Johnny’s brother also told me that our friend Talley had gotten into an altercation with Mr. Luther, and that the Cimarron man had knocked the whey out of our Wetmore boy—all while the latter was connected in the realty business with brother Johnny. If I could have gone out there wholly on my own—that is, without any helpful interference from Mr. Talley, and maybe got lost on the big flat beyond the sandhills just south of the river for a week, I could have made a potful of money. I had planned to buy two sections. But, instead, I bought 80 acres of rather swampy bottom land here for the same money, $2400 — and then spent $1800 more to install five miles of drain tile. This tiling was a gamble that paid big dividends. Michael Worthy, my late semi-partner in the grain business, had better luck than I. He bought Gray County wheat land in the neighborhood of the Kelly school house — which was to be passed down as a huge profit-making legacy—even to the third generation. Oscar Porter was a track buyer at Bancroft until Jim Wilcox, elevator owner, crowded him out. Being a track shipper, Oscar was not eligible to come into the Association — nor was I, but somehow I had been roped in. Porter wanted to know how I did it, that he might do likewise. I could give him no helpful information. His next step was to start legal action to compel me to divulge the secret. I was subpoenaed to appear in court—supposed to be the star witness—in a complaint lodged by Mr. Porter against the Association. County Attorney S. K. Woodworth called me aside, said he knew I had the information to smash the Association, if I would just give. He said I could tell the truth—he added, “and I know you will,” without fear of having it used against me. I asked him if he were thinking of the time when I had slightly stretched the truth—but I really had not done this — in behalf of his candidacy, in my newspaper? He laughed at that. I told Sam that he could depend on me to answer his questions truthfully, as always—he laughed again—but that I would not make a statement. He said he would not ask me to do that. I was not particularly in sympathy with the Association, but I did not want to volunteer information against it—and then, too, my Atchison friends and my partner Michael were entitled to some consideration. I answered the County Attorney’s questions truthfully, and I believe satisfactorily—but still they did not get what they wanted. I had the information, of course, but Sam and Oscar knew too little about the business in hand to formulate the right questions. I believe they did not know about that illegal contract. If they could have had Michael and our illegal contract, written in violation of the Sherman Act, brought into court, they would have had a case. But then it was I, a lowly track buyer comparable to the complainant, who had by some hook or crook, aided by a swift kick in the pants, bolted through the barrier that was keeping Oscar out of the Association.