"What might your name be?" inquired Samuels.

"Orde."

"I heerd of you ... what might you be doing up here?"

"I'm just riding through."

"Best thing any of you can do," commented the old man grimly.

"I wish you'd tell me now why you jumped on me so this evening," said Bob.

"If you don't know, you're a fool," growled Samuels.

"I've knocked around a good deal," persisted Bob, "and I've discovered that one side always sounds good until you hear the other man's story. I've only heard one side of this one."

"And that's all you're like to hear," Samuels told him. "You don't get no evidence out of me against myself."

Bob laughed.

"You're mighty suspicious--and I don't know as I blame you. Bless your soul, what evidence do you suppose I could get from you in a case like this? You've already made it clear enough with that old blunderbuss of yours what you think of the merits of the case. I asked you out of personal interest. I know the Government claims you don't own this place; and I was curious to know why you think you do. The Government reasoning looks pretty conclusive to a man who doesn't know all the circumstances."

"Oh, it is, is it!" cried Samuels, stung to anger. "Well, what claim do you think the Government has?"

But Bob was too wily to be put in the aggressive.

"I'm not thinking; I'm asking," said he. "They say you're holding this for the timber, and never proved up."

"I took it up bony-fidy," fairly shouted Samuels. "Do you think a man plants an orchard and such like on a timber claim. The timber is worth something, of course. Well, don't every man take up timber? What about that Wolverine Company of yours? What about the Yellow Pine people? What about everybody, everywhere? Ain't I got a right to it, same as everybody else?"

He leaned forward, pounding his knee. A querulous and sleepy voice spoke up from the interior of the cabin:

"Oh, pa, for heaven's sake don't holler so!"

The old man paused in mid-career. Over the treetops the moon was rising slowly. Its light struck across the lower part of the verandah, showing clearly the gnarled hand of the mountaineer suspended above his sturdy knee; casting into dimness the silver of his massive head. The hand descended noiselessly.

"Ain't I got my rights, same as another man?" he asked, more reasonably. "Just because 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 instance, that was exactly like yours. Brown had some money, and he fought it through up to the Supreme Court, but they decided against him."

"How was that?" asked Samuels.

Bob explained at length, dispassionately, avoiding even the colour of argument, but drawing strongly the parallel.

"Even if you could afford it, I'm almighty afraid you'd run up against exactly the same thing," Bob concluded, "and they'd certainly use the Brown case as a precedent."

"Well, I've got money!" said Samuels. "Don't you forget it. I don't have to live in a place like this. I've got a good, sawn-lumber house, painted, in Durham and a garden of posies."

"I'd like to see it," said Bob.

"Sometime you get to Durham, ask for me," invited Samuels.

"Well, I see how you feel. If I were in your fix, I'd probably fight it too, but I'm morally certain they'd get you in the courts. And it is a tremendous expense for nothing."

"Well, they've got to git me off'n here first," threatened Samuels.

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 assent, 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 fa............