us for shipping them one third of the distance. No; we'll drive
all the way."

The speaker was Don Lovell, a trail drover, and the parties
addressed were the general freight agents of three railroad lines
operating in Texas. A conference had been agreed upon, and we had
come in by train from the ranch in Medina County to attend the
meeting in San Antonio. The railroad representatives were shrewd,
affable gentlemen, and presented an array of facts hard to
overcome. They were well aware of the obstacles to be encountered
in the arid, western portion of the state, and magnified every
possibility into a stern reality. Unrolling a large state map
upon the table, around which the principals were sitting, the
agent of the Denver and Fort Worth traced the trail from Buffalo
Gap to Doan's Crossing on Red River. Producing what was declared
to be a report of the immigration agent of his line, he showed by
statistics that whole counties through which the old trail ran
had recently been settled up by Scandinavian immigrants. The
representative of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas, when
opportunity offered, enumerated every disaster which had happened
to any herd to the westward of his line in the past five years.
The factor of the International was equally well posted.

"Now, Mr. Lovell," said he, dumping a bundle of papers on the
table, "if you will kindly glance over these documents, I think I
can convince you that it is only a question of a few years until
all trail cattle will ship the greater portion of the way. Here
is a tabulated statement up to and including the year '83. From
twenty counties tributary to our line and south of this city, you
will notice that in '80 we practically handled no cattle intended