It must have been a sublime faith in that homely adage that there are
more ways of killing a cat than by choking him with butter which moved
Bob McGraw to cudgel his nimble brain until he had discovered exactly
how it would be possible for him to accomplish legally what every
freebooter with an appraising eye on the public domain is troubled to
accomplish illegally. The sole difference between Bob's projected course
and that of his competitors' would be a slightly lessened profit; but
after inventorying a free and easy conscience and posting it to the
credit side of his profit and loss account, Bob knew that this apparent
difference would dwindle until it would be scarcely perceptible.
Immediately after breakfast on the morning of the day following his
interview with Homer Dunstan, Bob set to work to draw up the circular
letter and contract form, to be submitted later to his prospective
clients. In about fifteen minutes he had outlined the following:
THE PROPOSITION IS THIS
I have information of some state lieu lands which I believe can be taken
up under the State laws at $1.25 per acre. The right to buy them will
very probably have to be established and enforced by legal proceedings.
Now, this right to purchase state lieu lands is a limited personal
right. (See Political Code, Section 3495, et seq.) I am willing to try
to make YOUR right good to a tract of this land, under the conditions
of the contract herewith. I am willing to stand the expenses of suit to
enforce your right, and to advance for you the legal fees and the first
preliminary payment to the state, on the chance of being able to secure
you something sufficiently valuable to justify you in paying me the fee
provided for in the contract. Read the contract carefully and note that
you retain the right to cancel it and relieve yourself of all obligation
in the matter _by abandoning your claim to the land._
READ THE CONTRACT CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU SIGN IT. BE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND
JUST WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
ROBERT MCGRAW.
“That looks like fair warning” mused Mr. McGraw, as he reread this
document. “I defy any man to look between the lines and scent my
hocus-pocus game.”
Bob next proceeded to draw up the contract. It was a simple contract,
framed in language that could not fail of comprehension by the dullest
mind. For and in consideration of the sum of one dollar, the receipt
whereof was duly acknowledged, Bob McGraw agreed to furnish, his
applicants for land with certain valuable information, whereby the
applicant would be enabled to file, or tender his application for,
certain state lieu lands, “bounded and particularly described as
follows:” (Here he left a space sufficient for the insertion, at a later
date, of the exact description of the lands he desired; the descriptions
he would glean from maps of the valley on sale in the United States Land
Office in San Francisco.)
He agreed to tender the application of his client to the State Land
Office and to conduct, at his own expense, any litigation that might
arise or become necessary to establish the right of his client to
purchase the land from the state; stipulating, however, that he (McGraw)
should be the sole judge of the necessity for such litigation. He agreed
to pay the filing fees and the first payment on the land, required
at the time of filing the application, and to represent the applicant
before the state land office; also to notify his client, by registered
letter, at the address given him, whenever the application should be
approved; and it was distinctly stipulated that the applicant should
not be required to elect whether or not he would abandon the application
until served with this written notice!
In consideration, also, of the services, fees and costs provided for in
the contract, _Mr. McGraw would make a charge of Three Dollars per acre
for all, or any part, of the land which the applicant might be awarded
the opportunity to purchase;_ this fee to be payable to him, his heirs
or assigns, _if and whenever the application of his client_ should be
duly approved by the Registrar of the State Land Office.
In consideration of these covenants, the applicant was to bind himself
to pay Mr. Robert McGraw the stipulated fee of Three Dollars per acre,
in addition to the One Dollar and Twenty-five Cents per acre demanded by
the state, _reserving, however, the right to abandon his filing at any
time prior to its approval by the Registrar of the State Land Office,
but pledging himself not to abandon without first furnishing his
attorney (Robert McGraw) with a proper instrument of abandonment, in
order that some other person might be located on the land._ In addition
the applicant was required to state that he was duly qualified,
under the law, to make the application _and that he had read both the
application form and the contract and was familiar with the section of
the code under which he made it._
A critical perusal of the terms of this shrewd contract will readily
convince even a layman that it was perfectly legal. Bob hurled mental
defiance at every legal light in the country to prove collusion and
conspiracy to defraud under that contract. It proved merely that Bob
McGraw was acting in his capacity as a duly authorized attorney-at-law,
seeking to turn an honest penny.
