This concern, the Liverpool Salt Company, had a competitor for the salt trade of the Pacific coast in the Standard Salt Company. The Salton fields are reached by means of the Southern Pacific Railway, which road has the handling of all the product of the salt-fields. The Standard Company alleged that the railroad people discriminated against it in the way of freight rates, excluding the Standard people from the coast markets, and thus securing a monopoly of the trade for the Liverpool Company. This led the managers of the Standard Company to look into the titles of the salt-fields. It was then discovered that the company operating was without title, and that the lands were unallotted Government lands. The attention of the Government officials was called to the fact that the Liverpool people were trespassers, and an order was issued for the company to vacate. A bill was then introduced in Congress providing for filing claims upon saline lands, and the bill passed the Senate January 22, 1901. It yet required the signature of the President to make it a law, however, and it was then that matters became interesting in the desert. Both companies congregated men on the lands adjoining the salt-fields, prepared to race to the choice portion of the field to stake claims the moment the wire should apprise them of the signing of the bill. Each company had an agent in Washington ready to telegraph the news the instant it became known, and each company had a man at the telegraph station at Salton, three miles from the field, to take the message to the men the moment it came. The Liverpool Company felt confident of winning the race, for the company owned a spur track from the main line of the railroad to the salt-fields, and upon this line was placed a hand-car, manned ready to pull for the fields the instant the dispatch should arrive. This car could easily outstrip the fleetest horse, the yielding sands making it impossible for a steed to make rapid progress. The manager of the Standard Company, however, did not depend upon horse speed, mule speed, or car speed. There are in Southern California an average of 316 cloudless days each year. He pinned his faith to the weather, and his confidence was not betrayed.