THE BEGINNING OF THE BOOM
The great boom in cattle which began in 1880 and lasted nearly five
years was the beginning of a ruinous end. The frenzy swept all over
the northern and western half of the United States, extended into the
British possessions in western Canada, and in the receding wave the
Texan forgot the pit from which he was lifted and bowed down and
worshiped the living calf. During this brief period the great breeding
grounds of Texas were tested to their utmost capacity to supply the
demand, the canebrakes of Arkansas and Louisiana were called upon for
their knotty specimens of the bovine race, even Mexico responded, and
still the insatiable maw of the early West called for more cattle. The
whirlpool of speculation and investment in ranches and range stock
defied the deserts on the west, sweeping across into New Mexico and
Arizona, where it met a counter wave pushing inland from California
to possess the new and inviting pastures. Naturally the Texan was the
last to catch the enthusiasm, but when he found his herds depleted to
a remnant of their former numbers, he lost his head and plunged into
the vortex with the impetuosity of a gambler. Pasture lands that he
had scorned at ten cents an acre but a decade before were eagerly
sought at two and three dollars, and the cattle that he had bartered
away he bought back at double and triple their former prices.
How I ever weathered those years without becoming bankrupt is
unexplainable. No credit or foresight must be claimed, for the
opinions of men and babes were on a parity; yet I am inclined to think
it was my dread of debt, coupled with an innate love of land and
cattle, that saved me from the almost universal fate of my fellow
cowmen. Due acknowledgment must be given my partners, for while I held
them in check in certain directions, the soundness of their advice
saved my feet from many a stumble. Major Hunter was an unusually
shrewd man, a financier of the rough and ready Western school; and
while we made our mistakes, they were such as human foresight could
not have avoided. Nor do I withhold a word of credit from our silent
partner, the Senator, who was the keystone to the arch of Hunter,
Anthony & Co., standing in the shadow in our beginning as trail
drovers, backing us with his means and credit, and fighting valiantly
for our mutual interests when the firm met its Waterloo.
The success of our drive for the summer of 1880 changed all plans for
the future. I had learned that percentage was my ablest argument in
suggesting a change of policy, and in casting up accounts for the
year we found that our heavy beeves had paid the least in the general
investment. The banking instincts of my partners were unerring, and in
view of the open market that we had enjoyed that summer it was decided
to withdraw from further contracting with the government. Our profits
for the year were dazzling, and the actual growth of our beeves in the
Outlet was in itself a snug fortune, while the five herds bought at
the eleventh hour cleared over one hundred thousand dollars, mere
pin-money. I hurried home to find that fortune favored me personally,
as the Texas and Pacific Railway had built west from Fort Worth during
the summer as far as Weatherford, while the survey on westward was
within easy striking distance of both my ranches. My wife was dazed
and delighted over the success of the summer's drive, and when I
offered her the money with which to build a fine house at Fort Worth,
she balked, but consented to employ a tutor at the ranch for the
children.
I had a little leisure time on my hands that fall. Activity in wild
lands was just beginning to be felt throughout the State, and the
heavy holders of scrip were offering to locate large tracts to
suit the convenience of purchasers. Several railroads held immense
quantities of scrip voted to them as bonuses, all the charitable
institutions of the State were endowed with liberal grants, and the
great bulk of certificates issued during the Reconstruction régime
for minor purposes had fallen into the hands of shrewd speculators.
Among the latter was a Chicago firm, who had opened an office at Fort
Worth and employed a corps of their own surveyors to locate lands
for customers. They held millions of acres of scrip, and I opened
negotiations with them to survey a number of additions to my Double
Mountain range. Valuable water-fronts were becoming rather scarce,
and the legislature had recently enacted a law setting apart every
alternate section of land for the public schools, out of which grew
the State's splendid system of education. After the exchange of a few
letters, I went to Fort Worth and closed a contract with the Chicago
firm to survey for my account three hundred thousand acres adjoining
my ranch on the Salt and Double Mountain forks of the Brazos. In my
own previous locations, the water-front and valley lands were all that
I had coveted, the tracts not even adjoining, the one on the Salt Fork
lying like a boot, while the lower one zigzagged like a stairway in
following the watercourse. The prices agreed on were twenty cents an
acre for arid land, forty for medium, and sixty for choice tracts,
every other section to be set aside for school purposes in compliance
with the law. My foreman would designate the land wanted, and the firm
agreed to put an outfit of surveyors into the field at once.
