beginning to say. I went to Presho and the small towns near by, and,
somewhat to my own surprise, succeeded in getting more advertising for
_The Wand_. But it wasn't enough.
One night I came home, determined that something must be done. The whole
arrangement seemed to me unfair to Ida Mary. "Sister," I said, "I'm
going to give up the claim."
She quietly put down her book, open so as not to lose the page, and
waited for me to go on.
"I told Mr. West today that we would sell. I am going to pay off the
mortgage on your homestead, clean up the other debts, and--"
"And then what?"
"I don't know."
"Don't give up your land, Edith. Something will happen. Something
always happens." She went back to her book.
Something did happen. The Rosebud Opening. I was to cover it for a
western newspaper syndicate, and this time I had the inside track. Being
familiar with the field and with the government lottery operations, I
would be able to get my stories out while other reporters were finding
out what it was all about.
Remembering the money I had made with the little verses printed on a
postcard at the Brulé Opening, I prepared another on the Rosebud, with
the cartoonist from Milwaukee helping me by making drawings to
illustrate it. Then, armed with the postcards, I set off for Presho--and
the Rosebud.
On a Sunday night in early October, 1908, I stood on a corner of the
dark main street of Presho waiting for the Rosebud to open. I had
appointed agents to handle my postcards and I was free to cover the
story. Special trains loaded with landseekers were coming. The confusion
of last-minute preparations to receive them was at its height.
I found Presho as mad as a hornet. The Milwaukee railroad had taken the
turntable out, and special trains coming in from Chicago and other
points east must thus go on to the next town to turn around. This was
bound to cut into Presho's share of the crowds. As long as the town had
been the turning point of the road, it was one of the greatest trade
centers in that part of the West.
The lottery was to start Monday, which meant the stroke of midnight. The
little town was ready, its dark streets lighted here and there by
flaring arc lights. Up and down Main Street, and out over the fields,
tents had been erected to take care of the crowd.
And the trains were coming in, unloading their human cargo. Others
poured in by every conceivable means of transportation, invading the
little frontier town, the only spot of civilization in the vast, bare
stretch of plains. Presho woke to find a great drove of tenderfeet
stampeding down its little Main Street. They thundered down the board
sidewalk and milled in the middle of the road, kicking up dust like a
herd of range cattle as they went.
Aside from the great tents put up by some of the towns for lodging and
eating quarters, small tents dotted the outskirts. People were bringing
their own camping equipment, and I might add that only those who had
such foresight, slept during those turbulent days.
The daily train was an event in these frontier towns, its coming watched
by most of the inhabitants. Now five and six a day roared in, spilled
500 to 800 passengers into the packed streets, and roared away again. As
the heavily loaded trains met or passed each other along the route the
excited crowds called jovially to one another, "Suckers! Suckers!" With
but 4000 claims, the chance to win was slim.
On the station platform, in the thick of the crowds, were the Indians.
After all, it appeared, they were learning from the white man. This time
they had come in an enlightened and wholly commercial spirit. Brave in
paint and feathers and beads, they strolled about, posing for the
landseekers--for 50 cents a picture.
A maze of last-minute activity was under way before the stroke of
midnight. Telephone companies installed additional equipment and
service. Telegraph wires were being strung up. Expert men were being
rushed out from Kansas City and Omaha to take care of the flood of words
that would soon go pouring out to the nation--telling the story of the
gamble for land.
A magazine editor, notebook in hand, moved from one group of seekers to
another, asking: "Do you think Taft will be elected?" He didn't seem to
be getting far. On the eve of a presidential election a people was
turning to the soil for security. "Do you think Taft will be elected?"
the editor repeated patiently. "Who gives a damn?" shouted a steel
worker from Philadelphia.
A train lumbered in heavily from Chicago, fourteen coaches, crowded to
standing room only, men and women herded and tagged like sheep. They
stumbled out onto the dark platform, jostled among the mob already
assembled, exhausted, dirty, half-asleep, yet shaking with excitement.