Now, in the first place, the abandonment clause in the contract, while
not holding his client to the contract, nevertheless held the land to
Bob McGraw! He anticipated that, in the event of his success in forcing
the registrar of the state land office to accept and approve the
applications, the land ring would immediately seek out each applicant,
charge the applicant with being a party to a gigantic land fraud
conspiracy and threaten him with a Federal Grand Jury investigation in
case he did not at once abandon his filing! The poor and the ignorant
are easily intimidated, and Bob McGraw had figured on this. In the event
of “cold feet” on the part of his applicant, the applicant would come
to _him,_ to abandon, as per the terms of the contract, but by that time
Bob would have a man with nerve to take his place, and his scheme would
still be impervious to “leaks!” While the land was “tied up” by a McGraw
applicant, Bob knew the enemy could not get it.
When Bob's clients signed that contract, it meant nothing! But the
moment the applications were approved for patent, and the State Land
Office had so notified him, and he, in turn, had so notified his
clients, his clients were no longer his clients. They were his victims!
His contract then constituted a promissory note, and Mr. McGraw knew
enough law to realize that failure to pay a promissory note or perform a
contract is actionable. Should his client repudiate the contract _prior_
to the approval of the application, he was safe; but to repudiate it
_after_ approval and after Bob McGraw had advanced him the money to pay
for the land--ah, that was a different matter. Bob McGraw knew he could
secure a judgment against his unfortunate client in any court of law in
the country--and the land was good for the judgment! Having advanced the
cash to purchase the land for his clients, Bob McGraw would hold that
deadly contract over their heads as security for the advance!
Under the terms of the contract, when fulfilled, each client would owe
Bob his three dollars per acre on six hundred and forty acres, or
a total of one thousand nine hundred and forty dollars as a legal
attorney's fee, and to the clients that Bob McGraw intended to select,
a debt of such magnitude would loom up in all the pristine horror of the
end of the world at hand and salvation not yet in sight. With, malice
aforethought the promoter of Donnaville was trading on the credulity of
the very people he planned to benefit! He knew with what ease the poor
rush into debt where the creditor requires nothing down; he knew also
the avidity with which they grasp the first means of escape from the
burden, once it becomes onerous; and at the thought the villain McGraw
chuckled pleasurably.
“Once under the McGraw thumb, and I have them! I'll demand cash on the
nail for my services. They will be unable to pay me. I'll harass them
and threaten to sue them, and then, when I have them thoroughly cowed,
I'll send a secret agent around to buy their land from them at ten
dollars an acre. After using their constitutional right to purchase lieu
lands, they are entitled to a profit on the investment, and besides, I
must show a 'valuable consideration' or have a secret service operative
trailing me.
“However, I will not have sufficient funds on hand to pay them ten
dollars per acre spot cash, so I shall turn over to them their
signed contracts and thus relieve them of that bugbear, and for these
three-dollar contracts they shall credit me with a payment of four
dollars and twenty-five cents per acre on the land! I will secure them
for the balance by a first mortgage on the property! And with that
accomplished, I court an official investigation. Come on, you secret
service operatives, and prove Bob McGraw a crook. I am a crook, and I
know it, but nobody else shall know it and I have never been accused of
talking in my sleep. I'm a crook, but I'm an honest crook, and the ends
justify the means. Besides, I'm going to present every one of my clients
with a cheek for three thousand six hundred and seventy dollars for
the mere scratch of a pen and the use of their constitutional right to
purchase lieu land. Why, I'm a philanthropist! I'm going to make fifty
men happy by giving them a lot of money for something they never knew
they had. Three thousand six hundred and seventy dollars for the use of
one constitutional right, when the market price is a hundred! McGraw,
my boy, this must never leak out. If it does, your sanity will be
questioned, in addition to your morality.”
Thus figured Bob McGraw, the sage of Donnaville. Let him but get his
applications past the land ring's tool in the state land office, and a
receipt issued for his first payment, and Donnaville would be no longer
a dream. Should the applications be rejected later on some flimsy
pretext, he would commence a mandamus suit to enforce the selection
of his lands, and force action of the pending applications of the land
ring, whereby they so artfully “tied up the basis” of exchange. If he
should find himself opposed by a corrupt judge who should rule against
him, he would not be daunted. If beaten in the Superior Court he would
appeal the case to the United States Circuit Court, for Bob McGraw had
a sublime faith in the ability of Truth, crushed to earth, to rise again
and kick the underpinning from crookedness and graft, provided one never
acknowledged defeat. And he could go into court with clean hands, for
he broke no law himself and he would induce no one else to break it, in
thought, spirit or action!
