men, free timber users, mining
men, seekers for water concessions, those who desired rights of way,
permits for posts, pastures, mill sites--all these proffered their
requests and difficulties to the Supervisor. Sometimes they were
answered on the spot. Oftener their remarks were listened to, their
propositions taken under advisement. Then one or another of the rangers
was summoned, given instructions. He packed his mule, saddled his horse,
and rode away to be gone a greater or lesser period of time. Others were
sent out to run lines about tracts, to define boundaries. Still others,
like Ross Fletcher, pounded drill and rock, and exploded powder on the
new trail that was to make more accessible the tremendous canon of the
river. The men who came and went rarely represented any but the smallest
interests; yet somehow Bob felt their importance, and the importance of
the little problems threshed out in the tiny, rough-finished office
below him. These but foreshadowed the greater things to come. And these
minute decisions shaped the policies and precedents of what would become
mighty affairs. Whether Brown should be allowed to save his paltry three
dollars and a half or not determined larger things. To Bob's half-mystic
mood, up there under the mottled shadows, every tiny move of this game
became portentous with fate. A return of the old exultation lifted him.
He saw the shadows of these affairs cast dim and gigantic against the
mists of the future. These men were big with the responsibility of a new
thing. It behooved them all to act with circumspection, with due heed,
with reverence----

Bob applied his broad brush and the evil-smelling stain methodically and
with minute care as to every tiny detail of the simple work. But his
eyes were wide and unseeing, and all the inner forces of his soul were
moving slowly and mightily. His personality had nothing to do with the
matter. He painted; and affairs went on with him. His being held itself
passive, in suspension, while the forces and experiences and influences
of one phase of his life crystallized into their foreordained shapes
deep within him. Yesterday he was this; now he was becoming that; and
the two were as different beings. New doors of insight were silently
swinging open on their hinges, old prejudices were closing, fresh
convictions long snugly in the bud were unfolding like flowers. These
things were not new. They had begun many years before when as a young
boy he h