"You remember when we first came in here how Plant closed the road and the flume right-of-way on us because we didn't have the permit?"

"Of course."

"Now, Bob, you remember how we was up against it, don't you? If we hadn't gone through that year we'd have busted the business absolutely.

It was just a case of hold-up and we had to pay it. You remember?"

"Yes."

"Well!" burst out Welton, bringing his fist down, "now this hound, Baker, sends up his slick lawyer to tell me that was bribery, and that he can have me up on a criminal charge!"

"He's bluffing," said Bob quietly. "I remember all about that case. If I'd known as much then of inside workings as I do now, I'd have taken a hand. But Baker himself ran the whole show. If he brings that matter into court, he'll be subject to the same charge; for, if you remember, he paid the money."

"Will he!" shouted Welton. "You don't know the lowlived skunk! Erbe told me that if this suit was brought and you testified in the matter, that Baker would turn state's evidence against me! That would let him off scot-free."

"What!" said Bob incredulously. "Brand himself publicly as a criminal and tell-tale just to get you into trouble! Not likely. Think what that would mean to a man in his position! It would be every bit as bad as though he were to take his jail sentence. He's bluffing again."

"Do you really think so?" asked Welton, a gleam of relief lightening the gloom of his red, good-natured face. "I'll agree to handle the worst river crew you can hand out to me; but this law business gets me running in circles."

"It does all of us," said Bob with a sigh.

"I concluded from Erbe's coming up here that you had decided to tell about what you knew. That ain't so, is it?"

"I don't know; I can't see my duty clearly yet."

"For heaven's sake, Bobby, what's it to you!" demanded Welton exasperated.

But Bob did not hear him.

"I think the direct way is the best," he remarked, by way of thinking aloud. "I'm going to keep on going to headquarters. I'm going to write father and put it straight to him how he did get those lands and tell him the whole situation; and I'm going down to interview Baker, and discover, if I can, just how much of a bluff he is putting up."

"In the meantime----" said Welton apparently not noting the fact that Bob had become aware of the senior Orde's connection with the land.

"In the meantime I'm going to postpone action if I can."

"They're summoning witnesses for the Basin trial."

"I'll do the best I can," concluded Bob.

Accordingly he wrote the next day to his father. In this letter he stated frankly the situation as far as it affected the Wolverine lands, but said nothing about the threatened criminal charges against Welton.

That was another matter. He set out the great value of the Basin lands and the methods by which they had been acquired. He pointed out his duty, both as a forest officer and as a citizen, but balanced this by the private considerations that had developed from the situation.

This dispatched, he applied for leave.

"This is the busy season, and we can spare no one," said Thorne. "You have important matters on hand."

"This is especially important," urged Bob.

"It is absolutely impossible. Come two months later, and I'll be glad to lay you off as long as I can."

"This particular affair is most urgent business."

"Private, of course?"

"Not entirely."

"Couldn't be considered official?"

"It might become so."

"What is it?"

"That I am not at liberty to tell you."

Thorne considered.

"No; I'm sorry, but I don't see how I can spare you."

"In that case," said Bob quietly, "you will force me to tender my resignation."

Thorne looked up at him quickly, and studied his face.

"From anybody else, Orde," said he, "I'd take that as a threat or a hold-up, and fire the man on the spot. From you I do not. The matter must be really serious. You may go. Get back as soon as you can."

"Thank you," said Bob. "It is serious. Three days will do me."

He set about his preparations at once, packing a suit case with linen long out of commission, smoothing out the tailored clothes he had not had occasion to use for many a day. He then transported this--and himself--down the mountain on his saddle horse. At Auntie Belle's he changed his clothes. The next morning he caught the stage, and by the day following walked up the main street of Fremont.

He had no trouble in finding Baker's office. The Sycamore Creek operations were one group of many. As one of Baker's companies furnished Fremont with light and power, it followed that at night the name of that company blazed forth in thousands of lights. The sign was not the less legible, though not so fiery, by day. Bob walked into extensive ground-floor offices behind plate-gla.s.s windows. Here were wickets and railings through which and over which the public business was transacted. A narrow pa.s.sageway sidled down between the wall and a row of ground-gla.s.s doors, on which were lettered the names of various officers of the company. At a swinging bar separating this pa.s.sage from the main office sat a uniformed boy directing and stamping envelopes.

Bob wrote his name on a blank form offered by this youth. The young man gazed at it a moment superciliously, then sauntered with an air of great leisure down the long corridor. He reappeared after a moment's absence behind the last door, to return with considerably more alacrity.

"Come right in, sir," he told Bob, in tones which mingled much deference with considerable surprise.

Bob had no reason to understand how unusual was the circ.u.mstance of so prompt a reception of a visitor for whom no previous appointment had been made. He entered the door held open for him by the boy, and so found himself in Baker's presence.

XXIII

The office was expensively but plainly furnished in hardwoods. A thick rug covered the floor, easy chairs drew up by a fireplace, several good pictures hung off the wall. Near the windows stood a small desk for a stenographer, and a wide mahogany table. Behind this latter, his back to the light, sat Baker.

The man's st.u.r.dy figure was absolutely immobile, and the customary facetiously quizzical lines of his face had given place to an expression of cold attention. When he spoke, Bob found that the picturesque diction too had vanished.

At Bob's entrance, Baker inclined his head coldly in greeting, but said nothing. Bob deliberately crossed the room and rested his two fists, knuckle down, on the polished desktop. Baker waited stolidly for him to proceed. Bob jerked his head toward the stenographer.

"I want to talk to you in private," said he.