dian, has filed notice of intention
to make final computation proof to establish claim, etc., etc.

Then the names of four witnesses were added and the signature of the
Land Office Register of that district.

One day a man went to town with a string of witnesses to prove up. He
intended to go on to Iowa without returning to the claim. That night he
walked angrily into the print shop and laid a copy of his published
notice before me, together with a note from the Land Office. I had him
proving up somewhere out in the Pacific Ocean, having given the wrong
meridian. For that typographical error the man must wait until I
republished the notice. Washington, so the man at Pierre said, was not
granting deeds for claims in mid-ocean. One can't be inexact with the
government's red tape.

But, on the whole, the work was not as trivial as it may appear. With
every proof notice published in these obscure proof sheets 160 acres of
wasteland passed into privately owned farm units--and for this gigantic
public works project there was not a cent appropriated either by State
or Federal government.

One day when the corn was in the milk--that season which the Indians
celebrate with their famous corn dance--we saw Wilomene White streaking
across the plains on old Buckskin, her knock-kneed pony. Wilomene was a
familiar sight on the prairie, and the sight of her short, plump figure,
jolting up and down in a stiff gallop, as though she were on a wooden
horse, water keg hanging from her saddlehorn--just in case she _should_
come across any water--was welcome wherever she went. "It doesn't matter
whether it's illness or a civic problem or a hoedown, Wilomene is always
called on," people said. And she was repaid for every hardship she went
through by the fun she had telling about it, while her rich, contagious
laughter rang over the whole country.

Today there was no water keg bouncing up and down behind old Buckskin.
That in itself was ominous. For all his deformity and declining years,
she descended on us like Paul Revere.

She galloped up, dismounted, jerked a Chicago newspaper out of the
saddlebag, and pointed to a big black headline.

"Look at this. The reservation is going to be thrown open. The East is
all excited. There will be thousands out here to register at the Land
Office in Pierre--railroads are going to run special trains--"

"What reservation?" we wanted to know.

"The Indian reservation, just across the fence," W