Ranching in the Bad Lands 25 



from before our herds. The free, open-air life of the 

 ranchman, the pleasantest and healthiest life in 

 America, is from its very nature ephemeral. The 

 broad and boundless prairies have already been 

 bounded and will soon be made narrow. It is 

 scarcely a figure of speech to say that the tide of 

 white settlement during the last few years has risen 

 over the West like a flood; and the cattlemen are 

 but the spray from the crest of the wave, thrown far 

 in advance, but soon to be overtaken. As the set- 

 tlers throng into the lands and seize the good ground, 

 especially that near the streams, the great fenceless 

 ranches, where the cattle and their mounted herds- 

 men wandered unchecked over hundreds of thou- 

 sands of acres, will be broken up and divided into 

 corn land, or else into small grazing farms where a 

 few hundred head of stock are closely watched and 

 taken care of. Of course the most powerful ranches, 

 owned by wealthy corporations or individuals, and 

 already firmly rooted in the soil, will long resist this 

 crowding; in places where the ground is not suited 

 to agriculture, or where, through the old Spanish 

 land-grants, title has been acquired to a great tract 

 of territory, cattle ranching will continue for a 

 long time, though in a greatly modified form; else- 

 where I doubt if it outlasts the present century. 

 Immense sums of money have been made at it in the 

 past, and it is still fairly profitable; but the good 

 grounds (aside from those reserved for the Indians) 

 are now almost all taken up, and it is too late for 

 new men to start at it on their own account, unless 



B VOL. IV. 



