hit. The Barrows
never did much fencin'. Jist a bresh fence around the truck patch en a
fairly good corral at the stables is about all. The cows are down thar
by the spring. We'll turn the bulls out en go down en count 'em."

While Landy was engaged in the requested task Davy took hasty survey
of the surroundings. The stables and house were of the same
architecture: rambling log structures that seemed to have been erected
after many an afterthought. The front door of the house was open.
Landy closed it, and circled the house to see that all other openings
were closed. He then mounted and motioned Davy to follow the bulls to
water. Here, Landy circled the cows and calves. "Thar's twenty-six of
'em," he commented, "en ye owe Finch the full amount of his claim.

"Now," commented the aged Nestor, "we'll not go over by the B-line.
What they don't know won't hurt 'em. We'll jist slip back home the way
we come. Tomorry will be plenty of time to go over the hay-he'p
matter, en on Monday we must cinch the deal."

15

The great Burns warehouse in Adot was built back in the impulsive days
following the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad.
Notwithstanding the fact that the young nation was engaged in a civil
war that challenged its existence, there was faith that right would
prevail, hope in the future of national expansion, and charity assumed
her wonted place. In 1862 Congress incorporated the road, borrowed the
funds to build, and bonused the enterprise with grants of
land--greater in area than the State of Pennsylvania.

And there was need for national expansion and the development of the
vast empire west of the Mississippi. At the close of the Civil War,
more than a million soldiers were discharged to seek new homes in an
uncongested area. A million immigrants came from impoverished Europe
in the four succeeding years, begging for freedom and a place to live.
These millions too were given bonuses of grants of land, and soon the
uninhabited West was dotted with primitive homesteads and scattered
ranches that must be served. Food, in all its varieties, is a primal
necessity. Warehouses, clumsy predecessors of modern stores, must be
constructed at advantageous points to shelter foods and make
distribution to remote sections. Some called them trading posts.

And so, back in the colorful days of the building of the fast-growing
West, young Isaac Burns constructed his warehouse. It was high and
wide, if not han