But the homesteaders, the permanent settlers, the men who took up each his own farm on which he lived and brought up his family, these represented from the National standpoint the most desirable of all possible users of, and dwellers on, the soil.

Their advent meant the breaking up of the big ranches; and the change was a National gain, although to some of us an individual loss.
I first reached the Little Missouri on a Northern Pacific train about three in the morning of a cool September day in 1883.

Aside from the station, the only building was a ramshackle structure called the Pyramid Park Hotel.

I dragged my duffle-bag thither, and hammered at the door until the frowsy proprietor appeared, muttering oaths.

He ushered me upstairs, where I was given one of the fourteen beds in the room which by itself constituted the entire upper floor.