“Feud ended. Place now foolproof for supervisors.”
And when Mr. Roberts came home to supper that evening he brought the reply:
“Good work. We are going to appoint you the next fool.”
But Scott did not want that job till he had finished the one he had. He was deaf to the letters from Washington. A few days later, Mr. Johns arrived on the scene to plead with him in person. He listened with interest to Scott’s account of the struggle.
“Well,” he said admiringly when Scott had finished his story, “you certainly turned the trick, all right. You pulled the Service out of a nasty hole and everybody appreciates it. Now we want you back as supervisor. It ought to be a peaceful enough job now, thanks to you.”
But Scott still shook his head. “Not till the last log is in here,” he said, waving his hand toward the mountain slope.
“Pshaw,” Mr. Johns exclaimed impatiently, “anybody can run this logging outfit now.”
“That’s just it,” Scott replied quietly. “It has been hard enough work to get it to run smoothly, and now I am going to have the benefit of it. I am going to make a bunch of money off that contract, low as the bid was. When it is all over I will take back the job if you want me to; but I would rather go back to my old horse in Arizona.”
“Well, we might even arrange that in time,” Mr. Johns said, “or maybe we could bring the horse here.”
“That would be better,” came a quiet voice behind them, and they both started to find Hopwood looking at Scott reproachfully.