Still another surprise awaited Charley. When he entered the house Lumley
was seated at the table opposite a stranger, and the stranger was not Bill
Collins. But he resembled Collins so much that Charley did not wonder
that, at such a distance, he had made the mistake of thinking the man was
Collins.




Chapter XXIII

A Startling Discovery



Charley was glad enough that the man was not Collins. Had he been Collins,
Charley would have had another matter to worry about. He was carrying such
a load of responsibility these days that he sometimes felt that he
couldn't stand another thing; and in moments of depression he thought he
could not continue to carry the load he already had.

For Charley was learning the lesson that every man in authority learns:
when the forester laid out a piece of work for him, the forester expected
him to get it done. No matter what the difficulties were, Charley had to
find a way to surmount them. Many and many a day he would gladly have
exchanged places with the humblest laborers in his crew.

All that was required of them was merely to do what they were told to do,
hour after hour or day after day. There was no need for them to lie awake
wrestling with problems that seemed impossible of solution, as Charley had