Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1912-10-04
The Corrector Of Destinies
Being Tales Of Randolph Mason - Kcla.eo y
Hia Private Secretary, Courtland Psrks
The LIFE TENANT
By Melville Davidson Posi-

| 1t. Now I haven't enough to pay a
doctor. That's why I shook my head
on the floor a while ago."
you mean" said Randolph Mason,
"a legal decision rendered against you
In a suit Ut law"
No . bit OF It," replied the man;
! Il mean what I say-skinned out OF
It. l had no lawsuit. l was standing
In a crowd Of rubes before q court
house when the blindfold lady STEP
ped out with a little shell game and
lifted my wad."
This" said Mason, lis the jargon
OF q cab driver. What do you mean?"
I'll cut II out" replied the man,
Il will begin over. When my father
died he left me ten thousand dollars
In a stocks. 1t paid a dividend of
about four per cent, and no taxes
Being naturally smarter than my
father, I at once determined to take
that money and got rich. / sold the
stock. pocketed a check book and got
busy. One bright morning, in a little
town on the Monongahela river, a
commissioner was selling a tract of
land before the court house. In my
hunt for good things I happened by
accident to know about that land. II
Is a rough mountain tract, not worth
ten dollars an acre; but 1t is under
laid with the Pittsburgh vein of coal,
standing up eight feet thick. clean
and solid like a ledge of sandstone.
A corner OF the land comes down TO
the railroad and there is a little mine,
opened and operated by the old farm
er who lived on the place. He had a
pole-tipple, wheeled the coal out by
hand, and got OF about a car a day.
The tract contains some two hundred
acres.
Il stepped up to. the commissioner
and inquired about the sale. He told
me that the owner was broke and the
court was selling the land. Il inquired
II the coal was included and he said.
Yes; from the sky to the center OF
the earth Then I asked the bid.
When he answered fifteen dollars, I
nearly threw a At! Fifteen dollars!
The coal was worth two hundred an
acre. Now. I had been knocking
about the coal country for a good bit
and I was no greenhorn. I knew that
this was the Pittsburgh vein and I
knew what II was worth. The court
was selling the land. SO there could
be no doubt about the title. / would
not have trusted any dealer about a
land title II 1t had been q private
sale; but here was the court-the old
blind lady herself-selling the land,
20 the game was bound to be straight.
/ n Nh tWontV ThA s.nr,vn{cclorH ~ 0nl1-
ed 1t q moment. and q, big man, put
. little way in the crowd, with a nose
like our elbow. bid twenty-five. 1 let
the thing hang to see II there was an
other bidder; then. just before the
going I bid thirty. Nosy looked me
over. snOrted and finally bid thirty
hve. and .nve more ! said. He
stamped around for a while and final
~ lifted Il to forty-ive.
All right, Nosy.' l said to myself,
I'll Just throw a good. stir blum into
you and end IT, An fve', / said, an
dve more every time you raise It,
He looked at me for q good minute.
YOU'RE : damned fool!' he said,
and then he walked out OF the crowd.
Nosy was right about that: but I
didn't know It just then. The land
waS Knocked down to me at fifty dol
lars an acre. I paid cash and got my
deed. all signed, sealed and delivered.
When ! got home and opened my
package, I had as nice q box of saw
| dust az you ever saw. The old girl in
the blinkers had double-crossed me
like an expert. No street fakir could
have cleaned a smoother job. My title
to this land proved TO be only a life
estate. ! hunted up a lawyer. He
said that . court did not guarantee
a title when 1t sold land. I remember
his language-it cos me money and I
shall always remember II. He said
The doctrine Of caveat emptor OBJ
tanned at judicial sales: the purchaser
bought at his peril That Is, Your
eyes are your market. The court
sells land through It's officer to the
public, sells the title for q good one,
takes your money; and, II the title Is
defective, you are stuck, you cant get
your money back. The old lady comes
out to her door and sells you a pig
In . poke. II there's no pig In It, the
Jokes on you. II it's somebody else's
pig, the Jokes still on you. I've been
up against the she'll and the little pea.
the five-dollar bin and the soap box,
the glad gent who knew my Uncle
Ephraim IN Potunk, and all kinds of
crooked faro, but for the real thing,
give me the old blind girl in the court
house"
i leaned my elbow on the table and
looked through the open door at the
narrator OF this tale, in~diRerent..y
slipping his glass, Of whisky and flip
PANTY spinning out his story like .
tipsy sailor. This sanguine tempera-
ment goes surely with this disease;
no other dying men whistle thus
cheerily In the face Of death.
$50 there / was" the man contin-
ued, mo money, no land. had
bought only the right to use this
ground rs long as the old farmer
lived. A goat with creepers on his
feet would have starved on the top
OF IT. l tried to sell out to Nosy. 1
discovered then that he was q cappe
for the Union Fuel company, a little
branch Of one of the two soft coal
6combines or America.
.Nothin doing, he said. Our com
pany put UP that little job 10 catch
just such suckers as you are. We
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