I ring my Ford car's neck, and go off down the street. I drifted down into San Antonio, Texas, in the winter of 1869. I was about nineteen years old, long lank and lean; my height was full six feet. My weight was about one hundred and forty. I had no business in San Antonio. I just went there. I found board and room with a Mrs. Hall on Alamo Street.

This being the largest town I ever was in, I was somewhat "buffaloed," but Mrs. Hall and her husband were old Texas folks. Mrs. Hall was good to me, tried to advise me, but I knew it all. About all I did during my stay in San Antonio was loaf around such places as the Old Bullhead Saloon that faced south on Main Plaza, piked at monte some, saw big old grizzly gamblers get rich, and poor, in a few hours.

When the spring of 1870 opened up I found work with Myers and Roberts. They had just recently bought out the old NOX Ranch, seventy miles west of San Antonio, on the Frio River, thirty-five miles north of Uvalde. I believe it was about the first of April when Meyers and Roberts sold fifteen hundred head of mixed cattle to Ewing and Ingrams of California. We began to put the cattle up at once. About the middle of May we delivered the fifteen hundred head near San Antonio, five miles west of the Alamo.

Ewing and Ingrams made me an offer to lead the herd up the trail to Kansas. This offer I accepted. We held the cattle up a few days to organize, as the outfit was all new hands-green. Some of them had never seen a horse or a cow, much less ridden one. Will say here, I had never been over the trail as far north as Fort Worth. My duty was to look out for good places to camp, bed grounds and crossing of streams. We made only one drive a day, eight to ten miles. We followed the old cow trail from San Antonio to San Marcos, Austin, Round Rock, Georgetown, Salado, Belton, Cleburne, Fort Worth, Boliver, crossing the Red River near Gainesville, through

Nation to Oil Springs, Fort Arbuckle to Wild Horse and Washita.

Here we met forty Comanche Indians. Every one of the redskins had a parasol. I asked them where they had been. One spoke up, in fairly good English, and said they had been in on the Arkansas River making a treaty with another tribe.

We went through the Osage Nation, striking the line of Kansas at Caldwell Bluff Creek. At Ninnisquaw we turned to the left up the Ninnisquaw to the Sand Hill, crossing the Arkansas River at Rayman, Kansas, to Great Bend. Out ten miles north, on Walnut Creek, we held the cattle up, cut out all the steers to fatten, leaving about eight hundred cows-one, two and three-year-olds. They were taken on to Nebraska and put on a ranch.

Here I left the outfit. Traveled down the Arkansas River about ninety miles to Wichita, Kansas, all alone. Wichita was then about a mile long, one hundred yards wide and an inch thick. Here is where the Long and Shorthorns met and fought it out right. I remained here about ten days, struck an outfit bound for Texas with a bunch of old trail horses and chuck wagon. We traveled slowly back down the trail, easy gait, telling each other our experiences on the trail going up.

My last trail and range work was in 1877, around old Fort Griffin.

I have been a citizen of San Angelo, Texas, for over thirty years. It is not what I might have been, it is what I stand for today. I believe I have made good. I was all wrong at one time in my life. I am all for the right now. My business is dealing in fuel. I have been right here in one place for twenty years, handling coal and wood, and belong to the old M. E. Church South, and I am proud of her record as a church. I am thankful for my own record that I have lived to get right and do something. I know there are hundreds of the early-day trail hitters doing well and living good, clean lives.

It might be that the old trail driver has something buttoned up in his vest that he won't tell. Well, he is not supposed to tell all he knows, but will tell all he can. I was a grown-up man before I ever saw a Sunday School, but I owe much to my mother for the lesson she taught me at her knee. I departed from her advice in early manhood, but I came back. She and my father are buried side by side here in Fairmont Cemetery, in the great Concho Valley, having lived to a good, ripe old age, over eighty years.

The boys that have passed over the Divide, I do not know where they are, but I hope they got right.

ESTABLISHED THE FIRST PACKING PLANT IN TEXAS Sketch of W. S. Hall of Comfort, Texas

Mr. W. S. Hall was born in Athens, Maine, December 17, 1829, and came to Texas by boat in 1858, landing at Indianola. He proceeded by

W. S. HALL

stage to San Antonio to seek his fortune in the cattle business. That same spring he purchased a stock of cattle from Saul Childers and also made a deal for the Hornsby stock, which had branded a thousand calves the year previous, and also secured several smaller herds. Thus he entered the stock business on an extensive scale and became one of the most prominent cattlemen of his time.

At

one time he owned forty thousand cattle, which ranged over a vast scope of country. With characteristic foresight and wonderful business

acumen Mr. Hall saw the opening of a new industry in the South, and accordingly established a packing plant at Rockport, Texas, and for eight years successfully eperated the plant. In those days artificial ice and modern preservatives were unknown, but, with the aid of salt, he prepared his products in such a manner as to preserve and ship to New Orleans and New York and even to European ports. During the time he was engaged in the packing industry he slaughtered more than forty thousand cattle, one year alone slaughtering over eleven thousand head and marketing more than one thousand barrels of meat in New Orleans. The tallow was shipped to various countries, a thousand hogsheads going to New York. The net weight of each of these hogsheads was eleven hundred pounds. The product brought eight and cne-half cents per pound, which netted the packer a good profit. Mr. Hall had no difficulty in securing animals for his packing plant, paying from $7.00 to $12.50 per head for the beeves, $5.00 to $9.00 for cows, and $3.00 to $4.00 for yearlings. Quite a difference in the price of prime stuff is to be seen by comparison with present-day market values.

The only trip Mr. Hall ever made up the trail was in 1872, when he started 4,200 head of cattle from Atascosa County and drove to Wichita, Kansas, where he sold them.

While engaged in the packing business his brother was interested in the industry with him, but the brother died in the early sixties and Mr. Hall conducted the business alone. In 1865 he had seven thousand head of cattle stolen from him by Mexicans, and he followed them into Mexico, where he found some of them, but the cost of bringing the cattle back to Texas was so great he did not bring them. The Mexican government required certain conditions and terms, and it would have cost more than the cattle were worth to get them out of Mexico. The United States government sent the Robb Commission to

adjust claims in 1872 for cattle stolen by Mexicans, and when all differences had been settled between the two countries the indemnity claims were pigeonholed in Washington, D. C., and are probably there yet.

Mr. Hall has two sons engaged in the cattle business, W. S. Hall, Jr., and James Beck Hall.

This venerable character, now in his ninety-first year, is quite feeble, the services of a nurse being constantly required to minister to his infirmities. With his wife he lives at Comfort, Kendall County, Texas, where he is spending his declining years, surrounded by all the comforts that loving hands can bestow.

Thus, in brief, we have the history of one of Texas' most useful citizens. He contributed to the making of the history of the state and, with the names of many others, his achievements will be emblazoned on the scroll of Texas' glory and renown.

TRAIL DRIVING TO KANSAS AND ELSEWHERE

By W. F. Cude of San Antonio, Texas

There has always been history from the beginning of the world. It is the duty of the cattle drivers to do their bit in giving to the people of the great state of Texas some important facts that happened more than two score and ten years ago.

In the year 1861 war broke out between the States and it lasted four years, and during all this time there was no market, so the country was beginning to be overrun with cattle so much that thousands died. Some people went out with a wagon and an ax and killed and skinned them for their hides, which sold for one dollar apiece, though there was not much killing of animals for the hides except where the animal was down on the lift or in a bog hole. This was in 1869 and 1870.