That high-pitched excitement, of course, was partly due to strain and
suspense, partly to the gambling spirit in which the lottery was carried
out. But for the most part the crowd generated its own excitement
through its great numbers and consequent rivalry, as it entered the dark
streets with their glaring lights, the mad confusion of shouting and
band playing.
They came from Chicago and jerkwater towns in Nebraska, from farms and
steel mills, from the stage and the pulpit. School teachers and farm
boys, clerks and stenographers, bookkeepers and mechanics, business men
and lawyers. Perhaps the most significant thing was the presence of
those business men, often coming in whole groups to study the country
and its possibilities, to be on hand when the town sites were opened, to
be the first to start businesses on the Rosebud.
On the Brulé there had been nothing but the land. Here the plows, the
farm implements, salesmen of every conceivable commodity needed by
settlers, were on hand. These people were to start with supplies in
sight, with business organizing in advance to handle their problems,
with capital waiting for their needs.
And they came by the thousands. From Chicago alone there came one group
of 3000 seekers. "Move on," came the endless chant. "Move on!" It didn't
matter where, so long as they kept moving, making way for new mobs of
restless people. "Move on!"
Wires were clicking with news from the other registration points.
Presho, to its fury, couldn't compare with some of the other towns. The
little town of Dallas had gone stark mad. Thirty-four carloads of
seekers were due in these villages between midnight and morning. They
were coming from every direction, bringing, along with the individual
seekers, whole groups of New England farmers, Iowa business men, an
organization of clerks from Cleveland, and from everywhere the
ruddy-faced farmers.
Over the uproar of the crowd could be heard the sharp staccato click of
the telegraph wires. Special trains were coming from Omaha, came the
news. The police force had tried to keep the crowds from smothering each
other, but they had torn down the gate of the station and rushed
through, afraid to be left behind.
Runners came overland across the empty Rosebud to carry the news from
the little towns, riding hell-for-leather, their horses foaming although
the night was cold. "You ought to see Dallas, folks! People lighting
like grasshoppers.... You ought to see Gregory!" The rivalry was bitter
among the towns, each trying to corner as much of the crowd as possible.
Presho was sending out word vehemently denying the reports that an
epidemic of black smallpox had broken out there.
Men representing everything from flop tents to locating agents boarded
trains en route, trying to persuade the seekers to register at their
respective towns. And all of them were bitter against the railroads,
which were furnishing return accommodations every few hours, giving the
tradesmen little chance to make their fortunes, as many of them had
confidently expected to do.
Automobiles, many bought for the occasion, lined the streets of these
border towns, ready to take the seekers over the land--if they stayed
long enough. It surprised the easterners, this evidence of modernity in
a pioneer world. And here and there a new automobile parked beside a
prairie schooner.
Curiously enough, the price of the land distributed by the Openings was
higher than that of vast tracts of untouched land in the West which was
also available to the public, and yet attention was concentrated solely
on the Rosebud; the desire for land there was at fever heat, while other
land was regarded with apathy. Whether this was due to the fact that the
other land was little known, or to the madness that attends any gambling
operation and the intensive advertising which had called attention to
the Rosebud, I do not know.
But this land was not free. For these Indian lands the government
charged from $2.00 to $6.00 an acre, according to classification. Thus
160 acres of first-class land would cost the homesteader around a
thousand dollars--one-fifth down, the rest in annual payments under the
five-year proof plan. If he made commutation proof in fourteen months,
the minimum residence required, he must then make payment in full.
The hours wore on toward midnight and the crowd grew denser. "Move on,"
droned the chant. "Move on!" The editor had turned the page of his
notebook and spoke to one of the women landseekers. "Are you a
suffragette?" he asked politely. Pushing back an elbow that had grazed
her cheek, pulling her hat firmly over her head, clutching her handbag
firmly, she looked at him, wonderingly. "Are you--" he began again, but
someone shouted "Move on," and the woman disappeared in the throng.
At the stroke of midnight a cry went up from the registrars. At 12:01
under the dim flicker of coal-oil lanterns and torches hung on posts or
set on barrels and boxes, that most famous of lotteries began.
The uproar and confusion of the hours before midnight were like a desert
calm compared with the clamor which broke out. Registrars lined both
sides of the street. "Right this way, folks! Here you are, here you are!
