Early, Texas - Trail Drivers of Texas : Interesting Sketches of Early Cowboys and The (part 12 of 20)

J. T. Hazelwood

From Panola county my father moved into Palo Pinto county, settling on Eagle Creek, west of Palo Pinto, at that time a small trading point. Here he went into the ranching business, driving his cattle from one location to another, but due to Indian raids he remained in Palo Pinto county about four years and then was compelled to move to a location of greater security. The Indians, who were very numerous at this period, were making raids over the entire country on all ^4ight nights," stealing horses and mules, driving off cattle and murdering the settlers; the soldiers stationed at the various points in Texas were few in number and insufficient to otfer adequate protection to the scattering settlements of white people; and while I was yet quite a small boy during these periods of stress, I can remember very distinctly the conditions and circumstances under which the early settlers were compelled to live and fight for their lives, for the preservation of their herds and for the protection of their families. It was no uncommon thing for the Indians on their raids to steal the entire working outfit of the early settlers, including their horses and mules, and driving away their live stock; in fact, it was almost impossible to keep horses or mules, and it was for that reason the settlers abandoned using them for farming purposes and adopted the ox team instead. It would be impossible to enumerate the number of Indian encounters which took place during the early years of the settling of West Texas between these settlers and these roving tribes. I remember on one occasion when a German by the name of Fred Cola, an employee of my father, was out after cattle on the open range when the Indians made an attack upon him and after running him for several miles finally killed him with an arrow from an Indian bow.

It was in 1860 when my father moved with his family to Stephens county, near the line of Shackelford, settling on Sandy Creek, but the Indian depredations continuing.

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he again moved to a safer place, as he thought, over on Battle Creek. The ranges were covered with countless herds of buffalo, deer, antelope, bear and other wild game. We lived in picket houses, covered with sod and dirt, and the flooring with buffalo hides - nothing to compare with the comfortable homes which the people of this country enjoy at the present time, but, nevertheless, the conditions for that day and age were ideal, and we lived in comfort, except that we lived in continual fear of Indian raids.

My father killed many deer and dressed their hides, and my mother made clothing of these for the boys and I remember very distinctly the ** coon-skin" caps and the *^ home-made" shoes which were made for the children of our family, and which we were glad to get and took great pride in wearing regardless of the fact that they would not be considered up to date by the present young man about town or the present young society lady preparing for a modern ball. I do not remember very much about fashions in those days, but I am quite sure if I should dress today in the garb which I wore sixty years ago, or if my sisters should dress in the garb which they wore some sixty years ago, and walk down the streets of San Angelo they would cause no little comment and, perhaps, some of the modern up-to-date fashions would be cast into the shade by the old-time apparel worn by the early pioneers. I also remember that we did not regard clothes so much in those days as they are regarded now, and such a thing as ribbons and bows, and lace and silk hose, silk hats and canes for the young men, and a poodle dog with a string around his neck for the young women, would have been considered as much out of place in the early days as, perhaps, our *^ coon-skin" caps and ^'homemade" shoes, and our '^ deerskin britches," our ** buffalo coats" and '' buffalo shirts" would appear at the present day. Times change, customs change, fashions change, conditions change, but human nature changes but very little, and even when I compare the boys and girls of the present day, in the last analysis of their human make-up, with the girls and boys of seventy years ago, I find that they have the same warm hearts, the same happy, cheerful smile, the same creative youthful ambition, and the same desire to succeed, regardless that we are living in a day and age of automobiles, that we are free from Indian depredations and raids, that we no longer see the buffalo roam the plains, and that where the buffalo once roamed and where the Indians perpetrated their raids, beautiful homes and every modern convenience now can be found, and agricultural conditions are changed likewise with modern improvements, yet the heart and mind of the pioneers of the Western range still are found to permeate the posterity of these early pioneers to a very large extent.

Having neither railroads nor street car lines, nor electric lines, nor electric lights, nor automobiles, nor auto trucks, nor paved streets, nor hard surfaced roads, nor good bridges across the streams, traveling in those days was indeed very slow, and the method of communication was even slower. As we had no telegraph office, nor telephone office, nor radio stations for wireless communication, the only method of communication and carrying the news was what one neighbor could take to another - and when these neighbors lived some fifty to one hundred miles apart, they did not see each other very frequently and they did not have the opportunity to gossip. The truth of the matter is, as I remember it now, the conditions sixty years ago, while very primitive, were at the same time, from the standpoint of rearing a good and happy family, very substantial, and though we lived far apart, the very fact of this great distance between neighbors only added to the interest which we took in each other, and it was a great pleasure indeed when one family would have the opportunity to spend the night and day with a neighbor fifty or one hundred miles off, and it was a greater pleasure for a traveler from some of the more thickly populated settlements to wander through our neighborhood and sit up the entire night and repeat the news to those most interested, in his purely personal way. The latchstring always hung on the outside of the door to everyone but Indians, and a neighbor or a stranger always met with a hearty welcome. We were always glad to see them and sorry to see them go. Our fare may have been homely, and the menu which we set before them might not have consisted of twelve or fifteen courses, but such as it was, it was very wholesome and appetizing, and it was a pleasure to sit around the table in those days.

My father did a great deal of trading from Ft. Worth, in the first instance, and afterwards from Weatherford, with ox teams, for the reasons I have heretofore stated - that horses and mules could not be kept on account of Indian raids.

In the spring of 1868 my father, with a number of other ranchmen, went out on a roundup, gathering and branding a large number of calves which they had failed to find during the fall roundup. One day they gathered a bunch of these calves and put them in a corral on the Jim Walker ranch, located on Sandy Creek. They always had to camp out because there were no pastures for these roundups. The horses were hobbled at night. The next morning, on this occasion, my father told the men to continue with the branding of the calves, and he would go out and bring in the horses. Finding only a few of them, he returned to camp, then went back to locate the others. During his absence a man coming from another ranch observed a bunch of Indians and he hurried to the camp and gave the alarm, while the men in camp saddled their horses and went to the point where the Indians were last seen. They rode up on a high elevation, looking down into a canyon, where they discovered the Indians, and the Indians at the same time dis- covered the men. There being a large party of these Indians and only a few Avhite men, a running fight took place as the men started back to camp, the Indians shooting with bows and arrows, while the men used their guns and pistols. After the Indians had retreated search was made for my father and he was found about a mile and a half from the camp, lying in a branch, where he had been killed by the Indians. He had fought them single-handed for some time, and several pools of blood were found near the battle ground. The Indians were in the canyon preparing to carry oif their wounded when the settlers came upon them. After killing my father they did not disturb him except to take his gun, pistol, horse, saddle ^nd bridle. The men went back to the camp, procured a wagon and brought father's body to the ranch the next day. The soldiers came and took the trail of the retreating Indians to the westward, and followed them for several days. The Indians attacked the Ledbetter salt works and then continued their flight westward until overtaken by the cattlemen out near the plains. They were still carrying their wounded, some three or four Indians and a negro. Seeing that they could not retreat further with their wounded they abandoned them in order to make their own escape, and the pursuing settlers coming upon them, killed the wounded themselves. Among these wounded was the Indian who slew my father. A careful examination being made of him, it was found that two of his fingers on the left hand, where he had held the bow, were injured by a bullet wound corresponding to the hole in the bow; the bullet passed on through the bow into the Indian's breast, ranging around his side and coming out at his back. This was conclusive evidence, after the finding of the bow and the blood stains thereon and comparing the wounds found upon the Indian, that he was the same one who slew my father. This bow was afterwards turned over to the government, and is now in the

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The description oC tJic death of my fatlier on tliis Indian raid is ahnost identical in manner and form with hundreds of others who were killed in the early days while West Texas was being settled, and while the account may diifer in some few respects, their method was always the same, their character of fighting was always the same, and what has been said of the death of my father would only be a repetition if I should describe the death of a number of other pioneers who were killed during Indian raids, and I am merely giving these facts to show the uncertainties under which the early pioneers lived, the great danger which they constantly faced, and the trials through which they had to pass in order that they might build up the ground work of a greater civilization in this Western country.

