Page:North Dakota Reports (vol. 48).pdf/874

justly named “grand larceny.” If it please the defendant, he may call it “grand embezzlement.” The name is of little consequence, as the offenses are alike and the penalty for either offense is precisely the same. The evidence shows that defendant committed the offense as alleged in the information. He became insolvent and to avoid bankruptcy proceedings and to satisfy claims of his creditors he conveyed to W. H. Shure his interest in about 13,000 acres of land with the crops thereon, and, with the exception of his homestead, he conveyed all his other property of every name and nature. And then he went with Shure and pointed out the property. He pointed out a quarter section known as the Johnson land, which the defendant held under a cropping lease and on which he had 100 acres of growing flax. Shure took possession of all the property. He paid for the harvesting and for the threshing of the flax. He hired defendant at $100 a month to look after the harvesting and threshing of the crops on the land. In time defendant gave Shure a statement showing 1,661 bushels of flax threshed and put in a special bin in the elevator at Knox. It included 770.42 bushels of flax grown and threshed on the Johnson land; but it did not include 112 bushels of the flax which defendant had caused Harvey Weaver to carry away from the Johnson land and put in his own granary and keep for two weeks and then to haul and deliver to the St. Anthony elevator at Pleasant Lake and to the order of defendant. Then, on November 13, 1918, defendant called at the elevator and obtained for the 112 bushels of flax a check for $406.58, payable to the order of E. N. Dokken, a merchant at Pleasant Lake, who knew nothing of the flax and who had no interest in it. Defendant took the check to Dokken and asked him to indorse it, which he did, and returned it to defendant asking no questions. Then defendant cashed the check and gave no account of it. The whole affair was done so well and stealthily that Shure did not learn of it for over a year. The party who hauled the flax to Pleasant Lake elevator was given a jag for himself. He did not tell or make a fuss. No person told. No person knew anything of it only a mere circumstance—a link in the chain. The record does not show how Shure came to discover it; but sure he did it. The discovery makes one think of the powerful Sampson and his riddle. He wedded a daughter of the Philistines and at the marriage feast put forth a riddle to 30 of his Philistine guests. It was this: “Out of the eater came forth meat and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” Though the riddle was deep and obscure, in due time the correct answer was given thus: