Ten days' permission was given to gather the wild plums, camps were
allotted to the Indians, and when the fruit was all gathered, I
barbecued five stray beeves in parting with my guests. The Indian
agent and every cowman on the reservation were invited, and at the
conclusion of the festival the Quaker agent made the assembled chiefs
a fatherly talk. Torpid from feasting, the bucks grunted approval of
the new order of things, and an Arapahoe chief, responding in behalf
of his tribe, said that the rent from the grass now fed his people
better than under the old buffalo days. Pledging anew the fraternal
bond, and appointing the gathering of the plums as an annual festival
thereafter, the tribes took up their march in returning to their
encampment.
I was called to Dodge but once during the summer of 1884. My steers
had gone to Ogalalla and were sold, the cows remaining at the lower
market, all of which had changed owners with the exception of one
thousand head. The demand had fallen off, and a dull close of the
season was predicted, but I shaded prices and closed up my personal
holdings before returning. Several of the firm's steer herds were
unsold at Dodge, but on the approach of the shipping season I returned
to my task, and we began to move out our beeves with seven outfits
in the saddle. Four round trips were made to the crew, shipping out
twenty thousand double and half that number of single wintered cattle.
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