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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24352-8.txt b/24352-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0014fe6 --- /dev/null +++ b/24352-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9005 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Land of the Burnt Thigh, by Edith Eudora +Kohl, Illustrated by Stephen J. Voorhies + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Land of the Burnt Thigh + + +Author: Edith Eudora Kohl + + + +Release Date: January 17, 2008 [eBook #24352] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker, Suzanne Shell, Jeannie Howse, and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 24352-h.htm or 24352-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/5/24352/24352-h/24352-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/5/24352/24352-h.zip) + + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | + | been preserved. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH + +by + +EDITH EUDORA KOHL + +Drawings by Stephen J. Voorhies + + + + + + + +New York, London, Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1938. + + + + + TO + THE MEMORY OF + IDA MARY + + + +CONTENTS + + + A Word of Explanation xxxiii + + I A Shack on the Prairie 1 + + II Down to Grass Roots 16 + + III "Any Fool Can Set Type" 36 + + IV The Biggest Lottery in History 46 + + V No Place for Clinging Vines 64 + + VI "Utopia" 83 + + VII Building Empires Overnight 99 + + VIII Easy as Falling Off a Log 120 + + IX The Opening of the Rosebud 143 + + X The Harvest 164 + + XI The Big Blizzard 185 + + XII A New America 199 + + XIII The Thirsty Land 214 + + XIV The Land of the Burnt Thigh 238 + + XV Up in Smoke 253 + + XVI Fallowed Land 268 + + XVII New Trails 282 + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +A WORD OF EXPLANATION + + +_I have not attempted in this book to write an autobiography. This is +not my story--it is the story of the people, the present-day pioneers, +who settled on that part of the public lands called the Great American +Desert, and wrested a living from it at a personal cost of privation and +suffering._ + +_Today there is an infinite deal of talk about dust bowls, of prairie +grass which should never have been plowed under for farming, of land +which should be abandoned. Yet much of this is the land which during the +crucial years of the war was the grain-producing section of the United +States. Regiments of men have marched to war with drums beating and +flags flying, but the regiments who marched into the desert, and faced +fire and thirst, and cold and hunger, and who stayed to build up a new +section of the country, a huge empire in the West, have been ignored, +and their problems largely misunderstood._ + +_The history of the homesteaders is paradoxical, beginning as it does in +the spirit of a great gamble, with the government lotteries with land as +the stakes, and developing in a close-knit spirit of mutual +helpfulness._ + +_My own part in so tremendous a migration of a people was naturally a +slight one, but for me it has been a rewarding adventure, leading men +and women onto the land, then against organized interests, and finally +into the widespread use of cooperative methods. Most of that story +belongs beyond the confines of the present book._ + +_Over thousands of acres today in the West men and women are still +fighting to control that last frontier, and wherever there are farmers, +the methods of cooperation will spread for decades. It is a good fight. +I hope I shall be in it._ + + _E. E. K._ + + + + + +LAND +OF THE +BURNT +THIGH + +[Illustration] + + + + +I + +A SHACK ON THE PRAIRIE + + +At sunset we came up out of the draw to the crest of the ridge. Perched +on the high seat of the old spring wagon, we looked into a desolate land +which reached to the horizon on every side. Prairie which had lain +untouched since the Creation save for buffalo and roving bands of +Indians, its brown grass scorched and crackling from the sun. No trees +to break the endless monotony or to provide a moment's respite from the +sun. + +The driver, sitting stooped over on the front seat, half asleep, +straightened up and looked around, sizing up the vacant prairie. + +"Well," he announced, "I reckon this might be it." + +But this couldn't be it. There was nothing but space, and sun-baked +plains, and the sun blazing down on our heads. My sister pulled out the +filing papers, looking for the description the United States Land Office +had given her: Section 18, Range 77W--about thirty miles from Pierre, +South Dakota. + +"Three miles from the buffalo waller," our driver said, mumbling to +himself, ignoring the official location and looking back as though +measuring the distance with his eye. "Yeah, right in here--somewhere." + +"But," faltered Ida Mary, "there was to be a house--" + +"Thar she is!" he announced, pointing his long whip in the direction of +the setting sun. "See that shack over yonder?" + +Whipping up the tired team with a flick of the rawhide, he angled off +across the trackless prairie. One panic-stricken look at the black, +tar-papered shack, standing alone in that barren expanse, and the last +spark of our dwindling enthusiasm for homesteading was snuffed out. The +house, which had seemed such an extraordinary stroke of luck when we had +heard of it, looked like a large but none too substantial packing-box +tossed haphazardly on the prairie which crept in at its very door. + +The driver stopped the team in front of the shack, threw the lines to +the ground, stretched his long, lank frame over the wheel and began to +unload the baggage. He pushed open the unbolted door with the grass +grown up to the very sill, and set the boxes and trunk inside. Grass. +Dry, yellow grass crackling under his feet. + +"Here, why don't you get out?" he said sharply. "It's sundown and a long +trip back to town." + +Automatically we obeyed. As Ida Mary paid him the $20 fee, he stood +there for a moment sizing us up. Homesteaders were all in his day's +work. They came. Some stayed to prove up the land. Some didn't. We +wouldn't. + +"Don't 'pear to me like you gals are big enough to homestead." He took +his own filled water jug from the wagon and set it down at the door, +thus expressing his compassion. Then, as unconcerned as a taxi driver +leaving his passengers at a city door, he drove away, leaving us alone. + +Ida Mary and I fought down the impulse to run after him, implore him to +take us back with him, not to leave us alone with the prairie and the +night, with nothing but the packing-box for shelter. I think we were too +overwhelmed by the magnitude of our disaster even to ask for help. + +We stared after him until the sudden evening chill which comes with the +dusk of the frontier roused us to action. + +Hesitantly we stepped over the low sill of the little shack, feeling +like intruders. Ida Mary, who had been so proud of finding a claim with +a house already built, stared at it without a word, her round, young +face shadowed by the brim of her straw hat drawn and tired. + +It was a typical homestead shack, about 10 × 12 feet, containing only +one room, and built of rough, foot-wide boards, with a small cellar +window on either side of the room. Like the walls, the door was of wide +boards. The whole house was covered on the outside with tar paper. It +had obviously been put together with small concern for the fine points +of carpentry and none whatever for appearance. It looked as though the +first wind would pick it up and send it flying through the air. + +It was as unprepossessing within as it was outside. In one corner a +homemade bunk was fastened to the wall, with ropes criss-crossed and run +through holes in the 2 × 4 inch pieces of lumber which formed the bed, +to take the place of springs. In another corner a rusty, two-hole oil +stove stood on a drygoods box; above it another box with a shelf in it +for a cupboard. Two rickety, homemade chairs completed the furnishings. + +We tried to tell ourselves that we were lucky; shacks were not provided +for homesteaders, they had to build their own--but Ida Mary had +succeeded in finding one not only ready built but furnished as well. We +did not deceive ourselves or each other. We were frightened and +homesick. Whatever we had pictured in our imaginations, it bore no +resemblance to the tar-paper shack without creature comforts; nor had we +counted on the desolation of prairie on which we were marooned. + +Before darkness should shut us in, we hurriedly scrambled through our +provisions for a can of kerosene. Down in the trunk was a small lamp. We +got it out and filled it. And then we faced each other, speechless, each +knowing the other's fear--afraid to voice it. Matches! They had not been +on our list. I fumbled hastily through the old box cupboard with its few +dust-covered odds and ends. Back in a corner was an old tobacco can. +Something rattled lightly as I picked it up--matches! + +We were too weary to light a fire. On a trunk which we used as a table, +we spread a cold lunch, tried to swallow a few bites and gave it up. The +empty space and the black night had swallowed us up. + +"We might as well go to bed," said Ida Mary dully. + +"We'll start back home in the morning," I declared, "as soon as it is +daylight." + + * * * * * + +Oddly enough, we had never questioned the impulse which led two young +city girls to go alone into unsettled land, homesteading. Our people had +been pioneers, always among those who pushed back the frontier. The +Ammonses had come up from Tennessee into Illinois in the early days and +cleared the timberland along the Mississippi Valley some forty miles out +of St. Louis. They built their houses of the hand-hewn logs and became +land and stock owners. They were not sturdy pioneers, but they were +tenacious. + +Some of them went on into what Grandma Ammons called the Santa Fe +Bottoms, a low marshy country along the river, where they became +wealthy--or well-to-do, at least--by fattening droves of hogs on acorns. +Generally speaking, my mother's family ran to professions, and my +father's family to land. Though there was father's cousin, Jack Hunter, +who had been west and when he came to visit us now and then told wild +tales about the frontier to which my sister and I as little children +listened wide-eyed. He wove glowing accounts of the range country where +he was going to make a million dollars raising cattle. Cousin Jack +always talked big. + +It was from his highly colored yarns that we had learned all we knew of +the West--and from the western magazines which pictured it as an +exciting place where people were mostly engaged in shooting one another. + +While Ida Mary and I were still very young our mother died, and after +that we divided our time between our father's home--he had married +again and had a second family to take care of--and the home of his +sister. As a result my sister and I came to depend on ourselves and on +each other more than two girls of our age usually do. + +By the time we were old enough to see that things were not going well +financially at home, we knew we must make our own way. Some of the girls +we knew talked about "going homesteading" as a wild adventure. They +boasted of friends or relatives who had gone to live on a claim as +though they had gone lion-hunting in Africa or gold-hunting in Alaska. A +homestead. At first thought the idea was absurd. We were both very +young; both unusually slight, anything but hardy pioneers; and neither +of us had the slightest knowledge of homesteading conditions, or +experience extending beyond the conventional, sheltered life of the +normal city girl in the first decade of the century. + +We were wholly unfitted for the frontier. We had neither training nor +physical stamina for roughing it. When I tried to explain to an uncle of +mine that I wanted to go west, to make something of myself, he retorted +that "it was a hell of a place to do it." In spite of the discussion +which our decision occasioned, we made our plans, deciding to risk the +hazards of a raw country alone, cutting ourselves off from the world of +everyone and everything we had ever known. And with little money to +provide against hardships and emergencies. + +At that time the country was emerging from the era of straggling +settlers. Immigration was moving west in a steady stream. The tidal wave +which swept the West from 1908 to the World War was almost upon us +although we could not see it then. But, we thought, there would be new +people, new interests, and in the end 160 acres of land for Ida Mary. +Perhaps for me the health I had sought so unsuccessfully. + +Primarily a quarter-section of land was the reason for almost everyone +coming west. As people in the early pioneer days had talked of settling +in Nebraska and Kansas and the eastern Dakotas, they now talked about +the country lying farther on--the western Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, +Colorado. Over the Midwest the homestead idea was spreading rapidly to +farm and hamlet and city. One heard a great deal about families leaving +their farms and going west to get cheap land; of young college men who +went out to prove up a quarter-section. The land would always be worth +something, and the experience, even for a short time, was a fruitful one +in many ways. + +To the public, however, not so romantically inclined, the homesteaders +were the peasantry of America. Through the early homesteading days folk +who "picked up and set themselves down to grub on a piece of land" were +not of the world or important to it. But the stream of immigration to +the land was widening, flowing steadily on. + +How did one go about homesteading? we asked. Well, all you had to do to +get a deed to a quarter-section--160 acres of land--was to file on it at +the nearest Land Office, live on it eight months, pay the government +$1.25 an acre--and the land was yours. Easy as falling off a log! + +The only improvement required by the government was some sort of abode +as proof that one had made the land his bona-fide residence for the full +eight months. + +What would that cost? And the whole undertaking? It depended partly on +what kind of shack one built and whether he did it himself or hired it +done. A shack cost all the way from $25 to $100 or more. Some of those +who had families and intended to stay, built cheap two-and three-room +houses. + +Of course, it cost women who had to hire things done more to homestead. +But with grub, fuel and other necessities we figured it would cost not +more than $500 all told. + +Then we learned of this quarter-section with a shack already built, bunk +and all. It had been filed on and the owner had left before proving-up +time so that the claim, shack and all, had reverted to the government. +We had about $300 saved up, and this was enough, we decided, to cover +homesteading expenses, inasmuch as the shack was provided. So we had all +but the final payment of $200 to the government, which would be due when +we had "made proof." + +We decided to let the money for that final payment take care of itself. +The thing to do was to get hold of a piece of land before it was all +gone. To hear people talk, it was the last day of grace to apply for a +claim. They talked like that for ten years. We did not know there were +several million acres lying out there between the Missouri and the +Pacific waiting to be settled. We would have all winter to figure out +how to prove up. And we found that one could get $1000 to $1500 for a +raw claim after getting a deed to it. + +The claim with the shack on it was in South Dakota, thirty miles from a +town called Pierre. We looked that up in the geography to make sure it +really existed. But when we tried to get detailed information, facts +and figures to help us prepare for what was to come, we got only printed +pamphlets of rules and regulations which were of no real help at all. +Land Offices were so busy in those days that all they could do was to +send out a package of printed information that no one could understand. + +Armed with our meager array of facts, we talked to our father--as though +the information we gave him so glibly had any real bearing on this +precarious undertaking of his two young daughters. Whatever his doubts +and hesitations, he let us decide for ourselves; it was only when we +boarded the old Bald Eagle at St. Louis one summer day in 1907, bound up +the river, that he clung to our hands as though unable to let us go, +saying, "I'm afraid you are making a mistake. Take care of yourselves." + +"It will be all right," Ida Mary told him cheerfully. "It is only for +eight months. Nothing can happen in eight months." + +The first emergency arose almost at once. We started up the Mississippi +in high spirits, but by the time we reached Moline, Illinois, I was +taken from the boat on a stretcher--the aftermath of typhoid fever. It +was bad enough to be ill, it was worse to have an unexpected drain on +our funds, but worst of all was the fear that someone might file on the +claim ahead of us. For a week or ten days I could not travel, but Ida +Mary went ahead to attend to the land-filing and the buying of supplies +so that we could start for the homestead as soon as I arrived. + +The trip from Moline to Pierre I made by train. Ida Mary was at the +depot to meet me, and at once we took a ferry across the river to Ft. +Pierre. The river was low and the ever-shifting sandbars rose up to meet +the skiffs. Ft. Pierre was a typical frontier town, unkempt and +unfinished, its business buildings, hotel and stores, none of more than +two stories, on the wide dirt road called Main Street. At one end of +Main Street flowed the old Missouri, at the other it branched off into +trails that lost themselves in the prairie. + +Beyond Main Street the houses of the little town were scattered, looking +raw and new and uncomfortable, most of them with small, sunburned, +stunted gardens. But there was nothing apologetic about Ft. Pierre. +"We've done mighty well with what we've had to work with," was its +attitude. + +Section 18, Range 77W--about thirty miles from Pierre. It seemed more +real now. The hotel proprietor promised to find us a claim locator to +whom that cryptic number made sense. + +The next morning at sun-up we were on our way. At that hour the little +homestead town of Ft. Pierre lay quiet. Other homesteaders were ready to +start out: a farmer and his wife from Wisconsin, who were busy +sandwiching their four children into a wagon already filled with +immigrant goods, a cow and horse tied on behind. + +At a long table in the fly-specked hotel dining room we ate flapjacks +and fried potatoes and drank strong coffee in big heavy cups. Then, at +long last, perched on the seat of the claim locator's high spring wagon, +we jolted out of town, swerving to let a stagecoach loaded with +passengers whip past us, waiting while a team of buffalo ambled past, +and finally jogged along the beaten road through the bad lands outside +of town. + +Beyond the rough bad lands we came upon the prairie. We traveled for +miles along a narrow, rutted road crossed now and then by dim trails +leading nowhere, it seemed. Our own road dwindled to a rough trail, and +the spring wagon lurched over it while we clung to the sides to ease the +constant jolting, letting go to pull our hats over our eyes which ached +with the glare, or over the back of our necks which were blistered from +the sun. + +Our frantic haste to arrive while the land lasted seemed absurd now. +There was land enough for all who wanted it, and few enough to claim it. +All that weary day we saw no people save in the distance a few +homesteaders mowing strips of the short dry grass for hay. Now and then +we passed a few head of horses and a cow grazing. Here and there over +the hot, dusty plain we saw shacks and makeshift houses surrounded by +patches of corn or flax or dried-up garden. Why were the houses so +scattered, looking as though they had been thrown down at random? "They +had to be set on the claims," our locator said dryly. + +About noon we stopped at a deserted ranch house, surrounded by +corrals--a camp, our driver explained, where some stockman held his +cattle overnight in driving them to market. Here we ate a lunch and the +locator fed and watered the team, refilling the jars from an old well +with its long wooden water troughs. + +There the trail ended. Now we struck out over a trackless land that grew +rougher the farther we went. To look for a quarter-section here was like +looking for a needle in a haystack. It was late summer and the sun beat +down on the hot prairie grass and upon our heads. We had driven all day +without sign of shade--and save for that brief interval at noon, without +sight of water. Our faces and hands were blistered, our throats parched +from the hot wind. + +This was not the West as I had dreamed of it, not the West even of +banditry and violent action. It was a desolate, forgotten land, without +vegetation save for the dry, crackling grass, without visible tokens of +fertility. Drab and gray and empty. Stubborn, resisting land. Heroics +wouldn't count for much here. It would take slow, back-breaking labor, +and time, and the action of the seasons to make the prairie bloom. +People had said this was no place for two girls. It began to seem that +they were right. + +And this was the goal of our long journey--the tar-paper shack. We +pushed the trunk over in front of the door which had no lock, piled the +chairs and suitcases on top of the trunk; spread a comfort over the +criss-cross rope bed and threw ourselves across it without undressing. +We had no gun or other weapon for protection and were not brave enough +to use one had we possessed it. + +The little cellar windows which stood halfway between the low ceiling +and the floor were nailed shut. But we needed neither window nor door, +so far as air was concerned. It poured through the wide cracks like +water through a sieve. + +While we tossed, too tired and sick at heart to sleep, I asked: "What +became of the young man who built this shack?" + +"He lived here only a few weeks and abandoned it," Ida Mary explained. +"The claim reverted to the government, shack, bunk and all. He couldn't +stick it out." + + * * * * * + +The next morning we awoke to a world flooded with sunshine, and it was +the surprise of our lives that we had lived to see it. + +Ida started the oil stove and put on the coffee. Wearily I dragged +myself out of bed. We fried bacon, made toast, unpacked our few dishes. +Discovering that a hinged shelf on the wall was intended for a table, we +put it up and set our breakfast on it. We found that we were really +hungry. + +Our determination to start back home was still unshaken, but we had +reckoned without the prairies. We were marooned as on a desert island. +And more pressing, even, than some way of getting back to Pierre--and +home--was the need for water. We must get a jug of water somewhere. +Water didn't come from a tap on the prairies. We began to wonder where +it did come from; certainly there wasn't a drop to be found on Ida +Mary's claim. + +In the glaring morning sun which blazed on the earth, we saw a shack in +the distance, the reflection of the sun on yellow boards. It was farther +away than it appeared to be with the bright light against it. + +This new home was larger than the regulation shack, and it had a +gable--a low-pitched roof--which in itself was a symbol of permanence in +contrast to the temporary huts that dotted the plains. It was made of +tongue-and-groove drop-siding, which did away with the need of tar +paper, and in the homestead country marked a man's prestige and +solidity. + +We were met at the open door by a pretty, plump young woman. A little +girl of seven stood quietly at one side, and a little boy, perhaps five, +at the other. As we stood there with the jug she broke into a pleasant +laugh. "You've come for water! We have no well, but Huey hauled two +barrels this morning from Crooks's, several miles away." + +We were led into a large room, clean and cool. After one has been in a +low, slant-roofed, tar-papered shack that becomes an oven when the sun +shines on it, entering a house with a gable is almost like going into a +refrigerator. There wasn't much in the room except beds and a sewing +machine. The floor, on which a smaller child was playing, was bare +except for a few rag rugs, but shining. An opening led into a small +lean-to kitchen with a range in one corner; in the other a large square +table spread with a checked tablecloth was set ready for the next meal, +and covered with a mosquito bar. The home, the family, gave one a +feeling of coming to anchor in a sea of grass and sky. + +We learned that the name was Dunn and that they were dirt farmers from +Iowa, but they had not come in time to do much farming that season. They +had thrown up a makeshift barn as a temporary shelter for the horses and +one cow until they could build a real barn--after they found out what +the soil would do, Mrs. Dunn explained. + +She hurried out to the kitchen, talking as she moved about, and came in +with coffee and a plate of oatmeal cookies. + +"I am so glad you are going to live here," she told us. "Neighbors +within a mile and a half! I won't feel so much alone with neighbors +close by to chat with." + +We hadn't the courage to tell her that we weren't going to stay. + +"You must have found the shack dirty," she said, with a glance at her +spotless house. "A bachelor homesteader had it and they are always the +worst. They wait until the floor is thick with dirt and grease and then +spread newspapers over it to cover up the dirt. You'll have a time +getting it fixed as you want it." + +We wondered how anyone made a home of a tar-paper shack. To hear Mrs. +Dunn's casual remarks, one would think it no more of a problem than +redecorating a city home. + +As we started on the trek back, she called after us, "Huey will haul you +over a keg of water tomorrow." + +As soon as we were out of earshot I said, "We can hire Mr. Dunn to take +us back to Pierre." + +"That's an idea," Ida Mary agreed. + +By the time we had walked back the mile and a half--which seemed five in +the scorching heat--it was past noon and we were completely exhausted. +So we did not get started back to Pierre that day. But we felt a little +easier. There was a way to get out. + +[Illustration] + + + + +II + +DOWN TO GRASS ROOTS + + +There is a lot of sound common sense in the saying about leaving the +cage door open. As long as we knew we could be taken back to town we +were content to stay for a day or two, and take a look at the country +while we were there--by which we meant that we would gaze out over the +empty spaces with a little more interest. + +We strained our eyes for sight of moving objects, for signs of life. +Once we saw a team and wagon moving toward the south. As suddenly as it +had appeared it dropped out of sight into a ravine. A horseman crossing +the plains faded into the horizon. + +As our vision gradually adjusted itself to distance we saw other +homestead abodes. The eye "picked up" these little shacks across the +plains, one by one. + +For years straggling settlers had moved on and off the prairie--and +those who stayed barely made a mark on the engulfing spaces. The +unyielding, harsh life had routed the majority of homesteaders--they had +shut the door behind them and left the land to its own. + +All over the plains empty shacks told the tale. They stood there with +the grass grown up around them, the unwritten inscription: "This +quarter-section has been taken." Dilapidated; the tiny window or two +boarded up; boards cracked or fallen apart. They, too, had not been able +to weather the hard forces of nature on the frontier. If the shack had +gone down, or had been moved in the night by some more ambitious +homesteader, there was always the pile of tin cans to mark the spot. +They stayed and rusted. + +And from the tin cans ye knew them. Bachelors' huts were always +surrounded; where there was a woman to do the cooking there were fewer +cans. But as a rule the shack dwellers lived out of tin cans like city +apartment dwellers. + +But for the most part the land was inhabited by coyotes and prairie +dogs, with a few herds of range sheep and cattle. Few of the +homesteaders were permanent. They stayed their eight months--if they +could stick it out--and left at once. Their uneasy stay on the land was +like the brief pause of migratory birds or the haphazard drifting of +tumble weeds that go rolling across the plains before the wind, landing +against a barbed-wire fence or any other object that blocked their way. + +The empty shacks reminded one of the phantom towns which men had thrown +up breathlessly and abandoned when the search for gold had proved +illusory. Only permanency could dig the gold of fertility from the +prairie, and thus far the people who had made a brief attempt to cope +with it had been in too much of a hurry. Those abandoned +quarter-sections had defeated the men who would have taken them. + +The main movement over the plains was that of hauling water from the few +wells in the country, or from one of two narrow creeks that twisted +through the parched land and vanished into dry gulches. They were now as +dry as a bone. + +"I'd have a well," Huey Dunn said, "if I could stop hauling water long +enough to dig one." That was the situation of most of the homesteaders. + +Most of these migratory homesteaders wanted the land as an +investment--to own it and sell it to some eastern farmer or to a +rancher. Some, like Huey Dunn, came to make a permanent home and till +the land. These few dirt farmers raised patches of corn, and while the +farmers from Iowa and Illinois were scornful of the miniature stalks, +the flavor of the sweet corn grown on the dry sod was unsurpassed. The +few patches of potatoes were sweet and mealy. But the perfect sod crop +was flax. Already the frontier was becoming known for its flax raising. + +We saw no large range herds, though there were no herd laws to keep them +off private property. One could drive straight as the crow flies from +Pierre to Presho, forty or fifty miles, without stopping to open a gate. +If one struck a fence around a quarter-section here or there he either +got out and cut the wire in two, or drove around the corner of the +fence, depending upon how he felt about fences being in the way. + +No wonder sheep-herders went crazy, we thought, swallowed up by that sea +of brown, dry grass, by the endless monotony of space. + +I think what struck us most those first days was the realization that +the era of pioneers had not ended with covered wagon days; that there +were men and women, thousands of them, in our own times, living under +pioneer conditions, fighting the same hardships, the same obstacles, the +same primitive surroundings which had beset that earlier generation. + +Toward evening, that first day, sitting on the little board platform in +front of the door where there was a hint of shade and a suggestion of +coolness in the air, we saw two animals approaching. + +"I never saw dogs like that, did you?" I said to Ida Mary when they came +a little closer. + +She jumped up, crying "Wolves!" We had seen one on the road out from +Pierre. We ran into the shack, nailed the door shut that night--no +risking of trunks or boxes against it--crawled into bed and lay there +for hours, afraid to speak out loud. + +Huey Dunn came next day with the keg of water. "Wolves?" he said, as we +told him of the experience. "They wouldn't hurt anyone, unless they were +cornered--or hungry." + +"But how," demanded Ida Mary, "were we to tell when they were hungry?" + +Huey laughed at that. When the snow lay deep on the ground for a long +time after a blizzard, and there was no way to get food, they sometimes +attacked sheep or cattle, and they had been known to attack persons, but +not often. They generally went in packs to do their foraging. + +"Goin' back tomorrow?" Mr. Dunn ejaculated, as we interrupted his talk +about the country to ask him to take us to Pierre. "Why, my wife planned +on your comin' over to dinner tomorrow." But if we wanted to go the next +day--sure, he could take us. Oh, he wouldn't charge us much. As he drove +away he called back, "Don't get scared when you hear the coyotes. You'll +get used to 'em if you stay." + +And that night they howled. We were awakened by the eerie, hair-raising +cry that traveled so far over the open prairie and seemed so near; a +wild, desolate cry with an uncannily human quality. That mournful sound +is as much a part of the prairie as is the wind which blows, unchecked, +over the vast stretches, the dreary, inescapable voice of the plains. +The first time we heard the coyotes there seemed to be a hundred of +them, though there were probably half a dozen. All Huey Dunn's assurance +that they were harmless and that it was a nightly occurrence failed to +calm us. + +When Huey got home his wife asked what he thought of their new +neighbors. + +"Right nice girls to talk to," Huey said, "but damn poor homesteaders. +Beats the devil the kind of people that are taking up land. Can't +develop a country with landowners like that. Those girls want to go +home. Already. I said you wanted 'em to come over to dinner tomorrow +noon. Maybe you can fix up something kinda special." + +"I'll drop a few extra spuds into the pot and bake a pan of +cornbread--they'll eat it," Mrs. Dunn predicted cheerfully. She was +right. + +Bringing us back to the claim the next afternoon Huey suddenly +remembered that he had promised a neighbor to help string barb-wire the +following day. But--sure--he could take us to town 'most any day after +that. + +The next day we began to discover the women who were living on +homesteads and who, in their own way, played so vital a part in +developing the West. One of our nearest neighbors--by straining our eyes +we could see her little shack perched up against the horizon--put on her +starched calico dress and gingham apron and came right over to call. The +Widow Fergus, she said she was. + +She sat down, laid her big straw hat on the floor beside her (no, just +let it lie there--she always threw it off like that) and made herself +comfortable. Her graying hair, parted in the middle and done up in a +knot in the back, was freshly and sleekly combed. She was brown as a +berry and just the type of hard-working woman to make a good +homesteader, with calloused, capable, tireless hands. She was round, +bustling and kind. The Widow Fergus had taken up a homestead with her +young son. + +She looked at the unopened baggage, the dirty shack. Now that was +sensible, she said, to rest a few days--it was so nice and quiet out +here. Homesick? My, no. There was no time to get homesick. Too much to +do getting by on a homestead. Women like the Widow Fergus, we were to +discover, had no time for self-pity or lamenting their rigorous, hard +lives. They did not, indeed, think in terms of self-pity. And they +managed, on the whole, to live rich, satisfying lives and at the same +time to prepare the way for easier, pleasanter lives for the women who +were to follow them. + +When she left she said, "Now, come over, girls, and anything you want, +let me know...." + +A little later that same day we saw three riders galloping across the +plains, headed straight for our shack. They stopped short, swung off +their ponies, three girl homesteaders. + +They rode astride, wore plain shirtwaists and divided skirts. Two of +them wore cheap straw hats much like those worn by farmers in the fields +everywhere. They swung from their saddles as easily as though they wore +breeches and boots. + +"How did you learn we were here?" I asked, curious to know how news +could travel over these outlying spaces. + +"Huey Dunn told it over at the road ranch while I was waiting there for +the mail," the oldest of the girls explained, "so I just rode around and +picked up the girls." + +One would think they lived in the same city block, so nonchalant was she +over the round-up, but "only eighteen miles," she explained easily. + +Her name was Wilomene White, she told us, and she came from Chicago. She +had been out here most of the time for almost two years--what with +leaves of absence in the winter prolonging the term of residence. She +was a short, plump woman whom we judged to be in her early thirties, and +she had a sense of humor that was an invaluable asset in a country like +that. She was an artist and head of her father's household. Her brother +was a prominent surgeon in Chicago and for several years Wilomene, +besides being active in club work, had been on the board of the +Presbyterian Hospital there. + +When her health failed from overwork and strenuous public activities, +her brother ordered a complete change and plenty of pure fresh air. So +with a little group of acquaintances she had come west and taken up a +homestead. It was easy to understand that she had found a change--and +fresh air. What surprised us was that she took such delight in the +country and the pioneer life about her that she no longer wanted to +return to her full life in Chicago. + +The three girls stayed on and on, talking. Girl homesteaders had no +reason for going home. Days and nights, days of the week and month were +all the same to them. There were so few places to go, and the distance +was so great that it was a custom to stay long enough to make a visit +worth while. The moon would come up about ten that night--so nothing +mattered. Afraid to ride home in the middle of the night? What was there +to fear out here? + +Ida Mary and I still hesitated about going far from the shack. The +prairie about us was so unsettled, so lacking in trees that there were +practically no landmarks for the unaccustomed eye to follow. We became +confused as to direction and distance. "Three miles from the buffalo +waller," our locator had said. "No trouble to locate your claim." But if +we got far enough away from it we couldn't even find the buffalo waller. + +Even against our will the bigness and the peace of the open spaces were +bound to soak in. Despite the isolation, the hardships and the awful +crudeness, we could not but respond to air that was like old wine--as +sparkling in the early morning, as mellow in the soft nights. Never were +moon and stars so gloriously bright. It was the thinness of the +atmosphere that made them appear so near the earth, we were told. + +While the middle of the day was often so hot we panted for breath, +mornings and evenings were always gloriously cool and invigorating, and +we slept. With the two comforters spread on the criss-cross rope bed, we +fell asleep and woke ravenously hungry each morning. + +That first letter home was a difficult task, and we found it safer to +stick to facts--the trip had been pleasant, Ida Mary had filed on the +claim. But to prepare for our arrival at home, we added, "There is +nothing to worry about. If we think it is best, we will come home." This +was eventually sent off after we had discussed what we had better tell +our father, and crossed out the sentences that might worry him. "Don't +waste so much paper," Ida Mary warned me. "It is thirty miles to another +writing tablet." + +We were eating supper one evening when four or five coyotes slipped up +out of the draw and came close to the shack. Almost one in color with +the yellow grass, they stood poised, alert, ready to run at the +slightest sound. Graceful little animals, their pointed noses turned +upward. A great deal like a collie dog. We did not make a move, but they +seemed to sense life in the once deserted cabin, and like a phantom they +faded into the night. + +Huey Dunn was one of those homesteaders who believed the world (the +frontier at least) was not made in a day. He was slow getting around to +things. He never did get around to taking Ida Mary and me back to +Pierre. And to our dismay a homesteader drove up one day with the big +box of household goods we had shipped out. The stage express had brought +it out from Pierre to McClure, and it had been hauled the rest of the +way by the first homesteader coming our way. Altogether it cost twenty +dollars to get that box, and there wasn't ten dollars' worth of stuff in +it. + +Ida Mary and I had collected the odds and ends it contained from +second-hand stores in St. Louis, selecting every article after eager +discussion of its future use, picturing its place in our western cabin. +We hadn't known about the tar-paper shack then. Its arrival stressed our +general disillusionment. + +We had now seen the inside of a few shacks over the prairie. The +attempts the women had made to convert them into homes were pitiful, +although some of them had really accomplished wonders with practically +nothing. It is pretty hard to crush the average woman's home-making +instinct. The very grimness of the prairie increased their determination +to raise a bulwark against it. + +Up to now we had been uneasy guests in the shack, ready for flight +whenever Huey Dunn got around to taking us back to Pierre. But trying to +dig out a few things now and then from grips and trunks without +unpacking from top to bottom is an unsatisfactory procedure. So we +unpacked. + +Then we had to find a place for our things and thought we might as well +try to make the cabin more comfortable at the same time, even if we +weren't staying. We looked about us. There wasn't much to work with. In +the walls of our shack the boards ran up and down with a 2 × 4 scantling +midway between floor and ceiling running all the way around the room. +This piece of lumber served two purposes. It held the shack together and +served as a catch-all for everything from toilet articles to hammer and +nails. The room had been lined with patches of building paper, some red, +some blue, and finished out with old newspapers. + +The patchwork lining had become torn in long cracks where the boards of +the shack were split, and through the holes the dry wind drove dust and +sand. The shack would have to be relined, for there was not sufficient +protection from the weather and we would freeze in the first cold spell. + +This regulation shack lining was a great factor in the West's +settlement. We should all have frozen to death without it. It came in +rolls and was hauled out over the plains like ammunition to an army, and +paper factories boomed. There were two kinds--red and blue--and the +color indicated the grade. The red was a thinner, inferior quality and +cost about three dollars a roll, while the heavy blue cost six. Blue +paper on the walls was as much a sign of class on the frontier as blue +blood in Boston. We lined our shack with red. + +The floor was full of knotholes, and the boards had shrunk, leaving wide +cracks between. The bachelor homesteader had left it black with grease. +When Huey hauled us an extra keg of water we proceeded to take off at +least a few layers. + +We were filling the cracks with putty when a bachelor homesteader +stopped by and watched the operation in disgust. + +"Where you goin' to run your scrub-water," he wanted to know, "with the +cracks and knotholes stopped up?" + +In the twenty-dollar box was a 6 × 9-foot faded Brussels rug, with a +couple of rolls of cheap wallpaper. From a homesteader who was proving +up and leaving we bought an old wire cot. With cretonnes we made +pillows, stuffed with prairie grass; hung bright curtains at the little +windows, which opened by sliding back between strips of wood. In the big +wooden box we had also packed a small, light willow rocker. In one +corner we nailed up a few boards for a bookcase, painting it bright red. +Little by little the old tar-paper shack took on a homelike air. + +It is curious how much value a thing has if one has put some effort into +it. We were still as disillusioned with the country as we had been the +first day, we felt as out of place on a homestead as a coyote sauntering +up Fifth Avenue, we felt the tar-paper shack to be the most unhomelike +contraption we had ever seen; but from the moment we began to make +improvements, transforming the shack, it took on an interest for us out +of all proportion to the changes we were able to make. Slowly we were +making friends, learning to find space restful and reassuring instead of +intimidating, adapting our restless natures to a country that measured +time in seasons; imperceptibly we were putting down our first roots into +that stubborn soil. + +At first we read and reread the letters from home, talking of it +constantly and wistfully like exiles, drawn constantly toward the place +we had left. Almost without our being aware of it we ceased to feel +that we had left St. Louis. It was St. Louis which was receding from us, +while we turned more and more toward the new country, identified +ourselves with it. + +Ida Mary and I woke up one day a few weeks after our arrival to find our +grubstake almost gone. Back home we had figured that there were ample +funds for filing fees, for transportation and food. Now we began to +figure backwards, which we found was a poor way to figure. There was no +money to take us back home. We had burned our bridges not only behind +but in front of us. + +It was the incidentals which had cut into our small reserve. The expense +of my illness on the road had been heavy. The rest of the money seemed +to have evaporated like water in dry air. Fixing up the shack had been +an unexpected expense, and we had overlooked the cost of hauling +altogether--in a country where everything had to be hauled. We had paid +$25 for a stiff old Indian cayuse, the cheapest thing in horseflesh that +we could find. + +In order to be safe we had figured on standard prices for commodities, +but we found that all of them were much higher out here. Coal, the only +fuel obtainable, ran as high as $20 a ton, with the hauling and high +freight. Merchants blamed the freight cost for the high price of +everything from coal to a package of needles. + +I laid the blame for our predicament on Huey Dunn. But Ida Mary thought +it went farther back than that. It was the fault of the government! +Women should not be allowed to file on land. + +Regardless of where the blame lay, we were now reduced to a state of +self-preservation. Had not the majority of the settlers taken this +gambling chance of pulling through somehow, the West would never have +been settled. + +It is curious how quickly one's animal instinct of survival comes to the +fore in primitive lands. If we ran out of bacon we stirred flour into a +little grease, added water and a few drops of condensed milk (if we had +it) and turned out a filling dish of gravy. If we ran out of coal we +pulled the dried prairie grass to burn in the little two-hole monkey +stove, which we had bought with the cot. Laundry stoves, some called +them. + +To keep the water from becoming warm as dishwater we dug a hole in the +ground to set the water can in. The earth became so cool at night that +anything set down in a shallow hole on the shady side of the house kept +cool all day. + +We learned that it took twice as long to cook beans or other vegetables +in that high altitude; that one must put more flour in the cake and not +so much shortening or it would surely fall; that meat hung in the dry +air would keep fresh indefinitely--but we had not tasted a bite of fresh +meat since we came. + +Our homestead not only had a cabin, but it boasted a small patch of +sweet corn planted by the first filer on the land. It would make food +for both man and beast--for the Ammons girls and the pinto. + +It was a frontier saying that homesteading was a gamble: "Yeah, the +United States Government is betting you 160 acres of land that you can't +live on it eight months." Ida and I weren't betting; we were holding +on, living down to the grass roots. The big problem was no longer how to +get off the homestead, but how to keep soul and body together on it. + +If one were in a country where he could live by foraging--"We can live +on jack rabbits next winter," homesteaders would say. But Ida Mary and I +would have to depend on someone to get them for us. We realized more +every day how unequipped we were for plains life, lacking the sturdy +health of most frontier women, both of us unusually small and slight. +Back of Ida Mary's round youthful face and steady eyes, however, there +were grit and stamina and cool-headed common sense. She would never +stampede with the herd. And for all my fragility, I had the will to hang +on. + +Well, we would eat corncakes with bacon grease a while longer. (They +were really good. I became an expert in making them.) And we still had +some bacon left, and the corn; a little syrup in the pail would take the +place of sugar. Uncle Sam hadn't won that bet yet, on the Ammons +homestead, though most of the settlers thought he would. + +Three or four miles from the claim was McClure, a ranch house combined +with a general store and a post office. Walking there one day for +groceries and our mail we passed a group of men lounging in front of the +old log ranch house. "Now such as that won't ever be any good to the +country," one of them said of us. "What the country needs is people with +guts. There ought to be a law against women filing on government +land...." + +"And against all these city folks coming out here just to get a deed and +then leaving the country," added another. "If they ain't going to +improve the land they oughtn't to have it." + +"Most of 'em take their trunks along when they go to town to prove up," +put in the stage driver, "and that's the last you ever see of 'em. +They've gone on the next train out." + +Landgrabbers, the native westerners called the settlers, no good to the +country. And there was a great deal of truth in it. We began to check up +on the homesteaders of whom we knew. Probably two-thirds of them would +go back home as soon as they proved up, leaving their shack at the mercy +of the wind, and the prairie to wait as it had always waited for a +conquering hand. + +Huey Dunn and the Cooks and the Wickershams were dirt farmers, come to +stay. Some of the homesteaders would come back in the summertime, +putting out a little patch of garden and a few rows of corn each season. +But for the most part there would be no record of these transient guests +of the prairie but abandoned shacks. Those who took up claims only as an +investment either sold the land for whatever price they could get for it +or let it lie there to increase in value. + +Some of the old-timers didn't object to this system. "When the land is +all taken up, people will have to pay more for it," they explained. But +on the whole they eyed with humorous intolerance the settlers who +departed, leaving their claims as they had found them. + +A great blessing of the plains was the absence of vermin. I do not +remember having seen a rat or a weasel on the frontier at that time, and +many of the natives had never seen a potato bug or chinch bug or +cockroach. + +But one day after a short, pelting rain, I came home and opened the door +and looked at the moving, crawling walls, and could not believe my eyes. +Worms--small, brown, slick worms--an inch to an inch and a half long. + +The walls, the door, the ground were alive with them. They were crawling +through the cracks into the shack, wriggling along the floor and walls +with their tiny, hair-like legs. They infested the plains for miles +around. At night one could feel them crawling over the bed. + +The neighbors got together to find means of exterminating these +obnoxious vermin. We burned sulfur inside and used torches of twisted +prairie hay on the outside of the house, just near enough to the walls +to scorch the creepers. But as one regiment burned up another came. + +One day Ida Mary and I, in doing a little research work of our own--we +had no biologists to consult on plagues, and no exterminators--lifted up +a wide board platform in front of our shack, and ran screaming. The +pests were nested thick and began to scatter rapidly in every direction, +a fermenting mass. + +They were not dangerous, they injured neither men nor crops, but they +were harder to endure than a major disaster. One was aware of them +everywhere, on the chair one sat in, on the food one ate, on one's body. +They were a crawling, maddening nightmare. + +A number of homesteaders were preparing to leave the country--driven +out by an army of insects--when, as suddenly as they came, the worms +disappeared. Where they came from, where they went, no one knew. I +mention this episode as one without precedent or repetition in the +history of the frontier, so far as I know. + +A number of theories were advanced regarding this worm plague. Some said +they had rained down in cell or germ form; others, that they had +developed with the sudden moisture from some peculiar embryo in the dry +soil. Finding from my own further observation that they were segregated +in the damper sections where the soil had not yet dried out after the +rain, I concluded they had been bred in the ground. + + * * * * * + +Our need for money had become acute, but before we were quite desperate +a ray of hope appeared. There were quite a few children scattered over +the neighborhood, and the homesteaders decided that there must be a +school in the center of the district. + +The directors found that Ida Mary had taught school a term or two back +east, and teachers were scarce as hens' teeth out there, so she got the +school at $25 a month. The little schoolhouse was built close to the far +end of our claim, which was a mile long instead of half a mile square as +it should have been. + +We had just finished breakfast one morning when Huey Dunn and another +homesteader drove up to the door with their teams, dragging some heavy +timbers along. + +Huey stood in the door, his old straw hat in hand, with that placid +expression on his smooth features. A man of medium height, shoulders +slightly rounded; rather gaunt in the middle where the suspenders +hitched onto the overalls. + +"Came to move your shack," he said in an offhand tone. + +"Move it?" we demanded. "Where?" + +"To the other end of the claim, over by the schoolhouse. And that's as +far as I'm goin' to move you until you prove up," he added. He hadn't +moved us off the land when we wanted to go. He would move us up to the +line now, but not an inch over it until we had our patent. + +The men stuck the timbers under the shack, hitched the horses to it, and +Ida Mary and I did the housework en route. Suddenly she laughed: "If we +had been trying to get Huey Dunn to move this shack he wouldn't have got +to it all winter." + +When they set us down on the proper location they tied the shack down by +driving stakes two or three feet into the ground, then running wire +cords, like clothesline, from the roof of the shack down to the stakes. + +"Just luck there hasn't been much wind or this drygoods box would have +been turned end over end," Huey said. "Wasn't staked at all." + +It was autumn and the air was cold early in the mornings and sweet with +the smell of new-mown hay. We hired a homesteader who had a mower to put +up hay for us and had a frame made of poles for a small barn and stacked +the hay on top around it, against the winter. Most of the settlers first +covered this frame with woven wire to keep the stock from eating into +the hay. We left ours open between the poles as a self-feeder through +which Pinto could eat hay without any work or responsibility on our +part. + +Then one day Ida Mary went swinging down the trail to her school, a +small, sun-bonneted child at each side. The schoolhouse was much like +any country school--but smaller and more cheaply built. It had long +wooden benches and a rusty stove and in fine weather a dozen or more +pupils, who ranged in age from very young children to great farm boys, +who towered over Ida Mary, but whom, somehow, she learned to manage +effortlessly in that serene fashion of hers. In bad weather, when it was +difficult to travel across the prairie, her class dwindled until, at +times, she had no pupils at all. + +[Illustration] + + + + +III + +"ANY FOOL CAN SET TYPE" + + +McClure, South Dakota (it's on the map), was the halfway point on the +stage line between Pierre and Presho, three or four miles from our +claim. It consisted of the Halfway House, which combined the functions +of a general store, a post office, a restaurant, and a news center for +the whole community, with the barns and corrals of the old McClure +ranch. And set off a few rods from the house there was another building, +a small crude affair that looked like a homesteader's shack. Across its +rough board front was a sign painted in big black letters: + +THE McCLURE PRESS + +The first time I saw that sign, I laughed aloud. + +"What on earth is a newspaper doing out here?" I asked Mr. Randall, the +proprietor of the Halfway House. + +"It's a final-proof sheet," he answered, not realizing that the brief +explanation could mean little to a stranger. + +These final-proof sheets, however, were becoming an important branch of +the western newspaper industry, popping up over the frontier for the +sole purpose of publishing the proof notices of the homesteaders. As +required by the government, each settler must have published for five +consecutive weeks in the paper nearest his land, his intention to make +proof (secure title to the land) with the names of witnesses to attest +that he had lived up to the rules and regulations prescribed by the +government. + +Also, according to government ruling, such newspapers were to be paid +five dollars by the landholder for each final proof published, and any +contestant to a settler's right to the land must pay a publication fee. +Thereby a new enterprise was created--the "final-proof" newspaper. + +These weeklies carried small news items with a smattering of advertising +from surrounding trade centers. But they were made up mostly of "proofs" +and ready-printed material supplied by the newspaper syndicates that +furnished the prints; leaving one or two blank sheets, as required by +the publisher for home print. The McClure _Press_ had two six-column +pages of home print, including the legal notices. + +This paper was a proof sheet, pure and simple, run by a girl homesteader +who had worked on a Minneapolis paper. Myrtle Combs was a +hammer-and-tongs printer. She threw the type together, threw it onto the +press and off again; slammed the print-shop door shut; mounted her old +white horse, and with a gallon pail--filled with water at the +trough--tied to the saddlehorn, went loping back to her claim four or +five miles away. But Myrtle could be depended upon to get out the +notices, which was all the owner required. + +One day when I went for the mail she called to me: "Say! You want the +job of running this newspaper? I'm proving up. Going home." + +We needed the extra money badly. Proving-up time came in early spring. +To get our deed and go home would require nearly $300, which Ida's $25 a +month would not cover. Besides, I felt that I had been a heavy expense +to Ida Mary because of my illness on the road, and I did not want to +continue to be a burden to her. She had succeeded in finding a way to +earn money and I was eager to do my own part. + +I didn't know as much about running a newspaper as a hog knows about +Sunday. It was a hard, dirty job which I was not physically equipped to +handle. But I had lived on a homestead long enough to learn some +fundamental things: that while a woman had more independence here than +in any other part of the world, she was expected to contribute as much +as a man--not in the same way, it is true, but to the same degree; that +people who fought the frontier had to be prepared to meet any emergency; +that the person who wasn't willing to try anything once wasn't equipped +to be a settler. I'd try it, anyhow. + +"Any fool can learn to set type," Myrtle said cheerfully. "Then throw it +into the 'form' [the iron rectangle the size of the page in which the +columns of set-up type are encased, ready to print]. If it don't stick, +here's a box of matches. Whittle 'em down and just keep sticking 'em in +where the type's loose until it does stick." + +She locked the form by means of hammering tight together two +wedge-shaped iron pieces, several sets of them between type and iron +frame which were supposed to hold the type in the form like a vise; +raised it carefully, and there remained on the tin-covered make-up table +about a quarter of a column of the set type. She slammed the form down +in place again, unlocked it with an iron thing she called the key, +inserted more leads and slugs between the lines of type, jamming them +closer together. + +"If you need more leads or slugs between the lines," she said, "here's +some condensed milk cans--just take these"--and she held up a pair of +long shears--"and cut you some leads." She suited the words to action; +took the mallet and smoothed the edges of the oblong she had cut. I +watched her ink the roller, run it over the form on the press, put the +blank paper on, give the press a few turns, and behold! the printed +page. + +With this somewhat limited training I proceeded to get out the paper. I +knew absolutely nothing about mechanics and it was a hard job. Then a +belated thought struck me. Perhaps I should ask the owner for the job, +or at any rate inform him that I had taken it. From _The Press_ I found +the publisher's name was E. L. Senn. I learned that he owned a long +string of proof sheets. A monopoly out here on the raw prairie. Folks +said he was close as the bark on a tree and heartless as a Wall Street +corporation. + +With this encouragement I decided to ask for $10 a week. Myrtle had +received only $8. Of course, I had no experience as a printer, but I +explained to Mr. Senn my plans for pushing the business so that he would +be able to afford that extra $2 a week. Of my experience as a typesetter +I wisely said nothing. + +While I waited for the owner's reply I went on getting out the paper. +There was no holding up an issue of a "proof" newspaper; like the show, +it must go on! The Department of the Interior running our public lands +saw to that. Friday's paper might come out the following Monday or +Wednesday, but it must come out. That word "consecutive" in the proof +law was an awful stickler. But everyone who had hung around the print +shop watching Myrtle work, took a hand helping me. + +When the publisher replied to my letter he asked me about my experience +as a printer and added: "I don't know whether you are worth $2 a week +more than Myrtle or not, but anybody that has the nerve you exhibit in +asking for it no doubt deserves it. Moreover, I like to flatter such +youthful vanity." + +He called it nerve, and I had thought I was as retiring as an antelope. +But the main reason for his granting my demand was that he could not +find anyone else to do the work on short notice. Printers were not to be +picked up on every quarter-section. + +I made no reply to this letter. A week later I was perched on my high +stool at the nonpareil (a small six-point type) case when the stage +rolled in from Presho. Into the print shop walked a well-dressed +stranger, a slender, energetic man of medium height. He looked things +over--including me. And so I found myself face to face with the +proof-sheet king. + +It did not take long to find out how little I knew about printing a +newspaper. So in desperation I laid before him an ambitious plan for +adding subscriptions and another page of home print filled with +advertising from Pierre. + +The trip alone, he reminded me, would cost all of $10, probably $15. +"And besides," he added, "if you did get ads you couldn't set them up." +With that final fling at my inefficiency he took the stage on to Pierre. + +The average newspaperman would have sneered at these plains printing +outfits, and thrown the junk out on the prairie to be buried under the +snowdrifts; but not many of us were eligible to the title. The McClure +_Press_ consisted of a few cases of old type, a couple of "forms," an +ink roller and a pot of ink; a tin slab laid on top of a rough frame for +a make-up table. Completing the outfit was a hand press--that's what +they called it, but it needed a ten-horsepower motor to run it; a flat +press which went back and forth under a heavy iron roller that was +turned with a crank like a clothes wringer. My whole outfit seemed to +have come from Noah's ark. + +Most of the type was nicked, having suffered from the blows of Myrtle's +wooden hammer. She used the hammer when it failed to make a smooth +surface in the form that would pass under the roller. Readers had to +guess at about half the news I printed, and the United States Land +Office developed a sort of character system of deciphering the notices +which I filed every week. + +But running proof notices was not merely the blacksmith job that Myrtle +had made it appear. It required accuracy to the _n_th degree. The proofs +ran something like this: + + Blanche M. Bartine of McClure, S. D., who made Homestead Entry No. + 216, Serial No. 04267, for the South One-half of the NE 1/4 and + North One-half of SE 1/4 of Section 9, Township 108 North, Range 78 + West of the Fifth Principal Meridian, has filed notice of intention + to make final computation proof to establish claim, etc., etc. + +Then the names of four witnesses were added and the signature of the +Land Office Register of that district. + +One day a man went to town with a string of witnesses to prove up. He +intended to go on to Iowa without returning to the claim. That night he +walked angrily into the print shop and laid a copy of his published +notice before me, together with a note from the Land Office. I had him +proving up somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, having given the wrong +meridian. For that typographical error the man must wait until I +republished the notice. Washington, so the man at Pierre said, was not +granting deeds for claims in mid-ocean. One can't be inexact with the +government's red tape. + +But, on the whole, the work was not as trivial as it may appear. With +every proof notice published in these obscure proof sheets 160 acres of +wasteland passed into privately owned farm units--and for this gigantic +public works project there was not a cent appropriated either by State +or Federal government. + +One day when the corn was in the milk--that season which the Indians +celebrate with their famous corn dance--we saw Wilomene White streaking +across the plains on old Buckskin, her knock-kneed pony. Wilomene was a +familiar sight on the prairie, and the sight of her short, plump figure, +jolting up and down in a stiff gallop, as though she were on a wooden +horse, water keg hanging from her saddlehorn--just in case she _should_ +come across any water--was welcome wherever she went. "It doesn't matter +whether it's illness or a civic problem or a hoedown, Wilomene is always +called on," people said. And she was repaid for every hardship she went +through by the fun she had telling about it, while her rich, contagious +laughter rang over the whole country. + +Today there was no water keg bouncing up and down behind old Buckskin. +That in itself was ominous. For all his deformity and declining years, +she descended on us like Paul Revere. + +She galloped up, dismounted, jerked a Chicago newspaper out of the +saddlebag, and pointed to a big black headline. + +"Look at this. The reservation is going to be thrown open. The East is +all excited. There will be thousands out here to register at the Land +Office in Pierre--railroads are going to run special trains--" + +"What reservation?" we wanted to know. + +"The Indian reservation, just across the fence," Wilomene explained. The +"fence" was merely a string of barbed wire, miles long, which marked the +boundary of our territory and separated it from the Indian reservation. + +I glanced at the paper announcing the great opening of the Lower Brulé +by the United States Government which was to take place that fall, some +hundred thousand acres of homestead land. Here we were at the very door +of that Opening and had to be told about it by eastern newspapers, so +completely cut off from the world we were. + +"What good will that do us?" practical Ida Mary inquired. + +"It will help develop this section of the country and bring up the price +of our land!" + +That was worth considering, but Ida Mary and I were not dealing in +futures just then. We were too busy putting away winter food--corn and +the chokecherries we had found along a dry creek bank; patching the tar +paper on the shack. Like most of the settlers we were busier than +cranberry merchants, getting ready for the long winter. But there is a +great satisfaction in doing simple, fundamental things with one's hands. + +That evening, however, I picked up the pamphlet on the Opening which +Wilomene had left. It announced that the United States Government would +open the Lower Brulé reservation to entry for homesteading on a given +date. At this time any American citizen eligible as a claimholder could +register "as an entry" in the Drawing for a homestead. And after the +registrations were closed there would be a "drawing out" up to the +number of claims on the reservation. Eligible persons were to register +at the United States Land Offices most conveniently located--and +designated by the General Land Office in Washington--for a +quarter-section of the land. + +The next day I was a stage passenger on the return trip to Pierre to get +detailed information on the Lower Brulé Opening from the United States +Land Office. With a new and reckless abandon I listed the expenditure +and received a prompt reply from the proof magnate. "I note an +unauthorized expense of $10--trip to Pierre. You are getting to be an +unruly outlaw of a printer." + +Then I forgot the coming Land Opening. There were days, that early fall, +when McClure was lifeless and I would work all day without seeing a +human being anywhere over the plains. In the drowsiness of +mid-afternoons the clicking of my type falling into the stick and the +pounding of the form with the mallet would echo through the broad +silence. + +And one day in October the stage driver rushed into the shop, shouting, +"Say, Printer! She's open! Blowed wide open!" + +[Illustration] + + + + +IV + +THE BIGGEST LOTTERY IN HISTORY + + +It is an extraordinary fact that one of the most gigantic, and certainly +the most rapid, land settlements in the history of the United States has +been little known and little recognized, either for its vast scope or +its far-reaching importance. + +The passing of the frontier, with its profound effects upon American +life, is not a part of our early history. It ended with the World War. +The trek of early settlers in covered wagons, the swift and colorful +growth of the cattle kingdom, the land rush at Cimarron are a part of +our familiar history. But the greatest of all these expansion movements +was at its height within the twentieth century with 100,000,000 acres of +Public Land opened by the government for settlement, waste land which +in a few seasons produced crops, supported villages, towns, and finally +cities, in their lightning growth. + +In a sense the United States Government conducted a vast lottery, with +land as stakes, and hundreds of thousands of men and women gambling +their time and strength and hope on the future of the West. + +The land so lavishly disposed of was the white man's last raid on the +Indian. The period of bloody warfare was long past. The last struggle +against confiscation of Indian land was over, and the Indians were +segregated, through treaties, on tracts designated by the government, +"like the cattle on the range being driven back to winter pasture or the +buffalo driven off the plains," to which they mournfully compared their +fate. And if there is anything an Indian hates it is boundaries. + +The migration and settlement of vast numbers of people has changed world +history time and time again. And the Americans have been a migrating +people. From the early years of their first settlement of the colonies +there had been a steady movement toward the West. Without the West with +its great Public Lands the United States as it has become could hardly +have existed. While there was a frontier to develop, land for the small +owner, there would always be independence. + +European theories might influence the East from time to time, but there +was always a means of escape for the man or woman oppressed by labor +conditions, by tendencies to establish class distinctions. Public Land! +On the land men must face primitive conditions as best they could, but +they were independent because the land was their own, their earnings +their own. + +For many years the Public Land seemed inexhaustible; it was not until +the Civil War had been waged for two years, with the country disrupted +by conflict, and people looking--as they will in times of disaster--for +a place where they might be at peace, that they realized the desirable +land at the government's disposal was gone. But there remained the land +of the red men, and white settlers looked on it and found it good. They +raised a clamor for it, and the most determined staked out their claims +and lived on it regardless of treaty. + +As a result, the government yielded to public pressure and took over the +land from the Indians, forcing them back once more. It wasn't quite as +simple as it sounds, of course; it took some twenty-five years and +nearly a thousand battles of one kind and another to do it. But at the +end of that time the land again had been absorbed by the people, settled +in accordance with the Homestead Act of 1862, and the demand continued. + +The government then bought Oklahoma from the Indians in 1889. It was +impossible to satisfy all those who wanted homesteads and difficult to +choose those who should have them. A plan was therefore hit upon to give +everyone a chance. On the day of the Oklahoma Opening, throngs of white +settlers stood at the boundary and at a given signal rushed upon the +land, taking it by speed and strategy and trickery--and too often by +violence. + +Within twenty-four hours the land was occupied; within a week there were +frame buildings over the prairie, and villages and towns followed at a +speed inconceivable to the foreign nations which looked on, breathless +and staggered at the energy of a people who measured the building of a +western empire not by generations but by seasons. + +And the demand for land continued. There was a depression in the East +and jobs were hard to get; with the growth of factories many young men +and women had flocked from farms and villages to cities, and they were +not finding conditions to their liking. They wanted to return to the +life they knew best, the life of the farm. In the more populous sections +the price of land was rising and was already beyond the reach of many +pocketbooks. There remained only Public Land--land which was allotted to +the Indians. + +The government, accordingly, began to withdraw from the Indian +Allotments great tracts, by further treaties and deals, slashing +boundary lines, relegating the Indians to the unceded part of the land. +The great tracts thus acquired were then surveyed into quarter-sections +and thrown open to homesteading. In order to prevent the violence which +had attended the Oklahoma land opening, a new method was hit upon. A +proclamation was issued by President Theodore Roosevelt, announcing the +opening of land on the Lower Brulé Indian Reservation. + +As I had learned on that flying trip to Pierre, the operation of the +plan was very simple. Land-seekers were to register at the Land Office +in Pierre, making an affidavit showing their qualifications to enter, at +which time each would receive a number. On a given day, October 12, +1907, the numbered envelopes containing the affidavits, which had been +deposited in large containers, fastened and sealed so that they could +not be opened, were to be drawn by lot, after having been thoroughly +mixed--as many numbers drawn as there were quarter-sections to dispose +of. The first person whose number corresponded with the number drawn had +first choice of the land. + +Government posters and advertisements for the land opening were +published in every section of the country. And along with the government +publicity appeared the advertisements of the railroads. For them +increased population in this area was a crying need. While we had +drowsed through the lazy autumn days, advertising campaigns were +shrieking to the people all over the country of the last frontier. + +And that October day "it blowed wide open!" + + * * * * * + +Into the little town of Pierre they swarmed--by train, by stagecoach, by +automobile, by wagon, on foot--men and women from every part of the +country, from almost every state--people who had been crowded out of +cities, people who wanted to settle as real dirt farmers, people who +wanted cheap land, and the inevitable trailers who were come prepared to +profit by someone else's good luck. + +Like a thundering herd they stampeded the United States Land Office at +Pierre. "The Strip! The Strip!" one heard on every side. It was called +the Strip because the tract was long and narrow. One day the little +frontier town of Pierre drowsed through a hot afternoon, and the broad +plains lay tenantless, devoid of any sign that men had passed that way. +The next day the region swarmed with strangers. + +Sturdy, ruddy-faced farmers, pale-looking city boys, young girls alert, +laughing--all sons and daughters of America--not an immigrant peasant +among them; plumbers and lawyers, failures and people weary of routine, +young men from agricultural colleges eager to try scientific methods of +farming and older men from Europe prepared to use the methods they had +found good for generations; raucous land agents and quiet racketeers +alert for some way of making easy money from the tense, anxious, excited +throng. + +For many of that jostling, bewildered, desperately anxious throng the +land was their last chance to establish themselves. And yet the +atmosphere was that of a local fair, loud with shouting, with barkers +crying their wares, with the exclamations of wonder of people looking +upon a new country. And the air was heavy with the tense excitement and +suspense that attends any gambling game. + +McClure, the Halfway House, where my little print shop had been thrown +up, was the only stopping place in that part of the country and at the +end of the main road from Pierre to the reservation, which lay some five +miles on across the prairie. + +All that day the landseekers pushed their way into the shed annex which +served as a dining room of the Halfway House, and filled the table which +stretched from end to end. If there was no room for them, they ate +lunches from the store's food supply at the counter. We who had grown +accustomed to the sight of empty prairie, to whom the arrival of the +stage from Pierre was an event, were overwhelmed by the confusion, the +avalanche of people, shouting, pushing, asking questions, moving +steadily across the trackless plains toward the reservation. + +Every homesteader who had a tug that would fasten over a doubletree, a +wagon that could still squeak, or a flivver that had a bolt in it, went +into the transportation business--hauling the seekers from Pierre or +from McClure to look at the land. + +A generation before people had migrated in little groups in covered +wagons to find new land. Now they came by automobile and railroad in +colonies, like a great tidal wave, but the spirit that drove them was +still the pioneer spirit, and the conditions to be faced were +essentially the same--the stubborn earth, and painful labor, drought and +famine and cold, and the revolving cycle of the seasons. + +"Shucks, it's simple as tying your shoe," stage driver Bill assured the +excited, confused landseekers. "Jest take enough grub to last a coupla +days and a bottle or two of strong whisky and git in line at the Land +Office." + +The settlers were almost as excited as the landseekers. For many of them +it was the first opportunity they had had since their arrival to earn a +cash dollar. And while the gambling fever was high it was easy to +persuade the newcomers to spend what they could. Coffee, sandwiches, +foods of every description were prepared in great quantities and +disposed of to clamoring hordes. It seemed a pity I couldn't find some +way of making some money too. I would. Without wasting time I wrote some +verses on the land opening, made a drawing to accompany them, and sent +it to a printer at Pierre to have postcards made of it. + +Wilomene White had made some belts and hatbands of snakeskins, and she +planned to put them, together with my cards, wherever we could sell them +as souvenirs. + +I rode in at daylight for the cards, but the town was already astir. +People stood in line in front of the Land Office waiting to get in to +register. Some of them had stood there all night. Some sat on the steps, +cold, hungry and exhausted. But they had come a long way and could not +afford to miss their chance. + +Every train that came in was loaded with men and women. The little state +capital became a bedlam, and the Land Office was besieged. They crawled +along in a line that did not seem to move; they munched little lunches; +a few fainted from exhaustion and hunger. But they never gave up. + +Here at last was news that was news--for which the press of the country, +and Europe, clamored. These land openings were a phenomenon in the +settling of new territory, beyond the conception of foreign countries. +Reporters, magazine writers, free lancers pushed in for their stories of +the spectacular event. + +The mere size of it, the gambling element, the surging mobs who had +risked something to take part in it were material for stories. The real +hero of the stories, of course, was the land itself--the last frontier. +There were a few who pondered on what its passing would mean to the +country as a whole. + +I ordered 500 extra ready-prints by wire from the Newspaper Union and +persuaded a bronco-buster to turn the old press for me. + +Bronco Benny rode bucking horses during the day for the entertainment of +the tenderfeet passing through and helped me at night, relating in a +soft western drawl the events of the day as he worked: "Did you see that +little red-headed gal--wanted one o' my spurs as a souvenir--haw haw!" + +"Bronco, wait a minute," I would interrupt; "you've ruined that paper. +Spread a little more ink." + +"And I says, 'You shore, Miss, you don't want the pony throwed in?'" +pushing the roller lazily back and forth over the inking table then +across the form on the press. "She ups and takes a snapshot," he rambled +on. + +To my delight the postcards were selling like hot cakes at ten cents a +piece. The Ammons's finances were looking up. In many homes today, +throughout the country, there must exist yellowed copies of the card, +the only tangible reminder of an unsuccessful gamble in the government +lottery. + +At midnight one night an old spring wagon rattled up to the shack and we +heard the voice of a man--one of the locators who had been hauling +seekers. He held out a handful of small change. "Here," he said proudly; +"I sold every card. And here"--he pulled out a note and a small package. +The note read: + +"Your poem is very clever, but your drawing is damn poor. If I'm a Lucky +Number I'll see you in the spring. In the meantime, for heaven's sake, +don't try any more art. Stick to poetry." It was signed "Alexander Van +Leshout," and was accompanied by a ready-to-print cut. + +This newspaper cartoonist from Milwaukee was only one of many people +from strange walks of life who entered that lottery. There were others +whose background was equally alien to life in a homestead cabin, who +came to see the West while it was still unchanged, drawn for reasons of +personal adventure, or because the romantic legends of the West +attracted them. People drawn by the intangibles, the freedom of great +space, the touch of the wind on their faces, a return to the simple +elements of living. + +Standing in the dreary lines in the Land Office where some of them +waited for as long as two days and nights at a time, we saw farmers, +business men, self-assured boys, white-haired men and women. + +A gray-haired woman in her late sixties, holding tightly to an old +white-whiskered man, kept saying encouragingly: "Just hold on a little +longer, Pa." And whenever we passed we heard her asking of those about +her: "Where you from? We're from Blue Springs." The Land Office recorded +the man as David Wagor. + +It was not necessary to be a naturalized citizen in order to register, +but it was necessary to have filed intention to become a citizen. One +must be either single or the head of a family; wives, therefore, could +not register. For that reason we were interested in a frail young woman, +a mere girl, sagging under the weight of a baby on her arm, patiently +waiting her turn. She was shabbily dressed, with a trace of gentility in +clothes and manner. Whether she was a widow or unmarried only the Land +Office knew, but it pinched the heart to realize the straits of a +fragile girl who was ready to undertake the burden of a homestead alone. + +"You are getting to be an outlaw printer," the proof king wrote me. "You +were not authorized to incur this additional expense." But, catching the +excitement of the crowds and perhaps a little of their gambling spirit, +I was not upset by his reproof. I filled the paper with the news items +about the Opening and sold out every copy to the landseekers passing +through. + +The plains never slept now. All night vehicles rattled over the hard +prairies. Settlers on their way home, starting for Pierre, hurried by in +the middle of the night. Art Fergus's team of scrubby broncos were so +tired they didn't even balk in harness. Flivvers bumped over the rough +ground, chugging like threshing machines. + +The westerners (every man's son of us had become a full-fledged native +overnight and swelled with pride as the tenderfeet said "You +westerners") responded exuberantly to the sudden life about us. Cowboys +rode in from the far ranges for one helluva time. They didn't kowtow to +this "draw-land" game, but they could play draw poker. And they wasn't +gamblin' for no homestead--you couldn't give 'em one. But they'd stake +two or three months' wages on cards. They rode hell-for-leather down the +streets, gaudy outfits glittering in the sun. With spurs clicking they +swung the eastern gals at a big dance. And the dignity of the state +capital be damned! + +The whole prairie was in holiday mood. Ida Mary dismissed school at +noon--no one cared whether school kept or not--and we put on our +prettiest dresses to join the crowd. Through the throngs pushed the land +locators. They stood on curbs, in front of the Land Office and the +hotels, grabbing and holding onto their prospects like leeches. They had +been accustomed to landing a settler once in a blue moon, driving the +"prospect" over miles of plain, showing him land in various remote +districts in the hope that he would find some to suit him. Now they had +dozens clamoring for every quarter-section. This was their golden +harvest. Nearly all the seekers were too avid for land to be particular +about its location, and many of them too ignorant of the soil to know +which was the best. + +"Plumb locoed," Bill described the excited seekers. "The government's +charging $2.50 to $4.00 an acre for that land. I drive 'em right over +vacant homesteads just as good for $1.25. Think they'll look at it? +No-siree!" + +But we are a gambling people and the grass on the other side of the +reservation fence looked a lot better. + +After they registered, most of the landseekers wanted to see the land +and pick out a claim--just in case they won one. The chances of winning +must have seemed slim with that avalanche of people registering, and the +results would not be known until the Drawing, which would be a week or +more after the entry closed. + +Late one afternoon a crowd stood on the border of the Strip, on the +outside of the old barb-wire fence that divided it from the rest of +space. And the wire gate stood open. The landseekers who had driven over +the land stood looking across it, sobered. I think it occurred to them +for the first time that this was a land where one had to begin at the +beginning. + +The buffalo and the Indian had each had his day on this land, and each +had gone without leaving a trace. It was untouched. And as far as the +eye could see, it stretched, golden under the rays of the setting sun. +Whether the magnitude of the task ahead frightened or exhilarated them, +the landseekers were all a little awed at that moment. Even I, seeing +the endless sweep of that sea of golden grass, forgot for the moment +the dry crackling sound of it under wheel and foot, and the awful +monotony of its endlessness which could be so nerve-racking. + +And by the gods, the grass was higher and thicker on the other side of +the fence! "How rich the soil must be to raise grass like that," they +said to each other. Groups of men and women gathered closer together as +though for some unconscious protection against the emptiness. Around the +fence stood vehicles of all descriptions, saddle horses, and a few +ponies on which cowboys sat lazily, looking on. Even those who had come +only for adventure were silenced. They felt the challenge of the land +and were no longer in a mood to scoff. + +Standing at that barb-wire fence was like standing at the gate of the +Promised Land. And the only way in was through the casual drawing of +numbers. They stood long, staring at the land which lay so golden in the +sun, and which only a few could possess. + +There were more real dirt farmers represented here than there had been +in most of the homestead projects--men who were equipped to farm. But +they were still in the minority. They picked up handfuls of the earth +that the locators turned over with spades, let it sift through their +fingers and pronounced it good. A rich loam, not so heavy or black as +the soil back east, but better adapted, perhaps, to the climate. Aside +from the farmers nobody seemed to know or care anything about the soil +or precipitation. And, ironically enough, it occurred to no one to ask +about the water supply. + +"The land back east is too high-priced," the city laborer declared, "we +can never hope to own any of it." + +"We'd rather risk the hazards of a raw country," said the tenant farmer, +"than be tenants always." + +"We'll sell our eastern land at a high price," said the landowners, "and +improve new land." + +"My mother took in washing to save money," said an earnest-faced boy, +"so I could make this trip. But if I win a whole quarter-section (and +how big a quarter-section looked to a city dweller!) I'll make a good +home for her." + +A middle-aged widow from Keokuk told the group about her: "I mortgaged +my cottage to come. The boys are growing up and it's their only chance +to own land." + +Others in the group nodded their heads. "Yes, land is solid!" + +Leaning heavily on his cane a little old man with a long white mustache +and sharp eyes denounced the lottery method. "'Taint right, 'taint. +Don't give a feller a chanct. Look at me with my rheumatiz and I got as +good a chanct as any of 'em--brains nor legs don't count in this. Now in +the Oklahomy Run ..." And he told about the Oklahoma Run of almost a +generation before, when speed and strategy were necessary if one were to +be first on the land to stake a claim. But the Oklahoma Run, for all its +drama and its violence, dwindled in importance beside these Drawings +with their fabulous areas and their armies of people. + +Across the prairie came the sound of horses' hoofs and the heavy +rumbling of a wagon. A locator with a hayrack full of seekers was coming +at a reckless pace, not stopping for the trails. At the reservation +gate he brought the team to a quick stop that almost threw his +passengers off the wagon. Some of them were so stiff and sore they +couldn't get off their cushion of hay; others were unable to stand after +they got up. But the locator was not disturbed by a little thing like +that. He waved his right arm, taking in at one sweep the vacant expanse +to the rim of the horizon and shouted: + +"Here's your land, folks. Here's your land." He was locating them en +masse at $15 to $25 a head. No hunting up corner stakes. It all looked +alike to these bewildered people, anyhow, drunk as they were with the +intoxication that land lotteries produce. + +He turned his weary team and human cargo around and started back to +town. A wholesale locator had no time for sleep. He must collect another +hayrackful of seekers early next morning. + +Some of these landseekers tried to analyze the reasons for this great +movement, the factors which had swept them along with this tidal wave of +human migration. "We're concentrated too much in cities," they said, +"crowded and stifled, and our roots are choked. We have to go back to +the land where a man can grow himself the things he needs to live on, +and where his children can grow up with the country--and have a place in +it." + +Our attitude toward the land is peculiar to America. The European +conception of a plot of ground on which a family is rooted for +generations has little meaning for people who move by the thousands onto +untamed acres, transform it into plowed fields and settlements and +towns, and move on endlessly to plow new fields. + +This constantly renewed search for fresh pastures has kept the country +vital, just as the existence of its Western Public Lands has kept it +democratic. For its endurance the American spirit owes much to its +frontier. + +Beside me stood a thin-faced, hollow-chested young man, a newspaper +reporter from Chicago. He ran lean fingers through brown, straggly hair, +looking from the Strip, reaching to the horizon, to the people waiting +to shape it according to their needs. "Great copy," he said lamely, but +he made no entry in his notebook. + +Outside another gate, five miles or so beyond the main entrance from +McClure, was a little trading post, Cedar Fork, on the Smith ranch. The +long buildings were said to have been a sort of fort in the Indian war +days. The seekers overflowed even here, and when the swift darkness +settled on the plains, stayed for the night, the women filling the store +and house while the men slept in the barn loft or haystacks, or even in +their vehicles. + +They wrapped themselves in heavy coats or blankets against the biting +chill of an October night--after a day so hot the tenderfeet sweltered +and blistered under the midday sun. + +The next morning there was frost, with the air sharp and fresh. The +Smiths tried to feed the shivering, hungry seekers. The seekers always +seemed to be hungry. Kettles and washboilers full of coffee, slabs of +bacon sizzling in great pans, and, one after another, into the hot +grease slid a case of eggs. Home-baked bread was sliced into a washtub. +Shaking with cold, coat collars turned up, shawls and blankets wrapped +about them, tired, hollow-eyed and disheveled, the seekers looked like a +banished people fleeing from persecution. But they were not +disheartened. + +On October 14 the "Drawing" started. The registrations were put into +sealed envelopes, tossed into boxes, shuffled up, and drawn out one at a +time, numbered as they were drawn out--as many numbers as there were +claims--with an additional number to allow for those who did not file or +whose applications were rejected. Then the filing of the winners began. +Most of the seekers had already selected their claims. They had six +months' time in which to establish residence on the land. + +The stampede was over. After three weeks of high-pitched excitement the +seekers were gone, the plains regained their silence, and the settlers +around McClure were left to face the frontier winter with its desolation +and hardships. The void after the crowds had gone was worse than if they +had never come. The weather had turned raw and gray, and there was a +threat of snow in the air. Exhausted and let down, Ida Mary and I were +desperately blue. + +And then we saw someone coming across the plains--the only moving figure +to be seen in the cold gray dusk. From the dim outline we could barely +make out horse and rider, but we knew them both--Wilomene on old +Buckskin. She was riding slowly as though there were nothing left out +here now but time. + +She wore a dark red flannel shirtwaist, a divided skirt of black wool, a +suede jacket and black cap like a jockey's. There was an easy strength +and self-assurance in her carriage. She crossed the firebreak and rode +up over the ridge calling her cheery "Hoo-hoo-hoo!" + +"She's going to stay all night," exclaimed Ida Mary, seeing the small +bag dangling from the saddlehorn. + +After supper we counted the dimes we had earned from the postcards--more +than $50. And far into the night we talked of the people who had invaded +the Strip. + +Next spring there would be life again over the plains when the "lucky +numbers" came out to live on the Strip. Would the reporter from Chicago +be among them, and the mystery girl with the baby in her arms, and Pa +Wagor--and a young cartoonist from Milwaukee? + +It was something to look forward to when the blizzards shut us off from +the world. + +[Illustration] + + + + +V + +NO PLACE FOR CLINGING VINES + + +The settlers of the McClure district went on with their work as though +there had never been a land opening. The men fed their stock and hauled +fuel for winter, while the women tacked comforters and sewed and patched +heavy clothing. + +Ida Mary went on with her school work and I continued to wrestle with +the newspaper. We put a little shed back of the shack where we could set +buckets of coal and keep the water can handy. With the postcard money we +bought a drum for the stovepipe, to serve as an oven. One either baked +his own bread or did without it. + +Huey Dunn did some late fall plowing. "What are you plowing your land +for now, with winter coming?" neighbors asked. + +"For oats next spring," Huey replied; "if the damn threshing machine +gets around to thresh out the oatstack in time to sow 'em." + +The homesteaders shook their heads. There was no figuring out when Huey +Dunn would do things. This time he was far ahead of them. They did not +know that fall plowing, to mellow and absorb the moisture from winter +snow and spring rain, was the way to conquer the virgin soil. They had +to find it out through hard experience. Fallowing, Huey called it. + +Lasso said, "The range is no place for clingin' vines, 'cause there +hain't nothin' to cling to." Ida Mary, under that quiet manner of hers, +had always been self-reliant, and I was learning not to cling. + +I lived in the print shop a great deal of the time that winter--an +unusually open winter, barring a few blizzards and deep snows. I slept +on a rickety cot in one corner of the room, cooking my meals on the +monkey stove; and often I ate over at Randall's, who served meals for a +quarter to anyone who cared to stop, the table filled with steaming +dishes of well-cooked food. I liked to take the midday meal there, and +meet people coming through on the stage. They furnished most of the news +for the McClure _Press_. + +Driving back and forth from print shop to claim on Pinto was like +crossing the desert on a camel. Pinto was too lazy to trot uphill and +too stiff to trot down, and as the country was rough and rolling, there +was not much of the trail on which we could make any time. He could have +jogged up a little, but he was too stubborn. He had lived with the +Indians too long. + +That old pony had a sly, artful eye and a way of shaking his head that +was tricky--and try to catch him loose on the prairie with a bucket of +oats as a coaxer! There were times on the trail when one could not see +him moving except at close range. When he took such a spell, one of us +drove while the other walked alongside, "persuading" him to keep ahead +of the buggy. As there wasn't a tree or shrub in that part of the +country, we were reduced to waving a hat in front of him like a cowboy +taunting a bucking horse in the ring, or waving a dry cornstalk at +him--but all with the same effect. + +A little brown-and-white spotted animal with long brown mane and tail, +he was the most noticeable as well as notorious piece of horseflesh in +that region, and according to a few who "knew him when--," he had a +past; a reputation as an outlaw and a dislike for the white man as a +result of his part in an Indian skirmish against a band of white +settlers. Now, like the Indian, he had become subdued with age and +conquest; but like the Indian, too, stubborn and resentful. From him we +learned much about how to deal with the Indian. + +One evening when I had stopped at the school for Ida Mary we saw a +snowstorm coming like a white smoke. We were only half a mile from home, +but in blizzards, we had been warned, one can easily become lost within +a few feet of his own door. Many plainsmen have walked all night in a +circle trying to find a familiar shack or barn and perished within a few +yards of shelter. Even in daytime one did not dare, in some of those +blinding furies, to go from house to barn without holding on to a rope +or clothesline kept stretched from one building to the other for that +purpose. + +We could not take a chance on Pinto's slow pace, so we got out of the +buggy and ran as fast as we could, leaving him to follow. We were barely +inside when the storm broke over the shack. As the snow came in blinding +sheets we became anxious about the pony, but there was nothing we could +do that night. We opened the door a crack and looked out. We could not +see our hands before us, and the howling of the wind and beating of snow +against the shack made it impossible to hear any other sound. + +Cowering in that tiny shack, where thin building-paper took the place of +plaster, the wind screaming across the plains, hurling the snow against +that frail protection, defenseless against the elemental fury of the +storm, was like drifting in a small boat at sea, tossed and buffeted by +waves, each one threatening to engulf you. + +Next day the blizzard broke and we found Pinto standing in the hayshed, +still hitched to the buggy, quietly munching hay. + +When the landseekers had left and the plains had seemed emptier and more +silent than before, it had seemed to Ida Mary and me, let down from our +high-pitched excitement, that there was not much incentive in doing +anything. But, after all, there was no time to be bored that winter. The +grim struggle to hang on demanded all our energy. + +When I had first visited the McClure _Press_, I had looked distastefully +at Myrtle's ink-stained hands and face, and at the black apron stiff +with ink which she wore at her work. Now there were nights when, after +turning the press or addressing papers still wet with ink until +midnight, I fell upon the cot and slept without washing or undressing. +At such times Myrtle, with her cheerful unconcern, became an exalted +creature. + +The next morning I would make a stab at cleaning myself up, eat +breakfast on the small inking table drawn close to the fire, with a +clean paper over the black surface for a tablecloth, and go to work +again. + +When blizzards raged they drove the snow through the shack like needles +of steel. There was not a spot where I could put that cot to keep dry, +so I covered my face with the blankets, which in the morning were +drifted over with snow. Where did the lumber industry get hold of all +the knotholes it sold the poor homesteader? + +For a girl who had come to the prairie for her health, I was getting +heroic treatment, wrestling all day with the heavy, old-fashioned, +outworn printing press, heavy manual labor for long hours, sleeping with +the snow drifting over me at night. + +It was during one of these great storms that I rode in one of the last +covered wagons, one of the few tangible links between the pioneers of +the past and the pioneers of the present--and a poignant, graphic +reminder that men and women had endured storm and discomfort and +disaster for decades as we were enduring them now, and as people would +continue to endure them as long as the land remained to be conquered. + +One morning after the hardest snowstorm I had seen, I awoke in the print +shop to find myself corralled by snowdrifts which the wind had driven up +over the windows and four or five feet high in front of the door. I +could barely see over the top of the upper panes. + +That was Friday. Until Sunday I waited, cut off from the +world--wondering about Ida Mary! If she were alone in that tar-paper +shack, what chance would she have? Was she cold and frightened? With the +snow piled in mountainous drifts she would be as inexorably cut off from +help as though she were alone on the plains. The things that happen to +the people one loves are so much worse than the ones that happen to +ourselves--but the things that may happen are a nightmare. As the hours +dragged on I paced up and down the print shop, partly because being +hemmed in made me restless, partly to keep warm, wondering whether the +neighbors would remember that Ida Mary was alone--fearing that they +might think she was in McClure with me. + +On Sunday, a passage was dug from the print shop so that I could get +out--not a path so much as a canyon between the walls of snow, and a +neighbor with a covered wagon offered to take me home--or to try to. + +He drove a big, heavy draft team. The horses floundered and stuck and +fell; plunged out of one drift into another. Galen got out and shoveled +ahead while I drove, resting the horses after each plunge. The ravines +we skirted and finally got up onto the ridge. + +It was mid-afternoon when we arrived, and already the skies were closing +in, gray upon the white plains. The grayish-white canvas of the wagon, +and the team almost the same color blended into the drab picture, darker +shadows against the gray curtain of earth and sky, until we came to the +shack. + +The Dunns had remembered, as they so often did, that Ida Mary was alone, +and they had shoveled a path to the door for her. And she was safe, +waiting tranquilly until it would be possible to return to the school +again. In such weather the school remained closed, as there was no way +for the children to reach it, through the deep drifts, without the risk +of freezing to death. + +With Ida Mary safe in the covered wagon, we started back at once to +McClure. Having broken the drifts on the first trip, it was not hard +going, but it was midnight when we reached the print shop. + +On cold, bad days the Dunns, getting their own children home from +school, would see to it that Ida Mary got back safely, and Mrs. Dunn +would insist that she stay with them on such nights. "Now you go, Huey, +and bring Teacher back. Tell her the trapdoor is down so the attic will +be warm for her and the children to sleep." And when she came, Mrs. Dunn +would say, with that clear, jolly laugh of hers, "Now, if you're +expecting Imbert Miller, he can come right on over," which he did. + +Imbert Miller was a young native westerner whose family had been +ranchers out there for a good many years. He was a well-built, clean-cut +young man who had been attracted to Ida Mary from the beginning, and +whatever her own feelings for him, she liked claim life a lot better +after she met him. All during that bitter winter Imbert came over every +Sunday, dressed in neat blue serge and white collar. Some of the +settlers said that was how they could tell when Sunday came, seeing +Imbert ride by dressed up like that. He dropped in, sometimes, through +the week in clean blue shirt and corduroys for an evening of cards or +reading or talking. + +In fact, the evenings were no longer lonely as they had been at first, +nor were we always exhausted. We were young and demanded some fun, and +feminine enough to find life more interesting when the young men who +were homesteading began to gather at the shack in little groups. In +spite of the difficulties of getting any place in the winter, and the +distances which had to be traveled, the young people began to see a lot +of each other; the romances which naturally developed made the winter +less desolate. + +Sometimes we would gather at Wilomene's for supper--honey served with +flaky hot biscuits baked in one of the very few real cookstoves to be +found on a homestead. Wilomene had a big shack, with blue paper on the +wall and a real range instead of a monkey stove with a drum set up in +the stovepipe for an oven--not many settlers could boast even a drum. +And always the supper was seasoned with Wilomene's laughter. + +In fair weather I printed both back and front pages of the paper, and in +storms, when ink and machinery froze up--another complication in dealing +with the press--I printed the front page only, with headlines that +rivaled the big dailies. There was no news to warrant them, but they +were space-fillers. A dance at McClure would do for a scarehead. I put +in the legal notices, whatever news items I had handy or had time to set +up, and stuck in boilerplate as a filler. I could not count the times I +used the same plate over--but the settlers didn't mind reading it again; +they had little else to do in midwinter. + +One day there came an indistinct message over the telephone line, which +consisted mainly of barb-wire fences, saying that the railroads were +blocked by storm and the stages were delayed. I threw down my mallet and +went home. There would be nothing on which to print the paper. + +On the first stage to get through, four or five days later, there was a +note from the proof king: "Do not fail to publish last week's paper, +properly dated, along with the current issue." As long as there was one +proof notice running, the newspaper could not skip a single week. + +When the two editions were printed I went home very ill. During the +course of a busy and eventful life I have managed--perhaps I should say +happened--to be a trail-breaker many times. And always I have had a +frail body which seemed bent on collapsing at the wrong time. Robust +health I have always coveted, but I have come to the conclusion that it +is not an essential in getting things done, and I have learned to ignore +as far as possible my lack of physical endurance. + +The Widow Fergus came over and waited on me all night, using her simple +home remedies. It cost at least $25 to get a doctor out there, and many +times the emergency was over one way or the other before he arrived. +Homesteaders could not afford to call a doctor except in critical cases, +and they relied for the most part upon the amateur knowledge and help of +their neighbors. + +From the beginning cooperation had been one of the strongest elements in +western life. When no foundation for a civilized life has been laid, +when every man must start at the beginning in providing himself with +such basic necessities as food and shelter, when water holes are few and +far between and water to sustain life must be carried many miles, men +have to depend on each other. Only together could the western settlers +have stood at all; alone they would have perished. In times of sickness +and individual disaster, it was the community that came to the rescue. +If only for self-preservation, it had to. + +The next time the prints were held up by a storm I bought a roll of +wrapping paper at Randall's store, cut it into strips, and got the paper +out. + +When I took the papers into the post office to mail, Mrs. Randall +laughed out loud, but Mr. Randall said reassuringly: "That's right, Miss +Ammons; learning to meet emergencies in this country is a valuable +thing." + +The proof-sheet king wrote: "It is regrettable that a paper like that +should go into the government Land Offices--such an outlaw printer--" + +I replied cheerfully, "Oh, I sent the land officials a good one. They +can read every number." + +And printers were not to be found on every quarter-section. + +Meantime, while I was hammering the paper into shape, Ida Mary had +settled the doubts of the homesteaders who feared that a slight young +city girl could not handle a frontier school. She was a good teacher. +She had a way of discipline with the half-grown plains boys who were +larger and stronger than she, and who, but for her serene firmness, +would have refused to accept her authority. Instead, they arrived early +to build the fire for her in the mornings, carried the heavy pails of +drinking water, and responded eagerly to her teaching. By means of the +school, she began to create a new community interest. + +Another and perhaps the biggest factor in the community life of that +section was the Randall settlement at McClure. The Randalls threw up a +crude shell of a building for a community hall and now and then gave a +party or a dance for the homesteaders. Typical of the complete democracy +of the plains, everyone was invited, and everyone, young and old, came. +The parents put their children to bed in the lodge quarters of the +Halfway House while they joined in the festivity. The older ones +square-danced in the middle of the hall and we younger ones waltzed and +polkaed in a long line down the outside ring. + +It was not always easy to get music for both round and square dances at +the same time, but Old Joe, a fiddler ever since the--Custer's battle, +was it?--would strike one bar in waltz time and the next in rhythm to +the "allemande left" of the square dances, and we got along beautifully. +Some of the homesteaders helped out with guitars; a few cowboys, riding +in from remote ranches, played accompaniments on jew's-harps; other cow +punchers contributed to the music as they danced with clicking of spurs +and clatter of high-heeled boots. And always the Randalls had a big +kettle of coffee to serve with the box lunches the guests provided for +themselves. + +At Christmas Ida Mary and I were invited by the Millers for a house +party. It was the first well-established home we had seen since we +reached South Dakota. A small farm house, plainly furnished, but it had +been a home for a long time. + +The Millers were counted a little above the average westerner in their +method of living. Stockmen on a small scale, they ran several hundred +head of cattle. Mrs. Miller was a dignified, reserved woman who +maintained shiny order in her house. "She even scalds her dishes," folks +said, which by the water-hauling populace was considered unpardonable +aristocracy. Imbert was the pride and mainstay of his parents. There +were warm fires, clean soft beds, and a real Christmas dinner. There was +corn-popping, and bob-sledding with jingling bells behind a prancing +team, with Imbert and Ida Mary sitting together as Imbert drove. + +Imbert's devotion to Ida was casually accepted by the prairie folk. They +all knew him--a likable, steady young fellow, who seemed to have a way +with the girls. Homestead girls came and went, and flirtations to break +the monotony while they stayed were nothing unusual. + +But when Imbert paid $10 for the teacher's box at a box-social held at +the schoolhouse one night, the old-timers gaped. It looked, they said, +as if that little tenderfoot teacher had Imbert Miller lariated. It beat +thunder how the western fellows did fall for eastern schoolmarms. Ten +dollars for a shoe box, without knowing what there was in it! Most of +the bachelor homesteaders bought boxes with a view to what they would +get to eat--potato salad and homemade cake. + +Because we were no longer oppressed by a sense of loneliness, Ida and I +came to love best of all the evenings at home in the tiny shack with +its gay cushions and bright curtains; we enjoyed the good hot supper of +spuds and bacon, or rabbit which some neighbor had brought; hot +biscuits, chokecherry jelly and coffee simmering gently on the back of +the stove. Such a feast, however, was only on rare occasions. After +supper, with the world shut out, we read the mail from home. "You've +done so well, girls, I'm proud of you," our father wrote. "I'll be +looking to see you home next spring." + +I believe Ida Mary was happier that winter than she had ever been, and +her work was easier for her than mine for me, with fewer hardships, +thanks to the Dunns and to Imbert who did much to make it easier for +her. + +During that whole winter the Randalls were the mainstay of the +community. They were one of those families who are the backbone of the +old West, always ready to serve their neighbors. They were like old +trees standing alone on the prairie, that have weathered the storms and +grown strong, with their sheltering branches outspread. + +When there were signs of a blizzard in the air, it was the Randalls who +sent out their sleighs to round up the women who lived alone and bring +them in to shelter. When a doctor was needed, the Randalls got one. +Young Mrs. Layton was having her first baby sooner than she expected. It +was a black night, twenty below zero. The makeshift telephone line was +out of order, as it usually was when it was needed. + +Mr. Randall called his sons. "You'll have to go for Doc Newman.... Yes, +I know it's a bad trip. But you boys know how to take care of +yourselves. Make it--if you can." And they rode hell-for-leather. + +It seemed to me there never was a time when at least one of the Randalls +wasn't riding horseback over the prairie with an urgent message or +errand for the homesteaders. Pay? Hell, no! Weren't these newcomers +funny! + +I remember one evening in January with a storm raging. I had run to the +Randalls' house from the print shop. They sent the sleigh to pick up Ida +Mary and Wilomene. By dark half a dozen men were marooned at the Halfway +House, three of them strangers passing through, three of them plainsmen +unable to get home. A little later two homestead women, who had come in +from Pierre on the stage and could not go on, joined us. + +Somehow there was room for all of them in the big, bare-floored living +room. Chairs with an odd assortment of calico-covered cushions were +scattered over the room. Crude, old-fashioned tables were set here and +there, each with a coal-oil lamp. By the light from the brightly +polished chimneys some read newspapers more than a week old, others +looked hungrily through the mail-order catalogs which always piled up in +country post offices. And Wilomene White, telling some of her homestead +anecdotes, filled the room with laughter. Her most harassing experiences +seemed funny to Wilomene. + +In the middle of the room the big heating stove, stoked with coal, grew +red hot as the wind howled and whistled down the chimney and the snow +lashed against the windows of the old log house. + +Opening off one end of the long room were the small cubicles that served +as bedrooms where the women guests would sleep, crowded together, two or +three in a bed. Cots would be put up in the living room for the Randall +young ones. But the strangers? Leave that to the Randalls--always room +for a few more. + +"Do you know," said Mr. Randall, "I am never happier than on a night +like this, sitting around the fire, knowing my family are all here and +safe; and that strangers from out of the storm have found shelter under +my roof." + +When the weather grew milder and I could ride back and forth again +almost daily, it was Mr. Randall who had one of the boys on the ranch +wrangle me a range pony which, he said, was "broke" to ride. He _was_ +broke to ride. The only difficulty was to mount him. It was all right +once one got on his back, but only an expert bronco buster could do it. +Every time I set foot in the stirrup he went up in the air, pitched, and +bucked and sun-fished. + +I couldn't draw $10 a week as a printer and waste my time on an outlaw +bronc. So I solved it by tying him short with a heavy lariat to the +corner post of the hay barn so that he could not get his head up or +down, nor his heels up very far. Then I gave one leap into the saddle, +Ida cut the rope close to his neck, and away we went to the print shop, +where I wrestled with the old, worn-out press. Fortunately, there was no +trick to dismounting, although I always expected the worst. + + * * * * * + +One day I broke loose. I had worked all morning and used up half a can +of grease on the press, and still it stuck. I picked up a hammer and +tried to break it to pieces. I threw one piece of battered equipment +after another across the prairie. ("Don't go near the print shop," a +little Randall boy warned all comers; "the printer's a-actin'.") + +I scrubbed the ink from my hands and face and boarded the stage. I was +off to Presho to meet the proof-sheet king. + +E. L. Senn was a magnate in the frontier newspaper field. His career is +particularly interesting because it is, in more ways than one, typical +of the qualities which made many western men successful. Basically, he +was a reformer, a public-spirited man who backed, with every means at +his command, and great personal courage, the issues he believed for the +good of the country, and fought with equal intensity those which were +harmful. + +In the early nineties he had moved out to a homestead and started a +small cattle ranch. In itself that was a daring gesture, as outlaw +gangs--cattle rustlers and horse thieves--infested the region and had +become so bold and influential that it was difficult to get any settlers +to take up land in it. He started his first newspaper on his homestead, +miles from a post office, for the purpose of carrying on his fight with +the cattle thieves. In retaliation the outlaws burned him out. + +E. L. Senn promptly moved his paper to the nearest post office at a +small crossroads station to continue the fight. He incorporated in this +paper final proof notices for the settlers. When the fight with the +rustlers had been waged to a successful close, he expanded his +final-proof business; now he owned the greatest proof-sheet monopoly +that ever operated in the West, with a chain of thirty-five papers +strung over that part of South Dakota. + +As civilization pushed into a new district the king picked up another +printing outfit and made entry to the Post Office Department at +Washington of another newspaper. Sometimes he moved his own outfits from +one region to another, but often he merely shut the door on an old plant +not worth moving and let it return to scrap-iron while the print shop +tumbled down with it. + +It cost a lot of money, he used to complain, with investments +depreciating like that and the proof business so short-lived, when the +settlers filled a section and all proved up at once. And he had to run a +paper a year before it became a legal publication. + +But the proof sheets soon became gold mines, the plants costing but a +few hundred dollars and the expenses of operating only ten to fifteen +dollars a week--a cheap printer, the prints, the ink. Established at +inland post offices they became the nuclei for crossroad trading points. + +At this time he had embarked on another cause, prohibition, which was +causing great excitement in South Dakota. A few years later, with his +proof sheets extending through the Black Hills, he bought a newspaper in +Deadwood, the notorious old mining town which is usually associated in +people's minds with the more lurid aspects of the Wild West. He found +conditions all that they had been painted, dominated by underworld vice +rings, with twenty-four saloons for its population of 3000, and gambling +halls, operated as openly as grocery stores, running twenty-four hours a +day. Even the two dance halls exceeded all that has been written about +similar places. + +With his newspaper as his only weapon E. L. Senn set out to clean up +Deadwood. In the fight he sunk his own profits until he had to sell most +of his newspapers, emerging from it almost penniless. + +It was this doughty warrior whose printing press I had strewn widely +over the prairie. When he entered the hotel in Presho where I was +awaiting him my courage almost failed me. He was wise enough not to ask +me what was wrong. He must have been secretly amused by the very small, +frightened girl with the determined expression in her direct blue eyes. + +To my surprise, he asked no questions. Instead he took me to supper and +then to a moving picture, the first I had seen in the West. His kindness +so melted my exasperation with the press that I was at a loss to know +how to begin the fighting talk I had come to make. But the film ended +with a woman driving sheepmen off her claim, and with that example to +fortify my ebbing courage, I asked for a new printing press. And I got +it! + +The "new" press was a second-hand one, but in comparison to the Noah's +Ark model it was a mechanical wonder. I did not know that the proof king +was facing a financial crisis at that time. But I've always thought the +blow of having to buy a press was not half so bad as the shock of having +a printer who would ask for one. + +While I was enjoying the new press one day the Reeds came by McClure. + +"Well, good-by, folks." + +"Oh, are you going?" + +"Yes, proved up. Going back to God's country." + +God's country to the Reeds was Missouri; to others it was Illinois, or +Iowa or Ohio. Day after day homesteaders left with their final receipt +as title to their land, pending issuance of a government patent. +Throwing back the type of the "dead" notices, I could almost tell who +would be pulling out of the country. + +"Going back in time to get in the spring crop," farmers would say. + +Land grabbers they were called. Taking 160 acres of land with them, and +leaving nothing. Most of them never came back. + +And while this exodus was taking place, here and there a settler was +drifting onto the Lower Brulé, a "lucky number" who had come ahead of +time--there was so much to do getting settled. And by these restless +signs of change over the plains, we knew that it was spring. + +And one week I set up for the paper, "Notice is hereby given that Ida +Mary Ammons has filed her intention to make proof ..." + +[Illustration] + + + + +VI + +"UTOPIA" + + +With the first tang of spring in the air we cleaned the shack, put up +fresh curtains and did a little baking. Then we grew reckless and went +into an orgy of extravagance--we took a bath in the washtub. Wash basins +were more commensurate with the water supply. Then we scrubbed the floor +with the bath water. In one way and another, the settlers managed to +develop a million square miles of frontier dirt without a bathtub on it. + +For the first time we stopped to take stock, to look ahead. For months +there had been time and energy for nothing but getting through the +winter. We had been too busy to discuss any plans beyond the proving +up. + +"What are we going to do after we prove up?" I asked, and Ida Mary shook +her head. "I don't know," she admitted. + +In some ways it was a relief to have the end in sight. I hated the +minute routine of putting a paper together, with one letter of type at a +time. I hated the hard mechanical work. Most of our neighbors were +proving up, going back. But we realized, with a little shock of +surprise, that we did not want to go back. Imperceptibly we had come to +identify ourselves with the West; we were a part of its life, it was a +part of us. Its hardships were more than compensated for by its +unshackled freedom. To go back now would be to make a painful +readjustment to city life; it would mean hunting jobs, being tied to the +weariness of office routine. The opportunities for a full and active +life were infinitely greater here on the prairie. There was a pleasant +glow of possession in knowing that the land beneath our feet was ours. + +For a little while we faced uncertainly the problem that other +homesteaders were facing--that of going back, of trying to fit ourselves +in again to city ways. But the eagerness to return to city life had +gone. Then, too, there was something in the invigorating winter air and +bright sunshine which had given me new resistance. There had been a +continuous round of going down, and coming back with a second wind; but +I had gained a little each time and was stronger now than before. + +In the mid-afternoon, after our orgy of spring house-cleaning, with +everything fresh and clean, Ida Mary said, "Someone is coming--straight +across our land." + +"Who is it?" I asked. We had learned to recognize every horse in that +part of the country a mile away. But this was not a plainsman. + +We rushed into the shack and made a mad scramble through the trunk, but +before we could get dressed there came a knock at the door. "Will you +wait a moment, please?" I called. It was the custom of the plains for a +man to wait outside while his hostess dressed or put her house in order, +there being no corner where he could stay during the process. If the +weather prohibited outdoor waiting, he could retire to the hayshed. + +A pleasant voice said, "I'll be glad to wait." But as I whispered, +"Throw me those slippers," and Ida Mary said _sotto voce_, "What dress +shall I wear?" we heard a muffled chuckle through the thin walls. + +When we threw open the door to a slightly built man with brown hair and +a polished air about him, I knew it was the cartoonist from Milwaukee. +Only a city man and an artist could look like that. + +"How do you do, Mr. Van Leshout." + +"How did you know?" he said, as he came in. + +"So you were a Lucky Number, after all," seemed a more appropriate +response than telling him that it was spring and something had been +bound to happen, something like the arrival of a cartoonist from +Milwaukee. + +"Are you going to be a settler?" Ida Mary asked doubtfully. + +He laughed. Yes, he had taken a homestead close to the Sioux settlement +so that he could paint some Indian pictures. + +Odd how we kept forgetting the Indians, but up to now we hadn't even +seen one, nor were we likely to, we thought, barricaded as they were in +their own settlement. "But they are wonderful," he assured us +enthusiastically; "magnificent people to paint; old, seamed faces and +some really beautiful young ones. Character, too, and glamor!" + +We invited him to tea, but he explained that he must get back to his +claim before dark. It was already too late, Imbert told him; he would +have to wait for the moon to rise. Imbert had dropped in, as he had a +habit of doing, and seeing him through the eyes of an easterner we +realized what fascination the lives of these plainsmen had for city men. + +In honor of the occasion we got out the china cups, a wanton luxury on +the plains, and tea and cake. As they rode off, Van Leshout called to +us: "Come over to the shack. I built it myself. You'll know it by the +crepe on the door." + +As the two men melted into the darkness we closed the door reluctantly +against the soft spring air. Strange that we had found prairie life +dull! + +One morning soon after the unexpected appearance of the Milwaukee +cartoonist I awoke to find the prairie in blossom. Only in the spring is +there color over that great expanse; but for a few weeks the grass is +green and the wild flowers bloom in delicate beauty--anemones, tiny +white and yellow and pink blossoms wherever the eye rests. I galloped to +the print shop with the wind blowing through my hair, rejoicing in the +sudden beauty, and found myself too much in holiday mood to get to work. + +Suddenly I looked up from the type case to find an arresting figure in +the doorway, a middle-aged man with an air of power and authority about +him. + +"I'm waiting for the stage," he said. "May I come in?" + +I offered him the only chair there was--an upturned nail keg--and he sat +down. + +"Where do you come from?" he asked abruptly. + +"St. Louis," I said. + +"But why come out here to run a newspaper?" + +"I didn't. I came to homestead with my sister, but the job was here." + +Because he was amused at the idea, because the function of these +frontier papers seemed unimportant to him, I began to argue the point, +and finally, thoroughly aroused, described the possibilities which grew +in my own mind as I discussed them. There was a tremendous job for the +frontier newspaper to do, I pointed out. Did he know the extent of this +great homestead movement and the future it promised? True, the frontier +papers were small in size, but they could become a power in the +development of this raw country. + +"How?" he demanded. + +I think I fully realized it for the first time myself then. "As a medium +of cooperation," I told him. + +He got up and walked to the window, hands in pockets, and looked out +over the prairie. Then he turned around. "But the development of this +country is a gigantic enterprise," he protested. "It would require the +backing of corporations and millions of dollars. In fact, it's too big +for any organization but the government to tackle. It's no job for a +woman." His eyes twinkled as he contrasted my diminutive size with the +great expanse of undeveloped plains. "What could you do?" + +"Of course it's big," I admitted, "and the settlers do need lots of +money. But they need cooperation, too. Their own strength, acting +together, counts more than you know. And a newspaper could be made a +voice for these people." + +"Utopian," he decided. + +Bill appeared at the door to tell him that "The stage has been a-waitin' +ten minutes, now." + +He handed me his card, shook hands and rushed out. I looked at the card: +"Halbert Donovan and Company, Brokers, Investment Bankers, New York +City." The fact that such men were coming into the country, looking it +over, presaged development. Not only the eyes of the landseekers but +those of industry and finance were turning west. + +I stared after the stagecoach until it was swallowed up in distance. My +own phrases kept coming back to me. There was a job to be done, a job +for a frontier newspaper, and soon the McClure _Press_ would be a thing +of the past--as soon as the homesteaders had made proof. Slowly an idea +was taking shape. + +I slammed the print-shop door shut, mounted Pinto and loped home. I +turned the horse loose to graze and walked into the shack. With my back +against the door in a defensive attitude I said abruptly, "I'm going to +start a newspaper on the reservation." + +Ida Mary slowly put down the bread knife. "But where are you going to +get the money?" she asked practically. + +"I don't know, yet. I have to plan what to do first, don't I, and then +look around for a way to do it." That was the formula followed day after +day by the settlers. + +"It's too bad you didn't register for a claim in the Drawing," she said +thoughtfully. "After all, there is no reason why you shouldn't have a +claim too." + +"I could still get a homestead on the Brulé," I declared, "and I can run +the newspaper on the homestead." + +The more we discussed the plan the more Ida Mary liked the idea of +moving to the Strip where so many new people would be coming. We would +work together, we planned, and the influence of the newspaper would +radiate all over the reservation. But, it occurred to us, coming +abruptly down to earth, with no roads or telephones or mail service, how +were the settlers to receive the radiation? + +This was a stickler, but having gone so far with our plans we were +reluctant to abandon them. Where there was a newspaper there should be a +post office. Then we would start a post office! Through it the land +notices would be received and the newspaper mailed to the subscribers. +The settlers could get the paper and their mail at the same place. We +decided that Ida Mary would run it. Somehow it did not occur to us that +the government has something to say about post offices and who shall run +them. Or that the government might not want to put a post office on my +homestead just to be obliging. + +But once a person has learned to master difficulties as they come up, he +begins to feel he can handle anything; so Ida took her final proof +receipt to a loan office in Presho. + +"How much can I borrow on this?" she asked, handing it to the agent. + +"Oh, about eight hundred dollars." + +"That isn't enough. Most homesteaders are getting a thousand-dollar loan +when they prove up." + +"Yes, but your land's a mile long and only a quarter wide--" + +Ida Mary was not easily bluffed. She reached for the receipt. "I'll try +Sedgwick at the bank." + +"We'll make it nine hundred," the agent said, "but not a cent more. I +know that quarter section; it's pretty rough." + +Homesteading was no longer a precarious venture. A homesteader could +borrow $1000 on almost any quarter-section in the West--more on good +land, well located. It was a criminal offense to sell or mortgage +government land, but who could wait six months or a year for the +government to issue a patent (deed) to the land? Many of the settlers +must borrow money to make proof. So the homestead loan business became a +sleight-of-hand performance. + +The homesteader could not get this receipt of title until he paid the +Land Office for the land, and he could not pay for the land until he had +the receipt to turn over to the loan agent. So it was all done +simultaneously--money, mortgages, final-proof receipts; like juggling +half a dozen balls in the air at once. It was one of the most ingenious +methods of finance in operation. Banks and loan companies went into +operation to handle homestead loans, and eastern capital began flowing +in for the purpose. + +Being familiar with Land Office procedure from my work on the McClure +_Press_, I knew that not every winner of a claim on the Lower Brulé +reservation would come to prove it up. A few of them would relinquish +their rights. The buying and selling of relinquishments, in fact, +became a big business for the land agents. There was a mad rush for +relinquishments on the Strip, where landseekers were paying as high as +$1000 to $1200 for the right to file on a claim. + +I wanted a relinquishment on the reservation, in the very center of it, +and I found one for $400. + +Then I made a deal with a printing equipment firm for a small plant--a +new one! And, although there were only a dozen settlers or so on the +land, I pledged 400 proof notices as collateral. + +These proofs at $5 apiece were as sure as government bonds; that is, if +the settlers on the Brulé stayed long enough to prove up, if the +newspaper lived, and if no one else started a paper in competition. But +on that score the printers' supply company was satisfied. Its officers +thought there was no danger of anyone else trailing an outfit into that +region. + +We arranged for straight credit on lumber for a print shop, there being +nothing left to mortgage. From now on we were dealing in futures. In +just two short weeks I had become a reckless plunger, aided and abetted +by Ida Mary. The whole West was gambling on the homesteaders' making +good. + +Long we hesitated over the letter home, telling of our new plans. Under +the new laws, one must stay on a claim fourteen months, instead of the +eight months required when Ida Mary had filed. At last we wrote to +explain that we were not coming home this spring. We were going on to a +new frontier. + +Earnestly as we believed in the plans we had made, it was hard to make +that letter carry our convictions, difficult to explain the logic of our +moving to an Indian reservation so that Ida Mary could run a +non-existent post office in order to mail copies of a non-existent +newspaper to non-existent settlers. Looking at it like that, we were +acting in blind faith. + + * * * * * + +And one day a funny little caravan made its way across the prairie, +breaking a new trail as it went. A shack with a team hitched to it, a +wagon loaded with immigrant goods; and a printing press; ahead, leading +the way, a girl on horseback. + +Again it was Huey Dunn who jacked up our old shack that morning when the +term of school was over and put it on wheels for the trip to the +reservation--twelve miles around by McClure, a few miles closer by a +short-cut across the plains. Huey decided on the latter way, and I rode +on ahead to see that the load of printing equipment should be put on the +right quarter-section, while Ida Mary came in the shack. She sat in the +rocking chair, gazing placidly out of the window as it made its way +slowly across the plains. + +We had hired two homesteaders to haul out lumber and put up a small +building for the newspaper and post office, although we had not yet got +the necessary petition signed for a post office. We could not do that +before the settlers arrived. A small shed room was built a few feet from +the business structure as a lean-to for our migratory shack. + +When I arrived at the claim the men who had hauled out the load of +equipment were gone. Suddenly there came on one of those torrential +downpours that often deluge the dry plains in spring. It was pitch black +as night came on, and no sight of Huey and Ida Mary. The rain stopped at +length. Throwing on a sweater, I paced back and forth through the +dripping grass listening for the sound of the horses. At last I went +back and crouched over the fire in the little lean-to, waiting. There +was nothing else I could do. + +At midnight Huey arrived with the shack. He and Ida Mary were cold and +wet and hungry. They had not had a bite to eat since early morning. Just +as they had reached Cedar Creek, usually a little dry furrow in the +earth, a flood of water came rushing in a torrent, making a mad, swollen +stream that spread rapidly, and they were caught in it. When they got in +the middle of the stream the shack began to fill with water. Huey +grabbed Ida Mary and got her on one horse while he mounted the other, +and the horses swam to land. + +The next morning the sun came out, flooding the new-washed plains. It +was a different world from the harsh, drab prairie to which we had come +eight months ago. Here the earth was a soft green carpet, heavily +sprinkled with spring flowers, white and lavender hyacinths, bluebells, +blossoms flaming red, yellow and blue, and snow-white, waxen flowers +that wither at the touch and yet bloom on the hard desert. + +Huey Dunn squared the migratory shack and rolled the wheels from under. +And there in the Land of the Burnt Thigh, the Indians' name for the +Brulé, I filed my claim and started a newspaper. The only woman, so it +was recorded, ever to establish a newspaper on an Indian reservation. +And if one were to pick up the first issues of that newspaper he would +see under the publisher's name, "Published on Section 31, Township 108 +North, Range 77W, of the 5th Principal Meridian," the only way of +describing its location. + +Ida's claim had seemed to us at first sight to be in the midst of +nowhere. Compared to this, it had been in a flourishing neighborhood. +For here there was nothing but the land--waiting. No sign of habitation, +no living thing--yes, an antelope standing rigid against the horizon. +For a terrified moment it seemed that there could be no future +here--only time. And Ida Mary and I shrank from two very confident young +women to two very young and frightened girls. + +But there was work to be done. Our tar-covered cabin sat parallel to and +perhaps ten feet from the drop-siding print shop--a crude store building +12 × 24 feet, which we called the Brulé business block. We had a side +door put on near the back end of each building so that we could slip +easily from house to shop. We did a little remodeling of our old shack. +Befitting our new position as business leaders, we built a 6 × 8 +shed-roof kitchen onto the back of the shack and a clothes closet in one +end of it; we even bought a little cookstove with an oven in it. + +One morning we saw a team and wagon angling across the Strip toward our +place. Upon the top of the wagon there perched a high rectangular +object, a funny-looking thing, bobbing up and down as the wagon jolted +over the rough ground. It was Harvey with the outhouse. There was +nothing left now on Ida Mary's claim but the mortgage. + +Confronted suddenly by so many problems of getting started, I stood +"just plumb flabbergasted," as Coyote Cal, a cowpuncher, always remarked +when unexpectedly confronted by a group of women. + +And yet I knew what I wanted to do. I had known since the day I heard +myself telling the New York broker. An obscure little newspaper in a +desolate homestead country: but, given courage enough, that little +printing outfit would be a tool, a voice for the people's needs. It was +a gigantic task, this taming of the frontier. + +And meantime, getting down to reality, I had a newspaper without a +country, without a living thing but prairie dogs and rattlesnakes to +read it. And around us a hundred thousand acres on which no furrow had +ever been turned. + +We did not know where to begin. There wasn't a piece of kindling wood on +the whole reservation. We had brought what food and water we could with +us. Food, fuel, water. Those were basic problems that had to be met. + +And then, within a week, almost imperceptibly, a change began to come +over the reservation. The Lucky Numbers were coming onto the land. On +the claim to the west a house went up and wagons of immigrant goods were +unloaded. Ida Mary rode over one evening and found that our new neighbor +was a farmer, Christopher Christopherson, from Minnesota. He had brought +plows and work horses and was ready to break sod, another example of the +farmers who were leaving the settled states for cheap land farther +west. + +Mrs. Christopherson was a thrifty Swedish farm woman who would manage +well. There was a big family of children, and each child old enough to +work was given work to do. + +Around us new settlers were arriving daily and we felt that the time had +come to start out among them with our post-office petition. With Pinto +as our only means of transportation it proved to be a slow job. + +One day, dropping suddenly down off the tableland into a draw, I came +squarely upon a shack. I rode up, and an old white-whiskered man invited +me in. His wife, a gray-haired, sharp-featured woman, appeared to me +much younger than he. I explained my errand. + +"For mercy sake," the woman said, "here you are starting a post office +and I thought you was one of them high-falutin' city homesteaders a +rec-connoiterin' around. Listen to that, Pa, a post office in four miles +of us." + +The woman put out a clean cup and plate. "Set up," she said. "We ain't +signing any petition till you've had your dinner. There's plenty of +biscuit. I stirred up an extry cup of flour and I said to Pa, 'They'll +be et!'" + +I ate salt pork, biscuit and sorghum while she talked. + +"So you're going to handle newspapers too. Oh, print one!" She sighed. +"Seems to me that would be a pestiferous job. We're going to have a +newspaper out here, Pa, did you ever--?" Pa never did. + +Where had I seen these two old people before, and heard this woman talk? + +"Where you from?" she asked, but before I could answer, she went on, +"We're from Blue Springs." + +Pa wrote "David H. Wagor" on the petition. + +One morning Imbert Miller came with his team and buggy to take us out +into a more remote district to get signers. We found two or three +farmers, a couple of business men with their families, and several young +bachelors, each building the regular rough-lumber shack. They were +surprised and elated over the prospect of a post office. + +After wandering over a long vacant stretch, Imbert began to look for a +place where he could feed the horses and get us some food. At last we +saw bright new lumber glistening in the sun. As we drove up to the +crudely built cabin we saw an emblem painted on the front--a big black +circle with the letter V in it, and underneath, the word "Rancho." +Standing before the open doorway was an easel with a half-finished +Indian head on it. + +"Van Leshout's!" Ida Mary exclaimed. + +He came out, unshaven, and sweeping an old paint-daubed hat from his +head with a low bow. "It's been years since I saw a human being," he +exclaimed. "You'll want grub." + +Building a cabin, learning to prepare his own meals, getting accustomed +to solitude were new experiences for the cartoonist from Milwaukee. + +"Not many courses," he said, as he dragged the spuds out from under the +bunk; "just two--b'iled potatoes, first course; flapjacks and 'lasses, +second course; and coffee." + +"You've discovered the Indians," we said, pointing to the canvas. + +The Indians, yes, but they hadn't been much of a cure for loneliness. +What were we doing on the reservation? + +We brought out the post-office petition and told him about the +newspaper. I explained that I had filed on a claim on the reservation. + +"I looked for the crepe on the door as we drove up," I told him. + +"You have a claim on the reservation? To hell with the crepe!" he said +in high spirits. + +On the road home, seeing Imbert's elation, it occurred to me that I had +never taken into consideration the fact that Imbert Miller lived near +the borders of the reservation and that the "fence" would not separate +him from Ida Mary now. How deeply she had weighed the question I did not +know. + +We sent in the post-office petition and the federal authorities promptly +established a post office for the Lower Brulé on my homestead and +appointed Ida Mary postmistress. She was the only woman ever to run a +post office on an Indian reservation, the data gatherers said. The +government named it Ammons. + +So we had a postmistress and a post office, with its tiers of empty, +homemade pigeonholes ready to receive the mail. + +And we discovered there was no way to get any mail in or out! + +[Illustration] + + + + +VII + +BUILDING EMPIRES OVERNIGHT + + +That spring I saw a country grow. Perhaps Rome wasn't built in a day, +but the Brulé was--almost. The incredible speed of the transformation of +the untouched plains; the invasion of the settlers in droves, lighting +on the prairies like grasshoppers; the appearance, morning after +morning, of new shacks, as though they had sprung up overnight; the +sound of hammers echoing through the clear, light air; plows at last +tearing at the unbroken ground--the wonder of it leaves me staggered +now, but then I was caught up in the breathless rush, the mad activity +to get things done. The Lucky Numbers were coming, coming. + +A few weeks before, we had set up our shack in a wilderness. Now there +were shacks everywhere and frantic activity. The plains had come to +life. Over them, where there had been bleak emptiness, loomed tents, +white against the green background, where the settlers could sleep until +they were able to build houses. There was no time to rest, no time to +pause--here where there had been nothing but time. + +Late one evening a wagon loaded with immigrant goods and a shabby car +loaded with children passed our place. The drivers stopped on a nearby +claim, threw their bedding on the ground, and slept there. Their +deadline for establishing residence was up that night. All over the +plains that intensive race went on, the hurried arrival of settlers +before their time should expire, the hasty throwing up of shelter +against the weather, the race to plant crops in the untamed soil so that +there would be food later on. + +A land where one must begin at the beginning! Everything to be done, and +things crying to be done all at once. Those three basic needs, food, +fuel, water--problems which must be solved without delay. + +Moving in a network, criss-cross in every direction, wagons and teams +hauled in immigrant goods, lumber and machinery, fence posts and fuel; +post holes supplemented those dug by the prairie dogs; strings of +barb-wire ran threadlike over the unbroken stretch. + +From day to day we saw the prairie change, saw new, crude houses thrown +up, saw the first furrows broken in the stubborn soil, saw men and women +pit themselves against the frontier and shape it to their purpose and +their needs. + +Among these people there were many more dirt farmers than had settled +around McClure, but at least 50 per cent of the immigrants were young +men and women from various walks of life, business and professions, who +had come for health or adventure; or because the land, through sale or +mortgage, would give them a start in life. While it is doubtless true +that these latter contributed little to the permanent building of the +West, the zest with which they enjoyed its advantages, the gallantry +with which they faced its hardships, contributed no small part to +increasing the morale of the settlers as a whole. + +Almost every settler scooped out a dam at the foot of a slope for water +supply. We had Chris Christopherson plow one for us. These dams were +nothing but waterholes twelve to fifteen feet in diameter and two or +three feet deep. There should be late spring rains to fill them for the +summer. There were! While the settlers were still plowing and planting +and making their dams it began to rain. And when the frontier is wet, +it's wet all over. Dry creeks swelled to overflowing, and small ravines +became creeks, and it kept on raining. Both Ida Mary and I were caught +in one of those downpours and had to swim the horses across swift-rising +Cedar Creek. + +Much of those first days were like chapters from Genesis, and to add to +the similarity we now had the Flood! The seed shot out of the ground and +the fields were green. The gardens grew like Jack's beanstalk. The thick +grass stood a foot high. And the dams were full of water. + +And Ida Mary and I were literally in the center of this maze of +activity, this mushroom growth of a country. And Ammons was actually on +the map! + +My sister wrote to the Postal Department for a mail carrier and found +out she would have to solve that problem for herself. + +"We aren't cut out to cope with the plains," I said. + +"How did you happen to find that out?" asked Ida Mary. + +"I didn't. A New York broker told me." + +We had to find some way to get mail in and out. We couldn't back up on +the trail, once we had started. There was no place to back to. So we +bought a team and started a U. S. mail route, hauling mail three times a +week from the stage line at McClure. + +It was the thing that had to be done, but sometimes, when we had a +moment for reflection, we were a little aghast. Carrying a mail route in +homestead country was a far cry from life in St. Louis. It began to seem +as though we rarely acted according to plan out here; rather, we were +acted upon by unforeseen factors, so that our activities were constantly +shifting, taking on new form, leading in new directions. The only +consistent thing about them was that they never back-trailed! + +Now and then we hired boys to help us with heavy jobs which were beyond +our strength, and occasionally a young prairie girl, Ada Long, fourteen +years old, went for the mail. It was against the law to let anyone who +happened to be handy carry the mail, but the settlers had to have postal +service. + +Ada was fair, with long yellow braids, strong and accustomed to the hard +ways of the prairie. She could hitch up a team and drive it like a man. +There was only one drawback to Ada. On Saturday when we were busiest +she went home and to church; and on Sunday she hung out the washing. Ada +was a loyal Adventist. + +Settlers meeting on the trail hailed one another with "Hello! Where you +from? I'm from Illinois"--or Virginia--or Iowa. "You breakin'?" They had +no time for backgrounds. It didn't matter what the newcomers might have +been. That was left beyond the reservation gate. One's standing was +measured by what he could do and what kind of neighbor he would make. +And always the question, "Where you from?" Missouri, Michigan, +Wisconsin. + +Bronco Benny, riding through one day, said, "I never seen so many gals +in my life. Must be a trainload of 'em. Some pretty high-headed fillies +among 'em, too." Bronco Benny knew no other language than that of the +horse world in which he lived. + +Not only dirt farmers but many others became sodbreakers. The sod was +heavy, and with the great growth of grass it took all the strength of +man and teams, four to six horses hitched to a plow, to turn it. Steady, +slow, furrow by furrow, man and beast dripping with sweat, they broke +fields of the virgin earth. + +How deep to plow, how to cultivate this land, few of them knew. The more +experienced farmers around the Strip, like Huey Dunn, would know. Here +was a service the newspaper could perform by printing such information +for the newcomers. Subscriptions for the paper began coming in before we +were ready to print it. We named it _The Reservation Wand_, and how it +ever was accepted in that man's country with a name like that is beyond +me. The first issue was distributed by homesteaders passing by and two +carriers. + +Subscriptions came in rapidly at a dollar a year. Not only did most of +the settlers subscribe, but they put in subscriptions for friends and +relatives, so that these might know something of the country and its +activities. And in their rush of getting settled it was easier to have +the printer set up the news and run it off on a press than to take the +time to write a letter. Outsiders could not send in subscriptions by +mail until the newspaper had an address other than a section number of +the claim on which it was printed. + +Food, shelter, fuel were still the pressing problems. An army had +peopled a land without provisions. Trade was overwhelmed and the small +towns could not get supplies shipped in fast enough. New business +enterprises were following this rush as lightning does a lightning rod. +There was bedlam. One could not get a plowshare sharpened, a bolt, or a +bushel of coal without making the long trip to town. One could not get a +pound of coffee or a box of matches on the whole reservation. + +The settlers began to clamor for a store in connection with the +newspaper and the post office. Their needs ran more to coffee and sugar +and nails than to newspapers. They had to have a store for a few +essential commodities at least. + +A store? I objected strenuously. We had already embarked on enough +enterprises, and running a store had no place among them. But practical +Ida was really interested in the project. It wasn't such a bad idea, she +decided. Our money was dwindling, the newspaper would not become a +paying proposition for some time, and the only revenue from the post +office was the meager cancellation of stamps. + +We could hire the hauling done, she pointed out, grappling at once with +the details. And it would be a real service to the settlers. That was +what we had wanted to provide--the means didn't matter so much. + +So we planked down a cash payment at a wholesale-retail store at Presho +for a bill of goods, got credit for the rest of it, threw up an ell +addition on the back of the shop for the newspaper, and stuck a grocery +store where the newspaper had been. + +All this time we had been so submerged in activities connected with +getting settled, starting and operating a newspaper, a post office, and +now a store, that we had overlooked a rather important point--that on an +Indian reservation one might reasonably expect Indians. We had forgotten +the Indians. + +And one afternoon they came. On horseback and in wagons, war bonnets and +full regalia glittering in the sun, the Indians were coming straight +toward the Ammons settlement. Neither of us had ever seen an Indian +outside of a Wild West show. + +We were terrified. Into the shack we scurried, locked doors and windows, +and peeped out through a crack in the drawn blind. + +The Indians had stopped and turned their horses loose to graze. We could +hear them walking around the store and print shop--and then came savage +mutterings outside our door and heavy pounding. We crawled under the +bed. A woman we knew had escaped being scalped once by hiding behind a +shock of corn. But there was no such refuge here. + +"How! How kill 'em?" an old Indian was bellowing. No use trying to +escape. This was the end. + +Trembling, hearts pounding, we opened the door. Two big savage-looking +creatures with battered faces stood there motioning toward the shop +where a group of them were sauntering in and out. + +"How kill 'em?" they still muttered. Dazed, we followed them. They had +taken possession of the shop. Women were sitting on the floor, some with +papooses strapped to their backs. Men with hair hanging loose, or +braided down their backs, tied with red string, were picking up +everything in the print shop, playing like children with new toys. + +They led us into the store, muttering, "_Shu-hum-pah; she-la_," as they +pointed to the shelves. At last we found they wanted sugar and tobacco, +and we lost no time in filling the order. + +At sunset they rode away toward the Indian settlement, and we discovered +that we had been misled by the talk of "segregation." To us that had +meant that the Indians were behind some high barricade. But there wasn't +a thing to separate us from the tribe but another barb-wire fence, with +the gates down. + +For several days after the red men came we moved in a nightmare of fear. +The Sioux had cherished this tall grass country as a hunting ground, and +we had invaded it. Suppose they were intent upon revenge! + +Then, absorbed in our many duties, we almost forgot about the Indians. +But a week after their first visit they came again. They arrived shortly +before sundown, adorned in beads and feathers, stopped across the trail, +and to our horror pitched camp. Pinto commenced to neigh and kept it up, +a restless whinny, eager for his own people. + +It looked as though the whole Sioux tribe had moved over to Ammons. +While the men unhitched and unsaddled, the squaws--for the most part +large shapeless creatures totally unlike the slim Indian maid of +fiction, and indescribably dirty--started small fires with twigs they +had brought with them. By now Ma Wagor, the gray-haired woman from Blue +Springs, was in the store every day, helping out, and she was as +terrified as Ida and I. It seems there were no Indians in Blue Springs. +They were among the few contingencies for which Ma Wagor was not amply +prepared. + +By chance a strange cowboy came through about sundown and stopped for a +package of tobacco. While he dexterously rolled a cigarette with one +hand we surrounded him, three panic-stricken women. Did he think the +Indians were on the war path, we asked, our teeth chattering. + +"Oh, I don't know," he answered carelessly, "can't tell a speck about an +Indian. Couldn't blame 'em, could you, with these landgrabbers invadin' +their range?" + +The logic of this had already occurred to us, and we were not +particularly cheered by the cowboy's confirmation of our worst +suspicions. + +"What do you suppose they're buildin' them fires for?" Ma Wagor was +anxious to know. + +Sourdough couldn't say as to that. But he 'lowed it might be to burn the +scalps in. + +At that we missed Ma. She had slipped into the house to wash her feet. +Ma was a great believer in preparedness, whether having something cooked +ahead for supper, or clean feet for heaven. + +Instinctively I put my hand on my shock of fair hair to make sure it was +still in place. It had always been a nuisance, but now I felt a +passionate eagerness to keep it where it was. + +The Indians stretched their tepees and cooked their supper. The prairie +around them was alive with bony horses and hungry-looking dogs. It was +the impatient yelping of the dogs about the kettles rather than any +sounds from the soft-footed Indians which we heard. + +The cowboy threw his cigarette on the floor, stamped on it with a jingle +of spurs, and drawled, "Guess I'll be percolatin'--got to ride +night-herd." + +Ma Wagor grabbed him by his wide belt. "You're goin' to do your +night-herdin' right in front of this shack," she declared grimly. +"You've got your pistol and we women need protection." Looking at Ma's +set jaw he promised to hang around that night. + +Locked in the shack, we waited for the cowboy's signal of attack. He'd +"shoot 'em down as fast as they crossed the trail," he assured us, but +we were not so confident of his prowess. + +"I'd send for Pa," Ma Wagor said dismally, "but what good would he do? +And one of us has got to be left to prove up the claim." It was +unlikely, according to Ma, that anyone in that cabin would survive. But +as the night wore on everything across the trail became quiet and at +last we threw ourselves across the bed, exhausted. We woke next morning +to find our cowboy gone and the Indians cooking breakfast. + +Two leather-skinned men with hair hanging loose over their shoulders and +faces painted in red and copper hues led a big-boned horse up to the +door and walked into the store. They pointed to the shelves, held up ten +fingers, then pointed to the horse. They wanted to trade it for ten +dollars' worth of groceries. + +Ida Mary did not bother to look at the horse. She traded. The last thing +that would have occurred to her at that moment was to disagree with any +wishes the Indians might express. We found out later that the old mare +was stone-blind and locoed. + +Within a week we had the corral full of horses--the lame, the halt and +the blind. We would have traded the whole store for anything that the +Indians wanted, to get rid of them. + +Sourdough, who belonged to the Scotty Phillips outfit over on the Indian +lands, had ridden straight on to do night-herd duty. Every cowpuncher, +it seemed, must play at least one trick on the tenderfeet. + +Then one day a handsomely built young buck, straight as an arrow, walked +into the print shop. "How Kola!" he said, and then introduced himself as +Joe Two-Hawk. He was a college graduate, it appeared, and he explained +that "How Kola" was the friendly greeting of the Sioux, a welcome to the +two white girls who ran the settlement. + +Many of these young Indians went East to Indian colleges, acquiring, +along with their education, a knowledge of civilized ways to which they +adapted themselves with amazing rapidity. On returning to the +reservations, however, in many cases, perhaps in most, they discarded +one by one, as though they had never been, the ways of the white man, +and reverted to their primitive customs and ways of life. Nor should +they be too thoughtlessly condemned for it. Among civilized peoples the +same urge for an escape from responsibility exists, thwarted often +enough merely by necessity, or by the pressure of convention and public +opinion. The Indians who have reverted to type, discarded the ways of +civilization for a tepee and primitive uncleanliness, follow the path of +least resistance. Traditions of accomplishment as we know them have no +meaning for the Indians; and the way of life for which his own +traditions have fitted him has been denied him. + +How Kola! That must be what the old warrior was bellowing the day we +thought he had said he would kill us. Old Two-Hawk laughed at that when +his son Joe interpreted it in Sioux. + +Old Two-Hawk explained us to his son, of whom he was manifestly very +proud. He pointed to me. "He-paleface-prints-paper"; then to Ida Mary, +"Him-paleface-trades-horses." Thus the Brulé Indians distinguished us +from each other. + +Joe Two-Hawk had come as a sort of emissary from the Brulés. They wanted +us, he explained, to make Ammons an Indian trading post. Looking at the +corral, we felt, to our sorrow, that they had already done so. Joe +Two-Hawk said they had wood and berries in abundance along the Missouri +River, which ran through the Indian lands. They wanted to exchange them +for merchandise. And the settlers, we knew, needed the Indian +commodities. + +So to the newspaper, the post office, the store, the mail route, the +heavy hauling, we added an Indian trading post, trading groceries for +fence posts; subscriptions to _The Wand_ for berries--very few of them +could read it, but they didn't mind that--it was a trade. Joe Two-Hawk +became a mediator and interpreter until Ida Mary and I learned enough of +the Sioux language to carry on. We tried to figure out a way, in this +trading, to make back our loss on the menagerie we had collected at +Ammons. Those bare store shelves worried us. Then, one morning, the old, +blind, locoed mare turned up with a fine colt by her side. We were +getting even. + +And we no longer minded that the gate was open between the Indian lands +and the section of the Brulé which had been thrown open to white +settlers. While the gate stood open, enmity and mutual suspicion could +not exist, and the path between it and Ammons was beaten hard and +smooth. + +The Indians came in processions with loaded wagons; unloaded, turned +their horses loose on the range and sat around--men and women--for hours +at a time on floor or ground, dickering. Ida Mary became as expert at it +as they were. It was not long before _The Wand_ had legal work from +them, the settling of estates, notices pertaining