VII
The charlatan had babbled; but without knowing it he had given Bob whathe sought. He saw all the reasons for what had heretofore been obscure.
Why had he been dissatisfied with business opportunities and successesbeyond the hopes of most young men?
How could he dare criticize the ultimate value of such successes withoutcriticizing the life work of such men as Welton, as his own father?
What right had he to condemn as insufficient nine-tenths of those in theindustrial world; and yet what else but condemnation did his attitude ofmind imply?
All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like fog. Quite simplyit all resolved itself. He was dissatisfied because this was not hiswork. The other honest and sincere men--such as his father andWelton--had been satisfied because this was their work. The oldgeneration, the one that was passing, needed just that kind of servicebut the need too was passing. Bob belonged to the new generation. He sawthat new things were to be demanded. The old order was changing. Themodern young men of energy and force and strong ability had a differenttask from that which their fathers had accomplished. The wilderness wassubdued; the pioneer work of industry was finished; the hard brutestruggle to shape things to efficiency was over. It had been necessaryto get things done. Now it was becoming necessary to perfect the meansand methods of doing. Lumber must still be cut, streams must still bedammed, railroads must still be built; but now that the pioneers, themen of fire, had blazed the way others could follow. Methods wereestablished. It was all a business, like the selling of groceries. Theindustrial rank and file could attend to details. The men who thoughtand struggled and carried the torch--they must go beyond what theirfathers had accomplished.
Now Bob understood Amy Thorne's pride in the Service. He saw the truebasis of his feeling toward the Supervisor as opposed to his feelingtoward Baker. Thorne was in the current. With his pitiful eighteenhundred a year he was nevertheless swimming strongly in new waters. Hisbusiness went that little necessary step beyond. It not only earned himhis 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 openingthe country had wrested but a scanty livelihood from the stubbornwilderness; nevertheless, he could feel--whether he stopped to think itout or not--that his efforts had that coordination with the trend ofhumanity which makes subtly for satisfaction and happiness. Bob lookedabout the mill yard with an understanding eye. This work was necessary;but it was not his work.
Something of this he tried to explain to his new friends at headquarterswhen next he found an opportunity to ride over. His explanations werenot very lucid, for Bob was no great hand at analysis. To any otheraudience they might have been absolutely incoherent. But Thorne had longsince reasoned all this out for himself; so he understood; while toCalifornia John the matter had always been one to take for granted. Bobleaned forward, his earnest, sun-browned young face flushed with thesincerity--and the embarrassment--of his exposition. Amy nodded fromtime to time, her eyes shining, her glance every few moments seeking intriumph that of her brother. California John smoked.
Finally Bob put it squarely to Thorne.
"So you'd like to join the Service," said Thorne slowly. "I supposeyou've thought of the chance you're giving up? Welton will take you intopartnership in time, of course."
"I know. It seems foolish. Can't make it seem anything else," Bobadmitted.
"You'd have to take your chances," Thorne persisted. "I couldn't helpyou. A ranger's salary is ninety a month now, and find yourself andhorses. Have you any private means?"
"Not enough to say so."
"There's another thing," Thorne went on. "This forestry of ourgovernment is destined to be a tremendous affair; but what we need morejust now is better logging methods among the private loggers. It wouldcount more than anything else if you'd stay just where you are and giveus model operations in your own work."
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 of the question.And," he went on with a sudden flash of loyalty to what the old-timershad 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 himselfand of his own accord. He's done a great work in his time, and he'sgrown old at it. I wouldn't for anything in the world do anything toshake 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!" brokein Amy with some heat.
"They opened a new country for a new people," said Bob gently. "Perhapsthey did it wastefully; perhaps not. I notice you've got to use lots oflubricating oil on a new machine. But there was nobody else to do it anydifferent."
"Then you'd let them go on wasting and destroying?" demanded Amyscornfully.
"I don't know," hesitated Bob; "I haven't thought all this out. PerhapsI'm not very much on the think. It seems to me rather this way: We'vegot to have lumber, haven't we? And somebody has to cut it and supplyit. Men like Mr. Welton are doing it, by the methods they've foundeffective. They are working for the Present; we of the new generationwant to work for the Future. It's a fair division. Somebody's got toattend to them both."
"Well, that's what I say!" cried Amy. "If they wouldn't waste and slashand leave good material in the woods--"
Bob smiled whimsically.
"A lumberman doesn't like to leave things in the woods," said he. "Ifsomebody will pay for the tops and the needles, he'll sell them; ifthere's a market for cull lumber, he'll supply it; and if somebody willcreate a demand for knotholes, _he'll invent some way of getting themout_! You see I'm a lumberman myself."
"Why don't you log with some reference to the future, then?" demandedAmy.
"Because it doesn't pay," stated Bob deliberately.
"Pay!" cried Amy.
"Yes," said Bob mildly. "Why not? The lumberman fulfills a commercialfunction, like any one else; why shouldn't he be allowed freely acommercial reward? You can't lead a commercial class by ideals thatabsolutely conflict with commercial motives. If you want to introduceyour ideals among lumbermen, you want to educate them; and in order toeducate 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 fireprotection and conservation on a practical basis. It's all very well totalk about how nice it would be to chop up all the waste tops and pilethem like cordwood, and to scrape together the twigs and needles andburn them. It would certainly be neat and effective. But can't you getsome scheme that would be just as effective, but not so neat? It's thedifference between a yacht and a lumber schooner. We can't expecteverybody to turn right in and sacrifice themselves to bephilanthropists because the spirit of the age tells them they ought tobe. We've got to make it so easy to do things right that anybody at alldecent will be ashamed not to. Then we've got to wait for the spirit ofthe people to grow to new things. It's coming, but it's not here yet."
California John, who had listened with the closest attention, slappedhis knee.
"Good sense," said he.
"But you can educate people, can't you?" asked Amy, a trifle subdued andpuzzled by these practical considerations.
"Some people can," agreed Thorne, speaking up, "and they're doing it.But Mr. Orde is right; it's only the spirit of the people that can bringabout new things. We think we have leaders, but we have onlyinterpreters. When the time is ripe to change things, then the spirit ofthe people rises to forbid old practices."
"That's it," said Bob; "I just couldn't get at it. Well, the way I feelabout it is that when all these new methods and principles have becomewell known, then we can call a halt with some authority. You can'tcondemn a man for doing his best, can you?"
The girl, at a loss, flushed, and almost crying, looked at them allhelplessly.
"But----" she cried.
"I believe it will all come about in time,"
said Thorne. "There's sureto 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 tolog the government forests on an extensive scale; and private forestswill have to come to our way of doing things."
"What's the use of all our fights and strivings?" asked Amy; "what's theuse of our preaching decent woods work if it can't be carried out?"
"It's educational," explained Thorne. "It starts people thinking, sothat when the time comes they'll be ready."
"Furthermore," put in Bob, "it fixes it so these young fellows who willthen be in charge of private operations will have no earthly excuse tolook at it wrong, or do it wrong."
"It will then be the difference between their acting according togeneral ideas or against them," agreed Thorne.
"Never lick a pup for chasin' rabbits until yore ready to teach him tochase deer," put in California John.