AS the train rumbled along carrying Roderick back to Burlington, he was lost in reverie and exultation. He was making plans for a mighty future, into which now a romance of love was interwoven as well as the romance of a mysterious gold mine awaiting rediscovery in some hidden valley among rugged mountains. Yes; he would lose no further time in starting out for Wyoming. The winning of the one treasure meant the winning of the other—the making of both his own. As he dreamed of wealth unbounded, there was always singing in his heart the name of Stella Rain.
Next day he was aboard a westbound train, booked for Rawlins, Wyoming, where, as his father’s letter had directed, he was likely to find the old frontiersman, Jim Rankin; perhaps also the other “cronies” referred to by name, Tom Sun and Boney Earnest At Omaha a young westerner boarded the train, and took a seat in the Pullman car opposite to Roderick. In easy western style the two fell into conversation, and Roderick soon learned that the newcomer’s name was Grant Jones, that he was a newspaper man by calling and resided in Dillon, Wyoming, right in the midst of the rich copper mines.
“We are just over the mountain,” explained Jones, “from the town of Encampment, where the big smelter is located.”
As the train sped along and they became better acquainted, Grant Jones pointed out to Roderick a dignified gentleman with glasses and a gray mustache occupying a seat well to the front of the car, and told him that this particular individual was no other than the “Boss of Montana”—Senator “Fence Everything” Greed. Jones laughed heartily at the name.
“Of course, he is the U. S. Senator from Montana,” continued Jones, soberly, “and his name is F. E. Greed. His enemies out in Montana will be highly pleased at the new name I have given him—’Fence Everything,’ because he has fenced in over 150,000 acres of Government land, it is claimed, and run the actual home-settlers out of his fenced enclosures while his immense herds of cattle trampled under foot and ate up the poor evicted people’s crops. Oh, he’s some ‘boss,’ all right, all right.”
“Why,” exclaimed Roderick, “that’s lawlessness.”
Grant Jones turned and looked at Roderick and said: “The rich are never lawless, especially United States Senators—not out in Montana. Why, bless your heart, they say the superintendent of his ranch is on the payroll down at Washington at $1800 a year.
“Likewise the superintendent of the electric lighting plant which Senator Greed owns, as well as the superintendent of his big general store, are said to be on the government payroll.
“It has also been charged that his son was on the public payroll while at college. Oh, no, it is not lawless; it is just a dignified form of graft. Of course,” Jones went on with arched eyebrows, “I remember one case where a homesteader shot one of the Senator’s fatted cattle—fine stock, blooded, you know. It was perhaps worth $100. Of course the man was arrested, had a ‘fair trial’ and is now doing time in the penitentiary. In the meantime, his wife and little children have been sent back East to her people. You see,” said Jones, smiling, “this small rancher, both poor in purse and without influence, was foolish enough to lose his temper because five or six hundred head of Senator Greed’s cattle were driven by his cowboys over the rancher’s land and the cattle incidentally, as they went along, ate up his crops. Little thing to get angry about, wasn’t it?” and Jones laughed sarcastically.
“Well, don’t the state conventions pass resolutions denouncing their U. S. Senator for such cold-blooded tyrannizing methods?”