The boom was
still on in cattle at the trail markets, and Texas was straining every
energy to supply the demand, yet the cry swept down from the North for
more cattle. I was branding twenty thousand calves a year on my two
ranches, holding the increase down to that number by sending she stuff
up the country on sale, and from half a dozen sources of income I
was coining money beyond human need or necessity. I was then in the
physical prime of my life and was master of a profitable business,
while vistas of a brilliant future opened before me on every hand.
When the round-up outfits came in for the summer, the beef shipping
began. In the first two contingents of cattle purchased in securing
the good will of the original range, we now had five thousand double
wintered beeves. It was my intention to ship out the best of the
single wintered ones, and five separate outfits were ordered into
the saddle for that purpose. With the exception of line and fence
riders,--for two hundred and forty miles were ridden daily, rain or
shine, summer or winter,--every man on the ranch took up his abode
with the wagons. Caldwell and Hunnewell, on the Kansas state line
were the nearest shipping points, requiring fifteen days' travel with
beeves, and if there was no delay in cars, an outfit could easily
gather the cattle and make a round trip in less than a month. Three
or four trainloads, numbering from one thousand and fifty to fourteen
hundred head, were cut out at a time and handled by a single outfit.
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