"What might your name be?" inquired Samuels.
"Orde."
"I heerd of you ... what might you be doing up here?"
"I'm just riding through."
"Best thing any of you can do," commented the old man grimly.
"I wish you'd tell me now why you jumped on me so this evening," said
Bob.
"If you don't know, you're a fool," growled Samuels.
"I've knocked around a good deal," persisted Bob, "and I've discovered
that one side always sounds good until you hear the other man's story.
I've only heard one side of this one."
"And that's all you're like to hear," Samuels told him. "You don't get
no evidence out of me against myself."
Bob laughed.
"You're mighty suspicious--and I don't know as I blame you. Bless your
soul, what evidence do you suppose I could get from you in a case like
this? You've already made it clear enough with that old blunderbuss of
yours what you think of the merits of the case. I asked you out of
personal interest. I know the Government claims you don't own this
place; and I was curious to know why you think you do. The Government
reasoning looks pretty conclusive to a man who doesn't know all the
circumstances."
"Oh, it is, is it!" cried Samuels, stung to anger. "Well, what claim do
you think the Government has?"
But Bob was too wily to be put in the aggressive.
"I'm not thinking; I'm asking," said he. "They say you're holding this
for the timber, and never proved up."
"I took it up bony-fidy," fairly shouted Samuels. "Do you think a man
plants an orchard and such like on a timber claim. The timber is worth
something, of course. Well, don't every man take up timber? What about
that Wolverine Company of yours? What about the Yellow Pine people? What
about everybody, everywhere? Ain't I got a right to it, same as
everybody else?"
He leaned forward, pounding his knee. A querulous and sleepy voice spoke
up from the interior of the cabin:
"Oh, pa, for heaven's sake don't holler so!"
The old man paused in mid-career. Over the treetops the moon was rising
slowly. Its light struck across the lower part of the verandah, showing
clearly the gnarled hand of the mountaineer suspended above his sturdy
knee; casting into dimness the silver of his massive head. The hand
descended noiselessly.
"Ain't I got my rights, same as another man?" he asked, more reasonably.
"Just because I left out some little piece of their cussed red-tape am I
a-goin' to be turned out bag and baggage, child, kit, and kaboodle,
while fifty big men steal, just plain steal, a thousand acres apiece and
there ain't nothing said? Not if I know it!"
He talked on. Slowly Bob came to an understanding of the man's position.
His argument, stripped of its verbiage and self-illusion, was simplicity
itself. The public domain was for the people. Men selected therefrom
what they needed. All about him, for fifty years, homesteads had been
taken up quite frankly for the sake of timber. Nobody made any
objections. Nobody even pretended that these claims were ever intended
to be lived on. The barest letter of the law had been complied with.
"I've seen a house, made out'n willow branches, and out'n coal-oil cans,
called resident buildin's under the act," said Samuels, "and _they_ was
so lost in the woods that it needed a compass to find 'em."
He, Samuels, on the other hand, had actually planted an orchard and made
improvements, and even lived on the place for a time. Then he had let
the claim lapse, and only recently had decided to resume what he
sincerely believed to be his rights in the matter.
Bob did not at any point suggest any of the counter arguments he might
very well have used. He listened, leaning back against the rail,
watching the moonlight drop log by log as the luminary rose above the
verandah roof.
"And so there come along last week a ranger and started to tack up a
sign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the United States.' Property
of hell!"
He ceased talking. Bob said nothing.
"Now you got it; what you think?" asked the old man at last.
"It's tough luck," said Bob. "There's more to be said for your side of
the case than I had thought."
"There's a lot more goin' to be said yet," stated Samuels, truculently.
"But I'm afraid when it comes right down to the law of it, they'll
decide against your claim. The law reads pretty plain on how to go about
it; and as I understand it, you never did prove up."
"My lawyer says if I hang on here, they never can get me out," said
Samuels, "and I'm a-goin' to hang on."
"Well, of course, that's for the courts to decide," agreed Bob, "and I
don't claim to know much about law--nor want to."
"Me neither!" agreed the mountaineer fervently.
"But I've known of a dozen cases just like yours that went against the
claimant. There was the Brown case in Idaho, for instance, that was
exactly like yours. Brown had some money, and he fought it through up to
the Supreme Court, but they decided against him."
"How was that?" asked Samuels.
Bob explained at length, dispassionately, avoiding even the colour of
argument, but drawing strongly the parallel.
"Even if you could afford it, I'm almighty afraid you'd run up against
exactly the same thing," Bob concluded, "and they'd certainly use the
Brown case as a precedent."
"Well, I've got money!" said Samuels. "Don't you forget it. I don't have
to live in a place like this. I've got a good, sawn-lumber house,
painted, in Durham and a garden of posies."
