The cowhands were breaking out the horses in the corrals while the
acreage of plowed land in the lower fields steadily increased.

The heaviest cedar posts were tamped in place for the outer fence and a
six-wire barrier held range cows back from the bottoms which would soon
be in growing crops. It crossed the flats below the lower filings and
followed the road that held to one side of the valley clear to the
Three Bar lane. On the far side it mounted the bench that flanked the
bottoms and followed the crest of it, tying into the home corrals.
Lighter three-wire fences marked the homestead lines within.

The day that Evans led the men out on the calf round-up, the mule teams
made their first trip across the plowed land with the drill.

Harris and the girl sat their horses and watched the initial trip. The
fields were being seeded to alfalfa and oats so that the faster growing
grain might shade and protect the tender shoots of hay. Before the
grain ripened it would be cut green for hay, cured and stacked.

When the seeding was completed Billie worked with Harris and together
they ran a level over the seeded ground, marking out the laterals on
grade across the fields from points where they would tap the main feed
ditches and carry water to the crops.

Russ and Tiny followed the lines of stakes which marked their readings
of the level, throwing a plow furrow each way. A second pair of
homesteaders followed behind them, their mules dragging a pointed
steel-shod ditcher which forced out the loosened earth.

A concrete head gate was installed at a feasible take-out point on the
Crazy Loop. Then all hands worked on a main feed ditch which would
carry sufficient volume of water to cover every filing. Lead ditches
tapped the main artery at frequent intervals, each one of capacity to
carry a head of water to irrigate one forty. These in turn feathered
out into the tiny laterals across the meadow.

Early rains had moistened the fields and they were faintly green with
tiny shoots of oats. These thickened into a rank velvety carpet while
the homesteaders were hauling a hundred loads of rocks to form a crude
dam across the stream below the take-out. The water was gradually
raised till it ran almost flush with the top of the head gate. The
gates were lifted and the diverted waters sped smoothly down the new
channel to carry life to a portion of the sagebrush desert.

A few days would find the cowhands back from the