Not counting the contracts to the
Indian Bureau, sublet to others, and the northern wintered beeves,
we had, for the firm and individually, seventeen herds, numbering
fifty-four thousand five hundred cattle on the trail. In order to
carry on our growing business unhampered for want of funds, the firm
had borrowed on short time nearly a quarter-million dollars that
spring, pledging the credit of the three partners for its repayment.
We had been making money ever since the partnership was formed, and
we had husbanded our profits, yet our business seemed to outgrow our
means, compelling us to borrow every spring when buying trail herds.
In the mean time and while we were gathering the home cattle, my
foreman and two men from the Double Mountain ranch arrived on the
Clear Fork to receive the importation of bulls. The latter had not yet
arrived, so pressing the boys into work, we got the trail herd away
before the thoroughbreds put in an appearance. A wagon and three men
from the home ranch had gone after them before my return, and they
were simply loafing along, grazing five to ten miles a day, carrying
corn in the wagon to feed on the grass. Their arrival found the ranch
at leisure, and after resting a few days they proceeded on to their
destination at a leisurely gait. The importation had wintered
finely,--now all three-year-olds,--but hereafter they must subsist on
the range, as corn was out of the question, and the boys had brought
nothing but a pack horse from the western ranch.
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