away.  In the brains of the four men before him all these infinite details were laid out in order.  He knew that Harvey could answer specific questions as to any feature of any one of these activities.  All the turmoil, the rush and roar of the river, the mills, the open lakes, the great wildernesses passed through this silent, dusty room.  The problems that kept a dozen men busy in the solving came here also, together with a hundred others.  Bob recalled his sight of the hurried, wholesale shipping clerk he had admired when, discouraged and discredited, he had left the office three years before.  He had thought that individual busy, and had contrasted his activity with the somnolence of this office.  Busy!  Why, he, Bob, had over and over again been ten times as busy.  At the thought he chuckled aloud.  Harvey and his assistants turned to the sound.

“Hullo, Harvey; hullo Archie!” cried the young man.  “I’m certainly glad to see you.  You’re the only men I ever saw who could be really bang-up rushed and never show it.”

PART TWO

I

On a wintry and blustering evening in the latter part of February, 1902, Welton and Bob boarded the Union Pacific train en route for California.  They distributed their hand baggage, then promptly took their way forward to the buffet car, where they disposed themselves in the leather-and-wicker armchairs for a smoke.  At this time of year the travel had fallen off somewhat in volume.  The westward tourist rush had slackened, and the train was occupied only by those who had definite business in the Land of Promise, and by that class of wise ones who realize that an Eastern March and April are more to be avoided than the regulation winter months.  The smoking car contained then but a half-dozen men.

Welton and Bob took their places and lit their cigars.  The train swayed gently along, its rattle muffled by the storm.  Polished black squares represented the windows across which drifted hazy lights and ghostlike suggestions of snowflakes.  Bob watched this ebony nothingness in great idleness of spirit.  Presently one of the half-dozen men arose from his place, walked the length of the car, and dropped into the next chair.

“You’re Bob Orde, aren’t you?” he remarked without preliminary.

Bob looked up.  He saw before him a very heavy-set young man, of medium height, possessed of a full moon of a face, and alert brown eyes.

“I thought so,” went on this young man in answer to Bob’s assent.  “I’m Baker of ’93.  You wouldn’t know me; I was before your time.  But I know you.  Seen you play.  Headed for the Sunshine and Flowers?”

“Yes,” said Bob.

“Ever been there before?”

“No.”

“Great country!  If you listen to all the come-on stuff you may be disappointed—­at first.”

“How’s that?” asked Bob, highly amused.  “Isn’t the place what it’s cracked up to be?”