We all had the same ambitions, and all did our level best to make those humble places of abode, real homes. We had no wild or extravagant ideas or desires, but we wanted that farm for ours and our children. A few, like the dwellers in the cabin west of the Big Horns, went back to better things (perhaps) in the east. The most of us that have survived are still here, where our lives are woven into the woof and warp of the fabric of western Nebraska.

Together, we suffered the hardships of the lean years, and we hustled out for grub-stakes, singly or in pairs, leaving wives and families in the old soddies, dugouts, and log houses, looking after home affairs while we went after the few scattered dollars that we could pick up at work wherever we could find it. Up on the Cheyenne & Northern I met Harry Watson, John Frazier, and others from the Box Butt'e table. In the South Platte Vailey there were Theo. Harshman, Theo. Deutsch, William P. Young, Antoine and Wenzel Hiersche, and I know not how many others, picking spuds, herding sheep, or working at railroad construction. The Cheyenne & North-

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

era and the Sterling & Cheyenne branches of the Burlington drew heavily from the granges of western Nebraska for the help needed to build them. Young and Hiersche brought in from Colorado the few sheep that was the nucleus of their later large herds.

Irrigation in the North Platte valley was in its infancy. A few of the smaller ditches were in operation, and others had been crudely surveyed. There was plenty of man power, and there were harness broken bronchos for horse power, but there was no equipment, and no money with which to buy it.