okecherries. A number of them had grown in their gardens a fruit they
called ground cherries. This winter there would be baked squash and
pumpkin pie.

So there was food for man and beast. And Scotty Phillips who owned what
was said to be the largest buffalo herd in America killed a buffalo and
divided it among the settlers, as far as it would go, to add to the
Thanksgiving cheer of the Brule. There was a genuine sense of fruition
about that first harvest. Looking back to the empty plains as they had
stretched that spring, the accomplishments of the homesteaders in one
brief summer were overwhelming. There had been nothing but the land. Now
a community had grown up, with houses and schools, and the ground had
yielded abundantly.

In other ways our efforts had also borne fruit. There was to be a new
bridge at Cedar Creek. From the fight _The Wand_ had carried on, one
would think that we were boring a Moffat tunnel through the Great
Divide. And _The Wand_ fought a successful battle with John Bartine over
county division. It had come about when Senator Phillips came by one day
during the summer on his way from Pierre to his ranch. "Scotty"
Phillips, senator, cattleman and business man, was one of the Dakotas'
most influential citizens. A heavyset man he was, with an unconscious
dignity and a strong, kindly face; a squaw man--his wife was a
full-blooded Indian who had retained many of her tribal habits. One day
one would see the Senator ride past in his big automobile, and the next
day his wife would go by, riding on the floor of the wagon on the way to
the reservation to visit her relatives.

"I stopped in to see if you wanted to go to the county division meeting
tomorrow at Presho," Senator Phillips said. "It's a rather important
matter to the settlers. _The Wand_ will represent those of the Lower
Brule, of course."

What was county division? We set out the next morning to find out. The
county, it appeared, was becoming so thickly settled that the people of
the western part wanted it divided, with a county seat of their own. We
learned that Lyman County covered approximately 2500 square miles and
the settlers of the extreme western part were 110 miles from the county
seat, with no means of transportation. It sounded reasonable enough, and
_The Wand_ backed those who wanted county division.

The speaker for that little meeting was a slight and unassuming young
man who was greeted with cheers.

"Who is he?" I asked S