A little later Fox came in; and a little after that Harvey returned
bringing in his hand the copies of the camp reports, but instead of
taking them directly to Bob for correction, as had been his habit, he
laid them before Fox. The latter picked them up and examined them. In a
moment he dropped them on his desk.

"Do you mean to tell me," he demanded of Harvey, "that _seventeen_ only
ran ten thousand? Why, it's preposterous! Saw it myself. It has a
half-million on it, if there's a stick. Let's see Parsons's letter."

While Harvey was gone, Fox read further in the copy.

"See here, Harvey," he cried, "something's dead wrong. We never cut all
this hemlock. Why, hemlock's 'way down."

Harvey laid the original on the desk. After a second Fox's face cleared.

"Why, this is all right. There were 480,000 on _seventeen_. And that
hemlock seems to have got in the wrong column. You want to be a little
more careful, Jim. Never knew that to happen before. Weren't out with
the boys last night, were you?"

But Harvey refused to respond to frivolity.

"It's never happened before because I never let it happen before," he
replied stiffly. "There have been mistakes like that, and worse, in
almost every report we've filed. I've cut them out. Now, Mr. Fox, I
don't have much to say, but I'd rather do a thing myself than do it over
after somebody else. We've got a good deal to keep track of in this
office, as you know, without having to go over everybody else's work