XLI
Bob rode home through the forest, singing at the top of his voice. Whenhe met his father, near the lower meadow, he greeted the older manboisterously.
"That," said Orde to him shrewdly, "sounds to me mighty like relief.Have you decided for or against?"
"For," said Bob. "It's a fine chance for me to do just what I've alwayswanted to do--to work hard at what interests me and satisfies me."
"Go to it, then," said Orde. "By the way, Bobby, how old are you now?"
"Twenty-nine."
"Well, you're a year younger than I was when I started in with Newmark.You're ahead of me there. But in other respects, my son, your father hada heap more sense; he got married, and he didn't waste any time on it.How long have you been living around in range of that Thorne girl,anyway? Somebody ought to build a fire under you."
Bob hesitated a moment; but he preferred that his good news should cometo his father when Amy could be there, too.
"I'm glad you like her, father," said he quietly.
Orde looked at his son, and his voice fell from its chaffing tone. "Goodluck, boy," said he, and leaned from his saddle to touch the young manon the shoulder.
They emerged into the clearing about the mill. Bob looked on thefamiliar scene with the new eyes of a great spiritual uplift. The yellowsawdust and the sawn lumber; the dark forest beyond; the bulk of themill with its tall pines; the dazzling plume of steam against the veryblue sky, all these appealed to him again with many voices, as they hadyears before in far-off Michigan. Once more he was back where his bloodcalled him; but under conditions which his training and the spirit ofthe new times could approve. His heart exulted at the challenge to hisyoung manhood.
As he rode by the store he caught sight within its depths of Merkermethodically waiting on a stolid squaw.
"No more economic waste, Merker!" he could not forbear shouting; andthen rocked in his saddle with laughter over the man's look of slowsurprise. "It's his catchword," he explained to Orde. "He's a slow,queer old duck, but a mighty good sort for the place. There's Post, infrom the woods. He's woods foreman. I expect I'll have lively times withPost at first, getting him broken into new ways. But he's a good sort,too."
"Everybody's a good sort to-day, aren't they, son?" smiled Orde.
Welton met them, and expressed his satisfaction over the way everythinghad turned out.
"I'm going duck shooting for fair," said he, "and I'm going fishing atCatalina. Out here," he explained to Orde, "you sit in nice warm sun andlet the ducks insult you into shooting at 'em! Nofreeze-your-fingers-and-break-the-ice early mornings! I'm willing to letthe kid go it! He can't bust me in two years, anyway."
Later, when the two were alone together, he clapped Bob on the back andwished him success.
"I'm too old at the game to believe much in new methods to what I'vebeen brought up to, Bob," said he; "but I believe in you. If anybody cando it, you can; and I'd be tickled to see you win out. Things change;and a man is foolish to act as though they didn't. He's just got to keepplaying along according to the rules of the game. And they keepchanging, too. It's good to have lived while they're making a country.I've done it. You're going to."
THE END
The Rules of the Game Page 99
