THE PILGRIMAGE TO GOATLAND 3 



yonder, anywhere, the steam thresher " 'lights " for a 

 few hours, and a section of the wheat-laden plain is thrust 

 into its insatiable maw. No longer does the farmer and 

 his labor-swapping neighbors toil and moil on the straw- 

 stack, as of yore. The automatic stacker does all that, 

 while the farmer busies himself with gathering in the 

 spoil. The straw-heaps dot the stubble-fields at near in- 

 tervals, and with the baled product selling in New York 

 at $18 per ton, these reckless north-western nabobs 

 burn their straw I 



In the days of the buffalo millions, this country was 

 a part of the summer range of the great northern herd. 

 And it was to these same smoothly shaven plains, in North 

 Dakota, delightfully free from the sage-brush that per- 

 vades the lands farther south, that the Red River settlers, 

 of what is now Manitoba, came every summer with their 

 great caravans of carts, accompanied by their wives and 

 children. They came to kill buffaloes, dry their meat, 

 make pemmican and cure buffalo-hides for leather, all 

 for use during the long and dreary winters that tried 

 men's souls. The naked plains over which the Red River 

 settlers joyously drove their carts are now covered with 

 wheat. The creaky cart has given place to the locomo- 

 tive. The steam thresher has taken the place of the half- 

 breed's rifle, while to the present generation pemmican 

 is almost unknown. 



And now, when at last we are surfeited by the abun- 

 dance of the harvest, and worn out with thankfulness for 

 the continued prosperity of the great wheat-belt, we 

 glide on into Montana, and turn with even keener inter- 



