Everywhere was the bustle of a unique commerce, mingled with a colossal joy of life.

The smokes from the dugouts and shacks now began to grow still more numerous in the region round about, but there were not many homes, because there were not many women.

For this reason men always kill each other very much more gladly and regularly than they do in countries where there are many women, it appearing to them, perhaps, that in a womanless country life is not worth the living.

A few "hay ranches," a few fields even of "sod corn," now began to show here and there, index of a time to come, but for the most part this was yet a land of one sex and one occupation.

The cattle trade monopolized the scene.