It did not take long for a settler to see in his land a home for him and his dear ones, and the generations to follow; and we felt a great bitterness toward these claim-jumpers, who were no better off than we were.
My land was paid for, such as it was; but when the people who, like me, had drailed out across the prairies with the last year's rush, came and asked me to join the Settlers' Club to run these intruders off, it appeared to me that it was only a man's part in me to stand to it and take hold and do.

I felt the old urge of all landowners to stand together against the landless, I suppose.

What is title to land anyhow, but the right of those who have it to hold on to it?
No man ever made land--except my ancestors, the Dutch, perhaps.

All men do is to get possession of it, and run everybody else off, either with clubs, guns, or the sheriff.
I did not look forward to all the doings of the Settlers' Club, but I joined it, and I have never been ashamed of it, even when Dick McGill was slangwhanging me about what we did.

I never knew, and I don't know now, just what the law was, but I thought then, and I think now, that the Settlers' Club had the right of it.