My two ranches were proving a valuable source of profit. After
starting five herds of seventeen thousand cattle on the trail
that spring, and shipping on consignment fifteen hundred bulls to
distilleries that fall, we branded nineteen thousand five hundred
calves on the two ranges. In spite of the heavy drain, the brand
was actually growing in numbers, and as long as it remained an open
country I had ample room for my cattle even on the Clear Fork. Each
stock was in splendid shape, as the culling of the aging and barren of
both sexes to Indian agencies and distilleries had preserved the brand
vigorous and productive. The first few years of its establishment I
am satisfied that the Double Mountain ranch increased at the rate of
ninety calves to the hundred cows, and once the Clear Fork range was
rid of its drones, a similar ratio was easily maintained on that
range. There was no such thing as counting one's holdings; the
increase only was known, and these conclusions, with due allowance for
their selection, were arrived at from the calf crop of the improved
herd. Its numbers were known to an animal, all chosen for their vigor
and thrift, the increase for the first two years averaging ninety-four
per cent.
There is little rest for the wicked and none for a cowman. I was
planning an enjoyable winter, hunting with my hounds, when the former
proposition of organizing an immense cattle company was revived at
Washington. Our silent partner was sought on every hand by capitalists
eager for investment in Western enterprises, and as cattle were
absorbing general attention at the time, the tendency of speculation
was all one way. The same old crowd that we had turned down two
winters before was behind the movement, and as certain predictions
that were made at that time by Major Hunter and myself had since come
true, they were all the more anxious to secure our firm as associates.
Our experience and resultant profits from wintering cattle in southern
Kansas and the Cherokee Strip were well known to the Senator, and, to
judge from his letters and frequent conversations, he was envied by
his intimate acquaintances in Congress. In the revival of the original
proposition it was agreed that our firm might direct the management
of the enterprise, all three of us to serve on the directorate and to
have positions on the executive committee. This sounded reasonable,
and as there was a movement on foot to lease the entire Cherokee
Outlet from that Nation, if an adequate range could be secured, such a
cattle company as suggested ought to be profitable.
Major Hunter and I were a unit in business matters, and after an
exchange of views by letter, it was agreed to run down to the capital
and hold a conference with the promoters of the proposed company. My
parents were aging fast, and now that I was moderately wealthy it was
a pleasure to drop in on them for a week and hearten their declining
years. Accordingly with the expectation of combining filial duty and
business, I took Edwards with me and picked up the major at his home,
and the trio of us journeyed eastward. I was ten days late in reaching
Washington. It was the Christmas season in the valley; every darky
that our family ever owned renewed his acquaintance with Mars' Reed,
and was remembered in a way befitting the season. The recess for the
holidays was over on my reaching the capital, yet in the mean time a
crude outline of the proposed company was under consideration. On
the advice of our silent partner, who well knew that his business
associates were slightly out of their element at social functions and
might take alarm, all banquets were cut out, and we met in little
parties at cafés and swell barrooms. In the course of a few days all
the preliminaries were agreed on, and a general conference was called.
Neither my active partner nor myself was an orator, but we had coached
the silent member of the firm to act in our behalf. The Senator was a
flowery talker, and in prefacing his remarks he delved into antiquity,
mentioning the Aryan myth wherein the drifting clouds were supposed
to be the cows of the gods, driven to and from their feeding grounds.
