ay-Banks were famous throughout the county as the doctor's
swiftest and wildest team, a span of bronchos whose savage spirits no
journey could entirely subdue, a team he did not spare, a team that
scorned petting and pity, bony, sinewy, big-headed. They never walked
and had little care of mud or snow.

They came rushing now with splashing feet and foaming, half-open jaws,
the big doctor, calm, iron-handed, masterful, sitting in the swaying top
of his light buggy, his feet against the dash board, keeping his furious
span in hand as easily as if they were a pair of Shetland ponies. The
nigh horse was running, the off horse pacing, and the splatter of their
feet, the slash of the wheels and the roaring of their heavy breathing,
made my boyish heart leap. I could hardly repress a yell of delight.

As I drew aside to let him pass the doctor called out with mellow cheer,
"Take your time, boy, take your time!"

Before I could even think of an answer, he was gone and I was alone with
Kit and the night.

My anxiety vanished with him. I had done all that could humanly be done,
I had fetched the doctor. Whatever happened I was guiltless. I knew also
that in a few minutes a sweet relief would come to my tortured mother,
and with full faith and loving confidence in the man of science, I
jogged along homeward, wet to the bone but triumphant.

CHAPTER XIV

Wheat and the Harvest

The early seventies were years of swift change on the Middle Border. Day
by day the settlement thickened. Section by section the prairie was
blackened by the plow. Month by month the sweet wild meadows were fenced
and pastured and so at last the colts and cows all came into captivity,
and our horseback riding ceased, cut short as if by some imperial
decree. Lanes of barbed wire replaced the winding wagon trails, our
saddles gathered dust in the grain-sheds, and groves of Lombardy poplar
and European larch replaced the tow-heads of aspen and hazel through
which we had pursued the wolf and fox.

I will not say that this produced in me any keen sense of sorrow at the
time, for though I missed our horse-herds and the charm of the open
spaces, I turned to tamer sports with the resilient adaptability of
youth. If I could not ride I could at least play baseball, and the
swimming hole in the Little Cedar remained untouched. The coming in of
numerous Eastern settlers brought added charm to neighborhood life.
Picnics, conventions, Fourth of July celebra