Work in the Dakota Group 5 



ing November of that year a great sleet storm cov- 

 ered the whole central part of the state. In order 

 to water my cattle, which were scattered over a 

 range of several thousand acres on Elm Creek, I 

 was obliged to follow around small bands of them 

 to their accustomed watering-places and cut the ice 

 for them. The water that splashed over my clothing 

 froze solid, and the result was that inflammatory 

 rheumatism settled in the lame leg. I sat in a 

 leathern chair all winter close to a boxwood stove, 

 tended by my dear mother, who never left me day 

 or night. 



When the inflammation subsided, the knee joint 

 had become ankylosed, and in order to avoid going 

 on crutches all my life, I lay in the hospital at Fort 

 Riley for three months, all alone in a great ward, 

 and had the limb straightened by a special machine. 

 So skilfully did the army surgeon do this work 

 that I threw away crutches and cane, and, although 

 the leg has always been stiff, I have since walked 

 thousands of miles among the fossiliferous beds in 

 the desolate fields of the West. 



In 1865, when I was fifteen years old, my father 

 accepted the principalship of the Iowa Lutheran 

 College at Albion, Marshall County, and the broken 

 hill country of my boyhood days was replaced by 

 the plains and water courses of the Middle West. 



Two years later my twin brother and I emigrated 



