on the Grey Bull, that I met him. He was on the Swan Ranch in the dark days of 1887. He went to the Prairie in 1890, and when he retired he devoted part of his time to company work in Edinburgh, Scotland. Now he is Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Swan Land & Cattle Co., of which I am Chairman of the Executive Committee. Further, he has lately been appointed Director of the Matador Land & Cattle Company, and holds various other positions in the Scottish Capital.

The Prairie Company ceased to do business in America May, 1917. Owing, however, to some Texas land notes not maturing until 1920 the final liquidation of the company in Scotland did not take place until the summer of that year.

M

CHAPTER XIX

ONEY was scarce in those days upon the range. The Texas cattlemen were getting low prices for their steers. The northern men, generally adventurous spirits with lean pocketbooks, had great difficulties in financing themselves. If they bought a bunch of heifers it was four, probably five years before any income was realized. If they purchased two-year-old steers in the early summer it meant two years and three months before they got their money back and then only if the cattle lived and did well. The late Bartlett Richards often told me of his purchase in 1879 of 1,000 heifer calves at $9.00 per head from Tom Sturgis. He turned them loose on the Cheyenne River. This purchase was the foundation of the ship-wheel brand which he sold to Messrs. Loomis & Andrews in 1886 just before the hard winter, and one of the last sales on the range by book

count.

Interest and expense grew at an amazing pace, more especially when one per cent per month was the regular rate. My actual experience in this line began in 1883 and the established rate in those days was 10 per cent compounded every three or six months. It was a free and easy sort of way of doing business; the risks were great and as time told its tale the rate was not adequate to the chances taken. There was no counting in those days. The cattle had been turned loose, they roamed over an ocean of grass. The Swan herd wandered for instance, from Ogallala, Neb., to Fort Steele, Wyoming. You could find them in that great elbow of the North Platte that sweeps through cañons northwards from the latter place to the Goose Egg Ranch, thence it flows. east by Casper, Douglas and Orin Junction where it breaks through a mountain range forming the romantic Platte Cañon, and thence it flows past Wendover, Fort Laramie, Scottsbluff and on through Nebraska to the city of North

Platte. In this vast domain and further afield you could find the brand.

There were no cattle loan companies in those days. The banks were small and poorly equipped, not in the ability of their officers, but in deposits and outside resources. A great deal of capital had been placed in companies devoted to the business from the East and abroad, but the loaning of money as a separate business was little known. If you were in Cheyenne, Wyo., you would hear about Mr. J. Howard Ford, whose father was "in rubber," making a few loans. Mr. Marshall Field of Chicago also took some loans with his usual shrewdness, but practically speaking it was a virgin field and fortunately had not been developed very far when the killing winters of 1885-86 in the South, and 1886-87 in the North, put a quietus on the business.

As stated in a former chapter, acting for clients I had made a big loan to the Dickey Brothers and both the security and the rate looked good to the Scotch investors. They reasoned that 10 per cent was better to them than owning herds, taking all the risk and tying up money, and in ordinary circumstances they were right, but none of us knew the risks we had to meet. There grew up in our hands a small but lucrative business and all went well for several years. We tried to associate ourselves with the best men and were careful in our investigations. The Dickey business has been traced previously. There were many other transactions, most of them forgotten, nearly all of the parties dead and gone these many years.

It is fair to say that in those early days we never had a willful misrepresentation, a single dirty act such as a mean debtor can play up against you, nor did a single dollar of assets go into the wrong channel. Because I knew this and believed in it there came a crisis in my life which had to be faced. Mr. Thomas Nelson and another associate had several large loans on hand when he died in 1892. They had run on since the catastrophe of '86-'87. The owners had done everything they could, had sacrificed their all to keep

up expenses and pay some interest; in fact, made a splendid struggle not to save themselves but their creditors. They say a new broom sweeps clean but not always with the best of judgment. The lawyer who represented the Nelson Estate naturally wished these loans cleaned up. I told him personally it was impossible. In the dark days of 1893 you could not turn land or stock cattle into money. After several interviews and having explained fully the status of those parties and securities, he gave me peremptory instruction to commence suit, foreclose and get judgment against the individuals connected with the companies. Next day I told him I could not do it. So the business went to another party, who had the good sense also to advise this obstinate quilldriver that no good would come of any legal proceedings. In other words, he told his new client that "you can't take the breeks off a Hielandman," that only expense would be incurred. So the properties were turned over. The Edinburgh gentleman still keeps up his grudge and has come across my path more than once, but, as my readers know, I am still doing business.

One of these properties has had rather a curious history and as the principal actors have passed away there is no harm in recounting some events because they are what make up the history of the range. In the early days when Wyoming was a territory, Major Frank Wolcott was appointed United States Marshal. The gallant Major had fought in the Civil War. He was a fire-eater, honest, clean, a rabid Republican with a complete absence of tact, very well educated and when you knew him a most delightful companion. Most people hated him, many feared him, a few loved him, When his government appointment ended, or before that. he had taken up a ranch on Deer Creek a few miles south of the present town of Glenrock. There with his own savings and the assistance of a friend, he became a cattle owner and prospered.

But the days were coming when more land was needed, when short range told the prudent owner that he must

provide winter feed and have big pastures. It was the little cloud looming in the distance. The Major's foresight as events proved was good. Land was being gradually accumulated and the waters of Deer Creek had been appropriated. To do all this took a good deal of money. It was arranged that I should visit the property and this I did. It was in June, 1885, when one night after a long round on the 7 ranch I dropped into Tom Sun's hospitable home and got a very warm welcome from Mrs. Sun. I had sent a buggy and pair of horses to meet me there. As there were two hours before sundown I told the driver to hitch up and pull down the river some fourteen miles to a neighbor's ranch and that I would ride down there and go ahead from that point, hoping to make the Carey ranch early the next afternoon and thence ride on to Wolcott's. It looked easy.

Next morning as I was saddling up, a buggy pulled in to Sun's pasture and it did not take long to find out that it was the buggy, horses and driver. He had missed his road, driven most of the night, the horses were tired and it was a case of stop over at Sun's or push on by horseback. I got a fresh horse, grain fed and stout, and this mount took me to the Goose-egg ranch where I found one of the Searights. He kindly gave me a very active cow pony and after a lunch I struck out down the Platte with minute instructions where I could ford it. I missed the place and having got well across towards the southern bank, had to swim for it. However, it was only a short distance and a gravel bottom on the far side. Judge Carey fortunately was at his ranch. He told "Missou," that irrepressible character, to give me a fresh horse and so I cantered at a steady pace to Wolcott's, reaching there at nine o'clock, having done eighty-five miles in fourteen hours, including short stops for two meals.

Next morning a scene of supreme beauty met my eye. As you stepped out of the house there was a pleasant garden, little rills of water bubbling, singing, spreading themselves about the plots of vegetables, and over the lawn. Then away southwards were towering mountains, a deep rift in