In Bob’s capacity as beneficent despot, he ran against many problems that taxed his powers.  It was easy to say that Samuels, having full intention to get what he very well knew he had no right to have, and for acquiring which he had no excuse save that others were allowed to do likewise, should be proceeded against vigorously.  It was likewise easy to determine that Ward, who had lived on his mountain farm, and cultivated what he could, and had himself made shakes of his timber, but who had blundered his formal processes, should be given a chance to make good.  But what of the doubtful cases?  What of the cases wherein apparently legality and equity took opposite sides?

Bob had adventures in plenty.  For lack of a better system, he started at the north end and worked steadily south, examining with patience the pedigree of each and every private holding within the confines of the National Forests.  These were at first small and isolated.  Only one large tract drew his attention, that belonging to old Simeon Wright in the big meadows under Black Peaks.  These meadows, occupying a wide plateau grown sparsely with lodgepole pine, covered perhaps a thousand acres of good grazing, and were held legally, but without the shadow of equity, by the old land pirate who owned so much of California.  In going over both the original records, the newer geological survey maps, and the country itself, Bob came upon a discrepancy.  He asked and obtained leave for a resurvey.  This determined that Wright’s early-day surveyor had made a mistake—­no extraordinary matter in a wild country so remote from base lines.  Simeon’s holdings were actually just one mile farther north, which brought them to the top of a bald granite ridge.  His title to this was indubitable; but the broad and valuable meadows belonged still to the Government.  As the case was one of fact merely, Wright had no opportunity to contest, or to exercise his undoubtedly powerful influence.  The affair served, however, to draw Bob’s name and activities into the sphere of his notice.

Among the mountain people Bob was at first held in a distrust that sometimes became open hostility.  He received threats and warnings innumerable.  The Childs boys sent word to him, and spread that word abroad, that if this government inspector valued his life he would do well to keep off Iron Mountain.  Bob promptly saddled his horse, rode boldly to the Childs’ shake camp, took lunch with them, and rode back, speaking no word either of business or of threats.  Having occasion to take a meal with some poor, squalid descendants of hog-raising Pike County Missourians, he detected a queer bitterness to his coffee, managed unseen to empty the cup into his canteen, and later found, as he had suspected, that an attempt had been made to poison him.  He rode back at once to the cabin.  Instead of taxing the woman with the deed—­for he shrewdly suspected the man knew nothing of it—­he reproached her with condemning him unheard.