The Conquest Part 7

The big hotel from Calias had not long since been unloaded and decorated a corner lot in Megory. All that remained in Calias were the buildings belonging to Nicholson Brothers, consisting of an old two-story frame hotel, a two-story bank, the saloon, drug store, their own office and a few smaller ones. It was a hard life for the Caliasites and the Megoryites were not inclined to soften it. On the other hand, she was growing like a mushroom. Everything tended to make it the prairie metropolis; land was booming, and buyers were plentiful. Capital was also finding its way to the town, and nothing to disturb the visible prosperity.

But a shrewd person, at that very time, had control of machinery that would cause a radical change in this community, and in a very short time too. This man was Ernest Nicholson, and referring to his return, I was at the depot in Oristown the day he arrived. There he boarded an auto and went west to Megory. On his arrival there, he ordered John Nogden to proceed to Calias, load the bank building, get all the horses obtainable, and proceed at once to haul the building to--no, not to Megory--this is what the Megoryites thought, when, with seventy-six head of horses. .h.i.tched to it, they saw the bank of Calias coming toward Megory. But when it got to within half a mile of the south side, swerved off to the west. About six that evening, when the sun went down, the Bank of Calias was sitting on the side of a hill that sloped to the north, near the end of the survey.

Now what did it mean? That was the question that everybody began asking everybody else. What was up? Why was Ernest Nicholson moving the bank of Calias five miles west of Megory and setting it down on or near the end of the survey? There were so many questions being asked with no one to answer, that it amused me. Then someone suggested that it might be the same old game, and here would come a pause, then the question, "What old game?" "Why, another Calias?"--some bait to make money. Then, "Oh, I see," said the wise town dads, just a hoax. That answered the question, just a snare to catch the unwary. Tell them that the railroad would build to the Tipp County line. Sell them some lots, for that is what the "bluff" meant. Get their good money and then, Oh, Ha! Ha! Ha! it was too funny when one saw the joke, and Megoryites continued to laugh. Had not Nicholson Brothers said a whole lot about getting the railroad; and that it was sure coming up the Monca. It had come, had it not. Haw! Haw! Haw!

Ho! Ho! Ho! just another Nicholson stall, Haw! Haw! Haw! and Nicholsons got the laugh again. The railroad is in Megory, and here it will stop for ten years. One hundred thousand people will come to Megory to register for Tipp County lands, and "Watch Megory grow" was all that could be heard.

Ernest would come to Megory, have a pleasant chat, treat the boys, tell a funny story, and be off. n.o.body was mean enough or bold enough to tell him to his face any of the things they told to his back.

Ernest was never known to say anything about it. His scheme simply kept John Nogden moving buildings. He wrote checks in payment, that the bank of Calias cashed, for it was open for business the next day after it had been moved out on the prairie, five miles west of Megory.

The court record showed six quarter sections of land west of town had recently been transferred; the name of the receiver was unknown to anyone in Megory, but such prices, forty to fifty dollars per acre. The people who had sold, brought the money to the Megory banks, and deposited it. All they seemed to know was that someone drove up to their house and asked if they wanted to sell. Some did not, while others said they were only five miles from Megory, and if they sold they would have to have a big price, because Megory was the "Town of the Little Crow"

and the gateway to acres of the finest land in the world, to be opened soon. "What is your price?" he would ask, and whether it was forty, forty-five or fifty per acre, he bought it.

This must have gone on for sixty days with everybody wondering "what it was all about", until it got on the nerves of the Megoryites; and even the town dads began to get a little fearful. When Ernest was approached he would wink wisely, hand out a cigar or buy a drink, but he never made anybody the wiser.

A lady came out from Des Moines, bought a lot, and let a contract for a hotel building 24 140, and work was begun on it immediately. This was getting ahead of Megory, where a hotel had just been completed 25 100 feet, said by the Megoryites to be the "best" west of a town of six thousand population, one hundred fifty miles down the road. Whenever anything like a real building goes up in a little town on the prairie, with their collection of shacks, it is always called "the best building"

between there and somewhere else.

I shall not soon forget the anxiety with which the people watched the building which continued to go up west of Megory, and still no one there seemed willing to admit that Nicholson Brothers were "live," but spent their argument in trying to convince someone that they were only wind jammers and manipulators of knavish plots, to immesh the credulous.

What actually happened was this, and Ernest told me about it afterwards in about the following words:

"Well, Oscar, after Megory turned our offer down, I knew there were just two things to do, and that was, to either make good or leave the country. Megory is full of a lot of fellows that have never known anything but Keya Paha county, and when the road missed Calias, and struck Megory, they took the credit for displaying a superior knowledge.

