trail, I decided at once that that was the life for me, so I told my father I wanted to go with the herd. He very reluctantly gave his consent, but made me promise that if I was going to be a cowman that I would be "an honest one." He then proceeded to give me a lot of advice, and presented me with a ten-dollar gold piece for use on the trip. My mother sewed that money in the band of my trousers (breeches, we called them in those days) and I carried it to Kansas and back that way, and when I returned home I gave it back to my father.

The next fall and winter I worked for Pinkney Low, gathering cattle on the range to be taken up the trail in the spring. I went on the trail every year thereafter until 1887, when the trail was virtually closed. I went twice as a hand and sixteen times as boss of the herd. I drove over every trail from the Gulf of Mexico to the Dakotas and Montana, but the Chisholm Trail was the one I traveled the most. The men I drove for were E. B. Millett, Alonzo Millett, Hie Millett, Colonel Seth Maberry, W. C. Irvin, Tom and John Dewees and Jim Sherrill. The places I most often delivered cattle to were Baxter Springs, Great Bend, Newton, Abilene, Ellsworth and Dodge City, Kansas, Ogallala and Red Cloud Agency, Nebraska, Fort Fetterman, Wyoming and Dan Holden's ranch in Colorado on Chug River. Some of the most prominent cattlemen I knew in those days were Pressnall and Mitchell, John Blocker, Jim Ellison, D. R. Fant, John Lytle and Dick Head.

My experiences on the trail were many and varied, some perilous and some humorous. I remember one exciting time in particular, when I was taking a herd for Millett & Irvin from the Panhandle ranch to Old Fort Fetterman in the Rocky Mountains. The Sioux Indians made a raid on us, got off with most of our horses and all of our provisions. We had nothing to eat except buffalo and antelope meat until we reached North Platte City, a distance of two hundred miles.

In 1871 I went up the trail with T. B. Miller and Bill Mayes. We crossed at Red River Station and arrived at Newton, Kansas, about the time the railroad reached there. Newton was one of the worst towns I ever saw, every element of meanness on earth seemed to be there. While in that burg I saw several men killed, one of them, I think, was Jim Martin from Helena, Karnes County. One fall after I returned from Wyoming, Millett sent me to the Indian Territory to issue beef to the Indians on a government contract. I was stationed at Anadarko on the Washita River, and issued but once a week at Fort Sill and Cheyenne Agency on the Canadian River. There I saw my first telephone. It was a crude affair, and connected the agent's store and residence, a distance of several hundred yards. The apparatus consisted of one wire run through the walls of the store and house with a tube at each end through which you had to blow to attract attention of the party called, and then you could talk over it as well as any phone of the present time.

I was in Abilene when Wild Bill Hickok had full sway in that town and it was dangerous for a man to walk the streets. I was there when he killed Phil Coe.

Some of the old cowboys who followed the trail from this country were the twin brothers, Cap and Doc Smith, Dud Tom, Joe Ellis, Haynes Morgan, Mit Nickols, John and Fenner Jefferson, Whit Vick, Bill Coorpender, Frank Rhodes, Leroy Sowell, Billie McLean, Billie Thompson, Pat Burns, Tom Terrell, John and Tom Lay and many others.

The journeys up the trail were beset by many dangers and difficulties. Savage Indians often attacked the herd in attempts to cause a stampede. Few outfits were strong enough to repel the Indians by force and were compelled to pay them tribute in the form of beef. To do the work required on those drives took men of strong nerves, iron bodies and alert brains.

The last trip I made was in 1887, when I drove horses.

I bought them from Redman and his partner through Mr. George Saunders. They were a bunch of Spanish mares just from Mexico, and I remember a squabble I had with two other buyers over a big white paint stud that happened to be in the bunch. I got the stud, all right, and made big money on him as well as all of the other horses.

In 1888 I married and settled down on my farm, but never could quite give up the cattle business, and on a small scale have handled some kind of cattle ever since, but the Jersey or any other kind of milch cow has never appealed to me as the Texas longhorn did. After thirty years of settled life the call of the trail is with me still, and there is not a day that I do not long to mount my horse and be out among the cattle.

