He paid six hundred dollars for the land, buildings and equipment at the place. He was sheriff of Keith county at one time.

Tom Fanning, who lives near Mitchell, came from Saint Louis in 1877, and went to work for Paxton & Wier on the Keystone ranch, which was on Clearwater creek.' Tom Lawrence was foreman. He was afterwards with Wier at Ogallala. when Wier was range manager of the Ogallala company, which he, and Paxton had organized, with headquarters in that city.

W. A. Paxton, the originator of the company, came from Missouri in 1867. He there learned the art of "whacking bulls." He had two yoke and a wooden axle sulky plow for breaking sod. It had a larger wheel for the furrow side, and no apparatus for levelling it up when on level ground. He took up freighting on arriving, which was considerable of an enterprise in western Nebraska, even after the Union Pacific was built.

One M. R. Jacket and Louis Auftcngardner

were interested in the cattle company. The latter still lives at Ogallala, and when the herd was taken to the northwest, Jacket parted with his interests, and located a ranch in Spring Canyon, just south of Lewellen, where I believe he still lives (1919).

Jacket's men captured a pair of young buffalo over on the Stinking water, in the south part of Keith county, now Perkins county, in 1885. He kept them with his herd until 1891, when he sold them to a butcher in Ogallala, who shipped them to Omaha. Cattle were low priced then, and when these buffalo brought one hundred dollars each, it was considered an excellent price.