bob that
they said things, and shouted. Certainly a half-dozen
leaped spryly off their horses and in an instant had confined
the escaping fire. Somebody took Bob's hoe from him. A
cheery voice shouted in his ear:

"Hop along! You're through. We're on the job. Go
back to camp and take a sleep."

He and Pollock turned up the mountain. Bob felt stupid.
After he had gone a hundred feet, he realized he was thirsty,

434 THE RULES OF THE GAME

and wondered why he had not asked for a drink. Then
it came to him that he might have borrowed a horse, but
remembered thickly after a long time the impassable dikes
between him and camp.

" That's why I didn't," he said aloud.

By this time it was too late to go back for the drink. He
did not care. The excitement and responsibility had drained
from him suddenly, leaving him a hollow shell.

They dragged themselves up the dike.

"I'd give a dollar and a half for a drink of water!" said
Pollock suddenly.

They stumbled and staggered on. A twig sufficed to
trip them. Pollock muttered between set teeth, over and
over again, his unvarying complaint: "I'd give a dollar
and a half for a drink of water!"

Finally, with a flicker of vitality, Bob's sense of humour
cleared for an instant.

"Not high enough," said he. "Make it two dollars, and
maybe some angel will hand you out a glass."

"That's all right," returned Pollock resentfully, "but
I bet there's some down in that hollow; and I'm going to
see!"

"I wouldn't climb down there for a million drinks," said
Bob; "I'll sit down and wait for you."

Pollock climbed down, found his water, drank. He filled
the canteen and staggered back up the steep climb.

"Here you be," said he.

Bob seized the canteen and drank deep. When he took
breath, he said:

"Thank you, Jack, That was an awful climb back."

"That's all right." nodded Jack shortly.

"Well, come on," said Bob.

"The helll" muttered Jack, and fell over sound asleep.

An hour later Bob felt himself being shaken violently.
He stirred and advanced a little way toward the light, then
dropped back like a plummet into the abysses of sleep.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 435

Afterward he recalled a vague, half-conscious impression
oi being lifted on a horse. Possibly he managed to hang on;
possibly he was held in the saddle that he never knew.

The next thing he seemed conscious of was the flicker
of a camp-fire, and the soft feel of blankets. It was night,
but how it came to be so he could not imagine. He was
very stiff and sore and burned, and his hand was very pain-
ful. He moved it, and discovered, to his vast surprise,
that it was bound tightly. When this bit of surgery had
been performed he could not have told.

He opened his eyes. Amy and Mrs. Morton were bend-
ing over cooking utensils. Five motionless forms reposed
in blankets. Bob counted them carefully. After some
moments it occurred to his dulled brain that the number repre-
sented his companions. Some one on horseback seemed
to be arriving. A glitter of silver caught his eye. He recog-
nized finally California John. Then he dozed off again.
The sound of voices rumbled through the haze of his half-
consciousness.

''Fifty hours of steady fire-fighting with only an hour's
sleep!" he caught Thome's voice saying.

Bob took this statement into himself. He computed
painfully over and over. He could not make the figures.
He counted the hours one after the other. Finally he saw.

" Fifty hours for all but Pollock and me," he said sud-
denly; "forty for us."

No one heard him. As a matter of fact, he had not spoken
aloud; though he thought he had done so.

"We found the two of them curled up together," he next
heard Thorne say. " Orde was coiled around a sharp root
and didn't know it, and Pollock was on top of him. They
were out in the full sun, and a procession of red ants was dis-
appearing up Orde's pants leg and coming out at his col-
lar. Fact!"

"They're a good lot," admitted California John. "Best
unbroke lot I ever saw."

THE RULES OF THE GAME

"We found Orde's finger broken and badly swelled.
Heaven knows when he did it, but he never peeped. Mor-
ton says he noticed his hand done up in a handkerchief
yesterday morning."

Bob dozed again. From time to time he caught frag-
ments "Four fire-lines think of it only one old-
timer in the lot I'm proud of my boys '

He came next to full consciousness to hear Thorne saying:

"Mrs. Morton fought fire with the best of them. That's
the ranger spirit I like when as of old the women and
children "

"Don't praise me," broke in Mrs. Morton tartly. "I
don't give a red cent for all your forests, and your pesky
rangering. I've got no use for them. If Charley Morton
would quit you and tend to his cattle, I'd be pleased. I
didn't fight fire to help you, let me tell you."

"What did you do it for?" asked Thorne, evidently
amused.

"I knew I couldn't get Charley Morton home and in
bed and resting until that pesky fire was out; that's why!"
shot back Mrs. Morton.

"Well, Mrs. Morton," said Thorne composedly, "if
you're ever fixed so sass will help you out, you'll find it a
very valuable quality."

Then Bob fell into a deep sleep.

VII

ON RETURNING to headquarters, as Bob was natu-
rally somewhat incapacitated for manual work, he
was given the fire patrol. This meant that every
day he was required to ride to four several ''lookouts" on the
main ridge, from which points he could spy abroad care-
fully over vast stretches of mountainous country. One of
these was near the meadow of the cold spring whence the
three of them had first caught sight of the Granite Creek fire.
Thence he turned sharp to the north along the ridge top.
The trail led among great trees that dropped away to right
and left on the slopes of the mountain. Through them he
caught glimpses of the blue distance, or far-off glittering
snow, or unexpected canon depths. The riding was smooth,
over undulating knolls. Every once in a while passing
through a " puerto suelo" he looked on either side to tiny
green meadows, from which streams were born. Occas-
ionally he saw a deer, or more likely small bands of the
wild mountain cattle that swung along before him, heads
held high, eyes staring, nostrils expanded. Then Bob felt
his pony's muscles stiffen beneath his thighs, and saw th
animal's little ears prick first forward at the cattle, then
back for his master's commands.

After three miles of this he came out on a broad plateau
formed by the joining of his ridge with that of the Baldy
range. Here Granite Creek itself rose, and the stream that
flowed by the mill. It was a country of wild, park-like
vistas between small pines, with a floor of granite and shale.
Over it frowned the steeps of Baldy, with its massive
domes, its sheer precipices, and its scant tree-growth cling-

437

438 THE RULES OF THE GAME

ing to its sides. Against the sky it looked very rugged,
very old, very formidable; and the sky, behind its yellowed
age, was inconceivably blue.

Sometimes Bob rode up into the pass. More often he
tied his horse and took the steep rough trail afoot. The
way was guarded by strange, distorted trees, and rocks
carved into fantastic shapes. Some of them were piled
high like temples. Others, round and squat, resembled
the fat and obscene deities of Eastern religions. There
were seals and elephants and crocodiles and allegorical
monsters, some of them as tiny as the grotesque Japanese
carvings, others as stupendous as Egypt. The trail led by
them, among them, between them. At their feet clutched
snowbush, ground juniper, the gnarled fingers of man-
zanita, like devotees. A foaming little stream crept and
plunged over bare and splintered rocks. Twisted junipers
and the dwarf pines of high elevations crouched like malig-
nant gnomes amongst the boulders, or tossed their arms
like witches on the crags. This bold and splintered range
rose from the sof jness and mystery of the great pine woods
on the lower ridge as a rock rises above cool water.

The pass itself was not over fifty feet wide. Either
side of it like portals were the high peaks. It lay like the
notch of a rifle sight between them. Once having gained
the tiny platform, Bob would sit down and look abroad
over the wonderful Sierra.

Never did he tire of this. At one eye-glance he could
comprehend a summer's toilsome travel. To reach yonder
snowy peak would consume the greater part of a week.
Unlike the Swiss alps, which he had once visited, these
mountains were not only high, but wide as well. They
had the whole of blue space in which to lie. They were
like the stars, for when Bob had convinced himself that
his eye had settled on the farthest peak, then still farther,
taking half-guessed iridescent form out of the blue, another
shone.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 439

But his business was not with these distances. Almost
below him, so precipitous is the easterly slope of Baldy,
lay canons, pine forests, lesser ridges, streams, the green
of meadows. Patiently, piece by piece, he must go over
all this, watching for that faint blue haze, that deep-
ening of the atmosphere, that almost imagined pearliness
against the distant hills which meant new fire.

" Don't look for smoke" California John had told him.
"When a fire gets big enough for smoke, you can't help
but see it. It's the new fire you want to spot before it gets
started. Then it's easy handled. And new fire's almighty
easy to overlook. Sometimes it's as hard for a greenhorn
to see as a deer. Look close!"

So Bob, concentrating his attention, looked close. When
he had satisfied himself, he turned square around.

From this point of view he saw only pine forests. They
covered the ridge below him like a soft green mantle thrown
down in folds. They softened the more distant ranges.
They billowed and eddied, and dropped into unguessed
depths, and came bravely up to eyesight again far away.
At last they seemed to change colour abruptly, and a brown
haze overcast them through which glimmered a hint of yel-
low. This Bob knew was the plain, hot and brown under
the July sun. It rose dimly through the mist to the height
of his eye. Thus, even at eight thousand feet, Bob seemed
to stand in the cup of the earth, beneath the cup of the sky.

The other two lookouts were on the edge of the lower
ridge. They gave an opportunity of examining various
coves and valleys concealed by the shoulder of the ridge
from the observer on Baldy. To reach them Bob rode
across the plateau of the ridge, through the pine forests,
past the mill.

Here, if the afternoon was not too far advanced, he used
to allow himself the luxury of a moment's chat with some
of his old friends. Welton, coat off, his burly face per-
spiring and red, always greeted him jovially.

440 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Spend all your salary this month?" he would ask,
" Does the business keep you occupied ? " And once or twice,
seriously, "Bob, haven't you had enough of this confounded
nonsense? You're getting too old to find any great fun
riding around in this kid fashion pretending to do things.
There's big business to be done in this country, and we
need you boys to help. When I was a youngster I'd have
jumped hard at half the chance that's offered you."

But Bob never would answer seriously. He knew this
to be his only chance of avoiding even a deeper misunder-
standing between himself and this man whom he had learned
to admire and love.

Once he met Baker. That young man greeted him as
gaily as ever, but into his manner had crept the shadow of
a cold contempt. The stout youth's standards were his
own, and rigid, as is often the case with people of his type.
Bob felt himself suddenly and ruthlessly excluded from the
ranks of those worthy of Baker's respect. A hard quality
of character, hitherto unsuspected, stared from the fat young
man's impudent blue eyes. Baker was perfectly polite,
and suitably jocular; but he had not much time for Bob;
and soon plunged into a deep discussion with Welton from
which Bob was unmistakably excluded.

On one occasion, too, he encountered Oldham riding down
the trail from headquarters. The older man had nodded
to him curtly. His eyes had gleamed through his glasses
with an ill-concealed and frosty amusement, and his thin
lips had straightened to a perceptible sneer. All at once Bob
divined an enemy. He could not account for this, as he
had never dealt with the man; and the accident of his dis-
covering the gasoline pump on the Lucky Land Company's
creeks could hardly be supposed to account for quite so
malignant a triumph. Next time Bob saw Welton, he
asked his old employer about it.

"What have I ever done to Oldham?" he inquired.
"Do you know?"

THE RULES OF THE GAME 441

"Oldham?" repeated Welton.

"Baker's land agent."

"Oh, yes. I never happened to run across him. Don't
know him at all."

Bob put down Oldham's manifest hatred to pettiness of
disposition.

Even from Merker, the philosophic storekeeper, Bob
obtained scant comfort.

"Men like you, with ability, youth, energy," said Merker,
"producing nothing, just conserving, saving. Conditions
should be such that the possibility of fire, of trespass, of
all you fellows guard against, should be eliminated. Then
you could supply steam, energy, accomplishment, instead
of being merely the lubrication. It's an economic waste.'*

Bob left the mill-yards half-depressed, haif-amused. All
his people had become alien. He opposed them in noth-
ing, his work in no way interfered with their activities; yet,
without his volition, and probably without their realization,
he was already looked upon as one to be held at arms' length.
It saddened Bob, as it does every right-thinking young man
when he arrives at setting up his own standards of con-
duct and his own ways of life. He longed with a great
longing, which at the same time he realized to be hopeless,
to make these people feel as he felt. It gave him real pain
to find that his way of life could never gain anything beyond
disapproval or incomprehension. It took considerable
fortitude to conclude that he now must build his own struc-
ture, unsupported. He was entering the loneliness of soul
inseparable from complete manhood.

After such disquieting contacts, the more uncomfortable
in that they defied analysis, Bob rode out to the last look-
out and gazed abroad over the land. The pineclad bluff
fell away nearly four thousand feet. Below him the country
lay spread like a relief map valley, lesser ranges, foot-
hills, far-off plain, the green of trees, the brown of grass and
harvest, the blue of glimpsed water, the haze of heat and

442 THE RULES OF THE GAME

great distance, the thread-like gossamer of roads, the half-
guessed shimmer of towns and cities in the mirage of summer,
all the opulence of earth and the business of human activity.
Millions dwelt in that haze, and beyond them, across the
curve of the earth, hundreds of millions more, each actu-
ated by its own selfishness or charity, by its own conception
of the things nearest it. Not one in a multitude saw or
cared beyond the immediate, nor bothered his head with
what it all meant, or whether it meant anything. Bob, sit-
ting on his motionless horse high up there in the world,
elevated above it all, in an isolation of pines, close under
his sky, bent his ear to the imagined faint humming of the
spheres. Affairs went on. The machine fulfilled its func-
tion. All things had their place, the evil as well as the good,
the waste as well as the building, balancing like the governor
of an engine the opposition of forces. He saw, by the soft
flooding of light, rather than by any flash of insight, that
were the shortsightedness, the indifference, the ignorance,
the crass selfishness to be eliminated before yet the world's
work was done, the energies of men, running too easily, would
outstrip the development of the Plan, as a machine "races"
without its load. A humility came to him. His not to
judge his fellows by the mere externals of their deeds. He
could only act honestly according to what he saw, as he hoped
others were doing.

" Just so a man isn't mean, I don't know as I have any
right to despise him," he summed it all up to his horse.
"But," he added cheerfully, "that doesn't prevent my kick-
ing him into the paths of righteousness if he tries to steal
my watch."

The sun dipped toward the heat haze of the plains. It
was from a golden world that Bob turned at last to ride
through the forest to the cheerfulness of his rude camp.

VIII

BOB took his examinations, passed successfully, and
was at once appointed as ranger. Thorne had
no intention of neglecting the young man's ability.
After his arduous apprenticeship at all sorts of labour, Bob
found himself specializing. This, he discovered, was
becoming more and more the tendency in the personnel of
the Service. Jack Pollock already was being sent far afield,
looking into grazing conditions, reporting on the state of
the range, the advisable number of cattle, the trespass
cases. He had a natural aptitude for that sort of thing.
Ware, on the other hand, developed into a mighty builder.
Nothing pleased him more than to discover new ways
through the country, to open them up, to blast and dig and
construct his trails, to nose out bridge sites and on them to
build spans hewn from the material at hand. He made
himself a set of stencils and with them signed all the forks
of the trails, so that a stranger could follow the routes.
Always he painstakingly added the letters U. S. F. S. to indi-
cate that these works had been done by his beloved Service.
Charley Morton was the fire chief though any and all
took a hand at that when occasion arose. He could, as
California John expressed it, run a fire out on a rocky point
and lose it there better than any other man on the force.
Ross Fletcher was the best policeman. He knew the moun-
tains, their infinite labyrinths, better than any other; and
he could guess the location of sheep where another might
have searched all summer.

Though each and every man was kept busy enough, and
to spare, on all the varied business inseparable from the

443

444 THE RULES OF THE GAME

activities of a National Forest, nevertheless Thorne knew
enough to avail himself of these especial gifts and likings.
So, early in the summer he called in Bob and Elliott.

"Now," he told them, "we have plenty of work to do,
and you boys must buckle into it as you see fit. But this
is what I. want you to keep in the back of your mind: some-
day the National Forests are going to supply a great part
of the timber in the country. It's too early yet. There ; &
too much private timber standing, v r hich can be cut without
restriction. But when that is largely reduced, Uncle Sam
will be going into the lumber business on a big scale. Even
now we will be selling a few shake trees, and some small
lots, and occasionally a bigger piece to some of the lumber-
men who own adjoining timber. We've got to know what
we have to sell. For instance, there's eighty acres in there
surrounded by Welton's timber. When he comes to cut,
it might pay us and him to sell the ripe trees off that eighty."

"I doubt if he'd think it would pay," Bob interposed.

"He might. I think the Chief will ease up a little on
cutting restrictions before long. You've simply got to over-
emphasize a matter at first to make it carry."

"You mean ?"

"I mean this is only my private opinion, you under-
stand that lumbering has been done so wastefully and
badly that it has been necessary, merely as education, to
go to the other extreme. We've insisted on chopping and
piling the tops like cordwood, and cutting up the down trunks
of trees, and generally 'parking' the forest simply to get the
idea into people's heads. They'd never thought of such
things before. I don't believe it's necessary to go to such
extremes, practically; and I don't believe the Service will
demand it when it comes actually to do business."

Elliott and Bob looked at each other a little astonished.

"Mind you, I don't talk this way outside; and I don't
want you to do so," pursued Thorne. "But when you come
right down to it, all that's necessary is to prevent fire from

THE RULES OF THE GAME 445

running and, of course, to leave a few seed-trees. Yor
can keep fire from running just as well by piling the debris
in isolated heaps, as by chopping it up and stacking it. And
it's a lot cheaper."

He leaned forward.

"That's coming," he continued. "Now you, Elliott, have
had as thorough a theoretical education as the schools can
give you ; and you, Orde, have had a lot of practical experi-
ence in logging. You ought to make a good pair. Here's
a map of the Government holdings hereabouts. What I
want is a working plan for every forty, together with a topo-
graphical description, an estimate of timber, and a plan for
the easiest method of logging it. There's no hurry about
it; you can do it when nothing else comes up to take you
away. But do it thoroughly, and to the best of your judg-
ment, so I can file your reports for future reference when
they are needed."

"Where do you want us to begin?" asked Bob.

"Welton is the only big operator," Thome pointed out,
"so you'd better look over the timber adjoining or sur-
rounded by his. Then the bas.in and ranges above the
Power Company are important. There's a fine body of
timber there, but we must cut it with a more than usual
attention to water supplies."

This work Bob and Elliott found most congenial. They
would start early in the morning, carrying with them their
compass on its Jacob's-staff, their chain, their field notes,
their maps and their axes. Arrived at the scene of opera-
tions, they unsaddled and picketed their horses. Then
commenced a search for the "corner," established nearly
fifty years before by the dead and gone surveyor, a copy of
whose field notes now guided them. This was no easy mat-
ter. The field notes described accurately the location, but
in fifty years the character of a country may change. Great
trees fall, new trees grow up, brush clothes an erstwhile
bare hillside, fire denudes a slope, even the rocks and boul-

446 THE RULES OF THE GAME

ders shift their places under the coercion of frost or aval-
anche. The young men separated, shoulder deep in the
high brakes and alders of a creek bottom, climbing tiny
among great trees on the open slope of a distant hill, clamb-
ering busily among austere domes and pinnacles, fading in
the cool green depths of the forest. Finally one would
shout loudly. The other scrambled across.

"Here we are," Bob said, pointing to the trunk of a huge
yellow pine.

On it showed a wrinkle in the bark, only just appreci-
able.

"There's our line blaze," said Bob. "Let's see if we can
find it in the notes." He opened his book. "'Small creek
three links wide, course SW,' " he murmured. " ' Sugar pine,
48 in. dia., on line, 48 links.' That's not it. 'Top of ridge
34 ch. 6 1. course NE.' Now we come to the down slope.
Here we are! 'Yellow pine 20 in. dia., on line, 50 chains.'
Twenty inches! Well, old fellow, you've grown some since!
Let's see your compass, Elliott."

Having thus cut the line, they established their course
and went due north, spying sharply for the landmarks and
old blazes as mentioned in the surveyor's field notes.

When they had gone about the required distance, they
began to look for the corner. After some search, Elliott
called Bob's attention to a grown-over blaze.

"I guess this is our witness tree," said he.

Without a word Bob began to chop above and below the
wrinkle in the bark. After ten minutes careful work, he
laid aside a thick slab of wood. The inner surface of this
was shiny with pitch. The space from which it had peeled
was also coated with the smooth substance. This pitch
had filmed over the old blaze, protecting it against the new
wood and bark which had gradually grown over it. Thus,
although the original blaze had been buried six inches in
the living white pine wood, nevertheless the lettering was
as clear and sharp as when it had been carved fifty years

THE RULES OF THE GAME 447

before. Furthermore, the same lettering, only reversed and
in relief, showed on the thick slab that Bob had peeled
away. So the tree had preserved the record in its heart.

"Now let's see," said Bob. "This witness bears S 80 W.
Let's find another."

This proved to be no great matter. Sighting the given
directions from the two, they converged on the corner.
This was described by the old surveyor as: "Oak post, 4
in. dia., set in pile of rocks," etc. The pile of rocks was
now represented by scattered stones; and the oak post had
long since rotted. Bob, however, unearthed a fragment on
which ran a single grooved mark. It was like those made
by borers in dead limbs. Were it not for one circumstance,
the searchers would not have been justified in assuming that
it was anything else. But, as Bob pointed out, the pas-
sageways made by borers are never straight. The fact
that this was so, established indisputably that it had been
made by the surveyor's steel "scribe."

Having thus located a corner, it was an easy matter to
determine the position of a tract of land. At first hazy in
its general configuration and extent, it took definition as
the young men progressed with the accurate work of timber
estimating. Before they had finished with it, they knew
eveiy little hollow, ridge, ravine, rock and tree in it. Out
of the whole vast wilderness this one small patch had become
thoroughly known.

The work was the most pleasant of any Bob had ever
undertaken. Tt demanded accuracy, good judgment, knowl-
edge. It did not require feverish haste. The surroundings
were wonderfully beautiful; and if the men paused in their
work, as they often did, the spirit of the woods, which as
always had drawn aside from the engrossments of human
activity, came closer as with fluttering of wings. Some-
times, nervous and impatient from the busy, tiny clatter of
facts and figures and guesses, from the restless shuttle-
weaving of estimates and plans, Bob looked up suddenly

448 THE RULES OF THE GAME

into a deathless and eternal peace. Like the cool green
refreshment of waters it closed over him. When he again
came to the surface- world of his occupation, he was rested
and slowed down to a respectable patience.

Elliott was good company, interested in the work, well-
bred, intelligent, eager to do his share an ideal companion.
He and Bob discussed many affairs during their rides to
and from the work and during the interims of rest. As
time went on, and the tracts to be estimated and plotted
became more distant, they no longer attempted to return
at night to Headquarters, Small meadows offered them
resting places for the day or the week. They became expert
in taking care of themselves so expeditiously that the pro-
cess stole little time from their labours. On Saturday
afternoon they rode to headquarters to report, and to spend
Sunday.

TOWARD the end of the season they had worked
past the. main ridge on which were situated Wei-
ton's operations and the Service Headquarters.
Several deep canons and rocky peaks, by Thome's instruc-
tions, they skipped over as only remotely available as a
timber supply. This brought them to the ample circle of
a basin, well-timbered, wide, containing an unusual acre-
age of gently sloping or rolling table-land. Behind this
rose the spurs of the Range. A half-hundred streams here
had their origin. These converged finally in the Forks,
which, leaping and plunging steadily downward from a
height of over six thousand feet, was trapped and used again
and again to turn the armatures of Baker's dynamos. After
serving this purpose at six power houses strung down the
contour line of its descent, the water was deflected into wide,
deep ditches which forked and forked again until a whole
plains province was rendered fertile and productive by irri-
gation.

All this California John, who rode over to show them some
corners, explained to them. They sat on the rim of the
basin overlooking it as it lay below them like a green cup.

"You can see the whole of her from here," said California
John, "and that's why we use this for fire lookout. It
saves a heap of riding, for let me tell you it's a long ways
down this bluff. But you bet we keep a close watch on this
Basin. It's the most valuable, as a watershed, of any we've
got. This is about the only country we've managed to
throw a fire-break around yet. It took a lot of time to do
it, but it's worth while."

449

450 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"This is where the Power Company gets its power,"
remarked Bob.

"Yes," replied California John, drily. "Which same
company is putting up the fight of its life in Congress to
keep from payin' anything at all for what it gets."

They gave themselves to the task of descending into the
Basin by a steep and rough trail. At the end of an hour, their
horses stepped from the side of the hill to a broad, pleasant
flat on which the tall trees grew larger than any Bob had
seen on the ridge.

"What magnificent timber!" he cried. "How does it
happen this wasn't taken up long ago?"

"Well," said California John, "a good share of it is
claimed by the Power Company; and unless you come up the
way we did, you don't see it. From below, all this looks
like part of the bald ridge. Even if a cruiser in the old
days happened to look down on this, he wouldn't realize
how good it was unless he came down to it it's all just
trees from above. And in those days there were lots of trees
easier to come at."

"It's great timber!" repeated Bob. "That 'sugar's 7
eight feet through if it's an inch!"

"Nearer nine," said California John.

"It'll be some years' work to estimate and plot all this,"
mused Bob. "If it's so important a watershed, what do
they want it plotted for? They'll never want to cut it."

"There ain't so much of it left, as you'll see when you look
at your map. The Power Company owns most. Anyway,
government cutting won't hurt the watershed," stated Cali-
fornia John.

As they rode forward through the trees, a half-dozen deer
jumped startled from a clump of low brush and sped away.

" That's more deer than I've seen in a bunch since I left
Michigan," observed Bob.

"Nobody ever gets into this place," explained California
John. "There ain't been a fire here in years, and we don't

THE RULES OF THE GAME 451

none of us have any reason to ride down. She's too hard
to get out of, and we can see her too well from the lookout.
The rest of the country feels pretty much the same way."

"How about sheep?" inquired Elliott.

"They got to get in over some trail, if they get in at all, 1 '
California John pointed out, "and we can circle the Basin."

By now they were riding over a bed of springy pine needles
through a magnificent open forest. Undergrowth abso-
lutely lacked; even the soft green of the bear clover was
absent. The straight columns of the trees rose grandly
from a swept floor. Only where tiny streams trickled and
sang through rocks and shallow courses, grew ferns and the
huge leaves of the saxifrage. In this temple-like austerity
dwelt a silence unusual to the Sierra forests. The lack of
undergrowth and younger trees implied a scarcity of insects;
and this condition meant an equal scarcity of birds. Only
the creepers and the great pileated woodpeckers seemed to
inhabit these truly cloistral shades. The breeze passed
through branches too elevated to permit its whisperings to
be heard. The very sound of the horses' hoofs was muf-
fled in the thick carpet of pine needles.

Califorina John led them sharp to the right, however,
and in a few moments they emerged to cheerful sunlight,
alders, young pines among the old, a leaping flashing stream
of some size, and multitudes of birds, squirrels, insects and
butterflies.

"There's a meadow, and a good camping place just
up-stream," said he. " It's easy riding. You'd better spread
your blankets there. Now, here's the corner to 34. We
reestablished it four years ago, so as to have something
to go by in this country. You can find your way about from
there. That bold cliff of rock you see just through the trees
there you can climb. From the top you can make out the
lookout. If you're wanted at headquarters we'll hang out
a signal. That will save a hard ride down. Let's see;
how long you got grub for?"

452 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"I guess there's enough to last us ten days or so," replied
Elliott.

"Well, if you keep down this stream until you strike a
big bald slide rock, you'll run into an old trail that takes
you to the Flats. It's pretty old, and it ain't blazed, but
you can make it out if you'll sort of keep track of the coun-
try. It ain't been used for years."

California John, anxious to make a start at the hard
climb, now said good-bye and started back. Bob and Elli-
ott, their pack horse following, rode up the flat through
which ran the river. They soon found the meadow. It
proved to be a beautiful spot, surrounded by cedars, warm
with the sun, bright with colour, alive with birds. A fringe
of azaleas, cottonwoods and quaking asps screened it com-
pletely from all that lay outside its charmed circle. A
cheerful blue sky spread its canopy overhead. Here Bob
and Elliott turned loose their horses and made their camp.
After lunch they lay on their backs and smoked. Through
a notch in the trees showed a very white mountain against
a very blue sky. The sun warmed them gratefully. Birds
sang. Squirrels scampered. Their horses stood dozing,
ears and head down-looped, eyes half -closed, one hind
leg tucked up.

"Confound it!" cried Elliott suddenly, following his
unspoken thought. "I feel like a bad little boy stealing
jam! By night I'll be scared. If those woods over behind
that screen aren't full of large, dignified gods that disap-
prove of me being so cheerful and contented and light-minded
and frivolous, I miss my guess!"

"Same here!" said Bob with, a short laugh. "Let's get
busy."

They started out that very afternoon from the corner
California John had showed them. It took all that day
and most of the following to define and blaze the bounda-
ries of the first tract they intended to estimate. In the
accomplishment of this they found nothing out of the ordi-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 453

nary; but when they began to move forward across the
forty, they were soon brought to a halt by the unexpected.

"Look here!" Bob shouted to his companion; " here's
a brand new corner away off the line."

Elliott came over. Bob showed him a stake set neatly
in a pile of rocks.

"It's not a very old one, either," said Bob. "Now what
do you make of that?"

Elliott had been spying about him.

"There's another just like it over on the hill," said he.
"I should call it the stakes of a mining claim. There ought
to be a notice somewhere."

They looked about and soon came across the notice hi
question. It was made out in the name of a man neither
Bob nor Elliott had ever heard of before.

"I suppose that's his ledge," remarked Elliott, kicking
a little outcrop, "but it looks like mighty slim mining to
me!"

They proceeded with their estimating. In due time they
came upon another mining claim, and then a third.

"This is getting funny!" remarked Elliott. "Looks as
though somebody expected to make a strike for fair. More
timber than mineral here, I should say."

"That's it!" cried Bob, slapping his leg; "I'd just about
forgotten! This must be what Baker was talking about
one evening over at camp. He had some scheme for getting
some timber and water rights somewhere under the min-
eral act. I didn't pay so very much attention to it at the
time, and it had slipped my mind. But this must be it!"

"Do you mean to say that any man was going to take
this beautiful timber away from us on that kind of a tech-
nicality?"

"I believe that's just what he did."

Two days later Elliott straightened his back after a squint
through the compass sights to exclaim:

"I wish we had a dog!"

454 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Why?" laughed Bob. " Can't you eat your share?"

"I've a feeling that somebody's hanging around these
woods; I've had it ever since we got here. And just now
while I was looking through the sights I thought I saw
something you know how the sights will concentrate your
gaze."

"It's these big woods," said Bob; "I've had the same
hunch before. Besides, you can easily look for tracks along
your line of sights."

They did so, but found nothing.

"But among these rocks a man needn't leave any tracks
if he didn't want to," Elliott pointed out.

"The bogy-man's after you," said Bob.

Elliott laughed. Nevertheless, as the work progressed,
from time to time he would freeze to an attitude of listening.

"It's like feeling that there's somebody else in a dark room
with you," he told Bob.

"You'll end by giving me the willy-willies, too," com-
plained Bob. "I'm beginning to feel the same way. Quit
it!"

By the end of the week it became necessary to go to town
after more supplies. Bob volunteered. He saddled his
riding horse and the pack animal, and set forth. Follow-
ing California John's directions he traced the length of the
river through the basin to the bald rock where the old trail
was said to begin. Here he anticipated some difficulty in
picking up the trail, and more in following it. To his sur-
prise he ran immediately into a well-defined path.

"Why, this is as plain as a strip of carpet!" muttered
Bob to himself. "If this is his idea of a dim trail, I'd like to
see a good one!"

He had not ridden far, however, before, in crossing a
tiny trickle of water, he could not fail to notice a clear-cut,
recent hoof print. The mark was that of a barefoot horse.
Bob stared at it.

"Now if I were real good," he reflected, "like old what-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 455

you-may-call-him the Arabian Sherlock Holmes I'd
be able to tell whether this horse was loose and climbing
for pasture, or carrying a rider, and if so, whether the rider
had ever had his teeth filled. There's been a lot of travel
on this trail, anyway. I wonder where it all went to?"
He paused irresolutely. "It isn't more than two jumps back
to the rock," he decided; "I'll just find out what direction
they take anyway."

Accordingly he retraced his steps to the bald rock, and
commenced an examination of its circumference to deter-
mine where the trail led away. He found no such exit.
Save from the direction of his own camp the way was closed
either by precipitous sides or dense brush. The conclu-
sion was unavoidable that those who had travelled the trail,
had either ended their journeys at the bald rock or actually
taken to the bed of the river.

"Well," concluded Bob, "I'm enough of a sleuth to see
that that barefoot horse had a rider and wasn't just look-
ing pasture. No animal in its senses would hike uphill
and then hike down again, or wade belly deep up a stream."

Puzzling over this mystery, he again took his way down
the trail. He found it easy to follow, for it had been con-
siderably travelled. In some places the brush had been
cut back to open easier passage. Examining these cuttings,
Bob found their raw ends only slightly weathered. All
this might have been done by the men who had staked the
mineral claims, to be sure, but even then Bob found it dif-
ficult to reconcile all the facts. In the first place, the trail
had indubitably been much used since the time the claims
were staked. In the second place, if the prospector had
wished to conceal anything, it should have been the fact
of his going to the Basin at all, not his whereabouts after
arriving there. In other words, if desiring to keep his pres-
ence secret, he would have blinded the beginning of the
trail rather than its end.

He kept a sharp lookout. Near the entrance to the canon

456 THE RULES OF THE GAME

he managed to discover another clear print of the barefoot
horse, but headed the other way. Clearly the rider had
returned. Bob had hunted deer enough to recognize that
the track had been made within the last twenty-four hours.

At Sycamore Flats he was treated to further surprises.
Martin, of whom he bought his supplies, at first greeted
him with customary joviality.

"Hullo! hullo!" he cried; "quite a stranger! Out in
camp, eh?"

"Yes," said Bob, "they've got us working for a change."

"Where you located?"

"We're estimating timber up in the Basin," replied Bob.

The silence that followed was so intense that Bob looked
up from the bag he was tying. He met Martin's eyes fixed
on him.

"The Basin," repeated Martin slowly, at last. "Since
when?"

^ About ten days."

41 We! Who's we?"

'"Elliott and I," answered Bob, surprised. "Why?"

Martin's gaze shifted. He plainly hesitated for a next
remark.

"How'd you Like it there?" he asked lamely, at length.
"I thought none of you fellows ever went there."

"Fine timber," answered Bob, cheerfully. "We don't
usually. Somebody does though. California John told
me that trail was old and out of use; but it's been used
a lot. W T ho gets up there?"

"The boys drive in some cattle occasionally," replied
Martin, with an effort.

Bob stared in surprise. He knew this was not so, and
started to speak, but thought better of it. After he had
left the store, he looked back. Martin was gazing after
him, a frown between his brows.

Before he left town a half-dozen of the mountain men had
asked him, with an obvious attempt to make the question

THE RULES OF THE GAME 457

casual, how he liked the Basin, how long he thought his
work would keep him there. Each, as he turned away,
followed him with that long, speculative, brooding look.
Always, heretofore, his relations with these mountain people
had been easy, sympathetic and cordial. Now all at once,
without reason, they held him at arm's length and regarded
him with suspicious if not hostile eyes.

Puzzling over this he rode back up the road past the
Power House. Thence issued Oldham to hail him. He
pulled up.

"I hear you're estimating the timber in the Basin," said
the gray man, with more appearance of disturbance than
Bob had ever seen him display.

Bob acknowledged the accuracy of his statement.

"Indeed!" said Oldham, pulling -at bis clipped mous-
tache, and after a little, "Indeed!" he repeated.

So the news had run ahead of him. Bob began to think
the news important, but for some reason at which he could
not as yec guess. This conviction was strengthened by
the fact that from the two mountain cabins he passed on
his way to the beginning of the trail, men lounged out to
talk with him, and in each case the question, craftily ren-
dered casual, was put to him as to his business in the Basin.
Before one of these cabins stood a sweating horse.

"Look here," he demanded of the Carrolls, "why all
this interest about our being in the Basin? Every man-
jack asks me. What's the point?"

Old man Carroll stroked his long beard.

"Do they so?" he drawled comfortably. "Well, I
reckon little things make news, as they say, when you're in a
wild country. They ain't been no work done in the Basin
for so long that we're all just nat'rally interested; that's
all."

He looked Bob tranquilly in the eye with the limpid gaze
of innocence before which Bob's scrutiny fell abashed. For
a while his suspicions of anything unusual were almost

458 THE RULES OF THE GAME

lulled; the countryside was proverbially curious of any-
thing out of the course of events. Then, from a point
midway up the steep trail, he just happened to look back,
and just happened through an extraordinary combination
of openings to catch a glimpse of a rider on the trail. The
man was far below. Bob watched a long time, his eye fixed
on another opening. Nothing appeared. From some-
where in the canon a coyote shrilled. Another answered
him from up the mountain. A moment later Bob again
saw the rider through the same opening as before, but this
time descending.

"A signal !" he exclaimed, in reference to the coyote
howls.

On arriving at the bare rock, he dismounted and hastily
looked it over on all sides. Near the stream it had been
splashed. A tiny eddy out of reach of the current still held
mud in suspension.

ON his arrival at camp he found Elliott much inter-
ested over discoveries of his own. It seemed that
the Easterner had spent the afternoon fishing. At
one point, happening to look up, he caught sight of a man
surveying him intently from a thicket. As he stared, the
man drew back and disappeared.

"I couldn't see him very plainly," said Elliott. "He had
a beard and an old gray hat; but that doesn't mean much
of course. When I got my nerve up, and had concluded
to investigate, I could hardly find a trace of him. He must
wear moccasins, I think."

In return Bob detailed his own experiences. The two
could make nothing of it all.

"If we were down South I'd say 'moonshiners,'" said
Elliott, "but the beautiful objection to that is, that we
aren't!"

