quarter-section that is tillable there has its individual occupant and
owner.

But still on the south border of Kansas there camped a landless and
homeless multitude. They looked longingly over the fertile prairies of
the Cherokee Strip country, stirred the camp-fire embers emphatically,
and sent another dispatch to Washington asking for a chance to get in.
Congress heard at last, and in the fall of 1893 the congestion was
relieved.

The scenes attending the wild scramble from all sides of the Strip are a
matter of history and do not require repetition. Five million acres were
quickly taken by 30,000 farmers.

The old proverb or adage, which states that the man who makes two blades
of grass grow where one grew before is a public benefactor, would seem
to proclaim that Oklahoma is peopled with philanthropists, for the
sturdy pioneers who braved hardship and ridicule in order to obtain a
foothold in this promised land, have, in five or six years, completely
changed the appearance of the country. A larger proportion of ground in
this youthful Territory shows that it is a sturdy infant, and it is
doubtful whether in any part of the United States there has been more
economy in land, or a more rapid use made of opportunities so
bountifully provided by nature.

Truth is often much stranger than fiction, and the story of the invasion
of Oklahoma reads like one long romance. Many men lost their lives in
the attempt, some few dying by violence, and many others succumbing to
disease brought about by hardship. Many of the men who started the
agitation to have Oklahoma opened for settlement by white citizens are