The few days that Charley had worked in the forest had made his hands very sore, for he had no gloves.  He had cut and scratched and torn his fingers until it seemed to him there was room for no more bruises.  He wanted to get some gloves, but did not know when he could get to a store to buy any.  He mentioned the matter to Lumley.

“Buy them by mail,” said Lumley.  “We get most of our goods from mail-order houses.”

Charley had never bought anything by mail, and had not thought of securing his gloves in that way.  “That would be all right,” he said, “but I wouldn’t know how to order.”

“Here,” said the ranger, plunging his hand into a cabinet, “these catalogues will help you.”  And he drew forth three catalogues from as many different mail-order houses.  There was one from Slears and Hoebuck, one from Montgomery Hard, and a third from Carson and Derby.

Instantly Charley thought of the telltale piece of green pasteboard and a quick suspicion leaped into his mind.  As quickly it faded out.  He could not for a single second bring himself to suspect a guardian of the forest of being a woodland incendiary.  Yet he could not refrain from asking, “Which one of these concerns do you buy from?”

“Whichever one sells cheapest,” replied the ranger.

Charley found some cheap working gloves that he thought would suit him and ordered several pairs.

In the days that followed, he thought often over the problem of the green pasteboard.  It was true he had made another step in unraveling the problem, but he did not see that it helped him much.  He had discovered that Lumley sometimes bought stuff from Carson and Derby, but doubtless dozens of other near-by dwellers also did.  Furthermore, it did not follow that any near resident had fired the forest.  Some one from a distance might have done so.  The more Charley thought about the matter, the less importance he placed upon his discovery, and he decided to say nothing about it to any one.  How the guilty party was ever to be traced Charley could not even imagine.  The situation appeared hopeless.

However, Charley had small chance to worry about the matter.  As the days passed, the forester laid more and more duties upon him.  Many a lad would have thought the forester was imposing upon him, but Charley was eager to do everything he possibly could.  He realized that the more he accomplished, the greater would be his experience; and that the larger his experience was, the faster he ought to get ahead.  He had the good sense to know that the short way of spelling opportunity is w-o-r-k.  And he realized that he had his chance here and now.  So he did everything he possibly could do and asked for more.

The forester, like any other man in authority, was pleased beyond words at this spirit.  His response was to pile the work on Charley.  He was testing him out, to see whether the desire for work was just a whim or whether Charley possessed that real ambition, that inward spirit of progress that drives a man on and on through the years to greater and greater accomplishments.  For the best worker in the world is the man who works because he wishes to work, and who is always striving to become a better workman.