The buyer, being a man of means and having many other interests in the district, would certainly hesitate long before he took such a very dangerous risk of discovery.

All that can be said about it is that though I employed detectives for some time to try to get evidence bearing on the subject, no such evidence was ever obtained.

The shortage in the turnover was due simply to the usual miscalculation of the herd; the herd which never before had been counted and could not, under range conditions, be counted.
These were still "trailing" days, which means that steers sold or for sale were driven out of the country, not shipped by rail cars.

One great trail passed right through our ranch (a great nuisance too), and by it herd after herd, each counting, maybe, 2500 cattle, was continually being trailed northwards, some going to Kansas or the Panhandle, most of them going as far north as Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana.

These latter herds would be on the trail continuously for two or three months.