LOUIS SCHORP

up and deliver steers to Mr. Vance, this being my first work along this line. Bladen Mitchell, a pioneer of Bandera County, was engaged by Mr. Vance as trail boss. All of the cattle were received by Mr. Mitchell and driven to Bandera County, to a point about two miles north of the Mormon Camp, where Mr. Mitchell had his herding pens, and what was known as the Mitchell Crossing. This property was purchased during the early eighties by the firm of Schorp & Spettel, but at the present time it is entirely covered by the Medina Lake, a vast body of water impounded by a great concrete dam. After delivering my bunch of steers I went over to Elm Creek, a tributary to the Medina River, where I found a crowd rounding up cattle for Perryman & Lytle, among whom were the Spettel, Habys and Wurzbachs. The following day five men out of this crowd, including myself, were going to Bandera to see the Vance cattle inspected and road branded. As we were getting ready to start the steers became frightened and stampeded. I was the only one horseback, and one of the men yelled to me to "turn the leaders toward the bluff and mill them." I did not understand the meaning of this, for I had never seen a stampede before. I knew how to turn the crank of a coffee-mill, but when it was necessary to "mill" a bunch of outlaw steers I did not know where to look for the crank. I turned the lead cattle from running into camp and crowded them against the bluff, but they did not mill, and when I looked back I saw that most of the cattle had turned behind me. By this time all of the men in camp

were on their horses and it took about an hour to get all of the cattle together again. Every steer had his tongue out, and an ox tongue never looked so cheap to me before or after.

The next day I went with the boys to take the herd out to graze, and when several miles southwest of Bandera one of the men pointed to a large live oak tree and said six men were hung to its branches during the Civil War by Confederate soldiers. The next day the cattle were inspected by a man named Pue. During the inspection a dispute arose about a certain steer belonging to a Frenchman named Cordier at Castroville. I had delivered this steer to Mr. Mitchell, and knew it by the flesh marks, and it was branded R I, but the party calling the brand called it B I. The inspector asked for water with which to dampen the brand and, finding the bucket empty, he took out a bottle of whiskey, wet the brand with the liquor, smoothed the hairs, and the brand showed R I very plainly. Thus twelve dollars were saved for the old Frenchman.

I rounded up steers every spring thereafter and delivered most of them to Lytle & McDaniels of Medina County.

During the year 1874, while riding over the range one day looking after stock, I noticed a cow running about and bellowing and rode over to see what was the matter with her. I found she had a very young calf by her side and three wolves were trying to get the calf. I chased the wolves away and drove the cow toward shelter. The calf had been wounded, and had I not happened along when I did the wolves would have killed it I am sure. I have been on the range more or less since 1870 and this is the only time that I ever saw wolves attack a calf.

During the winter of 1878 and 1879 grass in the Medina Valley was very short and many of the stockmen lost heavily. My father at this time owned about

five hundred cattle, and I remember that I skinned seventy head of father's cattle that winter. In the fall of 1879 I moved the remainder of our cattle to San Miguel, in Frio County, to where the Keystone pasture is now located. In the spring of 1880 I purchased all of the stock belonged to my father. I sold the steers to John Lytle and delivered them to him in the Forks Pasture at the mouth of the Hondo. This was the last bunch of steers I sold and delivered to go up the trail.

In the fall of 1882 the land in this particular part of Frio County where I ranched was purchased by a company from Muscatine, Iowa, known as the Hawkeye Land & Cattle Company. I sold all my land and stock to this company and moved back to Medina County, where I have resided ever since.

In the spring of 1884 I formed a partnership with Ed Kaufman, who now resides in San Antonio, and we drove a herd of horses to Pueblo, Colorado. In the outfit were George Gerdes, now with the Schweers-Kern Commission Company; John Saathoff of Hondo, Eames Saathoff of New Fountain, and a cook whose name I have forgotten.

MET QUANAH PARKER ON THE TRAIL

By John Wells of Bartlett, Texas

I was born in Gordon County, Georgia, July 19, 1859. My father died when I was three years old. I left home in July when only ten years of age, and from that time on earned my way. The family moved to Texas in 1866 and in the winter of 1867 to Bell County. First started on the trail when I was 23 years of age with thirteen men, including boss, cook and horse rustler. Worked for Hudson, Watson & Co. in spring of 1883. Gathered about eight thousand cattle from Lampasas, Burnet, Llano,

Williamson, Gillespie and San Saba Counties. The company sold three thousand cattle to Bob Johns and two thousand cattle to Bill Shadley, also eighty-five horses, chuck wagon and trail outfit, drove them to Taylor and shipped to Wichita Falls. Alex Webb and I were sent to San Antonio to receive and bring two thousand cattle and twenty-four horses to Wichita Falls. This bunch was then unloaded and thrown with the Burnet County herd, making a total of about four thousand cattle and one hundred and fifteen horses. The cattle ranged from oneyear-olds to seven. We held them fifteen miles from the town between Wichita and Red River for a rest period of ten days to fit them for the trail. While crossing at the mouth of Pease River we had ten steers to bog in the quicksand, and after digging them out we threw the herd on the prairie and camped for the night. The boys were all thirsty, having nothing to drink but gyp and alkali water. I saw a settlement down the draw, a mile away, and went down and asked the people for a drink of water. They told me to ride to the spring, where I would find a cup and help myself. I went and found a bubbling spring as clear as crystal, which on tasting was gyp water too. So I went to the house and asked if they had some buttermilk they would sell. They sold me about two gallons for fifty cents. I took it back to the herd and I and four other boys drank it. We were very glad to get our thirst quenched. The next evening we camped near Doan's Store and there we saw our first Comanche braves. The next day the range men cut the herd. We crossed the South Fork of Red River that evening where thirteen steers bogged and had to be dug out. One steer was bogged and I and Henry Miller, the boss,. went to dig him out. The boss hobbled his horse. I told him he had better hitch to the horn of my saddle, as the steer might catch him before he could unhobble his horse. I hitched my horse to his saddle, but, being boss, I guess he thought he needed no advice. He had the spade in