Fifty miles of riding bring us to a county town. All the county towns in "The Strip" were located by the Government, and have large squares, or rather oblongs, in which the county buildings stand. It is the day before the Indians are paid. Here we find every one busy. Streets are being graded, and a fine court-house in process of erection. Stores are doing an immense business, one reaching over one hundred thousand dollars a year; another, larger still, being built. By their sides will be a peanut-stand, a sod store, another partly of wood and partly of canvas, and every conceivable kind of building for living in or trading. And here is a house with every modern convenience, up to a set of china for afternoon teas, and a club already formed for progressive euchre. [Illustration: INDIANS AT PAWNEE, OKLAHOMA TERRITORY.] The Indian is not a terror to the settlers, as in early days; but he exasperates him, stalking by to get his money from the Government. He spends it like a child, on anything and everything to which he takes a notion. He lives on canned goods, and feasts for a time, then fasts until the Great Fathers send him more money. On the reservation, gamblers fleece him; but he does not seem to care, for he has a regular income and all the independence of a pauper. It seemed very strange to look out of the car window, and see the tepees of the Indians, and on the other side of the car a lady in riding-habit with a gentleman escort--a pair who would have been in their place in Rotten Row. Now we must turn westward for a hundred miles, and in all the long ride pass but one wheatfield that will pay for cutting; and that depends on rain, and must be cut with a header. Dire distress already stares the settler in the face; and even men, made desperate by hunger in Old Oklahoma, are sending their petitions to Guthrie for food. There are hundreds of families who have nothing but flour and milk, and some who have neither. When a cry goes up for help, it is soon followed by another, saying things are not so bad. This latter cry comes from those who hold property, and who would rather the people starve than that property should decrease. I saw men who had cut wood, and hauled it sixteen miles, then split it, and carried it twelve miles to market, and after their three days' work the two men had a load for themselves and one dollar and a quarter left. And one man said, "Mine is a case of 'root hog or die,'" and so got fifty cents for his load of wood he had brought fourteen miles; while another man returned with his, after vainly offering it for forty cents. In one town I saw a horse,--a poor one, it is true,--but the man could not get another bid after it had reached one dollar and a half.