Bob stared at the old man in fascinated surprise.  This was a new California John, this closely reasoning man, with, clear, earnest eyes, laying down the simple doctrine taught by a long life among men.

“The Government gives alternate sections of land to railroads to bring them in the country,” went on California John.  “In my notion all this timber land in private hands is where it belongs.  It’s the price the Government paid for wealth.”

“And the Basin——­” cried Bob.

“What the hell more confidence does this country need now?” demanded California John fiercely; “what with its mills and its trolleys, its vineyards and all its big projects.  What right has this man Baker to get pay for what he ain’t done?”

The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able to analyze, leaped at him.  The equities hung in equal balance.  On one side he saw the pioneer, pressing forward into an unknown wilderness, breaking a way for those that could follow, holding aloft a torch to illumine dark places, taking long and desperate chances, or seeing with almost clairvoyant power beyond the immediate vision of men; waiting in faith for the fulfillment of their prophecies.  On the other he saw the plunderer, grasping for a wealth that did not belong to him, through values he had not made.  This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob’s mind, be gainsaid.

Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did not extend to the surface of things by which men live.  It explained; but did it excuse, especially in the eye of abstract ethics?  Had not these men broken the law, and is not the upholding of the law important in its moral effect on those that follow?

“Just the same,” he voiced this thought to California John, “the laws read then as they do to-day.”

“On the books, yes,” replied the old man, slowly; “but not in men’s ideas.  You got to remember that those fellows held pretty straight by what the law says.  They got other men to take up the timber, and then had it transferred to themselves.  That’s according to law.  A man can do what he wants with his own.  You know.”

“But the intention of the law is to give every man a——­”

“That’s what we go by now,” interrupted California John.

“What other way is there to go by?”

“None—­now.  But in those days that was the settled way to get timber land.  They didn’t make any secret of it.  They just looked at it as the process to go through with, like filing a deed, or getting two witnesses.  It was a nuisance, and looked foolish, but if that was the way to do it, why they’d do it that way.  Everybody knew that.  Why, if a man wanted to get enough timber to go to operating on, his lawyer would explain to him how to do it; any of his friends that was posted would show him the ropes; and if he’d take the trouble to go to the Land Office itself, the clerk would say:  ’No, Mr. Man, I can’t transfer to you, personally, more’n a hundred and sixty acres, but you can get some of your friends to take it up for you.’[Footnote:  A fact.] Now will you tell me how Mr. Man could get it any straighter than that?”