ck," said Bob, weariedly throwing all the usual pretence aside, "I'm
ashamed to say I clean forgot it; I had such a job on hand. I'll ride
over and get it now."

"Don't understand you," said Jack, without moving a muscle of his face.

Bob smiled at the serious young mountaineer, playing loyally his part
even to his fellow-conspirator.

"Jack," said he, "I guess your friend must have been delayed. Maybe
he'll get here later."

"Quite like," nodded Jack gravely.

XXI

Bob made the earliest chance to obtain California John's promised
advice. The old man was unlettered, but his understanding was informed
by a broad and gentle spirit and long experience of varied things. On
this the head ranger himself touched.

"Bob," he began, "I'm an old man, and I've lived through a lot. When I
come into this state the elk and deer and antelope was running out on
the plains like sheep. I mined and prospected up and down these
mountains when nobody knew their names. There's hardly a gold camp you
can call over that I ain't been in on; nor a set of men that had
anything to do with making the state that I ain't tracked up with. Most
of the valley towns wasn't in existence those days, and the rest was
little cattle towns that didn't amount to anything. The railroad took a
week to come from Chicago. There wasn't any railroad up the coast. They
hadn't begun to irrigate much. Where the Redlands and Riverside orange
groves are there was nothing but dry washes and sage-brush desert. It
cost big money to send freight. All that was shipped out of the country
in a season wouldn't make up one shipment these days. I suppose to folks
back East this country looked about as far off as Africa. Even to folks
living in California the country as far back as these mountains looked
like going to China. They got all their lumber from the Coast ranges and
the lower hills. This back here was just wilderness, so far off that
nobody rightly thought of it as United States at all.

"Of course, by and by the country settled up a little more but even then
nobody ever thought of timber. You see, there was no market to amount
to anything out here; and a few little jerk-water mills could supply the
whole layout easy. East, the lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin and
Minnesota never was going to give out. In those days you could hardly
_give_ away land up in this country. The fellow that went in for timber
was looked on as a lunatic. It took a big man with lo