“All right—go ahead and relax,” said Carver. “Only don’t be gone too long.”
“I’ll be drifting over to Casa and see how the County Seat ruckus is coming on,” Bart decided. “I’ll report on the latest developments when I come back.”
A thriving town had come into being on the site of the box car which had once borne the name of Casa and which had been sacked and burned. A bank and a frame hotel, two general merchandise establishments, a hardware and implement concern, grocery stores, restaurants, saloons, two livery barns, a drug store, barber shop and pool hall, all glaringly new and mostly unpainted, made up the business district of Casa, which now numbered a population of four hundred souls. Various businesses were conducted in board-floored tents until such time as the proprietors could secure more permanent quarters.
Casa, by virtue of both population and location, had considered herself the logical choice for County Seat. The government appointee charged with such locations had listened and agreed, provided only that a personal bonus of one thousand dollars be tendered him along with the other arguments. Graft was open and flagrant in the early days of the Strip and communities as well as individuals paid the price for official favors. The citizens’ council, a volunteer body of Casa business men, had flatly refused and the locater had thereupon designated Oval Springs, a little camp some miles to the south as the legal center of county government. This move was destined to precipitate one of the bitter and enduring county-seat wars for which the West is famed. Casa was not alone in her troubles, for this was but one of three such controversies at various points in the Strip.
The railroad had backed Casa in the feud from the first. At the time of designation Oval Springs could boast neither a side track nor a station and the railroad had steadfastly refused to halt its trains. The citizens of Oval Springs had hastened to erect a large frame building to serve as a courthouse, a second to serve as county jail, this last edifice complete except for a few exterior touches and a coat of paint. The steel-framed cells were already installed and the jail was open for business. The trains still rolled through and eventually Oval Springs took matters into their own hands and elected to make that point the terminal from both ways by tearing up two hundred yards of track. A stock train had been piled in a gulch, a passenger train derailed. This last had constituted a case of obstructing the delivery of the United States mail and Carl Mattison, appointed deputy marshal in the post from which Freel had resigned, had been sent in with a posse to straighten out the tangle.
Alf Wellman, who had staked his claim adjoining the present town site of Oval Springs, had been appointed sheriff until such time as an election could be held. It was freely stated in Casa that the sheriff and his deputies declined to interfere with the lawless element that sought to destroy railroad property and so force the railroad company to halt its trains. The feud was destined to be bitter and sustained and it was slated that another fifteen years should pass before Casa should come into her own as the permanent seat of county affairs.
Two days after Bart’s departure he rode up to the Half Diamond H at daylight.
“Just dropped by for breakfast and to report on the general situation,” he informed. “I changed my mind after leaving the other day and dropped down to view the new county seat. Quite an alteration in those parts since the night you and me camped there during round-up without a house anywheres in sight. There’s trouble brewing down there in quantities.”
“Then how did you happen to leave?” Carver inquired.
“Last night some unknown parties staged a midnight battle with the marshal’s posse that’s guarding the relaid tracks, during which it’s reported that one of the posse was killed and two others damaged. Under cover of this ruckus some others succeeded in blowing up the bridge just south of town and traffic is once more suspended.”