In the mean time and while we were gathering the home cattle, my foreman and two men from the Double Mountain ranch arrived on the Clear Fork to receive the importation of bulls.  The latter had not yet arrived, so pressing the boys into work, we got the trail herd away before the thoroughbreds put in an appearance.  A wagon and three men from the home ranch had gone after them before my return, and they were simply loafing along, grazing five to ten miles a day, carrying corn in the wagon to feed on the grass.  Their arrival found the ranch at leisure, and after resting a few days they proceeded on to their destination at a leisurely gait.  The importation had wintered finely,—­now all three-year-olds,—­but hereafter they must subsist on the range, as corn was out of the question, and the boys had brought nothing but a pack horse from the western ranch.  This was an experiment with me, but I was ably seconded by my foreman, who had personally selected every cow over a month before, and this was to make up the beginning of the improved herd.  I accompanied them beyond my range and urged seven miles a day as the limit of travel.  I then started for home, and within a week reached Dodge City, Kansas.

Headquarters were again established at Dodge.  Fortunately a new market was being developed at Ogalalla on the Platte River in Nebraska, and fully one third the trail herds passed on to the upper point.  Before my arrival Major Hunter had bought the deficiency of northern wintered beeves, and early in June three herds started from our range in the Outlet for the upper Missouri River army posts.  We had wintered all horses belonging to the firm on the beef ranch, and within a fortnight after its desertion, the young steers from the upper Nueces River began arriving and were turned loose on the Eagle Chief, preempting our old range.  One outfit was retained to locate the cattle, the remaining ones coming in to Dodge and returning home by train.  George Edwards lent me valuable assistance in handling our affairs economically, but with the arrival of the herds at Dodge he was compelled to look after our sub-contracts at Indian agencies.  The latter were delivered in our name, all money passed through our hands in settlement, so it was necessary to have a man on the ground to protect our interests.  With nothing but the selling of eight herds of cattle in an active market like Dodge, I felt that the work of the summer was virtually over.  One cattle company took ten thousand three-year-old steers, two herds were sold for delivery at Ogalalla, and the remaining three were placed within a month after their arrival.  The occupation of the West was on with a feverish haste, and money was pouring into ranches and cattle, affording a ready market to the drover from Texas.