Certainly Charley became a better workman, as any one does who works in the spirit he exhibited. The mere getting of a wage, the mere earning of a living hardly figured in Charley's calculations. He was working to learn, to get ahead, to climb up in the Forestry Service. Hence there was nothing perfunctory in what he did. He strove for perfection; and like all who so strive, he began to attain it. Before he had been many weeks a ranger, Charley was as valuable a man in many ways as the forester had under him. All Charley lacked to make him perhaps the very best man was wider experience; and this was coming to him daily. Furthermore, Charley was fortunate enough to have learned, through his schooling, that although experience is the best teacher, he is a fool who learns only through his own experience. All the information in all the books that Charley had ever studied was the result of experience--somebody else's experience. And he had early grasped the fact that to learn through the experience of others is to save time and difficulty. So now he supplemented his own experiences by much reading and study at night and by the discussion of forest matters with the more intelligent of his workmen. New experiences came to him frequently. The forester surveyed and laid out a road through the forest. Charley helped with the surveying and learned much about levels and grades and the theory of road making. And after the road was fairly started, the forester left its completion largely to Charley. This new road was to lead into the big timber operation which was shortly to begin in Charley's territory. Already a great crew had been assembled and much timber had been cut in Lumley's district. Lumley had to oversee this operation and he was kept far busier than he liked to be. So Charley saw little of him.