The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-05-29

and calico-the kind of garments in
which Sabra had seen the women back
home in Wichita hanging up the Mon
day wash to dry on the line in the
back yard. Here they came out Of
butchers shop or grocery store with
the days provisions in their arms; a
packet Of meat, tins of tomatoes or
peaches, unwrapped. After sharp fur
tive glances at Sabra, they vanished
into this little pine shack or that. Inn
mediately afterward there was great
agitation among the prim coarse win
dow curtains in those dwellings boast
ing such elegance.
"But the others-the other kind Of
women" Sabra faltered.
Yancey misunderstood. "Plenty Of
the other kind in town like this, but
they aren't stirring this time Of day."
Don't be coarse, Yancey. l mean
ladies like myself-that can talk to
who'll come calling-that is"
He waved hand this way and that.
"Why, you just saw some women
folks, didn't you?"
"Those!"
swell, now, honey, you can't expect
those ladies to be wearing their best
bib and tucker mornings to do the
homework in. Besides, most of the
men come without their women folk.
They'll send for them, and then you'll
have plenty Of company. 1t isn't every
woman who'd have the courage you
showed, roughing 1t out here. You're
the stuff that Rachel was made of,
and the mother Of the Gracchi."
Rachel was, she knew, out Of the
/ Bible; she was little hazy about the
Gracchi, but basked serene in the
knowledge that a compliment was in
tended.
There was the absurdiy wide street
surely fifty feet WIDEN this little
one-street town. Here and there
struggling house or so branched off 1t.
But the life of Usage seemed to be
concentrated just here. There were
tents still to be seen serving as dwell
ings. Houses and stores were built
of implanted wood. They looked as II
they had been run up overnight, as in
deed they had Tied to the crude
hitching posts driven we'll into the
ground were all sorts Of vehicles:
buckboards, crazy carts, dilapidated
wagons, mule drawn; here and there a
top buggy covered with the dust of the
prairie; and everywhere, lording it,
those four-footed kings without which
life in this remote place could not have
been observation-disclosures of every size
and type and color and degree. Direct
descendants, these, Of the equine
patricians who, almost four hundred
years before, had been brought across
the ocean by Coronado or Moscosco to
the land of the Seven Cities Of Gold.
Crude and ugly though the scene
was that now spread itself before
Sabra and Yancey, it still was not
squalid. 1t had vitality. You sensed
|. that behind those bare boards people
were planning and stirring nightly.
There was life in the feel Of 1t. The
very names tackled up over the store
fronts had bite and sting. Sam Pack,
Mott Bixler, Strap Buckner, Ike
Halves, Clint Hopper. Jim Click.
Though they had come to town but
the night before, it seemed to her that
a surprising number Of people knew
Yancey and greeted him as they passed
down the street. "H'are you, Yam
cey! Howdy, ma'am." Loungers in
doorways stared at them curiously.
It struck Sabra suddenly with a
little shock Of discovery that the men
really were doing nothing. She was
to learn that many Of them were not
builders but scavengers. The indomi-
table old '49ers were no kin Of these.
They were, frequently, soft, cruel, fur
tive, and avaricious. They had gath
cred here to pick up what they could
and move on. Some were cowmen,
full of resentment against govern
ment that had taken the free range
away from them and given 1t over to
the homesteaders. Deprived Of their
only occupation, many Of these became
outlaws. Equipped with six-shooters,
a deadly aim, and horsemanship that
amounted to the miraculous, they took
to the Gyp hills or the Usage, swoop-
ing down from their hidden haunts to
terrorize a town, shoot up bank.
hold up a train. and dash out again,
leaving blood behind them. They
risked their lives for few hundred
dollars. Here was vast domain with
out written laws, without precedent,
without the customs of civilization;
part of a great country, yet no part
of it's government. Here horse was
more valuable than human life. A
horse thief, caught, was summarily