"
"Well?"
"But you've exercised your rights to timber claims already. You took up
your timber claim in '89, and what is more, your wife and her brother
and your oldest son also took up timber claims in '90. As I understand
it, this is an old homestead claim, antedating the others."
Samuels, rather taken aback, stared uncertainly. He had been lured from
his 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 stand
behind the impenetrable screen of threat and bluster from which he had
been decoyed.
"We've all got to get together, as citizens, to put a stop to this sort
of thing," he shifted his grounds. "I believe the time is at hand when
graft and grab by the rich and powerful will have to go. It will go only
when we take hold together. Look at San Francisco--" With great skill
he 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 pay
to get their politics done for them while they attend to the pressing
business of development and building.
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