 CHAPTER VIII. After the presidential election of that year I went to South America with a special party consisting mostly of New York capitalists and millionaires. We traveled through the Southwest crossing the Rio Grande and Eagle Pass and on south by the way of Torreón, Zacatecas, Aguas, Calientes, Guadalajara, Puebla, Tehuantepec and to the southwest coast sailing from Salina Cruz down the Pacific to Valpariso, Chile going inland to Santiago then over the Trans-Andean Railway across the Andes and onward to the western plateau of Argentina. Arriving at the new city of Mendoza we visited the ruins of the ancient city of the same name. Here in the early part of the 15th century on a Sunday morning, when a large part of the people were at church an earthquake shook the city and when it passed it left bitter ruin in its wake. The only part that stood intact being one wall of the church of a population of 13,000 only 1,600 persons escaped alive. The city was rebuilt later and at the time we were there it was a beautiful place of about 25,000 population. At this place a report of bubonic plague in Brazil reached us. The party became frightened and beat it in post-haste back to Valpariso setting sail immediately for Salina Cruz and spent a time that was scheduled for a tour of Argentina and snooping around the land of the Montezuma's. This is the American center of Catholic churches, the home of many gaudy Spanish women and begging peons where the people, the laws and the customs are 200 years behind those of the United States. Still I thought Mexico very beautiful as well as of historical interest. One day we journeyed far into the highlands where lay the ancient Mexican city of Cuernavaca the one time summer home of America's only emperor Maximilian. From there we went to Puebla where we saw the old cathedral which was begun in 1518 and which was at the time was said to be the second largest in the world. We saw San Luis Potosí and Monterey and returned by way of Laredo, Texas. I became well enough acquainted with the liberal millionaires and so useful in serving their families that I made $575 on the trip besides bringing back so many gifts and courtesies of all kinds that I had enough to divide up with a good many of my friends. Flushed with prosperity and success in my undertaking since leaving Southern Illinois less than three years before, I went to Ember to see my sister and see whether Miss Brooks had grown any. I was received as a personage of much importance among the colored people of the town who were about the same kind that lived in M-plus, not very progressive, accepting with her tongues when it came to curiosity and gossip. I arrived in the evening too late to call on Miss Brooks and having become quite anxious to see her again, the night dragged slowly away and I thought the conventional afternoon would never come again. Her father, who was an important figure among the colored people, was a mail carrier and brought the mail to the house that morning where I stopped. He looked me over, searchingly I tried to appear unaffected by his scrutinizing glances. By and by two o'clock finally arrived and with my sister I went to make my first call in three years. I had grown quite tall and rugged and I was anxious to see how she looked. We were received by her mother who said, Jesse saw you coming and will be out shortly. After a while she entered and how she had changed. She too had grown much taller and was a little stooped in the shoulders. She was neatly dressed and wore her hair done up in a small knot and keeping with the style of that time. She came straight to me, extended her hand and seemed delighted to see me after the years of separation. After a while her mother and my sister accommodatingly found an excuse to go uptown and a few minutes later with her on the city besides me I was telling of my big plans and the air castles I was building on the great plains of the west. Finally drawing her hand into mine and finding that she offered no resistance. I put my arm around her waist, drew her close and I declared I loved her. Then I caught myself and dared not go farther with so serious a subject when I recalled the wild, rough and lonely place out on the plains that I had selected as a home and finally asked that we defer anything further until the claim on the little crow should develop into something more like an Illinois home. Oh, we won't know what will happen before that time. She spoke for the first time with a blush as I squeezed her hand. But nothing can happen. I defended, nonplussed. Can there? Well, no. She answered hesitantly, leaning away. Then we will, won't we? I urged. Well, yes. She answered, looking down and appearing a trifle doubtful. I admired her the more. Love is something I had longed for more than anything else. But my ambition to overcome the vagaries of my race, by accomplishing something worthy of note, hadn't given me much time to seek love. I went to my old occupation of the road for a while and spent most of the winter on a run to Florida, where the tipping was as good as it had been on the run from St. Louis to New York. However, a month before I quit, I was assigned a run to Boston. By this time I had seen nearly all important cities of the United States, and of them none interest me so much as Boston. Always what appeared odd to me, however, was the fact that the passenger yards were right at the door of the fashionable Back Bay District on Huntington Avenue, near the Hotel Nottingham, not three blocks from where the intersection of Huntington Avenue and Boylston Street form an acute angle in which stands the public library. And in the opposite angle stands Trinity Church, so thickly purpled with aristocracy and the memory big with the tradition of Philip Brooks, the last of that group of mighty American pulpit orators, of whom I had read so much. A little farther on stands the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The mornings I spent wandering around the city visiting Fanuel Hall, the old statehouse, Boston Commons, Bunker Hill, and a thousand other reminders of the early heroism, rugged courage, and far-seeing greatness of Boston's early citizens. Afternoons generally found me on Tremont, or Washington Street, attending a matinee or hearing music. There once I heard Caruso, Melba, and two or three other Grand Opera stars in the popular Regaletto quartet. In another time I witnessed Siberia and the gorgeous and blood-curdling reproduction of the Kishniff Massacre with 200 people on the stage. On my last trip to Boston I saw Chauncey Olcott in Terence the Coach Boy, a romance of old Ireland with the scene laid in Valley Bay which seemed to correspond to the back bay a few blocks away. Dear old Boston, when will I see you again was my thought as a train pulled out through the most fashionable part of America, so stately and so grand. Even now I recall the last trip with a sigh. If the little crow with Orestown as its gateway was a land of hope through Massachusetts Worcestershire with the Polytechnic Institute arising in the background, Springfield and Smith School for Girls, Pittsfield, Rookfield, and on to Albany on the Hudson is a memory never to be forgotten which evolved in my mind many long years afterward in my shack on the homestead. End of Chapter 8 I left St. Louis about April 1st with about three thousand dollars in the bank and started again for Orestown. This time to stay. I had just paid Jesse a visit and I felt a little lonely. With the grim reality of the situation facing me I now began to steal my nerves for a lot of new experience which soon came thick and fast. Slater met the train at Orestown and as soon as he spied me he informed me that I was a lucky man, that a town had been started adjoining my land and was being promoted by his brother and the sons of a former Iowa Governor, and gave every promise of making a good town. Also if I cared to sell he had a buyer who was willing to pay me a neat advance over what I had paid, however I had no idea of parting with the land but I was delighted over the news. And the next morning found me among Dad, Dupres, through stagecoach passengers, for Calias, the new town joining my homestead, via Hedrick and Kirk. As we passed through Hedrick I noticed that several frame shacks had been put up and some better buildings were underway. The ground had been frozen for five months so Sodhouse building had been temporarily abandoned. It was a long ride but I was beside myself with enthusiasm. Calias finally loomed up conspicuously perched on a hill and could be seen long before the stage arrived and was the scene of much activity. It had been reported that a colored man had a claim adjoining the town on the north, so when I stepped from the stage before the post office the many-knowing glances informed me that I was being looked for. A fellow who had a claim near and who I met in Orristown introduced me to the postmaster whose name was Billinger, an individual with dry complexion and thin, light hair. Then to the president of the town site company, second of three sons of the Iowa governor. My long experience with all classes of humanity had made me somewhat of a student of human nature and I could see at a glance that here was a person of unusual aggressiveness and great capacity for doing things. As he looked at me his eyes seemed to bore clear through and as he asked a few questions his search and look would make a person tell the truth whether he would or no. This was Ernest Nicholson and in the following years he had much to do with the development of the Little Crow. End of Chapter 9 Chapter 10 of the Conquest This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Lyndon Godsell. The Conquest by Oscar Mayhew. The Oklahoma Grafter. That evening at the hotel he asked me whether I wished to double my money by selling my relinquishment. No I answered. But I tell you what I want to do. I replied firmly. I'm not here to sell. I'm here to make good or die trying. I'm here to grow up with this country and prosper with the growth if possible. I have a little coin back in old Chai. My money was still in the Chicago Bank. And when these people begin to commute and want to sell I'm ready to buy another place. I admired the fellow. He reminded me of the richest man in the world. In the lion and the mouse. Otis Skinner as Colonel Philippe Bredoux. An officer on the staff of Napoleon's army in The Honor of the Family. Other characters in plays that I greatly admired. Where great