room Norcross said:

"I really am in earnest about entering the Forest Service. Landon filled
me with enthusiasm about it. Never mind the pay. I'm not in immediate
need of money; but I do need an interest in life."

McFarlane stared at him with kindly perplexity. "I don't know exactly
what you can do, but I'll work you in somehow. You ought to work under a
man like Settle, one that could put you through a training in the
rudiments of the game. I'll see what can be done."

"Thank you for that half promise," said Wayland, and he went to his bed
happier than at any moment since leaving home.

Berrie, on her part, did not analyze her feeling for Wayland, she only
knew that he was as different from the men she knew as a hawk from a
sage-hen, and that he appealed to her in a higher way than any other had
done. His talk filled her with visions of great cities, and with thoughts
of books, for though she was profoundly loyal to her mountain valley, she
held other, more secret admirations. She was, in fact, compounded of two
opposing tendencies. Her quiet little mother longing--in secret--for the
placid, refined life of her native Kentucky town, had dowered her
daughter with some part of her desire. She had always hated the slovenly,
wasteful, and purposeless life of the cattle-rancher, and though she
still patiently bore with her husband's shortcomings, she covertly hoped
that Berea might find some other and more civilized lover than Clifford
Belden. She understood her daughter too well to attempt to dictate her
action; she merely said to her, as they were alone for a few moments: "I
don't wonder your father is interested in Mr. Norcross, he's very
intelligent--and very considerate."

"Too considerate," said Berrie, shortly; "he makes other men seem like
bears or pigs."

Mrs. McFarlane said no more, but she knew that Cliff was, for the time,
among the bears.

V

THE GOLDEN PATHWAY

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 sil