Part 9

“Thank you, son,” she said. “You’ve done us a big favor. This is better ground than any we’ve crossed through. I was beginning to be just a mite worried for fear we mightn’t find a piece. It was real nice of you to tell us.”

Carver turned his horse up towards where the sooner reclined on the creek bank.

“I instructed you to high-tail it out of the country,” he announced. “So you put forth from here sudden.”

“Do you imagine you’re in charge of this whole territory?” the man demanded.

“I was once,” said Carver. “Foreman of the old Half Diamond H. In lack of any better authority I’ve elected myself temporary head of the district so I can choose my own neighbors. I don’t pick you.”

He handed the man a ten-dollar bill.

“I’m sorry to see your efforts wasted but maybe you can drown your grief in that,” he said. “There’s not a chance in the world for you to make your claim stick--and I’ll see that you come to a bad end if you try to file. You can use your own judgment about when you flit from these parts.”

He turned back toward Molly but the girl had gone down her own side of the ridge as a second wagon rolled into the bottoms and halted on the upper end of the Texan’s filing. The outfit of the ample soul and her solemn spouse had been wrecked in the early stages of the run and the repairs had required too great a time to permit of their overtaking the other stampeders. As Molly joined them she heard the voice of the Texan lifted in his war song as he returned from a boastful visit with some near-by homesteader.

“I’m a wild, wild rider And an awful mean fighter----”

The song ceased abruptly as he spied the wagon on his claim and headed his mount for the spot. He leaned from his saddle and inspected the ample lady who still smiled through the grotesque mask of black ashes that had settled on her face, then let his eyes rove over the children in the depths of the wagon.

“This your claim?” the solemn man inquired. “We just want to wash up a bit and camp here for the night.”

Molly waited for the abrupt refusal. The Texan gazed helplessly from one to another of the group.

“Mean to say you didn’t get a piece of your own with all this stretch to choose from?” he demanded.

The man shook his head.

“Have this one,” the Texan invited. “I’ve been wondering what the hell I’d do with it.”

The woman still smiled but a tear squeezed through and trickled down, leaving a trail in the grime of ashes on her face. She leaned over the infant in her arms to hide the evidence of weakness, speaking a word to the child. The Texan shifted uneasily in the saddle and Molly saw him in a new guise; not as a big ruffian but as an overgrown, kindly boy, helpless to extricate himself from this trying situation. A happy thought struck him.

“I’d cry too if I thought I had to live here,” he said. “I’d trade this whole damn country for a square rod in Texas,” and he headed his horse back down the creek.

Hours later Molly Lassiter reclined on Carver’s camp bed which he had spread for her on the floor of the Half Diamond H ranch house.

The Cherokee Run was over. At noon there had been a vast tract of virgin territory, twelve thousand square miles of untenanted lands,--and within four hours of that first bugle call it had been settled, staked to the last square inch. The wildest stampede that the world had ever seen was a matter of history.

A variety of sounds floated through the open window. The long, many-roomed bunk house in rear of the frame building was crowded to overflowing. All the cowhands for miles around had followed the old custom of dropping in at the nearest ranch when caught out on the range at night, certain of finding a welcome and a feed. They had feasted unreservedly upon Carver’s food cache which he had planted at the ranch weeks before.

Molly heard two voices raised in the chant of the tumbleweeds as two belated riders approached. Always these men sang when they rode at night, having acquired the habit on many a weary circuit of the herd, singing to quiet their charges on the bed ground.

The big Texan’s voice carried to her from the bunk house.

“Now when I play poker with strangers I first state the rules,” he announced. “The way stud poker is dealt is to hand out the top card first and the next one next, and so on down to the bottom card which comes off last and is not to be removed prior to its turn.”

“It’s nice to have some one who actually knows how the rules run,” another voice answered. “If any little squabble crops up we won’t have to debate the question but just ask you and find out for sure.”

“I’ll settle all arguments,” the Texan volunteered. “You’ll note that I’ve stuck my knife here in the table and I’ll certainly remonstrate with the first party that introduces any irregularities.”

The two newcomers rode into the yard, unsaddled and turned their horses into the corral. One of them answered the questions regarding his claim as he appeared in the door of the bunk house.

“I quit it,” he announced. “A wagon came dragging along an hour ago with a wild woman aboard. Leastways she was talking wild--and frequent. They’d locked hubs and piled up on the start. I presented them my place. I hadn’t no use for it. All my life it’s been all I could do to scratch a living off the face of the whole outdoors, so there wasn’t a chance for me to scrape a income off one little quarter section anyway.”

