nd were located, while Dodge and Ogalalla
howled their advantages as rival trail towns. The three herds of
two-year-olds were sold and started for the Cherokee Strip, and I took
train for the west and reached the Platte River, to find our cattle
safely arrived at Ogalalla. Near the middle of July a Wyoming cattle
company bought all the central Texas steers for delivery a month later
at Cheyenne, and we grazed them up the South Platte and counted them
out to the buyers, ten thousand strong. My individual herds classed as
Pan-Handle cattle, exempt from quarantine, netted one dollar a head
above the others, and were sold to speculators from the corn regions
on the western borders of Nebraska. One herd of cows was intended for
the Southern and the other for the Uncompahgre Utes, and they had been
picking their way through and across the mountains to those agencies
during the summer mouths. Late in August both deliveries were made
wholesale to the agents of the different tribes, and my work was at an
end. All unsold remudas returned to Dodge, the outfits were sent home,
and the saddle stock to our beef ranch, there to await the close of
the summer's drive.

CHAPTER XVII

FORESHADOWS

I returned to Texas early in September. My foreman on the Double
Mountain ranch had written me several times during the summer,
promising me a surprise on the half-blood calves. There was nothing
of importance in the North except the shipping of a few trainloads
of beeves from our ranch in the Outlet, and as the bookkeeper could
attend to that, I decided to go back. I offered other excuses for
going, but home-hunger and the improved herd were the main reasons. It
was a fortunate thing that I went home, for it enabled me to get into
touch with the popular feeling in my adopted State over the outlook
for live stock in the future. Up to this time there had been no
general movement in cattle, in sympathy with other branches of
industry, notably in sheep and wool, supply always far exceeding
demand. There had been a gradual appreciation in marketable steers,
first noticeable in 1876, and gaining thereafter about one dollar a
year per head on all grades, yet so slowly as not to disturb or excite
the trade. During the fall of 1879, however, there was a feeling
of unrest in cattle circles in Texas, and predictions of a notable
advance could be heard on every side. The trail had been established
as far north as Montana, capital by the million