They rode on in silence and regained the head of the line. The various wagons made camp at intervals sufficient to permit the _remudas_ of different outfits to be held on good grass at widely separate points to prevent the possibility of their mixing. On this occasion the men rode from one night camp to the next to renew old friendships, fraternizing with the hands who rode for rival brands. Another crew of similar magnitude had assembled at another point in the Strip and during this same hour these men too were mingling from one outfit to the next. Perhaps among the entire three hundred odd gathered at these two points there was not one man who fully realized that this meeting was to be the last of its sort; not one who could even partly vision the circumstances of the next. Never again in history were these men to gather as a whole on the open range. This night was the last. Many would meet in the future; others would never meet again. Some would be neighbors for a lifetime and it was slated that the trails of others should cross in far places. Perhaps it is well that it is not given to man to look far into the future. This last occasion was not marred by any thought that the summons for the next gathering would not go forth for more than a quarter of a century. There were many present who would heed that plea which would one day be issued for all the old-time peelers and bronc fighters of the Cherokee lands to assemble for a final rally. They would not then travel across the open range with chuck wagons and saddle horse. Some would be carried in luxuriously appointed coaches that roared along steel rails; others in glittering vehicles that purred swiftly along fenced and well-kept highways; some would arrive in strange craft that swept across the skies above thriving western cities situated on spots now widely known as ideal cow-camp sites. A few indeed, but very few, would come in buckboards or ride in on horses, their ropes coiled on ancient saddles; and it would be these latter ones who would then appear strange and out of place. But no such glimpse of future actualities troubled the men as they sought friends who worked with other wagons. There was a general disposition to scoff at the notion that there would be no more cows ranged on the Strip. Even if it were opened for entry it would be long before there were sufficient settlers to take up any great percentage of the range. The settlement of any country was a slow and tedious process. In any event there were long years of life in the open--the only sort of existence which they could endure with satisfaction--stretching forth ahead of them; so why concern themselves over vague possibilities of the future? That was the general attitude of them all, excepting old Nate and his contemporaries, men who, like himself, were being ushered out of their domain as they had been ushered in a generation past. Their day was passing and they knew it.