So many strangers came and went that the homesteaders seldom identified these land thieves, but the print shop, set high in the middle of the plains, was like a ranger's lookout where we could watch their maneuvers; they traveled in rickety cars or with team and buggy, often carrying camping equipment with them. By the way they drove or rode back and forth, we could spot the "spotters."
They often stopped at the settlement for tobacco or a lunch out of the store—and a little information.
"Whose shack is that off to the southwest?" a man asked one morning, reading off the claim numbers from a slip of paper. He was a ruddy-faced man dressed in a baggy checkered suit with a heavy gold watch chain across the front of his vest and a big flashy ring.
"Belongs to a woman from Missouri," Ida Mary told him. "She had a neighbor build the shack for her."
"No one living there," he said.
"Oh, yes," Ida Mary improvised rapidly, "she was in here yesterday on the way to town for furniture. Won't be back until tomorrow night."
He looked doubtful. "Doesn't look to me as though anyone ever slept there. Not a thing in the shack—no bed."
Ida Mary called out to me, "Edith, didn't you lend that woman some bedding yesterday?"
"Yes," I declared, "so she could sleep there a few nights before the deadline."
All our early training in truth-telling was lost in the skirmish, and sometimes I doubted if the truth was left in us. But there was zest in this outwitting of men who would have defrauded the settlers if they could.