character that the outside world knows nothing of. They were to a man defenders of women and children. Drop a woman down in an isolated cow camp and she was a queen and her will and wishes are absolute. They are to a man Chesterfields in the rough, and in my fifty years of life on the cow range I have never known a cowboy to insult nor heard of one attempting the unpardonable crime against the sex.

From the Rio Grande, which is the border between Texas and Mexico, to Red River, which is the north line of Texas, going over the cattle trail, is a distance of about 600 miles, so it took cattle leaving the southern part of the state from six weeks to two months to cross the northern border of Texas. Some of these herds were headed for Montana and often snow would be flying by the time they reached their destination.

All of the old trail drivers will remember Fort Griffin in Shackelford county, which was the last organized county on the trail, and all herds had to be inspected at the crossing of the Clear Fork of the Brazos, near the mouth of Tecumpsee. The writer at one time had the honor of being inspector there, and the memory of many pleasant events come back over the fleeting years as I sit here and write.

It seems now as though it was all in some other world and under fairer skies. The cowboy as he was then is gone from the earth. The railroads and wire fences have got his job. His old sore-backed cow pony is aged and wobbly. The automobile has got his job and his old three-quarter rigged saddle, with its busted raw-hide cover, hangs out in the old rickety shed-a relic of former days and soon the last of his tribe will sack his saddle, roll and light his last shuck as he bares his breast to the winding trail out over the Great Divide, where, we trust, vast herds of long-horned cattle roam over fertile plains and slake their thirst from crystal streams.

"CHAWED” THE EARMARKS

J. C. Thompson, Devine, Texas

On the first day of March, 1878, I left my humble home on the Chicon Creek in Medina county, Texas, in company with Reas and Boon Moore, for the Leas Harris ranch on the La Gonias in Atascosa county. Lewis & Bluntzer had leased the ranch for the preceding year, and were then rounding up stock cattle to be driven to Kansas. Before leaving with the herd I witnessed a deal between Lewis & Bluntzer and Billie Childers, a sonin-law of Harris' for the ranch, receiving five hundred cows and calves for the ranch. We turned the herd out of the pasture on the 16th day of March and the drive for Kansas began. I was seventeen years old but was not a novice in the business by any means as I had been gathering, roping and branding mavericks all of my life. I remember on one occasion W. F. Thompson, my brother, and I caught a fine maverick one day and we had no knife to mark him with. Our mark was crop off one ear and underbit the other. Brother said if I would bite out the underbit he would bite off the crop. It took some "chewing" but we did a fairly good job of it.

But back to the trail: Mr. Bluntzer was along in person. He was a fat, jolly good fellow and we all loved him. We told him that he had the advantage of us when it rained, as he could lay on his back and spread a blanket on his belly and have a good roof over him. If you have never driven a herd consisting of two thousand cows in the spring you just can't imagine the time we had. We would leave from five to ten calves on the bedground every morning, and the cows would have to be roped and hobbled to keep them from going back the next night to their calves, and this thing lasted until we reached the Indian Territory.

I shall never forget that it was on this trip that I saw

a railroad train in motion. We were approaching Dodge City when I looked across Arkansas River and saw a real locomotive pulling a train of cars. I can shut my eyes now and see that picture far across the plains. There might have been railroads somewhere in Texas at that time but they had not rambled around my way.

I can remember some of the cowboys on that trip but some have faded away from my memory. One of the jolly good ones, the wit of the gang, was Clinch Bright. I thought more of him than I did of anyone in the bunch and he was the only one I had a fight with, but we were both to blame, made it up in a few days,and were better friends than ever. Others were Arch, Larimore, Rufe and Frank James of Fort Worth, and old Lem Pegrum, who never spent a cent from the time he would leave here until he reached Fort Dodge, and then spent every dollar he had the first night.

I was contented to work on the ranch until 1883 when I went to Old Mexico after a herd of cattle for Lot Johnson. The boys composing this outfit were J. A. Kercheville, Everett Johnson, Ben Ridgus, Lem Kercheville, Wiley Mangrum, Bill Walker and Charlie Mulligan. We left the Salado River in Old Mexico with these cattle and made a sixty-mile drive to the Rio Grande, crossing just above Laredo without a drop of water. About forty miles north of Laredo about 12 o'clock in the night a regular blizzard swept down upon us which had just been preceded by a very hard, drenching rain. That cold wind whistled all night and the next day but calmed down about 6 o'clock the next evening, and the next morning we counted 180 head of cattle dead on the bedground. At this stage of the game I left this outfit and came back to the settlement, but on or about the first day of April of the same year, 1883, I went up the trail with a herd of cattle for Lytle & McDaniel, with Walter Trimble as foreman. When this herd was delivered at Fort Dodge, Kansas, I got in with another herd for Lytle with Gus

Black as foreman. This herd of steers was delivered by Gus Black to Conners & Weir in South Dakota. B. L. Crouch delivered a herd brought by Dick Head to the same parties at the same time. I got a job with Conners & Weir and took these cattle on the Montana, put their ranch brand on them and turned them loose on Powder River, Montana.

I intended to stay in Montana that winter but after finding out you could not get outside the house for seven months without snowshoes ten feet long, it was TEXAS for me.

JAMES MADISON CHITTIM

James Madison Chittim was born on a farm in Gentry county, Missouri, May 1, 1858, and died in San Antonio, Texas, April 1, 1911. Mr. Chittim located at Victoria,

Texas, in 1888, and within a few years he became one of the largest handlers of cattle in the Southwest. In 1889 he removed to San Antonio and made that city his home until his death. For many years the cattle owned by him were numbered by the tens of thousands, and he controlled hundreds of thousands of acres of land, either through actual ownership or under lease. At the time of his death he owned the largest ranch west of San Antonio.

JAMES M. CHITTIM

In 1888 Mr. Chittim was married to Miss Annie Elizabeth Oberle of Memphis, Tennessee. To them were born two daughters.

A BIG MIXUP

W. M. Nagiller, Williams, Arizona

I am one of the old timers that went up the old Chisholm Trail. I was born June 18, 1864, in Burnet county, Texas.

I started from Burnet in May, 1882, with 3,000 head of

steers, owned by Hudson & Watson. Our trail boss was John Christian, also of Burnet. We went north and crossed the Red River at Doan's Store. There we laid over two weeks for two more trail herds to overtake us which belonged to the same men, Hudson & Watson. When the two herds arrived we threw all three herds