Of all the routes by which cattle reached the northern ranges in the American West of the ninteenth century, the Chisholm Trail was the most used and by far rhe best known. Its name came from the Scot-Indian trader Jesse Chisholm who, in 1865, began hauling trade goods in wagons from his post near the future site of Wichita, Kansas, to Indian camps on the North Carolina River, about 220 miles south. Although it was open for less than two decades,...