The subsequent history of the ill-fated Cheyenne and Arapahoe Cattle
Company is easily told. Over ninety per cent of the cattle moved under
the President's order were missing at the round-up the following
spring. What few survived were pitiful objects, minus ears and tails,
while their horns, both root and base, were frozen until they drooped
down in unnatural positions. Compared to the previous one, the winter
of 1885-86, with the exception of the great January blizzard, was the
less severe of the two. On the firm's range in the Cherokee Strip our
losses were much lighter than during the previous winter, owing to the
fact that food was plentiful, there being little if any sleet or
snow during the latter year. Had we been permitted to winter in the
Cheyenne and Arapahoe country, considering our sheltered range and
the cattle fully located, ten per cent would have been a conservative
estimate of loss by the elements. As manager of the company I lost
five valuable years and over a quarter-million dollars. Time has
mollified my grievances until now only the thorn of inhumanity to dumb
beasts remains. Contrasted with results, how much more humane it would
have been to have ordered out negro troops from Fort Reno and shot
the cattle down, or to have cut the fences ourselves, and, while our
holdings were drifting back to Texas, trusted to the mercy of the
Comanches.

I now understand perfectly why the business world dreads a political
change in administration. Whatever may have been the policy of one
political party, the reverse becomes the slogan of the other on
its promotion to power. For instance, a few years ago, the general
government offered a bounty on the home product of sugar, stimulating
the industry in Louisiana and also in my adopted State. A change of
administration followed, the bounty was removed, and had not the
insurance companies promptly canceled their risks on sugar mills, the
losses by fire would have been appalling. Politics had never affected
my occupation seriously; in fact I profited richly through the
extravagance and mismanagement of the Reconstruction regime in Texas,
and again met the defeat of my life at the hands of the general
government.

With the demand for trail cattle on the decline, coupled with two
severe winters, the old firm of Hunter, Anthony & Co. was ripe for
dissolution. We had enjoyed the cream of the trade while it lasted,
but conditions were changing, making it necessary