which he reached just as supper was ready.

After supper he and the ranger talked about the forest. Or rather Lumley
did. He was so loquacious that Charley soon stopped talking and let his
companion carry on the conversation alone. Lumley was quite able to do it,
for he was truly, as Mr. Marlin had described him, mouthy. He had
something to say about everything, and what he had to say was usually of a
derogatory character. He was guarded in what he said about Mr. Marlin, yet
Charley saw that he was trying to damn the forester by faint praise.

"You may make a good ranger in time all right," he said bluntly to
Charley, "but it seems mighty funny to me to take a raw high school boy
and put him in charge of the finest stand of timber in the entire forest.
I'm the man that post ought to go to. Besides, I have a greater interest
in that timber than any one else."

Charley choked back his resentment at the statement about himself and
asked, "Why have you a greater interest in that timber than any one else?"

"Because our family used to own that timber," he said, sudden passion
inflaming his eyes. And Charley once more saw in them that savage look he
had detected before. "If my old fool of a grandfather hadn't let himself
be bilked out of the whole holding," he said coarsely, "I'd own that
timber to-day and I'd be a millionaire instead of a poor forest-ranger. By
rights the land is mine, anyway." And again the ranger swore at his dead
ancestor.

Charley listened in disgust but made no comment. The ranger saw that he
had talked too much. He muttered an apology. "When I see somebody else
getting the money that ought to be mine," he said, "it makes me so mad