The road to Donnaville stretched ahead of him now, smooth and white and
free from ruts, and with but one bridge to cross. For the successful
crossing of that bridge Bob McGraw had not evolved a plan, for he was
merely a human being, and human cunning has its limitations. It was a
bridge which he must cross when he came to it. He only knew that he must
make the effort on a certain day--the day that Owens river valley should
be thrown open to entry. He must be first at the window of the land
office, and once before that window, the future of Donnaville, the
future of Bob McGraw and his sweetheart in San Pasqual, lay in the laps
of the gods. He must manage somehow to get his applications filed that
day, without designating the basis of the exchange of school lands
for the lieu lands which he sought; for that was information which Bob
McGraw did not possess, and should it come into his possession the day
after the valley was opened for entry, it would be worthless; for the
land ring, in the parlance of the present day, would have “beaten him to
it.”
To get those precious filings accepted! That was all that worried him
now. Prior to his visit to Homer Dunstan, this task had seemed to Bob
the least of his worries compared with the titanic task of accumulating
the money necessary to pay for the land when the filings should be
approved. Yesterday everything had revolved around the necessity for
thirty-nine thousand dollars, until the contemplation of this monetary
axis had threatened to set his reason tottering on its throne. But that
worry no longer existed. Homer Dunstan had indicated very clearly to
Bob that he considered him insane, but Homer Dunstan had pledged him
the thirty-nine thousand dollars when he could come to him with the
notification from the Registrar of the State Land Office that the lands
had been passed to patent, and Bob knew that Dunstan would keep his
word, provided his death did not occur prior to the granting of the
patents.
The rough draft of the contract having been drawn up to his
satisfaction, Bob sallied forth in search of a public stenographer. He
knew that he had evolved rather a clever scheme, and he was averse to
permitting the details of his plan to fall under the comprehending eye
of some boss printer, whose enterprise might perchance soar beyond
the boundaries of his vocation. So Bob sought, instead, a public
stenographer and had his copy multigraphed by a young lady whose
interest could never, by any possibility, center in anything more than
her fee.
The job was delivered two days later, and with the knowledge that he had
thirty days in which to make the acquaintance of his fifty prospective
clients, Bob resolved to devote one more week to the problem of still
further recruiting his shattered vitality before getting down to active
work.
He spent that week wandering through Golden Gate Park, along
the romantic and picturesque San Francisco water-front, and in
moving-picture shows. Each morning, before starting for the day's
wanderings, he wrote a long letter to Donna and then waited for the
first mail delivery for her letter to him. Those letters came with
unfailing regularity, and in that city where Bob McGraw prowled through
the day, unknown and unnoticed, there was no man so free from the
curse of loneliness as he. The very opening line in Donna's matutinal
greeting--“My Dear Sweetheart”--routed the blue devils that camped
nightly on his worried and harassed soul, as he lay abed and wrestled
with the mighty problems that confronted him. To Bob McGraw those three
words held the open-sesame of life; they gave him strength to cling to
his high, resolve; they whispered to him of the prize of the conflict
which awaited him at the end of his long road to Donnaville, and sent
him forth to face the world with a smile on his dauntless face and a
lilt in his great kind heart.
Time glided by on weary wings, but eventually the day arrived for Bob to
open his campaign. He must clear for action. It was imperative that he
must have his fifty applications filled out and the signatures of his
clients attested before a notary public on the very date upon which the
desert of Owens river valley would be opened for entry, for to have them
dated the day before would nullify them--to arrive with them at the
land office the day after would be too late. Bob was obsessed with a
suspicion that amounted almost to a conviction that the land ring would
endeavor to acquire the desert valley by practically the same method
which he was pursuing, _only for every section of lieu land upon which
they filed, they would be enabled to show a corresponding loss of school
lands._ His line of reasoning had convinced him that they had caused
dummy entrymen to file on worthless lands in some other part of the
state, in order that these bases might appear of record in the land
office as already used, in case of an investigation; he was equally
convinced that these dummy applications had never been acted upon in the
land office, but were being held up there until the land ring was ready
to act, when their dummy entrymen would abandon their filings on the
worthless land, thus throwing the original basis open for use once more
and permitting the land ring to step in with other dummy entrymen and
use the basis for the acquisition of _valuable_ lands. It was absurdly
simple when one understood it and took the time to reason it out.
Of one thing Bob was morally certain. The representative of the land
ring would be on hand, bright and early, to file the dummy applications.
