reach out for such resources as they might. Perhaps at one time
between 1885 and 1890 there were over ten million acres of land
illegally fenced in on the upper range by large cattle companies.
This had been done without any color of law whatever; a man
simply threw out his fences as far as he liked, and took in range
enough to pasture all the cattle that he owned. His only pretext
was "I saw it first." For the Nester who wanted a way through
these fences out into the open public lands, he cherished a
bitter resentment. And yet the Nester must in time win through,
must eventually find the little piece of land which he was
seeking.

The government at Washington was finally obliged to take action.
In the summer of 1885, acting under authorization of Congress,
President Cleveland ordered the removal of all illegal enclosures
and forbade any person or association to prevent the peaceful
occupation of the public land by homesteaders. The President had
already cancelled the leases by which a great cattle company had
occupied grazing lands in the Indian Territory. Yet, with
even-handed justice he kept the land boomers also out of these
coveted lands, until the Dawes Act of 1887 allotted the tribal
lands to the Indians in severalty and threw open the remainder to
the impatient homeseekers. Waiting thousands were ready at the
Kansas line, eager for the starting gun which was to let loose a
mad stampede of crazed human beings.

It always was contended by the cowman that these settlers coming
in on the semi-arid range could not make a living there, that all
they could do was legally to starve to death some good woman.
True, many of them could not last out in the bitter combined