The Rules of the Game

by Stewart Edward White

  XIV

  "What might your name be?" inquired Samuels.

  "Orde."

  "I heerd of you ... what might you be doing up here?"

  "I'm just riding through."

  "Best thing any of you can do," commented the old man grimly.

  "I wish you'd tell me now why you jumped on me so this evening," saidBob.

  "If you don't know, you're a fool," growled Samuels.

  "I've knocked around a good deal," persisted Bob, "and I've discoveredthat one side always sounds good until you hear the other man's story.I've only heard one side of this one."

  "And that's all you're like to hear," Samuels told him. "You don't getno evidence out of me against myself."

  Bob laughed.

  "You're mighty suspicious--and I don't know as I blame you. Bless yoursoul, what evidence do you suppose I could get from you in a case likethis? You've already made it clear enough with that old blunderbuss ofyours what you think of the merits of the case. I asked you out ofpersonal interest. I know the Government claims you don't own thisplace; and I was curious to know why you think you do. The Governmentreasoning looks pretty conclusive to a man who doesn't know all thecircumstances."

  "Oh, it is, is it!" cried Samuels, stung to anger. "Well, what claim doyou think the Government has?"

  But Bob was too wily to be put in the aggressive.

  "I'm not thinking; I'm asking," said he. "They say you're holding thisfor the timber, and never proved up."

  "I took it up bony-fidy," fairly shouted Samuels. "Do you think a manplants an orchard and such like on a timber claim. The timber is worthsomething, of course. Well, don't every man take up timber? What aboutthat Wolverine Company of yours? What about the Yellow Pine people? Whatabout everybody, everywhere? Ain't I got a right to it, same aseverybody else?"

  He leaned forward, pounding his knee. A querulous and sleepy voice spokeup from the interior of the cabin:

  "Oh, pa, for heaven's sake don't holler so!"

  The old man paused in mid-career. Over the treetops the moon was risingslowly. Its light struck across the lower part of the verandah, showingclearly the gnarled hand of the mountaineer suspended above his sturdyknee; casting into dimness the silver of his massive head. The handdescended noiselessly.

  "Ain't I got my rights, same as another man?" he asked, more reasonably."Just because I left out some little piece of their cussed red-tape am Ia-goin' to be turned out bag and baggage, child, kit, and kaboodle,while fifty big men steal, just plain steal, a thousand acres apiece andthere ain't nothing said? Not if I know it!"

  He talked on. Slowly Bob came to an understanding of the man's position.His argument, stripped of its verbiage and self-illusion, was simplicityitself. The public domain was for the people. Men selected therefromwhat they needed. All about him, for fifty years, homesteads had beentaken up quite frankly for the sake of timber. Nobody made anyobjections. Nobody even pretended that these claims were ever intendedto be lived on. The barest letter of the law had been complied with.

  "I've seen a house, made out'n willow branches, and out'n coal-oil cans,called resident buildin's under the act," said Samuels, "and _they_ wasso lost in the woods that it needed a compass to find 'em."

  He, Samuels, on the other hand, had actually planted an orchard and madeimprovements, and even lived on the place for a time. Then he had letthe claim lapse, and only recently had decided to resume what hesincerely believed to be his rights in the matter.

  Bob did not at any point suggest any of the counter arguments he mightvery well have used. He listened, leaning back against the rail,watching the moonlight drop log by log as the luminary rose above theverandah roof.

  "And so there come along last week a ranger and started to tack up asign bold as brass that read: 'Property of the United States.' Propertyof hell!"

  He ceased talking. Bob said nothing.

  "Now you got it; what you think?" asked the old man at last.

  "It's tough luck," said Bob. "There's more to be said for your side ofthe case than I had thought."

  "There's a lot more goin' to be said yet," stated Samuels, truculently.

  "But I'm afraid when it comes right down to the law of it, they'lldecide against your claim. The law reads pretty plain on how to go aboutit; and as I understand it, you never did prove up."

  "My lawyer says if I hang on here, they never can get me out," saidSamuels, "and I'm a-goin' to hang on."

  "Well, of course, that's for the courts to decide," agreed Bob, "and Idon't claim to know much about law--nor want to."

  "Me neither!" agreed the mountaineer fervently.

  "But I've known of a dozen cases just like yours that went against theclaimant. There was the Brown case in Idaho, for instance, that wasexactly like yours. Brown had some money, and he fought it through up tothe Supreme Court, but they decided against him."

  "How was that?" asked Samuels.

  Bob explained at length, dispassionately, avoiding even the colour ofargument, but drawing strongly the parallel.

  "Even if you could afford it, I'm almighty afraid you'd run up againstexactly the same thing," Bob concluded, "and they'd certainly use theBrown case as a precedent."

  "Well, I've got money!" said Samuels. "Don't you forget it. I don't haveto live in a place like this. I've got a good, sawn-lumber house,painted, in Durham and a garden of posies."

