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Show 46 REPORT OF THE OOMMISSIONER OF INDIAN A P F ~ INSPECTION. The inspecting and investigating service of the office, with the assistance of the inspectors of the Department of the Interior, covered during the year the entire field of Indian operations, with the excep-tion of 1 Indian reservation, 2 boarding schools, and 3 day schools. Special investigations of conditions were made on 14 reservations. There were employed during the year 10 supervisors and 5 special agents, from whom 275 reports were received; 274 of these required and have received administrative action. The inspecting force of the office was deprived of the services of 7 of its men during the year for a period aggregating eleven hundred and fifteen days, during which time they were employed as acting superintendents in charge of reservations or schools, and as members of commissions. THE EICEAPOO SITUATION IN OKLAHOMA. The clearing up of the difficulties of the Kickapoo Indians of Okla-homa has been greatly hindered by legal delays of one kind and an-other. The Department of Justice, by means of civil suits and crimi-nal actions, is endeavoring to recover for these Indians the lands which have been illegally and fraudulently purchased from them, and to punish those guilty of fraud. These lands were originally sold as a result of the act of June 21, 1906 (34 Stat., 325), which removed all restrictions from the alienation by the Kickapoo Indians of their title to their allotments in Oklahoma. In the opinion of the Depart-ment of Justice and of the Indian Service, this act gave authority for the alienation of the equitable titles only and did not authorize the alienation of the legal title to these lands which remained as thereto-fore in the United States. The Indians, however, immediately began to sell their lands for little or nothing and to give possession to the purchasers of lands, some of which were of great value as town lots. In some instances where the purchasers were unable to procure bona fide signatures from the Indians, they are alleged to have manufac-tured the signatures to deeds of sale to themselves. The suits for the recovery of allotments where illegal and fraudu-lent deeds were procured are still pending in the circuit court of the Tnited States for the western district of Oklahoma. The defendants demurred in these actions. They were argued, submitted on briefs, and taken under advisement by the district judge about a year ago. Recently the cases were reargued and submitted. A decision is ex-pected soon. Two allotments have been recovered by the Government Intervening in the State district court for Maverick County, Tex. No other cases have reached final judgment. Criminal cases have been in the hands of the Department of Jus-tice for a little over a year and they have secured indictments in the |