142 THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 
so, to get very lonely. Then arter a while I found 
I’d forgot how to be. 
‘Course I like to see people once in a while, to 
kind of git my tongue loosed up; but when they’re 
gone I don’t never miss them none.”’ 
Despite this assurance I suspected a hidden trag- 
edy, some old romance, beneath the Hermit’s blithe 
exterior, to account more fully for his voluntary and 
continued exile here on the very top of the dark 
mountains, 
I hinted as much later to Brown, who knew old 
man Reed well, but he scouted the idea. 
‘‘He jest lives up here because he likes it. He 
struck a good thing and helt onto it. They hain’t 
nothin’ else he could make such a good livin’ out’n. 
‘‘That’s one thing your National Forest is doin’,”’ 
reflectively added the packer, who in general, more 
to irritate us if possible than for any other reason, 
affected to look with scepticism upon the value of 
Service work. ‘‘I gotta say you’re givin’ the reel 
settler a chance. Of course ole man Reed was here 
long before the Forest was a Guv’ment affair, but 
they’s plenty more places like his homesteaded under 
Forest Service reg’lations, an’ better than his ranch 
was when he come here.’’ 
‘«There are over two hundred areas listed now on 
the Gila,’’ I put in, ‘‘as land suitable for agriculture 
and open to settlement under the act of June 11, 
1906.”’ 
“‘Yes, an’ they’s a good many hundred more 
