62 DEEP FURROWS 



where Well, never mind. Those houses belonged to 

 other people; the shanty was theirs. All around 

 stretched acres and acres of snow ; but there was land 

 under that snow rich, new land and that was theirs, 

 too, by right of homesteading. 



It was about Christmas time in 1883 when E. A. 

 Partridge was twenty-one. The place was near Sinta- 

 luta, District of Assiniboia, North-West Territories, 

 and homesteading there in the days before the Rebellion 

 was no feather bed for those who tackled it. A piece 

 of actual money was a thing to take out and look at 

 every little while, to show to one's friends and talk 

 about. 



Season after season the half starved agricultural 

 pathfinders lost their hard-earned crops by drouth and 

 what was not burned out by the sun was eaten by 

 ubiquitous gophers. The drouth was due, no doubt, to 

 the frequent prairie fires which swept the country; 

 these found birth in the camp-fire coals left by ignorant 

 or careless settlers on their way in. Under the rays of 

 the summer sun the blackened ground became so hot 

 that from it ascended a column of scorching air which 

 interfered with the condensation of vapor preceding the 

 falling of rain. Clouds would bank up above the 

 prairie horizon, eagerly watched by anxious home- 

 steaders; but over the burned area the clouds seemed 

 to thin out without a drop falling upon the parching 

 crops. 



^Forty-three acres, sown to wheat, was the first crop 

 which the Partridge brothers put in.^> The tntaljeld 

 was seven bushels, obtained from around the edges of a 

 slough ! 



One by one discouraged settlers gathered together 

 their few belongings and sought fresh trails. Lone men 



