ts with wonderful changing colors.... I do not think we miss
the outside world as there is something about this country that, after a
time, fills one's whole thoughts and it is hard to remember that there
is any other world than this."

But do they not mind the deep changeless silence in those distant
solitary places? "But there is no silence here," she answers, "except on
the high places of the mountain tops. Here there is always the roar of
the river at the bottom of the canyon and the wind in the cedars all
about me."

But the Indians? Do you not fear that war-whoop? "It used to alarm me to
meet an Indian out on the big flats, but I soon discovered that they
will not even look at you as they pass."

But how about rattlesnakes? In answer came this: "I never had any
rattlesnakes in my bed, though I fancied I had one night. I got up,
carefully lifted off the sheets, and found--the comfortable under me
wrinkled up! There are not many rattlesnakes now--you see, we kill
them."

Another girl who taught in a sod schoolhouse told how one day she
discovered a large snake coiled around the rafters of the little room.
She and the larger pupils got sticks and drove it out. She then
modestly added, "We certainly would have killed it had it not been a
bull snake, but bull snakes kill the deadly rattlers, you know, so we
let it live."

But are you not afraid to stay in your cabin alone on your lofty butte?
"No, I do not believe that I am afraid. When I first came here the
bigness of the hills frightened me, but now some of the best times I
have are when I am walking over the hills and through the trees at
night. I have a bull terrier and a collie that are always with me so I
am not so much alone as it might seem. I have also a beautiful big
Morgan saddle horse; I ride over the country alone and I have never been
frightened."

Another homesteader girl has learned how to overcome fear. She says: "It
takes some courage to stay alone on one's claim night after night. But
perhaps that is a foolish fear, for there is really nothing to be afraid
of. I positively love to hear the coyotes howling and barking among the
hills as I lie on my little bed in my little house. One night last
winter I heard the creaking and groaning of heavy wagons laboring
through the snow. I had been in bed for some time and the noise of the
wagons mingled with the voices of the men awakened me. I rose, threw on
a cloak, and opening the door a few inches, I