And when Bud came to that point in his career when he summed up his past and found that his chief a.s.set was experience, garnished with a somewhat worn outfit of pack-saddles, tarps, bridles, chaps, and guns, he sighed heavily.

The old trails were changing to roads. The local freight intermittently disgorged tons of harvesting machinery. The sound of the Klaxton was heard in the land. Despite the times and the manners, Bud's girth increased insidiously. His hard-riding days were past. Progress marched steadily onward, leaving an after-guard of homesteaders intrenched behind miles of barbed-wire fence and mazes of irrigating-ditches. The once open range was now a chessboard of agricultural endeavor, with the p.a.w.ns steadying ploughshares as they crept from square to square until the opposing cattle king suffered ignominious checkmate, his prerogative of free movement gone, his army scattered, his castles taken, and his glory surviving only in the annals of the game.

Incidentally, Bud Shoop had saved a little money, and his large popularity would have won for him a political sinecure; but he disliked politics quite as heartily as he detested indolence. He needed work not half so much as he wanted it.

He had failed as a rancher, but he still held his homestead on the Blue Mesa, some twenty miles from the town of Jason, an old Mormon settlement in the heart of the mesa country.

Friday morning at sunup Bud saddled his horse, closed the door of his cabin on the Blue Mesa, and, whistling to his old Airedale, Bondsman, rode across the mesa and down the mountain trail toward Jason. By sundown that night he was in town, his horse fed, and he and Bondsman sitting on the little hotel veranda, watching the villagers as they pa.s.sed in the dusk of early evening.

Coatless and perspiring, Bud betook himself next morning to the office of the supervisor of that district of the Forest Service. Bondsman accompanied him, stalking seriously at his master's heels. The supervisor was busy. Bud filled a chair in the outer office, polished his bald spot with a blue bandanna, and waited.

Presently the supervisor called him in. Bud rose heavily and plodded to another chair in the private office. Torrance, the supervisor, knew Bud; knew that he was a solid man in the finer sense of the word from the shiny dome of his head to his dusty boot. And Torrance thought he knew why Bud had called. The Airedale sat in the outer office, watching his master. Occasionally the big dog rapped the floor with his stubby tail.

"He's just tellin' me to go ahead and say my piece, John, and that he'll wait till I get through. That there dog bosses me around somethin'

scandalous."

"He's getting old and set in his ways," laughed Torrance.

"So be I, John. Kind of settin' in my own way mostly."

"Well, Bud, how are things up on the mesa?"

"Growin' and bloomin' and singin' and feedin' and keepin' still, same as always."

"What can I do for you?"

"Well, I ain't seen a doctor for so long I can't tell you; but I reckon I need more exercise and a little salary thrown in for luck."

"I'm glad you came in. You needn't say anything about it, but I'm scheduled to leave here next month."

"Then I reckon I'm left. Higher up, John?"

"Yes. I have this end of it pretty well whipped into shape. They seem to think they can use me at headquarters."

Bud frowned prodigiously. The situation did not seem to promise much.

And naturally enough, being a Westerner, Bud disliked to come out flatfooted and ask for work.

His frown deepened as the supervisor asked another question: "Do you think you could hold down my job, Bud?"

"Say, John, I've stood for a lot in my time. But, honest, I was lookin'

for a job as ranger. I can ride yet. And if I do say it I know every hill and canon, every hogback and draw and flat from here to the Tonto Basin."

"I know it. I was coming to that. The grazing-leases are the most important items just now. You know cattle, and you know something about the Service. You have handled men. I am not joking."

"Well, this is like a hobo gettin' up his nerve to ask for a san'wich, and havin' the lady of the house come runnin' with a hot apple pie. I'll tackle anything."

"Well, the Department has confidence enough in me to suggest that I name a successor, subject to their approval. Do you think that you could hold down this job?"

"If settin' on it would hold it down, it would never get up alive, John. But I ain't no author."

"Author?"

"Uh-uh. When it comes to facts, I aim to brand 'em. But them reports to headquarters--"

The supervisor laughed. "You would be ent.i.tled to a clerk. The man I have would like to stay. And another thing. I have just had an application from young Adams, of Stacey. He wrote from St. Johns. He wants to get into the Service. While we are at it, what do you know about him?"

"Nothin'. But his mother runs a right comf'table eatin'-house over to Stacey. She's a right fine woman. I knew her when she was wearin' her hair in a braid."

"I have stopped there. It's a neat place. Would you take the boy on if you were in my place?"

