CHAPTER XV
HARVEST HOME
The firm's profits for the summer of '77 footed up over two hundred
thousand dollars. The government herds from the Cherokee Outlet
paid the best, those sent to market next, while the through cattle
remunerated us in the order of beeves, young steers, and lastly cows.
There was a satisfactory profit even in the latter, yet the same
investment in other classes paid a better per cent profit, and the
banking instincts of my partners could be relied on to seek the
best market for our capital. There was nothing haphazard about our
business; separate accounts were kept on every herd, and at the end
of the season the percentage profit on each told their own story. For
instance, in the above year it cost us more to deliver a cow at an
agency in the Indian Territory than a steer at Dodge City, Kansas. The
herds sold in Colorado had been driven at an expense of eighty-five
cents a head, those delivered on the Republican River ninety, and
every cow driven that year cost us over one dollar a head in general
expense. The necessity of holding the latter for a period of four
months near agencies for issuing purposes added to the cost, and was
charged to that particular department of our business.
George Edwards and my active partner agreed to restock our beef ranch
in the Outlet, and I returned to Missouri. I make no claim of being
the first cowman to improve the native cattle of Texas, yet forty
years' keen observation has confirmed my original idea,--that
improvement must come through the native and gradually.
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