302 
THE RURAL NEW -YORKER 
leather started off briskly, down the 
road that led to the Golden West, the 
Eldorado of many dreams. 
A sodden, dismal, three-days’ rain en¬ 
sued, making the roads almost impassable, 
and not adding to the hilariousness of 
the journey. Beneath the shelter of the 
“coop,” as they called it, the boys spent 
many happy hours talking of their past, 
their present, and most of all their future, 
making many plans, few of which would 
ever materialize, but all of which lent 
zest and interest to that hour, and left 
the mind better and braver for the an¬ 
ticipatory joy. 
The country changed Its aspect. The 
trees became more and more scarce, and 
the hills less and less rugged, and as they 
progressed, finally merging into an even, 
billowing, splendid plain. At the begin¬ 
ning of the fourth day, the clouds lifted, 
and the sun shone out gloriously. A 
breath of bracing air as clear as crystal 
smote Nate’s nostrils. lie drew in long 
draughts of it, expanding his thin chest 
to its full capacity. 
“We’ve reached the heights,” he ex¬ 
ulted. “We’e got to the tall timber—the 
tall timber for 11111 b !” he chanted ecstatic¬ 
ally. And Nate jumped from the wagon, 
and knelt upon the sod, lifting his hat. 
Norm was beside him, walking about 
briskly. “I believe we have crossed the 
line. Why, this is good, this is great, 
this is grand!” and Norm too knelt and 
began digging into the rich earth. “Why, 
it's as black as mud and as rich as fruit 
cake. And to have it for the taking— 
to have it for the taking!” 
“There’s no end to it. See it stretch¬ 
ing away, away into eternity!” exulted 
Nate, less drilled in the knowledge of the 
value of soil, was thrilled through and 
through with the vastness, the wonder, 
the glory of the plains. 
“Ilo, ho, the lure of the land is strik¬ 
ing into your soul. I knew it would— 
I knew’ it. No one can help loving the 
soil, if they are on it and with it, and 
for it, for a little.” 
“It unrolls like a great scroll of 
plenty,” put in Nate. “Think of that 
laud covered with grain, with cattle, with 
every kind of produce. I can’t get my 
share too quick! Such land! Let’s 
hurry !” 
“It’s a hundred miles yet, before we 
can file on land. I’d like to ship these 
oxen and stuff, and fly,” growled Norm. 
“Some one’ll get all the good land before 
we get there,” pessimistically. 
“It looks as though there were quite a 
lot of land left for settlement,” Nate 
comforted. “And the trail is as solid as 
macadam, no mud here, we can travel 
right along now.” 
Three days on the open prairie, three 
days on the windswept plains, with flow¬ 
ers blooming around them, with blue 
skies rising above them, with joy encom¬ 
passing them, the boys went forward, and 
at the end of the third day they came 
in sight of a little city lying white and 
green upon the plains. 
“Wetasket, the City of my Dreams,” 
crite Nate. 
“But not the Country of Heart’s De¬ 
sire, for there are no stones. It’s all like 
a cleared field, with never a stump or 
a stone, a shrub or a tree, a hill or a 
ravine. If God had planned to make 
farming easy for man. He could not have 
made anything bettev than this—better 
than the Dakota plains.” 
That was Norm’s verdict, and while 
his years did not tend to give weight to 
his judgment, the experience crowded 
into liis 21 years did. lie had seen life 
at its hardest, where tillable land must 
be wrested from old forests, where hardly 
a foot of free soil could be found, un¬ 
hampered by stumps and tree roots, and 
often if free soil could be found it was 
dead with sand, it could hardly be coaxed 
to produce a crop of grass. 
On the outskirts of the city, canvas- 
covered wagons were in great evidence, 
lumber wagon, under which rested tired 
men; smart buggies, where, perhaps some 
pink-cheeked bride awaited the coming of 
her new husband, who had gone to file 
upon land for their homestead. Decid¬ 
ing that this was the general camping 
ground, Norm halted and picketed his 
oxen, then the two boys went into the 
city, where the bustle of life and motion 
bespoke a very vital current flowing in 
from the great arteries of the world. Men 
of all nationalities were there, and men 
apparently of nearly every class and 
condition in life, men in rough clothes, 
men in foreign apparel, men in dress suits 
and men in heavy tweed, in jeans and 
jumpers, in overalls and checked shirts, 
and all seemed comrades together, for 
all were bound on the same great quest, 
the quest of land. Many wanted land for 
speculation; some, like Nate, wanted it 
for their restoration to health; some 
wanted it for bona-fide homes, and some 
wanted it just because others did, all 
swept along in the great flood tide of 
emigration that swept into Dakota in the 
eighties. 
Norm and Nate found the Land Office 
easily enough, for there were a hundred 
ready to direct them, but they also 
learned that it was closed, but would be 
open on the following morning. After 
walking about for sometime, enjoying 
every breath of life about them, they went 
back to the open field, for had they wished 
it there was not room in the city to ac¬ 
commodate half the would-be stayers, and 
the price of lodging, food and hostelry 
were prohibitive to the two homesteaders. 
