"How much for the stack?" he asked.

"One hundred dollars," bravely said, but with inward dread that the man would vanish.

Sells Some Hay

The man laid down $20 in gold, and gave him a check for the $80.

At noon Mother Akers returned to try to improvise a meal. Captain Akers met her at the door, and said :

"Mother, I have sold a stack of hay."

"How much did you get for it, father?" a little eagerly.

"One hundred dollars," and he caught her or she would have fallen on the doorstep.

That afternoon, Watson's grocery, a small store up the river, put $50 worth of groceries in Captain Akers wagon, and the gaunt wolf left his door forever.

His life has been woven into the constructive laws of Nebraska, and he has served his country in war and peace, but of all his great achievements, the greatest is that he held aloft a beacon to guide the footsteps of the young. A good clean life, of trying environment at times, but of a glorious sunset. His days were marked with climaxes, and when fate or Providence intervened or rebuffed, his indomitable will spoke, "Take Courage," and out of seeming disaster he triumphed to splendid useful citizenship.

Captain Akers taught us the way to put fragments together, and make the desert blossom as a rose. Here was the vagrant river and the desert land, and here now is the green oasis of thousands of homes.

The blossom which I now lay upon his bier, is but poor tribute and only one ; of the mamhe has made to bloom, but I am glad that while he lived I also gave him flowers, and never failed to render him true homage for the service he has rendered to all our Scotts Bluff country.