I remained at home until the spring of 1883, when I went to Hearne, Texas, and struck out with an outfit going to San Angelo, in Tom Green County. We left Hearne about the 10th of May and reached San-Angelo the later part of July.

In 1885 I married the sweetest woman in all the country and to our union were born five boys and three girls, all of whom are living except one. I am living within half a mile of where I was born.

ECHOES OF THE CATTLE TRAIL

By Jerry M. Nance of Kyle, Texas

I left Hays County, Texas, on April 15th, 1877, bound for Cheyenne, Wyoming, with 2,100 cattle, forty head of ponies and two yoke of oxen with the chuck wagon. The country was open, no fences to bother us. We crossed the Colorado about four miles below Austin, and went through Belton. We camped one night near Belton, and while there it came a heavy rain. From here we moved out several miles the next morning to where there was grass, and where we stopped for breakfast. After we had been there about an hour I saw a man ride up and begin looking over the herd. After he had looked through closely he came over to the camp and I asked him if he found any of his cattle in the herd. He said no. I asked him to get

JERRY M. NANCE

down and have breakfast with us, explaining that our breakfast was late on account of leaving Belton so early that morning to get out where there was grazing for the cattle. He said he lived where we had camped the night before, and when we got up the next morning he did not see his small bunch of cattle and thought we had driven them off with our herd. He probably found them when he returned home. We crossed the Brazos above Waco. The river was on a rise and it was so wide that all of the cattle were in the river swimming at the same time, and it looked as if I had no cattle at all, for all we could see was the horns. A boat helped us get the chuck wagon across. One of the boys was taken sick the next day, and went back home. When we reached Fort Worth, then a small village, we bought enough supplies from York & Draper to carry us through to Dodge City, Kansas.

We crossed the Red River at Red River Station, into the Indian Territory. After leaving this point we saw no more white people, except those with herds, until we reached Dodge City. When we reached the Washita River it was up and hard to cross. There I met Joel Collins of Goliad. He had just crossed and had made a raft of three big logs tied together with ropes. I exchanged some of my ropes for his raft and used it in ferrying my stuff across. The next day I put the cattle to swimming the river, which had a very swift current. At first they would not take the water, but I cut off bunches of about seventy-five to a hundred and put them to moving Indian fashion and shoved them right off into the water. Some of them would turn and try to come back, but the swift current had carried them down to where the steep banks on this side kept them from coming out, and they had to go across. I crossed the whole herd in this manner. We had but little trouble in getting the horses across. One of the boys had a mule in the outfit which had a pair of hopples tied around his neck, and in swimming the mule passed near a willow limb that had

been broken off by the cattle, and this limb had caught the hopples on the mule's neck and held him there swimming in the water. I told the man who owned the mule that unless the hopples were cut loose the animal would drown. It was a dangerous undertaking, but he plunged in and cut the hopples, and the mule swam across. From here we made the trip all right until we reached the North Canadian, which was also on a rise and all over the bottom lands. We waited for several days for the flood waters to subside, but all to no use. In the meantime other herds had come in sight and, for fear of bad nights and a mix-up, I decided to make a raft and go across. The cattle were started across and were going fine, when it came up a terrific hailstorm, which interrupted the proceedings. One man was across on the other side of the river, naked, with his horse and saddle and about half of the herd and the balance of us were on this side with the other half of the herd and all the supplies. There was no timber on our side of the river, and when the hail began pelting the boys and myself made a break for the wagon for shelter. We were all naked, and the hail came down so furiously that within a short time it was about two inches deep on the ground. It must have hailed considerably up the river, for the water was so cold we could not get any more of the herd across that day. We were much concerned about getting help to the man across the river. We tried all evening to get one of the boys over, to carry the fellow some clothes and help look after the cattle, but failed in each attempt. We could not see him nor the cattle on account of the heavy timber on the other side, and the whole bottom was covered with water so that it was impossible for him to come near enough to hear us when we called him. The water was so cold that horse nor man could endure it, and in trying to cross over several of them came near drowning and were forced to turn back, so the man on the other side had to stay over there all night alone and naked. I was afraid the Indians

would run the cattle off, but they did not molest them. Next morning everything was lovely and our absent man swam back to us after he had put the cattle in shape. He had a good saddle blanket which he said had kept him comfortable enough during the night. While we were getting the balance of the cattle across one of my Mexican hands suffered three broken ribs and a fractured collar bone by his horse falling with him. Some movers who were waiting for the river to fall, agreed to convey the Mexican to Fort Reno, twenty miles away, for me. At Fort Reno an army surgeon patched him up, and he remained there until the following September, when he came back home.

On the 8th of June, while we were on the Salt Fork, a cold norther blew up, accompanied by rain, and it soon became so cold we had to stop driving about three o'clock in the afternoon and gather wood for the night. We undertook to hold our cattle that night in the open, but it was so cold that we finally drifted them close to the river where there was a little protection, and kept a man on guard to look after them. About daybreak they stampeded, but we soon caught them without loss of a single head. Eight ponies belonging to other herds near us froze to death that night.

We crossed the Arkansas River at Dodge, but stopped there one day only, for supplies. At this place we saw a number of Texas cattlemen who were waiting for their herds.

We crossed the Platte River at Ogallala, Nebraska, and still had a long stretch to cover to reach Cheyenne. Near Julesburg we came to a stone dam across a little creek. There was no sign of a habitation near this dam, and why it was placed there, and who constructed it, was beyond my comprehension.

We reached Cheyenne some time in July, after having been on the trip for about three months. We sold our cattle and ponies and took the railroad for home.

I also drove another herd of two thousand head of cattle from Hays County in 1880 to Dodge City, Kansas. We crossed the Colorado at Webbersville, and after crossing Brushy Creek near Taylor, we struck camp. Just before sundown two men drove up in a wagon, and one of them, who had been drinking, ordered us to move on, saying we could not camp there. I told him he had arrived too late, for we were going to remain right there. He said he would get the sheriff to come and move us, and as he was standing up in the back end of his wagon he fell out when the driver started the team. He turned a complete somersault and fell hard upon the ground. If he had been sober I am sure he would have broken his neck. Picking himself up, he clambered back into his wagon and drove on amid the yells and whoops of my boys. That was the last we saw of him.

After we crossed Gabriel, the other side of Taylor, we turned west and went by Lampasas, and quit the trail on account of water. We passed through Comanche and struck the trail again in Brown County. When we reached Fort Griffin we purchased supplies to last us until we reached Dodge, Kansas. We crossed the Brazos high up where there was not much water in it, and the water it did contain was so salty our cattle would not drink it. At Doan's Store we crossed Red River when it was very low, and I was glad of it. We drove on through the Territory until we reached Dodge. We were bothered some by Indians on this trip.

In 1881 I sold a herd of two thousand head of cattle to be delivered at Ogallala, Nebraska, on the Platte River. I did not go up the trail with this herd that year.

In 1883 I became part owner in a ranch in Jeff Davis County. I shipped my cattle out there and ranched them ten years with the Toyah Land & Cattle Company. In 1885 I drove three thousand steer yearlings out there, which I bought at Columbus, Texas. We went by way of Blanco, Fredericksburg, Mason, San Angelo, up the