ail himself of these especial gifts
and likings. So, early in the summer he called in Bob and Elliott.

"Now," he told them, "we have plenty of work to do, and you boys must
buckle into it as you see fit. But this is what I want you to keep in
the back of your mind: someday the National Forests are going to supply
a great part of the timber in the country. It's too early yet. There's
too much private timber standing, which can be cut without restriction.
But when that is largely reduced, Uncle Sam will be going into the
lumber business on a big scale. Even now we will be selling a few shake
trees, and some small lots, and occasionally a bigger piece to some of
the lumbermen who own adjoining timber. We've got to know what we have
to sell. For instance, there's eighty acres in there surrounded by
Welton's timber. When he comes to cut, it might pay us and him to sell
the ripe trees off that eighty."

"I doubt if he'd think it would pay," Bob interposed.

"He might. I think the Chief will ease up a little on cutting
restrictions before long. You've simply got to over-emphasize a matter
at first to make it carry."

"You mean----?"

"I mean--this is only my private opinion, you understand--that
lumbering has been done so wastefully and badly that it has been
necessary, merely as education, to go to the other extreme. We've
insisted on chopping and piling the tops like cordwood, and cutting up
the down trunks of trees, and generally 'parking' the forest simply to
get the idea into people's heads. They'd never thought of such things
before. I don't believe it's necessary to go to such extremes,
practically; and I don't believe the Service will demand it when it
comes actually to do business."

Elliott and Bob looked at each other a little astonished.

"Mind you, I don't talk this way outside; and I don't want you to do
so," pursued Thorne. "But when you come right down to it, all that's
necessary is to prevent fire from running--and, of course, to leave a
few seed-trees. Yo' can keep fire from running just as well by piling
the debris in isolated heaps, as by chopping it up and stacking it. And
it's a lot cheaper."

He leaned forward.

"That's coming," he continued. "Now you, Elliott, have had as thorough a
theoretical education as the schools can give you; and you, Orde, have
had a lot of practical experience in logging. You ought to make a good
pair. Here's a map of the Government holdings hereabouts. What I want