The Dermott news., 1917-08-09

plorers, prospectors and adventurers, wild hills. There were one or two good hotels for tourists. unusually extensive general stores of the better class, where hunting and prospecting parties could be outfitted. and the high-living extravagant cattle ranehers could get what they demanded Besides all these there were the modest homes of the lovers of the rough but exhilarating and health-giving life of the Rocky mountains. Of course there were nu- merous saloons and gambling halls, and the town was the haunt of cow boys. hunters. miners. 1ndians-the old frontier with few touches of civiliza- ton added,
 What was left of the river. which had made the valley-and during the infrequent periods of rain too brief to be known as the rainy season. it really lived up to the name of river-fowed merrily through the town. when it flowed at all, under the name of Picket Wire. When the railroad came the Picket Wire had been first studied in the hope of finding n practicable way over the mountains. but the ravine on the other side of the mesa had been found to offer shorter and more prac- ticable route. And, by the way. this ravine, taking it's name from the little brook far down in its narrows, was known as the Kicking Horse"
 So the railroad ran up the ravine and the Picket Wire was left still vir- gin to the assaults of man. But the day came when It was despoiled of its hitherto long standing. unravished in- nocence. Shouts of men. cracking of whips, trampling of horses, grooming of wheels, wordless but vocal protests of beasts of burden mingled with the ringing of axes, the detonations of dy- namite. The whistle of engines and the roar of steam filled the valley. Un- der the direction of engineers, huge mound of earth arose across its nar- rowest part, nearest shoulder, or spur. of the mesa reaching westward. No more should the silver Picket Wire flow unvexed on it's way to the sea. It was to be damned.
 All that the huge. hot inferno of baked plain. where sage brush and buffalo grass alone grow. needed to make 1t burgeon with wheat and corn was water. The little Picket Wire. which had meandered and sparkled and chattered on at it's own sweet will was now to be held until 1t filled great lakelike reservoir in the hills back of the new earth dam. Then through skillfully located irrigation ditches the water was to be given to the millions of hungry little wheatlets and cornlets. which would clamor for drink. The fierce sun was no longer to work It's unthwarted will In burning up the prairie.
 With the promise of water on the plain beyond. Coronado sprang into newer and more vigorous life. In the language of the West 1t "boomed." The railroad had been forlorn branch running up into the mountains and ending nowhere. Its first builders had been daunted by difficulties and lack of money, but as soon as the great dam was projected. which would open sev- eral hundred thousand acres for culti- vation and serve as an inspiration in Its practical results to other similar attempts, people came swarming into the country buying up the land. the price for acreage steadily mounting. The railroad accordingly found it worth while to take up the long-aban- doned construction workaof mounting the range and crossing 1t. Men sud denly observed that 1t was the short