where they had stopped the year before:--

"Sure it's one cent for coffee and two cents for bread,
Three for a steak and five for a bed,
Sea breeze from the gutter wafts a salt water smell,
To the festive cowboy in the Southwestern hotel."



CHAPTER X

"NO MAN'S LAND"

Flood overtook us the next morning, and as a number of us gathered
round him to hear the news, told us of a letter that Mann had got at
Doan's, stating that the first herd to pass Camp Supply had been
harassed by Indians. The "Running W" people, Mann's employers, had a
representative at Dodge, who was authority for the statement. Flood
had read the letter, which intimated that an appeal would be made to
the government to send troops from either Camp Supply or Fort Sill to
give trail herds a safe escort in passing the western border of this
Indian reservation. The letter, therefore, admonished Mann, if he
thought the Indians would give any trouble, to go up the south side of
Red River as far as the Pan-handle of Texas, and then turn north to
the government trail at Fort Elliot.

"I told Mann," said our foreman, "that before I'd take one step
backward, or go off on a wild goose chase through that Pan-handle
country, I'd go back home and start over next year on the Chisholm
trail. It's the easiest thing in the world for some big auger to sit