Page:Looters of the Public Domain.djvu/97



T WILL be remembered that in a former chapter reference was made to a certain transaction between George Lloyd, through his son, Clyde D. Lloyd, and Horace G. McKinley, over which a dispute arose, and it might be stated here that this controversy was the basis of all subsequent indictments, together with the trials incident thereto.

Clyde D. Lloyd, after employing persuasive measures with McKinley for fully a year, to the end that the $1,500 he had paid Horace for the three fraudulent claims in Township 24 South Range 1 East, should be returned to him, finally became impatient and proceeded to press McKinley for the money. Thereupon the latter deposited the amount in a bank at Eugene in escrow, and immediately informed Lloyd of the fact, stating that it would be turned over to him upon receipt of a contract exhibiting McKinley's interest in what is commonly known as Puter's Marion county tract.

About this time McKinley learned that Lloyd contemplated disposing of these lands without consulting him, notwithstanding the fact that according to the original agreement they were to participate share and share alike in the profits. This agreement, it will be understood, was of a verbal character, and as McKinley had no writing whereby he might be able to establish his interests, and it appearing to him that further delay could only result in jeopardizing matters still further, he brought suit against Lloyd for an amount sufficient to cover his share of the expected profits. Judge Thomas O'Day, of Portland, appeared for McKinley in this case, as he did also throughout the entire land fraud trials that followed.

When Clyde Lloyd ascertained that an action had been commenced against him, he called upon me for advice, and my recommendation was that he consult with McKinley at once and compromise the case, having in mind that if the litigation was pressed it might lead to exposure of the fraudulent transactions concerning the manner in which public lands were being acquired, and prove disastrous to all involved. However, Lloyd was obstinate and declined to entertain the proposition of compromise, insisting upon employing counsel. Thinking to protect myself, and knowing that F. Pierce Mays was an interested party as well as my attorney, I lost no time in advising Lloyd to call upon him. Later I was pleased to learn that the bait had been properly swallowed.

Shortly afterward George Lloyd appeared upon the scene, and after a conference with his son, he, too, called upon me for advice. Following previous lines, I counseled a compromise as the best solution of the problem, but being in the dark relative to the unenviable position his son was in, by reason of having taken the acknowledgment, as a notary public, of Robert Simpson, a fictitious Page 91