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Georgia's Ruling

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







If you should chance to visit the General Land Office, step into the
draughtsmen's room and ask to be shown the map of Salado County. A
leisurely German--possibly old Kampfer himself--will bring it to
you. It will be four feet square, on heavy drawing-cloth. The
lettering and the figures will be beautifully clear and distinct. The
title will be in splendid, undecipherable German text, ornamented with
classic Teutonic designs--very likely Ceres or Pomona leaning
against the initial letters with cornucopias venting grapes and
wieners. You must tell him that this is not the map you wish to see;
that he will kindly bring you its official predecessor. He will then
say, "Ach, so!" and bring out a map half the size of the first, dim,
old, tattered, and faded.

By looking carefully near its northwest corner you will presently come
upon the worn contours of Chiquito River, and, maybe, if your eyes are
good, discern the silent witness to this story.


The Commissioner of the Land Office was of the old style; his
antique courtesy was too formal for his day. He dressed in fine
black, and there was a suggestion of Roman drapery in his long
coat-skirts. His collars were "undetached" (blame haberdashery
for the word); his tie was a narrow, funereal strip, tied in the
same knot as were his shoe-strings. His gray hair was a trifle
too long behind, but he kept it smooth and orderly. His face was
clean-shaven, like the old statesmen's. Most people thought it a
stern face, but when its official expression was off, a few had
seen altogether a different countenance. Especially tender and
gentle it had appeared to those who were about him during the last
illness of his only child.

The Commissioner had been a widower for years, and his life, outside
his official duties, had been so devoted to little Georgia that people
spoke of it as a touching and admirable thing. He was a reserved man,
and dignified almost to austerity, but the child had come below it all
and rested upon his very heart, so that she scarcely missed the
mother's love that had been taken away. There was a wonderful
companionship between them, for she had many of his own ways, being
thoughtful and serious beyond her years.

One day, while she was lying with the fever burning brightly in her
checks, she said suddenly:

"Papa, I wish I could do something good for a whole lot of children!"

"What would you like to do, dear?" asked the Commissioner. "Give
them a party?"

"Oh, I don't mean those kind. I mean poor children who haven't homes,
and aren't loved and cared for as I am. I tell you what, papa!"

"What, my own child?"

"If I shouldn't get well, I'll leave them you--not _give_ you, but
just lend you, for you must come to mamma and me when you die too. If
you can find time, wouldn't you do something to help them, if I ask
you, papa?"

"Hush, hush dear, dear child," said the Commissioner, holding her hot
little hand against his cheek; "you'll get well real soon, and you and
I will see what we can do for them together."

But in whatsoever paths of benevolence, thus vaguely premeditated, the
Commissioner might tread, he was not to have the company of his
beloved. That night the little frail body grew suddenly too tired to
struggle further, and Georgia's exit was made from the great stage
when she had scarcely begun to speak her little piece before the
footlights. But there must be a stage manager who understands. She
had given the cue to the one who was to speak after her.

A week after she was laid away, the Commissioner reappeared at the
office, a little more courteous, a little paler and sterner, with the
black frock-coat hanging a little more loosely from his tall figure.

His desk was piled with work that had accumulated during the four
heartbreaking weeks of his absence. His chief clerk had done what he
could, but there were questions of law, of fine judicial decisions
to be made concerning the issue of patents, the marketing and
leasing of school lands, the classification into grazing,
agricultural, watered, and timbered, of new tracts to be opened to
settlers.

The Commissioner went to work silently and obstinately, putting
back his grief as far as possible, forcing his mind to attack the
complicated and important business of his office. On the second day
after his return he called the porter, pointed to a leather-covered
chair that stood near his own, and ordered it removed to a lumber-room
at the top of the building. In that chair Georgia would always sit
when she came to the office for him of afternoons.

As time passed, the Commissioner seemed to grow more silent, solitary,
and reserved. A new phase of mind developed in him. He could not
endure the presence of a child. Often when a clattering youngster
belonging to one of the clerks would come chattering into the big
business-room adjoining his little apartment, the Commissioner would
steal softly and close the door. He would always cross the street to
avoid meeting the school-children when they came dancing along in
happy groups upon the sidewalk, and his firm mouth would close into a
mere line.

It was nearly three months after the rains had washed the last dead
flower-petals from the mound above little Georgia when the "land-shark"
firm of Hamlin and Avery filed papers upon what they considered the
"fattest" vacancy of the year.

