that I could not keep track of them, but we had a welltrained bunch of men and lost no cattle, but had to work hard and sleep with one eye open.

There was so much rain and the cattle were so restless, we never knew what to expect. Lots of times I never pulled off my boots for three days and nights. After one of these strenuous times, we would lay over some place and rest for a few days. We would have lots of fun trying to prove who was the best rider, but oftentimes the horse would prove that he was on to his job better than any of us.

At Pease River we had a big stampede and would have lost a great many cattle if we had not been near Millet's Ranch. Millet worked only desperadoes on this ranch, but they were all good cattlemen and came nobly to our rescue. We ran across one boy in that crowd fron Caldwell County. He had decided quite a while ago that Caldwell County was getting too warm for him and his cattle rustling and had struck for a cooler climate. It seemed awfully good to us to see anyone from home, even a cattle rustler. He enjoyed our stay very much, as he learned of lots that had happened at home since he left. We rested here a few days and struck out again.

We crossed the Red River at Doan's Store and there we found a large number of Indians camped, but they were peaceable, for they were fast finding out that it didn't pay to molest cattle drivers. M. A. Withers overtook us here and sent Gus Withers on with his herd, which was going to Dodge, while he went ahead to get Mr. Johnson, who had bought these cattle for an English syndicate, to come to Mobeetie to receive our herd. He put Tom Hawker over us and also changed my brother, Cal Polk, to our bunch, which pleased me very much. We had been separated for quite a while and had lots to tell each other.

After leaving Doan's Store we traveled up Bitter

Creek for forty or fifty miles and then turned west to Mobeetie, when we turned our herd over to John Hargroves to hold on the L. X. Ranch until fall, as we could not take them on to Tuscosa until after frost on account of a quarantine they had on at that time.

After Mr. Johnson received our bunch he and M. A. Withers returned to Dodge to receive the herd he had sent there. After reaching Dodge and counting the cattle, Mr. Johnson was struck and killed by lightning while returning to camp. Mr. Withers was knocked from his horse, but wasn't hurt further than receiving a bad fall and shock.

About the first of October, the boss and I had a row and I decided I was ready for the back trail. I took the buckboard for Dodge, which was about 300 miles from Mobeetie. On reaching Dodge, I bought a ticket for San Antonio. On my way home I reviewed my past life as a cowboy from every angle and came to the conclusion that about all I had gained was experience, and I could not turn that into cash, so I decided I had enough of it, and made up my mind to go home, get married and settle down to farming.

PUNCHING CATTLE ON THE TRAIL TO KANSAS

By W. B. Hardeman of Devine, Texas

I was just a farmer boy, started to church at Prairie Lea one Sunday, met Tom Baylor (he having written me a note several days before, asking if I wanted to go up the trail) and the first thing he said was, "Well, are you going?" I said, "Yes," so he said, "Well, you have no time to go to church." So we went back to my house, got dinner and started to the "chuck wagon and remuda," which was camped some six miles ahead. There

I was, with a white shirt, collar and cravat, starting on the trail. You can imagine just how green I was.

We put the herd up below Bryan. We were gone seven months, so I had plenty of time to learn a few things in regard to driving cattle. We were a month putting up the herd. I was always left to hold the cattle, and when we finally drove out of the timber and reached the prairie, the grass was ten inches in height, green as a wheat field and the cattle were poor and hungry, so went to chopping that grass as though they were paid. There was a nice little shade tree right near, so I got off my horse to sit in the shade for a few minutes and watch the cattle. The first thing I knew Tom Baylor was waking me. I thought, "Well, I have gone to sleep on guard. I had just as well put my hand in Colonel Ellison's pocket and take his money." I never got off of my horse any more when on duty, though I have seen the time when I would have given five dollars for one-half hour's sleep. I would even put tobacco in my eyes to keep awake. Our regular work was near eighteen hours a day, and twenty-four if a bad night, then the next day, just as though we had slept all night, and most of us getting only $30.00 per month and grub, bad weather making from twenty-four to forty-eight hours, never thinking of "time and overtime," or calling for shorter hours and more pay.

W. B. HARDEMAN

In Kansas one day for dinner we bought some pies, eggs and milk from a granger. He informed Baylor that a certain section of land that had a furrow plowed around it, did not belong to his neighbor, but was railroad land

and the number was 115. When I came to dinner Baylor told me about the section. He also told me we would not strike any more water that evening. This creek on Section 115 had fine water, and he asked me if I thought best to water there. I said, "Yes," knowing I had to herd that afternoon. Ham Bee protested, and said we should not treat that old man that way, but Ham did not have to hold the herd that evening, so I insisted, and Baylor said, "Get your dinner and fresh horses, I will start to the water." The old man lived in a dug-out on the side of a hill where he could see everything, so when he saw the cattle cross that furrow he came out with a shotgun, rolling up his sleeves, waving his arms and shouting, "Take those cattle off my land or I will have every damn one of you arrested." Baylor, being in the lead, came in contact with him first. He said, "Old man, there must be a mistake; we have some fat cattle and the agent of the railroad (some four miles to the depot) said he had no stock cars and for us to throw the cattle on Section 115." Well, sir, you should have heard that old man curse that (innocent) agent, as well as the country in general, stating he had moved his family out there, the drouth came and it looked like starvation, so he was trying to save that little grass for winter. Baylor compromised by telling him he had a family and knew how it was, and would be willing to water on one-half of the section and would give him a dogie calf that had got into the herd several days before and we did not want it. The old man got in a fine humor, had us to send the wagon by the house to get a barrel of spring water-that was the kind of a neighbor the old man had.

While in the Indian Territory one day at noon, about a dozen head of range cattle got in the herd. We did not discover them until we threw the herd back on the trail, so we had to cut them out and run them back some three miles. Some time during the night they trailed us up and came into the herd, and we did not discover it until we

were out of that range. After we got up into Kansas I saw two men riding around the herd with Baylor and when he left them he came to me and said, "Bud, those men are butchers, and said they would give us $300.00 for those range cattle and do not want a bill of sale." I said, "Tell them the cattle are not ours, so we can't do that; we will turn them over to Colonel Ellison and he can find the owner," and we took them on. We delivered that herd at Ogallala, Nebraska, took another from there to the Bell Fourche in Wyoming—a 60-mile drive without water for the cattle. We were just twelve miles from the buffalo. By the time we branded out the herd we were short of grub, so did not go buffalo hunting, and right there I lost my only chance to kill buffalo. We were five hundred miles from a railroad, but I wish I had gone anyway.

Tom P. Baylor was a son of General John R. Baylor. He died some twenty-one years ago. He was as fine a man as I ever knew. Ham P. Bee is now in San Antonio, express messenger on a railroad.

In 1883 I went on the trail with W. T. Jackman of San Marcos. We started the herd from Colorado County at "Ranches Grande," owned by Stafford Brothers. While in the Indian Territory one evening two Indians ate supper with us. I was holding the herd while first relief was at supper. Dan, a fifteen-year-old boy, was holding the "remuda" (saddle horses). We really had two herds with one wagon, had three thousand cattle, four hundred horses and one hundred saddle horses, fifteen men in all, and only three six-shooters in the outfit. Just as I went to eat my supper and the horse herders were going to relieve Dan, we heard him give a distress yell and shoot several times. Jackman and Lee Wolfington mounted their horses, drew their guns and started in a run for Dan. That was one time I wished for a gun. Twelve men and nothing to defend ourselves with. So you know I was like the little negro, "Not scared, just a