So he had not won in the Brulé lottery. Somehow I was glad to know that was the reason for his not being on a claim there.
Sensing this, he said grimly: "So you thought I was a quitter."
As we clung to each other to keep from being separated in the hysterical mob, I heard his hollow cough.
"Are you ill?" I asked.
"It's this crowd and the dust—my lungs—got to come west—"
I grabbed him by the coat sleeve, trying to make my voice carry above the ballyhoo. "If you do not win here, come and see me. I can get you a claim." The swaying throng separated us.
I rushed to the telegraph office and sent off my story. As I started back I stopped to look upon the little town which had been started at the end of the iron trail, revealed in the light of torches against a black sky, and at the faces, white and drawn and tense.
Move on! Move on! At 4 o'clock that Monday morning, four hours after arrival, the landseekers who had registered were on the road back to Chicago and all points east, many of them carrying in one hand a chunk of sod and in the other a tuft of grass—tangible evidence that they had been on the land. And other trains were rushing out, carrying more people. I boarded a returning special which was packed like a freight train full of range cattle, men and women travel-stained, tired and hollow-eyed, but geared up by hope.
I got off at Chamberlain. The rumors had been correct. That seething mob at Presho was only the spray cast by the tidal wave. At Chamberlain long, heavily loaded trains pulled in and out. People walked ten and twelve abreast through the streets. Some 30,000 strangers besieged that frontier town. A mob of 10,000 tried to fill out application blanks, tried to get something to eat and drink, some place to sleep. While the saloons were overrun, there was little drunkenness. No man could stand at the bar long enough to get drunk. If he managed to get one drink, or two at most, he was pushed aside before he could get another—to make room for someone else. Move on! Move on!
The stockmen were shocked. They had not dreamed of anything like this invasion. Their range was going and they owned none, or little, of the land. The old Indians looked on, silent and morose.