to land affairs, etc. +And that led, logically enough, to Ida Mary's being appointed a notary +public. + +"Want to sell your land, girls?" a man from Presho asked us one day. +"That's what I drove out for. I have a buyer anxious to get a claim on +the Brulé and I believe he would pay $1200 for this relinquishment. A +quick profit." + +"Sell? No!" we declared. "With such demand for land on the Strip we may +be able to get $2500 for it when it is proved up." + +He agreed. A raw quarter-section of deeded land just outside the border +had sold the other day for $3500, he informed us. With all the breaking +and improvement going on over the Brulé, it was predicted by real-estate +boosters that choice homesteads here would be worth $4000 to $5000 in +another year or so--after the land was deeded. + +Within sixty days after the arrival of the first Lucky Number on his +claim the 200 square miles of the Brulé would be filled. The winners had +filed consecutively, so many numbers each day for that length of time. +Their time to establish residence would thus expire accordingly. Already +the broad expanse of grassland we had seen during our first week on the +Brulé was changed beyond recognition, shacks everywhere, fields plowed, +movement and activity. The frontier had receded once more before the +advancing tide of civilization. Within sixty days! + +With the price of claims soaring, it became a mecca for claim jumpers. +They circled around ready to light on the land like buzzards on a +carcass. They watched every quarter-section for the arrival of the +settler. If he were not on his land by dark of the last day, some +"spotter" was likely to jump the claim and next morning rush to the Land +Office and slap a contest on it. + +They were unlike the claim jumpers of the older pioneer days who jumped +the land because they wanted it for a home. Many of these men would not +have proved up a claim at any price. But in many instances they brought +landseekers with them who legally filed contests and homesteading rights +over the settler. They paid the claim jumpers well for their services in +getting hold of the land. Often, being strangers, the landseekers did +not know that these "spotters" were not land agents. + +They were a ruthless lot as a whole, these claim jumpers. They took long +chances, illegally selling relinquishments and skipping the country +before they were caught. Some of them even threatened or intimidated +newcomers who knew nothing about the West or its land laws. + +Of a different type were unscrupulous locating agents who used the +technicalities of the homestead law to operate the despicable "contest" +business. Whether they had any grounds for contesting a homestead or +not, they could claim they had, and the settler must then either go to +trial to defend his rights or give up the land. It was a serious problem +for the settlers. + +So many strangers came and went that the homesteaders seldom identified +these land thieves, but the print shop, set high in the middle of the +plains, was like a ranger's lookout where we could watch their +maneuvers; they traveled in rickety cars or with team and buggy, often +carrying camping equipment with them. By the way they drove or rode back +and forth, we could spot the "spotters." + +They often stopped at the settlement for tobacco or a lunch out of the +store--and a little information. + +"Whose shack is that off to the southwest?" a man asked one morning, +reading off the claim numbers from a slip of paper. He was a ruddy-faced +man dressed in a baggy checkered suit with a heavy gold watch chain +across the front of his vest and a big flashy ring. + +"Belongs to a woman from Missouri," Ida Mary told him. "She had a +neighbor build the shack for her." + +"No one living there," he said. + +"Oh, yes," Ida Mary improvised rapidly, "she was in here yesterday on +the way to town for furniture. Won't be back until tomorrow night." + +He looked doubtful. "Doesn't look to me as though anyone ever slept +there. Not a thing in the shack--no bed." + +Ida Mary called out to me, "Edith, didn't you lend that woman some +bedding yesterday?" + +"Yes," I declared, "so she could sleep there a few nights before the +deadline." + +All our early training in truth-telling was lost in the skirmish, and +sometimes I doubted if the truth was left in us. But there was zest in +this outwitting of men who would have defrauded the settlers if they +could. + +One day I noticed two men driving back and forth over a vacant claim +nearby. At sundown no one had established residence. I watched the +maneuvers of the two men. + +"Ida," I called, "those men are going to jump that claim." + +I looked over my land plat and saw that the homestead belonged to Rosie +Carrigan from Ohio. It was the last day of grace. She had until midnight +to get there. + +It was a moonlight night. Ida Mary saddled Pinto and rode down the draw +toward the claim. From a slope where she could not be seen she watched +the two men. The evening wore on. At eleven o'clock, secure in the +knowledge that the owner had failed to arrive, the men pitched camp. + +Ida Mary rode quietly up the draw and galloped up to the cabin. "They +are sleeping on the claim," she said breathlessly. This meant that next +morning, as soon as the Land Office opened, one of them would be there +to slap a contest on the land, while the other held possession. It also +meant that when Rosie Carrigan arrived she would find her homestead +gone. + +"What shall we do?" I asked anxiously. + +Ida Mary considered for a moment. "One of us must be Rosie Carrigan," +she decided. She ran out to hitch the team to the wagon while I +hurriedly dragged a few things out of the house and loaded them--things +such as an immigrant must carry with him, bedding, boxes, a traveling +bag or two. We threw them in the wagon, circled off a mile or two, and +then drove straight back onto the land. A few rods from the +claim-jumpers we drove a stake, hung a lantern on it, and began to +unhitch, shivering with excitement and apprehension. + +The noise of our arrival roused the two men, who stirred, and then with +an exclamation got to their feet. We saw the flare of a match. One of +them had drawn out his watch and was looking at it. Under the +smoked-lantern light we looked at ours--it was ten minutes to twelve! + +We heard them murmur to each other, but continued unhitching the horses, +dragging the hastily assembled articles out of the wagon. Then my heart +began to pound. One of the men walked over to us. He was short, burly, +heavy-jawed. + +"Here, you can't stay here! Where do you think you are?" he demanded. + +We made no answer, but the bed I contrived to make under his watching +eyes was a hopeless tangle. + +"We're on this land ..." he blustered. He was trying to run a bluff, to +find out whether we were on the right quarter-section or whether, like +him, we were land-grabbers. + +"I guess I'll have to have your identification," he said again. "What's +your name?" + +"Rosie Carrigan," I answered, "from Ohio. What are you doing on my land, +anyway? You have no right here!" + +He hesitated, weighing the situation and the possibilities. + +"Get off!" I blazed at him. + +He got. The two men rolled up their bedding and moved on, and Ida Mary +and I sat limply on the ground watching them go. + +In case they should come back we decided to hold the land for the night, +gathered up the bedding, and slept in the wagon--when we slept. + +At daybreak we were wakened by the rumble of a heavy-loaded wagon coming +slowly over the prairie behind a limping team. A tall, slim girl and a +slight boy sat high on the front seat. They drove up beside our wagon. +Fastened on the back of their load was a chicken coop, and as they +stopped a rooster stuck its head out and crowed. + +The girl was Rosie Carrigan. The boy was her brother. And the rooster +was the first of his kind to settle on the reservation. They had been +delayed by footsore horses. But no land-grabbers, no one except +ourselves, ever knew that Rosie Carrigan did not establish residence at +ten minutes before midnight. + +Not long after this, a rough-looking stranger rode up to an old man's +shack and took some papers out of his pocket. "There's some mistake +here, pardner," he said. "Looks like you're on the wrong quarter. This +is section--" he read the description, "and it happens to be mine." + +"But that's the number of the claim I filed on at the Drawing," the old +man assured him. + +After much arguing and bullying, with the old man contending he was +right, the stranger ordered him off the land. + +"You don't pull that stuff on me, pardner; you'd better vacate." + +"Now keep your shirt on, stranger," the old man said, with a twitching +of his long white mustache, inviting him in for a bite to eat while he +hunted up his land receipts. + +"I'm all crippled up with the rheumatiz," he groaned as he hobbled back +into a corner of the room to get the papers. "A pore way for the +gov'ment to open up land, I says. + +"Now down in the Oklahomy Run we used speed and brains to stake a claim, +beating the other fellow to it. But it was a tough bunch down there, and +sometimes, stranger, we--" he turned and pointed a gun straight at the +man seated at the table, "we used a gun." + +The old man who had stood leaning on his cane at the Drawing, +complaining that neither legs nor brains counted in winning a claim, +used his ingenuity to hold one. + +During those last days of settling, Ida Mary and I lived in a state of +tension and suspense. We watched our land plat and often rode out over +the prairie to watch for the arrival of settlers whose land was being +spotted. After a few of our deceptions, the claim jumpers became wary of +the newspaper and cursed "that snip of a newspaper woman." And the girl +who ran the post office was a government employee. + +Here was a job for _The Wand_. In the next issue there appeared a +black-headline article. It began: + +"It has been reported that owing to the swift settlement of the Brulé, +Secret Service Agents from the Federal Land Department are being sent +out to protect the settlers against claim jumpers who are said to be +nesting there. This tampering with government lands is a criminal +offense, and it is understood that legal action will be pushed against +all offenders." + +One afternoon some two weeks later there walked into the print shop a +man with an official manner about him. He called for the publisher of +the paper. + +"What do you know about this?" he demanded, pointing to the article. +"What authority did you have for it?" + +I was speechless. He was a Federal Agent. + +"Well," I said at last, defiantly, "if the government is not furnishing +agents on the land to look after these things, it should." + +And it did. The agent looked into the matter, claim-jumping quieted +down, there were fewer "spotters" swarming around, and soon, when their +six months of grace had expired, the Lucky Numbers were all on the +ground. + +[Illustration] + + + + +VIII + +EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG + + +"Any old cayuse can enter a race," Bronco Benny remarked one day. "It's +coming in under the wire that counts." + +Ida Mary and I had saddled ourselves with a newspaper, a post office, a +grocery store, an Indian trading post, and all the heavy labor of +hauling, delivery of mail and odd jobs that were entailed. We were +appalled to realize the weight of the responsibility we had assumed, +with every job making steady, daily demands on us, with the Ammons +finances to be juggled and stretched to cover constant demands on them. +And there was no turning back. + +The Lucky Numbers were all settled on their claims. Already trails were +broken to the print shop from every direction. There was no time to +plan, no time in which to wonder how one was to get things done. The +important thing was to keep doing them. On the whole Strip there was not +a vacant quarter-section. Already a long beaten trail led past the +print-shop door north and south from Pierre to Presho; another crossed +the reservation east and west from McClure to the Indian tepees and the +rangeland beyond. Paths led in from all parts of the Strip like spokes, +with Ammons the hub around which the wheel of the reservation's +activities revolved. + +From every section of the settlement the people gravitated to my claim; +they came with their needs, with their plans, with their questions. In +the first days we heard their needs rather than filled them, and the +store and print shop became a place for the exchange of ideas and news, +so that I was able to distinguish before long between the needs of the +individual and those which were common to all, to clarify in my own mind +the problems that beset the settlers as a whole, and to learn how some +among them solved these problems. + +Subscriptions for _The Wand_ came in from the outside world, from people +who had friends homesteading on the Brulé, and from people interested in +the growth of the West. We had almost a thousand subscriptions at a +dollar a year, and the money went into a team, equipment, and operation +expenses. Ma Wagor helped in the store--she liked the "confusement," she +said. She loved having people around her, and her curiosity about them +all was insatiable. Ida or I generally made the mail trip. + +The heavy labor we hired done when we could, but many times we hitched +the team to the big lumber wagon and drove to Presho to bring out our +own load of goods, including barrels of coal-oil and gasoline for +automobiles, for there were quite a few cars on the reservation. +Automobiles, in fact, were the only modern convenience in the lives of +these modern pioneers who stepped from the running board straight back +into the conditions of covered-wagon days. + +The needs of the people were tremendous and insistent. And the needs of +the people had to find expression in some way if they were to be met. +The print shop was ready, _The Wand_ was ready, I was ready--the only +hitch was that I couldn't operate the new press we had bought, because +we couldn't put it together. Ida Mary and I labored futilely with bolts +and screws and other iron parts for two days. + +I had sat down in the doorway to rest, exhausted by my tussle with the +machinery, when I saw a man coming from the Indian settlement. He +appeared against the horizon as if he had ridden out of the ether, +riding slowly, straight as an Indian, but as he came closer I saw he was +a white man. At the door he dismounted, threw the reins on the ground, +and walked past me into the store, lifting his slouch hat as he entered. +A man rather short of stature, sturdy, with a wide-set jaw and flat +features that would have been homely had they not been so strong. + +He looked with surprise through the open door of the print shop with its +stalled machinery. + +"What's the trouble?" he asked. + +I explained my predicament. "I can't put the thing together and I don't +know what to do about it. It would be almost impossible to get an +experienced printer out here to start it for me." + +He smiled broadly, walked into the shop, and without a word fixed the +forms, adjusted the press and turned out the first issue of that +strange-fated newspaper. + +He would accept no pay and no thanks. "My name is Farraday, Fred +Farraday," he said. "I'll ride over next Friday and help you get the +paper out." + +With that he mounted his blue-roan pony and rode away as deliberately as +he had come. Every Friday after that he returned to help print the +paper. Naturally we were curious about the man who had solved our +desperate need for a printer in so surprising a way, but Fred was +content to come week after week and disappear again on the horizon +without any explanation as to who he was, where he came from, where he +went when he rode out of sight each Friday. + +We tried him with hints, with bland suppositions, with bare-faced +questions, and could not break through his taciturnity. But even Fred +had no defense against Ma Wagor's curiosity, and little by little, +through her persistent questioning, we learned that he had a homestead +near the Agency, that he had run a newspaper in the Northwest, and that +he had been connected with the Indian Service. + +The business of the newspaper increased rapidly, and advertising began +to come in from the small surrounding towns. Ma Wagor was kept busy in +the store, selling groceries to the Indians who camped around for a day +dickering, and to the white settlers who were generally in a hurry. So +little time! So much to do! Ida Mary helped me in the print shop, and +before long we found we needed an expert typesetter. And I found +one--unlikely as it may seem--on an adjoining claim. Kathryn Slattery, +tall and slim and red-haired, preferred setting type to sitting alone in +her shack, and with her striking appearance as an added attraction the +popularity of the settlement with the young men homesteaders mounted. + +In this odd fashion I found on the prairie both a printer and a +typesetter, and for problems of format for _The Wand_ there was always +the cartoonist from Milwaukee. Late one afternoon I spied a strange, +moving object in the far distance, something that bobbed up and down +with the regularity of a clock pendulum. I asked Ida Mary in some +bewilderment whether she could identify it. At last we saw it was a +stiff-jointed quadruped with some sort of jumping-jack on top, bouncing +up and down at every step. As it drew closer, heading for the shop, Ida +Mary began to laugh. "It's Alexander Van Leshout," she said. + +The cartoonist scrambled down from his mount and led the old, +stiff-jointed, sway-backed horse up to the door. "I would have called +sooner," he explained, sweeping off his hat in a low bow, "but I have +been breaking in my new steed. Let me introduce Hop-Along Cassidy." + +It was the newspaper that had brought him, he went on to say. +"Editorially it's not so bad, but the make-up would give anyone sore +eyes." It was Van Leshout who helped with the make-up of the paper, and +he made drawings and had plates made that would do credit to any +newspaper. + +He was a strange character in this setting, like an exotic plant in an +old-fashioned garden, and his eccentricities aroused considerable +amusement among the settlers, although he became in time a favorite with +them, serving as a sort of counter-irritant to the strain of pioneer +life. Men who trudged all day through the broiling sun turning furrows +in that stubborn soil were entertained by the strange antics of a man +who sat before his cabin in the shade (when there was any) painting the +Indians. It was a rare treat to hear him go on, they admitted, but he +was not to be taken seriously. + +Among the subscriptions I received for _The Wand_ was one from the New +York broker, Halbert Donovan, with a letter addressed to McClure. + +"Through the McClure _Press_ which I had sent me," it read, "I learned +that you are running a newspaper out on some Indian reservation. I +remember quite well the fantastic idea you had about doing things out +there with a little newspaper. But it does not seem possible you would +be so foolhardy. + +"I'm afraid your aspirations are going to receive a great blow. It is a +poor place for dreams. Imagine your trying to be a voice of the +frontier, as you put it, to a bunch of homesteaders in a God-forsaken +country like that. If I can be of help to you in some way, you might let +me know. You have shown a progressive spirit. Too bad to waste it." + +What I needed at the moment was to have him send me a few corporations, +but as that was unlikely, I pinned my faith in _The Wand_. It was a +seven-column, four-page paper which carried staunchly a strange load of +problems and responsibilities. In spite of the New York broker's blunt +disbelief in the possibilities of a frontier newspaper, I had become +more and more convinced during those weeks that only through some such +medium could the homesteaders express their own needs, in their own way; +have their problems discussed in terms of their own immediate situation. + +We needed herd laws and a hundred other laws; we needed new land +rulings. We needed schools, bridges across draws and dry creeks. We +needed roads. In fact, there was nothing which we did not need--and most +of all we needed a sense of close-knit cooperation. Aside from these +matters of general interest, relating to their common welfare, the paper +attempted to acquaint the settlers with one another, to inform them of +the activities going on about them, to keep them advised of frontier +conditions. To assist those who knew nothing of farming conditions in +the West, and often enough those who had never farmed before, I +reprinted articles on western soil and crops, and on the conservation of +moisture. + +Every week there were noticeable strides in that incredible country +toward civilization, changes and improvements. These were printed as +quickly as I learned of them, not only because of the encouragement this +record of tangible results might bring the homesteaders, but also as a +means of information for people in the East who still did not know what +we were doing and who did not see the possibilities of the land. + +And already, in depicting the homestead movement, I had begun to realize +that the Lower Brulé was only a fraction of what was to come, and I +reached out in panoramic scope to other parts of the frontier. + +And already, though but dimly, I had begun to see that the system of +cooperation which was being attempted--cautiously and on a small +scale--was the logical solution for the farmer's problems, not alone in +this homesteading area, not alone on the Lower Brulé; but that like a +pebble thrown into a quiet stream it must make ever-widening circles +until it encompassed the farmers throughout the West, perhaps-- + +Naturally public issues sprang up which neither Ida Mary nor I knew how +to handle. We knew nothing about politics, nothing at all about the +proper way to go about setting things right. But we were a jump ahead of +the Lower Brulé settlers in homesteading experience, and there were many +local issues with which to make a start. + +One of the first public issues the paper took up was an attack on the +railroad company in regard to the old bridge spanning the Missouri River +at Chamberlain. "Every time a shower comes up, that bridge goes out," +declared _The Wand_, and it wasn't much of an exaggeration. The +homesteaders were dependent on the bridge to get immigrant goods across, +and with the heavy rains that season many settlers had been delayed in +getting on their land or in getting their crops planted in time. + +_The Wand_ referred to the railroad report that this was the biggest +immigration period of the state's history, with 537 carloads of +immigrant goods moved in during the first twelve days of the month. For +several years the small towns west of the Missouri had been making a +fight for a new bridge. "The Lower Brulé settlers want a new bridge," I +wrote. "And if the Milwaukee does not build one we are going to do our +shipping over the Northwestern regardless of longer hauls." I had not +talked this matter over with the settlers, but they would do it, all +right. + +A flea attacking an elephant! But a flea can be annoying, and we would +keep it up. I was encouraged when civic leaders of several small towns +sent for copies of the article to use in their petitions to the company. +It was the voice of the Lower Brulé, and already the Lower Brulé bore +weight. + +In practical ways the paper also tried to serve the homesteaders, +keeping them posted on other frontier regions and the methods employed +there to bring the land into production. It made a study of crops best +adapted to the frontier; it became the Strip's bureau of information and +a medium of exchange--not only of ideas but of commodities. + +In new country, where money is scarce, people resort from necessity to +the primitive method of barter, exchanging food for fuel, labor for +commodities. There is a good deal to be said in its favor, and it solved +a lot of problems in those early, penniless days. + +We had started the post office mainly as a means of getting the +newspaper into circulation, and it had developed into a difficult +business of its own which required more and more of Ida Mary's time. +Friday was publication day. On Thursday we printed the paper so as to +have it ready for Friday's mail, and on Thursday night the tin +reflectors of the print-shop lamps threw their lights out for miles +across the prairie far into the night, telling a lost people the day of +the week. "It's Thursday night--the night the paper goes to press," more +than one homesteader said as he saw it. + +It was a long, tedious job to print so many newspapers on a hand press +one at a time, fold and address them. It took the whole Ammons force and +a few of the neighbors to get it ready for the mail, which must meet the +McClure mail stage at noon. While one of us rushed off with the mail, +others at home would address the local list of papers and put them in +the mail boxes by the time the return mail came in for distribution. + +Our U. S. mail transport was our old topless One-Hoss Shay--repaired and +repainted for the purpose--with the brown team hitched to it. It was a +long, hot drive, eight miles, to meet the stage, which reached McClure +at noon, jolting along under a big cotton umbrella wired to the back of +the seat for shade. I slapped the brown team with the lines and consoled +myself that if roughing it put new life into one's body I should be good +for a hundred years. + +When we were behind time and the mail was light or there was money going +out, we ran Lakota through as a pony express. Lakota was a gift from the +Indians, whose name meant "banded together as friends." One day Running +Deer had come over to Ammons, leading a little bronc. He had caught her +in a bunch of wild horses which roamed the plains, a great white +stallion at their head. "One day--two day--three day--I have made run, +so swift like eagle. Then I rope her and make broke for ride." + +She was a beauty. Graceful, proud--and lawless. "Good blood, like Indian +chief," said Running Deer with pride in this gift from the Sioux. "But +white squaw--she throw um, mebbe. Rub like fawn--" and he stroked her +curved neck. + +There was no "mebbe" about throw um white squaw. One had to be on the +lookout or "swift like eagle" she would jump from under one at the +slightest provocation. But we trained her to carry the mail, and though +there was no banditry in that section, we had to be on our guard with +money coming in. No man would ever grab the mail sack from Lakota's +back. That little outlaw would paw him to death. + +Whether we caught the mail stage or not often depended upon the mood of +the stage driver. If he felt tired and lazy he patiently sat in front of +the Halfway House at McClure and "chawed" and spat until he saw the +Ammons mail coming over the trail. If he were out of sorts he drove on. + +All we got out of the post-office job was the cancellation of stamps, as +it was a fourth-class office in which the government furnished the +stamps and we kept the money for all stamps canceled in our office. But +the settlers were too busy to write letters, so the income was small and +the incoming mail, for which we received no pay, weighed us down with +work. For months after the settlers came west they ordered many +commodities by mail, and their friends sent them everything from +postcards to homemade cookies and jelly, so as mail carriers we became +pack mules. But we went on carrying mail. It is easier to get into +things than to get out. + +Much of the ordering of commodities by the settlers was done through the +huge mail-order catalogs issued by half a dozen large companies in the +East. Those mail-order catalogs were of enormous importance to the +homesteaders. For the women they had the interest of a vast department +store through which one could wander at will. In a country where +possessions were few and limited to essentials, those pages with their +intriguing cuts represented most of the highly desirable things in life. + +From the mail-order catalogs they ordered their stoves, most of their +farming implements, and later, when the contrast between the alluring +advertisements and the bleak shacks grew too strong for the women to +endure, fancy lamps for the table, and inexpensive odds and ends which +began to transform those rough barren houses into livable homes. + +Running a newspaper out here was, as Ma Wagor had predicted, a +"pestiferous" job. One day we hung the rubber roller out to dry and the +sun melted it flat. As a result Ada had to ride to McClure to borrow one +from _The Press_ before we could print the paper. There was no way to +get the ready-prints without making the long trip to Presho. Finally +every homesteader around Ammons who went to town stopped in at the +express office to get them for us. It was a multiplication of effort but +we generally got the prints. + +But, hard as it was, the work did not tire me as much as the mere +mechanical grind of the hammer-and-tongs work on _The Press_ had done. +Each day was so filled with new problems and new interests, so crammed +with activity, that we were carried along by the exhilaration of it. One +cannot watch an empire shoot up around him like Jack's beanstalk +without feeling the compulsion to be a part of that movement, that +growth. And the worst barrier we had to face had vanished--the initial +prejudice against two young girls attempting to take an active part in +the forward movement of the community. + +The obstacles of a raw country had no effect on Ada Long, our +fourteen-year-old helper. She came of a struggling family who had +settled on an alkali claim set back from everything until the Brulé +settlers had broken a trail past it. So Ada, finding herself in a new +moving world, was happy. With her long yellow braids hanging beneath a +man's straw hat, strong capable hands, and an easy stride, she went +about singing hymns as she worked, taking upon herself many tasks that +she was not called upon to perform. And Fred Farraday was taking much of +the heavy work of the print shop off our hands. + +Ma Wagor, too, was an invaluable help to us. "All my life I've wanted to +run a store," she admitted. "I like the confusement." Every morning she +came across the prairie sitting straight as a board in the old buggy +behind a spotted horse that held his head high and his neck stretched +like a giraffe. The few dollars she got for helping in the store eked +out Pa's small pension, which had been their only revenue. + +The commodities handled at the store had increased from coffee and +matches to innumerable supplies. The faithful team, Fan and Bill, were +kept on the road most of the time. We made business trips to Presho and +Pierre. Help was not always available, and there could be no waste +movements in a wasteland. On some of these trips we hitched the team to +the big lumber wagon and hauled out barrels of oil, flour, printers' ink +and other supplies for all and sundry of our enterprises. It had come to +that. + +"There go the Ammons sisters," people would say as the wagon started, +barrels rattling, down the little main street of Presho, off to the hard +trail home. + +Slim and straight and absurdly small, in trim shirt waists, big +sombreros tilted over our heads, we bounced along on the wagon, trying +to look as mature and dignified as our position of business women +demanded. + +"Those are the two Brulé girls who launched an attack on the Milwaukee +railroad," Presho people remarked. "Well, I'll be damned!" + +Once when I was too ill to leave Presho and we stayed for the night in a +little frame hotel, Doc Newman came in to look me over. + +"Do you girls get enough nourishing food?" he asked. + +"We eat up all the store profits," lamented Ida Mary. + +He laughed. "Keep on eating them up. And slow down." + +Pioneer women, old and new, went through many hardships and privations. +The sodbreakers' women over the Strip worked hard, but their greatest +strain was that of endurance rather than heavy labor. But refreshing +nights with the plains at rest and exhilarating morning air were the +restoratives. + +Hard and unrelieved as their lives were in many respects, gallantly as +they shouldered their part of the burden of homesteading, the women +inevitably brought one important factor into the homesteaders' lives. +They inaugurated some form of social life, and with the exchange of +visits, the impromptu parties, the informal gatherings, and the +politeness, the amenities they demanded--however modified to meet +frontier conditions--civilization came to stay. + +The instinct of women to build up the forms of social life is +deep-rooted and historically sound. Out of the forms grow traditions, +and from the traditions grow permanency, which is woman's only +protection. With the first conscious development of social life on the +Brulé, the Strip took on a more settled air. + +Meanwhile, out of the back-breaking labor the first results began to +appear. The sodbreakers were going to have a crop. And hay--hay to feed +their livestock and to sell. Everyone passing through the Strip stopped +to look at the many small fields and a few large ones dotting the +prairie. People came from other parts of the frontier to see the rapid +development which the Brulé had made. + +"Mein Gott in Himmel!" shouted old Mr. Husmann, pointing to a field of +oats. "Look at them oats. We get one hell of a crop for raw land." + +On the other side of us, Chris Christopherson's big field of flax was in +full bloom, like a blue flower garden. + +"I come by Ioway," Mr. Husmann went on, "when she was a raw country, and +I say, 'Mein Gott, what grass!' But I see no grass so high and rich like +this." + +The gardens matured late, as all growth on the western prairie does. The +seed which was sown on the sod so unusually late that year never would +have come up but for the soaking rains. Now there were lettuce, +radishes, onions and other things. One could not buy fresh green +vegetables anywhere in the homestead country, and they were like manna +from Heaven. It had been almost a year since Ida Mary and I had tasted +green foods. It is a curious paradox that people living on the land +depended for food or canned goods from the cities, and that the fresh +milk and cream and green vegetables associated with farm life were +unattainable. + +Most of the settlers lived principally on beans and potatoes with some +dried fruits, but we had bought canned fruits, oranges and apples, +pretending to ourselves that we would stock them for the store. Some of +the settlers could buy such foods in small quantities, for they had a +little money that first summer; but the Indians were our main customers +for the more expensive things, buying anything we wanted to sell them +when they got their government allowances. While their money lasted they +had no sales resistance whatever. + +This characteristic apparently wasn't peculiar to the Brulé Indians, but +was equally true of those in the Oklahoma reservation who boomed the +luxury trades when oil was discovered on their land. There it was no +uncommon sight to see a gaudy limousine parked outside a tepee and a +grand piano on the ground inside. + +But what the Indians didn't buy of these foods at forbidden costs we ate +ourselves, cutting seriously into our profits. And when Mrs. +Christopherson sent her little Heine over one day with a bucket of green +beans we almost foundered as animals do with the first taste of green +feed after a winter of dry hay. + +We had a few rows of garden east of our shack. I remember gathering +something out of it--lettuce and onions, probably, which grew abundantly +without any care. + +It was hot, and everybody on the Strip, worn out from strenuous weeks, +slowed down. The plains were covered with roses, wild roses trying to +push their heads above the tall grass. The people who had worked so +frantically, building houses, putting in crops, walked more slowly now, +stopped to talk and rest a little, and sit in the shade. They discovered +how tired they were, and the devitalizing heat added to the general +torpor. + +"It's this confusement," Ma Wagor said, "that's wore everybody out." She +was the only one on the Strip to continue at the same energetic pace. +"There ain't a bit of use wearing yourself out, trying to do the things +here the Almighty Himself hasn't got around to yet--flying right in the +face of the Lord, I says to myself sometimes." + +But in spite of the heat and the general weariness, the work was +unrelenting. The mail must be delivered regularly. The paper must be +printed. One day Ida Mary's voice burst in upon the clicking of type. + +"What are we going to do about the rattlesnakes?" she said tragically; +"they're taking the country." + +She was right. They were taking the reservation. They wriggled through +the tall grass making ribbon waves as they went. They coiled like a +rubber hose along the trails, crawled up to the very doors, stopped +there only by right-fitting screens. + +One never picked up an object without first investigating with a board +or stick lest there be a snake under it. It became such an obsession +that if anyone did pick up something without finding a snake under it he +felt as disappointed as if he had run to a fire and found it out when he +got there. + +On horseback or afoot one was constantly on the lookout for them. For +those gray coiled horrors were deadly. We knew that. There were plenty +of stories of people who heard that dry rattle, saw the lightning speed +of the strike and the telltale pricks on arm or ankle, and waited for +the inevitable agony and swift death. The snakes always sounded their +warning, the chilling rattle before they struck, but they rarely gave +time for escape. + +Sourdough stopped at the store one morning for tobacco. He had a pair of +boots tied to his saddle and when Ida Mary stepped to the door to hand +him the tobacco, a rattlesnake slithered out from one of the boots. He +jumped off his horse and killed it. + +"Damn my skin," Sourdough exclaimed, "and here I slept on them boots +last night for a pillow. I oughta stretched a rope." + +Plainsmen camping out made it a practice to stretch a rope around camp +or pallet as a barricade against snakes; they would not cross the hairy, +fuzzy rope, we were told. It may be true, but there was not a rope made +that I would trust to keep snakes out on that reservation. + +I remember camping out one night with a group of homesteaders. The +ground was carefully searched and a rope stretched before we turned in, +but it was a haggard, white-faced group which started back the next +morning. True, there hadn't been any rattlesnakes, but from the amount +of thinking about them that had been done that night, there might as +well have been. + +A young homesteader rushed into the print shop one day, white as a +sheet. "A snake," he gasped, "a big rattler across the trail in front of +the store." + +"What of it? Haven't you ever seen a snake before?" + +"Have I!" he replied dismally. "I saw them for six months back there in +Cleveland. But my snakes didn't rattle." + +Ours rattled. The rattle of the snake became as familiar as the song of +the bird. The settlers were losing livestock every day. Everyone was in +danger. With the hot dry weather they became bigger and thicker. The +cutting of great tracts of grass for hay stirred them into viperous +action. They were harder to combat than droughts and blizzards. Not many +regions were so thickly infested as that reservation. Those snakes are a +part of its history. + +"Couldn't be many in other regions," Olaf Rasmusson, an earnest young +farmer, said dryly; "they're all settled here." + +"Look out for snakes!" became the watchword on the Strip. + +Mrs. Christopherson's little Heine, a small, taciturn boy of five who +had become a daily, silent visitor at the store, came in one afternoon, +roused into what, for him, was a garrulous outburst: + +"There's a snake right out here, and I bet it's six feet long the way it +rattles." + +Ada grabbed a pole and tried to kill it. The monster struck back like +the cracking of a whip. She backed off and with her strong arm hit +again and again, while Ida Mary ran with a pitchfork. + +"Keep out of the way," shouted Ada, "you may get bitten!" + +Winded, Ada fanned herself with her straw hat and wiped the perspiration +from her face. "I got that fellow," she said triumphantly. + +This was one problem about which _The Wand_ seemed helpless. Printers' +ink would have no effect on the snakes, and if this horror were +published, the Strip would be isolated like a leper's colony. After +using so much ingenuity in building up the achievements of that +swift-growing country, the announcement of this plague of snakes might +undo all that had been accomplished. + +And the snakes increased. When Ida Mary was out of sight I worried +constantly. It was like one's fear for a person in battle, who may be +struck by a bullet at any moment. But the rattler was more surely fatal +when it struck than the bullet. + +Something had to be done. To Hades with what the world thought about our +having snakes! We had to do something that would bring relief from this +horror. We went to the old medicine men--John Yellow Grass, I think was +one of them--to find out how the Indians got rid of snakes. They didn't. +But at least they knew what to do when you had been bitten. The Indian +medicine men said to bleed the wound instantly, bandaging the flesh +tightly above and below to keep the poison from circulating. That was +the Indians' first-aid treatment; and, as a last resort, "suck the +wound." + +_The Wand_ printed warnings: "Bank your houses ... keep doors and +windows tightly screened ... keep a bottle of whisky close at hand.... +Carry vinegar, soda and bandages with you, and a sharp thin-bladed knife +to slash and bleed the wound." What a run there was on vinegar and +pocket knives! + +By this time the sight of a coiled rope made me jumpy and I dreamed of +snakes writhing, coiling, moving in undulating lines. At noon one day I +was alone, making up the paper. I stood at the form table working, when +I turned abruptly. A snake's slimy head was thrust through a big +knothole in the floor. Its beady eyes held me for a moment, as they are +said to hypnotize a bird. I could neither move nor scream. + +Then with a reflex action I threw an empty galley--an oblong metal tray +used to put the set type in--square over the hole. The snake moved so +quickly it missed the blow and lay under the floor hissing like an +engine letting off steam. It would have been in the print shop in +another second. The floor was laid on 2 × 4 inch scantlings, so there +was nothing to keep snakes from working their way under. It should have +been banked around the foundation with sod. + +The next day a homesteader's little girl was bitten. Oh, for serum! But +if there were any such life-saver on the market we had no way of getting +it. + +_The Wand_ called a meeting of the settlers and laid plans of warfare +against the snakes. The homesteaders organized small posses. And cowboys +and Indian bucks joined in that war against the reptiles. + +They killed them by the dozens in every conceivable manner. The cowboys +were always telling about shooting their heads off, and they said the +Indians used an arrow, spearing them in the neck just back of the head. +They never let one get away if they could help it. Some of them claimed +they picked up rattlesnakes by the tails and cracked their heads off. + +The snakes wintered in the prairie-dog holes, but I never heard of a +prairie dog being bitten by one of them. On warm days in late fall the +snakes came out of the holes and lay coiled thick on the ground, sunning +themselves, while the little dogs sat up on their hind legs and yipped +in their squeaky voices. The settlers and cowboys invaded the dog towns +and killed off the snakes by the hundred. Dog towns were the tracts +where the prairie dogs made their homes. During the intensive snake war, +a homesteader came from one of the big prairie-dog towns to take us over +to look at the kill. + +There, strung on wires, hung more than a hundred huge, horrid rattlers, +many of them still wriggling and twisting and coiling like a thrown +lariat. + +It seems too bad the snakeskin industry of today missed that bonanza of +supply, and that science did not make a more general use of rattlesnake +serum at that time. The settlers would have made some easy money and +science would have got serum in unlimited quantity. + +This is a gruesome subject. The constant, lurking menace of the snakes +was one of the hardest things the frontier had to endure, harder than +drought or blizzard, but in one way and another we came through. + +Instead of _The Wand's_ campaign against snakes injuring the Strip it +created a great deal of interest, and people said we were "subduing the +frontier." + +Easy? Oh, yes; easy as falling off a log. + +[Illustration] + + + + +IX + +THE OPENING OF THE ROSEBUD + + +The settling of those western lands was as elemental as the earth, and +no phase of its settlement was as dramatic as the opening of the +Rosebud. Homesteading was now the biggest movement in America. We were +entering a great period of land development running its course between +1909 and our entrance into the World War in 1917. The people were land +crazy. The western fever became an epidemic that spread like a prairie +fire. Day by day we watched the vast, voluntary migration of a people. + +Men with families to support, frail women with no one to help them, few +of them with money enough to carry them through, took the chance, with +the odds against them. I have seen men appear with their families, ten +dollars in their pockets, or only five after the filing fee on the land +was paid. I have seen them sleep on the prairie, get odd jobs here and +there until they could throw up a shelter out of scrap lumber, and +slowly get a foothold, often becoming substantial citizens of a +community they helped to build. + +Free land! Free land! It was like the tune piped by the Pied Piper. +"This is the chance for the poor man," I wrote in _The Wand_. "When the +supply of free land is exhausted the poor man cannot hope to own +land.... If the moneyed powers get hold of this cheap land as an +investment, they will force the price beyond the grasp of the masses.... +The West is the reserve upon which the future growth and food supply of +the nation must depend." + +Ida Mary said that I was running to land as a Missourian did to mules, +but _The Wand_ was fast becoming identified with the land movement. + +As the homesteaders flowed in a great sea out of the towns and cities +into the West, one wondered at their courage. There was not the hope +which inspires a gold rush, the possibility of a gold strike which may +bring sudden wealth and ease. The road was long, the only likely signs +of achievement an extra room on the shack, a few more acres of ground +turned under. And--eventual security! That was it, security. A piece of +ground that belonged to them, on which they could plant their feet, +permanency. + +In answer to that cry for land there came another proclamation from the +President, Theodore Roosevelt. Another great tract of land, the great +Rosebud Indian Reservation, with a million acres of homesteads, was to +be thrown open. A lottery with 1500 square miles of territory as the +sweepstakes and 100,000 people playing its wheel of fortune. Trying to +describe its size and sweep and significance, I find myself, in the +vernacular of the range, plumb flabbergasted. + +Of course, there were some among the homesteaders on the Lower Brulé who +found the grass greener on the Rosebud, and wanted to throw up their +claims and move on to new ground; but the government informed them, +somewhat grimly, that they could prove up where they were, or not at +all. And I can understand their restlessness. To this day I never hear +of some new frontier being developed without pricking up my ears and +quivering like a circus horse when he hears a band play. There are some +desert products that can't be rooted out--sagebrush and cactus and the +hold of the open spaces. + +The Rosebud Opening was one of the most famous lotteries of them all. +The Rosebud reservation lay in Tripp County, across White River from the +Brulé. Its conversion into homesteads meant an immediate income for the +United States Treasury, but according to a recent law, all monies +received from the sale of the lands were to be deposited to the credit +of the Indians belonging to and having tribal rights on the reservation, +the funds thus acquired to be used by Congress for the education, +support and civilization of the Indians. + +The name Rosebud was emblazoned across the nation, after the government +proclamation, in the newspapers, in railroad pamphlets, on public +buildings. As usual, the railroads played a major part in aiding +prospective settlers to reach the registration points, a half-dozen +little western villages. + +The frontier town of Pierre had been unprepared for the avalanche of +people who had descended upon it during the Lower Brulé opening. Service +and equipment had been inadequate. In the great Bonesteel Opening a few +years earlier, gambling and lawlessness had run riot. Therefore +Superintendent Witten formulated and revised the drawing system, +endeavoring to work out the most suitable plan for disposing of these +tracts so that there might be no suggestion of unfairness. + +Railroads traversing the West had already begun to extend their lines +still farther into the little-populated section, starting new towns +along their lines, running landseekers' excursions in an effort to show +the people what this country had to offer them. + +In preparation for the Rosebud Opening they prepared for the influx of +people on a gigantic scale, made ready to take whole colonies from +various sections of the East and Middle West to the reservation. + +Among the registration points was the little town of Presho. A crude, +unfinished little town, with a Wild West flavor about it, Presho +couldn't help doing things in a spectacular fashion. Like most hurriedly +built frontier towns, there was little symmetry to it--two irregular +rows of small business places, most of them one-story structures, with +other shops and offices set back on side streets. Its houses were set +hit-and-miss, thickly dotting the prairie around its main street. Two +years before, it had been merely an unsettled stretch of prairie. + +Then the Milwaukee railroad platted the town, bringing out carloads of +people to the auction. Two men, named Dirks and Sedgwick, paid $500 for +the first lot, on which to start a bank. That was $480 more than the +list price. + +They had a little building like a sheep wagon, or a cook shack, on +wheels, which they rolled onto the lot. Within eight minutes the bank +was open for business. The first deposit, in fact, was made while the +sheep-wagon bank rolled along. Two barrels and a plank served as a +counter. + +The two founders had the necessary $5000 capital, and when the cashier +went to dinner he took all the money with him, with two six-shooters for +protection. He was never robbed. For two years, during the land boom, +the bank had not closed, day or night. + +Locators coming in, in the middle of the night, from their long trips +over the territory, would knock on the door in the back end of the bank. +The banker would open the door a crack, stick his gun out and demand, +"Who's there?" + +"It's Kimball. Got a bunch of seekers here. They have to catch the train +east." + +The locator or other person wanting to transact business after the +banker had gone to bed had to identify himself before the door was +opened. When the homestead movement of that region was at its height, +thousands of dollars passed over the board-and-barrel counter in the +bank's night-time business. + +"The Rosebud has been throwed open!" went the cry. The entire western +country made ready for the invasion of the landseekers. The government +red tape for the lottery, with its various registration points, would +require a small army to handle. It was one of the most gigantic +governmental programs ever known. Notaries had to be appointed to take +care of the affidavits, land locators selected to show the seekers the +land, accommodations provided for the 115,000 who registered in that +Drawing. + +Even the Brulé was crowded with people ready to play their luck in the +land lottery. Every available corner was utilized for sleeping space, +and the store at Ammons did a record business that would help pay the +wholesale bills at Martin's store. Ida Mary was busy taking care of +postal duties, handling increased mail, government notices, etc. + +During the summer our financial condition had gone from bad to worse. + +"Do you know those Ammons girls?" one native westerner asked another. +"Came out from St. Louis, about as big as my Annie (Annie was about +twelve); head wranglers out on the Lower Brulé, newspaper, trading post, +whole works." + +"Well, they'll last till their money is gone." + +And it was about gone! "What are we going to do to meet these payments, +Edith?" Ida Mary asked one day in a breathing spell. There wasn't enough +money to pay for groceries, printing equipment, interest, etc. + +If we could only hold on, the proof notices would bring in $2000 or +more, which was big money out there. But the proof season was almost a +year ahead, and the money had already been pledged. + +Profit and loss! My head ached. I felt as though I had been hit on the +head by 200 square miles of Brulé sod. Ma Wagor offered us a way out of +one of our difficulties. She'd always wanted a store. She liked the +"confusement." So we turned the store over to the Wagors', lock, stock +and barrel--prunes and molasses, barrels of coal-oil and vinegar, +padlocks on the doors. They had no money, but Ma wanted it as much as we +wanted to be rid of it, so it was a satisfactory deal. They were to pay +us on a percentage basis. We still had a claim, a post office and a +newspaper to manage, and the Indian trade to handle. + +"It looks as though the Ammons venture is going under," people were +beginning to say. I went to Presho and the small towns near by, and, +somewhat to my own surprise, succeeded in getting more advertising for +_The Wand_. But it wasn't enough. + +One night I came home, determined that something must be done. The whole +arrangement seemed to me unfair to Ida Mary. "Sister," I said, "I'm +going to give up the claim." + +She quietly put down her book, open so as not to lose the page, and +waited for me to go on. + +"I told Mr. West today that we would sell. I am going to pay off the +mortgage on your homestead, clean up the other debts, and--" + +"And then what?" + +"I don't know." + +"Don't give up your land, Edith. Something will happen. Something +always happens." She went back to her book. + +Something did happen. The Rosebud Opening. I was to cover it for a +western newspaper syndicate, and this time I had the inside track. Being +familiar with the field and with the government lottery operations, I +would be able to get my stories out while other reporters were finding +out what it was all about. + +Remembering the money I had made with the little verses printed on a +postcard at the Brulé Opening, I prepared another on the Rosebud, with +the cartoonist from Milwaukee helping me by making drawings to +illustrate it. Then, armed with the postcards, I set off for Presho--and +the Rosebud. + +On a Sunday night in early October, 1908, I stood on a corner of the +dark main street of Presho waiting for the Rosebud to open. I had +appointed agents to handle my postcards and I was free to cover the +story. Special trains loaded with landseekers were coming. The confusion +of last-minute preparations to receive them was at its height. + +I found Presho as mad as a hornet. The Milwaukee railroad had taken the +turntable out, and special trains coming in from Chicago and other +points east must thus go on to the next town to turn around. This was +bound to cut into Presho's share of the crowds. As long as the town had +been the turning point of the road, it was one of the greatest trade +centers in that part of the West. + +The lottery was to start Monday, which meant the stroke of midnight. The +little town was ready, its dark streets lighted here and there by +flaring arc lights. Up and down Main Street, and out over the fields, +tents had been erected to take care of the crowd. + +And the trains were coming in, unloading their human cargo. Others +poured in by every conceivable means of transportation, invading the +little frontier town, the only spot of civilization in the vast, bare +stretch of plains. Presho woke to find a great drove of tenderfeet +stampeding down its little Main Street. They thundered down the board +sidewalk and milled in the middle of the road, kicking up dust like a +herd of range cattle as they went. + +Aside from the great tents put up by some of the towns for lodging and +eating quarters, small tents dotted the outskirts. People were bringing +their own camping equipment, and I might add that only those who had +such foresight, slept during those turbulent days. + +The daily train was an event in these frontier towns, its coming watched +by most of the inhabitants. Now five and six a day roared in, spilled +500 to 800 passengers into the packed streets, and roared away again. As +the heavily loaded trains met or passed each other along the route the +excited crowds called jovially to one another, "Suckers! Suckers!" With +but 4000 claims, the chance to win was slim. + +On the station platform, in the thick of the crowds, were the Indians. +After all, it appeared, they were learning from the white man. This time +they had come in an enlightened and wholly commercial spirit. Brave in +paint and feathers and beads, they strolled about, posing for the +landseekers--for 50 cents a picture. + +A maze of last-minute activity was under way before the stroke of +midnight. Telephone companies installed additional equipment and +service. Telegraph wires were being strung up. Expert men were being +rushed out from Kansas City and Omaha to take care of the flood of words +that would soon go pouring out to the nation--telling the story of the +gamble for land. + +A magazine editor, notebook in hand, moved from one group of seekers to +another, asking: "Do you think Taft will be elected?" He didn't seem to +be getting far. On the eve of a presidential election a people was +turning to the soil for security. "Do you think Taft will be elected?" +the editor repeated patiently. "Who gives a damn?" shouted a steel +worker from Philadelphia. + +A train lumbered in heavily from Chicago, fourteen coaches, crowded to +standing room only, men and women herded and tagged like sheep. They +stumbled out onto the dark platform, jostled among the mob already +assembled, exhausted, dirty, half-asleep, yet shaking with excitement. +That high-pitched excitement, of course, was partly due to strain and +suspense, partly to the gambling spirit in which the lottery was carried +out. But for the most part the crowd generated its own excitement +through its great numbers and consequent rivalry, as it entered the dark +streets with their glaring lights, the mad confusion of shouting and +band playing. + +They came from Chicago and jerkwater towns in Nebraska, from farms and +steel mills, from the stage and the pulpit. School teachers and farm +boys, clerks and stenographers, bookkeepers and mechanics, business men +and lawyers. Perhaps the most significant thing was the presence of +those business men, often coming in whole groups to study the country +and its possibilities, to be on hand when the town sites were opened, to +be the first to start businesses on the Rosebud. + +On the Brulé there had been nothing but the land. Here the plows, the +farm implements, salesmen of every conceivable commodity needed by +settlers, were on hand. These people were to start with supplies in +sight, with business organizing in advance to handle their problems, +with capital waiting for their needs. + +And they came by the thousands. From Chicago alone there came one group +of 3000 seekers. "Move on," came the endless chant. "Move on!" It didn't +matter where, so long as they kept moving, making way for new mobs of +restless people. "Move on!" + +Wires were clicking with news from the other registration points. +Presho, to its fury, couldn't compare with some of the other towns. The +little town of Dallas had gone stark mad. Thirty-four carloads of +seekers were due in these villages between midnight and morning. They +were coming from every direction, bringing, along with the individual +seekers, whole groups of New England farmers, Iowa business men, an +organization of clerks from Cleveland, and from everywhere the +ruddy-faced farmers. + +Over the uproar of the crowd could be heard the sharp staccato click of +the telegraph wires. Special trains were coming from Omaha, came the +news. The police force had tried to keep the crowds from smothering each +other, but they had torn down the gate of the station and rushed +through, afraid to be left behind. + +Runners came overland across the empty Rosebud to carry the news from +the little towns, riding hell-for-leather, their horses foaming although +the night was cold. "You ought to see Dallas, folks! People lighting +like grasshoppers.... You ought to see Gregory!" The rivalry was bitter +among the towns, each trying to corner as much of the crowd as possible. + +Presho was sending out word vehemently denying the reports that an +epidemic of black smallpox had broken out there. + +Men representing everything from flop tents to locating agents boarded +trains en route, trying to persuade the seekers to register at their +respective towns. And all of them were bitter against the railroads, +which were furnishing return accommodations every few hours, giving the +tradesmen little chance to make their fortunes, as many of them had +confidently expected to do. + +Automobiles, many bought for the occasion, lined the streets of these +border towns, ready to take the seekers over the land--if they stayed +long enough. It surprised the easterners, this evidence of modernity in +a pioneer world. And here and there a new automobile parked beside a +prairie schooner. + +Curiously enough, the price of the land distributed by the Openings was +higher than that of vast tracts of untouched land in the West which was +also available to the public, and yet attention was concentrated solely +on the Rosebud; the desire for land there was at fever heat, while other +land was regarded with apathy. Whether this was due to the fact that the +other land was little known, or to the madness that attends any gambling +operation and the intensive advertising which had called attention to +the Rosebud, I do not know. + +But this land was not free. For these Indian lands the government +charged from $2.00 to $6.00 an acre, according to classification. Thus +160 acres of first-class land would cost the homesteader around a +thousand dollars--one-fifth down, the rest in annual payments under the +five-year proof plan. If he made commutation proof in fourteen months, +the minimum residence required, he must then make payment in full. + +The hours wore on toward midnight and the crowd grew denser. "Move on," +droned the chant. "Move on!" The editor had turned the page of his +notebook and spoke to one of the women landseekers. "Are you a +suffragette?" he asked politely. Pushing back an elbow that had grazed +her cheek, pulling her hat firmly over her head, clutching her handbag +firmly, she looked at him, wonderingly. "Are you--" he began again, but +someone shouted "Move on," and the woman disappeared in the throng. + +At the stroke of midnight a cry went up from the registrars. At 12:01 +under the dim flicker of coal-oil lanterns and torches hung on posts or +set on barrels and boxes, that most famous of lotteries began. + +The uproar and confusion of the hours before midnight were like a desert +calm compared with the clamor which broke out. Registrars lined both +sides of the street. "Right this way, folks! Here you are, here you are! +Register right here!" And there, on rough tables, on dry-goods boxes, +anything upon which a piece of paper could be filled out and a notary +seal stamped thereon, the crowd put in their applications as entries in +the gamble, raised their right hands and swore: "I do solemnly swear +that I honestly desire to enter public lands for my own personal use as +a home and for settlement and cultivation, and not for speculation or in +the interest of some other person...." + +In the excitement and chill of the October night, fingers shook so that +they could scarcely hold a pen. Commissioned notaries were getting 25 +cents a head from the applicants. Real estate offices were jammed. + +In between the registration stands were the hot-dog and coffee booths +with the tenders yelling, while thick black coffee flowed into tin cups +by the barrel, and sandwiches were handed out by the tubful. Popcorn and +peanut venders pushed through the crowd crying their wares. And among +the voices were those of the agents who were selling my postcards, +selling them like liniment in a patent-medicine show. + +Spielers shouted the virtues of the food or drink or tent or land +locator they were advertising. Even the notaries got megaphones to +announce their services--until government authorities stepped in and +threatened to close them all up. + +Into the slits in the huge cans which held the applications dropped a +surprising number of items. People became confused and used it as a mail +box, dropping in souvenir cards. One applicant even dropped in his +return fare. And some, shaking uncontrollably with excitement, were +barely able to drop their applications in at all. + +And somewhere, off in the dark spaces beyond the flickering lights, lay +the million acres of land for which the horde was clamoring, its quiet +sleep unbroken. + +There was a sharp tug at my arm, and I turned to see the reporter from +Chicago who had filed on the Brulé Opening. + +"I'm trying my luck again," he said. + +So he had not won in the Brulé lottery. Somehow I was glad to know that +was the reason for his not being on a claim there. + +Sensing this, he said grimly: "So you thought I was a quitter." + +As we clung to each other to keep from being separated in the hysterical +mob, I heard his hollow cough. + +"Are you ill?" I asked. + +"It's this crowd and the dust--my lungs--got to come west--" + +I grabbed him by the coat sleeve, trying to make my voice carry above +the ballyhoo. "If you do not win here, come and see me. I can get you a +claim." The swaying throng separated us. + +I rushed to the telegraph office and sent off my story. As I started +back I stopped to look upon the little town which had been started at +the end of the iron trail, revealed in the light of torches against a +black sky, and at the faces, white and drawn and tense. + +Move on! Move on! At 4 o'clock that Monday morning, four hours after +arrival, the landseekers who had registered were on the road back to +Chicago and all points east, many of them carrying in one hand a chunk +of sod and in the other a tuft of grass--tangible evidence that they had +been on the land. And other trains were rushing out, carrying more +people. I boarded a returning special which was packed like a freight +train full of range cattle, men and women travel-stained, tired and +hollow-eyed, but geared up by hope. + +I got off at Chamberlain. The rumors had been correct. That seething mob +at Presho was only the spray cast by the tidal wave. At Chamberlain +long, heavily loaded trains pulled in and out. People walked ten and +twelve abreast through the streets. Some 30,000 strangers besieged that +frontier town. A mob of 10,000 tried to fill out application blanks, +tried to get something to eat and drink, some place to sleep. While the +saloons were overrun, there was little drunkenness. No man could stand +at the bar long enough to get drunk. If he managed to get one drink, or +two at most, he was pushed aside before he could get another--to make +room for someone else. Move on! Move on! + +The stockmen were shocked. They had not dreamed of anything like this +invasion. Their range was going and they owned none, or little, of the +land. The old Indians looked on, silent and morose. + +Hotels, locating agents, all the First Chance and Last Chance saloons +became voluntary distributors of my postcards. It looked as though I too +were going to reap a harvest from the Rosebud Opening. + +And they continued to come! Within four days 60,000 people had made +entry, and the trains continued to pull in and out, loaded to the doors. +Unlike the Lower Brulé Opening, there was no dreary standing in line for +hours, even days, at a time. The seekers passed down the line like +rapidly inspected herds. + +And among them, inevitably, came the parasites who live on +crowds--gamblers, crooks, sharks, pickpockets, and the notorious women +who followed border boom towns. The pioneer towns were outraged, and +every citizen automatically became a peace officer, shipping the crooks +out as fast as they were discovered. They wouldn't, they declared +virtuously, tolerate anything but "honest" gambling. And their own +gambling rooms continued to run twenty-four hours a day. + +In spite of precautions, not a few of the trusting folk from farms and +small towns to whom this event was a carnival affair found themselves +shorn like sheep at shearing time before they knew what was happening. +One farm boy lost not only all his money but his fine team and wagon as +well. A carnival it was, of course, in some respects. Amusement stands, +in tents or shacks, lined the streets and never closed. Warnings came by +letter to Superintendent Witten, describing crooks who were on their way +to the Rosebud. + +Motion pictures ran day and night, their ballyhoo added to the outcries +of the other barkers. And the registration never stopped. Clerks and +others employed as assistants by the government were hired in four-hour +shifts. Post offices stayed open all night. + +The government's headquarters were at Dallas, with a retinue of +officials in charge. Thus the little town at the end of the North +Western Railroad was the Mecca of that lottery. There the hysterical mob +spirit appeared. And one day in the midst of the Opening, a prairie fire +broke out, sweeping at forty miles an hour over the land the people had +come to claim, sweeping straight toward Dallas. The whole town turned +out to fight it--it had to. The Indians pitched in to help. And the +tenderfeet, including reporters and photographers from the big city +newspapers, turned fire fighters, fighting to save the town. + +In spite of their efforts the fire reached the very borders of the town, +destroying a few buildings. And at the sight of the flames the +government employees caught up the great cans which contained the +seekers' applications for the land and rushed them out of town toward +safety. That day the cans contained 80,000 applications. + +That great, black, charred area extending for miles over the prairie put +a damper on the spirits of the locating agents. But these people had +come for land, and they were not to be daunted. All over the great +reservation groups could be seen investigating the soil, digging under +the fire-swept surface, driving on into the regions of tall grass and +scattered fields bordering the Rosebud. They were hoping to win a piece +of that good earth. + +As the close of the registration drew near, the excitement was +intensified. Letters to Superintendent Witten poured in, asking him to +hold back claims for people who were unable to register. The +registration closed on October 17, 1908. No registrations would be +accepted after a certain hour. Captain Yates, assistant superintendent +of the Opening, started from O'Neill, Nebraska, bearing the applications +from that registration point. So that there would be no danger of his +not reaching the town of Dallas with the applications before the +deadline, a special train was waiting for him. In his excitement Captain +Yates rushed past the men waiting for him, crossed the track where his +special was getting up steam, and took a train going the wrong way! +Telegrams, another special train, cleared tracks--and he was finally +able to rush in with his applications at the last moment. + +Others were not so fortunate. Tired horses, a missed train connection, +some unforeseen delay, and they arrived an hour, half an hour, perhaps +only a few minutes after the registration had closed. Too late! + +Oddly enough, one of the last to register was the foreman of the U Cross +Ranch, who came galloping across the prairie at the last moment to make +his application for a homestead. And when a ranchman turned to +homesteading, that was news! + +On October 19 the Drawing began. The government saw that every +precaution must be taken to make sure of fair play; any suspicion of +illegality might cause an uprising of the mob of a hundred thousand +excited, disappointed people. + +The great cans were pried open, and the applications put onto large +platforms, where they were shuffled and mixed--symbolically enough with +rakes and hoes--for it was quarter-sections of land they were handling. + +From out the crowd applicants were invited onto the platform, and if one +succeeded in selecting his own name he would be entitled to the first +choice of land and location. Business firms, townsite companies were +making open offers of $10,000 for Claim No. 1. Then two little girls, +blindfolded, drew the sealed envelopes from the deep pile. +Superintendent Witten opened them and announced the names to the crowd +filling the huge tent where the Drawing was held. + +The hushed suspense of that Drawing was like that of a regiment waiting +to go over the top. The noisy excitement of registration was over. The +people waited, tense and breathless, for the numbers to be called. +Ironically enough, a great number of the winners had gone home. They +would be notified by mail, of course. It was largely the losers who had +waited. + +The first winner to be present as his number was called was greeted with +generous applause and cheers and demands for a speech. He was a farmer +from Oklahoma, and instead of speaking, he felt in his pockets and held +up, with a rather sheepish smile, a rabbit's foot which he had brought +with him. Press agents stood by, waiting for the outcome. Daily +newspapers printed the official list of the winners as the numbers came +out, and all over the United States people waited for the announcement +of the Rosebud's Lucky Numbers. The Rosebud had been opened up and +swallowed by the advancing wave of people westward. But there was more +land! + +Fred Farraday drove me home from Presho, weary to the bone, and content +to ride without speaking, listening to the steady clop-clop of the +horses over that quiet road on which we did not meet a human being. And +in my pocketbook $400, the proceeds from the sale of the postcards. +Something, as Ida Mary had predicted, had happened. + +Ma Wagor came in from the store. "Land sakes," she exclaimed, "you musta +been through some confusement! You look like a ghost." + +It didn't matter. "I have four hundred dollars. There will be another +hundred or so when the agents finish checking up on the card sales, and +I'll get a check from the News Service. It will pay the bills, and some +left over to help us through the winter. We've saved the claim." + +After a pause I added, "The Lower Brulé seems pretty small after the +Rosebud. I'd like to go over there to start a newspaper." + +"No," said Ida Mary. "You can't do that. Your claim and your newspaper +and your job are here. After all, anyone can file on a claim. It's the +people who stay who build the country." + +[Illustration] + + + + +X + +THE HARVEST + + +I was pony-expressing the mail home one day when I saw a great eagle, +with wings spread, flying low and circling around as though ready to +swoop upon its prey. It was noon on a late fall day with no sight or +sound of life except that mammoth eagle craftily soaring. I turned off +the trail to follow its flight. It was the kind of day when one must +ride off the beaten trail, when the sun is warm, the air cool and +sparkling; even Lakota seemed like a stodgy animal riveted to the earth, +and the only proper motion was that of an eagle soaring. + +Abruptly the eagle swooped down into the coulee out of sight and came up +a hundred yards or so in front of me, carrying with it a large bulky +object. At the same instant a shot rang out, the eagle fell, and its +bulky prey came down with a thud. + +So intent was I upon the eagle that I was not prepared for what +happened. At the shot Lakota gave a leap to the right and I went off to +the left. I had no more than landed when a rider, whom I had seen lope +up out of the coulee as the eagle fell, had my horse by the bit and was +bending over me. + +"Hurt?" he asked. + +"I don't think so. Just scared," I replied as I got stiffly to my feet. +The soft, thick grass had provided a cushioned landing place and saved +my bones. + +The stranger took a canteen from his saddle and gave me a drink of +water; led the horses up to form a shade against the bright noon sun, +and bade me sit quiet while he went back to see what the eagle had +swooped down upon. + +"A young coyote, just a pup," he announced upon his return. "I'm glad I +got that fellah. They are an awful pest." It was a big bird with an +eight-foot stretch from wing tip to tip as measured by this plainsman's +rule--his hands. "They carry away lambs and attack new-born calves," he +said. "They attack people sometimes, but that is rare." + +He helped me on my horse. "All my fault. Couldn't see you from down in +the coulee when I fired at that bird. You musta just tipped the ridge +from the other side." He reached over, untied the mail bag and tied it +to his saddle. + +"You were going the other way, weren't you?" I protested. + +"No hurry. I'll go back with you first." + +"You don't know where I live, do you?" + +"Yes, I know," he said laconically. He was a young man--I took him to be +under thirty--with a sort of agile strength in every movement. Lean, +virile, his skin sunburnt and firm. He wore a flannel shirt open at the +throat, buckskin chaps, a plainsman's boots, and his sombrero was worn +at an angle. He made no attempt to be picturesque as did many of the +range riders. + +As the horses started off at an easy gallop he checked them. "Better go +slow after that shake-up," he said quietly. + +"I must hurry," I answered. "I'm late with the mail." + +"These homesteaders are always in a rush. Shore amusin'. Act like the +flood would be here tomorrow and no ark built." He spoke in a soft, +southern drawl. + +"They have to do more than build an ark," I told him. "They have to make +time count. The country is too new to accomplish anything easily." + +"Too old, you mean. These plains have been hyar too long for a little +herd of humans to make 'em over in a day." + +"We have fourteen months to do it in," I reminded him, referring to the +revised proving-up period. + +"You'll be mighty sore and stiff for a few days," he said as he laid the +mail sack down on the floor; "sorry, miss, I scared your horse," and +touching his ten-gallon hat he was gone. + +"Where did _he_ hail from?" Ma Wagor demanded from the store where she +had been watching. + +"He's not from Blue Springs, Ma." + +"I declare you are as tormentin' as an Indian when it comes to finding +out things," Ma exclaimed in disappointment. She couldn't understand +how I could have ridden any distance with the man without learning all +about his present, guessing at his past, and disposing of his future to +suit myself. People, as Ma frequently pointed out, were made to be +talked to. + +Just before sunset one day a week or so later I was sitting in the shop +when the cowboy walked in. "Got to thinkin' you might be hurt worse than +you appeared to be." He said he was top hand, had charge of a roundup +outfit over in the White River country some fifty miles away, and some +of the stock had roamed over on the reservation. Name was Lone +Star--Lone Star Len. + +And then one gray, chilly day in November, with the first feathery +snowflakes, he rode up on his cow pony to say good-by. He was leaving +the country, taking a bunch of cattle down to Texas for winter range. He +was glad to be going. "Don't see how folks can live huddled up with +somebody on every quarter-section. Homesteaders is ruinin' the country, +makin' it a tore-up place to live. It's too doggone lonesome with all +this millin' around." + +When the Brulé became populated, Lone Star Len had gone into the empty +Rosebud country, "where I'm not hemmed in by people, some place where +there's a little room." Now he would be driven on--and on. And in the +spring there would be a new influx of people in our section of the +frontier. + +Meanwhile, fall had come. The plains, which had stretched to the horizon +that spring untouched by a plow, unoccupied by white men, were now +unrecognizable. A hundred thousand acres of fertile waste land had been +haltered. Hundreds of settlers had transplanted their roots into this +soil and had made it a thriving dominion. Fall rains filled the dams and +creeks. There were potatoes and other vegetables in abundance. + +Think of it! Caves full of melons, small but sweet. _The Wand_ told of +one small field that yielded twenty bushels of wheat, another twenty-two +bushels of oats, to the acre. There was fall plowing of more ground, +schools being established, Sunday schools, preparations for the winter +already in progress. + +Never had a raw primitive land seen such progress in so short a time. +And _The Wand_ had played a substantial part in this development. It was +swamped with letters of inquiry. + +Fall was roundup time on the range. The Indian lands were so +far-reaching that there were no nearby ranches, but the herds ranged +over miles of territory around us. + +And across the fence, on the unceded strip, the great herds of Scotty +Phillips's outfit roamed over his own and the Indians' holdings. Across +the plains came the ceaseless bawling of thousands of cows and calves +being separated. That wild, mad, pitiful bawling rent the air and could +be heard through the stillness of night for miles around, and the +yelling and whooping of cowboys, the stamping of cow ponies and herds, +the chanting and tom-toms of the Indians. + +And enveloping it all, the infinite plains, unmoved, undisturbed by all +that was taking place upon them. + +So the homesteaders gathered their first harvest, and the goose hung +high. There was hay--great stacks and ricks of it. Piles of yellow corn +stacked like hay in barbed-wire enclosures or in granaries. To +commemorate that first golden harvest, the pilgrims of the Lower Brulé +celebrated their first Thanksgiving. + +Seeing the stacks of grain that stood ready for threshing or for feeding +in the straw, old man Husmann pointed to the field. "Mein Gott in +Himmel! Vat I tell you? Das oats made t'irty bushels an acre. And flax. +Mein Gott! She grow on raw land like hair on a hog's back. Back in Ioway +we know notings about flax for sod crop." Dakota taught the United +States that flax was the ideal sod crop. + +The average yield of oats with late and slipshod sowing had been around +fifteen bushels to the acre. Some fields of spring wheat had run fifteen +bushels. And potatoes had fairly cracked the ground open. One settler, +an experienced potato grower, had four acres that yielded 300 bushels. +_The Wand_ played that up in headlines for easterners to see. + +Late-ripened melons lay on the ground, green and yellow--watermelons, +muskmelons, golden pumpkins ready for the Thanksgiving pie. Over the +Strip women and children were gathering them in against a sudden freeze. +The reservation fairly subsisted on melons that fall. Before the harvest +the rations had been getting slim, with the settlers' money and food +supply running low. + +Women dried corn, made pumpkin butter and watermelon pickles, and put up +chokecherries. A number of them had grown in their gardens a fruit they +called ground cherries. This winter there would be baked squash and +pumpkin pie. + +So there was food for man and beast. And Scotty Phillips who owned what +was said to be the largest buffalo herd in America killed a buffalo and +divided it among the settlers, as far as it would go, to add to the +Thanksgiving cheer of the Brulé. There was a genuine sense of fruition +about that first harvest. Looking back to the empty plains as they had +stretched that spring, the accomplishments of the homesteaders in one +brief summer were overwhelming. There had been nothing but the land. Now +a community had grown up, with houses and schools, and the ground had +yielded abundantly. + +In other ways our efforts had also borne fruit. There was to be a new +bridge at Cedar Creek. From the fight _The Wand_ had carried on, one +would think that we were boring a Moffat tunnel through the Great +Divide. And _The Wand_ fought a successful battle with John Bartine over +county division. It had come about when Senator Phillips came by one day +during the summer on his way from Pierre to his ranch. "Scotty" +Phillips, senator, cattleman and business man, was one of the Dakotas' +most influential citizens. A heavyset man he was, with an unconscious +dignity and a strong, kindly face; a squaw man--his wife was a +full-blooded Indian who had retained many of her tribal habits. One day +one would see the Senator ride past in his big automobile, and the next +day his wife would go by, riding on the floor of the wagon on the way to +the reservation to visit her relatives. + +"I stopped in to see if you wanted to go to the county division meeting +tomorrow at Presho," Senator Phillips said. "It's a rather important +matter to the settlers. _The Wand_ will represent those of the Lower +Brulé, of course." + +What was county division? We set out the next morning to find out. The +county, it appeared, was becoming so thickly settled that the people of +the western part wanted it divided, with a county seat of their own. We +learned that Lyman County covered approximately 2500 square miles and +the settlers of the extreme western part were 110 miles from the county +seat, with no means of transportation. It sounded reasonable enough, and +_The Wand_ backed those who wanted county division. + +The speaker for that little meeting was a slight and unassuming young +man who was greeted with cheers. + +"Who is he?" I asked Senator Phillips. + +"Why that," he said, "is John Bartine!" + +John Bartine was one of the most noted and romantic figures of the +western plains. He had come west with a few law books packed in his +trunk and no money, a young tenderfoot lawyer. He almost starved waiting +for a case. There were no law cases, no real legal difficulties but +cattle rustling, and nothing, apparently, that an inexperienced young +easterner could do about that. But he persuaded stockmen who were being +wiped out by the depredations of the rustlers to let him take their +cases against these outlaw gangs. He had himself elected judge so that +he could convict the thieves. And he had convicted them right and left +until a band of rustlers burned down the courthouse in retaliation. But +he kept on fighting, at the risk of his own life, until at last that +part of the country became safe for the cattlemen. + +After we had heard him talk we discovered that the county division +problem was not as simple as it appeared at first. It wasn't merely a +problem of dividing territory; division would increase the taxes, the +non-divisionists said. + +We hadn't thought of that. One did not pay taxes on the land, of course, +until he got his deed, but there were other taxes to be paid, and the +homesteaders felt they were developing resources for the nation at their +own expense. + +I did not know how to carry on a campaign like that, but _The Wand_ put +facts and figures before the settlers, to bring the situation clearly +before them and let them do the deciding. When a frontier newspaper ran +out of something to do, it could always enter a county division fight, +as there were always counties to be divided as soon as they were settled +up, many of them larger than our smaller New England States. And, so far +as my own district was concerned, I had won this first battle with Judge +Bartine. But the fight against the measure was so strong that Lyman +County was not divided for several years. + +Although the settlers had not been on the Brulé long enough to vote, +office seekers kept coming through, asking the indorsement of _The +Wand_. "It's no wonder the men we elect to run things make such a fizzle +when they get into office," Ma Wagor snorted one day with impatience; +"they wear themselves plumb out getting there." + +Old Porcupine Bear, wise man and prophet, warned us that it would be a +hard winter, and the plainsmen agreed that it was a humdinger. I asked +the wise old Indian how he could foretell the winter. "By food on shrub +and tree," he said, "heap plenty; the heavy coat of the animals; the +bear and squirrel storing heap much for eat, and the bear he get ready +go sleep early." And so the winter came on us. + +The dams froze over and the Strip was a great white expanse which +appeared level at first sight but was beautifully undulating. Now there +was a shack on every quarter-section, which appeared black in relief +against the white. The atmosphere did curious things to them. Sometimes +they looked like small dry-goods boxes in the distance, sometimes they +seemed to have moved up to the very door. A coyote off a mile or two, or +a bunch of antelope running along a ridge in the distance, appeared to +be just across the trail. + +In the mornings we cut a hole in the ice of our dam to dip out the water +for household use, and then led the livestock down to drink. And at +night we went skating on the larger dams, with the stars so large and +near it seemed one could reach up and touch them, and no sound on the +sleeping prairie but the howling of a pack of wolves down in the next +draw. + +But there were tracks on the white floor of earth, tracks of the living +things which inhabit the silent areas and which had stealthily traveled +across the plains, sometimes tracks of the larger wild beasts, and +everywhere jack rabbits squatted deep in the snow. + +The majority of the settlers wintered in little paper-shell hovels, of +single thin board walls, the boards often sprung apart and cracked by +the dry winds; a thin layer of tar paper outside and a layer of building +paper on the inside, which as a rule was stretched across the studding +to provide insulation between the wall and lining. Some of these paper +linings were thin and light, the average settler having to buy the +cheapest grade he could find. + +We got along fairly well unless the wind blew the tar paper off. There +was not a tree, not a weather-break of any kind for protection. +Sometimes the wind, coming in a clean sweep, would riddle the tar paper +and take it in great sheets across the prairie so fast no one could +catch up with it. The covering on our shack had seen its best days and +went ripping off at the least provocation. With plenty of fuel one could +get along fairly well unless the tar paper was torn off in strips, +leaving the cracks and knotholes open. Then we had to stop up the holes +with anything we had, and patch the paper as best we could. + +We had our piano out there that winter and Ida Mary bought a heating +stove for the front room. "The Ammons girls are riding high," some of +the settlers said good-naturedly. But when the stove, the cheapest +listed in the mail-order catalog, arrived, Ida Mary cried with +disappointment and then began to laugh. It was so small we could not +tell whether it was a round heater or a bulge in the stovepipe. With it +the temperature of the room ran automatically from roasting to freezing +point unless one kept stoking in fuel. + +In some ways Ida Mary and I remained objects of curiosity. Occasionally +we saw indications of it. There had been a hot Sunday afternoon during +the summer when Ida Mary and I were sitting in the open door of the +shack. A strange cowboy rode up to the door. "Is this the place where +the newspaper and everything is?" + +We told him that it was. He threw one leg over the saddlehorn and fanned +himself with his sombrero, looking us over, gaudy in a red and black +checkered shirt, fringed leather chaps and bright green neckerchief. + +"Well, you ain't the ones I heard about that's runnin' it, are you?" He +seemed puzzled. + +Yes, we were the ones. Anything he wanted? + +"No. I'm a new wrangler over on Bad Horse creek--I come from Montana. +Montana Joe, they call me. And a bunch of the punchers was just a +wondering what you looked like; wanted me to come over and find out," he +admitted candidly. + +"But," and he stared disapprovingly at our slippered feet, "them don't +look like range hoofs to me. They look like Ramblin' Rosie's." Ramblin' +Rosie, it appeared, was a notorious dance-hall girl. + +And about that time a Chicago newspaper came out, carrying a big +headline story, complete with drawings, about our adventures in taming +the frontier. It pictured Ida Mary and me with chaps and six-shooters; +running claim-jumpers off our land and fighting Indians practically +single-handed, plowing the land in overalls, two large, buxom, hardy +girls. In fact, it had us shooting and tearing up the West in general. A +friend sent us a copy and we laughed over it hysterically, marveling at +this transformation of two girls who were both as timid as field mice, +into amazons. We hid it quickly so that no one could see it, and forgot +about it until long afterwards. + +But we weren't the only girls on the plains with problems. A surprising +number of homesteaders were girls who had come alone. They had a +purpose in being there. With the proceeds of a homestead they could +finish their education or go into business. + +Many of these girls came from sheltered homes and settled out in the +wilderness of plains, living alone in little isolated shanties out of +reach of human aid in case of illness or other emergency. They had no +telephones or other means of communication. Some of them had no means of +transportation, walking miles to a neighbor in order to send to town for +a little food or fuel, sometimes carrying buckets of water a mile or two +over the plains. In winter they were marooned for days and nights at a +stretch without a human being to whom they could speak, and nothing but +the bloodcurdling cry of coyotes at night to keep them company. + +They tried to prepare themselves for any situation so that they would +neither starve nor freeze; with books and papers to read and the daily +grinding routine of work to be done on every homestead, where each job +required the effort and time of ten in modern surroundings, they managed +to be contented. But it took courage. + +In spite of the rigors of the winter, the settlers made merry. Our piano +was hauled all over the Strip for entertainments. Barring storms or +other obstacles, it was brought home the next day, perhaps not quite as +good as when it went, but a piano scuffed or off-tune did not matter +compared to the pleasure Ida Mary had that winter, going to parties and +dancing. I did not always go along; my strength didn't seem to stretch +far enough. + +Sometimes a group of homesteaders would drive up to the settlement +about sundown in a big bobsled behind four horses, the sled filled with +hay, heavy blankets and hot bricks. We would shut up shop and the whole +staff would crowd into the sled, Imbert tucking Ida Mary in warm and +snug. + +On cold winter evenings, when a gray-white pall encircled the earth like +a mantle of desolation, three or four of the girls were likely to ride +up, each with a bag of cooked food, to spend the night. One never waited +to be invited to a friend's house, but it was a custom of the homestead +country to take along one's own grub or run the risk of going hungry. It +might be the time when the flour barrel was empty. So our guests would +bring a jar of baked beans, a pan of fresh rolls, potato salad or a +dried-apple pie; and possibly a jack rabbit ready baked. Jack rabbit was +the main kind of fresh meat, with grouse in season. We had not as yet +been reduced to eating prairie dog as the Indians did. + +"Breaking winter quarantine," the girls would announce as they rode up. + +Late in the evening we brought in the ladder, opened up the small square +hole in the ceiling, and our guests ascended to the attic. On the floor +next to the hole was a mattress made of clean, sweet, prairie hay. Our +guest climbed the ladder, sat on the edge of the mattress, feet dangling +down through the cubbyhole until she undressed, and then tumbled over +onto the bed. The attic was entirely too low to attempt a standing +posture. + +On one such night with three girls stowed away in the attic, we lay in +bed singing. + +"Hello, hello there," came an urgent call. + +We peered through the frosted window, trying to see through the driving +snow, and made out a man on horseback. + +"I'm on my way to Ft. Pierre and I am lost! I am trying to reach the +Cedar Creek settlement for the night." + +"You can't make it, stranger, if you don't know the country," Ida Mary +called out. + +"Well, what have I struck?" he asked, perplexed. + +"A trading post." + +"A trading post! It sounded like an opera house." + +"We don't know who you are," Ida Mary called through the thin wall of +the shack, "but you can't get on tonight in this snow. Tie your horse in +the hayshed and we will fix you a bed in the store." + +Next morning the girls rolled down the ladder one at a time, clothes in +hand, to dress by the toy stove while Ida Mary and I started the wheels +of industry rolling. When breakfast was ready we called in our strange +guest. + +When he asked for his bill we told him we were not running public +lodgings but that we took in strangers when it was dangerous for them to +go on. + +After that Ida Mary always left a lamp burning low in the kitchen +window, and the little print shop, set on the high tableland, served as +a beacon for travelers who were lost on the plains. + +Many a night stranded strangers sought shelter at the Ammons settlement. +No other trading center in the middle of a reservation was run by girls, +so strangers took it for granted that there were men about, or if they +knew we were alone they did not think of our being unarmed in that +country where guns had been the law. + +Once we decided we should have a watchdog around. Ida Mary traded a +bright scarf and some cigarettes for two Indian mongrels. They were lean +and lopeared and starved. The only way they ever would halt an intruder +was by his falling down over them, not knowing they were there. And they +swallowed food like alligators. Van Leshout named them "Eat" and +"Sleep." In indignation Ida Mary returned them to their owners. What was +the matter, they wanted to know. "No barkum, no bitem," Ida Mary +explained, and she tied them firmly to the back of the first Indian +wagon headed for the Indian settlement and gave up the idea of a dog for +protection. + +However, women were probably safer in the homestead section than in any +other part of the country. Women had been scarce there, and they met +with invariable respect wherever they went; it was practically unheard +of for a solitary woman to be molested in any fashion. + +Both men and women came through the Strip that winter looking for +friends or relatives who had claims, or in quest of land. Often they +could get no farther than the print shop by nightfall. And never was any +such person refused food or shelter. + +Ida Mary went around that winter with one of the city boys, though she +still saw Imbert. "We take each other too much for granted," she said. +"I've been dependent upon him for companionship and diversion and help +in many ways. For his sake and mine I must know that it's more than +that." + +I cannot recall that we ever planned ahead of proving up on the claim. +We measured life by proving-up time. Only the dirt farmers planned +ahead. And Ma Wagor--who was an inveterate matchmaker. I can see her +now, driving across the plains, holding her head as high as that of the +spotted pony she drove--a pony which, though blind as a bat, held its +head in the air like a giraffe. + +Often she would stay with us at night. "Pa won't mind. He's got plenty +of biscuit left," she would say; "the cow give two gallons of milk +today, and he's got _The Wand_ and the Blue Springs paper to read--" + +But sometimes, when business had kept her from home for two or three +days, or we needed her, she would gaze out of the window, watching for +him. + +And it got colder. Getting the mail back and forth to the stage line +became a major problem. "It appears to me," said Ma, "like a post office +is as pestiferous a job as a newspaper." But Ma never admitted anything +pestiferous about running the store. + +The post office receipts picked up. Mail bags were jammed with letters +written by the settlers through long, lonely evenings. The profits +helped to pull us through as the newspaper business slumped to almost +nothing during the "holing-in" period. The financial operations of the +trading post, in fact, rose and fell like a Wall Street market. + +We struggled through sharp wintry squalls to the stage line with the +laden sacks of mail, and realized that when the winter really set in we +would never be able to make it. So Dave Dykstra was appointed +mail-carrier. He was a homesteader who taught the McClure school that +winter, a slim, round-shouldered chap, rather frail in physique. Dave +would never set the world on fire, but he would keep it going around +regularly. Blizzard, rain or sun, he came to the post office every +morning those short winter days before it was light. At night Ida Mary, +as postmistress, would lock the mail sack and carry it into the cabin. +In the morning we would hear Dave's sharp-shod horse striking the +hard-frozen ground, and one of us would leap to the icy floor, wrap up +in a heavy blanket, stick our feet into sheep-lined moccasins (some +nights we slept in them), open the door a foot or so, and hold out the +mail bag. Dave would grab it on the run. + +One who has never tried it has no idea what that feat meant in a shell +of a hut with the temperature ten or twenty degrees below zero, freezing +one's breath in the performance. We used to hope Dave would oversleep, +or that his coffee would fail to boil so that we might have a few more +moments to sleep. + +The Indians were always underfoot. The great cold did not keep them +away. Men sauntered around, trading, loafing. Women sat on the floor, +papooses on their backs, beadwork in hand. Our trade was extended to +Indian shawls, blankets, moccasins and furs, for which the post found +ready and profitable markets. Ida Mary became an adept at Indian +trading. By that time we had a smattering of the Sioux language, +although we were never really expert at it. It did not require much to +trade with the Indians. + +Often they turned their horses loose, built campfires and spent the day. +They rolled a prairie dog in the wet earth, roasted it in the fire, and +invited us to eat. They brought us _shanka_, dog meat. There was a time +when we actually swallowed it because we were afraid to refuse. But now +we shook our heads. + +It was wood-hauling season, and women came sitting flat on the back end +of loads. Among the Indian women were a few with primitive intelligence +and wisdom. Others were morose and taciturn. + +Even during the enforced lull of the deep winter there seemed to be much +to do, and the routine duties of the post office and _The Wand_ appeared +to require most of our time. The opportunity to study, to know the +Sioux, was at hand, but we never took advantage of it; like most people, +we were too busy with the little things to see the possibilities around +us. Perhaps Alexander Van Leshout, who made a success of his Indian art, +came to know these people better than any of us. But he was an +artist--and therefore he refused to let the little things clutter up his +life and take his attention from the one thing that was important to +him--seeing clearly and honestly the world about him. + +When the Indians got their government pay, they celebrated with a buying +spree. They were lavish buyers as long as they had a cent, and they +bought the goods that had the most alluring picture on can or box. Ida +Mary would hold up something of staple quality, but they would shake +their heads and turn to something gaudily wrapped. + +Old Two-Hawk and a few others paid their yearly subscriptions to _The +Wand_ every time they got their government allotment. "Your subscription +is already paid," I would explain, but they would shake their heads and +mutter. This was their newspaper, too, the thing that had signs and +their own names printed on a machine. They had the right to trade +beadwork or another dollar for it any time they liked. + +Our subscription list looked like a Sioux directory with such names as +Julia Lame Walking Eagle, Maggie Shoots at Head, Afraid of His Horses, +Paul Owns the Fire, and his son, Owns the Fire. + +Our daily visitors were the rank and file of the tribe, although famous +old warriors and medicine men came now and then. The high rulers of the +Brulé, who were among the most reserved and intelligent of all American +Indians, did not come in this manner. But any negotiations between the +Brulé whites and the Brulé red men were made with their Chief and +Council. A few of the Indian warriors and chiefs always would hate the +whites, but the rank and file of the Brulés were enjoying the strange +new life about them. While they saw no advantage in an active life for +themselves, they found activity in others highly entertaining. + +The weather with its dry cold was sometimes deceptive. For several days +we had had urgent business to attend to in Presho, but the weather +prohibited the trip. One morning we awoke to see the sun brilliant on +the snow. + +A lovely day for the long trip, and we hitched the team to a light buggy +so that we might wrap up better. The farther we drove the colder we +became. There was no warmth in that dazzling sun. We huddled down as +near as possible to the hot bricks. We took turns driving, one of us +wrapped up, head and ears beneath the heavy robes. + +On that whole journey we did not meet a soul. We were frozen stiff and +had to have our hands thawed out in cold water when we reached Presho. + +A homesteader living ten miles out stepped into the land office while we +were there. + +"Don't you girls know enough to stay at home on a day like this? I +didn't dare attempt it until I saw you go by. I said to the family, +'There go the Ammons girls,' so I hitched up and started. And here it is +28 below zero." + +The land commissioner said, "Well, you can't depend on the Ammons girls +as a thermometer." + +And the storms came. + +[Illustration] + + + +XI + +THE BIG BLIZZARD + + +Several miles from Ammons a bachelor gave a venison dinner on his claim +to which a little group of us had gone. About noon it clouded up and no +barometer was needed to tell us that a big storm was on the way. As soon +as we had eaten we started home. + +The sky was ominous. Antelope went fleeting by; a little herd of horses, +heads high, went snorting over the prairie. Coyotes and rabbits were +running to shelter and a drove of cattle belonging to the Phillips ranch +were on a stampede. One could hear them bawling madly. + +The guests had gone to the dinner together in a big wagon and were +delivered to their respective shacks on the way back. We raced the +horses ahead of the storm for a mile or two, but it was upon us by the +time we reached Margaret Houlihan's. As we drove on up the draw to the +settlement we saw the chimney of our cabin, consisting of a joint of +stovepipe (the regulation chimney in this country) go flying across the +prairie. And there was not an extra joint of pipe on the place--probably +not one on the reservation, which meant that we would not be able to +build a fire in the house until we could go to Presho or the state +capital for a joint. + +"Hey, whata you goin' to do," exclaimed the young neighbor boy who had +taken us to the dinner. "You can't live in your shack through the storm +that's comin' without a fire." + +"We have a monkey-stove in the store," Ida Mary told him. He shook his +head, but before hurrying home he scooped up a few buckets of coal we +had on hand and took it into the store, and watered and fed the horses, +knowing we might not be able to reach them until the blizzard had +passed. "That all the fuel you got?" he demanded. + +"A settler went to town this morning to get coal for us." + +"But he can't get back until the storm is over. How you goin' to manage? +No fire in your shack? No fuel for the monkey-stove?" + +"We'll be all right," we assured him. He was not convinced, but he dared +not linger. He had to get home while he could still find the way. + +In thirty minutes we were completely shut in by the lashing force of +wind and snow that swept across the plains in a blinding rage. Ma Wagor +and Kathryn, our typesetter, had gone home and we were alone, Ida Mary +and I. We built up a hot fire in the monkey-stove, which sat in the +middle of the store building and was used for heating both store and +print shop. From canned goods on the shelf, baked beans and corned beef, +we prepared a sketchy supper, and ate on the counter. + +Although it had been without heat only a few hours, the shack was +already like an iceberg, and we were shaking with cold by the time we +managed to drag the couch out of it, with a mighty effort, and into the +store. It was warm there, and we lay safe under warm blankets listening +tranquilly to the storm hurling its strength furiously against the frail +defense of the little store, the shriek of the wind, the beating of the +snow on the roof. It must be horrible to be out in it, we thought, +pleasantly aware of protection and warmth and safety. + +Next morning there was a real old-time blizzard raging. We could barely +see the outline of the shack ten feet from the store; the rest of the +world was blotted out and the wind roared like an incoming tide as the +snow and sleet pelted like shot on the low roof. A primeval force drove +the storm before it. All over the plains people were hemmed in tar-paper +shacks, the world diminished for them to the dimensions of their +thin-walled houses, as alone as though each were the only dweller on the +prairie. + +The team, Fan and Bill, and Lakota were the only horses tied up in the +hay barn. They could reach the hay and eat snow for water. There would +be plenty of snow. Our menagerie of Indian plugs, including Pinto, was +loose on the plains; but they were accustomed to battling storms in the +open and there were haystacks now to provide food and shelter. +Somewhere in the open they were standing, huddled together, facing the +onslaught of the storm. + +The west end wall of the flimsy ell print shop, exposed to the full +force of the storm, was swaying in. Together we dragged forth some boxes +of canned goods, heavy cans of lard and molasses, and propped it with +their weight. We watched anxiously for a time, but the heavy boxes +seemed to provide sufficient support. There were no further signs of the +wall collapsing. + +By evening the storm had gripped the plains like a demon of wrath. We +had been rather enjoying this seclusion--no Indians. And--we chuckled +like a victim of persecution whose persecutor had been overtaken--there +would be no mail carrier in the morning. No mail to be taken care of. +Exultant, we tried to figure how many days Dave would be blockaded and +we would be spared that morning penance of handing the mail sack out +from the icy shack. + +On the second morning the storm was still raging, with the snow two feet +deep between the store and the barn. The west wall still held, and +between glances at it we stoked the monkey-stove. Stoked it while the +coal dwindled. When the last chunk had been swallowed up we hunted +around for something else to burn. Newspapers, cartons, wooden +boxes--everything we could find went into the voracious maw of the +stove. + +We tended it as religiously as priestesses at an altar, or as primitive +men building up a fire to keep off wild animals. Only under such +conditions does one fully experience that elemental worship of fire. It +literally meant life to us. + +Searching for something else we could burn, something else to keep that +flame going even a little while longer, that pleasant glow which had +come with our sense of protection gradually disappeared. The blizzard +was not merely a gigantic spectacle put on by nature for our +entertainment, it was a menace, to be kept at bay only by constant +alertness on our part. + +Now there was nothing left in the store that we could burn! + +"The Indians brought some fence posts," Ida Mary recalled. "They are +back of the barn where they unloaded them. We'll have to get them." + +We put on our coats, pulled fur caps close down around our faces and +ears, wrapped gunny sacks around our feet and legs over high arctics to +serve as snowshoes. It took our combined strength to push the door open +against the storm. Before we could close it behind us, snow had swept +into the store and was making little mounds. Clinging to each other we +plowed our way through the loose snow to the fence posts and dragged in +a few, making two trips, breaking a trail with them as we went. The +wind-blown snow cut our faces like points of steel. Hearing the restless +whinny of the horses, we stopped to untie them. They would not go far +from shelter. + +Naturally the fence posts were much too long to go into the stove, and +we had no way of chopping them up. So we lifted up a cap of the two-hole +stove and stuck one end of a post into the fire, propped the other end +up against the counter, and fed the fire by automatic control. When one +post burned down to the end, we stuck in another. It seemed to us that +they burned awfully fast, and that the store was getting colder and +colder. We put on our heavy coats for warmth and finally our overshoes. + +Storm or no storm, however, _The Wand_ had to be printed. We pulled the +type-case into the store, close to the stove. In those heavy coats and +overshoes we went to work on the newspaper--and that issue was one of +the best we ever published. In those two long nights, shut off from all +the world, we talked and planned. We dared not take the risk of going to +bed. If we should sleep and let the fire go out, we were apt to freeze, +so we huddled around the stove, punching fence posts down into the fire, +watching the blaze flicker. + +At least there was time to look ahead, time to think, time to weigh what +we had done and what we wanted to do. So that week _The Wand_ came out +with ideas for cooperative action that were an innovation in the +development of new lands, a banded strength for the homesteader's +protection. It seemed logical and simple and inevitable to me then--as +it does now. "Banded together as friends"--the Indian meaning of +Lakota--was the underlying theme of what I wanted to tell the +homesteaders. The strength and the potentialities of one settler counted +for little, but--banded together! + +Our enthusiasm in planning and talking carried us through most of that +day. But toward evening there were more immediate problems. It began to +turn bitter cold. The very air was freezing up. It was no longer +snowing, but the wind had picked up the snow and whirled it over the +prairie into high drifts that in places covered up the barbed-wire +fences against which it piled. + +And under the piling snow our fuel lay buried; a long windrow drift had +piled high between the posts and the shop. And the shop was growing +colder and colder. Even with the heavy coats and overshoes we stamped +our feet to keep out the chill and huddled over the dying fire. It would +soon be freezing cold in the store, as cold as the icy shack which we +had abandoned. No wonder people worshiped fire! + +There was no sense of snug protection against the storm now. It seemed +to have invaded the store, although the west wall still held. "We'll +have to go somewhere for warmth," Ida Mary decided. Margaret's shack was +the nearest, but even so we knew the grave risk we took of perishing on +the way there. Action, however, is nearly always easier than inaction. A +time or two we stuck our heads out of the door and the cold fairly froze +our breath. Once I went outside, and when I tried to get back into the +shack the wind, sucking between the few buildings, blew me back as +though an iron hand held me. + +"If we stay here," we thought, "we may be walled in by morning by the +fast-drifting snow." So we decided on Margaret's, a quarter-mile down +the draw. The chief difficulty was that the trip must be made against +the storm, and we did not know whether we could make it or not. We each +wrapped up tightly in a heavy Indian shawl, tied ourselves together with +a light blanket, picked up the scoop shovel, and started down the buried +trail. + +Out through the side door and the narrow space between the buildings +which had been protected against the drifts, we made our way; then, +facing the full strength of the storm, we dug our way, shoveling as we +went, through a drift that had piled in front of the buildings, and on +through the deep level of snow. + +It was getting dark now--the sudden steel-gray that envelops the plains +early on a winter night and closes in around the white stretches, +holding them in a vise. The only sign of life in the whole blanketed +world was the faint glimmer of light in Margaret's window. We knew now +how the light in the print shop must have looked many a night to +strangers lost on the prairie in a storm. + +Such lightweights were we that, at every step we took, the wind blew us +back; we used all our force, pushing against that heavy wall of wind, +until we struck drifts that almost buried us. For all our clumsy tying, +the blanket held us together or we would have lost each other. We could +not speak, because if we so much as parted our lips they seemed to +freeze to our teeth, and the cold wind rasped in our throats and lungs +as though we had been running for a very long time. + +Had the snow been tightly packed we could never have dug our way out of +some of the drifts. But it had been picked up and swirled around so much +by the wind that it was loose and light. It blew up off the ground, +lashed against our faces like sharp knives, and blinded us. "How +horrible," we had thought from the shelter of the store, "to be out in +the storm." But we hadn't tasted then the malignant fury of the thing, +battling with us for every step we made. + +At last we turned and walked backwards, resting on the shovel handle for +fear we would fall from exhaustion. Every few steps we looked around to +see whether we were still going in a straight line toward the dim light +that shone like a frosted glimmer from the tiny shack which now looked +like a dark blur. We realized that if we were to swerve a few feet in +either direction, so that we lost sight of the lamp, we would not find +Margaret's shack that night. + +It was quite dark now, and no sound on the prairie but the triumphant +howl of the wind and the dry crunch of our overshoes on the snow, +slipping, stumbling. We were pushing ourselves on, but our feet were so +numb it was almost impossible to walk. We had been doing it for hours, +it seemed; we had always been fighting our way through the deep snow. +The store we had left seemed as unreal as though we had never known its +protection. + +Ida Mary, still walking backwards, stumbled and fell. She had struck +Margaret's shack. I pushed against the door, too numb to turn the knob. + +The door opened and Margaret, with a cry, pulled us in. Swiftly she +unbundled us, taking care not to bring us near the fire. She took off +our gloves and overshoes, then ran to the door and scooped up a basin of +snow for our numb hands and feet, snow which felt curiously warm and +comforting. While the snow drew out the frost, she hastened about, +making strong, hot tea. + +While we drank the tea and felt warmth slowly creeping over us, "Why on +earth did you attempt to come here on a night like this?" she demanded. +"You might have frozen to death." + +"We were out of fuel," we told her. "We had to take the chance." + +The shack was cheerful and warm. There was a hot supper and fuel enough +to last through the storm. Only a refuge for which one has fought as Ida +Mary and I fought to reach that tar-paper shack could seem as warm and +safe as Margaret's shack seemed to us that night. In a numb, delicious +lethargy we sat around the stove, too tired and contented to move. + +Safe from the fury of the wind, we listened to it raging about the cabin +as though cheated of its victims. And then, toward midnight, it died +away. There was a hush as though the night were holding its breath, and +then the sky cleared, the stars came out. + +The next day Margaret's brother took up a sack of coal on his bronco, so +we made our way back over the trail we had broken the night before, to +the store, and he built a fire for us. Later that same morning Chris +rode over with a sack of coal tied on behind the saddle. + +"Yoost in case you should run out once," he said as he brought it in. +"My wife she bane uneasy when she see no light last night." + +When we told him what had happened he shook his head in concern and went +to work. He scooped a path to the barn and attended to the horses. From +under the snow he got some fence posts which he chopped up while Charlie +excavated an opening to the front door--in case anyone should be mad +enough to try to reach the store on a day like that. + +About noon a cowboy came fighting his way through the drifts in search +of lost cattle which the storm must have driven in this direction--the +only soul who dared to cross the plains that day. + +It was Sourdough. I never knew his real name. I doubt if those with or +for whom he worked knew. + +He stopped at the print shop to rest his horse, which was wringing wet +with sweat, though the day was piercing cold. He threw the saddle +blanket over the horse and came in. + +We begged him to go and find out whether or not the Wagors were all +right. After Ida Mary and I had got straightened out, it occurred to us +that they had sent in their order for coal with ours. Like us they might +be imprisoned in their shack and low on fuel; but, unlike us, there +would be no question of their battling their way across the prairie to +shelter. + +"Sufferin' sinners," grumbled Sourdough. "Think I got time to fool +around with homesteaders when a bunch of critters is maybe dead or +starvin' to death? Godamighty!" + +We argued and insisted, telling him that he knew better how to break a +trail than the tenderfeet around here, that his horse was better trained +for it. + +"This country warn't made for no humans--just Indians and rattlesnakes +and cowhands is all it was intended for." + +I agreed with him. I was ready to agree with anything he might say if he +would only go to the Wagors' shack. At last, after we had exhausted all +the wiles and arts of persuasion at our command, Ida Mary told him that, +come to think of it, she had seen a bunch of cattle drifting in the +direction of the Wagor claim. He started out, saying he might stop in +if he happened to drift by and it "come handy." + +Sourdough found the Wagors covered up in bed. They had been in bed two +days and three nights. The fuel had given out, as we had feared--cow +chips and all. They had burned hay until the drifts became so high and +the stack so deeply covered that the poor old man could no longer get to +it. The cow and the blind horse had barely enough feed left to keep +alive. + +Not daring to burn the last bit of hay or newspaper--which would not +have warmed the house anyhow--the old couple had gone to bed, piling +over them everything that could conceivably shut out that penetrating +dead cold, getting up just long enough to boil coffee, fry a little +bacon and thaw out the bread. They dipped up snow at the door and melted +it for water. The bread had run out, and the last scrap of fuel. They +tore down the kitchen shelf, chopped it up, and the last piece of it had +gone for a flame to make the morning coffee. The little snugly built +shack was freezing cold. A glass jar of milk in the kitchen had frozen +so hard that it broke the jar. + +When Sourdough walked in and learned the situation he bellowed, +"Sufferin' sinners!" and tore out like a mad steer. He cut into the +haystack, cut up a few posts from the corral fence and made a fire--and +when a range rider makes a fire it burns like a conflagration. + +He fed the two dumb animals (meaning the cow and horse, he explained, +though they weren't half as dumb as anyone who would go homesteading) +while Ma stirred up some corn cakes and made coffee for them all. Milk +the cow? What the hell did they think he was, a calf? Sourdough, like +most cowboys, had never milked a cow. The only milk he ever used came +out of a can. + +Mid-afternoon he reported. When we wondered what could be done next, he +said carelessly, "Godamighty! Let 'em stay in bed. If they freeze to +death it will serve 'em right for comin' out here." + +Grumbling, ranting on, he slammed the door and strode out to the barn, +saddled Bill--the stronger horse of the brown team--and led him to the +door. + +"What are you going to do?" I demanded. + +"Ride this no-count plug of yourn to hunt them critters. You never saw a +bunch goin' that way," he accused Ida Mary. She smiled at the ruse she +had used to start him out. + +He jumped on Bill, leading his cow pony behind--a range rider knows how +to conserve a horse's strength--and followed the trail he had broken, +straight back toward the Wagor shack. Now we knew. He was going after Ma +and Pa. They would be warm and nourished, with strength for the trip, +and good old Bill could carry them both. + +A few days later when we asked Ma about the harrowing experience she +laughed and said, "Oh, it wasn't so bad. Pa and I talked over our whole +life in those three days, telling each other about our young days; Pa +telling me about some girls he used to spark that I never woulda heard +about if it hadn't been for that blizzard.... I told him about my first +husband ... he's the one who left me the ant-tic broach ... we did get +pretty cold toward the last. + +"I burned up every old mail-order catalog I had saved. I always told Pa +they would come in handy.... What? Afraid we would freeze to death? +Well, we woulda gone together." + + * * * * * + +The blizzard was over, but the snow lay deep all over the prairie and +the great cold lasted so that few of the settlers ventured outside their +shacks. For days there was no hauling done. The trails that had been +worn since spring were buried deep and the drifts were treacherous. +There were many homesteaders over the Reservation who were running out +of fuel. + +Now, if ever, was a time for cooperation, and _The Wand_ printed a list +of those who could spare fuel; they would share with those in need of +it. They brought what they could to the settlement and pooled it, +chopping up all the poles and posts they could find into stovewood, and +taking home small loads to tide them over. + +With the fury of that storm, one of the hardest blizzards the frontier +had experienced, the winter spent itself. Under the soft warm breath of +a chinook the snow disappeared like magic, melting into the soil, +preparing it for the onslaught of the plow. + +[Illustration] + + + +XII + +A NEW AMERICA + + +Ida Mary and I came through the winter stronger than we had ever been +before, but we welcomed the spring with grateful hearts. Only poets can +describe the electric, sweet quality of spring, but only the young, as +we were young that year, receive the full impact of its beauty. The +deep, cloudless blue of western skies, the vivid colors after the dead +white of winter, were fresh revelations, as though we had never known +them before. + +One spring day I was making up the paper, while the Christophersons' +little tow-headed boy watched me. + +"Are you going to be a printer when you grow up, Heine?" + +"Nope. I don't want no little types," he replied. "I like traction +machines better--they go. My Pa's got one." + +A tractor coming on the Strip! I ran to tell Ida Mary. + +As it chugged and caterpillared from town through the Reservation, Chris +Christopherson's tractor caused almost as much excitement as the first +steamship up the Hudson. Men, women and children gathered about and +stared wide-eyed at the new machine as its row of plows cut through the +stubborn sod like a mighty conqueror. He was plowing a hundred acres. + +A few cattlemen from the open country rode into the Strip to see it and +bowed their heads to this evidence of the coming of agriculture. + +Old Ivar Eagleheart, Two-Hawk, and others of the Indian braves looked +on. This mystic power sealed their fate. It was in a last desperate +attempt to save territory for his race that an old Indian chief had +stood indomitable, contending with the White Fathers. "Wherever you find +a Sioux grave, that land is ours!" In this plowing up of the Indians' +hunting grounds no one thought of Sioux graves. + +The McClure homesteaders had filed on their claims, proved up and gone, +many of them, leaving empty shacks. Here on the Strip were increasing +signs of permanency. Many Brulé settlers went back home and disposed of +whatever property they had in order to make permanent improvements on +their claims. Other machinery came. Within a radius of three miles of +Ammons three tractors ran all day. All night one could see their bright +headlights moving and hear their engines chug-chugging over the dark +plain, turning under the bluebells and anemones as they went, and the +tall grass where buffalo had ranged. Fragrant scent of wild flowers +blended with the pungent odor of new-turned earth and floated across the +plain. When those owning tractors got through breaking for themselves +they turned over sod for other settlers. + +In every direction on the Brulé and all over the plains which had been +settled, teams went up and down, making a black and green checkerboard +of the prairie. + +Ida Mary and I had Chris break and sow sixty acres of our land to flax. +It cost $300, and we again stretched our credit to the breaking point to +borrow the money. Try out fifteen or twenty acres first? Not we! If we +had a good crop it would pay for the land. + +The winners in the Rosebud Drawing were swarming onto their claims, +moving their families and immigrant goods in a continuous stream. Towns +for many miles around were deluged with trade. It was estimated that the +Rosebud alone would add 25,000 new people to the West, with the +settlers' families, tradesmen and others whom the Rosebud development +would bring. A few groups of settlers from Chicago and other cities came +with a fanfare of adventure new to the homestead country. But many +stolid, well-equipped farmers, too, went into Tripp County, in which the +Rosebud lay. + +I got a letter from the Chicago reporter saying: "I did not draw a Lucky +Number, but I came in on the second series to take the place of those +who dropped out. Am out on my land and feeling better. It was sporting +of you to offer to find a claim for me. Things are moving fast on the +Rosebud." + +Word spread that homesteaders were flocking farther west in Dakota--to +the Black Hills--and on to the vast Northwest. That inexorable tide was +pressing on, taking up the land, transforming the prairie, forcing it to +yield its harvest, shaping the country to its needs, creating a new +empire. + +We peopled and stocked the West by rail--and put vast millions in the +hands of the railroads. Wagon caravans moved on from the railroad into +the interior, many going as far as fifty, sixty, a hundred miles over a +trailless desert. Homesteaders who had no money and nothing to haul, +came through in dilapidated vehicles and lived in tents until they got +jobs and earned money to buy lumber. A few came in automobiles. There +were more cars seen in the moving caravans now. + +It was not only settlers the railroads carried west now, it was tools +and machinery and the vast quantities of goods needed for comfort and +permanent occupation; and the increasing demand for these materials was +giving extra work to factories and businesses in the East. + +On the Brulé we watched the growth of other sections of the West. At +home alone one evening, Ida Mary had carried her supper tray outdoors, +and as she sat there a rider came over the plains; she could barely +recognize him in the dusk. + +"Lone Star!" she exclaimed as he stopped beside her. + +He sat silent, dejected, looking over the broad fields. He had brought +the herd north to summer pasture. + +"Did you escape the pesky homesteaders by going south?" she laughed. + +"No," he said soberly. "They're all over. Not near as thick as they are +here, but Colorado and New Mexico are getting all cluttered up. Old +cattle trails broke--cain't drive a herd straight through no +more--why--" he looked at her as though some great calamity had +befallen, "I bet there's a million miles o' ba'b wire strung between +here and Texas! Shore got the old Brulé tore up." + +She laughed. "Better not let my sister hear you say that. Look at our +crop coming up." + +"I didn't think you'uns would stick it out this winter," he said. + +"Most of the settlers stayed," she assured him. + +"Looks like the end of the free range," he said. "Cattle business is +going to be different from now on." He smiled wanly and asked for his +mail, which consisted only of a pile of back-number copies of a +newspaper. He took them and rode "off to the southeast," the vague +description he had given us as to where he belonged. + +But he had brought news. The stream of immigration was flowing in to the +south and west of us, into country which was talked of as more arid and +more barren than this tall grass country. The barb-wire told the story. + +The United States had entered an era of western development when the +homesteaders not only settled the land, but moved together, acted +together, to subdue the land. It was an untried, hazardous venture on +which they staked everything they had, but that is the way empires are +built. And this vast frontier was conquered in the first two decades of +the twentieth century; a victory whose significance has been almost +totally ignored by historical studies of the country, which view the +last frontier as having vanished a generation or more before. + +Iron trails pushed through new regions; trails crossing the network of +new civilization broadened into highways, and wagon tracks cut their way +where no trails ever led before. New towns were being built. Industry +and commerce were coming in on the tidal wave. A new America! + +No cut-and-dried laws, no enforced projects or programs of a federal +administration could possibly achieve the great solid expansion which +this voluntary land movement by the masses brought about naturally. + +It takes almost every commodity to develop a vast dominion that has lain +empty since Genesis. It took steel for railroads, fences, and +plowshares. It took lumber and labor--labor no end, in towns and out on +the land. It took farm machinery, horses, harness, stoves, oil, food and +clothing to build this new world. + +I was delighted when one day there came a letter from Halbert Donovan, +the New York broker. It contained great news for _The Wand_. And there +was a little personal touch that was gratifying. + +"We are beginning to feel the effect of a business expansion back here," +he wrote, "which the western land development seems to be bringing +about. If it continues, with all the public domain that is there, it is +bound to create an enormous demand in industry and commerce. And I +emphasize the statement I made to you that it is a gigantic project +which a government alone could finance, and which requires the work of +powerful industrial corporations. + +"But, looking over that desolate prairie, one wonders how it can be +done; or if it is just a splurge of proving up and deserting. However, +it is surprising what these homesteaders are doing, and it is ironic +that a little poetic dreamer should have foreseen the trend which things +are taking. And I feel you deserve this acknowledgment. How in the name +of God have you and your sister stuck it out?" + +The reason that Halbert Donovan was interested in the progress of this +area, I learned, was that his company had mining investments in the +Black Hills and it was investigating a proposed railroad extension +through the section. + +The expansion which was beginning to be felt across the continent grew +for five years or more up to the beginning of the World War, and then +took another spurt after the war. It was not merely a boom, inflation to +burst like a bubble. It grew only as more territory was settled and +greater areas of land were put under cultivation. + +"Do you know what we need out here most of all?" I said to Chris +Christopherson one day, having in mind a settlers' bank. + +"Yah, yah!" Chris broke in, his ruddy features beaming in anticipation. +"A blacksmith shop! More as all else, we need that. Twenty-five miles we +bane goin' to sharpen a plowshare or shod a horse yet." + +Trade, business, industry? Yes, of course. But first the plow must pave +the way. During those years money flowed from the farm lands rather than +to them. The revenue from the homestead lands was bringing millions into +the Treasury. + +That spring the newspaper office became a clearing house for homestead +lands. People wanting either to buy or sell relinquishments came there +for information. All kinds of notices to be filed with the Department of +the Interior were made out by the office, which began to keep legal +forms in stock. Gradually I found myself becoming an interpreter of the +Federal Land Laws and settlers came many miles for advice and +information. + +The laws governing homesteading were technical, with many provisions +which gave rise to controversy. I discovered that many of the employees +in the Department knew nothing of the project except the letter of the +law. Through my work in handling proofs I was familiar with the +technicalities. From actual experience I had learned the broader +fundamental principles as they could be applied to general usage. + +I became a sort of mediator between the homesteader and the United +States Land Office. It was a unique job for a young woman and brought my +work to the attention of officials in Washington and several +Congressional public land committees. Slowly I was becoming identified +with the land movement itself, and I had learned not to be overawed by +the fact that some of the government's under-officials who came out to +the Strip did not agree with my opinions. I had clashed already with +several of them who had been sent out to check up on controversies in +which the homesteaders' rights were disputed. They knew the +technicalities better, perhaps, than I did; but in regard to conditions +on the frontier they were rank amateurs and I knew it. + +Land on the Brulé was held at a premium and landseekers were bidding +high for relinquishments. So attractive were the offers that a few +settlers who were hard pressed for money, sold their rights of title to +the land, and passed it on to others who would re-homestead the claims. +Several early proof-makers sold their deeded quarters, raw, unimproved, +miles from a railroad, for $3000 to $3700 cash money. + +Real estate dealers of Presho, Pierre, and other small towns looked to +the Brulé as a plum, trying to list relinquishments there for their +customers. But I got the bulk of the business! One of the handy men +around the place sawed boards and made an extra table with rows of +pigeonholes on it, and we installed this in the back end of the print +shop for the heavy land-office business. + +Most of our work on land affairs was done free in connection with the +legal work of the newspaper. Then buyers or sellers of relinquishments +began paying us a commission, and one day Ida Mary sold a claim for spot +cash and got $200 for making the deal. Selling claims, she said, was as +easy as selling _shela_ (tobacco) to the Indians. The difficulty lay in +finding claims for sale. + +The $200 went to Sedgwick at the bank on an overdue note. He had moved +into a bank building now, set on a solid foundation, instead of the +rolling sheep wagon whose only operating expense was the pistols. + +That entire section of the frontier was making ready for the incoming +torrent of the Rosebud settlers to take possession of their claims. +Droves of them landed at Presho early, reawakening the town and the +plains with a new invasion. Thousands who had not won a claim followed +in their wake, and everyone, when he had crossed the Missouri River, +heard about the Brulé. + +The government sent out notice for the appointment of a regular mail +carrier for the Ammons post office. Dave Dykstra had resigned to farm +his land, and Sam Frye, a young homesteader with a family, was +appointed. + +We began to need more printing equipment to carry on the increased +newspaper business and to take care of the flood of proofs which would +come in that summer; there was interest and a payment on the press +coming due. So there was a day when Ida Mary said we were going to go +under, unless we could do some high financing within thirty days. + +"Oh, we'll get through somehow," I assured her. "It's like a poker game; +you never know what kind of hand you will hold in the next deal." +Planning ahead didn't help much, because something unexpected usually +happened. + +But no matter what hard luck a homesteader had or how much he had paid +the government, unless he could meet the payments and all other +requirements fully he lost the land and all he had put into it. We could +not afford to lose our claim, so I concentrated on my Land Office +business. + +As usual, something happened. I was sitting in the private office of the +United States Land Commissioner in Presho when a man walked into the +front office and put a contest on a piece of land. I heard the numbers +repeated through the thin partition and I knew exactly where the land +lay; it was a quarter-section south of us on the reservation, which +belonged to a young man who had to abandon it because he was ill and +penniless. He had got a leave of absence which had run out, and he had +no funds to carry on and prove up the claim. Yet he had put into the +gamble several hundred dollars and spent almost a year's time on it. +Now he was to lose it to the man who had contested it. + +Nothing could be done to save the land for the man who had gone home; he +had forfeited it. I started from my chair. The contest must be filed in +Pierre. If I could get one in first, I could help out the man whose +illness had deprived him of his land, and help out the ailing Ammons +finances. But it would be a race! + +Through the outer office I rushed while the land agent called after me, +"Just a minute, Edith!" + +"I'll be back," I told him breathlessly. "I'll be back. I just thought +of something!" + +I made the trip from Presho to Ammons in record time, raced into the +post office and filled out a legal form with the numbers I had heard +through the thin wall. But I needed someone not already holding a claim +to sign it, and there wasn't a soul at the settlement who would do. + +It was getting dark when Ida Mary finally announced jubilantly that +someone was coming from the direction of the rangeland. It was Coyote +Cal, thus called because "he ran from the gals like a skeered coyote." + +Talking excitedly, I dragged him into the print shop to sign the paper. +"I don't want any doggone homestead pushed off onto me," he protested. + +I thrust the paper into his hands. "It won't obligate you in any way," I +explained. + +"All right," he agreed. He enjoyed playing jokes and this one amused +him. "But you're sure I won't get no homestead?" + +Coyote poised the pen stiffly in his hand. "Let's see," he murmured in +embarrassment, "it's been so gosh-darn long since I signed my +name--danged if I can recollect--" the pen stuck in his awkward fingers +as he swung it about like a lariat. + +Finally he wrote laboriously "Calvin Aloysius Bancroft." + +With the signed paper in my hands I saddled Lakota and streaked off for +the thirty-five-mile trip to Pierre. + +Late that night a tired horse and its rider pulled up in front of a +little hotel in Ft. Pierre. I routed a station agent out of bed and sent +a telegram to the young man who had left his claim. + +Next morning when the U. S. Land Office at Pierre opened its door the +clerks found me backed up against it with a paper in my outstretched +hand. Half an hour later, when the morning mail was opened at the Land +Office, there was a contest in it filed at Presho. But I had slapped a +contest on the same quarter-section first, a contest filed by one Calvin +Aloysius Bancroft, a legal applicant for the claim. + +In the mail I received a signed relinquishment for the land from the +young man, withdrew the contest and sold the relinquishment, which is +the filer's claim to the land, for $450. I had made enough on the deal +to meet our own emergencies and had saved $200 for the young man who +needed it badly. + +And _The Wand_ was still safe. All around us the land was being +harnessed, a desert being conquered with plowshares as swords. + +Scotty Phillips stopped in at the print shop on his way from Pierre, +where he lived, to his ranch. "The stockmen have been asleep," he said. +"They ridiculed the idea that the range could ever be farmed. And now +they are homesteading, trying to get hold of land as fast as they can. I +have Indian lands leased, so I am all right." + +As a squaw man he naturally owned quite a bit of land, a piece for each +child, and he had three children. + +Panicky, some of the stockmen filed on land, but a homestead for them +was just big enough for the ranch buildings and corrals; it still did +not allow for the essential thing--large range for the cattle. They +began to buy from homesteaders and lease lands around them. For years +the livestockman of the West had been monarch of all he surveyed, and +the end of his reign was in sight. Like all classes of people who have +failed to keep step with the march of progress, he would have to follow +the herd. + +A strong spirit of cooperation and harmony had developed among the army +of the Brulé. They worked together like clockwork. There was little +grumbling or ill-will. Just how much _The Wand_ had done in creating +this invaluable asset to a new country I do not know, but it was a +factor. We were a people dependent upon one another. Ours was a land +without established social law or custom. It was impossible to regulate +one's life or habits by any set rule; and there was no time or energy +for idle gossip or criticism. Each one had all he could do to manage his +own business. + +I had been working at high pressure, and as summer came on again I went +back to St. Louis for a few weeks of rest, back down the Mississippi on +the Old Bald Eagle to find my father waiting at the dock. I had half +expected to find the family awaiting roaring stories of the West; +instead, they listened eagerly and asked apt questions about soil and +costs and the future. Things weren't going well for them. Perhaps for +my father and the two small boys the future would point west. + +I was surprised to find the general interest that people in St. Louis +were taking in the West and in homesteading. Its importance, something +even of its significance, was coming to be realized. They asked serious +questions and demanded more and more information about the land. +Business men talked about new opportunities there. "Bring lots of new +business, this land movement," I heard on many sides. + +After those long months of struggle for the bare necessities, I was +greatly struck by lavish spending. It seemed startling to one from +pioneer country. Where did the money come from, I wondered, that city +folk were spending like water? I had come to think of wealth as coming +from the land; here people talked of capital, stocks and bonds; +occasionally of trade expansion. Surely this western development, I +protested, was responsible in part for trade expansion. Ida Mary had +said I ran to land as a Missourian did to mules; for the first time I +began to consider it as an economic issue. + +I was restless during my stay in St. Louis; the city seemed to have +changed--or perhaps I had changed--and I was glad to get back home. It +was the first time I had called the West home. + +Unbelievably unlike my first sight of the desolate region, I found it a +thriving land of farms and plowed fields, of growing crops and bustling +communities, whose growth had already begun to affect the East, bringing +increased business and prosperity, whose rapid development and +far-reaching influence people were only slowly beginning to comprehend. + +All this had been achieved in less than two years, without federal aid, +with little money, achieved by hard labor, cooperation, and unquenchable +hope. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XIII + +THE THIRSTY LAND + + +"You'd better do a little exhortin'," Ma told me on my return to the +claim. "And if you get any collections, turn some of them in for the +good of the store." + +"Isn't business good?" + +"Business is pouring in. It's money I'm talking about; there won't be +any money until the crops are threshed--which will be about Christmas +time out here. Now in Blue Springs--" + +I didn't hear the rest of it. In the city I had been struck by the +lavish spending of money, money which was at such a premium out here. +There was something shockingly disproportionate in the capacity to +spend by city people and those on farms. + +"At least, the crops look good." + +"But," Ida Mary pointed out, "they need rain, and the dams are beginning +to get low." + +"What about the wells the settlers are digging for water supply?" + +"They get nothing but dry holes," she told me. "Some of the settlers +brought in well-drills, but they didn't find water. They don't know what +to do." + +All other issues faded into the background before the urgency of the +water problem. I packed my city clothes deep down in the trunk, never to +be worn again, and went to work! + +A casual glance revealed no sign of the emergency we were facing. The +Lower Brulé was a broad expanse of green grass and grain, rippling +gently in the breeze like water on a quiet sea. Sufficient moisture from +the snow and early rain had been retained in the subsoil for vegetation. +But we needed water. With the hot weather the dams were going dry. There +had been increased demands for water this summer, and there had not been +the late torrential rains to fill the dams as there had been the year +before. + +"What are we going to do?" I asked the other settlers. + +"Haul water until we can get wells. We'll have to dig deeper. Perhaps we +have just not struck the water veins. After this we will follow the +draws." + +Water-hauling again! But haul it from where? There was no supply in the +country sufficient for the needs of the region. Drills would cost money, +and few settlers had any money left. There was no sign of rain, and an +oppression weighed upon everyone as of impending evil--the fear of a +water famine. + +First we had come to understand the primitive worship of fire. Now we +began to know that water is as vital to life as air itself. It takes +experience to bring home the meaning of familiar words. + +In the meantime the tall waving crops brought land agents with their +buyers. At the first sign of water shortage more claims were offered for +sale, and by that time there were a few deeded tracts put on the market. +Loan agents camped at the settlement, following up settlers ready to +prove up. One could borrow more than a thousand dollars on a homestead +now. + +The money coming through our hands on relinquishments, options, +government payments, etc., was mainly in bulk and growing beyond the +coffee cans and old shoes where we secreted money awaiting deposit at +the bank. We did need a bank on the Brulé. + +During the long hot summer weeks, when it did not grow dark on the open +plain until far into the night, a great deal of traveling was done at +night. It was easier for man and horse. On moonlight nights that white +light shining through the thin atmosphere made the prairie as light as +day, but ghostly; moonlight softened the contours of the plains and +robbed them of their color; sounds traveled great distances, seeming to +come from space; the howling of coyotes down the draw, the shrill, busy +sound of insects in the long grass, the stamping of the horses in the +barn, accentuated the stillness; they did not break it. Even the +prairie wind came softly, sweet with the scent of hay, not lifting its +voice on those hushed nights. + +With the stillness invading one's flesh and bones, and the prairie, +washed by moonlight, stretching out beyond one's imagination, I wondered +that I had ever feared space and quiet. + +But out of the silence would come the rhythmic thud of a horse's feet +and a loud hail. The Ammons settlement was a day-and-night institution. +With a loud knock on the door would come the identification, "It's +Alberts!" Or Kimball, or Pinchot--real estate agents. "I've got a man +here who wants to pay a deposit on N.W. quarter of section 18. We're on +our way to the Land Office. Want to be there when it opens." + +One of us would light the print-shop lamp, make out the papers, take the +money, and stumble back to bed. A sign, "CLOSED," or "NEVER CLOSED," would +have been equally ineffective in stopping the night movement on the Strip. +Homesteaders living miles away came after the long day's work to put in +their proving-up notices. They must be in the paper the following day to +go through the five weeks' publication before the date set at the Land +Office. During those scorching weeks their days were taken up by hauling +water and caring for things at home. + +With those urgent night calls we did not stick a gun out as had the +Presho banker. We were not greatly perturbed about the possibility of +anyone robbing us. A burglar who could find the money would accomplish +more than we could do half the time, so outlandish had the hiding places +become. Imbert insisted that we keep a loaded gun or two on the place, +but we knew nothing about handling guns and were more afraid of them +than of being molested. + +Ada put up her folding cot at night in the lean-to kitchen, and one day +she brought a rawhide whip from home and laid it on the 2 × 4 scantling +that girded the walls--"the two-be-four" she called it. "You don't need +a gun," she said in her slow, calm voice. "Just give me a rawhide." With +that sure strong arm of hers and the keen whip, one would never enter +without shooting first. + +There were a few nights when we woke to find Ada standing still as a +statue in her long white cotton nightgown, straw-colored braids hanging +down her back, rawhide in her right hand, only to find whoever had +prowled around had driven on, or that it was Tim Carter, the lawyer, +coming home from town intoxicated, talking and singing at the top of his +voice. + +During that clock-round period the days were usually quiet and we worked +in shifts as much as our many duties permitted. "Come on, girls," Ma +would call, "this ice tea is goin' to be hot if you don't come and drink +it. Now this isn't made from dam water. Fred hauled it over from the +crick. (Fred Farraday did things like that without mentioning them.) +It's set in the cave all day. Now the Ladies' Aid back in Blue Springs +sticks a piece of lemon on the glass to squeeze in--just to get your +fingers all stuck up with. I never was one for mixing drinks." + +Ma poured an extra glass for Van Leshout, who had just come in with +letters to mail. "Tomorrow we'll have the lemonade separate. Come on, +Heine, don't you want a glass of tea?" + +"Naw." Offering Heine tea was the one thing that shook his calmness. + +"You don't expect he-men like Heine to drink tea," protested Van +Leshout. A sly grin on Heine's face which the artist quickly caught on +paper. + +"Pa drinks it," from Ma, with that snapping of the jaw which in Ma +expressed emphasis. Poor old Pa was the shining example of masculinity +in her eyes. + +Like a sudden breath the hot winds came. The dams were getting +dangerously low. The water was dirty and green-scummed and thick. And +Ada's folks lost a horse and a cow--alkalied. + +The drier it became the whiter the ground on the alkali spots. We had no +alkali on the great, grassy Brulé, but there were strips outside the +reservation thick with it, and the water in those sections contained +enough of it to turn one's stomach into stone. + +Carrying the mail from the stage, I saw along the trail horses and +cattle leaning against the fences, or lying down, fairly eaten up with +it, mere skin and bones; mane and tail all fallen out, hoofs dropped +off. + +A number of settlers had not a horse left that could put his foot to the +ground to travel. Every day there were a few more horses and cows lying +dead over the pastures. Gradually, however, most of the afflicted stock +picked up, got new hoofs, new manes and tails. + +The livestock, even the dogs and the wild animals on the plains, drank +from little holes of reservoirs at the foot of the slopes until the +water became so hot and ill-smelling that they turned away from it. + +But the settlers skimmed back the thick green scum, dipped up the water, +let it settle, and used it. The dam water must be boiled, we warned each +other, yet we did not always wait for a drink of water until it had been +boiled and cooled. Late that summer, when the drying winds parched the +country, the dams became the only green spots left on the yellow plains. +But the cry for rain was no longer for the fields, it was for the people +themselves. + +A few narrow, crooked creeks cut their way through the great tableland +of prairie. But they were as problematic as the Arkansas Traveler's roof +in that they overflowed in the rainy season when we did not need water, +and were dry as a bone when we did need it. The creeks were dry +now--except the water holes in the creek beds and a few seep wells which +homesteaders living near the creeks had dug and into which water from +the creeks had seeped. + +Proving-up time came for a few, and the ones who had not come to farm +left as soon as they proved up--at least until the following year. And +the situation was so serious we were glad to have them go--the fewer +there were of us the less water we would need. + +To add to the troubles of the homesteaders, there were increased +activities by claim jumpers. Almost equal to the old cattle-rustling +gangs were the land rustlers who "covered up" land as the cattle thieves +did brands, making mavericks out of branded stock. Technicalities, false +filings, or open crookedness were used to hold rich valleys and creeks +and water holes open--or to block the settler's proof title. + +Because the problem was a federal one, the courts and men like Judge +Bartine were powerless to act in the matter. The West needed fearless +representation in Washington. If John Bartine were elected, westerners +said, he would fight the land graft. "But there must be a strong +campaign against it on the ground," he emphasized. "The frontier +newspapers can become the most powerful agency in abolishing this evil." + +"Could _The Wand_ help?" I asked. + +"Its influence not only would be effective," he assured me, "but it +would set a precedent and give courage to other little proof sheets." + +So _The Wand_ took up the issue, using what influence it had to bring a +halt to the activities of the claim jumpers. And the homesteaders +continued their battle for the thirsty land. Whisky barrels and milk +cans were the artillery most essential to keep this valiant army from +going down in defeat. They were as scarce as hen's teeth and soared sky +high in price, so great was the demand on the frontier. Barrel and can +manufacturers must have made fortunes during the years of water-hauling +in the homestead country. + +The size of a man's herd, and thus his rank as a farmer, was judged by +the number of barrels and cans surrounding his shack or barn. + +Ida Mary bought a barrel and several new milk cans. "You cannot use the +barrel for water," Joe Two-Hawk said. "It is yet wet with fire-water." +He drained a pint or more of whisky from it. It would have to be burned +out. No one wanted fire-water these days. + +Across the hot stretches, from every direction, there moved processions +of livestock being driven to water; stone-boats (boards nailed across +two runners), with barrels bobbing up and down on them, buggies, wagons, +all loaded with cans and barrels. + +Ida Mary and I led our livestock to a water hole three miles away, +filling water cans for ourselves. The Ammons caravan moving across the +hot, dry plain was a sorry spectacle, with Ida in the vanguard astride +old Pinto, her hair twisted up under a big straw hat. Lakota insisted +upon jumping the creek bed, and we were not trained to riding to hounds. +In the flank, the brown team and Lakota, the menagerie following behind. +Coming up from the rear, I sat in the One-Hoss Shay behind Crazy Weed, +the blind and locoed mare, with the water cans rattling in the back end +of the buggy. I too wore an old straw hat, big as a ten-gallon sombrero, +pushed back on my head to protect my sunburnt neck, and an old rag of a +dress hanging loose on my small body, which was becoming thinner. + +The sun blazed down on the shadeless prairie, and the very air smelled +of heat. The grain was shriveled and burnt. And for shelter from that +vast furnace, a tar-paper shack with a low roof. + +As we reached the creek, Crazy Weed, smelling water, leaped to the creek +bed, breaking the tugs as she went, leaving the horseless buggy, the +empty cans and me high and dry on the bank. + +We patched up the tugs, fastened them to the singletree with hairpins, +hitched up Pinto, drove down to the water hole and filled our cans. + +When we got back to the settlement we saw Lone Star on Black Indian, +waiting for us. He dismounted, threw the reins to the ground and carried +the water cans into the cool cave. + +"Don't know what we're goin' to do with the range stock," he said +anxiously, "with the grass dried up and the creeks and water holes on +the range goin' dry." + +"Lone Star," I said, "don't you think it's going to rain soon?" + +Yesterday I had asked Porcupine Bear, and he had shaken his head and +held up one finger after another, counting off the moons before rain +would come. + +"What will become of the settlers?" asked Ida Mary. + +"The quicker these homesteadin' herds vacate," Lone Star answered in +that slow drawl of his, "the better for everybody. The hot winds have +come too early. Goin' to burn the pastures, looks like; hard to find +water now for the cattle." + +He handed us two flasks of cold water. "Brought 'em from the river; +filled 'em while the water was cold early this morning." + +Cold, clear water! We drank great long draughts of it, washed ourselves +clean and fresh in a basin half-full of water. + +One day Tim Carter came by sober. "The damn homestead is too dry for a +man to drink water, say nothing of whisky," he stormed. "I'm going to +have water if it takes my last dollar." + +He brought in a drill. For several days neighbors helped with the +drilling; others flocked around with strained anxiety, waiting, waiting +for that drill to strike water. + +Then one scorching afternoon the drillers gave a whoop as they brought +up the drill. "Oil! Oil! There's oil on this drill. Damned if we ain't +struck oil!" + +Tim Carter's straight, portly figure drooped. He put his hands in his +pockets, staring aghast at the evidence before him. "Oil!" he shouted. +"Who in hell wants oil? Nobody but Rockefeller. It's water we want!" + +"Pack up your rig, boys," he said in a tone of defeat, as though he'd +made a final plea in court and lost the case. A discouraged, +disheartened group, they turned away. + +Thirst became an obsession with us all, men and animals alike. Cattle, +breaking out of pastures, went bawling over the plains; horses went +running wildly in search of water. People were famished for a cold +drink. + +"I don't believe we ought to drink that water," I heard Ida Mary tell Ma +Wagor, as she stood, dipper in hand, looking dubiously into the bucket. + +"Oh, never mind about the germs," Ma said. "Just pick out them you see +and them you can't see oughtn't hurt anybody. You can't be persnickety +these days." With all that we could see in the water, it did seem as +though the invisible ones couldn't do much harm. + +With the perverseness of nature, the less water one has the thirstier +one becomes. When it is on tap one doesn't think of it. But down to the +last half-gallon, our thirst was unquenchable. + +The store's supply of salmon and dried beef went begging, while it kept +a team busy hauling canned tomatoes, sauerkraut, vinegar. People could +not afford lemons, so vinegar and soda were used to make a refreshing, +thirst-quenching drink. + +Homesteaders reached the point where the whole family washed in the same +quart of water. A little more soap and elbow grease, the women said, was +the secret. Most of the water used for household purposes did double or +triple duty. The water drained from potatoes was next used to wash one's +face or hands or dishes; then it went into the scrub bucket. Potato +water kept one's hands and face soft, we boasted; it was as effective as +face cream. + +But I was not a tea-cup saver by nature. Could the time and scheming of +those pioneer women to save water have been utilized in some water +project, it would have watered the whole frontier. But gradually we were +becoming listless, shiftless. We were in a stage of endurance in which +there was no point in forging ahead. We merely sat and waited--for rain +or wells or whatever might come. + +And always when we were down to the last drop, someone would bring us +water. I never knew it to fail. One such time we looked up to see Huey +Dunn coming. He had made the long trip just to bring us water--two whole +barrels of it, although we had not seen him since he moved us to the +reservation. + +It was so hot he waited until evening to go back. He was in no hurry to +return: it was too hot to work. But when had Huey ever been in a hurry? +We sat in the shade of the shack, talking. He had dug a well, and his +method of fall plowing--fallowing he called it--had proved successful. + +Starting home toward evening, he called back, "If you girls take a +notion to leave, you needn't send for me to move you--not until you get +your deed, anyhow." I only saw him once after that--Ida Mary never +again. + +Ida Mary was seeing a lot of a young easterner that summer, an +attractive, cultured boy who had taken a claim because he had won it in +a lottery and it was an adventure. Imbert Miller had gone into the land +business. He was well fitted for the work, with his honest, open manner, +which inspired confidence in landseekers, and his deep-rooted knowledge +of the West. + +One day I looked up from my work with a belated thought. + +"Imbert hasn't been here for some time. What's the matter?" + +"He is to stay away until I send him word. I've got to be sure." + +When there was any time for day-dreaming those days I conjured up +pictures of snow banks and fountains and blessed, cooling rain, and +long, icy drinks of water. The water had alkali in it and tasted soapy +in cooking. But it was water. And we drank it gratefully. + +The old man from the Oklahoma Run came over. Stooped and stiff, he +leaned on his cane in the midst of a group of settlers who had met to +discuss the drought and the water problem. + +"Now, down in Oklahomy," he began, "it was hotter than brimstone and the +Sooners didn't draw ice water from faucets when they settled there." +Sooners, we took it, were those who got on the land sooner than the +others. "Water was imported in barrels. Buying water was like buying +champagne and worse to drink than cawn liquor." + +"What did they do?" + +"Well, suh," he went on, the long mustache twitching, "one of the +fellahs down there was a water witch. He pointed out where the water +could be got. Divining rods. That's the solution for the Strip." + +But finding expert water witches was almost as difficult as finding +water. They had to be imported from some remote section of the West. The +witches, as we called them, went over various parts of the reservation, +probing, poking, with their forked sticks. + +The divining rod was a simple means of locating water, and it had been +in common use through the ages, especially in arid regions. It was used +in some instances to locate other underground deposits. These rods were +pronged branches, sometimes of willow, but preferably of witch-hazel or +wild cherry. + +If there were water close to the surface, the divining rod would bend +and turn with such force that it was hard to keep the prongs in hand. It +was said to work by a process of natural attraction, and was formerly +regarded as witchcraft or black magic. + +Our divining rods refused to twist or bend. If there were water on the +Strip, the witches missed it; either that, or it was too deep for the +rods to detect. One of the experts said there was indication of some +kind of liquid deposit far underground. + +The settlers shook their heads and said there must be something wrong +with the witches or the divining rod, and Ma Wagor declared, "I never +did have any faith in them little sticks." + + * * * * * + +The hot winds swept the plains like blasts from a furnace. There was not +a shelter as far as the eye could see except those little hot-boxes in +which we lived. As the sun, like a great ball of fire, lowered to the +horizon, a caravan topped the ridge from the north and moved slowly +south across the strip. A wagon and a wobble-wheeled buggy, its dry +spokes rattling like castanets, went by. Following behind were the few +head of stock--horses whinnying, cows bawling, for water. A panting dog, +tongue hanging out, trotted beside the wagon. They were shipping out. +The railroads were taking emigrants back to the state line free. + +Leaving a land of plenty--plenty of everything but water. + +A number of homesteaders who had come to stay were getting out. Settlers +were proving up as fast as they could. They wanted to prove up while +they could get loans on the land. Loan agencies that had vied with one +another for the business were closing down on some areas. Despite the +water famine, the Brulé had built such prestige, had made such a record +of progress, that it was still holding the business. Western bankers +kept their faith in it, but the lids of the eastern money-pots, which +were the source of borrowing power, might be clamped down any day. + +The railroads were taking people back to the state line free, if they +wished to go. It seemed to me, exhausted as I was, that I could not go +on under these conditions, that the settlers themselves could not go on +without some respite. + +I walked into the Land Office at Pierre and threw a sheaf of proof +notices on the Register's desk. He looked at them with practiced eyes. +"These haven't been published yet," he said. + +"I don't want them. I'm leaving the country. I came to get nine months' +leave of absence for myself and all those whose time is not up. That +would give us until next spring to come back and get our deeds." + +He leaned over his desk. "Don't pull up and leave at this critical time, +Edith," he said earnestly. "There are the legal notices, the loans, the +post office--we have depended on you so much, it would be putting a +wrench in the machinery out there." + +He looked at me for a moment. "Don't start an emigration movement like +that," he warned me. + +I was dumfounded at his solemnity, at the responsibility he was putting +upon me. It was my first realization of the fact that _The Wand_ had +indeed become the voice of the Brulé; that where it led, people would +follow. If my going would start a general exodus, I had to stay. + +I walked wearily out of the Land Office, leaving the proofs on his desk. +It seemed to me that I had endured all I could, and here was this new +sense of community responsibility weighing on me! + +A young settler drove me home, and I sat bleakly beside him. It was late +when we got near my claim, and the settlement looked dark and deserted. +Suddenly I screamed, startling the horses, and leaped from the wagon as +there was a loud crash. The heavy timbers of the cave back of the store +had fallen in. + +I shouted for Ida Mary, and there was no answer from the shack or the +store. If she were under that wreckage.... Frantically we clawed at the +timbers, clearing a space, looking for a slip of a girl with long auburn +braids of hair. It was too dark to see clearly, and in my terror I was +ripping the boards in any fashion while Jack strove to quiet me. + +"What's the matter?" said a drowsy voice from the door of the shack. It +was Ida Mary, who had slept so heavily she had not heard our arrival or +our shouts or the crash of the cave-in. + +I ran to her, sobbing with relief. "The cave's fallen in. I thought +maybe you were in it." + +She blinked sleepily and tried to comfort me. "I'm all right, sis," she +said reassuringly. "It must have gone down after I went to bed. Too much +sod piled on top, I guess. Now we'll have to have that fixed." + +As I lay in bed, shaking with fatigue and nerve tension, Ida mumbled +drowsily, "Oh, the fresh butter Ma brought me is down in that cave." And +she fell asleep. A few moments later I too was sleeping quietly. + +The nights were the life-savers. The evening, in which the air cooled +first in the draws, then lifted softly to the tableland, cooling the +body, quenching the thirst as one breathed it deeply. The fresh peaceful +night. The early dawn which like a rejuvenating tonic gave one new hope. +Thus we got our second wind for each day's bout. + +The next day the proof notices I had turned in to the Land Office came +back to me without comment. I explained to Ida Mary what I had done. "I +told him we were going back, and he said I must not start an emigration +movement. I applied for leaves of absence while the railroads are taking +people to the state line free." + +"And what," inquired Ida Mary dryly, "will they do at the state line? Go +back to the wife's kinfolk, I suppose." + +She was right, of course. I began to see what this trek back en masse +would mean. What if the land horde went marching back? Tens of thousands +of them milling about, homeless, penniless, jobless. Many of them had +been in that position when they had stampeded the frontier, looking to +the land for security. With these broad areas deserted, what would +become of the trade and business; of the new railroads and other +developments just beginning their expansion? + +We were harder hit than most districts by the lack of water, but if that +obstacle could be solved the Brulé had other things in its favor. The +words of the Register came back to me: "Don't start an emigration +movement." + +_The Wand_ came out with an editorial called, "Beyond the State Line, +What?" It was based on Ida Mary's terse comment, "Back to the wife's +kinfolk," and concluded with my own views of the economic disaster which +such a general exodus would cause. + +It took hold. Settlers who were ready to close their shacks behind them +paused to look ahead--beyond the state line. And they discovered that +their best chance was to fight it out where they were--if only they +could be shown how to get water. + +No trees. No shade. Hot winds sweeping as though from a furnace. And +what water one had so hot and stale that it could not quench thirst. + +We could ask our neighbors to share their last loaf of bread, but it was +a bold, selfish act to ask for water. I have seen a gallon bucket of +drinking water going down; have seen it get to the last pint; have held +the hot liquid in my mouth as long as possible before swallowing it. + +The distances to water were so long that many times we found it +impossible, with all the work we had on hand, to make the trip; so we +would save every drop we could, not daring to cook anything which +required water. + +One of the girl homesteaders came over with an incredible tale to tell. +She had visited one of the settlers outside the reservation gate who had +a real well. And his wife had rinsed the dishes when she washed them. + +Ma prophesied that she would suffer for that. + +Heine said one day, "My Pa don't wanta leave. We ain't got no moneys to +take us, Pa says." + +There were many families in the same position. Get out? Where? How? + +One day when Chris Christopherson came in I asked him why he thought the +water supply would be better in a year or so. + +"We can dig better dams. If they bane twice so big this year, they be +full now from the snows and rains. We would yet have water plenty." + +"We could dig cisterns, couldn't we?" + +"Cost money, but not so much like deep wells. Trouble bane we not have +money yet nor time to make ready so many t'ings." + +"Some of the farmers say," I told him, "that when we cultivate large +areas, loosening the soil for moisture absorption, they will be able to +get surface wells, especially in the draws. They say the tall, heavy +grass absorbs the surface and underground water." + +Chris nodded thoughtfully. "Water will be more comin' in time," he +declared. "The more land plowed, the more moisture will go down in the +soil. It all the time costs more money to move and settle yet than to +stay where you are. And nobody knows what he find somewhere else again." + +And we got thirstier and thirstier. "I've got to have a drink," I would +wail. + +"You'll get over it," Ma would assure me. + +But we did not always get over it. I remember trying to go to bed +without a drink one night and thinking I could not stand it until +morning. In the middle of the night I woke Ida Mary. + +"I'm so thirsty I can't stand it any longer." + +"Let's hitch up and go for some water." + +So off we went in the middle of the night, driving over to McClure, +where we drank long and long at the watering troughs. + +With few water holes left, some of the settlers went over the border, +hauling water from outside--from McClure, even from Presho, when they +went to town. Somehow they got enough to keep them from perishing. + +Men cleaned out their dams "in case it should rain." But there was no +sign of the drought breaking. Except for the early matured crops, the +fields were burned; the later crops were dwarfed. Our spirits fell as we +looked at our big field of flax which had given such promise. Seed which +had had no rain lay in the ground unsprouted. Some of the farmers turned +their surplus stock loose to forage for themselves. + +Public-spirited men like Senator Scotty Phillips and Ben Smith, a +well-to-do rancher living four miles from the settlement, dug down into +the bowels of the earth for water. Ben Smith went down 1200 feet. There +was no sign of water. Despondency gripped the people. "You can dig clear +to hell and you won't find water," one of them declared. + +"All right, boys," Ben Smith told them, "dig to hell if you have to, and +don't mind the cost." Slowly the drill bored on down the dry hole. Ben +Smith's Folly, they called it. + +_The Wand_ urged the people to put their resources together--water, +food, everything--so that they might keep going until water was found or +until--it rained. Today pooling is a common method of farm marketing. We +have great wheat pools, milk pools, and many others. At that time there +were cooperative pools in a few places, although I had never heard of +one, nor of a farm organization. But it was the pooling system that was +needed to carry on. + +Of one thing there was no doubt. The grass on the Indian lands _was_ +greener than the grass on the settlers' lands. Through their land ran +the Missouri River, and they had water to spare. While the homesteaders +were famishing and their stock dying for water, it was going to waste +in Indian territory. That area was as peaceful as though the whole +frontier were filled with clear, cool streams. + +So Ida Mary and I went to the Indians for help. I presume we should have +gone to the Agency, but we had never seen the government officials in +charge, and we did know our Indians. + +We rode over into the little Indian settlement. Rows of buffalo-hide and +canvas wigwams; Indians sitting around on the ground. Men whittling, +doing beadwork, or lounging at ease. Squaws sitting like mummies or +cooking over open fires for which they broke or chopped wood. Young +bucks riding about, horses grazing peacefully, mongrel dogs in +profusion. Children, dirty, unconcerned, playing in the sun. Rows of +meat, fly-covered, drying on the lines. + +They were peaceful and unconcerned; the whole settlement had about it +the air of being on a holiday, the lazy aftermath of a holiday. +Remembering the hard labor, the anxiety, the effort and strain and +despair in the white settlement, there was a good deal to be said for +this life, effortless, without responsibility, sprawling in the shade +while others did the work. + +It was not before these members of the tribe, however, that we presented +our request. We went before the chief and his council with form and +ceremony. The old chief, dressed in dignified splendor, sat on a stool +in front of his wigwam, a rich Navajo rug under his feet. He had been a +great leader, wise and shrewd in making negotiations for his tribe. He +looked at me and grunted. + +I explained at length that I had come to him from the Brulé white men +for help. But I got no farther. He threw out his hand in a negative +gesture. The old warriors of the council were resentful, obstinate. They +muttered and shook their heads angrily. No favors to the whites who had +robbed them of their lands! + +I sat down beside the chief while I talked to him, and then to other +members of the council--to Porcupine Bear, Little Thunder, Night Pipe. +The Indian demands pomp and ceremony in the transaction of affairs. +These wanted to hold a powwow. But I had no time for ceremony. + +The Indians had _minne-cha-lu-za_ (swift-running water). We had none. If +some of the settlers could run stock on their hunting ground where they +could get to water, and if we could have water hauled from their lands, +we would pay. + +The old chief sat as immobile and dignified as a king in court. We soon +learned that the Indian horse-and-bead traders are a different species +from the high powers of the tribe sitting in council, making treaties. +It was like appearing before a high tribunal. + +"Take Indian lands. All time more," grunted one of them. + +"The settlers' land is no good to the Indian," I argued; "no water, no +berries, no wood, no more value. The government is making the whites pay +money, not giving them allotments as they do the red men." + +If they would not give us _minne-cha-lu-za_, I went on, we could not +print the paper any more, or keep _she-la_, or trade for posts. + +They went into ceremonious council, and delivered their concession +officially by an interpreter, Little Thunder I think it was, attired in +all his regalia of headdress with eagle feathers, beaded coat, and +fringed breeches. + +It appealed to their sense of power to grant the favor. At last the +whites had to come to them for help. Whether the deal was official or +unofficial, no one cared. In those crucial days Washington seemed to the +homesteaders as remote as the golden gates. + +We took a short-cut back. There was not a single building anywhere in +sight, and the only moving thing was a herd of range cattle going slowly +toward water. Through the silence came a deep, moaning sound, the most +eerie, distressed sound I ever heard. I was passing an Indian cemetery, +and beside a grave stood an Indian woman--alone with her dead. + +As is the Indian custom, she had come alone, walking many miles across +the plain. She would probably slash her breast or mutilate her flesh in +some other way as a sacrament to her grief. As I rode on slowly, her +wailing cry rose and fell until it grew dim in my ears, blending with +the moaning sound of the wind. + +Some of the settlers turned stock over on the Indian lands after our +negotiations, and the Indians hauled loads of life-giving water to the +print shop now and then. Our collection of antique animals we turned +loose to go back and live off the Indians. + +"Might be it will rain," Heine said one day. "Did you see that cloud +come by in front of the moon last night?" + +But it wasn't a cloud. It was smoke. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XIV + +THE LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH + + +We were living in the Land of the Burnt Thigh, the famous hunting ground +of the Brulé Indians, whose name was derived from a great prairie fire +which had once swept the land. + +The story of that great fire was told me by a famous interpreter who had +heard the tale many times from his grandfather. It was three seasons +after the big flood of 1812, he said, and the grass was high on Bad +River, bringing many buffalo down from the north. About two weeks after +the leaves turned they went to the prairie to get the winter's meat. +Being a hunting party, the women and children accompanied them. The +young boys wandered from the camps, shooting prairie dogs and small +birds. One day when a number of boys were returning to camp, a great +prairie fire swept down from the north. + +The boys ran for the river, but the fire was too swift for them, and +they were overtaken. Throwing themselves on the ground, they turned +their faces from the fire and wrapped their heads and bodies in their +robes, waiting for the fire to pass. Where they lay the grass was high +and there were many small bushes; so when the fire came, the ground was +hot and they were all burned on the right thigh, though otherwise +unhurt. + +The escape of the boys was considered so remarkable that the Sioux +called this tribe the "people with the burnt thigh." Apparently some +French trader rendered the name into his language, and thus we have +"Brulé" or burned. + +The Land of the Burnt Thigh was famous not only for its great prairie +fire and the fact that it had been the feeding ground of the buffalo, +which had come in big herds to winter pasture; but also because it had +been a notorious rendezvous for horse thieves. In the early days lawless +gangs turned to stealing horses instead of robbing banks. A bold outfit +of horse thieves plied their trade over a vast section of the Bad River +country, of which the Brulé had been a part. Here in the tall grass they +found refuge and feed for the horses, with water in the creeks and water +holes almost the year around. In the night they would drive their loot +in, and the law was helpless in dealing with them. + +Much has been said of Indians stealing the white man's horses and little +of the depredations of the whites upon the Indians. These gangs stole +constantly from the Indians, taking the best of their herds. A little +band of Indians, realizing that they must get back their horses at any +cost, tracked the thieves and here on the Burnt Thigh attacked them. But +they were driven back by the outlaws, who had their lookout, according +to the Indians, on the very site of Ammons; concealing themselves here +in the tall grass, they could see anyone approaching for miles around. +They had seen the Indians coming, just as we had seen them that first +day at the settlement. The gang opened fire, killed several of their +number, and routed the rest. + +The Indians made no protest. All they knew of law was the power of the +government, a force not to be appealed to for protection, but rather one +against which the red men must struggle for their rights. They had no +recourse, therefore, against the thieves. And it was not until the +National Guard was sent to round them up that this lawless band was +tracked to its lair and captured. + +On the Land of the Burnt Thigh that summer the grass was dry, and +nowhere was there water with which to fight fire. Heat waves like vapor +came up from the hard, dry earth. One could see them white-hot as they +rose from the parched ground like thin smoke. From the heat expansion +and the sudden contraction when the cool of the night came on, the earth +cracked open in great crevices like wide, thirsty mouths, into which +horses stumbled and fell beneath their riders. + +A young couple went to town one day and returned that night, looking for +their home. They wandered around their claim, seeking their shack. It +lay in ashes, destroyed by a prairie fire. + +Heine came wading through the hot yellow grass. "Did you carry matches +with you, Heine?" + +"Nope," he answered laconically. "I don't need no matches." + +"Suppose a prairie fire should come?" Everyone was supposed to carry +matches; no child was allowed to leave home without matches and +instructions to back-fire if he saw a fire coming. Heine sat down and +wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his little shirt. + +"I look first behind when I start. Can't no prairie fire come till I get +here." + +"But with these hot winds--" + +We watched constantly for the first sign of smoke. Sacks, old heavy +comforts and pieces of carpet were kept at hand as fire extinguishers, +in case there were enough water on hand to wet them--which was seldom. + +There were no more water holes, and it got dryer and hotter. Ben Smith's +men were still drilling for water. They were down 1500 feet. From the +print shop we could hear the drill grinding through hard earth. + +Prairie fires began to break out all around the Strip. The homesteaders +began to be afraid to leave their shacks for fear they would find them +gone on their return. Ammunition for the fight was pitifully meager. +They fought with plows that turned firebreaks, back-fired to stop the +progress of the fire, beat it out with their wet sacks. + +If fire ever got a start on the Burnt Thigh now, with its thick high +grass as dry as powder and no water, every habitation would be +completely annihilated. Protests about our lack of protection seethed +until they found expression in the newspaper. We had no equipment, no +fire fighters, no lookouts, no rangers. Surely the government owed us +some means of fighting the red devil of the plains. + +One evening when the parched ground was beginning to cool we noticed a +strange yellow haze settling over the earth, felt a murky heat. The +world was on fire! Not near the settlement, miles away it must be, +probably on the Indian lands beyond the Strip. + +From the heat in the air, the threatening stillness, the alertness of +the animals as they lifted their heads high in the air with nostrils +dilated, we knew it was coming toward us. The heavy reddish fog +portended a big fire, its tongue of flame lapping up everything as it +came. + +Already a group of homesteaders was gathering at the print shop, +organizing systematic action; men from every section hurrying in with +little sacks and kegs of water splashing until they were half empty; a +pathetic, inadequate defense to set up against so gigantic an enemy. +Chris Christopherson rattled by with his tractor to turn broad furrows. +Dave Dykstra, who would never set the world on fire but would do a good +deal in putting it out, hastened up to help. Here they came! Men with +kegs of water, men with pieces of carpet, men with nothing but their +hands and their fear to pit against the fire. + +Off to the south the sky was red now, and the smell of fire was in our +nostrils, faint but unmistakable. None of us knew how fast a big fire +could travel. The settlers still knew so pitiably little about combating +the frontier. + +From the Indian settlement came Swift Running Deer on the horse which +had taken the State Fair prize last year. In Sioux (the young buck was +too excited to remember his English) he said the fire was on beyond the +Brulé somewhere. Most of the Indians had ridden off to it while he had +come to tell the whites. + +"If the wind stay down, it mebbe no come, but heap big fire like that +take two day--three day--mebbe seven to die." + +It was still and peaceful now, but there was little hope that two or +three days could pass without wind--and if the wind came from that +direction there was no hope for the Brulé. + +Coyote Cal, who had come riding through the Strip, stopped at the print +shop. Ida Mary tried to persuade him to ride around to the homesteads +and tell the girls who lived alone that the fire was still a long way +off and that men had gone to fight it. + +Coyote Cal stretched his long, angular figure to full height and stood +there hesitant. "No, miss, I'd ruther fight fire," he said at length. + +"But the girls will be frantic with fear." + +"Hain't no use a calf-bawlin' over a prairie fire. If it gits yuh, it +gits yuh, an' that's all there is to it." + +With these consoling words he swung into the saddle and turned his +horse's head toward the fire. + +Ma Wagor came outside where Ida Mary and I watched the reflection of +flame against the darkening sky. The air was still. There was no wind. + +"I'm goin' home to milk the cow," Ma announced. She had paid forty +dollars for that cow, she reminded us, and she wanted every last drop of +milk out of her. Besides, she didn't believe in anybody leaving this +world hungry. + +The red dusk found the plains stirring. The ominous silence was broken +by rumbling wagons hurrying with their barrels of water, tractors +chugging, turning long fresh rows of dirt as breaks, teams everywhere +plowing around shacks and corrals. + +Night came on, inky black. The red light on the horizon and billowy +clouds of smoke intensified the darkness. Over the range, cattle were +bellowing in their mad fear of fire. They were coming closer to the +reservation fence, running from danger. + +The hours crept past; around us on the plains the settlers had done all +they could, and they were waiting as Ida Mary and I were waiting, +watching the red glow on the sky, thinking of the men who were +desperately beating out the advancing flames, wondering if each tiny +gust foretold the coming of the wind. + +Inside the shack we moved about restlessly, putting the money we had on +hand in tin cans, the legal paper in the little strong box, and burying +them in the small, shallow cave. If the fire came, we would seek refuge +there ourselves, but it wouldn't be much use. We knew that. + +Out again to look at the sky, and then up and down the print shop, +restlessly up and down. Ida Mary made coffee; we had to do something, +and there was nothing for us to do but wait. Wait and listen to the +silence, and look our own fear squarely in the eyes and know it for what +it was. + +"What's that?" said Ida Mary in a queer, hoarse voice. She put down her +cup and sat rigid, listening. Then she jumped to her feet, her face +white. "Edith," she cried, "it's the wind--it's the wind!" + +Out of nowhere came the moaning sound of the wind, sweeping unchecked +across space, blowing from the south! While we listened with caught +breath, it seized some papers and sent them rattling across the table, +blew a lock of hair in my eyes, made the dry grass rustle so that it +sounded for one glorious moment like rain. + +We ran outside and stood in the darkness, our dresses whipping around +us, looking at the sky. Here and there above the red haze we saw a +bright, jagged tongue of flame leap up, licking the black sky. + +The homesteaders who had not gone to the fire found waiting alone +intolerable, and one by one they drifted in to the store, waiting taut +and silent. + +At midnight we heard the staccato beats of a horse's hoofs. A messenger +was coming. Only one horse on the plains could travel like that; it was +Black Indian. And a moment later Lone Star Len flung himself from the +horse and came in. + +He had been fighting flame. His face was blackened almost beyond +recognition. + +"It's all right," he said at once, before we could question him. "The +fire's over on the government land. It's beyond the Strip." + +His eyes and lips were swollen, face and hands blistered. "It's still +ragin'," he went on, "but there is a little creek, dry mostly, between +the fire and the Strip. It's not likely to get this far. 'Course, the +wind is bad. It's blowin' sparks across on the grass, this side of the +creek. But some of the settlers and Indians are watchin' it." + +Ida Mary came in from the shack with sandwiches and black coffee and set +them before him. + +"You didn't need to bother doin' that for me," he protested; "you girls +better go to bed." + +"When did you have anything to eat?" Ida Mary asked, as he drank the hot +coffee and devoured the food ravenously, moving his hands as though they +hurt him unbearably. + +"This mornin'. Been working with that fire since noon; I had started for +the chuck-wagon when I smelt smoke...." + +"Lone Star, why did you risk your life to save a reservation full of +homesteaders?" I asked him. + +He stood for a moment with a chagrined expression on his smoke-scarred +face. + +"Cattle needs the grass," he replied as he stalked out and rode slowly, +wearily away into the flame-lighted night. + +The fire had broken out on range and government land off toward the +White River country--to the southeast, where Lone Star rode herd. As the +country for the most part was uninhabited, the fire had swept the plains +for miles before the fighters reached it. Sparks and flames had jumped +the creek, but by now the grass was burned back far enough on both sides +so that the danger for this region was past. + +The amused natives told how a man had jolted up on a stiff horse, a +painting outfit in his saddlebag, to watch the fire. "This is great," +he exclaimed as he plied brush and color. Then, as a volley of wild +sparks shot across the narrow stream and went into flame nearby, he +threw down the brush, rushed in among the fire-fighters, worked madly +until the flames were extinguished, then went back and finished the +picture. + +"Who is he?" someone in the gaping crowd asked. + +"The cartoonist from Milwaukee," a Brulé settler answered. + +For several days longer the fire raged, with the air smoky and a red and +black pall over the earth. Then it faded as our other terrors had faded, +and was gone. + + * * * * * + +Already, in the midst of fire and water famine, there stalked ghosts of +cold and hunger--the coming winter. With no money left to provide the +necessities of life, the homesteaders stared into the face of a food +famine. Most of them were now living on meager rations, counting every +penny, their crops shriveled in the fields. + +Ada put her small wages into flour and coffee. And Heine remarked, "My +Ma says might be we'll starve and freeze yet. She's goin' to pray." We +watched him trudge back across the plains, a sturdy little fellow, one +suspender holding up patched overalls over a faded blue shirt, bare feet +which walked fearlessly and by some miracle escaped the constant menace +of rattlesnakes, ragged straw hat shading the serious round face. The +plains had made him old beyond his six years. + +With the realization of danger which the prairie fire had brought, _The +Wand_ began to advocate government rangers and lookouts to be stationed +at strategic points. I was in the print shop writing an article on +conditions when Lone Star came in. + +"I want to get my paper forwarded, Miss Printer," he stated; "I'm +leavin' the country. It's gettin' too crowded in these parts. Too +lonesome. I don't see how people can live, huddled up with somebody on +every quarter-section." + +"Where are you going now?" + +"Goin' to an honest-to-God range country," he said. "A short-grass +country, but rich feed. You can get away from landgrabbers there. It's +bigger'n all creation." + +"Where shall I send the paper?" + +"Wyoming. The Rawhide country. Just send the paper to Lost Trail. I'll +be goin' on there. I know a cattleman around Lost Trail." + +Rawhide country. Lost Trail. About them was the atmosphere of far-flung +space, of solitude and peace. + +"I may go there myself some day," I told him. + +"If you do," he said soberly, "leave this doggone newspaper shebang +behind. It's a pest to the country. Don't clutter up any more range with +homesteadin' herds. Worse than grasshoppers; at least the grasshoppers +leave, and the homesteaders appear to be here to stay." + +He rode off, a strange, solitary figure, topped the ridge and dropped +out of sight as swiftly as he had appeared that first morning, stopping +the eagle in its flight. When he had gone I turned back to my article. +In this gigantic homestead project, _The Wand_ declared, there should be +protection. We demanded of the local land offices why the Department of +the Interior did not establish Service Bureaus on government territory +to expedite development, to lessen hardship and danger. But the Land +Offices could not help us. They were only the red-tape machines of the +Public Lands Department. + +The federal government was taking in revenue by the millions from the +homesteaders. Millions of acres of homestead land at from $1.25 to $6 an +acre provided a neat income for the United States Treasury. And, we +contended, the homesteaders of America should be given consideration. +There was nothing radical about these articles, but here again I became +known as "that little outlaw printer." + +Had I been experienced, I might have carried this appeal to Washington +and said, "Put the revenue from these lands back into them. That is not +charity, it is development of natural resources." + +Any such entreaty, coming from an upstart of a girl printer, would have +been like a lamb bleating at a blizzard. But the homesteaders might have +been organized as a unit, with official power to petition for aid. I did +not know then that I could do such things. + +Meantime the print shop buzzed with activity. The harvest of proofs, on +which I had gambled the paper, was on. It kept one person busy with the +clerical work on them. While the Strip was yet a no-man's land, I had +pledged the printing equipment company 400 proofs as collateral. That +was a low estimate. As a matter of fact _The Wand_ won an all-time +record, publishing in one week 88 proofs, the highest number ever to be +published in any issue of a newspaper of which the government had +record. From the Department of the Interior, from the Land Office, from +other newspapers congratulations poured in. It seems to me that some +sort of medal was awarded to us for that. + +It wasn't the record which mattered, of course. To us the publication of +these notices signified that the settlers had stuck it out with parched +throats to get their deeds; that some 14,000 acres of wasteland had +passed into private units in one week's time. + +It meant endless work. Type, numbers, checking, straining eyes and +nerves beyond endurance. But it also meant (for that one lot) over $400 +income for the newspaper. Proof money had been coming in for several +weeks. Every mail brought long heavy envelopes from the Land Office, +containing proof applications made there. From among the homesteaders we +hired amateur typesetters to help out, and anybody who happened to be +handy turned the press; on occasion we resorted to old Indian warriors, +and once to a notorious cattle rustler. + +And all this time we watched the sky for rain and skimmed the green scum +from the dam water to drink. Looking up from the type one morning, I saw +an old Indian standing before me, old Porcupine Bear. Slipping in on +moccasined feet, an Indian would appear before one without warning. At +first this sudden materializing at my elbow had alarmed me, but I had +long grown accustomed to it. + +Old Porcupine Bear was a savage-looking character--one of the very old +warriors who seldom left camp. One never knew how old some of these aged +Indians were, and many of them did not know themselves how many seasons +they had lived. This old man, we figured, must be a hundred years old. + +"Will there be rain, Porcupine?" I asked him. "Will you hold your Rain +Dance soon?" + +The deep wrinkles in his leathery face were hard set as if from pain. +His coal-black hair, streaked with gray and hanging loose over his +shoulders, looked as if it had not been combed for days. + +"_To-wea_," he wailed. "_My to-wea_ (my woman). Him sick. The fever. +Goin' die." He dropped his face into the palm of his hard hand and let +it lie there motionless in demonstration of her passing. He wanted to +get a box like white squaws had, the boxes in which they went to the +Happy Hunting Ground. + +He was on the road to Pierre for a coffin. Others of the tribe, we +gathered, had put in money to help buy it. He opened a beaded sack and +showed us. There was enough to buy a pretty good one. In broken Sioux +and signs we advised him to wait--mebbe-no-die. Mebbe-walk-some-more. He +shook his head stubbornly. His herbs--he was a medicine man who had +healed many sick ones--had not worked. Even his _pazunta_ had failed. + +The Indian's _pazunta_ was his shield against disease--against all evil. +It drives the Evil Spirit away. It may be anything he selects--an herb, +a stone, a rabbit's foot--so long as he selects it secretly and divulges +to no one what it is. The _pazunta_ is invested with divine curative +power, according to the Indians. + +When he got back to his wigwam with the satin-lined "last-sleep-box," +Porcupine Bear found his _to-wea_ cooking supper; so the old brave, it +was said, slept in the good soft bed himself. "Why not?" said Ida Mary. +He had slept on the ground and fought many hard battles; let him have +his cushioned resting place while he could enjoy it; but I shuddered at +the thought. + +A week or so later he came again. It was a day when I was at the +breaking point. He stood looking at me, shaking his head as he had done +over his _to-wea_. I must have looked like a ghost, for in a gesture of +friendship he said: + +"You want my last-sleep-box?" + +The prairie fire had not got me down, but at the thought of that box I +went to bed and stayed there three days. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XV + +UP IN SMOKE + + +There was almost $750 in the tin box down in the trunk ready to be +deposited. At breakfast we exulted over it. The Ammons sisters were +always draining the bank dry. Sedgwick would open his eyes when we +walked into the bank with that bag of money. + +We planned to go to Presho that day. It was hardly safe to have so much +money in the shack, and we were eager to put it in a safe place. It +represented months of planning and effort and hard work. But the labor +didn't seem bad to look back on that morning, not with the reward at +hand. It had been worth while, because the end of the road was in sight +and we had accomplished much that we had hoped to do--more, in some +respects. + +It was unbearably hot that morning, and we decided against the trip to +Presho. After all, one more day wouldn't matter, and the sun was so +scorching we quailed at the thought of that long ride. There was an +ominous oppression in the air, and heat waves made the ground appear to +waver before our eyes. Here and there flames flared up without any +explainable origin, as though from the heat of the grass itself. + +The day crept on to mid-afternoon, and the hot wind came up from the +ground, blistering our faces. There was no one near the print shop, +where the metal was hot to the touch, no movement over the plains. We +sent our helpers home, while Ma, Ida Mary and I moved about languidly, +doing only what was absolutely necessary. + +There was a curious, acrid smell in the air. As though a bolt of +lightning had struck, I stopped my work on the paper and cried out, +"What's that?" + +"Fire," screamed Ida Mary; "fire!" + +Smoke enveloped us. There was a deafening crackle. Blinding red flame. +We ran to the door, and there, not ten feet away, our shack was burning +to the ground. The little lean-to kitchen, covered with tar paper, was +sending its flames high into the air. Frantically we ran to the front +door, shouting above the crackling and roar of flame, "The trunk! The +money! The settlers' money!" + +The print shop would go, too--and the notices had several weeks to +run--but the essential thing was to get the money back. We must do that, +must! Oh, for a rolling bank on wheels! + +At the front door black smoke came rolling out, choking us. Ida Mary +threw a sack over her head and started into the shack. Ma Wagor and I +dragged her back into the open air. The building was burning as though +it had been made of paper, a torch of orange flames. We watched it go, +home, money, clothes, a few valuable keepsakes, furniture--everything we +possessed licked up by the flames. The piano, too--I was glad it had +brought so much pleasure to the settlers. + +The wind! Now the fire was spreading. The print shop was burning, its +inflammable tar paper and dry boards blazing like powder. "Hurry, +hurry!" we called frantically to each other. From the print shop I +grabbed the most valuable papers while Ida Mary snatched what she could +from the post office. Stoical, silent, making every move count, Ma Wagor +was busy in the store, her store, in which she had taken such pride and +such infinite pleasure. Ma was getting more "confusement" now than she +had bargained for. + +Blinded with smoke, we caught up the sacks into which we had stuffed the +papers and threw them into the cave, the only shelter left on the whole +claim. + +In less than thirty minutes the post office, the store with its supply +of food, the print shop were gone. The harvest of long months of labor +and storm, thirst and fire, vanished as though it had never been--gone +up in clouds of heavy, black smoke. + +If the wind would only go down, we groaned; but the sparks had already +caught the grass around us. A prairie fire! If it ever jumped those +breaks, the Strip would be devastated with the wind sweeping the plain +as it was doing. What irony that we who had printed our precautions and +warnings for others, should burn up the Strip! We who had labored so to +save it! And there was no chance for us. We could not outrun a prairie +fire. The horses, which were untied, had gone full speed across the +prairie at the first smell and sight of fire. + +Now the oilhouse had caught, and we turned, panic-stricken, running +headlong across the plains, our feet burning, not knowing where we were +going so long as we could escape the explosion of the oil. Inside the +firebreaks the grass was burning. Listening for the explosion of the oil +was like waiting for the crack of doom. Then we remembered. Pa Wagor had +sunk the barrels underground, using siphons, "just in case of fire." + +Sparks leaping up, flying across the breaks--the prairie was on fire! We +checked our flight, sanity returning with the emergency. We had to go +back--simply had to go back and fight that first outbreak of flame. The +Strip was at stake. Life and property were at stake. Falling, rising, +running, falling again, dragging each other up, we went back. "Help!" we +called to the empty prairie, "Help!" + +There was nothing to smother the fast-spreading blaze. Not a thing. Not +even a sack or a hat. We tore off parts of the clothes from our scantily +clad bodies. Ma took off her petticoat. There was a sack in the barn +which we wet in a keg set in the yard, wet the canvas which covered the +keg. With that, with our feet we trampled down the sparks as they fell, +the flames as they rose--shoes hot and charred, holes burning through. + +Across the prairie a team was coming at a dead run. "Bless the Lord," Ma +Wagor panted, "it's Sam Frye!" + +A bright red flare shot up from behind and around me. My dress was on +fire. Ida Mary clawed dirt from the hard-baked ground, and with it in +her hands twisted my burning smock into knots to keep the flames from +spreading. With almost animal instinct I threw myself down in the +firebreak, pressing hard against the ground to extinguish any smoldering +sparks on my clothing, and lay panting, cooling in the dirt. + +Sam Frye, the mail-carrier, was there, taking charge. All at once a +crowd had gathered, attracted by the leaping flames on what had been the +settlement of Ammons, running to fight the threatening prairie fire. Men +went to work, fighting fresh outbursts of flames and putting out fire on +the ruins. Women hovered about us in sympathy, some with tears streaming +down their sunburned cheeks under the straw hats and bonnets. Neither +Sister nor I could shed a tear. + +Dazed and dizzy, we stumbled back across the breaks to the charred ashes +of our labors. Apart from the tangible losses that lay in coals, the +newspaper, the voice of the Brulé, was gone. "Down into frontier +history," Senator Phillips said. Into it had gone the ambitions, the +heartbreaking labor, the vision of two girls. + +Half-naked, our scanty clothing burned and torn, hair singed, faces and +parts of our bodies scorched and black with smoke--tar paper makes +black, smudgy smoke--eyes red and burning, we stood there in the middle +of the open spaces that had dealt us their blow. Our _pazuntas_ hadn't +worked, that was all. But at least we had checked the prairie fire. We +had won that much from the Brulé, the "Burned" land. + +We clung to each other wordlessly. There was nothing to say. Everything +that made up our daily life and our plans for the future had been wiped +out in thirty minutes. + +"We still have the claim," Ida Mary murmured at last; "nothing can +destroy the land." + +"But all our bright hopes--" + +How the fire got such a start before we detected it was a mystery. With +the shack walls already burning hot and the strong wind, it had been +like spontaneous combustion. Ma Wagor was baking bread on an old oil +stove. Perhaps a draft from the open window had fanned the fire. But the +origin didn't matter now. + +Ma Wagor had worked heroically, helping us to save the important +records, the mail, and the prairie from being swept by fire. When it was +all over she did not whimper about her loss. + +When I saw Pa coming, I ran to her. "Ma, here comes Pa. This will kill +him. You had better go meet him." He had not wanted her to buy the store +in the first place; now there were debts piled up, and only the +homestead to pay them. + +She sat on the ground, burying her face in her hands. "Let him come to +me," she replied. "It's his place to comfort me in time of trouble." + +True to her feminine intuition, he went to her and put his arm around +her shoulders. "Elizabeth," he said. No response. "Elizabeth," he +entreated. "Don't give way like this. We will pull through somehow." + +I felt a hand on my arm, and Alex Van Leshout's voice hoarse in my ear. +"The latchkey of the Circle V is on the outside. If you girls will come +over, I'll move out. If you need me or Hop-Along, all I have is at your +service. You're a good Indian, Edith." + +Sometimes I envy the women who are able, during a catastrophe, to stop +and grieve over it. I never seem to have had the time. There was always +something that demanded to be done, whatever the circumstances. + +The fire had no sooner been put out, the claim bare as the day I first +saw it--save for charred grass, and a great mound of ashes, and the +smell of smoke--when Sam Frye opened the mail sacks. Sitting bedraggled +in his old buggy, Ida Mary distributed the mail to the patrons who had +gathered. Even though the post office was gone, the mail must go on. We +were never destined to be back-trailers. + +The sultry, tragic day came to a close, with the plains light long after +the sun had gone down, and the Ammons settlement gone, and a devastating +sense of emptiness. Ida Mary and I realized that we had no place to go. +With typical frontier hospitality, every home on the reservation was +open to us; but that night we longed to be alone. It wasn't +commiseration we needed, but quiet in which to grasp what had happened +to us. We decided on Margaret's shack, left vacant when she had proved +up. She had left a few household essentials there. + +There some of the frontier women followed us, to bathe and salve the +burns we had forgotten, bandaging those which were the worst. I had +suffered most when my clothing caught fire, but miraculously there were +no serious burns. + +They left us alone as night came, Ma and Pa Wagor, Ida Mary and me. It +was Ma who roused first from the general lethargy in which we were all +steeped. She began bustling around. "Guess we'd better have something to +eat," she said briskly. + +"There's nothing left to eat," Ida Mary reminded her. + +Triumphantly, Ma brought forth a big bundle tied up in her old gingham +apron. In it were cans of salmon, tomatoes and other essential foods. +And a can of pineapple, Ma's panacea for all ills! "I knew we'd be +hungry after all that, so I jerked up a little stuff while you were +getting the papers out." + +She brought in an armful of prairie hay, built a fire in the cookstove +and made strong tea. She was no longer the clinging vine of an hour +before. + +And there in the little shack down the draw, penniless, almost naked, +all our belongings and our plans for the future in charred ashes on the +claim, we slept from exhaustion. + +No matter with what finality things seem to end, there is always a next +day and a next. During those first few hours the extent of our disaster +had dazed us. Then, the odds seemed so overwhelmingly against us that +there was no use in going on. The only trouble was that we couldn't +stop. Post office or no post office, there was the mail. Print shop or +no print shop, there were the proof notices. + +We were like the cowboy who, hanging to a running steer's tail, was +dragged against the hard ground and through brush until he was cut, +battered and bruised. + +Fearing he would be killed, the other cowboys, who watched, shouted +wildly to him, "Let go! Let go!" + +"Let go, hell!" he yelled back. "It's all I can do to hold on!" + +Then there was Great-uncle Jack Ammons, back in the earlier days of +Illinois, who had become critically ill from some lingering disease of +long standing. One day the doctor called Aunt Jane aside and said, +"Jane, if Jack has any business matters to attend to, it had better be +done at once. I don't think he can last another forty-eight hours." + +From the bedroom came a weak, irritable voice, "Jane! Jane! Where's my +boots?" + +Uncle Jack got up, fought the disease, and lived and prospered for many +a year. We came of a family who died with their boots on. + +I don't know whether it was a streak of Great-uncle Jack or whether, +like the cowboy, we held on because we could not let go. The latter, +perhaps, for we saw no way of escape. Many times, I think, people get +too much credit for hanging on to things as a virtue when they are +simply following the line of least resistance. We saw no means of +escape, and were too stunned to plan. + +Of one thing we were sure. We would not go back home for help. There +would have to be some way of telling our father of the misfortune so as +to soften the blow as much as possible, but we were determined not to +add to his burdens, which were already too heavy for him. + +"If the railroad company takes us to the state line," declared Ida +Mary, "it will have to take us crated--or furnish us covering." In the +garish morning light, indeed, we felt rather naked in those flimsy, torn +clothes, the only garments we now owned. + +"We can't go back, anyhow," I reminded her. "We can't leave things +unfinished. The proof notices have to finish running, and Sam Frye will +be throwing the mail sack in at the door." It was easier to get into +things than to get out. + +The settlers came that day with their widow's mite of food and clothes; +the women's clothing too large, the children's too small. But it covered +us--after a fashion. The store at Presho sent out a box of supplies. +Coyote Cal and Sourdough rode up. + +"Beats tarnation, now don't it," Coyote Cal consoled us. + +"I told you this country wasn't fit for nothin' but cowhands," growled +Sourdough. "Here, the punchers rounded up a little chicken feed." He +fairly threw at us a dirty tobacco pouch, filled with coins. "Coming +before pay day like this, tain't much," he grumbled, as though the +catastrophe might have waited for pay day--things couldn't be done to +suit Sourdough. + +A wagonload of Indians drove up, men and squaws and papooses. They +climbed out, unhitched, turned the team loose to graze. They came in +mumbling in a sort of long wail, "No-print-paper, hu-uh, hu-uh," but +gleeful as children over the gifts they carried. A bright-hued shawl, +thick hot blankets, beaded moccasins. There was a sack of "corn in the +milk" (roasting ears) which had been raised over by the river, and +stripped (dried) meat. We did not know whether it was cow, horse or dog, +but we knew it had been black with flies as it hung on the lines +drying--we had seen them drying meat. However, parboiling should make it +clean. + +And early that morning we saw Imbert coming from Presho, hurrying to Ida +Mary, his face drawn and haggard. They went into each other's arms +without a word, and at last Ida Mary was able to cry, tears of sorrow +and relief, with her face against his breast. + +I lay weak and ill, wasting from a slow fever. I slept fitfully, while +streams of cool water went gurgling by, and cool lemonade, barrels of +it. But every time I stooped to take a drink the barrels went rattling +across the plain into a prairie fire. + +"Maybe you've got typhoid," Ma would say as she bathed my hot head and +hands with towels wrung out of vinegar and warm water, fanning them to +coolness. "You'll be all right, Sis," Ida Mary would say; "just hold +on--" We did not call a doctor. There was no money left for doctors. + +Rest, sleep, and nourishment were what I needed, but conditions were far +from favorable for such a cure. The deserted shack was baking hot. It +was not the cheerful place it had seemed while Margaret lived in it, +with the bare floor, the old kitchen stove, the sagging wire couch and a +couple of kitchen chairs. We had scanty, sticky food, and warm, +sickening water. We didn't even bother to keep it clean. The routine of +our life had been burned away. The handful of dishes went dirty, the +floor went unswept. But Ma brought milk and custards that she had made +at home, I drank the juice of dried fruits, and Imbert brought us water +from the Millers' well. We sank jars of it deep into the ground to keep +cool. + +Heine broke a new trail across the plains and a few days after the fire +the horses came home. They had wandered back to the old site, snorted at +the black ruins, and gone thundering across the prairie led by Lakota +with the wild horse's fear of fire. We never expected to see them again. +But one day they saw Sam Frye coming with the mail. They followed him +down the draw, and when he stopped and threw out the mail sack Lakota +gave a loud neigh and walked straight into Margaret's old barn. Where +the mail sacks went was home to Lakota. + +Moving the post office around the prairie, piling the mail in an open +box in the corner, may have been criminally illegal, but we gave it no +thought. + +The mail, in a haphazard fashion, was being handled. Our next problem +was the proof notices. They must go on. It was vital to the settlers. +Many of them could not live without the money they were borrowing on the +final proofs. Without the press there seemed no solution to that +problem. + +On the sixth day after the fire Ida Mary got up early, while I slept in +the cool of the morning; she made a blast from the dry grass under one +cap of the stove, boiled coffee, ate her lean breakfast, and put food on +a chair beside my bed. Then she darkened the room, slipped out, saddled +Lakota, rode up to the cave, and brought out the mail sack of legal +papers we had saved from the fire. She took out the notices--those in +course of publication and others due to be published. Then she rode on +to McClure, made arrangements with the printer of the McClure _Press_, +and began setting up the notices. + +When the stage came in that noon with the Ammons mail, there was a +letter from E. L. Senn, the proof king, offering us the use of the shop +and part-time service of his printer to meet the emergency. Although we +had cornered the great proof business on the Lower Brulé, he was coming +to our rescue to save it for us. + +That night Ida Mary came home, hot, weary, with lines of fatigue in her +youthful face and about her blue eyes. But there was a resolute look, +too, marking her strong will; and in her voice a tone of satisfaction. + +It was a long, arduous task, setting up again all those notices in small +type. The type of the McClure shop would not set half of the notices. We +sent the balance of them to be set, some in Presho, some in Pierre, got +them back by stage, and _The Wand_, despite fire and all other +obstacles, went on with its work--a few days late, strictly a proof +sheet, but without lapse of publication. + +And Ida Mary kept things going, conserving her strength as well as she +could, with Imbert and Ma Wagor helping. Ma said, "I'd 'a' died if I +hadn't found something to do." + +It was mid-August, with no sign of the drought breaking. In the shack +down the draw we sat during spare hours sorting type at Margaret's +kitchen table, picking, separating six-point, eight-point, ten-point +letters and spaces, leads, slugs. Ma Wagor and other neighbors helped at +odd times; Heine separated the type into piles of like sizes. Sorting +that type-pi was a job to which no one in the world but a printer can +give the deserved sympathy. + +Heine, raking around in the cooling embers on my claim, had found +several cases of pied type and a few odds and ends of printing equipment +down under a piece of heavy tin roofing, the only thing salvaged from +the wreckage. + +A committee of settlers came, emptied a little sack on the table. In a +little heap there lay pennies, dimes, quarters, a few silver +dollars--precious coins that had been put aside to keep the wolf from +the door--and a separate roll of bills. The offering of the Lower Brulé +settlers! "To build a new shack and print shop," they said simply. "The +homesteaders will do the building." + +Of course, we must build another shack and reestablish residence or +there would be no deed to the land. The money represented not only the +hard-earned savings but the loyal support of the settlers. When we +protested, they laughed. "But _The Wand_ has always been telling us to +share," they said. Some of the business men of the towns added to the +contribution to establish the newspaper. + +One sweltering day, with everyone seeking escape from the broiling sun, +all movement over the Strip was suspended. As I lay on the couch +recuperating, there came a great explosion that roared through the dead +hush like all the cannons of war gone off at once. Ida Mary, resting in +the shade of the shack, came running in. It could not be thunder, for +there was not a cloud in the sky. It had come from over Cedar Fork way. + +Soon the plains were astir with settlers rushing in the direction of the +explosion. A great rumbling force was sending steam high into the air. +It was Ben Smith's Folly. He had struck gas--enough to pipe house and +barns for light and fuel! + +Then came a heaving, belching from far down in the earth's cavern. And +up came the water--a great stream of it that ran over the dry hot +ground! Water overflowing. That artesian well, flowing day and night, +would save the people and stock until it rained. + +And with the flowing of fresh, cool water on the Lower Brulé, life began +to flow through my veins once more, and I got up, ready for what was to +come. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XVI + +FALLOWED LAND + + +So it happened that only a few weeks before proving-up time, Ida Mary +and I had to start all over again. But with the coming of water into +that thirsty land it didn't seem so difficult to begin again. And we +weren't doing it alone. It was the settlers who built a new shack, a new +building for a printing press; the settlers who clothed us during those +first destitute days. "This is cooperation," they laughed at our +protests. "_The Wand_ has always preached cooperation." + +In the cool of the evening I rode out over the devastated prairie, past +the charred timbers and ashes of my claim, across the scorched and +stunted fields blighted by drought, avoiding the great cracks which had +opened in the dry earth and lay gaping like thirsty mouths for rain. +The crops were burnt, and the land which had seemed so fertile looked +bleak and sterile. + +I rode through the reservation gate. There was no one at home at Huey +Dunn's, but his little field of shocked grain lay there in the midst of +burnt grass and unharvested fields. Instead of dry chaff there were +hard, fairly well-filled heads. It had withstood the drought +sufficiently to mature. In an average year it would have yielded a good +crop. + +On his claim near the reservation a young man was doing quite a bit of +experimenting. He was a graduate of an agricultural school. I looked at +his fields, which also had come through the drought much better than +others. From other farmers scattered here and there who had tried the +fallowing plan I got records of methods and results. Then I rode back +slowly, thinking of what might be done for the Brulé country. + +Drinking water supply could be obtained. The next most vital problem was +moisture for the crops. Most of the rainfall came in the growing season, +but in dry years it was inadequate and much of it wasted on packed +ground. To produce crops in the arid or semi-arid regions, out-of-season +moisture--heavy snows and rains--must be conserved. There must be a way +to harness it. + +Next to lack of moisture was the short growing season. These were the +principal barriers to converting the new West into an agricultural +domain. The latter problem could be solved, the farmers said. Progress +already was being made in developing seed adapted to the climate. The +Indians had produced quick-maturing corn through their years of +corn-raising in a small way. There could be developed a hardier, +short-stalked grain, eating up less moisture, agricultural authorities +maintained. The farmers said that nature itself gradually would do a +great deal toward that end. + +Experience. Science. Time. Of course, this was a land of the future, not +of today. The homesteaders had expected to tame it in a year or two, +when many years must be spent on even the smallest scientific +discoveries. They had demanded miracles. That was because they had no +resources with which to await results. + +President Roosevelt had done much in turning public attention toward the +necessity of reclaiming these public lands, and already much was being +done. They had been too long neglected. Years ago, when the supply of +government land had seemed inexhaustible, the tide of settlers had swept +around the forgotten frontier, on beyond the arid and semi-arid land to +the fertile soil and the gold fields on the Pacific Coast. But the time +had come when this neglected prairie was the only land left for a +land-hungry people. Some way had to be found to make the great arid +plains productive. + +The Department of Agriculture was turning its attention to the frontier, +establishing bureaus and experiment stations in various western states, +making scientific research. + +At the request of _The Wand_, two agricultural agents from the State +Experimental Farm came to examine the soil and advise us as to its +possibilities, as to crops and cultivation. They reported it rich in +natural resources, with splendid subsoil. We would have to depend +greatly upon the subsoil and its moisture-retaining quality. + +And over the frontier there was talk about a new system of conserving +moisture. Some said it was bound to sweep the West. The method was +called fallowing--the method Huey Dunn had used. It was a radical +departure from anything farmers of the rain belts had ever used. + +The few sodbreakers who had tried it thought they had found a way to +conserve the moisture and at the same time to preserve the land, but it +was not they who heralded the plan as a great new discovery. To them it +was a way to raise their own crops. They may have learned it in the Old +Country, where intensive farming was carried on, or, like Huey Dunn, +figured it out for themselves. But it was ahead of the times in the new +West and generally looked upon as an impractical idea spread largely by +land agents as propaganda. Many of the farmers had never heard of it. +What I had heard and read of fallowing now came back to mind. I was in a +position to keep better posted on such things than they. + +I got out my letters and records and spread them before Ida Mary on the +old square table, and with the sweat dripping down our faces from the +heat of the lamp we eagerly devoured their contents. Huey Dunn's plan of +mellowing, or rotting the soil, was not yet the true fallowing method. + +"But it will mean cropping the land only every other year, and plowing +and raking the empty soil," Ida Mary said in a tone of misgiving. + +"The top soil is kept loosened so that every bit of moisture will be +absorbed into the subsoil. Suppose it does mean letting the land lie +idle every other year, alternating the fields," I contended. "There is +plenty of cheap land here. It will be a way to utilize waste space." +Farmers in other arid regions, I learned as I scanned the letters, were +raising forage crops on the land in the off year. + +But it will take two years, Ida Mary reminded me. The settlers had no +money to wait so long for a crop. "And all that labor--" she went on. +"It may be the solution, but I doubt if the settlers would listen to any +such plan." + +I knew she was right. Two years of waiting, labor and expense. Labor was +no small item with the poor homesteaders. If the government would put in +money to carry out this new system until the farmers could get returns +from it--"It is a gigantic project for the government to finance ... it +would require great financial corporations to develop this country ..." +Halbert Donovan had said. + +I talked it over with some of the more experienced farmers on the Strip +who understood the processes required. They figured they could plant +part of the ground while the other lay fallowing. If it happened to be a +wet year, that would give them something to go on. "But, mein Gott, how +we goin' to pull t'rough next winter?" old man Husmann raved. Even Chris +had no answer. + +In the years of experimenting, the fallowing system underwent a number +of changes. But we had the plan in its fundamentals. After each rain the +land should be loosened; and late in the fall it should be plowed rather +deeply to soak up the winter snows. The top soil must be kept from +packing. It was worth trying, they agreed, if they could get money to +pull through this drought and stay on the land. + +This might be a solution for the future. But for the people on the land +the solution must be immediate. Empty purses could not wait two seasons +for a good crop; empty stomachs could not await the future, and famine +stared the homesteaders on the Lower Brulé in the face. + +Our proof sheet came out with the message, "We Can Fallow!" There was +encouragement to be derived from it, of course, but it was hope +deferred. Then, sitting in the doorway of the shack, leaning against the +jamb for support, my pencil held in tender fingers not yet healed, I +wrote to Halbert Donovan, setting forth the possibilities of the Strip, +and the West, under a moisture-retaining method of farming. + +It was a morning in late August when I turned to see a well-dressed man +standing in the open door. Halbert Donovan! + +At the first meeting he had found the West green and bright with spring +colors, and the outlaw printer of the McClure _Press_ excited and +voluble over the possibilities of the country. Now the investment broker +found a land of desolation and ruin, and the printer in sorry plight, +living in a crude, bare shack, clad like some waif of the streets in the +clothes donated by the settlers. + +But he had come. He had driven out from Pierre along the dusty roads, +through the sultry heat, in a long shiny automobile. On the sagging +couch leaning against the hot wall, he sat wiping the perspiration from +his face as I told him more of the fallowing idea. He had not heard of +it. He knew practically nothing about agriculture, but he was a man to +whom any method of developing vast resources would appeal. + +"At first," he said, little crinkles breaking around his eyes, relieving +the sternness of his face, "I read _The Wand_ (how I did laugh at the +name you gave it) with refreshing amusement, out of a personal curiosity +you had aroused. I wanted to see how long you would hold out. Later I +became deeply interested in this western activity." + +I knew in what mood he must have reached the shack, after that drive +from Pierre, across parched earth, seeing the ruined crops, passing +settlers' homes which from the outside looked like the miserable huts +one sees along waterfronts or in mean outskirts of a city where the +flotsam of humanity live. And cluttered around them, farm machinery, +washtubs, and all the other junk that could be left outdoors, with +countless barrels for hauling water, and the inevitable pile of tin +cans. It was dreary, it was unrelievedly ugly; above all, it looked like +grim failure. + +Earnestly I faced him. "We aren't done," I told him. "We've just +begun--badly, I know, but we can fallow. Make reservoirs. Put down +artesian wells." I completely forgot, in putting these possibilities of +the Strip before him, to mention the gas and oil deposits which we had +discovered during our frantic search for water. I did not think of +saying, "We have natural gas here--let's go and look at the Ben Smith +ranch with all its buildings piped with gas. And over on the Carter +place a drill came up from a shallow hole sticky with oil." But the +minds of the settlers were so focused elsewhere that little had been +said about these things. With an investment broker interested in mining +projects under my very roof, many of us might have become rich and the +Brulé prosperous in no time. + +Development of agriculture, to my mind, was of broader importance than +oil strikes, anyhow. "Men do put money into undeveloped things," I said. +"Eastern capitalists risk millions in undeveloped mines and oil fields +in the West. This is different. Land is solid." + +He answered thoughtfully: "As an investment, land is not so precarious +as mines, but there are no big profits to be reaped from it. That's the +difference, my girl." + +He must have known that even for investors, western land was going to be +a big thing. He must have known that the railroad companies were buying +it up--that the Milwaukee had gone into a spree of land buying in Lyman +County. + +I poured him some water from the can we kept in a hole in the ground +back of the shack for coolness. He took a swallow and set it down. "Good +Lord, how can anyone drink that!" he exclaimed. + +"We get used to it," I told him. "And we'll have a better water supply +in time. It will rain--it's bound to rain, sooner or later." + +He looked out at the blazing sky, the baked earth, a snake slithering +from the path back into the dry grass which rustled as it moved. "So +this is the land you want to save," he exclaimed. "The incredible thing +is that people have managed to stay on it at all!" + +"They will stay," I assured him. "Remember that these builders have had +nothing to work with, no direction, no system or leadership. What would +business men accomplish in such an undertaking under the circumstances? +If they had experienced leaders--men like you--" + +"In other words," he smiled, "laying up riches where moth and rust do +corrupt." He walked to the door and stood, hands in pockets, looking out +over the plains. Then he turned to face me. + +"My dear girl, I might not be worth a hoot at the job." + +"Oh, you would! You would! And if the settlers never repaid you, think +what a land king you would become," I laughed. + +"No, I don't want the land that way. I want to see the settlers succeed, +try to keep them from being squeezed out." + +He mopped his face, picked up the glass of water and after a glance at +it set it down untouched. "Now, I've been thinking of this western +development for some time. It's going to open up new business in almost +every field. Aside from all that, it is worth while. I've kept track of +you and your Brulé. If one gets his money back here it is all he can +expect. How much would be needed to help these settlers hold on--a +little grubstake, some future operating money? I like this fallowing +idea." + +He talked about second mortgages, collateral on personal property, +appointment of local agents, etc. He did not want the source of this +borrowing power to become known as yet. + +It was he who brought me back to my personal predicament when, ready to +leave, he expressed his desire to help me, asking if I would accept a +check--"For you and your sister to carry on." But I refused. I had +appealed to him for the country, not for myself. But his offer mortified +me, made me conscious of my shabby appearance, the coarse, ill-fitting +clothes, the effects of the fire still visible in rough and +smoke-stained skin, the splotches of new skin on my lips, the face pink +and tender. Altogether, the surroundings and I must have made a drab +spectacle. + +Holding out his hand to say good-by, Halbert Donovan saw my shrinking +embarrassment. Suddenly he put his arm around my shoulders, drew me to +him, brushed back the singed hair and pressed his lips to my forehead; +turned my small, blackened hand, palm upward, looking at it. + +"I'll help you all I can," he said. "Just keep your Utopian dreams." + + * * * * * + +So it happened that, before famine could touch these people who had +already struggled through drought and blizzard and despair, they found +help in sight. Halbert Donovan put up $50,000 as a start, to be dealt +out for emergency on land, livestock, etc. Heretofore loans had been +made on land only. Now the reliability of the borrower himself was often +taken into account as collateral. It was enough that we knew the +borrower was honest, that he was doing his best to conquer the land and +to make it yield. We gambled on futures then, as we had done before. +That it was eastern capital, handled through a system of exchange and +agencies, was all that those who borrowed knew or cared. + +And each day we scanned the heavens for signs of rain. We searched for a +cloud like a starving man for bread. The settlers went stalking about +with necks craned, heads thrown back, eyes fixed on the sky. And the +cartoonist from Milwaukee took to looking for a cloud with a field +glass. A cloud no bigger than a man's hand would raise the hopes of the +whole reservation. But in vain we searched the metallic blue of the sky. + +With spectacular ceremonial and regalia the Indians staged their "rain +dance." The missionaries had long opposed this form of expression by the +Indians, and their objections led to a government ban which was finally +modified to permit some sort of ritual. + +These symbolic dances were not mere ceremonials for the Plains Indians; +they were their one means of expressing their emotions en masse +rhythmically, of maintaining their sense of tribal unity. + +The first part of the ceremony was secret and lasted for several days. +After that the public ceremony began. Painted according to ritual, they +danced in a line from east to west and back again, whistling as they +danced, every gesture having its symbolic meaning. The whistle +symbolized to them the call of the Thunderbird. + +Pioneers belong to the past, people are prone to say; savage customs +belong to the past. But it was in the twentieth century that primitive +men, their bodies streaked with black paint, fasted and danced, +overcoming an enemy as they danced, compelling the Thunderbird to +release the rain. And on the Strip men and women prayed as fervently to +their own God, each in his own way. + +That night, something breaking the dead stillness woke me. A soft, slow +tapping on the roof of the shack, like ghostly fingers. It increased in +tempo as though birds, in this land without trees, were pecking at the +roof; it grew to a regular drumming sound. I lay for a few moments, +listening, wondering. Then I leaped out of bed, ran to the door and +stepped outside. + +Rain! Rain! Rain! + +"Ida Mary," I called, "get up! It's raining!" + +She was out of bed in a moment as though someone had shouted "fire." + +In nightdress, bare feet, we ran out on the prairie, reached up our +hands to the soft, cool, soothing drops which fell slowly as though +hesitating whether to fall or not. And then it poured. The grass was wet +beneath our feet. + +We lifted our heads, opened our lips and drank in the cool, fresh drops. +I lay down on the cool blanket of earth, absorbing its reviving moisture +into my body, feeling the rain pattering on my flesh. + +Over the prairie dim lights flickered through the rain. Men and women +rushed out to hail its coming--and to put tubs and buckets under the +roofs. No drop of this miracle must be wasted. In their joy and relief, +some of the homesteaders, unable to sleep, hitched up and drove across +the plains to rejoice with their friends. + +After that eternity of waiting it rained and rained, until the earth all +about was green and fresh. Native hay came out green, and late-planted +seed burst out of the ground. Some of the late crops matured. There was +water in the dams! The thirsty land drank deep of the healing rains. + +The air grew fresh and cool, haggard faces were alight with hope. The +Lower Brulé became a different place, where once again people planned +for the future, unafraid to look ahead. + +With the mail bag, the salvaged type, and Margaret's few sticks of +furniture which she wrote to us to take, we moved back to the homestead, +to the site of Ammons. + +The settlers had the building up. This time it was a little +square-roofed house made of drop siding (no more tar paper). A thin, +wall-board partition running halfway to the ceiling divided the small +living quarters from the print shop. + +The McClure _Press_ had died the natural death of the proof sheet, and +the proof king was submerged in the cause of prohibition. Later he was +appointed federal prohibition agent for the state of South Dakota. He +gave us most of the McClure _Press_ equipment. So I got that hand press, +after all. What few proofs were yet to be made in that section were +thrown to _The Wand_. With the current proof money coming in we bought +the additional supplies necessary to run the paper. + +I sent a telegram to Halbert Donovan: "Rain. Pastures coming out green. +Dwarfed grain can make feed in the straw. My flax making part crop. Dams +full of water. Fall fallowing begun." In hilarious mood I signed it +"Utopia." + +Delivered the twenty-five miles in the middle of the night, special +messenger service prepaid, came the answer: "Atta girl. Am increasing +the stakes." + +He did. Halbert Donovan's company interested other financial concerns in +making loans, "to deal out through competent appraisement." + +So the Brulé won through, as pioneers before them had done, as other +pioneers in other regions were doing, as ragged, poverty-stricken, +gallant an army as ever marched to the colors. + +[Illustration] + + + +XVII + +NEW TRAILS + + +Ida Mary and Imbert were going to be married. At last Ida Mary was sure, +and there was no need of waiting any longer. So she went back to St. +Louis for the first time, and two weeks later the wedding took place. + +When they returned as bride and groom, the settlers came from every +direction, accompanied by all the cow and sheep bells, tin cans and old +horns on the Strip for a big charivari. They came bringing baskets of +food for the supper and any little article or ornament they could find +at home for a wedding present, singing as they came, "Lucky Numbers Are +We," and "We Won't Go Home Till Morning." + +Imbert took over the Cedar Fork ranch and store--that little trade +center outside the reservation gate where a disheveled group of +landseekers had faced a new dawn rising upon the Strip. And Ida Mary, +who so loved the land, came at last to make it her permanent home. +Steady, practical and resourceful--it was such women the West needed. + +The sturdily built log house was a real home, no tar-paper +shack--rustic, we would call it now--with four rooms and a porch. There +were honest-to-goodness beds, carpets and linoleum on the kitchen floor! +Ida Mary was so proud of the linoleum that she wiped it up with skim +milk to make it shine. There was a milk cow and consequently homemade +butter and cottage cheese--all the makeshift discomforts of homesteading +replaced by the solid and enduring qualities of home. + +Peace, home, happiness--for Ida Mary. + +And Ma Wagor's problems were solved, too. It appeared that her first +husband had left her more than the an-tik brooch of which she was so +proud. He had left her a son who had grown to be a stalwart, +good-looking young man, who worked with a construction company out in +western Nebraska. Learning of the Wagors' misfortune, he came, started +another store at Ammons for his mother, and helped her to run it for a +while. + +All around Ammons the fields lay freshly turned, fallowing for next +year's crop. Our field of flax had been cut for what little it would +make, and the ground plowed over to soak up the winter's moisture. With +the turning of the ground for another season, a page in my own life was +turning. "What am I going to do, now that I've come in under the wire?" +I wondered. + +And then I proved up and got my patent. I borrowed a thousand dollars on +it to pay off the government and the balance due our financial backers, +who had gambled on us without security. But I did not borrow the money +through the Halbert Donovan Company. The loan had been promised me by +the banks many months before. We had borrowed on the first homestead to +get the second, borrowed to the limit on the second to pay for the +privilege of helping to run the reservation. We now had both farms +mortgaged to the hilt. But the hay alone would pay the interest and +taxes. Land would increase in value. + +I was alone at the shack now with the newspaper still to get out. Riding +across the plains toward the claim one afternoon, I heard the swift, +staccato clicking of type as it fell rapidly in the stick. The metallic +sound carried across the prairie as I neared the shop. As I walked in I +saw, perched on the high stool in front of the type case, a little +hoydenish figure with flying hair--Myrtle Coombs, the hammer-and-tongs +printer. "This don't look right to me," she remarked, reading her stick +as I came in, "but a good printer follows copy even if it flies out of +the window." + +Myrtle had come back on vacation to see how her homestead was +progressing. Seeing that I needed help, she unrolled a newspaper bundle +and hung her "extra" dress and nightgown on a nail, laid a comb and a +toothbrush on the dry-goods-box dressing table, and for two weeks she +"threw" out the paper with a bang. + +About this time the régime of our government was changing. Out of the +West, from which we had had only sheep and cattle, there were coming men +destined to be leaders in the affairs of the country. As men had risen +from the ranks to guide the destinies of the Colonies, so men appeared +from the West to shape this new America. + +They came from a world where land was king. It was a boundless +territory. A large section of it, which was once marked on the map as +the Great American Desert, had been left untouched, a dead possession +and a problem to the government, who did not know what use to make of it +until the homesteaders pushed west. + +In the past two or three years, 200,000 homesteaders had taken up +claims, filing on more than 40,000,000 acres, making a solid coverage of +70,000 square miles. Those settlers and their families constituted a +million people. Ahead of this tidal wave, in the steady stream of +immigration, thousands of other settlers had moved west. Now there were +several million people who must subsist on the raw lands. They, with +others who had followed the homesteaders, were dependent upon their +success or failure to make the western prairie produce. + +It had to produce! The West was the nation's reserve of natural +resources. The soil was to produce cereal gold, huge fields of wheat, +bread for a new people--bread, at last, for a world at war. + +So the Public Lands question was of first importance. There must be new +land laws and other measures enacted for these people. It was a gigantic +task set for the men from out the West to perform. But already they had +begun to wield an influence on the affairs of the nation. + +One heard of a man from Utah with the name of Smoot, who came from a +class of solid builders. He was bound to be heard more of in the +future, people said; and there appeared in Congress a man whose +indomitable force soon became recognized as something to contend with--a +man from Idaho named William E. Borah. Two other westerners had already +become statesmen of note. They had sprung from the sagebrush country. +Senator Francis E. Warren, and Congressman Frank W. Mondell--both of +Wyoming. + +Senator Warren devoted a lifetime to the interests of the West. +Congressman Mondell, as Speaker of the House and chairman of the Public +Lands Committee, was an influence for the homestead country; and from +our own state, progressive, fearless, was Senator Peter Norbeck. + +The frontier is big, but news travels over it in devious ways, and the +work of _The Wand_ and of Ida Mary and me began to be known in +Washington. My editorial fight for the settlers attracted the attention +of these officials from the West. From several of them we received +messages, commending our efforts and offering assistance in any feasible +way. I also received communications from Senator Warren and Congressman +Mondell, commenting upon my comprehension of the homestead issue. I was +asked to submit the problems of my people, and in return I sought +information from them. + +Small things, those frontier newspapers, but _The Wand_ had achieved +what Ida Mary and I had hoped of it, it had been the voice of the +people, a voice heard across the prairie, across the Land of the Burnt +Thigh, across the continent to the doors of Congress itself. Its +protests, its recommendations were weighed at last by the men best able +to help the men and women on the Strip. And the little outlaw printer, +to her overwhelming surprise, was being recognized not only on the Strip +but beyond it, as an authority on the homesteading project and a +champion of the homesteaders. + +It was back on the lookout of the outlaw printer and the outlaw horse +thieves, that I got another letter from Senator Warren, asking what my +plans were for the future and whether I had thought of carrying my work +farther on, work where "the harvest was great and the laborers few," he +said. Should I decide to go on into new fields, I could depend upon his +support. He would recommend my newspaper as an official one; there would +be many opportunities, probably government posts for which my particular +knowledge would qualify me. + +While I was still undetermined as to what to do after my work on the +proof sheet was finished, I was not a career woman, and Senator Warren's +suggestions received little serious thought. Ida Mary, I thought, was +serving the West in the best way for a woman. Needles and thread and +bread dough have done more toward preserving nations than bullets, and +the women who made homes on the prairie, working valiantly with the +meager tools at their command, did more than any other group in settling +the West. It was their efforts which turned tar-paper shacks into +livable houses, their determination to provide their children with +opportunities which built schools and established communities. + +I was content for a while to thrust the thought of the future out of my +mind, but I continued to watch with tense interest what was happening +to the homestead country. A new land law had been passed which had a +strong influence on the agricultural development of the West. It doubled +the size of homesteads to 320 acres. This would bring farmers and +families for permanent building. It would give them more pasture and +plenty of land to carry on the fallowing method. To discourage the +prove-up-and-run settler, it required three years, a certain amount of +fencing and eighty acres plowed to get a deed. It created a new land +splurge. A half-section! To the average homeseeker it was like owning +the whole frontier. + +This law was called the Mondell Act, and President Theodore Roosevelt +proclaimed it "a great opportunity for the poor people--and a long +stride in the West's progress." Roosevelt had faith in the future of a +Greater America. The programs which he initiated were to accomplish +tremendous results in the building of the western lands. + +With my bent for delving into the effect of land rulings on the settler, +I made inquiry regarding certain provisions of the Mondell Act. With the +information came a letter from its author, expressing his belief in the +advantages of the act to the homeseeker, and describing what it would do +in developing the territory farther west. He talked, too, about my work, +and my carrying it into new fields. Wyoming was bound to become a +homestead Mecca. And he added: "Your experience in South Dakota could, +no doubt, be made of great value in aiding in the development of +Wyoming." + +A few days after I received Congressman Mondell's letter, C. H. West +arrived. Usually placid and genial, he was now wrought up. He came at +once to the point of his visit. Under the enlarged homestead law he was +extending operations farther west, where he was going to settle large +tracts. He wanted me to head bands of homeseekers into this new +territory, to help colonize it. + +We were entering an era of colonization, of doing things in organized +groups, cooperative bodies. To the progress which these movements have +made in the United States much is owing to the West, where it was +developed through necessity. + +Eastern men were forming profit-making corporations to colonize western +land. Real estate dealers were organizing colonies. Groups of +homeseekers were organizing their own bands. Mr. West had many inquiries +from such groups, and he had determined to do his own colonizing. They +would want me to go to eastern cities, he said, bring the colonists +west, and help locate them satisfactorily. + +The locating fees, according to Mr. West, would run into money, and he +proposed to give me 50 per cent of the profits. "In addition," he +promised, "we will advance you a fair salary and all expenses." + +I realized that I must face the future. The proof business on the Strip +was almost over. Henceforth the paper, and the post office which had +been transferred to me on Ida Mary's marriage, would eke out a bare +existence. And, as Ma Wagor complained, the Brulé was becoming so +settled "it would be havin' a Ladies Aid before long with the women +servin' tea and carryin' callin' cards around." That would be no place +for me. + +For a long time I sat gazing out of the window over the open spaces. +What would this mean to the people whom I was to bring west? It was +they, not I nor any other individual, whose future must be weighed. The +tidal wave of western immigration would reach its crest in the next two +or three years, and break over Wyoming, Montana, Colorado--those states +bordering the Great Divide. It was to reach its high peak in 1917, when +the United States entered the World War. + +I remembered the shaking hands, the faces of the men and women who had +lost at the Rosebud Drawing. There was still land for them. Land of +their own for tenant farmers, land for the homeless. The Land of a +Million Shacks--that was the slogan of the frontier. + +"Where is this land?" I asked, finally. + +"In Wyoming. Across the Dakota-Nebraska line. Reaching into the Rawhide +Country," Mr. West explained. + +Rawhide country. Lost Trail. "A short-grass range, but rich," Lone Star +had said--"an honest-to-God country, bigger'n all creation." + +I turned to Mr. West and faced him squarely. "Has it got water?" + +He smiled at the sudden vehemence of the question and was ready for it. +"Yes, it has water. The finest in the world." Water clear and cold, he +told me, could be obtained at two to three hundred feet on almost any +spot. Out on the scattered ranches, in the middle of the range, one +found windmills pumping all day long. There would be plenty of water for +stock and for irrigating small patches. + +"All right," I said, "I'll go." + +The cartoonist was going back to Milwaukee. "Being here has done +something for me," he said. "Seeing so much effort given ungrudgingly +for small results, I think. I'm going back and do something with my art. +But it's odd--I don't really want to go back." + +One by one the prove-up-and-run settlers had left the country, but Huey +Dunn, Chris Christopherson and others like them were learning to meet +the country on its own terms and conquer it. They were there to stay. + +A young man appeared who was willing to run the newspaper, and I turned +the post office over to Ma Wagor. Amid the weird beating of tom-toms and +the hoo-hoo ah-ah-ahhh of the Indians across the trail, I set up my +farewell message in _The Wand_. In gorgeous regalia of beads and quills, +paint and eagle feathers, the Indians had come to send the Great Spirit +with Paleface-Prints-Paper on to the heap big hunting grounds. It was +the time of year when "paint" in all the variegated colors was +plentiful, gathered from herbs and flowers, yellow, copper, red. The +affair was probably more of an excuse to celebrate than an expression of +esteem. The Indians never miss an opportunity to stage a show. When they +attend a county fair or other public gathering, they load up children, +dogs and worldly goods, and in a long procession they set out, arriving +several days before the event and celebrating long after it is all over. + +They had come prepared to camp for the night at the print shop, going +through special incantations for the occasion, but now they were +whooping it up around the campfire. I was dragged into the dance and +went careening around with old warriors and young bucks, the squaws +laughing at my mistakes. + +As a farewell editorial I quoted the epitaph once engraved on a +tombstone: "He done his damnedest. Angels could do no more." + +The eerie sound of the Indian dance had ceased. The flickering campfires +had died down. Only two years and four months since Ida Mary and I had +broken a trail to that first little homestead shack. And a chapter of my +life was closed. + +Beyond, in the dark, slept men and women who had endured hardships and +struggles and heavy labor; who had plowed up the virgin soil and set +their own roots deep in it. They were here to stay. + +In those two years they had built a little empire that would endure. +There were roads and fences, schools and thriving towns nearby where +they could market their products, and during the World War Presho became +the second largest hay-shipping point in the United States, with the +government buying trainloads of the fine native hay from the tall grass +country of the Brulé. + +But my work on the Strip was ended. Big as the venture had seemed to me +in the beginning, it was only a fraction of the country waiting to be +tamed. And beyond there was Wyoming, "bigger'n all creation." + +I was going empty-handed, with no fixed program or goal. After the +settlers were on the ground, there would be many obstacles which must be +overcome. Down to earth again! Even in the initial colonizing I would +have to depend on my own initiative, on my influence with the people, +and on my understanding of the homestead project. My experience on the +Brulé in getting settlers to work together would be invaluable. The +field would be new--but the principles of cooperative effort were always +the same. + +Upon learning that I was going on with the development work, Senator +Warren wrote a letter filled with encouragement and information, and +Senator Borah expressed his interest. + +Wyoming exemplified all the romance, the color, the drama of the old +Wild West. It was noted as a land of cowboys, wild horses, and fearless +men. As a commonwealth it was invincible. It was one of the greatest +sheep and cattle kingdoms in the world, where stockmen grazed their +herds over government domain, lords of all they surveyed. + +In the past the big cattle and sheep outfits had brooked no +interference. One of the worst stockmen-settler wars ever waged had been +fought in Wyoming against an invasion of homesteaders, a war that became +so bloody the government had to take a hand, calling out the National +Guards to settle it. It was this section of the range country that I was +to help fill with sodbreakers. + +The force of progress made it safer now, with the government and public +sentiment back of the homestead movement. These stockman-settler wars, +however, were not yet a thing of the past, and despite the years of +western development that followed, they continued to break out every now +and then in remote range country. In self-preservation stockmen of +various sections were making it difficult for the homesteader, and it +was certain that colonies of them would not be welcomed with open arms. +I knew all this in a general way, of course, but I had no trepidation +over the undertaking. My only qualms were on the score of health. It is +a poor trail-breaker who cannot travel with strong people, and that was +a drawback I couldn't overcome. All I could do was hope for the best and +rely on my ability to catch up if I should have to fall behind. I took a +chance on it. I rode to Ida Mary's, and found her rocking and sewing and +humming to herself in her new home. + +"I'm going to help colonize Wyoming," I told her bluntly. + +She let her sewing fall to the floor and sat staring at me, standing +bold and defiant in the middle of the floor. But my voice broke and I +threw myself across her bed crying. It was my first venture without Ida +Mary. + +She did not say now, as she had done on other occasions: "How can you +help colonize a raw range country? You couldn't manage it." Life had +done something to us out here. + +I started out from Ida Mary's. Out across the plain I turned and looked +back. She was still standing in the doorway, shading her eyes so as to +see me longer. We waved and waved, and I left her watching as the +distance swallowed me up. + + * * * * * + +At the shack I found Judge Bartine waiting for me. He observed the +traces of tears on my cheeks, but made no comment on them. + +"You know," he said, "I'm glad you and your sister stuck through all +this." + +I hesitated, on the verge of telling him how near I had come to giving +up and starting a back-trek. + +"When the cattle-rustling gang I convicted burned the courthouse and my +office over my head," he went on after a little pause, "I made a narrow +escape. I didn't have a penny in the world left with which to fight, and +I knew perfectly well that I was in danger of being shot down every time +I went out of the door. + +"But I had to stay. Men could go through Hades out here for years to get +a foothold and raise a herd of cattle and wake up one morning to find it +gone. Something had to be done with those cattle thieves." + +"It seems to me," I told him, "the stockmen should have paid you awfully +well." + +"I got my pay," he said quietly, "just as you have done; I got my pay in +the doing. So, Edith, I am glad you girls did not run away. I didn't +come before because I didn't want to influence you. I wanted to see you +do it alone." + +When he had gone, I closed the door of the shack behind me. A man was +riding up the trail to meet me, bringing two messages. One from the +House of Representatives in Washington was signed F. W. Mondell. "I am +delighted," it read, "to know of your faith and confidence in the +country farther west, particularly the region to which you are going. I +trust the settlers whom you are instrumental in bringing into the +country will be successful, and I have no doubt that they will, if they +are the right sort. I wish you Godspeed and success." The other letter +was from Mr. West, who was awaiting me on the road to Wyoming with a +group of landseekers. + +On top of the ridge I stopped and gazed at the cabin with no sign of +life around it, took my last look at the Land of the Burnt Thigh. A +wilderness I had found it, a thriving community I left it. But the sun +was getting low and I had new trails to break. + +I gave Lakota the rein. + + + + + +------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 20 unescapable changed to inescapable | + | | + | Page 117 moustache changed to mustache | + | | + | Page 149 Wagors changed to Wagors' | + | | + | Page 197 Midafternoon changed to Mid-afternoon | + | | + | Page 266 Cedarfork changed to Cedar Fork | + | | + +------------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH*** + + +******* This file should be named 24352-8.txt or 24352-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/5/24352 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Voorhies</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Land of the Burnt Thigh</p> +<p>Author: Edith Eudora Kohl</p> +<p>Release Date: January 17, 2008 [eBook #24352]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3 class="pg">E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker, Suzanne Shell, Jeannie Howse,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h1>LAND<br /> +OF THE<br /> +BURNT<br /> +THIGH</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h1>LAND<br /> +OF THE<br /> +BURNT<br /> +THIGH</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>EDITH EUDORA KOHL</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h4>Drawings by Stephen J. Voorhies</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h5>New York, London, Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1938.</h5> + +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h4>TO<br /> +THE MEMORY OF<br /> +IDA MARY</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="toc" id="toc"></a><hr /> +<br /> + + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<br /> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" width="60%" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdr" width="10%"> </td> + <td class="tdl" width="70%"><a href="#A_WORD_OF_EXPLANATION">A Word of Explanation</a></td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%">xxxiii</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">I</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#I">A Shack on the Prairie</a></td> + <td class="tdr">1</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">II</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#II">Down to Grass Roots</a></td> + <td class="tdr">16</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">III</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#III">"Any Fool Can Set Type"</a></td> + <td class="tdr">36</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IV</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#IV">The Biggest Lottery in History</a></td> + <td class="tdr">46</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">V</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#V">No Place for Clinging Vines</a></td> + <td class="tdr">64</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VI</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#VI">"Utopia"</a></td> + <td class="tdr">83</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VII</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#VII">Building Empires Overnight</a></td> + <td class="tdr">99</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">VIII</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#VIII">Easy as Falling Off a Log</a></td> + <td class="tdr">120</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">IX</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#IX">The Opening of the Rosebud</a></td> + <td class="tdr">143</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">X</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#X">The Harvest</a></td> + <td class="tdr">164</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XI</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#XI">The Big Blizzard</a></td> + <td class="tdr">185</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XII</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#XII">A New America</a></td> + <td class="tdr">199</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XIII</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIII">The Thirsty Land</a></td> + <td class="tdr">214</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XIV</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#XIV">The Land of the Burnt Thigh</a></td> + <td class="tdr">238</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XV</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#XV">Up in Smoke</a></td> + <td class="tdr">253</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XVI</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVI">Fallowed Land</a></td> + <td class="tdr">268</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdr">XVII</td> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#XVII">New Trails</a></td> + <td class="tdr">282</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="A_WORD_OF_EXPLANATION" id="A_WORD_OF_EXPLANATION"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh01.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Illustration for Intro." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>A WORD OF EXPLANATION<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> +<br /> + +<p><i>I have not attempted in this book to write an autobiography. This is +not my story—it is the story of the people, the present-day pioneers, +who settled on that part of the public lands called the Great American +Desert, and wrested a living from it at a personal cost of privation and +suffering.</i></p> + +<p><i>Today there is an infinite deal of talk about dust bowls, of prairie +grass which should never have been plowed under for farming, of land +which should be abandoned. Yet much of this is the land which during the +crucial years of the war was the grain-producing section of the United +States. Regiments of men have marched to war with drums beating and +flags flying, but the regiments who marched into the desert, and faced +fire and thirst, and cold and hunger, and who stayed to build up a new +section of the country, a huge empire in the West, have been ignored, +and their problems largely misunderstood.</i></p> + +<p><i>The history of the homesteaders is paradoxical, beginning as it does in +the spirit of a great gamble, with the government lotteries with land as +the stakes, and developing in a close-knit spirit of mutual +helpfulness.</i></p> + +<p><i>My own part in so tremendous a migration of a people was naturally a +slight one, but for me it has been a rewarding adventure, leading men +and women onto the land, then against organized interests, and finally +into the widespread use of cooperative methods. Most of that story +belongs beyond the confines of the present book.</i></p> + +<p><i>Over thousands of acres today in the West men and women are still +fighting to control that last frontier, and wherever there are farmers, +the methods of cooperation will spread for decades. It is a good fight. +I hope I shall be in it.</i></p> + +<p class="right"><i>E. E. K.</i></p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h1>LAND<br /> +OF THE<br /> +BURNT<br /> +THIGH</h1> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="I" id="I"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh02.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 1." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>I<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>A SHACK ON THE PRAIRIE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>At sunset we came up out of the draw to the crest of the ridge. Perched +on the high seat of the old spring wagon, we looked into a desolate land +which reached to the horizon on every side. Prairie which had lain +untouched since the Creation save for buffalo and roving bands of +Indians, its brown grass scorched and crackling from the sun. No trees +to break the endless monotony or to provide a moment's respite from the +sun.</p> + +<p>The driver, sitting stooped over on the front seat, half asleep, +straightened up and looked around, sizing up the vacant prairie.</p> + +<p>"Well," he announced, "I reckon this might be it."</p> + +<p>But this couldn't be it. There was nothing but space, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span>sun-baked +plains, and the sun blazing down on our heads. My sister pulled out the +filing papers, looking for the description the United States Land Office +had given her: Section 18, Range 77W—about thirty miles from Pierre, +South Dakota.</p> + +<p>"Three miles from the buffalo waller," our driver said, mumbling to +himself, ignoring the official location and looking back as though +measuring the distance with his eye. "Yeah, right in here—somewhere."</p> + +<p>"But," faltered Ida Mary, "there was to be a house—"</p> + +<p>"Thar she is!" he announced, pointing his long whip in the direction of +the setting sun. "See that shack over yonder?"</p> + +<p>Whipping up the tired team with a flick of the rawhide, he angled off +across the trackless prairie. One panic-stricken look at the black, +tar-papered shack, standing alone in that barren expanse, and the last +spark of our dwindling enthusiasm for homesteading was snuffed out. The +house, which had seemed such an extraordinary stroke of luck when we had +heard of it, looked like a large but none too substantial packing-box +tossed haphazardly on the prairie which crept in at its very door.</p> + +<p>The driver stopped the team in front of the shack, threw the lines to +the ground, stretched his long, lank frame over the wheel and began to +unload the baggage. He pushed open the unbolted door with the grass +grown up to the very sill, and set the boxes and trunk inside. Grass. +Dry, yellow grass crackling under his feet.</p> + +<p>"Here, why don't you get out?" he said sharply. "It's sundown and a long +trip back to town."</p> + +<p>Automatically we obeyed. As Ida Mary paid him the $20 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span>fee, he stood +there for a moment sizing us up. Homesteaders were all in his day's +work. They came. Some stayed to prove up the land. Some didn't. We +wouldn't.</p> + +<p>"Don't 'pear to me like you gals are big enough to homestead." He took +his own filled water jug from the wagon and set it down at the door, +thus expressing his compassion. Then, as unconcerned as a taxi driver +leaving his passengers at a city door, he drove away, leaving us alone.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary and I fought down the impulse to run after him, implore him to +take us back with him, not to leave us alone with the prairie and the +night, with nothing but the packing-box for shelter. I think we were too +overwhelmed by the magnitude of our disaster even to ask for help.</p> + +<p>We stared after him until the sudden evening chill which comes with the +dusk of the frontier roused us to action.</p> + +<p>Hesitantly we stepped over the low sill of the little shack, feeling +like intruders. Ida Mary, who had been so proud of finding a claim with +a house already built, stared at it without a word, her round, young +face shadowed by the brim of her straw hat drawn and tired.</p> + +<p>It was a typical homestead shack, about 10 × 12 feet, containing only +one room, and built of rough, foot-wide boards, with a small cellar +window on either side of the room. Like the walls, the door was of wide +boards. The whole house was covered on the outside with tar paper. It +had obviously been put together with small concern for the fine points +of carpentry and none whatever for appearance. It looked as though the +first wind would pick it up and send it flying through the air.</p> + +<p>It was as unprepossessing within as it was outside. In one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>corner a +homemade bunk was fastened to the wall, with ropes criss-crossed and run +through holes in the 2 × 4 inch pieces of lumber which formed the bed, +to take the place of springs. In another corner a rusty, two-hole oil +stove stood on a drygoods box; above it another box with a shelf in it +for a cupboard. Two rickety, homemade chairs completed the furnishings.</p> + +<p>We tried to tell ourselves that we were lucky; shacks were not provided +for homesteaders, they had to build their own—but Ida Mary had +succeeded in finding one not only ready built but furnished as well. We +did not deceive ourselves or each other. We were frightened and +homesick. Whatever we had pictured in our imaginations, it bore no +resemblance to the tar-paper shack without creature comforts; nor had we +counted on the desolation of prairie on which we were marooned.</p> + +<p>Before darkness should shut us in, we hurriedly scrambled through our +provisions for a can of kerosene. Down in the trunk was a small lamp. We +got it out and filled it. And then we faced each other, speechless, each +knowing the other's fear—afraid to voice it. Matches! They had not been +on our list. I fumbled hastily through the old box cupboard with its few +dust-covered odds and ends. Back in a corner was an old tobacco can. +Something rattled lightly as I picked it up—matches!</p> + +<p>We were too weary to light a fire. On a trunk which we used as a table, +we spread a cold lunch, tried to swallow a few bites and gave it up. The +empty space and the black night had swallowed us up.</p> + +<p>"We might as well go to bed," said Ida Mary dully.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>"We'll start back home in the morning," I declared, "as soon as it is +daylight."</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Oddly enough, we had never questioned the impulse which led two young +city girls to go alone into unsettled land, homesteading. Our people had +been pioneers, always among those who pushed back the frontier. The +Ammonses had come up from Tennessee into Illinois in the early days and +cleared the timberland along the Mississippi Valley some forty miles out +of St. Louis. They built their houses of the hand-hewn logs and became +land and stock owners. They were not sturdy pioneers, but they were +tenacious.</p> + +<p>Some of them went on into what Grandma Ammons called the Santa Fe +Bottoms, a low marshy country along the river, where they became +wealthy—or well-to-do, at least—by fattening droves of hogs on acorns. +Generally speaking, my mother's family ran to professions, and my +father's family to land. Though there was father's cousin, Jack Hunter, +who had been west and when he came to visit us now and then told wild +tales about the frontier to which my sister and I as little children +listened wide-eyed. He wove glowing accounts of the range country where +he was going to make a million dollars raising cattle. Cousin Jack +always talked big.</p> + +<p>It was from his highly colored yarns that we had learned all we knew of +the West—and from the western magazines which pictured it as an +exciting place where people were mostly engaged in shooting one another.</p> + +<p>While Ida Mary and I were still very young our mother died, and after +that we divided our time between our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>father's home—he had married +again and had a second family to take care of—and the home of his +sister. As a result my sister and I came to depend on ourselves and on +each other more than two girls of our age usually do.</p> + +<p>By the time we were old enough to see that things were not going well +financially at home, we knew we must make our own way. Some of the girls +we knew talked about "going homesteading" as a wild adventure. They +boasted of friends or relatives who had gone to live on a claim as +though they had gone lion-hunting in Africa or gold-hunting in Alaska. A +homestead. At first thought the idea was absurd. We were both very +young; both unusually slight, anything but hardy pioneers; and neither +of us had the slightest knowledge of homesteading conditions, or +experience extending beyond the conventional, sheltered life of the +normal city girl in the first decade of the century.</p> + +<p>We were wholly unfitted for the frontier. We had neither training nor +physical stamina for roughing it. When I tried to explain to an uncle of +mine that I wanted to go west, to make something of myself, he retorted +that "it was a hell of a place to do it." In spite of the discussion +which our decision occasioned, we made our plans, deciding to risk the +hazards of a raw country alone, cutting ourselves off from the world of +everyone and everything we had ever known. And with little money to +provide against hardships and emergencies.</p> + +<p>At that time the country was emerging from the era of straggling +settlers. Immigration was moving west in a steady stream. The tidal wave +which swept the West from 1908 to the World War was almost upon us +although we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span>could not see it then. But, we thought, there would be new +people, new interests, and in the end 160 acres of land for Ida Mary. +Perhaps for me the health I had sought so unsuccessfully.</p> + +<p>Primarily a quarter-section of land was the reason for almost everyone +coming west. As people in the early pioneer days had talked of settling +in Nebraska and Kansas and the eastern Dakotas, they now talked about +the country lying farther on—the western Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, +Colorado. Over the Midwest the homestead idea was spreading rapidly to +farm and hamlet and city. One heard a great deal about families leaving +their farms and going west to get cheap land; of young college men who +went out to prove up a quarter-section. The land would always be worth +something, and the experience, even for a short time, was a fruitful one +in many ways.</p> + +<p>To the public, however, not so romantically inclined, the homesteaders +were the peasantry of America. Through the early homesteading days folk +who "picked up and set themselves down to grub on a piece of land" were +not of the world or important to it. But the stream of immigration to +the land was widening, flowing steadily on.</p> + +<p>How did one go about homesteading? we asked. Well, all you had to do to +get a deed to a quarter-section—160 acres of land—was to file on it at +the nearest Land Office, live on it eight months, pay the government +$1.25 an acre—and the land was yours. Easy as falling off a log!</p> + +<p>The only improvement required by the government was some sort of abode +as proof that one had made the land his bona-fide residence for the full +eight months.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span>What would that cost? And the whole undertaking? It depended partly on +what kind of shack one built and whether he did it himself or hired it +done. A shack cost all the way from $25 to $100 or more. Some of those +who had families and intended to stay, built cheap two-and three-room +houses.</p> + +<p>Of course, it cost women who had to hire things done more to homestead. +But with grub, fuel and other necessities we figured it would cost not +more than $500 all told.</p> + +<p>Then we learned of this quarter-section with a shack already built, bunk +and all. It had been filed on and the owner had left before proving-up +time so that the claim, shack and all, had reverted to the government. +We had about $300 saved up, and this was enough, we decided, to cover +homesteading expenses, inasmuch as the shack was provided. So we had all +but the final payment of $200 to the government, which would be due when +we had "made proof."</p> + +<p>We decided to let the money for that final payment take care of itself. +The thing to do was to get hold of a piece of land before it was all +gone. To hear people talk, it was the last day of grace to apply for a +claim. They talked like that for ten years. We did not know there were +several million acres lying out there between the Missouri and the +Pacific waiting to be settled. We would have all winter to figure out +how to prove up. And we found that one could get $1000 to $1500 for a +raw claim after getting a deed to it.</p> + +<p>The claim with the shack on it was in South Dakota, thirty miles from a +town called Pierre. We looked that up in the geography to make sure it +really existed. But when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>we tried to get detailed information, facts +and figures to help us prepare for what was to come, we got only printed +pamphlets of rules and regulations which were of no real help at all. +Land Offices were so busy in those days that all they could do was to +send out a package of printed information that no one could understand.</p> + +<p>Armed with our meager array of facts, we talked to our father—as though +the information we gave him so glibly had any real bearing on this +precarious undertaking of his two young daughters. Whatever his doubts +and hesitations, he let us decide for ourselves; it was only when we +boarded the old Bald Eagle at St. Louis one summer day in 1907, bound up +the river, that he clung to our hands as though unable to let us go, +saying, "I'm afraid you are making a mistake. Take care of yourselves."</p> + +<p>"It will be all right," Ida Mary told him cheerfully. "It is only for +eight months. Nothing can happen in eight months."</p> + +<p>The first emergency arose almost at once. We started up the Mississippi +in high spirits, but by the time we reached Moline, Illinois, I was +taken from the boat on a stretcher—the aftermath of typhoid fever. It +was bad enough to be ill, it was worse to have an unexpected drain on +our funds, but worst of all was the fear that someone might file on the +claim ahead of us. For a week or ten days I could not travel, but Ida +Mary went ahead to attend to the land-filing and the buying of supplies +so that we could start for the homestead as soon as I arrived.</p> + +<p>The trip from Moline to Pierre I made by train. Ida Mary was at the +depot to meet me, and at once we took a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>ferry across the river to Ft. +Pierre. The river was low and the ever-shifting sandbars rose up to meet +the skiffs. Ft. Pierre was a typical frontier town, unkempt and +unfinished, its business buildings, hotel and stores, none of more than +two stories, on the wide dirt road called Main Street. At one end of +Main Street flowed the old Missouri, at the other it branched off into +trails that lost themselves in the prairie.</p> + +<p>Beyond Main Street the houses of the little town were scattered, looking +raw and new and uncomfortable, most of them with small, sunburned, +stunted gardens. But there was nothing apologetic about Ft. Pierre. +"We've done mighty well with what we've had to work with," was its +attitude.</p> + +<p>Section 18, Range 77W—about thirty miles from Pierre. It seemed more +real now. The hotel proprietor promised to find us a claim locator to +whom that cryptic number made sense.</p> + +<p>The next morning at sun-up we were on our way. At that hour the little +homestead town of Ft. Pierre lay quiet. Other homesteaders were ready to +start out: a farmer and his wife from Wisconsin, who were busy +sandwiching their four children into a wagon already filled with +immigrant goods, a cow and horse tied on behind.</p> + +<p>At a long table in the fly-specked hotel dining room we ate flapjacks +and fried potatoes and drank strong coffee in big heavy cups. Then, at +long last, perched on the seat of the claim locator's high spring wagon, +we jolted out of town, swerving to let a stagecoach loaded with +passengers whip past us, waiting while a team of buffalo ambled past, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>and finally jogged along the beaten road through the bad lands outside +of town.</p> + +<p>Beyond the rough bad lands we came upon the prairie. We traveled for +miles along a narrow, rutted road crossed now and then by dim trails +leading nowhere, it seemed. Our own road dwindled to a rough trail, and +the spring wagon lurched over it while we clung to the sides to ease the +constant jolting, letting go to pull our hats over our eyes which ached +with the glare, or over the back of our necks which were blistered from +the sun.</p> + +<p>Our frantic haste to arrive while the land lasted seemed absurd now. +There was land enough for all who wanted it, and few enough to claim it. +All that weary day we saw no people save in the distance a few +homesteaders mowing strips of the short dry grass for hay. Now and then +we passed a few head of horses and a cow grazing. Here and there over +the hot, dusty plain we saw shacks and makeshift houses surrounded by +patches of corn or flax or dried-up garden. Why were the houses so +scattered, looking as though they had been thrown down at random? "They +had to be set on the claims," our locator said dryly.</p> + +<p>About noon we stopped at a deserted ranch house, surrounded by +corrals—a camp, our driver explained, where some stockman held his +cattle overnight in driving them to market. Here we ate a lunch and the +locator fed and watered the team, refilling the jars from an old well +with its long wooden water troughs.</p> + +<p>There the trail ended. Now we struck out over a trackless land that grew +rougher the farther we went. To look for a quarter-section here was like +looking for a needle in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>a haystack. It was late summer and the sun beat +down on the hot prairie grass and upon our heads. We had driven all day +without sign of shade—and save for that brief interval at noon, without +sight of water. Our faces and hands were blistered, our throats parched +from the hot wind.</p> + +<p>This was not the West as I had dreamed of it, not the West even of +banditry and violent action. It was a desolate, forgotten land, without +vegetation save for the dry, crackling grass, without visible tokens of +fertility. Drab and gray and empty. Stubborn, resisting land. Heroics +wouldn't count for much here. It would take slow, back-breaking labor, +and time, and the action of the seasons to make the prairie bloom. +People had said this was no place for two girls. It began to seem that +they were right.</p> + +<p>And this was the goal of our long journey—the tar-paper shack. We +pushed the trunk over in front of the door which had no lock, piled the +chairs and suitcases on top of the trunk; spread a comfort over the +criss-cross rope bed and threw ourselves across it without undressing. +We had no gun or other weapon for protection and were not brave enough +to use one had we possessed it.</p> + +<p>The little cellar windows which stood halfway between the low ceiling +and the floor were nailed shut. But we needed neither window nor door, +so far as air was concerned. It poured through the wide cracks like +water through a sieve.</p> + +<p>While we tossed, too tired and sick at heart to sleep, I asked: "What +became of the young man who built this shack?"</p> + +<p>"He lived here only a few weeks and abandoned it," Ida <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span>Mary explained. +"The claim reverted to the government, shack, bunk and all. He couldn't +stick it out."</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The next morning we awoke to a world flooded with sunshine, and it was +the surprise of our lives that we had lived to see it.</p> + +<p>Ida started the oil stove and put on the coffee. Wearily I dragged +myself out of bed. We fried bacon, made toast, unpacked our few dishes. +Discovering that a hinged shelf on the wall was intended for a table, we +put it up and set our breakfast on it. We found that we were really +hungry.</p> + +<p>Our determination to start back home was still unshaken, but we had +reckoned without the prairies. We were marooned as on a desert island. +And more pressing, even, than some way of getting back to Pierre—and +home—was the need for water. We must get a jug of water somewhere. +Water didn't come from a tap on the prairies. We began to wonder where +it did come from; certainly there wasn't a drop to be found on Ida +Mary's claim.</p> + +<p>In the glaring morning sun which blazed on the earth, we saw a shack in +the distance, the reflection of the sun on yellow boards. It was farther +away than it appeared to be with the bright light against it.</p> + +<p>This new home was larger than the regulation shack, and it had a +gable—a low-pitched roof—which in itself was a symbol of permanence in +contrast to the temporary huts that dotted the plains. It was made of +tongue-and-groove drop-siding, which did away with the need of tar +paper, and in the homestead country marked a man's prestige and +solidity.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span>We were met at the open door by a pretty, plump young woman. A little +girl of seven stood quietly at one side, and a little boy, perhaps five, +at the other. As we stood there with the jug she broke into a pleasant +laugh. "You've come for water! We have no well, but Huey hauled two +barrels this morning from Crooks's, several miles away."</p> + +<p>We were led into a large room, clean and cool. After one has been in a +low, slant-roofed, tar-papered shack that becomes an oven when the sun +shines on it, entering a house with a gable is almost like going into a +refrigerator. There wasn't much in the room except beds and a sewing +machine. The floor, on which a smaller child was playing, was bare +except for a few rag rugs, but shining. An opening led into a small +lean-to kitchen with a range in one corner; in the other a large square +table spread with a checked tablecloth was set ready for the next meal, +and covered with a mosquito bar. The home, the family, gave one a +feeling of coming to anchor in a sea of grass and sky.</p> + +<p>We learned that the name was Dunn and that they were dirt farmers from +Iowa, but they had not come in time to do much farming that season. They +had thrown up a makeshift barn as a temporary shelter for the horses and +one cow until they could build a real barn—after they found out what +the soil would do, Mrs. Dunn explained.</p> + +<p>She hurried out to the kitchen, talking as she moved about, and came in +with coffee and a plate of oatmeal cookies.</p> + +<p>"I am so glad you are going to live here," she told us. "Neighbors +within a mile and a half! I won't feel so much alone with neighbors +close by to chat with."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>We hadn't the courage to tell her that we weren't going to stay.</p> + +<p>"You must have found the shack dirty," she said, with a glance at her +spotless house. "A bachelor homesteader had it and they are always the +worst. They wait until the floor is thick with dirt and grease and then +spread newspapers over it to cover up the dirt. You'll have a time +getting it fixed as you want it."</p> + +<p>We wondered how anyone made a home of a tar-paper shack. To hear Mrs. +Dunn's casual remarks, one would think it no more of a problem than +redecorating a city home.</p> + +<p>As we started on the trek back, she called after us, "Huey will haul you +over a keg of water tomorrow."</p> + +<p>As soon as we were out of earshot I said, "We can hire Mr. Dunn to take +us back to Pierre."</p> + +<p>"That's an idea," Ida Mary agreed.</p> + +<p>By the time we had walked back the mile and a half—which seemed five in +the scorching heat—it was past noon and we were completely exhausted. +So we did not get started back to Pierre that day. But we felt a little +easier. There was a way to get out.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="II" id="II"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh03.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 2." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>II<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>DOWN TO GRASS ROOTS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>There is a lot of sound common sense in the saying about leaving the +cage door open. As long as we knew we could be taken back to town we +were content to stay for a day or two, and take a look at the country +while we were there—by which we meant that we would gaze out over the +empty spaces with a little more interest.</p> + +<p>We strained our eyes for sight of moving objects, for signs of life. +Once we saw a team and wagon moving toward the south. As suddenly as it +had appeared it dropped out of sight into a ravine. A horseman crossing +the plains faded into the horizon.</p> + +<p>As our vision gradually adjusted itself to distance we saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>other +homestead abodes. The eye "picked up" these little shacks across the +plains, one by one.</p> + +<p>For years straggling settlers had moved on and off the prairie—and +those who stayed barely made a mark on the engulfing spaces. The +unyielding, harsh life had routed the majority of homesteaders—they had +shut the door behind them and left the land to its own.</p> + +<p>All over the plains empty shacks told the tale. They stood there with +the grass grown up around them, the unwritten inscription: "This +quarter-section has been taken." Dilapidated; the tiny window or two +boarded up; boards cracked or fallen apart. They, too, had not been able +to weather the hard forces of nature on the frontier. If the shack had +gone down, or had been moved in the night by some more ambitious +homesteader, there was always the pile of tin cans to mark the spot. +They stayed and rusted.</p> + +<p>And from the tin cans ye knew them. Bachelors' huts were always +surrounded; where there was a woman to do the cooking there were fewer +cans. But as a rule the shack dwellers lived out of tin cans like city +apartment dwellers.</p> + +<p>But for the most part the land was inhabited by coyotes and prairie +dogs, with a few herds of range sheep and cattle. Few of the +homesteaders were permanent. They stayed their eight months—if they +could stick it out—and left at once. Their uneasy stay on the land was +like the brief pause of migratory birds or the haphazard drifting of +tumble weeds that go rolling across the plains before the wind, landing +against a barbed-wire fence or any other object that blocked their way.</p> + +<p>The empty shacks reminded one of the phantom towns <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>which men had thrown +up breathlessly and abandoned when the search for gold had proved +illusory. Only permanency could dig the gold of fertility from the +prairie, and thus far the people who had made a brief attempt to cope +with it had been in too much of a hurry. Those abandoned +quarter-sections had defeated the men who would have taken them.</p> + +<p>The main movement over the plains was that of hauling water from the few +wells in the country, or from one of two narrow creeks that twisted +through the parched land and vanished into dry gulches. They were now as +dry as a bone.</p> + +<p>"I'd have a well," Huey Dunn said, "if I could stop hauling water long +enough to dig one." That was the situation of most of the homesteaders.</p> + +<p>Most of these migratory homesteaders wanted the land as an +investment—to own it and sell it to some eastern farmer or to a +rancher. Some, like Huey Dunn, came to make a permanent home and till +the land. These few dirt farmers raised patches of corn, and while the +farmers from Iowa and Illinois were scornful of the miniature stalks, +the flavor of the sweet corn grown on the dry sod was unsurpassed. The +few patches of potatoes were sweet and mealy. But the perfect sod crop +was flax. Already the frontier was becoming known for its flax raising.</p> + +<p>We saw no large range herds, though there were no herd laws to keep them +off private property. One could drive straight as the crow flies from +Pierre to Presho, forty or fifty miles, without stopping to open a gate. +If one struck a fence around a quarter-section here or there he either +got <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>out and cut the wire in two, or drove around the corner of the +fence, depending upon how he felt about fences being in the way.</p> + +<p>No wonder sheep-herders went crazy, we thought, swallowed up by that sea +of brown, dry grass, by the endless monotony of space.</p> + +<p>I think what struck us most those first days was the realization that +the era of pioneers had not ended with covered wagon days; that there +were men and women, thousands of them, in our own times, living under +pioneer conditions, fighting the same hardships, the same obstacles, the +same primitive surroundings which had beset that earlier generation.</p> + +<p>Toward evening, that first day, sitting on the little board platform in +front of the door where there was a hint of shade and a suggestion of +coolness in the air, we saw two animals approaching.</p> + +<p>"I never saw dogs like that, did you?" I said to Ida Mary when they came +a little closer.</p> + +<p>She jumped up, crying "Wolves!" We had seen one on the road out from +Pierre. We ran into the shack, nailed the door shut that night—no +risking of trunks or boxes against it—crawled into bed and lay there +for hours, afraid to speak out loud.</p> + +<p>Huey Dunn came next day with the keg of water. "Wolves?" he said, as we +told him of the experience. "They wouldn't hurt anyone, unless they were +cornered—or hungry."</p> + +<p>"But how," demanded Ida Mary, "were we to tell when they were hungry?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>Huey laughed at that. When the snow lay deep on the ground for a long +time after a blizzard, and there was no way to get food, they sometimes +attacked sheep or cattle, and they had been known to attack persons, but +not often. They generally went in packs to do their foraging.</p> + +<p>"Goin' back tomorrow?" Mr. Dunn ejaculated, as we interrupted his talk +about the country to ask him to take us to Pierre. "Why, my wife planned +on your comin' over to dinner tomorrow." But if we wanted to go the next +day—sure, he could take us. Oh, he wouldn't charge us much. As he drove +away he called back, "Don't get scared when you hear the coyotes. You'll +get used to 'em if you stay."</p> + +<p>And that night they howled. We were awakened by the eerie, hair-raising +cry that traveled so far over the open prairie and seemed so near; a +wild, desolate cry with an uncannily human quality. That mournful sound +is as much a part of the prairie as is the wind which blows, unchecked, +over the vast stretches, the dreary, inescapable voice of the plains. +The first time we heard the coyotes there seemed to be a hundred of +them, though there were probably half a dozen. All Huey Dunn's assurance +that they were harmless and that it was a nightly occurrence failed to +calm us.</p> + +<p>When Huey got home his wife asked what he thought of their new +neighbors.</p> + +<p>"Right nice girls to talk to," Huey said, "but damn poor homesteaders. +Beats the devil the kind of people that are taking up land. Can't +develop a country with landowners like that. Those girls want to go +home. Already. I said you wanted 'em to come over to dinner tomorrow +noon. Maybe you can fix up something kinda special."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>"I'll drop a few extra spuds into the pot and bake a pan of +cornbread—they'll eat it," Mrs. Dunn predicted cheerfully. She was +right.</p> + +<p>Bringing us back to the claim the next afternoon Huey suddenly +remembered that he had promised a neighbor to help string barb-wire the +following day. But—sure—he could take us to town 'most any day after +that.</p> + +<p>The next day we began to discover the women who were living on +homesteads and who, in their own way, played so vital a part in +developing the West. One of our nearest neighbors—by straining our eyes +we could see her little shack perched up against the horizon—put on her +starched calico dress and gingham apron and came right over to call. The +Widow Fergus, she said she was.</p> + +<p>She sat down, laid her big straw hat on the floor beside her (no, just +let it lie there—she always threw it off like that) and made herself +comfortable. Her graying hair, parted in the middle and done up in a +knot in the back, was freshly and sleekly combed. She was brown as a +berry and just the type of hard-working woman to make a good +homesteader, with calloused, capable, tireless hands. She was round, +bustling and kind. The Widow Fergus had taken up a homestead with her +young son.</p> + +<p>She looked at the unopened baggage, the dirty shack. Now that was +sensible, she said, to rest a few days—it was so nice and quiet out +here. Homesick? My, no. There was no time to get homesick. Too much to +do getting by on a homestead. Women like the Widow Fergus, we were to +discover, had no time for self-pity or lamenting their rigorous, hard +lives. They did not, indeed, think in terms of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>self-pity. And they +managed, on the whole, to live rich, satisfying lives and at the same +time to prepare the way for easier, pleasanter lives for the women who +were to follow them.</p> + +<p>When she left she said, "Now, come over, girls, and anything you want, +let me know...."</p> + +<p>A little later that same day we saw three riders galloping across the +plains, headed straight for our shack. They stopped short, swung off +their ponies, three girl homesteaders.</p> + +<p>They rode astride, wore plain shirtwaists and divided skirts. Two of +them wore cheap straw hats much like those worn by farmers in the fields +everywhere. They swung from their saddles as easily as though they wore +breeches and boots.</p> + +<p>"How did you learn we were here?" I asked, curious to know how news +could travel over these outlying spaces.</p> + +<p>"Huey Dunn told it over at the road ranch while I was waiting there for +the mail," the oldest of the girls explained, "so I just rode around and +picked up the girls."</p> + +<p>One would think they lived in the same city block, so nonchalant was she +over the round-up, but "only eighteen miles," she explained easily.</p> + +<p>Her name was Wilomene White, she told us, and she came from Chicago. She +had been out here most of the time for almost two years—what with +leaves of absence in the winter prolonging the term of residence. She +was a short, plump woman whom we judged to be in her early thirties, and +she had a sense of humor that was an invaluable asset in a country like +that. She was an artist and head of her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>father's household. Her brother +was a prominent surgeon in Chicago and for several years Wilomene, +besides being active in club work, had been on the board of the +Presbyterian Hospital there.</p> + +<p>When her health failed from overwork and strenuous public activities, +her brother ordered a complete change and plenty of pure fresh air. So +with a little group of acquaintances she had come west and taken up a +homestead. It was easy to understand that she had found a change—and +fresh air. What surprised us was that she took such delight in the +country and the pioneer life about her that she no longer wanted to +return to her full life in Chicago.</p> + +<p>The three girls stayed on and on, talking. Girl homesteaders had no +reason for going home. Days and nights, days of the week and month were +all the same to them. There were so few places to go, and the distance +was so great that it was a custom to stay long enough to make a visit +worth while. The moon would come up about ten that night—so nothing +mattered. Afraid to ride home in the middle of the night? What was there +to fear out here?</p> + +<p>Ida Mary and I still hesitated about going far from the shack. The +prairie about us was so unsettled, so lacking in trees that there were +practically no landmarks for the unaccustomed eye to follow. We became +confused as to direction and distance. "Three miles from the buffalo +waller," our locator had said. "No trouble to locate your claim." But if +we got far enough away from it we couldn't even find the buffalo waller.</p> + +<p>Even against our will the bigness and the peace of the open spaces were +bound to soak in. Despite the isolation, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>hardships and the awful +crudeness, we could not but respond to air that was like old wine—as +sparkling in the early morning, as mellow in the soft nights. Never were +moon and stars so gloriously bright. It was the thinness of the +atmosphere that made them appear so near the earth, we were told.</p> + +<p>While the middle of the day was often so hot we panted for breath, +mornings and evenings were always gloriously cool and invigorating, and +we slept. With the two comforters spread on the criss-cross rope bed, we +fell asleep and woke ravenously hungry each morning.</p> + +<p>That first letter home was a difficult task, and we found it safer to +stick to facts—the trip had been pleasant, Ida Mary had filed on the +claim. But to prepare for our arrival at home, we added, "There is +nothing to worry about. If we think it is best, we will come home." This +was eventually sent off after we had discussed what we had better tell +our father, and crossed out the sentences that might worry him. "Don't +waste so much paper," Ida Mary warned me. "It is thirty miles to another +writing tablet."</p> + +<p>We were eating supper one evening when four or five coyotes slipped up +out of the draw and came close to the shack. Almost one in color with +the yellow grass, they stood poised, alert, ready to run at the +slightest sound. Graceful little animals, their pointed noses turned +upward. A great deal like a collie dog. We did not make a move, but they +seemed to sense life in the once deserted cabin, and like a phantom they +faded into the night.</p> + +<p>Huey Dunn was one of those homesteaders who believed the world (the +frontier at least) was not made in a day. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>was slow getting around to +things. He never did get around to taking Ida Mary and me back to +Pierre. And to our dismay a homesteader drove up one day with the big +box of household goods we had shipped out. The stage express had brought +it out from Pierre to McClure, and it had been hauled the rest of the +way by the first homesteader coming our way. Altogether it cost twenty +dollars to get that box, and there wasn't ten dollars' worth of stuff in +it.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary and I had collected the odds and ends it contained from +second-hand stores in St. Louis, selecting every article after eager +discussion of its future use, picturing its place in our western cabin. +We hadn't known about the tar-paper shack then. Its arrival stressed our +general disillusionment.</p> + +<p>We had now seen the inside of a few shacks over the prairie. The +attempts the women had made to convert them into homes were pitiful, +although some of them had really accomplished wonders with practically +nothing. It is pretty hard to crush the average woman's home-making +instinct. The very grimness of the prairie increased their determination +to raise a bulwark against it.</p> + +<p>Up to now we had been uneasy guests in the shack, ready for flight +whenever Huey Dunn got around to taking us back to Pierre. But trying to +dig out a few things now and then from grips and trunks without +unpacking from top to bottom is an unsatisfactory procedure. So we +unpacked.</p> + +<p>Then we had to find a place for our things and thought we might as well +try to make the cabin more comfortable at the same time, even if we +weren't staying. We looked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span>about us. There wasn't much to work with. In +the walls of our shack the boards ran up and down with a 2 × 4 scantling +midway between floor and ceiling running all the way around the room. +This piece of lumber served two purposes. It held the shack together and +served as a catch-all for everything from toilet articles to hammer and +nails. The room had been lined with patches of building paper, some red, +some blue, and finished out with old newspapers.</p> + +<p>The patchwork lining had become torn in long cracks where the boards of +the shack were split, and through the holes the dry wind drove dust and +sand. The shack would have to be relined, for there was not sufficient +protection from the weather and we would freeze in the first cold spell.</p> + +<p>This regulation shack lining was a great factor in the West's +settlement. We should all have frozen to death without it. It came in +rolls and was hauled out over the plains like ammunition to an army, and +paper factories boomed. There were two kinds—red and blue—and the +color indicated the grade. The red was a thinner, inferior quality and +cost about three dollars a roll, while the heavy blue cost six. Blue +paper on the walls was as much a sign of class on the frontier as blue +blood in Boston. We lined our shack with red.</p> + +<p>The floor was full of knotholes, and the boards had shrunk, leaving wide +cracks between. The bachelor homesteader had left it black with grease. +When Huey hauled us an extra keg of water we proceeded to take off at +least a few layers.</p> + +<p>We were filling the cracks with putty when a bachelor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>homesteader +stopped by and watched the operation in disgust.</p> + +<p>"Where you goin' to run your scrub-water," he wanted to know, "with the +cracks and knotholes stopped up?"</p> + +<p>In the twenty-dollar box was a 6 × 9-foot faded Brussels rug, with a +couple of rolls of cheap wallpaper. From a homesteader who was proving +up and leaving we bought an old wire cot. With cretonnes we made +pillows, stuffed with prairie grass; hung bright curtains at the little +windows, which opened by sliding back between strips of wood. In the big +wooden box we had also packed a small, light willow rocker. In one +corner we nailed up a few boards for a bookcase, painting it bright red. +Little by little the old tar-paper shack took on a homelike air.</p> + +<p>It is curious how much value a thing has if one has put some effort into +it. We were still as disillusioned with the country as we had been the +first day, we felt as out of place on a homestead as a coyote sauntering +up Fifth Avenue, we felt the tar-paper shack to be the most unhomelike +contraption we had ever seen; but from the moment we began to make +improvements, transforming the shack, it took on an interest for us out +of all proportion to the changes we were able to make. Slowly we were +making friends, learning to find space restful and reassuring instead of +intimidating, adapting our restless natures to a country that measured +time in seasons; imperceptibly we were putting down our first roots into +that stubborn soil.</p> + +<p>At first we read and reread the letters from home, talking of it +constantly and wistfully like exiles, drawn constantly toward the place +we had left. Almost without our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>being aware of it we ceased to feel +that we had left St. Louis. It was St. Louis which was receding from us, +while we turned more and more toward the new country, identified +ourselves with it.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary and I woke up one day a few weeks after our arrival to find our +grubstake almost gone. Back home we had figured that there were ample +funds for filing fees, for transportation and food. Now we began to +figure backwards, which we found was a poor way to figure. There was no +money to take us back home. We had burned our bridges not only behind +but in front of us.</p> + +<p>It was the incidentals which had cut into our small reserve. The expense +of my illness on the road had been heavy. The rest of the money seemed +to have evaporated like water in dry air. Fixing up the shack had been +an unexpected expense, and we had overlooked the cost of hauling +altogether—in a country where everything had to be hauled. We had paid +$25 for a stiff old Indian cayuse, the cheapest thing in horseflesh that +we could find.</p> + +<p>In order to be safe we had figured on standard prices for commodities, +but we found that all of them were much higher out here. Coal, the only +fuel obtainable, ran as high as $20 a ton, with the hauling and high +freight. Merchants blamed the freight cost for the high price of +everything from coal to a package of needles.</p> + +<p>I laid the blame for our predicament on Huey Dunn. But Ida Mary thought +it went farther back than that. It was the fault of the government! +Women should not be allowed to file on land.</p> + +<p>Regardless of where the blame lay, we were now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span>reduced to a state of +self-preservation. Had not the majority of the settlers taken this +gambling chance of pulling through somehow, the West would never have +been settled.</p> + +<p>It is curious how quickly one's animal instinct of survival comes to the +fore in primitive lands. If we ran out of bacon we stirred flour into a +little grease, added water and a few drops of condensed milk (if we had +it) and turned out a filling dish of gravy. If we ran out of coal we +pulled the dried prairie grass to burn in the little two-hole monkey +stove, which we had bought with the cot. Laundry stoves, some called +them.</p> + +<p>To keep the water from becoming warm as dishwater we dug a hole in the +ground to set the water can in. The earth became so cool at night that +anything set down in a shallow hole on the shady side of the house kept +cool all day.</p> + +<p>We learned that it took twice as long to cook beans or other vegetables +in that high altitude; that one must put more flour in the cake and not +so much shortening or it would surely fall; that meat hung in the dry +air would keep fresh indefinitely—but we had not tasted a bite of fresh +meat since we came.</p> + +<p>Our homestead not only had a cabin, but it boasted a small patch of +sweet corn planted by the first filer on the land. It would make food +for both man and beast—for the Ammons girls and the pinto.</p> + +<p>It was a frontier saying that homesteading was a gamble: "Yeah, the +United States Government is betting you 160 acres of land that you can't +live on it eight months." Ida <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span>and I weren't betting; we were holding +on, living down to the grass roots. The big problem was no longer how to +get off the homestead, but how to keep soul and body together on it.</p> + +<p>If one were in a country where he could live by foraging—"We can live +on jack rabbits next winter," homesteaders would say. But Ida Mary and I +would have to depend on someone to get them for us. We realized more +every day how unequipped we were for plains life, lacking the sturdy +health of most frontier women, both of us unusually small and slight. +Back of Ida Mary's round youthful face and steady eyes, however, there +were grit and stamina and cool-headed common sense. She would never +stampede with the herd. And for all my fragility, I had the will to hang +on.</p> + +<p>Well, we would eat corncakes with bacon grease a while longer. (They +were really good. I became an expert in making them.) And we still had +some bacon left, and the corn; a little syrup in the pail would take the +place of sugar. Uncle Sam hadn't won that bet yet, on the Ammons +homestead, though most of the settlers thought he would.</p> + +<p>Three or four miles from the claim was McClure, a ranch house combined +with a general store and a post office. Walking there one day for +groceries and our mail we passed a group of men lounging in front of the +old log ranch house. "Now such as that won't ever be any good to the +country," one of them said of us. "What the country needs is people with +guts. There ought to be a law against women filing on government +land...."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span>"And against all these city folks coming out here just to get a deed and +then leaving the country," added another. "If they ain't going to +improve the land they oughtn't to have it."</p> + +<p>"Most of 'em take their trunks along when they go to town to prove up," +put in the stage driver, "and that's the last you ever see of 'em. +They've gone on the next train out."</p> + +<p>Landgrabbers, the native westerners called the settlers, no good to the +country. And there was a great deal of truth in it. We began to check up +on the homesteaders of whom we knew. Probably two-thirds of them would +go back home as soon as they proved up, leaving their shack at the mercy +of the wind, and the prairie to wait as it had always waited for a +conquering hand.</p> + +<p>Huey Dunn and the Cooks and the Wickershams were dirt farmers, come to +stay. Some of the homesteaders would come back in the summertime, +putting out a little patch of garden and a few rows of corn each season. +But for the most part there would be no record of these transient guests +of the prairie but abandoned shacks. Those who took up claims only as an +investment either sold the land for whatever price they could get for it +or let it lie there to increase in value.</p> + +<p>Some of the old-timers didn't object to this system. "When the land is +all taken up, people will have to pay more for it," they explained. But +on the whole they eyed with humorous intolerance the settlers who +departed, leaving their claims as they had found them.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span>A great blessing of the plains was the absence of vermin. I do not +remember having seen a rat or a weasel on the frontier at that time, and +many of the natives had never seen a potato bug or chinch bug or +cockroach.</p> + +<p>But one day after a short, pelting rain, I came home and opened the door +and looked at the moving, crawling walls, and could not believe my eyes. +Worms—small, brown, slick worms—an inch to an inch and a half long.</p> + +<p>The walls, the door, the ground were alive with them. They were crawling +through the cracks into the shack, wriggling along the floor and walls +with their tiny, hair-like legs. They infested the plains for miles +around. At night one could feel them crawling over the bed.</p> + +<p>The neighbors got together to find means of exterminating these +obnoxious vermin. We burned sulfur inside and used torches of twisted +prairie hay on the outside of the house, just near enough to the walls +to scorch the creepers. But as one regiment burned up another came.</p> + +<p>One day Ida Mary and I, in doing a little research work of our own—we +had no biologists to consult on plagues, and no exterminators—lifted up +a wide board platform in front of our shack, and ran screaming. The +pests were nested thick and began to scatter rapidly in every direction, +a fermenting mass.</p> + +<p>They were not dangerous, they injured neither men nor crops, but they +were harder to endure than a major disaster. One was aware of them +everywhere, on the chair one sat in, on the food one ate, on one's body. +They were a crawling, maddening nightmare.</p> + +<p>A number of homesteaders were preparing to leave the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>country—driven +out by an army of insects—when, as suddenly as they came, the worms +disappeared. Where they came from, where they went, no one knew. I +mention this episode as one without precedent or repetition in the +history of the frontier, so far as I know.</p> + +<p>A number of theories were advanced regarding this worm plague. Some said +they had rained down in cell or germ form; others, that they had +developed with the sudden moisture from some peculiar embryo in the dry +soil. Finding from my own further observation that they were segregated +in the damper sections where the soil had not yet dried out after the +rain, I concluded they had been bred in the ground.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Our need for money had become acute, but before we were quite desperate +a ray of hope appeared. There were quite a few children scattered over +the neighborhood, and the homesteaders decided that there must be a +school in the center of the district.</p> + +<p>The directors found that Ida Mary had taught school a term or two back +east, and teachers were scarce as hens' teeth out there, so she got the +school at $25 a month. The little schoolhouse was built close to the far +end of our claim, which was a mile long instead of half a mile square as +it should have been.</p> + +<p>We had just finished breakfast one morning when Huey Dunn and another +homesteader drove up to the door with their teams, dragging some heavy +timbers along.</p> + +<p>Huey stood in the door, his old straw hat in hand, with that placid +expression on his smooth features. A man of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>medium height, shoulders +slightly rounded; rather gaunt in the middle where the suspenders +hitched onto the overalls.</p> + +<p>"Came to move your shack," he said in an offhand tone.</p> + +<p>"Move it?" we demanded. "Where?"</p> + +<p>"To the other end of the claim, over by the schoolhouse. And that's as +far as I'm goin' to move you until you prove up," he added. He hadn't +moved us off the land when we wanted to go. He would move us up to the +line now, but not an inch over it until we had our patent.</p> + +<p>The men stuck the timbers under the shack, hitched the horses to it, and +Ida Mary and I did the housework en route. Suddenly she laughed: "If we +had been trying to get Huey Dunn to move this shack he wouldn't have got +to it all winter."</p> + +<p>When they set us down on the proper location they tied the shack down by +driving stakes two or three feet into the ground, then running wire +cords, like clothesline, from the roof of the shack down to the stakes.</p> + +<p>"Just luck there hasn't been much wind or this drygoods box would have +been turned end over end," Huey said. "Wasn't staked at all."</p> + +<p>It was autumn and the air was cold early in the mornings and sweet with +the smell of new-mown hay. We hired a homesteader who had a mower to put +up hay for us and had a frame made of poles for a small barn and stacked +the hay on top around it, against the winter. Most of the settlers first +covered this frame with woven wire to keep the stock from eating into +the hay. We left ours open between the poles as a self-feeder through +which Pinto could eat hay without any work or responsibility on our +part.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>Then one day Ida Mary went swinging down the trail to her school, a +small, sun-bonneted child at each side. The schoolhouse was much like +any country school—but smaller and more cheaply built. It had long +wooden benches and a rusty stove and in fine weather a dozen or more +pupils, who ranged in age from very young children to great farm boys, +who towered over Ida Mary, but whom, somehow, she learned to manage +effortlessly in that serene fashion of hers. In bad weather, when it was +difficult to travel across the prairie, her class dwindled until, at +times, she had no pupils at all.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="III" id="III"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh04.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 3." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>III<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>"ANY FOOL CAN SET TYPE"</h3> +<br /> + +<p>McClure, South Dakota (it's on the map), was the halfway point on the +stage line between Pierre and Presho, three or four miles from our +claim. It consisted of the Halfway House, which combined the functions +of a general store, a post office, a restaurant, and a news center for +the whole community, with the barns and corrals of the old McClure +ranch. And set off a few rods from the house there was another building, +a small crude affair that looked like a homesteader's shack. Across its +rough board front was a sign painted in big black letters:</p> + +<h4>THE McCLURE PRESS</h4> + +<p>The first time I saw that sign, I laughed aloud.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span>"What on earth is a newspaper doing out here?" I asked Mr. Randall, the +proprietor of the Halfway House.</p> + +<p>"It's a final-proof sheet," he answered, not realizing that the brief +explanation could mean little to a stranger.</p> + +<p>These final-proof sheets, however, were becoming an important branch of +the western newspaper industry, popping up over the frontier for the +sole purpose of publishing the proof notices of the homesteaders. As +required by the government, each settler must have published for five +consecutive weeks in the paper nearest his land, his intention to make +proof (secure title to the land) with the names of witnesses to attest +that he had lived up to the rules and regulations prescribed by the +government.</p> + +<p>Also, according to government ruling, such newspapers were to be paid +five dollars by the landholder for each final proof published, and any +contestant to a settler's right to the land must pay a publication fee. +Thereby a new enterprise was created—the "final-proof" newspaper.</p> + +<p>These weeklies carried small news items with a smattering of advertising +from surrounding trade centers. But they were made up mostly of "proofs" +and ready-printed material supplied by the newspaper syndicates that +furnished the prints; leaving one or two blank sheets, as required by +the publisher for home print. The McClure <i>Press</i> had two six-column +pages of home print, including the legal notices.</p> + +<p>This paper was a proof sheet, pure and simple, run by a girl homesteader +who had worked on a Minneapolis paper. Myrtle Combs was a +hammer-and-tongs printer. She threw the type together, threw it onto the +press and off again; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span>slammed the print-shop door shut; mounted her old +white horse, and with a gallon pail—filled with water at the +trough—tied to the saddlehorn, went loping back to her claim four or +five miles away. But Myrtle could be depended upon to get out the +notices, which was all the owner required.</p> + +<p>One day when I went for the mail she called to me: "Say! You want the +job of running this newspaper? I'm proving up. Going home."</p> + +<p>We needed the extra money badly. Proving-up time came in early spring. +To get our deed and go home would require nearly $300, which Ida's $25 a +month would not cover. Besides, I felt that I had been a heavy expense +to Ida Mary because of my illness on the road, and I did not want to +continue to be a burden to her. She had succeeded in finding a way to +earn money and I was eager to do my own part.</p> + +<p>I didn't know as much about running a newspaper as a hog knows about +Sunday. It was a hard, dirty job which I was not physically equipped to +handle. But I had lived on a homestead long enough to learn some +fundamental things: that while a woman had more independence here than +in any other part of the world, she was expected to contribute as much +as a man—not in the same way, it is true, but to the same degree; that +people who fought the frontier had to be prepared to meet any emergency; +that the person who wasn't willing to try anything once wasn't equipped +to be a settler. I'd try it, anyhow.</p> + +<p>"Any fool can learn to set type," Myrtle said cheerfully. "Then throw it +into the 'form' [the iron rectangle the size <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>of the page in which the +columns of set-up type are encased, ready to print]. If it don't stick, +here's a box of matches. Whittle 'em down and just keep sticking 'em in +where the type's loose until it does stick."