  "I'd like to see it," said Bob.

  "Sometime you get to Durham, ask for me," invited Samuels.

  "Well, I see how you feel. If I were in your fix, I'd probably fight ittoo, but I'm morally certain they'd get you in the courts. And it is atremendous expense for nothing."

  "Well, they've got to git me off'n here first," threatened Samuels.

  Bob averted the impending anger with a soft chuckle.

  "I wouldn't want the job!" said he. "But if they had the courts withthem, they'd get you off. You can drive those rangers up a tree quickenough (_"You know that isn't so!" cried Amy at the subsequentrecital._), but this is a Federal matter, and they'll send troopsagainst you, if necessary."

  "My lawyer----" began Samuels.

  "May be dead right, or he _may_ enjoy a legal battle at the other man'sexpense," put in Bob. "The previous cases are all dead against him; andthey're the only ammunition."

  "It's a-gittin' cold," said Samuels, rising abruptly. "Let's gitinside!"

  Bob followed him to the main room of the cabin where the mountaineer lita tallow candle stuck in the neck of a bottle.

  "Oh, pa, come to bed!" called a sleepy voice, "and quit yourpalavering."

  "Shet up!" commanded Samuels, setting the candle in the middle of thetable, and seating himself by it. "Ain't there no decisions the otherway?"

  "I'm no lawyer," Bob pointed out, dropping into a stool on the otherside, so that the candle stood between them, "and my opinion is of novalue"--the old man grunted what might have been assent, or a mereindication of attention--"but as far as I know, there have been none. Iknow all the leading cases, I _think_" he added.

  "So they can put me off, and leave all these other fellows, who areworse off than I be in keepin' up with what the law wants!" criedSamuels.

  "I hope they'll begin action against every doubtful claim," said Bobsoberly.

  "It may be the law to take away my homestead, but it ain't justice,"stated the old man.

  Bob ventured his first aggressive movement.

  "Did you ever read the Homestead Law?" he asked.

  "Yes."

  "Well, as you remember, that law states pretty plainly the purpose ofthe Homestead Act. It is to provide, out of the public lands, for anycitizen not otherwise provided, with one hundred and sixty acres as afarm to cultivate or a homestead on which to live. When a man takes thatland for any other purpose whatever, he commits an injustice; and whenthat land is recalled to the public domain, that injustice is righted,not another committed."

  "Injustice!" challenged the old man; "against what, for heaven's sake!"

  "Agai
nst the People," replied Bob firmly.

  "I suppose these big lumber dealers need a home and a farm too!" sneeredSamuels.

  "Because they did wrong is no reason you should."

  "Who dares say I done wrong?" demanded the mountaineer. "Look here! Whydoes the Government pick on me and try to drive me off'n my little placewhere I'm living, and leave these other fellows be? What right orjustice is there in that?"

  "I don't know the ins and out of it all," Bob reminded him. "As I saidbefore, I'm no lawyer. But they've at least conformed with the forms ofthe law, as far as the Government has any evidence. You have not. Iimagine that's the reason your case has been selected first."

  "To hell with a law that drives the poor man off his home and leaves therich man on his ill-got spoils!" cried Samuels.

  The note in this struck Bob's ear as something alien. "I wonder whatthat echoes from!" was his unspoken thought. Aloud he merely remarked:

  "But you said yourself you have money and a home in Durham."

  "That may be," retorted Samuels, "but ain't I got as much right to thetimber, I who have been in the country since '55, as the next man?"

  "Why, of course you have, Mr. Samuels," agreed Bob heartily. "I'm withyou there."

  "Well?"

  "But you've exercised your rights to timber claims already. You took upyour timber claim in '89, and what is more, your wife and her brotherand your oldest son also took up timber claims in '90. As I understandit, this is an old homestead claim, antedating the others."

  Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been lured fromhis vantage ground of force to that of argument; how he scarcely knew.It had certainly been without his intention.

  Bob, however, had no desire that the old man should again take his standbehind the impenetrable screen of threat and bluster from which he hadbeen decoyed.

  "We've all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop to this sortof thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the time is at hand whengraft and grab by the rich and powerful will have to go. It will go onlywhen we take hold together. Look at San Francisco--" With great skillhe drew the old man into a discussion of the graft cases in that city.

  "Graft," he concluded, "is just the price the people are willing to payto get their politics done for them while they attend to the pressingbusiness of development and building. They haven't time nor energy to doeverything, so they're willing to pay to have some things taken offtheir hands. The price is graft. When the people have more time, whenthe other things are done, then the price will be too high. They'lldecide to attend to their own business."

  Samuels listened to this closely. "There's a good deal in what you say,"he agreed. "I know it's that way with us. If I couldn't build a betterroad with less money and less men than our Supervisor, Curtis, does, I'dlie down and roll over. But I ain't got time to be supervisor, even ifanybody had time to elect me. There's a bunch of reformers down our way,but they don't seem to change Curtis much."

