THE NEBRASKA SAND HILLS. 280 



"boomers" and came to the region from the east years ago. They found 

 that the glowing tales of the wealth of the region were mostly florid 

 falsehoods and that they were in a strange land whose productivity was 

 not at all apparent and the rigors of whose climate were at times most 

 severe. IMany of these early homesteaders used up all of their capital in 

 getting into the Sand Hills. Once there their disappointment 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 unhome- 

 like 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 them from an agonizing deatli. 

 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 cir- 

 cumstances, but after a while it was found possible to buy a few cattle 

 and in this way a permanent livelihood 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 homes, and frequently in such a ride he may not 

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

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

 the lonesome day, the parching winds 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 grizzled, 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. "A 

 square deal for all" was the motto that the knights of this grassy king- 

 dom wrote across their breasts. If a horse disappeared from the corral 

 a hurried call was sent forth and a small mounted committee was soon 

 scouring the hills. If the wrong man was found riding away astride the 

 missing animal, he was jerked down, tried before this quickly constructed 

 bunch-grass court, found guilty of horse stealing and was speedily strung 

 up to a tree with a lariat rope, long before a single juryman could be 

 summoned in a region possessed of a "higher standard of ethics and a 

 solemn regard for the law." Such was justice on the range, especially in 

 the earlier days. Even in this late day the dove of peace does not nest 

 in all the nooks of this great sand-hill domain. There is romance and 

 chivalry of the real western sort in abundance. Only a few weeks ago 

 four stalwart sons of the hills were sent to the state prison for life be- 

 cause of a deed that they thought was merely chivalrous. They went to 

 the ranch house ^of a neighbor one night, took him from his bed, threw a 

 rope over his head and pulled him up to a telephone pole. They had 

 not intended to take the man's life, but simply sought to intimidate him 

 and cause him to leave the country. He had made certain threats un- 



