Or:
"You going to make me sweep up my slashings, or will a rake do, Mr. Ranger?"
To these feeble jests Bob always replied good-naturedly. He did not attempt to improve Welton's conception of his purposes. That must come with time. To his father, however, he wrote at great length; trying his best to explain the situation. Mr. Orde replied that a government position was always honourable; but confessed himself disappointed that his son had not more steadfastness of purpose. Welton received a reply to his own letter by the same mail.
"I shouldn't tell him anything," it read. "Let him go be a ranger, or a cowboy, or anything else he wants. He's still young. I didn't get my start until I was thirty; and the business is big enough to wait for him. You keep pegging along, and when he gets enough, he'll come back. He's apparently got some notions of serving the public, and doing good in the world, and all that. We all get it at his age. By and by he'll find out that tending to his business honestly is about one man's job."
So, without active opposition, and with only tacit disapproval, Bob made his change. Nor was he received at headquarters with any blare of trumpets.
"I'll put you on as 'temporary' until the fall examinations," said Thorne, "and you can try it out. Rangering is hard work—all kinds of hard work. It isn't just riding around, you know. You'll have to make good. You can bunk up with Pollock at the upper cabin. Report to-morrow morning with him."
Amy smiled at him brightly.
"Don't let him scare you," said she. "He thinks it looks official to be an awful bear!"
California John met him as he rode out the gate. He reached out his gnarled old hand.
"Son, we'll get him to send us sometime to Jack Main's Cañon," said he.