</p> + +<p>She locked the form by means of hammering tight together two +wedge-shaped iron pieces, several sets of them between type and iron +frame which were supposed to hold the type in the form like a vise; +raised it carefully, and there remained on the tin-covered make-up table +about a quarter of a column of the set type. She slammed the form down +in place again, unlocked it with an iron thing she called the key, +inserted more leads and slugs between the lines of type, jamming them +closer together.</p> + +<p>"If you need more leads or slugs between the lines," she said, "here's +some condensed milk cans—just take these"—and she held up a pair of +long shears—"and cut you some leads." She suited the words to action; +took the mallet and smoothed the edges of the oblong she had cut. I +watched her ink the roller, run it over the form on the press, put the +blank paper on, give the press a few turns, and behold! the printed +page.</p> + +<p>With this somewhat limited training I proceeded to get out the paper. I +knew absolutely nothing about mechanics and it was a hard job. Then a +belated thought struck me. Perhaps I should ask the owner for the job, +or at any rate inform him that I had taken it. From <i>The Press</i> I found +the publisher's name was E. L. Senn. I learned that he owned a long +string of proof sheets. A monopoly out here on the raw prairie. Folks +said he was close as the bark on a tree and heartless as a Wall Street +corporation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>With this encouragement I decided to ask for $10 a week. Myrtle had +received only $8. Of course, I had no experience as a printer, but I +explained to Mr. Senn my plans for pushing the business so that he would +be able to afford that extra $2 a week. Of my experience as a typesetter +I wisely said nothing.</p> + +<p>While I waited for the owner's reply I went on getting out the paper. +There was no holding up an issue of a "proof" newspaper; like the show, +it must go on! The Department of the Interior running our public lands +saw to that. Friday's paper might come out the following Monday or +Wednesday, but it must come out. That word "consecutive" in the proof +law was an awful stickler. But everyone who had hung around the print +shop watching Myrtle work, took a hand helping me.</p> + +<p>When the publisher replied to my letter he asked me about my experience +as a printer and added: "I don't know whether you are worth $2 a week +more than Myrtle or not, but anybody that has the nerve you exhibit in +asking for it no doubt deserves it. Moreover, I like to flatter such +youthful vanity."</p> + +<p>He called it nerve, and I had thought I was as retiring as an antelope. +But the main reason for his granting my demand was that he could not +find anyone else to do the work on short notice. Printers were not to be +picked up on every quarter-section.</p> + +<p>I made no reply to this letter. A week later I was perched on my high +stool at the nonpareil (a small six-point type) case when the stage +rolled in from Presho. Into the print shop walked a well-dressed +stranger, a slender, energetic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span>man of medium height. He looked things +over—including me. And so I found myself face to face with the +proof-sheet king.</p> + +<p>It did not take long to find out how little I knew about printing a +newspaper. So in desperation I laid before him an ambitious plan for +adding subscriptions and another page of home print filled with +advertising from Pierre.</p> + +<p>The trip alone, he reminded me, would cost all of $10, probably $15. +"And besides," he added, "if you did get ads you couldn't set them up." +With that final fling at my inefficiency he took the stage on to Pierre.</p> + +<p>The average newspaperman would have sneered at these plains printing +outfits, and thrown the junk out on the prairie to be buried under the +snowdrifts; but not many of us were eligible to the title. The McClure +<i>Press</i> consisted of a few cases of old type, a couple of "forms," an +ink roller and a pot of ink; a tin slab laid on top of a rough frame for +a make-up table. Completing the outfit was a hand press—that's what +they called it, but it needed a ten-horsepower motor to run it; a flat +press which went back and forth under a heavy iron roller that was +turned with a crank like a clothes wringer. My whole outfit seemed to +have come from Noah's ark.</p> + +<p>Most of the type was nicked, having suffered from the blows of Myrtle's +wooden hammer. She used the hammer when it failed to make a smooth +surface in the form that would pass under the roller. Readers had to +guess at about half the news I printed, and the United States Land +Office developed a sort of character system of deciphering the notices +which I filed every week.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span>But running proof notices was not merely the blacksmith job that Myrtle +had made it appear. It required accuracy to the <i>n</i>th degree. The proofs +ran something like this:</p> + +<div class="block"><p>Blanche M. Bartine of McClure, S. D., who made Homestead Entry No. +216, Serial No. 04267, for the South One-half of the NE 1/4 and +North One-half of SE 1/4 of Section 9, Township 108 North, Range 78 +West of the Fifth Principal Meridian, has filed notice of intention +to make final computation proof to establish claim, etc., etc.</p></div> + +<p class="noin">Then the names of four witnesses were added and the signature of the +Land Office Register of that district.</p> + +<p>One day a man went to town with a string of witnesses to prove up. He +intended to go on to Iowa without returning to the claim. That night he +walked angrily into the print shop and laid a copy of his published +notice before me, together with a note from the Land Office. I had him +proving up somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, having given the wrong +meridian. For that typographical error the man must wait until I +republished the notice. Washington, so the man at Pierre said, was not +granting deeds for claims in mid-ocean. One can't be inexact with the +government's red tape.</p> + +<p>But, on the whole, the work was not as trivial as it may appear. With +every proof notice published in these obscure proof sheets 160 acres of +wasteland passed into privately owned farm units—and for this gigantic +public works project there was not a cent appropriated either by State +or Federal government.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>One day when the corn was in the milk—that season which the Indians +celebrate with their famous corn dance—we saw Wilomene White streaking +across the plains on old Buckskin, her knock-kneed pony. Wilomene was a +familiar sight on the prairie, and the sight of her short, plump figure, +jolting up and down in a stiff gallop, as though she were on a wooden +horse, water keg hanging from her saddlehorn—just in case she <i>should</i> +come across any water—was welcome wherever she went. "It doesn't matter +whether it's illness or a civic problem or a hoedown, Wilomene is always +called on," people said. And she was repaid for every hardship she went +through by the fun she had telling about it, while her rich, contagious +laughter rang over the whole country.</p> + +<p>Today there was no water keg bouncing up and down behind old Buckskin. +That in itself was ominous. For all his deformity and declining years, +she descended on us like Paul Revere.</p> + +<p>She galloped up, dismounted, jerked a Chicago newspaper out of the +saddlebag, and pointed to a big black headline.</p> + +<p>"Look at this. The reservation is going to be thrown open. The East is +all excited. There will be thousands out here to register at the Land +Office in Pierre—railroads are going to run special trains—"</p> + +<p>"What reservation?" we wanted to know.</p> + +<p>"The Indian reservation, just across the fence," Wilomene explained. The +"fence" was merely a string of barbed wire, miles long, which marked the +boundary of our territory and separated it from the Indian reservation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>I glanced at the paper announcing the great opening of the Lower Brulé +by the United States Government which was to take place that fall, some +hundred thousand acres of homestead land. Here we were at the very door +of that Opening and had to be told about it by eastern newspapers, so +completely cut off from the world we were.</p> + +<p>"What good will that do us?" practical Ida Mary inquired.</p> + +<p>"It will help develop this section of the country and bring up the price +of our land!"</p> + +<p>That was worth considering, but Ida Mary and I were not dealing in +futures just then. We were too busy putting away winter food—corn and +the chokecherries we had found along a dry creek bank; patching the tar +paper on the shack. Like most of the settlers we were busier than +cranberry merchants, getting ready for the long winter. But there is a +great satisfaction in doing simple, fundamental things with one's hands.</p> + +<p>That evening, however, I picked up the pamphlet on the Opening which +Wilomene had left. It announced that the United States Government would +open the Lower Brulé reservation to entry for homesteading on a given +date. At this time any American citizen eligible as a claimholder could +register "as an entry" in the Drawing for a homestead. And after the +registrations were closed there would be a "drawing out" up to the +number of claims on the reservation. Eligible persons were to register +at the United States Land Offices most conveniently located—and +designated by the General Land Office in Washington—for a +quarter-section of the land.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span>The next day I was a stage passenger on the return trip to Pierre to get +detailed information on the Lower Brulé Opening from the United States +Land Office. With a new and reckless abandon I listed the expenditure +and received a prompt reply from the proof magnate. "I note an +unauthorized expense of $10—trip to Pierre. You are getting to be an +unruly outlaw of a printer."</p> + +<p>Then I forgot the coming Land Opening. There were days, that early fall, +when McClure was lifeless and I would work all day without seeing a +human being anywhere over the plains. In the drowsiness of +mid-afternoons the clicking of my type falling into the stick and the +pounding of the form with the mallet would echo through the broad +silence.</p> + +<p>And one day in October the stage driver rushed into the shop, shouting, +"Say, Printer! She's open! Blowed wide open!"</p> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="IV" id="IV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh05.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 4." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>IV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE BIGGEST LOTTERY IN HISTORY</h3> +<br /> + +<p>It is an extraordinary fact that one of the most gigantic, and certainly +the most rapid, land settlements in the history of the United States has +been little known and little recognized, either for its vast scope or +its far-reaching importance.</p> + +<p>The passing of the frontier, with its profound effects upon American +life, is not a part of our early history. It ended with the World War. +The trek of early settlers in covered wagons, the swift and colorful +growth of the cattle kingdom, the land rush at Cimarron are a part of +our familiar history. But the greatest of all these expansion movements +was at its height within the twentieth century with 100,000,000 acres of +Public Land opened by the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>government for settlement, waste land which +in a few seasons produced crops, supported villages, towns, and finally +cities, in their lightning growth.</p> + +<p>In a sense the United States Government conducted a vast lottery, with +land as stakes, and hundreds of thousands of men and women gambling +their time and strength and hope on the future of the West.</p> + +<p>The land so lavishly disposed of was the white man's last raid on the +Indian. The period of bloody warfare was long past. The last struggle +against confiscation of Indian land was over, and the Indians were +segregated, through treaties, on tracts designated by the government, +"like the cattle on the range being driven back to winter pasture or the +buffalo driven off the plains," to which they mournfully compared their +fate. And if there is anything an Indian hates it is boundaries.</p> + +<p>The migration and settlement of vast numbers of people has changed world +history time and time again. And the Americans have been a migrating +people. From the early years of their first settlement of the colonies +there had been a steady movement toward the West. Without the West with +its great Public Lands the United States as it has become could hardly +have existed. While there was a frontier to develop, land for the small +owner, there would always be independence.</p> + +<p>European theories might influence the East from time to time, but there +was always a means of escape for the man or woman oppressed by labor +conditions, by tendencies to establish class distinctions. Public Land! +On the land men must face primitive conditions as best they could, but +they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>were independent because the land was their own, their earnings +their own.</p> + +<p>For many years the Public Land seemed inexhaustible; it was not until +the Civil War had been waged for two years, with the country disrupted +by conflict, and people looking—as they will in times of disaster—for +a place where they might be at peace, that they realized the desirable +land at the government's disposal was gone. But there remained the land +of the red men, and white settlers looked on it and found it good. They +raised a clamor for it, and the most determined staked out their claims +and lived on it regardless of treaty.</p> + +<p>As a result, the government yielded to public pressure and took over the +land from the Indians, forcing them back once more. It wasn't quite as +simple as it sounds, of course; it took some twenty-five years and +nearly a thousand battles of one kind and another to do it. But at the +end of that time the land again had been absorbed by the people, settled +in accordance with the Homestead Act of 1862, and the demand continued.</p> + +<p>The government then bought Oklahoma from the Indians in 1889. It was +impossible to satisfy all those who wanted homesteads and difficult to +choose those who should have them. A plan was therefore hit upon to give +everyone a chance. On the day of the Oklahoma Opening, throngs of white +settlers stood at the boundary and at a given signal rushed upon the +land, taking it by speed and strategy and trickery—and too often by +violence.</p> + +<p>Within twenty-four hours the land was occupied; within a week there were +frame buildings over the prairie, and villages and towns followed at a +speed inconceivable to the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>foreign nations which looked on, breathless +and staggered at the energy of a people who measured the building of a +western empire not by generations but by seasons.</p> + +<p>And the demand for land continued. There was a depression in the East +and jobs were hard to get; with the growth of factories many young men +and women had flocked from farms and villages to cities, and they were +not finding conditions to their liking. They wanted to return to the +life they knew best, the life of the farm. In the more populous sections +the price of land was rising and was already beyond the reach of many +pocketbooks. There remained only Public Land—land which was allotted to +the Indians.</p> + +<p>The government, accordingly, began to withdraw from the Indian +Allotments great tracts, by further treaties and deals, slashing +boundary lines, relegating the Indians to the unceded part of the land. +The great tracts thus acquired were then surveyed into quarter-sections +and thrown open to homesteading. In order to prevent the violence which +had attended the Oklahoma land opening, a new method was hit upon. A +proclamation was issued by President Theodore Roosevelt, announcing the +opening of land on the Lower Brulé Indian Reservation.</p> + +<p>As I had learned on that flying trip to Pierre, the operation of the +plan was very simple. Land-seekers were to register at the Land Office +in Pierre, making an affidavit showing their qualifications to enter, at +which time each would receive a number. On a given day, October 12, +1907, the numbered envelopes containing the affidavits, which had been +deposited in large containers, fastened and sealed so that they could +not be opened, were to be drawn by lot, after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span>having been thoroughly +mixed—as many numbers drawn as there were quarter-sections to dispose +of. The first person whose number corresponded with the number drawn had +first choice of the land.</p> + +<p>Government posters and advertisements for the land opening were +published in every section of the country. And along with the government +publicity appeared the advertisements of the railroads. For them +increased population in this area was a crying need. While we had +drowsed through the lazy autumn days, advertising campaigns were +shrieking to the people all over the country of the last frontier.</p> + +<p>And that October day "it blowed wide open!"</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Into the little town of Pierre they swarmed—by train, by stagecoach, by +automobile, by wagon, on foot—men and women from every part of the +country, from almost every state—people who had been crowded out of +cities, people who wanted to settle as real dirt farmers, people who +wanted cheap land, and the inevitable trailers who were come prepared to +profit by someone else's good luck.</p> + +<p>Like a thundering herd they stampeded the United States Land Office at +Pierre. "The Strip! The Strip!" one heard on every side. It was called +the Strip because the tract was long and narrow. One day the little +frontier town of Pierre drowsed through a hot afternoon, and the broad +plains lay tenantless, devoid of any sign that men had passed that way. +The next day the region swarmed with strangers.</p> + +<p>Sturdy, ruddy-faced farmers, pale-looking city boys, young girls alert, +laughing—all sons and daughters of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>America—not an immigrant peasant +among them; plumbers and lawyers, failures and people weary of routine, +young men from agricultural colleges eager to try scientific methods of +farming and older men from Europe prepared to use the methods they had +found good for generations; raucous land agents and quiet racketeers +alert for some way of making easy money from the tense, anxious, excited +throng.</p> + +<p>For many of that jostling, bewildered, desperately anxious throng the +land was their last chance to establish themselves. And yet the +atmosphere was that of a local fair, loud with shouting, with barkers +crying their wares, with the exclamations of wonder of people looking +upon a new country. And the air was heavy with the tense excitement and +suspense that attends any gambling game.</p> + +<p>McClure, the Halfway House, where my little print shop had been thrown +up, was the only stopping place in that part of the country and at the +end of the main road from Pierre to the reservation, which lay some five +miles on across the prairie.</p> + +<p>All that day the landseekers pushed their way into the shed annex which +served as a dining room of the Halfway House, and filled the table which +stretched from end to end. If there was no room for them, they ate +lunches from the store's food supply at the counter. We who had grown +accustomed to the sight of empty prairie, to whom the arrival of the +stage from Pierre was an event, were overwhelmed by the confusion, the +avalanche of people, shouting, pushing, asking questions, moving +steadily across the trackless plains toward the reservation.</p> + +<p>Every homesteader who had a tug that would fasten over <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>a doubletree, a +wagon that could still squeak, or a flivver that had a bolt in it, went +into the transportation business—hauling the seekers from Pierre or +from McClure to look at the land.</p> + +<p>A generation before people had migrated in little groups in covered +wagons to find new land. Now they came by automobile and railroad in +colonies, like a great tidal wave, but the spirit that drove them was +still the pioneer spirit, and the conditions to be faced were +essentially the same—the stubborn earth, and painful labor, drought and +famine and cold, and the revolving cycle of the seasons.</p> + +<p>"Shucks, it's simple as tying your shoe," stage driver Bill assured the +excited, confused landseekers. "Jest take enough grub to last a coupla +days and a bottle or two of strong whisky and git in line at the Land +Office."</p> + +<p>The settlers were almost as excited as the landseekers. For many of them +it was the first opportunity they had had since their arrival to earn a +cash dollar. And while the gambling fever was high it was easy to +persuade the newcomers to spend what they could. Coffee, sandwiches, +foods of every description were prepared in great quantities and +disposed of to clamoring hordes. It seemed a pity I couldn't find some +way of making some money too. I would. Without wasting time I wrote some +verses on the land opening, made a drawing to accompany them, and sent +it to a printer at Pierre to have postcards made of it.</p> + +<p>Wilomene White had made some belts and hatbands of snakeskins, and she +planned to put them, together with my cards, wherever we could sell them +as souvenirs.</p> + +<p>I rode in at daylight for the cards, but the town was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span>already astir. +People stood in line in front of the Land Office waiting to get in to +register. Some of them had stood there all night. Some sat on the steps, +cold, hungry and exhausted. But they had come a long way and could not +afford to miss their chance.</p> + +<p>Every train that came in was loaded with men and women. The little state +capital became a bedlam, and the Land Office was besieged. They crawled +along in a line that did not seem to move; they munched little lunches; +a few fainted from exhaustion and hunger. But they never gave up.</p> + +<p>Here at last was news that was news—for which the press of the country, +and Europe, clamored. These land openings were a phenomenon in the +settling of new territory, beyond the conception of foreign countries. +Reporters, magazine writers, free lancers pushed in for their stories of +the spectacular event.</p> + +<p>The mere size of it, the gambling element, the surging mobs who had +risked something to take part in it were material for stories. The real +hero of the stories, of course, was the land itself—the last frontier. +There were a few who pondered on what its passing would mean to the +country as a whole.</p> + +<p>I ordered 500 extra ready-prints by wire from the Newspaper Union and +persuaded a bronco-buster to turn the old press for me.</p> + +<p>Bronco Benny rode bucking horses during the day for the entertainment of +the tenderfeet passing through and helped me at night, relating in a +soft western drawl the events of the day as he worked: "Did you see that +little <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span>red-headed gal—wanted one o' my spurs as a souvenir—haw haw!"</p> + +<p>"Bronco, wait a minute," I would interrupt; "you've ruined that paper. +Spread a little more ink."</p> + +<p>"And I says, 'You shore, Miss, you don't want the pony throwed in?'" +pushing the roller lazily back and forth over the inking table then +across the form on the press. "She ups and takes a snapshot," he rambled +on.</p> + +<p>To my delight the postcards were selling like hot cakes at ten cents a +piece. The Ammons's finances were looking up. In many homes today, +throughout the country, there must exist yellowed copies of the card, +the only tangible reminder of an unsuccessful gamble in the government +lottery.</p> + +<p>At midnight one night an old spring wagon rattled up to the shack and we +heard the voice of a man—one of the locators who had been hauling +seekers. He held out a handful of small change. "Here," he said proudly; +"I sold every card. And here"—he pulled out a note and a small package. +The note read:</p> + +<p>"Your poem is very clever, but your drawing is damn poor. If I'm a Lucky +Number I'll see you in the spring. In the meantime, for heaven's sake, +don't try any more art. Stick to poetry." It was signed "Alexander Van +Leshout," and was accompanied by a ready-to-print cut.</p> + +<p>This newspaper cartoonist from Milwaukee was only one of many people +from strange walks of life who entered that lottery. There were others +whose background was equally alien to life in a homestead cabin, who +came to see the West while it was still unchanged, drawn for reasons of +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>personal adventure, or because the romantic legends of the West +attracted them. People drawn by the intangibles, the freedom of great +space, the touch of the wind on their faces, a return to the simple +elements of living.</p> + +<p>Standing in the dreary lines in the Land Office where some of them +waited for as long as two days and nights at a time, we saw farmers, +business men, self-assured boys, white-haired men and women.</p> + +<p>A gray-haired woman in her late sixties, holding tightly to an old +white-whiskered man, kept saying encouragingly: "Just hold on a little +longer, Pa." And whenever we passed we heard her asking of those about +her: "Where you from? We're from Blue Springs." The Land Office recorded +the man as David Wagor.</p> + +<p>It was not necessary to be a naturalized citizen in order to register, +but it was necessary to have filed intention to become a citizen. One +must be either single or the head of a family; wives, therefore, could +not register. For that reason we were interested in a frail young woman, +a mere girl, sagging under the weight of a baby on her arm, patiently +waiting her turn. She was shabbily dressed, with a trace of gentility in +clothes and manner. Whether she was a widow or unmarried only the Land +Office knew, but it pinched the heart to realize the straits of a +fragile girl who was ready to undertake the burden of a homestead alone.</p> + +<p>"You are getting to be an outlaw printer," the proof king wrote me. "You +were not authorized to incur this additional expense." But, catching the +excitement of the crowds and perhaps a little of their gambling spirit, +I was not upset by his reproof. I filled the paper with the news items +about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>the Opening and sold out every copy to the landseekers passing +through.</p> + +<p>The plains never slept now. All night vehicles rattled over the hard +prairies. Settlers on their way home, starting for Pierre, hurried by in +the middle of the night. Art Fergus's team of scrubby broncos were so +tired they didn't even balk in harness. Flivvers bumped over the rough +ground, chugging like threshing machines.</p> + +<p>The westerners (every man's son of us had become a full-fledged native +overnight and swelled with pride as the tenderfeet said "You +westerners") responded exuberantly to the sudden life about us. Cowboys +rode in from the far ranges for one helluva time. They didn't kowtow to +this "draw-land" game, but they could play draw poker. And they wasn't +gamblin' for no homestead—you couldn't give 'em one. But they'd stake +two or three months' wages on cards. They rode hell-for-leather down the +streets, gaudy outfits glittering in the sun. With spurs clicking they +swung the eastern gals at a big dance. And the dignity of the state +capital be damned!</p> + +<p>The whole prairie was in holiday mood. Ida Mary dismissed school at +noon—no one cared whether school kept or not—and we put on our +prettiest dresses to join the crowd. Through the throngs pushed the land +locators. They stood on curbs, in front of the Land Office and the +hotels, grabbing and holding onto their prospects like leeches. They had +been accustomed to landing a settler once in a blue moon, driving the +"prospect" over miles of plain, showing him land in various remote +districts in the hope that he would find some to suit him. Now they had +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>dozens clamoring for every quarter-section. This was their golden +harvest. Nearly all the seekers were too avid for land to be particular +about its location, and many of them too ignorant of the soil to know +which was the best.</p> + +<p>"Plumb locoed," Bill described the excited seekers. "The government's +charging $2.50 to $4.00 an acre for that land. I drive 'em right over +vacant homesteads just as good for $1.25. Think they'll look at it? +No-siree!"</p> + +<p>But we are a gambling people and the grass on the other side of the +reservation fence looked a lot better.</p> + +<p>After they registered, most of the landseekers wanted to see the land +and pick out a claim—just in case they won one. The chances of winning +must have seemed slim with that avalanche of people registering, and the +results would not be known until the Drawing, which would be a week or +more after the entry closed.</p> + +<p>Late one afternoon a crowd stood on the border of the Strip, on the +outside of the old barb-wire fence that divided it from the rest of +space. And the wire gate stood open. The landseekers who had driven over +the land stood looking across it, sobered. I think it occurred to them +for the first time that this was a land where one had to begin at the +beginning.</p> + +<p>The buffalo and the Indian had each had his day on this land, and each +had gone without leaving a trace. It was untouched. And as far as the +eye could see, it stretched, golden under the rays of the setting sun. +Whether the magnitude of the task ahead frightened or exhilarated them, +the landseekers were all a little awed at that moment. Even I, seeing +the endless sweep of that sea of golden grass, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>forgot for the moment +the dry crackling sound of it under wheel and foot, and the awful +monotony of its endlessness which could be so nerve-racking.</p> + +<p>And by the gods, the grass was higher and thicker on the other side of +the fence! "How rich the soil must be to raise grass like that," they +said to each other. Groups of men and women gathered closer together as +though for some unconscious protection against the emptiness. Around the +fence stood vehicles of all descriptions, saddle horses, and a few +ponies on which cowboys sat lazily, looking on. Even those who had come +only for adventure were silenced. They felt the challenge of the land +and were no longer in a mood to scoff.</p> + +<p>Standing at that barb-wire fence was like standing at the gate of the +Promised Land. And the only way in was through the casual drawing of +numbers. They stood long, staring at the land which lay so golden in the +sun, and which only a few could possess.</p> + +<p>There were more real dirt farmers represented here than there had been +in most of the homestead projects—men who were equipped to farm. But +they were still in the minority. They picked up handfuls of the earth +that the locators turned over with spades, let it sift through their +fingers and pronounced it good. A rich loam, not so heavy or black as +the soil back east, but better adapted, perhaps, to the climate. Aside +from the farmers nobody seemed to know or care anything about the soil +or precipitation. And, ironically enough, it occurred to no one to ask +about the water supply.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span>"The land back east is too high-priced," the city laborer declared, "we +can never hope to own any of it."</p> + +<p>"We'd rather risk the hazards of a raw country," said the tenant farmer, +"than be tenants always."</p> + +<p>"We'll sell our eastern land at a high price," said the landowners, "and +improve new land."</p> + +<p>"My mother took in washing to save money," said an earnest-faced boy, +"so I could make this trip. But if I win a whole quarter-section (and +how big a quarter-section looked to a city dweller!) I'll make a good +home for her."</p> + +<p>A middle-aged widow from Keokuk told the group about her: "I mortgaged +my cottage to come. The boys are growing up and it's their only chance +to own land."</p> + +<p>Others in the group nodded their heads. "Yes, land is solid!"</p> + +<p>Leaning heavily on his cane a little old man with a long white mustache +and sharp eyes denounced the lottery method. "'Taint right, 'taint. +Don't give a feller a chanct. Look at me with my rheumatiz and I got as +good a chanct as any of 'em—brains nor legs don't count in this. Now in +the Oklahomy Run...." And he told about the Oklahoma Run of almost a +generation before, when speed and strategy were necessary if one were to +be first on the land to stake a claim. But the Oklahoma Run, for all its +drama and its violence, dwindled in importance beside these Drawings +with their fabulous areas and their armies of people.</p> + +<p>Across the prairie came the sound of horses' hoofs and the heavy +rumbling of a wagon. A locator with a hayrack full of seekers was coming +at a reckless pace, not stopping <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>for the trails. At the reservation +gate he brought the team to a quick stop that almost threw his +passengers off the wagon. Some of them were so stiff and sore they +couldn't get off their cushion of hay; others were unable to stand after +they got up. But the locator was not disturbed by a little thing like +that. He waved his right arm, taking in at one sweep the vacant expanse +to the rim of the horizon and shouted:</p> + +<p>"Here's your land, folks. Here's your land." He was locating them en +masse at $15 to $25 a head. No hunting up corner stakes. It all looked +alike to these bewildered people, anyhow, drunk as they were with the +intoxication that land lotteries produce.</p> + +<p>He turned his weary team and human cargo around and started back to +town. A wholesale locator had no time for sleep. He must collect another +hayrackful of seekers early next morning.</p> + +<p>Some of these landseekers tried to analyze the reasons for this great +movement, the factors which had swept them along with this tidal wave of +human migration. "We're concentrated too much in cities," they said, +"crowded and stifled, and our roots are choked. We have to go back to +the land where a man can grow himself the things he needs to live on, +and where his children can grow up with the country—and have a place in +it."</p> + +<p>Our attitude toward the land is peculiar to America. The European +conception of a plot of ground on which a family is rooted for +generations has little meaning for people who move by the thousands onto +untamed acres, transform <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>it into plowed fields and settlements and +towns, and move on endlessly to plow new fields.</p> + +<p>This constantly renewed search for fresh pastures has kept the country +vital, just as the existence of its Western Public Lands has kept it +democratic. For its endurance the American spirit owes much to its +frontier.</p> + +<p>Beside me stood a thin-faced, hollow-chested young man, a newspaper +reporter from Chicago. He ran lean fingers through brown, straggly hair, +looking from the Strip, reaching to the horizon, to the people waiting +to shape it according to their needs. "Great copy," he said lamely, but +he made no entry in his notebook.</p> + +<p>Outside another gate, five miles or so beyond the main entrance from +McClure, was a little trading post, Cedar Fork, on the Smith ranch. The +long buildings were said to have been a sort of fort in the Indian war +days. The seekers overflowed even here, and when the swift darkness +settled on the plains, stayed for the night, the women filling the store +and house while the men slept in the barn loft or haystacks, or even in +their vehicles.</p> + +<p>They wrapped themselves in heavy coats or blankets against the biting +chill of an October night—after a day so hot the tenderfeet sweltered +and blistered under the midday sun.</p> + +<p>The next morning there was frost, with the air sharp and fresh. The +Smiths tried to feed the shivering, hungry seekers. The seekers always +seemed to be hungry. Kettles and washboilers full of coffee, slabs of +bacon sizzling in great pans, and, one after another, into the hot +grease slid a case <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>of eggs. Home-baked bread was sliced into a washtub. +Shaking with cold, coat collars turned up, shawls and blankets wrapped +about them, tired, hollow-eyed and disheveled, the seekers looked like a +banished people fleeing from persecution. But they were not +disheartened.</p> + +<p>On October 14 the "Drawing" started. The registrations were put into +sealed envelopes, tossed into boxes, shuffled up, and drawn out one at a +time, numbered as they were drawn out—as many numbers as there were +claims—with an additional number to allow for those who did not file or +whose applications were rejected. Then the filing of the winners began. +Most of the seekers had already selected their claims. They had six +months' time in which to establish residence on the land.</p> + +<p>The stampede was over. After three weeks of high-pitched excitement the +seekers were gone, the plains regained their silence, and the settlers +around McClure were left to face the frontier winter with its desolation +and hardships. The void after the crowds had gone was worse than if they +had never come. The weather had turned raw and gray, and there was a +threat of snow in the air. Exhausted and let down, Ida Mary and I were +desperately blue.</p> + +<p>And then we saw someone coming across the plains—the only moving figure +to be seen in the cold gray dusk. From the dim outline we could barely +make out horse and rider, but we knew them both—Wilomene on old +Buckskin. She was riding slowly as though there were nothing left out +here now but time.</p> + +<p>She wore a dark red flannel shirtwaist, a divided skirt of black wool, a +suede jacket and black cap like a jockey's. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>There was an easy strength +and self-assurance in her carriage. She crossed the firebreak and rode +up over the ridge calling her cheery "Hoo-hoo-hoo!"</p> + +<p>"She's going to stay all night," exclaimed Ida Mary, seeing the small +bag dangling from the saddlehorn.</p> + +<p>After supper we counted the dimes we had earned from the postcards—more +than $50. And far into the night we talked of the people who had invaded +the Strip.</p> + +<p>Next spring there would be life again over the plains when the "lucky +numbers" came out to live on the Strip. Would the reporter from Chicago +be among them, and the mystery girl with the baby in her arms, and Pa +Wagor—and a young cartoonist from Milwaukee?</p> + +<p>It was something to look forward to when the blizzards shut us off from +the world.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="V" id="V"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh06.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 5." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>V<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>NO PLACE FOR CLINGING VINES</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The settlers of the McClure district went on with their work as though +there had never been a land opening. The men fed their stock and hauled +fuel for winter, while the women tacked comforters and sewed and patched +heavy clothing.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary went on with her school work and I continued to wrestle with +the newspaper. We put a little shed back of the shack where we could set +buckets of coal and keep the water can handy. With the postcard money we +bought a drum for the stovepipe, to serve as an oven. One either baked +his own bread or did without it.</p> + +<p>Huey Dunn did some late fall plowing. "What are you plowing your land +for now, with winter coming?" neighbors asked.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>"For oats next spring," Huey replied; "if the damn threshing machine +gets around to thresh out the oatstack in time to sow 'em."</p> + +<p>The homesteaders shook their heads. There was no figuring out when Huey +Dunn would do things. This time he was far ahead of them. They did not +know that fall plowing, to mellow and absorb the moisture from winter +snow and spring rain, was the way to conquer the virgin soil. They had +to find it out through hard experience. Fallowing, Huey called it.</p> + +<p>Lasso said, "The range is no place for clingin' vines, 'cause there +hain't nothin' to cling to." Ida Mary, under that quiet manner of hers, +had always been self-reliant, and I was learning not to cling.</p> + +<p>I lived in the print shop a great deal of the time that winter—an +unusually open winter, barring a few blizzards and deep snows. I slept +on a rickety cot in one corner of the room, cooking my meals on the +monkey stove; and often I ate over at Randall's, who served meals for a +quarter to anyone who cared to stop, the table filled with steaming +dishes of well-cooked food. I liked to take the midday meal there, and +meet people coming through on the stage. They furnished most of the news +for the McClure <i>Press</i>.</p> + +<p>Driving back and forth from print shop to claim on Pinto was like +crossing the desert on a camel. Pinto was too lazy to trot uphill and +too stiff to trot down, and as the country was rough and rolling, there +was not much of the trail on which we could make any time. He could have +jogged up a little, but he was too stubborn. He had lived with the +Indians too long.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>That old pony had a sly, artful eye and a way of shaking his head that +was tricky—and try to catch him loose on the prairie with a bucket of +oats as a coaxer! There were times on the trail when one could not see +him moving except at close range. When he took such a spell, one of us +drove while the other walked alongside, "persuading" him to keep ahead +of the buggy. As there wasn't a tree or shrub in that part of the +country, we were reduced to waving a hat in front of him like a cowboy +taunting a bucking horse in the ring, or waving a dry cornstalk at +him—but all with the same effect.</p> + +<p>A little brown-and-white spotted animal with long brown mane and tail, +he was the most noticeable as well as notorious piece of horseflesh in +that region, and according to a few who "knew him when—," he had a +past; a reputation as an outlaw and a dislike for the white man as a +result of his part in an Indian skirmish against a band of white +settlers. Now, like the Indian, he had become subdued with age and +conquest; but like the Indian, too, stubborn and resentful. From him we +learned much about how to deal with the Indian.</p> + +<p>One evening when I had stopped at the school for Ida Mary we saw a +snowstorm coming like a white smoke. We were only half a mile from home, +but in blizzards, we had been warned, one can easily become lost within +a few feet of his own door. Many plainsmen have walked all night in a +circle trying to find a familiar shack or barn and perished within a few +yards of shelter. Even in daytime one did not dare, in some of those +blinding furies, to go from house to barn without holding on to a rope +or clothesline <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span>kept stretched from one building to the other for that +purpose.</p> + +<p>We could not take a chance on Pinto's slow pace, so we got out of the +buggy and ran as fast as we could, leaving him to follow. We were barely +inside when the storm broke over the shack. As the snow came in blinding +sheets we became anxious about the pony, but there was nothing we could +do that night. We opened the door a crack and looked out. We could not +see our hands before us, and the howling of the wind and beating of snow +against the shack made it impossible to hear any other sound.</p> + +<p>Cowering in that tiny shack, where thin building-paper took the place of +plaster, the wind screaming across the plains, hurling the snow against +that frail protection, defenseless against the elemental fury of the +storm, was like drifting in a small boat at sea, tossed and buffeted by +waves, each one threatening to engulf you.</p> + +<p>Next day the blizzard broke and we found Pinto standing in the hayshed, +still hitched to the buggy, quietly munching hay.</p> + +<p>When the landseekers had left and the plains had seemed emptier and more +silent than before, it had seemed to Ida Mary and me, let down from our +high-pitched excitement, that there was not much incentive in doing +anything. But, after all, there was no time to be bored that winter. The +grim struggle to hang on demanded all our energy.</p> + +<p>When I had first visited the McClure <i>Press</i>, I had looked distastefully +at Myrtle's ink-stained hands and face, and at the black apron stiff +with ink which she wore at her work. Now there were nights when, after +turning the press or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span>addressing papers still wet with ink until +midnight, I fell upon the cot and slept without washing or undressing. +At such times Myrtle, with her cheerful unconcern, became an exalted +creature.</p> + +<p>The next morning I would make a stab at cleaning myself up, eat +breakfast on the small inking table drawn close to the fire, with a +clean paper over the black surface for a tablecloth, and go to work +again.</p> + +<p>When blizzards raged they drove the snow through the shack like needles +of steel. There was not a spot where I could put that cot to keep dry, +so I covered my face with the blankets, which in the morning were +drifted over with snow. Where did the lumber industry get hold of all +the knotholes it sold the poor homesteader?</p> + +<p>For a girl who had come to the prairie for her health, I was getting +heroic treatment, wrestling all day with the heavy, old-fashioned, +outworn printing press, heavy manual labor for long hours, sleeping with +the snow drifting over me at night.</p> + +<p>It was during one of these great storms that I rode in one of the last +covered wagons, one of the few tangible links between the pioneers of +the past and the pioneers of the present—and a poignant, graphic +reminder that men and women had endured storm and discomfort and +disaster for decades as we were enduring them now, and as people would +continue to endure them as long as the land remained to be conquered.</p> + +<p>One morning after the hardest snowstorm I had seen, I awoke in the print +shop to find myself corralled by snowdrifts which the wind had driven up +over the windows and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>four or five feet high in front of the door. I +could barely see over the top of the upper panes.</p> + +<p>That was Friday. Until Sunday I waited, cut off from the +world—wondering about Ida Mary! If she were alone in that tar-paper +shack, what chance would she have? Was she cold and frightened? With the +snow piled in mountainous drifts she would be as inexorably cut off from +help as though she were alone on the plains. The things that happen to +the people one loves are so much worse than the ones that happen to +ourselves—but the things that may happen are a nightmare. As the hours +dragged on I paced up and down the print shop, partly because being +hemmed in made me restless, partly to keep warm, wondering whether the +neighbors would remember that Ida Mary was alone—fearing that they +might think she was in McClure with me.</p> + +<p>On Sunday, a passage was dug from the print shop so that I could get +out—not a path so much as a canyon between the walls of snow, and a +neighbor with a covered wagon offered to take me home—or to try to.</p> + +<p>He drove a big, heavy draft team. The horses floundered and stuck and +fell; plunged out of one drift into another. Galen got out and shoveled +ahead while I drove, resting the horses after each plunge. The ravines +we skirted and finally got up onto the ridge.</p> + +<p>It was mid-afternoon when we arrived, and already the skies were closing +in, gray upon the white plains. The grayish-white canvas of the wagon, +and the team almost the same color blended into the drab picture, darker +shadows against the gray curtain of earth and sky, until we came to the +shack.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>The Dunns had remembered, as they so often did, that Ida Mary was alone, +and they had shoveled a path to the door for her. And she was safe, +waiting tranquilly until it would be possible to return to the school +again. In such weather the school remained closed, as there was no way +for the children to reach it, through the deep drifts, without the risk +of freezing to death.</p> + +<p>With Ida Mary safe in the covered wagon, we started back at once to +McClure. Having broken the drifts on the first trip, it was not hard +going, but it was midnight when we reached the print shop.</p> + +<p>On cold, bad days the Dunns, getting their own children home from +school, would see to it that Ida Mary got back safely, and Mrs. Dunn +would insist that she stay with them on such nights. "Now you go, Huey, +and bring Teacher back. Tell her the trapdoor is down so the attic will +be warm for her and the children to sleep." And when she came, Mrs. Dunn +would say, with that clear, jolly laugh of hers, "Now, if you're +expecting Imbert Miller, he can come right on over," which he did.</p> + +<p>Imbert Miller was a young native westerner whose family had been +ranchers out there for a good many years. He was a well-built, clean-cut +young man who had been attracted to Ida Mary from the beginning, and +whatever her own feelings for him, she liked claim life a lot better +after she met him. All during that bitter winter Imbert came over every +Sunday, dressed in neat blue serge and white collar. Some of the +settlers said that was how they could tell when Sunday came, seeing +Imbert ride by dressed up like that. He dropped in, sometimes, through +the week in clean <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>blue shirt and corduroys for an evening of cards or +reading or talking.</p> + +<p>In fact, the evenings were no longer lonely as they had been at first, +nor were we always exhausted. We were young and demanded some fun, and +feminine enough to find life more interesting when the young men who +were homesteading began to gather at the shack in little groups. In +spite of the difficulties of getting any place in the winter, and the +distances which had to be traveled, the young people began to see a lot +of each other; the romances which naturally developed made the winter +less desolate.</p> + +<p>Sometimes we would gather at Wilomene's for supper—honey served with +flaky hot biscuits baked in one of the very few real cookstoves to be +found on a homestead. Wilomene had a big shack, with blue paper on the +wall and a real range instead of a monkey stove with a drum set up in +the stovepipe for an oven—not many settlers could boast even a drum. +And always the supper was seasoned with Wilomene's laughter.</p> + +<p>In fair weather I printed both back and front pages of the paper, and in +storms, when ink and machinery froze up—another complication in dealing +with the press—I printed the front page only, with headlines that +rivaled the big dailies. There was no news to warrant them, but they +were space-fillers. A dance at McClure would do for a scarehead. I put +in the legal notices, whatever news items I had handy or had time to set +up, and stuck in boilerplate as a filler. I could not count the times I +used the same plate over—but the settlers didn't mind reading it again; +they had little else to do in midwinter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>One day there came an indistinct message over the telephone line, which +consisted mainly of barb-wire fences, saying that the railroads were +blocked by storm and the stages were delayed. I threw down my mallet and +went home. There would be nothing on which to print the paper.</p> + +<p>On the first stage to get through, four or five days later, there was a +note from the proof king: "Do not fail to publish last week's paper, +properly dated, along with the current issue." As long as there was one +proof notice running, the newspaper could not skip a single week.</p> + +<p>When the two editions were printed I went home very ill. During the +course of a busy and eventful life I have managed—perhaps I should say +happened—to be a trail-breaker many times. And always I have had a +frail body which seemed bent on collapsing at the wrong time. Robust +health I have always coveted, but I have come to the conclusion that it +is not an essential in getting things done, and I have learned to ignore +as far as possible my lack of physical endurance.</p> + +<p>The Widow Fergus came over and waited on me all night, using her simple +home remedies. It cost at least $25 to get a doctor out there, and many +times the emergency was over one way or the other before he arrived. +Homesteaders could not afford to call a doctor except in critical cases, +and they relied for the most part upon the amateur knowledge and help of +their neighbors.</p> + +<p>From the beginning cooperation had been one of the strongest elements in +western life. When no foundation for a civilized life has been laid, +when every man must start at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span>the beginning in providing himself with +such basic necessities as food and shelter, when water holes are few and +far between and water to sustain life must be carried many miles, men +have to depend on each other. Only together could the western settlers +have stood at all; alone they would have perished. In times of sickness +and individual disaster, it was the community that came to the rescue. +If only for self-preservation, it had to.</p> + +<p>The next time the prints were held up by a storm I bought a roll of +wrapping paper at Randall's store, cut it into strips, and got the paper +out.</p> + +<p>When I took the papers into the post office to mail, Mrs. Randall +laughed out loud, but Mr. Randall said reassuringly: "That's right, Miss +Ammons; learning to meet emergencies in this country is a valuable +thing."</p> + +<p>The proof-sheet king wrote: "It is regrettable that a paper like that +should go into the government Land Offices—such an outlaw printer—"</p> + +<p>I replied cheerfully, "Oh, I sent the land officials a good one. They +can read every number."</p> + +<p>And printers were not to be found on every quarter-section.</p> + +<p>Meantime, while I was hammering the paper into shape, Ida Mary had +settled the doubts of the homesteaders who feared that a slight young +city girl could not handle a frontier school. She was a good teacher. +She had a way of discipline with the half-grown plains boys who were +larger and stronger than she, and who, but for her serene firmness, +would have refused to accept her authority. Instead, they arrived early +to build the fire for her in the mornings, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span>carried the heavy pails of +drinking water, and responded eagerly to her teaching. By means of the +school, she began to create a new community interest.</p> + +<p>Another and perhaps the biggest factor in the community life of that +section was the Randall settlement at McClure. The Randalls threw up a +crude shell of a building for a community hall and now and then gave a +party or a dance for the homesteaders. Typical of the complete democracy +of the plains, everyone was invited, and everyone, young and old, came. +The parents put their children to bed in the lodge quarters of the +Halfway House while they joined in the festivity. The older ones +square-danced in the middle of the hall and we younger ones waltzed and +polkaed in a long line down the outside ring.</p> + +<p>It was not always easy to get music for both round and square dances at +the same time, but Old Joe, a fiddler ever since the—Custer's battle, +was it?—would strike one bar in waltz time and the next in rhythm to +the "allemande left" of the square dances, and we got along beautifully. +Some of the homesteaders helped out with guitars; a few cowboys, riding +in from remote ranches, played accompaniments on jew's-harps; other cow +punchers contributed to the music as they danced with clicking of spurs +and clatter of high-heeled boots. And always the Randalls had a big +kettle of coffee to serve with the box lunches the guests provided for +themselves.</p> + +<p>At Christmas Ida Mary and I were invited by the Millers for a house +party. It was the first well-established home we had seen since we +reached South Dakota. A small farm <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>house, plainly furnished, but it had +been a home for a long time.</p> + +<p>The Millers were counted a little above the average westerner in their +method of living. Stockmen on a small scale, they ran several hundred +head of cattle. Mrs. Miller was a dignified, reserved woman who +maintained shiny order in her house. "She even scalds her dishes," folks +said, which by the water-hauling populace was considered unpardonable +aristocracy. Imbert was the pride and mainstay of his parents. There +were warm fires, clean soft beds, and a real Christmas dinner. There was +corn-popping, and bob-sledding with jingling bells behind a prancing +team, with Imbert and Ida Mary sitting together as Imbert drove.</p> + +<p>Imbert's devotion to Ida was casually accepted by the prairie folk. They +all knew him—a likable, steady young fellow, who seemed to have a way +with the girls. Homestead girls came and went, and flirtations to break +the monotony while they stayed were nothing unusual.</p> + +<p>But when Imbert paid $10 for the teacher's box at a box-social held at +the schoolhouse one night, the old-timers gaped. It looked, they said, +as if that little tenderfoot teacher had Imbert Miller lariated. It beat +thunder how the western fellows did fall for eastern schoolmarms. Ten +dollars for a shoe box, without knowing what there was in it! Most of +the bachelor homesteaders bought boxes with a view to what they would +get to eat—potato salad and homemade cake.</p> + +<p>Because we were no longer oppressed by a sense of loneliness, Ida and I +came to love best of all the evenings at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>home in the tiny shack with +its gay cushions and bright curtains; we enjoyed the good hot supper of +spuds and bacon, or rabbit which some neighbor had brought; hot +biscuits, chokecherry jelly and coffee simmering gently on the back of +the stove. Such a feast, however, was only on rare occasions. After +supper, with the world shut out, we read the mail from home. "You've +done so well, girls, I'm proud of you," our father wrote. "I'll be +looking to see you home next spring."</p> + +<p>I believe Ida Mary was happier that winter than she had ever been, and +her work was easier for her than mine for me, with fewer hardships, +thanks to the Dunns and to Imbert who did much to make it easier for +her.</p> + +<p>During that whole winter the Randalls were the mainstay of the +community. They were one of those families who are the backbone of the +old West, always ready to serve their neighbors. They were like old +trees standing alone on the prairie, that have weathered the storms and +grown strong, with their sheltering branches outspread.</p> + +<p>When there were signs of a blizzard in the air, it was the Randalls who +sent out their sleighs to round up the women who lived alone and bring +them in to shelter. When a doctor was needed, the Randalls got one. +Young Mrs. Layton was having her first baby sooner than she expected. It +was a black night, twenty below zero. The makeshift telephone line was +out of order, as it usually was when it was needed.</p> + +<p>Mr. Randall called his sons. "You'll have to go for Doc Newman.... Yes, +I know it's a bad trip. But you boys <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>know how to take care of +yourselves. Make it—if you can." And they rode hell-for-leather.</p> + +<p>It seemed to me there never was a time when at least one of the Randalls +wasn't riding horseback over the prairie with an urgent message or +errand for the homesteaders. Pay? Hell, no! Weren't these newcomers +funny!</p> + +<p>I remember one evening in January with a storm raging. I had run to the +Randalls' house from the print shop. They sent the sleigh to pick up Ida +Mary and Wilomene. By dark half a dozen men were marooned at the Halfway +House, three of them strangers passing through, three of them plainsmen +unable to get home. A little later two homestead women, who had come in +from Pierre on the stage and could not go on, joined us.</p> + +<p>Somehow there was room for all of them in the big, bare-floored living +room. Chairs with an odd assortment of calico-covered cushions were +scattered over the room. Crude, old-fashioned tables were set here and +there, each with a coal-oil lamp. By the light from the brightly +polished chimneys some read newspapers more than a week old, others +looked hungrily through the mail-order catalogs which always piled up in +country post offices. And Wilomene White, telling some of her homestead +anecdotes, filled the room with laughter. Her most harassing experiences +seemed funny to Wilomene.</p> + +<p>In the middle of the room the big heating stove, stoked with coal, grew +red hot as the wind howled and whistled down the chimney and the snow +lashed against the windows of the old log house.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>Opening off one end of the long room were the small cubicles that served +as bedrooms where the women guests would sleep, crowded together, two or +three in a bed. Cots would be put up in the living room for the Randall +young ones. But the strangers? Leave that to the Randalls—always room +for a few more.</p> + +<p>"Do you know," said Mr. Randall, "I am never happier than on a night +like this, sitting around the fire, knowing my family are all here and +safe; and that strangers from out of the storm have found shelter under +my roof."</p> + +<p>When the weather grew milder and I could ride back and forth again +almost daily, it was Mr. Randall who had one of the boys on the ranch +wrangle me a range pony which, he said, was "broke" to ride. He <i>was</i> +broke to ride. The only difficulty was to mount him. It was all right +once one got on his back, but only an expert bronco buster could do it. +Every time I set foot in the stirrup he went up in the air, pitched, and +bucked and sun-fished.</p> + +<p>I couldn't draw $10 a week as a printer and waste my time on an outlaw +bronc. So I solved it by tying him short with a heavy lariat to the +corner post of the hay barn so that he could not get his head up or +down, nor his heels up very far. Then I gave one leap into the saddle, +Ida cut the rope close to his neck, and away we went to the print shop, +where I wrestled with the old, worn-out press. Fortunately, there was no +trick to dismounting, although I always expected the worst.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>One day I broke loose. I had worked all morning and used up half a can +of grease on the press, and still it stuck. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>I picked up a hammer and +tried to break it to pieces. I threw one piece of battered equipment +after another across the prairie. ("Don't go near the print shop," a +little Randall boy warned all comers; "the printer's a-actin'.")</p> + +<p>I scrubbed the ink from my hands and face and boarded the stage. I was +off to Presho to meet the proof-sheet king.</p> + +<p>E. L. Senn was a magnate in the frontier newspaper field. His career is +particularly interesting because it is, in more ways than one, typical +of the qualities which made many western men successful. Basically, he +was a reformer, a public-spirited man who backed, with every means at +his command, and great personal courage, the issues he believed for the +good of the country, and fought with equal intensity those which were +harmful.</p> + +<p>In the early nineties he had moved out to a homestead and started a +small cattle ranch. In itself that was a daring gesture, as outlaw +gangs—cattle rustlers and horse thieves—infested the region and had +become so bold and influential that it was difficult to get any settlers +to take up land in it. He started his first newspaper on his homestead, +miles from a post office, for the purpose of carrying on his fight with +the cattle thieves. In retaliation the outlaws burned him out.</p> + +<p>E. L. Senn promptly moved his paper to the nearest post office at a +small crossroads station to continue the fight. He incorporated in this +paper final proof notices for the settlers. When the fight with the +rustlers had been waged to a successful close, he expanded his +final-proof business; now he owned the greatest proof-sheet monopoly +that ever operated in the West, with a chain of thirty-five papers +strung over that part of South Dakota.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>As civilization pushed into a new district the king picked up another +printing outfit and made entry to the Post Office Department at +Washington of another newspaper. Sometimes he moved his own outfits from +one region to another, but often he merely shut the door on an old plant +not worth moving and let it return to scrap-iron while the print shop +tumbled down with it.</p> + +<p>It cost a lot of money, he used to complain, with investments +depreciating like that and the proof business so short-lived, when the +settlers filled a section and all proved up at once. And he had to run a +paper a year before it became a legal publication.</p> + +<p>But the proof sheets soon became gold mines, the plants costing but a +few hundred dollars and the expenses of operating only ten to fifteen +dollars a week—a cheap printer, the prints, the ink. Established at +inland post offices they became the nuclei for crossroad trading points.</p> + +<p>At this time he had embarked on another cause, prohibition, which was +causing great excitement in South Dakota. A few years later, with his +proof sheets extending through the Black Hills, he bought a newspaper in +Deadwood, the notorious old mining town which is usually associated in +people's minds with the more lurid aspects of the Wild West. He found +conditions all that they had been painted, dominated by underworld vice +rings, with twenty-four saloons for its population of 3000, and gambling +halls, operated as openly as grocery stores, running twenty-four hours a +day. Even the two dance halls exceeded all that has been written about +similar places.</p> + +<p>With his newspaper as his only weapon E. L. Senn set <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>out to clean up +Deadwood. In the fight he sunk his own profits until he had to sell most +of his newspapers, emerging from it almost penniless.</p> + +<p>It was this doughty warrior whose printing press I had strewn widely +over the prairie. When he entered the hotel in Presho where I was +awaiting him my courage almost failed me. He was wise enough not to ask +me what was wrong. He must have been secretly amused by the very small, +frightened girl with the determined expression in her direct blue eyes.</p> + +<p>To my surprise, he asked no questions. Instead he took me to supper and +then to a moving picture, the first I had seen in the West. His kindness +so melted my exasperation with the press that I was at a loss to know +how to begin the fighting talk I had come to make. But the film ended +with a woman driving sheepmen off her claim, and with that example to +fortify my ebbing courage, I asked for a new printing press. And I got +it!</p> + +<p>The "new" press was a second-hand one, but in comparison to the Noah's +Ark model it was a mechanical wonder. I did not know that the proof king +was facing a financial crisis at that time. But I've always thought the +blow of having to buy a press was not half so bad as the shock of having +a printer who would ask for one.</p> + +<p>While I was enjoying the new press one day the Reeds came by McClure.</p> + +<p>"Well, good-by, folks."</p> + +<p>"Oh, are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, proved up. Going back to God's country."</p> + +<p>God's country to the Reeds was Missouri; to others it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>was Illinois, or +Iowa or Ohio. Day after day homesteaders left with their final receipt +as title to their land, pending issuance of a government patent. +Throwing back the type of the "dead" notices, I could almost tell who +would be pulling out of the country.</p> + +<p>"Going back in time to get in the spring crop," farmers would say.</p> + +<p>Land grabbers they were called. Taking 160 acres of land with them, and +leaving nothing. Most of them never came back.</p> + +<p>And while this exodus was taking place, here and there a settler was +drifting onto the Lower Brulé, a "lucky number" who had come ahead of +time—there was so much to do getting settled. And by these restless +signs of change over the plains, we knew that it was spring.</p> + +<p>And one week I set up for the paper, "Notice is hereby given that Ida +Mary Ammons has filed her intention to make proof...."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="VI" id="VI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh07.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 6." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>VI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>"UTOPIA"</h3> +<br /> + +<p>With the first tang of spring in the air we cleaned the shack, put up +fresh curtains and did a little baking. Then we grew reckless and went +into an orgy of extravagance—we took a bath in the washtub. Wash basins +were more commensurate with the water supply. Then we scrubbed the floor +with the bath water. In one way and another, the settlers managed to +develop a million square miles of frontier dirt without a bathtub on it.</p> + +<p>For the first time we stopped to take stock, to look ahead. For months +there had been time and energy for nothing but getting through the +winter. We had been too busy to discuss any plans beyond the proving +up.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span>"What are we going to do after we prove up?" I asked, and Ida Mary shook +her head. "I don't know," she admitted.</p> + +<p>In some ways it was a relief to have the end in sight. I hated the +minute routine of putting a paper together, with one letter of type at a +time. I hated the hard mechanical work. Most of our neighbors were +proving up, going back. But we realized, with a little shock of +surprise, that we did not want to go back. Imperceptibly we had come to +identify ourselves with the West; we were a part of its life, it was a +part of us. Its hardships were more than compensated for by its +unshackled freedom. To go back now would be to make a painful +readjustment to city life; it would mean hunting jobs, being tied to the +weariness of office routine. The opportunities for a full and active +life were infinitely greater here on the prairie. There was a pleasant +glow of possession in knowing that the land beneath our feet was ours.</p> + +<p>For a little while we faced uncertainly the problem that other +homesteaders were facing—that of going back, of trying to fit ourselves +in again to city ways. But the eagerness to return to city life had +gone. Then, too, there was something in the invigorating winter air and +bright sunshine which had given me new resistance. There had been a +continuous round of going down, and coming back with a second wind; but +I had gained a little each time and was stronger now than before.</p> + +<p>In the mid-afternoon, after our orgy of spring house-cleaning, with +everything fresh and clean, Ida Mary said, "Someone is coming—straight +across our land."</p> + +<p>"Who is it?" I asked. We had learned to recognize every <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>horse in that +part of the country a mile away. But this was not a plainsman.</p> + +<p>We rushed into the shack and made a mad scramble through the trunk, but +before we could get dressed there came a knock at the door. "Will you +wait a moment, please?" I called. It was the custom of the plains for a +man to wait outside while his hostess dressed or put her house in order, +there being no corner where he could stay during the process. If the +weather prohibited outdoor waiting, he could retire to the hayshed.</p> + +<p>A pleasant voice said, "I'll be glad to wait." But as I whispered, +"Throw me those slippers," and Ida Mary said <i>sotto voce</i>, "What dress +shall I wear?" we heard a muffled chuckle through the thin walls.</p> + +<p>When we threw open the door to a slightly built man with brown hair and +a polished air about him, I knew it was the cartoonist from Milwaukee. +Only a city man and an artist could look like that.</p> + +<p>"How do you do, Mr. Van Leshout."</p> + +<p>"How did you know?" he said, as he came in.</p> + +<p>"So you were a Lucky Number, after all," seemed a more appropriate +response than telling him that it was spring and something had been +bound to happen, something like the arrival of a cartoonist from +Milwaukee.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to be a settler?" Ida Mary asked doubtfully.</p> + +<p>He laughed. Yes, he had taken a homestead close to the Sioux settlement +so that he could paint some Indian pictures.</p> + +<p>Odd how we kept forgetting the Indians, but up to now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>we hadn't even +seen one, nor were we likely to, we thought, barricaded as they were in +their own settlement. "But they are wonderful," he assured us +enthusiastically; "magnificent people to paint; old, seamed faces and +some really beautiful young ones. Character, too, and glamor!"</p> + +<p>We invited him to tea, but he explained that he must get back to his +claim before dark. It was already too late, Imbert told him; he would +have to wait for the moon to rise. Imbert had dropped in, as he had a +habit of doing, and seeing him through the eyes of an easterner we +realized what fascination the lives of these plainsmen had for city men.</p> + +<p>In honor of the occasion we got out the china cups, a wanton luxury on +the plains, and tea and cake. As they rode off, Van Leshout called to +us: "Come over to the shack. I built it myself. You'll know it by the +crepe on the door."</p> + +<p>As the two men melted into the darkness we closed the door reluctantly +against the soft spring air. Strange that we had found prairie life +dull!</p> + +<p>One morning soon after the unexpected appearance of the Milwaukee +cartoonist I awoke to find the prairie in blossom. Only in the spring is +there color over that great expanse; but for a few weeks the grass is +green and the wild flowers bloom in delicate beauty—anemones, tiny +white and yellow and pink blossoms wherever the eye rests. I galloped to +the print shop with the wind blowing through my hair, rejoicing in the +sudden beauty, and found myself too much in holiday mood to get to work.</p> + +<p>Suddenly I looked up from the type case to find an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>arresting figure in +the doorway, a middle-aged man with an air of power and authority about +him.</p> + +<p>"I'm waiting for the stage," he said. "May I come in?"</p> + +<p>I offered him the only chair there was—an upturned nail keg—and he sat +down.</p> + +<p>"Where do you come from?" he asked abruptly.</p> + +<p>"St. Louis," I said.</p> + +<p>"But why come out here to run a newspaper?"</p> + +<p>"I didn't. I came to homestead with my sister, but the job was here."</p> + +<p>Because he was amused at the idea, because the function of these +frontier papers seemed unimportant to him, I began to argue the point, +and finally, thoroughly aroused, described the possibilities which grew +in my own mind as I discussed them. There was a tremendous job for the +frontier newspaper to do, I pointed out. Did he know the extent of this +great homestead movement and the future it promised? True, the frontier +papers were small in size, but they could become a power in the +development of this raw country.</p> + +<p>"How?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>I think I fully realized it for the first time myself then. "As a medium +of cooperation," I told him.</p> + +<p>He got up and walked to the window, hands in pockets, and looked out +over the prairie. Then he turned around. "But the development of this +country is a gigantic enterprise," he protested. "It would require the +backing of corporations and millions of dollars. In fact, it's too big +for any organization but the government to tackle. It's no job for a +woman." His eyes twinkled as he contrasted my <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>diminutive size with the +great expanse of undeveloped plains. "What could you do?"</p> + +<p>"Of course it's big," I admitted, "and the settlers do need lots of +money. But they need cooperation, too. Their own strength, acting +together, counts more than you know. And a newspaper could be made a +voice for these people."</p> + +<p>"Utopian," he decided.</p> + +<p>Bill appeared at the door to tell him that "The stage has been a-waitin' +ten minutes, now."</p> + +<p>He handed me his card, shook hands and rushed out. I looked at the card: +"Halbert Donovan and Company, Brokers, Investment Bankers, New York +City." The fact that such men were coming into the country, looking it +over, presaged development. Not only the eyes of the landseekers but +those of industry and finance were turning west.</p> + +<p>I stared after the stagecoach until it was swallowed up in distance. My +own phrases kept coming back to me. There was a job to be done, a job +for a frontier newspaper, and soon the McClure <i>Press</i> would be a thing +of the past—as soon as the homesteaders had made proof. Slowly an idea +was taking shape.</p> + +<p>I slammed the print-shop door shut, mounted Pinto and loped home. I +turned the horse loose to graze and walked into the shack. With my back +against the door in a defensive attitude I said abruptly, "I'm going to +start a newspaper on the reservation."</p> + +<p>Ida Mary slowly put down the bread knife. "But where are you going to +get the money?" she asked practically.</p> + +<p>"I don't know, yet. I have to plan what to do first, don't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>I, and then +look around for a way to do it." That was the formula followed day after +day by the settlers.</p> + +<p>"It's too bad you didn't register for a claim in the Drawing," she said +thoughtfully. "After all, there is no reason why you shouldn't have a +claim too."</p> + +<p>"I could still get a homestead on the Brulé," I declared, "and I can run +the newspaper on the homestead."</p> + +<p>The more we discussed the plan the more Ida Mary liked the idea of +moving to the Strip where so many new people would be coming. We would +work together, we planned, and the influence of the newspaper would +radiate all over the reservation. But, it occurred to us, coming +abruptly down to earth, with no roads or telephones or mail service, how +were the settlers to receive the radiation?</p> + +<p>This was a stickler, but having gone so far with our plans we were +reluctant to abandon them. Where there was a newspaper there should be a +post office. Then we would start a post office! Through it the land +notices would be received and the newspaper mailed to the subscribers. +The settlers could get the paper and their mail at the same place. We +decided that Ida Mary would run it. Somehow it did not occur to us that +the government has something to say about post offices and who shall run +them. Or that the government might not want to put a post office on my +homestead just to be obliging.</p> + +<p>But once a person has learned to master difficulties as they come up, he +begins to feel he can handle anything; so Ida took her final proof +receipt to a loan office in Presho.</p> + +<p>"How much can I borrow on this?" she asked, handing it to the agent.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>"Oh, about eight hundred dollars."</p> + +<p>"That isn't enough. Most homesteaders are getting a thousand-dollar loan +when they prove up."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but your land's a mile long and only a quarter wide—"</p> + +<p>Ida Mary was not easily bluffed. She reached for the receipt. "I'll try +Sedgwick at the bank."</p> + +<p>"We'll make it nine hundred," the agent said, "but not a cent more. I +know that quarter section; it's pretty rough."</p> + +<p>Homesteading was no longer a precarious venture. A homesteader could +borrow $1000 on almost any quarter-section in the West—more on good +land, well located. It was a criminal offense to sell or mortgage +government land, but who could wait six months or a year for the +government to issue a patent (deed) to the land? Many of the settlers +must borrow money to make proof. So the homestead loan business became a +sleight-of-hand performance.</p> + +<p>The homesteader could not get this receipt of title until he paid the +Land Office for the land, and he could not pay for the land until he had +the receipt to turn over to the loan agent. So it was all done +simultaneously—money, mortgages, final-proof receipts; like juggling +half a dozen balls in the air at once. It was one of the most ingenious +methods of finance in operation. Banks and loan companies went into +operation to handle homestead loans, and eastern capital began flowing +in for the purpose.</p> + +<p>Being familiar with Land Office procedure from my work on the McClure +<i>Press</i>, I knew that not every winner of a claim on the Lower Brulé +reservation would come to prove it up. A few of them would relinquish +their rights. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>The buying and selling of relinquishments, in fact, +became a big business for the land agents. There was a mad rush for +relinquishments on the Strip, where landseekers were paying as high as +$1000 to $1200 for the right to file on a claim.</p> + +<p>I wanted a relinquishment on the reservation, in the very center of it, +and I found one for $400.</p> + +<p>Then I made a deal with a printing equipment firm for a small plant—a +new one! And, although there were only a dozen settlers or so on the +land, I pledged 400 proof notices as collateral.</p> + +<p>These proofs at $5 apiece were as sure as government bonds; that is, if +the settlers on the Brulé stayed long enough to prove up, if the +newspaper lived, and if no one else started a paper in competition. But +on that score the printers' supply company was satisfied. Its officers +thought there was no danger of anyone else trailing an outfit into that +region.</p> + +<p>We arranged for straight credit on lumber for a print shop, there being +nothing left to mortgage. From now on we were dealing in futures. In +just two short weeks I had become a reckless plunger, aided and abetted +by Ida Mary. The whole West was gambling on the homesteaders' making +good.</p> + +<p>Long we hesitated over the letter home, telling of our new plans. Under +the new laws, one must stay on a claim fourteen months, instead of the +eight months required when Ida Mary had filed. At last we wrote to +explain that we were not coming home this spring. We were going on to a +new frontier.</p> + +<p>Earnestly as we believed in the plans we had made, it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span>was hard to make +that letter carry our convictions, difficult to explain the logic of our +moving to an Indian reservation so that Ida Mary could run a +non-existent post office in order to mail copies of a non-existent +newspaper to non-existent settlers. Looking at it like that, we were +acting in blind faith.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>And one day a funny little caravan made its way across the prairie, +breaking a new trail as it went. A shack with a team hitched to it, a +wagon loaded with immigrant goods; and a printing press; ahead, leading +the way, a girl on horseback.</p> + +<p>Again it was Huey Dunn who jacked up our old shack that morning when the +term of school was over and put it on wheels for the trip to the +reservation—twelve miles around by McClure, a few miles closer by a +short-cut across the plains. Huey decided on the latter way, and I rode +on ahead to see that the load of printing equipment should be put on the +right quarter-section, while Ida Mary came in the shack. She sat in the +rocking chair, gazing placidly out of the window as it made its way +slowly across the plains.</p> + +<p>We had hired two homesteaders to haul out lumber and put up a small +building for the newspaper and post office, although we had not yet got +the necessary petition signed for a post office. We could not do that +before the settlers arrived. A small shed room was built a few feet from +the business structure as a lean-to for our migratory shack.</p> + +<p>When I arrived at the claim the men who had hauled out the load of +equipment were gone. Suddenly there came <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span>on one of those torrential +downpours that often deluge the dry plains in spring. It was pitch black +as night came on, and no sight of Huey and Ida Mary. The rain stopped at +length. Throwing on a sweater, I paced back and forth through the +dripping grass listening for the sound of the horses. At last I went +back and crouched over the fire in the little lean-to, waiting. There +was nothing else I could do.</p> + +<p>At midnight Huey arrived with the shack. He and Ida Mary were cold and +wet and hungry. They had not had a bite to eat since early morning. Just +as they had reached Cedar Creek, usually a little dry furrow in the +earth, a flood of water came rushing in a torrent, making a mad, swollen +stream that spread rapidly, and they were caught in it. When they got in +the middle of the stream the shack began to fill with water. Huey +grabbed Ida Mary and got her on one horse while he mounted the other, +and the horses swam to land.</p> + +<p>The next morning the sun came out, flooding the new-washed plains. It +was a different world from the harsh, drab prairie to which we had come +eight months ago. Here the earth was a soft green carpet, heavily +sprinkled with spring flowers, white and lavender hyacinths, bluebells, +blossoms flaming red, yellow and blue, and snow-white, waxen flowers +that wither at the touch and yet bloom on the hard desert.</p> + +<p>Huey Dunn squared the migratory shack and rolled the wheels from under. +And there in the Land of the Burnt Thigh, the Indians' name for the +Brulé, I filed my claim and started a newspaper. The only woman, so it +was recorded, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>ever to establish a newspaper on an Indian reservation. +And if one were to pick up the first issues of that newspaper he would +see under the publisher's name, "Published on Section 31, Township 108 +North, Range 77W, of the 5th Principal Meridian," the only way of +describing its location.</p> + +<p>Ida's claim had seemed to us at first sight to be in the midst of +nowhere. Compared to this, it had been in a flourishing neighborhood. +For here there was nothing but the land—waiting. No sign of habitation, +no living thing—yes, an antelope standing rigid against the horizon. +For a terrified moment it seemed that there could be no future +here—only time. And Ida Mary and I shrank from two very confident young +women to two very young and frightened girls.</p> + +<p>But there was work to be done. Our tar-covered cabin sat parallel to and +perhaps ten feet from the drop-siding print shop—a crude store building +12 × 24 feet, which we called the Brulé business block. We had a side +door put on near the back end of each building so that we could slip +easily from house to shop. We did a little remodeling of our old shack. +Befitting our new position as business leaders, we built a 6 × 8 +shed-roof kitchen onto the back of the shack and a clothes closet in one +end of it; we even bought a little cookstove with an oven in it.</p> + +<p>One morning we saw a team and wagon angling across the Strip toward our +place. Upon the top of the wagon there perched a high rectangular +object, a funny-looking thing, bobbing up and down as the wagon jolted +over the rough ground. It was Harvey with the outhouse. There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>was +nothing left now on Ida Mary's claim but the mortgage.</p> + +<p>Confronted suddenly by so many problems of getting started, I stood +"just plumb flabbergasted," as Coyote Cal, a cowpuncher, always remarked +when unexpectedly confronted by a group of women.</p> + +<p>And yet I knew what I wanted to do. I had known since the day I heard +myself telling the New York broker. An obscure little newspaper in a +desolate homestead country: but, given courage enough, that little +printing outfit would be a tool, a voice for the people's needs. It was +a gigantic task, this taming of the frontier.</p> + +<p>And meantime, getting down to reality, I had a newspaper without a +country, without a living thing but prairie dogs and rattlesnakes to +read it. And around us a hundred thousand acres on which no furrow had +ever been turned.</p> + +<p>We did not know where to begin. There wasn't a piece of kindling wood on +the whole reservation. We had brought what food and water we could with +us. Food, fuel, water. Those were basic problems that had to be met.</p> + +<p>And then, within a week, almost imperceptibly, a change began to come +over the reservation. The Lucky Numbers were coming onto the land. On +the claim to the west a house went up and wagons of immigrant goods were +unloaded. Ida Mary rode over one evening and found that our new neighbor +was a farmer, Christopher Christopherson, from Minnesota. He had brought +plows and work horses and was ready to break sod, another example of the +farmers who were leaving the settled states for cheap land farther +west.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>Mrs. Christopherson was a thrifty Swedish farm woman who would manage +well. There was a big family of children, and each child old enough to +work was given work to do.</p> + +<p>Around us new settlers were arriving daily and we felt that the time had +come to start out among them with our post-office petition. With Pinto +as our only means of transportation it proved to be a slow job.</p> + +<p>One day, dropping suddenly down off the tableland into a draw, I came +squarely upon a shack. I rode up, and an old white-whiskered man invited +me in. His wife, a gray-haired, sharp-featured woman, appeared to me +much younger than he. I explained my errand.</p> + +<p>"For mercy sake," the woman said, "here you are starting a post office +and I thought you was one of them high-falutin' city homesteaders a +rec-connoiterin' around. Listen to that, Pa, a post office in four miles +of us."</p> + +<p>The woman put out a clean cup and plate. "Set up," she said. "We ain't +signing any petition till you've had your dinner. There's plenty of +biscuit. I stirred up an extry cup of flour and I said to Pa, 'They'll +be et!'"</p> + +<p>I ate salt pork, biscuit and sorghum while she talked.</p> + +<p>"So you're going to handle newspapers too. Oh, print one!" She sighed. +"Seems to me that would be a pestiferous job. We're going to have a +newspaper out here, Pa, did you ever—?" Pa never did.</p> + +<p>Where had I seen these two old people before, and heard this woman talk?</p> + +<p>"Where you from?" she asked, but before I could answer, she went on, +"We're from Blue Springs."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span>Pa wrote "David H. Wagor" on the petition.</p> + +<p>One morning Imbert Miller came with his team and buggy to take us out +into a more remote district to get signers. We found two or three +farmers, a couple of business men with their families, and several young +bachelors, each building the regular rough-lumber shack. They were +surprised and elated over the prospect of a post office.</p> + +<p>After wandering over a long vacant stretch, Imbert began to look for a +place where he could feed the horses and get us some food. At last we +saw bright new lumber glistening in the sun. As we drove up to the +crudely built cabin we saw an emblem painted on the front—a big black +circle with the letter V in it, and underneath, the word "Rancho." +Standing before the open doorway was an easel with a half-finished +Indian head on it.</p> + +<p>"Van Leshout's!" Ida Mary exclaimed.</p> + +<p>He came out, unshaven, and sweeping an old paint-daubed hat from his +head with a low bow. "It's been years since I saw a human being," he +exclaimed. "You'll want grub."</p> + +<p>Building a cabin, learning to prepare his own meals, getting accustomed +to solitude were new experiences for the cartoonist from Milwaukee.</p> + +<p>"Not many courses," he said, as he dragged the spuds out from under the +bunk; "just two—b'iled potatoes, first course; flapjacks and 'lasses, +second course; and coffee."</p> + +<p>"You've discovered the Indians," we said, pointing to the canvas.</p> + +<p>The Indians, yes, but they hadn't been much of a cure for loneliness. +What were we doing on the reservation?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>We brought out the post-office petition and told him about the +newspaper. I explained that I had filed on a claim on the reservation.</p> + +<p>"I looked for the crepe on the door as we drove up," I told him.</p> + +<p>"You have a claim on the reservation? To hell with the crepe!" he said +in high spirits.</p> + +<p>On the road home, seeing Imbert's elation, it occurred to me that I had +never taken into consideration the fact that Imbert Miller lived near +the borders of the reservation and that the "fence" would not separate +him from Ida Mary now. How deeply she had weighed the question I did not +know.</p> + +<p>We sent in the post-office petition and the federal authorities promptly +established a post office for the Lower Brulé on my homestead and +appointed Ida Mary postmistress. She was the only woman ever to run a +post office on an Indian reservation, the data gatherers said. The +government named it Ammons.</p> + +<p>So we had a postmistress and a post office, with its tiers of empty, +homemade pigeonholes ready to receive the mail.</p> + +<p>And we discovered there was no way to get any mail in or out!</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="VII" id="VII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh08.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 7." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>VII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>BUILDING EMPIRES OVERNIGHT</h3> +<br /> + +<p>That spring I saw a country grow. Perhaps Rome wasn't built in a day, +but the Brulé was—almost. The incredible speed of the transformation of +the untouched plains; the invasion of the settlers in droves, lighting +on the prairies like grasshoppers; the appearance, morning after +morning, of new shacks, as though they had sprung up overnight; the +sound of hammers echoing through the clear, light air; plows at last +tearing at the unbroken ground—the wonder of it leaves me staggered +now, but then I was caught up in the breathless rush, the mad activity +to get things done. The Lucky Numbers were coming, coming.</p> + +<p>A few weeks before, we had set up our shack in a wilderness. Now there +were shacks everywhere and frantic <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span>activity. The plains had come to +life. Over them, where there had been bleak emptiness, loomed tents, +white against the green background, where the settlers could sleep until +they were able to build houses. There was no time to rest, no time to +pause—here where there had been nothing but time.</p> + +<p>Late one evening a wagon loaded with immigrant goods and a shabby car +loaded with children passed our place. The drivers stopped on a nearby +claim, threw their bedding on the ground, and slept there. Their +deadline for establishing residence was up that night. All over the +plains that intensive race went on, the hurried arrival of settlers +before their time should expire, the hasty throwing up of shelter +against the weather, the race to plant crops in the untamed soil so that +there would be food later on.</p> + +<p>A land where one must begin at the beginning! Everything to be done, and +things crying to be done all at once. Those three basic needs, food, +fuel, water—problems which must be solved without delay.</p> + +<p>Moving in a network, criss-cross in every direction, wagons and teams +hauled in immigrant goods, lumber and machinery, fence posts and fuel; +post holes supplemented those dug by the prairie dogs; strings of +barb-wire ran threadlike over the unbroken stretch.</p> + +<p>From day to day we saw the prairie change, saw new, crude houses thrown +up, saw the first furrows broken in the stubborn soil, saw men and women +pit themselves against the frontier and shape it to their purpose and +their needs.</p> + +<p>Among these people there were many more dirt farmers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>than had settled +around McClure, but at least 50 per cent of the immigrants were young +men and women from various walks of life, business and professions, who +had come for health or adventure; or because the land, through sale or +mortgage, would give them a start in life. While it is doubtless true +that these latter contributed little to the permanent building of the +West, the zest with which they enjoyed its advantages, the gallantry +with which they faced its hardships, contributed no small part to +increasing the morale of the settlers as a whole.</p> + +<p>Almost every settler scooped out a dam at the foot of a slope for water +supply. We had Chris Christopherson plow one for us. These dams were +nothing but waterholes twelve to fifteen feet in diameter and two or +three feet deep. There should be late spring rains to fill them for the +summer. There were! While the settlers were still plowing and planting +and making their dams it began to rain. And when the frontier is wet, +it's wet all over. Dry creeks swelled to overflowing, and small ravines +became creeks, and it kept on raining. Both Ida Mary and I were caught +in one of those downpours and had to swim the horses across swift-rising +Cedar Creek.</p> + +<p>Much of those first days were like chapters from Genesis, and to add to +the similarity we now had the Flood! The seed shot out of the ground and +the fields were green. The gardens grew like Jack's beanstalk. The thick +grass stood a foot high. And the dams were full of water.</p> + +<p>And Ida Mary and I were literally in the center of this maze of +activity, this mushroom growth of a country. And Ammons was actually on +the map!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>My sister wrote to the Postal Department for a mail carrier and found +out she would have to solve that problem for herself.</p> + +<p>"We aren't cut out to cope with the plains," I said.</p> + +<p>"How did you happen to find that out?" asked Ida Mary.</p> + +<p>"I didn't. A New York broker told me."</p> + +<p>We had to find some way to get mail in and out. We couldn't back up on +the trail, once we had started. There was no place to back to. So we +bought a team and started a U. S. mail route, hauling mail three times a +week from the stage line at McClure.</p> + +<p>It was the thing that had to be done, but sometimes, when we had a +moment for reflection, we were a little aghast. Carrying a mail route in +homestead country was a far cry from life in St. Louis. It began to seem +as though we rarely acted according to plan out here; rather, we were +acted upon by unforeseen factors, so that our activities were constantly +shifting, taking on new form, leading in new directions. The only +consistent thing about them was that they never back-trailed!</p> + +<p>Now and then we hired boys to help us with heavy jobs which were beyond +our strength, and occasionally a young prairie girl, Ada Long, fourteen +years old, went for the mail. It was against the law to let anyone who +happened to be handy carry the mail, but the settlers had to have postal +service.</p> + +<p>Ada was fair, with long yellow braids, strong and accustomed to the hard +ways of the prairie. She could hitch up a team and drive it like a man. +There was only one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>drawback to Ada. On Saturday when we were busiest +she went home and to church; and on Sunday she hung out the washing. Ada +was a loyal Adventist.</p> + +<p>Settlers meeting on the trail hailed one another with "Hello! Where you +from? I'm from Illinois"—or Virginia—or Iowa. "You breakin'?" They had +no time for backgrounds. It didn't matter what the newcomers might have +been. That was left beyond the reservation gate. One's standing was +measured by what he could do and what kind of neighbor he would make. +And always the question, "Where you from?" Missouri, Michigan, +Wisconsin.</p> + +<p>Bronco Benny, riding through one day, said, "I never seen so many gals +in my life. Must be a trainload of 'em. Some pretty high-headed fillies +among 'em, too." Bronco Benny knew no other language than that of the +horse world in which he lived.</p> + +<p>Not only dirt farmers but many others became sodbreakers. The sod was +heavy, and with the great growth of grass it took all the strength of +man and teams, four to six horses hitched to a plow, to turn it. Steady, +slow, furrow by furrow, man and beast dripping with sweat, they broke +fields of the virgin earth.</p> + +<p>How deep to plow, how to cultivate this land, few of them knew. The more +experienced farmers around the Strip, like Huey Dunn, would know. Here +was a service the newspaper could perform by printing such information +for the newcomers. Subscriptions for the paper began coming in before we +were ready to print it. We named it <i>The Reservation Wand</i>, and how it +ever was accepted in that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>man's country with a name like that is beyond +me. The first issue was distributed by homesteaders passing by and two +carriers.</p> + +<p>Subscriptions came in rapidly at a dollar a year. Not only did most of +the settlers subscribe, but they put in subscriptions for friends and +relatives, so that these might know something of the country and its +activities. And in their rush of getting settled it was easier to have +the printer set up the news and run it off on a press than to take the +time to write a letter. Outsiders could not send in subscriptions by +mail until the newspaper had an address other than a section number of +the claim on which it was printed.</p> + +<p>Food, shelter, fuel were still the pressing problems. An army had +peopled a land without provisions. Trade was overwhelmed and the small +towns could not get supplies shipped in fast enough. New business +enterprises were following this rush as lightning does a lightning rod. +There was bedlam. One could not get a plowshare sharpened, a bolt, or a +bushel of coal without making the long trip to town. One could not get a +pound of coffee or a box of matches on the whole reservation.</p> + +<p>The settlers began to clamor for a store in connection with the +newspaper and the post office. Their needs ran more to coffee and sugar +and nails than to newspapers. They had to have a store for a few +essential commodities at least.</p> + +<p>A store? I objected strenuously. We had already embarked on enough +enterprises, and running a store had no place among them. But practical +Ida was really interested in the project. It wasn't such a bad idea, she +decided. Our <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span>money was dwindling, the newspaper would not become a +paying proposition for some time, and the only revenue from the post +office was the meager cancellation of stamps.</p> + +<p>We could hire the hauling done, she pointed out, grappling at once with +the details. And it would be a real service to the settlers. That was +what we had wanted to provide—the means didn't matter so much.</p> + +<p>So we planked down a cash payment at a wholesale-retail store at Presho +for a bill of goods, got credit for the rest of it, threw up an ell +addition on the back of the shop for the newspaper, and stuck a grocery +store where the newspaper had been.</p> + +<p>All this time we had been so submerged in activities connected with +getting settled, starting and operating a newspaper, a post office, and +now a store, that we had overlooked a rather important point—that on an +Indian reservation one might reasonably expect Indians. We had forgotten +the Indians.</p> + +<p>And one afternoon they came. On horseback and in wagons, war bonnets and +full regalia glittering in the sun, the Indians were coming straight +toward the Ammons settlement. Neither of us had ever seen an Indian +outside of a Wild West show.</p> + +<p>We were terrified. Into the shack we scurried, locked doors and windows, +and peeped out through a crack in the drawn blind.</p> + +<p>The Indians had stopped and turned their horses loose to graze. We could +hear them walking around the store and print shop—and then came savage +mutterings outside our door and heavy pounding. We crawled under the +bed. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span>A woman we knew had escaped being scalped once by hiding behind a +shock of corn. But there was no such refuge here.</p> + +<p>"How! How kill 'em?" an old Indian was bellowing. No use trying to +escape. This was the end.</p> + +<p>Trembling, hearts pounding, we opened the door. Two big savage-looking +creatures with battered faces stood there motioning toward the shop +where a group of them were sauntering in and out.</p> + +<p>"How kill 'em?" they still muttered. Dazed, we followed them. They had +taken possession of the shop. Women were sitting on the floor, some with +papooses strapped to their backs. Men with hair hanging loose, or +braided down their backs, tied with red string, were picking up +everything in the print shop, playing like children with new toys.</p> + +<p>They led us into the store, muttering, "<i>Shu-hum-pah; she-la</i>," as they +pointed to the shelves. At last we found they wanted sugar and tobacco, +and we lost no time in filling the order.</p> + +<p>At sunset they rode away toward the Indian settlement, and we discovered +that we had been misled by the talk of "segregation." To us that had +meant that the Indians were behind some high barricade. But there wasn't +a thing to separate us from the tribe but another barb-wire fence, with +the gates down.</p> + +<p>For several days after the red men came we moved in a nightmare of fear. +The Sioux had cherished this tall grass country as a hunting ground, and +we had invaded it. Suppose they were intent upon revenge!</p> + +<p>Then, absorbed in our many duties, we almost forgot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>about the Indians. +But a week after their first visit they came again. They arrived shortly +before sundown, adorned in beads and feathers, stopped across the trail, +and to our horror pitched camp. Pinto commenced to neigh and kept it up, +a restless whinny, eager for his own people.</p> + +<p>It looked as though the whole Sioux tribe had moved over to Ammons. +While the men unhitched and unsaddled, the squaws—for the most part +large shapeless creatures totally unlike the slim Indian maid of +fiction, and indescribably dirty—started small fires with twigs they +had brought with them. By now Ma Wagor, the gray-haired woman from Blue +Springs, was in the store every day, helping out, and she was as +terrified as Ida and I. It seems there were no Indians in Blue Springs. +They were among the few contingencies for which Ma Wagor was not amply +prepared.</p> + +<p>By chance a strange cowboy came through about sundown and stopped for a +package of tobacco. While he dexterously rolled a cigarette with one +hand we surrounded him, three panic-stricken women. Did he think the +Indians were on the war path, we asked, our teeth chattering.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I don't know," he answered carelessly, "can't tell a speck about an +Indian. Couldn't blame 'em, could you, with these landgrabbers invadin' +their range?"</p> + +<p>The logic of this had already occurred to us, and we were not +particularly cheered by the cowboy's confirmation of our worst +suspicions.</p> + +<p>"What do you suppose they're buildin' them fires for?" Ma Wagor was +anxious to know.</p> + +<p>Sourdough couldn't say as to that. But he 'lowed it might be to burn the +scalps in.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span>At that we missed Ma. She had slipped into the house to wash her feet. +Ma was a great believer in preparedness, whether having something cooked +ahead for supper, or clean feet for heaven.</p> + +<p>Instinctively I put my hand on my shock of fair hair to make sure it was +still in place. It had always been a nuisance, but now I felt a +passionate eagerness to keep it where it was.</p> + +<p>The Indians stretched their tepees and cooked their supper. The prairie +around them was alive with bony horses and hungry-looking dogs. It was +the impatient yelping of the dogs about the kettles rather than any +sounds from the soft-footed Indians which we heard.</p> + +<p>The cowboy threw his cigarette on the floor, stamped on it with a jingle +of spurs, and drawled, "Guess I'll be percolatin'—got to ride +night-herd."</p> + +<p>Ma Wagor grabbed him by his wide belt. "You're goin' to do your +night-herdin' right in front of this shack," she declared grimly. +"You've got your pistol and we women need protection." Looking at Ma's +set jaw he promised to hang around that night.</p> + +<p>Locked in the shack, we waited for the cowboy's signal of attack. He'd +"shoot 'em down as fast as they crossed the trail," he assured us, but +we were not so confident of his prowess.</p> + +<p>"I'd send for Pa," Ma Wagor said dismally, "but what good would he do? +And one of us has got to be left to prove up the claim." It was +unlikely, according to Ma, that anyone in that cabin would survive. But +as the night wore on everything across the trail became quiet and at +last we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>threw ourselves across the bed, exhausted. We woke next morning +to find our cowboy gone and the Indians cooking breakfast.</p> + +<p>Two leather-skinned men with hair hanging loose over their shoulders and +faces painted in red and copper hues led a big-boned horse up to the +door and walked into the store. They pointed to the shelves, held up ten +fingers, then pointed to the horse. They wanted to trade it for ten +dollars' worth of groceries.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary did not bother to look at the horse. She traded. The last thing +that would have occurred to her at that moment was to disagree with any +wishes the Indians might express. We found out later that the old mare +was stone-blind and locoed.</p> + +<p>Within a week we had the corral full of horses—the lame, the halt and +the blind. We would have traded the whole store for anything that the +Indians wanted, to get rid of them.</p> + +<p>Sourdough, who belonged to the Scotty Phillips outfit over on the Indian +lands, had ridden straight on to do night-herd duty. Every cowpuncher, +it seemed, must play at least one trick on the tenderfeet.</p> + +<p>Then one day a handsomely built young buck, straight as an arrow, walked +into the print shop. "How Kola!" he said, and then introduced himself as +Joe Two-Hawk. He was a college graduate, it appeared, and he explained +that "How Kola" was the friendly greeting of the Sioux, a welcome to the +two white girls who ran the settlement.</p> + +<p>Many of these young Indians went East to Indian colleges, acquiring, +along with their education, a knowledge <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>of civilized ways to which they +adapted themselves with amazing rapidity. On returning to the +reservations, however, in many cases, perhaps in most, they discarded +one by one, as though they had never been, the ways of the white man, +and reverted to their primitive customs and ways of life. Nor should +they be too thoughtlessly condemned for it. Among civilized peoples the +same urge for an escape from responsibility exists, thwarted often +enough merely by necessity, or by the pressure of convention and public +opinion. The Indians who have reverted to type, discarded the ways of +civilization for a tepee and primitive uncleanliness, follow the path of +least resistance. Traditions of accomplishment as we know them have no +meaning for the Indians; and the way of life for which his own +traditions have fitted him has been denied him.</p> + +<p>How Kola! That must be what the old warrior was bellowing the day we +thought he had said he would kill us. Old Two-Hawk laughed at that when +his son Joe interpreted it in Sioux.</p> + +<p>Old Two-Hawk explained us to his son, of whom he was manifestly very +proud. He pointed to me. "He-paleface-prints-paper"; then to Ida Mary, +"Him-paleface-trades-horses." Thus the Brulé Indians distinguished us +from each other.</p> + +<p>Joe Two-Hawk had come as a sort of emissary from the Brulés. They wanted +us, he explained, to make Ammons an Indian trading post. Looking at the +corral, we felt, to our sorrow, that they had already done so. Joe +Two-Hawk said they had wood and berries in abundance along the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span>Missouri +River, which ran through the Indian lands. They wanted to exchange them +for merchandise. And the settlers, we knew, needed the Indian +commodities.</p> + +<p>So to the newspaper, the post office, the store, the mail route, the +heavy hauling, we added an Indian trading post, trading groceries for +fence posts; subscriptions to <i>The Wand</i> for berries—very few of them +could read it, but they didn't mind that—it was a trade. Joe Two-Hawk +became a mediator and interpreter until Ida Mary and I learned enough of +the Sioux language to carry on. We tried to figure out a way, in this +trading, to make back our loss on the menagerie we had collected at +Ammons. Those bare store shelves worried us. Then, one morning, the old, +blind, locoed mare turned up with a fine colt by her side. We were +getting even.</p> + +<p>And we no longer minded that the gate was open between the Indian lands +and the section of the Brulé which had been thrown open to white +settlers. While the gate stood open, enmity and mutual suspicion could +not exist, and the path between it and Ammons was beaten hard and +smooth.</p> + +<p>The Indians came in processions with loaded wagons; unloaded, turned +their horses loose on the range and sat around—men and women—for hours +at a time on floor or ground, dickering. Ida Mary became as expert at it +as they were. It was not long before <i>The Wand</i> had legal work from +them, the settling of estates, notices pertaining to land affairs, etc. +And that led, logically enough, to Ida Mary's being appointed a notary +public.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span>"Want to sell your land, girls?" a man from Presho asked us one day. +"That's what I drove out for. I have a buyer anxious to get a claim on +the Brulé and I believe he would pay $1200 for this relinquishment. A +quick profit."</p> + +<p>"Sell? No!" we declared. "With such demand for land on the Strip we may +be able to get $2500 for it when it is proved up."</p> + +<p>He agreed. A raw quarter-section of deeded land just outside the border +had sold the other day for $3500, he informed us. With all the breaking +and improvement going on over the Brulé, it was predicted by real-estate +boosters that choice homesteads here would be worth $4000 to $5000 in +another year or so—after the land was deeded.</p> + +<p>Within sixty days after the arrival of the first Lucky Number on his +claim the 200 square miles of the Brulé would be filled. The winners had +filed consecutively, so many numbers each day for that length of time. +Their time to establish residence would thus expire accordingly. Already +the broad expanse of grassland we had seen during our first week on the +Brulé was changed beyond recognition, shacks everywhere, fields plowed, +movement and activity. The frontier had receded once more before the +advancing tide of civilization. Within sixty days!</p> + +<p>With the price of claims soaring, it became a mecca for claim jumpers. +They circled around ready to light on the land like buzzards on a +carcass. They watched every quarter-section for the arrival of the +settler. If he were not on his land by dark of the last day, some +"spotter" was likely to jump the claim and next morning rush to the Land +Office and slap a contest on it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>They were unlike the claim jumpers of the older pioneer days who jumped +the land because they wanted it for a home. Many of these men would not +have proved up a claim at any price. But in many instances they brought +landseekers with them who legally filed contests and homesteading rights +over the settler. They paid the claim jumpers well for their services in +getting hold of the land. Often, being strangers, the landseekers did +not know that these "spotters" were not land agents.</p> + +<p>They were a ruthless lot as a whole, these claim jumpers. They took long +chances, illegally selling relinquishments and skipping the country +before they were caught. Some of them even threatened or intimidated +newcomers who knew nothing about the West or its land laws.</p> + +<p>Of a different type were unscrupulous locating agents who used the +technicalities of the homestead law to operate the despicable "contest" +business. Whether they had any grounds for contesting a homestead or +not, they could claim they had, and the settler must then either go to +trial to defend his rights or give up the land. It was a serious problem +for the settlers.</p> + +<p>So many strangers came and went that the homesteaders seldom identified +these land thieves, but the print shop, set high in the middle of the +plains, was like a ranger's lookout where we could watch their +maneuvers; they traveled in rickety cars or with team and buggy, often +carrying camping equipment with them. By the way they drove or rode back +and forth, we could spot the "spotters."</p> + +<p>They often stopped at the settlement for tobacco or a lunch out of the +store—and a little information.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>"Whose shack is that off to the southwest?" a man asked one morning, +reading off the claim numbers from a slip of paper. He was a ruddy-faced +man dressed in a baggy checkered suit with a heavy gold watch chain +across the front of his vest and a big flashy ring.</p> + +<p>"Belongs to a woman from Missouri," Ida Mary told him. "She had a +neighbor build the shack for her."</p> + +<p>"No one living there," he said.</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," Ida Mary improvised rapidly, "she was in here yesterday on +the way to town for furniture. Won't be back until tomorrow night."</p> + +<p>He looked doubtful. "Doesn't look to me as though anyone ever slept +there. Not a thing in the shack—no bed."</p> + +<p>Ida Mary called out to me, "Edith, didn't you lend that woman some +bedding yesterday?"</p> + +<p>"Yes," I declared, "so she could sleep there a few nights before the +deadline."</p> + +<p>All our early training in truth-telling was lost in the skirmish, and +sometimes I doubted if the truth was left in us. But there was zest in +this outwitting of men who would have defrauded the settlers if they +could.</p> + +<p>One day I noticed two men driving back and forth over a vacant claim +nearby. At sundown no one had established residence. I watched the +maneuvers of the two men.</p> + +<p>"Ida," I called, "those men are going to jump that claim."</p> + +<p>I looked over my land plat and saw that the homestead belonged to Rosie +Carrigan from Ohio. It was the last day of grace. She had until midnight +to get there.</p> + +<p>It was a moonlight night. Ida Mary saddled Pinto and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>rode down the draw +toward the claim. From a slope where she could not be seen she watched +the two men. The evening wore on. At eleven o'clock, secure in the +knowledge that the owner had failed to arrive, the men pitched camp.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary rode quietly up the draw and galloped up to the cabin. "They +are sleeping on the claim," she said breathlessly. This meant that next +morning, as soon as the Land Office opened, one of them would be there +to slap a contest on the land, while the other held possession. It also +meant that when Rosie Carrigan arrived she would find her homestead +gone.</p> + +<p>"What shall we do?" I asked anxiously.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary considered for a moment. "One of us must be Rosie Carrigan," +she decided. She ran out to hitch the team to the wagon while I +hurriedly dragged a few things out of the house and loaded them—things +such as an immigrant must carry with him, bedding, boxes, a traveling +bag or two. We threw them in the wagon, circled off a mile or two, and +then drove straight back onto the land. A few rods from the +claim-jumpers we drove a stake, hung a lantern on it, and began to +unhitch, shivering with excitement and apprehension.</p> + +<p>The noise of our arrival roused the two men, who stirred, and then with +an exclamation got to their feet. We saw the flare of a match. One of +them had drawn out his watch and was looking at it. Under the +smoked-lantern light we looked at ours—it was ten minutes to twelve!</p> + +<p>We heard them murmur to each other, but continued unhitching the horses, +dragging the hastily assembled <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span>articles out of the wagon. Then my heart +began to pound. One of the men walked over to us. He was short, burly, +heavy-jawed.</p> + +<p>"Here, you can't stay here! Where do you think you are?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>We made no answer, but the bed I contrived to make under his watching +eyes was a hopeless tangle.</p> + +<p>"We're on this land...." he blustered. He was trying to run a bluff, to +find out whether we were on the right quarter-section or whether, like +him, we were land-grabbers.</p> + +<p>"I guess I'll have to have your identification," he said again. "What's +your name?"</p> + +<p>"Rosie Carrigan," I answered, "from Ohio. What are you doing on my land, +anyway? You have no right here!"</p> + +<p>He hesitated, weighing the situation and the possibilities.</p> + +<p>"Get off!" I blazed at him.</p> + +<p>He got. The two men rolled up their bedding and moved on, and Ida Mary +and I sat limply on the ground watching them go.</p> + +<p>In case they should come back we decided to hold the land for the night, +gathered up the bedding, and slept in the wagon—when we slept.</p> + +<p>At daybreak we were wakened by the rumble of a heavy-loaded wagon coming +slowly over the prairie behind a limping team. A tall, slim girl and a +slight boy sat high on the front seat. They drove up beside our wagon. +Fastened on the back of their load was a chicken coop, and as they +stopped a rooster stuck its head out and crowed.</p> + +<p>The girl was Rosie Carrigan. The boy was her brother. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>And the rooster +was the first of his kind to settle on the reservation. They had been +delayed by footsore horses. But no land-grabbers, no one except +ourselves, ever knew that Rosie Carrigan did not establish residence at +ten minutes before midnight.</p> + +<p>Not long after this, a rough-looking stranger rode up to an old man's +shack and took some papers out of his pocket. "There's some mistake +here, pardner," he said. "Looks like you're on the wrong quarter. This +is section—" he read the description, "and it happens to be mine."</p> + +<p>"But that's the number of the claim I filed on at the Drawing," the old +man assured him.</p> + +<p>After much arguing and bullying, with the old man contending he was +right, the stranger ordered him off the land.</p> + +<p>"You don't pull that stuff on me, pardner; you'd better vacate."</p> + +<p>"Now keep your shirt on, stranger," the old man said, with a twitching +of his long white mustache, inviting him in for a bite to eat while he +hunted up his land receipts.</p> + +<p>"I'm all crippled up with the rheumatiz," he groaned as he hobbled back +into a corner of the room to get the papers. "A pore way for the +gov'ment to open up land, I says.</p> + +<p>"Now down in the Oklahomy Run we used speed and brains to stake a claim, +beating the other fellow to it. But it was a tough bunch down there, and +sometimes, stranger, we—" he turned and pointed a gun straight at the +man seated at the table, "we used a gun."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>The old man who had stood leaning on his cane at the Drawing, +complaining that neither legs nor brains counted in winning a claim, +used his ingenuity to hold one.</p> + +<p>During those last days of settling, Ida Mary and I lived in a state of +tension and suspense. We watched our land plat and often rode out over +the prairie to watch for the arrival of settlers whose land was being +spotted. After a few of our deceptions, the claim jumpers became wary of +the newspaper and cursed "that snip of a newspaper woman." And the girl +who ran the post office was a government employee.</p> + +<p>Here was a job for <i>The Wand</i>. In the next issue there appeared a +black-headline article. It began:</p> + +<p>"It has been reported that owing to the swift settlement of the Brulé, +Secret Service Agents from the Federal Land Department are being sent +out to protect the settlers against claim jumpers who are said to be +nesting there. This tampering with government lands is a criminal +offense, and it is understood that legal action will be pushed against +all offenders."</p> + +<p>One afternoon some two weeks later there walked into the print shop a +man with an official manner about him. He called for the publisher of +the paper.</p> + +<p>"What do you know about this?" he demanded, pointing to the article. +"What authority did you have for it?"</p> + +<p>I was speechless. He was a Federal Agent.</p> + +<p>"Well," I said at last, defiantly, "if the government is not furnishing +agents on the land to look after these things, it should."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span>And it did. The agent looked into the matter, claim-jumping quieted +down, there were fewer "spotters" swarming around, and soon, when their +six months of grace had expired, the Lucky Numbers were all on the +ground.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh09.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 8." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>VIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"Any old cayuse can enter a race," Bronco Benny remarked one day. "It's +coming in under the wire that counts."</p> + +<p>Ida Mary and I had saddled ourselves with a newspaper, a post office, a +grocery store, an Indian trading post, and all the heavy labor of +hauling, delivery of mail and odd jobs that were entailed. We were +appalled to realize the weight of the responsibility we had assumed, +with every job making steady, daily demands on us, with the Ammons +finances to be juggled and stretched to cover constant demands on them. +And there was no turning back.</p> + +<p>The Lucky Numbers were all settled on their claims. Already trails were +broken to the print shop from every <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>direction. There was no time to +plan, no time in which to wonder how one was to get things done. The +important thing was to keep doing them. On the whole Strip there was not +a vacant quarter-section. Already a long beaten trail led past the +print-shop door north and south from Pierre to Presho; another crossed +the reservation east and west from McClure to the Indian tepees and the +rangeland beyond. Paths led in from all parts of the Strip like spokes, +with Ammons the hub around which the wheel of the reservation's +activities revolved.</p> + +<p>From every section of the settlement the people gravitated to my claim; +they came with their needs, with their plans, with their questions. In +the first days we heard their needs rather than filled them, and the +store and print shop became a place for the exchange of ideas and news, +so that I was able to distinguish before long between the needs of the +individual and those which were common to all, to clarify in my own mind +the problems that beset the settlers as a whole, and to learn how some +among them solved these problems.</p> + +<p>Subscriptions for <i>The Wand</i> came in from the outside world, from people +who had friends homesteading on the Brulé, and from people interested in +the growth of the West. We had almost a thousand subscriptions at a +dollar a year, and the money went into a team, equipment, and operation +expenses. Ma Wagor helped in the store—she liked the "confusement," she +said. She loved having people around her, and her curiosity about them +all was insatiable. Ida or I generally made the mail trip.</p> + +<p>The heavy labor we hired done when we could, but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>many times we hitched +the team to the big lumber wagon and drove to Presho to bring out our +own load of goods, including barrels of coal-oil and gasoline for +automobiles, for there were quite a few cars on the reservation. +Automobiles, in fact, were the only modern convenience in the lives of +these modern pioneers who stepped from the running board straight back +into the conditions of covered-wagon days.</p> + +<p>The needs of the people were tremendous and insistent. And the needs of +the people had to find expression in some way if they were to be met. +The print shop was ready, <i>The Wand</i> was ready, I was ready—the only +hitch was that I couldn't operate the new press we had bought, because +we couldn't put it together. Ida Mary and I labored futilely with bolts +and screws and other iron parts for two days.</p> + +<p>I had sat down in the doorway to rest, exhausted by my tussle with the +machinery, when I saw a man coming from the Indian settlement. He +appeared against the horizon as if he had ridden out of the ether, +riding slowly, straight as an Indian, but as he came closer I saw he was +a white man. At the door he dismounted, threw the reins on the ground, +and walked past me into the store, lifting his slouch hat as he entered. +A man rather short of stature, sturdy, with a wide-set jaw and flat +features that would have been homely had they not been so strong.</p> + +<p>He looked with surprise through the open door of the print shop with its +stalled machinery.</p> + +<p>"What's the trouble?" he asked.</p> + +<p>I explained my predicament. "I can't put the thing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span>together and I don't +know what to do about it. It would be almost impossible to get an +experienced printer out here to start it for me."</p> + +<p>He smiled broadly, walked into the shop, and without a word fixed the +forms, adjusted the press and turned out the first issue of that +strange-fated newspaper.</p> + +<p>He would accept no pay and no thanks. "My name is Farraday, Fred +Farraday," he said. "I'll ride over next Friday and help you get the +paper out."</p> + +<p>With that he mounted his blue-roan pony and rode away as deliberately as +he had come. Every Friday after that he returned to help print the +paper. Naturally we were curious about the man who had solved our +desperate need for a printer in so surprising a way, but Fred was +content to come week after week and disappear again on the horizon +without any explanation as to who he was, where he came from, where he +went when he rode out of sight each Friday.</p> + +<p>We tried him with hints, with bland suppositions, with bare-faced +questions, and could not break through his taciturnity. But even Fred +had no defense against Ma Wagor's curiosity, and little by little, +through her persistent questioning, we learned that he had a homestead +near the Agency, that he had run a newspaper in the Northwest, and that +he had been connected with the Indian Service.</p> + +<p>The business of the newspaper increased rapidly, and advertising began +to come in from the small surrounding towns. Ma Wagor was kept busy in +the store, selling groceries to the Indians who camped around for a day +dickering, and to the white settlers who were generally in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span>hurry. So +little time! So much to do! Ida Mary helped me in the print shop, and +before long we found we needed an expert typesetter. And I found +one—unlikely as it may seem—on an adjoining claim. Kathryn Slattery, +tall and slim and red-haired, preferred setting type to sitting alone in +her shack, and with her striking appearance as an added attraction the +popularity of the settlement with the young men homesteaders mounted.</p> + +<p>In this odd fashion I found on the prairie both a printer and a +typesetter, and for problems of format for <i>The Wand</i> there was always +the cartoonist from Milwaukee. Late one afternoon I spied a strange, +moving object in the far distance, something that bobbed up and down +with the regularity of a clock pendulum. I asked Ida Mary in some +bewilderment whether she could identify it. At last we saw it was a +stiff-jointed quadruped with some sort of jumping-jack on top, bouncing +up and down at every step. As it drew closer, heading for the shop, Ida +Mary began to laugh. "It's Alexander Van Leshout," she said.</p> + +<p>The cartoonist scrambled down from his mount and led the old, +stiff-jointed, sway-backed horse up to the door. "I would have called +sooner," he explained, sweeping off his hat in a low bow, "but I have +been breaking in my new steed. Let me introduce Hop-Along Cassidy."</p> + +<p>It was the newspaper that had brought him, he went on to say. +"Editorially it's not so bad, but the make-up would give anyone sore +eyes." It was Van Leshout who helped with the make-up of the paper, and +he made drawings and had plates made that would do credit to any +newspaper.</p> + +<p>He was a strange character in this setting, like an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>exotic plant in an +old-fashioned garden, and his eccentricities aroused considerable +amusement among the settlers, although he became in time a favorite with +them, serving as a sort of counter-irritant to the strain of pioneer +life. Men who trudged all day through the broiling sun turning furrows +in that stubborn soil were entertained by the strange antics of a man +who sat before his cabin in the shade (when there was any) painting the +Indians. It was a rare treat to hear him go on, they admitted, but he +was not to be taken seriously.</p> + +<p>Among the subscriptions I received for <i>The Wand</i> was one from the New +York broker, Halbert Donovan, with a letter addressed to McClure.</p> + +<p>"Through the McClure <i>Press</i> which I had sent me," it read, "I learned +that you are running a newspaper out on some Indian reservation. I +remember quite well the fantastic idea you had about doing things out +there with a little newspaper. But it does not seem possible you would +be so foolhardy.</p> + +<p>"I'm afraid your aspirations are going to receive a great blow. It is a +poor place for dreams. Imagine your trying to be a voice of the +frontier, as you put it, to a bunch of homesteaders in a God-forsaken +country like that. If I can be of help to you in some way, you might let +me know. You have shown a progressive spirit. Too bad to waste it."</p> + +<p>What I needed at the moment was to have him send me a few corporations, +but as that was unlikely, I pinned my faith in <i>The Wand</i>. It was a +seven-column, four-page paper which carried staunchly a strange load of +problems <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>and responsibilities. In spite of the New York broker's blunt +disbelief in the possibilities of a frontier newspaper, I had become +more and more convinced during those weeks that only through some such +medium could the homesteaders express their own needs, in their own way; +have their problems discussed in terms of their own immediate situation.</p> + +<p>We needed herd laws and a hundred other laws; we needed new land +rulings. We needed schools, bridges across draws and dry creeks. We +needed roads. In fact, there was nothing which we did not need—and most +of all we needed a sense of close-knit cooperation. Aside from these +matters of general interest, relating to their common welfare, the paper +attempted to acquaint the settlers with one another, to inform them of +the activities going on about them, to keep them advised of frontier +conditions. To assist those who knew nothing of farming conditions in +the West, and often enough those who had never farmed before, I +reprinted articles on western soil and crops, and on the conservation of +moisture.</p> + +<p>Every week there were noticeable strides in that incredible country +toward civilization, changes and improvements. These were printed as +quickly as I learned of them, not only because of the encouragement this +record of tangible results might bring the homesteaders, but also as a +means of information for people in the East who still did not know what +we were doing and who did not see the possibilities of the land.</p> + +<p>And already, in depicting the homestead movement, I had begun to realize +that the Lower Brulé was only a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>fraction of what was to come, and I +reached out in panoramic scope to other parts of the frontier.</p> + +<p>And already, though but dimly, I had begun to see that the system of +cooperation which was being attempted—cautiously and on a small +scale—was the logical solution for the farmer's problems, not alone in +this homesteading area, not alone on the Lower Brulé; but that like a +pebble thrown into a quiet stream it must make ever-widening circles +until it encompassed the farmers throughout the West, perhaps—</p> + +<p>Naturally public issues sprang up which neither Ida Mary nor I knew how +to handle. We knew nothing about politics, nothing at all about the +proper way to go about setting things right. But we were a jump ahead of +the Lower Brulé settlers in homesteading experience, and there were many +local issues with which to make a start.</p> + +<p>One of the first public issues the paper took up was an attack on the +railroad company in regard to the old bridge spanning the Missouri River +at Chamberlain. "Every time a shower comes up, that bridge goes out," +declared <i>The Wand</i>, and it wasn't much of an exaggeration. The +homesteaders were dependent on the bridge to get immigrant goods across, +and with the heavy rains that season many settlers had been delayed in +getting on their land or in getting their crops planted in time.</p> + +<p><i>The Wand</i> referred to the railroad report that this was the biggest +immigration period of the state's history, with 537 carloads of +immigrant goods moved in during the first twelve days of the month. For +several years the small towns west of the Missouri had been making a +fight for a new <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>bridge. "The Lower Brulé settlers want a new bridge," I +wrote. "And if the Milwaukee does not build one we are going to do our +shipping over the Northwestern regardless of longer hauls." I had not +talked this matter over with the settlers, but they would do it, all +right.</p> + +<p>A flea attacking an elephant! But a flea can be annoying, and we would +keep it up. I was encouraged when civic leaders of several small towns +sent for copies of the article to use in their petitions to the company. +It was the voice of the Lower Brulé, and already the Lower Brulé bore +weight.</p> + +<p>In practical ways the paper also tried to serve the homesteaders, +keeping them posted on other frontier regions and the methods employed +there to bring the land into production. It made a study of crops best +adapted to the frontier; it became the Strip's bureau of information and +a medium of exchange—not only of ideas but of commodities.</p> + +<p>In new country, where money is scarce, people resort from necessity to +the primitive method of barter, exchanging food for fuel, labor for +commodities. There is a good deal to be said in its favor, and it solved +a lot of problems in those early, penniless days.</p> + +<p>We had started the post office mainly as a means of getting the +newspaper into circulation, and it had developed into a difficult +business of its own which required more and more of Ida Mary's time. +Friday was publication day. On Thursday we printed the paper so as to +have it ready for Friday's mail, and on Thursday night the tin +reflectors of the print-shop lamps threw their lights out for miles +across <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span>the prairie far into the night, telling a lost people the day of +the week. "It's Thursday night—the night the paper goes to press," more +than one homesteader said as he saw it.</p> + +<p>It was a long, tedious job to print so many newspapers on a hand press +one at a time, fold and address them. It took the whole Ammons force and +a few of the neighbors to get it ready for the mail, which must meet the +McClure mail stage at noon. While one of us rushed off with the mail, +others at home would address the local list of papers and put them in +the mail boxes by the time the return mail came in for distribution.</p> + +<p>Our U. S. mail transport was our old topless One-Hoss Shay—repaired and +repainted for the purpose—with the brown team hitched to it. It was a +long, hot drive, eight miles, to meet the stage, which reached McClure +at noon, jolting along under a big cotton umbrella wired to the back of +the seat for shade. I slapped the brown team with the lines and consoled +myself that if roughing it put new life into one's body I should be good +for a hundred years.</p> + +<p>When we were behind time and the mail was light or there was money going +out, we ran Lakota through as a pony express. Lakota was a gift from the +Indians, whose name meant "banded together as friends." One day Running +Deer had come over to Ammons, leading a little bronc. He had caught her +in a bunch of wild horses which roamed the plains, a great white +stallion at their head. "One day—two day—three day—I have made run, +so swift like eagle. Then I rope her and make broke for ride."</p> + +<p>She was a beauty. Graceful, proud—and lawless. "Good blood, like Indian +chief," said Running Deer with pride in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>this gift from the Sioux. "But +white squaw—she throw um, mebbe. Rub like fawn—" and he stroked her +curved neck.</p> + +<p>There was no "mebbe" about throw um white squaw. One had to be on the +lookout or "swift like eagle" she would jump from under one at the +slightest provocation. But we trained her to carry the mail, and though +there was no banditry in that section, we had to be on our guard with +money coming in. No man would ever grab the mail sack from Lakota's +back. That little outlaw would paw him to death.</p> + +<p>Whether we caught the mail stage or not often depended upon the mood of +the stage driver. If he felt tired and lazy he patiently sat in front of +the Halfway House at McClure and "chawed" and spat until he saw the +Ammons mail coming over the trail. If he were out of sorts he drove on.</p> + +<p>All we got out of the post-office job was the cancellation of stamps, as +it was a fourth-class office in which the government furnished the +stamps and we kept the money for all stamps canceled in our office. But +the settlers were too busy to write letters, so the income was small and +the incoming mail, for which we received no pay, weighed us down with +work. For months after the settlers came west they ordered many +commodities by mail, and their friends sent them everything from +postcards to homemade cookies and jelly, so as mail carriers we became +pack mules. But we went on carrying mail. It is easier to get into +things than to get out.</p> + +<p>Much of the ordering of commodities by the settlers was done through the +huge mail-order catalogs issued by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>half a dozen large companies in the +East. Those mail-order catalogs were of enormous importance to the +homesteaders. For the women they had the interest of a vast department +store through which one could wander at will. In a country where +possessions were few and limited to essentials, those pages with their +intriguing cuts represented most of the highly desirable things in life.</p> + +<p>From the mail-order catalogs they ordered their stoves, most of their +farming implements, and later, when the contrast between the alluring +advertisements and the bleak shacks grew too strong for the women to +endure, fancy lamps for the table, and inexpensive odds and ends which +began to transform those rough barren houses into livable homes.</p> + +<p>Running a newspaper out here was, as Ma Wagor had predicted, a +"pestiferous" job. One day we hung the rubber roller out to dry and the +sun melted it flat. As a result Ada had to ride to McClure to borrow one +from <i>The Press</i> before we could print the paper. There was no way to +get the ready-prints without making the long trip to Presho. Finally +every homesteader around Ammons who went to town stopped in at the +express office to get them for us. It was a multiplication of effort but +we generally got the prints.</p> + +<p>But, hard as it was, the work did not tire me as much as the mere +mechanical grind of the hammer-and-tongs work on <i>The Press</i> had done. +Each day was so filled with new problems and new interests, so crammed +with activity, that we were carried along by the exhilaration of it. One +cannot watch an empire shoot up around him like Jack's beanstalk +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>without feeling the compulsion to be a part of that movement, that +growth. And the worst barrier we had to face had vanished—the initial +prejudice against two young girls attempting to take an active part in +the forward movement of the community.</p> + +<p>The obstacles of a raw country had no effect on Ada Long, our +fourteen-year-old helper. She came of a struggling family who had +settled on an alkali claim set back from everything until the Brulé +settlers had broken a trail past it. So Ada, finding herself in a new +moving world, was happy. With her long yellow braids hanging beneath a +man's straw hat, strong capable hands, and an easy stride, she went +about singing hymns as she worked, taking upon herself many tasks that +she was not called upon to perform. And Fred Farraday was taking much of +the heavy work of the print shop off our hands.</p> + +<p>Ma Wagor, too, was an invaluable help to us. "All my life I've wanted to +run a store," she admitted. "I like the confusement." Every morning she +came across the prairie sitting straight as a board in the old buggy +behind a spotted horse that held his head high and his neck stretched +like a giraffe. The few dollars she got for helping in the store eked +out Pa's small pension, which had been their only revenue.</p> + +<p>The commodities handled at the store had increased from coffee and +matches to innumerable supplies. The faithful team, Fan and Bill, were +kept on the road most of the time. We made business trips to Presho and +Pierre. Help was not always available, and there could be no waste +movements in a wasteland. On some of these trips we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>hitched the team to +the big lumber wagon and hauled out barrels of oil, flour, printers' ink +and other supplies for all and sundry of our enterprises. It had come to +that.</p> + +<p>"There go the Ammons sisters," people would say as the wagon started, +barrels rattling, down the little main street of Presho, off to the hard +trail home.</p> + +<p>Slim and straight and absurdly small, in trim shirt waists, big +sombreros tilted over our heads, we bounced along on the wagon, trying +to look as mature and dignified as our position of business women +demanded.</p> + +<p>"Those are the two Brulé girls who launched an attack on the Milwaukee +railroad," Presho people remarked. "Well, I'll be damned!"</p> + +<p>Once when I was too ill to leave Presho and we stayed for the night in a +little frame hotel, Doc Newman came in to look me over.</p> + +<p>"Do you girls get enough nourishing food?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"We eat up all the store profits," lamented Ida Mary.</p> + +<p>He laughed. "Keep on eating them up. And slow down."</p> + +<p>Pioneer women, old and new, went through many hardships and privations. +The sodbreakers' women over the Strip worked hard, but their greatest +strain was that of endurance rather than heavy labor. But refreshing +nights with the plains at rest and exhilarating morning air were the +restoratives.</p> + +<p>Hard and unrelieved as their lives were in many respects, gallantly as +they shouldered their part of the burden of homesteading, the women +inevitably brought one important factor into the homesteaders' lives. +They inaugurated some form of social life, and with the exchange of +visits, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>the impromptu parties, the informal gatherings, and the +politeness, the amenities they demanded—however modified to meet +frontier conditions—civilization came to stay.</p> + +<p>The instinct of women to build up the forms of social life is +deep-rooted and historically sound. Out of the forms grow traditions, +and from the traditions grow permanency, which is woman's only +protection. With the first conscious development of social life on the +Brulé, the Strip took on a more settled air.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, out of the back-breaking labor the first results began to +appear. The sodbreakers were going to have a crop. And hay—hay to feed +their livestock and to sell. Everyone passing through the Strip stopped +to look at the many small fields and a few large ones dotting the +prairie. People came from other parts of the frontier to see the rapid +development which the Brulé had made.</p> + +<p>"Mein Gott in Himmel!" shouted old Mr. Husmann, pointing to a field of +oats. "Look at them oats. We get one hell of a crop for raw land."</p> + +<p>On the other side of us, Chris Christopherson's big field of flax was in +full bloom, like a blue flower garden.</p> + +<p>"I come by Ioway," Mr. Husmann went on, "when she was a raw country, and +I say, 'Mein Gott, what grass!' But I see no grass so high and rich like +this."</p> + +<p>The gardens matured late, as all growth on the western prairie does. The +seed which was sown on the sod so unusually late that year never would +have come up but for the soaking rains. Now there were lettuce, +radishes, onions and other things. One could not buy fresh green +vegetables <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span>anywhere in the homestead country, and they were like manna +from Heaven. It had been almost a year since Ida Mary and I had tasted +green foods. It is a curious paradox that people living on the land +depended for food or canned goods from the cities, and that the fresh +milk and cream and green vegetables associated with farm life were +unattainable.</p> + +<p>Most of the settlers lived principally on beans and potatoes with some +dried fruits, but we had bought canned fruits, oranges and apples, +pretending to ourselves that we would stock them for the store. Some of +the settlers could buy such foods in small quantities, for they had a +little money that first summer; but the Indians were our main customers +for the more expensive things, buying anything we wanted to sell them +when they got their government allowances. While their money lasted they +had no sales resistance whatever.</p> + +<p>This characteristic apparently wasn't peculiar to the Brulé Indians, but +was equally true of those in the Oklahoma reservation who boomed the +luxury trades when oil was discovered on their land. There it was no +uncommon sight to see a gaudy limousine parked outside a tepee and a +grand piano on the ground inside.</p> + +<p>But what the Indians didn't buy of these foods at forbidden costs we ate +ourselves, cutting seriously into our profits. And when Mrs. +Christopherson sent her little Heine over one day with a bucket of green +beans we almost foundered as animals do with the first taste of green +feed after a winter of dry hay.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span>We had a few rows of garden east of our shack. I remember gathering +something out of it—lettuce and onions, probably, which grew abundantly +without any care.</p> + +<p>It was hot, and everybody on the Strip, worn out from strenuous weeks, +slowed down. The plains were covered with roses, wild roses trying to +push their heads above the tall grass. The people who had worked so +frantically, building houses, putting in crops, walked more slowly now, +stopped to talk and rest a little, and sit in the shade. They discovered +how tired they were, and the devitalizing heat added to the general +torpor.</p> + +<p>"It's this confusement," Ma Wagor said, "that's wore everybody out." She +was the only one on the Strip to continue at the same energetic pace. +"There ain't a bit of use wearing yourself out, trying to do the things +here the Almighty Himself hasn't got around to yet—flying right in the +face of the Lord, I says to myself sometimes."</p> + +<p>But in spite of the heat and the general weariness, the work was +unrelenting. The mail must be delivered regularly. The paper must be +printed. One day Ida Mary's voice burst in upon the clicking of type.</p> + +<p>"What are we going to do about the rattlesnakes?" she said tragically; +"they're taking the country."</p> + +<p>She was right. They were taking the reservation. They wriggled through +the tall grass making ribbon waves as they went. They coiled like a +rubber hose along the trails, crawled up to the very doors, stopped +there only by right-fitting screens.</p> + +<p>One never picked up an object without first investigating with a board +or stick lest there be a snake under it. It <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>became such an obsession +that if anyone did pick up something without finding a snake under it he +felt as disappointed as if he had run to a fire and found it out when he +got there.</p> + +<p>On horseback or afoot one was constantly on the lookout for them. For +those gray coiled horrors were deadly. We knew that. There were plenty +of stories of people who heard that dry rattle, saw the lightning speed +of the strike and the telltale pricks on arm or ankle, and waited for +the inevitable agony and swift death. The snakes always sounded their +warning, the chilling rattle before they struck, but they rarely gave +time for escape.</p> + +<p>Sourdough stopped at the store one morning for tobacco. He had a pair of +boots tied to his saddle and when Ida Mary stepped to the door to hand +him the tobacco, a rattlesnake slithered out from one of the boots. He +jumped off his horse and killed it.</p> + +<p>"Damn my skin," Sourdough exclaimed, "and here I slept on them boots +last night for a pillow. I oughta stretched a rope."</p> + +<p>Plainsmen camping out made it a practice to stretch a rope around camp +or pallet as a barricade against snakes; they would not cross the hairy, +fuzzy rope, we were told. It may be true, but there was not a rope made +that I would trust to keep snakes out on that reservation.</p> + +<p>I remember camping out one night with a group of homesteaders. The +ground was carefully searched and a rope stretched before we turned in, +but it was a haggard, white-faced group which started back the next +morning. True, there hadn't been any rattlesnakes, but from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>amount +of thinking about them that had been done that night, there might as +well have been.</p> + +<p>A young homesteader rushed into the print shop one day, white as a +sheet. "A snake," he gasped, "a big rattler across the trail in front of +the store."</p> + +<p>"What of it? Haven't you ever seen a snake before?"</p> + +<p>"Have I!" he replied dismally. "I saw them for six months back there in +Cleveland. But my snakes didn't rattle."</p> + +<p>Ours rattled. The rattle of the snake became as familiar as the song of +the bird. The settlers were losing livestock every day. Everyone was in +danger. With the hot dry weather they became bigger and thicker. The +cutting of great tracts of grass for hay stirred them into viperous +action. They were harder to combat than droughts and blizzards. Not many +regions were so thickly infested as that reservation. Those snakes are a +part of its history.</p> + +<p>"Couldn't be many in other regions," Olaf Rasmusson, an earnest young +farmer, said dryly; "they're all settled here."</p> + +<p>"Look out for snakes!" became the watchword on the Strip.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Christopherson's little Heine, a small, taciturn boy of five who +had become a daily, silent visitor at the store, came in one afternoon, +roused into what, for him, was a garrulous outburst:</p> + +<p>"There's a snake right out here, and I bet it's six feet long the way it +rattles."</p> + +<p>Ada grabbed a pole and tried to kill it. The monster struck back like +the cracking of a whip. She backed off and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>with her strong arm hit +again and again, while Ida Mary ran with a pitchfork.</p> + +<p>"Keep out of the way," shouted Ada, "you may get bitten!"</p> + +<p>Winded, Ada fanned herself with her straw hat and wiped the perspiration +from her face. "I got that fellow," she said triumphantly.</p> + +<p>This was one problem about which <i>The Wand</i> seemed helpless. Printers' +ink would have no effect on the snakes, and if this horror were +published, the Strip would be isolated like a leper's colony. After +using so much ingenuity in building up the achievements of that +swift-growing country, the announcement of this plague of snakes might +undo all that had been accomplished.</p> + +<p>And the snakes increased. When Ida Mary was out of sight I worried +constantly. It was like one's fear for a person in battle, who may be +struck by a bullet at any moment. But the rattler was more surely fatal +when it struck than the bullet.</p> + +<p>Something had to be done. To Hades with what the world thought about our +having snakes! We had to do something that would bring relief from this +horror. We went to the old medicine men—John Yellow Grass, I think was +one of them—to find out how the Indians got rid of snakes. They didn't. +But at least they knew what to do when you had been bitten. The Indian +medicine men said to bleed the wound instantly, bandaging the flesh +tightly above and below to keep the poison from circulating. That was +the Indians' first-aid treatment; and, as a last resort, "suck the +wound."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span><i>The Wand</i> printed warnings: "Bank your houses ... keep doors and +windows tightly screened ... keep a bottle of whisky close at hand.... +Carry vinegar, soda and bandages with you, and a sharp thin-bladed knife +to slash and bleed the wound." What a run there was on vinegar and +pocket knives!</p> + +<p>By this time the sight of a coiled rope made me jumpy and I dreamed of +snakes writhing, coiling, moving in undulating lines. At noon one day I +was alone, making up the paper. I stood at the form table working, when +I turned abruptly. A snake's slimy head was thrust through a big +knothole in the floor. Its beady eyes held me for a moment, as they are +said to hypnotize a bird. I could neither move nor scream.</p> + +<p>Then with a reflex action I threw an empty galley—an oblong metal tray +used to put the set type in—square over the hole. The snake moved so +quickly it missed the blow and lay under the floor hissing like an +engine letting off steam. It would have been in the print shop in +another second. The floor was laid on 2 × 4 inch scantlings, so there +was nothing to keep snakes from working their way under. It should have +been banked around the foundation with sod.</p> + +<p>The next day a homesteader's little girl was bitten. Oh, for serum! But +if there were any such life-saver on the market we had no way of getting +it.</p> + +<p><i>The Wand</i> called a meeting of the settlers and laid plans of warfare +against the snakes. The homesteaders organized small posses. And cowboys +and Indian bucks joined in that war against the reptiles.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span>They killed them by the dozens in every conceivable manner. The cowboys +were always telling about shooting their heads off, and they said the +Indians used an arrow, spearing them in the neck just back of the head. +They never let one get away if they could help it. Some of them claimed +they picked up rattlesnakes by the tails and cracked their heads off.</p> + +<p>The snakes wintered in the prairie-dog holes, but I never heard of a +prairie dog being bitten by one of them. On warm days in late fall the +snakes came out of the holes and lay coiled thick on the ground, sunning +themselves, while the little dogs sat up on their hind legs and yipped +in their squeaky voices. The settlers and cowboys invaded the dog towns +and killed off the snakes by the hundred. Dog towns were the tracts +where the prairie dogs made their homes. During the intensive snake war, +a homesteader came from one of the big prairie-dog towns to take us over +to look at the kill.</p> + +<p>There, strung on wires, hung more than a hundred huge, horrid rattlers, +many of them still wriggling and twisting and coiling like a thrown +lariat.</p> + +<p>It seems too bad the snakeskin industry of today missed that bonanza of +supply, and that science did not make a more general use of rattlesnake +serum at that time. The settlers would have made some easy money and +science would have got serum in unlimited quantity.</p> + +<p>This is a gruesome subject. The constant, lurking menace of the snakes +was one of the hardest things the frontier had to endure, harder than +drought or blizzard, but in one way and another we came through.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span>Instead of <i>The Wand's</i> campaign against snakes injuring the Strip it +created a great deal of interest, and people said we were "subduing the +frontier."</p> + +<p>Easy? Oh, yes; easy as falling off a log.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="IX" id="IX"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh10.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 9." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>IX<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE OPENING OF THE ROSEBUD</h3> +<br /> + +<p>The settling of those western lands was as elemental as the earth, and +no phase of its settlement was as dramatic as the opening of the +Rosebud. Homesteading was now the biggest movement in America. We were +entering a great period of land development running its course between +1909 and our entrance into the World War in 1917. The people were land +crazy. The western fever became an epidemic that spread like a prairie +fire. Day by day we watched the vast, voluntary migration of a people.</p> + +<p>Men with families to support, frail women with no one to help them, few +of them with money enough to carry them through, took the chance, with +the odds against them. I have seen men appear with their families, ten +dollars in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>their pockets, or only five after the filing fee on the land +was paid. I have seen them sleep on the prairie, get odd jobs here and +there until they could throw up a shelter out of scrap lumber, and +slowly get a foothold, often becoming substantial citizens of a +community they helped to build.</p> + +<p>Free land! Free land! It was like the tune piped by the Pied Piper. +"This is the chance for the poor man," I wrote in <i>The Wand</i>. "When the +supply of free land is exhausted the poor man cannot hope to own +land.... If the moneyed powers get hold of this cheap land as an +investment, they will force the price beyond the grasp of the masses.... +The West is the reserve upon which the future growth and food supply of +the nation must depend."</p> + +<p>Ida Mary said that I was running to land as a Missourian did to mules, +but <i>The Wand</i> was fast becoming identified with the land movement.</p> + +<p>As the homesteaders flowed in a great sea out of the towns and cities +into the West, one wondered at their courage. There was not the hope +which inspires a gold rush, the possibility of a gold strike which may +bring sudden wealth and ease. The road was long, the only likely signs +of achievement an extra room on the shack, a few more acres of ground +turned under. And—eventual security! That was it, security. A piece of +ground that belonged to them, on which they could plant their feet, +permanency.</p> + +<p>In answer to that cry for land there came another proclamation from the +President, Theodore Roosevelt. Another great tract of land, the great +Rosebud Indian Reservation, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>with a million acres of homesteads, was to +be thrown open. A lottery with 1500 square miles of territory as the +sweepstakes and 100,000 people playing its wheel of fortune. Trying to +describe its size and sweep and significance, I find myself, in the +vernacular of the range, plumb flabbergasted.</p> + +<p>Of course, there were some among the homesteaders on the Lower Brulé who +found the grass greener on the Rosebud, and wanted to throw up their +claims and move on to new ground; but the government informed them, +somewhat grimly, that they could prove up where they were, or not at +all. And I can understand their restlessness. To this day I never hear +of some new frontier being developed without pricking up my ears and +quivering like a circus horse when he hears a band play. There are some +desert products that can't be rooted out—sagebrush and cactus and the +hold of the open spaces.</p> + +<p>The Rosebud Opening was one of the most famous lotteries of them all. +The Rosebud reservation lay in Tripp County, across White River from the +Brulé. Its conversion into homesteads meant an immediate income for the +United States Treasury, but according to a recent law, all monies +received from the sale of the lands were to be deposited to the credit +of the Indians belonging to and having tribal rights on the reservation, +the funds thus acquired to be used by Congress for the education, +support and civilization of the Indians.</p> + +<p>The name Rosebud was emblazoned across the nation, after the government +proclamation, in the newspapers, in railroad pamphlets, on public +buildings. As usual, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>railroads played a major part in aiding +prospective settlers to reach the registration points, a half-dozen +little western villages.</p> + +<p>The frontier town of Pierre had been unprepared for the avalanche of +people who had descended upon it during the Lower Brulé opening. Service +and equipment had been inadequate. In the great Bonesteel Opening a few +years earlier, gambling and lawlessness had run riot. Therefore +Superintendent Witten formulated and revised the drawing system, +endeavoring to work out the most suitable plan for disposing of these +tracts so that there might be no suggestion of unfairness.