“The east rim?” A frown was forming. “On our land?”
“Yup. They cut the fence and drove their wagon right through,” Ike reported, turning his hat in his hand. “There’s six of ’em, a man and his wife, two older boys, and a couple of young’uns. I found ’em camped about a mile in where that big hollow is.
They’d chopped down a couple of young cottonwoods growing along that dry wash and were riggin’ up a tent. I rode in and told them they were on private property and to git, but the man said you had no claim to the land. And his boys had a pair of rifles to back it up. So I hightailed it back here.”
“Get four of the boys and have the horses saddled and ready to ride at first light,” Webb ordered.
“What are you aimin’ to do?” Nate inquired with watching interest.
“I’m going to have a talk with this family, explain a few facts; then we’ll escort them back through that break in the fence,” he replied. “The man’s got his family with him, so he isn’t likely to make trouble.”
“I reckon not.” Nate nodded in agreement. “Guess we’ll see you in the morning. Good night, Mrs. Calder, Bull.”
When the men had left, Bull Giles tapped his cigar in the glass tray and slid a sideways look at Webb. “I did tell you there would always be someone wanting to take it away from you, either in slices or the whole pie.” He reminded Webb of the conversation they’d had on the porch over two years ago.
“You did,” he admitted with a recollection turned grim by the present situation. “Now we’ve got squatters.”
“I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Bull mused. “All the free land worth filing on has been claimed. The latecomers, the poor ones with no money, can’t afford to buy land. They probably don’t even have the money to go back to wherever they’re from, so they plop themselves down on a chunk of land and try to establish squatters’ rights. It’s worked in the past.”
“It won’t work here,” Webb stated.
“Don’t underestimate them,” Bull advised. “They are desperate people. All of these drylanders are, for the most part. I’m not talking about the farmers that came here from Iowa, Minnesota, or Kansas. It’s the others, the majority that are immigrants.”
When Bull paused, Webb remained silent. He couldn’t help thinking of Lilli while Bull was speaking about the drylanders.
“They are hungry for land, so hungry that they’ll take anything, good or bad, free land or someone else’s.” Bull released a short laugh of quiet incredulity. “Just the other day I heard they were filing on land in the Missouri Flats of the upper Madison. At that altitude, wheat can’t even mature.”
“The others, the ones that were here first, they seem to be doing all right,” Webb commented, still thinking of Lilli and her husband, and the wheat harvests they had made.
“They’ve been growing wheat, lots of it,” Bull conceded. “From what I’ve been able to learn, it’s only enough to get them from one year to the next. Every year, they have to borrow money to buy seed. When they sell their wheat, they pay off the bank and have enough left to squeak through the winter. Next year, they always hope it will be better.”
“I’ve heard that some have bought additional land so they can plant more wheat and increase their profits.” It was what Lilli’s husband had done.
“What some people fail to realize, and others who don’t care, is that three hundred and twenty acres in Montana is equal to about thirty acres in Illinois or Iowa. Doubt that and you’ve got sixty. You can’t make much of a living off sixty acres.”
“Then you are saying they’ll never get ahead,” his mother said with a tiny frown.
“A few might make it, but the majority won’t.” He shook his head. “Don’t forget, the price of wheat has never been this high. As long as there?
??s trouble in Europe and England and France are at war with Germany, it will probably hold. But you’ve watched the cattle market go up and down over the years. The grain market isn’t going to stay at its present level forever. No one seems to be looking that far ahead. Not even the banks. That new bank in Blue Moon, the one old Tom Pettit’s son Doyle has half-interest in, they have outstanding loans that are more than double what they have on deposit. The bottom’s going to drop out of everything one of these days.” He rolled the cigar between his lips, then took it away to study the building ashes. “I’d be careful where I kept my money.”
During the months Bull had been staying with them, Webb had discovered he was a wise counsel. Practical experience had given Webb knowledge of cattle, men, and the market, but he was learning some of the finer points of politics and other economic influences from Bull Giles. The Triple C Ranch was nearly as big as some of the eastern states, but it was affected by what happened outside its boundaries.
“By the way, it’s official that Bulfert is running for the Senate,” Bull informed Webb. “You might want to give some serious thought to supporting his campaign.”
“Are you recommending it?” Webb smiled.
There was a responding smile, tinged with wryness. “Just as long as you don’t trust him too far.”
It was midmorning when the small band of riders approached the large depression in the rolling plains of the east rim section. They weren’t within sight of the squatters’ camp, but Webb noticed the puff of dust ahead of them.
“Looks like they had someone watching for us.” Nate had observed it, too.
Webb merely nodded. When they came onto the rounded lip of the hollow, he saw the squatters’ camp below. A dirty gray tent stood next to a wagon. Wisps of smoke were curling up from a dying campfire in front of the tent where a woman was hurrying two small children inside. A scrawny lad of about fourteen was trotting two horses toward the thin stand of cotton-woods behind the tent. A second boy, not much older, was standing next to the wagon with a man who was obviously his father.
A clod of dirt was kicked up in front of Webb’s horse, followed immediately by the crack of a rifle. The chestnut horse shied briefly, tossing back its head.
Webb swung his mount at right angles with the camp and halted it as the riders behind him crowded in and stopped.