as made. I priced the beeves, delivered at Buford, at
sixty-five dollars a head, and the quartermaster took them.

Then we went to work in earnest. Sanders remained to receive the first
contingent for Buford, which would leave our range on the 25th of each
month. A single round-up and we had the beeves in hand. The next morning
after Splann left for the mouth of the Yellowstone, I started south
for the railroad with two train-loads of picked cattle. Professional
shippers took them off our hands at the station, accompanied them en
route to market, and the commission house in Omaha knew where to remit
the proceeds. The beef shipping season was on with a vengeance. Our
saddle stock had improved with a winter in the North, until one was
equal to two Southern or trail horses. Old man Don had come on in the
mean time, and was so pleased with my sale to the army post that he
returned to Little Missouri Station at once and bought two herds of
three-year-olds at Ogalalla by wire. This made sixteen thousand steer
cattle en route from the latter point for Lovell's new ranch in Dakota.

"Tom," said old man Don, enthusiastically, "this is the making of a fine
cattle ranch, and we want to get in on the flood-tide. There is always
a natural wealth in a new country, and the goldmines of this one are in
its grass. The instinct that taught the buffalo to choose this as their
summer and winter range was unerring, and they found a grass at hand
that would sustain them in any and all kinds of weather. This country
to-day is just what Texas was thirty years ago. All the early settlers
at home grew rich without any effort, but once the cream of the virgin
land is gone, look out for a change. The early cowmen of Texas flatter
themselves on being shrewd and far-seeing--just about as much as I was
last fall, when I would gladly have lost twenty-five thousand dollars
rather than winter these cattle. Now look where I will come out, all due
to the primitive wealth of the land. From sixty to sixty-five dollars a
head beats thirty-seven and a half for our time and trouble."

The first of the through cattle arrived early in September. They avoided
our range for fear of fever, and dropped in about fifteen miles below
our headquarters on the Little Missouri. Dorg Seay was one of the three
foremen, Forrest and Sponsilier being the other two, having followed the
same route as our herds of the year before. But having spent a winter
in the North, we showed