My father was a pioneer trail driver, and participated in a number of the drives of cattle from the plains of West Texas to the Kansas markets.

Worked For George W. Saunders In 1875

In 1869 I hired to Eandolph Paine of Denton county to help drive 3,000 four and ^ve year old steers to Abilene, Kansas. We left Denton some time in May and crossed the Bed River above Gainsville, crossed the Washita at Fort Arbuckle, crossed the Canadian and Arkansas rivers and went on to the Smoky River. It was a good year and the steers fattened all the way. Paine bought these cattle at $12 per head on time and sold them for $30. He brought the money back to Denton county in a wagon and paid for the steers. Although Mr. Paine was owner and boss of the herd he stood guard at night with the rest of us.

In 1870 I hired to Hopkins of Denton county to help drive 2,500 big steers to Baxter Springs, Kansas. But Hopkins sold the steers before we reached there, and we came back to Texas.

In 1871 Eandolph Paine drove 3,200 steers to the end of the M. K. & T. railroad, where a town of tents and shipping pens had sprung up. On this trip we encountered many electrical storms and had several stampedes.

In 1874 J. H. Paine, a nephew to Eandolph Paine, and I bought 125 saddle horses and drove them to Brown county, where we traded them for 540 grown cattle which we drove to Denison and shipped them to Saint Louis.

In 1875 I decided to drift south where they worked cattle the year round. My first stop was south of Goliad, where I hired to George W. Saunders to help gather a herd of cattle he had sold to Dillard Fant of Goliad. When the cattle were counted out to Fant my job was finished. I then went to Atascosa county and hired to Jerry Ellis, who was taking three herds to Dodge City, Kansas. I went up with the last herd of 3,100 head. Moore was boss, and he was a good trail man. When we reached Denton county I went to see my father. J. H. Paine was going to drive a herd of stock cattle to Young county to ranch them, and I made a trade with him to run those cattle four years for one-fourth of the entire herd, I to pay all expenses. At the end of the four years Mr. Paine sold the cattle to Ikard of Henrietta, Texas, for $60,000, range delivery. Paine paid me $15,000. I then bought an interest in J. W. Medlin's cattle, range delivery, ranching in Archer county, and in 1885 moved them to Greer county. Then in 1886 I bought an interest in S. F. Reynold ^s cattle, located in Greer county, and we claimed a range twenty miles wide and thirty miles long, but we did not own any of the land. In 1888 I gathered 1,200 steers and drove them to the Cherokee Strip to pasture. After we crossed the Cimarron River I went on ahead of the herd to secure grazing, and when I reached the next stream it seemed to be bank full and about 400 yards wide, so I decided to swim it. I pulled off my clothes and tied them securely to my saddle and as I started to take the water a man and a woman galloped down on the other side to see me cross. I surmised that I could stand the ordeal if she could, and in I went. The water was not so deep as it seemed to be, and did not swim my horse at all. As I approached the opposite bank where the man and woman were, they turned and galloped away. The woman was from Chicago and her father was one of the stockholders of the Rock Island railroad. They evidently did not like the cut of my ^'birthday" suit, for they did not remain to see me ''come out" in it.

In 1890 the settlers moved inside of our range and Medlin and Reynolds thought it best to sell, as the nestcrs were going to take the country. We sold the cattle to Clark & Plumb of Fort Worth for $9 per head, calves not counted. I drove the cattle to Archer county and turned over 9,030 to them, then sold them the remnant of 300 head on the range. Dayton Moses, now the attorney for the Cattle Raisers' Association, went with the first herd, and made an excellent hand.

shipping to market. I was ranching in the northwest corner of Greer county, and fattened my steers in the Kiowa country, which joined me on the north. I never had any trouble with the Indians. In 1898 a lot of Kansas farmers came into my pasture, so it was my move again. I drove my steers north of Woodward, Oklahoma, fattened them there and put them on the market, sold my claim in Greer county and moved back to Texas, and have been in the cow business ever since. I now own a ranch in Tom Green county, which is in charge of my son, who is twenty-four years old. We have about 2,000 cattle on the ranch.

I have been in partnership with J. H. Paine, J. W. Medlin, and S. F. Eeynolds, all tirst-class gentlemen, and all lived in Denton county. They have all passed away. No better men ever lived. I sold steers to E. H. East for four years. He never put up a forfeit, and we never counted a bunch twice. East lived at that time in Archer City, and owned a ranch in Archer county. He now lives at Kingsville.

Was A Freighter And Trail Driver

J. M. Cowley, Fentress, Texas My father was born in Tennessee, and he and my mother, whose maiden name was Miss N. G. More, were married in Alabama. They came to Texas in 1853 and located in Milam county, on Little River, where they remained until 1855, then moved to Guadalupe county, where they bought cattle and after a time took them to Caldwell county and located on the San Marcos River. Six children were born to my parents, three of whom are dead. Father bought some mares near the King ranch and drove them to Caldwell county, where he raised horses and mules. The year 1857 was very dry and we had to go to the Brazos River region to buy corn for bread. Cornbread, beef, sorghum molasses and coffee

I was born in Alabama May 29, 1847, and have lived in Texas sixty-nine years. In 1858 Father, Warner Polk and Matthew Clarke began to plan to get their stock back on the home range, as they were pretty badly scattered over the country. T. F. Clark, Frank Polk, W. B. Cowley, my brother, and myself worked together until the Civil War broke out, when Father sent me with Joe Eustace, Fred Houston and Bobbie Dorn to Brownsville with a lot of cotton for Mr. Huff, who lived two miles below the present site of Luling. We brought back dry goods and groceries for him. In 1862 we went below Corpus Christi after salt, and used ox teams to freight with. My team was composed of six yoke of oxen that were pretty hard to manage. In 1865, in company with P. G. Holmes and T. F. Clark, I went to Mississippi with a drove of horses and mules which we had to sell on time, returning home in January, 1867, and the balance of that year I hauled cotton to San Antonio, freighting with mule teams.

In the spring of 1869 I went up the trail to Abilene, Kansas, with J. H. Smith, George Eustace, Will Hardeman, S. M. Eeds and Cout Eountree in the outfit. We had 1,500 cattle in the herd, 160 of which belonged to me, 175 belonged to George Eustace, and the remainder belonged to J. H. Smith, who bossed the herd. We went by Waco and Fort Worth, where we purchased supplies to carry us through to Abilene. It was cold and raining most of the time, and the creeks and rivers were all overflowed. When we came to the Smoky Eiver, Jack Kyle pointing the herd, I was riding a little mnle, and when I started in to swim the driver, a man whom we did not know, who was riding a bob-tailed horse, said if my little mule could swim the river **old Bob'' could swim it. His horse sank with him and the man was drowned. I threw a rope to him but he failed to catch it. His body was recovered three days later. From Abilene myself and S. M. Eeds shipped our horses and mules to Junction City where we bought wagons, loaded up and started back to Texas, reaching home in November.

In 1870, 1871 and 1872 I and my brother, W. B. Conley, freighted to Port Lavaca, and in 1873 we built a home for our parents where Fentress is now located. On November 19, 1874, I was married to Miss Amanda Eastwood, and the following year we moved to the place where my wife was born, two miles above Fentress, where we have lived all these years. We had three children, one of whom died five years ago. The other two, boys, live at Fentress. I served as county commissioner from 1909 until 1916.

I came to Texas with my father and his family in 1855 when I was a small boy. We settled about two miles north of Gonzales, which at that time was a very small place, with just a few stores and a handful of people. The country was all open, mostly prairie, with an abundance of cattle, horses and hogs. And we used to go hog hunting like people hunt deer today, and kill wagonloads of them, some of the finest you ever saw.

