got him that berth. He's going to hang on like a leech to blood.

"Now, look down this side! Do you know a quarter section of that big
timber is worth from $10,000 to $40,000 to its owners, the people of
the United States? Do you know you can build a cottage of six rooms
out of one tree, the very size a workman needs? The workmen who vote
own those trees! Do you know the Smelter Lumber Company takes all for
nothing, half a million of it a year? Do you know that Smelter,
itself, is built on two-thousand acres of coal lands--stolen--stolen
from the Government as clearly as if the Smelter teams had hauled it
from a Government coal pit? Do you know there isn't a man in the Land
Office who hasn't urged and urged and urged the Government to sue for
restitution of that steal, and headquarters pretend to be doubtful so
that the Statute of Limitations will intervene?"

On the inner side, the Ridge dropped to an Alpine meadow that billowed
up another slope through mossed forests to the snow line of the Holy
Cross Mountains. What the girl saw was a sylvan world of spruce, then
the dark green pointed larches where the jubilant rivers rioted down
from the snow. What the man saw was--a Challenge.

"See those settlers' cabins at an angle of forty-five? Need a sheet
anchor to keep 'em from sliding down the mountain! Fine farm land,
isn't it? Makes good timber chutes for the land looters! We've to
pass and approve _all_ homesteads in the National Forests. You may not
know it; but those _are_ homesteads. You ask Senator Moyese when he
weeps crocodile tears 'bout the poor, poor homesteader run off by the
Forest Rangers! If the homesteader got the profits, there'd be some
excuse; but he doesn't. He gets a hired man's wages while he sits on
the homestead; and when he perjures himself as to date of filing, he