The Settling of the Sage

by Hal G. Evarts

"Off to a running start on another year," he said. "And sure to hold our lead." They drew aside as the remuda thundered past and on toward the corrals. "From to-day on out, you and I'll be a busy pair," he prophesied.

His prediction proved true. The Three Bar was a beehive of activity and it seemed that the hours between dawn and dark were all too short for the amount of work Harris wished to crowd into them.

The cowhands were breaking out the horses in the corrals while the acreage of plowed land in the lower fields steadily increased.

The heaviest cedar posts were tamped in place for the outer fence and a six-wire barrier held range cows back from the bottoms which would soon be in growing crops. It crossed the flats below the lower filings and followed the road that held to one side of the valley clear to the Three Bar lane. On the far side it mounted the bench that flanked the bottoms and followed the crest of it, tying into the home corrals. Lighter three-wire fences marked the homestead lines within.

The day that Evans led the men out on the calf round-up, the mule teams made their first trip across the plowed land with the drill.

Harris and the girl sat their horses and watched the initial trip. The fields were being seeded to alfalfa and oats so that the faster growing grain might shade and protect the tender shoots of hay. Before the grain ripened it would be cut green for hay, cured and stacked.

When the seeding was completed Billie worked with Harris and together they ran a level over the seeded ground, marking out the laterals on grade across the fields from points where they would tap the main feed ditches and carry water to the crops.

Russ and Tiny followed the lines of stakes which marked their readings of the level, throwing a plow furrow each way. A second pair of homesteaders followed behind them, their mules dragging a pointed steel-shod ditcher which forced out the loosened earth.

A concrete head gate was installed at a feasible take-out point on the Crazy Loop. Then all hands worked on a main feed ditch which would carry sufficient volume of water to cover every filing. Lead ditches tapped the main artery at frequent intervals, each one of capacity to carry a head of water to irrigate one forty. These in turn feathered out into the tiny laterals across the meadow.

Early rains had moistened the fields and they were faintly green with tiny shoots of oats. These thickened into a rank velvety carpet while the homesteaders were hauling a hundred loads of rocks to form a crude dam across the stream below the take-out. The water was gradually raised till it ran almost flush with the top of the head gate. The gates were lifted and the diverted waters sped smoothly down the new channel to carry life to a portion of the sagebrush desert.