"I'd like to see it," said Bob.
"Sometime you get to Durham, ask for me," invited Samuels.
"Well, I see how you feel. If I were in your fix, I'd probably fight it
too, but I'm morally certain they'd get you in the courts. And it is a
tremendous expense for nothing."
"Well, they've got to git me off'n here first," threatened Samuels.
Bob averted the impending anger with a soft chuckle.
"I wouldn't want the job!" said he. "But if they had the courts with
them, they'd get you off. You can drive those rangers up a tree quick
enough (_"You know that isn't so!" cried Amy at the subsequent
recital._), but this is a Federal matter, and they'll send troops
against you, if necessary."
"My lawyer----" began Samuels.
"May be dead right, or he _may_ enjoy a legal battle at the other man's
expense," put in Bob. "The previous cases are all dead against him; and
they're the only ammunition."
"It's a-gittin' cold," said Samuels, rising abruptly. "Let's git
inside!"
Bob followed him to the main room of the cabin where the mountaineer lit
a tallow candle stuck in the neck of a bottle.
"Oh, pa, come to bed!" called a sleepy voice, "and quit your
palavering."
"Shet up!" commanded Samuels, setting the candle in the middle of the
table, and seating himself by it. "Ain't there no decisions the other
way?"
"I'm no lawyer," Bob pointed out, dropping into a stool on the other
side, so that the candle stood between them, "and my opinion is of no
value"--the old man grunted what might have been assent, or a mere
indication of attention--"but as far as I know, there have been none. I
know all the leading cases, I _think_" he added.
"So they can put me off, and leave all these other fellows, who are
worse off than I be in keepin' up with what the law wants!" cried
Samuels.
"I hope they'll begin action against every doubtful claim," said Bob
soberly.
"It may be the law to take away my homestead, but it ain't justice,"
stated the old man.
Bob ventured his first aggressive movement.
"Did you ever read the Homestead Law?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Well, as you remember, that law states pretty plainly the purpose of
the Homestead Act. It is to provide, out of the public lands, for any
citizen not otherwise provided, with one hundred and sixty acres as a
farm to cultivate or a homestead on which to live. When a man takes that
land for any other purpose whatever, he commits an injustice; and when
that land is recalled to the public domain, that injustice is righted,
not another committed."
"Injustice!" challenged the old man; "against what, for heaven's sake!"
"Against the People," replied Bob firmly.
"I suppose these big lumber dealers need a home and a farm too!" sneered
Samuels.
"Because they did wrong is no reason you should."
"Who dares say I done wrong?" demanded the mountaineer. "Look here! Why
does the Government pick on me and try to drive me off'n my little place
where I'm living, and leave these other fellows be? What right or
justice is there in that?"
"I don't know the ins and out of it all," Bob reminded him. "As I said
before, I'm no lawyer. But they've at least conformed with the forms of
the law, as far as the Government has any evidence. You have not. I
imagine that's the reason your case has been selected first."
"To hell with a law that drives the poor man off his home and leaves the
rich man on his ill-got spoils!" cried Samuels.
The note in this struck Bob's ear as something alien. "I wonder what
that echoes from!" was his unspoken thought. Aloud he merely remarked:
"But you said yourself you have money and a home in Durham."
"That may be," retorted Samuels, "but ain't I got as much right to the
timber, I who have been in the country since '55, as the next man?"
"Why, of course you have, Mr. Samuels," agreed Bob heartily. "I'm with
you there."
"Well?"
"But you've exercised your rights to timber claims already. You took up
your timber claim in '89, and what is more, your wife and her brother
and your oldest son also took up timber claims in '90. As I understand
it, this is an old homestead claim, antedating the others."
Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been lured from
his vantage ground of force to that of argument; how he scarcely knew.
It had certainly been without his intention.
Bob, however, had no desire that the old man should again take his stand
behind the impenetrable screen of threat and bluster from which he had
been decoyed.
"We've all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop to this sort
of thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the time is at hand when
graft and grab by the rich and powerful will have to go. It will go only
when we take hold together. Look at San Francisco--" With great skill
he drew the old man into a discussion of the graft cases in that city.
"Graft," he concluded, "is just the price the people are willing to pay
to get their politics done for them while they attend to the pressing
business of development and building. They haven't time nor energy to do
everything, so they're willing to pay to have some things taken off
their hands. The price is graft. When the people have more time, when
the other things are done, then the price will be too high. They'll
decide to attend to their own business."
Samuels listened to this closely. "There's a good deal in what you say,"
he agreed. "I know it's that way with us. If I couldn't build a better
road with less money and less men than our Supervisor, Curtis, does, I'd
lie down and roll over. But I ain't got time to be supervisor, even if
anybody had time to elect me. There's a bunch of reformers down our way,
but they don't seem to change Curtis much."
