Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/277

The Indian Dispossessed racers must draw blanks in Uncle Sam's great game of chance, in spite of their success.

A young fellow has run thirteen miles in the front rank of the line, and locates a beautiful tract, but he comes upon a man calmly smoking, while his horse grazes peacefully near, with not a hair turned. "Sooner!" angrily charges the young man; then he suddenly looks down the barrel of the sooner's gun. It is a wicked little black hole; the young man sees the point of the argument, and gallops on.

Down in that ravine are a few trees—there are no trees, except in ravines. There is something unusual about one of these trees. Go nearer, and a man hangs from one of the limbs. A slip of paper is pinned to the coat:

Nothing more; a brief but comprehensive epitaph.

A determined boomer plants his flag on a tract of fine bottom land—the prettiest quarter section in sight, he notes exultingly. A young tenderfoot from "back East" unwittingly plants his flag on the same tract. He thinks he is first, and perhaps he is. He approaches the boomer to expostulate, and the boomer draws, but the tenderfoot is not familiar with that line of argument. A shot; and a pretty home in New York State will wait and wait for news of its adventurous son. The boomer turns from the shivering form to the little half-mile of land 256