Homesteading 



to work, first with the threshing gangs and later 

 a certain amount in hauHng grain. 



As I have before explained, this is done in co- 

 operation with neighbours ; thus the grain grower, 

 working one day with his team on a threshing 

 gang at a neighbour's farm, is engaged in the 

 same work on his own farm on the morrow. 

 The pay for a man and team may be four or five 

 dollars a day, or for a man without a team two 

 and a half or three dollars. 



In addition, the railroads run trips at low rates 

 from the East, and many of those who come thus 

 may become permanent settlers. 



Should the weather conditions delay opera- 

 tions, when such an influx of hard-up men arrives, 

 provisions may be short and much confusion 

 arise. This season, however, such were the 

 weather conditions that things went smoothly ; 

 but Tom and I had one more job to attend to 

 before we could join our threshing outfit, for which 

 we had arranged. This was to build granaries 

 on our homesteads in which to put the grain 

 when threshed. There was no time to be lost, 

 as it meant two trips to town to haul lumber, 

 and this absorbed more of our precious stock of 

 remaining dollars. 



Some ten days' hard work saw this job finished, 

 and early one bright, crisp morning we set out 



286 



