wned from six
to ten blankets, and the Eagle Chief lads rechristened the others,
including myself, with the most odious of Indian names. In return,
we refused to visit or eat at their wagons, claiming that they lived
slovenly and were lousy. The latter had an educated Scotchman with
them, McDougle by name, the ranch bookkeeper, who always went into
town in advance to order cars. McDougle had a weakness for the cup,
and on one occasion he fell into the hands of my men, who humored
his failing, marching him through the streets, saloons, and hotels
shouting at the top of his voice, "Hunter, Anthony & Company are going
to ship!" The expression became a byword among the citizens of the
town, and every reappearance of McDougle was accepted as a herald that
our outfits from the Eagle Chief were coming in with cattle.

A special meeting of the stockholders was called at Washington that
fall, which all the Western members attended. Reports were submitted
by the secretary-treasurer and myself, the executive committee
made several suggestions, the proposition, to pay a dividend was
overwhelmingly voted down, and a further increase of the capital stock
was urged by the Eastern contingent. I sounded a note of warning,
called attention to the single cloud on the horizon, which was the
enmity that we had engendered in a clique of army followers in
and around Fort Reno. 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 increas