Brent bowed coldly, turned his back and walked away without a word. California John looked after him. "Well, that wasn't no act of Solomon," he told himself; "but, anyway, I feel better." After Brent's departure it took California John two weeks to recover his equanimity and self-confidence. Then the importance of his work gripped him once more. He looked about him at the grazing, the policing, the fire-fighting, all the varied business of the reserves. In them all he knew was no graft, and no favouritism. The trails were being improved; the cabins built; the meadows for horse-feed fenced; the bridges built and repaired; the country patrolled by honest and enthusiastic men. He recalled the old days of Henry Plant's administration under the Land-Office--the graft, the supineness, the inefficiency, the confusion. "We're savin' the People's property, and keepin' it in good shape," he argued to himself, "and that's sure the main point. If we take care of things, we've done the main job. Let the other fellows do the heavy figgerin'. The city's full of cheap bookkeepers who can't do nothing else." XXV But a month later, at the summer camp, California John had opportunity to greet a visitor whom he was delighted to see. One morning a very dusty man leaned from his saddle and unlatched the gate before headquarters. As he straightened again, he removed his broad hat and looked up into the cool pine shadows with an air of great refreshment. "Why, it's Ashley Thorne!" cried California John, leaping to his feet. "The same," replied Thorne, reaching out his hand. He dismounted, and Charley Morton, grinning a welcome, led his horse away to the pasture. "I sure am glad to see you!" said California John over and over again; "and where did you come from? I thought you were selling pine lands in Oregon." Thorne dropped into a chair with a sigh of contentment. "I was," said he, "and then they made the Transfer, so I came back." "You're in the Service again?" cried California John delighted. "Couldn't stay out now that things are in proper hands." "Good! I expect you're down here to haul me over the coals," California John chuckled. "Oh, just to look around," said Thorne, biting at his close-clipped, bristling moustache. Next morning they began to look around. California John was overjoyed at this chance to show a sympathetic and congenial man what he had done. "I got a trail 'way up Baldy now," he confided as they swung aboard. "It's a good trail too; and it makes a great fire lookout. We'll take a ride up there, if you have time before you go. Well, as I was telling you about that Cook cattle case--the old fellow says----" At the end of the Supervisor's long and interested dissertation on the Cook case, Thorne laughed gently. "Looks as if you had him," said he, "and I think the Chief will sustain you. You like this work, don't you?"