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"Just so; don't strain your lungs that much again, I'm coming, clear the track," responded Kat cheerfully, and came clattering down with her shoes unlaced, and her nose as red as a beet. "Bless the people, but isn't it cold, though. Whew! Jupiter Ammons! What a relief it is to say something when you're most friz. You don't look cheerful, sister mine."
When we were behind time and the mail was light or there was money going out, we ran Lakota through as a pony express. Lakota was a gift from the Indians, whose name meant "banded together as friends." One day Running Deer had come over to Ammons, leading a little bronc. He had caught her in a bunch of wild horses which roamed the plains, a great white stallion at their head.
Randall said reassuringly: "That's right, Miss Ammons; learning to meet emergencies in this country is a valuable thing." The proof-sheet king wrote: "It is regrettable that a paper like that should go into the government Land Offices such an outlaw printer " I replied cheerfully, "Oh, I sent the land officials a good one. They can read every number."
Many Brulé settlers went back home and disposed of whatever property they had in order to make permanent improvements on their claims. Other machinery came. Within a radius of three miles of Ammons three tractors ran all day.
Every available corner was utilized for sleeping space, and the store at Ammons did a record business that would help pay the wholesale bills at Martin's store. Ida Mary was busy taking care of postal duties, handling increased mail, government notices, etc. During the summer our financial condition had gone from bad to worse. "Do you know those Ammons girls?" one native westerner asked another.
If I could get one in first, I could help out the man whose illness had deprived him of his land, and help out the ailing Ammons finances. But it would be a race! Through the outer office I rushed while the land agent called after me, "Just a minute, Edith!" "I'll be back," I told him breathlessly. "I'll be back. I just thought of something!"
We sent in the post-office petition and the federal authorities promptly established a post office for the Lower Brulé on my homestead and appointed Ida Mary postmistress. She was the only woman ever to run a post office on an Indian reservation, the data gatherers said. The government named it Ammons.
And we no longer minded that the gate was open between the Indian lands and the section of the Brulé which had been thrown open to white settlers. While the gate stood open, enmity and mutual suspicion could not exist, and the path between it and Ammons was beaten hard and smooth.
Minerva C. Welch, Mrs. Dora Phelps Buell, Mrs. Honora McPhearson, Mrs. Lucy I. Harrington, Mrs. Katherine Tipton Hosmer, 1918. Three of these presidents have passed over the range, Mrs. Routt, wife of the former Governor; Mrs. Patterson, wife of U. S. Senator Thomas M. Patterson, and Professor Ammons, who established the department of domestic science in the Colorado Agricultural College.
Sitting bedraggled in his old buggy, Ida Mary distributed the mail to the patrons who had gathered. Even though the post office was gone, the mail must go on. We were never destined to be back-trailers. The sultry, tragic day came to a close, with the plains light long after the sun had gone down, and the Ammons settlement gone, and a devastating sense of emptiness.
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