"I was at Buffalo Springs as early as 1878, when I was a boy 14 years old. At that time there were no buildings. There had been some adobes made, either by Bill Hall, of Kansas City, or Dan Taylor of Trinidad, or both, in order to build a house to shelter their winter line-riders, as a line-camp was kept at the Springs every winter. My father was a freighter at Trinidad, where I was raised, and he hauled the lumber down to Buffalo Springs from Trinidad, to cover and floor the house. I made the trip with him. This was in 1878. "The house was never built, as the fall and winter of '78 were so cold and severe that the line-riders burned all the lumber for wood. The nearest timber was on the Currumpaw or Beaver, about eight or ten miles northwest of the Springs, where there are still a few stunted cedars and a growth of cottonwoods. "In 1884 the Capitol Freehold Land & Cattle Syndicate established a ranch at Buffalo Springs. This company is the one that built the capitol at Austin, Texas, for which it was paid in millions of acres of land. This ranch was stocked with cattle. I worked for the man who had the fence contract. We finished the contract in December, 1885. "During that year the owners had put in about 20,000 head of cattle, brought from the south. Better grass could not be found anywhere. A few mustangs and buffaloes were still left in the country, but disappeared from that vicinity in 1887. Stragglers could be found around Company M water as late as 1889. This water was six or eight miles southeast of the present town of Boise City, the county seat of Cimarron county, Oklahoma. "In the fall of 1885 a big prairie fire broke out and swept the country bare from the Beaver south almost to the South Canadian. We fought it with all our strength, but there were not men enough in the country to get it under control. This misfortune was followed by an early and severe winter. The company at Buffalo Springs drifted its herds out to the Canadian and to the south Plains, yet despite every precaution the loss was tremendous. I was told that only 7,000 head of the 20,000 were gathered the following spring. "The company did not jump the game, but went ahead next year. Old man Boise, who was killed by Sneed, was general manager of the company for a good many years, and built up a fine ranch. A man named Campbell was the first manager at Buffalo Springs, followed by an Englishman named Maud. After these came Boise, who took the outfit about 1890. "The timber that is growing at Buffalo Springs was planted by the company, and is not a natural growth. I know of no natural timber south of there until the Canadian is reached, though the company has set out several tracts in timber, and there is now lots of water in wells on their holdings between Buffalo Springs and the Canadian.