At noon they knocked off and went back to the ranger camp where they cooked their own meal. Most of the older rangers were afield. A half-dozen of the newcomers and probationers only were there. Elliott, Jack Pollock, two other young mountaineers, Ware and one of the youths from the valley towns had apparently passed the examinations and filled vacancies. All, with the exception of Elliott and this latter youth--Curtis by name--were old hands at taking care of themselves in the woods, so matters of their own accord fell into a rough system. Some built the fire, one mixed bread, others busied themselves with the rest of the provisions. Elliott rummaged about, and set the rough table with the battered service. Only Curtis, seated with his back against a tree, appeared too utterly exhausted or ignorant to take hold at anything. Indeed, he hardly spoke to his companions, ate hastily, and disappeared into his own quarters without offering to help wash the dishes. This task accomplished, the little group scattered to its afternoon work. In the necessity of stringing wire without cutting himself to ribbons, Bob forgot everything, even the flight of time. "I reckon it's about quittin' time," Jack observed to him at last. Bob looked up in surprise. The sun was indeed dropping low. "We must be about half done," he remarked, measuring the extent of the meadow with his eye. "Two more wires to string," Pollock reminded him. The mountaineer threw the grain sack of staples against the last post, tossed his hammer and the hatchet with them. "Hold on," said Bob. "You aren't going to leave them there?" "Shore," said Pollock. "We'll have to begin there to-morrow." But Bob's long training in handling large bodies of men with tools had developed in him an instinct of tool-orderliness. "Won't do," he stated with something of his old-time authority in his tones. "Suppose for some reason we shouldn't get back here to-morrow? That's the way such things get mislaid; and they're valuable." He picked up the hatchet and the axe. Grumbling something under his breath, Pollock shouldered the staples and thrust the hammer in his pocket. "It isn't as if these things were ours," said Bob, realizing that he had spoken in an unduly minatory tone. "That's right," agreed Jack more cheerfully.