By this method my herd
was kept trimmed from both ends and the happy medium preserved.
I love to think of those good old days. Without either foresight or
effort I made all kinds of money during the summer of 1870. Our best
patrons that fall were small ranchmen from Kansas and Nebraska, every
one of whom had coined money on their purchases of the summer before.
One hundred per cent for wintering a steer and carrying him less than
a year had brought every cattleman and his cousin back to Abilene to
duplicate their former ventures. The little ranchman who bought five
hundred steers in the fall of 1869 was in the market the present
summer for a thousand head. Demand always seemed to meet supply a
little over half-way. The market closed firm, with every hoof taken
and at prices that were entirely satisfactory to drovers. It would
seem an impossibility were I to admit my profits for that year, yet at
the close of the season I started overland to Texas with fifty choice
saddle horses and a snug bank account. Surely those were the golden
days of the old West.
My last act before leaving Abilene that fall was to meet my enemy and
force a personal settlement. Major Mabry washed his hands by firmly
refusing to name my accuser, but from other sources I traced my
defamer to a liveryman of the town. The fall before, on four horses
and saddles, I paid a lien, in the form of a feed bill, of one hundred
and twenty dollars for my stranded friends.
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