"
It was a twisted story of Curly's death. Curly, according to this
version, had been doing his utmost to keep two Survey men, Harden and
Forrester, from hogging for obscure government purposes, certain oil
lands, belonging to Curly. In the ill feeling that had resulted, Curly
had been shot. Before his death, however, he had been able to write a
statement of the affair which had been sent to a well-known lawyer in
Washington. He also had left sufficient property to the lawyer to
enable him to expose the workings of the Geological Survey to its bones.
Enoch's face reddened. "I don't know what there is about a piece of
work like this that gets under my skin so intolerably!" he exclaimed.
"Whether it's the cruelty of it, or the dishonesty or the brute
selfishness, I don't know. But we are going to answer this, Abbott."
"How shall we go about it, sir? We might find out if Cheney knows
these men personally and have him make a statement."
"Have him tell of their previous records," said Enoch. "Let the world
know the heroism and the self-sacrifice of those men. And at the end
let him give the lie direct to the Brown papers. Tell him I'll sign it
for him."
"That will give Brown just the opening he's looking for, Mr.
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