ntain-land reserves and water-sheds. Was it likely, he
asked, that the talk would materialize in restraining action? If so, he
was in the hole again--worse off than he should be if his mining
lawsuits should go against him.

Again Blount, good-naturedly charitable and not a little amused by the
nervous anxiety of the gentleman of many troubles, gave an opinion.

"Conservation, in timber as well as in other remaining resources of the
country, has come to be a word which is in everybody's mouth," was the
form the opinion took. "The plain citizen who isn't familiar with the
methods of the timber sharks would do well to keep his money out of
their hands if he doesn't wish to be held as _particeps criminis_ with
them in the day of reckoning."

"Say!" ejaculated the thin man, wriggling nervously in his chair. "If
you were a Government agent yourself you could hardly put the case
stronger for the conservation crowd!"

Now, in ordinary circumstances, nothing was ever farther from Blount's
normal attitude toward his fellow-men than a disposition to yield to the
sudden joking impulse. But the hawk-faced man's perturbation was so
real, or so faultlessly simulated, that he could not resist the
temptation.

"How do you know that I am not a Government agent?" he demanded, with a
decent show of gravity.

"Because you are not travelling on Government transportation," was the
shrewd retort.

At another time Blount might have wondered why a casual fellow-traveller
should have taken the trouble to make the discovery. But at the moment
he was intent only upon keeping the small misunderstanding alive.

"I suppose you have seen my ticket, but you can't tell anything by
that," he countered, laughing. "A good many civilian employees of the
Government travel nowadays on regular tickets, like other people."

"I know damned well they do," admitted the anxious one; and then, with a
swift eye-shot which Blount missed: "Especially if they happen to be
travelling on the quiet to catch some poor devil napping on the job."

"You needn't be alarmed; you haven't told me anything that the
department could make use of," returned Blount, carrying the jest the
one necessary move farther along.

It was precisely at this point, as Blount remembered afterward, that the
timber-thieving subject was dropped. Later on, after the talk had
drifted back to mining, and from mining to politics, the nervous
gentleman pleaded weariness and declared his intent