"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."