Our saddle stock, outside of what was stabled and grain-fed,
braved the winter, pawing away the snow and sleet in foraging for
their subsistence. A few weeks of fine balmy weather in January and
February followed the distressing season of wintry storms, the
cattle taking to the short buffalo-grass and rapidly recuperating.
But just when we felt that the worst was over, simultaneously half
a dozen prairie fires broke out in different portions of the
pasture, calling every man to a fight that lasted three days. Our
enemies, not content with havoc wrought by the elements, were again
in the saddle, striking in the dark and escaping before dawn,
inflicting injuries on dumb animals in harassing their owners. That
it was the work of hireling renegades, more likely white than red,
ther
