My active partner proved a shrewd man in business, and in spite of the past our friendship broadened and strengthened.  Weeks before the financial crash reached us he knew of its coming, and our house was set in order.  When the panic struck the West we did not own a hoof of cattle, while the horses on hand were mine and not for sale; and the firm of Hunter, Anthony & Co. rode the gale like a seaworthy ship.  The panic reached Wichita with over half the drive of that year unsold.  The local banks began calling in money advanced to drovers, buyers deserted the market, and prices went down with a crash.  Shipments of the best through cattle failed to realize more than sufficient to pay commission charges and freight.  Ruin stared in the face every Texan drover whose cattle were unsold.  Only a few herds were under contract for fall delivery to Indian and army contractors.  We had run from the approaching storm in the nick of time, even settling with and sending my outfit home before the financial cyclone reached the prairies of Kansas.  My last trade before the panic struck was an individual account, my innate weakness for an abundance of saddle horses asserting itself in buying ninety head and sending them home with my men.

I now began to see the advantages of shrewd and far-seeing business associates.  When the crash came, scarce a dozen drovers had sold out, while of those holding cattle at Wichita nearly every one had locally borrowed money or owed at home for their herds.  When the banks, panic-stricken themselves, began calling in short-time loans, their frenzy paralyzed the market, many cattle being sacrificed at forced sale and with scarce a buyer.  In the depreciation of values from the prices which prevailed in the early summer, the losses to the Texas drovers, caused by the panic, would amount to several million dollars.  I came out of the general wreck and ruin untouched, though personally claiming no credit, as that must be given my partners.  The year before, when every other drover went home prosperous and happy, I returned “broke,” while now the situation was reversed.

I spent a week at Council Grove, visiting with my business associates.  After a settlement of the year’s business, I was anxious to return home, having agreed to drive cattle the next year on the same terms and conditions.  My partners gave me a cash settlement, and outside of my individual cattle, I cleared over ten thousand dollars on my summer’s work.  Major Hunter, however, had an idea of reentering the market,—­with the first symptom of improvement in the financial horizon in the East,—­and I was detained.  The proposition of buying a herd of cattle and wintering them on the range had been fully discussed between us, and prices were certainly an incentive to make the venture.  In an ordinary open winter, stock subsisted on the range all over western Kansas, especially when a dry fall had matured and cured the buffalo-grass like hay.  The range