River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1912-10-03
The COrrectOr of DeStinieS
Being Tales of Randolph Mason as Related by
His Private Secretary, CORTLAND Parks
The LIFE TENANT
Bv Melville DAVIDSON Posi-
Copyright by Edward J. Clode

it. Now I haven't enough to pay
doctor. That's why / shook my head
on the floor while ago."
you mean," said Randolph Mason,
"a legal decision rendered against you
in suit at law"
mot bit of it," replied the man;
Il mean what / say-skinned out of
it. l had no lawsuit. l was standing
in crowd of rubes before a court
house when the. blindfold lady STEP
ped out with little shell game and
lifted my wad."
This" said Mason, lis the jargon
of cab driver. What do you mean?"
I'll cut it out" replied the man,
II will begin over. When my father
died he left me ten thousand dollars
about four per cent, and no taxes.
Being naturally smarter than my
father, at once determined to take
that money and get rich. l sold the
stock, pocketed check book and got
busy. One bright morning, in little
town on the Monongahela river,
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. 1t
is rough mountain tract, not worth
ten dollars an acre; but it 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 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 off about a car 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. inquired
if 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,
nearly threw a fit! Fifteen dollarsi
The coal was worth two hundred an
acre. Now, I had been knocking
about the coal country for a good bit
and l was no greenhorn. I knew that
this was the Pittsburgh vein and |
knew what it was worth. The court
was selling the land, so there could
be no doubt about the title. I would
not have trusted any dealer about a
land title If it had been private
sale; but here was the court-the old
blind lady herself-selling the land,
SO the game was bound to be straight.
bid twenty. The commissioner cali
ed it moment, and a big man, out
a little way in the crowd, with nose
like your elbow, bid twenty-five. let
the thing hang to see if there was an
other bidder: then, just before the
going / bid thirty. Nosy looked me
over, snorted and finally bid thirty
five, and five more, said. He
stamped around for a while and final
ly lifted it to forty-f1ve. aA
All right. Nosy,' I said to myself,
I'll just throw a good, stiff bluff into
you and end It, An five. I said, an
five more every time you raise it,
He looked at me for a good minute.
you're damned fool!' he said,
and then he walked out of the crowd.
Nosy was right about that; but
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 I got home and opened my
package, I had as nice a box of saw
dust as you ever saw. The old girl in
like an expert. No street fakir could
have cleaned a smoother Job. My title
to this land proved to be only life
estate. l hunted up a lawyer. He
said that q court did not guarantee
a title when it sold land. ] remember
his language-it cost me money and l
shall always remember it. 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 a good one,
takes your money; and, if the title is
defective, you are stuck, you can't get
your money back. The old lady comes
out to her door and sells you pig
in a poke. If there's no pig in it, the
jokes on you. If it's somebody else's
pig, the jokes still on you. I've been
up against the shell and the little pea,
the five-dollar bill 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."
/ leaned my elbow on the table and
looked through the open door at the
narrator of this tale, indifferently
slipping his glass of whisky and flip
PANTY spinning out his story like a
tipsy sailor. This sanguine tempera-
ment goes surely with this disease;
no other dying men whistle thus
cheerily in the face of death,
so there 1 was" the man contin-
ued, mo money, no land. 1 had
bought only the right to use this
ground as long as the old farmer
lived. A goat with creepers on his
feet would have starved on the top
of 1t. tried to sell out to Nosy. I
discovered then that he was a capper
for the Union Fuel company, a little
branch of one of the two soft coal
combines of America
'Nothin' doing, he said. Our COM
pany put up that little job to catch