Late summer droughts had claimed the country and the range was parched and brown. Registration booths were erected along the line in the glaring heat and as the day of entry approached there were long strings of men, some extending for upwards of half a mile, lined up to await their turn for registration. They camped in the line, sleeping where they had been standing when night shut down and the registration booths were closed, some reposing on bare ground, others in campbeds which they rolled and utilized as seats throughout the day, dragging them along as the line progressed. Wives and daughters carried meals to their menfolk and vendors plied the line to peddle food and drink. Every conceivable variety of business had opened up in Caldwell to cater to the ever-increasing throngs. It was the wildest of all frontier booms. Carver’s profit in stray steers had netted him something over eighteen hundred dollars. He disposed of his business building at a net profit of fifty-six hundred and sold out his three lots and little house on the outskirts of town for an even thousand. After clearing his indebtedness on calves, horses and equipment he had something over sixty-three hundred left. He then entered into consultation with Younger and Joe Hinman. “How much would you figure the best of the bottom land in the Strip will bring when it’s proved up?” he asked. “Not much over eight or ten dollars at the first, maybe twelve an acre for the best of it,” Hinman estimated. “But if I live a long life I’ll see every foot of it touch fifty,” said Carver. “Don’t you think?” “And if you live a while longer than that you’ll see it top a hundred,” Hinman stated. “It’ll take some time but it will get there. I’ve seen it repeated before now as a country settles up.” “I’ve made my last bet on tumbleweeds,” said Carver. “And I’d as soon start my pumpkin patch down there as anywheres. It would be right nice to have something over a thousand acres of good land down on Cabin Creek, the old site of the Half Diamond H.” “It would,” said Younger. “Only it can’t be done. A man can only file on a quarter section and he has to live there to prove up. Even if you could buy his relinquishment you couldn’t live on but one place at once.”