to the front and outran them. Just at that moment, though, that I got out of the range of small arms they turned a cannon or two loose on me, and a shell struck a mudhole off to my left and spattered mud and water all over me. Before that my horse and I must have been making at least forty miles an hour, but when that mudhole was torn up by the roots and flung at us and over us we turned on enough power to carry us at the rate of a mile a minute.

"In Middle Tennessee one day, while I and six others were tearing up a railroad, an old citizen rode up and informed us that a fellow would soon come along riding in a buggy with a lady, who, although dressed in citizen's clothes, was really a Yankee soldier. It was hard lines on him to be taken from the company of his handsome companion, and he pleaded hard not to be and when we insisted he got mighty mad about it. Three years later, down in North Carolina, he was one of the Federals who captured me, he himself taking the butcher-knife I carried in my bootleg from me and saying to me, 'One of you rangers took my coat off my back when a lot of you captured me in Middle Tennessee, taking me out of the buggy in which I was riding with a lady, and if I knew you were the man I'd cut your throat with your own knife.' Naturally I did not care to acknowledge just then that I was even with the party that captured him and, as I kept my face turned away from him, he did not recognize me as spokesman of the party.'

"While we were around Rome, Ga., a party of Yankees were out a mile or so from town trying to round up a bunch of cattle. To catch them, Captain Shannon left me and Bill Lynch at one end of a lane while he went around to the other. As the Yankees entered the lane Bill and I charged them, our object being to drive them into Shannon's clutches. But they did not drive. Instead they turned on us and shot Bill Lynch off his horse and left me for a minute or more not only alone

but considerably demoralized. Luckily, though, Shannon heard the firing and came down the lane upon the Yankees. I was mighty glad he came, but while the fight lasted I was in as much danger from his bullets as from those of the enemy, and it was a wonder that I was not killed by one of them. One of the Yankees dismounted to let down the fence on one side of the lane and through the gap his comrades all escaped. As for him, I was at his side before he could remount, and he surrendered. Bill Lynch owed his life to a gun strap that deflected the bullet."

Comrade Burris was telling the old vets that gathered at Confederate headquarters in San Antonio about that pony of his and how intelligent he was. His story started a long conversation about horses, during which Buck Gravis told of two cow ponies he used to ownone a dun, the other a bay.

"Why, gentlemen," he said, "when my crowd in the old days had rounded up a herd of cattle and wanted to cut out our own from the herd all I had to do was to read a list of brands we wanted to that dun pony and, durn me, if he wouldn't go into that herd and cut 'em out without a bit of help. He would drive 'em out of the main herd and that bay pony would take charge of them and hold 'em out."

"Yes," said Comrade Briscoe, "it was really astonishing how sensible and trustworthy some of those oldtime cow ponies were. When I used to live down below Goliad my cattle got in the habit of crossing to the west side of the San Antonio River and mixing with Tom O'Connor's cattle. But I had no trouble in getting them back whenever I wanted to. All I had to do was to lead a little brown, gotch-eared pony that I owned across the stream and, turning him loose, saying 'Seek 'em Gotch, Seek 'em!' and he'd trot away and pick out my cattle by the flesh marks and drive them one by one to the place where I and a lot of lads were waiting to hold them in

the herd. And something more singular than that was that after Gotch had done this about three times my cattle would no sooner catch sight of him trotting around over the prairie and looking like he meant business than, as if by one accord, they would detach themselves from the bunches with which they were grazing and come lowing toward the herding place. As it was only when we turned Gotch loose that they did this, I am satisfied every one of them felt it was no use to try to sneak away from him."

"I never had a cow pony as intelligent as either of those you fellows have told about," said Hart Mussey, "but I did have a smart dog when I was ranching on the Pecos. One morning he went nosing around a steel trap I had set for a wolf and got the end of his tail caught, and what do you reckon he did?"

"Just turned around and bit his tail off," suggested Buck Gravis.

"Just pulled up the stake the trap was tied to and dragged it, trap and all, to the ranch," suggested Briscoe.

"No sir," said Hart, "he didn't do either of those fool things."

"What did he do then?" asked Gravis and Briscoe.

"Why he did what any other sensible dog would have done," said Hart. "He just set up a howl and kept it up until I heard and went out and released the poor brute."

WAS IN CAPTAIN SANSOM'S COMPANY

J. W. Minear, 140 E. Cincinnati Ave., San Antonio

In 1870 I joined Captain John Sansom's company of Rangers, stationed at Camp Verde, Texas, and in the spring of 1871 we went to Fort Griffin on the Clear Fork of the Brazos, where we were told that 400 colored

soldiers had been driven into the fort by Indians only a short time before. After reaching Fort Griffin and resting our horses for a few days we went on a scout for several days, thoroughly combing that region. While in camp on a little creek Frank Kiser was taken ill and Captain Sansom left seven or eight of us to stay with him while the main command continued scouting. They were gone several days and succeeded in killing two Indians. On the lance of one of the fallen braves were six notches, our Tonkaway guides saying that each notch represented a white person that particular Indian had killed. The same dead Indian had a long braid of woman's hair fastened to the top of his head.

The Tonkaway Indians were very superstitious. When Kiser was sick, two of our rangers roped a wolf and brought it into camp. The Indians told Captain Sansom that if we should get into a fight with the Comanches, the men who killed it would be slain in battle. They begged so hard that Captain Sansom prevailed on the men to turn the wolf loose. When the two Indians were killed, the Tonkaways held a council and smoked a pipe, and because the smoke floated in the direction of Fort Griffin they wanted to go home. On the way to the fort we killed some buffalo, I bringing down a bull four or five years old. I killed four others in Kansas.

In 1873 I helped to drive a herd from Bandera to Wichita, Kansas, for Schmidtke & Hay. In the fall of the same year I went with cattle to Creston, Union county, Iowa, and to show how easy it is to drive cattle at times, will state that while camped at Wichita, the boss took several hands to Cow Creek and cut out some cattle to ship, leaving me with 400 head, and saying he would send a man to help me drive them to Sexton's house, twelve miles west of there. I got the herd strung out and by riding up and down the line, got along very well. When I reached a spot where the grass had been burned from the ground they needed no driving. Finally

Henry Fick overtook me and we made it all right. He said the boss got drunk and failed to send me the help promised, so he volunteered to come to my assistance.

While on our way back to Texas, and not far south of Caldwell, Kansas, Frank Jureczki and I, while driving our loose horses, saw two men running a buffalo cow, and I roped her for them. They hauled her home in a wagon, and said they were going to raise buffalo.

AL. N. MCFADDIN

Al. N. McFaddin is the owner of 50,000 acres of land near Victoria, Texas, and is a promoter of agricultural prosperity and developer of

the State's natural resources. Mr. McFaddin is the eldest son of James Alfred and Margaret E. McFaddin, and was born on a ranch near Galveston. He has lived in Refugio and Victoria counties all of his life, and has devoted his attention to cattle raising and agricultural pursuits. He is past-president of the Texas Cattle Raisers' Association, and during his term of office did valiant work in behalf of general betterment of the cattle raisers' interests throughout Texas. He has been associated prominently with the Texas Sanitary Commission, and gave freely of his best thought and effort in the furtherance of their policies. Mr. McFaddin is an able man, whose work is ably accomplished along lines that devolve in betterment of public and private good.

AL. N. MCFADDIN