Since the eclat of the Samuels case, he had little hope of obtaining relinquishments, nor did he greatly care to do so.  A relinquishment saved trouble in the courts, but as far as avoiding adverse public notice went, the Samuels affair showed the absolute ineffectiveness of that method.  But by going on the ground he was enabled to see, with his own eyes, just what sort of a claim was in question, the improvements that had been made on it, the value both to the claimant and the Government.  Through an interview he was able to gauge the claimant, to weigh his probable motives and the purity of both his original and present intentions.  A number of cases thus he dropped, and that on no other than his own responsibility.  They were invariably those whose issue in the courts might very well be in doubt, so that it was impossible to tell, without 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,