Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/271

The Indian Dispossessed half and two dollars and a half an acre. That is the measure of the Government's bargain with the Indians. Some have been there for weeks, some for months—why so long, nobody knows; neither do they. The shrewd ones have been waiting no more than a day or two; they and their horses are fresh for the rush. Twelve o'clock is the hour set for the opening, and on the last morning of the long wait a deep, suppressed excitement possesses the motley crowd, growing more intense as the forenoon wears away.

They begin to form for the great race. The cowboys in front with their hardy prairie horses, ready to swear to each other's "time" before the land office officials—for after the race each must prove the time of his arrival if several enter claims for the same tract. Men with race-horses, too, confidently take their places beside the scrubby cow-ponies; but they will not ride their thoroughbreds next time—racers do not understand about badger-holes and gopher-mounds; very few cow-ponies ended that race with broken legs. Then there are horses in harness; sulkies, buckboards, spring buggies, and even lumbering lumber wagons,—prairie schooners, tops and all, loaded with stoves, and chairs, and babies, and chickens, with now and then a pig thrown in; sure signs, these, of the nomadic, renting farmer, the all-wise, know-nothing, soldier of misfortune, the typical western renter. 250