The Norfolk weekly news-journal., 1910-04-01

the land. In the meantime. instead OF
trying to farm much. he made his liv
ing by working in the potato fields
farther north in the irrigated districts
As soon as he had proved up on his
claim he gathered up all his belong.
ings, including the wooden door to his
sod shanty and, loading all in wagon
drove back to West Point, where some
of his relatives lived.
His neighbors he said. had done this
even before him and the entire settle.
ment was left to the few men who had
cattle enough to make profitable
business of running the cattle on the
free range. The fields that had been
plowed soon went back to the original
buffalo grass and in a few years the
country was as desoate as ii was
before the homesteaders came in.
About two years ago Mr.. Seip began
to hear floating rumors about greater
rainfall in that country and reports OF
good crops being raised there by the
few ranchmen who had remained.
Later he heard that other settlers
were coming in, and that the land
which few years ago was not consid.
cred worth years taxes was now
selling at fair prices, even though it
was out of reach of the irrigation
bitches. At first Mr.. Seip merely
smiled at the reports, but last spring
his curiosity got the better of him and
he boarded train bound for the old
Colorado homestead to see with his
own eyes what might have taken
place there.
A complete transformation met his
gaze. Everywhere he saw fine large
buildings. The country was settled
more densely than it had been even
when the homesteaders nocked in
seventeen years ago. Instead of the
waste prairies of buffalo grass and
deserted weedgrown fields he found
fields of grain, well fenced, and the
prairie dotted with large houses and
barns. On inquiry he found that the
land was already selling for from $40
to $50 per acre.
He stopped to figure for moment.
One quarter section in the midst of
this territory belonged to him and he
considered it worthless for the last
twelve years while he had been work
ing by the month around West Point.
Now it was worth in the neighborhood
of $4,000. Looking for his sod shanty,
abandoned twelve years ago, he found
only mound some four feet high and
covered with buffalo grass.
Mr.. Seip at once decided to move to
the homestead once more, since all his
neighbors seemed to be so prosperous.
He says that he will start for the
claim early this week. He will put in
a meager crop of small grain and will
then set to work building cement
block house. Everywhere in the draws,
he says, one can get the finest quality
of gravel. He expects to get the &C.
ment and gravel and manufacture his
own blocks for the house.
One of the interesting things he no.
ticed when he was in Phillips county
last spring was the number of suits
being brought for the recovery of
claims that had slipped away from the
homesteaders on account of delinquent
taxes. In recent years since the land
has been found to be valuable for dry
farming and many settlers have
rushed in and secured tax titles to
some of the abandoned homesteads.
The homesteaders who have been scat
tered throughout the United States for
the last fifteen to twenty years, hear
ing that their land has suddenly be-
come valuable, have rushed into the
settlement to claim their homesteads,
only to find, in many cases, that the
land has been decided to others by
reason of delinquent taxes.