ands deep
into the cruel snow, searching for his lost baby--his own little Helen.

[Illustration: He would dig with his bare hands deep into the cruel
snow, searching for his lost baby--his own little Helen.]

As Spring approached the warming rays of the sun finally conquered the
thick snow blanket that covered the landscape, and led by our foreman we
carefully searched the prairie, praying to be permitted to give at least
a human burial to his daughter's earthly remains, but it nearly wrecked
his mind when even this privilege was denied him, as we found not a
trace of the child.

Then, hoping to lighten somewhat the fearful burden of woe borne by her
parents, we placed those last mementos of her brief visit upon earth
into the little black coffin that we had constructed, and gave the
baby's garments a solemn burial alongside the mound of my partner,
Peoria Red, and above the new mound we erected the other white cross to
keep company with the first one, and tell its silent story to the
passengers who flew past aboard swift trains, that two pitiful tragedies
had been enacted at this lone section reservation within the short span
of a few months.

[Illustration: decorative symbol]

CHAPTER IV.

"The Drifter".

And Spring came back to the Northland. The trees and bushes commenced to
bud. As if by magic the brown winter tints of the water and frost bogged
prairie were transformed into a daintily colored green carpet by the
sprouts that the slumbering grasses sent forth into the balmy air, while
here and there a venturesome flower spread its multi-colored petals
towards the warming rays of the sun, and lastly the song birds, the
infallible sign of nature's complete resurrection, came home from the
Southland and rebuilt their storm-torn nests amid the warbling of
gladsome notes, their jubilee song of happiness and satisfaction.

With these signs of the re-awakening of Nature there came to me the
strange "Call of the Road". Heretofore it had never come as strongly as
it came at this time, when after a long and monotonous winter's toil the
rattling trains as they shot over our section, the darting birds as they
foraged their subsistence, and even the thumping of the wheels under our
hand car seamed to beckon me to follow their example and move away.
Although I tried with might and main to resist its call, gradually the
bunk house became a dungeon, the endless prairie a prison, and the
Dakotas themselves became