She watched the smoke spirals rising from a hundred cabins; the stretches of black plowed ground enclosed by long lines of fence posts. Far down the valley the new buildings of Alvin showed as white spots in the waning light. The new schoolhouse in the bottoms was nearly completed, the school in which Molly was to teach; all these evidences of an old civilization fastening upon a raw new country and lending an air of permanency and peace.
“We’ve found what we were looking for,” he said. “What more peaceful scene could one find?”
But Molly, too, was aware of that vague rustle of unrest, even a froth of lawlessness, that seemed to pervade it all; the jobless cowhands riding their old domain; the bitter county-seat feuds in progress. Over the line in the Territory two trains had been held up and looted. Banks in small towns along the southern fringe of Kansas had been subjected to a series of daring raids. The forces of the law were imperfectly organized, frequently leagued with the lawless. Many old-time riders of the unowned lands were living on claims and their cabins were ever open for any of the boys who sought safety there. They asked no questions, these men, and answered none. The Osage Hills in the Territory afforded a safe haven for those who were hard-pressed and the way of the transgressor was not difficult. The girl commented upon this to Carver.
“That’s only the ghost of the old days hovering over the corpse of the unowned lands,” he said. “A passing phase. It’s only a froth, like bubbles and trash on the surface of a deep pond when it’s stirred by the wind.”
He waved an arm toward the peaceful rural scene unrolling all around them. “All that is the solid, enduring part. That will last. The other is just the last feeble rustle of the tumbleweeds we’re hearing now.
‘All tumbleweeds hail from nowhere,
Their one favorite residence;
But all are bound for the same graveyard—
Hung up in a barb-wire fence.’
“That’s the finish of all tumbleweeds, girl,” he said. “Soon or late they get crowded into some fence corner and their travels cease. Now me, I’m pocketed that way too, only I’ve taken root. Aren’t you about ready to come over and ride herd on me, sort of, and see that some strong breeze doesn’t uproot me and blow me off somewhere?”