"So they would examine the mine to-morrow? So they had sprung the examination of the coal veins before he could obtain a Government Geologist, and the coal would be pronounced worthless, as the coal involved in the Alaska cases was pronounced worthless by another kindergartner when that contest was impending. Then, they would argue and consider and send up briefs and send down decisions on the value of the coal till the statutory time had expired and the law of limitations would bar suit for restitution. Meanwhile, Smelter City Coking Company were using half-a-million tons a year, and sending away as much again; but on the word of an ignorant bureaucratic cub, the coal was to be worthless and the brazen steal of public property to be sanctioned by law. How much mineral land had been stolen in the very same way in the last ten years, first homesteaded by 'the dummy' foreigner, then for five, ten, one-hundred, two-hundred at most three-hundred dollars a quarter section on false affidavit as to entry, length of residence, age of homesteader, turned over to the Ring, whose sworn valuation of the coal ran from $20,000 to $40,000 an acre?" Personally, Wayland, as he thought it over, knew of fifty-thousand acres of coal so stolen in Colorado and as much again in Wyoming; not to mention three-hundred-thousand acres of gold and silver lands looted in the South-West.
And the looters were the party shouting at the top of their voices about "vested rights" and "attacks on property" and "demagoguery producing national hysteria." Where was the respect due "the vested rights" belonging to Uncle Sam? What about the piracy and plunder of the property belonging to Uncle Sam? Why was it valor to throw a burglar looting your house out by the neck, and "hysteria" to go after a burglar looting Uncle Sam?
Wayland had once asked Bat Brydges these questions. Bat had looked pained at the Ranger's obtuseness.
"Wayland," he had exclaimed, "who is Uncle Sam? I am Uncle Sam! You are Uncle Sam! We are all Uncle Sam! That's the beauty of democracy! This property you are howling about is yours and mine; and when we go in and develop it, we are only taking what is our own."
"What about the fellow who isn't in on a share?"
"Share? Quit talking Socialism," Bat had commanded with a grand gesture, leaving Wayland wondering who were the real Socialists in the Nation.
It came to him as he watched the panama hat and the white sailor going down the Ridge Trail that you can't argufy national problems; nor compromise on them; nor enter on any treaty of peace but the peace that is a victory. Brydges was Uncle Sam; and he thought one way. The Ranger was Uncle Sam; and he thought another way. One was fighting for the vested rights of the few. The other was fighting for the vested rights of the many. It would have to be fought out, the fight would have to come; and this coal case, like the Range War, was one of the preliminary skirmishes to the Great National Contest. Would the people, who were paying fifty cents, a dollar, a dollar-and-a-half extra for every ton of coal bought, because the coal areas were being brought under the domination of one Ring, understand and waken up and rally to the fight? Or was it as Moyese had declared with the most open and genial cynicism that "the public did not give one damn"?
The Ranger crossed over to the telephone and called up the MacDonald
Ranch.
"That you, Mr. MacDonald? Matthews back yet? Oh, gone across to the Mission School? No, nothing wrong: better not pay any attention to the little Irish kid's babble of trouble at the mine! They'd hardly dare that! Yes, I know they did on the Rim Rocks; but that was daring only you and Williams: this would be daring the great Government of the greatest Nation in the world! Oh, that doesn't bother me! The point is—they haven't given me time to get a Government expert up here; and this fellow is evidently a toady for Moyese. I want an extra witness on the quality of that coal: want a witness to prove it's being used and shipped and sold. Oh, no, not both of you, one will do, either you or Matthews! All right; will you go down by the early stage? Better not go down with me! I'm going to set out now; ride down the Forest Service trail, camp in the woods and expect to reach Smelter City about ten in the morning. If you leave by the six o'clock morning stage, that will be plenty of time. All right, either one of you! Much obliged! Good-by!"
An hour from the time Eleanor had left him, the Ranger was on his horse. He did not go down the Ridge Trail. He followed the National Forest Trail along the edge of the Ridge away from the Holy Cross Peak, down the forested back of a long foot-hill sloping and flanking the Valley almost to Smelter City. Locally, the sloping hill was known as "a hog's back"; and it was where the hog's back poked its nose into the Valley far below, that the tangle had occurred between the Forest Service and the Smelter Ring. Mining was permitted in the National Forests, of course; but the mining areas must be obtained according to law, and paid for, and operated individually, not homesteaded by the "dummies," then turned into a consolidated ring of coal owners. What made this violation of law more flagrant than usual was the fact that these homesteaded coal lands lay at an angle of almost ninety degrees in a sheer wall; and it was an impossibility for any homesteader ever to have put in residence on them. Homestead entry, term of residence, proof and title, all exhibited fraud on the face of the records; and there wasn't a man in the Government Service who did not know that. What unseen hand had juggled entries, title and proof through? The homesteaders had sold out long ago for a song, some for as little as ten dollars a hundred and sixty acres. The Ring had possession; and as every man in the Land Service knew, the Government had pigeon-holed all recommendations for legal action to compel restitution. Would the wheels of justice rest inert? Would the presiding deity of justice be so blind, if some poor man, a poor man, who was also Uncle Sam, stole a ton of coal from the Ring operating these mines? Why was it possible to steal ninety-million dollars' worth of coal from the people, and not permissible for one of the people to steal one ton of coal from the Ring? These were the questions Wayland asked himself as he rode down the hog's back for Smelter City.