Land of the Burnt Thigh by Edith Eudora Kohl

Amazon | Project Gutenberg
In the early 1900s, Edith Ammons and her sister Ida Mary set out by themselves for South Dakota to file homestead claims. Edith's memoir of their experiences, including blizzards, droughts, encounters with claim-jumpers and Indians, witnessing a land rush and running a rural post-office and newspaper, is one of the most fascinating memoirs  of the American frontier you'll find.

My review of this book.