“No, they haven’t. They’ve thrown him out. They’ve downed him because he tried to head off some thievery of coal-mines in Alaska.” The man was ready to weep with chagrin and indignant sorrow. His voice choked, and he turned away to conceal his emotion.
Cavanagh put the letter back into his pocket and mounted his horse. “Well, go on back to your work, Swenson. I’m going to town to get the Supervisor on the wire, and find out what it all means.”
He was almost as badly stunned by the significance of Swenson’s news as Swenson himself. Could it be possible that the man who had built up the field service of the bureau—the man whose clean-handed patriotism had held the boys together, making them every year more clearly a unit, a little army of enthusiasts—could it be possible that the originator, the organizer of this great plan, had been stricken down just when his influence was of most account? He refused to believe it of an administration pledged to the cause of conservation.
As he entered the town he was struck instantly by the change in the faces turned toward him, in the jocular greetings hurled at him. “Hello, Mr. Cossack! What do you think of your chief now?”
“This will put an end to your infernal nonsense,” said another. “We’ll have a man in there now who knows the Western ways, and who’s willing to boom things along. The cork is out of your forest bottle.”
Gregg was most offensive of all. “This means throwing open the forest to anybody that wants to use it. Means an entire reversal of this fool policy.”
“Wait and see,” replied Cavanagh, but his face was rigid with the repression of the fear and anger he felt. With hands that trembled he opened the door to the telephone-booth, closed it carefully behind him, and called for the Supervisor’s office. As soon as Redfield replied, he burst forth in question: “Is it true that the chief is out?”
Redfield’s voice was husky as he replied, “Yes, lad, they’ve got him.”
“Good Lord! What a blow to the service!” exclaimed Cavanagh, with a groan of sorrow and rage. “What is the President thinking of—to throw out the only man who stood for the future, the man who had built up this corps, who was its inspiration?” Then after a pause he added, with bitter resolution: “This ends it for me. Here’s where I get off.”
“Don’t say that, boy. We need you now more than ever.”