ly put down her book, open so as not to lose the page, and
waited for me to go on.

"I told Mr. West today that we would sell. I am going to pay off the
mortgage on your homestead, clean up the other debts, and--"

"And then what?"

"I don't know."

"Don't give up your land, Edith. Something will happen. Something
always happens." She went back to her book.

Something did happen. The Rosebud Opening. I was to cover it for a
western newspaper syndicate, and this time I had the inside track. Being
familiar with the field and with the government lottery operations, I
would be able to get my stories out while other reporters were finding
out what it was all about.

Remembering the money I had made with the little verses printed on a
postcard at the Brule Opening, I prepared another on the Rosebud, with
the cartoonist from Milwaukee helping me by making drawings to
illustrate it. Then, armed with the postcards, I set off for Presho--and
the Rosebud.

On a Sunday night in early October, 1908, I stood on a corner of the
dark main street of Presho waiting for the Rosebud to open. I had
appointed agents to handle my postcards and I was free to cover the
story. Special trains loaded with landseekers were coming. The confusion
of last-minute preparations to receive them was at its height.

I found Presho as mad as a hornet. The Milwaukee railroad had taken the
turntable out, and special trains coming in from Chicago and other
points east must thus go on to the next town to turn around. This was
bound to cut into Presho's share of the crowds. As long as the town had
been the turning point of the road, it was one of the greatest trade
centers in that part of the West.

The lottery was to start Monday, which meant the stroke of midnight. The
little town was ready, its dark streets lighted here and there by
flaring arc lights. Up and down Main Street, and out over the fields,
tents had been erected to take care of the crowd.

And the trains were coming in, unloading their human cargo. Others
poured in by every conceivable means of transportation, invading the
little frontier town, the only spot of civilization in the vast, bare
stretch of plains. Presho woke to find a great drove of tenderfeet
stampeding down its little Main Street. They thundered down the board
sidewalk and milled in the middle of the road, kicking up dust like a
herd of range cattle as they went.

Aside from the great tents put up by some of the towns