We took possession by the right of squatter sovereignty, the owner being unknown, or at all events, absent from the woods.

This was the discovery of an enormous mass of virgin gold, weighing upward of one hundred pounds, by Doctor Kerr, a squatter on the Meroo Creek.

The invitation was readily accepted, and in a short time fifty ardent followers of the advocate of squatter sovereignty were lined up in front of a black Republican office, thirsting for black Republican whisky.

You will get quiet possession of your house, it is true, for I have put a Cerberus in it, that is quite equal to his task, difficult as it may be, and who has quite as much relish for a bill of costs, as any squatter can have for a trespass; but without some such guardian of your rights, I would not answer for it, that you would not be compelled to sleep in the highway.

Hardly a day passed without some "prairie schooner" (the canvas-covered wagon of the squatter) creaking into our corral; and the quiet gulches and cañons where Ajax and I had shot quail and deer began to re-echo to the shouts of the children of the rough folk from the mid-West and Missouri.

I saw the squatter with his beard, And up to him I boldly steered, With my swag and billy-can.

But I’ll give ten—ten, sugar an’ tea; Ten bob a week, if you’ll suit me, And very soon I hope you’ll be A handy squatter’s man.

THE BROKEN-DOWN SQUATTER (Air: “It’s a fine hunting day.”) Come, Stumpy, old man, we must shift while we can; All our mates in the paddock are dead.

When the bigwigs are brought to the Bankruptcy Court, What chance for a squatter like me.

Chorus: For the banks, &c. ’Twas done without reason, for leaving the season No squatter could stand such a rub; For it’s useless to squat when the rents are so hot That one can’t save the price of one’s grub; And there’s not much to choose ’twixt the banks and the Jews Once a fellow gets put up a tree; No odds what I feel, there’s no court of appeal For a broken-down squatter like me.

Chorus: For the banks, &c. ’Twas done without reason, for leaving the season No squatter could stand such a rub; For it’s useless to squat when the rents are so hot That one can’t save the price of one’s grub; And there’s not much to choose ’twixt the banks and the Jews Once a fellow gets put up a tree; No odds what I feel, there’s no court of appeal For a broken-down squatter like me.

I’ll sing to you a fine new song, made by my blessed mate, Of a fine Australian squatter who had a fine estate, Who swore by right pre-emptive at a sanguinary rate That by his rams, his ewes, his lambs, Australia was made great— Like a fine Australian squatter, one of the olden time.

They came together into collision with squatter sovereignty: they found for the first time in their path that solid resistance of the West which was manifested in the last election, and which, I firmly hope, is about to save America.

They came day and night, and though my reason denied them entrance they held their own as by a kind of squatter's right.

Then they come on the gang while they were restin' up in the house of a squatter.

And along about evenin' of the second day we come to the house of Tom Shaw, a squatter.

THE LAND AGENT AND THE SQUATTER XXXIII.

This was called "popular sovereignty" or "squatter sovereignty."

The moment the law opening Kansas for settlement was known in Missouri, numbers of men crossed the Missouri River, entered the territory, held squatters' meetings, drove a few stakes into the ground to represent "squatter claims," went home, and called on the people of the South to hurry into Kansas.

Two years later, Douglas, then in the Senate, once more sought to test the Squatter Sovereignty idea regarding the new western lands, but once more a cold silence met his attempts.

The captain was only a squatter there, but no one cared to disturb him, and he had led the existence of a semi-hermit there for many years.

JERRY SIMPSON, SQUATTER X. THE FINEST LITTLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD XI.

" CHAPTER IX JERRY SIMPSON, SQUATTER

"Squatter Sovereignty.

Not a few will now admit that, taken generally, his doctrine of "squatter sovereignty" was right.