The lower cities took their tribute of the northbound cattle for
quite a time. Wichita, Coffeyville, and other towns of lower
Kansas in turn made bids for prominence as cattle marts. Agents
of the Chicago stockyards would come down along the trails into
the Indian Nations to meet the northbound herds and to try to
divert them to this or that market as a shipping-point. The
Kiowas and Comanches, not yet wholly confined to their
reservations, sometimes took tribute, whether in theft or in open
extortion, of the herds laboring upward through the long slow
season. Trail-cutters and herd-combers, licensed or unlicensed
hangers-on to the northbound throngs of cattle, appeared along
the lower trails--with some reason, occasionally; for in a great
northbound herd there might be many cows included under brands
other than those of the road brands registered for the drovers of
that particular herd. Cattle thieving became an industry of
certain value, rivaling in some localities the operations of the
bandits of the placer camps. There was great wealth suddenly to
be seen. The weak and the lawless, as well as the strong and the
unscrupulous, set out to reap after their own fashion where they
had not sown.
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