and sing all night long and eat up their rations and nearly starve until the next issue day came.

It was at this time that I met Quanah, chief of the Comanches, who was not head chief at that time, and Satanta, chief of the Kiowas. I was warned during that time by Satanta that the Indians liked me and they wanted me to leave the country because they intended to kill every white man in the nation. I rather think that the friendly warning was given me because I often gave crackers and candy to the hungry squaws and papooses and of course Satanta's family received their share.

Satanta escaped soon after that and near where El Reno now stands, at the head of his warriors, captured a wagon train and burned men to their wagon wheels. He was captured again and taken to the penitentiary where he committed suicide by opening a vein in his arm.

After moving to Doan's of course I saw a great deal of Quanah, who at that time had become head chief. He told me that he had often been invited to return to his white relations near Weatherford but he had refused. "Corwin," he said, "as far as you see here I am chief and the people look up to me, down at Weatherford I would be a poor half breed Indian." Perhaps he was right.

Big Bow, another Kiowa chief, often followed by his warriors, rode up to the little store on Cache Creek one day and arrogantly asked, would we hand over the goods or should they take them? We told them we would hand over the goods as he designated them. Later when Big Bow and I became good friends, he said, "Us Indians are big fools, not smart like white men. 'Cause you handed over the goods that day, but Washington (Uncle Sam) took it out of our pay." It was quite true for as soon as the wards of the government had departed, the bill was turned into their guardian, Uncle Sam.

We had but one bad scare from the Indians at Doan's, and that date April, 1879, is indelibly fixed on my memory.

The Indians came close enough to the house to be recognized by the women and they ran our horses off. I was up in the woods hunting at that time and reached home at dusk to find three terror stricken women, a baby and a dog for me to defend. All the other men had gone to Denison for supplies and our nearest neighbor was fifty

ADOBE HOME OF CAPT. C. DOAN

Captain Doan and his daughter, Mrs. Bertha Ross, in the foreground. Mrs. Ross was the first white child born in Wilbarger county. The adobe house shown in this picture was destroyed by fire December 26, 1922, since this sketch was written.

miles away; so thinking discretion the better part of valor, we retreated to a little grove about half a mile from our picket house and spent the night, expecting every moment to have a "hair-raising" experience. The Indians proved to be a band of Kiowas returning from near where Quanah now stands where they killed and scalped a man by name of Earle. Three days later the soldiers came through on the trail of the Indians expecting to find our home in ashes and the family exterminated. The Indians had returned to the reservation. The Kiowas told me afterward quite coolly that they would have attacked us that night but believed us to be heavily garrisoned with buffalo hunters-a lucky thing for us. This was the last raid through the country. The Indians

after that became very friendly with us and told me to go ahead and build a big store, that we would not be molested. They had decided this in council.

The spring and summer of 1879, I saw the first herds come up the trail, though the movement had started two years before. My uncle, J. Doan, who had been with me the two years in Fort Sill, had established this post at Doan's, April, 1878, and we had arrived, that is, myself, wife and baby and the Judge's daughters, that fall. So we had come too late to see the herds of 1878. One hundred thousand cattle passed over the trail by the little store in 1879. In 1881, the trail reached the peak of production and three hundred and one thousand were driven by to the Kansas shipping point.

In 1882 on account of the drouth, the cattle found. slim picking on their northern trek and if it had not been for the "butter weed" many would have starved to death as grass was all dead that year. Names of John Lytle, Noah Ellis, Ab and John Blocker, Harrold and Ikard, Worsham, the Belchers, Ligon and Clark, Wiley Blair, the Eddlemans and others come into my memory as I write this, owners and bosses of the mighty herds of decades ago. One man, Dubose, with whom we would go a piece, like school kids, up the trail, complained plaintively that he never in all those summers had a mess of roasting ears, of which he was very fond, as the corn would be about knee high when he left Corpus Christi and as he came slowly up the trail he would watch the fields in their various stages but by the time he left Doan's and civilization it was still too early for even a cob.

Captain John Lytle spent as high as a month at a time in Doan's preparing for his onward march. Accompanied by his secretary he would fit out his men and everything would be shipshape when he crossed the Red River. He was a great man and his visits were enjoyed.

Wichita Falls failing to provide suitable branding pens for the accommodation of the trail drivers, pens were

provided at Doan's. Furnaces and corrals were built and here Charley Word and others fitted with cartridges, Winchesters by the case, sow bosom and flour, and even to Stetson hats, etc. This store did a thriving business and thought nothing of selling bacon and flour in car-load lots, though getting our supplies from Denison, Sherman, Gainesville, and later, Wichita Falls.

The postoffice was established here in 1879 and I was the first postmaster. It was at this office all mail for the trail herds was directed as, like canned goods and other commodities, this was the last chance. One night while a crowd sat around the little adobe store someone struck up a lively air on a French harp and the door opened and in sailed a hat followed closely by a big black fellow who commenced to dance. It was one of Ab Blocker's niggers who had been sent up for the mail, giving first notice of the herd's arrival. Many a sweetheart down the trail received her letter bearing the postmark of Doan's and many a cowboy asked self-consciously if there was any mail for him while his face turned a beet red when a dainty missive was handed him.

The old trail played a part in the establishment of the Doan's picnic. For in 1884 when grass had risen and the cowmen had gone up the trail or out to the spring roundups; the women of course were playing the rôle of "the girl I left behind me, so a picnic of five women and one lone man was inaugurated. I have never missed a picnic from that day. Now the crowd is swelled to thousands, the dinner is a sumptuous affair and every two or three years the state and county candidates for offices plead with the people to give them the other fellow's job or one or more chance as the case may be.

The first house at Doan's was made of pickets with a dirt roof and floor of the same material. The first winter we had no door but a buffalo robe did service against the northers. The store which had consisted mainly of ammunition and a few groceries occupied one end and the

family lived in the other. A huge fireplace around which Indians, buffalo hunters and the family sat, proved very comforting. The warmest seat was reserved for the one who held the baby and this proved to be a very much coveted job. Furniture made with an ax and a saw adorned the humble dwelling.

Later the store and dwelling were divorced. An adobe store which gave way to a frame building was built. Two log cabins for the families were erected. In 1881 our present home was built, the year the county was organized. This dwelling I still occupy. Governors, English Lords, bankers, lawyers, tramps and people from every walk in life have found sanctuary within its walls. And if these walls could speak many a tale of border warfare would echo from its gray shadows.

Here, my old adobe house and I sit beside the old trail and dream away the days thinking of the stirring scenes enacted when it seemed an endless procession of horses and cattle passed, followed by men of grim visage but of cheerful mien, who sang the "Dying Cowboy" and "Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie" and other cheerful tunes as they bedded the cattle or when in a lighter mood danced with the belles of Doan's or took it straight over the bar of the old Cow Boy saloon.

MADE MANY TRIPS UP THE OLD COW TRAIL

E. P. Byler, Wadsworth, Texas

I made my first trip up the trail in 1868. In May of that year Brother Jim Byler and myself hired to Steve Rogers, who was boss for Dave Puckett, to take a herd of 1,000 longhorn steers through to Abilene, Kansas. Wages were low then and we drew only $30 per month and expenses. We were allowed a month's pay returning home. This was all an inexperienced hand could get, while experienced men drew $40 per month. We had to stand guard from one-third to one-fourth of every night