Solitude on the Open Range

Line camps on the open range were lonely places in the early eighties, for there were no nesters and very few towns in the panhandle region of Texas. Supplies for the ranches were freighted in by ox-team from such distant places as Colorado City, Texas, or Dodge City, Kansas. Men in the line camps often went for weeks or months without seeing any one, except for a rare visit from a drifting puncher who stopped by for a meal or a visit or an accidental meeting with another rider working out from his line camp. In the old days news was often months old before it reached the line camp.

From The Camp Life of a Cowpuncher by Carroll Doshier as told by Jim Christian