courage, strength of character and firm decision were displayed. He seemed to have a command in way that one found himself feeling honored and willing to obey. But getting back to the homestead I looked over my claim and found it just as I'd left it the fall before. Accepting that a prairie fire during the winter had burned the grass. The next morning I returned to Orestown and announced my intentions of buying a team. Same day I drew a draft for $500 with which to start. Now if there is anywhere an inexperienced man is sure to go wrong in starting up on a homestead it is in buying horses. Most prospective homesteaders make the same mistake I did in buying horses unless they are experienced. The inefficient man reasons thus, well I will start off economically by buying a cheap team, and he usually gets what he thought he wanted, a cheap team. If I had gone into the country and bought a team of young mayors for say $300, which would have been a very high price at that time, I would have them yet, and the increase would have kept me fairly well supplied with young horses, instead of scouting around town looking for something cheaper in the skate line as I did. I looked at so many teams around Orestown that all of them began to look alike. I am sure I must have looked at 500 different horses, more in an effort to appear as a conservative buyer than to buy the best team. Finally I ran onto an Oklahoma grafter by the name of Noonmaker. He was a deceiving and unscrupulous rascal, but nevertheless possessed a pleasing personality which stood him in good in his schemes of deception, and we became quite chummy. He professed to know all about horses. No doubt he did, but he didn't put his knowledge at my disposal in the way I thought he should, being a friend, as he claimed. He finally persuaded me to buy a team of big plugs, one of which was so awkward he looked as though he would fall down if he tried to trot. The other was a powerful four-year-old Gelding that would have never been for sale around Orestown if it hadn't been that he had two feet badly wire cut. One was so very large that it must have been quite burdensome for the horse to pick it up, swing it forward, and put it down, as I look back and see him now in my mind. When I was paying the man for them I wondered why Noonmaker led him into the private office of the bank, but I was not left long in doubt. When I crossed the street one of the men who had tried to sell me a team jumped me with, Well, they got you, did they? His voice mingled with sarcasm and a sneer. Got who? I returned, question. Does a man have to knock you down to take a hint? He went on in a tone of disappointment and anger. Don't you know that man Noonmaker is the biggest grafter in Orestown? I would have sold you that team of mine for twenty-five dollars lesson I offered him if the gold-darn grafter hadn't of come to mean said give me twenty-five dollars and I will see that the Coon buys the team. I would have knocked him down with a club if I'd had one, the lowlife bum. He finished with a snort and off he went. Young by cracky was all I could say, and feeling rather blue I went to the barn where the team was, stroked them, and hoped for the best. I then brought lumber to build the small house and barn, an old wagon for the twenty dollars, one wheel of which the blacksmith had forgotten to grease, worked hard all day getting loaded, and wearied, sick and discouraged, I started at five o'clock p.m. to drive the thirty miles to Kalyas. When I was out two miles the big old horse was wobbling along like a broken-legged cow, hobbling, stumbling, and making such a burdensome job of walking, that I felt like doing something desperate. When I looked back the wheel that had not been greased was smoking like a hot-box on the twentieth century limited. The sun was nearly down and a cold east wind was whooping it up at about sixty miles an hour, chilling me to the marrow. The fact that I was a stranger in a strange land, inhibited wholly by people not my own race, did not tend to cheer my gloomy spirits. I decided it might be all right in July but never in April. I pulled my wagon to the side of the road, got down and unhitched and jumped on the young horse. And such a commotion as he did make, I am quite sure he would have bucked me off, had it not for his big foot being so heavy, he couldn't raise it quick enough to leap. Evidently he had never been ridden. When I got back to Orestown and put the team in the barn and warmed up, I resolved to do one thing and do it that night. I would sell the old horse and I did for twenty-two fifty. I couldn't sit it myself lucky, too. I had paid one hundred and ninety dollars for the team and harness the day before. I sat down and wrote Jesse a long letter telling her of my troubles and that I was awfully, awfully lonesome. There was only one other coloured person in town, a barber, who was married to a white woman and I didn't like him. The next day I hired a horse, started early and arrived at Calius in good time. At Hedrick I hired a sod mason, who was also a carpenter. At three dollars a day and we soon put up a frame barn, large enough for three horses, a sod house sixteen by fourteen, with a hip-roof made of two-by-fours for rafters, and plane boards with tar paper and sod with the grass turned downward and laid side by side, the cracks being filled with sand. The house had two small windows and one door that was a little short on account of my getting tired carrying sod. I ordered the contractor to put the roof on as soon as I felt it was high enough to be comfortable inside. The fifth day I moved in. There was no floor, but the thick, short buffalo grass made a neat carpet. In one corner I put the bed, while in another I set the table. The one next to the door I placed the stove, a little two-hole burner-gasoline, and in the other corner I made a bin for the horse's grain. CHAPTER X CHAPTER 11 OF THE CONQUEST DEALING AND MEALS It must have been about the 20th of April when I finished building. I started to batch and prepared to break out my claim. Having only one horse it became necessary to buy another team. I decided to buy mules this time. I remembered that back on our farm in southern Illinois mules were thought to be capable of doing more work than horses and eat less grain. So when some boys living west of me came one Sunday afternoon and said they could sell me a team of mules, I agreed to go and see them the next day. I thought I was getting wise. As proof of such wisdom I determined to view the mules in a field. I followed them around the field a few times and although they were not fine looking they seemed to work very well. Another great advantage was they were cheap, only one hundred and thirty-five dollars for the team and a fourteen inch rod breaking plow. This looked to me like a bargain. I wrote him a cheque and took the mules home with me. Jack and Jenny were their names and I hadn't owned Jack two days before I began to hate him. He was lazy and when he went downhill instead of holding his head up and stepping his front feet out he would lower the bean and perform a sort of crow-hub. It was too exasperating for words and I used to strike him viciously for it but that didn't seem to help matters any. I shall not soon forget my first effort to break prairie. There are different kinds of plows made for breaking the sod. Some kind that are good for one kind of soil cannot be used in another. In the gummy soils of the Decrus a long slant cut is the best. In fact about the only kind that can be used successfully while in the more sandy lands found in parts of Kansas and Nebraska a kind is used which is called the square cut. The share being almost at right angles with the beam instead of slanting back from point to heel. Now in sandy soils this pulls much easier for the grits gours off any roots, grass or whatever else would hang over the share. To attempt to use this kind in wet sticky lands such as was on my claim would find the soil adhering to the plow share causing it to drag, gather roots and grass until it is impossible to keep the plow in the ground. When it is dry this kind of plow can be used with success in the gummy land but it was not dry when I invaded my homestead soil with my big horse Jack and Jenny that first day of May but very wet indeed. To make matters worse Doc the big horse believed in speeding. Jenny was fair but Jack on the landside was affected with hook warm hustle and believed in taking his time. I tried to help him along with a yell that grew louder as I hopped, skipped and jumped across the prairie and that plow began hitting and missing, mostly missing. It would gouge into the soil up to the beam and the big horse would get down and make a mighty pull while old Jack would swing back like a heavy end of a ball bat when the player draws to strike and out would come the plow with a skip, skip, skip. The big horse nearly tropping and dragging the two little mules that looked like two goats beside an elephant. Well, I sat down and gave up to a fit of blues for it looked bad, mighty bad for me. I had left St. Louis with two hundred dollars in cash and had drawn a draft for five hundred dollars more on the Chicago bank where my money was on deposit and what did I have for it? One big horse tall as a giraffe, two little mules, one of which was a torment to me, a sod house, an old wagon. As I faced the situation there seemed nothing to do but to fight it out and I turned wearily to another attempt, this time with more success. Before I had started breaking I had invited criticism. Now I was getting it on all sides. I was the only colored homesteader on the reservation and as an agriculturist it began to look mighty bad for the colored race on the little crow. Finally with the assistance of dry weather I got the plow so I could go two or three rods without stopping, throw it out of the ground and clear the share of roots and grass. Sometimes I managed to go farther but never over forty rods the entire summer. I took another course in horse trading or mule trading which almost came to be my undoing. I determined to get rid of Jack. I decided that I would not be aggravated with his laziness and crow hopping any longer than it took me to find a trade. So on a Sunday, about two weeks after I bought the team, a horse trader pulled into Calias, drew his prairie schooner to a level spot, hobbled his horses, mostly old plugs of diverse descriptions and made preparation to stay a while. He had only one