range in the
Outlet for the upper Missouri River army posts. We had wintered all
horses belonging to the firm on the beef ranch, and within a fortnight
after its desertion, the young steers from the upper Nueces River
began arriving and were turned loose on the Eagle Chief, preempting
our old range. One outfit was retained to locate the cattle, the
remaining ones coming in to Dodge and returning home by train.
George Edwards lent me valuable assistance in handling our affairs
economically, but with the arrival of the herds at Dodge he was
compelled to look after our sub-contracts at Indian agencies. The
latter were delivered in our name, all money passed through our hands
in settlement, so it was necessary to have a man on the ground to
protect our interests. With nothing but the selling of eight herds of
cattle in an active market like Dodge, I felt that the work of the
summer was virtually over. One cattle company took ten thousand
three-year-old steers, two herds were sold for delivery at Ogalalla,
and the remaining three were placed within a month after their
arrival. The occupation of the West was on with a feverish haste, and
money was pouring into ranches and cattle, affording a ready market to
the drover from Texas.

Nothing now remained for me but to draw the threads of our business
together and await the season's settlement in the fall. I sold all the
wagons and sent the remudas to our range in the Outlet, while from the
first cattle sold the borrowed money was repaid. I visited Ogalalla
to acquaint myself with its market, looked over our beef ranch in the
Cherokee Strip during the lull, and even paid the different Indian
agencies my respects to perfect my knowledge of the requirements of
our business. Our firm was a strong one, enlarging its business year
by year; and while we could not foresee the future, the present was a
Harvest Home to Hunter, Anthony & Co.

CHAPTER XVI

AN ACTIVE SUMMER

The summer of 1878 closed with but a single cloud on the horizon. Like
ourselves, a great many cattlemen had established beef ranches in the
Cherokee Outlet, then a vacant country, paying a trifling rental to
that tribe of civilized Indians. But a difference of opinion arose,
some contending that the Cherokees held no title to the land; that the
strip of country sixty miles wide by two hundred long set aside by
treaty as a hunting ground, when no longer used for that purpose by
the tribe, had reverted to t