This man had about $500.00 and he let it out in small driblets running from $5.00 to $25.00. The periods for the loans were short, but the rate of interest was high. His rate was fifty per cent and some of the poor devils, when they got $10.00, had to return $20.00.
GAME WAS ABUNDANT
Game of all kinds was to be had at any time of the year and the amount of game in this section, even as late as the '80's, would be hard for the present generation to believe.
There were deer, elk, and antelope in the '70's, but no buffalo. There were also lynx, badger, raccoon, mink, skunk, weasels, muskrats and occasionally an otter. There were plenty of jack rabbits and cotton tails. The settlers found the jack rabbits good eating, but today no one will eat them. For feathered game, there were cranes; yes, we even ate cranes and they were not bad eating. Geese, brants, ducks and plenty of snipes and plovers abounded. In the '80's, prairie chickens and ducks were shot for the market. What lingers longest in the memories of the old residents is the fall flight of the water fowl. Day after day, in the long, clear days in the fall, the birds would come down from the northland, winging their way to their winter home in the south. Long, serried lines of honking Canadian geese, cackling brants and huge flocks of ducks would whirr through the air. Especially towards sunset would the display be interesting. On they came, flock after flock. The whish, whish, of their wings and the tiny, shrill peeps of the younger ducks left memories, hard to erase from the memories of the early prairie settlers.
THE WINTER OF 1880-1881
There were many severe storms during the winter months,
but the winter of '80-'81 was the outstanding one in the memories of the old settlers.
Snow commenced falling in the evening and for two days following, the storm increased with increased severity. Snow drifts in places were twenty feet high and about four feet on the level ground. Farmers were unable to get to their stock
—46—
Coming through the drifts in the winter of 1909
