8 THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 



He had never worked before in the Forest Serv- 

 ice ; but while he did not state this in so many words 

 we gathered from his confidences that he was not 

 only letter perfect, so to speak, in the role of cruiser, 

 but that anything relative to woods work or camp 

 life with which he was unfamiliar would have to be 

 a very rare, abstruse, and unimportant something 

 indeed. 



I don't mean to suggest that Wetherby boasted. 

 He was perfectly sincere. He just gave us the facts 

 about himself as he saw them, in all good faith, and 

 while Bert and Bob Moak considered his utter lack 

 of reticence on the subject of his own history actu- 

 ally unethical, and had no use for him from that 

 time forth, the rest of us were considerably im- 

 pressed by his revelations. 



Frazer, in particular, made no effort to conceal 

 his satisfaction. 



"Wetherby's got a lot of self-confidence," said 

 the chief that night, "but that's not a bad quality. 

 A few weeks in camp will tone him down, and any- 

 way, it's a secondary matter. As long as he's on 

 to his job we can forgive him the rest. I'm certainly 

 glad he's experienced. Did you notice his build? 

 He sure ought to make a cracker jack cruiser!" 



This sentiment fairly expressed the opinion of the 

 majority and no one at the time attempted to dis- 

 pute its accuracy. We turned in with the comfort- 

 able conviction that we were, on the whole, a party 

 of rarely well-chosen and efficient young men. 



