.

The Cattle Trails.
The customary method of studying history by means of a series of events and dates is not the method which we have chosen to employ in this study of the Old West.

Speaking generally, our minds are unable to assimilate a condensed mass of events and dates; and that is precisely what would be required of us if we should attempt here to follow the ways of conventional history.

Dates are at best no more than milestones on the pathway of time; and in the present instance it is not the milestones but the road itself with which we are concerned.

Where does the road begin?
Why comes it hither?
Whither does it lead?
These are the real questions.
Under all the exuberance of the life of the range there lay a steady business of tremendous size and enormous values.