Here is another point of attack for the men who continually hover about the Indian like vultures above a sick or helpless man--the law providing that the allotments of deceased Indians may be sold for the benefit of their legal heirs, even though the time limit of twenty-five years protected title may not have expired. I consider the law a just one, but the work of determining the heirs is complicated and difficult. It is only last year that Congress has appropriated $50,000 for this purpose, although forty thousand inheritance cases are now pending, and much fraud has already been accomplished. Representative Burke has shown that the bulk of the minors and incompetent Indians in Oklahoma have been swindled out of their property by dishonest administrators and guardians. Hon. Warren K. Moorehead, of the United States Board of Indian Commissioners, who investigated the situation in that state, intimates that as many as 21,000 such cases exist there. He says the handling of estates in Oklahoma costs often from 30 to 90 per cent., whereas the average rate in thirty states is 3 per cent. "Why do not our laws prevent the robbing of Indians? Because they are not enforced," declares Mr. Moorehead, who also investigated White Earth, Minnesota, a few years ago, and uncovered a scandal of large proportions, relating to the theft of over two hundred thousand acres of valuable land, as a result of suddenly removing all restrictions on the mixed bloods at that agency, many of whom were incompetent to manage their own affairs. Much of this graft might readily be stopped, and the ignorant Indian protected, were it not for the fact that the relationship between the shysters and certain officials is very much like that between the police of New York City and the keepers of illegal resorts. When complaint is made, big envelopes with "U. S." printed in the corner pass back and forth--and that is too often the end of it! The Sioux call the U. S. Indian inspectors, who are supposed to discover and report abuses, "Big Cats"; but an old chief once said to me: "They ought rather to be called prairie owls, who are blind in the daytime and have rattlesnakes for their bedfellows!"