Part 60 (1/2)

Amy Thorne arose, gathered a handful of kindling, and began to rattle the stove.

”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 Thorne 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 slas.h.!.+” 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 slas.h.!.+” protested Bob. ”We're logging just as everybody always logs!”

”That's just what I object to. And when you fell 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 surprise. 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 logging 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 slas.h.i.+ng had been as much a part of the ordinary woodland landscape as the forest itself.

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 ma.s.ses of pine needles and cedar fans; the hundreds of young saplings bent double by the weight of debris, 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 Thorne'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.

II

Bob was finally late for supper, which he ate hastily and without much appet.i.te. After finis.h.i.+ng the meal, he hunted up Welton. He found the lumberman tilted back in a wooden armchair, his feet comfortably elevated to the low rail about the stove, his pipe in mouth, his coat off, and his waistcoat unb.u.t.toned. At the sight of his homely, jolly countenance, Bob experienced a pleasant sensation of slipping back from an environment slightly off-focus to the normal, accustomed and real.

Nevertheless, at the first opportunity, 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.”