It was Smith who translated Dan's look of appeal for the cup of warm milk and held it to the girl's lips.

"Drink it, Mis' Clark, you need it."

She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup and fell against the driver's rough sleeve. "Poor kid, dead asleep!"

Dan guided her stumbling feet toward the bed that the traveler sprang to open. She guarded the baby in the protecting angle of her arm into safety upon the pillow, then fell like a log beside her.

"Poor kid, but she's grit clear through!"

Dan walked to the window, looked out at the lessening storm, then at the tiny alarm-clock on the cupboard. "Be over pretty soon now!" He seated himself by the table, dropped his head wearily forward on folded arms, and was asleep.

He

The traveler's face had lost some of its shrewdness. moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of the bed, and straightened the coverlet while his lips twitched. He looked about the room, picked up the gray kitten sleeping contentedly on the floor, and settled it on the red cushion.

He examined with curiosity the few books carefully covered in a corner shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume, and lifted his eyebrows at the ancient coat-of-arms on the book-plate. He tiptoed across to the bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7) to his dear daughter, Alice (8)."

He motioned toward the bed. "Her name?"

Hillas nodded. Smith grinned. "Dan's right. Blood will tell, even to damning the rest of us."

He sat down on the bench. "I understand more than I did, Hillas, since you crawled back after me out there. But how can you stand it here?"

Hillas spoke slowly. "I think you have to live here to know. It means something to be a pioneer. You can't be

one if you've got it in you to be a quitter." He reached for his great-coat, bringing out a brown-paper parcel. He smiled at it oddly and went on as if talking to himself:

"When the drought and the hot winds come in the summer and burn the buffalo grass to a tinder, there's a common, lowgrowing cactus scattered over the prairie that blooms into the gayest red flower you ever saw. It wouldn't count for much anywhere else, but the pluck of it, without rain for months. It's the 'colors of courage.'

999

He turned the torn parcel, showing the bright red within, and looked at the cupboard and window with shining, tired eyes.

"Up and down the frontier in these shacks, homes, you'll find things made of turkey-red calico, cheap, common elsewhere" He fingered the three-cornered flap. "It's our 'colors."" He put the parcel back in his pocket. "I bought two yards yesterday after I got a letter at Haney."

Smith sat looking at the gay curtains before him. The fury of the storm was dying down. Dan stirred, looked quickly toward the bed, then the window, and got up quietly. "I'll hitch up. We'll stop at Peterson's and tell his wife to come over." He closed the door noiselessly.

The traveler was frowning intently. Finally he turned toward the boy who sat with his head leaning back against the wall, eyes closed.

"Hillas' his very tones were awkward "they call me a shrewd business man. I am; it's a selfish job and I'm not reforming now. But twice to-night you children have risked your lives, without thought, for a stranger. I've been thinking about that railroad. Haven't you raised any grain or cattle that could be used for freight?"

The low answer was toneless. "Drought killed the crops; prairie fires burned the hay; the cattle starved."

"There's no timber, ore, nothing that could be used for eastbound shipment?"

The boy looked searchingly into the face of the man.

"There's no timber this side the Missouri. Across the river, it's reservation - Sioux. We-" He frowned and stopped. Smith stood up, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. "I admitted I was shrewd, Hillas, but I'm not yellow clear through. I had a man along here last fall spying for minerals. That's why I'm out here now. If you know the location, and we both think you do, I'll put capital in your way to develop the mines, and use what pull I have to get the railroad."

He looked down at the boy and thrust out a masterful jaw. There was a ring of sincerity no one could mistake when he spoke again.

"This country's a desert now, but I'd back the Sahara peopled with your kind. Hillas, don't tell me you won't believe I'm-American enough to trust!"

The boy tried to speak. With clenched hands he struggled for self-control. Finally in a ragged whisper: "If I try to tell you what it means I can't talk! Dan and I know of outcropping coal over in the Buttes, but we haven't had enough money to file mining claims."

"Know where to dig for samples under this snow?"

The boy nodded. "Some in my shack, too. I—” His head went down upon the crossed arms. Smith laid an awkward hand on the heaving shoulders, then rose and crossed the room to where the girl had stumbled in her vigil. Gently he touched the darkened streak where her shoulders had rubbed and blurred the newspaper print. He looked from the white desert outside to the gay bravery within, and bent his head, "Turkey-red- calico!"

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Let four pupils give the story in relay, each pupil telling one part. Before the floor-talks are given, let the class decide on titles for each of the four parts.

2. Why is a railroad important to a frontier region? Which usually comes first, settlement or means of transportation? If possible,

give some illustrations from American history which support

your answer.

3. Read the passage which shows why Smith promised to use his influence to secure the railroad.

4. Mention the different kinds of courage shown by the three frontier folk who play a part in the story. Name ways in which each was a conqueror of nature.

5. Name respects in which the Dakota pioneers were like the Pilgrims.

6. What is the climax or the most interesting point in this story?

7. Explain whether the title fits the story.

8. Give examples which show that we are living on what frontiersmen have done. Read again p. 19.

9. Which had the more difficult contest with nature the man in the forest or the pioneers in Dakota? Mention facts or details which support your opinion.

ADDITIONAL READINGS.

1. "A Home in the Wilderness," A. H. Shaw, in Book One, 12-21. 2. "Homesteaders," H. I. Gilchrist, in Scribner's Magazine, 70: 701. 3. "A Day with a Ranchwoman," ibid., 71: 447-450. 4. "Pioneer Farmers of the West," A. H. Sanford, Story of Agriculture in the United States, 100-123.

3. PIONEERS! O PIONEERS!

WALT WHITMAN

"Tis the good reader makes the good book," said Emerson. He meant that what we get from our reading depends on what we bring to it. Keep the story "Turkey Red" in mind as you read this poem; then tell what the story gave you to bring to the poem.

Come my tan-faced children,

Follow well in order, get your weapons ready,

Have you your pistols? have you your sharp-edged axes? Pioneers! O pioneers!

For we cannot tarry here,

We must march, my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,

We the youthful sinewy, races, all the rest on us depend,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

O you youths, Western youths,

So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship, Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

Have the elder races halted?

Do they droop and end their lesson, wearied over there beyond the seas?

We take up the task eternal, and the burden and the lesson, Pioneers! O pioneers!

All the past we leave behind,

We debouch upon a newer mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

We detachments steady throwing

Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep, Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown

ways,

Pioneers! O pioneers!

We primeval forests felling,

We the rivers stemming, vexing we and piercing deep the mines within,

We the surface broad surveying, we the virgin soil upheaving, Pioneers! O pioneers!

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Read the poem silently a second time and copy the lines which remind you of incidents or details in "Turkey Red." Be ready to read the passages in "Turkey Red" of which these lines remind you.

2. Describe some of the tasks of pioneers, giving examples from American history.