"He's in there." He turned his thumb toward the rear room, the door of which stood wide open, and bent again over the map he had been studying.

So far as these two were concerned, Jack had evidently ceased to exist.
He went, therefore, to the room where the supervisor was at work filling in a blank of some kind; and because his impromptu speech had seemed to fill perfectly his requirements, he repeated it to Ross in exactly the same tone of careless good nature, except that this time he really meant part of it; because, when he came to think of it, he really did want a job of some sort, and the very atmosphere of quiet, unhurried efficiency that pervaded the place made him wish that he might become a part of it.
It was a vagrant wish that might have died as quickly as it had been born; an impulse that had no root in any previous consideration of the matter.

But Ross leaned back in his chair and was regarding him seriously, as a possible employee of the government, and Jack instinctively squared his shoulders to meet the look.
Followed a few questions, which Jack answered as truthfully as he dared.

Ross looked him over again and asked him how he would like to be a fireman.

Whereat Jack looked bewildered.
"What I mean by that in this case," the supervisor explained, "is that I could put you up on Mount Hough, in the lookout station.