Page:West of Dodge (1926).pdf/52

 They made fifty thousand apiece off of them lots, if they made a dollar. Boomed 'em clear down to Kansas City, sold lots by mail to people that never saw Damascus and never will."

"That was all square, wasn't it? just so they got the lots."

"Square enough, I reckon. If a man's fool enough to pay two hundred dollars for a lot away out here west of Dodge he ought to be skinned, I guess. Specalated on 'em, them buyers; sold 'em for less 'n half they paid, most of 'em. Well, some's holdin' 'em yit, payin' taxes, hopin' for a railroad boom."

"Will it come?"

"Not this fur west of Dodge. If I could sell this dump out for thirty-five hundred you'd see me streakin' for the east. I'd go back to Dodge and open me a grocery."

"But how did this county seat fuss begin?"

"I started to tell you, mister," Jim replied, somewhat huffed over the implication that he did not know how to relate the history of Damascus, and he a citizen of it since the tumble-weeds were raked up and burned off the square to make ready for the court house foundation.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Justice. Please go ahead."

"A gang of specalators headed by a gambler by the name of Ora Simrall come out here from Dodge when they shut everything down there about four years ago and started 'em up a town about eight miles west of here. The railroad gradin' contractors had a big camp out there, the company had two or three boardin' trains full of jerries, four or five hundred men, all counted, I guess, in that camp in them days. It was purty good pickin' for Simrall when he opened a saloon and gamblin' joint.