The Coolidge examiner., 1931-10-09
CHAPTER VIII

| drove by. She was seated at her
desk by the window in the front
| office of the Oklahoma Wigwam.
Her face darkened now as she
saw them driving slowly by. Dixie
| Lee never drove with them. Sabra
knew where she was this afternoon.
| She was down in the back room of
, the Usage First National bank talk
| ing business to the president,
Murch Rankin. The business men
of the town were negotiating for
the bringing of the packing house
and plow works and watch fac
tory to Usage. Any one of these
industries required a substantial
bonus. The spirit of the day was
the boom spirit. Boom the town
of Usage. Dixie Lee was essentially
a commercial woman - Shrewd.
clear headed. She had made a
great success of her business. She
was a parsonage in the town. Wis
itOrs came to her house now from
the cities and counties round about.
She had built for herself and her
thriving business the first brick
structure in the wooden town; a
square, solid, and imposing two
story house, its bricks formed from
the native Oklahoma red clay. The
house had been opened with cele
bration the like of which had never
been seen in the Southwest. Sabra
Cravat, mentioning no names, had
had an editorial about 1t in which
the phrases "insult to the fair WON
anhood of America" and "Orgy ri
valing the Bacchanalian revels of
history" (Yancey's library stood
her in good stead these days) fig
ured prominently.
1t was-this red brick brothel-
less sinister than these good and
innocent women suspected. Dixie
Lee. now q woman of thirty or
more, ruled it with an iron hand
Within ii obtained certain laws and
rules of conduct so rigid as TO be
almost prim. II was, in way, a
club. a rendezvous. a salon. Tor
hundreds of men who came there
1t was all they had ever known of
richness, of color, of luxury. Here
they lolled. sunk deep in rosy com
fort, while they talked territory
politics, swapped yarns of the old
cattle days, played cards, drank
wines which tasted like sweet
prickling water TO their whisky
Scared palates. They kissed these
women. thought tenderly of many
of them, and frequently married
them; and these women, once mar
ried, settled down contentedly to
an almost slavish domesticity.
A hard woman. Dixie Lee; bad
woman. Sabra was morally right
in her attitude toward her. Yet
this woman, as we'll as Sabra. filed
her place in the early life of the
territory.
The Oklahoma Wigwam had
fiourished in these last five years of
Sabra's proprietorship. She was
thinking seriously of making it a
daily instead of weekly; of using
the entire building on Pawhuska
avenue for the newspaper plant
and building a proper house for
herself and the two children on one
of the residence streets newly
sprung up-streets that bOasted
neatly painted houses and elm and
cottonwood trees in the front yards.
Some one came up the steps of
the little porch and into the office.
1t was Mrs. Wyatt. "Wellw she
exclaimed, simply, but managing TO
put enormous bite and significance
into the monosyllable. Her glance
followed Sabra'S. Together the
two women, tight Tipped, condemna-
tory, watched the gay parade of
Dixie Lees girls go by.
The flashing company disappeared
A whiff of patchouli floated back to
the two women standing by the
open window. Their nostrils lifted
in disdain. The sound of the
horses hOofs grew fainter.
Its a disgrace to the commu-
| nifty" Mrs. Wyatt's voice took on
its platform note-"and an insult
! to every wife and mother in the ter
ritOry. There ought to be a law" "
Sabra turned away from the win
dow. Her eyes sought the orderly
rows of books, bound neatly in tan
and red-Yancey's law books, so
long unused now, except, perhaps,
for occasional newspaper reference.
Her face set itself in lines of re-
solve. Perhaps there is"
A man like Yancey Cravat-
spectacular, dramatic, impulsive-
has a thousand critics, scores of
bitter enemies. As the weeks had
gone by and Yancey failed to re-
turn-had failed to write-rumor,
clouded by scandal, leaped like
prairie fire from house to house in
Usage, from. town to town in the
Oklahoma country, over the South
west, indeed All the old stories
were revived, and their ugly red
tongues licked sordid path
through the newly opened land.
They say he is living with the
Cherokee squaw who is really his
wife.
They say he was seen making the
Run in the Kickapoo land opening
in 1895.
They say he killed a man in the
Cherokee Strip Run and was caught
| by a posse and hung.