No herds were due to arrive for a month.  My active partner continued on to his home at The Grove, and I started for our camps on the Medicine River.  The grass was coming with a rush, the cattle were beginning to shed their winter coats, and our men assured me that the known loss amounted to less than twenty head.  The boys had spent an active winter, only a few storms ever bunching the cattle, with less than half a dozen contingents crossing the established lines.  Even these were followed by our trailers and brought back to their own range; and together with wolfing the time had passed pleasantly.  An incident occurred at the upper camp that winter which clearly shows the difference between the cow-hand of that day and the modern bronco-buster.  In baiting for wolves, many miles above our range, a supposed trail of cattle was cut by one of the boys, who immediately reported the matter to our Texas trailer at camp.  They were not our cattle to a certainty, yet it was but a neighborly act to catch them, so the two men took up the trail.  From appearances there were not over fifteen head in the bunch, and before following them many miles, the trailer became suspicious that they were buffalo and not cattle.  He trailed them until they bedded down, when he dismounted and examined every bed.  No cow ever lay down without leaving hair on its bed, so when the Texan had examined the ground where half a dozen had slept, his suspicions were confirmed.  Declaring them buffalo, the two men took up the trail in a gallop, overtaking the band within ten miles and securing four fine robes.  There is little or no difference in the tracks of the two animals.  I simply mention this, as my patience has been sorely tried with the modern picturesque cowboy, who is merely an amateur when compared with the men of earlier days.

I spent three weeks riding the range on the Medicine.  The cattle had been carefully selected, now four and five years old, and if the season was favorable they would be ready for shipment early in the fall.  The lower camp was abandoned in order to enlarge the range nearly one third, and after providing for the wants of the men, I rode away to the southeast to intercept the Chisholm trail where it crossed the Kansas line south of Wichita.  The town of Caldwell afterward sprang up on the border, but at this time among drovers it was known as Stone’s Store, a trading-post conducted by Captain Stone, afterward a cowman, and already mentioned in these memoirs.  Several herds had already passed on my arrival; I watched the trail, meeting every outfit for nearly a week, and finally George Edwards came snailing along.  He reported our other cattle from seven to ten days behind, but was not aware that I had an individual herd on the trail.  Edwards moved on to Wichita, and I awaited the arrival of our second outfit.  A brisk rivalry existed between the solicitors for Ellsworth and Wichita, every man working faithfully for his railroad or town, and at night they generally met in social session over a poker game.  I never played a card for money now, not that my morals were any too good, but I was married and had partners, and business generally absorbed me to such an extent that I neglected the game.