CHAPTER XXXII
A LONG NIGHT
PEOPLE began forming into line immediately after luncheon, on the afternoon of the last day of September and continued throughout the afternoon. When I saw such a crowd gathering, I got my folks into the line. When it is taken into consideration that the land office would not open until nine o'clock the next morning, this seemed like a foolish proceeding. It was then four o'clock and the crowd would have to remain in line all night to hold their places (to be exact, just seventeen hours). Remaining in line all night was not pleasantly anticipated, and nights in October in South Dakota are apt to get pretty chilly, but the line continued to increase and by ten o'clock the street in front of the land office was a surging mass of humanity, mostly purchasers of relinquishments, waiting for the opening of the land office the next morning and to be in readiness to protect the claim they had contracted for. Hot coffee and sandwiches were sold and kept appetites supplied, and drunks mixed here and there in the line kept the crowd wakeful, many singing and telling stories to enliven the occasion. I held the place for my fiancee through the night, and although I had become used to all kinds of roughness, sitting up in the street all the long night was far from pleasant.
About two o'clock in the morning, squatters, who had spent the early part of the night on the prairie in order to be on their claims after midnight, began to arrive and took their places at the foot of the line. All land not filed on by the original number holders was to be open for filing as soon as the land office opened, and squatters had from midnight until the opening of the land office in which to beat the man who waited to file, before locating on the land, a squatters right holding first in such cases. Many had hired autos to bring them in from the reservation immediately after midnight, or as soon after midnight as they had made some crude improvements on the land. Many auto loads arrived with a shout and claimants leaped from the tonneaus, falling into line almost before the vehicles had stopped. The line wound back and forth along the street like a snake and formed into a compact mass. Until after sunrise the noisy autos kept a steady rush, dumping their weary passengers into the street.
By the time the land office opened in the morning, the line filled the street for half a block, and fully seventeen hundred persons were waiting for a chance to enter the land office. An army of tired, swollen-eyed and dusty creatures they appeared, some of whom commenced dealing their positions in the line to late comers, having gotten into line for speculation purposes only, and offered their places for from ten to twenty-five dollars, and in a few instances places near the door sold for as high as fifty dollars.
Under a ruling of the land officials, no filings were to be accepted except from holders of original numbers until October first, and this ruling made it expedient for holders of relinquishments of early numbers to get into line early, as the six months allowed for establishing residence expired for the first hundred original numbers on that day, and in cases where residence had not been properly established, the land would be open to contest as soon as this period had expired. Many hundreds had purchased relinquishments, hence the value placed on the positions nearest the land-office door. It was three o'clock by the time the line had passed through the land office and received their numbers. The land office closed at four o'clock for the day, which left but one hour for the protection of those who must offer their filings that day or face the chances of a contest.
Some had protected their claims by going into the land office before the ruling was made and filing contests on the claims for which they held relinquishments, but most of the buyers had not thought of such a thing, and land grafters had complicated matters by filing contests on various claims for which they knew relinquishments would be offered and then withdrawing the contest, for a consideration. This practice met with strong disapproval as most of the people had invested for the purpose of making homes, and the laws made it impossible to change the circumstances. These transactions had to be completed before the line formed, however, as after the line formed no one could enter the land office to offer either filing, relinquishment or contest, without a number issued by the officials. The line was full of such grafters, and as not more than one hundred filings could be taken in a day, it can readily be seen that some of the relinquishment holders were in danger of losing out through a contest offered before they had an opportunity to file.
The crowds that flock to land openings, like other games of chance, are made up in a measure of speculators, people who journey to one of the registration points and make application for land, figuring that if they should draw an early number (that is, in the first five hundred) they would file, no thought of making a home, but simply to sell the relinquishment for the largest possible price.