Cuero. We lived there, and my father assisted in laying the town off. In 1869 he moved to San Patricio county, where we were principally reared, and early in my manhood I was honored one term with the office of county sheriff. Messrs. D. C., E. R. and A. P. Rachel were our neighbors, and real cattlemen they were. I worked for them more than a

year.

In the spring of 1872 when I was eighteen years of age, I went with Dillard Fant's cattle to Wichita, Kansas. My boss was Bud Hodges. We branded out near Goliad Goliad and started with about 2,000 steers and reached our destination with about that number, having picked up as many crippled trail cattle as we lost. We experienced no bad luck until we crossed the Red River but when near the

JAMES MARION GARNER

Monument Stones in Indian Territory, in a difficulty one of our crowd shot and killed one man of our outfit.

We killed and ate plenty of buffalo and antelope, mixed with, and fed lots of red men, but had no trouble with them.

The next spring, in 1873, with a letter of recommendation from Bud Hodges I got to be boss of a herd of 2,000 cattle for Mr. John Wade, of Nueces county. Nearly all of my hands appeared to like me, and they reached their journey's end with me and the cattle, and with very small loss of the latter.

I did have a little trouble with the Marlow boys, on Wild Horse Creek, in the Indian Territory. These fellows were a lot of bandits and stampeded our cattle and ran twenty head of them off. We followed them twenty miles and got our cattle back.

Another time, about seven years later, I drove up 440 head of my own horses and mares. Had a fine set of boys and the trip was a good one, there being only two little incidents out of the ordinary. Eight to ten Indians frequently would come up just about time for dinner, and I would always have our cook, a white boy, to prepare lots of food and we would fill the Indians up. Then the Indians would always want to shoot our guns. The cook became angry one day at this habit, and he filled his old Enfield rifle half full of powder and a tight wad. About this time he saw nine Indians riding up. He placed the gun against the wagon and said he would bet one Indian would not eat much dinner that day. The Indians came riding up, dismounted, and proceeded to wait for dinner. One of the number set up a can, took up the overloaded Enfield, squatted down and fired at the can. I think that gun flew about twenty feet in one direction and the Indian an equal distance in the opposite direction. Then there was a profound silence. The Indians got on their ponies and rode off, one behind the other, thinking no doubt, the accident was the work of a ghost.

We did not herd our horses at night. Just scattered them out north of us and let them go, so one morning about daylight we had just saddled our mounts and saw our drove grazing peacefully when all at once we heard

the stampede. We hastily got on our mounts and ran toward them, only to see a large, wild bay horse among them. There was a pair of red blankets tied across his back and hanging nearly to the ground on either side. Stampeded buffalo could not run at all in comparison with our drove of horses. I rode into the moving mass of equines and soon cut out the wild horse and when near the edge of the drove shot and killed him. The animal fell into a creek full of high bullrushes. It then required until 10 o'clock that morning to get our drove of horses together, and when we counted them we found we were two horses short.

It was in 1883 that I dropped $40,000 in the Dimmit County Pasture Company, between Cotulla and the Rio Grande, and after I realized I was broke I came to Texarkana and settled, and have handled stock here on a small scale ever since. For the past ten years I have conducted a wholesale butcher business under the name of the Texarkana Dressed Beef Company. I married Miss Anna Rogers in Corpus Christi. My wife was the daughter of Col. C. M. Rogers, and her stepmother, before marrying Mr. Rogers, was the Widow Rabb, and was one time called the cattle queen of Texas. We have raised five boys and three girls, the latter being married and living in Texarkana. We have one son married and living here, one in Atlanta, Texas; one unmarried, living in New Mexico; and have two younger sons living at home with us.

I must say that the trail drives appear now more like a dream to me than a reality. Every man should possess at least one good quality, so if there is one creditable man who can say he ever heard me swear an oath I will send a check for $50.

There are two more trails that lead to new countries, and I think our parents have blazed out and traveled the straightest trail. I hope we will all travel that trail and meet again to talk about the buffaloes and hostile

Indians with whom we did not come in contact on our

journey.

THRILLING EXPERIENCES

Levi J. Harkey, Sinton, Texas

I was born April 6th, 1860, at Richland Springs, San Saba county, Texas. My parents came from Yell county, Arkansas, (now laugh, you darn fools) in the year of 1853, and first stopped on Wallace Creek, about ten miles southwest of the town of San Saba. In 1856 they moved

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LEVI J. HARKEY

to Richland Springs, fifteen miles west of San Saba and there settled permanently. My parents died in 1866, their deaths being about three weeks apart, leaving thirteen children, eight boys and five girls, the eldest being only eighteen years old, to fight it out with Comanche Indians, and believe me we had a time. I have seen as many as seventy-five Indians in a bunch, and have been chased by them several times, but was too fleet on foot for them. You may talk about the Indian troubles experienced while going up the trail, but it was nothing to compare with the dangers we had to contend with. They came into our immediate section every light moon and on one occasion they came down upon us seventy-five in number, all giving the Comanche yell. Five of us little brats were about two hundred yards from the house fishing. My sister Sarah thought it was cowboys, and she ran up a live oak tree to watch them, while we ran to the house. When I reached the house, the other children were inside and closed the door, and I never got inside

until after the danger was over. My two oldest brothers were in the field plowing at the time and when they came and got the old flintlock rifles the Indians fled. The Indians passed under the tree where my sister was but never discovered her. Another sister, Julia, now Mrs. C. T. Harmon, hid in the cornfield. That Indian raid caused all the people on Richland Creek to fort up near the town of San Saba. The Indians and the United States soldiers stayed around there until the following spring, and left with all the cattle and horses in that section. A short time after the Indians left, the soldiers left, but not until they had destroyed all the log cabins in the neighborhood.

In 1876 I left Richland Springs with C. T. Harmon and wife, and landed at the Rocky Ammons Ranch, on the Atascosa River, eighteen miles west of the old town of Oakville, on October 21st, 1876. Ammons and Bill Harmon were partners in the cattle business at that time.

In 1877 I left the Ammons Ranch with a herd of 2,000 mixed cattle, cows and steers, belonging to C. C. Lewis and Nick Bluntzer, for Dodge City, Arkansas, Bill Harmon as road boss. I returned to the Ammons Ranch the same year and did general ranch work for Mr. Ammons until 1883. From 1883 till 1890 I speculated in Spanish. horses in and out of San Antonio.

Many times have I ridden with our genial president, Geo. W. Saunders, who in those days was a live wire.

In 1891 the horse business took a tumble downward, and I went to Beeville, Texas, and ran a wet goods shop until 1906, when I sold that business, and went into a dry goods business. While retailing wet goods, I accumulated about $100,000.00 worth of property, but while I was in the dry goods business I signed notes at the various banks for a friend who speculated in cattle, and he broke me flatter than a pancake.

In 1911 I sold my business and moved to the Panhandle, to a place called Dickens, Texas. While up there