the Forest
Service and the Smelter Ring. Mining was permitted in the National
Forests, of course; but the mining areas must be obtained according to
law, and paid for, and operated individually, not homesteaded by the
"dummies," then turned into a consolidated ring of coal owners. What
made this violation of law more flagrant than usual was the fact that
these homesteaded coal lands lay at an angle of almost ninety degrees
in a sheer wall; and it was an impossibility for any homesteader ever
to have put in residence on them. Homestead entry, term of residence,
proof and title, all exhibited fraud on the face of the records; and
there wasn't a man in the Government Service who did not know that.
What unseen hand had juggled entries, title and proof through? The
homesteaders had sold out long ago for a song, some for as little as
ten dollars a hundred and sixty acres. The Ring had possession; and as
every man in the Land Service knew, the Government had pigeon-holed all
recommendations for legal action to compel restitution. Would the
wheels of justice rest inert? Would the presiding deity of justice be
so blind, if some poor man, a poor man, who was also Uncle Sam, stole a
ton of coal from the Ring operating these mines? Why was it possible
to steal ninety-million dollars' worth of coal from the people, and not
permissible for one of the people to steal one ton of coal from the
Ring? These were the questions Wayland asked himself as he rode down
the hog's back for Smelter City.

The trail down the hog's back sloped gradually and cut fifteen miles
off the distance to Smelter City by the Valley Road. It was "the show"
trail of all the National Forests. When supervisors came to inspect,
or visitors from the East who wanted to give accounts of having roughed
it without losing an hour of sleep or carrying any scars of stump beds,
or when Congressional committees came from Washington for a champagne
junket to report on all they hadn't seen--Wayland always conducted them
down the hog's back trail that ran along the backbone of the Holy Cross
lower slope. He had built the trail, himself; much of it, with his own
hands; cut in the side of the forest mould and rock with an outer log
as guard rail; wide enough for two horses abreast and zig-zagging
enough to break the descent into a gradual drop and afford new vistas
at each turn, of the Valley below, of the Mesas above the Rim Rocks
across, and of the River looping a