ILIFF, THE CATTLE KING.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1602, 6 July 1887, Page 3

ILIFF, THE CATTLE KING.

♦- One man of the thousmds who m the gold fever of J859 were with frecz'ed energy crossing these dreary plains, threw aiide shovel, pan, and rocker, and settled down to cultivate a small pa', -h of ground near a .town of Icbs than a hundred shamieß, peopled with the rougheat of the rough ; for m these days the ' hanging trees,' which were afterwards so nseful m raising the tone of frontier communities had not get grown up. Not being 'on the shoot ' himself, our friend loaded a few provisions and his rifle on a pony, and turned his back upon what is now the city of Denver, He reached the northern California (Mormon) emigrant road, and built himself a hut, where he set up as a trader ; his goods being a small cask of whisky, a little tobacco, and a few other necessaries of life, which he laid m giadually. The commodities he bartered with the emigrants, who, poor as himself, passed over the road before hi 3 door, often at the rate of one hundred a day. He took m exohange cattle, which aU westero-bound emigrants had with them as the most valuable stock-in-trade for their new home. Bab ,the Eastern-raised cattle, accustomed to other food, and plen'j of water, succumbed to the hardships of the six months' dreary trip .•' and the trader drove many a sharp bargain — giving a few glasses of whisky, (which to the parched emigrant seemed the very elixir of life) m exohange for a broken down oow, or a pound of tobacco for a toltering steer. A short distance from his shanty he had discovered an oasis m the dn>ert, a track of hay land, through which flowed a creek, and to this place he drove his raw-boned ghosts, where rest and nutritioiiß grass soon fattened them, Twice the adventurer's dwelling was burned over his head by Indians— he barely escaping with life. But cattle had as yet no value m the red mans eyes, And when the furtive ceme bsok to his ruined home, he found his bovine riches quietly utezvg among thd hills a few miles from the road, UQf ampere d with by the Baveges, who, still happy m the possession of vast hunting grounds he'd ' Equaw'a grme ' m utter contempt. The Union Paoific KaMroad made the vagabond trader a rich man. He found a splendid market for his beef m the construction camri while the road wa« building and within a few miles of thin shanty Chejenue, a city of 10,000 Inhabitants, sprang ap ia a night. While numbers of his farmer comrades found graves m the goldfields, and hundreds more returned to the East half-starved desperadoes, and many dlicovered great wealth only to squander It recklessly, the close of his c reer found him with a vast eet .te, measuring one hundred and fifty by one hundred mile, upon which he grazed forty Jhourand head of cattle. Fur the last seven years of his life his Income from cattle alone was one hundred and twenty* five thousand dollars per annum. The chief point of the above sketch of the achievements of Iliff, the cattle king of Colorado, 's that ' luck ' had little to do with his sucoes*. He often had great losses, notably In the severe winter of 1871-2, when his cattle strayed to the value of more than 100. 0C0 dol, putting him to enormous expense to find the lost, many of which were discovered m the agonies of death from starvation.