</p> + +<p>Railroads traversing the West had already begun to extend their lines +still farther into the little-populated section, starting new towns +along their lines, running landseekers' excursions in an effort to show +the people what this country had to offer them.</p> + +<p>In preparation for the Rosebud Opening they prepared for the influx of +people on a gigantic scale, made ready to take whole colonies from +various sections of the East and Middle West to the reservation.</p> + +<p>Among the registration points was the little town of Presho. A crude, +unfinished little town, with a Wild West flavor about it, Presho +couldn't help doing things in a spectacular fashion. Like most hurriedly +built frontier towns, there was little symmetry to it—two irregular +rows of small business places, most of them one-story structures, with +other shops and offices set back on side streets. Its houses were set +hit-and-miss, thickly dotting the prairie around its <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span>main street. Two +years before, it had been merely an unsettled stretch of prairie.</p> + +<p>Then the Milwaukee railroad platted the town, bringing out carloads of +people to the auction. Two men, named Dirks and Sedgwick, paid $500 for +the first lot, on which to start a bank. That was $480 more than the +list price.</p> + +<p>They had a little building like a sheep wagon, or a cook shack, on +wheels, which they rolled onto the lot. Within eight minutes the bank +was open for business. The first deposit, in fact, was made while the +sheep-wagon bank rolled along. Two barrels and a plank served as a +counter.</p> + +<p>The two founders had the necessary $5000 capital, and when the cashier +went to dinner he took all the money with him, with two six-shooters for +protection. He was never robbed. For two years, during the land boom, +the bank had not closed, day or night.</p> + +<p>Locators coming in, in the middle of the night, from their long trips +over the territory, would knock on the door in the back end of the bank. +The banker would open the door a crack, stick his gun out and demand, +"Who's there?"</p> + +<p>"It's Kimball. Got a bunch of seekers here. They have to catch the train +east."</p> + +<p>The locator or other person wanting to transact business after the +banker had gone to bed had to identify himself before the door was +opened. When the homestead movement of that region was at its height, +thousands of dollars passed over the board-and-barrel counter in the +bank's night-time business.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>"The Rosebud has been throwed open!" went the cry. The entire western +country made ready for the invasion of the landseekers. The government +red tape for the lottery, with its various registration points, would +require a small army to handle. It was one of the most gigantic +governmental programs ever known. Notaries had to be appointed to take +care of the affidavits, land locators selected to show the seekers the +land, accommodations provided for the 115,000 who registered in that +Drawing.</p> + +<p>Even the Brulé was crowded with people ready to play their luck in the +land lottery. Every available corner was utilized for sleeping space, +and the store at Ammons did a record business that would help pay the +wholesale bills at Martin's store. Ida Mary was busy taking care of +postal duties, handling increased mail, government notices, etc.</p> + +<p>During the summer our financial condition had gone from bad to worse.</p> + +<p>"Do you know those Ammons girls?" one native westerner asked another. +"Came out from St. Louis, about as big as my Annie (Annie was about +twelve); head wranglers out on the Lower Brulé, newspaper, trading post, +whole works."</p> + +<p>"Well, they'll last till their money is gone."</p> + +<p>And it was about gone! "What are we going to do to meet these payments, +Edith?" Ida Mary asked one day in a breathing spell. There wasn't enough +money to pay for groceries, printing equipment, interest, etc.</p> + +<p>If we could only hold on, the proof notices would bring in $2000 or +more, which was big money out there. But the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span>proof season was almost a +year ahead, and the money had already been pledged.</p> + +<p>Profit and loss! My head ached. I felt as though I had been hit on the +head by 200 square miles of Brulé sod. Ma Wagor offered us a way out of +one of our difficulties. She'd always wanted a store. She liked the +"confusement." So we turned the store over to the Wagors', lock, stock +and barrel—prunes and molasses, barrels of coal-oil and vinegar, +padlocks on the doors. They had no money, but Ma wanted it as much as we +wanted to be rid of it, so it was a satisfactory deal. They were to pay +us on a percentage basis. We still had a claim, a post office and a +newspaper to manage, and the Indian trade to handle.</p> + +<p>"It looks as though the Ammons venture is going under," people were +beginning to say. I went to Presho and the small towns near by, and, +somewhat to my own surprise, succeeded in getting more advertising for +<i>The Wand</i>. But it wasn't enough.</p> + +<p>One night I came home, determined that something must be done. The whole +arrangement seemed to me unfair to Ida Mary. "Sister," I said, "I'm +going to give up the claim."</p> + +<p>She quietly put down her book, open so as not to lose the page, and +waited for me to go on.</p> + +<p>"I told Mr. West today that we would sell. I am going to pay off the +mortgage on your homestead, clean up the other debts, and—"</p> + +<p>"And then what?"</p> + +<p>"I don't know."</p> + +<p>"Don't give up your land, Edith. Something will <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>happen. Something +always happens." She went back to her book.</p> + +<p>Something did happen. The Rosebud Opening. I was to cover it for a +western newspaper syndicate, and this time I had the inside track. Being +familiar with the field and with the government lottery operations, I +would be able to get my stories out while other reporters were finding +out what it was all about.</p> + +<p>Remembering the money I had made with the little verses printed on a +postcard at the Brulé Opening, I prepared another on the Rosebud, with +the cartoonist from Milwaukee helping me by making drawings to +illustrate it. Then, armed with the postcards, I set off for Presho—and +the Rosebud.</p> + +<p>On a Sunday night in early October, 1908, I stood on a corner of the +dark main street of Presho waiting for the Rosebud to open. I had +appointed agents to handle my postcards and I was free to cover the +story. Special trains loaded with landseekers were coming. The confusion +of last-minute preparations to receive them was at its height.</p> + +<p>I found Presho as mad as a hornet. The Milwaukee railroad had taken the +turntable out, and special trains coming in from Chicago and other +points east must thus go on to the next town to turn around. This was +bound to cut into Presho's share of the crowds. As long as the town had +been the turning point of the road, it was one of the greatest trade +centers in that part of the West.</p> + +<p>The lottery was to start Monday, which meant the stroke of midnight. The +little town was ready, its dark streets lighted here and there by +flaring arc lights. Up and down <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>Main Street, and out over the fields, +tents had been erected to take care of the crowd.</p> + +<p>And the trains were coming in, unloading their human cargo. Others +poured in by every conceivable means of transportation, invading the +little frontier town, the only spot of civilization in the vast, bare +stretch of plains. Presho woke to find a great drove of tenderfeet +stampeding down its little Main Street. They thundered down the board +sidewalk and milled in the middle of the road, kicking up dust like a +herd of range cattle as they went.</p> + +<p>Aside from the great tents put up by some of the towns for lodging and +eating quarters, small tents dotted the outskirts. People were bringing +their own camping equipment, and I might add that only those who had +such foresight, slept during those turbulent days.</p> + +<p>The daily train was an event in these frontier towns, its coming watched +by most of the inhabitants. Now five and six a day roared in, spilled +500 to 800 passengers into the packed streets, and roared away again. As +the heavily loaded trains met or passed each other along the route the +excited crowds called jovially to one another, "Suckers! Suckers!" With +but 4000 claims, the chance to win was slim.</p> + +<p>On the station platform, in the thick of the crowds, were the Indians. +After all, it appeared, they were learning from the white man. This time +they had come in an enlightened and wholly commercial spirit. Brave in +paint and feathers and beads, they strolled about, posing for the +landseekers—for 50 cents a picture.</p> + +<p>A maze of last-minute activity was under way before the stroke of +midnight. Telephone companies installed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>additional equipment and +service. Telegraph wires were being strung up. Expert men were being +rushed out from Kansas City and Omaha to take care of the flood of words +that would soon go pouring out to the nation—telling the story of the +gamble for land.</p> + +<p>A magazine editor, notebook in hand, moved from one group of seekers to +another, asking: "Do you think Taft will be elected?" He didn't seem to +be getting far. On the eve of a presidential election a people was +turning to the soil for security. "Do you think Taft will be elected?" +the editor repeated patiently. "Who gives a damn?" shouted a steel +worker from Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>A train lumbered in heavily from Chicago, fourteen coaches, crowded to +standing room only, men and women herded and tagged like sheep. They +stumbled out onto the dark platform, jostled among the mob already +assembled, exhausted, dirty, half-asleep, yet shaking with excitement. +That high-pitched excitement, of course, was partly due to strain and +suspense, partly to the gambling spirit in which the lottery was carried +out. But for the most part the crowd generated its own excitement +through its great numbers and consequent rivalry, as it entered the dark +streets with their glaring lights, the mad confusion of shouting and +band playing.</p> + +<p>They came from Chicago and jerkwater towns in Nebraska, from farms and +steel mills, from the stage and the pulpit. School teachers and farm +boys, clerks and stenographers, bookkeepers and mechanics, business men +and lawyers. Perhaps the most significant thing was the presence of +those business men, often coming in whole groups to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>study the country +and its possibilities, to be on hand when the town sites were opened, to +be the first to start businesses on the Rosebud.</p> + +<p>On the Brulé there had been nothing but the land. Here the plows, the +farm implements, salesmen of every conceivable commodity needed by +settlers, were on hand. These people were to start with supplies in +sight, with business organizing in advance to handle their problems, +with capital waiting for their needs.</p> + +<p>And they came by the thousands. From Chicago alone there came one group +of 3000 seekers. "Move on," came the endless chant. "Move on!" It didn't +matter where, so long as they kept moving, making way for new mobs of +restless people. "Move on!"</p> + +<p>Wires were clicking with news from the other registration points. +Presho, to its fury, couldn't compare with some of the other towns. The +little town of Dallas had gone stark mad. Thirty-four carloads of +seekers were due in these villages between midnight and morning. They +were coming from every direction, bringing, along with the individual +seekers, whole groups of New England farmers, Iowa business men, an +organization of clerks from Cleveland, and from everywhere the +ruddy-faced farmers.</p> + +<p>Over the uproar of the crowd could be heard the sharp staccato click of +the telegraph wires. Special trains were coming from Omaha, came the +news. The police force had tried to keep the crowds from smothering each +other, but they had torn down the gate of the station and rushed +through, afraid to be left behind.</p> + +<p>Runners came overland across the empty Rosebud to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>carry the news from +the little towns, riding hell-for-leather, their horses foaming although +the night was cold. "You ought to see Dallas, folks! People lighting +like grasshoppers.... You ought to see Gregory!" The rivalry was bitter +among the towns, each trying to corner as much of the crowd as possible.</p> + +<p>Presho was sending out word vehemently denying the reports that an +epidemic of black smallpox had broken out there.</p> + +<p>Men representing everything from flop tents to locating agents boarded +trains en route, trying to persuade the seekers to register at their +respective towns. And all of them were bitter against the railroads, +which were furnishing return accommodations every few hours, giving the +tradesmen little chance to make their fortunes, as many of them had +confidently expected to do.</p> + +<p>Automobiles, many bought for the occasion, lined the streets of these +border towns, ready to take the seekers over the land—if they stayed +long enough. It surprised the easterners, this evidence of modernity in +a pioneer world. And here and there a new automobile parked beside a +prairie schooner.</p> + +<p>Curiously enough, the price of the land distributed by the Openings was +higher than that of vast tracts of untouched land in the West which was +also available to the public, and yet attention was concentrated solely +on the Rosebud; the desire for land there was at fever heat, while other +land was regarded with apathy. Whether this was due to the fact that the +other land was little known, or to the madness that attends any gambling +operation and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span>intensive advertising which had called attention to +the Rosebud, I do not know.</p> + +<p>But this land was not free. For these Indian lands the government +charged from $2.00 to $6.00 an acre, according to classification. Thus +160 acres of first-class land would cost the homesteader around a +thousand dollars—one-fifth down, the rest in annual payments under the +five-year proof plan. If he made commutation proof in fourteen months, +the minimum residence required, he must then make payment in full.</p> + +<p>The hours wore on toward midnight and the crowd grew denser. "Move on," +droned the chant. "Move on!" The editor had turned the page of his +notebook and spoke to one of the women landseekers. "Are you a +suffragette?" he asked politely. Pushing back an elbow that had grazed +her cheek, pulling her hat firmly over her head, clutching her handbag +firmly, she looked at him, wonderingly. "Are you—" he began again, but +someone shouted "Move on," and the woman disappeared in the throng.</p> + +<p>At the stroke of midnight a cry went up from the registrars. At 12:01 +under the dim flicker of coal-oil lanterns and torches hung on posts or +set on barrels and boxes, that most famous of lotteries began.</p> + +<p>The uproar and confusion of the hours before midnight were like a desert +calm compared with the clamor which broke out. Registrars lined both +sides of the street. "Right this way, folks! Here you are, here you are! +Register right here!" And there, on rough tables, on dry-goods boxes, +anything upon which a piece of paper could be filled out and a notary +seal stamped thereon, the crowd put in their applications as entries in +the gamble, raised their right <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>hands and swore: "I do solemnly swear +that I honestly desire to enter public lands for my own personal use as +a home and for settlement and cultivation, and not for speculation or in +the interest of some other person...."</p> + +<p>In the excitement and chill of the October night, fingers shook so that +they could scarcely hold a pen. Commissioned notaries were getting 25 +cents a head from the applicants. Real estate offices were jammed.</p> + +<p>In between the registration stands were the hot-dog and coffee booths +with the tenders yelling, while thick black coffee flowed into tin cups +by the barrel, and sandwiches were handed out by the tubful. Popcorn and +peanut venders pushed through the crowd crying their wares. And among +the voices were those of the agents who were selling my postcards, +selling them like liniment in a patent-medicine show.</p> + +<p>Spielers shouted the virtues of the food or drink or tent or land +locator they were advertising. Even the notaries got megaphones to +announce their services—until government authorities stepped in and +threatened to close them all up.</p> + +<p>Into the slits in the huge cans which held the applications dropped a +surprising number of items. People became confused and used it as a mail +box, dropping in souvenir cards. One applicant even dropped in his +return fare. And some, shaking uncontrollably with excitement, were +barely able to drop their applications in at all.</p> + +<p>And somewhere, off in the dark spaces beyond the flickering lights, lay +the million acres of land for which the horde was clamoring, its quiet +sleep unbroken.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span>There was a sharp tug at my arm, and I turned to see the reporter from +Chicago who had filed on the Brulé Opening.</p> + +<p>"I'm trying my luck again," he said.</p> + +<p>So he had not won in the Brulé lottery. Somehow I was glad to know that +was the reason for his not being on a claim there.</p> + +<p>Sensing this, he said grimly: "So you thought I was a quitter."</p> + +<p>As we clung to each other to keep from being separated in the hysterical +mob, I heard his hollow cough.</p> + +<p>"Are you ill?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"It's this crowd and the dust—my lungs—got to come west—"</p> + +<p>I grabbed him by the coat sleeve, trying to make my voice carry above +the ballyhoo. "If you do not win here, come and see me. I can get you a +claim." The swaying throng separated us.</p> + +<p>I rushed to the telegraph office and sent off my story. As I started +back I stopped to look upon the little town which had been started at +the end of the iron trail, revealed in the light of torches against a +black sky, and at the faces, white and drawn and tense.</p> + +<p>Move on! Move on! At 4 o'clock that Monday morning, four hours after +arrival, the landseekers who had registered were on the road back to +Chicago and all points east, many of them carrying in one hand a chunk +of sod and in the other a tuft of grass—tangible evidence that they had +been on the land. And other trains were rushing out, carrying more +people. I boarded a returning special which was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span>packed like a freight +train full of range cattle, men and women travel-stained, tired and +hollow-eyed, but geared up by hope.</p> + +<p>I got off at Chamberlain. The rumors had been correct. That seething mob +at Presho was only the spray cast by the tidal wave. At Chamberlain +long, heavily loaded trains pulled in and out. People walked ten and +twelve abreast through the streets. Some 30,000 strangers besieged that +frontier town. A mob of 10,000 tried to fill out application blanks, +tried to get something to eat and drink, some place to sleep. While the +saloons were overrun, there was little drunkenness. No man could stand +at the bar long enough to get drunk. If he managed to get one drink, or +two at most, he was pushed aside before he could get another—to make +room for someone else. Move on! Move on!</p> + +<p>The stockmen were shocked. They had not dreamed of anything like this +invasion. Their range was going and they owned none, or little, of the +land. The old Indians looked on, silent and morose.</p> + +<p>Hotels, locating agents, all the First Chance and Last Chance saloons +became voluntary distributors of my postcards. It looked as though I too +were going to reap a harvest from the Rosebud Opening.</p> + +<p>And they continued to come! Within four days 60,000 people had made +entry, and the trains continued to pull in and out, loaded to the doors. +Unlike the Lower Brulé Opening, there was no dreary standing in line for +hours, even days, at a time. The seekers passed down the line like +rapidly inspected herds.</p> + +<p>And among them, inevitably, came the parasites who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>live on +crowds—gamblers, crooks, sharks, pickpockets, and the notorious women +who followed border boom towns. The pioneer towns were outraged, and +every citizen automatically became a peace officer, shipping the crooks +out as fast as they were discovered. They wouldn't, they declared +virtuously, tolerate anything but "honest" gambling. And their own +gambling rooms continued to run twenty-four hours a day.</p> + +<p>In spite of precautions, not a few of the trusting folk from farms and +small towns to whom this event was a carnival affair found themselves +shorn like sheep at shearing time before they knew what was happening. +One farm boy lost not only all his money but his fine team and wagon as +well. A carnival it was, of course, in some respects. Amusement stands, +in tents or shacks, lined the streets and never closed. Warnings came by +letter to Superintendent Witten, describing crooks who were on their way +to the Rosebud.</p> + +<p>Motion pictures ran day and night, their ballyhoo added to the outcries +of the other barkers. And the registration never stopped. Clerks and +others employed as assistants by the government were hired in four-hour +shifts. Post offices stayed open all night.</p> + +<p>The government's headquarters were at Dallas, with a retinue of +officials in charge. Thus the little town at the end of the North +Western Railroad was the Mecca of that lottery. There the hysterical mob +spirit appeared. And one day in the midst of the Opening, a prairie fire +broke out, sweeping at forty miles an hour over the land the people had +come to claim, sweeping straight toward Dallas. The whole town <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>turned +out to fight it—it had to. The Indians pitched in to help. And the +tenderfeet, including reporters and photographers from the big city +newspapers, turned fire fighters, fighting to save the town.</p> + +<p>In spite of their efforts the fire reached the very borders of the town, +destroying a few buildings. And at the sight of the flames the +government employees caught up the great cans which contained the +seekers' applications for the land and rushed them out of town toward +safety. That day the cans contained 80,000 applications.</p> + +<p>That great, black, charred area extending for miles over the prairie put +a damper on the spirits of the locating agents. But these people had +come for land, and they were not to be daunted. All over the great +reservation groups could be seen investigating the soil, digging under +the fire-swept surface, driving on into the regions of tall grass and +scattered fields bordering the Rosebud. They were hoping to win a piece +of that good earth.</p> + +<p>As the close of the registration drew near, the excitement was +intensified. Letters to Superintendent Witten poured in, asking him to +hold back claims for people who were unable to register. The +registration closed on October 17, 1908. No registrations would be +accepted after a certain hour. Captain Yates, assistant superintendent +of the Opening, started from O'Neill, Nebraska, bearing the applications +from that registration point. So that there would be no danger of his +not reaching the town of Dallas with the applications before the +deadline, a special train was waiting for him. In his excitement Captain +Yates rushed past the men waiting for him, crossed the track where his +special <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>was getting up steam, and took a train going the wrong way! +Telegrams, another special train, cleared tracks—and he was finally +able to rush in with his applications at the last moment.</p> + +<p>Others were not so fortunate. Tired horses, a missed train connection, +some unforeseen delay, and they arrived an hour, half an hour, perhaps +only a few minutes after the registration had closed. Too late!</p> + +<p>Oddly enough, one of the last to register was the foreman of the U Cross +Ranch, who came galloping across the prairie at the last moment to make +his application for a homestead. And when a ranchman turned to +homesteading, that was news!</p> + +<p>On October 19 the Drawing began. The government saw that every +precaution must be taken to make sure of fair play; any suspicion of +illegality might cause an uprising of the mob of a hundred thousand +excited, disappointed people.</p> + +<p>The great cans were pried open, and the applications put onto large +platforms, where they were shuffled and mixed—symbolically enough with +rakes and hoes—for it was quarter-sections of land they were handling.</p> + +<p>From out the crowd applicants were invited onto the platform, and if one +succeeded in selecting his own name he would be entitled to the first +choice of land and location. Business firms, townsite companies were +making open offers of $10,000 for Claim No. 1. Then two little girls, +blindfolded, drew the sealed envelopes from the deep pile. +Superintendent Witten opened them and announced the names to the crowd +filling the huge tent where the Drawing was held.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>The hushed suspense of that Drawing was like that of a regiment waiting +to go over the top. The noisy excitement of registration was over. The +people waited, tense and breathless, for the numbers to be called. +Ironically enough, a great number of the winners had gone home. They +would be notified by mail, of course. It was largely the losers who had +waited.</p> + +<p>The first winner to be present as his number was called was greeted with +generous applause and cheers and demands for a speech. He was a farmer +from Oklahoma, and instead of speaking, he felt in his pockets and held +up, with a rather sheepish smile, a rabbit's foot which he had brought +with him. Press agents stood by, waiting for the outcome. Daily +newspapers printed the official list of the winners as the numbers came +out, and all over the United States people waited for the announcement +of the Rosebud's Lucky Numbers. The Rosebud had been opened up and +swallowed by the advancing wave of people westward. But there was more +land!</p> + +<p>Fred Farraday drove me home from Presho, weary to the bone, and content +to ride without speaking, listening to the steady clop-clop of the +horses over that quiet road on which we did not meet a human being. And +in my pocketbook $400, the proceeds from the sale of the postcards. +Something, as Ida Mary had predicted, had happened.</p> + +<p>Ma Wagor came in from the store. "Land sakes," she exclaimed, "you musta +been through some confusement! You look like a ghost."</p> + +<p>It didn't matter. "I have four hundred dollars. There <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>will be another +hundred or so when the agents finish checking up on the card sales, and +I'll get a check from the News Service. It will pay the bills, and some +left over to help us through the winter. We've saved the claim."</p> + +<p>After a pause I added, "The Lower Brulé seems pretty small after the +Rosebud. I'd like to go over there to start a newspaper."</p> + +<p>"No," said Ida Mary. "You can't do that. Your claim and your newspaper +and your job are here. After all, anyone can file on a claim. It's the +people who stay who build the country."</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="X" id="X"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh11.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 10." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>X<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE HARVEST</h3> +<br /> + +<p>I was pony-expressing the mail home one day when I saw a great eagle, +with wings spread, flying low and circling around as though ready to +swoop upon its prey. It was noon on a late fall day with no sight or +sound of life except that mammoth eagle craftily soaring. I turned off +the trail to follow its flight. It was the kind of day when one must +ride off the beaten trail, when the sun is warm, the air cool and +sparkling; even Lakota seemed like a stodgy animal riveted to the earth, +and the only proper motion was that of an eagle soaring.</p> + +<p>Abruptly the eagle swooped down into the coulee out of sight and came up +a hundred yards or so in front of me, carrying with it a large bulky +object. At the same instant <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>a shot rang out, the eagle fell, and its +bulky prey came down with a thud.</p> + +<p>So intent was I upon the eagle that I was not prepared for what +happened. At the shot Lakota gave a leap to the right and I went off to +the left. I had no more than landed when a rider, whom I had seen lope +up out of the coulee as the eagle fell, had my horse by the bit and was +bending over me.</p> + +<p>"Hurt?" he asked.</p> + +<p>"I don't think so. Just scared," I replied as I got stiffly to my feet. +The soft, thick grass had provided a cushioned landing place and saved +my bones.</p> + +<p>The stranger took a canteen from his saddle and gave me a drink of +water; led the horses up to form a shade against the bright noon sun, +and bade me sit quiet while he went back to see what the eagle had +swooped down upon.</p> + +<p>"A young coyote, just a pup," he announced upon his return. "I'm glad I +got that fellah. They are an awful pest." It was a big bird with an +eight-foot stretch from wing tip to tip as measured by this plainsman's +rule—his hands. "They carry away lambs and attack new-born calves," he +said. "They attack people sometimes, but that is rare."</p> + +<p>He helped me on my horse. "All my fault. Couldn't see you from down in +the coulee when I fired at that bird. You musta just tipped the ridge +from the other side." He reached over, untied the mail bag and tied it +to his saddle.</p> + +<p>"You were going the other way, weren't you?" I protested.</p> + +<p>"No hurry. I'll go back with you first."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>"You don't know where I live, do you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I know," he said laconically. He was a young man—I took him to be +under thirty—with a sort of agile strength in every movement. Lean, +virile, his skin sunburnt and firm. He wore a flannel shirt open at the +throat, buckskin chaps, a plainsman's boots, and his sombrero was worn +at an angle. He made no attempt to be picturesque as did many of the +range riders.</p> + +<p>As the horses started off at an easy gallop he checked them. "Better go +slow after that shake-up," he said quietly.</p> + +<p>"I must hurry," I answered. "I'm late with the mail."</p> + +<p>"These homesteaders are always in a rush. Shore amusin'. Act like the +flood would be here tomorrow and no ark built." He spoke in a soft, +southern drawl.</p> + +<p>"They have to do more than build an ark," I told him. "They have to make +time count. The country is too new to accomplish anything easily."</p> + +<p>"Too old, you mean. These plains have been hyar too long for a little +herd of humans to make 'em over in a day."</p> + +<p>"We have fourteen months to do it in," I reminded him, referring to the +revised proving-up period.</p> + +<p>"You'll be mighty sore and stiff for a few days," he said as he laid the +mail sack down on the floor; "sorry, miss, I scared your horse," and +touching his ten-gallon hat he was gone.</p> + +<p>"Where did <i>he</i> hail from?" Ma Wagor demanded from the store where she +had been watching.</p> + +<p>"He's not from Blue Springs, Ma."</p> + +<p>"I declare you are as tormentin' as an Indian when it comes to finding +out things," Ma exclaimed in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>disappointment. She couldn't understand +how I could have ridden any distance with the man without learning all +about his present, guessing at his past, and disposing of his future to +suit myself. People, as Ma frequently pointed out, were made to be +talked to.</p> + +<p>Just before sunset one day a week or so later I was sitting in the shop +when the cowboy walked in. "Got to thinkin' you might be hurt worse than +you appeared to be." He said he was top hand, had charge of a roundup +outfit over in the White River country some fifty miles away, and some +of the stock had roamed over on the reservation. Name was Lone +Star—Lone Star Len.</p> + +<p>And then one gray, chilly day in November, with the first feathery +snowflakes, he rode up on his cow pony to say good-by. He was leaving +the country, taking a bunch of cattle down to Texas for winter range. He +was glad to be going. "Don't see how folks can live huddled up with +somebody on every quarter-section. Homesteaders is ruinin' the country, +makin' it a tore-up place to live. It's too doggone lonesome with all +this millin' around."</p> + +<p>When the Brulé became populated, Lone Star Len had gone into the empty +Rosebud country, "where I'm not hemmed in by people, some place where +there's a little room." Now he would be driven on—and on. And in the +spring there would be a new influx of people in our section of the +frontier.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, fall had come. The plains, which had stretched to the horizon +that spring untouched by a plow, unoccupied by white men, were now +unrecognizable. A hundred thousand acres of fertile waste land had been +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span>haltered. Hundreds of settlers had transplanted their roots into this +soil and had made it a thriving dominion. Fall rains filled the dams and +creeks. There were potatoes and other vegetables in abundance.</p> + +<p>Think of it! Caves full of melons, small but sweet. <i>The Wand</i> told of +one small field that yielded twenty bushels of wheat, another twenty-two +bushels of oats, to the acre. There was fall plowing of more ground, +schools being established, Sunday schools, preparations for the winter +already in progress.</p> + +<p>Never had a raw primitive land seen such progress in so short a time. +And <i>The Wand</i> had played a substantial part in this development. It was +swamped with letters of inquiry.</p> + +<p>Fall was roundup time on the range. The Indian lands were so +far-reaching that there were no nearby ranches, but the herds ranged +over miles of territory around us.</p> + +<p>And across the fence, on the unceded strip, the great herds of Scotty +Phillips's outfit roamed over his own and the Indians' holdings. Across +the plains came the ceaseless bawling of thousands of cows and calves +being separated. That wild, mad, pitiful bawling rent the air and could +be heard through the stillness of night for miles around, and the +yelling and whooping of cowboys, the stamping of cow ponies and herds, +the chanting and tom-toms of the Indians.</p> + +<p>And enveloping it all, the infinite plains, unmoved, undisturbed by all +that was taking place upon them.</p> + +<p>So the homesteaders gathered their first harvest, and the goose hung +high. There was hay—great stacks and ricks of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span>it. Piles of yellow corn +stacked like hay in barbed-wire enclosures or in granaries. To +commemorate that first golden harvest, the pilgrims of the Lower Brulé +celebrated their first Thanksgiving.</p> + +<p>Seeing the stacks of grain that stood ready for threshing or for feeding +in the straw, old man Husmann pointed to the field. "Mein Gott in +Himmel! Vat I tell you? Das oats made t'irty bushels an acre. And flax. +Mein Gott! She grow on raw land like hair on a hog's back. Back in Ioway +we know notings about flax for sod crop." Dakota taught the United +States that flax was the ideal sod crop.</p> + +<p>The average yield of oats with late and slipshod sowing had been around +fifteen bushels to the acre. Some fields of spring wheat had run fifteen +bushels. And potatoes had fairly cracked the ground open. One settler, +an experienced potato grower, had four acres that yielded 300 bushels. +<i>The Wand</i> played that up in headlines for easterners to see.</p> + +<p>Late-ripened melons lay on the ground, green and yellow—watermelons, +muskmelons, golden pumpkins ready for the Thanksgiving pie. Over the +Strip women and children were gathering them in against a sudden freeze. +The reservation fairly subsisted on melons that fall. Before the harvest +the rations had been getting slim, with the settlers' money and food +supply running low.</p> + +<p>Women dried corn, made pumpkin butter and watermelon pickles, and put up +chokecherries. A number of them had grown in their gardens a fruit they +called ground cherries. This winter there would be baked squash and +pumpkin pie.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span>So there was food for man and beast. And Scotty Phillips who owned what +was said to be the largest buffalo herd in America killed a buffalo and +divided it among the settlers, as far as it would go, to add to the +Thanksgiving cheer of the Brulé. There was a genuine sense of fruition +about that first harvest. Looking back to the empty plains as they had +stretched that spring, the accomplishments of the homesteaders in one +brief summer were overwhelming. There had been nothing but the land. Now +a community had grown up, with houses and schools, and the ground had +yielded abundantly.</p> + +<p>In other ways our efforts had also borne fruit. There was to be a new +bridge at Cedar Creek. From the fight <i>The Wand</i> had carried on, one +would think that we were boring a Moffat tunnel through the Great +Divide. And <i>The Wand</i> fought a successful battle with John Bartine over +county division. It had come about when Senator Phillips came by one day +during the summer on his way from Pierre to his ranch. "Scotty" +Phillips, senator, cattleman and business man, was one of the Dakotas' +most influential citizens. A heavyset man he was, with an unconscious +dignity and a strong, kindly face; a squaw man—his wife was a +full-blooded Indian who had retained many of her tribal habits. One day +one would see the Senator ride past in his big automobile, and the next +day his wife would go by, riding on the floor of the wagon on the way to +the reservation to visit her relatives.</p> + +<p>"I stopped in to see if you wanted to go to the county division meeting +tomorrow at Presho," Senator Phillips said. "It's a rather important +matter to the settlers. <i>The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>Wand</i> will represent those of the Lower +Brulé, of course."</p> + +<p>What was county division? We set out the next morning to find out. The +county, it appeared, was becoming so thickly settled that the people of +the western part wanted it divided, with a county seat of their own. We +learned that Lyman County covered approximately 2500 square miles and +the settlers of the extreme western part were 110 miles from the county +seat, with no means of transportation. It sounded reasonable enough, and +<i>The Wand</i> backed those who wanted county division.</p> + +<p>The speaker for that little meeting was a slight and unassuming young +man who was greeted with cheers.</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" I asked Senator Phillips.</p> + +<p>"Why that," he said, "is John Bartine!"</p> + +<p>John Bartine was one of the most noted and romantic figures of the +western plains. He had come west with a few law books packed in his +trunk and no money, a young tenderfoot lawyer. He almost starved waiting +for a case. There were no law cases, no real legal difficulties but +cattle rustling, and nothing, apparently, that an inexperienced young +easterner could do about that. But he persuaded stockmen who were being +wiped out by the depredations of the rustlers to let him take their +cases against these outlaw gangs. He had himself elected judge so that +he could convict the thieves. And he had convicted them right and left +until a band of rustlers burned down the courthouse in retaliation. But +he kept on fighting, at the risk of his own life, until at last that +part of the country became safe for the cattlemen.</p> + +<p>After we had heard him talk we discovered that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>county division +problem was not as simple as it appeared at first. It wasn't merely a +problem of dividing territory; division would increase the taxes, the +non-divisionists said.</p> + +<p>We hadn't thought of that. One did not pay taxes on the land, of course, +until he got his deed, but there were other taxes to be paid, and the +homesteaders felt they were developing resources for the nation at their +own expense.</p> + +<p>I did not know how to carry on a campaign like that, but <i>The Wand</i> put +facts and figures before the settlers, to bring the situation clearly +before them and let them do the deciding. When a frontier newspaper ran +out of something to do, it could always enter a county division fight, +as there were always counties to be divided as soon as they were settled +up, many of them larger than our smaller New England States. And, so far +as my own district was concerned, I had won this first battle with Judge +Bartine. But the fight against the measure was so strong that Lyman +County was not divided for several years.</p> + +<p>Although the settlers had not been on the Brulé long enough to vote, +office seekers kept coming through, asking the indorsement of <i>The +Wand</i>. "It's no wonder the men we elect to run things make such a fizzle +when they get into office," Ma Wagor snorted one day with impatience; +"they wear themselves plumb out getting there."</p> + +<p>Old Porcupine Bear, wise man and prophet, warned us that it would be a +hard winter, and the plainsmen agreed that it was a humdinger. I asked +the wise old Indian how he could foretell the winter. "By food on shrub +and tree," he said, "heap plenty; the heavy coat of the animals; the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>bear and squirrel storing heap much for eat, and the bear he get ready +go sleep early." And so the winter came on us.</p> + +<p>The dams froze over and the Strip was a great white expanse which +appeared level at first sight but was beautifully undulating. Now there +was a shack on every quarter-section, which appeared black in relief +against the white. The atmosphere did curious things to them. Sometimes +they looked like small dry-goods boxes in the distance, sometimes they +seemed to have moved up to the very door. A coyote off a mile or two, or +a bunch of antelope running along a ridge in the distance, appeared to +be just across the trail.</p> + +<p>In the mornings we cut a hole in the ice of our dam to dip out the water +for household use, and then led the livestock down to drink. And at +night we went skating on the larger dams, with the stars so large and +near it seemed one could reach up and touch them, and no sound on the +sleeping prairie but the howling of a pack of wolves down in the next +draw.</p> + +<p>But there were tracks on the white floor of earth, tracks of the living +things which inhabit the silent areas and which had stealthily traveled +across the plains, sometimes tracks of the larger wild beasts, and +everywhere jack rabbits squatted deep in the snow.</p> + +<p>The majority of the settlers wintered in little paper-shell hovels, of +single thin board walls, the boards often sprung apart and cracked by +the dry winds; a thin layer of tar paper outside and a layer of building +paper on the inside, which as a rule was stretched across the studding +to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>provide insulation between the wall and lining. Some of these paper +linings were thin and light, the average settler having to buy the +cheapest grade he could find.</p> + +<p>We got along fairly well unless the wind blew the tar paper off. There +was not a tree, not a weather-break of any kind for protection. +Sometimes the wind, coming in a clean sweep, would riddle the tar paper +and take it in great sheets across the prairie so fast no one could +catch up with it. The covering on our shack had seen its best days and +went ripping off at the least provocation. With plenty of fuel one could +get along fairly well unless the tar paper was torn off in strips, +leaving the cracks and knotholes open. Then we had to stop up the holes +with anything we had, and patch the paper as best we could.</p> + +<p>We had our piano out there that winter and Ida Mary bought a heating +stove for the front room. "The Ammons girls are riding high," some of +the settlers said good-naturedly. But when the stove, the cheapest +listed in the mail-order catalog, arrived, Ida Mary cried with +disappointment and then began to laugh. It was so small we could not +tell whether it was a round heater or a bulge in the stovepipe. With it +the temperature of the room ran automatically from roasting to freezing +point unless one kept stoking in fuel.</p> + +<p>In some ways Ida Mary and I remained objects of curiosity. Occasionally +we saw indications of it. There had been a hot Sunday afternoon during +the summer when Ida Mary and I were sitting in the open door of the +shack. A strange cowboy rode up to the door. "Is this the place where +the newspaper and everything is?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span>We told him that it was. He threw one leg over the saddlehorn and fanned +himself with his sombrero, looking us over, gaudy in a red and black +checkered shirt, fringed leather chaps and bright green neckerchief.</p> + +<p>"Well, you ain't the ones I heard about that's runnin' it, are you?" He +seemed puzzled.</p> + +<p>Yes, we were the ones. Anything he wanted?</p> + +<p>"No. I'm a new wrangler over on Bad Horse creek—I come from Montana. +Montana Joe, they call me. And a bunch of the punchers was just a +wondering what you looked like; wanted me to come over and find out," he +admitted candidly.</p> + +<p>"But," and he stared disapprovingly at our slippered feet, "them don't +look like range hoofs to me. They look like Ramblin' Rosie's." Ramblin' +Rosie, it appeared, was a notorious dance-hall girl.</p> + +<p>And about that time a Chicago newspaper came out, carrying a big +headline story, complete with drawings, about our adventures in taming +the frontier. It pictured Ida Mary and me with chaps and six-shooters; +running claim-jumpers off our land and fighting Indians practically +single-handed, plowing the land in overalls, two large, buxom, hardy +girls. In fact, it had us shooting and tearing up the West in general. A +friend sent us a copy and we laughed over it hysterically, marveling at +this transformation of two girls who were both as timid as field mice, +into amazons. We hid it quickly so that no one could see it, and forgot +about it until long afterwards.</p> + +<p>But we weren't the only girls on the plains with problems. A surprising +number of homesteaders were girls who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span>had come alone. They had a +purpose in being there. With the proceeds of a homestead they could +finish their education or go into business.</p> + +<p>Many of these girls came from sheltered homes and settled out in the +wilderness of plains, living alone in little isolated shanties out of +reach of human aid in case of illness or other emergency. They had no +telephones or other means of communication. Some of them had no means of +transportation, walking miles to a neighbor in order to send to town for +a little food or fuel, sometimes carrying buckets of water a mile or two +over the plains. In winter they were marooned for days and nights at a +stretch without a human being to whom they could speak, and nothing but +the bloodcurdling cry of coyotes at night to keep them company.</p> + +<p>They tried to prepare themselves for any situation so that they would +neither starve nor freeze; with books and papers to read and the daily +grinding routine of work to be done on every homestead, where each job +required the effort and time of ten in modern surroundings, they managed +to be contented. But it took courage.</p> + +<p>In spite of the rigors of the winter, the settlers made merry. Our piano +was hauled all over the Strip for entertainments. Barring storms or +other obstacles, it was brought home the next day, perhaps not quite as +good as when it went, but a piano scuffed or off-tune did not matter +compared to the pleasure Ida Mary had that winter, going to parties and +dancing. I did not always go along; my strength didn't seem to stretch +far enough.</p> + +<p>Sometimes a group of homesteaders would drive up to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>the settlement +about sundown in a big bobsled behind four horses, the sled filled with +hay, heavy blankets and hot bricks. We would shut up shop and the whole +staff would crowd into the sled, Imbert tucking Ida Mary in warm and +snug.</p> + +<p>On cold winter evenings, when a gray-white pall encircled the earth like +a mantle of desolation, three or four of the girls were likely to ride +up, each with a bag of cooked food, to spend the night. One never waited +to be invited to a friend's house, but it was a custom of the homestead +country to take along one's own grub or run the risk of going hungry. It +might be the time when the flour barrel was empty. So our guests would +bring a jar of baked beans, a pan of fresh rolls, potato salad or a +dried-apple pie; and possibly a jack rabbit ready baked. Jack rabbit was +the main kind of fresh meat, with grouse in season. We had not as yet +been reduced to eating prairie dog as the Indians did.</p> + +<p>"Breaking winter quarantine," the girls would announce as they rode up.</p> + +<p>Late in the evening we brought in the ladder, opened up the small square +hole in the ceiling, and our guests ascended to the attic. On the floor +next to the hole was a mattress made of clean, sweet, prairie hay. Our +guest climbed the ladder, sat on the edge of the mattress, feet dangling +down through the cubbyhole until she undressed, and then tumbled over +onto the bed. The attic was entirely too low to attempt a standing +posture.</p> + +<p>On one such night with three girls stowed away in the attic, we lay in +bed singing.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>"Hello, hello there," came an urgent call.</p> + +<p>We peered through the frosted window, trying to see through the driving +snow, and made out a man on horseback.</p> + +<p>"I'm on my way to Ft. Pierre and I am lost! I am trying to reach the +Cedar Creek settlement for the night."</p> + +<p>"You can't make it, stranger, if you don't know the country," Ida Mary +called out.</p> + +<p>"Well, what have I struck?" he asked, perplexed.</p> + +<p>"A trading post."</p> + +<p>"A trading post! It sounded like an opera house."</p> + +<p>"We don't know who you are," Ida Mary called through the thin wall of +the shack, "but you can't get on tonight in this snow. Tie your horse in +the hayshed and we will fix you a bed in the store."</p> + +<p>Next morning the girls rolled down the ladder one at a time, clothes in +hand, to dress by the toy stove while Ida Mary and I started the wheels +of industry rolling. When breakfast was ready we called in our strange +guest.</p> + +<p>When he asked for his bill we told him we were not running public +lodgings but that we took in strangers when it was dangerous for them to +go on.</p> + +<p>After that Ida Mary always left a lamp burning low in the kitchen +window, and the little print shop, set on the high tableland, served as +a beacon for travelers who were lost on the plains.</p> + +<p>Many a night stranded strangers sought shelter at the Ammons settlement. +No other trading center in the middle of a reservation was run by girls, +so strangers took it for granted that there were men about, or if they +knew we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>were alone they did not think of our being unarmed in that +country where guns had been the law.</p> + +<p>Once we decided we should have a watchdog around. Ida Mary traded a +bright scarf and some cigarettes for two Indian mongrels. They were lean +and lopeared and starved. The only way they ever would halt an intruder +was by his falling down over them, not knowing they were there. And they +swallowed food like alligators. Van Leshout named them "Eat" and +"Sleep." In indignation Ida Mary returned them to their owners. What was +the matter, they wanted to know. "No barkum, no bitem," Ida Mary +explained, and she tied them firmly to the back of the first Indian +wagon headed for the Indian settlement and gave up the idea of a dog for +protection.</p> + +<p>However, women were probably safer in the homestead section than in any +other part of the country. Women had been scarce there, and they met +with invariable respect wherever they went; it was practically unheard +of for a solitary woman to be molested in any fashion.</p> + +<p>Both men and women came through the Strip that winter looking for +friends or relatives who had claims, or in quest of land. Often they +could get no farther than the print shop by nightfall. And never was any +such person refused food or shelter.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary went around that winter with one of the city boys, though she +still saw Imbert. "We take each other too much for granted," she said. +"I've been dependent upon him for companionship and diversion and help +in many ways. For his sake and mine I must know that it's more than +that."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>I cannot recall that we ever planned ahead of proving up on the claim. +We measured life by proving-up time. Only the dirt farmers planned +ahead. And Ma Wagor—who was an inveterate matchmaker. I can see her +now, driving across the plains, holding her head as high as that of the +spotted pony she drove—a pony which, though blind as a bat, held its +head in the air like a giraffe.</p> + +<p>Often she would stay with us at night. "Pa won't mind. He's got plenty +of biscuit left," she would say; "the cow give two gallons of milk +today, and he's got <i>The Wand</i> and the Blue Springs paper to read—"</p> + +<p>But sometimes, when business had kept her from home for two or three +days, or we needed her, she would gaze out of the window, watching for +him.</p> + +<p>And it got colder. Getting the mail back and forth to the stage line +became a major problem. "It appears to me," said Ma, "like a post office +is as pestiferous a job as a newspaper." But Ma never admitted anything +pestiferous about running the store.</p> + +<p>The post office receipts picked up. Mail bags were jammed with letters +written by the settlers through long, lonely evenings. The profits +helped to pull us through as the newspaper business slumped to almost +nothing during the "holing-in" period. The financial operations of the +trading post, in fact, rose and fell like a Wall Street market.</p> + +<p>We struggled through sharp wintry squalls to the stage line with the +laden sacks of mail, and realized that when the winter really set in we +would never be able to make it. So Dave Dykstra was appointed +mail-carrier. He was a homesteader who taught the McClure school that +winter, a slim, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span>round-shouldered chap, rather frail in physique. Dave +would never set the world on fire, but he would keep it going around +regularly. Blizzard, rain or sun, he came to the post office every +morning those short winter days before it was light. At night Ida Mary, +as postmistress, would lock the mail sack and carry it into the cabin. +In the morning we would hear Dave's sharp-shod horse striking the +hard-frozen ground, and one of us would leap to the icy floor, wrap up +in a heavy blanket, stick our feet into sheep-lined moccasins (some +nights we slept in them), open the door a foot or so, and hold out the +mail bag. Dave would grab it on the run.</p> + +<p>One who has never tried it has no idea what that feat meant in a shell +of a hut with the temperature ten or twenty degrees below zero, freezing +one's breath in the performance. We used to hope Dave would oversleep, +or that his coffee would fail to boil so that we might have a few more +moments to sleep.</p> + +<p>The Indians were always underfoot. The great cold did not keep them +away. Men sauntered around, trading, loafing. Women sat on the floor, +papooses on their backs, beadwork in hand. Our trade was extended to +Indian shawls, blankets, moccasins and furs, for which the post found +ready and profitable markets. Ida Mary became an adept at Indian +trading. By that time we had a smattering of the Sioux language, +although we were never really expert at it. It did not require much to +trade with the Indians.</p> + +<p>Often they turned their horses loose, built campfires and spent the day. +They rolled a prairie dog in the wet earth, roasted it in the fire, and +invited us to eat. They brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span>us <i>shanka</i>, dog meat. There was a time +when we actually swallowed it because we were afraid to refuse. But now +we shook our heads.</p> + +<p>It was wood-hauling season, and women came sitting flat on the back end +of loads. Among the Indian women were a few with primitive intelligence +and wisdom. Others were morose and taciturn.</p> + +<p>Even during the enforced lull of the deep winter there seemed to be much +to do, and the routine duties of the post office and <i>The Wand</i> appeared +to require most of our time. The opportunity to study, to know the +Sioux, was at hand, but we never took advantage of it; like most people, +we were too busy with the little things to see the possibilities around +us. Perhaps Alexander Van Leshout, who made a success of his Indian art, +came to know these people better than any of us. But he was an +artist—and therefore he refused to let the little things clutter up his +life and take his attention from the one thing that was important to +him—seeing clearly and honestly the world about him.</p> + +<p>When the Indians got their government pay, they celebrated with a buying +spree. They were lavish buyers as long as they had a cent, and they +bought the goods that had the most alluring picture on can or box. Ida +Mary would hold up something of staple quality, but they would shake +their heads and turn to something gaudily wrapped.</p> + +<p>Old Two-Hawk and a few others paid their yearly subscriptions to <i>The +Wand</i> every time they got their government allotment. "Your subscription +is already paid," I would explain, but they would shake their heads and +mutter. This was their newspaper, too, the thing that had signs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>and +their own names printed on a machine. They had the right to trade +beadwork or another dollar for it any time they liked.</p> + +<p>Our subscription list looked like a Sioux directory with such names as +Julia Lame Walking Eagle, Maggie Shoots at Head, Afraid of His Horses, +Paul Owns the Fire, and his son, Owns the Fire.</p> + +<p>Our daily visitors were the rank and file of the tribe, although famous +old warriors and medicine men came now and then. The high rulers of the +Brulé, who were among the most reserved and intelligent of all American +Indians, did not come in this manner. But any negotiations between the +Brulé whites and the Brulé red men were made with their Chief and +Council. A few of the Indian warriors and chiefs always would hate the +whites, but the rank and file of the Brulés were enjoying the strange +new life about them. While they saw no advantage in an active life for +themselves, they found activity in others highly entertaining.</p> + +<p>The weather with its dry cold was sometimes deceptive. For several days +we had had urgent business to attend to in Presho, but the weather +prohibited the trip. One morning we awoke to see the sun brilliant on +the snow.</p> + +<p>A lovely day for the long trip, and we hitched the team to a light buggy +so that we might wrap up better. The farther we drove the colder we +became. There was no warmth in that dazzling sun. We huddled down as +near as possible to the hot bricks. We took turns driving, one of us +wrapped up, head and ears beneath the heavy robes.</p> + +<p>On that whole journey we did not meet a soul. We were <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>frozen stiff and +had to have our hands thawed out in cold water when we reached Presho.</p> + +<p>A homesteader living ten miles out stepped into the land office while we +were there.</p> + +<p>"Don't you girls know enough to stay at home on a day like this? I +didn't dare attempt it until I saw you go by. I said to the family, +'There go the Ammons girls,' so I hitched up and started. And here it is +28 below zero."</p> + +<p>The land commissioner said, "Well, you can't depend on the Ammons girls +as a thermometer."</p> + +<p>And the storms came.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="XI" id="XI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh12.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 11." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>XI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE BIG BLIZZARD</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Several miles from Ammons a bachelor gave a venison dinner on his claim +to which a little group of us had gone. About noon it clouded up and no +barometer was needed to tell us that a big storm was on the way. As soon +as we had eaten we started home.</p> + +<p>The sky was ominous. Antelope went fleeting by; a little herd of horses, +heads high, went snorting over the prairie. Coyotes and rabbits were +running to shelter and a drove of cattle belonging to the Phillips ranch +were on a stampede. One could hear them bawling madly.</p> + +<p>The guests had gone to the dinner together in a big wagon and were +delivered to their respective shacks on the way back. We raced the +horses ahead of the storm for a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>mile or two, but it was upon us by the +time we reached Margaret Houlihan's. As we drove on up the draw to the +settlement we saw the chimney of our cabin, consisting of a joint of +stovepipe (the regulation chimney in this country) go flying across the +prairie. And there was not an extra joint of pipe on the place—probably +not one on the reservation, which meant that we would not be able to +build a fire in the house until we could go to Presho or the state +capital for a joint.</p> + +<p>"Hey, whata you goin' to do," exclaimed the young neighbor boy who had +taken us to the dinner. "You can't live in your shack through the storm +that's comin' without a fire."</p> + +<p>"We have a monkey-stove in the store," Ida Mary told him. He shook his +head, but before hurrying home he scooped up a few buckets of coal we +had on hand and took it into the store, and watered and fed the horses, +knowing we might not be able to reach them until the blizzard had +passed. "That all the fuel you got?" he demanded.</p> + +<p>"A settler went to town this morning to get coal for us."</p> + +<p>"But he can't get back until the storm is over. How you goin' to manage? +No fire in your shack? No fuel for the monkey-stove?"</p> + +<p>"We'll be all right," we assured him. He was not convinced, but he dared +not linger. He had to get home while he could still find the way.</p> + +<p>In thirty minutes we were completely shut in by the lashing force of +wind and snow that swept across the plains in a blinding rage. Ma Wagor +and Kathryn, our typesetter, had gone home and we were alone, Ida Mary +and I. We <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>built up a hot fire in the monkey-stove, which sat in the +middle of the store building and was used for heating both store and +print shop. From canned goods on the shelf, baked beans and corned beef, +we prepared a sketchy supper, and ate on the counter.</p> + +<p>Although it had been without heat only a few hours, the shack was +already like an iceberg, and we were shaking with cold by the time we +managed to drag the couch out of it, with a mighty effort, and into the +store. It was warm there, and we lay safe under warm blankets listening +tranquilly to the storm hurling its strength furiously against the frail +defense of the little store, the shriek of the wind, the beating of the +snow on the roof. It must be horrible to be out in it, we thought, +pleasantly aware of protection and warmth and safety.</p> + +<p>Next morning there was a real old-time blizzard raging. We could barely +see the outline of the shack ten feet from the store; the rest of the +world was blotted out and the wind roared like an incoming tide as the +snow and sleet pelted like shot on the low roof. A primeval force drove +the storm before it. All over the plains people were hemmed in tar-paper +shacks, the world diminished for them to the dimensions of their +thin-walled houses, as alone as though each were the only dweller on the +prairie.</p> + +<p>The team, Fan and Bill, and Lakota were the only horses tied up in the +hay barn. They could reach the hay and eat snow for water. There would +be plenty of snow. Our menagerie of Indian plugs, including Pinto, was +loose on the plains; but they were accustomed to battling storms in the +open and there were haystacks now to provide food and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span>shelter. +Somewhere in the open they were standing, huddled together, facing the +onslaught of the storm.</p> + +<p>The west end wall of the flimsy ell print shop, exposed to the full +force of the storm, was swaying in. Together we dragged forth some boxes +of canned goods, heavy cans of lard and molasses, and propped it with +their weight. We watched anxiously for a time, but the heavy boxes +seemed to provide sufficient support. There were no further signs of the +wall collapsing.</p> + +<p>By evening the storm had gripped the plains like a demon of wrath. We +had been rather enjoying this seclusion—no Indians. And—we chuckled +like a victim of persecution whose persecutor had been overtaken—there +would be no mail carrier in the morning. No mail to be taken care of. +Exultant, we tried to figure how many days Dave would be blockaded and +we would be spared that morning penance of handing the mail sack out +from the icy shack.</p> + +<p>On the second morning the storm was still raging, with the snow two feet +deep between the store and the barn. The west wall still held, and +between glances at it we stoked the monkey-stove. Stoked it while the +coal dwindled. When the last chunk had been swallowed up we hunted +around for something else to burn. Newspapers, cartons, wooden +boxes—everything we could find went into the voracious maw of the +stove.</p> + +<p>We tended it as religiously as priestesses at an altar, or as primitive +men building up a fire to keep off wild animals. Only under such +conditions does one fully experience that elemental worship of fire. It +literally meant life to us.</p> + +<p>Searching for something else we could burn, something <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>else to keep that +flame going even a little while longer, that pleasant glow which had +come with our sense of protection gradually disappeared. The blizzard +was not merely a gigantic spectacle put on by nature for our +entertainment, it was a menace, to be kept at bay only by constant +alertness on our part.</p> + +<p>Now there was nothing left in the store that we could burn!</p> + +<p>"The Indians brought some fence posts," Ida Mary recalled. "They are +back of the barn where they unloaded them. We'll have to get them."</p> + +<p>We put on our coats, pulled fur caps close down around our faces and +ears, wrapped gunny sacks around our feet and legs over high arctics to +serve as snowshoes. It took our combined strength to push the door open +against the storm. Before we could close it behind us, snow had swept +into the store and was making little mounds. Clinging to each other we +plowed our way through the loose snow to the fence posts and dragged in +a few, making two trips, breaking a trail with them as we went. The +wind-blown snow cut our faces like points of steel. Hearing the restless +whinny of the horses, we stopped to untie them. They would not go far +from shelter.</p> + +<p>Naturally the fence posts were much too long to go into the stove, and +we had no way of chopping them up. So we lifted up a cap of the two-hole +stove and stuck one end of a post into the fire, propped the other end +up against the counter, and fed the fire by automatic control. When one +post burned down to the end, we stuck in another. It seemed to us that +they burned awfully fast, and that the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>store was getting colder and +colder. We put on our heavy coats for warmth and finally our overshoes.</p> + +<p>Storm or no storm, however, <i>The Wand</i> had to be printed. We pulled the +type-case into the store, close to the stove. In those heavy coats and +overshoes we went to work on the newspaper—and that issue was one of +the best we ever published. In those two long nights, shut off from all +the world, we talked and planned. We dared not take the risk of going to +bed. If we should sleep and let the fire go out, we were apt to freeze, +so we huddled around the stove, punching fence posts down into the fire, +watching the blaze flicker.</p> + +<p>At least there was time to look ahead, time to think, time to weigh what +we had done and what we wanted to do. So that week <i>The Wand</i> came out +with ideas for cooperative action that were an innovation in the +development of new lands, a banded strength for the homesteader's +protection. It seemed logical and simple and inevitable to me then—as +it does now. "Banded together as friends"—the Indian meaning of +Lakota—was the underlying theme of what I wanted to tell the +homesteaders. The strength and the potentialities of one settler counted +for little, but—banded together!</p> + +<p>Our enthusiasm in planning and talking carried us through most of that +day. But toward evening there were more immediate problems. It began to +turn bitter cold. The very air was freezing up. It was no longer +snowing, but the wind had picked up the snow and whirled it over the +prairie into high drifts that in places covered up the barbed-wire +fences against which it piled.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span>And under the piling snow our fuel lay buried; a long windrow drift had +piled high between the posts and the shop. And the shop was growing +colder and colder. Even with the heavy coats and overshoes we stamped +our feet to keep out the chill and huddled over the dying fire. It would +soon be freezing cold in the store, as cold as the icy shack which we +had abandoned. No wonder people worshiped fire!</p> + +<p>There was no sense of snug protection against the storm now. It seemed +to have invaded the store, although the west wall still held. "We'll +have to go somewhere for warmth," Ida Mary decided. Margaret's shack was +the nearest, but even so we knew the grave risk we took of perishing on +the way there. Action, however, is nearly always easier than inaction. A +time or two we stuck our heads out of the door and the cold fairly froze +our breath. Once I went outside, and when I tried to get back into the +shack the wind, sucking between the few buildings, blew me back as +though an iron hand held me.</p> + +<p>"If we stay here," we thought, "we may be walled in by morning by the +fast-drifting snow." So we decided on Margaret's, a quarter-mile down +the draw. The chief difficulty was that the trip must be made against +the storm, and we did not know whether we could make it or not. We each +wrapped up tightly in a heavy Indian shawl, tied ourselves together with +a light blanket, picked up the scoop shovel, and started down the buried +trail.</p> + +<p>Out through the side door and the narrow space between the buildings +which had been protected against the drifts, we made our way; then, +facing the full strength of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span>storm, we dug our way, shoveling as we +went, through a drift that had piled in front of the buildings, and on +through the deep level of snow.</p> + +<p>It was getting dark now—the sudden steel-gray that envelops the plains +early on a winter night and closes in around the white stretches, +holding them in a vise. The only sign of life in the whole blanketed +world was the faint glimmer of light in Margaret's window. We knew now +how the light in the print shop must have looked many a night to +strangers lost on the prairie in a storm.</p> + +<p>Such lightweights were we that, at every step we took, the wind blew us +back; we used all our force, pushing against that heavy wall of wind, +until we struck drifts that almost buried us. For all our clumsy tying, +the blanket held us together or we would have lost each other. We could +not speak, because if we so much as parted our lips they seemed to +freeze to our teeth, and the cold wind rasped in our throats and lungs +as though we had been running for a very long time.</p> + +<p>Had the snow been tightly packed we could never have dug our way out of +some of the drifts. But it had been picked up and swirled around so much +by the wind that it was loose and light. It blew up off the ground, +lashed against our faces like sharp knives, and blinded us. "How +horrible," we had thought from the shelter of the store, "to be out in +the storm." But we hadn't tasted then the malignant fury of the thing, +battling with us for every step we made.</p> + +<p>At last we turned and walked backwards, resting on the shovel handle for +fear we would fall from exhaustion. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>Every few steps we looked around to +see whether we were still going in a straight line toward the dim light +that shone like a frosted glimmer from the tiny shack which now looked +like a dark blur. We realized that if we were to swerve a few feet in +either direction, so that we lost sight of the lamp, we would not find +Margaret's shack that night.</p> + +<p>It was quite dark now, and no sound on the prairie but the triumphant +howl of the wind and the dry crunch of our overshoes on the snow, +slipping, stumbling. We were pushing ourselves on, but our feet were so +numb it was almost impossible to walk. We had been doing it for hours, +it seemed; we had always been fighting our way through the deep snow. +The store we had left seemed as unreal as though we had never known its +protection.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary, still walking backwards, stumbled and fell. She had struck +Margaret's shack. I pushed against the door, too numb to turn the knob.</p> + +<p>The door opened and Margaret, with a cry, pulled us in. Swiftly she +unbundled us, taking care not to bring us near the fire. She took off +our gloves and overshoes, then ran to the door and scooped up a basin of +snow for our numb hands and feet, snow which felt curiously warm and +comforting. While the snow drew out the frost, she hastened about, +making strong, hot tea.</p> + +<p>While we drank the tea and felt warmth slowly creeping over us, "Why on +earth did you attempt to come here on a night like this?" she demanded. +"You might have frozen to death."</p> + +<p>"We were out of fuel," we told her. "We had to take the chance."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>The shack was cheerful and warm. There was a hot supper and fuel enough +to last through the storm. Only a refuge for which one has fought as Ida +Mary and I fought to reach that tar-paper shack could seem as warm and +safe as Margaret's shack seemed to us that night. In a numb, delicious +lethargy we sat around the stove, too tired and contented to move.</p> + +<p>Safe from the fury of the wind, we listened to it raging about the cabin +as though cheated of its victims. And then, toward midnight, it died +away. There was a hush as though the night were holding its breath, and +then the sky cleared, the stars came out.</p> + +<p>The next day Margaret's brother took up a sack of coal on his bronco, so +we made our way back over the trail we had broken the night before, to +the store, and he built a fire for us. Later that same morning Chris +rode over with a sack of coal tied on behind the saddle.</p> + +<p>"Yoost in case you should run out once," he said as he brought it in. +"My wife she bane uneasy when she see no light last night."</p> + +<p>When we told him what had happened he shook his head in concern and went +to work. He scooped a path to the barn and attended to the horses. From +under the snow he got some fence posts which he chopped up while Charlie +excavated an opening to the front door—in case anyone should be mad +enough to try to reach the store on a day like that.</p> + +<p>About noon a cowboy came fighting his way through the drifts in search +of lost cattle which the storm must have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>driven in this direction—the +only soul who dared to cross the plains that day.</p> + +<p>It was Sourdough. I never knew his real name. I doubt if those with or +for whom he worked knew.</p> + +<p>He stopped at the print shop to rest his horse, which was wringing wet +with sweat, though the day was piercing cold. He threw the saddle +blanket over the horse and came in.</p> + +<p>We begged him to go and find out whether or not the Wagors were all +right. After Ida Mary and I had got straightened out, it occurred to us +that they had sent in their order for coal with ours. Like us they might +be imprisoned in their shack and low on fuel; but, unlike us, there +would be no question of their battling their way across the prairie to +shelter.</p> + +<p>"Sufferin' sinners," grumbled Sourdough. "Think I got time to fool +around with homesteaders when a bunch of critters is maybe dead or +starvin' to death? Godamighty!"</p> + +<p>We argued and insisted, telling him that he knew better how to break a +trail than the tenderfeet around here, that his horse was better trained +for it.</p> + +<p>"This country warn't made for no humans—just Indians and rattlesnakes +and cowhands is all it was intended for."</p> + +<p>I agreed with him. I was ready to agree with anything he might say if he +would only go to the Wagors' shack. At last, after we had exhausted all +the wiles and arts of persuasion at our command, Ida Mary told him that, +come to think of it, she had seen a bunch of cattle drifting in the +direction of the Wagor claim. He started out, saying he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>might stop in +if he happened to drift by and it "come handy."</p> + +<p>Sourdough found the Wagors covered up in bed. They had been in bed two +days and three nights. The fuel had given out, as we had feared—cow +chips and all. They had burned hay until the drifts became so high and +the stack so deeply covered that the poor old man could no longer get to +it. The cow and the blind horse had barely enough feed left to keep +alive.</p> + +<p>Not daring to burn the last bit of hay or newspaper—which would not +have warmed the house anyhow—the old couple had gone to bed, piling +over them everything that could conceivably shut out that penetrating +dead cold, getting up just long enough to boil coffee, fry a little +bacon and thaw out the bread. They dipped up snow at the door and melted +it for water. The bread had run out, and the last scrap of fuel. They +tore down the kitchen shelf, chopped it up, and the last piece of it had +gone for a flame to make the morning coffee. The little snugly built +shack was freezing cold. A glass jar of milk in the kitchen had frozen +so hard that it broke the jar.</p> + +<p>When Sourdough walked in and learned the situation he bellowed, +"Sufferin' sinners!" and tore out like a mad steer. He cut into the +haystack, cut up a few posts from the corral fence and made a fire—and +when a range rider makes a fire it burns like a conflagration.</p> + +<p>He fed the two dumb animals (meaning the cow and horse, he explained, +though they weren't half as dumb as anyone who would go homesteading) +while Ma stirred up some corn cakes and made coffee for them all. Milk +the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>cow? What the hell did they think he was, a calf? Sourdough, like +most cowboys, had never milked a cow. The only milk he ever used came +out of a can.</p> + +<p>Mid-afternoon he reported. When we wondered what could be done next, he +said carelessly, "Godamighty! Let 'em stay in bed. If they freeze to +death it will serve 'em right for comin' out here."</p> + +<p>Grumbling, ranting on, he slammed the door and strode out to the barn, +saddled Bill—the stronger horse of the brown team—and led him to the +door.</p> + +<p>"What are you going to do?" I demanded.</p> + +<p>"Ride this no-count plug of yourn to hunt them critters. You never saw a +bunch goin' that way," he accused Ida Mary. She smiled at the ruse she +had used to start him out.</p> + +<p>He jumped on Bill, leading his cow pony behind—a range rider knows how +to conserve a horse's strength—and followed the trail he had broken, +straight back toward the Wagor shack. Now we knew. He was going after Ma +and Pa. They would be warm and nourished, with strength for the trip, +and good old Bill could carry them both.</p> + +<p>A few days later when we asked Ma about the harrowing experience she +laughed and said, "Oh, it wasn't so bad. Pa and I talked over our whole +life in those three days, telling each other about our young days; Pa +telling me about some girls he used to spark that I never woulda heard +about if it hadn't been for that blizzard.... I told him about my first +husband ... he's the one who left me the ant-tic broach ... we did get +pretty cold toward the last.</p> + +<p>"I burned up every old mail-order catalog I had saved. I always told Pa +they would come in handy.... What? <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>Afraid we would freeze to death? +Well, we woulda gone together."</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The blizzard was over, but the snow lay deep all over the prairie and +the great cold lasted so that few of the settlers ventured outside their +shacks. For days there was no hauling done. The trails that had been +worn since spring were buried deep and the drifts were treacherous. +There were many homesteaders over the Reservation who were running out +of fuel.</p> + +<p>Now, if ever, was a time for cooperation, and <i>The Wand</i> printed a list +of those who could spare fuel; they would share with those in need of +it. They brought what they could to the settlement and pooled it, +chopping up all the poles and posts they could find into stovewood, and +taking home small loads to tide them over.</p> + +<p>With the fury of that storm, one of the hardest blizzards the frontier +had experienced, the winter spent itself. Under the soft warm breath of +a chinook the snow disappeared like magic, melting into the soil, +preparing it for the onslaught of the plow.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="XII" id="XII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh13.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 12." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>XII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>A NEW AMERICA</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Ida Mary and I came through the winter stronger than we had ever been +before, but we welcomed the spring with grateful hearts. Only poets can +describe the electric, sweet quality of spring, but only the young, as +we were young that year, receive the full impact of its beauty. The +deep, cloudless blue of western skies, the vivid colors after the dead +white of winter, were fresh revelations, as though we had never known +them before.</p> + +<p>One spring day I was making up the paper, while the Christophersons' +little tow-headed boy watched me.</p> + +<p>"Are you going to be a printer when you grow up, Heine?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>"Nope. I don't want no little types," he replied. "I like traction +machines better—they go. My Pa's got one."</p> + +<p>A tractor coming on the Strip! I ran to tell Ida Mary.</p> + +<p>As it chugged and caterpillared from town through the Reservation, Chris +Christopherson's tractor caused almost as much excitement as the first +steamship up the Hudson. Men, women and children gathered about and +stared wide-eyed at the new machine as its row of plows cut through the +stubborn sod like a mighty conqueror. He was plowing a hundred acres.</p> + +<p>A few cattlemen from the open country rode into the Strip to see it and +bowed their heads to this evidence of the coming of agriculture.</p> + +<p>Old Ivar Eagleheart, Two-Hawk, and others of the Indian braves looked +on. This mystic power sealed their fate. It was in a last desperate +attempt to save territory for his race that an old Indian chief had +stood indomitable, contending with the White Fathers. "Wherever you find +a Sioux grave, that land is ours!" In this plowing up of the Indians' +hunting grounds no one thought of Sioux graves.</p> + +<p>The McClure homesteaders had filed on their claims, proved up and gone, +many of them, leaving empty shacks. Here on the Strip were increasing +signs of permanency. Many Brulé settlers went back home and disposed of +whatever property they had in order to make permanent improvements on +their claims. Other machinery came. Within a radius of three miles of +Ammons three tractors ran all day. All night one could see their bright +headlights moving and hear their engines chug-chugging over the dark +plain, turning under the bluebells and anemones as <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>they went, and the +tall grass where buffalo had ranged. Fragrant scent of wild flowers +blended with the pungent odor of new-turned earth and floated across the +plain. When those owning tractors got through breaking for themselves +they turned over sod for other settlers.</p> + +<p>In every direction on the Brulé and all over the plains which had been +settled, teams went up and down, making a black and green checkerboard +of the prairie.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary and I had Chris break and sow sixty acres of our land to flax. +It cost $300, and we again stretched our credit to the breaking point to +borrow the money. Try out fifteen or twenty acres first? Not we! If we +had a good crop it would pay for the land.</p> + +<p>The winners in the Rosebud Drawing were swarming onto their claims, +moving their families and immigrant goods in a continuous stream. Towns +for many miles around were deluged with trade. It was estimated that the +Rosebud alone would add 25,000 new people to the West, with the +settlers' families, tradesmen and others whom the Rosebud development +would bring. A few groups of settlers from Chicago and other cities came +with a fanfare of adventure new to the homestead country. But many +stolid, well-equipped farmers, too, went into Tripp County, in which the +Rosebud lay.</p> + +<p>I got a letter from the Chicago reporter saying: "I did not draw a Lucky +Number, but I came in on the second series to take the place of those +who dropped out. Am out on my land and feeling better. It was sporting +of you to offer to find a claim for me. Things are moving fast on the +Rosebud."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>Word spread that homesteaders were flocking farther west in Dakota—to +the Black Hills—and on to the vast Northwest. That inexorable tide was +pressing on, taking up the land, transforming the prairie, forcing it to +yield its harvest, shaping the country to its needs, creating a new +empire.</p> + +<p>We peopled and stocked the West by rail—and put vast millions in the +hands of the railroads. Wagon caravans moved on from the railroad into +the interior, many going as far as fifty, sixty, a hundred miles over a +trailless desert. Homesteaders who had no money and nothing to haul, +came through in dilapidated vehicles and lived in tents until they got +jobs and earned money to buy lumber. A few came in automobiles. There +were more cars seen in the moving caravans now.</p> + +<p>It was not only settlers the railroads carried west now, it was tools +and machinery and the vast quantities of goods needed for comfort and +permanent occupation; and the increasing demand for these materials was +giving extra work to factories and businesses in the East.</p> + +<p>On the Brulé we watched the growth of other sections of the West. At +home alone one evening, Ida Mary had carried her supper tray outdoors, +and as she sat there a rider came over the plains; she could barely +recognize him in the dusk.</p> + +<p>"Lone Star!" she exclaimed as he stopped beside her.</p> + +<p>He sat silent, dejected, looking over the broad fields. He had brought +the herd north to summer pasture.</p> + +<p>"Did you escape the pesky homesteaders by going south?" she laughed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span>"No," he said soberly. "They're all over. Not near as thick as they are +here, but Colorado and New Mexico are getting all cluttered up. Old +cattle trails broke—cain't drive a herd straight through no +more—why—" he looked at her as though some great calamity had +befallen, "I bet there's a million miles o' ba'b wire strung between +here and Texas! Shore got the old Brulé tore up."</p> + +<p>She laughed. "Better not let my sister hear you say that. Look at our +crop coming up."</p> + +<p>"I didn't think you'uns would stick it out this winter," he said.</p> + +<p>"Most of the settlers stayed," she assured him.</p> + +<p>"Looks like the end of the free range," he said. "Cattle business is +going to be different from now on." He smiled wanly and asked for his +mail, which consisted only of a pile of back-number copies of a +newspaper. He took them and rode "off to the southeast," the vague +description he had given us as to where he belonged.</p> + +<p>But he had brought news. The stream of immigration was flowing in to the +south and west of us, into country which was talked of as more arid and +more barren than this tall grass country. The barb-wire told the story.</p> + +<p>The United States had entered an era of western development when the +homesteaders not only settled the land, but moved together, acted +together, to subdue the land. It was an untried, hazardous venture on +which they staked everything they had, but that is the way empires are +built. And this vast frontier was conquered in the first two decades of +the twentieth century; a victory whose significance has been almost +totally ignored by historical studies of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span>country, which view the +last frontier as having vanished a generation or more before.</p> + +<p>Iron trails pushed through new regions; trails crossing the network of +new civilization broadened into highways, and wagon tracks cut their way +where no trails ever led before. New towns were being built. Industry +and commerce were coming in on the tidal wave. A new America!</p> + +<p>No cut-and-dried laws, no enforced projects or programs of a federal +administration could possibly achieve the great solid expansion which +this voluntary land movement by the masses brought about naturally.</p> + +<p>It takes almost every commodity to develop a vast dominion that has lain +empty since Genesis. It took steel for railroads, fences, and +plowshares. It took lumber and labor—labor no end, in towns and out on +the land. It took farm machinery, horses, harness, stoves, oil, food and +clothing to build this new world.</p> + +<p>I was delighted when one day there came a letter from Halbert Donovan, +the New York broker. It contained great news for <i>The Wand</i>. And there +was a little personal touch that was gratifying.</p> + +<p>"We are beginning to feel the effect of a business expansion back here," +he wrote, "which the western land development seems to be bringing +about. If it continues, with all the public domain that is there, it is +bound to create an enormous demand in industry and commerce. And I +emphasize the statement I made to you that it is a gigantic project +which a government alone could finance, and which requires the work of +powerful industrial corporations.</p> + +<p>"But, looking over that desolate prairie, one wonders <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span>how it can be +done; or if it is just a splurge of proving up and deserting. However, +it is surprising what these homesteaders are doing, and it is ironic +that a little poetic dreamer should have foreseen the trend which things +are taking. And I feel you deserve this acknowledgment. How in the name +of God have you and your sister stuck it out?"</p> + +<p>The reason that Halbert Donovan was interested in the progress of this +area, I learned, was that his company had mining investments in the +Black Hills and it was investigating a proposed railroad extension +through the section.</p> + +<p>The expansion which was beginning to be felt across the continent grew +for five years or more up to the beginning of the World War, and then +took another spurt after the war. It was not merely a boom, inflation to +burst like a bubble. It grew only as more territory was settled and +greater areas of land were put under cultivation.</p> + +<p>"Do you know what we need out here most of all?" I said to Chris +Christopherson one day, having in mind a settlers' bank.</p> + +<p>"Yah, yah!" Chris broke in, his ruddy features beaming in anticipation. +"A blacksmith shop! More as all else, we need that. Twenty-five miles we +bane goin' to sharpen a plowshare or shod a horse yet."</p> + +<p>Trade, business, industry? Yes, of course. But first the plow must pave +the way. During those years money flowed from the farm lands rather than +to them. The revenue from the homestead lands was bringing millions into +the Treasury.</p> + +<p>That spring the newspaper office became a clearing house for homestead +lands. People wanting either to buy <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>or sell relinquishments came there +for information. All kinds of notices to be filed with the Department of +the Interior were made out by the office, which began to keep legal +forms in stock. Gradually I found myself becoming an interpreter of the +Federal Land Laws and settlers came many miles for advice and +information.</p> + +<p>The laws governing homesteading were technical, with many provisions +which gave rise to controversy. I discovered that many of the employees +in the Department knew nothing of the project except the letter of the +law. Through my work in handling proofs I was familiar with the +technicalities. From actual experience I had learned the broader +fundamental principles as they could be applied to general usage.</p> + +<p>I became a sort of mediator between the homesteader and the United +States Land Office. It was a unique job for a young woman and brought my +work to the attention of officials in Washington and several +Congressional public land committees. Slowly I was becoming identified +with the land movement itself, and I had learned not to be overawed by +the fact that some of the government's under-officials who came out to +the Strip did not agree with my opinions. I had clashed already with +several of them who had been sent out to check up on controversies in +which the homesteaders' rights were disputed. They knew the +technicalities better, perhaps, than I did; but in regard to conditions +on the frontier they were rank amateurs and I knew it.</p> + +<p>Land on the Brulé was held at a premium and landseekers were bidding +high for relinquishments. So attractive were the offers that a few +settlers who were hard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>pressed for money, sold their rights of title to +the land, and passed it on to others who would re-homestead the claims. +Several early proof-makers sold their deeded quarters, raw, unimproved, +miles from a railroad, for $3000 to $3700 cash money.</p> + +<p>Real estate dealers of Presho, Pierre, and other small towns looked to +the Brulé as a plum, trying to list relinquishments there for their +customers. But I got the bulk of the business! One of the handy men +around the place sawed boards and made an extra table with rows of +pigeonholes on it, and we installed this in the back end of the print +shop for the heavy land-office business.</p> + +<p>Most of our work on land affairs was done free in connection with the +legal work of the newspaper. Then buyers or sellers of relinquishments +began paying us a commission, and one day Ida Mary sold a claim for spot +cash and got $200 for making the deal. Selling claims, she said, was as +easy as selling <i>shela</i> (tobacco) to the Indians. The difficulty lay in +finding claims for sale.</p> + +<p>The $200 went to Sedgwick at the bank on an overdue note. He had moved +into a bank building now, set on a solid foundation, instead of the +rolling sheep wagon whose only operating expense was the pistols.</p> + +<p>That entire section of the frontier was making ready for the incoming +torrent of the Rosebud settlers to take possession of their claims. +Droves of them landed at Presho early, reawakening the town and the +plains with a new invasion. Thousands who had not won a claim followed +in their wake, and everyone, when he had crossed the Missouri River, +heard about the Brulé.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span>The government sent out notice for the appointment of a regular mail +carrier for the Ammons post office. Dave Dykstra had resigned to farm +his land, and Sam Frye, a young homesteader with a family, was +appointed.</p> + +<p>We began to need more printing equipment to carry on the increased +newspaper business and to take care of the flood of proofs which would +come in that summer; there was interest and a payment on the press +coming due. So there was a day when Ida Mary said we were going to go +under, unless we could do some high financing within thirty days.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we'll get through somehow," I assured her. "It's like a poker game; +you never know what kind of hand you will hold in the next deal." +Planning ahead didn't help much, because something unexpected usually +happened.</p> + +<p>But no matter what hard luck a homesteader had or how much he had paid +the government, unless he could meet the payments and all other +requirements fully he lost the land and all he had put into it. We could +not afford to lose our claim, so I concentrated on my Land Office +business.</p> + +<p>As usual, something happened. I was sitting in the private office of the +United States Land Commissioner in Presho when a man walked into the +front office and put a contest on a piece of land. I heard the numbers +repeated through the thin partition and I knew exactly where the land +lay; it was a quarter-section south of us on the reservation, which +belonged to a young man who had to abandon it because he was ill and +penniless. He had got a leave of absence which had run out, and he had +no funds to carry on and prove up the claim. Yet he had put into the +gamble <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>several hundred dollars and spent almost a year's time on it. +Now he was to lose it to the man who had contested it.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be done to save the land for the man who had gone home; he +had forfeited it. I started from my chair. The contest must be filed in +Pierre. If I could get one in first, I could help out the man whose +illness had deprived him of his land, and help out the ailing Ammons +finances. But it would be a race!</p> + +<p>Through the outer office I rushed while the land agent called after me, +"Just a minute, Edith!"</p> + +<p>"I'll be back," I told him breathlessly. "I'll be back. I just thought +of something!"</p> + +<p>I made the trip from Presho to Ammons in record time, raced into the +post office and filled out a legal form with the numbers I had heard +through the thin wall. But I needed someone not already holding a claim +to sign it, and there wasn't a soul at the settlement who would do.</p> + +<p>It was getting dark when Ida Mary finally announced jubilantly that +someone was coming from the direction of the rangeland. It was Coyote +Cal, thus called because "he ran from the gals like a skeered coyote."</p> + +<p>Talking excitedly, I dragged him into the print shop to sign the paper. +"I don't want any doggone homestead pushed off onto me," he protested.</p> + +<p>I thrust the paper into his hands. "It won't obligate you in any way," I +explained.</p> + +<p>"All right," he agreed. He enjoyed playing jokes and this one amused +him. "But you're sure I won't get no homestead?"</p> + +<p>Coyote poised the pen stiffly in his hand. "Let's see," he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>murmured in +embarrassment, "it's been so gosh-darn long since I signed my +name—danged if I can recollect—" the pen stuck in his awkward fingers +as he swung it about like a lariat.</p> + +<p>Finally he wrote laboriously "Calvin Aloysius Bancroft."</p> + +<p>With the signed paper in my hands I saddled Lakota and streaked off for +the thirty-five-mile trip to Pierre.</p> + +<p>Late that night a tired horse and its rider pulled up in front of a +little hotel in Ft. Pierre. I routed a station agent out of bed and sent +a telegram to the young man who had left his claim.</p> + +<p>Next morning when the U. S. Land Office at Pierre opened its door the +clerks found me backed up against it with a paper in my outstretched +hand. Half an hour later, when the morning mail was opened at the Land +Office, there was a contest in it filed at Presho. But I had slapped a +contest on the same quarter-section first, a contest filed by one Calvin +Aloysius Bancroft, a legal applicant for the claim.</p> + +<p>In the mail I received a signed relinquishment for the land from the +young man, withdrew the contest and sold the relinquishment, which is +the filer's claim to the land, for $450. I had made enough on the deal +to meet our own emergencies and had saved $200 for the young man who +needed it badly.</p> + +<p>And <i>The Wand</i> was still safe. All around us the land was being +harnessed, a desert being conquered with plowshares as swords.</p> + +<p>Scotty Phillips stopped in at the print shop on his way from Pierre, +where he lived, to his ranch. "The stockmen have been asleep," he said. +"They ridiculed the idea that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span>the range could ever be farmed. And now +they are homesteading, trying to get hold of land as fast as they can. I +have Indian lands leased, so I am all right."</p> + +<p>As a squaw man he naturally owned quite a bit of land, a piece for each +child, and he had three children.</p> + +<p>Panicky, some of the stockmen filed on land, but a homestead for them +was just big enough for the ranch buildings and corrals; it still did +not allow for the essential thing—large range for the cattle. They +began to buy from homesteaders and lease lands around them. For years +the livestockman of the West had been monarch of all he surveyed, and +the end of his reign was in sight. Like all classes of people who have +failed to keep step with the march of progress, he would have to follow +the herd.</p> + +<p>A strong spirit of cooperation and harmony had developed among the army +of the Brulé. They worked together like clockwork. There was little +grumbling or ill-will. Just how much <i>The Wand</i> had done in creating +this invaluable asset to a new country I do not know, but it was a +factor. We were a people dependent upon one another. Ours was a land +without established social law or custom. It was impossible to regulate +one's life or habits by any set rule; and there was no time or energy +for idle gossip or criticism. Each one had all he could do to manage his +own business.</p> + +<p>I had been working at high pressure, and as summer came on again I went +back to St. Louis for a few weeks of rest, back down the Mississippi on +the Old Bald Eagle to find my father waiting at the dock. I had half +expected to find the family awaiting roaring stories of the West; +instead, they listened eagerly and asked apt questions about soil and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>costs and the future. Things weren't going well for them. Perhaps for +my father and the two small boys the future would point west.</p> + +<p>I was surprised to find the general interest that people in St. Louis +were taking in the West and in homesteading. Its importance, something +even of its significance, was coming to be realized. They asked serious +questions and demanded more and more information about the land. +Business men talked about new opportunities there. "Bring lots of new +business, this land movement," I heard on many sides.</p> + +<p>After those long months of struggle for the bare necessities, I was +greatly struck by lavish spending. It seemed startling to one from +pioneer country. Where did the money come from, I wondered, that city +folk were spending like water? I had come to think of wealth as coming +from the land; here people talked of capital, stocks and bonds; +occasionally of trade expansion. Surely this western development, I +protested, was responsible in part for trade expansion. Ida Mary had +said I ran to land as a Missourian did to mules; for the first time I +began to consider it as an economic issue.</p> + +<p>I was restless during my stay in St. Louis; the city seemed to have +changed—or perhaps I had changed—and I was glad to get back home. It +was the first time I had called the West home.</p> + +<p>Unbelievably unlike my first sight of the desolate region, I found it a +thriving land of farms and plowed fields, of growing crops and bustling +communities, whose growth had already begun to affect the East, bringing +increased business and prosperity, whose rapid development and +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>far-reaching influence people were only slowly beginning to comprehend.</p> + +<p>All this had been achieved in less than two years, without federal aid, +with little money, achieved by hard labor, cooperation, and unquenchable +hope.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh14.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 13." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>XIII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE THIRSTY LAND</h3> +<br /> + +<p>"You'd better do a little exhortin'," Ma told me on my return to the +claim. "And if you get any collections, turn some of them in for the +good of the store."</p> + +<p>"Isn't business good?"</p> + +<p>"Business is pouring in. It's money I'm talking about; there won't be +any money until the crops are threshed—which will be about Christmas +time out here. Now in Blue Springs—"</p> + +<p>I didn't hear the rest of it. In the city I had been struck by the +lavish spending of money, money which was at such a premium out here. +There was something shockingly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span>disproportionate in the capacity to +spend by city people and those on farms.</p> + +<p>"At least, the crops look good."</p> + +<p>"But," Ida Mary pointed out, "they need rain, and the dams are beginning +to get low."</p> + +<p>"What about the wells the settlers are digging for water supply?"</p> + +<p>"They get nothing but dry holes," she told me. "Some of the settlers +brought in well-drills, but they didn't find water. They don't know what +to do."</p> + +<p>All other issues faded into the background before the urgency of the +water problem. I packed my city clothes deep down in the trunk, never to +be worn again, and went to work!</p> + +<p>A casual glance revealed no sign of the emergency we were facing. The +Lower Brulé was a broad expanse of green grass and grain, rippling +gently in the breeze like water on a quiet sea. Sufficient moisture from +the snow and early rain had been retained in the subsoil for vegetation. +But we needed water. With the hot weather the dams were going dry. There +had been increased demands for water this summer, and there had not been +the late torrential rains to fill the dams as there had been the year +before.</p> + +<p>"What are we going to do?" I asked the other settlers.</p> + +<p>"Haul water until we can get wells. We'll have to dig deeper. Perhaps we +have just not struck the water veins. After this we will follow the +draws."</p> + +<p>Water-hauling again! But haul it from where? There was no supply in the +country sufficient for the needs of the region. Drills would cost money, +and few settlers had any <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>money left. There was no sign of rain, and an +oppression weighed upon everyone as of impending evil—the fear of a +water famine.</p> + +<p>First we had come to understand the primitive worship of fire. Now we +began to know that water is as vital to life as air itself. It takes +experience to bring home the meaning of familiar words.</p> + +<p>In the meantime the tall waving crops brought land agents with their +buyers. At the first sign of water shortage more claims were offered for +sale, and by that time there were a few deeded tracts put on the market. +Loan agents camped at the settlement, following up settlers ready to +prove up. One could borrow more than a thousand dollars on a homestead +now.</p> + +<p>The money coming through our hands on relinquishments, options, +government payments, etc., was mainly in bulk and growing beyond the +coffee cans and old shoes where we secreted money awaiting deposit at +the bank. We did need a bank on the Brulé.</p> + +<p>During the long hot summer weeks, when it did not grow dark on the open +plain until far into the night, a great deal of traveling was done at +night. It was easier for man and horse. On moonlight nights that white +light shining through the thin atmosphere made the prairie as light as +day, but ghostly; moonlight softened the contours of the plains and +robbed them of their color; sounds traveled great distances, seeming to +come from space; the howling of coyotes down the draw, the shrill, busy +sound of insects in the long grass, the stamping of the horses in the +barn, accentuated the stillness; they did not break it. Even the +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>prairie wind came softly, sweet with the scent of hay, not lifting its +voice on those hushed nights.</p> + +<p>With the stillness invading one's flesh and bones, and the prairie, +washed by moonlight, stretching out beyond one's imagination, I wondered +that I had ever feared space and quiet.</p> + +<p>But out of the silence would come the rhythmic thud of a horse's feet +and a loud hail. The Ammons settlement was a day-and-night institution. +With a loud knock on the door would come the identification, "It's +Alberts!" Or Kimball, or Pinchot—real estate agents. "I've got a man +here who wants to pay a deposit on N.W. quarter of section 18. We're on +our way to the Land Office. Want to be there when it opens."</p> + +<p>One of us would light the print-shop lamp, make out the papers, take the +money, and stumble back to bed. A sign, "<span class="sc">Closed</span>," or "<span class="sc">Never +Closed</span>," would have been equally ineffective in stopping the night +movement on the Strip. Homesteaders living miles away came after the +long day's work to put in their proving-up notices. They must be in the +paper the following day to go through the five weeks' publication before +the date set at the Land Office. During those scorching weeks their days +were taken up by hauling water and caring for things at home.</p> + +<p>With those urgent night calls we did not stick a gun out as had the +Presho banker. We were not greatly perturbed about the possibility of +anyone robbing us. A burglar who could find the money would accomplish +more than we could do half the time, so outlandish had the hiding places +become. Imbert insisted that we keep a loaded gun or two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>on the place, +but we knew nothing about handling guns and were more afraid of them +than of being molested.</p> + +<p>Ada put up her folding cot at night in the lean-to kitchen, and one day +she brought a rawhide whip from home and laid it on the 2 × 4 scantling +that girded the walls—"the two-be-four" she called it. "You don't need +a gun," she said in her slow, calm voice. "Just give me a rawhide." With +that sure strong arm of hers and the keen whip, one would never enter +without shooting first.</p> + +<p>There were a few nights when we woke to find Ada standing still as a +statue in her long white cotton nightgown, straw-colored braids hanging +down her back, rawhide in her right hand, only to find whoever had +prowled around had driven on, or that it was Tim Carter, the lawyer, +coming home from town intoxicated, talking and singing at the top of his +voice.</p> + +<p>During that clock-round period the days were usually quiet and we worked +in shifts as much as our many duties permitted. "Come on, girls," Ma +would call, "this ice tea is goin' to be hot if you don't come and drink +it. Now this isn't made from dam water. Fred hauled it over from the +crick. (Fred Farraday did things like that without mentioning them.) +It's set in the cave all day. Now the Ladies' Aid back in Blue Springs +sticks a piece of lemon on the glass to squeeze in—just to get your +fingers all stuck up with. I never was one for mixing drinks."</p> + +<p>Ma poured an extra glass for Van Leshout, who had just come in with +letters to mail. "Tomorrow we'll have the lemonade separate. Come on, +Heine, don't you want a glass of tea?"</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>"Naw." Offering Heine tea was the one thing that shook his calmness.</p> + +<p>"You don't expect he-men like Heine to drink tea," protested Van +Leshout. A sly grin on Heine's face which the artist quickly caught on +paper.</p> + +<p>"Pa drinks it," from Ma, with that snapping of the jaw which in Ma +expressed emphasis. Poor old Pa was the shining example of masculinity +in her eyes.</p> + +<p>Like a sudden breath the hot winds came. The dams were getting +dangerously low. The water was dirty and green-scummed and thick. And +Ada's folks lost a horse and a cow—alkalied.</p> + +<p>The drier it became the whiter the ground on the alkali spots. We had no +alkali on the great, grassy Brulé, but there were strips outside the +reservation thick with it, and the water in those sections contained +enough of it to turn one's stomach into stone.</p> + +<p>Carrying the mail from the stage, I saw along the trail horses and +cattle leaning against the fences, or lying down, fairly eaten up with +it, mere skin and bones; mane and tail all fallen out, hoofs dropped +off.</p> + +<p>A number of settlers had not a horse left that could put his foot to the +ground to travel. Every day there were a few more horses and cows lying +dead over the pastures. Gradually, however, most of the afflicted stock +picked up, got new hoofs, new manes and tails.</p> + +<p>The livestock, even the dogs and the wild animals on the plains, drank +from little holes of reservoirs at the foot of the slopes until the +water became so hot and ill-smelling that they turned away from it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>But the settlers skimmed back the thick green scum, dipped up the water, +let it settle, and used it. The dam water must be boiled, we warned each +other, yet we did not always wait for a drink of water until it had been +boiled and cooled. Late that summer, when the drying winds parched the +country, the dams became the only green spots left on the yellow plains. +But the cry for rain was no longer for the fields, it was for the people +themselves.</p> + +<p>A few narrow, crooked creeks cut their way through the great tableland +of prairie. But they were as problematic as the Arkansas Traveler's roof +in that they overflowed in the rainy season when we did not need water, +and were dry as a bone when we did need it. The creeks were dry +now—except the water holes in the creek beds and a few seep wells which +homesteaders living near the creeks had dug and into which water from +the creeks had seeped.</p> + +<p>Proving-up time came for a few, and the ones who had not come to farm +left as soon as they proved up—at least until the following year. And +the situation was so serious we were glad to have them go—the fewer +there were of us the less water we would need.</p> + +<p>To add to the troubles of the homesteaders, there were increased +activities by claim jumpers. Almost equal to the old cattle-rustling +gangs were the land rustlers who "covered up" land as the cattle thieves +did brands, making mavericks out of branded stock. Technicalities, false +filings, or open crookedness were used to hold rich valleys and creeks +and water holes open—or to block the settler's proof title.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span>Because the problem was a federal one, the courts and men like Judge +Bartine were powerless to act in the matter. The West needed fearless +representation in Washington. If John Bartine were elected, westerners +said, he would fight the land graft. "But there must be a strong +campaign against it on the ground," he emphasized. "The frontier +newspapers can become the most powerful agency in abolishing this evil."</p> + +<p>"Could <i>The Wand</i> help?" I asked.</p> + +<p>"Its influence not only would be effective," he assured me, "but it +would set a precedent and give courage to other little proof sheets."</p> + +<p>So <i>The Wand</i> took up the issue, using what influence it had to bring a +halt to the activities of the claim jumpers. And the homesteaders +continued their battle for the thirsty land. Whisky barrels and milk +cans were the artillery most essential to keep this valiant army from +going down in defeat. They were as scarce as hen's teeth and soared sky +high in price, so great was the demand on the frontier. Barrel and can +manufacturers must have made fortunes during the years of water-hauling +in the homestead country.</p> + +<p>The size of a man's herd, and thus his rank as a farmer, was judged by +the number of barrels and cans surrounding his shack or barn.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary bought a barrel and several new milk cans. "You cannot use the +barrel for water," Joe Two-Hawk said. "It is yet wet with fire-water." +He drained a pint or more of whisky from it. It would have to be burned +out. No one wanted fire-water these days.</p> + +<p>Across the hot stretches, from every direction, there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span>moved processions +of livestock being driven to water; stone-boats (boards nailed across +two runners), with barrels bobbing up and down on them, buggies, wagons, +all loaded with cans and barrels.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary and I led our livestock to a water hole three miles away, +filling water cans for ourselves. The Ammons caravan moving across the +hot, dry plain was a sorry spectacle, with Ida in the vanguard astride +old Pinto, her hair twisted up under a big straw hat. Lakota insisted +upon jumping the creek bed, and we were not trained to riding to hounds. +In the flank, the brown team and Lakota, the menagerie following behind. +Coming up from the rear, I sat in the One-Hoss Shay behind Crazy Weed, +the blind and locoed mare, with the water cans rattling in the back end +of the buggy. I too wore an old straw hat, big as a ten-gallon sombrero, +pushed back on my head to protect my sunburnt neck, and an old rag of a +dress hanging loose on my small body, which was becoming thinner.</p> + +<p>The sun blazed down on the shadeless prairie, and the very air smelled +of heat. The grain was shriveled and burnt. And for shelter from that +vast furnace, a tar-paper shack with a low roof.</p> + +<p>As we reached the creek, Crazy Weed, smelling water, leaped to the creek +bed, breaking the tugs as she went, leaving the horseless buggy, the +empty cans and me high and dry on the bank.</p> + +<p>We patched up the tugs, fastened them to the singletree with hairpins, +hitched up Pinto, drove down to the water hole and filled our cans.</p> + +<p>When we got back to the settlement we saw Lone Star <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>on Black Indian, +waiting for us. He dismounted, threw the reins to the ground and carried +the water cans into the cool cave.</p> + +<p>"Don't know what we're goin' to do with the range stock," he said +anxiously, "with the grass dried up and the creeks and water holes on +the range goin' dry."</p> + +<p>"Lone Star," I said, "don't you think it's going to rain soon?"</p> + +<p>Yesterday I had asked Porcupine Bear, and he had shaken his head and +held up one finger after another, counting off the moons before rain +would come.</p> + +<p>"What will become of the settlers?" asked Ida Mary.</p> + +<p>"The quicker these homesteadin' herds vacate," Lone Star answered in +that slow drawl of his, "the better for everybody. The hot winds have +come too early. Goin' to burn the pastures, looks like; hard to find +water now for the cattle."</p> + +<p>He handed us two flasks of cold water. "Brought 'em from the river; +filled 'em while the water was cold early this morning."</p> + +<p>Cold, clear water! We drank great long draughts of it, washed ourselves +clean and fresh in a basin half-full of water.</p> + +<p>One day Tim Carter came by sober. "The damn homestead is too dry for a +man to drink water, say nothing of whisky," he stormed. "I'm going to +have water if it takes my last dollar."</p> + +<p>He brought in a drill. For several days neighbors helped with the +drilling; others flocked around with strained anxiety, waiting, waiting +for that drill to strike water.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>Then one scorching afternoon the drillers gave a whoop as they brought +up the drill. "Oil! Oil! There's oil on this drill. Damned if we ain't +struck oil!"</p> + +<p>Tim Carter's straight, portly figure drooped. He put his hands in his +pockets, staring aghast at the evidence before him. "Oil!" he shouted. +"Who in hell wants oil? Nobody but Rockefeller. It's water we want!"</p> + +<p>"Pack up your rig, boys," he said in a tone of defeat, as though he'd +made a final plea in court and lost the case. A discouraged, +disheartened group, they turned away.</p> + +<p>Thirst became an obsession with us all, men and animals alike. Cattle, +breaking out of pastures, went bawling over the plains; horses went +running wildly in search of water. People were famished for a cold +drink.</p> + +<p>"I don't believe we ought to drink that water," I heard Ida Mary tell Ma +Wagor, as she stood, dipper in hand, looking dubiously into the bucket.</p> + +<p>"Oh, never mind about the germs," Ma said. "Just pick out them you see +and them you can't see oughtn't hurt anybody. You can't be persnickety +these days." With all that we could see in the water, it did seem as +though the invisible ones couldn't do much harm.</p> + +<p>With the perverseness of nature, the less water one has the thirstier +one becomes. When it is on tap one doesn't think of it. But down to the +last half-gallon, our thirst was unquenchable.</p> + +<p>The store's supply of salmon and dried beef went begging, while it kept +a team busy hauling canned tomatoes, sauerkraut, vinegar. People could +not afford lemons, so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>vinegar and soda were used to make a refreshing, +thirst-quenching drink.</p> + +<p>Homesteaders reached the point where the whole family washed in the same +quart of water. A little more soap and elbow grease, the women said, was +the secret. Most of the water used for household purposes did double or +triple duty. The water drained from potatoes was next used to wash one's +face or hands or dishes; then it went into the scrub bucket. Potato +water kept one's hands and face soft, we boasted; it was as effective as +face cream.</p> + +<p>But I was not a tea-cup saver by nature. Could the time and scheming of +those pioneer women to save water have been utilized in some water +project, it would have watered the whole frontier. But gradually we were +becoming listless, shiftless. We were in a stage of endurance in which +there was no point in forging ahead. We merely sat and waited—for rain +or wells or whatever might come.</p> + +<p>And always when we were down to the last drop, someone would bring us +water. I never knew it to fail. One such time we looked up to see Huey +Dunn coming. He had made the long trip just to bring us water—two whole +barrels of it, although we had not seen him since he moved us to the +reservation.</p> + +<p>It was so hot he waited until evening to go back. He was in no hurry to +return: it was too hot to work. But when had Huey ever been in a hurry? +We sat in the shade of the shack, talking. He had dug a well, and his +method of fall plowing—fallowing he called it—had proved successful.</p> + +<p>Starting home toward evening, he called back, "If you <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>girls take a +notion to leave, you needn't send for me to move you—not until you get +your deed, anyhow." I only saw him once after that—Ida Mary never +again.</p> + +<p>Ida Mary was seeing a lot of a young easterner that summer, an +attractive, cultured boy who had taken a claim because he had won it in +a lottery and it was an adventure. Imbert Miller had gone into the land +business. He was well fitted for the work, with his honest, open manner, +which inspired confidence in landseekers, and his deep-rooted knowledge +of the West.</p> + +<p>One day I looked up from my work with a belated thought.</p> + +<p>"Imbert hasn't been here for some time. What's the matter?"</p> + +<p>"He is to stay away until I send him word. I've got to be sure."</p> + +<p>When there was any time for day-dreaming those days I conjured up +pictures of snow banks and fountains and blessed, cooling rain, and +long, icy drinks of water. The water had alkali in it and tasted soapy +in cooking. But it was water. And we drank it gratefully.</p> + +<p>The old man from the Oklahoma Run came over. Stooped and stiff, he +leaned on his cane in the midst of a group of settlers who had met to +discuss the drought and the water problem.</p> + +<p>"Now, down in Oklahomy," he began, "it was hotter than brimstone and the +Sooners didn't draw ice water from faucets when they settled there." +Sooners, we took it, were those who got on the land sooner than the +others. "Water <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>was imported in barrels. Buying water was like buying +champagne and worse to drink than cawn liquor."</p> + +<p>"What did they do?"</p> + +<p>"Well, suh," he went on, the long mustache twitching, "one of the +fellahs down there was a water witch. He pointed out where the water +could be got. Divining rods. That's the solution for the Strip."</p> + +<p>But finding expert water witches was almost as difficult as finding +water. They had to be imported from some remote section of the West. The +witches, as we called them, went over various parts of the reservation, +probing, poking, with their forked sticks.</p> + +<p>The divining rod was a simple means of locating water, and it had been +in common use through the ages, especially in arid regions. It was used +in some instances to locate other underground deposits. These rods were +pronged branches, sometimes of willow, but preferably of witch-hazel or +wild cherry.</p> + +<p>If there were water close to the surface, the divining rod would bend +and turn with such force that it was hard to keep the prongs in hand. It +was said to work by a process of natural attraction, and was formerly +regarded as witchcraft or black magic.</p> + +<p>Our divining rods refused to twist or bend. If there were water on the +Strip, the witches missed it; either that, or it was too deep for the +rods to detect. One of the experts said there was indication of some +kind of liquid deposit far underground.</p> + +<p>The settlers shook their heads and said there must be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>something wrong +with the witches or the divining rod, and Ma Wagor declared, "I never +did have any faith in them little sticks."</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The hot winds swept the plains like blasts from a furnace. There was not +a shelter as far as the eye could see except those little hot-boxes in +which we lived. As the sun, like a great ball of fire, lowered to the +horizon, a caravan topped the ridge from the north and moved slowly +south across the strip. A wagon and a wobble-wheeled buggy, its dry +spokes rattling like castanets, went by. Following behind were the few +head of stock—horses whinnying, cows bawling, for water. A panting dog, +tongue hanging out, trotted beside the wagon. They were shipping out. +The railroads were taking emigrants back to the state line free.</p> + +<p>Leaving a land of plenty—plenty of everything but water.</p> + +<p>A number of homesteaders who had come to stay were getting out. Settlers +were proving up as fast as they could. They wanted to prove up while +they could get loans on the land. Loan agencies that had vied with one +another for the business were closing down on some areas. Despite the +water famine, the Brulé had built such prestige, had made such a record +of progress, that it was still holding the business. Western bankers +kept their faith in it, but the lids of the eastern money-pots, which +were the source of borrowing power, might be clamped down any day.</p> + +<p>The railroads were taking people back to the state line free, if they +wished to go. It seemed to me, exhausted as I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>was, that I could not go +on under these conditions, that the settlers themselves could not go on +without some respite.</p> + +<p>I walked into the Land Office at Pierre and threw a sheaf of proof +notices on the Register's desk. He looked at them with practiced eyes. +"These haven't been published yet," he said.</p> + +<p>"I don't want them. I'm leaving the country. I came to get nine months' +leave of absence for myself and all those whose time is not up. That +would give us until next spring to come back and get our deeds."</p> + +<p>He leaned over his desk. "Don't pull up and leave at this critical time, +Edith," he said earnestly. "There are the legal notices, the loans, the +post office—we have depended on you so much, it would be putting a +wrench in the machinery out there."</p> + +<p>He looked at me for a moment. "Don't start an emigration movement like +that," he warned me.</p> + +<p>I was dumfounded at his solemnity, at the responsibility he was putting +upon me. It was my first realization of the fact that <i>The Wand</i> had +indeed become the voice of the Brulé; that where it led, people would +follow. If my going would start a general exodus, I had to stay.</p> + +<p>I walked wearily out of the Land Office, leaving the proofs on his desk. +It seemed to me that I had endured all I could, and here was this new +sense of community responsibility weighing on me!</p> + +<p>A young settler drove me home, and I sat bleakly beside him. It was late +when we got near my claim, and the settlement looked dark and deserted. +Suddenly I screamed, startling the horses, and leaped from the wagon as +there <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span>was a loud crash. The heavy timbers of the cave back of the store +had fallen in.</p> + +<p>I shouted for Ida Mary, and there was no answer from the shack or the +store. If she were under that wreckage.... Frantically we clawed at the +timbers, clearing a space, looking for a slip of a girl with long auburn +braids of hair. It was too dark to see clearly, and in my terror I was +ripping the boards in any fashion while Jack strove to quiet me.</p> + +<p>"What's the matter?" said a drowsy voice from the door of the shack. It +was Ida Mary, who had slept so heavily she had not heard our arrival or +our shouts or the crash of the cave-in.</p> + +<p>I ran to her, sobbing with relief. "The cave's fallen in. I thought +maybe you were in it."</p> + +<p>She blinked sleepily and tried to comfort me. "I'm all right, sis," she +said reassuringly. "It must have gone down after I went to bed. Too much +sod piled on top, I guess. Now we'll have to have that fixed."</p> + +<p>As I lay in bed, shaking with fatigue and nerve tension, Ida mumbled +drowsily, "Oh, the fresh butter Ma brought me is down in that cave." And +she fell asleep. A few moments later I too was sleeping quietly.</p> + +<p>The nights were the life-savers. The evening, in which the air cooled +first in the draws, then lifted softly to the tableland, cooling the +body, quenching the thirst as one breathed it deeply. The fresh peaceful +night. The early dawn which like a rejuvenating tonic gave one new hope. +Thus we got our second wind for each day's bout.</p> + +<p>The next day the proof notices I had turned in to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> Land Office came +back to me without comment. I explained to Ida Mary what I had done. "I +told him we were going back, and he said I must not start an emigration +movement. I applied for leaves of absence while the railroads are taking +people to the state line free."</p> + +<p>"And what," inquired Ida Mary dryly, "will they do at the state line? Go +back to the wife's kinfolk, I suppose."</p> + +<p>She was right, of course. I began to see what this trek back en masse +would mean. What if the land horde went marching back? Tens of thousands +of them milling about, homeless, penniless, jobless. Many of them had +been in that position when they had stampeded the frontier, looking to +the land for security. With these broad areas deserted, what would +become of the trade and business; of the new railroads and other +developments just beginning their expansion?</p> + +<p>We were harder hit than most districts by the lack of water, but if that +obstacle could be solved the Brulé had other things in its favor. The +words of the Register came back to me: "Don't start an emigration +movement."</p> + +<p><i>The Wand</i> came out with an editorial called, "Beyond the State Line, +What?" It was based on Ida Mary's terse comment, "Back to the wife's +kinfolk," and concluded with my own views of the economic disaster which +such a general exodus would cause.</p> + +<p>It took hold. Settlers who were ready to close their shacks behind them +paused to look ahead—beyond the state line. And they discovered that +their best chance was to fight it out where they were—if only they +could be shown how to get water.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>No trees. No shade. Hot winds sweeping as though from a furnace. And +what water one had so hot and stale that it could not quench thirst.</p> + +<p>We could ask our neighbors to share their last loaf of bread, but it was +a bold, selfish act to ask for water. I have seen a gallon bucket of +drinking water going down; have seen it get to the last pint; have held +the hot liquid in my mouth as long as possible before swallowing it.</p> + +<p>The distances to water were so long that many times we found it +impossible, with all the work we had on hand, to make the trip; so we +would save every drop we could, not daring to cook anything which +required water.</p> + +<p>One of the girl homesteaders came over with an incredible tale to tell. +She had visited one of the settlers outside the reservation gate who had +a real well. And his wife had rinsed the dishes when she washed them.</p> + +<p>Ma prophesied that she would suffer for that.</p> + +<p>Heine said one day, "My Pa don't wanta leave. We ain't got no moneys to +take us, Pa says."</p> + +<p>There were many families in the same position. Get out? Where? How?</p> + +<p>One day when Chris Christopherson came in I asked him why he thought the +water supply would be better in a year or so.</p> + +<p>"We can dig better dams. If they bane twice so big this year, they be +full now from the snows and rains. We would yet have water plenty."</p> + +<p>"We could dig cisterns, couldn't we?"</p> + +<p>"Cost money, but not so much like deep wells. Trouble <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>bane we not have +money yet nor time to make ready so many t'ings."</p> + +<p>"Some of the farmers say," I told him, "that when we cultivate large +areas, loosening the soil for moisture absorption, they will be able to +get surface wells, especially in the draws. They say the tall, heavy +grass absorbs the surface and underground water."</p> + +<p>Chris nodded thoughtfully. "Water will be more comin' in time," he +declared. "The more land plowed, the more moisture will go down in the +soil. It all the time costs more money to move and settle yet than to +stay where you are. And nobody knows what he find somewhere else again."</p> + +<p>And we got thirstier and thirstier. "I've got to have a drink," I would +wail.</p> + +<p>"You'll get over it," Ma would assure me.</p> + +<p>But we did not always get over it. I remember trying to go to bed +without a drink one night and thinking I could not stand it until +morning. In the middle of the night I woke Ida Mary.</p> + +<p>"I'm so thirsty I can't stand it any longer."</p> + +<p>"Let's hitch up and go for some water."</p> + +<p>So off we went in the middle of the night, driving over to McClure, +where we drank long and long at the watering troughs.</p> + +<p>With few water holes left, some of the settlers went over the border, +hauling water from outside—from McClure, even from Presho, when they +went to town. Somehow they got enough to keep them from perishing.</p> + +<p>Men cleaned out their dams "in case it should rain." But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span>there was no +sign of the drought breaking. Except for the early matured crops, the +fields were burned; the later crops were dwarfed. Our spirits fell as we +looked at our big field of flax which had given such promise. Seed which +had had no rain lay in the ground unsprouted. Some of the farmers turned +their surplus stock loose to forage for themselves.</p> + +<p>Public-spirited men like Senator Scotty Phillips and Ben Smith, a +well-to-do rancher living four miles from the settlement, dug down into +the bowels of the earth for water. Ben Smith went down 1200 feet. There +was no sign of water. Despondency gripped the people. "You can dig clear +to hell and you won't find water," one of them declared.</p> + +<p>"All right, boys," Ben Smith told them, "dig to hell if you have to, and +don't mind the cost." Slowly the drill bored on down the dry hole. Ben +Smith's Folly, they called it.</p> + +<p><i>The Wand</i> urged the people to put their resources together—water, +food, everything—so that they might keep going until water was found or +until—it rained. Today pooling is a common method of farm marketing. We +have great wheat pools, milk pools, and many others. At that time there +were cooperative pools in a few places, although I had never heard of +one, nor of a farm organization. But it was the pooling system that was +needed to carry on.</p> + +<p>Of one thing there was no doubt. The grass on the Indian lands <i>was</i> +greener than the grass on the settlers' lands. Through their land ran +the Missouri River, and they had water to spare. While the homesteaders +were famishing and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>their stock dying for water, it was going to waste +in Indian territory. That area was as peaceful as though the whole +frontier were filled with clear, cool streams.</p> + +<p>So Ida Mary and I went to the Indians for help. I presume we should have +gone to the Agency, but we had never seen the government officials in +charge, and we did know our Indians.</p> + +<p>We rode over into the little Indian settlement. Rows of buffalo-hide and +canvas wigwams; Indians sitting around on the ground. Men whittling, +doing beadwork, or lounging at ease. Squaws sitting like mummies or +cooking over open fires for which they broke or chopped wood. Young +bucks riding about, horses grazing peacefully, mongrel dogs in +profusion. Children, dirty, unconcerned, playing in the sun. Rows of +meat, fly-covered, drying on the lines.</p> + +<p>They were peaceful and unconcerned; the whole settlement had about it +the air of being on a holiday, the lazy aftermath of a holiday. +Remembering the hard labor, the anxiety, the effort and strain and +despair in the white settlement, there was a good deal to be said for +this life, effortless, without responsibility, sprawling in the shade +while others did the work.</p> + +<p>It was not before these members of the tribe, however, that we presented +our request. We went before the chief and his council with form and +ceremony. The old chief, dressed in dignified splendor, sat on a stool +in front of his wigwam, a rich Navajo rug under his feet. He had been a +great leader, wise and shrewd in making negotiations for his tribe. He +looked at me and grunted.</p> + +<p>I explained at length that I had come to him from <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>the Brulé white men +for help. But I got no farther. He threw out his hand in a negative +gesture. The old warriors of the council were resentful, obstinate. They +muttered and shook their heads angrily. No favors to the whites who had +robbed them of their lands!</p> + +<p>I sat down beside the chief while I talked to him, and then to other +members of the council—to Porcupine Bear, Little Thunder, Night Pipe. +The Indian demands pomp and ceremony in the transaction of affairs. +These wanted to hold a powwow. But I had no time for ceremony.</p> + +<p>The Indians had <i>minne-cha-lu-za</i> (swift-running water). We had none. If +some of the settlers could run stock on their hunting ground where they +could get to water, and if we could have water hauled from their lands, +we would pay.</p> + +<p>The old chief sat as immobile and dignified as a king in court. We soon +learned that the Indian horse-and-bead traders are a different species +from the high powers of the tribe sitting in council, making treaties. +It was like appearing before a high tribunal.</p> + +<p>"Take Indian lands. All time more," grunted one of them.</p> + +<p>"The settlers' land is no good to the Indian," I argued; "no water, no +berries, no wood, no more value. The government is making the whites pay +money, not giving them allotments as they do the red men."</p> + +<p>If they would not give us <i>minne-cha-lu-za</i>, I went on, we could not +print the paper any more, or keep <i>she-la</i>, or trade for posts.</p> + +<p>They went into ceremonious council, and delivered their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>concession +officially by an interpreter, Little Thunder I think it was, attired in +all his regalia of headdress with eagle feathers, beaded coat, and +fringed breeches.</p> + +<p>It appealed to their sense of power to grant the favor. At last the +whites had to come to them for help. Whether the deal was official or +unofficial, no one cared. In those crucial days Washington seemed to the +homesteaders as remote as the golden gates.</p> + +<p>We took a short-cut back. There was not a single building anywhere in +sight, and the only moving thing was a herd of range cattle going slowly +toward water. Through the silence came a deep, moaning sound, the most +eerie, distressed sound I ever heard. I was passing an Indian cemetery, +and beside a grave stood an Indian woman—alone with her dead.</p> + +<p>As is the Indian custom, she had come alone, walking many miles across +the plain. She would probably slash her breast or mutilate her flesh in +some other way as a sacrament to her grief. As I rode on slowly, her +wailing cry rose and fell until it grew dim in my ears, blending with +the moaning sound of the wind.</p> + +<p>Some of the settlers turned stock over on the Indian lands after our +negotiations, and the Indians hauled loads of life-giving water to the +print shop now and then. Our collection of antique animals we turned +loose to go back and live off the Indians.</p> + +<p>"Might be it will rain," Heine said one day. "Did you see that cloud +come by in front of the moon last night?"</p> + +<p>But it wasn't a cloud. It was smoke.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh15.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 14." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>XIV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>THE LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH</h3> +<br /> + +<p>We were living in the Land of the Burnt Thigh, the famous hunting ground +of the Brulé Indians, whose name was derived from a great prairie fire +which had once swept the land.</p> + +<p>The story of that great fire was told me by a famous interpreter who had +heard the tale many times from his grandfather. It was three seasons +after the big flood of 1812, he said, and the grass was high on Bad +River, bringing many buffalo down from the north. About two weeks after +the leaves turned they went to the prairie to get the winter's meat. +Being a hunting party, the women and children accompanied them. The +young boys wandered from the camps, shooting prairie dogs and small +birds. One day <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span>when a number of boys were returning to camp, a great +prairie fire swept down from the north.</p> + +<p>The boys ran for the river, but the fire was too swift for them, and +they were overtaken. Throwing themselves on the ground, they turned +their faces from the fire and wrapped their heads and bodies in their +robes, waiting for the fire to pass. Where they lay the grass was high +and there were many small bushes; so when the fire came, the ground was +hot and they were all burned on the right thigh, though otherwise +unhurt.</p> + +<p>The escape of the boys was considered so remarkable that the Sioux +called this tribe the "people with the burnt thigh." Apparently some +French trader rendered the name into his language, and thus we have +"Brulé" or burned.</p> + +<p>The Land of the Burnt Thigh was famous not only for its great prairie +fire and the fact that it had been the feeding ground of the buffalo, +which had come in big herds to winter pasture; but also because it had +been a notorious rendezvous for horse thieves. In the early days lawless +gangs turned to stealing horses instead of robbing banks. A bold outfit +of horse thieves plied their trade over a vast section of the Bad River +country, of which the Brulé had been a part. Here in the tall grass they +found refuge and feed for the horses, with water in the creeks and water +holes almost the year around. In the night they would drive their loot +in, and the law was helpless in dealing with them.</p> + +<p>Much has been said of Indians stealing the white man's horses and little +of the depredations of the whites upon the Indians. These gangs stole +constantly from the Indians, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span>taking the best of their herds. A little +band of Indians, realizing that they must get back their horses at any +cost, tracked the thieves and here on the Burnt Thigh attacked them. But +they were driven back by the outlaws, who had their lookout, according +to the Indians, on the very site of Ammons; concealing themselves here +in the tall grass, they could see anyone approaching for miles around. +They had seen the Indians coming, just as we had seen them that first +day at the settlement. The gang opened fire, killed several of their +number, and routed the rest.</p> + +<p>The Indians made no protest. All they knew of law was the power of the +government, a force not to be appealed to for protection, but rather one +against which the red men must struggle for their rights. They had no +recourse, therefore, against the thieves. And it was not until the +National Guard was sent to round them up that this lawless band was +tracked to its lair and captured.</p> + +<p>On the Land of the Burnt Thigh that summer the grass was dry, and +nowhere was there water with which to fight fire. Heat waves like vapor +came up from the hard, dry earth. One could see them white-hot as they +rose from the parched ground like thin smoke. From the heat expansion +and the sudden contraction when the cool of the night came on, the earth +cracked open in great crevices like wide, thirsty mouths, into which +horses stumbled and fell beneath their riders.</p> + +<p>A young couple went to town one day and returned that night, looking for +their home. They wandered around their claim, seeking their shack. It +lay in ashes, destroyed by a prairie fire.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span>Heine came wading through the hot yellow grass. "Did you carry matches +with you, Heine?"</p> + +<p>"Nope," he answered laconically. "I don't need no matches."</p> + +<p>"Suppose a prairie fire should come?" Everyone was supposed to carry +matches; no child was allowed to leave home without matches and +instructions to back-fire if he saw a fire coming. Heine sat down and +wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his little shirt.</p> + +<p>"I look first behind when I start. Can't no prairie fire come till I get +here."</p> + +<p>"But with these hot winds—"</p> + +<p>We watched constantly for the first sign of smoke. Sacks, old heavy +comforts and pieces of carpet were kept at hand as fire extinguishers, +in case there were enough water on hand to wet them—which was seldom.</p> + +<p>There were no more water holes, and it got dryer and hotter. Ben Smith's +men were still drilling for water. They were down 1500 feet. From the +print shop we could hear the drill grinding through hard earth.</p> + +<p>Prairie fires began to break out all around the Strip. The homesteaders +began to be afraid to leave their shacks for fear they would find them +gone on their return. Ammunition for the fight was pitifully meager. +They fought with plows that turned firebreaks, back-fired to stop the +progress of the fire, beat it out with their wet sacks.</p> + +<p>If fire ever got a start on the Burnt Thigh now, with its thick high +grass as dry as powder and no water, every habitation would be +completely annihilated. Protests about our lack of protection seethed +until they found expression <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>in the newspaper. We had no equipment, no +fire fighters, no lookouts, no rangers. Surely the government owed us +some means of fighting the red devil of the plains.</p> + +<p>One evening when the parched ground was beginning to cool we noticed a +strange yellow haze settling over the earth, felt a murky heat. The +world was on fire! Not near the settlement, miles away it must be, +probably on the Indian lands beyond the Strip.</p> + +<p>From the heat in the air, the threatening stillness, the alertness of +the animals as they lifted their heads high in the air with nostrils +dilated, we knew it was coming toward us. The heavy reddish fog +portended a big fire, its tongue of flame lapping up everything as it +came.</p> + +<p>Already a group of homesteaders was gathering at the print shop, +organizing systematic action; men from every section hurrying in with +little sacks and kegs of water splashing until they were half empty; a +pathetic, inadequate defense to set up against so gigantic an enemy. +Chris Christopherson rattled by with his tractor to turn broad furrows. +Dave Dykstra, who would never set the world on fire but would do a good +deal in putting it out, hastened up to help. Here they came! Men with +kegs of water, men with pieces of carpet, men with nothing but their +hands and their fear to pit against the fire.</p> + +<p>Off to the south the sky was red now, and the smell of fire was in our +nostrils, faint but unmistakable. None of us knew how fast a big fire +could travel. The settlers still knew so pitiably little about combating +the frontier.</p> + +<p>From the Indian settlement came Swift Running Deer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>on the horse which +had taken the State Fair prize last year. In Sioux (the young buck was +too excited to remember his English) he said the fire was on beyond the +Brulé somewhere. Most of the Indians had ridden off to it while he had +come to tell the whites.</p> + +<p>"If the wind stay down, it mebbe no come, but heap big fire like that +take two day—three day—mebbe seven to die."</p> + +<p>It was still and peaceful now, but there was little hope that two or +three days could pass without wind—and if the wind came from that +direction there was no hope for the Brulé.</p> + +<p>Coyote Cal, who had come riding through the Strip, stopped at the print +shop. Ida Mary tried to persuade him to ride around to the homesteads +and tell the girls who lived alone that the fire was still a long way +off and that men had gone to fight it.</p> + +<p>Coyote Cal stretched his long, angular figure to full height and stood +there hesitant. "No, miss, I'd ruther fight fire," he said at length.</p> + +<p>"But the girls will be frantic with fear."</p> + +<p>"Hain't no use a calf-bawlin' over a prairie fire. If it gits yuh, it +gits yuh, an' that's all there is to it."</p> + +<p>With these consoling words he swung into the saddle and turned his +horse's head toward the fire.</p> + +<p>Ma Wagor came outside where Ida Mary and I watched the reflection of +flame against the darkening sky. The air was still. There was no wind.</p> + +<p>"I'm goin' home to milk the cow," Ma announced. She <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span>had paid forty +dollars for that cow, she reminded us, and she wanted every last drop of +milk out of her. Besides, she didn't believe in anybody leaving this +world hungry.</p> + +<p>The red dusk found the plains stirring. The ominous silence was broken +by rumbling wagons hurrying with their barrels of water, tractors +chugging, turning long fresh rows of dirt as breaks, teams everywhere +plowing around shacks and corrals.</p> + +<p>Night came on, inky black. The red light on the horizon and billowy +clouds of smoke intensified the darkness. Over the range, cattle were +bellowing in their mad fear of fire. They were coming closer to the +reservation fence, running from danger.</p> + +<p>The hours crept past; around us on the plains the settlers had done all +they could, and they were waiting as Ida Mary and I were waiting, +watching the red glow on the sky, thinking of the men who were +desperately beating out the advancing flames, wondering if each tiny +gust foretold the coming of the wind.</p> + +<p>Inside the shack we moved about restlessly, putting the money we had on +hand in tin cans, the legal paper in the little strong box, and burying +them in the small, shallow cave. If the fire came, we would seek refuge +there ourselves, but it wouldn't be much use. We knew that.</p> + +<p>Out again to look at the sky, and then up and down the print shop, +restlessly up and down. Ida Mary made coffee; we had to do something, +and there was nothing for us to do but wait. Wait and listen to the +silence, and look our own fear squarely in the eyes and know it for what +it was.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>"What's that?" said Ida Mary in a queer, hoarse voice. She put down her +cup and sat rigid, listening. Then she jumped to her feet, her face +white. "Edith," she cried, "it's the wind—it's the wind!"</p> + +<p>Out of nowhere came the moaning sound of the wind, sweeping unchecked +across space, blowing from the south! While we listened with caught +breath, it seized some papers and sent them rattling across the table, +blew a lock of hair in my eyes, made the dry grass rustle so that it +sounded for one glorious moment like rain.</p> + +<p>We ran outside and stood in the darkness, our dresses whipping around +us, looking at the sky. Here and there above the red haze we saw a +bright, jagged tongue of flame leap up, licking the black sky.</p> + +<p>The homesteaders who had not gone to the fire found waiting alone +intolerable, and one by one they drifted in to the store, waiting taut +and silent.</p> + +<p>At midnight we heard the staccato beats of a horse's hoofs. A messenger +was coming. Only one horse on the plains could travel like that; it was +Black Indian. And a moment later Lone Star Len flung himself from the +horse and came in.</p> + +<p>He had been fighting flame. His face was blackened almost beyond +recognition.</p> + +<p>"It's all right," he said at once, before we could question him. "The +fire's over on the government land. It's beyond the Strip."</p> + +<p>His eyes and lips were swollen, face and hands blistered. "It's still +ragin'," he went on, "but there is a little creek, dry mostly, between +the fire and the Strip. It's not likely to get <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>this far. 'Course, the +wind is bad. It's blowin' sparks across on the grass, this side of the +creek. But some of the settlers and Indians are watchin' it."</p> + +<p>Ida Mary came in from the shack with sandwiches and black coffee and set +them before him.</p> + +<p>"You didn't need to bother doin' that for me," he protested; "you girls +better go to bed."</p> + +<p>"When did you have anything to eat?" Ida Mary asked, as he drank the hot +coffee and devoured the food ravenously, moving his hands as though they +hurt him unbearably.</p> + +<p>"This mornin'. Been working with that fire since noon; I had started for +the chuck-wagon when I smelt smoke...."</p> + +<p>"Lone Star, why did you risk your life to save a reservation full of +homesteaders?" I asked him.</p> + +<p>He stood for a moment with a chagrined expression on his smoke-scarred +face.</p> + +<p>"Cattle needs the grass," he replied as he stalked out and rode slowly, +wearily away into the flame-lighted night.</p> + +<p>The fire had broken out on range and government land off toward the +White River country—to the southeast, where Lone Star rode herd. As the +country for the most part was uninhabited, the fire had swept the plains +for miles before the fighters reached it. Sparks and flames had jumped +the creek, but by now the grass was burned back far enough on both sides +so that the danger for this region was past.</p> + +<p>The amused natives told how a man had jolted up on a stiff horse, a +painting outfit in his saddlebag, to watch the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span>fire. "This is great," +he exclaimed as he plied brush and color. Then, as a volley of wild +sparks shot across the narrow stream and went into flame nearby, he +threw down the brush, rushed in among the fire-fighters, worked madly +until the flames were extinguished, then went back and finished the +picture.</p> + +<p>"Who is he?" someone in the gaping crowd asked.</p> + +<p>"The cartoonist from Milwaukee," a Brulé settler answered.</p> + +<p>For several days longer the fire raged, with the air smoky and a red and +black pall over the earth. Then it faded as our other terrors had faded, +and was gone.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>Already, in the midst of fire and water famine, there stalked ghosts of +cold and hunger—the coming winter. With no money left to provide the +necessities of life, the homesteaders stared into the face of a food +famine. Most of them were now living on meager rations, counting every +penny, their crops shriveled in the fields.</p> + +<p>Ada put her small wages into flour and coffee. And Heine remarked, "My +Ma says might be we'll starve and freeze yet. She's goin' to pray." We +watched him trudge back across the plains, a sturdy little fellow, one +suspender holding up patched overalls over a faded blue shirt, bare feet +which walked fearlessly and by some miracle escaped the constant menace +of rattlesnakes, ragged straw hat shading the serious round face. The +plains had made him old beyond his six years.</p> + +<p>With the realization of danger which the prairie fire had brought, <i>The +Wand</i> began to advocate government rangers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span>and lookouts to be stationed +at strategic points. I was in the print shop writing an article on +conditions when Lone Star came in.</p> + +<p>"I want to get my paper forwarded, Miss Printer," he stated; "I'm +leavin' the country. It's gettin' too crowded in these parts. Too +lonesome. I don't see how people can live, huddled up with somebody on +every quarter-section."</p> + +<p>"Where are you going now?"</p> + +<p>"Goin' to an honest-to-God range country," he said. "A short-grass +country, but rich feed. You can get away from landgrabbers there. It's +bigger'n all creation."</p> + +<p>"Where shall I send the paper?"</p> + +<p>"Wyoming. The Rawhide country. Just send the paper to Lost Trail. I'll +be goin' on there. I know a cattleman around Lost Trail."</p> + +<p>Rawhide country. Lost Trail. About them was the atmosphere of far-flung +space, of solitude and peace.</p> + +<p>"I may go there myself some day," I told him.</p> + +<p>"If you do," he said soberly, "leave this doggone newspaper shebang +behind. It's a pest to the country. Don't clutter up any more range with +homesteadin' herds. Worse than grasshoppers; at least the grasshoppers +leave, and the homesteaders appear to be here to stay."</p> + +<p>He rode off, a strange, solitary figure, topped the ridge and dropped +out of sight as swiftly as he had appeared that first morning, stopping +the eagle in its flight. When he had gone I turned back to my article. +In this gigantic homestead project, <i>The Wand</i> declared, there should be +protection. We demanded of the local land offices why the Department of +the Interior did not establish Service <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>Bureaus on government territory +to expedite development, to lessen hardship and danger. But the Land +Offices could not help us. They were only the red-tape machines of the +Public Lands Department.</p> + +<p>The federal government was taking in revenue by the millions from the +homesteaders. Millions of acres of homestead land at from $1.25 to $6 an +acre provided a neat income for the United States Treasury. And, we +contended, the homesteaders of America should be given consideration. +There was nothing radical about these articles, but here again I became +known as "that little outlaw printer."</p> + +<p>Had I been experienced, I might have carried this appeal to Washington +and said, "Put the revenue from these lands back into them. That is not +charity, it is development of natural resources."</p> + +<p>Any such entreaty, coming from an upstart of a girl printer, would have +been like a lamb bleating at a blizzard. But the homesteaders might have +been organized as a unit, with official power to petition for aid. I did +not know then that I could do such things.</p> + +<p>Meantime the print shop buzzed with activity. The harvest of proofs, on +which I had gambled the paper, was on. It kept one person busy with the +clerical work on them. While the Strip was yet a no-man's land, I had +pledged the printing equipment company 400 proofs as collateral. That +was a low estimate. As a matter of fact <i>The Wand</i> won an all-time +record, publishing in one week 88 proofs, the highest number ever to be +published in any issue of a newspaper of which the government had +record. From the Department of the Interior, from the Land <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>Office, from +other newspapers congratulations poured in. It seems to me that some +sort of medal was awarded to us for that.</p> + +<p>It wasn't the record which mattered, of course. To us the publication of +these notices signified that the settlers had stuck it out with parched +throats to get their deeds; that some 14,000 acres of wasteland had +passed into private units in one week's time.</p> + +<p>It meant endless work. Type, numbers, checking, straining eyes and +nerves beyond endurance. But it also meant (for that one lot) over $400 +income for the newspaper. Proof money had been coming in for several +weeks. Every mail brought long heavy envelopes from the Land Office, +containing proof applications made there. From among the homesteaders we +hired amateur typesetters to help out, and anybody who happened to be +handy turned the press; on occasion we resorted to old Indian warriors, +and once to a notorious cattle rustler.</p> + +<p>And all this time we watched the sky for rain and skimmed the green scum +from the dam water to drink. Looking up from the type one morning, I saw +an old Indian standing before me, old Porcupine Bear. Slipping in on +moccasined feet, an Indian would appear before one without warning. At +first this sudden materializing at my elbow had alarmed me, but I had +long grown accustomed to it.</p> + +<p>Old Porcupine Bear was a savage-looking character—one of the very old +warriors who seldom left camp. One never knew how old some of these aged +Indians were, and many of them did not know themselves how many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>seasons +they had lived. This old man, we figured, must be a hundred years old.</p> + +<p>"Will there be rain, Porcupine?" I asked him. "Will you hold your Rain +Dance soon?"</p> + +<p>The deep wrinkles in his leathery face were hard set as if from pain. +His coal-black hair, streaked with gray and hanging loose over his +shoulders, looked as if it had not been combed for days.</p> + +<p>"<i>To-wea</i>," he wailed. "<i>My to-wea</i> (my woman). Him sick. The fever. +Goin' die." He dropped his face into the palm of his hard hand and let +it lie there motionless in demonstration of her passing. He wanted to +get a box like white squaws had, the boxes in which they went to the +Happy Hunting Ground.</p> + +<p>He was on the road to Pierre for a coffin. Others of the tribe, we +gathered, had put in money to help buy it. He opened a beaded sack and +showed us. There was enough to buy a pretty good one. In broken Sioux +and signs we advised him to wait—mebbe-no-die. Mebbe-walk-some-more. He +shook his head stubbornly. His herbs—he was a medicine man who had +healed many sick ones—had not worked. Even his <i>pazunta</i> had failed.</p> + +<p>The Indian's <i>pazunta</i> was his shield against disease—against all evil. +It drives the Evil Spirit away. It may be anything he selects—an herb, +a stone, a rabbit's foot—so long as he selects it secretly and divulges +to no one what it is. The <i>pazunta</i> is invested with divine curative +power, according to the Indians.</p> + +<p>When he got back to his wigwam with the satin-lined "last-sleep-box," +Porcupine Bear found his <i>to-wea</i> cooking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>supper; so the old brave, it +was said, slept in the good soft bed himself. "Why not?" said Ida Mary. +He had slept on the ground and fought many hard battles; let him have +his cushioned resting place while he could enjoy it; but I shuddered at +the thought.</p> + +<p>A week or so later he came again. It was a day when I was at the +breaking point. He stood looking at me, shaking his head as he had done +over his <i>to-wea</i>. I must have looked like a ghost, for in a gesture of +friendship he said:</p> + +<p>"You want my last-sleep-box?"</p> + +<p>The prairie fire had not got me down, but at the thought of that box I +went to bed and stayed there three days.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="XV" id="XV"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh16.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 15." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>XV<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>UP IN SMOKE</h3> +<br /> + +<p>There was almost $750 in the tin box down in the trunk ready to be +deposited. At breakfast we exulted over it. The Ammons sisters were +always draining the bank dry. Sedgwick would open his eyes when we +walked into the bank with that bag of money.