CHAPTER IV.

"The Drifter".


And Spring came back to the Northland. The trees and bushes commenced to
bud. As if by magic the brown winter tints of the water and frost bogged
prairie were transformed into a daintily colored green carpet by the
sprouts that the slumbering grasses sent forth into the balmy air, while
here and there a venturesome flower spread its multi-colored petals
towards the warming rays of the sun, and lastly the song birds, the
infallible sign of nature's complete resurrection, came home from the
Southland and rebuilt their storm-torn nests amid the warbling of
gladsome notes, their jubilee song of happiness and satisfaction.

With these signs of the re-awakening of Nature there came to me the
strange "Call of the Road". Heretofore it had never come as strongly as
it came at this time, when after a long and monotonous winter's toil the
rattling trains as they shot over our section, the darting birds as they
foraged their subsistence, and even the thumping of the wheels under our
hand car seamed to beckon me to follow their example and move away.
Although I tried with might and main to resist its call, gradually the
bunk house became a dungeon, the endless prairie a prison, and the
Dakotas themselves became entirely too small to hold me, and when the
pay car stopped to hand me my month's wages, I could no longer withstand
the temptation to follow the "Call of the Road" and be up and gone. It
was a hard matter for me to bid Foreman McDonald and his family
farewell, and the last promise I made before I left was, that should
circumstances permit I would find my way back in the fall to again take