The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Outlet, by Andy Adams

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Title: The Outlet

Author: Andy Adams

Posting Date: October 28, 2008 [EBook #1987]
Release Date: December, 1999

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE OUTLET ***

Produced by Dianne Bean

THE OUTLET

by Andy Adams

PREFACE

At the close of the civil war the need for a market for the surplus
cattle of Texas was as urgent as it was general. There had been numerous
experiments in seeking an outlet, and there is authority for the
statement that in 1857 Texas cattle were driven to Illinois. Eleven
years later forty thousand head were sent to the mouth of Red River
in Louisiana, shipped by boat to Cairo, Illinois, and thence inland by
rail. Fever resulted, and the experiment was never repeated. To the west
of Texas stretched a forbidding desert, while on the other hand, nearly
every drive to Louisiana resulted in financial disaster to the drover.
The republic of Mexico, on the south, afforded no relief, as it was
likewise overrun with a surplus of its own breeding. Immediately before
and just after the war, a slight trade had sprung up in cattle between
eastern points on Red River and Baxter Springs, in the southeast corner
of Kansas. The route was perfectly feasible, being short and entirely
within the reservations of the Choctaws and Cherokees, civilized
Indians. This was the only route to the north; for farther to the
westward was the home of the buffalo and the unconquered, nomadic
tribes. A writer on that day, Mr. Emerson Hough, an acceptable
authority, says: "The civil war stopped almost all plans to market the
range cattle, and the close of that war found the vast grazing lands
of Texas fairly covered with millions of cattle which had no actual
or determinate value. They were sorted and branded and herded after a
fashion, but neither they nor their increase could be converted into
anything but more cattle. The demand for a market became imperative."

This was the situation at the close of the '50's and meanwhile there
had been no cessation in trying to find an outlet for the constantly
increasing herds. Civilization was