How still was that vast expanse of gently undulating land of which they were the centre! An ocean caught in a quiet moment, and every smoothly rolling wave petrified, motionless. How vast was the firmament above them! To lie in the gra.s.s at night and stare up into its blue unclouded distance filled with stars--shone they ever so gloriously anywhere else on the globe?--was to reduce one"s self to a vanishing point in the infinite universe of G.o.d. Lonely? Yes, to ordinary people, perhaps, but not to these two home-builders. They were young, they were together, they were lovers, and they had to do prosaic, G.o.d-given labor.
So they pitched their stakes upon the verdant hill, and, toiling early and late, built there for themselves and those to come a home. With iron share they tore the virgin sod; with generous hands they sowed the seed; with all the hope of youth and love bourgeoning and blossoming in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, they began the earth-old process of wresting a living from the tillage of the soil. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." So ran the primal truth. Ah, yes, but this time counted not a curse but a privilege, and enjoyed not without but within an Eden.
II.--THE SECOND FLIGHT
Spring-time again upon the farm, and they were bidding it good-by.
Five years have dragged away, years filled with little but misfortune--years of freezing winters, burning summers, drought, or storm. Five lean years of failure, unprecedented but true. A long, deadly, paralyzing struggle with that terrible minatory face of nature which, thank G.o.d! is usually turned away from humanity, else we could not bear the sight. The sun had beaten upon the farm and burnt it up, the parasites had swarmed over the field and eaten it down, the winter cold had frozen the life out of it, the fierce storms had swept over it and torn it away,--winter and summer had been alike against them.
Last fall the deadly mortgage had grown from the little hand-breadth cloud until it had covered the land, blanketed it, blighted it, filled earth and sky to them. It was over. They had toiled for naught, and no profit had they taken of all their labor under the sun. They were beaten at last.
Once more the old Studebaker wagon. Within it a haggard, dogged, disappointed man,--yet indomitable; a woman still young, robbed forever of the brightness of youth, yet striving to nourish a spark of the old hope,--a mother, too. Two little children clung to her, healthy, l.u.s.ty, strong, happy; they had neither known nor suffered.
There was the same old team between the "tugs," sobered, quieted, saddened like their master, perhaps, and Kentucky. Kentucky was leaner than he should be, not so well nourished as they would like to have him, but his spirit was unabated. He, at least, had not been beaten down.
So they set forth again. "Once more into the breach," brave pair. Life insistently craves bread. Men must work; ay, and women too, though they may weep as well. There were the little children, oh, father and mother! treasure of health and teaching must be laid up for them. The old cause must be tried out yet again. Farewell to defeat, farewell to failure, farewell to the old. Let us stir up hope again, look forward into the future, deserve a triumph. All had been lost but love; that had not failed, and while G.o.d is it cannot. It is a mighty talisman with which to attempt the morrow. So armed, they started out again.
With one hundred dollars in his pocket, a small lot of household necessaries, a stove, some blankets, etc., and Kentucky, Samuel Maxwell and Sue Belle and the two children started out in the wagon again to have another wrestle with fortune. They determined to go to the Kansas-Indian Territory border and try to secure free land in Oklahoma Territory, which was to be opened for settlement that summer.
They hated the prairie where they had lived now. It was a.s.sociated with their ruin, eloquent of their future. That season bade fair to be as bountiful a time as had been the year of their arrival, but they could not stay. They had pulled up the stakes, and nothing was left for them but to go on. Indeed, they were wishful to do so, and had they known that, as it happened, the five years of starvation, drought, and failure were to be succeeded by twice as many years of abounding plenty, they would not have stayed. They loathed the spot.
They could not have remained anyway. Another man held the farm and succeeded where they had failed, reaping where they had sown.
It was late summer when they reached Solomon City, from which they had elected to make the run into the hitherto forbidden land. The place was filled with all sorts and conditions of men and women attracted by the possibility of getting a quarter section or a town lot practically free in the Cherokee strip; there were half a million of them on the border-line! And there, too, were congregated the human vultures that live to prey upon the crowd.
