I 4 HUNTING TRIPS 



of Kansas and Colorado began to start 

 ranches, and Texans who were getting 

 crowded out moved their herds north into 

 these lands, and afterward into Wyoming. 

 Large herds of yearling steers also were, 

 and still are, driven from the breeding ranch- 

 es of the south to some northern range, there 

 to be fattened for three years before selling. 

 The cattle trail led through great wastes, 

 and the scores of armed cow-boys who, under 

 one or two foremen, accompanied each herd, 

 had often to do battle with bands of hostile 

 Indians ; but this danger is now a thing of 

 the past, as, indeed, will soon be the case 

 with the cattle trail itself, for year by year the 

 grangers press steadily westward into it, and 

 when they have once settled in a place, will 

 not permit the cattle to be driven across it. 

 In the northern country the ranches vary 

 greatly in size ; on some there may be but a 

 few hundred head, on others ten times as 

 many thousand. The land is still in great 

 part unsurveyed, and is hardly anywhere 

 fenced in, the cattle roaming over it at will. 



