Book 2, Chapter 4 The Great Plain Drinks... Summary

The final chapter opens with a general discussion of the life faced by pioneers. The wilderness seeks to destroy the newcomers with years of pestilence, spells of strangeness which force some people to take their own lives and others to end up in asylums, terrible storms and fire which torment the settlers. Despite all these hardships the pioneers continue to charge blindly into the impossible to achieve the unbelievable. When one man falls another comes to take his place and the settlements grow.

In the winter of 1880-1881 the snow begins to fall in mid-October and does not cease until mid-April. Unprepared for this early winter the settlers face famine and rapidly diminishing fuels supplies. Many lose their cattle and their own lives. In the midst of this terrible snowstorm Hans Olsa rides...