ber, after all," seemed a more appropriate
response than telling him that it was spring and something had been
bound to happen, something like the arrival of a cartoonist from
Milwaukee.

"Are you going to be a settler?" Ida Mary asked doubtfully.

He laughed. Yes, he had taken a homestead close to the Sioux settlement
so that he could paint some Indian pictures.

Odd how we kept forgetting the Indians, but up to now we hadn't even
seen one, nor were we likely to, we thought, barricaded as they were in
their own settlement. "But they are wonderful," he assured us
enthusiastically; "magnificent people to paint; old, seamed faces and
some really beautiful young ones. Character, too, and glamor!"

We invited him to tea, but he explained that he must get back to his
claim before dark. It was already too late, Imbert told him; he would
have to wait for the moon to rise. Imbert had dropped in, as he had a
habit of doing, and seeing him through the eyes of an easterner we
realized what fascination the lives of these plainsmen had for city men.

In honor of the occasion we got out the china cups, a wanton luxury on
the plains, and tea and cake. As they rode off, Van Leshout called to
us: "Come over to the shack. I built it myself. You'll know it by the
crepe on the door."

As the two men melted into the darkness we closed the door reluctantly
against the soft spring air. Strange that we had found prairie life
dull!

One morning soon after the unexpected appearance of the Milwaukee
cartoonist I awoke to find the prairie in blossom. Only in the spring is
there color over that great expanse; but for a few weeks the grass is
green and the wild flowers bloom in delicate beauty--anemones, tiny
white and yellow and pink blossoms wherever the eye rests. I galloped to
the print shop with the wind blowing through my hair, rejoicing in the
sudden beauty, and found myself too much in holiday mood to get to work.

Suddenly I looked up from the type case to find an arresting figure in
the doorway, a middle-aged man with an air of power and authority about
him.

"I'm waiting for the stage," he said. "May I come in?"

I offered him the only chair there was--an upturned nail keg--and he sat
down.

"Where do you come from?" he asked abruptly.

"St. Louis," I said.

"But why come out here to run a newspaper?"

"I didn't. I came to homestead with my sister, but the job was here."

Because he was amused at the idea, because the f