The Lake County times. [volume] (Hammond, Ind.) 1906-1933, 1907-11-23


and crushed by the wheels of fat
car that he could never hope to take
up his work again, and while he lay,
bandagcd and broken. fighting to keep
the soul in his crippled body. their
mother hravely yielded her life TO a
lingering Illness.
Many months later, when Evan Ian
casters wounds We're at last healed,
Ben and Betty were unhitched from a
dirt laden scraper on the siding and
put before a white topped prairie
schooner. Then the old section boss,
with his crutches beside him and his
daughters seated in the all but empty
box behind, said a husky farewell to
the men crowding around the wagon
and started the mules along the road
that led northward beside the rails
He gave no backward glance at the
wind battered house where he had
brought an aillng bride. Instead, eager
to leave that plain of flying sand and
scanty grasses, he drove the team
rapidly forward, bound for n country
where there were wells and not water
cars. where rain fell oftener and where
food, both for man and beast could be
got easily from the earth. But Dali
las, seated in the schooner's bed. her
weeping sister held soothingly against
her breast, watched, dry eyed, as
mound by a giant mesquite faded
slowly from her sight and saw her
girlhood's home give way, as light
house sinks behind a speeding vessel,
until only its gray sprinkled roof
showed through the scattered trees.
Then, after pillowing Marylyns head
on a Navajo blanket beside the swash-
ing water cask, she climbed forward to
the drivers seat and took the reins
from her father
1t was April, and when the mesa was
left far to rearward a world almost
forgotten by the crippled section boss
burst in new, green loneliness upon his
desert children. Towering pines and
spreading oaks, lush grass strewn
with blossoms, clear running streams
and gay feathered birds replaced
thirsty vegetation, salt lakes and how
ering vultures. They travelled slowly,
each day bringing some fresh delight
to ear and eye, until one evening in the
waning Dakota summer they camped
beside a great crooked split in the prai.
RE, on 4 fat peninsula made by
sweeping westward bend of the muddy
Missouri
Across the river from their stopping
place, where an amber sun was going
down, the horizon was near. High
h1.vfFZ Al
upon the plain. leaving at their feet
only enough space for the whitewashed
frame buildings. of Fort Brannon. But
to the east the paralleling bluffs lay at
a distance and broke their ridgeback
far up the scarlet coulee; from where,
southwark, stretched a wide gap-ten
broad and gently undulating miles
that ended at the slough studied base
Of Medicine mountain. Even Lancas-
ter, as he stood bareheaded under the
unclouded sky, looked about him upon
acres heavy with tangled grass and
weeds, and pleased with the evident
| richness of the untouched ground and
with the sheltered situation of the
claim on the bend, svore that the
white topped schooner, with its travel
stained crew of three, had found on
the yellow pillows of that northern
prairie its permanent moorings at last.
The telling and hewing of cotton
woods for the shack had occupied the
first few weeks that followed, citizen
| carpenters from Brannon doing the
heavy cutting and lifting. But when
| the little house stood. its square log
room and dirt floor open to the sun.
| Dallas performed her part OF the build
| ing, and matched the hip roof with
! coarse grass from a meadow. Next.
the well was dug, and the barn built
| as n lean-to, for the Lancasters knew
| little. but had heard much, about the
billiards. Of the territory. Then. while
| the elder girl covered the slanting raft
| ers over Ben and Betty's stalls, the sec
ton boss hauled a scanty stock Of hay
| and provisions from Clark's, a cattle
camp and settlement to the northeast.
And finally, when shack and barn
were alike done, Dallas put the mules
! to the end of an oak beam and took UP
the task Of blowing
Now she was winding at black mat
that was gradually growing upon the
brown carpet of the prairie. Up and
down she walked, her whiplash trail
ing behind her like lively snake, her
hands striving to guide the cleaving
share she followed. a look of deep con.
tent, despite all fear for bad weather
| upon her sun Drowned face.
| Rut while working the morning hours
slowly away she gave full attention t.
the nodding mules and the young bull
| struggling at their head. she did MOI
stop to watch the hocks winging by
| above her or to look of TO where the
plains fell away from the pale azure
line Of the sky. so she failed to see. a
| the middle OF the long forenoon. 6
| group of dark figures that came int
| sight 10 the eastward and moved slow
~ forward in the direction Of the bend
Toward noon. however. the furrow: