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Chapter XIV

Tells how the acquaintance between the land fraud king and his chief lieutenant originated—Also gives a graphic account of the brilliant social function in Chicago, wherein the gay and festive Horace G. McKinley leads the charming Marie L. Ware to the altar, both bride and groom being exceedingly well known in land fraud circles—Cards are sent out announcing that the happy couple would be "At Home" in 11-7—Recites the preparations for McKinley's fight to the Orient, and pretends to describe the form of punishment meted out by the Chinese Government to its ozvn looters of the public domain in the Flowery Kingdom.

THERE has been such frequent allusion to Horace G. McKinley in these pages that I feel it incumbent to satisfy whatever public curiosity has been aroused by giving a brief history of my first acquaintance with the man whose subsequent career has been so closely identified with my own.

During the summer of 1892, while I was still in partnership with Willard N. Jones and dealing in State indemnity lands, I received a call at my residence, in Portland, Oregon, from a young man from La Crosse, Wisconsin, who, after introducing himself, stated that he had learned that I was in a position to furnish base upon which to make lieu selections, and he was desirous of consulting me in reference to a matter in my line. I was much impressed with the personality of my new client, and lost no time in attending to his wants. It seems that he had located some forty or fifty homesteaders on a tract of timber land near Crawfordsville, Linn County, on the Callapooya River, and that the Southern Pacific Company had contested some of the entries on the ground that they were on odd-numbered sections, and as the tract was within the 30-mile limit of the company's indemnity grant, it was contended that the Government had no right to dispose of the lands. Eventually, I succeeded in perfecting title to the claims, and they were sold subsequently to some lumbermen of La Crosse. Thus was begun an acquaintance that has since ripened into the warmest friendship between us.

After dissolving partnership with Willard N. Jones, I continued to transact business for McKinley in the matter of procuring titles for him to lands under the State indemnity laws, and about a year later we entered into a full co-partnership, under the terms of which we operated in timber lands throughout Oregon and Washington up to the time we were both convicted in the 11-7 case.

I found him to be an apt pupil along some lines, although inclined at times to reckless and extravagant habits. He was generous to a fault, and had a faculty of making friends very rapidly wherever he went, and especially with the fair sex, as his good looks and affable manner seemed to appeal to women almost instantaneously. Whatever his failings may have been, I could not help but admire him for his bold and dashing ways, and the confidence he displayed under many trying circumstances. Whether it was a ten-cent piece or a $1,000 bill, he would squander both with equal grace, go to bed contented and wake up in the morning with a happy smile. I have known him, in fact, to engage rooms at the Hotel Portland at a cost of $10 a day, with as much as $5,000 in his pocket; pass the evening at the theater, and before retiring, drop into some gambling resort for the purpose of placing a small bet—"just to win breakfast money," as he would put it. Before leaving the establishment he would lose every dollar he possessed, arise from the table with the same cheery disposition, Page 229