Steve takes something seriously he sure takes it. Gee, ain't it the bunk though? There he is with a swell job and lots of good prospects. If I was fixed like that believe me I wouldn't have to have that heathen Chink around to fry the eggs!" In the meantime Haines had crossed the ridge and dropped down into the wide wooded valley which formed the eastern section of the range. It was here he expected to find interlopers because it was a good game country and also lay nearest the little mountain settlement of Walnut. Nor was he disappointed for just before he reached the timbered bottom he caught sight of a figure plodding along the trail which led along the opposite side of the valley to the old abandoned limestone quarries just north of the ranch. The distance was too great to distinguish anything except that the trespasser was clad in the conventional blue overalls and shirt and slung a long barreled rifle in his right hand.

Steve pushed forward swiftly through the scattered trees and on reaching the trail put his tired horse into a trot. At least the poacher's clothing marked him as a ruralite, probably one of the worthy citizens of Walnut, out to nab a morsel for the family larder, and not one of the khaki-clad, leather-puttied sports from the city. Nevertheless, Steve was determined to put a stop to all infringements on his property and was busy rehearsing in his mind a suitable reprimand, when he came suddenly upon his

quarry.

Right there Steve Haines got the premier surprise of his more or less eventful life. For there, seated on a boulder, almost under his horse's feet, sat a woman, no! she was only a girl, and an extraordinary pretty girl at that. True, she was clad in blue overalls and shirt, and was undoubtedly the figure he had been following. She was perched rather precariously on the edge of a rock, one booted foot drawn awkwardly to one side to allow his horse to pass. She had taken off a boy's cap, which she held in her lap, and her hands were busy braiding up the flood of rich blond hair which was

"Oh that's alright," she replied easily, returning his agonized glance with a frank half smile, "you really didn't startle me so much, I heard your horse."

By this time Steve had taken cognizance of the rest of the scene. He saw a young woman in the early twenties, the loose hair had given the first impression of girlishness. She was of about medium size and build, with a rather round clear complexioned face and round blue eyes under exceptionally heavy lashes. Her feet, which were now more comfortably crossed on the edge of the trail, were clad in hiking boots, which had originally encased the legs of the overalls, but these had worked out until they hung almost to her ankles, like baggy Dutch Boy trousers. At this point Steve received his second shock. Lying at her feet was the object which he had taken for a gun but which now proved to be an iron crow bar about six feet long, with one end broadened into a blade. It was of the type used for churn drilling in soft material and had been newly drawn and ground.

"Well," said Steve, having by this time somewhat collected his senses, "I guess of the two I was the most surprised. One doesn't expect to find women (he almost said pretty women) wandering these woods, especially in overalls and toting crow bars."

The smile faded from her face, at this last, and Steve knew he had started on the wrong line.

"I'm sorry if I have been trespassing, I didn't know this was private property." "Oh, no, that's O. K. We only don't allow any shooting here. But really, I don't mean to be inquisitive, but what under the sun are you doing with that crow bar?"

"Why," she replied, after a moment's pause, "I was just over at Walnut having it sharpened."

And, as Steve still looked puzzled, she continued, "You see father is studying, that is experimenting or examining-I mean the limestone quarries over the hill. I just took the bar over for him, as he only has one man to help him and he was very busy."

"Oh! I understand," lied Steve, for this puzzled him still further. "I thought you might have been out looking for treasure."

"Treasure?" She seemed to give an involuntary start and regarded him with more interest.

"Yes, indeed," he laughed, "that's the standard occupation around here. You see there was a train robbery over at Hermit last Spring and the robbers were captured not far from here. Rumor has it that they hid the loot under a large rock somewhere in this vicinity, and it has been quite a common sight around here to see someone roving around turning over boulders, so that was the first thing I thought of when I saw you with that bar."

"Oh, I see, but really I wasn't looking for it."

She paused, giving Steve a sudden searching glance and the corners of her mouth twitched into a mischievous smile. Steve had an agonized moment wondering what could be so radically wrong with his appearance, but she sobered again and continued, "No, really, I had never heard that myth." Another embarassed pause. "You don't happen

to know how much there was of the hidden fortune do you, I mean how much there was supposed to be?"

"Oh Heaven only knows, the amount grows every week. In a few years it will reach a fabulous sum that the population of Walnut will spend all their spare time rolling rocks. The future generation will surely develop some strong backs. But seriously the whole thing is only an entirely unconfirmed rumor, which is improved upon at each telling." "Well, what do you think about it?" "Of course it's all bunk, but," he ad

mitted sheepishly, "I do sometimes look twice at favorable looking rocks, though I've never lost any sleep over it."

He was just trying to decide whether to ask her more about her strange position and what her father was doing experimenting in a quarry which had been abandoned years ago because of its inaccessibility, or to move on about his business, when his horse solved the question for him by starting wearily off. However he felt it was at least only courtesy to ask to help her with her burden, but she declined hurriedly.

