We worked eight months out of the twelve, during which time we gathered many steers, skinned 4,000 dead cattle -1872 being the year of the "die-up"-and branded several thousand calves, among them a big per cent of "dogies," defined by an old Texas cowman to a garrulous and inquisitive lady from up North as "unfortunate calves whose mothers were dead and whose fathers had eloped with other cows." Selah! During the year we had some comic and some tragic experiences. One of the comic episodes, in which I played the "goat," I recall as follows: One Saturday night, when we were camped near Banquette, Miller asked if I would like to go with him to a dance at a home near San Patricio, about twelve miles away. We went, and there I was handed the sourest lemon I had ever tasted. During the evening I approached a young miss of "sweet sixteen," Lizzie Hinnant, whom I had met a few times before, and asked her for a dance. Without even the stereotyped excuse of a previous engagement she answered simply and curtly "No." Feeling somewhat melted I thought I would embarrass her in turn, so I thanked her and told her that since there remained in the sea as good fish as had ever been caught, I'd cast my line in another place. Instead of "wilting," as I thought she would, she came back with this: "Certainly there are, but unfortunately for you they have quit biting at toads." I retired to the "shade of an old apple tree" and butted my head against it in sheer desperation. Since then I have known that the "Yellow Rose of Texas" grows on a thorny bush. After dancing until almost daylight we returned to camp about sun-up Sunday morning. I being somewhat weary, had laid the flattering unction to my soul that Miller certainly would observe that beautiful and blessed spring Sabbath, and he did but in a manner altogether unexpected to me. He awakened the sleeping Aztecs, and after a little coffee, he led us all forth to labor. That day we gathered and branded more than 300 calves. We branded for everybody then exchanging tallies, later with other outfits working in different parts of our extensive range-and when nightfall came again I was completely petered out. I uttered no word of protest, but when, on another similar occasion Jim asked me if I deserved to go dancing, like Poe's immortal Raven, I answered "Nevermore!" Miller was a great fellow in many ways. I once heard his father try to persuade him to forsake cattle work and take up farming. He listened patiently to the old man's arguments and when he had finished his laconic answer was: "Father, I didn't make this world, nor shall I undertake to tear it up.' "He enjoyed riding and dancing better than anyone I ever knew, and over-indulgence in the two exercises caused an abscess to form on his liver which called him hence in 1876. "So struck the eagle, stretched upon the plain, Too oft, alas, the capable die young. In 1873 Mr. Byler sold me 104 head of big steers, not even requiring a note as security, which I threw in a herd driven by J. P. Cox and A. B. (Arch) Lockhart. They allowed me wages and made me no charge against my cattle. Not one of mine was lost on the way, and in September I sold them to J. B. Hunter & Company for $20 per head. They paid me $580 and were to pay $1,500 in a few days. Before the time expired the memorable "Black Friday" fell on Wall Street and Hunter & Company's failure lost me my $1,500. I returned to Texas owing Mr. Byler the original cost of the steers, $1,248. I worked for him and others, paying a little at a time on my debt, until it was finally paid in full. That circumstance gave me a credit that is good to this day, and which I have been careful never again to strain. In 1884 and 1885 I worked with Dave Mangum who drove for Scott & Byler on the profit-sharing plan. I remember that Jack Mangum, Wiley Thorton, Jim Buckley and myself were the only white punchers on one or both these trips, the rest being Mexicans. Nothing out of the ordinary-barring two or three stampedes-occurred on either drive. In 1876 I had full charge of a herd for Mr. R. R. Savage, who still resides at Corpus Christi, and is yet my friend. On that journey we had a big stampede one stormy night near Monument Rocks, in Oklahoma, then Indian Territory, about forty miles north of Red River Station. The next evening we found the lead cattle standing on a bluff and looking south across Red River. When we rounded up and counted we were thirty head short. Leaving all the hands except one old Mexican to hold the herd, I took him, and both of us being unarmed, started out to hunt those thirty steers. We found where they had been penned on Beaver Creek the night before and one of them killed for beef the hide being left on the fence. We followed them across the big herd trail to Mud