It should not be supposed that all who were termed "land-sharks"
deserved the name. Many of them were reputable men of good business
character. Some of them could walk into the most august councils of
the State and say: "Gentlemen, we would like to have this, and that,
and matters go thus." But, next to a three years' drought and the
boll-worm, the Actual Settler hated the Land-shark. The land-shark
haunted the Land Office, where all the land records were kept, and
hunted "vacancies"--that is, tracts of unappropriated public
domain, generally invisible upon the official maps, but actually
existing "upon the ground." The law entitled any one possessing
certain State scrip to file by virtue of same upon any land not
previously legally appropriated. Most of the scrip was now in the
hands of the land-sharks. Thus, at the cost of a few hundred dollars,
they often secured lands worth as many thousands. Naturally, the
search for "vacancies" was lively.

But often--very often--the land they thus secured, though legally
"unappropriated," would be occupied by happy and contented settlers,
who had laboured for years to build up their homes, only to discover
that their titles were worthless, and to receive peremptory notice to
quit. Thus came about the bitter and not unjustifiable hatred felt by
the toiling settlers toward the shrewd and seldom merciful speculators
who so often turned them forth destitute and homeless from their
fruitless labours. The history of the state teems with their
antagonism. Mr. Land-shark seldom showed his face on "locations" from
which he should have to eject the unfortunate victims of a monstrously
tangled land system, but let his emissaries do the work. There was
lead in every cabin, moulded into balls for him; many of his brothers
had enriched the grass with their blood. The fault of it all lay far
back.

When the state was young, she felt the need of attracting newcomers,
and of rewarding those pioneers already within her borders. Year
after year she issued land scrip--Headrights, Bounties, Veteran
Donations, Confederates; and to railroads, irrigation companies,
colonies, and tillers of the soil galore. All required of the grantee
was that he or it should have the scrip properly surveyed upon the
public domain by the county or district surveyor, and the land thus
appropriated became the property of him or it, or his or its heirs and
assigns, forever.

In those days--and here is where the trouble began--the state's
domain was practically inexhaustible, and the old surveyors, with
princely--yea, even Western American--liberality, gave good
measure and over-flowing. Often the jovial man of metes and bounds
would dispense altogether with the tripod and chain. Mounted on a pony
that could cover something near a "vara" at a step, with a pocket
compass to direct his course, he would trot out a survey by counting
the beat of his pony's hoofs, mark his corners, and write out his
field notes with the complacency produced by an act of duty well
performed. Sometimes--and who could blame the surveyor?--when
the pony was "feeling his oats," he might step a little higher and
farther, and in that case the beneficiary of the scrip might get a
thousand or two more acres in his survey than the scrip called for.
But look at the boundless leagues the state had to spare! However, no
one ever had to complain of the pony under-stepping. Nearly every
old survey in the state contained an excess of land.

In later years, when the state became more populous, and land values
increased, this careless work entailed incalculable trouble, endless
litigation, a period of riotous land-grabbing, and no little
bloodshed. The land-sharks voraciously attacked these excesses in
the old surveys, and filed upon such portions with new scrip as
unappropriated public domain. Wherever the identifications of the
old tracts were vague, and the corners were not to be clearly
established, the Land Office would recognize the newer locations as
valid, and issue title to the locators. Here was the greatest
hardship to be found. These old surveys, taken from the pick of the
land, were already nearly all occupied by unsuspecting and peaceful
settlers, and thus their titles were demolished, and the choice was
placed before them either to buy their land over at a double price or
to vacate it, with their families and personal belongings,
immediately. Land locators sprang up by hundreds. The country was
held up and searched for "vacancies" at the point of a compass.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of splendid acres were wrested
from their innocent purchasers and holders. There began a vast hegira
of evicted settlers in tattered wagons; going nowhere, cursing
injustice, stunned, purposeless, homeless, hopeless. Their children
began to look up to them for bread, and cry.


It was in consequence of these conditions that Hamilton and Avery
had filed upon a strip of land about a mile wide and three miles long,
comprising about two thousand acres, it being the excess over
complement of the Elias Denny three-league survey on Chiquito River,
in one of the middle-western counties. This two-thousand-acre body
of land was asserted by them to be vacant land, and improperly
considered a part of the Denny survey. They based this assertion and
their claim upon the land upon the demonstrated facts that the
beginning corner of the Denny survey was plainly identified; that its
field notes called to run west 5,760 varas, and then called for
Chiquito River; thence it ran south, with the meanders--and so on--
and that the Chiquito River was, on the ground, fully a mile farther
west from the point reached by course and distance. To sum up: there
were two thousand acres of vacant land between the Denny survey proper
and Chiquito River.