"It's some mystery to do with the Basin," said Bob,
" and the whole countryside is ' on' except our boys.
I don't believe California John knew a thing about it."

"Didn't act so. Question: what possibly could every-
body in the mountains be interested in that the Forest Ser-
vice would object to?"

"Lots of things," replied Bob promptly, "but I don't
believe the mountains are unfriendly to us as a unit. I
know Martin isn't, and he was the first one I noticed as
particularly worried."

Elliott reflected.

"If he's so friendly, perhaps he was a little uneasy about
us" he suggested at length. "If somebody doesn't want

459

460 THE RULES OF THE GAME

the Forest Service in this neck of the woods if that some-
body is relying on the fact that we never come down in here
farther than the lookout, why then it may not be very
healthy here."

"Hadn't thought of that," said Bob. "That looks cheer-
ful. But what's the point? Nine- tenths of this timber is
private property anyway. There's certainly no trespass
sheep, timber or otherwise on the government land.
What in blazes is the point?"

"Give it up; but we'd better wear our guns."

Bob laughed.

" I'd have a healthy show against a man who really wanted
to get me with a gun. Presumably he'd be an expert, or
he wouldn't be sent."

It was agreed, however, " in view of the unsettled state of
the country," as Bob gravely characterized the situation,
that the young men should stick together in their
work.

"There's no use taking chances, of course," Bob summed
up, "but there's no sense in making fools of ourselves,
either. Lord love you, I don't mind being haunted! They
can spring as many mysterious apparitions as they please,
so long as said apparitions don't take to heaving bricks.
We'd look sweet and lovely, wouldn't we, to go back to
headquarters and tell them we'd decided to come in because
a bad man with whiskers who'd never been introduced
came and looked at us out of the trees."

In pursuance of this determination Bob and Elliott com-
bined forces closely in their next day's work. That this
was not a useless precaution early became apparent. As,
momentarily separated by a few feet, they passed a dense
thicket, Bob was startled by a low whistle. He looked up.
Within fifty feet of him, but so far in the shadow as to be
indistinguishable, a man peered at him. As he caught
Bob's eyes he made a violent gesture whose purport Bob
could not guess.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 461

"Did you whistle?" asked Elliott at his elbow. "What's
up?"

Bob pointed; but the man had vanished. Where he
had stood they found the print of moccasins.

Thrice during the day they were interrupted by this
mysterious presence. On each occasion Bob saw him first.
Always he gestured, but whether in warning or threat Bob
could not tell. Each time he vanished as though the earth
had swallowed him the instant Elliott turned at Bob's excla-
mation.

"I believe he's crazy!" exclaimed Elliott impatiently.

"I'd think so, too," replied Bob, "if it weren't for the way
everybody acted down below. Do you suppose he's try-
ing to warn us out or scare us off?"

"I'm going to take a crack at him next time he shows up,"
threatened Elliott. " I'm getting sick of this."

"No, you can't do that," warned Bob.

"I'm going to tell him so anyway."

"That's all right."

For this experiment they had not long to await the oppor-
tunity.

"Hi, there!" shouted Elliott at the place from which the
mysterious apparition had disappeared; "I give you fair
warning! Step out and declare yourself peaceably or accept
the consequences. If you show yourself again after five
minutes are up, I'll open fire!"

The empty forest gave no sign. For an hour nothing
happened. Then all at once, when Elliott was entangled
in a tiny thicket close at Bob's elbow, the latter was startled
by the appearance of the man not ten feet away. He leaped
apparently from below a rounded rock, and now stood in full
view of its crown. Bob had time only to catch cognizance
of a blue eye and a long beard, to realize that the man was
saying something rapidly and in a low voice, when Elliott's
six-shooter exploded so near his ear as almost to deafen
him. At the report the man toppled backward off the rock.

462 THE RULES OF THE GAME

" Good Lord! You've killed him!" cried Bob.

"I did not; I fired straight up I" panted Elliott, dashing
past him. " Quick ! We'll catch him I"

But catch him nor see him again they did not.

Ten minutes later while working in a wide open stretch
of forest, they were brought to a stand by the report of a
rifle. At the same instant the shock of a bullet threw a
shower of dead pine needles and humus over Elliott.
Another and another followed, until six had thudded into
the soft earth at the young man's feet. He stood quite
motionless, and though he went a little pale, his coolness
did not desert him. After the sixth shot silence fell abruptly.
Elliott stood still for some moments, then moved forward
a single step.

" Guess the show's over," he remarked with a curt laugh.
He stooped to examine the excavation the bullets had made.
" Quaint cuss," he remarked a trifle bitterly. " Just wanted
to show me how easy it would be. All right, my friend,
I'm obliged to you. We'll quit the gun racket; but next
time you show your pretty face I'll give you a run for it."

"And get shot," interposed Bob.

"If it's shoot, we'll get ours any minute. Say," went on
the young man in absolutely conversational tones, "don't
you see I'm mad?"

Bob looked and saw.

" May be you think shooting at me is one of my little
niece's favourite summer-day stunts?" went on Elliott.
"Well, uncle isn't used to it yet."

His tone was quiet, but his eyes burned and the muscles
around his mouth were white.

"He's probably crazy, and he's armed," Bob pointed
out. "For heaven's sake, go slow."

"I'm going to paddle his pantalettes, if he commands
a gatling," stated Elliott.

But the mysterious visitor appeared no more that after-
noon, and Elliott's resolutions had time to settle.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 463

That night the young men turned in rather earlier than
usual, as they were very tired. Bob immediately dropped
into a black sleep. So deep was his slumber that it seemed
to him he had just dropped off, when he was awakened by
a cool hand placed across his forehead. He opened his eyes
quietly, without alarm, to look full into the waning moon
sailing high above. His first drowsy motion was one of
astonishment, for the luminary had not arisen when he
had turned in. The camp fire had fallen to a few faintly
glowing coals. These perceptions came to him so gently
that he would probably have dropped asleep again had not
the touch on his forehead been repeated. Then be started
broad awake to find himself staring at a silhouetted man
leaning over him.

With a gesture of caution, the stranger motioned him to
arise. Bob obeyed mechanically. The man bent toward
him.

; 'Put on your pants and sweater and come along," he
whispered guardedly.

Bob peered at him through the moonlight and recognized,
vaguely, the man who had been so mysteriously pursuing
them all day. He drew back.

"For the Lord's sake do what I tell you!" whispered
the man. "Here!"

His hand sought the shadow of his side, and instantly
gleamed with a weapon. Bob started back; but the man
was holding the revolver's butt to him.

"Now come on!" besought the stranger with a strange
note of pleading. "Don't wake your pardner!"

Yielding, with a pleasant thrill, to the adventure of the
situation, and it must be confessed, to a strong curiosity,
Bob hastily assumed his outer clothing. Then, with the
muzzle of the revolver, he motioned the stranger to proceed.

Stepping cautiously they gained the open forest beyond
the screen of brush. Here the man led the way more rap-
idly. Bob followed close at his heels. They threaded the

464 THE RULES OF THE GAME

forest aisles without hesitation, crossed a deep ravine where
the man paused to drink, and began to clamber the pre-
cipitous and rocky sides of Baldy.

''That'll do for that!" growled Bob suddenly.

The man looked around as though for information.

" You needn't go so fast. Keep about three feet in front
of me. And when we strike your gang, you keep close to
me. Sabe?"

"I'm alone," expostulated the man.

Nevertheless he slackened pace.

After five minutes' climb they entered a narrow ravine
gashed almost perpendicularly in the side of the mountain.
At this point, however, it flattened for perhaps fifty paces,
so that there existed a tiny foothold. It was concealed
from every point, and nevertheless, directly to the west,
Bob, pausing for breath, looked out over California slum-
bering in the moon. On this ledge flowed a tiny stream,
and over it grew a score of cedar and fir trees. A fire
smouldered near an open camp. On this the man tossed
a handful of pitch pine. Immediately the flames started
up.

"Here we are!" he remarked aloud.

"Yes, I see we are," replied Bob, looking suspiciously
about him, "but what does all this mean?"

"I couldn't get to talk with you no other way, could I?"
said the man in tones of complaint; u I sure tried hard enough I
But you and your pardner stick closer than brothers."

"If you wanted to speak to me, why didn't you say so?"
demanded Bob, his temper rising.

"Well, I don't know who your pardner is, or whether
he's reliable, nor nothin'. A man can't be too careful.
I thought mebbe you'd make a chance yourself, so I kept
giving you a show to. 'Course I didn't want to be seen by
him."

"Not seen by him!" broke in Bob impatiently. "What
in blazes are you driving at! Explain yourself!"

THE RULES OF THE GAME 465

" I showed myself plain only to you except when he
cut loose that time with his fool six-shooter. I thought he
was further in the brush. Why didn't you make a chance
to talk?"

"Why should I?" burst out Bob. "Will you kindly
explain to me why I should make a chance to talk to you;
and why I've been dragged out here in the dead of night?"

"No call to get mad," expostulated the man in rather
discouraged tones; "I just thought as how mebbe you was
still feeling friendiy-like. My mistake. But I reckon you
won't be giving me away anyhow?"

During this speech he had slowly produced from his hip
pocket a frayed bandana handkerchief; as slowly taken off
his hat and mopped his brow.

The removal of the floppy and shady old sombrero exposed
to the mingled rays of the fire and the moon the man's full
features. Heretofore, Bob had been able to see indistinctly
only the meagre facts of a heavy beard and clear eyes.

"George Pollock 1" he cried, dropping the revolver and
leaping forward with both hands outstretched.

POLLOCK took his hands, but stared at him puzzled.
" Surely 1" he said at last. His clear blue eyes
slowly widened and became bigger. " Honest I Didn't
you know me! Is that what ailed you, Bobby? I
thought you'd done clean gone back on me; and I sure
always remembered you for a friend 1"

" Know you I " shouted Bob. " Why, you eternal old fool,
how should I know you?"

"You might have made a plumb good guess."

" Oh, sure ! " said Bob; " easiest thing in the world. Guess
that the first shadow you see in the woods is a man you
thought was in Mexico."

"Didn't you know I was here?" demanded Pollock
earnestly. "Sure pop?"

"How should I know?" asked Bob again.

George Pollock's blue eyes smouldered with anger.

"I'll sure tan that promising nephew of mine!" he threat-
tened; "I've done sent you fifty messages by him. Didn't
he never give you none of them?"

"Who; Jack?"

"That's the whelp."

Bob laughed.

"That's a joke," said he; "I've been bunking with him
for a year. Nary message!"

"I told Carroll and Martin and one or two more to tell
you."

"I guess they're suspicious of any but the mountain
people," said Bob. "They're right. How could they
know?"

466

THE RULES OF THE GAME 467

"That's right, they couldn't," agreed George reluctantly.
" But I done told them you was my friend. And I thought
you'd gone back on me sure."

"Not an inch!" cried Bob, heartily.

George kicked the logs of the fire together, filled the coffee
pot at the creek, hung it over the blaze, and squatted on his
heels. Bob tossed him a sack of tobacco which he caught.

"Thought you were bound for Mexico," hazarded Bob
at length.

"I went," said Pollock shortly, "and I came back."

"Yes," said Bob after a time.

"Homesick," said Pollock; "plain homesick. Wasn't
so bad that-a-way at first. I was desp'rit. Took a job
punching with a cow outfit near Nogales. Worked myself
plumb cut every day, and slept hard all night, and woke
up in the morning to work myself plumb out again."

He fished a coal from the fire and deftly flipped it atop
his pipe bowl. After a dozen deep puffs, he continued:

"Never noticed the country; had nothing to do with the
people. All I knew was brands and my hosses. Did good
enough cow work, I reckon. For a fact, it was mebbe
half a year before I begun to look around. That country
is worse than over Panamit way. There's no trees; there's
no water; there's no green grass; there's no folks; there's no
nothin'i The mountains look like they're made of paper.
After about a half year, as I said, I took note of all this,
but I didn't care. What the hell difference did it make to
me what the country was like? I hadn't no theories to
that. I'd left all that back here."

He looked at Bob questioningly, unwilling to approach
nearer his tragedy unless it was necessary. Bob nodded.

"Then I begun to dream. Things come to me. I'd
see places plain like the falls at Cascadell and smell
things. For a fact, I smelt azaleas plain and sweet once;
and woke up in the damndest alkali desert you ever see. I
thought I'd never want to see this country again; the far-

468 THE RULES OF THE GAME

ther I got away, the more things I'd forget. You under-
stand."

Again Bob nodded.

"It wasn't that way. The farther off I got, the more I
remembered. So one day I cashed in and come back."

He paused for some time, gazing meditatively on the
coffee pot bubbling over the fire.

"It's good to get back!" he resumed at last. "It smells
good; it tastes good. For a while that did me well enough.
... I used to sneak down nights and look at my old
place. ... In summer I go back to Jim and the cattle, but
it's dangerous these days. The towerists is getting thicker,
and you can't trust everybody, even among the mountain
folks."

"How many know you are back here? "asked Bob.

"Mighty few; Jim and his family knows, of course,
and Tom Carroll and Martin and a few others. They
ride up trail to the flat rock sometimes bringing me grub
and papers. But it's plumb lonesome. I can't go on livin'
this way forever, and I can't leave this yere place. Since
I have been living here it seems like well, I ain't no call
as I can see it to desert my wife dead or alive!" he declared
stoutly.

"You needn't explain," said Bob.

George Pollock turned to him with sudden relief.

" Well, you know about such things. What am I to do ? "

"There are only two courses that I can see," answered
Bob, after reflection, "outside the one you're following
now. You can give yourself up to the authorities and
plead guilty. There's a chance that mitigating circum-
stances will influence the judge to give you a light sentence;
and there's always a possibility of a pardon. When all the
details are made known there ought to be a good show for
getting off easy."

"What's the other?" demanded Pollock, who had list-
ened with the closest attention.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 469

"The other is simply to go back home."

"They'd arrest r'ij?

"Let them," said .bob. "Plead not guilty, and take your
chances on the trial. Their evidence is circumstantial; you
don't have to incriminate yourself; I doubt if a jury would
agree on convicting you. Have you ever talked with any-
body about about that morning?"

"About me killing Plant?" supplied Pollock tranquilly.
"No. A man don't ask about those things."

"Not even to Jim?"

" No. We just sort of took all that for granted."

"Well, that would be all right. Then if they're called
on the stand, they can tell nothing. There are at least
no witnesses to the deed itself."

"There's you " suggested George.

Bob brought up short in his train of reasoning.

"But you won't testify agin me?"

"There's no reason why I should be called. Nobody
even knows I was out of bed at that time. If my name
happens to be mentioned which isn't at all likely
Auntie Belle or a dozen others will volunteer that I was in
bed, like the rest of the town. There's no earthly reason
to connect me with it."

"But if you are called?" persisted the mountaineer.

"Then I'll have to tell the truth, of course," said Bob
soberly; "it'll be under oath, you know."

Pollock looked at him strangely askant.

"I didn't much look to hear you talk that-a-way," said he.

"George," said Bob, "this will take money. Have you
any?"

"I've some," replied the mountaineer sulkily.

"How much?"

"A hundred dollars or so."

"Not enough by a long patch. You must let me help
you on this."

"I don't need no help," said Pollock.

470 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"You let me help you once before," Bob reminded him
gently, "if it was only to hold a horse."

"By God, that's right!" burst out George Pollock, "and
I'm a fooll If they call you on the stand, don't you lie under
oath for me! I don't believe you'd do it for yourself; and
that's what I'm going to do for myself. I reckon I'll just
plead guilty!"

" Don't be in a hurry," Bob warned him. "It isn't a mat-
ter to go off half-cock on. Any man would have done what
you did. I'd have done it myself. That's why I stood by
you. I'm not sure you aren't right to take advantage of
what the law can do for you. Plenty do just that with only
the object of acquiring other people's dollars. I don't say
it's right in theory; but in this case it may be eternally right
in practice. Go slow on deciding."

"You're sure a good friend, Bobby," said Pollock simply.

"Whatever you decide, don't even mention my name to
any one," warned Bob. " We don't want to get me connected
with the case in any man's mind. Hardly let on you remem-
ber to have known me. Don't overdo it though. You'll
want a real good lawyer. I'll find out about that. And
the money how'll we fix it?"

George thought for a moment.

"Fix it with Jack," said he at length. "He'll stay put.
Tell him not to tell his own father. He won't. He's reli-
able."

"Sure?"

"Well, I'm risking my neck on it."

"I'll simply tell him the name of the lawyer," decided
Bob, "and get him actual cash."

"I'll pay that back the other I can't," said Pollock
with sudden feeling. "Here, have a cup of coffee."

Bob swallowed the hot coffee gratefully. Without speak-
ing further, Pollock arose and led the way. When finally
they had reached the open forest above the camp, the mount-
aineer squeezed Bob's fingers hard.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 471

"Good-bye," said the younger man in a guarded voice.
"I won't see you again. Remember, even at best it's a
long wait in jail. Think it over before you decide!"

"I'm in jail here," replied Pollock.

Bob walked thoughtfully to camp. He found a fire burn-
ing and Elliott afoot.

"Thank God, you're here!" cried that young man; "I
was getting scared for you. What's up?"

"You are and I am," replied Bob. "Couldn't sleep, so
I went for a walk. Think that bogy- man of yours had
got me?"

"I surely began to."

"Nothing doing. I guess I can snooze a little now."

"I can't," complained Elliott. "You've got me good and
waked up, confound you!"

Bob kicked off his boots, and without further disrobing
rolled himself into his gray blanket. As he was dropping
asleep two phrases flashed across his brain. They were:
"compounding a felony," and "accessory after the fact."

"Don't feel much like a criminal either," murmured Bob
to himself; and after a moment: "Poor devil!"

XII

TWO days later, from the advantage of the rock desig-
nated by California John, Elliott reported the agreed
signal for their recall. Accordingly, they packed
together their belongings and returned to headquarters.

"We're getting short-handed, and several things have
come up," said Thorne. " I have work for both of you."

Having despatched Elliott, Thorne turned to Bob.

"Orde," said he, "I'm going to try you out on a very del-
icate matter. At the north end lives an old fellow named
Samuels. He and his family are living on a place inside the
National forests. He took it up years ago, mainly for the
timber, but he's one of these hard-headed old coons that's
'agin the Government/ on general principles. He never
proved up, and when his attention was called to the fact, he
refused to do anything. No reason why not, except that
'he'd always lived there and always would.' You know the
kind."

"Ought to put in two years in the Michigan woods,"
said Bob. .

"Well, as a matter of fact, he gave up the claim to all
intents and purposes, but now that the Yellow Pine people
are cutting up toward him, he's suddenly come to the notion
that the place is worth while. So he's patched up his cabin,
and moved in his whole family. We've got to get a relin-
quishment out of him."

" If he has no right there, why not put him off ? " asked Bob.

" Well, in the first place, this Samuels is a hard old citizen
with a shotgun; in the second place, he has some shadow of
right on which he could make a fight; in the third place, the

472

THE RULES OF THE GAME 473

country up that way ddesn't care much for us anyway, and we
want to minimize opposition."

"I see," said Bob.

" You'll have to go up and look the ground over, that's all.
Do what you think best. Here are all the papers in the mat-
ter. You can look them over at your leisure."

Bob tucked the bundle of papers in his cantinas, or pommel
bags, and left the office. Amy was rattling the stove in her
open-air kitchen, shaking down the ashes preparatory to the
fire. Bob stopped to look across at her trim, full figure in
its starched blue, immaculate as always.

"Hullo, Colonel!" he called. "How are the legions of
darkness and ignorance standing the cannonading these days ?
Funny paper any new jokes?"

This last was in reference to Amy's habit of reading the
Congressional Record in search of speeches or legislation
affecting the forests. Bob stoutly maintained, and nobody
but Amy disputed him, that she was the only living woman,
in or out of captivity, known to read that series of documents.

Amy shook her head, without looking up.

"What's the matter?" asked Bob solicitously. "Noth-
ing wrong with the Hero, nor any of the Assistant Heroes?"

Thus in their banter were designated the President, and
such senators as stood behind his policies of conservation.

"Then the villains must have been saying a few triumph-
ant ha! ha's!" pursued Bob, referring to Fulton, Clark, Hey-
burn and the rest of the senatorial representatives of the anti-
conservationists. " Or is it merely the stove ? Let me help."

Amy stood upright, and thrust back her hair.

" Please don't," said she. " I don't feel like joking to-day/'

"It is something!" cried Bob. "I do beg your pardon;
I didn't realize . . . you know I'd like to help, if it's
anything I can do."

" It is nothing to do with any of us," said Amy, seating her-
self for a moment, and letting her hands fall in her lap. " It's
just some news that made me feel sorry. Ware came up with

474 THE RULES OF THE GAME

the mail a little while ago, and he tells us that George Pollock
has suddenly reappeared and is living down at his own place."

"They've arrested him!" cried Bob.

"Not yet; but they will. The sheriff has been notified.
Of course, his friends warned him in time; but he won't go.
Says he intends to stay."

" Then he'll go to jail."

" And to prison. What chance has a poor fellow like that
without money or influence? All he has is his denial."

"Then he denies?" asked Bob eagerly.

"Says he knows nothing about Plant's killing. His wife
died that same morning, and he went away because he could
not stand it. That's his story; but the evidence is strong
against him, poor fellow."

"Do you believe him?" asked Bob.

Amy swung her foot, pondering.

"No," she said at last. "I believe he killed Plant; and I
believe he did right! Plant killed his wife and child, and
took away all his property. That's what it amounted to."

"There are hardships worked in any administration,"
Bob pointed out.

Amy looked at him slowly.

" You don't believe that in this case," she pronounced at last.

"Then Pollock will perjure himself," suggested Bob, to
try her.

" And if he has friends worth the name, they'll perjure them-
selves, too!" cried Amy boldly. "They'll establish an alibi,
they'll invent a murderer for Plant, they'll do anything for a
man as persecuted and hunted as poor George Pollock!"

"Heavens!" returned Bob, genuinely aghast at this whole-
sale programme. "What would become of morals and
honour and law and all the rest of it, if that sort of thing
obtained?"

"Law?" Amy caught him up. "Law? It's become
foolish. No man lives capable of mastering it so completely
that another man cannot find flaws in his best efforts. Reuf

THE RULES OF THE GAME 475

and Schmitz are guilty everybody says so, even them-
selves. Why aren't they in jail? Because of the law. Don't
talk to me of law!"

" But how about ordinary mortals? You can't surely per-
mit a man to lie in a court of justice just because he thinks
his friend's cause is just!"

"I don't know anything about it," sighed Amy, as though
weary all at once, " except that it isn't right. The law should
be a great and wise judge, humane and sympathetic. George
Pollock should be able to go to that judge and say: 'I killed
Plant, because he had done me an injury for which the per-
petrator should suffer death. He was permitted to do this
because of the deficiency of the law.' And he should be
able to say it in all confidence that he would be given justice,
eternal justice, and not a thing so warped by obscure and
forgotten precedents that it fits nothing but some lawyer's
warped notion of logic!"

"Whew!" whistled Bob, "what a lady of theory and eru-
dition it is!"

Amy eyed him doubtfully, then smiled.

"I'm glad you happened along," said she. "I feel better.
Now I believe I'll be able to do something with my biscuits."

" I could do justice to some of them," remarked Bob, " and
it would be the real thing without any precedents in that line
whatever."

"Come around later and you'll have the chance," invited
Amy, again addressing herself to the stove.

Still smiling at this wholesale and feminine way of leaping
directly to a despotically desired ideal result, Bob took the
trail to his own camp. Here he found Jack Pollock poring
over an old illustrated paper.

"Hullo, Jack!" he called cheerfully. "Not out on duty,
eh?"

" I come in," said Jack, rising to his feet and folding the old
paper carefully. He said nothing more, but stood eyeing
his colleague gravely.

476 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"You want something of me?" asked Bob.

"No," denied Jack, "I don't know nothing I want of you.
But I was told to come and get a piece of paper and maybe
some money that a stranger was goin' to leave by our chimb-
ley. It ain't there. You ain't seen it, by any chance? "

" It may have got shoved among some of my things by mis-
take," replied Bob gravely. " I haven't had a chance of look-
ing. I'm just in from the Basin." At these last words he
looked at Jack keenly, but that young man's expression
remained inscrutable. " I'll look when I get back," he con-
tinued after a moment; "just now I've got to ride over to the
mill to see Mr. Welton."

Jack nodded gravely.

" If you find them, leave them by the chimbley," said he.
"I'm going to headquarters."

Bob rode to the mill. By the exercise of some diplomacy
he brought the conversation to good lawyers without arous-
ing Welton' s suspicions that he could have any personal
interest in the matter.

"Erbe's head and shoulders above the rest," said Welton.
"He has half the business. He's for Baker's interests, and
our own; and he's shrewd. Maybe you'll get into trouble
yourself some day, Bob. Better send for him. He's the
greatest criminal lawyer in the business."

Bob laughed heartily with his old employer. From Poole
he easily obtained currency for his personal check of two
hundred dollars. This would do to go on with for the time
being. He wrote Erbe's name and address in a disguised
hand on, a piece of rough brown paper. This he wrapped
around the money, and deposited by the alarm clock on the
rough log mantelpiece of his cabin. The place was empty.
When he had returned from his invited supper with the
Thornes, the package had disappeared. He did not again
catch sight of Jack Pollock, for next morning he started out
on his errand to the north end.

XIII

A NO ON of the second day of a journey that led him
up the winding watered valleys of the lower ranges,
Bob surmounted a ridge higher than the rest and rode
down a long, wide slope. Here the character of the country
changed completely. Scrub oaks, young pines and chaparral
covered the ground. Among this growth Bob made out the
ancient stumps of great trees. The ranch houses were built
of sawn lumber, and possessed brick chimneys. In appear-
ance they seemed midway between the farm houses of the
older settled plains and the rougher cabins of the moun-
taineers.

Bob continued on a dusty road until he rode into a little
town which he knew must be Durham. Its main street con-
tained three stores, two saloons, a shady tree, a windmill and
watering trough and a dozen chair-tilted loafers. A wooden
sidewalk shaded by a wooden awning ran the entire length
of this collection of commercial enterprises. A redwood
hitching rail, much chewed, flanked it. Three saddle horses,
and as many rigs, dozed in the sun.

Bob tied his saddle horse to the rail, leaving the pack
animal to its own devices. Without attention to the curious
stares of the loafers, he pushed into the first store, and
asked directions of the proprietor. The man, a type of the
transplanted Yankee, pushed the spectacles up over his fore-
head, and coolly surveyed his questioner from head to foot
before answering.

"I see you're a ranger," he remarked drily. "Well, I
wouldn't go to Samuels's if I was you. He's give it out that
he'll kill the next ranger that sets foot on his place."

477

478 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"I've heard that sort of talk before," replied Bob impa-
tiently.

"Samuels means what he says," stated the storekeeper.
" He drove off the last of you fellows with a shotgun and
he went too."

" You haven't told me how to get there," Bob pointed out.

"All you have to do is to turn to the right at the white
church and follow your nose," replied the man curtly.

"How far is it?"

"About four mile."

"Thank you," said Bob, and started out.

The man let him get to the door.

"Say, you!" he called.

Bob stopped.

"You might be in better business than to turn a poor man
out of his house and home."

Bob did not wait to hear the rest. As he untied his saddle
horse, a man brushed by him with what was evidently inten-
tional rudeness, for he actually jostled Bob's shoulder. The
man jerked loose the tie rein of his own mount, leaped to the
saddle, and clattered away. Bob noticed that he turned to
the right at the white church.

The four-mile ride, Bob discovered, was almost straight
up. At the end of it he found himself well elevated above
the valley, and once more in the sugar-pine belt. The road
wound among shades of great trees. Piles of shakes, gleam-
ing and fragrant, awaited the wagon. Rude signs, daubed
on the riven shingles, instructed the wayfarer that this or that
dim track through the forest led to So-and-so's shake camp.

It was by now after four of the afternoon. Bob met
nobody on the road, but he saw in the dust fresh tracks which
he shrewdly surmised to be those of the man who had jostled
him. Samuels had his warning. The mountaineer would
be ready. Bob had no intention of delivering a frontal
attack.

He rode circumspectly, therefore, until he discerned an

THE RULES OF THE GAME 479

opening in the forest. Here he dismounted. The open-
ing, of course, might be only that of a natural meadow, but
in fact proved to be the homestead claim of which Bob was
in search.

The improvements consisted of a small log cabin with a
stone and mud chimney; a log stable slightly larger in size;
a rickety fence made partly of riven pickets, partly of split
rails, but long since weathered and rotted; and what had
been a tiny orchard of a score of apple trees. At some remote
period this orchard had evidently been cultivated, but now the
weeds and grasses grew rank and matted around neglected
trees. The whole place was down at the heels. Tin cans
and rusty baling wire strewed the back yard; an iil-cared-for
wagon stood squarely in front; broken panes of glass in the
windows had been replaced respectively by an old straw
hat and the dirty remains of overalls. The supports of the
little verandah roof sagged crazily. Over it clambered a vine.
Close about drew the forest. That was it: the forest! The
"homestead" was a mere hovel; the cultivation a patch;
the improvements sketchy and ancient; but the forest,
become valuable for lumber where long it had been consid-
ered available only for shakes, furnished the real motive for
this desperate attempt to rehabilitate old and lapsed rights.

The place was populous enough, for all its squalor. A half-
dozen small children, scantily clothed, swarmed amongst the
tin cans; two women, one with a baby in her arms, appeared
and disappeared through the low doorway of the cabin; a
horse or two dozed among the trees of the neglected orchard;
chickens scratched everywhere. Square in the middle of
the verandah, in a wooden chair, sat an old man whom Bob
guessed to be Samuels. He sat bolt upright, facing the
front, his knees spread apart, his feet planted solidly. A
patriarchal beard swept his great chest; thick, white hair
crowned his head; bushy white brows, like thatch, over-
shadowed his eyes. Even at the distance, Bob could imagine
the deep-set, flashing, vigorous eyes of the old man. For

480 THE RULES OF THE GAME

everything about him, save the colour of his hair and beard,
bespoke great vigour. His solidly planted attitude in his
chair, the straight carriage of his back, the set of his shoulders,
the very poise of his head told of the power and energy
of an autocrat. Across his knees rested a shotgun.

As Bob watched, a tall youth sauntered around the corner
of the cabin. He spoke to the old man. Samuels did not
look around, but nodded his massive head. The young
man disappeared in the cabin to return after a moment,
accompanied by the individual Bob had seen in Durham.
The two spoke again to the old man; then sauntered off in the
direction of the barn.

Bob returned, untied his horse; and, leading that animal,
approached the cabin afoot. No sooner had he emerged into
view when the old man arose and came squarely and uncom-
promisingly to meet him. The two encountered perhaps
fifty yards from the cabin door.

Bob found that a closer inspection of his antagonist rather
strengthened than diminished the impression of force. The
old man's eyes were flashing fire, and his great chest rose
and fell rapidly. He held his weapon across the hollow
of his left arm, but the muscles of his right hand were white
with the power of his grip.

"Get out of here!" he fairly panted at. Bob. "I warned
you fellows I"

Bob replied calmly.

"I came in to see if I could get to stay for supper, and to
feed my horse."

At this the old man exploded in a violent rage. He ordered
Bob off the place instantly, and menaced him with his shot-
gun. Had Bob been mounted, Samuels would probably
have shot him; but the mere position of a horseman afoot
conveys subtly an impression of defencelessness that is
difficult to overcome. He is, as it were, anchored to the spot,
and at the other man's mercy. Samuels raged, but he did
not shoot.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 481

At the sounds of altercation, however, the whole hive
swarmed. The numerous children scuttled for cover like
quail, but immediately peered forth again. The two women
thrust their heads from the doorway. From the direction
of the stable the younger men came running. One of them
held a revolver in his hand.

During all this turmoil and furore Bob had stood perfectly
still, saying no word. Provided he did nothing to invite it,
he was now safe from personal violence. To be sure,
a very slight mistake would invite it. Bob waited
patiently.

He remembered, and was acting upon, a conversation he
had once held with Ware. The talk had fallen on gun-
fighting, and Bob, as usual, was trying to draw Ware out.
The latter was, also, as usual, exceedingly reticent and dis-
inclined to open up.

"What would you do if a man got your hajids up?"
chaffed Bob.

Ware turned on him quick as a flash.

"No man ever got my hands up!"

"No?" said Bob, hugely delighted at the success of his
stratagem. "What do you do, then, when a man gets the
cold drop on you?"

But now Ware saw the trap into which his feet were lead-
ing him, and drew back into his shell.

" Oh, shoot out, or blutf out," said he briefly.

"But look here, Ware," insisted Bob, "it's all very well
to talk like that. But suppose a man actually has his gun
down on you. How can you ' shoot out or bluff out' ?"

Ware suddenly became serious.

"No man," said he, "can hold a gun on you for over ten
seconds without his eyes flickering. It's too big a strain.
He don't let go for morn about the hundredth part of a
second. After that he has holt again for another ten seconds,
and will pull trigger if you bat an eyelash. But if you take
it when his eyes flicker, and are quick, you'll get himl"

482 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"What about the other way around?" asked Bob.

"I never pulled a gun unless I meant to shoot," said Ware
grimly.

The practical philosophy of this Bob was now utilizing.
If he had ridden up boldly, Samuels would probably have
shot him from the saddle. Having gained the respite, Bob
now awaited the inevitable momentary relaxing from this
top pitch of excitement. It came.

"I have not the slightest intention of tacking up any
notices or serving any papers," he said quietly, referring to
the errand of the man whom Samuels had driven off at the
point of his weapon. "I am travelling on business; and I
asked for shelter and supper."

"No ranger sets foot on my premises," growled Samuels.

"Very well," said Bob, unpinning and pocketing his pine
tree badge. ("Oh, Pd have died rather than do that!" cried
A my when she heard. "I'd have stuck to my guns! " " Heroic,
but useless," replied her brother drily.) " I don't care whether
the ranger is fed or not. But I'm a lot interested in me. I
ask you as a man, not as an official."

"Your sort ain't welcome here; and if you ain't got sense
enough to see it, you got to be shown!" the youngest man
broke in roughly.

Bob turned to him calmly.

"I am not asking your sufferance," said he, "nor would I
eat where I am not welcome. I am asking Mr. Samuels
to bid me welcome. If he will not do so, I will ride on." He
turned to the old man again. " Do you mean to tell me that
the North End is so far behind the South End in common
hospitality? We've fed enough men at the Wolverine
Company in our time."

Bob let fly this shaft at a venture. He knew how many
passing mountaineers paused for a meal at the cook house,
and surmised it probable that at least one of his three oppo-
nents might at some time have stopped there. This proved
to be the case.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 483

"Are you with the Wolverine Company?" demanded
the man who had jostled him.

" I was for some years in charge of the woods."

"I've et there. You can stay to supper," said Samuels
ungraciously.

He turned sharp on his heel and marched back to the cabin,
leaving Bob to follow with his horse. The two younger men
likewise went about their business. Bob found himself quite
alone, with only this ungracious permission to act on.

Nevertheless, quite imperturbably, Bob unsaddled, led
his animal into the dark stable, threw it some of the wild hay
stacked therein, washed himself in the nearby creek, and took
his station on the deserted verandah. The twilight fell.
Some of the children ventured into sight, but remained
utterly unmoved by the young man's tentative advances.
He heard people moving about inside, but no one came near
him. Finally, just at dusk, the youngest man protruded his
head from the doorway.

"Come to supper," said he surlily.

Bob ducked his head to enter a long, low room. Its
walls were of the rough logs; its floor of hewn timbers; its
ceiling of round beams on which had been thrown untrimmed
slabs as a floor to the loft above. A board table stood in
the centre of this, flanked by homemade chairs and stools of
all varieties of construction. A huge iron cooking stove
occupied all of one end an extraordinary piece of ordnance.
The light from a single glass lamp cast its feeble illumination
over coarse dishes steaming with food.

Bob bowed politely to the two women, who stood, their
arms crossed on their stomachs, without deigning his salu-
tation the slightest attention. The children, of all sizes and
ages, stared at him unblinking. The two men shuffled to
their seats, without looking up at the visitor. Only the old
man vouchsafed him the least notice..

"Set thar!" he growled, indicating a stool.

Bob found on the board that abundance and variety which

484 THE RULES OF THE GAME

always so much surprises the stranger to a Sierra mount-
aineer's cabin. Besides the usual bacon, beans, and bread,
there were dishes of canned string-beans and corn, potatoes,
boiled beef, tomatoes and pressed glass dishes of preserves.
Coffee, hot as fire, and strong as lye, came in thick china
cups without handles.

The meal went forward in absolute silence, which Bob
knew better than to interrupt. It ended for each as he or she
finished eating. The two women were left at the last quite
alone. Bob followed his host to the veranda. There he
silently offered the old man a cigar; the younger men had
vanished.

Samuels took the cigar with a grunt of thanks, srnelled it
carefully, bit an inch off the end, and lit it with a slow-burn-
ing sulphur match. Bob also lit up.

For one hour and a half two cigars apiece the two
sat side by side without uttering a syllable. The velvet dark
drew close. The heavens sparkled as though frosted with
light. Bob, sitting tight on what he knew was the one and
only plan to accomplish his purpose, began to despair of his
chance. Of his companion he could make out dimly only
the white of his hair and beard, the glowing fire of his cigar.
Inside the house the noises made by the inhabitants thereof
increased and died away; evidently the household was seek-
ing its slumber. A tree-toad chirped, loudest in ail the world
of stillness.

Suddenly, without warning, the old man scraped back his
chair. Bob's heart leaped. Was his one chance escaping
him? Then to his relief Samuels spoke. The long duel of
silence was at an end.

XIV

WHAT might your name be?" inquired Samuels.
"Orde."
"I heerd of you . . . what might you be
doing up here?"

