Wayland had once asked Bat Brydges these questions.  Bat had looked pained at the Ranger’s obtuseness.

“Wayland,” he had exclaimed, “who is Uncle Sam?  I am Uncle Sam!  You are Uncle Sam!  We are all Uncle Sam!  That’s the beauty of democracy!  This property you are howling about is yours and mine; and when we go in and develop it, we are only taking what is our own.”

“What about the fellow who isn’t in on a share?”

“Share?  Quit talking Socialism,” Bat had commanded with a grand gesture, leaving Wayland wondering who were the real Socialists in the Nation.

It came to him as he watched the panama hat and the white sailor going down the Ridge Trail that you can’t argufy national problems; nor compromise on them; nor enter on any treaty of peace but the peace that is a victory.  Brydges was Uncle Sam; and he thought one way.  The Ranger was Uncle Sam; and he thought another way.  One was fighting for the vested rights of the few.  The other was fighting for the vested rights of the many.  It would have to be fought out, the fight would have to come; and this coal case, like the Range War, was one of the preliminary skirmishes to the Great National Contest.  Would the people, who were paying fifty cents, a dollar, a dollar-and-a-half extra for every ton of coal bought, because the coal areas were being brought under the domination of one Ring, understand and waken up and rally to the fight?  Or was it as Moyese had declared with the most open and genial cynicism that “the public did not give one damn”?

The Ranger crossed over to the telephone and called up the MacDonald Ranch.

“That you, Mr. MacDonald?  Matthews back yet?  Oh, gone across to the Mission School?  No, nothing wrong:  better not pay any attention to the little Irish kid’s babble of trouble at the mine!  They’d hardly dare that!  Yes, I know they did on the Rim Rocks; but that was daring only you and Williams:  this would be daring the great Government of the greatest Nation in the world!  Oh, that doesn’t bother me!  The point is—­they haven’t given me time to get a Government expert up here; and this fellow is evidently a toady for Moyese.  I want an extra witness on the quality of that coal:  want a witness to prove it’s being used and shipped and sold.  Oh, no, not both of you, one will do, either you or Matthews!  All right; will you go down by the early stage?  Better not go down with me!  I’m going to set out now; ride down the Forest Service trail, camp in the woods and expect to reach Smelter City about ten in the morning.  If you leave by the six o’clock morning stage, that will be plenty of time.  All right, either one of you!  Much obliged!  Good-by!”