women said, was
the secret. Most of the water used for household purposes did double or
triple duty. The water drained from potatoes was next used to wash one's
face or hands or dishes; then it went into the scrub bucket. Potato
water kept one's hands and face soft, we boasted; it was as effective as
face cream.

But I was not a tea-cup saver by nature. Could the time and scheming of
those pioneer women to save water have been utilized in some water
project, it would have watered the whole frontier. But gradually we were
becoming listless, shiftless. We were in a stage of endurance in which
there was no point in forging ahead. We merely sat and waited--for rain
or wells or whatever might come.

And always when we were down to the last drop, someone would bring us
water. I never knew it to fail. One such time we looked up to see Huey
Dunn coming. He had made the long trip just to bring us water--two whole
barrels of it, although we had not seen him since he moved us to the
reservation.

It was so hot he waited until evening to go back. He was in no hurry to
return: it was too hot to work. But when had Huey ever been in a hurry?
We sat in the shade of the shack, talking. He had dug a well, and his
method of fall plowing--fallowing he called it--had proved successful.

Starting home toward evening, he called back, "If you girls take a
notion to leave, you needn't send for me to move you--not until you get
your deed, anyhow." I only saw him once after that--Ida Mary never
again.

Ida Mary was seeing a lot of a young easterner that summer, an
attractive, cultured boy who had taken a claim because he had won it in
a lottery and it was an adventure. Imbert Miller had gone into the land
business. He was well fitted for the work, with his honest, open manner,
which inspired confidence in landseekers, and his deep-rooted knowledge
of the West.

One day I looked up from my work with a belated thought.

"Imbert hasn't been here for some time. What's the matter?"

"He is to stay away until I send him word. I've got to be sure."

When there was any time for day-dreaming those days I conjured up
pictures of snow banks and fountains and blessed, cooling rain, and
long, icy drinks of water. The water had alkali in it and tasted soapy
in cooking. But it was water. And we drank it gratefully.

The old man from the Oklahoma Run came over. Stooped and stiff, he
leaned on his cane in the midst of a group of settlers who had met