HIGH-HEELED BOOTS AND STRIPED BREECHES By G. O. Burrows of Del Rio, Texas I had my share of the ups and downs-principally downs on the old cattle trail. Some of my experiences were going hungry, getting wet and cold, riding sorebacked horses, going to sleep on herd and losing cattle, getting "cussed" by the boss, scouting for "gray-backs," trying the "sick racket" now and then to get a night's sleep, and other things too numerous to mention in this volume. But all of these were forgotten when we delivered our herd and started back to grand old Texas. Have often stopped a few days in Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, but always had the "big time" when I arrived in good old Santone rigged out with a pair of high-heeled boots and striped breeches, and about $6.30 worth of other clothes. Along about sundown you could find me at Jack Harris' show occupying a front seat and clamoring for the next performance. This "big time" would last but a few days, however, for I would soon be "busted" and would have to borrow money to get out to the ranch, where I would put in the fall and winter telling about the big things I had seen up North. The next spring I would have the same old trip, the same old things would happen in the same old way, and with the same old wind-up. I put in eighteen or twenty years on the trail, and all I had in the final outcome was the high-heeled boots, the striped pants and about $4.80 worth of other clothes, so there you are. G. O. BURROWS SIXTY YEARS IN TEXAS By William J. Bennett of Pearsall, Texas My father moved to Texas in 1848 from Randolph County, Missouri, and settled on the Trinity River about five miles from Fort Worth, which was at that time an Indian Reservation with Lieutenant Worth in command of the post. There was only one store there then. The Indians often came to my father's house and were friendly to the few white settlers there. Game was plentiful, deer, turkey, buffalo and prairie chickens, as well as the fiercer animals. We lived near Fort Worth four or five years, until father sold out to a man named Parker, and we moved above Fort Worth some twenty miles to Newark. After remaining there a few years we then moved down to Frio County in the fall of 1858 and located on the Leona River, where we found a fine country, with wild game and fish galore. We brought with us about four hundred head of cattle, which were allowed to roam at will over the excellent range, there being no fences to keep them confined to the immediate vicinity of our ranch. But they did not get far away from us for some time, or until other ranchers began to locate around us, when the cattle began to mix with other cattle and then began to stray off, some drifting as far as the Rio Grande or the coast. Soon the settlers began to organize cow hunts and work the cattle. I have been on cow hunts when there were as many as one hundred men working together from different counties. Stockmen of today do not know anything about the hard work and the strenuous times we encountered in those days. Sometimes we would be out for weeks at a time, starting every morning at daylight, and probably not getting in before dark, tired and hungry, and having to do without dinner all day. Our fare consisted of cornbread, black coffee and plenty of good beef. We were not bothered by the Indians very much until the Civil War, when the troops were largely withdrawn from the frontier posts, and the country was left unprotected. The Indians came in great numbers then, killing many settlers and driving off a great many of their stock. Also Mexican cattle thieves became troublesome, and stole thousands of cattle off the range, which they would drive across the Rio Grande into Mexico. Many of the ranchmen were compelled to take their families back to the settlements for protection. After the Civil War cattle soon became plentiful on the range, and Sam Allen of Powder Horn soon had a monopoly on the shipping by chartering every boat from there to New Orleans. He sent men out all over the country to buy fat cattle, which made times pretty good for a while, but as no one could ship by water except Allen, the demand was soon filled, and in order to reach the market for their stock the cattlemen began driving their cattle to Kansas. In 1872 I took my first herd, starting from Uvalde and going up that long and lonesome trail to Wichita, Kansas. We had a pretty good time going up, with only a few storms and stampedes, and lost no cattle. We crossed the Red River at Red River Station, then took the old Chisholm Trail and went out of the Indian Territory at Caldwell, KanAfter holding my herd at that point about three months I sold to A. H. Pierce, and came home by way of Kansas City, St. Louis, New Orleans, Galveston, and then to Austin on the new railroad, and from Austin by stage to San Antonio and Uvalde. In 1873 I took another herd of steers up the trail. Had a pretty hard time that trip and lost many head of cattle and about all I received for them. Nearly all of the Texas cattlemen went broke that year, as it was the year of the severe panic, when silver was demonetized. During the years 1874 and 1875 occurred what is still remembered by the old-timers as the "Big Steal." Cattle were driven off and the country was left bare. They drove them off in all directions, some to Kansas, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Then came the sheep men with large flocks, and prosperity again smiled upon us. With the advent of the man with the plow, the sheepman moved further west, and the scream of the panther and the howl of the wolf began to give place to the whistle of the locomotive and the hum of the cotton gin. It would require volumes to record all of the hardships and dangers we went through during the sixty years I have lived in the West, and I merely contribute this brief sketch to add my testimony to that of the other pioneers that helped to blaze the trail through the wilderness. During the Civil War, and for many years after the war, the people of this station hauled their supplies out from San Antonio in ox wagons, and in looking back to those times and comparing them with the present we cannot but discern the great change that has been wrought. Our manner of travel was necessarily slow in those days. Sometimes we were on the trail for four and five months. It usually required three months to take a herd to the Red River. Only a few days ago the papers gave an account of an aviator flying from San Antonio to Oklahoma City, a distance of over six hundred miles, in the short space of three hours! Such a feat was undreamed of in those old days, and if even a prediction of such things happening had been made no one would have believed it would ever come to pass. May we not venture to predict that in another sixty years somebody will have established a trail to Mars or other planets, and our descendants may be signalling the latest market quotations to the cowmen of those parts? THE GOOD OLD COWBOY DAYS By Luther A. Lawhon My fancy drifts as often, through the murky, misty maze Of the past-to other seasons-to the good old cowboy days, When the grass wuz green an' wavin' an' the skies wuz soft and blue, And the men were brave an' loyal, and the women fair an' true! The old-time cowboy-here's to him, from hired hand to boss! His soul wuz free from envy and his heart wuz free from dross, An' deep within his nature, which wuz rugged, high and bold, There ran a vein uv metal, and the metal, men, wuz gold! He'd stand up-drunk or sober-'gin a thousand fer his rights; He'd sometimes close an argument by shootin' out the lights; An' when there was a killin', by the quickest on the draw, He wern't disposed to quibble 'bout the majesty uv law; But a thief-a low-down villain—why, he had no use for him An' wuz mighty apt to leave 'im danglin' from a handy limb. He wuz heeled and allers ready-quick with pistol or with knife, But he never shirked a danger or a duty in his life! An' at a tale uv sorrow or uv innocence beguiled hence He threw his arms around her-in a figurative sense. |