</p> + +<p>We planned to go to Presho that day. It was hardly safe to have so much +money in the shack, and we were eager to put it in a safe place. It +represented months of planning and effort and hard work. But the labor +didn't seem bad to look back on that morning, not with the reward at +hand. It had been worth while, because the end of the road was in sight +and we had accomplished much that we had hoped to do—more, in some +respects.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span>It was unbearably hot that morning, and we decided against the trip to +Presho. After all, one more day wouldn't matter, and the sun was so +scorching we quailed at the thought of that long ride. There was an +ominous oppression in the air, and heat waves made the ground appear to +waver before our eyes. Here and there flames flared up without any +explainable origin, as though from the heat of the grass itself.</p> + +<p>The day crept on to mid-afternoon, and the hot wind came up from the +ground, blistering our faces. There was no one near the print shop, +where the metal was hot to the touch, no movement over the plains. We +sent our helpers home, while Ma, Ida Mary and I moved about languidly, +doing only what was absolutely necessary.</p> + +<p>There was a curious, acrid smell in the air. As though a bolt of +lightning had struck, I stopped my work on the paper and cried out, +"What's that?"</p> + +<p>"Fire," screamed Ida Mary; "fire!"</p> + +<p>Smoke enveloped us. There was a deafening crackle. Blinding red flame. +We ran to the door, and there, not ten feet away, our shack was burning +to the ground. The little lean-to kitchen, covered with tar paper, was +sending its flames high into the air. Frantically we ran to the front +door, shouting above the crackling and roar of flame, "The trunk! The +money! The settlers' money!"</p> + +<p>The print shop would go, too—and the notices had several weeks to +run—but the essential thing was to get the money back. We must do that, +must! Oh, for a rolling bank on wheels!</p> + +<p>At the front door black smoke came rolling out, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>choking us. Ida Mary +threw a sack over her head and started into the shack. Ma Wagor and I +dragged her back into the open air. The building was burning as though +it had been made of paper, a torch of orange flames. We watched it go, +home, money, clothes, a few valuable keepsakes, furniture—everything we +possessed licked up by the flames. The piano, too—I was glad it had +brought so much pleasure to the settlers.</p> + +<p>The wind! Now the fire was spreading. The print shop was burning, its +inflammable tar paper and dry boards blazing like powder. "Hurry, +hurry!" we called frantically to each other. From the print shop I +grabbed the most valuable papers while Ida Mary snatched what she could +from the post office. Stoical, silent, making every move count, Ma Wagor +was busy in the store, her store, in which she had taken such pride and +such infinite pleasure. Ma was getting more "confusement" now than she +had bargained for.</p> + +<p>Blinded with smoke, we caught up the sacks into which we had stuffed the +papers and threw them into the cave, the only shelter left on the whole +claim.</p> + +<p>In less than thirty minutes the post office, the store with its supply +of food, the print shop were gone. The harvest of long months of labor +and storm, thirst and fire, vanished as though it had never been—gone +up in clouds of heavy, black smoke.</p> + +<p>If the wind would only go down, we groaned; but the sparks had already +caught the grass around us. A prairie fire! If it ever jumped those +breaks, the Strip would be devastated with the wind sweeping the plain +as it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>doing. What irony that we who had printed our precautions and +warnings for others, should burn up the Strip! We who had labored so to +save it! And there was no chance for us. We could not outrun a prairie +fire. The horses, which were untied, had gone full speed across the +prairie at the first smell and sight of fire.</p> + +<p>Now the oilhouse had caught, and we turned, panic-stricken, running +headlong across the plains, our feet burning, not knowing where we were +going so long as we could escape the explosion of the oil. Inside the +firebreaks the grass was burning. Listening for the explosion of the oil +was like waiting for the crack of doom. Then we remembered. Pa Wagor had +sunk the barrels underground, using siphons, "just in case of fire."</p> + +<p>Sparks leaping up, flying across the breaks—the prairie was on fire! We +checked our flight, sanity returning with the emergency. We had to go +back—simply had to go back and fight that first outbreak of flame. The +Strip was at stake. Life and property were at stake. Falling, rising, +running, falling again, dragging each other up, we went back. "Help!" we +called to the empty prairie, "Help!"</p> + +<p>There was nothing to smother the fast-spreading blaze. Not a thing. Not +even a sack or a hat. We tore off parts of the clothes from our scantily +clad bodies. Ma took off her petticoat. There was a sack in the barn +which we wet in a keg set in the yard, wet the canvas which covered the +keg. With that, with our feet we trampled down the sparks as they fell, +the flames as they rose—shoes hot and charred, holes burning through.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>Across the prairie a team was coming at a dead run. "Bless the Lord," Ma +Wagor panted, "it's Sam Frye!"</p> + +<p>A bright red flare shot up from behind and around me. My dress was on +fire. Ida Mary clawed dirt from the hard-baked ground, and with it in +her hands twisted my burning smock into knots to keep the flames from +spreading. With almost animal instinct I threw myself down in the +firebreak, pressing hard against the ground to extinguish any smoldering +sparks on my clothing, and lay panting, cooling in the dirt.</p> + +<p>Sam Frye, the mail-carrier, was there, taking charge. All at once a +crowd had gathered, attracted by the leaping flames on what had been the +settlement of Ammons, running to fight the threatening prairie fire. Men +went to work, fighting fresh outbursts of flames and putting out fire on +the ruins. Women hovered about us in sympathy, some with tears streaming +down their sunburned cheeks under the straw hats and bonnets. Neither +Sister nor I could shed a tear.</p> + +<p>Dazed and dizzy, we stumbled back across the breaks to the charred ashes +of our labors. Apart from the tangible losses that lay in coals, the +newspaper, the voice of the Brulé, was gone. "Down into frontier +history," Senator Phillips said. Into it had gone the ambitions, the +heartbreaking labor, the vision of two girls.</p> + +<p>Half-naked, our scanty clothing burned and torn, hair singed, faces and +parts of our bodies scorched and black with smoke—tar paper makes +black, smudgy smoke—eyes red and burning, we stood there in the middle +of the open <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>spaces that had dealt us their blow. Our <i>pazuntas</i> hadn't +worked, that was all. But at least we had checked the prairie fire. We +had won that much from the Brulé, the "Burned" land.</p> + +<p>We clung to each other wordlessly. There was nothing to say. Everything +that made up our daily life and our plans for the future had been wiped +out in thirty minutes.</p> + +<p>"We still have the claim," Ida Mary murmured at last; "nothing can +destroy the land."</p> + +<p>"But all our bright hopes—"</p> + +<p>How the fire got such a start before we detected it was a mystery. With +the shack walls already burning hot and the strong wind, it had been +like spontaneous combustion. Ma Wagor was baking bread on an old oil +stove. Perhaps a draft from the open window had fanned the fire. But the +origin didn't matter now.</p> + +<p>Ma Wagor had worked heroically, helping us to save the important +records, the mail, and the prairie from being swept by fire. When it was +all over she did not whimper about her loss.</p> + +<p>When I saw Pa coming, I ran to her. "Ma, here comes Pa. This will kill +him. You had better go meet him." He had not wanted her to buy the store +in the first place; now there were debts piled up, and only the +homestead to pay them.</p> + +<p>She sat on the ground, burying her face in her hands. "Let him come to +me," she replied. "It's his place to comfort me in time of trouble."</p> + +<p>True to her feminine intuition, he went to her and put his arm around +her shoulders. "Elizabeth," he said. No <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>response. "Elizabeth," he +entreated. "Don't give way like this. We will pull through somehow."</p> + +<p>I felt a hand on my arm, and Alex Van Leshout's voice hoarse in my ear. +"The latchkey of the Circle V is on the outside. If you girls will come +over, I'll move out. If you need me or Hop-Along, all I have is at your +service. You're a good Indian, Edith."</p> + +<p>Sometimes I envy the women who are able, during a catastrophe, to stop +and grieve over it. I never seem to have had the time. There was always +something that demanded to be done, whatever the circumstances.</p> + +<p>The fire had no sooner been put out, the claim bare as the day I first +saw it—save for charred grass, and a great mound of ashes, and the +smell of smoke—when Sam Frye opened the mail sacks. Sitting bedraggled +in his old buggy, Ida Mary distributed the mail to the patrons who had +gathered. Even though the post office was gone, the mail must go on. We +were never destined to be back-trailers.</p> + +<p>The sultry, tragic day came to a close, with the plains light long after +the sun had gone down, and the Ammons settlement gone, and a devastating +sense of emptiness. Ida Mary and I realized that we had no place to go. +With typical frontier hospitality, every home on the reservation was +open to us; but that night we longed to be alone. It wasn't +commiseration we needed, but quiet in which to grasp what had happened +to us. We decided on Margaret's shack, left vacant when she had proved +up. She had left a few household essentials there.</p> + +<p>There some of the frontier women followed us, to bathe and salve the +burns we had forgotten, bandaging those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>which were the worst. I had +suffered most when my clothing caught fire, but miraculously there were +no serious burns.</p> + +<p>They left us alone as night came, Ma and Pa Wagor, Ida Mary and me. It +was Ma who roused first from the general lethargy in which we were all +steeped. She began bustling around. "Guess we'd better have something to +eat," she said briskly.</p> + +<p>"There's nothing left to eat," Ida Mary reminded her.</p> + +<p>Triumphantly, Ma brought forth a big bundle tied up in her old gingham +apron. In it were cans of salmon, tomatoes and other essential foods. +And a can of pineapple, Ma's panacea for all ills! "I knew we'd be +hungry after all that, so I jerked up a little stuff while you were +getting the papers out."</p> + +<p>She brought in an armful of prairie hay, built a fire in the cookstove +and made strong tea. She was no longer the clinging vine of an hour +before.</p> + +<p>And there in the little shack down the draw, penniless, almost naked, +all our belongings and our plans for the future in charred ashes on the +claim, we slept from exhaustion.</p> + +<p>No matter with what finality things seem to end, there is always a next +day and a next. During those first few hours the extent of our disaster +had dazed us. Then, the odds seemed so overwhelmingly against us that +there was no use in going on. The only trouble was that we couldn't +stop. Post office or no post office, there was the mail. Print shop or +no print shop, there were the proof notices.</p> + +<p>We were like the cowboy who, hanging to a running <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span>steer's tail, was +dragged against the hard ground and through brush until he was cut, +battered and bruised.</p> + +<p>Fearing he would be killed, the other cowboys, who watched, shouted +wildly to him, "Let go! Let go!"</p> + +<p>"Let go, hell!" he yelled back. "It's all I can do to hold on!"</p> + +<p>Then there was Great-uncle Jack Ammons, back in the earlier days of +Illinois, who had become critically ill from some lingering disease of +long standing. One day the doctor called Aunt Jane aside and said, +"Jane, if Jack has any business matters to attend to, it had better be +done at once. I don't think he can last another forty-eight hours."</p> + +<p>From the bedroom came a weak, irritable voice, "Jane! Jane! Where's my +boots?"</p> + +<p>Uncle Jack got up, fought the disease, and lived and prospered for many +a year. We came of a family who died with their boots on.</p> + +<p>I don't know whether it was a streak of Great-uncle Jack or whether, +like the cowboy, we held on because we could not let go. The latter, +perhaps, for we saw no way of escape. Many times, I think, people get +too much credit for hanging on to things as a virtue when they are +simply following the line of least resistance. We saw no means of +escape, and were too stunned to plan.</p> + +<p>Of one thing we were sure. We would not go back home for help. There +would have to be some way of telling our father of the misfortune so as +to soften the blow as much as possible, but we were determined not to +add to his burdens, which were already too heavy for him.</p> + +<p>"If the railroad company takes us to the state line," <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span>declared Ida +Mary, "it will have to take us crated—or furnish us covering." In the +garish morning light, indeed, we felt rather naked in those flimsy, torn +clothes, the only garments we now owned.</p> + +<p>"We can't go back, anyhow," I reminded her. "We can't leave things +unfinished. The proof notices have to finish running, and Sam Frye will +be throwing the mail sack in at the door." It was easier to get into +things than to get out.</p> + +<p>The settlers came that day with their widow's mite of food and clothes; +the women's clothing too large, the children's too small. But it covered +us—after a fashion. The store at Presho sent out a box of supplies. +Coyote Cal and Sourdough rode up.</p> + +<p>"Beats tarnation, now don't it," Coyote Cal consoled us.</p> + +<p>"I told you this country wasn't fit for nothin' but cowhands," growled +Sourdough. "Here, the punchers rounded up a little chicken feed." He +fairly threw at us a dirty tobacco pouch, filled with coins. "Coming +before pay day like this, tain't much," he grumbled, as though the +catastrophe might have waited for pay day—things couldn't be done to +suit Sourdough.</p> + +<p>A wagonload of Indians drove up, men and squaws and papooses. They +climbed out, unhitched, turned the team loose to graze. They came in +mumbling in a sort of long wail, "No-print-paper, hu-uh, hu-uh," but +gleeful as children over the gifts they carried. A bright-hued shawl, +thick hot blankets, beaded moccasins. There was a sack of "corn in the +milk" (roasting ears) which had been raised over by the river, and +stripped (dried) meat. We did not know whether it was cow, horse or dog, +but we knew it had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>been black with flies as it hung on the lines +drying—we had seen them drying meat. However, parboiling should make it +clean.</p> + +<p>And early that morning we saw Imbert coming from Presho, hurrying to Ida +Mary, his face drawn and haggard. They went into each other's arms +without a word, and at last Ida Mary was able to cry, tears of sorrow +and relief, with her face against his breast.</p> + +<p>I lay weak and ill, wasting from a slow fever. I slept fitfully, while +streams of cool water went gurgling by, and cool lemonade, barrels of +it. But every time I stooped to take a drink the barrels went rattling +across the plain into a prairie fire.</p> + +<p>"Maybe you've got typhoid," Ma would say as she bathed my hot head and +hands with towels wrung out of vinegar and warm water, fanning them to +coolness. "You'll be all right, Sis," Ida Mary would say; "just hold +on—" We did not call a doctor. There was no money left for doctors.</p> + +<p>Rest, sleep, and nourishment were what I needed, but conditions were far +from favorable for such a cure. The deserted shack was baking hot. It +was not the cheerful place it had seemed while Margaret lived in it, +with the bare floor, the old kitchen stove, the sagging wire couch and a +couple of kitchen chairs. We had scanty, sticky food, and warm, +sickening water. We didn't even bother to keep it clean. The routine of +our life had been burned away. The handful of dishes went dirty, the +floor went unswept. But Ma brought milk and custards that she had made +at home, I drank the juice of dried fruits, and Imbert brought us <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>water +from the Millers' well. We sank jars of it deep into the ground to keep +cool.</p> + +<p>Heine broke a new trail across the plains and a few days after the fire +the horses came home. They had wandered back to the old site, snorted at +the black ruins, and gone thundering across the prairie led by Lakota +with the wild horse's fear of fire. We never expected to see them again. +But one day they saw Sam Frye coming with the mail. They followed him +down the draw, and when he stopped and threw out the mail sack Lakota +gave a loud neigh and walked straight into Margaret's old barn. Where +the mail sacks went was home to Lakota.</p> + +<p>Moving the post office around the prairie, piling the mail in an open +box in the corner, may have been criminally illegal, but we gave it no +thought.</p> + +<p>The mail, in a haphazard fashion, was being handled. Our next problem +was the proof notices. They must go on. It was vital to the settlers. +Many of them could not live without the money they were borrowing on the +final proofs. Without the press there seemed no solution to that +problem.</p> + +<p>On the sixth day after the fire Ida Mary got up early, while I slept in +the cool of the morning; she made a blast from the dry grass under one +cap of the stove, boiled coffee, ate her lean breakfast, and put food on +a chair beside my bed. Then she darkened the room, slipped out, saddled +Lakota, rode up to the cave, and brought out the mail sack of legal +papers we had saved from the fire. She took out the notices—those in +course of publication and others due to be published. Then she rode on +to McClure, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>made arrangements with the printer of the McClure <i>Press</i>, +and began setting up the notices.</p> + +<p>When the stage came in that noon with the Ammons mail, there was a +letter from E. L. Senn, the proof king, offering us the use of the shop +and part-time service of his printer to meet the emergency. Although we +had cornered the great proof business on the Lower Brulé, he was coming +to our rescue to save it for us.</p> + +<p>That night Ida Mary came home, hot, weary, with lines of fatigue in her +youthful face and about her blue eyes. But there was a resolute look, +too, marking her strong will; and in her voice a tone of satisfaction.</p> + +<p>It was a long, arduous task, setting up again all those notices in small +type. The type of the McClure shop would not set half of the notices. We +sent the balance of them to be set, some in Presho, some in Pierre, got +them back by stage, and <i>The Wand</i>, despite fire and all other +obstacles, went on with its work—a few days late, strictly a proof +sheet, but without lapse of publication.</p> + +<p>And Ida Mary kept things going, conserving her strength as well as she +could, with Imbert and Ma Wagor helping. Ma said, "I'd 'a' died if I +hadn't found something to do."</p> + +<p>It was mid-August, with no sign of the drought breaking. In the shack +down the draw we sat during spare hours sorting type at Margaret's +kitchen table, picking, separating six-point, eight-point, ten-point +letters and spaces, leads, slugs. Ma Wagor and other neighbors helped at +odd times; Heine separated the type into piles of like sizes. Sorting +that type-pi was a job to which no one in the world but a printer can +give the deserved sympathy.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>Heine, raking around in the cooling embers on my claim, had found +several cases of pied type and a few odds and ends of printing equipment +down under a piece of heavy tin roofing, the only thing salvaged from +the wreckage.</p> + +<p>A committee of settlers came, emptied a little sack on the table. In a +little heap there lay pennies, dimes, quarters, a few silver +dollars—precious coins that had been put aside to keep the wolf from +the door—and a separate roll of bills. The offering of the Lower Brulé +settlers! "To build a new shack and print shop," they said simply. "The +homesteaders will do the building."</p> + +<p>Of course, we must build another shack and reestablish residence or +there would be no deed to the land. The money represented not only the +hard-earned savings but the loyal support of the settlers. When we +protested, they laughed. "But <i>The Wand</i> has always been telling us to +share," they said. Some of the business men of the towns added to the +contribution to establish the newspaper.</p> + +<p>One sweltering day, with everyone seeking escape from the broiling sun, +all movement over the Strip was suspended. As I lay on the couch +recuperating, there came a great explosion that roared through the dead +hush like all the cannons of war gone off at once. Ida Mary, resting in +the shade of the shack, came running in. It could not be thunder, for +there was not a cloud in the sky. It had come from over Cedar Fork way.</p> + +<p>Soon the plains were astir with settlers rushing in the direction of the +explosion. A great rumbling force was sending steam high into the air. +It was Ben Smith's Folly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span>He had struck gas—enough to pipe house and +barns for light and fuel!</p> + +<p>Then came a heaving, belching from far down in the earth's cavern. And +up came the water—a great stream of it that ran over the dry hot +ground! Water overflowing. That artesian well, flowing day and night, +would save the people and stock until it rained.</p> + +<p>And with the flowing of fresh, cool water on the Lower Brulé, life began +to flow through my veins once more, and I got up, ready for what was to +come.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh17.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 16." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>XVI<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>FALLOWED LAND</h3> +<br /> + +<p>So it happened that only a few weeks before proving-up time, Ida Mary +and I had to start all over again. But with the coming of water into +that thirsty land it didn't seem so difficult to begin again. And we +weren't doing it alone. It was the settlers who built a new shack, a new +building for a printing press; the settlers who clothed us during those +first destitute days. "This is cooperation," they laughed at our +protests. "<i>The Wand</i> has always preached cooperation."</p> + +<p>In the cool of the evening I rode out over the devastated prairie, past +the charred timbers and ashes of my claim, across the scorched and +stunted fields blighted by drought, avoiding the great cracks which had +opened in the dry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>earth and lay gaping like thirsty mouths for rain. +The crops were burnt, and the land which had seemed so fertile looked +bleak and sterile.</p> + +<p>I rode through the reservation gate. There was no one at home at Huey +Dunn's, but his little field of shocked grain lay there in the midst of +burnt grass and unharvested fields. Instead of dry chaff there were +hard, fairly well-filled heads. It had withstood the drought +sufficiently to mature. In an average year it would have yielded a good +crop.</p> + +<p>On his claim near the reservation a young man was doing quite a bit of +experimenting. He was a graduate of an agricultural school. I looked at +his fields, which also had come through the drought much better than +others. From other farmers scattered here and there who had tried the +fallowing plan I got records of methods and results. Then I rode back +slowly, thinking of what might be done for the Brulé country.</p> + +<p>Drinking water supply could be obtained. The next most vital problem was +moisture for the crops. Most of the rainfall came in the growing season, +but in dry years it was inadequate and much of it wasted on packed +ground. To produce crops in the arid or semi-arid regions, out-of-season +moisture—heavy snows and rains—must be conserved. There must be a way +to harness it.</p> + +<p>Next to lack of moisture was the short growing season. These were the +principal barriers to converting the new West into an agricultural +domain. The latter problem could be solved, the farmers said. Progress +already was being made in developing seed adapted to the climate. The +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span>Indians had produced quick-maturing corn through their years of +corn-raising in a small way. There could be developed a hardier, +short-stalked grain, eating up less moisture, agricultural authorities +maintained. The farmers said that nature itself gradually would do a +great deal toward that end.</p> + +<p>Experience. Science. Time. Of course, this was a land of the future, not +of today. The homesteaders had expected to tame it in a year or two, +when many years must be spent on even the smallest scientific +discoveries. They had demanded miracles. That was because they had no +resources with which to await results.</p> + +<p>President Roosevelt had done much in turning public attention toward the +necessity of reclaiming these public lands, and already much was being +done. They had been too long neglected. Years ago, when the supply of +government land had seemed inexhaustible, the tide of settlers had swept +around the forgotten frontier, on beyond the arid and semi-arid land to +the fertile soil and the gold fields on the Pacific Coast. But the time +had come when this neglected prairie was the only land left for a +land-hungry people. Some way had to be found to make the great arid +plains productive.</p> + +<p>The Department of Agriculture was turning its attention to the frontier, +establishing bureaus and experiment stations in various western states, +making scientific research.</p> + +<p>At the request of <i>The Wand</i>, two agricultural agents from the State +Experimental Farm came to examine the soil and advise us as to its +possibilities, as to crops and cultivation. They reported it rich in +natural resources, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span>splendid subsoil. We would have to depend +greatly upon the subsoil and its moisture-retaining quality.</p> + +<p>And over the frontier there was talk about a new system of conserving +moisture. Some said it was bound to sweep the West. The method was +called fallowing—the method Huey Dunn had used. It was a radical +departure from anything farmers of the rain belts had ever used.</p> + +<p>The few sodbreakers who had tried it thought they had found a way to +conserve the moisture and at the same time to preserve the land, but it +was not they who heralded the plan as a great new discovery. To them it +was a way to raise their own crops. They may have learned it in the Old +Country, where intensive farming was carried on, or, like Huey Dunn, +figured it out for themselves. But it was ahead of the times in the new +West and generally looked upon as an impractical idea spread largely by +land agents as propaganda. Many of the farmers had never heard of it. +What I had heard and read of fallowing now came back to mind. I was in a +position to keep better posted on such things than they.</p> + +<p>I got out my letters and records and spread them before Ida Mary on the +old square table, and with the sweat dripping down our faces from the +heat of the lamp we eagerly devoured their contents. Huey Dunn's plan of +mellowing, or rotting the soil, was not yet the true fallowing method.</p> + +<p>"But it will mean cropping the land only every other year, and plowing +and raking the empty soil," Ida Mary said in a tone of misgiving.</p> + +<p>"The top soil is kept loosened so that every bit of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>moisture will be +absorbed into the subsoil. Suppose it does mean letting the land lie +idle every other year, alternating the fields," I contended. "There is +plenty of cheap land here. It will be a way to utilize waste space." +Farmers in other arid regions, I learned as I scanned the letters, were +raising forage crops on the land in the off year.</p> + +<p>But it will take two years, Ida Mary reminded me. The settlers had no +money to wait so long for a crop. "And all that labor—" she went on. +"It may be the solution, but I doubt if the settlers would listen to any +such plan."</p> + +<p>I knew she was right. Two years of waiting, labor and expense. Labor was +no small item with the poor homesteaders. If the government would put in +money to carry out this new system until the farmers could get returns +from it—"It is a gigantic project for the government to finance ... it +would require great financial corporations to develop this country...." +Halbert Donovan had said.</p> + +<p>I talked it over with some of the more experienced farmers on the Strip +who understood the processes required. They figured they could plant +part of the ground while the other lay fallowing. If it happened to be a +wet year, that would give them something to go on. "But, mein Gott, how +we goin' to pull t'rough next winter?" old man Husmann raved. Even Chris +had no answer.</p> + +<p>In the years of experimenting, the fallowing system underwent a number +of changes. But we had the plan in its fundamentals. After each rain the +land should be loosened; and late in the fall it should be plowed rather +deeply to soak up the winter snows. The top soil must be kept from +packing. It was worth trying, they agreed, if they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>could get money to +pull through this drought and stay on the land.</p> + +<p>This might be a solution for the future. But for the people on the land +the solution must be immediate. Empty purses could not wait two seasons +for a good crop; empty stomachs could not await the future, and famine +stared the homesteaders on the Lower Brulé in the face.</p> + +<p>Our proof sheet came out with the message, "We Can Fallow!" There was +encouragement to be derived from it, of course, but it was hope +deferred. Then, sitting in the doorway of the shack, leaning against the +jamb for support, my pencil held in tender fingers not yet healed, I +wrote to Halbert Donovan, setting forth the possibilities of the Strip, +and the West, under a moisture-retaining method of farming.</p> + +<p>It was a morning in late August when I turned to see a well-dressed man +standing in the open door. Halbert Donovan!</p> + +<p>At the first meeting he had found the West green and bright with spring +colors, and the outlaw printer of the McClure <i>Press</i> excited and +voluble over the possibilities of the country. Now the investment broker +found a land of desolation and ruin, and the printer in sorry plight, +living in a crude, bare shack, clad like some waif of the streets in the +clothes donated by the settlers.</p> + +<p>But he had come. He had driven out from Pierre along the dusty roads, +through the sultry heat, in a long shiny automobile. On the sagging +couch leaning against the hot wall, he sat wiping the perspiration from +his face as I told him more of the fallowing idea. He had not heard of +it. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>He knew practically nothing about agriculture, but he was a man to +whom any method of developing vast resources would appeal.</p> + +<p>"At first," he said, little crinkles breaking around his eyes, relieving +the sternness of his face, "I read <i>The Wand</i> (how I did laugh at the +name you gave it) with refreshing amusement, out of a personal curiosity +you had aroused. I wanted to see how long you would hold out. Later I +became deeply interested in this western activity."</p> + +<p>I knew in what mood he must have reached the shack, after that drive +from Pierre, across parched earth, seeing the ruined crops, passing +settlers' homes which from the outside looked like the miserable huts +one sees along waterfronts or in mean outskirts of a city where the +flotsam of humanity live. And cluttered around them, farm machinery, +washtubs, and all the other junk that could be left outdoors, with +countless barrels for hauling water, and the inevitable pile of tin +cans. It was dreary, it was unrelievedly ugly; above all, it looked like +grim failure.</p> + +<p>Earnestly I faced him. "We aren't done," I told him. "We've just +begun—badly, I know, but we can fallow. Make reservoirs. Put down +artesian wells." I completely forgot, in putting these possibilities of +the Strip before him, to mention the gas and oil deposits which we had +discovered during our frantic search for water. I did not think of +saying, "We have natural gas here—let's go and look at the Ben Smith +ranch with all its buildings piped with gas. And over on the Carter +place a drill came up from a shallow hole sticky with oil." But the +minds of the settlers were so focused elsewhere that little had been +said about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span>these things. With an investment broker interested in mining +projects under my very roof, many of us might have become rich and the +Brulé prosperous in no time.</p> + +<p>Development of agriculture, to my mind, was of broader importance than +oil strikes, anyhow. "Men do put money into undeveloped things," I said. +"Eastern capitalists risk millions in undeveloped mines and oil fields +in the West. This is different. Land is solid."</p> + +<p>He answered thoughtfully: "As an investment, land is not so precarious +as mines, but there are no big profits to be reaped from it. That's the +difference, my girl."</p> + +<p>He must have known that even for investors, western land was going to be +a big thing. He must have known that the railroad companies were buying +it up—that the Milwaukee had gone into a spree of land buying in Lyman +County.</p> + +<p>I poured him some water from the can we kept in a hole in the ground +back of the shack for coolness. He took a swallow and set it down. "Good +Lord, how can anyone drink that!" he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>"We get used to it," I told him. "And we'll have a better water supply +in time. It will rain—it's bound to rain, sooner or later."</p> + +<p>He looked out at the blazing sky, the baked earth, a snake slithering +from the path back into the dry grass which rustled as it moved. "So +this is the land you want to save," he exclaimed. "The incredible thing +is that people have managed to stay on it at all!"</p> + +<p>"They will stay," I assured him. "Remember that these builders have had +nothing to work with, no direction, no <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>system or leadership. What would +business men accomplish in such an undertaking under the circumstances? +If they had experienced leaders—men like you—"</p> + +<p>"In other words," he smiled, "laying up riches where moth and rust do +corrupt." He walked to the door and stood, hands in pockets, looking out +over the plains. Then he turned to face me.</p> + +<p>"My dear girl, I might not be worth a hoot at the job."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you would! You would! And if the settlers never repaid you, think +what a land king you would become," I laughed.</p> + +<p>"No, I don't want the land that way. I want to see the settlers succeed, +try to keep them from being squeezed out."</p> + +<p>He mopped his face, picked up the glass of water and after a glance at +it set it down untouched. "Now, I've been thinking of this western +development for some time. It's going to open up new business in almost +every field. Aside from all that, it is worth while. I've kept track of +you and your Brulé. If one gets his money back here it is all he can +expect. How much would be needed to help these settlers hold on—a +little grubstake, some future operating money? I like this fallowing +idea."</p> + +<p>He talked about second mortgages, collateral on personal property, +appointment of local agents, etc. He did not want the source of this +borrowing power to become known as yet.</p> + +<p>It was he who brought me back to my personal predicament when, ready to +leave, he expressed his desire to help me, asking if I would accept a +check—"For you and your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>sister to carry on." But I refused. I had +appealed to him for the country, not for myself. But his offer mortified +me, made me conscious of my shabby appearance, the coarse, ill-fitting +clothes, the effects of the fire still visible in rough and +smoke-stained skin, the splotches of new skin on my lips, the face pink +and tender. Altogether, the surroundings and I must have made a drab +spectacle.</p> + +<p>Holding out his hand to say good-by, Halbert Donovan saw my shrinking +embarrassment. Suddenly he put his arm around my shoulders, drew me to +him, brushed back the singed hair and pressed his lips to my forehead; +turned my small, blackened hand, palm upward, looking at it.</p> + +<p>"I'll help you all I can," he said. "Just keep your Utopian dreams."</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>So it happened that, before famine could touch these people who had +already struggled through drought and blizzard and despair, they found +help in sight. Halbert Donovan put up $50,000 as a start, to be dealt +out for emergency on land, livestock, etc. Heretofore loans had been +made on land only. Now the reliability of the borrower himself was often +taken into account as collateral. It was enough that we knew the +borrower was honest, that he was doing his best to conquer the land and +to make it yield. We gambled on futures then, as we had done before. +That it was eastern capital, handled through a system of exchange and +agencies, was all that those who borrowed knew or cared.</p> + +<p>And each day we scanned the heavens for signs of rain. We searched for a +cloud like a starving man for bread. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>The settlers went stalking about +with necks craned, heads thrown back, eyes fixed on the sky. And the +cartoonist from Milwaukee took to looking for a cloud with a field +glass. A cloud no bigger than a man's hand would raise the hopes of the +whole reservation. But in vain we searched the metallic blue of the sky.</p> + +<p>With spectacular ceremonial and regalia the Indians staged their "rain +dance." The missionaries had long opposed this form of expression by the +Indians, and their objections led to a government ban which was finally +modified to permit some sort of ritual.</p> + +<p>These symbolic dances were not mere ceremonials for the Plains Indians; +they were their one means of expressing their emotions en masse +rhythmically, of maintaining their sense of tribal unity.</p> + +<p>The first part of the ceremony was secret and lasted for several days. +After that the public ceremony began. Painted according to ritual, they +danced in a line from east to west and back again, whistling as they +danced, every gesture having its symbolic meaning. The whistle +symbolized to them the call of the Thunderbird.</p> + +<p>Pioneers belong to the past, people are prone to say; savage customs +belong to the past. But it was in the twentieth century that primitive +men, their bodies streaked with black paint, fasted and danced, +overcoming an enemy as they danced, compelling the Thunderbird to +release the rain. And on the Strip men and women prayed as fervently to +their own God, each in his own way.</p> + +<p>That night, something breaking the dead stillness woke me. A soft, slow +tapping on the roof of the shack, like <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span>ghostly fingers. It increased in +tempo as though birds, in this land without trees, were pecking at the +roof; it grew to a regular drumming sound. I lay for a few moments, +listening, wondering. Then I leaped out of bed, ran to the door and +stepped outside.</p> + +<p>Rain! Rain! Rain!</p> + +<p>"Ida Mary," I called, "get up! It's raining!"</p> + +<p>She was out of bed in a moment as though someone had shouted "fire."</p> + +<p>In nightdress, bare feet, we ran out on the prairie, reached up our +hands to the soft, cool, soothing drops which fell slowly as though +hesitating whether to fall or not. And then it poured. The grass was wet +beneath our feet.</p> + +<p>We lifted our heads, opened our lips and drank in the cool, fresh drops. +I lay down on the cool blanket of earth, absorbing its reviving moisture +into my body, feeling the rain pattering on my flesh.</p> + +<p>Over the prairie dim lights flickered through the rain. Men and women +rushed out to hail its coming—and to put tubs and buckets under the +roofs. No drop of this miracle must be wasted. In their joy and relief, +some of the homesteaders, unable to sleep, hitched up and drove across +the plains to rejoice with their friends.</p> + +<p>After that eternity of waiting it rained and rained, until the earth all +about was green and fresh. Native hay came out green, and late-planted +seed burst out of the ground. Some of the late crops matured. There was +water in the dams! The thirsty land drank deep of the healing rains.</p> + +<p>The air grew fresh and cool, haggard faces were alight <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span>with hope. The +Lower Brulé became a different place, where once again people planned +for the future, unafraid to look ahead.</p> + +<p>With the mail bag, the salvaged type, and Margaret's few sticks of +furniture which she wrote to us to take, we moved back to the homestead, +to the site of Ammons.</p> + +<p>The settlers had the building up. This time it was a little +square-roofed house made of drop siding (no more tar paper). A thin, +wall-board partition running halfway to the ceiling divided the small +living quarters from the print shop.</p> + +<p>The McClure <i>Press</i> had died the natural death of the proof sheet, and +the proof king was submerged in the cause of prohibition. Later he was +appointed federal prohibition agent for the state of South Dakota. He +gave us most of the McClure <i>Press</i> equipment. So I got that hand press, +after all. What few proofs were yet to be made in that section were +thrown to <i>The Wand</i>. With the current proof money coming in we bought +the additional supplies necessary to run the paper.</p> + +<p>I sent a telegram to Halbert Donovan: "Rain. Pastures coming out green. +Dwarfed grain can make feed in the straw. My flax making part crop. Dams +full of water. Fall fallowing begun." In hilarious mood I signed it +"Utopia."</p> + +<p>Delivered the twenty-five miles in the middle of the night, special +messenger service prepaid, came the answer: "Atta girl. Am increasing +the stakes."</p> + +<p>He did. Halbert Donovan's company interested other financial concerns in +making loans, "to deal out through competent appraisement."</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>So the Brulé won through, as pioneers before them had done, as other +pioneers in other regions were doing, as ragged, poverty-stricken, +gallant an army as ever marched to the colors.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span><br /> + +<div class="img"> +<img border="0" src="images/imageh18.jpg" width="80%" alt="Header Chapter 17." /> +</div> + +<br /> + +<h3>XVII<span class="totoc"><a href="#toc">ToC</a></span></h3> + +<h3>NEW TRAILS</h3> +<br /> + +<p>Ida Mary and Imbert were going to be married. At last Ida Mary was sure, +and there was no need of waiting any longer. So she went back to St. +Louis for the first time, and two weeks later the wedding took place.</p> + +<p>When they returned as bride and groom, the settlers came from every +direction, accompanied by all the cow and sheep bells, tin cans and old +horns on the Strip for a big charivari. They came bringing baskets of +food for the supper and any little article or ornament they could find +at home for a wedding present, singing as they came, "Lucky Numbers Are +We," and "We Won't Go Home Till Morning."</p> + +<p>Imbert took over the Cedar Fork ranch and store—that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>little trade +center outside the reservation gate where a disheveled group of +landseekers had faced a new dawn rising upon the Strip. And Ida Mary, +who so loved the land, came at last to make it her permanent home. +Steady, practical and resourceful—it was such women the West needed.</p> + +<p>The sturdily built log house was a real home, no tar-paper +shack—rustic, we would call it now—with four rooms and a porch. There +were honest-to-goodness beds, carpets and linoleum on the kitchen floor! +Ida Mary was so proud of the linoleum that she wiped it up with skim +milk to make it shine. There was a milk cow and consequently homemade +butter and cottage cheese—all the makeshift discomforts of homesteading +replaced by the solid and enduring qualities of home.</p> + +<p>Peace, home, happiness—for Ida Mary.</p> + +<p>And Ma Wagor's problems were solved, too. It appeared that her first +husband had left her more than the an-tik brooch of which she was so +proud. He had left her a son who had grown to be a stalwart, +good-looking young man, who worked with a construction company out in +western Nebraska. Learning of the Wagors' misfortune, he came, started +another store at Ammons for his mother, and helped her to run it for a +while.</p> + +<p>All around Ammons the fields lay freshly turned, fallowing for next +year's crop. Our field of flax had been cut for what little it would +make, and the ground plowed over to soak up the winter's moisture. With +the turning of the ground for another season, a page in my own life was +turning. "What am I going to do, now that I've come in under the wire?" +I wondered.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>And then I proved up and got my patent. I borrowed a thousand dollars on +it to pay off the government and the balance due our financial backers, +who had gambled on us without security. But I did not borrow the money +through the Halbert Donovan Company. The loan had been promised me by +the banks many months before. We had borrowed on the first homestead to +get the second, borrowed to the limit on the second to pay for the +privilege of helping to run the reservation. We now had both farms +mortgaged to the hilt. But the hay alone would pay the interest and +taxes. Land would increase in value.</p> + +<p>I was alone at the shack now with the newspaper still to get out. Riding +across the plains toward the claim one afternoon, I heard the swift, +staccato clicking of type as it fell rapidly in the stick. The metallic +sound carried across the prairie as I neared the shop. As I walked in I +saw, perched on the high stool in front of the type case, a little +hoydenish figure with flying hair—Myrtle Coombs, the hammer-and-tongs +printer. "This don't look right to me," she remarked, reading her stick +as I came in, "but a good printer follows copy even if it flies out of +the window."</p> + +<p>Myrtle had come back on vacation to see how her homestead was +progressing. Seeing that I needed help, she unrolled a newspaper bundle +and hung her "extra" dress and nightgown on a nail, laid a comb and a +toothbrush on the dry-goods-box dressing table, and for two weeks she +"threw" out the paper with a bang.</p> + +<p>About this time the régime of our government was changing. Out of the +West, from which we had had only sheep and cattle, there were coming men +destined to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>leaders in the affairs of the country. As men had risen +from the ranks to guide the destinies of the Colonies, so men appeared +from the West to shape this new America.</p> + +<p>They came from a world where land was king. It was a boundless +territory. A large section of it, which was once marked on the map as +the Great American Desert, had been left untouched, a dead possession +and a problem to the government, who did not know what use to make of it +until the homesteaders pushed west.</p> + +<p>In the past two or three years, 200,000 homesteaders had taken up +claims, filing on more than 40,000,000 acres, making a solid coverage of +70,000 square miles. Those settlers and their families constituted a +million people. Ahead of this tidal wave, in the steady stream of +immigration, thousands of other settlers had moved west. Now there were +several million people who must subsist on the raw lands. They, with +others who had followed the homesteaders, were dependent upon their +success or failure to make the western prairie produce.</p> + +<p>It had to produce! The West was the nation's reserve of natural +resources. The soil was to produce cereal gold, huge fields of wheat, +bread for a new people—bread, at last, for a world at war.</p> + +<p>So the Public Lands question was of first importance. There must be new +land laws and other measures enacted for these people. It was a gigantic +task set for the men from out the West to perform. But already they had +begun to wield an influence on the affairs of the nation.</p> + +<p>One heard of a man from Utah with the name of Smoot, who came from a +class of solid builders. He was bound to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>be heard more of in the +future, people said; and there appeared in Congress a man whose +indomitable force soon became recognized as something to contend with—a +man from Idaho named William E. Borah. Two other westerners had already +become statesmen of note. They had sprung from the sagebrush country. +Senator Francis E. Warren, and Congressman Frank W. Mondell—both of +Wyoming.</p> + +<p>Senator Warren devoted a lifetime to the interests of the West. +Congressman Mondell, as Speaker of the House and chairman of the Public +Lands Committee, was an influence for the homestead country; and from +our own state, progressive, fearless, was Senator Peter Norbeck.</p> + +<p>The frontier is big, but news travels over it in devious ways, and the +work of <i>The Wand</i> and of Ida Mary and me began to be known in +Washington. My editorial fight for the settlers attracted the attention +of these officials from the West. From several of them we received +messages, commending our efforts and offering assistance in any feasible +way. I also received communications from Senator Warren and Congressman +Mondell, commenting upon my comprehension of the homestead issue. I was +asked to submit the problems of my people, and in return I sought +information from them.</p> + +<p>Small things, those frontier newspapers, but <i>The Wand</i> had achieved +what Ida Mary and I had hoped of it, it had been the voice of the +people, a voice heard across the prairie, across the Land of the Burnt +Thigh, across the continent to the doors of Congress itself. Its +protests, its recommendations were weighed at last by the men best able +to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span>help the men and women on the Strip. And the little outlaw printer, +to her overwhelming surprise, was being recognized not only on the Strip +but beyond it, as an authority on the homesteading project and a +champion of the homesteaders.</p> + +<p>It was back on the lookout of the outlaw printer and the outlaw horse +thieves, that I got another letter from Senator Warren, asking what my +plans were for the future and whether I had thought of carrying my work +farther on, work where "the harvest was great and the laborers few," he +said. Should I decide to go on into new fields, I could depend upon his +support. He would recommend my newspaper as an official one; there would +be many opportunities, probably government posts for which my particular +knowledge would qualify me.</p> + +<p>While I was still undetermined as to what to do after my work on the +proof sheet was finished, I was not a career woman, and Senator Warren's +suggestions received little serious thought. Ida Mary, I thought, was +serving the West in the best way for a woman. Needles and thread and +bread dough have done more toward preserving nations than bullets, and +the women who made homes on the prairie, working valiantly with the +meager tools at their command, did more than any other group in settling +the West. It was their efforts which turned tar-paper shacks into +livable houses, their determination to provide their children with +opportunities which built schools and established communities.</p> + +<p>I was content for a while to thrust the thought of the future out of my +mind, but I continued to watch with tense <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>interest what was happening +to the homestead country. A new land law had been passed which had a +strong influence on the agricultural development of the West. It doubled +the size of homesteads to 320 acres. This would bring farmers and +families for permanent building. It would give them more pasture and +plenty of land to carry on the fallowing method. To discourage the +prove-up-and-run settler, it required three years, a certain amount of +fencing and eighty acres plowed to get a deed. It created a new land +splurge. A half-section! To the average homeseeker it was like owning +the whole frontier.</p> + +<p>This law was called the Mondell Act, and President Theodore Roosevelt +proclaimed it "a great opportunity for the poor people—and a long +stride in the West's progress." Roosevelt had faith in the future of a +Greater America. The programs which he initiated were to accomplish +tremendous results in the building of the western lands.</p> + +<p>With my bent for delving into the effect of land rulings on the settler, +I made inquiry regarding certain provisions of the Mondell Act. With the +information came a letter from its author, expressing his belief in the +advantages of the act to the homeseeker, and describing what it would do +in developing the territory farther west. He talked, too, about my work, +and my carrying it into new fields. Wyoming was bound to become a +homestead Mecca. And he added: "Your experience in South Dakota could, +no doubt, be made of great value in aiding in the development of +Wyoming."</p> + +<p>A few days after I received Congressman Mondell's letter, C. H. West +arrived. Usually placid and genial, he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>now wrought up. He came at +once to the point of his visit. Under the enlarged homestead law he was +extending operations farther west, where he was going to settle large +tracts. He wanted me to head bands of homeseekers into this new +territory, to help colonize it.</p> + +<p>We were entering an era of colonization, of doing things in organized +groups, cooperative bodies. To the progress which these movements have +made in the United States much is owing to the West, where it was +developed through necessity.</p> + +<p>Eastern men were forming profit-making corporations to colonize western +land. Real estate dealers were organizing colonies. Groups of +homeseekers were organizing their own bands. Mr. West had many inquiries +from such groups, and he had determined to do his own colonizing. They +would want me to go to eastern cities, he said, bring the colonists +west, and help locate them satisfactorily.</p> + +<p>The locating fees, according to Mr. West, would run into money, and he +proposed to give me 50 per cent of the profits. "In addition," he +promised, "we will advance you a fair salary and all expenses."</p> + +<p>I realized that I must face the future. The proof business on the Strip +was almost over. Henceforth the paper, and the post office which had +been transferred to me on Ida Mary's marriage, would eke out a bare +existence. And, as Ma Wagor complained, the Brulé was becoming so +settled "it would be havin' a Ladies Aid before long with the women +servin' tea and carryin' callin' cards around." That would be no place +for me.</p> + +<p>For a long time I sat gazing out of the window over the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>open spaces. +What would this mean to the people whom I was to bring west? It was +they, not I nor any other individual, whose future must be weighed. The +tidal wave of western immigration would reach its crest in the next two +or three years, and break over Wyoming, Montana, Colorado—those states +bordering the Great Divide. It was to reach its high peak in 1917, when +the United States entered the World War.</p> + +<p>I remembered the shaking hands, the faces of the men and women who had +lost at the Rosebud Drawing. There was still land for them. Land of +their own for tenant farmers, land for the homeless. The Land of a +Million Shacks—that was the slogan of the frontier.</p> + +<p>"Where is this land?" I asked, finally.</p> + +<p>"In Wyoming. Across the Dakota-Nebraska line. Reaching into the Rawhide +Country," Mr. West explained.</p> + +<p>Rawhide country. Lost Trail. "A short-grass range, but rich," Lone Star +had said—"an honest-to-God country, bigger'n all creation."</p> + +<p>I turned to Mr. West and faced him squarely. "Has it got water?"</p> + +<p>He smiled at the sudden vehemence of the question and was ready for it. +"Yes, it has water. The finest in the world." Water clear and cold, he +told me, could be obtained at two to three hundred feet on almost any +spot. Out on the scattered ranches, in the middle of the range, one +found windmills pumping all day long. There would be plenty of water for +stock and for irrigating small patches.</p> + +<p>"All right," I said, "I'll go."</p> + +<p>The cartoonist was going back to Milwaukee. "Being <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>here has done +something for me," he said. "Seeing so much effort given ungrudgingly +for small results, I think. I'm going back and do something with my art. +But it's odd—I don't really want to go back."</p> + +<p>One by one the prove-up-and-run settlers had left the country, but Huey +Dunn, Chris Christopherson and others like them were learning to meet +the country on its own terms and conquer it. They were there to stay.</p> + +<p>A young man appeared who was willing to run the newspaper, and I turned +the post office over to Ma Wagor. Amid the weird beating of tom-toms and +the hoo-hoo ah-ah-ahhh of the Indians across the trail, I set up my +farewell message in <i>The Wand</i>. In gorgeous regalia of beads and quills, +paint and eagle feathers, the Indians had come to send the Great Spirit +with Paleface-Prints-Paper on to the heap big hunting grounds. It was +the time of year when "paint" in all the variegated colors was +plentiful, gathered from herbs and flowers, yellow, copper, red. The +affair was probably more of an excuse to celebrate than an expression of +esteem. The Indians never miss an opportunity to stage a show. When they +attend a county fair or other public gathering, they load up children, +dogs and worldly goods, and in a long procession they set out, arriving +several days before the event and celebrating long after it is all over.</p> + +<p>They had come prepared to camp for the night at the print shop, going +through special incantations for the occasion, but now they were +whooping it up around the campfire. I was dragged into the dance and +went careening around with old warriors and young bucks, the squaws +laughing at my mistakes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>As a farewell editorial I quoted the epitaph once engraved on a +tombstone: "He done his damnedest. Angels could do no more."</p> + +<p>The eerie sound of the Indian dance had ceased. The flickering campfires +had died down. Only two years and four months since Ida Mary and I had +broken a trail to that first little homestead shack. And a chapter of my +life was closed.</p> + +<p>Beyond, in the dark, slept men and women who had endured hardships and +struggles and heavy labor; who had plowed up the virgin soil and set +their own roots deep in it. They were here to stay.</p> + +<p>In those two years they had built a little empire that would endure. +There were roads and fences, schools and thriving towns nearby where +they could market their products, and during the World War Presho became +the second largest hay-shipping point in the United States, with the +government buying trainloads of the fine native hay from the tall grass +country of the Brulé.</p> + +<p>But my work on the Strip was ended. Big as the venture had seemed to me +in the beginning, it was only a fraction of the country waiting to be +tamed. And beyond there was Wyoming, "bigger'n all creation."</p> + +<p>I was going empty-handed, with no fixed program or goal. After the +settlers were on the ground, there would be many obstacles which must be +overcome. Down to earth again! Even in the initial colonizing I would +have to depend on my own initiative, on my influence with the people, +and on my understanding of the homestead project. My experience on the +Brulé in getting settlers to work together would be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span>invaluable. The +field would be new—but the principles of cooperative effort were always +the same.</p> + +<p>Upon learning that I was going on with the development work, Senator +Warren wrote a letter filled with encouragement and information, and +Senator Borah expressed his interest.</p> + +<p>Wyoming exemplified all the romance, the color, the drama of the old +Wild West. It was noted as a land of cowboys, wild horses, and fearless +men. As a commonwealth it was invincible. It was one of the greatest +sheep and cattle kingdoms in the world, where stockmen grazed their +herds over government domain, lords of all they surveyed.</p> + +<p>In the past the big cattle and sheep outfits had brooked no +interference. One of the worst stockmen-settler wars ever waged had been +fought in Wyoming against an invasion of homesteaders, a war that became +so bloody the government had to take a hand, calling out the National +Guards to settle it. It was this section of the range country that I was +to help fill with sodbreakers.</p> + +<p>The force of progress made it safer now, with the government and public +sentiment back of the homestead movement. These stockman-settler wars, +however, were not yet a thing of the past, and despite the years of +western development that followed, they continued to break out every now +and then in remote range country. In self-preservation stockmen of +various sections were making it difficult for the homesteader, and it +was certain that colonies of them would not be welcomed with open arms. +I knew all this in a general way, of course, but I had no trepidation +over the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span>undertaking. My only qualms were on the score of health. It is +a poor trail-breaker who cannot travel with strong people, and that was +a drawback I couldn't overcome. All I could do was hope for the best and +rely on my ability to catch up if I should have to fall behind. I took a +chance on it. I rode to Ida Mary's, and found her rocking and sewing and +humming to herself in her new home.</p> + +<p>"I'm going to help colonize Wyoming," I told her bluntly.</p> + +<p>She let her sewing fall to the floor and sat staring at me, standing +bold and defiant in the middle of the floor. But my voice broke and I +threw myself across her bed crying. It was my first venture without Ida +Mary.</p> + +<p>She did not say now, as she had done on other occasions: "How can you +help colonize a raw range country? You couldn't manage it." Life had +done something to us out here.</p> + +<p>I started out from Ida Mary's. Out across the plain I turned and looked +back. She was still standing in the doorway, shading her eyes so as to +see me longer. We waved and waved, and I left her watching as the +distance swallowed me up.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>At the shack I found Judge Bartine waiting for me. He observed the +traces of tears on my cheeks, but made no comment on them.</p> + +<p>"You know," he said, "I'm glad you and your sister stuck through all +this."</p> + +<p>I hesitated, on the verge of telling him how near I had come to giving +up and starting a back-trek.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>"When the cattle-rustling gang I convicted burned the courthouse and my +office over my head," he went on after a little pause, "I made a narrow +escape. I didn't have a penny in the world left with which to fight, and +I knew perfectly well that I was in danger of being shot down every time +I went out of the door.</p> + +<p>"But I had to stay. Men could go through Hades out here for years to get +a foothold and raise a herd of cattle and wake up one morning to find it +gone. Something had to be done with those cattle thieves."</p> + +<p>"It seems to me," I told him, "the stockmen should have paid you awfully +well."</p> + +<p>"I got my pay," he said quietly, "just as you have done; I got my pay in +the doing. So, Edith, I am glad you girls did not run away. I didn't +come before because I didn't want to influence you. I wanted to see you +do it alone."</p> + +<p>When he had gone, I closed the door of the shack behind me. A man was +riding up the trail to meet me, bringing two messages. One from the +House of Representatives in Washington was signed F. W. Mondell. "I am +delighted," it read, "to know of your faith and confidence in the +country farther west, particularly the region to which you are going. I +trust the settlers whom you are instrumental in bringing into the +country will be successful, and I have no doubt that they will, if they +are the right sort. I wish you Godspeed and success." The other letter +was from Mr. West, who was awaiting me on the road to Wyoming with a +group of landseekers.</p> + +<p>On top of the ridge I stopped and gazed at the cabin with no sign of +life around it, took my last look at the Land of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span>the Burnt Thigh. A +wilderness I had found it, a thriving community I left it. But the sun +was getting low and I had new trails to break.</p> + +<p>I gave Lakota the rein.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<hr /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Transcriber's Note:</p> +<p class="cen">Typographical errors corrected in text:</p> +<br /> +Page 20 unescapable changed to inescapable<br /> +Page 117 moustache changed to mustache<br /> +Page 149 Wagors changed to Wagors'<br /> +Page 197 Midafternoon changed to Mid-afternoon<br /> +Page 266 Cedarfork changed to Cedar Fork<br /> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 24352-h.txt or 24352-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/5/24352">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/3/5/24352</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Voorhies + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Land of the Burnt Thigh + + +Author: Edith Eudora Kohl + + + +Release Date: January 17, 2008 [eBook #24352] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH*** + + +E-text prepared by Barbara Kosker, Suzanne Shell, Jeannie Howse, and the +Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team +(https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 24352-h.htm or 24352-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/5/24352/24352-h/24352-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/5/24352/24352-h.zip) + + + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation in the original document has | + | been preserved. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH + +by + +EDITH EUDORA KOHL + +Drawings by Stephen J. Voorhies + + + + + + + +New York, London, Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1938. + + + + + TO + THE MEMORY OF + IDA MARY + + + +CONTENTS + + + A Word of Explanation xxxiii + + I A Shack on the Prairie 1 + + II Down to Grass Roots 16 + + III "Any Fool Can Set Type" 36 + + IV The Biggest Lottery in History 46 + + V No Place for Clinging Vines 64 + + VI "Utopia" 83 + + VII Building Empires Overnight 99 + + VIII Easy as Falling Off a Log 120 + + IX The Opening of the Rosebud 143 + + X The Harvest 164 + + XI The Big Blizzard 185 + + XII A New America 199 + + XIII The Thirsty Land 214 + + XIV The Land of the Burnt Thigh 238 + + XV Up in Smoke 253 + + XVI Fallowed Land 268 + + XVII New Trails 282 + + + +[Illustration] + + + + +A WORD OF EXPLANATION + + +_I have not attempted in this book to write an autobiography. This is +not my story--it is the story of the people, the present-day pioneers, +who settled on that part of the public lands called the Great American +Desert, and wrested a living from it at a personal cost of privation and +suffering._ + +_Today there is an infinite deal of talk about dust bowls, of prairie +grass which should never have been plowed under for farming, of land +which should be abandoned. Yet much of this is the land which during the +crucial years of the war was the grain-producing section of the United +States. Regiments of men have marched to war with drums beating and +flags flying, but the regiments who marched into the desert, and faced +fire and thirst, and cold and hunger, and who stayed to build up a new +section of the country, a huge empire in the West, have been ignored, +and their problems largely misunderstood._ + +_The history of the homesteaders is paradoxical, beginning as it does in +the spirit of a great gamble, with the government lotteries with land as +the stakes, and developing in a close-knit spirit of mutual +helpfulness._ + +_My own part in so tremendous a migration of a people was naturally a +slight one, but for me it has been a rewarding adventure, leading men +and women onto the land, then against organized interests, and finally +into the widespread use of cooperative methods. Most of that story +belongs beyond the confines of the present book._ + +_Over thousands of acres today in the West men and women are still +fighting to control that last frontier, and wherever there are farmers, +the methods of cooperation will spread for decades. It is a good fight. +I hope I shall be in it._ + + _E. E. K._ + + + + + +LAND +OF THE +BURNT +THIGH + +[Illustration] + + + + +I + +A SHACK ON THE PRAIRIE + + +At sunset we came up out of the draw to the crest of the ridge. Perched +on the high seat of the old spring wagon, we looked into a desolate land +which reached to the horizon on every side. Prairie which had lain +untouched since the Creation save for buffalo and roving bands of +Indians, its brown grass scorched and crackling from the sun. No trees +to break the endless monotony or to provide a moment's respite from the +sun. + +The driver, sitting stooped over on the front seat, half asleep, +straightened up and looked around, sizing up the vacant prairie. + +"Well," he announced, "I reckon this might be it." + +But this couldn't be it. There was nothing but space, and sun-baked +plains, and the sun blazing down on our heads. My sister pulled out the +filing papers, looking for the description the United States Land Office +had given her: Section 18, Range 77W--about thirty miles from Pierre, +South Dakota. + +"Three miles from the buffalo waller," our driver said, mumbling to +himself, ignoring the official location and looking back as though +measuring the distance with his eye. "Yeah, right in here--somewhere." + +"But," faltered Ida Mary, "there was to be a house--" + +"Thar she is!" he announced, pointing his long whip in the direction of +the setting sun. "See that shack over yonder?" + +Whipping up the tired team with a flick of the rawhide, he angled off +across the trackless prairie. One panic-stricken look at the black, +tar-papered shack, standing alone in that barren expanse, and the last +spark of our dwindling enthusiasm for homesteading was snuffed out. The +house, which had seemed such an extraordinary stroke of luck when we had +heard of it, looked like a large but none too substantial packing-box +tossed haphazardly on the prairie which crept in at its very door. + +The driver stopped the team in front of the shack, threw the lines to +the ground, stretched his long, lank frame over the wheel and began to +unload the baggage. He pushed open the unbolted door with the grass +grown up to the very sill, and set the boxes and trunk inside. Grass. +Dry, yellow grass crackling under his feet. + +"Here, why don't you get out?" he said sharply. "It's sundown and a long +trip back to town." + +Automatically we obeyed. As Ida Mary paid him the $20 fee, he stood +there for a moment sizing us up. Homesteaders were all in his day's +work. They came. Some stayed to prove up the land. Some didn't. We +wouldn't. + +"Don't 'pear to me like you gals are big enough to homestead." He took +his own filled water jug from the wagon and set it down at the door, +thus expressing his compassion. Then, as unconcerned as a taxi driver +leaving his passengers at a city door, he drove away, leaving us alone. + +Ida Mary and I fought down the impulse to run after him, implore him to +take us back with him, not to leave us alone with the prairie and the +night, with nothing but the packing-box for shelter. I think we were too +overwhelmed by the magnitude of our disaster even to ask for help. + +We stared after him until the sudden evening chill which comes with the +dusk of the frontier roused us to action. + +Hesitantly we stepped over the low sill of the little shack, feeling +like intruders. Ida Mary, who had been so proud of finding a claim with +a house already built, stared at it without a word, her round, young +face shadowed by the brim of her straw hat drawn and tired. + +It was a typical homestead shack, about 10 x 12 feet, containing only +one room, and built of rough, foot-wide boards, with a small cellar +window on either side of the room. Like the walls, the door was of wide +boards. The whole house was covered on the outside with tar paper. It +had obviously been put together with small concern for the fine points +of carpentry and none whatever for appearance. It looked as though the +first wind would pick it up and send it flying through the air. + +It was as unprepossessing within as it was outside. In one corner a +homemade bunk was fastened to the wall, with ropes criss-crossed and run +through holes in the 2 x 4 inch pieces of lumber which formed the bed, +to take the place of springs. In another corner a rusty, two-hole oil +stove stood on a drygoods box; above it another box with a shelf in it +for a cupboard. Two rickety, homemade chairs completed the furnishings. + +We tried to tell ourselves that we were lucky; shacks were not provided +for homesteaders, they had to build their own--but Ida Mary had +succeeded in finding one not only ready built but furnished as well. We +did not deceive ourselves or each other. We were frightened and +homesick. Whatever we had pictured in our imaginations, it bore no +resemblance to the tar-paper shack without creature comforts; nor had we +counted on the desolation of prairie on which we were marooned. + +Before darkness should shut us in, we hurriedly scrambled through our +provisions for a can of kerosene. Down in the trunk was a small lamp. We +got it out and filled it. And then we faced each other, speechless, each +knowing the other's fear--afraid to voice it. Matches! They had not been +on our list. I fumbled hastily through the old box cupboard with its few +dust-covered odds and ends. Back in a corner was an old tobacco can. +Something rattled lightly as I picked it up--matches! + +We were too weary to light a fire. On a trunk which we used as a table, +we spread a cold lunch, tried to swallow a few bites and gave it up. The +empty space and the black night had swallowed us up. + +"We might as well go to bed," said Ida Mary dully. + +"We'll start back home in the morning," I declared, "as soon as it is +daylight." + + * * * * * + +Oddly enough, we had never questioned the impulse which led two young +city girls to go alone into unsettled land, homesteading. Our people had +been pioneers, always among those who pushed back the frontier. The +Ammonses had come up from Tennessee into Illinois in the early days and +cleared the timberland along the Mississippi Valley some forty miles out +of St. Louis. They built their houses of the hand-hewn logs and became +land and stock owners. They were not sturdy pioneers, but they were +tenacious. + +Some of them went on into what Grandma Ammons called the Santa Fe +Bottoms, a low marshy country along the river, where they became +wealthy--or well-to-do, at least--by fattening droves of hogs on acorns. +Generally speaking, my mother's family ran to professions, and my +father's family to land. Though there was father's cousin, Jack Hunter, +who had been west and when he came to visit us now and then told wild +tales about the frontier to which my sister and I as little children +listened wide-eyed. He wove glowing accounts of the range country where +he was going to make a million dollars raising cattle. Cousin Jack +always talked big. + +It was from his highly colored yarns that we had learned all we knew of +the West--and from the western magazines which pictured it as an +exciting place where people were mostly engaged in shooting one another. + +While Ida Mary and I were still very young our mother died, and after +that we divided our time between our father's home--he had married +again and had a second family to take care of--and the home of his +sister. As a result my sister and I came to depend on ourselves and on +each other more than two girls of our age usually do. + +By the time we were old enough to see that things were not going well +financially at home, we knew we must make our own way. Some of the girls +we knew talked about "going homesteading" as a wild adventure. They +boasted of friends or relatives who had gone to live on a claim as +though they had gone lion-hunting in Africa or gold-hunting in Alaska. A +homestead. At first thought the idea was absurd. We were both very +young; both unusually slight, anything but hardy pioneers; and neither +of us had the slightest knowledge of homesteading conditions, or +experience extending beyond the conventional, sheltered life of the +normal city girl in the first decade of the century. + +We were wholly unfitted for the frontier. We had neither training nor +physical stamina for roughing it. When I tried to explain to an uncle of +mine that I wanted to go west, to make something of myself, he retorted +that "it was a hell of a place to do it." In spite of the discussion +which our decision occasioned, we made our plans, deciding to risk the +hazards of a raw country alone, cutting ourselves off from the world of +everyone and everything we had ever known. And with little money to +provide against hardships and emergencies. + +At that time the country was emerging from the era of straggling +settlers. Immigration was moving west in a steady stream. The tidal wave +which swept the West from 1908 to the World War was almost upon us +although we could not see it then. But, we thought, there would be new +people, new interests, and in the end 160 acres of land for Ida Mary. +Perhaps for me the health I had sought so unsuccessfully. + +Primarily a quarter-section of land was the reason for almost everyone +coming west. As people in the early pioneer days had talked of settling +in Nebraska and Kansas and the eastern Dakotas, they now talked about +the country lying farther on--the western Dakotas, Wyoming, Montana, +Colorado. Over the Midwest the homestead idea was spreading rapidly to +farm and hamlet and city. One heard a great deal about families leaving +their farms and going west to get cheap land; of young college men who +went out to prove up a quarter-section. The land would always be worth +something, and the experience, even for a short time, was a fruitful one +in many ways. + +To the public, however, not so romantically inclined, the homesteaders +were the peasantry of America. Through the early homesteading days folk +who "picked up and set themselves down to grub on a piece of land" were +not of the world or important to it. But the stream of immigration to +the land was widening, flowing steadily on. + +How did one go about homesteading? we asked. Well, all you had to do to +get a deed to a quarter-section--160 acres of land--was to file on it at +the nearest Land Office, live on it eight months, pay the government +$1.25 an acre--and the land was yours. Easy as falling off a log! + +The only improvement required by the government was some sort of abode +as proof that one had made the land his bona-fide residence for the full +eight months. + +What would that cost? And the whole undertaking? It depended partly on +what kind of shack one built and whether he did it himself or hired it +done. A shack cost all the way from $25 to $100 or more. Some of those +who had families and intended to stay, built cheap two-and three-room +houses. + +Of course, it cost women who had to hire things done more to homestead. +But with grub, fuel and other necessities we figured it would cost not +more than $500 all told. + +Then we learned of this quarter-section with a shack already built, bunk +and all. It had been filed on and the owner had left before proving-up +time so that the claim, shack and all, had reverted to the government. +We had about $300 saved up, and this was enough, we decided, to cover +homesteading expenses, inasmuch as the shack was provided. So we had all +but the final payment of $200 to the government, which would be due when +we had "made proof." + +We decided to let the money for that final payment take care of itself. +The thing to do was to get hold of a piece of land before it was all +gone. To hear people talk, it was the last day of grace to apply for a +claim. They talked like that for ten years. We did not know there were +several million acres lying out there between the Missouri and the +Pacific waiting to be settled. We would have all winter to figure out +how to prove up. And we found that one could get $1000 to $1500 for a +raw claim after getting a deed to it. + +The claim with the shack on it was in South Dakota, thirty miles from a +town called Pierre. We looked that up in the geography to make sure it +really existed. But when we tried to get detailed information, facts +and figures to help us prepare for what was to come, we got only printed +pamphlets of rules and regulations which were of no real help at all. +Land Offices were so busy in those days that all they could do was to +send out a package of printed information that no one could understand. + +Armed with our meager array of facts, we talked to our father--as though +the information we gave him so glibly had any real bearing on this +precarious undertaking of his two young daughters. Whatever his doubts +and hesitations, he let us decide for ourselves; it was only when we +boarded the old Bald Eagle at St. Louis one summer day in 1907, bound up +the river, that he clung to our hands as though unable to let us go, +saying, "I'm afraid you are making a mistake. Take care of yourselves." + +"It will be all right," Ida Mary told him cheerfully. "It is only for +eight months. Nothing can happen in eight months." + +The first emergency arose almost at once. We started up the Mississippi +in high spirits, but by the time we reached Moline, Illinois, I was +taken from the boat on a stretcher--the aftermath of typhoid fever. It +was bad enough to be ill, it was worse to have an unexpected drain on +our funds, but worst of all was the fear that someone might file on the +claim ahead of us. For a week or ten days I could not travel, but Ida +Mary went ahead to attend to the land-filing and the buying of supplies +so that we could start for the homestead as soon as I arrived. + +The trip from Moline to Pierre I made by train. Ida Mary was at the +depot to meet me, and at once we took a ferry across the river to Ft. +Pierre. The river was low and the ever-shifting sandbars rose up to meet +the skiffs. Ft. Pierre was a typical frontier town, unkempt and +unfinished, its business buildings, hotel and stores, none of more than +two stories, on the wide dirt road called Main Street. At one end of +Main Street flowed the old Missouri, at the other it branched off into +trails that lost themselves in the prairie. + +Beyond Main Street the houses of the little town were scattered, looking +raw and new and uncomfortable, most of them with small, sunburned, +stunted gardens. But there was nothing apologetic about Ft. Pierre. +"We've done mighty well with what we've had to work with," was its +attitude. + +Section 18, Range 77W--about thirty miles from Pierre. It seemed more +real now. The hotel proprietor promised to find us a claim locator to +whom that cryptic number made sense. + +The next morning at sun-up we were on our way. At that hour the little +homestead town of Ft. Pierre lay quiet. Other homesteaders were ready to +start out: a farmer and his wife from Wisconsin, who were busy +sandwiching their four children into a wagon already filled with +immigrant goods, a cow and horse tied on behind. + +At a long table in the fly-specked hotel dining room we ate flapjacks +and fried potatoes and drank strong coffee in big heavy cups. Then, at +long last, perched on the seat of the claim locator's high spring wagon, +we jolted out of town, swerving to let a stagecoach loaded with +passengers whip past us, waiting while a team of buffalo ambled past, +and finally jogged along the beaten road through the bad lands outside +of town. + +Beyond the rough bad lands we came upon the prairie. We traveled for +miles along a narrow, rutted road crossed now and then by dim trails +leading nowhere, it seemed. Our own road dwindled to a rough trail, and +the spring wagon lurched over it while we clung to the sides to ease the +constant jolting, letting go to pull our hats over our eyes which ached +with the glare, or over the back of our necks which were blistered from +the sun. + +Our frantic haste to arrive while the land lasted seemed absurd now. +There was land enough for all who wanted it, and few enough to claim it. +All that weary day we saw no people save in the distance a few +homesteaders mowing strips of the short dry grass for hay. Now and then +we passed a few head of horses and a cow grazing. Here and there over +the hot, dusty plain we saw shacks and makeshift houses surrounded by +patches of corn or flax or dried-up garden. Why were the houses so +scattered, looking as though they had been thrown down at random? "They +had to be set on the claims," our locator said dryly. + +About noon we stopped at a deserted ranch house, surrounded by +corrals--a camp, our driver explained, where some stockman held his +cattle overnight in driving them to market. Here we ate a lunch and the +locator fed and watered the team, refilling the jars from an old well +with its long wooden water troughs. + +There the trail ended. Now we struck out over a trackless land that grew +rougher the farther we went. To look for a quarter-section here was like +looking for a needle in a haystack. It was late summer and the sun beat +down on the hot prairie grass and upon our heads. We had driven all day +without sign of shade--and save for that brief interval at noon, without +sight of water. Our faces and hands were blistered, our throats parched +from the hot wind. + +This was not the West as I had dreamed of it, not the West even of +banditry and violent action. It was a desolate, forgotten land, without +vegetation save for the dry, crackling grass, without visible tokens of +fertility. Drab and gray and empty. Stubborn, resisting land. Heroics +wouldn't count for much here. It would take slow, back-breaking labor, +and time, and the action of the seasons to make the prairie bloom. +People had said this was no place for two girls. It began to seem that +they were right. + +And this was the goal of our long journey--the tar-paper shack. We +pushed the trunk over in front of the door which had no lock, piled the +chairs and suitcases on top of the trunk; spread a comfort over the +criss-cross rope bed and threw ourselves across it without undressing. +We had no gun or other weapon for protection and were not brave enough +to use one had we possessed it. + +The little cellar windows which stood halfway between the low ceiling +and the floor were nailed shut. But we needed neither window nor door, +so far as air was concerned. It poured through the wide cracks like +water through a sieve. + +While we tossed, too tired and sick at heart to sleep, I asked: "What +became of the young man who built this shack?" + +"He lived here only a few weeks and abandoned it," Ida Mary explained. +"The claim reverted to the government, shack, bunk and all. He couldn't +stick it out." + + * * * * * + +The next morning we awoke to a world flooded with sunshine, and it was +the surprise of our lives that we had lived to see it. + +Ida started the oil stove and put on the coffee. Wearily I dragged +myself out of bed. We fried bacon, made toast, unpacked our few dishes. +Discovering that a hinged shelf on the wall was intended for a table, we +put it up and set our breakfast on it. We found that we were really +hungry. + +Our determination to start back home was still unshaken, but we had +reckoned without the prairies. We were marooned as on a desert island. +And more pressing, even, than some way of getting back to Pierre--and +home--was the need for water. We must get a jug of water somewhere. +Water didn't come from a tap on the prairies. We began to wonder where +it did come from; certainly there wasn't a drop to be found on Ida +Mary's claim. + +In the glaring morning sun which blazed on the earth, we saw a shack in +the distance, the reflection of the sun on yellow boards. It was farther +away than it appeared to be with the bright light against it. + +This new home was larger than the regulation shack, and it had a +gable--a low-pitched roof--which in itself was a symbol of permanence in +contrast to the temporary huts that dotted the plains. It was made of +tongue-and-groove drop-siding, which did away with the need of tar +paper, and in the homestead country marked a man's prestige and +solidity. + +We were met at the open door by a pretty, plump young woman. A little +girl of seven stood quietly at one side, and a little boy, perhaps five, +at the other. As we stood there with the jug she broke into a pleasant +laugh. "You've come for water! We have no well, but Huey hauled two +barrels this morning from Crooks's, several miles away." + +We were led into a large room, clean and cool. After one has been in a +low, slant-roofed, tar-papered shack that becomes an oven when the sun +shines on it, entering a house with a gable is almost like going into a +refrigerator. There wasn't much in the room except beds and a sewing +machine. The floor, on which a smaller child was playing, was bare +except for a few rag rugs, but shining. An opening led into a small +lean-to kitchen with a range in one corner; in the other a large square +table spread with a checked tablecloth was set ready for the next meal, +and covered with a mosquito bar. The home, the family, gave one a +feeling of coming to anchor in a sea of grass and sky. + +We learned that the name was Dunn and that they were dirt farmers from +Iowa, but they had not come in time to do much farming that season. They +had thrown up a makeshift barn as a temporary shelter for the horses and +one cow until they could build a real barn--after they found out what +the soil would do, Mrs. Dunn explained. + +She hurried out to the kitchen, talking as she moved about, and came in +with coffee and a plate of oatmeal cookies. + +"I am so glad you are going to live here," she told us. "Neighbors +within a mile and a half! I won't feel so much alone with neighbors +close by to chat with." + +We hadn't the courage to tell her that we weren't going to stay. + +"You must have found the shack dirty," she said, with a glance at her +spotless house. "A bachelor homesteader had it and they are always the +worst. They wait until the floor is thick with dirt and grease and then +spread newspapers over it to cover up the dirt. You'll have a time +getting it fixed as you want it." + +We wondered how anyone made a home of a tar-paper shack. To hear Mrs. +Dunn's casual remarks, one would think it no more of a problem than +redecorating a city home. + +As we started on the trek back, she called after us, "Huey will haul you +over a keg of water tomorrow." + +As soon as we were out of earshot I said, "We can hire Mr. Dunn to take +us back to Pierre." + +"That's an idea," Ida Mary agreed. + +By the time we had walked back the mile and a half--which seemed five in +the scorching heat--it was past noon and we were completely exhausted. +So we did not get started back to Pierre that day. But we felt a little +easier. There was a way to get out. + +[Illustration] + + + + +II + +DOWN TO GRASS ROOTS + + +There is a lot of sound common sense in the saying about leaving the +cage door open. As long as we knew we could be taken back to town we +were content to stay for a day or two, and take a look at the country +while we were there--by which we meant that we would gaze out over the +empty spaces with a little more interest. + +We strained our eyes for sight of moving objects, for signs of life. +Once we saw a team and wagon moving toward the south. As suddenly as it +had appeared it dropped out of sight into a ravine. A horseman crossing +the plains faded into the horizon. + +As our vision gradually adjusted itself to distance we saw other +homestead abodes. The eye "picked up" these little shacks across the +plains, one by one. + +For years straggling settlers had moved on and off the prairie--and +those who stayed barely made a mark on the engulfing spaces. The +unyielding, harsh life had routed the majority of homesteaders--they had +shut the door behind them and left the land to its own. + +All over the plains empty shacks told the tale. They stood there with +the grass grown up around them, the unwritten inscription: "This +quarter-section has been taken." Dilapidated; the tiny window or two +boarded up; boards cracked or fallen apart. They, too, had not been able +to weather the hard forces of nature on the frontier. If the shack had +gone down, or had been moved in the night by some more ambitious +homesteader, there was always the pile of tin cans to mark the spot. +They stayed and rusted. + +And from the tin cans ye knew them. Bachelors' huts were always +surrounded; where there was a woman to do the cooking there were fewer +cans. But as a rule the shack dwellers lived out of tin cans like city +apartment dwellers. + +But for the most part the land was inhabited by coyotes and prairie +dogs, with a few herds of range sheep and cattle. Few of the +homesteaders were permanent. They stayed their eight months--if they +could stick it out--and left at once. Their uneasy stay on the land was +like the brief pause of migratory birds or the haphazard drifting of +tumble weeds that go rolling across the plains before the wind, landing +against a barbed-wire fence or any other object that blocked their way. + +The empty shacks reminded one of the phantom towns which men had thrown +up breathlessly and abandoned when the search for gold had proved +illusory. Only permanency could dig the gold of fertility from the +prairie, and thus far the people who had made a brief attempt to cope +with it had been in too much of a hurry. Those abandoned +quarter-sections had defeated the men who would have taken them. + +The main movement over the plains was that of hauling water from the few +wells in the country, or from one of two narrow creeks that twisted +through the parched land and vanished into dry gulches. They were now as +dry as a bone. + +"I'd have a well," Huey Dunn said, "if I could stop hauling water long +enough to dig one." That was the situation of most of the homesteaders. + +Most of these migratory homesteaders wanted the land as an +investment--to own it and sell it to some eastern farmer or to a +rancher. Some, like Huey Dunn, came to make a permanent home and till +the land. These few dirt farmers raised patches of corn, and while the +farmers from Iowa and Illinois were scornful of the miniature stalks, +the flavor of the sweet corn grown on the dry sod was unsurpassed. The +few patches of potatoes were sweet and mealy. But the perfect sod crop +was flax. Already the frontier was becoming known for its flax raising. + +We saw no large range herds, though there were no herd laws to keep them +off private property. One could drive straight as the crow flies from +Pierre to Presho, forty or fifty miles, without stopping to open a gate. +If one struck a fence around a quarter-section here or there he either +got out and cut the wire in two, or drove around the corner of the +fence, depending upon how he felt about fences being in the way. + +No wonder sheep-herders went crazy, we thought, swallowed up by that sea +of brown, dry grass, by the endless monotony of space. + +I think what struck us most those first days was the realization that +the era of pioneers had not ended with covered wagon days; that there +were men and women, thousands of them, in our own times, living under +pioneer conditions, fighting the same hardships, the same obstacles, the +same primitive surroundings which had beset that earlier generation. + +Toward evening, that first day, sitting on the little board platform in +front of the door where there was a hint of shade and a suggestion of +coolness in the air, we saw two animals approaching. + +"I never saw dogs like that, did you?" I said to Ida Mary when they came +a little closer. + +She jumped up, crying "Wolves!" We had seen one on the road out from +Pierre. We ran into the shack, nailed the door shut that night--no +risking of trunks or boxes against it--crawled into bed and lay there +for hours, afraid to speak out loud. + +Huey Dunn came next day with the keg of water. "Wolves?" he said, as we +told him of the experience. "They wouldn't hurt anyone, unless they were +cornered--or hungry." + +"But how," demanded Ida Mary, "were we to tell when they were hungry?" + +Huey laughed at that. When the snow lay deep on the ground for a long +time after a blizzard, and there was no way to get food, they sometimes +attacked sheep or cattle, and they had been known to attack persons, but +not often. They generally went in packs to do their foraging. + +"Goin' back tomorrow?" Mr. Dunn ejaculated, as we interrupted his talk +about the country to ask him to take us to Pierre. "Why, my wife planned +on your comin' over to dinner tomorrow." But if we wanted to go the next +day--sure, he could take us. Oh, he wouldn't charge us much. As he drove +away he called back, "Don't get scared when you hear the coyotes. You'll +get used to 'em if you stay." + +And that night they howled. We were awakened by the eerie, hair-raising +cry that traveled so far over the open prairie and seemed so near; a +wild, desolate cry with an uncannily human quality. That mournful sound +is as much a part of the prairie as is the wind which blows, unchecked, +over the vast stretches, the dreary, inescapable voice of the plains. +The first time we heard the coyotes there seemed to be a hundred of +them, though there were probably half a dozen. All Huey Dunn's assurance +that they were harmless and that it was a nightly occurrence failed to +calm us. + +When Huey got home his wife asked what he thought of their new +neighbors. + +"Right nice girls to talk to," Huey said, "but damn poor homesteaders. +Beats the devil the kind of people that are taking up land. Can't +develop a country with landowners like that. Those girls want to go +home. Already. I said you wanted 'em to come over to dinner tomorrow +noon. Maybe you can fix up something kinda special." + +"I'll drop a few extra spuds into the pot and bake a pan of +cornbread--they'll eat it," Mrs. Dunn predicted cheerfully. She was +right. + +Bringing us back to the claim the next afternoon Huey suddenly +remembered that he had promised a neighbor to help string barb-wire the +following day. But--sure--he could take us to town 'most any day after +that. + +The next day we began to discover the women who were living on +homesteads and who, in their own way, played so vital a part in +developing the West. One of our nearest neighbors--by straining our eyes +we could see her little shack perched up against the horizon--put on her +starched calico dress and gingham apron and came right over to call. The +Widow Fergus, she said she was. + +She sat down, laid her big straw hat on the floor beside her (no, just +let it lie there--she always threw it off like that) and made herself +comfortable. Her graying hair, parted in the middle and done up in a +knot in the back, was freshly and sleekly combed. She was brown as a +berry and just the type of hard-working woman to make a good +homesteader, with calloused, capable, tireless hands. She was round, +bustling and kind. The Widow Fergus had taken up a homestead with her +young son. + +She looked at the unopened baggage, the dirty shack. Now that was +sensible, she said, to rest a few days--it was so nice and quiet out +here. Homesick? My, no. There was no time to get homesick. Too much to +do getting by on a homestead. Women like the Widow Fergus, we were to +discover, had no time for self-pity or lamenting their rigorous, hard +lives. They did not, indeed, think in terms of self-pity. And they +managed, on the whole, to live rich, satisfying lives and at the same +time to prepare the way for easier, pleasanter lives for the women who +were to follow them. + +When she left she said, "Now, come over, girls, and anything you want, +let me know...." + +A little later that same day we saw three riders galloping across the +plains, headed straight for our shack. They stopped short, swung off +their ponies, three girl homesteaders. + +They rode astride, wore plain shirtwaists and divided skirts. Two of +them wore cheap straw hats much like those worn by farmers in the fields +everywhere. They swung from their saddles as easily as though they wore +breeches and boots. + +"How did you learn we were here?" I asked, curious to know how news +could travel over these outlying spaces. + +"Huey Dunn told it over at the road ranch while I was waiting there for +the mail," the oldest of the girls explained, "so I just rode around and +picked up the girls." + +One would think they lived in the same city block, so nonchalant was she +over the round-up, but "only eighteen miles," she explained easily. + +Her name was Wilomene White, she told us, and she came from Chicago. She +had been out here most of the time for almost two years--what with +leaves of absence in the winter prolonging the term of residence. She +was a short, plump woman whom we judged to be in her early thirties, and +she had a sense of humor that was an invaluable asset in a country like +that. She was an artist and head of her father's household. Her brother +was a prominent surgeon in Chicago and for several years Wilomene, +besides being active in club work, had been on the board of the +Presbyterian Hospital there. + +When her health failed from overwork and strenuous public activities, +her brother ordered a complete change and plenty of pure fresh air. So +with a little group of acquaintances she had come west and taken up a +homestead. It was easy to understand that she had found a change--and +fresh air. What surprised us was that she took such delight in the +country and the pioneer life about her that she no longer wanted to +return to her full life in Chicago. + +The three girls stayed on and on, talking. Girl homesteaders had no +reason for going home. Days and nights, days of the week and month were +all the same to them. There were so few places to go, and the distance +was so great that it was a custom to stay long enough to make a visit +worth while. The moon would come up about ten that night--so nothing +mattered. Afraid to ride home in the middle of the night? What was there +to fear out here? + +Ida Mary and I still hesitated about going far from the shack. The +prairie about us was so unsettled, so lacking in trees that there were +practically no landmarks for the unaccustomed eye to follow. We became +confused as to direction and distance. "Three miles from the buffalo +waller," our locator had said. "No trouble to locate your claim." But if +we got far enough away from it we couldn't even find the buffalo waller. + +Even against our will the bigness and the peace of the open spaces were +bound to soak in. Despite the isolation, the hardships and the awful +crudeness, we could not but respond to air that was like old wine--as +sparkling in the early morning, as mellow in the soft nights. Never were +moon and stars so gloriously bright. It was the thinness of the +atmosphere that made them appear so near the earth, we were told. + +While the middle of the day was often so hot we panted for breath, +mornings and evenings were always gloriously cool and invigorating, and +we slept. With the two comforters spread on the criss-cross rope bed, we +fell asleep and woke ravenously hungry each morning. + +That first letter home was a difficult task, and we found it safer to +stick to facts--the trip had been pleasant, Ida Mary had filed on the +claim. But to prepare for our arrival at home, we added, "There is +nothing to worry about. If we think it is best, we will come home." This +was eventually sent off after we had discussed what we had better tell +our father, and crossed out the sentences that might worry him. "Don't +waste so much paper," Ida Mary warned me. "It is thirty miles to another +writing tablet." + +We were eating supper one evening when four or five coyotes slipped up +out of the draw and came close to the shack. Almost one in color with +the yellow grass, they stood poised, alert, ready to run at the +slightest sound. Graceful little animals, their pointed noses turned +upward. A great deal like a collie dog. We did not make a move, but they +seemed to sense life in the once deserted cabin, and like a phantom they +faded into the night. + +Huey Dunn was one of those homesteaders who believed the world (the +frontier at least) was not made in a day. He was slow getting around to +things. He never did get around to taking Ida Mary and me back to +Pierre. And to our dismay a homesteader drove up one day with the big +box of household goods we had shipped out. The stage express had brought +it out from Pierre to McClure, and it had been hauled the rest of the +way by the first homesteader coming our way. Altogether it cost twenty +dollars to get that box, and there wasn't ten dollars' worth of stuff in +it. + +Ida Mary and I had collected the odds and ends it contained from +second-hand stores in St. Louis, selecting every article after eager +discussion of its future use, picturing its place in our western cabin. +We hadn't known about the tar-paper shack then. Its arrival stressed our +general disillusionment. + +We had now seen the inside of a few shacks over the prairie. The +attempts the women had made to convert them into homes were pitiful, +although some of them had really accomplished wonders with practically +nothing. It is pretty hard to crush the average woman's home-making +instinct. The very grimness of the prairie increased their determination +to raise a bulwark against it. + +Up to now we had been uneasy guests in the shack, ready for flight +whenever Huey Dunn got around to taking us back to Pierre. But trying to +dig out a few things now and then from grips and trunks without +unpacking from top to bottom is an unsatisfactory procedure. So we +unpacked. + +Then we had to find a place for our things and thought we might as well +try to make the cabin more comfortable at the same time, even if we +weren't staying. We looked about us. There wasn't much to work with. In +the walls of our shack the boards ran up and down with a 2 x 4 scantling +midway between floor and ceiling running all the way around the room. +This piece of lumber served two purposes. It held the shack together and +served as a catch-all for everything from toilet articles to hammer and +nails. The room had been lined with patches of building paper, some red, +some blue, and finished out with old newspapers. + +The patchwork lining had become torn in long cracks where the boards of +the shack were split, and through the holes the dry wind drove dust and +sand. The shack would have to be relined, for there was not sufficient +protection from the weather and we would freeze in the first cold spell. + +This regulation shack lining was a great factor in the West's +settlement. We should all have frozen to death without it. It came in +rolls and was hauled out over the plains like ammunition to an army, and +paper factories boomed. There were two kinds--red and blue--and the +color indicated the grade. The red was a thinner, inferior quality and +cost about three dollars a roll, while the heavy blue cost six. Blue +paper on the walls was as much a sign of class on the frontier as blue +blood in Boston. We lined our shack with red. + +The floor was full of knotholes, and the boards had shrunk, leaving wide +cracks between. The bachelor homesteader had left it black with grease. +When Huey hauled us an extra keg of water we proceeded to take off at +least a few layers. + +We were filling the cracks with putty when a bachelor homesteader +stopped by and watched the operation in disgust. + +"Where you goin' to run your scrub-water," he wanted to know, "with the +cracks and knotholes stopped up?" + +In the twenty-dollar box was a 6 x 9-foot faded Brussels rug, with a +couple of rolls of cheap wallpaper. From a homesteader who was proving +up and leaving we bought an old wire cot. With cretonnes we made +pillows, stuffed with prairie grass; hung bright curtains at the little +windows, which opened by sliding back between strips of wood. In the big +wooden box we had also packed a small, light willow rocker. In one +corner we nailed up a few boards for a bookcase, painting it bright red. +Little by little the old tar-paper shack took on a homelike air. + +It is curious how much value a thing has if one has put some effort into +it. We were still as disillusioned with the country as we had been the +first day, we felt as out of place on a homestead as a coyote sauntering +up Fifth Avenue, we felt the tar-paper shack to be the most unhomelike +contraption we had ever seen; but from the moment we began to make +improvements, transforming the shack, it took on an interest for us out +of all proportion to the changes we were able to make. Slowly we were +making friends, learning to find space restful and reassuring instead of +intimidating, adapting our restless natures to a country that measured +time in seasons; imperceptibly we were putting down our first roots into +that stubborn soil. + +At first we read and reread the letters from home, talking of it +constantly and wistfully like exiles, drawn constantly toward the place +we had left. Almost without our being aware of it we ceased to feel +that we had left St. Louis. It was St. Louis which was receding from us, +while we turned more and more toward the new country, identified +ourselves with it. + +Ida Mary and I woke up one day a few weeks after our arrival to find our +grubstake almost gone. Back home we had figured that there were ample +funds for filing fees, for transportation and food. Now we began to +figure backwards, which we found was a poor way to figure. There was no +money to take us back home. We had burned our bridges not only behind +but in front of us. + +It was the incidentals which had cut into our small reserve. The expense +of my illness on the road had been heavy. The rest of the money seemed +to have evaporated like water in dry air. Fixing up the shack had been +an unexpected expense, and we had overlooked the cost of hauling +altogether--in a country where everything had to be hauled. We had paid +$25 for a stiff old Indian cayuse, the cheapest thing in horseflesh that +we could find. + +In order to be safe we had figured on standard prices for commodities, +but we found that all of them were much higher out here. Coal, the only +fuel obtainable, ran as high as $20 a ton, with the hauling and high +freight. Merchants blamed the freight cost for the high price of +everything from coal to a package of needles. + +I laid the blame for our predicament on Huey Dunn. But Ida Mary thought +it went farther back than that. It was the fault of the government! +Women should not be allowed to file on land. + +Regardless of where the blame lay, we were now reduced to a state of +self-preservation. Had not the majority of the settlers taken this +gambling chance of pulling through somehow, the West would never have +been settled. + +It is curious how quickly one's animal instinct of survival comes to the +fore in primitive lands. If we ran out of bacon we stirred flour into a +little grease, added water and a few drops of condensed milk (if we had +it) and turned out a filling dish of gravy. If we ran out of coal we +pulled the dried prairie grass to burn in the little two-hole monkey +stove, which we had bought with the cot. Laundry stoves, some called +them. + +To keep the water from becoming warm as dishwater we dug a hole in the +ground to set the water can in. The earth became so cool at night that +anything set down in a shallow hole on the shady side of the house kept +cool all day. + +We learned that it took twice as long to cook beans or other vegetables +in that high altitude; that one must put more flour in the cake and not +so much shortening or it would surely fall; that meat hung in the dry +air would keep fresh indefinitely--but we had not tasted a bite of fresh +meat since we came. + +Our homestead not only had a cabin, but it boasted a small patch of +sweet corn planted by the first filer on the land. It would make food +for both man and beast--for the Ammons girls and the pinto. + +It was a frontier saying that homesteading was a gamble: "Yeah, the +United States Government is betting you 160 acres of land that you can't +live on it eight months." Ida and I weren't betting; we were holding +on, living down to the grass roots. The big problem was no longer how to +get off the homestead, but how to keep soul and body together on it. + +If one were in a country where he could live by foraging--"We can live +on jack rabbits next winter," homesteaders would say. But Ida Mary and I +would have to depend on someone to get them for us. We realized more +every day how unequipped we were for plains life, lacking the sturdy +health of most frontier women, both of us unusually small and slight. +Back of Ida Mary's round youthful face and steady eyes, however, there +were grit and stamina and cool-headed common sense. She would never +stampede with the herd. And for all my fragility, I had the will to hang +on. + +Well, we would eat corncakes with bacon grease a while longer. (They +were really good. I became an expert in making them.) And we still had +some bacon left, and the corn; a little syrup in the pail would take the +place of sugar. Uncle Sam hadn't won that bet yet, on the Ammons +homestead, though most of the settlers thought he would. + +Three or four miles from the claim was McClure, a ranch house combined +with a general store and a post office. Walking there one day for +groceries and our mail we passed a group of men lounging in front of the +old log ranch house. "Now such as that won't ever be any good to the +country," one of them said of us. "What the country needs is people with +guts. There ought to be a law against women filing on government +land...." + +"And against all these city folks coming out here just to get a deed and +then leaving the country," added another. "If they ain't going to +improve the land they oughtn't to have it." + +"Most of 'em take their trunks along when they go to town to prove up," +put in the stage driver, "and that's the last you ever see of 'em. +They've gone on the next train out." + +Landgrabbers, the native westerners called the settlers, no good to the +country. And there was a great deal of truth in it. We began to check up +on the homesteaders of whom we knew. Probably two-thirds of them would +go back home as soon as they proved up, leaving their shack at the mercy +of the wind, and the prairie to wait as it had always waited for a +conquering hand. + +Huey Dunn and the Cooks and the Wickershams were dirt farmers, come to +stay. Some of the homesteaders would come back in the summertime, +putting out a little patch of garden and a few rows of corn each season. +But for the most part there would be no record of these transient guests +of the prairie but abandoned shacks. Those who took up claims only as an +investment either sold the land for whatever price they could get for it +or let it lie there to increase in value. + +Some of the old-timers didn't object to this system. "When the land is +all taken up, people will have to pay more for it," they explained. But +on the whole they eyed with humorous intolerance the settlers who +departed, leaving their claims as they had found them. + +A great blessing of the plains was the absence of vermin. I do not +remember having seen a rat or a weasel on the frontier at that time, and +many of the natives had never seen a potato bug or chinch bug or +cockroach. + +But one day after a short, pelting rain, I came home and opened the door +and looked at the moving, crawling walls, and could not believe my eyes. +Worms--small, brown, slick worms--an inch to an inch and a half long. + +The walls, the door, the ground were alive with them. They were crawling +through the cracks into the shack, wriggling along the floor and walls +with their tiny, hair-like legs. They infested the plains for miles +around. At night one could feel them crawling over the bed. + +The neighbors got together to find means of exterminating these +obnoxious vermin. We burned sulfur inside and used torches of twisted +prairie hay on the outside of the house, just near enough to the walls +to scorch the creepers. But as one regiment burned up another came. + +One day Ida Mary and I, in doing a little research work of our own--we +had no biologists to consult on plagues, and no exterminators--lifted up +a wide board platform in front of our shack, and ran screaming. The +pests were nested thick and began to scatter rapidly in every direction, +a fermenting mass. + +They were not dangerous, they injured neither men nor crops, but they +were harder to endure than a major disaster. One was aware of them +everywhere, on the chair one sat in, on the food one ate, on one's body. +They were a crawling, maddening nightmare. + +A number of homesteaders were preparing to leave the country--driven +out by an army of insects--when, as suddenly as they came, the worms +disappeared. Where they came from, where they went, no one knew. I +mention this episode as one without precedent or repetition in the +history of the frontier, so far as I know. + +A number of theories were advanced regarding this worm plague. Some said +they had rained down in cell or germ form; others, that they had +developed with the sudden moisture from some peculiar embryo in the dry +soil. Finding from my own further observation that they were segregated +in the damper sections where the soil had not yet dried out after the +rain, I concluded they had been bred in the ground. + + * * * * * + +Our need for money had become acute, but before we were quite desperate +a ray of hope appeared. There were quite a few children scattered over +the neighborhood, and the homesteaders decided that there must be a +school in the center of the district. + +The directors found that Ida Mary had taught school a term or two back +east, and teachers were scarce as hens' teeth out there, so she got the +school at $25 a month. The little schoolhouse was built close to the far +end of our claim, which was a mile long instead of half a mile square as +it should have been. + +We had just finished breakfast one morning when Huey Dunn and another +homesteader drove up to the door with their teams, dragging some heavy +timbers along. + +Huey stood in the door, his old straw hat in hand, with that placid +expression on his smooth features. A man of medium height, shoulders +slightly rounded; rather gaunt in the middle where the suspenders +hitched onto the overalls. + +"Came to move your shack," he said in an offhand tone. + +"Move it?" we demanded. "Where?" + +"To the other end of the claim, over by the schoolhouse. And that's as +far as I'm goin' to move you until you prove up," he added. He hadn't +moved us off the land when we wanted to go. He would move us up to the +line now, but not an inch over it until we had our patent. + +The men stuck the timbers under the shack, hitched the horses to it, and +Ida Mary and I did the housework en route. Suddenly she laughed: "If we +had been trying to get Huey Dunn to move this shack he wouldn't have got +to it all winter." + +When they set us down on the proper location they tied the shack down by +driving stakes two or three feet into the ground, then running wire +cords, like clothesline, from the roof of the shack down to the stakes. + +"Just luck there hasn't been much wind or this drygoods box would have +been turned end over end," Huey said. "Wasn't staked at all." + +It was autumn and the air was cold early in the mornings and sweet with +the smell of new-mown hay. We hired a homesteader who had a mower to put +up hay for us and had a frame made of poles for a small barn and stacked +the hay on top around it, against the winter. Most of the settlers first +covered this frame with woven wire to keep the stock from eating into +the hay. We left ours open between the poles as a self-feeder through +which Pinto could eat hay without any work or responsibility on our +part. + +Then one day Ida Mary went swinging down the trail to her school, a +small, sun-bonneted child at each side. The schoolhouse was much like +any country school--but smaller and more cheaply built. It had long +wooden benches and a rusty stove and in fine weather a dozen or more +pupils, who ranged in age from very young children to great farm boys, +who towered over Ida Mary, but whom, somehow, she learned to manage +effortlessly in that serene fashion of hers. In bad weather, when it was +difficult to travel across the prairie, her class dwindled until, at +times, she had no pupils at all. + +[Illustration] + + + + +III + +"ANY FOOL CAN SET TYPE" + + +McClure, South Dakota (it's on the map), was the halfway point on the +stage line between Pierre and Presho, three or four miles from our +claim. It consisted of the Halfway House, which combined the functions +of a general store, a post office, a restaurant, and a news center for +the whole community, with the barns and corrals of the old McClure +ranch. And set off a few rods from the house there was another building, +a small crude affair that looked like a homesteader's shack. Across its +rough board front was a sign painted in big black letters: + +THE McCLURE PRESS + +The first time I saw that sign, I laughed aloud. + +"What on earth is a newspaper doing out here?" I asked Mr. Randall, the +proprietor of the Halfway House. + +"It's a final-proof sheet," he answered, not realizing that the brief +explanation could mean little to a stranger. + +These final-proof sheets, however, were becoming an important branch of +the western newspaper industry, popping up over the frontier for the +sole purpose of publishing the proof notices of the homesteaders. As +required by the government, each settler must have published for five +consecutive weeks in the paper nearest his land, his intention to make +proof (secure title to the land) with the names of witnesses to attest +that he had lived up to the rules and regulations prescribed by the +government. + +Also, according to government ruling, such newspapers were to be paid +five dollars by the landholder for each final proof published, and any +contestant to a settler's right to the land must pay a publication fee. +Thereby a new enterprise was created--the "final-proof" newspaper. + +These weeklies carried small news items with a smattering of advertising +from surrounding trade centers. But they were made up mostly of "proofs" +and ready-printed material supplied by the newspaper syndicates that +furnished the prints; leaving one or two blank sheets, as required by +the publisher for home print. The McClure _Press_ had two six-column +pages of home print, including the legal notices. + +This paper was a proof sheet, pure and simple, run by a girl homesteader +who had worked on a Minneapolis paper. Myrtle Combs was a +hammer-and-tongs printer. She threw the type together, threw it onto the +press and off again; slammed the print-shop door shut; mounted her old +white horse, and with a gallon pail--filled with water at the +trough--tied to the saddlehorn, went loping back to her claim four or +five miles away. But Myrtle could be depended upon to get out the +notices, which was all the owner required. + +One day when I went for the mail she called to me: "Say! You want the +job of running this newspaper? I'm proving up. Going home." + +We needed the extra money badly. Proving-up time came in early spring. +To get our deed and go home would require nearly $300, which Ida's $25 a +month would not cover. Besides, I felt that I had been a heavy expense +to Ida Mary because of my illness on the road, and I did not want to +continue to be a burden to her. She had succeeded in finding a way to +earn money and I was eager to do my own part. + +I didn't know as much about running a newspaper as a hog knows about +Sunday. It was a hard, dirty job which I was not physically equipped to +handle. But I had lived on a homestead long enough to learn some +fundamental things: that while a woman had more independence here than +in any other part of the world, she was expected to contribute as much +as a man--not in the same way, it is true, but to the same degree; that +people who fought the frontier had to be prepared to meet any emergency; +that the person who wasn't willing to try anything once wasn't equipped +to be a settler. I'd try it, anyhow. + +"Any fool can learn to set type," Myrtle said cheerfully. "Then throw it +into the 'form' [the iron rectangle the size of the page in which the +columns of set-up type are encased, ready to print]. If it don't stick, +here's a box of matches. Whittle 'em down and just keep sticking 'em in +where the type's loose until it does stick." + +She locked the form by means of hammering tight together two +wedge-shaped iron pieces, several sets of them between type and iron +frame which were supposed to hold the type in the form like a vise; +raised it carefully, and there remained on the tin-covered make-up table +about a quarter of a column of the set type. She slammed the form down +in place again, unlocked it with an iron thing she called the key, +inserted more leads and slugs between the lines of type, jamming them +closer together. + +"If you need more leads or slugs between the lines," she said, "here's +some condensed milk cans--just take these"--and she held up a pair of +long shears--"and cut you some leads." She suited the words to action; +took the mallet and smoothed the edges of the oblong she had cut. I +watched her ink the roller, run it over the form on the press, put the +blank paper on, give the press a few turns, and behold! the printed +page. + +With this somewhat limited training I proceeded to get out the paper. I +knew absolutely nothing about mechanics and it was a hard job. Then a +belated thought struck me. Perhaps I should ask the owner for the job, +or at any rate inform him that I had taken it. From _The Press_ I found +the publisher's name was E. L. Senn. I learned that he owned a long +string of proof sheets. A monopoly out here on the raw prairie. Folks +said he was close as the bark on a tree and heartless as a Wall Street +corporation. + +With this encouragement I decided to ask for $10 a week. Myrtle had +received only $8. Of course, I had no experience as a printer, but I +explained to Mr. Senn my plans for pushing the business so that he would +be able to afford that extra $2 a week. Of my experience as a typesetter +I wisely said nothing. + +While I waited for the owner's reply I went on getting out the paper. +There was no holding up an issue of a "proof" newspaper; like the show, +it must go on! The Department of the Interior running our public lands +saw to that. Friday's paper might come out the following Monday or +Wednesday, but it must come out. That word "consecutive" in the proof +law was an awful stickler. But everyone who had hung around the print +shop watching Myrtle work, took a hand helping me. + +When the publisher replied to my letter he asked me about my experience +as a printer and added: "I don't know whether you are worth $2 a week +more than Myrtle or not, but anybody that has the nerve you exhibit in +asking for it no doubt deserves it. Moreover, I like to flatter such +youthful vanity." + +He called it nerve, and I had thought I was as retiring as an antelope. +But the main reason for his granting my demand was that he could not +find anyone else to do the work on short notice. Printers were not to be +picked up on every quarter-section. + +I made no reply to this letter. A week later I was perched on my high +stool at the nonpareil (a small six-point type) case when the stage +rolled in from Presho. Into the print shop walked a well-dressed +stranger, a slender, energetic man of medium height. He looked things +over--including me. And so I found myself face to face with the +proof-sheet king. + +It did not take long to find out how little I knew about printing a +newspaper. So in desperation I laid before him an ambitious plan for +adding subscriptions and another page of home print filled with +advertising from Pierre. + +The trip alone, he reminded me, would cost all of $10, probably $15. +"And besides," he added, "if you did get ads you couldn't set them up." +With that final fling at my inefficiency he took the stage on to Pierre. + +The average newspaperman would have sneered at these plains printing +outfits, and thrown the junk out on the prairie to be buried under the +snowdrifts; but not many of us were eligible to the title. The McClure +_Press_ consisted of a few cases of old type, a couple of "forms," an +ink roller and a pot of ink; a tin slab laid on top of a rough frame for +a make-up table. Completing the outfit was a hand press--that's what +they called it, but it needed a ten-horsepower motor to run it; a flat +press which went back and forth under a heavy iron roller that was +turned with a crank like a clothes wringer. My whole outfit seemed to +have come from Noah's ark. + +Most of the type was nicked, having suffered from the blows of Myrtle's +wooden hammer. She used the hammer when it failed to make a smooth +surface in the form that would pass under the roller. Readers had to +guess at about half the news I printed, and the United States Land +Office developed a sort of character system of deciphering the notices +which I filed every week. + +But running proof notices was not merely the blacksmith job that Myrtle +had made it appear. It required accuracy to the _n_th degree. The proofs +ran something like this: + + Blanche M. Bartine of McClure, S. D., who made Homestead Entry No. + 216, Serial No. 04267, for the South One-half of the NE 1/4 and + North One-half of SE 1/4 of Section 9, Township 108 North, Range 78 + West of the Fifth Principal Meridian, has filed notice of intention + to make final computation proof to establish claim, etc., etc. + +Then the names of four witnesses were added and the signature of the +Land Office Register of that district. + +One day a man went to town with a string of witnesses to prove up. He +intended to go on to Iowa without returning to the claim. That night he +walked angrily into the print shop and laid a copy of his published +notice before me, together with a note from the Land Office. I had him +proving up somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, having given the wrong +meridian. For that typographical error the man must wait until I +republished the notice. Washington, so the man at Pierre said, was not +granting deeds for claims in mid-ocean. One can't be inexact with the +government's red tape. + +But, on the whole, the work was not as trivial as it may appear. With +every proof notice published in these obscure proof sheets 160 acres of +wasteland passed into privately owned farm units--and for this gigantic +public works project there was not a cent appropriated either by State +or Federal government. + +One day when the corn was in the milk--that season which the Indians +celebrate with their famous corn dance--we saw Wilomene White streaking +across the plains on old Buckskin, her knock-kneed pony. Wilomene was a +familiar sight on the prairie, and the sight of her short, plump figure, +jolting up and down in a stiff gallop, as though she were on a wooden +horse, water keg hanging from her saddlehorn--just in case she _should_ +come across any water--was welcome wherever she went. "It doesn't matter +whether it's illness or a civic problem or a hoedown, Wilomene is always +called on," people said. And she was repaid for every hardship she went +through by the fun she had telling about it, while her rich, contagious +laughter rang over the whole country. + +Today there was no water keg bouncing up and down behind old Buckskin. +That in itself was ominous. For all his deformity and declining years, +she descended on us like Paul Revere. + +She galloped up, dismounted, jerked a Chicago newspaper out of the +saddlebag, and pointed to a big black headline. + +"Look at this. The reservation is going to be thrown open. The East is +all excited. There will be thousands out here to register at the Land +Office in Pierre--railroads are going to run special trains--" + +"What reservation?" we wanted to know. + +"The Indian reservation, just across the fence," Wilomene explained. The +"fence" was merely a string of barbed wire, miles long, which marked the +boundary of our territory and separated it from the Indian reservation. + +I glanced at the paper announcing the great opening of the Lower Brule +by the United States Government which was to take place that fall, some +hundred thousand acres of homestead land. Here we were at the very door +of that Opening and had to be told about it by eastern newspapers, so +completely cut off from the world we were. + +"What good will that do us?" practical Ida Mary inquired. + +"It will help develop this section of the country and bring up the price +of our land!" + +That was worth considering, but Ida Mary and I were not dealing in +futures just then. We were too busy putting away winter food--corn and +the chokecherries we had found along a dry creek bank; patching the tar +paper on the shack. Like most of the settlers we were busier than +cranberry merchants, getting ready for the long winter. But there is a +great satisfaction in doing simple, fundamental things with one's hands. + +That evening, however, I picked up the pamphlet on the Opening which +Wilomene had left. It announced that the United States Government would +open the Lower Brule reservation to entry for homesteading on a given +date. At this time any American citizen eligible as a claimholder could +register "as an entry" in the Drawing for a homestead. And after the +registrations were closed there would be a "drawing out" up to the +number of claims on the reservation. Eligible persons were to register +at the United States Land Offices most conveniently located--and +designated by the General Land Office in Washington--for a +quarter-section of the land. + +The next day I was a stage passenger on the return trip to Pierre to get +detailed information on the Lower Brule Opening from the United States +Land Office. With a new and reckless abandon I listed the expenditure +and received a prompt reply from the proof magnate. "I note an +unauthorized expense of $10--trip to Pierre. You are getting to be an +unruly outlaw of a printer." + +Then I forgot the coming Land Opening. There were days, that early fall, +when McClure was lifeless and I would work all day without seeing a +human being anywhere over the plains. In the drowsiness of +mid-afternoons the clicking of my type falling into the stick and the +pounding of the form with the mallet would echo through the broad +silence. + +And one day in October the stage driver rushed into the shop, shouting, +"Say, Printer! She's open! Blowed wide open!" + +[Illustration] + + + + +IV + +THE BIGGEST LOTTERY IN HISTORY + + +It is an extraordinary fact that one of the most gigantic, and certainly +the most rapid, land settlements in the history of the United States has +been little known and little recognized, either for its vast scope or +its far-reaching importance. + +The passing of the frontier, with its profound effects upon American +life, is not a part of our early history. It ended with the World War. +The trek of early settlers in covered wagons, the swift and colorful +growth of the cattle kingdom, the land rush at Cimarron are a part of +our familiar history. But the greatest of all these expansion movements +was at its height within the twentieth century with 100,000,000 acres of +Public Land opened by the government for settlement, waste land which +in a few seasons produced crops, supported villages, towns, and finally +cities, in their lightning growth. + +In a sense the United States Government conducted a vast lottery, with +land as stakes, and hundreds of thousands of men and women gambling +their time and strength and hope on the future of the West. + +The land so lavishly disposed of was the white man's last raid on the +Indian. The period of bloody warfare was long past. The last struggle +against confiscation of Indian land was over, and the Indians were +segregated, through treaties, on tracts designated by the government, +"like the cattle on the range being driven back to winter pasture or the +buffalo driven off the plains," to which they mournfully compared their +fate. And if there is anything an Indian hates it is boundaries. + +The migration and settlement of vast numbers of people has changed world +history time and time again. And the Americans have been a migrating +people. From the early years of their first settlement of the colonies +there had been a steady movement toward the West. Without the West with +its great Public Lands the United States as it has become could hardly +have existed. While there was a frontier to develop, land for the small +owner, there would always be independence. + +European theories might influence the East from time to time, but there +was always a means of escape for the man or woman oppressed by labor +conditions, by tendencies to establish class distinctions. Public Land! +On the land men must face primitive conditions as best they could, but +they were independent because the land was their own, their earnings +their own. + +For many years the Public Land seemed inexhaustible; it was not until +the Civil War had been waged for two years, with the country disrupted +by conflict, and people looking--as they will in times of disaster--for +a place where they might be at peace, that they realized the desirable +land at the government's disposal was gone. But there remained the land +of the red men, and white settlers looked on it and found it good. They +raised a clamor for it, and the most determined staked out their claims +and lived on it regardless of treaty. + +As a result, the government yielded to public pressure and took over the +land from the Indians, forcing them back once more. It wasn't quite as +simple as it sounds, of course; it took some twenty-five years and +nearly a thousand battles of one kind and another to do it. But at the +end of that time the land again had been absorbed by the people, settled +in accordance with the Homestead Act of 1862, and the demand continued. + +The government then bought Oklahoma from the Indians in 1889. It was +impossible to satisfy all those who wanted homesteads and difficult to +choose those who should have them. A plan was therefore hit upon to give +everyone a chance. On the day of the Oklahoma Opening, throngs of white +settlers stood at the boundary and at a given signal rushed upon the +land, taking it by speed and strategy and trickery--and too often by +violence. + +Within twenty-four hours the land was occupied; within a week there were +frame buildings over the prairie, and villages and towns followed at a +speed inconceivable to the foreign nations which looked on, breathless +and staggered at the energy of a people who measured the building of a +western empire not by generations but by seasons. + +And the demand for land continued. There was a depression in the East +and jobs were hard to get; with the growth of factories many young men +and women had flocked from farms and villages to cities, and they were +not finding conditions to their liking. They wanted to return to the +life they knew best, the life of the farm. In the more populous sections +the price of land was rising and was already beyond the reach of many +pocketbooks. There remained only Public Land--land which was allotted to +the Indians. + +The government, accordingly, began to withdraw from the Indian +Allotments great tracts, by further treaties and deals, slashing +boundary lines, relegating the Indians to the unceded part of the land. +The great tracts thus acquired were then surveyed into quarter-sections +and thrown open to homesteading. In order to prevent the violence which +had attended the Oklahoma land opening, a new method was hit upon. A +proclamation was issued by President Theodore Roosevelt, announcing the +opening of land on the Lower Brule Indian Reservation. + +As I had learned on that flying trip to Pierre, the operation of the +plan was very simple. Land-seekers were to register at the Land Office +in Pierre, making an affidavit showing their qualifications to enter, at +which time each would receive a number. On a given day, October 12, +1907, the numbered envelopes containing the affidavits, which had been +deposited in large containers, fastened and sealed so that they could +not be opened, were to be drawn by lot, after having been thoroughly +mixed--as many numbers drawn as there were quarter-sections to dispose +of. The first person whose number corresponded with the number drawn had +first choice of the land. + +Government posters and advertisements for the land opening were +published in every section of the country. And along with the government +publicity appeared the advertisements of the railroads. For them +increased population in this area was a crying need. While we had +drowsed through the lazy autumn days, advertising campaigns were +shrieking to the people all over the country of the last frontier. + +And that October day "it blowed wide open!" + + * * * * * + +Into the little town of Pierre they swarmed--by train, by stagecoach, by +automobile, by wagon, on foot--men and women from every part of the +country, from almost every state--people who had been crowded out of +cities, people who wanted to settle as real dirt farmers, people who +wanted cheap land, and the inevitable trailers who were come prepared to +profit by someone else's good luck. + +Like a thundering herd they stampeded the United States Land Office at +Pierre. "The Strip! The Strip!" one heard on every side. It was called +the Strip because the tract was long and narrow. One day the little +frontier town of Pierre drowsed through a hot afternoon, and the broad +plains lay tenantless, devoid of any sign that men had passed that way. +The next day the region swarmed with strangers. + +Sturdy, ruddy-faced farmers, pale-looking city boys, young girls alert, +laughing--all sons and daughters of America--not an immigrant peasant +among them; plumbers and lawyers, failures and people weary of routine, +young men from agricultural colleges eager to try scientific methods of +farming and older men from Europe prepared to use the methods they had +found good for generations; raucous land agents and quiet racketeers +alert for some way of making easy money from the tense, anxious, excited +throng. + +For many of that jostling, bewildered, desperately anxious throng the +land was their last chance to establish themselves. And yet the +atmosphere was that of a local fair, loud with shouting, with barkers +crying their wares, with the exclamations of wonder of people looking +upon a new country. And the air was heavy with the tense excitement and +suspense that attends any gambling game. + +McClure, the Halfway House, where my little print shop had been thrown +up, was the only stopping place in that part of the country and at the +end of the main road from Pierre to the reservation, which lay some five +miles on across the prairie. + +All that day the landseekers pushed their way into the shed annex which +served as a dining room of the Halfway House, and filled the table which +stretched from end to end. If there was no room for them, they ate +lunches from the store's food supply at the counter. We who had grown +accustomed to the sight of empty prairie, to whom the arrival of the +stage from Pierre was an event, were overwhelmed by the confusion, the +avalanche of people, shouting, pushing, asking questions, moving +steadily across the trackless plains toward the reservation. + +Every homesteader who had a tug that would fasten over a doubletree, a +wagon that could still squeak, or a flivver that had a bolt in it, went +into the transportation business--hauling the seekers from Pierre or +from McClure to look at the land. + +A generation before people had migrated in little groups in covered +wagons to find new land. Now they came by automobile and railroad in +colonies, like a great tidal wave, but the spirit that drove them was +still the pioneer spirit, and the conditions to be faced were +essentially the same--the stubborn earth, and painful labor, drought and +famine and cold, and the revolving cycle of the seasons. + +"Shucks, it's simple as tying your shoe," stage driver Bill assured the +excited, confused landseekers. "Jest take enough grub to last a coupla +days and a bottle or two of strong whisky and git in line at the Land +Office." + +The settlers were almost as excited as the landseekers. For many of them +it was the first opportunity they had had since their arrival to earn a +cash dollar. And while the gambling fever was high it was easy to +persuade the newcomers to spend what they could. Coffee, sandwiches, +foods of every description were prepared in great quantities and +disposed of to clamoring hordes. It seemed a pity I couldn't find some +way of making some money too. I would. Without wasting time I wrote some +verses on the land opening, made a drawing to accompany them, and sent +it to a printer at Pierre to have postcards made of it. + +Wilomene White had made some belts and hatbands of snakeskins, and she +planned to put them, together with my cards, wherever we could sell them +as souvenirs. + +I rode in at daylight for the cards, but the town was already astir. +People stood in line in front of the Land Office waiting to get in to +register. Some of them had stood there all night. Some sat on the steps, +cold, hungry and exhausted. But they had come a long way and could not +afford to miss their chance. + +Every train that came in was loaded with men and women. The little state +capital became a bedlam, and the Land Office was besieged. They crawled +along in a line that did not seem to move; they munched little lunches; +a few fainted from exhaustion and hunger. But they never gave up. + +Here at last was news that was news--for which the press of the country, +and Europe, clamored. These land openings were a phenomenon in the +settling of new territory, beyond the conception of foreign countries. +Reporters, magazine writers, free lancers pushed in for their stories of +the spectacular event. + +The mere size of it, the gambling element, the surging mobs who had +risked something to take part in it were material for stories. The real +hero of the stories, of course, was the land itself--the last frontier. +There were a few who pondered on what its passing would mean to the +country as a whole. + +I ordered 500 extra ready-prints by wire from the Newspaper Union and +persuaded a bronco-buster to turn the old press for me. + +Bronco Benny rode bucking horses during the day for the entertainment of +the tenderfeet passing through and helped me at night, relating in a +soft western drawl the events of the day as he worked: "Did you see that +little red-headed gal--wanted one o' my spurs as a souvenir--haw haw!" + +"Bronco, wait a minute," I would interrupt; "you've ruined that paper. +Spread a little more ink." + +"And I says, 'You shore, Miss, you don't want the pony throwed in?'" +pushing the roller lazily back and forth over the inking table then +across the form on the press. "She ups and takes a snapshot," he rambled +on. + +To my delight the postcards were selling like hot cakes at ten cents a +piece. The Ammons's finances were looking up. In many homes today, +throughout the country, there must exist yellowed copies of the card, +the only tangible reminder of an unsuccessful gamble in the government +lottery. + +At midnight one night an old spring wagon rattled up to the shack and we +heard the voice of a man--one of the locators who had been hauling +seekers. He held out a handful of small change. "Here," he said proudly; +"I sold every card. And here"--he pulled out a note and a small package. +The note read: + +"Your poem is very clever, but your drawing is damn poor. If I'm a Lucky +Number I'll see you in the spring. In the meantime, for heaven's sake, +don't try any more art. Stick to poetry." It was signed "Alexander Van +Leshout," and was accompanied by a ready-to-print cut. + +This newspaper cartoonist from Milwaukee was only one of many people +from strange walks of life who entered that lottery. There were others +whose background was equally alien to life in a homestead cabin, who +came to see the West while it was still unchanged, drawn for reasons of +personal adventure, or because the romantic legends of the West +attracted them. People drawn by the intangibles, the freedom of great +space, the touch of the wind on their faces, a return to the simple +elements of living. + +Standing in the dreary lines in the Land Office where some of them +waited for as long as two days and nights at a time, we saw farmers, +business men, self-assured boys, white-haired men and women. + +A gray-haired woman in her late sixties, holding tightly to an old +white-whiskered man, kept saying encouragingly: "Just hold on a little +longer, Pa." And whenever we passed we heard her asking of those about +her: "Where you from? We're from Blue Springs." The Land Office recorded +the man as David Wagor. + +It was not necessary to be a naturalized citizen in order to register, +but it was necessary to have filed intention to become a citizen. One +must be either single or the head of a family; wives, therefore, could +not register. For that reason we were interested in a frail young woman, +a mere girl, sagging under the weight of a baby on her arm, patiently +waiting her turn. She was shabbily dressed, with a trace of gentility in +clothes and manner. Whether she was a widow or unmarried only the Land +Office knew, but it pinched the heart to realize the straits of a +fragile girl who was ready to undertake the burden of a homestead alone. + +"You are getting to be an outlaw printer," the proof king wrote me. "You +were not authorized to incur this additional expense." But, catching the +excitement of the crowds and perhaps a little of their gambling spirit, +I was not upset by his reproof. I filled the paper with the news items +about the Opening and sold out every copy to the landseekers passing +through. + +The plains never slept now. All night vehicles rattled over the hard +prairies. Settlers on their way home, starting for Pierre, hurried by in +the middle of the night. Art Fergus's team of scrubby broncos were so +tired they didn't even balk in harness. Flivvers bumped over the rough +ground, chugging like threshing machines. + +The westerners (every man's son of us had become a full-fledged native +overnight and swelled with pride as the tenderfeet said "You +westerners") responded exuberantly to the sudden life about us. Cowboys +rode in from the far ranges for one helluva time. They didn't kowtow to +this "draw-land" game, but they could play draw poker. And they wasn't +gamblin' for no homestead--you couldn't give 'em one. But they'd stake +two or three months' wages on cards. They rode hell-for-leather down the +streets, gaudy outfits glittering in the sun. With spurs clicking they +swung the eastern gals at a big dance. And the dignity of the state +capital be damned! + +The whole prairie was in holiday mood. Ida Mary dismissed school at +noon--no one cared whether school kept or not--and we put on our +prettiest dresses to join the crowd. Through the throngs pushed the land +locators. They stood on curbs, in front of the Land Office and the +hotels, grabbing and holding onto their prospects like leeches. They had +been accustomed to landing a settler once in a blue moon, driving the +"prospect" over miles of plain, showing him land in various remote +districts in the hope that he would find some to suit him. Now they had +dozens clamoring for every quarter-section. This was their golden +harvest. Nearly all the seekers were too avid for land to be particular +about its location, and many of them too ignorant of the soil to know +which was the best. + +"Plumb locoed," Bill described the excited seekers. "The government's +charging $2.50 to $4.00 an acre for that land. I drive 'em right over +vacant homesteads just as good for $1.25. Think they'll look at it? +No-siree!" + +But we are a gambling people and the grass on the other side of the +reservation fence looked a lot better. + +After they registered, most of the landseekers wanted to see the land +and pick out a claim--just in case they won one. The chances of winning +must have seemed slim with that avalanche of people registering, and the +results would not be known until the Drawing, which would be a week or +more after the entry closed. + +Late one afternoon a crowd stood on the border of the Strip, on the +outside of the old barb-wire fence that divided it from the rest of +space. And the wire gate stood open. The landseekers who had driven over +the land stood looking across it, sobered. I think it occurred to them +for the first time that this was a land where one had to begin at the +beginning. + +The buffalo and the Indian had each had his day on this land, and each +had gone without leaving a trace. It was untouched. And as far as the +eye could see, it stretched, golden under the rays of the setting sun. +Whether the magnitude of the task ahead frightened or exhilarated them, +the landseekers were all a little awed at that moment. Even I, seeing +the endless sweep of that sea of golden grass, forgot for the moment +the dry crackling sound of it under wheel and foot, and the awful +monotony of its endlessness which could be so nerve-racking. + +And by the gods, the grass was higher and thicker on the other side of +the fence! "How rich the soil must be to raise grass like that," they +said to each other. Groups of men and women gathered closer together as +though for some unconscious protection against the emptiness. Around the +fence stood vehicles of all descriptions, saddle horses, and a few +ponies on which cowboys sat lazily, looking on. Even those who had come +only for adventure were silenced. They felt the challenge of the land +and were no longer in a mood to scoff. + +Standing at that barb-wire fence was like standing at the gate of the +Promised Land. And the only way in was through the casual drawing of +numbers. They stood long, staring at the land which lay so golden in the +sun, and which only a few could possess. + +There were more real dirt farmers represented here than there had been +in most of the homestead projects--men who were equipped to farm. But +they were still in the minority. They picked up handfuls of the earth +that the locators turned over with spades, let it sift through their +fingers and pronounced it good. A rich loam, not so heavy or black as +the soil back east, but better adapted, perhaps, to the climate. Aside +from the farmers nobody seemed to know or care anything about the soil +or precipitation. And, ironically enough, it occurred to no one to ask +about the water supply. + +"The land back east is too high-priced," the city laborer declared, "we +can never hope to own any of it." + +"We'd rather risk the hazards of a raw country," said the tenant farmer, +"than be tenants always." + +"We'll sell our eastern land at a high price," said the landowners, "and +improve new land." + +"My mother took in washing to save money," said an earnest-faced boy, +"so I could make this trip. But if I win a whole quarter-section (and +how big a quarter-section looked to a city dweller!) I'll make a good +home for her." + +A middle-aged widow from Keokuk told the group about her: "I mortgaged +my cottage to come. The boys are growing up and it's their only chance +to own land." + +Others in the group nodded their heads. "Yes, land is solid!" + +Leaning heavily on his cane a little old man with a long white mustache +and sharp eyes denounced the lottery method. "'Taint right, 'taint. +Don't give a feller a chanct. Look at me with my rheumatiz and I got as +good a chanct as any of 'em--brains nor legs don't count in this. Now in +the Oklahomy Run ..." And he told about the Oklahoma Run of almost a +generation before, when speed and strategy were necessary if one were to +be first on the land to stake a claim. But the Oklahoma Run, for all its +drama and its violence, dwindled in importance beside these Drawings +with their fabulous areas and their armies of people. + +Across the prairie came the sound of horses' hoofs and the heavy +rumbling of a wagon. A locator with a hayrack full of seekers was coming +at a reckless pace, not stopping for the trails. At the reservation +gate he brought the team to a quick stop that almost threw his +passengers off the wagon. Some of them were so stiff and sore they +couldn't get off their cushion of hay; others were unable to stand after +they got up. But the locator was not disturbed by a little thing like +that. He waved his right arm, taking in at one sweep the vacant expanse +to the rim of the horizon and shouted: + +"Here's your land, folks. Here's your land." He was locating them en +masse at $15 to $25 a head. No hunting up corner stakes. It all looked +alike to these bewildered people, anyhow, drunk as they were with the +intoxication that land lotteries produce. + +He turned his weary team and human cargo around and started back to +town. A wholesale locator had no time for sleep. He must collect another +hayrackful of seekers early next morning. + +Some of these landseekers tried to analyze the reasons for this great +movement, the factors which had swept them along with this tidal wave of +human migration. "We're concentrated too much in cities," they said, +"crowded and stifled, and our roots are choked. We have to go back to +the land where a man can grow himself the things he needs to live on, +and where his children can grow up with the country--and have a place in +it." + +Our attitude toward the land is peculiar to America. The European +conception of a plot of ground on which a family is rooted for +generations has little meaning for people who move by the thousands onto +untamed acres, transform it into plowed fields and settlements and +towns, and move on endlessly to plow new fields. + +This constantly renewed search for fresh pastures has kept the country +vital, just as the existence of its Western Public Lands has kept it +democratic. For its endurance the American spirit owes much to its +frontier. + +Beside me stood a thin-faced, hollow-chested young man, a newspaper +reporter from Chicago. He ran lean fingers through brown, straggly hair, +looking from the Strip, reaching to the horizon, to the people waiting +to shape it according to their needs. "Great copy," he said lamely, but +he made no entry in his notebook. + +Outside another gate, five miles or so beyond the main entrance from +McClure, was a little trading post, Cedar Fork, on the Smith ranch. The +long buildings were said to have been a sort of fort in the Indian war +days. The seekers overflowed even here, and when the swift darkness +settled on the plains, stayed for the night, the women filling the store +and house while the men slept in the barn loft or haystacks, or even in +their vehicles. + +They wrapped themselves in heavy coats or blankets against the biting +chill of an October night--after a day so hot the tenderfeet sweltered +and blistered under the midday sun. + +The next morning there was frost, with the air sharp and fresh. The +Smiths tried to feed the shivering, hungry seekers. The seekers always +seemed to be hungry. Kettles and washboilers full of coffee, slabs of +bacon sizzling in great pans, and, one after another, into the hot +grease slid a case of eggs. Home-baked bread was sliced into a washtub. +Shaking with cold, coat collars turned up, shawls and blankets wrapped +about them, tired, hollow-eyed and disheveled, the seekers looked like a +banished people fleeing from persecution. But they were not +disheartened. + +On October 14 the "Drawing" started. The registrations were put into +sealed envelopes, tossed into boxes, shuffled up, and drawn out one at a +time, numbered as they were drawn out--as many numbers as there were +claims--with an additional number to allow for those who did not file or +whose applications were rejected. Then the filing of the winners began. +Most of the seekers had already selected their claims. They had six +months' time in which to establish residence on the land. + +The stampede was over. After three weeks of high-pitched excitement the +seekers were gone, the plains regained their silence, and the settlers +around McClure were left to face the frontier winter with its desolation +and hardships. The void after the crowds had gone was worse than if they +had never come. The weather had turned raw and gray, and there was a +threat of snow in the air. Exhausted and let down, Ida Mary and I were +desperately blue. + +And then we saw someone coming across the plains--the only moving figure +to be seen in the cold gray dusk. From the dim outline we could barely +make out horse and rider, but we knew them both--Wilomene on old +Buckskin. She was riding slowly as though there were nothing left out +here now but time. + +She wore a dark red flannel shirtwaist, a divided skirt of black wool, a +suede jacket and black cap like a jockey's. There was an easy strength +and self-assurance in her carriage. She crossed the firebreak and rode +up over the ridge calling her cheery "Hoo-hoo-hoo!" + +"She's going to stay all night," exclaimed Ida Mary, seeing the small +bag dangling from the saddlehorn. + +After supper we counted the dimes we had earned from the postcards--more +than $50. And far into the night we talked of the people who had invaded +the Strip. + +Next spring there would be life again over the plains when the "lucky +numbers" came out to live on the Strip. Would the reporter from Chicago +be among them, and the mystery girl with the baby in her arms, and Pa +Wagor--and a young cartoonist from Milwaukee? + +It was something to look forward to when the blizzards shut us off from +the world. + +[Illustration] + + + + +V + +NO PLACE FOR CLINGING VINES + + +The settlers of the McClure district went on with their work as though +there had never been a land opening. The men fed their stock and hauled +fuel for winter, while the women tacked comforters and sewed and patched +heavy clothing. + +Ida Mary went on with her school work and I continued to wrestle with +the newspaper. We put a little shed back of the shack where we could set +buckets of coal and keep the water can handy. With the postcard money we +bought a drum for the stovepipe, to serve as an oven. One either baked +his own bread or did without it. + +Huey Dunn did some late fall plowing. "What are you plowing your land +for now, with winter coming?" neighbors asked. + +"For oats next spring," Huey replied; "if the damn threshing machine +gets around to thresh out the oatstack in time to sow 'em." + +The homesteaders shook their heads. There was no figuring out when Huey +Dunn would do things. This time he was far ahead of them. They did not +know that fall plowing, to mellow and absorb the moisture from winter +snow and spring rain, was the way to conquer the virgin soil. They had +to find it out through hard experience. Fallowing, Huey called it. + +Lasso said, "The range is no place for clingin' vines, 'cause there +hain't nothin' to cling to." Ida Mary, under that quiet manner of hers, +had always been self-reliant, and I was learning not to cling. + +I lived in the print shop a great deal of the time that winter--an +unusually open winter, barring a few blizzards and deep snows. I slept +on a rickety cot in one corner of the room, cooking my meals on the +monkey stove; and often I ate over at Randall's, who served meals for a +quarter to anyone who cared to stop, the table filled with steaming +dishes of well-cooked food. I liked to take the midday meal there, and +meet people coming through on the stage. They furnished most of the news +for the McClure _Press_. + +Driving back and forth from print shop to claim on Pinto was like +crossing the desert on a camel. Pinto was too lazy to trot uphill and +too stiff to trot down, and as the country was rough and rolling, there +was not much of the trail on which we could make any time. He could have +jogged up a little, but he was too stubborn. He had lived with the +Indians too long. + +That old pony had a sly, artful eye and a way of shaking his head that +was tricky--and try to catch him loose on the prairie with a bucket of +oats as a coaxer! There were times on the trail when one could not see +him moving except at close range. When he took such a spell, one of us +drove while the other walked alongside, "persuading" him to keep ahead +of the buggy. As there wasn't a tree or shrub in that part of the +country, we were reduced to waving a hat in front of him like a cowboy +taunting a bucking horse in the ring, or waving a dry cornstalk at +him--but all with the same effect. + +A little brown-and-white spotted animal with long brown mane and tail, +he was the most noticeable as well as notorious piece of horseflesh in +that region, and according to a few who "knew him when--," he had a +past; a reputation as an outlaw and a dislike for the white man as a +result of his part in an Indian skirmish against a band of white +settlers. Now, like the Indian, he had become subdued with age and +conquest; but like the Indian, too, stubborn and resentful. From him we +learned much about how to deal with the Indian. + +One evening when I had stopped at the school for Ida Mary we saw a +snowstorm coming like a white smoke. We were only half a mile from home, +but in blizzards, we had been warned, one can easily become lost within +a few feet of his own door. Many plainsmen have walked all night in a +circle trying to find a familiar shack or barn and perished within a few +yards of shelter. Even in daytime one did not dare, in some of those +blinding furies, to go from house to barn without holding on to a rope +or clothesline kept stretched from one building to the other for that +purpose. + +We could not take a chance on Pinto's slow pace, so we got out of the +buggy and ran as fast as we could, leaving him to follow. We were barely +inside when the storm broke over the shack. As the snow came in blinding +sheets we became anxious about the pony, but there was nothing we could +do that night. We opened the door a crack and looked out. We could not +see our hands before us, and the howling of the wind and beating of snow +against the shack made it impossible to hear any other sound. + +Cowering in that tiny shack, where thin building-paper took the place of +plaster, the wind screaming across the plains, hurling the snow against +that frail protection, defenseless against the elemental fury of the +storm, was like drifting in a small boat at sea, tossed and buffeted by +waves, each one threatening to engulf you. + +Next day the blizzard broke and we found Pinto standing in the hayshed, +still hitched to the buggy, quietly munching hay. + +When the landseekers had left and the plains had seemed emptier and more +silent than before, it had seemed to Ida Mary and me, let down from our +high-pitched excitement, that there was not much incentive in doing +anything. But, after all, there was no time to be bored that winter. The +grim struggle to hang on demanded all our energy. + +When I had first visited the McClure _Press_, I had looked distastefully +at Myrtle's ink-stained hands and face, and at the black apron stiff +with ink which she wore at her work. Now there were nights when, after +turning the press or addressing papers still wet with ink until +midnight, I fell upon the cot and slept without washing or undressing. +At such times Myrtle, with her cheerful unconcern, became an exalted +creature. + +The next morning I would make a stab at cleaning myself up, eat +breakfast on the small inking table drawn close to the fire, with a +clean paper over the black surface for a tablecloth, and go to work +again. + +When blizzards raged they drove the snow through the shack like needles +of steel. There was not a spot where I could put that cot to keep dry, +so I covered my face with the blankets, which in the morning were +drifted over with snow. Where did the lumber industry get hold of all +the knotholes it sold the poor homesteader? + +For a girl who had come to the prairie for her health, I was getting +heroic treatment, wrestling all day with the heavy, old-fashioned, +outworn printing press, heavy manual labor for long hours, sleeping with +the snow drifting over me at night. + +It was during one of these great storms that I rode in one of the last +covered wagons, one of the few tangible links between the pioneers of +the past and the pioneers of the present--and a poignant, graphic +reminder that men and women had endured storm and discomfort and +disaster for decades as we were enduring them now, and as people would +continue to endure them as long as the land remained to be conquered. + +One morning after the hardest snowstorm I had seen, I awoke in the print +shop to find myself corralled by snowdrifts which the wind had driven up +over the windows and four or five feet high in front of the door. I +could barely see over the top of the upper panes. + +That was Friday. Until Sunday I waited, cut off from the +world--wondering about Ida Mary! If she were alone in that tar-paper +shack, what chance would she have? Was she cold and frightened? With the +snow piled in mountainous drifts she would be as inexorably cut off from +help as though she were alone on the plains. The things that happen to +the people one loves are so much worse than the ones that happen to +ourselves--but the things that may happen are a nightmare. As the hours +dragged on I paced up and down the print shop, partly because being +hemmed in made me restless, partly to keep warm, wondering whether the +neighbors would remember that Ida Mary was alone--fearing that they +might think she was in McClure with me. + +On Sunday, a passage was dug from the print shop so that I could get +out--not a path so much as a canyon between the walls of snow, and a +neighbor with a covered wagon offered to take me home--or to try to. + +He drove a big, heavy draft team. The horses floundered and stuck and +fell; plunged out of one drift into another. Galen got out and shoveled +ahead while I drove, resting the horses after each plunge. The ravines +we skirted and finally got up onto the ridge. + +It was mid-afternoon when we arrived, and already the skies were closing +in, gray upon the white plains. The grayish-white canvas of the wagon, +and the team almost the same color blended into the drab picture, darker +shadows against the gray curtain of earth and sky, until we came to the +shack. + +The Dunns had remembered, as they so often did, that Ida Mary was alone, +and they had shoveled a path to the door for her. And she was safe, +waiting tranquilly until it would be possible to return to the school +again. In such weather the school remained closed, as there was no way +for the children to reach it, through the deep drifts, without the risk +of freezing to death. + +With Ida Mary safe in the covered wagon, we started back at once to +McClure. Having broken the drifts on the first trip, it was not hard +going, but it was midnight when we reached the print shop. + +On cold, bad days the Dunns, getting their own children home from +school, would see to it that Ida Mary got back safely, and Mrs. Dunn +would insist that she stay with them on such nights. "Now you go, Huey, +and bring Teacher back. Tell her the trapdoor is down so the attic will +be warm for her and the children to sleep." And when she came, Mrs. Dunn +would say, with that clear, jolly laugh of hers, "Now, if you're +expecting Imbert Miller, he can come right on over," which he did. + +Imbert Miller was a young native westerner whose family had been +ranchers out there for a good many years. He was a well-built, clean-cut +young man who had been attracted to Ida Mary from the beginning, and +whatever her own feelings for him, she liked claim life a lot better +after she met him. All during that bitter winter Imbert came over every +Sunday, dressed in neat blue serge and white collar. Some of the +settlers said that was how they could tell when Sunday came, seeing +Imbert ride by dressed up like that. He dropped in, sometimes, through +the week in clean blue shirt and corduroys for an evening of cards or +reading or talking. + +In fact, the evenings were no longer lonely as they had been at first, +nor were we always exhausted. We were young and demanded some fun, and +feminine enough to find life more interesting when the young men who +were homesteading began to gather at the shack in little groups. In +spite of the difficulties of getting any place in the winter, and the +distances which had to be traveled, the young people began to see a lot +of each other; the romances which naturally developed made the winter +less desolate. + +Sometimes we would gather at Wilomene's for supper--honey served with +flaky hot biscuits baked in one of the very few real cookstoves to be +found on a homestead. Wilomene had a big shack, with blue paper on the +wall and a real range instead of a monkey stove with a drum set up in +the stovepipe for an oven--not many settlers could boast even a drum. +And always the supper was seasoned with Wilomene's laughter. + +In fair weather I printed both back and front pages of the paper, and in +storms, when ink and machinery froze up--another complication in dealing +with the press--I printed the front page only, with headlines that +rivaled the big dailies. There was no news to warrant them, but they +were space-fillers. A dance at McClure would do for a scarehead. I put +in the legal notices, whatever news items I had handy or had time to set +up, and stuck in boilerplate as a filler. I could not count the times I +used the same plate over--but the settlers didn't mind reading it again; +they had little else to do in midwinter. + +One day there came an indistinct message over the telephone line, which +consisted mainly of barb-wire fences, saying that the railroads were +blocked by storm and the stages were delayed. I threw down my mallet and +went home. There would be nothing on which to print the paper. + +On the first stage to get through, four or five days later, there was a +note from the proof king: "Do not fail to publish last week's paper, +properly dated, along with the current issue." As long as there was one +proof notice running, the newspaper could not skip a single week. + +When the two editions were printed I went home very ill. During the +course of a busy and eventful life I have managed--perhaps I should say +happened--to be a trail-breaker many times. And always I have had a +frail body which seemed bent on collapsing at the wrong time. Robust +health I have always coveted, but I have come to the conclusion that it +is not an essential in getting things done, and I have learned to ignore +as far as possible my lack of physical endurance. + +The Widow Fergus came over and waited on me all night, using her simple +home remedies. It cost at least $25 to get a doctor out there, and many +times the emergency was over one way or the other before he arrived. +Homesteaders could not afford to call a doctor except in critical cases, +and they relied for the most part upon the amateur knowledge and help of +their neighbors. + +From the beginning cooperation had been one of the strongest elements in +western life. When no foundation for a civilized life has been laid, +when every man must start at the beginning in providing himself with +such basic necessities as food and shelter, when water holes are few and +far between and water to sustain life must be carried many miles, men +have to depend on each other. Only together could the western settlers +have stood at all; alone they would have perished. In times of sickness +and individual disaster, it was the community that came to the rescue. +If only for self-preservation, it had to. + +The next time the prints were held up by a storm I bought a roll of +wrapping paper at Randall's store, cut it into strips, and got the paper +out. + +When I took the papers into the post office to mail, Mrs. Randall +laughed out loud, but Mr. Randall said reassuringly: "That's right, Miss +Ammons; learning to meet emergencies in this country is a valuable +thing." + +The proof-sheet king wrote: "It is regrettable that a paper like that +should go into the government Land Offices--such an outlaw printer--" + +I replied cheerfully, "Oh, I sent the land officials a good one. They +can read every number." + +And printers were not to be found on every quarter-section. + +Meantime, while I was hammering the paper into shape, Ida Mary had +settled the doubts of the homesteaders who feared that a slight young +city girl could not handle a frontier school. She was a good teacher. +She had a way of discipline with the half-grown plains boys who were +larger and stronger than she, and who, but for her serene firmness, +would have refused to accept her authority. Instead, they arrived early +to build the fire for her in the mornings, carried the heavy pails of +drinking water, and responded eagerly to her teaching. By means of the +school, she began to create a new community interest. + +Another and perhaps the biggest factor in the community life of that +section was the Randall settlement at McClure. The Randalls threw up a +crude shell of a building for a community hall and now and then gave a +party or a dance for the homesteaders. Typical of the complete democracy +of the plains, everyone was invited, and everyone, young and old, came. +The parents put their children to bed in the lodge quarters of the +Halfway House while they joined in the festivity. The older ones +square-danced in the middle of the hall and we younger ones waltzed and +polkaed in a long line down the outside ring. + +It was not always easy to get music for both round and square dances at +the same time, but Old Joe, a fiddler ever since the--Custer's battle, +was it?