The signs tell you to drive slow and drive friendly. Yet the roads are empty. This part of Schleicher County in West Texas does not look much changed from the scenery in John Wayne’s 1966 western, El Dorado, named after the ramshackle town that appears and disappears in a blink on Highway 277.

By the end of this week, more than 400 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints (FLDS) will be on their way back to this scorched wilderness. There, they will continue to live in a self-sufficient, 1,700-acre polygamist compound called the Yearning for Zion Ranch, after being seized during a raid by the Texas department of child protective services two months ago.

The raid was provoked by a call to a telephone hotline from a woman claiming to be an abused 16-year-old bride, a call that is now widely believed to have been a hoax.

The collapse of the authorities’ case against the FLDS, almost certainly the biggest child custody dispute in American history, has raised the question of whether anything can be done to stop America’s thriving polygamist sects, where it is alleged that middle-aged men such as the “prophet” Warren Jeffs routinely married girls as young as 12.

One thing at least is clear: when the first of the FLDS children were reunited with their parents on Monday, the polygamists scored an undeniable PR victory. The order to return the children first came from a state appeal court in Austin, which ruled that the seized minors, many of whom were under the age of 5, were in no immediate danger from abuse related to underage marriage. The order was challenged by the department but upheld by the state supreme court.

“It’s just a great day,” said Nancy Dockstader as she struggled to control tears while hugging her nine-year-old daughter Amy. “We’re so grateful.” Jennetta Jessop fought back tears when she was reunited with her five-year-old son. Mrs Jessop, who picked up her son from a Fort Worth shelter on Monday and had four other children to collect, said: “This is the happiest day of my life.” Both women looked like extras from a civil war period drama, with their elaborate hair (“updos” as the fashion press calls them) and ruffled prairie dresses.

On Monday a handful of TV crews were allowed beyond the razor wire encircling the compound to broadcast a promise by Willie Jessop, a church spokesman, that “the church commits it will not preside over the marriage of any woman under the age of legal consent in the jurisdiction in which the marriage takes place”.

On the local radio stations, where schmaltzy pop songs with titles such as Jesus Loved Me with the Cross are played on an interminable loop, there was sympathy. One caller said that the raid on the FLDS was just more evidence of the persecution of white Christians. In a modern America of drugged-up celebrities and internet pornography, his argument went, the FLDS is closer to the country that the pioneers would have wanted.

A spokeswomen for the department, Marleigh Meisner, was asked if she agreed that the raid was a disaster and gave a curt “no”. But. she said, “we’re obviously disappointed”. Ms Meisner added that a criminal investigation into the church and Jeffs, who is in jail on rape-related charges, is continuing. In addition, as a condition of the children’s release, the parents must take parenting classes, consent to unannounced visits by the authorities, allow their children to be examined for signs of abuse, and not travel outside Texas.

Meanwhile, three hours away from Eldorado, in the town of Abilene, more children were preparing yesterday to return to the Yearning for Zion Ranch from the Hendrick Home for Children, where they lived in pleasant brick buildings surrounded by rolling green parkland. David Perkins, the executive vice-president of the children’s programme, admitted that he was deeply troubled by the thought of the children being taken back to a life of isolation and polygamy.

“If Warren Jeffs is the example for these kids, that’s pretty disturbing for me,” he said. “I’m not an investigator, but it don’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on up there.”

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