THE DAY OF FENCES
While waiting for Lahoma's letter, Wilfred Compton spent his days in
ceaseless activity, his evenings in dreamy musings. Over on the North
Fork of Red River--which was still regarded as Red River proper, and
therefore the dividing line between Texas and Indian Territory--he
renewed his acquaintance with the boys of Old Man Walker's ranch.
Henry Woodson, the cow-puncher, still known as Mizzoo was one of the
old gang who greeted Wilfred with extravagant joy which shaded away to
easy and picturesque melancholy in lamenting the passing of the good
old days.
"These is the days of fences," complained Mizzoo, as Wilfred, in answer
to his invitation, rode forth with him to view the changes. "Time was,
our cattle was bounded on the south by nothing but the south wind, and
on the north by nothing but the north wind; but these unmitigated
settlers has spiled the cattle business. I'm looking for the old man
to sell out and quit. Why, look at all the little towns that has
sprung up so confusing and handy that you don't know which to choose to
liquor up. They comes like a thief in the night, and in the morning
they're equipped to rob you. I can't keep no change by me--I've asked
the old man to hold back my wages till the end of the year. But I'm
calculating to make something out of these very misfortunes. You know
I always was sort of thrifty--yes, as they GOT to be a settled county
round us, it'll needs call for a sheriff, and if all signs don't fail,
I'll get the job this week. Then there'll be no more riding of the
line for old Mizzoo."
Wilfred rode with him to Mangum, and other villages, with names and
without, and he tingled to the spirit of the bounding West. There
might be only a few dugouts, some dingy tents and a building or so of
undressed pine, but each hamlet felt in itself the possibilities of a
city, and had its spaces in the glaring sands or the dead sagebrush
which it called "the Square" and "Main Street" and possibly "the park."
The air quivered with expectations of a railroad, maybe two or three,
and each cluster of hovels expected to find itself in a short time
constituted the county-seat, with a gleaming steel road at its back
door.
This spirit of optimism was but a reflection of the miraculous growth
of the new country of which Greer County, though owned by Texas, felt
itself, in a sense, an integral part. Eight years before, Indian
Territory was the hunting-ground of the Indian, and whosoever attempted
to settle within its limits was driven forth by the soldiers. It was
then a land of dim twilight, full of mystery and wildness, with vast
stretches of thirsty plains and bleak mountains around which the
storms, unbroken by forests, shrieked in the "straight winds" of many
days, or whined the threat of the deadly tornado. And suddenly it
became a land of high noon, garish and crude, but wide-awake and
striving with all the tireless energy of young blood.
Scarcely had the Oklahoma country been taken possession of before the
settlers began agitating the question of an organized territory, and
too impatient to wait for Congress to act, held their own convention at
Guthrie and divided the land into counties. Congress made them wait
five months--an age in the new country--before approving the Organic
Act. The district, which a short time before had been the Unassigned
Lands, became the counties of Logan, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian,
Kingfisher and Payne. To these was added Beaver County which in Brick
Willock's day had been called "No-Man's Land," and which the
law-abiding citizens, uniting against bandits and highwaymen, had
sought to organize as Cimmaron Territory.
Then came the rivalry between Guthrie and Oklahoma City for the
capital, adding picturesqueness to territorial history, and offering
incitement to many a small village to make itself the county-seat of
its county. The growth of the new country advanced by leaps and
bounds. In 1891, the 868,414 acres of the surplus lands of the Iowa,
Sac, Fox and the Pottawatomie-Shawnee reservations formed the new
counties of Lincoln and Pottawatomie and increased the extent of some
of the old ones. The next year, 3,500,562 acres belonging to the
Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were taken to increase several of the
older counties, and to from the new ones of honest old American
names--Blame, Custer, Washita, Dewey, Roger Mills, Beckham and Ellis.
In the year following, the Cherokee strip was opened for a settlement
together with the surplus lands of the Pawnee and Tonhawa--5,698,140
acres; besides increasing other counties, this land furnished forth the
new counties of Alfalfa, Garfield, Grant, Harper, Major, Woods,
Woodward, Pawnee, Kay and Noble. At the time of Wilfred's visit to
Brick Willock, the winter of 1894-5, the opening of the Kickapoo
reservation was already a near certainty; while the vast extent of
Greer County itself, so long in dispute between Texas and the United
States, would in all likelihood be added to the swelling territory of
Oklahoma.