  "Reformers are no good unless the rank and file of the people come tothink the way they do," said Bob. "That's why we've got to start bybeing good citizens ourselves, no matter what the next man would do."

  Samuels peered at him strangely, around the guttering candle. Boballowed him no time to express his thought.

  "But to get back to your own case," said he. "What gets me is why youdestroy your homestead right for a practical certainty."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "Why, I personally think it's a certainty that you will be dispossessedhere. If you wait for the law to put you off, you'll have no right totake up another homestead--your right will be destroyed."

  "What good would a homestead right do me these days?" demanded Samuels."There's nothing left."

  "New lands are thrown open constantly," said Bob, "and it's better,other things being equal, to have a right than to want it. On the otherhand, if you voluntarily relinquish this claim, your right to take upanother homestead is still good."

  At the mention of relinquishment the old mountaineer shied like a colt.With great patience Bob took up the other side of the question. Theelements of the problem were now all laid down--patriotism, thecertainty of ultimate loss, the advisability of striving to save rights,the desire to do one's part toward bringing the land grabbers in line.Remained only so to apply the pressure of all these cross-motives thatthey should finally bring the old man to the point of definite action.

  Bob wrestled with the demons of selfishness, doubt, suspicion, pride,stubbornness, anger, acquisitiveness that swarmed in the old man'sspirit, as Christian with Apollyon. The labour was as great. At times,as he retraced once more and yet again ground already covered, hispatience was overcome by a great weariness; almost the elementalobstinacy of the man wore him down. Then his very soul clamoured withinhim with the desire to cut all this short, to cry out impatientlyagainst the slow stupidity or mulishness, or avariciousness, or whateverit was, that permitted the old man to agree to every one of thepremises, but to balk finally at the conclusion. The night wore on. Bobrealized that it was now or never; that he must take advantage of thisreceptive mood a combination of skill and luck had gained for him. Theold man must be held to the point. The candle burned out. The room grewchill. Samuels threw an armful of pitch pine on the smouldering logs ofthe fireplace that balanced the massive cook stove. By its light thediscussion went on. The red flames reflected strangely from unexpectedplaces, showing the oddest inconsequences. Bob, at times, found himselfdrifting into noticing these things. He stared for a moment hypnoticallyon the incongruous juxtaposition of a skillet and an ink bottle. Then heroused himself with a start; for, although his tongue had continuedsaying what his brain had commanded it to say, the dynamics had gonefrom his utterance, and the old man was stirring restlessly as thoughabout to bring the conference to a close. Warned by this incident, heforced his whole powers to the front. His head was getting tired, but hemust continuously bring to bear against this dead opposition all theforces of his will.

  At last, with many hesitations, the old man signed. The other two men,rubbing their eyes sleepily, put down their names as witnesses, and,shivering in the night chill, crawled back to rest, without any veryclear idea of what they had been called on to do. Bob leaned back in hischair, the precious document clasped tight. The taut cords of his beinghad relaxed. For a moment he rested. To his consciousness dullypenetrated the sound of a rooster crowing.

  "Don't see how you keep chickens," he found himself saying; "we can't.Coyotes and cats get 'em. I wish you'd tell me."

  Opposite him sat old Samuels, his head forward, motionless as a gravenimage. Between them the new candle, brought for the signing of therelinquishment, flared and sputtered.

  Bob stumbled to his feet.

  "Good night," said he.

  Samuels neither moved nor stirred. He might have been a figure such asused to be placed before the entrances of wax works exhibitions, sostill he sat, so fixed were his eyes, so pallid the texture of hisweather-tanned flesh after the vigil.

  Bob went out to the verandah. The chill air stirred his blood, set inmotion the run-down machinery of his physical being. From the darkness abird chirped loudly. Bob looked up. Over the still, pointed tops of thetrees the sky had turned faintly gray. From the window streamed thecandle light. It seemed unwontedly yellow in contrast to a daylightthat, save by this contrast, was not yet visible. Bob stepped from theverandah. As he passed the window, he looked in. Samuels had risen tohis feet, and stood rigid, his clenched fist on the table.

  At the stable Bob spoke quietly to his animals, saddled them, and ledthem out. For some instinctive reason which he could not have explained,he had decided to be immediately about his journey. The cold gray ofdawn had come, and objects were visible dimly. Bob led his horses to theedge of the wood. There he mounted. When well within the trees he lookedback. Samuels stood on the edge of the verandah, peering out into theuncertain light of the dawn. From the darkness of the trees Bob made outdistinctly the white of
his mane-like hair and the sweep of hispatriarchal beard. Across the hollow of his left arm he carried hisshotgun.

  Bob touched spur to his saddle horse and vanished in the depths of theforest.