The distribution of the lots and sections was to be made on the principle of first come first served. All seekers for locations were to line up on the edge of the strip on a given date at a certain hour, and when a signal was given they were to rush into the Nation, drive a stake in a quarter section, or in a town lot at the places where the towns had previously been surveyed and lots plotted and staked out by the government, throughout the vast body of land in the Indian Territory thrown open for settlement. Then they were to hold their places, living in tents and shanties, until they could erect houses and prove their claims.
Samuel intended to ride Kentucky into the strip and take his chance at a town lot. He had had enough of farms. Not many miles below Solomon City, on the railroad running through the "strip,"--as the land was called,--the future town of Newlands had been laid out by the surveyors. It was a paper town as yet, but the day after the run would see it suddenly become a city, and good lots would probably be of value. If he could get a good one it might be worth several thousand dollars, and he could start again. It was a desperate chance, but he had to take it; there was nothing else.
Ill fortune was not yet done with them, however, for in scrambling down the bank of the river to get water for his team, the unfortunate man fell and broke his arm. He climbed up to the wagon, sank down on the dry gra.s.s beside it, and gave way. Sue Belle stood by with white face as the local doctor bound up his arm, but she did not cry. She felt that she had other things to do, that she must play the man, and that she could not indulge in the womanly luxury of weeping.
"I"m not crying, doctor, because it hurts," said Samuel, brushing away his tears with his uninjured arm; "but because this seems to be just the last straw in our bad luck. We were married five years ago, and we bought a farm in Cimarron. I"m a good farmer, I was born on a farm and raised on it, and I was trained in the Agricultural College in Kansas.
I know the thing theoretically and practically, too, but everything failed us. We"ve lost everything, and we came here in the hope of getting something out of the strip. G.o.d"s forgot us, I guess."
The doctor had seen many cases like that in the Southwest, and, though his heart was profoundly touched, he could do nothing.
That night Samuel lay awake in the wagon almost forgetting the pain in his arm wondering what would become of them. He had lugged out his old leather purse and counted the money that was left,--ten dollars! That was all that stood between them and starvation! The strip was to be opened to-morrow, the run would take place then. What, in G.o.d"s name, could he do?
"Sam," said Sue Belle, lying awake by his side, "don"t give way so!"
"Give way, dear!" he groaned. "How can I help it? Ten dollars between you and the children and starvation! This town here can"t help any one. These people around us can"t Look at them! They"re as poor as we are. Five years of crop failure has. .h.i.t them as hard as it has. .h.i.t us.
The run takes place to-morrow, and I can"t ride. I did hope that I could get a town lot in Newlands. I don"t believe that anything here can outrun Kentucky; but now--oh, my G.o.d! my G.o.d!"
"Sam dear, I"ll ride Kentucky."
She spoke resolutely, having thought quickly, and her mind was made up.
"We"ve got no side-saddle," answered the man; "you know we sold it."
"I can ride astride," said the woman, having covered this point also in her mind. "I used to ride that way when I was a girl. I"ve done it hundreds of times, and I can make better time that way now."
"But, dear, you"re a woman, and----"
"I can wear your clothes, dear. I"m almost as tall as you are. They"ll be rather large, but----"
"Oh, Sue Belle, I can"t allow you to go in there alone, in all that crowd, with----"
"I"ve got to do it, Sam! It"s our last chance. It"s for the children, not ourselves. We could die. We"ve done our best. But think of them!"
She rose from her bed and crept over to the back of the wagon where the little boy and girl lay sprawling side by side in the dreamless sleep of childhood. She pushed from the baby brows the curly hair matted with perspiration, and stooped and kissed them. She felt so strong, so brave, so resolute, as if the burden which she had hitherto shared with Samuel, or from which he had tried to spare her, had suddenly fallen upon her own shoulders, and in some strange way that she had been given strength to bear it.
Long time that night husband and wife talked over the situation. In the face of her determination the man could not do otherwise than give consent. In the morning, making him as comfortable as she could, she plodded up through the dust to the city and bought from the wondering shopkeeper a pair of high boots that fitted her, since it would be impossible for her to use her husband"s huge ones. At Sam"s insistent demand, she also hired for five dollars a poor stranded negro, who looked honest and faithful, to drive the wagon after her into the strip. That exhausted their ready money.
