The Billings gazette. [volume] (Billings, Mont.) 1896-1919, 1902-09-19
IN THE CATTLE COUNTRY.
Ranges Once Rich Are Now Com.
pIeteIy Deserted.

in the northern range, there was uni
versal prosperity and lots Of money;
to be a cow-man meant being a small
but powerful king with a ~princely
kingdom, the boundaries of which
were set by precedent and by tho
honor of custom-as far as a man
on horseback could see, and by water
as firmly as If concentrated and
title-deeded. There a no rent and
virtually no taxes to pay. A man
might own a hundred Thousand cattle
and not a acre of land, though he
claimed range rights" to fifty thou
sand acres, and enforced those rights
with blood and iron, says a writer
in the Century Magazine.
Apparently this was a new sort Of
free life in which man had risen
above the old slow rules Of thrift. It
was a simple business, turn the cat
tie to grass, and when money was
needed, round them up and sell them.
But the lucky dog sometimes has
difficulty in enjoying his bone in
peace. Lured by the stories of sud-
den riches in the cattle country, other
men, as bold and hardy as the first,
f1ocked in from all parts of the world,
and began raising big and little herds.
The building OF the railroads across
the continent stimulated immigration;
the great Texas boom followed the
completion of the Texas Pacific rail
road in 1883. At first the early. com.
ers welcomed the new rangers, sold
them cattle at exorbitant prices,
chuckled at their innocence, allowed
them to come in on the ranges, and
grew richer and richer. There were
times when Texas steers, big and lit
tie, brought $25 each on the range.
But the tide swelled and the cattle
continued to increase enormously.
Presently the first real settlers, the
"nesters" of Texas, who wished to
fence the land for farms, appeared in
numbers, and the early corners, the
original cowboys, began to- chate.
who's crowding me?" they inquired,
and there was prompt and effective
shooting and the wholesale cutting
of the new fences.
Many good men lay down in the hot
sand. never to rise again. But that,
bad as it was, did not tell the whole
story of destruction. If cattle had
been killed instead Of men, the tror-
BILE might have been averted, but the
herds went on multiplying until they
covered all the range, giving it no
rest winter or summer. Each cow
man scrambled for all he could get;
he argued that if he did not take the
grass his neighbor would. And who
cared a rap for the future! Life was
short and money tangible. At first
there had been enough grass to sup
port one steer to every two acres
of land; in half a, dozen years a steer
did well t6 make his living on five
acres. After that the ratio steadily
Wldened. so great was the struggle
for new territory that whole herds
of cattle sometimes went twenty miles
or more to water and then back again,
g%alloping every step, and working
hard between times to get enough
from the failing ranges to keep life
within their lean And to-
day there are many parts of the range
that will not support ten cattle to the
square mile, one steer to every sixty
four acres, and it is a good range
indeed that will feed a steer to every
twenty acres. There are whole ranges
ia Texas, New Mexico and Arizona,
once rich beyond belief. that are COM
pletely deserted and given over to
the desert.