in the green timber--finding the
storms of the granite peaks less to be feared than the fury of the
law._

_The Leaser--the tenderfoot hay-roller from the prairies--still tries
his luck in some abandoned tunnel, sternly toiling for his faithful
sweetheart in the low country; and_

_The Forest Ranger, hardy son of the pioneers, representing the finer
social order of the future, rides his lonely woodland trail, guarding
with single-hearted devotion our splendid communal heritage of mine and
stream._

_On the High Trail_, SPRING, 1916.

THE GRUB-STAKER

_--hammer in hand, still pecking at the float, wanders the
Rockies with hopeful patience, walking the perilous ledges
of the cliffs in endless search of gold._

THEY OF THE HIGH TRAILS

I

THE GRUB-STAKER

I

"There's gold in the Sierra Blanca country--everybody admits it,"
Sherman F. Bidwell was saying as the Widow Delaney, who kept the Palace
Home Cooking Restaurant in the town of Delaney (named after her husband,
old Dan Delaney), came into the dining-room. Mrs. Delaney paused with a
plate of steaming potatoes, and her face was a mask of scorn as she
addressed the group, but her words were aimed especially at Bidwell, who
had just come in from the lower country to resume his prospecting up the
gulch.

"It's aisy sayin' gould is in thim hills, but when ye find it rainbows
will be fishin'-rods." As she passed the potatoes over Bidwell's head
she went on: "Didn't Dan Delaney break his blessed neck a-climbin' the
high places up the creek--to no purpis includin' that same accident? You
min may talk and talk, but talk don't pay for petaties and bacon, mind
that. For eight years I've been here and I'm worse off to-day than iver
before--an' the town, phwat is it? Two saloons and a boardin'-house--and
not a ton of ore dug--much less shipped out. Y'r large words dig no
dirt, I'm thinkin', Sherm Bidwell."

Bidwell was a mild-spoken man who walked a little sidewise, with eyes
always on the ground as though ceaselessly searching for pieces of
float. He replied to his landlady with some spirit: "I've chashayed
around these mountains ever since I got back from Californey in
fifty-four and I know good rocks. I can't just lay my pick on the vein,
but I'm due to find it soon, for I'm a-gettin' old. Why, consider the
float, it's everywhere--and you know there's colors in every sand-bar?
There's got to be a ledge somewhere close by.