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a few days we had about all of them under herd again, so we put them into the Red River and they went right across. We crossed at Red River Station, and when we got into the Indian Territory we found the grass fine and the cattle and horses began to fatten. You could see their hides moving away from the bones, but the elements didn't let up their tear-shedding job, and in those "diggin's" it thundered and lightninged so it was hard to tell whether it was thundering at the lightning or lightning at the thunder. It did both to a chilly finish, and these storms had a tendency to make a fellow feel homesick.

The saddest sight I saw on the trail was at a place where we had stopped to camp. We spied a little mound of fresh earth and a pair of new-made boots sitting by it. It showed the last resting place of some poor cowboy.

A few days after crossing the Washita River our boss received instructions to turn the herd over to Giles Fenner, and to bring his outfit to Dodge City. Four days later we met Little Jim Ellison, son of the owner of the herd, who advised the boss that they would not need his outfit any longer, and wanted him to take the outfit back to Texas. Green Mills, Zeke Hilliard and Albert McQueen each bought a horse from the boss and went on, taking a chance on getting a job after reaching Dodge City. The rest of us turned our noses southward and landed back at Lockhart about the middle of August.

SKETCH OF CAPT. JAMES D. REED

Lou Best Porter, Mountainair, New Mexico

Capt. J. D. Reed, better known in the old days as "One Armed Reed," was born in Alabama in 1830. His parents moved to Mississippi when he was a small child, and remained there until he was about fifteen years old, then came to Texas with George W. Saunders' father, and settled in Goliad county. When the Civil War

started he enlisted in Capt. Scott's Company, Curtis' Regiment, and was commissioned first lieutenant. At Arkansas Post in 1863 he was wounded and taken prisoner. The wound caused him

to lose his arm. After he was exchanged he returned to Goliad county and organized an independent company and served his country until the close of the war.

In 1867 he married Miss Georgia Best, and for several years worked for wages, buying cattle for other parties, finally deciding if he could buy successfully for others he could buy successfully for

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CAPT. J. D. REED

himself. He was one of the first to commence driving after the war, and drove to Powder Horn, and Louisiana, and later to the Kansas markets.

In 1877 Captain Reed moved his family to Fort Worth, and bought a ranch in Stonewall county, placing Jack Best in charge of it. In 1883 he sold this ranch and his cattle and went to New Mexico and stocked it with cattle. He placed Jack Best in charge of this ranch also. In most of his ventures he was successful and was often called the Cattle King of the West. He died in New Mexico in 1891. His wife died in Los Angeles, Cali

fornia, in 1919.

A TRIBUTE TO THE CHARACTER OF WILLIAM
BUCKNER HOUSTON

By Thomas H. Lewis

William Buckner Houston was born in DeWitt county, Texas, May 6, 1852, son of James A. and Julia Harris Houston. He departed this life at his residence in Gonzales, on the 22nd day of December, 1916.

WM. B. HOUSTON

James A. Houston was born in Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and in the early settling of Mississippi his father, Robert B. Houston, immigrated to that state with James and four other children. There he became an extensive planter and slave owner. James A. Houston was educated in Oxford University, Mississippi, and just after completing his course became impressed with the idea and determination to seek his fortune in the southwest, at that time considered the land of promise, of adventure and romance, and so he came to Texas. In his new home he turned his attention to farming and stockraising, and in 1848 married Miss Julia A. Harris, daughter of Hon. Buckner and Nina Steel Harris. Judge Harris was prominent in the early days of Mississippi in law and statecraft, and was closely related to that eminent lawyer and judge, Hon. Wiley P. Harris, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of that state. James A. Houston bought a home in Gonzales county in 1863, but died before he came into possession. Of Southern blood, of Southern thought, sentiment and feeling, he had enlisted in the armies of the Confederacy, but was prevented by ill health from participating in active service. Shortly thereafter he died, leaving a wife and six children. William Buckner Houston was the third child and is the subject of this sketch.

On January 20, 1884, the subject of this tribute was married to Miss Ada Lewis, daughter of Judge Everett and Alice J. Lewis of Gonzales, Texas. One child, Ada Lewis Houston, was born to this union. Mrs. Houston died January 5, 1889. Mr. Houston was again married

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and selected as his second wife, Miss Sue Jones, daughter of Captain August H. Jones, a gallant soldier of the Mexican War, and Minerva Lewis Jones. Of a Southern ancestry, his lines were cast upon a stage of action harking back as a connecting link between the days of the old South and the more recent of the pioneer days which have made Texas the most prosperous and most progressive of states constituting the old Southland. Born in Texas, and bred in the wholesome, manly, broadening and liberalizing atmosphere of the Southwest, he developed a love for Texas, and things indigenous to her soil, as tenaciously patriotic as that of a Scotchman for his favorite meadows and moorland, his forests and fens and highland crags.

Mr. Houston was a man of large stature and commanding presence, remarkable for his clear logical thinking, a leader among his business associates and friends, so much relied upon by them that they fondly called him "General."

In politics he was a Democrat, in religious affiliation a Baptist, fond of a practical joke, possessing a large fund of humor, a mimic beyond compare in portraying the eccentricities of human nature, generous to the needy and distressed, without show or demonstration, and in his daily walk of life and in his dealing with his fellows, an upright man.

While proud of his birth and lineage, and prizing most highly the inheritance of blood, breeding and a good name, he himself was a man of action and impatient of those who in their own life could only borrow and not reflect as much light as they received from a noble past. "Be an ancestor, not forever boasting one," seemed to be his motto.

Educated in the schools of Gonzales county, he received his broader culture in the open and under the star-lit canopy of the ethereal blue, where heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handi

work in the rugged and the rough experiences of daily life. If the poet was right in saying the chiefest study of man is man, then, where others became technical in colleges that teach the stress and strain of steel, to weigh with chemistry the material atoms, and to measure the heat of the sun and the distance of the stars, he became technical with rare exactment in his appraisement and estimates of men, for man was his study. He studied the elements and the character that go to make up a man, as measured by the yard stick of those who have achieved the most, thought the noblest, and governed themselves the most perfectly.

Thrown on his own resources, without means, at the early age of nineteen, he branched out for himself in the cattle business, living chiefly on the range, breathing the fresh air of the open and communing with nature at first hand, developed a self-reliance which with native endowments of mind, keen perceptions and decisive judgments of things, of affairs, of human nature and of men, made him the master of his fate, with the result that wealth with honor was easily acquired and accumulated to comfort those dependent upon him.

Could from the tomb the lips of him in whose honor this tribute is written make answer to this inquiry, What did you in this life most value, and by what chart did you steer your course of action over life's sea? I am of the unalterable conviction he would quickly answer: Loyalty. Loyalty in all its ramifications and in all that trust and confidence, loyalty to the highest conception of honor's code, loyalty to the principles of justice and right and fair play, loyalty to one's dignity, manhood and selfrespect, loyalty as a son, as a father, as a husband, and brother, loyalty as a friend.

Fidelity has been defined by one as the conformity of our actions to our engagements whether express or implied, if in such case love is added to fidelity it becomes loyalty.

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