Bob averted the impending anger with a soft chuckle.
"I wouldn"t want the job!" said he. "But if they had the courts with them, they"d get you off. You can drive those rangers up a tree quick enough (_"You know that isn"t so!" cried Amy at the subsequent recital._), but this is a Federal matter, and they"ll send troops against you, if necessary."
"My lawyer----" began Samuels.
"May be dead right, or he _may_ enjoy a legal battle at the other man"s expense," put in Bob. "The previous cases are all dead against him; and they"re the only ammunition."
"It"s a-gittin" cold," said Samuels, rising abruptly. "Let"s git inside!"
Bob followed him to the main room of the cabin where the mountaineer lit a tallow candle stuck in the neck of a bottle.
"Oh, pa, come to bed!" called a sleepy voice, "and quit your palavering."
"Shet up!" commanded Samuels, setting the candle in the middle of the table, and seating himself by it. "Ain"t there no decisions the other way?"
"I"m no lawyer," Bob pointed out, dropping into a stool on the other side, so that the candle stood between them, "and my opinion is of no value"--the old man grunted what might have been a.s.sent, or a mere indication of attention--"but as far as I know, there have been none. I know all the leading cases, I _think_" he added.
"So they can put me off, and leave all these other fellows, who are worse off than I be in keepin" up with what the law wants!" cried Samuels.
"I hope they"ll begin action against every doubtful claim," said Bob soberly.
"It may be the law to take away my homestead, but it ain"t justice,"
stated the old man.
Bob ventured his first aggressive movement.
"Did you ever read the Homestead Law?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Well, as you remember, that law states pretty plainly the purpose of the Homestead Act. It is to provide, out of the public lands, for any citizen not otherwise provided, with one hundred and sixty acres as a farm to cultivate or a homestead on which to live. When a man takes that land for any other purpose whatever, he commits an injustice; and when that land is recalled to the public domain, that injustice is righted, not another committed."
"Injustice!" challenged the old man; "against what, for heaven"s sake!"
"Against the People," replied Bob firmly.
"I suppose these big lumber dealers need a home and a farm too!" sneered Samuels.
"Because they did wrong is no reason you should."
"Who dares say I done wrong?" demanded the mountaineer. "Look here! Why does the Government pick on me and try to drive me off"n my little place where I"m living, and leave these other fellows be? What right or justice is there in that?"
"I don"t know the ins and out of it all," Bob reminded him. "As I said before, I"m no lawyer. But they"ve at least conformed with the forms of the law, as far as the Government has any evidence. You have not. I imagine that"s the reason your case has been selected first."
"To h.e.l.l with a law that drives the poor man off his home and leaves the rich man on his ill-got spoils!" cried Samuels.
The note in this struck Bob"s ear as something alien. "I wonder what that echoes from!" was his unspoken thought. Aloud he merely remarked:
"But you said yourself you have money and a home in Durham."
"That may be," retorted Samuels, "but ain"t I got as much right to the timber, I who have been in the country since "55, as the next man?"
"Why, of course you have, Mr. Samuels," agreed Bob heartily. "I"m with you there."
"Well?"
"But you"ve exercised your rights to timber claims already. You took up your timber claim in "89, and what is more, your wife and her brother and your oldest son also took up timber claims in "90. As I understand it, this is an old homestead claim, antedating the others."
Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been lured from his vantage ground of force to that of argument; how he scarcely knew.
It had certainly been without his intention.
Bob, however, had no desire that the old man should again take his stand behind the impenetrable screen of threat and bl.u.s.ter from which he had been decoyed.
"We"ve all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop to this sort of thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the time is at hand when graft and grab by the rich and powerful will have to go. It will go only when we take hold together. Look at San Francisco--" With great skill he drew the old man into a discussion of the graft cases in that city.
"Graft," he concluded, "is just the price the people are willing to pay to get their politics done for them while they attend to the pressing business of development and building. They haven"t time nor energy to do everything, so they"re willing to pay to have some things taken off their hands. The price is graft. When the people have more time, when the other things are done, then the price will be too high. They"ll decide to attend to their own business."
Samuels listened to this closely. "There"s a good deal in what you say,"
he agreed. "I know it"s that way with us. If I couldn"t build a better road with less money and less men than our Supervisor, Curtis, does, I"d lie down and roll over. But I ain"t got time to be supervisor, even if anybody had time to elect me. There"s a bunch of reformers down our way, but they don"t seem to change Curtis much."
"Reformers are no good unless the rank and file of the people come to think the way they do," said Bob. "That"s why we"ve got to start by being good citizens ourselves, no matter what the next man would do."
Samuels peered at him strangely, around the guttering candle. Bob allowed him no time to express his thought.
"But to get back to your own case," said he. "What gets me is why you destroy your homestead right for a practical certainty."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why, I personally think it"s a certainty that you will be dispossessed here. If you wait for the law to put you off, you"ll have no right to take up another homestead--your right will be destroyed."
"What good would a homestead right do me these days?" demanded Samuels.
"There"s nothing left."
"New lands are thrown open constantly," said Bob, "and it"s better, other things being equal, to have a right than to want it. On the other hand, if you voluntarily relinquish this claim, your right to take up another homestead is still good."
At the mention of relinquishment the old mountaineer shied like a colt.
With great patience Bob took up the other side of the question. The elements of the problem were now all laid down--patriotism, the certainty of ultimate loss, the advisability of striving to save rights, the desire to do one"s part toward bringing the land grabbers in line.
Remained only so to apply the pressure of all these cross-motives that they should finally bring the old man to the point of definite action.
Bob wrestled with the demons of selfishness, doubt, suspicion, pride, stubbornness, anger, acquisitiveness that swarmed in the old man"s spirit, as Christian with Apollyon. The labour was as great. At times, as he retraced once more and yet again ground already covered, his patience was overcome by a great weariness; almost the elemental obstinacy of the man wore him down. Then his very soul clamoured within him with the desire to cut all this short, to cry out impatiently against the slow stupidity or mulishness, or avariciousness, or whatever it was, that permitted the old man to agree to every one of the premises, but to balk finally at the conclusion. The night wore on. Bob realized that it was now or never; that he must take advantage of this receptive mood a combination of skill and luck had gained for him. The old man must be held to the point. The candle burned out. The room grew chill. Samuels threw an armful of pitch pine on the smouldering logs of the fireplace that balanced the ma.s.sive cook stove. By its light the discussion went on. The red flames reflected strangely from unexpected places, showing the oddest inconsequences. Bob, at times, found himself drifting into noticing these things. He stared for a moment hypnotically on the incongruous juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then he roused himself with a start; for, although his tongue had continued saying what his brain had commanded it to say, the dynamics had gone from his utterance, and the old man was stirring restlessly as though about to bring the conference to a close. Warned by this incident, he forced his whole powers to the front. His head was getting tired, but he must continuously bring to bear against this dead opposition all the forces of his will.
At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed. The other two men, rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their names as witnesses, and, shivering in the night chill, crawled back to rest, without any very clear idea of what they had been called on to do. Bob leaned back in his chair, the precious doc.u.ment clasped tight. The taut cords of his being had relaxed. For a moment he rested. To his consciousness dully penetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.
"Don"t see how you keep chickens," he found himself saying; "we can"t.
Coyotes and cats get "em. I wish you"d tell me."
Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motionless as a graven image. Between them the new candle, brought for the signing of the relinquishment, flared and sputtered.