I believe the cattle business to be the greatest enterprise the world has ever seen, even greater than the manufacture of automobiles is today, considering the time and the conditions. In the early days the cattle business was not only the greatest thing to Texans and to the people of the South, but people from everywhere flocked to Kansas to see the vast herds that came from Texas, and the herds that were on the plains there, as well as the buffalo that were so numerous in the early seventies, and which men killed by thousands for their hides from which to make leather and robes. In 1876, when we passed Doan's Store on Red River, we were told that 400,000 cattle had passed there that year for the markets. Lots of them were left unsold and thousands of them froze there that winter. The herd I was with was among those which had to remain through the winter. I do not know of very many of the boys who went up with me that trip. John Henry Lewis, who lives a few miles north of Harwood, a fellow named Van Dyke of Marfa, and my brother, J. A. Scheske, of Terrell, are the only ones that I know of just now, except some negroes.

My experiences of the trail dates back to the early sixties, when I was a mere boy. The first trip I ever made was with a bunch of horses for the Confederates under Captain H. S. Parker. We drove to Harrisburg. I made three trips there with horses, two under Parker and one under Captain Kelley. The news of Lee's surrender reached us at Harrisburg, but Captain Kelley went on nevertheless. After the war we drove cattle there in small herds to be shipped. I remember one trip I made with Sam Moore. We had about 400 steers and it was in December, 1868, a very cold winter, Eugene Johnson and I were on herd the first part of the night, a high norther was blowing and it was so cold we couldn't keep our cattle from drifting, and we stayed with them all night. When the boys found us the next morning we could not stand up, our feet and legs were so chilled.

In 1869 the first herd went to Kansas and one to Shreveport, La. Bill Greathousc was the first man to leave Gonzales county for Kansas with a herd of cattle.

He lived about a mile west of the present town of Dilworth, on Peach Creek. They had about 1,000 head. Greathonse himself acted as boss. C. A. Mitchell and Lnmp Mooney were two that left here with him. In Kansas they all had the cholera and were nursed by the Indians. Mooney and Greathouse died there and Mitchell got well and came back to Gonzales. Andy Moore, who I was with, left Gonzales county for Shreveport, La., in 1869 under the N7 connected brand. "We went to Natchez, where the cattle were sold for four dollars and fifty cents a head, steers and stock cattle mixed.

In 1870 I left Lavaca county for Sam Moore, who at that time lived at Moulton. A fellow named Burnett of Lavaca county owned an interest in the herd. They turned over to me a thousand head of cattle on the Lavaca Prairie under the Figure 2 brand. Lee Goss, Will Thornton and John Walker (negro) were some of the boys with the herd. We made the trip to Abilene, Kans., in sixty-four days. When we crossed the Red River it was on a rise and we had to make a raft of willow logs. John Walker, and I put the cattle across. We had a fearful electrical storm that night and the other fellows got cut off from us and the negro and myself were left with the herd all night in the Territory. These cattle were sold to a man named True of Missouri, for whom I herded until fall. On this trip, in Kansas, after the cattle had been sold, we lost part of the horses and I went after them, and rode across the plains for three days trailing them by a drag chain. I came across Big Foot Wallace coming from Columbus on his way out to California, and he told me that our horses had taken up with another herd about five miles south of the Little Arkansas. He insisted on me staying all night with him and his crowd.

In 1871 I went up the trail for J. H. Paramore, who at that time lived at Gonzales. We had a thousand head of the 3P cattle which we also sold to Mr. True, and we crossed the cattle into Iowa where we turned them loose in the cornfields. Those farmers had made lots of corn that year, which was sold for ten cents per bushel where they could sell it. Corn was so plentiful the farmers were using it for fuel instead of wood. We crossed the cattle where St. Louis is today. That place was then about the size of Gonzales today. An election was being held there and Mr. True tried to get the ferry to take our cattle, but the boatman would not do it, said he was too busy getting people across to vote, so we started them across ourselves and the ferryman ran his boat right into the middle of our herd and turned them so we had to clear the way in the usual manner Texans cleared the way in those days. We were in St. Louis when Chicago was burned.

In 1872 I started up mth a herd of horses for myself, but decided to turn to Louisiana, and we got into the worst money panic the South has ever experienced, and we couldn't sell any of them. We almost starved for lack of food, and when we got down to our last fifty cents we bought a bushel of apples which we lived on for about three days, without anything else.

In 1873 I went up with 1,800 head of cattle for Bob Houston and G. W. Littlefield with the Mallet herd. We reached Selina in fifty-five days. The late Ship Parks of the Cross ranch near Fort Stockton, was along, as was also the late D. B. Hodges, J. H. Lewis, a man named Eobertson and my brother, J. A. Scheske. That year we passed everything on the road. We made one trip in fifty-four days. A man came to us in Kansas and said that he had heard of us all along the trail and tried to catch us but couldn't. After our herd had been delivered we were started to Fort Sill with 2,200 beeves for the Indians. On our way we had lots of trouble with the Cheyenne tribe. We started with a guide, but he got off with some other herd and the Cheyennes got into our cattle. We had several mix-ups with them, and when the old chief got them to milling around he laughed and seemed to be in the height of his glory. After awhile our guide came back to us and advised us to give them two calves and get them stopped, which we did. This guide's name was Porter, and he had a cork leg. I will never forget him, nor how glad I was to see him. He could speak seven Indian dialects.

In 1878 I went up the trail with the F - herd for G. W. Littlefield. These cattle were gathered near where Oak Forest is today, and delivered to me on the Lockhart Prairie by W. P. Littlefield, now of New Mexico. We had about 2,000 head. Hess Parks, Jim Cochran, Marcus Dilworth and a fellow named Gay were among those who went with this herd. We delivered on the Platte Eiver in Nebraska.

The last trip I made up the trail was in 1882, when I went for the late J. D. Houston of San Antonio, then of Gonzales, and John Eutledge of Yorktown, with the Figure 2 herd. We had 4,500 head and we reached Dodge City, Kansas, in fifty-five days. When we reached the South Canadian it was up and all herds were blocked for seven or eight days. When I rode up the boys asked me if I was going to cross, and after studying the matter over, I decided that I had better cross, so we crossed our cattle and one other herd. We went up the river and the other herd went down it and that night we had another storm and our cattle almost got back into the river, in fact they got into flank water and I told the boys to take their slickers and stampede them. They ran to the Wichita Mountains where we stopped them without losing a steer. The other herd got all mixed up and drifted south that night and we never saw them any more for we went on without any further trouble.

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 571 Days That Were Full Of Thrills

During the fall of 1863 a squad of Confederate soldiers was driving a herd of about 300 big Texas steers through our country and pastured them over night in my mother's fields from which the corn had been harvested. The next day when the herd was started to cross the Tombigbee Eiver at Gainesville, four miles distant, I persuaded mother to let me accompany the outfit that far on my pony. On the way the soldiers sang over and over a song which one of their number had composed. The song had many stanzas, but two of them so impressed my boyish fancy that I recall them still :

''I'd like to be a Virginia picket. But I'd rather be in the cattle thicket Where the hooting owl and screaming cricket Make noise enough for all."

That night when I returned to my home - a happy home indeed, in spite of the Civil War then raging - I told my dear, now sainted mother, that as soon as I reached manhood I intended to go to Texas and become a cow-puncher.

In 1870 Mr. Frank Byler, now gone to his reward, as good a friend as I or any man ever had, brought a drove of Texas ponies to our neighborhood. When he had disposed of them he invited me to accompany him home and assured me that I would get rid of malaria from which I suffered if I would remain in West or Southwest Texas.

That assurance added to my predilection for an ont-door life, decided me to accept his invitation, and we landed at Corpus Christi, January 16, 1871.

