o waller.

Even against our will the bigness and the peace of the open spaces were
bound to soak in. Despite the isolation, the hardships and the awful
crudeness, we could not but respond to air that was like old wine--as
sparkling in the early morning, as mellow in the soft nights. Never were
moon and stars so gloriously bright. It was the thinness of the
atmosphere that made them appear so near the earth, we were told.

While the middle of the day was often so hot we panted for breath,
mornings and evenings were always gloriously cool and invigorating, and
we slept. With the two comforters spread on the criss-cross rope bed, we
fell asleep and woke ravenously hungry each morning.

That first letter home was a difficult task, and we found it safer to
stick to facts--the trip had been pleasant, Ida Mary had filed on the
claim. But to prepare for our arrival at home, we added, "There is
nothing to worry about. If we think it is best, we will come home." This
was eventually sent off after we had discussed what we had better tell
our father, and crossed out the sentences that might worry him. "Don't
waste so much paper," Ida Mary warned me. "It is thirty miles to another
writing tablet."

We were eating supper one evening when four or five coyotes slipped up
out of the draw and came close to the shack. Almost one in color with
the yellow grass, they stood poised, alert, ready to run at the
slightest sound. Graceful little animals, their pointed noses turned
upward. A great deal like a collie dog. We did not make a move, but they
seemed to sense life in the once deserted cabin, and like a phantom they
faded into the night.

Huey Dunn was one of those homesteaders who believed the world (the
frontier at least) was not made in a day. He was slow getting around to
things. He never did get around to taking Ida Mary and me back to
Pierre. And to our dismay a homesteader drove up one day with the big
box of household goods we had shipped out. The stage express had brought
it out from Pierre to McClure, and it had been hauled the rest of the
way by the first homesteader coming our way. Altogether it cost twenty
dollars to get that box, and there wasn't ten dollars' worth of stuff in
it.

Ida Mary and I had collected the odds and ends it contained from
second-hand stores in St. Louis, selecting every article after eager
discussion of its future use, picturing its place in our western cabin.
We hadn't known about the tar-pape