On October 17, 1900, the supreme court of North Dakota upheld the conviction of one Robert H. Stewart, a resident of Sargent County, for “having fraudulently obtained money from Sargent county by means of a false, forged, and fictitious instrument. . . . This is one of a series of offenses,” writes the court, “which appear to have been committed in that county by various persons, and which are known as the ‘gopher-bounty frauds.’”