Coming down to a later period, he referred to cattle being figured on
Egyptian monuments raised two thousand years before the Christian era,
and to the important part they were made to play in Greek and Roman
mythology. Referring to ancient biblical times, he dwelt upon the
pastoral existence of the old patriarchs, as they peacefully led their
herds from sheltered nook to pastures green. Passing down and through
the cycles of change from ancient to modern times, he touched upon the
relation of cattle to the food supply of the world, and finally the
object of the meeting was reached. In few and concise words, an
outline of the proposed company was set forth, its objects and
limitations. A pound of beef, it was asserted, was as staple as a loaf
of bread, the production of the one was as simple as the making of the
other, and both were looked upon equally as the staff of life. Other
remarks of a general nature followed. The capital was limited to one
million dollars, though double the capitalization could have been
readily placed at the first meeting. Satisfactory committees were
appointed on organization and other preliminary steps, and books
were opened for subscriptions. Deference was shown our firm, and
I subscribed the same amount as my partners, except that half my
subscription was made in the name of George Edwards, as I wanted him
on the executive committee if the company ever got beyond its present
embryo state. The trio of us taking only one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, there was a general scramble for the remainder.
The preliminary steps having been taken, nothing further could be done
until a range was secured. My active partner, George Edwards, and
myself were appointed on this committee, and promising to report at
the earliest convenience, we made preparations for returning West.
A change of administration was approaching, and before leaving the
capital, Edwards, my partners, and myself called on Secretaries Schurz
of the Interior Department and Ramsey of the War Department. We had
done an extensive business with both departments in the past, and were
anxious to learn the attitude of the government in regard to leasing
lands from the civilized Indian nations. A lease for the Cherokee
Outlet was pending, but for lack of precedent the retiring
Secretary of the Interior, for fear of reversal by the succeeding
administration, lent only a qualified approval of the same. There were
six million acres of land in the Outlet, a splendid range for maturing
beef, and if an adequate-sized ranch could be secured the new company
could begin operations at once. The Cherokee Nation was anxious to
secure a just rental, an association had offered $200,000 a year for
the Strip, and all that was lacking was a single word of indorsement
from the paternal government.
Hoping that the incoming administration would take favorable action
permitting civilized Indian tribes to lease their surplus lands, we
returned to our homes. The Cherokee Strip Cattle Association had
been temporarily organized some time previous,--not being chartered,
however, until March, 1883,--and was the proposed lessee of the Outlet
in which our beef ranch lay. The organization was a local one, created
for the purpose of removing all friction between the Cherokees and the
individual holders of cattle in the Strip. The officers and directors
of the association were all practical cattlemen, owners of herds
and ranges in the Outlet, paying the same rental as others into the
general treasury of the organization. Major Hunter was well acquainted
with the officers, and volunteered to take the matter up at once, by
making application in person for a large range in the Cherokee Strip.
There was no intention on the part of our firm to forsake the trail,
this cattle company being merely a side issue, and active preparations
were begun for the coming summer.
The annual cattle convention would meet again in Fort Worth in
February. With the West for our market and Texas the main source of
supply, there was no occasion for any delay in placing our contracts
for trail stock. The closing figures obtainable at Dodge and Ogalalla
the previous summer had established a new scale of prices for Texas,
and a buyer must either pay the advance or let the cattle alone.
Edwards and I were in the field fully three weeks before the
convention met, covering our old buying grounds and venturing into new
ones, advancing money liberally on all contracts, and returning to
the meeting with thirty herds secured. Major Hunter met us at the
convention, and while nothing definite was accomplished in securing
a range, a hopeful word had reached us in regard to the new
administration. Starting the new company that spring was out of the
question, and all energies were thrown into the forthcoming drive.
