"Union hours suit me," said Baker. "Why work while papa has his health? What I want to know is, how high is the limit on this game anyway?"
"What do you mean?"
"This confounded so-called 'investigation' of yours? In other words, do you intend to get after me?"
"As how?"
Baker's shrewd eyes looked at him gravely from out his smiling fat face.
"Modoc Mining Company's lands."
"Then you are the Modoc Mining Company?" asked Bob.
Baker eyed him again.
"Look here, my angel child," said he in a tone of good-humoured pity, "I can make all that kind of talk in a witness box—if necessary. In any case, I didn't come 'way out here to exchange that sort with you. You know perfectly well I'm the Modoc Mining Company, and that I've got a fine body of timber under the mineral act, and all the rest of it. You know all this not only because you've got some sense, but because I told you so before a competent witness. It stands to reason that I don't mind telling you again where there are no witnesses. Now smoke up and join the King's Daughters—let's have a heart-to-heart and find out how we stand."
Bob laughed, and Baker, with entirely whole-hearted enjoyment, laughed too.
"You're next on the list," said Bob, "and, personally, I think----"
Baker held up his hand.
"Let's not exchange thinks," said he. "I've got a few thinks coming myself, you know. Let's stick to facts. Then the Government is going to open up on us?"
"Yes."
"On the grounds of fraudulent entry, I suppose."
"That's it."
"Well, they'll never win----"
"Let's not exchange thinks," Bob reminded him.
"Right! I can see that you're acting under orders, and the suit must be brought. Now I tell you frankly, as one Modern Woods-pussy of the World to another, that you're the only fellow that has any real testimony. What I want to know is, are you going to use it?"
Bob looked at his companion steadily.
"I don't see why, even without witnesses, I should give away government plans to you, Baker."
Baker sighed, and slid from the boulder.
"I'm practically certain how the cat jumps, and I've long since made my plans accordingly. Whatever you say does not alter my course of action. Only I hate to do a man an injustice without being sure. You needn't answer. Your last remark means that you are. I have too much sense to do the little Eva to you, Orde. You've got the gray stuff in your head, even if it is a trifle wormy. Of course, it's no good telling you that you're going back on a friend, that you'll be dragging Welton into the game when he hasn't got a chip to enter with, that you're betraying private confidence—well, I guess the rest is all 'thinks.'"
"I'm sorry, Baker," said Bob, "and I suppose I must appear to be a spy in the matter. But it can't be helped."
Baker's good-humoured, fat face had fallen into grave lines. He studied a distant spruce tree for a moment.
"Well," he roused himself at last, "I wish this particular attack of measles had passed off before you bucked up against us. Because, you know, that land's ours, and we don't expect to give it up on account of this sort of fool agitation. We'll win this case. I'm sorry you're mixed up in it."
"Saleratus Bill?" hinted Bob.
Baker's humorous expression returned.
"What do you take me for?" he grinned. "No, that's Oldham's bodyguard. Thinks he needs a bodyguard these days. That's what comes from having a bad conscience, I tell him. Some of those dagoes he's sold bum farms to are more likely to show up with a desire to abate him, than that anything would happen to him in these hills. Now let's get this straight; the cases go on?"
"Yes."
"And you testify?"
"Yes."
"And call Welton in for corroboration?"
"I hardly think that's necessary."
"It will be, as you very well know. I just wanted to be sure how we stood toward each other. So long."
He turned uncompromisingly away, and stumped off down the trail on his fat and sturdy legs.
Bob looked after him amazed, at this sudden termination of the interview. He had anticipated argument, sophistry, appeal to old friendship, perhaps a more dark and doubtful approach. Though conscious throughout of Baker's contempt for what the promoter would call his childish impracticability, his disloyalty and his crankiness, Bob realized that all of this had been carefully subdued. Baker's manner at parting expressed more of regret than of anger or annoyance.
To this short and inconclusive interview, however, Baker did not fail to add somewhat through Oldham. The agent used none of the circumspection Baker had considered necessary, but rode openly into camp and asked for Bob. The latter, remembering Oldham's reputed antagonism to Baker, could not but admire the convenience of the arrangement. The lank and sinister figure of Saleratus Bill was observed to accompany that of the land agent, but the gun man, at a sign from his principal; did not dismount. He greeted no one, but sat easily across his saddle, holding the reins of both horses in his left hand, his jaws working slowly, his evil, little eyes wandering with sardonic interest over the people and belongings at headquarters. Ware nodded to him. The man's eyes half closed and for an instant the motion of his jaw quickened. Otherwise he made no sign.
