The Dalton gang of bandits was robbing Santa Fe trains in the Cherokee Strip, while more than one hundred and fifty United States marshals were searching for outlaws. When one was found, however, he was usually shot first and the warrant for his arrest read to the corpse. The men assembled at Guthrie at this time were from all quarters of the United States, and represented almost every nationality. As one rider dashed up the street on a very fine horse, a gust of wind lifted his sombrero and landed it near where I stood. I picked it up and was in the act of handing it to him when he exclaimed: “Hello, Bob, you here!” “Yes,” I replied, scanning his face for an instant before recognizing him. Then the face came back to me with pleasant memories. He was my old friend--Mark Witherspoon. The reunion was, indeed, pleasant to both of us, and it was late that night before we retired to our respective abodes. Mark had jostled about from pillar to post, in all parts of the world; he had been in the mining camps of Australia and on the Rand in South Africa; he had grown rich several times and lost all again and again, and now he wanted an Oklahoma farm where, he concluded, he would settle down and live quietly. Just as though wild and impulsive natures like his could ever be content with a simple farming life. We agreed to make the run together and, if possible locate our farms beside each other. When the opening day came, a blazing southern sun beat down upon the heads of more than one hundred thousand men drawn upon the line that marked the border of the new El Dorado. Most of the country on the southern border lay in high ridges, or in valleys and deep ravines, which, in some places, were 100 feet in depth, with precipitous ledges of rock on either side. The country was but sparsely covered with timber and nearly void of water at this season of the year. The few streams were impregnated with a mineral poison which had an evil effect for a long time on the systems of those who drank the water. Yet these men--many of whom had pioneered the plains of Nebraska and Kansas--were forced, by the conditions of the times, to seek new homes in this wild waste. For more than a year, more than 20,000 families had lived like rats in dugouts along the banks of the Arkansas River, to the north. To say they lived is a mistake--they only existed. Parched corn and potatoes comprised the daily diet of hundreds. The winter of 1892 had been unusually severe for that section, and scant clothing and a lack of fuel added to the bitter suffering, while innumerable mounds of yellow earth stood silent monuments to those who braved the vicissitudes of the frontier in the hope of gaining homes. In this new promised land there were some seventy Indian allotments to be made. These were located by government officials near townsites, for personal selfish purposes.