"I'm just riding through."

"Best thing any of you can do," commented the old mail
grimly.

"I wish you'd tell me now why you jumped on me so this
evening," said Bob.

"If you don't know, you're a fool," growled Samuels.

"I've knocked around a good deal," persisted Bob, "and
I've discovered that one side always sounds good until you
hear the other man's story. I've only heard one side of
this one."

"And that's all you're like to hear," Samuels told him.
"You don't get no evidence out of me against myself."

Bob laughed.

"You're mighty suspicious and I don't know as I blame
you. Bless your soul, what evidence do you suppose I could
get from you in a case like this? You've already made
it clear enough with that old blunderbuss of yours what you
think of the merits of the case. I asked you out of per-
sonal interest. I know the Government claims you don't
own this place; and I was curious to know why you think
you do. The Government reasoning looks pretty conclu-
sive to a man who doesn't know all the circumstances."

"Oh, it is, is it!" cried Samuels, stung to anger. "Well,
what claim do you think the Government has?"

But Bob was too wily to be put in the aggressive.

485

486 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"I'm not thinking; I'm asking," said he. "They say
you're holding this for the timber, and never proved
up."

"I took it up bony-fidy," fairly shouted Samuels. "Do
you think a man plants an orchard and such like on a tim-
ber claim. The timber is worth something, of course. Well,
don't every man take up timber? What about that Wolver-
ine Company of yours? What about the Yellow Pine
people? What about everybody, everywhere? Ain't I got
a right to it, same as everybody else?"

He leaned forward, pounding his knee. A querulous and
sleepy voice spoke up from the interior of the cabin :

" Oh, pa, for heaven's sake don't holler so!"

The old man paused in mid-career. Over the treetops the
moon was rising slowly. Its light struck across the lower
part of the verandah, showing clearly the gnarled hand of the
mountaineer suspended above his sturdy knee; casting into
dimness the silver of his massive head. The hand descended
noiselessly.

"Ain't I got my rights, same as another man?" he asked,
more reasonably. " Just because I left out some little piece
of their cussed red-tape am I a-goin' to be turned out bag and
baggage, child, kit, and kaboodle, while fifty big men steal,
just plain steal, a thousand acres apiece and there ain't noth-
ing said ? Not if I know it ! "

He talked on. Slowly Bob came to an understanding of
the man's position. His argument, stripped of its verbiage
and self-illusion, was simplicity itself. The public domain
was for the people. Men selected therefrom what they
needed. All about him, for fifty years, homesteads had been
taken up quite frankly for the sake of timber. Nobody made
any objections. Nobody even pretended that these claims
were ever intended to be lived on. The barest letter of the
law had been complied with.

" I've seen a house, made out'n willow branches, and out'n
coal-oil cans, called resident buildin's under the act," said

THE RULES OF THE GAME 487

Samuels, " and they was so lost in the woods that it needed
a compass to find 'em."

He, Samuels, on the other hand, had actually planted an
orchard and made improvements, and even lived on the place
for a time. Then he had let the claim lapse, and only recently
had decided to resume what he sincerely believed to be his
rights in the matter.

Bob did not at any point suggest any of the counter argu-
ments he might very well have used. He listened, leaning
back against the rail, watching the moonlight drop log by
log as the luminary rose above the verandah roof.

" And so there come along last week a ranger and started
to tack up a sign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the
United States.' Property of hell!"

He ceased talking. Bob said nothing.

"Now you got it; what you think?" asked the old man at
last.

"It's tough luck," said Bob. "There's more to be said
for your side of the case than I had thought."

"There's a lot more goin' to be said yet," stated Samuels,
truculently.

" But I'm afraid when it comes right down to the law of it,
they'll decide against your claim. The law reads pretty
plain on how to go about it; and as I understand it, you never
did prove up."

" My lawyer says if I hang on here, they never can get me
out," said Samuels, "and I'm a-goin' to hang on."

"Well, of course, that's for the courts to decide," agreed
Bob, "and I don't claim to know much about law nor
want to."

"Me neither!" agreed the mountaineer fervently.

"But I've known of a dozen cases just like yours that
went against the claimant. There was the Brown case in
Idaho, for instance, that was exactly like yours. Brown
had some money, and he fought it through up to the Supreme
Court, but they decided against him."

488 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"How was that?" asked Samuels.

Bob explained at length, dispassionately, avoiding even
the colour of argument, but drawing strongly the parallel.

"Even if you could afford it, I'm almighty afraid you'd
run up against exactly the same thing," Bob concluded, " and
they'd certainly use the Brown case as a precedent."

"Well, I've got money!" said Samuels. "Don't you for-
get it. I don't have to live in a place like this. I've got a
good, sawn-lumber house, painted, in Durham and a gar-
den of posies."

"I'd like to see it," said Bob.

"Sometime you get to Durham, ask for me," invited
Samuels.

" Well, I see how you feel. If I were in your fix, I'd prob-
ably fight it too, but I'm morally certain they'd get you in
the courts. And it is a tremendous expense for nothing."

"Well, they've got to git me off'n here first," threatened
Samuels.

Bob averted the impending anger with a soft chuckle.

"I wouldn't want the job!" said be. "But if they had
the courts with them, they'd get you off. You can drive
those rangers up a tree quick enough (" You know that isn't
so!" cried Amy at the subsequent recital.), but this is a Fed-
eral matter, and they'll send troops against you, if necessary."

" My lawyer " began Samuels.

"May be dead right, or he may enjoy a legal battle at the
other man's expense," put in Bob. "The previous cases
are all dead against him; and they're the only ammuni-
tion."

" It's a-gittin' cold," said Samuels, rising abruptly. "Let's
git inside!"

Bob followed him to the main room of the cabin where
the mountaineer lit a tallow candle stuck in the neck of a
bottle.

"Oh, pa, come to bed!" called a sleepy voice, "and quit
your palavering."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 489

"She! up!" commanded Samuels, setting the candle in the
middle of the table, and seating himself by it. "Ain't there
no decisions the other way ? "

"I'm no lawyer," Bob pointed out, dropping into a stool
on the other side, so that the candle stood between them,
"and my opinion is of no value" the old man grunted
what might have been assent, or a mere indication of atten-
tion " but as far as I knew, there have been none. I know
all the leading cases, I think" he added.

"So they can put me off, and leave all these other fellows,
who are worse off than I be in keepin' up with what the law
wants!" cried Samuels.

"I hope they'll begin action against every doubtful claim,"
said Bob soberly.

"It may be the law to take away my homestead, but it
ain't justice," stated the old man.

Bob ventured his first aggressive movement.

"Did you 2ver read the Homestead Law?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Well, as you remember, that law states pretty plainly
the purpose of the Homestead Act. It is to provide, out of
the public lands, for any citizen not otherwise provided, with
one hundred and sixty acres as a farm to cultivate or a home-
stead on which to live. When a man takes that land for any
other purpose whatever, he commits an injustice; and when
that land is recalled to the public domain, that injustice is
righted, not another committed."

"Injustice!" challenged the old man; "against what, for
heaven's sake!"

"Against the People," replied Bob firmly.

"I suppose these big lumber dealers need a home and a
farm tool" sneered Samuels.

"Because they did wrong is no reason you should."

"'Who dares say I done wrong?" demanded the mountain-
eer. "Look here! Why does the Government pick on me
and try to drive me off'n my little place where I'm living,

4QO THE RULES OF THE GAME

and leave these other fellows be? What right or justice is
there in that?"

"I don't know the ins and out of it all," Bob reminded
him. "As I said before, I'm no lawyer. But they've at
least conformed with the forms of the law, as far as the Gov-
ernment has any evidence. You have not. I imagine that's
the reason your case has been selected first."

" To hell with a law that drives the poor man off his home
and leaves the rich man on his ill-got spoils!" cried Samuels.

The note in this struck Bob's ear as something alien. "I
wonder what that echoes from!" was his unspoken thought.
Aloud he merely remarked:

"But you said yourself you have money and a home in
Durham."

" That may be," retorted Samuels, " but ain't I got as much
right to the timber, I who have been in the country since '55,
as the next man ? "

"Why, of course you have, Mr. Samuels," r greed Bob
heartily. "I'm with you there."

"Well?"

" But you've exercised your rights to timber claims already.
You took up your timber claim in '89, and what is more,
your wife and her brother and your oldest son also took up
timber claims in '90. As I understand it, this is an old
homestead claim, antedating the others."

Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had
been lured from his vantage ground of force to that of argu-
ment; how he scarcely knew. It had certainly been without
his intention.

Bob, however, had no desire that the old man should again
take his stand behind the impenetrable screen of threat
and bluster from which he had been decoyed.

"We've all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop to
this sort of thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the
time is at hand when graft and grab by the rich and power-
ful will have to go. It will go only when we take hold together.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 491

Look at San Francisco With great skill he drew the

old man into a discussion of the graft cases in that city.

"Graft," he concluded, "is just the price the people are
willing to pay to get their politics done for them while they
attend to the pressing business of development and building.
They haven't time nor energy to do everything, so they're
willing to pay to have some things taken off their hands.
The price is graft. When the people have more time, when
the other things are done, then the price will be too high.
They'll decide to attend to their own business."

Samuels listened to this closely. "There's a good deal
in what you say," he agreed. " I know it's that way with us.
If I couldn't build a better road with less money and less
men than our Supervisor, Curtis, does, I'd lie down and roll
over. But I ain't got time to be supervisor, even if anybody
had time to elect me. There's a bunch of reformers down
our way, but they don't seem to change Curtis much."

"Reformers are no good unless the rank and file of the
people come to think the way they do," said Bob. "That's
why we've got to start by being good citizens ourselves, no
matter what the next man would do."

Samuels peered at him strangely, around the guttering
candle. Bob allowed him no time to express his thought.

" But to get back to your own case," said he. " What gets
me is why you destroy your homestead right for a practical
certainty."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, I personally think it's a certainty that you will be
dispossessed here. If you wait for the law to put you off,
you'll have no right to take up another homestead your
right will be destroyed."

"What good would a homestead right do me these days?"
demanded Samuels. "There's nothing left."

"New lands are thrown open constantly," said Bob, "and
it's better, other things being equal, to have a right than to
want it On the other hand, if you voluntarily relinquish

492 THE RULES OF THE GAME

this claim, your right to take up another homestead is still
good."

At the mention of relinquishment the old mountaineer
shied like a colt. With great patience Bob took up the other
side of the question. The elements of the problem were now
all laid down patriotism, the certainty of ultimate loss,
the advisability of striving to save rights, the desire to do one's
part toward bringing the land grabbers in line. Remained
only so to apply the pressure of all these cross-motives that
they should finally bring the old man to the point of definite
action.

Bob wrestled with the demons of selfishness, doubt,
suspicion, pride, stubbornness, anger, acquisitiveness that
swarmed in the old man's spirit, as Christian with Apollyon.
The labour was as great. At times, as he retraced once more
and yet again ground already covered, his patience was over-
come by a great weariness; almost the elemental obstinacy
of the man wore him down. Then his very soul clamoured
within him with the desire to cut all this short, to cry out
impatiently against the slow stupidity or mulishness, or avari-
ciousness, or whatever it was, that permitted the old man
to agree to every one of the premises, but to balk finally at
the conclusion. The night wore on. Bob realized that it
was now or never; that he must take advantage of this
receptive mood a combination of skill and luck had gained
for him. The old man must be held to the point. The
candle burned out. The room grew chill. Samuels threw
an armful of pitch pine on the smouldering logs of the fire-
place that balanced the massive cook stove. By its light
the discussion went on. The red flames reflected strangely
from unexpected places, showing the oddest inconsequences.
Bob, at times, found himself drifting into noticing these
things. He stared for a moment hypnotically on the incon-
gruous juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then he
roused himself with a start; for, although his tongue had con-
tinued saying what his brain had commanded it to say, the

THE RULES OF THE GAME 493

dynamics had gone from his utterance, and the old man was
stirring restlessly as though about to bring the conference
to a close. Warned by this incident, he forced his whole
powers to the front. His head was getting tired, but he must
continuously bring to bear against this dead opposition all
the forces of his will.

At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed. The
other two men, rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their
names as witnesses, and, shivering in the night chill, crawled
back to rest, without any very clear idea of what they had
been called on to do. Bob leaned back in his chair, the
precious document clasped tight. The taut cords of his being
had relaxed. For a moment he rested. To his conscious-
ness dully penetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.

"Don't see how you keep chickens," he found himself
saying; "we can't. Coyotes and cats get 'em. I wish you'd
tell me."

Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motion-
less as a graven image. Between them the new candle,
brought for the signing of the relinquishment, flared and
sputtered.

Bob stumbled to his feet.

"Good night," said he.

Samuels neither moved nor stirred. He might have been
a figure such as used to be placed before the entrances of
wax works exhibitions, so still he sat, so fixed were his eyes,
so pallid the texture of his weather-tanned flesh after the
vigil.

Bob went out to the verandah. The chill air stirred his
blood, set in motion the run-down machinery of his physical
being. From the darkness a bird chirped loudly. Bob
looked up. Over the still, pointed tops of the trees the sky
had turned faintly gray. From the window streamed the
candle light. It seemed unwontedly yellow in contrast to a
daylight that, save by this contrast, was not yet visible.

Bob stepped from the verandah. As he passed the window,

494 THE RULES OF THE GAME

he looked in. Samuels had risen to his feet, and stood rigid,
his clenched fist on the table.

At the stable Bob spoke quietly to his animals, saddled
them, and led them out. For some instinctive reason which
he could not have explained, he had decided to be imme-
diately about his journey. The cold gray of dawn had come,
and objects were visible dimly. Bob led his horses to the
edge of the wood. There he mounted. When well within
the trees he looked back. Samuels stood on the edge of*
the verandah, peering out into the uncertain light of the dawn.
From the darkness of the trees Bob made out distinctly the
white of his mane-like hair and the sweep of his patriarchal
beard. Across the hollow of his left arm he carried his shot-
gun.

Bob touched spur to his saddle horse and vanished in the
depths of the forest.

BOB delivered his relinquishment at headquarters,
and received the news.
George Pollock had been arrested for the murder
of Plant, and now lay in jail. Erbe, the White Oaks lawyer,
had undertaken charge of his case. The evidence was as yet
purely circumstantial. Erbe had naturally given out no
intimation of what his defence would be.

Then, within a week, events began to stir in Durham
County. Samuels wrote a rather violent letter announcing
his change of mind in regard to the relinquishment. To this
a formal answer of regret was sent, together with an intima-
tion that the matter was now irrevocable. Somebody sent a
copy of the local paper containing a vituperative interview
with the old mountaineer. This was followed by other
copies in which other citizens contributed letters of expostula-
tion and indignation. The matter was commented on
ponderously in a typical country editorial containing such
phrases as "clothed in a little brief authority," "arrogant
minions of the law," and so forth. Tom Carroll, riding
through Durham on business, was treated to ugly looks and
uglier words. Ross Fletcher, visiting the county seat, escaped
a physical encounter with belligerent members of an inflamed
populace only by the exercise of the utmost coolness and good
nature. Samuels moved further by petitioning to the proper
authorities for the setting aside of the relinquishment and
the reopening of the whole case, on the ground that his signa-
ture had been obtained by "coercion and undue influence."
On the heels of this a mass meeting in Durham was called
and largely attended, at which a number of speakers uttered

495

496 THE RULES OF THE GAME

very inflammatory doctrines. It culminated in resolutions
of protest against Thorne personally, against his rangers,
and his policy, alleging that one and all acted " arbitrarily,
arrogantly, unjustly and oppressively in the abuse of their
rights and duties." Finally, as a crowning absurdity, the
grand jury, at its annual session, overstepping in its zeal the
limits of its powers, returned findings against "one Ashley
Thorne and Robert Orde, in the pay of the United States
Government, for arbitrary exceeding of their rights and
authorities; for illegal interference with the rights of citizens;
for oppression," and so on through a round dozen vague
counts.

All this tumult astonished Thorne.

" I had no idea this Samuels case interested them quite so
much up there; nor did I imagine it possible they would
raise such a row over that old long-horn. I haven't been
up in that country as much as I should have liked, but I
did not suspect they were so hostile to the Service."

"They always have been," commented California John.

" All this loud mouthing doesn't mean much," said Thorne,
"though of course we'll have to undergo an investigation.
Their charges don't mean anything. Old Samuels must
be a good deal of a demagogue."

"He's got a good lawyer," stated California John briefly.

"Lawyer? Who?"

"Erbe of White Oaks."

Thorne stared at him puzzled.

"Erbe? Are you sure of that? Why, the man is a big
man; he's generally a cut or so above cases of this sort
with as little foundation for them. He's more in the line of
fat fees. Here's two mountain cases he's undertaken."

"I never knew Johnny Erbe to refuse any sort of case
he'd get paid for," observed California John.

"Well, he's certainly raising a dust up north," said Thorne.
" Every paper all at once is full of the most incendiary stuff.
I hate to send a ranger up there these days."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 497

"I reckon the boys can take care of themselves!" put in
Ross Fletcher.

California John turned to look at him.

"Sure thing, Ross," he drawled, "and a first-class row
between a brutal ranger who could take care of himself
and an inoffensive citizen would read fine in print."

"That's the idea," approved Thorne. "We can't afford
a row right now. It would bring matters to a head."

"There's the Harris case, and the others," suggested Amy;
"what are you going to do about them, now?"

" Carry them through according to my instructions, unless
I get orders to the contrary," said Thorne. "It is the
policy of the Service throughout to clear up and settle these
doubtful land cases. We must get such things decided.
We can't stop because of a little localized popular clamour."

" Are there many such cases up in the Durham country ?"
asked Bob.

"Probably a dozen or so."

"Isn't it likely that those men have got behind Samuels
in order to discourage action on their own cases?"

"I think there's no doubt of it," answered Thorne, "but
the point is, they've been fighting tooth and nail from the
start. W r e had felt out their strength from the first, and
it developed nothing like this."

"That's where Erbe comes in," suggested Bob.

"Probably."

"It don't amount to nothin'," said California John. "In
the first place, it's only the 'nesters,'* the saloon crowd, who
are after you for Austin's case; and the usual muck of old-
timers and loafers who either think they own the country and
ought to have a free hand in everything just as they're used
to, or who are agin the Government on general principles.
I don't believe the people at Durham are behind this. I
bet a vote would give us a majority right now."

"Well, the majority stays in the house, then," observed

* "Nester " Western term meaning squatters, small settlers generally illegally such.

498 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Ross Fletcher drily. "I didn't observe none of them when
I walked down the street."

"I believe with John," said Thome. "This crowd
makes an awful noise, but it doesn't mean much. The
Office cannot fail to uphold us. There's nobody of any
influence or importance behind all this."

Nevertheless, so skilfully was the campaign conducted,
pressure soon made itself felt from above. The usual
memorials and largely-signed protests were drawn up and
presented to the senators from California, and the repre-
sentatives of that and neighbouring districts. Men in the
employ of the saloon element rode actively in all directions
obtaining signatures. A signature to anything that does not
carry financial obligation is the easiest thing in the world to
get. Hundreds who had no grievance, and who listened
with the facile indignation of the ignorant to the represen-
tations of these emissaries, subscribed their names as voters
and constituents to a cause whose merits or demerits were
quite uncomprehended by them. The members of Con-
gress receiving these memorials immediately set them-
selves in motion. As Thome could not officially reply to
what had not as yet been officially urged, his hands were
tied. A clamour that had at first been merely noisy and
meaningless, began now to gain an effect.

Thorne confessed himself puzzled.

"If it isn't a case of a snowball growing bigger the farther
it rolls, I can't account for it," said he. "This thing ought
to have died down long ago. It's been fomented very
skilfully. Such a campaign as this one against us takes
both ability and money more of either than I thought
Samuels could possibly possess."

In the meantime, Erbe managed rapidly to tie up the legal
aspects of the situation. The case, as it developed, proved
to be open-and-shut against his client, but apparently
unaffected by the certainty of this, he persisted in the inter-
position of all sorts of delays. Samuels continued to live

THE RULES OF THE GAME 499

undisturbed on his claim, which, as Thorne pointed out,
had a bad moral effect on the community.

The issue soon took on a national aspect. It began to be?
commented on by outside newspapers. Publications close
to the administration and thoroughly in sympathy with its
forest policies, began gravely to doubt the advisability of
pushing these debatable claims at present.

"They are of small value," said one, "in comparison with
the large public domain of which they are part. At a time
when the Forest Service is new in the saddle and as yet sub-
jected to the most violent attacks by the special interests on
the floors of Congress, it seems unwise to do anything that
might tend to arouse public opinion against it."

As though to give point to this, there now commenced in
Congress that virulent assault led by some of the Western
senators, aimed at the very life of the Service itself. Allega-
tions of dishonesty, incompetence, despotism; of depriving
the public of its heritage; of the curtailments of rights and
liberties; of folly; of fraud were freely brought forward
and urged with impassioned eloquence. Arguments special
to cattlemen, to sheepmen, to lumbermen, to cord wood men,
to pulp men, to power men were emphasized by all sorts
of misstatements, twisted statements, or special appeals to
greed, personal interest and individual policy. To support
their eloquence, senators supposedly respectable did not
hesitate boldly to utter sweeping falsehoods of fact. The
Service was fighting for its very life.

Nevertheless, persistently, the officials proceeded with
their investigations. Bob had conducted his campaign
so skilfully against Samuels that Thorne used him further
in similar matters. Little by little, indeed, the young man was
withdrawn from other work. He now spent many hours with
Amy in the little office going over maps and files, over copies
of documents and old records. When he had thoroughly
mastered the ins and outs of a case, he departed with his pack
animal and saddle horse to look the ground over in person.

Soo THE RULES OF THE GAME

Since the eclat of the Samuels case, he had little hope of
obtaining relinquishments, nor did he greatly care to do so.
A relinquishment saved trouble in the courts, but as far
as avoiding adverse public notice went, the Samuels affair
showed the absolute ineffectiveness of that method. But
by going on the ground he was enabled to see, with his own
eyes, just what sort of a claim was in question, the improve-
ments that had been made on it, the value both to the claim-
ant and the Government. Through an interview he was able
to gauge the claimant, to weigh his probable motives and
the purity of both his original and present intentions. A
number of cases thus he dropped, and that on no other than
his own responsibility. They were invariably those whose
issue in the courts might very well be in doubt, so that it
was impossible to tell, without trying them, how the decision
would jump. Furthermore, and principally, he was always
satisfied that the claimant had meant well and honestly
throughout, and had lapsed through ignorance, bad advice,
or merely that carelessness of the letter of the legal form so
common among mountaineers. Such cases were far more
numerous than he had supposed. The men had, in many
instances, come into the country early in its development.
They had built their cabins by the nearest meadow that
appealed to them; for, to all intents and purposes, the country
was a virgin wilderness whose camping sites were many
and open to the first comer. Only after their households
had been long established as squatters did these pioneers
awake to an imperfect understanding that further formality
was required before these, their homes, could be legally
their own. Living isolated these men, even then, blundered
in their applications or in the proving up of their claims.
Such might be legally subject to eviction, but Bob in his
recommendations gave them the benefit of the doubt and
advised that full papers be issued. In the hurried days of
the Service such recommendations of field inspectors were
often considered as final.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 501

There were other cases, however, for which Bob's sym-
pathies were strongly enlisted, but which presented such
flagrant irregularities of procedure that he could not con-
sistently recommend anything but a court test of the rights
involved. To this he added a personal note, going
completely into details, and suggesting a way out.

And finally, as a third class, he was able, as in Samuels's
case, to declare war on behalf of the Government. Men who
had already taken up all the timber claims to which they
or their families were legally entitled, nevertheless added
an alleged homestead to the lot. Other men were taking
advantage of twists and interpretations of the law to gain
possession of desirable tracts of land still included in the
National Forests. These men knew the letter of the law
well enough, and took pains to conform accurately to it.
Their lapses were of intention. The excuses were many -
so-called mineral claims, alleged agricultural land, all the
exceptions to reservation mentioned in the law; the actual
ends aimed at were two water rights or timber. In these
cases Bob reported uncompromisingly against the granting
of the final papers. Thousands of acres, however, had been
already conveyed. Over these, naturally, he had no juris-
diction, but he kept his eyes open, and accumulated evidence
which might some day prove useful in event of a serious
effort to regain those lands that had been acquired by
provable fraud.

But on the borderland between these sharply defined
classes lay many in the twilight zone. Bob, without know-
ing it, was to a certain extent exercising a despotic power.
He possessed a latitude of choice as to which of these involved
land cases should be pushed to a court decision. If the law
were to be strictly and literally interpreted, there could be
no doubt but that each and every one of these numerous
claimants could be haled to court to answer for his short-
comings. But that, in many instances, could not but work
an unwarranted hardship. The expenses alone, of a journey

502 THE RULES OF THE GAME

to the state capital, would strain to the breaking point the
means of some of the more impecunious. Insisting on the
minutest technicalities would indubitably deprive many an
honest, well-meaning homesteader of his entire worldly
property. It was all very well to argue that ignorance of
the law was no excuse; that it is a man's own fault if he
does not fulfill the simple requirements of taking up public
land. As a matter of cold fact, in such a situation as this,
ignorance is an excuse. Legalizing apart, the rigid and
invariable enforcement of the law can be tyrannical. Of
course, this can never be officially recognized; that would
shake the foundations. But it is not to be denied that the
literal and universal and invariable enforcement of the
minute letter of any law, no matter how trivial, for the space
of three months would bring about a mild revolution. As
witness the sweeping and startling effects always consequent
on an order from headquarters to its police to "enforce
rigidly"- for a time some particular city ordinance.
Whether this is a fault of our system of law, or a defect
inherent in the absolute logic of human affairs, is a matter
for philosophy to determine. Be that as it may, the powers
that enforce law often find themselves on the horns of a
dilemma. They must take their choice between tyranny
and despotism.

So, in a mild way, Bob had become a despot. That is to
say, he had to decide to whom a broken law was to apply,
and to whom not, and this without being given any touch-
stone of choice. The matter rested with his own experience,
knowledge and personal judgment. Fortunately he was a
beneficent despot. A man evilly disposed, like Plant, could
have worked incalculable harm for others and great financial
benefit to himself. That this is not only possible but inev-
itable is another defect of law or system. No sane man for
one single instant believes that literal enforcement of every
law at all times is either possible or desirable. No sane man
for one single instant believes that the law can be excepted

THE RULES OF THE GAME 503

to or annulled for especial occasions without undermining
the public confidence and public morals.- Yet where is the
middle ground?

In Bob's capacity as beneficent despot, he ran against
many problems that taxed his powers. It was easy to say
that Samuels, having full intention to get what he very well
knew he had no right to have, and for acquiring which he
had no excuse save that others were allowed to do likewise,
should be proceeded against vigorously. It was likewise
easy to determine that Ward, who had lived on his mountain
farm, and cultivated what he could, and had himself made
shakes of his timber, but who had blundered his formal
processes, should be given a chance to make good. But
what of the doubtful cases? What of the cases wherein
apparently legality and equity took opposite sides ?

Bob had adventures in plenty. For lack of a better system,
he started at the north end and worked steadily south,
examining with patience the pedigree of each and every
private holding within the confines of the National Forests.
These were at first small and isolated. Only one large tract
drew his attention, that belonging to old Simeon Wright in
the big meadows under Black Peaks. These meadows,
occupying a wide plateau grown sparsely with lodgepole
pine, covered perhaps a thousand acres of good grazing, and
were held legally, but without the shadow of equity, by the
old land pirate who owned so much of California. In going
over both the original records, the newer geological survey
maps, and the country itself, Bob came upon a discrepancy.
He asked and obtained leave for a resurvey. This deter-
mined that Wright's early-day surveyor had made a mistake
no extraordinary matter in a wild country so remote from
base lines. Simeon's holdings were actually just one mile
farther north, which brought them to the top of a bald granite
ridge. His title to this was indubitable; but the broad and
valuable meadows belonged still to the Government. As the
case was one of fact merely, Wright had no opportunity to

504 THE RULES OF THE GAME

contest, or to exercise his undoubtedly powerful influence.
The affair served, however, to draw Bob's name and activities
into the sphere of his notice.

Among the mountain people Bob was at first held in a
distrust that sometimes became open hostility. He received
threats and warnings innumerable. The Childs boys sent
word to him, and spread that word abroad, that if this govern-
ment inspector valued his life he would do well to keep
off Iron Mountain. Bob promptly saddled his horse, rode
boldly to the Childs' shake camp, took lunch with them, and
rode back, speaking no word either of business or of threats.
Having occasion to take a meal with some poor, squalid
descendants of hog-raising Pike County Missourians, he
detected a queer bitterness to his coffee, managed unseen to
empty the cup into his canteen, and later found, as he had
suspected, that an attempt had been made to poison him.
He rode back at once to the cabin. Instead of taxing the
woman with the deed for he shrewdly suspected the man
knew nothing of it he reproached her with condemning
him unheard.

"I'm the best friend you people have," said -he. "It isn't
my fault that you are in trouble with the regulations. The
Government must straighten these matters out. Don't
think for a minute that the work will stop just because some-
body gets away with me. They'll send somebody else.
And the chances are, in that case, they'll send somebody who
is instructed to stick close to the letter of the law: and who
will turn you out mighty sudden. I'm trying to do the best
I can for you people."

This family ended by giving him its full confidence in the
matter. Bob was able to save the place for them.

Gradually his refusal to take offence, his refusal to debate
any matter save on the impersonal grounds of the Govern-
ment servant acting solely for his masters, coupled with his
willingness to take things into consideration, and his desire
to b absolutely fair, won for Bob a reluctant confidence.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 505

At the north end men's minds were as yet too inflamed.
It is a curious matter of flock psychology that if the public
mind ever occupies itself fully with an idea, it thereby becomes
for the time being blind, impervious, to all others. But in
other parts of the mountains Bob was not wholly unwelcome ;
and in one or two cases which pleased him mightily
men came in to him voluntarily for the purpose of asking his
advice.

In the meantime the Samuels case had come rapidly to a
crisis. The resounding agitation had resulted in the send-
ing of inspectors to investigate the charges against the local
officials. The first of these inspectors, a rather precise
and formal youth fresh from Eastern training, was easily
handled by the versatile Erbe. His report, voluminous as
a tariff speech, and couched in very official language,
exonerated Thorne and Orde of dishonesty, of course, but
it emphasized their "lack of tact and business ability," and
condemned strongly their attitude in the Durham matter.
This report would ordinarily have gone no farther than the
district office, where it might have been acted on by the
officers in charge to the great detriment of the Service. At
that time the evil of sending out as inspectors men admirably
trained in theory but woefully lacking in practice and the
knowledge of Western humankind was one of the great
menaces to effective personnel. Fortunately this particular
report came into the hands of the Chief, who happened to
be touring in the West. A fuller investigation exposed to
the sapient experience of that able man the gullibility of the
inspector. From the district a brief statement was issued
upholding the local administration.

The agitation, thus deprived of its chief hope, might very
well have been expected to simmer down, to die away slowly.
As a matter of fact, it collapsed. The newspaper attacks
ceased; the public meetings were discontinued; the saloons
and other storm centres applied their powers to a discussion
of the Gans-Nelson fight. Samuels was very briefly declared

506 THE RULES OF THE GAME

a trespasser by the courts. Erbe disappeared from the case.
The United States Marshal, riding up with a posse into a
supposedly hostile country, found no opposition to his
enforcement of the court's decree. Only old Samuels himself
offered an undaunted defence, but was soon dislodged and
led away by men who half-pitied, half- ridiculed his violence.
The sign " Property of the U. S. " resumed its place. Thorne
made of the ancient homestead a ranger's post.

"It's incomprehensible as a genuine popular movement,"
said he on one of Bob's periodical returns to headquarters.
The young man now held a commission, and lived with the
Thornes when at home. "The opposition up there was so
rabid and it wilted too suddenly."

" 'The mutable many,' " quoted Amy.

But Thorne shook his head.

" It's as though they'd pricked a balloon," said he. " They
don't love us up there, yet; but it's no worse now than it
used to be here. Last week it was actually unsafe on the
streets. If they were so strong for Samuels then, why not now ?
A mere court decision could not change their minds so quickly.
I should have expected the real bitterness and the real resist-
ence when the Marshal went up to put the old man off."

" That's the way I sized it up," admitted Bob.

"It's as if somebody had turned off the steam and the
engine quit running," said Thorne, "and for that reason
I'm more than ever convinced that it was a made agitation.
Samuels was only an excuse."

"What for?" asked Bob.

"Struck me the same way," put in California John.
"Reminded me of the war. Looked like they held onto
this as a sort of first defence as long as they could, and then
just abandoned it and dropped back."

"That's it," nodded Thorne. "That's my conclusion.
Somebody bigger than Samuels fears investigation; and
they hoped to stop our sort of investigation short at Samuels.
Well, they haven't succeeded."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 507

Amy arose abruptly and ran to her filing cases.

"That ought to be easily determined," she cried, looking
over her shoulder with shining eyes. "I have the papers
about all ready for the whole of our Forest. Here's a list
of the private holdings, by whom held, how acquired and
when." She spread the papers out on the table. "Now
let's see who owns lots of land, and who is powerful enough
to enlist senators, and who would fear investigation."

All four bent over the list for a few moments. Then
Thorne made five dots with his pencil opposite as many
names.

"All the rest are little homesteaders," said he. "One of
these must be our villain."

"Or all of them," amended California John drily.

XVI

THE little council of war at once commenced an eager
discussion of the names thus indicated.
" There's your own concern, the Wolverine Com-
pany," suggested Thorne. "What do you know about
the way it acquired its timber?"

" Acquired in 1879," replied Amy, consulting her notes.
" Partly from the Bank, that held it on mortgage, and
partly from individual owners."

"Welton is no crook," struck in Bob. "Even if he'd
strained the law, which I doubt; he wouldn't defend himself
at this late date with any method as indirect as this."

"I think you're right on the last point," agreed Thorne.
"Proceed."

"Next is the Marston N. Leavitt firm."

" They bought their timber in a lump from a broker by the
name of Robinson; and Robinson got it of the old Joncal*
Mill outfit; and heaven knows where they got it," put in
California John.

"How long ago?"

"'84 the last transfer," said Amy.

"Doesn't look as though the situation ought to alarm
them to immediate and violent action," observed Thorne.
"Aren't there any more recent claims?" he asked Amy.

"Here's one; the Modoc Mining Company, about one
thousand mineral claims, amounting to approximately
28,000 acres, filed 1903."

"That looks more promising. Patents issued in the reign
of our esteemed predecessor, Plant."

* Pronounced Hone-kal.

508

THE RULES OF THE GAME 509

"Where are most of the claims?" asked California John.

" All the claims are in the same place," replied Amy.

"The Basin!" said Bob.

Amy recited the "descriptions" within whose boundaries
lay the bulk of the claims.

"That's it," said Bob.

"Is there any real mineral there?" inquired Thome.

"Not that anybody ever heard of," said California John,
who was himself an old miner; "but gold is where you
find it," he added cautiously.

"How's the timber?"

"It's the best stand I've seen in the mountains," said Bob.

"Well," observed Thorne, "of course it wouldn't do to
say so, but I think we've run against the source of our
opposition in the Samuels case."

"That explains Erbe's taking the case," put in Bob;
"he's counsel for most of these corporations."

"The fact that this is not a mineral country," continued
Thorne, "together with the additional considerations of a
thousand claims in so limited an area, and the recent date,
makes it look suspicious. I imagine the Modoc Mining
Company intends to use a sawmill, rather more than a stamp
mill."

"Who are they?" asked California John.

"We must find that out. Also we must ourselves ascer-
tain just what colour of mineral there is over there."

"That ought to be on the records somewhere already,"
Amy pointed out.

"Plant's records," said Thorne drily.

" I'm ashamed to say I haven't looked up the mineral lands
act," confessed Bob. "How did they do it?"

"Well, it's simple enough. The company made appli-
cation under the law that allows mineral land in National
Forests to be 'freely prospected, located, developed and
patented.' It is necessary to show evidence of 'valuable
deposits' '*

510 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Gold and silver?"

"Not necessarily. It may be even building stone, or fine
clay, limestone or slate. Then it's up to the Forest Officer
to determine whether the deposits are actually 'valuable'
or not. You can drive a horse and cart through the law;
and it's strictly up to the Forest Officer or has been in the
past. If he reports the deposits valuable, and on that report
a patent is issued, why that settles it."

"Even if the mineral is a fake?"

" A patent is a patent. The time to head off the fraud is
when the application is made."

" Cannot the title be upset if fraud is clearly proved?"

"I do not see how," replied Thorne. "Plant is dead.
The law is very liberal. Predetermining the value of mineral
deposits is laigely a matter of personal judgment. The
company could, as we have seen, bring an enormous influ-
ence to bear."

"Well," said Bob, "that land will average sixty thousand
feet to the acre. That's about a billion and a half feet. It's
a big stake."

"If the company wasn't scared, why did they try so hard
to head us off?" observed California John shrewdly.

"It will do us no harm to investigate," put in Bob, his
eye kindling with eagerness. " It won't take long to examine
the indications those claims are based on."

"It's a ticklish period," objected Thorne. "I hate to
embarrass the Administration with anything ill-timed. We
have much to do straightening out what we now have on
hand. You must remember we are short of men; we can't
spare many now."

"I'll tell you," suggested Amy. "Put it up to the Chief.
Tell him just how the matter stands. Let him decide."

"All right; I'll do that," agreed Thorne.

In due time the reply came. It advised circumspection
in the matter; but commanded a full report on the facts.
Time enough, the Chief wrote, to decide on the course to be

THE RULES OF THE GAME 511

pursued when the case should be established in their own
minds.

Accordingly Thorne detached Bob and Ware to investi-
gate the mineral status of the Basin. The latter's long
experience in prospecting now promised to stand the Service
in good stead.