Oldham drew Bob one side.
"I want to talk to you where we won't be interrupted," he requested.
"Talk on," said Bob, seating himself on a log. "The open is as good a place as another; you can see your eavesdroppers there."
Oldham considered this a moment, then nodded his head, and took his place by the young man's side.
"It's about those Modoc lands," said he.
"I suppose so," said Bob.
"Mr. Baker tells me you fully intend to prosecute a suit for their recovery."
"I believe the Government intends to do so. I am, of course, only the agent of the Government in this or any other matter."
"In other words, you have received orders to proceed?"
"I would hardly be acting without them, would I?"
"Of course; I see. Mr. Baker is sometimes hasty. Assuming that you cared to do so, is there no way you could avoid this necessity?"
"None that I can discover. I must obey orders as long as I'm a government officer."
"Exactly," said Oldham. "Now we reach the main issue. What if you were not a government officer?"
"But I am."
"Assume that you were not."
"Naturally my successor would carry out the same orders."
"But," suggested Oldham, "it might very well be that another man would not be—well, quite so qualified to carry out the case—"
"You mean I'm the only one who heard Baker say he was going to cheat the Government," put in Bob bluntly.
"You and Mr. Welton and Mr. Baker were the only ones present at a certain interview," he amended. "Now, in the event that you were not personally in charge of the case would you feel it necessary to volunteer testimony unsuspected by anybody but you three?"
"If I were to resign, I should volunteer nothing," stated Bob.
Oldham's frosty eyes gleamed with satisfaction behind their glasses.
"That's good!" he cried.
"But I have no intention of resigning," Bob concluded.
"That is a matter open to discussion," Oldham took him up. "There are a great many reasons that you have not yet considered."
"I'm ready to hear them," said Bob.
"Look at the case as it stands. In the first place, you cannot but admit that Mr. Baker and the men associated with him have done great things for this country. When they came into it, it was an undeveloped wilderness, supplying nothing of value to civilization, and supporting only a scattered and pastoral people. The valley towns went about their business on horse cars; they either paid practically a prohibitive price for electricity and gas, or used oil and candles; they drank well water and river water. The surrounding country was either a desert given over to sage brush and jack rabbits, or raised crops only according to the amount of rain that fell. You can have no conception, Mr. Orde, of the condition of the country in some of these regions before irrigation. In place of this the valley people now enjoy rapid transportation, not only through the streets of their towns, but also by trolley lines far out in all directions. They have cheap and abundant electric light and power. They possess pure drinking water. Above all they raise their certain crops irrespective of what rains the heavens may send."
Bob admitted that electricity and irrigation are good things.
"These advantages have drawn people. I am not going to bore you with a lot of statistics, but the population of all White Oaks County, for instance, is now above fifty thousand people, where before was a scant ten. But how much agricultural wealth do you suppose these peopleexporteach year? Not how much theyproduce, but their net exportations?"
"Give it up."
"Fifty million dollars worth! That's a marvellous per capita."
"It is indeed," said Bob.
"Now," said Oldham impressively, "that wealth would be absolutely non-existent, that development could not have taken place,didnot take place, until men of Mr. Baker's genius and courage came along to take hold. I have personally the greatest admiration for Mr. Baker as a type of citizen without whom our resources and possibilities would be in the same backward condition as obtains in Canada."
"I'm with you there," said Bob.
"Mr. Baker has added a community to the state, cities to the commonwealth, millions upon millions of dollars to the nation's wealth. He took long chances, and he won out. Do not you think in return the national resources should in a measure reward him for the advantages he has conferred and the immense wealth he has developed? Mind you, Mr. Baker has merely taken advantage of the strict letter of the law. It is merely open to another interpretation. He needs this particular body of timber for the furtherance of one of his greatest quasi-public enterprises; and who has a better right in the distribution of the public domain than the man who uses it to develop the country? The public land has always been intended for the development of resources, and has always been used as such."
Oldham talked fluently and well. He argued at length along the lines set forth above.
