satisfaction.

It was a long, arduous task, setting up again all those notices in small
type. The type of the McClure shop would not set half of the notices. We
sent the balance of them to be set, some in Presho, some in Pierre, got
them back by stage, and _The Wand_, despite fire and all other
obstacles, went on with its work--a few days late, strictly a proof
sheet, but without lapse of publication.

And Ida Mary kept things going, conserving her strength as well as she
could, with Imbert and Ma Wagor helping. Ma said, "I'd 'a' died if I
hadn't found something to do."

It was mid-August, with no sign of the drought breaking. In the shack
down the draw we sat during spare hours sorting type at Margaret's
kitchen table, picking, separating six-point, eight-point, ten-point
letters and spaces, leads, slugs. Ma Wagor and other neighbors helped at
odd times; Heine separated the type into piles of like sizes. Sorting
that type-pi was a job to which no one in the world but a printer can
give the deserved sympathy.

Heine, raking around in the cooling embers on my claim, had found
several cases of pied type and a few odds and ends of printing equipment
down under a piece of heavy tin roofing, the only thing salvaged from
the wreckage.

A committee of settlers came, emptied a little sack on the table. In a
little heap there lay pennies, dimes, quarters, a few silver
dollars--precious coins that had been put aside to keep the wolf from
the door--and a separate roll of bills. The offering of the Lower Brule
settlers! "To build a new shack and print shop," they said simply. "The
homesteaders will do the building."

Of course, we must build another shack and reestablish residence or
there would be no deed to the land. The money represented not only the
hard-earned savings but the loyal support of the settlers. When we
protested, they laughed. "But _The Wand_ has always been telling us to
share," they said. Some of the business men of the towns added to the
contribution to establish the newspaper.

One sweltering day, with everyone seeking escape from the broiling sun,
all movement over the Strip was suspended. As I lay on the couch
recuperating, there came a great explosion that roared through the dead
hush like all the cannons of war gone off at once. Ida Mary, resting in
the shade of the shack, came running in. It could not be thunder, for
there was not a cloud in the sky. It had come from over Cedar Fork way.

Soon th