The Boom
With the definite assurance of Blazing Star being entered, every man in
Fort Ryan focussed his thoughts on how he might best turn the race to
account, wipe out the damage of the last defeat, and recoup his loss
with a double profit. They were very sorry for themselves, most of these
losers; especially sorry that they, who could really enjoy money and who
had actual need of so much, should lose their all to a lot of Indians
who neither sought nor cared for cash and whose only pleasure in the
race was the gambling spirit, the excitement of the game. This time the
whites were going to leave no stone unturned to make a "killing." Every
plan was discussed, and there were not lacking those who called Shives
by ugly names--behind his back--for not seizing on the chance, when it
was so easily in his hands, to put the Indian racer under shadow of a
sure defeat. But they made no such speeches when the Colonel was in
hearing.
Yet, after all, what did it matter? They had the ace in their hands now.
There was no horse on the plains could run with Blazing Star; and,
training with him, in the best of care, was the Red Rover, only a little
less swift than the Star, now that careful methods had brought him his
full-grown strength and speed. Microscopic studies were made of every
fact that seemed to furnish a gauge of the horses' powers, and this was
clear: Blazing Star was easily first; Red Rover would make a good
second; and the buckskin cayuse could not possibly do so well as the Red
Rover under the new training and lighter leather gear. Of course, the
horse was not to be named until the day and hour of the race, but it was
quite certain that the Indians would enter the Buckskin. Vague reports
there were of a wonderful pinto that the Red men had somewhere in
training; but the Crow spies could furnish no corroboration of the
report; and, in any case, the shoeing of the Buckskin was a guarantee
that the Indians meant to enter him.
From all of which there was but one logical conclusion. So the message
went forth through the length and breadth of Dakota, "Come on, we've got
a dead-sure thing. Come on, and bring all you can raise or borrow." It
is wonderful, the faith of the racetrack gamblers in a tip! Their belief
in the "hunch" is blind and absolute; hope never dies on the racetrack,
even though, once in a while, it goes into a very deathlike swoon.
Not merely Dakota responded to the chances of the coming race, but
Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, yes, even Illinois. And Cedar
Mountain post office began to have hopes of stepping up to a higher
round on the official scale, as the mail matter, registered and special,
poured in. Letters postmarked "Deadwood" came by the score; others from
Minneapolis and St. Paul were abundant; while, of course, there was the
usual grist from Custer City, Bismarck, Pierre, Sidney, Cheyenne, and
Denver. John and Hannah Higginbotham could not, owing to John's position
as Church deacon, take an active part in the gambling; but they invented
a scheme of insurance on a 50 per cent. premium basis which was within
the Church law, though, when translated into terms of the track, it was
merely a two-to-one bet on the field.
The autumn race had played havoc with so many savings funds and so much
actual cash in business that a great number of those badly hit had vowed
that they would never again go in; and they clung to their new resolve
through May and most of June. But, as the training went on and the talk
went around, and other men went in--all the wise ones, horse-wise,
talk-wise, and otherwise--the subtle fascination grew and, a month
before the race, the same old madness glamoured every mind; the same old
guiding star--so often proved a spook-fire, but this time surely a
star--was leading, hypnotizing, shining just ahead. The racing men once
obsessed, the world of half-way interest followed even faster, till near
the end of June, except for a few immune from principle or poverty, the
whole community of South and West Dakota had but one talk--the race, and
what they risked or hoped to make on it.
One must remember that the West has always been the land of boom. It is
filled with the energetic and enterprising who, by a natural process,
are selected from the peoples of the East; and the stuff such booms feed
on, grow on, and grow mighty on as they feed, is Hope. Every Westerner
knows that the land is full of possibility, opportunity--free, equal
opportunity multiplied; and he hopes that his name will be the next one
called by fortune. To respond to the call at whatever cost--to be ready
to respond--that is the condition of life worth while. A dozen bad
defeats are passing trifles if the glad call only comes and one fail not
to rise to it. So it is ever easy in a land of such undaunted souls to
start a boom. Hope never dies in the West.
Reader, I have ridden the Plains and seen many a settler living with his
family in one small, dirty room, constructed out of sods with a black
dirt roof, and dirt and dust on everything, on every side. I have seen
them with little food, pinched and sick and struggling with poverty and
famine. I have seen them in every dreadful circumstance of want and
wasting pain that could be named in the sum of horrors of the vilest
Eastern slum: and yet they made no bid for sympathy or help, or for a
moment lost their pride; for one great fundamental difference there was
between them and the slummers of the East: the prairie pioneer is
_filled with hope_! Hope gleams in his eye; he lives in a land of hope;
he was lured to the West by the blazing star of bright new Hope; just on
a little way it shines for him; and every sod upturned and every
posthole sunk, or seed put in, is turned or sunk or sown in the light of
strong, unfading hope. Just a little while, a few short months, maybe,
and he believes, he _knows_ his name will be the next one called.
O land of hope, land of the shining four-rayed star, long, long may you
remain the world's great vale of youth, where none grow old at heart or
pray for death, for none can ever wholly lose their glimpse of that
beckoning hope. The fountain of eternal youth springs up and gushes
'neath no other light.
O star of Hope! O blessed Lodestar of the soul! Long, long, yes, ages
long may you be there, swung in the sky for all the world to see and
know that while they live and _will_, there gleams a God-lit beacon in
the West, the light of the land of hope.