trying them, how the decision would jump.
Furthermore, and principally, he was always satisfied that the claimant
had meant well and honestly throughout, and had lapsed through
ignorance, bad advice, or merely that carelessness of the letter of the
legal form so common among mountaineers. Such cases were far more
numerous than he had supposed. The men had, in many instances, come into
the country early in its development. They had built their cabins by the
nearest meadow that appealed to them; for, to all intents and purposes,
the country was a virgin wilderness whose camping sites were many and
open to the first comer. Only after their households had been long
established as squatters did these pioneers awake to an imperfect
understanding that further formality was required before these, their
homes, could be legally their own. Living isolated these men, even then,
blundered in their applications or in the proving up of their claims.
Such might be legally subject to eviction, but Bob in his
recommendations gave them the benefit of the doubt and advised that full
papers be issued. In the hurried days of the Service such
recommendations of field inspectors were often considered as final.

There were other cases, however, for which Bob's sympathies were
strongly enlisted, but which presented such flagrant irregularities of
procedure that he could not consistently recommend anything but a court
test of the rights involved. To this he added a personal note, going
completely into details, and suggesting a way out.

And finally, as a third class, he was able, as in Samuels's case, to
declare war on behalf of the Government. Men who had already taken up
all the timber claims to which they or their families were legally
entitled, nevertheless added an alleged homestead to the lot. Other men
were taking advantage of twists and interpretations of the law to gain
possession of desirable tracts of land still included in the National
Forests. These men knew the letter of the law well enough, and took
pains to conform accurately to it. Their lapses were of intention. The
excuses were many--so-called mineral claims, alleged agricultural land,
all the exceptions to reservation mentioned in the law; the actual ends
aimed at were two--water rights or timber. In these cases Bob reported
uncompromisingly against the granting of the final papers. Thousands of
acres, however, had been already conveyed. Over these, naturally, he had
no juris