The smoke of many little homes rose now, scattered over all that tremendous country from the Rockies to the edge of the short grass country, from Texas to the Canadian line.
The cattle were not banished from the range, for each little farmer would probably have a few cows of his own; and in some fashion the great cowmen were managing to get in fee tracts of land sufficient for their purposes.

There were land leases of all sorts which enabled the thrifty Westerner who knew the inside and out of local politics to pick up permanently considerable tracts of land.

Some of these ranches held together as late as 1916; indeed, there are some such oldtime holdings still existent in the West, although far more rare than formerly was the case.
Under all these conditions the price of land went up steadily.

Land was taken eagerly which would have been refused with contempt a decade earlier.

The parings and scraps and crumbs of the Old West now were fought for avidly.
The need of capital became more and more important in many of the great land operations.