One sweltering day in July the Commissioner called for the papers in
connection with this new location. They were brought, and heaped, a
foot deep, upon his desk--field notes, statements, sketches,
affidavits, connecting lines--documents of every description that
shrewdness and money could call to the aid of Hamlin and Avery.

The firm was pressing the Commissioner to issue a patent upon their
location. They possesed inside information concerning a new
railroad that would probably pass somewhere near this land.

The General Land Office was very still while the Commissioner was
delving into the heart of the mass of evidence. The pigeons could
be heard on the roof of the old, castle-like building, cooing and
fretting. The clerks were droning everywhere, scarcely pretending
to earn their salaries. Each little sound echoed hollow and loud
from the bare, stone-flagged floors, the plastered walls, and the
iron-joisted ceiling. The impalpable, perpetual limestone dust that
never settled, whitened a long streamer of sunlight that pierced the
tattered window-awning.

It seemed that Hamlin and Avery had builded well. The Denny survey was
carelessly made, even for a careless period. Its beginning corner
was identical with that of a well-defined old Spanish grant, but its
other calls were sinfully vague. The field notes contained no other
object that survived--no tree, no natural object save Chiquito
River, and it was a mile wrong there. According to precedent, the
Office would be justified in giving it its complement by course and
distance, and considering the remainder vacant instead of a mere
excess.

The Actual Settler was besieging the office with wild protests _in re_.
Having the nose of a pointer and the eye of a hawk for the land-shark,
he had observed his myrmidons running the lines upon his ground.
Making inquiries, he learned that the spoiler had attacked his home,
and he left the plough in the furrow and took his pen in hand.

One of the protests the Commissioner read twice. It was from a woman,
a widow, the granddaughter of Elias Denny himself. She told how her
grandfather had sold most of the survey years before at a trivial
price--land that was now a principality in extent and value. Her
mother had also sold a part, and she herself had succeeded to this
western portion, along Chiquito River. Much of it she had been forced
to part with in order to live, and now she owned only about three
hundred acres, on which she had her home. Her letter wound up rather
pathetically:

"I've got eight children, the oldest fifteen years. I work all day
and half the night to till what little land I can and keep us in
clothes and books. I teach my children too. My neighbours is all
poor and has big families. The drought kills the crops every two or
three years and then we has hard times to get enough to eat. There is
ten families on this land what the land-sharks is trying to rob us of,
and all of them got titles from me. I sold to them cheap, and they
aint paid out yet, but part of them is, and if their land should be
took from them I would die. My grandfather was an honest man, and he
helped to build up this state, and he taught his children to be
honest, and how could I make it up to them who bought from me? Mr.
Commissioner, if you let them land-sharks take the roof from over my
children and the little from them as they has to live on, whoever
again calls this state great or its government just will have a lie in
their mouths"

The Commissioner laid this letter aside with a sigh. Many, many such
letters he had received. He had never been hurt by them, nor had he
ever felt that they appealed to him personally. He was but the
state's servant, and must follow its laws. And yet, somehow, this
reflection did not always eliminate a certain responsible feeling that
hung upon him. Of all the state's officers he was supremest in his
department, not even excepting the Governor. Broad, general land laws
he followed, it was true, but he had a wide latitude in particular
ramifications. Rather than law, what he followed was Rulings:
Office Rulings and precedents. In the complicated and new questions
that were being engendered by the state's development the
Commissioner's ruling was rarely appealed from. Even the courts
sustained it when its equity was apparent.

The Commissioner stepped to the door and spoke to a clerk in the other
room--spoke as he always did, as if he were addressing a prince of
the blood:

"Mr. Weldon, will you be kind enough to ask Mr. Ashe, the state
school-land appraiser, to please come to my office as soon as
convenient?"

Ashe came quickly from the big table where he was arranging his
reports.

"Mr. Ashe," said the Commissioner, "you worked along the Chiquito
River, in Salado County, during your last trip, I believe. Do you
remember anything of the Elias Denny three-league survey?"

"Yes, sir, I do," the blunt, breezy, surveyor answered. "I crossed it
on my way to Block H, on the north side of it. The road runs with the
Chiquito River, along the valley. The Denny survey fronts three miles
on the Chiquito."

"It is claimed," continued the commissioner, "that it fails to reach
the river by as much as a mile."

The appraiser shrugged his shoulder. He was by birth and instinct an
Actual Settler, and the natural foe of the land-shark.