Bob decided, therefore, that the field of his operations until that
eventful day must be confined to the state capital, Sacramento, where
the state land office was located. He must recruit his little army of
applicants from the capital itself, attest their applications before
a notary public after midnight of the day preceding the opening of the
valley for entry, and be first at the filing window when the land office
opened.
Accordingly Bob proceeded to Sacramento. Immediately upon his arrival
he rented a cheap back office, a desk and some chairs, and for the time
being announced himself to the world, through the medium of a modest
sign on his office door, as The Desert Development Company. The
following day he set to work.
He interviewed street sweepers, hotel porters, cab drivers newspaper
reporters, milk-wagon drivers, barkeepers and laborers along the river
docks--in fact every follower of an occupation which Bob judged might be
sufficiently unremunerative to keep its votaries in poverty as long as
they persisted in sticking to it. By discreet questioning he learned
whether the prospective client had money in bank, or was involved in
debt. If the former, Bob terminated his interview and neglected to
return; if the latter, Bob would present the victim with a good cigar
and proceed to unfold a tale of wealth in desert lands.
To these men Bob explained every detail of his proposition and gave them
a copy of his contract form and his explanatory circular attached. He
answered all their questions patiently--and satisfactorily, and he was
particularly insistent upon calling to their attention the fact that
they were not required to put up a single dollar in order to acquire
the land. Naturally, this seeming philanthropy immediately inspired
suspicion and a request for information as to what was in the deal for
Mr. McGraw; whereupon Mr. McGraw would point proudly to that clause in
the contract which stipulated a three-dollar-per-acre fee and inform
them that he had private and reliable information of not less than two
irrigation schemes which were being projected in the valley--schemes
which would give their apparently worthless land a value of at least
ten dollars per acre and enable both Mr. McGraw and his client to turn
a nice little profit together. He showed them where he was helpless
without them and where they were profitless without him, and to make a
profit of three dollars per acre for himself he was willing to buy the
land for them and take their promissory notes in payment. More: he would
agree to carry them for the land until they had an opportunity to sell
out at a profit of at least three thousand dollars! Mr. McGraw demanded
to know if anything could possibly be fairer than that.
It could not, and the clients were forced to admit it. Win, lose or
draw, it cost them nothing to play the game with Bob McGraw. After all
is said and done the average human being is a gambler and likes
long odds, and Bob's prospective clients were not so deficient in
intelligence as in ready cash. They knew that desert land without
irrigation is worthless; that no man would advance them money to
purchase it at $1.25 per acre unless he saw a profit in the deal
for himself. Consequently, irrigation was the only solution of that
problematic increase in value, and if Mr. McGraw could afford a flyer so
could they.
Bob had foreseen this line of reasoning, for he knew that spot cash is
the bugbear of life and that a good salesman can sell anything provided
he sells it on time. Long before the expiration of the period he had set
himself to accomplish this task, he had signed up fifty eager applicants
for desert land, procured their addresses and then retired to his little
back office to write letters to Donna and await the rising of the sun on
his day of destiny.
The day preceding the one on which the valley would be opened for entry
was a busy one for Bob McGraw. His cash reserve was beginning to run so
low that he decided to save the dollar postage necessary to remind his
clients that they were to meet him in his office at midnight of that
day; consequently, and in view of the fact that his old-time strength
practically had been restored to him, he walked several miles in order
to call upon his clients at their places of employment and secure from
their lips a solemn promise to be on hand at the appointed hour. His
apparent anxiety made them all the more eager to sign up with him, and
not a single client failed him.
This matter attended to, Bob engaged a notary public, with instructions
to meet him at his office at midnight. By eleven-thirty the corridors
of the silent office building were thronged with the eager fifty; at
eleven-forty-five the notary arrived and at exactly one minute past
midnight Bob commenced to sign his clients up. The notarial blanks had
already been filled out and, together with the notary's seal, had
been attached to each contract. In addition to the contract Bob took
a power-of-attorney in duplicate from each applicant; the notary
swore each of the fifty applicants in as many minutes, Bob paid him
twenty-five dollars and he departed; after which Bob made a short speech
to his clients and exhorted them to stand by their guns in the event
of influence being brought to bear upon them to abandon their
filings; whereupon the fifty gave him their promises, collectively and
individually, shook the hand of their benefactor and departed to their
homes.
