Whenever you visit
Austin you should by all means go to see the General Land Office.
As you pass up the
avenue you turn sharp round the corner of the court house, and on a steep hill
before you you see a medieval castle.
You think of the
Rhine; the "castled crag of Drachenfels"; the Lorelei; and the
vine-clad slopes of Germany. And German it is in every line of its architecture
and design.
The plan was drawn by an
old draftsman from the "Vaterland," whose heart still loved the
scenes of his native land, and it is said he reproduced the design of a certain
castle near his birthplace, with remarkable fidelity.
Under the present
administration a new coat of paint has vulgarized its ancient and venerable
walls. Modern tiles have replaced the limestone slabs of its floors, worn in
hollows by the tread of thousands of feet, and smart and gaudy fixtures have
usurped the place of the time-worn furniture that has been consecrated by the
touch of hands that Texas will never cease to honor.
But even now, when you
enter the building, you lower your voice, and time turns backward for you, for
the atmosphere which you breathe is cold with the exudation of buried
generations.
The building is stone
with a coating of concrete; the walls are immensely thick; it is cool in the
summer and warm in the winter; it is isolated and sombre; standing apart from
the other state buildings, sullen and decaying, brooding on the past.
Twenty years ago it
was much the same as now; twenty years from now the garish newness will be worn
off and it will return to its appearance of gloomy decadence.
People living in other
states can form no conception of the vastness and importance of the work
performed and the significance of the millions of records and papers composing
the archives of this office.
The title deeds,
patents, transfers and legal documents connected with every foot of land owned
in the state of Texas are filed here.
Volumes could be
filled with accounts of the knavery, the double-dealing, the cross purposes,
the perjury, the lies, the bribery, the alteration and erasing, the suppressing
and destroying of papers, the various schemes and plots that for the sake of
the almighty dollar have left their stains upon the records of the General Land
Office.
No reference is made
to the employees. No more faithful, competent and efficient force of men exists
in the clerical portions of any government, but there is--or was, for their day
is now over--a class of land speculators commonly called land sharks,
unscrupulous and greedy, who have left their trail in every department of this
office, in the shape of titles destroyed, patents cancelled, homes demolished
and torn away, forged transfers and lying affidavits.
Before the modern
tiles were laid upon the floors, there were deep hollows in the limestone
slabs, worn by the countless feet that daily trod uneasily through its echoing
corridors, pressing from file room to business room, from commissioner's sanctum
to record books and back again.
The honest but
ignorant settler, bent on saving the little plot of land he called home,
elbowed the wary land shark who was searching the records for evidence to oust
him; the lordly cattle baron, relying on his influence and money, stood at the
Commissioner's desk side by side with the preemptor, whose little potato patch
lay like a minute speck of island in the vast, billowy sea, of his princely
pastures, and played the old game of "freeze-out," which is as old as
Cain and Abel.
The trail of the
serpent is through it all.
Honest, earnest men
have wrought for generations striving to disentangle the shameful coil that
certain years of fraud and infamy have wound. Look at the files and see the
countless endorsements of those in authority
"Transfer
doubtful--locked up."
"Certificate a
forgery--locked up."
"Signature a
forgery."
"Patent
refused--duplicate patented elsewhere."
"Field notes
forged."
"Certificates
stolen from office"--and soon ad infinitum.
The record books, spread
upon long tables, in the big room upstairs, are open to the examination of all.
Open them, and you will find the dark and greasy finger prints of half a
century's handling. The quick hand of the land grabber has fluttered the leaves
a million times; the damp clutch of the perturbed tiller of the soil has left
traces of his calling on the ragged leaves.
Interest centres in
the file room.
This is a large room,
built as a vault, fireproof, and entered by but a single door.
There is "No
Admission" on the portal; and the precious files are handed out by a clerk
in charge only on presentation of an order signed by the Commissioner or chief
clerk.
In years past too much
laxity prevailed in its management, and the files were handled by all corners,
simply on their request, and returned at their will, or not at all.
In these days most of
the mischief was done. In the file room, there are about ---- files, each in a
paper wrapper, and comprising the title papers of a particular tract of land.
You ask the clerk in charge
for the papers relating to any survey in Texas. They are arranged simply in
districts and numbers.
