In fact each ranch was supplied with the necessities of life in abundance and the way-farer was welcome to help himself without awaiting the presence of, or asking the consent of the owner or his representative. This practice was continued until the county settled up more thickly, and the abuses of such generous courtesies caused the stockmen to discontinue their liberalities to some extent.

"The ranchmen learned to have in their outlaying ranches, only such things as they could have locked up, nailed down, or otherwise guarded from petty pilferers, and malicious and unseemly jokers."

Tusler ran about two thousand cattle and one thousand horses, and the ranch brand was Sixty-six on the left side, and cow animals were also marked with dewlaps on the brisket.

In 1885, Elijah Tusler was riding in a private car of an official of the Union Pacific, when it arrived at Sidney. Yielding to the importunities of "the bunch" on board, Tusler remained on the car after it left for the west. Before it arrived at Potter, he stepped out on the rear platform, and not returning as

11.

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

quickly as the party thought he should, another opened the door, and on the platform lay the form of Tusler. He was quite dead, apparently from heart disease, and was taken back to Sidney, from which point the fact was communciated to the widow at the ranch.

"Ark" or "Henry County" Hughes was working for the Tusler people at the time. Hughes had come up from the mines of Colorado in 18S0. He went to work on the Tusler ranch in 1883, and remained there for four years. In the meantime he had "picked out" a place on Horse Creek, where he established his own ranch and range.