This proposition met with considerable favor and would no doubt have been made had not two discouraging elements injected themselves at that time.

The Belmont and Froid affair was just then receiving an airing, and was referred to as the "Belmont & Fraud" canal. Bering & Brothers, of London, were behind the Cheyenne aggregation, and just at that time they blew up, which made the immediate raising of funds by Gilchrist, Mead & Johnson, an impossible task.

However, after some delay, the south side project was under way with local energy. R. F. Neeley, whose spirit of enterprise was exemplified in that earlier ride to Cheyenne through a storm to sell the P. O. horse people some Mitchell valley hay, was again in the forefront with a contract for, and was rapidly proceeding, with enlarging the Mitchell end of the canal.

Miller & Henry were engineers and Henry Investment Company, contractors. Much rock work had been done in the bad lands and the water had been turned in to test it out. At "No. 6" fill there occurred a disastrous washout in December, 1900, which while discouraging never made the stout hearts stop beating. It really served as a permanent benefit, for thereafter all the fills and high banks were "puddled." I. J. Ross. Stilts & David, and Koenig Brothers, each had contracts widening the rock excavations, while farther along and around "Cedar valley", dirt was being moved by Alva Leonard, A. M. Parmenter, F. E. Randall, John Clure, and others. The settlers were determined to have a ditch.