prosecutions, so that it would be an easy matter for Hall to ask for the dismissal of the 11-7 case when it came up. He was also to aid us by hunting- up points of law for use in the effort to attack the indictment on demurrer in the 11-7 case.
Miss Ware was represented by Charles A. Hardy and A. C. Woodcock, of Eugene, Oregon, while Horace G. McKinley enlisted the services of Judge Thomas O'Day, of Portland.
Mrs. Emma L. Watson, although one of the defendants, refused absolutely to employ counsel, contending that she was an innocent party, and having nothing to fear, did not propose to squander a penny, as she put it, in attempting to make a defense. If it should develop that she required the services of an attorney, she declared that it was no more than right that Mays and myself should foot the bill, as between us we were entirely responsible for the predicament in which she was placed.
We now found ourselves with only a few weeks' time in which to prepare for the trial of the 24-1 case, as it had been set for May 20, 1904, and believing that the Government's main reliance would be circumstantial evidence in the shape of the testimony of handwriting experts that we had forged the signatures to the title papers in the six claims, we sought to establish a complete defense by the employment of experts to combat this testimony, in much the same manner that a disastrous conflagration is often averted by starting a back fire.
With this object in view, and knowing our innocence so far as forgery was concerned, we spared neither time nor money in our efforts to secure a handwriting expert who possessed not only unusual ability but was also endowed with a high reputation for honesty and integrity. The expenditure of money at this stage of the game meant nothing to us. New York, Chicago, and other cities offered experts, but they did not appeal to us. Daniel T. Ames, of the Cadet Whitaker case, the Fair will case, and numerous cases of national importance, was suggested, but was not secured. Finally, upon the recommendation of a member of Congress, and a high official of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Company, both of whom had employed him in different capacities, we secured the services of F. J. Toland, of La Crosse, Wis., a man of national reputation as a penman, and who, while refusing retaining fees in many important cases, had never failed to secure a verdict in favor of his clients.
Mr. Toland's commercial standing—owning at that time a chain of business schools extending through Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, to which he has since added South Dakota and Nebraska—besides his strict veracity and the weight which his clear and logical demonstration carries not only with a jury but with all who have seen and heard him, gave us every reason to congratulate ourselves on the slight difficulty we would experience in overcoming the testimony offered by the so-called experts whom the Government had enlisted through United States Attorney Hall, and who afterwards demonstrated their absolute ignorance of the first principles of expert testimony, their evidence in this respect being considered so notoriously incompetent that it was practically ignored under orders of the Court.
It was at this stage of the game where the wonderful legal sagacity of Francis J. Heney was first made apparent. It has since transpired that Heney suspected Hall from the very moment he had a chance to diagnose the two cases, and uncovered the United States Attorney's miserable subterfuge in playing up the 24-1 case for trial, knowing full well that' it was the weaker of the two, and that there was no possible chance for conviction. Heney recognized Hall's duplicity right away, and discerned in his raw work an attempt to have him beaten in the 24-1 case and either wear out the Government so that he could dismiss the 11-7 case without arousing suspicion, or else try it alone, and cover himself with glory at Heney's expense by convicting us. He probably reasoned that Heney would be called off after losing the initial battle, after the fashion of a disgraced general in warfare, and the fine Italian hand of F. P. Mays would thus become uppermost, and suppress all further land fraud investigation in Oregon. Even after our Page 125
