Part 9

As they thundered down upon a tiny spring-creek flowing on the near side of the shoulder Carver waved a hand.

“Up there!” he shouted to Bart. “Flag it!”

Bart whirled up the course of the spring-creek and the girl wheeled her horse to follow him while Carver held the straight course for the low jutting point. As Bart and Molly turned aside, the big Texan dropped from his horse a hundred yards down the little stream and planted his flag.

A dozen riders were almost abreast of Carver as he rounded the point and flung from his saddle in the ranch yard of the Half Diamond H. He had staked the old home ranch.

He turned to watch the rest flash past and recognized a big paint horse as a circle mount of Bradshaw’s string. The group that had clung so persistently instead of staking farther up the valley was composed of old friends to a man. He picked them one by one as they fanned out through the widening bottoms and staked them from the creek to the valley slope for two solid miles below the Half Diamond H.

“Box T riders or former Half Diamond hands,” he said. “Every man. I needn’t have put on such a strenuous last spurt if I’d only looked back to see who made up the bunch that was crowding me so hard on the final lap. I see old Joe Hinman’s hand in this.”

He turned at a sound behind him. A man stood calmly by a lathered horse some thirty yards back among the sod outbuildings.

“You’ll have to get off,” the stranger announced. “This is my ground. I staked it first.”

Carver stared for a brief space, unable to grasp the fact that another had rounded the point ahead of him. He certainly had not arrived since Carver reached the spot so he must have been there first. Then Carver’s comprehension cleared and he led his horse back toward the other.

“Looks like you had beat me here for a fact,” he said.

“By three minutes,” the stranger stated.

Carver glanced at the man’s horse. The animal’s shoulders and flanks were lathered white, as if from a long hard run, but its breathing was smooth and regular and its sides were steady. He glanced at his own mount with its heaving flanks; listened to the animal’s heavy labored breathing.

“Beat you by three minutes,” the stranger reasserted.

Carver touched the lathered horse with one forefinger, carried the member to his mouth, then spat the soapsuds out.

“Yes, you beat me by three days,” he said. “Which is just a shade too broad a margin. Now you step up into the middle of that pony, and start working up a real sweat on him while you’re getting away from here.”

The sooner faced him defiantly, a black scowl on his countenance, but he read the same purpose in Carver’s eyes that Freel had discovered in them on the day the marshal had offered to make Molly Lassiter respectable.

“I’ll sell out for five hundred,” he offered.

“In less than that many seconds you’ll be headed for some place where money can’t follow you,” Carver returned evenly. “You climb that horse and amble.”

The sooner swung to the saddle and rode off toward the eastern slope of the valley. It would have availed him little to head down country, for already the bottoms were filled with riders. Those left behind in the last mad dash for the Half Diamond H were now pouring through in hundreds. The side hills that flanked the western edge of the valley were being staked and other riders streamed along their crests.

When Carver looked again he saw that the sooner had planted his flag a half-mile up the little spring-creek that trickled past the doors of the ranch house and on down to the parent stream, a mate for the one that flowed on the far side of the ridge where he had sent Bart Lassiter. The sooner’s present holding would be just across the ridge from Bart. But Carver was not concerned over the future actions of the man. If he succeeded in holding a piece of ground which should have gone to some legitimate stampeder it was no affair of his, Carver reflected, and dismissed it from his mind. For thirty minutes the home seekers continued to pour through in gradually diminishing numbers. Most of the wheeled conveyances had dropped out, their owners either having won their goal at some point farther back or given up the race, but a few buckboards rattled past in the wake of the last straggling horseman.

Then Carver turned to the work in hand. Those in his immediate vicinity who had made the run for the purpose of realizing a quick turn on their relinquishments were the ones he sought. The cowhands were the logical parties to interview.

Bradshaw was sprawled comfortably on the ground on the next quarter section below.

“Old Joe is responsible for this,” Carver said, as he rode down toward his friend. “He sorted out the Box T boys that were going to make a filing just to sell it, and such of the old Half Diamond H boys as he could locate. This way it helps us all. They find me a ready buyer and I find them ready sellers, roosting on the very ground I want. Then, too, Joe was thinking of old Nate. Younger lived here for twenty years. With me on the Half Diamond H he can come down and find at least a part of it the same.”

Bradshaw grinned as Carver neared him.

“What’s your offer?” he demanded. “Speak in big figures now or I’ll stay here and farm this piece myself. Joe tipped us off to swarm in and settle in a flock just below Nate’s old home ranch. Well, what do you bid?”

