his attitude of
mind imply?

All these doubts and questionings were dissipated like fog. Quite simply
it all resolved itself. He was dissatisfied because this was not his
work. The other honest and sincere men--such as his father and
Welton--had been satisfied because this was their work. The old
generation, the one that was passing, needed just that kind of service
but the need too was passing. Bob belonged to the new generation. He saw
that new things were to be demanded. The old order was changing. The
modern young men of energy and force and strong ability had a different
task from that which their fathers had accomplished. The wilderness was
subdued; the pioneer work of industry was finished; the hard brute
struggle to shape things to efficiency was over. It had been necessary
to get things done. Now it was becoming necessary to perfect the means
and methods of doing. Lumber must still be cut, streams must still be
dammed, railroads must still be built; but now that the pioneers, the
men of fire, had blazed the way others could follow. Methods were
established. It was all a business, like the selling of groceries. The
industrial rank and file could attend to details. The men who thought
and struggled and carried the torch--they must go beyond what their
fathers had accomplished.

Now Bob understood Amy Thorne's pride in the Service. He saw the true
basis of his feeling toward the Supervisor as opposed to his feeling
toward Baker. Thorne was in the current. With his pitiful eighteen
hundred a year he was nevertheless swimming strongly in new waters. His
business went that little necessary step beyond. It not only earned him
his living in the world, but it helped the race movement of his people.
At present the living was small, just as at first the pioneer opening
the country had wrested but a scanty livelihood from the stubborn
wilderness; nevertheless, he could feel--whether he stopped to think it
out or not--that his efforts had that coordination with the trend of
humanity which makes subtly for satisfaction and happiness. Bob looked
about the mill yard with an understanding eye. This work was necessary;
but it was not his work.

Something of this he tried to explain to his new friends at headquarters
when next he found an opportunity to ride over. His explanations were
not very lucid, for Bob was no great hand at analysis. To any other
audience they might have been absolutely incoherent. But Thorne had long