He disappears from the
door, you hear the sliding of a tin box, the lid snaps, and the file is in your
hand.
Go up there some day
and call for Bexar Scrip No. 2692.
The file clerk stares
at you for a second, says shortly:
"Out of
file."
It has been missing
twenty years.
The history of that
file has never been written before.
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."
"That paper I
just saw you place in that file, I suppose is something else--field notes, or a
transfer probably?"
"Yes," said
Sharp, hurriedly, "corrected field notes. Excuse me, I am a little pressed
for time."
The boy was watching
him with bright, alert eyes.
It would never do to
leave the certificate in the file; but he could not take it out with that
inquisitive boy watching him.
He turned to the file
room, with a dozen or more files in his hands, and accidentally dropped part of
them on the floor. As he stooped to pick them up he swiftly thrust Bexar Scrip
No. 2692 in the inside breast pocket of his coat.
This happened at just
half-past four o'clock, and when the file clerk took the files he threw them in
a pile in his room, came out and locked the door.
The clerks were moving
out of the doors in long, straggling lines.
It was closing time.
Sharp did not desire
to take the file from the Land Office.
The boy might have
seen him place the file in his pocket, and the penalty of the law for such an
act was very severe.
Some distance back
from the file room was the draftsman's room now entirely vacated by its
occupants.
Sharp dropped behind
the outgoing stream of men, and slipped slyly into this room.
The clerks trooped
noisily down the iron stairway, singing, whistling, and talking.
Below, the night
watchman awaited their exit, ready to close and bar the two great doors to the
south and cast.
It is his duty to take
careful note each day that no one remains in the building after the hour of
closing.
Sharp waited until all
sounds had ceased.
It was his intention
to linger until everything was quiet, and then to remove the certificate from
the file, and throw the latter carelessly on some draftsman's desk as if it had
been left there during the business of the day.
He knew also that he
must remove the certificate from the office or destroy it, as the chance
finding of it by a clerk would lead to its immediately being restored to its
proper place, and the consequent discovery that his location over the old
survey was absolutely worthless.
As he moved cautiously
along the stone floor the loud barking of the little black dog, kept by the
watchman, told that his sharp ears had heard the sounds of his steps. The
great, hollow rooms echoed loudly, move as lightly as he could.
Sharp sat down at a
desk and laid the file before him. In all his queer practices and cunning
tricks he had not yet included any act that was downright criminal. He had always
kept on the safe side of the law, but in the deed he was about to commit there
was no compromise to be made with what little conscience he had left.
There is no
well-defined boundary line between honesty and dishonesty.
The frontiers of one
blend with the outside limits of the other, and he who attempts to tread this
dangerous ground may be sometimes in one domain and sometimes in the other; so
the only safe road is the broad highway that leads straight through and has
been well defined by line and compass.
Sharp was a man of
what is called high standing in the community. That is, his word in a trade was
as good as any man's; his check was as good as so much cash, and so regarded;
he went to church regularly; went in good society and owed no man anything.
He was regarded as a
sure winner in any land trade he chose to make, but that was his occupation.
The act he was about
to commit now would place him forever in the ranks of those who chose evil for
their portion--if it was found out.
More than that, it would
rob a widow and her son of property soon to be of great value, which, if not
legally theirs, was theirs certainly by every claim of justice.
But he had gone too
far to hesitate.
His own survey was in
the patent room for patenting. His own title was about to be perfected by the
State's own hand.
The certificate must
be destroyed.
He leaned his head on
his hands for a moment, and as he did so a sound behind him caused his heart to
leap with guilty fear, but before he could rise, a hand came over his shoulder
and grasped the file.
He rose quickly, as
white as paper, rattling his chair loudly on the stone floor.
The boy who land
spoken to him earlier stood contemplating him with contemptuous and flashing
eyes, and quietly placed the file in the left breast pocket of his coat.
"So, Mr. Sharp,
by nature as well as by name," he said, "it seems that I was right in
waiting behind the door in order to see you safely out. You will appreciate the
pleasure I feel in having done so when I tell you my name is Harris. My mother
owns the land on which you have filed, and if there is any justice in Texas she
shall hold it. I am not certain, but I think I saw you place a paper in this
file this afternoon, and it is barely possible that it may be of value to me. I
was also impressed with the idea that you desired to remove it again, but had
not the opportunity. Anyway, I shall keep it until to-morrow and let the
Commissioner decide."