"It isn't heavy and I've come most of the way already and, well, I can get along alone very nicely thank you."

This left no grounds for further conversation, so he made no effort to stop his mount, but with a mumbled apology for having bothered her, continued on his way.

"Please don't let that worry you," she called after him, in smiling contrast to her last remark, "I'm glad I won't be trespassing because I'll probably be making this trip quite often."

Steve puzzled over the encounter all the way down to the cabin without arriving at any explanation of the affair. She had acted normal enough until he had chanced to mention that treasure yarn and then her conversation had appeared to be as muddled as his had been at first. To dismiss him with an almost rude remark and then call after him what was practically an invitation to see her there again, well it was beyond him. Women were queer creatures and he ought to have sense enough by now not to worry about them. Nevertheless there had been something more attractive about her than any woman he had met for a long time and he could not dismiss her from his mind.

He had always a failing for taking a sudden interest in a woman at first sight, although, as Stanley had remarked, a good many times, "the affairs never panned out according to the proper rules of romance." However, his engagement with a girl he had known for years had been far from a happy affair and he had told himself savagely at the time that

if he ever did marry it would be a woman he met one day and married the next. During his almost hermit life of the last three years he had practically convinced himself that he was a confirmed woman hater, but now, on thinking it over, he had to admit it was probably only lack of opportunities. At least he would arrange to see her again, he'd be a fool to pass up a chance like that.

Dusk had fallen over the jumble of foot hills and the evening air that settled down brought with it a breath of the snow from the sentinel peaks above, which came almost as a chill after the inferno of the daylight hours. The pulse of new life was reflected in the trio around the little fire behind the cabin and their conversation was bubbling with cheerfulness and contentment.

Stanley and Pete especially kept up a continual flow of words, the youth enthusiastically recalling jokes and parties of college days, and Pete reminiscencing in a tedious monotonous tone the joys of the good old days. Steve supplemented Stanley's anecdotes with some of his own experiences and questions about old friends at the university. But during Pete's monologues, most of which he had heard over and over again, he remained inattentive studying the glowing tip of his cigarette or gouging furrows in the soft soil with a roweled spur. Finally, during a moment's silence which followed one of Pete's egotistical yarns, he mentioned his afternoon's adventure.

"Say, what would you boys say if I told you I ran into a pretty woman over on the quarry trail this afternoon, dolled up in overalls and boots and packing a six-foot crow bar?"

"Well, I'd say right away that you'd been visiting our friend the sheep herder, sampling too much of his homebrewed Tiger Soup and sleeping off the effects in the sun," ventured Pete.

"I could almost think so myself, there was something darn queer about

"Toting a crow bar did you say?" interrupted Pete with sudden interest. "I'll bet she was out looking for that swag!"

"Well, that's the first thing that oc

cured to me, but when I mentioned it, she stammered around and said she was taking it over to her father, who is working in the quarry."

"The quarry!" protested Pete, "why they ain't worked that quarry for years. I remember well when they give it up, back in '99 it was, the creek washed their road out every Winter and the haul was too long anyway. She was kiddin' you, that's all. What did she act like when you let on about the treasure?"

Steve recounted the meeting in detail and Pete listened with rapt interest.

"Well, doggone my bones, if I don't bet she was on the trail of that loot," he declared when the boss had finished.

"Well, if she was I don't see anything to get wildly wrought up about," interposed Stanley, "she isn't the first one that's spent good time pursuing that pipe dream."

"No, a lot of the country hicks have fell for it, but when some high-class society jane, like the boss here, doped her out to be, starts out for it, looks like it might amount to something. For all you know she's got a tip about it. It might have been that she was in with the crooks that hid it or perhaps she might have a drag with one of the deputies that has some dope on it or—”

Now Pete always had more than a passing interest in the treasure rumor. He had prospected in the early days and the lure of fortune hunting was still strong within him. He was always ready to hear the latest rumor, no matter how wild it was and was always developing new ideas and plausible theories.

"You bet! Pete," encouraged Stanley, who liked to get the old man started, "you've got the plot for a fine yarn there, though I can't quite picture any of the society buds I know out in dungarees mucking around with a crow bar."

"Of course," Steve broke in, "I don't put any stock in that part of it, although it's perfectly possible she might have an imaginative old man who got the gold fever from some wild Sunday supplement account. However, I was more interested in "

(To Be Continued Next Month.)

T

"I don't see why you did it," said one of the campers.

"Tell us about it," said several charming school teachers, who had returned from a tramp to the top of the divide. "Tell us the very worst of those events."

"You see," said the grizzled pioneer ranger, looking far up to the snow peaks which he had known for forty years, "you see if I tell you about our Wolleson experiment back in 1906, you must not lay it up as too hard a bang at the service. It isn't at all that, but it sure illustrates how not to do a thing."

