te well
that fencing of public land in New Mexico was strictly against the law
(land in the territories is the property of the Federal Government,
which will neither lease it nor sell it, but holds it for
home-steading)--I yet went to work, bought a lot of wire and posts, gave
a contract to a fence-builder and boldly ran a line over thirty miles
long enclosing something like 100,000 acres. The location was part of
the country where our stock horses used to run with the mustangs, and so
I knew every foot of it pretty well. There was practically no limit to
the acreage I might have enclosed; and I had then the choice of all
sorts of country--country with lots of natural shelter for cattle, and
even country where water in abundance could be got close to the surface.
In my selected territory I knew quite well that it was very deep to
water and that it would cost a lot of money in the shape of deep wells
and powerful windmills to get it out; yet it was for this very reason
that I so selected it. Would not the country in a few years swarm with
settlers ("nesters" as we called small farmers), and would they not of
course first select the land where water was shallow? They could not
afford to put in expensive wells and windmills. Thus I argued, and thus
it turned out exactly as anticipated. The rest of the country became
settled up by these nesters, but I was left alone for some eight years
absolutely undisturbed and in complete control of this considerable
block of land. More than that the County Assessor and collector actually
missed me for two years, not even knowing of my existence; and for the
whole period of eight years I never paid one cent for rent. On my
windmill locations I put "Scrip" in blocks of forty acres. Otherwise I
owned or rented not a foot.

Just a line or two here. I happen to have known the man who invented
barbed wire and who had his abundant reward. Blessings on him! though
one is sometimes inclined to add cursings too. It is dangerous stuff to
handle. Heavy gloves should always be worn. The flesh is so torn by the
ragged barb that the wound is most irritating and hard to heal. When my
fence was first erected it was a common thing to find antelope hung up
in it, tangled in it, and cut to pieces. Once we found a mustang horse
with its head practically cut completely off. The poor brutes had a hard
experience in learning the nature of this strange, almost invisible,
death-trap stretched across what was bef