Crocker afterwards expended fully $200,000 drilling various "wildcat" wells thereabouts, but misfortune seemed to have followed all his footsteps, although his operations were carried on in a conscientious manner. He eventually withdrew his casing from numerous "dry" holes, and retired from the field, a sadder, if not a wiser man.
It was but a short time after Ward and his associates had assumed charge of the litigation affecting the forest reserve selections that Judge Ross astounded everybody by rendering a decision in the case of the Olive Land and Development Company against Olmstead, et al., which was in the nature of a complete victory for the scrippers. The Court held in this proceeding (103, Fed., 568, decided July 9, 1900) that "the location as an oil placer mining claim of public lands upon which no discovery of oil has been made, vests the locators with no rights in such lands as against the United States, or as against one subsequently acquiring the title thereto or rights therein from the United States by any legal means prior to any such discovery."
To add to the discomfiture of the situation, Commissioner of the General Land Office Binger Hermann, about this time held in similar cases coming before him. that there could be no valid mineral location prior to a discovery, and that the discovery should not merely reveal indications of mineral, but should be based upon the finding of mineral in paying quantities. In consequence of these rulings, the spirits of the Scrippers became wrought up to the highest pitch of exuberence, while those of the mineral locators were correspondingly dejected.
About this time the Cosmos Exploration Company began simultaneous actions in the Federal Court and the Land Department against the Gray Eagle Oil Company, involving title to the west half of Section 30, Township 28 South, Range 28 East, M. D. M., while the Pacific Land and Development Company brought similar suits against the Elwood Oil Company, affecting the west half of the southwest quarter of Section 4, Township 29 South, Range 28 East, M. D. M. The plaintiffs in both instances were corporations of the Ward-Johnston-Hays syndicate, claiming under forest reserve selections, while the defendants were holding under mineral locations. Precisely the same issues were involved as were at stake in the Olive Land and Development Company case, hence the scrippers felt very sanguine of results.
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