d to railroads to bring
them in the country," went on California John. "In my notion all this
timber land in private hands is where it belongs. It's the price the
Government paid for wealth."

"And the Basin----" cried Bob.

"What the hell more confidence does this country need now?" demanded
California John fiercely; "what with its mills and its trolleys, its
vineyards and all its big projects. What right has this man Baker to get
pay for what he ain't done?"

The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able to analyze, leaped
at him. The equities hung in equal balance. On one side he saw the
pioneer, pressing forward into an unknown wilderness, breaking a way for
those that could follow, holding aloft a torch to illumine dark places,
taking long and desperate chances, or seeing with almost clairvoyant
power beyond the immediate vision of men; waiting in faith for the
fulfillment of their prophecies. On the other he saw the plunderer,
grasping for a wealth that did not belong to him, through values he had
not made. This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob's mind,
be gainsaid.

Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did not extend to
the surface of things by which men live. It explained; but did it
excuse, especially in the eye of abstract ethics? Had not these men
broken the law, and is not the upholding of the law important in its
moral effect on those that follow?

"Just the same," he voiced this thought to California John, "the laws
read then as they do to-day."

"On the books, yes," replied the old man, slowly; "but not in men's
ideas. You got to remember that those fellows held pretty straight by
what the law _says_. They got other men to take up the timber, and then
had it transferred to themselves. That's according to law. A man can do
what he wants with his own. You know."

"But the intention of the law is to give every man a----"

"That's what we go by now," interrupted California John.

"What other way is there to go by?"

"None--now. But in those days that was the settled way to get timber
land. They didn't make any secret of it. They just looked at it as the
process to go through with, like filing a deed, or getting two
witnesses. It was a nuisance, and looked foolish, but if that was the
way to do it, why they'd do it that way. Everybody knew that. Why, if a
man wanted to get enough timber to go to operating on, his lawyer would
explain to him how to do it; any