The railroads were pushing out into a new and untracked empire.

They carried the market with them.

The market halted, much nearer, though still some hundred of miles to the north of the great herd.

The Long Trail tapped no more at the door of Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, but leaped north again definitely, this time springing across the Red River and up to the railroads, along sharp and well-defined channels deepened in the year of 1866 alone by the hoofs of more than a quarter of a million cattle.
In 1871, only five years later, over six hundred thousand cattle crossed the Red River for the Northern markets.

Abilene, Newton, Wichita, Ellsworth, Great Bend, Dodge, flared out into a swift and sometime evil blossoming.