telegram to Halbert Donovan: "Rain. Pastures coming out green.
Dwarfed grain can make feed in the straw. My flax making part crop. Dams
full of water. Fall fallowing begun." In hilarious mood I signed it
"Utopia."

Delivered the twenty-five miles in the middle of the night, special
messenger service prepaid, came the answer: "Atta girl. Am increasing
the stakes."

He did. Halbert Donovan's company interested other financial concerns in
making loans, "to deal out through competent appraisement."

So the Brule won through, as pioneers before them had done, as other
pioneers in other regions were doing, as ragged, poverty-stricken,
gallant an army as ever marched to the colors.

[Illustration]

XVII

NEW TRAILS

Ida Mary and Imbert were going to be married. At last Ida Mary was sure,
and there was no need of waiting any longer. So she went back to St.
Louis for the first time, and two weeks later the wedding took place.

When they returned as bride and groom, the settlers came from every
direction, accompanied by all the cow and sheep bells, tin cans and old
horns on the Strip for a big charivari. They came bringing baskets of
food for the supper and any little article or ornament they could find
at home for a wedding present, singing as they came, "Lucky Numbers Are
We," and "We Won't Go Home Till Morning."

Imbert took over the Cedar Fork ranch and store--that little trade
center outside the reservation gate where a disheveled group of
landseekers had faced a new dawn rising upon the Strip. And Ida Mary,
who so loved the land, came at last to make it her permanent home.
Steady, practical and resourceful--it was such women the West needed.

The sturdily built log house was a real home, no tar-paper
shack--rustic, we would call it now--with four rooms and a porch. There
were honest-to-goodness beds, carpets and linoleum on the kitchen floor!
Ida Mary was so proud of the linoleum that she wiped it up with skim
milk to make it shine. There was a milk cow and consequently homemade
butter and cottage cheese--all the makeshift discomforts of homesteading
replaced by the solid and enduring qualities of home.

Peace, home, happiness--for Ida Mary.

And Ma Wagor's problems were solved, too. It appeared that her first
husband had left her more than the an-tik brooch of which she was so
proud. He had left her a son who had grown to be a stalwart,
good-looking young man, who worked with a construction company ou