Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/94

 Upon my return Mr. Withee accompanied me to Oregon for the purpose of making a personal inspection of my offerings, and it was on this occasion that I received an instructive object lesson concerning certain features of the timber business. While we were cruising the timber, he noticed some white moss hanging from the limbs of many of the trees, and declared that it was an indication of dry rot. Procuring an ax. we proceeded to investigate, and wherever we cut into a tree of this character we found it badly decayed on the inside, rendering it commercially valueless. Although there was but a small percentage of the timber in this condition, it was sufficient in Mr. Withee's eyes to cause him to reject the whole body, so I was obliged to seek for another "angel."

He appeared in the person of A. B. Hammond, a wealthy lumber dealer and railroad operator of San Francisco, who owns vast tracts of timber lands in Clatsop, Tillamook, Linn and Lane counties, Oregon, besides a controlling interest in the Astoria & Columbia River Railroad, and the O. P. R. R., running from Yaquina Bay via Albany to Detroit, Oregon. He also has immense red-wood timber holdings in Humboldt county, California, in addition to logging railways and sawmills too numerous to mention. In short, Mr. Hammond is considered one of the heaviest individual timber land operators on the Pacific Coast.

After discussing the situation with him in all its details, he agreed to go in with me on the deal and advance the money for making final proof on my 108 entries, and take a mortgage on the claims, providing, however, that I would agree to give him one-half the location fee of $150, and guarantee a perfect title to the land at a price not to exceed $6 per acre. We entered into an agreement to that effect, and Mr. Hammond sent Peter S. Brumby, his chief cruiser, with me, for the purpose of making a preliminary examination of the tract in order to see how the timber compared with Ben Sweet's estimates. Brumby reported favorably, and it began to look as if the hoodoo had vanished.

I thereupon called upon F. P. Mays and informed him of the changed conditions, and how the time was so short in which to operate that I was compelled to give up one-half the location fee to Mr. Hammond as an inducement for him to go into the deal. In view of the situation. Mays consented to make a new agreement with me upon the basis of accepting $25 per claim for getting the patents, this amount to be paid Senator Mitchell for his services.

In conformity with my arrangement with Mr. Hammond, Wm. G. Gosslin, his private secretary, caused to be printed two special sets of blank mortgages. The first was for the entrymen to execute in favor of A. B. Hammond for $450, the amount he was to advance in making final proof and payment, and was to run one year at the rate of ten per cent, interest per annum. The second mortgage called for $160 in favor of S. A. D. Puter, and covered the location fee of $150 and $10 for advertising the notices of final proof. As a matter of fact, there was a covert purpose behind all these red tape proceedings. It was obvious that the more densely we surrounded the various transactions with cloaks of this character, the deeper would be the impression of legitimacy, not only with the entrymen, but the Government itself was likely to be thrown off its guard in the face of such evidence of compliance with legal requirements.

Hammond's manager, Geo. B. McLeod, and myself then proceeded to Prineville, he bringing the blank mortgages, together with the money necessary for making the final payment. Upon his inquiry as to what arrangements I had made in reference to securing Mr. Hammond in his one-half interest in the $150 location fees, I informed McLeod that I was willing to leave that feature of it to himself, to fix up in any manner he deemed advisable. I also told him about my arrangement to allow Mays $25 each, to be paid Senator Mitchell for expediting the patents to the different claims, and to this McLeod objected, declaring that Hammond would not stand one-half of the amount when United States Senator Charles W. Fulton was getting patents through on other lands belonging to

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