e our leases accordingly.

The Western contingent returned home with some misgivings as to the
future. Nothing was to be feared from the tribes from whom we were
leasing, nor the Comanche and his allies on the southwest, though
there were renegades in both; but the danger lay in the flotsam of the
superior race which infested the frontier. I felt no concern for my
personal welfare, riding in and out from Fort Reno at my will and
pleasure, though I well knew that my presence on the reservation was a
thorn in the flesh of my enemies. There was little to fear, however,
as the latter class of men never met an adversary in the open, but by
secret methods sought to accomplish their objects. The breach between
the Indian agent and these parasites of the army was constantly
widening, and an effort had been made to have the former removed, but
our friends at the national capital took a hand, and the movement was
thwarted. Fuel was being constantly added to the fire, and on our
taking a third lease on a million acres, the smoke gave way to flames.
Our usual pacific measures were pursued, buying out any cattle in
conflict, but fencing our entire range. The last addition to our
pasture embraced a strip of country twenty miles wide, lying north of
and parallel to the two former leases, and gave us a range on which no
animal need ever feel the restriction of a fence. Ten to fifteen acres
were sufficient to graze a steer the year round, but owing to the fact
that we depended entirely on running water, much of the range would
be valueless during the dry summer months. I readily understood the
advantages of a half-stocked range, and expected in the future to
allow twenty-five acres in the summer and thirty in the winter to the
pasture's holdings. Everything being snug for the winter, orders
were left to ride certain fences twice a day,--lines where we feared
fence-cutting,--and I took my departure for home.

CHAPTER XX

HOLDING THE FORT

As in many other lines of business, there were ebb and flood tides in
cattle. The opening of the trail through to the extreme Northwest gave
the range live stock industry its greatest impetus. There have always
been seasons of depression and advances, the cycles covering periods
of ten to a dozen years, the duration of the ebb and stationary tides
being double that of the flood. Outside influences have had their
bearing, and the wresting of an empire from its savage possessors
in the West,