animal according to my horse sense that was any good and that was a mule that he kept blanketed. His camp was so situated that I could watch the mule from my east window and the more I looked at the mule the better he looked to me. It was Wednesday noon the following week and old Jack had become almost unbearable. My continuing to watch the good mule do nothing while I continued to fret my life away trying to be patient with a lazy brute only added to my restlessness and eagerness to trade. At noon I entered the barn and told old Jack I would get rid of him. I would swap him to that horse trader for his good mule as soon as I watered him. He was looking pretty thin and I thought it would be to my advantage to fill him up. During the three days the trader camped near my house he never approached me with an offer to sell or trade and it was with many misgivings that I called out in a loud breezy voice in a David Harrow manner, Hello Governor, how will you trade mules? How will I trade mules? Did you say how will I trade mules? Huh? Do you suppose I want your old mule? Looking up one side of his face and twisting his big red nose until he resembled a German clown. Oh, my mule's fair, I defended weakly. Nothing but an old dead mule, he spit out, grabbing old Jack's tail and giving him a yank that all but pulled him over. Look at him, look at him, he rattled away like an auctioneer. Go on, Mr. Collard man, you can't work me that way. He continued stepping around old Jack, making pretensions to hit him on the head. Jack may have been slow on the field, but he was swift in dodging, and he didn't look where he dodged either. I was standing at his side holding the reins when the fellow made one of his wild motions and Jack nearly knocked my head off as he dodged. Nah, sir, if I considered a trade, that is, if I considered a trade at all, I would have to have a lot of boot, he said, with an important ear. How much, I asked nervously. Well, sir, he spoke with slow decision. I would have to have twenty-five dollars. What, I exclaimed, at which he seemed to weaken, but he didn't understand that my exclamation was of surprise that he only wanted twenty-five dollars when I had expected to give him seventy-five dollars. I grasped the situation, however, and leaning forward said, hardly above a whisper, my heart was so near my throat, I will give you twenty, as I pulled out my roll and held a twenty before his eyes, which he took as though afraid I would jerk it away, muttering something about it not being enough, and that he had ought to have had twenty-five. However, he got old Jack and the twenty, gathering his plugs and left town immediately. I felt rather proud of my new possession, but before I got through the field that afternoon I became suspicious. Although I looked my new mule over and over often during the afternoon while plowing, I could find nothing wrong. Still, I had a chilly premonition, fostered no doubt by past experience that something would show up soon, and in a few days it did show up. I learned afterward the trader had come thirty-five miles to trade me that mule. The mule I had traded was only lacy, while the one I had received in the trade was not only lacy, but ornery and full of tricks that she took a fiendish delight in exercising on me. One of her favourites was to watch me out of her left eye, shirking the while and crowding the furrow at the same time which would pull the plow out of the ground. I tried to coax and cajole her into doing a decent mule's work, but it availed me nothing. I bore up under the aggravation with patience and fortitude, then determined to subdue the mule or become subdued myself. I would lunge forward with my whip, and away she would rush out from under it, brush the other whores and mule out of their places and throw things into general confusion. Then as soon as I was against straightened out she would be back at her old tricks, and I'm almost positive that she used to wink at me impudently from her vantage point. Added to this the colouring matter with which the trader doped her head faded, and she turned grey-headed in two weeks, leaving me with the mule of uncertain and doubtful age, instead of one of seven going on eight as the trader represented her to be. I soon had the enviable reputation of being a horse trader. Whenever anybody with horses to trade came to town they were advised to go over to the sod-house north of town and see the coloured man. He was fond of trading horses, yes, he fairly doted on it. Nevertheless with all my poor horse judgment I continued to turn the sod over day after day, and completed ten or twelve acres each week. End of CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XII. OF THE CONQUEST. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. THE CONQUEST by Oscar Michaud. THE HOMESTETTERS. Of neighbours I had many. There was Miss Carter from Old Missouri, whose claim joined mine on the west, and another Missourian to the north of her, a loud-talking German north of him, and an English preacher to the east of the German. A travelling man's family lived north of me, and a big fat lazy barber who seemed to be taking the rest-cure joined me on the east. His name was Starks, and he had drawn number 252. He had a nice level claim with only a few buffalo wallows to detract from its value, and he held the distinction of being the most uncompromisingly lazy man on the little crow. This coupled with the unpardonable fault of complaining about everything made him nigh unbearable, and he was known as the beaver. He came from a small town, usually the home of his ilk in Iowa, where he had a small shop and owned three and a half acres of garden and orchard ground on the outskirts of the town. He would take a fiendish delight in relating and re-relating how the folks in his house back in Iowa were having strawberries, new peas, green beans, spring onions, and enjoying all the fruits of a tropical climate, while he was holding down an infernal no-account claim on the little crow and eating out of a can. A merchant was holding down a claim south of him, and a banker lived south of the merchant. Thus it was a varied class of homesteaders around Colias and Megery, the first summer on the little crow. Only about one in every eight or ten was a farmer. They were of all vocations in life and all nationalities excepting negroes, and I controlled the colored vote. This was one place where being a colored man was an honorary distinction. I remember how I once requested the stage driver to bring me some meat from Megery, there being no meat shop in Colias, and it was to be left at the post office. Apparently I had failed to give the stage driver my name, for when I called for it it was handed out to me, done up in a neat package, and addressed, Colored Man, Colias. My neighbour soon learned, however, that my given name was Oscar, but it was some time before they could all spell or pronounce the odd surname. During the month of June it rained twenty-three days, but I was so determined to break out one hundred and twenty acres that after a few days of the rainy weather I went out and worked in the rain. Starks used to go up to town about four o'clock for the mail, wearing a long yellow slicker, and when he saw me going around the half-mile land he remarked to the bystanders, just look at that full nigger working in the rain. Being the first year of settlement in a new country there naturally was no hay to buy, so the settlers turned their stock out to grace, and many valuable horses straight away and were lost. When it rained so much and the weather turned so warm the mosquitoes filled the air and covered the earth and attacked everything in their path. When I turned my horses out after the day's work was done they soon found their way to town, where they stood in the shelter of some buildings and fought mosquitoes. Their favourite place for this pastime was the post-office, where Billinger had a shed awning over the boardwalk, the framework consisting of two-by-fours joined together and nailed lightly to the building, and on top of this he had laid a few rough boards. After this crude shelter the homesteaders found relief from the broiling afternoon sun and swapped news concerning the latest offer for their claims. The mosquitoes did not bother so much in even so slight an enclosure as this as every night Jenny Mule would walk on to the boardwalk, prick up her ears and look in at the window. About this time the big horse would come along and begin to scratch his neck on one of the two-by-fours, and suddenly down would go Billinger's portable awning with a loud crash which was augmented by Jenny Mule getting out from under the falling boards. As the sound echoed through the slumbering village the big horse would rush away to the middle of the street with a prolonged snort and wonder what it was all about. This was the story Billinger told when I came around the next morning to drive them home from the storekeeper's oat-bin where they had indulged in a midnight lunch. The performance was repeated nightly and got brother Billinger out of bed at all hours. He swore by all the gods of Buddha and the people of South Dakota that he would put the beasts up and charge me a dollar to get them. Early one morning I came over and found that Billinger had remained true to his oath, and the horse and Mule were tied to a wagon belonging to the storekeeper. Nearby on a pile of rock sat Billinger nodding away, sound asleep. I quietly untied the rope from the wagon and peaceably led them home. Then Billinger was in a rage. He had a small screechy tremula voice and it fairly sputtered as he tiraded. If it don't beat all, I never saw the like. I was up all last night chasing those darned horses, caught them and tied them up, and along comes devour all while I'm asleep and takes horses, rope, and all. The crowd roared and Billinger decided the joke was on him. Miss Carter, my neighbour on the west, had her trouble too. One day she came by distressed and almost on the verge of tears and burst out, Oh! Oh! Oh! I hardly know what to do. I could never bear seeing anyone in such distress and I became touched by her grief. Upon becoming more calm, she told me, the banker says that the man who is breaking prairie on my claim is ruining the ground. She was simply heartbroken about it. Enough she went into another spasm of distress. I saw the fellow wasn't laying the sod over smoothly because he had a sixteen-inch plough and had it set to cut only about eight