“I had the piece next to his,” the second cowboy stated. “But the other set of locked hubs came dangling along. The woman ahead would screech back that the tangle was all her fault from keeping too close, and wouldn’t the other party be sure to stake the next piece to theirs so’s they could neighbor back and forth. Just to quiet her down I handed mine to the parties she was so hell-bent to neighbor with. I was afraid she’d have a headache in the morning if she kept at it; and besides I couldn’t lay out there and listen to that gabble.”

Molly burrowed her face deep in the pillow. During the day she had seen much that was gold beneath that rusty exterior of the tumbleweeds and much that was dross beneath the golden surface of many of the pumpkins. These men who rallied to Carver, drifters all, were a different breed of drifters than those she had met as friends of her two half-brothers. And now the tumbleweeds had been cast out of their domain.

“Hand me them cards,” said the big Texan. “Now we’ll have an honest deal. I’d trust myself further than any other man I ever met.”

IX

Carver looked from the window of the Half Diamond H. All down the valley were twinkling lights which denoted the presence of the homes of early-rising settlers. Off to the east and west there were lights resting at higher levels, these from cabins on side-hill claims on the rising flanks of the valley. As the morning glow flooded across the country the lights paled and the habitations themselves appeared, first as darker blots emerging gradually from the surrounding obscurity, then in distinct outline as the shadows lifted. Some were tiny frame cabins, the most of them unpainted. The greater number were sod huts, some few merely dugouts. Poor habitations these, no doubt, yet they were homes and as circumstances permitted they would be replaced by more pretentious ones.

The virgin stretches of the Cherokee lands had been transformed into a solid agricultural community overnight. The run was not quite two months past, yet even the style of expression, the customs of speech and the topic of general conversation had experienced an alteration as decided as the physical changes in the countryside. No more the heated arguments over the relative merits of two cow horses but instead a less spirited discussion concerning the desirability of Berkshires over Durco-Jerseys. The never-ending controversy as to the superiority of the center-fire as against the three-quarters’ rig had been supplanted by an interchange of advice as to the seeding of crops and the proper care of hogs. Where but a few weeks back the bronc fighters had met to exchange bits of range gossip, housewives now visited back and forth to exchange recipes for making jell.

Conditions had favored late plowing, a fortunate circumstance in view of the late date of the opening, and a part of the settlers had made every effort to seed a certain acreage to winter wheat. Carver had not wasted a day in his endeavor to get a portion of his holdings broken out and in shape to produce the following season. Circumstances had favored him. Cash was a rare commodity among the majority of the homesteaders and in lieu of it they frequently effected an exchange of work. The spirit of coöperation was large. Homesteads must be fenced and materials were expensive. Many could not afford such a drain upon their finances until such time as they could harvest a crop.

Carver had supplied needy neighbors with posts and wire from the great store he had salvaged from the line fences of the old Half Diamond H, requiring of each man in return that he should start at once upon the task of plowing, harrowing and drilling in winter wheat on a certain specified acreage of Carver’s holdings. Most of the settlers had implements of a sort. All had plows, some few possessed drills, and what one man lacked he borrowed from his neighbor, the favor to be later returned in like service or in labor when occasion should offer and so all were enabled to perform the tasks which Carver required of them in return for their fencing. He now had eight hundred acres seeded to winter wheat, planted somewhat later than was customary but with an even chance of making a crop.

The transformation of the unowned lands had been sweeping and complete. One now rode between fences along section lines that would soon became graded highways. Towns were springing up with mushroom suddenness and country schoolhouses were in the course of construction at many points. A picture of rural activity stretched away on all sides, yet through it all a vague whisper of unrest persisted, as if the spirit of the old days refused to be cast off so entirely.

The cowhands who had ridden the Strip continued to ride it. Always there had been a surplus of riders during the winter months and these jobless ones had grub-lined from one ranch to the next, certain of finding a welcome and a meal at any spot where circumstance or fancy led them. They continued to act upon this supposition, sanctioned by long years of custom, and the settlers looked with disfavor upon these rovers who dropped in at their cabins and expected to be fed as a matter of course, deeming them parasites upon the community, drones who were unwilling to work and produce; for the cowhands scornfully refused to milk or follow a plow in return for their board. From the first they had swarmed in upon Carver, overjoyed at finding one man of their own sort among all this clutter of aliens,--one man who understood.

Carver had fed all comers, knowing that while they would neither milk nor plow, they would willingly turn their hands to any task which had been part of their regular duties with a cow outfit in the old range days. They had stretched every foot of his fences. When there was freighting to be done there were always willing volunteers. Some he had sent north to Hinman’s range to bring back the fifty head of horses he had purchased before the opening. The boys had gentled these green colts and taught them the feel of harness. Always there were a dozen grub-liners stopping at the bunk house overnight. Every evening Carver recited the tasks of the following day and the men apportioned these chores among themselves through the medium of freeze-out poker. Carver had never cooked a meal or washed a dish since the day of the run.

