been started at
the end of the iron trail, revealed in the light of torches against a
black sky, and at the faces, white and drawn and tense.

Move on! Move on! At 4 o'clock that Monday morning, four hours after
arrival, the landseekers who had registered were on the road back to
Chicago and all points east, many of them carrying in one hand a chunk
of sod and in the other a tuft of grass--tangible evidence that they had
been on the land. And other trains were rushing out, carrying more
people. I boarded a returning special which was packed like a freight
train full of range cattle, men and women travel-stained, tired and
hollow-eyed, but geared up by hope.

I got off at Chamberlain. The rumors had been correct. That seething mob
at Presho was only the spray cast by the tidal wave. At Chamberlain
long, heavily loaded trains pulled in and out. People walked ten and
twelve abreast through the streets. Some 30,000 strangers besieged that
frontier town. A mob of 10,000 tried to fill out application blanks,
tried to get something to eat and drink, some place to sleep. While the
saloons were overrun, there was little drunkenness. No man could stand
at the bar long enough to get drunk. If he managed to get one drink, or
two at most, he was pushed aside before he could get another--to make
room for someone else. Move on! Move on!

The stockmen were shocked. They had not dreamed of anything like this
invasion. Their range was going and they owned none, or little, of the
land. The old Indians looked on, silent and morose.

Hotels, locating agents, all the First Chance and Last Chance saloons
became voluntary distributors of my postcards. It looked as though I too
were going to reap a harvest from the Rosebud Opening.

And they continued to come! Within four days 60,000 people had made
entry, and the trains continued to pull in and out, loaded to the doors.
Unlike the Lower Brule Opening, there was no dreary standing in line for
hours, even days, at a time. The seekers passed down the line like
rapidly inspected herds.

And among them, inevitably, came the parasites who live on
crowds--gamblers, crooks, sharks, pickpockets, and the notorious women
who followed border boom towns. The pioneer towns were outraged, and
every citizen automatically became a peace officer, shipping the crooks
out as fast as they were discovered. They wouldn't, they declared
virtuously, tolerate anything but "honest" gambling. And their own
gamblin