ne. She was engaged in wiping the breakfast dishes,
and she excitedly waved a towel at the young man as he rode up.

"A godsend!" she cried. "I'm just dancing with impatience! They've been
gone five minutes! Come help me finish!"

Bob fastened his horse, rolled back his sleeves, and took hold with a
will.

"Where's your examining board, and your candidates?" he inquired. "I
thought I was going to see an examination."

"Up the Meadow Trail," panted the girl. "Don't stop to talk. Hurry!"

They hurried, to such good purpose, that shortly they were clambering,
rather breathless, up the steeps of the Meadow Trail. This led to a
flat, upper shelf or bench in which, as the name implied, was situated a
small meadow. At the upper end were grouped twenty-five men, closely
gathered about some object.

Amy and Bob plunged into the dew-heavy grasses. The men proved to be
watching Thorne, who was engaged in tacking a small target on the stub
of a dead sugar pine. This accomplished, he led the way back some
seventy-five or eighty paces.

"Three shots each," said he, consulting his note-book. "Off-hand.
Hicks!"

The man so named stepped forward to the designated mark, sighted his
piece carefully, and fired.

"Do I get each shot called?" he inquired; but Thorne shook his head.

"You ought to know where your guns shoot," said he.

After the third shot, the whole group went forward to examine the
target. Thorne marked the results in his note-book, and called upon the
next contestant.

While the shooting went on, Bob had leisure to examine the men. They
numbered, as he had guessed, about twenty. Three were plainly from the
towns, for they wore thin shoes, white shirts, and clothes of a sort ill
adapted to out-of-door work in the mountains. Two others, while more
appropriately dressed in khakis and high boots, were as evidently
foreign to the hills. Bob guessed them recent college graduates, perhaps
even of some one of the forestry schools. In this he was correct. The
rest were professional out-of-door men. Bob recognized two of his own
woods-crew--good men they were, too. He nodded to them. A half-dozen
lithe, slender youths, handsome and browned, drew apart by themselves.
He remembered having noticed one of them as a particularly daring rider
after Pollock's cattle the fall before; and guessed his companions to be
of the same breed. Among the remainder, two picturesque, lean, slow and
quizzical prospectors attracted his par