The two men camped in the Basin for three weeks, until
the close of which time they saw no human being. During
this period they examined carefully the various ledges on
which the mineral claims had been based. Ware pro-
nounced them valueless, as far as he could judge.

"Some of them are just ordinary quartz dikes," said he.
"I suppose they claim gold for them. There's nothing in
it; or if this does warrant a man developing, then every
citizen who lives near rock has a mine in his back yard."

Nevertheless he made his reports as detailed as possible.
In the meantime Bob accomplished a rough, or "cruiser's"
estimate of the timber.

As has been said, they found the Basin now quite deserted.
The trail to Sycamore Flats had apparently not been travelled
since George Pollock had ridden down it to give himself
up to authority. Their preliminary labours finished, the
two Forest officers packed, and were on the very point of
turning up the steep mountain side toward the lookout,
when two horsemen rode over the flat rock.

Naturally Bob and Ware drew up, after the mountain
custom, to exchange greetings. As the others drew nearer,
Bob recognized in one the slanting eyeglasses, the close-
clipped, gray moustache and the keen, cold features of Old-
ham. Ware nodded at the other man, who returned his
salutation as curtly.

"You're off your beat, Mr. Oldham," observed Bob.

"I'm after a deer," replied Oldham. "You are a little
off your own beat, aren't you?"

"My beat is everywhere," replied Bob carelessly.

"What devilment you up to now, Sal?" Ware was asking

512 THE RULES OF THE GAME

of the other man, a tall, loose- jointed, freckle-faced and
red-haired individual with an evil red eye.

"I'm earnin' my salary; and I misdoubt you ain't,"
sneered the individual thus addressed.

"As what; gun man?" demanded Ware calmly.

"You may find that out sometime."

"I'm not as easy as young Franklin was," said Ware,
dropping his hand carelessly to his side. "Don't make any
mistakes when you get around to your demonstration."

The man said nothing, but grinned, showing tobacco-
stained, irregular teeth beneath his straggling, red moustache.

After a moment's further conversation the little groups
separated. Bob rode on up the trail. Ware followed for
perhaps ten feet, or until out of sight behind the screen of
willows that bordered the stream. Then, without drawing
rein, he dropped from his saddle. The horse, urged by a
gentle slap on the rump, followed in the narrow trail after
Bob and the pack animal. Ware slipped quietly through
the willows until he had gained a point commanding the
other trail. Oldham and his companion were riding peace-
fully. Satisfied, Ware returned, climbed rapidly until he
had caught up with his horse, and resumed his saddle.
Bob had only that moment noticed his absence.

"Look here, Bob," said Ware, "that fellow with Mr.
Oldham is a man called Saleratus Bill. He's a hard citizen,
a gun man, and brags of eleven killin's in his time. Mr.
Oldham or no one else couldn't pick up a worse citizen to go
deer hunting with. When you track up with him next, be
sure that he starts and keeps going before you stir out of
your tracks."

"You don't believe that deer hunting lie, do you?" asked
Bob.

Ware chuckled.

"I was wondering if you did," said he.

"I guess there's no doubt as to who the Modoc Mining
Company is."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 513

"Oldham?"

"No," said Bob; " Baker and the Power Company. Old-
ham is Baker's man."

Ware whistled.

"Well, I suppose you know what you're talking about,"
said he, "but it's pretty generally understood that Oldham
is on the other side of the fence. He's been bucking Baker
in White Oaks on some franchise business. Everybody
knows that."

Bob opened his eyes. Casting his mind back over the
sources of his information, he then remembered that inti-
mation of the connection between the two men had come to
him when he had been looked on as a member of the inner
circle, so that all things were talked of openly before him;
that since Plant's day Oldham had in fact never appeared
in Baker's interests.

"He's up in this country a good deal," Bob observed
finally. "What's he say is his business?"

"Why, he's in a little timber business, as I understand it;
and he buys a few cattle sort of general brokerage."

"I see," mused Bob.

He rode in silence for some time, breathing his horse
mechanically every fifty feet or so of the steep trail. He
was busily recalling and piecing together the fragments of
what he had at the time considered an unimportant dis-
cussion, and which he had in part forgotten.

"It's a blind," he said at last; "Oldham is working for
Baker."

"What makes you think that?"

"Something I heard once."

He rode on. The Basin was dropping away beneath
them; the prospect to the north was broadening as peak
after peak raised itself into the line of ascending vision.
The pines, clinging to the steep, cast bars of shadow across
the trail, which zigzagged and dodged, taking advantage
of every ledge and each strip of firm earth. Occasionally

THE RULES OF THE GAME

they crossed a singing brook, shaded with willows and
cottonwoods, with fragrant bay and alders, only to clamber
out again to the sunny steeps.

Now Bob remembered and pieced together the whole.
Baker had been bragging that he intended to pay nothing
to the Government for his water power. Bob could almost
remember the very words. " 'They've swiped about every-
thing in sight for these pestiferous reserves,' " he murmured
to himself, " 'but they encourage the honest prospector.
. . . Oldham's got the whole matter . . . ' " and
so on, in the unfolding of the very scheme by which these
acres had been acquired. "Near headwaters," he had said;
and that statement, combined with the fact that nothing
had occurred to stir indistinct memories, had kept Bob in
the dark. At the time "near headwaters" had meant to
him the tract of yellow pine near the head of Sycamore
Creek. So he had dismissed the matter. Now he saw
clearly that a liberal construction could very well name the
Basin as the headwaters of the drainage system from which
Sycamore Creek drew, if not its source, at least its main
volume of water. He exclaimed aloud in disgust at his
stupidity; which, nevertheless, as all students of psychology
know, typified a very common though curious phenomenon
in the mental world. Suddenly he sat up straight in his
saddle. Here, should Baker and the Modoc Mining
Company prove to be one and the same, was the evidence
of fraudulent intent! Would his word suffice? Painfully
reconstructing the half-forgotten picture, he finally placed
the burly figure of Welton. Welton was there too. His
corroboration would make the testimony irrefutable.

Certainties now rushed to Bob's mind in flocks. If he
had been stupid in the matter, it was evident that Baker
and Oldham had not. The fight in Durham was now
explained. All the demagogic arousing of the populace,
the heavy guns brought to bear in the newspaper world, the
pressure exerted through political levers, even the con-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 515

certed attacks on the Service from the floors of Congress
traced, by no great stretch of probabilities, to the efforts of
the Power Company to stop investigation before it should
reach their stealings. That, as California John had said,
was the first defence. If all investigation could be called off,
naturally Baker was safe. Now that he realized the
investigation must, in the natural course of events, come to
his holdings, what would be his second line ?

Of course, he knew that Bob possessed the only testimony
that could seriously damage him. Even Thome's optimism
had realized the difficulties of pressing to a conviction
against such powerful interests without some evidence of a
fraudulent intent. Could it be that the presence of this
Saleratus Bill in company with Oldham meant that Baker
was contemplating so sinister a removal of damaging
testimony ?

A moment's thought disabused him of this notion, how-
ever. Baker was not the man to resort to violence of this
sort; or at least he would not do so before exhausting all
other means. Bob had been, in a way, the capitalist's
friend. Surely, before turning a gun man loose, Baker
would have found out definitely whether, in the first place,
Bob was inclined to push the case; and secondly, whether
he could not be persuaded to refrain from introducing his
personal testimony. The longer Bob looked at the state of
affairs, the more fantastic seemed the hypothesis that the
gun man had been brought into the country for such a
purpose.

" Why do you suppose Oldham is up there with this Saler-
atus Bill?" he asked Ware at length.

"Search me!"

"Is Bill good for anything beside gun work?"

"Well," said Ware, judicially, "he sure drinks without
an effort."

" I don't believe Oldham is interested in the liquor famine,'*
laughed Bob. "Anything else?"

5i 6 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"They may be after deer," acknowledged Ware, reluct-
antly, "though I hate to think that rattlesnake is out for
anything legitimate. I will say he's a good hunter; and an
Ai trailer."

"Oh, he's a good trailer, is he?" said Bob. "Well, I
rather suspected you'd say that. Now I know why they're up
there; they want to figure out from the signs we've left just
what we've been up to."

"That's easy done," remarked Ware.

This explanation fitted. Bob had been in the Basin
before, but on the business of estimating government timber.
Baker knew this. Now that the Forest officer had gone in
for a second time, it might be possible that he was doing the
same thing; or it might be equally possible that he was
engaged in an investigation of Baker's own property. This
the power man had decided to find out. Therefore he had
sent in, with his land man, an individual expert at deducing
from the half-obliterated marks of human occupation the
activities that had left them. That Oldham and his sinister
companion had encountered the Forest men was a sheer
accident due to miscalculation.

Having worked this out to his own satisfaction, Bob
knew what next to expect. Baker must interview him.
Bob was sure the young man would take his own time to
the matter, for naturally it would not do to make the fact
of such a meeting too public. Accordingly he submitted
his report to Thorne, and went on about his further investi-
gations, certain that sooner or later he would again see the
prime mover of all these dubious activities.

He was not in the least surprised, therefore, to look up
when riding one day along the lonely and rugged trail that
cuts across the lower canon of the River, to see Baker
seated on the top of a round boulder. The incongruity,
however, brought a smile to his lips. The sight of the round,
smooth face, the humorous eyes, and the stout, city-fed
figure of this very urban individual on a rock in a howling

THE RULES OF THE GAME 517

wilderness, with the eternal mountains for a background,
was inexpressibly comical.

"Hullo, merry sunshine!" called Baker, waving his hand
as soon as he was certain Bob had seen him. "Welcome to
our thriving little hamlet."

"Hullo, Baker," said Bob; "what are you doing 'way off
here?"

"Just drifting down the Grand Canal and listening to
the gondoliers; and incidentally, waiting for you. Climb
off your horse and come up here and get a tailor-made
cigarette."

"I'm on my way over to Spruce Top," said Bob, "and
I've got to keep moving."

"Haste not, hump not, hustle not," said Baker, with the
air of one quoting a hand-illuminated motto. "It will
only get you somewhere. Come, gentle stranger, I would
converse with thee; and I've come a long way to do it."

"I live nearer home than this," grinned Bob.

"I wanted to see you in your office," grinned back Baker
appreciatively, "and this is strictly business."

Bob dismounted, threw the reins over his horse's head,
and ascended to the top of the boulder.

"Fire ahead," said he; "I keep union hours."

XVII

UNION hours suit me," said Baker. "Why work
while papa has his health ? What I want to know is,
how high is the limit on this game anyway?"

"What do you mean?"

"This confounded so-called 'investigation' of yours?
In other words, do you intend to get after me?"

"As how?"

Baker's shrewd eyes looked at him gravely from out his
smiling fat face.

"Modoc Mining Company's lands."

"Then you are the Modoc Mining Company?" asked
Bob.

Baker eyed him again.

"Look here, my angel child," said he in a tone of good-
humoured pity, " I can make all that kind of talk in a witness
box if necessary. In any case, I didn't come 'way out here
to exchange that sort with you. You know perfectly well
I'm the Modoc Mining Company, and that I've got a fine
body of timber under the mineral act, and all the rest of it.
You know ail this not only because you've got some sense,
but because I told you so before a competent witness. It
stands to reason that I don't mind telling you again where
there are no witnesses. Now smoke up and join the King's
Daughters let's have a heart-to-heart and find out how
we stand."

Bob laughed, and Baker, with entirely whole-hearted enjoy-
ment, laughed too.

"You're next on the list," said Bob, "and, personally, I
think "

518

THE RULES OF THE GAME 519

Baker held up his hand.

"Let's not exchange thinks," said he. "I've got a few
thinks coming myself, you know. Let's stick to facts.
Then the Government is going to open up on us?'*'

"Yes."

"On the grounds of fraudulent entry, I suppose."

"That's it."

"Well, they'll never win "

"Let's not exchange thinks," Bob reminded him.

" Right ! I can see that you're acting under orders, and the
suit must be brought. Now I tell you frankly, as one Mod-
ern Woods-pussy of the World to another, that you're the
only fellow that has any real testimony. What I want to
know is, are you going to use it?"

Bob looked at his companion steadily.

"I don't see why, even without witnesses, I should give
away government plans to you, Baker."

Baker sighed, and slid from the boulder.

"I'm practically certain how the cat jumps, and I've long
since made my plans accordingly. Whatever you say does
not alter my course of action. Only I hate to do a man an
injustice without being sure. You needn't answer. Your
last remark means that you are. I have too much sense to do
the little Eva to you, Orde. You've got the gray stuff in your
head, even if it is a trifle wormy. Of course, it's no good
telling you that you're going back on a friend, that you'll be
dragging Welton into the game when he hasn't got a chip to
enter with, that you're betraying private confidence well,
I guess the rest is all 'thinks."

"I'm sorry, Baker," said Bob, "and I suppose I must
appear to be a spy in the matter. But it can't be helped."

Baker's good-humoured, fat face had fallen into grave
lines. He studied a distant spruce tree for a moment.

"Well," he roused himself at last, "I wish this particular
attack of measles had passed off before you bucked up against
us. Because, you know, that land's ours, and we don't

520 THE RULES OF THE GAME

expect to give it up on account of this sort of fool agitation.
We'll win this case. I'm sorry you're mixed up in it."

"Saleratus Bill?" hinted Bob.

Baker's humorous expression returned.

"What do you take me for?" he grinned. "No, that's
Oldham's bodyguard. Thinks he needs a bodyguard these
days. That's what comes from having a bad conscience, I
tell him. Some of those dagoes he's sold bum farms to are
more likely to show up with a desire to abate him, than that
anything would happen to him in these hills. Now let's
get this straight; the cases go on?"

"Yes."

"And you testify?"

"Yes."

"And call Welton in for corroboration?"

"I hardly think that's necessary."

"It will be, as you very well know. I just wanted to be
sure how we stood toward each other. So long."

He turned uncompromisingly away, and stumped off down
the trail on his fat and sturdy legs.

Bob looked after him amazed, at this sudden termination
of the interview. He had anticipated argument, sophistry,
appeal to old friendship, perhaps a more dark and doubtful
approach. Though conscious throughout of Baker's con-
tempt for what the promoter would call his childish imprac-
ticability, his disloyalty and his crankiness, Bob realized that
all of this had been carefully subdued. Baker's manner at
parting expressed more of regret than of anger or annoyance.

XVIII

TO this short and inconclusive interview, however,
Baker did not fail to add somewhat through Oldham.
The agent used none of the circumspection Baker
had considered necessary, but rode openly into camp and
asked for Bob. The latter, remembering Oldham's reputed
antagonism to Baker, could not but admire the convenience
of the arrangement. The lank and sinister figure of Saler-
atus Bill was observed to accompany that of the land agent,
but the gun man, at a sign from his principal, did not dis-
mount. He greeted no one, but sat easily across his saddle,
holding the reins of both horses in his left hand, his jaws
working slowly, his evil, little eyes wandering with sardonic
interest over the people and belongings at headquarters. Ware
nodded to him. The man's eyes half closed and for an instant
the motion of his jaw quickened. Otherwise he made no sign.

Oldham drew Bob one side.

"I want to talk, to you where we won't be interrupted,"
he requested.

"Talk on," said Bob, seating himself on a log. "The
open is as good a place as another; you can see your eaves-
droppers there."

Oldham considered this a moment, then nodded his head,
and took his place by the young man's side.

"It's about those Modoc lands," said he.

"I suppose so," said Bob.

"Mr. Baker tells me you fully intend to prosecute a suit
for their recovery."

"I believe the Government intends to do so. I am, of course,
only the agent of the Government in this or any other matter. "

522 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"In other words, you have received orders to proceed ?"

" I would hardly be acting without them, would I?"

" Of course; I see. Mr. Baker is sometimes hasty. Assum-
ing that you cared to do so, is there no way you could avoid
this necessity ?"

" None that I can discover. I must obey orders as long as
I'm a government officer."

"Exactly," said Oldham. "Now we reach the main
issue. What if you were not a government officer?"

"But I am."

"Assume that you were not."

"Naturally my successor would carry out the same orders."

"But," suggested Oldham, "it might very well be that
another man would not be well, quite so qualified to carry
out the case "

"You mean I'm the only one who heard Baker say he was
going to cheat the Government," put in Bob bluntly.

"You and Mr. Welton and Mr. Baker were the only ones
present at a certain interview," he amended. "Now, in
the event that you were not personally in charge of the case
would you feel it necessary to volunteer testimony unsus-
pected by anybody but you three?"

" If I were to resign,! should volunteer nothing," stated Bob.

Oldham's frosty eyes gleamed with satisfaction behind
their glasses.

"That's good! "he cried.

"But I have no intention of resigning," Bob concluded.

"That is a matter open to discussion," Oldham took him
up. "There are a great many reasons that you have not
yet considered."

"I'm ready to hear them," said Bob.

"Look at the case as it stands. In the first place, you
cannot but admit that Mr. Baker and the men associated with
him have done great things for this country. When they
came into it, it was an undeveloped wilderness, supplying
nothing of value to civilization, and supporting only a scat-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 523

tered and pastoral people. The valley towns went about
their business on horse cars; they either paid practically a
prohibitive price for electricity and gas, or used oil and
candles; they drank well water and river water. The sur-
rounding country was either a desert given over to sage brush
and jack rabbits, or raised crops only according to the
amount of rain that fell. You can have no conception, Mr.
Orde, of the condition of the country in some of these
regions before irrigation. In place of this the valley people
now enjoy rapid transportation, not only through the streets
of their towns, but also by trolley lines far out in all direc-
tions. They have cheap and abundant electric light and
power. They possess pure drinking water. Above all they
raise their certain crops irrespective of what rains the heavens
may send."

Bob admitted that electricity and irrigation are good things.

"These advantages have drawn people. I am not going
to bore you with a lot of statistics, but the population of all
White Oaks County, for instance, is now above fifty thousand
people, where before was a scant ten. But how much agri-
cultural wealth do you suppose these people export each year ?
Not how much they produce, but their net exportations ? "

" Give it up."

"Fifty million dollars worth! That's a marvellous per
capita."

"It is indeed," said Bob.

"Now," said Oldham impressively, "that wealth would
be absolutely non-existent, that development could not
have taken place, did not take place, until men of Mr.
Baker's genius and courage came along to take hold. I have
personally the greatest admiration for Mr. Baker as a type of
citizen without whom our resources and possibilities would
be in the same backward condition as obtains in Canada."

" I'm with you there," said Bob.

" Mr. Baker has added a community to the state, cities to
the commonwealth, millions upon millions of dollars to the

524 THE RULES OF THE GAME

nation's wealth. He took long chances, and he won out.
Do not you think in return the national resources should in
a measure reward him for the advantages he has conferred
and the immense wealth he has developed? Mind you, Mr.
Baker has merely taken advantage of the strict letter of
the law. It is merely open to another interpretation. He
needs this particular body of timber for the furtherance of one
of his greatest quasi-public enterprises; and who has a better
right in the distribution of the public domain than the man
who uses it to develop the country? The public land has
always been intended for the development of resources, and
has always been used as such.''

Oldham talked fluently and well. He argued at length
along the lines set forth above.

" You have to use lubricating oil to overcome friction on a
machine," he concluded. "You have to subsidize a railroad
by land grants to enter a new country. By the same immut-
able law you must offer extraordinary inducements to extraor-
dinary men. Otherwise they will not take the risks.'*

"I've nothing to do with the letter of the law," Bob replied;
"only with its spirit and intention. The main idea of the
mineral act is to give legitimate miners the timber they need
for legitimate mining. Baker does not pretend, except offi-
cially, that he ever intends to do anything with his claims.
He certainly has done a great work for the country. I'll
agree to everything you say there. But he came into Cali-
fornia worth nothing, and he is now reputed to be worth
ten millions and to control vast properties. That would
seem to be reward enough for almost anybody. He does
not need this Basin property for any of his power projects,
except that its possession would let him off from paying a
very reasonable tax on the waterpower he has been accus-
tomed to getting free. Cutting that timber will not develop
the country any further. I don't see the value of your argu-
ment in the present case."

"Mr. Baker has invested in this project a great many mil-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 525

lions of dollars," said Oldham. "He must be adequately
safeguarded. To further develop and even to maintain
the efficiency of what he has, he must operate to a large extent
on borrowed capital. Borrowing depends on credit; and
credit depends on confidence. If conditions are proved to
be unstable, capital will prove more than cautious in risking
itself. That is elementary. Surely you can see that
point."

"I can see that, all right," admitted Bob.

"Well," went on Oldham, taking heart, "think of the
responsibility you are assuming in pushing forward a mere
technicality, and a debatable technicality at that. You are
not only jeopardizing a great and established business I
will say little of that but you are risking the prosperity of
a whole countryside. If Mr. Baker's enterprises should quit
this section, the civilization of the state would receive a seri-
ous setback. Thousands of men would be thrown out of
employment, not only on the company's works, but all along
the lines of its holdings; electric light and power would
increase in price a heavy burden to the consumer; the
country trolley lines must quit business, for only with water-
generated power can they compete with railroads at all;
fertile lands would revert to desert "

" I am not denying the value of Mr. Baker's enterprises,"
broke in Bob; "but what has a billion and a half of timber
to do with all this?"

"Mr. Baker has long been searching for an available
supply for use in the enterprises," said Oldham, eagerly
availing himself of this opening. "You probably have a
small idea of the immense lumber purchases necessary for
the construction of the power plants, trolley lines, and roads
projected by Mr. Baker. Heretofore the company has been
forced to buy its timber in the open market."

"This would be cheaper," suggested Bob.

"Much."

"That would increase net profits, of course. I suppose

526 THE RULES OF THE GAME

that would result in increased dividends. Or, perhaps, the
public would reap the benefit in decreased cost of service."

"Undoubtedly both. Certainly electricity and transpor-
tation would cheapen."

"The same open markets can still supply the necessary
timber?"

"At practically prohibitive cost," Oldham reminded.

" Which the company has heretofore afforded and still
paid its dividends," said Bob calmly. "Well, Mr. Oldham,
even were I inclined to take all you say at its face value; even
were I willing to admit that unless Mr. Baker were given
this timber his business would fail, the country would be
deprived of the benefits of his enterprise, and the public
seriously incommoded, I would still be unable to follow the
logic of your reasoning. Mind you, I do not admit anything
of the kind. I do not anticipate any more dire results than
that the dividends will remain at their present per cent. But
even supposing your argument to be well founded, this tim-
ber belongs to the people of the United States. It is part of
John Jones's heritage, whether John Jones lives in White
Oaks or New York. Why should I permit Jones of New
York to be robbed in favour of Jones of White Oaks
especially since Jones of New York put me here to look
after his interests for him? That's the real issue; and
it's very simple."

"You look at the matter from a wrong point of view "

began Oldham, and stopped. The land agent was shrewd,
and knew when he had come to an impasse.

"I always respect a man who does his duty," he began
again, "and I can see how you're tied up in this matter.
But a resignation could be arranged for very easily. Mr.
Baker knows thoroughly both your ability and experience,
and has long regretted that he has not been able to avail
himself of them. Of course, as you realize, the great future
of all this country is not along the lines even of such great
industries as lumber manufacture, but in agriculture and

THE RULES OF THE GAME 527

in waterpower engineering. Here, more than anywhere
else in the world, Water is King!"

A recollection tickled Bob. He laughed outright. Old-
ham glanced at him sharply.

" Oh, the Lucky Lands," said he at last; "I'd forgotten you
had ever been there. Well, the saying is as true now as it
was then. The great future for any young man is along
those lines. I am sure in fact, I am told to say with
authority that Mr. Baker would be only too pleased to have
you come in with him on this new enterprise he is opening up."

"As how?"

" As stockholder to the extent of ten thousand shares pre-
ferred, and a salaried position in the field, of course. But,
that is a small matter compared with the future opportun-
ities "

"It's cheering to know that I'm worth so much," inter-
rupted Bob. "Shares now worth par?"

"A fraction over."

" One hundred thousand and some odd dollars," observed
Bob. "It's a nice tidy bribe; and if I were any sort of a
bribe taker at all, I'd surely feel proud and grateful. Only
I'm not. So you might just as well have made it a million,
and then I'd have felt still more set up over it."

"I hope you don't think I'm a bribe giver, either," said
Oldham. "I admit my offer was not well-timed; but it has
been long under contemplation, and I mentioned it as it
occurred to me."

Having thus glided over this false start, the land agent
promptly opened another consideration.

"Perhaps we are at fatal variance on our economics,"
said he; "but how about the justice of the thing? When
you get right down to cases, how about the rest of them?
I'll venture to say there are not two private timber holdings
of any size in this country that have been acquired strictly
within the letter of the law. Do you favour general con-
fiscation?"

528 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"I believe in the law," declared Bob, "and I do not believe
your statement."

Oldham rose.

"I tell you this, young man," he said coldly: "you can
prosecute the Modoc Company or not, as you please or,
perhaps, I should say, you can introduce your private tes-
timony or not, as you please. We are reasonable; and we
know you cannot control government prosecutions. But
the Modoc Company intends that you play no favourites."

"I do not understand you," said Bob with equal coldness.

"If the Modoc Company is prosecuted, we will make it
our business to see that every great land owner holding title
in this Forest is brought into the courts for the same offence.
If the letter of the law is to be enforced against us, we'll
see that it is enforced against all others."

Bob bowed. " Suits me," said he.

"Does it?" sneered Oldham. He produced a bundle
of papers bound by a thick elastic. "Well, I've saved you
some trouble in your next case. Here are certified copies
of the documents for it, copied at Sacramento, and subscribed
to before a notary. Of course, you can verify them; but
you'll find them accurate."

He handed them to Bob, who took them, completely puz-
zled. Oldham's next speech enlightened him.

"You'll find there," said the older man, tapping the papers
in Bob's hand, "the documents in full relating to the Wolver-
ine Company's land holdings, and how they were acquired.
After looking them over, we shall expect you to bring suit
If you do not do so, we will take steps to force you to do
so or, failing this, to resign!"

With these words, Oldham turned square on his heel and
marched to where Saleratus Bill was stationed with the
horses. Bob stared after him, the bundle of papers in his
hand. When Oldham had mounted, Bob looked down on
these papers.

"The second line of defence!" said he.

XIX

BOB'S first interest was naturally to examine these
documents. He found them, as Oldham had said,
copies whose accuracy was attested by the copyist
before a notary. They divided themselves into two classes.
The first traced the titles by which many small holdings had
come into the hands of the corporation known as the Wol-
verine Company. The second seemed to be some sort of
finding by an investigating commission. This latter was in
the way of explanation of the title records, so that by refer-
ring from one to the other, Bob was able to trace out the
process by which the land had been acquired. This had been
by " colonizing," as it was called. According to Federal law,
one man could take up but one hundred and sixty acres of
government land. It had, therefore, been the practice to
furnish citizens with the necessary capital so to do; after
which these citizens transferred their land to the parent com-
pany. This was, of course, a direct evasion of the law;
as direct an evasion as Baker's use of the mineral lands
act.

For a time Bob was unable to collect his reasoning powers
adequately to confront this new fact. His thoughts were in
a whirl. The only thing that stood out clearly was the differ-
ence in the two cases. He knew perfectly that after Baker's
effort to lift bodily from the public domain a large block of
its wealth every decent citizen should cry, "Stop thief!"
Instinctively he felt, though as yet he could not analyze the
reasons for so feeling, that to deprive the Wolverine Com-
pany of its holdings would work a crying injustice. Yet,
to all intents and purposes, apparently, the cases were on all

529

530 THE RULES OF THE GAME

fours. Bot ... Welton and Baker had taken advantage of a
technicality.

When Bob began to think more clearly, he at first laid this
difference to a personal liking, and was inclined to blame
himself for letting his affections cloud his sense of justice.
Baker was companionable, jolly, but at the same time was
shrewd, cold, calculating and unscrupulous in business. He
could be as hard as nails. Welton, on the other hand, while
possessing all of Baker's admirable and robust qualities, had
with them an endearing and honest bigness of purpose,
limited only though decidedly by his point of view
and the bounds of his practical education. Baker would steal
land without compunction; Welton would take land illegally
without thought of the illegality, only because everybody
else did it the same way.

But should the mere fact of personality make any difference
in the enforcing of laws ? That one man was amiable and the
other not so amiable had nothing to do with eternal justice.
If Bob were to fulfil his duty only against those he disliked,
and in favour of his friends, he had indeed slipped back to
the old days of henchman politics from which the nation
was slowly struggling. He reared his head at this thought.
Surely he was man enough to sink private affairs in the face
of a stern public duty !

This determined, Bob thought the question settled. After
a few minutes, it returned as full of interrogation points as
ever. Leaving Baker and Welton entirely out of the ques-
tion, the two cases still drew apart. One was just, the other
unjust. Why? On the answer depended the peace of
Bob's conscience. Of course he would resign rather than be
forced to prosecute Welton. That was understood, and
Bob resolutely postponed contemplation of the necessity.
He loved this life, this cause. It opened out into wider and
more beautiful vistas the further he penetrated into it. He
conceived it the only life for which he was particularly fitted
by temperament and inclination. To give it up would be

THE RULES OF THE GAME 531

to cut himself off from all that he cared for most in active life;
and would be to cast him into the drudgery of new and uncon-
genial lines. That sacrifice must be made. It's contem-
plation and complete realization could wait. But a deeper
necessity held Bob, the necessity of resolving the question of
equities which the accident of his personal knowledge of
Welton and Baker had evoked. He had to prove his instincts
right or wrong.

He was not quite ready to submit the matter officially, but
he wished very much to talk it over with some one. Glanc-
ing up he caught sight of the glitter of silver and the satin
sheen of a horse. Star was coming down through the trees,
resplendent in his silver and carved leather trappings, glossy
as a bird, stepping proudly and daintily under the curbing of
his heavy Spanish bit. In the saddle lounged the tall,
homely figure of old California John, clad in faded blue
overalls, the brim of his disreputable, ancient hat flopped
down over his lean brown face, and his kindly blue eyes.
Bob signalled him.

"John!" he called, "come here! I want to talk with
you!"

The stately, beautiful horse turned without any apparent
guiding motion from his master, stepped the intervening
space and stopped. California John swung from the saddle.
Star, his head high, his nostril wide, his eye fixed vaguely on
some distant vision, stood like an image.

"I want a good talk with you," repeated Bob.

They sat on the same log whereon Oldham and Bob had
conferred.

"John," said Bob, "Oldham has been here, and I don't
know what to do."

California John listened without a single word of comment
while Bob detailed all the ins and outs of the situation.
When he had finished, the old man slowly drew forth his
pipe, filled it, and lit it.

"Son," said he, "I'm an old man, and I've lived in this

532 THE RULES OF THE GAME

state since the early gold days. That means I've seen a lot of
things. In all that time the two most valuable idees I've
dug up are these : in the first place, it don't never do to go off
half-cock ; and in the second place, if you want to know about
a thing, go to headquarters for it."

He removed his pipe and blew a cloud.

"Half of that's for me and the other half's for you," he
resumed. "I ain't going to give you my notions until I've
thought them over a little; that's for me. As for you, if I
was you, I'd just amble over and talk the whole matter over
with Mr. Welton and see what he thinks about his end of it."

THIS advice seemed so good that Bob acted upon it at
his earliest opportunity. He found Welton riding
his old brindle mule in from the bull donkey where
he had been inspecting the work. The lumberman's red, jolly
face lit up with a smile of real affection as he recognized
Bob, an expression quickly changed, however, as he caught
sight of the young man's countenance.

" What's up, Bobby?" he inquired with concern; " any-
thing happened?"

"Nothing yet; but I want to talk with you."

Welton immediately dismounted, with the laborious
clumsiness of the man brought up to other means of loco-
motion, tied Jane to a tree, and threw himself down at the
foot of a tall pine.

"Let's have it," said he.

"There have come into my hands some documents," said
Bob, " that embarrass me a great deal. Here they are."

He handed them to Welton. The lumberman ran them
through in silence.

"Well," he commented cheerfully, "they seem to be all
right. What's the matter?"

"The matter is with the title to the land," said Bob.

Welton looked the list of records over more carefully.

"I'm no lawyer," he confessed at last; "but it don't need
a lawyer to see that this is all regular enough."

"Have you read the findings of the commission?"

"That stuff? Sure! That don't amount to anything.
It's merely an expression of opinion; and mighty poor opin-
ion at that."

533

534 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Don't you see what I'm up against?" insisted Bob. "It
will be in my line of duty to open suit against the Wolverine
Company for recovery of those lands."

"Suit!" echoed Welton. "You talk foolish, Bob. This
company has owned these lands for nearly thirty years, and
paid taxes on them. The records are all straight, and the
titles clear."

" It begins to look as if the lands were taken up contrary
to law," insisted Bob; " and, if so, I'll be called upon to prose-
cute."

"Contrary to your grandmother," said Welton contempt-
uously. " Some of your young squirts of lawyers have been
reading their little books. If these lands were taken up con-
trary to law, why so were every other timber lands in the
state."

"That may be true, also," said Bob. "I don't know."

"Well, will you tell me what's wrong with them?" asked
Welton.

"It appears as though the lands were 'colonized,'" said
Bob; "or, at least, such of them as were not bought from the
bank."

"I guess you boys have a new brand of slang," confessed
Welton.

" Why, I mean the tract was taken direct from many small
holders in hundred- and-sixty-acre lots," explained Bob.

Welton stared at him.

"Well, will you tell me how in blazes you were going to
get together a piece of timber big enough to handle in any
other way?" he demanded at last. "All one firm could take
up by itself was a quarter section, and you're not crazy enough
to think any concern could afford to build a plant for the sake
of cutting that amount! That's preposterous! A man cer-
tainly has a right under the law to sell what is his to whom-
ever he pleases."

"But the 'colonists,'" said Bob, "took up this land merely
for the purpose of turning it over to the company. The

THE RULES OF THE GAME 535

intention of the law is that the timber is for the benefit of the
original claimant."

'Well, it's for his benefit, if he gets paid for it, ain't it?"
demanded Welton ingenuously. "You can't expect him to
cut it himself."

"That is the intent of the law," insisted Bob, "and that's
what I'll be called upon to do. What shall I do about it?"

"Quit the game!" said Welton, promptly and eagerly.
"You can see yourself how foolish it is. That crew of young
squirts just out of school would upset the whole property
values of the state. Besides, as I've just shown you, it's fool-
ish. Come on back in a sensible business. We'd get on fine ! "

Bob shook his head.

" Then go ahead ; bring your case," said Welton. " I don't
mind."

"I do," said Bob. "It looks like a strong case to me."

" Don't bring it. You don't need to report in your evidence
as you call it. Just forget it."

"Even if I were inclined to do so," said Bob, "I wouldn't
be allowed. Baker would force the matter to publicity."

" Baker," repeated Welton ; " what has he got to do with it ? "

" It's in regard to the lands in the Basin. He took them up
under the mineral act, and plainly against all law and decency.
It's the plainest case of fraud I know about, and is a direct
steal right from under our noses."

"I think myself he's skinning things a trifle fine," admit-
ted Welton; "but I can't see but what he's complied with the
law all right. He don't have any right to that timber, I'll
agree with you there; but it looks to me like the law had a hole
in it."

" If he took that land up for other purposes than an honest
intention to mine on it, the title might be set aside," said Bob.

"You'd have a picnic proving anything of the sort one way or
another about what a man intends to do," Welton pointed out.

"Do you remember one evening when Baker was up at
camp and was kicking on paying water tolls ? It was about

536 THE RULES OF THE GAME

the time Thorne first came in as Supervisor, and just before I
entered the Service."

" Seems to me I recall something of the sort."

"Well, you think it over. Baker told us then that he had
a way of beating the tolls, and mentioned this very scheme
of taking advantage of the mineral laws. At the time he
had a notion of letting us in on the timber."

"Sure! I remember!" cried Welton.

"Well, if you and I were to testify as to that conversation,
we'd establish his intent plainly enough."

"Sure as you're a foot high!" said Welton slowly.

"Baker knows this; and he's threatened, if I testify against
him, to bring the Wolverine Company into the fight. Now
what should I do about it?"

Welton turned on him a troubled eye.

"Bob," said he, "there's more to this than you think. I
didn't have anything to do with this land until just before we
came out here. One of the company got control of it thirty
year ago. All that flapdoodle," he struck the papers, "didn't
mean nothing to me when I thought it came from your
amatoore detectives. But if Baker has this case looked up
there's something to it. Go slow, son."

He studied a moment.

"Have you told your officers of your own evidence against
Baker?"

"Not yet."

" Or about these ?" he held up the papers.

"No."

" Well, that's all right. Don't."

"It's my duty "

"Resign!" cried Welton energetically; "then it won't be
your duty. Nobody knows about what you know. If you're
not called on, you've nothing to say. You don't have to tell
all you know."

A vision swept before Bob's eyes of a noble forest supposedly
safe for all time devoted by his silence to a private greed.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 537

" But concealing evidence is as much of a perjury as falsi-
fying it " he began. A second vision flashed by of a

ragged, unshorn fugitive, now in jail, whom his testimony
could condemn. He fell silent.

"Let sleeping dogs lie," said Welton, earnestly. "You
don't know the harm you may do. Your father's reelection
comes this fall, you know, and even if it's untrue, a suit of this
character He in his turn broke off.

"I don't see how this could hurt father's chances either
way," said Bob, puzzled.

"Well, you know how I think about it," said Welton curtly,
rising. "You asked me."

He stumped over to Jane, untied the rope with his thick
fingers, clambered aboard. From the mule's back he looked
down on Bob, his kindly, homely face again alight with affec-
tion.

"If you never have anything worse on your conscience
than keeping your face shut to protect a friend from injustice,
Bobby," he said, "I reckon you won't lose much sleep."

With these words he rode away. Bob, returning to camp,
unsaddled, and, very weary, sought his cabin. His cabin
mate was stolidly awaiting him, seated on the single door step.

