Page:The Trail Rider (1924).pdf/134



HE plan of patrolling the border against Texas cattle was at once simple and effective. Without any warrant of law for their measures of defense against the contagion of their herds, the Kansas drovers had established certain defined routes by which cattle from the Texas range could be driven to the railroad loading points within the confines of their state. For a hundred miles or more along the northern line of Indian Territory the trail-riders, of whom Texas Hartwell had become one, rode watching for the approach of Texas herds, to turn them aside from the forbidden land.

As Uncle Boley had explained to Hartwell, the ravages of Texas fever on the Kansas range had worked tremendous losses within the past few years. Proposed laws establishing a quarantine line against southern stock were before Congress, and they were passed in time, but not until the Texas drovers had spent every energy to prevent it.

True, the routes fixed by the Kansas cattlemen were through the most arid part of the State, where