At the mention of getting square with Dawson, Mr. Ramsey pricked up his ears. Possibly there was a chance here to get some evidence from a source on which they had not counted. “If you gentlemen have any charges to make against Dawson now is certainly the time to make them,” he said.
“Well, for the past five years he has been charging us for our free use permits.”
“Charging you for them?” the supervisor exclaimed in amazement. “How’s that?”
“Don’t know how to make it any plainer,” Wren answered. “Whenever we took out a free use permit we just had to pay so much for it.”
“Why didn’t you report it? You knew perfectly well that you did not have to pay for it.”
“Hicks thought he knew that one year and all his sheep died. ‘Loco weed,’ Dawson said.”
“And do you mean to say that this thing has been going on regularly on this forest for five years?”
“We never knew what it was to get a free use permit for nothing till this young man here came around this spring. And that’s why we are here. We heard that Dawson was trying to put the blame for those extras getting into the forest on him and we are not going to stand for that.”
“Have you ever paid money directly to Dawson for this?” Mr. Ramsey asked.
“Not for that, no. That was always paid to the guard or patrolman, but,” he hesitated a moment and then continued, “I don’t suppose it is much to our credit, but I might as well own up to it if it will help to clean things up; I’ve paid graft money to him direct for the privilege of running extras on the forest in addition to my free use permit. It was our only chance to get anything for the money he gouged out of us on the permits,” he explained.