" My friend that was going to leave me some money in my
bunk was coming to-day," said Jack Pollock. "It ain't in
your bunk by mistake?"

"Jack," said Bob, weariedly throwing all the usual pre-
tence aside, "I'm ashamed to say I clean forgot it; I had
such a job on hand. I'll ride over and get it now."

"Don't understand you," said Jack, without moving a
muscle of his face.

Bob smiled at the serious young mountaineer, playing
loyally his part even to his fellow-conspirator.

"Jack," said he, "I guess your friend must have been
delayed. Maybe he'll get here later."

" Quite like," nodded Jack gravely.

XXI

BOB made the earliest chance to obtain California
John's promised advice. The old man was unlet-
tered, but his understanding was informed by a
broad and gentle spirit and long experience of varied things.
On this the head ranger himself touched.

" Bob," he began, " I'm an old man, and I've lived through
a lot. When I come into this state the elk and deer and
antelope was running out on the plains like sheep. I mined
and prospected up and down these mountains when nobody
knew their names. There's hardly a gold camp you can
call over that I ain't been in on; nor a set of men that had
anything to do with making the state that I ain't tracked
up with. Most of the valley towns wasn't in existence those
days, and the rest was little cattle towns that didn't amount
to anything. The railroad took a week to come from
Chicago. There wasn't any railroad up the coast. They
hadn't begun to irrigate much. Where the Redlands and
Riverside orange groves are there was nothing but dry
washes and sage-brush desert. It cost big money to send
freight. All that was shipped out of the country in a season
wouldn't make up one shipment these days. I suppose to
folks back East this country looked about as far off as Africa.
Even to folks living in California the country as far back as
these mountains looked like going to China. They got all
their lumber from the Coast ranges and the lower hills.
This back here was just wilderness, so far off that nobody
rightly thought of it as United States at all.

" Of course, by and by the country settled up a little more
but even then nobody ever thought of timber. You see,

538

THE RULES OF THE GAME 539

there was no market to amount to anything out here; and
a few little jerk-water mills could supply the whole layout
easy. East, the lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin and
Minnesota never was going to give out. In those days you
could hardly give away land up in this country. The fellow
that went in for timber was looked on as a lunatic. It took
a big man with lots of sand to see it at all."

Bob nodded, his eye kindling with the beginnings of
understanding.

"There was a few of them. They saw far enough ahead,
and they come in here and took up some timber. Other folks
laughed at them; but I guess they're doing most of the
laughing now. It took nerve, and it took sense, and it took
time, and it took patience." California John emphasized
each point with a pat of his brown, gnarled hand.

"Now those fellows started things for this country. If
they hadn't had the sheer nerve to take up that timber,
nobody would have dared do anything else not for years
anyhow. But just the fact that the Wolverine Company
bought big, and other big men come in why it give
confidence to the people. The country boomed right ahead.
If nobody had seen the future of the country, she'd have
been twenty year behind. Out West that means a hell of a
lot of value, let me tell you!"

"The timber would have belonged to the Government,"
Bob reminded him.

"I'm a Forest officer," said California John, "and what's
more, I was a Forest officer for a good many years when
there was nothin' to it but kicks. There can't nobody beat
me in wishing a lot of good forest land was under the Service
instead of being due to be cut up by lumbermen. But I've
lived too long not to see the point. You can't get benefits
without paying for 'em. The United States of America
was big gainers because these old fellows had the nerve
just to come in and buy. It ain't so much the lumber they
saw and put out where it's needed though that's a good

540 THE RULES OF THE GAME

deal: and it ain't so much the men they bring into the
country and give work to though that's a lot, too. It's
the confidence they inspire, it's the lead they give. That's
what counts. All the rest of these little operators, and work-
men, and storekeepers, and manufacturers wouldn't have
found their way out here in twenty years if the big fellows
hadn't led the way. If you should go over and buy ten
thousand acres of land by Table Mountain to-morrow, next
year there' d be a dozen to follow you in and do whatever
you'd be doing. And while it's the big fellow that gives the
lead, it's the little fellow that makes the wealth oj the country!"

Bob stared at the old man in fascinated surprise. This
was a new California John, this closely reasoning man,
with, clear, earnest eyes, laying down the simple doctrine
taught by a long life among men.

"The Government gives alternate sections of land to rail-
roads to bring them in the country," went on California John.
" In my notion all this timber land in private hands is
where it belongs. It's the price the Government paid for
wealth.'"

"And the Basin " cried Bob.

"What the hell more confidence does this country need
now?" demanded California John fiercely; "what with its
mills and its trolleys, its vineyards and all its big projects.
What right has this man Baker to get pay for what he ain't
done?"

The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able
to analyze, leaped at him. The equities hung in equal
balance. On one side he saw the pioneer, pressing forward
into an unknown wilderness, breaking a way for those that
could follow, holding aloft a torch to illumine dark places,
taking long and desperate chances, or seeing with almost
clairvoyant power beyond the immediate vision of men;
waiting in faith for the fulfillment of their prophecies. On
the other he saw the plunderer, grasping for a wealth that
did not belong to him, through values he had not made.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 541

This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob's
mind, be gainsaid.

Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did
not extend to the surface of things by which men live. It
explained; but did it excuse, especially in the eye of abstract
ethics? Had not these men broken the law, and is not the
upholding of the law important in its moral effect on those
that follow?

" Just the same," he voiced this thought to California
John, "the laws read then as they do to-day."

"On the books, yes," replied the old man, slowly; "but
not in men's ideas. You got to remember that those fellows
held pretty straight by what the law says. They got other
men to take up the timber, and then had it transferred to
themselves. That's according to law. A man can do what
he wants with his own. You know."

"But the intention of the law is to give every man a "

"That's what we go by now," interrupted California
John.

"What other way is there to go by?"

"None now. But in those days that was the settled
way to get timber land. They didn't make any secret of it.
They just looked at it as the process to go through with, like
filing a deed, or getting two witnesses. It was a nuisance,
and looked foolish, but if that was the way to do it, why
they'd do it that way. Everybody knew that. Why, if a
man wanted to get enough timber to go to operating on, his
lawyer would explain to him how to do it ; any of his friends
that was posted would show him the ropes; and if he'd take
the trouble to go to the Land Office itself, the clerk would
say: 'No, Mr. Man, I can't transfer to you, personally,
more'n a hundred and sixty acres, but you can get some of
your friends to take it up for you.'* Now will you tell me
how Mr. Man could get it any straighter than that?"

Bob was seeing a great light. He nodded.

* A fact.

542 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"They've changed the rules of the game!" said California
John impressively, "and now they want to go back thirty
year and hold these fellows to account for what they did
under the old rules. It don't look to me like it's fair."

He thought a moment.

"I suppose," he remarked reflectively, going off on one of
his strange tangents, and lapsing once more into his cus-
tomary picturesque speech, "that these old boys that burned
those Salem witches was pretty well thought of in Salem -
deacons in the church, and all such; p'ticular elect, and held
up to the kids for high moral examples? had the plumb
universal approval in those torchlight efforts of theirn?"

"So I believe," said Bob.

"Well," drawled California John, stretching his lank
frame, "suppose one of those old bucks had lived to now -
of course, he couldn't, but suppose he did and was enjoy-
ing himself and being a good citizen. And suppose some
day the sheriff touched him on the shoulder and says : ' Old
boy, we're rounding up all the murderers. I've just got
Saleratus Bill for scragging Franklin. You come along, too.
Don't you know that burnin' witches is murder?'" Cali-
fornia John spat with vigour. " Oh, hell!" said he.

"Now, Baker," he went on, after a moment, "is Saleratus
Bill because he knows he's agin what the people knows is
the law; and the other fellows is old Salem because they
lived like they were told to. Even old Salem would know
that he couldn't burn no witches nowadays. These old
timers ain't the ones trying to steal land now, you notice.
They're too damn honest. You don't need to tell me that
you believe for one minute when he took up this Wolverine
land, that your father did anything that he, or anybody else,
courts included, thought was off-colour."

"My father!" cried Bob.

"Why, yes," said California John, looking at him curi-
ously; "you don't mean to say you didn't know he is the
Wolverine Company!"

XXII

WELL," said California John, after a pause, " after
you've made your jump there ain't much use in
trying to turn back. If you didn't know it, why-
it was evident you wasn't intended to know it. But I was
in the country when your father bought the land, so I hap-
pened to know about it."

Bob stared at the old man so long that the latter felt called
upon to reassure him.

"I wouldn't take it so hard, if I was you, son," said he.
"I really don't think all these bluffs of Baker's amount to
much. The findings of that commission ain't never been
acted on, which would seem to show that it didn't come to
nothing at the time; and I don't have the slightest notion in
the world but what the whole thing will blow up in smoke."

"As far as that is concerned, I haven't either," said Bob;
"though you never can tell, and defending such a suit is always
an expensive matter. But here's the trouble; my father is
Congressman from Michigan, he's been in several pretty
heavy fights this last year, and has some powerful enemies;
he is up for reelection this fall."

"Suffering cats!" whistled California John.

"A lot could be made of a suit of that nature," said Bob,
"whether it had any basis, or not."

"I've run for County Supervisor in my time," said Cali-
fornia John simply.

"Well, what is your advice?" asked Bob.

"Son, I ain't got none," replied the old man.

That very evening a messenger rode over from the mill
bringing a summons from Welton. Bob saddled up at

543

544 THE RULES OF THE GAME

once. He found the lumberman, not in the comfortable sit-
ting room at his private sleeping camp, but watching the
lamp alone in the office. As Bob entered, his former asso-
ciate turned a troubled face toward the young man.

"Bob," said he at once, "they've got the old man cinched,
unless you'll help out."

"How's that?"

"You remember when we first came in here how Plant
closed the road and the flume right-of-way on us because we
didn't have the permit?"

"Of course."

"Now, Bob, you remember how we was up against it,
don't you ? If we hadn't gone through that year we'd have
busted the business absolutely. It was just a case of hold-up
and we had to pay it. You remember?"

"Yes."

"Well!" burst out Welton, bringing his fist down, "now
this hound, Baker, sends up his slick lawyer to tell me
that was bribery, and that he can have me up on a criminal
charge!"

" He's bluffing," said Bob quietly. "I remember all about
that case. If I'd known as much then of inside workings
as I do now, I'd have taken a hand. But Baker himself
ran the whole show. If he brings that matter into court,
he'll be subject to the same charge; for, if you remember, he
paid the money."

"Will he!" shouted Welton. "You don't know the low-
lived skunk! Erbe told me that if this suit was brought and
you testified in the matter, that Baker would turn state's
evidence against me! That would let him off scot-free."

"What!" said Bob incredulously. "Brand himself pub-
licly as a criminal and tell-tale just to get you into trouble!
Not likely. Think what that would mean to a man in his
position! It would be every bit as bad as though he were
to take his jail sentence. He's bluffing again."

"Do you really think so?" asked Welton, a gleam of relief

THE RULES OF THE GAME 545

lightening the gloom of his red, good-natured face. "I'll
agree to handle the worst river crew you can hand out to me;
but this law business gets me running in circles."

"It does all of us," said Bob with a sigh.

"I concluded from Erbe's coming up here that you had
decided to tell about what you knew. That ain't so, is it?"

"I don't know; I can't see my duty clearly yet."

"For heaven's sake, Bobby, what's it to you!" demanded
Welton exasperated.

But Bob did not hear him.

"I think the direct way is the best," he remarked, by way
of thinking aloud. "I'm going to keep on going to head-
quarters. I'm going to write father and put it straight to him
how he did get those lands and tell him the whole situation;
and I'm going down to interview Baker, and discover, if I can,
just how much of a bluff he is putting up."

"In the meantime- said Welton apparently not

noting the fact that Bob had become aware of the senior
Orde's eonnection with the land.

"In the meantime I'm going to postpone action if I
can."

"They're summoning witnesses for the Basin trial."

"I'll do the best I can," concluded Bob.

Accordingly he wrote the next day to his father. In this
letter he stated frankly the situation as far as it affected the
Wolverine lands, but said nothing about the threatened
criminal charges against Welton. That was another matter.
He set out the great value of the Basin lands and the methods
by which they had been acquired. He pointed out his duty,
both as a forest officer and as a citizen, but balanced this by
the private considerations that had developed from the
situation.

This dispatched, he applied for leave.

"This is the busy season, and we can spare no one," said
Thorne. "You have important matters on hand."

"This is especially important," urged Bob.

546 THE RULES OF THE GAME

" It is absolutely impossible. Come two months later, and
I'll be glad to lay you off as long as I can."

" This particular affair is most urgent business."

"Private, of course?"

4t 'Not entirely."

"Couldn't be considered official?"

" It might become so."

"What is it?"

"That I am not at liberty to tell you."

Thorne considered.

"No; I'm sorry, but I don't see how I can spare you."

"In that case," said Bob quietly, "you will force me to
tender my resignation."

Thorne looked up at him quickly, and studied his face.

"From anybody else, Orde," said he, "I'd take that as a
threat or a hold-up, and fire the man on the spot. From
you I do not. The matter must be really serious. You
may go. Get back as soon as you can."

"Thank you," said Bob. "It is serious. Three days
will do me."

He set about his preparations at once, packing a suit case
with linen long out of commission, smoothing out the tailored
clothes he had not had occasion to use for many a day. He
then transported this and himself down the mountain
on his saddle horse. At Auntie Belle's he changed his clothes.
The next morning he caught the stage, and by the day fol-
lowing walked up the main street of Fremont.

He had no trouble in finding Baker's office. The Sycamore
Creek operations were one group of many. As one of
Baker's companies furnished Fremont with light and power,
it followed that at night the name of that company blazed
forth in thousands of lights. The sign was not the less
legible, though not so fiery, by day. Bob walked into exten-
sive ground-floor offices behind plate-glass windows. Here
were wickets and railings through which and over which the
public business was transacted. A narrow passageway

THE RULES OF THE GAME 547

sidled down between the wall and a row of ground-glass
doors, on which were lettered the names of various officers
of the company. At a swinging bar separating this passage
from the main office sat a uniformed boy directing and stamp-
ing envelopes.

Bob wrote his name on a blank form offered by this youth.
The young man gazed at it a moment superciliously, then
sauntered with an air of great leisure down the long corridor.
He reappeared after a moment's absence behind the last
door, to return with considerably more alacrity.

"Come right in, sir," he told Bob, in tones which mingled
much deference with considerable surprise.

Bob had no reason to understand how unusual was the
circumstance of so prompt a reception of a visitor for whom
no previous appointment had been made. He entered the
door held open for him by the boy, and so found himself in
Baker's presence.

XXIII

THE office was expensively but plainly furnished in
hardwoods. A thick rug covered the floor, easy
chairs drew up by a fireplace, several good pictures
hung on the wall. Near the windows stood a small desk for
a stenographer, and a wide mahogany table. Behind this
latter, his back to the light, sat Baker.

The man's sturdy figure was absolutely immobile, and the
customary facetiously quizzical lines of his face had given
place to an expression of cold attention. When he spoke,
Bob found that the picturesque diction too had vanished.

At Bob's entrance, Baker inclined his head coldly in greet-
ing, but said nothing. Bob deliberately crossed the room
and rested his two fists, knuckle down, on the polished desk-
top. Baker waited stolidly for him to proceed. Bob jerked
his head toward the stenographer.

" I want to talk to you in private," said he.

The stenographer glanced toward her employer. The
latter nodded, whereupon she gathered a few stray leaves of
paper and departed. Bob looked after her until the door had
closed behind her. Then, quite deliberately, he made a tour
of the office, trying doors, peering behind curtains and por-
tieres. He ended at the desk, to find Baker's eye fixed
on him with sardonic humour. "Melodramatic, useless
and ridiculous," he said briefly.

" If I have any evidence to give, it will be in court, not in
a private office," replied Bob composedly.

" What do you want ? " demanded Baker.

"I have come this far solely and simply to get a piece of
information at first hand. I was told you had threatened

548

THE RULES OF THE GAME 549

to become a blackmailer, and I wanted to find out if it
is true?"

"In a world of contrary definitions, it is necessary to
come down to facts. What do you mean by blackmailer ?"

" It has been told me that you intend to aid criminal pro-
ceedings against Mr. Welton in regard to the right-of-way
trouble and the 'sugaring' of Plant."

"Well?"

"And that in order to evade your own criminal respon-
sibility in the matter you intended to turn state's evidence."

"Well?" repeated Baker.

" It seemed inconceivable to me that a man of your social
and business standing would not only confess himself a
petty criminal, but one who shelters himself by betrayal of his
confederate."

"I do not relish any such process," stated Baker formally,
" and would avoid it if possible. Nevertheless, if the situa-
tion comes squarely up to me, I shall meet it."

"I suppose you have thought what decent men '

Baker held up one hand. This was the first physical move-
ment he had made.

"Pardon me," he interrupted. "Let us understand, once
and for all, that I intend to defend myself when attacked.
Personally I do not think that either Mr. Welton or myself are
legally answerable for what we have done. I regret to
observe that you, among others, think differently. If the
whole matter were to be dropped at this point, I should rest
quite content. But if the matter is not dropped" - at
last he let his uplifted hand fall, "if the matter is not
dropped," he repeated, "my sense of justice is strong enough
to feel that every one should stand on the same footing. If
I am to be dragged into court, so must others."

Bob stood thoughtful for a moment.

"I guess that's all," said he, and walked out.

As the door closed behind him, Baker reached forward
to touch one of several buttons. To the uniformed mes-

550 THE RULES OF THE GAME

senger who appeared he snapped out the one word, "Old-
ham!" A moment later the land agent stood before the wide
mahogany desk.

"Orde has just been here," stated Baker crisply. "He
wanted to know if I intended to jail Wei ton on that old
bribery charge. I told him I did."

" How did he take it?"

" As near as I can tell he is getting obstinate. You claimed
very confidently you could head off his testimony. Up to
date you haven't accomplished much. Make good."

"Til head him off," stated Oldham grimly, "or put him
where he belongs. I've saved a little persuasion until all
the rest had failed."

"How?"

"That I'll tell you in time, but not now. But I don't
mind telling you that I've no reason to love this Orde or
any other Orde and I intend to get even with him on my
own account. It's a personal and private matter, but I have
a club that will keep him."

"Why the secrecy?"

"It's an affair of my own," insisted Oldham, "but I have
it on him. If he attempts to testify as to the Basin lands,
I'll have him in the penitentiary in ten days."

"And if he agrees?"

"Then," said Oldham quietly, "I'll have him in the pen
a little later after the Basin matter is settled once and for
all."

Baker considered this a little.

"My judgment might be worth something as to handling
this," he suggested.

"The matter is mine," said Oldham firmly, "and I must
choose my own time and place."

"Very well," Baker acquiesced; "but I'd advise you to
tackle Orde at once. Time is short. Try out your club to
see if it will work."

" It will work!" stated Oldham confidently.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 551

" Of course," remarked Baker, relaxing abruptly his atti-
tude, physical and mental, and lighting a cigar, " of course,
it is all very well to yank the temples down around the merry
Philistines, but it doesn't do your Uncle Samson much good.
We can raise hell with Welton and Orde and a half-dozen
others, and we will, if they push us too hard but thai
don't keep us the Basin if this crazy reformer testifies and
pulls in Welton to corroborate him. I'd rather keep the
Basin. If we could stop Orde "

"I'll stop him," said Oldham.

"I hope," said Baker impressively, "that you have more
than one string to your bow. I am not inquiring into your
methods, you understand" his pause was so significantly
long at this point, that Oldham nodded " but your sole job is
to keep Orde out of court"

Baker looked his agent squarely in the eye for fifteen
seconds. Then abruptly he dropped his gaze.

"That's all," said he, and reached for some papers.

XXIV

OLDHAM obeyed his principal's orders by joining Bob
on the train back to the city. He dropped down
by the young man's side, produced a cigar which he
rolled between his lips, but did not light, and at once opened
up the subject of his negotiations.

"I wish to point out to you, with your permission," he
began, "just where you stand in this matter. In the con-
fusion and haste of a busy time you may not have cast up
your accounts. First," he checked off the point on his long,
slender forefinger, " in injuring Mr. Baker in this ill-advised
fashion you are injuring your old-time employer and friend,
Mr. Welton, and this in two ways: you are jeopardizing his
whole business, and you are rendering practically certain
his conviction on a criminal charge. Mr. Welton is an old
man, a simple man, and a kindly man; this thing is likely to
kill him." Oldham glanced keenly at the young man's som-
bre face, and went on. "Second" he folded back his
middle finger "you are injuring your own father, also in
two ways: you are bringing his lawful property into danger,
and you are giving his political enemies the most effective
sort of a weapon to swing in his coming campaign. And
do not flatter yourself they will not make the best of it. It
happens that your father has stood strongly with the Con-
servation members in the late fight in Congress. This would
be a pretty scandal. Third," said Oldham, touching his ring
finger, "you are injuring yourself. You are throwing away
an opportunity to get in on the ground floor with the biggest
man in the West; you are making for yourself a powerful
enemy; and you are indubitably preparing the way for your

552

THE RULES OF THE GAME 553

removal from office if removal from such an office can
conceivably mean anything to any one." He removed the
cigar from his mouth, gazed at the wetted end, waited a
moment for the young man to comment, then replaced i% and
resumed. "And fourth," he remarked closing his fist so that
all fingers were concealed. There he stopped until Bob was
fairly compelled to start him on again.

"And fourth " he suggested, therefore.

"Fourth," rapped out Oldham, briskly, "you injure
George Pollock."

"George Pollock!" echoed Bob, trying vainly to throw a
tone of ingenuous surprise into his voice.

"Certainly; George Pollock," repeated Oldham. "I
arrived in Sycamore Flats at the moment when Pollock mur-
dered Plant. I know positively that you were an eye-wit-
ness to the deed. If you testify in one case, I shall certainly
call upon you to testify in the other. Furthermore," he
turned his gray eyes on Bob, and for the second time the
young man was permitted to see an implacable hostility,
" although not on the scene itself, I can myself testify, and will,
that you held the murderer's horse during the deed, and
assisted Pollock to escape. Furthermore, I can testify, and
can bring a competent witness, that while supposed to be
estimating Government timber in the Basin, you were in
communication with Pollock."

"Saleratus Bill!" cried Bob, enlightened as to the trailer's
recent activities in the Basin.

"It will be easy to establish not only Pollock's guilt, but
your own as accessory. That will put you hard and fast
behind the bars where you belong."

In this last speech Oldham made his one serious mistake of
the interview. So long as he had appealed to Bob's feel-
ings for, and sense of duty toward, other men, he had suc-
ceeded well in still further confusing the young man's decision.
But at the direct personal threat, Bob's combative spirit
flared. Suddenly his troubled mind was clarified, as though

554 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Oldham's menace had acted as a chemical reagent to pre-
cipitate all his doubts. Whatever the incidental hardships,
right must prevail. And, as always, in the uprooting of evil,
some inlucky innocent must suffer. It is the hardship of life,
inevitable, not to be blinked at if a man is to be a man, and
do a man's part. He leaned forward with so swift a move-
ment that Oldham involuntarily dodged back.

"You tell your boss," said Bob, "that nothing on God's
earth can keep me out of court."

He threw away his half-smoked cigar and went back
to the chair car. The sight of Oldham was intolerable to
him.

The words were said, and the decision made. In his heart
he knew the matter irrevocable. For a few moments he
experienced a feeling of relief and freedom, as when a swim-
mer first gets his head above the surf that has tumbled him.
These fine-spun matters of ethical balance had confused and
wearied his spirit. He had become bewildered among such
varied demands on his personal decision. It was a comfort
to fall back on the old straight rule of right conduct no matter
what the consequences. The essentials of the situation were
not at all altered: Baker was guilty of the rankest fraud;
Welton was innocent of every evil intent and should never
be punished for what he had been unwillingly and doubtfully
persuaded to permit; Orde senior had acquired his lands quite
according to the customs and ideas of the time; George
Pollock should have been justified a thousand times over in
sight of God and man. Those things were to Bob's mind
indisputable. To deprive the one man of a very small por-
tion of his fraudulently acquired property, it was apparently
necessary to punish three men who should not be punished.
These men were, furthermore, all dear to Bob personally.
It did not seem right that his decision should plunge them
into undeserved penalties. But now the situation was
materially altered. Bob also stood in danger from his action.
He, too, must suffer with the others. All were in the same

THE RULES OF THE GAME 555

boat. The menace to his own liberty justified his course.
The innocent must suffer with the guilty; but now the fact
that he was one of those who must so suffer, raised his decis-
ion from a choice to a necessity. Whatever the conse-
quences, the simplest, least perplexing, most satisfying course
was to follow the obvious right. The odium of ingratitude,
of lack of affection, of disloyalty, of self-reproach was lifted
from him by the very fact that he, too, was one of those who
must take consequences. In making the personal threat
against the young man's liberty, Oldham had, without know-
ing it, furnished to his soul the one valid reason for going
ahead, conscience-clear.

Though naturally Oldham could not follow out this psychol-
ogy, he was shrewd enough to understand that he had failed.
This surprised him, for he had entertained not the slightest
doubt that the threat of the penitentiary would bring Bob
to terms.

On arriving in the city, Oldham took quarters at the
Buena Vista and sent for Saleratus Bill, whom he had sum-
moned by wire as soon as he had heard from that individual
of Bob's intended visit to Fremont.

The spy arrived wearing a new broad, black hat, a cellu-
loid collar, a wrinkled suit of store clothes, and his same
shrewd, evil leer. Oldham did not appear, but requested
that the visitor be shown into his room. There, having
closed the transom, he issued his instructions.

" I want you to pay attention, and not interrupt," said he.
" Within a month a case is coming up in which Orde, the
Forest man, is to appear as witness. He must not appear.
I leave that all to you, but, of course, I want no more than
necessary violence. He must be detained until after the
trial, and for as long after that as I say. Understand?"

"Sure," said Saleratus Bill. "But when he comes back,
he'll fix you just the same."

" I'll see to that part of it. The case will never be reopened.
Now, mind you, no shooting "

556 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"There might be an accident," suggested Saleratus Bill,
opening his red eyes and staring straight at his principal.

"Accidents," said Oldham, speaking slowly and judicially,
"are always likely to happen. Sometimes they can't be
helped." He paused to let these words sink in.

Saleratus Bill wrinkled his eyes in an appreciative laugh.
"Accidents is of two kinds: lucky and unlucky," he remarked
briefly, by way of parenthesis.

"But, of course, it is distinctly understood," went on Old-
ham, as though he had not heard, "that this is your own
affair. You have nothing to expect from me if you get into
trouble. And if you mention my name, you'll merely get
jugged for attempted blackmail."

Saleratus Bill's eyes flared.

"Cut it," said he, with a rasp in his voice.

"Nevertheless, that is the case," repeated Oldham,
unmoved.

The flame slowly died from Saleratus Bill's eyes.

"I'll want a little raise for that kind of a job," said he.

"Naturally," agreed Oldham.

They entered into discussion of ways and means.

In the meantime Bob had encountered an old friend.

XXV

BOB always stayed at the Monterosa Hotel when in
town; a circumstance that had sent Oldham to the
Buena Vista. Although it wanted but a few hours
until train time, he drifted around to his customary stopping
place, resolved to enjoy a quiet smoke by the great plate-
glass windows before which the ever-varying theatre crowds
stream by from Main Street cars. He had been thus settled
for some time, when he heard his name pronounced by the
man occupying the next chair.

"Bob Orde!" he cried; "but this is luck!"

Bob looked around to see an elderly, gray-haired, slender
man, of keen, intelligent face, pure white hair and moustache,
in whom he recognized Mr. Frank Taylor, a lifelong friend
of his father's and one of the best lawyers his native state
had produced. He sprang to his feet to grasp the older man's
hand. The unexpected meeting was especially grateful, for
Bob had been long enough without direct reminders of his
old home to be hungry for them. Ever since he could remem-
ber, the erect, military form of Frank Taylor had been one
of the landmarks of memory, like the sword that had belonged
to Georgie Cathcart's father, or like the kindly, homely, gray
figure of Mr. Kincaid in his rickety, two-wheeled cart
the man who had given Bob his first firearm.

After first greetings and inquiries, the two men sank back
to finish their smoke together,

" It's good to see you again," observed Bob, "but I'm sorry
your business brings you out here at this time of year. This
is our dry season, you know. Everything is brown. I like
it myself, as do most Californians, but an Easterner has to

557

558 THE RULES OF THE GAME

get used to it. After the rains, though, the country is won-
derful."

"This isn't my first trip," said Taylor. "I was out here
for some months away back in I think it was '79. I
remember we went in to Santa Barbara on a steamer that
fired a gun by way of greeting! Strangely enough, the same
business brings me here now."

"You are out here on father's account?" hazarded Bob,
to whom the year 1879 now began to have its significance.

"Exactly. Didn't you get your father's letter telling of
my coming?"

"I've been from headquarters three days," Bob explained.

"I see. Well, he sent you this message: 'Tell Bob to go
ahead. I can take care of myself.'"

"Bully for dad!" cried Bob, greatly heartened.

" He told me he did not want to advise you, but that in the
old days when a fight was on, the spectators were supposed to
do their own dodging."

"I'd about come to that conclusion," said Bob, "but it
surely does me good to feel that father's behind me in it."

"My trip in '79 or whenever it was was exactly on
this same muss-up." Mr. Taylor went on: "Your father
owned this timber land then, and wanted to borrow money on
it. At the time a rascally partner was trying to ruin him ; and,
in order to prevent his getting this money, which would save
him, this partner instigated investigations and succeeded
temporarily in clouding the title. Naturally the banks
declined to lend money on doubtful titles; which was all this
partner wanted.* Perhaps you know all this ? "

Bob shook his head. "I was a little too young to know
anything of business."

"Your father sent me out to straighten things. The whole
matter was involved in endless red tape, obscured in every
ingenious way possible. Although there proved to be noth-
ing to the affair, to prove that fact took time, and time was

*See "The Rirerman."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 559

what your father's partner was after. As a matter of fact, he
failed ; but that was not the result of miscalculation. Now I
strongly suspect that your friend Baker, or his lawyers, have
dug up a lot of this old evidence en the records and are going
to use it to annoy us. There is nothing more in it now than
there was at the beginning, but it's colourable enough to
start a noisy suit on, and that's all these fellows are after."

"But if it was decided once, how can they bring it up
again?" Bob objected.

" It was never brought to court. When the delay had been
gained or rather, when I unravelled the whole matter
it was dropped."

" I see," said Bob. "Then the titles are all right ? "

"Every bit of that tract is as good as gold," said Taylor
impressively. "Your father bought only from men who
had taken up land with their own money. He paid as high
as fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars for claims where by
straight 'colonizing' he could have had them for three or
four hundred."

"I'm glad to hear that," said Bob. "But are you sure
you can handle this?"

"As for a suit, they can never win this in the world," said
Taylor. "But that isn't the question. What they want
is a chance for big headlines."

"Well, can you head them off?"

"I'm going to try, after I look over the situation. If I
can't head it off completely, I'll at least be in a position to
reply publicly at once. It took me three months to dig
this thing out, but it won't take me half an hour to get it in the
papers."

"I should think they'd know that."

"I don't think their lawyer really knows about it. As I
say, it took me three months to dig it all out. My notion
is that while they have no idea they can win the case, they
believe that we did actually colonize the lands. In other
words, they think they have it on us straight enough. The

560 THE 1 RULES OF THE GAME

results of my investigations will surprise them. I'll keep
the thing out of court if I can; but in any case we're ready.
It will be a trial in the newspapers."

" Well," said Bob, " you want to get acquainted then. West-
ern newspapers are not like those in the East. They
certainly jump in with both feet on any cause that enlists them
one way or another. It is a case of no quarter to the enemy,
in headlines, subheads, down to the date reading matter,
of course. They have a powerful influence, too, for they are
very widely read."

"Can they be bought?" asked Taylor shrewdly.

Bob glanced at him.

"I was thinking of the Power Company," explained
Taylor.

"Blessed if I know," confessed Bob; "but I think not. I
disagree with them on so many things that I'd like to think
they are bought. But they are more often against those apt
to buy, than for them. They lambaste impartially and with
a certain Irish delight in doing the job thoroughly. I must
say they are not fair about it. They hit a man just as hard
when he is down. What you want to do is to be better news
than Baker."

"I'll be all of that," promised Taylor, "if it comes to
a newspaper trial."

Bob glanced at his watch and jumped to his feet with an
exclamation of dismay.

"I've five minutes to get to the station," he said. " Good-
bye."

He rushed out of the hotel, caught a car, ran a block
and arrived in time to see the tail lights slipping away. He
had to wait until the morning train, but that mattered little
to him now. His wait and the journey back to the mountains
were considerably lightened by this partial relief of the situa-
tion. At the first sign of trouble his father had taken the
field to fight out his own fights. That much responsibility
was lifted from Bob's shoulders. He might have known!

Of the four dangerous elements of his problem one was

THE RULES OF THE GAME 561

thus unexpectedly, almost miraculously, relieved. Re-
mained, however, poor Welton's implication in the brib-
ery matter, and Pollock's danger. Bob could not count in
himself. If he could only relieve the others of the conse-
quences of his action, he could face his own trouble with a
stout heart.

At White Oaks he was forced to wait for the next stage.
This put him twenty-four hours behind, and he was inclined
to curse his luck. Had he only known it, no better fortune
could have fallen him. The news came down the line that
the stage he would have taken had been held up by a lone
highwayman just at the top of Flour Gold grade. As the
vehicle carried only an assortment of perishable fruit and
three Italian labourers, for the dam, the profits from the
transaction were not extraordinary. The sheriff and a posse
at once set out in pursuit. Their efforts at overtaking the
highwayman were unavailing, for the trail soon ran out over
the rocky and brushy ledges, and the fugitive had been
clever enough to sprinkle some of his tracks liberally with
red pepper to baffle the dogs. The sheriff made a hard push
of it, however, and for one day held closely enough on the
trail. Bob's journey to Sycamore Flats took place on this
one day during which Saleratus Bill was too busy dodg-
ing his pursuers to resume a purpose which Bob's delay had
frustrated.

On arriving at Auntie Belle's, Bob resolved to push on
up the mountain that very night, instead of waiting as usual
until the following morning. Accordingly, after supper, he
saddled his horse, collected the camp mail, and set himself
in motion up the steep road.

Before he had passed Fern Falls, the twilight was falling.
Hermit thrushes sang down through the cooling forest.
From the side hill, exposed all the afternoon to the California
summer sun, rose tepid odours of bear-clover and snowbush,
which exhaled out into space, giving way to the wandering,
faint perfumes of night. Bob took off his hat, and breathed

562 THE RULES OF THE GAME

deep, greatly refreshed after the long, hot stage ride of the
day. Darkness fell. In the forest the strengthening moon-
light laid its wand upon familiar scenes to transform them.
New aisles opened down the woodlands, aisles at the end of
which stood silvered, ghostly trees thus distinguished by the
moonbeams from their unnumbered brethren. The whole
landscape became ghostly, full of depths and shadows, mys-
teries and allurements, heights and spaces unknown to the
more prosaic day. Landmarks were lost in the velvet dark;
new features sprang into prominence. Were it not for the
wagon trail, Bob felt that in this strange, enchanted, unfamil-
iar land he might easily have become lost. His horse plodded
mechanically on. One by one he passed the homely roadside
landmarks, exempt from the necromancies of the moon
the pile of old cedar posts, split heaven knows when, by
heaven knows whom, and thriftlessly abandoned; the water
trough, with the brook singing by; the S turn by the great
boulders; the narrow defile of the Devil's Grade and then,
still under the spell of the night, Bob surmounted the ridge
to look out over the pine-clad plateau slumbering dead-
still under the soft radiance of the moon.

He rode the remaining distance to headquarters at a
brisker pace. As he approached the little meadow, and the
group of buildings dark and silent, he raised joyously the wild
hallo of the late-comer with mail. Immediately lights were
struck. A moment later, by the glimmer of a lantern, he was
distributing the coveted papers, letters and magazines to the
half-dressed group that surrounded him. Amy summoned
him to bring her share. He delivered it to the hand and arm
extended from the low window.

"You must be nearly dead," said Amy, "after that long
stage ride to come right up the mountain."

"It's the finest sort of a night," said Bob. "I wouldn't
have missed it for anything. It's H-O-T, hot. down at the
Flats. This ride just saved my life."

This might have been truer than Bob had thought, for at

THE RULES OF THE GAME 563

almost that very moment Saleratus Bill, having success-
fully shaken off his pursuers, was making casual and guarded
inquiries at Austin's saloon. When he heard that Orde
had arrived at the Flats on the evening's stage, he mani-
fested some satisfaction. The next morning, however, that
satisfaction vanished, for only then he learned that the young
man must be already safe at headquarters.

XXVI

IN delivering his instructions to Oldham, Baker had, of
course, no thought of extreme measures. Indeed,
had the direct question been put to him, he would most
strongly and emphatically have forbidden them. Neverthe-
less, he was glad to leave his intentions vague, feeling that
in thus wilfully shutting his eyes he might avoid personal
responsibility for what might happen. He had every con-
fidence that Oldham a man of more than average cultiva-
tion while he might contemplate lawlessness, was of too
high an order to consider physical violence. Baker was
inclined to believe that on mature reflection Bob would yield
to the accumulation of influence against him. If not, Old-
ham intimated with no uncertain confidence, that he pos-
sessed information of a sort to coerce the Forest officer into
silence. If that in turn proved unavailing a contingency,
it must be remembered that Baker hardly thought worth
entertainment why, then, in some one of a thousand per-
fectly legal ways Oldham could entangle the chief witness
into an enforced absence from the trial. This sort of man-
oeuvre was, later, actually carried out in the person of Mr.
Fremont Older, a witness in the graft prosecutions of San
Francisco. In short, Baker's intentions, while desperately
illegal, contemplated no personal harm to their victim. He
gave as general orders to his subordinate: "Keep Orde's
testimony out of court"; and shrugged off minute responsi-
bilities.