I remained at Mr. Byler's home at old Nuecestown two or three weeks, during which time I formed a deathless friendship for his wife, which grew stronger every year during the last ten years of her life. When I left them to seek my fortune among strangers, Mr. Byler loaned me a gentle steed, named Old Heart Seven, telling me that when I found employment I could turn the horse foot-loose anywhere within one hundred miles of home

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Banquette, the Mecca which I sought. After self -introductions and mutual explanations, he invited me to go home with him. That invitation was accepted with less hesitation and more alacrity than any I can recall either before or since that time. John was living with his brother, "William Burks, husband of Mrs. Amanda Burks, now of CotuUa, and one of the few lady members of our organization. Mr. Burks engaged me to make a trail trip to Kansas, and Mrs. Burks, in a buggy, made one of our outfit. That trip was an experience I can never forget. Being a *^ tenderfoot," I was started in at the rear end of the herd and Mrs. Burks took me under her protecting wing. I verily believe that her business success since her widowhood began, has been given her as a reward for her unfailing kindness to myself and others. I met her at the Cattle Convention in San Antonio in March, 1915, for the first time since the early seventies of the last century, and could have picked her from a thousand. My prayer for her is that her shadow may never grow less, and may she **live to eat the hen that scratches above her grave.'' Keturning to the incidents of that trip I will state that the herd we drove was half and half grown cows and steers, and that season it was customary to kill the young calves found on the bedground. I had a pistol and it was my duty to murder the innocents each morning while their pitiful mothers were ruthlessly driven on. It looked hard, but circumstances demanded the sacrifice, and being the executioner so disgusted me with six-shooters that I have never owned - much less used one from that time to this. It is likely, too, that not being a gun-man during the following five or six years kept me from becoming involved in several shooting tragedies that I saw enacted. Unpreparedness has kept me peacefully inclined. My bedding on the trip consisted of a saddle blanket, a black rubber coat and an old-fashioned man's shawl. Luxury played no part in our surroundings then.

June, I think it was, we passed by the then infant towns of Wichita and Newton and gained the vicinity of Abilene, Kansas. Then I decided I wanted to return to Texas, over the trail we had gone by. Mr. Burks paid me an extra month ^s wages and furnished me a saddle horse and pack animal and bade me Godspeed on my journey. I got back to Newton on the morning after the famous night gunfight among cowmen, officers and gamblers, in which seven or eight men were killed. That tragedy clinched my aversion to habitual pistol toting. At Newton I met a Mr. Duke, who had charge of a big herd of steers for the John Eabb outfit. He persuaded me to return the horses to Mr. Burks and take employment with him. He sent me to his camp on Cowskin Creek where Sam Glenn was in charge. From Sam I got my first real lesson in grazing and watering a herd of big steers, an art which is now almost lost, but in which I became an expert. I remained with Duke until December, when three Mexicans he had became dissatisfied with the weather, and he induced me with little difficulty to pilot them back to Corpus Christi by rail and water. To those Mexicans that experience was a revelation, and what they saw convinced them that Mexico might require more than they thought it would in whipping Uncle Sam. Thus ended my first trail trip.

In 1872 I hired to Scott & Byler to work on the range for the modest stipend of $20 per month by the year, work or play. I had the privilege of trading horses, and at the end of a year I had $150 in cash and five good ponies - more clear profit than I ever afterwards saved at wages varying from $50 to $125 per month. Jim Miller of Banquette, Nueces county, was boss over myself and from twelve to fourteen Mexicans, and our range was from the Nueces to the Rio Grande Rivers. Miller was paid $700 a year and the Mexicans $10 or $12 per month when at work. Those receiving $12 were called ^^henetes'^ and were supposed to ride any horse they might be given.

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 575

We worked eight months out of the twelve, during which time we gathered many steers, skinned 4,000 dead cattle - 1872 being the year of the ^'die-up'' - and branded several thousand calves, among them a big per cent of '^dogies," defined by an old Texas cowman to a garrulous and inquisitive lady from up North as ^* unfortunate calves whose mothers were dead and whose fathers had eloped with other cows." Selah!

During the year we had some comic and some tragic experiences. One of the comic episodes, in which I played the ^'goat," I recall as follows: One Saturday night, when we were camped near Banquette, Miller asked if I would like to go with him to a dance at a home near San Patricio, about twelve miles away. We went, and there I was handed the sourest lemon I had ever tasted. During the evening I approached a young miss of "sweet sixteen,'' Lizzie Hinnant, whom I had met a few times before, and asked her for a dance. Without even the stereotyped excuse of a previous engagement she answered simply and curtly "No.'' Feeling somewhat melted I thought I would embarrass her in turn, so I thanked her and told her that since there remained in the sea as good fish as had ever been caught, I'd cast my line in another place. Instead of "wilting," as I thought she would, she came back with this : * ^ Certainly there are, but unfortunately for you they have quit biting at toads." I retired to the "shade of an old apple tree" and butted my head against it in sheer desperation. Since then I have known that the "Yellow Eose of Texas" grows on a thorny bush. After dancing until almost daylight we returned to camp about sun-up Sunday morning. I being somewhat weary, had laid the flattering unction to my soul that Miller certainly would observe that beautiful and blessed spring Sabbath, and he did - but in a manner altogether unexpected to me. He awakened the sleeping Aztecs, and after a little coffee, he led us all forth to labor. That day we gathered and branded more than 300 calves. We branded for everybody then exchanging tallies, later with other outfits working in different parts of our extensive range - and when nightfall came again I was completely petered out. I uttered no word of protest, but when, on another similar occasion Jim asked me if I deserved to go dancing, like Poe's immortal Eaven, I answered ^^ Nevermore!" Miller was a great fellow in many ways. I once heard his father try to persuade him to forsake cattle work and take up farming. He listened patiently to the old man's arguments and when he had finished his laconic answer was : ^^ Father, I didn't make this world, nor shall I undertake to tear it up." He enjoyed riding and dancing better than anyone I ever knew, and over-indulgence in the two exercises caused an abscess to form on his liver which called him hence in 1876.

*^So struck the eagle, stretched upon the plain, No more through rolling clouds to soar again. Views his own feather upon the fatal dart That winged the shaft that quivered to his heart."

In 1873 Mr. Byler sold me 104 head of big steers, not even requiring a note as security, which I threw in a herd driven by J. P. Cox and A. B. (Arch) Lockhart. They allowed me wages and made me no charge against my cattle. Not one of mine was lost on the way, and in September I sold them to J. B. Hunter & Company for $20 per head. They paid me $580 and were to pay $1,500 in a few days. Before the time expired the memorable *' Black Friday" fell on Wall Street and Hunter & Company's failure lost me my $1,500. I returned to Texas owing Mr. Byler the original cost of the steers, $1,248. I worked for him and others, paying a little at a time on my debt, until it was finally paid in full. That circumstance gave me a credit that is good to this day, and which I have been careful never again to strain.

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 577

In 1884 and 1885 I worked with Dave Mangum who drove for Scott & Byler on the profit-sharing plan. I remember that Jack Mangum, Wiley Thorton, Jim Buckley and myself were the only white punchers on one or both these trips, the rest being Mexicans. Nothing out of the ordinary - ^barring two or three stampedes - occurred on either drive.

In 1876 I had full charge of a herd for Mr. E. E. Savage, who still resides at Corpus Christi, and is yet my friend. On that journey we had "a big stampede one stormy night near Monument Eocks, in Oklahoma, then Indian Territory, about forty miles north of Eed Eiver Station. The next evening we found the lead cattle standing on a bluff and looking south across Eed Eiver. When we rounded up and counted we were thirty head short. Leaving all the hands except one old Mexican to hold the herd, I took him, and both of us being unarmed, started out to hunt those thirty steers. We found where they had been penned on Beaver Creek the night before and one of them killed for beef the hide being left on the fence. We followed them across the big herd trail to Mud Creek, where we found them in another pen. I saw that, besides our twenty-nine steers there were twelve other steers in one road brand, and ten cows in another. I first forged a power of attorney to handle the twelve steers, before I asked a woman, who was sweeping a log cabin near by, who claimed the cattle. She said her husband and some other men were gathering stampeded cattle and holding them for the trail men. I told her that I claimed about half there were in the pen, and that I intended to start them towards the trail and would settle with the men if I saw them. She warned me that I would best wait until they returned or there might be trouble.

We did not heed her, however, and started driving the bunch towards the trail. Before we had gone half a mile about ten heavily armed men, very tough looking customers, suddenly emerged from the brush and rounded us up. To borrow his favorite salutation from Ex-Senator Bailey when he speaks, I thought **My fellow countrymen' my time had come. But, by being unarmed and looking innocent - while feeling scared - we got them down to a parley. After about thirty minutes of bluff on their part and diplomatic language on mine they decided they would accept the ten cows in payment of their philanthropic ( ?) labor. They cut the cows from the steers, and pointing towards the trail, said, ^*Now you gif and we ^^got.'' From 10 a.m. until nightfall we drove those steers about thirty miles and landed them safely among their lowing fellows. Without further adventure we reached the head of Thompson's Creek, a tributary of the Medicine Eiver about thirty or forty miles Southeast of Dodge City, Kansas, where we grazed the herd until some time in July, when it was sold at a good profit. We returned to Texas by rail and the Kansas pasture lands have not known me since.

I could fill a volume with yarns about the clash of wits between settlers and drovers, but let just one, in which I was compelled to play the part of Ananias, suffice :

In 1874 the country north of Great Bend, Kansas, was being settled by farmers from more Eastern States, who when they had secured a land claim, would plow a furrow around it and the Kansas law declared such furrow to be a fence and woe to the drover whose stock dared cross it. Unreasonable damages were invariably claimed and usually collected either by law or reprisals of some kind. Animosity was thus engendered between the herdsmen and husbandn^en. Late in October I was hunting a bunch of steers that had escaped my herd, when, late one afternoon I realized that both myself and my horse, being tired and hungry, had to find a refuge or suffer greatly from cold. I discovered a settler's shack in the distance and decided if possible to buy or beg a night's entertainment. So disguising myself and my mount to appear as much as might be like a ** hayseed," I approached the place with many misgivings. The proprietors proved to be a young married couple from Southeast Illinois. After some parleying they asked where I came from to Kansas, and on what mission I was bent. I told them that I was from the northwest corner of the same good old commonwealth from which they came ; that I also had a claim about thirty miles from them and that I was following some Texas cattle that had run through my corn and destroyed several rows of it. At this (mis) information they bade me welcome and my steed, *^01d Bowlegs,'' and I fared sumptuously that night! Until late bed-time I entertained them as best'I could by exchanging my fictitious yarns for their true stories of ''our childhoods' happy days down on the farm" in dear old Illinois. Before I left them the next morning repentance came to me like a clap of thunder from a clear sky, and I made known my identity. They admitted that if I had spoken truly the night before I would have been turned away. I invited them to visit my camp and share my frugal fare as long as they could relish it. Under protest from them I threw them $2 and galloped away to find my cattle in a herd a few miles distant. That couple (I hope they ride in their auto now), like many of their kind, were good people at heart, but they and we drovers misunderstood each other badly, each side in selfishness failing to grasp the other's viewpoint. I surely hope the time has mellowed their feelings towards us, and my fellow oldtimers' dispositions towards them, as much as it has my own.

In 1877 I drove a herd of heifers from Nueces county to the head of Pecan Bayou in Callahan county for Mr. Byler, where I threw them in with a herd of stock cattle which G. W. Waddell had carried to that locality the year before. Together, Waddell being the boss, we moved the whole lot to Mitchell county and in July established the first ranch there at Pecan Grove on Champliers - now called Champion Creek - about nine miles southeast of where the town of Colorado was laid out after the Texas & Pacific railroad reached there early in 1881. However, A. W. Dunn had built a store there in the fall of 1880 and enjoyed a big ranch trade. The four years on that ranch, before the coming of the railway, were as happy as any bunch of punchers ever knew. The creek was alive with fine fish, and game of all kinds, from cottontail rabbits to mammoth buffaloes abounded. I killed one of the latter near where the Baptist church in Colorado City now stands. I could write indefinitely about occurrences while on that ranch, but shall relate just one, which always seemed funny to others, though in those days it grew irksome, to say the least, to me, the joke being on ^^ yours truly," with a big Y and T. Once when I was returning from a trip to Belle Plain, a hundred miles away, where we sent almost monthly for our mail, I was harbored for a night by a gentleman named Altman, who had a few cattle, and as bright and handsome a daughter as one might encounter in any country. Their house was a one-room shack, but no palace ever covered two warmer hearts. They gave me a hearty welcome and entertained me royally in every way. When it came time to retire for the night, a wagon sheet was stretched across the room behind which I was assigned to a pallet on which a real feather bed had been placed. Before my departure next morning, Miss Emma (I hope she is alive and happy yet, and that God has ever blessed her), inquired if I had enjoyed my bed. Thinking to -give her a cute reply, I answered that my rest had been unbroken except for one brief interval during which my *^goosehair" surroundings had caused me to dream that I was a goose. Like a flash her retort came : **The truth will prevail even in a dream. ^' Once again the protect- , ing thorn of a Texas rose had gaffed me to the quick, and my ill-timed and would-be wit received its just rebuke. **0 Tempora, 0 Mores,'' how you both have changed!

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 581

That was in 1878, and I rejoice that I am so constituted that I can chuckle yet when memory recalls that ridicu- Jous episode from forty-four retrospective years.

In 1881, after the town had come to us, Mr. Byler sold his ranch, lock, stock and barrel and we woke with a start, to find ourselves in a new day, with all our former lives cut off from us and become as a dream. From the day the town was christened up to 1884 Colorado, Texas, was the livest village I have ever known. Cattle and sheep more than doubled in value, and money flowed in streams. It was a Mecca for gamblers and their associates. Three combination dance halls and variety shows flourished side by side for eighteen months, and the largest cattle and sheep deals were consummated in the gilded back rooms of the most prominent saloons. There were three such, besides several lesser lights whose average daily sales, Sundays included, must have exceeded $100 for at least two years. During 1884 the tide began to ebb, and within two or three years, it seemed to me Colorado was as staid a community as Puritanic heart might wish to see. Why in 1887 when the State at large voted anti by a majority of more than 92,000 the Prohibitionists of Mitchell county led us antis by thirty votes. Then it was that sadly the roisterers exclaimed, ''How have the mighty fallen."

When the boom was over I found myself bankrupt, but free from debt. I read law long enough to procure a license, and, in 1888 was elected county attorney of Scurry county and located at Snyder. I served two terms as attorney and one as county judge, during such service, when I was in my fortieth year, I married Mrs. S. M. Gourley. She was a teacher, a childless widow, having lost one little girl. She was ten years my junior, and a daughter of Eev. J. S. Abbott, a Baptist minister, well known in Gonzales and adjoining counties for many years. She blessed my life more than seven years, and died at her sister's home near Lockhart in May, 1898, where slie ** sleeps 'neath the old arbor trees" of that town's beautiful and, to me at least, most sacred cemetery. She was the only woman I ever met whom I felt inclined to wed, and since she was called away her memory has been my bride. I visit her relatives in South Texas from time to time and they treat me as a brother yet. Some natures blame the Almighty for their bereavements, but, sinner as I am, I believe He who marks the sparrow's fall doeth all things well, and, with Ella Wheeler Wilcox, I can believing exclaim :

**I know there is no error in the great Eternal plan. And that all things work together for the final good of man; And I know as my soul speeds onward, in its grand

In the summer of 1898 I came to Odessa, Ector county, Texas, my present home, where I have been engaged in merchandising in a small way ever since. I have never ^* hustled" much or been *^ up-to-date" - I abhor both expressions - but, by close economy and a few lucky deals in local real estate, I have accumulated a sufficiency for my frugal wants, but not enough to worry over. If work kills half the people and worry the other half, my chance should be good to survive indefinitely - for I've quit them both.

For the last seven years I have been a regular attendant on the annual conventions of the Texas Cattle Eaisers' Association, where I go for the sole purpose of meeting my associates of '*days lang syne." At these meetings I have met many of their sons whom I have found to be worthy scions from the parent stock. As in all flocks there may be a few ** black sheep" in each generation, but, taken as a whole, they will bear favorable comparison, in physique and native intelligence, with any earthly body of men. They may be boisterous and un- couth in some respects, yet, at heart they are *^ diamonds in the rough,'' while for charity, manhood and chivalry they stand erect - the peers of any ancient bearer of shield and lance **when knighthood was in flower."

