The little town of Jack Pine crouched like a starved and flea bitten dog at the foot of Snake Mountain. Its ramshackle, wooden buildings were grey and lifeless after years of a losing fight with burning sun and alkaline dust that blew in from Chicasee basin. Its citizens too were grim and weather-beaten. Over a hundred ranchers and dirt farmers homesteaded the land ten years ago, only to discover that rain was an unknown quantity and that the wells ran dry. Land without water means nothing.