The Rules of the Game
Page 60
II
The week's hard physical toil was unrelieved. After Bob and Jack Pollockhad driven the last staple in the last strand of barbed wire, theyturned their horses into the new pasture. The animals, overjoyed to getfree of the picket ropes that had heretofore confined them, took long,satisfying rolls in the sandy corner, and then went eagerly to croppingat the green feed. Bob, leaning on the gate, with the rope still in hishand, experienced a glow of personal achievement greater than any heremembered to have felt since, as a small boy, he had unaided reasonedout the problem of clear impression on his toy printing press. Herecognized this as illogical, for he had, in all modesty, achievedaffairs of some importance. Nevertheless, the sight of his own animalenjoying its liberty in an enclosure created by his own two handspleased him to the core. He grinned in appreciation of Elliott'shumorous parody on the sentimental slogan of the schools--"to make twocedar posts grow where none grew before." There was, after all, a ratherespecial satisfaction in that principle.
It next became necessary, he found, that the roof over the new office atheadquarters should receive a stain that would protect it against theweather. He acquired a flat brush, a little seat with spikes in itssupports, and a can of stain whose base seemed to be a veryevil-smelling fish oil. Here all day long he clung, daubing on thestain. When one shingle was done, another awaited his attention, overand over, in unvarying monotony. It was the sort of job he had alwaysloathed, but he stuck to it cheerfully, driving his brush deep in thecracks in order that no crevice might remain for the entrance of theinsidious principle of decay. Casting about in his leisure there for thereason of his patience, he discovered it in just that; he was now at notask to be got through with, to be made way with; he was engaged in ajob that was to be permanent. Unless he did it right, it would not bepermanent.
Below him the life of headquarters went on. He saw it all, and heard itall, for every scrap of conversation rose to him from within the office.He was amazed at the diversity of interests and the complexity ofproblems that came there for attention.
"Look here, Mr. Thorne," said one of the rangers, "this Use Book saysthat a settler has a right to graze ten head of stock _actually in use_free of grazing charge. Now there's Brown up at the north end. He runs alittle dairy business, and has about a hundred head of cattle up. Heclaims we ought not to charge him for ten head of them because they'reall 'actually in use.' How about it?"
Thorne explained that the exemption did not apply to commercial uses andthat Brown must pay for all. He qualified the statement by saying thatthis was the latest interpretation of which he had heard.
In like manner the policies in regard to a dozen little industries andinterests were being patiently defined and determined--dairies, beefcattle, shake makers, bees, box and cleat men, free timber users, miningmen, seekers for water concessions, those who desired rights of way,permits for posts, pastures, mill sites--all these proffered theirrequests and difficulties to the Supervisor. Sometimes they wereanswered on the spot. Oftener their remarks were listened to, theirpropositions taken under advisement. Then one or another of the rangerswas summoned, given instructions. He packed his mule, saddled his horse,and rode away to be gone a greater or lesser period of time. Others weresent out to run lines about tracts, to define boundaries. Still others,like Ross Fletcher, pounded drill and rock, and exploded powder on thenew trail that was to make more accessible the tremendous canon of theriver. The men who came and went rarely represented any but the smallestinterests; yet somehow Bob felt their importance, and the importance ofthe little problems threshed out in the tiny, rough-finished officebelow him. These but foreshadowed the greater things to come. And theseminute decisions shaped the policies and precedents of what would becomemighty affairs. Whether Brown should be allowed to save his paltry threedollars and a half or not determined larger things. To Bob's half-mysticmood, up there under the mottled shadows, every tiny move of this gamebecame portentous with fate. A return of the old exultation lifted him.He saw the shadows of these affairs cast dim and gigantic against themists of the future. These men were big with the responsibility of a newthing. It behooved them all to act with circumspection, with due heed,with reverence----
Bob applied his broad brush and the evil-smelling stain methodically andwith minute care as to every tiny detail of the simple work. But hiseyes were wide and unseeing, and all the inner forces of his soul weremoving slowly and mightily. His personality had nothing to do with thematter. He painted; and affairs went on with him. His being held itselfpassive, in suspension, while the forces and experiences and influencesof one phase of his life crystallized into their foreordained shapesdeep within him. Yesterday he was this; now he was becoming that; andthe two were as different beings. New doors of insight were silentlyswinging open on their hinges, old prejudices were closing, freshconvictions long snugly in the bud were unfolding like flowers. Thesethings were not new. They had begun many years before when as a youngboy he had stared wide-eyed, unseeing and uncomprehending, gazing downthe sun-streaked, green, lucent depths of an aisle in the forest. Bobpainted steadily on, moving his little seat nearer and nearer theeaves. When noon and night came, he hung up his utensils very carefully,washed up, and tramped to the rangers' camp, where he took his part inthe daily tasks, assumed his share of the conversation, entered into thefun, and contributed his ideas toward the endless discussions. No onenoticed that he was in any way different from his ordinary self. But itwas as though some one outside of himself, in the outer circle of hisbeing, carried on these necessary and customary things. He, drawn apart,watched by the shrine of his soul. He did nothing, either by thought oreffort--merely watched, patient and rapt, while foreordained and mightychanges took place--
He reached the edge of the roof; stood on the ladder to finish the lastrow of the riven shingles. Slowly his brush moved, finishing the cracksdeep down so that the principle of decay might never enter. Inside theoffice Thorne sat dictating a letter to some applicant for privilege.The principle was new in its interpretation, and so Thorne was choosinghis words with the greatest care. Swiftly before Bob's inner vision theprospect widened. Thorne became a prophet speaking down the years; theleast of these men in a great new Service became the austere championsof something high and beautiful. For one moment Bob dwelt in awonderful, breathless, vast, unreal country where heroic figures movedin the importance of all the unborn future, dim-seen, half-revealed. Hedrew his brush across the last shingle of all. Something seemed toclick. Swiftly the gates shut, the strange country receded into infinitedistance. With a rush like the sucking of water into a vacuum theeveryday world drew close. Bob, his faculties once more in theiraccustomed seat, looked about him as one awakened. His hour was over.The change had taken place.
Thorne was standing in the doorway with Amy, their dictation finished.
"All done?" said he. "Well, you did a thorough job. It's the kind thatwill last."
"I'm right on deck when it comes to painting things red," retorted Bob."What next?"
"Next," said Thorne, "I want you to help one of the boys split somecedar posts. We've got a corral or so to make."
Bob descended slowly from the ladder, balancing the remainder of the redstain. Thorne looked at him curiously.
"How do you like it as far as you've gone?" he permitted himself to ask."This isn't quite up to the romantic idea of rangering, is it?"
"Well," said Bob with conviction, "I suppose it may sound foolish; but Inever was surer of anything in my life than that I've struck the rightjob."
As he walked home that night, he looked back on the last few days with acurious bewilderment. It had all been so real; now apparently it meantnothing. Thorne was doing good work; these rangers were good men. Butwhere had vanished all Bob's exaltation? where his feeling of theportent and influence and far-reaching significance of what these menwere doing? He realized its importance; but the feeling of itsfatefulness had utterly gone. Things with him were back on a work-a-daybasis. He even laughed a little, good-humouredly,
at himself. At thegate to the new pasture he once more stopped and looked at his horse. Adeep content came over him.
"I've sure struck the right job!" he repeated aloud with conviction.
And this, could he have known it, was the outward and visible and onlysign of the things spiritual that had been veiled.