Certainly Charley became a better workman, as any one does who works in the spirit he exhibited.  The mere getting of a wage, the mere earning of a living hardly figured in Charley’s calculations.  He was working to learn, to get ahead, to climb up in the Forestry Service.  Hence there was nothing perfunctory in what he did.  He strove for perfection; and like all who so strive, he began to attain it.

Before he had been many weeks a ranger, Charley was as valuable a man in many ways as the forester had under him.  All Charley lacked to make him perhaps the very best man was wider experience; and this was coming to him daily.  Furthermore, Charley was fortunate enough to have learned, through his schooling, that although experience is the best teacher, he is a fool who learns only through his own experience.  All the information in all the books that Charley had ever studied was the result of experience—­somebody else’s experience.  And he had early grasped the fact that to learn through the experience of others is to save time and difficulty.  So now he supplemented his own experiences by much reading and study at night and by the discussion of forest matters with the more intelligent of his workmen.

New experiences came to him frequently.  The forester surveyed and laid out a road through the forest.  Charley helped with the surveying and learned much about levels and grades and the theory of road making.  And after the road was fairly started, the forester left its completion largely to Charley.  This new road was to lead into the big timber operation which was shortly to begin in Charley’s territory.

Already a great crew had been assembled and much timber had been cut in Lumley’s district.  Lumley had to oversee this operation and he was kept far busier than he liked to be.  So Charley saw little of him.

In overseeing the operation in his own tract, Charley would have to select and mark the trees for cutting, see that they were felled so as to save the young growths, compel the prompt removal of trees that had fallen across little saplings that had been bent under them, and make sure the tops were properly lopped off and either burned where possible or piled so that they would quickly rot.  Then he would have to be particular that the trees were thrown away from the roads and lines, and that a strip at least one hundred feet wide was kept cleared of brush between the cutting operations and the remainder of the forest, as a protection against the spread of fire.  Then there would be timber to scale and a hundred other things to be looked after.  To safeguard the state’s interests would require both experience and determination should the timber operators wish to be tricky.  Mr. Marlin intended that Charley, as a reward for the fine spirit he was showing, should handle the lumber operation in his own district entirely alone, just as a full-fledged ranger would do.  It was both a high compliment to Charley and a fine reward, for the timber operation was large, involving great sums of money, and even with the most careful supervision the state might easily be defrauded of thousands of dollars.