Hugh’s breath was almost taken away. Here before him stood the great cattle king, John B. Horton, whose estimated wealth was ten million dollars; and yet a man as free from affectation as a cowboy.
“Give us your hand, young man,” said he. “It is well that we should be acquainted. I have been intending to come in and see you, but am kept so exceedingly busy, looking after my cattle, that I have but little time for social matters. Through the machinations of a band of cattle thieves, during the last year I have lost over a thousand head of beeves that were ready for the market.”
“Why, that is a terrible loss, Mr. Horton,” observed Hugh. “Is it not possible to catch the thieves?”
“Easier said than done, young man,” replied the cattle baron. “I would n’t care much for the thirty or forty thousand dollars’ worth of cattle they have already taken, if I could only break up the gang. However, I do not wish to bore you with a ranchman’s troubles. How do you like our country?”
“Oh, very much,” replied Hugh. “I am well pleased with it so far. It seems to be settled with a thrifty class of farmers, and their crops are certainly looking well.”
John Horton laughed derisively. “Farmers!” he ejaculated. “Why, young man, in five years there will not be a so-called farmer within one hundred miles of where you are now standing. The influx of self-styled settlers and farmers is a spasmodic farce, transitory in the extreme. You doubtless regard Meade as a growing, healthy town; yet, within five years from to-day, I shall pasture my cattle on the grass that will be growing in her streets.”
“You astonish me,” said Hugh. “With such a calamity confronting us there can be left but little hope.”
“I am aware,” said John Horton, “that Captain Osborn has a different belief. My old friend, Major Buell Hampton, also takes occasion to brand me as a ‘cattle baron’ in the columns of his paper. Nevertheless, Mr. Stanton, they are both my friends, and I esteem them both as royal good fellows. I assure you, however, that they are sadly mistaken in regard to this being a farmer’s paradise. Wait until the hot winds come. Now hot winds don’t hurt the buffalo grass a particle, for it is indigenous to this soil and climate; but there’s nothing grown by the farmer that can stand before the hot winds.”
“Major Hampton was telling me the other day,” said Hugh, “that the cattle thieves had just stolen two hundred head of your fattest cattle.”
“Yes, that is the latest outrage; but they have been stealing my cattle for the last year. Before the settlers came here we had no cattle thieves to speak of in this country. Major Hampton is a true Southerner, and is doing nis utmost to run down the thieves. I contend that the thieves are none other than the so-called farmers. The major, however, insists that the gang is made up of lawless cowboys.”