IN THE VALLEY OF THE KEYA PAHA. THE RIVALS. THE VIGILANTS
Nothing is more essential to the upbuilding of the small western town,
than a good agricultural territory, and this was where Calias found its
first handicap. When it had moved to its new location, scores of
investors had flocked to the town, paying the highest prices that had
ever been paid for lots in a new country town, of its kind, in the
central west.
Twenty-five miles south of the two towns, where a sand stream known as
the Keya Paha wends its way, is a fertile valley. It had been settled
thirty years before by eastern people, who hauled their hogs and drove
their cattle and sheep fifty miles in a southerly direction, to a
railroad. Although the valley could not be surpassed in the production
of corn, wheat, oats, and alfalfa, the highlands on either side are
great mountains of sand, which produce nothing but a long reddish grass,
that stock will not eat after it reaches maturity, and which stands in
bunches, with the sand blown from around its roots, to such an extent
that riding or driving over it is very difficult.
These hills rise to heights until they resemble the Sierras, and near
the top, on the northwest slope of each, are cave-like holes where the
strong winds have blown a squeegee.
The wagon road to the railway on the south was sandy and made traveling
over it slow and hazardous by the many pits and dunes. Therefore, it is
to be seen, when the C. & R.W. pushed its line through Megory County,
everything that had been going to the road on the south began
immediately to come to the road on the north--where good hard roads made
the traveling much easier, and furthermore, it was only half the
distance.
Keya Paha County was about as lonely a place as I had ever seen. After
the sun went down, the coyotes from the adjacent sand hills, in a series
of mournful howls, filled the air with a noise which echoed and
re-echoed throughout the valley, like the music of so many far-away
steam calliopes and filled me with a cold, creepy feeling. For thirty
years these people had heard no other sound save the same monotonous
howls and saw only each other. The men went to Omaha occasionally with
cattle, but the women and children knew little else but Keya Paha
County.
During a trip into this valley the first winter I spent on the
homestead, in quest of seed wheat, I met and talked with families who
had children, in some instances twenty years of age, who had never seen
a colored man. Sometimes the little tads would run from me, screaming as
though they had met a lion or some other wild beast of the forest. At
one place where I stopped over night, a little girl about nine years of
age, looked at me with so much curiosity that I became amused, finally
coaxing her onto my knee. She continued to look hard at me, then meekly
reached up and touched my chin, looked into my eyes, and said: "Why
don't you wash your face?" When supper was ready went to the sink and
washed my face and hands; she watched me closely in the meanwhile, and
when I was through, appeared to be vexed and with an expression as if to
say: "He has cleaned it thoroughly, but it is dirty still."
About twenty years previous to this time, or about ten years after
settlement in this valley, the pioneers were continually robbed of much
of their young stock. Thieving outlaws kept up a continuous raid on the
young cattle and colts, driving them onto the reservation, where they
disappeared. This continued for years, and it was said many of the
county officials encouraged it, in a way, by delaying a trial, and
inasmuch as the law and its procedure was very inadequate, on account of
the county's remote location, the criminals were rarely punished.
After submitting to such until all reasonable patience had been
exhausted, the settlers formed "a vigilant committee," and meted out
punishment to the evil doers, who had become over-bold and were well
known. After hanging a few, as well as whipping many, the vigilanters
ridded the county of rustlers, and lived in peace thereafter.
At the time the railroad was built to Megory there was little activity
other than the common routine attending their existence. But with Megory
twenty-five miles to the north, and many of her former active and
prosperous citizens living there; and while board walks and "shack"
buildings still represented the Main Street, Megory was considered by
the people of the valley very much of a city, and a great place to pay a
visit. Many had never seen or ridden on a railroad train, so Megory
sounded in Keya Paha County as Chicago does to the down state people
of Illinois.
[Illustration: Made a declaration that he would build a town. (page
122.)]
The people of Keya Paha County had grown prosperous, however, and the
stock shipments comprised many train loads, during an active market.
Practically all this was coming to Megory when Calias began to loom
prominent as a model little city.
I could see two distinct classes, or personages, in the leaders of the
two towns. Beginning with Ernest Nicholson, the head of the firm of
Nicholson Brothers and called by Megoryites "chief," "high mogul," the
"big it" and "I am," in absolute control of Calias affairs; and the
former Keya Paha County sand rats--as they are sometimes called--running
Megory. The two contesting parties presented a contrast which interested
me.
The Nicholson Brothers were all college-bred boys, with a higher
conception of things in general; were modern, free and up-to-date. While
Megory's leaders were as modern as could be expected, but were simply
outclassed in the style and perfection that the Calias bunch presented.
Besides, the merchants and business men--in the "stock yards west of
Megory," as Calias was cartooned by a Megory editor, were much of the
same ilk. And referring to the cartoon, it pictured the editor of the
Calias News as a braying jackass in a stock pen, which brought a great
laugh from Megoryites, but who got it back, however, the next week by
being pictured as a stagnant pond, with two Megory editors as a couple
of big bull-frogs. This had the effect of causing the town to begin
grading the streets, putting in cement walks and gutters, for Megory
had located in the beginning in an extremely bad place. The town was
located in a low place, full of alkali spots, buffalo wallows underlaid
with hardpan, which caused the surface to hold water to such an extent,
that, when rain continued to fall any length of time, the cellars and
streets stood in water.
But Megory had the start, with the largest and best territory, which had
by this time been developed into improved farms; the real farmer was
fast replacing the homesteader. It had the biggest and best banks.
Regardless of all the efficiency of Calias, it appeared weak in its
banking. Now a farmer could go to Nicholson Brothers, and get the
largest farm loan because the boys' father was president of an insurance
company that made the loan, but the banks there were short in the supply
of time loans on stock security, but Calias' greatest disadvantage was,
that directly west in Tipp County the Indians had taken their allotments
within seven or eight miles of the town, and there was hardly a quarter
section to be homesteaded.
Now there was no doubt but that in the course of time the Indian
allotments would be bought, whenever the government felt disposed to
grant the Indian a patent; which under the laws is not supposed to be
issued until the expiration of twenty-five years. People, however, would
probably lease the land, break it up and farm it; but that would not
occur until some future date, and Calias needed it at the present time.
A western town, in most instances, gets its boom in the beginning, for
later a dry rot seems an inevitable condition, and is likely to
overtake it after the first excitement wears away. Resurrection is rare.
These were the conditions that faced the town on the Little Crow, at the
beginning of the third year of settlement.