Part 64 (2/2)

”Great guns! Why _should_ we pay it?” demanded Baker. ”It's the public domain, isn't it? First they take away the settler's right to take up public land in his own state, and now they want to _charge_, actually _charge_ the public for what's its own.”

But Bob, a new light s.h.i.+ning in his eyes, refused to become heated.

”Well,” he asked deliberately, ”who _is_ the public, anyhow?”

Baker stared at him, one chubby hand on each fat knee.

”Why, everybody,” said he; ”the people who can make use of it. You and I and the other fellow.”

”Especially the other fellow,” put in Bob drily.

Baker chuckled.

”It's like any business,” said he. ”First-come collect at the ticket office for his business foresight. But we'll try out this hold-up before we lie down and roll over.”

”Why shouldn't you pay?” demanded Bob again. ”You get your value, don't you? The Forest Service protects your watershed, and that's where you get your water. Why shouldn't you pay for that service, just the same as you pay for a night watchman at your works?”

”Watershed!” snorted Baker. ”Rot! If every stick of timber was cleaned off these mountains, I'd get the water just the same.”[A]

”Baker,” said Bob to this. ”You go and take a long, long look at your bathroom sponge in action, and then come back and I'll talk to you.”

Baker contemplated his friend for a full ten seconds. Then his fat, pugnacious face wrinkled into a grin.

”Stung on the ear by a wasp!” he cried, with a great shout of appreciation. ”You merry, merry little josher! You had me going for about five minutes.”

Bob let it go at that.

”I suppose you won't be able to pay over twenty per cent. this next year, then?” he inquired, with an amused expression.

”Twenty per cent.!” cried Baker rolling his eyes up. ”It's as much as I can do to dig up for improvements and bond interest and the preferred.”

”Not to mention the president's salary,” amended Bob.

”But I've got 'em where they live,” went on Baker, complacently, without attention to this. ”You don't catch Little Willie scattering shekels when he can just as well keep kopecks. They've left a little joker in the pack.” He produced a paper-covered copy of the new regulations, later called the Use Book. ”They've swiped about everything in sight for these pestiferous reserves, but they encourage the honest prospector.

'Let us develop the mineral wealth,' says they. So these forests are still open for taking up under the mineral act. All you have to do is to make a 'discovery,' and stake out your claim; and there you are!”

”All the mineral's been taken up long ago,” Bob pointed out.

”All the valuable mineral,” corrected Baker. ”But it's sufficient, so Erbe tells me, to discover a ledge. Ledges? h.e.l.l! They're easier to find than an old maid at a sewing circle! That's what the country is made of--ledges! You can dig one out every ten feet. Well, I've got people out finding ledges, and filing on them.”

”Can you do that?” asked Bob.

”I am doing it.”

”I mean legally.”

”Oh, this bunch of prospectors files on the claims, and gets them patented. Then it's n.o.body's business what they do with their own property. So they just sell it to me.”

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