e
examination of the coal veins before he could obtain a Government
Geologist, and the coal would be pronounced worthless, as the coal
involved in the Alaska cases was pronounced worthless by another
kindergartner when that contest was impending. Then, they would argue
and consider and send up briefs and send down decisions on the value of
the coal till the statutory time had expired and the law of limitations
would bar suit for restitution. Meanwhile, Smelter City Coking Company
were using half-a-million tons a year, and sending away as much again;
but on the word of an ignorant bureaucratic cub, the coal was to be
worthless and the brazen steal of public property to be sanctioned by
law. How much mineral land had been stolen in the very same way in the
last ten years, first homesteaded by 'the dummy' foreigner, then for
five, ten, one-hundred, two-hundred at most three-hundred dollars a
quarter section on false affidavit as to entry, length of residence,
age of homesteader, turned over to the Ring, whose sworn valuation of
the coal ran from $20,000 to $40,000 an acre?" Personally, Wayland,
as he thought it over, knew of fifty-thousand acres of coal so
stolen in Colorado and as much again in Wyoming; not to mention
three-hundred-thousand acres of gold and silver lands looted in the
South-West.

_And the looters were the party shouting at the top of their voices
about "vested rights" and "attacks on property" and "demagoguery
producing national hysteria." Where was the respect due "the vested
rights" belonging to Uncle Sam? What about the piracy and plunder of
the property belonging to Uncle Sam? Why was it valor to throw a
burglar looting your house out by the neck, and "hysteria" to go after
a burglar looting Uncle Sam?_

Wayland had once asked Bat Brydges these questions. Bat had looked
pained at the Ranger's obtuseness.

"Wayland," he had exclaimed, "who is Uncle Sam? I am Uncle Sam! You
are Uncle Sam! We are all Uncle Sam! That's the beauty of democracy!
This property you are howling about is yours and mine; and when we go
in and develop it, we are only taking what is our own."

"What about the fellow who isn't in on a share?"

"Share? Quit talking Socialism," Bat had commanded with a grand
gesture, leaving Wayland wondering _who_ were the real Socialists in
the Nation.

It came to him as he watched the panama hat and the white sailor going
down the Ridge Trail that you can't argufy national pr