Chapter X: Part THREE: I (5)

"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 21st," he dictated, "I repose every confidence 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 disorder 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 bedroom 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 comfortably; "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 nobody to come near her.

"It's scarlet fever," she said, "and 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 Belle, with unusual caution and knowledge for the mountains, 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 mountaineer 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 Pollocks," 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 cattle 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 '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 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 further transportation. He had done this twice before, and he knew 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 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 technical books in a week, reaching eagerly for the vital principles of his subject. She alone realized, although but dimly, that the boy did not relinquish his subject until he had grasped 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 American 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 business 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. Nevertheless, 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 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 definite 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 he 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.

XX

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 mocking 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-conscious 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 California John's reports, of Thorne's recommendations, of Plant's assurances, Simeon Wright's cattle were again coming in!

Bob shook his head sadly, and his clear-cut young face was grave. No one knew better than himself what this 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 mountaineer 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. "Nothin' 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.

"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, dismounting. "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 within. 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 doorway. 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 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 Pollock'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 interfere, 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 had 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 huddled 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.

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 stovepipe. 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 village. 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 panicky fool. Just the same, he wished now he had looked 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 intelligence 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 actually 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 trivial 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 breakfast; neither can I ordinarily. This isn't before breakfast 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._

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 fugitive had gone. Jim Pollock, under pressure, admitted that his brother had stormed against the door, had told the awakened 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 have been connected with the matter, he concluded himself mistaken. Oldham could have had no motive in concealment, 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 different 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 politicians dealing direct with small patronage--all these powerful interests were unable satisfactorily to answer one common-sense question; why is the management of our Forest 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? Reluctantly 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 interesting, 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'll 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 Supervisor?" 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 'n' dumpling!" said he.

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 contemplatively 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 twinkling. "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.

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 '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 last 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 discovered, 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 manifestly impossible to watch each separate flock all the time. As soon as surveillance was relaxed, over the line they slipped, 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 trespassers. It was possible to sue in the United States courts, but the process was slow and unsatisfactory, and the damages 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 instructions and thumbed them over for the hundredth time.

"'Employ only necessary force,'" he muttered; "'remove them beyond the confines of the reserve.'" He bit savagely 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 without complications. You get the boys organized. We start to-morrow."

"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 supervisor 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 Carroll and Charley Morton trailed down a band of three thousand 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. "Camp here."

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 forward 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 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.

"W'at 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 straightened 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 protestations 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 business," 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."

As the full meaning of the situation broke on the Frenchman's mind, he went frantic. By the time he and his herders should be released, the whole eighty-mile width of the Sierras 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 accomplished it. Never, if he could help it, did he depend on the mails when the case was within riding distance. He preferred to argue the matter out, face to face.

"The Government _prefers_ 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 provisions.

"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."

"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 uncompromising 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. _I'd just as soon make enemies of both of you as of 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. For the first time Simeon Wright and the influence Simeon Wright could bring to bear failed of their accustomed effect at Washington. An honest, fearless, and single-minded Chief, backed by an enthusiastic Service, saw justice rather than expediency. California John received back his recommendation marked "Approved."

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, in his slow, methodical way, proceeded to investigate the contents. As he caught sight of the word and its initials 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 emotion 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 building 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 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 off'n 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 services 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 quizzically 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 personally. 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-leather saddle.

But when evening came, and the end of the month, Supervisor Davidson always found himself in trouble. Then he sat down before his typewriter, on which he pecked methodically 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. 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 Brookline, 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 methodical 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 cordiality; 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.

"H'm," said he sarcastically, "do you think you have done so?"

California John flushed through his tan at the implication, but he replied nothing.

This studied respect for his superior officer on the Supervisor'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, however, 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 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 patrolled 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 confusion.

"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