When the Union Pacific Railroad was completed from Omaha, Nebraska, to Ogden, Utah, it passed through a territory about as barren of business as one can imagine. It apparently was a great Sahara, and in fact some of the territory now growing bumper crops of alfalfa, grains and fruits, was set down in school text-books in the 70's as the "Great American Desert."

Its inhabitants were, outside of the stations on the railroad, largely roaming bands of Indians, a few hundred soldiers at military posts, some buffalo and other hunters, trappers, a few freighters, and many outlawed white men.

The railroad had no short line feeders, and there was, in the period of which I write, no need for them sufficient to warrant their construction. There were military posts scattered along the North Platte, and other rivers to the north, and the government had begun, as part of its effort to reconcile the Red Man to the march of civilization started by the Iron Horse, to establish agencies for the distribution of food in payment to the tribes for lands upon which they claimed sovereignty. These oases in the then great desert had to be reached with thousands of tons of flour, bacon, sugar, etc., consequently large private concerns were formed and contracts taken for the hauling by ox-teams of the provisions sent to the soldiers as well as the Indians.

The ox was the most available and suitable power for this traffic for the reason that he required the transportation of no subsistence in the way of food, and was thoroughly acclimated. Usually he was a Texan—a long horn—or a Mexican short horn with short stocky legs, although the Texan was most generally used, and was fleet-footed and built almost on the plan of a shad.

Both breeds were accustomed to no food other than the grasses of the country, upon which they flourished. These included the succulent bunch grass.

Oxen were used in teams of five, six and seven yokes and hauled large canvas-covered wagons built for the purpose in Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana. In the larger transportation outfits each team hauled two wagons, a lead and a trailer, and frequently were loaded with from 6,500 to 8,000 pounds of freight. These teams were driven by men who were as tough and sturdy as the oxen.

Most of the freighting was done in the spring, summer and fall, although several disastrous attempts were made to continue through the midwinter season to relieve food shortages at the army posts.

It may seem strange, but it is nevertheless true, that Indians frequently attacked the very wagon trains that were hauling food to them, in Wyoming and Western Nebraska. Perhaps they were the original anarchists; anyway, they often tried—seldom successfully—to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg, but the course of civilization's stream never was seriously turned, for it flowed rapidly onward, and between 1870 and 1885, the country was quite thoroughly transformed from a wild and uninhabited territory to one of civilization and great commercial productivity.

Cattle ranches with their great herds came first, then sheep, and by degrees the better portions of the lands, where the sweet grasses grew, and even on the almost bare uplands when water was made available by irrigation projects, were tilled. Settlements followed quickly—towns with schools and churches; then branch railroads, the development of the mines of gold, silver, coal, etc., all came in natural order. And finally, at a comparatively recent date, rich fields of oil were discovered and made to yield millions of gallons for the world's market and millions in wealth.

It is difficult to realize that the now great territory was, in the day of men still active, regarded as of little or no value—the home of murderous, wandering tribes of savages in a climate and soil unfitted for agriculture and containing little else of commercial value.

But science and enterprising men and governments have wrought almost a miracle.

Go back with me to the days of the prairie schooner before the Wild West was really discovered, and let me try to entertain you with just a glimpse of things that are in such wonderful contrast to those of today.

The freight trains with ox-team power have vanished, never to return, and with them most of the men who handled them.

The "color" of what follows is real, gathered when the Wild West was wild; and I make no excuse for its lack of what an Enos R. Mills or a Walter Pritchard Eaton would put in it, for they are naturalists while I am merely a survivor of a period in the development and upbuilding of a great section of the golden west.

In relating incidents to develop certain phases of pioneer life real names of persons and localities have not always been used; and in some of the narratives several incidents have been merged.