s, felt
itself, in a sense, an integral part. Eight years before, Indian
Territory was the hunting-ground of the Indian, and whosoever attempted
to settle within its limits was driven forth by the soldiers. It was
then a land of dim twilight, full of mystery and wildness, with vast
stretches of thirsty plains and bleak mountains around which the
storms, unbroken by forests, shrieked in the "straight winds" of many
days, or whined the threat of the deadly tornado. And suddenly it
became a land of high noon, garish and crude, but wide-awake and
striving with all the tireless energy of young blood.

Scarcely had the Oklahoma country been taken possession of before the
settlers began agitating the question of an organized territory, and
too impatient to wait for Congress to act, held their own convention at
Guthrie and divided the land into counties. Congress made them wait
five months--an age in the new country--before approving the Organic
Act. The district, which a short time before had been the Unassigned
Lands, became the counties of Logan, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian,
Kingfisher and Payne. To these was added Beaver County which in Brick
Willock's day had been called "No-Man's Land," and which the
law-abiding citizens, uniting against bandits and highwaymen, had
sought to organize as Cimmaron Territory.

Then came the rivalry between Guthrie and Oklahoma City for the
capital, adding picturesqueness to territorial history, and offering
incitement to many a small village to make itself the county-seat of
its county. The growth of the new country advanced by leaps and
bounds. In 1891, the 868,414 acres of the surplus lands of the Iowa,
Sac, Fox and the Pottawatomie-Shawnee reservations formed the new
counties of Lincoln and Pottawatomie and increased the extent of some
of the old ones. The next year, 3,500,562 acres belonging to the
Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were taken to increase several of the
older counties, and to from the new ones of honest old American
names--Blame, Custer, Washita, Dewey, Roger Mills, Beckham and Ellis.
In the year following, the Cherokee strip was opened for a settlement
together with the surplus lands of the Pawnee and Tonhawa--5,698,140
acres; besides increasing other counties, this land furnished forth the
new counties of Alfalfa, Garfield, Grant, Harper, Major, Woods,
Woodward, Pawnee, Kay and Noble. At the time of Wilfred's visit to
Brick Willock, the winter of 1894-5, the op