The saddest feature of each recurring convention is the fact that we miss some faces that were with us the year before. Old Father Time has laid his hand upon them, let us hope ''not smitingly, but gently, as the harper lays his hand upon his harp to deaden its vibrations.'' Let us also hope and believe that when the last of the original founders of the Old Trail Drivers' Association shall have laid his burden down, their sons will perpetuate the organization, and, as each succeeding generation shall struggle, one by one, across life's great divide, the spirits of those who have gone before may meet and greet and welcome them to the fresh and verdant grazing grounds beyond, to dwell forever there 'Svhere the wicked cease troubling and the weary are at rest." Adios, Amigos Viejos. Let each of us maintain a stiff upper lip and a heart for every fate as we drift adown life's stream saying to each other as the *' cheerful cherub" of the Dallas News remarked while pointing a fat, rosy finger at his disconsolate pup :

Explanation : The foregoing manuscript was prepared and sent to the secretary as my contribution to a volume ''The Trail Drivers of Texas" brought out one or two years ago. After its receipt by the Secretary all records were burned accidentally and through a misunderstanding a copy was never sent in. Hence it was not included in the book.

in my life. Chief among them was my second marriage in April, 1920, to Mrs. Nettie S. Nicks, widow of Dr. J. M. Nicks, who practiced several years at Eanger, Texas, and died in that city in February, 1916.

I was a childless widower in my sixty-ninth year and my wife, a childless widow, is several years yonnger. I was then and am now in robust health, neither bald nor gray, and wife is very active, with but few gray hairs, but her health has to be zealously guarded - so far I have made it my special business to be its guardian, and I expect to do so to the end.

The best wish I can make for the friends of my cowboy days is that each survivor among them may face the future as calmly and fearlessly as I do as life's evening's shadows appear.

Some Trips Up The Trail

Among the army of veteran cowboys of the Texas plains yet living to recall events and environments of the early days is James Marion Garner, of Texarkana, Arkansas, the author of this sketch. Mr. Garner, though fairly advanced in years, continues in the cattle business and is a familiar figure as he rides a sturdy horse over the streets of the Gateway City from Arkansas into Texas. He bears the rugged appearance of one inured to the elements and heroic living, and one can well imagine him in his early days as a free rover of the plains. Mr. Garner writes :

I first saw the light of day in Jackson Parish, Louisiana, but when I was two years of age my father moved his family to Texas to a point near the present town of

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 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 Maeion Garner

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 Nneces 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 Eogers 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 straightcst trail. I hope we will all travel that trail and meet again to talk about the buffaloes and hostile

Thrilling Experiences

I was born April 6th, 1860, at Eichland 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 to Eichland 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 Eichland 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.

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.

I sold my land in Live Oak county and all of my Beeville property, and paid everything I owed. In 1912 I moved from Dickens to San Patricio county, and went to work in the Tax Assessor's office for Chris Eachal, who was assessor at that time. In 1916 I was elected Tax Assessor for San Patricio county, and am still holding it down, and hope I will be able to hold it down a few years longer. November 27th, 1921, I took C. T. Harmon to San Antonio in my old reliable Ford, to attend the Old Time Trail Drivers ' Convention with no intention whatever to attend myself, but Charlie persuaded me to go over to the hall with him, and I met so many of the old timers it made me feel good, so I walked right up and joined and paid my dues, received a badge, and was as happy as a lark, and am very proud I belong to the Association. I shall always take off my hat to the old timers of Texas. Too many people never give them credit for anything, much less for blazing the way for the development of the greatest state in the Union, Texas. May God bless them is my prayer.

Noted Quantrell Was With Herd On Trail

In 1854 we moved to Texas and settled in Caldwell county, near Lockhart, when I was just a small boy. Then my father went into the cow business. He died in 1858 and was buried near Lockhart, Texas.

My mother married Rev. W. H. Farmer in 1860, who was the grandfather of ^^ Farmer'' Jennings, the present secretary of the Old Time Trail Drivers' Association.

In 1860 we moved to the present site of Martindale. Here my stepfather traded his holdings for beef cattle and we started up the trail in March, 1866. We traveled the lower trail, passing through Austin, Waco, Dallas

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 591

Our cart drivers consisted of myself, two stepbrothers, B. C. and M. K. Farmer, and a nephew, Cyrus Eobinson. The hired hands were Neal Barefield, Dave Hall and Watkins, also a Confederate soldier, C. C. Gibbs, and a man who called himself Porter. When we reached Waco, we camped on a little creek, at which time we had a fight with a negro band in which my stepfather was badly cut. After this nothing of particular importance happened until we crossed the Red Eiver; it was very much swollen on account of recent rains. The herd ahead of us belonged to Millett, Lane and Colonel Meyers. Their cattle would not take to the water under any circumstances, but when we came up with our cattle they crossed the river as if it were a little brook. The cattle of Millett and Lane were placed right at the heels of our herd, as well as Colonel Meyers', then they passed over without any trouble. Since the negro would not ferry the people across, they were left stranded on the banks of the Eed Eiver. Several of us cowboys tried to swim across, the stream being about three hundred yards wide, with very high waves, but none were successful except E. C. Farmer and myself and I only upon second trial, as my first horse drowned and I was forced to another. We two had our hands full, as we had to sing to about six thousand head of cattle in order to keep them together. It was midnight before any of the others could cross over. This was a pretty cold job, as it was in the early part of April and was rather cool, and we had on only our shirts. After spending two or three days there we had no trouble until we reached the Kansas and Missouri line, wher^ we found Mr. Daugherty tied to a tree after being whipped by some people of Kansas and Missouri. They claimed our cattle would give their cattle the Texas fever ; this was the first time we had ever heard of this. My stepfather was well acquainted in Newton and Jasper counties, Mo., where he had lived several years and obtained permission to enter Missouri, providing he would pay for all cattle that died within ten miles of his camp. We located in Jasper county, Mo., the present site of Joplin, Mo., where we herded cattle all summer. When we reached the Missouri line, Porter left us, claiming that he had to go back to Kentucky. He afterwards proved to be Quantrell, the noted guerrilla.

I wish to say that W. H. Farmer, our worthy secretary's grandfather, drove cattle across the plains in the early fifties, long before this, so you see that our secretary is more than worthy to be an old trailer's son.

I returned to Texas in 1876 and since that time have been water bound by the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. I am at present residing in the county of Dimmit. This is God's country.

Lost Many Thousands Of Dollars

In the early days of the trail drivers I lived in Summer county, Kansas. Caldwell, in that county, was one of the chief herd rendezvous after running the gauntlet of the Indian Territory. From Caldwell the trail led north through Summer county to Wichita, Newton and Abilene, Kansas. There was no Wellington or Newton at the beginning and Wichita was but a frontier hamlet.

We bought trail cattle and drove them to our farms and made good money, as we put up large quantities of hay and raised some corn. As winter came on, the trail cattle on the open range starved and froze by the thousands, and many owners met disastrous losses. The prevalent idea that the trail days were halcyon days of easy money making is erroneous. Many a man in comfortable circumstances in Texas became impoverished.

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 593

and many a Kansas farmer who thought he was getting cattle dirt cheap from the trail, found himself a loser before spring by not having prepared enough feed.

Living so near the trail I was near the center of this great industry and became acquainted with Texas cattle owners and cowboys and, I suppose, became somewhat fascinated with the life, and in 1875 I located in the Eio Grande valley, in the Nueces and DeviPs Eiver country and about the last year of the Overland Drive, put up two herds and drove from Val Verde county to Indian Territory. Our cattle were dying from drouth and the drive was our only recourse. The venture was not a success. There was almost no demand in the Territory and the constant expense and Indian tax made sad inroads. I got out of this mess with a loss of over $10,000 ; not all, however was legitimate loss, for I heard of my brands being sold on the Kansas market, for which I never received any pay.

There was some dishonesty in this trail driving. A trail boss who did not reach his destination with an equal or greater number than he started with was considered incompetent. Hence ranchers along the trail made bitter complaints of moving herders *^ incorporating'' their stock. On the other hand many of the cattle lost from the herds were picked up by these ranchers, which partially recouped their losses thereby. We had no Cattle Kaisers' Association as we have now, and the business of the cattle trail was, in its nature, not such as encouraged a high standard of honesty, though many of the drivers and owners were of the strictest and loftiest moral character.

