They came along
the old Natchez Trace from Nashville to the Mississippi
River--that highway which has so much history of its own. Down
this old winding trail into the greatest valley of all the world,
and beyond that valley out into the Spanish country, moved
steadily the adventurers whose fathers had but recently crossed
the Appalachians. One of the strongest thrusts of the American
civilization thus entered the cattle-range at its lower end,
between the Rio Grande and the Red River.
In all the several activities, mining, freighting, scouting,
soldiering, riding pony express, or even sheer adventuring for
what might come, there was ever a trading back and forth between
home-staying men and adventuring men. Thus there was an
interchange of knowledge and of customs between East and West,
between our old country and our new. There was an interchange,
too, at the south, where our Saxon civilization came in touch
with that of Mexico.
We have now to note some fundamental facts and principles of the
cattle industry which our American cattlemen took over ready-made
from the hands of Mexico.
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