"Reformers are no good unless the rank and file of the people come to
think the way they do," said Bob. "That's why we've got to start by
being good citizens ourselves, no matter what the next man would do."
Samuels peered at him strangely, around the guttering candle. Bob
allowed him no time to express his thought.
"But to get back to your own case," said he. "What gets me is why you
destroy your homestead right for a practical certainty."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why, I personally think it's a certainty that you will be dispossessed
here. If you wait for the law to put you off, you'll have no right to
take up another homestead--your right will be destroyed."
"What good would a homestead right do me these days?" demanded Samuels.
"There's nothing left."
"New lands are thrown open constantly," said Bob, "and it's better,
other things being equal, to have a right than to want it. On the other
hand, if you voluntarily relinquish this claim, your right to take up
another homestead is still good."
At the mention of relinquishment the old mountaineer shied like a colt.
With great patience Bob took up the other side of the question. The
elements of the problem were now all laid down--patriotism, the
certainty of ultimate loss, the advisability of striving to save rights,
the desire to do one's part toward bringing the land grabbers in line.
Remained only so to apply the pressure of all these cross-motives that
they should finally bring the old man to the point of definite action.
Bob wrestled with the demons of selfishness, doubt, suspicion, pride,
stubbornness, anger, acquisitiveness that swarmed in the old man's
spirit, as Christian with Apollyon. The labour was as great. At times,
as he retraced once more and yet again ground already covered, his
patience was overcome by a great weariness; almost the elemental
obstinacy of the man wore him down. Then his very soul clamoured within
him with the desire to cut all this short, to cry out impatiently
against the slow stupidity or mulishness, or avariciousness, or whatever
it was, that permitted the old man to agree to every one of the
premises, but to balk finally at the conclusion. The night wore on. Bob
realized that it was now or never; that he must take advantage of this
receptive mood a combination of skill and luck had gained for him. The
old man must be held to the point. The candle burned out. The room grew
chill. Samuels threw an armful of pitch pine on the smouldering logs of
the fireplace that balanced the massive cook stove. By its light the
discussion went on. The red flames reflected strangely from unexpected
places, showing the oddest inconsequences. Bob, at times, found himself
drifting into noticing these things. He stared for a moment hypnotically
on the incongruous juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then he
roused himself with a start; for, although his tongue had continued
saying what his brain had commanded it to say, the dynamics had gone
from his utterance, and the old man was stirring restlessly as though
about to bring the conference to a close. Warned by this incident, he
forced his whole powers to the front. His head was getting tired, but he
must continuously bring to bear against this dead opposition all the
forces of his will.
At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed. The other two men,
rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their names as witnesses, and,
shivering in the night chill, crawled back to rest, without any very
clear idea of what they had been called on to do. Bob leaned back in his
chair, the precious document clasped tight. The taut cords of his being
had relaxed. For a moment he rested. To his consciousness dully
penetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.
"Don't see how you keep chickens," he found himself saying; "we can't.
Coyotes and cats get 'em. I wish you'd tell me."
Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motionless as a graven
image. Between them the new candle, brought for the signing of the
relinquishment, flared and sputtered.
Bob stumbled to his feet.
"Good night," said he.
Samuels neither moved nor stirred. He might have been a figure such as
used to be placed before the entrances of wax works exhibitions, so
still he sat, so fixed were his eyes, so pallid the texture of his
weather-tanned flesh after the vigil.
Bob went out to the verandah. The chill air stirred his blood, set in
motion the run-down machinery of his physical being. From the darkness a
bird chirped loudly. Bob looked up. Over the still, pointed tops of the
trees the sky had turned faintly gray. From the window streamed the
candle light. It seemed unwontedly yellow in contrast to a daylight
that, save by this contrast, was not yet visible. Bob stepped from the
verandah. As he passed the window, he looked in. Samuels had risen to
his feet, and stood rigid, his clenched fist on the table.
At the stable Bob spoke quietly to his animals, saddled them, and led
them out. For some instinctive reason which he could not have explained,
he had decided to be immediately about his journey. The cold gray of
dawn had come, and objects were visible dimly. Bob led his horses to the
edge of the wood. There he mounted. When well within the trees he looked
back. Samuels stood on the edge of the verandah, peering out into the
uncertain light of the dawn. From the darkness of the trees Bob made out
distinctly the white of his mane-like hair and the sweep of his
patriarchal beard. Across the hollow of his left arm he carried his
shotgun.
Bob touched spur to his saddle horse and vanished in the depths of the
forest.