The cowboys used to pile rocks in the creek to raise the water table so that the moisture would percolate back into the adjoining land and feed the grass roots. In the dry years of the nineties many dreamed of methods of raising water that was known to exist but a few feet below the earth's surface in extensive sheets. It remained fc" A. E. Scott to sink a concrete wall to the bed rock across Pumpkin creek, intercepting the underflow and bringing it to the surface and applying it to beneficial use. His plant was one of the most successful of its kind that it has been the privilege of the historian to examine. It is now owned by Dr. Simon of Sidney.

Those Early Builders The building of the first rude domiciles and later the extension of such building as the pioneers could afford by the expenditure of either time or money; the furnishing of these homes and all the other works of breaking out or fencing the land are stories of similar circumstances to nearly all.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

After building Hendrick's cabin in Hackberry it was necessary for me to build on my pre-emption. At its north end there was a little spring which we cleaned out as we did the spring at Hackberry. Then in the bank of the small arroyo we excavated the "house"' about eight by twelve feet. In front we put up cedar posts and covered the top with posts, cedar boughs and dirt. Later I boarded the room up from the bottom about four feet and used common shiplap lumber for a floor. The balance of the walls and the ceiling were covered with muslin. The front was of shiplap with a board door and one window of four 8x10 glass.