"You have to use lubricating oil to overcome friction on a machine," he concluded. "You have to subsidize a railroad by land grants to enter a new country. By the same immutable law you must offer extraordinary inducements to extraordinary men. Otherwise they will not take the risks."
"I've nothing to do with the letter of the law," Bob replied; "only with its spirit and intention. The main idea of the mineral act is to give legitimate miners the timber they need for legitimate mining. Baker does not pretend, except officially, that he ever intends to do anything with his claims. He certainly has done a great work for the country. I'll agree to everything you say there. But he came into California worth nothing, and he is now reputed to be worth ten millions and to control vast properties. That would seem to be reward enough for almost anybody. He does not need this Basin property for any of his power projects, except that its possession would let him off from paying a very reasonable tax on the waterpower he has been accustomed to getting free. Cutting that timber will not develop the country any further. I don't see the value of your argument in the present case."
"Mr. Baker has invested in this project a great many millions of dollars," said Oldham. "He must be adequately safeguarded. To further develop and even to maintain the efficiency of what he has, he must operate to a large extent on borrowed capital. Borrowing depends on credit; and credit depends on confidence. If conditions are proved to be unstable, capital will prove more than cautious in risking itself. That is elementary. Surely you can see that point."
"I can see that, all right," admitted Bob.
"Well," went on Oldham, taking heart, "think of the responsibility you are assuming in pushing forward a mere technicality, and a debatable technicality at that. You are not only jeopardizing a great and established business—I will say little of that—but you are risking the prosperity of a whole countryside. If Mr. Baker's enterprises should quit this section, the civilization of the state would receive a serious setback. Thousands of men would be thrown out of employment, not only on the company's works, but all along the lines of its holdings; electric light and power would increase in price—a heavy burden to the consumer; the country trolley lines must quit business, for only with water-generated power can they compete with railroads at all; fertile lands would revert to desert—"
"I am not denying the value of Mr. Baker's enterprises," broke in Bob; "but what has a billion and a half of timber to do with all this?"
"Mr. Baker has long been searching for an available supply for use in the enterprises," said Oldham, eagerly availing himself of this opening. "You probably have a small idea of the immense lumber purchases necessary for the construction of the power plants, trolley lines, and roads projected by Mr. Baker. Heretofore the company has been forced to buy its timber in the open market."
"This would be cheaper," suggested Bob.
"Much."
"That would increase net profits, of course. I suppose that would result in increased dividends. Or, perhaps, the public would reap the benefit in decreased cost of service."
"Undoubtedly both. Certainly electricity and transportation would cheapen."
"The same open markets can still supply the necessary timber?"
"At practically prohibitive cost," Oldham reminded.
"Which the company has heretofore afforded—and still paid its dividends," said Bob calmly. "Well, Mr. Oldham, even were I inclined to take all you say at its face value; even were I willing to admit that unless Mr. Baker were given this timber his business would fail, the country would be deprived of the benefits of his enterprise, and the public seriously incommoded, I would still be unable to follow the logic of your reasoning. Mind you, I do not admit anything of the kind. I do not anticipate any more dire results than that the dividends will remain at their present per cent. But even supposing your argument to be well founded, this timber belongs to the people of the United States. It is part of John Jones's heritage, whether John Jones lives in White Oaks or New York. Why should I permit Jones of New York to be robbed in favour of Jones of White Oaks—especially since Jones of New York put me here to look after his interests for him? That's the real issue; and it's very simple."
"You look at the matter from a wrong point of view----" began Oldham, and stopped. The land agent was shrewd, and knew when he had come to animpasse.
"I always respect a man who does his duty," he began again, "and I can see how you're tied up in this matter. But a resignation could be arranged for very easily. Mr. Baker knows thoroughly both your ability and experience, and has long regretted that he has not been able to avail himself of them. Of course, as you realize, the great future of all this country is not along the lines even of such great industries as lumber manufacture, but in agriculture and in waterpower engineering. Here, more than anywhere else in the world, Water is King!"
A recollection tickled Bob. He laughed outright. Oldham glanced at him sharply.
"Oh, the Lucky Lands," said he at last; "I'd forgotten you had ever been there. Well, the saying is as true now as it was then. The great future for any young man is along those lines. I am sure—in fact, I am told to say with authority—that Mr. Baker would be only too pleased to have you come in with him on this new enterprise he is opening up."
"As how?"
