“Well, he might try, Bob. But with his receipt in your possession, that would be bona-fide evidence of an implied contract of bargain and sale between you and the State of California. You could institute a mandamus suit and force him to make the selection of lieu lands for you.”
“I figured it out that way” said Bob musingly. “The only rift in the surveyor-general's lute is the fact that while he has never yet bumped up against the right man, he is due to so bump in the very near future. However, Mr. Dunstan, I do not think our present surveyor-general is doing business with the land ring. I think the guilty man is one of his deputies through whom ninety-nine per cent of the office routine is transacted, and the land-grabbers have him under their thumbs.”
“Then why not go direct to the surveyor-general with your troubles?” queried Dunstan.
Bob shook his head. “No hope in that direction. The office records show all bases used, and the deputy—the surveyor-general, in fact—can find defense for their arbitrary ruling in the matter of designation of the basis—by claiming that their office force is not large enough to permit of such extended search of the records; hence they turn their records over to the applicant of lieu lands and let him search for himself. The surveyor-general, being honest, will be hard to convince that his deputy is not—particularly since the deputy is probably an old friend.”
“It's a peculiar condition” said Dunstan. “The worst that can happen to the deputy is to lose his job, the dummy entryman can abandon his filing at any time he may elect, and there is no law making it a felony to accept money in exchange for information—if you do not state where you acquired it. How are you going to stop this looting?”
“I'm not quite certain that I want it stopped—right away” said Bob, and grinned his lazy inscrutable smile. “I want to do a little grabbing myself, only I want to do it legally. I have a scheme worked out to do this, but I want you to confirm it. Just now you schemed out a plan to get public lands illegally, and you ought to be able to scheme a plan to get them legally, operating on the state lieu land basis. I want thirty-two thousand acres of desert land and the law only allows me a selection of six hundred and forty. I want to get this thirty-two thousand acres without corrupting any weakling in the employ of the state, without paying money to dummy entrymen, without designating the basis for the selection of my fifty sections, without antagonizing the land ring and without disturbing that rule of the State Land Office, can it be done?”
Dunstan frowned at his visitor. “Of course it cannot be done” he retorted sharply. “Why do you ask me such fool questions?”
“Because it might be done—with a little luck and some money.”
Dunstan shook his head. “There is only one way for you to acquire desert land, Bob, without disturbing the rule in that land office. You'll have to file on a half-section only, under the Desert Land Law of the United States of America, paying twenty-five cents per acre down at the time of filing your application. Then you must place one-eighth of it under cultivation and produce a reasonably profitable crop. You must spend not less than, three dollars per acre in improvements, and convince the government that the entire tract, if not actually under irrigation, is at least susceptible to it. That accomplished, you can pay the balance of one dollar per acre due on the land, prove up and secure a patent. That's the only way you can secure desert lands without doing some of the things you wish to avoid doing.”
Bob shook his head. “Too slow, too expensive and generally irritating. Why, I'd have to live on the land until I could prove up!”