ell's opinion, although he might later have demanded expert
corroboration from Tally.

The outdoor life, too, interested him and kept him in training, both
physically and spiritually. He realized his mistakes, but they were now
mistakes of judgment rather than of mechanical accuracy, and he did not
worry over them once they were behind him.

When Welton returned from California toward the close of the season, he
found the young man buoyant and happy, deeply absorbed, well liked, and
in a fair way to learn something about the business.

Almost immediately after his return, the mill was closed down. The
remaining lumber in the yards was shipped out as rapidly as possible. By
the end of September the work was over.

Bob perforce accepted a vacation of some months while affairs were in
preparation for the westward exodus.

Then he answered a summons to meet Mr. Welton at the Chicago offices.

He entered the little outer office he had left so down-heartedly three
years before. Harvey and his two assistants sat on the high stools in
front of the shelf-like desk. The same pictures of record loads, large
trees, mill crews and logging camps hung on the walls. The same
atmosphere of peace and immemorial quiet brooded over the place. Through
the half-open door Bob could see Mr. Fox, his leg swung over the arm of
his revolving chair, chatting in a leisurely fashion with some visitor.

No one had heard him enter. He stood for a moment staring at the three
bent backs before him. He remembered the infinite details of the work he
had left, the purchasings of innumerable little things, the regulation
of outlays, the balancings of expenditures, the constantly shifting
property values, the cost of tools, food, implements, wages, machinery,
transportation, operation. And in addition he brought to mind the minute
and vexatious mortgage and sale and rental business having to do with
the old cut-over lands; the legal complications; the questions of
arbitration and privilege. And beyond that his mind glimpsed dimly the
extent of other interests, concerning which he knew little--investment
interests, and silent interests in various manufacturing enterprises
where the Company had occasionally invested a surplus by way of a flyer.
In this quiet place all these things were correlated, compared,
docketed, and filed away. In the brains of the four men before him all
these infinite details were laid out in order. He knew that Harvey could
answ