"As stockholder to the extent of ten thousand shares preferred, and a salaried position in the field, of course. But, that is a small matter compared with the future opportunities—"
"It's cheering to know that I'm worth so much," interrupted Bob. "Shares now worth par?"
"A fraction over."
"One hundred thousand and some odd dollars," observed Bob. "It's a nice tidy bribe; and if I were any sort of a bribe taker at all, I'd surely feel proud and grateful. Only I'm not. So you might just as well have made it a million, and then I'd have felt still more set up over it."
"I hope you don't think I'm a bribe giver, either," said Oldham. "I admit my offer was not well-timed; but it has been long under contemplation, and I mentioned it as it occurred to me."
Having thus glided over this false start, the land agent promptly opened another consideration.
"Perhaps we are at fatal variance on our economics," said he; "but how about the justice of the thing? When you get right down to cases, how about the rest of them? I'll venture to say there are not two private timber holdings of any size in this country that have been acquired strictly within the letter of the law. Do you favour general confiscation?"
"I believe in the law," declared Bob, "and I do not believe your statement."
Oldham rose.
"I tell you this, young man," he said coldly: "you can prosecute the Modoc Company or not, as you please—or, perhaps, I should say, you can introduce your private testimony or not, as you please. We are reasonable; and we know you cannot control government prosecutions. But the Modoc Company intends that you play no favourites."
"I do not understand you," said Bob with equal coldness.
"If the Modoc Company is prosecuted, we will make it our business to see that every great land owner holding title in this Forest is brought into the courts for the same offence. If the letter of the law is to be enforced against us, we'll see that it is enforced against all others."
Bob bowed. "Suits me," said he.
"Does it?" sneered Oldham. He produced a bundle of papers bound by a thick elastic. "Well, I've saved you some trouble in your next case. Here are certified copies of the documents for it, copied at Sacramento, and subscribed to before a notary. Of course, you can verify them; but you'll find them accurate."
He handed them to Bob, who took them, completely puzzled. Oldham's next speech enlightened him.
"You'll find there," said the older man, tapping the papers in Bob's hand, "the documents in full relating to the Wolverine Company's land holdings, and how they were acquired. After looking them over, we shall expect you to bring suit. If you do not do so, we will take steps to force you to do so—or, failing this, to resign!"
With these words, Oldham turned square on his heel and marched to where Saleratus Bill was stationed with the horses. Bob stared after him, the bundle of papers in his hand. When Oldham had mounted, Bob looked down on these papers.
"The second line of defence!" said he.
Bob's first interest was naturally to examine these documents. He found them, as Oldham had said, copies whose accuracy was attested by the copyist before a notary. They divided themselves into two classes. The first traced the titles by which many small holdings had come into the hands of the corporation known as the Wolverine Company. The second seemed to be some sort of finding by an investigating commission. This latter was in the way of explanation of the title records, so that by referring from one to the other, Bob was able to trace out the process by which the land had been acquired. This had been by "colonizing," as it was called. According to Federal law, one man could take up but one hundred and sixty acres of government land. It had, therefore, been the practice to furnish citizens with the necessary capital so to do; after which these citizens transferred their land to the parent company. This was, of course, a direct evasion of the law; as direct an evasion as Baker's use of the mineral lands act.
For a time Bob was unable to collect his reasoning powers adequately to confront this new fact. His thoughts were in a whirl. The only thing that stood out clearly was the difference in the two cases. He knew perfectly that after Baker's effort to lift bodily from the public domain a large block of its wealth every decent citizen should cry, "Stop thief!" Instinctively he felt, though as yet he could not analyze the reasons for so feeling, that to deprive the Wolverine Company of its holdings would work a crying injustice. Yet, to all intents and purposes, apparently, the cases were on all fours. Both Welton and Baker had taken advantage of a technicality.
When Bob began to think more clearly, he at first laid this difference to a personal liking, and was inclined to blame himself for letting his affections cloud his sense of justice. Baker was companionable, jolly, but at the same time was shrewd, cold, calculating and unscrupulous in business. He could be as hard as nails. Welton, on the other hand, while possessing all of Baker's admirable and robust qualities, had with them an endearing and honest bigness of purpose, limited only—though decidedly—by his point of view and the bounds of his practical education. Baker would steal land without compunction; Welton would take land illegally without thought of the illegality, only because everybody else did it the same way.
