The Rules of the Game
Page 79
XXI
Bob made the earliest chance to obtain California John's promisedadvice. The old man was unlettered, but his understanding was informedby a broad and gentle spirit and long experience of varied things. Onthis the head ranger himself touched.
"Bob," he began, "I'm an old man, and I've lived through a lot. When Icome into this state the elk and deer and antelope was running out onthe plains like sheep. I mined and prospected up and down thesemountains when nobody knew their names. There's hardly a gold camp youcan call over that I ain't been in on; nor a set of men that hadanything to do with making the state that I ain't tracked up with. Mostof the valley towns wasn't in existence those days, and the rest waslittle cattle towns that didn't amount to anything. The railroad took aweek to come from Chicago. There wasn't any railroad up the coast. Theyhadn't begun to irrigate much. Where the Redlands and Riverside orangegroves are there was nothing but dry washes and sage-brush desert. Itcost big money to send freight. All that was shipped out of the countryin a season wouldn't make up one shipment these days. I suppose to folksback East this country looked about as far off as Africa. Even to folksliving in California the country as far back as these mountains lookedlike going to China. They got all their lumber from the Coast ranges andthe lower hills. This back here was just wilderness, so far off thatnobody rightly thought of it as United States at all.
"Of course, by and by the country settled up a little more but even thennobody ever thought of timber. You see, there was no market to amountto anything out here; and a few little jerk-water mills could supply thewhole layout easy. East, the lumber in Michigan and Wisconsin andMinnesota never was going to give out. In those days you could hardly_give_ away land up in this country. The fellow that went in for timberwas looked on as a lunatic. It took a big man with lots of sand to seeit at all."
Bob nodded, his eye kindling with the beginnings of understanding.
"There was a few of them. They saw far enough ahead, and they come inhere and took up some timber. Other folks laughed at them; but I guessthey're doing most of the laughing now. It took nerve, and it tooksense, and it took time, and it took patience." California Johnemphasized each point with a pat of his brown, gnarled hand.
"Now those fellows started things for this country. If they hadn't hadthe sheer nerve to take up that timber, nobody would have dared doanything else--not for years anyhow. But just the fact that theWolverine Company bought big, and other big men come in--why it giveconfidence to the people. The country boomed right ahead. If nobody hadseen the future of the country, she'd have been twenty year behind. OutWest that means a hell of a lot of value, let me tell you!"
"The timber would have belonged to the Government," Bob reminded him.
"I'm a Forest officer," said California John, "and what's more, I was aForest officer for a good many years when there was nothin' to it butkicks. There can't nobody beat me in wishing a lot of good forest landwas under the Service instead of being due to be cut up by lumbermen.But I've lived too long not to see the point. You can't get benefitswithout paying for 'em. The United States of America was big gainersbecause these old fellows had the nerve just to come in and buy. Itain't so much the lumber they saw and put out where it's needed--thoughthat's a good deal; and it ain't so much the men they bring into thecountry and give work to--though that's a lot, too. _It's the confidencethey inspire_, it's the lead they give. That's what counts. All the restof these little operators, and workmen, and storekeepers, andmanufacturers wouldn't have found their way out here in twenty years ifthe big fellows hadn't led the way. If you should go over and buy tenthousand acres of land by Table Mountain to-morrow, next year there'd bea dozen to follow you in and do whatever you'd be doing. And while it'sthe big fellow that gives the lead, _it's the little fellow that makesthe wealth of the country!_"
Bob stared at the old man in fascinated surprise. This was a newCalifornia John, this closely reasoning man, with, clear, earnest eyes,laying down the simple doctrine taught by a long life among men.
"The Government gives alternate sections of land to railroads to bringthem in the country," went on California John. "In my notion all thistimber land in private hands is where it belongs. It's the price theGovernment paid for wealth."
"And the Basin----" cried Bob.
"What the hell more confidence does this country need now?" demandedCalifornia John fiercely; "what with its mills and its trolleys, itsvineyards and all its big projects. What right has this man Baker to getpay for what he ain't done?"
The distinction Bob had sensed, but had not been able to analyze, leapedat him. The equities hung in equal balance. On one side he saw thepioneer, pressing forward into an unknown wilderness, breaking a way forthose that could follow, holding aloft a torch to illumine dark places,taking long and desperate chances, or seeing with almost clairvoyantpower beyond the immediate vision of men; waiting in faith for thefulfillment of their prophecies. On the other he saw the plunderer,grasping for a wealth that did not belong to him, through values he hadnot made. This fundamental difference could never again, in Bob's mind,be gainsaid.
Nevertheless though a difference in deeper ethics, it did not extend tothe surface of things by which men live. It explained; but did itexcuse, especially in the eye of abstract ethics? Had not these menbroken the law, and is not the upholding of the law important in itsmoral effect on those that follow?
"Just the same," he voiced this thought to California John, "the lawsread then as they do to-day."
"On the books, yes," replied the old man, slowly; "but not in men'sideas. You got to remember that those fellows held pretty straight bywhat the law _says_. They got other men to take up the timber, and thenhad it transferred to themselves. That's according to law. A man can dowhat he wants with his own. You know."
"But the intention of the law is to give every man a----"
"That's what we go by now," interrupted California John.
"What other way is there to go by?"
"None--now. But in those days that was the settled way to get timberland. They didn't make any secret of it. They just looked at it as theprocess to go through with, like filing a deed, or getting twowitnesses. It was a nuisance, and looked foolish, but if that was theway to do it, why they'd do it that way. Everybody knew that. Why, if aman wanted to get enough timber to go to operating on, his lawyer wouldexplain to him how to do it; any of his friends that was posted wouldshow him the ropes; and if he'd take the trouble to go to the LandOffice itself, the clerk would say: 'No, Mr. Man, I can't transfer toyou, personally, more'n a hundred and sixty acres, but you can get someof your friends to take it up for you.'[Footnote: A fact.] Now will youtell me how Mr. Man could get it any straighter than that?"
Bob was seeing a great light. He nodded.
"They've changed the rules of the game!" said California Johnimpressively, "and now they want to go back thirty year and hold thesefellows to account for what they did under the old rules. It don't lookto me like it's fair."
He thought a moment.
"I suppose," he remarked reflectively, going off on one of his strangetangents, and lapsing once more into his customary picturesque speech,"that these old boys that burned those Salem witches was pretty wellthought of in Salem--deacons in the church, and all such; p'ticularelect, and held up to the kids for high moral examples? had the plumbuniversal approval in those torchlight efforts of theirn?"
"So I believe," said Bob.
"Well," drawled California John, stretching his lank frame, "suppose oneof those old bucks had lived to now--of course, he couldn't, but supposehe did--and was enjoying himself and being a good citizen. And supposesome day the sheriff touched him on the shoulder and says: 'Old boy,we're rounding up all the murderers. I've just got Saleratus Bill forscragging Franklin. You come along, too. Don't you know that burnin'witches is murder?'" California John spat with vigour. "Oh, hell!" saidhe.
"Now, Baker," he went on, after a moment, "is Saleratus Bill because heknows he's agin what the people
knows is the law; and the other fellowsis old Salem because they lived like they were told to. Even old Salemwould know that he couldn't burn no witches nowadays. These old timersain't the ones trying to steal land now, you notice. They're too damnhonest. You don't need to tell me that you believe for one minute whenhe took up this Wolverine land, that your father did anything that he,_or anybody else_, courts included, thought was off-colour."
"My father!" cried Bob.
"Why, yes," said California John, looking at him curiously; "you don'tmean to say you didn't know he is the Wolverine Company!"