me a
sleight-of-hand performance.

The homesteader could not get this receipt of title until he paid the
Land Office for the land, and he could not pay for the land until he had
the receipt to turn over to the loan agent. So it was all done
simultaneously--money, mortgages, final-proof receipts; like juggling
half a dozen balls in the air at once. It was one of the most ingenious
methods of finance in operation. Banks and loan companies went into
operation to handle homestead loans, and eastern capital began flowing
in for the purpose.

Being familiar with Land Office procedure from my work on the McClure
_Press_, I knew that not every winner of a claim on the Lower Brule
reservation would come to prove it up. A few of them would relinquish
their rights. The buying and selling of relinquishments, in fact,
became a big business for the land agents. There was a mad rush for
relinquishments on the Strip, where landseekers were paying as high as
$1000 to $1200 for the right to file on a claim.

I wanted a relinquishment on the reservation, in the very center of it,
and I found one for $400.

Then I made a deal with a printing equipment firm for a small plant--a
new one! And, although there were only a dozen settlers or so on the
land, I pledged 400 proof notices as collateral.

These proofs at $5 apiece were as sure as government bonds; that is, if
the settlers on the Brule stayed long enough to prove up, if the
newspaper lived, and if no one else started a paper in competition. But
on that score the printers' supply company was satisfied. Its officers
thought there was no danger of anyone else trailing an outfit into that
region.

We arranged for straight credit on lumber for a print shop, there being
nothing left to mortgage. From now on we were dealing in futures. In
just two short weeks I had become a reckless plunger, aided and abetted
by Ida Mary. The whole West was gambling on the homesteaders' making
good.

Long we hesitated over the letter home, telling of our new plans. Under
the new laws, one must stay on a claim fourteen months, instead of the
eight months required when Ida Mary had filed. At last we wrote to
explain that we were not coming home this spring. We were going on to a
new frontier.

Earnestly as we believed in the plans we had made, it was hard to make
that letter carry our convictions, difficult to explain the logic of our
moving to an Indian reservation so that Ida Mary could run a
non-