inches, which caused the sod to push away and pile up on the edges instead of turning and dropping into the furrow. I went with her and explained to the fellow where the fault lay. The next day he was doing a much better job. Those who have always lived in the elders-settled parts of the country sometimes have exaggerated ideas of life on the homestead, and the following incident offers a partial explanation. Magery and Kalias each had a newspaper, and when they weren't roasting each other and claiming their paper to be the only live and progressive organ in the country, they were building railroads or printing romantic tales about the brave homesteader girls. A little red-headed girl nicknamed Jack owned a claim near Kalias. One day it was reported that she killed a rattlesnake in her house. The report of the great encounter reached eastern dailies and was published as a Sunday feature story in one of the leading Omaha papers. It was accompanied by gorgeous pictures of the girl in a leather skirt, riding boots, and cowboy hat, entering a sod-house, and before her coiled and poised to strike lay a monster rattlesnake. Turning on her heel and jerking the bridle from her horse's head, she made a terrific swing at Mr. Rattlesnake, and he, of course, met his waterloo. This, so the story read, was the eightieth rattlesnake she had killed. She was described as rattlesnake Jack, and thereafter went by that name. She was also credited with having spent the previous winter alone on her claim, and rather enjoyed the wintry nights and snow-blockade. Now, as a matter of fact, she had spent most of the previous winter enjoying the comforts of a front room at the Hotel Kalias, going to the claim occasionally, on nice days. She had no horse, and as to the eightieth rattlesnake's, seventy-nine were myths, existing only in the mind of a prolific feature story writer for the Sunday edition of the Great Dailies. In fact, she had killed one small young rattler with a button. CHAPTER XIII I decided to utilize some of my spare time by doing a little freighting from Orestown to Galleus. Coordinely, one fair morning, I started for the former town. It began raining that evening, finally turning into a fine snow, and by morning a genuine South Dakota blizzard was raging. Now the wind did screech across the prairie. I was driving the big horse, and Jenny Mule, to a wagon loaded with two tons of coal. They were not showed, and the hillsides had become slick and treacherous with ice. At the foot of every hill, Jenny Mule would lay her ears back, draw herself up like a toad, when teased and looked up with a groan. While the big horse trotted on up, the next slope, pulling her share of the load. When the wind finally went down, the mercury fell to twenty-five below zero, and my wrist, face, feet, and ears were frostbitten when I arrived at Galleus. As is always the case during such severe weather, the hotel was filled, and laughing, storytelling, and good cheer prevailed. The Nicholson boys asked, how I made it, and I answered disgustingly that I have made it all right, if that Jenny Mule hadn't gotten faint-hearted. The remark was received as a good joke, and my suffering and annoyances of the trip slipped away into the past. That remark also had the further effect of giving Jenny Mule immortality. She became the topic of conversation, and just in hotel and post office lobbies, and even to this day the story of the faint-hearted Mule often affords splendid entertainment at festive boards and banquet halls of the little crow, when told by a Nicholson. While working in the rain, the perspiration and the rainwater had caused my body to become so badly galled that I found considerable difficulty in getting around. To add to this discomfort Jenny Mule was affected with a touch of modernism at times, especially while engaging in eating grain. One night, when I had wandered thoughtlessly into the barn, she gave me such a wallop on the right shin as to impair that member until I could hardly walk without something to hold to. As it had taken a fourteen hundred mile walk to follow the plow and break in a one hundred and twenty acres, I was about all in physically when it was done. As a means of accruparation, I took a trip to Chicago. While there, the call of the road affected me. I got reinstated in a couple of months to the coast, four months of free life on the plains, however, had changed me. After one trip I came in and found a letter from Jessie saying she was sick, and although she never said, come and see me, I took it as an excuse and quit that peeing company for good. And here it passes out of the story. Went down state to emboro and spent the happiest week of my life. After I had returned to Dakota, however, I contracted an imagination that worked me into the state of jealousy concerning an individual who made his home in emboro, and with whom I suspicioned the object of my heart to be unduly friendly, I say this is what I suspicioned. There was no particular proof, and I have been inclined to think in after years that it was more a case of over-energetic imagination run amuck. I contended in my mind and in my letters to her as well, that I should not have thought anything of it if the man in the case had a little more promising future, but since his proficiency only earned him the magnificent sum of three dollars per week, I continued to fret and fume until I at last resolved to suspend all communication with her. Now what I should have done when I reached that stage of imaginary insanity was to have sent Miss Rooks a ticket, some money, and she would have come to Dakota and married me, and together we would have lived happily ever after. As I see it now, I was affected with an idealism. Of course I was not aware of it at the time. No young soul is. Until they have learned by bitter experience the folly that they should not do thus and so. And of course there is the old excuse of good intentions. Where I read that the road to not St. Peter is paid with good intentions. The result of my prolific imagination was that I carried out my resolutions, quit writing and emotionally lived rather unhappily thereafter, for some time at least. CHAPTER XIV. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phyllis Vincelli. The Conquest by Oscar Misha. CHAPTER XIV. The entire Little Crow Reservation consisted of about two million acres of land, for fifths of which was unopened in lay west of Magory County. Of the two million acres, perhaps one million five hundred thousand, ranged from fair to the richest of loam soil underlaid with clay. The climatic condition is such that all kinds of crops grown in the central west can be grown here. Two hundred miles north, corn will not mature. Two hundred miles south, spring wheat is not grown. Two hundred west, the altitude is too high to ensure sufficient rainfall to produce a crop. But the reservation lands are in such a position that winter wheat, spring wheat, oats, rye, corn, flax, and barley do well. Ever since the drought of 94, all crops had thrived, the rainfall being abundant and continuing so during the first year of settlement. Oristown and other towns on the route of the railroad had waited twenty years for the extension, and now the citizens of Oristown estimated it would be at least ten years before it extended its line through the reservation, while the settlers, to the number of some eight thousand, hoped they would get the road in five years. However, no sleep was lost in anticipation. The nearest the reservation came to getting a railroad that summer was by the way of a newspaper in Magorri, whose editors spent most of his time building roads into Magorri from the north, south, and the east. In reality, the CNRW was the only road likely to run the reservation, and all the towns depended on its extension to overcome the long, burdensome freighting with teams. With all the country's local advantages, its geographical location was such as to exclude roads from all directions except the one taken by the CNRW. To the south lay nine million acres of worthless sandhills, through which it would require an enormous sum of money to build a road. Even then there would be miles of track which would practically pay no interest on the investment. At that time there was no railroad extending the full length of the state from east to west, most lines stopping at or near the Missouri River. Since then, two or three lines have been built into the western part of the state, but they experienced much difficulty in crossing the river, owing to the soft bottom which in many places would not support a modern steel bridge. For from one to two months in the spring, floating ice gives a great deal of trouble and wreaks disaster to the pontoon. A bird's eye view of the little crow show it to look something like a bottle, the neck being the Missouri River, with the CNRW tracks creeping along its west bank. This is the only feasible route to the reservation and the directors of this road were fully aware of their advantageous position. The freight rates from Omaha to Oristown, a distance of two hundred and fifty miles, being as high as from Omaha to Chicago, a distance of five hundred miles. But getting back to the settlers around and in the little towns on the little crow. The first thing to be considered in the extension was that the route it took would naturally determine the future of the towns. Hedrick, Kirk, and Maguri were government town sites, strung in a north-westerly direction across the country, ranging from eight to fifteen miles apart, the last being about five miles and a half east of the west line of the county. Now the county on the west was expected to be thrown open to settlement soon, would likely be opened under the lottery system, as was Maguri County. After matters had settled this began to be discussed, particularly by the citizens of Maguri, five and one-half miles from the tip county line. This placed Maguri in the same position to handle the crowds coming into the next county, as Oristown had for Maguri County, accepting Maguri would have an advantage for tip county was twice as large as Maguri. When this was all considered, the people of Maguri began to boost the town on the prospects of a future boom. The only uncertain feature of the matter then to be considered was which way the road would extend. That was where the rub came in, which way would the road go? This became a source of continual worry and speculation on the part of the towns, and the men who felt inclined