Thereupon, without inquiry as to the facts from the State officials of Oregon, or from the road company or their representatives, who had all the evidence in their possession--without one word of notice to any of the parties concerned--a man named Prosser, then residing at Seattle, and occupied in repressing unwarranted timber-cutting on Government lands in that neighborhood, was dispatched to professedly examine into the condition of things. His journey; the narrative of his duplicity; of his inducing the president of the road company, in the innocence of his heart, to fit him out and to lend him all the money for his expenses; of his return and interviews with the citizens of Albany; of his subsequent report that no road existed where upward of five thousand wagons and innumerable droves of cattle and of passengers on foot and horseback had passed without accident for ten years; of his allegations of the trivial cost of the works, met by the evidence of the outlay of about $100,000 on the construction and repairs of the road; of the storm of indignation which swept through Linn County, and found expression wherever the facts were known--all these things form an amusing chapter in the history of this transaction. The Congressional committee, to whom the matter was referred, reported, as might be expected, that Congress had no jurisdiction; that, so far as they could see, the present owners, being innocent purchasers, had good title to the lands; and that, if there were to be any attempt made to disturb them, it must be a judicial and not a legislative matter. Meanwhile an action of ejectment had been brought by the purchasers from the road company of the land grant, in the United States District Court at Portland, against a squatter on the land, whose letters of old date to the Commissioner of the Land-Office had been made the pretext for the course taken by the Secretary of the Interior. Every opportunity was given for raising in court the question of no road; but the defendant dared not accept the challenge, and Judge Deady rendered judgment for the owners of the land grant, and so settled the question for good and all, so far as I can see. His judgment was masterly and exhaustive, and I should think would convince any candid mind. Thus ends this act in the drama, with the position of the Oregon Pacific confirmed at every point, and the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company with a very pretty quarrel on their hands with the Northern Pacific, and an impending competition, at which the farmers of the State rejoice. And so the transportation question in Oregon is in a fair way to be settled in a manner consonant with justice and honesty, so that produce will be charged only what is commensurate in fair measure with the cost and risk of the service rendered, and not in the opposite direction of what the producer can bear. [Sidenote: _THE YAQUINA IMPROVEMENTS._]