We are told that they again sought for but could not find the owners, and as they had apparently been abandoned for a long time, no doubt for better equipment, the old ones were loaded in the wagons and brought into western Nebraska. It is yet an open question if they sought very diligently for the owners, and also what they would have done had they not found them for they had no money to buy the scrapers. Be that as it may, these scrapers were used to good service in the North Platte irrigation building.

Lars Olson, of Banner county, and James Nighswonger were among the spud pickers

that went to Greeley, and there were many others.

Over on the Chadron plains and Box Butte table, the hardships seemed fully as acute. Often I wonder what mental processes worked out those years, and how those who stayed, survived, and how they managed to keep the wolf from the door.

A few miles east of Chadron there lived a German and his family. One day he was observed sitting in a disconsolate mood on the sidewalk, and a passing acquaintance stopped and asked his what was the matter. He said that there was no flour in the house, no food, that the children cried because they were so hungry, that he had brought a load of wood to town to try to trade for something. No one wanted to trade; the merchants needed money and not fire wood, and no one else would buy it. He only wanted a few dollars, and he could not borrow at the banks, or get credit at the stores. "I think I get a gun, and end it all," he said. "But that will not stop the hunger cries of the children," said his philosophic friend.