This command, filtered through a second and inimical
personality, gained in strength. Oldham was not of a tem-
perament to contemplate murder. His nerves were too

564

THE RULES OF THE GAME 565

refined; his training too conventional; his imagination too
developed. He, too, resolutely kept his intentions a trifle
vague. If Orde persisted, then he must be kidnapped for a
time.

But Saleratus Bill, professional gun-man, well paid, took
his instructions quite brutally. In literal and bald state-
ment he closed the circle and returned to Baker's very words :
"Keep Orde's testimony out of court." Only in this case
Saleratus Bill read into the simple command a more sinister
meaning.

The morning after his return from the lower country,
Bob saddled up to ride over to the mill. He wished to tell
Welton of his meeting Taylor; and to consult him on the best
course to pursue in regard to the bribery charges. With
daylight many of his old perplexities had returned. He rode
along so deep in thought that the only impression reaching
him from the external world was one of the warmth of the sun.

Suddenly a narrow shadow flashed by his eyes. Before his
consciousness could leap from its inner contemplation, his
arms were pulled flat to his sides, a shock ran through him as
though he had received a heavy blow, and he was jerked
backward from his horse to hit the ground with great
violence.

The wind was knocked from his body, so that for five
seconds, perhaps, he was utterly confused. Before he could
gather himself, or even comprehend what had happened, a
heavy weight flung itself upon him. The beginnings of
his feeble struggles were unceremoniously subdued. When,
in another ten seconds, his vision had cleared, he found him-
self bound hand and foot. Saleratus Bill stood over him,
slowly recoiling the riata, or throwing rope, with which he
had so dexterously caught Bob from behind. After contem-
plating his victim for a moment, Saleratus Bill mounted his
own animal, and disappeared.

Bob, his head humming from the violence of its impact with
the ground, listened until the hoof beats had ceased to jar

566 THE RULES OF THE GAME

the earth. Then with a methodical desperation he began to
wrench and work at his bonds. All his efforts were useless;
Saleratus Bill understood "hog- tying" too well. When,
finally, he had convinced himself that he could not get away,
Bob gave over his efforts. The forest was very still and
warm. After a time the sun fell upon him, and he began
to feel its heat uncomfortably. The affair was inexplicable.
He began to wonder whether Saleratus Bill intended leaving
him there a prey to what fortune chance might bring.
Although the odds were a hundred to one against his being
heard, he shouted several times. About as he had begun once
more to struggle against his bonds, his captor returned,
leading Bob's horse, and cursing audibly over the difficulty
he had been put to in catching it.

Ignoring Bob's indignant demands, the gun-man loosed
his ankles, taking, however, the precaution of throwing the
riata over the young man's shoulders.

"Climb your horse," he commanded briefly.

"How do you expect me to do that, with my hands tied
behind me?" demanded Bob.

"I don't know. Just do it, and be quick," replied Saler-
atus Bill.

Bob's horse was nervous and restive. Three times he
dropped his master heavily to earth. Then Saleratus Bill,
his evil eye wary, extended a helping hand. This was what
Bob was hoping for; but the gun-man was too wily and
experienced to allow himself within the captive's fettered
reach.

When Bob had finally gained his saddle, Saleratus Bill,
leading the horse, set off at a rapid pace cross country. To
all of Bob's questions and commands he turned a deaf ear,
until, finally, seeing it was useless to ask, Bob fell silent.
Only once did he pause, and then to breathe and water the
horses. The country through which they passed was unfa-
miliar to Bob. He knew only that they were going north,
and were keeping to westward of the Second Ranges.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 567

Late that evening Saleratus Bill halted for the night at a
little meadow. He fed Bob a thick sandwich, and offered
him a cup of water; after which he again shackled the young
man's ankles, bound his elbows, and attached the helpless
form to a tree. Bob spent the night in this case, covered only
by his saddle blanket. The cords cut into his swelled flesh,
the retarded circulation pricked him cruelly. He slept little.
At early dawn his captor offered him the same fare. By sun-
up they were under way again.

All that day they angled to the northwest, The pine
forests gave way to oaks, buckthorn, chaparral, as they
entered lower country. Several times Saleratus Bill made
long detours to avoid clearings and ranches. Bob, in spite
of his strength and the excellence of his condition, reeled
from sheer weariness and pain. They made no stop at
noon.

At two o'clock, or so, they left the last ranch and began
once more leisurely to climb. The slope was gentle. A
badly washed and eroded wagon grade led them on. It had
not been used for years. The horses, now very tired, plodded
on dispiritedly.

Then, with the suddenness of a shift of scenery, they
topped what seemed to be a trifling rounded hill. On the
other side the slope dropped sheer away. Opposite and to
north and south were the ranks of great mountains, some
dark with the blue of atmosphere before pines, others glitter-
ing with snow. Directly beneath, almost under him, Bob
saw a valley.

It was many thousand feet below, mathematically round,
and completely surrounded by lofty mountains. Indeed,
already evening had there spread its shadows, although to
the rest of the world the sun was still hours high. Through
it flowed a river. From the height it looked like a piece of
translucent green glass in the still depths; like cotton-wool
where the rapids broke; for the great distance robbed it of all
motion. This stream issued from a gorge and flowed into

568 THE RULES OF THE GAME

another, both so narrow that the lofty mountains seemed
fairly to close them shut.

Through the clear air of the Sierras this valley looked
like a toy, a miniature. Every detail was distinct. Bob
made out very plainly the pleasant trees, and a bridge over
the river, and the roofs of many houses, and the streets of a
little town.

To the left the wagon road dropped away down the steep
side of the mountain. Bob's eye could follow it, at first a
band, then a ribbon, finally a tiny white thread, as it wound
and zigzagged, seeking its contours, until finally it ran out on
the level and rested at the bridge end. Opposite, on the other
mountain, he thought to make out here and there faint
suggestions of another way.

Though his eye thus embraced at a glance the whole
length of the route, Bob found it a two-hours' journey down.
Always the walls of the mountains rose higher and higher
above him, gaining in majesty and awe as he abandoned
to them the upper air. Always the round valley grew larger,
losing its toy-like character. Its features became, not more
distinct, but more detailed. Bob saw the streets of the town
were pleasantly shaded by cotton woods and willows; he dis-
tinguished dwelling houses, a store, an office building, a mill
building for crushing of ore. The roar of the river came up to
him more clearly. As though some power had released the
magic of the stream, the water now moved. Rushing foam
and white water tumbled over the black and shining rocks:
deep pools eddied, dark and green, shot with swirls.

As it became increasingly evident that the road could lead
nowhere but through this village, Bob's spirits rose. The
place was well built. Bob caught the shimmer of ample
glass in the windows, the colour of paint on the boards, and
even the ordered rectangles of brick chimneys! Evidently
these things must have been freighted in over the devious
steep grade he was at that moment descending. Bob well
knew that, even nearer the source of supplies, such mining

Bob found it two hours' journey down

THE RULES OF THE GAME 569

camps as this appeared to be were most often but a collec-
tion of rude, unpainted shanties, huddled together for a tem-
porary need. The orderly, well-kept, decent appearance of
this hamlet, more like a shaded New England village than
a Western camp, argued old establishment, prosperity, and
self-respect. The inhabitants could be no desperate fly-by-
nights, such as Saleratus Bill would most likely have sought
as companions. Bob made up his mind that the gun-man
would shortly try to threaten him into a temporary secrecy
as to the condition of affairs. This Bob instantly resolved
to refuse.

Saleratus Bill, however, rode on in an unbroken silence.
Long after the brawl of the river had become deafening, the
road continued to dip and descend. It is a peculiar phe-
nomenon incidental to the descent of the sheer canons of the
Sierra Nevada that the last few hundred feet down seem
longer than the thousands already passed. This is prob-
ably because, having gained close to the level of the tree-tops,
the mind, strung taut to the long descent, allows itself pre-
maturely to relax its attention. Bob turned in his saddle
to look back at the grade. He could not fail to reflect on how
lucky it was that the inhabitants of this village could haul
their materials and supplies down the road. It would have
been prohibitively difficult to drag anything up.

After a wearisome time the road at last swung out on the
flat, and so across the meadow to the bridge. Feed was
belly deep to the horses. The bridge proved to be a sus-
pension affair of wire cables, that swung alarmingly until
the horses had to straddle in order to stand at all. Below
it boiled the river, swirling, dashing, turning lazily and
mysteriously over its glass-green depths, the shimmers and
folds of eddies rising and swaying like air currents made
visible.

They climbed out on solid ground. The road swung to
the left and back, following a contour to the slight elevation
on which the houses stood. Saleratus Bill, however, turned

570 THE RULES OF THE GAME

up a brief short-cut, which landed them immediately on the
main street.

Bob saw two stores, an office building and a small hotel,
shaded by wooden awnings. Beyond them, and opposite
them, were substantial bunk houses and dwelling nouses,
painted red, each with its elevated, roofed verandah. Large
trees, on either side, threw a shade fairly across the thorough-
fare. An iron pump and water trough in front of the hotel
saved the wayfarer from the necessity of riding his animals
down to the river. The vista at the end of the street showed
a mill building on a distant mountain side, with the rabbit-
burrow dumps of many shafts and prospect holes all about it.

They rode up the street past two or three of the houses,
the hotel and the office. Bob, peering in through the win-
dows, saw tables and chairs, old chromos and newer litho-
graphs on the walls. Under the tree at the side of the hotel
hung a water olla with a porcelain cup atop. Near the back
porch stood a screen meat safe.

But not a soul was in sight. The street was deserted,
the houses empty, the office unoccupied. As they proceeded
Bob expected from one moment to the next to see a door open,
a figure saunter around a corner. Save for the jays and
squirrels, the place was absolutely empty.

For some minutes the full realization of this fact was slow
in coming. The village exhibited none of the symptoms of
abandonment. The window glass was whole; the furniture
of such houses as Bob had glanced into while passing stood
in its accustomed places. A few strokes of the broom might
have made any one of them immediately fit for habitation.
The place looked less deserted than asleep; like one of the
enchanted palaces so dear to tales of magic. It would not
have seemed greatly wonderful to Bob to have seen the
town spring suddenly to life in obedience to some spell. If
the mill stamps in the distant crusher had creaked and begun
to pound; if dogs had rushed barking around corners and
from under porches; if from the hotel mine host had emerged,

THE RULES OF THE GAME 571

yawning and rubbing his eyes; if from the shops and offices
and houses had issued the slow, grumbling sounds of life
awakening, it would all have seemed natural and to be
expected. Under the influence of this strange effect a deathly
stillness seemed to fall, in spite of the bawling and roaring
of the river, and the trickle of many streamlets hurrying down
from the surrounding hills.

So extraordinary was this effect of suspended animation
that Bob again essayed his surly companion.

"What place do you call this?" he inquired.

Saleratus Bill had dismounted, and was stretching his long,
lean arms over his head. Evidently he considered this the
end of the long and painful journey, and as evidently he was,
in his relief, inclined to be better natured.

11 Busted minin' camp called Bright's Cove," said he;
" they took about ten million dollars out of here before she
bust."

"How long ago was that?" asked Bob.

"Ten year or so."

The young man gazed about him in amazement. The
place looked as though it might have been abandoned the
month before. In his subsequent sojourn he began more
accurately to gauge the reasons for this. Here were no small
boys to hurl the casual pebble through the delightfully shim-
mering glass; here was no dust to be swirled into crevices
and angles, no wind to carry it; to this remote cove pene-
trated no vandals to rob, mutilate or wantonly disfigure; and
the elevation of the valley's floor was low enough even to
avoid the crushing weights of snow that every winter brought
to the peaks around it. Only the squirrels, the birds and the
tiny wood rats represented in their little way the forces of
destruction. Furthermore, the difficulties of transportation
absolutely precluded moving any of the small property whose
absence so strongly impresses the desertion of a building.
When Bright's Cove moved, it had merely to shut the front
door. In some cases it did not shut the front door.

572 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Saleratus Bill assisted Bob from the saddle. This had
become necessary, for the long ride in bonds had so cramped
and stiffened the young man that he was unable to help him-
self. Indeed, he found he could not stand. Saleratus Bill,
after looking at him shrewdly, untied his hands.

"I guess you're safe enough for now," said he.

Bob's wrists were swollen, and his arms so stiff he could
hardly use them. Saleratus Bill paused in throwing the
saddles off the wearied animals.

"Look here," said he gruffly; "if you pass yore word you
won't try to get away or make no fight, I'll turn you loose."

"I'll promise you that for to-night, anyway," returned
Bob quickly.

Saleratus Bill immediately cast the ropes into a corner
of the verandah.

XXVII

THE shadows of evening were falling when Saleratus
Bill returned from pasturing the wearied horses.
Bob had been too exhausted to look about him, even
to think. From a cache the gun-man produced several bags of
food and a side of bacon. Evidently Bright's Cove was one
of his familiar haunts. After a meal which Bob would have
enjoyed more had he not been so dead weary, his captor
motioned him to one of the bunks. Only too glad for an
opportunity to rest, Bob tumbled in, clothes and all.

About midnight he half roused, feeling the mountain chill.
He groped instinctively; his hand encountered a quilt,
which he drew around his shoulders.

When he awoke it. was broad daylight. A persistent dis-
comfort which had for an hour fought with his drowsiness
for the ascendancy, now disclosed itself as a ligature tying his
elbows at the back. Evidently Saleratus Bill had taken this
precaution while the young man slept. Bob could still use
his hands and wrists, after a fashion; he could walk about
but he would be unable to initiate any effective offence. The
situation was admirably analogous to that of a hobbled horse.
Moreover, the bonds were apparently of some broad, soft
substance like sacking or harness webbing, so that, after
Bob had moved from his constrained position, they did not
excessively discommode him.

He had no means of guessing what the hour might be,
and no sounds reached him from the other parts of the house.
His muscles were sore and bruised. For some time he was
quite content to lie on his side, thinking matters over.

From his knowledge of the connection between Baker and

573

574 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Oldham, Oldham and his captor, Bob had no doubt as to the
purpose of his abduction; nor did he fail to guess that now,
with the chief witness out of the way, the trial would be hur-
ried where before it had been delayed. Personally he had
little to fear beyond a detention unless he should
attempt to escape, or unless a searching party might blunder
on his traces. Bob had already made up his mind to use his
best efforts to get away. As to the probabilities of a rescue
blundering on this retreat, he had no means of guessing; but
he shrewdly concluded that Saleratus Bill was taking no
chances.

That individual now entered ; and, seeing his captive awake,
gruffly ordered him to rise. Bob found an abundant break-
fast ready, to which he was able to do full justice. In the
course of the meal he made several attempts on his jailer's
taciturnity, but without success. Saleratus Bill met all his
inquiries, open and guarded, with a sullen silence or evasive,
curt replies.

"It don't noways matter why you're here, or how you're
here. You are here, and that's all there's to it."

"How long do I stay?"

"Until I get ready to let you go."

"How can you get word from Mr. Oldham when to let me
off? "asked Bob.

But Saleratus Bill refused to rise to the bait.

" I'll let you go when I get ready," he repeated.

Bob was silent for some time.

"You know this lets me off from my promise," said he,
nodding backward toward his elbows. "I'll get away if I
can."

Saleratus Bill, for the first time, permitted himself a smile.

"There's two ways out of this place," said he "where
we come in, and over north on the trail. You can see every
inch both ways from here. Besides, don't make no
mistakes. I'll shoot you if you make a break."

Bob nodded.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 575

" I believe you," said he.

As though to convince Bob of the utter helplessness of
any attempt, Saleratus Bill, leaving the dishes unwashed,
led the way in a tour of the valley. Save where .the wagon
road descended and where the steep side hill of the north
wall arose, the boundaries were utterly precipitous. From
a narrow gorge, flanked by water-smoothed rock aprons, the
river boiled between glassy perpendicular cliffs.

" There ain't no swimming-holes in that there river,'''
remarked Saleratus Bill grimly.

Bob, leaning forward, could just catch a glimpse of the
torrent raging and buffeting in the narrow box canon, above
which the mountains rose tremendous. No stream growths
had any chance there. The place was water and rock
nothing more. In the valley itself willows and alders,
well out of reach of high water, offered a partial screen to-
soften the savage vista.

The round valley itself, however, was beautiful. Ripen-
ing grasses grew shoulder high. Shady trees swarmed with
birds. Bees and other insects hummed through the sun-
warmed air.

In vain Bob looked about him for the horses, or for signs
of them. They were nowhere to be seen. Saleratus Bill,
reading his perplexity, grinned sardonically.

"Yore friends might come in here," said he, evidently not
unwilling to expose to Bob the full hopelessness of the latter's
case. "And if so, they can trail us in; and then trail us
out again!" He pointed to the lacets of the trail up the
north wall. He grinned again. "You and I'd just crawl
down a mile of mine shaft."

Having thus, to his satisfaction, impressed Bob with the
utter futility of an attempt to escape, Saleratus Bill led the
way back to the deserted village. There he turned delib-
erately on his captive.

"Now, young feller, you listen to me," said he. "Don't
you try no monkey business. There won't be no ques-

576 THE RULES OF THE GAME

tions asked, none whatever. As long as you set and look at
the scenery, you won't come to no harm; but the minute you
make even a bluff at gettin' funny even if yore sorry the
next minute I'll shoot. And don't you never forget
and try to get nearer to me than three paces. Don't forget
that! I don't rightly want to hurt you; but I'd just as leave
shoot you as anybody else."

To this view of the situation Bob gave the expected
assent.

The next three days were ones of routine. Saleratus Bill
spent his time rolling brown-paper cigarettes at a spot that
commanded both trails. Bob was instructed to keep in sight.
He early discovered the cheering fact that trout were to be
had in the glass-green pools; and so spent hours awkwardly
manipulating an improvised willow pole equipped with the
short line and the Brown Hackle without which no moun-
taineer ever travels the Sierras. His bound elbows and the
crudity of his tackle lost him many fish. Still, he caught
enough for food; and his mind was busy.

Canvassing the possibilities, Bob could not but admit that
Saleratus Bill knew his job. The river was certain death,
and led nowhere except into mysterious and awful granite
gorges; the outlets by roads were well in sight. For one
afternoon Bob seriously contemplated hazarding a personal
encounter. He conceived that in some manner he could get
rid of his bonds at night; that Saleratus Bill must necessarily
sleep ; and that there might be a chance to surprise the gun-
man then. But when night came, Saleratus Bill disappeared
into the outer darkness; nor did he return until morning.
He might have spent the hours camped under the trees of
the more remote meadow, whence in the brilliant moonlight
he could keep tabs on the trails, or he might be lying near at
hand; Bob had no means of telling. Certainly, again the
young man reluctantly acknowledged to himself, Saleratus
Bill knew his job!

Nevertheless, as the days slipped by, and Bob's physical

THE RULES OF THE GAME 577

strength returned in its full measure, his active and bold
spirit again took the initiative. A slow anger seized posses-
sion of him. The native combative stubbornness of the
race asserted itself, the necessity of doing something, the
inability tamely to submit to imposed circumstances. Bob's
careful analysis of the situation as a whole failed to discover
any feasible plan. Therefore he abandoned trying to plan
ahead, and fell back on those always- ready and comfortable
aphorisims of the adventurous "sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof," and "one thing at a time." Obviously, the
first thing to do was to free his arms ; after that he would see
what he would see.

Every evening Saleratus Bill took the candle and departed,
leaving Bob to find his own way to his bunk. This was the
time to cut his bonds; if at all. Unfortunately Bob could
find nothing against which to cut them. Saleratus Bill had
carefully removed every abrasive possibility in the two rooms.
Bob very wisely relinquished the idea of passing the thresh-
old in search of a suitable rock or piece of tin. He had no
notion of risking a bullet until something was likely to be
gained by it.

Finally his cogitations brought him an idea. Saleratus
Bill was attentive enough to such of the simple creature com-
forts as were within his means. Bob's pipe had been well
supplied with tobacco. On the fourth evening Bob filled it
just as his jailor was about to take away the candle for the
night.

" Just a minute," said Bob. "Let me have a light."

Bill set the candle on the table again, and retired the three
paces which he never forgot rigidly to maintain between
himself and his captive. Bob thereupon lit his pipe and
nodded his thanks. As soon as Saleratus Bill had well
departed, however, he retired to his bunk room, shutting the
door carefully after him. There, with great care, he delib-
erately set to work to coax into flame a small fire on the old
hearth, using as fuel the rounds of a broken chair, and as

578 THE RULES OF THE GAME

ignition the glowing coal in the bowl of his pipe. Before
the hearth he had managed to hang the heavy quilt from
his bunk, so that the flicker of the flames should not be visi-
ble from the outside.

The little fire caught, blazed for a few moments, and fell
to a steady glow. Bob fished out one of the chair rungs,
jammed the cool end firmly in one of the open cracks between
the timbers of the room, turned his back, and deliberately
pressed the band around his elbows against the live coal.

A smell of burning cloth immediately filled the air. After
a moment the coal went out. Bob replaced the charred rung
in the fire, extracted another, and repeated the operation.

It was exceedingly difficult to gauge the matter accurately,
as Bob soon found out to his cost. He managed to burn
more holes in his garment and himself than in the
bonds. However, he kept at it, and after a half hour's steady
and patient effort he was able to snap asunder the last strands.
He stretched his arms over his head in an ecstasy of physical
freedom.

That was all very well, but what next? Bob was sud-
denly called to a decision which had up to that moment
seemed inconceivably remote. Heretofore, an apparent
impossibility had separated him from it. Now that impos-
sibility was achieved.

A moment's thought convinced him of the senseless hazard
of attempting to slip out through any of the doors or windows.
The moon was bright, and Saleratus Bill would have taken
his precautions. Bob attacked the floor. Several boards
proved to be loose. He pried them up cautiously, and so
was enabled to drop through into the open space beneath the
house. Thence it was easy to crawl away. Saleratus Bill's
precautions were most likely taken, Bob argued to himself,
with a view toward a man bound at the elbows, not to a man
with two hands. In this he was evidently correct, for after a
painful effort, he found himself among the high grasses of
the meadow.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 579

There were now, as he recognized, two courses open to him:
he could either try to discover Saleratus Bill's sleeping place
and by surprise overpower that worthy as he slept; or he
could make the best of the interim before his absence was
discovered to get as far away as possible. Both courses had
obvious disadvantages. The most immediate to the first
alternative was the difficulty, failing some clue, of finding
Saleratus BilPs sleeping place without too positive a risk of
discovery; the most immediate to the second was the diffi-
culty of getting to the other side of the river. As Saleratus
Bill might" be at any one of a thousand places, in or out of
doors; whereas the river could be crossed only by the bridge.
Bob, without hesitation, chose the latter.

Therefore he made his way cautiously to that structure.
It proved to be lying in broad moonlight. As it constituted
the only link with the outside world to the south, Bob could
not doubt that his captor had arranged to keep it in sight.

The bridge was, as has been said, suspended across a strait
between two rocks by means of heavy wire cables. Slipping
beneath these rocks and into the shadow, Bob was rejoiced
to find that between the stringers and the shore, smaller cables
had been bent to act as guy lines. If he could walk " hand
over hand," the distance comprised by the width of the stream
he could pass the river below the level of the bridge floor.
He measured the distance with his eye. It did not look far-
ther than the length of the gymnasium at college. He seized
the cable and swung himself out over the waters.

Immediately the swift and boiling current, though twenty
feet below, seemed to suck at his feet. The swirling and
flashing of the water dizzied his brain with the impression of
falling upstream. He had to fix his eyes on the black flooring
above his head. The steel cable, too, was old and rusted and
harsh. Bob's hands had not for many years grasped a rope
strongly, and in that respect he found them soft. His mus-
cles, cramped more than he had realized by the bonds of his
captivity, soon began to drag and stretch. When halfway

580 THE RULES OF THE GAME

across, suspended above a ravening torrent; confronted, tired,
by an effort he had needed all his fresh energies to put forth,
Bob would have given a good deal to have been able to clam-
ber aboard the bridge, risk or no risk. It was, however, a clear
case of needs must. He finished the span on sheer nerve
and will power; and fell thankfully on the rocks below the
farther abutment. For a half minute he lay there, stretch-
ing slowly his muscles and straightening his hands, which
had become cramped like claws. Then he crept, always in
the shadow, to the level of the meadow.

Bob was learning to be a mountaineer. Therefore, on the
way down, he had subconsciously noted that from the head
of the meadow a steep dry wash climbed straight up to inter-
sect the road. The recollection came to the surface of his
mind now. If he could make his way up this wash, he
would gain three advantages: he would materially shorten
his journey by cutting off a mile or so of the road-grade's
twists and doublings; he would avoid the necessity of show-
ing himself so near the Cove in the bright moonlight; and he
would leave no tracks where the road touched the valley.
Accordingly he turned sharp to the left and began to pick his
way upstream, keeping in close to the river and treading as
much as possible on the water-worn rocks. The willows
and elders protected him somewhat. In this manner he pro-
ceeded until he had come to the smooth rock aprons near the
gorge from which the river flowed. Here, in accordance with
his intention of keeping close in the shadow of the mountain,
he was to turn to the right until he should have arrived at the
steep "chimney" of the wash. He was about to leave the
shelter of the last willows when he looked back. As his eyes
turned, a flash of moonlight struck them full, like the helio-
graphing of a mirror. He fixed his gaze on the bushes from
which the flicker had come. In a moment it was repeated.
Then, stooping low, a human figure hurried across a tiny
opening, and once again the moonlight reflected from the
worn and shining revolver in its hand.

XXVIII

IN SOME manner Saleratus Bill had discovered the young
man's escape, and had already eliminated the other
possibilities of his direction of flight. Bob shuddered
at this evidence of the rapidity with which the expert trailer
had arrived at the correct conclusion. He could not now
skirt the mountain, as he had intended, for that would at once
expose him in full view ; he could not return by the way he
had come, for that would bring him face to face with his
enemy. It would avail him little to surrender, for the gun-
man would undoubtedly make good his threats; fidelity to
such pledges is one of the few things sacred to the race. With
some vague and desperate idea of defence, Bob picked up a
heavy branch of driftwood. Then, as the man drew nearer,
Bob scrambled hastily over the smooth apron to the tiny
beach that the eddies had washed out below the precipice.

Here for the moment he was hidden, but he did not flatter
himself he would long remain so. He cast his eyes about
him for a way of escape. To the one side was the river, in
front of him was the rock apron with his enemy, to the other
side and back of him was a sheer precipice. In his perplex-
ity he looked down. A gleam of metal caught his eye. He
stooped and picked up the half of a worn horseshoe. Even
in his haste of mind, he cast a passing wonderment on how
it had come there.

If Bob had not been trained by his river work in the ways
of currents, he might sooner have thought of the stream.
But well he knew that Saleratus Bill had spoken right when
he had said that there were "no swimming holes" here.
The strongest swimmer could not have taken two strokes in

582 THE RULES OF THE GAME

that cauldron of seething white water. But now, as Bob
looked, he saw that a little back eddy along the perpendicu-
larity of the cliff slowed the current close to the sheer rock.
It might be just possible, with luck, to win far enough along
this cliff to lie concealed behind some outjutting boulder until
Saleratus Bill had examined the beach and gone his way.
Bob was too much in haste to consider the unexplained
tracks he must leave on the sand.

He thrust the branch he carried into the still black water.
To his surprise it hit bottom at a foot's depth. Promptly
he waded in. Sounding ahead, he walked on. The under-
water ledge continued. The water never came above his
knees. Out of curiosity he tapped with his branch until he
had reached the edge of the submerged shelf. It proved to
be some four feet wide. Beyond it the water dropped off
sheer, and the current nearly wrenched the staff from Bob's
hand.

In this manner he proceeded cautiously for perhaps a hun-
dred feet. Then he waded out on another beach.

He found himself in a pocket of the cliffs, where the preci-
pice so far drew back as to leave a clear space of four or five
acres in the river bottom. Such pockets, or " coves, " are by
no means unusual in the inaccessible depths of the great box
canons of the Sierras. Often the traveller can look down on
them from above, lying like green gems in their settings of
granite, but rarely can he descend to examine them. Thank-
fully Bob darted to one side. Here for a moment he might
be safe, for surely no one not driven by such desperation as
his own would dream of setting foot in the river.

A loud snort almost at his elbow, and a rush of scurrying
shapes, startled him almost into crying aloud. Then out
into the moonlight from the shadow of the cliffs rushed two
horses. And Bob, seeing what they were, sprang from his
fancied security into instant action, for in a flash he saw the
significance of the broken horseshoe on the beach, the sunken
ledge, and the secret of the horses' pasture. By sheer

THE RULES OF THE GAME 583

chance he had blundered on one of Saleratus Bill's outlaw
retreats.

Hastily he skirted the walls of the tiny valley. They were
unbroken. The river swept by tortured and tumbled. He
ran to the head of the cove. No sunken ledge there rewarded
him. Instead, the river at that point swept inward, so that the
full force of the current washed the very shores.

Bob searched the prospect with eager eye. Twelve or
fifteen feet upstream, and six or seven feet out from the cliff,
stood a huge round boulder. That alone broke the shadowy
expanse of the river, which here rushed down with great
velocity. Manifestly it was impossible to swim to this
boulder. Bob, however, conceived a daring idea. At
imminent risk and by dint of frantic scrambling he worked
his way along the cliff until he had gained a point opposite
the boulder and considerably above it. Then, without
hesitation, he sprang as strongly as he was able sidewise from
the face of the cliff.

He landed on the boulder with great force, so that for a
moment he feared he must have broken some bones. Cer-
tainly his breath was all but knocked from his body. Spread
out flat on the top of the rock, he moved his limbs cautiously.
They seemed to work all right. He backed cautiously until
he lay outspread on the upstream slope of the boulder. At
just this moment he caught the sinister figure of Saleratus
Bill moving along the sunken ledge.

For the first time Bob remembered the tracks he must
have left and the man's skill at trailing. A rapid review of
his most recent actions reassured him at one point; in order
to gain to the first of the minor cliff projections by means
of which he had spread-eagled along the face of the rock,
he had been forced to step into the very shallow water at the
stream's edge. Thus his last footprints led directly into the
river.

The value of this impression, conjoined with the existence
of a ledge below over which he had already waded safely,

584 THE RULES OF THE GAME

was not lost on Bob's perception. As has been stated, his
earlier experience in river driving had given him an inti-
mate knowledge of the action of currents. Casting his eye
hastily down the moonlit river, he seized his hat from his head
and threw it low and skimming toward an eddy opposite him
as he lay. The river snatched it up, tossed it to one side or
another, and finally carried it, as Bob had calculated, within
,a few feet of the ledge along which Saleratus Bill was still
making his way.

The gun-man, of course, caught sight of it, and even made
.an attempt to capture it as it floated past, but without avail.
It served, however, to prepossess his mind with the idea that
Bob had been swept away by the river, so that when, after a
careful examination of the tiny cove, he came to the trail
leading into the water, he was prepared to believe that the
young man had been carried off his feet in an attempt to
wade out past the cliff. He even picked up a branch, with
which he poked at the bottom. A short and narrow rock
projection favoured his hypothesis, for it might very well
happen that merely an experimental venture on so slant-
ing and slippery a footing would prove fatal. Saleratus
Bill examined again for footprints emerging; threw his branch
into the river, and watched the direction of its course; and
then, for the first time, slipped the worn and shiny old revolver
into its holster. He spent several moments more reexamin-
ing the cove, glanced again at the river, and finally dis-
appeared, wading slowly back around the sunken ledge.

Bob's next task was to regain solid land. For some min-
utes he sat astride the boulder, estimating the force and
directions of the current. Then he leaped. As he had cal-
culated, the stream threw him promptly against the bank
below. There his legs were immediately sucked beneath the
overhanging rock that had convinced Saleratus Bill of his
captive's fate. It seemed likely now to justify that convic-
tion. Bob clung desperately, until his muscles cracked, but
was unable so far to draw his legs from underneath the rock

THE RULES OF THE GAME 585

as to gain a chance to struggle out of water. Indeed, he
might very well have hung in that equilibrium of forces until
tired out, had not a slender, water-washed alder root offered
itself to his grasp. This frail shrub, but lightly rooted, never-
theless afforded him just the extra support he required.
Though he expected every instant that the additional ounces
of weight he from moment to moment applied to it would
tear it away, it held. Inch by inch he drew himself from the
clutch of the rushing water, until at length he succeeded in
getting the broad of his chest against the bank. A few vigor-
ous kicks then extricated him.

For a moment or so he lay stretched out panting, and
considering what next was to be done. There was a chance,
of course and, in view of Saleratus Bill's shrewdness, a
very strong chance that the gun-man would add to his
precautions a wait and a watch at the entrance to the cove.
If Bob were to wade out around the ledge, he might run
fairly into his former jailer's gun. On the other hand, Saler-
atus Bill must be fairly well convinced of the young man's
destruction, and he must be desirous of changing his wet
clothes. Bob's own predicament, in this chill of night, made
him attach much weight to this latter consideration. Besides,
any delay in the cove meant more tracks to be noticed when
the gun-man should come after the horses. Bob, his teeth
chattering, resolved to take the chance of instant action.

Accordingly he waded back along the sunken ledge, glided
as quickly as he could over the rock apron, and wormed his
way through the grasses to the dry wash leading up the side
of the mountains. Here fortune had favoured him, and by
a very simple, natural sequence. The moon had by an hour
sailed farther to the west; the wash now lay in shadow.

Bob climbed as rapidly as his wind would let him, and in
that manner avoided a chill. He reached the road at a broad
sheet of rock whereon his footsteps left no trace. After a
moment's consideration, he decided to continue directly up
the mountainside through the thick brush. This travel must

586 THE RULES OF THE GAME

be uncertain and laborious; but if he proceeded along the
road, Saleratus Bill must see the traces he would indubitably
leave. In the obscurity of the shady side of the mountain he
found his task even more difficult than he had thought pos-
sible. Again and again he found himself puzzled by impene-
trable thickets, impassable precipices, rough outcrops barring
his way. By dint of patience and hard work, however, he
gained the top of the mountain. At sunrise he looked back
into Bright's Cove. It lay there peacefully deserted, to all
appearance; but Bob, looking very closely, thought to make
out smoke. The long thread of the road was quite vacant.

XXIX

BOB had no very clear idea of where he was, except
that it was in the unfriendly Durham country. It
seemed well to postpone all public appearances
until he should be beyond a chance that Saleratus Bill
might hear of him. Bob was quite satisfied that the gun-
man should believe him to have been swept away by the
current.

Accordingly, after he had well rested from his vigorous
climb, he set out to parallel the dim old road by which the
two had entered the Cove. At times this proved so difficult
a matter that Bob was almost on the point of abandoning
the hillside tangle of boulders and brush in favour of the
open highway. He reflected in time that Saleratus Bill
must come out by this route; and he shrewdly surmised the
expert trailer might be able from some former minute obser-
vation to recognize his footprints. Therefore he struggled
on until the road dipped down toward the lower country.
He remembered that, on the way in, his captor had led him
first down the mountain, and then up again. Bob resolved
to abandon the road and keep to the higher contours, trust-
ing to cut the trail where it again mounted to his level. To
be sure, it was probable that there existed some very good
reason why the road so dipped to the valley some dike,
ridge or deep canon impassable to horses. Bob knew enough
of mountains to guess that. Still, he argued, that might not
stop a man afoot.

The rest of a long, hard day he spent in proving this latter
proposition. The country was very broken. A dozen
times Bob scrambled and slid down a gorge, and out again,

S87

588 THE RULES OF THE GAME

doing thus an hour's work for a half mile gain. The sun
turned hot, and he had no food. Fortunately water was
abundant. Toward the close of the afternoon he struck
in to a long slope of pine belt, and conceived his difficulties
over.

After the heat and glare of the rocks, the cool shadows of
the forest were doubly grateful. Bob lifted his face to the
wandering breezes, and stepped out with fresh vigour. The
way led at first up the narrow spine of a "hogback," but
soon widened into one of the ample and spacious parks
peculiar to the elevations near the summits of the First
Rampart. Occasional cattle tracks meandered here and
there, but save for these Bob saw no signs of man's activities
no cuttings, no shake-bolts, no blazes on the trees to mark
a way. Nevertheless, as he rose on the slow, even swell of
the mountain the conviction of familiarity began to force
its way in him. The forest was just like every other forest;
there was no outlook in any direction; but all the same, with
that instinct for locality inherent in a natural woodsman, he
began to get his bearings, to "feel the lay of the country,"
as the saying is. This is probably an effect of the sub-
conscious mind in memory; a recognition of what the eye
has seen without reporting to the conscious mind. How-
ever that may be, Bob was not surprised when toward sun-
set he came suddenly on a little clearing, a tiny orchard,
and a house built rudely of logs and shakes.

Relieved that he was not to spend the night without food
and fire, he vaulted the "snake" fence, and strode to the
back door. A woman was frying venison steaks.

"Hullo, Mrs. Ward," Bob shouted at her. "That smells
good to me; I haven't had a bite since last night I"

The woman dropped her pan and came to the door. A
lank and lean Pike County Missourian rose from the
shadows and advanced.

"Light and rest yo' hat, Mr. Ordel" he called before he
came well into view. "But yo' already lighted, and you

THE RULES OF THE GAME 589

ain't go no hat!" he cried in puzzled tones. "Whar yo'-
allfrom?"

"Came from north," Bob replied cheerfully, " and I lost
my horse down a canon, and my hat in a river."

"And yere yo' be plumb afoot!"

"And plumb empty," supplemented Bob. "Maybe Mrs.
Ward will make me some coffee," he suggested with a side
glance at the woman who had once tried to poison him.

She turned a dull red under the tan of her sallow com-
plexion.

