Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/202

 This conference seemed to work like magic on the minds of those present. They dreaded the thought of turning informants and leaving the iNlealey boys in the lurch, and besides, they reasoned, it would work a frightful hardship on Fred Kribs, whom they had all promised to stand by only a few evenings before.

lllit of their own scalps they must be mindful; there were wives and little ones at home awaiting their return, and it became their duty, since an obligation of some sort rested upon them, to think and act only with a view of protecting their loved ones. Savage as they were, this instinct was uppermost in their minds.

They had all but decided, yet hesitated still, when one of their number whose knowledge of the poets was the marvel of his fellows, quoting from the immortal words of Shakespeare, said: "To thine own self be true; thou canst not then be false to any man." It was enough. To a man they had decided to act, and in this particular instance the little army of entrymen who forged their way to the office of the Government prosecutor required no leader. Their only thought was to get there quickly and shake the burden off their minds.

In this, however, they were doomed to meet with temporary disappointment, as they found, upon their arrival, that they had been preceded by a still greater throng, which had taken complete possession of the three rooms in the -Hotel Portland that were used by Mr. Heney as offices.

I happened to be there when they commenced to arrive, and was engaged in conversation with Air. Heney when the first knock for admission was heard. It was rather unexpected, as to time and numbers, as we had no hope of their coming in until later, and then only in straggling groups. Now, however, this avalanche of humanity had forced itself into headquarters, and it must be reckoned with in the calculations. It seemed to be a serious question of determining the rotation in which they came, but that matter was finally disposed of by the establishment of a long line, after the fashion of a postoffice row, which extended from the rooms clear down the hallways, and for days appeared not to have diminished, so much augmented were their numbers by fresh arrivals from time to time.

It was a different story that each of them told on this occasion; so vastly different, in fact, that the wonder was they were related by the same persons. Now it was the truth, where falsity had predominated, and step by step, coil after coil, the Government prosecutors unravelled each skein of the iniquitous deal that was to place its stamp upon C. A. Smith as one of the greatest criminals that ever went unwhipped of justice. In brief, the composite affidavits of these men developed the following situation:

The operations had been carried on under the personal direction of Kribs, who was acting for Smith, in two different land districts, embracing several counties, and geographically divided by many miles. Each group of locators was governed by one or more trusted lieutenants, John Givens, a professional timber cruiser, acting in that capacity around Roseburg, in Southern Oregon, while the two Mealey brothers performed a like service in the Sweet Home region, which included a large territory in the west-central portion of the State.

They were as the divisions of an army of invasion, and the looting of the public domain was their slogan of battle. In this way upwards of a hundred thousand acres of the choicest timber lands in the Northwest was acquired through process of fraudulent entry, the system contemplating the payment of a trifling sum above the Government price of $2.50 an acre to the entrymen for his right—$50 being the ruling rate, but in some instances as low as $15 was all that the poor, unsophisticated mountaineer, to whom a few dollars was as a fortune, received as a reward for his perjury.

It developed also that the Land Department at Washington had become suspicious of the character of these entries, coming as they did in such vast quantities from the same vicinities, and had suspended them all pending investigation; that Special Agents George F. Wilson and Edward D. Stratford had been designated to make such investigations; that about this time each entryman

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