"See those settlers' cabins at an angle of forty-five? Need a sheet anchor to keep 'em from sliding down the mountain! Fine farm land, isn't it? Makes good timber chutes for the land looters! We've to pass and approve _all_ homesteads in the National Forests. You may not know it; but those _are_ homesteads. You ask Senator Moyese when he weeps crocodile tears 'bout the poor, poor homesteader run off by the Forest Rangers! If the homesteader got the profits, there'd be some excuse; but he doesn't. He gets a hired man's wages while he sits on the homestead; and when he perjures himself as to date of filing, he may get a five or ten extra, while your $40,000 claim goes to Mr. Fat-Man at a couple of hundreds from Uncle Sam's timber limits; and the _Smelter City Herald_ thunders about the citizen's right to homestead free land, about the Federal Government putting up a fence to keep the settler off. That fellow--that fellow in the first shack can't speak a word of English. Smelter brought a train load of 'em in here; and they've all homesteaded the big timbers, a thousand of 'em, foreigners, given homesteads in the name of the free American citizen. Have you seen anything about it in the newspaper? Well--I guess not. It isn't a _news_ feature. We're all full up about the great migration to Canada. We like to be given a gold brick and the glad hand. Of course, they'll farm that land. One man couldn't clear that big timber for a homestead in a hundred years. Of course, they are not homesteading free timber for the big Smelter. Of course not! They didn't loot the redwoods of California that way--two hundred thousand acres of 'em--seventy-five millions of a steal. Hm!'" muttered Wayland. "Calls himself Moyese--Moses! Senator Smelter! Senator Thief! Senator Beef Steer--" She laughed. "I like your rage! Look! What's that mountain behind the cabin doing?" "Shine on pale moon, don't mind me," laughed Wayland; but suddenly he stopped storming. The slant sunlight struck the Holy Cross Mountain turning the snow gullies pure gold against the luminous peak. Just for a moment the white cornice of snow forming the bar of the apparent cross flushed to the Alpine glow, flushed blood-red and quivering like a cross poised in mid-air. An invisible hand of silence touched them both. The sunset became a topaz gate curtained by clouds of fire and lilac mist; while overhead across the indigo blue of the high rare mountain zenith slowly spread and faded a light--ashes of roses on the sun altar of the dead day. CHAPTER II AN INTERLUDE THAT CAME UNANNOUNCED