The Conquest Part 6

Even though the presence of these surveyors was now an established fact, these were days of grave uncertainties as to just what route the road would take. The suspense was almost equal to that of the criminal, as he awaits the verdict of the jury. The valleys and divides lay in such a manner that it was possible the survey would extend along the Monca, thus pa.s.sing through Calias. On the other hand, it was probable that it would continue to the Northwest through Kirk and Megory, thus missing Calias altogether.

When the surveyors reached a point five miles west of Hedrick, they swerved to the northwest and advanced directly toward Kirk. This looked bad for Calias.

When Ernest Nicholson had learned that the surveyors were in Oristown, he had left immediately for parts unknown and had not returned. He was in reality the founder of Calias and many of the inhabitants looked to him as their leader, and depended upon him for advice. Although he had many enemies who heaped abuse and epithets upon him--calling him a liar, braggard and "wind jammer" when boasting of their own independence and self respect--now that a calamity was about to befall them, and their fond hopes for this priceless mistress of prairie were about to be wrecked upon the shoals of an imaginary railroad survey, they turned toward him for comfort, as moths turn to a flame. It was Ernest here and Ernest there. As the inevitable progress of the surveyors proceeded in a direct line for Hedrick, Kirk and Megory, the consternation of the Caliasites became more intense as time went on, and the anxiety for Ernest to return almost resolved itself into mutiny. It became so significant, that at one time it appeared that if Ernest had only appeared, the railroad company would have voluntarily run its survey directly to Calias, in order to avoid the humiliation of Ernest's seizing them by the nape of the neck and marching them, survey, cars and all, right into the little hamlet.

Now there was one thing everybody seemed to forget or to overlook, but which occurred to me at the time, and caused me to become skeptical as to the possibilities of the road striking Calias, and that was, if the railroad was to be built up the Monca Valley, then why had the surveyors come to Oristown, and why had they not gotten off at Anona, the last station in the Monca Valley, where the tracks climb the grade to Fairview.

Many of the Megory and Kirk boosters had taken advantage of Ernest's absence, and through enthusiasm attending the advent of the railroad survey, persuaded several of Calias' business men to go into fusion in their respective towns. The remaining handful consoled each other by prophecies of what Ernest would do when he returned, and plied each other for expressions of theories, and ways and means of injecting enthusiasm into the local situation. Thousands of theories were given expression, consideration, and rejection, and the old one that all railroads follow valleys and streams was finally adhered to. I was singled out to give corroborative proof of this last, by reason of my railroad experience.

I was suddenly seized with a short memory, much to my embarra.s.sment, as I felt all eyes turned upon me. However, the crowd were looking for encouragement and spoke up in chorus: "Don't the railroads always follow valleys?" It suddenly occurred to me, that with all the thousands of miles of travel to my credit and the many different states I had traveled through, with all their rough and smooth territory, I had not observed whether the tracks followed the valleys or otherwise. However, I intimated that I thought they did. "Of course they do", my remark was answered in chorus.

Since then I have noticed that a railway does invariably follow a valley, if it is a large one; and small rivers make excellent routes, but never crooked little streams like the Monca. When it comes to such creeks, and there is a table land above, as soon as the road can get out, it usually stays out. This was the situation of the C. & R.W. It came some twenty-five or thirty miles up the Monca, from where it empties into the Missouri. There are fourteen bridges across in that many miles, which were and still are, always going out during high water.

It came this route because there was no other way to come, but when it got to Anona, as has been said, it climbed a four per cent grade to get out and it stayed out.

CHAPTER XVI

MEGORY'S DAY

The first day of May was a local holiday in Megory, held in honor of the first anniversary of the day when all settlers had to be on their claims; and it was raining. During the first years on the Little Crow we were deluged with rainfall, but this day the inclement weather was disregarded. It was Settler's Day and everybody for miles around had journeyed thither to celebrate--not only Settler's Day, but also the advent of the railroad. Only the day before, the surveyors had pitched their tents on the outskirts of the town, and on this day they could be seen calmly sighting their way across the south side of the embryo city.

Megory was the scene of a continuous round of revelry. Five saloons were crowded to overflowing, and a score of bartenders served thousands of thirsty throats; while on the side opposite from the bar, and in the rear, gambling was in full blast. Professionals, "tin horns", and "pikers", in their s.h.i.+rt sleeves worked away feverishly drawing in and paying money to the crowd that surged around the Roulette, the Chuck-luck, and the Faro-bank. It seemed as though everybody drank and gambled. "This is Megory's Day", they called between drinks, and it would echo with "have another," "watch Megory grow."

Written in big letters and hung all along the streets were huge signs which read "Megory, the gateway to a million acres of the richest land in the world." "Megory, the future metropolis of the Little Crow, Watch her grow! Watch her grow!" The board walk four feet wide could not hold the crowd. It was a day of frenzied celebration--a day when no one dared mention Nicholson's name unless they wanted to hear them called liars, wind jammers, and all a bluff.

