I covered the country between the ranch and shipping points, riding
night and day ahead in ordering cars, and dropping back to the ranch
to superintend the cutting out of the next consignment of cattle. Each
outfit made three trips, shipping out fifteen thousand beeves that
fall, leaving sixty thousand cattle to winter on the range.
Several times that fall, when shipping beeves from Caldwell, we met up
with the firm's outfits from the Eagle Chief in the Cherokee Outlet.
Naturally the different shipping crews looked over each other's
cattle, and an intense rivalry sprang up between the different foremen
and men. The cattle of the new company outshone those of the old firm,
and were outselling them in the markets, while the former's remudas
were in a class by themselves, all of which was salt to open wounds
and magnified the jealousy between our own outfits. The rivalry
amused me, and until petty personalities were freely indulged in, I
encouraged and widened the breach between the rival crews. The outfits
under my direction had accumulated a large supply of saddle and
sleeping blankets procured from the Indians, gaudy in color,
manufactured in sizes for papoose, squaw, and buck. These goods were
of the finest quality, but during the annual festivals of the tribe
Lo's hunger for gambling induced him to part, for a mere song, with
the blanket that the paternal government intended should shelter him
during the storms of winter.
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