"Nail down every dollar," said Jack, and we all were busy with our nailing.
We had decided to make no start until the spring; this on the advice of Mr. Edgar Gaines, a young man of the town who had gone west three years before with his worldly belongings in a grain bag, and had returned wearing tailor-made clothes and a horse-shoe tie pin set with something which, in a favorable light, resembled a diamond. He had "proved up" and sold out, and was living a lordly life on the proceeds—while they lasted.
"I'm settling with myself for three years on the 'bald-headed', and I've run up quite a bill," was Mr. Gaines' explanation of his gaiety. But he was able to give us some suggestions born of experience.
"No use going in the winter," he explained, "nor too early in the spring. You can't see land until the snow is off. And you have to see it; otherwise you may take up a fine alkali mine. I took up my claim in winter. That's why I had to sell it in winter."
"But don't you have to be there to put a crop in in the spring?" asked Jack, who was eager to be away.
"First crop don't amount to much, anyway," said Mr. Gaines, making sure that his tie pin was still in place, as the girls were in the company, and seemed to regard him as something of a hero. "First crop don't amount to much. Likely to be rushed in in too much of a hurry, and in a dry season you lose your seed for your pains. Better take your time; pick out a prime piece of land, get your shacks up, and start plowing. If you're pushed for money, work out for somebody for awhile the first year, or put up hay on the bald-headed; you can usually sell it to settlers next winter, and soak 'em hard, always soak 'em hard."
"On the bald-headed?" repeated Jean; "what does that mean?"
"That means the prairie," Mr. Gaines explained, "because it's as bare as a bald head, 'cept for a very short grass which makes wonderful good hay."
Armed with Mr. Gaines' generous advice we prepared to start for the West about the end of April, and, as it came about, my father and Mrs. Lane arranged a domestic event on the very day of our departure. The affair was quiet and unpretentious; ceremony in the church at eleven, and dinner at Mrs. Lane's—Mrs. Hall's, I should say—where Marjorie and Jean served, and we all tried to live in a joyous glow which was strangely shot through with streaks of unhappiness. That night at six we left for the West.
We travelled in a colonist car, and it was lucky that there were four of us, as we occupied just one section. At night we pulled the seats out, and let down the upper berth, so that there were two narrow beds. The girls had the lower one, around which we arranged an improvised curtain, and we had brought some blankets, which they spread on the wooden slats of their seats.