Nobody wants to do that. Least of all did the Kansas settlers of the boom days turn away from the promise of a fortune. So the boom came to the Grass River Valley as other disasters had come before it. Where a decade and a half ago Asher and Virginia Aydelot had lived alone with each other and God, in the heart of the wide solitary wilderness, the town of Cloverdale was staked out now over the prairie. Stock in the new venture sold rapidly, and nobody ever knew how much clear profit came to Champers & Co. from this venture. A big slice of the Cloverdale ranch went into the staking of the new city, and prosperity seemed wedded to Jim Shirley. He ceased farming and became a speculator with dreams of millions in his brain. Other settlers followed his example until the fever had infected every man in the community except Asher Aydelot, who would not give up to it, and Pryor Gaines, who had nothing to give up. Everything fell out as advertised. The railroad grade swelled up like a great welt across the land, seemingly in a day. Suburban additions radiated for miles in every direction. Bonds were voted for light and water and public buildings and improvements. Speculators rushed to invest and unload their investments at a profit. The Grass River Farmers' Company built the Grass River Creamery. And because it looked big and good they built the Grass River Sugar Factory and the Grass River Elevator. But while they were building their money into stone and machinery they forgot to herd cattle to supply the creamery and to grow cane for the sugar product and to sow and reap grain to be elevated. Also, the Cloverdale Farmers' Company, made up mostly of the members of the Grass River Farmers' Company, built the Cloverdale Hotel, and the Cloverdale State Bank, and the Cloverdale Office Block. And the sad part of it all was that mortgaged and doubly mortgaged farms and not the price of crops had furnished the capital for the boom building. It is an old story now, and none too interesting--the story of a boom town, founded on prairie breezes and built out of fortune seekers' dreams.