The territory, so young but so dauntless, was already agitating the
question of statehood--not only so, but of single statehood, meaning
thereby the prospective engulfment and assimilation of Indian
Territory, that all the land from Texas to Kansas, Missouri and
Arkansas might be called by the one name--Oklahoma; a name to stand
forever as a symbol of the marvelously swift and permanent growth of a
white people, in spite of its Choctaw significance--"Red People."
Although Wilfred had stayed close to his farm, near Oklahoma City, he
had kept alive to the rush and swing of the western life; and now that
he had leisure to ride with Mizzoo among the bustling camps, and view
the giant strides made from day to day by the smallest towns, he was
more than ever filled with the exultation of one who takes part in
world-movements. He began to view the hurrying crowds that overran the
sidewalks, with a sense of close kinship--these people came from all
points of the Union, but they were his people. A year ago, six months
ago, they might have been New Yorkers, Californians, Oregonians, but
now all were westerners like himself, and though they believed
themselves Texans the name made as little difference as that between
"Red River" and "Prairie Dog Fork"--in spirit, they were Oklahomans.
If Wilfred had not been a simple visitor, he would have had no time for
thought; but now he could look on the life of which he had for a few
years been a part, and study it as related to the future. It was as if
his boyhood and youth had not been passed in Chicago--the West had
blotted out the past as it ever does with relentless hand,--and every
thought-channel led toward the light of the future. Lahoma's letter had
revived the picture of other days, of another existence, without
rousing one wish to return.
The only desire it had stirred in his breast was that of seeing Lahoma
again, of taking her by the hand to lead her, not back to the old
civilization, but to the new. As he lay awake at night in the log
cabin that had been Lahoma's, his brain for a long time every night was
busy with thoughts of that new civilization, and he was stirred with
ambition to take part, so that when single statehood or double
statehood was achieved, he would be a recognized factor in its
transformation from a loosely-bound territory.
He began to think, too, of moving his residence to Oklahoma City, where
he would be closer to men of affairs--great men of great enterprises.
His farm, of course, would be managed under his superintendence--unless
Oklahoma City should be generous enough to spread out and surround it,
and lap it up, town-lot after town-lot, till not a red clod was
left.... And if a girl like Lahoma--for surely she had not
changed!--if she, little Lahoma.... And the longing grew on him to see
Annabel Sellimer and Lahoma together, that he might study the girl he
had once loved with the girl he might love tomorrow. He almost made up
his mind to take a brief trip to Chicago, on quitting the cove; perhaps
there would be something in Lahoma's next letter to force a decision.
Two weeks passed, but Wilfred did not consider the time lost; there
were letters almost daily, by coach, from Lahoma, telling of her
adventures in the great world--the house-party had been delayed on
account of Mrs. Sellimer's illness, but was to take place
immediately--so said the last letter before the arrival of the news
that changed the course of events at the cove. As yet, Lahoma had not
met Mr. Gledware, but the fame of his riches and his luxurious home had
both increased her curiosity to see him, and her conviction that Mr.
Edgerton Compton stood no chance with Annabel. She had discovered,
too, that Edgerton Compton was a brother of the Wilfred Compton who had
visited them one day in the cove--Wilfred read the letter with great
attention, but there was no further reference to himself.
Brick Willock rode over to Mangum nearly every afternoon to hear from
Lahoma, but it happened that on the day of the great news, neither he
nor Bill had returned from a certain hunting expedition in time for the
stage, so Wilfred went for the mail. There was only one letter,
addressed to "Mr. B. Willock," and it seemed strangely thin. The young
man wondered during all his ten-mile return-trip if Lahoma had fallen
ill; and after reaching the log cabin, he kept looking at the slim
missive, and turning it over, with vague uneasiness.
Brick and Bill had ridden far, and it was dusk before they reached home
with a deer slung over one of the horses.
"They're getting scarcer every year," complained Bill, as he climbed
stiffly to the ground; "I guess they'll finally go the way of the
buffalo."
"Get a letter?" asked Brick, hurrying forward. "Huh! THAT it? She is
sure getting fashionable! I reckon when she's plumb civilized, she
won't write nothing!"
He took the long white envelope and squinted at it inquisitively.
"Well, why don't you open 'er?" snapped Bill. "Afraid you'll spring a
trap and get caught?"
"Ain't much here," replied Brick slowly, "and I'm making it last."
"Huh! Nothing is a-lasting when it hasn't been begun," retorted Bill
crossly. "See what the little girl says."
"I'm afraid she's sick," observed Wilfred, eying the envelope with
something like Bill's irritable impatience.