Creek, where we found them in another pen. I saw that, besides our twenty-nine steers there were twelve other steers in one road brand, and ten cows in another. I first forged a power of attorney to handle the twelve steers, before I asked a woman, who was sweeping a log cabin near by, who claimed the cattle. She said her husband and some other men were gathering stampeded cattle and holding them for the trail men. I told her that I claimed about half there were in the pen, and that I intended to start them towards the trail and would settle with the men if I saw them. She warned me that I would best wait until they returned or there might be trouble. We did not heed her, however, and started driving the bunch towards the trail. Before we had gone half a mile about ten heavily armed men, very tough looking customers, suddenly emerged from the brush and rounded us up. To borrow his favorite salutation from Ex-Senator Bailey when he speaks, I thought "My fellow countrymen' my time had come. But, by being unarmed and looking innocent-while feeling scared-we got them down to a parley. After about thirty minutes of bluff on their part and diplomatic language on mine they decided they would accept the ten cows in payment of their philanthropic (?) labor. They cut the cows from the steers, and pointing towards the trail, said, "Now you git" and we "got." From 10 A.M. until nightfall we drove those steers about thirty miles and landed them safely among their lowing fellows. Without further adventure we reached the head of Thompson's Creek, a tributary of the Medicine River about thirty or forty miles Southeast of Dodge City, Kansas, where we grazed the herd until some time in July, when it was sold at a good profit. We returned to Texas by rail and the Kansas pasture lands have not known me since. I could fill a volume with yarns about the clash of wits between settlers and drovers, but let just one, in which I was compelled to play the part of Ananias, suffice: In 1874 the country north of Great Bend, Kansas, was being settled by farmers from more Eastern States, who when they had secured a land claim, would plow a furrow around it and the Kansas law declared such furrow to be a fence and woe to the drover whose stock dared cross it. Unreasonable damages were invariably claimed and usually collected either by law or reprisals of some kind. Animosity was thus engendered between the herdsmen and husbandmen. Late in October I was hunting a bunch of steers that had escaped my herd, when, late one afternoon I realized that both myself and my horse, being tired and hungry, had to find a refuge or suffer greatly from cold. I discovered a settler's shack in the distance and decided if possible to buy or beg a night's entertainment. So disguising myself and my mount to appear as much as might be like a "hayseed," I approached the place with many misgivings. The proprietors proved to be a young married couple from Southeast Illinois. After some parleying they asked where I came from to Kansas, and on what mission I was bent. I told them that I was from the northwest corner of the same good old commonwealth from which they came; that I also had a claim about thirty miles from them and that I was following some Texas cattle that had run through my corn and destroyed several rows of it. At this (mis) information they bade me welcome and my steed, "Old Bowlegs," and I fared sumptuously that night! Until late bed-time I entertained them as best I could by exchanging my fictitious yarns for their true stories of "our childhoods' happy days down on the farm" in dear old Illinois. Before I left them the next morning repentance came to me like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, and I made known my identity. They admitted that if I had spoken truly the night before I would have been turned away. I invited them to visit my camp and share my frugal fare as long as they could relish it. Under protest from them I threw them $2 and galloped away to find my cattle in a herd a few miles distant. That couple (I hope they ride in their auto now), like many of their kind, were good people at heart, but they and we drovers misunderstood each other badly, each side in selfishness failing to grasp the other's viewpoint. I surely hope the time has mellowed their feelings towards us, and my fellow oldtimers' dispositions towards them, as much as it has my own. In 1877 I drove a herd of heifers from Nueces county to the head of Pecan Bayou in Callahan county for Mr. Byler, where I threw them in with a herd of stock cattle which G. W. Waddell had carried to that locality the year before. Together, Waddell being the boss, we moved the whole lot to Mitchell county and in July established the first ranch there at Pecan Grove on Champliers-now |