me that there would be no trouble about it, as I was in good standing with her papa, but when I told her I was "broke," she merely laughed and said "everybody was broke," and that she would help me, so we married and she is still helping me to this good hour-over a period of fifty-five years. After we were married in the spring of 1865, the Indians killed my father at his home on the Frio, in McMullen County, in August, 1865, so my mother, four sisters and one little brother were left for us to care for. During the reconstruction times we had all kinds of trouble on the border with the Indians, Mexicans, thieves and outlaws, too bad to write about, and would not be believed anyway (ask my friend, Ed English, if it was a Sunday School picnic), so better be it forgotten. By hard work and close economy I had got together fifteen hundred head of good mixed cattle by the spring of 1872, and started up the trail in March for my first trip.

I was herd boss, had a yoke of oxen, mess cart, one negro and eight Mexicans with me on that trip, but of the crowd only myself and the negro, Jack Hopkins, are now living to tell the tale. As a boy I had always wanted a good mount, was ambitious to ride good horses and have the best rifle, and as a married man I was anxious to have $10,000 in money in the clear. When I returned home in the fall I had $15,000 in cash and $10,000 life insurance in favor of my wife and babies, and felt that I was "some" financier, as that was the first real money I had ever had, and it was all our own. I started my herd from the San Miguel in Atascosa county, and as I traveled the well-defined trail, nothing of interest happened until I got to Red River Station on the Red River. There I found the river big swimming, and as another herd was close behind me, I could not turn back, so I asked my men if they would follow the herd across, and they said they would, so I spurred "Old Dun" into the river and swam across with my lead cattle following close behind, and all landed in safety, but I did not want

any more of it, as the river was wide, muddy and swift. I had carried three herds across the Rio Grande before that successfully, but this was the worst ever. We moved along slowly through the territory trying to fatten our stock on the fine range, but we had so many thunderstorms, hard rains and stampedes we did not make much progress. Ask Bob Ragsdale about it. When we got within eighty or one hundred miles of Caldwell, on the Kansas line, we butted into the Osage tribe, who demanded a good beef out of each and every herd passing their camp. About fifty of their ugliest bucks came to my camp where we were making dinner and took time to eat up everything the cook had and then made their wants known, and I said certainly I had one for them and asked the chief spokesman to please pick it out, as I was in a hurry, and at the same time told my men to "hook up" and move out, and they were ready to go. So the chief picked out a high-grade steer, very fat, about a fifteen hundred pounder, and was about to shoot him, when I tried to explain that he was a favorite of mine, but it was no use, as they thought that that would make no difference. I think a dozen of them shot him at once and killed him before I could say "scat." In less than ten minutes they had him skinned, cut up and packed on ponies and were gone to their camp. My friend, Mr. John Redus, with whom I had been traveling and who was camped close by, seeing what they were doing to me, had thrown his herd on the trail and was pushing them along pretty lively, when my men got my herd straightened out on the trail four or five hundred yards behind Redus' herd. By that time the Indians were coming like blackbirds. I think they were one hundred strong, all well mounted and well armed with guns, pistols, bows and arrows. They were exceptionally friendly with me, and uncomfortably sociable, showing a great deal of the bulldog familiarity which I could not enjoy. They did not ask me for anything more, only invited me

to their camp and told me all about their many squaws and babies, but I took their word for that. When they called on my friend, Redus, for a beef they disagreed with him when he offered them a crippled steer, but a good one in fair flesh, so they all bunched up between our herd for a council of war and in a few minutes I saw them load their guns, string their bows and a hundred of them ran full drive into his herd, shooting and yelling the regular war-whoop, scattering his herd of about one thousand good beeves to the winds, killing a hundred or more right there on the prairie in sight. When the smoke and dust cleared away all he had left was his men and horses and about two hundred and fifty head of beeves that ran into my herd, where the Indians did not follow them. Mr. Redus brought suit against the government for the beeves; lost it, and I was a witness for him for some twenty years. We hurried up from there until we got into Kansas and on to Wichita, on the Arkansas River. I think Redus' claim was finally paid, but not in full.

I handled cattle up the trail several years after that and delivered twenty-five hundred head to Messrs. Hackney and Dowling up at Chugwater, above Cheyenne, Wyoming. Always made a little money, but never bossed another herd through from start to finish after 1872. I know the game, and I know if a man made good at it he had two or three months of strenuous life.

The Texas pioneers and old trail drivers are fast passing away and will soon be only a memory, but that memory is dear to my heart, and when they are gone the world will never know another bunch like them, for the milk of human kindness is drying up, and the latchstring is being pulled inside.

TOOK TIME TO VISIT HIS SWEETHEART

By H. C. Williams, San Antonio, Texas

I was born on a stock ranch in Refugio County in 1856, and spent most of my life working with cattle. In those early days people lived on cornbread, beef, milk, butter and coffee, about the only store-bought articles being coffee and sugar, and not much of that. I helped to gather and drive cattle to Rockport for W. S. Hall in 1869, and for several years thereafter. In 1872 I drove a herd to that place for George W. Saunders, who is now the president of our Trail Drivers' Association. George was a good boss and a hard worker. He was also a lover of fine clothes and pretty girls, and one day while we were near William Reeves' ranch, four miles above Refugio, George had us stop the herd and make camp so he could call on his sweetheart, Miss Rachel Reeves. We had plenty of time to reach a good stock pen six miles further on, but he was so anxious to see his girl that he held us there. George later married Miss Reeves, in 1884. I have known Mr. Saunders all of my life and know he will "stand hitched" any place on earth. He never forgets a friend.

I worked stock in all the coast counties and knew all of the old-timers in that region. In 1880 I went to Kansas and drove a drag herd with pack horses from Caldwell County, Texas.

In 1871 I built seven miles of barbed wire fence for W. E. and Tom McCampbell of Rockport, it being the first barbed-wire fence in San Patricio County.

I am now living in Bexar County on a farm and ranch and can ride all day and do any kind of farm or ranch work. My father was a well-known stockman in the early days and was known as "Uncle Boiling" Williams.

REMINISCENCES OF THE TRAIL

By Jasper (Bob) Lauderdale

I was born near Belton, Bell County, Texas, August 17, 1854. My parents moved to Belton in 1849 from Neosho County, Missouri, coming in by ox wagon, then moved to Gonzales, where, after remaining a short time, they returned to Belton and maintained the stage stand

BOB LAUDERDALE

until 1854, when all earthly possessions were wiped out by a flood. My parents both died when I was young, and I was raised by Uncle Alex Hodge until I came to Atascosa County in 1873. During my early boyhood in Bell County I rode the range and helped with herding and branding cattle, enjoying the experiences of the then early conditions existing in Texas, one of which caused so much amusement that I am going to recite it here.

One day a Mr. Isabell came traveling through the country trading eight-day clocks for cattle, giving one clock for four cows and calves, and as no one had a clock, it did not take Isabell long to gather a herd. One of the settlers with whom he traded, took his clock home and, after winding it, set it on the mantle, and when the family gathered round after supper, the clock struck eight. scared the family so that they scattered, thinking it was something supernatural, and it took the old man until nearly midnight to get them together and in the house. I helped Isabell drive his cattle as far as Comanche

It