existent post office in order to mail copies of a non-existent
newspaper to non-existent settlers. Looking at it like that, we were
acting in blind faith.

* * * * *

And one day a funny little caravan made its way across the prairie,
breaking a new trail as it went. A shack with a team hitched to it, a
wagon loaded with immigrant goods; and a printing press; ahead, leading
the way, a girl on horseback.

Again it was Huey Dunn who jacked up our old shack that morning when the
term of school was over and put it on wheels for the trip to the
reservation--twelve miles around by McClure, a few miles closer by a
short-cut across the plains. Huey decided on the latter way, and I rode
on ahead to see that the load of printing equipment should be put on the
right quarter-section, while Ida Mary came in the shack. She sat in the
rocking chair, gazing placidly out of the window as it made its way
slowly across the plains.

We had hired two homesteaders to haul out lumber and put up a small
building for the newspaper and post office, although we had not yet got
the necessary petition signed for a post office. We could not do that
before the settlers arrived. A small shed room was built a few feet from
the business structure as a lean-to for our migratory shack.

When I arrived at the claim the men who had hauled out the load of
equipment were gone. Suddenly there came on one of those torrential
downpours that often deluge the dry plains in spring. It was pitch black
as night came on, and no sight of Huey and Ida Mary. The rain stopped at
length. Throwing on a sweater, I paced back and forth through the
dripping grass listening for the sound of the horses. At last I went
back and crouched over the fire in the little lean-to, waiting. There
was nothing else I could do.

At midnight Huey arrived with the shack. He and Ida Mary were cold and
wet and hungry. They had not had a bite to eat since early morning. Just
as they had reached Cedar Creek, usually a little dry furrow in the
earth, a flood of water came rushing in a torrent, making a mad, swollen
stream that spread rapidly, and they were caught in it. When they got in
the middle of the stream the shack began to fill with water. Huey
grabbed Ida Mary and got her on one horse while he mounted the other,
and the horses swam to land.

The next morning the sun came out, flooding the new-washed plains. It
was a different world from the harsh, drab