Register right here!" And there, on rough tables, on dry-goods boxes,
anything upon which a piece of paper could be filled out and a notary
seal stamped thereon, the crowd put in their applications as entries in
the gamble, raised their right hands and swore: "I do solemnly swear
that I honestly desire to enter public lands for my own personal use as
a home and for settlement and cultivation, and not for speculation or in
the interest of some other person...."
In the excitement and chill of the October night, fingers shook so that
they could scarcely hold a pen. Commissioned notaries were getting 25
cents a head from the applicants. Real estate offices were jammed.
In between the registration stands were the hot-dog and coffee booths
with the tenders yelling, while thick black coffee flowed into tin cups
by the barrel, and sandwiches were handed out by the tubful. Popcorn and
peanut venders pushed through the crowd crying their wares. And among
the voices were those of the agents who were selling my postcards,
selling them like liniment in a patent-medicine show.
Spielers shouted the virtues of the food or drink or tent or land
locator they were advertising. Even the notaries got megaphones to
announce their services--until government authorities stepped in and
threatened to close them all up.
Into the slits in the huge cans which held the applications dropped a
surprising number of items. People became confused and used it as a mail
box, dropping in souvenir cards. One applicant even dropped in his
return fare. And some, shaking uncontrollably with excitement, were
barely able to drop their applications in at all.
And somewhere, off in the dark spaces beyond the flickering lights, lay
the million acres of land for which the horde was clamoring, its quiet
sleep unbroken.
There was a sharp tug at my arm, and I turned to see the reporter from
Chicago who had filed on the Brulé Opening.
"I'm trying my luck again," he said.
So he had not won in the Brulé lottery. Somehow I was glad to know that
was the reason for his not being on a claim there.
Sensing this, he said grimly: "So you thought I was a quitter."
As we clung to each other to keep from being separated in the hysterical
mob, I heard his hollow cough.
"Are you ill?" I asked.
"It's this crowd and the dust--my lungs--got to come west--"
I grabbed him by the coat sleeve, trying to make my voice carry above
the ballyhoo. "If you do not win here, come and see me. I can get you a
claim." The swaying throng separated us.
I rushed to the telegraph office and sent off my story. As I started
back I stopped to look upon the little town which had been started at
the end of the iron trail, revealed in the light of torches against a
black sky, and at the faces, white and drawn and tense.
Move on! Move on! At 4 o'clock that Monday morning, four hours after
arrival, the landseekers who had registered were on the road back to
Chicago and all points east, many of them carrying in one hand a chunk
of sod and in the other a tuft of grass--tangible evidence that they had
been on the land. And other trains were rushing out, carrying more
people. I boarded a returning special which was packed like a freight
train full of range cattle, men and women travel-stained, tired and
hollow-eyed, but geared up by hope.
I got off at Chamberlain. The rumors had been correct. That seething mob
at Presho was only the spray cast by the tidal wave. At Chamberlain
long, heavily loaded trains pulled in and out. People walked ten and
twelve abreast through the streets. Some 30,000 strangers besieged that
frontier town. A mob of 10,000 tried to fill out application blanks,
tried to get something to eat and drink, some place to sleep. While the
saloons were overrun, there was little drunkenness. No man could stand
at the bar long enough to get drunk. If he managed to get one drink, or
two at most, he was pushed aside before he could get another--to make
room for someone else. Move on! Move on!
The stockmen were shocked. They had not dreamed of anything like this
invasion. Their range was going and they owned none, or little, of the
land. The old Indians looked on, silent and morose.
Hotels, locating agents, all the First Chance and Last Chance saloons
became voluntary distributors of my postcards. It looked as though I too
were going to reap a harvest from the Rosebud Opening.
And they continued to come! Within four days 60,000 people had made
entry, and the trains continued to pull in and out, loaded to the doors.
Unlike the Lower Brulé Opening, there was no dreary standing in line for
hours, even days, at a time. The seekers passed down the line like
rapidly inspected herds.
