"Messrs. Ward & Bullock, at Fort Laramie, have 200 head of American cattle.
"Adolph Cluny, so long a resident on the North Platte, has a herd of 1,000 stock cattle between Forts Laramie and Fetterman.
"Between Cheyenne and Sidney, on the line of the railroad, there are several small herds. At Sidney are the Moore Brothers, who have 12,000 sheep and lambs, and 1,400 cattle; 400 of the latter are American and very fine. The sheep sheared an average of five pounds of wool per head last spring. They are graded Merinos, and are in fine condition. There is no disease among them. The Moore Brothers were ranchmen on the South Platte, prior to the day of railroads, and are about returning to that stream for grazing. Their place is the Valley Station of olden fame on the stage road. Above them, on the Platte, at the old 'Junction,' Mr. Mark Boughton has 2,500 stock cattle. He has as fine a cattle range as there is in the world, not excluding the Pampas of South America nor table-lands of Australia.
"Farther down the Platte, at O'Fallon's Bluffs, on the north side of the South Platte, Creighton & Parks have 3,500 stock cattle, 400 of which are Durhams. They range twenty miles up and down the Platte. Near them, below, is the herd of Mr. Keith, of North Platte Station, who has about 1,000 head.
"Mr. M. H. Brown has 500 head of stock cattle and beeves near the same place.
"Across the Platte, in the neighborhood of Fort McPherson, the Bent Brothers have 1,000 head of stock cattle, and will add another 1,000 the present season.
"Messrs. Carter & Coe have a large herd near there, which numbers near a thousand.
"Mr. Benjamin Gallagher has 1,200 head at the old Gilman ranch, twelve miles from McPherson.
"Progress this Season.—More real progress has been made in stock matters west of the Missouri this season than in all time before. We have not only added to the numbers of our herds and flocks, but we have given confidence to all our stock-growers and to Eastern people in the permanency and profit of grazing in the Trans-Missouri country.
"We are now in easy reach of Eastern markets. The railways are landing the heaviest cattle in Chicago from the Rocky Mountains at $9 and $10 per head; we can sell thousands and tens of thousands annually to the Pacific slope, and there is still an all-absorbing home demand to stock our thousands of valleys.