“You make camp right here on this creek,” Carver instructed. “This is your claim. I’ll see you to-morrow, Aunty.”
“Thank you, son,” she said. “You’ve done us a big favor. This is better ground than any we’ve crossed through. I was beginning to be just a mite worried for fear we mightn’t find a piece. It was real nice of you to tell us.”
Carver turned his horse up towards where the sooner reclined on the creek bank.
“I instructed you to high-tail it out of the country,” he announced. “So you put forth from here sudden.”
“Do you imagine you’re in charge of this whole territory?” the man demanded.
“I was once,” said Carver. “Foreman of the old Half Diamond H. In lack of any better authority I’ve elected myself temporary head of the district so I can choose my own neighbors. I don’t pick you.”
He handed the man a ten-dollar bill.
“I’m sorry to see your efforts wasted but maybe you can drown your grief in that,” he said. “There’s not a chance in the world for you to make your claim stick—and I’ll see that you come to a bad end if you try to file. You can use your own judgment about when you flit from these parts.”
He turned back toward Molly but the girl had gone down her own side of the ridge as a second wagon rolled into the bottoms and halted on the upper end of the Texan’s filing. The outfit of the ample soul and her solemn spouse had been wrecked in the early stages of the run and the repairs had required too great a time to permit of their overtaking the other stampeders. As Molly joined them she heard the voice of the Texan lifted in his war song as he returned from a boastful visit with some near-by homesteader.
“I’m a wild, wild rider