Ernest was still in the East and no one seemed to know where he was, or what he was doing. The surveyors had pa.s.sed through Megory and extended the survey to the county line, five miles west of the town. The right-of-way man was following and had just arrived from Hedrick and Kirk, where he had made the same offer he was now making Megory. "If" he said, addressing the "town dads" and he seemed to want it clearly understood, "the C. & R.W. builds to Megory, we want you to buy the right-of-way three miles east and four miles west of the town."

Then Governor Reulback, known as the "Squatter Governor," acting as spokesman for the citizens, arose from his seat on the rude platform, and before accepting the proposition--needless to say it was accepted--called on different individuals for short talks. Among others he called on Ernest Nicholson; but Frank, the Junior member of the firm, arose and answered that Ernest was away engaged in purchasing the C. & R.W. railroad and that he, answering for Ernest, had nothing to say. A hush fell on the crowd, but Governor Reulbach, who possessed a well defined sense of humor, responded with a joke, saying, "Mr. Nicholson's being away purchasing the C. & R.W. railroad reminds me of the Irishman who played poker all night, and the next morning, yawning and stretching himself, said, 'Oi lost nine hundred dollars last night and seven and one-half of it was cash.'"

The backbone of the town was beginning to weaken, while there were many who continued to insist that there was hope. Others contracted rheumatism from vigils at the surveyor's camp, in vain hope of gaining some information as to the proposed direction of the right-of-way. The purchasing of the right-of-way and the unloading of carload after carload of contracting material at Oristown did little to encourage the belief that there was a ghost of a show for Calias.

In a few days corral tents were decorating the right-of-way at intervals of two miles, all the way from Oristown to Megory. In the early morning, as the sound of distant thunder, could be heard the dull thud of clods and dirt dropping into the wagon from the elevator of the excavator; also the familiar "jup" and the thud of the "skinner's" lines as they struck the mules, in Calias one and one-half miles away.

A very much discouraged and weary crowd met Ernest when he returned, but even in defeat this young man's personality was pleasing. He was frank in telling the people that he had done all that he could. He had gone to Omaha where his father in-law joined him, thence to Des Moines, where his father maintained his office as president of an insurance company, that made loans on Little Crow land. Together with two capitalists, friends of his father, they had gone into Chicago and held a conference with Marvin Hewitt, President of the C. & R.W. who had showed them the blue prints, and, as he put it, any reasonable man could see it would be utterly impossible to strike Calias in the route they desired to go. The railroad wanted to strike the Government town sites, but the president told them that if at any time he could do them a favor to call on him, and he would gladly do so.

In a few days a man named John Nodgen came to Calias. Towns which had failed to get a road looked upon him in the way a sick man would an undertaker. He was a red-haired Irishman with teeth wide apart and wildish blue eyes, who had the reputation of moving more towns than any other one man. He brought horses and wagons, block and tackle, and ma.s.sive steel trucks. He swore like a stranded sailor, and declared they would hold up any two buildings in Calias.

The saloon was the first building deserted. The stock had not been removed when the house movers arrived, and in some way they got the door open and helped themselves to the "booze," and when full enough to be good and noisy, began jacking up the building that had been the pride of the hopeful Caliasites. In a few weeks a large part of what had been Calias was in Megory and a small part in Kirk.

It had stopped raining for a while, and several large buildings were still on the move to Megory when the rain set in again. This was the latter part of July and how it did rain, every day and night. One store building one hundred feet long had been cut in two so as to facilitate moving, and the rains caught it half way on the road to Megory. After many days of sticking and floundering around in the mud, at a cost of over fourteen hundred dollars for the moving alone, not counting the goods spoiled, it arrived at its new home. The building in the beginning had cost only twenty-three hundred dollars, out of which thirty cents per hundred had been paid for local freighting from Oristown. The merchant paid one thousand dollars for his lot in Megory, and received ten dollars for the one he left in Calias.

This was the reason why Rattlesnake Jack's father and I could not get together when he came out and showed me Rattlesnake Jack's papers. It was bad and I readily agreed with him. I also agreed to sign a quit claim deed, thereby clearing the place, so she could complete her proof.

Everything went along all right, until it came to signing up. Then I suggested that as I had broken eighty acres of prairie, the railroad was in course of construction, and land had materially increased in valuation--having sold as high as five thousand dollars a quarter section--I should have a guarantee that he would sell the place back to me when the matter had been cleared up.

"I will see that you get the place back"--he pretended to rea.s.sure me--"when she proves up again."

"Then we will draw up an agreement to that effect and make it one thousand dollars over what I paid", I suggested.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Everybody for miles around had journeyed thither to celebrate. (Page 108.)]

"I will do nothing of the kind," he roared, brandis.h.i.+ng his arms as though he wanted to fight, "and if you will not sign a quit claim without such an agreement, I will have Jack blow the whole thing, that is what I will do, do you hear?" He fairly yelled, leaning forward and pointing his finger at me in a threatening manner.

