my making all the estimates.  There was a noticeable advance of fully one dollar a head on steer cattle since the spring before, and I was supposed to have my finger on the pulse of supply and prices, as all government awards were let far in advance of delivery.  George Edwards had returned a few days before and reported having stocked the new ranch in the Outlet with twelve thousand steers.  The list of contracts to be let had arrived, and the two of us went over them carefully.  The government was asking for bids on the delivery of over two hundred thousand cattle at various posts and agencies in the West, and confining ourselves to well-known territory, we submitted bids on fifteen awards, calling for forty-five thousand cattle in their fulfillment.

Our estimates were sent to Major Hunter for his approval, who in turn forwarded them to our silent partner at Washington, to be submitted to the proper departments.  As the awards would not be made until the middle of January, nothing definite could be done until then, so, accompanied by George Edwards, I returned to the surveying party on the Salt Fork of the Brazos.  We found them busy at their work, the only interruption having been an Indian scare, which only lasted a few days.  The men still carried rifles against surprise, kept a scout on the lookout while at work, and maintained a guard over the camp and remuda at night.  During my absence they had located a strip of country ten by thirty miles, covering the valley of the Salt Fork, and we still lacked three hundred sections of using up the scrip.  The river, along which they were surveying, made an abrupt turn to the north, and offsetting by sections around the bend, we continued on up the valley for twenty miles or until the brakes of the Plain made the land no longer desirable.  Returning to our commencement point with still one hundred certificates left, we extended the survey five miles down both rivers, using up the last acre of scrip.  The new ranch was irregular in form, but it controlled the waters of fully one million acres of fine grazing land and was clothed with a carpet of nutritive grasses.  This was the range of the buffalo, and the instinct of that animal could be relied on in choosing a range for its successor, the Texas cow.

The surveying over, nothing remained but the recording of the locations at the county seat to which for legal purposes this unorganized country was attached.  All of us accompanied the outfit returning, and a gala week we spent, as no less than half a dozen buffalo robes were secured before reaching Fort Griffin.  Deer and turkey were plentiful, and it was with difficulty that I restrained the boys from killing wantonly, as they were young fellows whose very blood yearned for the chase or any diverting excitement.  We reached the ranch on the Clear Fork during the second week in January, and those of the outfit who had no regular homes were made welcome guests until work opened in the spring.  My calf crop that fall had exceeded all expectations, nearly nine thousand having been branded, while the cattle were wintering in splendid condition.  There was little or nothing to do, a few hunts with the hounds merely killing time until we got reports from Washington.  In spite of all competition we secured eight contracts, five with the army and the remainder with the Indian Bureau.