And among them, inevitably, came the parasites who live on
crowds--gamblers, crooks, sharks, pickpockets, and the notorious women
who followed border boom towns. The pioneer towns were outraged, and
every citizen automatically became a peace officer, shipping the crooks
out as fast as they were discovered. They wouldn't, they declared
virtuously, tolerate anything but "honest" gambling. And their own
gambling rooms continued to run twenty-four hours a day.
In spite of precautions, not a few of the trusting folk from farms and
small towns to whom this event was a carnival affair found themselves
shorn like sheep at shearing time before they knew what was happening.
One farm boy lost not only all his money but his fine team and wagon as
well. A carnival it was, of course, in some respects. Amusement stands,
in tents or shacks, lined the streets and never closed. Warnings came by
letter to Superintendent Witten, describing crooks who were on their way
to the Rosebud.
Motion pictures ran day and night, their ballyhoo added to the outcries
of the other barkers. And the registration never stopped. Clerks and
others employed as assistants by the government were hired in four-hour
shifts. Post offices stayed open all night.
The government's headquarters were at Dallas, with a retinue of
officials in charge. Thus the little town at the end of the North
Western Railroad was the Mecca of that lottery. There the hysterical mob
spirit appeared. And one day in the midst of the Opening, a prairie fire
broke out, sweeping at forty miles an hour over the land the people had
come to claim, sweeping straight toward Dallas. The whole town turned
out to fight it--it had to. The Indians pitched in to help. And the
tenderfeet, including reporters and photographers from the big city
newspapers, turned fire fighters, fighting to save the town.
In spite of their efforts the fire reached the very borders of the town,
destroying a few buildings. And at the sight of the flames the
government employees caught up the great cans which contained the
seekers' applications for the land and rushed them out of town toward
safety. That day the cans contained 80,000 applications.
That great, black, charred area extending for miles over the prairie put
a damper on the spirits of the locating agents. But these people had
come for land, and they were not to be daunted. All over the great
reservation groups could be seen investigating the soil, digging under
the fire-swept surface, driving on into the regions of tall grass and
scattered fields bordering the Rosebud. They were hoping to win a piece
of that good earth.
As the close of the registration drew near, the excitement was
intensified. Letters to Superintendent Witten poured in, asking him to
hold back claims for people who were unable to register. The
registration closed on October 17, 1908. No registrations would be
accepted after a certain hour. Captain Yates, assistant superintendent
of the Opening, started from O'Neill, Nebraska, bearing the applications
from that registration point. So that there would be no danger of his
not reaching the town of Dallas with the applications before the
deadline, a special train was waiting for him. In his excitement Captain
Yates rushed past the men waiting for him, crossed the track where his
special was getting up steam, and took a train going the wrong way!
Telegrams, another special train, cleared tracks--and he was finally
able to rush in with his applications at the last moment.
Others were not so fortunate. Tired horses, a missed train connection,
some unforeseen delay, and they arrived an hour, half an hour, perhaps
only a few minutes after the registration had closed. Too late!
Oddly enough, one of the last to register was the foreman of the U Cross
Ranch, who came galloping across the prairie at the last moment to make
his application for a homestead. And when a ranchman turned to
homesteading, that was news!
On October 19 the Drawing began. The government saw that every
precaution must be taken to make sure of fair play; any suspicion of
illegality might cause an uprising of the mob of a hundred thousand
excited, disappointed people.
The great cans were pried open, and the applications put onto large
platforms, where they were shuffled and mixed--symbolically enough with
rakes and hoes--for it was quarter-sections of land they were handling.
From out the crowd applicants were invited onto the platform, and if one
succeeded in selecting his own name he would be entitled to the first
choice of land and location. Business firms, townsite companies were
making open offers of $10,000 for Claim No. 1. Then two little girls,
blindfolded, drew the sealed envelopes from the deep pile.
Superintendent Witten opened them and announced the names to the crowd
filling the huge tent where the Drawing was held.
The hushed suspense of that Drawing was like that of a regiment waiting
to go over the top. The noisy excitement of registration was over. The
people waited, tense and breathless, for the numbers to be called.
Ironically enough, a great number of the winners had gone home. They
would be notified by mail, of course. It was largely the losers who had
waited.
