that time William Dumars, who is now superintendent of the Western Union at Sacramento, California, was the manager for the same institution at Salem, and likewise chief operator.
The messages announcing the filings were sent in duplicate from the local land office, as the Register, before whom the filings were made, would immediately after swearing the entryman to the filing papers give a copy of the telegram to the representative of each contending faction, which was the signal for a wild scramble for the telegraph offices. For some reason or other, D'Arcy generally managed to get his dispatch a few seconds ahead of me. I have always fancied that it was because Dumars was a better operator than his competitor, and handled the message faster. At any rate, it gave D'Arcy a good lead, and as we usually secured the fleetest saddle-horses in town and our course led through the main street from the two telegraph offices to the State Capitol building, about one mile distant, it was better than the Suburban or Brooklyn Handicap to watch the outcome. Each contest of this character involved a stake of from $1,000 to $3,000, as there were always from four to eight entries made at the same time in the United States Land Office. As we would race at breakneck speed through the principal streets, we could perceive frightened faces peering from behind the window curtains of the residences passed in our mad flight, the inmates evidently suspecting that a raid had been made upon Ladd & Bush's bank, and that the robbers were making their escape to the mountains. Although D'Arcy usually got the start of me I generally beat him to the office, but it was frequently nip and tuck all the way.
Obtaining title to timber land under the school indemnity system became more popular as its merits were made known, consequently this kind of basis was soon in great demand. The forest reserve lieu land Act had not then gone into effect, and as Valentine Scrip, Sioux half-breed scrip, and military bounty and land warrants of every description were held at prohibitive figures, the fact that the State lieu selections could be made at such a comparatively low price, and answered the same purpose, appealed to those who wished to secure large bodies of timber throughout Oregon. In addition to its right to select lands in lieu of tracts lost in the different Indian reservations, lakes, rivers, fractional townships, and homestead and pre-emption filings on school sections before survey, the State was granted indemnity for school sections shown to be mineral in character, even though they had not been returned as such at the time of the approval of the official survey of the township by the United States Surveyor-General.
Grasping this phase of the situation, I obtained authority from the State Land Board to adjudicate on a number of school sections in Eastern Oregon at my own expense with a view of determining the mineral character thereof, it being understood that I was to be allowed the use of the basis on all such sections that I succeeded in having returned as mineral. The process of determining the mineral character of these lands, in vogue with the General Land Office, contemplated the posting of notices upon each legal subdivision of the ground; the insertion of an advertisement for a period of thirty days in some paper nearest the land to the effect that a hearing was to be held before the United States Land Office on a certain date for the purpose of determining the mineral character of the land, and the sworn testimony of two or more competent witnesses that they had been acquainted with the tract prior to survey, and knew that it was mineral in character. After this evidence had been passed upon by the Register and Receiver it was transmitted to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington, D. C, and if he considered the evidence sufficiently competent to sustain the mineral claim, the lands selected in lieu thereof could be listed to the State. This adjudicating process proved to be a successful venture, from a financial standpoint, as it cost but twenty-five cents an acre, while the basis was worth from $1.25 to $2 per acre. As the school sections thus acted upon were invariably utterly worthless for any purpose, and it was hardly Page 321
