Show STUDENT LIFE a kind of wheel which was turned to mix The person whose them thoroughly name was in the envelope first drawn from the w heel had the first choice of about seven thouof land Thus it is seen sand quarter-section- s that only the first seven thousand names could hope to draw a claim The privilege of registering was given to any one who was the supporter of a family and who was a citizen of the United States Under these provisions several boys and a great number of women were allowed to register The second choice fell to a telephone-gir- l of Wichita Kansas When it became known that this girl had drawn the second prize she wasbeseiged by numerous proposals of marriage receiving as high as thirty letters in one day The day we were in El Reno there were at fifteen thousand people in the town Hotels restaurants lunch-stand- s and especially “land-olfice saloons were doing a business” in reality I saw one place where the bar had an extension of about thirty feet built to it This bar was said to have made for its owner a profit of four hundred dollars per day during the opening Even the churches were in the money making business Cots were placed on the seats and the floors of the church building and each night these cots were filled with weary home seekers The lights were left burning all night and the man in charge walked around with a large pistol in his belt to see that no thieving was going on The gamblers and confidence men were also busy verifying the old statement that “a sucker is born every minute” Some of the gamblers paid fabulous prices for the privilege of running their business during the rush They took in return however from five hundred to two thousand dollars daily e force to It was impossible for the handle the enormous amount of mail that came in People had to stand in line all day to get their mail This condition was afterward relieved by the government sending down a number of extra clerks The great crowd represented all classes of people from the "ealthy man with his silk hat and his eye ea-3- c post-offic- 43 open for a speculation to the tattered negro from the southern states who hoped to get a home that he coutd call his own Having arrived in El Reno and being duly registered our next thought wras of returning home This turned out to be a more serious difficulty than we at first imagined People crowded the trains as they pulled in and we had the mortification of seeing two or three pull out before we could get aboard We finally managed to get away some of the on the steps and platforms and some climbing to a more comfortable place on top party-hangin- g of the coaches Owing to the great crowd on the trains it was impossible to keep drinking water in the coaches As it was very warm many people suffered from thirst At each stop the men would run for the nearest saloon or the town pumps At stations small boys came to the train with bottled beer to sell and you could hear frequent yells from thirsty passengers for a “cold one” On leaving a town in Oklahoma a bull-do- g attracted by the yells and commotion of the passengers began a race with the train Someone drew a revolver and fired at the dog This shot was the signal for a fulisade for revolvers began to crack from all parts of the train until it sounded as if a regiment of soldiers were at rifle practice The bull-dokept on in the race with distinctive and strange to say was not hit although bullets struck all around him g “bull-dogged-nes- s” At another station we were met by a delegation of colored ladies — the wives and daughters of shovelers in the coalshutes at that place — who had for sale chicken sandwiches apple pies and coffee like “mother used to make” Their stock was soon gone and I do not remember tasting anything that seemed more delicious than their pie and coffee did on that day We passed many trains which were going to El Reno and all were crowded with passengers and freight-car- s In many cases cattle-car- s filled with people were in the train As w e were not expected back for tw o or three days there was no conveyance at the station when we arrived Tired and sleepy as we were we |