He now thrust his head from the back door.

“Ho!” he called. “Roll out!”

There were sounds of instant activity from the bunk house.

Carver tapped on a door in the ranch house.

“Coming, son,” Nate Younger answered. “Be with you right off.”

The original owner of the Half Diamond H had come down to view it under the new conditions. He had found his old room fitted up in much the same fashion as when he had occupied it in the past. A hundred acres of grassland, untouched by the plow, spread out before the house.

“Don’t find things so much changed right in the immediate foreground, do you, Nate?” Carver asked.

“Not much,” said Nate. “Looks pretty much the same. It is real white of you to reserve the old man’s room for him.”

He listened to the drone of voices from the bunk house.

“Must be considerable of a drain on your finances to feed all the grub-liners these days,” he said.

“Somewhat,” Carver admitted. “But I someway can’t gather courage to shut them off. Half of them are still conversing about when work opens up in the spring, same as they’ve always talked in winters. They don’t realize yet that spring work won’t ever open up for their sort again.”

After breakfasting Carver rode up the trail that threaded the low saddle in the ridge back of the house and dropped down to the Lassiters’ claim on the far side of it. Bart, fired by the example of those around him, had worked steadily since the day of the run. Cowhands stopping at Carver’s place had helped Bart fence his claim. With two of Carver’s teams he had broken out a forty-acre piece and seeded it to winter wheat. Through the medium of the nightly poker game in the bunk house of the Half Diamond H he had accumulated enough cash to purchase the materials for the construction of a three-room frame house to supplement the sod hut in which he and Molly had been living since the run. But now his enthusiasm had waned and Carver found him seated on a pile of new lumber, gazing moodily off across the country.

“I’m needing relaxation bad,” Bart greeted. “Why, I wouldn’t be able to find my way around Caldwell, it’s been that long since I’ve been in town. Isn’t it about time you’re getting that hundred head of yearlings off Hinman’s range and bringing them down here?”

“In a few days now,” Carver admitted. “I’ll be starting up after them before long.”

“Why don’t you send me?” Bart suggested.

“With you in charge they might increase too fast on the homeward way,” said Carver.

“I’ll guarantee not to arrive with one extra head over the specified number,” Bart offered. “I’ll go up and get them, just as a sort of favor in return for many a kind deed you’ve done for me.”

“Not you,” Carver declined. “Anyway, you’ve got all your lumber on the ground now and you want to stay on the job until you’ve built the house. I’ll send over a few volunteers from the bunk house squad to help you throw it up.”

“That lumber is too green to work up just yet,” Bart objected. “I’ll rest up in town till the sap quits flowing through those boards and they season up till a man can run a saw through ’em. The birds were singing in those very trees last week.”

It was evident that Bart was bent upon having his vacation under any possible excuse.

“All right--go ahead and relax,” said Carver. “Only don’t be gone too long.”

“I’ll be drifting over to Casa and see how the County Seat ruckus is coming on,” Bart decided. “I’ll report on the latest developments when I come back.”

A thriving town had come into being on the site of the box car which had once borne the name of Casa and which had been sacked and burned. A bank and a frame hotel, two general merchandise establishments, a hardware and implement concern, grocery stores, restaurants, saloons, two livery barns, a drug store, barber shop and pool hall, all glaringly new and mostly unpainted, made up the business district of Casa, which now numbered a population of four hundred souls. Various businesses were conducted in board-floored tents until such time as the proprietors could secure more permanent quarters.

Casa, by virtue of both population and location, had considered herself the logical choice for County Seat. The government appointee charged with such locations had listened and agreed, provided only that a personal bonus of one thousand dollars be tendered him along with the other arguments. Graft was open and flagrant in the early days of the Strip and communities as well as individuals paid the price for official favors. The citizens’ council, a volunteer body of Casa business men, had flatly refused and the locater had thereupon designated Oval Springs, a little camp some miles to the south as the legal center of county government. This move was destined to precipitate one of the bitter and enduring county-seat wars for which the West is famed. Casa was not alone in her troubles, for this was but one of three such controversies at various points in the Strip.

The railroad had backed Casa in the feud from the first. At the time of designation Oval Springs could boast neither a side track nor a station and the railroad had steadfastly refused to halt its trains. The citizens of Oval Springs had hastened to erect a large frame building to serve as a courthouse, a second to serve as county jail, this last edifice complete except for a few exterior touches and a coat of paint. The steel-framed cells were already installed and the jail was open for business. The trains still rolled through and eventually Oval Springs took matters into their own hands and elected to make that point the terminal from both ways by tearing up two hundred yards of track. A stock train had been piled in a gulch, a passenger train derailed. This last had constituted a case of obstructing the delivery of the United States mail and Carl Mattison, appointed deputy marshal in the post from which Freel had resigned, had been sent in with a posse to straighten out the tangle.