"It has always been considered to extend to the river," he said,
dryly.

"But that is not the point I desired to discuss," said the
Commissioner. "What kind of country is this valley portion of (let us
say, then) the Denny tract?"

The spirit of the Actual Settler beamed in Ashe's face.

"Beautiful," he said, with enthusiasm. "Valley as level as this
floor, with just a little swell on, like the sea, and rich as cream.
Just enough brakes to shelter the cattle in winter. Black loamy soil
for six feet, and then clay. Holds water. A dozen nice little houses
on it, with windmills and gardens. People pretty poor, I guess--too
far from market--but comfortable. Never saw so many kids in my
life."

"They raise flocks?" inquired the Commissioner.

"Ho, ho! I mean two-legged kids," laughed the surveyor; "two-legged,
and bare-legged, and tow-headed."

"Children! oh, children!" mused the Commissioner, as though a new
view had opened to him; "they raise children!

"It's a lonesome country, Commissioner," said the surveyor. "Can you
blame 'em?"

"I suppose," continued the Commissioner, slowly, as one carefully
pursues deductions from a new, stupendous theory, "not all of them are
tow-headed. It would not be unreasonable, Mr. Ashe, I conjecture, to
believe that a portion of them have brown, or even black, hair."

"Brown and black, sure," said Ashe; "also red."

"No doubt," said the Commissioner. "Well, I thank you for your
courtesy in informing me, Mr. Ashe. I will not detain you any longer
from your duties."

Later, in the afternoon, came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial,
sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They
permeated the whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They
passed among the clerks and left a wake of abbreviated given names and
fat brown cigars.

These were the aristocracy of the land-sharks, who went in for big
things. Full of serene confidence in themselves, there was no
corporation, no syndicate, no railroad company or attorney general
too big for them to tackle. The peculiar smoke of their rare, fat
brown cigars was to be perceived in the sanctum of every department of
state, in every committee-room of the Legislature, in every bank
parlour and every private caucus-room in the state Capital. Always
pleasant, never in a hurry, in seeming to possess unlimited leisure,
people wondered when they gave their attention to the many audacious
enterprises in which they were known to be engaged.

By and by the two dropped carelessly into the Commissioner's room
and reclined lazily in the big, leather-upholstered arm-chairs. They
drawled a good-natured complaint of the weather, and Hamlin told the
Commissioner an excellent story he had amassed that morning from
the Secretary of State.

But the Commissioner knew why they were there. He had half promised
to render a decision that day upon their location.

The chief clerk now brought in a batch of duplicate certificates for
the Commissioner to sign. As he traced his sprawling signature,
"Hollis Summerfield, Comr. Genl. Land Office," on each one, the chief
clerk stood, deftly removing them and applying the blotter.

"I notice," said the chief clerk, "you've been going through that
Salado County location. Kampfer is making a new map of Salado, and
I believe is platting in that section of the county now."

"I will see it," said the Commissioner. A few moments later he went to
the draughtsmen's room.

As he entered he saw five or six of the draughtsmen grouped about
Kampfer's desk, gargling away at each other in pectoral German, and
gazing at something thereupon. At the Commissioner's approach they
scattered to their several places. Kampfer, a wizened little German,
with long, frizzled ringlets and a watery eye, began to stammer
forth some sort of an apology, the Commissioner thought, for the
congregation of his fellows about his desk.

"Never mind," said the Commissioner, "I wish to see the map you are
making"; and, passing around the old German, seated himself upon the
high draughtsman's stool. Kampfer continued to break English in
trying to explain.

"Herr Gommissioner, I assure you blenty sat I haf not it bremeditated
--sat it wass--sat it itself make. Look you! from se field notes
wass it blatted--blease to observe se calls: South, 10 degrees west
1,050 varas; south, 10 degrees east 300 varas; south, 100; south, 9
west, 200; south, 40 degrees west 400--and so on. Herr Gommissioner,
nefer would I have--"

The Commissioner raised one white hand, silently, Kampfer dropped his
pipe and fled.

With a hand at each side of his face, and his elbows resting upon the
desk, the Commissioner sat staring at the map which was spread and
fastened there--staring at the sweet and living profile of little
Georgia drawn thereupon--at her face, pensive, delicate, and
infantile, outlined in a perfect likeness.

