e question, as
to vacillate or waver in a purpose, right or wrong, was not a
characteristic of the chief executive. Our next move was for a
modification of the order, as its terms required us to evacuate that
fall, and every cowman present accented the fact that to move cattle
in the mouth of winter was an act that no man of experience would
countenance. Every step, the why and wherefore, must be explained to
the President, and at the request of the committee, I went into detail
in making plain what the observations of my life had taught me of the
instincts and habits of cattle,--why in the summer they took to
the hills, mesas, and uplands, where the breezes were cooling and
protected them from insect life; their ability to foretell a storm in
winter and seek shelter in coulees and broken country. I explained
that none of the cattle on the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservation
were native to that range, but were born anywhere from three to five
hundred miles to the south, fully one half of them having arrived
that spring; that to acquaint an animal with its new range, in cattle
parlance to "locate" them, was very important; that every practical
cowman moved his herds to a new range with the grass in the spring, in
order that ample time should be allowed to acclimate and familiarize
them with such shelters as nature provided to withstand the storms of
winter. In concluding, I stated that if the existent order could be so
modified as to permit all through cattle and those unfit for market
to remain on their present range for the winter, we would cheerfully
evacuate the country with the grass in the spring. If such relief
could be consistently granted, it would no doubt save the lives of
hundreds and thousands of cattle.

The President evidently was embarrassed by the justice of our prayer.
He consulted with members of the committee, protesting that he should
be spared from taking what would be considered a backward step, and
after a stormy conference with intimate friends, lasting fully an
hour, he returned and in these words refused to revoke or modify his
order: "If I had known," said he, "what I know now, I never would have
made the order; but having made it, I will stand by it."

Laying aside all commercial considerations, we had made our entreaty
in behalf of dumb animals, and the President's answer angered a
majority of the committee. I had been rebuked too often in the past
by my associates easily to lose my temper,