t means narrowness of vision, conservatism that
comes close to suspicion, illiberality. When these qualities meet the
sometimes foolishly generous and lavish ideas of men trained in the
reckless life of the river, almost inevitably are aroused suspicion on
one side, contempt on the other and antagonism on both.

This is true even in casual and chance intercourse. But when, as often
happens, the mossback's farm extends to the very river bank itself; when
the legal rights of property clash with the vaguer but no less certain
rights of custom, then there is room for endless bickering. When the
river boss steps between his men and the backwoods farmer, he must, on
the merits of the case and with due regard to the sort of man he has to
deal with, decide at once whether he will persuade, argue, coerce, or
fight. It may come to be a definite choice between present delay or a
future lawsuit.

This kind of decision Bob was most frequently called upon to make. He
knew little about law, but he had a very good feeling for the human
side. Whatever mistakes he made, the series of squabbles nourished his
sense of loyalty to the company. His woods training was gradually
bringing him to the lumberman's point of view; and the lumberman's point
of view means, primarily, timber and loyalty.

"By Jove, what a fine bunch of timber!" was his first thought on
entering a particularly imposing grove.

Where another man would catch merely a general effect, his more
practised eye would estimate heights, diameters, the growth of the
limbs, the probable straightness of the grain. His eye almost
unconsciously sought the possibilities of location--whether a road could
be brought in easily, whether the grades could run right. A fine tree
gave him the complicated pleasure that comes to any expert on analytical
contemplation of any object. It meant timber, good or bad, as well as
beauty.

Just so opposition meant antagonism. Bob was naturally of a partisan
temperament. He played the game fairly, but he played it hard. Games
imply rules, and any infraction of the rules is unfair and to be
punished. Bob could not be expected to reflect that while rules are
generally imposed by a third party on both contestants alike, in this
game the rules with which he was acquainted had been made by his side;
that perhaps the other fellow might have another set of rules. All he
saw was that the antagonists were perpetrating a series of contemptible,
petty, mean tri