n, starting new towns
along their lines, running landseekers' excursions in an effort to show
the people what this country had to offer them.

In preparation for the Rosebud Opening they prepared for the influx of
people on a gigantic scale, made ready to take whole colonies from
various sections of the East and Middle West to the reservation.

Among the registration points was the little town of Presho. A crude,
unfinished little town, with a Wild West flavor about it, Presho
couldn't help doing things in a spectacular fashion. Like most hurriedly
built frontier towns, there was little symmetry to it--two irregular
rows of small business places, most of them one-story structures, with
other shops and offices set back on side streets. Its houses were set
hit-and-miss, thickly dotting the prairie around its main street. Two
years before, it had been merely an unsettled stretch of prairie.

Then the Milwaukee railroad platted the town, bringing out carloads of
people to the auction. Two men, named Dirks and Sedgwick, paid $500 for
the first lot, on which to start a bank. That was $480 more than the
list price.

They had a little building like a sheep wagon, or a cook shack, on
wheels, which they rolled onto the lot. Within eight minutes the bank
was open for business. The first deposit, in fact, was made while the
sheep-wagon bank rolled along. Two barrels and a plank served as a
counter.

The two founders had the necessary $5000 capital, and when the cashier
went to dinner he took all the money with him, with two six-shooters for
protection. He was never robbed. For two years, during the land boom,
the bank had not closed, day or night.

Locators coming in, in the middle of the night, from their long trips
over the territory, would knock on the door in the back end of the bank.
The banker would open the door a crack, stick his gun out and demand,
"Who's there?"

"It's Kimball. Got a bunch of seekers here. They have to catch the train
east."

The locator or other person wanting to transact business after the
banker had gone to bed had to identify himself before the door was
opened. When the homestead movement of that region was at its height,
thousands of dollars passed over the board-and-barrel counter in the
bank's night-time business.

"The Rosebud has been throwed open!" went the cry. The entire western
country made ready for the invasion of the landseekers. The government
red tape for the lottery, with it