“Two hundred and fifty,” Carver stated.

“Too much--but I’ll take it,” said Bradshaw. “Give me a commission and I’ll buy the others out for you anywheres from fifty to a hundred.”

“Two hundred and fifty is my flat price to every man,” said Carver. “That’s a good fair figure for both sides. They’ll have to take my notes for it, dated eighteen months ahead at six per cent. They can either wait and live off the interest meantime or discount them at the bank--provided they can locate a banker who’s optimistic enough to make an investment in my paper.”

“I’ll ride along with you to see the others,” Bradshaw volunteered.

“You all can go and make your filings in the next few days,” Carver said. “Then I’ll furnish each of you with scrip to lay on your quarter. You can deed it over to me when you get your patent.”

Two hours later Carver rode across the low ridge in search of Molly Lassiter.

“Ever see a prettier nook than this?” he asked, as he dismounted. “I told Bart I had just the place picked out for you and him.”

A few trees, somewhat gnarled and stunted--but every such growth is noteworthy in a treeless country, and the black-jack belt did not extend so far north as this--sprouted in a little dent in the base of the ridge, a level floor of rich ground spread out before them. The little creek, fed by side-hill springs, purred merrily along the foot of the slope.

“It’s wonderful here,” she agreed. “I’d love it if only Bart would stay here and prove up instead of selling out.”

“Maybe we can exert a little pressure and make Bart come to his milk,” said Carver. “This is too good a place to sell out offhand. Wait till I scour a few layers of ashes off my face and we’ll ride up to the ridge so you can see my layout.”

His face was still black from the ride across the burned areas and he repaired to the little creek and splashed face and hands in the clear cold water. The big Texan had come part way up the creek to converse with Bart and his voice carried to Carver as he made boastful comments upon his own farsightedness.

“I don’t know this country but I staked as good a piece as there is in the whole twelve thousand miles. That’s me! Know how? I’ll follow the leather-legs, I decides; the peelers that has rode this stretch. They’ll know where the best ground is. I’ll trail along and be there, for there ain’t no man can outride me when I’m up on this bay horse.”

His voice followed them as Carver and Molly rode up the gentle slope of the ridge and the girl hoped she would not have this man as a neighbor for long. His bluster made her feel that Noll was near at hand. There had been a clean break in their relations since Carver’s recent turn in inexpensive beef, and Noll had asserted that Bart was no relative of his. If only he could convince others of that, she reflected, she would be far better satisfied.

“See,” Carver said, pointing as they topped the ridge. “I’ve bargained for eleven quarters besides my own. That gives me eighteen hundred acres in one block. I’ll leave that first piece in front of the house in grass, just like it is now. Then when old Nate comes down to visit round with me it will seem almost like the same old place he’s lived in for the past twenty years or more.”

“I’m glad, Don,” she said. “But how can you be sure they’ll deed the land over to you after they get their patents. There’s no possible way to pin a man down to turn over his homestead to another.”

“Not a way in the world,” he conceded. “They could keep their place or sell it, once the patent’s issued, and I couldn’t lift a hand. I’d counted on losing maybe a quarter or two that very way. But not now; not with those Box T and Half Diamond H boys on the other end of it. Wouldn’t one of ’em throw me if he was offered ten times the price.”

She hoped that he had gauged them rightly but her experience had taught her to doubt this class of drifting, homeless men. She had met a number of such during the last few years of drifting with Bart, mainly the associates of the two elder half-brothers, and she had come to believe that trustworthiness was an infrequent trait among their kind.

Bart mounted the ridge and joined them.

“What’s offered for my farm?” he greeted.

“I’m not buying on the far side of the ridge,” said Carver. “Only down below.”

“Then I’ll present it to you,” Bart returned cheerfully. “By the way, you’re owing me three hundred or thereabouts on our little flier in steers. If you could let me have a piece of it I’ll trickle into Caldwell in the morning. I’ve got pressing business there in town.”

“I’ve invested that money for you,” Carver said. “I’ve reserved scrip to cover your hundred and sixty acres. I’ll turn it over to you when you make your filing. They’ll issue a patent and then you and Molly will have some place to come back to whenever you get weary of moving round. You’ll be owing me a little extra on the cost of the scrip but you can pay it off whenever it comes handy in the future.”

Bart sighed gustily.

