Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/15

 been a tree on the site of the town at one time, remembered for the hangings which had been carried to perfection by the assistance of its friendly boughs. From that tree, no trace of which now remained, the town had taken its name, and it was a new and altogether unlovely place, bleak alike under summer sun and winter storm.

Sod houses with sere grass standing on their roofs, as it had begun to grow with the spring rains and withered to sapless brown by the summer sun, stood in scattered irregularity, like a grazing herd, forming the outskirts of the town. Tin cans were sown thickly around them, but never vegetable nor flower sprung from the willing soil beside their walls.

In the business section the houses were arranged with more regularity, as if a future had been planned. Most of these buildings were of planks, with stubby fronts, appearing as if they had been slapped in the face and flattened for their threatened trespass upon the road.

There was no distinction in living in a sod house in Cottonwood, for anybody who could borrow a spade might have one. If a man was affluent or consequential in any degree, he bought lumber and built himself a more aristocratic abode. On this account there was a continual sawing and hammering going on in Cottonwood in those times, for