(While the injunction proceedings involving the right of Chanslor & Canfield to continue their drilling operations on portions of Sec. 4, Tp. 29 S., R. 28 E., M. D. M., embraced in the "June Bug" claim, were pending before Judge Ross in the United States Circuit Court, at Los Angeles, Cal., a cipher form of communication was arranged between Wm. Singer, Jr., an attorney for the Scrippers, and Horace Stevens, their representative in the Kern River oil fields. The foregoing is a facsimile of the original, in the well-known handwriting of the San Francisco lawyer. Its significance may be properly understood when it is known that a compliance with either instruction by Stevens would have involved the possibility of bloodshed, so intense was the feeling existing between the contending factions. Interpretation of the code indicates that had Singer wired Stevens to the effect that the oilmen had filed affidavits while the ease was going on that an actual "discovery" of petroleum had been made upon any portion of the disputed tract, Stevens was to take immediate advantage of this fact by filing placer mining locations covering the portions affected. The object of this move was to circumvent the oilmen whose only show of title was based upon mining locations that were made prior to finding oil, the statutes requiring that all valid claims to mineral lands must be based upon a "discovery" of mineral of some kind in paying quantities. It was therefore considered that had Stevens got in ahead of the mineral claimants with fresh locations, based upon any actual discovery of the oilmen, it would endow the Scrippers with a superior advantage in being possessed with whatever rights accrued under their forest reserve lieu selection, as well as a prior valid mineral entry, thus standing to win, no matter how Judge Ross decided the case. His ruling took an unexpected turn, however, when he held that a test well should be drilled to the same depth—118 feet—at which the original locators of the "June Bug" claim alleged in their location notice that oil had been found.)
After we had taken our personal belongings from the cabin, and locked its door, I signalled the others to come on, and as the two-seated rig drove up, Joe and I piled into it and were driven hurriedly back to town. That night the others hitched the cabin to their four-horse wagon and hauled it onto the south half of the southeast quarter of Section 4, which was patented land, and therefore not subject to disturbance of title by reason of any adverse occupancy.
When the injunction proceedings came up for hearing before United States Circuit Judge Ross, he directed that a test well should be drilled on Section 4 to the same depth wherein it was claimed a discovery of oil had been made simultaneously with the mineral location, and upon which alleged "discovery" the claim was based. The original locators had set forth in their filing that they had reached petroleum oil at a depth of 118 feet, and Judge Ross held that if a test well corroborated this contention, he would dissolve the injunction; otherwise he would make it permanent, so he appointed William R. Rowland and H. E. Graves, two prominent oil operators of Los Angeles, as Commissioners to have
