fattened there, now wrote its brief 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,
was not accepted on its arrival at the army post--some pet of
Washington perhaps had his own herd to sell! All that could be
done then would be to seek out a "holding range." In this way,
more and more, the capacity of the northern Plains to nourish and
improve cattle became established.

Naturally, the price of cows began to rise; and naturally, also,
the demand for open range steadily increased. There now began the
whole complex story of leased lands and fenced lands. The
frontier still was offering opportunity for the bold man 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. The methods
of the East were swiftly overrunning those of the West. Politics
and graft and pull, things hitherto unknown, soon wrote their
hurrying story also over all this newly won region from which the
rifle-smoke had scarcely yet cleared away.

But every herd which passed north for delivery of one sort or the
other advanced the education of the cowman, whether of the
northern or the southern ranges. Some of the southern men began
to start feeding ranges in the North, retaining their breeding
ranges in the South. The demand of the great upper range for
cattle seemed for the time insatiable.