Brick tore it open, and found within another envelope, the inner one of
yellow. "It's a telegraph," he said uneasily. "Lahoma had telegraphed
to the end of the wire, and at Chickasha they puts it in the white
wrapper and sends it on. Do you see?"
"I don't see anything yet," snapped Bill. "Rip 'er open!"
Brick looked at Bill Atkins. "Better set down, Bill," he remarked. "If
they's any kind of shock in this, YOU ain't got no nerve to stand it."
He broke open the yellow envelope and stared at the message. As he did
so, the hand clutching the telegram hardened to a giant fist, while his
brow wrinkled, and his eyes grew dark and menacing. Wilfred was
reminded of the sinister expression displayed at the first mention by
Lahoma of Gledware's name, and he experienced once more that surprised
feeling of not being nearly so well acquainted with him as he had
supposed.
After a dead silence, Willock handed the telegram to Bill, who wrinkled
his brow over it a minute or two before handing it to Wilfred. The
young man read it hastily, then turned to Bill. His face wore a
decidedly puzzled look.
"I don't understand," he said.
"Neither do I," returned Bill rather blankly. "I guess if there is to
be any setting down, it's Brick that needs a chair."
The telegram was as follows:
"The second you get this, hide for your life. Red Kimball says he can
prove everything. Will explain in letter.
"Lahoma."
"Don't say nothing to me for a spell," growled Brick, thrusting his
hands deep into his pockets. "I've got to think mighty quick." He
strode toward the dugout, leaving Wilfred and Bill staring at each
other, speechless.
In a short time, Willock reappeared, bringing from the dugout his
favorite gun. "Come along," he bade them briefly. When he had
ascended the rounded swell of Turtle Hill, he stretched himself between
two wide flat rocks and lay with his face and gun directed toward the
opening of the cove.
"Now, Bill," he said sharply, "if you will just set facing me with your
eye on the north wall, so you can tell if anybody tries to sneak over
the mountain-top, I'll make matters clear. Wilfred, you can go or
stay, free as air, only IF you stay, I can't promise but you may see a
man killed--me, or Red Kimball, I don't know which, though naturally I
has my preference," he added, his harsh voice suddenly changing to the
accent of comradeship. "As to Bill, he ain't got no choice. He come
and put up with me and Lahoma when nobody didn't want him, and now, in
time of danger, I 'low to get all the help out of him that's there in
spite of a begrudging disposition and the ravages of time."
"What I want to know is this," Bill interrupted: "Who and what is this
Red Kimball? And if you have to hide from him, why ain't you doing it?"
"I puts it this way, Bill: that the telegram traveled faster than old
Red could, so no need to hide till tonight, though when you deals with
Red, it behooves you to have your gun ready against chances. You want
to know about Red Kimball? But I think I'd best wait till Lahoma's
letter comes, so my story can tally with hers. I got my reasons for not
wanting to tell all about Red Kimball which I reckon he wouldn't be
grateful for, but that's for him to say. So I 'lows to tell only as
much as I has to tell, that depending on what Lahoma has picked up,
according."
"I suppose you've met him face to face?" growled Bill.
"They don't seem to be no harm in that question, Bill, but you never
knows where a first question is leading you. If I refuses to answer
what seems fair and square, no suspicions is roused when I refuses to
answer what might sound dark and shady. So I banks myself against my
general resolution to say nothing beyond Lahoma's word."
"Her word says he can prove everything. What is 'everything'?"
"That's what we'll learn from her letter. We'll just watch him do his
proving!"
"And her word says to hide this minute."
"I don't do my hiding in daylight, but when it's good and dark, I'm
going to put out. I would tell you the hiding-place, for I trusts you
both--but if you knowed where it was, and if officers of the law come
to you for information, you'd be in a box; I know you wouldn't give me
up, but neither would you swear to a lie. Not knowing where I hides,
your consciences are as free as mine that hasn't never been bridled."
Wilfred asked, "But when Lahoma writes, how will you get her letter?"
"You or Bill will go for the mail. If a letter comes, you'll take it
to that crevice into which Miss Sellimer was drug by that big Injun,
and you'll wait in there till I comes, not opening that letter till I
am with you. We'll read it together, down in the hollow where poor
Miss Sellimer's life was saved by Lahoma; then you two will go back to
the cove, and leave me to sneak away to my hiding-place which may be
near and may be far. When you get a letter, bring your ladder and the
lantern, and be sure nobody is watching you--because if you let Red
Kimball or any of his gang follow you to that hiding-place, you'd have
to see a man killed--and such as that ain't no sight for eyes as
civilized as Wilfred's, or as old as Bill's."