together. One of the worst stampedes I ever witnessed was at Kilgore's ranch near Hondo. Tom Lay was having some fun with a negro boy and the cattle became frightened at the noise the boys made and the stampede that followed cost us several days' hard work and some money to get them together again.

Another bad stampede in which I had to do some tall riding occurred while I was taking a big herd of the Millett beeves to Paul's Valley. When we reached the Devil's Backbone, between Cash Creek and Washita River, we found the country had been burned off except a small scope of ground between the creeks where fire could not get to the grass, and on that ground I camped at the edge of a strip of timber. I think every prairie chicken in that whole country came there to roost. They were there by the thousands. The next morning, when these chickens began to leave the noise they made frightened the cattle and caused them to stampede. The three thousand beeves ran over that rough country in every direction, and they went several miles before we were able to check them. Several were killed and about a hundred got away.

During the eighteen years that I followed the trail life I was never arrested for any infraction of the law, but on two occasions I came very near being arrested; the first time just before we crossed a herd at Red River Station. I had started a herd of the Millett cattle to the Indian Territory to turn them into the cornfields to fatten. Mr. Millett said he thought I could make it for a day or two without inspection papers, saying he would overtake me in a few days and bring the papers with him. I got as far as Red River Station without interference, and while we were stopped there for dinner a cattle inspector rode up and demanded my papers. When I told him Mr. Millett would come with them in a few days he said nothing, but turned and rode away towards the county seat. I knew he was going to get the officers

and arrest me, so we hastily rounded up our cattle and rushed them across the river. Just as I succeeded in getting the last hoof across the inspector came with the officers, but he was too late, for I was out of their reach. Mr. Millett arrived in a few days and everything was all right.

The next encounter I had with an officer of the law was near Fort Worth. My outfit had encamped near a settlement. The boys, in a spirit of fun, caught two or three hogs that were foraging about the camp and the squeals of the swine led the settlers to believe that we were stealing the hogs. Early the next morning just after we had strung the herd out on the trail and the cook was getting the chuck wagon in shape to start, the officer rode up, threw a villainous looking gun down on me and told me I was under arrest, accused of stealing hogs. He said he would have to search the wagon, and I told him to proceed, and gave orders for the cook to unload the chuck wagon. When the officer was satisfied we had no hog in the wagon he told us we were free to continue on our trip. Then I sent him off on a "wild goose chase" by telling him that there was another herd several miles ahead of us, and the cowboys of that outfit were the fellows who had stolen the hogs.

My experience with the Indians were like my other experiences-some laughable and others serious. The friendly Indians would sometimes follow us for days and torment us with their begging. Old Yellow Bear, a chief, came to our camp one day at noon and wanted bread. I told the cook not to give him anything, and this made the old chief so mad he stamped his foot right down in the dough the cook was working up to make bread for our dinner.

The Indians at the Red Cloud agency in Dakota did not bury their dead under the ground, but would erect a scaffold some eight or ten feet high, place the body thereon and cover it with a red blanket, besides placing

a bow and quiver of arrows, with a pot of food on the scaffold for the deceased Indian to use on his journey to the "happy hunting grounds." Every animal the dead Indian owned was brought to the scaffold and killed. I have seen as many as twelve dead horses at one scaffold and several dead dogs.

One of the most perilous things encountered on the trail in those days was the electrical storm. Herds would always drift before a storm and we would have to follow them for miles, while vivid lightning and crashing peals of thunder made our work awesome and dangerous. Only one who has been in a Kansas storm can realize what it means. Sometimes several head of cattle or horses were killed by one stroke of the lightning, and many of the cowboys met their death in the same manner.

MEMORIES OF THE OLD COW TRAIL

By C. H. Rust of San Angelo, Texas

As one of the old cowpunchers that enjoyed the life on the Chisholm cow trail that led from Texas to Kansas between 1867 and 1885, the object, as you will readily see, is to keep alive the memories of those early pioneer days. My own interest in these matters is no more than that of any other old-time cowboy who enjoyed the life of those days, but I would like to see in my own day and time some record left to perpetuate the memories of the life of the old cowboy on the trails and the men that followed them.

What happened on these old trails betweeen 1867 and 1885 is history, but at this present time there is no milepost or stone to mark their location.

I wish to call your attention to the information I can give of those days, the conditions that led up to them, the effect they had on the men who experienced them and on the development of the great Southwest.

In fact, it is not too much to say the reclamation of the Southwest created a class of men that have made and will make a deep and permanent impression on our government. The conditions under which they lived prevented their being bound by conventionalities of an established community. They were creators of a new society. For nearly a hundred years, some in Texas, men have been solving problems that required courage, self-reliance, willingness to assume responsibility and the peculiar quality called long-headedness, which is the ability to foresee the effect of untried experiment. The proof is shown in the influence, out of all proportion to their number, that Texas representatives or delegates exercise in legislative or deliberative bodies outside their own state. The causes that produced this power should be preserved for the study and instruction of those who come after us and who will have to carry on our work. The preservation is surely worth while, and for that reason I am willing to give my own experience, much as I dislike recalling part of it.

I was born in the old red hills of Georgia in 1850. My father and mother emigrated to Texas in 1854. In 1863 my father pushed far out, almost to the danger line, to where the Caddo Peaks and Santa Anna Mountains stand as silent sentinels overlooking the valley of the Colorado River and the great Concho country to the west, far out where countless thousands of buffalo roamed at will, where deer, antelope and wild turkey seemed to have taken possession of the whole country. This wonderful panorama loomed up to me, as a boy, as the idle and happy hunting ground that I had long dreamed of, with the silvery watered streams, like narrow ribbons, winding their way toward the Gulf of Mexico.

I am so tempted that I cannot refrain from quoting from Chapter 1, The Quirt and the Spur, by Edgar Rye, it fits so well in the time and condition: "Far out beyond the confines of civilization; far out where daring men

took possession of the hunting ground of the Indians and killed herds of buffalo to make a small profit in pelts, leaving the carcass to putrefy and the bones to bleach on the prairies. Far out where cattlemen disputed over the possession of mavericks and the branding iron was the only evidence of ownership. Far out where a cool head backed the deadly six-shooter and the man behind the gun, with a steady aim and a quick trigger, won out in the game where life was staked upon the issue. Far out where the distant landscape melted into the blue horizon and a beautiful mirage was painted on the skyline. Far out where the weary, thirsty traveler camped over night near a deep water hole, while nearby in the green valley a herd of wild horses grazed unrestrained by man's authority. Far out where the coyote wolves yelped in unison as they chased a jackrabbit in a circle of death, then fought over his remains in a bloody feast. Far out where the gray lobo wolf and the mountain lion stalked their prey, killed and gorged their fill until the light in the east warned them to seek cover in their mountain lairs. Far out where bands of red warriors raided the lonely ranch house, killing, burning and pillaging, leaving a trail of blood and ashes behind them as a sad warning to the white man to beware of the Indian's revenge. Far out into this wonderful country of great possibilities, where the sun looked down upon a scene of rare beauty."

The sad thought to this writer is the passing out of those scenes so well portrayed in the above by its author; the old free grass, saddle farmer and line rider and range, through mystic regions, it is strange.

I turn my face west. I see the red lines of the setting sun, but I do not hear the echo come back, "Go west, young man, go west." I turn my face east and I hear the dull thud of the commercialized world marching west, with its steam roller procession, to roll over me and flatten me out.