over it to cover up the dirt. You'll have a time
getting it fixed as you want it."

We wondered how anyone made a home of a tar-paper shack. To hear Mrs.
Dunn's casual remarks, one would think it no more of a problem than
redecorating a city home.

As we started on the trek back, she called after us, "Huey will haul you
over a keg of water tomorrow."

As soon as we were out of earshot I said, "We can hire Mr. Dunn to take
us back to Pierre."

"That's an idea," Ida Mary agreed.

By the time we had walked back the mile and a half--which seemed five in
the scorching heat--it was past noon and we were completely exhausted.
So we did not get started back to Pierre that day. But we felt a little
easier. There was a way to get out.

[Illustration]

II

DOWN TO GRASS ROOTS

There is a lot of sound common sense in the saying about leaving the
cage door open. As long as we knew we could be taken back to town we
were content to stay for a day or two, and take a look at the country
while we were there--by which we meant that we would gaze out over the
empty spaces with a little more interest.

We strained our eyes for sight of moving objects, for signs of life.
Once we saw a team and wagon moving toward the south. As suddenly as it
had appeared it dropped out of sight into a ravine. A horseman crossing
the plains faded into the horizon.

As our vision gradually adjusted itself to distance we saw other
homestead abodes. The eye "picked up" these little shacks across the
plains, one by one.

For years straggling settlers had moved on and off the prairie--and
those who stayed barely made a mark on the engulfing spaces. The
unyielding, harsh life had routed the majority of homesteaders--they had
shut the door behind them and left the land to its own.

All over the plains empty shacks told the tale. They stood there with
the grass grown up around them, the unwritten inscription: "This
quarter-section has been taken." Dilapidated; the tiny window or two
boarded up; boards cracked or fallen apart. They, too, had not been able
to weather the hard forces of nature on the frontier. If the shack had
gone down, or had been moved in the night by some more ambitious
homesteader, there was always the pile of tin cans to mark the spot.
They stayed and rusted.

And from the tin cans ye knew them. Bachelors' huts were always
surrounded; where there was a woman to do the cooking there were fewer
cans. But as a rule the sh