--would strike one bar in waltz time and the next in rhythm to +the "allemande left" of the square dances, and we got along beautifully. +Some of the homesteaders helped out with guitars; a few cowboys, riding +in from remote ranches, played accompaniments on jew's-harps; other cow +punchers contributed to the music as they danced with clicking of spurs +and clatter of high-heeled boots. And always the Randalls had a big +kettle of coffee to serve with the box lunches the guests provided for +themselves. + +At Christmas Ida Mary and I were invited by the Millers for a house +party. It was the first well-established home we had seen since we +reached South Dakota. A small farm house, plainly furnished, but it had +been a home for a long time. + +The Millers were counted a little above the average westerner in their +method of living. Stockmen on a small scale, they ran several hundred +head of cattle. Mrs. Miller was a dignified, reserved woman who +maintained shiny order in her house. "She even scalds her dishes," folks +said, which by the water-hauling populace was considered unpardonable +aristocracy. Imbert was the pride and mainstay of his parents. There +were warm fires, clean soft beds, and a real Christmas dinner. There was +corn-popping, and bob-sledding with jingling bells behind a prancing +team, with Imbert and Ida Mary sitting together as Imbert drove. + +Imbert's devotion to Ida was casually accepted by the prairie folk. They +all knew him--a likable, steady young fellow, who seemed to have a way +with the girls. Homestead girls came and went, and flirtations to break +the monotony while they stayed were nothing unusual. + +But when Imbert paid $10 for the teacher's box at a box-social held at +the schoolhouse one night, the old-timers gaped. It looked, they said, +as if that little tenderfoot teacher had Imbert Miller lariated. It beat +thunder how the western fellows did fall for eastern schoolmarms. Ten +dollars for a shoe box, without knowing what there was in it! Most of +the bachelor homesteaders bought boxes with a view to what they would +get to eat--potato salad and homemade cake. + +Because we were no longer oppressed by a sense of loneliness, Ida and I +came to love best of all the evenings at home in the tiny shack with +its gay cushions and bright curtains; we enjoyed the good hot supper of +spuds and bacon, or rabbit which some neighbor had brought; hot +biscuits, chokecherry jelly and coffee simmering gently on the back of +the stove. Such a feast, however, was only on rare occasions. After +supper, with the world shut out, we read the mail from home. "You've +done so well, girls, I'm proud of you," our father wrote. "I'll be +looking to see you home next spring." + +I believe Ida Mary was happier that winter than she had ever been, and +her work was easier for her than mine for me, with fewer hardships, +thanks to the Dunns and to Imbert who did much to make it easier for +her. + +During that whole winter the Randalls were the mainstay of the +community. They were one of those families who are the backbone of the +old West, always ready to serve their neighbors. They were like old +trees standing alone on the prairie, that have weathered the storms and +grown strong, with their sheltering branches outspread. + +When there were signs of a blizzard in the air, it was the Randalls who +sent out their sleighs to round up the women who lived alone and bring +them in to shelter. When a doctor was needed, the Randalls got one. +Young Mrs. Layton was having her first baby sooner than she expected. It +was a black night, twenty below zero. The makeshift telephone line was +out of order, as it usually was when it was needed. + +Mr. Randall called his sons. "You'll have to go for Doc Newman.... Yes, +I know it's a bad trip. But you boys know how to take care of +yourselves. Make it--if you can." And they rode hell-for-leather. + +It seemed to me there never was a time when at least one of the Randalls +wasn't riding horseback over the prairie with an urgent message or +errand for the homesteaders. Pay? Hell, no! Weren't these newcomers +funny! + +I remember one evening in January with a storm raging. I had run to the +Randalls' house from the print shop. They sent the sleigh to pick up Ida +Mary and Wilomene. By dark half a dozen men were marooned at the Halfway +House, three of them strangers passing through, three of them plainsmen +unable to get home. A little later two homestead women, who had come in +from Pierre on the stage and could not go on, joined us. + +Somehow there was room for all of them in the big, bare-floored living +room. Chairs with an odd assortment of calico-covered cushions were +scattered over the room. Crude, old-fashioned tables were set here and +there, each with a coal-oil lamp. By the light from the brightly +polished chimneys some read newspapers more than a week old, others +looked hungrily through the mail-order catalogs which always piled up in +country post offices. And Wilomene White, telling some of her homestead +anecdotes, filled the room with laughter. Her most harassing experiences +seemed funny to Wilomene. + +In the middle of the room the big heating stove, stoked with coal, grew +red hot as the wind howled and whistled down the chimney and the snow +lashed against the windows of the old log house. + +Opening off one end of the long room were the small cubicles that served +as bedrooms where the women guests would sleep, crowded together, two or +three in a bed. Cots would be put up in the living room for the Randall +young ones. But the strangers? Leave that to the Randalls--always room +for a few more. + +"Do you know," said Mr. Randall, "I am never happier than on a night +like this, sitting around the fire, knowing my family are all here and +safe; and that strangers from out of the storm have found shelter under +my roof." + +When the weather grew milder and I could ride back and forth again +almost daily, it was Mr. Randall who had one of the boys on the ranch +wrangle me a range pony which, he said, was "broke" to ride. He _was_ +broke to ride. The only difficulty was to mount him. It was all right +once one got on his back, but only an expert bronco buster could do it. +Every time I set foot in the stirrup he went up in the air, pitched, and +bucked and sun-fished. + +I couldn't draw $10 a week as a printer and waste my time on an outlaw +bronc. So I solved it by tying him short with a heavy lariat to the +corner post of the hay barn so that he could not get his head up or +down, nor his heels up very far. Then I gave one leap into the saddle, +Ida cut the rope close to his neck, and away we went to the print shop, +where I wrestled with the old, worn-out press. Fortunately, there was no +trick to dismounting, although I always expected the worst. + + * * * * * + +One day I broke loose. I had worked all morning and used up half a can +of grease on the press, and still it stuck. I picked up a hammer and +tried to break it to pieces. I threw one piece of battered equipment +after another across the prairie. ("Don't go near the print shop," a +little Randall boy warned all comers; "the printer's a-actin'.") + +I scrubbed the ink from my hands and face and boarded the stage. I was +off to Presho to meet the proof-sheet king. + +E. L. Senn was a magnate in the frontier newspaper field. His career is +particularly interesting because it is, in more ways than one, typical +of the qualities which made many western men successful. Basically, he +was a reformer, a public-spirited man who backed, with every means at +his command, and great personal courage, the issues he believed for the +good of the country, and fought with equal intensity those which were +harmful. + +In the early nineties he had moved out to a homestead and started a +small cattle ranch. In itself that was a daring gesture, as outlaw +gangs--cattle rustlers and horse thieves--infested the region and had +become so bold and influential that it was difficult to get any settlers +to take up land in it. He started his first newspaper on his homestead, +miles from a post office, for the purpose of carrying on his fight with +the cattle thieves. In retaliation the outlaws burned him out. + +E. L. Senn promptly moved his paper to the nearest post office at a +small crossroads station to continue the fight. He incorporated in this +paper final proof notices for the settlers. When the fight with the +rustlers had been waged to a successful close, he expanded his +final-proof business; now he owned the greatest proof-sheet monopoly +that ever operated in the West, with a chain of thirty-five papers +strung over that part of South Dakota. + +As civilization pushed into a new district the king picked up another +printing outfit and made entry to the Post Office Department at +Washington of another newspaper. Sometimes he moved his own outfits from +one region to another, but often he merely shut the door on an old plant +not worth moving and let it return to scrap-iron while the print shop +tumbled down with it. + +It cost a lot of money, he used to complain, with investments +depreciating like that and the proof business so short-lived, when the +settlers filled a section and all proved up at once. And he had to run a +paper a year before it became a legal publication. + +But the proof sheets soon became gold mines, the plants costing but a +few hundred dollars and the expenses of operating only ten to fifteen +dollars a week--a cheap printer, the prints, the ink. Established at +inland post offices they became the nuclei for crossroad trading points. + +At this time he had embarked on another cause, prohibition, which was +causing great excitement in South Dakota. A few years later, with his +proof sheets extending through the Black Hills, he bought a newspaper in +Deadwood, the notorious old mining town which is usually associated in +people's minds with the more lurid aspects of the Wild West. He found +conditions all that they had been painted, dominated by underworld vice +rings, with twenty-four saloons for its population of 3000, and gambling +halls, operated as openly as grocery stores, running twenty-four hours a +day. Even the two dance halls exceeded all that has been written about +similar places. + +With his newspaper as his only weapon E. L. Senn set out to clean up +Deadwood. In the fight he sunk his own profits until he had to sell most +of his newspapers, emerging from it almost penniless. + +It was this doughty warrior whose printing press I had strewn widely +over the prairie. When he entered the hotel in Presho where I was +awaiting him my courage almost failed me. He was wise enough not to ask +me what was wrong. He must have been secretly amused by the very small, +frightened girl with the determined expression in her direct blue eyes. + +To my surprise, he asked no questions. Instead he took me to supper and +then to a moving picture, the first I had seen in the West. His kindness +so melted my exasperation with the press that I was at a loss to know +how to begin the fighting talk I had come to make. But the film ended +with a woman driving sheepmen off her claim, and with that example to +fortify my ebbing courage, I asked for a new printing press. And I got +it! + +The "new" press was a second-hand one, but in comparison to the Noah's +Ark model it was a mechanical wonder. I did not know that the proof king +was facing a financial crisis at that time. But I've always thought the +blow of having to buy a press was not half so bad as the shock of having +a printer who would ask for one. + +While I was enjoying the new press one day the Reeds came by McClure. + +"Well, good-by, folks." + +"Oh, are you going?" + +"Yes, proved up. Going back to God's country." + +God's country to the Reeds was Missouri; to others it was Illinois, or +Iowa or Ohio. Day after day homesteaders left with their final receipt +as title to their land, pending issuance of a government patent. +Throwing back the type of the "dead" notices, I could almost tell who +would be pulling out of the country. + +"Going back in time to get in the spring crop," farmers would say. + +Land grabbers they were called. Taking 160 acres of land with them, and +leaving nothing. Most of them never came back. + +And while this exodus was taking place, here and there a settler was +drifting onto the Lower Brule, a "lucky number" who had come ahead of +time--there was so much to do getting settled. And by these restless +signs of change over the plains, we knew that it was spring. + +And one week I set up for the paper, "Notice is hereby given that Ida +Mary Ammons has filed her intention to make proof ..." + +[Illustration] + + + + +VI + +"UTOPIA" + + +With the first tang of spring in the air we cleaned the shack, put up +fresh curtains and did a little baking. Then we grew reckless and went +into an orgy of extravagance--we took a bath in the washtub. Wash basins +were more commensurate with the water supply. Then we scrubbed the floor +with the bath water. In one way and another, the settlers managed to +develop a million square miles of frontier dirt without a bathtub on it. + +For the first time we stopped to take stock, to look ahead. For months +there had been time and energy for nothing but getting through the +winter. We had been too busy to discuss any plans beyond the proving +up. + +"What are we going to do after we prove up?" I asked, and Ida Mary shook +her head. "I don't know," she admitted. + +In some ways it was a relief to have the end in sight. I hated the +minute routine of putting a paper together, with one letter of type at a +time. I hated the hard mechanical work. Most of our neighbors were +proving up, going back. But we realized, with a little shock of +surprise, that we did not want to go back. Imperceptibly we had come to +identify ourselves with the West; we were a part of its life, it was a +part of us. Its hardships were more than compensated for by its +unshackled freedom. To go back now would be to make a painful +readjustment to city life; it would mean hunting jobs, being tied to the +weariness of office routine. The opportunities for a full and active +life were infinitely greater here on the prairie. There was a pleasant +glow of possession in knowing that the land beneath our feet was ours. + +For a little while we faced uncertainly the problem that other +homesteaders were facing--that of going back, of trying to fit ourselves +in again to city ways. But the eagerness to return to city life had +gone. Then, too, there was something in the invigorating winter air and +bright sunshine which had given me new resistance. There had been a +continuous round of going down, and coming back with a second wind; but +I had gained a little each time and was stronger now than before. + +In the mid-afternoon, after our orgy of spring house-cleaning, with +everything fresh and clean, Ida Mary said, "Someone is coming--straight +across our land." + +"Who is it?" I asked. We had learned to recognize every horse in that +part of the country a mile away. But this was not a plainsman. + +We rushed into the shack and made a mad scramble through the trunk, but +before we could get dressed there came a knock at the door. "Will you +wait a moment, please?" I called. It was the custom of the plains for a +man to wait outside while his hostess dressed or put her house in order, +there being no corner where he could stay during the process. If the +weather prohibited outdoor waiting, he could retire to the hayshed. + +A pleasant voice said, "I'll be glad to wait." But as I whispered, +"Throw me those slippers," and Ida Mary said _sotto voce_, "What dress +shall I wear?" we heard a muffled chuckle through the thin walls. + +When we threw open the door to a slightly built man with brown hair and +a polished air about him, I knew it was the cartoonist from Milwaukee. +Only a city man and an artist could look like that. + +"How do you do, Mr. Van Leshout." + +"How did you know?" he said, as he came in. + +"So you were a Lucky Number, after all," seemed a more appropriate +response than telling him that it was spring and something had been +bound to happen, something like the arrival of a cartoonist from +Milwaukee. + +"Are you going to be a settler?" Ida Mary asked doubtfully. + +He laughed. Yes, he had taken a homestead close to the Sioux settlement +so that he could paint some Indian pictures. + +Odd how we kept forgetting the Indians, but up to now we hadn't even +seen one, nor were we likely to, we thought, barricaded as they were in +their own settlement. "But they are wonderful," he assured us +enthusiastically; "magnificent people to paint; old, seamed faces and +some really beautiful young ones. Character, too, and glamor!" + +We invited him to tea, but he explained that he must get back to his +claim before dark. It was already too late, Imbert told him; he would +have to wait for the moon to rise. Imbert had dropped in, as he had a +habit of doing, and seeing him through the eyes of an easterner we +realized what fascination the lives of these plainsmen had for city men. + +In honor of the occasion we got out the china cups, a wanton luxury on +the plains, and tea and cake. As they rode off, Van Leshout called to +us: "Come over to the shack. I built it myself. You'll know it by the +crepe on the door." + +As the two men melted into the darkness we closed the door reluctantly +against the soft spring air. Strange that we had found prairie life +dull! + +One morning soon after the unexpected appearance of the Milwaukee +cartoonist I awoke to find the prairie in blossom. Only in the spring is +there color over that great expanse; but for a few weeks the grass is +green and the wild flowers bloom in delicate beauty--anemones, tiny +white and yellow and pink blossoms wherever the eye rests. I galloped to +the print shop with the wind blowing through my hair, rejoicing in the +sudden beauty, and found myself too much in holiday mood to get to work. + +Suddenly I looked up from the type case to find an arresting figure in +the doorway, a middle-aged man with an air of power and authority about +him. + +"I'm waiting for the stage," he said. "May I come in?" + +I offered him the only chair there was--an upturned nail keg--and he sat +down. + +"Where do you come from?" he asked abruptly. + +"St. Louis," I said. + +"But why come out here to run a newspaper?" + +"I didn't. I came to homestead with my sister, but the job was here." + +Because he was amused at the idea, because the function of these +frontier papers seemed unimportant to him, I began to argue the point, +and finally, thoroughly aroused, described the possibilities which grew +in my own mind as I discussed them. There was a tremendous job for the +frontier newspaper to do, I pointed out. Did he know the extent of this +great homestead movement and the future it promised? True, the frontier +papers were small in size, but they could become a power in the +development of this raw country. + +"How?" he demanded. + +I think I fully realized it for the first time myself then. "As a medium +of cooperation," I told him. + +He got up and walked to the window, hands in pockets, and looked out +over the prairie. Then he turned around. "But the development of this +country is a gigantic enterprise," he protested. "It would require the +backing of corporations and millions of dollars. In fact, it's too big +for any organization but the government to tackle. It's no job for a +woman." His eyes twinkled as he contrasted my diminutive size with the +great expanse of undeveloped plains. "What could you do?" + +"Of course it's big," I admitted, "and the settlers do need lots of +money. But they need cooperation, too. Their own strength, acting +together, counts more than you know. And a newspaper could be made a +voice for these people." + +"Utopian," he decided. + +Bill appeared at the door to tell him that "The stage has been a-waitin' +ten minutes, now." + +He handed me his card, shook hands and rushed out. I looked at the card: +"Halbert Donovan and Company, Brokers, Investment Bankers, New York +City." The fact that such men were coming into the country, looking it +over, presaged development. Not only the eyes of the landseekers but +those of industry and finance were turning west. + +I stared after the stagecoach until it was swallowed up in distance. My +own phrases kept coming back to me. There was a job to be done, a job +for a frontier newspaper, and soon the McClure _Press_ would be a thing +of the past--as soon as the homesteaders had made proof. Slowly an idea +was taking shape. + +I slammed the print-shop door shut, mounted Pinto and loped home. I +turned the horse loose to graze and walked into the shack. With my back +against the door in a defensive attitude I said abruptly, "I'm going to +start a newspaper on the reservation." + +Ida Mary slowly put down the bread knife. "But where are you going to +get the money?" she asked practically. + +"I don't know, yet. I have to plan what to do first, don't I, and then +look around for a way to do it." That was the formula followed day after +day by the settlers. + +"It's too bad you didn't register for a claim in the Drawing," she said +thoughtfully. "After all, there is no reason why you shouldn't have a +claim too." + +"I could still get a homestead on the Brule," I declared, "and I can run +the newspaper on the homestead." + +The more we discussed the plan the more Ida Mary liked the idea of +moving to the Strip where so many new people would be coming. We would +work together, we planned, and the influence of the newspaper would +radiate all over the reservation. But, it occurred to us, coming +abruptly down to earth, with no roads or telephones or mail service, how +were the settlers to receive the radiation? + +This was a stickler, but having gone so far with our plans we were +reluctant to abandon them. Where there was a newspaper there should be a +post office. Then we would start a post office! Through it the land +notices would be received and the newspaper mailed to the subscribers. +The settlers could get the paper and their mail at the same place. We +decided that Ida Mary would run it. Somehow it did not occur to us that +the government has something to say about post offices and who shall run +them. Or that the government might not want to put a post office on my +homestead just to be obliging. + +But once a person has learned to master difficulties as they come up, he +begins to feel he can handle anything; so Ida took her final proof +receipt to a loan office in Presho. + +"How much can I borrow on this?" she asked, handing it to the agent. + +"Oh, about eight hundred dollars." + +"That isn't enough. Most homesteaders are getting a thousand-dollar loan +when they prove up." + +"Yes, but your land's a mile long and only a quarter wide--" + +Ida Mary was not easily bluffed. She reached for the receipt. "I'll try +Sedgwick at the bank." + +"We'll make it nine hundred," the agent said, "but not a cent more. I +know that quarter section; it's pretty rough." + +Homesteading was no longer a precarious venture. A homesteader could +borrow $1000 on almost any quarter-section in the West--more on good +land, well located. It was a criminal offense to sell or mortgage +government land, but who could wait six months or a year for the +government to issue a patent (deed) to the land? Many of the settlers +must borrow money to make proof. So the homestead loan business became a +sleight-of-hand performance. + +The homesteader could not get this receipt of title until he paid the +Land Office for the land, and he could not pay for the land until he had +the receipt to turn over to the loan agent. So it was all done +simultaneously--money, mortgages, final-proof receipts; like juggling +half a dozen balls in the air at once. It was one of the most ingenious +methods of finance in operation. Banks and loan companies went into +operation to handle homestead loans, and eastern capital began flowing +in for the purpose. + +Being familiar with Land Office procedure from my work on the McClure +_Press_, I knew that not every winner of a claim on the Lower Brule +reservation would come to prove it up. A few of them would relinquish +their rights. The buying and selling of relinquishments, in fact, +became a big business for the land agents. There was a mad rush for +relinquishments on the Strip, where landseekers were paying as high as +$1000 to $1200 for the right to file on a claim. + +I wanted a relinquishment on the reservation, in the very center of it, +and I found one for $400. + +Then I made a deal with a printing equipment firm for a small plant--a +new one! And, although there were only a dozen settlers or so on the +land, I pledged 400 proof notices as collateral. + +These proofs at $5 apiece were as sure as government bonds; that is, if +the settlers on the Brule stayed long enough to prove up, if the +newspaper lived, and if no one else started a paper in competition. But +on that score the printers' supply company was satisfied. Its officers +thought there was no danger of anyone else trailing an outfit into that +region. + +We arranged for straight credit on lumber for a print shop, there being +nothing left to mortgage. From now on we were dealing in futures. In +just two short weeks I had become a reckless plunger, aided and abetted +by Ida Mary. The whole West was gambling on the homesteaders' making +good. + +Long we hesitated over the letter home, telling of our new plans. Under +the new laws, one must stay on a claim fourteen months, instead of the +eight months required when Ida Mary had filed. At last we wrote to +explain that we were not coming home this spring. We were going on to a +new frontier. + +Earnestly as we believed in the plans we had made, it was hard to make +that letter carry our convictions, difficult to explain the logic of our +moving to an Indian reservation so that Ida Mary could run a +non-existent post office in order to mail copies of a non-existent +newspaper to non-existent settlers. Looking at it like that, we were +acting in blind faith. + + * * * * * + +And one day a funny little caravan made its way across the prairie, +breaking a new trail as it went. A shack with a team hitched to it, a +wagon loaded with immigrant goods; and a printing press; ahead, leading +the way, a girl on horseback. + +Again it was Huey Dunn who jacked up our old shack that morning when the +term of school was over and put it on wheels for the trip to the +reservation--twelve miles around by McClure, a few miles closer by a +short-cut across the plains. Huey decided on the latter way, and I rode +on ahead to see that the load of printing equipment should be put on the +right quarter-section, while Ida Mary came in the shack. She sat in the +rocking chair, gazing placidly out of the window as it made its way +slowly across the plains. + +We had hired two homesteaders to haul out lumber and put up a small +building for the newspaper and post office, although we had not yet got +the necessary petition signed for a post office. We could not do that +before the settlers arrived. A small shed room was built a few feet from +the business structure as a lean-to for our migratory shack. + +When I arrived at the claim the men who had hauled out the load of +equipment were gone. Suddenly there came on one of those torrential +downpours that often deluge the dry plains in spring. It was pitch black +as night came on, and no sight of Huey and Ida Mary. The rain stopped at +length. Throwing on a sweater, I paced back and forth through the +dripping grass listening for the sound of the horses. At last I went +back and crouched over the fire in the little lean-to, waiting. There +was nothing else I could do. + +At midnight Huey arrived with the shack. He and Ida Mary were cold and +wet and hungry. They had not had a bite to eat since early morning. Just +as they had reached Cedar Creek, usually a little dry furrow in the +earth, a flood of water came rushing in a torrent, making a mad, swollen +stream that spread rapidly, and they were caught in it. When they got in +the middle of the stream the shack began to fill with water. Huey +grabbed Ida Mary and got her on one horse while he mounted the other, +and the horses swam to land. + +The next morning the sun came out, flooding the new-washed plains. It +was a different world from the harsh, drab prairie to which we had come +eight months ago. Here the earth was a soft green carpet, heavily +sprinkled with spring flowers, white and lavender hyacinths, bluebells, +blossoms flaming red, yellow and blue, and snow-white, waxen flowers +that wither at the touch and yet bloom on the hard desert. + +Huey Dunn squared the migratory shack and rolled the wheels from under. +And there in the Land of the Burnt Thigh, the Indians' name for the +Brule, I filed my claim and started a newspaper. The only woman, so it +was recorded, ever to establish a newspaper on an Indian reservation. +And if one were to pick up the first issues of that newspaper he would +see under the publisher's name, "Published on Section 31, Township 108 +North, Range 77W, of the 5th Principal Meridian," the only way of +describing its location. + +Ida's claim had seemed to us at first sight to be in the midst of +nowhere. Compared to this, it had been in a flourishing neighborhood. +For here there was nothing but the land--waiting. No sign of habitation, +no living thing--yes, an antelope standing rigid against the horizon. +For a terrified moment it seemed that there could be no future +here--only time. And Ida Mary and I shrank from two very confident young +women to two very young and frightened girls. + +But there was work to be done. Our tar-covered cabin sat parallel to and +perhaps ten feet from the drop-siding print shop--a crude store building +12 x 24 feet, which we called the Brule business block. We had a side +door put on near the back end of each building so that we could slip +easily from house to shop. We did a little remodeling of our old shack. +Befitting our new position as business leaders, we built a 6 x 8 +shed-roof kitchen onto the back of the shack and a clothes closet in one +end of it; we even bought a little cookstove with an oven in it. + +One morning we saw a team and wagon angling across the Strip toward our +place. Upon the top of the wagon there perched a high rectangular +object, a funny-looking thing, bobbing up and down as the wagon jolted +over the rough ground. It was Harvey with the outhouse. There was +nothing left now on Ida Mary's claim but the mortgage. + +Confronted suddenly by so many problems of getting started, I stood +"just plumb flabbergasted," as Coyote Cal, a cowpuncher, always remarked +when unexpectedly confronted by a group of women. + +And yet I knew what I wanted to do. I had known since the day I heard +myself telling the New York broker. An obscure little newspaper in a +desolate homestead country: but, given courage enough, that little +printing outfit would be a tool, a voice for the people's needs. It was +a gigantic task, this taming of the frontier. + +And meantime, getting down to reality, I had a newspaper without a +country, without a living thing but prairie dogs and rattlesnakes to +read it. And around us a hundred thousand acres on which no furrow had +ever been turned. + +We did not know where to begin. There wasn't a piece of kindling wood on +the whole reservation. We had brought what food and water we could with +us. Food, fuel, water. Those were basic problems that had to be met. + +And then, within a week, almost imperceptibly, a change began to come +over the reservation. The Lucky Numbers were coming onto the land. On +the claim to the west a house went up and wagons of immigrant goods were +unloaded. Ida Mary rode over one evening and found that our new neighbor +was a farmer, Christopher Christopherson, from Minnesota. He had brought +plows and work horses and was ready to break sod, another example of the +farmers who were leaving the settled states for cheap land farther +west. + +Mrs. Christopherson was a thrifty Swedish farm woman who would manage +well. There was a big family of children, and each child old enough to +work was given work to do. + +Around us new settlers were arriving daily and we felt that the time had +come to start out among them with our post-office petition. With Pinto +as our only means of transportation it proved to be a slow job. + +One day, dropping suddenly down off the tableland into a draw, I came +squarely upon a shack. I rode up, and an old white-whiskered man invited +me in. His wife, a gray-haired, sharp-featured woman, appeared to me +much younger than he. I explained my errand. + +"For mercy sake," the woman said, "here you are starting a post office +and I thought you was one of them high-falutin' city homesteaders a +rec-connoiterin' around. Listen to that, Pa, a post office in four miles +of us." + +The woman put out a clean cup and plate. "Set up," she said. "We ain't +signing any petition till you've had your dinner. There's plenty of +biscuit. I stirred up an extry cup of flour and I said to Pa, 'They'll +be et!'" + +I ate salt pork, biscuit and sorghum while she talked. + +"So you're going to handle newspapers too. Oh, print one!" She sighed. +"Seems to me that would be a pestiferous job. We're going to have a +newspaper out here, Pa, did you ever--?" Pa never did. + +Where had I seen these two old people before, and heard this woman talk? + +"Where you from?" she asked, but before I could answer, she went on, +"We're from Blue Springs." + +Pa wrote "David H. Wagor" on the petition. + +One morning Imbert Miller came with his team and buggy to take us out +into a more remote district to get signers. We found two or three +farmers, a couple of business men with their families, and several young +bachelors, each building the regular rough-lumber shack. They were +surprised and elated over the prospect of a post office. + +After wandering over a long vacant stretch, Imbert began to look for a +place where he could feed the horses and get us some food. At last we +saw bright new lumber glistening in the sun. As we drove up to the +crudely built cabin we saw an emblem painted on the front--a big black +circle with the letter V in it, and underneath, the word "Rancho." +Standing before the open doorway was an easel with a half-finished +Indian head on it. + +"Van Leshout's!" Ida Mary exclaimed. + +He came out, unshaven, and sweeping an old paint-daubed hat from his +head with a low bow. "It's been years since I saw a human being," he +exclaimed. "You'll want grub." + +Building a cabin, learning to prepare his own meals, getting accustomed +to solitude were new experiences for the cartoonist from Milwaukee. + +"Not many courses," he said, as he dragged the spuds out from under the +bunk; "just two--b'iled potatoes, first course; flapjacks and 'lasses, +second course; and coffee." + +"You've discovered the Indians," we said, pointing to the canvas. + +The Indians, yes, but they hadn't been much of a cure for loneliness. +What were we doing on the reservation? + +We brought out the post-office petition and told him about the +newspaper. I explained that I had filed on a claim on the reservation. + +"I looked for the crepe on the door as we drove up," I told him. + +"You have a claim on the reservation? To hell with the crepe!" he said +in high spirits. + +On the road home, seeing Imbert's elation, it occurred to me that I had +never taken into consideration the fact that Imbert Miller lived near +the borders of the reservation and that the "fence" would not separate +him from Ida Mary now. How deeply she had weighed the question I did not +know. + +We sent in the post-office petition and the federal authorities promptly +established a post office for the Lower Brule on my homestead and +appointed Ida Mary postmistress. She was the only woman ever to run a +post office on an Indian reservation, the data gatherers said. The +government named it Ammons. + +So we had a postmistress and a post office, with its tiers of empty, +homemade pigeonholes ready to receive the mail. + +And we discovered there was no way to get any mail in or out! + +[Illustration] + + + + +VII + +BUILDING EMPIRES OVERNIGHT + + +That spring I saw a country grow. Perhaps Rome wasn't built in a day, +but the Brule was--almost. The incredible speed of the transformation of +the untouched plains; the invasion of the settlers in droves, lighting +on the prairies like grasshoppers; the appearance, morning after +morning, of new shacks, as though they had sprung up overnight; the +sound of hammers echoing through the clear, light air; plows at last +tearing at the unbroken ground--the wonder of it leaves me staggered +now, but then I was caught up in the breathless rush, the mad activity +to get things done. The Lucky Numbers were coming, coming. + +A few weeks before, we had set up our shack in a wilderness. Now there +were shacks everywhere and frantic activity. The plains had come to +life. Over them, where there had been bleak emptiness, loomed tents, +white against the green background, where the settlers could sleep until +they were able to build houses. There was no time to rest, no time to +pause--here where there had been nothing but time. + +Late one evening a wagon loaded with immigrant goods and a shabby car +loaded with children passed our place. The drivers stopped on a nearby +claim, threw their bedding on the ground, and slept there. Their +deadline for establishing residence was up that night. All over the +plains that intensive race went on, the hurried arrival of settlers +before their time should expire, the hasty throwing up of shelter +against the weather, the race to plant crops in the untamed soil so that +there would be food later on. + +A land where one must begin at the beginning! Everything to be done, and +things crying to be done all at once. Those three basic needs, food, +fuel, water--problems which must be solved without delay. + +Moving in a network, criss-cross in every direction, wagons and teams +hauled in immigrant goods, lumber and machinery, fence posts and fuel; +post holes supplemented those dug by the prairie dogs; strings of +barb-wire ran threadlike over the unbroken stretch. + +From day to day we saw the prairie change, saw new, crude houses thrown +up, saw the first furrows broken in the stubborn soil, saw men and women +pit themselves against the frontier and shape it to their purpose and +their needs. + +Among these people there were many more dirt farmers than had settled +around McClure, but at least 50 per cent of the immigrants were young +men and women from various walks of life, business and professions, who +had come for health or adventure; or because the land, through sale or +mortgage, would give them a start in life. While it is doubtless true +that these latter contributed little to the permanent building of the +West, the zest with which they enjoyed its advantages, the gallantry +with which they faced its hardships, contributed no small part to +increasing the morale of the settlers as a whole. + +Almost every settler scooped out a dam at the foot of a slope for water +supply. We had Chris Christopherson plow one for us. These dams were +nothing but waterholes twelve to fifteen feet in diameter and two or +three feet deep. There should be late spring rains to fill them for the +summer. There were! While the settlers were still plowing and planting +and making their dams it began to rain. And when the frontier is wet, +it's wet all over. Dry creeks swelled to overflowing, and small ravines +became creeks, and it kept on raining. Both Ida Mary and I were caught +in one of those downpours and had to swim the horses across swift-rising +Cedar Creek. + +Much of those first days were like chapters from Genesis, and to add to +the similarity we now had the Flood! The seed shot out of the ground and +the fields were green. The gardens grew like Jack's beanstalk. The thick +grass stood a foot high. And the dams were full of water. + +And Ida Mary and I were literally in the center of this maze of +activity, this mushroom growth of a country. And Ammons was actually on +the map! + +My sister wrote to the Postal Department for a mail carrier and found +out she would have to solve that problem for herself. + +"We aren't cut out to cope with the plains," I said. + +"How did you happen to find that out?" asked Ida Mary. + +"I didn't. A New York broker told me." + +We had to find some way to get mail in and out. We couldn't back up on +the trail, once we had started. There was no place to back to. So we +bought a team and started a U. S. mail route, hauling mail three times a +week from the stage line at McClure. + +It was the thing that had to be done, but sometimes, when we had a +moment for reflection, we were a little aghast. Carrying a mail route in +homestead country was a far cry from life in St. Louis. It began to seem +as though we rarely acted according to plan out here; rather, we were +acted upon by unforeseen factors, so that our activities were constantly +shifting, taking on new form, leading in new directions. The only +consistent thing about them was that they never back-trailed! + +Now and then we hired boys to help us with heavy jobs which were beyond +our strength, and occasionally a young prairie girl, Ada Long, fourteen +years old, went for the mail. It was against the law to let anyone who +happened to be handy carry the mail, but the settlers had to have postal +service. + +Ada was fair, with long yellow braids, strong and accustomed to the hard +ways of the prairie. She could hitch up a team and drive it like a man. +There was only one drawback to Ada. On Saturday when we were busiest +she went home and to church; and on Sunday she hung out the washing. Ada +was a loyal Adventist. + +Settlers meeting on the trail hailed one another with "Hello! Where you +from? I'm from Illinois"--or Virginia--or Iowa. "You breakin'?" They had +no time for backgrounds. It didn't matter what the newcomers might have +been. That was left beyond the reservation gate. One's standing was +measured by what he could do and what kind of neighbor he would make. +And always the question, "Where you from?" Missouri, Michigan, +Wisconsin. + +Bronco Benny, riding through one day, said, "I never seen so many gals +in my life. Must be a trainload of 'em. Some pretty high-headed fillies +among 'em, too." Bronco Benny knew no other language than that of the +horse world in which he lived. + +Not only dirt farmers but many others became sodbreakers. The sod was +heavy, and with the great growth of grass it took all the strength of +man and teams, four to six horses hitched to a plow, to turn it. Steady, +slow, furrow by furrow, man and beast dripping with sweat, they broke +fields of the virgin earth. + +How deep to plow, how to cultivate this land, few of them knew. The more +experienced farmers around the Strip, like Huey Dunn, would know. Here +was a service the newspaper could perform by printing such information +for the newcomers. Subscriptions for the paper began coming in before we +were ready to print it. We named it _The Reservation Wand_, and how it +ever was accepted in that man's country with a name like that is beyond +me. The first issue was distributed by homesteaders passing by and two +carriers. + +Subscriptions came in rapidly at a dollar a year. Not only did most of +the settlers subscribe, but they put in subscriptions for friends and +relatives, so that these might know something of the country and its +activities. And in their rush of getting settled it was easier to have +the printer set up the news and run it off on a press than to take the +time to write a letter. Outsiders could not send in subscriptions by +mail until the newspaper had an address other than a section number of +the claim on which it was printed. + +Food, shelter, fuel were still the pressing problems. An army had +peopled a land without provisions. Trade was overwhelmed and the small +towns could not get supplies shipped in fast enough. New business +enterprises were following this rush as lightning does a lightning rod. +There was bedlam. One could not get a plowshare sharpened, a bolt, or a +bushel of coal without making the long trip to town. One could not get a +pound of coffee or a box of matches on the whole reservation. + +The settlers began to clamor for a store in connection with the +newspaper and the post office. Their needs ran more to coffee and sugar +and nails than to newspapers. They had to have a store for a few +essential commodities at least. + +A store? I objected strenuously. We had already embarked on enough +enterprises, and running a store had no place among them. But practical +Ida was really interested in the project. It wasn't such a bad idea, she +decided. Our money was dwindling, the newspaper would not become a +paying proposition for some time, and the only revenue from the post +office was the meager cancellation of stamps. + +We could hire the hauling done, she pointed out, grappling at once with +the details. And it would be a real service to the settlers. That was +what we had wanted to provide--the means didn't matter so much. + +So we planked down a cash payment at a wholesale-retail store at Presho +for a bill of goods, got credit for the rest of it, threw up an ell +addition on the back of the shop for the newspaper, and stuck a grocery +store where the newspaper had been. + +All this time we had been so submerged in activities connected with +getting settled, starting and operating a newspaper, a post office, and +now a store, that we had overlooked a rather important point--that on an +Indian reservation one might reasonably expect Indians. We had forgotten +the Indians. + +And one afternoon they came. On horseback and in wagons, war bonnets and +full regalia glittering in the sun, the Indians were coming straight +toward the Ammons settlement. Neither of us had ever seen an Indian +outside of a Wild West show. + +We were terrified. Into the shack we scurried, locked doors and windows, +and peeped out through a crack in the drawn blind. + +The Indians had stopped and turned their horses loose to graze. We could +hear them walking around the store and print shop--and then came savage +mutterings outside our door and heavy pounding. We crawled under the +bed. A woman we knew had escaped being scalped once by hiding behind a +shock of corn. But there was no such refuge here. + +"How! How kill 'em?" an old Indian was bellowing. No use trying to +escape. This was the end. + +Trembling, hearts pounding, we opened the door. Two big savage-looking +creatures with battered faces stood there motioning toward the shop +where a group of them were sauntering in and out. + +"How kill 'em?" they still muttered. Dazed, we followed them. They had +taken possession of the shop. Women were sitting on the floor, some with +papooses strapped to their backs. Men with hair hanging loose, or +braided down their backs, tied with red string, were picking up +everything in the print shop, playing like children with new toys. + +They led us into the store, muttering, "_Shu-hum-pah; she-la_," as they +pointed to the shelves. At last we found they wanted sugar and tobacco, +and we lost no time in filling the order. + +At sunset they rode away toward the Indian settlement, and we discovered +that we had been misled by the talk of "segregation." To us that had +meant that the Indians were behind some high barricade. But there wasn't +a thing to separate us from the tribe but another barb-wire fence, with +the gates down. + +For several days after the red men came we moved in a nightmare of fear. +The Sioux had cherished this tall grass country as a hunting ground, and +we had invaded it. Suppose they were intent upon revenge! + +Then, absorbed in our many duties, we almost forgot about the Indians. +But a week after their first visit they came again. They arrived shortly +before sundown, adorned in beads and feathers, stopped across the trail, +and to our horror pitched camp. Pinto commenced to neigh and kept it up, +a restless whinny, eager for his own people. + +It looked as though the whole Sioux tribe had moved over to Ammons. +While the men unhitched and unsaddled, the squaws--for the most part +large shapeless creatures totally unlike the slim Indian maid of +fiction, and indescribably dirty--started small fires with twigs they +had brought with them. By now Ma Wagor, the gray-haired woman from Blue +Springs, was in the store every day, helping out, and she was as +terrified as Ida and I. It seems there were no Indians in Blue Springs. +They were among the few contingencies for which Ma Wagor was not amply +prepared. + +By chance a strange cowboy came through about sundown and stopped for a +package of tobacco. While he dexterously rolled a cigarette with one +hand we surrounded him, three panic-stricken women. Did he think the +Indians were on the war path, we asked, our teeth chattering. + +"Oh, I don't know," he answered carelessly, "can't tell a speck about an +Indian. Couldn't blame 'em, could you, with these landgrabbers invadin' +their range?" + +The logic of this had already occurred to us, and we were not +particularly cheered by the cowboy's confirmation of our worst +suspicions. + +"What do you suppose they're buildin' them fires for?" Ma Wagor was +anxious to know. + +Sourdough couldn't say as to that. But he 'lowed it might be to burn the +scalps in. + +At that we missed Ma. She had slipped into the house to wash her feet. +Ma was a great believer in preparedness, whether having something cooked +ahead for supper, or clean feet for heaven. + +Instinctively I put my hand on my shock of fair hair to make sure it was +still in place. It had always been a nuisance, but now I felt a +passionate eagerness to keep it where it was. + +The Indians stretched their tepees and cooked their supper. The prairie +around them was alive with bony horses and hungry-looking dogs. It was +the impatient yelping of the dogs about the kettles rather than any +sounds from the soft-footed Indians which we heard. + +The cowboy threw his cigarette on the floor, stamped on it with a jingle +of spurs, and drawled, "Guess I'll be percolatin'--got to ride +night-herd." + +Ma Wagor grabbed him by his wide belt. "You're goin' to do your +night-herdin' right in front of this shack," she declared grimly. +"You've got your pistol and we women need protection." Looking at Ma's +set jaw he promised to hang around that night. + +Locked in the shack, we waited for the cowboy's signal of attack. He'd +"shoot 'em down as fast as they crossed the trail," he assured us, but +we were not so confident of his prowess. + +"I'd send for Pa," Ma Wagor said dismally, "but what good would he do? +And one of us has got to be left to prove up the claim." It was +unlikely, according to Ma, that anyone in that cabin would survive. But +as the night wore on everything across the trail became quiet and at +last we threw ourselves across the bed, exhausted. We woke next morning +to find our cowboy gone and the Indians cooking breakfast. + +Two leather-skinned men with hair hanging loose over their shoulders and +faces painted in red and copper hues led a big-boned horse up to the +door and walked into the store. They pointed to the shelves, held up ten +fingers, then pointed to the horse. They wanted to trade it for ten +dollars' worth of groceries. + +Ida Mary did not bother to look at the horse. She traded. The last thing +that would have occurred to her at that moment was to disagree with any +wishes the Indians might express. We found out later that the old mare +was stone-blind and locoed. + +Within a week we had the corral full of horses--the lame, the halt and +the blind. We would have traded the whole store for anything that the +Indians wanted, to get rid of them. + +Sourdough, who belonged to the Scotty Phillips outfit over on the Indian +lands, had ridden straight on to do night-herd duty. Every cowpuncher, +it seemed, must play at least one trick on the tenderfeet. + +Then one day a handsomely built young buck, straight as an arrow, walked +into the print shop. "How Kola!" he said, and then introduced himself as +Joe Two-Hawk. He was a college graduate, it appeared, and he explained +that "How Kola" was the friendly greeting of the Sioux, a welcome to the +two white girls who ran the settlement. + +Many of these young Indians went East to Indian colleges, acquiring, +along with their education, a knowledge of civilized ways to which they +adapted themselves with amazing rapidity. On returning to the +reservations, however, in many cases, perhaps in most, they discarded +one by one, as though they had never been, the ways of the white man, +and reverted to their primitive customs and ways of life. Nor should +they be too thoughtlessly condemned for it. Among civilized peoples the +same urge for an escape from responsibility exists, thwarted often +enough merely by necessity, or by the pressure of convention and public +opinion. The Indians who have reverted to type, discarded the ways of +civilization for a tepee and primitive uncleanliness, follow the path of +least resistance. Traditions of accomplishment as we know them have no +meaning for the Indians; and the way of life for which his own +traditions have fitted him has been denied him. + +How Kola! That must be what the old warrior was bellowing the day we +thought he had said he would kill us. Old Two-Hawk laughed at that when +his son Joe interpreted it in Sioux. + +Old Two-Hawk explained us to his son, of whom he was manifestly very +proud. He pointed to me. "He-paleface-prints-paper"; then to Ida Mary, +"Him-paleface-trades-horses." Thus the Brule Indians distinguished us +from each other. + +Joe Two-Hawk had come as a sort of emissary from the Brules. They wanted +us, he explained, to make Ammons an Indian trading post. Looking at the +corral, we felt, to our sorrow, that they had already done so. Joe +Two-Hawk said they had wood and berries in abundance along the Missouri +River, which ran through the Indian lands. They wanted to exchange them +for merchandise. And the settlers, we knew, needed the Indian +commodities. + +So to the newspaper, the post office, the store, the mail route, the +heavy hauling, we added an Indian trading post, trading groceries for +fence posts; subscriptions to _The Wand_ for berries--very few of them +could read it, but they didn't mind that--it was a trade. Joe Two-Hawk +became a mediator and interpreter until Ida Mary and I learned enough of +the Sioux language to carry on. We tried to figure out a way, in this +trading, to make back our loss on the menagerie we had collected at +Ammons. Those bare store shelves worried us. Then, one morning, the old, +blind, locoed mare turned up with a fine colt by her side. We were +getting even. + +And we no longer minded that the gate was open between the Indian lands +and the section of the Brule which had been thrown open to white +settlers. While the gate stood open, enmity and mutual suspicion could +not exist, and the path between it and Ammons was beaten hard and +smooth. + +The Indians came in processions with loaded wagons; unloaded, turned +their horses loose on the range and sat around--men and women--for hours +at a time on floor or ground, dickering. Ida Mary became as expert at it +as they were. It was not long before _The Wand_ had legal work from +them, the settling of estates, notices pertaining to land affairs, etc. +And that led, logically enough, to Ida Mary's being appointed a notary +public. + +"Want to sell your land, girls?" a man from Presho asked us one day. +"That's what I drove out for. I have a buyer anxious to get a claim on +the Brule and I believe he would pay $1200 for this relinquishment. A +quick profit." + +"Sell? No!" we declared. "With such demand for land on the Strip we may +be able to get $2500 for it when it is proved up." + +He agreed. A raw quarter-section of deeded land just outside the border +had sold the other day for $3500, he informed us. With all the breaking +and improvement going on over the Brule, it was predicted by real-estate +boosters that choice homesteads here would be worth $4000 to $5000 in +another year or so--after the land was deeded. + +Within sixty days after the arrival of the first Lucky Number on his +claim the 200 square miles of the Brule would be filled. The winners had +filed consecutively, so many numbers each day for that length of time. +Their time to establish residence would thus expire accordingly. Already +the broad expanse of grassland we had seen during our first week on the +Brule was changed beyond recognition, shacks everywhere, fields plowed, +movement and activity. The frontier had receded once more before the +advancing tide of civilization. Within sixty days! + +With the price of claims soaring, it became a mecca for claim jumpers. +They circled around ready to light on the land like buzzards on a +carcass. They watched every quarter-section for the arrival of the +settler. If he were not on his land by dark of the last day, some +"spotter" was likely to jump the claim and next morning rush to the Land +Office and slap a contest on it. + +They were unlike the claim jumpers of the older pioneer days who jumped +the land because they wanted it for a home. Many of these men would not +have proved up a claim at any price. But in many instances they brought +landseekers with them who legally filed contests and homesteading rights +over the settler. They paid the claim jumpers well for their services in +getting hold of the land. Often, being strangers, the landseekers did +not know that these "spotters" were not land agents. + +They were a ruthless lot as a whole, these claim jumpers. They took long +chances, illegally selling relinquishments and skipping the country +before they were caught. Some of them even threatened or intimidated +newcomers who knew nothing about the West or its land laws. + +Of a different type were unscrupulous locating agents who used the +technicalities of the homestead law to operate the despicable "contest" +business. Whether they had any grounds for contesting a homestead or +not, they could claim they had, and the settler must then either go to +trial to defend his rights or give up the land. It was a serious problem +for the settlers. + +So many strangers came and went that the homesteaders seldom identified +these land thieves, but the print shop, set high in the middle of the +plains, was like a ranger's lookout where we could watch their +maneuvers; they traveled in rickety cars or with team and buggy, often +carrying camping equipment with them. By the way they drove or rode back +and forth, we could spot the "spotters." + +They often stopped at the settlement for tobacco or a lunch out of the +store--and a little information. + +"Whose shack is that off to the southwest?" a man asked one morning, +reading off the claim numbers from a slip of paper. He was a ruddy-faced +man dressed in a baggy checkered suit with a heavy gold watch chain +across the front of his vest and a big flashy ring. + +"Belongs to a woman from Missouri," Ida Mary told him. "She had a +neighbor build the shack for her." + +"No one living there," he said. + +"Oh, yes," Ida Mary improvised rapidly, "she was in here yesterday on +the way to town for furniture. Won't be back until tomorrow night." + +He looked doubtful. "Doesn't look to me as though anyone ever slept +there. Not a thing in the shack--no bed." + +Ida Mary called out to me, "Edith, didn't you lend that woman some +bedding yesterday?" + +"Yes," I declared, "so she could sleep there a few nights before the +deadline." + +All our early training in truth-telling was lost in the skirmish, and +sometimes I doubted if the truth was left in us. But there was zest in +this outwitting of men who would have defrauded the settlers if they +could. + +One day I noticed two men driving back and forth over a vacant claim +nearby. At sundown no one had established residence. I watched the +maneuvers of the two men. + +"Ida," I called, "those men are going to jump that claim." + +I looked over my land plat and saw that the homestead belonged to Rosie +Carrigan from Ohio. It was the last day of grace. She had until midnight +to get there. + +It was a moonlight night. Ida Mary saddled Pinto and rode down the draw +toward the claim. From a slope where she could not be seen she watched +the two men. The evening wore on. At eleven o'clock, secure in the +knowledge that the owner had failed to arrive, the men pitched camp. + +Ida Mary rode quietly up the draw and galloped up to the cabin. "They +are sleeping on the claim," she said breathlessly. This meant that next +morning, as soon as the Land Office opened, one of them would be there +to slap a contest on the land, while the other held possession. It also +meant that when Rosie Carrigan arrived she would find her homestead +gone. + +"What shall we do?" I asked anxiously. + +Ida Mary considered for a moment. "One of us must be Rosie Carrigan," +she decided. She ran out to hitch the team to the wagon while I +hurriedly dragged a few things out of the house and loaded them--things +such as an immigrant must carry with him, bedding, boxes, a traveling +bag or two. We threw them in the wagon, circled off a mile or two, and +then drove straight back onto the land. A few rods from the +claim-jumpers we drove a stake, hung a lantern on it, and began to +unhitch, shivering with excitement and apprehension. + +The noise of our arrival roused the two men, who stirred, and then with +an exclamation got to their feet. We saw the flare of a match. One of +them had drawn out his watch and was looking at it. Under the +smoked-lantern light we looked at ours--it was ten minutes to twelve! + +We heard them murmur to each other, but continued unhitching the horses, +dragging the hastily assembled articles out of the wagon. Then my heart +began to pound. One of the men walked over to us. He was short, burly, +heavy-jawed. + +"Here, you can't stay here! Where do you think you are?" he demanded. + +We made no answer, but the bed I contrived to make under his watching +eyes was a hopeless tangle. + +"We're on this land ..." he blustered. He was trying to run a bluff, to +find out whether we were on the right quarter-section or whether, like +him, we were land-grabbers. + +"I guess I'll have to have your identification," he said again. "What's +your name?" + +"Rosie Carrigan," I answered, "from Ohio. What are you doing on my land, +anyway? You have no right here!" + +He hesitated, weighing the situation and the possibilities. + +"Get off!" I blazed at him. + +He got. The two men rolled up their bedding and moved on, and Ida Mary +and I sat limply on the ground watching them go. + +In case they should come back we decided to hold the land for the night, +gathered up the bedding, and slept in the wagon--when we slept. + +At daybreak we were wakened by the rumble of a heavy-loaded wagon coming +slowly over the prairie behind a limping team. A tall, slim girl and a +slight boy sat high on the front seat. They drove up beside our wagon. +Fastened on the back of their load was a chicken coop, and as they +stopped a rooster stuck its head out and crowed. + +The girl was Rosie Carrigan. The boy was her brother. And the rooster +was the first of his kind to settle on the reservation. They had been +delayed by footsore horses. But no land-grabbers, no one except +ourselves, ever knew that Rosie Carrigan did not establish residence at +ten minutes before midnight. + +Not long after this, a rough-looking stranger rode up to an old man's +shack and took some papers out of his pocket. "There's some mistake +here, pardner," he said. "Looks like you're on the wrong quarter. This +is section--" he read the description, "and it happens to be mine." + +"But that's the number of the claim I filed on at the Drawing," the old +man assured him. + +After much arguing and bullying, with the old man contending he was +right, the stranger ordered him off the land. + +"You don't pull that stuff on me, pardner; you'd better vacate." + +"Now keep your shirt on, stranger," the old man said, with a twitching +of his long white mustache, inviting him in for a bite to eat while he +hunted up his land receipts. + +"I'm all crippled up with the rheumatiz," he groaned as he hobbled back +into a corner of the room to get the papers. "A pore way for the +gov'ment to open up land, I says. + +"Now down in the Oklahomy Run we used speed and brains to stake a claim, +beating the other fellow to it. But it was a tough bunch down there, and +sometimes, stranger, we--" he turned and pointed a gun straight at the +man seated at the table, "we used a gun." + +The old man who had stood leaning on his cane at the Drawing, +complaining that neither legs nor brains counted in winning a claim, +used his ingenuity to hold one. + +During those last days of settling, Ida Mary and I lived in a state of +tension and suspense. We watched our land plat and often rode out over +the prairie to watch for the arrival of settlers whose land was being +spotted. After a few of our deceptions, the claim jumpers became wary of +the newspaper and cursed "that snip of a newspaper woman." And the girl +who ran the post office was a government employee. + +Here was a job for _The Wand_. In the next issue there appeared a +black-headline article. It began: + +"It has been reported that owing to the swift settlement of the Brule, +Secret Service Agents from the Federal Land Department are being sent +out to protect the settlers against claim jumpers who are said to be +nesting there. This tampering with government lands is a criminal +offense, and it is understood that legal action will be pushed against +all offenders." + +One afternoon some two weeks later there walked into the print shop a +man with an official manner about him. He called for the publisher of +the paper. + +"What do you know about this?" he demanded, pointing to the article. +"What authority did you have for it?" + +I was speechless. He was a Federal Agent. + +"Well," I said at last, defiantly, "if the government is not furnishing +agents on the land to look after these things, it should." + +And it did. The agent looked into the matter, claim-jumping quieted +down, there were fewer "spotters" swarming around, and soon, when their +six months of grace had expired, the Lucky Numbers were all on the +ground. + +[Illustration] + + + + +VIII + +EASY AS FALLING OFF A LOG + + +"Any old cayuse can enter a race," Bronco Benny remarked one day. "It's +coming in under the wire that counts." + +Ida Mary and I had saddled ourselves with a newspaper, a post office, a +grocery store, an Indian trading post, and all the heavy labor of +hauling, delivery of mail and odd jobs that were entailed. We were +appalled to realize the weight of the responsibility we had assumed, +with every job making steady, daily demands on us, with the Ammons +finances to be juggled and stretched to cover constant demands on them. +And there was no turning back. + +The Lucky Numbers were all settled on their claims. Already trails were +broken to the print shop from every direction. There was no time to +plan, no time in which to wonder how one was to get things done. The +important thing was to keep doing them. On the whole Strip there was not +a vacant quarter-section. Already a long beaten trail led past the +print-shop door north and south from Pierre to Presho; another crossed +the reservation east and west from McClure to the Indian tepees and the +rangeland beyond. Paths led in from all parts of the Strip like spokes, +with Ammons the hub around which the wheel of the reservation's +activities revolved. + +From every section of the settlement the people gravitated to my claim; +they came with their needs, with their plans, with their questions. In +the first days we heard their needs rather than filled them, and the +store and print shop became a place for the exchange of ideas and news, +so that I was able to distinguish before long between the needs of the +individual and those which were common to all, to clarify in my own mind +the problems that beset the settlers as a whole, and to learn how some +among them solved these problems. + +Subscriptions for _The Wand_ came in from the outside world, from people +who had friends homesteading on the Brule, and from people interested in +the growth of the West. We had almost a thousand subscriptions at a +dollar a year, and the money went into a team, equipment, and operation +expenses. Ma Wagor helped in the store--she liked the "confusement," she +said. She loved having people around her, and her curiosity about them +all was insatiable. Ida or I generally made the mail trip. + +The heavy labor we hired done when we could, but many times we hitched +the team to the big lumber wagon and drove to Presho to bring out our +own load of goods, including barrels of coal-oil and gasoline for +automobiles, for there were quite a few cars on the reservation. +Automobiles, in fact, were the only modern convenience in the lives of +these modern pioneers who stepped from the running board straight back +into the conditions of covered-wagon days. + +The needs of the people were tremendous and insistent. And the needs of +the people had to find expression in some way if they were to be met. +The print shop was ready, _The Wand_ was ready, I was ready--the only +hitch was that I couldn't operate the new press we had bought, because +we couldn't put it together. Ida Mary and I labored futilely with bolts +and screws and other iron parts for two days. + +I had sat down in the doorway to rest, exhausted by my tussle with the +machinery, when I saw a man coming from the Indian settlement. He +appeared against the horizon as if he had ridden out of the ether, +riding slowly, straight as an Indian, but as he came closer I saw he was +a white man. At the door he dismounted, threw the reins on the ground, +and walked past me into the store, lifting his slouch hat as he entered. +A man rather short of stature, sturdy, with a wide-set jaw and flat +features that would have been homely had they not been so strong. + +He looked with surprise through the open door of the print shop with its +stalled machinery. + +"What's the trouble?" he asked. + +I explained my predicament. "I can't put the thing together and I don't +know what to do about it. It would be almost impossible to get an +experienced printer out here to start it for me." + +He smiled broadly, walked into the shop, and without a word fixed the +forms, adjusted the press and turned out the first issue of that +strange-fated newspaper. + +He would accept no pay and no thanks. "My name is Farraday, Fred +Farraday," he said. "I'll ride over next Friday and help you get the +paper out." + +With that he mounted his blue-roan pony and rode away as deliberately as +he had come. Every Friday after that he returned to help print the +paper. Naturally we were curious about the man who had solved our +desperate need for a printer in so surprising a way, but Fred was +content to come week after week and disappear again on the horizon +without any explanation as to who he was, where he came from, where he +went when he rode out of sight each Friday. + +We tried him with hints, with bland suppositions, with bare-faced +questions, and could not break through his taciturnity. But even Fred +had no defense against Ma Wagor's curiosity, and little by little, +through her persistent questioning, we learned that he had a homestead +near the Agency, that he had run a newspaper in the Northwest, and that +he had been connected with the Indian Service. + +The business of the newspaper increased rapidly, and advertising began +to come in from the small surrounding towns. Ma Wagor was kept busy in +the store, selling groceries to the Indians who camped around for a day +dickering, and to the white settlers who were generally in a hurry. So +little time! So much to do! Ida Mary helped me in the print shop, and +before long we found we needed an expert typesetter. And I found +one--unlikely as it may seem--on an adjoining claim. Kathryn Slattery, +tall and slim and red-haired, preferred setting type to sitting alone in +her shack, and with her striking appearance as an added attraction the +popularity of the settlement with the young men homesteaders mounted. + +In this odd fashion I found on the prairie both a printer and a +typesetter, and for problems of format for _The Wand_ there was always +the cartoonist from Milwaukee. Late one afternoon I spied a strange, +moving object in the far distance, something that bobbed up and down +with the regularity of a clock pendulum. I asked Ida Mary in some +bewilderment whether she could identify it. At last we saw it was a +stiff-jointed quadruped with some sort of jumping-jack on top, bouncing +up and down at every step. As it drew closer, heading for the shop, Ida +Mary began to laugh. "It's Alexander Van Leshout," she said. + +The cartoonist scrambled down from his mount and led the old, +stiff-jointed, sway-backed horse up to the door. "I would have called +sooner," he explained, sweeping off his hat in a low bow, "but I have +been breaking in my new steed. Let me introduce Hop-Along Cassidy." + +It was the newspaper that had brought him, he went on to say. +"Editorially it's not so bad, but the make-up would give anyone sore +eyes." It was Van Leshout who helped with the make-up of the paper, and +he made drawings and had plates made that would do credit to any +newspaper. + +He was a strange character in this setting, like an exotic plant in an +old-fashioned garden, and his eccentricities aroused considerable +amusement among the settlers, although he became in time a favorite with +them, serving as a sort of counter-irritant to the strain of pioneer +life. Men who trudged all day through the broiling sun turning furrows +in that stubborn soil were entertained by the strange antics of a man +who sat before his cabin in the shade (when there was any) painting the +Indians. It was a rare treat to hear him go on, they admitted, but he +was not to be taken seriously. + +Among the subscriptions I received for _The Wand_ was one from the New +York broker, Halbert Donovan, with a letter addressed to McClure. + +"Through the McClure _Press_ which I had sent me," it read, "I learned +that you are running a newspaper out on some Indian reservation. I +remember quite well the fantastic idea you had about doing things out +there with a little newspaper. But it does not seem possible you would +be so foolhardy. + +"I'm afraid your aspirations are going to receive a great blow. It is a +poor place for dreams. Imagine your trying to be a voice of the +frontier, as you put it, to a bunch of homesteaders in a God-forsaken +country like that. If I can be of help to you in some way, you might let +me know. You have shown a progressive spirit. Too bad to waste it." + +What I needed at the moment was to have him send me a few corporations, +but as that was unlikely, I pinned my faith in _The Wand_. It was a +seven-column, four-page paper which carried staunchly a strange load of +problems and responsibilities. In spite of the New York broker's blunt +disbelief in the possibilities of a frontier newspaper, I had become +more and more convinced during those weeks that only through some such +medium could the homesteaders express their own needs, in their own way; +have their problems discussed in terms of their own immediate situation. + +We needed herd laws and a hundred other laws; we needed new land +rulings. We needed schools, bridges across draws and dry creeks. We +needed roads. In fact, there was nothing which we did not need--and most +of all we needed a sense of close-knit cooperation. Aside from these +matters of general interest, relating to their common welfare, the paper +attempted to acquaint the settlers with one another, to inform them of +the activities going on about them, to keep them advised of frontier +conditions. To assist those who knew nothing of farming conditions in +the West, and often enough those who had never farmed before, I +reprinted articles on western soil and crops, and on the conservation of +moisture. + +Every week there were noticeable strides in that incredible country +toward civilization, changes and improvements. These were printed as +quickly as I learned of them, not only because of the encouragement this +record of tangible results might bring the homesteaders, but also as a +means of information for people in the East who still did not know what +we were doing and who did not see the possibilities of the land. + +And already, in depicting the homestead movement, I had begun to realize +that the Lower Brule was only a fraction of what was to come, and I +reached out in panoramic scope to other parts of the frontier. + +And already, though but dimly, I had begun to see that the system of +cooperation which was being attempted--cautiously and on a small +scale--was the logical solution for the farmer's problems, not alone in +this homesteading area, not alone on the Lower Brule; but that like a +pebble thrown into a quiet stream it must make ever-widening circles +until it encompassed the farmers throughout the West, perhaps-- + +Naturally public issues sprang up which neither Ida Mary nor I knew how +to handle. We knew nothing about politics, nothing at all about the +proper way to go about setting things right. But we were a jump ahead of +the Lower Brule settlers in homesteading experience, and there were many +local issues with which to make a start. + +One of the first public issues the paper took up was an attack on the +railroad company in regard to the old bridge spanning the Missouri River +at Chamberlain. "Every time a shower comes up, that bridge goes out," +declared _The Wand_, and it wasn't much of an exaggeration. The +homesteaders were dependent on the bridge to get immigrant goods across, +and with the heavy rains that season many settlers had been delayed in +getting on their land or in getting their crops planted in time. + +_The Wand_ referred to the railroad report that this was the biggest +immigration period of the state's history, with 537 carloads of +immigrant goods moved in during the first twelve days of the month. For +several years the small towns west of the Missouri had been making a +fight for a new bridge. "The Lower Brule settlers want a new bridge," I +wrote. "And if the Milwaukee does not build one we are going to do our +shipping over the Northwestern regardless of longer hauls." I had not +talked this matter over with the settlers, but they would do it, all +right. + +A flea attacking an elephant! But a flea can be annoying, and we would +keep it up. I was encouraged when civic leaders of several small towns +sent for copies of the article to use in their petitions to the company. +It was the voice of the Lower Brule, and already the Lower Brule bore +weight. + +In practical ways the paper also tried to serve the homesteaders, +keeping them posted on other frontier regions and the methods employed +there to bring the land into production. It made a study of crops best +adapted to the frontier; it became the Strip's bureau of information and +a medium of exchange--not only of ideas but of commodities. + +In new country, where money is scarce, people resort from necessity to +the primitive method of barter, exchanging food for fuel, labor for +commodities. There is a good deal to be said in its favor, and it solved +a lot of problems in those early, penniless days. + +We had started the post office mainly as a means of getting the +newspaper into circulation, and it had developed into a difficult +business of its own which required more and more of Ida Mary's time. +Friday was publication day. On Thursday we printed the paper so as to +have it ready for Friday's mail, and on Thursday night the tin +reflectors of the print-shop lamps threw their lights out for miles +across the prairie far into the night, telling a lost people the day of +the week. "It's Thursday night--the night the paper goes to press," more +than one homesteader said as he saw it. + +It was a long, tedious job to print so many newspapers on a hand press +one at a time, fold and address them. It took the whole Ammons force and +a few of the neighbors to get it ready for the mail, which must meet the +McClure mail stage at noon. While one of us rushed off with the mail, +others at home would address the local list of papers and put them in +the mail boxes by the time the return mail came in for distribution. + +Our U. S. mail transport was our old topless One-Hoss Shay--repaired and +repainted for the purpose--with the brown team hitched to it. It was a +long, hot drive, eight miles, to meet the stage, which reached McClure +at noon, jolting along under a big cotton umbrella wired to the back of +the seat for shade. I slapped the brown team with the lines and consoled +myself that if roughing it put new life into one's body I should be good +for a hundred years. + +When we were behind time and the mail was light or there was money going +out, we ran Lakota through as a pony express. Lakota was a gift from the +Indians, whose name meant "banded together as friends." One day Running +Deer had come over to Ammons, leading a little bronc. He had caught her +in a bunch of wild horses which roamed the plains, a great white +stallion at their head. "One day--two day--three day--I have made run, +so swift like eagle. Then I rope her and make broke for ride." + +She was a beauty. Graceful, proud--and lawless. "Good blood, like Indian +chief," said Running Deer with pride in this gift from the Sioux. "But +white squaw--she throw um, mebbe. Rub like fawn--" and he stroked her +curved neck. + +There was no "mebbe" about throw um white squaw. One had to be on the +lookout or "swift like eagle" she would jump from under one at the +slightest provocation. But we trained her to carry the mail, and though +there was no banditry in that section, we had to be on our guard with +money coming in. No man would ever grab the mail sack from Lakota's +back. That little outlaw would paw him to death. + +Whether we caught the mail stage or not often depended upon the mood of +the stage driver. If he felt tired and lazy he patiently sat in front of +the Halfway House at McClure and "chawed" and spat until he saw the +Ammons mail coming over the trail. If he were out of sorts he drove on. + +All we got out of the post-office job was the cancellation of stamps, as +it was a fourth-class office in which the government furnished the +stamps and we kept the money for all stamps canceled in our office. But +the settlers were too busy to write letters, so the income was small and +the incoming mail, for which we received no pay, weighed us down with +work. For months after the settlers came west they ordered many +commodities by mail, and their friends sent them everything from +postcards to homemade cookies and jelly, so as mail carriers we became +pack mules. But we went on carrying mail. It is easier to get into +things than to get out. + +Much of the ordering of commodities by the settlers was done through the +huge mail-order catalogs issued by half a dozen large companies in the +East. Those mail-order catalogs were of enormous importance to the +homesteaders. For the women they had the interest of a vast department +store through which one could wander at will. In a country where +possessions were few and limited to essentials, those pages with their +intriguing cuts represented most of the highly desirable things in life. + +From the mail-order catalogs they ordered their stoves, most of their +farming implements, and later, when the contrast between the alluring +advertisements and the bleak shacks grew too strong for the women to +endure, fancy lamps for the table, and inexpensive odds and ends which +began to transform those rough barren houses into livable homes. + +Running a newspaper out here was, as Ma Wagor had predicted, a +"pestiferous" job. One day we hung the rubber roller out to dry and the +sun melted it flat. As a result Ada had to ride to McClure to borrow one +from _The Press_ before we could print the paper. There was no way to +get the ready-prints without making the long trip to Presho. Finally +every homesteader around Ammons who went to town stopped in at the +express office to get them for us. It was a multiplication of effort but +we generally got the prints. + +But, hard as it was, the work did not tire me as much as the mere +mechanical grind of the hammer-and-tongs work on _The Press_ had done. +Each day was so filled with new problems and new interests, so crammed +with activity, that we were carried along by the exhilaration of it. One +cannot watch an empire shoot up around him like Jack's beanstalk +without feeling the compulsion to be a part of that movement, that +growth. And the worst barrier we had to face had vanished--the initial +prejudice against two young girls attempting to take an active part in +the forward movement of the community. + +The obstacles of a raw country had no effect on Ada Long, our +fourteen-year-old helper. She came of a struggling family who had +settled on an alkali claim set back from everything until the Brule +settlers had broken a trail past it. So Ada, finding herself in a new +moving world, was happy. With her long yellow braids hanging beneath a +man's straw hat, strong capable hands, and an easy stride, she went +about singing hymns as she worked, taking upon herself many tasks that +she was not called upon to perform. And Fred Farraday was taking much of +the heavy work of the print shop off our hands. + +Ma Wagor, too, was an invaluable help to us. "All my life I've wanted to +run a store," she admitted. "I like the confusement." Every morning she +came across the prairie sitting straight as a board in the old buggy +behind a spotted horse that held his head high and his neck stretched +like a giraffe. The few dollars she got for helping in the store eked +out Pa's small pension, which had been their only revenue. + +The commodities handled at the store had increased from coffee and +matches to innumerable supplies. The faithful team, Fan and Bill, were +kept on the road most of the time. We made business trips to Presho and +Pierre. Help was not always available, and there could be no waste +movements in a wasteland. On some of these trips we hitched the team to +the big lumber wagon and hauled out barrels of oil, flour, printers' ink +and other supplies for all and sundry of our enterprises. It had come to +that. + +"There go the Ammons sisters," people would say as the wagon started, +barrels rattling, down the little main street of Presho, off to the hard +trail home. + +Slim and straight and absurdly small, in trim shirt waists, big +sombreros tilted over our heads, we bounced along on the wagon, trying +to look as mature and dignified as our position of business women +demanded. + +"Those are the two Brule girls who launched an attack on the Milwaukee +railroad," Presho people remarked. "Well, I'll be damned!" + +Once when I was too ill to leave Presho and we stayed for the night in a +little frame hotel, Doc Newman came in to look me over. + +"Do you girls get enough nourishing food?" he asked. + +"We eat up all the store profits," lamented Ida Mary. + +He laughed. "Keep on eating them up. And slow down." + +Pioneer women, old and new, went through many hardships and privations. +The sodbreakers' women over the Strip worked hard, but their greatest +strain was that of endurance rather than heavy labor. But refreshing +nights with the plains at rest and exhilarating morning air were the +restoratives. + +Hard and unrelieved as their lives were in many respects, gallantly as +they shouldered their part of the burden of homesteading, the women +inevitably brought one important factor into the homesteaders' lives. +They inaugurated some form of social life, and with the exchange of +visits, the impromptu parties, the informal gatherings, and the +politeness, the amenities they demanded--however modified to meet +frontier conditions--civilization came to stay. + +The instinct of women to build up the forms of social life is +deep-rooted and historically sound. Out of the forms grow traditions, +and from the traditions grow permanency, which is woman's only +protection. With the first conscious development of social life on the +Brule, the Strip took on a more settled air. + +Meanwhile, out of the back-breaking labor the first results began to +appear. The sodbreakers were going to have a crop. And hay--hay to feed +their livestock and to sell. Everyone passing through the Strip stopped +to look at the many small fields and a few large ones dotting the +prairie. People came from other parts of the frontier to see the rapid +development which the Brule had made. + +"Mein Gott in Himmel!" shouted old Mr. Husmann, pointing to a field of +oats. "Look at them oats. We get one hell of a crop for raw land." + +On the other side of us, Chris Christopherson's big field of flax was in +full bloom, like a blue flower garden. + +"I come by Ioway," Mr. Husmann went on, "when she was a raw country, and +I say, 'Mein Gott, what grass!' But I see no grass so high and rich like +this." + +The gardens matured late, as all growth on the western prairie does. The +seed which was sown on the sod so unusually late that year never would +have come up but for the soaking rains. Now there were lettuce, +radishes, onions and other things. One could not buy fresh green +vegetables anywhere in the homestead country, and they were like manna +from Heaven. It had been almost a year since Ida Mary and I had tasted +green foods. It is a curious paradox that people living on the land +depended for food or canned goods from the cities, and that the fresh +milk and cream and green vegetables associated with farm life were +unattainable. + +Most of the settlers lived principally on beans and potatoes with some +dried fruits, but we had bought canned fruits, oranges and apples, +pretending to ourselves that we would stock them for the store. Some of +the settlers could buy such foods in small quantities, for they had a +little money that first summer; but the Indians were our main customers +for the more expensive things, buying anything we wanted to sell them +when they got their government allowances. While their money lasted they +had no sales resistance whatever. + +This characteristic apparently wasn't peculiar to the Brule Indians, but +was equally true of those in the Oklahoma reservation who boomed the +luxury trades when oil was discovered on their land. There it was no +uncommon sight to see a gaudy limousine parked outside a tepee and a +grand piano on the ground inside. + +But what the Indians didn't buy of these foods at forbidden costs we ate +ourselves, cutting seriously into our profits. And when Mrs. +Christopherson sent her little Heine over one day with a bucket of green +beans we almost foundered as animals do with the first taste of green +feed after a winter of dry hay. + +We had a few rows of garden east of our shack. I remember gathering +something out of it--lettuce and onions, probably, which grew abundantly +without any care. + +It was hot, and everybody on the Strip, worn out from strenuous weeks, +slowed down. The plains were covered with roses, wild roses trying to +push their heads above the tall grass. The people who had worked so +frantically, building houses, putting in crops, walked more slowly now, +stopped to talk and rest a little, and sit in the shade. They discovered +how tired they were, and the devitalizing heat added to the general +torpor. + +"It's this confusement," Ma Wagor said, "that's wore everybody out." She +was the only one on the Strip to continue at the same energetic pace. +"There ain't a bit of use wearing yourself out, trying to do the things +here the Almighty Himself hasn't got around to yet--flying right in the +face of the Lord, I says to myself sometimes." + +But in spite of the heat and the general weariness, the work was +unrelenting. The mail must be delivered regularly. The paper must be +printed. One day Ida Mary's voice burst in upon the clicking of type. + +"What are we going to do about the rattlesnakes?" she said tragically; +"they're taking the country." + +She was right. They were taking the reservation. They wriggled through +the tall grass making ribbon waves as they went. They coiled like a +rubber hose along the trails, crawled up to the very doors, stopped +there only by right-fitting screens. + +One never picked up an object without first investigating with a board +or stick lest there be a snake under it. It became such an obsession +that if anyone did pick up something without finding a snake under it he +felt as disappointed as if he had run to a fire and found it out when he +got there. + +On horseback or afoot one was constantly on the lookout for them. For +those gray coiled horrors were deadly. We knew that. There were plenty +of stories of people who heard that dry rattle, saw the lightning speed +of the strike and the telltale pricks on arm or ankle, and waited for +the inevitable agony and swift death. The snakes always sounded their +warning, the chilling rattle before they struck, but they rarely gave +time for escape. + +Sourdough stopped at the store one morning for tobacco. He had a pair of +boots tied to his saddle and when Ida Mary stepped to the door to hand +him the tobacco, a rattlesnake slithered out from one of the boots. He +jumped off his horse and killed it. + +"Damn my skin," Sourdough exclaimed, "and here I slept on them boots +last night for a pillow. I oughta stretched a rope." + +Plainsmen camping out made it a practice to stretch a rope around camp +or pallet as a barricade against snakes; they would not cross the hairy, +fuzzy rope, we were told. It may be true, but there was not a rope made +that I would trust to keep snakes out on that reservation. + +I remember camping out one night with a group of homesteaders. The +ground was carefully searched and a rope stretched before we turned in, +but it was a haggard, white-faced group which started back the next +morning. True, there hadn't been any rattlesnakes, but from the amount +of thinking about them that had been done that night, there might as +well have been. + +A young homesteader rushed into the print shop one day, white as a +sheet. "A snake," he gasped, "a big rattler across the trail in front of +the store." + +"What of it? Haven't you ever seen a snake before?" + +"Have I!" he replied dismally. "I saw them for six months back there in +Cleveland. But my snakes didn't rattle." + +Ours rattled. The rattle of the snake became as familiar as the song of +the bird. The settlers were losing livestock every day. Everyone was in +danger. With the hot dry weather they became bigger and thicker. The +cutting of great tracts of grass for hay stirred them into viperous +action. They were harder to combat than droughts and blizzards. Not many +regions were so thickly infested as that reservation. Those snakes are a +part of its history. + +"Couldn't be many in other regions," Olaf Rasmusson, an earnest young +farmer, said dryly; "they're all settled here." + +"Look out for snakes!" became the watchword on the Strip. + +Mrs. Christopherson's little Heine, a small, taciturn boy of five who +had become a daily, silent visitor at the store, came in one afternoon, +roused into what, for him, was a garrulous outburst: + +"There's a snake right out here, and I bet it's six feet long the way it +rattles." + +Ada grabbed a pole and tried to kill it. The monster struck back like +the cracking of a whip. She backed off and with her strong arm hit +again and again, while Ida Mary ran with a pitchfork. + +"Keep out of the way," shouted Ada, "you may get bitten!" + +Winded, Ada fanned herself with her straw hat and wiped the perspiration +from her face. "I got that fellow," she said triumphantly. + +This was one problem about which _The Wand_ seemed helpless. Printers' +ink would have no effect on the snakes, and if this horror were +published, the Strip would be isolated like a leper's colony. After +using so much ingenuity in building up the achievements of that +swift-growing country, the announcement of this plague of snakes might +undo all that had been accomplished. + +And the snakes increased. When Ida Mary was out of sight I worried +constantly. It was like one's fear for a person in battle, who may be +struck by a bullet at any moment. But the rattler was more surely fatal +when it struck than the bullet. + +Something had to be done. To Hades with what the world thought about our +having snakes! We had to do something that would bring relief from this +horror. We went to the old medicine men--John Yellow Grass, I think was +one of them--to find out how the Indians got rid of snakes. They didn't. +But at least they knew what to do when you had been bitten. The Indian +medicine men said to bleed the wound instantly, bandaging the flesh +tightly above and below to keep the poison from circulating. That was +the Indians' first-aid treatment; and, as a last resort, "suck the +wound." + +_The Wand_ printed warnings: "Bank your houses ... keep doors and +windows tightly screened ... keep a bottle of whisky close at hand.... +Carry vinegar, soda and bandages with you, and a sharp thin-bladed knife +to slash and bleed the wound." What a run there was on vinegar and +pocket knives! + +By this time the sight of a coiled rope made me jumpy and I dreamed of +snakes writhing, coiling, moving in undulating lines. At noon one day I +was alone, making up the paper. I stood at the form table working, when +I turned abruptly. A snake's slimy head was thrust through a big +knothole in the floor. Its beady eyes held me for a moment, as they are +said to hypnotize a bird. I could neither move nor scream. + +Then with a reflex action I threw an empty galley--an oblong metal tray +used to put the set type in--square over the hole. The snake moved so +quickly it missed the blow and lay under the floor hissing like an +engine letting off steam. It would have been in the print shop in +another second. The floor was laid on 2 x 4 inch scantlings, so there +was nothing to keep snakes from working their way under. It should have +been banked around the foundation with sod. + +The next day a homesteader's little girl was bitten. Oh, for serum! But +if there were any such life-saver on the market we had no way of getting +it. + +_The Wand_ called a meeting of the settlers and laid plans of warfare +against the snakes. The homesteaders organized small posses. And cowboys +and Indian bucks joined in that war against the reptiles. + +They killed them by the dozens in every conceivable manner. The cowboys +were always telling about shooting their heads off, and they said the +Indians used an arrow, spearing them in the neck just back of the head. +They never let one get away if they could help it. Some of them claimed +they picked up rattlesnakes by the tails and cracked their heads off. + +The snakes wintered in the prairie-dog holes, but I never heard of a +prairie dog being bitten by one of them. On warm days in late fall the +snakes came out of the holes and lay coiled thick on the ground, sunning +themselves, while the little dogs sat up on their hind legs and yipped +in their squeaky voices. The settlers and cowboys invaded the dog towns +and killed off the snakes by the hundred. Dog towns were the tracts +where the prairie dogs made their homes. During the intensive snake war, +a homesteader came from one of the big prairie-dog towns to take us over +to look at the kill. + +There, strung on wires, hung more than a hundred huge, horrid rattlers, +many of them still wriggling and twisting and coiling like a thrown +lariat. + +It seems too bad the snakeskin industry of today missed that bonanza of +supply, and that science did not make a more general use of rattlesnake +serum at that time. The settlers would have made some easy money and +science would have got serum in unlimited quantity. + +This is a gruesome subject. The constant, lurking menace of the snakes +was one of the hardest things the frontier had to endure, harder than +drought or blizzard, but in one way and another we came through. + +Instead of _The Wand's_ campaign against snakes injuring the Strip it +created a great deal of interest, and people said we were "subduing the +frontier." + +Easy? Oh, yes; easy as falling off a log. + +[Illustration] + + + + +IX + +THE OPENING OF THE ROSEBUD + + +The settling of those western lands was as elemental as the earth, and +no phase of its settlement was as dramatic as the opening of the +Rosebud. Homesteading was now the biggest movement in America. We were +entering a great period of land development running its course between +1909 and our entrance into the World War in 1917. The people were land +crazy. The western fever became an epidemic that spread like a prairie +fire. Day by day we watched the vast, voluntary migration of a people. + +Men with families to support, frail women with no one to help them, few +of them with money enough to carry them through, took the chance, with +the odds against them. I have seen men appear with their families, ten +dollars in their pockets, or only five after the filing fee on the land +was paid. I have seen them sleep on the prairie, get odd jobs here and +there until they could throw up a shelter out of scrap lumber, and +slowly get a foothold, often becoming substantial citizens of a +community they helped to build. + +Free land! Free land! It was like the tune piped by the Pied Piper. +"This is the chance for the poor man," I wrote in _The Wand_. "When the +supply of free land is exhausted the poor man cannot hope to own +land.... If the moneyed powers get hold of this cheap land as an +investment, they will force the price beyond the grasp of the masses.... +The West is the reserve upon which the future growth and food supply of +the nation must depend." + +Ida Mary said that I was running to land as a Missourian did to mules, +but _The Wand_ was fast becoming identified with the land movement. + +As the homesteaders flowed in a great sea out of the towns and cities +into the West, one wondered at their courage. There was not the hope +which inspires a gold rush, the possibility of a gold strike which may +bring sudden wealth and ease. The road was long, the only likely signs +of achievement an extra room on the shack, a few more acres of ground +turned under. And--eventual security! That was it, security. A piece of +ground that belonged to them, on which they could plant their feet, +permanency. + +In answer to that cry for land there came another proclamation from the +President, Theodore Roosevelt. Another great tract of land, the great +Rosebud Indian Reservation, with a million acres of homesteads, was to +be thrown open. A lottery with 1500 square miles of territory as the +sweepstakes and 100,000 people playing its wheel of fortune. Trying to +describe its size and sweep and significance, I find myself, in the +vernacular of the range, plumb flabbergasted. + +Of course, there were some among the homesteaders on the Lower Brule who +found the grass greener on the Rosebud, and wanted to throw up their +claims and move on to new ground; but the government informed them, +somewhat grimly, that they could prove up where they were, or not at +all. And I can understand their restlessness. To this day I never hear +of some new frontier being developed without pricking up my ears and +quivering like a circus horse when he hears a band play. There are some +desert products that can't be rooted out--sagebrush and cactus and the +hold of the open spaces. + +The Rosebud Opening was one of the most famous lotteries of them all. +The Rosebud reservation lay in Tripp County, across White River from the +Brule. Its conversion into homesteads meant an immediate income for the +United States Treasury, but according to a recent law, all monies +received from the sale of the lands were to be deposited to the credit +of the Indians belonging to and having tribal rights on the reservation, +the funds thus acquired to be used by Congress for the education, +support and civilization of the Indians. + +The name Rosebud was emblazoned across the nation, after the government +proclamation, in the newspapers, in railroad pamphlets, on public +buildings. As usual, the railroads played a major part in aiding +prospective settlers to reach the registration points, a half-dozen +little western villages. + +The frontier town of Pierre had been unprepared for the avalanche of +people who had descended upon it during the Lower Brule opening. Service +and equipment had been inadequate. In the great Bonesteel Opening a few +years earlier, gambling and lawlessness had run riot. Therefore +Superintendent Witten formulated and revised the drawing system, +endeavoring to work out the most suitable plan for disposing of these +tracts so that there might be no suggestion of unfairness. + +Railroads traversing the West had already begun to extend their lines +still farther into the little-populated section, starting new towns +along their lines, running landseekers' excursions in an effort to show +the people what this country had to offer them. + +In preparation for the Rosebud Opening they prepared for the influx of +people on a gigantic scale, made ready to take whole colonies from +various sections of the East and Middle West to the reservation. + +Among the registration points was the little town of Presho. A crude, +unfinished little town, with a Wild West flavor about it, Presho +couldn't help doing things in a spectacular fashion. Like most hurriedly +built frontier towns, there was little symmetry to it--two irregular +rows of small business places, most of them one-story structures, with +other shops and offices set back on side streets. Its houses were set +hit-and-miss, thickly dotting the prairie around its main street. Two +years before, it had been merely an unsettled stretch of prairie. + +Then the Milwaukee railroad platted the town, bringing out carloads of +people to the auction. Two men, named Dirks and Sedgwick, paid $500 for +the first lot, on which to start a bank. That was $480 more than the +list price. + +They had a little building like a sheep wagon, or a cook shack, on +wheels, which they rolled onto the lot. Within eight minutes the bank +was open for business. The first deposit, in fact, was made while the +sheep-wagon bank rolled along. Two barrels and a plank served as a +counter. + +The two founders had the necessary $5000 capital, and when the cashier +went to dinner he took all the money with him, with two six-shooters for +protection. He was never robbed. For two years, during the land boom, +the bank had not closed, day or night. + +Locators coming in, in the middle of the night, from their long trips +over the territory, would knock on the door in the back end of the bank. +The banker would open the door a crack, stick his gun out and demand, +"Who's there?" + +"It's Kimball. Got a bunch of seekers here. They have to catch the train +east." + +The locator or other person wanting to transact business after the +banker had gone to bed had to identify himself before the door was +opened. When the homestead movement of that region was at its height, +thousands of dollars passed over the board-and-barrel counter in the +bank's night-time business. + +"The Rosebud has been throwed open!" went the cry. The entire western +country made ready for the invasion of the landseekers. The government +red tape for the lottery, with its various registration points, would +require a small army to handle. It was one of the most gigantic +governmental programs ever known. Notaries had to be appointed to take +care of the affidavits, land locators selected to show the seekers the +land, accommodations provided for the 115,000 who registered in that +Drawing. + +Even the Brule was crowded with people ready to play their luck in the +land lottery. Every available corner was utilized for sleeping space, +and the store at Ammons did a record business that would help pay the +wholesale bills at Martin's store. Ida Mary was busy taking care of +postal duties, handling increased mail, government notices, etc. + +During the summer our financial condition had gone from bad to worse. + +"Do you know those Ammons girls?" one native westerner asked another. +"Came out from St. Louis, about as big as my Annie (Annie was about +twelve); head wranglers out on the Lower Brule, newspaper, trading post, +whole works." + +"Well, they'll last till their money is gone." + +And it was about gone! "What are we going to do to meet these payments, +Edith?" Ida Mary asked one day in a breathing spell. There wasn't enough +money to pay for groceries, printing equipment, interest, etc. + +If we could only hold on, the proof notices would bring in $2000 or +more, which was big money out there. But the proof season was almost a +year ahead, and the money had already been pledged. + +Profit and loss! My head ached. I felt as though I had been hit on the +head by 200 square miles of Brule sod. Ma Wagor offered us a way out of +one of our difficulties. She'd always wanted a store. She liked the +"confusement." So we turned the store over to the Wagors', lock, stock +and barrel--prunes and molasses, barrels of coal-oil and vinegar, +padlocks on the doors. They had no money, but Ma wanted it as much as we +wanted to be rid of it, so it was a satisfactory deal. They were to pay +us on a percentage basis. We still had a claim, a post office and a +newspaper to manage, and the Indian trade to handle. + +"It looks as though the Ammons venture is going under," people were +beginning to say. I went to Presho and the small towns near by, and, +somewhat to my own surprise, succeeded in getting more advertising for +_The Wand_. But it wasn't enough. + +One night I came home, determined that something must be done. The whole +arrangement seemed to me unfair to Ida Mary. "Sister," I said, "I'm +going to give up the claim." + +She quietly put down her book, open so as not to lose the page, and +waited for me to go on. + +"I told Mr. West today that we would sell. I am going to pay off the +mortgage on your homestead, clean up the other debts, and--" + +"And then what?" + +"I don't know." + +"Don't give up your land, Edith. Something will happen. Something +always happens." She went back to her book. + +Something did happen. The Rosebud Opening. I was to cover it for a +western newspaper syndicate, and this time I had the inside track. Being +familiar with the field and with the government lottery operations, I +would be able to get my stories out while other reporters were finding +out what it was all about. + +Remembering the money I had made with the little verses printed on a +postcard at the Brule Opening, I prepared another on the Rosebud, with +the cartoonist from Milwaukee helping me by making drawings to +illustrate it. Then, armed with the postcards, I set off for Presho--and +the Rosebud. + +On a Sunday night in early October, 1908, I stood on a corner of the +dark main street of Presho waiting for the Rosebud to open. I had +appointed agents to handle my postcards and I was free to cover the +story. Special trains loaded with landseekers were coming. The confusion +of last-minute preparations to receive them was at its height. + +I found Presho as mad as a hornet. The Milwaukee railroad had taken the +turntable out, and special trains coming in from Chicago and other +points east must thus go on to the next town to turn around. This was +bound to cut into Presho's share of the crowds. As long as the town had +been the turning point of the road, it was one of the greatest trade +centers in that part of the West. + +The lottery was to start Monday, which meant the stroke of midnight. The +little town was ready, its dark streets lighted here and there by +flaring arc lights. Up and down Main Street, and out over the fields, +tents had been erected to take care of the crowd. + +And the trains were coming in, unloading their human cargo. Others +poured in by every conceivable means of transportation, invading the +little frontier town, the only spot of civilization in the vast, bare +stretch of plains. Presho woke to find a great drove of tenderfeet +stampeding down its little Main Street. They thundered down the board +sidewalk and milled in the middle of the road, kicking up dust like a +herd of range cattle as they went. + +Aside from the great tents put up by some of the towns for lodging and +eating quarters, small tents dotted the outskirts. People were bringing +their own camping equipment, and I might add that only those who had +such foresight, slept during those turbulent days. + +The daily train was an event in these frontier towns, its coming watched +by most of the inhabitants. Now five and six a day roared in, spilled +500 to 800 passengers into the packed streets, and roared away again. As +the heavily loaded trains met or passed each other along the route the +excited crowds called jovially to one another, "Suckers! Suckers!" With +but 4000 claims, the chance to win was slim. + +On the station platform, in the thick of the crowds, were the Indians. +After all, it appeared, they were learning from the white man. This time +they had come in an enlightened and wholly commercial spirit. Brave in +paint and feathers and beads, they strolled about, posing for the +landseekers--for 50 cents a picture. + +A maze of last-minute activity was under way before the stroke of +midnight. Telephone companies installed additional equipment and +service. Telegraph wires were being strung up. Expert men were being +rushed out from Kansas City and Omaha to take care of the flood of words +that would soon go pouring out to the nation--telling the story of the +gamble for land. + +A magazine editor, notebook in hand, moved from one group of seekers to +another, asking: "Do you think Taft will be elected?" He didn't seem to +be getting far. On the eve of a presidential election a people was +turning to the soil for security. "Do you think Taft will be elected?" +the editor repeated patiently. "Who gives a damn?" shouted a steel +worker from Philadelphia. + +A train lumbered in heavily from Chicago, fourteen coaches, crowded to +standing room only, men and women herded and tagged like sheep. They +stumbled out onto the dark platform, jostled among the mob already +assembled, exhausted, dirty, half-asleep, yet shaking with excitement. +That high-pitched excitement, of course, was partly due to strain and +suspense, partly to the gambling spirit in which the lottery was carried +out. But for the most part the crowd generated its own excitement +through its great numbers and consequent rivalry, as it entered the dark +streets with their glaring lights, the mad confusion of shouting and +band playing. + +They came from Chicago and jerkwater towns in Nebraska, from farms and +steel mills, from the stage and the pulpit. School teachers and farm +boys, clerks and stenographers, bookkeepers and mechanics, business men +and lawyers. Perhaps the most significant thing was the presence of +those business men, often coming in whole groups to study the country +and its possibilities, to be on hand when the town sites were opened, to +be the first to start businesses on the Rosebud. + +On the Brule there had been nothing but the land. Here the plows, the +farm implements, salesmen of every conceivable commodity needed by +settlers, were on hand. These people were to start with supplies in +sight, with business organizing in advance to handle their problems, +with capital waiting for their needs. + +And they came by the thousands. From Chicago alone there came one group +of 3000 seekers. "Move on," came the endless chant. "Move on!" It didn't +matter where, so long as they kept moving, making way for new mobs of +restless people. "Move on!" + +Wires were clicking with news from the other registration points. +Presho, to its fury, couldn't compare with some of the other towns. The +little town of Dallas had gone stark mad. Thirty-four carloads of +seekers were due in these villages between midnight and morning. They +were coming from every direction, bringing, along with the individual +seekers, whole groups of New England farmers, Iowa business men, an +organization of clerks from Cleveland, and from everywhere the +ruddy-faced farmers. + +Over the uproar of the crowd could be heard the sharp staccato click of +the telegraph wires. Special trains were coming from Omaha, came the +news. The police force had tried to keep the crowds from smothering each +other, but they had torn down the gate of the station and rushed +through, afraid to be left behind. + +Runners came overland across the empty Rosebud to carry the news from +the little towns, riding hell-for-leather, their horses foaming although +the night was cold. "You ought to see Dallas, folks! People lighting +like grasshoppers.... You ought to see Gregory!" The rivalry was bitter +among the towns, each trying to corner as much of the crowd as possible. + +Presho was sending out word vehemently denying the reports that an +epidemic of black smallpox had broken out there. + +Men representing everything from flop tents to locating agents boarded +trains en route, trying to persuade the seekers to register at their +respective towns. And all of them were bitter against the railroads, +which were furnishing return accommodations every few hours, giving the +tradesmen little chance to make their fortunes, as many of them had +confidently expected to do. + +Automobiles, many bought for the occasion, lined the streets of these +border towns, ready to take the seekers over the land--if they stayed +long enough. It surprised the easterners, this evidence of modernity in +a pioneer world. And here and there a new automobile parked beside a +prairie schooner. + +Curiously enough, the price of the land distributed by the Openings was +higher than that of vast tracts of untouched land in the West which was +also available to the public, and yet attention was concentrated solely +on the Rosebud; the desire for land there was at fever heat, while other +land was regarded with apathy. Whether this was due to the fact that the +other land was little known, or to the madness that attends any gambling +operation and the intensive advertising which had called attention to +the Rosebud, I do not know. + +But this land was not free. For these Indian lands the government +charged from $2.00 to $6.00 an acre, according to classification. Thus +160 acres of first-class land would cost the homesteader around a +thousand dollars--one-fifth down, the rest in annual payments under the +five-year proof plan. If he made commutation proof in fourteen months, +the minimum residence required, he must then make payment in full. + +The hours wore on toward midnight and the crowd grew denser. "Move on," +droned the chant. "Move on!" The editor had turned the page of his +notebook and spoke to one of the women landseekers. "Are you a +suffragette?" he asked politely. Pushing back an elbow that had grazed +her cheek, pulling her hat firmly over her head, clutching her handbag +firmly, she looked at him, wonderingly. "Are you--" he began again, but +someone shouted "Move on," and the woman disappeared in the throng. + +At the stroke of midnight a cry went up from the registrars. At 12:01 +under the dim flicker of coal-oil lanterns and torches hung on posts or +set on barrels and boxes, that most famous of lotteries began. + +The uproar and confusion of the hours before midnight were like a desert +calm compared with the clamor which broke out. Registrars lined both +sides of the street. "Right this way, folks! Here you are, here you are! +Register right here!" And there, on rough tables, on dry-goods boxes, +anything upon which a piece of paper could be filled out and a notary +seal stamped thereon, the crowd put in their applications as entries in +the gamble, raised their right hands and swore: "I do solemnly swear +that I honestly desire to enter public lands for my own personal use as +a home and for settlement and cultivation, and not for speculation or in +the interest of some other person...." + +In the excitement and chill of the October night, fingers shook so that +they could scarcely hold a pen. Commissioned notaries were getting 25 +cents a head from the applicants. Real estate offices were jammed. + +In between the registration stands were the hot-dog and coffee booths +with the tenders yelling, while thick black coffee flowed into tin cups +by the barrel, and sandwiches were handed out by the tubful. Popcorn and +peanut venders pushed through the crowd crying their wares. And among +the voices were those of the agents who were selling my postcards, +selling them like liniment in a patent-medicine show. + +Spielers shouted the virtues of the food or drink or tent or land +locator they were advertising. Even the notaries got megaphones to +announce their services--until government authorities stepped in and +threatened to close them all up. + +Into the slits in the huge cans which held the applications dropped a +surprising number of items. People became confused and used it as a mail +box, dropping in souvenir cards. One applicant even dropped in his +return fare. And some, shaking uncontrollably with excitement, were +barely able to drop their applications in at all. + +And somewhere, off in the dark spaces beyond the flickering lights, lay +the million acres of land for which the horde was clamoring, its quiet +sleep unbroken. + +There was a sharp tug at my arm, and I turned to see the reporter from +Chicago who had filed on the Brule Opening. + +"I'm trying my luck again," he said. + +So he had not won in the Brule lottery. Somehow I was glad to know that +was the reason for his not being on a claim there. + +Sensing this, he said grimly: "So you thought I was a quitter." + +As we clung to each other to keep from being separated in the hysterical +mob, I heard his hollow cough. + +"Are you ill?" I asked. + +"It's this crowd and the dust--my lungs--got to come west--" + +I grabbed him by the coat sleeve, trying to make my voice carry above +the ballyhoo. "If you do not win here, come and see me. I can get you a +claim." The swaying throng separated us. + +I rushed to the telegraph office and sent off my story. As I started +back I stopped to look upon the little town which had been started at +the end of the iron trail, revealed in the light of torches against a +black sky, and at the faces, white and drawn and tense. + +Move on! Move on! At 4 o'clock that Monday morning, four hours after +arrival, the landseekers who had registered were on the road back to +Chicago and all points east, many of them carrying in one hand a chunk +of sod and in the other a tuft of grass--tangible evidence that they had +been on the land. And other trains were rushing out, carrying more +people. I boarded a returning special which was packed like a freight +train full of range cattle, men and women travel-stained, tired and +hollow-eyed, but geared up by hope. + +I got off at Chamberlain. The rumors had been correct. That seething mob +at Presho was only the spray cast by the tidal wave. At Chamberlain +long, heavily loaded trains pulled in and out. People walked ten and +twelve abreast through the streets. Some 30,000 strangers besieged that +frontier town. A mob of 10,000 tried to fill out application blanks, +tried to get something to eat and drink, some place to sleep. While the +saloons were overrun, there was little drunkenness. No man could stand +at the bar long enough to get drunk. If he managed to get one drink, or +two at most, he was pushed aside before he could get another--to make +room for someone else. Move on! Move on! + +The stockmen were shocked. They had not dreamed of anything like this +invasion. Their range was going and they owned none, or little, of the +land. The old Indians looked on, silent and morose. + +Hotels, locating agents, all the First Chance and Last Chance saloons +became voluntary distributors of my postcards. It looked as though I too +were going to reap a harvest from the Rosebud Opening. + +And they continued to come! Within four days 60,000 people had made +entry, and the trains continued to pull in and out, loaded to the doors. +Unlike the Lower Brule Opening, there was no dreary standing in line for +hours, even days, at a time. The seekers passed down the line like +rapidly inspected herds. + +And among them, inevitably, came the parasites who live on +crowds--gamblers, crooks, sharks, pickpockets, and the notorious women +who followed border boom towns. The pioneer towns were outraged, and +every citizen automatically became a peace officer, shipping the crooks +out as fast as they were discovered. They wouldn't, they declared +virtuously, tolerate anything but "honest" gambling. And their own +gambling rooms continued to run twenty-four hours a day. + +In spite of precautions, not a few of the trusting folk from farms and +small towns to whom this event was a carnival affair found themselves +shorn like sheep at shearing time before they knew what was happening. +One farm boy lost not only all his money but his fine team and wagon as +well. A carnival it was, of course, in some respects. Amusement stands, +in tents or shacks, lined the streets and never closed. Warnings came by +letter to Superintendent Witten, describing crooks who were on their way +to the Rosebud. + +Motion pictures ran day and night, their ballyhoo added to the outcries +of the other barkers. And the registration never stopped. Clerks and +others employed as assistants by the government were hired in four-hour +shifts. Post offices stayed open all night. + +The government's headquarters were at Dallas, with a retinue of +officials in charge. Thus the little town at the end of the North +Western Railroad was the Mecca of that lottery. There the hysterical mob +spirit appeared. And one day in the midst of the Opening, a prairie fire +broke out, sweeping at forty miles an hour over the land the people had +come to claim, sweeping straight toward Dallas. The whole town turned +out to fight it--it had to. The Indians pitched in to help. And the +tenderfeet, including reporters and photographers from the big city +newspapers, turned fire fighters, fighting to save the town. + +In spite of their efforts the fire reached the very borders of the town, +destroying a few buildings. And at the sight of the flames the +government employees caught up the great cans which contained the +seekers' applications for the land and rushed them out of town toward +safety. That day the cans contained 80,000 applications. + +That great, black, charred area extending for miles over the prairie put +a damper on the spirits of the locating agents. But these people had +come for land, and they were not to be daunted. All over the great +reservation groups could be seen investigating the soil, digging under +the fire-swept surface, driving on into the regions of tall grass and +scattered fields bordering the Rosebud. They were hoping to win a piece +of that good earth. + +As the close of the registration drew near, the excitement was +intensified. Letters to Superintendent Witten poured in, asking him to +hold back claims for people who were unable to register. The +registration closed on October 17, 1908. No registrations would be +accepted after a certain hour. Captain Yates, assistant superintendent +of the Opening, started from O'Neill, Nebraska, bearing the applications +from that registration point. So that there would be no danger of his +not reaching the town of Dallas with the applications before the +deadline, a special train was waiting for him. In his excitement Captain +Yates rushed past the men waiting for him, crossed the track where his +special was getting up steam, and took a train going the wrong way! +Telegrams, another special train, cleared tracks--and he was finally +able to rush in with his applications at the last moment. + +Others were not so fortunate. Tired horses, a missed train connection, +some unforeseen delay, and they arrived an hour, half an hour, perhaps +only a few minutes after the registration had closed. Too late! + +Oddly enough, one of the last to register was the foreman of the U Cross +Ranch, who came galloping across the prairie at the last moment to make +his application for a homestead. And when a ranchman turned to +homesteading, that was news! + +On October 19 the Drawing began. The government saw that every +precaution must be taken to make sure of fair play; any suspicion of +illegality might cause an uprising of the mob of a hundred thousand +excited, disappointed people. + +The great cans were pried open, and the applications put onto large +platforms, where they were shuffled and mixed--symbolically enough with +rakes and hoes--for it was quarter-sections of land they were handling. + +From out the crowd applicants were invited onto the platform, and if one +succeeded in selecting his own name he would be entitled to the first +choice of land and location. Business firms, townsite companies were +making open offers of $10,000 for Claim No. 1. Then two little girls, +blindfolded, drew the sealed envelopes from the deep pile. +Superintendent Witten opened them and announced the names to the crowd +filling the huge tent where the Drawing was held. + +The hushed suspense of that Drawing was like that of a regiment waiting +to go over the top. The noisy excitement of registration was over. The +people waited, tense and breathless, for the numbers to be called. +Ironically enough, a great number of the winners had gone home. They +would be notified by mail, of course. It was largely the losers who had +waited. + +The first winner to be present as his number was called was greeted with +generous applause and cheers and demands for a speech. He was a farmer +from Oklahoma, and instead of speaking, he felt in his pockets and held +up, with a rather sheepish smile, a rabbit's foot which he had brought +with him. Press agents stood by, waiting for the outcome. Daily +newspapers printed the official list of the winners as the numbers came +out, and all over the United States people waited for the announcement +of the Rosebud's Lucky Numbers. The Rosebud had been opened up and +swallowed by the advancing wave of people westward. But there was more +land! + +Fred Farraday drove me home from Presho, weary to the bone, and content +to ride without speaking, listening to the steady clop-clop of the +horses over that quiet road on which we did not meet a human being. And +in my pocketbook $400, the proceeds from the sale of the postcards. +Something, as Ida Mary had predicted, had happened. + +Ma Wagor came in from the store. "Land sakes," she exclaimed, "you musta +been through some confusement! You look like a ghost." + +It didn't matter. "I have four hundred dollars. There will be another +hundred or so when the agents finish checking up on the card sales, and +I'll get a check from the News Service. It will pay the bills, and some +left over to help us through the winter. We've saved the claim." + +After a pause I added, "The Lower Brule seems pretty small after the +Rosebud. I'd like to go over there to start a newspaper." + +"No," said Ida Mary. "You can't do that. Your claim and your newspaper +and your job are here. After all, anyone can file on a claim. It's the +people who stay who build the country." + +[Illustration] + + + + +X + +THE HARVEST + + +I was pony-expressing the mail home one day when I saw a great eagle, +with wings spread, flying low and circling around as though ready to +swoop upon its prey. It was noon on a late fall day with no sight or +sound of life except that mammoth eagle craftily soaring. I turned off +the trail to follow its flight. It was the kind of day when one must +ride off the beaten trail, when the sun is warm, the air cool and +sparkling; even Lakota seemed like a stodgy animal riveted to the earth, +and the only proper motion was that of an eagle soaring. + +Abruptly the eagle swooped down into the coulee out of sight and came up +a hundred yards or so in front of me, carrying with it a large bulky +object. At the same instant a shot rang out, the eagle fell, and its +bulky prey came down with a thud. + +So intent was I upon the eagle that I was not prepared for what +happened. At the shot Lakota gave a leap to the right and I went off to +the left. I had no more than landed when a rider, whom I had seen lope +up out of the coulee as the eagle fell, had my horse by the bit and was +bending over me. + +"Hurt?" he asked. + +"I don't think so. Just scared," I replied as I got stiffly to my feet. +The soft, thick grass had provided a cushioned landing place and saved +my bones. + +The stranger took a canteen from his saddle and gave me a drink of +water; led the horses up to form a shade against the bright noon sun, +and bade me sit quiet while he went back to see what the eagle had +swooped down upon. + +"A young coyote, just a pup," he announced upon his return. "I'm glad I +got that fellah. They are an awful pest." It was a big bird with an +eight-foot stretch from wing tip to tip as measured by this plainsman's +rule--his hands. "They carry away lambs and attack new-born calves," he +said. "They attack people sometimes, but that is rare." + +He helped me on my horse. "All my fault. Couldn't see you from down in +the coulee when I fired at that bird. You musta just tipped the ridge +from the other side." He reached over, untied the mail bag and tied it +to his saddle. + +"You were going the other way, weren't you?" I protested. + +"No hurry. I'll go back with you first." + +"You don't know where I live, do you?" + +"Yes, I know," he said laconically. He was a young man--I took him to be +under thirty--with a sort of agile strength in every movement. Lean, +virile, his skin sunburnt and firm. He wore a flannel shirt open at the +throat, buckskin chaps, a plainsman's boots, and his sombrero was worn +at an angle. He made no attempt to be picturesque as did many of the +range riders. + +As the horses started off at an easy gallop he checked them. "Better go +slow after that shake-up," he said quietly. + +"I must hurry," I answered. "I'm late with the mail." + +"These homesteaders are always in a rush. Shore amusin'. Act like the +flood would be here tomorrow and no ark built." He spoke in a soft, +southern drawl. + +"They have to do more than build an ark," I told him. "They have to make +time count. The country is too new to accomplish anything easily." + +"Too old, you mean. These plains have been hyar too long for a little +herd of humans to make 'em over in a day." + +"We have fourteen months to do it in," I reminded him, referring to the +revised proving-up period. + +"You'll be mighty sore and stiff for a few days," he said as he laid the +mail sack down on the floor; "sorry, miss, I scared your horse," and +touching his ten-gallon hat he was gone. + +"Where did _he_ hail from?" Ma Wagor demanded from the store where she +had been watching. + +"He's not from Blue Springs, Ma." + +"I declare you are as tormentin' as an Indian when it comes to finding +out things," Ma exclaimed in disappointment. She couldn't understand +how I could have ridden any distance with the man without learning all +about his present, guessing at his past, and disposing of his future to +suit myself. People, as Ma frequently pointed out, were made to be +talked to. + +Just before sunset one day a week or so later I was sitting in the shop +when the cowboy walked in. "Got to thinkin' you might be hurt worse than +you appeared to be." He said he was top hand, had charge of a roundup +outfit over in the White River country some fifty miles away, and some +of the stock had roamed over on the reservation. Name was Lone +Star--Lone Star Len. + +And then one gray, chilly day in November, with the first feathery +snowflakes, he rode up on his cow pony to say good-by. He was leaving +the country, taking a bunch of cattle down to Texas for winter range. He +was glad to be going. "Don't see how folks can live huddled up with +somebody on every quarter-section. Homesteaders is ruinin' the country, +makin' it a tore-up place to live. It's too doggone lonesome with all +this millin' around." + +When the Brule became populated, Lone Star Len had gone into the empty +Rosebud country, "where I'm not hemmed in by people, some place where +there's a little room." Now he would be driven on--and on. And in the +spring there would be a new influx of people in our section of the +frontier. + +Meanwhile, fall had come. The plains, which had stretched to the horizon +that spring untouched by a plow, unoccupied by white men, were now +unrecognizable. A hundred thousand acres of fertile waste land had been +haltered. Hundreds of settlers had transplanted their roots into this +soil and had made it a thriving dominion. Fall rains filled the dams and +creeks. There were potatoes and other vegetables in abundance. + +Think of it! Caves full of melons, small but sweet. _The Wand_ told of +one small field that yielded twenty bushels of wheat, another twenty-two +bushels of oats, to the acre. There was fall plowing of more ground, +schools being established, Sunday schools, preparations for the winter +already in progress. + +Never had a raw primitive land seen such progress in so short a time. +And _The Wand_ had played a substantial part in this development. It was +swamped with letters of inquiry. + +Fall was roundup time on the range. The Indian lands were so +far-reaching that there were no nearby ranches, but the herds ranged +over miles of territory around us. + +And across the fence, on the unceded strip, the great herds of Scotty +Phillips's outfit roamed over his own and the Indians' holdings. Across +the plains came the ceaseless bawling of thousands of cows and calves +being separated. That wild, mad, pitiful bawling rent the air and could +be heard through the stillness of night for miles around, and the +yelling and whooping of cowboys, the stamping of cow ponies and herds, +the chanting and tom-toms of the Indians. + +And enveloping it all, the infinite plains, unmoved, undisturbed by all +that was taking place upon them. + +So the homesteaders gathered their first harvest, and the goose hung +high. There was hay--great stacks and ricks of it. Piles of yellow corn +stacked like hay in barbed-wire enclosures or in granaries. To +commemorate that first golden harvest, the pilgrims of the Lower Brule +celebrated their first Thanksgiving. + +Seeing the stacks of grain that stood ready for threshing or for feeding +in the straw, old man Husmann pointed to the field. "Mein Gott in +Himmel! Vat I tell you? Das oats made t'irty bushels an acre. And flax. +Mein Gott! She grow on raw land like hair on a hog's back. Back in Ioway +we know notings about flax for sod crop." Dakota taught the United +States that flax was the ideal sod crop. + +The average yield of oats with late and slipshod sowing had been around +fifteen bushels to the acre. Some fields of spring wheat had run fifteen +bushels. And potatoes had fairly cracked the ground open. One settler, +an experienced potato grower, had four acres that yielded 300 bushels. +_The Wand_ played that up in headlines for easterners to see. + +Late-ripened melons lay on the ground, green and yellow--watermelons, +muskmelons, golden pumpkins ready for the Thanksgiving pie. Over the +Strip women and children were gathering them in against a sudden freeze. +The reservation fairly subsisted on melons that fall. Before the harvest +the rations had been getting slim, with the settlers' money and food +supply running low. + +Women dried corn, made pumpkin butter and watermelon pickles, and put up +chokecherries. A number of them had grown in their gardens a fruit they +called ground cherries. This winter there would be baked squash and +pumpkin pie. + +So there was food for man and beast. And Scotty Phillips who owned what +was said to be the largest buffalo herd in America killed a buffalo and +divided it among the settlers, as far as it would go, to add to the +Thanksgiving cheer of the Brule. There was a genuine sense of fruition +about that first harvest. Looking back to the empty plains as they had +stretched that spring, the accomplishments of the homesteaders in one +brief summer were overwhelming. There had been nothing but the land. Now +a community had grown up, with houses and schools, and the ground had +yielded abundantly. + +In other ways our efforts had also borne fruit. There was to be a new +bridge at Cedar Creek. From the fight _The Wand_ had carried on, one +would think that we were boring a Moffat tunnel through the Great +Divide. And _The Wand_ fought a successful battle with John Bartine over +county division. It had come about when Senator Phillips came by one day +during the summer on his way from Pierre to his ranch. "Scotty" +Phillips, senator, cattleman and business man, was one of the Dakotas' +most influential citizens. A heavyset man he was, with an unconscious +dignity and a strong, kindly face; a squaw man--his wife was a +full-blooded Indian who had retained many of her tribal habits. One day +one would see the Senator ride past in his big automobile, and the next +day his wife would go by, riding on the floor of the wagon on the way to +the reservation to visit her relatives. + +"I stopped in to see if you wanted to go to the county division meeting +tomorrow at Presho," Senator Phillips said. "It's a rather important +matter to the settlers. _The Wand_ will represent those of the Lower +Brule, of course." + +What was county division? We set out the next morning to find out. The +county, it appeared, was becoming so thickly settled that the people of +the western part wanted it divided, with a county seat of their own. We +learned that Lyman County covered approximately 2500 square miles and +the settlers of the extreme western part were 110 miles from the county +seat, with no means of transportation. It sounded reasonable enough, and +_The Wand_ backed those who wanted county division. + +The speaker for that little meeting was a slight and unassuming young +man who was greeted with cheers. + +"Who is he?" I asked Senator Phillips. + +"Why that," he said, "is John Bartine!" + +John Bartine was one of the most noted and romantic figures of the +western plains. He had come west with a few law books packed in his +trunk and no money, a young tenderfoot lawyer. He almost starved waiting +for a case. There were no law cases, no real legal difficulties but +cattle rustling, and nothing, apparently, that an inexperienced young +easterner could do about that. But he persuaded stockmen who were being +wiped out by the depredations of the rustlers to let him take their +cases against these outlaw gangs. He had himself elected judge so that +he could convict the thieves. And he had convicted them right and left +until a band of rustlers burned down the courthouse in retaliation. But +he kept on fighting, at the risk of his own life, until at last that +part of the country became safe for the cattlemen. + +After we had heard him talk we discovered that the county division +problem was not as simple as it appeared at first. It wasn't merely a +problem of dividing territory; division would increase the taxes, the +non-divisionists said. + +We hadn't thought of that. One did not pay taxes on the land, of course, +until he got his deed, but there were other taxes to be paid, and the +homesteaders felt they were developing resources for the nation at their +own expense. + +I did not know how to carry on a campaign like that, but _The Wand_ put +facts and figures before the settlers, to bring the situation clearly +before them and let them do the deciding. When a frontier newspaper ran +out of something to do, it could always enter a county division fight, +as there were always counties to be divided as soon as they were settled +up, many of them larger than our smaller New England States. And, so far +as my own district was concerned, I had won this first battle with Judge +Bartine. But the fight against the measure was so strong that Lyman +County was not divided for several years. + +Although the settlers had not been on the Brule long enough to vote, +office seekers kept coming through, asking the indorsement of _The +Wand_. "It's no wonder the men we elect to run things make such a fizzle +when they get into office," Ma Wagor snorted one day with impatience; +"they wear themselves plumb out getting there." + +Old Porcupine Bear, wise man and prophet, warned us that it would be a +hard winter, and the plainsmen agreed that it was a humdinger. I asked +the wise old Indian how he could foretell the winter. "By food on shrub +and tree," he said, "heap plenty; the heavy coat of the animals; the +bear and squirrel storing heap much for eat, and the bear he get ready +go sleep early." And so the winter came on us. + +The dams froze over and the Strip was a great white expanse which +appeared level at first sight but was beautifully undulating. Now there +was a shack on every quarter-section, which appeared black in relief +against the white. The atmosphere did curious things to them. Sometimes +they looked like small dry-goods boxes in the distance, sometimes they +seemed to have moved up to the very door. A coyote off a mile or two, or +a bunch of antelope running along a ridge in the distance, appeared to +be just across the trail. + +In the mornings we cut a hole in the ice of our dam to dip out the water +for household use, and then led the livestock down to drink. And at +night we went skating on the larger dams, with the stars so large and +near it seemed one could reach up and touch them, and no sound on the +sleeping prairie but the howling of a pack of wolves down in the next +draw. + +But there were tracks on the white floor of earth, tracks of the living +things which inhabit the silent areas and which had stealthily traveled +across the plains, sometimes tracks of the larger wild beasts, and +everywhere jack rabbits squatted deep in the snow. + +The majority of the settlers wintered in little paper-shell hovels, of +single thin board walls, the boards often sprung apart and cracked by +the dry winds; a thin layer of tar paper outside and a layer of building +paper on the inside, which as a rule was stretched across the studding +to provide insulation between the wall and lining. Some of these paper +linings were thin and light, the average settler having to buy the +cheapest grade he could find. + +We got along fairly well unless the wind blew the tar paper off. There +was not a tree, not a weather-break of any kind for protection. +Sometimes the wind, coming in a clean sweep, would riddle the tar paper +and take it in great sheets across the prairie so fast no one could +catch up with it. The covering on our shack had seen its best days and +went ripping off at the least provocation. With plenty of fuel one could +get along fairly well unless the tar paper was torn off in strips, +leaving the cracks and knotholes open. Then we had to stop up the holes +with anything we had, and patch the paper as best we could. + +We had our piano out there that winter and Ida Mary bought a heating +stove for the front room. "The Ammons girls are riding high," some of +the settlers said good-naturedly. But when the stove, the cheapest +listed in the mail-order catalog, arrived, Ida Mary cried with +disappointment and then began to laugh. It was so small we could not +tell whether it was a round heater or a bulge in the stovepipe. With it +the temperature of the room ran automatically from roasting to freezing +point unless one kept stoking in fuel. + +In some ways Ida Mary and I remained objects of curiosity. Occasionally +we saw indications of it. There had been a hot Sunday afternoon during +the summer when Ida Mary and I were sitting in the open door of the +shack. A strange cowboy rode up to the door. "Is this the place where +the newspaper and everything is?" + +We told him that it was. He threw one leg over the saddlehorn and fanned +himself with his sombrero, looking us over, gaudy in a red and black +checkered shirt, fringed leather chaps and bright green neckerchief. + +"Well, you ain't the ones I heard about that's runnin' it, are you?" He +seemed puzzled. + +Yes, we were the ones. Anything he wanted? + +"No. I'm a new wrangler over on Bad Horse creek--I come from Montana. +Montana Joe, they call me. And a bunch of the punchers was just a +wondering what you looked like; wanted me to come over and find out," he +admitted candidly. + +"But," and he stared disapprovingly at our slippered feet, "them don't +look like range hoofs to me. They look like Ramblin' Rosie's." Ramblin' +Rosie, it appeared, was a notorious dance-hall girl. + +And about that time a Chicago newspaper came out, carrying a big +headline story, complete with drawings, about our adventures in taming +the frontier. It pictured Ida Mary and me with chaps and six-shooters; +running claim-jumpers off our land and fighting Indians practically +single-handed, plowing the land in overalls, two large, buxom, hardy +girls. In fact, it had us shooting and tearing up the West in general. A +friend sent us a copy and we laughed over it hysterically, marveling at +this transformation of two girls who were both as timid as field mice, +into amazons. We hid it quickly so that no one could see it, and forgot +about it until long afterwards. + +But we weren't the only girls on the plains with problems. A surprising +number of homesteaders were girls who had come alone. They had a +purpose in being there. With the proceeds of a homestead they could +finish their education or go into business. + +Many of these girls came from sheltered homes and settled out in the +wilderness of plains, living alone in little isolated shanties out of +reach of human aid in case of illness or other emergency. They had no +telephones or other means of communication. Some of them had no means of +transportation, walking miles to a neighbor in order to send to town for +a little food or fuel, sometimes carrying buckets of water a mile or two +over the plains. In winter they were marooned for days and nights at a +stretch without a human being to whom they could speak, and nothing but +the bloodcurdling cry of coyotes at night to keep them company. + +They tried to prepare themselves for any situation so that they would +neither starve nor freeze; with books and papers to read and the daily +grinding routine of work to be done on every homestead, where each job +required the effort and time of ten in modern surroundings, they managed +to be contented. But it took courage. + +In spite of the rigors of the winter, the settlers made merry. Our piano +was hauled all over the Strip for entertainments. Barring storms or +other obstacles, it was brought home the next day, perhaps not quite as +good as when it went, but a piano scuffed or off-tune did not matter +compared to the pleasure Ida Mary had that winter, going to parties and +dancing. I did not always go along; my strength didn't seem to stretch +far enough. + +Sometimes a group of homesteaders would drive up to the settlement +about sundown in a big bobsled behind four horses, the sled filled with +hay, heavy blankets and hot bricks. We would shut up shop and the whole +staff would crowd into the sled, Imbert tucking Ida Mary in warm and +snug. + +On cold winter evenings, when a gray-white pall encircled the earth like +a mantle of desolation, three or four of the girls were likely to ride +up, each with a bag of cooked food, to spend the night. One never waited +to be invited to a friend's house, but it was a custom of the homestead +country to take along one's own grub or run the risk of going hungry. It +might be the time when the flour barrel was empty. So our guests would +bring a jar of baked beans, a pan of fresh rolls, potato salad or a +dried-apple pie; and possibly a jack rabbit ready baked. Jack rabbit was +the main kind of fresh meat, with grouse in season. We had not as yet +been reduced to eating prairie dog as the Indians did. + +"Breaking winter quarantine," the girls would announce as they rode up. + +Late in the evening we brought in the ladder, opened up the small square +hole in the ceiling, and our guests ascended to the attic. On the floor +next to the hole was a mattress made of clean, sweet, prairie hay. Our +guest climbed the ladder, sat on the edge of the mattress, feet dangling +down through the cubbyhole until she undressed, and then tumbled over +onto the bed. The attic was entirely too low to attempt a standing +posture. + +On one such night with three girls stowed away in the attic, we lay in +bed singing. + +"Hello, hello there," came an urgent call. + +We peered through the frosted window, trying to see through the driving +snow, and made out a man on horseback. + +"I'm on my way to Ft. Pierre and I am lost! I am trying to reach the +Cedar Creek settlement for the night." + +"You can't make it, stranger, if you don't know the country," Ida Mary +called out. + +"Well, what have I struck?" he asked, perplexed. + +"A trading post." + +"A trading post! It sounded like an opera house." + +"We don't know who you are," Ida Mary called through the thin wall of +the shack, "but you can't get on tonight in this snow. Tie your horse in +the hayshed and we will fix you a bed in the store." + +Next morning the girls rolled down the ladder one at a time, clothes in +hand, to dress by the toy stove while Ida Mary and I started the wheels +of industry rolling. When breakfast was ready we called in our strange +guest. + +When he asked for his bill we told him we were not running public +lodgings but that we took in strangers when it was dangerous for them to +go on. + +After that Ida Mary always left a lamp burning low in the kitchen +window, and the little print shop, set on the high tableland, served as +a beacon for travelers who were lost on the plains. + +Many a night stranded strangers sought shelter at the Ammons settlement. +No other trading center in the middle of a reservation was run by girls, +so strangers took it for granted that there were men about, or if they +knew we were alone they did not think of our being unarmed in that +country where guns had been the law. + +Once we decided we should have a watchdog around. Ida Mary traded a +bright scarf and some cigarettes for two Indian mongrels. They were lean +and lopeared and starved. The only way they ever would halt an intruder +was by his falling down over them, not knowing they were there. And they +swallowed food like alligators. Van Leshout named them "Eat" and +"Sleep." In indignation Ida Mary returned them to their owners. What was +the matter, they wanted to know. "No barkum, no bitem," Ida Mary +explained, and she tied them firmly to the back of the first Indian +wagon headed for the Indian settlement and gave up the idea of a dog for +protection. + +However, women were probably safer in the homestead section than in any +other part of the country. Women had been scarce there, and they met +with invariable respect wherever they went; it was practically unheard +of for a solitary woman to be molested in any fashion. + +Both men and women came through the Strip that winter looking for +friends or relatives who had claims, or in quest of land. Often they +could get no farther than the print shop by nightfall. And never was any +such person refused food or shelter. + +Ida Mary went around that winter with one of the city boys, though she +still saw Imbert. "We take each other too much for granted," she said. +"I've been dependent upon him for companionship and diversion and help +in many ways. For his sake and mine I must know that it's more than +that." + +I cannot recall that we ever planned ahead of proving up on the claim. +We measured life by proving-up time. Only the dirt farmers planned +ahead. And Ma Wagor--who was an inveterate matchmaker. I can see her +now, driving across the plains, holding her head as high as that of the +spotted pony she drove--a pony which, though blind as a bat, held its +head in the air like a giraffe. + +Often she would stay with us at night. "Pa won't mind. He's got plenty +of biscuit left," she would say; "the cow give two gallons of milk +today, and he's got _The Wand_ and the Blue Springs paper to read--" + +But sometimes, when business had kept her from home for two or three +days, or we needed her, she would gaze out of the window, watching for +him. + +And it got colder. Getting the mail back and forth to the stage line +became a major problem. "It appears to me," said Ma, "like a post office +is as pestiferous a job as a newspaper." But Ma never admitted anything +pestiferous about running the store. + +The post office receipts picked up. Mail bags were jammed with letters +written by the settlers through long, lonely evenings. The profits +helped to pull us through as the newspaper business slumped to almost +nothing during the "holing-in" period. The financial operations of the +trading post, in