It is perhaps a surprising feature of the cattle drive that *the owners of many herds that illegitimately increased the most on what they made a piratical journey north, went broke, and some of the most noted *^ cattle kings" became herdsmen or dropped into oblivion. A considerable number of Texas home ranchers got pay

The most fortunate ranchers in the increase of herds in those open range days, were, I think, those bordering on the Gulf coast. Cattle drifting from the north before winter storms, could drift no further, and I have often been told that some of the greatest fortunes there were based on drift cattle. The Texas fence law and railroads obliterated the Texas cattle trail, and in its passing there should be no cause for regret. The old-time cowboy had heroic attributes, was generous, brave and ever ready to alleviate personal suffering, share his last crust, his blanket and often more important, his canteen. He spent his wages freely and not always wisely, and many became an easy prey to gambling and other low resorts. Some among them became leading men in law, art and science - even in theology, proving again that it is not in the vocation but in the man, that causes him to blossom and bring a fruitage of goodness, honor and godly living.

This screed is not much of a story of the trail, but you will have enough recitals of hairbreadth escapes from Indians, floods, lightning and accidents, enough of suffering from cold, heat, hunger, thirst and dust, and this variety may be one of the species of your book. You will also hear many amusing incidents for fun and frolic formed a part of the cowboys' life - many pathetic stories, too, for sickness and death followed the trail. But I had seen such before trail days when wearing a soldier's uniform, and I do not care to dwell thereon. Paraphrasing a favorite stanza :

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 595 Were Happier In Good Old Days

My father would never consent for me to go up the trail, but I helped put up several herds. Helped Charlie and Jim Boyce put up two herds of horses. Jim Gibson had charge of one of the herds. I helped Jack Walton put up a herd near the old Consado Eanch on the Chiltipin, and helped J. I. Clare put up a herd at the old Mulas Hills pen for Capt. John T. Lytle. Later I worked for J. M. Chillin for nearly three years, and handled more than 40,000 cattle. Was moving cattle all the time. Never could find a pen large enough to hold our herd, so always had to herd out. I became thoroughly familiar with trail work and was foreman and boss of a cow crowd, mostly Mexicans, for fifteen years, most of the time in camp, and seldom in a house. We worked in those days. Now we go out in our *^Tin Lizzie," meet the roundup, get out of the car and onto a good horse, cut cattle for a couple of hours, then get back into the car, have someone lead the horse back to the ranch, then spin for the ranch, take a bath and wait for the boys to come in with the herd. When they arrive I stand in the shade and watch them brand the calves or dip the cattle, as the case may be. But we were happier in those good old days than we are now.

The Latch String Is On The Outside

I was born in Mississippi in Lawrence county, July 10th, 1849. My father and mother were slave holders and wanted to enlarge their holdings, so my father, in 1855, visited Texas, and was so impressed with the vast possibilities that he sold his farm on Pearl Eivcr, loaded his family and slaves in buggies and wagons and started to Texas. He arrived in Walker county in the latter part of 1856, and bought 880 acres of rich bottom land on the Trinity Eiver and immediately began to improve the same, until December, 1860, when he was assassinated. My mother's brother in Mississippi heard of the tragedy and came to Texas in March, 1861, and persuaded my mother to let me go back to Mississippi with him. We took the little steamboat, Mary Leonard, went down the Trinity E-iver to Galveston, thence by steamer to New Orleans, La., and went up to his plantation on Pearl Eiver. In April, 1861, when war broke out he put me in school in Brook and immediately went to Virginia where he was engaged in some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War, and I never saw him until the latter part of 1865, and I only heard from my mother once during the entire war. I remained with Mr. and Mrs. Larkin, who were both father and mother to me, and I attended school until the Yankees burned our school building in 1864, and practically wrecked the town. In October, 1865, my uncle furnished me funds and I started for home, not knowing whether my mother and two sisters were alive or not.

I went to New Orleans, stopped there for a few days with relatives, then took a steamer for Galveston, from there by rail to Navasota, where I bought a horse and went to Huntsville, a distance of fifty miles, and thence fifteen miles to where I found my mother and two sisters. The great war had practically broken her up, since the property consisted mostly of slaves. With a little money that was left to us children, I took my share (a few hundred dollars) and entered Austin Male College at Huntsville, in 1866, where I remained until the fall of 1867. I rented a small farm on the Trinity Eiver in 1868 and worked that until the spring of 1870. Not being impressed with farming very much I saddled my horse and in company with a young friend left there and rode to

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 597

Wrightsboro in Gonzales county where I arrived in May, 1870, and began my career as a cowboy. Fortunately for me I met and worked for A. B. Johnson, one of the finest men I ever knew. I also got acquainted with Mr. Crawford Burnett, a better man Texas never produced, and to him I owe my success in life. In the spring of 1871 he made a contract with P. D. Armour & Co. of Chicago, to road-brand and put on the trail ten thousand big steers, four years old and up. The price of these steers was $12.00 in gold. They were to go one thousand in a herd. I made a deal with Mr. Burnett to go up the trail for fifty dollars per month, to be paid in gold. I think the ratio between gold and greenback at that time was $1.25.

On April 10th, 1871, 1 bade my sweetheart. Miss Sallie Wilson, the charming stepdaughter of A. B. Johnson, farewell and together with T. V. DeWoodey, Jack Harris, John and Bill Fullerton, and other boys whose names I can't recall, went over to Sandies Creek, where we met our boss, Ischam Finche. The next morning with a little pair of dun oxen we left for San Antonio, where we met Mr. Burnett. We fitted up our outfit and left for Mason county on the Llano River, where we were to receive the steers. There had already been constructed huge corrals made of big logs, so we at once began putting the famous *^ Flower de luce'' road-brand behind the left shoulder. When we had branded about eight hundred steers the Germans began pouring the cattle in so rapidly we had to give up the pens. I think at that time we had about fifty men in camp, it being the intention to put ten men with each herd, besides the boss and cook. The first night out, Mr. Burnett selected about twenty men who had had some experience in cow driving, but none of whom were ever around a herd of big steers on a dark night. I was one of the twenty selected and I shall never forget the first night. Any old driver can tell how hard it is to hold a bunch of big steers on the range where raised, and among timber on the banks of the Llano. About midnight there was an old cow that kept bawling around and trying to get in the herd. One of the boys chased her off, and thinking he had her a half a mile away pulled his pistol and fired it to scare her. It being very dark he did not know he was in the edge of the herd, and at the report of the pistol business began to pick up. Those steers got up ''some speed." A part of them broke away and ran into our remuda and business also picked up with them. Some of the ponies are going yet. And it is said that one of our bosses and some of the boys were up in liveoak trees, trying to pull their horses up too. However, we succeeded in holding the larf ist part of our herd and in a day or two we had the one thousand steers ready for the trail. Mr. Burnett asked me to go with the first herd. First I want to mention the fact that there were no banks in that part of the country and the gold to pay for the steers was brought from San Antonio in a hack in a very heavy sack and was kicked out into camp and lay there like a sack of oats, twenty thousand dollars to the sack, until it was paid out. Mr. Burnett informed me years later that if he ever lost a dollar he never knew it. Any of the boys that were with me could vouch for this statement. We crossed the Colorado River and got on the prairie near Lampasas where we waited a few days for the next herd. Eiley Finch was our boss. It was Mr. Burnett's plan to have two herds travel in close proximity and when it arrived we started north up the old Chisholm trail. The grass was fine and we moved along without mishap until we were crossing the Bosque River at Clifton, where a drunken Mexican, who was cooking for another outfit, let his oxen run into the tail end of our herd and two of the boys engaged in a little cussing scrape. Late that afternoon when they met the Mexican alone, his boss having turned him off, they shot him and threw his body into a clump of prickly pear, where it was discpvered by the civil authorities a few days later. While we were between the Bosque and Brazos it began raining and we were delayed quite awhile and had several stampedes. In the meantime all of the men of both herds were arrested, and taken to Meridian by the sheriff, not all at once, however; there were enough left to take care of the herds. When the sheriff became satisfied that the two men who had done the killing had left he permitted us to go on. I have never heard of those two men since. I knew them quite well. This was the only killing that ever occurred in our outfit.