to put money into the towns in the way of larger, better, and more commodious buildings. But when they were encouraged to do so, there was always the bogey if. If the railroad should miss us, well, the man owning the big buildings was stung, that was all, while the man with the shack could load it on two or four wagons, and with a few good horses land his building in the town the railroad struck or started. This was and is yet one of the big reasons shacks are so numerous in a town in a new country, which expects a road but knows not which way it will come. And the officials of the CNRW were no different from the directors of any other road. They were mum as dummies. They wouldn't tell whether the road would ever extend or not. The Oristown citizens claimed it was at one time in the same uncertainty as the towns to the west, and for some fifteen or twenty years it had waited for the road. With the road stopping at Oristown they argued it would be fully ten years before it left, and during this time it could be seen Oristown would grow into an important prairie city as it should. Everything must be hauled into Oristown as well as out. So it can be seen that Oristown would naturally boom, while nothing had been raised to the west to ship out as yet, still there was a growing population on the reservation and thousands of carloads of freight and express were being hauled into and from Oristown monthly, for the settlers on the reservation, which filled the town with railroad men and freighters. Crops had been good, and everything was going along smoothly for the citizens and property owners of Oristown. Not a cloud on her sky of prosperity, and as the trite saying goes, Everything was lovely and the goose hung high, during the first year of settlement on the little crow. And now, lest we forget, Callis. Callis was located one and one-half miles east and three miles south of Magory, and five miles straight west of Kirk. If the CNRW extending its line west should strike all the government town sites, as was claimed by people in these towns, who knew nothing about it, and Callis, it would have run from Kirk to Magory in a very unusual direction. Indeed, it would have been following the section lines, and it is common knowledge, even to the most ignorant, that railroads do not follow section lines unless the section lines are directly in its path. If the railroad struck Kirk and Magory, it was a cinch it would miss Callis. If it struck Callis, perched on the banks of the Monca Creek, the route the Nicholson's, as promoters of the town, claimed it would take, the road would miss all the town's but Callis. This would have meant glory and a fortune for the promoters and lot-holders of the town. It would also have meant that my farm, or at least part of it, would in time be sold for town lots. After I got so badly overreached in dealing with horses, for a time the opinion was general that the solitary negro from the plush cushions of a pea would soon see that growing up with a new country was not to his liking, and would be glad to sell at any old figure and beat it back to more ease and comfort. This is largely the opinion of most of the white people regarding the negro, and they are not entirely wrong in their opinion. I was quite well aware that such an opinion existed, but contrary to expectations I rather appreciated it. When I broke out one hundred and twenty acres with such an outfit as I had as against many other real farmers who would not broken over forty acres with good horses and their knowledge of breaking prairie acquired in states they had come from, I began to be regarded in a different light. At first I was regarded as an object of curiosity, which changed to appreciation, and later admiration. I was not called a free-go-easy coon, but a genuine booster for callus and the little crow. I never spent a lonesome day after that. The Nicholson brothers, however, gave the settlers no rest, and created another sensation of railroad building by their new contention that the railroad would not be extended from Orristown, but that it would be built from a place on the Monca bottom two stations below Orristown, where the track climbed a four percent grade to Fairview, then onto Orristown. They offered as proof of their contention that the C&RW maintained considerable yardage there, and it does yet. Why it did, people did not know, and this kept everybody guessing. Some claimed it would go up the Monca valley as Nicholson claimed. This much can be said in favor of the Nicholsons. They were good boosters, or big liars as their rivals called them, and if one listened long and diligently enough they would have him imagine he could hear the exhaust of a big locomotive coming up the Monca valley. While the people in the government town sites persisted loudly that the C&RW had contracted with the government before the towns were located to strike these three towns, and that the government had helped to locate them, that furthermore the railroad would never have left the Monca valley, which had followed for some twenty miles after leaving the banks of the Missouri, all of which sounded reasonable enough, but the government and the railroad had entered into no agreement whatever, and the people in the government towns knew it and were uneasy. I had been on my claim just about a year, when one day Rattlesnake Jack's father came from his home on the Jim River and sold me her homestead for three thousand dollars. My dreams were at last realized, and I had become the owner of three hundred and twenty acres of land. But my money was now gone when I paid the one thousand five hundred dollars down on the Rattlesnake Jack place, giving her back a mortgage for the remaining one thousand five hundred at seven percent interest, and it was a good thing I did too. I bought the place early in April, and in June the interior department rejected the proof she had offered the November before on account of lack of sufficient residence and cultivation. The proof had been accepted by the local land office and a final receipt for the remaining installments of the purchase price, amounting to four hundred and eighty dollars was issued. A final receipt is considered to be equivalent to a patent or deed. But when Rattlesnake Jack's proof of residence got to the general land office in Washington in quest of a patent, the commissioner looked it over, figured up the time she actually put in on the place, and rejected the proof, with the statement that it only showed about six months actual residence. At that time eight months residence was required, with six months within which to establish residence, but no proof could be accepted until after the claimant had shown eight months actual and continuous residence. From the time the settlers began to commute or prove up on the Little Crow, all proofs which did not show fully eight months residence were rejected. This was done mostly by the register and receiver of the local land office, and many were sent back on their claims to stay longer. Many proofs were also taken by local U.S. commissioners, county judges, and clerks of courts. But these officers rarely rejected them, for by so doing they also rejected a four dollar and twenty-five cent fee. About one-third of the persons who offered proof at that time had them turned down at the local land office. This gave the local commissioners, county judges, and clerks of courts a chance to collect twice for the same work. It may be interesting to know that a greater percentage of proofs rejected were those offered by women. This was perhaps not due to the fact that the ladies did not stay on their claims so much as it was conscientiousness. They could not make a forcible showing by saying they had been there every night, like the men would claim, but would say instead that they had stayed all night with Miss So-and-So this time and with another that time, and by including a few weeks visit at home or somewhere else they would bungle their proofs so they were compelled to try again. A short time after this, and evidently because so many proofs had been sent back, the Interior Department made it compulsory for the claimant to put in fourteen months actual residence on the claim before he could offer proof. With fourteen months they were sure to stay a full eight months at least. This system has been very successful. When Rattlesnake Jack was ordered back, after selling me the place, she wanted me to sign a quick claim deed to her and accept notes for the money I had paid, which might have been satisfactory had it not been that she thought I had stopped to look back and failed to see the rush of progress the little crow was making. That the long anticipated news had been spread and was now raging like a veritable prairie fire, and stirred the people of the little crow as much as an active stock market stirs the bulls on the stock exchange. The report spread and stirred the everyday routine of the settlers and the finality of humdrum and inactivity was abrupt. It came one day in early April. The rain had kept the farmers from the fields a week. It had been raining for nearly a month, and we only got a clear day once in a while. This day it was sloppy without, and many farmers were in from the country. We were all listening to a funny story Ernest Nicholson was telling, and good fellows were listening attentively. Dr. Salter, a physician, had just been laid on a couch in the back room of the saloon, soused to the gills, when in the door John M. Keeley, a sort of near-dwell popular drummer whose proof had been rejected some time before, and who had come back to stay a while longer, stumbled into the door of the local groggery. He was greeted with sallies and calls of welcome, and like many of the others he was feeling good. He sort of leaned over and hiccuping during the intervals started, I've, the words were spoken chokingly, got news for you. He had by now got inside and was hanging and swinging at the same time to the bar. Then before finishing what he started, called Tom to the bartender, give me a whiskey before I, and here he leaned over and sang the words, tell the boys the news. For the love of Jesus Keele exclaimed the crowd in chorus, tell us what you know. He drained the glass at a gulp, and finally spit it out. Their surveyors are in Oristown. End of chapter 14. Chapter 15 of The Conquest. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phyllis Vincelli. The Conquest by Oscar Mishaw. Chapter 15. Which town will the R.R. strike? The drummer's information soon received corroboration from other sources, and although it seemed almost unbelievable, it was discussed incessantly, and excitement ran high. These pioneers, who had braved the hardships of homestead life, had felt that without the railroad, they were indeed cut off from civilization. To them, the advent of the surveyors in Oristown could mean only one thing, that their dreams of enjoying the many advantages of the railroad train would soon materialize. They fell to enumerating these advantages, the mail daily, instead of only once or twice a week, the ease with which they could make necessary trips to the neighboring towns, and most of all, the increase in the value of the land. With this last subject, they became so wrought up with excitement and anxiety as to the truth of the report, that they could stay away from the scene of action no longer. Accordingly, buggies and vehicles of all descriptions began coming into Oristown from all directions. I hitched Doc and my new horse, Bolaver, for which I had paid one hundred and forty dollars, to an old ramshackle buggy I had bought for ten dollars, and joined the procession. Three miles west of Oristown, we came upon a crowd of circus day proportion, and in the midst were the surveyors. In their lead rode the chief engineer, a slender, wiry man, with a black mustache and piercing eyes, that seemed to observe every feature of surrounding prairie. Behind came a wagon loaded with stakes, accompanied by several men, the leader of whom was setting these stakes according to the signal of the engineer from behind the transit. Others, on either side, were also driving stakes. They were not only running a straight survey, but were cross-sectioning as they went. Even though the presence of these surveyors was now an established fact, these were days of grave uncertainties as to just what route the road would take. The suspense was almost equal to that of the criminal, as he awaits the verdict of the jury. The valleys and divides lay in such a manner that it was possible the survey would extend along the Monca, thus passing through Calus. On the other hand, it was probable that it would continue to the northwest through Kirk and Maguri, thus missing Calus altogether. When the surveyors reached a point five miles west of Hedrick, they swerved to the northwest and advanced directly toward Kirk. This looked bad for Calus. When Ernest Nicholson had learned that the surveyors were in Orristown, he had left immediately for parts unknown and had not returned. He was, in reality, the founder of Calus, and many of the inhabitants looked to him as their leader, and depended upon him for advice. Although he had many enemies who heaped abuse and epithets upon him, calling him a liar, braggard, and windjammer when boasting of their own independence and self-respect, now that a calamity was about to befall them, and their fond hopes for this priceless mistress of prairie were about to be wrecked upon the shoals of an imaginary railroad survey, they turned toward him for comfort, as moths turned to a flame. It was Ernest here, and Ernest there. As the inevitable progress of the surveyors proceeded in a direct line for Hedrick, Kirk, and Maguri, the consternation of the Calusites became more intense as time went on, and the anxiety for Ernest to return almost resolved itself into mutiny. It became so significant that at one time it appeared that if Ernest had only appeared, the railroad company would have voluntarily run its survey directly to Calus in order to avoid the humiliation of Ernest's seizing them by the nape of the neck, and marching them, survey cars and all, right into the little hamlet. Now there was one thing everybody seemed to forget, or to overlook, but which occurred to me at the time, and caused me to become skeptical as to the possibilities of the road striking Calus, and that was, if the railroad was to be built up in the Monko Valley, then why had the surveyors come to Oristown, and why had they not gotten off at Anona, the last station in the Monko Valley, where the tracks climbed the grade to Fairview. Many of the Maguri and Kirk boosters had taken advantage of Ernest's absence, and through enthusiasm attending the advent of the railroad survey persuaded several of Calus' businessmen to go into confusion in their respective towns. The remaining handful consoled each other by prophecies of what Ernest would do when he returned, implied each other for expressions of theories and ways and means of injecting enthusiasm into the local situation. Thousands of theories were given expression, consideration, and rejection, and the old one that all railroads follow valleys and streams was finally adhered to. I was singled out to give corroborative proof of this last by reason of my railroad experience. I was suddenly seized with a short memory, much to my embarrassment, as I felt all eyes turned upon me. However, the crowd were looking for encouragement and spoke up in chorus. Don't the railroads always follow valleys? It suddenly occurred to me that with all the thousands of miles of travel to my credit and the many different states I had traveled through, with all their rough and smooth territory, I had not observed whether the tracks followed the valleys or otherwise. However, I intimated that I thought they did. Of course they do, my remark was answered in chorus. Since then I have noticed that a railway does invariably follow a valley. If it is a large one, and small rivers make excellent routes, but never crooked little streams like the Monca. When it comes to such creeks, and there is a table-land above, as soon as the road can get out, it usually stays out. This was the situation of the C and RW. It came some twenty-five or thirty miles up the Monca from where it empties into the Missouri. There are fourteen bridges across and that many miles, which were, and still are, always going out during high water. It came this route because there was no other way to come, but when it got to Enona, as has been said, it climbed a four percent grade to get out, and it stayed out. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of the Conquest. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phyllis Vincelli. The Conquest by Oscar Michaud. Chapter 16, Magorys Day. The first day of May was a local holiday in Magorys, held in honor of the first anniversary of the day when all settlers had to be on their claims, and it was raining. During the first years on the little crow, we were deluged with rainfall, but this day the inclement weather was disregarded. It was settlers' day, and everybody for miles around had journeyed thither to celebrate, not only settlers' day, but also the advent of the railroad. Only the day before, the surveyors had pitched their tents on the outskirts of the town, and on this day they could be seen calmly sighting their way across the south side of the embryo city. Magorys was the scene of a continuous round of revelry. Five saloons were crowded to overflowing, and a score of bartenders served thousands of thirsty throats. While on the side opposite from the bar, and in the rear, gambling was in full blast. Professionals, tin horns, and pikers in their shirt sleeves worked away feverishly, drawing in and paying money to the crowd that surged around the roulette, the chuck luck, and the farrow bank. It seemed as though everybody drank and gambled. This is Magorys day, they called between drinks, and it would echo with, have another, watch Magorys grow. Written in big letters, and hung all along the streets, were huge signs which read, Magorys, the gateway to a million acres of the richest land in the world. Magorys, the future metropolis of the little crow, watch her grow, watch her grow. The boardwalk four feet wide could not hold the crowd. It was a day of frenzied celebration, a day when no one dared mention Nicholson's name unless they wanted to hear them called liars, wind jammers, and all a bluff. Ernest was still in the east, and no one seemed to know where he was or what he was doing. The surveyors had passed through Magorys and extended the survey to the county line, five miles west of the town. The right-of-way man was following and had just arrived from Hedrick and Kirk where he had made the same offer he was now making Magorys. If, he said, addressing the town dads, and he seemed to want it clearly understood, the C and RW builds to Magorys, we want you to buy the right-of-way three miles east and four miles west of the town. Then Governor Ruleback, known as the Squatter Governor, acting as spokesmen for the citizens, arose from his seat on the rude platform, and before accepting the proposition, needless to say it was accepted, called on different individuals for short talks. Among others he called on Ernest Nicholson. But Frank, the junior member of the firm, arose and answered that Ernest was engaged in purchasing the C and RW railroad and that he, answering for Ernest, had nothing to say. A hush fell on the crowd, but Governor Ruleback, who possessed a well-defined sense of humor, responded with a joke, saying, Mr. Nicholson's being away purchasing the C and RW railroad reminds me of the Irishmen who played poker all night, and the next morning yawning and stretching himself said, I lost nine hundred dollars last night, and seven and one half of it was cash. The backbone of the town was beginning to weaken, while there were many who continued to insist that there was hope. Others contracted rheumatism from vigils at the surveyor's camp, in vain hope of gaining some information as to the proposed direction of the right of way. The purchasing of the right of way and the unloading of carload after carload of contracting material at Orestown did little to encourage the belief that there was a ghost of a show for callus. In a few days, corral tents were decorating the right of way at intervals of two miles, all the way from Orestown to Magory. In the early morning, as the sound of distant thunder could be heard, the dull thud of clods and dirt dropping into the wagon from the elevator of the excavator, also the familiar jump and the thud of the skinner's lines as they struck the mules in callus one and one half miles away. A very much discouraged and weary crowd met earnest when he returned, but even in defeat the young man's personality was pleasing. He was frank in telling the people that he had done all that he could. He had gone to Omaha, where his father-in-law joined