fact, rose and fell like a Wall Street market. + +We struggled through sharp wintry squalls to the stage line with the +laden sacks of mail, and realized that when the winter really set in we +would never be able to make it. So Dave Dykstra was appointed +mail-carrier. He was a homesteader who taught the McClure school that +winter, a slim, round-shouldered chap, rather frail in physique. Dave +would never set the world on fire, but he would keep it going around +regularly. Blizzard, rain or sun, he came to the post office every +morning those short winter days before it was light. At night Ida Mary, +as postmistress, would lock the mail sack and carry it into the cabin. +In the morning we would hear Dave's sharp-shod horse striking the +hard-frozen ground, and one of us would leap to the icy floor, wrap up +in a heavy blanket, stick our feet into sheep-lined moccasins (some +nights we slept in them), open the door a foot or so, and hold out the +mail bag. Dave would grab it on the run. + +One who has never tried it has no idea what that feat meant in a shell +of a hut with the temperature ten or twenty degrees below zero, freezing +one's breath in the performance. We used to hope Dave would oversleep, +or that his coffee would fail to boil so that we might have a few more +moments to sleep. + +The Indians were always underfoot. The great cold did not keep them +away. Men sauntered around, trading, loafing. Women sat on the floor, +papooses on their backs, beadwork in hand. Our trade was extended to +Indian shawls, blankets, moccasins and furs, for which the post found +ready and profitable markets. Ida Mary became an adept at Indian +trading. By that time we had a smattering of the Sioux language, +although we were never really expert at it. It did not require much to +trade with the Indians. + +Often they turned their horses loose, built campfires and spent the day. +They rolled a prairie dog in the wet earth, roasted it in the fire, and +invited us to eat. They brought us _shanka_, dog meat. There was a time +when we actually swallowed it because we were afraid to refuse. But now +we shook our heads. + +It was wood-hauling season, and women came sitting flat on the back end +of loads. Among the Indian women were a few with primitive intelligence +and wisdom. Others were morose and taciturn. + +Even during the enforced lull of the deep winter there seemed to be much +to do, and the routine duties of the post office and _The Wand_ appeared +to require most of our time. The opportunity to study, to know the +Sioux, was at hand, but we never took advantage of it; like most people, +we were too busy with the little things to see the possibilities around +us. Perhaps Alexander Van Leshout, who made a success of his Indian art, +came to know these people better than any of us. But he was an +artist--and therefore he refused to let the little things clutter up his +life and take his attention from the one thing that was important to +him--seeing clearly and honestly the world about him. + +When the Indians got their government pay, they celebrated with a buying +spree. They were lavish buyers as long as they had a cent, and they +bought the goods that had the most alluring picture on can or box. Ida +Mary would hold up something of staple quality, but they would shake +their heads and turn to something gaudily wrapped. + +Old Two-Hawk and a few others paid their yearly subscriptions to _The +Wand_ every time they got their government allotment. "Your subscription +is already paid," I would explain, but they would shake their heads and +mutter. This was their newspaper, too, the thing that had signs and +their own names printed on a machine. They had the right to trade +beadwork or another dollar for it any time they liked. + +Our subscription list looked like a Sioux directory with such names as +Julia Lame Walking Eagle, Maggie Shoots at Head, Afraid of His Horses, +Paul Owns the Fire, and his son, Owns the Fire. + +Our daily visitors were the rank and file of the tribe, although famous +old warriors and medicine men came now and then. The high rulers of the +Brule, who were among the most reserved and intelligent of all American +Indians, did not come in this manner. But any negotiations between the +Brule whites and the Brule red men were made with their Chief and +Council. A few of the Indian warriors and chiefs always would hate the +whites, but the rank and file of the Brules were enjoying the strange +new life about them. While they saw no advantage in an active life for +themselves, they found activity in others highly entertaining. + +The weather with its dry cold was sometimes deceptive. For several days +we had had urgent business to attend to in Presho, but the weather +prohibited the trip. One morning we awoke to see the sun brilliant on +the snow. + +A lovely day for the long trip, and we hitched the team to a light buggy +so that we might wrap up better. The farther we drove the colder we +became. There was no warmth in that dazzling sun. We huddled down as +near as possible to the hot bricks. We took turns driving, one of us +wrapped up, head and ears beneath the heavy robes. + +On that whole journey we did not meet a soul. We were frozen stiff and +had to have our hands thawed out in cold water when we reached Presho. + +A homesteader living ten miles out stepped into the land office while we +were there. + +"Don't you girls know enough to stay at home on a day like this? I +didn't dare attempt it until I saw you go by. I said to the family, +'There go the Ammons girls,' so I hitched up and started. And here it is +28 below zero." + +The land commissioner said, "Well, you can't depend on the Ammons girls +as a thermometer." + +And the storms came. + +[Illustration] + + + +XI + +THE BIG BLIZZARD + + +Several miles from Ammons a bachelor gave a venison dinner on his claim +to which a little group of us had gone. About noon it clouded up and no +barometer was needed to tell us that a big storm was on the way. As soon +as we had eaten we started home. + +The sky was ominous. Antelope went fleeting by; a little herd of horses, +heads high, went snorting over the prairie. Coyotes and rabbits were +running to shelter and a drove of cattle belonging to the Phillips ranch +were on a stampede. One could hear them bawling madly. + +The guests had gone to the dinner together in a big wagon and were +delivered to their respective shacks on the way back. We raced the +horses ahead of the storm for a mile or two, but it was upon us by the +time we reached Margaret Houlihan's. As we drove on up the draw to the +settlement we saw the chimney of our cabin, consisting of a joint of +stovepipe (the regulation chimney in this country) go flying across the +prairie. And there was not an extra joint of pipe on the place--probably +not one on the reservation, which meant that we would not be able to +build a fire in the house until we could go to Presho or the state +capital for a joint. + +"Hey, whata you goin' to do," exclaimed the young neighbor boy who had +taken us to the dinner. "You can't live in your shack through the storm +that's comin' without a fire." + +"We have a monkey-stove in the store," Ida Mary told him. He shook his +head, but before hurrying home he scooped up a few buckets of coal we +had on hand and took it into the store, and watered and fed the horses, +knowing we might not be able to reach them until the blizzard had +passed. "That all the fuel you got?" he demanded. + +"A settler went to town this morning to get coal for us." + +"But he can't get back until the storm is over. How you goin' to manage? +No fire in your shack? No fuel for the monkey-stove?" + +"We'll be all right," we assured him. He was not convinced, but he dared +not linger. He had to get home while he could still find the way. + +In thirty minutes we were completely shut in by the lashing force of +wind and snow that swept across the plains in a blinding rage. Ma Wagor +and Kathryn, our typesetter, had gone home and we were alone, Ida Mary +and I. We built up a hot fire in the monkey-stove, which sat in the +middle of the store building and was used for heating both store and +print shop. From canned goods on the shelf, baked beans and corned beef, +we prepared a sketchy supper, and ate on the counter. + +Although it had been without heat only a few hours, the shack was +already like an iceberg, and we were shaking with cold by the time we +managed to drag the couch out of it, with a mighty effort, and into the +store. It was warm there, and we lay safe under warm blankets listening +tranquilly to the storm hurling its strength furiously against the frail +defense of the little store, the shriek of the wind, the beating of the +snow on the roof. It must be horrible to be out in it, we thought, +pleasantly aware of protection and warmth and safety. + +Next morning there was a real old-time blizzard raging. We could barely +see the outline of the shack ten feet from the store; the rest of the +world was blotted out and the wind roared like an incoming tide as the +snow and sleet pelted like shot on the low roof. A primeval force drove +the storm before it. All over the plains people were hemmed in tar-paper +shacks, the world diminished for them to the dimensions of their +thin-walled houses, as alone as though each were the only dweller on the +prairie. + +The team, Fan and Bill, and Lakota were the only horses tied up in the +hay barn. They could reach the hay and eat snow for water. There would +be plenty of snow. Our menagerie of Indian plugs, including Pinto, was +loose on the plains; but they were accustomed to battling storms in the +open and there were haystacks now to provide food and shelter. +Somewhere in the open they were standing, huddled together, facing the +onslaught of the storm. + +The west end wall of the flimsy ell print shop, exposed to the full +force of the storm, was swaying in. Together we dragged forth some boxes +of canned goods, heavy cans of lard and molasses, and propped it with +their weight. We watched anxiously for a time, but the heavy boxes +seemed to provide sufficient support. There were no further signs of the +wall collapsing. + +By evening the storm had gripped the plains like a demon of wrath. We +had been rather enjoying this seclusion--no Indians. And--we chuckled +like a victim of persecution whose persecutor had been overtaken--there +would be no mail carrier in the morning. No mail to be taken care of. +Exultant, we tried to figure how many days Dave would be blockaded and +we would be spared that morning penance of handing the mail sack out +from the icy shack. + +On the second morning the storm was still raging, with the snow two feet +deep between the store and the barn. The west wall still held, and +between glances at it we stoked the monkey-stove. Stoked it while the +coal dwindled. When the last chunk had been swallowed up we hunted +around for something else to burn. Newspapers, cartons, wooden +boxes--everything we could find went into the voracious maw of the +stove. + +We tended it as religiously as priestesses at an altar, or as primitive +men building up a fire to keep off wild animals. Only under such +conditions does one fully experience that elemental worship of fire. It +literally meant life to us. + +Searching for something else we could burn, something else to keep that +flame going even a little while longer, that pleasant glow which had +come with our sense of protection gradually disappeared. The blizzard +was not merely a gigantic spectacle put on by nature for our +entertainment, it was a menace, to be kept at bay only by constant +alertness on our part. + +Now there was nothing left in the store that we could burn! + +"The Indians brought some fence posts," Ida Mary recalled. "They are +back of the barn where they unloaded them. We'll have to get them." + +We put on our coats, pulled fur caps close down around our faces and +ears, wrapped gunny sacks around our feet and legs over high arctics to +serve as snowshoes. It took our combined strength to push the door open +against the storm. Before we could close it behind us, snow had swept +into the store and was making little mounds. Clinging to each other we +plowed our way through the loose snow to the fence posts and dragged in +a few, making two trips, breaking a trail with them as we went. The +wind-blown snow cut our faces like points of steel. Hearing the restless +whinny of the horses, we stopped to untie them. They would not go far +from shelter. + +Naturally the fence posts were much too long to go into the stove, and +we had no way of chopping them up. So we lifted up a cap of the two-hole +stove and stuck one end of a post into the fire, propped the other end +up against the counter, and fed the fire by automatic control. When one +post burned down to the end, we stuck in another. It seemed to us that +they burned awfully fast, and that the store was getting colder and +colder. We put on our heavy coats for warmth and finally our overshoes. + +Storm or no storm, however, _The Wand_ had to be printed. We pulled the +type-case into the store, close to the stove. In those heavy coats and +overshoes we went to work on the newspaper--and that issue was one of +the best we ever published. In those two long nights, shut off from all +the world, we talked and planned. We dared not take the risk of going to +bed. If we should sleep and let the fire go out, we were apt to freeze, +so we huddled around the stove, punching fence posts down into the fire, +watching the blaze flicker. + +At least there was time to look ahead, time to think, time to weigh what +we had done and what we wanted to do. So that week _The Wand_ came out +with ideas for cooperative action that were an innovation in the +development of new lands, a banded strength for the homesteader's +protection. It seemed logical and simple and inevitable to me then--as +it does now. "Banded together as friends"--the Indian meaning of +Lakota--was the underlying theme of what I wanted to tell the +homesteaders. The strength and the potentialities of one settler counted +for little, but--banded together! + +Our enthusiasm in planning and talking carried us through most of that +day. But toward evening there were more immediate problems. It began to +turn bitter cold. The very air was freezing up. It was no longer +snowing, but the wind had picked up the snow and whirled it over the +prairie into high drifts that in places covered up the barbed-wire +fences against which it piled. + +And under the piling snow our fuel lay buried; a long windrow drift had +piled high between the posts and the shop. And the shop was growing +colder and colder. Even with the heavy coats and overshoes we stamped +our feet to keep out the chill and huddled over the dying fire. It would +soon be freezing cold in the store, as cold as the icy shack which we +had abandoned. No wonder people worshiped fire! + +There was no sense of snug protection against the storm now. It seemed +to have invaded the store, although the west wall still held. "We'll +have to go somewhere for warmth," Ida Mary decided. Margaret's shack was +the nearest, but even so we knew the grave risk we took of perishing on +the way there. Action, however, is nearly always easier than inaction. A +time or two we stuck our heads out of the door and the cold fairly froze +our breath. Once I went outside, and when I tried to get back into the +shack the wind, sucking between the few buildings, blew me back as +though an iron hand held me. + +"If we stay here," we thought, "we may be walled in by morning by the +fast-drifting snow." So we decided on Margaret's, a quarter-mile down +the draw. The chief difficulty was that the trip must be made against +the storm, and we did not know whether we could make it or not. We each +wrapped up tightly in a heavy Indian shawl, tied ourselves together with +a light blanket, picked up the scoop shovel, and started down the buried +trail. + +Out through the side door and the narrow space between the buildings +which had been protected against the drifts, we made our way; then, +facing the full strength of the storm, we dug our way, shoveling as we +went, through a drift that had piled in front of the buildings, and on +through the deep level of snow. + +It was getting dark now--the sudden steel-gray that envelops the plains +early on a winter night and closes in around the white stretches, +holding them in a vise. The only sign of life in the whole blanketed +world was the faint glimmer of light in Margaret's window. We knew now +how the light in the print shop must have looked many a night to +strangers lost on the prairie in a storm. + +Such lightweights were we that, at every step we took, the wind blew us +back; we used all our force, pushing against that heavy wall of wind, +until we struck drifts that almost buried us. For all our clumsy tying, +the blanket held us together or we would have lost each other. We could +not speak, because if we so much as parted our lips they seemed to +freeze to our teeth, and the cold wind rasped in our throats and lungs +as though we had been running for a very long time. + +Had the snow been tightly packed we could never have dug our way out of +some of the drifts. But it had been picked up and swirled around so much +by the wind that it was loose and light. It blew up off the ground, +lashed against our faces like sharp knives, and blinded us. "How +horrible," we had thought from the shelter of the store, "to be out in +the storm." But we hadn't tasted then the malignant fury of the thing, +battling with us for every step we made. + +At last we turned and walked backwards, resting on the shovel handle for +fear we would fall from exhaustion. Every few steps we looked around to +see whether we were still going in a straight line toward the dim light +that shone like a frosted glimmer from the tiny shack which now looked +like a dark blur. We realized that if we were to swerve a few feet in +either direction, so that we lost sight of the lamp, we would not find +Margaret's shack that night. + +It was quite dark now, and no sound on the prairie but the triumphant +howl of the wind and the dry crunch of our overshoes on the snow, +slipping, stumbling. We were pushing ourselves on, but our feet were so +numb it was almost impossible to walk. We had been doing it for hours, +it seemed; we had always been fighting our way through the deep snow. +The store we had left seemed as unreal as though we had never known its +protection. + +Ida Mary, still walking backwards, stumbled and fell. She had struck +Margaret's shack. I pushed against the door, too numb to turn the knob. + +The door opened and Margaret, with a cry, pulled us in. Swiftly she +unbundled us, taking care not to bring us near the fire. She took off +our gloves and overshoes, then ran to the door and scooped up a basin of +snow for our numb hands and feet, snow which felt curiously warm and +comforting. While the snow drew out the frost, she hastened about, +making strong, hot tea. + +While we drank the tea and felt warmth slowly creeping over us, "Why on +earth did you attempt to come here on a night like this?" she demanded. +"You might have frozen to death." + +"We were out of fuel," we told her. "We had to take the chance." + +The shack was cheerful and warm. There was a hot supper and fuel enough +to last through the storm. Only a refuge for which one has fought as Ida +Mary and I fought to reach that tar-paper shack could seem as warm and +safe as Margaret's shack seemed to us that night. In a numb, delicious +lethargy we sat around the stove, too tired and contented to move. + +Safe from the fury of the wind, we listened to it raging about the cabin +as though cheated of its victims. And then, toward midnight, it died +away. There was a hush as though the night were holding its breath, and +then the sky cleared, the stars came out. + +The next day Margaret's brother took up a sack of coal on his bronco, so +we made our way back over the trail we had broken the night before, to +the store, and he built a fire for us. Later that same morning Chris +rode over with a sack of coal tied on behind the saddle. + +"Yoost in case you should run out once," he said as he brought it in. +"My wife she bane uneasy when she see no light last night." + +When we told him what had happened he shook his head in concern and went +to work. He scooped a path to the barn and attended to the horses. From +under the snow he got some fence posts which he chopped up while Charlie +excavated an opening to the front door--in case anyone should be mad +enough to try to reach the store on a day like that. + +About noon a cowboy came fighting his way through the drifts in search +of lost cattle which the storm must have driven in this direction--the +only soul who dared to cross the plains that day. + +It was Sourdough. I never knew his real name. I doubt if those with or +for whom he worked knew. + +He stopped at the print shop to rest his horse, which was wringing wet +with sweat, though the day was piercing cold. He threw the saddle +blanket over the horse and came in. + +We begged him to go and find out whether or not the Wagors were all +right. After Ida Mary and I had got straightened out, it occurred to us +that they had sent in their order for coal with ours. Like us they might +be imprisoned in their shack and low on fuel; but, unlike us, there +would be no question of their battling their way across the prairie to +shelter. + +"Sufferin' sinners," grumbled Sourdough. "Think I got time to fool +around with homesteaders when a bunch of critters is maybe dead or +starvin' to death? Godamighty!" + +We argued and insisted, telling him that he knew better how to break a +trail than the tenderfeet around here, that his horse was better trained +for it. + +"This country warn't made for no humans--just Indians and rattlesnakes +and cowhands is all it was intended for." + +I agreed with him. I was ready to agree with anything he might say if he +would only go to the Wagors' shack. At last, after we had exhausted all +the wiles and arts of persuasion at our command, Ida Mary told him that, +come to think of it, she had seen a bunch of cattle drifting in the +direction of the Wagor claim. He started out, saying he might stop in +if he happened to drift by and it "come handy." + +Sourdough found the Wagors covered up in bed. They had been in bed two +days and three nights. The fuel had given out, as we had feared--cow +chips and all. They had burned hay until the drifts became so high and +the stack so deeply covered that the poor old man could no longer get to +it. The cow and the blind horse had barely enough feed left to keep +alive. + +Not daring to burn the last bit of hay or newspaper--which would not +have warmed the house anyhow--the old couple had gone to bed, piling +over them everything that could conceivably shut out that penetrating +dead cold, getting up just long enough to boil coffee, fry a little +bacon and thaw out the bread. They dipped up snow at the door and melted +it for water. The bread had run out, and the last scrap of fuel. They +tore down the kitchen shelf, chopped it up, and the last piece of it had +gone for a flame to make the morning coffee. The little snugly built +shack was freezing cold. A glass jar of milk in the kitchen had frozen +so hard that it broke the jar. + +When Sourdough walked in and learned the situation he bellowed, +"Sufferin' sinners!" and tore out like a mad steer. He cut into the +haystack, cut up a few posts from the corral fence and made a fire--and +when a range rider makes a fire it burns like a conflagration. + +He fed the two dumb animals (meaning the cow and horse, he explained, +though they weren't half as dumb as anyone who would go homesteading) +while Ma stirred up some corn cakes and made coffee for them all. Milk +the cow? What the hell did they think he was, a calf? Sourdough, like +most cowboys, had never milked a cow. The only milk he ever used came +out of a can. + +Mid-afternoon he reported. When we wondered what could be done next, he +said carelessly, "Godamighty! Let 'em stay in bed. If they freeze to +death it will serve 'em right for comin' out here." + +Grumbling, ranting on, he slammed the door and strode out to the barn, +saddled Bill--the stronger horse of the brown team--and led him to the +door. + +"What are you going to do?" I demanded. + +"Ride this no-count plug of yourn to hunt them critters. You never saw a +bunch goin' that way," he accused Ida Mary. She smiled at the ruse she +had used to start him out. + +He jumped on Bill, leading his cow pony behind--a range rider knows how +to conserve a horse's strength--and followed the trail he had broken, +straight back toward the Wagor shack. Now we knew. He was going after Ma +and Pa. They would be warm and nourished, with strength for the trip, +and good old Bill could carry them both. + +A few days later when we asked Ma about the harrowing experience she +laughed and said, "Oh, it wasn't so bad. Pa and I talked over our whole +life in those three days, telling each other about our young days; Pa +telling me about some girls he used to spark that I never woulda heard +about if it hadn't been for that blizzard.... I told him about my first +husband ... he's the one who left me the ant-tic broach ... we did get +pretty cold toward the last. + +"I burned up every old mail-order catalog I had saved. I always told Pa +they would come in handy.... What? Afraid we would freeze to death? +Well, we woulda gone together." + + * * * * * + +The blizzard was over, but the snow lay deep all over the prairie and +the great cold lasted so that few of the settlers ventured outside their +shacks. For days there was no hauling done. The trails that had been +worn since spring were buried deep and the drifts were treacherous. +There were many homesteaders over the Reservation who were running out +of fuel. + +Now, if ever, was a time for cooperation, and _The Wand_ printed a list +of those who could spare fuel; they would share with those in need of +it. They brought what they could to the settlement and pooled it, +chopping up all the poles and posts they could find into stovewood, and +taking home small loads to tide them over. + +With the fury of that storm, one of the hardest blizzards the frontier +had experienced, the winter spent itself. Under the soft warm breath of +a chinook the snow disappeared like magic, melting into the soil, +preparing it for the onslaught of the plow. + +[Illustration] + + + +XII + +A NEW AMERICA + + +Ida Mary and I came through the winter stronger than we had ever been +before, but we welcomed the spring with grateful hearts. Only poets can +describe the electric, sweet quality of spring, but only the young, as +we were young that year, receive the full impact of its beauty. The +deep, cloudless blue of western skies, the vivid colors after the dead +white of winter, were fresh revelations, as though we had never known +them before. + +One spring day I was making up the paper, while the Christophersons' +little tow-headed boy watched me. + +"Are you going to be a printer when you grow up, Heine?" + +"Nope. I don't want no little types," he replied. "I like traction +machines better--they go. My Pa's got one." + +A tractor coming on the Strip! I ran to tell Ida Mary. + +As it chugged and caterpillared from town through the Reservation, Chris +Christopherson's tractor caused almost as much excitement as the first +steamship up the Hudson. Men, women and children gathered about and +stared wide-eyed at the new machine as its row of plows cut through the +stubborn sod like a mighty conqueror. He was plowing a hundred acres. + +A few cattlemen from the open country rode into the Strip to see it and +bowed their heads to this evidence of the coming of agriculture. + +Old Ivar Eagleheart, Two-Hawk, and others of the Indian braves looked +on. This mystic power sealed their fate. It was in a last desperate +attempt to save territory for his race that an old Indian chief had +stood indomitable, contending with the White Fathers. "Wherever you find +a Sioux grave, that land is ours!" In this plowing up of the Indians' +hunting grounds no one thought of Sioux graves. + +The McClure homesteaders had filed on their claims, proved up and gone, +many of them, leaving empty shacks. Here on the Strip were increasing +signs of permanency. Many Brule settlers went back home and disposed of +whatever property they had in order to make permanent improvements on +their claims. Other machinery came. Within a radius of three miles of +Ammons three tractors ran all day. All night one could see their bright +headlights moving and hear their engines chug-chugging over the dark +plain, turning under the bluebells and anemones as they went, and the +tall grass where buffalo had ranged. Fragrant scent of wild flowers +blended with the pungent odor of new-turned earth and floated across the +plain. When those owning tractors got through breaking for themselves +they turned over sod for other settlers. + +In every direction on the Brule and all over the plains which had been +settled, teams went up and down, making a black and green checkerboard +of the prairie. + +Ida Mary and I had Chris break and sow sixty acres of our land to flax. +It cost $300, and we again stretched our credit to the breaking point to +borrow the money. Try out fifteen or twenty acres first? Not we! If we +had a good crop it would pay for the land. + +The winners in the Rosebud Drawing were swarming onto their claims, +moving their families and immigrant goods in a continuous stream. Towns +for many miles around were deluged with trade. It was estimated that the +Rosebud alone would add 25,000 new people to the West, with the +settlers' families, tradesmen and others whom the Rosebud development +would bring. A few groups of settlers from Chicago and other cities came +with a fanfare of adventure new to the homestead country. But many +stolid, well-equipped farmers, too, went into Tripp County, in which the +Rosebud lay. + +I got a letter from the Chicago reporter saying: "I did not draw a Lucky +Number, but I came in on the second series to take the place of those +who dropped out. Am out on my land and feeling better. It was sporting +of you to offer to find a claim for me. Things are moving fast on the +Rosebud." + +Word spread that homesteaders were flocking farther west in Dakota--to +the Black Hills--and on to the vast Northwest. That inexorable tide was +pressing on, taking up the land, transforming the prairie, forcing it to +yield its harvest, shaping the country to its needs, creating a new +empire. + +We peopled and stocked the West by rail--and put vast millions in the +hands of the railroads. Wagon caravans moved on from the railroad into +the interior, many going as far as fifty, sixty, a hundred miles over a +trailless desert. Homesteaders who had no money and nothing to haul, +came through in dilapidated vehicles and lived in tents until they got +jobs and earned money to buy lumber. A few came in automobiles. There +were more cars seen in the moving caravans now. + +It was not only settlers the railroads carried west now, it was tools +and machinery and the vast quantities of goods needed for comfort and +permanent occupation; and the increasing demand for these materials was +giving extra work to factories and businesses in the East. + +On the Brule we watched the growth of other sections of the West. At +home alone one evening, Ida Mary had carried her supper tray outdoors, +and as she sat there a rider came over the plains; she could barely +recognize him in the dusk. + +"Lone Star!" she exclaimed as he stopped beside her. + +He sat silent, dejected, looking over the broad fields. He had brought +the herd north to summer pasture. + +"Did you escape the pesky homesteaders by going south?" she laughed. + +"No," he said soberly. "They're all over. Not near as thick as they are +here, but Colorado and New Mexico are getting all cluttered up. Old +cattle trails broke--cain't drive a herd straight through no +more--why--" he looked at her as though some great calamity had +befallen, "I bet there's a million miles o' ba'b wire strung between +here and Texas! Shore got the old Brule tore up." + +She laughed. "Better not let my sister hear you say that. Look at our +crop coming up." + +"I didn't think you'uns would stick it out this winter," he said. + +"Most of the settlers stayed," she assured him. + +"Looks like the end of the free range," he said. "Cattle business is +going to be different from now on." He smiled wanly and asked for his +mail, which consisted only of a pile of back-number copies of a +newspaper. He took them and rode "off to the southeast," the vague +description he had given us as to where he belonged. + +But he had brought news. The stream of immigration was flowing in to the +south and west of us, into country which was talked of as more arid and +more barren than this tall grass country. The barb-wire told the story. + +The United States had entered an era of western development when the +homesteaders not only settled the land, but moved together, acted +together, to subdue the land. It was an untried, hazardous venture on +which they staked everything they had, but that is the way empires are +built. And this vast frontier was conquered in the first two decades of +the twentieth century; a victory whose significance has been almost +totally ignored by historical studies of the country, which view the +last frontier as having vanished a generation or more before. + +Iron trails pushed through new regions; trails crossing the network of +new civilization broadened into highways, and wagon tracks cut their way +where no trails ever led before. New towns were being built. Industry +and commerce were coming in on the tidal wave. A new America! + +No cut-and-dried laws, no enforced projects or programs of a federal +administration could possibly achieve the great solid expansion which +this voluntary land movement by the masses brought about naturally. + +It takes almost every commodity to develop a vast dominion that has lain +empty since Genesis. It took steel for railroads, fences, and +plowshares. It took lumber and labor--labor no end, in towns and out on +the land. It took farm machinery, horses, harness, stoves, oil, food and +clothing to build this new world. + +I was delighted when one day there came a letter from Halbert Donovan, +the New York broker. It contained great news for _The Wand_. And there +was a little personal touch that was gratifying. + +"We are beginning to feel the effect of a business expansion back here," +he wrote, "which the western land development seems to be bringing +about. If it continues, with all the public domain that is there, it is +bound to create an enormous demand in industry and commerce. And I +emphasize the statement I made to you that it is a gigantic project +which a government alone could finance, and which requires the work of +powerful industrial corporations. + +"But, looking over that desolate prairie, one wonders how it can be +done; or if it is just a splurge of proving up and deserting. However, +it is surprising what these homesteaders are doing, and it is ironic +that a little poetic dreamer should have foreseen the trend which things +are taking. And I feel you deserve this acknowledgment. How in the name +of God have you and your sister stuck it out?" + +The reason that Halbert Donovan was interested in the progress of this +area, I learned, was that his company had mining investments in the +Black Hills and it was investigating a proposed railroad extension +through the section. + +The expansion which was beginning to be felt across the continent grew +for five years or more up to the beginning of the World War, and then +took another spurt after the war. It was not merely a boom, inflation to +burst like a bubble. It grew only as more territory was settled and +greater areas of land were put under cultivation. + +"Do you know what we need out here most of all?" I said to Chris +Christopherson one day, having in mind a settlers' bank. + +"Yah, yah!" Chris broke in, his ruddy features beaming in anticipation. +"A blacksmith shop! More as all else, we need that. Twenty-five miles we +bane goin' to sharpen a plowshare or shod a horse yet." + +Trade, business, industry? Yes, of course. But first the plow must pave +the way. During those years money flowed from the farm lands rather than +to them. The revenue from the homestead lands was bringing millions into +the Treasury. + +That spring the newspaper office became a clearing house for homestead +lands. People wanting either to buy or sell relinquishments came there +for information. All kinds of notices to be filed with the Department of +the Interior were made out by the office, which began to keep legal +forms in stock. Gradually I found myself becoming an interpreter of the +Federal Land Laws and settlers came many miles for advice and +information. + +The laws governing homesteading were technical, with many provisions +which gave rise to controversy. I discovered that many of the employees +in the Department knew nothing of the project except the letter of the +law. Through my work in handling proofs I was familiar with the +technicalities. From actual experience I had learned the broader +fundamental principles as they could be applied to general usage. + +I became a sort of mediator between the homesteader and the United +States Land Office. It was a unique job for a young woman and brought my +work to the attention of officials in Washington and several +Congressional public land committees. Slowly I was becoming identified +with the land movement itself, and I had learned not to be overawed by +the fact that some of the government's under-officials who came out to +the Strip did not agree with my opinions. I had clashed already with +several of them who had been sent out to check up on controversies in +which the homesteaders' rights were disputed. They knew the +technicalities better, perhaps, than I did; but in regard to conditions +on the frontier they were rank amateurs and I knew it. + +Land on the Brule was held at a premium and landseekers were bidding +high for relinquishments. So attractive were the offers that a few +settlers who were hard pressed for money, sold their rights of title to +the land, and passed it on to others who would re-homestead the claims. +Several early proof-makers sold their deeded quarters, raw, unimproved, +miles from a railroad, for $3000 to $3700 cash money. + +Real estate dealers of Presho, Pierre, and other small towns looked to +the Brule as a plum, trying to list relinquishments there for their +customers. But I got the bulk of the business! One of the handy men +around the place sawed boards and made an extra table with rows of +pigeonholes on it, and we installed this in the back end of the print +shop for the heavy land-office business. + +Most of our work on land affairs was done free in connection with the +legal work of the newspaper. Then buyers or sellers of relinquishments +began paying us a commission, and one day Ida Mary sold a claim for spot +cash and got $200 for making the deal. Selling claims, she said, was as +easy as selling _shela_ (tobacco) to the Indians. The difficulty lay in +finding claims for sale. + +The $200 went to Sedgwick at the bank on an overdue note. He had moved +into a bank building now, set on a solid foundation, instead of the +rolling sheep wagon whose only operating expense was the pistols. + +That entire section of the frontier was making ready for the incoming +torrent of the Rosebud settlers to take possession of their claims. +Droves of them landed at Presho early, reawakening the town and the +plains with a new invasion. Thousands who had not won a claim followed +in their wake, and everyone, when he had crossed the Missouri River, +heard about the Brule. + +The government sent out notice for the appointment of a regular mail +carrier for the Ammons post office. Dave Dykstra had resigned to farm +his land, and Sam Frye, a young homesteader with a family, was +appointed. + +We began to need more printing equipment to carry on the increased +newspaper business and to take care of the flood of proofs which would +come in that summer; there was interest and a payment on the press +coming due. So there was a day when Ida Mary said we were going to go +under, unless we could do some high financing within thirty days. + +"Oh, we'll get through somehow," I assured her. "It's like a poker game; +you never know what kind of hand you will hold in the next deal." +Planning ahead didn't help much, because something unexpected usually +happened. + +But no matter what hard luck a homesteader had or how much he had paid +the government, unless he could meet the payments and all other +requirements fully he lost the land and all he had put into it. We could +not afford to lose our claim, so I concentrated on my Land Office +business. + +As usual, something happened. I was sitting in the private office of the +United States Land Commissioner in Presho when a man walked into the +front office and put a contest on a piece of land. I heard the numbers +repeated through the thin partition and I knew exactly where the land +lay; it was a quarter-section south of us on the reservation, which +belonged to a young man who had to abandon it because he was ill and +penniless. He had got a leave of absence which had run out, and he had +no funds to carry on and prove up the claim. Yet he had put into the +gamble several hundred dollars and spent almost a year's time on it. +Now he was to lose it to the man who had contested it. + +Nothing could be done to save the land for the man who had gone home; he +had forfeited it. I started from my chair. The contest must be filed in +Pierre. If I could get one in first, I could help out the man whose +illness had deprived him of his land, and help out the ailing Ammons +finances. But it would be a race! + +Through the outer office I rushed while the land agent called after me, +"Just a minute, Edith!" + +"I'll be back," I told him breathlessly. "I'll be back. I just thought +of something!" + +I made the trip from Presho to Ammons in record time, raced into the +post office and filled out a legal form with the numbers I had heard +through the thin wall. But I needed someone not already holding a claim +to sign it, and there wasn't a soul at the settlement who would do. + +It was getting dark when Ida Mary finally announced jubilantly that +someone was coming from the direction of the rangeland. It was Coyote +Cal, thus called because "he ran from the gals like a skeered coyote." + +Talking excitedly, I dragged him into the print shop to sign the paper. +"I don't want any doggone homestead pushed off onto me," he protested. + +I thrust the paper into his hands. "It won't obligate you in any way," I +explained. + +"All right," he agreed. He enjoyed playing jokes and this one amused +him. "But you're sure I won't get no homestead?" + +Coyote poised the pen stiffly in his hand. "Let's see," he murmured in +embarrassment, "it's been so gosh-darn long since I signed my +name--danged if I can recollect--" the pen stuck in his awkward fingers +as he swung it about like a lariat. + +Finally he wrote laboriously "Calvin Aloysius Bancroft." + +With the signed paper in my hands I saddled Lakota and streaked off for +the thirty-five-mile trip to Pierre. + +Late that night a tired horse and its rider pulled up in front of a +little hotel in Ft. Pierre. I routed a station agent out of bed and sent +a telegram to the young man who had left his claim. + +Next morning when the U. S. Land Office at Pierre opened its door the +clerks found me backed up against it with a paper in my outstretched +hand. Half an hour later, when the morning mail was opened at the Land +Office, there was a contest in it filed at Presho. But I had slapped a +contest on the same quarter-section first, a contest filed by one Calvin +Aloysius Bancroft, a legal applicant for the claim. + +In the mail I received a signed relinquishment for the land from the +young man, withdrew the contest and sold the relinquishment, which is +the filer's claim to the land, for $450. I had made enough on the deal +to meet our own emergencies and had saved $200 for the young man who +needed it badly. + +And _The Wand_ was still safe. All around us the land was being +harnessed, a desert being conquered with plowshares as swords. + +Scotty Phillips stopped in at the print shop on his way from Pierre, +where he lived, to his ranch. "The stockmen have been asleep," he said. +"They ridiculed the idea that the range could ever be farmed. And now +they are homesteading, trying to get hold of land as fast as they can. I +have Indian lands leased, so I am all right." + +As a squaw man he naturally owned quite a bit of land, a piece for each +child, and he had three children. + +Panicky, some of the stockmen filed on land, but a homestead for them +was just big enough for the ranch buildings and corrals; it still did +not allow for the essential thing--large range for the cattle. They +began to buy from homesteaders and lease lands around them. For years +the livestockman of the West had been monarch of all he surveyed, and +the end of his reign was in sight. Like all classes of people who have +failed to keep step with the march of progress, he would have to follow +the herd. + +A strong spirit of cooperation and harmony had developed among the army +of the Brule. They worked together like clockwork. There was little +grumbling or ill-will. Just how much _The Wand_ had done in creating +this invaluable asset to a new country I do not know, but it was a +factor. We were a people dependent upon one another. Ours was a land +without established social law or custom. It was impossible to regulate +one's life or habits by any set rule; and there was no time or energy +for idle gossip or criticism. Each one had all he could do to manage his +own business. + +I had been working at high pressure, and as summer came on again I went +back to St. Louis for a few weeks of rest, back down the Mississippi on +the Old Bald Eagle to find my father waiting at the dock. I had half +expected to find the family awaiting roaring stories of the West; +instead, they listened eagerly and asked apt questions about soil and +costs and the future. Things weren't going well for them. Perhaps for +my father and the two small boys the future would point west. + +I was surprised to find the general interest that people in St. Louis +were taking in the West and in homesteading. Its importance, something +even of its significance, was coming to be realized. They asked serious +questions and demanded more and more information about the land. +Business men talked about new opportunities there. "Bring lots of new +business, this land movement," I heard on many sides. + +After those long months of struggle for the bare necessities, I was +greatly struck by lavish spending. It seemed startling to one from +pioneer country. Where did the money come from, I wondered, that city +folk were spending like water? I had come to think of wealth as coming +from the land; here people talked of capital, stocks and bonds; +occasionally of trade expansion. Surely this western development, I +protested, was responsible in part for trade expansion. Ida Mary had +said I ran to land as a Missourian did to mules; for the first time I +began to consider it as an economic issue. + +I was restless during my stay in St. Louis; the city seemed to have +changed--or perhaps I had changed--and I was glad to get back home. It +was the first time I had called the West home. + +Unbelievably unlike my first sight of the desolate region, I found it a +thriving land of farms and plowed fields, of growing crops and bustling +communities, whose growth had already begun to affect the East, bringing +increased business and prosperity, whose rapid development and +far-reaching influence people were only slowly beginning to comprehend. + +All this had been achieved in less than two years, without federal aid, +with little money, achieved by hard labor, cooperation, and unquenchable +hope. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XIII + +THE THIRSTY LAND + + +"You'd better do a little exhortin'," Ma told me on my return to the +claim. "And if you get any collections, turn some of them in for the +good of the store." + +"Isn't business good?" + +"Business is pouring in. It's money I'm talking about; there won't be +any money until the crops are threshed--which will be about Christmas +time out here. Now in Blue Springs--" + +I didn't hear the rest of it. In the city I had been struck by the +lavish spending of money, money which was at such a premium out here. +There was something shockingly disproportionate in the capacity to +spend by city people and those on farms. + +"At least, the crops look good." + +"But," Ida Mary pointed out, "they need rain, and the dams are beginning +to get low." + +"What about the wells the settlers are digging for water supply?" + +"They get nothing but dry holes," she told me. "Some of the settlers +brought in well-drills, but they didn't find water. They don't know what +to do." + +All other issues faded into the background before the urgency of the +water problem. I packed my city clothes deep down in the trunk, never to +be worn again, and went to work! + +A casual glance revealed no sign of the emergency we were facing. The +Lower Brule was a broad expanse of green grass and grain, rippling +gently in the breeze like water on a quiet sea. Sufficient moisture from +the snow and early rain had been retained in the subsoil for vegetation. +But we needed water. With the hot weather the dams were going dry. There +had been increased demands for water this summer, and there had not been +the late torrential rains to fill the dams as there had been the year +before. + +"What are we going to do?" I asked the other settlers. + +"Haul water until we can get wells. We'll have to dig deeper. Perhaps we +have just not struck the water veins. After this we will follow the +draws." + +Water-hauling again! But haul it from where? There was no supply in the +country sufficient for the needs of the region. Drills would cost money, +and few settlers had any money left. There was no sign of rain, and an +oppression weighed upon everyone as of impending evil--the fear of a +water famine. + +First we had come to understand the primitive worship of fire. Now we +began to know that water is as vital to life as air itself. It takes +experience to bring home the meaning of familiar words. + +In the meantime the tall waving crops brought land agents with their +buyers. At the first sign of water shortage more claims were offered for +sale, and by that time there were a few deeded tracts put on the market. +Loan agents camped at the settlement, following up settlers ready to +prove up. One could borrow more than a thousand dollars on a homestead +now. + +The money coming through our hands on relinquishments, options, +government payments, etc., was mainly in bulk and growing beyond the +coffee cans and old shoes where we secreted money awaiting deposit at +the bank. We did need a bank on the Brule. + +During the long hot summer weeks, when it did not grow dark on the open +plain until far into the night, a great deal of traveling was done at +night. It was easier for man and horse. On moonlight nights that white +light shining through the thin atmosphere made the prairie as light as +day, but ghostly; moonlight softened the contours of the plains and +robbed them of their color; sounds traveled great distances, seeming to +come from space; the howling of coyotes down the draw, the shrill, busy +sound of insects in the long grass, the stamping of the horses in the +barn, accentuated the stillness; they did not break it. Even the +prairie wind came softly, sweet with the scent of hay, not lifting its +voice on those hushed nights. + +With the stillness invading one's flesh and bones, and the prairie, +washed by moonlight, stretching out beyond one's imagination, I wondered +that I had ever feared space and quiet. + +But out of the silence would come the rhythmic thud of a horse's feet +and a loud hail. The Ammons settlement was a day-and-night institution. +With a loud knock on the door would come the identification, "It's +Alberts!" Or Kimball, or Pinchot--real estate agents. "I've got a man +here who wants to pay a deposit on N.W. quarter of section 18. We're on +our way to the Land Office. Want to be there when it opens." + +One of us would light the print-shop lamp, make out the papers, take the +money, and stumble back to bed. A sign, "CLOSED," or "NEVER CLOSED," would +have been equally ineffective in stopping the night movement on the Strip. +Homesteaders living miles away came after the long day's work to put in +their proving-up notices. They must be in the paper the following day to +go through the five weeks' publication before the date set at the Land +Office. During those scorching weeks their days were taken up by hauling +water and caring for things at home. + +With those urgent night calls we did not stick a gun out as had the +Presho banker. We were not greatly perturbed about the possibility of +anyone robbing us. A burglar who could find the money would accomplish +more than we could do half the time, so outlandish had the hiding places +become. Imbert insisted that we keep a loaded gun or two on the place, +but we knew nothing about handling guns and were more afraid of them +than of being molested. + +Ada put up her folding cot at night in the lean-to kitchen, and one day +she brought a rawhide whip from home and laid it on the 2 x 4 scantling +that girded the walls--"the two-be-four" she called it. "You don't need +a gun," she said in her slow, calm voice. "Just give me a rawhide." With +that sure strong arm of hers and the keen whip, one would never enter +without shooting first. + +There were a few nights when we woke to find Ada standing still as a +statue in her long white cotton nightgown, straw-colored braids hanging +down her back, rawhide in her right hand, only to find whoever had +prowled around had driven on, or that it was Tim Carter, the lawyer, +coming home from town intoxicated, talking and singing at the top of his +voice. + +During that clock-round period the days were usually quiet and we worked +in shifts as much as our many duties permitted. "Come on, girls," Ma +would call, "this ice tea is goin' to be hot if you don't come and drink +it. Now this isn't made from dam water. Fred hauled it over from the +crick. (Fred Farraday did things like that without mentioning them.) +It's set in the cave all day. Now the Ladies' Aid back in Blue Springs +sticks a piece of lemon on the glass to squeeze in--just to get your +fingers all stuck up with. I never was one for mixing drinks." + +Ma poured an extra glass for Van Leshout, who had just come in with +letters to mail. "Tomorrow we'll have the lemonade separate. Come on, +Heine, don't you want a glass of tea?" + +"Naw." Offering Heine tea was the one thing that shook his calmness. + +"You don't expect he-men like Heine to drink tea," protested Van +Leshout. A sly grin on Heine's face which the artist quickly caught on +paper. + +"Pa drinks it," from Ma, with that snapping of the jaw which in Ma +expressed emphasis. Poor old Pa was the shining example of masculinity +in her eyes. + +Like a sudden breath the hot winds came. The dams were getting +dangerously low. The water was dirty and green-scummed and thick. And +Ada's folks lost a horse and a cow--alkalied. + +The drier it became the whiter the ground on the alkali spots. We had no +alkali on the great, grassy Brule, but there were strips outside the +reservation thick with it, and the water in those sections contained +enough of it to turn one's stomach into stone. + +Carrying the mail from the stage, I saw along the trail horses and +cattle leaning against the fences, or lying down, fairly eaten up with +it, mere skin and bones; mane and tail all fallen out, hoofs dropped +off. + +A number of settlers had not a horse left that could put his foot to the +ground to travel. Every day there were a few more horses and cows lying +dead over the pastures. Gradually, however, most of the afflicted stock +picked up, got new hoofs, new manes and tails. + +The livestock, even the dogs and the wild animals on the plains, drank +from little holes of reservoirs at the foot of the slopes until the +water became so hot and ill-smelling that they turned away from it. + +But the settlers skimmed back the thick green scum, dipped up the water, +let it settle, and used it. The dam water must be boiled, we warned each +other, yet we did not always wait for a drink of water until it had been +boiled and cooled. Late that summer, when the drying winds parched the +country, the dams became the only green spots left on the yellow plains. +But the cry for rain was no longer for the fields, it was for the people +themselves. + +A few narrow, crooked creeks cut their way through the great tableland +of prairie. But they were as problematic as the Arkansas Traveler's roof +in that they overflowed in the rainy season when we did not need water, +and were dry as a bone when we did need it. The creeks were dry +now--except the water holes in the creek beds and a few seep wells which +homesteaders living near the creeks had dug and into which water from +the creeks had seeped. + +Proving-up time came for a few, and the ones who had not come to farm +left as soon as they proved up--at least until the following year. And +the situation was so serious we were glad to have them go--the fewer +there were of us the less water we would need. + +To add to the troubles of the homesteaders, there were increased +activities by claim jumpers. Almost equal to the old cattle-rustling +gangs were the land rustlers who "covered up" land as the cattle thieves +did brands, making mavericks out of branded stock. Technicalities, false +filings, or open crookedness were used to hold rich valleys and creeks +and water holes open--or to block the settler's proof title. + +Because the problem was a federal one, the courts and men like Judge +Bartine were powerless to act in the matter. The West needed fearless +representation in Washington. If John Bartine were elected, westerners +said, he would fight the land graft. "But there must be a strong +campaign against it on the ground," he emphasized. "The frontier +newspapers can become the most powerful agency in abolishing this evil." + +"Could _The Wand_ help?" I asked. + +"Its influence not only would be effective," he assured me, "but it +would set a precedent and give courage to other little proof sheets." + +So _The Wand_ took up the issue, using what influence it had to bring a +halt to the activities of the claim jumpers. And the homesteaders +continued their battle for the thirsty land. Whisky barrels and milk +cans were the artillery most essential to keep this valiant army from +going down in defeat. They were as scarce as hen's teeth and soared sky +high in price, so great was the demand on the frontier. Barrel and can +manufacturers must have made fortunes during the years of water-hauling +in the homestead country. + +The size of a man's herd, and thus his rank as a farmer, was judged by +the number of barrels and cans surrounding his shack or barn. + +Ida Mary bought a barrel and several new milk cans. "You cannot use the +barrel for water," Joe Two-Hawk said. "It is yet wet with fire-water." +He drained a pint or more of whisky from it. It would have to be burned +out. No one wanted fire-water these days. + +Across the hot stretches, from every direction, there moved processions +of livestock being driven to water; stone-boats (boards nailed across +two runners), with barrels bobbing up and down on them, buggies, wagons, +all loaded with cans and barrels. + +Ida Mary and I led our livestock to a water hole three miles away, +filling water cans for ourselves. The Ammons caravan moving across the +hot, dry plain was a sorry spectacle, with Ida in the vanguard astride +old Pinto, her hair twisted up under a big straw hat. Lakota insisted +upon jumping the creek bed, and we were not trained to riding to hounds. +In the flank, the brown team and Lakota, the menagerie following behind. +Coming up from the rear, I sat in the One-Hoss Shay behind Crazy Weed, +the blind and locoed mare, with the water cans rattling in the back end +of the buggy. I too wore an old straw hat, big as a ten-gallon sombrero, +pushed back on my head to protect my sunburnt neck, and an old rag of a +dress hanging loose on my small body, which was becoming thinner. + +The sun blazed down on the shadeless prairie, and the very air smelled +of heat. The grain was shriveled and burnt. And for shelter from that +vast furnace, a tar-paper shack with a low roof. + +As we reached the creek, Crazy Weed, smelling water, leaped to the creek +bed, breaking the tugs as she went, leaving the horseless buggy, the +empty cans and me high and dry on the bank. + +We patched up the tugs, fastened them to the singletree with hairpins, +hitched up Pinto, drove down to the water hole and filled our cans. + +When we got back to the settlement we saw Lone Star on Black Indian, +waiting for us. He dismounted, threw the reins to the ground and carried +the water cans into the cool cave. + +"Don't know what we're goin' to do with the range stock," he said +anxiously, "with the grass dried up and the creeks and water holes on +the range goin' dry." + +"Lone Star," I said, "don't you think it's going to rain soon?" + +Yesterday I had asked Porcupine Bear, and he had shaken his head and +held up one finger after another, counting off the moons before rain +would come. + +"What will become of the settlers?" asked Ida Mary. + +"The quicker these homesteadin' herds vacate," Lone Star answered in +that slow drawl of his, "the better for everybody. The hot winds have +come too early. Goin' to burn the pastures, looks like; hard to find +water now for the cattle." + +He handed us two flasks of cold water. "Brought 'em from the river; +filled 'em while the water was cold early this morning." + +Cold, clear water! We drank great long draughts of it, washed ourselves +clean and fresh in a basin half-full of water. + +One day Tim Carter came by sober. "The damn homestead is too dry for a +man to drink water, say nothing of whisky," he stormed. "I'm going to +have water if it takes my last dollar." + +He brought in a drill. For several days neighbors helped with the +drilling; others flocked around with strained anxiety, waiting, waiting +for that drill to strike water. + +Then one scorching afternoon the drillers gave a whoop as they brought +up the drill. "Oil! Oil! There's oil on this drill. Damned if we ain't +struck oil!" + +Tim Carter's straight, portly figure drooped. He put his hands in his +pockets, staring aghast at the evidence before him. "Oil!" he shouted. +"Who in hell wants oil? Nobody but Rockefeller. It's water we want!" + +"Pack up your rig, boys," he said in a tone of defeat, as though he'd +made a final plea in court and lost the case. A discouraged, +disheartened group, they turned away. + +Thirst became an obsession with us all, men and animals alike. Cattle, +breaking out of pastures, went bawling over the plains; horses went +running wildly in search of water. People were famished for a cold +drink. + +"I don't believe we ought to drink that water," I heard Ida Mary tell Ma +Wagor, as she stood, dipper in hand, looking dubiously into the bucket. + +"Oh, never mind about the germs," Ma said. "Just pick out them you see +and them you can't see oughtn't hurt anybody. You can't be persnickety +these days." With all that we could see in the water, it did seem as +though the invisible ones couldn't do much harm. + +With the perverseness of nature, the less water one has the thirstier +one becomes. When it is on tap one doesn't think of it. But down to the +last half-gallon, our thirst was unquenchable. + +The store's supply of salmon and dried beef went begging, while it kept +a team busy hauling canned tomatoes, sauerkraut, vinegar. People could +not afford lemons, so vinegar and soda were used to make a refreshing, +thirst-quenching drink. + +Homesteaders reached the point where the whole family washed in the same +quart of water. A little more soap and elbow grease, the women said, was +the secret. Most of the water used for household purposes did double or +triple duty. The water drained from potatoes was next used to wash one's +face or hands or dishes; then it went into the scrub bucket. Potato +water kept one's hands and face soft, we boasted; it was as effective as +face cream. + +But I was not a tea-cup saver by nature. Could the time and scheming of +those pioneer women to save water have been utilized in some water +project, it would have watered the whole frontier. But gradually we were +becoming listless, shiftless. We were in a stage of endurance in which +there was no point in forging ahead. We merely sat and waited--for rain +or wells or whatever might come. + +And always when we were down to the last drop, someone would bring us +water. I never knew it to fail. One such time we looked up to see Huey +Dunn coming. He had made the long trip just to bring us water--two whole +barrels of it, although we had not seen him since he moved us to the +reservation. + +It was so hot he waited until evening to go back. He was in no hurry to +return: it was too hot to work. But when had Huey ever been in a hurry? +We sat in the shade of the shack, talking. He had dug a well, and his +method of fall plowing--fallowing he called it--had proved successful. + +Starting home toward evening, he called back, "If you girls take a +notion to leave, you needn't send for me to move you--not until you get +your deed, anyhow." I only saw him once after that--Ida Mary never +again. + +Ida Mary was seeing a lot of a young easterner that summer, an +attractive, cultured boy who had taken a claim because he had won it in +a lottery and it was an adventure. Imbert Miller had gone into the land +business. He was well fitted for the work, with his honest, open manner, +which inspired confidence in landseekers, and his deep-rooted knowledge +of the West. + +One day I looked up from my work with a belated thought. + +"Imbert hasn't been here for some time. What's the matter?" + +"He is to stay away until I send him word. I've got to be sure." + +When there was any time for day-dreaming those days I conjured up +pictures of snow banks and fountains and blessed, cooling rain, and +long, icy drinks of water. The water had alkali in it and tasted soapy +in cooking. But it was water. And we drank it gratefully. + +The old man from the Oklahoma Run came over. Stooped and stiff, he +leaned on his cane in the midst of a group of settlers who had met to +discuss the drought and the water problem. + +"Now, down in Oklahomy," he began, "it was hotter than brimstone and the +Sooners didn't draw ice water from faucets when they settled there." +Sooners, we took it, were those who got on the land sooner than the +others. "Water was imported in barrels. Buying water was like buying +champagne and worse to drink than cawn liquor." + +"What did they do?" + +"Well, suh," he went on, the long mustache twitching, "one of the +fellahs down there was a water witch. He pointed out where the water +could be got. Divining rods. That's the solution for the Strip." + +But finding expert water witches was almost as difficult as finding +water. They had to be imported from some remote section of the West. The +witches, as we called them, went over various parts of the reservation, +probing, poking, with their forked sticks. + +The divining rod was a simple means of locating water, and it had been +in common use through the ages, especially in arid regions. It was used +in some instances to locate other underground deposits. These rods were +pronged branches, sometimes of willow, but preferably of witch-hazel or +wild cherry. + +If there were water close to the surface, the divining rod would bend +and turn with such force that it was hard to keep the prongs in hand. It +was said to work by a process of natural attraction, and was formerly +regarded as witchcraft or black magic. + +Our divining rods refused to twist or bend. If there were water on the +Strip, the witches missed it; either that, or it was too deep for the +rods to detect. One of the experts said there was indication of some +kind of liquid deposit far underground. + +The settlers shook their heads and said there must be something wrong +with the witches or the divining rod, and Ma Wagor declared, "I never +did have any faith in them little sticks." + + * * * * * + +The hot winds swept the plains like blasts from a furnace. There was not +a shelter as far as the eye could see except those little hot-boxes in +which we lived. As the sun, like a great ball of fire, lowered to the +horizon, a caravan topped the ridge from the north and moved slowly +south across the strip. A wagon and a wobble-wheeled buggy, its dry +spokes rattling like castanets, went by. Following behind were the few +head of stock--horses whinnying, cows bawling, for water. A panting dog, +tongue hanging out, trotted beside the wagon. They were shipping out. +The railroads were taking emigrants back to the state line free. + +Leaving a land of plenty--plenty of everything but water. + +A number of homesteaders who had come to stay were getting out. Settlers +were proving up as fast as they could. They wanted to prove up while +they could get loans on the land. Loan agencies that had vied with one +another for the business were closing down on some areas. Despite the +water famine, the Brule had built such prestige, had made such a record +of progress, that it was still holding the business. Western bankers +kept their faith in it, but the lids of the eastern money-pots, which +were the source of borrowing power, might be clamped down any day. + +The railroads were taking people back to the state line free, if they +wished to go. It seemed to me, exhausted as I was, that I could not go +on under these conditions, that the settlers themselves could not go on +without some respite. + +I walked into the Land Office at Pierre and threw a sheaf of proof +notices on the Register's desk. He looked at them with practiced eyes. +"These haven't been published yet," he said. + +"I don't want them. I'm leaving the country. I came to get nine months' +leave of absence for myself and all those whose time is not up. That +would give us until next spring to come back and get our deeds." + +He leaned over his desk. "Don't pull up and leave at this critical time, +Edith," he said earnestly. "There are the legal notices, the loans, the +post office--we have depended on you so much, it would be putting a +wrench in the machinery out there." + +He looked at me for a moment. "Don't start an emigration movement like +that," he warned me. + +I was dumfounded at his solemnity, at the responsibility he was putting +upon me. It was my first realization of the fact that _The Wand_ had +indeed become the voice of the Brule; that where it led, people would +follow. If my going would start a general exodus, I had to stay. + +I walked wearily out of the Land Office, leaving the proofs on his desk. +It seemed to me that I had endured all I could, and here was this new +sense of community responsibility weighing on me! + +A young settler drove me home, and I sat bleakly beside him. It was late +when we got near my claim, and the settlement looked dark and deserted. +Suddenly I screamed, startling the horses, and leaped from the wagon as +there was a loud crash. The heavy timbers of the cave back of the store +had fallen in. + +I shouted for Ida Mary, and there was no answer from the shack or the +store. If she were under that wreckage.... Frantically we clawed at the +timbers, clearing a space, looking for a slip of a girl with long auburn +braids of hair. It was too dark to see clearly, and in my terror I was +ripping the boards in any fashion while Jack strove to quiet me. + +"What's the matter?" said a drowsy voice from the door of the shack. It +was Ida Mary, who had slept so heavily she had not heard our arrival or +our shouts or the crash of the cave-in. + +I ran to her, sobbing with relief. "The cave's fallen in. I thought +maybe you were in it." + +She blinked sleepily and tried to comfort me. "I'm all right, sis," she +said reassuringly. "It must have gone down after I went to bed. Too much +sod piled on top, I guess. Now we'll have to have that fixed." + +As I lay in bed, shaking with fatigue and nerve tension, Ida mumbled +drowsily, "Oh, the fresh butter Ma brought me is down in that cave." And +she fell asleep. A few moments later I too was sleeping quietly. + +The nights were the life-savers. The evening, in which the air cooled +first in the draws, then lifted softly to the tableland, cooling the +body, quenching the thirst as one breathed it deeply. The fresh peaceful +night. The early dawn which like a rejuvenating tonic gave one new hope. +Thus we got our second wind for each day's bout. + +The next day the proof notices I had turned in to the Land Office came +back to me without comment. I explained to Ida Mary what I had done. "I +told him we were going back, and he said I must not start an emigration +movement. I applied for leaves of absence while the railroads are taking +people to the state line free." + +"And what," inquired Ida Mary dryly, "will they do at the state line? Go +back to the wife's kinfolk, I suppose." + +She was right, of course. I began to see what this trek back en masse +would mean. What if the land horde went marching back? Tens of thousands +of them milling about, homeless, penniless, jobless. Many of them had +been in that position when they had stampeded the frontier, looking to +the land for security. With these broad areas deserted, what would +become of the trade and business; of the new railroads and other +developments just beginning their expansion? + +We were harder hit than most districts by the lack of water, but if that +obstacle could be solved the Brule had other things in its favor. The +words of the Register came back to me: "Don't start an emigration +movement." + +_The Wand_ came out with an editorial called, "Beyond the State Line, +What?" It was based on Ida Mary's terse comment, "Back to the wife's +kinfolk," and concluded with my own views of the economic disaster which +such a general exodus would cause. + +It took hold. Settlers who were ready to close their shacks behind them +paused to look ahead--beyond the state line. And they discovered that +their best chance was to fight it out where they were--if only they +could be shown how to get water. + +No trees. No shade. Hot winds sweeping as though from a furnace. And +what water one had so hot and stale that it could not quench thirst. + +We could ask our neighbors to share their last loaf of bread, but it was +a bold, selfish act to ask for water. I have seen a gallon bucket of +drinking water going down; have seen it get to the last pint; have held +the hot liquid in my mouth as long as possible before swallowing it. + +The distances to water were so long that many times we found it +impossible, with all the work we had on hand, to make the trip; so we +would save every drop we could, not daring to cook anything which +required water. + +One of the girl homesteaders came over with an incredible tale to tell. +She had visited one of the settlers outside the reservation gate who had +a real well. And his wife had rinsed the dishes when she washed them. + +Ma prophesied that she would suffer for that. + +Heine said one day, "My Pa don't wanta leave. We ain't got no moneys to +take us, Pa says." + +There were many families in the same position. Get out? Where? How? + +One day when Chris Christopherson came in I asked him why he thought the +water supply would be better in a year or so. + +"We can dig better dams. If they bane twice so big this year, they be +full now from the snows and rains. We would yet have water plenty." + +"We could dig cisterns, couldn't we?" + +"Cost money, but not so much like deep wells. Trouble bane we not have +money yet nor time to make ready so many t'ings." + +"Some of the farmers say," I told him, "that when we cultivate large +areas, loosening the soil for moisture absorption, they will be able to +get surface wells, especially in the draws. They say the tall, heavy +grass absorbs the surface and underground water." + +Chris nodded thoughtfully. "Water will be more comin' in time," he +declared. "The more land plowed, the more moisture will go down in the +soil. It all the time costs more money to move and settle yet than to +stay where you are. And nobody knows what he find somewhere else again." + +And we got thirstier and thirstier. "I've got to have a drink," I would +wail. + +"You'll get over it," Ma would assure me. + +But we did not always get over it. I remember trying to go to bed +without a drink one night and thinking I could not stand it until +morning. In the middle of the night I woke Ida Mary. + +"I'm so thirsty I can't stand it any longer." + +"Let's hitch up and go for some water." + +So off we went in the middle of the night, driving over to McClure, +where we drank long and long at the watering troughs. + +With few water holes left, some of the settlers went over the border, +hauling water from outside--from McClure, even from Presho, when they +went to town. Somehow they got enough to keep them from perishing. + +Men cleaned out their dams "in case it should rain." But there was no +sign of the drought breaking. Except for the early matured crops, the +fields were burned; the later crops were dwarfed. Our spirits fell as we +looked at our big field of flax which had given such promise. Seed which +had had no rain lay in the ground unsprouted. Some of the farmers turned +their surplus stock loose to forage for themselves. + +Public-spirited men like Senator Scotty Phillips and Ben Smith, a +well-to-do rancher living four miles from the settlement, dug down into +the bowels of the earth for water. Ben Smith went down 1200 feet. There +was no sign of water. Despondency gripped the people. "You can dig clear +to hell and you won't find water," one of them declared. + +"All right, boys," Ben Smith told them, "dig to hell if you have to, and +don't mind the cost." Slowly the drill bored on down the dry hole. Ben +Smith's Folly, they called it. + +_The Wand_ urged the people to put their resources together--water, +food, everything--so that they might keep going until water was found or +until--it rained. Today pooling is a common method of farm marketing. We +have great wheat pools, milk pools, and many others. At that time there +were cooperative pools in a few places, although I had never heard of +one, nor of a farm organization. But it was the pooling system that was +needed to carry on. + +Of one thing there was no doubt. The grass on the Indian lands _was_ +greener than the grass on the settlers' lands. Through their land ran +the Missouri River, and they had water to spare. While the homesteaders +were famishing and their stock dying for water, it was going to waste +in Indian territory. That area was as peaceful as though the whole +frontier were filled with clear, cool streams. + +So Ida Mary and I went to the Indians for help. I presume we should have +gone to the Agency, but we had never seen the government officials in +charge, and we did know our Indians. + +We rode over into the little Indian settlement. Rows of buffalo-hide and +canvas wigwams; Indians sitting around on the ground. Men whittling, +doing beadwork, or lounging at ease. Squaws sitting like mummies or +cooking over open fires for which they broke or chopped wood. Young +bucks riding about, horses grazing peacefully, mongrel dogs in +profusion. Children, dirty, unconcerned, playing in the sun. Rows of +meat, fly-covered, drying on the lines. + +They were peaceful and unconcerned; the whole settlement had about it +the air of being on a holiday, the lazy aftermath of a holiday. +Remembering the hard labor, the anxiety, the effort and strain and +despair in the white settlement, there was a good deal to be said for +this life, effortless, without responsibility, sprawling in the shade +while others did the work. + +It was not before these members of the tribe, however, that we presented +our request. We went before the chief and his council with form and +ceremony. The old chief, dressed in dignified splendor, sat on a stool +in front of his wigwam, a rich Navajo rug under his feet. He had been a +great leader, wise and shrewd in making negotiations for his tribe. He +looked at me and grunted. + +I explained at length that I had come to him from the Brule white men +for help. But I got no farther. He threw out his hand in a negative +gesture. The old warriors of the council were resentful, obstinate. They +muttered and shook their heads angrily. No favors to the whites who had +robbed them of their lands! + +I sat down beside the chief while I talked to him, and then to other +members of the council--to Porcupine Bear, Little Thunder, Night Pipe. +The Indian demands pomp and ceremony in the transaction of affairs. +These wanted to hold a powwow. But I had no time for ceremony. + +The Indians had _minne-cha-lu-za_ (swift-running water). We had none. If +some of the settlers could run stock on their hunting ground where they +could get to water, and if we could have water hauled from their lands, +we would pay. + +The old chief sat as immobile and dignified as a king in court. We soon +learned that the Indian horse-and-bead traders are a different species +from the high powers of the tribe sitting in council, making treaties. +It was like appearing before a high tribunal. + +"Take Indian lands. All time more," grunted one of them. + +"The settlers' land is no good to the Indian," I argued; "no water, no +berries, no wood, no more value. The government is making the whites pay +money, not giving them allotments as they do the red men." + +If they would not give us _minne-cha-lu-za_, I went on, we could not +print the paper any more, or keep _she-la_, or trade for posts. + +They went into ceremonious council, and delivered their concession +officially by an interpreter, Little Thunder I think it was, attired in +all his regalia of headdress with eagle feathers, beaded coat, and +fringed breeches. + +It appealed to their sense of power to grant the favor. At last the +whites had to come to them for help. Whether the deal was official or +unofficial, no one cared. In those crucial days Washington seemed to the +homesteaders as remote as the golden gates. + +We took a short-cut back. There was not a single building anywhere in +sight, and the only moving thing was a herd of range cattle going slowly +toward water. Through the silence came a deep, moaning sound, the most +eerie, distressed sound I ever heard. I was passing an Indian cemetery, +and beside a grave stood an Indian woman--alone with her dead. + +As is the Indian custom, she had come alone, walking many miles across +the plain. She would probably slash her breast or mutilate her flesh in +some other way as a sacrament to her grief. As I rode on slowly, her +wailing cry rose and fell until it grew dim in my ears, blending with +the moaning sound of the wind. + +Some of the settlers turned stock over on the Indian lands after our +negotiations, and the Indians hauled loads of life-giving water to the +print shop now and then. Our collection of antique animals we turned +loose to go back and live off the Indians. + +"Might be it will rain," Heine said one day. "Did you see that cloud +come by in front of the moon last night?" + +But it wasn't a cloud. It was smoke. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XIV + +THE LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH + + +We were living in the Land of the Burnt Thigh, the famous hunting ground +of the Brule Indians, whose name was derived from a great prairie fire +which had once swept the land. + +The story of that great fire was told me by a famous interpreter who had +heard the tale many times from his grandfather. It was three seasons +after the big flood of 1812, he said, and the grass was high on Bad +River, bringing many buffalo down from the north. About two weeks after +the leaves turned they went to the prairie to get the winter's meat. +Being a hunting party, the women and children accompanied them. The +young boys wandered from the camps, shooting prairie dogs and small +birds. One day when a number of boys were returning to camp, a great +prairie fire swept down from the north. + +The boys ran for the river, but the fire was too swift for them, and +they were overtaken. Throwing themselves on the ground, they turned +their faces from the fire and wrapped their heads and bodies in their +robes, waiting for the fire to pass. Where they lay the grass was high +and there were many small bushes; so when the fire came, the ground was +hot and they were all burned on the right thigh, though otherwise +unhurt. + +The escape of the boys was considered so remarkable that the Sioux +called this tribe the "people with the burnt thigh." Apparently some +French trader rendered the name into his language, and thus we have +"Brule" or burned. + +The Land of the Burnt Thigh was famous not only for its great prairie +fire and the fact that it had been the feeding ground of the buffalo, +which had come in big herds to winter pasture; but also because it had +been a notorious rendezvous for horse thieves. In the early days lawless +gangs turned to stealing horses instead of robbing banks. A bold outfit +of horse thieves plied their trade over a vast section of the Bad River +country, of which the Brule had been a part. Here in the tall grass they +found refuge and feed for the horses, with water in the creeks and water +holes almost the year around. In the night they would drive their loot +in, and the law was helpless in dealing with them. + +Much has been said of Indians stealing the white man's horses and little +of the depredations of the whites upon the Indians. These gangs stole +constantly from the Indians, taking the best of their herds. A little +band of Indians, realizing that they must get back their horses at any +cost, tracked the thieves and here on the Burnt Thigh attacked them. But +they were driven back by the outlaws, who had their lookout, according +to the Indians, on the very site of Ammons; concealing themselves here +in the tall grass, they could see anyone approaching for miles around. +They had seen the Indians coming, just as we had seen them that first +day at the settlement. The gang opened fire, killed several of their +number, and routed the rest. + +The Indians made no protest. All they knew of law was the power of the +government, a force not to be appealed to for protection, but rather one +against which the red men must struggle for their rights. They had no +recourse, therefore, against the thieves. And it was not until the +National Guard was sent to round them up that this lawless band was +tracked to its lair and captured. + +On the Land of the Burnt Thigh that summer the grass was dry, and +nowhere was there water with which to fight fire. Heat waves like vapor +came up from the hard, dry earth. One could see them white-hot as they +rose from the parched ground like thin smoke. From the heat expansion +and the sudden contraction when the cool of the night came on, the earth +cracked open in great crevices like wide, thirsty mouths, into which +horses stumbled and fell beneath their riders. + +A young couple went to town one day and returned that night, looking for +their home. They wandered around their claim, seeking their shack. It +lay in ashes, destroyed by a prairie fire. + +Heine came wading through the hot yellow grass. "Did you carry matches +with you, Heine?" + +"Nope," he answered laconically. "I don't need no matches." + +"Suppose a prairie fire should come?" Everyone was supposed to carry +matches; no child was allowed to leave home without matches and +instructions to back-fire if he saw a fire coming. Heine sat down and +wiped the sweat from his face with the sleeve of his little shirt. + +"I look first behind when I start. Can't no prairie fire come till I get +here." + +"But with these hot winds--" + +We watched constantly for the first sign of smoke. Sacks, old heavy +comforts and pieces of carpet were kept at hand as fire extinguishers, +in case there were enough water on hand to wet them--which was seldom. + +There were no more water holes, and it got dryer and hotter. Ben Smith's +men were still drilling for water. They were down 1500 feet. From the +print shop we could hear the drill grinding through hard earth. + +Prairie fires began to break out all around the Strip. The homesteaders +began to be afraid to leave their shacks for fear they would find them +gone on their return. Ammunition for the fight was pitifully meager. +They fought with plows that turned firebreaks, back-fired to stop the +progress of the fire, beat it out with their wet sacks. + +If fire ever got a start on the Burnt Thigh now, with its thick high +grass as dry as powder and no water, every habitation would be +completely annihilated. Protests about our lack of protection seethed +until they found expression in the newspaper. We had no equipment, no +fire fighters, no lookouts, no rangers. Surely the government owed us +some means of fighting the red devil of the plains. + +One evening when the parched ground was beginning to cool we noticed a +strange yellow haze settling over the earth, felt a murky heat. The +world was on fire! Not near the settlement, miles away it must be, +probably on the Indian lands beyond the Strip. + +From the heat in the air, the threatening stillness, the alertness of +the animals as they lifted their heads high in the air with nostrils +dilated, we knew it was coming toward us. The heavy reddish fog +portended a big fire, its tongue of flame lapping up everything as it +came. + +Already a group of homesteaders was gathering at the print shop, +organizing systematic action; men from every section hurrying in with +little sacks and kegs of water splashing until they were half empty; a +pathetic, inadequate defense to set up against so gigantic an enemy. +Chris Christopherson rattled by with his tractor to turn broad furrows. +Dave Dykstra, who would never set the world on fire but would do a good +deal in putting it out, hastened up to help. Here they came! Men with +kegs of water, men with pieces of carpet, men with nothing but their +hands and their fear to pit against the fire. + +Off to the south the sky was red now, and the smell of fire was in our +nostrils, faint but unmistakable. None of us knew how fast a big fire +could travel. The settlers still knew so pitiably little about combating +the frontier. + +From the Indian settlement came Swift Running Deer on the horse which +had taken the State Fair prize last year. In Sioux (the young buck was +too excited to remember his English) he said the fire was on beyond the +Brule somewhere. Most of the Indians had ridden off to it while he had +come to tell the whites. + +"If the wind stay down, it mebbe no come, but heap big fire like that +take two day--three day--mebbe seven to die." + +It was still and peaceful now, but there was little hope that two or +three days could pass without wind--and if the wind came from that +direction there was no hope for the Brule. + +Coyote Cal, who had come riding through the Strip, stopped at the print +shop. Ida Mary tried to persuade him to ride around to the homesteads +and tell the girls who lived alone that the fire was still a long way +off and that men had gone to fight it. + +Coyote Cal stretched his long, angular figure to full height and stood +there hesitant. "No, miss, I'd ruther fight fire," he said at length. + +"But the girls will be frantic with fear." + +"Hain't no use a calf-bawlin' over a prairie fire. If it gits yuh, it +gits yuh, an' that's all there is to it." + +With these consoling words he swung into the saddle and turned his +horse's head toward the fire. + +Ma Wagor came outside where Ida Mary and I watched the reflection of +flame against the darkening sky. The air was still. There was no wind. + +"I'm goin' home to milk the cow," Ma announced. She had paid forty +dollars for that cow, she reminded us, and she wanted every last drop of +milk out of her. Besides, she didn't believe in anybody leaving this +world hungry. + +The red dusk found the plains stirring. The ominous silence was broken +by rumbling wagons hurrying with their barrels of water, tractors +chugging, turning long fresh rows of dirt as breaks, teams everywhere +plowing around shacks and corrals. + +Night came on, inky black. The red light on the horizon and billowy +clouds of smoke intensified the darkness. Over the range, cattle were +bellowing in their mad fear of fire. They were coming closer to the +reservation fence, running from danger. + +The hours crept past; around us on the plains the settlers had done all +they could, and they were waiting as Ida Mary and I were waiting, +watching the red glow on the sky, thinking of the men who were +desperately beating out the advancing flames, wondering if each tiny +gust foretold the coming of the wind. + +Inside the shack we moved about restlessly, putting the money we had on +hand in tin cans, the legal paper in the little strong box, and burying +them in the small, shallow cave. If the fire came, we would seek refuge +there ourselves, but it wouldn't be much use. We knew that. + +Out again to look at the sky, and then up and down the print shop, +restlessly up and down. Ida Mary made coffee; we had to do something, +and there was nothing for us to do but wait. Wait and listen to the +silence, and look our own fear squarely in the eyes and know it for what +it was. + +"What's that?" said Ida Mary in a queer, hoarse voice. She put down her +cup and sat rigid, listening. Then she jumped to her feet, her face +white. "Edith," she cried, "it's the wind--it's the wind!" + +Out of nowhere came the moaning sound of the wind, sweeping unchecked +across space, blowing from the south! While we listened with caught +breath, it seized some papers and sent them rattling across the table, +blew a lock of hair in my eyes, made the dry grass rustle so that it +sounded for one glorious moment like rain. + +We ran outside and stood in the darkness, our dresses whipping around +us, looking at the sky. Here and there above the red haze we saw a +bright, jagged tongue of flame leap up, licking the black sky. + +The homesteaders who had not gone to the fire found waiting alone +intolerable, and one by one they drifted in to the store, waiting taut +and silent. + +At midnight we heard the staccato beats of a horse's hoofs. A messenger +was coming. Only one horse on the plains could travel like that; it was +Black Indian. And a moment later Lone Star Len flung himself from the +horse and came in. + +He had been fighting flame. His face was blackened almost beyond +recognition. + +"It's all right," he said at once, before we could question him. "The +fire's over on the government land. It's beyond the Strip." + +His eyes and lips were swollen, face and hands blistered. "It's still +ragin'," he went on, "but there is a little creek, dry mostly, between +the fire and the Strip. It's not likely to get this far. 'Course, the +wind is bad. It's blowin' sparks across on the grass, this side of the +creek. But some of the settlers and Indians are watchin' it." + +Ida Mary came in from the shack with sandwiches and black coffee and set +them before him. + +"You didn't need to bother doin' that for me," he protested; "you girls +better go to bed." + +"When did you have anything to eat?" Ida Mary asked, as he drank the hot +coffee and devoured the food ravenously, moving his hands as though they +hurt him unbearably. + +"This mornin'. Been working with that fire since noon; I had started for +the chuck-wagon when I smelt smoke...." + +"Lone Star, why did you risk your life to save a reservation full of +homesteaders?" I asked him. + +He stood for a moment with a chagrined expression on his smoke-scarred +face. + +"Cattle needs the grass," he replied as he stalked out and rode slowly, +wearily away into the flame-lighted night. + +The fire had broken out on range and government land off toward the +White River country--to the southeast, where Lone Star rode herd. As the +country for the most part was uninhabited, the fire had swept the plains +for miles before the fighters reached it. Sparks and flames had jumped +the creek, but by now the grass was burned back far enough on both sides +so that the danger for this region was past. + +The amused natives told how a man had jolted up on a stiff horse, a +painting outfit in his saddlebag, to watch the fire. "This is great," +he exclaimed as he plied brush and color. Then, as a volley of wild +sparks shot across the narrow stream and went into flame nearby, he +threw down the brush, rushed in among the fire-fighters, worked madly +until the flames were extinguished, then went back and finished the +picture. + +"Who is he?" someone in the gaping crowd asked. + +"The cartoonist from Milwaukee," a Brule settler answered. + +For several days longer the fire raged, with the air smoky and a red and +black pall over the earth. Then it faded as our other terrors had faded, +and was gone. + + * * * * * + +Already, in the midst of fire and water famine, there stalked ghosts of +cold and hunger--the coming winter. With no money left to provide the +necessities of life, the homesteaders stared into the face of a food +famine. Most of them were now living on meager rations, counting every +penny, their crops shriveled in the fields. + +Ada put her small wages into flour and coffee. And Heine remarked, "My +Ma says might be we'll starve and freeze yet. She's goin' to pray." We +watched him trudge back across the plains, a sturdy little fellow, one +suspender holding up patched overalls over a faded blue shirt, bare feet +which walked fearlessly and by some miracle escaped the constant menace +of rattlesnakes, ragged straw hat shading the serious round face. The +plains had made him old beyond his six years. + +With the realization of danger which the prairie fire had brought, _The +Wand_ began to advocate government rangers and lookouts to be stationed +at strategic points. I was in the print shop writing an article on +conditions when Lone Star came in. + +"I want to get my paper forwarded, Miss Printer," he stated; "I'm +leavin' the country. It's gettin' too crowded in these parts. Too +lonesome. I don't see how people can live, huddled up with somebody on +every quarter-section." + +"Where are you going now?" + +"Goin' to an honest-to-God range country," he said. "A short-grass +country, but rich feed. You can get away from landgrabbers there. It's +bigger'n all creation." + +"Where shall I send the paper?" + +"Wyoming. The Rawhide country. Just send the paper to Lost Trail. I'll +be goin' on there. I know a cattleman around Lost Trail." + +Rawhide country. Lost Trail. About them was the atmosphere of far-flung +space, of solitude and peace. + +"I may go there myself some day," I told him. + +"If you do," he said soberly, "leave this doggone newspaper shebang +behind. It's a pest to the country. Don't clutter up any more range with +homesteadin' herds. Worse than grasshoppers; at least the grasshoppers +leave, and the homesteaders appear to be here to stay." + +He rode off, a strange, solitary figure, topped the ridge and dropped +out of sight as swiftly as he had appeared that first morning, stopping +the eagle in its flight. When he had gone I turned back to my article. +In this gigantic homestead project, _The Wand_ declared, there should be +protection. We demanded of the local land offices why the Department of +the Interior did not establish Service Bureaus on government territory +to expedite development, to lessen hardship and danger. But the Land +Offices could not help us. They were only the red-tape machines of the +Public Lands Department. + +The federal government was taking in revenue by the millions from the +homesteaders. Millions of acres of homestead land at from $1.25 to $6 an +acre provided a neat income for the United States Treasury. And, we +contended, the homesteaders of America should be given consideration. +There was nothing radical about these articles, but here again I became +known as "that little outlaw printer." + +Had I been experienced, I might have carried this appeal to Washington +and said, "Put the revenue from these lands back into them. That is not +charity, it is development of natural resources." + +Any such entreaty, coming from an upstart of a girl printer, would have +been like a lamb bleating at a blizzard. But the homesteaders might have +been organized as a unit, with official power to petition for aid. I did +not know then that I could do such things. + +Meantime the print shop buzzed with activity. The harvest of proofs, on +which I had gambled the paper, was on. It kept one person busy with the +clerical work on them. While the Strip was yet a no-man's land, I had +pledged the printing equipment company 400 proofs as collateral. That +was a low estimate. As a matter of fact _The Wand_ won an all-time +record, publishing in one week 88 proofs, the highest number ever to be +published in any issue of a newspaper of which the government had +record. From the Department of the Interior, from the Land Office, from +other newspapers congratulations poured in. It seems to me that some +sort of medal was awarded to us for that. + +It wasn't the record which mattered, of course. To us the publication of +these notices signified that the settlers had stuck it out with parched +throats to get their deeds; that some 14,000 acres of wasteland had +passed into private units in one week's time. + +It meant endless work. Type, numbers, checking, straining eyes and +nerves beyond endurance. But it also meant (for that one lot) over $400 +income for the newspaper. Proof money had been coming in for several +weeks. Every mail brought long heavy envelopes from the Land Office, +containing proof applications made there. From among the homesteaders we +hired amateur typesetters to help out, and anybody who happened to be +handy turned the press; on occasion we resorted to old Indian warriors, +and once to a notorious cattle rustler. + +And all this time we watched the sky for rain and skimmed the green scum +from the dam water to drink. Looking up from the type one morning, I saw +an old Indian standing before me, old Porcupine Bear. Slipping in on +moccasined feet, an Indian would appear before one without warning. At +first this sudden materializing at my elbow had alarmed me, but I had +long grown accustomed to it. + +Old Porcupine Bear was a savage-looking character--one of the very old +warriors who seldom left camp. One never knew how old some of these aged +Indians were, and many of them did not know themselves how many seasons +they had lived. This old man, we figured, must be a hundred years old. + +"Will there be rain, Porcupine?" I asked him. "Will you hold your Rain +Dance soon?" + +The deep wrinkles in his leathery face were hard set as if from pain. +His coal-black hair, streaked with gray and hanging loose over his +shoulders, looked as if it had not been combed for days. + +"_To-wea_," he wailed. "_My to-wea_ (my woman). Him sick. The fever. +Goin' die." He dropped his face into the palm of his hard hand and let +it lie there motionless in demonstration of her passing. He wanted to +get a box like white squaws had, the boxes in which they went to the +Happy Hunting Ground. + +He was on the road to Pierre for a coffin. Others of the tribe, we +gathered, had put in money to help buy it. He opened a beaded sack and +showed us. There was enough to buy a pretty good one. In broken Sioux +and signs we advised him to wait--mebbe-no-die. Mebbe-walk-some-more. He +shook his head stubbornly. His herbs--he was a medicine man who had +healed many sick ones--had not worked. Even his _pazunta_ had failed. + +The Indian's _pazunta_ was his shield against disease--against all evil. +It drives the Evil Spirit away. It may be anything he selects--an herb, +a stone, a rabbit's foot--so long as he selects it secretly and divulges +to no one what it is. The _pazunta_ is invested with divine curative +power, according to the Indians. + +When he got back to his wigwam with the satin-lined "last-sleep-box," +Porcupine Bear found his _to-wea_ cooking supper; so the old brave, it +was said, slept in the good soft bed himself. "Why not?" said Ida Mary. +He had slept on the ground and fought many hard battles; let him have +his cushioned resting place while he could enjoy it; but I shuddered at +the thought. + +A week or so later he came again. It was a day when I was at the +breaking point. He stood looking at me, shaking his head as he had done +over his _to-wea_. I must have looked like a ghost, for in a gesture of +friendship he said: + +"You want my last-sleep-box?" + +The prairie fire had not got me down, but at the thought of that box I +went to bed and stayed there three days. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XV + +UP IN SMOKE + + +There was almost $750 in the tin box down in the trunk ready to be +deposited. At breakfast we exulted over it. The Ammons sisters were +always draining the bank dry. Sedgwick would open his eyes when we +walked into the bank with that bag of money. + +We planned to go to Presho that day. It was hardly safe to have so much +money in the shack, and we were eager to put it in a safe place. It +represented months of planning and effort and hard work. But the labor +didn't seem bad to look back on that morning, not with the reward at +hand. It had been worth while, because the end of the road was in sight +and we had accomplished much that we had hoped to do--more, in some +respects. + +It was unbearably hot that morning, and we decided against the trip to +Presho. After all, one more day wouldn't matter, and the sun was so +scorching we quailed at the thought of that long ride. There was an +ominous oppression in the air, and heat waves made the ground appear to +waver before our eyes. Here and there flames flared up without any +explainable origin, as though from the heat of the grass itself. + +The day crept on to mid-afternoon, and the hot wind came up from the +ground, blistering our faces. There was no one near the print shop, +where the metal was hot to the touch, no movement over the plains. We +sent our helpers home, while Ma, Ida Mary and I moved about languidly, +doing only what was absolutely necessary. + +There was a curious, acrid smell in the air. As though a bolt of +lightning had struck, I stopped my work on the paper and cried out, +"What's that?" + +"Fire," screamed Ida Mary; "fire!" + +Smoke enveloped us. There was a deafening crackle. Blinding red flame. +We ran to the door, and there, not ten feet away, our shack was burning +to the ground. The little lean-to kitchen, covered with tar paper, was +sending its flames high into the air. Frantically we ran to the front +door, shouting above the crackling and roar of flame, "The trunk! The +money! The settlers' money!" + +The print shop would go, too--and the notices had several weeks to +run--but the essential thing was to get the money back. We must do that, +must! Oh, for a rolling bank on wheels! + +At the front door black smoke came rolling out, choking us. Ida Mary +threw a sack over her head and started into the shack. Ma Wagor and I +dragged her back into the open air. The building was burning as though +it had been made of paper, a torch of orange flames. We watched it go, +home, money, clothes, a few valuable keepsakes, furniture--everything we +possessed licked up by the flames. The piano, too--I was glad it had +brought so much pleasure to the settlers. + +The wind! Now the fire was spreading. The print shop was burning, its +inflammable tar paper and dry boards blazing like powder. "Hurry, +hurry!" we called frantically to each other. From the print shop I +grabbed the most valuable papers while Ida Mary snatched what she could +from the post office. Stoical, silent, making every move count, Ma Wagor +was busy in the store, her store, in which she had taken such pride and +such infinite pleasure. Ma was getting more "confusement" now than she +had bargained for. + +Blinded with smoke, we caught up the sacks into which we had stuffed the +papers and threw them into the cave, the only shelter left on the whole +claim. + +In less than thirty minutes the post office, the store with its supply +of food, the print shop were gone. The harvest of long months of labor +and storm, thirst and fire, vanished as though it had never been--gone +up in clouds of heavy, black smoke. + +If the wind would only go down, we groaned; but the sparks had already +caught the grass around us. A prairie fire! If it ever jumped those +breaks, the Strip would be devastated with the wind sweeping the plain +as it was doing. What irony that we who had printed our precautions and +warnings for others, should burn up the Strip! We who had labored so to +save it! And there was no chance for us. We could not outrun a prairie +fire. The horses, which were untied, had gone full speed across the +prairie at the first smell and sight of fire. + +Now the oilhouse had caught, and we turned, panic-stricken, running +headlong across the plains, our feet burning, not knowing where we were +going so long as we could escape the explosion of the oil. Inside the +firebreaks the grass was burning. Listening for the explosion of the oil +was like waiting for the crack of doom. Then we remembered. Pa Wagor had +sunk the barrels underground, using siphons, "just in case of fire." + +Sparks leaping up, flying across the breaks--the prairie was on fire! We +checked our flight, sanity returning with the emergency. We had to go +back--simply had to go back and fight that first outbreak of flame. The +Strip was at stake. Life and property were at stake. Falling, rising, +running, falling again, dragging each other up, we went back. "Help!" we +called to the empty prairie, "Help!" + +There was nothing to smother the fast-spreading blaze. Not a thing. Not +even a sack or a hat. We tore off parts of the clothes from our scantily +clad bodies. Ma took off her petticoat. There was a sack in the barn +which we wet in a keg set in the yard, wet the canvas which covered the +keg. With that, with our feet we trampled down the sparks as they fell, +the flames as they rose--shoes hot and charred, holes burning through. + +Across the prairie a team was coming at a dead run. "Bless the Lord," Ma +Wagor panted, "it's Sam Frye!" + +A bright red flare shot up from behind and around me. My dress was on +fire. Ida Mary clawed dirt from the hard-baked ground, and with it in +her hands twisted my burning smock into knots to keep the flames from +spreading. With almost animal instinct I threw myself down in the +firebreak, pressing hard against the ground to extinguish any smoldering +sparks on my clothing, and lay panting, cooling in the dirt. + +Sam Frye, the mail-carrier, was there, taking charge. All at once a +crowd had gathered, attracted by the leaping flames on what had been the +settlement of Ammons, running to fight the threatening prairie fire. Men +went to work, fighting fresh outbursts of flames and putting out fire on +the ruins. Women hovered about us in sympathy, some with tears streaming +down their sunburned cheeks under the straw hats and bonnets. Neither +Sister nor I could shed a tear. + +Dazed and dizzy, we stumbled back across the breaks to the charred ashes +of our labors. Apart from the tangible losses that lay in coals, the +newspaper, the voice of the Brule, was gone. "Down into frontier +history," Senator Phillips said. Into it had gone the ambitions, the +heartbreaking labor, the vision of two girls. + +Half-naked, our scanty clothing burned and torn, hair singed, faces and +parts of our bodies scorched and black with smoke--tar paper makes +black, smudgy smoke--eyes red and burning, we stood there in the middle +of the open spaces that had dealt us their blow. Our _pazuntas_ hadn't +worked, that was all. But at least we had checked the prairie fire. We +had won that much from the Brule, the "Burned" land. + +We clung to each other wordlessly. There was nothing to say. Everything +that made up our daily life and our plans for the future had been wiped +out in thirty minutes. + +"We still have the claim," Ida Mary murmured at last; "nothing can +destroy the land." + +"But all our bright hopes--" + +How the fire got such a start before we detected it was a mystery. With +the shack walls already burning hot and the strong wind, it had been +like spontaneous combustion. Ma Wagor was baking bread on an old oil +stove. Perhaps a draft from the open window had fanned the fire. But the +origin didn't matter now. + +Ma Wagor had worked heroically, helping us to save the important +records, the mail, and the prairie from being swept by fire. When it was +all over she did not whimper about her loss. + +When I saw Pa coming, I ran to her. "Ma, here comes Pa. This will kill +him. You had better go meet him." He had not wanted her to buy the store +in the first place; now there were debts piled up, and only the +homestead to pay them. + +She sat on the ground, burying her face in her hands. "Let him come to +me," she replied. "It's his place to comfort me in time of trouble." + +True to her feminine intuition, he went to her and put his arm around +her shoulders. "Elizabeth," he said. No response. "Elizabeth," he +entreated. "Don't give way like this. We will pull through somehow." + +I felt a hand on my arm, and Alex Van Leshout's voice hoarse in my ear. +"The latchkey of the Circle V is on the outside. If you girls will come +over, I'll move out. If you need me or Hop-Along, all I have is at your +service. You're a good Indian, Edith." + +Sometimes I envy the women who are able, during a catastrophe, to stop +and grieve over it. I never seem to have had the time. There was always +something that demanded to be done, whatever the circumstances. + +The fire had no sooner been put out, the claim bare as the day I first +saw it--save for charred grass, and a great mound of ashes, and the +smell of smoke--when Sam Frye opened the mail sacks. Sitting bedraggled +in his old buggy, Ida Mary distributed the mail to the patrons who had +gathered. Even though the post office was gone, the mail must go on. We +were never destined to be back-trailers. + +The sultry, tragic day came to a close, with the plains light long after +the sun had gone down, and the Ammons settlement gone, and a devastating +sense of emptiness. Ida Mary and I realized that we had no place to go. +With typical frontier hospitality, every home on the reservation was +open to us; but that night we longed to be alone. It wasn't +commiseration we needed, but quiet in which to grasp what had happened +to us. We decided on Margaret's shack, left vacant when she had proved +up. She had left a few household essentials there. + +There some of the frontier women followed us, to bathe and salve the +burns we had forgotten, bandaging those which were the worst. I had +suffered most when my clothing caught fire, but miraculously there were +no serious burns. + +They left us alone as night came, Ma and Pa Wagor, Ida Mary and me. It +was Ma who roused first from the general lethargy in which we were all +steeped. She began bustling around. "Guess we'd better have something to +eat," she said briskly. + +"There's nothing left to eat," Ida Mary reminded her. + +Triumphantly, Ma brought forth a big bundle tied up in her old gingham +apron. In it were cans of salmon, tomatoes and other essential foods. +And a can of pineapple, Ma's panacea for all ills! "I knew we'd be +hungry after all that, so I jerked up a little stuff while you were +getting the papers out." + +She brought in an armful of prairie hay, built a fire in the cookstove +and made strong tea. She was no longer the clinging vine of an hour +before. + +And there in the little shack down the draw, penniless, almost naked, +all our belongings and our plans for the future in charred ashes on the +claim, we slept from exhaustion. + +No matter with what finality things seem to end, there is always a next +day and a next. During those first few hours the extent of our disaster +had dazed us. Then, the odds seemed so overwhelmingly against us that +there was no use in going on. The only trouble was that we couldn't +stop. Post office or no post office, there was the mail. Print shop or +no print shop, there were the proof notices. + +We were like the cowboy who, hanging to a running steer's tail, was +dragged against the hard ground and through brush until he was cut, +battered and bruised. + +Fearing he would be killed, the other cowboys, who watched, shouted +wildly to him, "Let go! Let go!" + +"Let go, hell!" he yelled back. "It's all I can do to hold on!" + +Then there was Great-uncle Jack Ammons, back in the earlier days of +Illinois, who had become critically ill from some lingering disease of +long standing. One day the doctor called Aunt Jane aside and said, +"Jane, if Jack has any business matters to attend to, it had better be +done at once. I don't think he can last another forty-eight hours." + +From the bedroom came a weak, irritable voice, "Jane! Jane! Where's my +boots?" + +Uncle Jack got up, fought the disease, and lived and prospered for many +a year. We came of a family who died with their boots on. + +I don't know whether it was a streak of Great-uncle Jack or whether, +like the cowboy, we held on because we could not let go. The latter, +perhaps, for we saw no way of escape. Many times, I think, people get +too much credit for hanging on to things as a virtue when they are +simply following the line of least resistance. We saw no means of +escape, and were too stunned to plan. + +Of one thing we were sure. We would not go back home for help. There +would have to be some way of telling our father of the misfortune so as +to soften the blow as much as possible, but we were determined not to +add to his burdens, which were already too heavy for him. + +"If the railroad company takes us to the state line," declared Ida +Mary, "it will have to take us crated--or furnish us covering." In the +garish morning light, indeed, we felt rather naked in those flimsy, torn +clothes, the only garments we now owned. + +"We can't go back, anyhow," I reminded her. "We can't leave things +unfinished. The proof notices have to finish running, and Sam Frye will +be throwing the mail sack in at the door." It was easier to get into +things than to get out. + +The settlers came that day with their widow's mite of food and clothes; +the women's clothing too large, the children's too small. But it covered +us--after a fashion. The store at Presho sent out a box of supplies. +Coyote Cal and Sourdough rode up. + +"Beats tarnation, now don't it," Coyote Cal consoled us. + +"I told you this country wasn't fit for nothin' but cowhands," growled +Sourdough. "Here, the punchers rounded up a little chicken feed." He +fairly threw at us a dirty tobacco pouch, filled with coins. "Coming +before pay day like this, tain't much," he grumbled, as though the +catastrophe might have waited for pay day--things couldn't be done to +suit Sourdough. + +A wagonload of Indians drove up, men and squaws and papooses. They +climbed out, unhitched, turned the team loose to graze. They came in +mumbling in a sort of long wail, "No-print-paper, hu-uh, hu-uh," but +gleeful as children over the gifts they carried. A bright-hued shawl, +thick hot blankets, beaded moccasins. There was a sack of "corn in the +milk" (roasting ears) which had been raised over by the river, and +stripped (dried) meat. We did not know whether it was cow, horse or dog, +but we knew it had been black with flies as it hung on the lines +drying--we had seen them drying meat. However, parboiling should make it +clean. + +And early that morning we saw Imbert coming from Presho, hurrying to Ida +Mary, his face drawn and haggard. They went into each other's arms +without a word, and at last Ida Mary was able to cry, tears of sorrow +and relief, with her face against his breast. + +I lay weak and ill, wasting from a slow fever. I slept fitfully, while +streams of cool water went gurgling by, and cool lemonade, barrels of +it. But every time I stooped to take a drink the barrels went rattling +across the plain into a prairie fire. + +"Maybe you've got typhoid," Ma would say as she bathed my hot head and +hands with towels wrung out of vinegar and warm water, fanning them to +coolness. "You'll be all right, Sis," Ida Mary would say; "just hold +on--" We did not call a doctor. There was no money left for doctors. + +Rest, sleep, and nourishment were what I needed, but conditions were far +from favorable for such a cure. The deserted shack was baking hot. It +was not the cheerful place it had seemed while Margaret lived in it, +with the bare floor, the old kitchen stove, the sagging wire couch and a +couple of kitchen chairs. We had scanty, sticky food, and warm, +sickening water. We didn't even bother to keep it clean. The routine of +our life had been burned away. The handful of dishes went dirty, the +floor went unswept. But Ma brought milk and custards that she had made +at home, I drank the juice of dried fruits, and Imbert brought us water +from the Millers' well. We sank jars of it deep into the ground to keep +cool. + +Heine broke a new trail across the plains and a few days after the fire +the horses came home. They had wandered back to the old site, snorted at +the black ruins, and gone thundering across the prairie led by Lakota +with the wild horse's fear of fire. We never expected to see them again. +But one day they saw Sam Frye coming with the mail. They followed him +down the draw, and when he stopped and threw out the mail sack Lakota +gave a loud neigh and walked straight into Margaret's old barn. Where +the mail sacks went was home to Lakota. + +Moving the post office around the prairie, piling the mail in an open +box in the corner, may have been criminally illegal, but we gave it no +thought. + +The mail, in a haphazard fashion, was being handled. Our next problem +was the proof notices. They must go on. It was vital to the settlers. +Many of them could not live without the money they were borrowing on the +final proofs. Without the press there seemed no solution to that +problem. + +On the sixth day after the fire Ida Mary got up early, while I slept in +the cool of the morning; she made a blast from the dry grass under one +cap of the stove, boiled coffee, ate her lean breakfast, and put food on +a chair beside my bed. Then she darkened the room, slipped out, saddled +Lakota, rode up to the cave, and brought out the mail sack of legal +papers we had saved from the fire. She took out the notices--those in +course of publication and others due to be published. Then she rode on +to McClure, made arrangements with the printer of the McClure _Press_, +and began setting up the notices. + +When the stage came in that noon with the Ammons mail, there was a +letter from E. L. Senn, the proof king, offering us the use of the shop +and part-time service of his printer to meet the emergency. Although we +had cornered the great proof business on the Lower Brule, he was coming +to our rescue to save it for us. + +That night Ida Mary came home, hot, weary, with lines of fatigue in her +youthful face and about her blue eyes. But there was a resolute look, +too, marking her strong will; and in her voice a tone of satisfaction. + +It was a long, arduous task, setting up again all those notices in small +type. The type of the McClure shop would not set half of the notices. We +sent the balance of them to be set, some in Presho, some in Pierre, got +them back by stage, and _The Wand_, despite fire and all other +obstacles, went on with its work--a few days late, strictly a proof +sheet, but without lapse of publication. + +And Ida Mary kept things going, conserving her strength as well as she +could, with Imbert and Ma Wagor helping. Ma said, "I'd 'a' died if I +hadn't found something to do." + +It was mid-August, with no sign of the drought breaking. In the shack +down the draw we sat during spare hours sorting type at Margaret's +kitchen table, picking, separating six-point, eight-point, ten-point +letters and spaces, leads, slugs. Ma Wagor and other neighbors helped at +odd times; Heine separated the type into piles of like sizes. Sorting +that type-pi was a job to which no one in the world but a printer can +give the deserved sympathy. + +Heine, raking around in the cooling embers on my claim, had found +several cases of pied type and a few odds and ends of printing equipment +down under a piece of heavy tin roofing, the only thing salvaged from +the wreckage. + +A committee of settlers came, emptied a little sack on the table. In a +little heap there lay pennies, dimes, quarters, a few silver +dollars--precious coins that had been put aside to keep the wolf from +the door--and a separate roll of bills. The offering of the Lower Brule +settlers! "To build a new shack and print shop," they said simply. "The +homesteaders will do the building." + +Of course, we must build another shack and reestablish residence or +there would be no deed to the land. The money represented not only the +hard-earned savings but the loyal support of the settlers. When we +protested, they laughed. "But _The Wand_ has always been telling us to +share," they said. Some of the business men of the towns added to the +contribution to establish the newspaper. + +One sweltering day, with everyone seeking escape from the broiling sun, +all movement over the Strip was suspended. As I lay on the couch +recuperating, there came a great explosion that roared through the dead +hush like all the cannons of war gone off at once. Ida Mary, resting in +the shade of the shack, came running in. It could not be thunder, for +there was not a cloud in the sky. It had come from over Cedar Fork way. + +Soon the plains were astir with settlers rushing in the direction of the +explosion. A great rumbling force was sending steam high into the air. +It was Ben Smith's Folly. He had struck gas--enough to pipe house and +barns for light and fuel! + +Then came a heaving, belching from far down in the earth's cavern. And +up came the water--a great stream of it that ran over the dry hot +ground! Water overflowing. That artesian well, flowing day and night, +would save the people and stock until it rained. + +And with the flowing of fresh, cool water on the Lower Brule, life began +to flow through my veins once more, and I got up, ready for what was to +come. + +[Illustration] + + + + +XVI + +FALLOWED LAND + + +So it happened that only a few weeks before proving-up time, Ida Mary +and I had to start all over again. But with the coming of water into +that thirsty land it didn't seem so difficult to begin again. And we +weren't doing it alone. It was the settlers who built a new shack, a new +building for a printing press; the settlers who clothed us during those +first destitute days. "This is cooperation," they laughed at our +protests. "_The Wand_ has always preached cooperation." + +In the cool of the evening I rode out over the devastated prairie, past +the charred timbers and ashes of my claim, across the scorched and +stunted fields blighted by drought, avoiding the great cracks which had +opened in the dry earth and lay gaping like thirsty mouths for rain. +The crops were burnt, and the land which had seemed so fertile looked +bleak and sterile. + +I rode through the reservation gate. There was no one at home at Huey +Dunn's, but his little field of shocked grain lay there in the midst of +burnt grass and unharvested fields. Instead of dry chaff there were +hard, fairly well-filled heads. It had withstood the drought +sufficiently to mature. In an average year it would have yielded a good +crop. + +On his claim near the reservation a young man was doing quite a bit of +experimenting. He was a graduate of an agricultural school. I looked at +his fields, which also had come through the drought much better than +others. From other farmers scattered here and there who had tried the +fallowing plan I got records of methods and results. Then I rode back +slowly, thinking of what might be done for the Brule country. + +Drinking water supply could be obtained. The next most vital problem was +moisture for the crops. Most of the rainfall came in the growing season, +but in dry years it was inadequate and much of it wasted on packed +ground. To produce crops in the arid or semi-arid regions, out-of-season +moisture--heavy snows and rains--must be conserved. There must be a way +to harness it. + +Next to lack of moisture was the short growing season. These were the +principal barriers to converting the new West into an agricultural +domain. The latter problem could be solved, the farmers said. Progress +already was being made in developing seed adapted to the climate. The +Indians had produced quick-maturing corn through their years of +corn-raising in a small way. There could be developed a hardier, +short-stalked grain, eating up less moisture, agricultural authorities +maintained. The farmers said that nature itself gradually would do a +great deal toward that end. + +Experience. Science. Time. Of course, this was a land of the future, not +of today. The homesteaders had expected to tame it in a year or two, +when many years must be spent on even the smallest scientific +discoveries. They had demanded miracles. That was because they had no +resources with which to await results. + +President Roosevelt had done much in turning public attention toward the +necessity of reclaiming these public lands, and already much was being +done. They had been too long neglected. Years ago, when the supply of +government land had seemed inexhaustible, the tide of settlers had swept +around the forgotten frontier, on beyond the arid and semi-arid land to +the fertile soil and the gold fields on the Pacific Coast. But the time +had come when this neglected prairie was the only land left for a +land-hungry people. Some way had to be found to make the great arid +plains productive. + +The Department of Agriculture was turning its attention to the frontier, +establishing bureaus and experiment stations in various western states, +making scientific research. + +At the request of _The Wand_, two agricultural agents from the State +Experimental Farm came to examine the soil and advise us as to its +possibilities, as to crops and cultivation. They reported it rich in +natural resources, with splendid subsoil. We would have to depend +greatly upon the subsoil and its moisture-retaining quality. + +And over the frontier there was talk about a new system of conserving +moisture. Some said it was bound to sweep the West. The method was +called fallowing--the method Huey Dunn had used. It was a radical +departure from anything farmers of the rain belts had ever used. + +The few sodbreakers who had tried it thought they had found a way to +conserve the moisture and at the same time to preserve the land, but it +was not they who heralded the plan as a great new discovery. To them it +was a way to raise their own crops. They may have learned it in the Old +Country, where intensive farming was carried on, or, like Huey Dunn, +figured it out for themselves. But it was ahead of the times in the new +West and generally looked upon as an impractical idea spread largely by +land agents as propaganda. Many of the farmers had never heard of it. +What I had heard and read of fallowing now came back to mind. I was in a +position to keep better posted on such things than they. + +I got out my letters and records and spread them before Ida Mary on the +old square table, and with the sweat dripping down our faces from the +heat of the lamp we eagerly devoured their contents. Huey Dunn's plan of +mellowing, or rotting the soil, was not yet the true fallowing method. + +"But it will mean cropping the land only every other year, and plowing +and raking the empty soil," Ida Mary said in a tone of misgiving. + +"The top soil is kept loosened so that every bit of moisture will be +absorbed into the subsoil. Suppose it does mean letting the land lie +idle every other year, alternating the fields," I contended. "There is +plenty of cheap land here. It will be a way to utilize waste space." +Farmers in other arid regions, I learned as I scanned the letters, were +raising forage crops on the land in the off year. + +But it will take two years, Ida Mary reminded me. The settlers had no +money to wait so long for a crop. "And all that labor--" she went on. +"It may be the solution, but I doubt if the settlers would listen to any +such plan." + +I knew she was right. Two years of waiting, labor and expense. Labor was +no small item with the poor homesteaders. If the government would put in +money to carry out this new system until the farmers could get returns +from it--"It is a gigantic project for the government to finance ... it +would require great financial corporations to develop this country ..." +Halbert Donovan had said. + +I talked it over with some of the more experienced farmers on the Strip +who understood the processes required. They figured they could plant +part of the ground while the other lay fallowing. If it happened to be a +wet year, that would give them something to go on. "But, mein Gott, how +we goin' to pull t'rough next winter?" old man Husmann raved. Even Chris +had no answer. + +In the years of experimenting, the fallowing system underwent a number +of changes. But we had the plan in its fundamentals. After each rain the +land should be loosened; and late in the fall it should be plowed rather +deeply to soak up the winter snows. The top soil must be kept from +packing. It was worth trying, they agreed, if they could get money to +pull through this drought and stay on the land. + +This might be a solution for the future. But for the people on the land +the solution must be immediate. Empty purses could not wait two seasons +for a good crop; empty stomachs could not await the future, and famine +stared the homesteaders on the Lower Brule in the face. + +Our proof sheet came out with the message, "We Can Fallow!" There was +encouragement to be derived from it, of course, but it was hope +deferred. Then, sitting in the doorway of the shack, leaning against the +jamb for support, my pencil held in tender fingers not yet healed, I +wrote to Halbert Donovan, setting forth the possibilities of the Strip, +and the West, under a moisture-retaining method of farming. + +It was a morning in late August when I turned to see a well-dressed man +standing in the open door. Halbert Donovan! + +At the first meeting he had found the West green and bright with spring +colors, and the outlaw printer of the McClure _Press_ excited and +voluble over the possibilities of the country. Now the investment broker +found a land of desolation and ruin, and the printer in sorry plight, +living in a crude, bare shack, clad like some waif of the streets in the +clothes donated by the settlers. + +But he had come. He had driven out from Pierre along the dusty roads, +through the sultry heat, in a long shiny automobile. On the sagging +couch leaning against the hot wall, he sat wiping the perspiration from +his face as I told him more of the fallowing idea. He had not heard of +it. He knew practically nothing about agriculture, but he was a man to +whom any method of developing vast resources would appeal. + +"At first," he said, little crinkles breaking around his eyes, relieving +the sternness of his face, "I read _The Wand_ (how I did laugh at the +name you gave it) with refreshing amusement, out of a personal curiosity +you had aroused. I wanted to see how long you would hold out. Later I +became deeply interested in this western activity." + +I knew in what mood he must have reached the shack, after that drive +from Pierre, across parched earth, seeing the ruined crops, passing +settlers' homes which from the outside looked like the miserable huts +one sees along waterfronts or in mean outskirts of a city where the +flotsam of humanity live. And cluttered around them, farm machinery, +washtubs, and all the other junk that could be left outdoors, with +countless barrels for hauling water, and the inevitable pile of tin +cans. It was dreary, it was unrelievedly ugly; above all, it looked like +grim failure. + +Earnestly I faced him. "We aren't done," I told him. "We've just +begun--badly, I know, but we can fallow. Make reservoirs. Put down +artesian wells." I completely forgot, in putting these possibilities of +the Strip before him, to mention the gas and oil deposits which we had +discovered during our frantic search for water. I did not think of +saying, "We have natural gas here--let's go and look at the Ben Smith +ranch with all its buildings piped with gas. And over on the Carter +place a drill came up from a shallow hole sticky with oil." But the +minds of the settlers were so focused elsewhere that little had been +said about these things. With an investment broker interested in mining +projects under my very roof, many of us might have become rich and the +Brule prosperous in no time. + +Development of agriculture, to my mind, was of broader importance than +oil strikes, anyhow. "Men do put money into undeveloped things," I said. +"Eastern capitalists risk millions in undeveloped mines and oil fields +in the West. This is different. Land is solid." + +He answered thoughtfully: "As an investment, land is not so precarious +as mines, but there are no big profits to be reaped from it. That's the +difference, my girl." + +He must have known that even for investors, western land was going to be +a big thing. He must have known that the railroad companies were buying +it up--that the Milwaukee had gone into a spree of land buying in Lyman +County. + +I poured him some water from the can we kept in a hole in the ground +back of the shack for coolness. He took a swallow and set it down. "Good +Lord, how can anyone drink that!" he exclaimed. + +"We get used to it," I told him. "And we'll have a better water supply +in time. It will rain--it's bound to rain, sooner or later." + +He looked out at the blazing sky, the baked earth, a snake slithering +from the path back into the dry grass which rustled as it moved. "So +this is the land you want to save," he exclaimed. "The incredible thing +is that people have managed to stay on it at all!" + +"They will stay," I assured him. "Remember that these builders have had +nothing to work with, no direction, no system or leadership. What would +business men accomplish in such an undertaking under the circumstances? +If they had experienced leaders--men like you--" + +"In other words," he smiled, "laying up riches where moth and rust do +corrupt." He walked to the door and stood, hands in pockets, looking out +over the plains. Then he turned to face me. + +"My dear girl, I might not be worth a hoot at the job." + +"Oh, you would! You would! And if the settlers never repaid you, think +what a land king you would become," I laughed. + +"No, I don't want the land that way. I want to see the settlers succeed, +try to keep them from being squeezed out." + +He mopped his face, picked up the glass of water and after a glance at +it set it down untouched. "Now, I've been thinking of this western +development for some time. It's going to open up new business in almost +every field. Aside from all that, it is worth while. I've kept track of +you and your Brule. If one gets his money back here it is all he can +expect. How much would be needed to help these settlers hold on--a +little grubstake, some future operating money? I like this fallowing +idea." + +He talked about second mortgages, collateral on personal property, +appointment of local agents, etc. He did not want the source of this +borrowing power to become known as yet. + +It was he who brought me back to my personal predicament when, ready to +leave, he expressed his desire to help me, asking if I would accept a +check--"For you and your sister to carry on." But I refused. I had +appealed to him for the country, not for myself. But his offer mortified +me, made me conscious of my shabby appearance, the coarse, ill-fitting +clothes, the effects of the fire still visible in rough and +smoke-stained skin, the splotches of new skin on my lips, the face pink +and tender. Altogether, the surroundings and I must have made a drab +spectacle. + +Holding out his hand to say good-by, Halbert Donovan saw my shrinking +embarrassment. Suddenly he put his arm around my shoulders, drew me to +him, brushed back the singed hair and pressed his lips to my forehead; +turned my small, blackened hand, palm upward, looking at it. + +"I'll help you all I can," he said. "Just keep your Utopian dreams." + + * * * * * + +So it happened that, before famine could touch these people who had +already struggled through drought and blizzard and despair, they found +help in sight. Halbert Donovan put up $50,000 as a start, to be dealt +out for emergency on land, livestock, etc. Heretofore loans had been +made on land only. Now the reliability of the borrower himself was often +taken into account as collateral. It was enough that we knew the +borrower was honest, that he was doing his best to conquer the land and +to make it yield. We gambled on futures then, as we had done before. +That it was eastern capital, handled through a system of exchange and +agencies, was all that those who borrowed knew or cared. + +And each day we scanned the heavens for signs of rain. We searched for a +cloud like a starving man for bread. The settlers went stalking about +with necks craned, heads thrown back, eyes fixed on the sky. And the +cartoonist from Milwaukee took to looking for a cloud with a field +glass. A cloud no bigger than a man's hand would raise the hopes of the +whole reservation. But in vain we searched the metallic blue of the sky. + +With spectacular ceremonial and regalia the Indians staged their "rain +dance." The missionaries had long opposed this form of expression by the +Indians, and their objections led to a government ban which was finally +modified to permit some sort of ritual. + +These symbolic dances were not mere ceremonials for the Plains Indians; +they were their one means of expressing their emotions en masse +rhythmically, of maintaining their sense of tribal unity. + +The first part of the ceremony was secret and lasted for several days. +After that the public ceremony began. Painted according to ritual, they +danced in a line from east to west and back again, whistling as they +danced, every gesture having its symbolic meaning. The whistle +symbolized to them the call of the Thunderbird. + +Pioneers belong to the past, people are prone to say; savage customs +belong to the past. But it was in the twentieth century that primitive +men, their bodies streaked with black paint, fasted and danced, +overcoming an enemy as they danced, compelling the Thunderbird to +release the rain. And on the Strip men and women prayed as fervently to +their own God, each in his own way. + +That night, something breaking the dead stillness woke me. A soft, slow +tapping on the roof of the shack, like ghostly fingers. It increased in +tempo as though birds, in this land without trees, were pecking at the +roof; it grew to a regular drumming sound. I lay for a few moments, +listening, wondering. Then I leaped out of bed, ran to the door and +stepped outside. + +Rain! Rain! Rain! + +"Ida Mary," I called, "get up! It's raining!" + +She was out of bed in a moment as though someone had shouted "fire." + +In nightdress, bare feet, we ran out on the prairie, reached up our +hands to the soft, cool, soothing drops which fell slowly as though +hesitating whether to fall or not. And then it poured. The grass was wet +beneath our feet. + +We lifted our heads, opened our lips and drank in the cool, fresh drops. +I lay down on the cool blanket of earth, absorbing its reviving moisture +into my body, feeling the rain pattering on my flesh. + +Over the prairie dim lights flickered through the rain. Men and women +rushed out to hail its coming--and to put tubs and buckets under the +roofs. No drop of this miracle must be wasted. In their joy and relief, +some of the homesteaders, unable to sleep, hitched up and drove across +the plains to rejoice with their friends. + +After that eternity of waiting it rained and rained, until the earth all +about was green and fresh. Native hay came out green, and late-planted +seed burst out of the ground. Some of the late crops matured. There was +water in the dams! The thirsty land drank deep of the healing rains. + +The air grew fresh and cool, haggard faces were alight with hope. The +Lower Brule became a different place, where once again people planned +for the future, unafraid to look ahead. + +With the mail bag, the salvaged type, and Margaret's few sticks of +furniture which she wrote to us to take, we moved back to the homestead, +to the site of Ammons. + +The settlers had the building up. This time it was a little +square-roofed house made of drop siding (no more tar paper). A thin, +wall-board partition running halfway to the ceiling divided the small +living quarters from the print shop. + +The McClure _Press_ had died the natural death of the proof sheet, and +the proof king was submerged in the cause of prohibition. Later he was +appointed federal prohibition agent for the state of South Dakota. He +gave us most of the McClure _Press_ equipment. So I got that hand press, +after all. What few proofs were yet to be made in that section were +thrown to _The Wand_. With the current proof money coming in we bought +the additional supplies necessary to run the paper. + +I sent a telegram to Halbert Donovan: "Rain. Pastures coming out green. +Dwarfed grain can make feed in the straw. My flax making part crop. Dams +full of water. Fall fallowing begun." In hilarious mood I signed it +"Utopia." + +Delivered the twenty-five miles in the middle of the night, special +messenger service prepaid, came the answer: "Atta girl. Am increasing +the stakes." + +He did. Halbert Donovan's company interested other financial concerns in +making loans, "to deal out through competent appraisement." + +So the Brule won through, as pioneers before them had done, as other +pioneers in other regions were doing, as ragged, poverty-stricken, +gallant an army as ever marched to the colors. + +[Illustration] + + + +XVII + +NEW TRAILS + + +Ida Mary and Imbert were going to be married. At last Ida Mary was sure, +and there was no need of waiting any longer. So she went back to St. +Louis for the first time, and two weeks later the wedding took place. + +When they returned as bride and groom, the settlers came from every +direction, accompanied by all the cow and sheep bells, tin cans and old +horns on the Strip for a big charivari. They came bringing baskets of +food for the supper and any little article or ornament they could find +at home for a wedding present, singing as they came, "Lucky Numbers Are +We," and "We Won't Go Home Till Morning." + +Imbert took over the Cedar Fork ranch and store--that little trade +center outside the reservation gate where a disheveled group of +landseekers had faced a new dawn rising upon the Strip. And Ida Mary, +who so loved the land, came at last to make it her permanent home. +Steady, practical and resourceful--it was such women the West needed. + +The sturdily built log house was a real home, no tar-paper +shack--rustic, we would call it now--with four rooms and a porch. There +were honest-to-goodness beds, carpets and linoleum on the kitchen floor! +Ida Mary was so proud of the linoleum that she wiped it up with skim +milk to make it shine. There was a milk cow and consequently homemade +butter and cottage cheese--all the makeshift discomforts of homesteading +replaced by the solid and enduring qualities of home. + +Peace, home, happiness--for Ida Mary. + +And Ma Wagor's problems were solved, too. It appeared that her first +husband had left her more than the an-tik brooch of which she was so +proud. He had left her a son who had grown to be a stalwart, +good-looking young man, who worked with a construction company out in +western Nebraska. Learning of the Wagors' misfortune, he came, started +another store at Ammons for his mother, and helped her to run it for a +while. + +All around Ammons the fields lay freshly turned, fallowing for next +year's crop. Our field of flax had been cut for what little it would +make, and the ground plowed over to soak up the winter's moisture. With +the turning of the ground for another season, a page in my own life was +turning. "What am I going to do, now that I've come in under the wire?" +I wondered. + +And then I proved up and got my patent. I borrowed a thousand dollars on +it to pay off the government and the balance due our financial backers, +who had gambled on us without security. But I did not borrow the money +through the Halbert Donovan Company. The loan had been promised me by +the banks many months before. We had borrowed on the first homestead to +get the second, borrowed to the limit on the second to pay for the +privilege of helping to run the reservation. We now had both farms +mortgaged to the hilt. But the hay alone would pay the interest and +taxes. Land would increase in value. + +I was alone at the shack now with the newspaper still to get out. Riding +across the plains toward the claim one afternoon, I heard the swift, +staccato clicking of type as it fell rapidly in the stick. The metallic +sound carried across the prairie as I neared the shop. As I walked in I +saw, perched on the high stool in front of the type case, a little +hoydenish figure with flying hair--Myrtle Coombs, the hammer-and-tongs +printer. "This don't look right to me," she remarked, reading her stick +as I came in, "but a good printer follows copy even if it flies out of +the window." + +Myrtle had come back on vacation to see how her homestead was +progressing. Seeing that I needed help, she unrolled a newspaper bundle +and hung her "extra" dress and nightgown on a nail, laid a comb and a +toothbrush on the dry-goods-box dressing table, and for two weeks she +"threw" out the paper with a bang. + +About this time the regime of our government was changing. Out of the +West, from which we had had only sheep and cattle, there were coming men +destined to be leaders in the affairs of the country. As men had risen +from the ranks to guide the destinies of the Colonies, so men appeared +from the West to shape this new America. + +They came from a world where land was king. It was a boundless +territory. A large section of it, which was once marked on the map as +the Great American Desert, had been left untouched, a dead possession +and a problem to the government, who did not know what use to make of it +until the homesteaders pushed west. + +In the past two or three years, 200,000 homesteaders had taken up +claims, filing on more than 40,000,000 acres, making a solid coverage of +70,000 square miles. Those settlers and their families constituted a +million people. Ahead of this tidal wave, in the steady stream of +immigration, thousands of other settlers had moved west. Now there were +several million people who must subsist on the raw lands. They, with +others who had followed the homesteaders, were dependent upon their +success or failure to make the western prairie produce. + +It had to produce! The West was the nation's reserve of natural +resources. The soil was to produce cereal gold, huge fields of wheat, +bread for a new people--bread, at last, for a world at war. + +So the Public Lands question was of first importance. There must be new +land laws and other measures enacted for these people. It was a gigantic +task set for the men from out the West to perform. But already they had +begun to wield an influence on the affairs of the nation. + +One heard of a man from Utah with the name of Smoot, who came from a +class of solid builders. He was bound to be heard more of in the +future, people said; and there appeared in Congress a man whose +indomitable force soon became recognized as something to contend with--a +man from Idaho named William E. Borah. Two other westerners had already +become statesmen of note. They had sprung from the sagebrush country. +Senator Francis E. Warren, and Congressman Frank W. Mondell--both of +Wyoming. + +Senator Warren devoted a lifetime to the interests of the West. +Congressman Mondell, as Speaker of the House and chairman of the Public +Lands Committee, was an influence for the homestead country; and from +our own state, progressive, fearless, was Senator Peter Norbeck. + +The frontier is big, but news travels over it in devious ways, and the +work of _The Wand_ and of Ida Mary and me began to be known in +Washington. My editorial fight for the settlers attracted the attention +of these officials from the West. From several of them we received +messages, commending our efforts and offering assistance in any feasible +way. I also received communications from Senator Warren and Congressman +Mondell, commenting upon my comprehension of the homestead issue. I was +asked to submit the problems of my people, and in return I sought +information from them. + +Small things, those frontier newspapers, but _The Wand_ had achieved +what Ida Mary and I had hoped of it, it had been the voice of the +people, a voice heard across the prairie, across the Land of the Burnt +Thigh, across the continent to the doors of Congress itself. Its +protests, its recommendations were weighed at last by the men best able +to help the men and women on the Strip. And the little outlaw printer, +to her overwhelming surprise, was being recognized not only on the Strip +but beyond it, as an authority on the homesteading project and a +champion of the homesteaders. + +It was back on the lookout of the outlaw printer and the outlaw horse +thieves, that I got another letter from Senator Warren, asking what my +plans were for the future and whether I had thought of carrying my work +farther on, work where "the harvest was great and the laborers few," he +said. Should I decide to go on into new fields, I could depend upon his +support. He would recommend my newspaper as an official one; there would +be many opportunities, probably government posts for which my particular +knowledge would qualify me. + +While I was still undetermined as to what to do after my work on the +proof sheet was finished, I was not a career woman, and Senator Warren's +suggestions received little serious thought. Ida Mary, I thought, was +serving the West in the best way for a woman. Needles and thread and +bread dough have done more toward preserving nations than bullets, and +the women who made homes on the prairie, working valiantly with the +meager tools at their command, did more than any other group in settling +the West. It was their efforts which turned tar-paper shacks into +livable houses, their determination to provide their children with +opportunities which built schools and established communities. + +I was content for a while to thrust the thought of the future out of my +mind, but I continued to watch with tense interest what was happening +to the homestead country. A new land law had been passed which had a +strong influence on the agricultural development of the West. It doubled +the size of homesteads to 320 acres. This would bring farmers and +families for permanent building. It would give them more pasture and +plenty of land to carry on the fallowing method. To discourage the +prove-up-and-run settler, it required three years, a certain amount of +fencing and eighty acres plowed to get a deed. It created a new land +splurge. A half-section! To the average homeseeker it was like owning +the whole frontier. + +This law was called the Mondell Act, and President Theodore Roosevelt +proclaimed it "a great opportunity for the poor people--and a long +stride in the West's progress." Roosevelt had faith in the future of a +Greater America. The programs which he initiated were to accomplish +tremendous results in the building of the western lands. + +With my bent for delving into the effect of land rulings on the settler, +I made inquiry regarding certain provisions of the Mondell Act. With the +information came a letter from its author, expressing his belief in the +advantages of the act to the homeseeker, and describing what it would do +in developing the territory farther west. He talked, too, about my work, +and my carrying it into new fields. Wyoming was bound to become a +homestead Mecca. And he added: "Your experience in South Dakota could, +no doubt, be made of great value in aiding in the development of +Wyoming." + +A few days after I received Congressman Mondell's letter, C. H. West +arrived. Usually placid and genial, he was now wrought up. He came at +once to the point of his visit. Under the enlarged homestead law he was +extending operations farther west, where he was going to settle large +tracts. He wanted me to head bands of homeseekers into this new +territory, to help colonize it. + +We were entering an era of colonization, of doing things in organized +groups, cooperative bodies. To the progress which these movements have +made in the United States much is owing to the West, where it was +developed through necessity. + +Eastern men were forming profit-making corporations to colonize western +land. Real estate dealers were organizing colonies. Groups of +homeseekers were organizing their own bands. Mr. West had many inquiries +from such groups, and he had determined to do his own colonizing. They +would want me to go to eastern cities, he said, bring the colonists +west, and help locate them satisfactorily. + +The locating fees, according to Mr. West, would run into money, and he +proposed to give me 50 per cent of the profits. "In addition," he +promised, "we will advance you a fair salary and all expenses." + +I realized that I must face the future. The proof business on the Strip +was almost over. Henceforth the paper, and the post office which had +been transferred to me on Ida Mary's marriage, would eke out a bare +existence. And, as Ma Wagor complained, the Brule was becoming so +settled "it would be havin' a Ladies Aid before long with the women +servin' tea and carryin' callin' cards around." That would be no place +for me. + +For a long time I sat gazing out of the window over the open spaces. +What would this mean to the people whom I was to bring west? It was +they, not I nor any other individual, whose future must be weighed. The +tidal wave of western immigration would reach its crest in the next two +or three years, and break over Wyoming, Montana, Colorado--those states +bordering the Great Divide. It was to reach its high peak in 1917, when +the United States entered the World War. + +I remembered the shaking hands, the faces of the men and women who had +lost at the Rosebud Drawing. There was still land for them. Land of +their own for tenant farmers, land for the homeless. The Land of a +Million Shacks--that was the slogan of the frontier. + +"Where is this land?" I asked, finally. + +"In Wyoming. Across the Dakota-Nebraska line. Reaching into the Rawhide +Country," Mr. West explained. + +Rawhide country. Lost Trail. "A short-grass range, but rich," Lone Star +had said--"an honest-to-God country, bigger'n all creation." + +I turned to Mr. West and faced him squarely. "Has it got water?" + +He smiled at the sudden vehemence of the question and was ready for it. +"Yes, it has water. The finest in the world." Water clear and cold, he +told me, could be obtained at two to three hundred feet on almost any +spot. Out on the scattered ranches, in the middle of the range, one +found windmills pumping all day long. There would be plenty of water for +stock and for irrigating small patches. + +"All right," I said, "I'll go." + +The cartoonist was going back to Milwaukee. "Being here has done +something for me," he said. "Seeing so much effort given ungrudgingly +for small results, I think. I'm going back and do something with my art. +But it's odd--I don't really want to go back." + +One by one the prove-up-and-run settlers had left the country, but Huey +Dunn, Chris Christopherson and others like them were learning to meet +the country on its own terms and conquer it. They were there to stay. + +A young man appeared who was willing to run the newspaper, and I turned +the post office over to Ma Wagor. Amid the weird beating of tom-toms and +the hoo-hoo ah-ah-ahhh of the Indians across the trail, I set up my +farewell message in _The Wand_. In gorgeous regalia of beads and quills, +paint and eagle feathers, the Indians had come to send the Great Spirit +with Paleface-Prints-Paper on to the heap big hunting grounds. It was +the time of year when "paint" in all the variegated colors was +plentiful, gathered from herbs and flowers, yellow, copper, red. The +affair was probably more of an excuse to celebrate than an expression of +esteem. The Indians never miss an opportunity to stage a show. When they +attend a county fair or other public gathering, they load up children, +dogs and worldly goods, and in a long procession they set out, arriving +several days before the event and celebrating long after it is all over. + +They had come prepared to camp for the night at the print shop, going +through special incantations for the occasion, but now they were +whooping it up around the campfire. I was dragged into the dance and +went careening around with old warriors and young bucks, the squaws +laughing at my mistakes. + +As a farewell editorial I quoted the epitaph once engraved on a +tombstone: "He done his damnedest. Angels could do no more." + +The eerie sound of the Indian dance had ceased. The flickering campfires +had died down. Only two years and four months since Ida Mary and I had +broken a trail to that first little homestead shack. And a chapter of my +life was closed. + +Beyond, in the dark, slept men and women who had endured hardships and +struggles and heavy labor; who had plowed up the virgin soil and set +their own roots deep in it. They were here to stay. + +In those two years they had built a little empire that would endure. +There were roads and fences, schools and thriving towns nearby where +they could market their products, and during the World War Presho became +the second largest hay-shipping point in the United States, with the +government buying trainloads of the fine native hay from the tall grass +country of the Brule. + +But my work on the Strip was ended. Big as the venture had seemed to me +in the beginning, it was only a fraction of the country waiting to be +tamed. And beyond there was Wyoming, "bigger'n all creation." + +I was going empty-handed, with no fixed program or goal. After the +settlers were on the ground, there would be many obstacles which must be +overcome. Down to earth again! Even in the initial colonizing I would +have to depend on my own initiative, on my influence with the people, +and on my understanding of the homestead project. My experience on the +Brule in getting settlers to work together would be invaluable. The +field would be new--but the principles of cooperative effort were always +the same. + +Upon learning that I was going on with the development work, Senator +Warren wrote a letter filled with encouragement and information, and +Senator Borah expressed his interest. + +Wyoming exemplified all the romance, the color, the drama of the old +Wild West. It was noted as a land of cowboys, wild horses, and fearless +men. As a commonwealth it was invincible. It was one of the greatest +sheep and cattle kingdoms in the world, where stockmen grazed their +herds over government domain, lords of all they surveyed. + +In the past the big cattle and sheep outfits had brooked no +interference. One of the worst stockmen-settler wars ever waged had been +fought in Wyoming against an invasion of homesteaders, a war that became +so bloody the government had to take a hand, calling out the National +Guards to settle it. It was this section of the range country that I was +to help fill with sodbreakers. + +The force of progress made it safer now, with the government and public +sentiment back of the homestead movement. These stockman-settler wars, +however, were not yet a thing of the past, and despite the years of +western development that followed, they continued to break out every now +and then in remote range country. In self-preservation stockmen of +various sections were making it difficult for the homesteader, and it +was certain that colonies of them would not be welcomed with open arms. +I knew all this in a general way, of course, but I had no trepidation +over the undertaking. My only qualms were on the score of health. It is +a poor trail-breaker who cannot travel with strong people, and that was +a drawback I couldn't overcome. All I could do was hope for the best and +rely on my ability to catch up if I should have to fall behind. I took a +chance on it. I rode to Ida Mary's, and found her rocking and sewing and +humming to herself in her new home. + +"I'm going to help colonize Wyoming," I told her bluntly. + +She let her sewing fall to the floor and sat staring at me, standing +bold and defiant in the middle of the floor. But my voice broke and I +threw myself across her bed crying. It was my first venture without Ida +Mary. + +She did not say now, as she had done on other occasions: "How can you +help colonize a raw range country? You couldn't manage it." Life had +done something to us out here. + +I started out from Ida Mary's. Out across the plain I turned and looked +back. She was still standing in the doorway, shading her eyes so as to +see me longer. We waved and waved, and I left her watching as the +distance swallowed me up. + + * * * * * + +At the shack I found Judge Bartine waiting for me. He observed the +traces of tears on my cheeks, but made no comment on them. + +"You know," he said, "I'm glad you and your sister stuck through all +this." + +I hesitated, on the verge of telling him how near I had come to giving +up and starting a back-trek. + +"When the cattle-rustling gang I convicted burned the courthouse and my +office over my head," he went on after a little pause, "I made a narrow +escape. I didn't have a penny in the world left with which to fight, and +I knew perfectly well that I was in danger of being shot down every time +I went out of the door. + +"But I had to stay. Men could go through Hades out here for years to get +a foothold and raise a herd of cattle and wake up one morning to find it +gone. Something had to be done with those cattle thieves." + +"It seems to me," I told him, "the stockmen should have paid you awfully +well." + +"I got my pay," he said quietly, "just as you have done; I got my pay in +the doing. So, Edith, I am glad you girls did not run away. I didn't +come before because I didn't want to influence you. I wanted to see you +do it alone." + +When he had gone, I closed the door of the shack behind me. A man was +riding up the trail to meet me, bringing two messages. One from the +House of Representatives in Washington was signed F. W. Mondell. "I am +delighted," it read, "to know of your faith and confidence in the +country farther west, particularly the region to which you are going. I +trust the settlers whom you are instrumental in bringing into the +country will be successful, and I have no doubt that they will, if they +are the right sort. I wish you Godspeed and success." The other letter +was from Mr. West, who was awaiting me on the road to Wyoming with a +group of landseekers. + +On top of the ridge I stopped and gazed at the cabin with no sign of +life around it, took my last look at the Land of the Burnt Thigh. A +wilderness I had found it, a thriving community I left it. But the sun +was getting low and I had new trails to break. + +I gave Lakota the rein. + + + + + +------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 20 unescapable changed to inescapable | + | | + | Page 117 moustache changed to mustache | + | | + | Page 149 Wagors changed to Wagors' | + | | + | Page 197 Midafternoon changed to Mid-afternoon | + | | + | Page 266 Cedarfork changed to Cedar Fork | + | | + +------------------------------------------------+ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAND OF THE BURNT THIGH*** + + +******* This file should be named 24352.txt or 24352.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/3/5/24352 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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