Between this Government demand and
that of the territorial stock ranges there was occupation for the
men who made the saddle their home.
The Long Trail, which had previously found the black corn lands
of Illinois and Missouri, now crowded to the West, until it had
reached Utah and Nevada, and penetrated every open park and mesa
and valley of Colorado, and found all the high plains of Wyoming.
Cheyenne and Laramie became common words now, and drovers spoke
as wisely of the dangers of the Platte as a year before they had
mentioned those of the Red River or the Arkansas. Nor did the
Trail pause in its irresistible push to the north until it had
found the last of the five great transcontinental lines, far in
the British provinces. Here in spite of a long season of ice and
snow the uttermost edges of the great herd might survive, in a
certain percentage at least, each year in an almost unassisted
struggle for existence, under conditions different enough, it
would seem, from those obtaining at the opposite extreme of the
wild roadway over which they came.
The Long Trail of the cattle-range was done! By magic the cattle
industry had spread over the entire West.
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