These pictures were all taken by A. W. Barber, an official of the Land Office Department, and used as evidence of fraud in the trials
The nearest approach to a clearing on a 160-acre farm where somebody "swore" he had a cabin, several acres of cultivated ground, and raised crops every year!
was satisfied. He left Washington, feeling able to cope with the "jealousy" of his subordinates at Portland.
While he was wailing in San Francisco for the spring term in Portland, Heney saw more of Burns. The Hyde-Benson case came on in San Francisco. That was Burns's own case. He had had the California land-grabbers indicted at Washington and Benson was arrested there, but Hyde, and Dimond, their attorney, and Schneider, their tool, were in San Francisco, resisting removal. Mr. Knox retained Heney to represent the Government. There were other assistants, all sorts of United States District and Deputy Attorneys-General, but Heney, in charge, soon came to see that the man who knew the whole case best, both the evidence and the story, was William J. Burns, the detective.
Impressed with Burns's ability, Heney began to see also that his suspicion, which had seemed so suspicious at first, was not unreasonable; it was most reasonable. His was a logical mind illuminated with imagination. Mr. Heney couldn't believe that Oregon was so rotten as Burns imagined it, but the detective's "theories" stimulated Heney's imagination.
"Come on up to Portland with me, Burns," he said, when they had beaten the "leading lawyers" who defended the Hyde-Benson land thieves of California. "If you will, we will see who is behind the Puter-McKinley-Tarpley land thieves of Oregon."
Burns went. Heney drew the California case to an abrupt close; he had to get to Portland in time. He had wired to have the Oregon case postponed, but Hall answered that Judge Bellinger would not consent. Burns thought this looked "funny"; Heney didn't. And Burns was right. A year or so later the Judge told Heney that he would have granted the postponement if he had been asked, but that Hall never had asked him till Heney had started. Then as before, while Heney was on the train, the case was put over.
"Heney's onto lawyers now," said Burns recently, "but at that time he had a great respect for his profession, and he believed a lawyer would be on the level with another lawyer."
Heney and Burns had analyzed the case on the train and they both saw openings for further investigation. Out of his California experience, the detective inferred, for example, that Puter et al. must have worked other jobs. Their methods were so "good " that they must be the result of long practice and studied development. Furthermore, Puter and McKinley, like Benson and
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