dreams to fall about the builder, a pall of utter disappointment.

Just a few days of alluring sunshine, only a few balmy nights, and the tiny plants were raising their tender shoots above the surface of the sand, which through its ages of shifting now refused to remain under control of mere man, and was growing restless, rolling in fiendish glee down the sides of the nicely formed flower beds and rollicking in sparkling bits across the walks, filling, with maddening persistance, every opening made in its surface by the upspringing plants.

The age worn battle between the Goddess Flora and the relentless desert was being fought over. She with all her garlands, was trying to wreath the brow of this gray monster, while he, with his withering sunrays and constant battering with tiny particles of sharp, flinty sand, was repulsing her every advance.

The Gods, Jupiter, Pluvius and Boreas, standing sponsors for the contending forces, intervened and changed at times what seemed certain victory. One with his gentle showers or torrential downpour would rush to the scene of the fray, settling the tiny grains of sand and thereby quelling the galling batteries that were assailing the tender plants, at the same time administering to their bruised and quivering stems and foliage; then, conscious of a kindly act, he sails away, seated upon his fleecy crafts of air, emitting an occasional growl, warning his enemy, the wind, against his return. Scarcely has his frown disappeared over the brow of the hills to the south, followed by his majestic guard of chariots, with billowing gold and silver plumage, when a faint whisper is heard in the grass. Hark! 'tis louder! See the tops of the bunchgrass moving restlessly; Old Boreas is stalking his enemy. He creeps prone upon the ground, like a serpent he raises his head with a hissing sound; on, upward to the top of the tallest reeking sage brush he crawls; maddened by the presence of those hated sparkling drops of crystal water that bedecks this misshapen shrub, he shakes them in myriads to the ground and laughs with glee. But in so doing he is restraining one of the arch fiends of the desert, the sand. At this discovery he shrieks with anger, and seizing the precious drops, hoists them into the air, scattering them in misty spray and hurries them miles through space, back to their natural haunts, where they are left to assemble themselves and await another call. Thus left to their own, again the sun and sand renew the attack, and wear down, by constant onslaught, every particle of vegetation not originally intended to laugh to scorn their every effort.

But the fortitude of those alien plants was noble; gallantly they withstood the siege. For days and weeks, constantly scorched and blistered during the day, they came up smiling in the morning, with heads erect, to greet the same sun their parent plant had known and throve under, but stung, whipped and tortured by the never ceasing, ever shifting myriads of cutting particles of sand, bleeding to the last infinitesimal mite, they had to die; they hung their noble heads, became discolored and withered, and when the morning sun shone forth it was upon the same dwarfed sage brush and hissing bunchgrass it had always known. The scabrock border, the horned toad that sought shelter beneath the protecting edges, all one color, gray, monotonous gray.

Small indeed would be the area of reclaimed land in the great northwest if each homesteader had given up hopes and abandoned his dreams with his first disappointment, and had he not awakened to renewed effort at each stroke of misfortune administered by what seemed to be a relentless fate.

Nature, in her lavish distribution of blessings, had not wholly forgotten this seemingly neglected spot. The nights were cool and refreshing, the air pure and uncontaminated, and both he and his family being blessed with rugged health. Travis Gully looked upon the havoc wrought with undaunted courage and determination. He submitted to the loss of his first planting with resignation, and hastened to seek means whereby he might provide food and other necessities for his family. To the north lay the never failing wheat fields of the Big Bend country; east, the Couer d'Alene mining district; and west of the Cascade Mountains the lumbering industries of the Puget Sound region. These each offered a solution of a means of livelihood, ample employment and good wages; but with the departure of the family from the homestead went the cherished dream of a home.

Often at night when the children, now grown sunburned and inured to the intense heat and blistering sands, were on their pallets, enjoying the peaceful sleep of tired but happy childhood, Gully and his wife would sit for hours and try to devise means whereby the coming winter might be lived through with some semblance of comfort. During these heart to heart talks, while seated before the door of their humble home, Gully's gaze would wander out across his broad acres, which under the pale starlight in this clear desert air, could easily be transformed, in vision, to fields of waving grain; conversation would cease; a restless move made by one of the children would attract the attention of the watchful mother, who, upon entering the house cautiously stepping with stealthy tread among the little sleeping forms, would approach the table, give the flame of the one small kerosene lamp a gentle turn upward and throw into bold relief every evidence of abject poverty within the confines of that one sparsely furnished room. With wide staring eyes she would hastily scan the face of each sleeping child as if in dread of finding the fiendish hand of hunger clutching at some innocent throat; but all is quiet. Passing a trembling hand across her weary forehead, she slowly turned, and as she did so, read in every object that met her gaze one word, sacrifice. The little blue overalls, with their numberless patches, and frayed and tattered hem, the little gingham aprons, worn threadbare by the constant nipping, picking and catching on the scraggling branches of the despised sage brush, all shrieked sacrifice. Suddenly, with a quick movement, a little foot is thrust from beneath the scant cover, and at the same time a varicolored sand lizzard scurries across the bare floor and disappears through a convenient crack. Seizing the lamp, she hurries to the side of the sleeping child, takes the little brown foot in her loving hands and seeks in vain for some mark of injury inflicted by the frightened lizzard; finding none, she places the little foot tenderly on the pallet and reaches for the cover; stops, and stares. What does she see? Only a little toe, the nail gone, a partially healed wound, showing where the cruel snag of the hated sage brush had torn its way into her very flesh and blood. With a groan she bows her head for a moment, then hastily scanning the room, she misses the little shoes and stockings so much needed for the protection of those little feet. Arising, she replaces the lamp upon the table, turns it low, and returns to her husband's side, prepared to make one of the greatest sacrifices ever made by a woman, and one of which little has even been said or written. She must tell him to go, and leave her and the children alone and unprotected in the desert. He must go, that they might live, go until the winter snows drive him home. O God! it would be lonely, days of constant watching across the quivering sea of unchanging gray, nights of wakeful listening, broken by the sound of the ghoulish yip of the hungry coyote and the mournful hoot of the ground owl.

Give honor to the famous women of our land, if you must. She who first made our glorious flag, those who devoted their lives to nursing back to health and strength our nation's