Nothing now remained for Bob to do except present his fifty applications
for filing at the land office in the morning, and realizing the truth
of that ancient saw anent the early bird and the resulting breakfast he
decided to wait in the office until it should be time for him to go to
the land office. In the meantime, he decided to while away the lonely
hours by a review of his financial status, so he locked the door and
devoted the succeeding five minutes to the comparatively trifling task
of counting his money and figuring on the outlay necessary to carry him
back to San Pasqual. He was horrified to discover that after providing
twelve hundred and fifty dollars for the registrar of the state land
office (in the event that the day of miracles was not yet past and his
filings should be accepted), his return journey by rail would terminate
somewhere in the heart of the San Joaquin valley. Even after pawning his
gun, Mr. McGraw could still see, in his mind's eye, at least one hundred
miles of dusty county road stretching between him and San Pasqual, and
he was not so conceited as to imagine that he was strong enough to walk
a hundred miles with nothing more tangible than the scenery to sustain
him en route. Moreover, he had promised Donna that they should
be married immediately upon his return. The situation was truly
embarrassing, and Mr. McGraw cast about him for a means to extricate
himself from his terrible predicament. In his agony he saw a flash of
light--and smiled as he realized that it radiated from Mr. Harley P.
Hennage's three gold teeth.
“Saved!” quavered Mr. McGraw. “Good old Harley P! I'll just touch the
old boy for that fifty again, in case I need it. If they accept my
applications, I'll have to assault Harley, and if they decline the
applications I will still have my twelve hundred and fifty. But in the
meantime I'll write to Hennage and tell him frankly just how I'm fixed,
and if it comes to a show-down I'll drop the letter in the mail, return
to San Francisco and wait for him to send me a postal money order.”
He turned to his desk, drew a blank sheet of paper toward him and
indited a brief note to Mr. Hennage.
_Dear Harley P.:_
I have just made the discovery that I was too precipitate in paying you
that fifty I owed you for three years. I am a financial wreck on a lee
shore, but with millions in sight, and I will be very grateful if you
will strain your good nature long enough to send me a P. O. order for
the aforesaid fifty, addressing me General Delivery, San Francisco.
I will explain the transaction to you when I get back to San Pasqual,
merely mentioning in passing that until you send me the fifty the
prospects for my immediate return are, to say the least, somewhat vague.
I never could walk very far in my Sunday shoes.
Thanking you, my dear Harley, until you are better paid, believe me to
be
Your sincere friend, ROBERT MCGRAW.
This communication Bob folded and sealed in an envelope. He was too
preoccupied in the folding to notice that he had folded two sheets of
paper instead of one. The second sheet was a spare copy of his marvelous
contract for the acquisition of desert lands, which through some
accident had become mixed, with the printed side up, among some loose
sheets of blank legal-size typewriter paper which the unconventional
Robert had purchased in the pursuit of his correspondence with Donna.
His choice of letter paper was characteristic of Bob. He was a man who
required room in which to operate.
His letter sealed and stamped, Bob slipped it into his pocket, lifted
his long legs to the top of his rented desk, tilted back his chair,
lit a cigar and gave himself up to the contemplation of his future.
Providentially, his future, as he viewed it there in that lonely office,
waiting to see what the dawn would bring to him of wealth or woe, was
sufficiently indefinite to keep his fertile brain actively employed
until, far off in the city, he heard a clock booming the hour of six;
when he yawned, closed down his desk, picked up his suit-case which
stood, packed with, his few poor possessions in one corner, and
departed.
In an all-night restaurant he ate a hurried breakfast; then, suit-case
in hand, walked over to the capitol building. The capitol grounds were
deserted as he strolled through, entered the State House and passed
down a dim deserted corridor until he came to the door of the state land
office. He had definitely located the office, the previous day, in order
to provide against possible fatal delay in finding it this morning.
Apparently he was the sole applicant for desert lands that morning, and
anticipating that there would be no great rush to file entries he set
his suit-case down in the corridor, sat himself on the suit-case and
waited for the office to open for business. In order to make certain
that he would not be usurped in line, however, when the office opened
for business, he had placed his suitcase directly in front of the door,
against which he leaned his weary back. The door, he noticed, opened
from within. In case it opened secretly, Mr. McGraw would thus fall into
the surveyor-general's office, and hardy, indeed, would be he who could
dispute his claim to priority in the line. In fact, so satisfied was
he with this strategic position, and so tired and drowsy was he withal,
that presently he relaxed his determination to remain wide awake.