Chapter 2
On one of the ridges of that wintry waste stood the low log
house in which John Bergson was dying. The Bergson homestead was
easier to find than many another, because it overlooked Norway
Creek, a shallow, muddy stream that sometimes flowed, and sometimes
stood still, at the bottom of a winding ravine with steep, shelving
sides overgrown with brush and cottonwoods and dwarf ash. This
creek gave a sort of identity to the farms that bordered upon it.
Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of
human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.
The houses on the Divide were small and were usually tucked away in
low places; you did not see them until you came directly upon them.
Most of them were built of the sod itself, and were only t
