were freely indulged in, I encouraged and widened the breach between the rival crews.  The outfits under my direction had accumulated a large supply of saddle and sleeping blankets procured from the Indians, gaudy in color, manufactured in sizes for papoose, squaw, and buck.  These goods were of the finest quality, but during the annual festivals of the tribe Lo’s hunger for gambling induced him to part, for a mere song, with the blanket that the paternal government intended should shelter him during the storms of winter.  Every man in my outfits owned 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 increase our leases accordingly.