him, thence to Des Moines, where his father maintained his office as president of an insurance company that made loans on little crow land. Together with two capitalists, friends of his father, they had gone into Chicago and held a conference with Marvin Hewitt, president of the CNRW, who had showed them the blueprints and, as he put it, any reasonable man could see it would be utterly impossible to strike callus in the route they desired to go. The railroad wanted to strike the government town sites, but the president told them that if at any time he could do them a favor to call on him, and he would gladly do so. In a few days a man named John Nogen came to callus, towns which had failed to get a road looked upon him in the way a sick man would in undertaker. He was a red-haired Irishman with teeth wide apart and wildish blue eyes, who had the reputation of moving more towns than any other one man. He brought horses and wagons, blocks and tackle, and massive steel trucks. He swore like a stranded sailor, and declared they would hold up any two buildings in callus. The saloon was the first building deserted. The stock had not been removed when the house movers arrived, and in some way they got the door open and helped themselves to the booze, and when full enough to be good and noisy began jacking up the building that had been the pride of the hopeful callicites. In a few weeks a large part of what had been callus was in Magorri, and a small part in Kirk. It had stopped raining for a while, and several large buildings were still on the move to Magorri when the rain set in again. This was the latter part of July, and how it did rain, every day and night. One store building one hundred feet long had been cut in two, so as to facilitate moving, and the rains caught it halfway on the road to Magorri. After many days of sticking and floundering around in the mud, at a cost of over fourteen hundred dollars for the moving alone, not counting the goods spoiled, it arrived at its new home. The building in the beginning had cost only twenty three hundred dollars, out of which thirty cents per hundred had been paid for local freighting for Morristown. The merchant paid one thousand dollars for his lot in Magorri, and received ten dollars for the one he left in Callus. This was the reason why Rattlesnake Jack's father and I could not get together when he came out and showed me Rattlesnake Jack's papers. It was bad, and I readily agreed with him. I also agreed to sign a quick-claim deed, thereby clearing the place so she could complete her proof. Everything went along all right until it came to signing up. Then I suggested that as I had broken eighty acres of prairie, the railroad was in course of construction, and land had materially increased in valuation, having sold as high as five thousand dollars a quarter section, I should have a guarantee that he would sell the place back to me when the matter had been cleared up. I will see that you get the place back, he pretended to reassure me, when she proves up again. Then we will draw up an agreement to that effect, and make it one thousand dollars over what I paid, I suggested. I will do nothing of the kind, he roared, brandishing his arms as though he wanted to fight. And if you will not sign a quick claim without such an agreement, I will have Jack blow the whole thing. That is what I will do, do you hear? He fairly yelled, leaning forward and pointing his finger at me in a threatening manner. Then we will call it off for today, I replied with decision, and we did. I confess, however, I was rather frightened. In the beginning I had not worried, as he held the first mortgage of one thousand five hundred dollars, I had felt safe and thought that they had to make good to me in order to protect their own interests. But now, as I thought the matter over, it began to look different. If he should have her relinquish, then where would I be? And the one thousand five hundred dollars I had paid them. I was very much disturbed, and called on Ernest Nicholson, and informed him how the manner stood. He listened carefully, and when I was through he said, They gave you a warranty deed, did they not? Yes, I replied, it is over at the bank of Calus. Then let it stay there. Tell him, or the old man rather, to have the girl complete sufficient residence, then secure you for all the place is worth at the time, then, and not before, sign a quick claim. And if they want to sell you the place, well and good. If not, you will have enough to buy another. And I followed his advice. It was fourteen months, however, before the scotch Irish blood in him would submit to it. But there was nothing he could do, for the girl had given me a deed to something she did not have titled to herself, and had accepted one thousand five hundred dollars in cash from me in return. As the matter stood, I was an innocent party. About this time I became imbued with a feeling that I would like most awfully well to have a little helpmate to love and cheer me. How often I longed for company to break the awful and monotonous lonesomeness that occasionally enveloped me. At that time, as now, I thought a darling little colored girl to share all my trouble and grief would be interesting indeed. Often my thoughts had reverted to the little town in Illinois, and I had pictured Jesse caring for the little sod house and cheering me when I came from the fields. For a time such blissful thoughts sufficed the longing in my heart, but were soon banished when I recalled her seeming preference for the three dollar a week menial, another attack of the blues would follow, and my daydreams became as mist before the sun. About this time I began what developed into a flirtatious correspondence with a St. Louis Octoroon. She was a trained nurse, very attractive, and wrote such charming and interesting letters that for a time they afforded me quite as much entertainment, perhaps more, than actual company would have done. In fact I became so enamored with her that I nearly lost my emotional mind and almost succumbed to her encouragement toward a marriage proposal. The death of three of my best horses that fall diverted my interest. She ceased the apostillary courtship, and I continued to batch. Doc, my big horse, got stuck in the creek and was drowned. The loss of Doc was hardest for me to bear, for he was a young horse, full of life, and I had grown fond of him. Jenny Mule would stand for hours every night and winny for him. In November, Bolivar, his mate, the horse I had paid one hundred and forty dollars for, not nine months before, got into the wheat, became foundered, and died. While freighting from Orestown in December, one of a team of dappled greys fell and killed himself. So in three months I lost three horses that had cost over four hundred dollars, and the last had not even been paid for. I had only three left, the other dappled gray, Jenny Mule, and old Greyhead, the relic of my horse trading days. I had put in a large crop of wheat the spring before, and had thrushed only a small part of it before the cold winter set in, and the snow made it quite impossible to complete thrushing before spring. That was one of the cold winters which usually follow a wet summer, and I nearly froze in my little old soddy before the warm spring days set in. Sod houses are warm as long as the mice, rats, and gophers do not bore them full of holes. But as they had made a good job tunneling mine I was left to welcome the breezy atmosphere, and I did not think the charming nurse would be very happy in such a mess know-how. The thought that I was not mean enough to ask her to marry me and bring her into it was consoling indeed. Since I shall have much to relate, farther along concerning the curious and many-sided relations that existed between Calus, Magory, and other contending and jealous communities, let me drop this and return to the removal of Calus to Magory. The Nicholson brothers had already installed an office in the successful town and offered to move their interests to that place and combine with Magory in making the town a metropolis. But the town-dads, feeling they were entirely responsible for the road striking the town with the flush of victory and the sensation of empire-builders, disdained the offer. In this, Magory had made the most stupid mistake of her life and which later became almost monumental in its proportions. It will be seen how in the flush of apparent victory she lost her head, and looked back to stare and reflect at the retreating and temporary triumph of her youth. And in that instant the banner of victory was snatched from her fingers by those who offered to make her apparent victory real, and who ran swiftly, skillfully, and successfully to a new and impregnable retreat of their own. The Magory town-dads were fairly bursting with rustic pride, and were being whined and dined like kings by the citizens of the town who had contributed the werewith to pay for the seven miles of right of way. Besides, the dads were puffed young roosters just beginning to crow and were boastful as well. So Nicholson brothers got the horse laugh, which implied that Magory did not need them. We have made Magory and now watch her grow. Ha ha ha, watch her grow, came the cry, when the report spread that the town-dads had turned Nicholson's offer down. Magory was the big I am of the little crow. Then Ernest went away on another long trip. It was cold weather, with the ground frozen when he returned. End of Chapter 16 Chapter 17 of the Conquest This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Phyllis Vincelli. The Conquest by Oscar Mishaw. Chapter 17 Ernest Nicholson's return, the building west of town, what's it all about? The big hotel from Callis had not long since been unloaded and decorated a corner lot in Magory. All that remained in Callis were the buildings belonging to Nicholson brothers, consisting of an old two-story frame hotel, a two-story bank, the saloon, drugstore, their own office, and a few smaller ones. It was a hard life for the Callisites and the Magoriites were not inclined to soften it. On the other hand she was growing like a mushroom. Everything tended to make it the prairie metropolis. Land was booming and buyers were plentiful. Capital was also finding its way to the town and nothing to disturb the visible prosperity. But a shrewd person at that very time had control of machinery that would cause a radical change in this community and in a very short time too. This man was Ernest Nicholson