agents ever came on the ground. It was the vaquero's inning, and he scored very successfully till he was "out."

He was "out," in effect, when railroads were built, when homesteaders and other settlers made their advent. It presently began to be clear that what had been a perpetual surfeit of cattle food could not last. Hence competition, fiercer yearly and monthly, each ranchman being determined to make the utmost of his chance before it vanished. Every man on the ground bought all the cows he could, using his cash and his utmost credit, heedless of rates per cent. Outsiders crowded in and did the same. The danger of overstocking the range occurred to no one. Most localities soon had twice or thrice as many creatures as they could feed. An unusually dry summer or cold winter killed cattle as frost kills flies.

Inhumanity to brutes was not the sole or the worst barbarism attending this regime. The struggle for pasture led to range disputes and wars. One twelvemonth 500 men lost their lives in range feuds. In

places every bite of grass that cows got had to be saved for them by Winchester rifles. One old ranger said he was "tired of sleeping with a Winchester for a pillow."

The cattlemen of a county, a valley, or any neighborhood forming a natural unity, made common cause against outsiders. The Brown's Park Ranchmen's Association of Colorado, in a published resolution, claimed that "the pasturage by rights belongs to the people residing in the community, and that they, and they alone, are entitled to the use of it." The resolution added: "To deprive us of, or abridge our existing privileges is to take away from us our inalienable rights to the pursuit of health and happiness guaranteed us in the Great Declaration of Principles and Constitution of the United States, and we will hold as public and private enemies any man or set of men, in Congress or out, who will in any way change or alter existing range conditions or abridge our range rights in any way whatsoever to the use of the public domain."

There are always plenty of nomad herd

ers confining their stock to no locality, and not scrupling to ignore "range rights" wherever feed can be found. Sheep feeders are more commonly in this class. In 1902 a county in Oregon was invaded by 250,000 migratory sheep. Sheep men attempting such a raid from Utah into Colorado in March, 1900, found the way barred. Fifty miles of the state line was patrolled by mounted stockmen, armed with Winchesters and ready to kill. According to press statements, the authors of the resolution just quoted enforced their bill of rights by the death of two sheep herders with their flocks, numbering perhaps 2,000 head. In another unpleasantness of the kind 5,000 or 6,000 sheep were driven over a precipice and piled up at the bottom, and three of their attendants placed on the mortuary list. In Wyoming, early in 1902, four men and some 2,000 sheep were killed.

Many of the most valuable grasses are annuals. Drastic feeding on them year after year leaves too little seed for renewal; finally, in places, none at all. Some of the

best grasses have thus ceased to exist in localities where they once abounded-as if a farmer had used up all his seed corn or wheat, leaving none to start a new crop. Too close grazing in time destroys any grass. During long drouth cattle pull up grass by the roots. Grass is killed by trampling. Areas far from streams and springs have to be pastured. Herds are sometimes driven to water 15 or 20 miles daily or every other day, forming trails, each an eighth of a mile wide, where no forage can grow. Just so, a hundred years ago, buffaloes created highways which stage coaches afterward utilized. Water being scarce, cattle become weak, and though there may be plenty of grass-and that always the sweetest and most nutritious-some way from the watering places, the stock, preferring starvation to death from thirst, crowd near the water, consuming every sprig of vegetation. there, and trampling the ground bare for miles in all directions. This effect is the worst in drouth years. Grass and water being then hardest to get, stock must travel

greater distances between food and drink, treading to death square miles of precious forage.

When pasture becomes too poor for cattle, sheep are brought in, being able to live. where cattle would die. Sheep easily eat herbage out by the roots, killing even perennial grasses. Goats, too, have been introduced, which destroy shrubs by nipping their foliage; and hogs, which dig up and devour the roots.

As the larger carnivora were exterminated, rabbits, prairie dogs, and gophers multiplied into serious plagues. Five jack rabbits or 20 prairie dogs consume as much grass as a sheep. Prairie dogs not only eat what grows, but spoil the land itself. There are prairie dog settlements having 2,000 or even 5,000 of the nuisances to the square mile, where sand, clay, and "gumbo" overspread and render useless all the good soil. Vegetable as well as animal scourges come in. While grass which cattle love is kept from seeding, the prickly-pear cactus, thorn bushes, shrubs, and weeds which they avoid