At the time President Harrison ordered the vocation by cattlemen of the Cherokee Strip of the Indian Territory, Aug. 1, 1890, and then extended the time sixty days, the stockmen were literally "wild men of the West." THey predicted ruina nd disaster in the cattle industry of this country. But the order was peremptory, and the government sent soldiers to drive out the cattle. There could be little protest, but the principal difficulty was in finding a place for the stock. For two years the soldiers have been scouring the country, posing one day as defenders of the country, the next occupying the station of full-fledged cowboys. Not until lately has the strip been cleared of cattle. It had been intimated that the government would throw open the strip for settlement next spring, but as yet no negotiations have been entered into with the Cherokees tending toward the release of ownership of the land.

"Two weeks ago the soldiers drove the last batch of cattle off the strip," said Zack Mulhall of Mulhall, I. T., at the Great Northern yesterday. Mr. Mulhall is a cattleman and is connected with the live stock department of the Santa Fe road, so that he sees both sides of the matter. "The Cherokee Strip is now clean of cattle from one end ot the other for the first time since white men visited that country, and it will probably remain so. Boomers have burned all the grass, so there would be no show there for cattle this winter, even should any attempt to return.

"According to what has been said the government wants to throw it open for settlement next spring, but that won't affect cattlemen. They don't want any more Cherokee Strip, especially when there is only about half of it worth anything, and that will be crowded by settlers."