UNIVERSITY

MY LIFE ON THE RANGE

T

CHAPTER I

HE summer of 1872 had been cold, wet and inhospitable in Scotland. It was followed by a glorious

autumn. One market day, about the middle of October, I was standing in the old square at Kelso, Scotland, when about noon our family doctor drove up to his house. He looked flustered and nervous, and a few minutes after his arrival, by some underground telepathy, word was passed along the line that a prominent farmer in the district had died very suddenly. It fell to my province to wind. up his estate. He farmed a 1,400-acre farm six miles west of the above town. It is a fine specimen of a Border holding, with rich haugh lands by the side of the Tweed; and then there is a gentle rise to the homestead, the farm house being rich in memories of Christopher North, who spent many a happy hour there, fishing by day and devoting the evening to social enjoyment. The farmer's affairs were in bad shape, and the trustees who handled his estate found it necessary to give up the lease of the farm and in this way conserve a small sum for the benefit of a young and interesting family. The trustee, a valuator and the writer, went up to the place a few days after the funeral.

We left Kelso about 10 A. M., crossed the Tweed, and swinging right-handed, we passed the junction of that river and the Teviot, then crossing the latter stream we passed by Roxburgh Castle, and thence away through a glorious farming country, a land redolent of sheep and turnips and barley and lovely woodland on the river banks. Some three miles on our journey, in a little spinney, the Duke of Buccleuch's hounds had killed a fox. You could hear the sharp note of Shore the huntsman's horn before you came in sight. He

was about fifty yards away from the roadside. Around him were many members of the hunt and a goodly sprinkling of young farmers of the neighborhood. Never before nor since that hour have I realized so vividly the fact of having been born a sport and yet having to work for a living. It was a charming day, a bright sun touching the sparkling river with gleams of silver; the gold of autumn hung pendant amid a wealth of woods, and before you was a moving picture of horses and hounds and the swelling hills echoing the exultant note of the huntsman's voice as the hounds tore their quarry to tatters. Ah me, it all comes back with a realism that

bridges years and makes you feel young again.

And so this endless chain of a man's life began with me-a fight which ends in victory or defeat. The money gained by a strenuous winter and spring's work, an uphill job it was, led on to a trip to the United States and Canada-a pleasure trip, yet with an eye to the main chance; for, while a farmer's life in Scotland was a pleasant one, it was slow so far as material benefits were concerned, and your life naturally ran in a narrow groove. But there was a deeper, yet unexpressed thought in your mind. Away down in a man's heart is the love of freedom, of liberty of thought, of fresh fields in the realm of religion, a sort of mental ground swell that vibrates. through your soul.

Inheriting from my parents many radical views, mainly political, and being naturally blessed with independence and self-reliance, it was a short step to explore the widening influence of the new world. There is another word in our Anglo-Saxon language called "caste" that covers a multitude of sins. It was just as prevalent in Scotland half a century ago as it was on the banks of the Ganges. It meant in our Borderland a social segregation of classes, a smothering of ambition, a fierce fight against political independence, the neglect of ability, the silent, sarcastic repression of any forward movement, the absence of a generous uplift, the extravagance of our landed proprietors and their utter inability to meet adverse times. All those thoughts not expressed

went through your mind, touched your heart, and in a manner separated from your native land that glorious sentiment of loyalty which is the heritage of every true born man, and which comes back to me today after weathering many mental storms when I return to the land of my sires.

