The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1916-08-04

me pursued the animals. They made
trails from the grazing grounds to
the pools and from one pool to an
other, and when man moved camp
he followed the trails that ran in the
general direction he wanted to go,
for he really followed the wild game,
especially the bison. When the white
man came with his traps, he follow
ed the trails as he found them, and
when he came with pack trains and
later with wagons, he used the same
old trails. When the miner and the
freighter came the stage driver and
the railroad, they still used the old
trails shortening them to suit their
convenience. The very latest work
of that kind was filling in some hol-
lows and cutting down some hills,
paying for it out of the public treas
ury called tax money, and some peo-
pie kicked.
When mining was good and team
freighting was heavy, men tried to
sink wells IN the plains so they could
sell water to the travellers. Twenty
five or thirty years ago some miners
who thought they could blast their
way down to water, selected a spot
near the middle of the desert, just
north of Taber of today, and there
by the roadside they blasted and
windlassed foot by foot till they got
down something like 100 feet. They
had to haul all their water from one
o fthe rivers, and it was about 80
miles, varying with the condition of
tho riunrc Tho nr0inot fof1nI nn1
they went away and left the hole
open, with the debris piled out in
all directions, the surface sloping to-
ward the hole at the center. Thous-
ands of people passed that way and
some of them looked down into the
hole, but nobody had time to fill it
up, for they were hurrying on to
water.
Biggest Beef Can in America
Just at this time, the Armours,
Swifts and Cudahys were vying with
each other for the championship in
sl%aughtering and canning beef, and
n day an Idaho catleman from Lost
river came along that way and put
down what is probably the biggest
can of beef that America has aver
produced, and he did it in record
time. He had a great herd of beef
steers that he was taking to the rail-
road for shipment, and you know
how cattle are about looking at any
thing they do not understand. Well,
the steer in the lead walked up and
looked at that hole in the ground,
and while he stood there others came
up behind him. He ventured close
and looked. Others walked up close
behind him, and you know how steers
are; it is all up to the one behind.
l1e planted a horn or two in the pos
terror anatomy of the aforesaid front
steer, used the self starter and adj
vanced on low gear. The front steer
moved Ont would not do to say
that he moved up for he didn't. He
moved down. Just how he started
down the hole nobody knows, but
it is likely that his hoofs clattered
along the rocks at, times and at the
bottom he stopped. The second steer
was no in the van and the third one
was the steer behind. He also came
up quietly on low gear with steers
on each side and there raj another
of beef down into the can. By
this time the herd was gathering
around the hole and all the steers
wanted to g what was doing. Each
one applied more or less Of the mag
neto to the n ahead, and things
moved slowly to n common center.
Each steer was in ignorance of what
was going on and was anxious to gain
information. In fact they were rush
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