"I infer," said one of the listeners, "that this is to be 'a tale out of school.'

"That's about it," the ranger replied. "It's just a glimpse of the curious difficulties of early days. You see when the service began to develop the reserves -as they were called before 1905-everything had to be put into shape as hard and as fast as possible. There was not a minute to lose."

"Why not?" someone asked.

"Because some people wanted to smash it up; because some folks thought that the War Department ought to have the reserves; because millions of plain Americans were watching, thinking, making up their minds about forestry, and at times were just a little inclined to go against it.

"For these reasons," the ranger went on, "we had to rush things. Every man took on enough out-door work for three fellows, and had to struggle with all sorts of new form-blanks, reports and office work, in addition.

"Ranger Stout used to say that the

"Because we loved the work, and further, because there was a Big Chief in Washington who blazed the trail for us. The work was hard, of course, but it seems to me that the main thing which kept the service going in those times was the fact that everyone was completely devoted to it. We rangers drove ahead day and night, and those over us worked just as hard. Then, too, there was everywhere a wonderful spirit of hope, of courage, and of high fellowship. Our wives and children helped us to build cabins and fight fires.

"I used to see a light in Supervisor Black's office till midnight and past; he was working over his accounts and reports, after a full day in the field. His wife went out and helped him just as soon as the dishes were washed."

"You give us a charming picture of those pioneer days," said a young teacher "I suppose it was like the rose of dawn for American forestry. You were creating something new. You believed in everyone; you were brothers and sisters in the forest work."

"That's it," said Ranger Maine, with a look on his face which no one had seen there for years. "We had absolute confidence in the men over us, and they deserved it, too."

He went on describing the beginnings of an office system. "We had no clerks," he said, "and so we had to learn lots of things. New forms and regulations were being tried out, and so incessantly that we couldn't seem to get a breathingspace ahead. When it rained, all of the older rangers would come in to the

"When I think of the way that our first clerk Wolleson used to swagger in, loud and grumpy, looking at us rangers as if we were mere dirt under his feet, it seems to me that it would be fun to tell the office girls of today all they would stand for about their notorious predecessor. I never tried it, though, for they wouldn't believe one word of what I told them; I should spoil my reputation, all for nothing.

"Well, after we had mulled along by ourselves that Winter of 1905-6, there came a welcome telegram, and the Washington office sent Wolleson along with the finest kind of letters. They said he knew all the inside ropes, so we were told to turn him loose, and see him create a model office for old San Joaquin. "About that time the supervisor had a new barn-you all know what that means in these hills! He gave a dance one Saturday night; the little Irish fiddler came from Hildreth; tables were spread in tents; the ranger women prepared supper.

"On the top of it in comes Alexander Wolleson, chipper and very well dressed. He made a good impression all around; we thought he was the best thing that ever happened for San Joaquin.

"He was so popular at first, with his little jokes and pleasant smiles, that when the stage-driver called him a 'gay bird,' and hinted that we would have 'plenty doin' later,' we told him to chase himself down the road.

"The supervisor heaved a sigh of heart-felt relief.

""Push this office work right ahead,' he told Wolleson; then he saddled his horse and rode out to see about trails and bridges, to meet people, and to fight

fires with us, as he had been doing in earlier years.

"Ranger Ramsden was the first man to remark that Wolleson was somewhat different from everyday people-'queer inside,' as he put it. "Think he is the sort that has had a past, and is liable to slide off again.'-Ramsden used to work in mines, and he went on, 'it's only a knifeblade vein; it's likely to pinch out-this new start of his.'

"The rest of us couldn't see it that way, for the new clerk was buckling right down to business, and the office showed results. Everything was shipshape. When the mail came in the supervisor dictated answers; Wolleson took them, handled all the routine, and found time now and then to give pointers to all of us.

"The village was quite a distance from headquarters, so a nice young forest guard and Wolleson lived in a ranger cabin. Wolleson couldn't cook, but the guard didn't mind doing all the work.

"One Sunday Wolleson-'Alexander Wolleson of Washington, D. C.'-as he wrote it once on a girl's dance card, hired a horse and rode over to our camp, where a lot of us had gathered to do a little rifle shooting. He couldn't shoot, so we quit, and sat down under the oaks listening to him. We hardly opened our heads for two hours; the deal so surprised us.

"There he was, young, handsome, welleducated and filling a mighty important place and he was suddenly breaking out all over as if he had varioloid.

"First, he told us of his distinguished parentage, the millionaires and politicians in his family, the United States Senators who were his bosom friends, the unbreakable pull that he possessed, the high places that were waiting for him elsewhere. 'I only wanted to take a look at the wild and woolly West, you know.'

""You rangers mean well,' he added. 'You are warm-hearted, rough chaps; but you haven't seen life.'

"We listened so easy-like that he began to run down our boss and his, saying things that all of us knew were crazy. We didn't say anything, though it riled