n't come and drink
it. Now this isn't made from dam water. Fred hauled it over from the
crick. (Fred Farraday did things like that without mentioning them.)
It's set in the cave all day. Now the Ladies' Aid back in Blue Springs
sticks a piece of lemon on the glass to squeeze in--just to get your
fingers all stuck up with. I never was one for mixing drinks."

Ma poured an extra glass for Van Leshout, who had just come in with
letters to mail. "Tomorrow we'll have the lemonade separate. Come on,
Heine, don't you want a glass of tea?"

"Naw." Offering Heine tea was the one thing that shook his calmness.

"You don't expect he-men like Heine to drink tea," protested Van
Leshout. A sly grin on Heine's face which the artist quickly caught on
paper.

"Pa drinks it," from Ma, with that snapping of the jaw which in Ma
expressed emphasis. Poor old Pa was the shining example of masculinity
in her eyes.

Like a sudden breath the hot winds came. The dams were getting
dangerously low. The water was dirty and green-scummed and thick. And
Ada's folks lost a horse and a cow--alkalied.

The drier it became the whiter the ground on the alkali spots. We had no
alkali on the great, grassy Brule, but there were strips outside the
reservation thick with it, and the water in those sections contained
enough of it to turn one's stomach into stone.

Carrying the mail from the stage, I saw along the trail horses and
cattle leaning against the fences, or lying down, fairly eaten up with
it, mere skin and bones; mane and tail all fallen out, hoofs dropped
off.

A number of settlers had not a horse left that could put his foot to the
ground to travel. Every day there were a few more horses and cows lying
dead over the pastures. Gradually, however, most of the afflicted stock
picked up, got new hoofs, new manes and tails.

The livestock, even the dogs and the wild animals on the plains, drank
from little holes of reservoirs at the foot of the slopes until the
water became so hot and ill-smelling that they turned away from it.

But the settlers skimmed back the thick green scum, dipped up the water,
let it settle, and used it. The dam water must be boiled, we warned each
other, yet we did not always wait for a drink of water until it had been
boiled and cooled. Late that summer, when the drying winds parched the
country, the dams became the only green spots left on the yellow plains.
But the cry for rain was no longer for the fields, it was