and_. In gorgeous regalia of beads and quills,
paint and eagle feathers, the Indians had come to send the Great Spirit
with Paleface-Prints-Paper on to the heap big hunting grounds. It was
the time of year when "paint" in all the variegated colors was
plentiful, gathered from herbs and flowers, yellow, copper, red. The
affair was probably more of an excuse to celebrate than an expression of
esteem. The Indians never miss an opportunity to stage a show. When they
attend a county fair or other public gathering, they load up children,
dogs and worldly goods, and in a long procession they set out, arriving
several days before the event and celebrating long after it is all over.

They had come prepared to camp for the night at the print shop, going
through special incantations for the occasion, but now they were
whooping it up around the campfire. I was dragged into the dance and
went careening around with old warriors and young bucks, the squaws
laughing at my mistakes.

As a farewell editorial I quoted the epitaph once engraved on a
tombstone: "He done his damnedest. Angels could do no more."

The eerie sound of the Indian dance had ceased. The flickering campfires
had died down. Only two years and four months since Ida Mary and I had
broken a trail to that first little homestead shack. And a chapter of my
life was closed.

Beyond, in the dark, slept men and women who had endured hardships and
struggles and heavy labor; who had plowed up the virgin soil and set
their own roots deep in it. They were here to stay.

In those two years they had built a little empire that would endure.
There were roads and fences, schools and thriving towns nearby where
they could market their products, and during the World War Presho became
the second largest hay-shipping point in the United States, with the
government buying trainloads of the fine native hay from the tall grass
country of the Brule.

But my work on the Strip was ended. Big as the venture had seemed to me
in the beginning, it was only a fraction of the country waiting to be
tamed. And beyond there was Wyoming, "bigger'n all creation."

I was going empty-handed, with no fixed program or goal. After the
settlers were on the ground, there would be many obstacles which must be
overcome. Down to earth again! Even in the initial colonizing I would
have to depend on my own initiative, on my influence with the people,
and on my understanding of the homestead project. My experie