None of the chroniclers of events along the Overland trail has mentioned it, and the trail fell into disuse about the time or shortly after slavery was abolished.

The overland stage and the pony express had a stopping place near the present ranch, and the meadows were used for supplying feed for their stock. But I am conviced that Rock ranch as a ranch- came into existence, almost simultaneously with the abandonment of the old Red Cloud agency. Stealing stock, particularly horses, by the Indians was common at that time.

The horses of Charles Coffee were so stolen, except a few of the most useless, and the work of building the original rock house on this ranch was principally by hand. The rocks were torn out of the hills close at hand and wheeled by hand to the site, where they were laid up in alkali gumbo. The barn, previously built, was west of the house, the house was provided with port-holes commanding a view of the barn, for the purpose of preventing the success of any further Indian raids

upon the stock. The original building is the north part of the present Rock house, and the port-holes are filled in with masonry.

Sometime before the building of this ranch, or about 1876, Coffee was at Ogallala, and in company with a man named Gordon, who is the father of the Gordon in the Gordon Con- . struction Company. They had what was called, "The Wild West Exchange" at Ogallala at this time, and here the boys challanged one another for feats of doing or daring characteristic of the Wild West. Someone had captured a young buffalo, and had it properly confined. While generally the talk was of horses, and Gordon was expostulating concerning the merit of his horse, as a racer, Coffee told him his horse was not so much, that he could beat it and ride the buffalo.