When we arrived at the Brazos it was running bank full. Jack Harris and myself, being expert swimmers, plunged into the river and pointed the steers to the other side. When we would become a little tired we would swim up and catch a big steer by the tail and you ought to have seen him move. We finally got both herds across and swam the ponies, then crossed the chuck wagon on a little ferry boat and resumed our journey. The rains had been abundant and the grass was never better. We arrived in Fort Worth, then just a very small fort, where we purchased supplies and moved across the Trinity Eiver; thence to Doan's Store on the Red Eiver, where we got supplies enough to cross the Indian Territory. We then proceeded across the North Fork of the Red River, and on to Wichita, Kansas, and crossed a number of streams between the North Fork and the Arkansas River, including the North and South Canadian. When we arrived at Wichita, Kansas, there was no railroad there, just a small village springing up in anticipation of the Santa Fe railroad coming. We proceeded from there to Abilene, Kansas, then north across at Solomon River and on about seventy-five miles to the northern line of Kansas, where P. D. Armour & Co. had erected a large plank corral, on a beautiful creek, with large cottonwood trees and rolling hills where no cow had ever been. A few buffalo were still there. This was about the first of

August and we had been on the trail since April. The first night after our arrival at the corral, the boss had us to pen those steers, the first pen they had seen since they left the Llano Eiver. The boss told us to go to the camp and informed us that we were through night herding, which was music to our ears, but while we were sitting around the camp fire that night spinning yarns, those steers stampeded and tore down about one-half of the plank corral. A few of us ran and with our coats succeeded in cutting a part of them off, and held the gap until daylight. Those steers which got out of the pen were at a loss to know where to go, and were nearby the next morning, minus a lot of broken horns. I remained there about a week and as I had an engagement in Texas I left with one companion for home. We took the Union Pacific train to St. Louis; from thence to New Orleans; across the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston; to Columbus on the Colorado Eiver; then the Southern Pacific railway; by stage to Gonzales; on horseback to Wrightsboro, where I had bidden my sweetheart good-bye. On the 17th day of August, 1871, Miss Sallie L. Wilson and I were married.

In the spring of 1872, my wife's half-brother bought a mixed herd of cattle, and I went into the Indian Territory with them, over the same trail, and I think J. B. Wells, of Gonzales, is the only one living at present who went with us. I returned home and began to accumulate some cattle of my own, until 1876, I moved my herd to San Saba county on account of range. Later, in 1877, I moved them back to Gonzales county, and in 1879, together with John Putman, Delia Shepard and Desmuke we pooled our cattle and started the herd to Albany in Shackleford county where I cut my cattle, the range not being good, and drove them west of Oak Creek, in Tom Green county. In the fall of 1880 I turned them over to my wife's half-brother, W. A. Johnson, on shares for a period of five years. In the latter part of 1880 I returned to Gonzales county and in 1881 began driving cattle again for Crawford Burnett, driving to Colorado and Wyoming and continued until the railroads took them away from us, driving in 1887, the last herd that left Gonzales county and delivering on the Platte River in Wyoming.

I have been engaged in the cattle business all of these years, having ranched in the Panhandle and Western Texas. I sold my ranch and cattle in El Paso county because the youngest of my ^yq sons, being interested with me, had to go into the army. I sold this ranch and cattle in 1917, except the registered part of the herd, and bought an irrigated farm and small ranch in Eddy county. New Mexico, where I am now engaged in raising Hereford cattle, alfalfa hay and red apples.

On the 17th day of August my loving wife and I celebrated our golden wedding, surrounded by eight living children, one grandson, and a host of relatives and friends. On the grassy lawn there was an old-fashioned barbecue prepared by the children. We were recipients of many nice presents.

My advice to all young people is to marry early and live an active outdoor life. I am now seventy-two years old, hale and hearty, and can rope and tie down, single handed any steer in Texas or New^ Mexico. I am a Baptist, a Democrat, a 32nd degree honorary member of the Amarillo Lodge No. 731 and past master of same lodge. I have two sons who are 32nd degree Masons. The youngest became Scottish Rite and Shriner before reaching the age of 22 years, and one among the youngest Scottish Rite who faced the German jfiring line.

My wife and I would be glad to hear from any of the boys, and should any of them pass this way the latch string is always on the outside of my door.

Dedicated To The Memory Of W. J. Edwards

My father, William J. Edwards, was born in Choctaw county, Mississippi, May 12, 1840. His parents moved to Texas, when he was quite small, settling near Austin, where his father died. After living a widow three years, his mother married Captain Thomas W. Grayson, who owned the ^^Yellowstone Kit,'' afterwards named the * * Tom Tobey," a vessel that sailed in Texas waters. My father attended school in San Antonio until he was about fourteen years old and then took up the occupation of cowhunting.

When he was seven years old the family lived at New Braunfels, and he was an eye-witness while living there to the shooting of Prince von Solms. At Selma he saw the Indians that made the last raid in this part of Texas. When he was engaged in the cow-hunting he worked the JMC the SIS and 2R stocks of cattle until the Civil War broke out and then enlisted in Company D, Duff's Regiment of cavalry and served throughout the war. The first engagement he was in was at Noris Bridge, Texas, where the Confederates met with defeat. Father was leading a pack-mule in the retreat, and although urged to abandon it he would not do so. He said all of his belongings were on that mule and he was determined to keep them. The Yankees threw bombs all around them but most of the Confederates escaped unhurt.

The Trail Drivers Of Texas 603

Brownsville and Matamoras, and once, while returning from one of his trips, he had thirty shots fired at him, but they all missed their mark. Next day D. Daschiel, a brother to Tom Daschiel of the Salado, and a Mr. Littrell volunteered to take my father's place as messengers. D. Daschiel was captured and hung and his body riddled with bullets. Mr. Littrell had his tongue shot off, but escaped and made his way back to camp. He was able to write and let his company know what had happened.

In marching to Louisiana the soldiers had to swim a bayou while a freezing norther was blowing. Father contracted inflammatory rheumatism from the exposure and had to be left with a family there to be taken care of. His mother hearing of his illness immediately set out in a private conveyance, accompanied by her daughter and a neighbor to bring him home, but before she arrived there he had sufficiently recovered to take the stage for home, and missed her on the way. So much for a mother's devotion. After reaching home father was treated by Dr. Herff, Sr., who soon effected a cure, and father went back to his company.

When the war was over he resumed his work with cattle. Later he married my mother, Josephine Walters, bought a place in Bexar county on time, and suffered the privations of a pioneer's life. To my parents there were born eleven children, nine boys and two girls. Our home was virtually *Hhe cowman's home." Frequently there would be several cowhunters taking meals at our house for a week or more.

John W. Pirie, my father's brother-in-law, and his half brother, Thomas Grayson, gathered a herd in the spring of 1873 and started for Kansas, but after crossing the Eed Eiver both Pirie and Grayson were knocked in the head while asleep one night. A man named Utz and a Polander named Tom Adams, were also beaten up at the time. Grayson died within a few hours, Pirie lived two days, without regaining consciousness, and the other two men recovered, but Adams' face was awfully disfigured. As soon as father lieard of the affair he went to Kansas City to attend to the sale of the herd, and was absent two months, during which time our neighbors were very kind in rendering all assistance possible to my mother. The Mexican who murdered these men in their camp was a much trusted work hand in our neighborhood, and had gone along with the outfit. The motive for the deed was never known. The Mexican escaped to Mexico and was never apprehended.

In those days people felt more interested in each other's welfare than they do now, and when there was distress or trouble in the neighborhood, everybody was willing to lend help and sympathy.

Father was devoted to the cow business and followed it many years. He prided himself upon being a cowboy, and up to the time of his death he often talked of those good old days.