It was half after eleven o"clock when she returned to the wagon. The doctor had been there, and had done what he could for her fevered husband, but his arm still pained fearfully. He was up, however,--he had to be,--and seated on the dusty gra.s.s in the shadow of the canvas top. The children were playing about him. Bidding the negro boy hitch up the team, Sue Belle slipped under the wagon-cover and dropped the curtain. When she came out her tall form was encased in her husband"s only remaining suit of clothes. She wore a soft felt hat with her hair tightly twisted under it. A loose shirt, trousers, and the new boots completed her costume. Womanlike, she had tied a blue silk handkerchief--last treasure-trove from her trousseau--around her neck.
There was a painful flush upon her thin face and her eyes were filled with tears.
Samuel groaned and shook his head, the negro boy gazed with mouth wide open, his eyes rolling, and little Sue Belle shrank away from her mother garbed in this strange manner. Kentucky, who had been given the last measure of oats they possessed, did not recognize her until she spoke, and then he stared at her in a wondering way as she saddled and bridled him. A hatchet and a tent-peg tied securely to the saddle completed her preparations. By her husband"s insistence she strapped a spur on her boot, although, as she said, she had never put a spur to Kentucky in her life.
"You may have to do it now, dear," said Maxwell, and to please him she complied.
n.o.body paid any attention whatever to her, although the boundary was lined, as far as eye could see and for miles beyond, with crowds of people intending to make the run. On the very edge of the strip the runners had a.s.sembled on horseback or muleback, on bicycles, in buggies, sulkies, or in road wagons, and there were many dressed in jerseys and running shoes who intended to make the run on foot. Back of them in long lines were grouped wagons of all descriptions, mostly filled with women and children. All sorts and conditions of men were represented in the huge and motley throng.
It was a blazing hot day. The shifting horde raised clouds of dust above the line, from which the bare, treeless prairie stretched away southward for miles. There was not a soul on it except United States cavalrymen, who were spread out in a long line, each man being placed at a regular interval from his neighbor. To the front of the troopers, the captain in command sat his horse, holding his watch in his left hand to determine the correct time, while in his right he carried a c.o.c.ked revolver.
Twelve o"clock was the appointed hour. The soldiers on either side held their loaded carbines poised carefully and looked toward the captain, or, if too far away to see him, toward the next in line who could. The signal for the start was to be given simultaneously over the whole extended strip, stretching for many miles along the Kansas border, by means of these troopers. No one was to move until the signal was given. The soldiers had scoured the country for days to evict the "sooners,"--those who had gone in before the appointed time and attempted to conceal themselves that they might secure the best lots.
Sue Belle turned and kissed the babies. Then she bent toward Samuel, but he rose painfully to his feet and stood flushed and feverish while he pressed her to his side with his sound arm.
"May G.o.d protect you, dear," he said, trembling with pain and agitation.
"He will! He will!" exclaimed the woman, fervently, strong in her endeavor. "Now be sure and have the wagon follow right after me. And you know the doctor said he"d get you taken in some place in town as soon as the run began; there"ll be lots of room there then. I"m going to ride straight down to Newlands and try for a town lot. They"ll find me there. They ought to be there by evening, and I"ll manage somehow till then."
"But how"ll you live till I get there?"
"I can cook or wash for hire; there"ll be lots to do there, and I"ll write to you at once. Don"t worry about me, dear. I"m half crazy to think of leaving you ill and alone----"
"I wish you had a revolver, Sue Belle," groaned Samuel.
"I wish I had, too," answered the woman; "but never mind, we are in G.o.d"s hands."
"Oh, Sue Belle, I can"t let you go!"
"You must! I must go now! See! They"re getting ready!"
She tore herself away from him and spoke to the colored boy.
"Joe," she said, "for G.o.d"s sake, don"t fail us! I leave you my two little children; if you guard them safely and bring them to me faithfully, whatever good fortune comes to us you shall share."
""Deed I will, suh, ma"am, miss,--yes, suh," stammered the colored boy. "I"ll tek good caah on "em, mista--lady," he added, in his confusion.