But should the mere fact of personality make any difference in the enforcing of laws? That one man was amiable and the other not so amiable had nothing to do with eternal justice. If Bob were to fulfil his duty only against those he disliked, and in favour of his friends, he had indeed slipped back to the old days of henchman politics from which the nation was slowly struggling. He reared his head at this thought. Surely he was man enough to sink private affairs in the face of a stern public duty!
This determined, Bob thought the question settled. After a few minutes, it returned as full of interrogation points as ever. Leaving Baker and Welton entirely out of the question, the two cases still drew apart. One was just, the other unjust. Why? On the answer depended the peace of Bob's conscience. Of course he would resign rather than be forced to prosecute Welton. That was understood, and Bob resolutely postponed contemplation of the necessity. He loved this life, this cause. It opened out into wider and more beautiful vistas the further he penetrated into it. He conceived it the only life for which he was particularly fitted by temperament and inclination. To give it up would be to cut himself off from all that he cared for most in active life; and would be to cast him into the drudgery of new and uncongenial lines. That sacrifice must be made. It's contemplation and complete realization could wait. But a deeper necessity held Bob, the necessity of resolving the question of equities which the accident of his personal knowledge of Welton and Baker had evoked. He had to prove his instincts right or wrong.
He was not quite ready to submit the matter officially, but he wished very much to talk it over with some one. Glancing up he caught sight of the glitter of silver and the satin sheen of a horse. Star was coming down through the trees, resplendent in his silver and carved leather trappings, glossy as a bird, stepping proudly and daintily under the curbing of his heavy Spanish bit. In the saddle lounged the tall, homely figure of old California John, clad in faded blue overalls, the brim of his disreputable, ancient hat flopped down over his lean brown face, and his kindly blue eyes. Bob signalled him.
"John!" he called, "come here! I want to talk with you!"
The stately, beautiful horse turned without any apparent guiding motion from his master, stepped the intervening space and stopped. California John swung from the saddle. Star, his head high, his nostril wide, his eye fixed vaguely on some distant vision, stood like an image.
"I want a good talk with you," repeated Bob.
They sat on the same log whereon Oldham and Bob had conferred.
"John," said Bob, "Oldham has been here, and I don't know what to do."
California John listened without a single word of comment while Bob detailed all the ins and outs of the situation. When he had finished, the old man slowly drew forth his pipe, filled it, and lit it.
"Son," said he, "I'm an old man, and I've lived in this state since the early gold days. That means I've seen a lot of things. In all that time the two most valuable idees I've dug up are these: in the first place, it don't never do to go off half-cock; and in the second place, if you want to know about a thing, go to headquarters for it."
He removed his pipe and blew a cloud.
"Half of that's for me and the other half's for you," he resumed. "I ain't going to give you my notions until I've thought them over a little; that's for me. As for you, if I was you, I'd just amble over and talk the whole matter over with Mr. Welton and see what he thinks about his end of it."
This advice seemed so good that Bob acted upon it at his earliest opportunity. He found Welton riding his old brindle mule in from the bull donkey where he had been inspecting the work. The lumberman's red, jolly face lit up with a smile of real affection as he recognized Bob, an expression quickly changed, however, as he caught sight of the young man's countenance.
"What's up, Bobby?" he inquired with concern; "anything happened?"
"Nothing yet; but I want to talk with you."
Welton immediately dismounted, with the laborious clumsiness of the man brought up to other means of locomotion, tied Jane to a tree, and threw himself down at the foot of a tall pine.
"Let's have it," said he.
"There have come into my hands some documents," said Bob, "that embarrass me a great deal. Here they are."
He handed them to Welton. The lumberman ran them through in silence.
"Well," he commented cheerfully, "they seem to be all right. What's the matter?"
"The matter is with the title to the land," said Bob.
Welton looked the list of records over more carefully.
"I'm no lawyer," he confessed at last; "but it don't need a lawyer to see that this is all regular enough."
"Have you read the findings of the commission?"
"That stuff? Sure! That don't amount to anything. It's merely an expression of opinion; and mighty poor opinion at that."
"Don't you see what I'm up against?" insisted Bob. "It will be in my line of duty to open suit against the Wolverine Company for recovery of those lands."
"Suit!" echoed Welton. "You talk foolish, Bob. This company has owned these lands for nearly thirty years, and paid taxes on them. The records are all straight, and the titles clear."
