"Allow me. I will hold the lot on the other side of you for the other one. So you see, with this gentleman and myself, you will be surrounded and protected by the east and the west."
Before the afternoon was half gone all the lots in Newlands had been appropriated, lumber had been brought in, portable houses and tents erected, saloons opened, a daily paper started, and the young Bishop of Oklahoma was on the ground organizing a church; the place was actually assuming the appearance of a city even in so short a time. The story of Sue Belle's ride had been told everywhere by her gallant flankers, and by common consent the focus of activity for the city of Newlands was centred about those three lots. The happy, grateful woman could have sold them a hundred times at an increasing price had she chosen to do so.
Late in the afternoon Joe came up with the wagon and the children. He had been faithful to his trust. Sue Belle was very much frightened when she learned that her husband had secured a claim. She knew he would endeavor to hold it, and she feared extremely for him lying ill and alone on the prairie. Leaving the children in the care of some of the women who had followed their husbands on the trail, with the promise of the whole town that her three lots would be held inviolate for her, accompanied by her two faithful, self-constituted guardians, she mounted the refreshed Kentucky again and rode back to her husband, lying alone, half delirious, in his shed on the prairie, clinging desperately to his quarter section.
Thus the tide changed at last and now came flooding in with fortune.
PASSING THE LOVE OF WOMAN
THE END OF A FRONTIER TELL
"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."
The Bible
There were but two women in the camp, Martie was one of them, and Martie was the cause of it. The statement that it was on account of her they quarrelled, and it was through the quarrel the terrible state of affairs was brought about, cannot be denied.