A brother who had settled in Stanton county, 107 miles from Omaha, had planned to meet us in that city. After being there a few days this brother, together with two other men, arrived and we were very happy. With two yoke of oxen and one team of horses, each hitched to a load of lumber, we journeyed from Omaha to Stanton county. Arriving there, we found shelter in a small dugout with our brother and family, where we remained until we filed on a homestead and had built a dugout of our own. We had plenty of clothing, a good lot of linens and homespun materials, but these and ten dollars in money were all we possessed. The land office was at Omaha and it was necessary for me to walk there to make a filing. I had to stop along the way wherever I could secure work, and in that way got some food, and occasionally earned a few cents, and this enabled me to purchase groceries to carry back to my family. There were no bridges across rivers or creeks and we were compelled to swim; at one time in particular I was very thankful I was a good swimmer. A brother-in-law and myself had gone to Fremont, Nebraska, for employment, and on our return we found the Elkhorn river almost out of its banks. This frightened my companion, who could not swim, but I told him to be calm, we would come to no harm. I took our few groceries and our clothing and swam across, then going back for my companion, who was a very large man, I took him on my back and swam safely to the other shore. While I was away, my family would be holding down our claim and taking care of our one cow. We were surrounded by Indians, and there were no white people west of where we lived. In the fall of 1869 we secured a yoke of oxen, and the following spring hauled home logs from along the river and creek and soon had a comfortable log house erected. Thus we labored and saved little by little until we were able to erect a frame house, not hewn by hand, but made from real lumber, and by this time we felt well repaid for the many hardships we had endured. The old "homestead" is still our home, but the dear, faithful, loving mother who so bravely bore all the hardships of early days was called to her rich reward January 28, 1912. She was born June 15, 1844, and I was born October 14, 1837. FRED E. ROPER, PIONEER BY ERNEST E. CORRELL Fred E. Roper, a pioneer of Hebron, Nebraska, was eighty years old on October 10, 1915. Sixty-one years ago Mr. Roper "crossed the plains," going from New York state to California. Eleven years more than a half-century--and to look back upon the then barren stretch of the country in comparison with the present fertile region of prosperous homes and populous cities, takes a vivid stretch of imagination to realize the dreamlike transformation. At that time San Francisco was a village of about five hundred persons living in adobe huts surrounded by a mud wall for a fortified protection from the marauding Indians.