"It begins to look as if the lands were taken up contrary to law," insisted Bob; "and, if so, I'll be called upon to prosecute." "Contrary to your grandmother," said Welton contemptuously. "Some of your young squirts of lawyers have been reading their little books. If these lands were taken up contrary to law, why so were every other timber lands in the state."
"That may be true, also," said Bob. "I don't know."
"Well, will you tell me what's wrong with them?" asked Welton.
"It appears as though the lands were 'colonized,'" said Bob; "or, at least, such of them as were not bought from the bank."
"I guess you boys have a new brand of slang," confessed Welton.
"Why, I mean the tract was taken direct from many small holders in hundred-and-sixty-acre lots," explained Bob.
Welton stared at him.
"Well, will you tell me how in blazes you were going to get together a piece of timber big enough to handle in any other way?" he demanded at last. "All one firm could take up by itself was a quarter section, and you're not crazy enough to think any concern could afford to build a plant for the sake of cutting that amount! That's preposterous! A man certainly has a right under the law to sell what is his to whom-ever he pleases."
"But the 'colonists,'" said Bob, "took up this land merely for the purpose of turning it over to the company. The intention of the law is that the timber is for the benefit of the original claimant."
"Well, it's for his benefit, if he gets paid for it, ain't it?" demanded Welton ingenuously. "You can't expect him to cut it himself."
"That is the intent of the law," insisted Bob, "and that's what I'll be called upon to do. What shall I do about it?"
"Quit the game!" said Welton, promptly and eagerly. "You can see yourself how foolish it is. That crew of young squirts just out of school would upset the whole property values of the state. Besides, as I've just shown you, it's foolish. Come on back in a sensible business. We'd get on fine!"
Bob shook his head.
"Then go ahead; bring your case," said Welton. "I don't mind."
"I do," said Bob. "It looks like a strong case to me."
"Don't bring it. You don't need to report in your evidence as you call it. Just forget it."
"Even if I were inclined to do so," said Bob, "I wouldn't be allowed. Baker would force the matter to publicity."
"Baker," repeated Welton; "what has he got to do with it?"
"It's in regard to the lands in the Basin. He took them up under the mineral act, and plainly against all law and decency. It's the plainest case of fraud I know about, and is a direct steal right from under our noses."
"I think myself he's skinning things a trifle fine," admitted Welton; "but I can't see but what he's complied with the law all right. He don't have any right to that timber, I'll agree with you there; but it looks to me like the law had a hole in it."
"If he took that land up for other purposes than an honest intention to mine on it, the title might be set aside," said Bob.
"You'd have a picnic proving anything of the sort one way or another about what a man intends to do," Welton pointed out.
"Do you remember one evening when Baker was up at camp and was kicking on paying water tolls? It was about the time Thorne first came in as Supervisor, and just before I entered the Service."
"Seems to me I recall something of the sort."
"Well, you think it over. Baker told us then that he had a way of beating the tolls, and mentioned this very scheme of taking advantage of the mineral laws. At the time he had a notion of letting us in on the timber."
"Sure! I remember!" cried Welton.
"Well, if you and I were to testify as to that conversation, we'd establish his intent plainly enough."
"Sure as you're a foot high!" said Welton slowly.
"Baker knows this; and he's threatened, if I testify against him, to bring the Wolverine Company into the fight.Nowwhat should I do about it?"
Welton turned on him a troubled eye.
"Bob," said he, "there's more to this than you think. I didn't have anything to do with this land until just before we came out here. One of the company got control of it thirty year ago. All that flapdoodle," he struck the papers, "didn't mean nothing to me when I thought it came from your amatoore detectives. But if Baker has this case looked up there's something to it. Go slow, son."
He studied a moment.
"Have you told your officers of your own evidence against Baker?"
"Not yet."
"Or about these?" he held up the papers.
"No."
"Well, that's all right. Don't."
"It's my duty----"
"Resign!" cried Welton energetically; "then it won't be your duty. Nobody knows about what you know. If you're not called on, you've nothing to say. You don't have to tell all you know."
A vision swept before Bob's eyes of a noble forest supposedly safe for all time devoted by his silence to a private greed.
"But concealing evidence is as much of a perjury as falsifying it—" he began. A second vision flashed by of a ragged, unshorn fugitive, now in jail, whom his testimony could condemn. He fell silent.
