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From the dim outline we could barely make out horse and rider, but we knew them both Wilomene on old Buckskin. She was riding slowly as though there were nothing left out here now but time. She wore a dark red flannel shirtwaist, a divided skirt of black wool, a suede jacket and black cap like a jockey's. There was an easy strength and self-assurance in her carriage.
"The Indian reservation, just across the fence," Wilomene explained. The "fence" was merely a string of barbed wire, miles long, which marked the boundary of our territory and separated it from the Indian reservation.
She was an artist and head of her father's household. Her brother was a prominent surgeon in Chicago and for several years Wilomene, besides being active in club work, had been on the board of the Presbyterian Hospital there. When her health failed from overwork and strenuous public activities, her brother ordered a complete change and plenty of pure fresh air.
Wilomene had a big shack, with blue paper on the wall and a real range instead of a monkey stove with a drum set up in the stovepipe for an oven not many settlers could boast even a drum. And always the supper was seasoned with Wilomene's laughter.
Her name was Wilomene White, she told us, and she came from Chicago. She had been out here most of the time for almost two years what with leaves of absence in the winter prolonging the term of residence. She was a short, plump woman whom we judged to be in her early thirties, and she had a sense of humor that was an invaluable asset in a country like that.
Without wasting time I wrote some verses on the land opening, made a drawing to accompany them, and sent it to a printer at Pierre to have postcards made of it. Wilomene White had made some belts and hatbands of snakeskins, and she planned to put them, together with my cards, wherever we could sell them as souvenirs. I rode in at daylight for the cards, but the town was already astir.
It seemed to me there never was a time when at least one of the Randalls wasn't riding horseback over the prairie with an urgent message or errand for the homesteaders. Pay? Hell, no! Weren't these newcomers funny! I remember one evening in January with a storm raging. I had run to the Randalls' house from the print shop. They sent the sleigh to pick up Ida Mary and Wilomene.
Like most of the settlers we were busier than cranberry merchants, getting ready for the long winter. But there is a great satisfaction in doing simple, fundamental things with one's hands. That evening, however, I picked up the pamphlet on the Opening which Wilomene had left.
And Wilomene White, telling some of her homestead anecdotes, filled the room with laughter. Her most harassing experiences seemed funny to Wilomene. In the middle of the room the big heating stove, stoked with coal, grew red hot as the wind howled and whistled down the chimney and the snow lashed against the windows of the old log house.
One day when the corn was in the milk that season which the Indians celebrate with their famous corn dance we saw Wilomene White streaking across the plains on old Buckskin, her knock-kneed pony.
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