Millions in Tassel 141 



credit. The interest of seven percent was collectable annually 

 in advance. A man with one hundred dollars in cash who went 

 into that country moved like a prince. Speculators were quick 

 to take advantage of the bargain and bought vast tracts which 

 they held, and then resold at double the government's price. 



Meanwhile, in Chicago, in Kansas City, in Minneapolis, the 

 corn from the farms was sold either in its natural state as grain, 

 or as hogs and lard. Not only the men who raised these but 

 men who traded in them in the cities grew rich. 



The purchase of Louisiana had been effected in 1803. In 

 1845 Texas was annexed. And in the same year, Oregon. In 

 1848 California was added to the union. Five years later the 

 Gadsden Purchase completed the boundaries of a country 

 which stretched from Atlantic to Pacific, from the Rio Grande 

 to the Great Lakes. None of the eastern financiers objected to 

 this expansion. Instead, they were quick to invest in western 

 properties and western futures. Above all, they were interested 

 in the railroads for which engineers were already drawing up 

 plans and possible routes. 



But even the most imaginative among them were unpre- 

 pared for the rapid expansion of the country. Horace Greeley, 

 whose editorial advice to young men to go west was taken up 

 by promoters of western lands, confessed himself dumb- 

 founded by the numbers who took the trail to Oregon. 



The country lying between the Missouri River and the 

 Rockies was marked on maps "The Great American Desert." 

 It was an arid plain, overgrown with sagebrush and bunch 

 grass, good for nothing but prairie dogs and rattlesnakes. A few 

 cattle grazed on ranges, but even these would not make that 

 country pay unless it could also produce corn to fatten the 

 young steers for market. Around Denver there were the mines, 

 a source of speculation. But the rest of the territory appeared 

 to most of those who had ridden across it as waste land. 



The first counter evidence to this was brought by the Mor- 

 mons. The followers of Joseph Smith took miles of the Great 



