Bob 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,
anyway? 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
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 forbear 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."