"Then we will call it off for today," I replied with decision, and we did. I confess however, I was rather frightened. In the beginning I had not worried, as he held a first mortgage of one thousand, five hundred dollars, I had felt safe and thought that they had to make good to me in order to protect their own interests. But now as I thought the matter over it began to look different. If he should have her relinquish, then where would I be, and the one thousand, five hundred dollars I had paid them?

I was very much disturbed and called on Ernest Nicholson and informed him how the matter stood. He listened carefully and when I was through he said:

"They gave you a warranty deed, did they not?"

"Yes, I replied, it is over at the bank of Calias."

"Then let it stay there. Tell him, or the old man rather, to have the girl complete sufficient residence, then secure you for all the place is worth at the time; then, and not before, sign a quit claim, and if they want to sell you the place, well and good; if not, you will have enough to buy another." And I followed his advice.

It was fourteen months, however, before the Scotch-Irish blood in him would submit to it. But there was nothing he could do, for the girl had given me a deed to something she did not have t.i.tle to herself, and had accepted one thousand, five hundred dollars in cash from me in return.

As the matter stood, I was an innocent party.

About this time I became imbued with a feeling that I would like "most awfully well" to have a little help-mate to love and cheer me. How often I longed for company to break the awful and monotonous lonesomeness that occasionally enveloped me. At that time, as now, I thought a darling little colored girl, to share all my trouble and grief, would be interesting indeed. Often my thoughts had reverted to the little town in Illinois, and I had pictured Jessie caring for the little sod house and cheering me when I came from the fields. For a time, such blissful thoughts sufficed the longing in my heart, but were soon banished when I recalled her seeming preference for the three dollar a week menial, another attack of the blues would follow, and my day dreams became as mist before the sun.

About this time I began what developed into a flirtatious correspondence with a St. Louis octoroon. She was a trained nurse; very attractive, and wrote such charming and interesting letters, that for a time they afforded me quite as much entertainment, perhaps more, than actual company would have done. In fact I became so enamored with her that I nearly lost my emotional mind, and almost succ.u.mbed to her encouragement toward a marriage proposal. The death of three of my best horses that fall diverted my interest; she ceased the epistolary courts.h.i.+p, and I continued to batch.

Doc, my big horse, got stuck in the creek and was drowned. The loss of Doc was hardest for me to bear, for he was a young horse, full of life, and I had grown fond of him. Jenny mule would stand for hours every night and whinny for him.

In November, Bolivar, his mate--the horse I had paid one hundred and forty dollars for not nine months before--got into the wheat, became foundered, and died.

While freighting from Oristown, in December, one of a team of dapple grays fell and killed himself. So in three months I lost three horses that had cost over four hundred dollars, and the last had not even been paid for. I had only three left, the other dapple gray, Jenny mule, and "Old Grayhead," the relic of my horse-trading days. I had put in a large crop of wheat the spring before and had threshed only a small part of it before the cold winter set in, and the snow made it quite impossible to complete thres.h.i.+ng before spring.

That was one of the cold winters which usually follow a wet summer, and I nearly froze in my little old soddy, before the warm spring days set in. Sod houses are warm as long as the mice, rats, and gophers do not bore them full of holes, but as they had made a good job tunneling mine, I was left to welcome the breezy atmosphere, and I did not think the charming nurse would be very happy in such a mess "nohow." The thought that I was not mean enough to ask her to marry me and bring her into it, was consoling indeed.

Since I shall have much to relate farther along concerning the curious and many sided relations that existed between Calias, Megory, and other contending and jealous communities, let me drop this and return to the removal of Calias to Megory.

The Nicholson Brothers had already installed an office in the successful town, and offered to move their interests to that place and combine with Megory in making the town a metropolis. But the town dads, feeling they were entirely responsible for the road striking the town, with the flush of victory and the sensation of empire builders, disdained the offer.

In this Megory had made the most stupid mistake of her life, and which later became almost monumental in its proportions. It will be seen how in the flush of apparent victory she lost her head, and looked back to stare and reflect at the retreating and temporary triumph of her youth; and in that instant the banner of victory was s.n.a.t.c.hed from her fingers by those who offered to make her apparent victory real, and who ran swiftly, skillfully, and successfully to a new and impregnable retreat of their own.

The Megory town dads were fairly bursting with rustic pride, and were being wined and dined like kings, by the citizens of the town--who had contributed the wherewith to pay for the seven miles of right-of-way.

Besides, the dads were puffed young roosters just beginning to crow, and were boastful as well. So Nicholson Brothers got the horse laugh, which implied that Megory did not need them. "We have made Megory and now watch her grow. Haw! Haw! Haw! Watch her grow," came the cry, when the report spread that the town dads had turned Nicholson's offer down.

Megory was the big I am of the Little Crow. Then Ernest went away on another long trip. It was cold weather, with the ground frozen, when he returned.

CHAPTER XVII

ERNEST NICHOLSON'S RETURN--THE BUILDING WEST OF TOWN--"WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT"