Sunshine and Snow by Harold Bindloss

A year passed, and Charley, who grew into a tall young man, had grown to love the prairie. He had also learned to mend his own clothes with pieces of cotton flour-bags, cook, and sweep out their rooms when his sister Alice was busy, besides many other things he used foolishly to think beneath him; and there was but one check to his contentment -- they had lost another crop. Again autumn frost followed a dry season, and all that was left of the wheat was not worth thrashing. But they sowed another, which promised well, and so one summer day Arthur and he rode home from Barholm Grange with lighter hearts than they had known for some time. Lilian had gone to England, but her father asked them to come and see him occasionally.

It was a clear bright day, though by-and-by a dimness spread across the sky and the wind grew colder, while the bleached buffalo bones, which are still sprinkled across the prairie, seemed to shine out curiously white among the grasses. Only a little while ago the huge beasts traversed the great plains in countless thousands, but there is not a single wild one left to-day.