White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1931-09-17
CHAPTER x

1t was as though Usage and the
whole Oklahoma country now stopped
and took a deep breath. Well it
might. Just ahead of it, all unknown,
waited years of such clangor and strife
as would make the past years seem
uneventful in comparison. Ever since
the day Of the Run, more than fifteen
years ago, it had been racing helter-
SHELTER, devil take the hindmost; shoot
Ing into the air, prancing and yelping
out of sheer vitality and cussedness.
A mans country it seemed to be, ruled
by men for men. The women allowed
them to think so. The word feminism
was unknown to the Sabra Cravats,
the Mrs. Wyatts, the Mrs. Hefners, the
Mesdames Turket and Folsom and
Sipes. Prim, good women and cour-
ageous, banded together by their good
ness and by their common resolve to
tame the wilderness. Their power
was the more tremendous because they
did not know they had it. They never
once said, during those fifteen years,
1--WE women will do this. We women
will change that" Quietly, indomit-
ably, relentlessly, without even fur
tive glance of understanding ex-
changed between them, but secure in
their common knowledge Of the senti-
mental American male, they went
ahead with their plans. L.
Yancey had come home from the
Spanish-American war hero. Other
men from Usage had been in the
Philippines. One had even died there
(dysentery and ptomaine from bad
timed beef. But Yancey was the
towns Rough Rider He had charged
up San Juan hill with Roosevelt.
Usage, knowing Yancey and never hav-
ing seen Roosevelt, assumed that Yam
cey Cravat-the Southwest Cimarron
had led the way, an ivory-and-silver-
mounted six-shooter in either hand,
the great buffalo head lowered with
such menace that the enemy had fled
in terror.
His return had been the occasion
for such q celebration as the town had
never known and never would know
again, they assured each other, be-
tween drinks, until the day when
statehood should come to the territory.
He returned a captain unwounded,
but thin and yellow, with the livery
look that confirmed the stories one
had heard of putrid food, typhoid, dys-
EMERY, and mosquitoes more deadly,
in this semi-tropical country, than bull
lets or cannon.
Poisoned and enfeebled though he
was, his return seemed to energize the
crude little town. Wherever he might
be he lived in swirl of events that
Grew into it's eddy all that came with
in it's radius. Hi, Yancey! Hi, Clint I!
He shed the khaki and the cooked hat
and actually appeared again in the
familiar white sombrero, Prince AL
bert, and high-heeled boots. Usage
breathed sigh of satisfaction. His
dereliction was forgiven, the rumors
about him forgotten-or allowed to
subside, at least. Again the editorial
columns of the Oklahoma Wigwam
blazed with hyperbole.
It was hard for Sabra to take Sec
ond place Cor to appear to take second
place. in the office of the Wigwam.
She had so long ruled there alone.
Her word had been law to the waver-
ing Jesse Hickey and to the worshiping
Cliff Means. And now to say, You'd
better ask Mr.. Cravat."
"He says leave it to you. He's went
emit" III
Yancey did good deal of going out.
eAhra, after all, still did most of the
w~sk OF the paper without having the
satisfaction Of debating Its policy