always
seemed to be hungry. Kettles and washboilers full of coffee, slabs of
bacon sizzling in great pans, and, one after another, into the hot
grease slid a case of eggs. Home-baked bread was sliced into a washtub.
Shaking with cold, coat collars turned up, shawls and blankets wrapped
about them, tired, hollow-eyed and disheveled, the seekers looked like a
banished people fleeing from persecution. But they were not
disheartened.

On October 14 the "Drawing" started. The registrations were put into
sealed envelopes, tossed into boxes, shuffled up, and drawn out one at a
time, numbered as they were drawn out--as many numbers as there were
claims--with an additional number to allow for those who did not file or
whose applications were rejected. Then the filing of the winners began.
Most of the seekers had already selected their claims. They had six
months' time in which to establish residence on the land.

The stampede was over. After three weeks of high-pitched excitement the
seekers were gone, the plains regained their silence, and the settlers
around McClure were left to face the frontier winter with its desolation
and hardships. The void after the crowds had gone was worse than if they
had never come. The weather had turned raw and gray, and there was a
threat of snow in the air. Exhausted and let down, Ida Mary and I were
desperately blue.

And then we saw someone coming across the plains--the only moving figure
to be seen in the cold gray dusk. From the dim outline we could barely
make out horse and rider, but we knew them both--Wilomene on old
Buckskin. She was riding slowly as though there were nothing left out
here now but time.

She wore a dark red flannel shirtwaist, a divided skirt of black wool, a
suede jacket and black cap like a jockey's. There was an easy strength
and self-assurance in her carriage. She crossed the firebreak and rode
up over the ridge calling her cheery "Hoo-hoo-hoo!"

"She's going to stay all night," exclaimed Ida Mary, seeing the small
bag dangling from the saddlehorn.

After supper we counted the dimes we had earned from the postcards--more
than $50. And far into the night we talked of the people who had invaded
the Strip.

Next spring there would be life again over the plains when the "lucky
numbers" came out to live on the Strip. Would the reporter from Chicago
be among them, and the mystery girl with the baby in her arms, and Pa
Wagor--and a young cartoonist from Milwaukee?