The Passing of the Frontier: A Chronicle of the Old West

to have had to do. It is after the railways have come to the Plains. The Ind

strue them much as he liked. The excellent homestead law of 1862, one of the few really good land laws that have been put on our national statute books, worked well enough so long as we had good farming lands for homesteading-lands of which a quarter section would support a home and a family. This same homestead law was the only one available for use on the cattle-range. In pra

dry land thus lay tributary to them. For the most part the open lands were held practically under squatter right; the first cowman in any valley

inging in of thousands of horned kine along the northbound trails. The trails were hurrying from the Rio Grande to the upper plains of Texas and northward, a

rief and unworthy history. In a strange way corrupt politics and corrupt business affected the phases of the cattle industry as they had affected our relations with the Indians. More than once a herd of some thousand beeves driven up from Texas on contract, and arriving late in autumn,

n to reap where he had not sown. Lands leased to the Indians of the civilized tribes began to cut large figure in the cow trade-as well as some figure in politics-until at length the thorny situation was handled by a firm hand at Washington. Th

of the northern or the southern ranges. Some of the southern men began to start feeding ranges in the North, retaini

ent, while the westbound rails were crossing and criss-crossing the newly won frontier, scarce lasted twenty years. Presently we began to hear in the East of the Chisholm Trail and of the Western Trail which lay beyond it, and of many smaller and intermingling branches. We heard of Ogallalla, in Nebraska, the "G

ent. Once more it seemed that man had been able to overleap the confining limitations of his life, and to attain independence, self-indulgence, ease and liberty. A chorus of Homeric, riotous mirth, as of a land in laughter, rose up all over the great ran

and new values appeared. Banks did not care much for the land as security-it was practically worthless without the cattle-but they would lend money on cattle at rates which did not then seem usurious. A new system

ory of our frontiers. There never was a better life than that of the cowman who had a good range on the Plains and cattle enough to stock his rang

pward through the long slow season. Trail-cutters and herd-combers, licensed or unlicensed hangers-on to the northbound throngs of cattle, appeared along the lower trails-with some reason, occasionally; for in a great northbound herd there might be many cows included under brands other than those of the road brands registered for the drovers of that particular herd. Cattle thieving became an industry of certain value, rivaling in some localities the operations of the bandits of the placer camps. There was great wealth suddenl

he thievery of the men who came to be called range-rustlers made an element of loss which could not long be sustained by thinking men. As the Vigilantes regulated things in the mining camps, so now in slightly different fashion the new property owners on the upper range established their own ideas, their own sense of p

Vigilantes, the advance-guard of civilization now crowding on the heels of the wild men of the West. In time the lights of the dance-halls and the saloons and the gambling parlors went out one by one all along the frontier. By 1885 Dodge City, a famed capital of the cow trade, which will live as long as the history of th

ithout any objection filed by any one, they had included in their fences many hundreds of thousands of acres of range land to which they had no title whatever. These men-like the large-handed cow barons of the Indian Nations,

fle of unnatural increase here and there-had proved able to accumulate with more or less rapidity a herd of his own. Now the cattle associations passed rules that no foreman should be allowed to have or register a b

a rancher by the nam

ich simply by riding ou

rked occupants of the f

d to any unbranded an

d to interfere with th

ttle. Many a foundation

way. It was not until t

cks were regarded

land enough to support his herd with profit. A certain antipathy now began to arise between the great cattle owners and the small ones, especially on the upper range, where some rather bitter w

in search of men who had loose ideas of mine and thine. All the time the cow game was becoming stricter and harder. Easterners brought on the East's idea of property, of low interest, sure returns, and good security. In short, there was set o

back of me," was what he said; and what he said was true. Around the old cow camps of the trails, and around the young settlements which did not aspire to be called cow camps, the homesteaders fenced in land-so much land that there came to be no place near any of the shipping-points where a big herd from the South could be held. Along the southern range artificial barriers to the long dri

safer to put their cows on cattle trains and ship them directly to the ranges where they were to be delivered. And in time the rails running

north their vast tribute. But, in fact, there is no exact date for the passing of the frontier. Its decline set in on what day the first lank "nester" from the States outspanned

is our land, Mo

e pronounced the doo