The Coolidge examiner., 1931-11-27

y
once been a section hand in the
early days of the building of the
Santa Fe road, was now 50 rich
through his vast oil holdings that
his Indian wife, Crook Nose, was
considered a quaint and picturesque
note by the wives of eastern Oper-
atOrs who came down on oil busi-
ness.
After the first shrill excitement
of it Sabra Cravat relinquiShed
the hope of making sudden millions
as other luckier ones had done. Her
land had yielded no oil; she owned
no oil leases. 1t was a curious fact
that Sabra still queened it in Usage
and had actually become a power
in the state. The paper was read,
respected, and feared throughout
the Southwest 1t was said with
pride by Osage's civic minded that
no oil was rich enough to stain the
pages .Of the Oklahoma Wigwam.
Though few realized it, and though
Sabra herself never admitted it, ii
was Yancey who made this true.
He neglected it for years together,
but he always turned up in a
crisis, whether political, economical
or social, to hurl his barbed edi-
torials at the heads of the Offend
ers, to sting with the poison of his
ridicule. He champiOned the Indi-
ans, he denounced the oil kings, he
laughed at the money grabbers, he
exposed the land thieves. He was
afraid of nothing. He would alb
sent himself for six months. The
Wigwam would run along smoothly,
placidly. He would return, torch
in hand, and again set fire to the
paper until the town, the country,
the state were ablaZe. The OSages
came to him with their legal prob
lens, and he advised them sOundly
and took a minimum fee. He seemed
always to sense an important hap
pening from afar and to emerge,
growing like an old lion, from his
hidden jungle lair, broken, NANCY,
but fighting, the fine eyes still
alight, the magnificent head still as
menacing as that of a buffalo charg-
ing. He had, on one occasion, come
back just in time to learn of Dixie
Lees death.
Dixie had struck oil and had re-
tired, a rich woman. She had closed
her house and gone to Oklahoma
City, and there she bought house
in a decent neighbOrhoOd and adopt
ed a baby girl. She had gone 70
Kansas City for it, and though she
had engaged a capable and some
what bewildered nurse on that trip,
Dixie herself carried the child
home in her arms, its head close
against the expensive satin bosom.
No one knew what she had used
to pull the wool over the eyes of
the Kansas City authorities. She
never could have done it in Okla
homa. She had had the child al
most a year when the women of
Os9ge got wind of it. They say she
took It out herself in its perambu-
lator daily. and perhaps some one
recognized her on the street, though
she looked like any plump and re-
spectacle matron now, in her rich.
quiet dress and her pince neZ,
little gray showing in the black
abundant hair.
Sabra Cravat heard of it. Mrs.
Wyatt. Mrs. Doc Nisbett. Mrs.
Pack.
They took the child away from
her by law. Six months later Dixie
Lee died; the sentimental said of
a broken heart. 1t was Yancey Cra-
vat who wrote her obituary:
"Dixie Lee, for years one of the
most prominent citizens of Usage
and a pioneer in the early days of
Oklahoma, having made the Run in
80, one of the few women who had
the courage to enter that historic
and terrible race, is dead.
"She was murdered by the good
women of Usage. :"
The story was a nine-days' won
der, even in that melodramatic
state. Sabra read it, white-faced
The circulation of the Wigwam
took another bound upward.
"Some day." said Usage. over its
afternoon paper, somebody is 60
ing to come along and shoot old
Cimarron."
Il should think his wife would
save them the trouble" some one
suggested.
If Yancey's sporadic contribu-
tions increased the papers circu-
lation it was Sabra's steady drive
that maintained it. 1t was a gi-
gantic task to keep up with the
changes that were sweeping over
Usage and all of Oklahoma. Yet
the columns of the Wigwam re-
corded these changes in it's news
columns, in its editorial pages, In
its personal and local items and its
advertisements, as faithfully as on
the day of its first issue when Yam
cey had told them who killed Peg
Ter. Perhaps it was because Sabra.
even during Yancey's many alb
sences, felt that the paper must be
prepared any day to meet his
scathing eye.
Strange items began to appear
daily in the papers columns
strange to the eye not interested in
oil; but there was no such eye in
Oklahoma, nor, for that matter. in
the whole Southwest. Cryptic