Sidney, Antelopeville (now Kimball) and Cheyenne were the regular cowtowns. Those were the halcyon days of the cow business. Big companies were being organized, and absorbing the ranches, and buying -- book value -- 'the local institutions.

Post sold out to the Arbuckles, and several were absorbed by the big Bay State Land and Cattle Company. The Swans had Scotch millions behind them. Big Alex Swan would buy ten thousand cattle, while the most of us were quibbling over the price.

The Swans organized a big company of Edinburgh, Scotland, men and passed their holdings to the new company, retaining an interest in the company themselves. The new company was taking over herds at book value as a rule, but the canny Scotch decided on requiring actual count. Thus it occurred that certain cows found their way through the counting chutes more than once to make up the number. The Scotchmen "smelled a mouse," and required another count. This time each animal that passed was to be daubed with paint, so that a second count of the same animal would be impossible.

There is a peculiar quirk of psychology in the old boys of the plains. They were true to a fault in their fidelity to their old masters and associates, although when a new outfit bought a brand it was assumed that the boys were to continue with the new outfit.

When Arbuckle broke Post and his Cheyenne bank, it took the saving of nearly all the boys, that were at all frugal, for Post's bank was their depository. Yet few of them would blame Post. They were firm in the faith that his grand-stand play in Cheyenne, when his wife allowed him to sell her jewels, and the house over her head, to put the proceeds into the assets of the wreck, that it was all on the square.