The first winner to be present as his number was called was greeted with
generous applause and cheers and demands for a speech. He was a farmer
from Oklahoma, and instead of speaking, he felt in his pockets and held
up, with a rather sheepish smile, a rabbit's foot which he had brought
with him. Press agents stood by, waiting for the outcome. Daily
newspapers printed the official list of the winners as the numbers came
out, and all over the United States people waited for the announcement
of the Rosebud's Lucky Numbers. The Rosebud had been opened up and
swallowed by the advancing wave of people westward. But there was more
land!
Fred Farraday drove me home from Presho, weary to the bone, and content
to ride without speaking, listening to the steady clop-clop of the
horses over that quiet road on which we did not meet a human being. And
in my pocketbook $400, the proceeds from the sale of the postcards.
Something, as Ida Mary had predicted, had happened.
Ma Wagor came in from the store. "Land sakes," she exclaimed, "you musta
been through some confusement! You look like a ghost."
It didn't matter. "I have four hundred dollars. There will be another
hundred or so when the agents finish checking up on the card sales, and
I'll get a check from the News Service. It will pay the bills, and some
left over to help us through the winter. We've saved the claim."
After a pause I added, "The Lower Brulé seems pretty small after the
Rosebud. I'd like to go over there to start a newspaper."
"No," said Ida Mary. "You can't do that. Your claim and your newspaper
and your job are here. After all, anyone can file on a claim. It's the
people who stay who build the country."
[Illustration]
X
THE HARVEST
I was pony-expressing the mail home one day when I saw a great eagle,
with wings spread, flying low and circling around as though ready to
swoop upon its prey. It was noon on a late fall day with no sight or
sound of life except that mammoth eagle craftily soaring. I turned off
the trail to follow its flight. It was the kind of day when one must
ride off the beaten trail, when the sun is warm, the air cool and
sparkling; even Lakota seemed like a stodgy animal riveted to the earth,
and the only proper motion was that of an eagle soaring.
Abruptly the eagle swooped down into the coulee out of sight and came up
a hundred yards or so in front of me, carrying with it a large bulky
object. At the same instant a shot rang out, the eagle fell, and its
bulky prey came down with a thud.
So intent was I upon the eagle that I was not prepared for what
happened. At the shot Lakota gave a leap to the right and I went off to
the left. I had no more than landed when a rider, whom I had seen lope
up out of the coulee as the eagle fell, had my horse by the bit and was
bending over me.
"Hurt?" he asked.
"I don't think so. Just scared," I replied as I got stiffly to my feet.
The soft, thick grass had provided a cushioned landing place and saved
my bones.
The stranger took a canteen from his saddle and gave me a drink of
water; led the horses up to form a shade against the bright noon sun,
and bade me sit quiet while he went back to see what the eagle had
swooped down upon.
"A young coyote, just a pup," he announced upon his return. "I'm glad I
got that fellah. They are an awful pest." It was a big bird with an
eight-foot stretch from wing tip to tip as measured by this plainsman's
rule--his hands. "They carry away lambs and attack new-born calves," he
said. "They attack people sometimes, but that is rare."
He helped me on my horse. "All my fault. Couldn't see you from down in
the coulee when I fired at that bird. You musta just tipped the ridge
from the other side." He reached over, untied the mail bag and tied it
to his saddle.
"You were going the other way, weren't you?" I protested.
"No hurry. I'll go back with you first."
"You don't know where I live, do you?"
"Yes, I know," he said laconically. He was a young man--I took him to be
under thirty--with a sort of agile strength in every movement. Lean,
virile, his skin sunburnt and firm. He wore a flannel shirt open at the
throat, buckskin chaps, a plainsman's boots, and his sombrero was worn
at an angle. He made no attempt to be picturesque as did many of the
range riders.
As the horses started off at an easy gallop he checked them. "Better go
slow after that shake-up," he said quietly.
"I must hurry," I answered. "I'm late with the mail."
"These homesteaders are always in a rush. Shore amusin'. Act like the
flood would be here tomorrow and no ark built." He spoke in a soft,
southern drawl.