He told the ranchman his plight. He had not misgauged the great heart of the west, and he borrowed a wagon and

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

continued his journey into the promised land.

The broken wheel was left at Fort Laramie to be repaired, at a cost of $7.50 which was yet to be secured, and which financial achievement was made by borrowing it from an Englishman, then about ten miles up the Rawhide creek.

This same Englishman taught W. R. Akers, by the use of an architect's level, the way to run the line of a ditch. And this primitive instrument, with nature's brain and brawn, was the equipment used in laying out the first irrigation canal in the North Platte valley. That canal still runs, and carries water more satisfactorily than some of the newer works which the boys with "sheepskins" and in khaki uniforms with much ado have traced across parchments, in rooms where just the right degree of light and shade obtains.

How early settlers found the necessary food to eat, are stories as old as pioneer life; and hardships and privations vary only in degree and kind. There was a time, one winter in the middle eighties that brought the question of sustenance for the next meal. The autumn previously, Mr. Akers, having time and idle horses, had put up several stacks of the coarse stemmed sand grass. The ranchmen told him that it had no feeding qualities, but he thought it would be better than nothing.,. Winter came, and he found his horses ate it, and were fat, while stock on the range grew poorer.