ed," Bill described the excited seekers. "The government's
charging $2.50 to $4.00 an acre for that land. I drive 'em right over
vacant homesteads just as good for $1.25. Think they'll look at it?
No-siree!"

But we are a gambling people and the grass on the other side of the
reservation fence looked a lot better.

After they registered, most of the landseekers wanted to see the land
and pick out a claim--just in case they won one. The chances of winning
must have seemed slim with that avalanche of people registering, and the
results would not be known until the Drawing, which would be a week or
more after the entry closed.

Late one afternoon a crowd stood on the border of the Strip, on the
outside of the old barb-wire fence that divided it from the rest of
space. And the wire gate stood open. The landseekers who had driven over
the land stood looking across it, sobered. I think it occurred to them
for the first time that this was a land where one had to begin at the
beginning.

The buffalo and the Indian had each had his day on this land, and each
had gone without leaving a trace. It was untouched. And as far as the
eye could see, it stretched, golden under the rays of the setting sun.
Whether the magnitude of the task ahead frightened or exhilarated them,
the landseekers were all a little awed at that moment. Even I, seeing
the endless sweep of that sea of golden grass, forgot for the moment
the dry crackling sound of it under wheel and foot, and the awful
monotony of its endlessness which could be so nerve-racking.

And by the gods, the grass was higher and thicker on the other side of
the fence! "How rich the soil must be to raise grass like that," they
said to each other. Groups of men and women gathered closer together as
though for some unconscious protection against the emptiness. Around the
fence stood vehicles of all descriptions, saddle horses, and a few
ponies on which cowboys sat lazily, looking on. Even those who had come
only for adventure were silenced. They felt the challenge of the land
and were no longer in a mood to scoff.

Standing at that barb-wire fence was like standing at the gate of the
Promised Land. And the only way in was through the casual drawing of
numbers. They stood long, staring at the land which lay so golden in the
sun, and which only a few could possess.

There were more real dirt farmers represented here than there had been
in most of the homestead projects--men who were e