About January 1st, we were visited by a band of Kickapoo Indians who were going to Mexico and had stopped at Dove Creek spring to spend a few days. We had at first thought they were hostile Indians and my father had drawn his gun on

R. F. TANKERSLEY

the leader, who waved a white cloth and called out, "me no fight." There were about fifty men and two women in the party. They were very friendly and in scouting some days later, found some of our horses which had strayed off and brought them home. On January 8, they were overtaken by a company of Texas Rangers under Captain Gillentine, and a fight was forced on the Indians. A number of white men were killed and my father helped bury them. While living at the head of the Concho, he gathered a herd of cattle with the intention of trailing them to New Mexico, but he sold them to John Chisum, and the Indians took them from him on the plains. In June, 1869, my father trailed a herd of twenty-five hundred cattle to Los Angeles, California, being on the trail about eight months. On the way home, two men who camped with him for the night, cut open a saddle bag and stole five hundred dollars. In the pair of saddle bags there was twenty-five thousand dollars in gold, and why they did not take it all is a mystery. At that time and for many years afterwards there were no banks in this part of the state, so all the money we had was buried under the house.

Increasing depredations by the Indians caused us to move to Fort Concho in 1869. Many times every horse and mule on the ranch was taken. All the salt we used was hauled by wagon from Pecos. On one of these trips

my father and a hired man were run into by Indians near the head of the main Concho. They got into the river under bushes and fought the Indians off. My father was shot in the ankle and the bullet was never extracted. In February, 1870, we were living in San Angelo, about where the American Legion opera house now stands, and Indians came trying to get horses out of the corral back

of the house. About 10 o'clock that night the late Judge Preusser came to our door and said he had dreamed of seeing Indians and looking out saw them in fact. About that time they began yelling and shooting. They did not get the horses and it was thought that an Indian was wounded as a bloody war bonnet was found the next day. In this fight a Mexican was shot through one ear.

A kind and all-wise Providence guarded us through all the dangers and hardships of pioneer life and will be with us to the end. Father passed away December 11th, 1912, leaving three sons, G. W., Fayette, and H. M. Tankersley, and four daughters, Mrs. Elizabeth Emerick, Mrs. Clarissa Frary, Mrs. Sallie Phelan and Mrs. Mary Lewis. Since his death, the oldest son and youngest daughter have "crossed over the river," and are resting with him " 'neath the shade of the trees."

TRAIL DRIVING WAS FASCINATING

W. A. Roberts, Frio Town, Texas

My parents were J. E. Roberts and Elizabeth Stahl Roberts. I was born in Montgomery county, Texas, January 16, 1863, and came to Frio county with my father and mother in 1869, where I lived ever since. We made the trip to this county in an ox wagon, and about the only thing I remember about the trip was crossing the Brazos River on a ferry boat. When I was about thirteen years old I went to work for Capt. B. L. Crouch on his Frio county ranch, and worked there for several years. I made three trips up the trail. In 1883 I went to Benkelman, Nebraska, and re

mained over for the fall round-up on George Benkelman's ranch on the South Prong of the Republican River, then returning to my old job on the Crouch ranch.

In 1884 I went to Seven Rivers, New Mexico, and remained there to help gather and deliver the D. J. Crouch cattle to the Holt Cattle Company in November of that year, then drove a bunch of

W. A. ROBERTS

horses from Seven Rivers to Marfa, shipping them from Marfa to Uvalde and drove them from Uvalde to the Crouch ranch in Frio county.

In 1885 I went with a herd of steers for Crouch & Crawford to the Chickasaw Nation in the Indian Territory. Bert Brown was our boss on this trip.

Barring stampedes, and storms when balls of lightning played on the tips of our horses' ears and great balls of electricity came rolling along the ground, trail

driving was a fascinating life. We have forgotten the hardships and remember only the pleasant things.

FOLLOWED CATTLE FROM THE RANCH TO THE
SHIPPING PEN

Mrs. A. P. Belcher, Del Rio, Texas

Alvis Powell Belcher was born September 7th, 1854, in Jackson county, Missouri. His parents came to Sherman, Grayson county, Texas, when he was six weeks old. He commenced going up the trail with herds of cattle at the age of fourteen. From 1870 to 1878 he made many

A. P. BELCHER

trips trailing cattle to Kansas and Missouri. In 1878, together with C. W. Easley he established an R2 ranch on Wander's Creek in Hardeman county where the town of Chillicothe now stands. A short while afterwards the Indians made a raid down through that portion of the country and killed two cowboys working on the ranch. Because of the danger from Indians he sold the R2 stock

of cattle, consisting at that time of 10,000 head, and located on the Wichita near Henrietta, Texas, where he lived and ranched until he moved to Southwest Texas in 1897.

He went through all the hardships of the ranchman, wirecutters, droughts and many panics, but he always came back believing he could win out. He started up the long, long trail the 3rd of March, 1919, and it is certain that he and T. B. Jones and a host of other trail drivers will greet the drags as they cross the river with

the same cheery smiles and handclasps that they gave them while here.

Surely I am eligible to a membership in the Old Trail Drivers' Association, for my Grandfather Emberson trailed his little herd of steers from Lamar county to Arkansas and sold them to the United States Government. A few years prior to 1830 my father, Calvin Copenhaver, trailed cattle to Shreveport and other places in the fifties and sixties, and my husband, Alvin Belcher, in the seventies to eighties. My sons have driven herds throughout Western Texas. I have trailed behind the old chuck wagon, have eaten son-of-a-gun from a tin plate off the chuck box and followed cattle from the ranch to the shipping pen.

TELLS OF AN INDIAN FIGHT

W. A. Franks, Pearsall, Texas

I first saw the light in Montgomery county, January 24th, 1853. The family came to Frio county in 1869, in the month of June. I worked for B. L. Crouch and his brother, Joe Crouch, for twelve years and want to state right here that the Crouches were two as fine men as I ever knew. Captain B. L. Crouch came from Michigan just after the Civil war, and was a captain in the Union army. He first engaged in the sheep business in Williamson county, from there he came to Frio county, where he became one of the big cow-men of Texas, becoming the owner of a ranch between Old Frio Town and Pearsall, containing some sixty thousand acres. My mother had charge of the boarding or dining hall, at the head ranch, where the cowboys and anyone visiting the ranch got their meals. I recall one incident, to show the true gentleman the captain was. Some three or four of his rich friends from the north were at the ranch on a visit, and a cowboy of the one-horse kind came to the ranch looking for a cow that had been lost out of a small herd when passing through