Shane [antikvár]

Introductory NoteThe people in this story lived in the West of North America in the last century. The first Europeans in North Americasettled on the East Coast.Slowly, people moved to the West. They found the large, empty, grass plains. These plains were very good for breeding cattle VThe American Indians who had lived on the plains were forced back. They fought the Europeans, but in the end, the Indians lost their lands. They were given parts of the country where they had to live. They were not allowed to live anywhere else. The places where the Indians lived were called reservations.The first settlers made very large farms on the plains. The farms were called ranches. The ranches were very big - a hundred square miles of land or even more. The ranches had one owner -a rancher - and many other men worked for him.The land round the ranch was called the range. The cattle could wander all over the range and feed on the grass. Sometimes the owner did not own all the range. But he could use the land for his cattle, because no one else was using it.At the time of this story, poor farmers were moving to the West and buying land from the Government. These poor farmers were called homesteaders. Their farms were small. The homesteaders wanted to grow crops as well as keep cattle. They built fences around their farms.This story is about a young boy called Bob. Bob's father is a homesteader. He has bought his own farm and has built a fence around it. (See the illustration on page 14.)