Far back among Mr.
Sharp's ancestors there must have been some of the old berserker blood, for his
caution, his presence of mind left him, and left him possessed of a blind,
devilish, unreasoning rage that showed itself in a moment in the white glitter
of his eye.
"Give me that
file, boy," he said, thickly, holding out his hand.
"I am no such
fool, Mr. Sharp," said the youth. "This file shall be laid before the
Commissioner to-morrow for examination. If he finds--Help! Help!"
Sharp was upon him
like a tiger and bore him to the floor. The boy was strong and vigorous, but
the suddenness of the attack gave him no chance to resist. He struggled up
again to his feet, but it was an animal, with blazing eyes and cruel-looking
teeth that fought him, instead of a man.
Mr. Sharp, a man of
high standing and good report, was battling for his reputation.
Presently there was a
dull sound, and another, and still one more, and a blade flashing white and
then red, and Edward Harris dropped down like some stuffed effigy of a man,
that boys make for sport, with his limbs all crumpled and lax, on the stone
floor of the Land Office.
The old watchman was
deaf, and heard nothing.
The little dog barked
at the foot of the stairs until his master made him come into his room.
Sharp stood there for
several minutes holding in his hand his bloody clasp knife, listening to the
cooing of the pigeons on the roof, and the loud ticking of the clock above the
receiver's desk.
A map rustled on the
wall and his blood turned to ice; a rat ran across some strewn papers, and his
scalp prickled, and he could scarcely moisten his dry lips with his tongue.
Between the file room
and the draftsman's room there is a door that opens on a small dark spiral stairway
that winds from the lower floor to the ceiling at the top of the house.
This stairway was not
used then, nor is it now.
It is unnecessary, inconvenient,
dusty, and dark as night, and was a blunder of the architect who designed the
building.
This stairway ends
above at the tent-shaped space between the roof and the joists.
That space is dark and
forbidding, and being useless is rarely visited.
Sharp opened this door
and gazed for a moment up this narrow cobwebbed stairway.
* * * *
After dark that night
a man opened cautiously one of the lower windows of the Land Office, crept out
with great circumspection and disappeared in the shadows.
* * * *
One afternoon, a week
after this time, Sharp lingered behind again after the clerks had left and the
office closed. The next morning the first comers noticed a broad mark in the
dust on the upstairs floor, and the same mark was observed below stairs near a
window.
It appeared as if some
heavy and rather bulky object had been dragged along through the limestone dust.
A memorandum book with "E. Harris" written on the flyleaf was picked
up on the stairs, but nothing particular was thought of any of these signs.
Circulars and
advertisements appeared for a long time in the papers asking for information
concerning Edward Harris, who left his mother's home on a certain date and had
never been heard of since.
After a while these
things were succeeded by affairs of more recent interest, and faded from the
public mind.
* * * *
Sharp died two years
ago, respected and regretted. The last two years of his life were clouded with
a settled melancholy for which his friends could assign no reason. The bulk of
his comfortable fortune was made from the land he obtained by fraud and crime.
The disappearance of
the file was a mystery that created some commotion in the Land Office, but he
got his patent.
* * * *
It is a well-known
tradition in Austin and vicinity that there is a buried treasure of great value
somewhere on the banks of Shoal Creek, about a mile west of the city.
Three young men living
in Austin recently became possessed of what they thought was a clue of the
whereabouts of the treasure, and Thursday night they repaired to the place
after dark and plied the pickaxe and shovel with great diligence for about
three hours.
At the end of that
time their efforts were rewarded by the finding of a box buried about four feet
below the surface, which they hastened to open.
The light of a lantern
disclosed to their view the fleshless bones of a human skeleton with clothing
still wrapping its uncanny limbs.
They immediately left
the scene and notified the proper authorities of their ghastly find.
On closer examination,
in the left breast pocket of the skeleton's coat, there was found a flat,
oblong packet of papers, cut through and through in three places by a knife
blade, and so completely soaked and clotted with blood that it had become an
almost indistinguishable mass.
With the aid of a
microscope and the exercise of a little imagination this much can be made out
of the letter; at the top of the papers:
B--x a-- ---rip
N--2--92.
EmoticonEmoticon