22 



RANCH LIFE AND THE HUNTING-TRAIL 



sooner or later there comes a winter which means ruin to the ranches that 

 have too many cattle on them ; and in our country, which is even now 

 getting" crowded, it is merely a question of time as to when a winter will 

 come that will understock the ranges by the summary process of killing 

 oft' about half of all the cattle throughout the North-west.* The herds 

 that have just been put on suffer most in such a case; if they have come 

 on late and are composed of weak animals, very few indeed, perhaps 

 not ten per cent., will survive. The cattle that have been double or 

 single wintered do better; while a range-raised steer is almost as tough 

 as a buffalo. 



In our northern country we have "free grass"; that is, the stockmen 

 rarely own more than small portions of the land over which their cattle 

 range, the bulk of it being unsurveyed and still the property of the Na- 

 tional Government — for the latter refuses to sell the soil except in small 

 lots, acting on the wise principle of distributing it among as many owners 

 as possible. Here and there some ranchman has acquired title to narrow 

 strips of territory peculiarly valuable as giving water-right ; but the 

 amount of land thus occupied is small with us, — although the reverse is 

 the case farther south, — and there is practically no fencing to speak ol. 

 As a consequence, the land is one vast pasture, and the man who over- 

 stocks his own range damages his neighbors as much as himself. These 

 huge northern pastures are too dry and the soil too poor to be used lor 

 agriculture until the rich, wet lands to the east and west are occupied ; 

 and at present we have little to fear from grangers. Of course, in the end 

 much of the ground will be taken up for small farms, but the farmers that 

 so far have come in have absolutely failed to make even a living, except 

 now and then by raising a few vegetables for the use of the stockmen ; 

 and we are inclined to welcome the incoming of an occasional settler, if 

 he is a decent man, especially as, by the laws of the Territories in which 

 the great grazing plains lie, he is obliged to fence in his own patch of 

 cleared ground, and we do not have to keep our cattle out of it. 



At present we are far more afraid of each other. There are always 

 plenty of men who for the sake of the chance of gain they themselves 

 run are willing to jeopardize the interests of their neighbors by putting 

 on more cattle than the land will support — for the loss, of course, falls as 

 heavily on the man who has put on the right number as on him who has 

 put on too many; and it is against these individuals that we have to 

 guard so far as we are able. To protect ourselves completely is impossi- 

 ble, but the very identity of interest that renders all of us liable to suffer 



* Written in the fall of 18H6; the ensuing winter exactly fulfilled the prophecy. 