The next morning Norm and Nate took 
a stand upon the steps leading into the 
Land Office, but they were quickly fol¬ 
lowed by others, and long before the of¬ 
fice opened the steps were not only filled 
but a line crowded out into the street. 
All were good-natured, eager, talkative. 
“Wheat went forty bushels to the 
acre, in this county last year,” a voice 
close to Norm was saying. “I’ve got a 
letter here to prove it,” and he drew 
forth a m any-paged letter, and an eager 
crowd pressed near to see. “Oats nine¬ 
ty,” the voice read, “and such vegetables 
never seen before—potatoes came out of 
the ground clean enough to cook—•” 
“Huh!” scouted another voice. 
“Raised on sod,” a quieter voice paci¬ 
fied. “There isn’t any mud here, roads 
clean and smooth as bricks. No strug¬ 
gling with mud hub deep here, like there 
is in -.” 
“Nor sand hills, nor sawdust,” volun- 
teerd another. 
“And no washing land; why down in 
the place I come from, land just all wash¬ 
es down to the foot of the hills.” 
“I guess we’ve got to Paradise,” Nate 
whispered to Norm. 
“Folks are always disgruntled with 
the things they know; they all want to 
try something new. It maybe, that this 
country has its drawbacks too, but 
they’re not visible on the outside.” What 
other aphorisms of wisdom Norm might 
have bestowed upon the crowd will never 
be known, for the key clicked in the office 
door, and the boys entered to their des¬ 
tiny. 
“Land?” queried the dapper land agent, 
Mr. Stamford. 
“Yes,” Norm put in quickly. “We 
want to get laud in this county, and as 
near this town as possible.” Norm was 
burning with land fever and he did not 
purpose that Nate should ruin his pros¬ 
pects by asking for a place to pick stones. 
“Land iu this county is selling for—” 
“We don’t want to buy, we want to 
take up homesteads.” 
“Oh, you said you wanted land in this 
county and near town—” 
“Yes, but we want to file on it,” Norm 
reiterated. 
“All the land in this country was 
taken up long ago, and all near the towns. 
Men have been pouring in here like a 
flood for many months.” 
Many faces turned pale and many ears 
listened to the next query. “Isn’t there 
any vacant land then?” 
“Here’s a plat of vacant lands,” the 
agent said, pointing to a curious map on 
the wall. This map was all divided up 
into small square plats, numbered, and 
the boys learned that the squares in¬ 
dicated counties, townships, sections and 
quarter sections of land according to their 
size. 
“Would you wish to select your plat 
and file at once, or would you wish to 
inspect the land.” 
Norm looked dubiously at Nate. This 
filing upon land was not quite such a 
simple thing as he had at first thought 
it to be- 
“I reckon, we’d better look at it first.” 
“There is no doubt that is the best 
way, but you’ll lose much valuable time, 
and maybe by the time you get back with 
your plat selected, someone else will be 
out there building his house.” 
“I reckon we’ll spend one day looking 
at the land, anyway,” and Norm turned 
away disappointed. 
“It all looks about the same to me. 
Why not just file and have it done with !” 
protested Nate. But the agent was busy 
with the next in line, and Norm thrust 
a platted card into his pocket, which 
had been given him for his guidance. 
They drove along for many miles, but 
the land apparently had broken out into 
an eruption of small shanties; there 
seemed no vaneaut plats. 
“It looks as though all the country 
were given up to poultry raising,” Nate 
remarked drily. “See the chicken coops!” 
“I imagine,” Norm responded gravely, 
“that those are the ‘frame dwellings’ re¬ 
ferred to in the improvements required of 
settlers. All we’ll have to do will be to 
pull the nails out of this ark, and lift 
it on our selected plat. Our house is 
built.” 
After some 20 miles of driving the land 
became more rolling, and a grassy creek 
bed was sighted, the creek itself soon 
came into view, and while the trail 
seemed to lead down its precipitous banks, 
there was no sign of a bridge, and a con¬ 
siderable stream of water went rolling 
over the stony bottom. The shanties were 
upon both sides of the creek, but none 
very close to its banks, although just 
beyond, they were still found, and a little 
farther on, men and boys were construct¬ 
ing more shanties with lightning-like 
speed. 
“Did you ever see so many bones? 
Why four miles we’ver travelled through 
a sheet of dry bones!” eclaimed Nate as 
his eyes swept the country. 
“Must be buffalo bones,” Norm con¬ 
jectured. 
“Who could ever believe there’d be so 
many! Must have been collecting here 
for centuries.” 
They rode along silently, until they 
came to a place where no shanties were 
erected. “Bones, bones everywhere, I’ve 
got a bone to pick,” paraphrased Nate. 
“Let’s talk with this last land-holder. 
“This land beyond here vacant?” in¬ 
quired Nate pleasantly. 
“It is vacant all right, but it isn’t sur¬ 
veyed, and isn’t in the market. My land 
runs up to the end of the surveyed land.” 
“All the land taken in between here 
and the creek?” asked Norm aghast. 
(To be con tin ued.) 
February u.S, 
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