Carpenter's boy -- Willie -- arrived in the winter of 1879-1880 and was snow-bound in Sidney for three or four weeks. He was a nice kind of a kid and stayed in Oberfelder's store. Some years later a big, wiskered man with a deep voice came into the store and asked for Bob. When Bob appeared he said: "I want your father," but after a bit he discovered it was the same Bob of old. He asked if Bob remembered Jack Carpenter. Bob answered :

HISTORY OF WESTERN NEBRASKA

"< if course I do, and also his son Willie."'

"Well," said the visitor, "by I am Willie."

He had developed into a powerful man mentally and physically, and had removed to Idaho, where he had become very wealthy.

From 1893 to 1910, the Union Cattle Company leased its Goshen Hole lands, west of Wyoming line to the Two-Bar or Swan outfit.

Will Sturgis had a number of tests made, looking for coal, oil and gas. Some five wells were put down, ranging from 500 to 1000 feet. At one time, making some assessment work, he employed Howard Thomas, who was subject to epileptic fits. He had a shaft down about six feet, when one of these fits rendered him helpless. He drowned in less than a foot of water.

Tom Sturgis had Whispering Smith employed in the eighties to keep Cheyenne county from going for the herd law. He failed in his efforts for the grangers were strong for it. McGinley and Stover located three miles west of Agate in 1882, and Earnest Brothers located three miles farther up the river about the same time.