The establishment of law and order on western plains . ee days in driving and riding over thecounty, covering every portion of it andseeing every dwelling place of every sort init. At that time there were not over tenmiles of fencing in the county, just a fewquarter sections being enclosed. So theroad was anywhere you wished to travel,so you did not injure a settlers crops (!)or ride over any of his property. HenceI was able to go from house to house acrossand up and down throughout the county,which was only 36 miles square. Then I visited the rival towns andquietly but pretty accurately count
The establishment of law and order on western plains . ee days in driving and riding over thecounty, covering every portion of it andseeing every dwelling place of every sort init. At that time there were not over tenmiles of fencing in the county, just a fewquarter sections being enclosed. So theroad was anywhere you wished to travel,so you did not injure a settlers crops (!)or ride over any of his property. HenceI was able to go from house to house acrossand up and down throughout the county,which was only 36 miles square. Then I visited the rival towns andquietly but pretty accurately counted nosesand estimated values. After completingmy labors and jotting everything down ina note book I went home to foot the figuresup. I found there were between 680 and710 inhabitants—men, women and children,and that for $100,000 I could depopulatethe entire county by buying every bit ofproperty of every settler and business manin it. So I decided to stick to Grant for awhile longer and keep hot on the trail ofthe manager for my deeds. And it was 64. mighty well that I did for had I gone intothis other county God knows I might havegot mixed up somehow in one of the mostatrocious crimes ever committed in acounty seat fight, or any other sort of fight,in this country. There were down in the Neutral Strip,to the south, along the Cimarron River andBeaver Creek, an abundance of wild plums,which were now in good condition for can-ning and making into pies, jams, etc. Asthere was no other sort of fruit in thatwhole section these bitter, almost uneatableplums, were considered quite a luxury, somany little picnic parties were formed togo down and make a holiday of it andbring home a few bushels of plums. One such party, consisting of sevenmen and a boy, went down from the countymentioned one fine day. They had pickedfruit all the forenoon and had nearly awagon load of it. Then they had gone toa spring and got a bucket of water andwere sitting down in the shade of a hay-stack, near thei
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectfrontie, bookyear1915
