Week after week passed away, and the government surveyors did not appear. The Boomtown _Spike_ told in each issue how the men of the chain and compass were pushing westward; but still they did not come, and the settlers’ hopes of getting their claims filed before winter grew fainter. The mass of them had planned to take claims in the spring, live on them the required six months, “prove up,” and return East for the winter. In spite of these disappointments, all continued to be merry. No one took any part of it very seriously. The young men went out and ploughed when they pleased, and came in and sat on the door-step and talked with the women when they were weary. The shanties were hot and crowded, but no one minded that; by-and-by they were to build bigger. And, then, all was so new and beautiful, and the sky was so clear. Oh, that marvellous, lofty sky with just clouds enough to make the blue more intense! Oh, the wonder of the wind from the wild, mysterious green sea to the west! With the change and sheen of the prairie, incessant and magical life was made marvellous and the winter put far away. Merry parties drove here and there visiting. Formalities counted for little, and yet with all this freedom of intercourse, this close companionship, no one pointed the finger of gossip toward any woman. The girls in their one-room huts received calls from their bachelor neighbors with the confidence that comes from purity of purpose, both felt and understood. Life was strangely idyllic during these spring days. Envy and hate and suspicion seemed exorcised from the world. OLD EPHRAIM THE GRIZZLY THEODORE ROOSEVELT From “Hunting-Trips of a Ranchman.” Reprinted by permission of the publishers, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.[30] But few bears are found in the immediate neighborhood of my ranch; and though I have once or twice seen their tracks in the Bad Lands, I have never had any experience with the animals themselves except during the elk-hunting trip on the Bighorn Mountains, described in the preceding chapter.