The Lone Black Pioneer: Oscar Micheaux Boxed Set. Micheaux Oscar

reservation and had engaged in ranching, and had in the meantime married squaws. This appears to have been done more by the French than any other nationality, judging by the many French names among the mixed-bloods. Among these were a family by the name of Amoureaux, consisting of four boys and several girls. The girls had all married white men, and the little while Old Calias was in existence, two of the boys, William and George, used to go there often and were entertained by the Nicholson Brothers with as much splendor as Calias could afford. The Amoureaux were high moguls in Little Crow society during the first two years and everybody took off their hats to them. They were called the "rich mixed-bloods," and were engaged in ranching and owned great herds in Tipp county. When they shipped it was by the trainloads. The Amoureaux and the Colones, another family of wealthy breeds, were married to white women, and the husbands, as heads of families, held a section of land and the children each held one hundred and sixty acres.

      Before the Nicholson Brothers had left Old Calias and before they had reached the position they now occupied, as I stated, they had shown the Amoureaux a "good time." They did not have much Indian blood in their veins, being what are called quarter-breeds, having a French father and a half-blood Indian mother, and were all fine looking. George had seven children and the family altogether had eleven quarter sections of land and two thousand head of cattle, so there was no reason why he should not have been the "big chief," but so much society and paid-for notoriety had brought about a change to him and his brother. William, who had always been a money-maker and a still bigger spender, with the fine looks thrown in, had shown like a skyrocket before bursting.

      A rich Indian is something worth associating with, but a poor one is of small note. The Amoureaux spent so freely that in a few years they were all in, down and out—had nothing but their allotments left, and these the government would not give patents to, the Colones had done likewise, and together they had all moved into Tipp county.

      Now there was another Amoureaux, the oldest one of the boys, who like the others had "blowed his roll," but happened to have an allotment in the very picturesque valley of the Dog Ear, in Tipp county, near the center of the county, and when a bunch of promoters decided to lay out a town they made a deal with Oliver, taking him into the company, he furnishing the land and they the brains. They laid out the site and began the town, naming it "Amoureaux" in honor of the breed, which made Oliver feel very big, indeed.

      CHAPTER XXIX

       IN THE VALLEY OF THE DOG EAR

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      The boom in Megory and Calias took such proportions that it made every investor prosperous, a goodly number of whom sold out, settled in Amoureaux, and the beautiful townsite soon became one of the most popular trade centers in the new county. It was the only townsite where trees stood, and the investors thought it a great thing that they would not have to wait a score of years to grow them

      Among the money investors in the town was old Dad Durpee, the former Oristown and Megory stage driver. When talking with him one day he told me he had saved three thousand dollars while running the stage line and had several good horses besides. "Dad," as he was familiarly called, had invested a part of his bank account in a corner lot and put up a two-story building, and soon became an Amoureaux booster. Old "Dad" opened up a stage line between Calias and the new town, but this line did not pay as well as the old one, for no one rode with him except when the weather was bad, as the people were all riding now in automobiles. In a short time every line of business was represented in Amoureaux and when the settlers began to arrive, Amoureaux did a flourishing business.

      In coming from Calias, the trail led over a monstrous hill, and from the top "Amro," the name having been shortened, nestling in the valley below, reminding me of Mexico City as it appeared from the highlands near Cuernavaca. A party from Hedrick, by the name of Van Neter, built a hotel fifty by one hundred feet, with forty rooms, and during the opening and filing made a small fortune. The house was always full and high prices were charged, and thus Amro prospered.

      During the month of April the promoters succeeded in having the governor call an election to organize the county, the election to be held in June following. The filing had been made in April and May, and as conditions were, no one could vote except cowboys, Indians and mixed-bloods. In the election Amro won the county seat, and settlers moving into the county were exceedingly mortified over the fact, having to be governed eighteen months by an outlaw set who had deprived them of a voice in the organization of the county. As Amro had won, it soon became the central city and grew, as Calias had grown, and in a short time had a half-dozen general stores, two garages, four hotels, four banks, and every other line of business that goes to make up a western town. Its four livery barns did all the business their capacity would permit, while the saloons and gamblers feasted on the easy eastern cash that fell into their pockets. In July the lot sales of the government towns were held, but only one amounted to much, that town being farthest west and miles from the eastern line of the county. This was Ritten, and under a ruling of the Interior Department, a deposit of twenty-five dollars was accepted on an option of sixty days, after which a payment of one-half the price of the lot was required. Here it must be said that almost every dollar invested on the Little Crow had been doubled in a short time, and in many instances a hundred dollars soon grew to a thousand or more.

      Practically all the lowest number holders had filed around Ritten, including numbers one and two. Ever since the opening of Oklahoma in 1901, when number one took a claim adjoining the city of Lawton, and the owner is said to have received thirty thousand dollars for it, the holder of number one in every opening of western land since has been a very conspicuous figure, and this was not lost on the holder of number one in Tipp county—who was a divorced woman. She took her claim adjoining the town of Ritten, which fact brought the town considerable attention. The lots in the town brought the highest price of any which had been sold in any town on the Little Crow, up to that time, several having sold for from one thousand, two hundred to one thousand, four hundred dollars and one as high as two thousand and fifty dollars.

      The town of Amro, being surrounded by Indian allotments, had few settlers in its immediate vicinity. The Indians, profiting by their experience in Megory county, where they learned that good location meant increase in the value of their lands, had, in selecting allotments, taken nearly all the land just west of Amro, as they had taken practically all of the good land just west of Calias in the eastern part of Tipp county. The good land all over the county had been picked over and the Indians had selected much of the best, but Tipp county is a large one, and several hundred thousand acres of good land were available for homesteading, though much scattered as to location.

      When July arrived and still no surveyors for the railroad company had put in their appearance, it was feared that no extension work would be commenced that year, but shortly after the lot sale at Ritten, the surveyors arrived in the county and ran a survey west from Calias eleven miles to a town named after the Colones, referred to, striking the town, then proceeding northwest, missing Amro and crossing the Dog Ear about two miles north of the town, then following a divide almost due west to the county line on the west, running just south of a conspicuous range of hills known as the "Red Hills," missing every town in the county except Colone. This caused a temporary check in the excitement around Amro, but as it had the county seat it felt secure, as a county seat means much to a western village, and felt the railroad would eventually go there. In fact the citizens of the town boasted that the road could not afford to miss it, pointing with pride to the many teams to be seen in her streets daily and the bee-like activity of the town in general. I visited the town many times, but from the first time I saw the place I felt sure the railroad would never go there as two miles to the north was the natural divide, that the survey had followed all the way from Colone to the Dog Ear and on to the west side of the county, which is a natural right-of-way. When I argued with the people in the town, that Amro would not get the railroad, I brought out a storm of protest.

      CHAPTER XXX

       ERNEST NICHOLSON TAKES A HAND

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