m, the world, or his life. As for Beth--what was the use of
wishing to understand?

The "nurse" came out at the door again, this time with a note which
Bostwick had written, with a few suggestions from Glen, in an unsealed
cover as before.

"I told young Kent you didn't take no time to read the other," he said,
holding up the epistle. "If you want to read this----"

"Thank you," Van interrupted, taking the letter and thrusting it at
once in his pocket. "Thank Mr. Kent for his courtesies, in my behalf."
He turned and rode away.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE TAKING OF THE CLAIM

Before six o'clock that morning, while Van was arousing the blacksmith,
the reservation madness broke its bounds. Twenty-five hundred
gold-blinded men made the rush for coveted grounds.

The night had been one long revel of drinking, gambling, and
excitement. No one had slept in the reservation town--for no one had
dared. Bawling, singing, and shouting, the jollier element had shamed
the coyotes from the land. Half a thousand camp fires had flared all
night upon the plain. The desert had developed an oasis of flowing
liquors, glaring lights, and turmoil of life, lust, and laughter. Good
nature and bitter antagonism, often hand in hand, had watched the night
hours pale.

By daylight the "dead line" of the reservation boundary--the old,
accepted line that all had acknowledged--resembled a thin, dark battle
formation, ready for the charge. It was a heterogeneous array, where
every unit, instead of being one of an army mobilized against a common
foe, was the enemy of all the others, lined up beside him. There were
men on foot, men on horses, mules, and burros, men in wagons,
buckboards, and buggies, and men in automobiles.

At half-past five the pressure of greed became too great to bear. A
few unruly stragglers, far down the line, no longer to be held in
check, bent portions of the long formation inward as they started out
across the land. The human stampede began almost upon the instant.
Keepers on their horses, riding up and down, were swept away like chips
before a flood. Scattering wildly over hill and plain, through
gulches, swales, and canyons, the mad troop entered on the unknown
field, racing as if for their lives.

Gettysburg, Napoleon, and Dave had watched for an hour the human hedge
below the "Laughing Water" claim. They, too, had been up since
daylight, intent upon seeing the fun. They had eaten their breakfast
a