For him who thus showed himself wiser in his generation than the homesteader proper, "life went merry as a marriage bell." for during this period of transition, which culminated in the eighties, a few years in the cycle of seasonable showers seemed to indicate that the rain belt extended as far west as the foothills. Hut those who prayed to Jupiter Pluvius instead of plowing their fields deep and conserving the moisture as it fell, soon felt that fate had laid its heavy

hand upon them, for there followed a series of years in which they suffered a total crop failure. It has been said that men are like sheep. It might be better to say that most men are ready to flee from threatened reverses, and like the rebellious Israelites, because their promised land seems further off than they anticipated, tire of manna and long for the flesh pots of Egypt. But whether either or neither was the cause, those immigrants who had dotted the tableland with their dwellings had for several years watched their crops wither when touched by that simoon of the southwind. until their hearts lost courage and like a defeated army the prairie-schooner was seen eastward-bound on every highway, and many continued their course until they crossed the Missouri and even the Mississippi. Just a few short years after the departure of the Indian, the soldier and the cattle, one following up the grass-grown but still well defined trail from Sidney to the hills, would see on either side as far as the eye could see, deserted and crumbing "soddies" as so many tombstones standing at the grave of buried hopes. All of which meant that man in his extremity must resort to other means of accomplishing what his predecessor failed to attain. Attention was called to the North Platte river flowing across the northern half of Cheyenne county.