"Let sleeping dogs lie," said Welton, earnestly. "You don't know the harm you may do. Your father's reelection comes this fall, you know, and even if it's untrue, a suit of this character—" He in his turn broke off.
"I don't see how this could hurt father's chances—either way," said Bob, puzzled.
"Well, you know how I think about it," said Welton curtly, rising. "You asked me."
He stumped over to Jane, untied the rope with his thick fingers, clambered aboard. From the mule's back he looked down on Bob, his kindly, homely face again alight with affection.
"If you never have anything worse on your conscience than keeping your face shut to protect a friend from injustice, Bobby," he said, "I reckon you won't lose much sleep."
With these words he rode away. Bob, returning to camp, unsaddled, and, very weary, sought his cabin. His cabin mate was stolidly awaiting him, seated on the single door step.
"My friend that was going to leave me some money in my bunk was coming to-day," said Jack Pollock. "It ain't in your bunk by mistake?"
"Jack," said Bob, weariedly throwing all the usual pretence aside, "I'm ashamed to say I clean forgot it; I had such a job on hand. I'll ride over and get it now."
"Don't understand you," said Jack, without moving a muscle of his face.
Bob smiled at the serious young mountaineer, playing loyally his part even to his fellow-conspirator.
"Jack," said he, "I guess your friend must have been delayed. Maybe he'll get here later."
"Quite like," nodded Jack gravely.
Bob made the earliest chance to obtain California John's promised advice. The old man was unlettered, but his understanding was informed by a broad and gentle spirit and long experience of varied things. On this the head ranger himself touched.
"Bob," he began, "I'm an old man, and I've lived through a lot. When I come into this state the elk and deer and antelope was running out on the plains like sheep. I mined and prospected up and down these mountains when nobody knew their names. There's hardly a gold camp you can call over that I ain't been in on; nor a set of men that had anything to do with making the state that I ain't tracked up with. Most of the valley towns wasn't in existence those days, and the rest was little cattle towns that didn't amount to anything. The railroad took a week to come from Chicago. There wasn't any railroad up the coast. They hadn't begun to irrigate much. Where the Redlands and Riverside orange groves are there was nothing but dry washes and sage-brush desert. It cost big money to send freight. All that was shipped out of the country in a season wouldn't make up one shipment these days. I suppose to folks back East this country looked about as far off as Africa. Even to folks living in California the country as far back as these mountains looked like going to China. They got all their lumber from the Coast ranges and the lower hills. This back here was just wilderness, so far off that nobody rightly thought of it as United States at all.
"Of course, by and by the country settled up a little more but even then nobody ever thought of timber. You see, there was no market to amount to anything out here; and a few little jerk-water mills could supply the whole layout easy. East, the lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin and Minnesota never was going to give out. In those days you could hardlygiveaway land up in this country. The fellow that went in for timber was looked on as a lunatic. It took a big man with lots of sand to see it at all."
Bob nodded, his eye kindling with the beginnings of understanding.
"There was a few of them. They saw far enough ahead, and they come in here and took up some timber. Other folks laughed at them; but I guess they're doing most of the laughing now. It took nerve, and it took sense, and it took time, and it took patience." California John emphasized each point with a pat of his brown, gnarled hand.
"Now those fellows started things for this country. If they hadn't had the sheer nerve to take up that timber, nobody would have dared do anything else—not for years anyhow. But just the fact that the Wolverine Company bought big, and other big men come in—why it give confidence to the people. The country boomed right ahead. If nobody had seen the future of the country, she'd have been twenty year behind. Out West that means a hell of a lot of value, let me tell you!"
"The timber would have belonged to the Government," Bob reminded him.
"I'm a Forest officer," said California John, "and what's more, I was a Forest officer for a good many years when there was nothin' to it but kicks. There can't nobody beat me in wishing a lot of good forest land was under the Service instead of being due to be cut up by lumbermen. But I've lived too long not to see the point. You can't get benefits without paying for 'em. The United States of America was big gainers because these old fellows had the nerve just to come in and buy. It ain't so much the lumber they saw and put out where it's needed—though that's a good deal; and it ain't so much the men they bring into the country and give work to—though that's a lot, too.It's the confidence they inspire, it's the lead they give. That's what counts. All the rest of these little operators, and workmen, and storekeepers, and manufacturers wouldn't have found their way out here in twenty years if the big fellows hadn't led the way. If you should go over and buy ten thousand acres of land by Table Mountain to-morrow, next year there'd be a dozen to follow you in and do whatever you'd be doing. And while it's the big fellow that gives the lead,it's the little fellow that makes the wealth of the country!"