When his mind at length came to inquire into the reason of it, he
saw that it must have been, as Kampfer had said, unpremeditated. The
old draughtsman had been platting in the Elias Denny survey, and
Georgia's likeness, striking though it was, was formed by nothing more
than the meanders of Chiquito River. Indeed, Kampfer's blotter,
whereon his preliminary work was done, showed the laborious tracings
of the calls and the countless pricks of the compasses. Then, over
his faint pencilling, Kampfer had drawn in India ink with a full, firm
pen the similitude of Chiquito River, and forth had blossomed
mysteriously the dainty, pathetic profile of the child.

The Commissioner sat for half an hour with his face in his hands,
gazing downward, and none dared approach him. Then he arose and
walked out. In the business office he paused long enough to ask that
the Denny file be brought to his desk.

He found Hamlin and Avery still reclining in their chairs, apparently
oblivious of business. They were lazily discussing summer opera, it
being, their habit--perhaps their pride also--to appear supernaturally
indifferent whenever they stood with large interests imperilled. And
they stood to win more on this stake than most people knew. They
possessed inside information to the effect that a new railroad would,
within a year, split this very Chiquito River valley and send land
values ballooning all along its route. A dollar under thirty thousand
profit on this location, if it should hold good, would be a loss to
their expectations. So, while they chatted lightly and waited for the
Commissioner to open the subject, there was a quick, sidelong sparkle
in their eyes, evincing a desire to read their title clear to those
fair acres on the Chiquito.

A clerk brought in the file. The Commissioner seated himself and
wrote upon it in red ink. Then he rose to his feet and stood for a
while looking straight out of the window. The Land Office capped the
summit of a bold hill. The eyes of the Commissioner passed over the
roofs of many houses set in a packing of deep green, the whole
checkered by strips of blinding white streets. The horizon, where his
gaze was focussed, swelled to a fair wooded eminence flecked with
faint dots of shining white. There was the cemetery, where lay many
who were forgotten, and a few who had not lived in vain. And one
lay there, occupying very small space, whose childish heart had been
large enough to desire, while near its last beats, good to others.
The Commissioner's lips moved slightly as he whispered to himself: "It
was her last will and testament, and I have neglected it so long!"

The big brown cigars of Hamlin and Avery were fireless, but they still
gripped them between their teeth and waited, while they marvelled at
the absent expression upon the Commissioner's face.

By and by he spoke suddenly and promptly.

"Gentlemen, I have just indorsed the Elias Denny survey for patenting.
This office will not regard your location upon a part of it as legal."
He paused a moment, and then, extending his hand as those dear old-time
ones used to do in debate, he enunciated the spirit of that Ruling that
subsequently drove the land-sharks to the wall, and placed the seal of
peace and security over the doors of ten thousand homes.

"And, furthermore," he continued, with a clear, soft light upon his
face, "it may interest you to know that from this time on this office
will consider that when a survey of land made by virtue of a
certificate granted by this state to the men who wrested it from the
wilderness and the savage--made in good faith, settled in good faith,
and left in good faith to their children or innocent purchasers--when
such a survey, although overrunning its complement, shall call for
any natural object visible to the eye of man, to that object it shall
hold, and be good and valid. And the children of this state shall
lie down to sleep at night, and rumours of disturbers of title shall
not disquiet them. For," concluded the Commissioner, "of such is the
Kingdom of Heaven."

In the silence that followed, a laugh floated up from the patent-room
below. The man who carried down the Denny file was exhibiting it
among the clerks.

"Look here," he said, delightedly, "the old man has forgotten his
name. He's written 'Patent to original grantee,' and signed it
'Georgia Summerfield, Comr."'

The speech of the Commissioner rebounded lightly from the impregnable
Hamlin and Avery. They smiled, rose gracefully, spoke of the baseball
team, and argued feelingly that quite a perceptible breeze had arisen
from the east. They lit fresh fat brown cigars, and drifted
courteously away. But later they made another tiger-spring for their
quarry in the courts. But the courts, according to reports in the
papers, "coolly roasted them" (a remarkable performance, suggestive of
liquid-air didoes), and sustained the Commissioner's Ruling.

And this Ruling itself grew to be a Precedent, and the Actual Settler
framed it, and taught his children to spell from it, and there was
sound sleep o' nights from the pines to the sage-brush, and from the
chaparral to the great brown river of the north.

But I think, and I am sure the Commissioner never thought otherwise,
that whether Kampfer was a snuffy old instrument of destiny, or
whether the meanders of the Chiquito accidentally platted themselves
into that memorable sweet profile or not, there was brought about
"something good for a whole lot of children," and the result ought
to be called "Georgia's Ruling."




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