Page:Micheaux - The Conquest, The Story of a Negro Pioneer (1913).djvu/212

 saloons, where the knockers got drunk and were promptly arrested before the sale started. The sale went along unhindered. The auctioneer, standing above the crowds, waxed eloquent in pointing out the advantages, describing Sioux City on the east and Deadwood and Lead on the west, and explaining that eventually a city must spring up in that section of the country, that would grow into a prairie metropolis of probably ten thousand people, and whether the crowd before him took his eloquence seriously or not, they at least had the chance at the choice of the lots and locations, and eighty-four thousand dollars worth of lots were sold.