driving night and day, I reached the ranch to find both herds shaped up and ready for orders.  Both foremen were anxious to strike due north, several herds having crossed Red River as far west as Doan’s Store the year before; but I was afraid of Indian troubles and routed them northeast for the old ford on the Chisholm trail.  They would follow down the Brazos, cross over to the Wichita River, and pass about sixty miles to the north of the home ranch on the Clear Fork.  I joined them for the first few days out, destinations were the same as the other private herds, and promising to meet them in Dodge, I turned homeward.  The starting of these last two gave the firm and me personally twenty-three herds, numbering seventy-six thousand one hundred cattle on the trail.

An active summer followed.  Each one was busy in his department.  I met Major Hunter once for an hour during the spring months, and we never saw each other again until late fall.  Our segundo again rendered valuable assistance in meeting outfits on their arrival at the beef ranch, as it was deemed advisable to hold the through and wintered cattle separate for fear of Texas fever.  All beef herds were routed to touch at headquarters in the Outlet, and thence going north, they skirted the borders of settlement in crossing Kansas and Nebraska.  Where possible, all correspondence was conducted by wire, and with the arrival of the herds at Dodge I was kept in the saddle thenceforth.  The demand for cattle was growing with each succeeding year, prices were firmer, and a general advance was maintained in all grades of trail stock.  On the arrival of the cattle from the Colorado River, I had them reclassed, sending three herds of threes on to Ogalalla.  The upper country wanted older stock, believing that it withstood the rigors of winter better, and I trimmed my sail to catch the wind.  The cows came in early and were started west for their destination, the rear herds arrived and were located, while Dodge and Ogalalla howled their advantages as rival trail towns.  The three herds of two-year-olds were sold and started for the Cherokee Strip, and I took train for the west and reached the Platte River, to find our cattle safely arrived at Ogalalla.  Near the middle of July a Wyoming cattle company bought all the central Texas steers for delivery a month later at Cheyenne, and we grazed them up the South Platte and counted them out to the buyers, ten thousand strong.  My individual herds classed as Pan-Handle cattle, exempt from quarantine, netted one dollar a head above the others, and were sold to speculators from the corn regions on the western borders of Nebraska.  One herd of cows was intended for the Southern and the other for the Uncompahgre Utes, and they had been picking their way through and across the mountains to those agencies during the summer mouths.  Late in August both deliveries were made wholesale to the agents of the different tribes, and my work was at an end.  All unsold remudas returned to Dodge, the outfits were sent home, and the saddle stock to our beef ranch, there to await the close of the summer’s drive.