“I think you are.”

“But—­”

“Only if you want to, Bob.  I don’t want to force you in any way; but both Welton and I are getting old, and we need younger blood.  We’d rather have you.”  Bob shook his head.  “I know what you mean, and I realize how you feel about the whole matter.  Perhaps you are right.  I have nothing to say against conservation and forestry methods theoretically.  They are absolutely correct.  I agree that the forests should be cut for future growths, and left so that fire cannot get through them; but it is a grave question in my mind whether, as yet, it can be done.”

“But it is being done!” cried Bob.  “There is no difficulty in doing it.”

“That’s for you to prove, if you want to,” said Orde.  “If you care to resign from the Service, we will for two years give you full swing with our timber, to cut and log according to your ideas—­or rather the ideas of those over you.  In that time you can prove your point, or fail.  Personally,” he repeated, “I have grave doubts as to whether it can be done at present; it will be in the future of course.”

“Why, what do you mean?” asked Bob.  “It is being done every day!  There’s nothing complicated about it.  It’s just a question of cutting and piling the tops, and—­”

“I know the methods advocated,” broke in Orde.  “But it is not being done except on Government holdings where conditions as to taxation, situation and a hundred other things are not like those of private holdings; or on private holdings on an experimental scale, or in conjunction with older methods.  The case has not been proved on a large private tract.  Now is your chance so to prove it.”

Bob’s face was grave.

“That means a pretty complete about-face for me, sir,” said he.  “I fought this all out with myself some years back.  I feel that I have fitted myself into the one thing that is worth while for me.”

“I know,” said Orde.  “Don’t hurry.  Think it over.  Take advice.  I have a notion you’ll find this—­if its handled right, and works out right—­will come to much the same thing.”

He rode along in silence for some moments.

“I want to be fair,” he resumed at last, “and do not desire to get you in this on mistaken premises.  This will not be a case of experiment, of plaything, but of business.  However desirable a commercial theory may be, if it’s commercial, it must pay!  It’s not enough if you don’t lose money; or even if you succeed in coming out a little ahead.  You must make it pay on a commercial basis, or else it’s as worthless in the business world as so much moonshine.  That is not sordid; it is simply common sense.  We all agree that it would be better to cut our forests for the future; but can it be done under present conditions?”

“There is no question of that,” said Bob confidently.

“There is quite a question of it among some of us old fogies, Bobby,” stated Orde good-humouredly.  “I suppose we’re stupid and behind the times; but we’ve been brought up in a hard school.  We are beyond the age when we originate much, perhaps; but we’re willing to be shown.”