“I always did lean towards owning a farm that I didn’t have to live on,” he stated, “and you’ve showed me the way. You always did treat me all right, Don, and I thank you. As long as I already owe you money I’d as leave owe you more. I’ll remember it better that way. Lend me twenty. I suspect the boys will be looking at their hole cards somewhat in your bunk house this evening and I’m always curious to see which one of the fifty-two cards each man has got in the hole.”

Carver laughed and handed him the money.

“We’ll turn the house over to Molly to-night,” he said. “I’ve got a tent cached in the bunk house that you can pitch over there on your place to-morrow.”

The girl rested her hand on Carver’s arm as Bart left them.

“That was a wonderful thing to do for Bart,” she said. “Oh, Don! Don’t you suppose he’ll stay there and keep it?”

“Sure, Honey,” Carver assured her. “You can’t clamp down on a range colt too sudden and put him on the picket. We’ll keep an eye on him and gradually decrease his range. Don’t you fret about Bart.”

He was peering off across the country and she followed the direction of his gaze. A wagon had just crawled into view on the ridge on the far side of Bart’s filing and near the upper edge of it. The last rays of the setting sun caught the tattered canvas top. Even at a distance of three quarters of a mile both Carver and the girl recognized the outfit as old Judd Armstrong’s, the horses moving slowly, their heads drooping dejectedly.

“You wait here, Molly,” Carver said. “I’ll ride over and help them pick a good place to camp. Then we’ll stir up a bite for the boys to eat.”

He intercepted the outfit as it pulled into the bottoms. The little old lady still clasped the staff of her flag.

“Staked your piece yet, Uncle?” Carver greeted.

“Not yet,” said old Judd. “We’ll likely locate one to-morrow. These horses is about played out and we’ll have to make camp here, I reckon.”

The woman nodded serene agreement. Ever since she could remember they had been making camp.

“Maybe they can make one more drag of it over this next rise,” Carver said. “It’s not much of a pull. There’s a nice little creek over across and a ripping good piece of ground that hasn’t been staked. They all run clear on acrost it and never noticed. It’s the next piece up the creek from mine.”

He uncoiled his rope and made it fast to the wagon tongue, took a short snub on his saddle horn and pulled in ahead of Judd’s weary team. The horse buckled sturdily to his task and they made the crossing.

“You make camp right here on this creek,” Carver instructed. “This is your claim. I’ll see you to-morrow, Aunty.”

“Thank you, son,” she said. “You’ve done us a big favor. This is better ground than any we’ve crossed through. I was beginning to be just a mite worried for fear we mightn’t find a piece. It was real nice of you to tell us.”

Carver turned his horse up towards where the sooner reclined on the creek bank.

“I instructed you to high-tail it out of the country,” he announced. “So you put forth from here sudden.”

“Do you imagine you’re in charge of this whole territory?” the man demanded.

“I was once,” said Carver. “Foreman of the old Half Diamond H. In lack of any better authority I’ve elected myself temporary head of the district so I can choose my own neighbors. I don’t pick you.”

He handed the man a ten-dollar bill.

“I’m sorry to see your efforts wasted but maybe you can drown your grief in that,” he said. “There’s not a chance in the world for you to make your claim stick--and I’ll see that you come to a bad end if you try to file. You can use your own judgment about when you flit from these parts.”

He turned back toward Molly but the girl had gone down her own side of the ridge as a second wagon rolled into the bottoms and halted on the upper end of the Texan’s filing. The outfit of the ample soul and her solemn spouse had been wrecked in the early stages of the run and the repairs had required too great a time to permit of their overtaking the other stampeders. As Molly joined them she heard the voice of the Texan lifted in his war song as he returned from a boastful visit with some near-by homesteader.

“I’m a wild, wild rider And an awful mean fighter----”

The song ceased abruptly as he spied the wagon on his claim and headed his mount for the spot. He leaned from his saddle and inspected the ample lady who still smiled through the grotesque mask of black ashes that had settled on her face, then let his eyes rove over the children in the depths of the wagon.

“This your claim?” the solemn man inquired. “We just want to wash up a bit and camp here for the night.”

Molly waited for the abrupt refusal. The Texan gazed helplessly from one to another of the group.

“Mean to say you didn’t get a piece of your own with all this stretch to choose from?” he demanded.

The man shook his head.

“Have this one,” the Texan invited. “I’ve been wondering what the hell I’d do with it.”

The woman still smiled but a tear squeezed through and trickled down, leaving a trail in the grime of ashes on her face. She leaned over the infant in her arms to hide the evidence of weakness, speaking a word to the child. The Texan shifted uneasily in the saddle and Molly saw him in a new guise; not as a big ruffian but as an overgrown, kindly boy, helpless to extricate himself from this trying situation. A happy thought struck him.

