These men had in the past, were even then,
collecting toll from every other holder of cattle on the Cheyenne and
Arapahoe reservation. That this coterie of usurpers hated the new
company and me personally was a well-known fact, while its influence
was proving much stronger than at first anticipated, and I cheerfully
admitted the same to the stockholders assembled. The Eastern mind,
living under established conditions, could hardly realize the chaotic
state of affairs in the West, with its vicious morals, and any attempt
to levy tribute in the form of blackmail was repudiated by the
stockholders in assembly. Major Hunter understood my position and
delicately suggested coming to terms with the company's avowed enemies
as the only feasible solution of the impending trouble. To further
enlarge our holdings of cattle and leased range, he urged, would be
throwing down the gauntlet in defiance of the clique of army attaches.
Evidently no one took us seriously, and instead, ringing resolutions
passed, enlarging the capital stock by another million, with
instructions to increase our leases accordingly.
The Western contingent returned home with some misgivings as to the
future. Nothing was to be feared from the tribes from whom we were
leasing, nor the Comanche and his allies on the southwest, though
there were renegades in both; but the danger lay in the flotsam of the
superior race which infested the frontier.
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