Bob stared at the old man in fascinated surprise. This was a new California John, this closely reasoning man, with, clear, earnest eyes, laying down the simple doctrine taught by a long life among men.
"The Government gives alternate sections of land to railroads to bring them in the country," went on California John. "In my notion all this timber land in private hands is where it belongs. It's the price the Government paid for wealth."
"And the Basin----" cried Bob.
"What the hell more confidence does this country need now?" demanded California John fiercely; "what with its mills and its trolleys, its vineyards and all its big projects. What right has this man Baker to get pay for what he ain't done?"
The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able to analyze, leaped at him. The equities hung in equal balance. On one side he saw the pioneer, pressing forward into an unknown wilderness, breaking a way for those that could follow, holding aloft a torch to illumine dark places, taking long and desperate chances, or seeing with almost clairvoyant power beyond the immediate vision of men; waiting in faith for the fulfillment of their prophecies. On the other he saw the plunderer, grasping for a wealth that did not belong to him, through values he had not made. This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob's mind, be gainsaid.
Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did not extend to the surface of things by which men live. It explained; but did it excuse, especially in the eye of abstract ethics? Had not these men broken the law, and is not the upholding of the law important in its moral effect on those that follow?
"Just the same," he voiced this thought to California John, "the laws read then as they do to-day."
"On the books, yes," replied the old man, slowly; "but not in men's ideas. You got to remember that those fellows held pretty straight by what the lawsays. They got other men to take up the timber, and then had it transferred to themselves. That's according to law. A man can do what he wants with his own. You know."
"But the intention of the law is to give every man a----"
"That's what we go by now," interrupted California John.
"What other way is there to go by?"
"None—now. But in those days that was the settled way to get timber land. They didn't make any secret of it. They just looked at it as the process to go through with, like filing a deed, or getting two witnesses. It was a nuisance, and looked foolish, but if that was the way to do it, why they'd do it that way. Everybody knew that. Why, if a man wanted to get enough timber to go to operating on, his lawyer would explain to him how to do it; any of his friends that was posted would show him the ropes; and if he'd take the trouble to go to the Land Office itself, the clerk would say: 'No, Mr. Man, I can't transfer to you, personally, more'n a hundred and sixty acres, but you can get some of your friends to take it up for you.'[Footnote: A fact.] Now will you tell me how Mr. Man could get it any straighter than that?"
Bob was seeing a great light. He nodded.
"They've changed the rules of the game!" said California John impressively, "and now they want to go back thirty year and hold these fellows to account for what they did under the old rules. It don't look to me like it's fair."
He thought a moment.
"I suppose," he remarked reflectively, going off on one of his strange tangents, and lapsing once more into his customary picturesque speech, "that these old boys that burned those Salem witches was pretty well thought of in Salem—deacons in the church, and all such; p'ticular elect, and held up to the kids for high moral examples? had the plumb universal approval in those torchlight efforts of theirn?"
"So I believe," said Bob.
"Well," drawled California John, stretching his lank frame, "suppose one of those old bucks had lived to now—of course, he couldn't, but suppose he did—and was enjoying himself and being a good citizen. And suppose some day the sheriff touched him on the shoulder and says: 'Old boy, we're rounding up all the murderers. I've just got Saleratus Bill for scragging Franklin. You come along, too. Don't you know that burnin' witches is murder?'" California John spat with vigour. "Oh, hell!" said he.
"Now, Baker," he went on, after a moment, "is Saleratus Bill because he knows he's agin what the people knows is the law; and the other fellows is old Salem because they lived like they were told to. Even old Salem would know that he couldn't burn no witches nowadays. These old timers ain't the ones trying to steal land now, you notice. They're too damn honest. You don't need to tell me that you believe for one minute when he took up this Wolverine land, that your father did anything that he,or anybody else, courts included, thought was off-colour."
"My father!" cried Bob.
"Why, yes," said California John, looking at him curiously; "you don't mean to say you didn't know he is the Wolverine Company!"