Alf Wellman, who had staked his claim adjoining the present town site of Oval Springs, had been appointed sheriff until such time as an election could be held. It was freely stated in Casa that the sheriff and his deputies declined to interfere with the lawless element that sought to destroy railroad property and so force the railroad company to halt its trains. The feud was destined to be bitter and sustained and it was slated that another fifteen years should pass before Casa should come into her own as the permanent seat of county affairs.

Two days after Bart’s departure he rode up to the Half Diamond H at daylight.

“Just dropped by for breakfast and to report on the general situation,” he informed. “I changed my mind after leaving the other day and dropped down to view the new county seat. Quite an alteration in those parts since the night you and me camped there during round-up without a house anywheres in sight. There’s trouble brewing down there in quantities.”

“Then how did you happen to leave?” Carver inquired.

“Last night some unknown parties staged a midnight battle with the marshal’s posse that’s guarding the relaid tracks, during which it’s reported that one of the posse was killed and two others damaged. Under cover of this ruckus some others succeeded in blowing up the bridge just south of town and traffic is once more suspended.”

“And which side were you on?” Carver asked.

“I couldn’t hardly determine,” Bart confessed. “I was maybe just a trifle lit.”

“Being one of our leading lights in that respect,” said Carver, “I expect maybe you were.”

“As near as I can make out, I was on the side of the law,” Bart stated. “Leastways I was in the powder squad that wrecked the bridge and the sheriff headed the party. My participation was accidental. I saw Wellman and another man easing out of town and I trailed them, arriving just as they touched off the charge, so you might say I acted the rôle of the passive spectator. The whole town boiled out and we dispersed among the crowd. I was dead anxious to be lined up with law and order, but with the law on both sides I couldn’t quite make out which one was proper, so I flitted.”

“Any idea who led the fight against Mattison?” Carver asked.

“Not a guess--unless it was Freel,” Bart denied. “He’s Wellman’s head deputy and it might have been him--only I can’t someway picture Freel as indulging in a fracas where other folks will be shooting back at him.”

“There’s quite a bunch of boys in the bunk house,” Carver said. “Right after breakfast I’ll send over a bunch to help you start the house.”

“Right after breakfast I’ll be riding toward Caldwell,” said Bart. “In proportion to the way Oval Springs has growed, I’d judge that Caldwell would be bigger than London by now.”

“Caldwell has about a fourth the population she had three months ago,” Carver informed.

“I’d as leave see a town that’s shrunk as one that has growed,” Bart philosophically decided. “I’m not particular, and I’m bound to find it filled with new interests. Just two days; then I’ll be back.”

In the early evening Carver mounted the cow trail that threaded the low dip in the ridge between his place and Bart’s claim. As he topped it he could see Molly coming up the hill from the cabin. They frequently met here for a brief chat in the evenings.

“You mustn’t mind Bart’s rambling off for a few days,” he said, as the girl joined him. “He’s stayed with it in good shape and it’s only in the last week he’s been restless. He’ll be back on the job in a day or two.”

He allowed his gaze to drift across the broad acreage of plowed ground in the bottoms,--his ground, seeded to winter wheat.

“Eight hundred acres seeded to wheat,” he stated. “All put in by trading around. I’ve got considerable of a farm, but don’t even own one plow of my own--nor a drill. The grub-liners put up my fences and broke all my horses to work. So far I’ve worried along without much of an outlay of cash; not one cent paid out for labor. But I’m in debt somewhat for seed wheat and provisions to feed the bunk house occupants that turn up every night.”

He directed her gaze over the rich bottom land extending for five miles down the valley to a point where the little town of Alvin had come into being.

“The best land in this whole country,” he stated. “Every acre of it will bring from twelve to fifteen dollars the day a man gets his patent. I’ll buy it up piece by piece, a quarter at a time, as fast as any party wants to sell; mortgage a part of it to buy more and turn back every dollar that comes off of it into more land. Some day I’ll own all that lower valley with the Half Diamond H at the head of it so we can look out across it all from the house. I’ll follow the price up till it touches forty and then stop buying. Then there’ll come a day when we can stand there at the old ranch house and know that every acre between it and the flourishing city of Alvin will be worth a hundred dollars flat.”

As he sketched his plans she could vision thousands of acres of ripening grain waving in the bottoms; the huge new barns of the Half Diamond H groaning with hay and forage crops for feeding the hundreds of sleek thoroughbred cattle with which the place was stocked. But all that was a matter of the future and the present was sufficiently amazing in itself.