in securing personal service of the complaint upon the Minneapolis millionaire lumberman, who was stopping at the St. Francis hotel without registering on purpose to prevent me from obtaining a legal hold upon my own money. As a bluff, he made answer through counsel, at the same time filing a cross-complaint, in the effort to prolong the proceedings as much as possible and eventually beat me out of the money altogether.
How I finally scared the rascal into submission is fully described in a preceding chapter, and I leave my readers to judge for themselves whether or not I was justified in adopting such stringent measures, and also the extent of Smith's alleged "losses" in his dealings with me, as referred to in the course of his false statement to the Minneapolis Journal.
As a matter of fact. The Sequoia's last stand Smith has been involved with the Government upon numerous occasions, running through a long course of years, on account of his covetous proclivities, and he seems to be imbued with shoplifting instincts wherever the public lands or timber are concerned. He has been fined repeatedly for his offenses throughout the States of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, and has upon more than one occasion undertaken to make scapegoats out of some unfortunate employes instead of shouldering the blame himself, as any honorable man should.
While the Government found it inexpedient to indict Smith on account of his connection with the Oregon land frauds, by reason of the statute of limitations running against the crimes, he failed to escape that easily in Minnesota, although it does not appear that his illegal operations in the Middle West were any comparison to what he was guilty of in Oregon. There is presented on page 313 the record of an indictment that was returned against Smith by the Federal Grand Jury at St. Paul, Minn., in 1901.
Some sort of settlement was arranged with the Government by Smith, in connection with this indictment, whereby he paid all costs and hushed the matter up with as little publicity as possible.
Shortly after I first became acquainted with him, on his invitation, 1 accompanied Smith to St. Paul, where there was a case pending in the Federal Court against him for cutting green timber on an Indian reservation, where his permit called for the cutting of "down" or "dead" timber only. He was represented by leading counsels of Minneapolis and St. Paul in this case, which had been pending against him for several years. A verdict for a large amount—somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 or $60,000—was returned against Smith, which he promptly paid, remarking at the same time to friends that he was
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