And so it came about, partly with those thoughts in my mind and in the spirit of adventure, that I traversed the Old Dominion of Virginia, tasted of its generous hospitality, looked over the great cities of the Central West, trod the rich lands of Illinois, and turning towards the setting sun, crossed the prairie lands of Iowa and eastern Nebraska, and woke up one morning at North Platte, in the latter state, to taste on the platform of the depot that champagne air, otherwise known as the lure of the West. No plummet can fathom the depth of that well, no language can spell the loyalty of a man's heart to his adopted land, for in those days a nativeborn Westerner was scarcely known. There was a freedom, a romance, a sort of mystic halo hanging over those green, grassy, swelling divides that was impregnated, grafted into your system. As nitrogen enters the soil, slowly but surely revives it and makes it active in production, so this touch of the prairie, this sight of the mountains, this life among singing brooks in distant valleys where

"Above the pines the moon was slowly drifting,

The river sang below,

The dim Sierras far beyond uplifting

Their minarets of snow,"

all, all fired my imagination. It was another world; the rough, ready, joyous prospect of a broader field on windswept plains blotted out for the time being softer scenes where pleasant meadow lands and fields of golden grain with far-off heather hills lay five thousand miles away.

From North Platte, Neb., it was then a day's ride to Cheyenne, Wyo. South of the former place Guy Barton of Omaha, Neb., had a ranch. Down on the Republican Iliff was building up his fortune, while at Cheyenne Swan, Carey, etc., were actively operating. Cheyenne was then, as now, an

enigma. It stands out on the prairie, desolate, wind swept, but lying on a gentle incline southwards. The little stream called Crow Creek half circles the town, and from it reservoirs are filled and a generous water supply is obtained. It was then what it is now, the Magic City of the plains. In 1874 it was about seven or eight years old, and by common consent it was headquarters for the west and northwestern range business. It was also the junction for Denver, Colo. While you could approach that city from the south via the Kansas Pacific, you had to change at Cheyenne if you came west on the Union Pacific. Consequently it was a busy burg. There the cowman, the railroad man, the politician met, and altogether it was an interesting place. I tarried in the old Depot Hotel, a wooden erection long since burned down, and the evenings were spent at a free and easy theatre. The name describes it exactly. The only person I remember as meeting at that time was David Miller, the jeweler. Dave still holds the fort. He was in those days a bit of a Bohemian, but like the writer, has reformed, and he is now a good type of citizen; a Scotchman by birth, with a longing towards his native land that he fears will not be gratified, for Dave is approaching the Biblical age when men are expected to go to heaven.

My objective was Denver. Two roads ran from Cheyenne there, the Union Pacific and the Colorado Central, but as they both made the trip in the evening, and at the rate of sixteen miles per hour, it was a tiresome journey. General Phil Sheridan was on the train, and I will never forget how his short little figure fitted the seat of an ordinary car exactly, and how rolling himself up in a blanket, he quietly slept from eight o'clock till midnight, when we reached our destination. At Denver it was my good fortune to have a note of introduction to the firm of Winne & Cooper. The latter, who eventually became Governor of Colorado and had in his time more or less live stock holdings, took a warm interest in me, and during that short visit loaded me up with the possibilities of the mountain regions. Even with all his

optimism, little did he know of coming events. How in a few years those dry lands at the base of the Rockies would bloom with alfalfa and the serried rows of beets would feed the monstrous sugar factories that insult the surroundings with their chimney stalks and uninteresting architecture.

In those days it was gold and silver to which the folks of Denver pinned their faith. They did not realize that the irrigator's spade and the granger's plough were just beginning to uncover untold wealth. Where Iliff, Gale, Wyatt and others ran their cattle, had the freedom of Uncle Sam's undeveloped estate, where buffalo were plentiful and deer in profusion, there was lying dormant a vast heritage. Johnnie Gordon, the poetic sage of Wyoming, talks of "a little water and the hand of industry." Apply this, draw from the everlasting banks of snow and ice amid those mountains a stream of turgid, bubbling water, and nature changes, develops, breaks into song as the cottonwoods spread their branches to the breeze, and the big sunflowers open their yellow petals to greet the day and nod good morning to the blue lupin that decorates the prairie. It was a fast moving picture that passed before my eyes: The Indian receding into distance; the trapper period also fading away; the forty-niners, a halo of romance hanging 'round their struggles and exploits; the discovery of gold in Colorado in 1859; the slow measured step of bridling streams, while the cowman and his fantastic help added endless stories, adventures by flood, field and mountain to an already overcharged human volcano. It opened up new visions, just as it did to Burns.