The black geese were breaking their long journey to the marshes by the Arctic Sea; they would rest for a few days in the prairie sloos and then push on again.

Their harsh clamor had a note of unrest and rang through the dark like a trumpet call, stirring the blood.

The brant and bernicle beat their way North against the roaring winds, and man with a different instinct pressed on towards the West.
It was a rich land that rolled back before him towards the setting sun.
Birch and poplar bluffs broke the wide expanse; there was good water in the winding creeks, a black soil that the wheat plant loved lay beneath the sod, and the hollows held shallow lakes that seldom quite dried up.
Soon the land would be covered with grain; already there were scattered patches on which the small homesteaders labored to free themselves from debt.

For the most part, their means and tools were inadequate, the haul to the elevators was long, and many would fall an easy prey to the mortgage robber.

But things would soon be different; the railroad had come.