twenty-five feet wide, with a deep hole of water on one side and a very high bluff on the other. This was the watering place for the cattle of that particular range. We built a pen and fenced in one end of this natural chute, leaving the other end open so that when a bunch of cattle came down for water we crowded in on them and ran them into our pen through the trap. We often started after them out on the range, and in order to get away from us, they would make for the water hole, and right into our trap they would go. We usually kept them in this pen without water or grass until they became tame enough to drive to our other pens some distance away, when, of course, they were then driven regularly for water and grazing. We kept this up until we had about a thousand head of maverick yearlings.

Harve Putman and my brother, Charlie, decided to sell their undivided interest in these yearlings, and John Putnam and myself bought them for $2.50 per head, on credit, to be paid for on our return from the Kansas market. We drove the herd by way of Fort Worth and crossed the Texas line at Red River Station. We put a bell on an old cow for a leader, and when a yearling got lost from the herd, and came within hearing of that bell it generally came back to the herd. We reached Abilene, Kansas, with our yearlings in good shape, and we sold them for eight dollars per head. We found ourselves in possession of $8,000, and had started out without a dollar. But any old trail driver who found himself rich in Abilene, Kansas, in 1871, knows the rest.

In 1872 my brother, Charlie, and I took a mixed herd of about a thousand head up the trail. This time we made a general round-up. It was the custom in those days for the party or parties getting up a round-up to take along cattle belonging to people they knew. Owners were glad to have them driven to market and sold. The distance between ranches was so great that a consultation was not possible every time, and it was usually left

to the driver's own judgment. Be it said to the credit of those early cowmen, every one was honest with his neighbor and trusted each other absolutely. The only requirement of the law was that the cattle be inspected by the county inspector, the marks and brands being recorded, and it was agreed among the stockmen that certain value be placed on certain grades, ages, etc., as assessed by the assessor. After driving the cattle up the trail to market, we then, on our return home, paid for cattle as the claimants appeared, according to the assessment, our profit being the selling price, together with those not claimed or unknown.

Our second trip was somewhat different from the first one on account of having so many mixed cattle in the herd. They were easily stampeded by the smell of buffalo, and other things encountered on the trail. We had several storms on this trip. The lightning during these storms seemed to be playing all over the heads and horns of the cattle, and the loud claps of thunder greatly disturbed them, and often caused a stampede. When cattle stampede they all move in one direction, with the exactness and swiftness of one body. During a storm we would ride among them, doing our best to get them settled, but in the darkness of the night, the blinding rain, loud peals of thunder, with vivid flashes of lightning to keep them excited, our efforts were often of no avail. When we saw that they were going, in spite of all we could do, we left two of our Mexican cow hands to "tough it out" with them. No matter how many miles away we found the herd the next day, the faithful Mexicans were still with it.

In a mixed herd many calves were born on the trip, and it was the custom to kill them before starting the herd each morning. Some outfits tried taking along a wagon for the purpose of saving the calves, but it did not pay.

We drove this second herd to Council Grove, Kansas,

on the Indian reservation, and as we did not find ready sale, the business men of that place secured permission for us to hold them there until the market opened. While we were in camp here an incident occurred that was a bit interesting to us. We had two Indian blankets which my brother had captured during a fight with Indians in Blanco County, Texas, some years before. In this fight the chief of the tribe had been killed. We used the blankets for saddle blankets, and one day we hung them out to dry, when an Indian on the reservation came along and saw them. He called others, and they had a general pow-wow over them, and the result was that they exchanged us two new government blankets for the Indian blankets. That night the Indians all got together and had a big war dance around those blankets. We found out later that the two blankets in question had belonged to their chief. Although we anticipated trouble with the redskins on this account, we were not molested, and we remained here for some time. As the market was crowded, we had to take our time and sell as the demand came for our cattle. In one deal we got a new wagon and a span of good mules. These mules were afterwards stolen by Indians from my brother's home in Blanco County, during a raid when the Indians killed a man named Hadden.

I was still in the cattle business in Edwards and Uvalde Counties as late as 1893. My brand was JOHN (connected), my first name, easily remembered by all who saw one of my cattle in these or adjoining counties. My daughters, Violet and Susie, had their own brands, JOHN (connected) and SUE, respectively.

Long live the Old Trail Drivers and their descendants.

THREE TIMES UP THE TRAIL

By W. E. Laughlin of Bartlett, Texas

I made my first drive in 1877 with John Ellis from Live Oak County to Fort Worth.

W. E. LAUGHLIN

In 1870 I made a drive with the Durant cattle from Williamson County to Taylor County.

I made my third drive in 1880 with Soules and Armstrong from Williamson County to Ogallala, Nebraska. We began making up this herd in February, started the drive in April, and reached our destination the following July. The drive was made from Williamson County to Callahan; there the International Trail was taken

up and we went by way of Fort Griffin, thence west of Fort Sill, across the Indian Territory, going into Kansas just east of Fort Elliot, and across the state by way of Fort Dodge, and on to Ogallala.

WILL BUILD A TEN-STORY MARBLE HOTEL IN
SAN ANTONIO

Sketch of John Young of Alpine, Texas

John Young was born at Lockhart, Texas, February 12, 1856, in a log cabin. He was raised in Bee and Refugio Counties, and went up the trail five times, with Simpson, Jim Reed, Jim Hall, Goodnight and Claire. He

was married to Miss Lizzie Drake at Tilden, Texas, November 28th, 1883, and has seven children living. Mr. Young has had many thrilling experiences on the range and on the trail, about the most exciting of which occurred on the Colorado River. He says:

"I have swam every river from the Rio Grande to the Platte, and came near losing my life while crossing a herd on the Colorado in 1880. The river was on a rampage and about four hundred yards wide. When in midstream a drifting treetop brushed me off my horse and sent me to the bottom. When I came to the surface my horse had gotten away and there was nothing for me to do but rely on myself, and although I was badly hurt from the contact with the limbs of the tree, I struck out for the shore. My old friend, Gus Claire of Beeville, had witnessed the accident and started to me on his horse, but I had drifted several hundred yards down stream before he reached me. As he passed by I caught the horse by the tail, when suddenly we got into a swift eddy, which carried us under a bluff, where we could not land, and so we had to drift down stream until the eddy changed, and then swim back to the opposite side of the river."

Mr. Young has occupied a prominent place in cattle affairs in West Texas for many years. He is still the same old John Young the boys of the trail knew in those bygone days. It is his ambition and lifelong dream to at no distant day erect a cattlemen's hotel in San Antonio, on the site of the old Southern Hotel, which for many years was the headquarters for all visiting cowmen. With D. J. Woodward and T. A. Coleman, he owns a mountain of the finest marble in the world near Alpine, and these three gentlemen are endeavoring to secure title to the entire Southern Hotel block, where they propose to build a ten-story marble hotel to be used exclusively by cowmen, and where the Old Trail Drivers' reunions