HIT THE TRAIL IN HIGH PLACES

By Jeff Connolly of Lockhart, Texas

I was born at Prairie Lea in 1863 and moved to Lockhart in 1876. My experience in the good old days gone by was as follows:

Drove on the trail for old Captain King of Nueces County in 1880 with a man by the name of Coleman as boss, and when I got as far as Taylor, King sent me back and I helped another brother of this man Coleman drive another herd of the King cattle to Red River. The only white men with the herd were Coleman and myself, the balance of the bunch being Mexicans. All the old-timers know how King handled the Mexicans-he had them do the work and let the white men do the bossing.

I was on the trail that year about three months and drew a salary of $1.50 per day and board was furnished me.

During the winter of 1881 and spring of 1882 I drove

cattle for George W. Littlefield of Austin, who I am sure all the old-timers remember and regard very highly. I went with A. A. Woodland, who all the old-timers in Lockhart knew very well and who lived here during his latter days. When we got to old Fort Griffin we cut the stock cattle all out, which amounted to about 1,000 cows at that time. Myself and two other men held these at Foil Creek, this side of Fort Griffin, until another herd reached us, which was about thirty days. Then we turned them in with another herd of Littlefield's cattle that was being handled by a man by the name of McCarty, another Irishman who looks about like I do. From there we went on to the Pecos River, where the L F D ranch of Littlefield was established, known to be one of the foremost ranches in that part of the country. We had plenty of good horses on this drive and McCarty and Littlefield bought fifty more when we reached Fort Griffin from a Mexican at that place. These last horses they bought had a colt every once in a while as we were mounting them in the mornings.

This herd of cattle McCarty was looking after was bought from Jim Ellison, a noted cowman in Caldwell County in the seventies, who owned what was then known as the Ellison ranch, where these cattle were delivered to Littlefield.

Last time I was in Austin, about six years ago, I went into the American National Bank with a friend of mine and I asked the teller of the bank where the Major was. He told me he was back in his private office. This friend of mine wanted to know why I was asking about Major Littlefield and asked me if I knew he was a millionaire? I told him that I knew that, but that I used to drive on the old trail for him and was anxious to see him. I went back and told the Major who I was and he treated me as fine as any man was ever treated. If I had been a millionaire myself he could not have treated me any better, and that's what makes us common fellows like him. He

is just as plain as if he didn't have any more than we have. We talked about old times when the other fellows like Bud Wilkerson, Phelps White, Tom White, some of his men, used to work with me for him. He told me these three fellows were still with him on the ranch and making good.

In 1884 I drove a herd of horses from Banquette in Nueces County, for a man by the name of Frank Byler. Right at the edge of Lockhart, where we camped that night, and from where we started to town next morning we were arrested by Sheriff Allie Field for trespassing. We had no money and Frank did not know what in the world to do, and I told him to go to Dr. Blanks of Lockhart, a great friend of the old trailers, and he would loan us the money to pay the fine. We borrowed $50.00 in money and bought $50.00 worth of grub on credit, and when we got to Onion Creek we sold two horses for $100.00 and in a few days sent the money to Lockhart, and from that time on we had plenty of money to do us.

When we got to Hillsboro it was very cold and raining and we broke our wagon down and had to stop. Our horses stampeded all over that country and twenty-seven froze to death that night.

We remained there about four days waiting for it to thaw out, and when it did we sold about forty-five saddle horses to an old cowman of the Red River country. We headed from there to Red River, and when we got there the river was up and we got a little of that stuff that livens up. The herd attempted to stampede, but we held them and put them across all right.

Everything went well until we got to the Washita, where the herd stampeded again and we were two days crossing the river. One night I stayed over there with the Indians. This side of Okmulgee we went out hunting a place to camp one evening and came across a little clump of trees where we saw a man hanging there by the neck with a sign on him, "Death to the one who cuts him