range. The Continental Cattle Co. drove up 32,000 head of steers. The Worsham Cattle Co., with no former holdings turned loose 5,000 head or thereabouts. Major Smith, who had failed to sell 5,500 southern three-year-old steers, was forced to drive them to his range on Willow Creek near to Stoneville, now Alzada, Mont. The Dickey Cattle Co., as previously related, had brought up 6,000 mixed cattle from the Cheyenne and Arapahoe country and turned them over to their outfit whose headquarters were twenty or twentyfive miles below the above hamlet on the Little Missouri. Thousands of other cattle were spread over the western and northwestern country in the most reckless way, no thought for the morrow. Even with the best of winters it would have been a case of suicide. As things turned out it was simple murder, at least for the Texas cattle. Winter came early and it stayed long. The owners were mostly absent and even those who remained could not move about or size up the situation.

It was not till the spring round-ups that the real truth was discovered and then it was only mentioned in a whisper. Bobby Robinson, acute judge of conditions, estimated the loss among through cattle at less than 50 per cent. It turned out to be a total loss among this class of cattle and the wintered herds suffered from thirty to sixty per cent. I had gone to Europe in June, just as the round-ups had commenced. I got back the first days of August and for the first time heard of the terrific slaughter. It was simply appalling and the cowmen could not realize their position. From Southern Colorado to the Canadian line, from the 100th Meridian almost to the Pacific slope it was a catastrophe which the cowmen of today who did not go through it can never understand. Three great streams of ill-luck, mismanagement, greed, met together. In other words, recklessness, want of foresight and the weather, which no man can control. The buffalo had probably gone through similar winters with enormous losses and thus natural conditions were evened up in the countless years they had grazed the

prairie and in the survival of the fittest their constitutions had been built up to stand the rigors of winter and the drought of summer.

As actual facts are better than surmise, here are some striking ones. The Continental Company was a shadow of its former self. The Worsham folks never attempted to gather their remnant. We gathered Major Smith's fouryear-olds. Out of the 5,500 three-year-olds we got about 100 head. In this connection there was a rather strange coincidence to show how wintered steers will go through extraordinary hardship. Mr. D. W. Smith of Springfield, Illinois, had bought and turned loose under his brother's care about 1,200 two-year-old JJ steers (Prairie Cattle Co.) in 1885. These had gone up early in the season, partly by rail, and had got a good start. We gathered these cattle and had only a 10 per cent loss in two years on the range, whereas his brother's bunch were short 98 per cent. There could be no mistake, as both lots were counted in and out. The VVV outfit had the same experience. The steers sent up during 1885 shipped with even a smaller loss, but they had the advantage of drifting eastward onto the Indian reservation lying west of the Missouri, and there we found lots of them in the spring and summer of 1887.

The cowmen of the West and Northwest were flat broke. Many of them never recovered. They had not the heart to face another debacle such as they had gone through and consequently they disappeared from the scene. Most of the eastern men and the Britishers said "enough" and went away. Some remained and their story we shall develop as we go along. The late summer and fall of 1887 was, to use a western expression, simply a fright. The big guns toppled over; the small ones had as much chance as a fly in molasses. Swan, Sturgis and others in Wyoming went to the wall; Kohrs, Murphy, Granville Stuart, Joe Scott and many others in Montana were badly hit; Russell Harrison, otherwise known as Prince Russell, disappeared from the range, while Theodore Roosevelt left a good many bones behind him

north of Medora. It was a pathetic experience to attend the fall meetings of 1887. Worse than pathetic to wander among the ruins of past glories in the spring of 1888. Then the sledge hammer blow had been measured and many a man who had counted his wealth by thousands of cattle was stranded, unable to stem the tide of disaster, but from the wreck a lot of pure gold was left. It appeared in the nobility, the strength of character, that developed in many unexpected quarters, how out of poverty and disaster there arose men of mark, flashing lights guiding themselves and others, and who by their example of bravery and nerve rescued the weary ones, helping by advice and ofttimes aiding financially many a man who has since made a success in another line of business.

Thirty years have come and gone since these strenuous days. A great majority of the men who figured in these sad scenes are no longer with us, but on the minds of those who are left, the impress is still vivid and the story of the disaster is told by many a camp fire, by cozy firesides, by green hillsides where the horn calls the hounds to pursue the fast retreating fox.

To make matters worse, the summer of 1887 was exceedingly dry in the granger states. The corn crop was short and what steers the rangemen had to ship met an adverse market. You had a thin steer, an overloaded market and disastrous prices. We had to ship part of the "moccasin" steers purchased in 1885 from Sparks & Tinnin for the 7 ranch at $27.00 per head. The transaction was a financial tragedy. We had a loss of 25 to 30 per cent in numbers and the net price per head was less than we had paid for them. Eleven-hundred-pound four-year-old steers at $2.65 per 100 lbs. in Omaha will scarcely be credited by ranchmen of these later days. One of them at the Wyoming Stock Growers meeting (April, 1917) talked very glibly about the cattle barons. The gains of the open range business were swallowed up by losses. From the inception of the open range business in the West and Northwest, from say 1870 to 1888,

it is doubtful if a single cent was made if you average up the business as a whole. Some of course sold out, taking with them their money, and lived happy ever afterwards, but when you bundle up, strike an average, count not only the money but add to this the resistless energy of the men who came West, young, ardent, full of "go," the optimism of youth mounting the hills of difficulty, the story with its flavor of romance ends in hollow failure. As the South Sea Bubble burst, as the Dutch tulip craze dissolved, this cattle gold brick withstood not the snow of winter. It wasted away under the fierce attacks of a sub-arctic season aided by summer drought. For years after you could wander amid the dead brushwood that borders our streams. In the struggle for existence the cattle peeled off the bark as if legions of beavers had been at work.

CHAPTER XXIV

FTER GETTING control of the Cattle Ranche &
Land Company and adjusting as far as possible its

A

management, we had to face the question of Texas fever resulting from the Neutral Strip being made into the trail. As stated previously Southern Texas cattle had come up the trail without any hindrance. The Panhandle was a great cattle country, fenced in some places, but still distinctly a part of the open range of the Southwest. The Indian Territory was almost a "terra incognita," except to its primeval inhabitants and a few men in the cattle business, while Western Kansas was just feeling the impulse of Eastern immigration. The hot Southern winds still played across its arid slopes without many settlers worrying as to the future of their corn crop. The trail after it left Texas kept up the western boundary of the Indian Territory, passed Camp Supply some twelve miles to the east and entered Kansas about fifty miles south of Dodge City, which was distinctively in those days the end of the Southern trail. Many of the cattle changed hands at that point, and while a great portion kept straight northward toward Ogallala and the North Pole, still the Southern drive virtually came to an end at the above place.

During the summer of 1882 there were signs of a change. A few grangers had settled north of Dodge City, and they made a vigorous kick against the cattle crossing their lands. There was open revolt in 1883. Driving out one day to inspect a herd north of the above point, we found the outfit confronted with half a dozen men armed with shot guns, who were demanding tribute for a passage way and the privilege of watering on their land. The Texas spirit boiled over at such an invasion of their rights, but shot guns are powerful arguments and the cash was paid. During the summer of 1884 the trouble increased, so far as Kansas was