None were quite neutral--and yet the Happy Family did not bother any save these who had filed contests to their claims, or who took active part in the cattle driving.
The Happy Family were not half as brutal as they might have been.

In spite of their no-trespassing signs they permitted settlers to drive across their claims with wagons and water-barrels, to haul water from One Man Creek when the springs and the creek in Antelope Coulee went dry.
They did not attempt to move the shacks of the later contestants off their claims.

Though they hated the sight of them and of the owners who bore themselves with such provocative assurance, they grudged the time the moving would take.

Besides that the Honorable Blake had told them that moving the shacks would accomplish no real, permanent good.

Within thirty days they must appear before the register and receiver and file answer to the contest, and he assured them that forbearance upon their part would serve to strengthen their case with the Commissioner.
It goes to prove how deeply in earnest they were, that they immediately began to practice assiduously the virtues of mildness and forbearance.
They could, he told them, postpone the filing of their answers until close to the end of the thirty days; which would serve also to delay the date of actual trial of the contests, and give the Happy Family more time for their work.
Their plans had enlarged somewhat.