ause 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