To the vision of the railroad builders a tremendous potential
freightage now appeared. The railroad builders began to calculate
that one day they would parallel the northbound cow trail with
iron trails of their own and compete with nature for the carrying
of this beef. The whole swift story of all that development,
while the westbound rails were crossing and crisscrossing 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
"Gomorrah of the Range," the first great upper marketplace for
distribution of cattle to the swiftly forming northern ranches.
The names of new rivers came upon our maps; and beyond the first
railroads we began to hear of the Yellowstone, the Powder, the
Musselshell, the Tongue, the Big Horn, the Little Missouri.

The wild life, bold and carefree, coming up from the South now in
a mighty surging wave, spread all over that new West which
offered to the people of older lands a strange and fascinating
interest. Every one on the range had money; every one was
independent. 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 range. After all, it seemed that we had a new
world left, a land not yet used. We still were young! The cry
arose that there was land enough for all out West. And at first
the trains of white-topped wagons rivaled the crowded coaches
westbound on the rails.