A stray steer moved out of a coulee and bawled lustily for company. The
animal traveled at a fast walk, occasionally breaking into an awkward
trot but halting frequently to loose a plaintive bawl.
“He’s lonesome, that old fellow,” Carver surmised. “And hunting hard
for company.”
As he watched the animal he speculated idly as to the probable number
of stray steers scattered throughout the Strip. Always there was a
certain small percentage overlooked in the round-up, those feeding
in choppy timbered breaks or bedded in scrub-oak tangles and missed
by the circle riders who covered such stretches. These missing ones
were caught in subsequent roundups, so it mattered little. But on this
occasion they could be charged off, Carver reflected, for there would
be no future round-up. The owners could not afford to outfit parties
to cover such a great stretch of country for what few were left, yet
Carver estimated that there would be well over a hundred steers still
ranging the rougher parts of the twelve thousand square miles of the
unowned lands. He pulled up his horse and looked back at the bawling
steer, then drew forth his silver dollar and addressed it.
“An idea just hit me,” he asserted. “You and I don’t believe in taking
chances. Conservative, slow and safe, like Hinman said; that’s us every
time. But we’re going to make one more little investment in tumbleweeds
before we settle down.”
A few hours later he went into conference with Nate Younger.
“If you’ll get most of the brand owners that operated in the western
half of the Strip to sign an agreement whereby I get half the market
price of any of their stray steers I bring into Caldwell I’ll outfit a
combing party and go in after them,” Carver offered.
“They’d sign up quick enough,” Younger stated. “Jump at the chance
in fact. But if the owners themselves figure they can’t prorate the
expense of a trip like that and come out ahead, how does it come you
see a profit in footing all the expense for only half the proceeds?”
“Just a whim of mine,” Carver answered.
“Another point you’re overlooking is the nature of a steer,” Younger
protested. “Once he gets lonesome he’ll bawl and travel and attach
himself to the first trail herd that drifts through. Did you ever
consider that little kink in the make-up of a steer?”
“It was through studying over that very point that I acquired the
notion,” Carver said.
“Oh,” said Younger. “Yes, I see. All right, son, I’ll sign them up.”
“There’s the trail bosses of forty different Texas brands in town,”
Carver continued. “And there’s a dozen or so I’d like to sign up on the
same basis. I’ll go out and interview them while you fix up the others.”
“But you won’t find any Texas strays in this end of the Strip,” Younger
predicted. “A trail boss isn’t so much averse to letting an off-brand
join his herd, but he’s dead set against letting one of his own steers
desert it.”
Carver knew that this rule was true. Trailherds, traveling as they
did through cattle-populated ranges, experienced a certain accretion
of numbers through the joining of curious or lonesome cows and it was
no infrequent thing for a drove to reach the shipping point a number
of head stronger than on the start. The foremen of trail crews were
supposed to use every effort to avoid such accretions and to work
their herds at intervals and throw out any off-brands. Many, in order
to save time and trouble, waited until reaching the quarantine belt
before cutting their herds. The brand owners grazing in the unowned
lands had formed the Cherokee Strip Cattlemen’s Association, and this
organization maintained brand inspectors at the Caldwell stockyards
to guard against the possibility of any of its members’ cows being
inadvertently shipped with droves that had been trail-herded through
their ranges.
“No, the trail herds don’t usually drop many of their own steers en
route,” Carver agreed. “It’s more apt to be reversed. But the rule
holds good in Texas as well as in the Strip, so I’ll go out and sign
up a dozen or so of them, even if the paper proves to be only a futile
sort of a document in the end.”
Some three weeks thereafter Carver rode with Bart Lassiter up a
scrub-oak side hill. A little camp nestled in the draw below them where
two other men rode herd on a dozen head of steers.
“It appears to me like you’d staked a losing venture,” Bart asserted,
“with three riders and a cook on your payroll and only a dozen steers
in camp. We’ve covered this whole neighborhood thorough and yet you
stay round. Why don’t we move to some more likely piece of country, say
toward the head of the Cimarron?”
“But it’s so much simpler to let all those strays have time to come
down here and join us than by our rushing things and trying to ride
that whole big country in search of them ourselves,” said Carver.
They topped the ridge and Carver pulled up his horse behind a scrub-oak
thicket. A trail herd streamed down the far slope of the valley and was
halted in a meadow that opened out in the timbered bottoms of Turkey
Creek two miles above Crowfoot’s ranch, the one place in the Strip
not yet deserted. Crowfoot, having beef contracts to fill, had been
permitted to retain a number of steers on the Turkey Creek range with
the understanding that the last of the animals was to be slaughtered
and the place vacated thirty days prior to the date scheduled for the
entry of the Unowned Lands.