“I’d cry too if I thought I had to live here,” he said. “I’d trade this whole damn country for a square rod in Texas,” and he headed his horse back down the creek.

Hours later Molly Lassiter reclined on Carver’s camp bed which he had spread for her on the floor of the Half Diamond H ranch house.

The Cherokee Run was over. At noon there had been a vast tract of virgin territory, twelve thousand square miles of untenanted lands,--and within four hours of that first bugle call it had been settled, staked to the last square inch. The wildest stampede that the world had ever seen was a matter of history.

A variety of sounds floated through the open window. The long, many-roomed bunk house in rear of the frame building was crowded to overflowing. All the cowhands for miles around had followed the old custom of dropping in at the nearest ranch when caught out on the range at night, certain of finding a welcome and a feed. They had feasted unreservedly upon Carver’s food cache which he had planted at the ranch weeks before.

Molly heard two voices raised in the chant of the tumbleweeds as two belated riders approached. Always these men sang when they rode at night, having acquired the habit on many a weary circuit of the herd, singing to quiet their charges on the bed ground.

The big Texan’s voice carried to her from the bunk house.

“Now when I play poker with strangers I first state the rules,” he announced. “The way stud poker is dealt is to hand out the top card first and the next one next, and so on down to the bottom card which comes off last and is not to be removed prior to its turn.”

“It’s nice to have some one who actually knows how the rules run,” another voice answered. “If any little squabble crops up we won’t have to debate the question but just ask you and find out for sure.”

“I’ll settle all arguments,” the Texan volunteered. “You’ll note that I’ve stuck my knife here in the table and I’ll certainly remonstrate with the first party that introduces any irregularities.”

The two newcomers rode into the yard, unsaddled and turned their horses into the corral. One of them answered the questions regarding his claim as he appeared in the door of the bunk house.

“I quit it,” he announced. “A wagon came dragging along an hour ago with a wild woman aboard. Leastways she was talking wild--and frequent. They’d locked hubs and piled up on the start. I presented them my place. I hadn’t no use for it. All my life it’s been all I could do to scratch a living off the face of the whole outdoors, so there wasn’t a chance for me to scrape a income off one little quarter section anyway.”

“I had the piece next to his,” the second cowboy stated. “But the other set of locked hubs came dangling along. The woman ahead would screech back that the tangle was all her fault from keeping too close, and wouldn’t the other party be sure to stake the next piece to theirs so’s they could neighbor back and forth. Just to quiet her down I handed mine to the parties she was so hell-bent to neighbor with. I was afraid she’d have a headache in the morning if she kept at it; and besides I couldn’t lay out there and listen to that gabble.”

Molly burrowed her face deep in the pillow. During the day she had seen much that was gold beneath that rusty exterior of the tumbleweeds and much that was dross beneath the golden surface of many of the pumpkins. These men who rallied to Carver, drifters all, were a different breed of drifters than those she had met as friends of her two half-brothers. And now the tumbleweeds had been cast out of their domain.

“Hand me them cards,” said the big Texan. “Now we’ll have an honest deal. I’d trust myself further than any other man I ever met.”

IX

Carver looked from the window of the Half Diamond H. All down the valley were twinkling lights which denoted the presence of the homes of early-rising settlers. Off to the east and west there were lights resting at higher levels, these from cabins on side-hill claims on the rising flanks of the valley. As the morning glow flooded across the country the lights paled and the habitations themselves appeared, first as darker blots emerging gradually from the surrounding obscurity, then in distinct outline as the shadows lifted. Some were tiny frame cabins, the most of them unpainted. The greater number were sod huts, some few merely dugouts. Poor habitations these, no doubt, yet they were homes and as circumstances permitted they would be replaced by more pretentious ones.

The virgin stretches of the Cherokee lands had been transformed into a solid agricultural community overnight. The run was not quite two months past, yet even the style of expression, the customs of speech and the topic of general conversation had experienced an alteration as decided as the physical changes in the countryside. No more the heated arguments over the relative merits of two cow horses but instead a less spirited discussion concerning the desirability of Berkshires over Durco-Jerseys. The never-ending controversy as to the superiority of the center-fire as against the three-quarters’ rig had been supplanted by an interchange of advice as to the seeding of crops and the proper care of hogs. Where but a few weeks back the bronc fighters had met to exchange bits of range gossip, housewives now visited back and forth to exchange recipes for making jell.