Page:The Indian Dispossessed.pdf/279

The Indian Dispossessed, perhaps plainly, and again from another, so far away that little more than the faint report comes out of the darkness.

With the rising of the sun comes the wind, and then the heat; higher wind, and more fierce heat. Everybody is astir. Some start back for Kansas—the exodus of the unlucky begins early. Others head for the land office, farther south, to file their claims, and many flock to the towns which have sprung up over night along the railroad. A mushroom town is a jolly thing to see—and then to get away from. All through the night freight-wagons and the railroad have been bringing merchandise and material to the town-site, and the stuff is piled everywhere. Already the lucky winners of town lots have put up tents, braced against the howling wind, and a few have begun work on their cheap frame buildings. It is a busy day in this dust-swept town for the noisy, unwashed multitude, and Sunday at that. Sunday, and from an improvised pulpit under the railroad water-tank, a preacher delivers the first sermon to a very small but not select audience, while a lively vaudeville show farther along gives the town its first suggestion of paint. But carpenters, merchants, teamsters, and boomers of every description are too busy with the first business of their town to give much attention to either.

A tented restaurant springs from the ground; only black coffee and biscuit, but the coffee is hot —what 258