"It'll keep him mighty busy, even at best," acknowledged Welton, "and
he's going to make some bad breaks. I know that."

"Bad breaks cost money," Orde reminded him.

"So does any education. Even at its worst this can't cost much money. He
can't wreck things--the organization is too good--he'll just make 'em
wobble a little. And this is a mighty small and incidental proposition,
while this California lay-out is a big project. No, by my figuring Bob
won't actually do much, but he'll lie awake nights to do a hell of a lot
of deciding, and----."

"Oh, I know," broke in Orde with a laugh; "you haven't changed an inch
in twenty years--and 'it's not doing but deciding that makes a man,'" he
quoted.

"Well, isn't it?" demanded Welton insistently.

"Of course," agreed Orde with another laugh. "I was just tickled to see
you hadn't changed a hair. Now if you'd only moralize on square pegs in
round holes, I'd hear again the birds singing in the elms by the dear
old churchyard."

Welton grinned, a trifle shamefacedly. Nevertheless he went on with the
development of his philosophy.

"Well," he asserted stoutly, "that's just what Bob was when I got there.
He can't handle figures any better than I can, and Collins had been
putting him through a course of sprouts." He paused and sipped at his
glass. "Of course, if I wasn't absolutely certain of the men under him,
it would be a fool proposition. Bob isn't the kind to get onto treachery
or double-dealing very quick. He likes people too well. But as it is,
he'll get a lot of training cheap."

Orde ruminated over this for some time, sipping slowly between puffs at
his cigar.

"Why wouldn't it be better to take him out to California now?" he asked
at length. "You'll be building your roads and flumes and railroad,
getting your mill up, buying your machinery and all the rest of it. That
ought to be good experience for him--to see the thing right from the
beginning."

"Bob is going to be a lumberman, and that isn't lumbering; it's
construction. Once it's up, it will never have to be done again. The
California timber will last out Bob's lifetime, and you know it. He'd
better learn lumbering, which he'll do for the next fifty years, than to
build a mill, which he'll never have to do again--unless it burns up,"
he added as a half-humorous afterthought.

"Correct," Orde agreed promptly to this. "You're a wonder. When I found
a university with my ill-gotten gains, I'll give you a job