“Just consider the amount of territory that herd has covered,” Carver
commented.
Bart recognized the herd as that of X I L with his two half-brothers in
charge, and, as Carver had remarked, the drive had covered considerable
territory. It suddenly occurred to Bart that the trail bosses whose
signatures Carver had obtained were those representing Texas brands
ranging south of the Washita or between that stream and the Canadian,
the country through which the herd had passed. After entering the Strip
it was not Milt’s custom to follow the regular trail-herd routes
but instead he drifted his charges slowly down the North Fork of the
Canadian, then across to the Cimarron and down that stream.
“I expect strays have been joining them all along the line,” Carver
observed. “Now if they’d just happen to work the herd right here on
Turkey Creek instead of waiting till they reach quarantine it would be
right handy for us.”
Bart turned and regarded him, the main purpose of Carver’s venture now
quite clear to him. Milt would cut his herd here on Turkey Creek and
Crowfoot, having still time for one last turn in inexpensive beef,
would present him with ten dollars for every off-brand thrown out of
the herd. Bronson, the owner of the X I L and whose trail herd was the
medium for this traffic, probably received a like sum from Crowfoot.
“It’s been a nice safe occupation for a trail boss,” Bart said.
“He’s privileged to work his herd at any point he elects. It’s even
considered the honorable thing to do if he’s willing to take the time.
If by any chance some outside party gathers in the off-brands he’s
throwed out of the herd, it’s no fault of his.”
“That’s why I’d decided to gather in those off-brands myself,” said
Carver. “See how simple it is?”
“Oh, quite!” said Bart. “And also if I ride down with you on that
errand it will create a rift in my family tree.”
“You once remarked to me that your family relations had been strained
before now but that the breach had later healed,” said Carver. “This
will likely leave a permanent scar, but I’ll pay you three dollars a
head for all the off-brands we collect down there.”
“I value the esteem of Milt and Noll but I’m needing the money bad,”
said Bart. “Let’s you and me ride down.”
“Not right this minute,” Carver dissented. “Let them finish working the
herd. Then all we’ll have to do is to drive off our meat.”
“Or it’s just possible that we’ve mapped out quite a chore for
ourselves,” said Bart. “Milt is in charge down there. He’s easy to get
along with, mostly, but deadly as hell when he ain’t. I’m wondering how
he’ll take it.”
“Being a person of fair average brains, and not a haphazard homicide
like Noll, he’ll take it easy,” Carver said. “I’m armed with a permit
from the military authorities to conduct my work in any part of the
unowned lands. I represent half the brands that ranged in the Strip and
hold a like authority from the trail bosses of a dozen Texas outfits.”
He pointed to the work in progress in the bottoms. Riders were
stationed at intervals round the herd to hold it. Others entered and
singled out off-brands and once a trained cow-horse had spotted the
animal wanted by his rider, he followed doggedly, never losing his
prey, and when near the edge of the herd he crowded it out with a
sudden swift rush.
“They’re throwing them off up the bottoms,” Carver said. “In a few
hours we’ll get Bradshaw and saunter down. After chatting with them
for a spell we’ll mention that we’ve been sent in by the Cattlemen’s
Association. Their hands are tied.”
This assumption proved correct and Milt Lassiter, silent as always,
failed even to comment upon the matter when, some hours later, the
three men casually made known their errand and rode off up the bottoms
in search of strays. Three days later Carver reached the stockyards
with a hundred and twelve head of steers that wore brands of owners
whom he represented. The majority of these bore the insignia of Texas
outfits but there were some forty steers wearing the mark of Strip
owners, strays which had been run into the herd on its way down the
Cimarron. He was cleared and given immediate shipping facilities, for
the congestion of cows in the quarantine belt had passed, only to be
replaced by an even greater congestion of packed humanity just outside.
Thirty thousand souls had come to swell the transient population of
Caldwell. A like number were camped along the line and Caldwell drew
their trade. Day by day the jam increased. Incoming trains were packed
and roads converging upon the town were filled with a solid procession
of vehicles which bore families of hopeful home seekers toward the
edge of the unowned lands. Caldwell, three months since a little cow
town of but two thousand souls, was now doing business on the basis of
a hundred thousand population. Property prices doubled overnight and
still the swarm increased at the rate of a thousand a day.
