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Page 85
Twenty years ago there was a shrewd land agent living in Austin who
devoted his undoubted talents and vast knowledge of land titles, and the
laws governing them, to the locating of surveys made by illegal
certificates, or improperly made, and otherwise of no value through
non-compliance with the statutes, or whatever flaws his ingenious and
unscrupulous mind could unearth.
He found a fatal defect in the title of the land as on file in Bexar
Scrip No. 2692 and placed a new certificate upon the survey in his own
name.
The law was on his side.
Every sentiment of justice, of right, and humanity was against him.
The certificate by virtue of which the original survey had been made was
missing.
It was not be found in the file, and no memorandum or date on the
wrapper to show that it had ever been filed.
Under the law the land was vacant, unappropriated public domain, and
open to location.
The land was occupied by a widow and her only son, and she supposed her
title good.
The railroad had surveyed a new line through the property, and it had
doubled in value.
Sharp, the land agent, did not communicate with her in any way until he
had filed his papers, rushed his claim through the departments and into
the patent room for patenting.
Then he wrote her a letter, offering her the choice of buying from him
or vacating at once.
He received no reply.
One day he was looking through some files and came across the missing
certificate. Some one, probably an employee of the office, had by
mistake, after making some examination, placed it in the wrong file, and
curiously enough another inadvertence, in there being no record of its
filing on the wrapper, had completed the appearance of its having never
been filed.
Sharp called for the file in which it belonged and scrutinized it
carefully, fearing he might have overlooked some endorsement regarding
its return to the office.
On the back of the certificate was plainly endorsed the date of filing,
according to law, and signed by the chief clerk.
If this certificate should be seen by the examining clerk, his own
claim, when it came up for patenting, would not be worth the paper on
which it was written.
Sharp glanced furtively around. A young man, or rather a boy about
eighteen years of age, stood a few feet away regarding him closely with
keen black eyes. Sharp, a little confused, thrust the certificate into
the file where it properly belonged and began gathering up the other
papers.
The boy came up and leaned on the desk beside him.
"A right interesting office, sir!" he said. "I have never been in here
before. All those papers, now, they are about lands, are they not? The
titles and deeds, and such things?"
"Yes," said Sharp. "They are supposed to contain all the title papers."
"This one, now," said the boy, taking up Bexar Scrip No. 2692, "what
land does this represent the title of? Ah, I see 'Six hundred and forty
acres in B---- country? Absalom Harris, original grantee.' Please tell
me, I am so ignorant of these things, how can you tell a good survey
from a bad one. I am told that there are a great many illegal and
fraudulent surveys in this office. I suppose this one is all right?"
"No," said Sharp. "The certificate is missing. It is invalid."
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