So what's the deal with the cats?

Wondered that myself for the longest time. I never got it.

Apparently its a piece of old Deadwood lore, or a slightly different rendering of it. In the camp's early days a gentleman whose name escapes me was told by one of Deadwood's working girls that she felt her place would be made a bit more cozt with the addition of a cat. The man expanded the idea to gather whatever cats he could and sell then off to the shopkeepers for rodent control, for as yet Deadwood had none. So the cats were rounded up and brought in (not after the wagon overturned once and they all escaped, and had to be rounded up again)and the genteleman entrepreneur sold all his cats to great profit.

This seems to have been adapted to fit the Charlie Zane character, who was heading for Deadwood, needed to raise money to establish and work a claim, and landed on the idea of the cats. Indeed it must have worked, cause when we meet Charlie he's done dropped five dollars for a few minutes with the lovely Freda.

Absolutely. All down through human histroy cats have been our best allies in vermin control. They've protected our crops and grain stores for millenia and still do. Without them civilization might have been impossible.