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called Barrel Springs on account of many barrels having been placed in the ground and served as water springs. Here we cut out five hundred of the cattle because they were not able to keep up. Five of us were left to bring them on, and we traveled down the creek for a distance of about twenty miles. One day at noon we camped and some of the cattle drank water in the creek, and within twenty minutes they died. I drank from a spring on the side of the mountain, thinking the water was good, and in a short while I thought I was going to die too. An Irishman came along and I told him I was sick from drinking the water, and he informed me that it was very poisonous. He carried me to a store and bought me some whiskey and pretty soon I was able to travel. We went up Green River and crossed it at the mouth of Hamsford, and then crossed the divide between Wyoming and Utah. The temperature was down to zero, and when we reached the little town of Clarksville, Utah, we remained there two weeks. Mr. Evans sent the cattle up into the mountains, and we took stage for Corrine, just north of Salt Lake City, where we boarded the train for home.

(EDITOR'S NOTE.-Mr. Mohle, the writer of the above sketch, died at his home in Lockhart, Texas, October 11, 1918, aged 71 years.)

MISTAKEN FOR COLE YOUNGER AND ARRESTED

By S. A. Hickok, Karnes City, Texas

I was born at Columbus, Ohio, December 8th, 1842, and moved to Mattoon, Illinois, when I was about twentyfour years old and engaged in buying chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese and shipping them by carload to New Orleans, Louisiana.

When I would go to New Orleans with my shipment

of poultry I heard a great deal about Texas, and the money that was to be made in sending cattle up the trail, so I decided to move to Texas. I met a man by the name of Couch who was making up a party to go on an excursion train to Dallas, Texas, and made arrangements to meet him in Saint Louis and join the excursion party there. My brother accompanied me to Saint Louis, and a short while after our arrival we passed a man on the street and he said, "Hello, Younger." I told him he was mistaken, that my name was not Younger. He asked me if I was not from Marshall, Missouri, and I told him that I was not. We went to a cheap boarding house and made arrangements to stay all night. We went to the Southern Hotel that night to see if Couch had arrived. While we were there a man came in and asked me if I was from Marshall County, and I replied, "No; I have been asked that question twice today." He then called me aside and asked me several questions, and just then motioned a policeman to come near. They asked me if I was armed and I told them that it was none of their business, but as they insisted on searching me I told them to proceed, but be sure they had the proper authority for their action. They found a small six-shooter, a draft for $1,000, and about $100 in cash on me, and the policeman said he would have to take me down to the police station. When we arrived there I learned that they thought that they had Cole Younger, one of the Jesse James desperadoes. I told them to telegraph the First National Bank of Mattoon, Illinois, and they could get all the information they needed to establish my identity. But they locked me up in a cell and kept me there over night. Next day they released me, and returned my pistol and money to

me.

I reached Dallas in the Spring of 1875, and went to Fort Worth, which was then a small place. My brother and I purchased a pair of Mexican ponies, a new wagon and camping outfit and started for San Antonio. Near

Burnett we met a man who had a ranch and some sheep in Bandera County, and we went with him and bought six hundred head of sheep, thus embarking in the sheep business, doing our own herding, shearing, cooking and washing. We had hard sledding for a long time, but finally achieved success. We moved our herd from Bandera County to the southeast corner of Atascosa County, near the line of Live Oak and Karnes Counties, where I located a ranch of 15,000 acres in 1877 or 1878. There I engaged in sheep raising for several years, finally selling out and buying horses and cattle. I went to the border on the Rio Grande, and bought many horses and mares and drove them to Kansas. The next year I went over into Mexico and bought several hundred horses, which I kept on the ranch for about a year and then shipped them and many more which I had bought at different times to Ohio, New York, Nebraska, Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.

A THORNY EXPERIENCE

By S. B. Brite of Pleasanton, Texas

Like most of the boys of the early days, I had to sow my wild oats, and I regret to say that I also sowed all of the money I made right along with the oats. I went up the trail in 1882 with a herd belonging to Jim Ellison of Caldwell County, delivering the cattle at Caldwell, Kansas. I went again in 1884 with Mark Withers, starting from the Tigre ranch in LaSalle County, where Mr. J. M. Dobie now lives. When we reached the Canadian River it was on a rise, and we drowned a horse which was hitched to the chuck wagon. While making this crossing a negro's horse sank in the middle of the river and left the rider standing on a sandbar. After we crossed the cattle over I swam my horse out and allowed the negro

to swing to his tail, and thus ferried him across. The

negro thanked me and said that horse's tail was just like the "hand of Providence." We delivered the cattle on the Platte River and I returned to the Tigre ranch, where I worked for seven years. While on this ranch one day Gus Withers, the boss, picked out a fine bay horse and told me that if I could ride him I could use him for a saddle horse. I managed to mount him, but after I got up there I had to "choke the horn and claw leather," but to no avail, for he dumped me off in the middle of a big prickly pear bush. When the boys pulled me out of that bush they found that my jacket was nailed to my back as securely as if the job had been done with six-penny nails.

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S. B. BRITE

I went up the trail twice, and drove the drag both times, did all the hard work, got all the "cussin'," but had the good luck never to get "fired."

A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA

By Jeff M. White of Pleasanton, Texas

I was born in Palmyra, Marion County, Missouri, October 20th, 1831. In the spring of 1852 a bunch of us were stricken with the gold fever. We rigged up three ox wagons, five yoke to a wagon, and started on the 13th day of April, 1852, for the California gold mines. We

crossed the Mississippi River at Savannah, Holt County, Missouri, on the 3rd day of May. At this time this country belonged to the Sioux Indians, being their hunting grounds. However, we had no trouble with them. The first white people we saw after leaving the Missouri River were a few soldiers at Fort Karney on the Platte River. Regarding these soldiers will say they were in no condition to protect anyone, as it looked as though they had not washed their faces in months. However, they were good card players. We forded the South Platte and went across to the North Platte and proceeded up that stream to Fort Laramie. We also found a few soldiers here in about the same condition as the others, and we did not look to them for any protection. We crossed the middle fork of the Platte above Fort Laramie on a bridge and from there we went north to the North Platte. We traveled up this stream to the Mormon Ferry. Before reaching this Mormon Ferry we passed some two or three times a big black Dutchman rolling a wheelbarrow. The Mormons put him across ahead of us, giving him a bottle of whiskey and some buffalo meat, and this is the last we ever saw of him.

The next water we found was the Sweetwater River, but will say the water was not sweet, but as fine as I ever drank. The first curiosity we found was the Chimney Rock. This was on the south side of the North Platte. The base of this rock covered some five or six acres of the ground and extended in the air to a height of approximately four hundred feet, and from this there extended a smaller stem some ten or twelve feet in diameter and must have been eighty or more feet high and was soft sand rock.

After crossing the Sweetwater River we found another curiosity called the Independence Rock. This rock is on the Old Fremont Trail and this is where Fremont ate his Fourth of July dinner on July 4th, 1847, hence the name Independence Rock. Where the Sweetwater

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