“Not right this minute,” Carver dissented. “Let them finish working the herd. Then all we’ll have to do is to drive off our meat.”
“Or it’s just possible that we’ve mapped out quite a chore for ourselves,” said Bart. “Milt is in charge down there. He’s easy to get along with, mostly, but deadly as hell when he ain’t. I’m wondering how he’ll take it.”
“Being a person of fair average brains, and not a haphazard homicide like Noll, he’ll take it easy,” Carver said. “I’m armed with a permit from the military authorities to conduct my work in any part of the unowned lands. I represent half the brands that ranged in the Strip and hold a like authority from the trail bosses of a dozen Texas outfits.”
He pointed to the work in progress in the bottoms. Riders were stationed at intervals round the herd to hold it. Others entered and singled out off-brands and once a trained cow-horse had spotted the animal wanted by his rider, he followed doggedly, never losing his prey, and when near the edge of the herd he crowded it out with a sudden swift rush.
“They’re throwing them off up the bottoms,” Carver said. “In a few hours we’ll get Bradshaw and saunter down. After chatting with them for a spell we’ll mention that we’ve been sent in by the Cattlemen’s Association. Their hands are tied.”
This assumption proved correct and Milt Lassiter, silent as always, failed even to comment upon the matter when, some hours later, the three men casually made known their errand and rode off up the bottoms in search of strays. Three days later Carver reached the stockyards with a hundred and twelve head of steers that wore brands of owners whom he represented. The majority of these bore the insignia of Texas outfits but there were some forty steers wearing the mark of Strip owners, strays which had been run into the herd on its way down the Cimarron. He was cleared and given immediate shipping facilities, for the congestion of cows in the quarantine belt had passed, only to be replaced by an even greater congestion of packed humanity just outside.
Thirty thousand souls had come to swell the transient population of Caldwell. A like number were camped along the line and Caldwell drew their trade. Day by day the jam increased. Incoming trains were packed and roads converging upon the town were filled with a solid procession of vehicles which bore families of hopeful home seekers toward the edge of the unowned lands. Caldwell, three months since a little cow town of but two thousand souls, was now doing business on the basis of a hundred thousand population. Property prices doubled overnight and still the swarm increased at the rate of a thousand a day.
And beyond, across the dead line which held the mob back from its goal, the cause of all this rush and turmoil basked in peaceful serenity, twelve thousand square miles of it, untenanted by a single soul. The soldiers rode the line on all four sides of it to hold the over-anxious back; on the west there were troopers stationed at intervals of a mile the length of the Cherokee-Texas border, and on the south along the Oklahoma line. To the east the Arkansas River, separating the Strip from old Indian Territory, was similarly patrolled; yet with all these precautions there were scores of sooners who had slipped through and secreted themselves inside. On the appointed day they would come forth from their retreat and drive their flag on some choice claim as the horde rushed in.
Late summer droughts had claimed the country and the range was parched and brown. Registration booths were erected along the line in the glaring heat and as the day of entry approached there were long strings of men, some extending for upwards of half a mile, lined up to await their turn for registration. They camped in the line, sleeping where they had been standing when night shut down and the registration booths were closed, some reposing on bare ground, others in campbeds which they rolled and utilized as seats throughout the day, dragging them along as the line progressed. Wives and daughters carried meals to their menfolk and vendors plied the line to peddle food and drink.
Every conceivable variety of business had opened up in Caldwell to cater to the ever-increasing throngs. It was the wildest of all frontier booms. Carver’s profit in stray steers had netted him something over eighteen hundred dollars. He disposed of his business building at a net profit of fifty-six hundred and sold out his three lots and little house on the outskirts of town for an even thousand. After clearing his indebtedness on calves, horses and equipment he had something over sixty-three hundred left. He then entered into consultation with Younger and Joe Hinman.