Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/291

REMINISCENCES OF SEVENTY YEARS 283 "Your father told me to come right here and stay all winter. Will has plenty of everything and I see for myself that you have got the best place in the county, for you came here three years ago when you could get pick and choice/' "But, Mr. Swiggle, I did not take up this place myself. I had to buy it to get it, and all it cost the man I bought it of was a dollar to get it recorded and a little expense in building that log cabin. I paid him $400.00 just to get off and I had it recorded just as he had it staked out. "Well, I knew you would have the best place if you did have to buy it," he said, after looking over the level prairie and my improvements. That was just what I wanted to hear him say, for I wanted to sell the place, and I knew he had the gold and plenty of it. As yet there was little gold coming from Cali- fornia. So I told him to unload everything in the big new barn and rest a while and I would show him plenty of land to take up for nothing. In a few days, we took a ride all round that part of the country. There was plenty of land but no clean, smooth prairie like mine. He said he was too old to grub out a farm but wanted a farm already made. One day he said, "Will, I don't suppose you would sell your squatter's right to this place at all?" "Never had anything in my life but what I would sell except my wife, and I have only had her for a few weeks and don't want to dispose of her for a while, at any rate." "Well, what will you take for the place all gold right down in your fist ?" "Well, for all gold right down, I will take two thousand dollars." "I won't give it, I won't give it." "Well, there is no harm done, Mr. Swiggle." "But," he added, "I will tell you just what I will give you. I have been talking with my old shell (he always called his wife and old shell), I will just give you $1600.00 in gold and pay you 50 cents per bushel for all the wheat in the barn and thrash it out myself. That will make you $2000.00."