And beyond, across the dead line which held the mob back from its goal,
the cause of all this rush and turmoil basked in peaceful serenity,
twelve thousand square miles of it, untenanted by a single soul. The
soldiers rode the line on all four sides of it to hold the over-anxious
back; on the west there were troopers stationed at intervals of a mile
the length of the Cherokee-Texas border, and on the south along the
Oklahoma line. To the east the Arkansas River, separating the Strip
from old Indian Territory, was similarly patrolled; yet with all these
precautions there were scores of sooners who had slipped through and
secreted themselves inside. On the appointed day they would come forth
from their retreat and drive their flag on some choice claim as the
horde rushed in.
Late summer droughts had claimed the country and the range was parched
and brown. Registration booths were erected along the line in the
glaring heat and as the day of entry approached there were long strings
of men, some extending for upwards of half a mile, lined up to await
their turn for registration. They camped in the line, sleeping where
they had been standing when night shut down and the registration booths
were closed, some reposing on bare ground, others in campbeds which
they rolled and utilized as seats throughout the day, dragging them
along as the line progressed. Wives and daughters carried meals to
their menfolk and vendors plied the line to peddle food and drink.
Every conceivable variety of business had opened up in Caldwell to
cater to the ever-increasing throngs. It was the wildest of all
frontier booms. Carver’s profit in stray steers had netted him
something over eighteen hundred dollars. He disposed of his business
building at a net profit of fifty-six hundred and sold out his three
lots and little house on the outskirts of town for an even thousand.
After clearing his indebtedness on calves, horses and equipment he
had something over sixty-three hundred left. He then entered into
consultation with Younger and Joe Hinman.
“How much would you figure the best of the bottom land in the Strip
will bring when it’s proved up?” he asked.
“Not much over eight or ten dollars at the first, maybe twelve an acre
for the best of it,” Hinman estimated.
“But if I live a long life I’ll see every foot of it touch fifty,” said
Carver. “Don’t you think?”
“And if you live a while longer than that you’ll see it top a hundred,”
Hinman stated. “It’ll take some time but it will get there. I’ve seen
it repeated before now as a country settles up.”
“I’ve made my last bet on tumbleweeds,” said Carver. “And I’d as soon
start my pumpkin patch down there as anywheres. It would be right nice
to have something over a thousand acres of good land down on Cabin
Creek, the old site of the Half Diamond H.”
“It would,” said Younger. “Only it can’t be done. A man can only file
on a quarter section and he has to live there to prove up. Even if you
could buy his relinquishment you couldn’t live on but one place at
once.”
“Last year when I went up to Kansas City in charge of a train-load
of your steers a banker showed me a collection of scrip he’d made,”
said Carver. “It was Civil War Scrip, issued to veterans in lieu of
pensions, or maybe on top of pensions, I don’t know which. Anyway, it
entitles the holder to lay that paper on any tract of government land
and get a patent to it without having to live there and prove up. A
number used it on small plots left open round where they lived and sold
off the fractions left over for whatever they could get. On and off in
the last ten years this banker has accumulated such fractions to the
amount of seventeen hundred acres. He intimated that he’d let them go
for the price of the raw land. If he’ll sell for three dollars an acre
he’s found a customer.”
“But the Strip won’t be opened for entry till a certain hour,” Hinman
objected. “And right then there’ll be three men for every claim turned
loose across the line at once.”
“There’s thousands making the run that don’t consider proving up,” said
Carver. “They’ll relinquish for whatever they can get. I can furnish
them with scrip to get their patent and they can deed it right back to
me.”
Carver returned a week later, owner of scrip to the extent of nearly
two thousand acres. As he stepped from the train he noted Bart and Noll
Lassiter conversing, Bart grinning as usual while Noll’s face expressed
black wrath.
“Noll is a trifle upset over our turn in off-brand steers,” Bart told
Carver as he joined him. “He considers me a traitor and is deciding
which of twenty different methods will be the most painful way to
kill me. Says he’s no brother of mine, which it’s a relief for me to
discover the fact, since I’ve always wished he wasn’t. He seemed real
irate.”
They turned to view a murky haze off to the south, a haze that changed
to dense billowing black smoke as a hungry blaze licked across the
parched prairies. Some thought the soldiers had fired the grass to
drive out the sooners that skulked in hiding in the Strip. Others
averred that the cowmen, remembering that time when the boomers had
fired the range, had waited till this time to retaliate, a few days
before the settlers were to take over their old domain. Whatever its
source, the fact remained that in the space of two days there were
hundreds of square miles of the unowned lands transformed into a black
and devastated waste.