Bud coughed and studied the ends of his blunt fingers. "Well, now, John, if I was in your place, I could tell you."

Torrance was amused and rather pleased. Bud's careful evasion was characteristic. He would do nothing hastily. Moreover, with Shoop as supervisor, it was safe to a.s.sume that the natives would hesitate to attempt their usual subterfuges in regard to grazing-leases. Bud was too well known for that. Torrance had had trouble with the cattlemen and sheepmen. He knew that Shoop's mere name would obviate much argument and bickering.

"The White Mountain Apaches are eating a lot of beef these days," he said suddenly.

Shoop grinned. "And it ain't all Gov'ment beef, neither. The line fence crost Still Canon is down. They's been a fire up on the shoulder of Ole Baldy--nothin' much, though. Your telephone line to the lookout is saggin' bad over by Sheep Crossin'. Some steer'll come along and take it with him in a hurry one of these days. A grizzly killed a yearlin' over by the Milk Ranch about a week ago. I seen your ranger, young Winslow, day before yesterday. He says somebody has been grazin' sheep on the posted country, west. He was after 'em. The gra.s.s is pretty good on the Blue. The Apaches been killin' wild turkey on the wrong side of their line. I seen their tracks--and some feathers. They's some down timber along the north side of the creek over on the meadows. And a couple of wimmin was held up over by the Notch the other day. I ain't heard the partic'lars. Young Adams--"

"Where do you get it all, Bud? Only two of the things you mentioned have been reported in to this office."

"Who, me? Huh! Well, now, John, that's just the run of news that floats in when you're movin' around the country. If I was to set out to get info'mation--"

"You'd swamp the office. All right. I'll have my clerk draft a letter of application. You can sign it. I'll add my word. It will take some time to put this through, if it goes through. I don't promise anything. Come in at noon and sign the letter. Then you might drop in in about two weeks; say Sat.u.r.day morning. We'll have heard something by then."

Bud beamed. "I'll do that. And while I'm waitin' I'll ride over some of that country up there and look around."

Torrance leaned forward. "There's one more thing, Bud. I know this job offers a temptation to a man to favor his friends. So far as this office is concerned, I don't want you to have any friends. I want things run straight. I've given the best of my life to the Service. I love it. I have dipped into my own pocket when Washington couldn't see the need for improvements. I have bought fire-fighting tools, built trails, and paid extra salaries at times. Now I will be where I can back you up. Keep things right up to the minute. If you get stuck, wire me. Here's your territory on this map. You know the country, but you will find this system of keeping track of the men a big help. The pins show where each man is working. We can go over the office detail after we have heard from headquarters."

Bud perspired, blinked, shuffled his feet. "I ain't goin' to say thanks, John. You know it."

"That's all right, Bud. Your thanks will be just what you make of this work when I leave. There has been a big shake-up in the Service. Some of us stayed on top."

"Congratulations, John. Sat.u.r.day, come two weeks, then."

And Bud heaved himself up. The Airedale, Bondsman, thumped the floor with his tail. Bud turned a whimsical face to the supervisor. "Now listen to that! What does he say? Well, he's tellin' me he sabes I got a chanct at a job and that he'll keep his mouth shut about what you said, like me. And that it's about time I quit botherin' folks what's busy and went back to the hotel so he can watch things go by. That there dog bosses me around somethin' scandalous."

Torrance smiled, and waved his hand as Bud waddled from the office, with Bondsman at his heels.

About an hour later, as Torrance was dictating a letter, he glanced up.

Bud Shoop, astride a big bay horse, pa.s.sed down the street. For a moment Torrance forgot office detail in a general appreciation of the Western rider, who, once in the saddle, despite age or physical attributes, bears himself with a subconscious ease that is a delight to behold, be he lean Indian, lithe Mexican, or bed-rock American with a girth, say, of fifty-two inches and weighing perhaps not less than two hundred and twenty pounds.

"He'll make good," soliloquized the supervisor. "He likes horses and dogs, and he knows men. He's all human--and there's a lot of him. And they say that Bud Shoop used to be the last word in riding 'em straight up, and white lightning with a gun."

The supervisor shook his head. "Take a letter to Collins," he said.

The stenographer glanced up. "Senator Collins, Mr. Torrance?"

"Yes. And make an extra copy. Mark it confidential. You need not file the copy. I'll take care of it. And if Mr. Shoop is appointed to my place, he need know nothing about this letter."