he railroads were taking emigrants back to the state line free.

Leaving a land of plenty--plenty of everything but water.

A number of homesteaders who had come to stay were getting out. Settlers
were proving up as fast as they could. They wanted to prove up while
they could get loans on the land. Loan agencies that had vied with one
another for the business were closing down on some areas. Despite the
water famine, the Brule had built such prestige, had made such a record
of progress, that it was still holding the business. Western bankers
kept their faith in it, but the lids of the eastern money-pots, which
were the source of borrowing power, might be clamped down any day.

The railroads were taking people back to the state line free, if they
wished to go. It seemed to me, exhausted as I was, that I could not go
on under these conditions, that the settlers themselves could not go on
without some respite.

I walked into the Land Office at Pierre and threw a sheaf of proof
notices on the Register's desk. He looked at them with practiced eyes.
"These haven't been published yet," he said.

"I don't want them. I'm leaving the country. I came to get nine months'
leave of absence for myself and all those whose time is not up. That
would give us until next spring to come back and get our deeds."

He leaned over his desk. "Don't pull up and leave at this critical time,
Edith," he said earnestly. "There are the legal notices, the loans, the
post office--we have depended on you so much, it would be putting a
wrench in the machinery out there."

He looked at me for a moment. "Don't start an emigration movement like
that," he warned me.

I was dumfounded at his solemnity, at the responsibility he was putting
upon me. It was my first realization of the fact that _The Wand_ had
indeed become the voice of the Brule; that where it led, people would
follow. If my going would start a general exodus, I had to stay.

I walked wearily out of the Land Office, leaving the proofs on his desk.
It seemed to me that I had endured all I could, and here was this new
sense of community responsibility weighing on me!

A young settler drove me home, and I sat bleakly beside him. It was late
when we got near my claim, and the settlement looked dark and deserted.
Suddenly I screamed, startling the horses, and leaped from the wagon as
there was a loud crash. The heavy timbers of the cave back of the store
had fallen in.

I shouted for Ida M