ys
of the later Mormon migrations across the thirsty plain; to that day when
the advanced guard of Zophar Smith's ox-train dug wells in the damp sands
of Dry Creek and called them the Waters of Merom.
Later, one Jethro Simsby, a Mormon deserter, set up his rod and staff on
the banks of the creek, home-steaded a quarter-section of the sage-brush
plain, and in due time came to be known as the Dry Creek cattle king. And
the cow-camp was still Simsby's when the locating engineers of the Western
Pacific, searching for tank stations in a land where water was scarce and
hard to come by, drove their stakes along the north line of the
quarter-section; and having named their last station Alphonse, christened
this one Gaston.
From the stake-driving of the engineers to the spike-driving of the
track-layers was a full decade. For hard times overtook the Western
Pacific at Midland City, eighty miles to the eastward; while the St-
ate
capital, two days' bronco-jolting west of Dry Creek, had railroad outlets
in plenty and no inducements to offer a new-comer.
But, with the breaking of the cloud of financial depression, the Western
Pacific succeeded in placing its extension bonds, and a little later the
earth began to fly on the grade of the new line to the west. Within a
Sundayless month the electric lights of the night shift could be seen,
and, when the wind was right, the shriek of the locomotive whistle could
be heard at Dry Creek; and in this interval between dawn and daylight
Jethro Simsby sold his quarter-section for the nominal sum of two thousand
dollars, spot cash, to two men who buck-boarded in ahead of the
track-layers.
This purchase of the "J-lazy-S" ranch by Hawk and Guilford marked the
modest beginning of Gaston the marvelous. By the time the temporary
sidings were down and the tank well was dug in the damp sands, it was
heralded-