and referring to his return I was at the depot in Orestown the day he arrived. There he boarded an auto and went west to Magory. On his arrival there he ordered John Nodgin to proceed to Callis, load the bank building, get all the horses obtainable, and proceed at once to haul the building to—no, not to Magory. This is what the Magoriites thought when, with seventy-six head of horses hitched to it, they saw the bank of Callis coming to Magory. But when it got to within half a mile on the south side, swerved off to the west. About six that evening, when the sun went down, the bank of Callis was sitting on the side of a hill that sloped to the north, near the end of the survey. Now what did it mean? That was the question that everybody began asking everybody else. What was up? Why was Ernest Nicholson moving the bank of Callis five miles west of Magory and setting it down on or near the end of the survey? There were so many questions being asked with no one to answer that it amused me. Then someone suggested that it might be the same old game, and here would come a pause within the question, what old game? Why, another Callis? Some bait to make money. Then, oh, I see, said the wise town dads, just a hoax. That answered the question, just a snare to catch the unwary. Tell them that the railroad would build to the Tip County Lime. Sell them some lots, for that is what the bluff meant. Get their good money, and then, oh, ha, ha, ha. It was too funny when one saw the joke, and Magoriites continued to laugh. Had not Nicholson brothers said a whole lot about getting the railroad, and that it was sure coming up the Monca. It had come, had it not. Ha, ha, ha. Ho, ho, ho. Just another Nicholson stall. Ha, ha, ha. And Nicholson's got the laugh again. The railroad is in Magori, and here it will stop for 10 years. 100,000 people will come to Magori to register for Tip County Lines, and watch Magori grow was all that could be heard. Ernest would come to Magori, have a pleasant chat, treat the boys, tell a funny story, and be off. Nobody was mean enough or bold enough to tell him to his face any of the things they told to his back. Ernest was never known to say anything about it. His scheme simply kept John Nogden moving buildings. He wrote checks and payment that the bank of Callis cashed, for it was open for business the next day after it had been moved out on the prairie five miles west of Magori. The court record showed six-quarter sections of land west of town had recently been transferred. The name of the receiver was unknown to anyone in Magori, but such prices forty to fifty dollars per acre. The people who had sold brought the money to the Magori banks and deposited it. All they seemed to know was that someone drove up to their house and asked if they wanted to sell. Some did not, while others said they were only five miles from Magori and if they sold they would have to have a big price because Magori was the town of the Little Crow and the gateway to acres of the finest land in the world to be open soon. What is your price, he would ask, and whether it was forty, forty-five or fifty per acre, he bought it. This must have gone on for sixty days with everybody wondering what it was all about until it got on the nerves of the Magoriites and even the town dads began to get a little fearful. When Ernest was approached he would wink wisely, hand out a cigar or buy a drink, but he never made anybody the wiser. A lady came out from Des Moines, bought a lot, and led a contract for a hotel building, twenty-four by a hundred and forty, and work was begun on it immediately. This was getting ahead of Magori, where a hotel had just been completed, twenty-five by one hundred feet, said by the Magoriites to be the best west of a town of six thousand population, one hundred fifty miles down the road. Whenever anything like a real building goes up in a little town on the prairie with their collection of shacks, it is always called the best building between there and somewhere else. I shall not soon forget the anxiety with which the people watched the building which continued to go up west of Magori, and still no one there seemed willing to admit that Nicholson brothers were live, but spent their argument in trying to convince someone that they were only wind jammers and manipulators of navish plots to amesh the credulous. What actually happened was this, and Ernest told me about it afterwards, and about the following words. Well, Oscar, after Magori turned our offer down, I knew there were just two things to do, and that was to either make good or leave the country. Magori is full of a lot of fellows that have never known anything but Kia Paha County, and when the road missed Callis and struck Magori, they took the credit for displaying a superior knowledge. I knew we were going to be the laughing stock of the reservation, and since I did not intend to leave the country, I got to thinking. The more I pondered the matter, the more determined I became that something had to be done, and I finally made up my mind to do it. Ernest Nicholson was not the kind of a man to make idol declarations. I went down to Omaha and saw some business friends of mine, and suggested to them just what I intended to do, thence to Des Moines and Godfather, and again we went into Chicago and secured an appointment with Hewitt, who listened attentively to all that we had to say, and the import of this was that Magori being over five miles east of the tip county line, it was difficult to drive range cattle that distance through a settled country. They are so unused to anything that resembles civilization that ranchers hate to drive even five miles through a settled country. Besides the annoyance it would habitually cause contrary farmers when it comes to accommodating the ranchers. That is not all. With sixty-six feet open between the wire fences, the range cattle at any time are liable to start a stampede, go right through, and a lot of damage follows. I showed him that most of the cattlemen were still driving their stock north and shipping over the CP and St. L. Now knowing that the directors had ordered the extension of the line to get the cattle business, Hewitt looked serious, finally arose from his chair, and went over to a map that entirely covered the side of the wall and showed all the lines of the CNRW. He meditated a few minutes and then turned around and said, Go back and buy the land that has been described. It all seemed simple enough when it was done. By the time that the extension had been completed to Magory, the building that had been moved west of town had company in the way of many new ones, and by this time comprised quite a burg and claimed the name of New Calus. The new was to distinguish between its old site and its present one. After Magory turned them down, Ernest had made a declaration or defiance that he would build a town on the little crow and its name would be Calus. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Magory was still on the boom, not quite as much as the summer before, but more than it was some time later, for as yet New Calus was still regarded as a joke. Until one day Stanley, the same wiry-looking individual with the black mustache and the piercing eyes, got off the stage at Magory and began to do the same work he had started west of Orristown the year before. Oh, it was a shame to thus wreck the selfish dreams of these Magoriites upon the rocks of their own short-sightedness. Stanley was followed a few days later by a great contractor, who had been to Magory the summer before and who had become popular around town, and was known to be a good spender. They had bidden him good-bye along in December, and although nothing was said about it, the truth was, Magory did not wish to see any more railroad contractors for a while, not for five or ten years, anyway. It is a peculiar thing that when a railroad stops at some little western burg, that it is always going to stay ten or twenty years. This has always been the case before, according to the towns at the end of the line, and at this time Magory was of the same opinion as regarded the extension to New Calus. So Orristown had been in regard to the extension to Magory. But Trellway built the road to New Calus, and built at the quickest I ever saw a road built. The first train came to Magory on a Sunday in June, schedules always commence on Sunday, and September found the same train in Calus, the new having been dropped. Magoryites admitted very grudgingly, a short time before, that the train would go on to Calus, but would return to Magory to stay overnight, where it left at six o'clock the following morning. Now at Magory the road had a Y that ran onto a pasture on a two years lease, while at Calus coalshoots a Y, a turning table, a roundhouse, and a large freight depot were erected, and then began one of the most bitter fights between towns that I ever saw or even read about. Five miles apart, with Calus perched on another hill, and like the old site, could be seen from miles around. Now the terminus it loomed conspicuously. It was a foregone conclusion that when the reservation to the west opened, Calus was in the right position to handle the crowds that came to the territory to the west instead of Magory. Magory contended, however, that Calus, located on such a hill, could never hope for an abundance of good water, and therefore could not compete with Magory, with her natural advantages, such as an abundance of good soft water which was obtainable anywhere in town. There are certain things concrete in the future growth of a prairie town. The first is, has it a railroad? The next is, is the agricultural territory sufficient to support a good live town, a fair sized town, and either one of the Dakotas has from one thousand to three thousand inhabitants? And last, are the businessmen of the town modern, progressive, and up to date? In this respect Calus had the advantage over Magory, as we'll be seeing later. Magory became my post office address after Calus had moved to its new location, and about that time the first rural mail route was established on the reservation. Magory boasted of this. The other things it boasted of was its great farming territory. For miles in every direction, tributary to the town, the land was ideal for farming purposes, and at the beginning of the bitter rivalry between the two towns, Magory had the big end of the farm trade. They could see nothing else but Magory, which helped the town's business considerably.