CHAPTER I 



RANCHING IN THE BAD 

 LANDS 



THE great middle plains of the United 

 States, parts of which are still scantily 

 peopled by men of Mexican parentage, 

 while other parts have been but recently 

 won from the warlike tribes of Horse In- 

 dians, now form a broad pastoral belt, 

 stretching in a north and south line from 

 British America to the Rio Grande. 

 Throughout this great belt of grazing land 

 almost the only industry is stock-raising, 

 which is here engaged in on a really gigantic 

 scale; and it is already nearly covered with 

 the ranches of the stockmen, except on those 

 isolated tracts (often themselves of great 

 extent) from which the red men look hope- 

 lessly and sullenly out upon their old hunt- 



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