Young Norcross soon became vitally engaged with the problems which confronted McFarlane, and his possible enrolment as a guard filled him with a sense of proprietorship in the forest, which made him quite content with Bear Tooth. He set to work at once to acquire a better knowledge of the extent and boundaries of the reservation. It was, indeed, a noble possession. Containing nearly eight hundred thousand acres of woodland, and reaching to the summits of the snow-lined peaks to the east, south, and west, it appealed to him with silent majesty. It drew upon his patriotism. Remembering how the timber of his own state had been slashed and burned, he began to feel a sense of personal responsibility. He had but to ride into it a few miles in order to appreciate in some degree its grandeur, considered merely as the source of a hundred swift streams, whose waters enriched the valleys lying below. He bought a horse of his own--although Berrie insisted upon his retaining Pete--and sent for a saddle of the army type, and from sheer desire to keep entirely clear of the cowboy equipment procured puttees like those worn by cavalry officers, and when he presented himself completely uniformed, he looked not unlike a slender, young lieutenant of the cavalry on field duty, and in Berrie's eyes was wondrous alluring. He took quarters at the hotel, but spent a larger part of each day in Berrie's company--a fact which was duly reported to Clifford Belden. Hardly a day passed without his taking at least one meal at the Supervisor's home. As he met the rangers one by one, he perceived by their outfits, as well as by their speech, that they were sharply divided upon old lines and new. The experts, the men of college training, were quite ready to be known as Uncle Sam's men. They held a pride in their duties, a respect for their superiors, and an understanding of the governmental policy which gave them dignity and a quiet authority. They were less policemen than trusted agents of a federal department. Nevertheless, there was much to admire in the older men, who possessed a self-reliance, a knowledge of nature, and a certain rough grace which made them interesting companions, and rendered them effective teachers of camping and trailing, and while they were secretly a little contemptuous of the "schoolboys"; they were all quite ready to ask for expert aid when knotty problems arose. It was no longer a question of grazing, it was a question of lumbering and reforestration.