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 around unfenced in that State to give everybody a whack? What was the sense in kicking up a fuss over this particular piece?

Maybe a few covetous sheepmen wanted to get in on that land, which was no better and no worse, as far as the congressman could learn, than millions of acres open to anybody who came along. Nobody else ever had raised a complaint about it, and the general reputation of sheepmen in Washington did not place them above hogging on their own account when opportunity offered.

Let it be as it might, it was one of those things you could not do anything about. Senator Galloway had the confidence of the people in his State; they were not making any row about his fence. Just accept it as it was, and turn somewhere else for a homestead, if he wanted to take one up in that country, which was a desire in any sane man that passed the understanding of the Kansas congressman, indeed.

Rawlins was not inexperienced in such matters the congressman said; it was not the same as talking to one of the voters at home. Drop it; let it pass. He might as well try to break into the Treasury building at Washington as to pry Galloway's cinch loose on that land.

And so on. Plenty of advice, all manner of political excusing, justifying, side-stepping. But not a word of encouragement, not an offer of help. Galloway was a high man; he stood in with the Secretary of the Interior, he had a baling-wire tie with the President. Right or wrong—not admitting for a moment that there was any injustice or wrong in the fence—it was