“But there’s a frame house on the Half Diamond H,” she said.
“Four rooms—the only one in this end of the Strip,” he returned. “Old Nate said he couldn’t move it off with any profit and that whoever staked it wouldn’t likely offer any sum to speak of, so it was mine if only I’d stake the place myself.”
“But won’t all the boys that used to ride that country be heading for that same spot?” she asked.
“The old home-ranch sites will be the plums,” he admitted. “They’re located in good country and all the peelers will line out for them. If one of the boys beats me to it, I’ll give him a hundred to move on and stake the next. The Half Diamond H sets in twenty sections of rich bottom land in the Cabin Creek valley. There’ll likely be thirty or more old friends of mine head right into that bottom to file, and I can buy the big part of them out. They’ll sell to the first man who appears and puts in a bid. That will be me.”
“You’ve found one customer now,” Bart announced. “You can buy me out cheap.”
“Pick your places in the line and hold them,” Molly urged. “You’ll have a bad start otherwise.”
“Plenty of time,” Carver said. “We couldn’t get into the front rank or anywhere near it, so I’d as soon start from behind. A fifty-yard handicap won’t matter much in a long pull. Those thoroughbreds will stretch out in the lead for the first couple of miles and give their riders a chance to stake, but they wouldn’t last on a long hard drag. One of them would run my horse off his feet in the first three miles and mine would kill him off in the next ten or twelve. You notice the boys aren’t much concerned over places,” and he motioned toward an irregular string of riders well back of the congested throng banked up along the Cherokee-Kansas line.
All the old-time cowhands of the Strip were prowling here and there, inspecting those who were so soon to swarm in and take over their old stamping ground.
The crowd tightened as the hour approached, squeezing a few feet toward the front as if every inch in the direction of their goal would count for much in the final frenzied spurt of the get-away. Carver looked at his watch and snapped it shut.
“Five minutes,” he announced. “You follow along to the Half Diamond H if you lose us, Molly. I’ve got a food cache there.”