Crisis 343

CLAIM NUMBER ONE

CHAPTER I

COMANCHE

Coming to Comanche, you stopped, for Comanche was the end of the world.
Unless, of course, you were one of those who wished to push the
boundary-line of the world farther, to make homes in the wilderness
where there had been no homes, to plant green fields in the desert where
none had been before.

In that case you merely paused at Comanche, like the railroad, to wait
the turn of events.

Beyond Comanche was the river, and beyond the river, dim-lined in the
west, the mountains. Between the river and the mountains lay the
reservation from which the government had pushed the Indians, and which
it had cut into parcels to be drawn by lot.

And so Comanche was there on the white plain to serve the present, and
temporary, purpose of housing and feeding the thousands who had
collected there at the lure of chance with practical, impractical,
speculative, romantic, honest, and dishonest ideas and intentions.
Whether it should survive to become a colorless post-office and
shipping-station for wool, hides, and sheep remained for the future to
decide. As the town appeared under the burning sun of that August
afternoon one might have believed, within bounds, that its importance
was established for good and all.

It was laid out with the regular severity of the surveyor's art.
Behind the fresh, new railroad depot the tented streets swept away
pretentiously. In the old settlements--as much as two months before
that day some of them had been built--several business houses of wood
and corrugated sheet-iron reared above the canvas roofs of their
neighbors, displaying in their windows all the wares which might be
classified among the needs of those who had come to break the desert,
from anvils to zitherns; from beads, beds, and bridles to winches,
wagons, water bottles, and collapsible cups.

At the head of the main street stood a hydrant, which the railroad
company supplied with water, offering its refreshment to all comers--to
man, beast, and Indian, as well as to dusty tourists with red
handkerchiefs about their necks. Around it, where teams had been fed and
the overflow of water had run, little green forests of oats were
springing, testifying to the fecundity of the soil, lighting unbelieving
eyes with hope.

"Just look what a little water will do!" said the locaters and town-site
men, pointing with eloquent gesture. "All this land needs,