Representatives from the Northwest again swept down on the convention,
all Texas was there, and for three days and nights the cattle
interests carried the keys of the city. Our firm offered nothing,
but, on the other hand, bought three herds of Pan-Handle steers for
acceptance early in April. Three weeks of active work were required
to receive the cattle, the herds starting again with the grass. My
individual contingent included ten thousand three-year-old steers,
two full herds of two-year-old heifers, and seven thousand cows. The
latter were driven in two herds; extra wagons with oxen attached
accompanied each in order to save the calves, as a youngster was an
assistance in selling an old cow. Everything was routed by Doan's
Crossing, both Edwards and myself accompanying the herds, while Major
Hunter returned as usual by rail. The new route, known as the Western
trail, was more direct than the Chisholm though beset by Comanche and
Kiowa Indians once powerful tribes, but now little more than beggars.
The trip was nearly featureless, except that during a terrible storm
on Big Elk, a number of Indians took shelter under and around one of
our wagons and a squaw was killed by lightning. For some unaccountable
reason the old dame defied the elements and had climbed up on a water
barrel which was ironed to the side of the commissary wagon, when
the bolt struck her and she tumbled off dead among her people. The
incident created quite a commotion among the Indians, who set up a
keening, and the husband of the squaw refused to be comforted until I
gave him a stray cow, when he smiled and asked for a bill of sale so
that he could sell the hide at the agency. I shook my head, and the
cook told him in Spanish that no one but the owner could give a hill
of sale, when he looked reproachfully at me and said, "Mebby so you
steal him."
I caught a stage at Camp Supply and reached Dodge a week in advance
of the herds. Major Hunter was awaiting me with the report that our
application for an extra lease in the Cherokee Strip had been refused.
Those already holding cattle in the Outlet were to retain their old
grazing grounds, and as we had no more range than we needed for the
firm's holding of stock, we must look elsewhere to secure one for the
new company. A movement was being furthered in Washington, however, to
secure a lease from the Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes, blanket Indians,
whose reservation lay just south of the Strip, near the centre of the
Territory and between the Chisholm and Western trails. George Edwards
knew the country, having issued cows at those agencies for several
summers, and reported the country well adapted for ranging cattle. We
had a number of congressmen and several distinguished senators in our
company, and if there was such a thing as pulling the wires with the
new administration, there was little doubt but it would be done.
Kirkwood of Iowa had succeeded Schurz in the Interior Department,
and our information was that he would at least approve of any lease
secured. We were urged at the earliest opportunity to visit the
Cheyenne and Arapahoe agency, and open negotiations with the ruling
chiefs of those tribes. This was impossible just at present, for with
forty herds, numbering one hundred and twenty-six thousand cattle, on
the trail and for our beef ranch, a busy summer lay before us. Edwards
was dispatched to meet and turn off the herds intended for our range
in the Outlet, Major Hunter proceeded on to Ogalalla, while I remained
at Dodge until the last cattle arrived or passed that point.
The summer of 1881 proved a splendid market for the drover. Demand far
exceeded supply and prices soared upward, while she stuff commanded a
premium of three to five dollars a head over steers of the same age.
Pan-Handle and north Texas cattle topped the market, their quality
easily classifying them above Mexican, coast, and southern breeding.
Herds were sold and cleared out for their destination almost as fast
as they arrived; the Old West wanted the cattle and had the range and
to spare, all of which was a tempered wind to the Texas drover. I
spent several months in Dodge, shaping up our herds as they arrived,
and sending the majority of them on to Ogalalla. The cows were the
last to arrive on the Arkansas, and they sold like pies to hungry
boys, while all the remainder of my individual stock went on to the
Platte and were handled by our segundo and my active partner. Near the
middle of the summer I closed up our affairs at Dodge, and, taking the
assistant bookkeeper with me, moved up to Ogalalla. Shortly after my
arrival there, it was necessary to send a member of the firm to Miles
City, on the Yellowstone River in Montana, and the mission fell to
me. Major Hunter had sold twenty thousand threes for delivery at that
point, and the cattle were already en route to their destination on my
arrival. I took train and stage and met the herds on the Yellowstone.
On my return to Ogalalla the season was drawing to a feverish close.
