CHAPTER VIII THE BEGINNING

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      Franklin's foot took hold upon the soil of the new land. His soul reached out and laid hold upon the sky, the harsh flowers, the rasping wind. He gave, and he drank in. Thus grew the people of the West.

      The effect upon different men of new and crude conditions is as various as the individuals themselves. To the dreamer, the theorist, the man who looks too far forward into the future or too far back into the past, the message of the environment may fall oppressively; whereas to the practical man, content to live in the present and to devise immediate remedies for immediate ills, it may come sweet as a challenge upon reserves of energy. The American frontier subsequent to the civil war was so vast, yet so rapid, in its motive that to the weak or the unready it was merely appalling. The task was that of creating an entire new world. So confronted, some sat down and wept, watching the fabric grow under the hands of others. Some were strong, but knew not how to apply their strength; others were strong but slothful. The man of initiative, of executive, of judgment and resource, was the one who later came to rule. There was no one class, either of rich or of poor, who supplied all these men. The man who had been poor in earlier life might set to work at once in bettering himself upon the frontier; and by his side, equally prosperous, might be one who in his earlier days had never needed to earn a dollar nor to thrash a fellow-man. Civilization at its later stages drives the man into a corner. In its beginning it summons this same man out of the corner and asks him to rely upon himself for the great and the small things of life, thus ultimately developing that sturdy citizen who knows the value of the axiom, "Ubi bene, ibi patria." The great deeds, the great dreams become possible for nation or for individual only through the constant performance of small deeds. "For it must be remembered that life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments. The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstructions and frequent interruptions."

      Such philosophy was for Franklin unformulated. Care sat not on his heart. There were at first no problems in all the world for him. It was enough to feel this warm sun upon the cheek, to hear the sigh of the wind in the grasses, to note the nodding flowers and hear the larks busy with their joys. The stirring of primeval man was strong, that magnificent rebellion against bonds which has, after all, been the mainspring of all progress, however much the latter may be regulated by many intercurrent wheels. It was enough for Franklin to be alive. He stood straight, he breathed deep. This infection was in his blood.

      "Think you, Ned, me boy," said Battersleigh, one day, as they stood at the tent door — "think you, this old gray world has been inhabited a million years, by billions of people, and yet here we have a chance to own a part of it, each for himself, here, at this last minute of the world's life! Do you mind that, what it means? Never you think a chance like that'll last forever. Yet here we are, before the law, and almost antedatin' the social ijee. It's the beginning man, it's the very beginnin' of things, where we're standin' here, this very blessed day of grace. It's Batty has travelled all his life, and seen the lands, but never did Batty live till now!"

      "It's grand," murmured Franklin, half dreamily and unconsciously repeating the very words of his friend, as he had done before.

      Yet Franklin was well bitten of the ambition germ. It would serve him to run only in the front rank. He was not content to dream. He saw the great things ahead, and the small things that lay between. In a week he was the guiding mind in the affairs of the odd partnership which now sprang between him and his friend. Battersleigh would have lived till autumn in his tent, but Franklin saw that the need of a house was immediate. He took counsel of Curly, the cowboy, who proved guardian and benefactor. Curly forthwith produced a workman, a giant Mexican, a half-witted mozo, who had followed the cow bands from the far Southwest, and who had hung about Curly's own place as a sort of menial, bound to do unquestioningly whatever Curly bade. This curious being, a very colossus of strength, was found to be possessed of a certain knowledge in building houses after the fashion of that land — that is to say, of sods and earthen unbaked bricks — and since under his master's direction he was not less serviceable than docile, it was not long before the "claim" of Battersleigh was adorned with a comfortable house fit for either winter or summer habitation. Franklin meantime selected the body of land upon which he proposed to make settlers' entry, this happily not far from his friend, and soon this too had its house — small, crude, brown, meagre, but not uncomforting to one who looked over the wide land and saw none better than his own. Then, little by little, they got precious coal from the railroad, this land having but scant fuel near at hand, and they built great stacks of the bois des vaches, that fuel which Nature left upon the plains until the railroads brought in coal and wood. Each man must, under the law, live upon his own land, but in practice this was no hardship. Each must of necessity cook for himself, sew for himself, rely upon himself for all those little comforts which some men miss so keenly, and which others so quickly learn to supply. To these two this was but comfortable campaigning.

      There remained ever before the minds of the settlers the desirability of laying this land under tribute, of forcing it to yield a livelihood. Franklin had no wish to depart from his original plans. He looked to see all the ways of the civilization he had left behind come duly hither to search him out. He was not satisfied to abandon his law books for the saddle, but as yet there was no possibility of any practice in the law, though meantime one must live, however simply. It was all made easy. That wild Nature, which had erected rude barriers against the coming of the white man, had at her reluctant recession left behind the means by which the white man might prevail. Even in the "first year" the settler of the new West was able to make his living. He killed off the buffalo swiftly, but he killed them in numbers so desperately large that their bones lay in uncounted tons all over a desolated empire. First the hides and then the bones of the buffalo gave the settler his hold upon the land, which perhaps he could not else