THE GREAT AMERICAN DESERT 



233 



ment was keen, but they could not return. They settled on the one- 

 hundred-and-sixty-acre homestead, and during the first winter lived in 

 a miserable, unhomelike dugout. In such a condition, poorly clad, 

 without coal or other fuel in quantity, they braved that first terrible 

 winter with its icy blizzards, the spring coming barely in time to save 



\ 







,-.-"^ 





^^<^<*^"'^ 

 -^^v?^^ 





Pig. 16. Instruments for the Determination of Wind Velocitt, Evaporation, 

 Relative Humidity and Temperature. 



them from an agonizing death. The next summer perhaps they built 

 a small sod house into which were moved the few belongings, and then 

 they began to map out plans for their future existence. There were 

 neighbors in equally straitened circumstances, but after a while it was 

 found possible to buy a few cattle and in this way a permanent liveli- 

 hood was assured, and the foundations were laid for what is now one of 

 the most important industries of the state. 



The population of the Sand Hills is widely scattered. One may ride 

 for twenty or thirty miles in almost any part of the hills and not see 

 more than one or two houses, and frequently in such a ride he may not 

 see a single home or meet a single person. The lack of human asso- 

 ciates together with the monotony of the landscape and the slow routine 

 of the lonesome day, the parching wdnds of summer, the call of the 

 range, and the crimping blasts of winter, has left a telling imprint upon 

 the homesteader and has made him a afrizzled, fearless man. Far from 

 the influence of the laws and the morals of civilization, he constructed 

 his own statutes and his own code of morals. There were few entries 

 here, but woe to him of the hills who lived not the life of an open book. 