All our cattle were sold, the only delay being in deliveries and
settlements. Several of our herds were received on the Platte, but,
as it happened, nearly all our sales were effected with new cattle
companies, and they had too much confidence in the ability of the
Texas outfits to deliver to assume the risk themselves. Everything
was fish to our net, and if a buyer had insisted on our delivering in
Canada, I think Major Hunter would have met the request had the price
been satisfactory. We had the outfits and horses, and our men were
plainsmen and were at home as long as they could see the north star.
Edwards attended a delivery on the Crazy Woman in Wyoming, Major
Hunter made a trip for a similar purpose to the Niobrara in Nebraska,
and various trail foremen represented the firm at minor deliveries.
All trail business was closed before the middle of September, the
bookkeepers made up their final statements, and we shook hands all
round and broke the necks of a few bottles.
But the climax of the year's profits came from the beef ranch in the
Outlet. The Eastern markets were clamoring for well-fatted Western
stock, and we sent out train after train of double wintered beeves
that paid one hundred per cent profit on every year we had held them.
The single wintered cattle paid nearly as well, and in making ample
room for the through steers we shipped out eighteen thousand head from
our holdings on the Eagle Chief. The splendid profits from maturing
beeves on Northern ranges naturally made us anxious to start the new
company. We were doing fairly well as a firm and personally, and with
our mastery of the business it was but natural that we should enlarge
rather than restrict our operations. There had been no decrease of the
foreign capital, principally Scotch and English, for investment in
ranges and cattle in the West during the summer just past, and it was
contrary to the policy of Hunter, Anthony & Co. to take a backward
step. The frenzy for organizing cattle companies was on with a fury,
and half-breed Indians and squaw-men, with rights on reservations,
were in demand as partners in business or as managers of cattle
syndicates.
An amusing situation developed during the summer of 1881 at Dodge. The
Texas drovers formed a social club and rented and furnished quarters,
which immediately became the rendezvous of the wayfaring mavericks.
Cigars and refreshments were added, social games introduced, and in
burlesque of the general craze of organizing stock companies to engage
in cattle ranching, our club adopted the name of The Juan-Jinglero
Cattle Company, Limited. The capital stock was placed at five million,
full-paid and non-assessable, with John T. Lytle as treasurer, E.G.
Head as secretary, Jess Pressnall as attorney, Captain E.G. Millet as
fiscal agent for placing the stock, and a dozen leading drovers as
vice-presidents, while the presidency fell to me. We used the best
of printed stationery, and all the papers of Kansas City and Omaha
innocently took it up and gave the new cattle company the widest
publicity. The promoters of the club intended it as a joke, but the
prominence of its officers fooled the outside public, and applications
began to pour in to secure stock in the new company. No explanation
was offered, but all applications were courteously refused, on the
ground that the capital was already over-subscribed. All members were
freely using the club stationery, thus daily advertising us far and
wide, while no end of jokes were indulged in at the expense of the
burlesque company. For instance, Major Seth Mabry left word at the
club to forward his mail to Kansas City, care of Armour's Bank, as he
expected to be away from Dodge for a week. No sooner had he gone than
every member of the club wrote him a letter, in care of that popular
bank, addressing him as first vice-president and director of The
Juan-Jinglero Cattle Company. While attending to business Major Mabry
was hourly honored by bankers and intimate friends desiring to secure
stock in the company, to all of whom he turned a deaf ear, but kept
the secret. "I told the boys," said Major Seth on his return, "that
our company was a close corporation, and unless we increased the
capital stock, there was no hope of them getting in on the ground
floor."
In Dodge practical joking was carried to the extreme, both by citizens
and cowmen. One night a tipsy foreman, who had just arrived over the
trail, insisted on going the rounds with a party of us, and in order
to shake him we entered a variety theatre, where my maudlin friend
soon fell asleep in his seat. The rest of us left the theatre, and
after seeing the sights I wandered back to the vaudeville, finding the
performance over and my friend still sound asleep. I awoke him, never
letting him know that I had been absent for hours, and after rubbing
his eyes open, he said: "Reed, is it all over? No dance or concert?
They give a good show here, don't they?"