Its beginning corner
was identical with that of a well-defined old Spanish grant, but its
other calls were sinfully vague. The field notes contained no other
object that survived--no tree, no natural object save Chiquito
River, and it was a mile wrong there. According to precedent, the
Office would be justified in giving it its complement by course and
distance, and considering the remainder vacant instead of a mere
excess.
The Actual Settler was besieging the office with wild protests _in re_.
Having the nose of a pointer and the eye of a hawk for the land-shark,
he had observed his myrmidons running the lines upon his ground.
Making inquiries, he learned that the spoiler had attacked his home,
and he left the plough in the furrow and took his pen in hand.
One of the protests the Commissioner read twice. It was from a woman,
a widow, the granddaughter of Elias Denny himself. She told how her
grandfather had sold most of the survey years before at a trivial
price--land that was now a principality in extent and value. Her
mother had also sold a part, and she herself had succeeded to this
western portion, along Chiquito River. Much of it she had been forced
to part with in order to live, and now she owned only about three
hundred acres, on which she had her home.
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