“What will be my duties, sir?”

“First a vacation to get well in and visit your mother.  Then you and Ned will go to my timber property in Canada, familiarize yourselves with the present methods of working it, and suggest any improvements that occur to you, and make the best estimate you can of the amount and kind of lumber I have.  I don’t care for present returns, but I wish the property administered in accordance with the most advanced knowledge of the science of forestry.”

“Mr. Barstow, you are good to me, too good, and I am as grateful as I can be, but I can’t take money for amusing myself.  You would be paying me for taking the most delightful excursion in the world, and there wouldn’t be any other side to it.  I couldn’t make good to you in any way.  I don’t know anything about lumbering, forestry or practical surveying.”

“Don’t begin by criticizing your employer, Dick.  Just make believe that he knows what he is about.  I am not paying you for what you know now, but for what you will know in a few months.  I am expecting great things of you.  The science of forestry and economic methods of lumbering are fairly well understood in Canada.  You will find yourselves with young men of education and enterprise, enthusiasts who think nothing of starting out alone on snowshoes for a week or a month in the woods, where the mercury in the thermometer often freezes.  You will find your work cut out for you if you only keep up with them, and I am hoping that you will get near the head of your class.  I want you to learn the business from the beginning to the end from the planting to the cutting of the tree, and from forest to freight car.  So don’t fear that you will not have a chance to earn your salary.  Your pay and Ned’s will be the same.  It will take good care of you, but you will not find much over to waste.  Here, Molly, come back and hear the rest of that romance that I interrupted.  And don’t look so cross at me next time I speak to Dick.”

“Isn’t he the nice old daddy?” said the girl to Dick, as she sat down near him.  Dick looked as if he thought so too, but was troubled to find words to express all he felt.  The launch, which was now flying up the coast, was just opposite the shack of the fisherman whom the boys had hired to help with the manatee which couldn’t be found.  Dick was telling the girl the story of the manatee when Ned put in an appearance.

“Run away, Molly.  I want to talk to Dick.”

“Neddy Barstow, when daddy says ‘Run away, Molly,’ I have to go, but when you say it, I stay right where I am.  See?”

“But this is important, Molly.  It’s business.”

“So am I important, even if I’m not business.  If business is in a hurry, it can go ahead; if it isn’t it can wait.”

“Dick,” said Ned, “Dad thinks we need a little vacation before going to work, and he offers to take us on a cruise in the Gypsey to the Bahamas and to Cuba, or to charter a light-draft boat that could go through the Bay of Florida and let us finish our cruise in the crocodile country, beginning where we turned back when the fresh water gave out.  Maybe he will let Molly go.”