stinguish before long between the needs of the
individual and those which were common to all, to clarify in my own mind
the problems that beset the settlers as a whole, and to learn how some
among them solved these problems.

Subscriptions for _The Wand_ came in from the outside world, from people
who had friends homesteading on the Brule, and from people interested in
the growth of the West. We had almost a thousand subscriptions at a
dollar a year, and the money went into a team, equipment, and operation
expenses. Ma Wagor helped in the store--she liked the "confusement," she
said. She loved having people around her, and her curiosity about them
all was insatiable. Ida or I generally made the mail trip.

The heavy labor we hired done when we could, but many times we hitched
the team to the big lumber wagon and drove to Presho to bring out our
own load of goods, including barrels of coal-oil and gasoline for
automobiles, for there were quite a few cars on the reservation.
Automobiles, in fact, were the only modern convenience in the lives of
these modern pioneers who stepped from the running board straight back
into the conditions of covered-wagon days.

The needs of the people were tremendous and insistent. And the needs of
the people had to find expression in some way if they were to be met.
The print shop was ready, _The Wand_ was ready, I was ready--the only
hitch was that I couldn't operate the new press we had bought, because
we couldn't put it together. Ida Mary and I labored futilely with bolts
and screws and other iron parts for two days.

I had sat down in the doorway to rest, exhausted by my tussle with the
machinery, when I saw a man coming from the Indian settlement. He
appeared against the horizon as if he had ridden out of the ether,
riding slowly, straight as an Indian, but as he came closer I saw he was
a white man. At the door he dismounted, threw the reins on the ground,
and walked past me into the store, lifting his slouch hat as he entered.
A man rather short of stature, sturdy, with a wide-set jaw and flat
features that would have been homely had they not been so strong.

He looked with surprise through the open door of the print shop with its
stalled machinery.

"What's the trouble?" he asked.

I explained my predicament. "I can't put the thing together and I don't
know what to do about it. It would be almost impossible to get an
experienced printer out here to start it for me."

He smil