"Don't that letter tell you? The whole town is chuckling. Every criminal
and plug-ugly in the country is spitting in our faces this morning. Yes,
sir, the President has fired the chief--the man that built up this
Forestry Service. The whole works is goin' to hell, that's what it is.
We'll have all the coal thieves, water-power thieves, poachers, and
free-grass pirates piling in on us in mobs. They'll eat up the forest. I
see the finish of the whole business. They'll put some Western man in,
somebody they can work. Then where will we be?"
Cavanagh's young heart burned with indignation, but he tried to check the
other man's torrent of protest.
"I can't believe it. There's some mistake. Maybe they've made him the
secretary of the department or something."
"No, they haven't. They've thrown him out. They've downed him because he
tried to head off some thievery of coal-mines in Alaska." The man was
ready to weep with chagrin and indignant sorrow. His voice choked, and he
turned away to conceal his emotion.
Cavanagh put the letter back into his pocket and mounted his horse. "Well,
go on back to your work, Swenson. I'm going to town to get the Supervisor
on the wire, and find out what it all means."
He was almost as badly stunned by the significance of Swenson's news as
Swenson himself. Could it be possible that the man who had built up the
field service of the bureau--the man whose clean-handed patriotism had
held the boys together, making them every year more clearly a unit, a
little army of enthusiasts--could it be possible that the originator, the
organizer of this great plan, had been stricken down just when his
influence was of most account? He refused to believe it of an
administration pledged to the cause of conservation.
As he entered the town he was struck instantly by the change in the faces
turned toward him, in the jocular greetings hurled at him. "Hello, Mr.
Cossack! What do you think of your chief now?"
"This will put an end to your infernal nonsense," said another. "We'll
have a man in there now who knows the Western ways, and who's willing to
boom things along. The cork is out of your forest bottle."
Gregg was most offensive of all. "This means throwing open the forest to
anybody that wants to use it. Means an entire reversal of this fool
policy."
"Wait and see," replied Cavanagh, but his face was rigid with the
repression of the fear and anger he felt. With hands that trembled he
opened the door to the telephone-booth, closed it carefully behind him,
and called for the Supervisor's office. As soon as Redfield replied, he
burst forth in question: "Is it true that the chief is out?"