Claim Number One

by George W. Ogden

Of course, if he could make it go at his profession that would be the thing. It would be better than all the sheep on Wyoming’s dusty hills. A little surgery somewhere, with its enameled table and white fittings, and automobiles coming and going all day, and Agnes to look in at evening––. Yes, that would be the thing.

Perhaps sheep for a few years would help to that end. Even five years would leave him right in the middle stretch of life, with all his vigor and all the benefit of experience. Sheep looked like the solution indeed. So thinking, he blew out his candle and went out to look for Walker.

At the door of the tent he stopped, thinking again of Agnes, and of the moonlight on her face as they stood by the riverside, trembling again when the weight of the temptation which had assailed him in that moment swept over him in a heart-lifting memory. Perhaps Agnes condemned him for refusing the opportunity of her lips. For when a woman expects to be kissed, and is cheated in that expectation, it leaves her in censorious mood. But scorn of an hour would be easier borne than regret of years. 107

So he reflected, and shook his head solemnly at the thought. He passed into the shadows along the deserted street, going toward the sounds which rose from beneath the lights beyond.

Comanche appeared livelier than ever as he passed along its thronged streets. Those who were to leave as soon as they could get a train were making a last reckless night of it; the gamblers were busy at their various games.

The doctor passed the tent where Hun Shanklin had been stationed with his crescent table. Shanklin was gone, and another was in his place with an army-game board, or chuck-a-luck, doing well with the minnows in the receding sea. Wondering what had become of Shanklin, he turned to go down a dark little street which was a quick cut to the back entrance of the big gambling-tent, where he expected to find Walker and go into the matter of sheep.

Even at that moment the lights were bright in the office of The Chieftain. The editor was there, his green coat wide open, exposing his egg-spattered shirt-front to all who stopped to look, and making a prodigious show of excitement at the imposing-stone, where the form of the last extra of the day lay under his nervous hand.

The printer was there also, his hair standing straight where he had roached it back out of his eyes with inky fingers, setting type for all he was worth. In a little while those on the street heard the familiar bark of the 108 little gasoline engine, and hundreds of them gathered to inquire into the cause of this late activity.

“Running off an extra,” said Editor Mong. A great, an important piece of news had just reached the office of The Chieftain, and in a few minutes an extra would be on the streets, with the secret at the disposal of every man who had two bits in his pants. Those were the identical words of that advance-guard of civilization and refinement, Mr. J. Walter Mong.

It was midnight when the circulator of The Chieftain–engaged for that important day only–burst out of the tent with an armful of papers, crying them in a voice that would have been red if voices had been colored in Comanche, it was so scorched from coming out of the tract which carried liquor to his reservoir.