Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1912-10-11
The COrrectOr of DeStinieS
Being Tales of Randolph Mason as Related by
His Private Secretary, Courtland Parks
The LAND PIRATE
Bv Melville DAVIDSON Post
Copyright BY Edward J. Clode

skill, was turned maSterfully against
him, INT SO unobtrusively that each
ELECTED feature seemed to follow
some voluntary statement like an in
evitable sequel.
Captain Shelton had intended to
give such elements of his story as he
deemed necessary to his end; but
under his handling by Randolph Ma
son he was unable to stop at his own
marked points. When he laid his
hands on a %protruding limb OF his
story he somehow astonishingly drew
up with it the whole hidden body. The
point upon which he wished aid. bad
ly put (as he had intended), was COM
monplace enough. He held ten thou-
sand acres of land under oil leases,
lying solidly in a parallelogram with
the exception of two tracts of nine
hundred and twelve hundred acres re-
spectively. These two tracts were
owned by two directors of a certain
savings bank in New England. The
larger tract he did not want, but the
ntne-hundred-acre tract he greatly
wished; 1t was the only territory of
the whole block lying, In his opinion,
above oil-bearing strata. He exhibited
q map showing In red this strip Of
land running cross the parallelo-
gram. and explained that the oil-bear-
ing rocks in his region sloped on
either side, forming a synclinal. and
that this synclinal lay almost wholly
within the tract colored red on the
map. 1t was. therefore, the store
house Of the whole region. Now the
difficulty was that these two men had
an agreement that one would not sell
without the other. Each demanded
the same price for his property. n
hundred thousand dollars in cash. The
tract lying over the synclinal was
worth half a million dollars, the other
was worthless. Captain Shelton could.
of course, purchase both, but he did
not have the amount. He had in avail
able cash on deposit about eighty
thousand dollars. He could not get
another dollar. He had labored for
years, he said, to locate this ell dora
do. He had found it at last, like a pot
of gold at the end of the rainbow. BY
right of discovery it belonged to him.;
he had earned it with his wits; he
wished now to possess it.
Such were the well-pruned facts
that Captain Shelton had selected for
presentation to Randolph Mason; but
the narrative. under Mason's touches.
would not stop with two directors OF
a conservative savings bank in New
England holding tracts Of oil land IN
a distant state remaining unexplain-
ed; 1t would not stop with a mysteri-
GUS pact binding them to a common
price; it would not stop at eighty
thousand dollars clean cash in Shell
toms hand unaccompanied by any
story could not be separated without
disclosing glaring discrepancies.
Wherever the narrative was cut, 1t
bled. In his effort to avoid this obvi-
Gus result, the man said more than
he intended and in the end told every
thing that he had meant to conceal.
If the naked facts first given by Cap
tain Shelton were commonplace. this
pirates log from which they were
taken was not. Cast into proper Sc
quence this was the whole story:
Captain Shelton was a financial buc-
cancer. Some two years earlier. in
a gust of fortune. his brig had sunk
and he had come, with five hundred
dollars, perilously ashore. Faced with
a desperate need for a new sloop, he
hit finally upon this delectable plan.
The country at large was in a hys-
terra of industrial consolidation, the
markets gorged with securities, and
the banks necessarily short of ready
money. He went to the president of
the Driller's Bank of Pittsburg and Of
fered to secufe for it a million of dol
lars in Notwithstanding deposits.
guaranteed to remain undisturbed in
the possession of the bank for at
least one year, provided the bank
would pay him three per cent.
per annum for the deposit. This was
one per cent. less than banks gener-
ally were paying for time deposits
running no longer than four or six
months. $40
The president at once agreed, and.
presuming that it was Shelton's in
tention to canvass for deposits. loaded
him with literature of the bank. The
excellent captain dropped these
pamphlets into the waste basket and
walked over to a cheap lodging on
Fourth Avenue. There. from a drunk
en- roustabout, for a hundred dollars,
he bought a bagful Of oil leases on
worthless territory lying along the
east side of the Ohio River above st.
Mary's. Then he got a charter from
the secretary OF state of West vir-
ginia, and organized the Union Con
%solidated Oil Company with a capital
of FIVE millions. For two dollars and
fifty cents he bought a seal. and for
five more a book of stock certificates
excellently printed on bank-note pa
per.
Then the captain sat down at a
hotel desk in the city of Pittsburg and
wrote the literature which had come
to me in the mail two years before.
This he put in the hands of a mailing
list agency of New England with a
deposit on account Of two hundred
dollars. With the remaining money
he rented three furnished rooms on
the nineteenth foor of the Iron Build
ing, and sat down to await the arrival
of his fortune.
The president of the Driller's Bank
sent for Captain Shelton and demand
oil oypIapafion If bic rop,,rL,ht A.