"Shore, Mr. Orde " she began.

"We didn't rightly understand each other," Bob reas-
sured her. "That was all."

"Did she-all refuse you coffee onct?" asked Ward.
"What yo' palaverin' about?"

" She isn't refusing to make me some now," said Bob.

He spent the night comfortably with his new friends who
a few months ago had been ready to murder him. The next
morning early, supplied with an ample lunch, he set out.
Ward offered him a riding horse, but he declined.

"I'd have to send it back," said he, "and, anyway, I'd
neither want to borrow your saddle nor ride bareback. I'd
rather walk."

The old man accompanied him to the edge of the
clearing.

"By the way," Bob mentioned, as he said farewell, "if
some one asks you, just tell them you haven't seen me."

The old man stopped short.

"What-for a man?" he asked.

"Any sort."

A frosty gleam crept into the old Missourian's eye.

"I'll keep hands off," said he. He strode on twenty feet.
"I got an extra gun " said he.

"Thanks," Bob interrupted. "But I'll get organized
better when I get home."

"Hope you git him," said the old man by way of farewell.

5QO THE RULES OF THE GAME

"He won't git nothing out of me," he shot back over his
shoulder.

Bob now knew exactly where he was going. Reinvigorated
by the food, the night's rest, and the cool air of these higher
altitudes, he made good time. By four o'clock of the after-
noon he at last hit the broad, dusty thoroughfare over which
were hauled the supplies to Baker's upper works. Along
this he swung, hands in pockets, a whistle on his lips, the
fine, light dust rising behind his footsteps. The slight down
grade released his tired muscles from effort. He was enjoy-
ing himself.

Then he came suddenly around a corner plump against a
horseman climbing leisurely up the grade. Both stopped.

If Bob had entertained any lingering doubt as to Old-
ham's complicity in his abduction, the expression on the land
agent's face would have removed it. For the first time in
public Oldham's countenance expressed a livelier emotion
than that of cynical interest. His mouth fell open and his
eyeglasses dropped off. He stared at Bob as though that
young man had suddenly sprung into visibility from clear
atmosphere. Bob surveyed him grimly.

" Delighted to see me, aren't you ? " he remarked. A slow
anger surged up within him. "Your little scheme didn't
work, did it? Wanted me out of the way, did you?
Thought you'd keep me out of court! Well, I'm here, just
as I said I'd be here. You can pay your villainous tool
or kick him out, as you please. He's failed, and he won't
get another chance. You miserable whelp!"

But Oldham had recovered his poise.

" Get out of my way. I don't know what you are talking
about. I'll land you in the penitentiary a week after you
appear in court. You're warned."

" Oh, I've been warned for some time. But first I'll land
you."

"Really! How?"

"Right here and now," said Bob stepping forward.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 591

Oldham reined back his horse, and drew from his side
pocket a short, nickel-plated revolver.

"Let me pass!" he commanded harshly. He presented
the weapon, and his gray eyes contracted to pin points.

"Throw that thing away," said Bob, laying his hand on
the other man's bridle. u Pm going to give you the very
worst licking you ever heard tell ojl"

The young man's muscles were tense with the expectation
of a shot. To his vast astonishment, at his last words Old-
ham turned deadly pale, swayed in the saddle, and the
revolver clattered past his stirrup to fall in the dust. With
a snarl of contempt at what he erroneously took for a mere
physical cowardice, Bob reached for his enemy and dragged
him from the saddle.

The chastisement was brief, but effective. Bob's anger
cooled with the first blow, for Oldham was no match for his
younger and more vigorous assailant. In fact, he hardly
offered any resistance. Bob knocked him down, shook him
by the collar as a terrier shakes a ground squirrel, and cast
him fiercely in the dust. Oldham sat up, his face bleeding
slightly, his eyes bewildered with the suddenness of the
onslaught. The young man leaned over him, speaking
vehemently to rivet his attention.

"Now you listen to me," said he. "You leave me alone.
If I ever hear any gossip, even, about what you will or will
not do to me, I'll know where it started from. The first
word I hear from any one anywhere, I'll start for you."

He looked down for a moment at the disorganized man
seated in the thick, white dust that was still floating lazily
around him. Then he turned abruptly away and resumed
his journey.

XXX

FOR ten seconds Oldham sat as Bob had left him. His
hat and eyeglasses were gone, his usually immacu-
late irongray hair rumpled, his clothes covered with
dust. A thin stream of blood crept from beneath his close-
clipped moustache. But the most striking result of the
encounter, to one who had known the man, was in the con-
vulsed expression of his countenance. A close friend would
hardly have recognized him. His lips snarled, his eyes
flared, the muscles of his face worked. Ordinarily repressed
and inscrutable, this crisis had thrown him so far off his
balance that, as often happens, he had fallen to the other
extreme. Sniffling and half-sobbing, like a punished school-
boy, he dragged himself to where his revolver lay forgotten
in the dust. Taking as deliberate aim as his condition per-
mitted, he pulled at the trigger. The hammer refused to
rise, or the cylinder to revolve. Abandoning the self-cocking
feature of the arm, he tried to cock it by hand. The mechan^
ism grated sullenly against the grit from the road. Oldham
worked frantically to get the hammer to catch. By the
time he had succeeded, his antagonist was out of reach.
With a half-scream of baffled rage, he hurled the now useless
weapon in the direction of the young man's disappearance.
Then, as Oldham stood militant in the dusty road, a change
came over him. Little by little the man resumed his old
self. A full minute went by. Save for the quicker breath-
ing, a spectator might have thought him sunk in reverie.
At the end of that time the old, self-contained, reserved,
cynical Oldham stepped from his tracks, and set methodically
to repair damages.

592

THE RULES OF THE GAME 593

First he searched for and found his glasses, fortunately
unbroken. At the nearest streamlet he washed his face,
combed his hair, brushed off his clothes. The saddle horse
browsed not far away. Finally he walked down the road,
picked up the revolver, cleaned it thoroughly of dust, tested
it and slipped it into his pocket. Then he resumed his
journey, outwardly as self-possessed as ever.

Near the upper dam he had another encounter. The dust
of some one approaching warned him some time before the
traveller came in sight. Oldham reined back his horse until
he could see who it was; then he spurred forward to meet
Saleratus Bill.

The gun-man was lounging along at peace with all the
world, his bridle rein loose, his leg slung over the pommel of
his saddle. At the sight of his employer, he grinned
cheerfully.

Oldham rode directly to him.

"Why aren't you attending to your job?" he demanded
icily.

"Out of a job," said Saleratus Bill cheerfully.

"Why haven't you kept your man in charge?"

"I did until he just naturally had one of those unavoidable
accidents."

" Explain yourself."

"Well. I ain't never been afraid of words. He's dead;
that's what."

"Indeed," said Oldham, "Then I suppose I met
his ghost just now; and that a spirit gave me this cut
Up."

Saleratus Bill swung his leg from the saddle horn and
straightened to attention.

" Did he have a hat on?" he demanded keenly.

"Yes no I believe not. No, I'm sure he didn't."

"It's him, all right." He shook his head reflectively, "I
can't figure it."

Oldham was staring at him with deadly coldness.

594 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Perhaps you'll be good enough to explain," he sneered
"five hundred dollars' worth at any rate."

Saleratus Bill detailed what he knew of the whole affair.
Oldham listened to the end. His cynical expression did not
change; and the unlighted cigar that he held between his
swollen lips never changed its angle.

"And so he just nat'rally disappeared," Saleratus Bill
ended his recital. "I can't figure it out."

Then Oldham spat forth the cigar. His calm utterly
deserted him. He thrust his livid countenance out at his
man.

"Figure it out!" he cried. "You pin-headed fool! You
had an unarmed man tied hand and foot, in a three- thousand-
foot hole, and you couldn't keep him! And one of the small-
est interests involved is worth more than everything your
worthless hide can hold! I picked you out for this job
because I thought you reliable. And now you come to me
with 'I can't figure it out!' That's all the explanation or
excuse you bring! You miserable, worthless cur!"

Saleratus Bill was looking at him steadily from his evil,
red-rimmed eyes. .

"Hold on," he drawled. "Go slow. I don't stand such
talk."

Oldham spurred up close to him.

"Don't you try any of your gun-play or intimidation on
me," he fairly shouted. "I won't stand for it. You'll hear
what I've got to say, just as long as I choose to say it."

He eyed the gun-man truculently. Certainly even Bob
could not have accused him of physical cowardice at that
moment.

Saleratus Bill stared back at him with the steady, venomous
glare of a rattlesnake. Then his lips, under his straggling,
sandy moustache, parted in a slow grin.

"Say your say," he conceded. "I reckon you're mad; I
reckon that boy man-handled you something scand'lous."

At the words Oldham' s face became still more congested.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 595

" But you look a-here," said Saleratus Bill, suddenly lean-
ing across from his saddle and pointing a long, lean finger.
"You just remember this: I took this yere job with too many
strings tied to it. I mustn't hurt him; and I must see no
harm comes to him; and I must be noways cruel to mama's
baby. You had me hobbled, and then you cuss me out
because I can't get over the rocks. If you'd turned me
loose with no instructions except to disappear your man,
I'd have earned my money."

He dropped his hand to the butt of his six-shooter, and
looked his principal in the eye.

"I'm just as sorry as you are that he rnaue this get-away,"
he continued slowly. "Now I got to pull up stakes and
get out. Nat' rally he'll make it too hot for me here. Then
I could use that extry twenty-five hundred that was coming
to me on this job. But it ain't too late. He's got away
once; but he ain't in court yet. I can easy keep him out,
if the original bargain stands. Of course, I'm sorry he
punched your face."

"Damn his soul!" burst out Oldham.

"Just let me deal with him my way, instead of yours,"
repeated Saleratus Bill.

"Do so," snarled Oldham; "the sooner the better."

" That's all I want to hear," said the gun-man, and touched
spurs to his horse.

XXXI

BOB'S absence had occasioned some speculation, but
no uneasiness, at headquarters. An officer of the
Forest Service was too often called upon for sudden
excursions in unexpected emergencies to make it possible for
his chiefs to keep accurate track of all his movements. A
day's trip to the valley might easily be deflected to a week's
excursion to the higher peaks by any one of a dozen circum-
stances. The report of trespassing sheep, a tiny smoke
above distant trees, a messenger sent out for arbitration in
a cattle dispute, are samples of the calls to which Bob must
have hastened no matter on what errand he had been bound.

He arrived at headquarters late in the afternoon. Already
a thin wand of smoke wavered up through the trees from
Amy's little, open kitchen. The open door of the shed
office trickled forth a thin clicking of typewriters. Otherwise
the camp seemed deserted.

At Bob's halloo, however, both Thorne and old California
John came to the door. In two minutes he had all three
gathered about the table under the three big firs.

"In the first place, I want to say right now," he began,
"that I have the evidence to win the land case against the
Modoc Mining Company."

"How?" demanded Thorne, leaning forward eagerly.

" Baker has boasted, before two witnesses, that his mineral
entries were fraudulent and made simply to get water rights
and timber."

" Those witnesses will testify?"

"They will."

"Who are they?"

S96

THE RULES OF THE GAME 597

"Mr. Welton and myself."

" Glory be!" cried Thome, springing to his feet and clap-
ping Bob on the back. "We've got him!"

"So that's what you've been up to for the past week!"
cried Amy. "We've been wondering where you had dis-
appeared to!"

"Well, not precisely," grinned Bob; "I've been in durance
vile."

In response to their questionings he detailed a semi-
humorous account of his abduction, detention and escape.
His three auditors listened with the deepest attention.

As the recital progressed to the point wherein Bob described
his midnight escape, Amy, unnoticed by the others, leaned
back and closed her eyes. The colour left her face for a
moment, but the next instant had rushed back to her cheeks
in a tide of deeper red. She thrust forward, her eyes snap-
ping with indignation.

" They are desperate; there's no doubt of it," was Thome's
comment. "And they won't stop at this. I wish the trial
was to-morrow. We must get your testimony in shape
before anything happens."

Amy was staring across the table at them, her lips parted
with horror.

"You don't think they'll try anything worse!" she gasped.

Bob started to reassure her, but Thorne in his matter-of-
fact way broke in.

"I don't doubt they'll try to get him proper, next time.
We must get out papers and the sheriff after this Saleratus
Bill."

"He'll be almighty hard to locate," put in California John.

"And I think we'd better not let Bob, here, go around
alone any more."

" I don't think he ought to go around at all! " Amy amended
this vigorously.

Bob shot at her an obliquely humorous glance, before
which her own fell. Somehow the humour died from his.

598 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"Bodyguard accepted with thanks," said he, recovering
himself. "I've had enough Wild West on my own account."
His words and the expression of his face were facetious, but his
tones were instinct with a gravity that attracted even Thome's
attention. The Supervisor glanced at the young man curi-
ously, wondering if he were going to lose his nerve at the last.
But Bob's personal stake was furthest from his mind. Some-
thing in Amy's half-frightened gesture had opened a new door
in his soul. The real and insistent demands of the situation
had been suddenly struck shadowy while his forces adjusted
themselves to new possibilities.

"Ware's your man," suggested California John. "He's
a gun-man, and he's got a nerve like a saw-mill man."

"Where is Ware?" Thorne asked Amy.

"He's over at Fair's shake camp. He will be back
to-morrow."

"That's settled, then. How about Welton? Is he
warned? You say he'll testify?"

"If he has to," replied Bob, by a strong effort bringing
himself back to a practical consideration of the matter in
hand. "At least he'll never perjure himself, if he's called.
Welton' s case is different. Look here; it's bound to come
out, so you may as well know the whole situation."

He paused, glancing from one to another of his hearers.
Thome's keen face expressed interest of the alert official;
California John's mild blue eye beamed upon him with a
dawning understanding of the situation; Amy, intuitively
divining a more personal trouble, looked across at him with
sympathy.

"John, here, will remember the circumstance," said Bob.
"It happened about the time I first came out here with Mr.
Welton. It seems that Plant had assured him that every-
thing was all arranged so our works and roads could cross
the Forest, so we went ahead and built them. In those days
it was all a matter of form, anyway. Then when we were
ready to go ahead with our first season's work, up steps

THE RULES OF THE GAME 599

Plant and asks to see our permission, threatening to shut
us down! Of course, all he wanted was money."

"And Welton gave it to him?" cried Amy.

"It wasn't a case of buy a privilege," explained Bob, "but
of life itself. We were operating on borrowed money, and
just beginning our first year's operations. The season is
short in these mountains, as you know, and we were under
heavy obligations to fulfil a contract for sawed lumber. A
delay of even a week meant absolute ruin to a large enter-
prise. Mr. Welton held of to the edge of danger, I remem-
ber, exhausting every means possible here and at Washington
to rush through the necessary permission."

11 Why didn't he tell the truth expose Plant ? Surely no
department would endorse that," put in Amy, a trifle sub-
dued in manner.

"That takes time," Bob pointed out. "There was no time."

"So Welton came through," said Thorne drily. "What
has that got to do with it?"

"Baker paid the money for him," said Bob.

"Well, they're both in the same boat," remarked Thorne
tranquilly. "I don't see that that gives him any hold on
Welton."

"He threatens to turn state's evidence in the matter, and
seems confident of immunity on that account."

"He can't mean it!" cried Amy.

"Sheer bluff," said Thorne.

"I thought so, and went to see him. Now I am sure not.
He means it; and he'll do it when this case against the Modoc
Company is pushed."

"I thought you said Welton would testify?" observed
Thorne.

"He will. But naturally only if he is summoned."

"Then what "

"Oh, I see. Baker never thought he could keep Welton
from telling the truth, but knew perfectly well he would not
volunteer the evidence. He used his hold over Welton to

6oo THE RULES OF THE GAME

try to keep me from bringing forward this testimony. Sort
of relied on our intimacy and friendship."

"But you will testify?"

"I think I see my duty that way," said Bob in a troubled
voice.

" Quite right," saidThorne, dispassionately; "I'm sorry."
He arose from the table. " This is most important. I don't
often issue positive prohibitions in my capacity of superior
officer; but in this instance I must. I am going to request
you not to leave camp on any errand unless accompanied
by Ranger Ware."

Bob nodded a little impatiently. California John paused
before following his chief into the office.

"It's good sense, boy," said he, "and nobody gives a darn
for your worthless skin, you know. It's just the informa-
tion you got inside it."

"Right," laughed Bob, his brow clearing. "I forgot."

California John nodded at him, and disappeared into the
office.

Bob turned to Amy with a laughing comment that died on
his lips. The girl was standing very straight on the other
side of the table. One little brown hand grasped and
crushed the edge of her starched apron; her black brows
were drawn in a straight line of indignation beneath which her
splendid eyes flashed; her rounded bosom, half -denned by the
loose, soft blue of her simple gown, rose and fell rapidly.

"And you're going to do it?" she threw across at him.

Bob, bewildered, stared at her.

"You're going to deliver over your friend to prison?"
She moved swiftly around the table to stand close to him.
"Surely you can't mean to do that! You've worked with
him, and lived with him and he's a dear, jolly old man!"

"Hold on!" cried Bob, recovering from the first shock,
and beginning to enjoy the situation. "You don't under-
stand. If I don't give my testimony, think what the Service
will lose in the Basin."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 60 1

"Lose!" she cried indignantly. "What of it? Do you
think if I had a friend who was near and dear to me I'd sacri-
fice him for all the trees in the mountains? How can you!"

"Et tu Brute!" said Bob a little wearily. "Where is all
the no-compromise talk I've heard at various times, and
the high ideals, and the loyalty to the Service at any cost,
and all the rest of it? You're not consistent."

Amy eyed him a little disdainfully.

" You've got to save that poor old man," she stated. " It's
all very easy for you to talk of duty and the rest of it, but the ,
fact remains that you're sending that poor old man to prison
for something that isn't his fault, and it'll break his heart."

"He isn't there yet," Bob pointed out. "The case isn't
decided."

"It's all very well for you to talk that way," said Amy,
" for all you have to do is to satisfy your conscience and bear
your testimony. But if testifying would land you in danger
of prison, you might feel differently about it."

Bob thought of George Pollock, and smiled a trifle bitterly.
Welton might get off with a fine, or even suspended sentence.
There was but one punishment for those accessory before
the fact to a murder. Amy was eyeing him reflectively.
The appearance of anger had died. It was evident that she
was thinking deeply.

"Why doesn't Mr. Welton protect himself?" she inquired
at length. "If he turned state's evidence before that man
Baker did, wouldn't it work that way around?"

"I don't believe it would," said Bob. "Baker was not
the real principal in the offence, only an accessory. Besides,
even if it were possible, Mr. Welton would not do such a
thing. You don't know Welton."

Amy sank again to reflection, her eyes losing themselves
in a gaze beyond the visible world. Suddenly she threw up
her head with a joyous chuckle.

"I believe I have it!" she cried. She nodded her head
several times as though to corroborate with herself certain

602 THE RULES OF THE GAME

points in her plan. " Listen ! " she said at last. " As I under-
stand it, Baker is really liable on this charge of bribing Plant
as much as Mr. Welton is."

"Yes; he paid the money. 7 '

" So that if it were not for the fact that he intends to gain
immunity by telling what he knows, he would get into as
much trouble as Mr. Welton."

"Of course."

"Well, don't you know enough about it all to testify?
Weren't you there?"

Bob reflected.

"Yes, I believe I was present at all the interviews."

"Then," cried Amy triumphantly, "you can issue
complaint against both Baker and Mr. V/elton on a charge of
bribery, and Baker can't possibly wriggle out by turning
state's evidence, because your evidence will be enough."

"Do you expect me to have Mr. Welton arrested on this
charge?" cried Bob.

"No, silly! But you can go to Baker, can't you, and say
to him: 'See here, if you try to bring up this old bribery
charge against Welton, I'll get in ahead of you and have you
both up. I haven't any desire to raise a fuss, nor start any
trouble; but if you are bound to get Mr. Welton in on this,
I might as well get you both in.' He'd back out, you see!"

"I believe he would!" cried Bob. "It's a good bluff to
make."

"It mustn't be a bluff," warned Amy. "You must mean
it. I don't believe he wants to face a criminal charge just
to get Mr. Welton in trouble, if he realizes that you are both
going to testify anyway. But if he thinks you're bluffing,
he'll carry it through."

"You're right," said Bob slowly. "If necessary, we must
carry it through ourselves."

Amy nodded.

"I'll take down a letter for you to Baker," she said, "and
type it out this evening. We'll say nothing to anybody."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 603

"I must tell Welton of our plan," said Bob; "I wouldn't
for the world have to spring this on him unprepared. What
would he think of me?"

"We'll see him to-morrow no, next day; we have to
wait for Ware, you know."

"Am I forgiven for doing my plain duty?" asked Bob a
trifle mischievously.

" Only if our scheme works," declared Amy. Her manner
changed to one of great seriousness. "I know your way is
brave and true, believe me I do. And I know what it costs
you to follow it. I respect and admire the quality in men
that leads them so straightly along the path. But I could
not do it. Ideas and things are inspiring and great and to
be worked for with enthusiasm and devotion, I know. No
one loves the Service more than I, nor would make more
personal sacrifices for her. But people are warm and living,
and their hearts beat with human life, and they can be sorry
and glad, happy and broken-hearted. I can't tell you quite
what I mean, for I cannot even tell myself. I only feel it.
I could turn my thumbs down on whole cohorts of senators
and lawyers and demagogues that are attacking us in Wash-
ington and read calmly in next day's paper how they had
been beheaded recanting all their sins against us. But I
couldn't get any nearer home. Why, the other day Ashley
told me to send a final and peremptory notice of dispossession
to the Main family, over near Bald Knob, and I couldn't do
it. I tried all day. I knew old Main had no business there,
and is worthless and lazy and shiftless. But I kept remem-
bering how his poor old back was bent over. Finally I
made Ashley dictate it, and tried to keep thinking all the
time that I was nothing but a machine for the transmission
of his ideas. When it comes to such things I'm useless,
and I know I fall short of all higher ideals of honour and
duty and everything else."

"Thank God you do," said Bob gravely.

XXXII

WARE returned to headquarters toward evening
of the next day. He had ridden hard and
long, but he listened to Thome's definition
of his new duties with kindling eye, and considerable
appearance of quiet satisfaction. Bob met him outside
the office.

"You aren't living up to your part, Ware," said he, with
mock anxiety. " According to Hoyle you ought to draw
your gun, whirl the cylinder, and murmur gently, Aha!"

"Why should I do that?" asked Ware, considerably
mystified.

"To see if your weapon is in order, of course."

"How would a fool trick like that show whether my gun's
in shape?"

"Hanged if I know," confessed Bob, "but they always do
that in books and on the stage."

"Well, my gun will shoot," said Ware, shortly.

It was then too late to visit Welton that evening, but at
a good hour the following morning Bob announced his
intention of going over to the mill.

"If you're going to be my faithful guardian,
you'll have to walk," he told Ware. "My horse is
up north somewhere, and there isn't another saddle in
camp."

"I'm willing," said Ware; "my animals are plumb needy
of a rest."

At the last moment Amy joined them.

"I have a day off instead of Sunday," she told them,
"and you're the first humans that have discovered what

604

THE RULES OF THE GAME 605

two feet are made for. I never can get anybody to walk
two steps with me," she complained.

"Never tried before you acquired those beautiful gray
elkskin boots with the ravishing hobnails in 'em," chaffed
Bob.

Amy said nothing, but her cheeks burned with two red
spots. She chatted eagerly, too eagerly, trying to throw into
the expedition the air of a holiday excursion. Bob responded
to her rather feverish gaiety, but Ware looked at her with
an eye in which comprehension was slowly dawning. He
had nothing to add to the rapid-fire conversation. Finally
Amy inquired with mock anxiety, over his unwonted silence.

"I'm on my job," replied Ware briefly.

This silenced her for a moment or so, while she examined
the woods about them with furtive, searching glances as
though their shadows might conceal an enemy.

To Bob, at least, the morning conduced to gaiety, for the
air was crisp and sparkling with the wine of early fall.
Down through the sombre pines, here and there, flamed
the delicate pink of a dogwood, the orange of the azaleas,
or the golden yellow of aspens ripening already under the
hurrying of early frosts. The squirrels, Stellar's jays, wood-
peckers, nuthatches and chickadees were very busy scur-
rying here and there, screaming gossip, or moving dili-
gently and methodically as their natures were. All the
rest of the forest was silent. Not a breath of wind stirred
the tallest fir-tip or swayed the most lofty pine branch.
Through the woodland spaces the sunlight sparkled with
the inconceivable brilliance of the higher levels, as though
the air were filled with glittering particles in suspension,
like the mica snowstorms of the peep shows inside a child's
candy egg.

They dipped into the canon of the creek and out agaiK
through the yellow pines of the other side. They skirted
the edge of the ancient clearing for the almost prehistoric mill
that had supplied early settlers with their lumber, and thence

606 THE RULES OF THE GAME

looked out through trees to the brown and shimmering plain
lying far below.

"My, I'm glad I'm not there!'' exclaimed Amy fervently:
"I always say that," she added.

"A hundred and eleven day before yesterday, Jack Pol-
lock says," remarked Bob.

So at last they gained the long ridge leading toward the
mill and saw a hundred feet away the mill road, and the
forks where their own wagon trail joined it.

At this point they again entered the forest, screened by
young growth and a thicket of alders.

"Look there," Amy pointed out. "See that dogwood, up
by the yellow pine. It's the most splendiferous we've seen
yet. Wait a minute. I'm going to get a branch of it for
Mr. Welton's office. I don't believe anybody ever picks
anything for him."

"Let me ' began Bob; but she was already gone,

calling back over her shoulder.

"No; this is my treat!"

The men stopped in the wagon trail to wait for her. Bob
watched with distinct pleasure her lithe, active figure mak-
ing its way through the tangle of underbrush, finally emerg-
ing into the clear and climbing with swift, sure movements
to the little elevation on which grew the beautiful, pink-
leaved dogwoods. She turned when she had gained the
level of the yellow pine, to wave her hand at her companions.
Even at the distance, Bob could make out the flush of her
cheeks and divine the delighted sparkle of her eyes.

But as she turned, her gesture was arrested in midair,
and almost instantly she uttered a piercing scream. Bob
had time to take a half step forward. Then a heavy blow
on the back of his neck threw him forward. He stumbled
and fell on his face. As he left his feet, the crash of two
revolver shots in quick succession rang in his ears.

XXXIII

OLDHAM'S cold rage carried him to the railroad and
into his berth. Then, with the regular beat and
throb of the carwheeis over the sleepers, other
considerations forced themselves upon him. Consequences
demanded recognition.

The land agent had not for many years permitted him-
self to act on impulse. Therefore this one lapse from
habit alarmed him vaguely by the mere fact that it was a
lapse from habit. He distrusted himself in an unaccus-
tomed environment of the emotions.

But superinduced on this formless uneasiness were graver
considerations. He could not but admit to himself that
he had by his expressed order placed himself to some extent
in Saleratus Bill's power. He did not for a moment doubt
the gun-man's loyal intentions. As long as things went
well he would do his best by his employer if merely to
gain the reward promised him only on fulfillment of his
task. But it is not easy to commit a murder undetected.
And if detected, Oldham had no illusions as to Saleratus
Bill. The gun-man would promptly shelter himself behind
his principal.

As the night went on, and Oldham found himself unable
to sleep in the terrible heat, the situation visualized itself.
Step by step he followed out the sequence of events as they
might be, filling in the minutest details of discovery, expo-
sure and ruin. Gradually, in the tipped balance of after
midnight, events as they might be became events as they
surely would be. Oldham began to see that he had made
a fearful mistake. No compunction entered his mind

607

6o8 THE RULES OF THE GAME

that he had condemned a man to death; but a cold fear
gripped him lest his share should be discovered, and he
should be called upon to face the consequences. Oldham
enjoyed and could play only the game that was safe so far
as physical and personal retribution went.

So deeply did the guilty panic invade his soul that after
a time he arose and dressed. The sleepy porter was just
turning out from the smoking compartment.

"What's this next station?" Oldham demanded.

"Mo-harvey," blinked the porter.

"I get off there," stated Oldham briefly.

The porter stared at him.

"I done thought you went 'way through," he confessed.
"I'se scairt I done forgot you."

"All right," said Oldham curtly, and handing him a
tip. "Never mind that confounded brush; get my suit
case."

Ten seconds later he stood on the platform of the little
station in the desert while the tail lights of the train dimin-
ished slowly into the distance.

The desert lay all about him like a calmed sea on which
were dim half-lights of sage brush or alkali flats. On a
distant horizon slept black mountain ranges, stretched low
under a brilliant sky that arched triumphant. In it the
stars flamed steadily like candles, after the strange desert
fashion. Although by day the heat would have scorched
the boards on which he stood, now Oldham shivered in
the searching of the cool insistent night wind that breathed
across the great spaces.

He turned to the lighted windows of the little station where
a tousled operator sat at a telegraph key. A couch in the
comer had been recently deserted. The fact that the oper-
ator was still awake and on duty argued well for another
train soon. Oldham proffered his question.

"Los Angeles express due now. Half-hour late," replied
the operator wearily, without looking up.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 609

Oldham caught the train, which landed him in White
Oaks about noon. There he hired a team, and drove the sixty
miles to Sycamore Flats by eleven o'clock that night. The
fear was growing in his heart, and he had to lay on himself
a strong retaining hand to keep from lashing his horses
beyond their endurance and strength. Sycamore Flats was,
of course, long since abed. In spite of his wild impatience
Oldham retained enough sense to know that it would not
do to awaken any one for the sole purpose of inquiring
as to the whereabouts of Saleratus Bill. That would too
obviously connect him with the gun-man. Therefore he
stabled his horses, roused one of the girls at Auntie Belle's,
and retired to the little box room assigned him.

There nature asserted herself. The man had not slept
for two nights; he had travelled many miles on horseback,
by train, and by buckboard; he had experienced the most
exhausting of emotions and experiences. He fell asleep,
and he did not awaken until after sun-up.

Promptly he began his inquiries. Saleratus Bill had
passed through the night before; he had ridden up the
mill road.

Oldham ate his breakfast, saddled one of the team horses,
and followed. Ordinarily, he was little of a woodsman,
but his anxiety sharpened his wits and his eyes, so that a
quarter mile from the summit he noticed where a shod
horse had turned off from the road. After a moment's
hesitation he turned his own animal to follow the trail.
The horse tracks were evidently fresh, and Oldham sur-
mised that it was hardly probable two horsemen had as yet
that morning travelled the mill road. While he debated,
young Elliott swung down the dusty way headed toward
the village. He greeted Oldham.

" Is Orde back at headquarters yet?" the latter asked,
on impulse.

"Yes, he got back day before yesterday," the young
ranger replied; "but you won't find him there this morn-

6 io THE RULES OF THE GAME

ing. He walked over to the mill to see Welton. You'd
probably get him there."

Oldham waited only until Elliott had rounded the next
corner, then spurred his horse up the mountain. The sig-
nificance of the detour was now no longer in doubt, for he
remembered well how and where the wagon trail from
headquarters joined the mill road. Saleratus Bill would
leave his horse out of sight on the hog-back ridge, sneak
forward afoot, and ambush his man at the forks of the road.

And now, in the clairvoyance of this guilty terror, Old-
ham saw as assured facts several further possibilities.
Saleratus Bill was known to have ridden up the mill road;
he, Oldham, was known to have been inquiring after both
Saleratus Bill and Orde in short, out of wild improba-
bilities, which to his ordinary calm judgment would have
meant nothing at all, he now wove a tissue of danger. He
wished he had thought to ask Elliott how long ago Orde
had started out from headquarters.

The last pitch up the mountain was by necessity a fear-
ful grade, for it had to surmount as best it could the ledge
at the crest of the plateau. Horsemen here were accustomed
to pause every fifty feet or so to allow their mounts a gulp
of air. Oldham plied lash and spur. He came out from
his frenzy of panic to find his horse, completely blown,
lying down under him. The animal, already weary from
its sixty-mile drive of yesterday, was quite done. After a
futile effort to make it rise, Oldham realized this fact. He
pursued his journey afoot.

Somewhat sobered and brought to his senses by this
accident, Oldham trudged on as rapidly as his wind would
allow. As he neared the crossroads he slackened his pace,
for he saw that no living creature moved on the headquar-
ters fork of the road. As a matter of fact, at that precise
instant both Bob and Ware were within forty yards of him,
standing still waiting for Amy to collect her dogwood leaves.
A single small alder concealed them from the other road.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 6n

If they had not happened to have stopped, two seconds
would have brought them into sight in either direction.
Therefore, Oldham thought the road empty, and himself
came to a halt to catch his breath and mop his brow.

As he replaced his hat, his eye caught a glimpse of a man
crouching and gliding cautiously forward through the low
concealment of the snowbush. His movements were quick,
his head was craned forward, every muscle was taut, his
eyes fixed on some object invisible to Oldham with an inten-
sity that evidently excluded from the field of his vision every-
thing but that toward which his lithe and snake-like advance
was bringing him. In his hand he carried the worn and
shining Colts 45 that was always his inseparable compan-
ion.

Oldham made a single step forward. At the same moment
somewhere above him on the hill a woman screamed. The
cry was instantly followed by two revolver shots.

XXXIV

WARE was an expert gun-man who had survived
the early days of Arizona, New Mexico, and the
later ruffianism of the border on Old Mexico.
His habit was at all times alert. Now, in especial, behind
his casual conversation, he had been straining his finer
senses for the first intimations of danger. For perhaps six
seconds before Amy cried out he had been aware of an
unusual faint sound heard beneath rather than above the
cheerful and accustomed noises of the forest. It baffled
him. If he had imposed silence on his companion, and had
set himself to listening, he might have been able to identify
and localize it, but it really presented nothing alarming
enough. It might have been a squirrel playfully spasmodic,
or the leisurely step forward of some hidden and distant
cow browsing among the bushes. Ware lent an attentive
ear to the quiet sounds of the woodland, but continued to
stand at ease and unalarmed.

The scream, however, released instantly the springs of his
action. With the heel of his left palm he dealt Bob so violent
a shoving blow that the young man was thrown forward
off his feet. As part of the same motion his right hand
snatched his weapon from its holster, threw the muzzle over
his left shoulder, and discharged the revolver twice in the
direction from which Ware all at once realized the sound
had proceeded. So quickly did the man's brain act, so
instantly did his muscles follow his brain, that the scream,
the blow, and the two shots seemed to go off together as
though fired by one fuse.

Bob bounded to his feet. Ware had whirled in his tracks,

612

THE RULES OF THE GAME 613

had crouched, and was glaring fixedly across the openings
at the forks. The revolver smoked in his hand.

" Oh, are you hurt ? Are you hurt ?" Amy was crying over
and over, as, regardless of the stiff manzanita and the spiny
deer brush, she tore her way down the hill.

"All right! All right!" Bob found his breath to assure
her.

She stopped short, clenched her hands at her sides, and
drew a deep, sobbing breath. Then, quite collectedly, she
began to disentangle herself from the difficulties into which
her haste had precipitated her.

"It's all right," she called to Ware. "He's gone. He's
run."

Still tense, Ware rose to his full height. He let down the
hammer of his six-shooter, and dropped the weapon back
in its holster.

"What was it, Amy?" he asked, as the girl rejoined
them.

"Saleratus Bill," she panted. "He had his gun in his
hand."

Bob was looking about him a trifle bewildered.

" I thought for a minute I was hit," said he.

"I knocked you down to get you down," explained Ware.
" If there's shooting going on, it's best to get low."

"Thought I was shot," confessed Bob. "I heard two
shots."

"I fired twice," said Ware. "Thought sure I must have
hit, or he'd have fired back. Otherwise I'd a' kept shoot-
ing. You say he run ? "

" Immediately. Didn't you see him ? "

"I just cut loose at the noise he made. Why do you sup-
pose he didn't shoot ? "

"Maybe he wasn't gunning for us after all," suggested
Bob.

"Maybe you've got another think coming," said Ware.

During this short exchange they were all three moving

6 14 THE RULES OF THE GAME

down the wagon trail. Ware's keen old eyes v/ere glancing
to right, left and ahead, and his ears fairly twitched. In
spite of his conversation and speculations, he was fully alive
to the possibilities of further danger.

"He maybe's laying for us yet," said Bob, as the thought
finally occurred to him. " Better have your gun handy."

"My gun's always handy," said Ware.

"You're bearing too far south," interposed the girl. "He
v;as more up this way."

"Don't think it," said Ware.

"Yes," she insisted. "I marked that young fir near
where I first saw him; and he ran low around that clump
of manzanita."

Still skeptical, Ware joined her.

"That's right," he admitted, after a moment. "Here's
his trail. I'd have swore he was farther south. That's
where I fired. I only missed him by about a hundred yards, ' '
he grinned. "He sure made a mighty tall sneak. I'm still
figuring why he didn't open fire."

"Waiting for a better chance, maybe," suggested
Amy.

"Must be. But what better chance does he want, unless
he aims to get Bob here, with a club?"

They followed the tracks left by Saleratus Bill until it was
evident beyond doubt that the gun-man had in reality
departed. Then they started to retrace their steps.

"Why not cut across?" asked Bob.

"I want to see whereabouts I was shooting," said Ware.

"We'll cut across and wait for you on the road."

"All right," Ware agreed.

They made their short-cut, and waited. After a minute
or so Ware shouted to them.

"Hullo!" Bob answered.

"Come here!"

They returned down the dusty mill road. Just beyond
the forks Ware was standing, looking down at some object.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 615

As they approached he raised his face to them. Even under
its tan, it was pale.

"Guess this is another case of innocent bystander," said
he gravely.

Flat on his back, arms outstretched in the dust, lay Old-
ham, with a bullet hole accurately in the middle of his
forehead.