I knew we were going to be the big laughing stock of the reservation, and since I did not intend to leave the country, I got to thinking. The more I pondered the matter, the more determined I became that something had to be done, and I finally made up my mind to do it." Ernest Nicholson was not the kind of a man to make idle declarations. "I went down to Omaha and saw some business friends of mine and suggested to them just what I intended to do, thence to Des Moines and got father, and again we went into Chicago and secured an appointment with Hewitt, who listened attentively to all that we had to say, and the import of this was that Megory, being over five miles east of the Tipp County line, it was difficult to drive range cattle that distance through a settled country. They are so unused to anything that resembles civilization, that ranchers hate to drive even five miles through a settled country, besides the annoyance it would habitually cause contrary farmers, when it comes to accommodating the ranchers. But that is not all. With sixty-six feet open between the wire fences, the range cattle at any time are liable to start a stampede, go right through, and a lot of damage follows. I showed him that most of the cattle men were still driving their stock north and shipping over the C.P. & St. L. Now knowing that the directors had ordered the extension of the line to get the cattle business, Hewitt looked serious, finally arose from his chair, and went over to a map that entirely covered the side of the wall and showed all the lines of the C. & R.W. He meditated a few minutes and then turned around and said: 'Go back and buy the land that has been described.'" It all seemed simple enough when it was done.

By the time that the extension had been completed to Megory, the building that had been moved west of town had company in the way of many new ones, and by this time comprised quite a burg, and claimed the name of New Calias. The new was to distinguish between its old site and its present one. After Megory turned them down, Ernest had made a declaration or defiance that he would build a town on the Little Crow and its name would be Calias.

CHAPTER XVIII

COMES STANLEY, THE CHIEF ENGINEER

Megory was still on the boom, not quite as much as the summer before, but more than it was some time later, for as yet New Calias was still regarded as a joke, until one day Stanley, the same wiry-looking individual with the black mustache and the piercing eyes, got off the stage at Megory and began to do the same work he had started west of Oristown the year before.

Oh, it was a shame to thus wreck the selfish dreams of these Megoryites upon the rocks of their own shortsightedness. Stanley was followed a few days later by a grade contractor, who had been to Megory the summer before and who had became popular around town, and was known to be a good spender. They had bidden him good-bye along in December, and although nothing was said about it, the truth was, Megory did not wish to see any more railroad contractors, for a while, not for five or ten years anyway.

It is a peculiar thing that when a railroad stops at some little western burg, that it is always going to stay ten or twenty years. This has always been the case before, according to the towns at the end of the line, and at this time Megory was of the same opinion as regarded the extension to New Calias. So Oristown had been in regard to the extension to Megory. But Trelway built the road to New Calias, and built it the quickest I ever saw a road built. The first train came to Megory on a Sunday in June--(Schedules always commence on Sunday) and September found the same train in Calias, the "New" having been dropped.

Megoryites admitted very grudgingly, a short time before, that the train would go on to Calias but would return to Megory to stay over night, where it left at six o'clock the following morning. Now at Megory the road had a "Y" that ran onto a pasture on a two years lease, while at Calias coal chutes, a "Y", a turning table, a round house, and a large freight depot were erected.

And then began one of the most bitter fights between towns that I ever saw or even read about.

Five miles apart, with Calias perched on another hill, and like the old site, could be seen from miles around. Now the terminus, it loomed conspicuously. It was a foregone conclusion that when the reservation to the west opened, Calias was in the right position to handle the crowds that came to the territory to the west, instead of Megory. Megory contended, however, that Calias, located on such a hill, could never hope for an abundance of good water and therefore could not compete with Megory, with her natural advantages, such as an abundance of good soft water, which was obtainable anywhere in town.

There are certain things concrete in the future growth of a prairie town; the first is, has it a railroad; the next is, is the agricultural territory sufficient to support a good live town (a fair sized town in either one of the Dakotas has from one thousand to three thousand inhabitants); and last, are the business men of the town modern, progressive, and up to date. In this respect Calias had the advantage over Megory, as will be seen later.

Megory became my postoffice address after Calias had moved to its new location, and about that time the first rural mail route was established on the reservation. Megory boasted of this. The other things it boasted of, was its great farming territory. For miles in every direction tributary to the town, the land was ideal for farming purposes, and at the beginning of the bitter rivalry between the two towns, Megory had the big end of the farm trade. They could see nothing else but Megory, which helped the town's business considerably.

CHAPTER XIX

IN THE VALLEY OF THE KEYA PAHA. THE RIVALS. THE VIGILANTS

Nothing is more essential to the upbuilding of the small western town, than a good agricultural territory, and this was where Calias found its first handicap. When it had moved to its new location, scores of investors had flocked to the town, paying the highest prices that had ever been paid for lots in a new country town, of its kind, in the central west.

Twenty-five miles south of the two towns, where a sand stream known as the Keya Paha wends its way, is a fertile valley. It had been settled thirty years before by eastern people, who hauled their hogs and drove their cattle and sheep fifty miles in a southerly direction, to a railroad. Although the valley could not be surpa.s.sed in the production of corn, wheat, oats, and alfalfa, the highlands on either side are great mountains of sand, which produce nothing but a long reddish gra.s.s, that stock will not eat after it reaches maturity, and which stands in bunches, with the sand blown from around its roots, to such an extent that riding or driving over it is very difficult.

These hills rise to heights until they resemble the Sierras, and near the top, on the northwest slope of each, are cave-like holes where the strong winds have blown a squeegee.

