ed broadly, walked into the shop, and without a word fixed the
forms, adjusted the press and turned out the first issue of that
strange-fated newspaper.

He would accept no pay and no thanks. "My name is Farraday, Fred
Farraday," he said. "I'll ride over next Friday and help you get the
paper out."

With that he mounted his blue-roan pony and rode away as deliberately as
he had come. Every Friday after that he returned to help print the
paper. Naturally we were curious about the man who had solved our
desperate need for a printer in so surprising a way, but Fred was
content to come week after week and disappear again on the horizon
without any explanation as to who he was, where he came from, where he
went when he rode out of sight each Friday.

We tried him with hints, with bland suppositions, with bare-faced
questions, and could not break through his taciturnity. But even Fred
had no defense against Ma Wagor's curiosity, and little by little,
through her persistent questioning, we learned that he had a homestead
near the Agency, that he had run a newspaper in the Northwest, and that
he had been connected with the Indian Service.

The business of the newspaper increased rapidly, and advertising began
to come in from the small surrounding towns. Ma Wagor was kept busy in
the store, selling groceries to the Indians who camped around for a day
dickering, and to the white settlers who were generally in a hurry. So
little time! So much to do! Ida Mary helped me in the print shop, and
before long we found we needed an expert typesetter. And I found
one--unlikely as it may seem--on an adjoining claim. Kathryn Slattery,
tall and slim and red-haired, preferred setting type to sitting alone in
her shack, and with her striking appearance as an added attraction the
popularity of the settlement with the young men homesteaders mounted.

In this odd fashion I found on the prairie both a printer and a
typesetter, and for problems of format for _The Wand_ there was always
the cartoonist from Milwaukee. Late one afternoon I spied a strange,
moving object in the far distance, something that bobbed up and down
with the regularity of a clock pendulum. I asked Ida Mary in some
bewilderment whether she could identify it. At last we saw it was a
stiff-jointed quadruped with some sort of jumping-jack on top, bouncing
up and down at every step. As it drew closer, heading for the shop, Ida
Mary began to laugh. "It's Alexander Van Leshout,"