XXXV

GOOD HEAVENS!" cried Amy. "What an awful
thing!"
"Yes, ma'am," said Ware; "this is certainly
tough. But I can't see but it was a plumb accident.
Who'd have thought he'd be coming along the road just at
that minute. "

"Of course, you're not to blame," Amy reassured him
quickly. "We must get help. Of course, he's quite dead."

Ware nodded, gazing down at his victim reflectively.

"I was shootin' a little high," he remarked at last.

Up to this moment Bob had said nothing.

"If it will relieve your mind, any," he told Ware, "it
isn't such a case of innocent bystander as you may think.
This man is the one who hired Saleratus Bill to abduct me
in the first place; and probably to kill me in the second. I
have a suspicion he got what he deserved."

"Oh!" cried Amy, looking at him reproachfully.

"It's a fact," Bob insisted. "I know his connection with
all this better than you do, and his being on this road was no
accident. It was to see his orders carried out."

Ware was looking at him shrewdly.

"That fits," he declared. "I couldn't figure why my
old friend Bill didn't cut loose. But he's got a head on
him."

"What do you mean?"

"Why, when he see Oldham dropped, what use was there
of going to shooting ? It would just make trouble for him
and he couldn't hope for no pay. He just faded."

" He's a quick thinker, then," said Bob.

616

THE RULES OF THE GAME 617

"You bet you!"

The two men laid Oldham's body under the shade. As
they disposed it decently, Bob experienced again that haunt-
ing sense of having known him elsewhere that had on several
occasions assailed his memory. The man's face was familiar
to him with a familiarity that Bob somehow felt antedated his
California acquaintance.

" We must get to the mill and send a wagon for him," Ware
was saying.

But Amy suddenly turned faint, and was unable to pro-
ceed.

"It's perfectly silly of me!" she cried indignantly. "The
idea of my feeling faint! It makes me so angry 1"

"It's perfectly natural," Bob told her. "I think you've
shown a heap of nerve. Most girls would have flopped
over."

The men helped her to a streamlet some hundreds of
yards away. Here it was agreed that Ware should proceed
in search of a conveyance; and that Bob and Amy should
there await his return.

XXXVI

WARE disappeared rapidly up the dusty road, Bob
and Amy standing side by side in silence, watch-
ing him go. When the lean, long figure of the old
mountaineer had quite disappeared, and the light, eddying
dust, peculiar to the Sierra country, had died, Amy closed
her eyes, raised her hand to her heart, and sank slowly to the
bank of the little creek. Her vivid colour, which had for a
moment returned under the influence of her strong will and
her indignation over her weakness, had again ebbed from her
cheeks.

Bob, with an exclamation of alarm, dropped to her side
and passed his arm back of her shoulders. As she felt the
presence of his support, she let slip the last desperate holdings
of physical command, and leaned back gratefully, breathing
hard, her eyes still closed.

After a moment she opened them long enough to smile
palely at the anxious face of the young man.

"It's all right," she said. "I'm all right. Don't be
alarmed. Just let me rest a minute. I'll be all right."

She closed her eyes again. Bob, watching, saw the colour
gradually flowing up under her skin, and was reassured.

The girl lay against his arm limply. At first he was con-
cerned merely with the supporting of the slight burden;
careful to hold her as comfortably as possible. Then the
warmth of her body penetrated to his arm. A new emotion
invaded him, feeble in the beginning, but gaining strength
from instant to instant. It mounted his breast as a tide
would mount, until it had shortened his breath, set his heart
to thumping dully, choked his throat. He looked down at

618

THE RULES OF THE GAME 619

her with troubled eyes, following the curve of her upturned
face, the long line of her throat exposed by the backward
thrown position of her head, the swell of her breast under the
thin gown. The helplessness of the pose caught at Bob's
heart. For the first time Amy the vivid, self-reliant, cap-
able, laughing Amy appealed to him as a being demand-
ing protection, as a woman with a woman's instinctive crav-
ing for cherishing, as a delicious, soft, feminine creature,
calling forth the tendernesses of a man's heart. In the nor-
mal world of everyday association this side of her had never
been revealed, never suspected; yet now, here, it rose up to
throw into insignificance all the other qualities of the girl he
had known. Bob spared a swift thought of gratitude to the
chance that had revealed to him this unguessed, intimate
phase of womanhood.

And then the insight with which the significant moment
had endowed him leaped to the simple comprehension of
another thought that this revelation of intimacy, of the
woman-appeal lying unguessed beneath the comradeship of
everyday life, was after all only a matter of chance. It had
been revealed to him by the accident of a moment's faint-
ness, by which the conscious will of the girl had been driven
back from the defences. In a short time it would be over.
She would resume her ordinary demeanour, her ordinary
interest, her ordinary bright, cheerful, attractive, matter-of-
fact, efficient self. Everything would be as before. But
and here Bob's breath came quickest in the great good-
ness of the world lay another possibility; that sometime, at
the call of some one person, for that one and no other, this
inner beautiful soul of the feminine appeal would come forth
freely, consciously, willingly.

Amy opened her eyes, sat up, shook herself slightly, and
laughed.

"I'm all right now," she told Bob, "and certainly very
much ashamed."

"Amy!" he stammered.

620 THE RULES OF THE GAME

She shot a swift look at him, and immediately arose to her
feet.

"We will have to testify at a coroner's inquest, I presume,"
said she, in the most matter-of-fact tones.

" I suppose so," agreed Bob morosely. It is impossible to
turn back all the strongly set currents of life without at least
a temporary turmoil.

Amy glanced at him sideways, and smiled a faint, wise smile
to herself. For in these matters, while men are more analytical
after the fact, women are by nature more informed. She
said nothing, but stooped to the creek for a drink. When
she had again straightened to her feet, Bob had come to him-
self. The purport of Amy's last speech had fully penetrated
his understanding, and one word of it the word testify
had struck him with an idea.

"By Jove!" he cried, "that lets out Pollock!"

"What?" said Amy.

"This man Oldham was the only witness who could have
convicted George Pollock of killing Plant."

"What do you mean?" asked Amy, leaning forward inter-
estedly. "Was he there? How do you know about it?' 7

A half -hour before Bob would have hesitated long before
confiding his secret to a fourth party; but now, for him, the
world of relations had shifted.

"I'll tell you about it," said he, without hesitation; "but
this is serious. You must never breathe even a word of
it to any one!"

"Certainly not!" cried Amy.

" Oldham wasn't an actual witness of the killing; but I was,
and he knew it. He could have made me testify by inform-
ing the prosecuting attorney."

Bob sketched rapidly his share in the tragedy: how he
had held Pollock's horse, and been in a way an accessory
to the deed. Amy listened attentively to the recital of the
facts, but before Bob had begun to draw his conclusions, she
broke in swiftly.

THE RULES OF THE GAME 621

" So Oldham offered to let you off, if you would keep out
of this Modoc Land case," said she.

Bob nodded.

"That was it."

"But it would have put you in the penitentiary," she
pointed out.

"Well, the case wasn't quite decided yet."

She made her quaint gesture of the happily up-thrown
hands.

" Just what you said about Mr. Welton!" she cried. " Oh,
I'm glad you told me this! I was trying so hard to think
you were doing a high and noble duty in ignoring the conse-
quences to that poor old man. But I could not. Now
I see!"

"What do you mean?" asked Bob curiously, as she
paused.

"You could do it because your act placed you in worse
danger," she told him.

"Too many for me," Bob disclaimed. "I simply wasn't
going to be bluffed out by that gang!"

"That was it," said Amy wisely. "I know you better
than you do yourself. You don't suppose," she cried, as
a new thought alarmed her, "that Oldham has told the
prosecuting attorney that your evidence would be valu-
able."

Bob shook his head.

"The trial is next week," he pointed out. "In case the
prosecution had intended calling me, I should have been
summoned long since. There's dust; they are coming.
You'd better stay here."

She agreed readily to this. After a moment a light wagon
drove up. On the seat perched Welton and Ware. Bob
climbed in behind.

They drove rapidly down to the forks, stopped and hitched
the team.

"Ware's been telling me the whole situation, Bobby," said

622 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Welton. "That gang's getting pretty desperate! I've
heard of this man Oldham around this country for a long
while, but I always understood he was interested against the
Power Company."

"Bluff," said Bob briefly. "He's been in their employ
from the first, but I never thought he'd go in for quite this
kind of strong-arm work. He doesn't look it, do you
think?"

"I never laid eyes on him," replied Welton. "He's never
been near the mill, and I never happened to run across him
anywhere else."

By this time they had secured the team. Ware led the way
to the tree under which lay the body of the land agent.
Welton surveyed the prostrate figure for some time in silence.
Then turned to Bob, a curious expression on his face.

"It wasn't an accident that I never met him," said he.
"He saw to it. Don't you remember this man, Bobby?"

" I saw him in Los Angeles some years ago."

" Before that in Michigan many years ago."

"His face has always seemed familiar to me," said Bob
slowly. " I can't place it yes hold on!"

A picture defined itself from the mists of his boyhood
memories. It was of an open field, with a fringe of beech
woods in the distance. A single hickory stood near its centre,
and under this a group lounged, smoking pipes. A man,
perched on a cracker box, held a blank book and pencil.
Another stood by a board, a gun in his hand. The smell of
black powder hung in the atmosphere. Little glass balls
popped into the air, and were snuffed out. He saw Oldham
distinctly, looking younger and browner, but with the same
cynical mouth, the same cold eyes, the same slanted eye-
glasses. Even before his recollections reproduced the
scorer's drawling voice calling the next contestant, his mem-
ory supplied the name.

"It's Newmark!" he cried aloud.

"Joe Newmark, your father's old partner! He hasn't

THE RULES OF THE GAME 623

changed much. He disappeared from Michigan when you
were about eight years old; didn't he! Nobody ever knew
how or why, but everybody had suspicions. . . . Well;
let's get him in."

They disposed the body in the wagon, and drove back up
the road. At the little brook they stopped to let off Ware.
It was agreed that all danger to Bob was now past, and that
the gun-man would do better to accompany Amy back to
headquarters. Of course, it would be necessary to work the
whole matter out at the coroner's inquest, but in view of
the circumstances, Ware's safety was assured.

At the mill the necessary telephoning was done, the
officials summoned, and everything put in order.

"What I really started over to see you about," then said
Bob to Welton, "is this matter of the Modoc Company."
He went on to explain fully Amy's plan for checkmating
Baker. "You see, if I get in my word first, Baker is as
much implicated as you are, and it won't do him any good
to turn state's evidence."

"I don't see as that helps me," remarked Welton gloomily.

" Baker might be willing to put himself in any position,"
said Bob; "but I doubt if he'll care to take the risk of crim-
inal punishment. I think this will head him off completely;
but if it doesn't, every move he makes to save his own skin
saves yours too."

"It may do some good," agreed Welton. "Try it."

"I've already written Baker. But I didn't want you to
think I was starting up the bloodhounds against you without
some blame good reason."

" I'd know that anyway, Bobby," said Welton kindly. He
stared moodily at the stovepipe. "This is getting too thick
for an old-timer," he broke out at last. "I'm just a plain,
old-fashioned lumberman, and all I know is to cut lumber,
I pass this mess up. I wired your father he'd better come
along out."

"Is he coming?" asked Bob eagerly.

624 THE RULES OF THE GAME

" I just got a message over the 'phone from the telegraph
office. He'll be in White Oaks as fast as he can get there.
Didn't I tell you?"

"Wire him aboard train to go through to Fremont, and
that we'll meet him there," said Bob instantly. "It's get-
ting about time to beard the lion in his den."

XXXVII

THE coroner's inquest detained Bob over until the
week following. In it Amy's testimony as to the
gun-man's appearance and evident intention was
quite sufficient to excuse Ware's shooting; and the fact that
Oldham, as he was still known, instead of Saleratus Bill,
received the bullet was evidently sheer unavoidable accident.
Bob's testimony added little save corroboration. As soon
as he could get away, he took the road to Fremont.

Orde was awaiting his son at the station. Bob saw the
straight, heavy figure, the tanned face with the snow-white
moustache, before the train had come to a stop. Full of
eagerness, he waved his hat over the head of the outraged
porter barricaded on the lower steps by his customary accum-
ulation of suit cases.

"Hullo, dad! Hullo, there!" he shouted again and again,
quite oblivious to the amusement of the other passengers over
this tall and bronzed young man's enthusiasm.

Orde caught sight of his son at last; his face lit up, and he,
too, swung his hat. A moment later they had clasped hands.

After the first greetings, Bob gave his suit case in charge
to the hotel bus-man.

" We'll take a little walk up the street and talk things over,"
he suggested.

They sauntered slowly up the hill and down the side
streets beneath the pepper and acacia trees of Fremont's
beautiful thoroughfares. So absorbed did they become that
they did not realize in the slightest where they were going,
so that at last they had topped the ridge and, from the stretch
of the Sunrise Drive, they looked over into the canon.

625

6 26 THE RULES OF THE GAME

"So you've been getting into trouble, have you?" chaffed
Orde, as they left the station.

"I don't know about that," Bob rejoined. "I do know
that there are quite a number of people in trouble."

Orde laughed.

"Tell me about this Welton difficulty," said he. "Frank
Taylor has our own matters well in hand. The opposition
won't gain much by digging up that old charge against the
integrity of our land titles. We'll count that much wiped off
the slate."

"I'm glad to hear it," said Bob heartily. "Well, the
trouble with Mr. Welton is that the previous administration
held him up " He detailed the aspects of the threat-
ened bribery case; while Orde listened without comment.
"So," he concluded, "it looked at first as if they rather had
him, if I testified. It had me guessing. I hated the thought
of getting a man like Mr. Welton in trouble of that sort over a
case in which he was no way interested."

"What did you decide?" asked Orde curiously.

"I decided to testify."

'That's right."

" I suppose so. I felt a little better about it, because they
had me in the same boat. That let me out in my own feel-
ings, naturally."

"How?" asked Orde swiftly.

"There had been trouble up there between Plant you
remember I wrote you of the cattle difficulties?"

"With Simeon Wright? I know all that."

"Well, one of the cattlemen was ruined by Plant's meth-
ods; his wife and child died from want of care on that account.
He was the one who killed Plant; you remember that."

"Yes."

"I happened to be near and I helped him escape."

" And some one connected with the Modoc Company was
a witness," conjectured Orde. "Who was it?"

"A man who went under the name of Oldham. A cer-

THE RULES OF THE GAME 627

tain familiarity puzzled me for a long time. Only the other
day I got it. He was Mr. Newmark."

" Newmark!" cried Orde, stopping short and staring fixedly
at his son.

"Yes; the man who was your partner when I was a very
small boy. You remember?"

" Remember 1" repeated Orde; then in tones of great
energy: "He and I both have reason to remember well
enough! Where is he now? I can put a stop to him in
about two jumps!"

"You won't need to," said Bob quietly; "he's dead
shot last week."

For some moments nothing more was said, while the two
men trudged beneath the hanging peppers near the entrance
to Sunrise Drive.

" I always wondered why he had it in for me, and why he
acted so queerly," Bob broke the silence at last. " He seemed
. to have a special and personal enmity for me. I always felt
it, but I couldn't make it out."

" He had plenty of reasons for that. But it's funny Welton
didn't recognize the whelp."

"Mr. Welton never saw him," Bob explained "that is,
until Newmark was dead. Then he recognized him instantly.
What was it all about?"

Orde indicated the bench on the canon's edge.

"Let's sit," said he. "Newmark and I made our start
together. For eight years we worked together and built up
a very decent business. Then, all at once, I discovered
that he was plotting systematically to do me out of every
cent we had made. It was the most cold-blooded proposition
I ever ran across."

"Couldn't you prove it on him?" asked Bob.

"I could prove it all right; but the whole affair made me
sick. He'd always been the closest friend, in a way, I had
ever had; and the shock of discovering what he really was
drove everything else out of my head. I was young then.

628 THE RULES OF THE GAME

It seemed to me that all I wanted was to wipe the whole
affair off the slate, to get it behind me, to forget it so I let
him go."

" I don't believe I'd have done that. Seems to me I'd have
had to blow off steam," Bob commented.

Orde smiled reminiscently.

"I blew off steam,"* said he. "It was rather fantastic;
but I actually believe it was one of the most satisfactory
episodes in my life. I went around to his place he lived
rather well in bachelor quarters, which was a new thing in
those days and locked the door and told him just why I
was going to let him off. It tickled him hugely for about
a minute. Then I finished up by giving him about the very
worst licking he ever heard tell of."

"Was that what you told him?" cried Bob.

"What?"

"Did you say those words to him? 'I'm going to give
you the very worst licking you ever heard tell of ' ?"

"Why, I believe I did."

Bob threw back his head and laughed.

"So did I!" he cried; and then, after a moment, more
soberly. "I think, incidentally, it saved my life."

"Now what are you driving at?" asked Orde.

"Listen, this is funny: Newmark had me kidnapped by
one of his men, and lugged off to a little valley in the mount-
ains. The idea was to keep me there until after the trial,
so my testimony would not appear. You see, none of our
side knew I had that testimony. I hadn't told anybody,
because I had been undecided as to what I was going to do."

Orde whistled.

" I got away, and had quite a time getting home. I'll tell
you all the details some other time. On the road I met
Newmark. I was pretty mad, so I lit into him stiff-legged.
After a few words he got scared and pulled a gun on me. I
was just mad enough to keep coming, and I swear I believe

*See "The Riverman."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 629

he was just on the point of shooting, when I said those very
same words: 'I'm going to give you the very worst licking
you ever heard tell of.' He turned white as a sheet and
dropped his gun. I thought he was a coward; but I guess
it was conscience and luck. Now, wouldn't that come and
get you?"

"Did you?" asked Orde.

"Did I what?"

"Give him that licking?"

"I sure did start out to; but I couldn't bring myself to
more than shake him up a little."

Orde rose, stretching his legs.

"What are your plans now?"

"To see Baker. I'm going to tell him that on the first
indications of his making trouble I'm going to enter com-
plaint for bribery against both him and Mr. Welton, You
see, I was there too. Think it'll work?"

"The best way is to go and see."

"Come on," said Bob.

XXXVIII

THE two men found Baker seated behind his flat- top
desk. He grinned cheerfully at them; and, to Bob's
surprise, greeted him with great joviality.

"All hail, great Chief!" he cried. "I've had my scalp
nicely smoke-tanned for you, so you won't have to bother
taking it." He bowed to Orde. " I'm glad to see you, sir/'
said he. " Know you by your picture. Please be seated."

Bob brushed the levity aside.

"I've come," said he, "to get an explanation from you as
to why, in the first place, you had me kidnapped; and why,
in the second place, you tried to get me murdered."

Baker's mocking face became instantly grave; and, lean-
ing forward, he hit the desk a thump with his right fist.

"Orde," said he, "I want you to believe me in this: I
never was more sorry for anything in my life! I wouldn't
have had that happen for anything in the world! If I'd had
the remotest idea that Oldham contemplated something of
that sort, I should have laid very positive orders on him. He
said he had something on you that would keep your mouth
shut, but I never dreamed he meant gun play."

"I don't suppose you dreamed he meant kidnapping
either," observed Bob.

Baker threw himself back with a chuckle.

" Being kidnapped is fine for the health," said he. " Babies
thrive on it. No," he continued, again leaning forward
gravely, "Oldham got away from his instructions com-
pletely. Shooting or that kind of violence was absurd in
such a case. You mustn't lay that to me, but to his personal
grudge."

630

THE RULES OF THE GAME 631

"What do you know of a personal grudge?" Bob flashed
back.

" Ab-so-lute-ly nothing; but I suspected. It's part of
my job to be a nifty young suspector and to use what I
guess at. He just got away from me. As for the rest of it,
that's part of the game. This is no croquet match; you
must expect to get your head bumped if you play it. I
play the game."

"I play the game, too," returned Bob, "and I came here
to tell you so. I'll take care of myself, but I want to say
that the moment you offer any move against Welton, I shall
bring in my testimony against both of you on this bribery
matter."

"Sapient youth!" said Baker, amused; "did that aspect of
it just get to you? But you misinterpreted the spirit of my
greeting when you came in the room. In words of one syl-
lable, you've got us licked. We lie down and roll over. We
stick all four paws in the air. We bat our august forehead
against the floor. Is that clear?"

"Then you drop this prosecution against Welton?"

"Nary prosecution, as far as I am concerned."

" But the Modoc Land case '

"Take back your lands," chaffed Baker dramatically.
"Kind of bum lands, anyway. No use skirmishing after
the battle is over. Your father would tell you that."

"Then you don't fight the suit?"

"That," said Baker, "is still a point for compromise.
You've got us, I'm willing to admit that. Also that you are
a bright young man, and that 1 underestimated you. You've
lifted my property, legally acquired, and you've done it by
outplaying my bluff. I still maintain the points of the law
are with me we won't get into that," he checked himself.
"But criminal prosecution is a different matter. I don't
intend to stand for that a minute. Your gang don't slow-
step me to any bastiles now listed in the prison records.
Nothing doing that way. I'll fight her to a fare-ye-well on

632 THE RULES OF THE GAME

that." His round face seemed to become square-set and
grim for an instant, but immediately reassumed its cus-
tomary rather careless good-nature. "No, we'll just call
the whole business off."

"That is not for me to decide," said Bob.

"No; but you've got a lot to say about it and I'll see to
the little details; don't fret. By the way," mentioned Baker,
"just as a matter of ordinary curiosity, did Oldham have any-
thing on you, or was he just a strong-arm artist?" He
threw back his head and laughed aloud at Bob's face. At
the thought of Pollock the young man could not prevent
a momentary expression of relief from crossing his counte-
nance. " There's a tail-holt on all of us," Baker observed.

He flipped open a desk drawer and produced a box of
expensive-looking cigars which he offered to his visitors.
Orde lit one; but Bob, eyeing the power-man coldly, refused.
Baker laughed.

"You'll get over it," he observed "youth, I mean.
Don't mix your business and your personal affairs. That
came right out of the copy book, page one, but it's true.
I'm the one that ought to feel sore, seems to me." He lit his
own cigar, and puffed at it, swinging his bulky form to the
edge of the desk. "Look here," said he, shaking the butt
at the younger man. "You're making a great mistake.
The future of this country is with water, and don't you for-
get it. Fuel is scarce; water power is the coming force.
The country can produce like a garden under irrigation; and
it's only been scratched yet, and that just about the big
cities. We are getting control; and the future of the state
is with us. You're wasting yourself in all this toy work.
You've got too much ability to squander it in that sort of thing.
Oldham made you an offer from us, didn't he?"

"He tried to bribe me, if that's what you mean," said Bob.

"Well, have it your way; but you'll admit there's hardly
much use of bribing you now. I repeat the offer. Come in
with us on those terms."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 633

"Why?" demanded Bob.

"Well," said Baker quaintly, "because you seem to have
licked me fair and square; and I never want a man who
can lick me to remain where he is likely to do so."

At this point Orde, who had up to now remained quietly
a spectator, spoke up.

"Bob," said he, "is already fairly intimately connected
with certain interests, which, while not so large as water
power, are enough to keep him busy."

Baker turned to him joyously.

"List' to the voice of reason!" he cried. "I'm sorry he
won't come with us; but the next best thing is to put him
where he won't fight us. I didn't know he was going back
to your timber "

Bob opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again at a
gesture from his father.

Baker glanced at the clock.

"Well," he remarked cheerfully, "come over to the Club
with me to lunch, anyway."

Bob stared at him incredulously. Here was the man who
had employed against him every expedient from blackmail
to physical violence; who had but that instant been worsted
in a bald attempt at larceny, nevertheless, cheerfully invit-
ing him out to lunch as though nothing had happened!
Furthermore, his father, against whose ambitions one of the
deadliest blows had been aimed, was quietly reaching for
his hat. Baker looked up and caught Bob's expression.

"Come, come!" said he; "forget it! You and I speak the
language of the same tribe, and you can't get away from it.
I'm playing my game, you're playing yours. Of course,
we want to win. But what's the use of cutting out lots of
bully good people on that account?"

"You don't stick to the rules," insisted Bob stoutly.

"I think I do," said Baker. "Who's to decide? You
believe one way, I believe another. I know what you think
of my methods in business; and I'd hate to say what I think

634 THE RULES OF THE GAME

of you as the blue ribbon damn fool in that respect. But I
like you, and I'm willing to admit you've got stuff in you;
and I know damn well you and your father and I can have
a fine young lunch talking duck-shooting and football. And
with all my faults you love me still, and you know you do."
He smiled winningly, and hooked his arm through Bob's on
one side and his father's on the other. "Come on, you
old deacon; play the game!" he cried.
Bob laughed, and gave in.

XXXIX

BOB took his father with him back to headquarters.
They rode in near the close of day; and, as usual,
from the stovepipe of the roofless kitchen a brave
pillar of white smoke rose high in the shadows of the firs.
Amy came forth at Bob's shout, starched and fresh, her
cheeks glowing with their steady colour, her intelligent eyes
alight with interest under the straight, serene brows. At
sight of Orde, the vivacity of her manner quieted somewhat,
but Bob could see that she was excited about something.
He presented his father, who dismounted and greeted her
with a hearty shake of the hand.

"We've heard of you, Miss Thorne," said he simply, but
it was evident he was pleased with the frankness of her man-
ner, the clear steadiness of her eye, the fresh daintiness of her
appearance, and the respect of her greeting. On the other
hand, she looked back with equal pleasure on the tanned,
sturdy old man with the white hair and moustache, the clear
eyes, and the innumerable lines of quaint good-humour about
them. After they had thus covertly surveyed each other
for a moment, the aforesaid lines about Orde's eyes deep-
ened, his eyes twinkled with mischief, and he thrust forth
his hand for the second time. "Shake again!" he offered.
Amy gurgled forth a little chuckle of good feeling and under-
standing, and laid her fingers in his huge palm.

After this they turned and walked slowly to the hitch rails
where the men tied their horses.

"Where's the Supervisor?" Bob asked of Amy.

"In the office," she replied; and then burst out excitedly:
"I've the greatest news!"

636 THE RULES OF THE GAME

" So have I," returned Bob, promptly. " Best kind."

"Oh, what is it?" she cried, forgetting all about her own.
"IsitMr.Welton?"

"It'll take some time to tell mine," said Bob, "and we
must hunt up Mr. Thorne. Yours first."

"Pollock is free!"

"Pollock free!" echoed Bob. "How is that? I thought
his trial was not until next week!"

" The prosecuting attorney quashed the indictment
or whatever it is they do. Anyhow, he let George go for
lack of evidence to convict."

" I guess he was relying on evidence promised by Oldham,
which he never got," Bob surmised.

"And never will," Orde cautioned them. "You two
young people must be careful never to know anything of this."

Bob opened his mouth to say something; was suddenly
struck by a thought, and closed it again.

"Why do you say that?" he asked at last. "Why do you
think Miss Thorne must know of this?"

But Orde only smiled amusedly beneath his white mous-
tache.

They found Ashley Thorne, and acquainted him with
the whole situation. He listened thoughtfully.

"The matter is over our heads, of course; but we must
do our best. Of course, by all rights the man ought to be
indicted; but there can be no question that there is a common
sense that takes the substance of victory and lets the shadow
go."

Orde stayed to supper and over night. In the course of
the evening California John drifted in, and Ware, and Jack
Pollock, and such other of the rangers as happened to be in
from the Forest. Orde was at his best; and ended, to Bob's
vast pride, in getting himself well liked by these conservative
and quietly critical men of the mountains.

The next morning Bob and his father saddled their horses
and started early for the mill, Bob having been granted a

THE RULES OF THE GAME 637

short leave of absence. For some distance they rode in
silence.

"Father," said Bob, "why did you stop me from contra-
dicting Baker the other day when he jumped to the con-
clusion that I was going to quit the Service?"

"I think you are."

"But "

" Only if you want to, Bob. I don't want to force you in
any way; but both Welton and I are getting old, and we need
younger blood. We'd rather have you." Bob shook his head.
" I know what you mean, and I realize how you feel about
the whole matter. Perhaps you are right. I have nothing
to say against conservation and forestry methods theo-
retically. They are absolutely correct. I agree that the
forests should be cut for future growths, and left so that fire
cannot get through them; but it is a grave question in my
mind whether, as yet, it can be done."

"But it is being done!" cried Bob. "There is no diffi-
culty in doing it."

"That's for you to prove, if you want to," said Orde.
" If you care to resign from the Service, we will for two years
give you full swing with our timber, to cut and log according
to your ideas or rather the ideas of those over you. In
that time you can prove your point, or fail. Personally,"
he repeated, "I have grave doubts as to whether it can be
done at present; it will be in the future of course."

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Bob. "It is being
done every day! There's nothing complicated about it.
It's just a question of cutting and piling the tops, and -

"I know the methods advocated," broke in Orde. "But
it is not being done except on Government holdings where
conditions as to taxation, situation and a hundred othei
things are not like those of private holdings; or on private
holdings on an experimental scale, or in conjunction with
older methods. The case has not been proved on a large
private tract. Now is your chance so to prove it."

638 THE RULES OF THE GAME

Bob's face was grave.

"That means a pretty complete about-face for me, sir,"
said he. " I fought this all out with myself some years back.
I feel that I have fitted myself into the one thing that is worth
while for me."

"I know," said Orde. "Don't hurry. Think it over.
Take advice. I have a notion you'll find this if its
handled right, and works out right will come to much the
same thing."

He rode along in silence for some moments.

"I want to be fair," he resumed at last, "and do not desire
to get you in this on mistaken premises. This will not be a
case of experiment, of plaything, but of business. However
desirable a commercial theory may be, if it's commercial,
it must pay! It's not enough if you don't lose money; or
even if you succeed in coming out a little ahead. You must
make it pay on a commercial basis, or else it's as worthless
in the business world as so much moonshine. That is not
sordid; it is simply common sense. We all agree that it
would be better to cut our forests for the future; but can it
be done under present conditions?"

u There is no question of that," said Bob confidently.

"There is quite a question of it among some of us old
fogies, Bobby," stated Orde good-humouredly. "I suppose
we're stupid and behind the times; but we've been brought
up in a hard school. We are beyond the age when we origi-
nate much, perhaps; but we're willing to be shown."

He held up his hand, checking over his fingers as he talked.

"Here's the whole proposition," said he. "You can
consider it. Welton and I will turn over the whole works to
you, lock, stock and barrel, for two years. You know the
practical side of the business as well as you ever will, and
you've got a good head on you. At the end of that time,
turn in your balance sheet. We'll see how you come out,
and how much it costs a thousand feet to do these things out-
side the schoolroom."

THE RULES OF THE GAME 639

" If I took it up, I couldn't make it pay quite as well as by
present methods," Bob warned.

"Of course not. Any reasonable man would expect to
spend something by way of insurance for the future. But
the point is, the operations must pay. Think it over!"

They emerged into the mill clearing. Welton rolled out
to greet them, his honest red face aglow with pleasure over
greeting again his old friend. They pounded each other on
the back, and uttered much facetious and affectionate abuse.
Bob left them cursing each other heartily, broad gring
illuminating their weatherbeaten faces.

BOB'S obvious course was to talk the whole matter over
with his superior officer, and that is exactly what he
intended to do. Instead, he hunted up Amy. He
justified this course by the rather sophistical reflection that
in her he would encounter the most positive force to the con-
trary of the proposition he had just received. Amy stood
first, last and all the time for the Service; her heart was
wholly in its cause. In her opinion he would gain the advan-
tage of a direct antithesis to the ideas propounded by his
father. This appeared to Bob an eminently just arrange-
ment, but failed to account for a certain rather breathless
excitement as he caught sight of Amy's sleek head bending
over a pan of peas.

"Amy," said he, dropping down at her feet, "I want your
advice."

She let fall her hands and looked at him with the refresh-
ing directness peculiarly her own.

"Father wants me to take charge of the Wolverine Com-
pany's operations," he began.

"Well?" she urged him after a pause.

"What do you think of it?"

" I thought you had worked that all out for yourself some
time ago."

"I had. But father and Mr. Welton are getting a little
too old to handle such a proposition, and they are looking
to me " he paused.

"That situation is no different than it has been," she sug-
gested. "What else?"

Bob laughed.

640

THE RULES OF THE GAME 041

"You see through me very easily, don't you? Well, the
situation is changed. I'm being bribed."

"Bribed!" Amy cried, throwing her head back.

"Extra inducements offered. They make it hard for me
to refuse, without seeming positively brutal. They offer me
complete charge to do as I want. I can run the works
absolutely according to my own ideas. Don't you see how
I am going to hurt them when I refuse under such circum-
stances?"

"Refuse!" cried Amy. "Refuse! What do you mean!"

"Do you think I ought to leave the Service?" stammered
Bob blankly.

"Why, it's the best chance the Service has ever had!"
said Amy, the words fairly tumbling over one another.
"You must never dream of refusing. It's your chance
it's our chance. It's the one thing we've lacked, the oppor-
tunity of showing lumbermen everywhere that the thing can
be made to pay. It's the one thing we've lacked. Oh,
what a chance!"

"But but," objected Bob "it means giving up the
Service after these years and all the wide interests
ind the work "

"You must take it," she swept him away, "and you mmt
do it with all your power and all the ability that is in you.
You must devote yourself to one idea make money, make
it pay!"

"This from you," said Bob sadly.

" Oh, I am so glad!" cried Amy. "Your father is a dear!
it's the one fear that has haunted me lest some visionary
incompetent should attempt it, and should fail dismally, and
all the great world of business should visit our methods with
the scorn due only his incompetence. It was our great dan-
ger! And now it is no longer a danger! You can do it,
Bob; you have the knowledge and the ability and the energy
and you must have the enthusiasm. Can't you see it?
You mustl"

642 THE RULES OF THE GAME

She leaned over, her eyes shining with the excitement of
her thought, to shake him by both shoulders. The pan of
peas promptly deluged him. They both laughed.

"I'd never looked at it that way," Bob confessed

"It's the only way to look at it."

"Why!" cried Bob, in the sudden illumination of a new
idea. " The more money I make, the more good I'll do
that's a brand new idea for you!"

He rose to his feet, slowly, and stood for a moment lost in
thought. Then he looked down at her, a fresh admiration
shining in his eyes.

"Yours is the inspiration and the insight as always,"
he said humbly. "It has always been so. I have seemed
to myself to have blundered and stumbled, groping for a way;
and you have flown, swift as a shining arrow, straight to the
mark."

"No, no, no, no!" she disclaimed, coming close to him in
the vigour of her denial. "You are unfair."

She looked up into his face, and somehow in the earnest-
ness of her disclaimer, the feminine soul of her rose to her
eyes, so that again Bob saw the tender, appealing helpless-
ness, and once more there arose to full tide in his breast the
answering tenderness that would care for her and guard her
from the rough jostling of the world. The warmth of her
young body tingled in recollection along his arm, and then,
strangely enough, without any other direct cause wnatever,
the tide rose higher to flood his soul. He drew her to him,
crushing her to his breast. For an instant she yielded to him
utterly; then drew away in a panic.

"My dear, my dear I" she half whispered; "not here!"

XLI

OB rode home through the forest, singing at the top
of his voice. When he met his father, near the
lower meadow, he greeted the older man boisterously.

"That," said Orde to him shrewdly, "sounds to me
mighty like relief. Have you decided for or against ? "

"For," said Bob. "It's a fine chance for me to do just
what I've always wanted to do to work hard at what
interests me and satisfies me."

"Go to it, then," said Orde. "By the way, Bobby, how
old are you now?"

"Twenty-nine."

" Well, you're a year younger than I was when I started in
with Newmark. You're ahead of me there. But in other
respects, my son, your father had a heap more sense; he got
married, and he didn't waste any time on it. How long have
you been living around in range of that Thorne girl, any-
way? Somebody ought to build a fire under you."

Bob hesitated a moment; but he preferred that his good
news should come to his father when Amy could be there, too.

"I'm glad you like her, father," said he quietly.

Orde looked at his son, and his voice fell from its chaffing
tone. "Good luck, boy," said he, and leaned from his
saddle to touch the young man on the shoulder.

They emerged into the clearing about the mill. Bob
looked on the familiar scene with the new eyes of a great
spiritual uplift. The yellow sawdust and the sawn lumber;
the dark forest beyond; the bulk of the mill with its tall pines;
the dazzling plume of steam against the very blue sky, all
these appealed to him again with many voices, as they had

643

644 THE RULES OF THE GAME

years before in far-off Michigan. Once more he was
back where his blood called him; but under conditions which
his training and the spirit of the new times could approve.
His heart exulted at the challenge to his young manhood.

As he rode by the store he caught sight within its depths
of Merker methodically waiting on a stolid squaw.

"No more economic waste, Merker!" he could not for-
bear shouting; and then rocked in his saddle with laughter
over the man's look of slow surprise. " It's his catchword,"
he explained to Orde. "He's a slow, queer old duck, but a
mighty good sort for the place. There's Post, in from the
woods. He's woods foreman. I expect I'll have lively times
with Post at first, getting him broken into new ways. But
he's a good sort, too."

"Everybody's a good sort to-day, aren't they, son?"
smiled Orde.

Welton met them, and expressed his satisfaction over the
way everything had turned out.

"I'm going duck shooting for fair," said he, "and I'm
going fishing at Catalina. Out here," he explained to Orde,
"you sit in nice warm sun and let the ducks insult you into
shooting at 'em! No freeze-your-fingers-and-break-the-ice
early mornings! I'm willing to let the kid go it! He can't
bust me in two years, anyway."

Later, when the two were alone together, he clapped Bob
on the back and wished him success.

"I'm too old at the game to believe much in new methods
to what I've been brought up to, Bob," said he; "but I believe
in you. If anybody can do it, you can; and I'd be tickled
to see you win out. Things change; and a man is foolish to
act as though they didn't. He's just got to keep playing along
according to the rules of the game. And they keep changing,
too. It's good to have lived while they're making a country.
I've done it. You're going to."

THE END

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