The wagon road to the railway on the south was sandy and made traveling over it slow and hazardous by the many pits and dunes. Therefore, it is to be seen, when the C. & R.W. pushed its line through Megory County, everything that had been going to the road on the south began immediately to come to the road on the north--where good hard roads made the traveling much easier, and furthermore, it was only half the distance.

Keya Paha County was about as lonely a place as I had ever seen. After the sun went down, the coyotes from the adjacent sand hills, in a series of mournful howls, filled the air with a noise which echoed and re-echoed throughout the valley, like the music of so many far-away steam calliopes and filled me with a cold, creepy feeling. For thirty years these people had heard no other sound save the same monotonous howls and saw only each other. The men went to Omaha occasionally with cattle, but the women and children knew little else but Keya Paha County.

During a trip into this valley the first winter I spent on the homestead, in quest of seed wheat, I met and talked with families who had children, in some instances twenty years of age, who had never seen a colored man. Sometimes the little tads would run from me, screaming as though they had met a lion or some other wild beast of the forest. At one place where I stopped over night, a little girl about nine years of age, looked at me with so much curiosity that I became amused, finally coaxing her onto my knee. She continued to look hard at me, then meekly reached up and touched my chin, looked into my eyes, and said: "Why don't you wash your face?" When supper was ready went to the sink and washed my face and hands; she watched me closely in the meanwhile, and when I was through, appeared to be vexed and with an expression as if to say: "He has cleaned it thoroughly, but it is dirty still."

About twenty years previous to this time, or about ten years after settlement in this valley, the pioneers were continually robbed of much of their young stock. Thieving outlaws kept up a continuous raid on the young cattle and colts, driving them onto the reservation, where they disappeared. This continued for years, and it was said many of the county officials encouraged it, in a way, by delaying a trial, and inasmuch as the law and its procedure was very inadequate, on account of the county's remote location, the criminals were rarely punished.

After submitting to such until all reasonable patience had been exhausted, the settlers formed "a vigilant committee," and meted out punishment to the evil doers, who had become over-bold and were well known. After hanging a few, as well as whipping many, the vigilanters ridded the county of rustlers, and lived in peace thereafter.

At the time the railroad was built to Megory there was little activity other than the common routine attending their existence. But with Megory twenty-five miles to the north, and many of her former active and prosperous citizens living there; and while board walks and "shack"

buildings still represented the Main Street, Megory was considered by the people of the valley very much of a city, and a great place to pay a visit. Many had never seen or ridden on a railroad train, so Megory sounded in Keya Paha County as Chicago does to the down state people of Illinois.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Made a declaration that he would build a town. (page 122.)]

The people of Keya Paha County had grown prosperous, however, and the stock shipments comprised many train loads, during an active market.

Practically all this was coming to Megory when Calias began to loom prominent as a model little city.

I could see two distinct cla.s.ses, or personages, in the leaders of the two towns. Beginning with Ernest Nicholson, the head of the firm of Nicholson Brothers and called by Megoryites "chief," "high mogul," the "big it" and "I am," in absolute control of Calias affairs; and the former Keya Paha County sand rats--as they are sometimes called--running Megory. The two contesting parties presented a contrast which interested me.

The Nicholson Brothers were all college-bred boys, with a higher conception of things in general; were modern, free and up-to-date. While Megory's leaders were as modern as could be expected, but were simply outcla.s.sed in the style and perfection that the Calias bunch presented.

Besides, the merchants and business men--in the "stock yards west of Megory," as Calias was cartooned by a Megory editor, were much of the same ilk. And referring to the cartoon, it pictured the editor of the Calias News as a braying jacka.s.s in a stock pen, which brought a great laugh from Megoryites, but who got it back, however, the next week by being pictured as a stagnant pond, with two Megory editors as a couple of big bull-frogs. This had the effect of causing the town to begin grading the streets, putting in cement walks and gutters, for Megory had located in the beginning in an extremely bad place. The town was located in a low place, full of alkali spots, buffalo wallows underlaid with hardpan, which caused the surface to hold water to such an extent, that, when rain continued to fall any length of time, the cellars and streets stood in water.

But Megory had the start, with the largest and best territory, which had by this time been developed into improved farms; the real farmer was fast replacing the homesteader. It had the biggest and best banks.

Regardless of all the efficiency of Calias, it appeared weak in its banking. Now a farmer could go to Nicholson Brothers, and get the largest farm loan because the boys' father was president of an insurance company that made the loan, but the banks there were short in the supply of time loans on stock security, but Calias' greatest disadvantage was, that directly west in Tipp County the Indians had taken their allotments within seven or eight miles of the town, and there was hardly a quarter section to be homesteaded.

Now there was no doubt but that in the course of time the Indian allotments would be bought, whenever the government felt disposed to grant the Indian a patent; which under the laws is not supposed to be issued until the expiration of twenty-five years. People, however, would probably lease the land, break it up and farm it; but that would not occur until some future date, and Calias needed it at the present time.

A western town, in most instances, gets its boom in the beginning, for later a dry rot seems an inevitable condition, and is likely to overtake it after the first excitement wears away. Resurrection is rare.

These were the conditions that faced the town on the Little Crow, at the beginning of the third year of settlement.