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