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.

"Hank" Clifford ran the station at the Niobrara crossing about 1878 or 1879. The same time, or thereabouts, Mr. Meeks located his ranch fifteen miles northwest of Agate, where the Ft. Laramie-Ft. Robinson Military road crossed the river.

A third nf a century ago, the granger broke into the open range, and the cowmen scattered, or stampeded, or settled down to the new order. Every little while we now hear of one who has gone "stampedin' on the Old Trail." Yet, today, we find a few anchored to the soil of the wonderful land, which they have helped to tame from the wilderness of old, to the present wilderness of green, done in seventeen shades of glory and productivity.

Recently there seems to be a Stampede of the old boys, heading for the Home Ranch Across the Great Divide, and it is fitting that we should close this history of an epoch in the taming 0f (he west, with a few lines dedicated to the brave and true spirits who wrought the transformation :