Chapter 6With the relationship between Winter Bird and Gideon improving, I turned my attention to another matter. The last three issues of the news carried articles about the increasing boldness of the cattle rustlers the Hagstone brothers had warned about. Newspaper stories gave details of Landreth’s numerous fruitless pursuits of the crooks.
The ring of rustlers was taking a toll on the economy of the valley. During my absence in Pine Ridge, almost all of South Dakota west of the Missouri River turned increasingly to ranching. The mantra repeated by every immigrant who flooded the territory claiming that “rain followed the plow” proved false. Soil and weather conditions favored farming east of the Big Muddy but were better suited for range grasses to the west. I’d already begun to accep
