I'll get Judge Landor to hold him a while."

"That would give him an alibi for his absence and prevent a contest."

"That's right. It would."

"Leave it to me. The old man is going on a vacation, though he doesn't
know it yet."

"Good enough, Wally. I'll trust you. But remember, this fight has
reached an acute stage. No more mistakes. The devil of it is we never
seem to land the knockout punch. We've beaten this bunch of reform
idiots before Winton, before the Secretary of the Interior, before the
President, and before Congress. Now they're beginning all over again.
Where is it to end?"

"This is their last kick. Probably Guttenchild agreed to it so as to
let the party go before the people at the next election without any
apologies. Entirely formal investigation, I should say."

This might be true, or it might not. Macdonald knew that just now the
American people, always impulsive in its thinking, was supporting
strongly the movement for conservation. A searchlight had been turned
upon the Kamatlah coal-fields. Magazines and newspapers had hammered
it home to readers that the Guttenchild and allied interests were
engaged in a big steal from the people of coal, timber, and power-site
lands to the value of more than a hundred million dollars.

The trouble had originated in a department row, but it had spread until
the Macdonald claims had become a party issue. The officials of the Land
Office, as well as the National Administration, were friendly to the
claimants. They had no desire to offend one of the two largest money
groups in the country. But neither did they want to come to wreck on
account of the Guttenchilds. They found it impossible to ignore the
charge that the entries were fraudulent and if consummated would result
in a wholesale robbery of the public domain. Superficial investigations
had been made and the claimants whitewashed. But the clamor had
persisted.

Though he denied it officially, Macdonald made a present to the public
of the admission that the entries were irregular. Laws, he held, were
made for men and should be interpreted to aid progress. Bad ones ought
to be evaded.

The facts were simple enough. Macdonald was the original promoter of
the Kamatlah coal-field. He had engaged dummy entrymen to take up one
hundred and sixty acres each under the Homestead Act. Later he intended
to consolidate the claims and turn them over to the Guttenchilds under
an agreement by which he was to receive