topped the crest of the divide east of Cheyenne and I saw far away to the southwest the snowy caps of the Rocky Mountains.

During the summer I "skinned mules" on the Cheyenne & Northern, now a part of the Hill system of railroads that connects Denver with the Big Horn Basin and the Puget Sound. Here I found many homeseekers like myself who had taken claims and were out looking for a grub stake for the winter. Several were from the Box Butte Table, among whom were old time friends from Illinois, John Frazier and Henry Watson.

One does not accumulate much in working for $1.75 per day, and paying $4.50 a week for inferior board, for when the season is over there are clothes to buy to take the place of worn out garments. So when I returned to Sidney, with my new boots resting comfortably upon plush cushions, I had little residue from my summer's wages. I fell in with George Hendricks, whom my uncle George Streeter had located in Hackberryf canyon, and we shoveled coal for the Union Pacific to get the winter grub stake.

I had bought an old buckskin broncho of Charlie Trognitz and took a skinning like a tenderfoot for it developed a "setfast" -- a sore under the saddle that would heal up when the horse was not in use, but would not stand much pressure of riding, and would peel off again. On the back of this broncho we packed our belongings consisting of our beds, bacon, flour, beans, coffee, cooking utensils, axes, picks, shovels, and clothing, and started over the divide for Pumpkin creek -- our promised land. In a little over a day -- one leading the horse and the other walking behind to prod it along -- we reached Hackberry canyon, and here in a grove by the spring we built our first cabin.